Chapter 16
I wake up, the rough hewn fabric of a classic chain pub booth scratching my cheek. “Where are we?” I mumble, pushing myself up from the worn seat. All five of us are crammed into one booth. The others look so… normal. No horns. No wings. Abnehor even has legs. The rest of the pub is packed.
“Brixton,” Shiva says from across the table. “You were hard to wake up. It’s night already. What do you want to drink?”
Abnehor takes our orders and as he’s about to leave, Dae pulls some leaves out of his pocket and sprinkles purple dust on them. They transform into British notes.
When they return, Dae hands me a milky coffee and about twenty sugar packets, while Abnehor pulls a bag of white powder from his jeans pocket and drops it onto the table. Shiva laughs and snatches the bag, stuffing it into the gap between the seats. “Where did you get that?” Shiva asks. “It’s illegal. You can’t just bring it out.” Her eyes dart to the back of the pub before returning to me and Kaya. “Toilet?”
Dae wraps an arm around my head and presses his palm to my lips before I can say a word. “Elysia is a flight risk. She’s not going anywhere without me. I’m coming with.”
I say, “They don’t have mixed toilets here. You’re a boy, you can’t come in.”
Dae glances around the pub. No one is looking our way. He pulls more purple dust from his pocket and sprinkles it onto his own head. In the blink of an eye, he transforms, growing long, luscious locks that flow over his full chest and down to his tucked-in waist. It’s still him, still his eyes, his hooked nose, but smaller, prettier. My gaze lingers on his thighs.
He looks really hot.
He holds out his hand—delicate, feminine—and pulls me towards the bathroom. From what feels like miles away, I hear Abnehor say, “I’ll be here, little dove, if something’s wrong, I’ll know, okay?” before Shiva and Kaya follow us, leaving Abnehor with the drinks.
We all pile into a stall. Dae didn’t really need to turn into a girl, this bathroom is chaos. I’m pretty sure there’s a couple having sex in the stall next to us.
“Anyone know how to do this?” I ask.
Shiva sits on the toilet and pulls out the bag. It’s huge. “Got a key or some cards?” Dae pulls out some leaves and sprinkles more dust on them until they turn into keys and birthday cards. Shiva laughs, “No, not birthday cards. Like bank cards. Something flat and plastic.” Dae follows her instructions.
With deft fingers, Shiva creates four lines. She rolls up a banknote and snorts a line. She passes me the note and says, “Exhale before you bend down.”
I do as she says, and the powder goes up my nose with surprising ease. I expected it to be harder. Passing the note to Dae, I swallow down a lump of something sticky and wet in my throat. I wrinkle my nose. Shiva laughs and says, “You get used to it. Dae, close your eyes and turn around.” When he’s fully turned, she lifts the toilet seat cover and pees. “Should we go raving?”
“What’s that?” Kaya’s body jerks forward as though a force is pushing her.
I glance behind her and laugh. “Kaya.”
She turns her neck and looks behind at the miniature wings that are slowly growing from her back. “Oh, fuck, sorry.” They shrink back down.
“It’s like a party, like the courtyard, but people don’t die,” Shiva crushes some of the coke from the large bag and places it delicately into a tiny makeshift case crafted from paper, before folding it up.
Dae wrinkles his nose. “I don’t want to go back to the courtyard.”
Shiva pockets the large bag and hands me the small packet. I pocket it, not knowing what I’d do with. “It’s not like that, it’s better. Trust me.”
I sniff, and another drip goes down my throat. We are back at the table, and Shiva slides into the booth over Abnehor’s legs.
Kaya jumps in, and Dae and I follow. I pick up my coffee, look at it, then put it back down. It has suddenly become the most vile thing on the planet.
Shiva gives me a long look before turning to Abnehor and Dae and saying, “Go get us cigarettes.” She practically shoves Abnehor out of the booth.
Abnehor gives her a look of concern. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
Shiva nods. “Kaya’s got special powers, right?”
Kaya twirls her fingers, and elegant green smoke puffs into the air. She grins and says, “I’ll keep them safe.”
Dae eyes Kaya. “You keep Elysia here,” he taps my head. “If she gets away, she dies. And with her, my reason for living. Do you understand?”
Kaya nods seriously. “She won’t get past me.” With nervous glances, they leave.
“So,” Shiva crosses her legs, “what’s with the thing with your mum?”
“What?”
“In Dae’s bedroom, with your mum and the laptop.”
Usually cagey, I suddenly find myself extremely willing to tell Shiva and Kaya… well, everything. “I used to talk to trees, and sometimes they would tell me how to make new trees or how to get somewhere, and other times they would tell me they are thirsty. One day, Dad visited, and he and Mum were fighting. We were in the garden, and as he was leaving, I broke something, then I was rude to Mum, and she hit me.
“Anyway, I look up, and this tree has moved into our garden. And it was staring down at me, big and bulky and wooden and alive, and it carried the smell of death. It wrapped a branch around her throat and was choking her. Her eyes were all bulging and red. I begged it to release her, and it did. But then she didn’t wake up, not for another two years. I spent a month alone with her in the hospital, before I had to go home. Dae visited a lot back then and slept in the house with me. I haven’t spoken to the trees again. That’s what happened to Mum.”
Shiva says, “And that’s the power Dae wants you to use to get the laptop working?”
Kaya fiddles with the rim of her wine glass, drawing circles. “Dae believes that with practice, Elysia’s powers can be controlled and even used effectively. He thinks it’s the circumstances that have caused all this and that if she had been introduced to the trees slowly, she might be able to control them. Tell her about the first time it comes out.”
“Mum and I used to live in London. She had this boyfriend who would come over, and he and his friends would all sit in her living room, smoking weed and stuff, and he’d hit her, and they are jerks, too. Anyway, one day this tree just outside our flat tells me if I leave the window open, it’d sort my problem out. I wake up the next day to Mum screaming and her boyfriend and all his friends are dead. That’s when Dad bought us our cottage. Did you see it on the way through?”
Shiva raises an eyebrow before Kaya says, “Wrong way. Past your house isn’t the only part of the Nori to travel through.” I file that information away.
Shiva cocks her head. “All of that sounds to me like it’s the trees doing it, not you.”
I shake my head. “It’s hard to explain. The trees wouldn’t do it if I wasn’t there talking to them. And when I do talk to them, they change something in me, it’s like I get thirsty too. But when I don’t talk to them, I get this fucking headache in the back of my head. Sometimes I can barely get up in the morning from it.” I jump up from the booth. “I need to pee.”
Kaya leans over and grabs my wrist. “Wait for Dae.”
I eye her hand, then the fire exit.
“Elysia,” Shiva says in a small voice, “if you’re going to run, please wait until they are back. Don’t make Kaya leave me alone, please.” Something in my heart cracks, and I sit back down. “Thank you.”
“It’s not just that, there’s a prophecy, or maybe a curse, I’m not sure anymore,” I say. “I was fated to murder those men.”
At the front of the pub, Abnehor and Dae walk in. Dae has turned back into himself. I kind of miss the girl version of him. Shiva grabs my hand with wide eyes and says, “Imagine a world where you are not bound by the past or by magic. Imagine you are free.”
“If the choice were between you and your mother, it’s not really a choice at all.”
Shiva grins. “I would choose me and let the whole world burn.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
Shiva smiles too. “With my mum? I would. But, no, I suppose, with a nice mum like yours, I wouldn’t. But I’d at least try to find a way out.”
“When your death is written so many years ago, there is no way out,” I say, although I don’t believe that as much as I once did.
Dae slides into the booth. Abnehor places cigarettes on the table. Shiva grabs the box and shoves him back out of the booth. “Come on, then,” she says.
I raise an eyebrow at Dae, silently asking him if I can go. “Can you watch them, please?” Dae asks Abnehor. Abnehor nods, and we go outside. I take a deep breath. It’s been a long time since I’ve smelled London air. It’s delicious. And noisy. I only now realise how quiet Faerieland is.
Car horns and people talking and trains running and police sirens. I smile. I miss this. There is so much life here. “You know, you asked what I’d do if I could live. I think I’d live in London. At least for a bit.”
Shiva pulls out a cigarette. “Not me. I love Faerie. I sold myself to join the courtyard, you know?”
My mouth drops open. “What?!”
“Yeah,” she lights the cigarette and blows smoke from her nose, “I sold myself to a hag for this.” She pulls back her sleeve, revealing a delicate emerald bracelet, with belladonna berries interwoven around a rose stem. “Gives me the power to kill anyone on sight.”
“But you’re still scared of Earth?”
She shrugs, passing me the cigarette. “The bracelet only works on one person at a time, and I’d have to leave it out under the full moon for three hours to recharge. Plus, there’s having the power to do something, and then there’s actually doing it. I think if it ever came down to it, I’d freeze.”
I take a drag and cough violently. Shiva laughs, and Abnehor tries to take the cigarette from my fingers. I pull away slightly and try to take another drag. I cough again, even harder this time, before passing Shiva the cigarette. “That is the single most disgusting thing I have ever tasted.”
“Yeah,” Shiva laughs, finishing the cigarette, “they’re pretty vile.” She drops it to the ground and stamps on it.
When we are back at the booth, Shiva holds Abnehor and me back and says, “Get your things, we’re doing shots, and then we’re going to a rave.”