2. Rosalina
2
Rosalina
I t’s springtime in Orca Cove, and everything is gray.
It’s not like that’s unusual. Heavy clouds hang overhead, covering any remnant of the rising sun. They look so full of rain they might burst.
That’s how I feel, too. Gray and void on the outside but exploding within. Like there’s something in me clawing to get out.
I can’t let it.
But it’s not only the thick clouds overhead making Orca Cove void of color; the people seem ashen, the wooden buildings dull. Like I’ve forgotten all the colors I’ve just learned how to see.
Papa and I walk down the street toward our little cottage on the outskirts of town. He vibrates with energy, a near skip in his step. He doesn’t care about the side-eyes we get at his booming voice, or the way people cross the street to avoid walking near us. I don’t care either. Not anymore.
“Are you listening to me, Rose?” Papa waves a hand in front of my face. “First, we can grind the rose petal into the tonic from that tablet I dug up in Romania, or we can try the lullaby and dance from the children’s book. We’d need to choose a good tree. You’ve got excellent intuition. Which tree should we pick?”
I nearly laugh out loud. My intuition has been nothing but wrong.
“Papa,” I say, “I’m not skipping around a tree dancing and singing like I’m from some cursed musical.”
He narrows his bright blue eyes, then sighs. “Fine. We’ll try the tonic first.”
A pang of guilt simmers in my gut, and I hold on to his arm and lean my head on his shoulder. We walk in step. Gulls call from the harbor, and I inhale the rich smell of pine. “Let’s take the long way home past the willow tree.”
If there’s any silver lining to my gray world, it’s that for the first time in my life, I feel connected to my father. I’d spent my twenty-six years feeling nothing but resentment for him, for leaving me alone while he went on his wild quests to enter the fae realm. Now, I’m his accomplice.
After Keldarion sent me away from the Enchanted Vale and closed my only way through, I stumbled back to my first home. The home before Castletree.
I expected it to be empty. For Papa to have sold my belongings and be off on one of his adventures.
What I found instead was the physical manifestation of grief.
The cottage was a mess: a torn apart hovel littered with strange artifacts, unwashed cups of congealed coffee, and empty cans of beans. But George O’Connell was there, his usually full face gaunt, his tall form hunched over the kitchen table, hands shaking as he marked squares off a map of Briarwood Forest.
“Papa?” I whispered as I crept through the unlocked door.
His bloodshot eyes held mine. And he did something I’d never seen him do. He fell to the ground and cried.
I cried, too. For the father I left alone the same way he’d left me throughout my life. For the guilt of falling in love with a new world. For the sorrow of losing it.
The next day, all I’d wanted to do was stay huddled in bed, but Papa hadn’t let me. Now, he had proof. And he had me. “Covered in fae magic, that’s what you are,” Papa had said. “Plus, if the residents of Castletree are as good-hearted as you say, then that connection will lead us back.”
I’d been eager at first. So what if Keldarion had sent me away? He also claimed books were boring and made some sort of deal with the Prince of Thorns. He obviously wasn’t the sharpest icicle in the cavern. And once the other princes discovered I wasn’t at Castletree, they would come for me. Papa had said Keldarion sent him back to Orca Cove using the magical mirror inside Castletree. If the princes could use the mirror to connect to the human world, then it was only a matter of time before they found me.
But then the days turned to weeks, the weeks turned to months.
Keldarion didn’t change his mind. The snow melted from our little yard, the ice on the lake cracked. Winter gave way to spring, and he didn’t change his mind.
No one came for me.
I don’t cry when I think of them anymore. Not even when I think about the way Farron would raise his eyebrows, glasses too low down his nose. Or the rush of warmth through my body when Dayton trailed a hand up my back, the giddy delight in wanting so much. Or the rough-spun fabric of Ezryn’s cape that I clung to when the world seemed too big for me, or how in that moment I was grounded and sheltered and safe.
Or how I’d kissed Keldarion and known in every essence of me that I belonged to him. That he belonged to me.
“Hey, is that you, Rosalina?” A gruff voice tears me from my thoughts.
“Keep walking,” Papa says. “Don’t stop.”
We’re passing the Seagull’s Gullet Book Emporium, my old place of work. Richard, my former boss, is writing on a chalkboard sign in coarse, boxy letters. Not like the care I’d spend thinking of book puns and doodling literary characters.
“Rosalina!” Richard calls. “I left you a couple of voice messages. Thought you might want to pick up some shifts. You can even do a few of the orders. Rosalina?”
“Sorry, Richard. Too busy.”
He swears under his breath. “Chasing pixies with your father now, eh?”
“Faeries, actually,” I say without looking back at him. “You should try reading a book for once.”
Papa chuckles and ushers me down the road. I couldn’t go back to working for Richard after living at Castletree. Not after I spent months with Astrid, Marigold, and the other staff and experienced what it was like to work with people who respect you. Who care for you.
Or at least I thought they did.
Why wouldn’t Marigold and Astrid ask the princes to come for me? Don’t they miss me like I miss them?
I don’t even feel slightly bad that Richard is overwhelmed and the store’s falling to shit. I’m done with his underpaid-overworked job. Keldarion sent Papa home with jewels, and he’s been driving to the city a few hours away to pawn them off at various shops.
Keldarion gave me something precious, too. The necklace I wore to the Winter Solstice Ball.
The necklace that belonged to Keldarion’s mother. I’ll never sell it.
My throat grows tight. They don’t want me in the Enchanted Vale. Fine. But I have to give that necklace back. And I have to tell them goodbye. On my own terms.
My father makes a clicking sound with his tongue. “The damned building looked better when it was closed up.”
I take a deep breath, not wanting to look, but also never able to look away. The abandoned building I used to stare into every day isn’t abandoned anymore. It’s been purchased by the Poussin family. They’re turning it into an Orca Cove gift shop for the summer tourists.
A huge red “GRAND OPENING NEXT MONTH” sign hangs on the door. Though the building is dark, I spot the merchandise: Orca Cove hoodies in every color, Poussin Hunting Lodge ball caps, and a creepy whale stuffie named Orky who will be the town’s mascot.
It’s fine. I could never have turned it into a library anyway. And besides, what library could compare to the one with bookcases so tall you needed a ladder? With maple trees growing among the stacks? With the golden-eyed man with the sweetest smile?
“Let’s go,” I whisper.
“Yes, let’s go—Oh shit!” Papa pushes me to the side of the building.
I recognize that tone of voice. I quickly press myself against the wall and try to appear as unnoticeable as possible.
Headlights on full brightness careen down the road, going too quickly for our quiet town. I know the rumble of that truck anywhere.
But to be sure, I peek around the corner. Lucas Poussin has his head out the window and looks right to left, his mouth in a scowl, red brows lowered.
I flatten myself back against the building and hold my breath, willing myself to be smaller, to be invisible.
When the roar of the truck ebbs away, Papa creeps out. “He’s gone.”
“Good spotting.” I pull my sweater tighter around myself. “I don’t have the energy to deal with him today.”
I didn’t really care when Lucas found out I was back in town and showed up at my door. I didn’t even care when he gaslit me about the goblins, saying we both must have fallen and hit our heads. Whatever—if that’s how he deals with the existence of fae and my father being right all these years, then good for him. I was even over the fact he’d left me for dead… Of which he also denied, saying he never would have left me, and how dare I think so little of him?
At that point, there was nothing left in me to give to Lucas at all. No hurt. No sadness. Just numbness.
But then he tried to shove the engagement ring on my finger.
A visceral thing, something like fear and disgust and rage all mixed together, burned in my chest. I snatched my hand away.
I can still hear the anger in his voice. The desperation to make sure he was still in control. “What are you doing, Pumpkin? Give me your hand.”
I wish I could say I threw the ring at his face. That he didn’t spend each night driving around town looking for me. That he feared me the way I feared him.
My right hand slowly drifts over my left wrist, feeling the raised scar where he once marked me. Then down to my sweater. The heavy engagement ring wears a hole in my pocket.
“I-I need more time. I’ll let you know. Soon.”
That’s all I could manage. And what I’ve said every time he finds me walking down the street or in my yard. Papa does a good job of putting him off, but there’s nothing Lucas loves more than the hunt.
I can practically imagine my head on his wall beside all the deer and elk and wolves, my eyes as glassy and dead as theirs.
I take a minute to shake off the memory, willing my heart to calm. I want to get out of here. Our cottage is on the horizon, small and dark. A little den for a prey animal to scuttle away into. A perfect place for me.
When I finally look up, I see my reflection in the dusty window.
Who am I?
Dark shadows creep under my eyes. My skin is pallid, hair limp. It’s not the person I remember who lived at Castletree. The woman who made a bargain with the High Prince of Winter without fear. The woman who stood up to the most powerful fae in all the Enchanted Vale.
What is it about Lucas that makes me so afraid?
And what was it about Castletree that made me so strong?
I can’t look at my reflection any longer. This half person. This shell, with only that visceral thing trapped within my ribs, frenzied and caged.
“It’s okay, Rose.” Papa touches my back and urges me to start walking. “Let’s go home.”
I nod, but I know I can’t go home. Vengeful. Escapist. Coward. Traitor. The princes had been cursed for these sins. But am I any better?
Am I anything more than a terrified beast?
“This is a good tree, isn’t it?” Papa says musingly. He stares at the willow tree, the one he stood before in my favorite picture of him and my mother.
Its branches are starting to fill with green leaves that blow like ribbons in the wind. “Yes, Papa,” I say. “It is.”
It’s true. I know good trees.