A Fae’s Guide to Tactical Botany

Alone

Chapter one

Mara felt the earth trembling, but she didn’t turn her attention away from the prickly pear that was unfurling its delicate blooms before her.

There had been a sprinkle of rain earlier that day—rare for the season—and the drops of dew on the bud scattered onto the ruched silk petals of the blossom like tears.

They sparkled in the dawn light, and she allowed herself to be transfixed by them until her visitor announced herself with a forceful footstep and a sniff that feigned disdain.

“I am not ready to leave here,” Mara whispered before her friend could ask. “Not yet.”

“I had gathered that,” Ofelia said gently, “when you did not return.”

Mara turned to greet her, rising slowly to her feet. “You think I am overly dramatic.”

Ofelia stood a few feet away, her rich brown skin glowing in the warm light of the sunrise.

She wore no glamour, though her wings were furled, falling behind her like a mantle.

“Dramatic? Yes. Overly?” She shrugged, her silvering braids sliding over her eloquent shoulders. “I have encountered worse.”

With a reluctant laugh, Mara stepped forward into her friend’s embrace. “It is not that I haven’t missed you.”

“Of course.” Ofelia held her close for a long moment, then laughed, sending vibrations through Mara’s body. “Though there is indeed much you have missed. I have stories upon stories to tell.”

Mara’s body recoiled despite Ofelia’s comfort. “I am not—”

“Ready. Yes.” Ofelia drew back, loosely grasping Mara’s elbows. “It is all right. The stories will await you. Though I will tempt you with them still. You have missed some grand adventures. And I shall not recount them until your return. Is that not a temptation?” Her golden eyes were twinkling.

Just the word adventure made Mara shiver. No, she was not ready. “Perhaps in a few months.” Or a few years.

Ofelia’s expression softened. “I understand,” she whispered. “Do you wish me to leave?”

Yes. “No.”

Ofelia nodded. “Of course.” She did not leave, but stood silently gazing at Mara.

Finally, Mara whispered. “I still wish to be alone.”

“I know.” Ofelia inhaled deeply and stepped forward. “It has been five years, Mara.”

“It was to have been centuries.” She could not keep the bitterness from her voice, even had she tried.

Ofelia’s jaw set. “You know as well as I that the world sets its own times. There is nothing that is certain.”

Mara turned away, traced the gossamer edges of a cactus blossom, collecting its tears. She could not take them into herself, drink their energy, but she could let them fall. They left dark circles on the sand that faded almost instantly. “As do hearts,” she finally murmured.

After a moment, Ofelia chuckled. “I was mistaken,” she said lightly. “You are indeed the most dramatic. Though with good cause.”

Mara could not keep her gaze from lifting, scanning the horizon. She was far from the highway, but she could feel it like a wound. “It is not fair,” she said at last. Her voice was petulant, but she refused to care.

“It is not,” Ofelia agreed. She stepped forward into Mara’s periphery, leaning sideways into another embrace. “I do not fault you. I merely wish you to live again.”

“I will.” Mara stretched out a hand, sent forth her grief. Another blossom unfurled, showing colors unknown to man. She traced the blossom’s fragile edges with a fingertip. “But not yet.”

Ofelia said nothing to that, simply tightened her arm about Mara’s waist. Mara leaned into it, accepting the comfort for a moment.

But it clawed at her, the need for solitude, and she stepped away. “Thank you.”

Ofelia did not pursue her, though she turned to watch Mara’s retreat.

The dawn turned her wings to a halo behind her.

“I wish I could do more for you,” she said in a quiet voice.

“But no matter how you festoon the desert with your grief, no matter how you wallow in your mourning, you must also accept it. Tristan is gone.”

Mara turned away, casting her gaze down the hillside. It glowed with unseasonal blooms—some too late, some too early. A fitting tribute, her heart whispered. But not enough.

“Yes,” she said at last. “He is. But… He is not.” She turned to her friend, fire burning behind her eyes. “He is not gone yet. Not from my heart.”

“Of course not.” Ofelia reached out a hand, stroked Mara’s cheek, which she belatedly realized was sandy with earthly tears. “But you are alive. You must live.”

Mara wanted to reject the words, to cast them away, but she could not. “That is the problem,” she said at last. “How can I live? We did not even—” Regret clawed at her gut. If only. If only. If only.

“Yes,” Ofelia said simply.

Mara turned away again, sharply this time, stepping out of range of her friend’s arms. “I wish to be alone,” she repeated, wrapping her arms about herself like a shield.

Ofelia let out a gust of a sigh. “Then I will leave you to your hermitage.” Her hand ghosted over Mara’s shoulder. “But you are not alone. Not entirely. We will await you.”

There was a rustle of sand, and Ofelia was gone.

Mara straightened her back, cast her gaze down the hillside. The cacti were all in bloom, from saguaro to prickly pear, as well as the mesquite and the ironwood. All were sending forth their hopeful pollen into the world, begging for their line to continue, to be eternal. To persist, as all should.

Such a fool I was.

Mara sat again, stretching her energies forth to a barrel cactus, coaxing its fruit to ripen, fall off, bringing forth blooms again, a crown of gold above row after row of needles.

There would be bats and birds and butterflies who would rejoice, drinking the nectar of her grief.

Mara closed her eyes, melting into it, feeling her place in the world.

Letting it wrap about her like a warm blanket.

It was wrong, of course. She was forcing the plants around her to meld with her, to match their cycles to her needs. But she did not care. There would be no harm, in the end; fruit was fruit and flowers were flowers, and that was how they lived and propagated and eventually perished.

She would live. And she would perish, someday, as Tristan had, if not as soon. But there was a wound inside her, one she could not fill. She had thought they had all the time in the world, leisure to live and love, and now she wished they had hurried.

Ofelia was right, of course. Tristan was gone, and he would never come back.

She could not bring him back.

But she could set the desert ablaze. She could cast her desperate, ill-fated love across the hillsides, make them flare in a memorial for the losses of cruel fate.

She had promised Ofelia that she would return, that she would rejoin fae society and live. And she would.

But she would never love again. Never offer her soul on a platter to be shattered like ice.

And for now, all she wished was to be alone, here in her remote corner of the Sonoran Desert. To be given her space to grieve what might have been. To enshrine her love to eternity, as she had promised.

Alone in the decadent floral halo of her memorial. Alone with the cacti and the sand and the immensity of her grief. Alone as long as she needed to be, until she was able to bear the presence of others. Until she was done being dramatic and could return to being pragmatic.

Until then, this corner of the desert was her solace and her solitude.

“You’re fucking crazy, going out to the middle of the desert alone like this. You know that, right?”

“I know,” Ethan muttered, digging in his drawer for his old SD cards.

“But you know how it is. My department head let me know that my potential tenure is riding on me delivering something concrete they can use to finagle more funding. Publish or perish.” He dropped them into his worn gym bag; they clattered against his sample jars and equipment.

He’d have to sort it all out eventually, but for now he didn’t much care for order. He needed to leave.

“That’s a metaphor.” Javi slammed his hand on the desktop. “It’s not supposed to be taken literally.”

“Isn’t it?” Ethan unearthed a flash drive at the back of the drawer, glaring at it for a long moment before stuffing it in his bag. Another thing to sort out.

“Not at all.” Javi leaned his hip against the far edge of the desk. “What exactly has you all fired up, bro?”

“Satellite photos,” Ethan said absently as he rifled through his drawer of file folders.

He had one for every plant native to the Sonoran Desert, and every invasive species besides.

He pulled them out and stuffed them into his file crate, the one with wheels and a handle.

Neither of which were going to do him much good once he got off the beaten path, but he would manage. “They’re not right.”

“How can a photo be wrong?”

“They just are.” Ethan locked his gaze on Javi’s. “I have to go.”

Javi crossed his arms, annoyance obvious on his face. “This isn’t about Sarah, is it?”

“Of course not,” Ethan lied.

“It is.” Javi pushed off the desk into a belligerent pose. “You’re running away.”

“I’m not.” Ethan sighed, plopping down into his desk chair. “Okay, I am.”

“From Sarah? This why she wasn’t at the pub Friday?”

Ethan shook his head. “She’s just a symptom.” He slanted a glance at his friend. “You know how Sarah’s been kind of all over the place deciding what she wants from life.”

“Yeah, but I thought she’d settled on… Was it law school?”

“Accounting. She wants to be a CPA. And now that she’s getting into that, she’s starting to make some other decisions, and we both realized we’re just…

going different directions. Good directions, but different ones.

” No need to go into all the details, how Sarah had actually made a spreadsheet to illustrate how incompatible they were.

Not that he hated spreadsheets. He was a spreadsheet guy—had to be, in his field. It had just been a little cold, a little calculating…and because of that, very convincing. They were just…not compatible.