6. Feya #2
She didn’t flinch as Flora slid to a halt. Petite and curious, the girl waited with her hands folded politely in front of her. Flora’s breath caught in her throat.
“Hello,” the girl greeted cheerfully.
Flora’s foot slid away, the hair on the back of her neck standing up with a chill. Noec stumbled, and his basket tumbled to the ground. He froze as an orange slowly rolled to a stop at the girl’s feet.
The birds were quiet, and the bees were still. Even the wind in the trees seemed to hold its breath.
“Feya,” Noec breathed her name, and it was all he could do just to mutter it aloud.
Flora saw the horror in his eyes, and it snapped her back into motion. Her faltering feet stepped forward, placing herself in front of Noec. “What are you doing here?” she demanded. The girl had sleek blonde hair, just like her mother. “Why are you outside of the Forest?”
The girl cocked her head. “Do you know of a Sleepwalker here?” she asked, shifting from one foot to the other. “In this village?”
Flora looked back to Noec, confused, but his wide-eyed gaze didn’t meet hers. His hands were beginning to tremble.
Flora clenched her jaw. “Why do you want to know?”
The scythe blinked, a slight grin tugging at the edge of her lip. “So yes, then.”
Flora took an unsteady step back, her hand brushing Noec’s arm.
She wondered if the creature knew just how cruel its disguise was.
Those pale eyes almost seemed to have a luminance of their own, brighter than Flora thought they should be.
There was movement in those white eyes, and it almost seemed like it was… watching them.
“Feya,” Noec said again, his voice barely a whisper.
The creature’s eyes shifted to Noec. She took a step closer. Then another.
Noec snapped out of his shock, pulling Flora behind him. But, as he unlatched his bag and reached inside, the girl passed them by without so much as turning her head. Marco brushed her leg and meowed as she passed, and the mimic of Feya sauntered toward the shadow on the hill.
“Wait,” Noec called after her. The scythe stopped. “What are you doing outside of Night Sky Forest?” he said. “And what have you done with my sister?”
“Hm,” she said thoughtfully. “Consider this friendly reconnaissance,” she replied.
Her body was longer, taller than Flora remembered it, and the youthful fullness in her cheeks had sunken.
“And your… sister.” The creature looked over its shoulder with a cold, vacant grin to match her white eyes.
“Your sister should have stayed out of my Forest.”
Flora gaped as the image of Heron and Elia’s late daughter continued along the path. She blinked, then shifted her attention to Noec. His breathing had grown panicked, and as he placed a shaking hand over his mouth, his eyes began to well.
“That was... that was my Feya,” he murmured softly.
“They’re shapeshifters, Noec,” Flora reminded him. “That’s not your sister.” She took his unsteady hand and squeezed it between hers. “You know that.”
His eyes searched back and forth between hers as though he hung on her words.
He knew what that thing was, but he didn’t want to believe.
“You’re right,” he said, finally exhaling.
“I know you’re right.” He coughed and faked a smile.
“Forgive me for freezing up. It’s been so many years since the last attack that…
I’d started to hope they were leaving us alone. ”
“Well,” Flora said, looking off as the girl vanished from the path into Night Sky Forest, “She left us alone, didn’t she?”
“I suppose she did,” Noec said, composing himself. He pulled slowly away from her touch and flexed his hand. Reaching down to the ground, he picked up the orange. “Let’s head back.”
They walked apprehensively, peering behind them every so often. Flora tried not to look right at Noec, hoping he knew that she would never judge him for having a soul, for being human. But she knew exactly how twisted his heart must feel, because she felt it too.
Two years. How had it already been two years?
It had been just another fit of defiance, they thought.
Surely, Noec would find her at nightfall, stargazing by the spring at her usual spot.
But nightfall came and went, and still, Feya was nowhere to be found.
For days, they searched. For weeks, they waited. And for two years now, they’ve grieved.
Flora was there for it all. She was there when the stress stripped Elia’s blonde hair of its color until nothing remained but a pale gray.
She was there for the year when Heron forgot how to smile, and even now, his laughter still felt like a fleeting spark.
Flora was there for all of it, for all the good and all the bad.
And now that there was nothing left of Feya but finger paintings and memories, Flora was still there.
Flora sighed. She glanced at Noec, and she knew she didn’t have the worst of it.
Wasn’t he there, too? Hadn’t he sung Feya to sleep as a baby, then carefully taken out the hem on her gowns as she grew?
Hadn’t he lain out by the water for hours, making up constellations for her in the stars?
Flora was there the morning Noec held Feya for the first time, and she was there the night he sang her to sleep for the last time.
Feya was gone. But Noec was still there.
And while Noec was trying to be the light of everyone’s lives, Feya had been the light of his.
Whatever this knot was in Flora’s chest, it had to be nothing compared to what Noec felt every morning, surrounded by the memory of how his family loved her.
But he lived on, and, as far as Flora could tell, he had never stopped enjoying the magic of life.
There was a wet glisten in Noec’s eyes, but he smiled back for Flora’s comfort. Because god forbid he suffer out loud.
Flora inhaled an uneasy breath and looked away. The image of the scythe’s grin popped into her mind, and she winced. She couldn’t let it contort Feya’s memory.
“The trees are beautiful today,” he said, and his words nearly broke her.