Chapter 52
Isabelle opens her mouth and looks poised to deliver another cutting remark when suddenly she screws up her face. “What’s that smell?”
For a moment she sounds like her usual self. Then I smell it too. An eye-watering stench of rotten eggs.
Rasmus catches on before I do. He tenses in terror.
I don’t realize what’s happening until I turn around and spot the tiny little points of light among the trees. They’re moving in strange spiral patterns as they come closer.
“Rasmus, close your eyes. Cover your eyes with your hands.”
I’m the one saying this, but it doesn’t sound like me. The words come out sharp and frightened.
Rasmus obeys.
“What’s that?” asks Isabelle. She sounds dazed, as if she’s been drugged. Like she’s chewing on the syllables.
Three points of light are dancing a few feet in front of her, exactly at face height.
Isabelle makes an attempt to raise her hand to touch them, but her arm becomes limp and falls back down. She sways gently, then goes still.
Rasmus is breathing heavily by my side.
“Don’t look,” I say softly. “They’re here. The fairies.”
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. Just promise you won’t look.”
The points of light whiz around each other in luminous spirals that form a shimmering pattern, just like last time. They gather to dance in front of Isabelle’s face. Her wide, vacant eyes follow their every movement.
One of the dots of light breaks away from the others and flies toward me. This one looks bigger than the others. A queen bee leaving her hive.
She stops in front of my face, right at eye level.
Up close I can see her long, slender arms and legs and her delicate wings, thinner than cobwebs.
I can almost see her face, but she shines too brightly for me to distinguish her features.
Two words pop into my head, and I stop in my tracks.
Hello Tuva
These aren’t my thoughts. The words are coming from somewhere outside of me.
I blink a few times, and my eyes water as I squint into the point of light.
I open my mouth to answer but then realize that I can just think it.
Hello
The fairy—the fairy queen—hovers in the air before me and points at Isabelle. At first I don’t understand. She waits patiently, and Isabelle’s blank gaze becomes fixed on me.
A new image forms in my consciousness: the gold-colored cell phone.
I take a few steps toward Isabelle, then turn around.
The fairy queen is still floating in midair.
I reach out my hand and wrench the phone out of Isabelle’s grasp.
Please let there be no PIN to unlock it.
No, the phone lights up, and with one swipe of my sweaty finger, I have access to everything. The recording is the only saved audio file. I delete it with one tap and hold my breath as I stuff the phone back into her jacket pocket.
Isabelle has no awareness of what’s happening. She just stares with glazed eyes at the slowly circling fairies.
I move carefully back toward the fairy queen.
Thank you, I whisper with my mind.
She responds with two new images. They are more difficult to interpret. The first is of Isabelle, and the second is blank, just white nothingness. I don’t get it.
Another word forms.
Memory
“You erased her memory?”
A barrage of emotions floods over me: fear, gratitude, and something else—something darker.
Who are these fairies really? What other powers do they have? They seem friendly to a point. But the smallest misstep, the wrong choice of words . . . I don’t want to think about what they might be capable of if I angered them.
The sulfurous smell is overwhelming. It’s making me dizzy, and I notice Rasmus is swaying on his feet.
Gently, I push him. “Sit down.”
Rasmus nods and sinks to the ground, still with his eyes tightly closed.
The queen transmits another image. A chain with a broken link.
Not
everything
Only what she overheard us say? I ask in my thoughts.
The fairy queen appears to nod, and for the first time since Isabelle appeared, I can breathe freely again.
The lights shimmer.
Now that I am no longer terrified, I notice the enchanting beauty of the fairies’ dance. They fly in microscopic, exquisite movements, a weightless ballet before my very eyes.
Deep down, it feels familiar somehow. A near-forgotten memory stirs.
Why?
I can’t resist asking.
The image that appears in response is so large and overwhelming that I forget where we are.
Suddenly, I’m by the sea. It’s nighttime, and the water is agitated, tormented, with wind howling in the jet-black sky. Still, I can clearly see what’s moving beneath the surface.
Vast, dark, writhing shapes whip their tails. Next to them something else, much smaller, is struggling.
It’s a body with arms and legs. Its fair hair floats in the water.
Someone like me.
The image fades and I’m back in the woods. Yet it lingers in my mind. As though the fairies are painting pictures inside my head.
Confused, I turn to the fairy queen again.
Am I going to die?
It looks like she gestures with her thin hand.
No, flashes through my mind.
Her humming sound gets louder as she comes even closer. So close that I have to shut my eyes.
Behind my closed eyelids, the image appears again.
Then I understand.
There, on the beach, beyond the raging sea, other dots of light float across the sand. They glide through the air, watching closely.
Watching over the lone figure in the water.
The words form of their own accord.
Thank you
A light touch of thin, almost glowing fingers against my cheek.
When I open my eyes again, they are gone.
I feel unsteady on my feet and have to support myself against a tree trunk. It takes a good while before I can bring myself to whisper to Rasmus that he can open his eyes again.
“Where did they go?” he murmurs.
The strong sulfurous smell has also disappeared.
“I don’t know.”
Isabelle remains completely motionless with gaping eyes. I gently touch her arm.
“Isabelle?” I say. “Are you alright?”
She doesn’t react at first. Then she blinks once, twice, three times. Finally, she manages to focus.
“Tuva?” she says, bending forward. She vomits violently against a tree.
Rasmus and I just stand there, waiting.
“What happened?” she asks, her hair in disarray.
Rasmus pulls himself together first.
“No idea,” he says quickly. “We saw you walking into the woods and were worried. You didn’t look well. And after everything that happened last week . . .”
Isabelle has to bend over and vomit again.
“Did you do something to me?” she says when she has straightened up. She’s still suspicious.
“What are you talking about?” I say with all the conviction I can muster. “We just found you a few minutes ago. You seemed totally out of it.”
I am hit by the smell of Isabelle’s half-digested dumplings.
A few seconds pass; then she relents. “Thanks, I guess.”
She wobbles, and Rasmus takes command of the situation, linking arms to steady her.
“I’ll help you to the school nurse. You probably should have stayed home today too; you obviously still have a fever. You look a bit green.”
Isabelle touches her cheek. She looks at me uncertainly.
“Do I have puke in my hair?” she asks almost meekly.
“No,” I’m quick to assure her. “Can’t see anything.”
“Come on,” Rasmus says, and starts leading her out of the woods.
I follow a few steps behind.
Just as we pass the final trees, I look over my shoulder.
I think I see something glowing behind a pine tree, but I can’t be sure.