Chapter 1 #2
Faerie. He was in Faerie, but his gaze had settled on her anyway.
Because of course it did. The one downside to being able to see things that most humans couldn’t? Those she saw always seemed to sense that she was different, that she had the sight. That she could spot them even while they were trying to hide behind magic and glamour.
Callie swallowed the lump in her throat, the image of that stunning male seared into her mind.
When she was a little girl, she thought of the fantastical creatures—some that looked like people, most that didn’t—as strange but ordinary.
Then, when it became clear that no one else could see them, she was convinced they were imaginary.
After too many years of therapy and even longer where she took it upon herself to make sense of the things she saw, Callie eventually accepted that they were realer than she ever would’ve imagined.
But they were magic, too.
Compelling.
Otherworldly.
It was the most accurate description, in a way. The creatures that crossed the veil between worlds visited the human world from Faerie, a fantastical realm where unicorns might exist but trolls and dwarves and fairies definitely did.
Even from across the park, she could see the thin haze that separated the two worlds.
All of her research books—from Yeats’s Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry to Fairies for Dummies and everything in between that she could get her hands on—made it clear that there were weak points between worlds where the realms were kept separated by a barrier as thin as a veil; hence the name.
They were usually found marked by fairy rings or stone circles, some sign that the land had been touched by a faerie creature.
It seemed as if, in this park, the veil was marked by a tree that was nearly split in two, making it look like a fondue fork. The rectangular-shaped patch of hazy space hovered right beside the charred side that Callie had found interesting, but now seemed ominous.
City lore said it had been struck by lightning decades ago, but suddenly Callie wasn’t so sure. Whatever happened to it, the sunbeams filtered through its droopy branches, drawing her attention back to the hazy patch.
To the hazy patch, and the gorgeous male who had blinked back into her sight.
He seemed closer, as if he was traveling through the veil, making a move to cross from his world into hers. And maybe if there hadn’t been that moment when their eyes locked before, Callie could pretend that he wasn’t focusing only on her.
Ah, crap.
So, yeah. It was never a good thing to draw the attention of a Faerie dweller. Especially the more human-looking ones.
What she would consider monsters—the trolls and orcs—were definitely dangerous, but on the rare chance they “mythical” beasts risked crossing over into the modern world with its cars and its computers and its tech, it was a pretty safe bet that all they wanted to do was cause chaos and hunt.
The tricksters and domestic fairies were the same.
Brownies, redcaps, goblins… so long as you didn’t get snared by one of their traps or offend them, you were fine.
These days, with the world moving on from the old ways, most of those lesser fairies didn’t even bother crossing over since very few still believed in them, let alone respected them.
But the human-ish ones? Callie might be immune to their glamour and their charm courtesy of her “gift”, but that didn’t mean the faerie wouldn’t try to compel her anyway if she caught their attention.
From her experience and her years of research, she knew that the higher level of faeries—including the fae—were stronger, more powerful, and harder to fool when it came to her practiced pretending.
Even worse? She’d caught sight of hundreds of Faerie-touched creatures since she recognized they were other.
But this guy? Not only was he attractive, but he was magnetically so.
Callie found herself drawn to him like a moth to a flame.
Her immediate reaction was to get up and meet him halfway which had her grabbing her camera bag and, as casually as she could, climbing up from the bench.
But she didn’t move toward him. She couldn’t. Callie wasn’t so far gone that she would allow herself to be burned by his golden fire. Instead, she slowly gave him her back as she stepped away from the bench.
If she still had to resist the urge to go to him even when she knew she shouldn’t, that was all she she needed to know to get out now.
She slung her camera bag over her head, letting it settle against her chest. Struggling to control her suddenly frantic breathing, she busied herself with searching in her purse for a few seconds before swallowing again and casting her glance over her should, checking out the park.
Like before, she forced herself to sweep right past him, as if she couldn’t see him at all.
Callie hoped that he figured her earlier surprise was a fluke, if he even noticed her at all.
Fingers crossed that she was worried over nothing.
After all, why would one of the faerie folk be interested in her?
And maybe if she clung to that for long enough, she might actually convince herself that she believed it.
Slowly turning away from the tree and the hazy patch and the intimidating male, Callie pushed herself to stroll away from the bench, heading leisurely toward the sidewalk; it wasn’t easy since her knees felt locked together, but she managed.
She didn’t turn around, either, though she did dare a second peek behind her.
Out of the corner of her eye, she swore she caught a flash of gold that winked on the edge of her vision before vanishing.
It could be a trick, she knew. Faerie folk, at their core, were all tricksters.
She forced herself to keep walking, smiling at some of the regulars on their afternoon walk, even pausing to pet a friendly pup she usually saw playing frisbee with his owner.
Only when she was heading out of the park did she dare one final peek over her shoulder.
Callie let out the breath she didn’t even know she’d been holding when she saw that both the male and the patch of other really were gone.
Phew.