Cassandra Read online

  Now, when she tried to hurry, panic snapped at her heels and spurred her on faster and faster. She blundered blindly, fleeing an unseen enemy, tripping and crashing, feeling sinister beings reaching out to her, touching her. She fell over a rock, dislodging it, and crashed down hard on to the ground, knocking all the air out of her lungs.

  She sat, trembling, in a dazed heap. Hot tears of terror and pain streamed out of her frozen body.

  — CHAPTER 12 —

  Salvation

  This time, when Cassandra thought she saw movement in the periphery of her vision, she wasn’t imagining it.

  Pale moonlight had broken through a gap in the clouds and Cassandra could see something coming towards her from behind the dislodged rock. She stared in horror as the shadow formed itself into the unmistakable shape of a gigantic scorpion. It was creeping towards her with its long segmented tail curled up over its head, ready to inject the poison contained in the sting at its tip. She screamed and scrambled backwards. The scorpion continued to stalk her, faster now. She managed to get her feet under her and started to stand up, but as she did, a huge wall of muscle hurtled past her from behind and knocked her over. She looked up into the monstrous, nubbly face of a blue-tongue lizard, the dead scorpion now crushed in its jaws. Cassandra screamed again. Had she just swapped the frying pan for the fire? She liked blue-tongue lizards as a rule; there were lots of them around where she lived. But this one was almost as wide as she was tall and, judging by the way its body disappeared into the darkness, Cassandra guessed over four times as long. At least for the moment, its mouth was full.

  Cassandra turned and ran, now not knowing or caring which direction she was heading; she would simply be glad to stay alive. Too quickly, her lungs began to burn and her legs threatened to collapse. Clouds had covered the moon again and she was running blind. What started as a panicked sprint became a jog and then slowed even further. She would have to stop soon. She wanted to devise a plan to save herself, but her brain was operating at full capacity itemising all the ways she might die.

  Her slow jog had degenerated into a pathetic, sobbing stumble when she became aware of a soft greenish-yellow glow in the bush ahead.

  She stopped and leaned her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath. She raised her head to stare at the glow, unsure if it came from friend or foe, but something about it felt reassuring. It was steadily increasing in size and intensity, and she realised it was coming towards her. As that thought occurred to her, its darker nucleus resolved itself into the shape of an old male fae and eventually she was able to make out a friendly face and thin, grey hair. To Cassandra, he was salvation. Sensible dragonfly wings folded tidily downwards when he landed beside her and his glowing aura enveloped her. It felt as though she’d been wrapped in a weightless blanket of comfort and healing, and she welcomed it. She experienced an instant, inexplicable affinity with him.

  ‘Having some trouble?’ he asked.

  It was weird, trying to tell the story of her terror and anguish when she was no longer feeling terror or anguish. It all sounded a little silly now. She described the scorpion being eaten by the lizard. ‘… I thought he would eat me next, so I ran, but I didn’t know which way to go. And then I saw you.’

  The old fae rubbed her shoulder in a gesture of comfort – not that she needed it anymore. ‘The lizard would never have eaten you,’ he said. ‘I sent her to look for you. I think she found you just in the nick of time.’

  ‘You sent a lizard?’

  ‘Mmmm.’ He sounded as if he didn’t know there was anything unusual in that. ‘A few lizards, actually. They were pretty grumpy from being woken up.’ He laughed. ‘But they were okay after I warmed them up. I’m Ith, by the way.’

  Cassandra assumed he would already know who she was, but it felt rude not to reply to his introduction. ‘I’m Cassandra.’

  ‘Ready to go home?’ he asked.

  Cassandra nodded. She knew by now that ‘home’ was the fae village, but at the moment it would be a relief to be back. They began to walk in a completely different direction than Cassandra would have guessed. She might have been walking all night and found neither the village nor the boatshed, even if she had survived the experience.

  They hadn’t walked far when Cassandra noticed a much larger, stronger, multicoloured glow approaching, resembling the beautiful nebulae she’d seen in books of the universe. It was a swarm of fae, each luminescing a different coloured aura. Before they landed, Cassandra had recognised Oonnora, Brack, Tani, Chayton and Eerin among them. They crowded around Cassandra and Ith, all talking at once, until eventually Ith held up a hand and the noise stopped.

  ‘Let’s get her home first,’ he said.

  Oonnora nudged Chayton and he strode forward and swept Cassandra into his arms. It would have been a sweet gesture if he had not been so obviously furious. His lips were set in a harsh line and the only evidence that his angry face was not carved from cold, hard marble was a muscle flexing in his jaw. With one beat of his wings, they were airborne. Cassandra was even more scared of heights than she was of the dark. She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck.

  ‘Let go. You’re strangling me,’ Chayton growled. ‘What the hell did you think you were doing?’

  Cassandra couldn’t answer. Ith’s cheer had worn off and the tears had returned.

  Suddenly, she felt as if she’d been drugged. She was dazed and lethargic, and it was extremely unpleasant. She was still aware that she was flying and that she was afraid, but now she also felt out of control and she was unable to hang on to Chayton as tightly as she wanted to. She closed her eyes and tried to fight the rising nausea. She tried to distract her thoughts from the picture forming in her mind of herself vomiting in Chayton’s arms while he was flying. Thankfully, the trip was short. Chayton landed and placed her on her feet at the front door of their house with only seconds to spare. She slumped against the wall and vomited on to the ground. Oonnora moved up beside her and laid a soothing hand on her arm.

  As Brack, Chayton and Tani walked into the house, Cassandra heard Brack muttering, ‘I think you overdid it, Chayton.’

  — CHAPTER 13 —

  Tough Love

  Bloody typical! Brack thought, as he looked down on Cassandra’s sleeping form huddled in foetal position under a tangle of blankets. The minute there’s bad news to be told, I get the job.

  It had been left to Brack to explain to Cassandra the decisions that had been made at last night’s emergency council meeting. The debate had certainly been lively. Many fae were angry about Cassandra being in Gillwillan and wondering why she hadn’t been sent away to work for the tinker even if there was no proof that her intent had been malicious. Many had argued that she should be given exactly what she had apparently been aiming for: banishment from the community to take her chances alone in the bush. It would have been a very lonely – and almost certainly short – existence. Apart from the fact that she had no experience with life at fae size, she came from a culture that had long ago swapped the knowledge required to survive in the natural environment for the convenience of technology. Brack would have stood firmly on the good-riddance side of the debate, had circumstances not forced him to feel paternal towards this human – damn Oonnora and her unquenchable goodwill – so that now he felt sorry for her. He didn’t know much about humans, other than that the world would be a better place without them, but thinking about it now, he realised that having Cassandra here had caused a shift in his perception. He started to wonder if humans’ destruction of the natural balances of nature was not motivated so much by evil as … well … not really motivated at all. They were greedy and lazy and so dense they hadn’t cottoned on in time. It was breathtaking how much damage the idiots could do if they worked together. It seemed that the intelligence of a group of humans was inversely proportional to the size of the crowd.

  But looking down at Cassandra, he had to concede that she wasn’t so bad. He hated to admit it – wouldn’t admit it aloud
– but, from the short time he’d spent with her, he thought he might rather like her. She seemed to get him, which made her remarkable. But he didn’t speak up for her last night, nor would he if he could have that time over again. A part of him still wondered if they should have let it be when she’d been discovered missing and allowed nature to take its course – as was their way – and called it a solution rather than a problem. He blocked out the niggling voice in the back of his mind telling him that a shrunken human was not natural and that the moment Eerin had effected the transformation, Cassandra’s safety had become their responsibility.

  In the end, it was Ith who had insisted on going out to save her and, as the most senior member of the community, no one was going to argue with him. Besides, like Brack, everyone knew it was the only real option.

  Given the general feeling of resentment towards Cassandra, the plans the council had decided on for her future were downright indulgent.

  He had looked in on Cassandra a couple of times during the night, mostly to check that she was still there, and both times had found her lying in her hammock staring vacantly out the window. Cocooned in her blankets, she could easily have been mistaken for someone who was relaxed and content … until you looked at her face. Her face had told a story of utter despair and defeat. He was pretty useless at anything requiring emotional sensitivity, but Cassandra had been projecting so much pain that he didn’t have to try very hard to know that she was mourning the people she had left behind in the human world.

  She had fallen asleep some time after he’d last checked on her in the early hours of this morning, and she now seemed to be sleeping extra deeply to make up for the hours she’d lost.

  He tapped her shoulder to wake her up, and when nothing happened, nudged her hard enough that her hammock began to swing. He stepped back to sit on the chair by the window.

  ‘You caused a bit of a stir last night,’ he said as her eyes blinked open. He heaved in a fortifying breath. ‘Things are going to change.’ Suddenly realising he didn’t want Cassandra believing he’d come up with these ideas himself, he added, ‘The council met last night after your escape attempt and have come up with some new rules.’ He shifted uncomfortably on the chair. ‘They think you’ve had enough time to grieve for your old life and that it’s time for you to embrace your new life here. Starting today, you’re not going to be left alone to brood and plot. You’re to be considered a full and permanent member of this family. Your room will be dismantled as soon as Chayton and I get a chance, and you’ll move in with Tani. We’ll build stairs for you. And you’re to start a job – today.’

  Brack felt bad about how harsh this was sounding, but he didn’t do gentle – didn’t even know how. Nevertheless, he wanted Cassandra to understand that it was really the kindest solution. ‘Cassandra, the alternative is for your memory to be erased. The council is prepared to do that. It would make things easier all around – for us, anyway – but it’s a last resort and one you should be trying to avoid. As difficult as it is to lose your home and family, I’m sure you wouldn’t want to forget that they’d ever existed for you.’ He stood up and headed for the door. ‘Come out as soon as you can; the day is almost half gone. I’ll take you over to Iznaya’s so you can start work.’ With that, he left the room.

  Brack watched Cassandra emerge from her bedroom a short time later. She appeared to have shrunk. Had Eerin and her fastidious band of mystics made some sort of error? Highly unlikely. Impossible, he would have said. Eerin was the best mystic in Gillwillan: she never made mistakes. But … was Cassandra still shrinking? She was probably okay, just misery making her appear smaller: a vacuum of emotional pain and despair sucking her inward. She looked as if her spirit had been smashed. He hoped not. He rather liked a bit of spirit, and she was going to need it. The road to acceptance in this community would not be easy. How was he going to convince the other fae that they should accept her – or at least pretend to? Not being burdened with Oonnora’s enthusiastic overoptimism, Brack had a hunch that the best they could hope for was a good pretence.

  Cassandra stood just outside her bedroom doorway looking forlornly at the floor. Warm and fuzzy was Oonnora’s domain, not Brack’s, but Oonnora had gone to organise a wardrobe for Cassandra, so it was up to him. If he couldn’t provide comfort, he would take the opposite tack.

  ‘Hey Cassandra, what’s the difference between a fungus and a billionaire?’

  Cassandra shrugged.

  ‘One is vital to the future of the earth and the other is human.’

  Cassandra smiled politely.

  Not a great improvement, but an improvement nonetheless. Brack tried again. ‘What’s the difference between a tree and a billionaire?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘One devotes its life to making the world a better place and the other …’

  ‘Is human,’ finished Cassandra dully.

  ‘Hey, you’re getting the hang of this. Try this one. What’s the difference between …’

  ‘Brack?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Can we go now?’

  ‘Oh … yeah … good.’

  Well, that worked. He was a genius.

  — CHAPTER 14 —

  Ith and Iznaya

  Cassandra followed Brack across the crystal glade.

  Having spent three days sitting here waiting to be rescued, it was not a happy place for her, but at least the sand was reasonably comfortable to walk on, since all the grains were fairly uniform in size and had been smoothed by the sea.

  Brack made an all encompassing gesture with his hand as he walked. ‘All fae villages are settled around an open area that we call an ‘agora’. Your ancient Greeks used that name for their marketplaces, but they copied it from us.’

  A brisk wind rolled enormous fallen ti-tree flowers in front of them. The few fae passing through gave Cassandra frosty glances.

  ‘Most evenings, a bonfire is lit here.’ Brack pointed to the ground in the middle of the agora as they passed over it. Cassandra saw no evidence of a recent fire: the sand was as unblemished as anywhere else. ‘There’s music and dancing, food. Everyone comes. Fae are obsessed with socialising.’ Anyone would have thought Brack wasn’t one of them. ‘Once a month, on the full moon, a game of cetchet is played instead of the revelry.’

  Cassandra was surprised to hear this; she thought fairies were supposed to dance (naked) under the full moon. A picture of Brack dancing naked flashed into her mind. She shuddered and diverted her thoughts.

  Brack led her on to one side of the agora. ‘Here we are, you’ll be helping with the children.’ Skirting a hedge of tall seeding grasses, they turned a corner to find an opening into a sunny clearing surrounding a free-standing house. It was the closest thing to a defined yard that Cassandra had yet seen. The house and yard shared the sunlight that illuminated the agora, and the glittering sand covered the ground here, too. Against the sides of the house and right over the roof grew masses of bright wildflowers. The front of the house was decorated with spiders’ webs, which looked even prettier than the iron lace Cassandra had seen on antique houses in the city.

  At each side of the front yard stood a huge circular table. At least, Cassandra thought they were tables, even if they were the oddest tables she had ever seen. Each was supported by the trunks of three plants which appeared to be still rooted in the ground. At table height, the trunks bent at right angles and branched wildly, tangling and meshing together so closely that they formed a smooth surface. The only foliage was a neat border of leaves hanging down like a tablecloth around the edge of each circle.

  Inside the house, Brack introduced Cassandra to Iznaya: a lovely old lady who exuded warmth and softness, from her age-softened skin to her loose bun and creamy angel wings. Her demeanour was peaceful and content, as if she had seen all there was to see of life and had learnt to accept and value, rather than resent and reject. Around her neck she wore a fine golden chain dangling a shard of amber, within which was embedded the perfec
tly preserved fossil of a tiny insect.

  Iznaya fussed around Cassandra and Brack, sitting them down and pressing cups of tea into their hands. Cassandra looked down into her cup. It held a transparent, pinkish-beige liquid. An unappetising, earthy-smelling steam curled upwards from it. She held it closer to her nose and inhaled deeply. It did not improve. When she looked up, she saw Brack smiling slyly at her. He raised his cup to his lips, drank deeply and emitted a loud, satisfied sigh. Cassandra thought he might burp and was relieved that he held back. Iznaya bustled out of the room in search of shortbread.

  ‘Don’t you like your tea?’ Brack asked.

  Cassandra opened and closed her mouth, not sure how to answer. Her father had drilled into her the rudeness of rejecting any food put in front of her, but she was unsure if the same rule applied to beverages. She hoped not.

  ‘It’s made from various fungi,’ Brack continued. ‘The blend varies according to personal taste.’

  ‘Well, that explains it,’ Cassandra muttered.

  The sound of excited children approaching made them both look towards the front windows. A cacophony of laughing, screaming and shouting was growing like an advancing tornado. Brack gestured for Cassandra to follow him outside. She put her cup down, grateful to have been saved from having to actually taste the tea, and followed. When she looked through the doorway, it appeared that every child from Gillwillan was jostling and fluttering in the yard. They were carrying baskets overflowing with food, which they were dumping on the tables. There were nuts, seeds, flowers, berries and leafy greens. There was a basket of limp multicoloured plants, which Cassandra eventually identified as seaweed. There was also the ubiquitous assortment of fungi including mushrooms. What was it with these fae and their fungi?

  Iznaya trotted in and out of the house bringing yet more food, including baskets full of shortbread that, according to Brack, she was famous for.

  When Cassandra stepped out into the yard, she noticed Ith in the midst of the confusion with a dopey looking beetle at his feet. It might well have been the beetle that had first caught her attention and started all this trouble. It was glossy black except for a fine, rust-coloured fur covering the edges of its legs and body. Its face at the front was broad and flat as if it had been hit with a bat, and weird little antennae stuck out oddly from its head at the sides like rusty feathers.