‘Gillwillan – that’s where I am?’
‘Our village, yes.’ Oonnora nodded and smiled. ‘A little tour might help you settle in.’
‘I don’t want to settle in, I want to go home.’
Oonnora looked disappointed, as though she’d hoped Cassandra would have miraculously changed her mind. ‘You can’t stay in here indefinitely,’ she grumbled as she left Cassandra to eat her lunch.
There was no indefinitely as far as Cassandra was concerned: she was definitely going home – as soon as she worked out how.
— CHAPTER 9 —
Safe Harbour
That evening, when Chayton brought her dinner in, Cassandra was perched on her windowsill, staring out into the bush. He sat up beside her with his shoulder pressed against hers and her plate on his lap.
‘You want something to eat?’
Cassandra looked down at the food. It was the same as last night’s dinner and today’s lunch: a mushroom, a berry, and a bread roll. The fae were apparently not adventurous eaters. She’d eaten a berry at lunch today and, while it had been juicy and delicious, it had been too big to put in her mouth whole. The process had been too disgusting to repeat with Chayton watching. In fact, she didn’t really feel comfortable eating anything with Chayton watching.
They sat in silence for a while until Chayton decided to help her out. He broke off a small fragment of the roll and lifted it to her lips. Cassandra felt self-conscious at the intimate gesture. His fingers were long and graceful, his nails smooth and neatly shaped. His hand hovered at her lips. It was going to be more embarrassing refusing to open her mouth than it would be to let Chayton feed her, so she accepted the morsel of bread… and another … and another, until she had eaten the whole roll this way.
As his hand headed towards the berry, Cassandra shook her head. ‘No more, thanks.’
He reached down and put the plate on her table, then sat back up, put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her towards him. He stroked his fingers through her hair and her entire body tingled. She inhaled his scent and felt light-headed. She allowed her body to relax and mould into his.
Neither of them felt the need to fill the silence with idle talk. Together they watched the day mellow into twilight. Cassandra felt an enchanted tranquillity in Chayton’s arms. It was a relief after the last few tumultuous and emotionally-charged days. She didn’t remember drifting off to sleep, but she awoke the next morning in her hammock to someone opening her bedroom door.
‘Good morning, Cassandra,’ Tani said in a voice so theatrically cheerful it was obviously put on to appease someone outside. Cassandra didn’t need the fae ability to read emotions to know that Tani was being forced by Oonnora to act friendly towards her and resented it.
Tani pushed the door shut with the heel of her foot and immediately her demeanour changed. She stomped across to the table and dumped the breakfast tray so roughly that some of the pots fell over. Cassandra tried to get up, preferring to meet her adversary eye to eye, but her foot became twisted in the folds of the hammock and she fell, whacking one elbow and hitting her head so hard on the floor that she actually saw stars. Knocks to the head always made Cassandra cry; despite being determined not to show Tani any weakness, tears welled up in her eyes and began to spill down her cheeks.
Tani looked down at Cassandra and rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, sure. Start crying again, just for a change.’ Her lip curled in disgust. ‘Could you try being a little less dramatic, Cassandra? All this “woe is me” you’re carrying on with is upsetting my mother.’
Cassandra’s incredulity brought her to her feet despite her pain. She swiped away her tears with the back of her hand. ‘What’s she got to be upset about? No one’s holding her prisoner!’
‘You’re lucky she agreed to have you. She’s one of very few who were willing to. If I’d had any say in it, there’s no way you’d be here; you’d be enjoying a new life with the tinker. It’s not doing my reputation any good to have it known that my family is harbouring a human.’
‘You call it harbouring. I call it imprisonment.’
‘You did this to yourself, Cassandra. The fault is all yours, with your human determination to meddle in everything. You gave us no choice, and now we’re stuck with you. My family is providing you with shelter and protection, no matter what you choose to call it, and it’s a whole lot better than anything a human would ever do for one of us.’
She stepped towards the door and reached for the handle, then turned back and said, ‘It would suit me perfectly well if you never came out of this room because I know that, as soon as you do, my mother is going to get all enthusiastic about you and I being friends and then she’s going to want me to babysit you and introduce you to all my friends. But I don’t like seeing her upset when she’s trying to do the right thing by looking after you, so do me a favour and stop being such a selfish, miserable human and at least shield your mood. We can feel it clear out into the kitchen.’
She fixed a smile on her face, opened the door and said in a sunshiny voice, ‘Enjoy your breakfast, Cassandra.’
Cassandra could have put Tani’s mind at ease about one thing at least: she had as little desire to become friends with Tani as Tani did with her. Aside from the fact that Tani was just plain nasty, Cassandra saw no point putting any effort into making friends with someone she planned never to see again, once she made it home – which would be soon. And when she did make it home, she fully intended to spend the rest of her life staunchly refusing to believe in fairies, so they needn’t worry about her telling any other human about them.
That evening, when Chayton brought Cassandra’s dinner in, she was feeling embarrassed about her reaction to him the previous night. She’d spent quite a bit of the day playing it all back in her mind, desperately hoping she hadn’t revealed herself as pathetically love struck. Why had she responded so intensely to him? It was completely out of character for her. She had never been one to plunge into and out of love with boys the way many of the girls at school did – in fact, it had often led her to worry about whether she was emotionally stunted.
But as Chayton pulled Cassandra on to his lap, she felt quite the reverse: the intensity of her feelings for him scared her. He seemed to fill her field of vision and dominate her world. He leaned down to kiss her lips. She felt the heat of his body radiating against hers as he drew the kiss out, and her tingling and light-headedness returned. She reached around to comb her fingers through his hair and he broke the kiss off, letting out a strangled laugh. At first, Cassandra was worried that she’d been overzealous and had turned him off, but he wrapped his arms more tightly around her as he kissed her again. This kiss was nothing like the first one: his lips forced hers open and his tongue invaded to tangle with hers. Then he broke away to kiss a path down her jaw and her neck. He was heading farther south when he suddenly froze and straightened up.
‘What is it?’ asked Cassandra.
‘I have to go,’ he rasped. He started to move Cassandra off his lap when Tani shouted from outside the bedroom door, ‘Chayton, can we go to the revelry NOW please?’
Chayton laughed his strangled laugh again. He lifted Cassandra down, hopped off the windowsill and left the room.
Cassandra sat back on the windowsill in the same warm place Chayton had been sitting and stared out into the darkening evening. At first, her thoughts were all about Chayton. But with the cooling of her ardour, rationality kicked in and Cassandra remembered her goal: to escape from this place and go home.
It was time to do some serious planning – before she found that she was no longer able to make herself leave.
— CHAPTER 10 —
Escape Plan
By the time Tani delivered Cassandra’s breakfast with a good helping of vitriol the next morning, Cassandra had sharpened the ideas she’d been working on during her two days of self-imposed confinement into an escape plan.
She had learnt that the family went out every evening until late to something they
called ‘the revelry’. This would be the perfect time to sneak out of the house and make her way back to the boatshed. It was only a few human metres away from here – how hard could it be to find, even at this size? When she had tried to run after her father, she’d been in a blind panic; it was no wonder she’d ended up lost and exhausted. Tonight, she would stay calm and take it slowly. She need only walk perpendicular to the twisted ti-tree trunk she had ducked under that first day and eventually she would walk into the back of her boatshed. Then it would simply be a matter of following the side wall around to the front and setting up camp under the deck … while avoiding the spiders and bull ants she knew lived there. It wouldn’t be for long. Surely Dad was keeping a vigil at the boatshed, or at least visiting daily? Dad would know what to do. She didn’t believe he wouldn’t be able to see her. There had to be some blood-bond, father-daughter thing that meant she would always be visible to him. Didn’t there?
The relief of having finally come up with a plan allowed Cassandra to relax and succumb to her need for sleep. She didn’t even stir when Oonnora brought lunch in. She awoke late in the afternoon and found it on her table, so she sat down and ate it, barely noticing or tasting what she was eating. Then there was nothing to do but wait for nightfall. Cassandra had been sedated by depression over the last two days and had been content to stare at the walls, or out of the window, but now that she knew she was going home, she could barely contain her impatience. She stood up and paced around her room. Suddenly, she couldn’t wait to be out of there.
That evening when Chayton brought her dinner in, Cassandra knew she was saying goodbye.
She took the plate out of his hand, placed it on the table and stepped into his embrace. She pressed her cheek against his broad chest and tried to memorise the feel of him, the smell of him, the thrill she always experienced when she touched him, so that she could take it home with her. She wrapped her arms around his body and her fingers came into contact with his folded wings. She jerked her hand back at first, unsure if she was allowed to touch them, unsure how fragile they were, but he hadn’t flinched away. She reached out again and stroked her fingers gently over the edges. A mesmeric vibration tingled up her arm.
Cassandra was certain that from now on, any boy who interested her would be measured against Chayton and would come up short. With his muscular arms around her and his heart beating powerfully beneath her ear, she felt secure, beloved and precious. For this moment in time at least, she felt that she was the most important person in the world to someone. She fought back tears as she realised it was a feeling that had been missing from her life lately. It was a feeling that Sylvia had stolen from her. And it was going to be difficult to leave behind.
She tilted her head up for a kiss, but Chayton was frowning down at her.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.
‘Nothing, I …’
‘I can feel your sadness.’
Was he sensing her mourning the end of their relationship? Was she exposing her plan to him? She tried to cover it up. Elephants. Elephants. ‘You know I’m sad. I’m a prisoner here.’
‘No, it’s not that.’ Chayton pushed her away slightly. ‘This is different.’
Cassandra was tempted to confide in Chayton about her intention to leave. Would he help her or try to prevent it? The fact that she didn’t know the answer to that question kept her tongue clamped in her mouth. She tried to divert her thoughts, but her head was full of escape plans and Chayton.
‘You know, the sooner you cheer up and leave your room, the sooner we can find a private place to be alone together,’ he said.
‘This isn’t private enough?’
‘Having my family just outside the door is seriously limiting.’
‘What would happen if they knew what we were doing? Would they mind?’
Chayton laughed. ‘Yeah, they’d mind. I’m amazed at how long I’ve been able to spend in your room the last three nights without them getting suspicious – particularly my mother. She usually doesn’t miss a trick. She’s either very distracted by your presence or just grateful that you’re making friends with any member of the family.’ He tugged Cassandra back into his embrace and kissed the top of her head. ‘Although this might be a little more friendly than she’d appreciate.’
He leaned away again. ‘Sit down and eat your tea.’ He smiled cheekily at her and cocked an eyebrow. ‘I’ll help you.’
‘I don’t want it, really. I only just ate lunch.’
‘Then let me help you get to sleep.’
‘I don’t want to sleep either. I’ve been sleeping all day.’
‘Try.’ He picked her up and tipped her into her hammock. When he leaned over to kiss her, she wrapped her arms around his neck and deepened the kiss until it was wet and breathless. He seemed to be enjoying it – he was certainly participating eagerly enough – but then he broke away with a laugh. She was becoming annoyed at the way he kept laughing at her. He stroked her forehead and looked deeply into her eyes.
‘Sleep,’ he said.
— CHAPTER 11 —
The Bush is Alive
Cassandra woke up to darkness.
The last thing she remembered was staring into Chayton’s eyes. How had she fallen asleep so quickly? Had Chayton done that to her? It was hardly complementary if he had.
She rolled out of her hammock and stood still, listening. No sound came from within the house. The family were either away or asleep. Either would do. She listened a little while longer, just to be sure, but when she saw a group of fae walk past her window, she decided that whatever the revelry was, it was probably still in progress. She slipped quickly out of her room and through the front door.
She had predicted that the hardest part of her plan was going to be getting to the overhanging trunk undetected. Party noise and the glow and flicker of firelight was coming from the direction of the glade. The overspill of firelight made finding her way through the surrounding bush a little easier, and she might have moved closer had she not been more concerned about discovery than injury. A couple of times, she came across fae who were wandering around the secluded outskirts of the glade, but she was able to avoid them fairly easily, particularly since they weren’t on the lookout for a human escapee and so didn’t take much notice of another person skulking around (at least, she was trying to skulk, but it was difficult when every few steps resulted in a foot injury).
It probably helped that she didn’t glow in the dark.
Cassandra had seen, while staring out her window, that the fae were luminous at night. They were probably luminous all the time, but it was only visible in the dark. The softly glowing clouds of colour surrounding them might have been spooky if they were not so incredibly beautiful. All colours imaginable were represented and often other colours swirled, flickered, shimmered or glittered through the main colour.
Cassandra eventually made it to the trunk and positioned herself directly under it with her back to what she now called ‘fairyland’. She congratulated herself on how well her scheme was proceeding. The hardest part was over. There was simply no substitute for good planning. Unfortunately, she hadn’t planned for it to be so completely dark. She was virtually blind. She had managed to choose a night when the clouds were entirely covering the sky, smothering the moon and every last star, but even if she hadn’t, at her current size she felt as if she was walking into a dark tunnel passing under a mountain of undergrowth.
This was the story of her life: nothing was ever as easy as it should be.
Perhaps her eyes had not yet adjusted to the darkness. She closed them for a few moments and reminded herself to be brave and believe in her own abilities. Taking a deep breath, she opened her eyes and strode boldly forwards. Physical and emotional momentum carried her a short distance. She’d been right: her eyes did adjust better to the darkness once she was completely immersed in it. Now, instead of pitch blackness, there were areas of darkness interspersed with blobs of darker darkness. She guessed that the best
idea was to steer around the darker masses, assuming they were solid objects. Very quickly though, she learnt that the entire ground was a darker mass, so judging changes in ground level or spotting obstructions was impossible. Fine branches were completely invisible, putting her in continuous danger of having her eyes poked out.
One of the major flaws in Cassandra’s plan was that she was scared of the dark. Her passage became slower and slower. The slower she walked, the more noises she heard and the more panicked she became. She was continually stopping and turning her head from side to side, not only to peer blindly into the darkness, but also to listen. The breeze whiffled through her hair and into her ears, preventing her from hearing properly. With almost non-existent vision, her hearing was her only way of sensing danger and she became more and more certain that danger lurked all around, closing in on her … waiting for her to take one more step …
Cassandra was now frozen with fear. She held her breath in an attempt to sharpen her hearing. All around her were terrifying noises. The bush was alive with crackling and rustling. She was sure she heard a hissing sound.
She took two slow steps. Stopped. Held her breath. Listened.
Another step.
Was that something moving she saw out of the corner of her eye?
She stood perfectly still and stared into the blackness. She kept her gaze riveted and took another step.
She heard something drop to the ground over her other shoulder. She spun around and tried in vain to force her eyes to pick out the source of the noise.
Every hair on her body stood on end and her blood ran cold. Her eyes were fatigued with the effort of trying to focus on amorphous objects. Her jaw ached from being held stiffly as she strained her ears to hear. Her entire scalp throbbed from tension.
Cassandra was defeated. She was so frightened she could barely move. At this rate, it would take all night for her to reach her boatshed, if she reached it at all. She had completely lost her sense of direction. She couldn’t sustain this level of terror much longer. The only safety she knew was the fae village. She turned around and tried to guess which direction would take her back. She stumbled forward.