Blood

The wind and snow swirl around me before vanishing into the abyss that is the night sky above the sea.

If there is a better place on all of Faer, I’ve never seen it. The Wood doesn’t even compare to the cliffs, although that could just be me. The rest of the isle seems to stay clear of this spot, which is why I’m still not sure about bringing Lorna here. Mind you, I’m not sure I should be taking her anywhere.

But, how could anyone not love it here? The sea is as wild as she can be, tossing herself against the rocks a half-mile below my feet, and then there’s the gulls and seabirds, grounded because of the snow, flitting around, throwing their own little fits…maybe that doesn’t seem like a good thing, but it is.

“You’re really odd,” says Lorna.

She’s sitting about a foot and a half from the edge of the cliff, and I thought she’d been looking out, but when I turn towards her, she’s looking at me, her dark eyes reflecting in the headlights of my truck.

“I’m sorry?”

She ignores me, standing back up. The back of her coat is wet from being sat on, but she doesn’t seem to care, I know it would bother me.

Her boots crunch in the snow as she walks towards my truck, or me, it’s hard to tell with Lorna.

But no, it’s me. Well, at least I’d assume so since she stands right in front of me.

“Could I see your hand?”

She grabs my right wrist without waiting for a response.

I hear her voice in my head, not the one she’s using now, but an angry tone, Never touch me again, she says.

And I’m the odd one?

“Does it still hurt?” she asks, running her thumb just below the charred skin. Though it hurts like hell, I feel a thrill that makes me feel like shit at the same time. She hadn’t meant it like that, she’s mad.

I pull my hand away, mostly because it bothers me how much I like having her fingers wrapped around it. I shouldn’t have brought her here.

“No,” I lie.

I wish I could turn away, but that happens to be a rather obvious sign of lying, so I don’t. And then I’m also right in front of the hood of my truck, so I don’t really have anywhere to turn to.

She frowns and looks up at me, making me wonder how tall she is. Of course, I can’t ask her, although I don’t really know why I can’t.

Her mouth opens, as though she means to say something, but no sound comes out, so she closes it and scowls, but she still doesn’t look away.

And I unfortunately don’t want to be the weak bastard to look away.

“How old are you?” Lorna asks.

I don’t get it.

“Seventeen.”

“Okay.” She says it like she’s agreeing to something, or like she’s disappointed.

She still doesn’t bloody look away, so, like the weak bastard I wish I wasn’t, I do.

“You have to get rid of that stone,” I say, looking at the ground.

“I do, do I?” she says stubbornly.

“Do you care about your family?” I ask, although I think I know the answer.

I glance at her to make sure, and I think I’m right, since she’s really scowling. I don’t like it when she scowls, so I look back at the ground.

“That stone is…a weapon, kind of.”

I hear Lorna walk away, not far, only a few feet, and then sitting down. I hadn’t realised how close she had been standing until she moved.

“Why is everything fucking ‘kind of’? It’s a kind of fucking weapon, but you only kind of know what it is. I’m kind of a fucking moron! Reid only kind of hates George. My aunt is kind of mad. You kind of want me. Sarah is kind of a whore!” She says ‘kind of’ like a spoiled toddler.

Lorna laughs, only once. Just a single Ha!

“Who the hell am I kidding, Sarah is a fucking whore. Now, your brother is kind of a whore.”

I freeze. Did she really just say that? About her family? About mine?

You kind of want me.

The voice in the back of my mind says, I more than kind of want you.

She laughs again, this time really laughing, although I can’t see what she’d be laughing about. Lorna lies back on the ground, looking at me upside down.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t really mean that. Well, I did, but I shouldn’t’ve said it. I don’t drink. Mattie says I hold my booze worse than an Indian.”

I mean to say, that’s alright, but the words won’t come.

“Do you know anything about Indians?” she asks.

She can’t be serious.

She must see the look on my face in the dim light, because she frowns. “I did hear what you said, about the stone. I just…what would you suggest I do with it? Throw it in the ocean?”

Even though I know I’ll be annoyed about it later, I take a step forward and sit in the snow.

“I think...I should give it back.”

Lorna sits up and turns around much faster than I thought she’d be able to. “You think you should—” she narrows her eyes. “Mallory, why does that stone burn you? You said it was a weapon, but,” I see her grab the faeries stone in her jacket pocket. “It doesn’t hurt me…so, it’s a weapon against them, and it burnt you…and your eyes.”

When she says ‘eyes’, hers go wide.

I look down and take a deep breath before meeting her frightened eyes again. I had thought this might happen so…I’d thought of something based rather loosely on the truth. I’m impressed by how well I remember it in my state.

“If I were one of Them,” I say, trying to sound as calm as possible, “I would have died the second your stone touched me.”

“Why—”

“My mother, she was taken when she was pregnant with me, which meant she was spoiled for them. The fe-They want innocence in the children they take. So they kept her as a kind of…link to our world, after I was born, they decided I wasn’t any good, being the little bastard that I was, so they forced me on my dad, but the amount of time, being born there…it kind of messed with me…” I look away, as though I’m ashamed.

There’s a minute or two where there isn’t any talking, just the truck’s engine, the sea birds, the sea and the wind.

“So…Tim Fionn fucked a fifteen year old?”

I fight the urge to roll my eyes. Of course that’s what she gets out of that, and it’s worse, since I don’t want anyone to think ill of Tim, but what am I supposed to say? No, he screwed the faerie queen. That wouldn’t end well for either of us.

I shrug and glance back at the wet snow.

“You are really fucking weird,” mutters Lorna and then, after a moment, adds, “Why am I here?”

The night stretches on without interruption for another while. None of anything makes sense. I have more important things to worry about than this. I should be at home, figuring out how I’ll keep the cattle fed this winter, or why Maeve came and got me.

“So…the Good Folk want the stone back…because…?” she trails off.

It has to be okay to look at her again, so I do. Her eyes are narrowed, but not suspiciously.

“They hate it, but they worship it, need it. I don’t really understand why, but…you wouldn’t be safe if it just got lost or something. They want it back. I’m honestly surprised they haven’t done anything about it yet.”

Lorna frowns further at that, shifting so that the snow crunches beneath her.“How do you know?”

There’s another accusation in that question, she suspects, hell, she’s insinuated, so it’s not like I can just disappear.

“My mother’s…visited me. Only a couple times but,” It’s not a lie.

Lorna stands, brushing snow off her skirt and jacket. “I should go. I think I’ll walk.”

I stand as well thinking that she shouldn’t have been here in the first place. And that my ass is wet.

She starts to walk past me, but then stops, looking up at me again. Again.

“You know, it’s mad, but I wish I trusted you,” her brown eyes, colourless in the night, are wide and…honest looking.

“You don’t have any reason to trust me,” I say, although I did kind of save her life.

She shakes her head, but instead asks. “Was I wrong?”

“About what?”

“About this?” she gestures with her finger at me and then herself.

“I don’t…understand,” I say, even though I think I do. I think she means there’s something between us.

She looks away, at the ground. I can’t remember if I’ve seen her do it before or not. “Okay.” She disappears behind the truck, walking back towards the main road.

Bugger it all.

“Lorna?” I call after her.

“Yeah?” she calls back.

I look at the ground for whatever reason. “I dunno.”

Silence, aside from the total lack of silence the cliffs produce.

“Okay.”

I hear her footsteps start again.

Sitting back down, I begin to clear my mind, trying to peel away all the layers of crazy around me. I should go home, since there’s an off chance Tim will be worried, but there’s a better chance Justin and Cynthia are in bed…and that bed happens to be in my room. I walked in on them once when I was 14 and have been worried about it happening again ever since. Lorna’s right, he is kind of a whore.

And there, I brought her back into my conscious mind, and—screw it. I need to go home.