Autumn

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter  Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

The first thing I noticed was how lovely the world was. Each color, from the dark night to the stars twinkling clearly overhead...everything was beautiful. I moved nothing but my eyes, trying to see everything without disturbing the peace that surrounded me. It was still night and I wondered how long I had been unconscious.

Maybe it was a different night.

Maybe days had passed.

Maybe no time at all.

Transforming into a Fairy hadn’t gone as I had expected it to. In my imagination, there had been a great ceremony and I had worn an impossibly beautiful dress. My hair was combed. I wasn’t lying in dirt. I had actually taken a shower. Little things like that would have made the evening much different.

Of course, what I had been envisioning was a marriage ceremony. It was a little odd that I had imagined a marriage ceremony without imagining the groom, but I was a girl. I had been picturing my wedding for years. Ever since I first remembered my mother showing me pictures of her own wedding when I was five, I had dreamed of my own. The fact that the face of my groom was blurry, Holt or Samuel, hadn’t bothered me.

Because I had thought I had time to figure everything out. I had thought that yes, I had to decide, but it wasn’t like there was a hard and fast deadline for answering the biggest question of my life. Samuel and Holt had ensured that I wasn’t too pressured.

I tried to reel my mind back in. I shouldn’t be thinking about big life questions at the moment.

My focus narrowed.

Suddenly, only the answer to one question mattered.

Where was Holt?

I stretched my body, but I wasn’t stiff. My muscles felt strong and fluid. Hold on, back up, I had muscles. Craziness.

Suddenly, I didn’t think I could ever be stiff again. I had just awakened as a Fairy. The world smelled wonderful.

The first thing I looked for was Holt’s green eyes, and there they were, watching me. When our gazes locked, he beamed. Butterflies took flight in my stomach.

Feeling like someone had just turned on the dawn, I tried to sit up. Holt knelt down next to me, guiding me with his hands on my shoulders. His touch made my skin tingle.

It was the oddest sensation in the world to have expected to be dead and instead to feel like a superhero.

I grinned back at Holt while he sat back on his heels, enjoying my smile. I ran my hands up and down my legs and over each arm, checking for damage, but I wasn’t going to find any.

Because I was fine. I was healed. I was a Fairy.

“How are you feeling?” he asked warmly.

“Wonderful.”

His smile grew. “I knew it,” he said. “That’s what I had hoped.”

I looked around. It was still night, so I couldn’t have been unconscious very long. How had this happened?

“Logan,” said Holt, supplying the answer for me.

“Where is he?” I said, trying not to let Holt see me flinch. I didn’t want him to think I was afraid of his brother, even if I was.

“He’s gone,” said Holt. “I expect we won’t be seeing him for a long time.”

“Why?” Jump for joy!

“Because he knows I’ll kill him,” said Holt, his voice cold. I looked at that familiar face, his blond hair almost falling into those bright green eyes.

“You wouldn’t,” I said, breathless.

Holt wrapped his arms around me. “If he’s going to make me choose, I think my choice is clear. I’ve already chosen you. I didn’t want it to have to be like that, but he seems to feel it’s the only way. I love you most.”

A warm feeling spread through my chest. As Holt talked, everything that had happened came rushing back to me.

We had been at Samuel’s. Everyone else was there, Lydia, Leslie, Susan, Nick, and Carley, even Logan. Nick and Carley had gotten together and broken up in the space of a minute, and Carley had stormed out. Of course, Nick, as any good almost boyfriend should, had gone after her.

Logan had started a fight and then left in a fit of anger, and I had thought that was the end of it. After Logan left, Holt offered to take me home. I had wanted to talk to Samuel, about what I couldn’t remember, but of course I agreed to go with Holt. He hadn’t seemed worried about Logan. He had probably just figured it was mostly hot air and would blow over. He had been wrong.

Waiting for us as we walked, Logan had attacked. I wasn’t sure if he had meant to hurt me, but I had a feeling he hadn’t. He certainly hadn’t intended for what happened next. Holt had given me his Rose, exactly what he wasn’t supposed to do. All the difficulty all summer had centered around the fact that my destiny was sealed. I was meant for Samuel; I was meant to accept
his
Rose. In the entire history of Fairies, the idea that a girl might be capable of accepting two different Princes’ flowers was unheard of, and shocking. Holt was not supposed to be in love with me and I was not supposed to be in love with him, and there definitely wasn’t supposed to be any talk of a Rose, let alone my accepting his instead of Samuel’s.

Certain members of each family -- Samuel’s mother, the Winter Queen, and Holt’s younger brother Logan -- hadn’t approved of what had been going on.

Samuel had been willing to give me time to think about the situation, mostly because he had no interest in marrying someone he didn’t know. Samuel had always felt like a cool head at the height of a storm, and I wondered what he would say now. Even if he had spent a solid portion of the summer ignoring me, I don’t think he ever expected me to just turn around and accept a Rose from Holt.

In fact, I don’t think he expected Holt to offer me a Rose at all. I think Samuel expected everything to settle down and work itself out with time. Holt’s giving me his Rose, even in life or death circumstances, went against some Fairy code, but the events of this evening had demanded it. I was going to die, and offering me the Rose was the only way Holt could save my life. So now I was a Fairy.

Those facts could not be changed. I just felt bad that it had happened that way, and bad that my decision had been taken away from me, even if it was a decision I would have made myself eventually.

I smiled a little. Even with what had just happened, even with thinking about Logan, I was happy. I was happier than I had ever been all summer. I was happier than I had ever been in my life.

Mostly because Holt was there.

A little because I could smell flowers for miles around and they smelled really good.

In fact, that starry night was the happiest time in my life. I hadn’t known that such a small span of time could hold so much wonder for one person.

Holt never let go of my hand.

Even though it was dark, it didn’t feel like it. It felt like the brightest, warmest day, with the hottest sunshine warming my skin.

Holt never stopped looking at me as if I was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. And I never for a second doubted how happy he was that he had given me his Rose. There was no doubt in my mind that what he had done was right.

Everything around me pulsed with new life. Every flower and plant, down to the dandelions, rose up to greet me, as if they knew what I had just become and wanted to welcome me into the folds of their universe.

When I had imagined my big Fairy wedding and my wonderfully poofy dress, I had also imagined a lot of ceremony. In the Fairy Court, I assumed, when marrying a Fairy Prince you probably couldn’t have a barefooted wedding. I had imagined a stunning wedding and a life of rules. What I hadn’t imagined was finally knowing what it felt like to be a Fairy. But here I was, running around not in a poofy dress, or any nice dress at all, but in my regular clothes, first learning the wonders of living in a new Fairy world.

“What do you want to do first?” Holt asked.

“What can I do?” I asked, breathlessly.

“Anything you want,” he said. “You can do anything now.”

I looked down at our intertwined hands, and for the briefest moment I thought I saw slight silver strands dancing underneath my skin, flowing from my fingertips to Holt’s, forming an unbreakable bond.

Still holding his hand, I walked over to the nearest flowers. They were little lupines, tall and purple and fragrant. As I bent down to smell one, the flower rose to greet me. It was as if I was the sun and it was taking warmth and health merely from my nearness.

With my new Fairy eyes I saw the flow of power between me and everything around me. I was more alive because of my transition, and so was everything else.