Emerald City Dreamer (11 page)

He blew his nose and the group murmured, "Thanks for sharing."

Jina kept reassuring Trey with her facial expressions. He seemed to not relate at all, as if the idea of cruel fae were too far from his experience. She felt a little guilty for spoiling his innocence.

The meeting continued.

Shelly described a year of her life where two fae tormented her continuously. It had started small, items misplaced, noises in the night. She'd called in a priest, who only seemed to make things worse. Then a paranormal researcher; he said it was a ghost and tried all kinds of things. That didn't help either. Then she started seeing them at their mischief, speaking to them. She became faestruck with a number of maladies and minor curses. And they started hurting her physically. Like Gretel, Shelly skipped over some parts of the story, becoming speechless and quickly moving on.

She begged them to stop, offered them anything they wanted. She moved to a new apartment, she even moved to a new city, and they followed her, relentlessly.

After a year, the haunting had abruptly ceased.

Jina had heard these stories before. They all had. The members of the group found that it helped to share them again, to reveal new insights, to learn how others coped with the pain.

Hollis had never once, in group or in private, shared anything about his past, though his bitterness and hatred rivaled them all, perhaps even Sandy's. Jina didn't expect him to share here, so she gave Trey a moment to chime in. He declined, so she started.

"
Most of you know my story. It doesn't haunt me as it once did, so I'm not planning on retelling it tonight. I did find out that one of them has been attending my concerts, and may be stalking me. It's scary, but I've been paying attention during Gretel's defense classes, and I think I can protect myself. I haven't seen him yet. It's good to know you're all here for support, even if you can't be with me all the time. Likewise, you're in my thoughts.

"
I wanted to offer you all hope. Keep sharing, keep journaling, crying, feeling it out, talking about it to anyone who feels safe. I can tell you, there is hope. The memories will never go away, but over time, the wounds will heal. Eventually the nightmares will cease and you will be able to breathe again.

"
What they did to you, what those creatures did to us, was unacceptable. We are not to blame for their monstrous behavior, any more than a child of an alcoholic is to blame for her mother's drunken rages. None of us deserved it." She stabbed the table with a finger to emphasize her point.

"
When you're feeling at your worst," she continued, "when the shadows seem to taunt you and call you names, when you doubt your visions and question your every action wondering if you could have prevented it, remember three things:

"
You are not alone.

"
They can't hurt you anymore.

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And it wasn't your fault."

By that time, everyone but Trey was in tears. Trey merely seemed overwhelmed, bewildered. They stood and held hands in a circle, repeating the words together, three times: "I am not alone, they can't hurt me anymore, it wasn't my fault."

Shelly stayed behind to talk to Gretel. Everyone else left. Trey lingered, and Jina approached him.

"
Well... what did you think? You were looking a little pale there for a minute."

"
You didn't tell me it was going to be like attending a funeral."

"
It isn't always this gloomy. But yeah, real support groups are never pretty."

"
Why did you tell them they can't be hurt anymore? And you said one of them might be following you... How do you even leave the house?"

Jina pulled something out of her pocket. She handed him an old-fashioned iron square nail on a black cord. It had been twisted around into a heart. "Wear this. You'll be resistant to their glamour. Faeries don't like real wrought iron, like they used to make. This whole house is warded. They can't get in the same way that fae girl got into our other meeting. It's a safe house."

She wondered if he would wear both necklaces now, or if he'd add this to the other one he wore.

"
We also hold workshops once a month," she continued, "where we share our combined knowledge of how to protect ourselves. How to ward a house, how to disbelieve them to prevent their magic from working, things like that. Just wear that and you'll be fine."

He put the roughly-made amulet on, over the other chain. He dropped the new one to join the old one under his shirt. "They don't seem to bother me, I guess. It's hard to accept the idea that there's a faerie lurking around every corner, waiting to nab the unsuspecting."

"
You've really never met an unseelie faerie?"

"
Unseelie... The bad ones?"

Jina nodded.

"
Sometimes I get this strange sense of... darkness around a faerie, and I get a feeling that they're dangerous. I avoid those. Sometimes I've been startled or creeped out, but nothing bad."

Jina put a hand on Trey's shoulder. "That one at the group made you think you'd been ridiculed. Don't minimize that experience."

Trey laughed, removing her hand and holding it in his own. "It wasn't a big deal."

"
Wasn't it? When I found you at the store, you were afraid to even speak to me."

"
I suppose, but that wasn't anything like... like any of these other stories."

"
There you go, minimizing again," she said. "You should talk about it. It helps."

Trey let go of her hand. "I really, really don't want to tell anyone again."

"
Consider this possibility: maybe the faerie did more than give you the illusion of ridicule. Is it possible she cast a spell to prevent you from ever talking about it? To isolate you from us?"

He looked away. "That's silly. I can talk about it whenever I want."

"
So tell me what you told us in the meeting last week."

"
I told you all... that..."

Jina folded her arms and raised an eyebrow.

"
I simply said... It's scary, I can't say it."

"
Yeah, see?" Jina smiled and turned away. "Hey, want a drink?" She walked to a doorway at the back of the parlor. Trey followed.

"
It feels like I've always been this scared..."

"
That's the point," Jina said. "She probably drew on your existing fears. Of being teased. Bullied."

They entered another large room, much like the last, with dark wood wainscoting. A crystal chandelier hung in the center. She went to the wet bar and started fiddling with the drink glasses and small fridge.

"
Pick your poison?"

"
Scotch."

"
That's what Sandy likes. Here, I think she prefers this one." Jina poured the caramel colored liquid over ice. She poured herself a glass of wine.

Trey raised his eyebrows at the bottle, impressed. "I've got a thirty-seven year old Scotch in my hand, and you've got two-buck-chuck, don't you?"

"
What else? Cheers."

They both took a sip, and Jina returned to the previous subject. "So now we know you've got some kind of a block, some kind of
geas
, I think. Like a compulsion. So time for a lesson. Here's how you break a faerie spell: Stop believing it."

"
What do you mean?"

"
It's not real. And things that are not real do not work. Think of a sentence that you want to say, the thing that the geas will not let you say, and then push through the fear and believe fully that you can say it. And I promise a thousand times that I will not laugh."

Trey stuttered and for a moment, looked genuinely afraid.

So Jina spoke instead. "I was kidnapped by an imp and tortured. I saw a book bleed, spiders crawl all over my body, and I was trapped inside a wall while hours passed. I watched my friend Sandy get married to the bastard against her will and I was unable to stop it. I endured witnessing every inconceivable horror before my eyes in order to save her. When we escaped, we'd lost six months in the outside world. That happened to me. I will not laugh at you, when you tell me again that you see faeries. Believe that, and then say it: 'I see faeries.'"

"
I...."

"
Believe it!" Jina shouted.

"
I... see... faeries."

Jina smiled. "Go on."

"
I see faeries." He smiled, then got serious. "Ever since... I was a kid, when ... I got in trouble for insinuating the pastor's wife looked like the devil. As I think about it, lots of times since. A few weeks ago, I saw one jump out of a dumpster." He smiled again. "It worked. I can talk about it again."

"
I always worry when I try that kind of spell. Sandy is better at breaking glamour. I'm better at casting it. It's easier for me to believe than it is to disbelieve."

"
How does that work?" He took a swig of his drink.

"
From what we can tell, faeries live off of fantasies. They may even be created that way. Faith, beliefs, creative energy, life force, those kinds of things, feed and fuel them. Their magic is also about belief - making people believe things that didn't used to be true, but now are... Most of their spells are illusion, trickery. They use illusion to create reality. For example, your illusion of fear, of the imagined taunting, created a new reality: you couldn't speak."

"'
As a man thinketh, so is he,'" Trey quoted.

"
Exactly. One of our books even says, 'Unseelie dreams make unseelie fae'. It kind of means the same thing."

"
Are you some kind of faerie expert?"

"
Sandy is the real expert. And Gretel, since she lived it. I guess I am, too, in a way."

"
And yet you acted surprised to hear me tell about one who did a good deed."

"
I've never actually met a kind faerie, which is why..." Time to reveal the next stage. She liked this part best - secrets were so hard to keep. She always felt better with each new person who knew.

She got very serious and looked him right in the eyes. "What I am about to tell you is very, very confidential. You must promise to never tell another soul. Not that they would believe you..."

"
As you can see, I don't make a habit of talking about these things."

"
Good." Jina reached down into her shirt and pulled out a necklace of her own.

The roughly-pressed iron pendant carried the symbol of Ordo Cruentus Ferrum Talea, which had that name written in Latin lettering around the edge. The circle contained a shield, over which was stamped a railroad spike from which dripped a single drop of blood. Behind this lay an open book.

Jina had always noticed that when viewed from this angle, upside down, it looked like a fairy with outstretched wings. She didn't know if that was intentional or not, and had never bothered to ask Sandy.

On the back was a magic sigil of protection against faeries, an amulet far stronger than the simple piece she'd given him.

"
Trey, we want you to join us. We're faerie hunters. That imp, Haun is still out there; who knows who he could be tormenting at this very moment. There are others like him. You heard the stories. We are trying to find the Hauns of the world and stop the harassment, the abductions, the rape, and the murders." Trey's eyes grew wide. "Yes, murders," she reiterated. "There's no doubt in my mind that Leland's brother is dead."

"
Why me?"

"
You're the first person we've met who can see them without tools or spells or any special effort."

Trey paused and stared at his drink for a while. "You want me to be your eyes? This is really sudden. Look, I weld metal into dragon shapes and light them on fire. This 'talent' of mine, it's only a small part of who I am. I don't have the time."

Jina made an executive decision and hoped it would be okay. "How much do you make at TJs? $10 an hour? $15?"

"
Closer to $10. It's not exactly a career."

The stipend Sandy paid her was more than that, assuming a forty hour work week, which was a little optimistic. She wouldn't let Sandy work Trey so hard.

"
That's where you'll get the time. Quit your day job. We can pay you more. You'd be inducted into all of our secrets, learn everything we know, learn how to protect yourself. It's kind of exciting sometimes. Though, maybe not as exciting as you might think."

Trey looked into his drink and swirled the ice around. He seemed to be considering it. She needed to make it sound sexier.

"
And what would I be doing?" he asked.

"
You'd help us find them. You have faesight, so you could let us know where they are. Secret Squirrel spy stuff."

"
And let's say, just for sake of argument, that I know someone is a faerie, and I happen to like them. If I rat them out, will you guys go all McCarthy on them? Destroy their lives, or maybe even exterminate them, without a fair trial?"

He had her stumped. This was an executive decision well outside her control and she didn't want to lie.

"
I... I can't say for sure. We've never actually caught a faeborn, a faerie in a human body. We've caught wisps, wee folk, and so on. Those are the short guys, the little brownies and such. And... yeah, sometimes we get a little ruthless with them. We've got one in the basement now. Ugliest little thing you've ever seen."