Calandra downs the rest of her drink as she listens. Jarreth takes the cup from her. “I’ll be right back,” he assures her before he leaves the room.
Calandra looks around the room and tries to remember the way she felt before she found the picture. She realizes that Drake is standing in the doorway with his arms crossed, listening to the story as well. Surely he knows the story, so why he’s so interested in listening makes Calandra wonder. Maybe there’s something he wants to be sure Jarreth doesn’t disclose. That thought sets her nerves on fire, but Calandra knows how much Jarreth hates Drake, surely he wouldn’t be keeping any secrets for him. Jarreth returns with a new drink and hands it to her.
“I still don’t understand how all of this makes any sense. The story you’re giving me has nothing to do with my mother,” she tells Jarreth, pulling herself away from her thoughts.
“I’m getting to that. After Oberen’s fall, the will of the leadership of the world was left hanging in the balance. There were other rulers that came out, most of them did nothing but make matters worse than they already were. The world was off balance, things were getting out of hand, and we needed a solution. Echo never returned to our world, she stayed in the mortal world and decided to live the rest of her life as a mortal. Faeries eventually will lose their power and magic if they stay in the mortal world, they need to draw from Faerie in order to stay strong. Echo gave birth and decided not to tell anyone about her Faerie background. It was at this point that a prophecy was made, a prophecy that someone would be born that would have the ability to put the world back in place. Since the prophecy came shortly after your grandmother was born, it was assumed that she was the one that was predicted. She never came to Faerie, even after discovering its existence. She did, however, give birth to a daughter before she passed. Your mother, Hollyn.”
“And she was supposed to be the one?” Calandra asks.
“Honestly, we’re not really sure, Cal. Everyone of course thought so, including your mother. She took to the prospect of the task willingly and seemed to enjoy her time here and be right at home.” Jarreth touches her shoulder where her dragonfly signifies her destiny. “But then she suddenly left, and it didn’t seem to make any sense.”
“Like any of this does.” Calandra rolls her eyes.
Jarreth looks away from her and pulls his hand off her shoulder. There’s a look on his face that is somewhere between ashamed and embarrassed, and Calandra can’t make any sense of it. She runs through everything he’s just told her again in her head. She sees images in her mind as she goes through the gory details of the lies that have made up her life. Suddenly, a few details click into place and bring on an even more disturbing realization.
“So, why did she leave? How much of this does my father know?” The words taste acidic as they leave her mouth.
Jarreth doesn’t look up at her. Calandra gulps down the last half of her drink at once, trying to get the thoughts out of her head. Jarreth grabs the cup from her and returns to the kitchen without saying a word.
Calandra has never exactly had a good relationship with her father, things have always been complicated between the two of them, but never in a million years would she have guessed that their situation existed on this magnitude of complications. Calandra is convinced that her heart isn’t beating anymore; it can’t be after the shock of this revelation.
Lost in her thoughts, Calandra doesn’t even hear him enter the room. She has no clue he’s there until he is sitting next to her. “What’s wrong, Cali?” Tristan asks, his voice laced with concern.
Why he would care after the experience they had earlier is beyond her, but his concern is the final straw that breaks her down. Tears flow from her eyes and she leans into him, not caring whether he wants her to or not. Tristan wraps his arms around her and pulls the picture frame out of her hand.
“Is that your mom?” he asks, confused.
Calandra nods in agreement without lifting her head from his shoulder. “Everything, my entire life, has been a lie.” She knows it can’t make any sense or come anywhere close to explaining everything, but it’s the only words she can manage to form at the moment.
A cup slams on the table and liquid splashes everywhere. Calandra pulls herself away from Tristan and looks up to see Jarreth standing at the table across from them. His face and eyes are red, and his entire body is stiff as a board. An image of a cartoon character with steam coming out of their ears pops into Calandra’s mind.
Incoherent words start to fly between Tristan and Jarreth, and Calandra can’t even make out who’s speaking anymore. Names are shooting out everywhere and she knows before long the fists will probably start coming out as well. Nothing is clear in her head as she watches the scene unfold in front of her. She feels like one of the characters from Peanuts when their parents talk to them, all she can hear is jumbled up nonsense. Everything is too much, she can’t even begin to figure out how to deal with this on top of what she’s just learned. She finds it hard to believe the guys don’t have enough respect for her to behave for just a few moments after everything she’s been through.
Calandra feels her breathing go off balance and her ears feel like she’s underwater. There’s some sort of pressure building inside of her. She can feel it about to boil over, but she’s incapable of stopping it. Once it finally hits the top, everything goes silent. Calandra pulls herself to the present scene and looks up, wondering what has made them stop. The air gets caught in her throat when she sees what’s in front of her.
They are frozen in time it seems. Tristan stands on one side of the table, right next to the couch with his arms in the air, one of them is balled up into a fist. Jarreth is just on the other side of the table, his eyes still red and his entire body tensed up. The cup that she assumes was full of her new tea when it arrived, before Jarreth slammed it onto the table, sits on the table. The top third of the liquid is no longer in it and there is broken glass scattered around it. No one is moving, not even to breathe. Time is somehow standing still.
Calandra reaches over and picks up the cup from the table, sloshing the liquid around before she carefully pours some into her mouth. She continues to look around the room and notices Drake isn’t standing in the doorframe like he was the last time she’d seen him. Before she has time to wonder where he went, she feels words on her ear.
“Well, well, discovered a new power have we?” Drake is beyond close to her. He places his arms right up against her legs as he leans into her.
She automatically leans away from him and looks at him, confused.
Is that what this is?
she wonders. “Did I make this happen?” she asks.
A devious smile comes over him and he finally stands up to give Calandra some room. “That you did.” He is looking at the frozen scene in front of him with a disturbingly pleased look on his face. “Stopping time is a wonderful gift that many would kill for,” he says finally.
“Wait!” Calandra puts the glass back on the table. “If I’ve frozen time, then why aren’t you frozen?” she asks.
Drake laughs menacingly. “This is one of my powers as well, dear, which leaves me unaffected by it, as you are.”
Oh great
, she thinks. A power that could be somewhat useful, and it’s ineffective on the one person she’d like to be able to freeze. This day just keeps on getting better, doesn’t it? Without saying a word, Calandra heads for the door. She needs to get away, she needs peace, she needs the Field of Innocence. Her body is literally aching for it. Just as she reaches for the doorknob, Drake is right next to her again.
How did he get here so fast?
she wonders.
“Just so you know, I can undo this of course, as can you. But I wouldn’t tell Jarreth of your new discovery if I were you.”
Calandra almost asks why, but thinks it would probably be useless and decides against it.
“Do feel welcome back anytime.” Drake runs a finger down her jaw leaving a cold, chilling sensation behind.
And with that, Calandra opens the door and runs out, directly to the Field of Innocence in hopes of finding some sort of comfort there.
Only Tempts
The wind spins around her, awakening every sense and nerve in her body. She feels alive, on fire, whole. Connecting with the tree in the field the way she had the first time she’d come to draw comfort from it could quickly become her favorite thing to do. Something about it makes her feel right, not to mention much more powerful, which is a feeling she is really beginning to like. The rustle of the leaves fill the air with noise as well as a lovely scent that reminds her of autumn, which conveniently happens to be her favorite season. The power that she received after she was marked with the dragonfly feels so intense that she feels as if she might explode at any moment.
“And what makes you think I want you here?” she asks without removing her hand from the tree or opening her eyes. How she knew it was Drake approaching without seeing him she was unsure of. Something about the scent in the air changed—it smelled musty with a hint of cedar—and somehow she knew that meant Drake was behind her.
“What makes you think I had your best interests in mind when I decided to show up?” he asks deviously. “Having fun toying with your powers, are we?”
Calandra scoffs and knows she won’t be able to keep her concentration up with Drake irritating her. She moves away from the tree and turns to face him. “I’m not toying with anything,” she says, looking back to the tree and instantly missing the intensity her power had when she was connecting with it.
“You have no clue what you’re doing.”
Like that wasn’t obvious. Calandra is more than aware that she knows nothing of her powers and Jarreth is no help with it. Every time she brings up wanting to work on them, he just changes the subject. Tristan, of course, wants nothing to do with any of it. She knows that surely she has some abilities she hasn’t used or discovered yet. She can feel in her bones that there has to be more there that isn’t being touched. She has a desire to tap into them and discover what she can do. A desire that Jarreth apparently wants to remain hidden and Tristan wants to pretend doesn’t exist at all.
“Where’s Jarreth?” Calandra asks, wondering why he’s not the one that came after her. Was he really that mad that she had challenged him for once.
Drake rolls his eyes. “He figured you could use some time alone.”
“So that’s why you’re here?”
“I didn’t agree with him. Plus, I wanted to take advantage of some time with you without Jarreth around for once.” Drake arches an eyebrow, which turns his statement into some sort of a dare.
Calandra rolls her eyes.
“Don’t get an attitude, Calandra, I can help you.” His smile turns dangerous and sends a cold shiver through her.
“Help me with what exactly?”
Calandra didn’t realize he had moved, but he is suddenly right next to her. His words touch her skin before she hears them. “With your powers,” he whispers. “I know you want to figure them out and I’m willing to bet Jarreth doesn’t want to show you how.”
As soon as he says it, there are multiple small faeries flying into the field. They are all blue, purple, green, or pink, and they are glowing. There is a ring of light matching their color surrounding them. They aren’t much larger than a dragonfly. They have long, flowing hair and sunken in eyes. Calandra watches in amazement as they aimlessly grace the field in flight and the fluttering of their wings fills the air.
“Sprites,” Drake whispers into her ear again. “Here for … demonstration purposes.” Before Calandra can question it, Drake starts in on another explanation. “Do it again.”
“What?” she asks, and wonders why she sounds so breathless.
“Stop time, like you did earlier.”
“I’d have to know how I did it in order for that to work,” she scoffs.
“Focus!”
“On what exactly?”
“Your surroundings,” he responds, “listen to it, listen to nature. Use that power, like you were doing when I got here. But this time, channel it and make it do what you want it to.”
Calandra closes her eyes and focuses on the field around her. She hears the leaves rustle in the soft breeze that blows around them. She takes in the forest smell. The wood scent is mixed with musk and cedar now that Drake is here. The soft flutter of sprite wings surrounds them. She lets the sounds and the smells fill her and allows the peace and comfort of the beauty of nature to take control of her. She feels the sparks of power start to fill her, and it leaves her with a desire to do something with it. Now she just has to figure out how to.
Focus
, she tells herself. She takes a deep breath and centers herself into the power that fills her. Without any control of it, her arm lifts slightly in the air and she feels the power pulse through and out of it.
Drake sucks in a breath of air, which lets Calandra know she’s done it before she opens her eyes to verify. Sure enough, the sounds have stopped; the field is completely still and silent. Too silent, it’s an eerie ‘send chills straight to your soul’ kind of quiet. The sprites are all frozen in the air, their wings have stopped mid-flight. Calandra gasps at the sight. Something deep down tells her to feel mortified at what she’s done. These are creatures; living, breathing beings, that are now stilled in mid-air, because of her. Surely this is a new low for her. But in actuality, all she feels is powerful. A new sense of accomplishment spreads over her.
“There now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” His voice is still in her ear, tickling her skin.
She nods, finding herself somehow unable to speak and more than slightly short of breath. Before she can object, she feels his hands on her shoulders. A chill goes through her. “Now I want you to try something else,” he explains. “Close your eyes and picture a storm.”
Calandra opens her mouth to ask a question, but he shushes her before anything comes out.
“Just focus.” Drake’s hands begin to move back and forth on her shoulders. She feels power radiating off of him and seeping into her. “Picture a storm, thunder and lightning. Hear it in your mind, pull from the power in you, and focus.”
Calandra takes another deep, calming breath. She pictures a thunderstorm in her mind. She imagines storm clouds rolling into the field and bringing the sounds of nature’s fury with it. She envisions lightning accompanying the rolling thunder. The smell of rain reassures her that she is using the power the way she’s been instructed to do so.
“The thunder rolls.” She feels and hears Drake’s words in her ear. She opens her eyes and sees that everything she’s been envisioning surrounds them. The field is dark with gray storm clouds. The visual she had in her head has been replicated here in real life. The thunder softly booms around them and shortly after it, lightning rolls under the clouds above.
A sense of accomplishment washes over her in knowing that she made this happen. She controlled nature and made it do what she desired. Her heart is racing along with the feeling coursing through her from the chill Drake has started in her. The blending of sensations sends her on a whole new sense of Euphoria.
“Euphoria,” she says without meaning to. Calandra closes her eyes, relishing in all the new sensations that are coursing through her.
Guilt courses through her as the reality of what she’s done settles on her. She wonders what came over her exactly and why she allowed herself to take advantage of the Sprites all so she could get a tiny moment of accomplishment. “I shouldn’t have done that,” she whispers.
“Ah ah ah!” Drake scolds her. “Evil never judges, Calandra, it only tempts. Don’t let yourself overthink it. Just relish in the joy of it all.”
She opens her eyes and isn’t entirely surprised to find Drake has disappeared altogether. She wills time to move again and the sprites all shoot her an evil glance, call her names, and dart away angrily. The storm clouds slowly roll away and take the sounds of nature’s accusing fury with them. Calandra lies down in the grass, spreads her legs out, and covers her face with her arms to hide her eyes from the beauty around her that she doesn’t deserve at the moment.