Sun through leaves, a soft breeze swaying high branches. I walked without fear through a blue-green forest. No vines lashed out, no thorns tore at my boots. The mossy earth felt soft beneath my feet. A small bird flew past with a twig in its mouth, building a nest amid the leaves. Those leaves were perfectly round, bright with afternoon light. Or maybe the light came from within the leaves. I couldn't tell—
A young man and a young woman walked through the forest, their fingers interlaced, a hawk riding on the man's shoulder. Caleb again, and with him—
I'd seen her before, but I hadn't known her until now. How could she and Caleb— He should have been younger then, but who knew how long the faerie folk lived? I reached for the woman's hand. “Mom.”
She drew back, turning to Caleb. “I don't understand,” she said. To Caleb, not to me.
“It is time for you to return to your own people, Tara. Past time.”
Mom shook her head. “No. There is nothing for me there. And if I return, my father will never let me out of his sight again.”
“This isn't even real,” Caleb said soberly. “This is past, this is memory. It cannot be undone.” He drew his fingers from hers. “You must go. Our commanders have met, Karinna among them. War draws near, to your land and to mine.”
Mom laughed, a joyless sound. “Most of my people don't even believe in your land. It's a ballad, a song, a story for children.”
“But some of those who do believe hold power in your world, including your father. Just as some of those who disdain to talk to your people hold power in mine. Anger catches on all sides, like fire to fallen wood. The time when words could quench it is past.”
Mom looked up as if to protest, but then Caleb bent and brushed his lips against hers. I wanted to cry out, to tell him to leave her alone—but there was longing in her eyes as he drew away. Caleb took something from beneath his shirt: a silver disk on a chain, the disk Mom had worn all my life. If it weren't so clearly metal, it could have been a leaf fallen from one of the trees. Mom reached for it, then drew back her hand.
“Take it,” Caleb said. “It's a gift to follow you from my world into yours.” He draped the chain around her neck. “The quia leaf beneath the plating is real enough.”
“I have little to offer in turn. I've always had less to offer.” Mom fumbled in her pockets, pulled out a disk of her own. “Here.”
Caleb turned it in his hands. An arch was inscribed on its surface, and a river, and words from Before. “I shall treasure it.”
Mom laughed, a brittle sound like the crackle of old plastic. “It's just a quarter. Worth next to nothing in my world.”
“I shall treasure it just the same.”
“It's not so simple, you know. My world, your world. You're the one who told me that our worlds are linked by more than the Arch. There's less place for me there than here.”
“There is no place for you here. I am sorry. If you still care for my world when the War is through, return then. The quia leaf will open the way to the land of its growth, even if none of my people are here to greet you. And should you choose not to return, still the leaf will protect you when you walk in dark forests.”
“This parting is your choice, Kaylen, not mine.” Mom's shoulders stiffened as she turned from him. “If you wish to see me again when this is through, come into my world and find me.”
Caleb shut his eyes as if in pain. “All may yet be well. Goodbye, Tara.”
Mom walked away, not crying, not looking back. I fell into step beside her and reached for her hand again. This time she let me take it. “Come on, Mom. We're going home.” Mom shuddered at the word, but she followed me through the cool forest. The sun above us grew brighter. I shut my eyes against it, and when I opened them again—
I knelt with Mom beside the lake. Flames danced beneath its surface. Sun burned against my face. Mom's hand fell limp, and the quarter rolled to the ground. I stared at her, remembering a young woman, a stranger.
She turned to me, her eyes dull as old coals. “You should have left me there,” she said.
I jerked as if slapped, even as Mom turned to the water once more.
I grabbed her arm, trying to pull her away. She fought me, and as she fought she started coughing, dry coughs that rasped through her chest like wind through old paper. I didn't care. I shook her harder. She'd run away; she'd left me; I wouldn't let her leave me. How could Mom abandon me for Faerie, for Caleb, for a stranger who wasn't even human? I felt hands trying to pull me away, but no one could make me let go. I began crying or screaming, I couldn't tell which. My chest and throat burned beneath the cursed Faerie sun.
As if in answer Rebecca cried out from where I'd set her down. Mom went limp in my arms. I went still, too. Only the wind blew on. “Rebecca?” Pain flashed through Mom's eyes like lightning. “No, you're Liza. Oh, God, Lizzy, I'm sorry, so sorry. I only sought a safe place for us all. I failed you….” She stumbled to her feet, and I helped her up, but then her legs gave way. I caught her and helped her back to the ground.
Matthew held a water bottle to her lips. I should have thought of that. I trembled like a leaf fighting wind. Per haps Mom only needed water or food.
Mom took a swallow, coughed up water and phlegm and little spatters of blood. She closed her eyes, whimpering like a child. Matthew glanced at me, looking as lost as I felt. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but no words came out. He held the water out again. Mom shoved it away. The bottle flew from Matthew's hands and spilled to the ground. Ash swallowed water, leaving dry earth behind.
Allie moved to Mom's side, hesitant as a cat near fire. She moved slow healer's hands over Mom's body, then jerked back as if burned. I knew by the look on her face that this was more than dehydration or hunger.
“Allie?” I said.
Her hands shook, and she wouldn't meet my eyes. She looked at Matthew instead.
“It's like something's coming unraveled inside her. I don't understand. I need more time, but if I touch her too long—if I try to heal her—I'll start unraveling, too.”
“Don't,” Matthew said at once. Beneath the sun his face was ashy pale.
“We can't lose her,” I said.
Allie's hands clenched and unclenched. “Don't ask me again, Liza. If you ask again, I won't be able to say no.”
I bit my lip, swallowing my words. Wind blew through my silence.
Allie stood and backed away. “There's more. What ever made her sick, I think it's still in the air here. I think if we stay too long, we'll get sick, too.”
I brushed the hair back from my mother's forehead. Her skin burned beneath my touch. “Mom,” I whispered. I wanted her to tell me everything would be all right, but she closed her eyes and said nothing.
In a small voice Allie asked, “How do we leave this place, Liza?”
There was no Arch here, no way out. There was only dust and heat and ashes.
Matthew looked down at Mom, then up at me, and I saw despair in his eyes. But he only said, “Through the lake again, right?”
I nearly asked what he meant, but then I remembered my vision of Caleb stepping into burning water. I thought about how the water hadn't burned or drowned him. He hadn't died, not unless it was the future I'd seen.
I ran a hand through my hair. It was stiff—wind and heat had dried the water in it. I remembered the water on my jacket and on Tallow's fur. Of course we'd come through the lake. We had to step into this world from somewhere. Lost in the visions that had brought us here, I hadn't seen—but the way through had two sides. The Arch in my world. The lake in this one.