Sylvanlight, Book I by slflew

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Chapter 4. Unseelie.

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Chapter 4.

 Be fleet of foot, O fair Hunted One
From the dark of shadow, across the clear sun...
Take flight from life's bane, to the land of the Dream.
Come to the Sidhe-mound under the hill,
Come to the Country ruled by my will. - from The Wyrd of the White Lady

 

Gwen awoke, blurry-eyed, to blazing sunlight. She got up, and when she swung her feet down she noticed their soiled hems, and the dirt on her feet. Immediately she remembered the events of the night before.

 

"Good morning, sleepyhead! You sure slept late!" her mother called, but Gwen ignored her and headed straight outside, through the screen door, which jangled and slapped against the cabin, out into the late morning air. Bugs flitted to and fro in the shafts of sunlight, and she ran quickly to the shore, down the embankment, and onto the dock. She gazed out over the churning waves, the wind sighing through the trees behind her, and looked at the island. There were no boats in sight, and the trees of the island looked like ordinary trees.

 

Her mother leaned out of the door and called out to her, "I kept some bacon warm for you!" and Gwen turned reluctantly towards her mother's voice. Had it all been a dream? It was so realistic... she reached the end of the dock, remembering the elf who had stood there the night before. Then she followed the smell of bacon.

 

That afternoon, she felt particularly lazy (and still a bit tired), and even though there was a stiff breeze, there was still a fair amount of sun, so, catlike, she stretched out on the dock to soak up its warmth. The orange glow of the sun through her eyelids was suddenly eclipsed. She opened them sleepily to find her brother standing beside her with his notebook. He sat down on the old wood, which was crusted with lichen, and turned to her. "Will you listen to this?" he asked, and commenced reading. Gwen rolled her eyes and closed them, receding into her thoughts.

 

She came to with her brother's annoyed voice saying "You didn't hear a word I just said, did you?"

 

She smiled at him. "How could you tell?"

 

"Well, I did just say I was going to cut my hair into a mohawk and dye it pink."

 

"Ah. Would you really do that?"

 

John shrugged. "Creative license." He looked up at the sky. "A storm's blowing in." Indeed it was. The wind had died down to nothing, leaving the air still and stagnant. There was no birdsong - everything was waiting in fearful anticipation. Then came the first distant rumble, the bass resounding in the empty caverns above their navels. There is nothing on earth that compares to the frightening expectation of a storm - the baited breath, the tingle on the skin, the pounding of the heart, the ripe smell of the air, the distant roar with the power to pulverize your bones. Your mortality becomes pressing, as when someone lays cold steel across your neck.

 

As the first strike of lightning streamed across the sky and the wind lashed at them, the rain slapping them in the face, they ran for the safety of the cabin and waited with baited breath for the darkness to pass. Alicia came up beside Gwen to watch the rain slap against the windows. Gwen knew this was difficult for her - Alicia was very afraid of thunderstorms, particularly during the nighttime. As a younger child, she had hidden asked to sleep with Gwen on those nights, huddling up against her in fear. Gwen eyed her closely as a clap of thunder made her jump. Gwen put her arm around her sister, but Alicia drew away. "I'm not a little kid anymore!" she snapped and walked away. Gwen pursed her lips and looked back outside.

 

After the sun once again came out and filtered through the trees, she went for another walk through the woods. She noticed how the sunlight caught the raindrops on the trees, covering them in stars. Then she tripped on a rock and landed hard on the ground. Frustrated, she sighed heavily and got up, brushing the dirt and pine needles off her clothes, continuing on, still adamant on finishing her walk. Along the way, she looked down at her feet more often, fearing tripping on another rock or an exposed root.

 

On the way back to the cabin, she came to a golden line that crossed her path. It glowed, taking in the sunshine and letting it out along its length, even through the dark woods. "What are you?" she murmured, reaching down and touching it. It was as insubstantial as the sunlight itself, her fingers tingling as if they were near a static charge. Suddenly, there was a sigh that seemed to come from the woods themselves, and her hand jerked back as the line underneath her fingers shifted and moved, rippling forward to about three feet in front of her. Gwen studied the phenomenon, knowing in her bones - especially after last night - that it was fey, and that, somehow, it was important. So many questions unanswered. Where did the Fair Folk come from? How did they fit into the structure of God's universe? What had Finrod done to deserve his form?

 

As the sun set, she made her way back to the cabin. She readied herself for bed, and, after a moment of hesitation, picked up her sneakers and put them by the bed. Then she went into the darkened kitchen, opened the refrigerator door, and poured a saucer of milk, setting it out on the porch.

 

That night, lying alone in the darkness, she couldn't get images from the night before out of her head. Fairy-struck, indeed. As she slowly drifted off to sleep, she was innocently unaware that the line, the golden fey-line, shifted past the cabin and beyond the lake.

 

She was awakened by the frantic cries of the loons - shrill and harsh, the way they did when an eagle got too close for their comfort. She slipped her shoes on and walked outside, but the night was not like the one previous - the lake, instead of reflecting the stars, was now turbulent and wild. The slender sickle of the moon barely gave enough light to see the black and churning waves, which terrified her, along with the roar of the wind. She had never seen the lake as wild as this, although her father once had.

 

When her father was much younger and she was but a glint in her mother's eye, he had gone fishing on the lake in the morning, like he usually did. Suddenly and unexpectedly, a wild wind blew up on the lake, creating large waves that nearly capsized the boat, and as he rowed along, he prayed fervently to get to any shore. Her mother was literally sick from worry, but nevertheless, he made it home through eight-foot waves. Gwen had always assumed that he had exaggerated, but now she began to believe him.

 

Then she heard the music - haunting, hanging eerily over the sounds of the winds and waves. It came from the forest, and she followed its call, stumbling through the dark forest until she came to a clearing. What immediately caught her attention was the ‘king' who was sitting on a throne of twisted dead branches, white and stripped of their bark by the harsh elements. Flanking him were elf-maidens dressed in white, so that in the bleak light they looked more specter than fey. There were other elves there too, but in the darkness she could only make out writhing dark shapes amidst the thrashing trees and haunting tune.

 

Fear twisted her stomach, worse than the onset of the thunderstorm because, unlike the storm, these beings could touch her, harm her. Then the king turned his face towards her, and she noticed instantly with bile rising in her throat, that he wore a mask - a silver cherubic face with nothing but darkness where the eyes should be. He laughed, a clear sparkling laugh, with the elf-maidens joining in, a chorus of cruelty. Then he gestured, and the hornpipes and drums picked up their pace, the maidens rushing towards Gwen and taking her hands in their cold fingers. As they came close, she noticed shrouds about them, thin as though a wedding veil still clung to them. She couldn't help tapping her feet to the rhythm and the maidens took her and they were off, dancing to the wild beat. She heard the maiden's voices in her head -

            Come and join us, and dance for eternity, for to dance is to live.

            Music for a while shall all your cares beguile.

            We can give you fey-life, for we were once mortal.

            Come and dance for eternal life unending.

            Join the Elf-King...

            Cold be heart and hand and bone,

cold be heart and hand and bone....

and she turned, looking at the horrid angelic mask, wanting to run away. She couldn't - her feet were too far along in the dance, moving of their own will. She was exhausted, ready for a drink, wanting to lie down on the moss and sleep forever, but she couldn't stop dancing.

 

Strange thoughts go through a person's mind when they are in peril. Instead of thinking about her imminent danger, her mind kept racing back to the story of the Red Shoes, ones that an angel gave a girl to punish her for her vanity. Once she put them on, she couldn't stop dancing for years, even in sleep, nor could she take them off. Finally someone took pity on her and cut off her feet, and the feet in the Red Shoes are said to still be dancing, somewhere. Tears of fear and exhaustion fell from Gwen's face. Would she too have to cut off her feet?

 

The drums beat through her body like cruel blows, and her heart was thumping in her chest so hard that she thought it might give out. Gasping for breath with every step, legs and arms feeling more wooden, more heavy, the voices of the maidens screeching through her mind. Then Gwen screamed with all the breath in her lungs, all the fear in her body wanting desperately for anybody to answer, to save her from agony in the darkness, but she knew no one could hear.

 

She cried out to God, too broken to pray. One moment she was cursing the Fair Folk around her, the next begging them to run her through and lay her in eternal sleep under the ground, or at least to give her a drop of water. They asked her to join them, and she wept, No! No! for even in unbearable pain Gwen could be stubborn to the last. Her knees buckled, her body crashed to the ground (though why she could stop now she didn't know - her feet were still moving to the dance.) and they merely laughed. She knew that by stopping she was giving in to their will, to join them for eternity as they produced a fine white veil, laying it over her, laughing as she tore at the white cloth. It tightened and clung to her, choking her and binding the cold chill of death into her bones. Then, in the face of death, even in complete exhaustion, even bound by the shroud, she managed to get her heavy legs underneath herself and struggled to stand. As she did so, their laughter died, and looking at the sky filled with clouds, Gwen saw that they thinned, a star just barely shining through. So, wrapped in a burial shroud, she stood on shaky legs before the Elf King. "No," she said, trembling.

 

He laughed again, now at her audacity, then walked up to her, leaning towards her and whispering in her ear. "No doubt you would like a drink," he murmured and offered her his chalice. She shook her head and he threw it aside in anger, screeching to the crowd, "Give her a drink, then!" They picked her up, howling in glee, and carried through the dark trees. Even though she was afraid, her body was glad of the short rest before they threw her down on the ground.

 

She stared up at the Elf-King, wiggling a little to achieve more stability on the ground, and her legs flew out over nothingness. Scrabbling with her body, she managed not to fall, but the knot in her gut squeezed even tighter, because she knew exactly where she was.

 

The waves were smashing far below her, not whispering on the shore, but crashing against rock. It was called, according to local legend, "Maiden's Drop," a deadly cliff fifty feet in height, so named because over the course of a hundred years sixteen girls' bodies had been found floating in the bay of the island opposite. It was assumed that they had committed suicide, but now she knew otherwise.

 

The Elf-King laughed once more at the pure terror in her eyes, and with one foot pushed her off the edge. Her reflexes instantly kicked in - she twisted around, her arms ripping through the shroud, grabbing on to the first thing she could, which happened to be the booted ankle of the Elf King. He shook his head - "What a waste," he murmured, and then he lifted his foot and stamped it one the ground. Her fingers lost their grip, and then she was falling, struggling to get her legs free of the shroud.

 

She had felt a similar sensation only once before, when she was twelve and, for swimming lessons, her instructor had blindfolded the students and had them jump off the high dive. She had stood on the high dive for five minutes before she worked up the courage to step into empty space. Now it felt the same, falling in the darkness, unaware of when the water would rush around her, not knowing if she would resurface. In those few seconds, when you're gasping for breath in fear and hope, every breath like eternity as your mind races before your doom. She was fortunate to have had such an experience previous, so that she knew to hold her body rigid before she hit the water.

 

A rush of bubbles, the crash of waves, the pounding of the heart, and the frigidly cold water surrounded her. She sank for an eternity, not knowing which way was up, holding out her arms to slow her descent, then swimming away from the perilous current near the cliff. She surfaced amidst rolling waves and the sound of the wind, shivering and gasping for breath.

 

Instead of heading for the island, she decided to swim parallel to the cliff until the land leveled out and there would be a camp. Easy, if not for the waves, potential hypothermia, and her exhaustion from dancing. She began to side stroke parallel to the waves, when something caught her foot and pulled her under.

 

I knew it wouldn't be that easy, she thought as she went down and down, flailing, fearful, clutching at her ankle until she felt the cold fingers around them. Another hand clutched at her wrist, still pulling her down, the lake-weeds brushing her face and knotting themselves into her hair. Her body screamed for air, her mouth opening involuntarily and sucking in water. Black spots danced at the edge of her vision, but she had not come this far to die now. She would not be one of the corpses they found floating in the water, fair maidens with their hair swirling around their white faces and their brows crowned with lake grass, Ophelias drifting in their white nightgowns.

 

And so her tired body renewed its struggles, jerking free of the weeds, free of the hands as she clawed her way out of the depths. She broke the surface, coughing out water and gasping for air, then, as she had no strength to swim, she floated on the dying waves. The wind's roar had died to a whisper, and the first pale fingers of sunrise were creeping over the treetops. The small waves pushed her to the rocky shore, and, safe at last, Gwen's body gave out and she lost consciousness.

 

 "Camp calls" are an emergency unit's worst nightmare. Such calls usually mean a long ride into the middle of nowhere, onto bumpy dirt roads, facing bad accidents that get worse due to the length of time it takes to get there. This call - made by a frantic and frightened family of campers, was little different. When they had found a body that was facing downward on the shore, they had feared the worst, but the girl was breathing shallowly and she was badly bruised. After a doctor had examined the girl, they began to treat her for hypothermia and internal bleeding. The nurses clicked their tongues and shook their heads - the girl had been frantically reported missing by her family - what had she been thinking?

 

Her family came and stood by her side, holding her hand through an arduous recovery. They stayed at a hotel nearby; the nurses reported her restless cries and tremblings at night. Though none of the receptionists noted a young man in a sweater and bright red hair walk into the ward, down the hallway, into her room. They did not see the pale hand gently stroke her forehead and the way Gwen's body relaxed in her sleep, now a sleep untroubled by night mares, a healing sleep. They did not see him as he walked once more into the sunlight.

 

Gwen woke up with a jolt, thankful that her eyes opened up to the comfort of her room instead of the pale sterility of a hospital. It had now been six weeks since that fateful night. She had gone through some physical therapy in order for her muscles to accept walking again, and even more mental therapy while people asked her questions she didn't want to answer. Are you suicidal? Were you assaulted? Did you run away? Do you like to cut yourself?

 

The answers she gave were crazy enough that even the real truth sounded better. I was sleepwalking, woke up, wandered around, and fell into the water. They still gave her suspicious glances. Her parents watched her closely out of concern - they immediately noted her fear of returning to the lake, but, more subtly, her mother noticed how Gwen got rid of her white sheets, refused to wear white or red, and no longer went to the pool with her friends.

 

For Gwen, her fear of what had happened was tempered by the glory of what she had seen before. At church, her worship was evermore fervent and thankful, because she had been near death and found strength. And so she lay in her bed, contemplating the sunshine.

 

Later that morning, a knock came at the door. Her mother opened the door to a red-haired young man with a crooked smile who said he was a friend of Gwen's, and so, assuming that he was from her school, she let him in. Finrod bobbed his head when he saw her, and she shook her head, astonished. "How did you ever..." He interrupted. "I came to see how you were doing."

 

 "How I'm doing? You know what happened?"

 

His eyes glinted. "Of course." He took her elbow and guided her outside for a bit more privacy. As soon as they were both out, she blurted, "Why?"

 

"Why? What kind of question is that?" he laughed.

 

She bridled. "Well, it's pretty encompassing."

 

He kicked aside a twig. "I'd assume your first ‘why' question would be about the differences between the two courts." Gwen nodded. "Our numbers, when we first came to this world..." She raised an eyebrow. "Later. When we arrived, our numbers were divided in two. Your people decided to call us the Seelie and Unseelie courts."

 

She gasped. "I know that - I remember it now. But which one's the good one?"

 

 "Like many things, it's not definitively ‘good.' The Seelie court has traditionally been friendlier towards humans, while the Unseelie court has traditionally had animosity towards them. However, many of the Seelie court look down on humans, and see them as beneath them."

 

 "Like that guy that called me the Only?"

 

He winced. "Only is a slang term." He fell silent. Gwen tilted her head quizzically. "For what, exactly?" she asked.

 

 "Ownling," he spat with distaste. "Don't ask, please. I don't like to talk about it."

 

Sensing Finrod's discomfort, Gwen decided not to press the matter, since he was giving her some answers. She thought carefully. "I saw a golden line one day. It seemed - "

 

 "Yes. It's amazing that you saw it. That's the literal boundary between the territories of the two courts. We've been fighting one another for a long time. The boundary line shifts as our territory shifts. Six weeks ago, after a struggle, the Unseelie court managed to take control of your area. We have since taken it back."

 

"Is my house here in Seelie court lines?"

 

 "Yes." He stopped and picked a daisy, twirling it between his fingers.

 

 "What were you saying earlier, about coming to this world?"

 

"Ah. Well, God didn't create us....on this world."

 

"That makes sense...none of your kind have been mentioned in the Bible."

 

 "Indeed. Our world is called Arda. It's run by the Valar, who are....powerful beings. A group of us, about ninety in all, set sail for the island of Numenor. Most importantly, there were about twenty Numenoreans on board. Before we were even close to arriving, the crew noticed something different - a change in the wind, if you will, or a smell in the air. Before we knew it, we happened upon a green isle, which turned out to be Britain."

 

 "What had happened?"

 

 "Well, we've had a long time to figure that out. Our best guess so far is that we went through a...hole in the universe. It is theoretically possible that such an anomaly could occur."

 

"Like a wormhole?" She asked, recalling books she had read by Stephen Hawking.

 

"No," he said patiently. "A wormhole is like a road from one point to another. This hole, or rip, or tear, is like taking that point in linear space and bending the world. Sometimes, in our tangled universe, a hole is accidentally created, so that a person could step through with spectacular ease. There's no time travel - the two points exist simultaneously in the same place. It's like sweater lying in a heap on the floor, rumpled. There are places that touch, and, if there's a hole in the fabric, an ant could crawl through to a completely different point."

 

"You sound like quite an expert on this matter."

 

"Well - I've actually done research with professors, and I've actually gone through some, visiting other places -"

 

Gwen's eyes widened. "Holes!" She blurted, and turned, running back to the house.

 

"Wha - " Finrod took off after her. "Humans!" he muttered under his breath. Gwen tore through the house to her room, pulling out drawers and boxes from her closet, until she came to the one she was looking for. Finrod arrived in her doorway, and watched her pull out of tissue paper a large silver object.