Tragic Things Lively by avadel 

The Storm That Came

"What's this?" I say, reaching for Leif's necklace of twined rope.

He bats my hand away, hiding a smile. "Didn't your granddad ever teach you not to distract the driver?"

"Hmph." Grinning, I lean back into the seat and stare at the moonlit road. "Well, Sir Driver, would it be too distracting if I rolled my window down?"

"Not at all, milady." A roguish half-smile dances at the corner of his mouth.

I hold my hand out into the cool spring night, the wind whispering past my fingers. It's quiet, pale nights like this, with the old forest rushing past and the stars shining above, that make me want to believe all the things Leif says. "Where are we going anyway?"

"Not far."

Always so oblique. "I know that, silly. We never do." I turn to him, trying to disguise the bit of regret with a teasing smile. "Your hunting grounds might well run off if you ever left."

A muscle in his sharp jaw twitches. "Trapping, love," he reminds, voice edged. He turns onto a small trail deeper in the forest, then sighs. "And I am sorry about the concert. Hopefully I can make up for it."

A Celtic group is playing tonight in the town over from Starfeld. I bought tickets for both of us, excited for a night of the lore and language we both love. Acts like this don't come to the backhills of Arkansas all that often, and I thought he'd be pleased. But thirty minutes away might have been Ireland itself with Leif.

"I already told you it was fine." Anywhere on a Friday night is better than that shack of a cabin the Langleys expect me and Granddad to live in. I smile softly at Leif, and he sighs, reaching out to brush a lock of my white-blonde hair.

"And I already told you I know when you're lying."

"I thought you said your 'powers' don't work on me." I tip my head up in faux-arrogance, and the smile that's been ghosting his lips finally comes to full life. I grin, pleased to have teased it out of him.

"I said I don't use them on you, milady. Now that's a length different."

Despite his smile, chills run through me. We've teased about him being fae since the first day we met—me under a tree in the Langely's garden, reading a book of theirs on European legends, him peering over the top of the tome. "You know I'm in there," he said.

"Oh?" I laughed. "Are you?"

He nodded seriously, but his sea-green eyes danced like waves. "You'll keep my secret, won't you?"

And before I knew his name, I found myself making him a promise. "Until the stars die."

With the crisp night air rolling through the car, though, the familiar game suddenly feels less like pretend. I roll my window up.

The gravel crunches beneath the tires as Leif parks. My hand settles on his shoulder, and he looks at me quizzically.

"What is that necklace?"

He raises one brow. "I believe you already identified the object in question." He starts to get out of the car, a joke on his mouth, but I stop him.

"I mean, you always wear it. It must mean something to you." Despite my surety, the two intertwined cords stare back at me blankly.

"Careful there, love." He clicks his tongue. "The humans might think you've developed some mind-reading skills yourself.

"Leif." I catch his cheek in my hand. His cool skin sends shivers through me, but I hold his gaze. There's something in the moonlight that makes his eyes look older than his face, like the ancient depths of the ocean hiding beneath the sea-green surface.

His hand folds over mine, eyes dropping down. "We're one and a pair, you and I, aren't we?" His thumb traces my knuckles. "Landlocked fools searching for sea and sky in one another."

My breath catches. "Don't talk like that."

His eyes lift to mine. "Like what?"

"Like—like it's the end. Like the world is ending because we'll graduate soon. Like we don't have a plan, and the world's just this unknown"—my hand gestures erratically—"void."

"Hush." His other hand finds my cheek, draws me closer over the console. "Hush." His soft words soothe me, and I lean into his palm. "I know you have plans, Erin." His breath is warm on my skin. "And I'll be a part of them for as long as the stars shine."

He draws back, and I look up, strangely disquieted. "And when the daylight com—"

He puts a finger to his lips and slips out of the car.

The forest rises around us, trees so old they deserve to have names. Leif leads me to a small clearing with a sturdy log, a violin leaned against it. Shocked, I hurry to sit near it, fingers tracing the air above the strings. "You never told me you played."

His ghost smile haunts his lips. "You never asked."

A crack rings through the forest, and he looks around sharply. The whip-poor-wills resume their songs, though, and Leif relaxes to settle beside me. Picking up the bow, he asks, "What would milady like to hear?"

I draw my arms over myself. "What was that, Leif?"

He shrugs and shakes his head. "Probably the Langleys' dog, out roaming the woods. We're not far from the property." I tilt my head, unconvinced, and his expression turns earnest. "You're safe. I promise."

I bite my lip. "Something from your home, then."

His lips twist in surprise, but he nods tightly. Drawing one long, sad note from the violin, he opens his mouth and sings.

"Two brothers, on the sand

In youth, linked hand in hand

Yet the storm broke them asunder

And the waves yet drove them under

"Oh, the rage! Oh, the pain!

Oh, the lightning and the rain

Rail against the storm that came—

But water cannot take the blame.

"Oh, the dreams, all stripped bare!

Save for her with the silver hair

They see her star burn just one night

Before black depths come steal their light

"But the story's just the same—

Water cannot take the blame.

Water cannot take the blame."

The sighing wind mourns with the violin, and I pull my hoodie tighter. As the notes fade off, I tip my face to the sky. "It's beautiful."

"Do you ever find it strange that we think the tragic lovely?"

I look over at him, but he's staring at the stars now too, as though there were something up there he could reach up and grab.

"You're strangely wistful tonight."

His ghostly smile livens some, but he doesn't move. "I'm sorry, love. Would you like me to sing you another song?"

I take his hand. "Did I say something wrong?"

Now he meets my eyes. "No." He fingers his necklace. "You just reminded me that everything has an end."

I swallow hard. "It doesn't have to." His lips tighten, but he stays silent. The late winter wind ruffles our hair, and my grip on his hand tightens as we stare at stars that will disappear tomorrow and burn out in a millennia.

An Animal In Pain

"Ouch," Leif hisses a few nights later.

I dab the warm cloth across his torn skin, frowning. "Hush. You'll wake the Langleys."

The yellow light of a side table lamp softens the hard edges of his face, making him look childishly petulant. "They couldn't hear me."

I turn briskly to the first aid kit in my lap. "No, but if you wake them, they're going to be even tetchier than usual. And I won't have my granddad dealing with that."

"Yes, milady," he says softly.

My eyes flick up to find his warm, intent gaze on mine. Biting my tongue, I return to rummaging in the kit. I pull out the nearly empty tube of antiseptic cream, and to distract both of us, ask, "Why do you call me that?"

"Milady?"

"Mm-hm." More gently now, my medicine-coated finger traces the curves of the claw marks in his skin. The cuts are red and grotesque, but there's no looking away, not as I mend them. He needs stitches, but he won't go; he needs out of the woods at night, but he won't stay.

He looks around the opulent room, with its gilded chairs and marble fireplaces and consistent electricity. "Your family has been managing this property longer than the Langleys, haven't they?"

My jaw clenches. "Only by about a hundred years." I press a little too hard, and Leif hisses.

He offers me a grimace, trying to pretend like it didn't hurt, and says, "Well, there you go then. You're a lady in my book."

I snort. "There are no ladies in Starfeld, Arkansas. And even if there were, I wouldn't be one of them."

He tips my chin up with his good hand. "A lady is any woman who takes care of her land and her people."

My eyes smart, and I pull my head away, spinning the cap back onto the tube of medicine. "Then maybe they should give the job to someone else."

"That's a job only you can give away, love."

My head snaps up. "Maybe I will."

He raises his brows. "Stop helping your granddad? I highly doubt—"

"That I could stop helping him take care of folk who can't wipe their own noses?" I drop the antiseptic in the kit. "That I could stop looking after little princesses who cry when you tell them no? Who smile and beg you to play with them and then blame everything they do wrong on the hired help? You think I couldn't quit that?"

"No," he says softly. "I don't think you could."

My lips tighten as I dig through the kit. "Well, I'm not you, Lief. I'm not addicted to doing what hurts me."

He catches my chin, his fingers startlingly firm. Eyes wide, I meet his dark gaze. "Do not presume to know the reasons behind what I do."

I swallow, throat tight. Voice shaky, I say, "Then don't presume I take care of the Langleys for any more reason than Granddad." I pull away, drawing out a dwindling roll of bandages. "He's got a soft spot for them. 'Look after those little lasses,' he says. 'They ain't got a mom,' he says." Bitterness rises in my throat. "Like they're the only ones."

"Erin—"

"Don't Erin me, because you know I'm not happy with you either."

My vision blurs, and I blink it away as I unroll the bandage. He falls silent, and we're left with the soft whirring of the ceiling fan the Langleys left on. Each lazy, powerful rotation stirs up embers in my chest. I press my lips together and carefully wrap bandages around wounds that Leif refuses to go to the hospital for.

He bites his lip. "It's not the Langleys' fault the electricity is out in the cottage again, you know."

My head snaps up, shame burning my cheeks. "I didn't tell you—"

"Why else would you bring me to the house proper, love?"

I turn to secure the last of his bandaging. "Yes. I know they don't control the 'fluctuating power surges' or whatever other hobbledly-gock the electrician says the cottage seems to be suffering from." I snap the kit closed. "But they control how little they help us. That, they control."

I gather the kit and stand, not meeting his eye. "Did you get blood anywhere? I'll need to clean it."

He flinches. "I never do."

Nodding curtly, I say, "Well, I'm going to need a new kit if you're going to keep hunting—"

"Trapping, love."

"Whatever you do out there that brings you bleeding to my door at midnight—"

"Erin—"

"What is this, the sixth time this month?"

"Erin—"

"And I haven't ever known a trapped animal to do that to someone's arm—"

"Erin!" He points sharply, and I spin. Little Analise Langley stands in the living room doorway, silk nightgown brushing the floor.

All the air goes out of me. "Analise. I'm sorry for waking you. I just needed to borrow some light." The lamp flickers as I fumble with it, and I frown, clicking it off properly. "Why don't we get you back to bed?"

I navigate to Analise in the dark, and she takes my hand. Before we leave the room, Leif's soft voice whispers, "An animal in pain does many desperate things."

But I close the door behind me and tuck Analise back in.

A Glimpse of the Stars

"Please, Erin," Leif says outside my bedroom window a few nights later.

I lean on the frame, shaking my head. "You know I don't go out on school nights." I went with him on Friday, back to the clearing, even though neither of us spoke. But Fridays have always been our nights, ever since we met, and it didn't seem right to spend it alone, argument or no.

He reaches up to kiss me, but I dodge. "School is all but over," he begs. "You don't have to be so strict with yourself."

"Stop talking like that. Nothing is about to change!"

From the room next to mine, my grandfather's bass rumbles. "Erin?"

I glance back even though I can't see him. "I'm okay, Granddad!"

As he wishes me goodnight and settles down, I shoot Leif a look like, See what you did? His ghost smile just teases me. I hold my breath until Granddad's snores fill the cottage.

"Nothing is going to change," I whisper again to Leif. My eyes plead with him, and this time when he reaches to kiss me, I lean in, desperate to close the building gap.

His lips are soft and familiar, but when he pulls back, his eyes are like seafoam breaking against ragged rocks. "What about when it does, though?"

And seizing his hand, I vault from the window, running across the field and to the woods.

* * *

Nights later, the fickle Arkansas weather decided that spring is winter, and I pull my hoodie tight as we lie on the damp ground. The trees near the clearing sway around us, and the stars smile above. We can't seem to stay away from here these days, like this clearing is the moon itself and the Earth has lost its hold on us.

"You can't keep doing this." My breath plumes in the wet air.

Leif wraps his arm around me. "Bringing you here?"

I twist, staring at him intently. "Getting hurt, Leif."

"That's life, love."

I tremble in the cold, and he draws me closer. "It doesn't have to be ours."

His voice almost disappears beneath the night's rustling. "It doesn't have to be yours."

My brow draws; I stare at him with a thousand terrified questions, but he simply puts a finger to my lips.

* * *

The night wind whispers over our faces. "Tell me a legend," I ask, suddenly desperate.

His finger marks out the brightest point in the sky. "You know the evening star?"

"Venus."

"Hush," he smiles. "You'll take the magic away."

"What magic?"

"They say if you wish on the evening star, one of the fair folk will bring your wish to you on a day you don't expect it."

"I remember that one!"

"Oh, from that massive lore book of yours?"

I sigh. "I wish it were mine."

He puts a hand lightly over my mouth. "Careful. You'll waste your wish."

I push him away, smiling. "You don't really believe that, do you?"

"No, love." His ghost smile haunts my heart, and he looks at me with such a sweet, cold sadness that I turn back to the sky to escape his gaze. "A wish of yours wouldn't be wasted."

* * *

The stars sparkle like a thousand promises. "A million dollars."

"No you wouldn't."

His arm is warm underneath my neck as I think. "A better home for Granddad then."

He thinks. "Admirable, but no."

I glance over at him sharply, but he just shrugs. Blades of grass tickle my ears as I turn back to the sky. "What do you want me to wish for?"

"Doesn't have anything to do with what I want."

"Well, what do you think it is, then? To marry you?" I tease, sticking my tongue out.

"Something like that," he says somberly.

I grab his hand fiercely. "You don't wish for something you know is going to happen."

The wind blows, and Leif adds his breath to its sigh. "I know very few things for sure."

* * *

"Tell me a legend." The constellations tonight all look like diplomas and tassels. I stare at Leif instead.

His fingers twine through mine. "Once, there was a man who loved a girl more than all the night sky. So he thought to steal the stars for her and build her a house from their light. But the light wasn't solid, and when day came, the house faded away."

"That's awful."

He tweaks my nose. "That's not the end, love." His hand tightens on mine. "He stole the stars again, and this time he buried them as a secret treasure for her. But the man's brother wanted the treasure, and he fought the man all night for it. When day broke, they both lay dead in their blood, and the rays of the sun took them up to make new stars from their bones."

"That's awful too."

His finger comes to my lips. Softly, he says, "The woman built her house on the buried treasure and made a wish on her lover's star, the brightest one in the sky."

"The evening star," I breathe.

He nods and falls silent. The crickets and frogs sing around us, and I lie there a long time, waiting for the end of the story. Finally, I shift, pushing up on one arm. "What did she wish?"

A silvery strand of my hair hangs over him, and he tucks it away. "For a bit of his light to stay with her. So he sent a piece of himself to the earth, and she loved it so dearly, it became a child—hers and his."

My breath hitches. "But he didn't come back?"

Pain flickers across his face, and he pulls me close. "No, love. He didn't come back."

* * *

"You asked me once what it was." He fingers his braided necklace.

I smile softly. "Mr. Mystery is going to reveal some of his secrets?"

"Not a secret, love. I just didn't feel like talking about it then." He tips his head up so I can see the two tightly twined cords. "My brother gave it to me."

I trace the braid. "What happened to him?"

He tucks the necklace away. "He drowned."

* * *

The sharp air feels like a warning tonight. "You hunt in these woods, don't you?"

"Trap, love."

"Trap what?"

He opens his mouth as if to tell me, and I grip his hand tightly. What nights we don't find ourselves here—and even some we do—he comes back to me in the pale moon, bloodied from his work. I haven't again asked him since our argument, but now my eyes beg him to explain everything. He leans forward and—

Shakes his head. His lips brush my brow. "Time, love. I trap a little more time for us."

Something in the wood catches his attention. We freeze, breathless, before he wraps his arms around me and spirits me home.

* * *

I shift my head into the crook of his shoulder. The forest's night music sounds mournful, and I take up his song to cover it. Two brothers, on the sand... Lief joins me, and our harmony rises to the sky. In youth, linked hand in hand...

The final words drift away, and I press my hand to his chest. "If the storm broke the brothers apart, why isn't it to blame?"

He wraps his hand around mine. "Storms come, love."

"But if it's what broke them apart—"

"They broke themselves apart." His voice catches. "Fighting to get a glimpse of the stars."

The birds sing their dirge, and I slip from his grip to turn his face toward mine. In the white light, he's all sharp angles and thin lines, and I strive to instill some substance into my words. "If the storm is not to blame, then it doesn't get the final say. We do." The pallor of his skin worries me, and my hand cups his cheek. "We get the final say, Leif."

"I know we do," he says shakily. Tearing his eyes away from mine, he turns to stare once more at the stars. "And when the time comes, we'll say it right."

"Leif—"

"Hush, love. Please."

I bite my lip as he pulls me closer, and for his sake, hush.

* * *

"I think I know why," I whisper as the bittersweet notes of his violin fade off.

"Why what?" He puts it aside, eyes dark and worried.

"Why we find tragic things lovely. You asked, the first night we came here." He tips his head, confused. I take his face in both hands and kiss him, long enough to store every second in my mind. Pulling back, I take in his endless eyes, his sharply gentle face, his scars and necklace and smile. "It's because there was something to love before the tragedy." When he kisses me this time, we forget that it will only be for a moment, that I'll have to return home soon, that for all the plans I have, there is still an end to them. Even the loveliest stars find their ends eventually.

* * *

The stars are dim overhead. We've lain in the grass for hours, saying we should go home and neither one moving.

"What are you going to do?" he asks suddenly. He twines his fingers in mine, as though desperate for something to hold onto.

"When I graduate?"

The darkness paints strange shadows on his face. "Sure, love. When you graduate."

My mouth opens to tell him all the things I've told him before—college in the town over, helping Granddad with the Langleys in between, marrying Leif, building us our own little house that isn't on someone else's land, that has more than four tiny rooms, that doesn't make me feel like that helpless little girl who was tossed to her only living relative when her parents died. But the words die in my throat. "I don't know."

"You do know I love you, though, right?"

My hand tightens on his. "As long as the stars shine."

He shakes his head, cupping my cheek with his hand. "No, Erin. Whether or not the stars shine. I love you."

I blink back tears. "I love you too."

He leans forward to kiss me, but his lips don't meet mine. I open my eyes to see him sit up sharply, looking around.

My heart flutters in my chest. "What is it?"

"We can't stay here anymore."

He draws me up, and I cling to him. "Why not?"

His head snaps to the side. "Go." He pushes me toward the path I know so well now, the way from here to the cottage. "Go home, love. I have some hunting to do before dawn." A blade I've never seen him carry flashes in the moonlight.

An image of all the bloody wounds he's carried to me these last months infects my mind, and I bite my lip to stifle a cry. "Leif, don't go. Please."

He looks over his shoulder, then closes the distance between us in two long strides and pulls me into a frenzied kiss. It tastes like swallowing saltwater, sounds like the song the stars sing to a drowning man. "Go home, Erin." His desperate eyes compel me, and I take a few stumbling steps back. He nods at me. "Go home before the dawn comes."

I hurry down the path, and when I think to look back, I can't see him anymore.

Would That I Didn't Have To

A crushing wave pounds against my heart as I burst into the cottage. The door bangs against the wall, and our fickle generator throws sparks. I flip the light switch up futilely. "Granddad!" My shoes slap against the wooden floor as I run through the dark. "Granddad!"

"Erin?" he hums as I throw open his door. "What's the matter?"

"Leif is in danger. There's someone after him, after both of us, I think. He's out in the—"

"Leif?"

"Yes, Leif! He's there in the woods right now."

Granddad sits, his calloused hand reaching out to clasp my clammy one. "Sweetheart, there isn't a boy named Leif in all of Starfeld."

My words catch in my throat like a bug trapped in a spider's web. Without the hum of the generator, the house is deadly silent.

Granddad draws me to him. "Been here all my life, girl. I know my neighbors and my neighbors' kids. I might be old, but I ain't simple." He brushes my hair, frowning. "What's gotten into you, lately?"

I try to swallow around the sticky silk in my throat, but I can't breathe. These walls feel like a prison—a stable prison, a box where everything bad happens outside and you can't do anything but watch.

My lungs churn back to life, and sudden frenzy carries me to my feet. I throw open Granddad's window, and faster than he can call my name, I'm tearing through the sill and running back to the forest. I stumble over the path, pulled forward ever faster by a sense of horror and necessity.

As the trees pass in blur, a sharp voice rises over the wind. "You thought you could keep her power to yourself forever, did you?"

I slow, leaning into a tree near the clearing. Beyond its trunk, two men stalk in a circle, blades dark under a grey sky. Leif's back is to me, his knuckles tight on his hilt. My fingers dig into the bark.

The other man sweeps low with his sword, taunting. "Did you think your little traps could keep me and my pets away forever?"

Leif's voice is low and sad. "Would that I didn't have to keep you away, Lake."

Lake snarls. "Don't play pity with me." He creeps around the circle. The leer at Lake's lips screams of death, and the lines of Leif's face are drawn in determination and fear. My breath catches.

"When I get what I came for," Lake says, "not even a hundred of you would be able to stop me. And by then, there won't be even the one."

On one, Lake lunges. The two dissolve into a blur of dark blades, and before I can even call out, Leif falls to the ground. Lake laughs, triumphant, until blood drips from his lips, and he looks down at Leif's sword, plunged deep into his stomach. He crumples, the two brothers lying still together on red-soaked soil.

I rush forward over trampled grass, vision blurred. The birds hush their song, and a deep cry rises in my throat. My hand reaches for Leif's face as the sun clears the horizon. Before my fingers meet his skin, though, the sun's do. Leif and Lake's forms waver and disappear.

A sob catches in my chest. Left in the pool of blood is nothing but the brother's matching necklaces.

"Erin?" my grandfather calls through the woods.

I look back hurriedly. Throat tight, I scoop up their necklaces and slip them on. Around my neck, they rest together like they never could with the wearers before me.

"I'm coming, Granddad." My throat tightens. "I'm coming."

What They Couldn't Have

Analise Langley's feet kick in her vanity chair, nightgown fluttering around her ankles. "How come you're over here so often now?"

I draw the brush gently through her hair, my smile softened with pain. "Because of something a friend reminded me."

She twists to look back at me. "Your imaginary friend?"

"Don't you worry about that." I turn her around, finishing the last of the knots. Granddad was scared half to death after my outburst, especially when I came back painted with blood, and convinced Mr. Langley to help him pay for in-patient psychiatric treatment. The one time I didn't want their help, they provided it, and now all of Starfeld thinks of Leif as a delusion.

In my weaker moments, I wonder.

As soon as I'm done, Analise rushes to her window seat. "Look, Erin! The first star is out!" I settle beside her as she squeezes her eyes shut, murmuring quickly. "Wish I may wish I might have this wish I wish tonight!" She peers up at me when she's done. "Aren't you going to make a wish?"

I press my lips together. "What did you wish for?"

She hangs her head a little, playing with the bow on her gown. "Just for Momma to come back."

A pang stabs my chest, and I look up at the sky. There was a lot of time in the in-patient facility to think, and it came to me that all this trouble started with everyone wanting exactly what they couldn't have. I shake my head and tuck Analise into bed.

As I walk back to the cottage, though, the evening star twinkles bright above me. I suck in a breath. You're a trickster, I tell it. You promise a better tomorrow, but you twist it. The sky glares down at me, hateful in its beauty. You shift, always but never the way we want you to.

My lungs beg for another breath, and I squeeze my eyes shut. Everything is stable now; everything is safe; everything is over. But the words press against my lips, and heart pounding, I whisper to the sky. "I wish you would undo the storm. Whatever it was that broke them apart—power, jealousy, fear." My breath hitches. "Me." Desperately, I cling to the necklaces. "Undo it. Let them choose a different ending."

The stars shine undisturbed. For a moment, I think my wish was wasted. But then a breeze ruffles my hair, and its silver coloring leeches away. The necklaces disappear from my neck, and I fall to my knees, suddenly dizzy. A thousand memories fly through my mind, withering like photos dropped in a fire. I clutch my head and collapse into the grass.

And above me, the evening star winks.

Epilogue

I sit in the garden, the Langley girls on either side of me. The sun shines bright on the tome of European fairy tales I'm reading to them, the trees warding off the worst of the summer heat. Steps crunch toward us over the gravel, but I keep on, knowing Mr. Langley won't mind.

"I'm in there, you know?"

I look up, surprised, at a green-eyed stranger with a teasing smile. "Oh? You are?"

He smiles softly, jerking a thumb over his shoulder to a boy wearing a matching corded necklace. "So is he."

The second boy leans forward and whispers conspiratorially to the girls, "You won't tell, will you?"

They giggle and shake their heads. I set the heavy book aside, and the first boy draws me up. "Oh my," I laugh.

His eyes are shockingly soft and serious. "You'll keep our secret too, won't you, Erin?"

Something strange flutters at the corner of my mind, and before this boy has even told me his name, I find myself making him a promise. "Whether or not the stars shine."