Late Eclipses

TWENTY-FOUR

THE MOON WAS A CRESCENT in the midnight sky, the kind of moon my father used to call a “smile without a cat.” Cheshire cat moon. I stared up through the window, barely daring to breathe. I knew that moon. Not the phase, not the general shape; that exact moon. Time runs differently in the Summerlands, but the memory of that moon followed me for years, through days when the sun never rose and the stars never set. That was the moon that watched my father read me my last bedtime story, tuck me in for the last time, and give me my last kiss good night.

The fae came for me the next day, interrupting my tea party to offer me the only choice that was fully mine to make. Human or changeling-child? Was I theirs, with their pointed ears and illusions, or was I my father’s, with his easy smile and human concerns? I only got one opportunity to make my choice. In all the years that followed that night, I never knew whether I chose correctly, and I never forgot that moon.

I was tucked into bed. I pushed back the covers and sat up, unsurprised to realize that I was apparently a child of seven. My hair, which stayed baby-fine and impossibly easy to tangle until I was twelve, was braided to keep it from getting hopelessly snarled in the night. The lace cuffs of a flannel nightgown too new to be yet worn soft bit into my wrists. I knew where I was. This was what I left behind, once upon a time.

“Karen?” I called. “I appreciate the impulse to make the whole ‘dying’ thing easier, but this isn’t funny, kiddo.” There was no reply.

I climbed out of the bed, noticing as I did that my favorite doll—a felt Peter Pan made by my mortal grandmother—was on the pillow. Moving in a body I’d outgrown so long ago was strange, but my memory would have known the way even if the Luidaeg hadn’t forced me into a literal second childhood not long ago. Best of all, there was no pain. Blessedly, wonderfully, there was no pain.

The room was small and cheery, filled with familiar toys my mind insisted on viewing as old-fashioned; the trappings of my childhood. The walls were painted yellow, and braided rag rugs softened the floor. It took me a long time to realize what I gave up when I left that room behind me, but I cried for my toys from the day I lost them. They were the only mortal things I had the sense to miss.

“Hello, October,” said a voice from behind me.

I sighed. Not Karen; nothing as merciful as a niece trying to ease the pain. “Hello, Mother,” I said, and turned to face her.

She was standing next to the bed, just like she used to before everything went wrong, back in the days when she’d tell me stories, kiss my forehead, and tell me to sleep tight. This was the Amandine I knew before the Summerlands: perfectly coiffed white-gold hair, makeup done just so, jewelry chosen with a care that implied she might be graded later. She looked like my mother when she still was my mother, not just a lady I happened to be related to, one who tolerated my living in her house.

She wasn’t wearing a human disguise—she usually didn’t when we were alone—and her impossible beauty was entirely out-of-place against her blue cotton dress and sensible shoes. Offering a small smile, she said, “Hello, my darling girl.”

“Quick question before you start with the crazy—are you real, or a really lousy dream?” I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to hug her or hit her. Amandine has a gift for making me feel that way.

“I’m afraid that’s up to you.”

“Of course it is.” I sighed. “Where are we?”

“We’re … waiting.” She looked at me sadly. “I tried to spare you when I could, but I wasn’t fast enough.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s time to make a choice, October. More importantly, it’s time for you to choose. I won’t force you one way or the other.” Her lips drew down in a small grimace. “No one can. Not anymore.”

“You’d think I might hallucinate something more pleasant than a lecture from you, you know,” I said. “Tybalt in those leather pants would be a nice start.”

“What makes you think you’re hallucinating?”

She had me there. “I got hit with elf-shot. Pretty sure that’s fatal, and since you’re not Karen, pretty sure this isn’t real.”

“Reality aside, do you want it to be fatal? Are you ready to go?”

It was sort of funny. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about death—it’s hard not to when you spend so much time either running toward or away from it—but I’d never considered whether I’d be ready when it came. “Not really. But I don’t think I have much of a choice.”

Amandine shook her head. The air around her seemed to freeze, catching the beams of the Cheshire cat moon and holding them suspended in a sphere of slowly expanding unreality. “This is the choice. You’ve made it at least three times, even when I tried to stop you, but the only time you admit to is the one that happened the day after you saw this moon for the first time. Remember?”

“I don’t understand.” I folded my arms. “You know, I don’t appreciate being ignored for years and then having you show up in my hallucinations.”

She didn’t answer. She just sighed, expression growing even sadder as she walked to the windowsill and rested her hands against it.

“Mother?” No reply. “Mom. This isn’t funny.” Still no reply. I walked over to stand next to her. I had to rise up onto my tiptoes in order to peer out the window. “What are you looking at?”

“The moon. See?” A smile ghosted over her lips. “Do you remember what your father called the moon when it looked like that?”

I nodded. “Cheshire cat moon.”

“A smile without a cat.”

“Curiouser and curiouser,” I said. “Mom, please. Can you just talk straight for once in your life? I’m not in the mood for riddles.”

“Is it down the rabbit hole again, darling, or will you be a good girl this time and stay where you can be found for marmalade and tea?” Amandine’s voice was sad and distant; her eyes stayed on the moon. “It’s up to you. It’s always been up to you, even when I thought it could be up to me. But you’re choosing for keeps this time; you’re choosing to stop deceiving yourself. Out of the tower now, no more protection for Daddy’s precious princesses.”

“What—”

“No.” Her voice was like a whip cracking through the air. “Choose. No more arguments. No more letting me lie to you. Choose.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You didn’t understand the first time either, and you chose then.”

I dropped back to the soles of my feet, looking around the room. The shadows had deepened, twisting my toys into strange new shapes. This wasn’t my childhood reality anymore. This was something new, sea-changed and wild, like a mirror reflection of what had really been. “What’s going on? What are you doing?”

“You have to choose.” There was no pity in her voice, no mercy; just a strange echo, like distant bells. My reflection in the window changed, growing taller, melting into my adult self before the lines of my flesh thinned and refined themselves, becoming something altogether different.

The face in the glass was familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. It was too delicate, with sharply pointed ears and eyes that were even more colorless than before. Even my hair looked bleached, going from brown to a silvery ash-blonde. It was who I would have been if I’d been born a pureblood, immortal, bred to the faerie rides and the dark at the bottom of the garden path.

I’d never realized how much I look like my mother.

“It’s not too late,” she said. The bells were stronger now, layered with moonlight and madness. “This is your choice to make, and there are always other roads. Look.” Amandine gestured to the window. The glass cleared, reflection fading. I looked.

A second window had replaced the Cheshire cat moon, separated from ours by a few feet of empty space. It framed a second me, a frightened little girl in a toonew nightgown, standing next to her own version of Amandine. But this little girl and her mother were human, without fae strangeness or illusions.

“What is this?” I pressed my palm against the window. The other me did the same.

“This is the choice you can’t take back.” Amandine’s voice came from above and slightly behind me. The other Amandine’s lips moved in perfect time with the words. “If you take it, nothing you do will change the road you’re on.”

Swallowing hard, I asked, “What am I choosing?”

“Me or her, October. Humanity or fae.” There was a pause before she added, much more quietly, “Freedom or the crossroads burden.”

“The Changeling’s Choice?” I twisted around to face her, my hand still pressed against the glass. “I already made that choice.”

“Now you have to make it again.”

A second chance? “What happens if I pick the human road this time?” I asked. “What happens if I say I want to stay here?”

“If you choose that road, I’ll tuck you into bed, kiss you good night, and walk away. You’ll sleep, you’ll dream, and you’ll die. I don’t know whether it’ll hurt. I’ve never died of elf-shot.” She shook her head. “It probably won’t, if that helps your decision at all. You’ll just sleep until your heart stops.”

“What if I choose the road I took last time? Does that mean I’ll live?”

“Maybe. Nothing’s certain.” She looked away. “This has only happened a few times.”

“Great. Even my hallucinations aren’t normal.” I shook my head. “Go away. I’m not choosing anything.”

“October—”

“I’m not!” I pressed my hands over my ears. “I’m dying. You can’t change it, you can’t stop it, and you’re nothing but a bad dream! Now go away!”

“Toby?” This voice was different.

I lifted my head, uncovering my ears. The dreamlike twisting of the room was gone. I was back in the bed; the lights were on, and most importantly of all, my father was standing in the doorway, one hand still on the light switch.

“Bad dream, baby?” he asked.

For a moment, it felt like I’d forgotten how to breathe. Swallowing, I managed to whisper, “Daddy?”

My mother didn’t bring any pictures of my father when we left the mortal world, and I was too young to understand how much I’d want them someday. I didn’t take my teddy bear, much less the family photo album. No one told me I’d never see my father again; I wouldn’t have believed them if they had.

I barely remembered what he looked like until I had him standing right in front of me. He was tall, with broad shoulders, a thick waist, and pale Irish skin speckled with a lifetime of freckles. I got my rotten knees from his side of the family, even though I didn’t inherit his height or bright blue eyes. I always looked like a changeling next to him, even before I knew how true that really was.

“Yeah, baby, it’s me,” he said, smiling as he walked over and sat on the edge of the bed. He smiled at me. I found the strength to smile back. I had my father’s smile. Mother never told me that. Mother never told me a lot of things. “Can’t sleep?”

“Not really.” I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Maybe I was hallucinating while the elf-shot shut my body down, but I hadn’t seen my father in a long time. I wanted to look at him as much as I could. “I’m sorry I yelled.”

“It’s all right. I was up.” Daddy was a tax attorney. He brought a lot of work home during the week and worked on it after I’d gone to bed, leaving his weekends and afternoons free. I never forgot that, even though I’d forgotten the way the skin around his eyes crinkled when he smiled. “Just don’t wake your mother.”

“I won’t,” I said earnestly. Amandine went away when I told her to; I didn’t want her coming back.

He ruffled my hair, asking, “Everything okay in there?”

“Sort of. Daddy?”

“Yes?”

“Is it wrong to walk away from a choice you’re supposed to make? If you’re supposed to pick something, is it bad not to pick anything at all?”

“I guess it depends on what you’re choosing,” he said, with his usual careful deliberation. “If you were deciding whether to take your teddy bear to bed with you, I guess you could take a different dolly and never make up your mind about the bear. But if you were deciding whether you’d do something that needs doing—like cleaning your room—I guess it would be bad to never decide.”

“What if it was something more important than cleaning your room?”

“How much more important?”

“As important as going away or not going away.”

He stiffened before nodding, saying, “With something like that, it would be bad not to choose. You planning on running away from home?”

“No. But if I had to decide whether to stay or go, wouldn’t it be better to just not decide? To stay without choosing?”

“Not really.” He reached out again, putting his hand over mine. “You have to decide what matters to you, baby, and follow that decision. I’d be sad if you left, but I know you’d only do it for something that mattered so much you felt you had to.”

Oh, Daddy, I thought, you were more than sad when I left. “So you want me to choose?”

“You have to make your own choices in life. If you don’t, what’s the point?”

“You’re right.” I managed to smile again, blinking back tears. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, baby.” He leaned over and kissed my forehead before standing and walking to the door. “Get some sleep, and think about it, okay?”

“Okay, Daddy.”

“Good night, Toby.” He turned off the light, closing the door as he left.

I wasn’t afraid of the dark when I was a kid, but for a moment, I wished my childhood room had come with the usual night-light. It would’ve been nice if those shadows had been just a little shallower as I climbed out of the bed and walked to the window. The Cheshire cat moon grinned down on me like a beacon.

I fumbled with the latch until it came loose, and then pushed the window open, leaning out on my elbows until my face was in the wind. “I don’t want to do this again,” I said. “It’s not right, and it’s not fair, and I don’t want to. You shouldn’t be allowed to make me do this again.”

The moon didn’t answer. I didn’t expect it to. “I’m a hero. That’s what Faerie made me, and I think my father would be proud. I don’t want to make this choice again, because there’s no right choice for me. But there is a choice that’s right for the people who count on me to be there when they need me.”

“Does that mean you’re going to decide?” Amandine asked, behind me.

“I don’t think ‘none of the above’ is an option.”

“No, it isn’t,” she said. “What do you want? What’s your choice?”

“I choose the evil I know.” I turned to face her. “I can’t be a hero with no one to save, and I can’t run out on them just because I’m scared. I already walked away from this world once. I don’t get to go back.”

“So you choose Faerie?” she asked. The blood-androses smell of her magic was rising around us. This was my last chance to back out. But what would I be backing out on? You can’t rewind reality. Choosing to stay human wouldn’t change history; it wouldn’t unmake anything I’d ever done, or seen, or been, and I wouldn’t want it to. Faerie may not always have been the kindest place to live, but it was still my home. I owed it to Gillian, to May, to Dare, and Tybalt and January and all the others not to say that my life had been a mistake. Not when it had been so intertwined with theirs.

“Yes,” I said. “I choose Faerie. Take me home.”

Amandine’s smile was ripe with sorrow. “This may sting,” she cautioned, and kissed my forehead. There was a moment of stillness, of perfect rightness and serenity.

Then the pain came.

I screamed, dropping to my knees. This wasn’t elf-shot pain; this was something new, something even worse because it was so intrusive. I screamed again, and my voice echoed like it was the only sound in the world. The pain kept increasing, building to a fevered pitch that shook me all the way down to my bones. It was worse than dying; dying ends, but this pain seemed to be settling in to stay forever. The room was dissolving around me in streaks of watercolor black and gray. The dream landscape couldn’t survive this much turmoil.

Dream. That was the answer; that was the way out of this. I had to wake up. My eyes were already open, but that didn’t matter. Not in a dream.

Concentrating as hard as I could through the pain, I ordered myself to wake up.

And I opened my eyes.