Tanis visited Emily at the coffee shop in the late morning, wearing one of her shirts. It was loose and tight in all the wrong places and Emily thought she looked beautiful. She smiled reflexively at Tanis before remembering everything they’d talked about the night before. Her past felt like a violation of Tanis’ normalcy. Emily held the smile as she rung up a customer, but the lines around her eyes dissolved into worry as Tanis came up to the counter.
“Have you had a lunch break yet” She held up a bag. “I made sandwiches.” There was a glimmer of a smile. “Also, chips.”
Emily let herself grin and clocked out, leaving the counter to the other barista. Tanis picked a booth near the back, setting out the sandwiches. Emily brought over sodas and they dug in. Between bites, Tanis took an overly casual tone.
“I met the hare today.”
“You WHAT.” Emily bellowed. Her backup leaned over the counter, frowning. Emily waved him back, keeping her eyes on Tanis. When she spoke again, it was very measured. “What did you tell Michael and Ian?”
“That I was informed as to what was up.” Tanis guiltily took another bite. “They were really proud of you. Michael sat watch and Ian took me in and introduced me to the hare.”
“I cannot fucking believe this.”
“He is so adorable! And he wears glasses!”
“That I bought him. This is the sixth pair. He keeps losing them.” Emily grumpily crunched at chips.
Tanis wiped her fingers on a napkin and grabbed Emily’s hand. “I want to go with you to the Sidhe to help Abby.”
“No.” Emily shook her head and wrapped up the uneaten half of her sandwich. “Lunch is over, no you will not go with me and we will talk about this later.”
Tanis grinned up at Emily as she left and clocked back in. Throwing a stern glance at the other barista, who fled to the stock room, Emily served the growing flow of lunch customers while Tanis giddily smiled at her from the back booth, leisurely finishing her sandwich before leaving.
Emily fumed on the walk home. First, Tanis didn’t want her to risk the time debt of the Sidhe and now she was all for it. Tanis had loving parents, friends from college and high school. She had friendly ex-girlfriends and groupchats. People who’d miss her if the mundane world decided to jump forward decades while she was in the Sidhe. Emily knew Tanis had an impulsive streak. It’s what made her move from the city to a nameless small town for a graduate program, or take boxing classes that involved sparring. She’d jump into the car just to drive somewhere new with Emily. Throw in the promise of talking animals and the Sidhe was exactly the kind of thing that would tempt her, despite all reason.
Ian, Michael and Tanis were all on the porch of Emily’s trailer. She knew them all well enough to see by their smiles she’d lose any argument.
“Michael was filling me in on time debt.” Tanis creaked back in her chair, Ian’s cat on her lap. “I think it’s worth the risk.”
Emily leaned on the railing, outside the circle of chairs. “If you missed one of your parent’s weekly phone calls, they’d flip. You can’t disappear into the unknown possibility, Tanis.”
“Yeah, but if I said we were going on vacation for a couple of weeks—which we essentially are—”
“They’d want updates from the road.”
“So, we send them postcards, like Abby did. Write them all up before we go and have Michael and Ian send them. But the point is, those weeks can be a buffer. Who knows how time will swing for us? And we can push back our return date with letters about the fun we’re having.”
“And your job?”
“I’ll use all my vacation time. I have a lot saved up. As do you. And if I’m eventually a no-show, then fine.”
“Your apartment.”
“I can pay my lease up for the next six months. Important things I can stash here.”
“What about—”
“Dammit Emily! I’m going with you. I don’t want to just share normal life with you, I want to share all of it, fucked up fairy world and all.”
Emily sniffed. “Okay, when do we leave?”
“First, you sit down and stop hovering.” Tanis patted a chair. Emily peeled herself off the railing, walked past the chair and fell into her hammock. Tanis raised an eyebrow, but continued. “Because who knows how much time has passed in the Sidhe in the past two days, we have the ability to give a week or two of notice about going on vacation. Rushing won’t help anything. We have time to plan and pack, even make a reconnaissance mission with somebody sitting watch.”
“You’ve thought this out pretty thoroughly.” Emily swung gently in the hammock as she lit a cigarette.
Tanis smiled. “It’s important to me.”
“Thank you.” Emily smiled back.
“Michael and I helped figure a lot of it out too.” Ian added.
***
They decided on a rough plan of action and Tanis went back home. Not too long after, Ian and Michael went back to their trailers. Restless, Emily wandered inside. She leaned against the kitchen island and tried to make a list of things to pack. It wasn’t much better than the one she’d made at eighteen.
The box of gear from the first trip was still sitting out. Emily gave up on her list and sat on the floor, pulling out the backpack. She looked at it and the hiking boots. Both had useful magical properties in the Sidhe. The bag held an infinite amount without being heavy, though the infinite part was more a guesstimate.
She scowled at the boots. She still wasn’t certain if it was her Folk nature or the boots that helped her walk long distances with ease—during the beginning of her journey at least. By the end of it she could have been wandering barefoot for months and not really cared, beyond being bored.
With a shrug, she pulled out the boots and set them aside with the pack. Tanis was fully human and would need any magical help she could get, even if she was a secret meathead jock.
Emily grabbed the clothes from the sprite village as she stood up. She tried them on the bathroom, wishing she owned a full-length mirror. They still fit, and they still made her feel equally cool and stupid.
“Well, it’s comfortable at least.” Emily muttered at her reflection, before changing back into regular clothes.
Snagging her aborted packing list from the counter, Emily poured cold coffee remains from the French press and went to the porch. Settling into the hammock, she picked up a pack of cigarettes from the side table and shook it. With a scowl, she peeked inside, finding only tobacco crumbs. With a sigh, she levered herself back out of the hammock and padded to the kitchen, grabbing a fresh pack from the freezer. Before closing the door, she changed her mind, throwing the box back in with the ice cream and pulling out a leather pouch, stiff with cold.
Back in the hammock, Emily struggled to remember how to roll a cigarette. She had a painful flash of memory that blurred her vision. She’d learned how to roll a cigarette in the same hammock, from Becky.
The finished cigarette was ugly, but smokeable. Emily made a face at the waves of nostalgia and attacked her list. Memories, fear and time weren’t going to throw her. She had to look at it as not a second chance at a quest, but a fresh opportunity. She was going to do it with Tanis and they were going to do it right.
This post is part of The Consoling Divide – Serialised. See the archive and overall content warnings here, and find more of my writing here. I’m over on both Comradery and Patreon, if you feel like supporting my creative endeavours. If you’d like to subscribe to this story, here’s a handy email box for you: