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I moved my graying hair out of the way and leaned forward to stare at it. The tiny spider mark which had been so prominent when I was younger, had faded until it was almost the color of the skin surrounding it in the past ten years. But now it was showing again—it was bright red, in fact. What was going on?
I frowned as I poked it gently with one fingertip. My adoptive mother used to tell me that the birthmark would get red and inflamed from time to time when I was a baby. She said I would cry and cry when it did that and there was nothing she could do to comfort me.
Several doctors told her not to be concerned—that it was just a discoloration of the pigment, not anything serious like cancer. But she had worried about the mark all her life. Worried because nobody knew who my real birth parents were or what diseases or conditions they might have passed on to me.
“They found you in one of those Baby Boxes they have at the fire stations,” my Mom had told me, when I was old enough to hear the truth. “Someone left you there with a note and a beautiful necklace that your Dad and I have always kept safe for you. The note said, ‘Please take good care of this baby. She is very special.’ And so the firemen called the hospital and they checked you out and sent you to the adoption agency and that’s where Dad and I got you. We chose you out of all the other babies because that note was right—you are special, Lily, and don’t you forget it!”
I sighed as I remembered my Mom’s little speech. She and my adoptive Dad were both dead now—he from a heart attack and she from breast cancer—so I couldn’t call them up and talk about it. Or ask for a place to stay for that matter. What little they had left me had gone into the joint bank account that Christopher had closed. It was long gone anyway—spent on various things the kids needed. I wished I had saved some of it now, but of course it was too late.
As for the necklace—a gorgeous filigreed silver pendant with a purple stone in the center—well, that was one of the things that had been left back in the safe. And of course, though I had tried to contact Christopher, he had never gotten back to me. So that was lost to me too, along with…
“Ouch!” I gasped, jerked out of my morbid thoughts. The birthmark wasn’t just tingling now—it was burning. What was wrong with me?
I put a finger to the tiny mark again and it felt like it was on fire! I needed something to cool it down—some water or maybe just the cool night air.
Looking around to be sure no one else was in the parking lot, I slipped out of the minivan, locked it, and pocketed the keys. The fresh air gusting up from the forest below me did help to cool the burning. I heaved a sigh of relief and took a deep breath of night air.
And that was when I smelled it—a whiff of the most heavenly, delicious scent I had ever smelled. It was like fresh strawberries and vanilla custard and warm cinnamon all mixed together. It made my mouth water but it did something else too—it gave me the strangest feeling of déjà vu.
They say that scent is strongly linked to memory but I had no memory of dancing lights in the trees…or did I? I stared at the blinking, twinkling sparks that were still visible, winking in and out between the dark shadows of the forest. What was going on down there? I had to find out.
This is a bad idea, Lily, I told myself, even as I left the parking area and walked down the sloping field that led to the forest. You shouldn’t go into the woods at night! There could be bears or snakes or something even worse. What if it’s some kind of serial killer, trying to lure prey down into the forest? Or what if it’s some kind of Satanic ritual or cult activity?
But no warning I gave myself could compete with that tantalizing aroma. It seemed to pull me onward, teasing me with memories I could almost catch. It reminded me of being a little girl and wading in the creek behind our house. There were tiny, bright silver fish that lived in the chilly water that I always tried to catch—only they always slipped through my fingers. That was what the memories were like—bright flashes I could almost but not quite catch and remember.
I barely noticed it when I crossed from the field into the forest. The lights were getting brighter—closer—though I couldn’t see what was making them. And the scent was getting stronger.
Not only that, but I could hear music now—beautiful, otherworldly melodies played in a minor key that teased my ears and brought tears to my eyes along with an intense sense of longing. I needed to be where that music was being played.
I didn’t know what musical instrument was making those enchanted sounds—I thought it was some kind of flute. But it was accompanied by the low, steady beat of drums. I found that without even trying, my feet had fallen into the same rhythm, stepping in time to the beat almost as though I was dancing. And all the time, my birthmark kept tingling and the scent kept drawing me onward.
At last the lights got closer and I saw that they were fireflies of some kind. They were flying all around a large clearing—a clearing filled with people. But not just any ordinary people—this wasn’t a bunch of hunters sitting around a camp fire or a cult practicing rituals. In fact, they weren’t even human—at least, I didn’t think they were.
Most of them had skin tones that ranged from pale silver to dark platinum, though there were a few variations in color. One big guy in particular seemed to have a sage green tint to his platinum skin—it was easy to see since his muscular arms were bare.
These people had hair that was pure white, (though the guy with greenish skin had black hair,) and their ears were long and pointed at the tips. Their eyes…I shook my head and rubbed my own eyes as I stared at them.
Their eyes were glowing just like the fireflies zipping around. I saw all different colors, from neon blue to pale green to gold to silver—all of them glowing softly in their dark faces like miniature moons.
And speaking of their faces, they almost all had sharp, delicate features that were too beautiful to be human. From their long, pointed ears to their wide, glowing eyes, they were the most gorgeous people I had ever seen. Seriously, the plainest of them would make even the prettiest Instagram model look like a troll.
When I managed to tear my gaze from their faces, I noticed their clothes. Long, flowing robes for the men and gauzy, nearly see-through dresses for the women seemed to be the order of the day—although the guy with sage green skin tones was wearing a metal breast plate with carvings on it. He looked bigger and stronger than the others—and since they were all extremely tall, that was saying something.
I stared at them in wonder. They looked a little like two people I had met once, back in college, before Christopher and I had gotten together. It had been in Harry’s Bar—a place a lot of college students hung out. The man had grayish- silver skin, I remembered, and the woman was pale with long, blue hair. The two of them had saved me from some guys who drugged my drink and tried to drag me off to do unspeakable things.
At the time, I was sure they were cosplayers—they both had pointed ears and I thought there must be a Lord of the Rings convention in town. But there was something special and otherworldly about them—the same feeling I felt now coming from the people assembled in the clearing.
The two who had saved me had been beautiful, but they didn’t have dark platinum skin or glowing eyes like the people I saw in the clearing. These people weren’t like anyone I had ever seen outside of a fairytale—or a dream.
A dream—that was where I had seen them before, I suddenly realized! I used to have dreams about people that looked like these every night when I was little—beautiful, enchanted dreams filled with magic and moonlight and floating lights. But it had been so long ago I had completely forgotten about them. Now, standing in the shadows of the forest, they all came rushing back.
Elves, whispered the voice of memory in my ear. They aren’t humans—they’re Elves!
I knew with absolute certainty that the voice was right—though I didn’t know how I knew it. Even though these people didn’t look like any Elves that Hollywood had ever portrayed, that was definitely what they were. I also knew something else—they wouldn’t call themselves “Elves”—they would refer to their people as “The Fae.” Why and how I knew these things, I couldn’t say—maybe the knowledge came from my forgotten dreams—but I was absolutely certain I was right.
The Fae were standing around the huge clearing and most of the light was coming from a fire in the center of their circle where flames of gold and blue jumped and flickered. There was a kind of throne at the far end of the circle but it was empty. A smaller chair sat in front of it and a male Fae who looked to be somewhere in his forties or fifties with bluish-purple eyes sat on it. He had flowing white hair like most of the others and there was a self-satisfied expression on his perfect face.
Suddenly another male Fae—this one dressed in a flowing green robe and with glowing green eyes—stepped forward towards the fire and began to speak.
