Page 115 of The Changeling

She smiled sadly.

‘I have spent my whole life teaching you how, my daughter. Take my crown and go and greet your beloved. May he love you as well as I was loved.’

My mother lifted the crown of twigs from her head, and offered it to me. I took it and placed it on my own head. Then she pointed to where Robbie danced, alone in the centre of the vast cavern, white fangs of stone like icicles. The other dancers had drawn away. They watched from the shadows, as Robbie spun and leapt, leaving blotches of blood on the white floor.

I tucked the dead bird inside my pocket, and went to him. I took his hand and slid my arm about his waist, and I danced with him. A step, a kick, a hop, a twirl. We moved as one, in perfect rhythm.

‘Robbie,’ I whispered.

He looked down at me with dazed, exhausted eyes, and hardly seemed to know me.

‘Robbie, it’s me, it’s Caiti. Come back to me.’

He stumbled.

I reached up, cradled his face with both hands, and kissed him.

For a moment, he did not respond, and my heart quailed. Then suddenly he was kissing me back. I clung to him, almost weeping in relief and joy.

At last, we broke apart. He staggered, and I held him up, though it took all my strength.

‘Caiti? Where am I? What’s happened?’

‘You are in the faery realm. My mother cast a curse on you, so you were compelled to come here each night and dance unto your death.’

‘To punish me?’ he whispered. ‘Because I was untrue to you? I danced with that other girl. I … I kissed her.’

I nodded. ‘And because she wished to force me to do her will. She knew I couldna bear to see you in such pain.’

Robbie drew in a shaky breath. ‘So you really are a changeling? Your mother really is a faery queen?’

‘Aye.’

He laughed. ‘I cannot believe it.’

Robbie looked about him, at the great cavern filled with people, whose faces, like mine, were subtly different. He saw the musicians with their strange instruments, hung with bones, and the faeries in their clothes of rags and leaves, and my mother, standing alone before the twisted throne of willow, watching us.

‘How long have I been dancing here?’

‘Every night for three months.’

‘I thought it was only last night I left you … I canna believe I left you! With those men hunting you down. You’re safe? What happened?’

I swallowed a lump in my throat. ‘I will tell you another time.’

‘Three months … three months dancing … is that why I feel so strange?’

I nodded.

‘But you came? You broke the curse?’

Again, I nodded.

‘Caiti,’ he whispered. ‘My love.’

We kissed, unbearably sweet.

‘What did you have to do? To break the curse?’