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I run past him before he finishes his thought. The tingling sensation builds in my belly. I focus on that and close my eyes. I envision the streets of home. The warmth in my stomach surges and I keep moving. The ground here is soft earth that gives beneath my feet. When my foot comes down next it’s on hard concrete.

“Quinn, wait!”

The Druid’s voice echoes in my ears as I stumble. The shift in the ground from soft to hard throws my balance off. I throw my arms up to protect my head and land hard. I hit with jarring force, rolling with the impact as I’ve learned to do with the Druid. Rough concrete scrapes my arms and back.

I roll to a stop on my back and stare at a streak of azure blue sky framed by buildings to either side. I pant, struggling to catch my breath. My hands, arms, and back sting from the scrapes. My head throbs, heart pounds, and my chest is tight. Tears fill my eyes as I watch birds circling overhead.

I can’t do this.

Taking a deep breath, I roll onto my side then push up onto all fours. Looking around, I’m back in the alley, and though I’m lying in filth, I take the moment to be thankful I didn’t return in the middle of a busy street when I sidestepped. It would really top off my day to get hit by a car.

Standing up, I brush my jeans off and inspect the scrapes on my arms and hands. The sense of overwhelm retreats, but it’s there. Waiting. Holding a deep breath, I do the only thing I can, I don’t look at it. Compartmentalization is the greatest ability of the human mind and I put it to good use. Push it aside and keep it at bay. It’s the best I can do.

I need to check on my dad, so I pull out my phone. The screen is shattered and unresponsive. My breath hitches, catching on the tight fist clenching my chest.

Great. Did I buy insurance on it?

I can’t remember. Another problem for later. I shove the useless thing back into my pocket.

I straighten my back, square my shoulders, and walk forward. I don’t have a direction in mind, at least not yet, only a desire to move. I’m not going to stand here and feel sorry for myself.

The pressure on my chest eases with each step. I breathe deeper and easier the more I stay in motion. The sun is shining, warm on my exposed, if abrased skin. The smell of the air improves as I leave the alley behind. I pass people on the streets who are living their lives, oblivious to anyone’s problems but their own.

They have most of their attention on their phones. Some look like they are talking to no one, using their Bluetooth ear buds. Some are happy. A few are angry. One is sad. I feel their emotions as I pass among them. They’re palpable, an energy that is filling the air we share. I inhale their feelings, and as I do I see colors around them, their auras, but only in my peripheral vision.

The happy one’s glow, predominantly golden-white. The angry one’s aura is a fiery red-orange, and the sad are deep blue edging towards black. When I breathe in the first sad person’s air it catches in my throat and desperation hits hard and fast. It’s like being locked in an airtight box and the air is being used up fast. I hurry away from that person, and thankfully it eases, but I understand what they’re feeling too well.

I wander for an hour. I should go home or to my parents’ house, but instead I continue my aimless journey until I come to a park. The city has a lot of parks dotting its interior here and there. Most of them aren’t very impressive, a nod to having green space than an actual retreat, but this isn’t one of those. This one draws me in because it’s a huge green space with one large tree dominating the center.

The tree is a flowering dogwood in full bloom with beautiful white flowers, the petals of which are falling around it like snow. It’s a big tree and obviously old. It fills the space if for no other reason than because of the emptiness around it. Thirty feet out from the tree there are green metal benches anchored to concrete in the ground. They create an octagon that faces the tree. Several children play under the limbs of the tree, laughing and chasing one another.

The grass is a rich, vibrant green. Acting on an impulse, I slip my shoes off and walk to one of the benches. The grass under my feet is soft and springy. It calls back memories of walking in the Scottish Highlands. I sit on the cold bench, close my eyes, and inhale deeply. The smells are right there, vivid in memory. The scents of peat, manure, and heather carrying me back to a time hundreds of years ago, while at the same time barely a couple of months gone. The paradox of my life summed up.

The children laugh and call to one another, but I don’t open my eyes. I don’t want to be here; I want to be there. I want the smells. The feeling of it. I didn’t appreciate this enough while I was there. I was so worried then about getting home and now that I’m here all I want is to go back. A stupid dichotomy that I have no right to be experiencing.

I open my eyes and my vision is blurry, but Isee. The children chasing one another aren’t children, they’re young Fae. The boy who was brandishing a stick now has a sword and is chasing after a young girl. A dragon watches them, curled around the bole of the tree with smoke rising from its nostrils. The boy touches the girl with his sword, and she makes a mock cry of pain, spinning around and falling down with gales of laughter.

I blink and they revert to normal children. They’re not Fae but kids at play. They are full of bright imagination. For them the world is magical. As they play, they’re creating a reality of their own. A stick becomes a sword and the roots of the tree form a dragon. There are no limits to what they can create in their shared imagination. They are free.

But, in a few years, that will be beat out of them. They’ll encounter the cliques of high school, a preview of the social caste system that is the modern world. One no one sees for what it is. Middle class, upper class, and the poor that we all ignore as we go blindly about our daily lives. The cast-off and forgotten because the biggest crime in this world is to be broke.

I watch the kids play as the wind dances in the tree, shaking loose blossoms that fall like snowflakes. The sun shines bright as it slowly drifts across the sky and, for a moment, I know peace. I remember how simple life was when I was with the MacGregors. Hard, yes, but simple too.

Even Alesoun was cared for, despite the fact they feared her, and though they thought she might be a witch, they didn’t leave her completely on her own. They kept her close enough to care for her. At the time I thought it was so cruel, but is it any crueler than what we do to the poor and the broken in this modern world? This world that has no magic left.

Is it any wonder the Fae want me to choose their world? How could they live here? Where the imagination of children is beaten into conformity before they reach their teen years. Is it any wonder that the artists who survive into adulthood with even a spark of that magic left turn to drugs and substances to cope?

“Quinn.”

“Duncan?” I jump and twist around, sure that it was his voice, but when I look, instead of Duncan, it’s Moira. She stands a full stride behind the bench with two coffees in her hand. She gestures towards me with the one in her left hand and smiles. “Coffee?”

“You sounded like someone else.”

“Did I?” she asks, her smile widening. “Who?”

I frown and shake my head, then turn away. I listen to her approach and cross my arms over my chest angrily. She moves into my line of sight, blocking my view of the kids playing. The world shimmers as she comes into focus and the magic of the children’s imagination shimmers and disappears. They’re just kids chasing one another with a stick.

“May I sit?”

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