Halloween story in 2 parts

Hey folks, this is one I put on my FB Group for Halloween 2022, but I figured I might share it here this year, for folks who aren’t on FB. (content warning for captivity)

I hope you all have a great Halloween, and take the chance to be whomever you want on this particular holiday.

 

Promises to Keep

“Don’t go to the cemetery tonight.” Joel lays a hand on my arm. “Its been twenty years. He has no right to keep making you do this.”

I press my fingers over his, and for an instant, his eyes brighten, but then I gently lift his grip from my sleeve. “I promised.”

“You were barely eighteen!” His voice rises. “You’re thirty-eight now and look at you!” He sweeps a gesture over my gray hair and lined face. “You look like you’re sixty.”

That hurts, even though it’s true. I try not to flinch. “He saved my life.” I cup Joel’s smooth jaw, look into those blue eyes where the faintest corner lines are barely starting, when mine are already carved deep. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. You didn’t sign up for this. You could find someone else, someone who’ll stay young and attractive and not—”

Joel shoves me away. “It’s not about how you look, you bastard. It’s about how long you’ll survive. I don’t want to live the last thirty years of my life alone, missing you, thinking I might’ve saved you if I just tried hard enough.”

My laugh comes out hoarse and rough. “Oh, you’ve tried.”

He’s right. I could walk away from my promise. I had no idea back then what it’d cost me. But if there’s one thing I’ve always prided myself on, it’s keeping my word. Walking away would cost me more, would cost everything I am. I pick up my double bass, heavy in her case. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Let me come along, then.” He clutches my elbow. “I want to be there for once. Maybe I can help somehow.”

“Not a chance.” It’s my turn to grab his arm in a grip so tight he flinches. “Promise me. Sunset to sunrise, you’ll stay safe inside here.”

When we began dating, he’d laughed at my fear of him going out in the dark on Halloween, not unkindly, but the way you’d indulge a child who still believed in Santa Claus. When his young lover came home on November first, aged a year overnight, his laughter stopped.

I pull him to me and kiss him, desperate to taste his warmth and passion. He gives in to my impulse and for a moment our mouths fuse and our hearts speed in unison. But then I let go and repeat “Promise?”

“All right.” He steps back. “If you promise me to do everything you can to be safe.”

“Always do,” I toss off flippantly, though he has no idea how true that is. “Always will. See you in the morning.”

Carl’s empty grave has a basic headstone— name, dates, nothing more. His plot is bare of ornaments too. I only come once a year, and I’m not in a mood to decorate. I sit on the ornate iron bench across from his plot and get out my double bass. Not my precious baby. I bought this one for a single performance each year. She always needs tuning, so I do that, plucking strings, working by ear. Waiting, as the last few visitors come and go, leaving black balloons and tacky plastic skeletons for their dead to enjoy.

A few teens come through, pushing and shoving, teasing each other, mostly bold but— a little of the eldrich atmosphere creeps across the grass toward them, chilling their ankles, turning their laughter shrill. They hurry on. Not because they’re afraid. Of course not.

When the graveyard is dark and still, I untie my hair from its sober ponytail, tug my bowtie straight, and raise my bow.

The first notes sound normal, resonant and warm as a bass should. Greig said of “In the Hall of the Mountain King” that “I have written something that so reeks of cowpats, I can’t bear to hear it.” But the actual goblin king loves it, even in this solo form. As I play, the air chills and stirs, and the notes develop a hollow echo as they reach across worlds.

The moon goes orange first, and I know the rift is opening. Water laps at my feet and at the base of the bench, the bottom of my instrument. My shoes won’t be wet in the morning. The wood never warps.

A wind stirs, rises, lifting my hair, tearing the notes from under my bow and scattering them to the sky, reflecting the orange light of that moon. I throw myself into the music and when I look up, there he is.

Carl was always slender, but he’s closer to thin now. Somehow, unfairly, though he’s my older brother, he looks half my age. As I play, he wades through the shallow waves to my side.

“Brendan. It’s good to see you.”

“You too.” I don’t stop, but I put less body language into my bowing. “How was your year?”

“Eh. King Mabon has a new favorite, so I spent most of it gardening. Was peaceful.”

I almost falter, but catch myself. “Any chance he might just let you go?”

Carl glances over his shoulder. “No.” There’s resignation close to despair in that word.

Out of the rift they come, the king and his entourage, red-caps and brownies, lords and ladies. Feet gliding over the surface of the shallow waters, unlike us mortals, they dance, swirling, bowing, laughing, faces constantly raised to the sky and wind. Greig isn’t dance music, and neither are the other pieces I’ll play before dawn. It doesn’t seem to matter. A night of music, of dance, in exchange for another year of my brother’s life. I could probably play hip-hop, if I chose, but Carl says the king is kinder when he’s liked the year’s tunes. I segue into “Night on Bald Mountain.” Apparently a favorite, as King Mabon spins his partner near to nod in my direction.

I throw in a little Pirates of the Caribbean. All I’m required to do is keep the sound alive and the rift open. The king looks younger as he swings by again, streaks of brown threading his steel-gray hair and beard. At my side, Carl talks of everything and nothing, and when I have room in my head, I answer. For one night, I can be a human connection for my brother, so far from home.

When the dawn light streaks the sky, the king and his entourage dance off into the rift, replete with whatever energy they gain from a night on Earth. The silver water ebbs from around my feet, and the moon dims. Carl backs away, pulled by that alien sea. “Bye, Brendan. I… I’m sorry. I wouldn’t blame you if one year, you weren’t here on Halloween—”

“Don’t be stupid,” I snap, angry because it’s so tempting to take that escape, even knowing my brother would die. I badly want to persuade myself Carl’s life across the rift is so terrible that death would be better, a kindness, but he talked of gardens and friends and sunsets. He’s not ready to let go, and I’ll never make that choice for him.

“I love you, bro.” His voice echoes and splinters as the rift closes. My fingers are bleeding and my shoes are dry. I’m alone as the sun rises. The black party balloons lie on the ground, all buoyancy lost. The plastic skeletons bare their silicone teeth at me. Fitting the bass back into her case is almost more than I can manage, but I heft her up and stagger home.

Joel’s fallen asleep in the armchair, facing the front door. His head’s tipped at an awkward angle and he doesn’t wake as I come inside. I wonder how late he sat up.

Setting the bass carefully aside, I go to him and lay my wrinkled hand on his smooth cheek. “I’m home. Made it through another year.” He opens blue eyes, turns his head and presses his lips to my ragged fingertips. He doesn’t ask what kind of fool I am, or if I love my brother more than I love him. He just brushes a loose strand of gray hair off my face and says, “Breakfast, Advil, and Band-Aids. I know the routine. Welcome home.”

*****

Part 2 –

Promises Kept

Promises Kept

Did I overdo the hair dye? I look into the half-steamed bathroom mirror, trying to gauge the color my hair will be when it dries. My face stares back, eyebrows still mostly brown but arched over less-than-firm eyelids; eyes still amber-brown, but bracketed by laugh lines. I’m thirty-nine. That’s not so young anymore, after all. Next year I’d be forty, and maybe I’d become resigned to looking twenty years older.

I pluck a long gray hair from my left eyebrow. Or maybe not.

I hear the front door open and muffle a sigh of relief. “Hey, babe, I’m in the bathroom.” Joel’s been out of the house and gone a lot lately. Some small part of me always wonders if this is the year he’ll leave for good.

He appears behind me in my reflection, his blond hair perfectly styled, a frown on his smooth, still-young face. “Are you all right? It’s barely an hour till sundown.” He plants a kiss on the back of my neck, below where my hair sits unfamiliarly short. I decided I looked like an aging hippy and had it ruthlessly cut and styled a few months ago, but it’s growing back slowly.

“I’m fine.” I wonder if my subconscious has kept me dawdling, obsessing over ear hairs and the softness of my chin. If I miss my timing, my word’s forfeit and the long ordeal would be over. And Carl will be dead, let’s not forget that. I’d asked once, back when my brother was still the Goblin King’s favorite, if King Mabon would really follow through on his threat. Wasn’t that just wasteful, in fae terms?

Carl had stared at me, his face pale in the orange moonlight. “Oh no, the fae are all about keeping one’s word. Twisting it, sure, warping it, looking for loopholes. But not breaking it. That’s about the only thing they hold sacred.”

So here I am, one more year, going to play for the goblin king and his court on Halloween night, for the price of another year of my brother’s life.

Joel plants a softer kiss on my neck, then one to the lobe of my ear. I look away from the mirror where the difference between us is too stark to bear. He says, “Dry off quick and come get dressed. I’ve done something you won’t like, and I’m about to ask forgiveness, not permission.” He retreats to the bedroom, and I stare into the mirror after him.

He’s fallen for someone else. He’s leaving me. Except Joel never needed my permission for that, and he wouldn’t be so cruel as to tell me tonight, of all nights.

At least, his words break me out of my limbo. I dress quickly, towel my hair dry, and follow him. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed dressed in a sweater and dark jeans, looking edible. His long fingers toy with something on a chain around his neck, and he’s biting his lower lip.

I sit beside him and smooth his lip free with my thumb. “Just tell me. Compared to the rest of tonight, I can handle almost anything.” Except you leaving.

“I’ve been going out, the nights you go to your pick-up orchestra practice.”

I know that. I got sick once and came home early, and he was gone. I pretended to be asleep when he returned, fifteen minutes before I should’ve come in the door. A couple of other times I left early. The orchestra’s just for fun, not serious. When I left Minneapolis, after one too many orchestra members looked at my rapidly-aging face and speculated about cancer or AIDS, I left that career behind. Now it’s a hobby. Which didn’t excuse me ditching it to sit in my car at the end of the block and watch my husband come home in the nick of time, and wonder.

“I saw that, a time or two.” I don’t confess to the stalking. Not yet. Not till I see where this is going. He had every right to go wherever whenever. What hurt was his hiding it from me.

“There’s a group in the Comparative Religion department at the U that has an actual coven. Took me a while to convince them I was serious, not out to do damage.”

“You joined a coven?” Of all the things, that was not what I was expecting.

“Oh no. I would’ve, but I don’t have a scrap of talent, according to them.”

I can’t resist running a hand up his thigh. “You have many awesome talents.”

Joel laughs, but moves my hand. “Not magically.”

“Magically delicious.” I’m starting to get scared where he’s going with this, and want to distract him. I need to leave, but I can blow Joel to an orgasm in five minutes or less. Proven fact.

Joel weaves his fingers between mine and holds my hand. “After a few months, I brought the conversation around to the fae. The witches sent me on to a friend of theirs. Long story short, I met the queen of the Dryads.”

“Dryads? Aren’t they, like, trees?” I’d done a lot of research over the years, but didn’t remember much about them. “Pretty but kind of in the background.”

“Only by choice. Tree roots can crack stone.” He grins, one nerd to another. “Remember the Ents?”

Something that might be hope coils inside me, but I squash it down hard. “Can you cut to the chase? I have to leave any minute now.”

Joel lifts the pendant on his chest. It looks like a tiny tree branch, maybe petrified wood from the stone-hard gleam of it. A tiny fire that’s not just the reflection of the bathroom lights glows inside it. “I have the Queen’s favor. I’m coming with you this year.”

“The hell you are.” I don’t want my Joel within a lightyear of King Mabon. I grant you, he’s no longer the kind of gorgeous young man Mabon might covet, the way he did with Carl, who could’ve modeled, while I was the homely sort. One stupid bet about fiddling in the graveyard on Halloween, and my gorgeous brother was swept off his feet and into Mabon’s collection. I’m taking zero chance of that happening to Joel, even if he is forty-one now and past gay prime.

“The hell I am.” He lifts the pendant. “Queen’s favor. And she doesn’t like Mabon. I’ll be safe, on her word. And you know the fae and their word.” He lets go of my hand and stands. “Come on. Don’t want to be late.”

Yes, I do. I want to curl up under the covers with you and pretend this is just another Friday. But if it was, I’d still be in the music store, selling new strings to some young guitar player with rock stars in his eyes. Joel would be at the U at his desk, grading essays. We both take a half-day on Halloween. I tried a whole day once, and nearly killed myself pacing a rut in the floor. Half is enough.

“You’re spacing again. Come on.” Joel reached for me and pulls me to my feet, leading me toward the front door. “Get your shoes and coat. Let me carry the cello.”

I let him shoulder the strap for the big case, and step out into the cool dusk. Clouds scud across the sky and a brisk wind cools my bare neck. I shiver. I should make Joel stay home. But I can’t deny how wonderful it feels to have him at my side, as we walk toward the graveyard.

Three blocks, as the sun kisses the horizon, its gold light flickering in and out at the whim of the clouds. The graveyard is more deserted than most years, although a couple of people linger, glass-contained candles in their hands, Halloween decorations in place. Someone’s put a pumpkin with a battery light on a new grave down the row from Carl’s empty plot. I glance at the headstone as we pass. The woman was young when she died, barely twenty. Perhaps she liked Halloween.

At the iron bench across from Carl’s plot, I stop and turn to Joel for one last plea. “You walked me safely here, but really, you should go now. If you don’t want to go home, maybe…” I peer around trying to remember how far that alien sea of the rift spreads, when it rises. I can’t remember any limit. “Maybe watch from outside the graveyard fence?” The witches I’ve consulted over the years are all about symbolism, and a fence is a strong boundary symbol.

“Brendan, I’m not leaving you.” Joel passes me the cello and sits on the bench, head cocked like a dog waiting for a bone. The only sign he’s nervous is the way his hand plays over and over with the token around his neck.

I’m tired. Bone weary and soul weary and heartsick, and Joel’s a grown man. He knows the risks, he’s seen the reality. Just this once, I’m going to stop protecting everyone else, and let him make his own choice. “All right. But stay there. Don’t get off the bench. And you may want to tuck your feet up under you.”

“Why?”

“You’ll see.”

He raises his legs, sitting with his arms around his knees watching, as I prepare the cello.

The other folks disappear with the setting sun. Technically, the graveyard is closed at sundown, but in twenty-one years, the only time I had to sneak in was the first time. As the last fragment of sun slips below the horizon, I draw my bow across the strings.

Tonight, I’m throwing away my plan for the old threadbare favorites of the king. Joel is here, and come what may, I’m going to give him a concert. Everything he enjoys, all night long. I start with Greensleeves, and he smiles at me, his teeth white in the gloaming.

Slowly, as the moon brightens in the sky, crescent this year, I add power to the notes, speed up the languid pace. Orange creeps across the moon. I hear Joel draw a short breath.

The water sweeps in, lapping at the soles of my shoes. Small waves roil its surface, breaking the orange trail of the moon into a thousand shimmering crescents. I switch to Ralph Vaughn Williams 6 studies. It’s all too slow to dance to, but it’s Joel’s favorite and I don’t care.

It takes a while for Carl to show up tonight. Maybe that’s punishment for not sticking to the long-established program, but I’m stubborn. When the Vaughn Williams is done, I move to Hazo’s Fantasy, the plucked notes echoing in the still air, then switch to John Denver, “Annie’s Song.”

Carl appears at last, walking toward me as if covering a long distance. He looks better than last year, less rail thin, and I take that as a good sign. When he’s close I say, without lifting the bow, “Joel, this is my brother Carl. Carl, my husband.”

I turn my head enough to see Joel’s expression. His lips are pinched flat as he looks Carl over. He doesn’t offer to shake hands, but that’s just good sense. I haven’t touched Carl in twenty-one years.

“I’m sorry,” Carl says. First thing out of his mouth, and aimed at Joel. “I’m taking him from you.”

“Inch by inch, year by year. But it’s not your fault.”

“It kind of is. If I hadn’t encouraged Mitchell to dare Brendan, if I hadn’t let King Mabon flatter me into a dance and a kiss.”

Joel makes a sharp gesture. “Catching the attention of the fae is always risky, and not always preventable. We all did stupid things when we were young.”

“Not this stupid.”

“Tell that to my doctor when I go for my HIV med refill.”

I flash a surprised look at Joel, because he’s a private guy and doesn’t spread that info around. And yeah, he was maybe not smart to believe at sixteen that the college guy hitting on him was a virgin too. But I’ve always loved his willingness to trust without verifying. “You both got screwed over,” I say, bowing slowly into Simon and Garfunkel, “and neither of you should beat yourself up over it.”

Behind Carl, the rift opens, splitting the sky top to bottom. The Goblin king and his hoards stride through, already turning to each other in partnership, treading the first slow measures of a dance to “Sounds of Silence.”

Joel gapes at them, then closes his hand around the talisman on his chest. “My Lady, the way is clear. Come to me now.” His words shiver the air, like silver arrows darting between the orange-capped waves.

I stare at him. “What did you just do?”

The Goblin king swings his partner near, his eyes flashing in the orange moonlight.

I switch to Bald Mountain, hoping I can pacify him, but his frown only deepens. I haven’t spoken to him since the first time, not since I signed the pledge that kept Carl alive. I bow faster, wrecking the tempo.

Then, out of the rift, a new horde appears, led by a tall, flower-crowned woman in a long gown. Behind her, the fae are a very mixed crew, tall and thin, short and wide, dark as wood bark, pale as a peeled willow wand. These are clearly wood folk though, festooned with vines, crowned with leaves, long fingered and toed. The woman in front strides up to the dancing king and puts a hand on his partner’s shoulder. The tall, heavyset man in black velvet drops the king’s hand and stands back immediately.

For a moment, king and dryad queen stare at each other. Then the king bows, the queen returns it, and they move into a waltz of sorts. The wood folk partner up as the goblin fae have done, dancing around the royal pair. I keep the tune, keep the tempo even thought it’s not 3/4 time. I do nothing to rock this boat.

Joel clutches his pendant, his eyes on the king and queen. Their dance feels almost like a fight, stiff and formal, and if I’m not mistaken, the lead keeps switching between them. When I reach the end of the piece, I segue into “Morning Has Broken,” the first song mentioning plants that comes to mind, hoping that might help. They dance a moment longer, then spin apart, and when they stop, the king has his sword in his hand.

I swallow a cry of warning, and ignore Joel’s free hand clamping down on my thigh. Whatever’s happening here, my role is to hold the rift and play on. The queen doesn’t need my warning. A slender silver blade appears in her hand.

And then they fight, wild and wicked and seeming as scripted as the dance. Their feet tread the surface of the water, their swords meet and retreat, each impact a tiny shimmering note in counterpoint to the song I play. The other fae dance on, swirling out of the way if the fight approaches. Many of them dance with their heads cocked over their shoulders, though, watching. They’re surely not indifferent to the battle between their royals.

Suddenly a roar goes up from the watchers. The queen pulls her blade back, a trickle of orange-red running down from its tip. The Goblin king staggers back, then pulls himself together. The upper arm of his shirt shows spreading color. The other dancers freeze in their tracks.

“I claim a forfeit.” The queen’s words ring out.

“I will honor it.” The king’s voice is deep and dark, rich and full of secrets, strong despite the way he clutches his arm. I’d forgotten. No wonder Carl followed him, when he whispered lures in my brother’s ear.

The dryad queen waves in my direction. “This contract. The mortal plaything, and the bargain with it.”

“Pick something else,” the king snaps. “I’ll not give this up.”

“You’d rather stand forsworn?”

A rumble rises from the watching crowd.

The king doesn’t look around, but his spine seems to stiffen. All my research tells me that would be a bad choice for a fae, a hit to his prestige or worse. I hold my breath. After several long, long minutes, the king says, “Very well. The player’s almost worn out anyway. I can find another.” He pulls a page from his pocket and drops it. Instead of sinking, the paper floats on the waves over to the queen.

King Mabon raises his sword, ignoring the blood now dripping from his fingers, and calls loudly, “To me, and to home!” Turning, he strides off into the rift.

The goblin dancers break apart and run back after him, disappearing one by one. I notice a few jostling the wood folk as they pass, but the queen calls out “Hold!” and none of her people start a fight. My fingers tremble on the strings, but I make it part of the tone and play on.

A minute later, not a brownie or redcap remains on the surface of that alien sea. Carl turns uncertainly, as if to follow them, but the queen calls, “Hold!” to him to. I see her words hit him, freezing him in place.

The color of the moon shades from orange through amber to green. The queen bends, cleans the tip of her sword by stabbing it into the waves, and slides the blade into a sheath hidden by the folds of her gown. Then she lifts the paper, holding it by one corner, and comes our way.

“What now?” I mutter to Joel out of the corner of my mouth. He engineered this, and while I have no objections whatsoever to seeing King Mabon take a sword to the arm, who’s to say the queen will be better?

“I don’t know. This is as far as I got.” His fingers dig into my thigh.

I switch to “Scarborough Fair” and the queen smiles as she nears us.

Carl shifts from foot to foot, then bows deeply. “My Lady.” Something about his tone says deference was a lesson learned the hard way, and I hold a bigger grudge against Mabon.

The queen inclines her head to him, but looks right at Joel. “So, human man, is our bargain kept?”

Joel flinches. “To the extent it was made, yes. What will happen to us?”

Her smile is sharp, and there are thorns among her teeth. “A wise man would have put those details in the deal.”

“You wouldn’t discuss them. An uncertain shot was better than none.”

She reaches out a pale-green hand, long, multijointed fingers reaching for his face. I want to slap her hand away, but I don’t dare stop playing. That was the one unbreakable rule in that contract she now holds. Sunset to sunrise, no more than three seconds of silence.

To my relief, she doesn’t touch Joel’s skin, just combs through the top of his blond hair. If she’s taking a strand to do magic with, I don’t know a way to stop her, but her fingers come away empty. “I do like a loyal man, even better than a wise one.”

The queen looks at me. “I can’t undo all that has been done. Your lover bargained only for the contract, in exchange for giving me a chance to meet Mabon off his own land and away from his armies.” She turns and spits into the water. “I can’t kill him, here in the human realm. I’d have disemboweled him, left him to crawl back into his rift and stagger home to his healers, but he only agreed to first blood.” Raising her sword hand, she licks delicately at her forefinger. “A first taste of more to come. I have infinite patience, and many people to avenge.”

I feel Joel’s shiver through the clasp of his hand. Carl doesn’t react at all. I imagine he’s seen far worse.

The queen turns to Carl. “You have a choice now. You’ve eaten our food and drunk our water for years. Trying to return to the human world might kill you. But the link you’ve had to your human brother all this time may have been enough to keep a thread of your humanity.“

He sucks in a sharp breath. “I might survive?” He pivots, scanning the limits of the graveyard, but as on any other Halloween night, the world beyond its fence is shrouded in mist. “I’ve missed so much. It might be worth the risk.”

“A word before you decide.” The queen’s smile isn’t sweet. “Bonded as you are, making the attempt might also kill your brother.”

Carl’s mouth opens but he can’t force out a sound.

I ask, “What are the odds, Your Majesty? The chance he could live?”

Joel’s fingers are leaving bruises on my thigh.

Carl interrupts. “No. I won’t risk him.”

“But—” I begin, still bowing smoothly, the strings singing their deep notes. I might have it all, Joel and Carl!

“No,” Carl insists. “Brendan, you’ve given up more than enough. The fae lands aren’t bad at all. The thing I miss most is you, and I’m not about to get you killed trying to leave.”

“But—”

“No.” He blows out a breath, his shoulders slump and he turns to Joel. “Sorry, dude, it was a great try but I guess I’m not coming home.”

“I didn’t do it for you.” Joel may not hate my brother, but he’s clearly not a big fan either. He looks at the queen. “What about Brendan’s health?”

She hovers a hand over where mine dances on the strings. I feel a warmth like the summer sun on my skin. “I can’t give you back your stolen years. They fed Mabon’s life force and are gone. But in payment for this chance to strike a blow against Mabon, after so long a wait, I will give you good health, for the years that remain.” Her voice takes on a resonance. “Finish your contract tonight. Give us one last excellent concert, and in days and years to come, the light of the sun will warm you, fresh foods will bring wellbeing, and your years will be long upon the land. You will never again feed another’s life force.” I feel a spark like static, and play a wrong note.

The queen nods and pulls back. Turning to Joel, she says, “You’re certain you don’t want to join my people? You could befriend my new human.” A gesture at Carl. “He’s prettier than the one you have. I give my pets freedom to do as they choose. It’s a good life and far longer than a normal human span.”

“Not a chance,” Joel says. “I’m staying here with my husband.”

“Loyalty.” She turns back to Carl. “You may talk to your brother, as we dance, but when the rift closes, it will pull you to the Border Lands forever. I advise him not to try this again, for all your sakes. So say your goodbyes.” Turning, she strides up to a tree man at least nine feet tall with arms like oak logs. He pulls her into his embrace, and they dance.

I don’t know what an excellent concert means to her, but I play everything I love, from Adam Hurst to Ligeti and Cassado. The fae dance, but without the frenetic energy of the goblin court.

I should be talking to Carl, squeezing in a last night with my brother, but my tongue seems glued to the roof of my mouth. Instead I listen, as Joel takes up that conversation for me, asking about Carl’s year and what he might do with freedom to choose. Since gardening is still high on his list, perhaps he’ll fit in with the dryads well.

Joel tells my brother a little about our life too. Nothing deep, nothing secret, but a word poem of quiet mornings over breakfast and small arguments about TV shows and shopping for the right Christmas tree each year. At one point, Carl turns to me and says, “I see why you chose him,” and I just nod. Joel chose me, and my life is infinitely richer for that.

In the east, new light begins to brighten the sky. Pink and lavender color the heavens, and the green moon is fading. All Saints Day is dawning clear and cool. An airplane contrail cuts a gold line overhead, the sound faint in our ears.

Carl straightens from where he’d been leaning on the back of the bench beside Joel and tilts his head back. “The fae lands are beautiful, but sometimes a bit too perfect. There are worse things, though.” He turns to the queen, who’s swung her new partner— a small slender woman with trailing vines of hair— close to us. “Can I touch my brother or will it break the spell?”

The queen looks up at the sky too. “You have one minute. Use it wisely.”

“I don’t know if that’s a yes or a no.”

She waltzes away.

Carl turns back to me, gives Joel a nod. “Thank you. I’ll never be able to say that enough. Take care of Brendan.”

“Always.”

He turns to me. I segue back into “Morning Has Broken.” In the past, I never repeated a song in the same night, trying to please the king, but old rules don’t apply.

Carl smiles at me, but his lip wobbles. “I’ve seen you just once a year for so long, but I’m going to miss the hell out of even that little.”

I unglue my tongue enough to say, “I’ll miss you too.”

“Knowing you’re safe will be worth it though. More than.”

“Yeah.” For years, I’d always felt that weight of his life hanging on the goblin king’s whim and word. My head feels light as dandelion fluff with that weight lifted. And about as coherent.

The queen whirls past. “One touch. The magic will hold that long.”

Joel slides over next to me and puts his fingers on the strings above mine. The song disintegrates in sour notes but I keep bowing and the sea remains calm. “Give me the bow,” Joel says. “I can hold a note or two.”

I let him slip the bow from my cramping fingers, turn the cello his way, and as he plays a slow, buzzy, C and then A, C and then A, I work my way out from behind her and stand.

With my feet deep in the lapping waves, I look at Carl. His shoes are submerged too. He’s with the fae but not truly of them. I open my arms. Carl leaps forward and for just an instant, I feel the lean strength of him and the heat of his breath touches my cheek. “Love you, bro,” he murmurs. “Always will.”

Then he lets go as if dragged away, his fingers slipping from my shoulders. The waves are receding, the fae dancing off into the rift. The queen remains on the edge of that rip in the world. Carl raises an arm to me as he backs toward her, then he’s turning, growing smaller, carried to the rift by that magical riptide and then gone. The queen salutes us with her sword, a flash of orange tinting its hilt. Bending, she sets something on the ground and takes one step back. The rift closes with a snap.

A tiny wave ripples toward us across the now-dry ground. On its surface, a page of paper floats our way, washing up where Joel sits. I reach down and lift the page. The water drains into the soil and is gone. As a bird sings a tentative morning song, Joel says, “Can I stop now?”

“Yes.” I take the bow from his hand to stop the C and A, and pass him the paper. The silence rings in my ears.

He stares down at the page, at my signature below the goblin king’s words, and then rips the page in half, again and again. I almost protest, staring in the direction Carl went, but nothing changes. Of course not, the rift is gone, the bargain finished.

“I never got to say I loved him too,” I whisper.

Joel stuffs the paper scraps in a pocket, takes my hands in his, and kisses the ragged ends of my fingers. When he looks up, my blood‘s on his lips, but he’s smiling. “Brendan, Carl knows. He really, truly knows.”

“And I love you. So damned much.” I’d searched a long time, in those first years, for an answer to the trap Carl and I were in. By the time I met Joel, I’d decided there was none, beyond yet worse bargains. “You— I— How did you do that?”

“Three years in the making, the help of the coven, and finding the person who hated Mabon worse than we did.” Joel leans the cello more securely, stands, and pulls me close. “Sorry I didn’t tell you.”

I shove my face against his neck under his ear. “Why not?”

“Didn’t want to get your hopes up, when I finally met someone with a contact among the fae. And…” He hesitates.

“And?” Didn’t you trust me?

“You were so adamant about me never getting within ten miles of anything fae. I was afraid you’d stop me, for my own good, or at least, we’d have a screaming fight about it. I had to meet with the dryad queen more than once. Thus, forgiveness not permission.”

“Thus.” I hug him harder. “I forgive you. Just, if you’d gotten yourself hurt or killed, I wouldn’t have.”

Joel shifts his stance to kiss me in the first rays of the rising sun. “Sure you would. You love me.”

“Yeah, I do, I would. But it would’ve killed me.”

“Like it’s been killing me for fifteen years?”

I flinch and he kisses me again. “Enough. Water under the bridge. We survived.”

“We did.” I can’t keep a smile from spreading across my face, but I have to ask, “You don’t mind that I still look so old? And always will?” I’d occasionally, helplessly, hoped that maybe, somehow, someday, magic could undo what it‘d done to me. It’s pure vanity, to mourn that defect in this amazing reprieve, but I can’t help a pang of regret and worry.

Joel brushes his lips against my cheek. “I like older men. I dated guys much older than me before you. An older man with a fae’s blessing for health? Sounds good to me, as long as it’s you.”

“My hair’s gray.”

He tousles my hair. “Your hair is unnaturally brown, but the color will fade.”

“I have wrinkles, and stomach flab.”

“I’ll make you come to the gym.” He tilts his head. “Are you trying to send me away?”

“No! Never.” I clutch at his hand and he grips mine securely.

“Good. ‘Cause it won’t work.” Without letting go, he bends to lift the cello case off the ground. “Hey, how come this isn’t wet? Or your shoes?”

I shrug. “Magic?”

“Naturally. Story of our life.”

“Was the story of our life,” I realize. “Not any more. No magic. Not even a rabbit in a top hat. Next Halloween, I’ll sit home and hand out candy to the kids, and anyone in a costume related to magic will get a lump of coal.”

Joel laughs, frees his hand to zip the cello into her case, and shoulders the strap. “Sounds like a great plan. Can we still make magic between the sheets?”

“No.” I turn him to face me. The early, golden light of day gilds his hair and deepens the blue of his eyes. “But we can make love. Forever and ever.”

Joel sets the cello down again. I’m waiting for a kiss, but instead he pulls something out of his pocket and takes my left hand. Using his teeth, he peels the wrapper and backing off a Band-Aid and wraps it around my forefinger. Three more fingers later, he looks up at me and grins. “I came prepared. The Advil’s at the house, though. So’s breakfast.” He slings the case strap over his shoulder, staggering a little to get her balanced, then holds out his elbow. “Come on, let’s go home.”

I wrap my good hand around his arm. “People will say, ‘Look at that sweet man being so kind to his grandfather.'”

“Meh. Father at most.” He begins leading the way toward the cemetery gates now standing open to the new day. “Anyway, who cares what people say? I’ll tell them, “Ooh, yeah, my Daddy takes real good care of me in bed too.'”

A woman coming in with a bunch of flowers throws him a dubious look as she passes, and he grins and raises his voice. “My Daddy’s a sexy beast.”

I nudge him, though not hard enough to make him drop the cello. “Shush. You’ve never called me Daddy in your life.”

“I might start.” He slows and looks up at me. “The man inside your body is the only guy I’ve ever loved, but I have no complaints about the package either. You have the ass of a fifty-year old.”

Laughter breaks free of me then, a bit wild and uncontrolled, full of joy and relief. “We need to eat and sleep, but then I might let you pay homage to that ass.”

“I’m onboard with that plan, and every other plan you come up with.”

Love wells up in my chest, so strong it turns me silent. I tug on his elbow, moving us forward out the gates. Fate was cruel, in putting Carl and me in the sights of the goblin king, but it was more than kind in bringing me Joel. Beyond the cemetery, I throw one last look over my shoulder. Carl’s headstone is still across from that bench, but I’ll never visit. I’ll tell people, “it doesn’t feel like he’s there,” and mean it. Goodbye, brother, I think. I hope you have half as good a life as I will. I hope you find love half as strong as Joel’s. I hope you remember you‘re loved here too.

“There are kind folk among the tree people,” Joel murmurs, as if he knows where my mind went. “The queen’s razor-sharp, but I met several who were warmer. I can ask my friend, a few years down the line, to ask for word of Carl.”

“In a few years,” I agree. “From a distance. Via several intermediaries. In Morse code.”

Joel chuckles and squeezes my fingers between his elbow and his side. “Another good plan. Come on, sweetheart, let’s go home.”

 

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