Faery Tales and Nightmares. Melissa Marr

with me.”

      “I would like that very much.” Smiling, Bjarn pulled her to her feet.

      Clutching his hand in hers, she turned toward the mouth of the tunnels. “Can I meet them?”

      He grinned and waved at the ice-bears. One of the largest ambled forward first.

      “My grandmother stays in this form almost always since the snows are so brief.” Bjarn rested his face on the great bear’s head in a hug of sorts. “She had heard the stories whispered of you, of your gift, and so I traveled to find you ….”

      “Thank you,” Nesha murmured to the bear, joyous at hearing her icy breath called a gift, at finding a home where she would be welcome in the months away from her father’s lands.

      The bear rubbed her muzzle against Nesha’s arm.

      Bjarn pointed at several cubs who were rolling perilously close to a cluster of stalagmites. “The youngest, my sisters, stay furred as much as they can. They race through the cave tunnels”—he paused and shook his head as one of the cubs hurtled toward another, larger bear—“until my father takes them out to explore the ice dunes and give the elders a bit of quiet ….”

      And so long into the night they sat and talked, the girl who carried winter’s kiss and the boy who was a bear.

      Thus began their new life. Bjarn still carried Nesha when they went out during the day, but now they were joined by Bjarn’s family. Now, for the first time in her life, Nesha could laughed freely, setting snow squalls to dance over the ledges. Her new family-who-were-bears did not fear her; instead, they spun and laughed in the cold air. And when they returned to the caves, Bjarn walked hand in hand with her—listening as she told him of her life and dreams, and telling her of his life and dreams.

      This was the way of their lives for many months.

      Then, one winter afternoon, the sky heavy with snow, Nesha said to Bjarn, “Come with me to see my father.”

      Bjarn asked, “To stay?”

      “No. This is my home.” She motioned toward the great white plain where the cubs were sliding in circles. “With them, with you. Now and always.”

      “Always,” Bjarn repeated softly.

      And so it was that Nesha shared the first of many kisses with Bjarn, the boy-who-had-become-her-beloved.

      TOMORROW

      EBASTIAN LOWERED THE BODY TO THE ground in the middle of a dirt-and-gravel road in the far back of a graveyard. “Crossroads matter, Eliana.”

      He pulled a long, thin blade and slit open the stomach. He reached his whole forearm inside the body. His other hand, the one holding the knife, pressed down on her chest. “Until this moment, she could recover.”

      Eliana said nothing, did nothing.

      “But hearts matter.” He pulled his arm out, a red slippery thing in his grasp.

      He tossed it to Eliana.

      “That needs buried in sanctified ground, and she”—he stood, pulled off his shirt, and wiped the blood from his arm and hand—“needs to be left at crossroad.”

      Afraid that it would fall, Eliana clutched the heart in both hands. It didn’t matter, not really, but she didn’t want to drop it in the dirt. Which is where we will put it. But burying it seemed different from letting it fall on the dirt road.

      Sebastian slipped something from his pocket, pried open the corpse’s mouth, and inserted it between her lips. “Wafers, holy objects of any faith, put these in the mouth. Once we used to stitch the mouth shut, too, but these days that attracts too much attention.”

      “And dead bodies with missing hearts don’t?”

      “They do.” He lifted one shoulder in a small shrug.

      Eliana tore her gaze from the heart in her hands and asked, “But?”

      “You need to know the ways to keep the dead from waking, and I’m feeling sentimental.” He walked back toward the crypt where the rest of their clothes were, leaving her the choice to follow him or leave.

      TODAY

      “Back later,” Eliana called as she slipped out the kitchen door. The screen door slammed behind her, and the porch creaked as she walked over it. Sometimes she thought her aunt and uncle let things fall into disrepair because it made it impossible to sneak in—or out—of the house. Of course, that would imply that they noticed if she was there.

      Why should they be any different from anyone else?

      She went over to a sagging lawn chair that sat in front of a kiddie pool in their patchy grass. Her cousin’s kids had been there earlier in the week, and no one had bothered to put the pool back inside the shed yet. The air was sticky enough that filling it up with the hose and lying out under the stars didn’t sound half bad.

      Except for the part where I have to move.

      Eliana closed her eyes and leaned her head back. One of the headaches she’d been having almost every day the past couple months played at the edge of her eye. The doctor said they were migraines or stress headaches or maybe a PMS thing. She didn’t care what they were, just that they stop, but the pills he gave her didn’t help that much—and were more money than her aunt felt like paying for all the good they did.

      On to Plan B: self-medicate.

      She tucked up her skirt so it didn’t drag in the mud, propped her boots on the end of the kiddie pool, and noticed another bruise on her calf. The bruises and the headaches scared her, made her worry that there was something really wrong with her, but no one else seemed to think it was a big deal.

      She closed her eyes and waited for her medicine to arrive.

      “Why are you sleeping out here?” Gregory glanced back at her empty front porch. “Everything okay?”

      “Yeah.” She blinked a few times and looked at him. “Just another headache. What time is it?”

      “I’m late, but”—he took her hands and pulled her to her feet—“I’ll make it up to you. I have a surprise.”

      He’d slid a pill into her hand. She didn’t bother asking what it was; it didn’t matter. She popped it into her mouth and held out her hand. He offered her a soda bottle, and she washed the pill taste out of her mouth with whatever mix of liquor he’d had in with the cola. Unlike pills and other things, good liquor was more of a challenge to get.

      They walked a few blocks in silence before he lit a joint. By the look of the darkened houses they’d passed, it was late enough that no one was going to be sitting on their stoop or out with kids. Even if they did look, they wouldn’t know for sure if it was a cigarette—and since Gregory didn’t often smoke, there was no telltale passing it back and forth to clue anyone in.

      “Headaches that make a person miss hours can’t be”—she inhaled, pulling the lovely numbing smoke into her throat and lungs—“normal. That doctor”—she exhaled—“is a joke.”

      Gregory slid his arm around her low back. “Hours?”

      She nodded. Her doctor had given her a suspicious look and asked about drugs when she’d mentioned that she felt like she was missing time, but then she could honestly say that she hadn’t taken drugs. The drugs came after the doctor couldn’t figure out what was wrong. She tried the over-the-counter stuff, cutting out soda, eating different foods. The headaches and the bruises weren’t changed at all. Neither is the time thing.

      “Maybe you just need to, you know, de-stress.” Gregory kissed her throat.

      Eliana didn’t roll her eyes.