He kissed her again, but all he felt was his own despair. I love you. She loved him more. Always had.
Dr. Klinger came back and told Will about some more tests they would run. Will signed the papers and tried again to reach Jacob. He tried and tried. No reply.
The doctor sent him home, promising to call if there was any change.
Will couldn’t recall whether he’d taken the elevator or the stairs. He just found himself out on the street, waiting for the tears that wouldn’t come, staring into headlights as if they could explain what had happened. Jacob. He had to talk to Jacob. His brother would know a way. Some spell. That did what? Replace true love? Whatever that was...
Will looked back at the hospital. He couldn’t just leave Clara there. He had to take her with him. Jacob would find something to help her, she would wake up, and he’d love her the way she deserved to be loved.
“You always put all the blame on yourself, Will. Is it because your brother takes his responsibilities so lightly?”
Will turned around. The strange man sitting on one of the benches in front of the hospital had used his name like he was an old acquaintance, but Will couldn’t recall ever having seen him before. Clara called these benches the “pews of tears” because they were the first stop for people leaving the hospital who’d just had bad news.
“I’m sorry, do I know you?” It was the kind of question you asked when you wanted to be left alone but were still as helpless and polite as Will.
The stranger smiled. “Yes, but you were probably too young to remember. I was a close friend of your mother’s.”
An ambulance drove past. Someone bumped into Will. So much activity, so many people, especially at this time of day. But something about the stranger didn’t belong here. Or was it that their surroundings didn’t fit him? Maybe Will was just dreaming. He’d been thinking that a lot since he’d returned. How did Jacob do it, change worlds all the time? It made you lose your mind...
Why couldn’t he wake her? If only he’d looked after her better. If only he hadn’t stopped loving her.
The stranger watched Will with an amused expression, as though he was listening to Will’s thoughts. He still hadn’t introduced himself. Suddenly Will heard words in his head: Woulda, coulda, shoulda...Always the good son, brother, friend, lover...Will Reckless, the canvas others paint on. What about you? Who do you want to be, Will?
“Sit with me for a while.” The stranger patted the bench next to him. Will hesitated. He had to go back. To Clara.
“Sit, Will.” The stranger’s voice caressed him like a warm breeze, but the invitation didn’t sound like a request. “I have an offer for you.”
A drunk man stumbled by. A couple kissed by a bus stop. True love...
“I’m sorry,” said Will. “I have to go back.” He gestured toward the revolving door of the hospital. “My girlfriend...”
“Yes, my offer is about her.” The stranger again patted the bench. There was a hint of impatience in the gesture. The dirty curb, the tired faces, the coffee shop on the corner. The stranger made it all look so unreal. Will slowly sat down next to him. The man had a tiny ruby in his earlobe. What did that remind him of?
“I assume you’ve tried kissing her? Sadly, that only works in the rarest of cases.” The man pulled a silver cigarette box from his pocket. “The spindle sleep is very old Fairy magic. Very effective, and very easy to use. I assumed your brother had warned you and your girlfriend. You rejected the Fairy’s gift, the skin of sacred stone. Immortals take these things very personally. And since she can’t do anything to you...”
He took a silver cigarette case and lighter from his pocket. That’s when Will saw he had six fingers on each hand. The wrong world. This entire night belonged to the wrong world.
“Fairies love to play fate, Will, and that’s not limited to their infamous love magic. We both know what I’m talking about: a different skin, a deadly sleep, a wooden prison...” He lit a cigarette as white and slender as his fingers. “But this time your brother won’t bring everything back to the way it was. This time you will have to do it yourself. Isn’t that your biggest wish? To have everything the way it was? Before you made the mistake of following your brother?” He exhaled smoke into the night and ignored the disapproving looks of the passersby. “Once upon a time...There’s a r
eason all fairy tales begin like this. But the ‘and they lived happily ever after’ at the end? That has to be earned.”
Will thought he could see the face of a woman in the wafts of smoke. Moths were fluttering around it.
“It’s incredible, isn’t it?” The stranger tucked the cigarette case and lighter back in his pocket and pulled out a pouch. “She made you immune even to her own magic, all to save her lover. Love makes fools, even of immortals.” He dropped the pouch on Will’s lap. Jacob had a similar one. “It all began with her. It can only end with her.”
The pouch seemed empty, but when Will reached inside, he felt a wooden handle.
The stranger got up.
“Find her. Use my gift, and you have my promise everything will be just as it was meant to be.” He leaned down. “I will show you who you are, Will Reckless. Your true self... Isn’t that what you’re looking for?”
He didn’t wait for Will’s answer. He turned and walked toward a car parked by the curb. A driver got out and opened the back door, and the stranger slipped inside. Will sat with the pouch in his hand and watched as the car merged into the pre-dawn traffic.
Jacob still didn’t answer his phone, and Clara’s face was as pale as a corpse’s. Will didn’t have the courage to kiss her again, and the night nurse just shook her head when he asked whether he could take Clara home.
The apartment was so still, the rooms so empty. Once upon a time. Will sat at the kitchen table and took the pouch from his pocket. He carefully put his hand inside, and his eyes widened at the sight of the weapon that slid out. A crossbow. It was so beautiful and so terrible. The silver fittings were warm, as though the silver were melting under his touch. There were whispers lodged in the patterns etched into the precious metal. Will closed his fingers around the hilt. He cocked the glass string, placed the silver arrow, and feared what he felt: the wish to let the arrow fly, into the heart of darkness, to where all magic came from. But that place has no heart.
In the Wrong Place