She had been following the new flavor in town for two weeks, and the flavor was stronger tonight, a dark note on the cold air, the particular note of a magic that had just fed.
She found him on the bench at the edge of the woods, the bench with the plaque that read “In Memory of Someone Who Loved This View,” and the view was of the cannery parking lot at midnight, and the parking lot was empty except for a single seagull that had lost its way inland and was sitting on a lamp post looking offended.
He was sitting with his hands in his pockets and his coat pulled tight and his shoulders were the shoulders of a man who had just lost something and was still counting what was gone.
She could see the dark thread spool unwinding from his chest.
Not a physical thread.
A fairy-sight thread.
The particular thread of a magic that was paying out small as he breathed, a thread that was dark and getting darker, and she hadn’t seen a thread like this in a very long time, and the last time she had seen one, she had been in the Enchanted Forest, and the thread had belonged to someone who was on their way to becoming something she didn’t want to name.
She stopped six feet from the bench.
Close enough to speak.
Far enough to flee.
The fairy-dust in her pocket was a quiet weight, and the weight was reassuring, and the reassurance was the only thing keeping her standing.
“You’re the one,” she said.
Her voice was clear and mid-range, with the precision of someone who used to dust-anchor flight paths and had learned to speak in words that carried.
“The magic in town.
The new flavor.
I’ve been tracking it for two weeks.
It leads to you.” He looked up.
His eyes were brown with gold flecks in the lamplight, and the gold flecks were a fairy-sign, a marker, the particular marker of a magic that had marked its bearer.
She had seen markers like this before.
She had never seen one on a human.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said.
The lie was a poor lie, the kind of lie a man told when he had been caught and didn’t yet know whether being caught was dangerous.
“You do.” She did not move.
Her hands were at her sides and her hands were still and the stillness was a choice.
“The hum under your sternum.
The price-magic in your deals.
The torn coat and the broken shoelace and the memory of a song that you cannot hum anymore because it was priced.
I can see the thread unwinding from you.
I can see the dark-quotient in the air above your chest.
You are someone the magic has decided about.” He did not answer for a long moment.
The moment stretched and the seagull on the lamp post made a sound that wasn’t a seagull sound, and the cold deepened by a degree, and the thread spool paid out another inch.
“What are you?” he said.
She almost told him.
She almost gave him her name, her title, the species she had been before the convent and after the wing-strip and before Storybrooke.
She did not.
She wasn’t ready to give him her name.
The name was a thing she was still learning to own, and owning it to a stranger with a dark thread unwinding from his chest wasn’t the way she wanted to start.
“I am someone who sees what you are,” she said.
“That is enough for tonight.” She turned and walked away.
She did not walk fast.
She walked at the pace of a woman who wasn’t fleeing, who was choosing to leave, and the choosing was important, and the importance was the only thing that kept her walking when her fairy-sense prickled at her to turn around and say more.
He followed her for three blocks.
She counted them.
Three blocks in the dark, his footsteps a steady rhythm behind her, the particular rhythm of a man who was following someone he didn’t want to lose.
She stopped at the corner of Main and the street that led to the Rabbit Hole, and she didn’t turn around, and she said into the cold air, “Three blocks is far enough.” His footsteps stopped.
She could hear him breathing, the particular breathing of a man who had been holding his breath and had just let it go.
“I don’t know your name,” he said.
“No,” she said.
“You don’t.” “But you know what I am.
You said the magic has decided about me.
What does that mean?
Decided what?” She turned then.
She had not planned to turn.
Her body made the decision the way a fairy’s body sometimes made decisions when the dust was thin and the air was right and the question was the right question.
His face in the streetlight was the face of a man who had been carrying a weight for a long time and was asking someone to help him name the weight.
She knew that face.
She had seen that face in every mirror in every realm she had ever crossed.
“It means the magic doesn’t ask permission,” she said.
“It means something chose you and you didn’t get a vote.
It means the thread unwinding from your chest is going to keep unwinding until it reaches whatever it’s attached to, and you don’t know what it’s attached to, and I don’t either, but I can see it, and the seeing is not a gift.” She paused.
The fairy-dust in her pocket was warm now, a small warmth, the particular warmth of dust that wanted to be used.
“I know what it’s like to lose something to a choice you didn’t make.
I lost my wings because I trusted the wrong person.
I lost my name because I broke the wrong rule.
I lost my way because I believed someone who told me I was doing the right thing and I wasn’t.” She looked at him directly.
“You’re going to lose things.
You’re losing them already.
The torn coat.
The shoelace.
The memory of the song.
The feel of your mother’s hand.
I can see the gaps.
I can see the places where something used to be and isn’t anymore.” Daniel was very still.
The hum under his sternum was very quiet, the particular quiet of a counterparty that was being seen by someone who could see it, and the seeing was a violation, and the violation was making the hum uncomfortable.
“How do you know about my mother’s hand?” “Because I can see the gap,” Tink said.
“I can’t see what was there.
I can see the shape of the absence.
The shape is the shape of a mother’s hand on a forehead.
I’ve been a fairy long enough to recognize the shape of a mother’s love that was priced.” She pulled her jacket tighter and the jacket was thin, too thin for November, too thin for Maine, too thin for a woman who had been exiled from her own kind and was making do with what she could find.
“I’m not your enemy.
I’m not your friend.
I’m someone who recognizes the thread because I’ve seen it before, and I know what happens at the end of it, and I’m trying to decide whether to help you or stop you.” “Stop me from what?” “From becoming whatever the thread is pulling you toward.” She turned away again and this time she didn’t stop at the corner.
She walked toward the Rabbit Hole and didn’t look back, and the fairy-dust in her pocket was still warm, and the warmness was a question, and the question was whether she was going to help him or stop him, and the answer was going to take time, and the time was going to cost something she hadn’t yet decided she was willing to pay.
The footsteps stopped.
She walked on.
She did not look back.
She had given him something to follow, and he had followed it, and the following was the beginning of a thing she wasn’t sure she was ready for.
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