Chapter Ten

A dip into a pool on a full moon

"To get there we'll have to do this," Avery put an old Fey book onto his lap the next morning. "It's either this or finding a fairy door."

Aiden sighed, picking the book up to see a drawing of a full moon painted silver. "The next full moon is in a week, do you think we have enough time?"

The two siblings were in their kitchen, with books and jars all over the place. In the jars sat normal plants you'd see at a farmers market like ginger and berries.

Others were strange, discomforting objects like eyeballs from a stray animal in a preserving liquid. The books had leather and snakeskin covers. They were bound with silk string to withhold their magical and otherworldly contents.

Avery was hard at work, with bags under her eyes. Aiden looked the same, with bloodshot eyes and wrinkles showing in the afternoon light. They all had struggled to deal with what had happened.

But the two had decided to stay up all night researching. Posy had been put to bed, the shared guilt the two felt overwhelming them. If their mother weren't dead, he would confront her about her actions. It was no secret she favored Posy. When she was pregnant, she was told she would have twins. So when she had not two but three babies in her arms, she took it as a blessing.

This only continued when Posy discovered she was a telepath. A miracle baby with a power that the creatures of the Fey would have. But he hated that she only trusted Posy with such grave information. She could have told them all, she could have told Posy to tell them if she ever went missing.

Aiden didn't want to judge her choices too badly as the woman was scared. But it just hurts to see Posy destroyed as if she was the one who took their parents.

Avery bit the eraser of the pencil she was holding. She had written down some spells to block them from being bewitched. "I doubt it but fairy doors are hard to come by. And these are the most reasonable options for us."

He had a small inkling of what she meant by a fairy door. Aiden had read about them briefly as a kid with Avery on a hot summer evening. They weren't literal doors but spaces between trees that looked off. You could only enter it at noon or midnight, after a rainstorm. This left finding one, an actual doorway, really difficult.

Still, jumping into a body of ice-cold water made him less enthusiastic. There were cautious tales he had heard heavy in his mind. Humans and faeries drowned from this type of travel. You could become overwhelmed by the change in worlds and lose yourself to the realm itself. They would be taking a 50/50 chance with their lives by doing this.

"I know you're worried but we can't afford to wait for safer paths," Avery said with her back to him. She had crushed something into a bowl that had an earthy smell. "We can't just sit around and wallow in our guilt."

As she continued to apply pressure to the bowl's contents, Aiden felt his heart become heavy. It wasn't her fault things turned out this way.

"Avery, you shouldn't feel guilty." His words fell on deaf ears as she rolled her shoulders with obvious agitation.

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The smell of whatever she was making only became stronger as she poured the liquid into it. It was a golden yellow, like honey. However, unlike thick honey, this was very watery, almost like a soup. Her bare hands mushed it together allowing him to see what was in the bowl. His stomach turned, it was a dark red.

"I can feel however I want to feel Aiden. My mother's dead and I treated her like shit, " She turned to face him with blood-stained hands. "I can only blame myself. So please, spare me the big brother act for once, and let me acknowledge my actions."

Aiden tried not to look at whatever mangled creature she just pulverized as he responded. "I'm not acting, I don't think anyone's to blame besides the Seelie Court. Don't let your pain cloud you-"

She quirked her eyebrow. "Like you've been doing with Cassandra?" The question wasn't full of malice or meant to be snarky. It was true, for months he had been doing that exact thing.

He hated himself for what happened to Cassandra. He could have stopped her from leaving so late at night. At night he had night terrors that they'd her body in the woods. That she got snatched into some guy's car while walking and was dead. It ached like a pain he had never felt before and wouldn't stop.

"Which should tell you why I'm saying this. I don't want you or Posy feeling like how I do," The teenager felt tight as he continued. "Blaming yourself over the unknown just eats you alive inside. And it never stops."

His sister closed her eyes, her lips pressing together tightly. They had turned a pale color, contrasting their usual soft pink. It looked as if she wanted to argue with him but eventually, she deflated. The tension that had grown in her shoulders left and she looked defeated. Her grip on the bowl loosened so she wasn't clenching it.

She handed it to him which he accepted hesitantly. It was intense, its fragrance flooding his senses immediately. "Drink it."

His eyes bulged out of his head as his stomach flip-flopped. "What?" There was no way he was going to drink what looked like a rat's remains.

She looked grossed out as she explained herself. "It's a potion that will help us understand the fey tongue temporarily. You need to swallow a mouthful and let it digest for half an hour."

Aiden looked down at the bowl again at the mention of needing a mouthful. His mother had taught them all how to make potions. Potion-making was incredibly intricate and complex. From what they knew, in the Seelie Court, everyone could make a potion blind. So whenever she could she'd bring back trendy potions that would intrigue them.

But only Avery took an avid interest in it. He figured it helped her feel a closeness to their mother when she was home. It was the only thing they did alone for hours day by day. This led to her being a decent brewer by middle school. Recent potions she had made were safe and worked wonders. Still, this one just sounded gross.

He shook it around in his hands, cautiously. "How temporary is it? Will you have to make another one while we're in the fey realm?"

"I don't know," Avery answered with a confused look on her face. "All the spell books that I can read say it will work for years. But, that's with humans, not changelings."

"So it's a coin toss?" He said which earned him an aspirated look. He was only asking to buy it himself sometime before having to drink.

She shrugged. "I guess, it's better than going without some advantage." Quickly, she nodded her head towards the bowl encouraging him to go on ahead.

His mouth opened wide as he lifted the bowl to his lips and he swallowed. His taste buds felt like they were on fire with a tingly feeling spreading across his tongue. Surprisingly he couldn't taste much of the actual concoction. Instead, his mouth and throat just felt incredibly fuzzy. The fuzziness began to numb it, cooling into a normal temperature as he disgusted it.

He smacked his lips together, wincing in pain from the tight feeling they suddenly had. "Blegh. It feels like I took some cold medicine." Almost immediately he moved his tongue around rapidly in an attempt to make the feeling go away.

His sister grinned almost mischievously. It made him feel relieved her mood had changed for the better. "It's an old selkie cough syrup. At first, it was sold to heal sore throats and vocal cords. But it actually can manipulate non-fey cords to speak their language."

A cough syrup that makes you speak an entirely different language, if not multiple. He rubbed his throat with a pleased look on his face. "Sounds perfectly normal in a place with magical creatures and witchcraft."