…or, A Relatively Short Journey
“So, that is sunrise, right?” Iolana asked. “I’m afraid I’ve lost my bearings completely… but we didn’t miss all of Friday, did we?”
“It’s definitely sunrise,” I said. “The sky’s getting lighter. Of course, it’s still possible we missed all of Friday… it could be Saturday morning. Even Sunday.”
“But not any longer than that, right?” she said. “It would be bad enough to miss one day of classes, much less more.”
“I couldn’t really guess,” I said.
“It wouldn’t be more than a week, would it?” Iolana asked. “I was looking forward to the dance.”
“Why?” I asked. “You don’t, you know, ‘date’.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t dance,” she said. “Dances are kind of a big deal to me.”
“Why?”
“Because I like to dance,” she said. “And anyway, if we were gone a week I guess we’d have worse problems. You don’t think we were, do you? We didn’t spend that long on the other side.”
“Well, I’m not saying it’s likely,” I said. “But I don’t have a faerie-to-mortal time conversion chart. Not that it would be accurate if I did.”
“Oh my kosh,” Iolana said. “If we’ve been gone that long, people will be worried. Do you think they’ll be looking for us? Even if it is still Friday, Bobby and Marlot are probably freaking out that the wagon never came back.”
I didn’t want to point out how unlikely it was that anybody would be looking. If we didn’t make it back, people would just assume we, well, didn’t make it back.
“Hey, it probably wasn’t more than a day or two. And we went out to a party,” I said. “Just like lots of other people. If we don’t show up in our individual rooms, well, that’s also just like lots of other people.”
Bobby’s family would probably try to hunt down the wagon.
“I don’t want anybody thinking I spent the night with!” Iolana said.
“Well, technically, you did,” I said. “Just in another plane of existence.”
“It wasn’t a night where we were.”
“Oh, you two are worrying about nothing,” the girl we were now apparently going to call Fay said.
“So it’s still Friday morning?” Iolana asked.
“No, hundreds of years passed here while we were there,” Fay said. “Seasons galloped past one after another, moons waxing and waning in the blink of an eye… everyone you know is gone, everyone who wondered what happened to you or would care whom you slept with is dead.”
“Yeah, not me,” I said. “My grandpa’s probably still kicking around, along with his whole family. My mom might still be alive, depending on how many ‘hundreds’ you’re trying to claim. But you’re not telling the truth, are you?”
“What makes you say that?”
“Bobby said you’re mischievous, not dangerous,” Iolana said. “He probably would have said something if there were a family history of people disappearing for hundreds of years.”
I liked the fact that Iolana was quick on her feet, quick enough to have not been fooled by Fay’s act any more than I was. I liked it enough to forgive her for stealing the reveal from me.
“Or completely,” I said. “Since they probably haven’t been there for hundreds of years. Come on, Fay. Tell us what day it is.”
“You’re no fun,” she said. Her lip curled up in a sneer as childish as the look in her eyes was ancient. I caught a glimpse of just how boring immortal existence could be. And to think that Iason resented his fractional mortality.
“Make her tell us,” I told Iolana. “She listens to you. Sometimes.”
“Fay, what day is it?” she asked. “Is it Friday? Please tell me it is.”
“Not like that!” I said.
“It is Friday,” Fay said.
“Is it really?” Iolana asked. “Tell me the truth.”
“You people can never make up your minds!” Fay declared, and then disappeared with a pop.
“It probably is,” I said to Iolana after a minute of no sound but the turning of the wagon wheels. “Friday, I mean.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, we really weren’t in her world for that long,” I said.
“That’s what I said!” she said. “And you argued with me!”
“I didn’t mean it wasn’t true,” I said. “Just that we couldn’t be sure. And we still can’t. But I’m just saying—”
“I don’t care what you’re just saying,” she said. “Just say nothing, okay?”
“What are you getting mad at me for?”
“What do you mean? Like this whole night isn’t enough?”
“Hey, I got dragged along, too,” I said. “I’m not the one who buried a sprite in the field, I’m not the one who set her free or made her decide to pick you out of everyone in the wagon as her new mistress, I’m not the one who made it pop into her head to take us along for—”
“Yeah, no, you’re the one who helped your friend spread racist lies about me to try to win a card game,” she said. “And then lied about it to me. And then insisted on coming along with me even though I didn’t want or need your company. Do you think I’ve forgotten all about that just because of everything else that’s happened?”
“Well, it does kind of seem like it happened a long time ago,” I said. “I mean, time really does move differently there.”
“Not that differently,” she said. “Listen, I don’t want to talk to you, okay? I don’t want to hear another word, unless it’s how to get rid of Fay, or give her a name she’ll answer to, or to tell me that the wagon has caught fire or something like that.”
“Wouldn’t you notice if the wagon caught—”
“Okay, then I don’t want to hear if the wagon’s on fire!” she said.
There didn’t seem to be anything that I could say to that. The rest of the ride back to campus made seasons galloping past one another seem like it wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all.
