Sean Cullen - The Prince of Two Tribes

“You shouldn’t be so kind to me,” she said fiercely. “I don’t deserve this from you.”

“Why not? Everybody needs help sometimes. I know I do.”

She stood and looked into his face, her eyes red and her cheeks streaked with tears. “Oh, mon cher.” She wrapped her arms around him. At first he stiffened but she didn’t let go. She kept on holding him and he relaxed. “You have a good heart. I was sent to help you, but you are the one comforting me. Forgive me.”

“It’s okay.” Brendan shrugged.

“Oh, Brendan. Whatever happens, remember I never wished you harm,” Charlie whispered softly in his ear.

“Why do you say that?” Brendan asked.

She was silent for a moment. “I just don’t want you to misunderstand me in the time to come. You have such difficult days ahead. So much for one heart to bear. It’s not fair, is it?” Her breath on his neck was soft and warm. She pulled away and looked into his eyes. “Be true to that good heart. Promise me!” She held him so that she could stare into his eyes. Her face was deadly earnest.

“Relax, Charlie… ”

“No! Promise me!”

“Okay! Okay! I promise!”

“Good. And you aren’t alone.” She smiled and leaned forward, kissing him softly on the cheek, gentle as a feather fall. “You have a lot of good friends.”

“Like you.”

She smiled sadly and nodded once.

Brendan’s whole body felt light as air. All of his fears and worries receded. He looked into Charlie’s face. He’d never felt anything like this before. He felt hot and cold, light and more substantial, powerful and weak at the same time. He gazed into Charlie’s eyes and found he had nothing to say. Not a single word.

Brendan lay on his bed that night trying to tune out the terrible ache of his muscles and quiet his thoughts. He was already confused by the coming Challenges. Now he found that his mind kept twisting around Charlie. She was annoying. She was infuriating. Her visits to his house threatened to expose his secret to his family. Despite all that, she could be totally disarming and attractive. He found he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

“Hey,” Charlie’s voice suddenly whispered in his ear. “Penny for your thoughts.”

Brendan sat up so fast that he slammed his head on the angled ceiling above his bed.

“Ow!” he grunted, clutching his forehead. “You scared the crap out of me.”

“Can you keep it down?” Charlie whispered. “You’ll wake everybody up.”

Brendan bit back a retort, partly because he didn’t want to make any more noise, and partly because he felt oddly nervous. It was as though by thinking about Charlie, he’d somehow summoned her.

“Come on. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

“Now?” He looked at his watch. He must have fallen asleep. It was past 3 A.M.

“Oui! Now!”

“Can I at least put on some real clothes this time?”

Charlie giggled. “Just hurry. I don’t like to keep this fellow waiting.”

“Who is he?” Brendan asked, reaching for a sweatshirt.

“You’ll see.”

Brendan hesitated before taking off his pyjama bottoms. “Do you mind?”

“Don’t worry.” Charlie smiled. “I won’t laugh.”

“Just turn around!”

“Fine.” And she did.

Brendan pulled on his jeans, grabbed his jacket, and slid open the top drawer of his dresser. BLT was curled up in a nest of socks and underpants. He gently lifted the little Faerie in his palm.

“Wha?” BLT mumbled. “What’s happening?”

“We’re going out,” Brendan whispered.

She shook her head. “Wake me when it’s summer.”

When he was ready, Charlie eased the window open. Brendan scooped BLT into his coat pocket and leapt out into the night.

The city, muffled under a fall of new snow, was as quiet as it ever got. The yellow light of the street lamps shone down on the pair as they trotted easily through the streets. Tweezers ran ahead, leaping and rolling in the soft snow, pausing every few seconds to stare back at them, whiskers twitching. They made their way through the park again, passing the outdoor skating rink, its glassy surface glimmering faintly with reflected moonlight.

“Where are we going?” Brendan asked.

“Not far,” Charlie answered. She smiled cryptically and picked up her pace. Brendan matched it easily. He was beginning to discover how close to the surface his power lurked, like water flowing under the ice of a frozen river. He could break through more easily now. Was it just practice? Or did the presence of Charlie make it easier?

He looked over at her face as she ran, her prominent nose and pale cheeks flushed with the cold and exertion. Her profile was strong and angular, like one of those portraits from the Renaissance painters.^ 45 She was smiling slightly, breathing through her open mouth, sending out gusts of frosted air and running through them. She sensed him looking at her and turned her blue eyes toward him. “Are you all right?”

He nodded and smiled.

She smiled back. “I’m sorry for my moment of weakness.”

“Don’t be sorry.” Brendan laughed. “My whole life is a string of them.”

She grinned.

They left the park and turned onto Queen Street. Charlie slowed and came to a stop in front of the steamy window of a twenty-four-hour doughnut shop. Brendan had often passed it but had never gone in. The shop had always looked a little seedy in the daylight, but now, glowing with warm yellow light, it appeared cozy and inviting. The window was painted in swirling letters surrounded by shooting stars.

COSMIC DOUGHNUTS OUT OF THIS WORLD 24 HRS A DAY!

“Here we are.”

“A doughnut shop?”

She opened the door, sketching a mock bow. “Apres vous, monsieur!”

Brendan stepped past her into the warmth of the shop.

Before him a glass counter with metal racks displayed a few lonely fritters. More racks held an assortment of doughnuts. Two pots of coffee simmered on burners, one decaf and one regular. On a stool by the counter, a man wearing an oldfashioned paper busboy’s hat sat reading a newspaper. He looked up when Brendan and Charlie came in.

“Hello.” He set aside the paper. “Pardon me, but ain’t you two a little young to be out and about at this hour?”

“They’re with me!” a voice announced from a booth near the window. Brendan looked over and saw an old man in a woollen suit with a herringbone check pattern. A flat cap lay on the table beside an open box of doughnuts and a steaming cup of coffee. On the bench beside him a dark overcoat was folded neatly. A walking stick made of polished wood leaned against the seat.

He smiled when Brendan looked at him.

“I know you!” Brendan cried. “I saw you in the Hot Pot!”

“Yes.” The old man nodded. “I couldn’t help myself. I had to get a look at you.”

His face was a nest of wrinkles over strong cheekbones. A neatly trimmed grey beard brushed the front of his worn linen shirt, and his sky-blue eyes were clear and sharp. They held Brendan in their grasp and didn’t let him go as he crossed the floor and slid into the bench opposite.

Brendan had never seen an old Faerie before. Certainly, Ariel was ancient. Ariel had an aura, a gravity, as though the years crowded around him, but in appearance he seemed no older than Brendan’s dad or mum. The Faerie sitting across from him was elderly. Thick purple veins crawled over the backs of his liver-spotted hands. His white hair was thinning on top, and his shoulders were slightly stooped. But for all his aged appearance, the man didn’t seem the least bit frail. Somehow, his age was his power, and Brendan felt the weight of it bearing down on him.