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Emily treads lightly on the crunchy brown leaves covering the floor of the forest, which is now red and gold with the arrival of autumn. There are a few specific plants she needs to refill her stocks on; it’s one of her jobs as the village’s herbalist.
Her feet are too small for the clunky hiking boots she’s wearing, and her legs are beginning to ache from having to carry their weight, but it’s better than ruining her only pair of everyday shoes. She spares another glance at the papers in her hand and scours her surroundings for the plants drawn and described.
This continues from midmorning to sunset, and Emily only returns because it’s getting dark. She does not enjoy long romps in the woods and prefers to stay inside, hence her tendency to gather as much as she can in one instance as opposed to taking spontaneous trips. Thankfully, she’s collected most of what she needs. She heads west, towards the setting sun, back towards the village.
Right as she spots some of the brownish roofs from her spot on a hill, a humming that is most certainly not her own immediately makes the hairs on her neck stand up. She casts a hesitant glance around, and the humming quiets. Emily purses her lips and starts walking as quickly as she can in spite of her aching legs.
She’s the only one in the village allowed in the woods alone--herbalists are believed to be safe from the beguiles of the faeries due to their pure souls, tempered by curing all who come to them.
It’s helpful, in all honesty. Still, while Emily had been told over and over in the later portion of her childhood that she’s ‘safe,’ the tales from her early youth of beautiful strangers requesting your name only to abandon your soul in the woods stick with her more. She shudders even now, though that may just be from the dropping temperature.
As she nears the village, she spots Martha Behamfil, one of the village’s guards, holding a bright torch above high her head, dedicatedly awaiting Emily’s arrival.
Martha’s head whips over to the sound of a branch cracking, but her hostile expression breaks into a smile as she spots Emily. “Miss Dyer! You’re looking pretty spiffy! Did you get everything you need?”
While Martha is usually loud and bossy around others, she’s a bit more like a child around Emily. Emily’s taken good care of Martha ever since she was little, so Martha sees Emily as an admirable older sister or something of the sort. While usually polite and curt, Emily still clearly enjoys Martha’s presence.
“Nearly,” Emily notes, looking at her papers again. “I should not need to be out this late again tomorrow.”
“Yay! I’ll be able to bring you dinner, then! Have you eaten today?” The flame moves along with Martha’s hands as she speaks, illuminating her face in new ways every few seconds.
Emily sighs. “No, though I will tomorrow. It’s getting late. Do you have the night patrol, Martha?”
“Nope! I just wanted to wait for you.”
“Thank you for doing that. It’s best we go rest now.”
Martha salutes gleefully. “I have a torch, though, so I’ll take you back to your place before going to mine. How’s that sound?”
“It sounds nice,” Emily nods, and starts to walk with Martha and the torch behind her. Emily studies their wavering shadows on the walk back. When they arrive, Emily casts a glance up at the sky and allows herself to see how bright the stars before turning to Martha.
“Thank you, Martha. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Sure thing, Miss Dyer! I’ll accompany you right up to the woods come sunrise!”
Emily nods and shuts the door, watching Martha smile for a little bit longer before assuming her usual condescending expression and stalking off. Emily laughs softly and prepares for bed.
After a few minutes, Emily curls onto her side on her bed, closing her eyes and covering her ear not pressed into the pillow with her hand to make everything more quiet. Sleep takes over her sore body quickly.
~
Morning comes much too quickly as well. Emily blinks awake to steady knocking on her door despite the darkness outside.
“One moment, Martha,” Emily calls, and grimaces as her legs ache upon standing. “Let me make myself presentable.”
The knocking stops. “Yes, Miss Dyer!”
Emily gingerly rubs her eyes before donning the same dirty clothes from yesterday. She’d been too tired to clean off her hiking boots last night, which is a shame, because she’s now tracking dirt all over the floor as she gathers her supplies, hiking boots feeling even heavier than yesterday.
After a few minutes, all of Emily’s necessities are arranged neatly on her now-made bed, and Emily has cleared off her desk enough to fit two plates.
“You may come in,’ she calls to Martha, and nods in greeting as the young lady barges in, one plate in each hand.
“Good morning! I made these in the guard house kitchen, so they’re really fresh! Pick what you’d like, okay?”
Emily takes the plate with the cooked vegetables and shredded chicken, leaving Martha with a bowl of assorted fruit and some cheese. Emily knows Martha likes apples; she’s not going to take them.
Martha, oblivious to Emily’s reasoning, grins and takes a seat on the floor while Emily sits in the creaky wooden chair. When she speaks, it’s around a mouthful of fruit. “Is it okay?”
“It’s lovely, Martha. Thank you very much. Oh, but please do not eat too quickly. It may upset your stomach.”
Martha blinks. “Huh? But I don’t want you to stay waiting on--actually, sorry, Miss Dyer, I’ll slow down.”
“There’s no rush,” Emily promises.
Emily can cook, yes, though on days she's busy, it’s nigh impossible to imagine setting aside precious time for a task as trivial as cooking, so Martha’s efforts are extremely appreciated.
They finish, and Martha takes the plates. “I’ll return them after I take you to the woods; I don’t wanna hold you up.”
“That sounds like a good plan. Your cooking was delicious, so thank you very much for bringing me breakfast,” Emily replies, and feels a warm gratefulness in her chest as Martha seems to take the praise to heart.
“Of course! I’m always happy to help! Let’s go, then!” Martha opens the door and holds it open with her foot, waiting for Emily to gather her belongings again.
They head off, and Martha hands off the dishes to another guard, one with scarred flesh reaching almost up to his elbows, at some point. He’s presumably the one who worked the night shift last night, based off his tired expression and lack of argument. When they reach the woods, Martha turns around to Emily.
“If you don’t return by noon, should I go looking for you?” she asks, and though her suggestion is bold, Emily notices the almost imperceptible edge in her tone near the end.
“No. I will be just fine, Martha. Make sure you rest today, you stayed up quite late and woke up quite early.”
“Yes, Miss Dyer,” Martha nods, and Emily smiles to try to soothe Martha’s reluctant expression before turning and walking off into the woods, the sky only now beginning to lighten into the gleaming yellow of sunrise.
Emily is already gone as most of the village begins to wake up.
~
It is a bit past noon once Emily is satisfied with her work.
She doesn’t fold the papers so as to preserve them as she slips them back into her back. Although bad with directions, she seed the village from this hill even better than the hill from last night, as this one is taller.
She begins to walk when the humming comes back.
Braver in broad daylight, Emily turns around and stares at the empty woods, listening to only the chipmunks and rustling leaves now. “Who is it?”
The humming sounds more like hesitant laughter now. Emily swallows hard and forces her hands not to shake, but this nervousness is different from the worry she feels for a patient. “Who is it?”
Emily hears footsteps. “Martha? Why are you--oh.”
Emily turns to see a face she hasn’t seen in… a while.
~
19 years ago
Emily, 12 years old and not known as ‘Emily’ at the time, sits frozen on the doorstep of the village herbalist’s house, staring up at a man who she has never seen afraid before. Thought could not be afraid.
“My daughter… you know what happened. That isn’t Lisa, not anymore. They’re going to kill it.”
Emily feels her face contort in horror. Lisa had wandered closely to the woods, but she’d been with Emily. Being with Emily should’ve kept her safe--Emily was a healer now. Why didn’t… surely, those two minutes hadn’t been enough, and Lisa’s strange behavior had been from something else--
“Do not talk to her if you see ‘her.’”
But it wasn’t.
Emily should’ve known better than anyone. She’s seen it before, up close and personal.
“...Yes, Mr. Beck,” Emily replies shakily. “I-I’m sorry, I--”
“Do not apologize,” Mr. Beck says, but Emily is certain he’s furious. He has to be. “It is not your fault.”
“But it is, a-and--”
He places a hand on her shoulder. “Calm down, son.”
Emily feels herself starting to cry. “I don’t want to lose her--”
“We already have. The guards will handle the changeling.”
Her mentor isn’t here anymore. Mr. Beck is walking away. Lisa isn’t there with her, not anymore, having met the same fate as Emily’s mentor.
Emily starts to cry all alone on the steps, ugly, snotty sobs racking her body and forcing her to heave ragged breaths as the cold grey stone makes her trembling figure shake even more.
She doesn’t have the courage to walk inside the house, warm up, avoid the shouts growing in volume outside, look at the meticulous details of the interior and think of the person who set them in place and the imposter who maintained them, hear the childish shriek as the shing of a metal blade being sharpened rings through the area.
Emily isn’t sure how long she cries, how long her brain entertains here with ornate and violently unwanted possibilities of everyone Emily loves becoming someone with the same face and an entirely different heart. And she’ll be the only survivor. She’s the healer; she cannot be hurt.
Even if the last one was.
It’s getting dark, and Emily hears footsteps. She looks up, face red and ugly as she sees a boy with bandages around his chest under the hood he has on staring at her.
“Are you hurt?” he asks, and Emily doesn’t reply, only stares at the iridescent blood slicking his hands.
“Lisa,” Emily moans, agonized as she reaches out with an incessant tremble in her fingers.
The boy draws back. “The blood stings your skin… don’t touch it.”
The conversation isn’t at all productive, but it’s humanizing enough. It grounds Emily enough to allow her to draw herself from her miserable stupor and blink up at the boy with bloodshot brown eyes. “Okay… but… oh… did they really make the youngest member of the guard kill her…”
He wipes his hands on his jacket, grimacing as some of his own reddish blood smears with the golden, looking plain and human and sad next to the sparkles. “...Yeah.”
“Okay.” Emily can’t bring herself to say much else as she feels her throat closs up again. “G-good night… I’m s-sorry, I’ll heal you later…”
He shrugs helplessly. “Take your time. I… miss Lisa too.
The children stay there for a moment, remembering Lisa, the real Lisa, not the Lisa who made no noise when she walked and had a smile far too perfect and eyes so green they glowed. They remember a human Lisa, with loud footsteps and a gap in her front teeth and eyes that are more brown than green unless you look really closely.
The one that… Emily had killed, abandoned, KILLED, ABANDONED--
The boy leaves as Emily begins to cry again.
~
Thirty-one now, Emily feels her legs give out beneath her as she forgets to breathe in favor of starting to sob those ugly sobs for the first time in many years. It’s like someone cut the stitches holding the memory back open with a knife and cut the wound deeper in the process.
“Lisa… Lisa, Lisa… that… is that you?”
The woman across from Emily smiles shyly. “I’m sorry.”
Emily’s crying too hard to reply at the moment. She couldn't stop shaking earlier, and she can’t stop shaking now. There’s no way it’s her. This has to be some ugly illusion.
No one ever leaves the clutches of the faeries alive, and maybe Emily is just like her late mentor in the sense that the guise of a pure soul will not save her after all, if her soul is even pure to begin with.
But that’s not the case.
This is Lisa…
“When you were ten,” Emily chokes out, “we went to the woods… you never came back, a fake did, and I heard her die and I could only imagine it was you… Lisa, I--”
“It’s okay,” Lisa interrupts, and Emily almost doesn’t hear over her pained blubbering. “What’s your name now? You’re not the same as before, and that’s just fine. You’re still the person I remember, for sure.”
Emily can give her name. This isn’t some beautiful stranger who will ask her for her name only to abandon her soul in the woods. This is real.
“E-Emily,” Emily sniffles.
Lisa smiles and settles into a kneeling position as well so that she’s eye to eye with Emily now.
“Emily,” Lisa says, and Emily feels her heart seize from the familiarity of Lisa’s warm tone, “you don’t have to cry. You really don’t. It’s okay…”
Emily feels an embrace she had accepted a long time ago that she would never feel again, and her skin very nearly burns.
She isn’t sure how much time passes as Emily cries over nineteen years: nineteen years of a friendship gone stale, memories allowed to gather dust in the back of her head. Nineteen years of lacking the person Emily felt mattered most, cobwebs hiding the smiling face Emily had thought she’d never see again.
Eventually, Emily has no more tears left to cry, and she and Lisa are sitting on the forest floor, the brown leaves beneath them crushed so that the water trapped in the dying grass revealed below soaks their pant legs.
Even though she’s dizzy and faint and aching, Emily feels stronger with the newfound peace snaking through her veins.
Yes, their reunion is a surprise, but it’s not the exciting sort. It’s more… a feeling of completeness one earns from, per se, finding the last piece of the intricate puzzle they ‘finished’ three days ago but lack the last piece of, only to find it in the pocket of their favorite clothes. Emily pulls back and lets her hands trail down Lisa’s arms before resting her palms on the back of Lisa’s hands. Lisa smiles, and Emily takes in a calm breath.
Her hands are warm, the leaves crunch beneath her, she still has the gap in her front teeth when she grins, and her eyes seem brown until Emily looks long enough to realize they’re green.
“Come on, Lisa. Let’s go home.”