Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.     I Wish: Book 4 Chapter 11 Healing By Amethyst

Immediately after dinner, Sarah had me cast the gate to Tír na nÓg. She didn’t want to tax me more than necessary, but since I had been there before so I could just picture the village instead of a general set of coordinates that was at least a six-hour hike from the new Faery village. I pictured the area in front of the Demon warning bell that Yanisse and I had made and as soon as the gate was formed and stable we stepped through.

The sky was alive with bright shades of gold, orange, pink and red when we stepped out on the other side of the gate but at first I couldn’t tell if it was sunrise or sunset. It could be difficult to figure out with time moving at different rates on the two planes but the last time we were here Ziralin had been able to glean from Torphael’s knowledge that a for each day in Tír na nÓg about five point seven hours passed on our Earth. Faery began to gather, cautiously at first, to inspect the large burst of magical energy that coincided with our arrival.

There was a village around the Torphael’s Tomb now or at the very least a good start to one. A large central dome had been set up in the center where the troupe usually cooked and ate their meals. The frame looked to be made of metal with smoke wafting from a chimney made of the same. There were no walls to the building, it was just open to the air, and whoever wanted to enter, and the vines with large leaves had been encouraged to grow along the support beams and flourished atop the structure where the thick foliage would provide cover from the rain. Dozens of smaller similar structures in various stages of construction surrounded it.

Yanisse approached, smiling as she saw us, though I noticed that her eyes looked warily to our companions. The Faery still didn’t trust humans, and I was only an exception because I was of the Cailleach dearg and thus sort of related to them and had proven my worth and sincerity. Still, she hadn’t dismissed them or asked them to leave outright, merely watched them cautiously as she welcomed Ellie, Ziralin, and me home. With that in mind, this was already starting better than our last trip to Tír na nÓg had.

The Faery relaxed quite a bit once we had introduced Sarah as my sister and Ziralin’s mother. Sarah was of course of the Cailleach dearg like me, and when Ziralin and Ellie had told stories about our encounters when the troupe was still unsure about me Ziralin had mentioned Sarah’s attempt to sacrifice her life for us and how, as a result, she had lost her magick and gained Ysuriel’s mark and Celestial powers. As for Ziralin’s mother, she did have some Faery blood, diluted as it might be and her daughter was very much a Faery.

They relaxed even more once we had assured them that Annie and Jennifer were trusted friends and they had shown that, like Sarah and Ziralin, they possessed the powers of Celestials. It seemed that the Fairy believed that only those pure of heart could possess the ability to take on a Celestial’s powers and memories as Ziralin had. Annie did get some curious glances though since none of the Faery from the troupe had ever seen an Asian before.

Apparently, except for Yanisse, none of them had been to our Plane since back during the witch hunts in England. Even then they had only explored Ireland, Scotland, and a few other parts of the British Isles. Yanisse had visited Earth again during the early 1940s, and that explained a lot about both her view of humans and why her modern English was much better than most of the others in the troupe.

Talisha was of course warmly welcomed, and since she no longer had a troupe of her own she was invited to join theirs since Yanisse wished to officially induct Ellie, Ziralin, and me as well while we were there anyway. Elsaishe’s mother was of course happy for both her and Ellie to have the chance to be part of a troupe again, but she did have a concern. “There are so few of us,” she commented sadly as she looked around at the Faery sharing the morning meal in the communal eating and gathering hall.

“Aye, we have lost another three in Demon attacks since the young ones were last here,” Yanisse offered in a sad tone. “There are sixty-eight of us remaining, and of those only two are males. I fear that we are an endangered people; on the Plane of Earth our blood will become diluted by breeding among humans until there is little Faery left in them, and here we will not have enough Fae born to increase our numbers while those numbers slowly drop. Still, we would be far worse off had the young ones not come in search of Torphael and had Shannon not helped us to prepare ourselves to fight back against the Demons.”

“What about my daughter?” Mrs. Sanders asked. “Shannon somehow awakened the Faery blood in her, could the same be done for others like her? My grandmother told me stories of our heritage and I think that I can speak for both of us when I say we would welcome such a chance. My son may wish the same, he has shown an interest in our heritage since Ziralin started being herself at home.”

Yanisse’s eyes widened and she broke into a smile. “There may be a way. There are two Faery in our troupe who possess the gift of the old magicks, I shall speak with them on this matter. I sense though, that that is not why you came here today.” She looked directly at Ellie, Ziralin, and me as she gently asked, “Does it have something to do with the haunted look in your eyes, young ones?”

I looked away in shame as I nodded. “I’ve been wanting to check on how you were doing, but we’re here because a Celestial named Xuriel told me that your troupe might have a spirit healer.”

“Our troupe, Shannon,” the troupe leader corrected. “You have more than earned the right to be counted among us, and we will make that official tonight. I will take you to Jaenara once the morning meal is done. I will not ask what has happened, that is your burden and while we need not know what the weight upon your heart is, the troupe will help you to carry it as best we can.”

Wait. No pressure to tell them what had happened? I tried not to look at Jennifer as I awkwardly replied, “Umm… thanks. Our friends at school keep trying to get us to talk about it, but that only makes me feel worse because I can’t. There’s no way they’d understand even if it didn’t involve Demons, I’d just feel more ashamed, and no matter how they react they would never see me the same way again. I… can tell you that your gift to me saved us. Without them and Xuriel’s encouragement, we’d have been…” I couldn’t finish that sentence. I choked on the words and I couldn’t stop the tears that suddenly started.

Until now I had been trying to keep my feelings about what had happened to myself. Ellie had needed me to be strong for her sake and I felt that showing just how much that the incident had rattled me would make me look weak. If I’d had any privacy I probably would have broken down completely the night before in the darkness of my room, and I had let my emotions slip a bit when I had comforted Ellie in the bathroom at lunch, but other than that I had kept it all bottled up. I felt both relieved and ashamed as I finally broke down in front of everyone there.

Ziralin gripped my hand harder in hers and I could sense her own mental battle with the shame and self-loathing. As I returned the strength of her grip I felt two pairs of arms wrap around me. One set belonged to Sarah of course and I knew that not being able to help me through this was killing her inside. The other set of arms surprisingly belonged to Yanisse. They both just held me there for what seemed an eternity as I let out everything that I had been holding inside until then.

I awoke after a horrible nightmare, reliving what had happened in Kari’s room at the sorority house. The difference from reality was that in the dream I hadn’t been able to fight off her control and she was doing things to me. I may not have had any personal experience with sex in real life, but I apparently had watched enough television and read enough for my imagination to fill in the blanks. I shot up into a sitting position screaming and on the verge of tears before realizing that it had only been a dream. Now though my heart was racing, I was crying and I felt like I needed to throw up.

“It’s okay, Sis. I’m right here with you,” Sarah said softly while looking over me in concern. I guess she thought it would be a good idea to let me wake up and let me know that it was her before hugging me tightly. She was probably afraid that she would spook me otherwise, and she probably would have, especially after that dream. I hadn’t even been aware that I had fallen asleep in the first place but I guess that my emotional deluge after more than thirty-six hours without sleep was enough to make me pass out.

I took a quick look around as Sarah wrapped me up in her arms and tried to reassure me that everything was okay. I was in one of the smaller huts, alone with my sister. Once she had managed to calm me down to the point where it felt like my heart wasn’t about to jump out of my chest and run away she explained. “We’re in Yanisse’s hut. We thought that it would be better if it were just me here when you woke up. You’ve been out about three hours.”

“Where is everyone?” I asked, sniffling into her shoulder.

“Ellie is resting with her mother, her session with Jaenara was emotionally and physically draining, but she’s sleeping peacefully now and Jaenara said that she should wake feeling refreshed in a few hours,” she replied, and I breathed a sigh of relief for my cousin’s sake. “Ziralin is with Jaenara now and then it will be your turn, followed by Annie. Annie and Jennifer are out gathering food with one of the hunting and gathering parties right now and Meredith is speaking with Yanisse and another Faery woman named Kuraishe.

For a time she just sat there holding me in her arms, like our mother used to when one of us had a terrible dream. Trying to talk about it would have only made me feel worse so she didn’t say anything more until I was ready to speak again. I didn’t need words or platitudes, I just needed my sister to be there and she knew that.

After a while, a feminine voice that I didn’t recognize called out, “Sarah, is Shannon ready?” I looked toward the voice to see a lithe brunette Faery with piercing amber eyes standing just outside where the hut’s walls would be if it had them. The Faery may not have an overwhelming need for privacy, but they were trying to respect ours and I appreciated that, even if only for my sister’s sake. I had gotten used to their openness about everything during my last visit.

“She woke up a few minutes ago, I haven’t really had time to tell her what to expect yet. How is Ziralin?” was my sister’s response.

“Young Ziralin was reluctant to address her burdens, she doesn’t like appearing or feeling weak, but I was able to get her to talk to me after some convincing. She is with her mother now, they are both resting and recovering,” the Faery said with a calmness that surprised me. Even for a Faery she was relaxed.

“Thank you, Jaenara,” Sarah replied before reluctantly releasing me from her embrace. Then she gave me an appraising look and sighed. “Shannon is probably as ready as she’s going to be. You’re sure this will work? She’s not a Faery like Ziralin and Ellie and she’s had a barrier placed around her mind.”

So this was the spirit healer that Xuriel had sensed. She was pretty and had a friendly smile and that air of serenity about her but it was those amber eyes that got my attention. They seemed to pierce my soul with even the briefest of glances. Suddenly, I wasn’t so certain about this as the Faery woman nodded and said, “That barrier was designed to keep intruders from the deepest recesses of her mind. The link that I will form is consensual and I will only be accessing what thoughts she chooses to share.”

It struck me that her English was as good as Yanisse’s, I could understand her perfectly. When I was last in Tír na nÓg I had had trouble conversing with most of the Faery beyond the basics whereas Ellie spoke their language and Ziralin had picked it as well from Torphael’s info dump. I wondered how she had gotten so fluent in so short a time until she added, “I loathe to bring someone else in on a session, usually issues such as these are best addressed privately, but I may need you to act as a translator. I am afraid that I cannot speak your native language very well.”

“Wait, what? I can understand you just fine,” I said, furrowing my brow in confusion.

“Shannon, when did you learn to speak Faery?” Sarah sputtered in surprise.

“Ummm, if I were a betting girl, I’d put my money on sometime between when I started school today and when I woke up from my nap just now,” I muttered. To most people, waking up fluent in an entirely new language might be a cause for alarm. But my bar for weird shit had been set pretty damn high since being turned into a girl. “This has to be Xuriel’s doing, Sis. I mean she did place the protections on my mind in the first place, it wouldn’t be the first time that she’s messed with somebody’s head for my sake, and she did recommend coming here to see a spirit healer. There wouldn’t be much point in doing that if I couldn’t communicate with her.”

“She could at least ask permission before doing things like that, or show herself to us. We’re supposed to be working toward the same goal, dammit.” Yup, Sarah was not happy with Xuriel, but I couldn’t say that I was too happy with the way she operated either. She was manipulating us and had been for a while and I didn’t like that one bit.

Since I could indeed communicate with Jaenara, she guided me to her hut. It was set a bit away from the others and unlike the others, it had walls and a door. She explained that this was because sometimes the feelings she felt from looking at other people could be very overwhelming and her mind needed a break from it. Also, people who needed her help generally had some sort of trauma that they didn’t feel comfortable discussing with others, even other Faery.

She had me sit in the lotus position on one of two woven grass mats and explained how the session with her would work. She was going to have to get me to talk about the events that had traumatized me so that they were fresh in my mind and she could sense the emotions tied to those memories. It seemed that there was a bundle of raw and painful emotions all tangled up with that set of memories. As I talked about those memories she would use a form of mind magick to make them seem more distant and to weaken the negative emotions that were tied to them and overwhelming my mind and spirit while strengthening the positive aspects.

There would always be some negative emotions if I thought about the event directly, but it would no longer dominate my thoughts and I would be able to look at it more objectively when I did remember. And those positives would no longer be what-ifs running through my mind but assurances that I was alive and well and had learned from my experience. I had asked why not remove the trauma entirely but she had answered that it was part of who I was now and the lessons would be forgotten as well if we did that.

This therapy would help me to remember the important aspects and remain myself while not letting what had happened govern my thoughts. When I arrived in Tír na nÓg I was letting it rule my mind and dictate who I was and what I did, but by having that memory remain, but seen in the proper perspective I would rule it instead of it ruling me and it could become a source of strength because it was something I had survived and learned from.

So, for almost an hour I poured out the words and emotions to a woman I barely knew in a language that was new to me but seems to spill out effortlessly off my tongue. As I talked she sat there serenely and watched me with those intense amber eyes. With each jarring memory, each shamed admission, I felt that burden in my mind growing ever lighter. By the time we had finished, I was emotionally and mentally exhausted and in a bit of a daze as she stood up and offered a hand to help me to my feet.

“You have done well, Shannon,” she told me with a smile. “That was a terrible ordeal for you and your friends, but you are here now and safe among your troupe and family. You are loved, and strong, and the shame is not yours. It never was. Come, I will take you to your sister so that you can rest your body and mind. Soon you will awake refreshed and we will have much to celebrate.” I allowed her to lead me back to the hut where Sarah was waiting and I barely managed to get settled in my sleeping bag before I fell into a peaceful slumber.