Faeling

As Merritt went with Oz to her first dog-walking job, he wondered briefly if she was just playing with him. Maybe she knew exactly why he wanted to know about the symbol she’d drawn and just wasn’t telling him. She seemed to be surrounded by faelings, but claimed no knowledge of them. At first glance, he hadn’t thought she was of fae, but she knew David and Jennifer and her best friend was Janna Mason. He was also still baffled by the lack of effect his skills had on her. He couldn’t push her thoughts, and what awareness he had of her insecurities he had picked up simply by understanding human body-language. Merritt realized quickly that he would have to contact Janna later to try to figure this out.

He watched her as she walked quickly, splashing through small puddles in her beat-up Vans, her jeans getting wet at the hem. For one of the first times in his life, Merritt wasn’t sure what to say. He wasn’t sure it was a skill per se—not in fae fashion, at least—but Merritt always knew the right thing to say. He always had the perfect words at his disposal, ready on the tip of his silver tongue.

But not this time. After a few more slightly uncomfortable moments walking, they came to a large saffron-yellow house. Oz produced a set of silver keys on a ring from her pocket and asked Merritt to wait while she got the dogs ready. While she was inside, Merritt turned to face the street, glad to be able to see the eyes of random passersby again. A woman passed on a bicycle and he caught a glimpse of her big brown eyes—she had never left home or traveled, afraid of the unknown world. As two men crossed the street towards Merritt, the blonde one flicked his eyes up at Merritt—he was arrogant, prideful. It was one of Merritt’s favorite flaws. Proud people were just so easy to manipulate. Just as a woman in her sixties—still in the closet and terrified of herself, Merritt’s skill told him—walked by him, toying with the gold band on her finger in nervous habit, Merritt heard a click behind him. He turned to see Oz emerging from the saffron house, two medium-sized dogs—golden retrievers, he thought—on leashes pulling ahead of her as she awkwardly reached behind herself to lock the door. Merritt stepped back as Oz came down the steps, trying his best to avoid the dogs.

She smiled at the dogs rubbing themselves against Merritt’s legs. She tried to keep from laughing at Merritt’s antics, working hard to get the dogs to leave him alone without being outwardly mean.

“No- no- get off. Oof!” Merritt grunted as one of the dogs jumped up on him.

Oz finally stepped in. “Emma, down!” Merritt was surprised momentarily by how stern her voice was as she pulled the two away from him. “Sorry about that,” she apologized. “They’re usually quite good. Friendly, as you’ve obviously noticed.” Merritt fought the urge to scowl. He thought he detected the sound of a smile in her voice.

“It’s fine,” he ground out, brushing long golden and white hairs from his black suit. He sighed inwardly. He had been the one to ask to come along.

She stared at him half a beat too long before introducing, “This is Max,” She pointed to the slightly larger dog. “And you’ve met Emma.” She smiled and bent down to pet the dog that had jumped on Merritt. Viciously mauled me, Merritt thought unfairly. Oz allowed the dog to lick her once on the chin before standing and asking, “You still want to walk with us?”

No. “Yes, of course.” He smiled at her and gestured ahead of himself, allowing her to take the lead with the dogs. As little as Merritt liked animals, he still needed to know where Oz had seen the symbol. When she paused to let one of the dogs sniff a particularly interesting bit of pavement, Merritt sidled up to her and asked, trying to sound interested without appearing overly invested, about her art. He asked what she liked to draw (people, mostly—lots of realism), if she preferred pencils or another medium (paint, but she was excited for a friend to teach her a bit about tattoo machines), if she had always wanted to be an artist (no, first she’d wanted to be an astronaut, and in the third grade was set on Egyptology), and where she’d studied (The local Montserrat College of Art). Finally, he asked the only question that really mattered.

“You had some really beautiful work in that notebook of yours. I’m sorry it got ruined.”

“Yeah,” she agreed quietly, mourning the loss. “I really hope I’ll be able to whip out a portrait for Janna.”

He nodded solemnly in agreement. “What was that symbol you drew? The page after the unicorn... It looked like some kind of Celtic thing...” Merritt let his voice trail off, making it a question.

Oz’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know,” she said after a moment. “It isn’t like my mother had a lot of Celtic art or anything to encourage me to draw it. Maybe I saw it in a museum or a book.” She shook her head at this, like she didn’t believe it either. She shrugged. “I would draw it on anything I decided was mine ever since I could hold a pencil, practically. I always doodled on everything, but that one symbol stuck in my head for years. It’s still there, I suppose. Every piece of art I make looks wrong until I draw my ‘signature’ on it.” As she said the word signature, she brought up her fingers to make air quotes and rolled her eyes at herself, clearly thinking it was a stupid habit.

Merritt didn’t think it was stupid, unfortunately. He thought that if Oz had been drawing his symbol since she was a child, she was the girl he was looking for. It wasn’t even his symbol anymore. It was theirs. Oz was his fate.

Merritt tried hard to keep the scowl off of his face at this revelation. This was the girl he was supposed to win? He’d been looking for the right girl for so long, he couldn’t help but be disappointed by the result. Still, he had decided that he would do what he had to for his personal prophesy to come true.

Win her and you win the world.

And Merritt wanted the world. He wanted the power and the prestige and the riches and the glory. The words had been hanging over his head since he was a baby, and he had made certain that they would come true. Merritt, helped along by this family name and a nearly endless trust fund, had become a wildly successful businessman—he’d made all the right contacts and was seen with all the right people at the right time, giving money to the right charities. He’d worked and worked so that he would be in a position to dip into politics (both human and faeling), ready to win the world when he won his girl.

At his core, Merritt was some sort of romantic. His whole life he’d been looking for one girl. Not that that stopped him from sleeping with other women or having romantic relationships with them, but he had always made it clear to them that they couldn’t keep him. All of the previous women had been of fae, of course, so they understood the prophesies—they each had one of their own. Every faeling from a powerful or wealthy family went to Mother Lhiannan as an infant so she could give each child of fae the symbol of their fate and words to find it by. The words, the symbol—they could mean anything. Because Merritt’s symbol was in a Celtic knot, he’d traveled to Ireland, Scotland and Wales on a whim—trying anything and everything to find her. He had to win her. He had to bed her, and he would have the world.

Not that he was certain how that would work, but it would. Mother Lhiannan was never wrong.

He had to win this girl. He didn’t particularly want her... He looked her over—straight dirty-blonde hair brushing her shoulders, frank hazel eyes flecked with green and underscored with dark circles, slightly chapped lips framed with smile lines, baggy sweatshirt and ill-fitting jeans making her slightly round frame look larger. She definitely wasn’t ideal, but he saw potential in the passionate way she spoke about her art, her graceful hands sweeping strands of hair behind her ears. It was a chink in her armor. He could get in there. He could win her over if he played this right—even without any emotional pushes.

They walked and talked for another fifteen minutes or so before turning around to take the dogs home, chatting about various odds and ends. Merritt had told her he had just wanted to get to know an artist he was going to do business with, and that’s exactly what he did—got to know her. Most of it he didn’t care much about, but filed away for a time it might come in handy. When they got to the door, Merritt checked his watch.

“I have to be going, Oz.” He purposely used her name at every opportunity, forcing her brain to feel a connection to him. “I have a meeting in the city in about an hour and I hate to be late.”

She nodded, forcing the dogs to sit so she could shake his hand. “It was nice to meet you,” she said solemnly.

He sent her a heart-stopping smile and said, “I hope you’re still interested in our gallery.”

“Oh! Yes, absolutely!” She blushed and looked like she was fighting the urge to call him ‘sir’. Oz dug around in her bag for a moment before pulling out a small purple business card. She found a pen as well and started to scribble on the back as she explained, “It’s my business card for the pies—Janna’s idea. She got them for me. That’s my number on the front and this,” She finished what she was writing with a flourish. “Is Janna’s number.” He took it from her slim hand and read it carefully. Sweetpea Pies. He did his best to keep a smirk from his face.

“I’ll give Janna a call as soon as possible,” he promised and they parted ways. He would need Janna to tell him everything about Oz if he was to win her—and win her he would.