The Virgin and the Fae

The elves seemed to have scaled back their expectations of what Charlotte could eat following the small dent she’d been able to make on their last meal for her.

This time all that had been laid out was a pie and some fruit.

Locke stood in a corner, softly discussing something with one of the small elves.

It was so odd to see Locke talking sternly with what appeared to be a young boy, Charlotte thought.

Plump with baby fat and rosy-cheeked, from afar the elf looked like a cherubic child. Though Charlotte noted, as the elves set the table for her, that up close their faces were lined and their features rather harshly angled. One even had a scruffy beard that connected with his long sideburns.

And of course, there were their ears. Their pointed, elongated ears that she had not noticed before. They were not delicate like drawings she had seen in picture books, but they weren’t grotesque either. Somehow, fixed there against their heads, the ears seemed the most normal thing about the elves. More normal anyways than the strange guttural noises that they made to communicate.

After a glance at Garrick to confirm it was all right to begin, Charlotte cut into the pie, the crust flaking beneath the knife.

The insides were thick and white with bits of vegetables and what looked to be chicken dispersed within the gravy.

Chicken potpie, perhaps.

Charlotte smiled at the normalcy of the dish.

God, it was good. The crust was perfect, soft and flaky.

Her mother had once told her that only a very specific combination of Crisco and butter could make a crust flake just right. But Charlotte doubted that the elves had gotten their hands on any vegetable shortening.

Mother.

Charlotte realized that she hadn’t thought of her parents since her capture. Did that mean something was wrong with her? But then she’d never been very close with her parents. They’d never fought but there had been a distance between them ever since she’d had cancer. A fear of allowing themselves to care for something that might get sick again. That might die.

Charlotte understood. In many respects, she’d felt the same way. A fear that if life became too precious, it would be taken away.

“She really should eat more,” Locke said, having concluded his discussion with the head cook about the next day’s breakfast. “She is far too thin.” Garrick nodded in agreement.

“She skips meals too often,” Garrick said in a tone of voice that seemed to throw up its hands and say ‘but what can I do.’

“I think I look fine just as I am,” Charlotte interjected, rather annoyed.

It wasn’t as if they could even see her. Garrick’s jacket covered her, slipped over her arms and buttoned at a few front buttons, obscuring her all but her face and the smooth column of her neck.

Locke looked her over rather disparagingly.

“You’re practically skeletal.”

Charlotte tempered the urge to yell, “Hey!” in protest. Instead she just ate more of the potpie. Besides, it wasn’t even true. She knew, just as both he and Garrick knew, that she was nowhere near skeletal; trim on a good day, thin during exam weeks, but never skeletal.

“It’s good to know you’re concerned,” she said at last.

Locke merely snorted and took a seat at the long table in between Garrick and Charlotte.

She noted that he chose his seat to be just slightly off-center, placing him closer to Garrick than to herself. For some reason, that amused her.

“Do you have a human, Locke?” she asked.

“Of course not,” he snapped back.

“What do you mean ‘of course not’? I was beginning to get the impression that most Fae had at least one.” They were like the obligatory dog in the suburbs, everyone had one, at the very least in order to have something to discuss.

“I find your kind to be more of a mess than they’re worth. I never object to enjoying a particularly attractive one at a gathering, however.” There was an unnecessarily pronounced lasciviousness to his tone.

Charlotte blanched at the idea of what he meant by enjoying.

“Locke,” Garrick tsked, “she is never going to finish a proper meal if you talk like that.”

“Why don’t we talk about you then, human. I was under the impression that most females—no matter the species—enjoy that.”

Charlotte hid a smile. He sounded like a boy who’d been rejected too many times in high school.

The filling of the potpie was exquisite, she thought, clearly thickened with flour and chicken fat. The elves were amazing cooks.

What to say. What did you tell someone when they asked about you?

“Well, I am, or I suppose I was, a chemistry major, though I was thinking recently about changing to a math major.” At his confused look, Charlotte elaborated. “In my world, we go to universities—schools where we pick what we wish to learn. I wanted to study chemistry or mathematics, but others study language or art or music or engineering. Or anything really.”

“You studied mathematics?” Locke gave her a rather shocked look.

Charlotte knew that look. It was the look of ‘girls can’t do math’ that she’d gotten often amongst her peers. Charlotte absolutely hated that look. And wasn’t it just her luck? It turned out that look was universal.

“Yes.” was all she was prepared to respond with. She resumed eating her potpie. A fresh pea burst between her molars.

“Charlotte is very talented,” Garrick added, a touch of pride in his voice.

Locke gave a little humph, but looked at her with a dawning respect nevertheless.

“Why were you sick?” Locke asked after a moment.

"I just had a bug--a flu--of some kind. It can happen if you get too little sleep for an extended period of time. It weakens your immune system, I think," she answered, intentionally misunderstanding his question.

"No, why were before. When you were young."

“You asked me this already.”

“You never truly answered.”

“I don’t want to talk about that.” She looked instinctively to Garrick for a reprieve but he stared at her as intently as Locke did.

“Charlotte, I’d like to know too,” he said quietly.

“You’re asking the wrong question. I can’t tell you why I was sick because I don’t know why. No one really knows why some children get can…sick and why others don’t.”

“Then what is the right question,” Garrick asked, pushing his chair back and moving to kneel beside her.

Locke looked as if he had eaten something sour. Charlotte knew he was stopping himself from commenting on Garrick’s kneeling.

She didn’t want to talk about this. Not about this. Anything but this.

Charlotte found a spot on the dining room’s wood paneling where a knot had been, leaving a roughly circular patch of dark, blackish coloring against the otherwise warm tone of the wood boards. She observed the whirls within, the grains that were mismatched with their surroundings. The knot was an imperfection. An imperfection that left the wood weakened and marred.

She took a steadying breath.

“The right question is ‘what were you sick with?”

“Charlotte, what were you sick with?” And it was as if Locke, the room, even the knot in the wood panel, disappeared. All Charlotte could see was Garrick’s upturned face and the expectant, curious look upon it.

“Leukemia. It’s a disease of the blood and bone marrow. How much do you understand my physiology? Human physiology, I mean.”

“Some. We are remarkably similar in many ways—your kind and mine.”

“In humans, within our bones exists something called marrow, bone marrow, and it produces our blood. But if you get sick—sick with leukemia—then what can happen is that the marrow produces too much blood, too fast so that it cannot leave the bone to circulate and the marrow cannot produce new, mature, healthy blood. So the bad blood, the half-formed blood begins to circulate—“ Charlotte stopped. Technically this wasn’t correct. The scientist in her chafed at the lack of words like ‘megakaryocytes,’ ‘lymphocytes,’ and ‘blast cells,’ but this was like explaining something to a child.

The truth, the scientific truth, would require one qualified statement after another, as well as a whole host of additional information in order to understand what she had experienced. And she couldn’t do that. So instead Charlotte continued in a different direction. Her voice became monotone, clear but empty.

“It was like the pain never ended. The headaches, the chills, the constant aching in my bones. That’s a human expression, you know, to ache to one’s very bones. It’s used to describe a deep weariness or pain. Writers use it all the time so it’s considered a rather hyperbolic and clichéd expression. But this wasn’t an expression for me. I…ached to my bones. I ached in my bones. First it was just my arms and legs, but then…it began to spread. It felt as if my rib cage were splitting open. It was as if I could feel the cells, the bad blood trapped inside my bones, pushing against their cage, trying to break free. I thought for sure that any moment my bones would explode, shattered by the internal pressure.”

Charlotte took a ragged breath before continuing, not daring to look at Garrick anymore. She found that knot in the wood and stared at it unblinkingly.

“But it got worse. The pain spread to my hips and shoulders. And then I could barely walk--" a strangled sob escaped her, before the monotoned voice return, shuttering over the emotions that had begun to peak through. "But then I got better.”

Charlotte ended her story abruptly. She’d felt no need to tell them any more. They didn’t need to know about the nights when she’d urinated on herself because she couldn’t even move to get up to the bathroom. They didn’t need to know about the search for a bone marrow donor or the chemo. They didn’t need to know about the others—the other children like her--some even younger than her 12 years--all sick and frightened. They didn’t need to know her secret.

No.

It was too horrible. Too shameful. No one could ever know that secret.

A/N: Thanks for reading! Hopefully I am well on the way towards explaining some things while setting other plot points up. I have a much better idea of where I plan to take this (again thanks to SightSoBlind for your suggestion--its really helped with writer's block!). Much thanks to: ShelleDW and moira for not only sticking with the story but taking time to review yet again. Moira: I haven't forgotten your question about when the Great Battle took place so there will be more in the next chapter that hopefully explains what happened. And I really don't want Garrick to go soft either, although for these past few chapters and maybe the next two, he will be a little more accommodating to make getting where I'd like to go easier. But the dangerous Fae aspect will return in full force....promise.

Second part: I am not personally a cancer survivor, though I have friends that are. I feel that Charlotte's leukemia is important for establishing the kind of character I wanted her to be and understanding why she is so closed-off but strong. I hope that this choice has not offended anyone, I truly don't mean it to be at all insensitive and if there are aspects to it that are, then I would really appreciate hearing about it so that I can work to rectify them.

As always, please review guys, I really love hearing from you. Let me know what you're thinking/questions/comments

Thanks! atalanta