Into the Woods: Tales from the Hollows and Beyond(96)
Author: Kim Harrison

Trent’s final lurch brought him before the small stream, and he stood straight, assessing both the best way to get across it as well as the sunny ridge high above him on the other side. His hands were scraped, and he wiped them on his dirty and torn biking outfit. The thought of raising this child was only slightly less terrifying than the thought of losing her forever.

"You’re not worried about getting your daughter, you’re worried about what happens afterward," Jenks said suddenly, and Trent’s jaw clenched. Head up, he reached for an overhanging branch and went hand over hand, feet swinging above the rushing cold water.

"You’re worried you won’t be good enough," Jenks said, darting off when Trent swung wildly and jumped for the bank.

Looking at his scraped, bleeding hands, Trent muttered, "Hardly."

"Liar." Jenks stood on a bare branch, his hands on his hips and a smile quirking his expression. "You don’t think she’s going to love you, and it’s killing you."

"I have no doubt that I’m good enough," Trent said, then lowered his voice. "If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be risking my life to acquire her."

The pixy laughed at him, sifting a bright silver dust. "I’m not talking about being good enough to get in and out of the Withons’ compound with her. You’re scared about what you are going to do with a little girl, Mr. Most Eligible Bachelor Multibillionaire with More Money and Resources Than a Small City."

It was too close to the truth for him to admit, and Trent tilted his head to see where the top of the cliff and the sky met, almost straight up. "I have people to care for her already lined up," he said, stifling the rising feeling of inadequacy. He didn’t have one person interviewed, one inquiry made. He wanted to raise this child himself, as he wished he had been. "Can you fly yet? I think the opening is above the ledge."

Jenks darted in front of him, his wings loud but clearly functioning again. "Wet nurses and nannies," he scoffed, looping before him like a courting hummingbird. "You want to raise her yourself, and you’re afraid you’re not going to be a good dad. That you won’t know how to take care of her, that you might break her."

His brow furrowed, and Trent forced it smooth. He was never going to work with pixies again. His father had been right to ban them from the grounds. "Will you fly up there and check? The opening is about four by four and will have a small ledge before it."

Jenks’s looping stopped, and he hovered right in front of him, looking both young and wise, honest and angry. "Let me tell you something, Kalamack," he said as the sparkles sifted from him. "There is no way that you can be more scared than I was with Matalina pregnant and us living in a flower box that didn’t have enough dirt to keep out the heat, much less hibernate through. I was ten years old and a family on the way."

Trent didn’t flinch, already knowing about Jenks’s life. "Lucy will be well cared for," he said shortly, and he reached for a handhold. He’d simply climb up. The opening was said to be very close to the waterfall.

"That’s not why you’re scared," Jenks said as he flew in front of him, landing on the best handholds before Trent moved to them. "You’re scared that she’s not going to like you, that you’re going to do something wrong and she’s going to hate you."

Stretching for a handhold, Trent met his eyes, hesitating as he found understanding had replaced Jenks’s biting, sarcastic accusations. He had slit a man’s throat and left him. He didn’t have a moment’s regret for it other than he should have found a better way. Something was wrong with him. How could a child love someone who takes the life of another and doesn’t care?

Trent took a breath to speak, changed his mind, and reached for the next crack. The sound of Jenks’s wings mixed with the chattering water, and slowly Trent inched up into the light.

"You got nothing to worry about, cookie maker."

Stretched along the rock face, Trent squinted up. Jenks’s silhouette was lost in the sun’s glare until the wind shifted a bough and shade covered them again.

"I can guarantee it," Jenks said as their eyes met. "The second that you see her, you will fall in love. You will do anything for her, anything at all, and she will know it and love you back. That’s all kids want to know-that you love them."

He tried to say something, anything, but the glare of the sun struck him, catching the words in his throat.

"And you will," Jenks said, his voice coming as if from the sunbeam. "You can’t help it. It’s built in. It doesn’t matter that you weren’t there for the first three months of her life. She’s been waiting for you, and you’re going to fall in love. Take it from someone who held his first five children as they died in his arms."

Trent swallowed hard, blinking the sun from his eyes. "I’m sorry," he said, his voice low so it wouldn’t crack. His legs were trembling, and his hands ached. The top of the cliff was close, and he lifted himself another foot, straining.

Jenks moved to the shade, his head down and his wings slumped. "I didn’t tell you for your pity. Fairy farts, I don’t know why I even brought it up. I’ll see where the tunnel is."

The wind from his wings shifted Trent’s hair to tickle his face. Wondering, Trent watched him dart away, pixy dust making a brilliant sunbeam. Why indeed?

THREE

Muscles straining, Trent levered himself up onto the wide ledge. His leg scraped the cliff face, and his arms began to tremble under his weight. Exhaling heavily, he twisted to sit with his back against the rock, legs dangling over the edge, his eyes closed against the sun, the cool breeze eddying from the mouth of the tunnel beside him. Fatigue pulled at him, a fatigue that was from more than biking thirty miles and climbing halfway up a cliff, from more than killing a man he hadn’t wanted to. He couldn’t remember the last time he slept. Catnaps in the back of the car were a poor substitute. It was about eight in the morning, but his body was still on East Coast time and he was ready to nap.

The dull throb in his leg stirred him, and he opened his eyes, bending forward over his pulled-up knees to run a hand over the smooth fabric of his riding clothes. His tights were torn, and he’d made a mess of them, the original shine now scraped and dulled.

"Tink’s panties, I’m tired," Jenks said, and Trent flicked his eyes to the pixy perched on a rock near the edge, his wings moving slow enough that he could watch their lazy motions and the dust spilling from them. "What do you do to keep awake?" Jenks said, half to himself as he dug in his belt pack and shoved a wad of what was probably nectar and pollen into his mouth. "Me, I ‘eep eatin’," the pixy said around a sticky mouthful. "I’d offer ‘ou un’, but you’re oo big."