Fairy Thief Read Online Free PDF Page B

to sleep.
    For three days and three nights, Ny stayed at the top of the palm tree and Saffron sat by the trunk. Sometimes they slept. Sometimes they were awake and having a conversation, and sometimes they were awake and looking silently out to sea. He begged her to come back to him — she raged at him. He ordered her to come back to him — she begged him to let her go. He raged at her to come back to him — she firmly told him that it would never happen — she was done with him. And the conversation went on.
    She cried.
    He wept dramatically. “Why do you do this, Saffron? You must know I love you. I wouldn’t chase you to the ends of your mind if I didn’t love you….”
    “ Ny, you freak. Whatever you feel for me…you’re always feeling for a million other women.… And I hate that! No thanks!”
    “ But I love you, Saffron — doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
    “ What? You saying that? ‘I love you….’ What does that even mean, Ny? Like you can just walk around saying that and it makes everything okay? You can screw a million women but say you love me, and that makes everything okay?” She was gouging at the bottom of his palm tree with a sharp stone. She figured it would only take her three weeks of monotonous hacking to get the thing down.
    On the fourth day, at dawn, Ny was sleeping when Saffron decided to run down the beach and swim for it again. That had to be the way out, because the sea began to thrash whenever she went near it with thoughts of escaping.
    Saffron got up and sprinted for the shore. She raced so fast down the beach that a plume of sand rose behind her feet. She raced even faster, stomped through the shallow beginnings of waves, then dove into the warm, salty water. She swam as fast as she could. When she broke the surface, she could hear the gurgle of water in her ear, and Ny yelling for her to come back. The waves had already begun to roar, as she figured they would, but she plunged on — stroke after stroke, breath after metered breath. She looked back over her shoulder, couldn’t see Ny, and looked straight ahead. She stopped swimming. She choked on some water that had slipped into her gaping mouth. Her face went gunmetal grey, and her eyes bulged from their sockets. She was in a wave, a wave so big that, when she turned herself awkwardly in the water, she realized she was about four stories over the beach of the deserted island. She began to panic as the wave pushed her higher and faster. She became tangled in her long hair. By the time she started screaming, it was already too late. Far to her right she saw the wave begin to curl and come for her. She screamed again as the curl scooped her up, and the water roared in her ears. She was dragged under, then BOOM – she was spit out. Falling, falling, falling towards the perfect, white sugar beach. She smacked down face-first in the sand, every bone in her body crunching on impact. The wave retreated and left her body like a sack of blown glass.
    She coughed and hacked, trying to remove the impossible amount of sand that filled her mouth and throat. She lay still, her mouth hanging open, hoping the sand would just fall out of its own accord. Every bone in her body was broken, she was sure. She couldn’t move.
    Ny raced to her side, half running, half flying; he was perfectly meticulous, as always, and unharmed.
    “ Don’t touch me, Ny. I’m broken!” She meant to scream at him, but only managed a pathetic moan. Her eyes widened in fright, afraid of the pain she would feel when he moved her.
    His eyes gentled as he looked upon her, and skimmed her body with a loving, nurturing look. “No, Saffron. No, no. Look, you are just fine. Move yourself, you will see.”
    And Saffron realized she was okay. Her bones weren’t broken! There was no pain!
    Saffron turned to look up at Ny, her grey eyes swimming in tears.
    How could you, Ny? How could you make the waves do that to hurt me and trap me here.?
    “ How could you, Ny?