Her mom, Molly, fought lung cancer for the past year, and my parents wouldn’t let me come back to

Oceanside to be with River. Our moms had a falling out right before my family moved to Indiana. Neither

I nor River know what it was over, but it must have been something utterly unforgiveable for my parents to not let me come back here. Molly died seven weeks ago, and I had to wait until I turned eighteen last week to be able to come here without my parents reporting me as a runaway. If my mom felt any grief over her former friend’s death, she didn’t let me see.

   We cry for a while with our heads together, until the orange glow of the setting sun invades the horizon and the waves begin to crash over our bare legs and feet.

   “Let’s go for a walk.” I clumsily clamor up off the sand and grab River’s outstretched hand to pull her up after me.

   We walk along the edge of the beach, with the lapping waves at our feet, for several minutes in pregnant near-silence. Only the slap of the waves and the cry of the occasional seagull can be heard.

   Neither one of us had ever experienced the grief of death before Molly – what she always insisted I call her if I wouldn’t call her Mom – and though it’s been seven weeks already, our reunion this morning tore open three years’ worth of scabbed-over wounds and stitched broken hearts that couldn’t mend completely without each other. (Video chats and text messages just aren’t enough.) Molly is the freshest of these poorly healed and now bleeding again wounds.

   Walking backwards, River steps in front of me with a huge grin on her face. “I’m really digging the hair. It looks so much cooler in person. I would have paid to be there to see the look on your parents’ faces.”

   Her smile is contagious. “I wish I had it on camera. It was priceless.” My fingers reflexively run through my short rainbow bob. Having had long blonde hair my whole life, this change is taking quite a bit of getting used to.

    River has been doing crazy things to her hair since she was twelve, with her mom’s help, and I always envied her. My parents made me keep my hair the same length – right below my shoulders – and never let me color it. The day of my eighteenth birthday I had my hair cut and colored, got my belly pierced, and got a tattoo. My mom and dad had mental strokes. It was great.

   River’s attempt to lighten up the mood fails, and we quickly slip back into silence. This time it’s a bit awkward. Are we running out of things to say to each other now? Or is it because of the elephant crashing through the waves alongside us? I know River well enough to know when she has something she wants to talk about, but is afraid to for whatever reason.

   “Hey, Skylynn?”

   “Hmm?” I turn my attention from the summer moonlit ocean to my best friend.

   Tears gleam on her cheeks again. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. You know, since mom got sick.”

   “Thinking about what?”

   “Things that we can’t see. I have a…” She knits her brow, searching for the word she wants to use. “… theory about it. Can I tell you?”

   “You can tell me anything, River.” This should be interesting.

   She stops walking and bends down to pick up a broken seashell. “I know you support the idea that there must be life on another planet somewhere in the universe, but what if there’s life a lot closer to earth? Like on earth but in another realm?” She tosses the shell into the ocean and peers at my wistfully through the veil of hair whipping around her face. “What if our realm and that other realm once interacted? We went there or they came here. And what if that realm was closed off to us a long time ago but the humans who had met the other creatures continued to tell stories about them to other humans until they just became misconstrued mythologies?”

   I can tell she has put a lot of thought into this. “I suppose it’s always a possibility, but we don’t have any evidence to suggest such a thing.”

   “Ugh. Stop thinking like your boring parents. Open your mind.”

   I cross my arms over my chest. “Just because I’m skeptical, doesn’t mean my mind isn’t open. My parents would have shot your theory down in a heartbeat, listing ten ways that isn’t possible or true or whatever.” I don’t like being compared to my parents.

   “You’re right. I’m sorry.” River takes a deep breath and steps closer to me as she pushes her hair out of her alabaster face. “I’m trying to tell you something, Skylynn, and it’s really important to me. You’re my best friend, and I need you to listen to me with an open mind. Please?”

   River used to be so tough. In our childhood she hardly ever cried over anything. But she’s cried enough in the past year to make up for a lifetime of it, and her tears pain me.

   “Of course I will. That’s what friends are for.” I can’t help but wonder if she’s gone off the rails a little, but I’ll listen with an open mind if that’s what she needs me to do.

   River smiles and hugs me. “Let’s go back to the tree. It clears my head and helps me think.”

   “Sure. Whatever you want.”

   She’s been saying that about that old worn tree log for as long as I’ve known her. It’s special to me because of the countless days we spent watching the sunset from it, but I’ve always felt like it had some other significance for River. Though I can’t even begin to guess what. Hell, I don’t even know how the log got on the beach to begin with. It’s part of a tree that doesn’t grow in this part of the country and large enough to need three or four strong men to pick it up, and my dad told me that it wasn’t there until River’s family moved in when I was three. It just appeared overnight, he said.

   As the bald cypress tree comes into view, so does my family’s old condo, which is next door to River’s. My parents sold it when we moved to Indiana, and there’s someone living there now, but I still think of it as my home.

   A light flicks on in my old bedroom, and a girl about my age walks out onto the balcony. She has long blonde hair. It’s surreal. I close my eyes and turn my head away. I still hold much resentment towards my parents for making me move.

   River entwines her fingers with mine. “Don’ worry. We never became friends. She can’t replace you.”

   I give her a tight smile as we sit on the tree. “What did you want to tell me?” I’m eager for a subject change.

River inhales and braces her hands on her knees. “Well, you know my theory I was telling you about?”

   I nod.

   “It’s not a theory. It’s true.”

   Oh, geez. Am I going to have to have my best friend committed? “River…”

   She holds up her hand to cut me off. “No, wait. You said you would listen to me with an open mind.”

   “I did. I’m sorry. Go ahead.”

   “Let me rewind a bit. You know how our moms had this huge blow up fight that we don’t know about and then your parents moved you away? Well, I actually do know what it was about, and I promised mom and dad I wouldn’t tell you until you were eighteen and your parents couldn’t control your life anymore.”

   Right now my curiosity trumps being mad at her, but I know it will come later. “What was it?”

   She fiddles with her high school ring on her right middle finger. She always fiddles with her jewelry when she’s nervous. “Your mom learned a secret about my mom, and she didn’t take it well.”

   “She moved me across the country. I’d say ‘Didn’t take it well’ is an understatement. But what does that have to do with your theory about another realm?”

   River lets out an exasperated sigh. “Skylynn, my mom didn’t die from lung cancer. She can’t get human diseases. It was iron poisoning. She had been sick for years, and she thought she could trust your mom so she told her the truth. In fact, she showed her.”

   Yep, there’s definitely a mental institution in her future. And possibly mine. River’s eyes just changed from green to lavender, and her skin is fading to an unnatural white tone. I’m seeing things now. Great. Maybe we can be roommates in the crazy house.

   “Like I’m showing you now,” River continues. “I’m only half fae though. My dad is human. I have two appearances, and it’s easy for me to decide which one I want to display, but my mom had to use magic to appear human.”

   Iron Poisoning? Fae? Two appearances? My whirling brain is dumbfounded and speechless, so River keeps talking.

   Her speech is hurried. “Iron is deadly to the fae. Full blooded fae anyway. It doesn’t hurt me. If they are exposed to a lot of it at once, it will kill them quickly, but limited long-term exposure will drag out death for years. It was the price my mom always knew she would have to pay to stay in this realm with my dad. There’s iron everywhere here.” She stops for a breath and pushes her hair out of her face again.

   Oh. Her ears which have held five piercings each since she was fourteen are now pointed at the top.

   I close my eyes and shake my head. Maybe I got into a car accident on the drive from the airport to River’s house, and I’m now in a deep coma. That would certainly make more sense. But no. I’m a reasonable person, not uptight and closed off like my parents but not on the edge of looney like River’s parents. I’ve always thought of myself as the perfect combination of those four adults, and while River was certainly the wild child among us, she was never illogical.

   “Skylynn? Are you okay?” River lightly grips my shoulders. “It was too much too soon, wasn’t it? My dad was right. He said I had to be delicate and patient. Damn it. I’m sorry.”

   It’s the utter sincerity and worry in her voice that opens my eyes – a crazy person wouldn’t realize they were coming on too strong. River looks like her normal human self again.

   I deflate my lungs and glance up at my old balcony. The blonde girl is staring down at us with glowing yellow eyes. Creepy. “River, will you do that thing again? You know… change?” I need to make sure I really saw what I think I did.

   She nods and pulls her hair back to expose her ears. They shift and sharpen at the top as her eyes fade to lavender and her skin whitens again. Her hair stays the same.

   I gasp. She’s beautiful, like some otherworldly fairy creature I once saw in a book… on her mom’s bookshelf. I had opened it to a random page and only saw that one picture before Molly ripped the book from my ten year old hands. She said it was very old and didn’t want to risk me tearing a fragile page. It didn’t seem old to me. Now it all makes sense.

   “The door to my mom’s world was sealed thousands of years ago, but some of her people were stuck here, and I’ve been told that some humans were stuck there. Twenty years ago the door was temporarily reopened for anyone who wanted to return. My mom’s family left but she stayed to be with my dad. She was our age, and she knew that the fae here rarely lived past forty because of the iron exposure, but she was a teenager in love… she stayed and she died.” Tears crack her voice as sobs rip through her torso.

   I instinctively take her into my arms.

   Thinking back to the last year when River would often rattle on and on about what else is out there, I realize now that she was preparing me in her own way, not questioning it herself. And this tree? I’m sure I’ll soon be learning its significance, too.

   River tightens her arms around my shoulders. “I already lost my mom. Please don’t make me lose you too. I don’t think I could survive it.”

   My best friend is a half human, half creature from another realm with a broken heart. Why is this so easy for me to accept? “You’ll never lose me, River.” I gently push her shoulders back, making her lift her head to look at me. “How many other humans get to say their best friend is an alien?”

   River’s eyes widen. “I’m not an alien!”

   I give her my best mocking grin. “Well, by definition…”

   “Stop it!” She slaps me playfully on my shoulder, but smiles and giggles.

   “I just wanted to make you laugh to show you that nothing changes between us. I still love you like a sister, and not even your being half alien changes that.”

   River rolls her eyes and exhales. “Thank you.” She bites her lip and averts her eyes down to the waves rolling in at our feet. “So… umm… do you have any questions for me?”

   Only a hundred or so. But out loud I say, “What’s the big deal with this tree?”

   The half-fae girl in front of me lights up. “It’s from the other realm, and it’s been in my mom’s family since the door was sealed. It helps us keep our magic centered.” Her smile fades into a frown. “Well… just me now.”

   So as not to let her get lost in her grief again, I keep her attention on the tree. “It’s a cypress tree from Louisiana or Florida. How is it from another realm?”

   Her grin returns. “It’s under a magical disguise, duh. Since we lived in Florida before we moved here, Mom made the tree look like a native of the area. Dad had lived in Florida his entire life and was sad to leave, so Mom left the tree looking like this for him.”

   I wrack my brain for the memory of why they moved here to begin with, but it eludes me.

   River jumps to her feet. “Get up. I’m going to show you what the tree really looks like.”

   I do as I’m told and look to her expectantly as I jam my hands into the pockets of my jean shorts.

   She hovers one chipped purple nail polish set of fingers over the log and slowly moves her hand from right to left. Under her fingers the log shifts from an old, worn, sea salt-covered section of a bald cypress tree to something that definitely isn’t from here, though the overall shape remains the same. 

   A gasp escapes my throat. Instead of the sun-faded brown and other discolorations from years in the elements, I’m now gawking at a tree of… of… “Prisms,” I whisper.

   Every inch of the log is a beautiful prism of shades of browns with a hint of green, but it’s still clearly a tree with defined groves and rounded edges. The moonlight illuminates it perfectly as if the moon knows what to do to show me the full glory of this other-worldly object.

   “This is what the other place looks like. The realm that my mom gave up returning to with her family to stay with my dad. We have books with drawings and paintings that really capture the world. I’ll show you.”

   “The entire realm looks like this? Prisms?”

   “Yep. Everything looks the same as we have here, with the same colors and functions and stuff, but its prism colors. The sky, clouds, water, grass, you name it. It’s called the Prism Realm.”

   An image of soft blue prism skies with prism white cumulus clouds over a field of prismatic flowers flashes into my head. “That seems a little… I don’t know… overwhelming.”

   River chuckles. “That’s what I told my mom when she taught me about the world. She said that’s what she told her mother, and what her mother told her mother and so on. They all reply with ‘Well, they think this world is very underwhelming, dull, and dirty.’” She shrugs. “They have a point, you know.”

   True. I went to Paris last year and found the different sights, sounds, and smells to be a bit overwhelming, and when I returned to Indiana, it was even more dull and boring than before.

   River quickly waves her hand over the log, and it returns to its magically disguised state. “Are you ready to hear the rest?”

   “There’s more?”

   My half-fae friend leans in and whispers, “The girl on the balcony is a troll.”