Erica couldn’t see much of the events in the pasture from the spot where she’d planted herself—literally—outside the stable, but she didn’t really need to. She’d heard enough of the central conversation to have a fair idea of the situation, and that was mostly that Theo, Suzi, Alison, and Zach all needed some space for one-on-one conversations. She suspected that JC did as well, although whether JC could see the parallel under the superficial differences, she had serious doubts. That left her and Des to keep watch, Des inside, her outside.

Allowing the tendrils of her living skirt to burrow into the soil and root themselves for the moment had given her an immediate sense of relief, like climbing into a comfortable bed after an exhausting day to rest aching muscles. The pain that lingered from her brush with that fireball was gradually fading beyond what Callie had been able to achieve, which suggested that she was able to rejuvenate more than her energy levels this way. She wanted to close her eyes and let herself drift into the passive drowsy state that passed for sleep these days, resting her mind as well as her body, but she resisted. She could do that later, when her family were less distracted and overwhelmed by their own emotions.

She concentrated instead on trying to unravel what she was picking up from the roiling mass of feelings. Even at moments when one or more were in states of heightened emotion, it wasn’t exactly loud or overpowering, just a background buzz that one could tune into or ignore, and at more normal levels, it was either so low it was inaudible or it didn’t exist at all—they didn’t really understand the nature of that aspect of the connection, since it seemed to exist at least somewhat independently of Alison’s silent speech, so it was hard to say. She wasn’t sure they were all equally sensitive to it, even.

Right now, tuning in on it was like trying to pick out any single thread of conversation in a crowded and active room. Muddying the waters even more, many of the emotions seemed to be so similar they overlapped—things like hope, apprehension, trust, relief, gratefulness. There were threads of self-consciousness and shyness, which made sense, too. There was an ambivalent chaotic knot that she was pretty sure was Zach, adding several other feelings to the common mix, and while some of them might have worried Erica, she thought Heather could handle it.

What did worry her was the snarl of awkwardness and anxiety that she finally traced to Alison, mostly by process of elimination since it wasn’t as though all these feelings came tagged or colour-coded. It would probably be a bad idea to extricate herself from the ground and intervene, but she was sorely tempted. Was Wade saying something thoughtless, possibly in all innocence, or was it some leftover from Alison’s difficult childhood, or some unfortunate collision between the two? She doubted Alison would even hear her right now if she asked. Besides, she was hardly the expert on relationships and their complexities. Maybe if she saw a good opening later, she could bring it up and ask whether everything had gone okay.

She focused her attention outward, on a pair of green fae who had paused to look at the events in the pasture through the fence. One was simply a slim woman with light green skin and oak-green hair, in what might be a sort of calf-length short-sleeved bodysuit with a vaguely scaled texture or might be small overlapped leaves covering the same area; the other had arms and legs like tree limbs, possibly with extra joints, very long and very thin and bark-covered, and a torso that was cylindrical as a trunk, with a faint dusting of green along upper limbs and torso and even long narrow face.

Erica clapped her hands together to get their attention, and when they looked towards her, she shook her head warningly. They couldn’t actually reach her friends without going past her and through the doors, but sound carried, and they could be disruptive and alarming.

“More humans,” the green woman said in disgust. “We heard a rumour about getting rid of some humans. Why are there more in there with your friends? Ugh. Take them and everything else animal-based off the island, don’t bring more in.”

Erica shrugged, spread her hands, then laid one hand over her heart, gesturing broadly towards the pasture with the other.

“You’ll get over it,” the woody fae said. Erica couldn’t begin to guess at a gender based on angular appearance or creaky voice. “Sooner or later, like the rest of us, you’ll figure out where your loyalty should be.”

“And it is not with fauna,” the green woman said. “The only thing keeping you from being an outright traitor to your own kind is that you’re still so young. This naive connection to the people you used to know will break down in time, once you really accept that you no longer have anything in common with them.”

Erica rolled her eyes. She’d heard that before, although usually with at least some semblance of tact.

“Uh-huh. You go right ahead and believe that you’re unique and special and you’ll be different, that you’ll keep right on belonging with them. They can’t understand you anymore, and they’ll eventually reject you, and it might be uncomfortable at first but it’s for the best. And when that happens, you know where to find the people who actually do understand you.”

It isn’t you, Erica thought sardonically. What do you know about me? That I’m part plant. That’s it. That’s nothing compared to the common ground I have with my oldest friends. Oh yeah, and our particular mixed group did something none of you has.

Still, she shrugged again, and nodded. There was no point to starting a fight.

“We’re not going to bother them,” the woody one added. “We don’t care that much either way. Have fun being the watchdog, sitting out here alone guarding the door while they do whatever they’re doing. Hope you get a nice treat and a pat on the head.”

Erica dismissed them mentally as soon as they turned away and strolled back out into the shadows. She’d spent much of her life being teased, if not somewhat bullied, for one trait or another. The skewed perspective of a couple of messed-up green fae wasn’t going to be enough to upset her.

It was vaguely troubling, though, how universally green fae seemed to dissociate from others...