In her dream, the king of the Shadow Fairies had devised a way to trap Tam deep underground, with the goal of making her his queen. He stole a precious necklace from her and, unable to imagine letting that object go, she pursued him through the hollow of a tree, which lead her into a maze of underground chambers. He kept a step ahead of her; to him, it seemed this chase was only a game. Following the king was exactly what he wanted her to do but she felt driven to continue, nonetheless. As dreams went, she didn't question, or even notice, when her bejeweled necklace morphed into a calico cat. Jewelry or pet, this shadow king had stolen something she cared about, yet he expected her to return his cruelty with love.

After what seemed like a lifetime of spiraling downward, she found herself in the bottommost chamber of the Shadow Fairy realm. Instead of an ornately adorned throne room, it was cold and damp and filled with nondescript, stacked wooden crates. Her necklace-turned-cat sat inside one of the boxes, as cats are prone to do. Behind it stood the king, white teeth glittering in the lamplight. Drifting over to him felt effortless, as if he was tugging on her with an invisible tether. He held her gaze and she saw nothing but smugness in his colorless eyes. She was in his domain now, and it would take little effort on his part to charm her enough to keep her there forever. Ignoring her cat's mews, she approached him. The yearning within her to reach out, to place her hands in his, to waltz together to the discordant fiddle music echoing to her from the room's gloomy corners—it all began to wear away her resolve.

No, she thought. I will not be a folkloric victim. I will not give in.

A rock materialized in her hand, the physical manifestation of her determination. It was the size of a softball, but with sharp, jagged edges. The king's victorious expression never wavered, hubris preventing him from doubting his ability to control her even as she raised the rock and bashed his head in with it. Once, twice, three times.

The smile on his face remained, but now his too-white teeth were streaked with red. He wobbled and then collapsed. She wiped a bit of gore from the rock and placed it in the box, taking the cat in exchange. Tam left the king seizing on the dank ground, blood spouting from his forehead like a garden sprinkler. Her cat purred all the way home, and by the time they breached the Earth's surface, they each wore matching necklaces like the one Tam had first set out to reclaim.

The dream dissolved and sometime later, Tam woke to a million notifications, a pounding headache, and a vague desire to adopt a cat. Downing an Ibuprofen, she went into her app settings and turned off notifications for all social media. Checking her texts and voicemails, it seemed Paul hadn't returned her message, but someone else had contacted her repeatedly, each communication a variation on the theme, Shit, Tam, is it true?

That person was probably the only one in the world Tam could forgive for berating her with messages doubting her innocence: Emelina, Tam's sixteen-year-old sister and the sole person in her dysfunctional family currently speaking to her.

Tam texted her back. It's true my boss is dead if that's what you mean.

She waited for Emelina to text with, no I mean did you kill her, but then remembered she would be in school at this hour and the guardians of Em's group home restricted access to her phone until the evening.

She was at once relieved she didn't have to go through the exhausting act of explaining her situation and sad that she couldn't have a back-and-forth conversation that would break up the anxiety of her looping thoughts. That summed up the greater context of her relationship with Emelina, a push pull of sisterly bonding set against the guilt Tam felt for ruining Emelina's life.

Tam fluffed the pillows on the corner of her daybed and sat with her knees tucked under her chin, contemplating what to do to fill the time between now and whenever the cops decided to beat down her door. If she craned her neck, she could see beyond the neighboring building's beige façade to the top of a solitary palm tree, one of its fronds sticking almost straight up in the sky, like an arrow pointing towards Tam's only possible escape. Up, away, shot in a cannon into outer space.

A gust of wind shifted the crown of the palm, deep green leaflets catching sunlight like the broken surface of a breezy lake. The long stem swayed, and the fronds on the stem, and the leaflets on the fronds swayed with it, coordinated movement that reminded Tam of a flamenco dancer's ruffled skirt. Tam studied it. The tree bent with the wind instead of resisting it, and that's why it still stood. Its adaptability made it strong.

Her phone chimed and she thought maybe her sister had snuck her phone into class with her, but the text was from Jasper. Recalling fragments of her dream, she contemplated deleting the message without listening to it. She'd never put much stock in dream interpretation, but even with a skeptic's mind, she had to wonder if the king of the Shadow Fairies was a stand in for Jasper. But the king was a creature of the underworld. He was cold and calculating and wanted to possess her, whereas Jasper reminded her of the forest and the warmth of campfires. And, if anything, he kept her at arms-length. His well-publicized track record with women indicated nothing of the psychotic possessiveness that was the calling card of her dream nemesis.

She opened the text.

I'm sorry for my behavior yesterday. It was uncalled for. I'm not handling my grief well, but that isn't an excuse. I'd like to talk to you again and I think you'd be more comfortable if we met in a public setting. If you're willing, choose a place and time and I'll meet you there. Needs to be mid-afternoon or later. I'll be tied up during the day. Again, I'm so sorry, Tam.

She read it over twice, imagining him typing words into his phone, deleting them and rephrasing, deleting again, until the paragraph he'd texted to her read the way he wanted it to. He'd been careful. How she perceived his apology mattered to him.

Jasper had left the ball in her court. She could say no. She could say yes but make it for another day. She could choose when and where.

She let his text go unanswered for nearly an hour. The prospect of having an upcoming meeting with Jasper wasn't without appeal. It gave her day structure beyond staring at a tree out her window, contemplating adaptability, underground realms, and rocks in her hand as she anxiously awaited an uncertain future.

Then again, Jasper was a loose cannon. It might be a fatal mistake to step into his path. The internet hate wasn't random. It stemmed from somewhere—from someone who knew she was in Goldie's apartment the night Goldie died. Jasper knew, and he sure as shit was acting like he suspected her. Maybe he'd started the rumor online or fed it to someone who had.

Jasper couldn't be trusted. So then, why was she contemplating seeing him again? She took a shower, blow-dried her hair, applied makeup in a haphazard way that would have made Goldie cringe, and finally texted him back instructing him to meet her at a coffee shop in walking distance from her place.

Stupid, she told herself. You're making a mistake. Text him back and cancel.

No, don't.

He had key information but couldn't bring himself to tell her. Maybe she could convince him to trust her, even if she couldn't trust him back. Besides, they were meeting at a place she'd selected, a location with enough people to make it reasonably safe, but hopefully not too many that she'd be berated by gawkers and Goldie Girls.

#

Cosmic Coffee sat wedged between a laundry mat and an alley three blocks from Tam's apartment. If she walked through the center of her complex to adjacent street, she only had to walk along a road for a block and a half before cutting through the alley leading to the café. It seemed like a low risk venture. She'd be like a ninja, hoodie up along with her hackles, all her senses attuned to potential dangers. The more she kept away from sidewalks lined with pedestrians and roads with passing cars, the safer she'd be.

Still, she passed near people. Each one was as suspect as the evil king in her dream. Each as potentially dangerous to her. They would kidnap her, sending her away to their magical realm and punish her for Goldie's murder however they deemed fit. She shifted her eyes to make out the intent of the lady watering geraniums on her balcony or the man sweeping in front of his shop. She kept her head down when anyone passed nearby. She imagined someone following her, but when she turned, there was only a woman about her own age walking a shaggy poodle. The woman seemed more concerned with managing her dog and her phone at the same time than with Tam.

The dog walker continued up the street as Tam crossed away from her, and there, to her left, was the alley. Two story homes stood on either side of its entrance, and after them, the back ends of several small commercial buildings, including her target destination. The stench of decaying meat and a chemical she couldn't place wafted towards her from a dumpster, shiny black garbage bags filling it past its rim. Her stomach retched as the smell overwhelmed her. She paused, hand to gut, trying to stop a dry heave. She didn't want to enter the café and meet Jasper after puking all over the alley. He had the upper hand in so many ways. Money, fame, privilege. But she wasn't powerless. He wanted to meet her. He needed something from her. She held a card and she would be damned if she gave up that one mysterious advantage.

She stepped forward. The further she got from the dumpster, the easier it would be to concentrate on something besides the turmoil beating her from within. The street intersecting the alley loomed fifty feet or so ahead. She pressed on, only to have her fake ninja skills failed her. The strike to her skull made the oddest sound, like the hand of an old clock struggling to click to the next hour. An innocuous sound, and yet, the pain and confusion that accompanied it was like someone had cast her in a horror film without her consent.

The force from the blow knocked her into the brick wall next to her. A second assault on her ticking clock head. The world went blurry. She cried out in her mind, as loud as a screaming banshee, but couldn't determine if she'd made any audible sound.

As she collapsed to the alley floor, she realized she'd been right. This had been a mistake. Jasper must have believed her to be guilty. The Goldie Girls would love him forever now that he'd sought his revenge.

______

Sometimes something from my life will directly impact what I write, and that is particularly true of today's chapter, because Tam's dream is based on an almost identical dream that I had. My husband was a little alarmed when I described the part where I bashed the Shadow King's head in. I am a non-confrontational, non-violent person by nature. But let's face it: it had to be done. I gave Tam that same agency in her version of the dream and I have no regrets.

And yet... despite that agency, Tam doesn't end this chapter climbing out of a hole in the ground to a bright, sunny day. Things are looking bad. Who did this to her? Was it Jasper?

We'll find out soon, so stay tuned!