“I know you’re awake.”  There’s a sing-song quality to her voice.

Kelly opens her eyes fully and turns her head towards the sound.  The woman is sitting merely a foot away, watching her.  She’s dressed the same as she was in the darkness, and Kelly realizes she is in a silk kimono, a large fox pelt draped across her shoulders like a shawl, its front legs clasped around her neck and tied together with a red ribbon.  She smiles gently, but Kelly immediately panics, scrambling to get up and searching frantically for her knife.  It’s nowhere, but when she manages to pull her gaze away from the woman, she spots a young man sitting behind her, holding it and watching her carefully, like she’s a spooked animal he might have to subdue.

Kelly looks back at the woman.  Panic blinded her to the obvious, but the longer she looks into her smiling face, the clearer everything becomes.  Her eyes, the same eyes that have haunted her for thirteen years.

“I’m so sorry…”

Something seems to shift in Kelly’s expression, because the woman’s smile widens slightly and she leans forward, resting a hand against her knee.  Despite her fear, she doesn’t jerk back, too stunned by the realization.

“Hello, Kelly.”

Kelly glances behind her briefly again to the man, who meets her eyes. It’s much harder to tell with this one, but there is something familiar about him too. It’s the hint of her in his black hair and skin tone, a hint of him in the sharp cheekbones they both share.  Kelly swallows a lump forming in her throat.  The man’s expression relaxes a little and he offers the tiniest smile.

Kelly feels a wave of panic wash over her and her whole body tenses.  “Am… am I dead?”

As the question leaves her lips, her anxiety spikes at the very thought.  That has to be the answer, though, right?  She must be dead.

“Shhh, shhh.”  The woman’s tone is soothing and gentle.  She shifts to take Kelly’s hands in hers, her grip firm as she laces their fingers together.  Kelly jerks back from her touch this time, but the woman doesn’t let go, pulling her hand back.  “You’re not dead, I promise.”  There is a hint of an accent to her voice, the same one Kelly remembers from her childhood, when her mother would tell her stories.

“B-but you—”  She glances between the two, panic rising.  Her palms are warm and beginning to sweat.  “You’re dead.  The fae took you.  You have to be dead. My mom is dead.”

“I am very much alive,” Haruka says gently, leaning back so Kelly can see her face better.  She continues to smile.  That was something about Haruka she remembers so clearly, the fact that her smile hardly ever left her face.  “We have always been alive.”

Kelly stares into her eyes for several seconds.  She’s alive, and this woman before her is alive.  They’re all alive.  All this time…

“Mom…?”

Haruka’s lips lift just the tiniest bit and she nods. 

“You disappeared.  Why?”  The question leaves her before she even thinks of it, sharp and angry.

“I had to,” Haruka replies gently, not bothered by the venom in Kelly’s voice.  “For Ken’s safety.  For mine.  I had no choice.”

“But why?” Kelly repeats, more insistent.  She squeezes Haruka’s have tightly, letting her nails dig into her mother’s soft skin.

Haruka’s expression remains unchanged.  She takes a slow, deep breath and lets it out in a long sigh.  Silence stretches between them again.  “Because,” she starts, her words coming slowly.  “I am not human, Kelly.  And neither are you.”

“What—”  Kelly’s voice is lost immediately, stuck in her throat as her mother’s words play through her head over and over.

Haruka nods.

“We are fae.”