Three nights we spent in the forest, and my brothers made sure I had a comfortable bed of bracken, and ate what I was told to. Our pace was slow, for I was not the only one weakened by hunger and lack of sleep, and the journey was not an easy one. Here, we could make a small fire, and brew a kind of tea made from whatever herbs were to hand. This warmed the body if not the spirits. Here in the forest it was quite safe, and my brothers slept well at night. All but Finbar. For him there was no rest. By day he walked as if in a dream. By night he sat cross-legged, looking into the distance with eyes that did not seem to be seeing. He had eaten nothing; had spoken not a word. It was as if he were not really there at all, his body a hollow shell whose spirit inhabited some world the rest of us could not touch. As for me, I lay there open-eyed in the darkness, waiting for sleep to come. I should have been joyful. Was I not back where I belonged, in the place of my spirit, with my brothers all safe around me, ready to start their lives anew? Had I not saved them and achieved the task against all odds? But my heart was shriveled and cold, my mind was unable to see a future that was not one of stark loneliness, of half being, of dreams unfulfilled.

The further time took me away from that far shore, the more I recognized how much I had given up. I told myself not to be stupid. Not to be selfish. What did I expect, that Red would have begged me to stay? Even in that most unlikely event, I would have been obliged to refuse him. How could I have remained there to drag him down, a burdensome wife, object of hatred and distrust to all his people? I could not have done that to him. What I wanted didn’t matter. If I had stayed, I would have destroyed him. So why did I feel so miserable? What was wrong with me? Anyone would have thought…anyone would have thought you were no longer afraid of men.

That was the small voice of common sense, like a dash of cold water. I am. I am still afraid, I said to myself, for I still remembered how those men had hurt and shamed me, the ugly things they had said, in every vivid detail. The memory still turned my body cold with disgust. It would never go away. That was one side of the balance. As for the other side, for there was now another side, I thought I would give almost anything to have that one moment again, the moment when I had felt Red’s arm around me like a shield against the world, and his lips against my hair, and his heart drumming under my cheek. In that moment, he had not wanted to let me go. It’s all right. It’s all right, Jenny, he had said. But it was not all right. I lay in the darkness under the trees, and silently cursed the Fair Folk for the way they used and discarded us in their strange games, heedless of the damage they did.