Page 18 of Monsters in Love: Lost in the Underworld

“Oh they definitely do things to me.”

I lean over her, pressing into her body, sliding my hand through the soft hair at her scalp to cradle her head. “Good things?”

“Yes,” she whispers. I stare into her beautiful eyes. They were blue, back in 1915. Now, they’re a completely unnatural shade of green.

“I need you to try really hard to stay. Just hold on to me, right here. I’m not leaving.”

In the leafless branches of the old tree, a bird begins to sing. Rose gasps at the sound, her eyes darting upwards to find it, and I watch her, watch the tears that roll down her face. Another bird starts up, and then another, filling the air with birdsong that accompanies the sounds of early morning traffic. The sky begins to lighten too, midnight black fading to a dark blueish purple above.

“Good morning,” I whisper to her. She simply sobs, her smile turning into a determined sort of grimace.

“I’m going to stay until sunrise,” she grits out, her fading glow suddenly flaring brighter. “I’m not going yet! Not when I’m this close!”

“Good.”

Her green glow grows even more intense, her form as solid as she’s ever looked. I can’t even see through her anymore. It’s magic; I can sense it from her, a tingling sensation that runs over my skin, that same cool feeling I used to get on the back of my neck. She’s still looking at me, but in this moment I don’t think she sees me at all, and I watch as her glow extends along the ground in snaking bursts, glowing green mushrooms springing forth in their wake. It snakes up the tree, and more mushrooms grow from the old bark.

Holy shit. “Rose.”

When I turn my head back to her sheseesme again, her eyes searching my face, her hands clutching at me, but it’s the antlers that extend from her head that draw my attention, two branch-like protrusions, covered in blossoms.

I know of only one species with antlers like that. I’ve never seen one of them in person, but I’ve heard stories, and seen the odd blurry image on TV.

“Zak?”

“Hey, how are you feeling?”She’s still Rose. She’s still Rose, that hasn’t changed.

“I’m fading.” She is, her glow dimming, the flare gone. She grows more and more translucent as the world around us grows brighter.

“You made it to sunrise! You did it! I love you and I’m proud of you,” I say quickly, trying my best to hide my fear, to celebrate her. “I’ll see you tonight.”

“I —”

She winks out, the green glow disappearing all at once, leaving me surrounded by white mushrooms.

“The last thing I remember was the back garden. There were mushrooms in the grass. That is, as far as I know, the last time I was alive.”

I shudder, feeling like I’m on the edge of something really big.

What if she’s fae?

When I near the vineyard,I can already see there’s a long line of traffic waiting to turn in. I join the queue and stare at the large logo on the roadside sign; a pale crescent moon hiding behind clouds, sitting over a simplified depiction of rolling hills.LOST MOON ESTATE WINERY. MOTUWAI ISLAND.

I already feel like my dress shirt is suffocating me, and I haven’t even put my suit jacket on yet. I can tell it’s going to be one of those days where my acting skills are put to full use, because inside I’m a mess of stress and anxiety, but there’s no fucking way I’m letting anyone fromthisparticular friend group see that.

I would much rather be at home waiting for Rose, than here on this island, ready to celebrate my ex getting married. I’m happy for her. I am not at all upset about the wedding. It’s our joint friends that I’m not exactly excited to see. It’s the hours of socialising among the people who are now successful doctors and lawyers, who have careers and own their own homes, while from the outside looking in, I’m floundering.

I shouldn’t care what they think, but my first career was built on what everyone else thought of me, and old habits die hard. I don’t know if any of them know I’m a male entertainer now. I really like my job, but I’ve spent the last week imagining their faces when it does come up in conversation, and each time I’ve gotten more and more riled up as a result.

I can’t even talk about Rose either. It’s not like I can say to them,Oh I’ve met the love of my life but she's a ghost or maybe something else, and she was last alive in 1915. She grew antlers last week and then disappeared for four days straight and left me an absolute fucking mess because I was beginning to think I would never see her again.

“I’ve met someone, but it's still really new, and I’d already RSVP’d for only one person,” I say out loud as I pull into a parking spot and cut the engine, practising my lines for the day. “She's beautiful, and sweet, and funny, and her name is Rose.Yes, I'm happy for Zara. It was nice of her to invite me.No, I'm not in any upcoming movies. I've been doing smaller gigs; the hourly rate for commercials is really good. Yeah, I'm living in Grey Lynn now, in a really nice old bungalow. The neighbours are great.”

I climb out of my ute, grabbing my suit jacket from where I left it slung over the back of the passenger seat. At least I know how to dress well; years of attending local red carpet events meansI've had plenty of experience dressing to suit my body type, accentuating my broad back and large biceps, and the ass that so many people love. I know I look good in my tailored jacket. This is one of the outfits that I've carefully kept from the early post-Unravelling days, where I was often used by organisations — the Actors Guild, the new Ministry of Non-Humans — as a spokesperson, bridging the gap between the panicked humans and the (often equally as panicked) non-humans such as myself. I was stillZak Carlson, after all. I might have grown a foot taller and sprouted tusks and turned green, but my face was still recognisably the same, my voice just a tad deeper than before, and people trusted me.

I should have asked for better compensation for those interviews. I should have known the work would dry up.

“Zak!Oh my god, you made it! You look great!”

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