Aine

Aine

The first time I saw Aine Haelix, she was in the process of beating the hell out of a three hundred pound man. Not just any three hundred pound man, either: Bartok Grim, the reigning champ of Upper Fransu's prizefighting circuit. He'd handed my skin to me more than once, and I was no pansy in the ring myself.

She seemed to be everywhere Bartok wasn't, jabbing a flurry of hits in every time he left himself open for a second. As soon as he'd swing out to return the favor, she dodged away, slipping through his fingers like smoke. She looked more like she was dancing than fighting, but it was doing the job.

"Hey Joss," I said to the guy tending bar, an old school buddy of mine. He owned this place; had never bothered to give it a name, but people came anyway for the fighting and for his pineapple-cherry-vodka concoctions. "Who's the lady fighting Bartok?"

He gave me an incredulous look. "No joke? Rafe, where've you been, man?"

"Around," I said evasively. Joss might have been my pal since the sandbox days, but that didn't mean I would let him in on all my secrets.

For example, my unusual little talent of traveling to other dimensions.

Even if I told him, he wouldn't believe me. No one would. It was a bit of a stretch, I suppose…to believe that not only were there other worlds, but that there were people that could travel to them by looking in a mirror. Sidestepping, my ma had called it. She had the gift too. I'd never met anyone else that did and wasn't holding out much hope for it.

"She showed up on the circuit last month," Joss said. "Challenged Mallex Fillion her first round and took him down in three minutes. The betting was ridiculous."

I whistled. Mallex had been first tier. "How much?"

"Fifty thou."

That was too impressive to even whistle at. Most fights, you were lucky to get ten.

"They call her the Wildcat," he told me.

I looked up at the ring where she was finishing off Bartok. "I can see why."

Bartok fell, shaking the building with a crash. The woman stepped out of the ring and purposefully made her way towards the betting table.

"She have a name?"

"I imagine she does," Joss replied.

"I'll find out," I said.

Joss raised his eyebrows. "This one, too? Merde, Rafe, you gonna break the heart of every chick in Upper Fransu?"

"Only the interesting ones," I assured him.

He rolled his eyes. "A guy could almost get to hate you. How do you do that?"

I shrugged. My string of girlfriends was kind of baffling, since I'm not good-looking in the strictest sense: giant build and tangled dreads, obviously the fighter type. I liked to think that it was my charisma that did it.

I left Joss to his bartending and sauntered up to her. She flicked a glance at me, but seemed more interested in counting her winnings.

All right, we'd start with that. "Impressive," I said. "How much you end up with?"

She looked at me for real this time, one eyebrow raised. "Aiming to lift it?"

"I wouldn't dare," I told her honestly. She was even prettier up close, sky-blue eyes and brown hair chopped haphazardly around her face. "Anyway, I'm not a thief."

"You a fighter?"

I held out my hand. "Rafael Montaigne. Ranked second tier at the moment…not to brag or anything."

"Wouldn't want to do that," she said dryly. "What do you want?"

I was a little taken off guard by the direct question, but managed to recover with, "I wanted to talk to you."

"Ah. Mission accomplished." She turned towards the door.

"Hold on!" I protested, putting on my best wounded look. "I told you my name. Courtesy indicates that you would give yours in exchange."

She turned back to me, the corners of her mouth turning up slightly. "Of course a man the size of a well-fed bear finds himself preoccupied with courtesy."

I grinned, utilizing what an old girlfriend had called the 'happy scrappy hero pup' look. "All muscle."

"How nice for you," she replied, in a tone that would have dried the scales on a mermaid's tail. "You say that to all the girls?"

Now we were getting somewhere. "Only the pretty ones."

She looked mildly flattered, but shook her head. "Nah. I've seen your type. You hit on everything female that moves. You're only interested in me because I—" she looked around the room— "am apparently the only representative of the double X club in here."

"Wrong!" I objected, indicating a woman at the bar that was, at first glance, indistinguishable from a man. "Rochelle is sitting right there."

"And you already dated her, didn't you?"

"Well, uh…"

She burst out laughing. When she was done with that, she said, "At least you're honest. I like you."

And with that extraordinary proclamation, she headed for the door.

"Name?" I called, sounding rather less nonchalant than I wanted.

She turned, those eyes sparkling mischievously. "Aine Haelix."

"Aine." I liked that. "Want a drink?"

She hesitated for a second, then laughed. "Congratulations, Rafael Montaigne. You've found my one and only weakness."

"And that is?"

She sat down next to me. "Free stuff."

"Call me Rafe," I told her.


Sometimes it happens that you meet someone who you immediately know is going to be your friend. Aine was like that for me. We talked until Joss kicked us out that night. Silly things, serious things…I got a crazy impulse to tell her about the dimension-hopping thing, but suppressed it. There would be time enough for that later, if there was a later.

When we finally left, I asked, "Where do you live? I'll walk you home."

Aine looked rather sheepish. "Uh…over there." She pointed to a pile of blankets in an alley across from us.

"You live on the street? All that money from fighting, and you can't get yourself a place?" I sputtered.

"I had a place," she said darkly. "Some crack-brained kid set the whole building on fire trying to make EZ Waffles. I'm looking for another one, but until then…" She shrugged.

"Stay with me," I offered, and at that moment, hitting on her was the furthest thing from my mind.

It returned with a vengeance when she grinned at me, though. "Chivalry or baser motives? Don't bother lying; it won't do you any good."

"Ouch!" I protested, genuinely offended. I might…well, enjoy the company of women, but I have some decency. "I promise I'm not going to try anything."

She snorted. "Like hell you won't."

I figured that was a no and turned around, aiming to find Rochelle so that maybe Aine could stay with her, but she put a hand on my shoulder.

I blinked. "What are you doing?"

"Trying to decide if I mind," she answered.

We stayed like that for a couple of minutes, then she shrugged. "All right then. The lost little kitty will follow you home."


True to my word, I didn't try anything that night. I'm not that sleazy. Besides, Aine could kill me with her pinky, and both of us knew it. She was gone by the time I woke up in the morning.

I wandered around all day, pretending to myself that I wasn't trying to find her, then headed back to Joss's place in the evening. Sure enough, she was perched on a chair in a way that made me wonder if she'd been there all day. She didn't say anything when I came in, just acknowledged me with a tip of her head. It went without saying that she went back with me that night, too.

Within two weeks, we were dating. It went well for the first few months. She was everything I liked in a woman: beautiful, intelligent, witty, with a certain acerbic slant to her worldview that fascinated me. The only problem was, she got irritated whenever I so much as smiled at another girl. I'm a friendly guy; charm like that doesn't just turn off, so that was sort of hard to deal with. I suppose she was sort of justified given what I'd revealed to her of my past, but I was with her now. Which wasn't to say that I didn't notice pretty women. I mean, that'd be impossible. I said as much to her once and she jokingly suggested gouging out my eyes.

At least, I hoped she was joking.

She didn't like questions, I figured that out pretty quick. I asked her once where she was from, and she just shook her head.

"What?" I asked. "You've got a home and a family somewhere, or you did at one point. I can't ask about that?"

"Leave it alone, Rafe," she said, sounding tired.

Then I did something stupid. I took out my mirror, and I explained everything. How there were other worlds, how there were people that could cross between them…how I was one of them.

She stared at me for a second after I was done, giving me a considering look. I'd resigned myself to being called crazy, when she dug something out of her pocket.

It was a small silver mirror.

"I don't have a home here," was all she said.

It was my turn to stare at her. "What world are you from?" I asked finally.

She shook her head again. "It doesn't matter. I can't go back there."

And that was all she would say about her past. Ever.


I suppose it was sort of inevitable, what happened next. We'd been together for almost eight months, and we were going through one of those rough patches that you always hear about. It wasn't like I wasn't trying—I liked her, maybe even loved her, and I wanted to keep the longest-running relationship I'd ever had. But at that point, it seemed like we spent more time fighting than anything else.

"Must you," Aine said exasperatedly after I'd struck up a conversation with a fetching redhead, "hit on every girl that crosses your path?"

"I wasn't hitting on her," I said defensively. We'd repeated this conversation a lot over the past few months. "Can't I talk to people?"

She rolled her eyes. "Of course. As long as they don't sit there and bat their eyelashes at you while shooting me dirty looks every five seconds, like that one chick did yesterday."

I blinked. "Why would she do that?"

She gave me one of those patient looks that I was growing to dread. "Because, genius, she wants you and I'm in the way."

"But you are in the way, that's what I'm trying to tell you!" I exclaimed.

I knew, right away, that I could have phrased that better.

"I'm in the way, huh?" she snapped.

"No! I mean—what I was trying to say was—"

She stalked away before I could try to salvage the situation. I hesitated for a minute, then followed her into the kitchen, where she was in the process of making the angriest jam sandwich I'd ever seen.

I looked at her for a moment, missing the days when we could talk about anything and everything. "Where are you from?" I asked. I couldn't even say why I brought it up at that point, except maybe to point out that I wasn't the one hiding things. It was a constant sore point with me, that she didn't even trust me enough to tell me the dimension.

"That again?" she demanded. "I told you I'm not going to talk about it. Why can't you just leave it alone?"

"Why can't you trust me?" I countered.

Aine gave up on the sandwich and turned to me, still clutching the jar of jam in her hand. "I do trust you, Rafe—"

"Except when I'm around other women?" I put in, with a dryness that rivaled hers.

She ignored that. "—but I don't want to talk about it."

"When was the last time we talked? I mean, really talked, without getting into an argument?" I challenged.

She ran an hand through her hair, shaking her head lightly to settle it back in place. She only did that when she was upset about something. "Does my past have to be the topic of the conversation to make you happy?"

"Maybe it does," I snapped. "I trusted you. I told you about the mirror traveling thing, something that I've never told anyone else—"

"I can do it too," she pointed out.

"But I didn’t know that when I told you! This isn't going to work if you don't trust me!"

"So what is this, a test?" she said angrily. "I need to tell you everything about myself in order for you to believe I trust you?"

I wanted to say 'not everything.' I wanted to say that I trusted her more than anyone else, and it stung that she wouldn't even tell me where she came from, when I'd told her my biggest secret. I wanted to say I couldn't change who I was, not even if I wanted to. But all that came out of my mouth was a vehement "Yes!"

She flung the jam jar at my head.

I ducked, and the wall behind me was decorated with strawberry goodness. When I looked back up, she was gone.

I went back into our bedroom. The small silver mirror that she'd set on the end table was gone, too. She didn't take anything else.


I went back to Joss's place night after night, hoping to find her again. She was never there. The whole circuit was buzzing about the disappearance of the woman who'd been expected to take first in Eirope's championships. Whenever anyone asked me about it, I just said that she'd left. I moved up to first tier, but I didn't much care. I just wanted to tell her I was sorry.

It wasn't as if I wasn't used to having women mad at me—generally for the same reason, come to think of it—but Aine was different. She'd been more than a lover. She was my best friend.

She finally showed up on a chilly night in October. It had been two months since I'd seen her last, almost a year since we'd met. I was just getting out of the shower when there was a knock at my door. I hurriedly threw some clothes on and went to answer it.

She stood there awkwardly on the stoop. Her hair was a little longer, but otherwise, she looked the same as the day she left.

"Hi," she said quietly.

"Aine!" I exclaimed. "I…uh, come in. You must be freezing."

"I'm all right," she replied as she followed me inside. I shut the door behind us.

"How've you…been?" I asked, cursing myself for not coming up with anything better.

"Fine," she said. "Rafe…"

"I'm sorry," I said in a rush, at the same time she did. We both stopped.

"You don't need to apologize," she said. "I've been thinking, over the past few weeks. You were right; you were just being yourself. I can't expect you to change that."

"I could have tried…a little harder," I admitted. "I'm sorry I kept badgering you about your past."

"Maybe I was being unreasonable, not sharing anything," she replied.

I knew, even before I asked, what the answer would be. "But you still won't tell me, will you?"

She looked away. "No."

"I can live with that," I told her. "Are we…going to try again, then?"

She smiled at me, a sort of sad half smile. "No. It would go exactly the same way as last time, with me getting jealous and you getting offended that I have secrets from you, and it would probably end with me flinging something else at your head."

"We can try!" I protested. "I'll do better this time, I promise."

She shook her head. "You shouldn't have to change yourself for me. Even if you did, it wouldn't work forever. Sooner or later, we'd start doing the same things. And then we'd stop talking and start fighting, and neither of us want to go through that again."

I must have looked sort of crushed, because she smiled and kissed me—the last time she would ever do so—and said, "You're my best friend, Rafe. I don't want to lose that because I was too stubborn to let go of you."

I nodded. She had a point, as much as I hated to admit it. And if that was what she wanted…well, that was what we'd do.

She stepped away and headed back towards the door.

"Where—" I stopped, remembering how much she hated to be questioned.

She grinned, looking more like her old self. "I thought I'd head to the Green World for awhile."

"Can I come?"

She raised an eyebrow. "You've got a life here. Be happy."

I wanted her in it, though. This was the first time I'd ever really let go of someone wholeheartedly. Shouldn't I be rewarded for that, at least a little?

No, that was silly. We'd be friends, and I was luckier than I deserved for it.

"You'll…come back?" I asked tentatively.

"Sometimes," she said with a smile. "I can't leave my friends behind for good, now, can I?"

With a few words muttered into her mirror, she was gone again, melted into mist.
It wasn't the worst split I'd ever had, but somehow it was the one I felt the most.