"Oh, honey." Janice looked genuinely distressed. "You know I think he"s all wrong for you but I was hoping it would work out."
"Maybe it will." Lynette joined us in the kitchen. She was still half-feathered but was quickly a.s.suming her usual form. "Most humans would have run for the hills after what Isadora did tonight."
"I wanted to run for the hills," I said with a small laugh, "and I"m only half-human." wanted to run for the hills," I said with a small laugh, "and I"m only half-human."
"See?" Lynette sounded triumphant. "That"s exactly what I"m saying. He"s staying because of you."
"Or his daughter." Janice was the official gla.s.s-half-empty part of our equation. "He"s not going to leave his child in Isadora"s clutches. That"s not how he"s made."
I tried to stifle my sigh but failed. "He says he"s not even sure that was really Steffie"s spirit."
"What does he need?" Janice shot back. "DNA proof? The ex knew."
"Maybe he doesn"t want to know," Lynette offered as the last of her brilliant yellow canary plumage disappeared. "Men don"t like not being in control. If he doesn"t know for sure it"s his daughter, he can"t blame himself for failing her."
"He hasn"t failed," I snapped at one of my dearest friends. "This isn"t over."
"Not yet," Janice said, "but the clock"s ticking."
Isadora had charmed the clock that hung over the Playhouse so that it glowed deep purple, casting an ominous reminder of her power over the entire town.
"My great-great-grandmother told me about this when I was a little girl," Lynette said. "She said one day a Fae leader would find a way to punch holes in the Hobbs shield and take control."
Janice rolled her eyes. "I thought you stopped smoking those strange herbs of yours."
"I don"t smoke anything," Lynette said, clearly offended, "and you know it, Janice Meany. Granny was there when the separation happened. She told us all about it. It was only a matter of time."
"Separation?" I asked.
"The war between Aerynn and Isadora"s ancestor Da"elle."
"It wasn"t really a war," Lynette said. "I mean, they didn"t have soldiers or anything."
"The h.e.l.l they didn"t," Janice said. "Half the villagers supported Aerynn"s view of Sugar Maple"s future in the world they already knew. The other half would have given their lives in support of Da"elle"s plan to pull the town through the mist, where they would be safe from human predation." She flashed me a look. "Guess who won."
"I can"t believe Sorcha never told me about this."
"I can"t believe you didn"t learn it in grade school along with the rest of us," Lynette said with a shake of her head. "It"s basic Sugar Maple history."
"You know how everyone always coddled Chloe when she was growing up," Janice said without malice. "They probably figured she already had enough on her plate, what with being born without magick. Aerynn"s a tough act to follow."
"All this time I thought it was something between my mother and Isadora and here it"s been going on between our families from the very beginning." Who knew?
"The Fae have long memories," Lynette said. "They"ll wait for centuries if necessary to achieve their goal."
"But we"ve lived in harmony with the Fae for over three hundred years now. It was only when my mother and Isadora clashed-"
"When your father entered the picture, things began to change and Isadora saw an opportunity to strike."
I fell silent as the puzzle pieces snapped into place. "And now there"s Luke." Another human living intimately with a descendant of Aerynn.
Lynette looked down at her hands. "I didn"t want to be the one to say it."
"I"ll say it," Janice piped up. "You know what they did to witches at Salem. The fear of humans is ingrained in the New England Fae. It will never go away."
I nodded. Everyone in Sugar Maple knew. We had been founded as a sanctuary for women and men who"d escaped persecution at the hands of a town gone mad. The Fae had been tortured almost to extinction by humans. The enmity ran deep and wide.
"How did Aerynn defeat Da"elle?" I asked. "Were her powers that much greater?"
"No," Lynette said. "Her resolve was and that made all the difference."
"No offense," Janice said, "but sometimes I think you"re afraid of your magick."
"That"s a ridiculous thing to say. I welcomed my magick. I waited all my life for my powers to come in."
When I needed it most, I had summoned up the strength to do what I had to do to vanquish my enemies, even though it meant losing my dearest friend in the process. I had used my father"s mortal resolve and my mother"s magick to make it happen. Those didn"t sound like the actions of a woman who was afraid of anything.
"That"s all swell," Janice said, clearly unimpressed, "but until you decide who you really are, you"ll never come into your full gifts."
"No disrespect meant, sweetie, but if you"d been more comfortable with your powers, the ex never would have happened."
"Don"t go blaming the ex on me," I shot back. "I didn"t summon her to Sugar Maple. I didn"t even know her name until she showed up at the meeting."
"So why is she still here?"
"Come on, Jan. It was the middle of the night. You saw her. The woman was a mess. What did you want me to do, toss her out or ask her to sleep on the porch?" Not that both ideas hadn"t occurred to me.
"Janice has a point," Lynette said. "You have magick. More magick than you"ve allowed yourself to realize. You could have settled this whole thing in the first thirty seconds if you weren"t so worried about what your human would think."
I tried to stay on point. "She came to see Luke, not me. It"s their business, not mine."
My two friends exchanged a look that wasn"t lost on me.
"Okay, so it"s my business now." Isadora had seen to that. "But you know what"s at stake. Do you really want me to turn away from a child in trouble?"
"A human child who has already pierced the veil."
"Died," Janice corrected her. "Humans die."
"Whatever," Lynette said. "She"s gone. She"s not of this realm any longer."
"You don"t understand. You"re not-" I stopped short.
"Human?" Janice asked with an arch of her brow.
"I didn"t say that."
"You were going to."
"But I didn"t."
"Honey, I know what this is about and I feel for you. I really do. You see yourself in that little girl. We get it. But step away from the human side of your heart and rethink this. Your Luke isn"t forever, but Sugar Maple is."
19.
LUKE.
Chloe and her friends were holed up in the kitchen while I tried to fit in with the crowd milling through the rest of the cottage.
"We"re not blaming you," Archie the troll told me over a single malt the size of his arm. "Not your fault all h.e.l.l broke loose when you came to town."
"Thanks, Arch." I downed the second of what I a.s.sumed would be many shots before daybreak. "If you"re looking to lay blame, you might want to aim it at Montpelier. They gave me the a.s.signment."
"I know, I know. Bureaucracy sucks and all that. Any human would"ve set off shock waves, but nothing like this. Chloe fell in love with you. That"s what changed everything."
And here I thought triggering her powers was a good thing.
"Glad you"re on her side," I said, clapping him on his rounded back. "We need the support." If not the lukewarm endors.e.m.e.nt of our romance.
Support was good but what I really needed were some answers. I had interrogated everyone in the room about Isadora, but she remained as big a mystery to me now as she"d been from the beginning. They respected her. They feared her. They didn"t have a clue where she lived or how she lived. Did she have a consort? Children besides Dane and Gunnar? How old was she? Who was her family? Where did she get the power to break through her banishment and capture my daughter"s soul? Was there a source she went back to again and again, or was her power internally generated?
Easy questions like that.
I pulled Paul aside and we stepped out onto the porch. Maybe I was crazy but I knew this guy had my back the same way I had his. I could be straight with him.
"Is this it?" I asked him. "Is this all the support Chloe has in town?"
He shifted uncomfortably and looked out into the darkness of the middle distance. "All that"s willing to be seen."
"Verna," I said. His wife. "She"s on the other side?"
He met my eyes. "Sorry, MacKenzie. With the recession and everything, she"s thinking it might be time for a change."
"You"ve got yourself a problem, dude."
He forced a smile. "Yeah," he said. "Sooner or later we"ll have to come down on the same side."
I didn"t have to tell him that sooner was about to bite him on the a.s.s. Isadora had made that clear earlier tonight.
"Where"s your ex-wife?" Paul glanced toward the cottage. "Sleeping off the excitement?"
"She went out for a walk."
"After the show Isadora put on tonight? The chick"s hardcore."
"Definitely. It takes a lot to scare Karen." In many ways Steffie was just like her.
"I"m sorry about your kid."
I nodded. "Steffie was-" I couldn"t finish the sentence.
Paul knew how to ride the silence while I pulled myself together. His sons were everything to him. He got it.
"She"s grieving hard," I said when speech returned. "She"s not here for me or to cause trouble for Sugar Maple. All she wants is Steffie."
I felt a rush of wind moving past my cheek, followed by a familiar laugh.
"AmIalucky girl or what?" Midge Stallworth appeared in front of us dressed like Betty Crocker if Betty had a Bedaz zler and wasn"t afraid to use it. "The two handsomest fellas in town out here to greet me."
I recoiled, then quickly covered up with a cough and a tug at the sleeve of my sweater. For the second time in as many days I had to remind myself how much I liked the vampire matron with the espres...o...b..an dark brown eyes.
Paul gave her a peck on one of her rosy cheeks. I wasn"t ready to commit to physical contact.
Just call me cautious.
"So where"s the family?" Paul asked on my behalf. "We know they"re not sleeping."
Laughter all around. Like I said before: vampire humor.
"Billy took the kids up to a convention in Quebec City on Sunday. I"ve been a bachelor girl all week." She mimed a pout, which wasn"t a good look if you were over sixteen. "You both should stop in for supper tomorrow night. I"m so used to cooking for a crowd that I don"t know how to cut back."
Could someone be too normal? The conversation flowed easily. The laughs were unforced. Midge was her usual overly made-up, overdressed self with a wristful of watches and bracelets, fingers bedecked with rings, and more piercings in her plump ears than I could count. So why the itchy feeling moving its way up my spine?
I glanced over at Paul, who had retreated into the shadows. His body language was loose and natural. If he was picking up any weird vibes, it didn"t show. Then again the guy was a werewolf. Weird was his normal.
But Midge Stallworth unnerved the h.e.l.l out of me, and it wasn"t just the bloodsucking thing. I mean, I get along fine with Manny and Frank and Rose from a.s.sisted Living and they were all vampire. I hit a few buckets at the Sugar Maple Driving Range with Midge"s husband, Billy, last week and didn"t feel I had to guard my carotid artery.
"Lipstick on my teeth?"
I felt an embarra.s.sed flush burn its way up my throat. Want some advice? Never get caught staring at a vampire"s smile. "Sorry, Midge. I was thinking about something else."
She patted my hand with motherly affection. "No apologies, honey. I never complain when a man stares at me." She winked. "All natural, in case you were wondering."
Dirty Grandma was back again.
Time to change the subject.
After the obligatory small talk about gas mileage, the price at the pump, and the great fiscal meltdown out there in the real world, Midge went inside to offer her support to Chloe.
Paul stepped out of the shadows. "You don"t trust her."
"Jury"s out but I"m leaning that way."