I nod. "Some kind of old promise or something."
"I wasn"t allowed to tell you. I wasn"t allowed to tell anyone. It was like...like a fairy tale, you know? Like Bluebeard"s room."
"Oh, that"s a great example," I say, "considering he turned out to be some kind of serial killer freak. And if we"re going to use folklore as an ethical barometer, what about all those sailor boys who are gone seven years, but then come back and try to trick their loyal girlfriends with some sleazy pick-up shtick?"
"Okay, you"re right. What I mean is-"
"Who are you?"
"We"re of the sidhe."
"She who? What"s that supposed to mean? Are you talking about that woman on the horse?"
He shakes his head. "Sidhe," he repeats and spells it out for me. "They"re one of the elfin races."
"Elfin."
"As in pixies, fairies..."
"And you"re one of them?"
He nods.
"I guess this is a whole new twist on having your boyfriend come out of the closet to tell you he"s a fairy." I think about it for a moment, then add, "Is this why you never wanted to have kids?"
He nods again.
"Could we even have had kids?"
"Yes, but our children would be half-breeds."
"Jesus, would you listen to yourself."
He winces. "I"m sorry. I"m not saying I agree. But that"s what my people would call him. The Court-for the most part-is against mixed-marriages, and especially the children that result."
"Why would they even have to know?" I say. "And we wouldn"t have had to tell anyone-not even our little girl. No one would have to know except for us."
"Because our child...she would be different. She would be able to do things that we would have to teach her to control."
I"d noticed that we both had our own ideas about the gender of this child we"ll never have. Apparently Edric did, too. But his attempt to soothe me by coming over to my side just p.i.s.ses me off. Everything about this p.i.s.ses me off. I know I should be trying to see some way past this, some way we can work things out. We"ve been together for so long. We were happy for so long. But there"s this huge lie rearing up between us now. And that twin of his, taking his place who knows how many times when I thought it was him?
I can"t stop the fury, burning up all the love and good memories. Knowing what I now know, I"m not sure I even want to.
"And I suppose this fairy queen"s your little bit on the side?" I ask.
"G.o.d, no. She"s my sister."
"Your sister. And I guess that was your brother you pulled out of the tree earlier?"
He shakes his head. "That was a kind of changeling-made to take my place in the world while I conducted my business here."
"And did that business include him banging me when you were too busy to do it yourself?"
"No, no."
"So what kind of business?"
"Court business. I"m a prince of the Court. No matter how much I"m not interested in it, I have responsibilities I can"t shirk. So we made an agreement-my parents and I. I could live in the world of men so long as I came back once a lunar cycle to fulfill my obligations to the Court." He pauses for a moment, then adds, "And so long as no one discovered the truth."
"Do you know how stupid that sounds?"
"Why? Because it doesn"t fit in with your concept of living life as a free spirit, the establishment be d.a.m.ned?"
I don"t have an answer for that.
"I have to go now," he says.
"Of course you do."
"I didn"t want it to work out this way."
"Of course you didn"t-but here we are, all the same."
"I..." He stops. When he goes on, I know this isn"t what he started to say. "The changeling...he gets to have my life now. I"m not going to tell you what to do or not to do, but I don"t recommend you see him. He"s not human and he can be dangerous."
"Except, apparently, you"re not human either."
"No, but-"
"Oh, don"t worry. I don"t want anything more to do with either you or your doppelganger."
"Changeling."
"Whatever."
He sighs. "Why did you have to follow me?" he asks.
I have to laugh. "I thought you were having an affair."
"If you"d trusted me-"
"What? We could have happily lived a lie for a while longer?"
"It wasn"t like that for me."
I shake my head. "You knew everything about me, but it turns out I didn"t know the first thing about you. Was everything you told me a lie?"
"No, I just didn"t give you all the specific details."
"Like what?"
He shrugs. "We don"t have a cottage-we have a lakeside palace. I didn"t go to a one-room country school, but we did have a small cla.s.s with a private tutor."
"Kind of a big difference."
"I truly do love you."
"Yeah, well, I saw The Little Mermaid. You could have given up all the magic and stuff to be with me."
"I would have-but that isn"t an option for royalty."
"Right. Prince Edric."
"Don"t make this harder than it needs to be," he says.
I shake my head. "No, I have the right to make this as hard on you as I want."
He nods. "I suppose you do."
I don"t want it to be like this. Moments ago I was so angry-I"m still angry-but we had so much love between us. We gave each other seven years of our lives. You don"t just walk away from something like that without trying to fix it.
I take a breath to steady myself.
"There"s got to be a way around this," I say.
"There isn"t. If there was any way I could fix it, I would."
"So you"re just going to walk away from me-from what we have. Had."
"If I don"t, they"ll hurt you. I won"t let that happen."
"We"ll go to the police..." I start to say, then realize how stupid that has to sound.
"And tell them what?" he asks. "They could hide us away, but the Court would find us. There"s no place we could go that they wouldn"t find us."
"And they would really hurt us-like kill us or something?"
He studies me for a long moment, then nods.
"I should go," he says.
I feel empty. And the only thing I can find to fill that emptiness is anger.
"Yeah," I tell him, my voice sharp. "They"ll all be waiting on you."
"Mary, I-"
I put up my hand to stop him. It"s still holding my makeshift club, so I throw it and its partner away.
"Don"t," I tell him. "Don"t say anything else."
He nods. He gives me another long look, then he steps to one side, and just like the fairy Court, he vanishes.
I"ve managed to hold back my tears, but now that he"s gone, I go down on my knees on the top of that granite ridge and let them come.
It takes me a while to get back to where I left Karen"s car. I get turned around a few times, but I finally find the big field and from there on it"s pretty easy. I half-expected to find a ticket on the car, or that it had been towed away by the highway patrol, but it"s right where it"s supposed to be.
I have another crying jag, once I"m behind the wheel. It"s a long time before I can wipe my face on my sleeve and start up the engine.
I feel wrung out. Empty. Sadder than anyone has a right to feel.
And then the anger comes back.
I know Edric was right. I shouldn"t have anything to do with his changeling twin. But when I turn the car around, I don"t head south, back into the city. Instead, I cut east, aiming the car for The Custom House in the little town of Sweet.w.a.ter. That"s the bar where Edric was supposed to be playing tonight. Where his changeling twin is playing.
I have a moment of disa.s.sociation when I step through the front door of the bar and see him on stage. Because I can"t tell it"s not him-Edric, I mean. He looks exactly the same. He plays exactly the same. It"s not until the end of the set when I go up to the side of the stage as he"s retuning his guitar that I see the difference.
Actually, there is no difference-at least nothing you can measure. It"s in the way he looks at me. In the tone of his voice.
"You," he says.
I have to clear my throat, but when I do manage to speak, my voice is steady.
"Yeah, me," I say.
"What are you doing here?"
"I just had to see for myself."
He scowls at me.
"I"m the one who"s real now," he says. "This is my life now."
I shrug.
"I"m grateful for the part you played in my getting it, but-" "I"m not here for your thanks."
"-this ends here. We"re not taking up together or anything."
I pull a face. "Like I"d want to."
"I"ll just come get my stuff tomorrow, and that"ll be it."
"You don"t have any stuff," I tell him, "so don"t bother."
His eyes narrow. "Well, then you don"t have a car anymore."
"Fine. If you want the cops to pull you in for car theft, don"t bring it back."