Fae of Calaveras Trilogy Box Set

by Kristen S. Walker

  “I’m sorry,” I said. My breath came out in puffy clouds. I reached out for her hand again, longing for some kind of contact. “Do you want to go back to my place? My dad’s home, but he’ll leave us alone—”

  “Hang on.” She zipped up her hoodie and shoved her hands in her coat pockets. “Rosa, what are we doing? I thought you were working things out with your boyfriend.”

  My boyfriend was the last thing that I wanted to think about right then. I let my hand fall to my side, and her rejection stung. “I—I don’t know. I just can’t get you out of my mind.”

  “Me, too,” she said, and her look of longing was as intense as mine. “But this isn’t right, not while you’re in a relationship with someone else.”

  I took a deep breath, hoping that the cold air would calm me down. “I’m trying to figure out what I want. I’ve been with Kai for a while, but I’m also crazy attracted to you—”

  She took a step farther back from me and held up her hand. “I’m not going to get my heart broken while you can’t make up your mind. You need to decide where you are with Kai first. If you’re free, then come find me.”

  “No, wait.” I scrambled to pick my broom up off the ground and held it out. “Can I at least take you home?”

  She shook her head. “It’s not far. I’ll walk.” She turned back the way we’d come and walked on through the snow, her head down.

  I watched her go, feeling completely crushed. I’d hurt her when I hadn’t meant to. I felt hurt, too. I hadn’t meant to start with her, but once I touched her, I felt a spark that I hadn’t felt with Kai in weeks—a flame different than I’d ever felt for anyone before. Was it just her bad-girl image, the black hoodie and the tough attitude? Or did I truly care for who she was, the truth she hid from everyone else?

  But I’d crossed a line that Kai might never forgive. She was right—I had to figure out if I wanted to save that relationship before I looked for anything with her. Thinking of him now, all I felt was guilt. Surely that wasn’t a reason for staying with someone, but we’d been so happy together in the past. Everything was falling apart.

  I jumped on my broom and flew away without looking back. Home was close, and fortunately I didn’t need to see well through my tears in order to find my way.

  26

  Furious

  Rosmerta

  I couldn’t believe that Elizabeth had actually let Rosa come by the house. There was no way my daughter could actually detect my presence here, but it was a reckless move all the same—and there was no need for it. Yet another reason to doubt the pookha girl’s true motivations.

  I hid behind the curtains while they spoke in the front yard, careful not to be seen, and then watched them fly off on Rosa’s broom. Elizabeth acted like it was such a treat to be allowed on the back of Rosa’s ride, yet I knew that girl would fly anywhere at the slightest excuse, even in the dead of winter. If only she’d dedicated half that enthusiasm toward the rest of her witchcraft, she would have learned a lot more from me—and yet now, I was grateful for how little I’d taught her. How sad it was that I should now be in opposition to my own daughter and magical protégé.

  I followed them to breakfast and waited outside, shivering in the cold. They wouldn’t discuss anything important in such a public space, so I had to catch them when they came out.

  Sure enough, when they were done eating, they came back outside and went for a walk in the snow. I hovered as near as I dared in the trees but I didn’t hear them say a single word—until they suddenly started kissing.

  I gasped, covering my mouth with my hand just a moment too late to keep the sound from escaping, but fortunately neither of them seemed to hear me. In fact, they were completely involved in a disgusting make-out session. They pawed at each other and slammed into a nearby tree, and I was certain that they both were oblivious to the rest of the world.

  The sight shocked me to the core, but I couldn’t look away. I landed lightly on a tree branch to steady myself and shook my head at my own foolishness. I knew my daughter was a hormonal teenager and that had gotten her into trouble before—but with another girl? I’d tried to keep her away from boys, and I knew that I couldn’t supervise her everywhere with her new boyfriend Kai, but I’d never imagined such a thing in my sixteen years as her mother.

  Had Elizabeth seduced her? She was trying to develop a bad girl’s reputation, and I knew that plenty of girls her age thought that kissing a girl would get boys’ attention. But there wasn’t anyone else around to see them. And it seemed like both of them were willing participants in the debauchery unfolding below me.

  In fact, when they broke away from the kiss, it was Rosa who invited the other girl “back to her place”! She claimed that her father wouldn’t bother them there. What kinds of things was my estranged husband letting our daughter get away with? He always told me that I was too strict on the girls, but I’d believed that he set some limits for Rosa while I was gone. My grip tightened on my broomstick at the thought of Samuel giving Rosa free reign to do whatever she wanted. I would have to send him a warning as well as her, to let them know that I wasn’t completely out of their lives, and I wouldn’t stand for such behavior.

  On the ground below me, the girls were having some kind of argument about the kiss. Elizabeth demanded that Rosa choose between her and Kai.

  And then Rosa gave a little sigh and said, “I’m trying to figure out what I want.”

  My heart skipped a beat. I’d used that exact same excuse, once. Did it sound just as lame when the words came out of my mouth?

  Was my daughter doomed to repeat my mistakes?

  No, she couldn’t possibly know the truth. She’d been so young at the time, barely aware of what was going on in our family, and my enchantments had been woven so tightly that even Samuel no longer remembered the rocky period in our marriage. My affair. Just because I’d cheated on my husband didn’t mean that Rosamunde would want to cheat on her boyfriend—there was no cheating gene I could have passed on to my daughter, no bad behavior that she could have learned from watching me, because I’d been a faithful wife since then. She was young, her relationship with Kai was a teenage fling, and it probably meant little to her. I was reading too much into it.

  Yet it stung to hear her say that. She’d grown to look and act so much like me. Now, for the first time, I didn’t want my daughter to turn out like me. Covering up my affair had led me down a dark path of forbidden magic that culminated in my current predicaments. I wished that there were something better for her.

  Looking down again, I saw Elizabeth walking back in the direction of her house, and Rosa flying off in the opposite direction.

  When I was certain that Rosa had flown far enough away, I turned and sped after the pookha girl. I caught up with Elizabeth in less than a minute and landed on the snowy path directly in front of her.

  “What do you think that you’re doing?” I demanded.

  She jumped back with a yelp of surprise. “Rosmerta! I didn’t know you were there.” She looked back over her shoulder. “Be careful, Rosa was just here. She can’t see you!”

  I stepped closer and drew myself up to my full height in an attempt to intimidate her, and realized that Elizabeth was just a little bit taller than me. But I still had the advantage of age and power, and she shrank before me. “Don’t dodge the question,” I said in a low, menacing tone. “I saw everything. I ask you again, what do you think you’re doing, touching my daughter?”

  She looked down at the ground and kicked a clump of snow away with her boot. “Um, you wanted me to get close to her. I wasn’t trying to do anything but be nice to her like you said. I didn’t think that she’d take it that far.”

  I planted the tip of my broomstick into the snow and put my other hand on my hip. “Don’t try to turn this around on her. I was afraid from the start that you would be a bad influence on Rosamunde, but I never thought you’d sink to such deviant behavior. I asked you to be her friend.”

  Her chin l
ifted a fraction, and she glared up at me from underneath her thick black hair. “We are friends. Sometimes stuff happens between friends. I just don’t know if she’d rather be with me instead of Kai.”

  “Be with you?” I shook my head in disbelief. “You’re a girl. He’s her boyfriend. You might have some misguided idea of experimentation, but Rosa is mature enough not to fall for that mistake.”

  Elizabeth lifted her head up and stared at me. “Do you even know your own daughter? She’s not ‘experimenting,’ she’s bisexual.”

  I laughed out loud. “My poor girl, I’m her mother. I know Rosa better than anyone else possibly could. She’s not a deviant, despite how you tricked her today.”

  “No, seriously, she’s out to, like, everyone at school.” She looked me up and down. “Although if that’s how you feel about it, I can see why she never told you.”

  “I would know if she was keeping secrets from me—”

  She snorted. “Uh-huh, you know everything about her. Did her first girlfriend trick her, too?”

  I took a step away and lifted my hand. “I’ve heard enough of your lies and excuses. I’ll tell your mother how horribly you behaved today. And you’re forbidden from ever speaking to Rosamunde again.”

  “Wait!” Elizabeth had turned paler than the snow. “I—I wasn’t ready to tell my mom yet. And, and, I have, I mean, I was doing so well. She agreed to bring me a personal object of Ashleigh’s.”

  I shook my head. “We’ll find someone else to be our contact with Rosamunde. You’ve violated my trust in you, and things have gone too far for me to risk giving out second chances. I’ll see you back at the house.”

  As I hopped on my broom and flew on ahead of the girl, I heard her shouting protests and vulgar words after me, but I blocked them out. Children thought they knew better than their parents and could make their own choices. But to protect her and my own daughter, I had to keep them apart, and Elizabeth’s mother had a right to know why. This was about more than just the plan to open the gate—it was for their own good.

  I told Mary about what I had seen happen between our daughters in the forest and my decision to remove Elizabeth as Rosamunde’s contact. Afterward, Mary and her husband James had a long talk with their daughter in private, and out of respect for my host family, I didn’t listen in to see how they handled the situation; their parenting decisions were there own. However, Rosamunde was my daughter, and I was absolutely insistent that Elizabeth shouldn’t be allowed to speak with her ever again.

  Mary emerged from behind her closed bedroom door several hours later, looking emotionally drained. She found me in my guest room, sitting at the desk, so she entered at my invitation and sat down on the bed.

  She let out a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry that my daughter’s behavior has upset you,” she said. “None of us knew that Elizabeth’s a lesbian—although I admit, I’ve had my suspicions since she’s never shown an interest in boys—or that she could have been developing feelings for Rosa. And she would like to apologize for the way that you had to find out about it. She says that it was Rosa’s choice about when and how to tell you, and she shouldn’t have gone around that.”

  I drummed my fingers on the desk and bit my tongue to avoid saying anything about alternative lifestyles. I knew there were some of those people in town, and I didn’t care what they did behind closed doors if they did not flaunt it. If Mary and her husband chose to accept their daughter’s whims, well, it wasn’t my place to stop them. But I had to make sure that Elizabeth’s influence stayed away from my own family.

  “She can’t see Rosa again,” I repeated for the third time that day. “This jeopardizes everything we’re trying to do by mixing it up with teenage hormones and drama. It’s too much of a risk.”

  Mary gave me a wary look, but she nodded. “I understand. But then where does that leave us? Do you still mean for Rosa to help us take Ashleigh?”

  I turned back to my notes. “Yes, and I think I’ve managed to work out a solution. Rosa has already agreed to her final ‘test.’ We’ll deliver a note informing her that she’s to continue as instructed, but she’ll have a new contact to report to when she’s finished. Once her ‘test’ is complete, the new contact will give her only the necessary details about luring Ashleigh into the trap.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “And who is the new contact going to be?”

  I tapped my burner phone. “I’ve been speaking to Angelica, and she thinks that Esther and her husband will agree to letting Marzell take on the job. That way, it’s still someone she sees in class every day. And he’ll be under strict orders to keep his hands to himself.”

  “Well then.” She got back to her feet. “I guess you don’t need anything else from us, then. I did think it was better if we weren’t so directly involved.”

  I nodded. “Akasha and I are both still grateful for your hospitality. Hopefully, this will all be over soon and you won’t need to keep us hidden much longer.”

  Her face softened. “Are you going to tell Akasha about this?”

  I stiffened in my chair. “I thought it better not to shake her up too much.”

  Mary nodded. “Maybe that’s a good idea. Good luck, Rosmerta.” She turned and left the room.

  27

  Forbidden

  Rosamunde

  I spent the afternoon worrying about what I’d done. I tried to call Zil a few times on her phone, but she never picked up or responded to my text messages. Kai called me twice, trying to ask me if I was available to hang out at all. I didn’t pick up and I deleted his voicemail. Just hearing his voice made me cringe.

  I was pretty sure that I had it figured out at that point. If I didn’t feel totally comfortable around Kai, and I’d been tempted to be with someone else, then our relationship was probably doomed. But every time I tried to find the words to tell him that it was over, my heart felt like it was breaking. Kai had been my first real relationship—not sneaking around like Lindsey and I had done. He’d been so kind to me, so helpful with my mom and everything else I had going on, and it wasn’t fair how I’d betrayed him.

  But if I stayed, would I want to hurt him again? Would he even want me after he learned the truth? I saw his beautiful face twisting in anger again, heard his voice accusing me of not finding him as attractive as another girl. I couldn’t face that a second time.

  On the other hand, I didn’t know if I could make it work with Zil, either. I was magnetically drawn to her, but was that enough for a good relationship? What if every time I saw her now, all I could think about was the guilt of hurting Kai? The way we’d started was all wrong. I should have ended it with my boyfriend before I ever kissed her. Now I couldn’t take it back.

  But I couldn’t figure out what we should do next if she wouldn’t even talk to me. Her silence was driving me crazy. Should I fly back to her house and demand to see her? Waiting until Monday at school seemed like an eternity, and I didn’t want to have that conversation in public.

  Maybe I didn’t deserve to be in a relationship with anyone. I was a cheater.

  I was lying on my bed with my silent phone and an open notebook. I tried to write down how I felt but I just kept making dark scribbles all over the page.

  Then, I had the feeling like someone was watching me. The hairs stood up on the back of my neck, and I saw my breath come out in a puff of steam. The temperature of my room had dropped drastically.

  I turned around and looked at the window to see if it had opened somehow. But it was still shut, and I didn’t feel a draft.

  Then I saw an envelope in the middle of my desk. Even from a distance, I could see the deep red wax seal, and I knew where it had come from. I was also sure that it hadn’t been there only minutes before.

  I glanced around the room for some sign of the ghost, but saw nothing. I cleared my throat. “Sheriff Baumann, is that you?”

  I held my breath and listened, but there was no reply. Moments ticked by. Then suddenly, the temperature returned to normal, an
d I no longer sensed a presence in the room with me.

  My heart still pounding, I got up off the bed and crossed the room. The envelope was heavy in my hand. I still didn’t know how a ghost could possibly carry it through my walls, but it was there now, and there was no other way for it to just show up.

  I barely glanced at the all-too-familiar Unseelie symbol on the seal. With a wrench, I cracked right through the center of the thorny eye and threw broken pieces of solid wax on the the desk. I didn’t care that I tore the thick paper.

  The same block letters as all the previous notes. This time, their message was clear: “You will no longer be able to talk with Elizabeth. From now on, all communications will go through Marzell.”

  In my anger, I ripped the note in half and threw the pieces into the trash. They were going to try to keep me apart from Zil? Who were they punishing, her or me? How had they even found out about us? There must have been more spies than I knew about. And why should I let them dictate who I was allowed to talk to? The order felt just like my mother, telling me what I couldn’t do!

  I turned around and threw myself onto the bed, burying my face in my pillow. There had to be a way that I could get through to Zil. I was bound to see her at school next week—I’d sneak a note to her or something. I’d refuse to talk to Marzell and demand that I speak to Zil or no one else. I just couldn’t go through all of this trouble without the one person I was trusting.

  When my rage slowly ebbed out of me, though, I realized that I had a second name. Marzell. Why him? He and Zil were kind of friends, but there was another connection there as well. I tried to think back over my past conversations. Of course! Marzell and Zil both worked at his mother’s business on the weekends part-time—Esther’s German Bakery.