Entangled- The Homecoming

by Barbara Bretton

  “I already have,” I said. “Wendy knows the situation. Magicks and mortals have a long and unhappy history.”

  “You should understand,” Janice said, switching her attention to Gavan. “You grew up with that history. You know it can’t work. There’s nothing here for you or any of your friends.”

  He met her gaze. I had to hand it to him. He didn’t so much as blink.

  Janice, to my surprise, did.

  She grabbed for her tote bag with the Cut & Curl logo emblazoned across the front in bright red letters. “Gotta run,” she said, her voice cool and collected. “Coffee break’s over.”

  She waved a quick goodbye to a shell-shocked Wendy and Gavan, kissed Laria on the top of her head, and then darted out the door.

  Actually, “shell-shocked” was putting it mildly. The two of them looked like they’d been caught in battlefield crossfire.

  “I’m sorry you had to listen to that,” I said.

  Gavan nodded. “It was not unexpected.”

  I arched a brow. “You knew she felt that way?”

  “Her opinion has been made clear many times.”

  Apparently Wendy and I were the only ones who were surprised.

  “To you?” I asked.

  He nodded. “And to Rohesia, among others.”

  “I can’t believe she said those things,” Wendy said, the fires of righteous indignation burning brightly. “That’s not the Janice I thought I knew.”

  “It’s not the Janice I thought I knew either,” I said, struggling with surprise and shock. “She’s upset. Her kid got hurt. Maybe we should cut her some slack.”

  Wendy didn’t look like she thought that was a viable option. “You should ask her about--”

  Gavan silenced her with a hand on her shoulder. To my surprise, my garrulous cousin fell silent.

  Wendy is related to me on my father’s side, which means she is mortal, same as Luke. Unfortunately, Gavan is pure Fae. And not just twenty-first century Fae like we know them here in Sugar Maple. Gavan’s magick is from another time and place that we were struggling to understand.

  But, as I said before, love doesn’t always make sense. I guess Luke and I are proof of that. I wouldn’t have bet money on a happily-ever-after ending for us when we first met, but here we are, newly married with a baby daughter named Laria. Clearly, almost anything is possible.

  Wendy lives in Bailey’s Harbor, Maine where she runs a one-woman housecleaning service. Eighteen months ago her husband left her and it didn’t help that her ex and his new wife were expecting a baby any day.

  This whole thing with Gavan had “rebound” written all over it. Okay, I’ll admit my romantic history before I met Luke was pretty much limited to first dates with selkies and shifters. Anything I knew about broken hearts had been learned watching Sex and the City reruns and movies on the Hallmark Channel, but even I understood you had to take things slowly after a broken heart.

  Especially when the man in question doesn’t play by the same rules you grew up with.

  I had tried to explain the seductive power of the Fae to Wendy when I first realized what was happening between them, but she hadn’t been listening. Oh, she thought she was. She nodded at the right times and said she agreed with absolutely everything I was saying, but then Gavan would show up in his wildly sexy who-knows-what-century-it’s-from clothing and her eyes would glaze over and the two of them would melt into the kind of embrace that sent heat waves racing through your veins just looking at them.

  I had grown close to Wendy very quickly, but not so close that I felt I could order her to stay away from him. It was her heart, her life. If he made her happy even for just a little while, then maybe a fling with a Fae would be worth it.

  But, no matter how you looked at it, there was an expiration date clearly stamped on their relationship.

  To be honest, I wasn’t exactly sure how that made me feel.

  I glanced at the wall clock and shifted into work mode. Goodie bags were filled and ready. The store fridge was loaded with juice boxes, bottles of water, and an assortment of sliced fruits and veggies. A towering mountain of cookies, wrapped in brightly colored plastic wrap, rested on the credenza. The only thing left to do was make sure we had the project bags ready for the attendees, both big and small.

  “Our guests will be arriving soon, Gavan.” I almost felt guilty for cutting their romantic morning interlude short but my fight with Janice had already done that for me.

  He understood it wouldn’t be easy to explain the presence of a gorgeous six foot six inch guy in an embroidered cloak to a store filled with nosy knitters and their offspring.

  He said something to Wendy and she nodded.

  The look that passed between them could melt gold. He touched her cheek with his hand. She leaned into the touch, eyes closing for a moment.

  And then, in the blink of an eye, he was gone.

  Wendy had the dazed, glassy-eyed look of a woman in love and it awoke a wild mixture of emotions inside me. I wanted only happiness for her but I knew she would never find it with Gavan.

  “You don’t have to say anything, Chloe.” Her voice was softer than I had ever heard it. “I know.”

  Did she? She was in love and love did crazy things to a person.

  Especially a mortal in love with a Fae.

  “Just be careful,” I said. “Gavan has a good heart but he already defied Rohesia and the Others once. He can’t do that again.”

  My chatty cousin smiled and didn’t say another word about it and, to my credit, neither did I.

  But that didn’t mean I stopped thinking about it.

  The confrontation with Janice had left me deeply rattled and I struggled to corral my unruly emotions and concentrate on the workshop. Janice was the sister I never had and the rift between us tore at my heart in a way I had never felt before.

  Suddenly I was deeply grateful that the rest of the day would be filled with lots of yarn and dozens of happy knitters.

  Knitting was my happy place. Give me a pair of US3s and some sock yarn and my worries vanish in a blur of knits and purls. I loved everything about the process: choosing yarns; deciding on the right needle size; working the finicky first round; even ripping the whole thing out and starting over. And I especially loved spreading the knitting gospel to the next generation of needleworkers.

  The workroom was alive with enthusiasm. Shrieks of laughter alternated with stretches of concentration as the kids (and their equally enthusiastic parents) put their new skills to work.

  Imagine, if you will, twenty kids under seven years of age and twenty parents over seven years of age, all of them yarned and dangerous. Most of the parents were fairly accomplished knitters (or advanced beginners), but their kids were completely unfamiliar with anything to do with yarn, knitting, or sitting still for longer than fifty-two seconds straight. (And, yes, I timed them.)

  My ten-month-old baby girl watched quietly from her car seat next to my chair, her beautiful burnished gold eyes taking in everything. I wondered what was going on in her tiny head. Mostly I found myself praying to the goddesses of magick that her human DNA would carry the day and keep her from stealing the spotlight from the knitting itself. Laria had already displayed an alarming mastery of her powers, powers that far outstripped my own still-new magick, and had been known to act out in a very memorable fashion.

  Let’s put it this way: my daughter could fly before she could walk.

  Just try baby-proofing an entire town.

  “Tell me again why you thought a Teach Your Kids to Knit workshop was a good idea,” Wendy murmured as she grabbed another skein of Brown Sheep worsted from the dwindling supply.

  “Because I’m crazy, that’s why,” I murmured back, as I scanned the room for signs of anarchy.

  “Ethan!” one of the mothers bellowed. “Leave that poor cat alone and finish your row of garter stitch now.”

  Three Ethans checked to see which one of them was being called out. Two Masons played catch
with a ball of Madelinetosh. Penelope, my beloved feline companion, burrowed deeper into the basket of roving she called home and ignored everyone.

  Multiple Lilys, Olivias, Liams. A rogue Tiffany, one Marco and more. Mostly they were a blur of giggles and juice boxes to me as their mothers tried desperately to keep them focused on the project at hand. Next time, if there was a next time, I’d cut the number of participants in half and make sure I had plenty of red wine waiting for me at home when it was over.

  At least my baby daughter was having fun. A darling little girl named Ava, who sported a hot pink crocheted flower in her hair, had settled herself next to Laria and was earnestly explaining the facts of knitting to her while she worked an amazingly great-looking strip of garter stitch. Laria watched with her usual intensity. I had no way of knowing exactly what she was able to understand but if the topic was magick, we were in trouble.

  “Ava loves babies,” her mother said, joining me near the mini-fridge. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all,” I said. “Laria’s having a great time.”

  “I’m Mallory,” she said. “I called for directions this morning. I’m the one who got lost on her way here from the Motel 6.”

  “Chloe,” I said with an answering grin. “The one who had to hand the phone over to someone who could actually give you directions.”

  “I usually rely on my GPS, but it quit on me when I left the highway.” She shook her head. “That’s what I get for buying used cars.”

  I didn’t tell her that the problem wasn’t her GPS but Sugar Maple itself. Instead, we chatted briefly about the squirrely roads outside of town.

  “The thing you have to remember,” I said, “is that there’s only one road in and out of town.”

  Mallory rolled her eyes. “And every other road leads into the woods.”

  “Sometimes it seems that way.”

  She laughed again and her daughter looked up at us, and then turned her attention back to Laria.

  “Ava has a lot of patience for such a young child,” I said, watching the interaction between our daughters. “Does she have any brothers or sisters?”

  “Not yet,” Mallory said with a quick smile. “I hope her patience with Laria will translate to a baby brother or sister one day.” She met my eyes. “Is Laria your first?”

  I nodded. “I still have my training wheels on.”

  “I remember those days,” Mallory said. “I was sure everything I did was going to ruin her life.”

  “Exactly! She’s made it clear she’s over nursing and prefers the bottle, but I’m the one who can’t let go.” My embarrassingly teary outbursts each time she refused the breast testified to that fact.

  We watched as Ava deftly turned her work and began knitting a new row.

  “I’m a pretty good teacher,” I said, “but I don’t think I can take credit for Ava’s progress today. She knew how to knit before she got here, didn’t she?”

  “She’s watched me knit,” Mallory admitted, “but as far as I know, this is the first time she’s tried it.”

  “She’s a natural,” I said. “I may be taking lessons from her before too long.”

  Mallory beamed with pleasure. “She’s full of surprises,” she said. “Just wait until yours gets a little older. You’ll see.”

  I wisely refrained from sharing my flying baby stories. Any more surprises like that and I would be grey before my time.

  We chatted for another minute or two. Mallory asked if she could plug in her phone.

  “We’re heading to Rhode Island to visit my husband’s parents and I expect to get lost at least three times along the way.”

  “Help yourself,” I said. “I don’t know how the pioneers managed without smartphones.”

  We shared a laugh at the thought of prairie schooners outfitted with Wi-Fi and GPS, and then I moved on to see how the other workshop attendees were faring. They were all good kids, even if they had the attention spans of gnats. Most of them seemed eager to learn even if only in five minute spurts.

  I was pathetically grateful to Wendy for volunteering to help out. Teaching kids to knit might not take a village, but it definitely required more than one instructor, if only to keep the chaos at bay.

  Now I understood why Janice and Lynette had laughed themselves into coughing fits when I asked if they’d like to help me run the workshop. They were both mothers many times over. They knew what I was setting myself up for and, wisely, they weren’t going anywhere near it.

  Knitting isn’t a contact sport, but you would never know it by the number of squabbles exhausted parents mediated while I looked at Laria and wondered exactly what message she was absorbing from this. The Terrible Twos would definitely prove interesting.

  Food, however, can work wonders. A well-timed oatmeal-raisin cookie and some string cheese would help restore order to kids and grownups alike. Don’t tell anyone, but I dipped into my stash of Chips Ahoy when no one was looking.

  “I saw that,” a voice said from behind me.

  Well, almost no one.

  “No, you didn’t,” I said to Wendy with a guilty grin.

  “I’m an Oreo girl,” she said, “in case anyone asks.”

  I reached into my secret stash drawer. “I’ve got you covered.” I pulled out one of those little snack packs that I could devour by the dozen.

  “By the way, it started to snow a few minutes ago,” Wendy said around a mouthful of Oreo.

  “Crap,” I said, glancing toward the window with dismay. “This is early even for Vermont.”

  “It’s not sticking,” Wendy observed. “That’s a good sign.”

  “It’s just flurries,” I said, clinging to hope.

  My cousin, a Maine native, nodded. “You’re right. Mother Nature is having a little fun with us.”

  Twenty minutes later the street in front of the shop was covered in a blanket of snow. The big lazy flakes of a few minutes ago had morphed into the kind of small, persistent downfall that meant we were really in for it.

  We take our weather seriously here in northern New England, so a heads-up seemed in order.

  The kids, who had been happily chomping away on their snacks, went bat-crap crazy. They ran to the window and started shouting about making snowmen and sledding while the parents gathered up their belongings and tried to monitor the weather conditions on balky cell phones.

  The workshop was over.

  I asked Wendy if she would take Laria back to the cottage while I stayed behind to close up. The thought of driving through snow with my baby in the car made my blood run as cold as Snow Lake in January.

  “Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

  Wendy knew about my driving-in-snow phobia.

  “Okay is stretching it,” I said honestly, “but I’ll be a lot happier if I know Laria is safe with you.”

  “I’ll stay and help you close up then drive us all back to the cottage.”

  I shook my head. “Go,” I said, giving her a gentle push. “I’ll be fine.”

  Minutes later they were on their way home.

  I rang up a significant number of purchases, handed out the goodie bags to everyone, told one and all to help themselves to more juice boxes and cookies for the road. I promised we would reschedule the rest of the workshop in the spring, although I’m not sure how many of the departing attendees would take me up on it.

  I also did a lot of apologizing. I apologized for the weather, the beyond quirky cellphone service, the chaos, and the fact that I still had a lot to learn about children.

  “Stop it,” Mallory said as she paused to thank me for a great afternoon. “Ava and I had an amazing day.”

  I was almost pathetically grateful for the kind words. “Laria will miss your daughter.”

  “We’ll see you again in the spring,” she said with a glance toward the falling snow outside.

  “I’m sorry about the snow. I wish that--”

  She raised her hand to stop me. “You can’t control the weather.�
�

  Then again, maybe one day we could. This was Sugar Maple, after all. Of course, I kept that observation to myself.

  “Where are you parked?” I asked.

  “I’m the old white minivan in front of the coffee shop,” she said. “We’ll make a run for it.”

  “You’re welcome to an umbrella.”

  She shook her head. “Thanks, but I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

  I told her I’d hold a good thought for her husband’s return home and wished her a safe trip to Rhode Island.

  It wasn’t until I was locking up the store for the weekend that I realized Mallory had left her phone behind.

  Chapter 2

  WENDY

  I love my cousin. I love her husband. I love their baby more than I can say. I even love the troll warrior who manages their lives and keeps them safe from harm.

  But I hate Sugar Maple.

  You don’t know how good it feels to say that out loud.

  I hate Sugar Maple.

  The place gives me the creeps. Remember that old science fiction classic, Invasion of the Body Snatchers? That’s how Sugar Maple makes me feel, like I was seeing only the surface of things, while the real action was happening below my line of vision.

  Which, all things considered, is probably true.

  Sugar Maple’s claim to otherworldly fame was their history of tolerance for the Other. The town had been founded by Chloe’s ancestor Aerynn as a refuge for otherworldly beings that were being persecuted by humans. Selkies, trolls, were-families, vampires, house sprites, witches, sorcerers, goblins, and ghosts, all continued to find refuge within the town limits, protected from human mischief.

  Too bad it didn’t work both ways.

  I totally got the fear of humans. I didn’t always like us all that much myself. We were capable of great love and compassion, but equally great measures of duplicity and cruelty and violence, as well.

  But, given the hype, I still expected more from the Sugar Maples.

  So that’s why I was surprised when it happened.

  I was strapping a bundled-up Laria into her car seat when someone grabbed me from behind.