“He will,” Ava said with great certainty.
At her daughter’s age, Mallory had been shy and cautious, certain only of her own name. This child was pure Josh, all confidence and a touch of swagger. The trick was making sure she stayed that way.
She couldn’t wait to tell him about their daughter’s latest observations. How had military spouses managed before email and Skype, smartphones and FaceTime? She tried to imagine long-distance family life limited to snail mail and the thought made her sad. Life was too short to be separated from the ones you loved most. She hated that Josh was missing out on Ava’s daily life, the small things that bind a family together.
“Rats!” she muttered. What if he tried calling her and was sent to voicemail? Thanks to the time difference between Afghanistan and the east coast, they usually connected in the middle of the night.
She was bent low over the wheel, peering through the windshield, as a tall, shadowy figure darted in front of the car, barely visible through the thick curtain of falling snow. She hit the brake hard. The car fishtailed wildly, swinging out across the narrow, snow-covered road, and then headed straight for a stand of maples.
Chapter 5
CHLOE
Here’s the thing about snow: you never know when it’s going to turn on you. You could be driving along, minding your own business, and bam! You hit a slippery patch and slam into a tree. Or maybe you’re trying to shovel a path to your front door when you push a little too hard and a heart attack takes you out before you draw your next breath.
A frosting of snow on Christmas Eve is magical.
A blizzard in early October? Not so much.
Believe me, the last thing I’d expected was for one of the sugar maples lining my driveway to snap a mid-sized limb and send it sailing into the side of my head. I stumbled, then dropped to my knees, dizzy and disoriented, like I’d polished off a couple of margaritas on an empty stomach. Drops of blood appeared on the blanket of white. I touched my hand to my right temple and came away with a smear of bright red.
Head wounds bleed like crazy. We all know that. But when the blood is yours it takes on a whole other reality.
I stumbled into the cottage and made my way to the kitchen. Wendy shrieked when she saw me while Elspeth dropped a soup ladle onto the floor with a clatter. My baby daughter, however, crowed with delight and clapped her hands at the sight of her mother looking like a skinny, snow-covered Sasquatch. The blood trickling down the side of my face didn’t bother her at all. She was strapped into her high chair, gumming handfuls of broccoli and buttered spaghetti, while she watched the goings-on with great interest.
“I think she’s enjoying this a little too much,” I said, as I dripped snow on the kitchen floor. “She’s laughing her head off at me!”
I winced as Elspeth dabbed at my face with a clean towel.
“Your daughter is in love with snow,” Wendy said as she handed me a pair of yoga pants and one of Luke’s old BU sweatshirts she’d found in the dryer. “You should have seen her looking out the car window when we drove home. She was mesmerized.”
I stepped out of my soaking wet jeans and hand-knit sweater and slipped into the warm, dry clothing.
Wendy scooped up the snow-soaked items, casting a rueful glance at my once-beautiful sweater. “I’m not sure even your magick can save this one.”
It was a slouchy pullover I’d knitted in thousands of yards of fingering weight silk blend that I wasn’t ready to part with.
“I was hoping you’d see what you can do,” I said. “A good soak and blocking can work wonders.”
My cousin didn’t seem convinced but I had confidence. She was the best blocker I’d ever met.
Elspeth bustled into the room, carrying a bowl of warm, herb-scented water.
“Don’t be delaying,” she warned me as she placed the bowl on the kitchen table. “The sooner I apply the brew, the sooner you be healed.” She motioned for me to sit down at the table and I obeyed. I knew better than to argue with a troll on a mission.
Her hands were gnarled but amazingly capable. She removed the temporary bandage she had applied to stop the bleeding with one swift motion then set about holding a warm, wet poultice against the spot where the tree branch had done its damage.
I winced as the highly fragrant liquid seeped into my skin. “I never thought one of our trees would turn on me.”
“You’re lucky you weren’t seriously hurt,” Wendy said. “That was a pretty big limb that clipped you.”
“Don’t remind me,” I said. “And here I thought driving was the dangerous part.”
“Luke said you were going to call and let us know when you were on your way,” Wendy remarked. She had taken up a spot at the kitchen stove, stirring a humongous pot of chicken noodle soup. The aroma wafting through the room was downright intoxicating. “We would have been watching for you.”
“I tried to, but I couldn’t get cell service.”
“That explains why I couldn’t get through to you either.“ Wendy gave the pot another brisk stir, then put down the spoon and joined us at the table. “I guess the storm is causing trouble.”
“It’s not just the storm,” I said, wincing again as Elspeth continued her ministrations. “Rohesia and her crowd aren’t helping matters.”
“That couldn’t be – oh!” Wendy ducked as Laria lobbed a chubby fistful of spaghetti with mashed broccoli her way. “You almost got me, girl!”
Laria giggled and went back to gumming her meal, clearly enjoying the dinner show.
“A stubborn lot they be,” Elspeth said as she finished treating my injury. “The old one, she wouldn’t be much for change.”
“That’s not true!” Wendy exclaimed. “Gavan says Rohesia wants this transition to work and is willing to compromise.”
“She has a funny way of showing it.” I pushed aside the list of troubles Janice had recounted earlier at the shop. “To be honest, I’d be happy if they would just rein in their magick before it takes down the entire power grid.” I glanced over at my cousin. “Luke was hoping you’d talk to Gavan about it.”
“If there’s a problem, it isn’t Gavan,” Wendy said, surprising no one. “He’s doing his best to make them understand.” She plucked a piece of broccoli from the floor beneath Laria’s high chair. “They’re still living the way they did in their other dimension. The things we take for granted are alien magick to them.”
Elspeth shot her a quizzical look. “You and the boy be saying a lot it seems.”
Wendy’s cheeks reddened. “I’m just trying to explain our world to him.”
Elspeth and I locked eyes.
“We’re not blind, Wendy,” I said. “We all know what’s going on.”
“Nothing is going on,” my cousin said through locked jaws. “Nothing can go on. Aren’t you the ones who’ve told me that at least a hundred times?”
I didn’t have the energy to repeat all the reasons why happily-ever-after wasn’t in the cards for them, so I stuck with the issue at hand.
“The problem has gone beyond the Sugar Maple town limits,” I said. “Luke told me that the surrounding towns are starting to report frequent power outages and cable disruptions. If we don’t figure something out fast, we’ll have all of Vermont showing up to investigate.” I didn’t have to explain why that wasn’t a good prospect.
“I’m from the human world,” Wendy said, brightening. “Maybe I can talk directly to Rohesia—“
“There are those what don’t believe in following rules,” Elspeth interrupted. “She be too old to change is what I’m thinking.”
Elspeth had visited the newcomers twice that I knew of in an attempt to ease their transition to our realm of existence. It had seemed a logical pairing. Elspeth was easily as old as Rohesia, but unlike the newcomer, Elspeth had spent her life in the human realm. She understood rules and boundaries and what was required to live within the human community. I should have realized the two powerful magicks from different clans would clas
h sooner or later. Unfortunately, Elspeth had the sensibilities of a marine drill sergeant, while Rohesia’s sense of entitlement was most often seen in British royalty and government bureaucrats.
Not exactly a match made in heaven.
“Maybe so, but I understand why they’re struggling,” Wendy said. “I’m a human from this realm and I still find it hard to understand what the rules are here in Sugar Maple.”
“The rules are pretty much the same here as they are in Bailey’s Harbor,” I said. “Can you be more specific?”
She gestured toward the storm howling outside the cottage. “The blizzard, for instance. I saw a snow blower in your garage. Why don’t you just magick the snow away? That’s what I would do if I had your powers.”
Elspeth turned away from the loaf of homemade bread she had been slicing, “There be no tricks when it comes to the natural world. We live within it, not above.”
“Elspeth is right,” I said. “Even if we could impact the weather – and I don’t know that we can, even if we wanted to – that would work against us in the long run. We want to blend in with the humans, not stand out.”
Wendy thought about it for a moment then nodded. “I guess it wouldn’t make much sense for the rest of Vermont to be buried in ten feet of snow while the residents of Sugar Maple are running around in shorts and tank tops.”
The image of Midge Stallworth, our resident vampire funeral director, strutting around in shorts and a tank top made me laugh out loud.
“’Twould be easier on the other side of the mist,” Elspeth mused as she took a stick of butter from the refrigerator. “To hide who you are is a burden to all.”
“So why do you stay here?” Wendy asked. “You must have options.”
“This realm be all I know from birth, missy, same as you. ‘Tis Rohesia and the Others I speak of. There be some as believe coming here was a mistake. They think they should have stayed where they began and ended there when it did.”
Wendy, who had clearly been spending considerable time around the Others shook her head. “Gavan told me that the younger members are eager to build lives here among mortals, but they aren’t exactly being welcomed by their Sugar Maple peers. They want to be part of our world.”
“There be much to learn before that happens,” Elspeth said. “Traps abound.”
“Elspeth is right,” I said. “Sugar Maple has survived this long because we learned how to adapt to the world we live in, not because we tried to change it.”
Laria rapped one of her fists on the highchair tray and we all laughed.
“That one be too big for her britches,” Elspeth observed with a twinkle in her eye. “’Tis a trait you humans share.”
“Better be careful, Elspeth,” I teased. “The humans in this room outnumber you three to one.”
“The wee one be leaving her human self behind soon, I’m thinking. Her magick grows faster than she does.”
Good news to Elspeth, but a mixed blessing to me. I wanted my daughter to embrace both sides of her heritage but the rapid development of her magickal side might make that unlikely.
Maybe it had something to do with the centuries she’d lived and the things she’d seen, but Elspeth held most of the human race in something perilously close to contempt. Apparently miracles still happened, because the venerable warrior troll had opened her heart to both Luke and to Wendy in a way that continued to surprise us all.
Laria giggled and munched on buttery broccoli. Elspeth kept a sharp but loving eye on her charge. Wendy served up bowls of insanely fragrant chicken noodle soup with chunks of warm, fresh bread on the side. I could feel myself relaxing with each bite of bread and spoonful of soup I scarfed down.
If Luke had been here with us instead of in Philadelphia, life would have been perfect.
Not that long ago I was living alone in the cottage with my four beloved felines, a bag of Chips Ahoy and Netflix. My magick was non-existent and the future seemed bleak at best. Toward the end of Sex and the City’s run on television, Carrie Bradshaw spoke about her loneliness. “The loneliness is palpable,” she said and that was how it had been for me. Loneliness was next to me when I fell asleep to Jimmy Fallon, and it was waiting for me when I woke up to the Today Show crew. All my life I had yearned for a family like the ones I saw on television and in movies, for the connections the rest of the world took for granted. I wanted to fill the cottage with people I loved who loved me back.
I might as well have been wishing for the moon.
It had seemed an impossible dream for a half-human, half-magick knitter who could count her second dates on one hand and have four fingers left over, but sometimes the Universe has a surprise up her sleeve.
I was living the life I had dreamed of. I had a husband and a baby. I had Elspeth, a link to my family’s past and my daughter’s future. I had my cousin Wendy, a living, breathing link to my human father and the human side of my lineage.
I loved and was loved in return. Blizzard or no blizzard, could life get any better?
And then the phone rang.
Chapter 6
MALLORY
“Hold on, honey,” Mallory said to her daughter a second before the crash. “Don’t be afraid. We’re going to feel a little bump.”
“Mommy?” Ava’s voice was small, scared.
She had never lied to her daughter before. A little bump? Oh, god, please let it be a little bump. She leaned forward, trying to see what was happening. The snow would cushion things, right? Like a big soft white pillow that--
The explosion echoed in her ears as something hit her fast and hard, knocking her back in her seat. Pain shot through her head, her left side, and into the center of her body, effectively shutting down her brain.
She gasped for breath. Smoke was everywhere. A heavy chemical stink filled her head, making her eyes water. The back of her throat burned like she had swallowed a lit match.
Nothing made sense. She tried to speak but couldn’t grasp the words she needed.
The world tumbled around her. She didn’t know if she was sitting up, lying down, or flying through space. Nausea flooded through her, worse than any morning sickness she had ever known.
Snow . . . a detour . . . someone standing in the road . . . the hard, unyielding tree . . . an explosion of white followed by pain—
Ava! Oh god, where was Ava?
Faces peered in through the windows, staring at her, mumbling things she couldn’t understand. Was this how it felt to die? Were they there to guide her into some shadowy afterlife?
Help my daughter! Please help her!
Her fingers struggled with the shoulder harness but they weren’t cooperating with her brain. Warm, sticky liquid splashed onto her hands as she fumbled with the buckle. She was bleeding. She could feel it, taste it. She retched hard and a deep pain tore through her mid-section.
The faces at the window recoiled, moving back into the shadows.
“Help her,” she whispered into the darkness. “Please . . . somebody . . . help!”
But Ava was nowhere to be found.
Suddenly she was awake in every cell and fiber of her body. Adrenaline burned through her veins, flooding her with superhuman strength. She tore the shoulder harness from its mounting and opened the door, throwing her body into the storm.
“Ava!” she cried as she struggled to push her way through the snow, desperate to get to her daughter. “Ava, talk to me!”
She was only six years old, just a baby. Her life had barely begun. It had to be a dream . . . a terrible dream . . . one of those nightmares that made you desperate to wake up . . . except it was real. She wasn’t in her warm bed. She was fighting a blizzard in the middle of nowhere with a baby growing inside her belly and her daughter slipping away, just beyond reach.
The adrenaline rush was gone. Her legs gave way beneath her and she slumped into the snow. Despair sent her spiraling down, down, down—
“Wake up, Mommy!”
Ava’s high, sweet voice in her
ear.
“Please, Mommy! Come back!”
Soft hands against her cheek.
Was it possible?
She opened her eyes, lashes heavy with wet snow. Ava’s beautiful little face swam into view, blurry and doubled, but wonderfully, miraculously, alive.
“Oh, Ava!” She struggled to sit upright in the snow, pulling her daughter toward her. “Oh, baby, you’re still here!”
Ava shivered in her arms. “The bag blew up at you. I was scared but it went away.”
What bag? What was her daughter talking about?
“I—I don’t understand.”
“The bag hit you,” Ava explained, voice shaking. “Then smelly smoke came out and I couldn’t see.”
She tried to nod but the motion made her stomach lurch. “The air bag,” she managed, finally understanding. “That’s a good thing. It saved me from being hurt.”
“But you are hurt,” her very literal daughter observed. “Your face is bleeding.”
More of the world came back to Mallory as she glanced toward the minivan, crumpled and spewing steam into the snow-heavy sky. They weren’t going back to Sugar Maple or anywhere else tonight. She wasn’t sure if it was late afternoon or early evening. The world around her was white with snow, snow, and more snow. Ava shivered again and Mallory tried to figure out what her next move should be. Why was it so hard to do something so simple?
“Get up, mommy.” Ava tugged at her arm. “It’s cold.”
Mallory nodded, trying desperately to untangle the thoughts and images snaking through her brain. They should call 911 for help. That was the first thing they should do.
Ava tried to help her stand up but Mallory’s balance was shaky at best and she stumbled more than walked the few feet back to the car. Faint bursts of steam rose from the damaged front end but the engine was ominously quiet.
The sliding passenger side door was wide open and she frowned.
“How did you get out?” she asked her daughter through the fog that had settled over her brain. The door lock had a childproof option that Mallory relied upon.
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