by Brey Willows
Maggie leaned into Kody, needing the support.
Kody’s arm draped around her. “Should I start talking?”
“I think you should.” Maggie closed her eyes, needing to block everything out in order to really hear what Kody was going to say.
“What I told you is true. You’re from a long line of protectors. They were called the aos sí. They were nomads, which made them perfect protectors. They were what this world calls the Sidhe.”
Maggie’s eyes popped open. “The Sidhe. Celtic elves.”
Blech laughed a weird little cat laugh. “Pretty much.”
Kody glared at him. “Don’t make me put you outside.” She squeezed Maggie’s shoulder. “The aos sí were special. Each one had their own magic, and they were peaceful but strong. They were fair and helped keep all the lands in order.”
“All the lands?” Maggie whispered. She was pretty sure she didn’t want any more answers.
“You’d know them as the lands belonging to the fairy tales. All of them, from every country in this world.”
Nope. Maggie got up, unsteady on her feet, and walked into the front yard. She lay back on the grass and looked at the sky. Vapor trails. Clouds. The sun. Things that made sense. Things that were real. She dug her fingers into the grass, and then deeper into the cool dirt. Real.
Kody’s shadow fell across her before she sat down. “I’m sorry, Maggie. I know this is tough. But you may as well let me get it all out so you can deal with the whole picture.”
Maggie didn’t say anything. Kody could talk if she wanted to. She didn’t need to believe a word of it. And if there hadn’t been a little cat person sitting in her living room, she might have been able to pass it off as crazy talk. In fact, she still might do so, just on principle.
“Let me start somewhere else. You know what fairy tales are. The stories of people doing things and learning from those things. Worlds populated by heroes and villains and ethically suspect people and people who try to do good but end up getting the ass end of the stick. Places full of magic and magical creatures. Well, those places exist. All of them. Like ancient myths, fairy tales belong to cultures where those things actually happened, where those people lived. The world belonging to the fairy tales exists beside this world and serves to teach the people here about good and bad, morals and ethics, and so on.” She stopped and pulled up a handful of grass. “Like grass, it has roots and spreads, but it’s kept enclosed by the realm it exists in. The cottage has always been a doorway to the fairy tale world. It’s been a place where the cottage keeper kept an eye on who came into this world, and how long they stayed. It was usually just the story keepers who came across to check the current tales and make sure everyone was in sync. The cottage keeper was instrumental in keeping the worlds accessible to one another but still apart.”
“And my people were cottage keepers?” It sounded like a logical question, even if there was no logic to be had in this conversation. She shivered and Kody stood. She held out her hand, and Maggie allowed herself to be pulled to her feet and brought back inside the cottage. She sat in her favorite chair in front of the fire and swallowed against the tide of panic trying to capsize her as she looked at the cat person still nursing a glass of milk in front of the fire. Kody’s voice called her back to the moment, grounding her.
“No. Your people were peacekeepers, tale spinners, who kept the sectors organized and safe. They worked with the cottage keeper and the story keepers, and they lived there, not here. But then someone started hunting your people, someone who didn’t want order and peace. Eventually, you were the last one. Your parents took you and hid you away to keep you safe.”
“Why wasn’t I hunted here, if they so desperately wanted to kill me? Why not just use the cottage to come find me?” Her stomach churned, and she turned onto her side, pulling her knees to her stomach, so she could face Kody and protect herself at the same time.
“Because they thought you were dead.” Kody’s voice was soft, her gaze far away.
Maggie stared at her, not sure she wanted to know where this was going. “And why would they think that?”
Kody and Shamus were silent, neither of them making eye contact. The dream Maggie had the week before, one she’d lost in the morning light, came back to her. “Why did they think that, Kody?”
“Are you familiar with old Celtic fairy tales, Maggie?” Shamus asked from his place in front of the fire.
Maggie shook her head, still unable to accept that her cat was speaking to her.
“Why don’t you grab a book from the shelf upstairs? That could explain—”
“No.” Maggie stood and began to pace. “Just tell me. I want answers now. I’ll read about things later.”
Kody’s jaw clenched. “The Celtic fae have a long history of switching their own children with human children when they needed to, for whatever reason. You were switched with another child in the orphanage in order to keep you safe.”
Maggie stared at her, horrified. “And what happened to the other child?”
Kody sighed. “They found where your parents were hiding, and it…it was killed. They believed it was you and that meant you were safe.”
Maggie’s knees gave out, and she slumped onto the floor. “That’s monstrous.”
Shamus padded over to her, looking like a strange super big human cat, and sat beside her. “It is. There’s no question of that, Maggie. But your parents were trying to save you, and they did. Now you need to honor that child’s sacrifice by becoming the person you were meant to be.”
“Sacrifice?” She stared at Shamus, anger flaming through her. “Murder. At least have the decency to call it what it is.”
He looked at Kody, who was watching them. But Kody remained silent.
Maggie wrapped her arms around her knees and pulled them to her, Kody’s words jumbled into a mismatched puzzle in her mind. Out of the zillion questions she had, one jumped out. “Human. You’re saying I’m not human.”
Kody shook her head. “It’s more complicated than that. You’re human, in a way. But you’re a Sidhe, one of the fairy people. You’re from a land of fairy tales, a land of magic. You’ve grown up here, but you come from a different world entirely. Surely you sensed that you weren’t like the people around you?”
Maggie looked at her incredulously. “Oh yeah, absolutely. I obviously assumed I wasn’t from this world. What other explanation could there be? Certainly not that I’m just a little awkward and don’t read people well. Definitely not something that simple.” She looked at Shamus, who sat silently beside her. “If you weren’t here, if the book wasn’t weird… I’d tell you to take a long walk off a short pier, and I’d gladly give this place back.” She stared at Shamus, really taking in the strange furry animal in front of her. “But you are here.” She looked at Kody. “My parents?”
“They were never heard from again once the other child was killed.” Kody looked at Shamus, who shook his head. “We don’t know.”
It hurt in a way Maggie couldn’t have imagined. It was as though she’d lost them again, and her body ached with the need to weep and scream. Instead, she took a deep breath and asked, “What happened to the last cottage keeper?”
“We don’t know.” Kody walked into the kitchen, where she poured them both another drink. She handed Maggie hers as she passed by, back to the chair in front of the fireplace. “There hasn’t been one for the last year. One day, she was just gone. Before your parents brought you here as an infant, one of the local wise women told them you’d arrive at the cottage on the spring solstice of your thirty-fifth birthday. That was this week. That’s why they put that note in your crib when they left you.”
“And how did my sister suddenly find it and send it to me? More destiny?” Maggie hadn’t given any thought to her birthday. She never did. It was a day her real parents had decided didn’t matter, so why should it have mattered to her?
Kody sighed and sipped her drink as she stared into the fire. “I don’t expe
ct you to accept all this at once. I know it’s probably hard.”
“Hard is going to the gym three days a week. Accepting that a pig heart can be transplanted into a person is hard. Reading Beowulf in old English is hard. I’d say understanding that there’s another world, one you’re from, is a little more than hard.”
Shamus put his paw under her drink and lifted it. “Getting drunk can help.”
She took a big gulp and the strength of it made her eyes water. “Can it?”
He shrugged, a motion that looked odd coming from his feline form. “At least temporarily.”
“So, what now?” Again with the words that had become her motto. “How does this change anything?”
Kody smiled slightly. “You’ve taken on a new position, at least for the moment. You’re a cottage keeper. You keep this house, this place between worlds, safe. But at some point you’re also going to do the job your people have always done. You’ll check on the fairy tale lands to make sure everything is in order, and you’ll set things right when they’re not.”
Maggie downed the rest of her drink, glad for the light-headed feeling beginning to take the edge off her nerves. “Is that all? And how do I fix a fairy tale that’s gone wrong?”
Shamus lay down next to her and licked his big paw. “It’s called being a tale spinner. You keep up with the fairy tales and the way they change over time. The people in fairy tales are still people, and they still grow and change, they just do it very slowly. Unless someone here changes the tale radically, and sometimes that’s reflected in their homeland. That can cause a fair amount of chaos, and you need to be there to settle people down. Your parents were excellent tale spinners, though your great-grandmother was perhaps the best.”
Tears began to roll down Maggie’s cheeks and she didn’t bother to stop them. “I’m an orphan. I grew up in the North East, playing in cornfields and talking to crows. I’m an accountant in New York. I like to paint. That’s who I am. Who I’ve been. Now you’re telling me I have parents, grandparents. That I’m responsible for, for…” She couldn’t wrap her mind around what exactly she was responsible for. “A world that doesn’t exist.”
Shamus looked up from his place by her side. “It does. And you are.” He shifted to look at Kody. “But there’s a more immediate problem.”
Kody raised her eyebrows but didn’t say anything.
“The back door has been left open.”
Kody spluttered on her drink and looked at Maggie. “You left the door open? The first thing the book tells you is not to leave the back door open. How could you do that?”
Maggie jumped to her feet and squared off with Kody. “First of all, the door was open the day I interviewed for the job with the guy who looks like Father Time. Second, this is a house on top of an apartment building in New York. The possibility of the back door leading to another world didn’t really cross my mind.”
They stood eye to eye, and even through her slightly tipsy anger, Maggie was aware of Kody’s cologne and the way her hazel eyes darkened.
Shamus walked past them and sat in front of the fire once again. “It’s true, shepherd. The door was locked, and when I came down recently I found it open. It isn’t Maggie’s fault.” He stretched out in front of the fire, looking a lot like the cat he was. “And perhaps if you’d been paying attention and were available from the start, the new keeper wouldn’t have had to come find you in your tower.”
Kody’s shoulders slumped, and Maggie saw the fire go out. She sat back on the arm of the chair. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I failed you, and I haven’t even been truly beside you yet.”
Thrown off balance by the apology, Maggie didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want capitulation. She was pissed off, confused, and she wanted to fight it out. She turned to Shamus. “You knew who I was when you moved in with me.”
He yawned, his sharp little teeth glinting in the firelight. “Obviously.”
“But why?”
His big yellow eyes stared back at her. “Someone has been watching out for you all your life, Maggie. The lines between our world and this one used to be strong and thick, making it hard for any fairy tale creature to survive long on this side. Since you came through, we’ve been able to stay here indefinitely thanks to a spell given to your parents by a wizard in the black market. There were a few of us who were charged with keeping your secret, and you, safe. I was one of them. Others you haven’t been aware of, as they operated in the shadows. Like Kody, who always knew where you were, even if she wasn’t at your side.” His tail snapped from side to side and he looked at Kody from the corner of his eye.
All the years she’d spent feeling lonely and out of place. All the years she’d been an outsider, bullied and barred from basic social gatherings. But there had been people who could have understood her, who could have made her feel less alone.
“I’d like to be alone.” She turned away from both of them and headed upstairs.
“Maggie—”
“No, Kody. No more. Go back to your tower, shepherd princess. Go play with your women who like animal print bras. If I can think of a reason I need you, I’ll let you know.”
She went to her bed and lay down, pulling a pillow tight against her stomach and curling around it. Things made sense, and they didn’t. A new world was opened to her, but she wasn’t ready to give up her old one. It was impossible to believe, and yet she knew in her gut that it was true, as much as she didn’t want to believe any of it. She heard murmured conversation downstairs and then the front door open and shut. She closed her eyes and let the tears fall.
Chapter Six
Missed Opportunities: I saw you in the club on Friday night. You were wearing red striped leggings and I was in a leather kilt. I think we’re a match made in places that don’t even exist yet. Let’s find out. Contact eagleowl27.
Warm morning sunlight caressed her face, and she woke slowly, thinking of the bizarre dream she’d been having. Talk of fairy tales and cats who changed shape. She smiled. It sounded like something out of a good book. She stretched and her foot bumped against something solid. She opened her eyes and looked down at Blech, curled into a tight ball of fur at her feet and snoring away. A cat. A grumpy, fat cat. And nothing more.
She got out of bed and winced at the throbbing in her head. Her mouth tasted like she’d been licking cardboard, and when she thought of the reason why, she went to the loft railing and looked downstairs. Two glasses sat on the table in front of the fireplace. Given that she hadn’t been drinking with Blech, that could only mean one thing.
The day before hadn’t been a dream.
Slowly, she turned around and looked at the cat, who looked back at her from where he lay on the bed.
“It wasn’t a dream, was it?” she whispered.
He yawned, stretched, farted, and jumped off the bed. He rubbed against her leg and looked up at her before heading downstairs.
“You’re still a grumpy butthead. I don’t care what you are.” She stripped down and got into the shower, hoping it would help the thumping hangover. Questions came rushing in, too many to make any sense of. She tried breathing slowly and clearing her mind, but it wasn’t any use.
When she got downstairs, she smelled fresh coffee. Blech sat in his space in front of the fire, but he’d clearly made the coffee.
She ignored the way her hand shook when she poured it into her mug. People would pay good money for a pet who could make the morning coffee. She was lucky enough to have one. She needed to be okay with that.
“I’ve decided to think of you as Blech the cat when you look like a normal house pet. I’ll call you Shamus when you’re…you. That okay with you?”
He didn’t respond.
“Good. Great.” She sipped her coffee. “Thanks for this, by the way. So, what do I do today?”
He shifted and pushed the book toward her.
“Read. That used to be something I liked to do.” She brought her mug over and held the book on her lap.
Maggie sipped her coffee and considered that. Was it true? She thought of various fairy tales, most of which included parents doing terrible things to children, and figured that for the children, who had no choice, patience was indeed a virtue. Sadly, it had never been one of her strong suits.
Your position is a strange one, and you’ll need the assistance of those who have been meant to serve you since the moment you were born. Trust them to guide you, but remember that you are the one destiny has chosen for this moment in time. Trust yourself, most of all. When there are moments you feel untrained for, your blood will guide you.
My blood? Maggie wrinkled her nose in distaste. I hope that’s metaphorical. There was a knock at the door, and Blech barely blinked in acknowledgement.
“I take it you’d know if there was an assassin at the door to take me out?” she asked as she got up to answer it. As usual, he didn’t answer. Knowing that he could if he wanted to made it both more irritating and more surreal.
“Hello, Maggie.” Brenda held up a newspaper and a stack of mail. “Today’s delivery.”
“Thanks, Brenda. Come on in.” Maggie turned and walked inside, hoping Brenda would follow without having to be cajoled.
“Just for a minute. How are things?”
Maggie held up the coffee pot as a question and Brenda shook her head.
“Not good for my kind. Hyper enough as it is.”
Maggie sighed and closed her eyes. May as well. “Is it okay if I ask what your kind is, Brenda? I don’t want to be rude, but I don’t know a damn thing.”
“Of course it’s okay, and now that you’ve got the shepherd around, I can answer more freely. I’m one of the mound folk. My people live near the sea.” She pulled a piece of paper over and drew several lines on it. “My area is over here.” She put an x in one section. “Your people, the aos sí, lived here, although they moved around a lot.” She put another x in the middle section. “Shamus’s area is here. He’s part of the shape-shifting familiar clans.” She drew a large circle around all three areas. “And we’re all part of the Celtic fairy tale sector.” She drew a few more circles to the side of the Celtic one. “The other fairy tales are in their own sectors too. Russian up here, Nordic over here, and so on.”
