Forty, Fabulous and Fae

by Melinda Chase

  I was starting to understand those small, seemingly insignificant moments now. I used to brush them off, thinking that everyone had those problems with their mother.

  But I was wrong. Nobody did but me. As much as I used to long for a life full of extraordinary wonder, in that moment I would have given everything I had for the boring, mundane normalcy everyone else possessed.

  “I’m still mad,” I finally said, breaking the silence abruptly.

  Mom’s eyes filled with tears that never fell.

  “I’d expect nothing less,” she replied, cracking a half-hearted smile and trying to turn it into a joke.

  “You lied to me.” Again, I stated the obvious, but they were words that I felt needed to be said.

  “Would it help if I got down on my knees and pleaded for your forgiveness?” Mom asked jokingly.

  “Maybe,” I responded, faking as if I begrudged the thought. In truth, an apology seemed nice. It didn’t have to be dramatic.

  And right as I had that thought, Elle McCarthy dropped to her knees and scooched over to me, pretending like she was performing in front of a massive audience instead of just me.

  “I’m sorry!” She wailed, full of enough melodrama to earn her a spot on The Young and the Restless. “I shouldn’t have lied to you, my darling daughter. I knew it was wrong, and yet I did it anyway. I am a terrible, horrible mother who simply wanted you to live your best, safest life. How dare I!”

  At that point, my mom was right in front of me, with her wrist draped over her forehead like a damsel in distress in some old movie. She opened one eye and peeked out at me from underneath her arm to gauge my reaction.

  “I suppose that’s enough,” I sighed sarcastically.

  “Good, because my knees ain’t exactly what they used to be.” Mom laughed as she stood up. Her chuckling quickly turned serious as she looked right into my eyes. “I really am sorry, though, baby. I thought it was the right move at the time, and as soon as I was old enough, and wise enough, to think that maybe it wasn’t… it was too late, Shan. You would have either been just as mad as you are now, or you would have thought we were bonkers.”

  “Let’s get one thing straight--I definitely think you’re bonkers,” I giggled. “But you’re my bonkers, and I love you.”

  That was all it took for Mom to wrap me up in her signature bear hug, squeezing the life out of me with each passing second. I let her have her fun for a few moments, but when I started to feel like I might pass out for the second time today, I realized it was probably best to get out of her stranglehold.

  “Mom… Can’t breathe,” I gasped.

  “Right, sorry,” she sprang backward.

  “So, does this mean you forgive your old grandma, too?” Grams called from down the hall.

  “Of course it does,” I laughed, and walked over to her. “But the two of you have some serious explaining to do.”

  Instantly, the mood in the room darkened, and Mom and Grams shared that damn look with each other.

  “No. Uh-uh,” I chopped my hand through the air between them, metaphorically signaling the end to those looks. “I’m in on this, now. You have to talk to me just as much as you talk to each other. And right now, I need all the answers you have to give.”

  “Shan,” Mom started diplomatically. “How about we just take a day, take a breath, and let everything settle down before we dive deeper into our hairy family history, hmm?”

  “Nope, not cutting it, lady,” I replied. “I know having a vision is a fae power, and not a witch one. So how come I had one?”

  There was a moment of silence as the two of them considered how much I already knew. I almost thought they might stand their ground like the stubborn mules they loved to be but, thankfully, they didn’t.

  “I’ll make some tea,” Grams sighed.

  “And I’ll get the whiskey,” Mom added.

  Five minutes later, we were steeping piping hot cups of black tea with a couple shots of whiskey in them and sitting at the kitchen table.

  Which I was thinking of renaming. We did a hell of a lot more than eat at it.

  “When I—” Grams started, at the exact same time that Mom said, “The thing is—”

  “You start, Mama,” My mom told Grams. “It’s mostly your story, after all.”

  “It’s all of our story,” Grams replied.

  I watched as my grandmother, a woman who was normally so calm a bomb could have gone off and she wouldn’t have so much as batted an eye, take a long sip of her whiskey infused tea. Finally, when she was satisfied she had enough alcohol to fill her system, she cleared her throat and looked back up at me.

  “When I first came to Portland, I thought that I didn’t need any of the typical conventions of life,” she began. “In truth, I was outrunning all of that. I was outrunning magic, and the curse of our family. But I was also outrunning the expectations of the South. Even in the forties, Portland was progressive. Women here didn’t need a man and babies to feel fulfilled. They had their friends, and jobs, and hobbies to fill them up. I met Auntie Deedee right off the bat, and the two of us had a wonderful little group of girlfriends. I was normal. And I thought that was all I needed.”

  I wanted to interject, but thought better of it at the last second. It was almost impossible for me to imagine the Grams I knew, who loved magic and witchcraft, wanting something normal.

  I guess we had more in common than just our looks.

  “But about a year after I moved, I started to feel this big ache in my heart,” she continued, her eyes far away as she reminisced about the past. “I suspect it’s the same one that caused you to flee Portland and run all the way to Boston. That ache that tells you there’s something more out there in the world, and that you’re missing it terribly. So, I cast a love spell, thinking I might just find a good, human man, and we’d raise some human babies, and I’d still be able to escape the curse of the McCarthy name.”

  “But life doesn’t always work out the way you want it to,” I laughed as I brought up one of Grams’ absolute favorite sayings.

  “Yes,” she sighed. “The spell worked out, just as I’d hoped, and brought me the most wonderful man. His name was Laslow, and he was a fae.”

  Mom shifted uncomfortably in her chair when she heard her father’s name. I recognized the feeling splayed across her face. I felt it quite often myself, whenever I thought about the father I’d never known.

  “So, what happened to Laslow?” I murmured curiously.

  Once again, Grams took a sip of her tea. An uncharacteristic tear rolled down her cheek and landed on the table, but she didn’t seem to notice.

  “He was, um, taken away from me,” she replied, her voice thick with emotion. “The fae and the witches are not supposed to mix. And Laslow was punished because I called him to me with a spell.”

  Grams’ voice broke at that last sentence, and Herman leapt up onto the table in front of her, meowing away in what I supposed was meant to be a calming manner.

  “Oh, Mama, you can’t blame yourself,” Mom said, rubbing Grams’ back gently. “It wasn’t your fault. The rules are horrid and medieval, and anyone who’s got any amount of sense would know that.”

  “That may be,” Grams sighed, “but no matter how outdated we find them, they exist. And because of them, Laslow is… well, I don’t even know what happened to him. And I doubt I ever will.”

  “Geez, I’m so sorry, Grams,” I whispered. My heart ached for her. I couldn’t imagine what it would have felt like to have Kenneth taken away from me for matters that were out of our control, especially at the height of our relationship, when I loved him more than anything else in the whole world.

  “It’s in the past,” Grams replied, sucking in a breath and composing herself. “What matters now is the consequences that you and I must deal with.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked nervously.

  “Shannon, darling, when your mom was a child, she started exhibiting some of the powers you have now. But, b
ecause she had not come into her witch magic yet, I was able to cast a spell meant to tear her away from her fae half. I am afraid that, in doing so, I may have simply locked it away within her. And when she was pregnant with you, those powers transferred to the fetus that was inside of her.”

  “So you’re saying that… not only am I part fae, but I have extra fae powers because you, what, stored Mom’s fae-ness in her uterus, or something?” I quirked a brow in confusion.

  “No, Shannon, what I am saying is that you are both witch and fae,” Grams replied. “But because I did not catch your fae powers in time, they have grown to astronomic proportions. Proportions that would terrify and anger many of the magical world.”

  “So why not just shut them down?” I asked. “Do to me what you did to Mom. Lock them away.”

  Even as I spoke, I could tell by the expressions on their faces that it was an impossibility.

  “I was only able to lock your mother’s fae powers away because I had the ring her father gave me,” Grams said quietly. “The spell I used destroyed that ring. Shannon… I have no way to help you.”

  13

  I felt like I was in a surf tunnel, like in the aquarium. Or maybe one on the open oceans, like the types of tunnels pro surfers get caught up in and photographers snap those really cool pictures of. Then rich people buy them for astronomical amounts of money to frame on their wall and trick people into thinking that they’re all athletic and whatnot.

  The only problem was that I’d never been surfing. Hell, I don’t even think I’d been to an aquarium since I was a tiny little kid. But I definitely knew what it felt like to be in one of those tunnels, with the water crashing down around me and swallowing me whole, because that was where I was right then.

  “Shannon, breathe,” Mom instructed, her voice tinged with worry.

  It was only when I registered the fear in her voice that I realized I hadn’t taken a breath in well over a minute. Gasping, I inhaled as much air as I possibly could, smelling the oils in the air, the way the sage smoke hung around me, meant to take the bad energy out of the house and sweep it off somewhere it couldn’t harm anyone.

  Clearly, it wasn’t doing its job very well.

  “Are you—” Mom started, but I put a hand up to silently signal for her not to ask. I don’t know why, but just the thought of my mom trying to figure out if I was okay in that moment would have caused me to crumble and fall apart. That was the last thing I needed, or wanted, to do right then.

  “I’ll be fine.” My voice was barely above a whisper. It was all I could muster, though. I didn’t think my vocal cords were strong enough to handle anything louder at that moment.

  Slowly, I stood up from the table, trying my best not to fall over and collapse. It would have made me feel weak to do so, and if there was one thing I prided myself on never being, it was weak. Weakness was for people who had it easy. It was for women who couldn’t pull themselves together.

  I wasn’t weak.

  I couldn’t be weak. Because in a way, that would have felt like giving in.

  “Shannon, we can figure something else out,” Mom tried again. But out of the corner of my eye, I saw Grams shake her head, only once, but it was definitive.

  There was no other way.

  “We need something of your father’s, Elle,” she murmured. “Something that would recognize his DNA in Shannon. And that’s…”

  Grams voice trailed off, too thick with tears and emotion to really continue.

  “Impossible, I know,” Mom sighed.

  I recognized that sigh. I’d probably done it a million times before, whenever I’d asked about my own father.

  As I looked at my Mom and Grams sitting there at our old kitchen table, surrounded by a lifetime’s worth of trinkets meant to enhance their magic and ward off evil, I couldn’t take it any more.

  Suddenly, they looked old to me. Frail, in a way. Like the secret of a lifetime had been lifted from their shoulders, and now it was all they could do to remain upright in their seats.

  “I have to go.” The words surprised even myself when they came out of my mouth. Mom’s head shot up, and her emerald green eyes instantly pleaded with me not to. “I just… I need some air.”

  I needed more than just air, but I didn’t want to say that to her.

  “I’ll come with you,” Mom offered quickly. “We can talk and—”

  “I think I just need to be alone,” I interrupted. My voice was harsh, more so than I expected, but I couldn’t bring myself to even apologize. I wasn’t mad at all. I was the opposite, actually. I felt terrible that Mom and Grams were so helpless against this force of nature that had buried itself deep inside the strands of my DNA. As much as we fought, and as angry as I’d been with them over the last few days, knowing how many secrets they’d kept from me, I couldn’t be upset about this.

  It was what it was. That had been made abundantly clear to me. Not only was I a witch, but I was a fae as well.

  “Are you sure?” Mom tried again.

  “I’m sure.” I nodded. “I’ll see you tonight, okay? Or in the morning. Don’t wait up.”

  I backpedaled out of the kitchen as fast as my legs could carry me. Miraculously, I didn’t run into any of the clutter in my haste to escape this house, the one that suddenly felt like it was closing in around me, suffocating me until all of the oxygen had been drained from my lungs, and then moving into my blood and sucking out the tiny atoms from the bright red liquid, until every single cell in my body was dry and deflated.

  I was vaguely aware that my legs took me down the street and out of Portland, into the serene woods about a block away. They were my happy place. They always had been, even when I was too small to understand what unhappiness really was.

  I used to think I just liked nature. Who didn’t? It felt so good to feel the soil between my toes, to ground myself on the earth.

  But now, I had to wonder if there was another, far more mystical reason I loved the woods so much. Maybe because I was part wood nymph, or fairy, or countless other creatures.

  None of those answers seemed appealing.

  Maybe it would all be fine. After all, what did I really know about the fae?

  Nothing.

  I ducked under the branches of a baby redwood tree and found myself in my favorite clearing. A brook ran through the middle, babbling happily, singing a tune along the backs of the large, flat rocks, one that lifted my soul and brought a sense of calm down over me.

  “It’s all going to be fine,” I whispered to myself. I let my fingertips drift along the top of the cool, smooth water. It felt pure and clean, unmarred by the awful evils of the world around me.

  I wish I could say I felt like I was overreacting, but the truth of the matter was that something deep inside me told me that, if anything, I was under-reacting. There were so many reasons I had to be wary of everything I’d found out in, oh, the last two days.

  And number one on the list? There were plenty of witches in this town, but no fae. In fact, the only time I’d ever heard Grams mention anything to do with fae was when she was being terribly negative, or downright scary.

  Like, for instance, when I was seven and wanted to build fairy houses with my friends. She’d knocked over my poorly built stick and stone hut with a shovel, and then warned me that only people who have bad intentions would ever call a fairy to their house.

  So, suffice it to say, I’d grown up thinking fae were bad. I just didn’t know they were real and bad.

  I let out a puff of air and bounced my lips together with the exhale, trying to find some way to calm the anxiety that was just piling up inside my stomach, getting worse by the second. There was no way, of course.

  All of a sudden, my phone rang. It went off with that awful, annoying jingling iPhones always do, and just about scared the pee out of me.

  Okay, it might have actually scared a tiny bit of pee out of me.

  “Jesus,” I breathed, scrambling to yank it from my pocket and turn off t
he annoying song before it could disturb the peace of the forest even further.

  To my absolute surprise, Hunter’s name popped up on the screen.

  And even more surprising? When I saw it there, my stomach did that foolish flipping about it used to do when I first met Kenneth. It was like I had eaten a live spider, and it was scuttling about in there, filled with happiness.

  Ugh. I could not fall for Hunter right then. I couldn’t have any sort of feelings for him beyond a nice, professional relationship. One that would end as soon as I knew Mom and Grams were safe.

  At least, that’s what I tried to convince myself of. All the same, I felt myself smiling when I answered the phone.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “You okay?” The response was immediate. I wasn’t even surprised that he knew enough to tell that I felt off in any way. It seemed natural for the two of us, like he should be able to tell from one, singular word that I wasn’t in the best of moods.

  “Fine,” I reassured him, even though it was a lie. “Family stuff, you know?”

  There was a long, drawn out pause on the other end of the line. Even over the phone, it felt awkward, stilted. Finally, he cleared his throat, and I could nearly hear him nod on the other end.

  “Yeah, totally,” he said gruffly. “You just ran out so fast…”

  Another pause.

  “You didn’t call just to listen to me breathe, did you?” I joked.

  “Uh, no, of course not,” he barked. “We’ve got another murder. I want you to come down to the scene with me, help me investigate. I’ve got an in with the police department, and a buddy of mine said he could get us access.”

  Holy. Crap. On. A. Cracker.

  There was nothing better than a fresh crime scene for solving a case. I’d learned that back in Boston, from one of my favorite homicide detectives.

  “Text me the address. I’ll be right there,” I told him quickly. Springing up, I shoved my phone in my pocket and dashed back through the forest to get my Mom’s car.