“Cream and sugar,” she says with a smile, then can't seem to resist touching my hair again.
I involuntarily flinch. Her face hardens and she returns to the kitchen, puttering around to make two more mugs of tea.
Papa has a small contraption in one hand, and a screwdriver in the other, working away, not particularly obsessed with me being there like his wife is.
“What's that?” I take a sip from my mug. The tea is earthy with a spicy undertone. More importantly, it does the job of soothing my irritated throat.
“A lock for the shed,” he says as she brings him his mug and then takes a seat next to him, across from me.
I'm thankful she didn't try to scoot up close to my side of the table. I would have to put a stop to her touching, and I don't want to hurt her feelings. She's already distressed enough.
“So, do I have any siblings?” I ask, trying to make light conversation, though I am a little intrigued to know more about my psuedo-family.
“You have two younger brothers, Oliver and Dell,” she says. “Oliver is five, and Dell is seven. The others you saw earlier are friends of the family.”
“Are Oliver and Dell changelings, too?”
Mama looks wide-eyed horrified, then starts crying again.
“No, not changelings,” Papa says, sounding exasperated. He puts down the lock and tool, and reaches over to pat Mama on the back. “She's just trying to learn.”
“I'm sorry,” I say quietly and drink more of my tea.
“It's all right.” She dabs her eyes with her apron. “We thought we'd never get you back, so you must understand the thought of losing Oliver and Dell, too. It's just. . .”
I nod, urgently, trying to think of a safe way to change the conversation. “How long have you been on this farm?”
“It's the family farm,” she says. “We've handed it down for generations. Keep upgrading it, but it's the same structure, same land, that our family—your family—has always lived on.”
Realistically, without the damage caused by the curse, this place beats the little apartment I rent with my mother and Cassia, though that is my actual home. I'll roll with this for now, though.
“I saw a bit of it from the window. It's very beautiful,” I say, not adding that it's beautiful because the shadows are leaving. And it has something to do with our little family dynamic.
“Be careful exploring,” Papa says as he works on the lock again. “There are still beasties about and may be for some time.”
Mama clutches his arm. “Yes, Ember, do ask Oliver or Dell for guidance around the property. We'd hate for anything. . .” She sniffles. “We'd hate for anything bad to happen to you.”
Great, I have overprotective fae parents.
“I'll do that,” I say brightly, and add, “It will be a good way for me to get to know my brothers.”
Mama smiles. I feel bad selling myself to them like this, but I need to play ball for a while until I can figure out what to do. Hopefully, Remy will show up and have some suggestions, but I can't count on it. Anything could happen to him, or he might just not know what to make of all this. Either scenario is more likely than him dropping in and saving the day.
I'm on my own, but I don't have a plan yet. So far my fae family seems safe enough that I can hang out here until I get a better grasp on the world and what I should do next. At least that is a point in my favor. The bigger question right now is what they expect me to do since I've returned.
Before I can find a way to phrase the question, the two boys dash inside the house, slamming the door behind them and racing into the dining room.
“Mama! I'm hungry!” one of them says, swinging his arms around her shoulders and falling into her lap.
The other boy climbs up into a chair. “Tea time! Tea time! Can you tell who is talking? It's me, Dell. I'm invisible.” He waves his hand. “Hello, can you see me?”
“Not at all,” Papa mutters, shaking his head but smiling. “You should probably wash your invisible hands with the non-invisible soap.”
“Okay!” Dell jumps down from the chair and runs down the hallway, making wooshing sounds, because apparently invisible people woosh.
The other boy—Oliver—slogs after him.
“Washing hands is so boring,” he whines.
Mama gets up and returns to the kitchen, setting to work heating up a pot full of something that smells spicy and savory. Before long, the boys are cleaned up and back at the table. Papa puts away the lock and screwdriver, while Mama dishes up bowls of steaming stew and brings out fresh soft rolls.
We dive in, the family falling into easy conversation about a bird the boys saw outside, plans to clean the chicken coop tomorrow, and how they should make a visit into town to introduce me to a friend of the family who would be excited to meet me.
As much as I want to dislike my fae parents, as much as I resist the notion that they hired those mercenaries to kidnap me because they actually love me, I can't believe that this is anything more than the family I was meant to have.
I dunk my roll into my stew, watching them. I'm not about to leave Mom and Cassia behind, but I can't really just relocate these people, these fae, next door to me, can I?
Perhaps more importantly, when I leave, will the shadows come back?
My fae family are sensitive to the fact that I probably don't want to talk a lot about where I've been the last two and a half decades. Mama on the brink of tears every time it's mentioned seals that this isn't a conversation we should be having right now. I'm relieved that they aren't pushing the issue, because I haven't yet determined how much I want to reveal about myself. What if they think my mom is somehow to blame about my delayed return? I've seen what the fae are capable of. I don't want them to have my mom on the radar, not even a little bit.
After dinner, we sit around in the living room, perched on chairs drinking tea, with the boys sitting on the floor at our feet.
“You know, Ember,” Papa says, “outside of the town, there are some beautiful sites. The mountains to the east have so much metal in their peaks, they shimmer in the sunlight. There's caves nearby, big long caves, that you can hear a whisper all the way from one end to the other. We'll have to take a trip out soon so you can see it for yourself.”
“And the lake,” Oliver chimes in.
“The lake is a good one, too,” Papa agrees. “By late spring, the bridge trees are full grown.”
Before I can ask what the heck a bridge tree is, Mama clears her throat and shoots him a dirty look, then primly sips her tea.
“Well, yes, it may take some time before we can visit the lake again,” Papa adds. “It'll take some time for the beasties to move away.”
“Because of the shadows?” Dell adds with the oblivion only a child can have. “Did the shadows bring the beasties?”
Mama slams her tea mug on the end table next to her.
“Yes,” Papa says hurriedly, “but let's not talk about that right now. How about you two show Ember around the farm tomorrow?”
The boys cheer and begin talking excitedly about all the rocks and trees and a creature they found to show me in the morning, but my focus is on Mama. She's trembling, and trying to disguise it.
I guess if the shadows were turning everyone I know into demonic flesh eaters and releasing beasties into the world, I would be a little upset about the topic, too.
Before long, the boys are ushered to bed.
“I think I'm going that way myself,” I say as casually as I can muster, gathering my mug and teaspoon. “Sounds like the boys have a busy day planned for me.” I smile, and it's less forced than it probably should have been.
“Your brothers have a lot of energy,” Mama says as I stand. “Would you mind taking my mug out to the kitchen with you, sweetheart? My joints are acting up tonight.”
“Of course,” I say, picking up her mug.
She smiles and looks at me like she's the proudest mother in the world. I have no idea how I'm going to handle this situat
ion. A full night to rest doesn't sound like a bad place to start, though.
“Sleep well,” Papa calls as I head into the kitchen.
“Good night,” I call back. I place the dishes into the sink and make my way down the hallway, back to the guest room. My room.
It's not how I would have decorated it, yet nothing about the room feels wrong or. . .temporary. Nothing about this entire house, or the people in it, seem strange. It's like I live here now.
I shake my head as I crawl into the bed, sinking into the mattress that is suddenly familiar despite having only used it once before, earlier today. It could be my own bed back home.
Did they enchant me? Are they making me feel this way with magic, or just with genuine warmth?
Since the fae magic has dried up, there is only one answer. I shouldn't like it, but I do.
I doze off, wondering if, in the morning, the shadows will have completely vanished.
I bolt upright to someone pounding on the door. It takes me a moment to realize it's morning, and the knocking is followed by the boys yelling, “Ember! We caught it! We caught the creature to show you!”
I tip my head back to the ceiling and take a deep breath to calm my racing heart. Don't surprise people who have been chased by dark fae.
“I'll be there in a moment,” I say as calmly as the heart thudding in my chest will allow, then I scramble out of bed and realize I'm already in my day clothes. I probably should fix this situation before tonight. Get some pajamas and a change of outfits.
I shake away the thoughts. I'm not staying here long enough to need a wardrobe.
I dart to the window to check what the curse has been up to while I slept.
The shadows have faded a little, but they aren't gone. Still a tint to remind me that it's there, just waiting to seize the opportunity to come back in full force—and probably with a vengeance. The problem being, I have no idea what that opportunity is. Surely I don't have to stay here forever. . .I hope.
In the kitchen, I find Mama flipping up something that resembles pancakes, except thinner like a crepe, and long and rectangular. She proceeds to top them with fruit filling and powdered sugar and then roll them up. I don't know what it is, but she drizzles melted chocolate over the top and I'm sold.
She serves the family this breakfast-dessert wonder alongside tea, of course, and the boys rush through their food so they can go back out to check on their creature. By the time I am finished eating and having a polite, bland conversation with my fae parents, the boys are back inside, dancing in anticipation to show me the great outdoors.
Mama laughs and clears the plates. “Go on out before they self-destruct,” she says.
I smile, scooting back my chair to stand, and then follow their excited trail outside. They lead me around to the back where a wooden dish covered with a board sits on the ground.
“Open it,” Dell says, pushing Oliver toward the bowl.
Oliver looks up at me, and I nod, trying to share in their enthusiasm. He smiles, his eyes crinkling, before nestling on his knees next to the bowl. His brother holds his breath as they carefully lift the lid.
It's a lizard. With all the build up, I expected this mystery creature to be sparkly and have wings, but it's as plain as any other fence dweller.
“I named him Greeny,” Dell says. “Because he's green. Kind of green.”
Oliver giggles behind his hands as Dell lifts up the lizard and holds it out to me.
“Have you seen one before?” he asks.
“Yes, but I've never caught one,” I say, trying not to be a buzzkill, but struggling to keep up the excitement. “You probably should let him go so he can find his friends.”
“I don't think he has friends,” Dell says matter-of-fact as the lizard kicks in his hold.
Oliver scratches the back of his neck. “Maybe there's more here. I never seen them when I lived in the other place.”
I tilt my head. “What other place did you live in?”
“The place without tea. Before the shadows came, before our new mama took us here and brought us together,” Oliver says.
“Yes, but you are my brother now,” Dell says and hugs Oliver. “My favorite brother forever.”
I scowl, looking between them. They aren't Mama and Papa's children? Something sinister creeps through my body, and I wrap my arms around me.
Calm down. It doesn't mean that they were changelings, too. Maybe Mama adopted them when their parents were touched by the shadows.
“Here, let me take the lizard,” I say, trying to find an excuse to get away for a minute, to catch my breath before the boys pick up on my pending anxiety attack.
Dell looks at me like I'm speaking Latin. “How do you know what they're called?”
“I've seen them before,” I say without thinking, reaching for the reptile. Dell carefully passes it to me, and I cup my hands around the squirmy creature. “I'm going to find a safe place to let him loose.”
The boys wave goodbye to the lizard as I hurry toward the front of the house. I keep walking, though I have nowhere in particular in mind to release it. I just need a minute to think.
Dell and Oliver are not brothers, and they were both brought here before the shadows came. They lived somewhere else. And they have never seen or even heard of a lizard before.
When I reach a pile of rocks, I squat down and gently uncup my hands, placing the lizard on the ground. The lizard bounds away. I stare after it, hoping to catch a glimpse, but it's gone. My gaze trails over to the tipped shed and lands on the lock on the door.
The lock Papa had been working on last night.
I stand and bustle over to the shed. It seems like it had been turned in a storm, but there's no damage. Even the floor—now to the side—is intact.
I reach for the door. Dell grabs wrist.
“Not the shed,” he whispers. “It's haunted.”
I glance down at him. “I don't believe in ghosts.”
I'm not actually sure what I believe in anymore, but I'm not going to let a spirit spook me at this point.
“You don't have to believe in them for them to be real,” he says. “You can look in the tool building.” He points in the direction of a nondescript nearby structure, the size of a small trailer. “I bet there are more of those. . .lizards.” He seems to roll the word around in his mouth.
I let him lead me away, glancing over my shoulder at the overturned shed in perfect condition.
By dinner time, I have seen every nook, cranny, and pebble in this place. Everything but inside the haunted shed, of course.
Dinner is some kind of vegetarian Shepherd's pie made from ingredients I mostly don't recognize, but it's as palate-arousing as everything else I've been served her so far. Mama knows how to cook.
But as routine as the conversation is around the table—a fence needs repaired, a chicken laid two eggs, and Dell has grown an inch—I can't help but see a different scenario than the night before. This isn't a family reunited, as much as one that seems. . .put together. Whereas I had only seen childlike glee from the boys, I now notice the way they flinch when Papa speaks a little louder than usual, or the way any protests were immediately shut down.
Or maybe I was imaging things. I didn't like knowing I had to eventually hurt Mama and Papa's feeling when I was ready to go back home, so I was subconsciously painting them as the bad guys, as people who had anything but genuine care for two orphaned children and a daughter they had lost over twenty years ago. Then a curse ripped apart their world.
Hadn't these people gone through enough without deserving my silent judgment?
Then Oliver accidentally drops his mug of tea, shattering it on the floor, and he bursts into a deluge of tears. I help clean up the mess and whisper that accidents happen, but his eyes are trained on the people posing as our parents, his body trembling.
As soon as the family is fast asleep, I have to leave and find Remy.
In the night, after the household has retired, I go to the bedroo
m window and push back the curtains. The yard is dark, but the moon is bright enough to at least get me off this property. Once I'm on the main road, I can hide out until daylight, if necessary. But I would rather get as far from here as I can before my fae parents notice I am missing.
Before they call the mercenaries again.
I carefully slide up the window, holding my breath as if that will somehow prevent the panes from rattling and alerting my fae family from sound sleep. Outside is chilly, but the shadows are barely noticeable.
I lock the pane into place. Thankfully I'm not trying to get out a second story window. This will be cake. Kind of.
With a glance back at the door, I crawl out, landing on the damp grass. My shoes are solid, bracing the impact. I take slow, steady steps around the side of the house toward the front.
To my right looms the overturned shed. Now would be the time to open it. I hesitate on the consideration, then remember the lock and my lack of lock picking skills. I push the notion to the back of my mind and continue on my way toward the main road. The shed will have to be a mystery for another day.
Each time my foot bumps a rock or cracks a twig, I gasp out loud and freeze. Even though I know it's just paranoia, I have to turn around and squint to take in as far as I can see, looking for silhouettes of people coming to stop my escape. Just because they aren't there, doesn't mean they feel less real.
If I could, I would have brought Oliver and Dell with me, but I don't think I would have made it to the window with their chaotic little selves in tow. Besides, I don't really know yet what it is going on. But once I find out, I will be back for them—if they need me.
There are so many if's right now, and it seems like the more I uncover, the more questions I have. I'm not entirely convinced I'm a changeling. I don't know why the shadows went away. And, most importantly right now, I don't know where Remy went.
Out of the gate and onto the main road, I find the moonlight is still bright enough to lead me for a ways. At least that much is going right. I try not to dwell on all the possible beasties lurking, or that I could stumble upon dark fae at any time.
Wicked Legends: A Dystopian Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Collection Page 36
