“Hmm,” said her mother. “Perhaps you should do some art, then. As therapy. Oh, and speaking of therapy, will you be returning to the group tonight?” It was casually said, but Penny knew her mother. She embraced the topic shift, the chance to say the right thing.
“Yes, of course.”
“Excellent. Perhaps you can open up some. And I will see you for dinner tomorrow.”
“Bye, Mama.” Penny put her phone on the bench beside her and stared at it. It was a nice afternoon, not too warm, and the air had a sparkle to it that usually only came right after the rain. Music blared over speakers from the walking mall nearby.
“Oh, beautiful. You look blue. But I have a fix for that, anytime you want it.”
Blaze stood beside the bench, wearing a crisp new pair of black jeans and a muscle shirt. The orange tips of his hair now threaded up along the black roots. He held an ice cream cone out to her.
She shook her head. “No, thank you.”
“Your loss,” he remarked. “Might I sit down beside you on the bench? Or is that also so very rude?”
“You may,” Penny said. “Asking is polite, but it’s also polite for me to say yes. A very different case than invading my bedroom.”
“Ah, well. Mortal walls are all so permeable and fragile compared to the one I’m so used to throwing myself against. It’s easy to forget about them.” He sat down, leaned back and closed his eyes, turning his face to the sun. “So. Why so sad?”
“Why are you so interested in me? If you want my soul, why not just take it?” Penny asked. “I could hardly defend myself against somebody who thinks the walls of my bedroom are no more than smoke.”
“Oh, but you’re so interesting,” he began.
“You don’t even know me.” Then, half-hopefully, she added, “Do you?”
He took a bite of his ice cream and looked at her with half-closed eyes. “A little. When I’m able, when I haven’t been sent away, I watch you. And yes, I know that’s wicked of me. Wickedness is rather my stock in trade.”
Bleakly, Penny said, “You do want to kill me and steal my soul. That stuff about falling in love with you and going off to fairyland, that’s just… you being wicked.”
His mouth twisted in a strange smile. “No, it would be quite useful.” He bared his teeth and took an aggressive mouthful of ice cream, so forceful that the rest fell off, onto his leg. He looked at it, then pushed it off onto the hot pavement and passed his palm over the remaining stain. It vanished. “Simply ending your mortal existence… well, nobody quite knows what will happen then. Perhaps you’ll escape, just like this ice cream. Unless you choose to stay. And if there’s one thing all of Faerie knows about the Gatekeeper, it’s that she got that way by being willing to give herself up completely to love.”
Penny stared at him, shock and humiliation struggling for supremacy. Finally she whispered, “Go away.”
The door slammed and away he went.
* * *
“My name is Jenzie,” began Jenzie once again. The lavender spirals on her arm undulated. “This week was hard.”
Penny sat in her chair, her legs crossed, her hands clasped. She felt tight all over, like her body was made of wires and sharp angles.
“I mean, every week is hard,” went on Jenzie. “But this time it was different. It was like… it first occurred to me that it might always be hard. I might always be wondering if I should be doing something different. He might always be out there telling me I’m making a mistake, and I might actually make a mistake, and then what would I be?”
“Aw, Jenzie,” said Robert, spreading his hands as he leaned forward. “We’re working on that, internally and externally, aren’t we? If everything works out, he won’t always be there talking to you.”
“But he’ll be on to somebody else?” said the woman with the baby and the radiance under her dark skin. “That’s no good either.”
Robert shrugged. “One day and one thing at a time. I’m glad you’re here again, Jenzie. I’ll work with you after the meeting, and we can see if there’s anything we can tweak in your treatment.”
Jenzie nodded and silence fell for a moment. Then the older man in the suit and the hair of metallic gold cleared his throat. “I’m Henry. Still.” His brief smile trembled and collapsed. “I saw Glory with somebody else the day before yesterday. I tried to say hello to her—I couldn’t help it—and she looked right through me, like she didn’t recognize me at all. It was devastating.”
“That’s good!” said Robert heartily. “That’s a sign that the treatment is working.”
Henry shifted uncomfortably, his eyes wide and wounded. “I gave up everything for her. I wrote my best work for her, and now I don’t have her, or anything else. I don’t even have the words….”
“She hurt you,” said Robert. “Healing from that won’t be quick. But I know you can do it, Henry. You’ll write again, someday.”
“How do you know?” Henry demanded. “We are the first people to deal with the fae in recorded memory. Perhaps she has stolen my art. You fumble around with your devices and this group, but you’re just guessing—” The man caught himself, snapping his jaw closed.
Robert’s eyes were wide and his hands moved nervously, but he didn’t seem to have a response lined up.
The woman with the baby said, “Yeah, we’re all just guessing. We have to start somewhere, eh, man? This group, a couple hours a week, and none of us are going to judge you.”
In a more measured voice, Henry said, “I’m sorry. My temper isn’t what it used to be either. I do appreciate the group. It makes it easier to deal with the news and my classes. Carry on, do.”
Robert coughed, then said, “Thank you, Henry. How about you, Shandra? You’ve been talking a lot tonight but not about yourself.” There were needles in Robert’s voice, and the woman’s hands came up across her baby as if shielding the child.
“Yeah. Yeah. Fine. I’m Shandra.” The woman glared around as if expecting somebody to challenge her on that. “He brought flowers with the groceries yesterday. It didn’t get him nowhere.”
Robert frowned. “Why do you let him bring the groceries? It’s leaving an opening, Shandra. You have to seal—”
Shandra gave Robert a scornful look. “You think I can stop him? He’s a big guy, a lot bigger than me.” She looked Robert up and down. “Or you. And you think I’m going to say no to help like that, so soon after losing my Pete and poor little Jordan? The bills don’t stop even when you’re dead, and my hours only stretch so far.”
“He’s trying to seduce you,” said Robert patiently.
“I know that. Of course I know that. But he ain’t going to make much headway with me. Least, not as long as I got Alyssa to bring up.” Her fingers caressed the dark, curly-haired head resting against her chest. “And if something happened to her, I’d be dead too. Wouldn’t care anymore about what he wanted. Or you, mister.”
Robert gave her a look of mingled annoyance and frustration. “I wish you’d let us provide treatment. You see how it’s helped Henry—no, not emotionally, that is a different problem—but his persecutor no longer even recognizes him.” He checked himself. “But that’s getting beyond the bounds of the group. I’ll talk to you about it more later.”
Shandra shrugged, then looked down as her baby started stirring. Once again, silence set across the group. This time, it pushed a very young person into speaking.
“I’m Miki,” they said, their jaw sticking out in exaggerated belligerence. “My mom made me come. I don’t belong here though.”
Robert smiled tolerantly. “Why did she ask you to come, Miki?”
“Because I hang out on a fae-sighting forum. That’s all! I’ve never even seen one up close for real. Yet. And it’s not like just interacting with them makes you crazy. Plenty of people are working with them every day and they’re fine. And I’ll be fine, too.”
Penny looked more closely at the kid. Little ink wings fluttered at their wrists, elbows, and templ
es. She wasn’t quite sure if they were a teenage girl or a teenage boy, and figured that was probably the point. They seemed to have made some effort to appear androgynous, with their black hair in a sleek pageboy cut, and a baggy video game t-shirt over purple tights.
“That’s the only reason?” asked Robert, in that annoying way adults talked to kids when they thought they had the answer already. Penny remembered it from her own days as a teenager, and she wanted to smack the facilitator for Miki.
“It’s just a chat group,” said Miki sulkily. “We talk about all kinds of stuff there. Everybody does. It’s just the internet.”
“Hmm,” said Robert.
Penny found herself talking, just to cut Robert off before he could be any more irritating. “I know what you mean. I’m not sure I belong here either.”
Everybody was looking at her, so she dug up a smile. “I guess I’ll back up. I’m Penny.”
“Why don’t you think you belong here, Penny?” asked Robert indulgently.
Penny gave him a side eye, then looked at everybody else in the circle. “There was somebody. He came to me and… changed me and I didn’t mind. I liked him a lot. And yeah, he was using me. My friends were worried and I didn’t care, because I had everything I wanted.”
The nodding faces in the circle made Penny want to run away. Instead she went on. “And then he died.”
The nods stopped. “Died?” repeated Henry.
“How’d you manage that?” asked Shandra.
“I didn’t think they could die,” said Jenzie uncertainly.
“They can’t,” said Miki firmly. “He’s tricking her, I bet.”
Slowly, Penny shook her head. “I don’t know if he died like humans died, but there was a fight, and he didn’t walk away and he hasn’t been around since. ‘He’s gone,’ they told me. And I think they’re right because when he… went, I got very sick. I almost died, they said.”
“Do you miss him?” asked Jenzie intently.
“Oh yes,” Penny assured her. “And that’s why my own mother wanted me to come here. But he’s gone.” And he wasn’t a faerie, she didn’t say. It was there, part of why she didn’t think she belonged here. “I’m not in danger from him.”
“Might you be in danger from any of the others?” asked Shandra. “Sometimes a girl attracts all the bastards. Like they know she’s got a weakness.”
“I don’t know,” said Penny. “I honestly don’t. Even if I had a weakness before—” she felt her cheeks flare with heat, because she did have a weakness and she knew it, “—things have changed now. Remember how I said he changed me? A consequence of that change is that… I can push the fae away.” Suddenly the words started tumbling out. “There’s this one who’s been following me around lately, I think he wants to kill me, but all I have to do is wish and he goes away. He comes back later, and I wish again, and away he goes, like some kind of gorgeous, annoying ping pong ball.”
Shandra chuckled darkly. “Neat trick, if it works.”
Jenzie was wide-eyed. “He actually wants to kill you? You’re not just assuming that’s what he means?”
Penny’s mouth twisted bitterly. “He wants to make me fall in love with him first and then kill me. Because, yeah, he thinks I have a weakness too.”
Her audience bore expressions of mingled horror and sympathy. Glancing from pair of eyes to pair of eyes, shame rushed over Penny. She’d spoken up, she’d seized the spotlight, even though she was sure this group wasn’t for her. Why did she do that? It was wrong of her. She looked down at her hands, wondering if she could apologize without derailing the group further.
Shandra said, “Hey. You did good telling us. And I think if you want to keep coming, we can be here for you. Maybe you’re not like Jenzie and Henry here, but we’ve all got our own burdens. Sharing ‘em and making ‘em easier to bear is the whole point, eh?”
“True,” conceded Penny and then folded her hands in her lap. She’d focus on others now. That was much better.
“Well said, Shandra,” observed Robert grudgingly. Then he launched into his closing statement and Penny couldn’t focus on him at all. She looked at Miki instead, thinking about parents and obsession. Robert finished up with, “And I’d like to speak to each of you privately, either right after today’s session or on the phone later. Stick around if now is a good time.”
Penny wondered if it would be another survey. She didn’t have anything waiting for her except hiding under her covers and moping, so she lingered along with Miki, Henry, and Shandra. She was vaguely hoping for a chance to talk to Shandra, but Penny was the first person Robert fixed on as he turned around. He beckoned her over to the desk where she’d taken the survey before.
“As part of the attached study, I was wondering if you’d also be willing to provide a blood and tissue sample, so we can look for various markers and antibodies.”
Penny narrowed her eyes. “That seems like an unusual request for a support group facilitator. What happened to just using surveys?”
“Well,” said Robert uncomfortably, “We use those. But we’re doing a variety of research. And you’re a particularly interesting subject.”
“Yes, you’ve said. Well! I’ll certainly think about your request.” Penny wrinkled her nose as she smiled. “Tissue. Tissue always sounds so visceral, don’t you think?”
“It’s just a cheek scraping,” he assured her.
“Oh! Well, that’s good to know.” She fidgeted with her bag. “Do you really think there’s anything biological to discover? If anything, it seems like a spiritual issue.”
“I’m sure there is,” said Robert firmly, and she realized she’d steered the conversation back onto familiar ground for him. “Now that we know there’s something to look for, we’ve discovered….” he hesitated, then clearly downshifted his word choices. “Unexpected forces acting in predictable, concrete ways. Like with those spectacles I showed you.”
Penny smiled again. “Magic,” she suggested brightly. “You’re trying to avoid saying ‘magic.’”
Robert frowned at her. “Hardly. Magic is, by definition, unexplainable and unmeasurable. I’m trying to avoid saying ‘radiation.’” He shook his head. “In any case, it’s quite plausible that some bodies are more sensitive to these forces. And if anybody would show changes as a result of them, I think that would be you, don’t you?”
“Other people have wanted to study me,” said Penny distantly, thinking of Branwyn telling her about Senyaza’s intentions when she was all but dead. “But it’s for a good cause, so I’ll think about it.” She gave him a nod and moved away toward the door. Miki gave her a blatantly curious look as they walked over to take her place.
Henry and Shandra were at the other end of the room, talking quietly. Penny lingered at the exit, rummaging in her bag as a polite excuse to cover her attempt at general eavesdropping. Robert set Miki to filling out the same form he’d given her the week before, then picked up a tablet computer and walked down to the far end of the room to chat with the others.
Penny gave a tiny sigh of annoyance and turned to go. Then she turned back again. There was a prickling against her skin within the room but not in the dimness of the corridor to the outside. It had always been there, she realized as she moved her arm back and forth over the threshold: a faint tingle of poorly leashed power, hidden under the transition from dimness to bright, from cool solitude to the people sounds within the classroom.
She wondered if it was a coincidence. It was a physics classroom; whatever she felt could certainly be some leftover charge from earlier in the day
That was probably it. But it made her uncomfortable all the same, so she stopped trying to get more information and went home instead.
She took a shower, scrubbing away the memory of the tingle, then looked at herself in the mirror. Other than being a little skinner than she liked—sleeping for weeks was hard on muscle mass—there was no sign of the injury she’d sustained or the prosthetic she’d gained. She’d looked
for some indication over and over again right after they’d explained what had happened to her. If it was something she could see, she’d feel better about it. She knew how to disguise and misdirect attention away from her physical flaws, and how to strut what she couldn’t hide. But with this flaw, it didn’t matter if she was naked or wearing knee-high boots and a belted fuchsia t-shirt dress. There was no hiding from those who knew what she was now.
The next day, she wore a patchwork sundress with panels of copper and bronze. Her mother thought it looked like it had been made from bad curtains, but Penny liked it enough to make up an excuse to get out of the house. She’d get coffee and a baguette somewhere, find some pigeons to feed, and admire how her dress caught the sun. And she’d try hard not to think about what else some people saw when they looked at her.
Blaze showed up as soon as she stepped out of her car. He came around a streetlight, wearing pressed dark slacks and an unbuttoned, baby blue shirt over a black tank top. Holding his hands out as if they were long lost friends, he advanced toward her. “What a splendid frock you’re wearing!”
“Yes, it is,” Penny agreed, but eyed him suspiciously and did not take his hand. “You’re back much sooner than I expected.”
“Oh, well, you didn’t really mean it. A sign that I’m growing on you?” He caught her hand anyhow and kissed it. She let him do it, too conscious of her dignity and too irrationally pleased by the gesture to complain.
He released her fingers politely, and she walked past him, asking over her shoulder, “Are you going to stab me?”
“Are you in love with me?” He fell into step beside her.
Penny laughed breathlessly. “No. Not even a little.”
He crooked a smile at her. “Ah, but I felt your heart flutter when I took your hand.”
Etiquette of Exiles (Senyaza Series Book 4) Page 10
