“Who? Genevieve? They can’t still be together if she went away to school.” Michelle waved at him.
“No, he’s not Genny’s boyfriend anymore. He’s seeing another girl. I met her. She’s nice,” Laura said. “Cut that out, weirdo. Don’t wave at him!”
“But he always waves back,” Michelle said. “I don’t know anybody here. Do I really have to stay here? I can’t go back to school?”
“You’ll go to school here.”
“I don’t want to go to school here. I want to go back to my school. What about all my friends? What about band? What about drama?”
“What about mom and dad?” Laura said.
“Yeah. What are we supposed to do without them? What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know. I trust Mrs. Summers, though. She can take care of everything.”
“Wasn’t she, like, totally crazy or something?” Michelle asked. “Wasn’t she in the loony bin?”
“She was in the hospital, yeah. But she’s better now and she’s a great mom.”
“Laurie, I’m scared. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know anyone and there’s nobody there to take care of us. What are we going to do?”
Laura patted the bed and Michelle sat next to her.
“We,” Laura said, “are going to do what dad always said and keep on keeping on. We’ll soldier through it and we’ll figure it out. You’re super popular and you had friends at your old school. You’ll be super popular and make lots of friends at your new school. It’ll be okay. We can do it. You can do it.”
“Okay. I trust you. But I’m not going to call her mom.”
“Nobody’s asking you to. She keeps telling me to call her Gabby but I only call her Mrs. Summers.”
“I might try Gabby. I might feel like a total idiot. But I’m definitely not calling her mom.”
-
It was snowing on the day before Christmas. Laura pleaded with George not to go out, but he said he had to go.
“I’ll take the Jeep. It’ll be fine. That thing’s a tank! Did you see how it launched through the snow in the driveway? I’ll be fine.”
Gabby and Geoff calmed her and assured her that George would be fine. The snow wasn’t that bad and he had a very capable vehicle. Laura started hyperventilating and Geoff and Gabby told George to get going and they’d take care of her. Reluctantly, he did, and when he backed out of the driveway, he saw Michelle standing in Gen’s window, watching him. He waved at her and she put her hand up, then he drove up the street.
The drive was pleasant, if a little long. Hardly anyone else was out on the road, he had quiet time to himself, and the Jeep handled the weather impeccably. He sang along to the radio and eventually, he reached the Lachance house. He was surprised to see that the driveway was freshly plowed. He backed into the driveway, opened the tailgate, and went into the house through the garage.
He stopped and stared at Wes’s motorcycle. “What’s going to happen to you, gorgeous?”
He walked up to it and traced his finger over the curve of the gas tank, then he threw a leg over it and sat on the bike. It was resting on the center stand, so he put his feet on the pegs and his hands on the handlebars. His throat was thick with emotion. He climbed off the motorcycle and hurried into the house.
George shuffled the stacks of Christmas presents from under the Lachance’s Christmas tree into the back of the Jeep, then he noticed Michelle’s trumpet, sitting in its open case in the living room. He looked curiously at it, then closed the case and stowed it in the back of the Cherokee, too. He checked the locks on all the windows and doors, then closed the garage and headed back toward home.
Once he’d gotten off the highway, he headed for his neighborhood Kohl’s department store. Gabby had given him some suggestions on some quick, last minute presents that wouldn’t feel overly generic, but would probably still be in stock the day before Christmas. George was amazed to find that she was right on every count. He packed the new presents into the car and went home.
As soon as he opened the door, Laura launched herself into his arms. “Oh, thank god you’re okay! I was so worried!”
George laughed and gently pushed her away. “I’m fine. I was only gone for a few hours.” He peeked into the living room. “Where’s Michelle?”
“Upstairs, I think.”
“You know she left her trumpet at the other house?”
Laura’s brows came together in a deep furrow. “No. I don’t know why she would’ve left it. Did you bring it?”
George nodded.
“Okay. Well, I guess let’s bring it inside and if she asks for it, at least we’ll have it to give to her.”
Laura slipped her boots and coat on and hurried outside after George to unload the car.
-
After dinner, Geoff, Gabby, George, Laura, and Michelle sat in the living room. Michelle stared at the fire in the fireplace. Her expression was blank and distant.
“You okay, Shelly?” Laura asked.
Michelle shrugged. “It’s Christmas Eve.”
Laura smiled. “Yeah. It is.” She turned to Geoff and Gabby. “We’d always open one present each on Christmas Eve.”
Geoff and Gabby shared a glance and they both shrugged, then laughed.
“Sure,” Gabby said. “Why not?” She looked at Michelle. “Who gets to go first?”
“How about Laurie?”
Gabby got up and shifted the pile of presents around until she found the one she was looking for: a box wrapped in red wrapping paper with snowmen on it. She handed it to Laura, smiling widely.
Laura read the tiny card taped to the box, “To: Laura. From: Your new in-laws.” She tore into the wrapping paper and then opened the plain, white cardboard box. She gently picked up a large teapot, decorated with hats and rabbits, with quotes from Alice in Wonderland scrawled all around it. “Wow. This is amazing!” She opened the teapot and giggled when she saw that there were three bags of loose-leaf tea stuffed inside. She shoved the box into George’s lap and gave Gabby a hug. “Thank you!”
“You opened one,” Gabby said. “Now you pick who goes next.”
“Okay, umm. Mr. Summers.” She hovered over the gifts and groaned. “Like, half of these are just labeled, ‘G.S.’ Who are any of these for?”
The Summers all laughed.
Gabby snorted and then laughed harder. She cleared her throat and said, “It’s sort of a family joke. I know which ones are which. Plus, all of the ones in the same wrapping paper are all the same thing.”
“You guys are nuts,” Laura said, then she instantly felt her cheeks grow hot. “I mean, you know…”
Gabby shook her head and smiled supportively at Laura. “It’s fine, dear. Go on, pick one.”
Laura picked up a bright green package and handed it to Geoff. “Here, Mr. Summers. It weighs a ton!”
Geoff read the tag aloud. “To: Dad, from: G.S.” He chuckled, then sadness tinged the look of joy. “Usually, we have a harder time figuring out who it’s from.”
He shook his head quickly then carefully unwrapped the present, gently lifting the taped corners and gracefully unfolding the paper, revealing a black wooden box marked in small gold letters with, “The Beatles.”
He looked tenderly at George. “The Beatles boxed set? Thank you. That’s over the top.”
George smiled at his dad. “You have a CD player in your car now.”
George nodded, still smiling. “Yeah. Thanks, George. I’m really touched. Okay, my turn. Michelle.” He snatched a package and handed it to Michelle.
She rattled it back and forth. It was very light and sounded like there were several pieces inside. “Shelly, from Laura.” She tore it open and blinked at it. She held it up for everyone to see. It was a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle of the periodic table of the elements. She looked at Laura. “Uh, thanks?”
“You’re welcome!” Laura laughed. “You put that together and that’s your first step to becoming a scientist!”
“Yea
h,” Michelle smirked. “Just what I always wanted. Weirdo.” She looked from Gabby to George and said, “Mrs. Summers.” Then she picked out a present and handed it to Gabby.
“To: Mom. From: G.” She ripped the wrapping paper open. It was a canvas, roughly notebook-sized. She turned it over and looked at the painting – a landscape with tall, purple-white mountains over a dark green forest that reflected, upside-down, in a bright lake. The sky was bright blue with large, fluffy white clouds. A piece of paper that had been wrapped with the painting fell to the floor.
Gabby looked at the painting and smiled, then reached down to grab the note. “How sweet! Which one of you…”
Her voice trailed off as she read the note. Her face went white and she thrust the painting and the note into Geoff’s lap.
Geoff read the note and started to tear up.
Michelle looked concerned, then she took the note and read it aloud. “Dear mom, Thanks for all that you do for us. I wanted to give you something special. This isn’t much. I made it in art. But it made me think of when we went to Vermont a couple years ago and I wanted to make you something. You’re the best and I hope I’ll be just like you one day. Love, Gen.”
Aside from the crackle of the fire, the living room was completely silent for a long time.
George got up suddenly and went to the kitchen. Geoff squeezed Gabby’s knee and followed him.
“How the fuck did that get in the pile, dad?” George hissed.
“You know Genny’s always been a plan-aheader. She probably stuck it in the Christmas pile in the closet back in the fall. Your mother put the presents out. She probably just saw another present from a ‘G’ and stuck it under the tree. I know I found a present she’d already wrapped for Jimmy.”
“Did you give it to him yet?”
Geoff shook his head.
George sagged against the kitchen counter and rubbed his thumb and middle finger over his temples.
“You okay?” Geoff asked.
George nodded. “Yeah. You?”
Geoff nodded. “Yeah.”
“Come on. I didn’t mean to abandon mom in there.” George started to head back to the living room, but Geoff stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.
Neither of them said anything for a minute, then George turned to his dad and put his arms around him, crying. Geoff patted his back and rubbed circles across George’s shoulders.
“It’s okay, bud. It’s okay,” Geoff murmured.
When George calmed down and they went back to the living room, the girls were chatting quietly. Michelle had taken several of the sticky bows from the presents and stuck them to her forehead. Laura looked up at George and immediately knew that he’d been crying. She stood up and hugged George tightly.
They sat down and George started to ask, “Where’s the pai–”
One of Gabrielle’s framed French movie posters sat on the floor, leaning against the wall, and Gen’s painting hung in its place.
Chapter 23
“You guys can all stop tip-toeing around me,” Gen said. “I’m fine. I’m just a little jumpy.”
“I bet,” Shae said. “You were tortured to death like a hundred times!”
Gen opened her mouth to say something, then shook her head and rolled her eyes. She turned to Hope. “I thought there was no killing in the fairy Realms.”
“It happens,” Hope said.
“I’m not remotely surprised that this Honey character could get away with her dastardly practices for so long,” Jewel said. “The neighbors reported that particular house has stood vacant for years. And fairies don’t come back from their sabbatical all the time. Hell, I remained in The Winter Kingdom for something like a dozen years, and I only returned presently. My own home has been hauntingly vacant for all this time. I’ve posted correspondence to my loved ones, but I could just as easily been subject to Honey’s hospitality.”
Shae grinned dreamily at Jewel. “I love the way you talk.”
“Why, thank you, my dear. You have lovely and desirable traits, as well.”
Gen chuckled.
David said, “Now, link-seer, who is this Molly Ritchey’s fairy?”
“Ritchey…” Gen thought about the name, but she couldn’t place it. “Something about that name sounds familiar but I can’t remember what.” She shrugged. “Anyway, yeah, Jewel, do you know who Molly’s fairy is? And don’t say it’s Honey.”
Jewel raised an eyebrow and looked at Gen. “Actually…” She began.
Gen’s eyes widened.
Jewel laughed. “No, I’m only kidding.” She closed her eyes and sat up straight in her chair. She extended her hand, palm up, to Shae.
Shae put her hand in Jewel’s.
“She’s connected to you, Shae. Her sister. Portia. Strong link. And you have a connection to the sister, as well, do you not?”
Shae nodded, then blinked, realizing that Jewel couldn’t see her. “Yes. I’m connected with the sister, Molly, too. I talk to her in dreams all the time. Sometimes I can even manage while she’s awake. It’s weird. Anyway, since she was born, I’ve always been interested in watching Portia – my human – through Molly’s eyes. It gives such a different perspective, you know?”
“Thank you,” Jewel interrupted. She kept her eyes closed and extended her other hand. “Hope.”
Hope placed her hand into Jewel’s.
“Your human is connected to Portia’s. They are lovers.”
Gen glanced at Hope and raised an eyebrow. Hope winked at Gen.
“He does reside on Spider Island,” Jewel said. “On the other side of town. Tall. Bald head. Muscular.” Her eyebrows lifted. “Quite attractive. His name is Fall.”
Jewel unclasped her hands with Hope and Shae, then opened her eyes. “Shall we?”
Shae gave a few predictions on what was likely to happen and it was decided that only Shae, Hope, and Jewel would go talk to Fall.
Gen, Slynn, and David remained at Jewel’s house.
“How are you doing?” Slynn asked Gen.
“I guess I’m okay. I mean, she couldn’t kill me, right? How long could she have gone on like that? How long could she have kept killing me and letting me come back, just to torture me? It’s insane!”
“Who knew that fairies were capable of such things?” Slynn mused. “Most fairies are sanctimonious about how that’d be the work of pixies and fairies are above all of that. How about you, angel? Would an angel ever torture another angel?”
David sounded distracted, like he wasn’t paying any attention to what they were saying. “No. Absolutely not.”
Slynn chuckled. “I’m sure.” He turned back to Gen. “How did he die?”
“Herron?”
Slynn nodded.
“Loss of blood. These leechy, lamprey kind of creatures latched onto him and sucked all of his blood out.”
Slynn sighed. He nodded slightly and looked at the floor. “That’s… That’s really too bad.”
“You two were getting pretty close,” Gen said. “I’m really sorry.”
“Not your fault, I’m sure. And where did you say you brought him? I’m sorry, I don’t know your Realms very well.”
“The Rainforest. I’m so sorry I couldn’t save him,” Gen said. “I’m so sorry.’
“I’m sure you did all you could,” Slynn assured her. “We have to keep moving forward. We have a saying in The Void: You’ll never get where you need to be until you can stop looking behind you.”
Gen nodded. “That’s a good one. I like that. But not looking back doesn’t make it stop hurting.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
Gen stood and stretched. “I have no idea how long they’ll be and I’m kind of exhausted. I’m going to go lie down for a while, okay?”
She walked slowly up the stairs. Slynn and David were talking but Gen couldn’t make out what they were saying, and she didn’t want to creep back down to spy on them. She decided it probably didn’t matter very much what they were saying and she went
into Jewel’s bedroom. She crawled into bed and pulled the thick covers up to her neck.
Gen knew she needed to get some sleep, but every time she closed her eyes, she saw Honey’s cruel and gleeful face. She hadn’t been able to get much sleep on the way up here, and she knew she was exhausted, so Gen closed her eyes and forced Honey aside. She crowded her thoughts with Hope and her mom and George and Jim and Shae until, finally, she fell asleep.
When Gen woke up, she felt warm and cozy. Hope’s arms were wrapped around her and Gen heard her snoring softly. She smiled and rocked back into Hope’s warm body. Hope murmured in her sleep and held Gen tighter. Hope’s breath on Gen’s neck tickled her, and Gen gently slipped free from Hope’s arms.
A booming laughter came from downstairs. Gen got dressed and went down to see what was going on. Jewel, Slynn, Shae, and David sat around the table, laughing – except for David – and drinking. Another fairy, presumably Fall, based on Jewel’s earlier description of him, drained his glass and laughed loudly. His laugh was deep. It sounded like he laughed with his whole body. Gen couldn’t help but smile. A laugh that full and that free was incredibly contagious.
As soon as Gen walked into the living room, Jewel pressed a glass of whatever it was they were drinking into her hand and guided her to a seat. The seat was warm and Gen realized it was the seat Jewel had been sitting in. She started to protest but Jewel shushed her.
“No, no, I’ve been sitting all night. Have a drink and sit. Relax. Enjoy yourself with our new guest,” Jewel said. She raised her glass, then clinked glasses with Gen and downed her liquor, urging Gen to do the same.
Gen took a tentative sip from her glass, expecting something strong and burning, but it was sweet and fruity and smooth, and she drank the whole glass. Instantly, Jewel refilled it. Gen smiled at her.
“Fall,” Jewel said, “allow me to introduce Gen, the leader of our humble band. Gen, this is Fall. He’s the other fairy you came to the Island to see.”
“Pleasure to meet you,” Gen squeaked. She put a hand on her chest. “Oi, excuse me! I think this stuff is stronger than I thought!”
The rest of the table – with the exception of David – erupted into laughter.
Sovereign (Realmwalker Book 3) Page 18
