Tooth and Nail

by Jennifer Safrey

  “He’s 106,” Frederica said.

  “He’s 106 and he’s still working for the fae?” I kind of hoped that wasn’t my destiny. At 106, I expected to deserve a rest.

  “We live longer,” Frederica reminded me, “and our bodies age slower. Not by much, or we’d be far too noticeable, but the people with milestone birthdays who you read about in the newspapers are usually fae.”

  “Just FYI, I plan to retire at 65,” I told her, “so don’t make any long-term plans for me.”

  “My point is,” she said, smiling gently at me, “that we keep what we believe are accurate records about those like you. We knew you existed and we knew where you were all this time, but we kept a respectful distance. Your mother’s family was insistent on that, and we complied until you became an adult and a deliberate threat materialized. And now,” she said, half to herself, “it’s worse than we all thought. TV-Spree.”

  My mother looked out the window as she said, “Riley was awkward and shy, and a gentleman. But that anger when I broke it off,” she added, looking back at us, “it felt long in coming, like something he’d held back for years. I remember thinking maybe it wasn’t about me, but it was something else in him.”

  “I don’t think you’re the reason for this,” I told her. “I think your breakup was only the trigger for something else that was brewing in him for a long time. Some kind of hatred against one or both sides of his heritage. In his letter, he says”—I grabbed the letter back and skimmed with my finger—“I died for them, and they don’t know it. Then later, They ripped me in half.”

  “The ‘they’ isn’t you and George,” Frederica said. “Although it seems he wanted the thrill of recruiting your daughter to his side, I think it’s bigger. I think it’s all fae, all humans.”

  “It’s something sad,” I said, and we all fell silent for a moment.

  I didn’t want to understand Dr. Riley Clayton. I didn’t want to think he’d reached out to me not just to help him, but to be his only friend.

  Svein cleared his throat. “I’m wondering what part you play in this scenario now,” he said to me. “You’re the celebrated half-fae while he—deliberately or not—lives in shadow. And while he didn’t manage to make an ally of you all those years ago, he also didn’t kill you, today or before now. It could mean he’s waiting for a more convenient moment, or that he wants you to witness his success.”

  “What about what Frederica said?” I asked. “What if he originally wanted me to stop him, and that’s why he said yesterday that he’d given me all this time, that I’d had my whole life to get to him, and now I’m too late?”

  “I’ll talk to Clayton,” Mom said.

  “Mom, no,” I said, just as Svein said, “Absolutely not.”

  “I agree,” Frederica said. “It’s a bad idea. His war is bigger than you now, and it will only be the cherry on top for him if you get involved.”

  “Let me handle it,” I said.

  My mother looked at me, and her eyes were cloudy and sad. “You’re going to handle this alone?”

  “She’s not alone,” Svein said.

  He and I locked gazes.

  “What about Avery?” my mother asked.

  I tore away from Svein’s eyes. “What?”

  “I said, what about Avery? Does he know any of this? Does he know you’re in danger?”

  “No,” I said, “and he doesn’t know what I am, and it’s going to stay that way.”

  “He deserves to know,” my mother insisted, and I suspected she was insisting because she wanted to assure herself that other people were taking care of me in this, people who weren’t fae, who only had my interests at heart and not those of the Olde Way.

  “That may be,” I said, “but I’m still not going to tell him.”

  She cut a sideways glance at Svein before continuing. “You’re in love with Avery,” she said to me. “He should know.”

  “Why?” I asked. “So he can walk out on me?”

  No one said anything. My instinct was to apologize but if I did, I felt my point would be lost. Finally my mother spoke again. “He might walk out on you anyway. You might never tell him, and he’ll walk out on Gemma the human for completely different reasons. If you think not telling him the truth will guarantee you security, you’re telling yourself a lie.” She took hold of my wrist. “Gemma, it’s better to be honest.”

  “I will be honest,” I said. “If Avery ever asks me, ‘Hey, are you a tooth faerie, by any chance?’ I’ll definitely say yes.”

  “You need him now,” my mother said. “And he’s here now. That’s all I’m saying.”

  I glanced at Svein again. He’d listened to the whole exchange, expressionless.

  “There’s one more letter,” I said, and they all nodded. I tore open the rattling envelope that read: Gemma, Open When You’re 21 and found one sheet of unlined paper, along with a teardrop ruby on a gold chain.

  Dear Gemma,

  There are two things that could have happened: Either you never received my letters, or you chose not to come to me.

  I regret both of those possibilities.

  We may yet meet.

  Accept this token as a respectful acknowledgment.

  Riley Clayton

  I folded this final letter and put it back in the envelope without sharing its message with the others. I held up the necklace and watched it sway and sparkle. It looked like a drop of blood. I fastened it around my neck.

  “Gemma,” my mother began.

  “Acknowledgment,” I said.

  After a moment, Frederica said, “I should be getting back. I start my shift in a couple of hours and I’d like to get a nap in.”

  I got a look at the clock and realized just how long we’d been sitting here. “I’m sorry,” I said, but she touched my cheek.

  “Don’t be sorry,” she said. “You do whatever you need to do. You know how to reach me, or any of us.” We all got up from the table and Frederica put her arms—pale and fragile—around my mother’s shoulders. My mother, to my surprise, hugged her back and rested her head on Frederica’s shoulder for a brief moment. Bethany Cross, always so strong and sure, looked as vulnerable as a dragonfly, and my heart hurt to think that it was because of me. Frederica murmured into her ear and my mother nodded before disentangling herself and enfolding me in a bigger, warmer embrace.

  “As much as it is your destiny to do this,” she said, “it is my destiny to be your mother. I want to do that forever. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.” My stomach still ached from the brief beating I’d suffered from Clayton, and I rested into my mother’s embrace more than I would have in the middle of an urban bistro.

  I remained standing beside the table as my mother and Frederica left, parting in opposite directions. I heaved a sigh, still looking at the door where they’d exited.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Svein said, steering me out into the street. “I’ll give you a lift home.”

  “What, on your back?”

  The air had grown cooler, reminding me that the warm days of spring didn’t necessarily mean balmy nights.

  “In my car.”

  I scoffed. “City people don’t bother with cars.”

  “Maybe I’m not city people.”

  It occurred to me that I didn’t know anything about Svein except for what role he played in my life—mentor, pain in my behind and something more I didn’t want to think about. I wasn’t sure whether he expected me to ask about him, about his life. We walked only a half-block before curiosity took over. “Where are you from, anyway?”

  “Originally? Iceland.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, a town called Akranes.”

  “What’s there?”

  “Fishing,” he said, then smiled a little. “Football. Or, to Americans, soccer.”

  “Did you play?”

  “I was only a child. We moved to New York, eastern Long Island, when I was 10. Then I did play, in high school and in college.�
�

  “Were you any good?” I asked, knowing the answer.

  His smile grew. “Yeah, I was good.”

  “Were your parents collectors?”

  “For a while. My mother collected until she got pregnant with my older brother, and then she became a full-time mother. My father was in finance, but he’d collected when he was in college.”

  “So the whole tooth-under-the-pillow thing isn’t just an American tradition.”

  Svein shook his head, and drew out his keys. He pressed a button, and a spotless, shiny black car at the curb beep-beeped a greeting. “Some countries are similar, like Canada and Australia, with leaving the tooth under a pillow.” He opened the passenger door for me and closed me in. He came around the other side and slid in behind the wheel, turning the key in the ignition. “In France and Spain, the kids believe a mouse comes to collect the tooth and leaves them candy or money, and in South Africa, it’s also a mouse, but the kids leave the tooth in a slipper. In some countries in South America, it’s a rat.” He maneuvered the car into a quick, smooth, illegal U-turn. “Just be glad you’re not in Sri Lanka or India. Those kids fling their teeth on the roof for squirrels and birds. You’d actually have to use those wings to get airborne and grab them.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “How can someone who deliberately breaks her own tooth be afraid of heights?”

  “I’m not afraid of heights,” I told him. “I’m afraid of being more of a freak than I already am. And don’t make this conversation about me. We were talking about you, for a change. Are your parents still on Long Island?”

  “Yes,” he said. “In a cemetery.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling like an insensitive jerk even though there was no way I could have known. “Oh. I’m—I’m sorry.”

  He waved off my apology. “They died when I was in college.”

  “What happened?” The question was rude and implied my prurient interest, but maybe there was a bigger part of me than I’d realized that wanted to know where Svein had come from, and how he became who he was.

  “My father worked in Manhattan,” he said evenly, his eyes never leaving the road. “My mother went in one evening and they were going to see a play. With my brother and myself both out of the house, they were dating again.”

  We crossed the river in silence. I felt bad for requesting the story, and I opened my mouth to change the subject when he spoke again.

  “They had gone down to one of the subway platforms after the play, to head back to Penn Station, and they were mugged.” He tightened his mouth. “I don’t know what happened. No one saw what happened. Apparently, a train had just left and they were the only ones on the platform. The police didn’t even know if it was only one guy, or a group, and they didn’t know why they didn’t just take the money and leave instead of knifing them both.” His hands curled around the steering wheel, his knuckles whitening. “The thing is, they couldn’t fight back.”

  My heart broke for the fae couple who couldn’t defend themselves in the face of danger, and my heart broke for the two sons they left behind. I swallowed the lump I realized had risen in my throat. “I’m sorry.”

  He nodded.

  “Where’s your brother now?”

  “At the L.A. Root Center, working as a technician. He’s part time there and part time at a more legitimate job he can list on his tax forms. I see him a few times a year. You’d like him. He’s a lot like me, only nicer and with a better sense of humor.”

  “I probably would like him, in that case.” I rubbed my forehead. “Listen,” I said. “I didn’t mention this at the table because I didn’t want to heap more on my mother than I already did, but I have a nasty hunch that the school shootings and other kid crimes around here lately were Clayton’s patients.”

  He said nothing for a moment. “I’ll look into it.”

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  We had been headed toward my condo when Svein suddenly veered right and parked on a small dead-end street. I sat and waited, and wondered whether he was going to kiss me again. I wasn’t going to let him, I thought, and then I wondered if that was true.

  He turned the car off, reached into the inside pocket of his open jacket, then reached out his hand low and covert to pass me something underneath the dashboard.

  I looked down at his hand hovering over my lap and yelped. “What the fuck? A gun? Are you out of your mind?”

  “We need to deal with Clayton.”

  I stared at him, but he didn’t so much as blink, just calmly gazed at me while probably every emotion I ever had showed on my own face.

  “Get that away from me,” I said. “I mean it. Get it out of my sight.”

  “Then how do you plan to kill him? With your bare hands?”

  “I’m not killing anyone. I said put the gun away, now, or I’m out of here.” I gripped the door handle and prepared to push out and start running toward home.

  He slid it back into his jacket’s inside pocket. “I’ll teach you how to use it, if that’s the problem,” he said.

  “Uh, no. The problem is I’m not touching that thing, and I’m not killing anyone.”

  “Listen to me. I have a plan,” he said. “No detail has been overlooked. No one will know, he’ll disappear, and …”

  I covered my ears with my hands. “La, la, la, I’m not listening to a murder plan, la, la, la.”

  He peeled my left hand down. “I’m telling you I have a plan that, if pulled off correctly, will not land you in jail, nor will it touch Avery in any way.”

  I dropped the other hand. “Although it’s comforting to know you care enough to come up with an elaborate scheme, it’s got one glitch: I’m not going to murder Clayton.”

  “This is your job, Gemma.”

  My mouth dropped open. “My job,” I said, “is to stop the threat.”

  “He’ll be on TV in four days, hawking his weapon at some low, low price. You need to stop him, and this is the way. He’s harming kids, he attacked you. The Root scientists identified a compound in the toothpaste that’s rotting essence.” He raked his fingers hard through his blond hair. “And by the way, that school shooter? And that kid Trey? You were right. Clayton patients, both of them. Also, a little girl who pushed her brother out a window, and a boy who killed his grandfather.”

  I blinked.

  “That’s right,” he said. “How can he have treated so many kids? I wondered. Well, here’s what else I learned. Dr. Riley Clayton, out of the goodness of his charitable heart, ran a clinic for poor families about eight years ago. Other dentists helped him out. And I’m sure they gave out those freebie toothpaste tubes also.”

  I felt my mouth drop open. More of them were out there? More hurt, possessed kids. Older kids, who had gotten worse, sicker. How many … ?

  “So what else do you need so you can understand?” Svein demanded. “Do you need me to spell it out? Clayton’s the bad guy.”

  I breathed in deeply, out hard. “Frederica just said we can do this without bloodshed,” I pointed out.

  “She said that before she knew TV-Spree is his new weapon of choice.”

  “Don’t you think she can come up with a better idea than execution?”

  “No,” he said bluntly. “She would be against this solution, but she wouldn’t be able to come up with a better one because there is none. I have nothing but the highest admiration for Frederica, but she’s an idealist.”

  “I thought the Olde Way was an ideal.”

  “We live here now,” he said. “We need to adapt a little better to reality.”

  “But …”

  “This is reality,” he repeated, “and this is what you were born to do.”

  I froze, and the anger rose up my spine and radiated out to every finger and toe until I curled them tightly. I forced myself to breathe, and I braced my sneakered feet on the floorboard, pressing my back against the passenger seat in an effort to hold in my offended wings. My back teeth jammed together, and when I spo
ke, I didn’t unclench them. “That’s what you think? That I was born a warrior, born to blindly fight our battles without question? I chose this,” I reminded him. “And do you actually think that because I’m half human, I’m half violent and reckless, and I’ll be okay with killing someone?”

  My fingernails dug into the heels of both hands. “Maybe humans aren’t perfect. Maybe the fae are. Maybe a fae father wouldn’t leave a fae child forever in the middle of the night without saying goodbye. Maybe he wouldn’t leave the fae mother to cry herself to sleep for a year. I don’t know. I do know that humans aren’t perfect, but they’re not the polar opposite. They’re somewhere in between fae and something I never hope to see. And maybe as a consequence of that limbo, humans can swing between good and bad.”

  I twisted in my seat so I was facing Svein. “But I’m not going to kill anyone. I’m not that angry, or that hopeless. I’m not the person on the subway platform who killed your parents. I’m a fighter, but only to defend my way, and to defend the Olde Way. I’m not a fighter who’s out to kill someone else’s way. That’s not my place. My place, what I was born to do, is to make it right. I don’t happen to think murder makes anything right.”

  I stopped for a moment, my breath hiccuppy and shallow. “I’m going to figure out how to stop Clayton without killing him, because when you morning fae finally do bring back the Olde Way, I -” I jabbed my thumb into my sternum “—am going to be worthy of it.”

  I grabbed the door handle and pushed, and the cool evening air, mixed with the scent of sidewalk and new leaves, brushed in. “Thanks for all your help,” I said, stepping out, “but I think that due to creative differences, we’ve come to the end of our professional relationship. I’m going to take it from here.” I bent down to look at him one last time. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I can live with that. I can’t live with disappointing myself.”

  I slammed the car door and walked home. Halfway there, I realized I was cold, but I swung my arms by my sides, refusing to wrap them around myself for warmth.

  CHAPTER 19

  When I got home, Avery and his father were sitting in the living room. “Here she is,” Avery said.