A small pen housing a nub-eared Lamancha goat stood in the midst of the farm displays, and children crowded around looking at the animal. It stared back at them mildly, the bright sun overhead turning its pupils into rectangular slits. Beside her, Cass heard a small child ask, “What happened to its ears? Did someone cut them off?” and their parent reply, “No, silly, Lamancha goats are born that way!”
The goat wandered over to the fence where Cass and Matthew stood with Lily. As Lily reached out gingerly to stroke the animal, Cass caught a flash of color on the animal’s back. A fae was sitting astride the goat like a cowboy on a fantastically large horse.
And not just any fae.
Lily caught sight of him at the same time and began to suck in a delighted breath, but Cass elbowed her before she could let out the squeal that was clearly on her lips. Lily glanced up at Cass for just an instant before attempting to school her expression—not very successfully, Cass thought with a roll of her eyes. For all of the “lessons” she’d been giving her, Lily still had a long way to go.
“You like goats?” Matthew asked, misattributing Lily’s excitement as being directed toward the animal she was petting.
“I do,” Lily said, still grinning. “They’re so cute! I love their eyes. They look like friendly aliens.”
To Cass’s relief, Matthew kept the conversation going as the three of them headed to the carnival, which kept Lily’s focus on him and away from the fae. How Green had managed to make it all the way from the woods to here, clear in the middle of town a good two miles away—and why he’d want to, for that matter—was beyond Cass, but she couldn’t very well ask him in the middle of all these people. She looked conspicuously away from the creature, keeping her gaze riveted on the various booths they passed—the dart balloons and the basketball toss and the strength tester—even as he grinned and hopped along after them, weaving in between the people in the crowd. Sometimes he’d brush against an ankle or scurry up someone’s pant leg to perch momentarily on their shoulder, and the human would scratch an invisible itch or wave away a fly that wasn’t there. No one, of course, appeared to be able to see him apart from Lily and Cass. She wondered if there was no one else in this whole crowd with the Sight, or if any other person who could see was, like her, pretending not to so as not to draw attention to themselves. A few months ago, that thought would have been laughable to her, but now that she’d met Lily, she was starting to question everything. Growing up, she’d always sort of believed that maybe she and Aunt Alexandra were the only people in the world with the Sight. Now she knew otherwise.
“Do you know what you want to play first?” Matthew asked Lily.
Lily bit her lip, considering. “I want to try to catch a goldfish,” she said at last.
Matthew smiled encouragingly at her. “That’s always fun. I caught a goldfish at the county fair one time. His name was Trigger. He lived to be almost ten years old.” Lily grinned and Matthew added, “But I think we ought to save that one for last. If you catch a fish, they’ll put him in a plastic bag of water, and the fish don’t like that. You’ll want to bring him home right away so you can get him into something bigger. And you’ll need food for him, and a nice big tank so he can grow. One with a filter to keep his water clean. That’s the best way to give him a long, happy life.”
Lily nodded, her expression serious, as if she were mentally filing away all the information he’d just given her.
“Do you think your parents will get you those things?” Cass asked dubiously.
Lily shrugged. “I’ll get it one way or another.”
Cass quirked an eyebrow at that. “You won’t walk into town by yourself, right? If you need someone to take you to the pet store, you come find me,” she said. Lily nodded.
“Your parents won’t mind you bringing a pet home?” Matthew asked.
“They don’t care what I do as long as I don’t bother them with it,” Lily replied matter-of-factly.
She turned to peruse the carnival once more, looking for a new activity now that the goldfish booth had been tabled for the time being. Over her head, Matthew caught Cass’s eye.
“Wow,” he mouthed.
“Tell me about it,” she murmured back.
Soon the three of them were standing in line for the plastic boat races. Lily eagerly watched as the children ahead of them took their places at the end of a row of modified rain gutters, filled with water. They’d use squirt guns to propel their boats forward down the gutters, the first to reach the finish line winning a small toy prize. A glimmer of color to her left caught Cass’s eye, and once again she noticed Green, this time sitting on one of the low branches of a maple tree. Cass sighed.
“Excuse me,” she said to Matthew, pulling her cell phone out of her pocket. “I need to make a call.”
She left Matthew and Lily standing in line and moved over to the tree, holding her cell phone up to her ear so no one would find it odd if they noticed her talking to herself. “What are you doing here?” she whispered to the fae, who was fanning himself with a five-lobed leaf.
“It’s warm today,” Green said. “Summer lasts longer now than it used to.”
Cass rolled her eyes. “I asked you a question. What are you doing here?”
“Lily was so excited about the Fall Fest, I just had to see it for myself. And I couldn’t resist seeing the human you’re so tied up in knots over.”
“Excuse me?” Cass squeaked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Please. Your thoughts have been a tangle for the last week.”
Cass gawked at the fae. So he could read her thoughts. She’d suspected as much from the way he tended to answer questions that she hadn’t asked aloud, but she hadn’t been sure. Since other fae didn’t speak English, she didn’t know much about them. Could all of them do this? Or, like in so many other ways, was Green different?
“None of the others care enough to try,” Green replied, tossing the maple leaf aside.
“Will you stop doing that?” Cass hissed. “It’s rude to pry into people’s thoughts.”
Green snorted. “Manners. A human invention.”
Cass gritted her teeth and turned to lean against the tree trunk, not looking at the fae. “How did you get down here, anyway? We’re quite a ways from the woods.”
“That is a mystery. You don’t think I tagged along on that metal deathtrap of yours, do you?” said Green.
“I wouldn’t put anything past you at this point,” Cass grumbled. Most fae avoided cars because of the iron in them, but she’d already established that Green wasn’t like most fae. Besides, just how much iron did modern cars have in them, anyway? Probably not nearly as much as they used to. Maybe not enough to matter anymore. “Just don’t make trouble, okay? You’ve heard the lessons I’ve been giving Lily. The only way she’s going to make it in the human world is if she doesn’t let people know she can see you. The last thing we need is you turning up everywhere she goes and distracting her. She wants to be normal.”
“Does she? Or is that just what you want for her?”
Cass whirled on the creature in exasperation. “Are you kidding me? She’s basically a social pariah because of her ‘imaginary friends.’ No kid wants to be seen as a freak.”
“Maybe she just hasn’t met the right humans yet. Like your human who’s always yelling at you on your talky box.” He gestured to Cass’s cell phone. “She believes you. She would love to be able to see us.”
“Emma is different, okay? Emma is…” Well, to be honest, Emma was a bit of a freak herself. That was why she and Cass had gotten along so well when they met. But there was no guaranteeing that Lily would meet someone like Emma.
“Listen,” Cass snapped, leveling a glare on the fae. “I’m just trying to protect her. This world is full of people who aren’t content to live and let live. If they encounter someone who seems to see things that aren’t there, or hear voices that no one else can hear—they’re going to be treated like they’re c
razy. Do you want to see Lily locked up in some mental hospital because her parents or one of her teachers think she’s got something wrong with her?”
Green swung a spindly leg back and forth from the branch on which he perched. “Do you think your Matthew would do that?”
“He’s not my anything!” Cass hissed, lowering her voice. “And honestly… I don’t know. I don’t know him, okay? He seems nice, but that doesn’t mean he believes in… the supernatural, or whatever.”
The fae grinned, his pointy features seeming to grow even sharper with the expression. He suddenly looked quite devious. “Have you tried asking him?”
“What? No—look, stop trying to change the subject. The point is, I know what I’m talking about here. I’m just trying to keep Lily safe. So do not interfere, you got that?” She jabbed her index finger into the fae’s tiny sternum.
The fae grumbled, rubbing his chest. “Fine. Have it your way.”
Cass nodded and started to turn, putting her phone back into her jeans pocket. She barely heard Green mutter, “You didn’t use to be so distrusting.”
Cass glanced at him over her shoulder. “Excuse me?”
“Nothing,” Green replied innocently, climbing higher up into the maple tree and out of her line of sight.
* * *
“Everything all right?” Matthew asked when Cass returned to the booth. A colorfully-painted sign above it read Rain Gutter Regatta. Lily was next in line, hopping eagerly in place as she awaited her turn. “You seemed a little… agitated on the phone there.”
“It’s nothing. I’m fine,” Cass replied, forcing a smile.
“Okay, good,” Matthew said, smiling back.
The game operator gestured for Lily and a redheaded girl behind her in line to come forward. The girls eagerly hurried to their respective gutters and the operator handed each of them a plastic squirt gun to control their boats with. Matthew moved to the sidelines, pulling out his phone to record the race.
The bell dinged and the girls began squirting their water pistols. The crowd around them shouted out encouragement, but Cass barely registered it. Green’s question was still in the forefront of her mind. “Have you tried asking him?”
She hadn’t. And she wouldn’t. That was something you just didn’t chance, no matter how much you thought you trusted the person. Meeting Emma had been pure good luck, but she knew better now than to count on lightning striking twice. After all, Emma had already believed, even if she couldn’t see. But trying to get someone who doesn’t believe to accept that there could be more to the world than they know? Even someone who said they loved you could turn around and call you crazy.
She’d learned that lesson the hard way. It was a risk she wouldn’t take again.
Lily wanted to play almost every carnival game, and she had the tokens to do it. With the money her father had given her—stowed neatly in a coin purse hanging around her neck—she’d bought enough tokens, Cass was certain, to make the Fest organizers weep with joy.
By late afternoon, Cass was fairly exhausted. She’d forgotten how much energy a kid at a carnival could have. When Matthew had asked her to come with him to the Fall Fest, she’d envisioned a leisurely afternoon sitting in the biergarten, listening to local musicians and enjoying a craft beer or maybe some fresh apple cider. But she supposed she should have known better. Lily had been just about glued to her side every day for the last three weeks—why should today be any different?
Miraculously, the three of them managed to find an empty picnic table to sit at around four o’clock, when Matthew suggested they grab an early dinner from one of the food trucks to beat the later crowds. They’d gotten food from the Asian fusion booth, and, after stacking her massive stash of carnival tokens into two neat towers before her, Lily dug into her plate of stir-fried noodles eagerly.
Cass watched her, barely feeling energetic enough to half-heartedly stir a fork through her fried rice.
“You hanging in there?” Matthew asked, looking at her with an amused quirk of his eyebrow.
“Barely,” Cass admitted. “How many kids do you have in your class this year?”
“Around thirty,” he said.
Cass grimaced. “I don’t know how you do it.”
“Years of practice,” said Matthew. “Beginning with babysitting my two younger sisters from the age of thirteen on.”
“Ah. That explains a lot. I’m definitely lacking in experience there,” Cass said.
“Do you have any siblings?” Matthew asked.
She shook her head. “Only child.” She wondered if her life would have been different if she’d had a sibling. Would he or she have had the Sight as well? Would she have had someone to share her troubles with? Or would they have disbelieved her as much as her parents had?
“Me too,” Lily said, quickly swallowing a mouthful of noodles. She flashed Cass a grin, a smear of soy sauce leaving a dark mark beneath her lower lip. “Two lonely only children.”
Involuntarily, Cass found herself smiling back at the girl. “When do you ever have a chance to get lonely?” she asked, handing her a napkin and gesturing to her chin. “You spend every waking moment hanging around my house.”
“I’m just keeping you company,” Lily said cheerfully, wiping her face and then taking another bite of stir-fry.
“Excuse me,” a small voice said then. Cass glanced up to see a redheaded girl who looked to be about Lily’s age. She looked vaguely familiar, and after a moment Cass remembered her as the girl who’d been behind them in line for the plastic boat race.
“Do you want to play horseshoes?” the girl asked Lily, her face red with embarrassment. “None of my sisters or brothers want to, and you have a lot of tokens…”
Cass glanced past the girl to see a gaggle of younger children, most of them also redheaded, accompanied by parents who looked frustratingly less exhausted from dealing with five kids than Cass did from dealing with one. “Years of practice,” Matthew’s voice echoed in her head.
“Sure!” Lily said eagerly, scooping up the token pile and jumping to her feet.
“Whoa, whoa, hang on a second,” Cass said, jumping to her feet as well. She smiled awkwardly at the girl before pulling Lily aside and crouching down to her level. “Do you know this girl?” she whispered.
“We raced boats earlier,” Lily replied. “She’s nice. When she was standing by me during the race, I heard some of her thoughts,” she admitted, sounding chagrined. “Even though she has brothers and sisters, she doesn’t have a lot of friends. She’s homeschooled, so most of my classmates don’t talk to her. She’s lonely, too.”
Cass squeezed her eyes shut. This was exactly what she was worried about. “Okay, remember what I told you before? Just because you can read some of a person’s thoughts doesn’t mean you know them. Also, you’re supposed to be trying not to read people’s thoughts, right?”
Lily let out a breath of annoyance and looked away. “I am trying,” she muttered.
Cass’s frown softened. “I know you are,” she said more gently. “You just need to be careful, okay? I know you saw Green here earlier. I don’t know where he went, but if you see him, you can’t talk to him in front of…” She glanced at the redheaded girl.
“Amelia,” Lily said.
“Right. Amelia. You can’t let her know about your… your friends.”
“Okay, okay.”
“I mean it, Lily!” Cass hissed.
“I understand!” Lily snapped back.
“Everything okay?” Matthew interrupted, coming over to the two of them.
Cass jerked upright. “Everything’s fine,” she said quickly. “I was just warning Lily… you know, stranger danger.”
Matthew laughed. “You’re really not used to small towns, are you? Don’t worry. Amelia’s family goes to my church. Lily will be fine with them.”
Cass sighed. “All right. But don’t leave the park, okay?” she said to Lily. “And come find me when it starts to get dark. I told your da
d I’d bring you home, remember?”
Lily nodded eagerly and raced over to where Amelia was waiting with her family. Cass watched them, silently praying that Lily really had been paying attention during their lessons.
“You and Lily seem close,” Matthew commented.
Cass shrugged. “She lives next door to me. And you know how her parents are. She’s starving for attention.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed,” Matthew said. “But I think it will be good for her to have friends her own age. And the Reynoldses seem to be a good family, but I’m sure Amelia would like to have other friends besides just the kids she sees at church youth group.”
“You’re right,” Cass admitted. If Amelia and Lily could become friends, it would be good for Lily—especially once Cass left Riddle. It would probably be fine as long as Lily kept her mouth shut about her Sight. The damage had been done with her classmates, but Amelia didn’t seem to know about those rumors. It could be a clean slate if Lily played it smart. “I guess I just don’t want her to get hurt.”
Matthew laughed. “You sound like a parent. Kids have a way of getting under your skin, don’t they?” Before Cass could come up with a retort to that, he said, “And now we’ve got the rest of the day to ourselves. I was thinking biergarten, how about you?”
Cass stood frozen in place, working her jaw soundlessly for a moment, her mind an absolute tangle between You sound like a parent and We’ve got the rest of the day to ourselves. Matthew seemed to have a singular talent for turning Cass into a tongue-tied mess.
Finally she just sighed and gave him a smile. “That sounds perfect,” she said.
Alexandra's Riddle (Northwest Magic Book 1) Page 9
