Page 28

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

I RAN TO GHALIYA AND made her sit down. “Let me see, let me see.” I had to see that the baby was alright.

“I’m…I think I’m okay,” Ghaliya whispered.

And I could see the shimmer of lines around her, flowing back into her.

My fear faded. I put my hand on her belly, knowing that this time, I could do more than comfort her. I felt the life within her, questing, confused. I wordlessly reassured it and felt it subside, contented.

I could also feel the minute tremble of the earth beneath me and looked around. Orrin Stonebrunch came toward us. He had reverted to his real appearance. His skin was blue once more, the ears elongated into long points, and his eyes glowed fiercely.

“The babe…” he said anxiously. He crouched and examined Ghaliya.

Ghaliya looked up at him and smiled. “She’s fine.”

“Yes,” Orrin said, with a slow nod. He rose to his feet and looked down at me, where I sat beside Ghaliya. “You will call upon me again. You will not wish to.”

While I tried to puzzle out his meaning, he turned and walked back to the crossroad. He moved around the now-dead bonfire, black ashes rising around his big boots, then across the open ground on the other side. He walked into the trees and disappeared.

Everyone was around us, all trying to reach Ghaliya at the same time to check on her. They were all babbling questions, talking over the top of each other.

Hands pulled me out of the way, and I shuffled backward on my hands and feet, crab-like, giving everyone room to reach Ghaliya.

But the hands lifted me, instead, and put me on my feet. Ben turned me around. His gaze ran over my face. He stepped back a half pace and examined me all the way down to my toes.

“I’m okay,” I said.

“You look…more than okay.” His voice was hoarse. He drew me to him and hugged me.

I let myself be hugged. It felt good. It felt heavenly.

“Hey,” someone croaked, behind me.

Ben let me go and I turned. Trevalyan, looking pale and trembling, stood with a hand against the door jamb, holding himself up. “What the hell did you do?” he asked me.

“She was amazing!” Ghaliya said, turning away from Olivia, who was trying to check her temperature.

“I was nearly too late,” I said, retrospective fear clogging my throat. “I froze, Trevalyan. I couldn’t think. If Harper hadn’t stepped in front of me—”

“Harper?” Trevalyan asked, his voice rising.

Everyone looked at Harper. She stood with us, just on the edges. She crossed her arms. “Automatic reaction,” she said. “I’m as surprised as you are.”

“And Orrin saved the Greenway,” I said, pulling everyone’s attention away from Harper, sparing her.

“I saw him smash the jug of beer and take off running…well, striding,” Hirom said. “Then he hammered Percy into the ground and kept running and the bonfire got in the way after that. I don’t know how Percy got up after that.”

“He wasn’t human,” I said, thinking of Harper’s knife slamming into his heart. “He took Harper’s iron blade up to the hilt and it didn’t do more than irritate him.”

“No, I would have felt it, if he was Otherworld,” Trevalyan said.

“No, no, I want to hear what Orrin did,” Hirom said. “He was here the whole time just to help?”

“Apparently,” Ben said.

“But…all the bad food…those eggs?” Trevalyan said, sounding peeved.

“I think you’ll find that all the rotten food and dead plants were Percy’s doing. The same with Hirom and Frida… Frida!” I whirled to look at the road. “I saw her land.”

“I’m here,” came the quiet response.

Everyone gasped. Frida moved along the sidewalk, and over to where we were all grouped under the light over the front door. She had scrapes on her cheek and her elbows.

Ben moved over to her. “How are you outside? Talking?”

“I am not the Frida you know, not right now,” she said. “Later, I will be, but not until I am inside.”

“She is the will of the town,” Juda said. “The town found a way to speak to us once more.”

Broch pointed at Juda. “You’d better do a lot of speaking, yourself.” He was furious. “There is no such thing as ghosts!” he added, almost shouting.

Juda smiled at him. “But there is such thing as jinns, my friend.”

“You were flesh and blood!” Broch cried.

“How do you think we fit into all those bottles and lamps?”

Trevalyan shook his head. “Myths! Fairytales!”

“With an underlying truth,” Juda said calmly. “Take my hand.” He held out his hand.

“You’ll grip nothing but air,” Trevalyan warned Broch.

Broch snatched at Juda’s hand. I heard the smack of flesh upon flesh. Then Broch’s knuckles whitened, as he stared at Juda. “Not possible,” he whispered.

“Says the vampire.” Juda made a tsking sound. “Are you holding as tight as you can?”

“Yes, damn you.”

Juda lifted his hand out of Broch’s grip. I saw his hand pass through Broch’s.

Broch snatched at it again, and this time, his hand passed through Juda’s.

“It takes a lot of energy to hold my human form,” Juda said. “Now that I have been released from that flesh.” He turned to me and bowed. “Thank you, Anna.”

“You were talking to me,” I whispered.

“The only way I could,” Juda said gravely. “The one you know as Percy was blocking me.”

“I’m sorry,” Trevalyan said. “But I’ve got to sit down before I fall down. Can we dissect all this in the bar?”

“But I still want to know about Orrin!” Hirom protested. “Firbolgs kill towns. They don’t save them.”

I looked at Frida. “Do you know why Orrin helped?”

Frida shook her head. “The big one cares only for the earth, not those who stand upon it.”

“She’s as cryptic as Stonebrunch ever was,” Trevalyan grumped.

“Who would have thought the milk of human kindness ran through his kind?” Olivia mused.

“They’re not human at all,” Harper said. “He only made himself look human. Firbolgs are wild, ancient things. And the milk of human kindness is bullshit. Selfless help is not a human thing. It doesn’t exist. No one does anything for selfless reasons.”

“I disagree,” I said. “Look at us. We survived Beltane because we helped each other.” I shot Harper a steady look. “Even Harper,” I added.

Someone laughed. It was a low chuckled. Then, abruptly, we were all laughing. If some of us shed tears as we laughed, everyone else was diplomatic enough to not mention it.

·

The next two days we spent mopping up the near disaster that had been Beltane. We farewelled guests, as the hotel emptied out around us. And we spent a lot of time figuring out answers to the hundreds of questions we had.

Our best source of answers was the least expected one: Juda.

We all sat around the locals’ table in the bar. Even Hirom came over and sat on the table beside ours to listen, while Juda revealed to us the tragedy that hid behind the facade called Percy Finch.

“I am older than this town,” Juda told us, the first morning we paused to listen to his story. He had warned us the tale was long and would take days to tell. “I remember when the English were fighting the French and New York was a colony of the British. This place was a camping glade, where people came for the fresh waters. I stopped and was caught by the will of what would be this town.”

“That’s not possible. I remember you arriving here,” Trevalyan said.

“You remember this form arriving,” Juda told him. “I have been many forms. I adapted as humans progressed.”

We watched his appearance change. He became a native American, dressed in deer skins, with feathers in his hair. He shifted to an upright British soldier in a red coat with brass buttons. Then a settler, with a fur hat. A man in a Victorian suit. A Great War soldier, a debonair Roaring Twenties Valentino, a Second World War Marine, a man in a pin-stripe suit with wide shoulders.

It was like watching history flip past us.

“Who are you?” Ghaliya asked. “Which appearance is truly you?”

Juda reverted to the appearance we had thought of as his. “This is the closest to my roots, to my nature,” he said. “I am most comfortable, here. But it was not an appearance I could use, until recently.”

“You’re a genie, then,” Trevalyan said. “How much of the myths is true?”

“Very little of it,” Juda said, with a smile. “Jinn families enjoy great good luck and good fortune throughout their lives. We cannot explain why.”

“Day trading…” Ben murmured and shook his head.

“Yes, indeed,” Juda said. “Because of our good luck, we long ago learned the pleasure of helping others. That is where part of the myths arose. When I came to this place, long before the first buildings were built, the will made itself known to me, and I wanted to help.” A shadow crossed over his features. “And I was trapped, then, for the will did not want to let me go. I was too useful.”

“It drove you mad,” I said.

“It was desperate,” Juda said. “It made a mistake.”

“Killing my mother was a mistake?”

“Yes,” Juda said. “But it did need you here. It would not tell me why. I could not discern its thoughts. I never have. Just its intentions, what it wanted me to do. And sometimes, it spoke through me—especially when the veil was thin.”

“Like last night,” Trevalyan concluded. He looked at Frida, who looked small, sitting in the barrel chair. “Now it has its hooks in Frida?”

“It has learned how weak humans are. It will not make the mistakes it made with me,” Juda said. “It waited to withdraw until Frida was inside.”

“It can empathize?”

“Or reason,” I said. “Perhaps that is enough for now.”

Frida gave me a small smile.

“Tell us about Percy,” I said to Juda. “You knew what he was, even while you were…” I grimaced.

“The flesh and blood body I was born in died,” Juda said. “That released me from the will of this town. It let me evolve into my true nature.”

“You all have to die to become real genies?” Trevalyan said.

“Not all of us evolve,” Juda said. “Perhaps I would not have, except for the danger than I felt enter the town. I have spent too long protecting it and that pulled me back.”

“The danger being Percy Finch?” Harper said. “He was pathetic.”

“He wanted us to think that,” I said. “And it worked.”

“I knew Percy Finch,” Juda said. “I knew him when he was called Lucien Harrow. That was before the first of the great wars began. He lived here.”

“In Haigton?” Olivia breathed. “Oh, dear.”

“In those days, the fae lived in the Otherworld with all of us,” Juda said. “It was before they formed their world and locked themselves away. I was here when Lucien killed one of their newborns.”

I gasped. So did everyone else.

“He murdered a baby?” Ghaliya breathed, her voice strained.

“He protested that it was an accident, but the fury of the fae was cold and ruthless,” Juda said. “The grieving fae cursed Lucien so he would forever feel the weight of his crime. I heard the curse put upon him, and I heard the cost of lifting the curse. Lucien didn’t understand what was happening. He was dazed and sick with guilt. I don’t think he heard any of what was said around him.” Juda paused, then recited: “Only a life blessed by moonlight and kissed by fire, at the hour of wild magic, may unbind what was wrought.”

“What was wrought on the sick bastard, beyond a long life he didn’t deserve?” Broch asked.

“Lucien learned that for himself the same day the curse was cast,” Juda said. “He went home and kissed his wife and patted the cheeks of his children. All of them withered and died.”

I swallowed. Everyone else was silent.

“Then Lucien learned that everything he touched, if he touched it long enough, would die. He drained the life of everything around him. He made people sick with a brush of his fingertips.”

“Food spoiled and plants died,” I added.

Juda nodded. “Lucien was beyond consolation. He tried to kill himself, but nothing he could do, or coax anyone else into doing to him worked. The fae intended that he live a long life to truly wallow in his misery.

“No one in the town wanted him in it. Even the will of the town wanted him gone. He was turned out to cope as well as he could in the world beyond these borders. Since then, Lucien has lived alone, always moving on because people grew suspicious when sickness followed him into town. He was cast out, stoned, and hung. Everyone turned away from him.”

“Gods…” Broch whispered.

“Why did he come back?” Trevalyan said.

Juda shook his head. “I can only guess this part. I think he learned how to lift the curse and unraveled its meaning. When he learned that, I don’t know. Perhaps years ago. But this year, he learned that a woman called Anna Crackstone had come to Haigton and that her daughter carried an unborn daughter of her own, all of them descendants of a long line of powerful witches and maybe…possibly…he could break the curse. And if he could not, then Anna would most certainly kill him for trying.”

Thank you . The words Percy Finch had mouthed at me before throwing himself on the bonfire.

I swallowed.

“Didn’t he…” Olivia began. She licked her lips. “I’m sorry, but he killed a child. Didn’t he perhaps deserve the curse?”

“It was an accident, he said,” Ben pointed out.

“It was accidental,” Juda said.

“How does someone accidentally kill a child?” Olivia demanded.

“A fae child, and all,” Hirom added.

I looked at Juda and lifted my brow.

“Lucien tried to cast a spell to make himself larger. Stronger. More handsome. He needed the pure life of a child to do it, but I don’t think he intended to take all of that life. And in the end, the spell did not work.”

I looked at Trevalyan. “He was cursed because he was using the spell for personal gain.”

Trevalyan shook his head. “What you do is different.”

“Using a power that no one else has, to make people change what they do…that’s what Jasper’s lawyers have been doing to me. It’s just wrong.”

Trevalyan didn’t flinch. “It’s the way things are. Your power comes at a cost. You’re starting to learn what that is. But only you could stop Percy. And you did, when you had to.”

“It wasn’t me,” I said.

Even Trevalyan looked surprised.

“I pulled the power from somewhere else.” I paused. “From the Finger.”

Trevalyan looked thoughtful. “A seeking spell?”

“I was lost. I needed help. I got it.”

Trevalyan blew out a long breath. “The finger is an ancient power, forgotten by the world. Right, Juda?”

“I did not meddle with it. The will of the town would not let me.”

“Too few understand the real power of the Finger, Anna,” Trevalyan said. “I have not dared tap into it. But you did, and you survived. If you think you were not strong enough to halt Percy, that fact alone proves you wrong.”

I opened my mouth to refute him. Then I closed it again.

“Damn,” Broch said. He pointed to the mantelshelf. “That’s why Percy shook my hand.”

“Because he liked aloe vera?” Harper said, amused.

“We are both undead,” Broch said. “I couldn’t register him. No one could. He couldn’t register me. He was trying to use touch to figure out what I am. The aloe vera did burn his palm. It’s a healing, positive thing.”

“Why didn’t it burn through your hand, bloodsucker?” Harper asked sweetly.

Broch considered. “Because I’m a changed man?”

Everyone laughed.

·

There were more stories to tell. More questions to be answered, but they weren’t all answered that day.

I lost my kitchen team, for we were back to only nine people who needed calories. I went back to charging them for the meals, too. On the first morning I prepped breakfast alone, Harper strolled into the kitchen. She silently washed her hands and picked up a knife from the block, stood beside me and chopped the mushrooms, while I finished the onions and garlic.

I had moved on to the eggs and was scrambling them when I felt Harper’s gaze on me. I looked up.

“Thanks,” she said.

I thought of the way she had stepped between me and Percy. “I think I’m the one who should be saying that.”

She considered. “Not from where I stand.”

“Okay then. Pass the mushrooms, will you? And could you grind coffee?”

We got on with the meal.

●

I had my own sorting-out to do.

I found Trevalyan in his kitchen, pounding some poor herb into powder. “Tarragon?” I guessed.

“Do you care?”

“Yes.”

He considered me. “Hissop.” His voice wasn’t wavering like usual. It was just grumpy.

I leaned back against the side counter. “I get it now.”

He dropped the pestle into the stone bowl. “Get what?”

“Percy. Lucien Harrow. He’s a perfect case in point. You know that, right?”

Trevalyan pushed his glassed back into place. “Pretend I don’t know.”

“He tried to use power for personal gain. I mean, originally. When he killed the fae child. Everything that happened to him after that was a consequence of that first mistake. All through time, right up until the bonfire, the other night.”

“Guess he learned, huh?” Trevalyan picked up the pestle once more.

“It isn’t the same. That’s what you kept trying to tell me and I didn’t get it until Beltane. I got it mixed up. I kept thinking that using magic against people who don’t have power was cheating. But that’s not the way it works, is it?”

Trevalyan waved the pestle over the bowl, as if he was considering his answer. He looked up. “You tell me.”

I nodded. The perfect teacher response. “It’s the reason why you use the power that makes the difference. You said it was a matter of survival, but everything anyone does comes down to that in the end. You have to look at the higher order. I used a location spell to find the thumbdrive, but that was to help Harper and the town get rid of the feds. And at Beltane, I used…I massively overused the power of the Finger to stop Percy, because he was hurting my daughter and her child.”

Trevalyan drew in a breath. Let it out. The corner of his mouth curled up. Just a little.

“I was lucky,” I said flatly. “I had half a clue about what I was doing, and managed to find a way to fix things. I’m almost certain there were other ways I could have managed it. Other ways you would have dealt with Percy, if it had been you.”

“No one knows if my way would have worked. Yours did. That’s enough.”

“No, it’s not nearly enough. I bumbled around and I jagged it. If something like this happens again, I won’t be as lucky.”

“This is Haigton,” Trevalyan said. “Chances are good something like this will happen again.”

“I don’t want to be blindly groping for options, when it does.”

Trevalyan nodded and used the pestle to grind down more of the hissop. “What do you want to do about that?”

I pushed my hands into my jeans. “I’ve got some time after lunch today. Want to watch me sort leaves?”

·

The next day, Ben stepped into the kitchen as I was preparing lunch. He waited out of the way at the end of the worktable, for me to look up and pay proper attention.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hi, yourself.”

“I’m not here to talk.”

“But you’re talking.”

He smiled. “I think…it’s more of a warning.”

“Uh oh.” I put the knife down.

“Axel King.”

My mind leapt guiltily to the moment King had his arms around me, in the parking lot. “What about him?” I said stiffly.

“He likes you. A lot.”

“Liked. He’s gone.”

“He’ll be back.”

I stared at him. “He has no reason to come back.”

“He has just one. You.”

I shivered. “Why are you warning me? You want me to raise the drawbridge or something?”

“I think if anyone could do that with Haigton, you could,” Ben said. Then he shook his head. “He’s a federal agent, Anna. He’s an investigator. He likes puzzles. He’ll come back here because you’re here, but he’ll say it’s the town that brings him.”

There’s something about this town ….

“We can’t have human authorities studying us too closely,” Ben added.

“No, we can’t,” I said softly.

“Well…” He swiped at the steel surface.

“I have to get lunch finished.”

“Yes, of course.” He straightened.

“But afterward, I have a little time. Maybe we could risk a cup of Hirom’s coffee and kill off a few stomach cells together?”

Ben smiled.

·

On the fifth day after Beltane, Ghaliya went into labor. She was carrying a pot of coffee from the bar to the locals table but stopped with a gasp halfway across the floor. The coffee pot smashed on the floorboards and mingled with the fluids dripping from Ghaliya, as she looked down with astonishment.

“Oh, the baby is on the way!” Olivia squealed, bouncing to her feet. “I’ll get the car!” She raced out of the bar.

I hurried over to Ghaliya. “Your water broke.” I was smiling. I couldn’t help it.

“I’ll get my bag!” Trevalyan cried, hurrying to the door.

“It’s just water,” Ghaliya told me. “It feels like I’ve peed my pants, but I can’t stop it.”

“See you there!” Broch announced and strode for the side door.

“The contractions will start soon now,” Ben said, coming up to us. He took Ghaliya’s arm. “I have a whole delivery ward just waiting for you.”

“You do?” Ghaliya said, startled.

He nodded. “In the house behind mine. Wim sterilized the whole house—he can smell bacteria.”

I had a feeling Ben was not speaking metaphorically. “Come on, sweetheart. Olivia will drive you around to the house and we’ll help you inside.”

“I’m not an invalid!”

“No, you’re having a baby,” Ben told her.

“A baby!” Juda repeated from the locals’ table. “What can I do?” He lifted his finger. “I’ll go and find out.” And he disappeared.

“I’ve got her, Anna,” Ben told me.

I let Ghaliya go, and Ben guided her to the door.

I did a slow turn on one heel. The entire bar was empty. Even Hirom had disappeared. Only Frida remained, curled up on the corner of the window seat.

I went over to her. “I’m sorry you can’t join us. It seems like the whole town will be over at the house.”

Frida waved toward the puddle of water and coffee on the floor and mimed mopping motions.

“That would be a good idea,” I told her. I watched Olivia’s tank of a car roll slowly down the street, carrying Ghaliya to her delivery bed. I’d join them in a minute. First deliveries always took longer.

My gaze fell upon the crossroad, where the soot and ash of the bonfire lingered in a dark, round circle. “The town thought something was coming, and it did come. Lucien Harrow returned. That should be the end of it. Am I right?” I turned my head to look at Frida. “It’s just you and me,” I added.

Frida studied me for a moment. “It’s not the end,” she said. “This is just the beginning. I brought you here because you will be needed before the end.”

I shivered. “You have to stop hurting people,” I whispered. “No one will help you if you do. Not even me.”

“If you do not help, then you are all doomed.”

Then Frida blinked and shook her head. She hopped up, making mopping motions, and headed for the cleaning closet in the hallway.