Rachel walks to the front door. “Who’s ready for cake?”
The conversation ends abruptly and the merriment continues. Dougal and Mercia return to the porch, still chatting, hands accidentally grazing, secret smiles being shared. It’s sweet to see Dougal’s rough edges smoothed out.
“Isn’t Holland going to be annoyed because you’re spending so much time here?” Rachel asks as she licks a drop of frosting from her thumb.
Mercia shrugs.
“I don’t think I can handle her wrath,” Rachel says.
“In all honesty, I think Holland is glad I’m not around her place as much anymore. She remembers more than she wants to admit, and she knows I remember what she did,” Mercia says. “Suits me, too.”
Rachel grins. “Oh, really? Pray tell why?”
“Och! Ye can stop playin’ dumb, Rach,” Dougal says. “Ye know why.”
“Do I, though?” Rachel snickers.
Orion says something in Gaelic to Dougal, which makes the Scotsman blush. He laughs, earning a brusque response.
“Don’t make me put a no-Gaelic sign up,” Mrs. Crenshaw mutters, picking at crumbs on her blanket.
“Why don’t you tell us about you and Orion instead?” Mercia says, leaning back in her chair. Game, set, match.
Rachel’s humor fades. She’s been keeping Orion at arm’s length with good reason. There’s no telling how he’ll react when he finds out she’s related to Misty Robins.
Their eyes meet, and she feels like she’s falling from the bell tower all over again. Rachel doesn’t want to lose this yet. She doesn’t want him to hate her now. He peers at her through his long, dark eyelashes, seeming to want an answer as much as Mercia does.
“What about me?” Mrs. Crenshaw comes to Rachel’s rescue. “Nobody’s asked me if I met a rich gentleman during my hospital visit.”
Dougal’s eyes widen. “Surely, ye haven’t, Nan.”
“Ha!” Mrs. Crenshaw barks a laugh. “You underestimate me, Dougal. One day, I might just bring you a new granddaddy home.”
Dougal visibly shudders, which brings about another bout of laughter.
For the first time in what feels like forever, Rachel decides to forget about everything that’s happened in the past and whatever troubles the future may bring, and simply focus on the present. Today is a gift, after all.
Ziggy greets her as she arrives at home, zooming this way and that, conveying his excitement by blinking dull gold. Rachel giggles as she tickles the Fae light’s surface, the sphere’s flashes turning to ripples.
“I told you to come along. Mrs. Crenshaw would’ve enjoyed seeing you,” she says, ignoring the loneliness that clings to every piece of furniture and wraps the entire place in gloom.
She could have asked Mercia to sleep over another night, could have embraced her inner-vixen and even brought Orion home with her, or she could have stayed the night across the road. But she doesn’t have the strength to fake her way through another round of questions. Every time someone asks her if she’s okay, she wants to throttle them.
No, she’s not fine. Nobody would be all right after being stalked by a serial killer and then being abandoned by the only mother they ever knew. Nothing about her is fine or okay or all right. She smiles and acts like she can’t be fazed, because she doesn’t want to relive those moments for the rest of her life. She’s too grateful she’s alive. Too happy to have Mrs. Crenshaw back where she belongs.
Rachel locks the front door behind her, throws the keys into the bowl on the side-table, and kicks off one shoe. Ziggy shoots toward the staircase, taking along his light.
“Hold on, Zigs.” Rachel hops forward as she takes off her other shoe.
Ziggy waits until she’s caught up before ascending to the second-story at a gradual pace.
Rachel takes off her jacket and tosses it onto the swivel chair in her bedroom. She slumps down on the edge of her bed as Ziggy plays around her.
“Not tonight,” she says, inhaling deeply through her nose. “I’m worn out.”
Ziggy settles down on the emoji pillow as Rachel leans forward, reaching down between her legs, her fingertips searching beneath the bed for the keepsake box she keeps hidden there. After a few anxious seconds, she touches the autumn leaves decoupage that covers the exterior of the shoe box. She pulls the box out into the open and lifts the lid, sets it aside on the bed. Rachel picks up the card lying at the very top of all her collected memories, and reclines, reciting the words out loud without needing to read the card:
I was born into the Court of Light, but;
My world is cast in perpetual gray.
Shadows are my friends, and;
Darkness will be my legacy.
—Nova
Oh, how she relates to that. Now more than ever.
Ziggy flashes once beside her, and she lazily looks his way.
“You don’t approve of my reading material?” Rachel asks in a humorless tone.
There’s hesitation before Ziggy rolls closer and nestles into her side, dimming ever so slightly.
“I’m not depressed, Zigs.” Rachel absently tickles Ziggy’s surface, staring at the card she knows by heart. “Orion isn’t going to take the news well. On the other hand, revealing my heritage will probably help him to make up with Nova. So, there’s a bright side to the whole situation.”
Ziggy doesn’t respond.
“What do you think Nova means with this poem, huh? Is it some kind of admission of his allegiance with the Miser Fae?”
Ziggy shoots away without reason, hovers near her bedroom door, and the gold fades away until he’s a nuclear blinding light.
“What the—?” Rachel sits upright, blinking in surprise. “Ziggy?”
The Fae light becomes an anamorphous blob, suspended in the air.
“Zigs,” she repeats, throwing her legs off the bed. “What’s the matter? What’s happening to you?”
Suddenly, a small creature runs into her room, disregarding the Fae light completely, and slides to a stop in front of her feet. The knocker—the kind of faeries that mostly live underground in mines and sewers—huffs air and pushes his graying hair out of his face. She hasn’t seen this one before. He is older, and looks somewhat
