"Holy crap!" I swallowed my racing heartbeat. This sneaking-up thing of hers was getting really annoying. I turned to look at her and found her next to my shoulder, holding a cup of coffee, staring down at me with her green eyes. God, she looked alive. It was as if she'd been a black and white photo, and now suddenly color was blooming into her. It scared the crap out of me.
Suddenly I didn't feel
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so bad for putting the Granna concoction on my parents' shoes and leaving hers unprotected.
Delia leaned over my shoulder and read the screen. It was a frilly website called "The Fairy Patch," with lists of plants that would attract faeries to your garden. The part I was reading was talking about how the midsummer solstice thinned the veil between the human world and the faerie world. The site recommended putting out saucers of milk and burning thyme to encourage optimal faerie visitation. Without success, I had tried to imagine the goat-faerie--or better yet, Aodhan--lapping up milk like a tame kitten. Where did they come up with this crap?
Delia laughed. "What else have you got there?"
I contemplated making a run for it with the laptop, but instead I flinched away and let her reach over the top of my hand to click through the other open windows. Her eyes scanned the ballad of Thomas the Rhymer--stolen away by the Faerie Queen and given a tongue that could not lie--
and then moved to the website with the definition of "gallowglass": a hired mercenary in ancient Irish history. Her eyes reflected the square of the monitor as she read. When she'd finished, she stepped back.
"I suppose you're going to tell me it's for a school project I don't know why that scared me so badly, but it did. It somehow stepped over the line of hinted-at strangeness to out-and-out malevolence. I considered my words carefully. "I think that would be like you telling me that you hadn't met Luke before the music competition."
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Delia paused; it was her turn in this verbal chess match. "I think I have a promising search for your school project." She leaned over me again, placed the cursor in the search engine box, and typed "how to free hostages." She hit enter with a manicured nail.
I stared at the list of news articles and blog postings and remembered Delia handing me the phone earlier that day. She'd known what had happened to James, hadn't she? And then she'd called his house to make sure I found out.
"He must be very badly hurt," Delia said to the room in general. "I heard there was a tremendous amount of blood. If he's still alive, he must not have much time."
I wanted to close my eyes and ears, shut out her voice, pretend that in my increasingly weird life at least the diva aunt stayed the same. "What are you saying?"
Delia held out her hand. "Why don't you give me Granna's ring?"
I blinked up at her, jolted out of my bewilderment by the request. "No, I don't think so. Granna wanted me to have it."
"And it belongs with her now."
"I said no."
Delia's hand snaked out and grabbed my wrist with surprising force; I gasped with pain as she gripped the ring with her other hand and ripped it off, tugging the skin up with it. She threw my wrist away from her and shoved the ring in her pocket. I stared up at her, the presence of Luke's key burning against my skin, hidden by the collar of the
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light sweater I wore, afraid that she would somehow divine its existence and rip it from me as well.
"Now, you're going for a walk," she said, gesturing to the door that lead outside.
"Are you out of your mind?" I jumped up and retreated toward the living room, regretting that I'd chosen Dad's study for my research. I guess I should have run faster, but I couldn't shake the image of her as just my bossy aunt. "Mom!"
Delia grabbed my arm again, her fingers iron clamps. "She can't hear you."
I twisted and writhed, my skin burning under her grasp. "What do you get out of this?"
"Oh, don't tell me you're that stupid." Delia dragged me unceremoniously toward the French doors. I should have been able to escape from her grasp, but her body was wiry and unyielding beneath her pink velour armor. It reminded me of the endless Cops episodes I'd watched at Granna's, where they'd said people on highs had inhuman strength. "You've put everything else together, haven't you?"
And just like that, everything snapped neatly into place. The room in Granna's house where Delia had nearly died. The wet feet on Mom's bed. Rye, the faerie hound, who had been in the family before I was born. This had started a long, long time before me. "Your life. They saved your life."
"Don't forget the best part," Delia said, and she sang a perfect scale in the pristine voice that had netted her a record deal. "Do you think this voice was mine?"
I whispered, "It was Mom's, wasn't it?"
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She shoved me hard, reaching for the door handle, and I moved to brace myself against the glass.
Too late, I saw that the glass door was already open, and that she'd been reaching for the screen door handle instead. She'd shoved me so hard that I felt the screen give way and tear beneath my weight. I crashed down onto the brick patio, my head striking the ground. My vision throbbed and I gasped, "What do you want from me?"
Delia stared down at me, her eyes hard and glittering. "I just want you gone."
She slammed the glass door; I heard the lock snick shut. I groaned, sitting up slowly, pulling my bare feet close to my body.
