“Because I’m a doorkeeper,” I said without thinking. “It’s my job to open the door. If the Grove closes it forever …” I thought of Soheila and Diana being forced to choose between this world and Faerie. I thought of Liz growing old and dying without the benefit of Aelvesgold. I thought of never seeing Liam again … which shouldn’t matter because I’d already made my peace with not seeing him again. So why did my whole body feel like it had been hollowed out? I think it was that hollowness that Lura saw in my eyes, perhaps because it was the same emptiness I’d seen in hers.
She nodded, spit again, tossed the stone up in the air, and caught it. My eyes followed its progress like a dog watching a bone. She tossed the stone to me. I wasn’t the best catch in the world (Annie used to call me Butterfingers when we played softball together), but I snatched the stone out of the air as if I were baseball great Roger Maris catching a flyball. As if I had known it was coming. As if it belonged to me.
“See if that don’t give you enough power to hold the door open,” she said. “See if it don’t open up a whole passel of doors for you. Some of the doors,” she added with a wicked grin, “you just might want closed again.”
CHAPTER TEN
BEFORE I LEFT, Lura gave me a flannel cloth to wrap around the Aelvestone. “Don’t touch it anymore than you have to,” she warned. “It gives great strength, but at a price.” It was exactly what Liz had told me.
I looked closely at Lura as she stood beside my car in the late afternoon sunlight. She was staring at my right rear tire, stuck in a pothole. Her hair, which had seemed momentarily golden inside the house, was dull grey again, her face even more ancient looking than when I’d first seen her. The Aelvestone had given her youth – and something else.
“That’s how you were able to carry me out of the river,” I said. “You used the Aelvestone to give yourself strength.”
In answer she bent down and hooked a tiny hand around my rear bumper. She lifted the entire chassis to the left to clear the pothole. She let it down – a little less gently than was likely to be good for my suspension system – and straightened up, arching her back until it cracked.
“Ah,” she said, “I haven’t used Aelvesgold in over twenty years. I’d forgotten how it felt … It’s probably added a few months onto my life, but I’ll pay for it. Remember that. Only use as much as you have to.”
I told her I would and promised that I’d do my best to stop the Grove from closing the door. I started to thank her for saving my life but she spat on the ground and waved me away. Maybe half-undines didn’t like to be thanked anymore than brownies did.
I drove back home slowly, concentrating on the curving backcountry roads in the gathering dusk. I probably shouldn’t have driven so soon after the blow to my head, but I didn’t have much choice. I certainly was not going to stay in Lura’s house – even if she had asked me.
The sight of my own freshly painted, squared, and trim house made me sigh with relief. I’d bought it impetuously and had had cause enough to regret the decision since then, but right now I was grateful that I had such a welcoming home.
When I opened the front door and knocked over a tin pot full of water, soaking the mail lying on the foyer floor, the relief quickly evaporated. I’d forgotten about the leaks. I had to find someone to fix them before my house started to look like Lura’s. Just the thought of those peeling walls and crumbling ceilings made me feel cold and damp – and my dress smelled suspiciously of cat pee, which Ralph confirmed when he sniffed me. Wrinkling his nose, he disappeared into the hall closet (where he liked to sleep inside my shearling lined winter boots).
Ugh! I couldn’t blame him. I picked up the bucket and the wet mail and carried them both into the kitchen, sticking the bucket in the sink and spreading the damp mail out on the kitchen table to dry – bills and fliers, mostly, which I could deal with later. What I needed now was a hot bath and bed. I’d rest up tonight and then tomorrow I’d call Liz and tell her that I’d found enough Aelvesgold to power the circle. Heck, I thought unwrapping the stone from Lura’s piece of flannel as I climbed the back stairs, this stone could power a dozen spell circles and heal Ann Chase’s daughter. When I reached my bedroom I stood by the window and held the stone under my desk lamp, feeling a pleasurable tingle in my hand. Instantly I felt less cold and tired. But Lura had warned me to use it as little as possible. Regretfully, I wrapped it back in the flannel (the same tartan plaid as the shirt she’d worn, I noticed) and slipped it into one of the little pigeon-hole drawers in the built-in desk. I kept an assortment of tokens in those drawers – shells and stones, a fairy stone my father had given me, a piece of broken willow pattern china, which Liam had brought back from one of his rambles. I took out the china shard, recalling Liam’s habit of bringing little tokens – stones and birds’ nests, pine cones and dried flowers – home from his walks. The house had seemed full of his spirit when he’d lived here …
Now the house felt empty. By banishing Liam, I’d rid the house of the spirit of the incubus who’d haunted Honeysuckle House for over a century. Dahlia LaMotte had struck a sort of truce with the incubus in the years she’d lived and written here, allowing him back into the house periodically. By studying her notebooks I’d figured out that she used her interaction with the incubus to fuel her writing. He was her muse. But when he had served her purpose, she would banish him back to the Borderlands.
I opened another drawer – the only one which had been locked when I moved in – and took out the iron key I’d found there. It matched the one that I’d used to free Liam from his manacles. At some point long ago, Dahlia had locked the key away. She had broken her tie with the incubus.
Surely I had broken my tie with Liam when I unlocked his manacles and left the key behind in Faerie. But then why did the place on my breastbone where the key had lain feel as empty as my house?
And how much emptier would my life be if the Grove was able to close the door and my friends chose to leave Fairwick.
Feeling rather desolate, I got up from my desk, checked the drawer where I’d put the Aelvestone just to make sure I remembered where it was, then went into the bathroom to run a much needed bath. I put in the plug and turned on the hot water tap all the way. I’d learned that there was just enough hot water in the boiler to fill up the massive claw foot tub. The water would start to cool when the tub was about half full and then mix with the hot, attaining the perfect temperature by the time the tub was filled. I’d thought of buying a bigger water tank – Brock had said that the one I had was pretty old and would need to be replaced eventually – but it seemed like a needless expense when the only one using the hot water was me.
While the bath filled I peeled off my grimy and odiferous dress, dropped it into the sink, ran water and added scented shampoo to get the smell out. I brushed my hair, working out the tangles – and a few twigs – and rubbed in a little jojoba oil to condition it. I added some to the bathwater as well. Seeing Lura’s wrinkled skin – even if she did look damned good for a hundred – had reminded me of the necessity of moisturizing.
When the bath was full I turned off the tap and, with a shivery sense of anticipation, stepped in … to ice cold water. Squealing, I plucked my foot out so quickly I teetered and nearly fell. Another opportunity to crack my skull, I thought, grabbing my robe and wrapping it around me. I studied the taps and turned the one clearly marked hot. More ice cold water poured into the tub.
Something was wrong with the hot water heater.
I put on flip flops and stormed down the stairs, my rubber heels slapping angrily as if they were mad at the house, not me. Why did it have to pick now to misfunction? I knew Brock had kept the old place in pristine condition, but was it really so sensitive that it had to start falling apart the minute Brock wasn’t here?
By the time I reached the basement stairs I’d calmed down a little. It was petty of me to make a fuss about some minor home repair problem when Brock lay in a deathlike coma, his spirit struggling in the ic
y fogs of Niflheim.
I remained calm, even when the basement light didn’t switch on. The bulb had burned out since I’d last gone into the basement – which wasn’t all that often. Truth be told, I hated the basement. It had a dirt floor and stone walls – a good solid stone foundation, Brock said – and many, many spiders. The only times I ever went down there were when one of the fuses went out or the one time I’d forgotten to refill the oil tank (who knew you had to order heating oil?) and the man from the oil company had had to “reprime the pump.” Whatever that meant.
I grabbed a light bulb from the pantry and headed down, keeping one hand on the stone wall beside the staircase to keep my balance. I didn’t need anymore falls. I went slowly down the stairs and stepped into several inches of water.
At least it wasn’t cold.
Resisting the urge to sit on the stairs and weep, I screwed the old bulb out of the overhead socket and screwed in the new bulb. The bulb burst into light and lit up the basement in garish detail. I’d hoped somehow that the puddle I was standing in would be the worst of it, but in fact the bit I stood in was high dry ground compared to the rest of the basement. The ground sloped down from where I stood and water covered the entire surface. The furnace and hot water heater were in several feet of water.
Which probably explained why the hot water heater wasn’t working. I scanned the murky surface of the water as if I might find a plug I could pull to make it all go away. Instead I noticed a dead cockroach bobbing on a current heading my way.
Shuddering, I backed up the stairs, afraid that if I turned my back something might rise out of the water to grab me, all the way to the kitchen. Then I closed the door on the mess and sat down at my kitchen table and gave in to the urge to weep.
I had a good ten-minute cry. I threw in all the bad things I could think of. I was alone in an ancient house that was falling apart. Brock was never coming back to fix it and that was my own damned fault. No one was coming to fix it. Certainly not Liam because I didn’t love him. I probably wasn’t capable of love. My friends were all going to leave me and go back to Faerie. I was going to grow old all alone while my house decayed and fell apart around me until it looked like Lura’s house and I looked as shriveled and dried up as Lura.
And smelled as bad as her.
I already smelled like cat pee.
I surprised myself by making a weird sound. Something between a burp and a hiccup. It burbled up out of me twice more before I realized that I was laughing.
The cat pee had done it. In our teens I had gone with Annie to visit her Nonna in her 5th floor walk-up on Elizabeth Street. Afterwards, Annie had made me promise that if she ever took to keeping multiple cats and smelling like pee I’d put her out of her misery. I’d only promised on the condition she’d do the same for me. I considered calling Annie and telling her I’d gotten there. I might not have a cat, but I did have a pet mouse, who had crept in while I was crying and was rooting around in the wet mail. He nosed a robin’s egg blue flier into my lap. I picked it up and read: “Handyman Bill! For all your household needs – no repair too big or too small. Plumbing, masonry, roof repair – you name it, it fits the Bill!”
I snorted. “Let’s hope his handyman skills are better than his punditry,” I remarked to Ralph, picking up the phone. I got a garbled voicemail message. I left my name and number and told Handyman Bill I had a basement full of water and a leaking roof and would he please get back to me as soon as possible. Then I hung up and tried three plumbers listed in the phone book. None of them picked up. They must be all out draining other people’s basements after yesterday’s rain.
Disgusted, and sick of my own smell, I boiled some hot water in the electric kettle and brought it upstairs with one of the plastic basins I’d used last night to catch drips. I mixed the hot into the cold water until it was the right temperature. Then I took a sponge bath. It wasn’t as satisfying as a soak in the tub, but at least I didn’t smell as much anymore. Which meant I wasn’t as bad as Annie’s Nonna or Lura Trask. I wasn’t rich but I had enough money to hire people to fix the house – just until Brock came back. And he was coming back. I’d make sure of that, just as I’d make sure the door remained open so that my friends wouldn’t have to go back to Faerie forever. To reassure myself, I checked on the Aelvestone again. I took it out of its flannel covering and held it in my hands for a moment. Surely there could be no harm in that. Its warmth coursed up my arms and spread through my chest. A sense of well-being suffused my body. It was better than a Xanax! With this much Aelvesgold, I’d be able to help Brock and keep the Grove from closing the door. With this much Aelvesgold, I was capable of anything! Ann Chase wouldn’t have to choose between helping her daughter and curing her arthritis. Liz would never have to grow old and die – no one would ever have to grow old and die! The possibilities were endless … but for right now I’d better put it away. Both Liz and Lura had said it was dangerous to handle it too often.
Reluctantly I wrapped the stone back in its cloth and put it back in its drawer. I still felt its warmth radiating through my body as I crawled into bed. I hugged the delicious sensation to my bones and fell into a deep sleep …
And straight into Faerie, as if there were a trap door beneath my bed that led directly to that grassy bank beneath the willow tree where Liam lay waiting for me, his bare flesh awash in the golden light of Aelvesgold.
“Am I really here in Faerie or is this a dream?” I asked.
“Is there a difference?” he replied, drawing me down beside him. I was naked, too, and drenched in the same golden light. We lay side by side, not quite touching, but joined by the same golden light. “It’s one of the gifts of Aelvesgold – it links true lovers together no matter how far apart.”
I snorted. “You’re making that up.”
He laughed, a deep throaty sound that made the willow branches tremble and something deep in my belly tremble too. He lifted his hand over my breastbone, holding it about an inch above my skin. I felt golden light caress my skin. He moved his hand, over one breast and then another, the Aelvesgold running like warm syrup over my skin. “Am I making this up?” he asked. “Are you telling me you can’t feel the connection between us?”
He moved his hand lower, swirling the hot syrup in spirals around my belly. It pooled in my navel and dripped between my legs. When it reached the cleft between my legs, I moaned and arched my back.
“Yes, I feel it,” I moaned, rolling over and straddling him. “Why haven’t we done this before?” I asked, riding the gold wave and coming down on him. “Why don’t we do this forever?” The gold light moved with me, a wave of heat that lifted me up and then down onto him. I guided him inside me and that heat pushed up into my core. I looked down but the light had grown so bright, so dazzling, that I couldn’t make out his face.
“Liam?” I cried, as he rocked into me, our bodies moving as if controlled by some external force. “Liam, is it really you?”
In answer, he drew my head down to his. Through the glare I saw his eyes: black with specks of green, as they’d appeared when I’d met him in Faerie. “Who else would it be, lass?” he whispered as the gold light began to spread inside me. I felt it filling me up and then it burst, encircling us both in a golden corona of pure pleasure.
“Ah,” Liam’s voice crooned in my head. “That’s why we can’t do this forever, love. We would never want to wake up.”
I collapsed beside him, onto a bed of velvety moss. “What’s wrong with that?” I asked, gasping sweet draughts of air. He turned to me and I could just make out his lips smiling through the golden haze.
“You’ll lose yourself in the Aelvesgold,” he told me. “Here.” He took my hand in his and pressed something into it. When I opened the hand I saw that I held the Aelvestone.
“How …?”
“You’d better put it someplace safe,” he told me. “Lock it up. Or you’ll lose it … and lose yourself.”
I felt its pulse in my hand, like the heart of a tr
apped animal trying to escape. I closed my hand around it, but that only made it beat harder. It was beating so hard, I heard it pounding.
I turned back to Liam, but he was fading, melting into the golden haze of Faerie.
“Don’t go!” I cried, but he was vanishing in a blaze of light so bright I had to close my eyes against the glare. When I was at last able to open them I found myself in my room in Honeysuckle House. Watery green light struggled through the windows. I blinked at it, confused, unable to tell if it was morning or night. I felt as though I’d just gone to sleep. The time I’d spent making love to Liam couldn’t have been more than an hour …
I heard pounding. I opened my hand, looking for the Aelvestone Liam had given me in my dream, but my hand was empty.
The noise was coming from downstairs. For a moment I had the confused impression that the Aelvestone was knocking at my front door, but then realized that was ridiculous.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed. My limbs felt watery and weak. I stood up … and noticed I was naked. Hadn’t I worn a nightgown to bed? Yes, there it was, crumpled in a ball on the floor along with a discarded blanket. I walked to my dresser and pulled on shorts and a t-shirt. Then I walked downstairs, half hoping that my visitor would be gone by the time I got to the door. Who would be bothering me so early in the morning?
A glance at the clock in the foyer told me it was twenty after ten.
Oh.
I swung the door open eagerly and suppressed a sigh of disappointment. A man in a navy blue sweatshirt and baseball cap pulled low over his eyes stood with shoulders hunched, holding a clipboard up to shield himself from a funnel of water cascading through the porch roof.
“Yes?” I asked irritably. He was probably collecting signatures for some local political cause or come to read a meter.
“Cal … Leach Mac Fay?” he said, butchering my name.
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