“Oh, now you’re comparing me to a deer?” I snap grumpily.
“Well there is a doe-like quality to those emerald beauties.”
“What kind of deer has green eyes?” I snort.
“Haven’t you seen them? Strictly native to Michigan. They’ve gotta blend into all of this greenery,” she winks one Kohl lined eye at me.
I give her a shove, “Oh, shut up,” I say, but my hearts not in it.
“Do you hear what I’m saying, though? No parent would want their kid to sacrifice themselves for something that they died trying to save them from.”
“Yeah, well no kid should have to go through losing their parents either.”
“At least you didn’t know him. You don’t know what you’re missing that way.”
I sigh guiltily, kicking myself mentally for my idiocy. “I’m sorry,” I apologize. “You have a point, though. But don’t you see why I have to do this? I don’t want us to be on separate sides. Please.”
“I suppose,” she gives in. “You know I won’t be able to live with myself if you get hurt, right?”
“I know.” I feel the same way about her; I know it all too well.
“So how are we going to find out about him? We don’t know this guy’s name let alone what kind of freaky cult he’s involved in. I mean, how are we supposed to find him?”
“I don’t know. The Internet? There’s gotta be some kind of public records. The police had to have had some sort of lead as to who it was who killed my dad, right? I’m sure of it. Cameras from a building nearby when it happened?”
“Sure,” she agreed. “It wasn’t that long ago, so there has to be something. But as for the Internet, I’m not sure how much help that would be. They wouldn’t have some fan page advertising that they kill Faeries. I mean, who would believe that?”
“I’d ask myself the same question. . .”
“What about your mom?”
“What about her?” I ask.
“Well, she has to know something. They were married after all.”
“People keep secrets,” I say disbelief coloring my tone as I think of how normal my mom is. “She could not know anything about any of this.”
“True, but you can always ask, right?”
I nod. But my mind is telling me that if my mother knew about this all this time and she hasn’t told me then what kind of person does that say she is? How can you keep something like that away from your own flesh and blood? Let them believe that your father was an ordinary man when really, he wasn’t. Not in the slightest bit. My chest constricts just thinking about it.
We fall into silence, listening to the waves lap against the pier and the calls of the gulls up in the air as they circle and dive for the unlucky fish swimming about. The sun is still low on the horizon, a burning ball of orange-yellow in a sea of colors. The chatter of people stirs me out of my reverie, making their way down the beach towards us.
“Uh-oh, looks like our time is up,” Maggie’s glance slews over to the approaching crowd of tourists. “Guess it was good while it lasted.” We get up, brushing off our shorts, and go back the way we came.
11. Answers and QuestionsLater that night I’m alone at my house. I can’t sleep. My mom is at work. I have to wait til morning so I can ask her the questions that will surely undo us. I know it’s pointless to call her cell phone. She hardly ever answers it at her job. I can’t bring myself to leave a message. That sort of thing should be taken care of in person, not over voice mail. She never likes talking about my dad, anyways. It dredges up unpleasant memories of him. Now, at least, I can understand her reasoning behind that. But it doesn’t mean that her keeping it from me is right. I have every right to know everything that she does. I’m his daughter after all.
Sometime in the night I fall into a fitful slumber because next thing I know I’m blinking away sunshine that glints through my bedroom curtains. I roll out of my bed, still in the same clothes as yesterday, to the smell of coffee brewing downstairs.
“Mom?” I ask warily as I turn into the kitchen. Sure enough she’s sitting at the kitchen table with the morning paper spread out in front of her, nursing a chipped white mug full of coffee like any other day. I fetch a cup for myself, pouring a steaming cup of the dark brown liquid and adding cream with lots of sugar, just how I like it.
“Morning, honey.” She looks up at me for a second, acknowledging my presence, then goes back to the paper. Dark smudges ring her eyes and her hair’s a tangled blond mess. She hasn’t gone to sleep yet.
Good, I think to myself, then she’ll be more cooperative. Hopefully.
“How was your night?” I sit down across from her, setting down my cup.
This time she really looks at me. “Not so good. Mr. Jerkins passed on, unfortunately.”
“Oh. I’m so sorry mom.”
Mr. Jerkins had Alzheimer’s. Mom had taken a liking to the batty old man when he’d first been admitted, despite his mood swings and various other complications they’d run into. She often came home and told me stories about him. How he’d mistaken her for his wife, long deceased, and she just played along, letting him have that possible last joy in life. She definitely looked as if his death had hit her hard and the dark circles around her eyes took a new meaning. Maybe this isn't such a good idea to bring up dad right now.
Her eyes shine with tears. “Your granddad had Alzheimer’s,” she says, catching me off guard.
“What?” I say, flabbergasted. I never knew I’d had grandparents. Well I had to, obviously, or mom wouldn’t be here. But still. She never talks about our family. What else hasn’t this woman told me? It’s like we’re the last of our whole clan the way she leads on.
“He died when I was young. Really young. Long before I had you. It made me realize that I wasn’t a kid anymore, going through that. Mom couldn’t bear it, she committed suicide. It’s not on the official report, but I know in my heart that she did. My parents had me late in life, sweetie. They were well over middle aged by then. But I keep hoping that medicine will go above and beyond and finally put an end to all of this . . . pain. The sickness. A silly dream, I know. But one can wish, can’t they?” Her tears spilled over and were streaming down her chin and falling with little splish-splash noises on to the table.
“Why are you telling me this?” I sit back in my chair, eyes wide, unsure what to do.
“I don’t know, Katie. It’s just all flooding back.”
“You know if you hate it at the hospital so much you can find a better job and maybe I could find one, too. To help out, and all.” I say it softly but she flinches.
“No, no,” she protests. “I don’t want to take away your childhood. I’ll be fine, really. It just reminded me so much of my parents.”
“Why haven’t you told me this before?” I inquire, resisting the part of me that wants to tell her that I’m not a child. Not anymore.
“Mothers have a way of protecting their children for their own good. Whether they know it or not.”
Now it’s my turn to flinch. But she doesn’t notice. Her eyes are far away, delving into the past I know nothing about. Should I bring this up now? Indecision wafts through me.
Yes, yes I should. It’s now or never.
I take a breath. “Mom? There’s something I wanted to talk to you about . . .”
“What is it?” her gaze snaps back on me like a rubber band let go after being pulled taut.
“Can you tell me about. . . Dad?”
She recoils, spluttering.
Hastily I add, “Please, I know you’ve been keeping things about him from me. Is it so wrong for me to want to know about him? I know it’s hard for you. I do. But weird things have been happening lately and I think he has— had something to do with them, but I’m not sure what. And I’m hoping that you can tell me.” It all spills out so fast I barely have time to draw a breath between words.
It takes her a moment to process the jumble, but by the look on her face when she does, I know she isn�
�t happy. “What things have been happening? Katelyn? You tell me right now!”
“No. Not until you give me some answers.” I grit my teeth, jutting my chin out stubbornly. “I want to know,” gulp, here it goes, “what dad had to do with Faeries.”
Her eyes flash threateningly for a millisecond before an eerie calm schools her features. “Fairies? What on earth are you talking about, Katelyn?” There’s something off about her tone. Something . . . alien. I know immediately that she’s lying.
Anger boils in my veins. “Don’t look at me and act like you don’t know what I’m talking about, mother! You know full well, and you aren’t telling me! You think I can’t tell that you’re lying to my face?! How does that explain this?!” I exclaim, thrusting my right arm at her . . . to find that my Mark isn’t visible. Shoot. How did Derek tell it was there, again?
But it seems that I don’t need to show her twice. All the color drains out of my mother’s face, making her dusting of freckles very prominent, as her eyes fall on the crease of my right inner arm. I blink and sure enough, clear as day, there’s the clover, complete with its pearly white wings.
I glare at her triumphantly. “You expect me to believe you after you’ve seen this? You’re as white as a ghost, mom.”
She puts her face in her hands, shaking her head slowly back and forth murmuring something unintelligible. When she looks up at me a bit of her color has returned to her cheeks. Albeit not much.
“Your father was many things, Katelyn. I knew exactly what he was,” she says finally in a tired voice.
I resisted the urge to scream, to shout horrible, nasty things at her. She had known. All this time. And she hadn’t told me.
She seems to see the accusation in my face. “I know what you must think. But it was only to protect you. Your father and I didn’t want this world for you. When we got married and I was carrying you, he left the Order. He wanted to live a normal life. As normal as he could after so many years with those people. I saw past all of the awfulness of it. I was in love. He promised me it would be different.
“At first it was. We got married and bought this house. For a while everything was quiet. He hadn’t heard from the Order in months. We thought we were safe. We weren’t.
“A month or so before you were born, he received a call from one of his old . . . colleagues. He brushed it off, telling me it was nothing to worry about. But I did worry. We were about to have you and the phone call was an unhappy reminder of what your father had left behind. I should have known then that what he was involved in wouldn’t have left him that easily. The Order was peculiar that way. Once you were a member, you weren’t allowed to opt out. You were in it for life. Graydon—your dad, used to joke about it being like a cult afterward. But I wasn’t stupid. That group was like a cult, but a hundred million times worse.
“A week later, your dad was killed. I knew it wasn’t a coincidence. The Order strives to rid the world of anything that's supernatural, like they’re God’s emissaries, doing His work here on Earth and making it pure for humans. Anything that has a hint of darkness about it, like the Fey, they murder ruthlessly. When your dad left them, I didn’t want to believe it, but I knew something like that was going to happen . . .” she trails off.
It’s a while before I can find my voice again. “Are you saying that dad—dad killed things? Beings, not things. How could he—he do that?” I’m stuttering, something I haven’t done since I was six.
“You have to understand, Katelyn. Your father was never really interested in being in the Order. Most of them were. They thought of themselves as vigilante workers. They thought what they were doing was right in every sense of the word. Evil like that was not allowed here. It was a threat to human life. And that made everything they worked for fine in their eyes. Your father was different. Believe me when I say this, sweetheart.”
“Okay, I understand what you are saying, but what does all of this have to do with me? Why do I have this Mark?”
“I—I don’t know what to tell you Katie, honey. I’m not sure why these things happen. Your dad would be better help than I right now. He would know what to do. I’m afraid I don’t know much about that world.”
I want to demand how that is possible. Shout at her that she was married to him, how could she not know about these things? Surely she knows something useful. But I bite my tongue before I get myself into trouble and stop the flow of information I am finally getting from her. Beggars can’t be choosers, and all.
“Can I ask you one more question?”
“Sure.” She looks utterly drained from the effort of dredging up the past and I’m momentarily sorry that I brought this upon her. In more ways than one.
“Do you know that Maggie is Marked, too? How long have you known about all of this? About me I mean.”
“That’s more than one question,” she gives a sore attempt at a smile. It looks more like a grimace.
I stare at her levelly.
A sigh. “Yes, I’ve known about Margaret for quite a while. It’s hard to keep such a thing from someone who’s known about the Other World for a long time. And I suppose you know the answer to your second question now. I found out about all of this after I was dating your father for about six or seven months. Things started getting more serious so he decided it was time to tell me. When you were born, he knew immediately what you were. A Faery Keeper, so to speak. You were to watch over the things that he’d so brutally murdered most of his life.
It’s quite ironic if you ask me, for someone’s own flesh and blood to be destined work for the exact opposite of what they’d tried so hard to cull from the world. Albeit involuntary.” She laughs darkly as if it’s a great cosmic joke. Which I suppose it kind of is.
There’s an awkward silence for a few moments where she goes back to her paper and coffee. Then, as if giving up on the whole institution of it, she folds the paper and sets it aside on a spare chair. “Would I be correct in guessing that the boy you both went out to breakfast with is also a Faery Keeper?” she asks, hazel eyes fixed upon me shrewdly, like she’s trying to watch for any twitch or flush of my cheeks that may give away any lie.
I decide to tell her the truth. “Yes.”
“Mm-hm.”
“What, mom?”
“I don’t know if I want you getting mixed up in this nonsense, honey.”
Liquid fury zings through my veins. “It’s not as if I asked for this to happen!” I exclaim. The injustice of it all!
“No, no,” she says hurriedly. “I know you didn’t ask for this. What I am saying is that I don’t like it. I don’t want to lose you like I did your father. Can’t you understand that?”
“Yes, I can comprehend it, mom. It’s just that I don’t think I have a choice.”
She shakes her head sadly. “Don’t you see, Katelyn? There is always a choice. We can move away if you don’t want to do this. Far away from all of this insanity.”
“It would only follow me,” I say with such a sure and dead certainty that it scares me. “Besides, I can’t just leave Maggie. And Derek. They need me here. Do you think that dad ever fully thought that he could leave his past behind? Who he is behind? He obviously didn’t. The same goes for me, mom. I can’t just run away from this.”
She searches my face a moment. Leans across the table and brushes a stray strand of hair from my cheek and tucks it behind my ear. I suffer her ministrations silently with bated breath. “When did you become so wise?” she asks softly, hazel eyes warm and molten.
I shrug, not sure about it myself. Not sure about anything, really, anymore.
“Okay. You can give this a spin. I still don’t like it, though. At the first sign things are going downhill, we are packing ship and moving to Bora Bora for the rest of our existence.”
“Isn’t that an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean?”
“Exactly.”
“Wow, mom. Extreme much?”
“Nothing is ever to extreme when it comes to my baby.�
��
I gag at her word choice. “Gross.”
“Oh, stop it.” she whips the paper off the chair and tosses it playfully at me, scattering articles and adds all over the kitchen floor.
“Ow, I think you’ve given me a paper cut. I may bleed to death. There goes your plans for our Caribbean vacation.”
“Stop being saucy and go clean up your room or something else productive,” she said, waving me off with a flutter of her hands as she knelt to pile together the ruined newspaper.
“Fine, but if I die, it’s on your conscious,” I say, sucking on an imaginary cut on my finger as I stalk out of the room.
“Oh, honey, wait!” she calls me back.
“Yes?” I jog back to her.
“I was just thinking, since you’re birthday’s this Wednesday . . .and I’ll most likely be working all day, do you want your gift now?”
That was unexpected. “Sure?”
She gets up and goes into her bedroom just down the hall. Comes back and hands me a green and white paper wrapped box. It’s slightly rectangular and smaller than a toaster. “Thanks.”
“You have to open it first,” she laughs.
I slide my finger under the flap of paper and tear the wrappings off. Underneath is a shiny white box with a picture on it. A cell phone. “Oh. Thank you so much, mom. I mean it. It’s perfect.”
“Well I figured, you’re getting older, may as well be able to stay in touch with you when you’re out and about.”
“Well it’s not like I won’t be anywhere Maggie won’t be . . . But seriously, thank you a million times over,” I give her my best dazzling smile and stifle any traitorous thoughts that seem to want to surface. Hey, stupid little voice in my head? Shut up for once.
“Something wrong, honey? You look a bit . . .cross.”
“Nothing,” I say a little too quickly. She doesn’t seem to notice. Either that or she chooses to ignore it.
She smiles. “Good. Are you going to Margaret’s today?”
“S-sure,” I lie. Crap. Needed recovery status: 911. “I mean, yeah, totally. We’re supposed to have a lazy day. Sitting around watching movies, popping some corn. You know . . . the usual.”
The Faery Keepers Page 10