Bad Blood

by Mari Mancusi

  “Mom, you’re scaring us,” I say, my whole body trembling. “What’s going on?”

  Mom swallows hard. “You have to believe, I never wanted to involve you two in this. In fact, that’s why your dad and I left the commune and moved to Massachusetts when I became pregnant with you. I didn’t want you to grow up in the world we did. I wanted us to be a happy, normal, everyday family. And they left us alone for so long, I’d really begun to think that we’d actually escaped them for good.” She sighs deeply. “But now they’ve returned. Civil war has broken out between two families and they’re demanding I return home to aid them in their fight. And if I don’t, they have promised to make things very difficult for us all.”

  “I don’t understand,” I say, trying desperately to make sense of it all. I’ve never seen Mom look so scared. “Some family feud? Why do they need you for that?”

  “Dear, you’re speaking to them in riddles,” Dad chides our mother gently. “It’s best if you just tell them the whole story, no matter how hard it will be to believe at first.” He turns to us. “Look, guys, we’ve always told you that you come from Irish and Scottish ancestors, right? Well, there’s a little more to it than that. Our families—and Heather’s, too—actually descended from a people living on a small island off the coast of Ireland, known as Tír na nÓg.” He pauses, then adds, “Some know us as the Sidhe.”

  “Sidhe?” I repeat, confused as all hell at this point. “What the hell is a Sidhe?” This conversation is getting weirder by the moment and I don’t like it. I mean, Sidhe? That’s not . . . I mean . . . No, it couldn’t be!

  “The term you might be more familiar with,” Dad says gently, “is fairy.”

  Or maybe it could.

  Rayne and I stare at our father, then our mother, unbelieving our ears. I mean, fairies? Freaking fairies?

  My sister finds her voice first. “So let me get this straight,” she says, sounding remarkably calm, given the situation. “You’re trying to tell us that we’re descended from fairies? Actual fairies?”

  “We’re not just descended,” Mom clarifies. “We’re full-blooded fairies. And now the royal court is demanding we all return to fairyland immediately.”

  “Or else,” Dad adds, “they have promised to kill us all.”