Blood of the Fae

by Tom Mohan

  “Southwest has the best prices and arrival times,” Janey had insisted.

  “No, I can’t fly Southwest,” Liza had said.

  “Why not, dear? You’ve never even flown before.”

  “I’ve researched it. Southwest doesn’t assign seats. You just go on and find whatever is available.”

  Janey had given her a squinty-eyed look that said she thought Liza was being difficult. “Yes, that’s a good thing.”

  “No, it isn’t good. I need to know where I’m going to sit ahead of time. I need to pick my seat and know that I have one already assigned.”

  She’d planned on selecting an aisle seat. After all, what if she had to go to the bathroom? She didn’t want to have to ask complete strangers to move so she could get out.

  Unfortunately, since she was flying spur-of-the-moment, there were few seats to choose from, and most of them middle seats. In the end, she’d opted for the one window seat still available. Now that the flight was coming to an end, she was glad for the distraction of being able to gaze out at the cotton-candy clouds and ever-shifting landscape. She’d thought she might be scared of being so high up but had found the experience exhilarating. She felt like an adventurer on some great mission.

  As the plane descended, Liza saw lights begin to come on as dusk settled into night. She hadn’t liked the idea of getting in so late, but it was that or switch planes in some other city and she’d liked that idea even less. Again, the last-minute plans left her few choices.

  The ground was coming up fast now. She gripped her boarding pass even tighter as the plane touched down, bounced once, then coasted along the rough surface of the runway. LAX had been a beehive of activity with planes taking off, landing, and getting on and off runways. Here, she saw two other planes, their wing lights flashing in the near dark. At the gate, Liza followed the other passengers through the terminal. How small everything was. And how few people. She felt exposed. In Los Angeles, she had learned to blend in with the crowd, to almost disappear.

  Here, there was no crowd. Each person was an individual, not just a part of some mass. It was almost eerie.

  Liza followed her fellow travelers to baggage claim. She’d had to borrow a suitcase from Janey Collins and regretted her choice when she saw the mammoth piece of luggage appear on the baggage carousel. She had gone big because she’d had no idea what to pack. The Weather Channel app she’d downloaded on her phone showed the weather changing all the time. Warm days, cool nights, rain, storms.

  How was a Southern California girl supposed to pack for that?

  Humidity like she’d never experienced greeted Liza as she exited the terminal. The next thing she noticed were the little glass booths in the median, each labeled with a particular rental car agency or hotel. This is almost too easy. She dragged her suitcase to the hotel shuttle booth and watched for a van from Comfort Inn. The effort left her sweating even though the night was comfortable.

  “Humid early this year, isn’t it?” a middle-aged man said.

  “I don’t know,” Liza said. “This is my first time here.”

  “Don’t worry—it’s early enough in the year that it should cool down some more later tonight. August and September, now that’s when the real heat and humidity set in. Mosquitoes the size of wasps, too. Nothing like that in Los Angeles.”

  Liza turned to him, startled. “How did you know I was from Los Angeles?”

  The man flashed a knowing smile. “The airline tag on your luggage. You from there or passing through?”

  “From there. My whole life.”

  The Comfort Inn shuttle pulled up before the man could answer. Liza smiled a farewell and let the driver take her suitcase and stow it. She settled herself into a seat while two other passengers boarded. The driver was an elderly black man. His close-cropped gray hair matched his neatly trimmed mustache. He was small, yet he handled even the large suitcases as though they weighed nothing. He smiled into the big mirror that allowed him to see the world behind him while driving.

  “You folks all settled in?” the driver asked.

  Liza nodded and was surprised when the other two passengers acknowledged him as well. She doubted anyone would have even noticed him back home. Liza sighed. She was becoming quite the pessimist at the ripe old age of twenty-six.

  She stared out the window. There was little to see. The few hotels and convenience stores in the distance were lit like oases in the darkness. And it was dark. Without the city lights that she was so accustomed to illuminating the area like a halo, shadows owned the night. Liza felt very small and out of place.

  As the van started toward the hotel, Liza felt queasy. She began to sweat, though the interior of the van was air conditioned. Her nausea ballooned, and she gasped as the same foreboding from the other night flitted over her. The edges of her vision grew dim as if something lurked there, just out of sight.

  He’s looking for me!

  Fear gripped her as she gazed around. No one else in the van seemed to be paying her any attention. She dug through her purse until she found her phone. She nearly dropped it as her shaking hands struggled to turn it on. Brianna could contact her whether the phone was off or on, but she felt better with it on. It remained quiet in her hand. If she was in danger, Brianna was not warning her of it.

  The shuttle merged onto the freeway before taking the next exit. The foreboding that had settled over her did not grow but neither did it lessen. I shouldn’t have come here. This was a bad idea. By the time the shuttle pulled up to the hotel, Liza was in a near panic. Her eyes were wide as she watched the other two passengers get off.

  “Ma’am, we’re here,” the driver said.

  Liza looked up at him. He looked so kind, yet she still felt the darkness hovering nearby, waiting. A nod of her head was all she could manage.

  “Would you like me to help you inside?”

  Liza shook her head and took her suitcase from him. Following the other passengers into the building, she managed to check in. Her room was on the second floor. She waited for the elevator, but when the doors opened, she couldn’t force herself to enter the cramped space. There was a carpeted stairway beside the elevator, and she dragged her suitcase up it. The long day seemed to have added fifty pounds to it. After the first two steps, she had to turn around backward and drag it up two-handed. She cringed at the clunk-clunk-clunk it made.

  Once safely inside her room, she secured the locks on the door and pulled the blinds closed. The foreboding still lingered, but it was weak compared to the night at her house. Maybe they didn’t know where she was. Brianna had said that first night that they couldn’t detect her.

  As tired as she was, sleep would not come easily. She called Manny to let him know she was safe and tucked into her hotel room. She didn’t tell him about the darkness that pressed around her. No need to worry him when there was nothing he could do to help. She struggled not to cry at the soft sound of his voice. She hadn’t realized how much she’d come to depend on Manny’s support and reassurance. It was only her first night away, and she already felt completely alone in the world.

  Finally, she turned off the light and stared into the darkness until exhaustion overcame her fear and she slipped into a restless sleep.

  The next morning, Liza was up and moving by 7:30. She hadn’t slept well. Even the two-hour time difference from California hadn’t allowed her to sleep in. She was beginning to doubt the wisdom of what she was doing. So far, everything had gone smoothly and according to plan. She’d had a lot of help getting there, though. From this point on, she was on her own.

  She had to take the shuttle back to the airport, get her rental car, and make the three-hour drive to Halden’s Mill. That was the part that worried her. She gazed out the window of her room. This place was so foreign to her, so different from all she’d ever known. Could she really make her way out there with no one to guide her?

  Liza showered and dressed in jeans, a plain light-blue t-shirt, and sandals. She grabbed a waffle
and an apple from the complimentary breakfast and checked out of the hotel. So far, she’d detected no sign of the foreboding from the night before. The morning was sunny, the sky filled with fluffy white clouds and blue sky. A light breeze ruffled the leaves in the trees. She inhaled a deep breath. The landscapers had been at work early, and the air smelled of fresh-cut grass. It was wonderful.

  The wait for the airport shuttle was short. From there, she hopped another shuttle to the rental car agency. She was finding the whole process much simpler than she’d imagined, though at the rental car counter, the woman kept asking questions that Liza wasn’t prepared for: Prepay gas? Extra insurance? Upgrade for $20? In the end, she wasn’t sure exactly what she’d paid for.

  Soon enough, she found herself following the instructions on the GPS—she was pretty sure she’d paid extra for that—and was on her way. She’d worried that driving in an unfamiliar city would make her nervous, but the airport was outside the city and the traffic was so light compared to Los Angeles that she soon found herself enjoying the drive. In no time, she was on the freeway passing quite a lot of nothing, which she found a nice change from the hectic pace of the city.

  Billboards scattered along the highway advertised things such as MARK TWAIN COUNTRY, ANTIQUES, and FIREWORKS. Most of them were faded and looked like they’d been there a long time. The billboards were like scars on the lush country landscape and yet were different enough to be interesting.

  About an hour into the trip, she felt herself growing drowsy and pulled into a McDonald's for a cup of coffee. I haven’t seen a Starbucks since leaving the airport. How weird is that?

  After another hour on the road, anxiety of the unknown stirred in her chest. The drive had been almost relaxing and the countryside beautiful, but as she drew nearer her destination, she couldn’t help but think how crazy this trip was.

  Who was Brianna, and how did she do the things she did? For that matter, who was Marcas? She’d thought she’d known him, but the more she considered it, the more she realized how little he had told her about himself. She’d been so enamored that a good-looking guy had shown interest in her that she hadn’t even noticed.

  Liza followed the instructions on the GPS and turned off the freeway onto a smaller road. She had passed through few towns on the drive, and the country grew more rural as she traveled north. Soon, she approached the turn that would take her to Halden’s Mill. The two-lane blacktop was a tunnel of trees. She drove about two miles before passing over a small river on a bridge that was barely wide enough for one car. A rusted sign warned drivers to beware of oncoming traffic.

  From that point, she was unsure what to do. Brianna had told her to go straight into town and turn left at the grocery store. The grocery store? There’s only one? Then go into the town square and park at a coffee shop called The Morning Light.

  Liza had worried about the vague instructions, but those worries lessened once she entered the town. Halden’s Mill could have come straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting. The grocery store was unmistakable, and when she made the left turn, a quaint town square opened up before her. Three sides of the square were made up of brick, two-story buildings with wood-and-shingle awnings that spanned the entire length of each sidewalk. Various signs hung from the awning—HARDWARE, PHARMACY, LIBRARY, GIFTS—with the actual names of the businesses painted on the windows in a decorative style.

  A lighted sign above the bank showed the time to be 12:27 p.m. and the temperature eighty-three degrees. The fourth side of the square was open, and she actually saw a horse and buggy parked there. In the center of the square was a park with a small playground and a grandstand in one corner. Liza’s eyes widened as she spotted an old Air Force plane in one corner of the park.

  Liza pulled her car into a diagonal parking space in front of The Morning Light. Judging by the amount of traffic on the road, she doubted that finding parking was ever much of a problem. She sat a moment and stared at the coffee shop. It wasn’t too late to turn around and get out of there, to go back to her simple life in California. Then again, her life had suddenly become not-so-simple. An icy chill crept over her as she remembered why she’d left in the first place.

  Liza blew a strand of hair out of her face and got out of the car. As she hit the lock button on the car’s remote, the beep of the alarm sounded very loud in the serene stillness. An elderly man wearing bib overalls coming from the pharmacy and a middle-aged woman by the library next door both turned to look at her. She smiled in their direction.

  Neither returned the gesture.

  Liza felt out of place as she climbed the tall curb in front of the coffee shop. Cool air and the wonderful scent of coffee greeted her as she entered the building. The light inside was dim but not dark. The long, narrow room boasted several tables on both sides near the entrance. Farther back sat a display case of pastries and a counter. Behind the counter, a blackboard and chalk menu listed the various coffee options and foods along with prices. The shop had an air of simple comfort.

  “You must be Elizabeth.”

  Liza jumped at the voice. She turned to see a young woman seated in a corner booth by the door. The woman appeared to be about her age, maybe a bit younger. She had pale skin and brilliant copper hair that hung over her shoulders.

  “Yes, I’m Liza. Only my mother calls me Elizabeth. Are you Brianna?”

  “I’m her sister, Fallon. Brianna doesn’t get out much.”

  “Oh, another sister.”

  The woman smiled. “Ah, yes, Brianna said that Marcas hadn’t exactly been up-front with you about his family.”

  “Flat-out lied is more like it. I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

  “That’s what we intend to find out.” Fallon gestured to the seat across from her. “Have a seat.”

  Liza slid into the bench. For a moment, their eyes locked, and Liza felt that she was seeing into the gaze of a much-older woman, someone with the knowledge and maturity of many years. There were small wrinkles around Fallon’s green eyes that reminded her of Manny’s laugh lines.

  “Coffee?” Fallon asked. “Maggie’s is the best around. Actually, it’s the only coffee around unless you want to drive to Kirksville or drink that mud they make at the Grab-n-Go on the edge of town.”

  “No, thanks. I need to find a place to stay and then talk to Brianna about why I’m here.”

  “Don’t worry about where to stay. There’s only one hotel in the Mill, and I took the liberty of booking you a room. You’re welcome to stay at the house, of course, but Brianna thought you’d be more comfortable with a place of your own until you get to know the family. By the way, Brianna’s really looking forward to meeting you. You’re a mystery, and that’s something new for her.”

  As Fallon talked, Liza could see the resemblance between her and Marcas. They were definitely related. “I’m looking forward to meeting her as well. Can we see her now?”

  Fallon shook her head. “Tomorrow. She’s not feeling well today. That’s something else that’s new for her.”

  Liza was disappointed, but maybe it was for the best. Now that she was here, she needed time to collect her thoughts before meeting the strange woman who had contacted her.

  “Let’s go for a walk,” Fallon said. “This is a small town, and the folks are kind of suspicious of strangers. It will do good for some of them to see you with me. Of course, Maggie has probably called most of the town by now.”

  “I heard that,” said a woman behind the counter.

  “Meant for you to,” Fallon said as she winked at Liza. The fun-loving nature of Fallon’s tone made Liza feel more relaxed than she thought possible. Just being around the woman took a certain edge off her nervousness.

  The two left the shop and strolled along the sidewalk. The sky was bright and blue, and the humidity felt lower than the previous evening. Liza looked over at Fallon. In the sunlight, her hair was such a brilliant red that Liza wondered if she’d dyed it that color.

  “It’s real,” Fallon
said. She broke out in laughter as she glanced at Liza. “Don’t worry, I’m not the mind reader in the family. Everyone wonders about my hair when they first meet me. You wouldn’t believe how many people have asked me what dye I use. My position always has red hair.”

  “Your position?”

  “Yeah, I have red hair, the Twins are blond, and the Seer—that would be Brianna—has dark hair. That’s how it’s always been.”

  Liza tried to make sense of what Fallon was saying. The woman talked so fast it was almost impossible to keep up. “Wait, Marcas has blond hair. Are you saying he has a twin?”

  “He really didn’t tell you much about himself, did he?”

  “Less than nothing, it seems.” Liza felt hollow inside. Her whole relationship with Marcas had been a lie. “He said he didn’t have any family at all. Why would he tell me so little and then just disappear?”

  “Marcas and Conall live in their own world—literally.” She hesitated. “It feels weird telling you any of this. We usually don’t tell outsiders about ourselves.”

  “Why are you, then?”

  Fallon shrugged. “Brianna said it was okay. Brianna’s the Seer. If she says you need to know, then you need to know. Far be it from me to question her.”

  Instead of helping Liza understand, Fallon’s statement confused her even more. “What’s a Seer?”

  “You’ll have to ask Brianna about that. And no more talk about me and my family. What about you, Liza McCarthy? What do you do when you’re not chasing after my brother?”

  Liza felt her face redden. “I’m not chasing after your brother. Someone tried to kill me, and your family seems to be somehow involved.”

  Fallon smiled at Liza’s response, as though she found it somehow amusing. “Fair enough. What do you do back in Los Angeles?”

  “I’m an editor for a small publishing company.”

  “Well, that sounds exciting. A real get-the-heart-thumping job.”