Don't Breathe a Word

by Jennifer McMahon

  “Or else what?” asked Pinkie, her pale face all scrunched up, stained with strawberry sundae. The others were silent, holding on to the sodas and ice creams, waiting to see what might happen next.

  “Lisa,” Evie began, “I—”

  “You were pissed off that the fairies came for me!” Lisa interrupted. “That I was chosen and you weren’t. Kind of like with Da, right? I’m the daughter he sees. You’re just no one. The fat cousin nobody can stand.”

  Evie took a step back, cowering like she’d been hit again.

  Gerald snickered into his hand, covering his mouth, looking more nervous than amused.

  Lisa turned and jumped down the steps, grabbed her bike, and pedaled toward home, one hand steering the bike, the other clinging to The Book of Fairies. She pumped the pedals as fast she could, trying to race away from everything had that just happened. She wished she could ride hard enough and fast enough to leave it all behind. Escape the whole stupid town, her whole life. She dumped her bike in the driveway and ran straight for the woods.

  Her promise to Evie and Sam didn’t count anymore. Not after this.

  She made her way quickly but quietly to Reliance, stopping every now and then to listen and make sure she wasn’t being followed.

  The only sound was her feet in the leaves and twigs on the forest floor—crunch, crunch, crunch. She found the cellar hole and sat with her legs crossed, back pressed against the wall. Yogi posture.

  Her back ached and she had horrible cramps. She couldn’t believe she was going to have to go through this misery every month—what was so hot about “being a woman” anyway?

  She closed her eyes, then called out. “Teilo? Are you there? Everything’s such a mess,” she sobbed. “Da’s in the hospital and I think he really might die. Evie’s a traitor. She took the book and showed it to people. I’m so sorry. I know you trusted me or you wouldn’t have left it.” She was crying hard now, leaning forward, sobs wracking her. “Teilo? I know you’re there. I believe in you. I’ve always believed.”

  And then she heard it: a rustling in the leaves that turned to footsteps, coming her way.

  Chapter 36

  Phoebe

  June 13, Present Day

  When they got back to Franny’s, they found Sam sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee with Jim. They were laughing about something. Jim was smiling a goofy, brown-toothed smile and Sam seemed perfectly at ease.

  “Where’s Lisa?” Phoebe asked.

  Jim nodded toward the living room. “Watching TV. She loves that cooking channel. Can’t seem to get enough of it. Crazy, ’cause she doesn’t seem to enjoy food all that much. Just sweets. Never seen a grown woman eat like that. It’s like she’s a goddamn honeybee or something.”

  “Bees don’t eat honey,” Franny said. “They eat pollen and make the honey.”

  Jim shrugged his shoulders. “Pollen, honey, nectar—whatever. She’s more like a bee queen than a fairy queen, that’s all I’m saying.”

  Sam nodded. “A bee queen isn’t born a queen, you know,” he said. “She’s made. The workers choose an unborn bee, tend to it, stuff it full of royal jelly. No one knows how they pick the next queen. They just do.”

  Everyone was quiet. Sam and his damn lectures.

  How did Teilo pick Lisa to be his queen—the one he stole away?

  “We need to talk,” Phoebe said, looking at Sam.

  “Let’s give these two some privacy,” Franny said, putting her hand on Jim’s shoulder. Jim started to stand.

  “No,” Phoebe said. “I want you to stay.”

  Sam nodded. “Stay,” he said, and they all sat down. Jim leaned back in his chair and looked out the window, seeming disappointed that he hadn’t been dismissed. Sam fidgeted with his coffee cup, turning it, plucking at the handle. Then he looked at Phoebe and began.

  “I’m sorry about last night, Bee. I’ve been a real asshole lately—I know that. This thing with Lisa, it’s turned everything upside down and made me question not just who she is but who I am. It threw me into this huge existential crisis. But you know what I’ve come to realize, Bee? That whoever I am, whatever my greater purpose is, it’s nothing without you.” He reached across the table and took her hand, giving it a squeeze. “And the baby, well, it must be meant to be or it wouldn’t have happened, right? And maybe that’s it, Bee. Maybe that’s our greater purpose. To be the most amazing parents we can be. To just love each other and this little baby.”

  Franny wiped tears out of her eyes, beamed at Phoebe. Phoebe stared at Sam. He was telling her everything she wanted to hear, and yet it left her with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  Jim, who’d been looking increasingly awkward, stood up. “I gotta go feed the chickens,” he said, loping out of the kitchen, sticking his head into the living room. “Want to help me with the pretty birds, Lisa?”

  She came bounding after him like a kid and followed him out the front door into the yard.

  “I have something to tell you,” Sam said, his eyes glinting with excitement. “I solved part of the mystery. Remember how yesterday, you asked me about my old friends Gerald and Pinkie?”

  Phoebe nodded.

  Franny opened her mouth and said, “Becca? We just . . .” and Phoebe gave her a gentle shut-up kick under the table.

  Sam continued. “Well, just for the hell of it, I decided to look them up. I thought maybe they might remember something I didn’t. Pinkie—err, Becca—wasn’t listed in the phone book, but Gerald was. Turns out he lives over in Groton. So I decided to pay him a surprise visit. And you’ll never guess who Gerald turns out to be . . .”

  “Elliot,” Phoebe said.

  “Right!” Sam gave a surprised cry. “And his girlfriend played Evie.”

  “Trish,” Phoebe said.

  Sam pushed his chair back. “How did you know?” he asked, looking at Phoebe like she was the criminal.

  “I’ll tell you in a minute. What else happened with Gerald and Trish?” Phoebe asked.

  “They said they did what they did to save some little kid, that if they didn’t follow this guy’s orders, he’d take Pinkie’s little boy.”

  “And you believed them?” Franny asked.

  Sam nodded. “Yeah. At first I thought it was complete shit, then they showed me pictures of him, told me their story.”

  “What about Lisa’s baby?” Phoebe asked. “Did they say anything about that?”

  “No. But they said Teilo was looking for Lisa. Sounds like she left him. Just ran off or something. He’s desperate to get her back, told them to find out anything they could about where she might be. That’s why he sent them to the cabin. Oh, and to get the fairy book. And anything else we might have saved from that summer. Now it’s your turn. Tell me how you knew about Gerald and Becca.”

  Phoebe looked at Franny, who shrugged. What did she have to lose by telling him?

  “I found Pinkie. Or rather, Franny did. She works at the Price Chopper over in St. Johnsbury. We just got back from visiting with her. She told me pretty much the same story you just did. She also said that Evie was the one who introduced her and Gerald to Teilo that summer.”

  And that you were in the woods that night.

  “No shit?” Sam said. “I knew it! I was positive she knew more than she was saying. She knew who he was?”

  “Sounds like it,” Phoebe said. “Or, at the very least, she knew how to find him. She was bringing him gifts—food and stuff.”

  Sam nodded. “Food kept going missing that summer—jam, pie, sandwich stuff. I bet Evie was taking it to him. He was hiding out there in the goddamn woods the whole time and she knew it!”

  Franny scowled. “But who is this Teilo guy? And what’s he done with Lisa’s baby?”

  “That’s what we’re going to find out,” Sam said. “Come on,” he said to Phoebe. “Get Lisa. We’re going to Barre. See if we can find anyone at the library to tell us who Mary Stevens is. And see if anything sparks any memories for Lisa.”
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br />   “What about Evie?” Phoebe asked. “Shouldn’t we talk to her? See what she really knows about Teilo?”

  “She’ll be there when we get back. It’s not like she’s going anywhere,” Sam said.

  “I had a secret room in a secret garden,” Lisa said. She was in the backseat of the Honda. Her voice was barely a murmur. It was unclear if she was talking to anyone in particular. “The walls were bright with flowers. I slept in a bed of lace. On the full moons, Teilo and I would walk through the orchard. We’d laugh and dance. He’d speak to me in the secret language of the fairies. He’d kiss my arms but never my lips. A fairy kiss is poison. It can put you to sleep for a thousand years.”

  Phoebe closed her eyes, leaned back against the passenger seat, wishing she could sleep for just a few hours. Her body was sore and stiff from a night spent tossing and turning alone on the office floor. To make matters worse, she had a headache coming on and didn’t have any aspirin. She wondered if she was even supposed to take aspirin or if it might hurt the baby. The world seemed full of dangers now that she was pregnant: mercury in tuna, hot tubs, beer, secondhand smoke, over-the-counter medicine. Not to mention crazy baby-abducting fairy kings.

  She glanced over at Sam, who had his eyes fixed on the road ahead, his hands gripping the wheel tightly, just where they should, at the three and nine o’clock positions. Safety Sammy.

  She wasn’t an idiot. Back at Franny’s, Franny had pulled her aside just before she left with Sam and Lisa to say, “Are you sure he’s telling the truth? I mean, what if he knows you spotted him and he’s just covering his tracks?” Franny was the queen of paranoia, but she had a point.

  Phoebe wasn’t sure. Not of anything anymore.

  “What does Teilo look like?” Phoebe asked sleepily.

  “I don’t know,” Lisa said.

  “How can you not know,” Sam interrupted. “You saw him, didn’t you? Christ, if you had a kid with him, he must have shown himself to you.”

  “He never appeared as himself. He was always in disguise.”

  Phoebe’s guts went cold as she remembered what Becca had said about Teilo wearing a mask.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Sam muttered.

  “If a human being looks upon the true face of a fairy, they’ll be driven mad by the pure beauty,” Lisa said.

  “Jesus! I’m being driven mad right now,” Sam grumbled, gripping the steering wheel tighter. “Do you know where the baby is, Lisa? Do you have a clue where we could start looking?”

  “Don’t you remember, Sammy?” she asked. “He was promised to Teilo. My firstborn. Evie’s. Yours. They were all promised to Teilo.”

  Sam clenched his jaw. Phoebe reached out and took his hand, and he turned, gave her a weak smile and a little squeeze of the hand that was meant to be reassuring.

  “You’re really okay with this?” she asked. “The baby, I mean.”

  Sam nodded. “Of course I’m okay with it. It’s just going to take a little getting used to. I’m kind of still in shock.”

  They were coming into Barre on Route 14, and Sam took a left at Hope Cemetery, then another left, which took them up through a residential neighborhood of twisting roads, then led them down a hill, past a playground, and toward downtown. Just after a blinking traffic light, Sam turned left into the library parking lot.

  “Here we are,” he said. “Everybody out.”

  “The hall of faces,” Lisa said dreamily.

  “What?” Phoebe asked.

  Lisa giggled, put her hand over her mouth.

  They crossed the grass and walked around to the front of the large, two-story gray brick building. The front of the library looked very grand to Phoebe: two polished granite columns stood on either side of the doorway; large stone steps led up to it. Above the doors, an ornate carving in stone of a torch.

  “Beautiful building,” Phoebe said.

  Sam nodded. “Classical Revival,” he said. It was yet another display of his seemingly unending knowledge that both made her proud and made her feel very small. Maybe if she had gone to college she would have learned about building styles and understand what Classical Revival meant. They could have intelligent discussions about things like rooflines and columns. Phoebe touched her belly and felt suddenly light-headed. She’d skipped breakfast yet again. She was supposed to be filling her body with healthy, baby-growing food, taking prenatal vitamins, drinking milk and shakes with protein powder. Instead, she’d gulped down half a cup of black coffee at Franny’s that now churned in her stomach. She was one hell of a mommy-to-be.

  Sam grabbed one of the double doors and held it open, shepherding Lisa and Phoebe inside. They walked through a beautiful entryway with long curving staircases to the right and left. On the walls around the stairs were portraits—serious men and women painted in oil, scowling down from heavy, ornate frames. A hall of faces.

  They walked through the entryway and found themselves in the reference area. A homeless-looking man with a long gray beard and stained army fatigue coat was reading Popular Mechanics and chewing on a large wrapped Tootsie Roll. He looked up from his magazine, nodded in their direction. A kid in a black T-shirt, jeans, and combat boots was on the computer and an old man in golf clothes was reading the paper.

  They continued on, to a small dark room of stacks. Phoebe looked up and saw that the floor above was glass. She saw a shadow move across it, quick and dark, like an animal. Her body was covered in warning gooseflesh.

  The smell of old books filled her nostrils, and, feeling dizzy, she tried taking deep breaths through her mouth. They stepped out of the small room of books and were at the circulation desk.

  A woman with a long gray braid and silver and turquoise earrings looked up from the computer, smiling.

  “May I help you?”

  Sam produced the tattered library card from his pocket, but the librarian didn’t have a chance to look at it before she caught sight of Lisa.

  “Mary!” she cried. “I’ve been thinking about you. How are you? How’s the baby?”

  Lisa smiled shyly, looked down at the floor.

  “She’s Mary Stevens?” Sam said, showing the librarian the card. She nodded.

  “I’m her brother, Sam,” he said. “And it’s been a while since she’s been in contact with her family. We’re trying to figure out where she’s been living. Did she show you ID to get the card?”

  The librarian shook her head. “I’m not sure. All that’s required is a piece of mail with a name and address on it.”

  “So would you have her address?” Sam asked.

  The librarian looked at him skeptically. “Is that all right with you, Mary? If I tell him?”

  Lisa nodded.

  “Is the baby all right?” the librarian whispered.

  “I hope so,” Sam told her.

  “She started bringing him in a few weeks ago. The sweetest little thing. Hardly made a sound. Such a good baby.”

  “Here it is,” she said, peering at the computer. “Mary Stevens. Huh. That’s odd.”

  “What is it?” Sam asked.

  “It’s just a post office box. We’re not supposed to give a card with just a post office box.”

  “Thanks for checking,” Sam said, discouraged by the dead end.

  “Did she ever come here with anyone?” Phoebe asked. “Other than the baby, I mean.”

  “Sometimes there was a woman who’d come to get her at the end of the day. We always figured she was Mary’s, you know, caregiver. She was so gentle with her. She’d just whisper in Mary’s ear and she’d get up and go.”

  “Do you know who she was?” Sam asked.

  “No. And I haven’t seen her lately. She’s maybe thirty or so. Kind of average height. Dark hair and eyes. Thin. Really thin . . . Eve! That’s what Mary called her. Her name was Eve.”

  Chapter 37

  Lisa

  June 15, Fifteen Years Ago

  “Keep your eyes closed,” a voice whispered. A male voice, raspy and musical as a
woodwind instrument. It sounded as if he was speaking from just above her, but through some sort of tunnel. “If you open them, I’ll go away forever.”

  Lisa nodded. Did as she was told. Her skin was buzzing with the relief that it was finally happening. He was here.

  “Do you understand?” he asked, his voice whispery and light, like wind through dry grass. “I mean it. Keep. Your. Eyes. Closed.”

  Lisa nodded. Her face felt tight and sticky from the tears drying on it.

  “Good girl,” he said. “Good, good, good girl.”

  The air was suddenly sweet, heavy with the scent of flowers she could not name. The smell caught in the back of her throat, made her feel dizzy. She was sure that if she stood, she’d fall back down.

  She held up her wrist, the charm bracelet jingling a little. “I got your gifts. The penny and the medal and the book. Thank you.”

  He said nothing.

  “You’re a fairy, right?” Lisa asked.

  There was quiet laughter.

  “Are you Teilo? King of the Fairies?”

  Silence. If she concentrated hard, she could hear him breathing. His smell was so strong and sweet, like honeysuckle, only richer. Her head spun. She was afraid she might faint or fall asleep. Her eyelids felt heavy, glued shut. She couldn’t open them if she wanted to.

  “Yes,” he said at last. “Fairy King. Lizard King. King of Rock and Roll. Queen Bee buzz-buzz-buzzing in your ear. Everything and nothing. That’s what I am.”

  What if Evie was right? What if this was a trap and the King of the Fairies was going to steal her away or cast a spell on her so that she’d sleep for a thousand years?

  She found she didn’t care. He was here, and it was the most amazing thing that had ever happened to her. He was more real to her than anything else in her so-called real life back at home. He had come, just as he promised.

  And she knew then what she wanted. She was more sure of this than she had ever been of anything.

  “I want to cross over,” she told him. “I read the book. I know what to do—I’ll fast and make the tea. Midsummer’s Eve is next week. Please, Teilo. Please say I can come with you!”