The door opened into an ordinary kitchen with laminate countertops, a peeling linoleum floor, slightly sticky underfoot. Empty cups, bowls, and gin bottles littered the counter. Phoebe surveyed the room and felt a horrible sense of familiar unease—this was so much like one of the kitchens of her childhood, reeking of spilled booze and sour milk. There was a large spray bottle of Raid on the cluttered table. Phoebe shuddered. It was as if she’d gone back in time to when she would walk through the kitchen and find her own mother passed out on the living room couch. And now, like then, she felt she was a meek little girl, powerless to other people’s demons.
“Sam?” The word was little more than a moist puff in the air. She wanted to leave this place. To run as fast as she could and not look back.
Sam turned left, walking through the dining room into the living room.
Phoebe covered her nose and mouth and walked over to the sink. Among fossilized pots of orange macaroni and cheese and SpaghettiOs were baby bottles and half-empty bags of curdled formula. Phoebe’s stomach clenched. She couldn’t bear the thought of a tiny infant being in a place like this, cared for by a woman who obviously could barely care for herself. She put a hand on her stomach and made a silent promise: I will keep you safe. I will keep things like this from ever happening to you. You will grow up in a clean house, eating wholesome, organic, Sam-approved food.
“Sam,” Phoebe said, holding one of the bottles up. “The baby was here.” He looked over and nodded grimly.
She dropped the bottle of curdled formula and followed Sam into the living room.
Both rooms were cluttered and filthy: stacks of junk mail, books, and magazines covered the table and floor. Ashtrays were overflowing. Afghans that had no doubt once been bright and cheery hung over the furniture tattered and stained. The lights were on, but there was no sign of life.
“Hazel?” he called out. There was no response.
“Sam,” Phoebe asked, eyeing yet another bottle of gin on the coffee table, this one half-full. Next to it, a ring of condensation, still damp and glistening. “When was the last time you were here?”
“When I was a kid. Before Lisa disappeared.”
Lisa had followed them into the living room but stood with her back pressed against the wall, eyes open wide, hands clenched into fists, fingernails digging into her palms.
“You okay, Lisa?” Phoebe asked. Lisa showed no sign of having heard her.
Sam climbed the mottled brown and orange carpeted stairs in the living room. The wall was covered in school photos of Evie. There she was in first grade, pudgy and freckled, smiling for the camera. Then later, in fifth grade, the freckles faded, the smile replaced by a scowl. In her high school graduation picture, she was tall and lean with close-cropped hair and piercing eyes.
The light in the hall was on. They passed reprint landscapes in cheap frames, a plaster handprint Evie had done when she was seven. Phoebe placed her own hand over it, fingers working their way into the grooves Evie’s hand had left behind.
Where was Evie?
What was happening to this family’s girls and women?
The first bedroom, Hazel’s, was empty. A bed was covered in a flowered quilt. There was a Reader’s Digest on the nightstand and a small television. There were some dirty clothes on the floor: a stained nightgown, a faded pair of enormous pink briefs with the elastic sprung. Phoebe looked away, embarrassed.
Sam went across the hall to the second bedroom. “Jesus!” he yelped. Phoebe ran in.
“Evie’s room,” Sam said.
There was a twin bed, neatly made. Next to the bed was a desk. Above it, a poster of a tarot card: the Hanged Man.
Phoebe’s skin felt cool and damp, like she’d just entered a cave.
“Look familiar?” Sam said, pointing at the image. It showed a man hanging upside down by his foot, his leg crossed, his hands bound.
“Teilo’s sign,” Phoebe said, instantly recognizing the rough shape the man’s upside-down body made.
There was a scattering of notebooks on the desk. Sam picked one up, thumbed through it, scowling. Then he set it down, picked up another. “They’re all full of writing, but I can’t decipher it. It looks a lot like your chicken scratch, Bee.” Sam gave her a quizzical look.
“Let me see.” Sam handed the notebook over, and she flipped through it. “A lot of people use their own form of shorthand. It just makes writing faster,” she explained.
“And makes it so other people can’t read it,” Sam added.
“Right, she was definitely trying to keep whatever she wrote a secret,” Phoebe said, “but I can read this just fine.”
“You can?”
“It’s pretty simple, really.” She held the book out for him to look at. “See these dots—they stand for the word the. She’s dropped most of the vowels, used phonetic spelling. And she’s simplified some of the letters, like leaving the A’s without the line across. And this squiggle here,” she said, pointing at the page, “is a G. The word is ‘talking’.”
Sam squinted at the notebook. “You can actually read it?”
“Sure,” Phoebe said. “She’s talking about the fairies, Teilo, a magic door in Reliance.” She set down the notebook and picked up another, an earlier one, the cover worn and faded.
“Okay,” Sam said. “So we know Evie was helping Teilo, but who the hell is he? He sure doesn’t pop out of a secret door in the woods. Who lives in that room in the basement?”
Lisa stood in the doorway, as if she was afraid to step over the threshold. She laughed a high, nervous laugh.
“I don’t know, but Evie definitely does,” Phoebe said, a knot forming in her stomach. “But I’m not sure she was always on his side.” She pointed at the notebook. “Listen to this, it’s from fifteen years ago, in August:
“ ‘They’re keeping her so doped up she doesn’t know where she is. It kills me to see her like this; it’s like being gutted. But I know it won’t last. It’s just for a short time. I sneak into her room at night, curl up next to her, and tell her I promise I’ll get her out. I bring her little treats: chocolate, colored pencils, bubble gum. One day, I’ll find a way to break the spell. We’ll get on our horses and ride away from here. I’ll use my magic key and save us both.’ ”
Phoebe remembered what Lisa had said, that Evie was the one who let her go. But why had it taken fifteen years? What was she up against?
Phoebe looked up at the hanged man poster above the desk. What struck her most was his expression of perfect calm. Here he was, hung upside down, looking completely at peace, a yellow halo glowing around his head, making him seem saintly, enlightened.
She glanced back down at the notebook, flipping ahead until something caught her eye. “Listen to this,” she said.
Evie had taken notes from a book called Tarot for Beginners:
“‘The hanged man suspends serenely upside down, having let go of all worldly attachments. The hanged man has perspective obtainable only by someone who is free from everyday reality. He is an outcast who appears to be a fool, but in reality, he is the most enlightened of them all. He understands change is coming and has opened himself up to it completely. It’s a card about surrender. About being suspended between the worlds.’”
He walks between the worlds.
It’s a card about surrender.
As she set down the journal, her eye caught on the pile of books underneath the notebooks. Phoebe held up a thick hardcover in a transparent library slipcover: Understanding Agoraphobia. “Looks like maybe Evie was doing a little research.” Getting ready to play the role of the poor, terrified cousin who can’t leave her apartment. Phoebe flipped through. Tucked between pages of the book were two snapshots, one of the house Phoebe and Sam shared.
“She was watching us,” Phoebe said.
The other was a childhood photo of Evie, Sam, and Lisa on a beach. Evie’s arm was around Lisa. They were all three smiling into the camera. Phoebe caught the glint of Lisa’s brand-new charm bracelet
on her left wrist. Sam and Evie held plastic pirate swords. Off in the corner of the photo, between the kids and the ocean behind them, a blurry figure was lurking. “Who’s that?” she asked Sam, pointing at the photo, wondering if it was an actual person or just a trick of light.
“No one,” Sam said. “There wasn’t anyone else there.”
Behind them, from a room down the hall, a door closed.
They all froze, looking at each other.
“He’s here,” Lisa said.
Phoebe looked up at the Hanged Man and stumbled a little, suddenly light-headed, as if she herself were upside down. Her stomach churned, and a wave of nausea overtook her. She hurried from the room, down the hall in search of a bathroom, making it just in time. She vomited, rinsed out her mouth with lukewarm water, looked at herself in the mirror. For just an instant, a nebulous figure moved across the mirror, behind her. She spun. No one. Nothing.
“Shit,” she mumbled, gripping the sink. She thought she felt the baby twitch inside her, her own little divining rod telling her something was terribly wrong.
She walked on shaky legs out of the bathroom and saw there was one more room across the hall, the door closed. She crept slowly up to it, placed her hand on the knob, turning it gently, pushing the door open. The room was warm, sweet smelling but with a sour undertone.
“Oh,” she said, not meaning to speak, the sound escaping anyway. In front of her was a pretty white bassinet, a changing table stocked with diapers, powder, wipes, diaper rash cream. On the edge of the table, a bottle of formula. Phoebe touched it—still warm.
“You’re too late,” a voice told her. It was gravelly, unfamiliar. The hairs on the back of Phoebe’s neck stood up. She tried to make herself turn around but found she was frozen in place, as in a nightmare.
Chapter 46
The Girl Who Would Be Queen
He made them both pregnant this time. He was getting his son, one way or another.
They talked about escaping. When the babies were born, they were going to take them and run.
“They’ll never let us,” the queen said. She’d been there longer. She’d lost hope long ago.
“I know people,” she told the queen. “There are places where we would be safe. Sometimes there are happy endings,” she said. Hansel and Gretel pushed the witch into the oven, took her treasures, and found their way back home. Sleeping Beauty was woken with a kiss.
They didn’t see Teilo much. They continued to hear arguments through the flowered walls. Angry words saying things like “How could you?” and “I trusted you!” and “You’ve ruined everything.”
The girls waited. Their bellies grew. To pass the time, they told each other stories.
Once upon a time there was a little girl. And she had a little curl. Coal black hair. Dark eyes. She lived with her mother and father and brother on the edge of a forest. She ate oatmeal for breakfast and called it porridge. She had a shelf full of books and a silver comb and mirror that were magic. She had a secret hiding place in the attic. She went to school. Learned the golden rule. Loved her English teacher, who taught her things like what a metaphor is and how every story, if you look at it right, is a circle with a beginning, middle, and end.
She had a cousin named Evie, who said, “Don’t go into the woods anymore.”
And Evie was right. She should have listened.
Chapter 47
Phoebe
June 13, Present Day
“Who is Teilo?” Sam demanded. Hazel stood in the center of the nursery, holding a large glass of what smelled like straight gin with ice. She was short and chunky, with black tousled hair streaked with grey. Her cheeks were rosy and covered with thin spidery red veins, her eyes dark. She wore a pair of stretchy navy blue pants, stained at the knees, a white cardigan, and fleece slippers. House clothes, Phoebe’s mother would have called them. Phoebe saw an instant resemblance to Phyllis, only this was a ravaged version—the dark sister who stole children away.
“Do you really need to ask that?” Hazel asked, her words a slurred, drunken hiss. “After everything you’ve seen? You of all people should understand the truth, Sammy.” She waved her drink in his direction, some of it spilling over the edge.
“What truth is that?” Sam asked. “What I understand is that you kept Lisa here. Made her think she was with the fairies. It was you. You and some mysterious six-fingered rapist who lives in your goddamn basement! Who is he, Hazel?”
“I did what I did because I had to. I did it to protect my children.”
“Evie?” Sam said. “How in the hell did stealing Lisa protect Evie?”
Children. She’d said children.
Phoebe remembered what Becca had said about Hazel having a stillborn baby that everyone in town heard crying.
“He’s your son,” Phoebe said. “Teilo is your son.”
Hazel chuckled, sounding more like a dainty Mrs. Claus than a psychotic kidnapper. “No. Gene is Teilo’s son.”
“Who?” Sam asked.
“The Dark Man,” she said. “Teilo.” When Hazel said the name, a shadow crossed her face. She took a long sip from the glass of gin, hand trembling.
She’s afraid of him, Phoebe thought.
“But who the hell is Gene?” Sam asked.
“Your cousin,” Phoebe explained. “Evie’s older brother.”
“Evie doesn’t have a brother.” Sam shook his head firmly.
Poor Sam. Sometimes he was too smart for his own good. By the time his brain analyzed and processed, he was half a step behind.
“Why?” Phoebe asked Hazel. “Why keep him hidden?”
“He walks between the worlds,” Hazel said. “Half human, half fairy.”
“I have fucking had it with the fairy shit!” Sam exploded. “Where’s Lisa’s baby? What have you freaks done with him?”
“I said, you’re too late,” Hazel said calmly, smoothing at a crease in her stained pants. “They’ve taken the baby.”
“Where?” Sam asked. “What are they going to do to him? Lock him up in another secret room in someone’s filthy basement?”
Hazel flinched a little, then smiled, showing crooked, stained teeth. “No. They’ll take him to Teilo. In time, he’ll be joined by another, a human girl not yet born who will be raised by the fairies. Together, they’ll change the world.”
“This is insane,” Sam said. “You can’t actually believe all this.”
“It’s the prophecy. And it’s all coming true. Ask her,” Hazel said, looking at Lisa. “She knows the truth. She’s seen the future.” Hazel looked down into her glass, closed her eyes, and took another deep swallow.
Sam shook his head. “Lisa barely knows her own name anymore.”
Hazel laughed. “You still think this is Lisa?”
Phoebe’s mind ran in circles, then something clicked into place, like tumblers in a lock.
“Let me guess, she’s a changeling? Jesus!” Sam said. “Hazel, you pulled all this insane fairy crap from your own sick, twisted mind and brainwashed Evie. You kidnapped your own niece. And on top of it, you’ve got a secret son who never sees the light of day? What the fuck is the matter with you?”
Hazel shook her head. “I didn’t want to believe either, at first, Sammy. But then I saw the truth. Sometimes I wish . . . I wish things had turned out differently. But they didn’t. And you can’t run from your own destiny. You can’t hide from Teilo, no matter how hard you try.”
“Where have they taken the baby?” Sam said, raising his voice and speaking slowly, annunciating each syllable. “Where is Teilo?”
“Where do you go when there’s nowhere else to go?” Hazel said, rocking back on her heels. “Home, Sammy. You go home.”
Chapter 48
The Girl Who Would Be Queen
Teilo got what he wanted, what the dreams and prophecies promised: a boy child with thick dark hair, the palest skin, eyes like chestnuts, a mouth as red as any ruby. He smelled like warm summer rain. And the only time he seemed to s
top crying was when her nipple was in his mouth. He rolled it around in there like a sweet cherry, then clamped down tight and went to work. Queen cow, pumping out milk, walking the halls with the baby howling, one of the guardians telling her to shut him up. Then another guardian hissed, “You shut up before Teilo hears you and fries up your skin for breakfast! That’s the prince you’re talking about.”
Things were tense since Teilo’s son was born. There was arguing all the time. Evie fought with the guardians, who then fought with the man who called himself Teilo but wasn’t really.
Her own baby had been stillborn. She must have come too early. She was perfect in every way, though. Ten fingers. Ten toes. A head full of damp, curly hair.
A week later, the queen’s baby, the perfect son, came. The queen had a hard labor, much worse than her own. There was so much screaming. So much blood. The guardians, they tried to stop it. “We should get her to a hospital,” Evie said. She was yelling, begging. And she was crying. Actual tears.
“No,” said her mother. “Teilo would be furious.”
So they let her die.
Lisa, her name had been. Queen of the Fairies.
She’d heard the guardians talking. They said they had no use for her anymore.
“She’s got a loose screw,” one said. “A fucking mental case, that one is. Not even the kid’s mother. Just a wet nurse plucked at random off the street because Gene thought Lisa was lonely. So he brings her a fucking crank addict? How’s that for a playmate for the Queen of the Fairies? Disgusting!”
“Too late now,” the other said. “It’s your fault, really, when you look at it. It was your job to keep Gene under control. She’s serving a purpose now, feeding the baby. When we don’t need the girl, we’ll get rid of her. And take care of any evidence.”
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