Isla's Inheritance

by Cassandra Page

We weren’t allowed to see Dad that night. After we had impromptu, celebratory cake, Aunt Elizabeth stood and stretched until I heard her vertebrae pop. “This will be the first time I’ll be able to sleep since—well, since David fell ill.”

  “I might stay up a while longer, dear,” Nana said. When my aunt looked surprised, she added, “Jetlag.”

  “You poor thing. Would you like me to make you some chamomile tea?”

  “No, thank you.” Nana’s contemplative stare turned to me. The angry red and black were gone from her aura, replaced with a complicated pattern of slate grey and the same blue as in Sarah’s aura. Curiosity, maybe? Suspicion? “I’ll sit up with the children for a while. Get some rest.”

  Ryan scowled at being called a child and stood, shoving his chair back. “I’ve got some stuff to do anyway. Night.” He stomped up the hallway to his room.

  He’d started painting in there rather than in the shed; since his collapse he disliked being out there. I didn’t blame him. Aunt Elizabeth normally objected to him painting in the house, but she either didn’t notice or didn’t care. I suspected the latter; the smell of turpentine carried despite the closed door.

  Or maybe after his collapse she didn’t like the idea of him painting out there anymore, either.

  As soon as my aunt’s bedroom door closed, Sarah and Nana turned on me, with identical, demanding stares. Their eyes were almost the same shade of blue, too, although Sarah’s had a hint of green whereas Nana’s tended more towards grey.

  “Spill it,” Sarah said.

  So I did.

  I directed my explanation at Sarah, who was a more sympathetic audience than my grandmother. I told her how Dad came to me with the iron ornament. How he’d tipped it into my lap. How it had scalded me as though it were hot, even though it wasn’t. How I’d fled to Mount Ainslie.

  How I’d met Jack.

  How Jack wasn’t human.

  Sarah’s expression went from amused suspicion to shock when she realised I was serious. She glanced across at Nana, who nodded at my description of Jack’s appearance: the wrinkly skin; the long, pointed ears; the doe-like eyes.

  “He’s a hob,” she said. We stared at her. “A type of fae that serves other, more powerful fae. That’s their purpose.”

  I filed that information away for future consideration. “How do you know that?” Sarah asked.

  Nana gazed at a painting on the wall with unseeing eyes. “When I was a girl I knew a member of the fae,” she murmured. Her aura shifted from navy blue to deep pink. The silence hung for a moment before she shook her head and scowled. “They are dangerous. Not to be trusted.”

  “Jack told me,” I said.

  She raised her eyebrows. “He admitted it?”

  I nodded.

  “Just remember it applies to him too.”

  “He swore not to harm me.”

  Her mouth fell open with surprise, revealing a pair of pearly white dentures. I tried to suppress a smile; after what she’d put me through, I felt a certain amount of enjoyment at confounding her.

  “Exactly what did he swear to?” she said.

  “Does it matter?” Sarah folded her arms and glowered, her apparent dislike for being out of the faerie loop adding a light shade of red to her cheeks.

  Having experienced that feeling myself, I was sympathetic.

  “It does,” Nana said. “Fae are bound by the oaths they swear, but as a result they are particular about the wording.”

  That night on the mountain seemed like forever ago. “I think it was, ‘I swear I mean you no harm’.”

  Her expression of satisfaction and the smug pinkness in her aura annoyed me. “By wording it that way he was only swearing to his intent at the time he said it. He could change his mind and wouldn’t be bound by the oath.”

  I shrugged, although I filed that away to think about later, too.

  “So what happened next?” Sarah said, getting me back onto the story.

  I told her how Jack had healed my hand, and how I discovered my mother was a fae. It was hard to tell which of those revelations surprised my cousin more. She insisted on examining my palm for some sign of the injury or residual magic.

  After pulling my hand from her eager grasp, I recounted in an abbreviated fashion how Jack figured out Dad’s coma was caused by an elf shot. I left out Ryan’s involuntary role in the discovery, as well as my inadvertently turning Ryan into an aislinge. I was certain my grandmother would be horrified and angry, even though I hadn’t meant to do it.

  What did Nana know about aislinges? I’d ask her another time, once I decided how to phrase the question without making her suspicious.

  Sarah questioned me, rapt, about how we’d removed the elf shot. I tried to describe it, but my words seemed hollow. How to capture the warmth of the light Jack had helped me summon? The single-mindedness with which the elf shot had oriented itself towards my hand, as though ready to pounce?

  “Can I see it?” Sarah asked.

  I pulled the container out of my bag and handed it to Sarah. “Don’t open it,” I cautioned her. “I don’t know what would happen if it got out.”

  She turned the container around, looking at the arrow from all sides. “What are the squiggles?”

  “It’s Dad’s name. Jack told me,” I said.

  Nana stood, startling us. “We must destroy it.”

  I hesitated, and then nodded. The longer we waited, the more nervous I’d be that something would go wrong. What if it escaped and went after Dad again?

  Or maybe it would come after me?

  “Jack said iron would do it,” I told her.

  She looked around as though expecting to see some iron in the lounge room. Actually, given my father’s hobby, that wasn’t an unreasonable assumption—although it was wrong.

  “Out in the shed.” Sarah led us out the back door.

  The wind rustled the treetops with icy fingers that smelled like impending rain. I shivered. You wouldn’t know it was almost summer from the feel of the air.

  I waited on the back path, the porch light throwing my shadow before me, while Sarah and Nana went into the shed. They were taking a long time. There was quite a lot of ironwork in there; how long did they need? I tapped a foot but still couldn’t bring myself to go inside to see what was causing the delay. I hadn’t gone in there since the night of Ryan’s collapse, when we’d discovered the painting.

  Of my mother.

  Oh.

  Was it still in there? Had Nana seen it before now?

  When they came out, Sarah was holding a long black candlestick. Nana looked pale, licking her lips repeatedly.

  So that was a no then.

  “Unnerving, isn’t it?” I murmured. She nodded. There was no trace of suspicion in the look she gave me; if she’d heard of aislinges, it hadn’t occurred to her Ryan might be one.

  “I think this will fit inside the plastic container, like a mortar and pestle,” Sarah said, showing me the candlestick. I stepped back reflexively and she dropped her hand to her side. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  After a moment she continued, “Um. I figured we could crush it inside the container so none of it gets out.”

  “You’ll have to be quick getting the candlestick in there once the lid’s taken off, in case it animates,” I pointed out.

  “Me?” she squeaked.

  “Well, I can’t.”

  “True.” She took a breath. “Okay, let’s do it.”

  We went up onto the porch, where the light was better. I stood next to the railing, feeling useless, while Sarah placed the container upright on the glass tabletop. Nana stood beside her, holding the container steady. White creases formed around her lips.

  “Good luck,” I said as Sarah unscrewed the lid.

  She didn’t lift it immediately; instead, she held the candlestick beside it and closed her eyes, taking another, deeper breath.

  In one quick movement, she lifted the lid aside and rammed the end of the candlest
ick into the plastic container.

  Sarah had chosen her weapon well; it fit neatly inside the container, leaving no room for the arrow to escape up the side.

  When the candlestick thumped down onto the elf shot, there was an instant where nothing happened. I had enough time to wish I’d asked Jack for more information, and then a high-pitched shriek broke the silence. The sound was both mechanical and human, like a steam whistle combined with a woman’s scream. It went on for several seconds. There was a flash of light from beneath the candlestick, and then everything went quiet.

  The first sound to return was the ringing in my ears. Slowly the sound of barking dogs—including Hamish, who leapt at the back door, trying to get out—returned, and I gasped with relief. For a moment I thought I’d gone deaf. Doors slammed inside the house.

  Sarah whisked the container and candlestick behind her back before Ryan and Aunt Elizabeth appeared beside Hamish, sliding the door open.

  “What the hell was that?” Ryan said.

  I shrugged. Sarah tried to look innocent. “It came from over there,” our grandmother said, pointing in the direction of the neighbour’s barking dogs. “Perhaps a television?”

  “It didn’t sound like a TV,” Aunt Elizabeth said, head turning as she took in every corner of the yard.

  Hamish sniffed a path around us; Nana scooped him up and gave him a pat to calm him. He stiffened, surprised at the attention from an unexpected quarter, but her pats won him over. He was a whore for cuddles.

  Ryan peered in the direction Nana had pointed, shivering. “You’re all crazy, being out here without jumpers,” he said. “I’m going back inside.”

  Aunt Elizabeth stayed outside a little longer, walking down to the fence line and poking around to see if she could identify the cause of the shriek. As soon as her back was turned, Sarah hid the container under the table, on the seat of one of the pushed-in chairs.

  “Very strange,” my aunt muttered, heading back inside. “Don’t stay outside too long, girls.”

  After thirty seconds of silence from inside the house, Sarah put the container on the table. The candlestick was wedged into the plastic sample holder. “Is it … dead?” she asked. It was as good a word as any.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Turn it over so we can see underneath.”

  The bottom of the container was intact, but charred as though someone had held a lit match to the plastic, blackening it.

  The elf shot appeared to be gone, but it was hard to tell.

  “Should I take this out?” Sarah touched the candlestick with a tentative finger.

  I nodded. “Just be ready to jam it back in if anything happens.”

  Sarah flinched as she pulled the candlestick out. When nothing happed, she peered into the container. “It’s just some powder.”

  “Show me?”

  She tipped the container so I could see the bottom. The arrowhead had been crushed into dust, although she hadn’t hit it that hard. Not hard enough to destroy something made of metal.

  Was that what a full-blooded duinesidhe would be reduced to if they came into contact with iron? Would the same thing happen to me if I held the candlestick for long enough? I shuddered. “Put the lid back on. I’ll get Jack to look at it to confirm it’s properly destroyed.”

  She obliged, ignoring Nana’s frown at Jack’s name, and slid the container across the glass tabletop to me. She picked up the candlestick and trotted down the stairs to the shed.

  “So you mean to see the hob again?” Nana asked me.

  “I don’t see why not. He’s been very helpful.” Unlike some members of my family I could name.

  She frowned again. The expression came easily to her; was she always grim or was it a result of recent events? Having to travel halfway around the world because my son was in a coma would make me grumpy too, I supposed. “He will be sworn to an aosidhe, a high fae,” she warned. “You don’t know what his true motivations are, or those of his master.”

  “He’s not, actually,” I said. “He told me when we first met that he was unsworn.” Not that I’d known what he meant at the time. And he’d since sworn a couple of oaths to me … although neither of them were long-term service-type arrangements. Did that mean he was still unsworn?

  There was still so much I didn’t understand.

  Again Nana looked surprised and opened her mouth to ask another, almost certainly awkward, question. But Sarah returned, saving me. “I think it’s time for bed,” she said, taking my arm. “Ryan’s right. It’s freezing out here.”

  “Good idea,” I replied.

  We brushed our teeth and slipped into pyjamas. Once we were in the privacy of Sarah’s bedroom, I sat on the mattress on the floor and dragged a brush through my hair. After all my running around this evening, it was a snarled mess.

  Sarah climbed under her blanket, lying on her side. Hamish jumped onto the end of her bed, snuggling down next to her feet. He heaved a huge sigh and fell asleep. Sarah propped her head up on her arm to look down at me. “You guys were talking about Jack?” she asked.

  I nodded, still brushing.

  “What’s he like?”

  I thought about that for a moment. “Odd,” I murmured. “He’s polite, but I get the impression there’s more going on beneath the surface.”

  “Do you think he’s dangerous, like she said?” She gestured towards my bedroom with her free hand to indicate whom she was referring to.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen that side of him. But … I think he could be, if he was pushed.”

  “That statement could apply to anyone,” Sarah pointed out.

  “True.” I put the hairbrush to one side and began braiding my hair.

  “Is he cute?”

  I raised my eyebrows at her. “Why? Are you looking for a date?”

  “No,” she laughed. “But you’ve spent a lot of time with him. And you did ditch a dinner with Dominic tonight to see him.”

  “I ditched dinner to help Dad.” I threw the hairbrush at her. My hair unravelled.

  She ducked, holding her hands up in surrender. “Kidding, kidding! But seriously, what does he look like?”

  “He looks pretty much like any guy our age,” I answered, starting over on my braid. “He’s my height and has long ears and quite large eyes, but other than that…”

  “I thought you said he was wrinkly?”

  “I did.” I hadn’t told them Jack’s revelations about my own powers. I shifted on the mattress, uncomfortable at the idea of discussing the part about me draining emotions. The thought of it made me feel dirty. “They’ve gone since I first met him. He said it was something about being around me. I didn’t understand it, to be honest.”

  Sarah pursed her lips but didn’t say anything more. I twisted a hair elastic around the end of my braid and then took the hairbrush from the edge of Sarah’s bed and put it on her desk.

  Once I was curled under the blanket and reaching for the bedside lamp, she spoke again.

  “Nana said Jack was a servant-type fae, right?”

  “Yep.”

  “Maybe he got less wrinkly because he’s doing servant-type things? For you? I know Nana was suspicious about his motivations, but if he draws strength from helping you, maybe that’s his motivation? To serve?”

  Her words made a great deal of sense, and matched up with some of what Jack said. He didn’t like serving the full-blooded aosidhe because of their nature, but what if he needed to serve for his own sake, and I was the next-best thing?

  I was impressed at my cousin’s intuition. I should have made that leap myself, especially given I knew more, although not much more, than she did.

  “You’re taking all this very well,” I said. “Magic and fairies and stuff.”

  She shrugged. “I always wanted to believe in magic. Maybe wanting to believe makes it easier to accept it when it turns out it’s true.” Her expression was wistful as she stared at the ceiling.

  “Maybe.”

  “Can
I meet him?” she said, startling me. From the beginning, I’d wanted to tell my cousin the truth about Jack and my heritage, but it hadn’t occurred to me she might want to see more of it.

  It should have.

  “I don’t know…”

  “Why not? You said he looks more or less like a regular person. You could invite him to the party this weekend.” Sarah, the massive extrovert and social butterfly, was having a big eighteenth birthday party. It was nominally a belated party for my birthday the month before as well, but most of the people going were more her friends than mine. I didn’t mind, though; I’d been happy with our family dinner and a trip to the movies with my closest friends.

  “I’m not sure he’d want to go,” I said.

  “Well, ask him. The worst he can do is say no,” she pointed out.

  “I guess.” But the possibility of refusal wasn’t the true source of my reluctance. I grimaced and explained. “I didn’t tell him I was going to talk to you and Nana about the fae. What if he’s angry at me?” The thought made anxiety flutter like moths in my belly.

  “Tell him I promise not to tell anyone else. And it’s not like you told Nana much of anything she didn’t already know.” Sarah sounded almost as annoyed about that as I was.

  “I wonder what else she knows,” I murmured, snuggling further under my blanket. My limbs were starting to defrost after the cold air outside. It was nice to lie in bed and talk with Sarah. I could almost imagine we were talking about boys and school gossip rather than family secrets and supernatural beings.

  Sarah shrugged, looking up at the roof. “Dunno. But obviously her past with the fae didn’t end well. She doesn’t like them.”

  Okay, that made it a little harder to imagine this was a normal conversation.

  “That may not be from her first experience with them, though,” I said. “She also knew my mother. Maybe it was the fact she abandoned Dad and me that made Nana angry.”

  “So you think she’s alive then? Your mum, I mean.”

  I nodded. “Jack says she is.”

  “Oh.” She was silent for a long time. “I’m sorry,” she said finally, compassion in her voice, her aura a soft pink. I knew what she meant: she wasn’t sorry my mother was alive, but because the reality that my mother hadn’t wanted me was in some ways much worse.

  For me, at least. Presumably not for my mother.

  Smiling grimly at that, I turned off the light.

  Chapter Fifteen