Isla's Inheritance

by Cassandra Page

  Sarah and I returned to the hospital on our own the next morning. I was exhausted, so Sarah drove—and thankfully we didn’t have the rest of the family for an entourage. Nana wanted to fetch a few things from the farm for Dad and, not willing to contend with Australian road rules, had asked Aunt Elizabeth to drive. Ryan begged off, sending his love. He had less than two days to finish his painting for Sarah—less again when you factored in the drying time—and wanted to take advantage of the quiet house to concentrate on the finishing touches.

  The irate nurse from the day before was off shift, so we were able to walk into Dad’s room without being intercepted.

  “My favourite daughter! My favourite niece!” He beamed at us from his bed. We smiled at the old joke; we were his only daughter and niece. He was sitting upright, trying to read the local broadsheet. Pages were spread open on his little meal table and across his legs: organised chaos. “I’m trying to catch up on what I’ve missed,” he explained.

  “Not much,” I said. “Politics, mostly. Boring.”

  “So it seems,” he agreed. Then he looked at the door. “It’s just you two this morning?”

  “I expect Nana will be in later with some of your iron sculptures.” I set my bag down on the other bed and slid into one of the chairs. Sarah leaned against the windowsill again.

  “Oh.” He hesitated, glancing at Sarah.

  “It’s okay, Dad. She knows.”

  “Right.” He grinned, relieved. “I’m glad. It’s nice to be able to talk to people who know.”

  “You could have done that sooner if you’d fessed up,” Sarah said. “And saved Isla a lot of stress.”

  “I realise that now.” He reached out and took my hand. “I’m sorry, truly. I was trying to protect you.”

  “It’s not like you knew all hell was going to break loose when I turned eighteen,” I said. There was a tightening around his eyes, a flickering change in his aura. “Did you?”

  “Not … exactly.”

  “Dad!”

  He folded up the newspaper pages and put them onto the meal table, taking the time to think about his answer. I tapped my foot, arms folded.

  “When you were a baby,” he began, “I was worried you might have inherited your mother’s … talents. And, more importantly, her vulnerabilities. I didn’t have any iron around the house, for obvious reasons, but I noticed when I was out walking with you in the pram that you cried whenever we passed this house with a wrought iron fence.” He met my gaze, looking solemn. “I wanted to protect you. So I found someone who could. It’s hard to explain, but the way she told it to me, she bound the duinesidhe side of you.”

  “How?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Was she duinesidhe too?” Sarah asked, stumbling a little over the pronunciation of the unfamiliar word.

  “No. She was human. A witch.”

  We both stared at him for several heartbeats.

  “Seriously?” Sarah said. Exactly what I was thinking.

  He nodded. “The duinesidhe aren’t the only beings out there with power. That’s part of what I wanted to protect you from. But she told me I was only able to speak for you, to enter you into a contract with her, while I was your guardian. Once you became an adult in your own right, the spell would fail.”

  “So you knew it would happen when I turned eighteen?”

  “I thought it would be when you turned twenty-one,” he admitted, abashed. “At the time, that age was much more important as a rite of passage. It never occurred to me that as the ‘coming of age’ age—” he used air quotes, reminding me of Jack “—moved forward, that would change the end date of the spell.”

  “So you didn’t give Isla the iron birthday present as a test?” Sarah asked, her eyes narrowed with suspicion. I gave her an admiring look; that hadn’t even occurred to me.

  “I always gave her an iron present.” He laughed sheepishly.

  “That’s true, but you did bring it back to me later, after I forgot it at the restaurant,” I pointed out.

  “After your aunt told me Ryan had painted a picture of Melpomene… Well, I grew suspicious. And I was afraid for you. I would have wrapped you up in iron if I could, to protect you. Head to toe.”

  “Given what one little touch did, I’m sort of glad you didn’t.”

  Silence fell. I nibbled my lip, turning what he’d said over in my mind. Dad had used magic to protect me until I was an adult. Had the ritual of the family dinner been some sort of trigger for the spell failing? Jack’s theory that I’d been leaking energy like a sieve that night, accidentally turning Ryan into my aislinge, seemed to be true.

  Although … was the spell crumbling before that, given the séance at Halloween attracted Jack’s attention? That was also the same night I’d dreamt of my mother. Had she dreamed of me as well? Were my birthday and the events surrounding it what triggered Dad being attacked?

  I wondered if the dominant colour in both Dad’s and Sarah’s auras—an unpleasant greenish yellow—was the colour of apprehension, because that was how I felt.

  “I’m not protected anymore,” I said slowly. “But neither are you, Dad.”

  “I never was, except by the iron. I’ll be right.”

  “Dad, you got sick because you were elf shot. That’s what caused the coma.”

  He paled, his tanned skin turning sickly. “I was?”

  “I destroyed it,” Sarah said, and then gave me a cheeky grin. “Isla helped.”

  “Do you know who sent it?” Dad’s voice was casual but his aura was amber with warning.

  “I was hoping you’d have a theory. Did you annoy any other duinesidhe? Besides my mother, I mean?”

  “Not that I know of, but duinesidhe politics makes the stuff our political parties get into look tame.” He rapped the newspaper with his knuckles. “And the aosidhe are worse. They can be vicious. It’s possible the elf shot was sent by someone looking to gain an advantage over Melpomene.”

  I thought that was unlikely—although, given my father’s steadfast love for my mother, I understood why he might like to believe it. But that sort of delusion could get him elf shot again. Or just plain killed.

  “Melpomene. Not Melanie?” Sarah asked.

  “No. She went with a more usual name with anyone who didn’t know who and what she was,” Dad said.

  “Melpomene isn’t Scottish.”

  “It’s not. It’s the name of one of the ancient Greek muses. She would have liked me to believe she was that old, but I think it was an affectation.” He smiled fondly.

  I made a mental note to ask Jack whether there was something I could do to reduce the adoring—artificial—love my father felt for my mother. It wasn’t just out of concern for his safety, although that was part of it. Blind devotion was called “blind” for a reason. But my dad would never have a happily ever after with Melpomene, and the idea he would never have a normal relationship with someone saddened me.

  “Melpomene was the muse of tragedy,” Sarah said darkly, bringing my attention back to the conversation.

  “That’s a cheerful thought,” I muttered. Then I took a breath. “Seriously, Dad. Whoever elf shot you, whether it was her or someone else, might try it again. You need to start protecting yourself. Carry a few lumps of iron in your pockets when you leave the farm or something.”

  He frowned. “But then you won’t be able to come near me.”

  “Sure I can. It just means a bit of discomfort.”

  “And no hugging,” Sarah put in.

  “I’d prefer that to seeing you in another coma. Or worse. Promise me you will.” He hesitated and I glared at him. “Promise.”

  “Okay, okay, you win,” he agreed, throwing his hands in the air in surrender.

  We stayed with Dad for the rest of the morning; when the nurse frowned and asked if he needed some rest, he charmed her with a smile and a joke about how he’d been asleep for days. After lunch, he managed to persuade her to let us take him for a walk arou
nd the hospital, him wearing long cotton pyjama pants, a T-shirt and a pair of ratty slippers Ryan had put into his overnight bag back when he was in the ICU. Sarah rolled her eyes at his outfit, but I couldn’t stop grinning, almost giddy with relief. His reassuring company and—finally—honest answers to my questions were cold water on a scald: they took the heat from my wound, leaving it free to heal.

  I even laughed at his terrible coma-patient jokes. If anyone had the right to, it was him. I did, however, wonder where he’d gotten them all from; was he surfing the net for material? And if so, how? He didn’t have a smart phone.

  The nurse insisted Dad have a nap after lunch, despite his protests that he felt fine. He tried to enlist our support but, unable to point out he was fine now the elf shot was gone, we weren’t particularly persuasive.

  I promised him I’d bring in a few books to help him pass the time.

  “You’d better,” he muttered as we picked up our bags to head for the door, where the nurse stood, supervising our departure with a gentle smile that belied her unyielding demeanour. “Either that or a jailbreak kit.”

  We headed home, grabbing kebabs and coffees from a Turkish restaurant on the way.

  Nana and Aunt Elizabeth arrived home twenty minutes after we did, as we were finishing our lunch. My aunt bustled around in the kitchen, fixing a pot of tea and some sandwiches for herself and her mother.

  Nana corralled Sarah and me in Sarah’s bedroom.

  She handed me a canvas shopping bag. I took it warily, even though I didn’t sense the nauseating tang of iron. “I found that on the kitchen bench at your father’s place,” she whispered in a conspiratorial fashion.

  Curious, but also cautious, I opened the bag and peeked inside. It was a mass of brown paper, stuck over with tape and wound around with string.

  “What is it?” Sarah asked.

  “Packing material,” Nana said. “We had a coffee with that busybody neighbour of David’s, Lily something, and she said she found it next to him when she discovered him unconscious. She was the one who left it on the bench.”

  The irony of my grandmother describing Mrs Wilson as a busybody wasn’t lost on me, but I put it to one side. Why did Nana think the discarded wrapping from a parcel was significant? I picked it up by one corner, and lifted it out of the bag so Sarah and I could examine it.

  The paper was only about the size of a letter, as though cut to wrap something small: about the size of the box my charm bracelet had come in.

  Something small, like an arrowhead.

  Oh.

  I turned the paper around so I could read the address label. Written on a white sticker, partially obscured by a small tear, was Dad’s address.

  There was no return address. However, the postmark was from Edinburgh.

  “I think this is the parcel the elf shot was mailed in,” Nana whispered, stating aloud the conclusion I’d drawn.

  “I thought it could fly,” Sarah said.

  “They do self-animate,” Nana said. I stared at her, startled that she knew that much. Just how deeply had she been involved with the duinesidhe? “But they don’t have enough energy to fly halfway around the world. Someone mailed the elf shot to him, and then when he took the parcel out of the mailbox…” She made a flying gesture with her hand for a moment before tapping Sarah in the chest with her fingers.

  “Ow.”

  “That makes sense. The mailbox is at the gate, where he was found,” I said.

  “Precisely,” she agreed.

  “Mum,” my aunt called from up the corridor. “Lunch is ready.”

  “Coming, dear,” Nana called back. She turned to me again, blue eyes hard as ice. “Find out who sent that parcel. For your father’s sake.”

  “How is she meant to do that?” Sarah protested.

  “Ask Jack,” I said.

  Nana nodded sharply and left the room; we heard her talking to Aunt Elizabeth and the scrape of the dining chairs as they pulled them out to sit down.

  “I thought she said Jack was dangerous,” Sarah observed, closing her bedroom door.

  “She did. But I guess she doesn’t care if it means finding out who’s after Dad.” I thought about that for a moment. “I sort of agree with her.”

  “I never thought I’d see the day.”

  “It’s shocking, but try to contain yourself.”

  “So when are you going to do it? Talk to Jack?”

  “This afternoon, I guess, after they leave to go visit Dad.”

  “Don’t forget to invite him to the party.”

  I rolled my eyes at her. “Nag.”

  I put the packing paper into a plastic sandwich bag, unsure what, if any, evidence Jack might be able to retrieve from it. Fingerprints, maybe? The thought of Jack using modern policing techniques made me smile.

  Although, given Nana, Dad, Mrs Wilson and I, and possibly Aunt Elizabeth, had handled the paper, it seemed like a long shot in any case.

  Sarah didn’t ask to come with me when I set out across the front lawn to the park. But, judging from the twitching curtains, I was pretty sure she was watching from the lounge room window.

  The cooler weather lingered; usually mid-afternoons in early summer were scorching hot. But it was still pleasant. The sun beamed warmly down from a sky clear except for a couple of puffs of clouds drifting east. A faint breeze rustled the tops of the trees and stirred the long grass that fringed the edge of the park. The grass whisked against my calves as I strode over to the swing and sat, placing my bag between my feet.

  I wondered with a half smile what Sarah was thinking, seeing me hang out in the park.

  Jack took about ten minutes to arrive. He strode along the path that came from the shops, hands in his pockets. He was still wearing the red Canteen bandana, but this time he wore a navy blue tank top and black shorts. His sneakers looked brand new, gleaming white against the pavement. I stood to greet him.

  “Another new outfit?” I raised an eyebrow. “Luxury.”

  He nodded. “I am glad to see you, Isla. How is your father?”

  “Conscious,” I grinned at him. “Talking, walking around and itching to get out of hospital as soon as he can.”

  He smiled back. “That is great news.”

  I couldn’t remember whether I had expressed my gratitude, that day at the hospital. I’d been too distracted. Dad would be ashamed. “Thank you, Jack. For everything. He wouldn’t be awake now if it weren’t for you.”

  To my surprise, he blushed, staring down at his feet. “My pleasure,” he said after a long moment, peering at me through his eyelashes. “I like to help.”

  I remembered what Nana had said. “Is it because you’re a hob?”

  He frowned. “Where did you hear about that?”

  “My grandmother flew in from England. She knows a bit about the duinesidhe, and she said there’s a species that serves the aosidhe.”

  His jaw clenched. Had I offended him? “It is true that I am a hob,” he admitted. “And it is true that the aosidhe have bound our race so we only truly thrive when we are serving one of them. They enslaved us.” He spat out the words. “That is why I left the Old World and came here, why so many of us did. But Isla, I do not assist you because I have to. I do it because I want to.”

  He looked away, across the park to where a cat prowled through the grass, stalking a fluttering white cabbage moth. The cat’s tail was a tortoiseshell mast on a grassy sea.

  “Well, I’m grateful,” I murmured. “Truly. And if you do get any personal benefit from helping me, that’s the least I can do to repay you.”

  He took a deep breath, swallowing his anger, and nodded. I nodded back.

  After a long moment, he changed the subject. “The elf shot is destroyed?”

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  “It created a bit of a fuss.” He leaned against the ride-on frog, which rocked gently. Somehow he made it seem like the most comfortable pose in the world.

  “Something I should be worried about?�
��

  He shook his head. “I only heard it because I was close and listening for it—although its maker may know it was destroyed. I am uncertain. I was a little surprised you went ahead with destroying it without me.”

  I examined his expression and aura. Had I hurt his feelings again? Seriously, some days I shouldn’t be allowed to leave the house. “I’m sorry. It seemed like a good idea to get rid of it straight away.”

  His mouth curved into a lopsided smile. “I am not offended. Being in the presence of iron is always uncomfortable, no matter the reason, so I am glad I did not need to attend.” His gaze was untroubled, and there was no hint of distress in his aura. The brief moment of frustration was gone like it never happened.

  I wished I could control my emotions as easily as Jack.

  Getting off the swing, I reached into my bag and took out the plastic container with the elf shot in it. “Here it is.”

  He took it from me, turning the container over in his hands and looking at the fine powder from all sides. “It is dead. Safe. You can dispose of it as you wish.”

  “That’s good to know.”

  He handed it back to me and I frowned. Should I throw it in the bin? Maybe Dad would want it as a keepsake from his hospital visit. Or was that a tad creepy, like keeping your appendix after it’s removed?

  I slipped it back into my bag, and my fingers brushed against the packaging Nana had found. I handed it to Jack, explaining my grandmother’s theory about how the elf shot was delivered to my father. He listened, nodding, and examined the packaging without taking it out of the sandwich bag.

  “I know I’ve asked a lot of you already, but is there anything you could do to find out who posted it?” I asked him, feeling sheepish.

  Jack looked at me and shrugged. “I do not have a gift for that sort of thing, but I know others that do. I can ask them on your behalf.” He hesitated and then added, “They may require payment for any information they can glean.”

  “If we can find out for sure who sent the elf shot, it’d be worth it.”

  “That would depend on what they ask in return, I would think,” Jack said, a note of caution in his voice. He put the packaging into his pocket. “But I will see if there is anyone willing to help.”

  “It probably came from my mother,” I told him. “You were right when you told me before that her motivations for seeking me might not be good.”

  “Oh?” He raised his eyebrows.

  “Dad told me that, before I was born, he bound her with an oath.” I didn’t explain the details, still uncomfortable with the story. “She was apparently quite angry about it.”

  “An aosidhe bound by a human?” His sapphire eyes sparkled. “Oh yes, I can imagine she was.”

  “He still loves her, though,” I sighed. “I think she manipulated his emotions the day they met, made him fall in love with her.”

  “And that is why he bound her? So she could not leave?” I nodded, and a wicked grin spread across his face. “It serves her right then, do you not think?”

  Him binding her did have a certain amount of poetic justice to it. Talk about being caught in your own trap. And it was a pointed example of why I needed to be careful myself. “Do you think there’s a way to undo what she did to him? If she turned up intending to harm him, he’d walk straight into her arms. He’s got no sense of caution when it comes to her.”

  “There might be.” He shrugged. “Again, this is not something I can help you with myself.”

  “But you know others that can?” I asked wryly.

  He smiled and nodded. “I told you that day at the hospital that I would speak to an acquaintance about your gift.”

  I remembered what he’d said and grinned. “My superpower, you mean.”

  He laughed. “Yes. Well, I have found a potential teacher for you—”

  “That’s great news.”

  “—but he is wary. He requires some persuading before he will consent to meet you.”

  “Payment, you mean?”

  “We are not yet at the point of discussing payment, but still of convincing him to agree at all.”

  “Is it the fact that I’m a … half-breed?” Was there was a social stigma attached to being only half duinesidhe?

  His expression was solemn. “No, it is your aosidhe blood. Like I told you, there are many duinesidhe here that have fled aosidhe enslavement and mistreatment.”

  I was descended from a race of evil overlords. Great. “Well, I am happy to swear not to hurt him if that helps,” I said. “At least, as long as he doesn’t try and hurt me first.”

  “I will let him know. It may help.” He looked over my shoulder and stiffened, standing up. A harried-looking woman headed towards the park from the street, two young children in tow. “I should probably go,” he said as the older girl ran for the swings. I moved to the edge of the tanbarked area, out of the kids’ way.

  “Okay,” I agreed. As he turned to go, I glanced back towards the house and saw Sarah’s face peeking through the lounge room window. I’d almost forgotten—she would kill me! “Oh. Um, Jack?”

  He turned back, a questioning expression on his face.

  I spoke softly so the newcomers wouldn’t overhear. “What with everything that’s happened with Dad, I told my cousin Sarah about you. I hope that’s all right?”

  He hesitated. “Do you trust her discretion?”

  “I do.” Sarah could be a terrible gossip, but never when she’d promised to keep a secret—which was more than could be said for some of the other students at school.

  “Then I shall do so as well.”

  “Thank you. The thing is, she is having a birthday party this weekend, and she, um, wanted me to invite you along.”

  Jack’s blue eyes widened. “Why?”

  “Curiosity, mostly,” I admitted. “But she knows what you did for Dad as well, and that we’re friends. So she said to ask you. She was quite insistent. I’m not sure she’ll take no for an answer.” I smiled ruefully.

  His expression turned strange, and he blinked. “Friends?”

  “Of course we are.” I gulped. “Aren’t we?” Did he think of me as an employer rather than a friend? Or as an annoying student … or, worse, a charity case?

  Awkward.

  But a slow smile spread across his face, making his luminous eyes twinkle and his teeth flash white in the bright sunlight. “I have never had a friend among the—” He hesitated, glancing at the mother and her children. The woman seemed preoccupied with her phone and the older girl was trying to touch the sky with the heels of her sandals, judging by the arc of her swing. But the younger girl, a child of about four, watched us. “Among your folk. Either of them,” he finished instead. “Of course I will come to your party.”

  “Great.” I gave him a brief, tentative hug.

  “Are you going to kiss?” the little girl asked loudly.

  “Uh…” My cheeks flamed. Jack seemed unruffled.

  “Isabelle,” the mother protested, giving us an apologetic look. “You wanted to go to the park, and now we’re here. Why don’t you go play?”

  The girl sighed and stomped over to the seesaw, walking along its length. When she reached the centre point it tipped, the far side thudding to the tanbark; she walked down the other side to the ground. Then she turned around and headed back along it the other way … but she watched us from the corner of her eye as she did so.

  “So. Um,” I said to Jack, rendered awkward by the child’s gaze. “I’ll see you on the weekend?”

  “You will.” He gave me a slight bow and then headed back the way he came.

  I gave a farewell wave to the woman before walking back to our house and the third degree I knew I was going to get from Sarah.

  Chapter Seventeen