Ironspark

by C. M. McGuire

  When we finally reached the edge of the woods, I sighed. “Look. Thank you for helping me. But maybe it would be a good idea to pretend it didn’t happen. Fae stuff is pretty chaotic.”

  Dom all but tripped on his own feet as he whirled around to stare at me. “What? Are you kidding me? Bryn, magic is real!” His eyes sparkled brightly. Christ, he wasn’t scared—he was excited!

  “Yes, and it’s dangerous!” I tightened my grip on the blanket holding my precious cargo. “My father has hallucinations because one of the Fae decided to play ping-pong with his brain. My house just burned down because of them. Their magic plays by rules I don’t even think our brains can comprehend! This isn’t fun or games, Dom.”

  Dom’s hands twitched again before burying themselves in his pockets. He licked his lips, his gaze fixed somewhere over my shoulder.

  “Do you have somewhere to go?”

  “Huh?”

  Dom sighed. “Do you have somewhere to go tonight? Do you need a place to stay? I can talk to Helen. I’m sure she’d be more than willing to put you and your family up for a couple of days. I mean, it would be crowded but doable. I know she wouldn’t want to see anyone without a place any more than I would.”

  I blinked. It was such a mundane, normal thing to say that I almost worried he hadn’t even heard me. And I was too damn tired to press the matter.

  “No. We’re fine. I know where we can stay tonight, at least.” And, not for nothing, but if our house wasn’t safe, nothing on Postoak Road would be.

  Dom grimaced but nodded. “If you’re sure.” He reached out to squeeze my shoulder. “It’s going to be okay. And if you ever need anything, I’m at the end of the road. We can, you know. Talk about all of this stuff.”

  He was just so stinking earnest. I had to avert my eyes before he blinded me with that overbright puppy-dog look.

  “I just attacked you in the bathroom today.”

  “Yeah. I’m still working on that.” Dom pulled a face. “But I think I sort of get why you were scared. If this sort of thing was after me, I guess I’d be trigger-happy, too.”

  Right. I forced myself to nod. “Bye,” I muttered, and of course Dom didn’t turn to go anywhere. “Seriously. I know where I’m going.”

  “You’re sure?”

  I took a shallow breath, wincing at the faint itch in my lungs. “Yeah. Go. Don’t want you to miss dinner.”

  Another squeeze to my shoulder, and then he finally peeled off. Probably toward Postoak.

  I pulled out my phone and speed-dialed the middle school. The receptionist confirmed that, yes, both Ash and Jake were in class, and was I calling about Ash’s recent string of absences? The twerp had been playing hooky after all. Typical.

  “No,” I said. “But could you tell both of them to go to the after-school program? We’re…”

  We’re homeless? We’re under attack? What could I say without starting a panic?

  “We’re having a family emergency. Someone will be by to pick them up later. Uh … either me or my dad or Father Gooding. We don’t want them walking home alone today.”

  “Well, I’ll be sure to tell them. I hope everything works out.”

  Me, too. I pocketed the phone and took a deep breath. Time to set the Fae world aside and deal with the very human consequences of all of this.

  * * *

  THE FAMILIAR DOOR to Gooding’s office loomed over me like an entry into the underworld. A gust of the early evening wind swept down on me, biting at my bare arms. Gooseflesh rippled across my skin. In that instant, I was a scared kid again, standing on the steps of a strange church, ready to ask a strange man for help. I wanted my mum to knock for me. I wanted my dad to squeeze my shoulder and promise me it would be okay like he did all those years ago. But I was the only one here.

  With one hand, I clutched the blanket and its precious contents. With the other, I knocked.

  Several long seconds passed before the door creaked open. Gooding poked his head out, his eyes bloodshot. Working without his glasses again.

  “Bryn, why aren’t you in…” He trailed off, looking me up and down. I could only imagine what he saw. His brows furrowed. “You’re covered in soot. What happened?”

  “My…” My voice came out sounding strained and thin. I swallowed. “My house was on fire. I managed to save—”

  I didn’t get to finish that thought. The instant I said “fire,” his arms were around me, pulling me close. I stiffened and almost dropped the blanket, but I relaxed just enough to wrap one arm around his middle. It was a strange fit. Gooding and I didn’t hug. But it fought off the chill of the wind and the pervading sense of aloneness, and I wasn’t about to turn that down.

  “You foolish girl,” Gooding said. “What were you thinking? You could have been killed! Nothing is worth your life, Bryn!”

  For just a moment, his words had a bite to them, like he was truly about to scold me, but he didn’t let go. Tears welled up in my eyes, and the second they seeped through his shirt, he pulled away.

  “I’m sorry, Bryn. It’s going to be all right.”

  I scrubbed my face, shoulders hunching against the return of the cold. Trying to organize my thoughts felt like grabbing for dust motes in the air. “I tried to find out what caused it. There was broken glass in the living room. Don’t worry, I called for help, too. The fire trucks are already there.”

  I gave the blanket a little jerk, making the bits of glass clink against one another. Hard to say why I was even still holding on to it since I’d already let Gwen see it. By this point it was probably half ground to sand.

  Gooding took a deep breath. I could just hear the lecture he probably wanted to unleash, but after a couple of seconds, he pursed his lips and nodded.

  “Come inside,” he instructed. “Tell me everything.”

  He took my shoulder and steered me out of the office, down the hall, and into the cramped church kitchen.

  “Sit,” he instructed, letting go of my arm to point at the table currently covered with clothing donations. I slumped down in a rickety folding chair and pulled the blanket into my lap. The box and glass shards shifted under the fabric in the horrible, screeching way that made me want to grind my teeth.

  Gooding puttered around the kitchen as he prepared tea. There was something distinctly comforting about the normality of it. Even if he did prepare it in the microwave.

  I probably should have tried to explain everything then, when his eyes weren’t on me. But if I was honest with myself, all I wanted to do was grab the least hideous muumuu from the pile, take a shower, and curl up anywhere with a pillow. Not that I was going to get that chance anytime soon.

  Gooding set a steaming mug of chamomile in front of me and leaned against the table. “What, exactly, happened?” he asked. “And what on this good earth were you thinking?”

  Here came the time to edit the story a bit. He wouldn’t approve of the shadelings or the water wives.

  “I had a bad day. Needed some air, so I cut class. I saw the smoke, and I just sort of ran into it.” There. Only half a lie. Well, if I counted all the parts I was leaving out, it was probably seventy-five percent a lie. But I was telling him some truth. That had to count for something.

  Gooding sighed and pulled up another chair, gesturing at the charred blanket. “What’s in there?”

  I set the blanket out on the table and flipped it open. There, on top of the remains of the glass shards, sat Mum’s box. Mum’s book. For one horrible moment, I saw his hand twitch toward it. He’d want to look inside. He’d find the book. He’d see what was in it, and … oh God. He’d never let me see it again. He’d hide it or burn it because, in his mind, that would be the safest thing to do.

  I felt something squeezing around my heart. Before he could touch it, I snatched the box up from the pile.

  “Gnngh!” I nearly dropped the box as pain shot through my hands.

  I ground my teeth together, setting the box back on the table. Tiny shards of glass glittered u
nder the fluorescent light, ground into the now thoroughly beaten wood of the box. And my stinging hands. Gooding jumped up from his chair, going right for the first aid kit under the sink.

  “Give me that,” Gooding instructed, reaching for my hand. The pain in my palms settled into a steady throb. Gooding pulled out a pair of tweezers, plucking out the glass shards one by one. Each pluck felt like a stab right into my palm. I glowered down at the table, trying not to make any sound. I did pretty well until he splashed the rubbing alcohol on the cuts. Fire washed over my hands, and Gooding definitely didn’t appreciate the word that came out of my mouth.

  “Bryn, you are in a church,” he pointed out before pulling out a long, thin strip of gauze.

  I shot him a dark look. “I think the big guy will forgive me. It’s been kind of a long day.”

  Gooding opened his mouth, then closed it and nodded as if to say Touché. Score one for me, then. As he finished bandaging my first hand, he nodded toward Mum’s jewelry box. “Of all the things you could have taken, why that?”

  “Mum’s jewelry,” I answered automatically. “I just wanted something of hers. That’s all. And if I have the glass, maybe I can show the police what happened. In case the rest of the evidence is gone.” Okay, that was a little bit more of a lie than the last one.

  Gooding pursed his lips and started on my second hand. “You should have trusted the authorities.”

  “Right, because they know what we’re up against.” I took a deep breath and focused on the gauze as he wrapped it around my palm, the soft feel of the cloth against my cuts. It was easier to focus on that than everything else. “I think it’s time for me to tell Dad. About everything.”

  Gooding’s hands stilled. There was a long silence as he stared at me, his expression unreadable. Shouldn’t he be cheering me on? Scolding me for taking too long? My heart jumped into my throat. What, was he going to make me beg now?

  “Father Gooding, this wasn’t just some prank. They couldn’t get past our gates, so they forced us out of our home. Dad needs to know.”

  Gooding took a deep breath before he finished wrapping my hand. After what felt like an eternity, he reached forward to squeeze my shoulder. “Drink your tea,” he said. “I’ll call him.”

  * * *

  WHILE GOODING MADE THE CALL, I curled up in the chair and held the mug of chamomile until it started to go cold. I felt like a buoy after a storm—one more big wave, and I’d be done.

  Little by little, the light outside the window faded into the buttery yellow of late afternoon. There were voices. The church secretary and Gooding explaining to her precisely why I was in here. I stopped listening around the word “fire” and focused on the table. A small spider crept along the laminated wood before disappearing under a faded hockey jersey. I couldn’t help wondering if some poor guy was going to receive it and get a nasty surprise. I blinked down at it. Without really thinking it all through, I grabbed Mum’s box and slid it under the pile. Out of sight and beyond question.

  My phone shrieked. The name ASH lit up the screen, just above a picture of him on his eleventh birthday with chocolate frosting on his nose. I stared at it, trying to decide whether or not to answer. After a minute, the ringing stopped, replaced by a text beeping across the screen. From Ash.

  Ash: Wtf Bryn?! Why can’t we go home????

  I stared at it, trying to process the words.

  The door flew open. I barely had time to look up before Dad was in front of me, his hands on my face as he forced me to look up and into his terrified eyes.

  “My baby girl, what happened?” he sputtered, rubbing his thumbs across my cheeks, half cleaning, half smearing the soot that still clung to them. Before I could say anything, he pulled me into a rib-crushing hug. Something wound up tight in my chest and squeezed until tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. A few slipped out, and I didn’t even bother to wipe them away. I bunched my fingers in his coat and breathed in the spicy, sweet smell of his aftershave. It felt like a lifetime since my own dad had comforted me like this. And if I wanted to look at the ugly truth of it, it was the first time in a long time that I had let him.

  It took me a couple of seconds to even realize that he was still talking.

  “… insurance company. Figure out what started it.”

  An involuntary flinch shuddered through my arms. I let go of him and took a step back, wiping at the tears and soot on my cheeks. “It was the Fae, Dad.”

  His shoulders sagged like I’d just dropped a bag of bricks on him. Worse, he looked at me with those sad eyes that every school counselor had given me when they had to talk to me. Like he could pretend I was making this up. Like he didn’t live with a psychological condition they’d given him because he tried to go after Mum. Like he hadn’t kept her book of spells under his bed for almost a decade.

  “Sweetheart, I’m sure there’s a perfectly human explanation for what happened today.”

  “Dad.” My voice came out in a hoarse wheeze. This wasn’t how I wanted to do this. I should have been standing up straighter, chin raised, shoulders squared. I should have had a nice speech ready. But I didn’t. It was all I could do to string one word after another. “I know it was them because I know them. I fight them with Father Gooding.”

  Dad’s brows twitched. His eyes flicked to Gooding for the barest second before returning to me, filled with just a little less pity than before. “Bryn—”

  “There was a changeling on Postoak a week ago.” I curled my hands into fists to stop them from shaking. This was wrong. This was raining-frogs wrong. He still saw me as the scared little girl who’d just lost her mom. And, deep down, he was still the guy who’d just lost his wife and suddenly had three kids to look after alone. If I was ever going to tell him about what I was doing, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. Dad had enough on his plate … but now that I’d started, I couldn’t stop the words from spilling out. “And a month ago, the Witters family had redcaps. And … and I saw one of them, too. From Wales.”

  The color drained from his face. He flinched, the same jerking tic that came when things were going wrong in his head. I wanted to reach out to him, to draw his focus away from whatever he was seeing, but Father Gooding beat me to it. He stepped forward, his hands folded in front of him. Business as usual. “I’ve been teaching her to protect herself, Tom.”

  Dad turned to stare at him, and in that moment, I honestly thought he was going to punch a priest. He flexed his hand, rolling it in and out of a white knuckled fist. “You put her in danger?”

  “Knowledge is dangerous, yes. But not half as dangerous as ignorance.”

  Dad wasn’t a big man, but he looked like a bear ready to strike. “I came here to keep my family away from all of this!”

  “Dad.” I reached out, resting a hand on his tense arm.

  Dad jerked away as though I’d burned him. It only took a second for him to realize it. His expression crumbled. When he spoke, his voice wavered. “Bryn, sweetheart…”

  Sweetheart. I couldn’t unsee the pain and fear in his eyes. The whole point of working with Gooding was to keep anyone in my family from ever looking like that again. Guess I’d screwed that one up, hadn’t I?

  “It was my choice, Dad.” Yeah. That felt right. I squared my shoulders and took a deep breath. “It’s my choice. I decided to do this.” That was what you were supposed to say, wasn’t it? The strong statement that felt true. The sort of declaration that was supposed to make you sound independent and confident and hide how small and scared you were under the bravado.

  Dad’s expression didn’t change. If I stared at it too much longer, I’d start to feel it. I wouldn’t be able to keep this up.

  “Why did you keep this a secret?” he rasped.

  Shame curled in my belly. I wanted to force it down, but it was hard to ignore the hurt in his eyes. The square of my shoulders collapsed, and it was all I could do to keep from giving up entirely. Just sitting back down and blocking it all out because, hell, I rea
lly could have just dropped my head down and passed out for a week.

  “You had enough to worry about,” I mumbled. “This was something I could do. And up until now, it’s gone pretty well.”

  Dad sagged down into one of the folding chairs. All the energy seeped out of him, leaving someone who looked as beaten and defeated as I felt. I suppose, if nothing else, we could commiserate. There wasn’t any reason to it. There wasn’t any logic. This was Fae. It was otherworldly and ineffable and so, so damaging. I reached out to rest one hand on his shoulder. This time, he let me.

  “No more,” he said in a soft voice.

  “Tom—”

  “And how dare you,” Dad growled, shooting Father Gooding a withering glare. “Putting her in harm’s way. I trusted you. We moved here because you were supposed to be able to protect us. You promised!”

  “Dad.” I squeezed his shoulder. “We were only trying to protect you and the boys.”

  “I know what you were trying to do.” He glared down at the linoleum. “I know how hard it’s been on you and the boys. But this ends.” He leveled his finger at me. “No more. You go to school. You do your homework. You get into a good university half a continent away from this mess. But I never want to hear that you’ve been seeking it out.”

  It all sounded so normal. It was exactly the sort of thing I’d been barreling toward. Had things gone my way, I would have been planning nothing else. But things didn’t go my way, did they? Monsters attacked. Houses burned down. Battles would just keep happening until the war was over.

  My eyes flicked back to the untouched pile of old clothes. Until now, we’d been on the defensive. It hadn’t worked. Stopping wouldn’t work. Pretending we were normal and life was normal wasn’t going to work. But, in that moment, I just needed the pain to leave my dad’s eyes. If he and the boys were okay, I could be okay to carry on with what I needed to do.

  “Fine,” I muttered.

  The lie didn’t taste all that bitter.