Dark Possession

by Carol Goodman

  Instead, I corrected their faulty grammar and misspellings but not their hopeful illusions. Even if I no longer believed in happy endings, I wanted them to. But when I put down my red pen, Honeysuckle House loomed around me like a haunted house. Floorboards creaked, windowpanes rattled, cold drafts stalked the hallways, and shadows lurked in corners. With Ralph curled in my sweater pocket as he continued to recuperate from his attack, I paced the halls, trying to pin down the fleeting shadows, listening to the rustle and murmur of the old house settling on its foundation, watching for a glimpse of its ghost. But the house wasn’t haunted by a ghost; it was haunted by time. Something in its walls had made itself into a home for the incubus and still retained the impression of his incarnations. The pebbles and bits of wood that Liam used to bring home in his pockets migrated along the window ledges and shelves. I heard Bill’s hammer in the pound of branches on the roof, and I smelled William’s heather in the roving pockets of cold air. Each of them had left an impression on the house—even William, who had never been inside it.

  Or had he? When he returned to Faerie, he said it was to become the man I would someday fall in love with. So William had become Liam and then Bill … but when I tried to sort that out, I tied myself into a knot that further tightened around my heart. What did any of it matter? I had lost all three of them, and I didn’t need to be a scholar of fairy tales to know that was all the chances I would get.

  I kept busy. I joined the curriculum committee charged with creating the new classes to teach students magic and volunteered for Meals On Wheels. I delivered two dozen turkey dinners on Thanksgiving—the last one to Nan Stewart in the hospital. She’d been one of the Shady Pines residents too ill to go into a private residence. Mac had told me she’d asked to see me, but I’d shamefully put off the visit, afraid it would be too painful to be reminded of Ballydoon and William. On Thanksgiving, though, after seeing the faces of the old people light up when Dory and I delivered their turkey, I decided that was a poor reason for not visiting an old woman who might not have much time left. So I went home and made a special plate for her. I found her sitting up in her bed, a plaid shawl around her shoulders, refusing the tray of hospital food the nurse was pushing on her.

  “I thought you might come,” Nan said, gratefully accepting the plate of hot buttered bannocks I’d baked. “Ah, I see you learned how to make them properly on your trip.”

  I was about to ask her what trip she meant, but then I realized by the mischievous gleam in her eye that she knew exactly where I’d been. I looked at her more closely. She didn’t just resemble the seventeenth-century Nan Stewart—she was identical.

  “It was you.”

  “I ken what ye mean, lass, and, aye, I’m the same Nan you first met in Ballydoon.”

  “First met? But didn’t we meet first here in Fairwick this fall?”

  “First for you, but not for me,” she said, dunking a bag of the PG Tips tea I’d brought into a mug of hot water. “I met ye first in the Ballydoon market square the morning after All Hallows’ Eve, 1659, when ye brought my nephew William back from Faerie.”

  “But I hadn’t done that yet when I met you here this fall. I hadn’t gone back yet.”

  “Aye, but ye had. I know it’s confusing.” Nan patted my hand kindly. I looked down at her hand and saw the deep scars around her wrists where the witch hunters’ manacles had bit into her skin. “Everything about ye was a bit blurry when ye came to visit me, but after Halloween it all came clear—or most of it. I remember now your coming to Ballydoon and the time you spent there, how ye showed me to use the tartan—”

  “That makes no sense,” I objected. “I saw the Stewarts use the tartan before I went back. How can I be the one who taught them how to use it?”

  Nan shrugged and bit into her bannock. “Sense or no, that’s how I remember it. Just as I remember ye defeating the nephilim at Castle Coldclough.”

  “And what happened after that?” I asked.

  “Why, the village went back to normal, except that then we had a group of young men who could protect us from harm with the tartan. I taught new ones to use it over the years. Eventually they became known as the Stewarts instead of the Stewards. I discovered that I aged slowly and never died—an effect of the tartan, mayhap—and so I became the Stewarts’ ancient granny.” She leaned back in her hospital bed and plucked a corner of her plaid shawl over her shoulders. “But last year I began to feel a bit tired of looking after generation after generation of great clod-heided boys. I began to feel my time was finally coming on me, so I came to Shady Pines and then here. I think that I’ve been waiting all these years to meet ye again, to send you back. And now that I have …” She smiled, but wistfully. “Well, I think it might finally be my time.”

  I started to object, but Nan squeezed my hand. “Dinna fash yerself, lass. I can rest easy knowing those monsters are well and truly gone. Since you came to see me, I’ve found myself half-living in those auld days, and I have an inkling that when I go, I’ll go back to those sweet-smelling hills …”

  Her voice trailed off, and her eyes fluttered. I thought she might be going right now, but she was only falling asleep.

  “She drops off like that these days after her tea,” the nurse said, coming quietly into the room on her rubber-soled shoes and tucking the shawl around Nan. “She always smiles like that, too. I wonder what’s she’s dreaming of.”

  Heather-covered hills, I thought, and violet skies.

  I got up to go, more confused than when I came, and bent down to give Nan a kiss on her weathered cheek. Her eyes flickered open. “I saw him one more time,” she said.

  “Who?” I asked, although I knew who she meant.

  “William. He came to me in the Greenwood and told me a story. I told it to Mairi—you remember Mairi, don’t you? The lass you saved from the pest … She married a fellow from Edinburgh …”

  “Yes,” I told Nan, trying not to sound impatient but wanting to hear William’s story more than whom Mairi married. “What was the story?”

  “It was about—” Nan began to cough. I poured a glass of water and held it up to her lips. “It was about a lad taken by the Fairy Queen. He’s saved by his true love but then must sacrifice himself to save her.”

  I sighed. “I know that story.”

  “Do you know the part where the lad makes a deal with the Fairy Queen?” Nan asked anxiously, her voice weak and fretful.

  “Yes,” I told her, patting her hand and tucking her shawl around her shoulders again. “I know that part.”

  “Ah,” Nan sighed. “That’s all right, then. That was the part I was meant to tell ye …” Her eyes closed and she fell asleep.

  I left, feeling sadder than ever as I walked home. William had appeared to Nan to tell her why he had vanished. Even if I went back in time to Ballydoon, he wouldn’t be there. I now realized I’d been considering that as a possibility. Surely I wouldn’t have gone back, leaving my friends and the life I’d made in Fairwick, even if he had been waiting for me. But knowing that it wasn’t a possibility made me feel as though one more of the threads that bound us had been broken.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  THE NEXT MORNING, Mac Stewart showed up at my door. From his red puffy eyes I knew immediately what had happened.

  “My nan died in her sleep,” he said, sniffling. “She looked fine when I stopped by last night. Everybody’s saying it’s a good way to go, but I …” His voice wobbled, and I invited him in for tea and leftover bannocks.

  “Just like Nan’s,” he sniffed, wiping his nose on the cuff of his flannel shirt and smearing butter over his chin. Ralph, who’d woken up from his long nap, jumped up on the table and offered a napkin to Mac. “She liked you,” Mac said, taking the napkin and dabbing at his face. “She told me last night that she wanted to give this to you.” Mac reached into a shopping bag and pulled out the tartan shawl Nan had been wearing the last time I saw her.

  “Oh, no, Mac, I couldn’t take this. It’s a f
amily heirloom.”

  “She said that you are family. She said you were married to her nephew … or would be married …” Mac scrunched up his face, confused. “I’m afraid Nan was wandering a bit in her mind … You don’t have a fiancé, do you?”

  “I haven’t even got a boyfriend,” I replied.

  Mac started to smile but then remembered about his nan and sniffled. I gave him a handkerchief to blow his nose and drew Nan’s shawl into my lap, my eyes filling as I stroked the soft wool. I noticed that there were threads of purple in the weave that reminded me of Ballydoon, and I recalled what Nan had said—that she thought that’s where she would go when she died. Picturing her walking over the heather-covered hills of Ballydoon made me a bit less sad.

  Nan’s death released something in me. Who was I to sit around feeling sorry for myself while people had real reason to grieve? I roused myself to finish the semester with more spirit and energy. I even accepted an invitation to Fairwick’s annual solstice party, which this year was to be held at the new Alpha house.

  Although Diana could have reclaimed her inn from the Alphas, she had opted instead to move in as their den mother—a role that seemed to suit her perfectly. From my windows I’d watched the restoration of the house—the ratty couches and empty beer cans banished from the porch and replaced with rocking chairs and wicker settees, the shrubbery and rose-bushes trimmed, bird feeders filled regularly, garden gnomes and statuary mended and restored, Christmas lights strung up and menorah lit—but I hadn’t been inside. I was surprised to find an oddly cheerful combination of the old twee inn décor and frat-boy paraphernalia: a wide-screen TV decorated with pine swag, a foosball table in the sunflower porch, and a basketball hoop outside in the rose garden. The Alphas themselves were dressed in elfin costumes and carried trays of mini-quiches and non-alcoholic punch. I found Frank drinking a Heineken and having a spirited conversation with Adam Sinclair and Ruby Day on the Jets’ chances in the playoffs. They all greeted me enthusiastically, and after a few minutes Adam and Ruby exchanged a meaningful look and excused themselves to help Diana in the kitchen. Warily, I watched them go.

  “Do you think Ruby’s okay with him?” I asked. “I mean, Adam is—”

  “A perfectly normal college guy,” said Frank, “so, within reason, yeah, I think Ruby can take care of herself. Diana gives a talk to the boys once a week on respecting women. She’s got them volunteering at the battered women’s shelter and doing yoga and meditation for anger management.”

  “But aren’t they …” I couldn’t think what word to use. Evil? Doomed? Tainted? “… like their fathers?”

  Frank grimaced. “The nephilim were created because the elves forced themselves on human women and produced sons who were monsters in their eyes. And because they were monstrous to their fathers, they became monsters. Generation after generation repeated that awful cycle for … no one knows for how long. They’re not immortal but long-lived. Soheila thinks they stopped breeding for hundreds of years but then started again when they hatched this plan to close the doors to Faerie in revenge against the fey. These boys are more human than not. Some will grow wings, claws, and perhaps an overweening sense of entitlement, but Diana, Liz, and Soheila think that they can be managed with the right nurturing.”

  “And what do you think?”

  Frank took a swig of his beer and shrugged. “I think if anyone can civilize a bunch of brute males, it’s those three. And, just in case, I’ve got the Stewarts keeping an eye on them.”

  I looked around the room. Interspersed among the college students were a dozen plaid-wearing townspeople, including Mac Stewart, who was now captivating Flonia Rugova with a story. “I hope they’re salvageable,” I said, glancing around the room at all the couples—Diana and Liz, Adam and Ruby, Nicky and Scott. Soheila was standing alone in a corner, looking over at Frank and me. Turning back to Frank, I intercepted a look between them.

  “How about you, McFay?” Frank asked.

  “Am I salvageable?” I asked, trying to make a joke of it, but Frank didn’t smile. “I honestly don’t know, Frank. You know, I found him.”

  “No, I didn’t know,” Frank said. “Other than telling us about your run-in with the nephilim witch hunters, you’ve been pretty quiet about your whole Scottish adventure. I guessed, though, that you found Liam.”

  “William,” I corrected automatically. “William Duffy. That’s who he was before he became an incubus.”

  “Ah,” Frank said, “and were you in love with him?”

  “Not at first,” I said, “but then …” My eyes filled with tears and I closed them. I saw what I always saw when I closed my eyes: William silhouetted against a hill covered with purple heather, making his way home to the cottage. “He told me that I didn’t love him, that I loved the man he would become, but—” I broke off, unable to finish the thought.

  “Idiot,” Frank said, but with a fond smile. “Didn’t he know that women always love us for the men we will become? If they didn’t, we’d still be living in caves and conking them over the head with clubs.” He waved his beer bottle at the room and began what would, I’m sure, have been a colorful lecture on the civilizing influences of women, but Soheila came over and informed him that some of the boys had organized a touch-football game in the back that was threatening to destroy Diana’s arbor.

  “I’ll go have a talk with them,” he said, with a gleam in his eyes that suggested to me that he’d get in a pass or two before corralling the game. “That is, if you’re okay, McFay?”

  “Go,” I told him. “I’ll be fine.”

  Soheila began to say something to me but was summoned to the kitchen to save a burned casserole.

  I stood awkwardly by myself for a few minutes after she left, wondering how soon I could politely slip out, but then Nicky, Flonia, and Ruby surrounded me and regaled me with their plans for the winter break. Dean Book had gotten them invited to an IMP conference as student delegates.

  “We’re spearheading a campaign for student representatives at the institute,” Nicky said. “We call it Occupy Narnia.”

  “And we’re also getting to attend panels on magic and fairies,” Flonia said. “I’m going to one on Romanian folklore with Anton Volkov. It is so exciting. All my life I have listened to the old stories my nana told me, and I thought they were nonsense. Now I know they were true. After I graduate, I am going to work with nocturnals who are having difficulty assimilating into modern society.”

  A vampire social worker? It wasn’t the career path I had imagined for my student, but after all Anton Volkov had done in the fight to save Fairwick, I didn’t doubt that the nocturnals were worth helping. And who knew what other opportunities the new Fairwick would present to my students? It was exciting, and for the half hour I stood in my students’ company, listening to their bright, enthusiastic chatter, I felt a little of the gloom lifting off me. When Flonia and Ruby drifted away toward a game of beer pong, I thought I’d be going. Nicky, though, lingered behind, clearly with a question on her mind.

  “What is it, Nicky?”

  “I just wanted to say …” She blushed and looked awkward. “I just wanted to thank you for lifting the curse off my family. Dean Book told me about it.”

  I blushed as red as the punch in my cup. “You don’t have to thank me, Nicky. It was my great-great-grandfather who cursed the Ballards in the first place.”

  “But that wasn’t your fault, and Dean Book said you went to a lot of trouble to lift the curse, so I wanted to thank you and to tell you it’s working. My mom is getting herself together, and I feel … Well, it’s like in the William Duffy story, when he says at the end that everyone deserves not just a second chance but a third. You’ve given that to my mom.”

  “You’re welcome, Nicky,” I said, trying to keep the tears from my eyes at the mention of William. “He was right.” I paused. “But I don’t remember that part in the story.”

  “You know,” Nicky said, tilting her head, “neither did I. But
when I reread the story, there it was, right at the end. In fact, the whole ending was different from how I remembered it. I wrote about it in my paper.”

  “Which I haven’t read yet,” I said guiltily. “I’m going to go home right now and do that.”

  Nicky looked embarrassed all over again. “Oh, Dr. McFay, I didn’t mention the paper because I thought you’d read it already, although I am anxious to know what you think about it. I followed your advice and wrote to the Center for the Book about the folklorist Mary Brodie McGowan—”

  “Did you say Mary Brodie McGowan?” I asked.

  “Yes, Brodie was her maiden name. You were right about her being related to the publisher. She married Alisdair McGowan and published under that name. But here’s another funny thing about her name. Later the family changed its name because of Mary’s fairy stories and because she claimed that she was saved from the plague by a good fairy who spread a magic blanket on her and an old woman in the village told her fairy stories. You’ll never guess what she changed it to …”

  “McFay,” I said as if the name was written on the air between us.

  “Yes! Your name! Maybe you were related. Is anything wrong, Dr. McFay? You’ve turned white as a ghost.”

  I felt as if I’d just encountered one. The Mary Brodie McGowan she was describing must have been Mairi, and the old woman who told her fairy stories must have been Nan.

  “You said the ending of William Duffy was different from how you remembered it?” I asked urgently.

  Nicky shrugged. “I must have misremembered it. I wasn’t getting a lot of sleep at that point in the semester, what with all those bells ringing all the time. Maybe I confused it with another story, although I don’t know how. I’ve never read a fairy story that reads quite like this one. Are you sure you’re all right, Dr. McFay? Maybe you should sit down?”