Absolutely Captivated (40 page)

They raised their chins—in
unison, of course—and looked at Travers. It was as if they were
forgiving him, instead of the other way around.

That would have made him angry a day
or so ago. Now it just tired him out.

“They might even protect us,” Atropos
said. “They certainly don’t want anything to happen to us
here.”

“Why not?” Travers asked as Zoe
nodded. She clearly understood, but he didn’t.

“Because,” Clotho said. “The Powers
That Be might take any excuse to attack Faerie. And we would be a
very good excuse.”

Travers put a hand to his forehead.
“Even though these Powers took your power away?”

“They didn’t take it away,” Lachesis
said. “We voluntarily let it go.”

He knew that. He had forgotten it.
“But your job. They took your job away.”

“Not permanently,” Atropos said.
“We’re trying to earn it back.”

“What Travers is trying to say...” Zoe
looked at him sideways, asking his permission to continue for him.
He nodded. “…is that you’re not popular with the Powers right now.
Why would they defend you?”

“Because they’re not real
fond of the Faeries,” Clotho said.

“Very few people are,” Lachesis
said.

“So they’ll take any excuse to fight
them,” Atropos said.

“Even us.” Clotho sounded
sad.

This situation was getting worse and
worse. Travers was just getting to know this new world, and it was
as screwed up as the one he grew up in. Only he was a lot closer to
the crazy governments in the magical world than he was in the
real—if he dared call it that—world.

It was still hard to take, and he felt
just as helpless as he did every night when he watched the
news.

So he decided to do something he
understood. He slid the soda crackers and Gatorade out of Zoe’s
hands, and headed for the bedroom. He, at least, knew how to take
care of a child.

And at the moment, it seemed
infinitely simpler than anything else he could do.

Zoe understood the Fates’ logic a lot
better than Travers did. She knew that only because she had had an
entire lifetime to get used to the magical world. Travers had been
around it for less than a week, and he was understandably
overwhelmed.

Still, Zoe felt that the
Fates were leaving a few details out, and she felt like they were
important details. She was losing patience with the Fates, too.
Were they so used to being secretive that they couldn’t trust
anyone?

Or was something larger going on,
something that the Fates didn’t want to talk about?

A murmur of voices came from Kyle’s
room. The Fates were still standing behind the couch. They had used
it as a shield against Travers. Apparently they didn’t like having
anger directed at them—especially not justified anger.

Now they knew how it felt to do
something you thought appropriate at the time and to get punished
for it. The Fates had done the same thing to countless others.
Perhaps, if the Fates ever did get their job back, they would have
a little more compassion.

Zoe sighed. She clapped her hands
together, and the baseball cap appeared on the table before
her.

“This is a protection charm,” she said
to the Fates. “I got it just for you. It’s a minor charm, and it
won’t last long, but it should take care of you for a few days.
Keep it with you, but don’t wear it.”

She wasn’t sure about the wearing
part—Elmer hadn’t mentioned anything about it—but she decided that
it was better to be cautious.

The Fates looked at her in
surprise.

“You’re not going to watch us?”
Lachesis asked.

Zoe shook her head. “Not if you want
me to find the wheel.”

“But we have no magic,” Atropos
said.

“And you told Travers
you’d be perfectly safe,” Zoe said.

“From the Faerie Kings, maybe,” Clotho
said, “but what about everyone else? They’re still mad at
us.”

“The charm will protect you from the
others,” Zoe said, raising her voice slightly so the Fates could
hear her over their low whispers. “At least for a few days. By
then, I should at least know where the wheel is.”

“All right,” Lachesis
said, sounding concerned. “But what will we do? Without
Kyle—”

“You should probably lay low,” Zoe
said. “Watch some television, read a few books—”

“We did that at Henri’s,” Atropos
said. “There’s a lot to do here.”

“Most of it costing money,” Zoe said,
“and I’m not giving you any. Just relax. You’ll be
fine.”

She picked up the cap and tossed it
toward the Fates. Atropos caught it and held it close.

“I’ll check on you when
I’m done each day,” Zoe said. “I’ll keep you apprised of what’s
going on.”

Still the Fates didn’t leave. They
stared at Zoe.

“What?” Zoe asked, knowing they wanted
something.

“Did we do that much damage to young
Kyle?” Clotho asked.

“Yes,” Zoe said.

“Should we have known better?”
Lachesis asked.

“Yes,” Zoe said, even though she
wasn’t quite sure how.

“Is there some way we can make this up
to him?” Atropos asked.

“I think you might want to stay out of
Travers’ way for a few days. That would do a lot toward making this
better.” Zoe wasn’t sure what else they could do. They were
good-hearted, but they seemed to screw up everything they
touched.

All three Fates nodded at her, then
filed out of the room like a choir leaving risers. They opened the
door and headed down the hall, single-file, their heads
bowed.

Zoe closed the door after them and
leaned on it for a moment. She couldn’t do much more for them. The
Fates had made a heck of a choice when they came to the mortal
realm without magic.

She pushed off the door and headed
toward the murmur of voices from Kyle’s room. Travers had left that
door open as well, and a soft light played across the
bed.

Travers and Kyle were having a serious
discussion. Travers held the Gatorade in one hand, and Kyle was
holding a half-full glass.

“How are you?” Zoe asked as she
stepped into the room.

Kyle smiled at her. His skin was its
normal color, and he wasn’t flushed or too pale from
illness.

“Better,” he said. “But Dad’s making
me go slow on eating. I think I’m okay to have a meal.”

He probably was, but better to let
Travers fuss.

“I think easy does it is sensible,”
Zoe said.

“Dad says you don’t need him tonight,”
Kyle said. “Is that true?

Zoe felt a pang. Travers wasn’t
looking at her. He was fiddling with the crackers.

He hadn’t spoken to her
about not helping. He knew she wanted to get a lot done that day.
But she understood it. In fact, she didn’t want to go back to work,
either.

“That’s right,” Zoe said.

Travers looked at her, his expression
open and grateful.

“There’s very little to do
tonight, mostly Web research,” Zoe continued. “I can do that on my
own.”

“I can help with that,” Kyle said,
leaning forward.

“You rest,” Travers said. “Maybe I’ll
even order up a movie.”

“Pay-per-view?” Kyle asked.

“The hotel has quite a few,” Travers
said. “I’m sure there’s something we haven’t seen.”

Zoe felt a mixture of two emotions.
She loved watching Travers with Kyle. The two of them were quite a
team. More than a team, actually. A unit. An impenetrable
unit.

And that led to the other
feeling. She almost felt jealous. As if she had been thrown over
for an evening in a sterile hotel room, watching a bad movie. But
she knew it wasn’t that exactly that had her uneasy.

Instead, it was the realization that
no one would ever get close to Travers. Not while his son was
around.

“I need to get going,” Zoe
said.

“You could stay for the movie,” Kyle
said.

Zoe shook her head. “I’ll be back in
the morning.”

She walked over to Kyle. She was going
to ruffle his hair and tell him to feel better. Instead, she kissed
him on the forehead.

“You get well, okay?” she
said.

“I’m better already,” he said. It
would take Travers a lot of work to keep that boy in bed this
evening.

“You still need rest,” Zoe said, and
stood up. She smiled at Travers, about to take her
leave.

He stood, too. “Let me
walk you out.”

She was going to protest, but didn’t
have the heart. Travers set the Gatorade on the nightstand, and led
Zoe out of the bedroom, his hand on her back.

As they stepped into the living room,
Travers pulled Kyle’s door closed.

“I’m sorry about this,”
Travers started, but Zoe put a finger on his lips. A little shiver
ran through her. She liked to touch him.

She moved her finger away. “It’s all
right,” she said. “Kyle’s the most important thing.”

“You’re good with him,” Travers
said.

Zoe shrugged. “I like him.”

“It’s more than that,”
Travers said. “Most people don’t know how to react to him. He’s a
smart, intuitive kid and he’s not exactly what people expect from
an eleven-year-old. So they either talk to him like an adult or
ignore him. You don’t do either. You treat him just like who he
is.”

Zoe couldn’t imagine treating Kyle any
other way. “You’re lucky to have him.”

Travers stuck his hands in his back
pockets, and rocked back on his heels. “How come you never had
kids?”

“Excuse me?” Zoe asked. No one had
ever asked her that question before.

“You’re good with Kyle, and that leads
me to believe you’d be good with all kinds of kids.” Travers
shrugged. “From what I understand of all this magic stuff, you
could have had children before your powers manifested. What
happened? How come you chose not to?”

Zoe stared at him. She wasn’t quite
sure how to answer him. He was probably the first person she could
give the real answer to, the first person who might
understand.

“It was the 1850s,” Zoe said. “Many of
my friends died in childbirth or had their health completely
ruined. Medical science wasn’t quite the same as it is now, and I
had no idea anyone could help me magically.”

“You chose not to?” Travers sounded
surprised. “I thought it was, like, required of women in those days
to have children.”

Zoe straightened. So many people were
ignorant of the past. It annoyed her. It annoyed her especially
coming from Travers.

“We had a budding women’s
movement in those days,” she said. “It came out of the abolitionist
movement, in which I was very active. We had meetings, we tried to
get women—the word now is ‘empowered.’ Crap. I can’t remember what
we called it then—”

She found that mildly
embarrassing.

“—
anyway, we got women
accepted into colleges and law schools and medical schools. We
weren’t just fighting for the vote. We were fighting for equal
rights. Up until that point, women were considered property of
their husbands or fathers, and I wasn’t about to put up with that.
I’m not anyone’s property.”

Travers’ gaze softened. “Indeed you’re
not.”

She drew a breath, forcing
herself to think before she spoke next. Was he patronizing her? She
couldn’t tell.

“Besides,” Zoe said, trying to bring
the conversation back to the track it had been on before. “I
wouldn’t have been a good mother.”

“You have a lot of empathy,” Travers
said. “Most people don’t realize how important that is.”

Zoe tilted her head. She wasn’t sure
what he was getting at. “I didn’t have it a hundred and fifty years
ago. I learned how to think about people when I became a private
eye. It wouldn’t have worked for me. Children, I mean. I’m
developing all backwards. Even if I wanted a child now, I couldn’t
have one.”

Travers nodded. He sighed, then nodded
again, almost as if he were having a discussion with
himself.

And yet, he hadn’t said anything about
her age. Once again, she’d opened the door, and once again, he
hadn’t said a word.

Proof, she supposed, that he only saw
her as someone to train him, someone who was kind and helpful to
him and his son.

“My age doesn’t bother you?” she
blurted, and then covered her mouth, a gesture she hadn’t made
since she was a schoolgirl. Where had that come from?

Travers looked as surprised as she
felt. “Why would it bother me?” he asked.

“I’m a lot older than you are,” she
said.

“I’m beginning to realize that a lot
of people are,” Travers said. “The Fates have made me realize,
however, that age and maturity are not the same thing.”