Storm Warned (The Grim Series) (15 page)

Caris was a good deal stronger than Liam expected, but he was also a good deal weaker than usual. His balance was out of whack too. After a few awkward, halting steps, it was evident that she wasn’t
quite
strong enough to keep him from listing further and further to the left. Thankfully, Jay appeared just as Liam was about to keel over entirely. With both sides bolstered, plus frequent stops to rest, Liam made it all the way into the house and onto the couch—but barely.
What was that, a whole hundred feet or so?
He felt drained and shaky, shocked that such a short distance had completely exhausted him, even when he’d had two people practically holding him up. Jay headed upstairs to get pillows and a blanket. Caris was more pragmatic. She eyed Liam’s face appraisingly and passed him a wastebasket exactly two seconds before he threw up.

On her way to the evening milking, Caris was glad to find Ranyon sitting in the porch swing, his long, twiggy toes waggling contentedly in the summer breeze. She lifted the cloth from a plate.

“I brought you a little bit of something.”

“Now that looks to be a
brammer
of a sandwich!” he said, quick to seize it in both hands. “My thanks to ya, good lady. Is our Liam still asleep?”

Caris chuckled.
Asleep
was too mild a word for it. “Morgan says he’s ‘down for the count’—I’m taking it to mean he won’t wake again tonight. She said it was his own fault for not staying in the hospital, but that’s a man for you. He’s definitely overdone himself.”

The sandwich—a wild creation of meats and cheeses that had been in danger of spoiling with the electricity not working—was nearly as big as Ranyon’s head, but she’d already learned that the little ellyll could put away an astonishing amount of food. He’d proved that soon after he’d worked his charms on the house. She would gladly have cleaned the entire disaster, top to bottom, herself—the day hadn’t come when she was afraid of hard work, no matter how tired she was. But with Liam insisting on coming home so early, there’d been no time for human effort alone to get the job done. “I should be thanking
you
, dear Ranyon. You worked wonders today, and you managed it all before Liam walked in the door.”

“Seems to me, the man was half carried in the door,” he said with his mouth full. “And no thanks needed. With a bump on the noggin like that, Liam Cole deserves a bit of calm and order in his house.” He swallowed and grinned. “Besides, ’tis always a pleasure to undo the handiwork of the Fair Ones, dontcha know.”

Undo it he had. When Caris had set the curious little charms on the windowsills, she’d thought Ranyon was only going to fix the window glass. Instead, everything in the house had suddenly begun flying back to its original place. “A spell o’ restoration” was what he called it, as he sat watching his handiwork with satisfaction fairly glowing from his gnarled features. “And a fair bit o’ protection thrown in fer good measure,” he’d said.

It was the need for protection that still concerned her. Ranyon seemed certain that neither the lone anghenfil nor the rogue hunt were likely to return very soon. Morgan and Jay also seemed convinced that Steptoe Acres would be safe for at least a few days.

So why didn’t
she
feel reassured? “Ranyon, I’m worried for us.”

Almost half the giant sandwich was already gone, as the ellyll paused midbite and looked up. “Because of Maelgwn? That fool’s already had his entertainment here,” he said. “Look around ya, good lady. What havoc is left for him to loose? What trouble left to cause? Nay, he’ll be on the move, at least for a time. He’s got a big new territory to explore now, and he’ll want to leave his mark on every bit of it like some great stray dog.”

The broken trees and the roofless barn seemed to underscore the ellyll’s point. And hopefully Maelgwn wouldn’t be causing trouble anywhere for very much longer: Morgan had promised to try to get a message to the queen.

Yet the disquiet within Caris refused to settle.

Perhaps it was her time spent as a fae creature herself, perhaps it was the many occasions she’d had to witness Maelgwn’s mercurial nature. Whatever it was, she felt right down to her now-mortal bones that the cruel prince and his rogue hunt would surely gallop this way again. Tonight? Tomorrow night? Next week, next month, next year? There was no way of knowing when.
But best to plan for it just the same.

Jay knew of the existence of the Fair Ones, but he hadn’t witnessed firsthand what they could do. Morgan had more experience in that area, and she agreed with Caris that Liam’s farm needed to be fortified. She had promised to bring along as many iron horseshoes as she could on the weekend—and that was likely to be a considerable number, since her husband, Rhys, had built a forge at their own farm. The metal was a deadly poison to almost all faery beings, and most particularly to the Tylwyth Teg, and it was all the more potent as a ward on a building if the iron was first formed into the horseshoe shape. Just the presence of iron on the property would repel most fae—and Ranyon had promised to charm each and every piece as well. The iron would then be mounted on every building and fence post until the metal’s influence formed a secure barrier around the farm, just as Morgan and Rhys had done with their own land.

But would Liam consent to the strange decorations?
Morgan and Jay are planning to tell Liam in the morning about the fae.
Would he believe what Caris had told him then? Or would he simply decide that all three of them were daft as brushes?

One thing she did know: if Liam Cole refused to believe in the existence of other realms and other beings, refused to be on his guard or take precautions against them, then he would be in terrible danger.

And there would be precious little she could do about it.

THIRTEEN

A
trio of roosters crowed in the yard, each trying to outdo the other. Caris didn’t know who was winning, but they’d succeeded in waking her. She glanced at the dark windows of the fern-green room she’d chosen for her own: daybreak was still a long way off, making it a very short night. Everyone but Liam had stayed up long past midnight, and her many fears had kept her awake for a time after that. She’d been afraid for Liam, certainly, and fearful of what the new day’s revelations would bring. But at the bottom of it all, she’d been terrified that she would awaken as a great black dog once more.

Tired she might be, but she couldn’t find it in herself to be anything but delighted. She was alive, awake, and a human being.

A tabletop clock displayed glowing green numbers, suggesting that the electricity had returned. Sure enough, she was able to turn on the pretty stained-glass lamp by the bed. Caris rose and pulled off the thin knit tunic—a man’s T-shirt—that Morgan had suggested she use as nightwear. On the back of the door was a mirror larger than any Caris had seen in her previous life, never mind had the privilege of using. She leaned in close to examine the reflection of her face, then stood back to study her body. Still a woman, as mortal as could be—she pinched herself for the silly fun of it—and still looking much as she had the last time she’d gazed into the tiny mirror of her bedroom in the family farmhouse. The thought that entered her head was brand new, however:
does Liam like how I look?

It still embarrassed her that he had seen her naked, but not as much as it would have in her earlier life. Though the Fair Ones had a weakness for fine and colorful clothing—the better to display status and power—nudity raised few eyebrows in the Nine Realms, and neither did uninhibited coupling. Caris had thought herself perfectly well acquainted with sex, thanks to being raised on a farm. As it turned out, what she knew was only the most basic mechanics of the act. And that was nothing compared to the artful intimacies of the Tylwyth Teg. Knowing their shallowness and their envy of human emotion, however, she wondered if perhaps they had no choice but to craft such elaborate lovemaking in order to feel anything at all.

And what would it be like to be in Liam’s arms?

Caris left both the thought and the mirror abruptly. Her body felt just a little stiff as she crossed the room, but she welcomed every ache and pain from the previous day’s labors, every evidence that she was mortal. And blessed whatever powers had given her a second chance at life.

That life included a wealth of new experiences too. Caris washed slowly, luxuriously, chuckling every now and then over the ridiculous opulence of having a bathroom just for her very own self. And indoors no less! The shower was indeed a “
brammer
of an invention,” just as Ranyon had described it to her—she’d witnessed its development over the decades of course, was aware that it had adjustable hot and cold water, but she’d never actually experienced such a splendid thing. Great fluffy towels, fragrant soaps, lotions, and more—an embarrassment of riches surrounded her. Morgan had kindly explained which bottles were meant to be used for washing her hair—and in what order—and Caris was amazed by the exotic aromas and silky textures of the contents.

After such grand pleasures, she sat on the bed to indulge in a much simpler enjoyment: brushing out her long hair. “Black as a raven’s glossy wing,” according to her father, who had often said her mother’s hair had been the same. It was also full of unruly waves—the exact opposite of most of the Tylwyth Teg. Thinking of the Fair Ones led to a whim: Caris decided to braid her hair around her head twice in a style that a few of the Gypsy women had worn. The Kale had always prided themselves on being a free people, and she was feeling gloriously free herself.

She opened the finely built door of the closet, where she had carefully hung the spare clothing Morgan had shared with her, and she was particularly grateful for the fine pair of shoes on the floor. They were white and blue, and even silver, in color—
imagine that!
—and strangely supple, yet strong. At first she hadn’t wanted to wear such fashionable things in a farmyard, but then Morgan pointed out the scuffs and scrapes, and the dried dirt caked into the soles of the shoes. “They’re definitely for work,” she’d said.

Well, there was no lack of work to do on a farm. And Caris didn’t mind one bit—it was grand, really, to have purpose again. She was about to close the closet door when something on the top shelf caught her eye. While the main part of the closet was empty, save for the handful of odd little plastic hangers that held her clothing on a rod, above it was a different story. She pulled the light cord to a single small bulb high overhead, illuminating old bundles of files, shoe boxes with the corners of photographs sticking out of them, stacks and stacks of books and albums too. But resting above it all was a narrow case of some sort—and if she stood back far enough, she could just barely see that the top of case was bowed outward by design.

In the end, she had to borrow the chair from the little writing desk by the still-dark window in order to reach the curiosity, but her hand trembled as soon as she touched the smooth ivory leather. Bound by dark-brown straps of heavy leather and fastened with bronze clasps, it looked like a tiny
cês dillad
, complete with a hinged handle. She used it to draw the diminutive suitcase to her. Even after she climbed down, Caris held it tightly with both hands.
It isn’t. It can’t be
, the sensible side of her scolded.
Goodness, you’re getting excited over nothing. It doesn’t even look like your old case.
“But it
is
the right size,” she whispered. “You know it is.”
She was shaking all over now. Finally she laid the fine case on the bed, took a deep breath and unlatched it.

The
ffidil
was firmly nestled in soft white velvet like a shining chestnut still in its hull. Caris’s heart pounded in her ears, she could feel a hot flush of color rise from her breasts to her throat, and she had to keep reminding herself to breathe—and breathe again. Flawless varnish gleamed golden yellow on the fine-grained wood of the instrument’s top.
Spruce, most likely.
Her fingers automatically brushed along the strings, and she nodded as she felt the give in them.
They should be loose when a fiddle is stored
, she thought. Just as the strings of her grandfather’s fiddle,
her
fiddle, had been loose when she first found it in the old trunk . . . The wooden pegs were cool and smooth between the pads of her fingers, and it was all she could do not to turn them.

Suddenly, without forming the intent in her mind, those fingers curved around the slender neck of the elegant instrument and lifted it from its bed. Turning it over, she gasped—the back was grandly striped, glowing like a gold-and-mahogany tiger. Her fiddle had been striped too, though more subtly, made of what a Gypsy had told her was flamed maple. She marveled at the vivid pattern, ran her hands over every inch of the fiddle, and then hugged it to her like a lost babe. Without warning, two centuries’ worth of raw emotions exploded within her small frame—joy and grief, elation and bereavement, vindication and loss. Shaking from the force of it, she slid to the floor, helpless to fend off the storm of tears bearing down on her like raging floodwaters. She had the presence of mind to do one last thing, and that was to yank the quilt from the bed and bury her face in it to muffle her sobs.

Dawn finally brought an end to the catharsis. Thoroughly spent, Caris lay on the floor upon the rumpled quilt, still clutching the precious fiddle like a child holding a doll for comfort.
Crying is such a miserable business.
Her head throbbed, her eyes were swollen, and she still shuddered with each breath. The unexpected purge had wrung her out completely. Sleep was what her body needed now, but her spirit needed something more.

She needed to draw music from the exquisite instrument in her arms.

In the bathroom, she winced at her reflection in the mirror. She splashed cold water on her face, then held wet cloths to it until some of the swelling went down and the redness retreated. Some tendrils of hair had worked loose from her braided crown, but she wove them in as securely as she could. Finally she felt presentable. With luck she would be the only one awake, but if not, then at least there wouldn’t be anything glaringly wrong with her. She glanced out the windows and realized it would be cool outside. She wrapped the quilt around her like a shawl, tucked the ivory leather case beneath its folds, and tiptoed into the hallway.

The door to Morgan’s room was still closed. There was no sound from downstairs, so Jay must be still asleep in the back guest room. Liam had spent the night on the couch exactly where he’d collapsed—it just hadn’t seemed like a good idea to move him. Carefully, Caris crept down the stairs, hoping against hope that they wouldn’t squeak and wake him. At the bottom, she paused. Shouldn’t she ask permission before she borrowed the fiddle? After all, it must belong to his aunt or uncle . . .

A light snore interrupted her thoughts, and Caris peered over the couch at the sleeping Liam. He was a strong man, but he’d certainly spent every bit of his strength yesterday. It would do him no good to disturb him. Instead, she pulled the blankets up around his shoulders, then gently leaned over and kissed his badly bruised forehead. “
Cysga’n dda
,” she whispered.
Sleep well
.

He didn’t wake, but she could swear he smiled a little.

Meanwhile, the need to play was beating at her like the wings of the owl that had once gotten itself shut in her sheep barn. It needed to escape, it had to escape, it
would
escape. She hurried on. Her music was rapidly brimming to the surface—would it, too, explode from her as terribly as the tears had done?

Leaving by the back door, she saw the porch swing empty and wondered where Ranyon might be. Try as she might, she hadn’t been able to coax him to come in the night before. She’d hated the notion of the little ellyll sleeping outside, especially after Jay had told her that Ranyon lived with his human friend Leo, where he had his very own room and his own bed. In the end, the little man had simply patted her shoulder and confided to her that he just didn’t need to sleep as much or as often as a mortal:
“
’Tis more for the pure enjoyment of it, dontcha know. That grand feeling of lying down in cozy sheets and lettin’ yerself sink into a soft mattress. Most nights, though, once Leo and Spike are both snoring up a storm, I go back downstairs and work a mite on my own little tasks.”

She wondered what “little tasks” he’d undertaken while she slept. Wherever the ellyll was, that giant sandwich he’d eaten last night had surely worn off by now. Caris reminded herself to take him a bite of breakfast before she started the milking.

But before the milking, there would be music.

“Enlarging a
way
to such a size has never been attempted!” a kelpie gasped. The horselike creatures were often found gasping during the assembly. The air in and around the palace was pure, as unsullied as crystal, but Kelpies were designed for the fluid environment of their native rivers.