The Changeling (17 page)

“You look great, Grandma.”

“Ohhhh, that’s what I miss.” She hugged me again. We walked side by side toward the cottage.

Grandma and Grandpa were both stunned by the cottage and the garden, just as everyone was. Grandma noticed everything: the enormous climbing pink rose that grew up one of stone columns of the gazebo and spread out over half the roof; the clematis that hid most of the stones on the tiny entry porch; even the tiny blue bachelors buttons that peaked out from behind the pink flowering almond bushes.
Centaurea cyanus, and Prunus glandulosa Sinensis
.
I smiled to myself

Grandpa was more interested in the car.

“1964 Lincoln Continental convertible. Aye, Sophie, remember Papa’s?” he asked in his heavy Cuban accent.

My dad grinned. “I take it you like that?”

“David, my son, it reminds me of Havana, when I was a small boy. American cars, si! Detroit was king in Havana. This of course is too new, but not by much.”

Dad handed him the keys.

“Oh no, what is this?” Grandpa said, waving his hand in front of his chest.

“Pop, you’re going to be here for weeks, it’s yours to drive if you need it.”

“No, no, no. It is impossible, my son, the inconvenience. No, I could not,” he said, looking back at the Lincoln for a moment.

Dad grinned again, and put the keys in his hand.

“You haven’t seen our garage yet. Aunt May had thirty cars. Really, it’s not an inconvenience.”

“It’s true, Grandpa,” I said. “Aunt May always said, ‘If you can’t drive it yourself, give it to someone who can’.”

Grandpa grinned and looked back at it.

“Aye, it is a magnificent car…”

***

After Grandma and Grandpa were settled into Sara’s old cottage, and made a trip to the hospital in Fayetteville to see who they thought was Mitch, they came back to the cottage. We spent an hour in the living room catching up.

Grandpa was proud of his Cuban heritage, but he wasn’t at all hesitant to ask for a single malt scotch when Dad mentioned having a fifty-year-old bottle on hand.

Mom showed them pictures of my birthday party, the cottage in the snow, our sleigh ride, and a hundred others of our adventures at the Weald. Grandma hid the sadness I knew she felt each time she saw a picture of Mitch.

Having my grandparents here was good for all of us, but especially Dad. Mitch’s illness hurt him worse than Mom or me, especially since it began so soon after he and Mitch had begun to patch their relationship back together. Dad wasn’t as distant as he’d been last fall, but he did need help. After his parents died, Aunt May had been like a mother to him, and without her around there was really just one option. I suspect that’s why Mom arranged for Grandma and Grandpa to visit. Sophie and Vic were now the closest thing to parents he had.

At seven o’clock in the evening, I heard Doug’s Jeep in the driveway, followed by two more cars. Mom had invited Doug
,
Candace, Rachel and Ronnie over for dinner to meet my grandparents. She also invited our closest neighbors, Sherman and Victoria, though she didn’t know they were Seelie Council members.

Grandpa was so cute, and so Cuban. He stared at Ronnie and Doug, giving them both a rather stern look. Grandma noticed and scolded him, though the stern looks continued through dinner. Ronnie was amused, but Doug was uncomfortable and tried to avoid eye contact—at least until the food was served. We had Mom’s specialty, paella, for dinner and Grandma made pastelitos for desert—one of her
many
specialties. She learned to make them for Grandpa just after they got married.

After dinner, we went out to the back patio and Dad lit a fire. Grandma picked her guitar and sang for an hour. Just as I suspected they would, the Fae enjoyed Grandma’s music as much, if not more, than I did. Victoria and Sherman smiled and listened, often with their eyes closed, but it wasn’t just them—I found it amusing that nobody else seemed to notice the deer, the large owl, and all the other
animals
that had gathered in the woods around us. Grandma was an artist, and you could tell that she sang everything from the heart.

As he sat across the fire from me, I tried to avoid Doug’s stares. At nine o’clock, the Byrnes drove home and Doug, Candace, and Ronnie left shortly afterwards. They hadn’t been gone for a minute before Grandpa shook his head and began complaining.

“Arkansas, aye yai yai! What is in the water here that grows all these tall pretty boys. First David, he comes and sweeps my Elena off her feet, and I love him, yes, but then these two… No, I do not think I like these hairy-legged boys looking so much at my Maggie.”

He looked at me and smiled, his big toothy grin flashing under his mustache. “You move back to Miami, si? Find a nice Cuban boy. Fall in love.” He raised his bushy eyebrows and nodded. “Si?”

“No, Grandpa, I have no plans to get married anytime soon—to a Cuban boy or an Arkansan. Ronnie and Doug are just my friends.” I had to work to keep from giggling at Grandpa’s questions.

“Ignore your Grandpa, Maggie, I thought they were both great—very handsome,” Grandma said.

“Aye yai yai!” Grandpa rolled his eyes.

TWELVE

GROUNDHOG DAY

Though I’d made a conscious effort to act as normal as possible, and had been successful at keeping Rachel and Ronnie happy, Candace was not so easily fooled. In the cafeteria, she quizzed me again about Mitch’s condition. She wasn’t impressed with my canned answer, and asked me something bizarre and troubling.

“Be straight with me, Maggie. Is it really encephalitis?”

The last time she’d been that direct was last year when she asked me about the Fae. The look in her eyes, the determination, was terrifying.

“I have no idea what it is, but that’s what the doctors keep saying.”

“Shouldn’t they have found the virus by now?”

It was a pointed question, and not one I thought a seventeen-year-old girl would normally know to ask. Apparently she’d been investigating, but I didn’t know why.

“Dad says the same thing every day. I think we’re all pretty frustrated, but what can you do?”

Candace nodded and dropped the query, too easily. She was testing me just like she did last year about Rhonda’s accident—the line of questioning that captured Chalen’s attention and got her hurt.
For the love of god, not this again.
The next time I saw Billy, I’d have to talk to him about it.

***

When I woke on Friday, March ninth, the sunlight streamed brilliantly through the diamond panes of my bedroom window. Like I’d done so many times last year, I stayed in bed watching the pastel shapes slowly crawl down the plaster wall of my room. It was ten days until my seventeenth birthday and I enjoyed a little me time.

I’d just returned from Little Rock where I won State, once again setting new records in my three swimming events, and this time I’d qualified for Nationals in June. I would have been ecstatic except for everything going on in my life. Grandma and Grandpa had driven down to watch me, but Mom and Dad had stayed behind with Drevek at the hospital.

Drifting back into the memories of last week, I closed my eyes and thought about the ride home with Grandma and Grandpa. In the backseat of the red Lincoln, I had blankly stared at the rolling green hills that framed I-40 and the much taller Ozark Mountains along I-540. I casually chatted with Grandma about college, but my mind had been on Mitch the entire time. When we got back to Fayetteville, rather than a celebration dinner at the Weald, we met Mom and Dad in the cafeteria of Washington Regional Medical Center. It was clearer to me at that moment, more than at any other, just how worried Mom and Dad were about Mitch. They tried to act excited about my win, and I knew they were happy for me, but they were terrified and it was devastating to see.

I’d snuck up to the room alone and begged Drevek to wake up and talk to me. Any sign that he was still okay would be a sign that Mitch could be, too. Holding his hand and caressing his hair, Drevek didn’t stir when I cried at his bedside.

It was all too depressing. I snapped out of the memory, wiped the tears away from my eyes and fought with the urge to pull the covers back over my head and stay in bed all day. It was colder than it had been the morning before, the temperature having dropped to about fifty-five degrees. Winter was in its death throes, but the blooms in the garden kept fighting for a place in the sun. They had a difficult time of it under the gloom of the day. Even though it was supposed to warm up to sixty-five degrees by noon, the sky grew grayer and more overcast with each moment, until the sun was hidden and the glowing pastel diamonds vanished from my wall, taking my desire to stay in bed with them.
Time to get up
.

Just when I thought my ill mood would get the best of me, I felt the presence enter my room. It was much more palpable than it had ever been before—I could almost locate it.

“Aunt May, I wish you could tell me what to do. My god, I miss you.”

I shrieked when I heard her voice.

“Maggie,”
she said.

It sounded like it was coming from far down a well, distant and weak. My jaw dropped and I struggled with breath, all the while trying to determine whether I actually heard her call my name. Honestly, I was in such a state I considered the very real possibility that it was a figment of my imagination—a desperate attempt by my subconscious to find peace where there was none.

“Stop feelin’ sorry for yer’self, Girlie Girl.”

There was no doubt—I’d actually heard it this time. It wasn’t spoken aloud, but she communicated with me the same way the Fae did when they didn’t want physical ears listening in.

“Aunt May…how…”

“Ain’t got time for that, just listen.”

“Oh, my god, yes, of course, Aunt May, oh, my god!” I prattled.

“Ya need ta get yer’self in the caretaker’s cottage, go upstairs, back bedroom.”

“But Cassandra, she’s always there.”

“Naw, she leaves ever’day—goes away for an hour or so. 9 am sharp, but don’t linger…she’s a bad one, Mag…”

I paused for a moment waiting for her to finish. “Aunt May?” I was desperate for more information—I had so many questions.

“Too tirin’, I’ll be ba…”

“What am I looking for?”

“Missin’ journal…Pete…hat…”

And then she was silent. I could still feel
her
presence in the room, but it was considerably weaker than it had been.

“I’ll go, I promise.” My voice trailed off. The rational part of my mind told me that I’d imagined the whole encounter, but my gut told me it was real. I was stunned but incredibly happy to hear her voice, though the prospect of trying to get inside the cottage again made me cold. My shield was stronger, but still not strong enough to tangle with Cassandra. Aunt May’s presence stayed in the room for a few more minutes and then dissipated into nothing as it always did.

***

Rachel and I met for lunch later in the day. She had said she needed to talk to me and that it was really important. To avoid another intervention meeting, I agreed. She picked around on her danish, nibbling on tiny pieces she’d pinched off, probably to make herself feel better about eating something not on her latest diet. I chose a salad with vinaigrette to make her feel better, even though I really wanted comfort food. She’d been unusually concerned about her weight recently.

“What’s up with Doug?” she asked, putting a tiny piece of sugared pastry in her mouth and swallowing it without chewing.

“What do you mean?”

She appeared exasperated by my question. I wasn’t sure whether her reaction was due to my lack of a good answer or the fact that I truly didn’t know what she meant.
Great
,
she’s in a mood
.

“Why is he so testy? Things with the two of you are all right, aren’t they?”

“There isn’t any us, Rachel. I’ve told you a thousand times, we’re just friends.”

She took her eyes off the Danish for just a second and concentrated on me. She looked a little frustrated. “Why not?”

“You know why not,” I said pointedly. She’d always had a thing for Doug, and couldn’t comprehend why I hadn’t given up hope on Gavin and thrown myself in Doug’s arms at the first opportunity. She was still as enamored with him as ever.

“Maggie, Gavin’s gone, Doug’s here. I can’t believe you’d just…”

“Stop it, Rachel!” I snapped, trying to keep my emotions in check. “If this is what you wanted to talk to me about, then the conversation is over.”

Her big blue eyes began to well up, and horror filled her face. “Oh no, Maggie…I’m so sorry…I didn’t mean…”

Perturbed as I was, I fought to keep the anger off my face. “Please, just let it go.”

She wiped a tear from her cheek. “I’m so sorry, Mags, I didn’t mean…that isn’t what I wanted to talk about. I got carried away. I wanted to talk about something else.”

“What?”

“Who is Cassandra?”

She fought to regain her composure, and I was dumbfounded. “What…how do you…?” I couldn’t form a complete sentence. Cassandra’s was the last name I expected her to mention, and it terrified me. “How do you know Cassandra?”