The Faerie's Honeymoon (9 page)

Heartened, she called the second number Susi had given her, before it was too late in the day to hope the man would come over. The shower in the single bathroom wasn’t running, and - while she could take a bath - she felt more human after a pounding spray. Despite not being puny, a couple of the windows were jammed worse than her strength could open, and the rooms needed airing out. If no more than that was seen to, she’d consider the handyman’s time well spent.

John Feeney picked up after the fourth ring.

He
sounded
like a curmudgeon, but Belle had been warned. Though she exerted what charm she’d learned from running her own business, he wouldn’t promise to stop by that evening. He’d try, he said, but tomorrow suited him better. There was a game tonight, and he was settled in. To top off the sparkling impression he was making, his goodbye was as grumpy as his grudging acceptance of the job.

Belle snapped her cell phone shut with a snorting laugh. She debated calling Susi for another name, then decided to hell with it. She was on small-town time now. People hereabouts, no matter how short of funds, weren’t necessarily going to jump for her.

Left to accomplish what she could herself, she cleaned up a little more, made herself a grilled cheese sandwich dinner, and - once she’d removed the sheets from the furniture - tried to watch her uncle’s unexpectedly fancy dish TV. That service hadn’t been turned back on, so she had a choice of browsing Uncle Lucky’s creepy metaphysical book collection or finishing the mystery she’d loaded onto her too-small iPhone. As it happened, the mystery centered on a serial killer who was on a killing spree across rural America.

“Should have taken Susi up on the pie,” she muttered.

Something rattled an upstairs window, probably the wind shaking the glass in its frame. Belle was used to the city, to the thick white noise of its million sounds blending. She’d forgotten how sounds stood out in the country.

You are not getting spooked
, she ordered herself. Curmudgeons weren’t afraid of bogeymen. Her hands gone icy, she pushed determinedly from the leather couch she’d sprawled on. Her ex-boyfriend Tom would have loved seeing her distressed. He’d always claimed she was too independent for her own good.

Bleh
, she said to Tom’s un-missed memory. Though he’d been cute and okay in bed, part of her had known she shouldn’t depend on him. It was stupid to stick with people who couldn’t take you as you came. Since, in the end, she couldn’t take Tom as he came either, it was just as well they’d parted.

Susi’s wedding diamond flashed in her mind again.

Because she didn’t want to traipse down that God-you’ll-die-a-spinster road, Belle forced her feet to climb the narrow staircase to the attic. This was the one section of the house she hadn’t looked over, but if she was going to be haunted, she could at least choose the ghosts.

Fortunately, the bare bulbs that lit the attic were working. Beneath their sharp-edged glare, she found the sort of garret modern homes didn’t have. Non-insulated eaves slanted to a cobwebbed peak, sheltering antique toys blanketed in dust and chests stuffed with lost treasures. Imaginative kids that they were, this had been Belle and Danny’s favorite place in the house to play.

She suspected they were the last human beings to leave their footprints here.

She smiled through blurring eyes, which at the moment were watering more from the musty air than her nostalgia. Generations of Luckes and Benningtons had stashed their junk up here. Belle spied broken chairs and fringed silk lampshades. A cast iron kettle leaned in a corner next to a bicycle so antique its front wheel was bigger than its back. To her delight, her and Danny’s prize steamer truck sat exactly where they’d left it in the center of the bare floorboards.

Hardly aware she’d moved, Belle dropped to her knees before it, undid the buckles, and pushed up the lid. The most extraordinary scent wafted out, not dust but a soft papery-perfume aroma - as if the past itself had been bottled up. Belle closed her eyes. With that smell surrounding her, she could see Danny’s nine-year-old face: his ski slope nose with its splash of freckles, his straight brown bangs and bright green eyes. She heard his giggling laughter as if he were really there.

I’m the prime minister!
he announced, the brim of a black top hat slipping down his face.
I’m marching to Parliament
.

He’d assumed a ridiculous British accent, much better at Latin than he was at mimicry.

I’m a flapper
, Belle had returned, her skinny thirteen-year-old body swimming in its own outfit.
I’m going to swill Prohibition gin
.

When she opened her eyes, the costume from her memory lay on top of the trunk’s otherwise jumbled pile. She’d folded the delicate garment, her characteristic neatness manifesting even at that age. The feathered rhinestone clips still attached the straps to the low-cut bodice. She could have smoothed them into those curls yesterday.

Unable to resist, she lifted the vintage dress and rose to her feet to shake out the dust. Gosh, the thing was pretty. Rayon hadn’t existed when it was sewn. Real silk-satin caressed her fingers, stirring a sensual pleasure she hadn’t felt in ages. The slippery fabric was midnight black, cut on the bias so it would cling. Her great-whatever relative’s dress might actually fit her now. If it did, maybe in a couple days she’d convince Susi to join her for a night out in the next bigger town.

No matter how impulsive she was feeling, the attic was too dirty to undress in. Belle carried her find to the door. As she did, her path took her past the rear dormers. An eerie glow stopped her in her tracks. She stepped into the window embrasure to get a better look.

The light came from Uncle Lucky’s old workshed. No garden tools were stored there. The ramshackle wooden building was where Uncle Lucky had built and tested his more exotic inventions. He’d abandoned it after Danny disappeared, going so far as to nail the door shut under multiple two by fours.

I’m
not
spooked
, Belle insisted, her heart hammering in her chest. Maybe John Feeney had come over. Maybe the boards had fallen off and he’d lit a lantern to search for a spare hammer.

The problem with this theory was that the glow wasn’t issuing from inside the shack’s windows. It surrounded the whole structure, as if the weathered wood were infused with blue-white phosphor.

Belle
, she thought she heard a voice whisper.
Belle, I’m so sorry
. An instant later, the light winked out.

Belle shivered so hard her teeth clacked together.

Whoever that raspy whisper belonged to, it hadn’t been Danny.

About the Author

EMMA
Holly is the award-winning,
USA Today
bestselling author of more than thirty romantic books, featuring vampires, demons, fairies and just plain extraordinary ordinary folks. She loves the hot stuff, both to read and to write!

If you’d like to find out what else she’s written, please visit her website at:
http://www.emmaholly.com
.

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If sexy shapechangers are your thing, you might try
Hidden Talents
, which features a werewolf cop and is set in the same general story world as “The Faerie’s Honeymoon.”

Thanks so much for reading this book!