Unthinkable (14 page)

By the time she was a young woman, she had gotten over
her embarrassment and it hadn’t required much to set her
off.

Look, young Fenella’s in one of her fits again,
other folk
would say in the marketplace, nearly four hundred years
ago, and as they watched, smiles would tug their mouths,
and soon they’d be roaring too.

Fenella’s laughter was so noticeable that the joy of it had
penetrated into Faerie one day in 1627, when she was seventeen. On that day, Padraig heard her.

It was a warm afternoon in May. Fenella was walking
her father’s donkey, Dando, home from market. Earlier, she
had woven daisies into a wreath for Dando, but the wreath
was too big and dangled down below his long ears. It made
Fenella grin to see the silly floral arrangement on the temperamental old donkey, but that wasn’t the only thing that
made her smile. Every so often, she rested her hand on one
of Dando’s bulging saddlebags, aware of the length of fabric that was folded up within. She had done extra work for
a long time to commission a fine, soft worsted from the
weaver, dyed a pretty apple green.

Two slashes on the sleeves, Fenella thought. Could she
have puffs on the sleeves, also? She would have to decide
quickly.

The dress was for her wedding day.
Fenella’s sweetheart, Robert Ennis, had a sister, Agnes,
who was defter than Fenella with her needle. Agnes had
promised to make the dress. One thing Fenella knew: The
overskirt would split over the underskirt so that it could
easily be looped up on the sides. Fenella wanted the ability
to loop up her skirt in case she needed to investigate something at the mill.
After all, she had to be realistic. This would be her wedding dress, but inevitably, later in its life, it would be needed
in a more workaday way. Fenella was going to be a miller’s
wife!
The road was rutted, and she had a few miles to go, but
the soles of her bare feet were tough and callused, so Fenella
barely noticed the road as she walked and daydreamed
about Robert, and about their future, and, this particular
day, about her new dress and how appealing she planned
to look in it.
Under the skirt, Fenella would wear a farthingale to make
the skirt stand out from the waist. At her bodice, her stomacher would pull in tightly to plump out her breasts just so
above the square neckline. She’d cover up with her fichu, of
course, for she knew what was right and proper, especially
for her wedding day.
Later on, though, when she was private with Robert, he
would take the fichu off.
Robert!
Their wedding wasn’t far off, but that very night, there
were plans. She and Robert would sneak out and meet.
They had been teasing each other for quite long enough.
They would meet outside the mill at one hour past twilight.
Not that they were fooling anybody. Not that sneaking
was necessary. It wasn’t as if their families didn’t know, and
approve, and smile behind their hands.
But sneaking was fun.
At seventeen, Fenella was full young for marriage. Most
girls and boys of Fenella’s station could not afford to marry
until their mid-twenties. But as the son of the miller, Robert
was already part of a thriving business, and it wasn’t too
much to say that Fenella was part of it too.
From when she was a small girl, Fenella had liked to sit
by the river and watch the big watermill churn. She couldn’t
remember learning how the wheel’s machinery worked;
it had seemed to her quite obvious. So, one day, when the
great wheel ground to a halt that had everyone flummoxed,
Fenella had boldly approached Robert’s father. With a small
finger, she pointed to exactly where the mechanism had
snagged, and explained in a high piping voice the obstruction that she knew was inside the wheel, even though it
couldn’t be seen.
When Robert, then twelve, crawled sure-footedly out onto
the wheel to locate and pull the obstruction out, Fenella—
five years younger—had been right on his heels. Robert had
been livid that she’d followed him onto the dangerous wheel.
In fact, Fenella liked to tease him that he had not gotten over
it until he was nineteen and she turned fourteen and her figure bloomed.
She and Robert would run the mill together. There would
be other things they’d do together too. Fenella patted the
saddlebag containing her fabric and grinned again. She had
bought the extra fabric that Agnes demanded for putting in
the seams of the dress. The seams could then be let out as
needed. For who knew how soon there might be a new baby?
This very topic of children had been the subject of merriment today at market, when Fenella got her fabric. The
weaver’s wife had much to say on the subject of babies, particularly early babies; holding forth as was her way. Fenella
had laughed, not because the weaver’s wife was so witty, but
because it pleased Fenella to see how the woman’s cheeks
pinked with pleasure at being thought so.
Everybody enjoyed hearing Fenella Scarborough laugh
and everybody tried to make it happen. They would elbow
each other and say, “Will the girl burst this time, do you
think?”
Today at market, she’d laughed her hardest because,
well  .  .  . Tonight. Robert! The sneaking! Her peals had
reached out to the sky and beyond. The entire marketplace
had rung with them, and the cows and the goats and the
geese had joined in and howled right along.
All alone on the road now, Fenella let loose her laughter
again. But this time, old Dando did not bray with her. Instead, his ears flickered uneasily, and then the donkey came
to an abrupt halt in the middle of the road.
One moment there was a shimmer in the air. The next, a
tall, dark-haired man stood in the road before Fenella. He
was dressed in clothes grander than anything Fenella had
ever seen, silks and velvets, with an astonishing seven slits
to his billowing sleeve, and fine lace beneath the sleeve as
well as at his throat. He had tight boots of soft leather to his
knees, and they bore no dust whatsoever.
His blue eyes glittered.
He bowed deeply, doffing a red silk cap with a long white
feather. “Why, it’s the laughing girl,” he said. “Well met.”
His eyes swept her up, and then they swept her down.
Fenella’s laughter died in her throat.

_{Fenella came abruptly}
back into the present. She was
sitting on the crumpled autumn leaves and fading grass of a
small park. She was leaning against the trunk of a tree, with
Lucy and Soledad close, holding on to her, listening to her.

She remembered that the two of them had put their arms
around her, walked her there, and made her sit, while she
talked and talked and talked.

A short distance away, a play area was filled with small
children and their caretakers. Raucous shouts drifted to her
ears, but seemed unreal. She tried to smile. Lucy, looking at
her, shook her head.

“It’s all right,” Lucy said. “We’re here.”
Fenella said hoarsely, “Thank you.”

How had she gotten so lost in the past? She slowly let go

of her leaf, which she discovered she had been clutching in
her lap. It uncurled and lay on her knee, unharmed. “I have
to stop talking.”

Lucy put a gentle hand on Fenella’s forearm. “Take all the
time you need.”
Soledad put her elbows on her knees and buried her
hands in her hair. “I knew Padraig too. While he was hunting Lucy, he interfered in all of our lives. I even hired him at
the hospital. I invited him into our home—”
Lucy interrupted. “Mom, don’t start blaming yourself
again for that. How could you know? He was charming and
he used magic on you.”
Fenella was thoughtful. “In the old days, only the Scarborough girl would see him. Then at some point, he got
bolder. ”
“He had a whole life set up here in Boston,” Soledad said.
“An apartment and a job. A bank account! For all I know, he
even dated. Certainly lots of women at the hospital noticed
him.”
Fenella thought of what an outcast Padraig had been in
Faerie. No wonder that, more and more, he had enjoyed
strutting around in the human realm . . .
“So he changed his ways over time.” Lucy’s eyes were
narrow. She moved even closer to Fenella and put her arm
around her. “Maybe he got more powerful here in the human realm, as time passed? The more successful he was? But
we defeated him. He’s gone. He can’t hurt any of us again.”
Fenella swallowed. He can’t hurt you, she thought. Only
me. Then another thought: But I can hurt you. I already
have.
She got up. “We need to go to the grocery store.”
“But you were talking—”
“I don’t want to go on right now,” said Fenella.
“All right,” said Lucy gently. “Later, you can tell us more.”
It wasn’t until she was in the market, pushing a cart heavy
with milk and produce and cereal, that Fenella remembered
that Lucy and Soledad had been planning to question her
about the fire. She had successfully distracted them.
She was so shocked, she stopped pushing the cart.
They would still want answers. But her breakdown had
changed the moment. When they came, the questions
would be gentle and accompanied by a predisposition to
believe Fenella. She had in fact used the truth to manipulate
them.
But she had not done it on purpose. She had thought—
she had thought—
What had she thought? That she could make them sorry
for her, and so love her? Did love work that way? Fenella
stared blindly at a package of unsalted butter.
At checkout, Fenella bagged groceries beside Lucy. She
loaded the bags into the little wheeled cart that they had
also bought and would push home, and accepted two bags
that she would carry by hand. “No, they’re not too heavy,”
she said to Lucy. Her voice sounded overly cheerful in her
ears, but Lucy didn’t appear to notice anything wrong. “I
can take another bag. I’m strong.”
There was no room on the sidewalk for three to walk
abreast, and Fenella took care to be the one who walked
alone, behind the others, holding her bags. She let them
get yards ahead, though from time to time when they
asked, she called out that she was fine, she was right there.
She longed to be alone, to sit down. To hold her leaf. To—
something.
She didn’t want to see Ryland. He would want to know
what had happened with Lucy and Soledad. He would pester her about the second task.
Meanwhile, she could feel more memories of Padraig
flooding her mind, pushing at her throat, wanting to be
told.
They reached the church. There in the street was Walker
Dobrez’s truck. And there, inside it, was Walker. He had his
head down; he was reading something.
Perhaps it was because she had so recently been remembering Robert. Perhaps it was that she had felt, in memory,
the way it had been when she’d been planning to sneak out
to be with Robert for the first time. Perhaps it was simply
that she felt so alone. For whatever reason, Fenella’s heart
squeezed inside her chest.
Walker looked up. His gaze skimmed over Lucy, then
Soledad, and then landed on Fenella. He got out of the
truck.
In the next moment, he was taking the grocery bags from
Fenella’s arms.
Fenella heard him saying all the right things. She went
with everyone indoors, where she managed a smile for
Miranda, who was feeding Dawn at the table. She did
not see Ryland anywhere and was glad. She helped with
the grocery unpacking. She found her hand again in her
pocket, touching the leaf.
Then Walker turned again toward her, and Fenella caught
his eye and held it.
Not letting herself think, she walked back outside.
Walker followed her. She had known he would. She moved
to the far side of his truck, where they would be somewhat
sheltered from being seen by the others. She turned to face
him.
Then she flung herself against his chest and burrowed
there, clinging.
Walker’s surprise—and hesitation—manifested as tension in his entire body.
But then he gave in. His big arms cradled her, one
strongly around her waist. A hand cupped the back of her
head. Under Fenella’s cheek, his chest moved as he exhaled.
She could feel his lips, brushing softly against the top of her
head. She could feel his breath warm in her hair as his fingers entangled themselves in its strands. “It’s okay,” he murmured.
She knew she should not do this. But oh, she wanted to.
She rubbed her cheek against Walker’s shirt. She whispered,
“It’s not okay.”
Walker’s arms tightened around her. “Yeah, I know. But
I’m here.”
Fenella pressed closer. She sobbed against Walker’s shirt,
and her tears were real. He backed up, leaning against the
door of his truck, and she went with him. She slid her hands
up his back, under his shirt. His skin was so warm. His back
was so smooth, so muscled, human and alive. “Just look,”
she choked out, too low to be heard. “Look at what I’ve become. I hate it. I hate myself.”
“What?”
She turned her head and spoke distinctly through her
tears. “It’s terrible.”
“The house. Yeah.” Walker’s touch was so gentle on her
hair. He pulled her head back and wiped at her tears with
a careful finger. Fenella had never seen anything so tender
as his expression. “Terrible. I was so relieved when I heard
that you were okay. I would have come earlier, but I didn’t
want to intrude.”
“You heard I was okay?”
“Miranda called me.”
“Oh,” Fenella said.
“Nobody was hurt in the fire, Fenella. It’s all right.”
“Is it?”
“Yeah.” Walker’s lips came down on Fenella’s brow. Soft.
Strong. Tentative. “It’s all right. It is.”
It was not. Fenella exhaled anyway, wishing to believe it
for a moment. She closed her eyes. Instinctively, she tipped
back her head.
His lips came to hers, still tentative until she kissed him
back, moving her body closer. She felt his breath come more
quickly. His heart pounded fast against her.
Her heart had sped up too. She nestled closer, wrapping
her arms around his waist. His body was warm, but not as
warm as his lips and his breath.
Too soon, too soon, he lifted his mouth. Hers felt cold
and abandoned, but at least his arms were still around her,
and his body was close. He murmured against her temple,
“Also, I’ve got an offer for you guys, a possible apartment
you can move into. Also also, Lucy’s friend Sarah can take
Pierre.”
Fenella went quite still in Walker’s arms. “Pierre.”
“Yes. There’s a nice yard at Sarah’s house. He’ll like it.
Everyone can visit him there.”
The dog, Fenella thought slowly, as an image of Pierre
formed in her head. Of course, the dog. The beloved dog.
Abruptly, she pushed herself away from Walker.
To destroy love, she should murder the dog.