Unthinkable (26 page)

“Your cat who talks in your head. Can you tell me more
about him?”
“Certainly,” said Fenella politely. “What would you like
to know?”
“Whatever. Anything.”
“He’s not actually a cat, but a faerie prince.”
“A faerie prince.”
“Yes. He’s under a temporary spell while on assignment
from the Faerie Queen, his sister. He’s advising me on the
completion of three tasks.”
“A handsome faerie prince under a spell.”
“Not handsome. He’s what you’d call a freak.”

The cat yowled. Walker’s hand jerked on the wheel of the
truck.
Fenella said, “Ryland wishes you to know that his natural
form is that of a manticore.”
“A manticore.”
“Yes. Human head, body of a lion, dragon’s tail. Wings.”
Walker flicked a glance toward Fenella’s lap, where
Ryland sat sphinx-like, front paws extended, head upright.
“Of course. A manticore.” He returned his attention to his
driving.
Walker hadn’t even seemed to take in what she’d said
about the three tasks. He had certainly not asked what they
were or about Fenella’s involvement with them. She found
herself compulsively shaping conversational gambits in her
head. There were so many things she might say. So much
pity she might fish for. So many explanations she might
make. And, oh yes, so much begging she might do.
Was there any chance Walker would by some miracle
believe her? He had experienced the tangible magic of the
oak leaf, which—oh. She groped in her pocket. She remembered holding the leaf on the park bench, and then she had
scrambled on top of Walker, and she had no memory of it
after that. She sighed heavily, but Walker did not even look
her way.
She knew then it was useless.
Fenella closed her eyes, only to see Padraig form instantly in her mind’s eye. He was dressed in silk and
leather, as of old, and his body was restored to full
strength and power. He swept down low in a mocking
bow. Rising, he held out a commanding hand. Despite
her will, her feet took her to him and she accepted his
hand. His long, overly jointed fingers dug into her as he
drew her body against his. His honeyed voice poured a
long, detailed story into her ear, a favorite of his, about
some things he had done to Bronagh.
Then he told her that he was going to do those things to
Lucy.
Stop that shaking, Fenella, said the cat, though he sounded
panicked himself. Once Walker tells your family the truth—
once you do—you won’t be allowed near them. And then he
wants to get the police! They’ll lock you up. They’ll discover
you have no identification—that you don’t legally exist. So
you must do the third task now. Tonight. Or never!
He paused. Or you could still buy yourself time. Run and
hide. Run the moment the car stops. I’ll be right behind you.
Because, don’t you see, Fenella? Once they know, it’s all over.
Fenella’s stomach did a strange little flip.
Once they know, it’s all over.
Just like that, she knew what to do. She knew why she
had gotten into the truck and why she was going to tell the
truth. She knew her plan. She sat up straight.
“Ryland, I have decided about the third task.” Fenella
stole a glance at Walker’s profile, but only the twitch of the
muscle in his cheek acknowledged that he heard her speak
to her cat.
The cat stood on his hind legs, his whiskers brushing her
cheeks. What?
“I can’t tell you aloud.” Fenella’s eyes remained on Walker.
“You will have to do what I say. Instantly.”
I have to obey you anyway.
“I know.”
I hope your idea is a good one. Strange. Ryland sounded
like he cared.
Walker said nothing. Of course not. Her talk of faeries
and tasks would only have confirmed what he had decided
before. She was a crazy, dangerous girl who talked to her
cat, a girl soon to be locked up for her terrible deeds. Nonetheless, as they drove, she kept her gaze on him. This was
the last time she would be alone with him.
Too soon, they pulled up in front of an unfamiliar building, a three-story house. “The new apartment,” Walker said
tersely.
Fenella hesitated, her hand on the truck’s door handle.
“After I hit Leo, they went ahead with the move?”
“The family went to the hospital. Everyone else moved
things for them. Then Lucy’s friend Sarah and some others
set things up here.”
“I s ee.”
“Do you? Do you see how thoroughly you’ve wrecked
their lives?”
Fenella stared at the house. She reminded herself that
Walker lived on the ground floor. The ScarboroughGreenfield-Markowitzes’ apartment was on the next two
floors. Electric lights burned from there.
Walker came around to Fenella’s side of the truck and
opened her door, as if he thought she’d been waiting for that.
He did not offer to hold Ryland for her this time, and so she
simply dumped the cat on the ground, where he stretched,
arching his back. She slid out of the truck.
Who was home? Lucy? Zach? Soledad? Miranda? Someone would be there with the child, who required regular
hours and food and sleep.
“Are you sure this is the right time? Won’t hearing from
me make things worse? What about waiting until morning?”
“There will never be a right time.”
“But what if they were to hear that Leo will live after all?”
“What you’re really saying is that it would go easier on
you, when you confess, if he’s alive and doing better.”
No. Really she was saying that she didn’t want to do the
third task.
Walker took her elbow in a firm grip. “Let’s go.”
Ryland padded lightly along beside Fenella as they
moved up the walk to the front door. Inside, a steep staircase turned sharply upward. They climbed, and Walker
rapped on a wooden five-panel door.
Lucy called out in response. “Come in.”

Fenella and Walker entered the living room, which
was lit only by a bare electric bulb in the center of the
ceiling. The room was of reasonable size and its wideplanked wooden floor felt solid underfoot. But it was
hard to imagine it ever feeling anything like the home
that was gone. Cardboard boxes were piled high against
stark white walls. A broom and dustpan leaned against the
wall, next to a window open to the autumn night air. In
the far corner stood a portable playpen, with a few totally
unfamiliar stuffed toys lined up within. A big shabby sofa
was half-covered by a pile of clothing. Two interior doors
gaped open to other rooms.

Lucy had risen from the sofa. Her eyes were blank disks.
Dawn hung, a dead weight, over her mother’s shoulder. The
child’s eyes were closed. She had two fingers stuffed in her
mouth and wore faded white pajamas covered with pictures
of frolicking kittens.

“Are you here alone?” Walker asked Lucy.
“Yes.”
Ryland, who had followed, jumped lightly up on the

sofa behind Lucy, who cast him a quick, unwelcoming
look. Ignoring her, Ryland made himself a nest on top of
the clothing. “We need to talk,” Walker said.

Lucy nodded. She looked only at Walker, though, not
Fenella. But Fenella could feel the force of Lucy’s awareness
of her. “I’ve only just got Dawn off to sleep. I’ll put her down
first.” Lucy moved into the next room as if wading through
hip-deep water.

Fenella felt Walker’s bulk heavy behind her, like a jailer.
“I’ll tell Lucy,” she told him. “I said I would and I will.”
“Tell me what?” It was Lucy, back in the doorway already,
her body tense, her hands fisted before her.
Fenella stepped forward.
Her plan for the third task would work, or it would not.
They would all be saved, or they would all be destroyed. It
began with telling the truth.
“I was driving the truck today, not Walker. I hit Leo.
Also, I burned down the house. But you knew that already,
I think.”
It was like taking a knife to a knotted mess of string.
Fenella only had a moment to exhale in the relief of honesty,
and the pain of it.
In the next second Lucy knocked Fenella to the floor
and was on top of her, screaming in her face. “Why? Why?”
Lucy’s hands gripped her shoulders, shaking her. There
came a slap and a punch and a knee digging into Fenella’s
stomach, and then Fenella’s head was shaken so hard, she
felt dizzy.
Fenella didn’t struggle. She took her attention away from
her body and whatever it felt. It didn’t matter. She looked up
at the way the skin creased at the corners of Lucy’s eyes and
mouth. At the way her mouth trembled.
Lucy was crying. Tears ran down her face, her shoulders
heaved as she tried again to shake Fenella. This time she
failed. She was crying too hard.
Fenella found Lucy’s wet cheek with her palm.
“Don’t touch me!”
“I’m sorry,” Fenella whispered. She truly meant to remove
her hand. Instead, carefully, tenderly, she wiped Lucy’s tears
away with her fingers. “Don’t cry. Don’t cry, baby. It’s going
to be all right. I promise. I promise.”
Lucy froze. She jerked her head back and stared at Fenella.
Fenella was shocked too. The preposterous promise had
come from some primal place. It was a mother’s promise,
the kind made when all hope is lost but the mother refuses
to believe it. And she had had no business saying it! It was
against everything that she was trying to do.
Lucy had to understand that no, everything was not going to be all right. She had to!
As if he’d been far away and had now come closer, Fenella
heard Walker. He sounded desperate, crazed, and uncertain. “Lucy—Fenella—stop—we all have to talk—”
“Talk.” Lucy heaved herself to her feet. For a moment she
stood above Fenella, panting. Her expression was confused.
Then, slowly, suspicion and anger returned.
Good, Fenella thought. Don’t trust me. Hate me. Fear me.
Step by step, Lucy backed away until she was leaning
against the wall. “I guessed about the fire. I suspected about
Daddy.” Her voice threatened to crack on the childish word.
Walker said, from somewhere to the left, “Fenella says
hitting Leo was an accident.”
“I don’t care,” Lucy said.
Fenella shifted to a better position on the floor, so that
she could see Lucy, Walker, and also the attentive twitch
of Ryland’s ears from his perch on the sofa. She laced her
hands in her lap. Her heart was racing, racing. It was ready.
So was she.
Lucy was still staring at Fenella. “Walker? Leave Fenella
and me alone to talk.”
“No. You and Dawn are safer with me here.”
“You’re here to protect us?” Lucy sounded incredulous.
“Yes. Fenella is not trustworthy.” He paused. “She’s, uh,
ins ane.”
Lucy smiled mirthlessly. “Fenella? Are you insane?”
Always the same question.
“I am no more insane than any Scarborough woman
ever was.”
Lucy inhaled sharply. “What’s wrong with me? I should
have known. I did know—somewhere in me. I just didn’t
want to believe it.” Then: “Walker, leave now. Now! This is
family business.”
“But Fenella’s crazy. Don’t believe her when she says she’s
not! She thinks her cat talks to her. She says he’s a faerie
prince under a spell.”
Lucy’s head swiveled to Ryland. “The cat is a faerie prince?”
Walker said, “Yes, her delusion is that he—”
Lucy grabbed the broom. She leaped. The broom handle
descended viciously.
Ryland slithered to the floor barely in time. He dove under the sofa. She thinks I’m Padraig!
Lucy dove to the floor too. She stabbed beneath the sofa
with the broom handle. “I’ll kill him this time!”
With one shoulder she heaved the sofa up on end. Exposed, the cat skittered across the bare floor toward Fenella.
He raced round and round her legs.
Fenella yelled, “Lucy, listen! This isn’t Padraig. He doesn’t
even like Padraig.”
It had come to this. Fenella was defending Ryland against
Lucy.
Blessedly, however, Lucy stopped. She swayed on her
feet, staring at Ryland, but she didn’t move to pursue him
further.
“I hate all faeries,” she said at last.
Walker fell against the wall with an audible thump.
There was silence for a full minute. Then, cautiously, the
cat stuck his head out from behind Fenella’s legs. Fenella?
May I suggest proper introductions?
“Lucy,” said Fenella evenly, “meet Ryland. He’s the brother
of the Faerie Queen.”
Ryland waved a front paw.
Lucy narrowed her eyes.
“I’m the only one who can hear what Ryland says,” Fenella
said. “So I’ll have to translate.”
“What does he want from us?” said Lucy.
“Nothing. This is not about him, but—”
“Lucy,” Walker interrupted. “Playing along with Fenella
won’t help.”
Lucy whirled on him. “Shut up and let me talk to Ryland
and Fenella. This is family business. If you don’t believe it,
you can leave.”
Walker could go downstairs and make us all some tea,
said Ryland brightly. I’ve been dying for a dish of Earl Grey.
Cream, no sugar.
The cat was right, and so was Lucy. It would be easier if
Walker was out of the way.
Fenella said, “Ryland thinks we should all have tea.”
“The prince wants tea?” Lucy said incredulously.
“Earl Grey, weak, with lots of cream if possible, and milk
if not. No sugar.”
In a nice wide dish. Not a teacup.
“Served in a soup bowl,” said Fenella. “Big enough for his
fat head.”
There was a pause. Lucy looked at the cat. Then she
looked at Fenella.
“Walker?” said Lucy. “Do you have tea downstairs at your
place? Because I think it would be soothing for all of us.”
Walker was already backing away as his eyes shifted with
astonishment from Lucy to Fenella and back again. “Okay,”
he said. “I’ll see what I can do. I can’t promise—what was
it?—Earl
Grey.”
“Anything is fine,” said Lucy. She moved with Walker to
the door, as if he needed an escort.
A moment later, Fenella knew why. Walker had not gone
more than a few steps down the stairs when Lucy closed the
apartment door. Then she snapped the deadbolt.
Now Fenella and Ryland were locked in with Lucy and
the child—exactly as Fenella needed them to be.