Autumn (10 page)

The visit was on a Saturday, which was a relief. I wasn’t working until that evening and I didn’t have to worry about homework from school until the next day. High school in Maine, as I had found out during my first week of classes, wasn’t as bad as I had thought it would be.

No, I didn’t know anyone and I ate lunch with Nick every day, and yes, I was behind in some subjects and ahead in others, but all in all everyone had been nice and I hadn’t felt like the total outcast I had expected to be, which was good, because I wasn’t sure I could take much more stress.

My mother had also settled into Castleton nicely. She said she missed my dad, but she also loved the view of the ocean and the fresh air. Besides, she had discovered what I already knew, the pretty much everyone in Castleton was nice.

My mother wouldn’t have been so positive if she had known that she’d been tricked into coming here by Fairies, but in all seriousness she would never have believed it anyway. This was one of the bonuses to having a supernatural boyfriend, I mused as I knocked on the back door of the Cheshires’ place.

My one relief in the past week had been that there had been no sign of either Mrs. Cheshire or the other members of the Supreme Council. If I had seen Divoni or Alderoy again I would have been tempted to give them a piece of my mind, and that probably wouldn’t have been good for anyone.

Instead of Samuel appearing when the door opened, as I had expected, it was a less familiar, though no less formidable, face that looked out at me.

“Hi,” I said to Samuel’s grandmother.

I had met her only once before, earlier in the summer when I had been spending a lot of time with Samuel after Holt had disappeared. Those times had been fun, but they felt like a world away. I knew I was supposed to call her Granny.

“Come in, come in,” she said. She was short and hunched and walked with a cane, but she reminded me of her grandson, with blue eyes and pale skin. “Samuel should be along in a few minutes. Young men get so distracted sometimes.” She smiled and I realized that she found herself rather amusing. It was almost a relief. I saw very few signs in her of her daughter, the Winter Queen.

I had begun to wonder if the Winter Queen was really part of the family. Maybe she was descended from pigs instead. I liked that idea a lot.

“Follow me,” she said, motioning with one gnarled hand and hobbling down the darkly lit passage. Now that I was forced into a dark space with this woman I found myself wishing that I had asked Samuel more questions about her. Even though she didn’t act like her daughter, I worried that any second she was going to turn around and transform me into a popsicle.

“How have you been?” I asked, trying to be polite. My voice echoed off the walls and further reminded me that I was alone. Well, almost.

“Oh, fine,” she said, not turning around. We continued our slow pace.

I watched the bend of her head. She was a Fairy, but she didn’t feel like the other Fairies to me. Now that I was a Fairy myself, I could identify when there was another Fairy around without having to even wonder. But not with Samuel’s grandmother. I could tell that she had powers, but not what kind.

I could also tell that she had been the one at the door for a reason. I just had to wait her out until she explained herself.

We were getting close to the door to the basement -- and Holt -- when she turned around to face me. Her eyes were in shadow, giving her body an eerie glow.

“The more important question,” she said, as if we were continuing a conversation that we had never started, “is how are you doing?”

I stared at her, so shocked to be asked the question I didn’t know what to say.

Hearing the words come out of her mouth reminded me that no one, except when my mother asked how my first week of school had gone, had bothered to ask me that since everything had happened with Holt.

The Fairies were all too angry at me to care, and Carley was too wrapped up in her own problems -- named Nick -- to wonder.

“I’m...um, fine?” I stammered out.

The old lady raised her eyebrows at me and I coughed nervously.

“I’m sorry,” I tried again. “I don’t know if I know what you are asking.”

In response she pursed her lips together until they disappeared into one thin, white line.

“This last week has been a shock for you,” she said. “My daughter...is difficult. She wants what is best for her family and she does not care who she hurts to get it. Some might admire that quality and in many ways it is admirable, to care about your family so much....”

She trailed off without finishing the thought, then continued: “Anyway, I know she has made life difficult for you. Then again, you have made life difficult for yourself.” She gave me a stern eye. Even she wasn’t going to let me off the hook for what Holt and I had done.

“But,” she sighed, “I can understand young love. To a point anyway. I think Mr. Holt Roth should have known better, but of course he probably wasn’t thinking at the time, and there was no reason to expect YOU to know any better.”

Her words confused me. I let her keep talking to see if she would start to make sense as she went on.

“My point is that I do not believe you knew what you were doing when you entered into this. Dare I say that you were not even in a state to discuss it.”

Her eyes on me were unsettling. They reminded me of the night Logan had confronted us, of his anger and then his unbridled fury.

Confronted with that, the next thing I had known was waking up to the world of Fairies and Holt. To say that I did not know what I was entering into was true, but what if I
had
known? How could that possibly have changed my decision? What was this woman’s point?

“What are you trying to tell me?” I asked. The only benefit to not being able to see Granny’s face was that she couldn’t see mine, either.

She sighed, glancing over her shoulder. Having reassured herself that we were still alone, she looked back at me.

“What do you know about why Holt hasn’t been released?”

I chewed on my lip. I wanted this conversation over with. I had come here to see Holt, not to be quizzed by the Winter Queen’s mother.

When the old lady didn’t look like she was going to budge I said, “I know that Holt saved my life and that his mother deserted him -- and me -- and that your daughter is on some sort of vendetta against us.”

Samuel’s grandmother sucked air in through her teeth. At first I thought that what I had said was going too far, but slowly she smiled.

“That is really all you know? No one has told you anything else? It’s all very well and good to see what people are doing, but don’t you realize that you don’t know why they are doing it?”

I blinked. “What are you talking about?”

She folded her hands in front of herself. She reminded me of one of those aristocratic old English women I was always seeing on TV shows.

“Why is Holt not being released?” she asked.

“Because he broke the law.” I thought it was obvious.

“What is his punishment to be?”

“I assumed he would be sentenced to jail time or found innocent, which would have been easier if his own family had supported him instead of throwing him to the wolves.”

Granny cackled. “Are you calling my daughter a wolf? Lovely. It is not the first time she has been identified as such.”

I couldn’t bring myself to see the humor in the situation.

“Am I wrong about his punishment?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I suppose they could sentence him to jail, but that is really the human realm. As you can tell from his confinement to the basement, we don’t really have jails in our world.”

“You’re trying to tell me that he’s in something other than a prison?” Maybe this woman was crazy after all, just like her daughter.

“I am trying to tell you the punishments they are deciding between.”

“What punishments other than prison are there?”

Suddenly, a fear grasped at my chest. I wanted to put my hands to my stomach and double over as nausea swept over me. “Are they going to strip him of his Fairy powers? His role as Prince? Is that possible?”

In one moment of clarity it all made sense, all that shocking business of Mrs. Roth backing away from her son and refusing to condemn Logan. If Holt was no longer in line to become the Summer King, the role would fall to Mrs. Roth’s next child, her son Logan.

I wanted to scream in frustration. How could no one have told me?

Here I was, going along, la di dah, worrying about nothing more than the question of when they were going to let him out. I had assumed it would be within days, which was partly why I was dragging my feet about learning to be a Fairy; I wanted Holt to teach me. Not that Susan and Samuel weren’t excellent teachers, but they weren’t Holt.

“No,” said Samuel’s grandmother sternly. “I’m afraid that’s not the worst of it.”

It was like a car crash happening in slow motion, where I could see everything moving but I couldn’t do anything to stop it. Slowly, all the windows shattered into a million shards as I watched.

I had to ask. I had to get up the courage to ask. I just didn’t know how.

“What’s the worst of it?”

“The worst of it is that there are still Fairies who think you should have accepted, and still will have to accept, Samuel’s Rose, as you are his destiny.

I started to protest that that was no longer possible, but Granny shushed me with a raised hand.

“What you forget, but shouldn’t,” she said, “is that this is all unprecedented. The notion that there are rules to be followed, conventions to be observed, is simply folly. It is why my darling daughter is having so much of her way, bless her conniving heart.”

I rather thought conniving was too nice a term for that woman.

“You still haven’t told me what the worst of it is,” I pointed out. I could barely contain myself now. I felt as if I was a balloon being blown up more and more, past my capacity.

With another glance over her shoulder to reassure herself that we still were alone, the dear little grandmother in front of me said the most shocking words I ever thought I would hear.

“If you are still to be with Samuel, and there are many who think you should be, there is only one way to break the bond between you and Holt,” she said.

“Break the bond?” I asked stupidly. “It’s no longer possible to break the bond, right? And even if it were, aren’t there a lot of obstacles in the way of doing it?” To say that I disliked the idea of breaking my bond with Holt would have been an immeasurable understatement.

“Not as many obstacles as you might think,” she said, eyeing me.

“Fine,” I said, “Whatever, I need to get in to see Holt. I’m sure that whatever anyone has planned, it won’t work.”

“Oh, but my dear, it most assuredly will work, for this sort of thing has happened before.”

“What sort of thing?”

“The breaking of a bond between a Fairy and a human who accepted a Rose.”

“Alright,” I said, throwing up my hands. “How is the bond broken?”

I knew that whatever it was, I wouldn’t agree to it. Whatever magical reversing Fairy dust they planned to sprinkle on me would have no affect.

“When one of you is killed.”

“They are considering killing one of us?” I cried. My voice sounded loud, even to my own ears. It echoed down the hall, and I was sure it must have carried to wherever Samuel’s grandmother had ordered him to wait while she cornered me.

I tried to draw air into my lungs, but it wouldn’t come.

Granny came forward, rubbing my arms. “Calm down, girl,” she ordered. “Stop being ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous?” I shot back, “What was the point of his saving my life if they’re just going to kill one of us?”

Granny rolled her eyes. “There was no point. He shouldn’t have done it. Now one of you will have to pay for it.”

“I’m done with this conversation,” I said, brushing past her. I wanted to see Holt. He hadn’t told me anything, and only seeing him and hearing the truth would tell me if what she said was true.

“I’m not my daughter,” said Granny quietly. “I am not lying to you.”

I ignored her and pulled open the heavy door that led to the prison. I started down, surprised that there was a faint glow of light, so that I wasn’t at risk of tripping down the stairs in the darkness. I tried to compose my features. I didn’t want Holt to be afraid; he was too good at reading the emotions on my face. If I looked upset he would know something had happened.

I was relieved to see that the space in which he was being held was now illuminated. And there was Holt, behind bars that were similar to the ones that had brought us there, a mixture of vines and ice.

He was sitting in a plush green chair, but when he saw me he sprang to his feet.

“Hi,” he said, his eyes lighting up.

Something in my heart pulled. The knot in my chest eased a tiny fraction.

“How are you?” I asked, coming towards the bars. I felt a waft of cold, but it didn’t seep into my bones the way it had before I became a Fairy. I could now fight against the forces of Winter.