Autumn (13 page)

“Autumn,” Granny said, turning to me, “you had better go and greet the Supreme Council. Once they are finished with you, Samuel will drive you home.”

Samuel started to argue, but his grandmother said, “My grandchildren are being very argumentative tonight. You are all forgetting your place, but I would be more than happy to remind you if you’d prefer.”

All three of her grandchildren shook their heads.

“Excellent,” she said. “It really would be nice if young people had more respect for their elders.”

“Personally,” said Leslie, “I think there are a lot of stupid old people and a lot of smart young people.”

Granny was about to take another sip of tea, but at Leslie’s words she slowly put her cup down. Fixing her granddaughter with a stare I was coming to know well, she said, “Do you really think that?”

The air in the room shifted. It was no longer anything like a friendly kitchen with everyone sitting around drinking tea. There was something dangerous and hard filling the air. Leslie, who knew she had overstepped her bounds, swallowed hard.

I sat at the table, both hands wrapped around my teacup. For the first time since I had met her, Leslie looked truly scared. While pretending to examine my teacup I took a closer look at Lydia. I wondered if she would interfere on behalf of her sister, but it looked like she knew better.

Samuel stood up. “I’m going to take Autumn in to see Mother,” he said. He motioned me up with his hand but didn’t look at me.

Mrs. Cheshire barely acknowledged us leaving, but before we went through the door Samuel turned around and said, “Don’t be too hard on her, Granny. She doesn’t know any better.”

“It’s about time she did,” the old lady snapped, her eyes never leaving her granddaughter.

“Sorry about that,” said Samuel as I followed him up through the house. “My grandmother is big on respect.”

“I like her,” I said.

Samuel gave a short laugh. “You just like seeing my cousins get in trouble.”

“Yes,” I said. “A lot.”

He turned around and smiled at me. I smiled back.

He took me upstairs to the third floor, which I had never been to before. The downstairs was filled with dark furniture, but when I had been there with Samuel it had had a friendly feeling to it, even warm at times. That wasn’t the case with the upstairs.

“What’s up here?” I asked, looking around.

“Mostly bedrooms,” he said. “Some offices, a torture chamber, and the library.”

“Hmm,” I said, “one of those is not like the others.”

He had reached a set of double doors. Of course, the Supreme Council couldn’t just meet me over dinner at a restaurant in town. No, they had to do something dark and imposing.

Samuel had just raised his hand to knock on the door when I lurched forward and grabbed his arm.

“Wait,” I said, panting.

He raised his dark eyebrows at me and his blue eyes locked on my face.

“They aren’t going to kill me tonight, are they?”

Samuel frowned. “Who would clean up that mess? Lydia and Leslie? They wouldn’t want to break their nails. No, if they were going to kill you they would take you to the ocean and just throw you in and freeze your legs together. No one would ever find your body.”

“You are so comforting, you know that?” I said.

He laughed and knocked on the door.

“I’ll be here when you’re done,” he said, “to drive you home.”

Somehow, that was the most comforting thing I had heard in ages.

I took a deep breath and walked into the room, surprised that Samuel didn’t have to push me inside. I stood there for so long staring at the door that you would have thought I was frozen to the spot.

Inside the room was a roaring fire. I guessed that at least one of the other Supreme Council members, either Alderoy or Divoni, was not a Winter Fairy, because Mrs. Cheshire, sitting between the two of them on a massive couch, looked miserable. She had taken off her customary red coat to reveal a black sweater and black pants underneath. Surprise surprise.

“What?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest. Going on the offensive might not be the best idea since they were considering killing me and all, but I was tired of my life being ruled by a bunch of people who didn’t feel the need to consult me. They were making decisions that would alter the course of the rest of my existence. Possibly kill Holt. I was tired of lying down and taking it.

“Excuse me?” asked Mrs. Cheshire.

“Let the girl alone,” said Alderoy. He was the thin one, and judging by his clothes, probably a Summer Fairy from a different Court.

“How are your studies progressing?” Alderoy asked, leaning forward. He had light brown eyes framed by a tanned face. Wherever he lived, it probably wasn’t Maine.

“They’re good,” I said, not sure if he meant my Fairy work or my homework. “Susan and Samuel are good teachers.”

“Are you learning all you can?”

“I think I would learn better from Holt,” I said.

Mrs. Cheshire shot out of her chair. “You DARE say his name?” she spat out. “You DARE?”

I didn’t answer her.

Alderoy looked between us. “Dear Lady,” he said, addressing the Winter Queen, “You must try to be impartial.”

She gave him a venomous look but slowly sat back down.

“Mr. Roth is still in incarceration,” said Alderoy. “I understand that you see him regularly.”

Yeah, but I see less and less of him every time, I thought rebelliously.

“You are following all the rules that Mr. Divoni laid out for you in the beginning,” said Alderoy. It wasn’t a question. I wondered how they knew I was doing what I had been told, and it occurred to me for the first time that they might be spying on me. Well, I had expected that from Mrs. Cheshire. Whatever was the lowest possible standard was what I could expect from Mrs. Cheshire.

“We wanted to have you do one more thing,” said Alderoy. My heart squeezed.

“What is that?” I asked tightly.

“We want you to go and see Mrs. Roth,” said Alderoy.

My mouth must have dropped open, because Alderoy said, “If you are to be a part of that family they must accept you. Under normal circumstances, your future husband would be involved in bringing his family around, but since he is indisposed....”

“You mean you’ve locked him up and won’t let him leave?”

Mrs. Cheshire shot out of her chair again.

“If you cannot be still then just leave,” said Divoni tightly.

Ha, I thought, trying to hide my glee at Mrs. Cheshire’s being reprimanded.

“That girl is the epitome of disrespect,” she said, pointing one red-nailed finger at me.

“That is not the point at the moment.”

“His family must accept you,” said Alderoy. “Not just Susan, but his mother as well. Her rejection does not bode well for...things.”

He couldn’t bring himself to say that they were considering killing me off. Well, that was nice of him. I looked around at the three members of the Fairy Court.

“What am I supposed to say to her?”

Divioni coughed. “You are supposed to beg her forgiveness and request that she accept you into the family like a proper Fairy, instead of some outcast minx.”

“I wouldn’t be an outcast if you hadn’t arrested us,” I told him. “What we did wasn’t wrong. It’s only bad because you say so.”

Divioni’s face hardened, but Alderoy cut him off. “It is bad because we say so and we are in charge. I will thank you not to upset my colleague in the future,” he said, patting Divioni’s arm. “Now, you may go. There might be another one of these little chats in our future. Prepare yourself.”

It took everything I had not to give a sarcastic reply.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Why do you want me to get along with the Summer Queen? Everything you have done up to this point as been to try to tear me away from Holt. What’s with the change?”

Now even Alderoy was losing his patience with me.

“It is NOT for you to question us,” he sputtered. “You will do what you are told and you will not try to understand concepts that are massively beyond your intellect.”

With an effort I calmed down. Forcing myself to take deep breaths, I simply nodded. “Sorry,” I mumbled, ordering myself to think of Holt and nothing else. I couldn’t afford to anger the Supreme Council, not with Holt still in prison. And maybe not ever.

I knew that the Winter Queen sat fuming in the corner, but I didn’t so much as look at her as I left. The one part of my encounter with the Supreme Council that stuck with me was that if we were probably going to have another chat, and it had taken us a month to have the first one, it could be a very long time indeed before they let Holt go.

A part of me was still harboring a secret idea that they would release him sooner rather than later, that one night he was going to appear in my room and cry, “Surprise, they let me go. And neither of us has to die! Bonus!” But that hadn’t happened, and it was looking less likely all the time.

Samuel was waiting for me in the hall, as promised. I had forgotten how warm it was in the room until I stepped into the cooler corridor.

“Are you alright?” he asked, placing the back of his hand against my hot forehead. He felt as cool as ever and I relaxed into his touch.

“Fine,” I said.

“What did they want?”

“Oh, you know, the usual, dress fittings and such.”

When Samuel didn’t respond I said, “They want me to go see Holt’s mother. I have no idea why, but they told me that the Summer Fairies have to accept me. But I thought that Holt was in prison because they didn’t want me to become part of the Summer Fairies.”

I said all this as we were walking down the stairs and out the front door. I guess I got to use the front door when I wasn’t there to visit my boyfriend.

Samuel’s car was parked out front and he opened the door for me to get in. I was surprised he was still so gentlemanly. I hadn’t been treating him well lately.

Surprisingly, the car wasn’t cold. “Had you been running it to warm it up?” I asked, touched that he had thought of that.

Samuel shrugged, but didn’t answer.

“You know why they want you to go talk to the Roths, don't you?” he asked. It was now past eleven at night and my own mother was probably at home wondering where I was.

“Because they want something good to come from all this nonsense?” I asked.

Samuel scoffed. “My mother doesn’t want you and Holt to be together. Nothing is ever going to change that.”

I stared at the road in silence. It was such a back road that there were no yellow lines down the middle, and it struck me as funny that this was where I had found so many Fairies.

“Why haven’t the Roths gone somewhere warm to live for the winter?” I asked. I vaguely remembered Holt saying that Summer Fairies tried to live in the summer as much of the time as possible.

Samuel glanced at me, but I didn’t have time to read the expression on his face.

“Why do you think?” he asked.

“Because of me?”

“Yup.”

I chewed my lips. “I find it hard to believe that I’m the cause of all the Fairy difficulties in the world,” I said. “You know, like, Fairies are powerful and here you’re saying that little old me is setting everyone on their ears.”

“It only takes one,” said Samuel, “and what you did was serious. They can’t just let it go.”

“Well, they could,” I muttered.

“No,” said Samuel, “we can’t.”

It was the first time that he had excluded me from the Fairy community since I had become one, but I was too tired to think about what he meant -- there were so many other issues to deal with instead. Now I had to visit Mrs. Roth, and that couldn’t possibly go well. Even if Susan tried to smooth things over, I had had no contact with Mrs. Roth since the night Holt and I had been taken away in cuffs. Instead, when we got to my house I quickly got out of the car and headed inside, knowing that Samuel would wait in the driveway until he saw my bedroom light go out.

After my meeting with the Supreme Fairies on Friday night I wanted to do something fun. On Saturday, instead of working, I asked Nick if he wanted to go bowling with me after dinner. I was a terrible bowler. Like, there was the worst bowler in the world and then there was me. But I wanted to try, because bowling was one of the few activities available to us in rural Maine.

My meeting with Holt had gone as usual. I had been on an incredible high before I went to see him, but afterwards I just felt deflated. My only relief was that he looked better than he had the first couple of times. He had started to fill out again and the dark circles under his eyes were retreating. It made me think that maybe we were coming to an end of our ordeal.

“Hey,” said Nick when he got to my house. I was reminded for about the millionth time how happy I was that Nick had a car.

“How’s it going?” I asked, following him outside into another cool evening.