Spells & Stitches (26 page)
Authors: Barbara Bretton
Elspeth was a pain in the butt, but there was a part of me that had grown perversely fond of her. Call me crazy, but I didn’t want to believe she had kidnapped our daughter, laid her atop Aerynn’s grave marker, and set colorful clouds dancing across her body. I mean, would you?
Of course we didn’t tell his family what had really happened.
We went with the story about germs and diapers and a maybe-a-wee-bit-too-old nanny who had become overzealous in the performance of her duties and whisked the baby home where she could keep her safe from random sneezes.
Relief spread from one side of town to the other. And to say the MacKenzies were happy is putting it mildly. Their love and concern for Laria was powerful and genuine. She was one of their clan. If something happened to me today, they would be there to help Luke keep her safe.
Well, at least until her magick kicked in.
Meghan stayed around long enough to give Laria a kiss and then announced she was off to meet her new boyfriend.
“I don’t like this,” Bunny said as Meghan made her quick good-byes to the rest of the family. “Whoever he is, he should drive here and pick her up.”
“He doesn’t want to meet the family,” Jen said with a knowing smile. “That’s not a good sign.”
Then again, Meghan and her mystery man had been together less than two weeks. Nobody but a Kardashian boyfriend met the family that soon.
But I kept my mouth shut.
And then there was the minor fact that Luke was downright homicidal with anger. According to him, Elspeth had refused to give an inch by way of explanation or apology. She had stopped him literally in his tracks while she finished whatever bizarre ritual she was performing, then cloaked herself without a word.
No doubt about it. The Elspeth party was definitely over, but unfortunately a whole lot of partygoers still remained.
The MacKenzies were like a small army. I’m not sure what I had been thinking when we invited them en masse to see the baby. I’m not sure we had been thinking at all. I’d had some half-baked idea about opening the shop and hiring the house sprites to whip up a buffet spread fit for humans, but the days since Laria’s birth were all a blur. The only thing I knew for sure was that I had never gotten around to doing any of it.
I guess I just hadn’t realized how many of them would actually show up. There was no way we could fit them all into the cottage and, with Luke in the mood he was in, I was pretty sure they wouldn’t want to be there even if we could.
Unfortunately house sprites took off on the weekends to some uncharted place in a different dimension. I knew that Renate frequently employed them around the inn, so I cornered her to ask if she thought they would make an exception in an emergency.
“Not a chance. They disengage with the world on our Saturdays and Sundays.” I must have looked distraught because she patted my hand kindly. (Hard to believe we had been at each other’s throats a few months before.) “Tell me what’s wrong. Maybe I can help.”
I did, in as few sentences as possible.
“We can open the restaurant for them,” Renate offered. “I’ll call in one of the chefs to help Colm, and Bettina and I can handle the front.”
“You’re a lifesaver,” I said, giving her the kind of hug that was impossible when she was her usual tiny Fae self. “I don’t know how I’ll be able to thank you for this.”
“I can’t give them rooms,” she warned me. “The Spirit Trail is very active right now and we’re actually doubling up on accommodations.”
The thought of the MacKenzie clan mixing with the Spirit Trail travelers was horrifying. But then, anything that brought Luke’s family in contact with the real Sugar Maple sent arrows of terror through my heart.
“We’ll figure something,” I said, even though I couldn’t imagine what.
I pulled Bunny aside and explained that Luke and I had to go home and deal with our “nanny problem” but would join the family at the inn as soon as we could.
“You do what you have to do, honey,” she said. “We understand.”
I was somewhere beyond exhausted and it was starting to show. I almost fell asleep during the four-minute drive back to the cottage. Not even Laria’s hungry cries from the backseat penetrated.
Somehow we all managed to make it home and that was when the fun started.
“Elspeth is out of here tonight,” Luke said as he paced back and forth in our tiny kitchen. “I don’t know what that bitch is going to do next and I’m not going to take a chance with our daughter’s life.”
I was sitting on the floor changing the baby and trying to keep curious cats from exploring the newest member of our household. “She was performing a ritual,” I explained for the third or fourth time. “She was connecting Laria with her forebears and asking them for protection.”
At least that was what Janice said and I wanted to believe she was right.
“Why would the baby need more protection?” he asked. “This entire town is protected against discovery.”
“No system is perfect.” I reminded him of some of the glitches he had experienced during his brief time in Sugar Maple. “Besides, when it comes to keeping Laria safe, isn’t too much better than too little?”
“Sorry, but I’m not buying it,” he said, still pacing the room. “I think she’s up to something.”
I looked up from diaper duty. “What could she be up to? She spent the last three hundred years doing Samuel’s bidding. Do you really think she would screw up his last wish?”
Suddenly the room filled with the smell of stale waffles and I saw Elspeth sitting on top of the refrigerator like a gargoyle.
“The babe must be guarded,” she said, staring down at Luke with disdain. “The old ways must be followed.”
I’m not sure Luke could feel the power vibrating from the rotund troll, but I was stunned by its force. I didn’t doubt her loyalty to Samuel, but she was still not a being to trifle with.
“We had the Presentation ceremony,” I reminded her as I made sure the baby’s diaper was fastened the way it should be. “That’s one of our oldest rituals. The baby now has a heartmother to help her move through life.”
“There be more what’s necessary,” she said in that nails-on-the-blackboard voice of hers. She aimed her look straight at Luke. “Danger is everywhere and she must be protected even from the blood.”
Luke stopped pacing right beneath the refrigerator. He glared up at her, bringing the full force of his years as a big-city cop into play. A lesser troll might have decided this was a good time to head for home but not Elspeth. She met his fierce gaze with one of her own.
“Enough with the dark looks and mysterious comments,” Luke exploded. “If you’ve got something to say, then goddamn say it. Otherwise get the hell out of here and stay out.”
“I say what I say. I do what I do. No more, no less than possible.”
“See?” Luke turned to me in exasperation. “How the hell do you deal with that crap? We need an interpreter.”
“Are we in danger?” I asked Elspeth.
“That depends.”
“Is Laria in danger?”
“The babe needs keeping.”
When it came to nonanswer answers, the troll was a genius.
I pulled in a deep breath and tried to calm the tingling sensation building in my fingertips. I did not want to go mano a mano with a troll. Especially not one with centuries of practice under her belt.
“Why are you so worried, Elspeth? Are we in danger?” Maybe this was some weird troll ritual and I had to ask three times before she would answer.
“What is danger?” she asked with a shrug of her plump shoulders.
“Now she thinks she’s Bill Clinton,” Luke muttered. “Next she’ll be asking us what
is
is.”
is
is.”
I shot him a look. Confrontation wasn’t going to get us anywhere with Elspeth, but maybe it was time to play my trump card.
“I’m sorry you won’t share your thoughts with us, Elspeth,” I said with a sad smile and a shake of my head. “Samuel would be very disappointed if he knew you were holding back information we might need to keep Laria safe.”
“I do what I do. More can’t be done.”
I pushed a little harder. “Why did you take the baby today? What were you trying to do?”
She spun around, butter yellow hair flying like the ropy strings on an old-fashioned mop, faster and faster until she was only a blur of motion.
“Elspeth!” I brought my hands down in a slicing motion. “No more!”
I shouldn’t have tried magick against her, but I was getting desperate. I’m not saying I managed to stop her entirely (the magick Samuel had protected her with was too strong), but I surprised her enough that she slowed down. I considered it a small victory.
“Your job here is done,” Luke said. “We want you out of here tonight.”
Shimmers of heat radiated outward from Elspeth. “No human orders me about.”
“Then you will listen to me, Elspeth,” I said. “It hurts me to say this, but we don’t want you living in our home any longer.”
The look she gave me chilled my bones, but I held firm. It wasn’t an angry look or a look of hurt or embarrassment. What I saw in her eyes was something that unnerved me more: I saw pity.
“And none of that cloaking shit,” Luke said. “I want your ass back in Salem.”
I shot Luke a warning look, but I wasn’t sure he saw it. Diplomacy wasn’t necessarily his strong suit.
“You fulfilled Samuel’s request,” I said calmly. “Now Laria is my responsibility. The Book of Spells says it is so.”
She considered my words for an uncomfortably long time, then nodded her bright yellow head. “So be it.”
And with that she stepped into the space between her world and ours and was gone.
“Did you see that?” I asked Luke. “It was like she parted a curtain.”
“Yeah, well, last time she did that she was still here in Sugar Maple watching everything.”
“I don’t think she’s in Sugar Maple any longer,” I said. “Something feels different.”
He sniffed the air. “I don’t smell funky waffles. That’s something.”
“No, it’s more than that.” I didn’t want to tell him that the energies surrounding Laria had dimmed the moment Elspeth vanished, almost as if a ring of guardianship had been removed. Maybe we hadn’t done the right thing after all. “I can feel her absence.”
“You think I’m wrong about her.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Yes,” I said. “I think she was telling the truth about why she took Laria.”
“And I think she was lying through her crooked little teeth.” Those muscles in his jaw were working overtime again. “What about that mark on the baby’s head? Where did that come from? I’m still waiting for someone to explain it.”
He wasn’t buying his mother’s strawberry angioma explanation.
“I told Janice about it and she said I have the same mark on my head.”
He looked like I’d told him I had suddenly sprouted a unicorn horn.
“Take a look,” I urged him. “It’s not like it’s something I can see for myself.”
He stood behind me, moving my hair this way and that. “Son of a bitch,” he said. “She’s right. You do have the same mark on your head.”
“Feel better?”
He nodded, some of the day’s tension draining from his face.
To my surprise, I felt better, too. It wasn’t that I thought Elspeth was a danger to Laria, but the sudden appearance of that red dot had unnerved me more than I had been willing to admit. If we both sported it, it was probably some kind of Hobbs birthmark and nothing to worry about.
Then again, Elspeth had been around since the days of Aerynn. Who could say she hadn’t placed the mark on my head thirty years ago?
But that was the kind of chicken-and-egg argument I didn’t have time for. Not with an inn filled with Fae and family waiting for us.
I fed the baby and we drove to the inn for an early dinner with the MacKenzies.
“Kevin and Tiffany had to leave,” Bunny said over the remains of her roast beef with all the trimmings. “They said they’ll call.”
Jen and her husband and kids were gone. Ronnie and his family were halfway out the door.
“I’ll Skype you this week,” Kim said as she finished her dessert. “I want all the details about the delivery.”
“No, you don’t,” Bunny said, breaking into the conversation. “Every delivery is different. You’re not planning on giving birth in the back of a truck, are you?”
“No, but—”
“Worry about your own situation, Kimberly, not Chloe’s.”
Kim rolled her eyes in her mother’s direction, but she did it with great affection. “I don’t think Chloe planned on giving birth in a truck, either.”
“Can’t say that I did,” I agreed. “I’d been planning on a home birth.”
“A home birth!” Bunny sounded horrified. “My God, what were you thinking?”
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