The Water Witch (37 page)

The first thing I noticed when I opened the front door was
the cup of tea Bill had made for me sitting on the foyer table. Holding it up to my nose, I smelled Earl Grey with honey, just the way Liam had always made it for me. How could I have not known Bill was the incubus?

I leaned against the door and cried until the foyer grew dark around me. Eventually Ralph came downstairs, curled up in my lap, and nudged my hand. When I looked down I saw that he was carrying a torn, crumpled piece of paper in his mouth. I uncrumpled the paper and saw that it was an illustration of a Nephilim torn out of one of my books.

“That’s why you kept pushing books off the shelves. You were trying to figure out what Duncan was.”

Ralph squeaked an assent.

“Well, you got it right, pal, only a little bit too late. Sorry,” I added, seeing his bright eyes looking up at me beseechingly. “We were all too late. Bill is gone …”

Ralph squeaked and jumped out of my lap, ran a few feet, and then looked over his shoulder at me.

“Okay, Lassie,” I said managing a weak smile, “Take me to Timmy.”

I got up and followed Ralph. As we climbed the stairs we came to muddy footprints. Ralph paused at them and looked back at me. “Men,” I said. “They never remember to wipe their feet.”

Ralph squeaked and followed the footprints upstairs where a trail of them led to the front bedroom. To Liam’s old study. I walked slowly down the hall, willing myself not to break into a run, my heart beating wildly, afraid of the hope that was whispering in my ear.
He’s come back! Somehow he survived and came back!
I turned the knob with a shaking hand and opened the door …

Onto an empty room. I almost sank onto the floor again, but I watched as Ralph scurried across the room and up onto
the windowsill, where one of the gray river stones was balanced on the ledge of the open window weighing down a folded sheet of paper that fluttered in the breeze.

Bill had left me a note!

I crossed the room and lifted the stone, its cool weight like a balm in my blistered palm.

Bill had left me a love note!

But when I opened the note I saw he’d left me something much better. There was a single line on the page. It read:

There’s another door
.

I am grateful to have a circle of friends as loyal and unique as the ones Callie finds in Fairwick. Thank you to Gary Feinberg, Juliet Harrison, Lauren Lipton, Wendy Rossi, Cathy Seilhan, Scott Silverman, and Nora Slonimsky for reading this book in its awkward fingerling stages. Thanks to my husband, Lee, and daughters, Maggie and Nora, for their patience and encouragement as I traveled into the world of Faerie. Thanks to my editors on both sides of the pond for their continued support of the world of Fairwick—Linda Marrow and Dana Isaacson at Random House and Gillian Green at Ebury. And thanks to Robin Rue and Beth Miller at Writers House, Loretta Barrett and Nick Mullendore at Loretta Barrett Books, Gina Wachtel, Lisa Barnes, and Junessa Viloria at Random House, Ellie Rankin at Ebury Books, and everyone whose hard work made this book possible.

The Demon Lover

The Water Witch

JULIET DARK is the pseudonym of bestselling author Carol Goodman, whose novels include
The Lake of Dead Languages
,
The Seduction of Water
, and
Arcadia Falls
. Her novels have won the Hammett Prize and have been nominated for the Dublin/IMPAC Award and the Mary Higgins Clark Award. Her fiction has been translated into thirteen languages. She lives in New York’s Hudson Valley with her family.

“D
o
you
believe in fairy tales, Professor McFay?”

I turned to the young man who had asked the question, searching his bland and innocent face for traces of sarcasm or derision. I’d just finished going over the syllabus for my Introduction to Fairy Tales class and had asked the class to write a short essay on their favorite childhood fairy tale. When I asked if there were any questions, I’d gotten the usual: “How long does it have to be?” “Can I use the personal pronoun?” (Who, I always wondered, had ever told them not to?), and “Can I borrow a pen?” I wasn’t expecting an inquiry on my personal beliefs on the existence of fairies. The young man, however, looked harmless enough. Like so many of the new freshman class he was tall, blond, and athletically fit in his snug Alpha Delta Chi T-shirt. He had the face of an angel—but that, I had learned recently, wasn’t necessarily a good sign. I decided to do what all good academics do. Dither.

“That depends on what you mean by ‘believe,’ ‘fairy,’ and ‘tales,’ Mr.…” I looked down at my roster to remind myself of the student’s name. “Mr. Sinclair. I think that fairy tales are culturally important, that they provide an essential outlet for
a child’s imagination, and that by studying them we gain a critical understanding of Western literature. I believe in the value of fairy tales.”

“But do you believe that the things that happen in fairy tales really happen?” he persisted. “That pumpkins turn into carriages and frogs turn into princes? Do you believe in fairies?”

He was definitely a plant. What eighteen-year-old would ask that question with a straight face. Of course, it would be easiest just to say that I didn’t believe in fairies. But somehow I couldn’t do that. I felt like I’d be killing Tinker Bell.

“I believe, Mr. Sinclair, that if I spend any more time on your question I’ll be shortchanging the class of the thirty-five minutes allotted by the English department to complete the diagnostic essay,” I said. “Why don’t we put your question off to another day?”

Adam Sinclair smiled and shrugged, then picked up his pen and began writing, as did the twenty-three other young people in the class. I breathed a sigh of relief and picked up the extra copies of the syllabus I’d handed out. As I shuffled the papers together I noticed that my hands were shaking. Sinclair’s question had disturbed me more than I’d realized. Maybe it had been a mistake to teach this class. I’d thought at first it was a tamer choice than my usual Sex Lives of Demon Lovers or Kick-Ass Vampire Slayers classes, but I was beginning to wonder if teaching a class on fairy tales at the
new
Fairwick College wasn’t akin to running up a red flag.

I retreated behind the podium and made myself look busy. Usually I wrote along with my students to model the assignment, but when I picked up my pen and asked myself what my favorite fairy tale was I nearly laughed out loud. Then I started scribbling furiously.

There once was a girl who came to a town where fairies and witches lived together. She moved into an old house covered
with honeysuckle vines. The house was inhabited by a prince who had been turned into a demon by the Fairy Queen, cursed to be a demon until someone loved him. The girl almost fell in love with him, but when she realized he was a demon, she sent him away. He came back a second time, and although she didn’t recognize him (she was a very stupid girl), she fell in love with him at the exact same moment as he was killed by an evil monster
.

A drop splatted on my paper smearing the ink. I wiped the tear away quickly and looked up, hoping no one had noticed it. Most of my students were hard at work, their heads bent over their blue books—all except Nicky Ballard, who was looking at me with concern. I smiled at Nicky and mouthed “allergies.”

I looked back down at my paper and reread what I had written. What a lame fairy tale, I thought. The heroine fails twice … shouldn’t she get a third chance? But there wasn’t going to be a third chance. I crumpled the paper up and tossed it in the garbage can.

“Time’s up,” I said, then glanced at the clock and saw there were ten minutes left to the class.
Crap
. The last thing I felt like doing was leading a discussion, and if I asked if there were any questions Sinclair might start in again asking if I believed in fairies. “Would anyone like to read their essay aloud?” I asked without much hope of getting a volunteer. But then Nicky Ballard—bless her—raised her hand.

I called on her and she began to read.

“The story I loved when I was little was called Tam Lin.…” I almost stopped her. Although it had been my favorite fairy tale when I was little, it was the last story I wanted to hear. My parents had told it to me, and then after they had died, I had imagined a fairy-tale prince had come to tell me the story. Only it had turned out he wasn’t really imaginary.

“I always loved Tam Lin,” Nicky continued, “because the heroine, Jennet Carter, doesn’t listen to what people tell her. They all tell her not to go to Carterhaugh because there are boggles and haunts there, but she goes because Carterhaugh belonged to her family once and she’s determined to get it back.”

Ah, I thought, no wonder Nicky liked this story. The Ballards had once been rich and powerful but had fallen on hard times. In fact, they had been cursed. Generations of Ballard women had squandered their beauty and intelligence on alcohol, drugs, and teenage pregnancies. Nicky would have gone down the same road, but I’d discovered last spring that it had been my family who had cursed hers. I was able to lift the curse, but Nicky still lived in a decaying mansion with her ailing grandmother and alcoholic mother. Maybe she dreamed of reclaiming her family’s honor like Jennet Carter.

“So she goes to Carterhaugh and meets Tam Lin, a handsome young man, who tells her he was kidnapped by the Fairy Queen seven years ago and tonight, on Halloween, the fairies are going to pay their tithe to hell by sacrificing him. Then he tells her how she can save him.”

At least Jennet got clear instructions, I thought enviously. But then Jennet doesn’t waste time worrying about whether she really loves Tam Lin or not. Not like some people I knew.…

“She goes to the crossroads at midnight and waits for the fairy host. They ride by on horses decked out in gold and silver, with goblins and bogies leering and shrieking, but Jennet doesn’t run. She stands fast until she sees Tam Lin, wearing only one glove …”

“Like Michael Jackson,” someone sniggered. Nicky glared at the interruption but kept on going.
Good girl
, I thought, she’d grown up a lot during her summer abroad.

“… and one hand bare, the sign he’d told Jennet to know him by. She pulled him down from his horse, and immediately he turned into a fierce lion, but Jennet held onto him because he’d told her that the Fairy Queen would make him change shape. Next he turned into a writhing snake …”

“Oooh …” a girl began, but Nicky and I both glared her into silence.

“But still she held fast to her Tam Lin. Next he because a burning brand, but Jennet didn’t let go. When he was Tam Lin again, she wrapped him in her green mantle. The Fairy Queen was really pissed.”

A few students laughed, but I didn’t check them. They were with Nicky now. Even though it was time to go they weren’t collecting their books or texting on their phones. The story had caught their attention.

“ ‘If I had known you would leave me for a human girl,’ the Fairy Queen said, ‘I would have plucked out your eyes and heart and replaced them with eyes and heart of wood.’ But Jennet held onto Tam Lin, and there was nothing the Fairy Queen could do. She rode away to Fairy-Land, and Jennet and Tam Lin married and lived in Carterhaugh. I like this story because it’s the girl who saves the boy and also …” Nicky paused, swallowed, and looked up at me. “Because it shows that sometimes you have to believe in people even though they look like monsters. Because people can change.”

There was a murmur of assent from a couple of upperclassmen and one girl, Flonia Rugova, who had roomed with Nicky last year, reached over and squeezed Nicky’s hand. I imagined she knew, as I did, that Nicky’s mother, Jaycee Ballard, had joined AA and was trying to clean up her act. “Absolutely,” Flonia said. “People can change.”

“That was lovely, Nicky,” I said. “I think Nicky has answered Adam’s question for me. That’s the kind of fairy tale I
believe in, Mr. Sinclair. The kind that gives us the courage to persevere through hardship and fight for what we believe in. Think about Nicky’s story while you’re reading the Bettelheim chapter for next class.”

With only ten minutes to make it to their next class—and a new Zero Tardiness Tolerance in place—most of the students took off in a panicked stampede. But Nicky lingered behind and fell into step beside me as I left Fraser Hall.

“I don’t want you to be late for your next class, Nicky. You know the new administration is cracking down on lateness.”

“I’m free next period,” Nicky said. “What’s up with all the new rules, anyway? The college is totally changed.”

I sighed. “I know. It’s the new administration. They have a rather different … um … pedagogical philosophy.”

“No kidding! We’ve got curfews! And mandatory dorm meetings. I get, like, twenty emails a day from campus security … and those new security guards are creepy.” Nicky lowered her voice as we passed one of the new guards, a short, broad-shouldered man in a green jumpsuit. He leered at Nicky in a distinctly unsavory way. “I don’t want to be mean, but they look like
trolls
.”

Now that Nicky mentioned it, they
did
look like trolls. I wondered … “Stay away from them,” I told her. “If you have a problem, call me or Professor Delmarco or Professor Lilly.”

“Thank God you guys are still here, but so many of my favorite teachers are gone. I was going to take Stones for Poets with Professor Van der Aart, but he’s gone on a sabbatical. Now I have to take two required science classes
and
a class on Milton.”

I let out an involuntary groan. I’d barely been able to get through
Paradise Lost
in grad school; requiring the entire college to read it seemed crazy. “I know the new requirements
are onerous. Some of the faculty are trying to … er … 
persuade
the administration to change their policies. We’re meeting this evening to go over our … er … strategies.”