Finally her mouth quirked, and she said, “We should talk about this once you’ve gotten cleaned up.”
I wasn’t sure why the discussion would be any different once I was wearing different clothing, but Granna was as dangerous to poke as Mom. We didn’t speak again until we’d gotten to her old, L-shaped farmhouse in the middle of a cornfield.
“The clothes are upstairs in the guest room. In the closet on the shelf. I’ll get you some tea.” She headed for the kitchen and I headed up the stairs.
The farmhouse was always drafty, no matter how hot it was outside, and the guest room was the worst. Granna had covered the creaking, splintery wood floor with a colorful woven rag rug and hung bright abstract paintings on the pale-as-ice walls, but it always felt cold to me. Cold like nasty chill-in-your-head cold, not grab-me-a-sweater cold. Dad had told me that this had been Delia’s old room, and that as a child she’d nearly died here. Even without the dying part, just knowing that this room had helped form Delia’s charming personality made me hate it.
I grabbed my clothing from the closet—so that’s where my favorite baggy cords had gone—and changed in the bathroom. As I rinsed the dried blood from my skin, I remembered the feeling of Luke crushing me to him and the smell of him pressed against my nostrils. A fist squeezed my stomach at the memory … like nerves, but better.
Where is he now?
I joined Granna down in the kitchen, blinking in the bright sunshine pouring through the windows. She put a glass of iced tea in my hand and gestured for me to sit at the round table.
She studied my arm to see if I’d gotten it clean. “You know what’s happening here, don’t you?”
I felt a little stupid. “Faeries?”
She looked up at me abruptly. “Don’t say it. Say the word, and They’ll listen. There’s a reason why They’re called ‘The Good Neighbors’ and ‘The Fair Folk.’ The other word, it’s like an insult. It’s coarse.”
I drank some tea. Granna never made it sweet enough —something about refined sugars being bad for you, blah blah blah. “So, if you knew about Them all along, why didn’t you say anything? Just ‘oh here, wear this ugly ring,’ with no explanation?”
Granna pursed her lips, but I could tell she was trying not to smile. “So that’s why you washed it down the drain?”
“That really was an accident.”
“Mmm. They’ve always been a bit of bother to the female side of the family.”
Bit of bother. I’d just been chewed on by a cat that made Jaws look like an irritable guppy. If that was only a bit of bother, I’d hate to see the whole thing.
Granna drummed her fingers on the table. “You’re about the right age for Them to start making trouble. Shallow things. I don’t think They have much use for anything old or not beautiful. They’re only interested in brand new toys.” She shrugged, as if she were talking about an ant problem or something equally mundane. “So I gave you the ring.”
“You act like They’re nothing to be afraid of.”
She shrugged again. “If you’re wearing iron, They really can’t do anything. Why do you think there aren’t stories on the news about changelings and stolen children all the time? We have iron everywhere now. They bothered Delia and your mother when they were younger, and then They gave up.”
That was a weird thought. My straight-up mother being bothered by faeries? Delia was even weirder. I could picture the scene. Faerie: Come away, human. Delia: Why? Faerie: Untold delights and youth forever. Delia: I’m holding out for a better offer. Ta.
“Why didn’t you give me the ring sooner? You know, at birth or something.”
“I really thought that They had given up on us. But then I saw him, and I knew They were back.”
I didn’t have to ask who “him” was. My stomach lurched again, only this time it was nerves, and not the good kind. I didn’t know what to say. Anything I said would betray my increasing infatuation with him, and I didn’t think Granna would respond well to that. And even if I could get a question out with an innocent voice, I didn’t want to hear the answer.
I held on fast to the image of him saving me, and clinging to me after the cat was dead; I tied myself to it like a sailor to a mast, with a storm on the horizon.
And the storm came. “He’s one of Them, Deirdre.”
I shook my head.
“I know he is. I saw him twenty years ago, and he looked just the same as he did the other day.”
She had mistaken him for someone else.
“Right before the rest of Them show up, he does. He was there for Delia.”
I managed to get a few words out. “He saved me, Granna. Did you forget that part?”
She shrugged, irritatingly nonchalant. I wanted to smack her for casually trampling over my heart. “It’s all games, Deirdre. They love games. Cruel sports. Don’t you remember the old bedtime stories? Riddles and names and trickery. And why would They want you dead, anyway? They want to steal you away.” She mistook the look on my face, and unusual sympathy crept into her voice. “Oh, don’t worry! I’ll find you another piece of iron jewelry.”
I grasped the key at my neck and thrust it toward her. “He can touch iron, Granna. You said They couldn’t touch it. Well, he can. He could touch the ring, and he gave me this. He warned me about Them.” I pushed my chair back angrily. “I don’t think he’s one of Them.”
Granna pulled the lid off her box of emotions just long enough to let a frown escape. “Are you sure he can touch iron?”
In my head, his fingers touched the skin next to the key, held my fingers, glanced against the ring.
“I’m sure.”
She actually let another frown, a deeper one, out of the box. “He must—he must be some sort of half-breed. Something—did he have eyedrops?”
My heart, which had begun to beat faster at the word ‘half-breed,’ stopped when she mentioned the drops. I didn’t have to answer; my face told her everything she wanted to know.
“He has to use the drops to see Them.” She stood up and pushed her chair in. “I’m going to have to see if I can make something that will work on him.”
I couldn’t help myself. “Do you have to?”
She looked at me again, hard. “Deirdre, everything he’s told you is a lie. They don’t have souls. They don’t have friends. They don’t love. They play. They’re big, cruel children and They want shiny new toys. You’re shiny and new. He’s playing you.”