CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

And so the strategy session convened. The best minds of the Cŵn Annwn and the Tylwyth Teg joining forces for a shared cause: to save their Matilda. Nearly three hours of talk, which amounted to…absolutely nothing.

Oh, they came up with plans. Or I think they did. I was already exhausted and frustrated, and three hours of discussing the finer points of fae lore—which would have fascinated me a few days earlier—put me to sleep. In the end, it pretty much came down to: We’ll solve this.

We’ll solve it. We’ll protect you. Don’t worry about a thing.

Which was not a plan. Certainly not one we were going to rely on. After they left, Gabriel said, “We’ll figure something out. The three of us.” Which was not a plan, either, but it was honestly the best we could do for now.

Rose brought dinner after that. She’d picked it up at the diner, saying something about burning a roast. We were too distracted to ask for details; she was too distracted to elaborate. It was only as she went to leave, as I asked if she’d join us to eat—and she just kept walking—that I realized what had happened.

“She’s been to see Seanna,” Gabriel murmured as the front door closed behind her. “Who is obviously no longer under the dryads’ influence and has upset her.”

“I think she’d be more upset if she saw Seanna under that influence,” I said.

Ricky nodded.

When Gabriel looked confused, I said, “It’s Seanna without her edge. Without her venom. That’s going to remind her of the girl she once knew.”

There was a pause. Then Gabriel said, with obvious discomfort, “I should go after Rose, shouldn’t I?”

“May I go instead?” I asked. “If you want to, that’s fine, but I’d like to talk to her.”

Gabriel exhaled with relief. “Certainly.”

“You guys eat. Just save me a plate.”

Rose’s car was still in front of my house, and I was halfway to it before I realized she wasn’t inside. I spotted her walking home, as if she’d forgotten she’d driven.

I jogged after her. When she heard footsteps, she tensed and turned. Seeing me, she relaxed.

“I thought it was Gabriel,” she said.

“He wanted to come, but I convinced him to let me. We need to talk.”

We started walking, and I said, “You went to see Seanna, I’m guessing?” She nodded.

“Is she still under the dryads’ spell?” I asked.

Another nod. Then, “That’s easier. For everyone.”

I shoved my hands in my pockets. “I’m not sure about that. I’ve been thinking I might want to ask them to undo it if Gabriel goes to visit. It could be harder on him. It was even rough on me, seeing her…vulnerable. I don’t want her to be vulnerable. It makes it tougher to…”

“Hate her.”

I nodded. “I know it might seem as if Gabriel needs to see that side of her, but he doesn’t. I’m sorry. He just doesn’t.”

“I agree. He never saw that side growing up, and he doesn’t need it now. It negates his own feelings.” She walked a few more steps. “Yes, it is difficult, even for me.”

“Maybe even more for you.”

She made a face, rolling her shoulders, a reaction I knew only too well from her nephew. Physically sloughing off my concern. “I don’t know about that. But yes, she…reminded me of the girl she was.”

“The girl you lost.”

She hesitated but didn’t make that face again. Just said, “Yes.”

We walked to the corner and she continued, “Seanna was never an easy child. There were hints of what you see. A self-centeredness that could be breathtaking, even for a Walsh. That worried her parents, but there was good, too, so we told ourselves if we were loving but firm, she would outgrow her selfishness.”

“Instead, she outgrew the good.”

“Too much of the love, not enough of the firm, I suppose. But it always worked with Walshes before. We are a naturally self-absorbed lot.”

“The fae blood.”

She nodded. “I realize that now. Growing up, we were just told it was an inheritance from our criminal ancestors.”

“Kind of.”

A brief smile. “True. Yes, caring about others doesn’t come naturally, so we focus on caring for family, and with that combination of love and firmness we have avoided the worst of what we could be. So we were, perhaps, arrogant with Seanna. Overly confident that we could fix her.”

“This is actually what I wanted to talk about,” I said. “Her history. Is that okay? If it’s a bad time, I understand.”

“Actually, it’s a perfect time.” She paused, and then said, “Thank you.”

I knew what she meant by that—she wanted to talk about Seanna. She’d just seen her niece in better shape than she’d been in thirty years, and she needed to talk about her.

Back at the house, Rose made tea and brought cookies, which we both agreed was a fine dinner substitute. She may also have added a generous dose of whiskey to our tea.

“Tell me about Seanna,” I said as we settled in.

As a child, Seanna Walsh had been a brat. There was no other way to describe it. Spoiled. Selfish. Prone to tantrums when things didn’t go her way. In other words, a kid with all the worst qualities of childhood amplified.

For most kids, outgrowing that self-centeredness is a normal part of development. We learn that the earth, sadly, does not revolve around us, that others have needs and emotions, too. For some, that connection never really clicks. The world is full of people with a degree of sociopathy, and I’ll include myself in that.

I can remember, as a child, coveting another’s toys, and needing to actively stop and imagine my parents’ voices, explaining to me that the other child was just as attached to her toys—and just as deserving of them—as I was to mine. Even then, I think I refrained from stealing only because I didn’t want to upset my parents.

I would love to say I’ve outgrown that. Just last month, though, I watched an elderly driver valiantly try to parallel park in the last street spot, and I’d had to recall my parents’ voices to keep from ducking in with my little Maserati.

The Walshes had tried to instill that voice in Seanna. According to Rose, Seanna seemed to get it. She told the story of watching four-year-old Seanna at a town picnic, salivating over a chocolate gargoyle won by a cousin. When the cousin walked away from her prize, Seanna had realized no one seemed to be watching, and then, with some effort, had pulled herself away and run to join the other kids.

“It seemed as if she was learning,” Rose said. “There were other indications, too, that convinced us she’d be fine. And then…she wasn’t.”

“Did she gradually get worse?” I asked. “Or did it seem sudden?”

Rose took a long drink of her spiked tea, looking exhausted. “I don’t even know anymore. We thought it was sudden, and then we thought maybe we’d been fooling ourselves that she was improving, and then…after a while, it was like putting our fingers in dike holes. We were so busy stopping the flood that we had no time to wonder when or how it started.”

“But if you were to give me a rough estimate,” I prodded.

“Around puberty. We thought it was that—typical teen rebellion. She ran away shortly after, and then her parents died and—” Rose’s voice hitched. “She didn’t care. That was the last straw for everyone else. Her parents died in a car accident while searching for her, and she couldn’t even bother coming to the funeral. The rest of the family gave up.”

“Except you.”

Rose reached for a cookie. She didn’t eat it. Just stared down at it. “No, even I gave up. I think that’s part of what happened, what went so wrong with Seanna. I…I had my own issues. My life just…imploded? Exploded? All I know is that I wasn’t there for Seanna. I had my personal meltdown, ended up in prison. After I made parole, I came home for her.”

“To be here for her.”

A twist of Rose’s lips. “Too little, too late. Next thing I knew, she had Gabriel, and when I saw her again, I barely recognized her. I kept telling myself that skipping her parents’ funeral was a misunderstanding, that deep down she loved them too much to intentionally miss it. I was wrong. The Seanna I met after I came home was exactly the sort of person who’d do that. She’d…”

“Lost something.”

“Lost everything. Everything that mattered.”

I stopped by Veronica’s next. The ponytailed young woman who opened the door looked like a teenager. She was lamia, a Greek subtype of fae that cannot age their glamours. For lamiae, there are only two forms: the teen girl and their true one, a snakelike human.

When Pepper saw it was me, she blinked, and her eyes reverted to slitted pupils. Past trauma had left her unable to hold her glamour, but under Veronica’s care—and with the fae energy of Cainsville—she was making progress. When I’d first met her four months earlier, she couldn’t speak. Now she greeted me with, “Hey, come on in. It’s been a while.”

“We’ve been—”

“Busy, I know. That wasn’t an accusation, Matil— Liv. Sorry.”

“You know you can call me that,” I said as I walked in. “Only you, though.”

“Which is why I try not to. It just slips.”

The damage to Pepper had gone deeper than her ability to hold her shape. Not unlike Lloergan, she’d been psychically damaged. In her case, it caused mental impairment. That, too, had vastly improved, but if she stayed outside Cainsville too long, she started to revert. So she was here indefinitely, as a “Greek exchange student.”

“If you’re looking for Veronica, she’s at another town meeting. I can let her know you’re here. I’m sure she’d appreciate the excuse to leave early.”

“Please.”

Pepper texted Veronica.

“Give her five,” she said. “Hot chocolate? No, you’re a grown-up. I should offer you coffee.”

I smiled. “Hot chocolate is fine.”

Pepper loved her hot cocoa as much as I loved my mochas. In her case, “hot” was the biggest attraction. Her glamour issues meant that—like a snake—she was cold-blooded. That was improving, but the heat in the house was cranked to near eighty and she still wore a hoodie.

As she fixed the drinks, I looked at the papers and books spread over the kitchen table.

“That’s our project,” she said. “Mine and Veronica’s. We’re compiling a history of lamiae for her records. Patrick has lent us his books, which help bring back my memories—hereditary and personal.”

“Sounds like a good project.”

“Keeps me busy. Especially up here.” She tapped her head and then handed me a steaming mug. “Patrick doesn’t have a lot on Greek fae.” She chewed her lip. “Which is an awkward…What’s the word? When you switch topics?”

“Segue.”

“Right. It’s an awkward segue to something else. About Greek fae. Veronica says there are dryads in town.”

“Does that worry you?”

She shook her head. “No, no. Dryads are cool. A little silly sometimes, but smarter than they seem. I thought maybe I could talk to them. I’d like to. I’m just not sure they’d want to talk to me. Dryads and lamiae might both be Greek, but we aren’t exactly kissing cousins.” Her face scrunched up. “Is that the term?”

“Close enough.”

“They’ve probably also heard what Melanie did, which means they really aren’t going to want to talk to me.”

“You had nothing to do with that.”

A wry smile. “Besides being the person she did it for? Murdered our own sister lamiae to get me into Cainsville? I still can’t—” She sucked in breath. “Old song. Everyone’s sick of it by now.”

“It hurts. It’s always going to hurt. But the dryads won’t hold that against you, and I think meeting them would be fine. In fact, that’s where I was going with Veronica. How about you text her back and tell her to meet us there?”