Traitor Page 2

  I thought about how effective it would be on the missions I was attempting to run now if there were no telling signs that I was an impostor. “I wish I could do that. Maybe then Ankou wouldn’t have caught me this last time. We’re going to have to be more creative next time.”

  Memaw looked at me and sucked in a breath. Her emerald eyes darkened like a storm covering a forest. Wrinkles from years of worrying became pronounced on her brow even though she was currently in her younger state. “Ankou caught you? How did you get away?”

  I smiled, knowing I’d get to retell this story many times tonight. Maybe it would offset the tale that Desmond would weave of clocking me when I returned from Neamar. “Well, he caught wind that I was in Neamar, but he didn’t know where or who I was. I wanted to get back at Jamie a little. After finding out where she was, I went to her quarters, shifted into a banshee and wailed in her ear.”

  Memaw threw her head back in appreciative laughter. Her shoulders shook and set her now tattered skirt in motion. Ripples moved in waves down the soft cotton skirt and matched her laughter’s easy pace. It was nice to see her in such a jovial mood. She leaned on her bow for support as she struggled to gather a breath through her laughs. “I knew meeting up with that banshee would come in handy. Jamie probably wasn’t too happy, was she?”

  “Not at all,” I laughed, doubled over at the remembrance of Jamie’s shocked face, then the realization as it hit her. The memory would probably forever be one of my favorites. “It was totally worth it, though.”

  Clapping me on the back, Memaw and I walked back to Tess’s house, following the rumbling laughter and chatter of the men who had sworn to protect us up ahead. “You certainly are my granddaughter,” Memaw commended me. “We can find you another way in to Neamar. It sounds like Jamie got a little comeuppance, which is worth the trouble you caused.” She flicked the collar of the black jacket I was wearing. “The little bugger comes in handy, doesn’t it? Never would have thought we Glaistig could stuff every mythical creature’s ability into a wool jacket, would you?”

  When Memaw got to talking about Glaistig pride, there was little that could be done. She was an unstoppable force of nature at her best, and the apocalypse incarnate if you made her mad. I fingered the woolen coat gingerly along the top of the collar and traced the hard curves down the front to the first button. I wound my finger around it like it was a clock that needed winding. The magic infused in the jacket almost hummed and gave off a static feel to the initial touch, ready to be called upon at a moment’s notice. My mind swarmed with possibilities that the jacket could provide the wearer. A smile tickled the ends of my lips as I jogged lightly to keep up with Memaw’s long and quick strides. “No kidding. What are your favorites that the jacket can do?”

  Memaw puckered her lips and her face scrunched into deep thought, though she still looked content. She ran her hand along her hair to smooth out the wild nests that blossomed in the forest from the brambles. “Each of the faeries has their own brand of magic,” she said thoughtfully as we marched forward. “Merrows, which is the kind of faerie your old friend Jamie is, have the ability to swim the waters forever without needing to breathe. They can do this because of the cloak and cap they wear. Without them, they wouldn’t manage this feat. Grogoches are known to be impervious to extreme heat or cold because of the dense hair all over their bodies. The Dullahan have unsurpassed sight, even in darkness. The list goes on and on. If I had to pick one, though, I’d take the Merrow. Getting Jamie back in her own arena will be wonderful.”

  “I didn’t understand how I turned into a fish woman when Jamie dragged me into the pond, but it definitely came in handy. I can’t wait to try out the others.”

  Memaw clapped me on the back, pride threatening to burst her from the inside out. I never thought that she would look at me the way she currently was. It filled me with a sense of gratification and belonging. “You’re nigh invincible when you wear that jacket. Always keep it on when you shift, and never tell anyone of its abilities. That kind of knowledge leads to jealousy. That’s not the purpose of the jacket. It’s simply an understated identifier of the Committee to those outside of the know.” She waggled her finger like the old Memaw I grew up with always had. “Keep it this way, little one.”

  Memaw’s demeanor changed, and she put her arm around my shoulder to pull me in close. “How are the nights treating you now?”

  I cringed at the thought of nighttime. “Same as they have been.”

  “No improvement at all?”

  Flashes of images sparked behind the lids of my eyes as I closed them. Dad’s lifeless eyes, Liam floating in midair like a rag doll. Chris trying to kill me. Jamie’s hateful face dragging me into the depths of the pond. Memaw with a worm blade under her skin. Dad’s last breath.

  Thinking of the last image, my own breath caught in my lungs. “No, no improvements.”

  Memaw clucked her tongue, but not in a disapproving way. I could tell she was pained by the night terrors I was forced to endure each night. It’d been that way since Dad died and everything came to light. She squeezed my shoulder gently. “It’ll take time and healing. Time doesn’t heal all wounds, but it does mend them. The people who bear the wounds are the ones who decide how it affects them. You can choose to embrace the dark and dwell in the past, or release the pain and move forward, learning from it. Our past shapes us, but the future is ours to mold.”

  “I’m trying,” I said earnestly. I really was. The dreams weren’t as vivid – as viciously real – as they had once been. Most of the time I could wake myself up now. It was just hard to get over everything that had gone on.

  “You’re strong; you’re a McVean,” Memaw said with pride oozing from every word. “Plus we’re never given more than we can handle, so remember that. Someone up there,” she motioned toward the sky, “must think you’re as tough as nails.”

  I nodded. The sun was setting low behind the trees as we neared Tess’s house. Her simple three-bedroom home had turned into something like a come-and-go house since I had come into their lives. The dark shadow of the house’s exterior began to manifest in front of us as we drew near. Warm light poured from the kitchen and living room windows, illuminating the simple cream-colored shades in each one. Those rooms were also most likely where the source of the commotion that was flooding out was located. It made me smile to see that house, with its nondescript outer layer. You would never imagine the magic and love that teemed behind the walls.

  This was my second home, and I’d never have it any other way.

  This spring had been fun. It was nice to have spent it in Ireland, even while being on a hit list that no one could save me from. School had been a trick to finish, but once Mom had convinced the teachers that finishing my sophomore year via correspondence was the only way, they’d agreed. This fall we’d return to America to start my junior year, and Liam’s senior. The thought sent shivers up my spine that had nothing to do with faeries. Actually, I’d take the faeries over high school a lot of days.

  I slid open the glass door and walked into the cozy living room that had become such a critical refuge from the rest of the world. The high ceilings with open wooden rafters were covered with herbs and dried flowers that were situated artfully between beams. The scents of freshly baked bread, cinnamon, vanilla and warm tea assailed my senses and made my stomach growl. The guys were all sprawled out in the couches and comfy chairs that were arranged in the spacious living room to accommodate large groups and conversations. Plates of food littered every nook and cranny they didn’t fill up. Tess could make a spread that would make even the greatest five-star chef cry, not to mention make your arteries threaten to seal over from the high fat and cholesterol intake she provided in her dishes. I loved her food.

  “Where’d you put the Changelings?” Memaw asked. She didn’t sound particularly interested in the answer, instead simply asking so she was on the up and up. While Desmond wasn’t looking, she snatched a drumstick from his plate and then smacked him on the head when he opened his mouth to protest. Her eyebrows disappeared into her bangs as an invitation for him to continue, and Desmond returned his gaze to the plate before him.

  “In the pantry,” Issac said, laughing. “They can stare at all the food but have none of it. The perfect welcoming gift back to the human realm, if you ask me. And Desmond, at least put up a fight to keep your food. What are you going to do when you have a Changeling trying to attack you, just look down and hope it disappears?”

  I sighed as everyone else in the room gave into raucous laughter. Desmond was a brilliant shade of red. “Hey, I did well against the one today!”

  “Only because I was there with the iron-laden ropes, mind you!” Liam chimed in lazily. His eyes were bright with excitement as he looked to me for approval, even though he’d obviously tried to play off the event like no big deal. I nodded and winked at him, and his smile broadened.

  As I watched the guys scarf down their food, my thoughts strayed to the Changeling in the pantry. Identified by their insatiable appetites, Changelings were constantly eating. That was one of the markers that Jamie had noticed in my habits when Ankou sent her to Fairborn High School in search of me. Memaw said it was luck that had kept me alive through everything, including the incidents this past year involving Jamie. I had to admit that I was starting to agree with her, although having the faerie committee assassin as your grandmother couldn’t hurt the odds, either.

  Memaw was a Glaistig like Reuben, which made me half faerie, half mutated human of sorts. I had somehow overpowered the Changeling that inhabited my body when I was an infant, taking back my body and holding the Changeling hostage. Because of this, I was now a Bridger, one of only two in existence. The other one was currently reading today’s newspaper
intently with a worried look on her face. She wrapped the waterlogged edges of the paper in on themselves and made the paper half the size it should have been. Her hands clutched the soggy paper tight and I could see tiny droplets of ink-stained water pooling between her fingers. It rained the whole day before I returned, and I was impressed Tess could read anything on the paper at all.

  “Another remote farm in Ballyglass was ravaged by what the reporters are saying was a tornado,” Tess said from behind the water wilted pages. “We haven’t had a tornado in ages, especially not this time of year.”

  Issac looked up from his plate and punched Desmond. “See brother, what did I tell you? It ain’t no coincidence, three tornadoes in three weeks,” he said, still trying to swallow the large mouthful of mashed potatoes he had shoveled into his mouth. “We’ve got a Pooka on our hands.”

  Desmond snorted into the green beans that remained on his plate. His fork clattered to the ground as he laughed, tossing a bean across the room and smacking Liam in the side of the head. It connected with a wet thwap and landed in Liam’s lap. Desmond almost choked from laughter before responding to Issac, who looked like he was momentarily distracted by the flying green bean as well. “A Pooka? Here this close to Cork? There’s no way. There’s been no sightings of black horses, and you know that’s what the Pooka looks like.”

  As he rubbed the wet spot where the butter-laden green bean had hit, Liam was solemn. “The Pooka can take on many shapes. The older it is, the better it is at shifting. It can be as good as a Changeling after centuries of practice.” He sounded as though he was reciting a textbook, which could be likely. He’d spent an absurd amount of time poring over anything faerie related this summer to make sure he knew as much as possible in order to Protect me.

  I looked around, confused. Why was everyone so up in arms about this Pooka? I’d never even heard them speak of it before. “What’s a Pooka?”

  It was Memaw who answered, of course. Memaw and Tess both knew more about Irish folklore than anyone I’d ever met, although Liam was coming up close on their heels. To be fair, they were part of the folklore themselves. “Pookas are the most feared type of faeries in Ireland. They always come out after nightfall, causing all kinds of harm and mischief to anyone who has the misfortune of crossing paths with them. They’ll take different forms, but usually they’re black stags. Over time, they gain the ability to shift to whatever they want. They also have the power of human speech and can hypnotize someone if they have the chance to look into your eyes. If you don’t do whatever they tell you, they end up tearing up your home and anything else of yours they can find,” Memaw finished, heading into the kitchen to find whatever was left of the food that the guys hadn’t ravaged.

  “Real sweet, Pookas,” chirped Desmond. “Make you want to get all snuggly and cuddle up to one of them.”

  “Sounds like it,” I said dryly as he waggled his fingers in front of him like a monster. He completed the look with green beans stuck in his upper lip that hung down like great green teeth. “Real cute, Desmond.”

  “That’s what I was striving for: a cute, yet homicidal beastie,” he said as he spit the green beans out and laughed.

  What a dork.

  “That’s probably what happened to these poor souls,” added Tess, still poring over the newspaper for any other tidbits. She was completely oblivious to the spectacle Desmond was putting on, as well as the fact she was losing her audience because of it. “Just seems odd one’s around this area. Keep an eye out at night, will you boys?”

  The guys all murmured their consent, continuing to eat. Desmond was still going on with his monster kick until Memaw snuck up behind him, whacked him upside the head and sent his green beans flying from his mouth. Liam managed to duck this time as they whizzed past his head. I glanced at Liam, who was staring daggers at Desmond. He must have felt me looking at him, because he turned back to me with a curious look on his face that erupted into a full on grin. Liam’s long black eyelashes shielded his bright blue eyes as he looked to the ground, a blush betraying his usual stoic disposition. It was all I could do not to laugh. He never ceased to give me butterflies.

  His eyes crinkled and nearly disappeared when he looked back up and grinned at me. I saw the stitches above his left eye that were partially obscured by his mop of thick black hair. They were identical to those above mine. I sighed. If only there had been a way to stop him from swearing to be my Protector. My misfortunes were going to end up killing us both. I smiled back at him as though nothing in the world could be wrong in this moment filled with trampled homes, hateful Changelings locked away in our pantry, and each of us having half a dozen stitches in our heads. Somehow I was going to get him out of the death sentence that being my protector was. I just didn’t know how.

  TWO

  THE ALARM CLOCK screamed across the room relentlessly. The incessant, obnoxious beeping ripped through what could have been a much longer sleep. Stupid thing.

  Lying across the room in my bed, I rolled over onto my stomach and put the pillow over my head. The idea was to drown out the sound. The continuing muffled barrage on my ears made it clear this wouldn’t work. Time for the next plan of attack. I grunted with frustration as I grabbed the extra feather pillow lying in the bed and chucked it sidearm in the direction of the offensive alarm. There was no break in the sound. It connected with something, but not with what I had intended it to.

  A wave of cold morning air hit my legs, which a moment before had been warm beneath a thick patchwork quilt that Tess had made herself. I picked it off her shelf last night because of the greens and blues and yellows it consisted of. The red stitching set everything off, and it made me feel like I was home, curling myself up under it. I complained at the loss of it using a language all my own, which contained mainly groans of protest.

  “Ashlyn, are you planning on destroying everything breakable in this room in an attempt to not have to get up? You almost knocked over my elf-blown vase. Those are nearly impossible to find now, you know,” Tess said, throwing the pillow back to me. It landed in my lap. I extended my hands hopefully for the blanket, but she refused to give up the covers she’d hijacked. She held the quilt to her chest before folding it quickly and efficiently. As she walked to the shelf to put it back, she talked to me over her shoulder. Her voice was filled with stern motherly affection, and it made me smile. “You need to get up. We’ve got things to do today.” With that, she walked out of the room and shut the door again.

  I loved the giant woman with all of my heart; she was my second mother. Right now though, she was delivering a form of slow torture. She was a slave driver when she wanted to get moving in the morning. I got up, my bare feet hitting the cold wooden floor, causing me to cringe. There was a bathroom attached to the bedroom, and I padded over to assess the damage left from Desmond and the Changelings.

  The bathroom was long, slender and decorated in a beach motif. Shells lay scattered around a dry starfish on a shelf on the wall across from the sink. A picture of Liam and Tess at the beach when he was younger was framed on the wall to the left of the shelf, with one of a sun sinking low in the sky over the same beach on the right. The walls were a calm, pale pink, like the inside of an oyster and matched the pearlescent tile that covered the floor. I looked at it all in mirror image as my gaze searched for anything to look at besides my mangled face.

  My left eye was blossoming into a magnificent bruise; blues and blacks and a hint of green swirled together underneath my eye and slightly over the bridge of my nose. I pressed two fingers against the edges of the bruise and watched it turn red as pressure was put on, then fade back into the dark colors when I released. It stung to touch. The butterfly stitches above it were still intact, now browning at the edges from dried blood. The guys were still impersonating Desmond’s attack. For some reason, the humor in it that everyone else saw evaded me. Maybe after my eye healed I would be able to see it.