“Because you didn’t turn full Unseelie?”
“Aye. I suspect. I can do it, but it’s more difficult. I tend to give myself a wide margin. Where is it you’re wanting to go?”
14
“I am stretched on your grave and will lie there forever…”
Ashford, Georgia: population 3,979, covering 8.9 square miles, boasting over 100 original antebellum homes, housing 964 families. It’s nestled in the prettiest part of down-Dixie I’ve ever seen.
Of course, I may be biased.
I love every nook and cranny of my town.
I’d not only toured all the historic homes decorated from pillars to eaves at Christmastime—Alina and I loved the holidays—but we’d practically lived in those atmospheric old homes on sultry afternoons and weekends, hanging out with our friends on bead-board-ceilinged porches with slow paddling fans, on white wicker swings, drinking sweet tea and believing nothing would ever change.
I’d eaten in every quaint restaurant and partied in every bar. I’d attended prom at the local high school and gone to concerts on the square. I knew every shop owner, and was evenly moderately acquainted with the politics of the region.
Given the size of my town, one would think it boring, filled with average people living moderately, but with its rich history, expensive, sprawling historic homes, and easy access to Atlanta, Ashford drew a lot of high-powered transplants from large, exciting cities—like my parents, who were seeking a simpler way of life yet enjoyed the finer things.
Mom and Dad bought a 1905 neoclassical revival mansion that had fallen into disrepair, surrounded by old, enormous wax-blossomed magnolia trees, and had lovingly restored it over the years. It boasted a typically southern, generous front porch, palatial white columns, an expansive yet warm and cozy sunroom off the back, and, of course, the pool I’d so enjoyed in the backyard. It was an idyllic, happy, safe place to grow up. Crime was virtually nonexistent in our town.
The Ashford cemetery occupied twenty-two acres, with a large Confederate memorial full of unknown soldiers, a few smallish mausoleums, manicured gardens, well-maintained walkways, and a tiered fountain.
It seconded as a park for the locals, with its gently sloping hills, flowering bushes, and crisp, cool lake on the back acreage. On the weekends you could find half the parents in town power-walking through gravestones. Divided into sections: the old cemetery, the new, and the memorial, we’d had Alina interred on the south side, in the modern portion, with a lovely marble marker.
It was late afternoon when Christian and I arrived in Ashford, or rather near Ashford. It had taken me hours to sneak back to Chester’s dodging every person and Fae I saw, ducking into doorways to avoid Guardians, once, reduced to hiding in a trash Dumpster. Between my recent shock and my face plastered everywhere around the city, I’d been in no mood for confrontation. Near Chester’s, though, I’d been unable to avoid it and tested my skill at Voice that Barrons had taught me, for the first time on strangers. It worked beautifully. They obeyed me instantly, turning around and heading the other way. My hastily shouted, And don’t breathe a word about seeing me to anyone. Forget everything about this day forever! hadn’t necessarily been the wisest choice of words, but I was operating on the fly. I hated the thought of people walking around out there with a whole day missing from their memory. I knew what it felt like to lose time, Pri-ya, to question your own mental faculties, and resolved to be more precise in the future.
Christian had been telling the truth about his sifting abilities. I think part of the problem was he’d never been to the States before. The other Unseelie hadn’t exactly volunteered information about his new powers. He was an outsider to both races. Everything for him was trial and error. He frankly admitted he had no clue how he was “supposed” to sift. Places he’d been were the easiest. He hadn’t yet figured out tracking by person but heard he was capable of it.
We’d had to stop first at BB&B, an easy sift for him, where I rummaged for a map in the wreckage and showed him where I wanted him to take me. As there was no detailed topography of the town—it was far too small for that—we ended up smack in the middle of a cornfield and had to walk twenty minutes to get to the cemetery. By the time we arrived, I was dripping sweat. Just another hot August day in Georgia: sun scorching, humidity thick.
He’d offered to try to sift us closer but we materialized alarmingly near a colossal live oak dripping Spanish moss—as in half an inch from the massive trunk. While he might survive manifesting in the middle of solid wood, I wasn’t so sure about myself, so I’d opted to use my feet from there. I had a good deal of nervous energy to burn off anyway.
“Why are we here again?” he said.
“I want to check on something,” I muttered. I hadn’t bothered to tell him that I planned to dig up a grave. I wasn’t entirely certain he would have complied with my request for transport.
I glanced over my shoulder. He was trailing behind, looking at everything.
“Christ,” he said, sounding disgusted, “everything is so new here.”
I would have laughed if I hadn’t been in such a pissy mood. I’d always thought my town dripped history but ours was a few hundred years old, and in Scotland his was a few thousand. I guess when you grow up with prehistoric standing stones in your backyard, American towns seemed prepubescent.
I was pleased to see that V’lane/Cruce’s protection of Ashford when the walls had fallen had indeed kept it remarkably unchanged. Lights glowed in windows, there were no wrecked cars blocking the streets or signs of random rioting and carnage. No Dark Zones, no Unseelie lurking in the alleys, not one husk of the dead tumbling down desolate streets.
I supposed it was pretty much the way it had been before the walls fell—my town was too provincial and unexciting to draw the Fae.
It was as if the war between our races had given the place as wide a berth as Sherman’s armies when the troops made the devastating march from Atlanta, after burning it to the ground. Although Ashford hadn’t been torched by Sherman’s marauding army determined to “make Georgia howl,” half the town center burned to ash in the late 1890s, and they’d rebuilt it with a plan for revenue, planting a large number of shops and restaurants arranged around an enormous, beautifully landscaped square.
We passed the Brickyard where I used to bartend.
I barely spared it a glance.