At least Naois’ Deirdre was clever enough to kill herself before it got any worse. All these old Irish legends ended in tragedy; what did I expect now that I was living one? Come away, human child, whispered the voice in breathy timbre, come away from the pain of the world.
It was like some kind of supernatural version of those “stop smoking” mind-control tapes you listen to while sleeping.
I opened my eyes. I felt like crap—I ached like I’d been lifting trains the night before. My grandmother had been killed by the faeries, my best friend was in love with me, my boyfriend was a soulless assassin for an otherworldly schizophrenic, and my pillow was wet.
Ew. Why is my pillow wet? I sat up hurriedly, looking at my surroundings with distaste. Oh, ten kinds of gross. My sheets were wet. My pillowcase was wet. The bedside table was covered with perfectly round beads of water. Everywhere I looked, I saw a layer of dew, coating every surface with scented condensation. My eyes lifted to the window, which stood wide open, and I lifted my wet fingers to my nose. They reeked of thyme.
What the heck is going on? I looked down at Rye, who still lay on the floor by my bed, morning light from the window reflecting brilliantly in the dew on his coat. “Some friggin’ guard dog you are. So, are you on Their side or mine?”
Outside, very close, I heard a laugh, high and light, halfway to a tune. I leapt out of bed and leaned out the window so fast that the sill heaved the breath out of me. The morning sun forced my eyes into a squint, but I thought I saw a smudge of darkness blink out of the corner of my vision, far below my window, gone too fast for me to say if it had really been there or not. I lifted my hands from the windowsill and looked at them; petals were stuck on my palms. Poppies, maybe.
Friggin’ sketchy faeries. I was going to smell like a bag of potpourri left in an Italian restaurant for the rest of the day. Picking petals off my skin, I knocked the rest of the blooms to the ground outside, frowning at the empty yard. I retreated back into my room and retrieved my phone from the bedside table.
James still didn’t pick up, and his voice mailbox was full, so I tried Luke’s number. It rang and rang before making a strange static sound and disconnecting.
I stared at the phone in my hand and observed how white my knuckles were, pressing out against my skin. There could be a thousand reasons why neither was picking up, but about nine hundred of them made my stomach roll unpleasantly.
Feeling distinctly unsettled, I turned to go downstairs, and found myself looking directly into a pair of enormous green eyes.
“Holy crap.”
It took me a moment to realize that the eyes were Delia’s, and that they only appeared enormous because they were so close. Of all Delia’s talents, I hadn’t thought the ability to be soundless was one of them.
Delia handed me the phone. “Phone for you.”
I tried not to look too hopeful as I took it, but she’d turned before I had time to look too pathetic and closed the door behind her. I lifted the phone to my ear. “Hello?”
I didn’t immediately recognize the voice, but the fact that it wasn’t Luke depressed me hugely. “Hello? Is this Dee?”
Then the voice clicked in my mind; it was one I hadn’t heard in a while: Peter, James’ older brother. “Peter? Yeah, it’s me. I didn’t expect you to call.”
There was a pause. “I didn’t call. Your aunt called me.”
I frowned at the closed bedroom door, wondering if I’d open it to find Delia crouched on the other side. “Okaaaay. That’s weird … how did she have your number?”
“I’m not in California. I’m at my parents.”
There was something off in the way he said it that made me realize I hadn’t been listening properly to his tone until then. “Hey. Is something wrong? When did you get in?”
“I flew in from California last night. God, Dee, you haven’t heard? Mom and Dad didn’t call you?”
Every so often, I know what someone’s going to say before they say it. This was one of those moments, and I sank down on the edge of the bed, gripping the comforter with one hand. I knew I was going to need to sit down to hear what was coming. “Heard what?”
“James—” The word was strangled. Peter paused to regroup, and when he continued, his voice was back in control. “He had an accident on the way back from his gig last night. He—uh—he hit a tree.”
I bowed my head down, one hand squeezed into a fist so tight my nails bit into my palm, and the other pressing the phone against my ear. I made myself ask, “How is he?”
“The car is totaled, Dee. The left side’s just … gone. The police, they had dogs out last night, they’re still looking for the—for James.”
I knew what he stopped himself from saying—“the body.” So it was bad, then. I felt suddenly sick at the idea of James’ car, his life, crushed beyond recognition. How many times had we parked in the very-farthest-away spot in a lot so that no one would open their car doors into his paint? All for nothing.
I swallowed. “He wasn’t in the car?”
Peter was silent a long, long minute, and then he said, voice breaking, “Dee, they think he crawled out. They think he crawled out and died somewhere. There’s blood everywhere—I saw it. God, Dee!”
My nails dug into my skin. I wanted to say something to comfort him, but it seemed false coming from someone who needed comfort themselves. “Pete—I don’t know what to say.” It felt horribly inadequate. We both loved James—I should have had something more insightful to say.
Then I thought of what I wanted to ask. “Will you help me look for him?”
Peter hesitated. “Dee—you didn’t see how much blood —I—God.”
“If he’s alive, I can’t just sit here.”
“Dee.” Peter’s voice shook, and when he spoke again, it was in simple, clipped sentences, like I was a little kid he was trying to make understand. “He’s dead. There was too much blood. They’re looking in the river now. They didn’t even tell us to keep our hopes up. He’s dead. They said he was.”