“But how? Where do I go now? And why does it feel as if you know more about this than you’re telling me?”
Alder took my face in his palms, our lips hovering just out of reach. I narrowed my eyes, wondering if he was about to kiss me and wondering if I wanted him to. “It is up to you to excavate your bloodline, Fable.”
“Why can’t you just tell me?”
“You’re still not ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“I’ll know you’re ready when you arrive at the conclusions yourself.”
Annoyance washed over me as I considered which questions I might get an actual answer to. I pushed through the fog that seemed ever-present in my mind while on this island and tried to communicate why I felt the connection I did toThe Fairy Lover.
Was it that my life on Skye also featured two men—one that lived in the light and made me feel lighthearted and carefree, and the other my dark and reserved hero, always anticipating my needs before I did? Or was it simply that I’d always thought of myself as the outcast and underdog, just like Olympia in the story? Or maybe I was allowing fiction to bleed into reality as I rambled around Leith’s halls, looking for meaning in every nook and cranny?
“The gem,” I blurted as it occurred to me. Alder nodded. “The amethyst gem I have, is it Olympia’s? I found it in the loch that day you found me. Is it possible it’s hers?”
Alder didn’t answer, and the longer the silence stretched, the more I grew sure of its original owner.
“How is it possible that I inherited a dead girl’s cursed gemstone? This sounds insane. You realize that, right?”
“I didn’t say a word.” Alder’s grin deepened, eyes twinkling in a way I’d never seen them shine before.
“Ugh, a dumb séance with a Ouija board would get me more answers than you. You’re not much help.”
Alder’s grin cracked, a toothy smile lighting his face in a way that made my heart split wide with joy. This man smiled so rarely, it felt as if I’d earned a prize. “The answers you seek are in your bloodline.”
Bloodline.
That was the second time he’d repeated that word in minutes. Was he giving me a signal? Or just being an epic weirdo who enjoyed leading unassuming American girls astray? I shook my head, eyes finally avoiding the man who had consumed so many of my dreams.
He hadn’t had scars in my dreams.
Fable
“It’s him, isn’t it!”I heard Harris’s accusation before I saw him.
Pausing at the edge of the tallest headstone in the graveyard on my path back to Leith from Alder’s cottage, I watched as Harris confronted Keats at the edge of Heathermoor Lane and the entrance to Leith Hall.
I sank deeper in the shadow of the headstone when Harris turned my way, as if something had caught his eye.
“That no-good brother of yours has struck again. You have to do something about it, Keats. Another girl vanished isn’t going to sit well with the people of Kylemore. They’ll vote to defund the maintenance of Leith Hall. They’ll vote you out of a job.”
Keats’s hunched shoulders remained still, his head only bobbing once as he raked at an unkempt patch of his corner garden. Harris moved closer to the old man’s ear, resting a hand on his shoulder and pleading, “Just tell me where she is. I haven’t seen her in a few days and—”
Keats shook his head and then took a few steps back from the weathered stone gates that flanked the entrance. Harris’s face crumpled, and he backed away himself before waving at the old man and turning to head back toward the village of Kylemore.
“Harris!” I stumbled off the trail and through a thatch of tag alders that barriered the graveyard and Heathermoor Lane.
He didn’t hear me, and my path through the thicket was a tangled mess of thorns and briars. I’d come out the other side with scars up to my elbows if I continued this way. I vowed then to stop ghosting Harris for the sake of my research and late-night awakenings and walk to the pub later today, after I had a shower and a change of clothes. I looked down at my muddy sneakers, evidence of my unexpected late-night jaunt up to the fairy pools with Alder. I wasn’t sure why he’d chosen to walk that way with me, but the more time I spent with him, the more I felt drawn to his reserved intellect and dark mystique. He always left me with more questions than answers, and I was beginning to like the path it led me down, where I could just let go and follow my intuition.
But I hadso many questions.
I could spend a lifetime at Leith unpeeling its layers and never get to the heart of the house.
I watched the morning sunshine linger for long moments around Harris’s shoulders before he faded into the distance and turned the bend to the village. With my fingertips sweeping the feathery tops of the violet heather, I followed the path the sunshine made ahead of me as I neared Leith. Keats worked diligently, head bent in the corner of his garden as he uprooted vibrant green leaves of spinach. The dogs sat at the garden’s edge, and as I drew closer, I whistled once to try to get their attention.
Both the dogs and Keats ignored me, just out of earshot, as I thought again of the questions I wanted to ask Keats. I had little to no faith he’d answer any of them, if he could even hear me to begin with. On some mornings, his accent curled around his consonants so thickly I struggled to understand him. I continued to walk closer to the front steps of Leith, before deciding at the last minute to follow its eastern edge. I sank into the shadows easily, the chill rippling my skin as I crept beneath the library windows that overlooked Loch Dunvegan and didn’t stop until I found the caretaker’s quarters that Keats disappeared into each night.
