I stared at the image for a long time, until I stopped seeing my birth mother – she became a conglomeration of pigment and geometric shapes and tones. I let the weight and history of Briarwood wash over me, the high stone walls embrace me,coddling me, keeping me safe. Even if my life was “complete bollocks” as Flynn would say, at least I had this place, and while I was here, I could never truly be alone.
Sighing, I tore my eyes from my birth mother and went down to the kitchen to find myself a snack.
“How will you get this woman to talk to you?” Corbin linked his arm in mine.
Behind his back, Flynn glowered at him and gave him the finger.
The woman he was referring to was Jane Forsythe, who had lost her baby to the fae, although she didn’t know it was them yet. Corbin had put in a quick call to Emily this morning and managed to wrangle Jane’s address out of her – it was such a small town that pretty much everyone used Emily’s law firm. Getting that address meant stomaching twenty minutes of listening to Corbin flirting over the phone, which turned my stomach in jealous knots. Although watching Flynn make funny faces behind Corbin’s back made it slightly easier to bear.
My four guys now walked in a diamond formation around me – Arthur at the front, huffing and sweating in the ankle-length coat he wore to disguise the short sword he had sheathed on his belt. Corbin and Rowan stood either side of me, the ends of Rowan’s dreadlocks flicking the bare skin on my arms as he walked. Flynn pulled up the rear. He sang some weird, somber Celtic song at the top of his lungs.
“I’ll think of something,” I said. “My parents used to visit grieving widows and sad old people all the time as part of theirwork and they’d often drag me along. I should be able to get her to talk.”
“I don’t like you going in alone,” Arthur huffed, his hand flying instinctively for the hilt of his sword.
“We won’t get anything out of her with you four standing around looking menacing and waving your sword around. Besides, I have my protections.” I placed my hand in the deep pocket of my denim overalls, brushing the handle of the short knife Arthur had given me, wrapped in a short Latin incantation scrawled on a piece of parchment from Corbin. In the other pocket was the small twig from Rowan and the medallion Flynn made me. All of these were supposed to be magical items. I didn’t believe in magic, but they did make me feel safer.
We walked under the enormous gatehouse marking the entrance to Briarwood, dodging between cars arriving for the morning English Heritage tours, and turned onto the country lane. Arthur insisted that if we were going to walk, that we take the main road instead of the shortcut through the field. I didn’t blame him – he’d run into the fae twice in as many days in that field, and here on the road we’d be visible to passing cars and other people’s front windows.
“The English are nosy neighbors.” Arthur waved to a lady pruning her rose bushes across the road. “That makes for as good a fae protection as we could hope for.”
I nodded my agreement, but mostly because it was nice to walk with them along the lane, between the towering oaks and the hydrangeaswith their puffy flowers. We passed thatched-roof cottages and grand manor homes. Birds chirped and somewhere in the distance a donkey bayed. It was all very idyllic.
A mask, but a beautiful mask.
Just before we reached the village high street, Corbin turned us off down another narrow lane. He stopped in front of a small cottage, the front garden crowded with bright flowers. From thelooks of it, it had once been an outbuilding for one of the larger estates – a classic Tudor wattle-and-daub, with window boxes bursting with purple flowers and runner beans snaking up the garden trellis. No one was outside, and the curtains were drawn across the front windows.
I pushed my way through the wooden gate and snaked up the path, the guys right behind me.
A horseshoe and a bundle of sticks that looked suspiciously similar to the twig in my pocket hung beside the doorway. I fingered the bundle.
“They’re from the rowan tree,” Corbin said. “Rowan is supposed to help keep the fairies away.”
I smiled over my shoulder at Rowan, who dared the slightest of smiles back. “He does a bloody good job. Now, all of you, go wait at the end of the path. She won’t open the door if she sees you all out here.”
My boys exchanged a glance. I knew they didn’t like it – especially Arthur – but they obediently moved away to stand at the cottage gate, the tops of their heads only just visible over the large primrose bush. I took a deep breath, smoothed down my hair, and knocked on the door.
I heard footsteps stomp toward me. A few moments later, a woman flung the door open with so much force that it slammed into the wall, shaking the tiny cottage.
She looked about my age, which was terrifying because I knew she had a kid and although lots of girls in Arizona had kids in high school, I somehow imagined women in England were all proper and waited until they’d finished their degrees at Oxford and found some rich Earl to marry.
She also looked a mess. Her eyes were ringed with red circles, and her straight brown hair stuck out at all angles, as though she hadn’t brushed or washed it in days.
“Isaid, I’m not talking to any more bloody reporters,” she snapped, her mouth curling into a scowl.
‘I’m not a reporter.” I extended a hand to her. “My name is Maeve Crawford. I’m from the… ah, the local Women’s Welfare Group. We’re a support group for single women facing hard times, and I wanted to come over and see if you needed anything.”
Jane Forsythe sagged against the doorframe, her snarky demeanor disappearing in a flash, replaced by a face so broken with sorrow I thought I was staring into a mirror of my own soul. “No, I…” She shuddered, but her voice remained firm. “I need my baby back, but you probably can’t help with that.”
You might be surprised.
Jane turned her head away, and my heart thudded as I realized she was crying and didn’t want me to see.
“Would you like me to come in?” I asked. “I could make some coffee… I’m sorry, I mean, tea. You drink tea in England, I always forget. And maybe I could do some dishes, put some laundry away, just make life easier. I really do just want to help.”
“Do you get a Girl Guides badge for this?”
“Yes, I do,” I answered automatically, hoping I was reading her right. “It’s called the Assisting Distraught Mothers badge. The picture on it is of me buried under a pile of diapers and housework while you drink three bottles of wine simultaneously as cabana boys fan you with palm fronds.”
