The Steward

  I hadn’t seen him then, but I knew Chalen watched us on the Fourth. I occasionally felt a Fae presence along the road—lingering in the woods—as I drove into town. Aunt May had been right—after I passed the third trial, the Unseelie began stalking me. I hated it, but I hid my thoughts like always.

  After a few minutes, I suggested that we get on our way. The Fae in the building never moved. It was still in the same place when we cruised far enough away that I could no longer sense it.

  I don’t remember the rest of the afternoon, except that I kept my senses spread as far as I could to detect more of them. It was a Fae-free afternoon until we got back to the Cottage. The Fae in the garden were still there, unmoved. Others moved about the Weald, and they appeared to ignore us as we tied the boat up.

  Dad was home, a fact I found strange because it was only four o’clock. He wasn’t alone either. When we came through the lower garden gate, I saw a Cadillac Escalade in the drive, and Dad, with Mom at his side, was talking with several men in slacks and dress shirts. Dad saw us and said something to the men, who turned and smiled at us. At first I thought there was trouble because they looked a little like cops. As we got closer, though, the men returned to the silver SUV and pulled away a few seconds later. Mom looked sad, and Dad tried to hide his emotions.

  “Who were they?” I asked as I watched the vehicle disappear past the cedars.

  “They were lost,” Dad said.

  I noticed Mom’s expression change when he said it—she stared at him and she looked slightly angry.

  “Mom? Were they cops?”

  She thought about it for a second and looked sad again. She and Dad exchanged a quick glance.

  “No, Honey, they were lost, and I hope they never find their way back,” she said, more to my father than me.

  She was angry. Dad gave her an apologetic look as she glared, spun, and walked back to the studio, slamming the door shut behind her.

  “So, how was the lake?” Dad asked, feigning a good mood.

  That was the only cue Mitch needed. He began telling Dad about Monte Ne and the south end of the lake. I didn’t remember seeing half of what he described, and I didn’t care. I kept my eyes on Dad—he was hiding something and I knew it.

  Dad had listed his old Mustang in the paper. I wouldn’t have known had it not been for a classmate who called me directly to see if I thought Dad would lower his price. I wondered if the men in the Cadillac were here to buy it. My stomach hurt to think about it, and even more so as I listened to Mitch continue his story.

  * * *

  On Saturday morning, the first thing I sensed when I woke up was the first thing I always sensed of late: the immortal sentinals standing watch in the garden. I’d grown to hate their presence. They hadn’t moved an inch since the night Gavin left. Before, when they floated about or scampered around in animal form, they didn’t seem so oppressive. Since then, they stood perfectly still, watching, and I felt like I did right after we moved here: like a prisoner.

  It didn’t help any that I had to practice my abilities away from the Weald so they couldn’t see what I learned. At Billy’s request, the charade was even more involved than that. I did mock practices in the garden, acting oblivious to the Fae, fumbling things on purpose for them to witness. If they reported what I did to the Council—or someone else—they couldn’t report much. I hope they’re bored to tears. I am.

  Playing this game only reinforced how much I did not trust the Council. More than that, I grew weary of keeping my thoughts private. To make matters worse, Billy slipped up and told me that some Fae had been known to watch dreams. It frightened me, because I couldn’t control my mind when I slept. I only hoped that if I did dream, it wasn’t about anything too suspect. Billy tried to comfort me. He said that human dreams made him dizzy because they were so eradic. Because our dreams were filled with so many different images, he told me, gleaning anything useful from them was pointless—unless the Fae looked for nightmares. Like that’s supposed to make me feel better.

  I was still worried about Dad. I didn’t care so much about his Mustang, but I knew what selling it would do to Mitch. So I called Danny Johns and asked for help.

  “Maggie, people sell things all the time,” he said.

  “He wouldn’t sell it when we were broke because it meant too much to him, but now we don’t need the money. It’s bizzare too, because he’s promised it to my little brother. Mitch will be devastated if he sells it—Dad knows that.”

  “Well, if it’s what you want, I can remedy the situation.”

  “Oh, no,” I said when I considered the thought of him compelling my father. “I couldn’t ask you to do that.”

  “Maggie, one doesn’t have to glamour people to make everyone happy—though it is most effective.”

  “Please, no, but what else can you do?”

  “I intend to let your dad sell the car.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t interupt—I mean for you to buy it. You are about to inherit a large fortune, right?”

  “But I won’t have any money for a year-and-a-half.”

  He laughed into the receiver.

  “Maggie, humans created this dandy little device called a straw man—a legal fiction. It allows them to do things they wouldn’t ordinarily be allowed to do. The point is, I can take care of it.”

  After he explained what he planned to do, he told me to call him if anything else came up. I thanked him and hung up. One crisis averted.

  * * *

  Sunday afternoon I met Billy. Some days we practiced while he tended the cats. They didn’t seem to mind, and even Vada, the black Leopard, became accustomed to seeing me. He’d even taken to visiting me at the fence.

  I spent so much time with Billy that I’d started volunteering at Turpentine Creek. It was the only way I could convince Mom and Dad to let me out of the cottage beyond the hours I spent swimming. Unaware of my real purpose, they approved of my new vocation. They’d even brought Mitch to see the cats a few times. Billy and I didn’t spend all of our time at the compound, though. When we were there, Billy put me to work trying to teach me how to block the images in my mind more covertly. When I needed to practice my other skills, we went to more remote locations where there were no Fae.

  Today was one of those days. We rendezvoused at a place called Pivot Rock—a park in the mountains just west of Eureka. I drove by the entrance to it each time I went into town, but had never bothered to stop. We took the trail past the namesake rock formation. It was a large slab of rock fifteen or twenty feet high that looked a little like a stone sail boat hull balanced on its keel.

  The park was heavily wooded, like the rest of the Ozarks, but there were fewer bluffs than at the Weald. The thick tree canopy afforded some relief from the midsummer sun. The breeze helped a lot, too. Billy turned off the path and darted up a hill. I followed, struggling to keep pace. We came across another trail and he headed north. There were no people there and I couldn’t sense any Fae, either. We hiked for another thirty minutes until we came to a place where the forest was quiet—I could only hear the sounds of the leaves rustling and the occasional bird song in the distance.

  We had made similar hikes since he began working with me. When it stormed, we worked on lightning. I could sense when it was about to strike, but I couldn’t control it. Like Gavin, Billy could create and direct bolts from the clouds. He told me that I needed to focus on extending the range of my mind and learn to draw more energy. Like Gavin, Billy could create bolts and plasma in his hands. Up to now, I could manage a little more than static electricity. And it didn’t matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t sense the clouds overhead.

  On other trips he had me honing my Air skills. He taught me how to control my abilities beyond my natural gift, working with me to enhance my defenses. I could block most anything he hurled at me, though it unnerved me each time he slung a tree trunk or boulder. I showed him Lola’s ballet in my mind, and he had me practice it in my spare time. I
was getting better, but still needed work to match Aunt May’s performance.

  “I can see what you’re thinking, Maggie,” he said, startling me.

  “Sorry.”

  He came to a stop and stared at me.

  “You really must learn to keep your thoughts concealed all the time.”

  “I know, I know.”

  “How is the technique coming?”

  “It’s hard to find a place on the Weald to practice since your kind are always around, but I’ve practiced a little while out on the boat.”

  “Good. I know it’s inconvenient, but I think it’s best if they’re oblivious to what you’re up to.”

  Billy had told me that my projection was too simplistic. While he couldn’t read the images in my mind, he knew I was trying to hide them. If he knew, all the Fae knew. He could tell when I dropped the ruse and allowed what I pictured in my mind to become readable.

  He suggested that I learn to think without picturing the images I concentrated on. It was incredibly hard to do. I didn’t feel like I had made any progress. He also wanted me to feed the Fae emotion at all times. I’d learned to hide my true emotions, at least when I wasn’t extremely worked up. But that left a blank slate—unrealistic for people, he told me, especially teenage girls. That proved just as difficult.

  Harder still, he wanted me to eventually learn to control the Earth element without touching it, and without picturing it in my mind. Right now, he simply worked with me again on altering rocks at a distance.

  I wanted to do it, and Sara told me I could learn, but I’d made no progress in days. The nice thing about a Fae tutor was that he was in no rush.

  “Concentrate on the small bluff face—just a few inches of it.” He pointed to my right. “Memorize it.”

  I picked out a spot free of lichen and stared at it, trying to commit every detail to memory. It was mostly gray with a bit of black grime on it. A small fracture ran from the top to the bottom at a slight angle. Halfway down the crack, a small line curved to the left. I could see it in my mind.

  “Now change it. Make the surface perfectly flat, perfectly smooth and ... purple.”

  “Purple?”

  “I like that color,” he said, smiling. “Now concentrate.”

  “I reached out with my mind, feeling the surface, and I tried to morph it. My invisible fingers had improved, but they still fumbled a little and I ended up focusing more on them than the rock. I refocused on the stone, but it didn’t matter how hard I tried, nothing happened. After a few seconds I gave up, exhaled, and looked at him.

  “Sorry.”

  “Maggie, you know how to do this, but your mind is simply getting in the way. And, you’re not using all of your skills. You have to learn to see what is below the surface. Sense the pattern.”

  Instantly, I knew what he meant. So I tried to concentrate again, feeling the surface and concentrating so hard the shimmer of energy registered in my mind. The stone had a little heat in it, allowing me to focus on the surface and what was underneath it. A small square flattened out and I gasped.

  “That’s not purple,” he said.

  I frowned at him and repeated the process. I concentrated on the color and the surface began to change. It went stark white first, and then darkened ever so slightly to pale blue. After a few more seconds, it turned purple.

  “How is that?” I said proudly, my heart racing a little faster.

  “That’s not purple.” He winced, wrinkling his nose.

  My mouth fell open, and then I protested, “It’s heliotrope—that’s purple! I love that color.”

  “I prefer a darker shade—an aubergine would be beautiful,” he said with a serious face, shaking his head. Then he started laughing. “Maggie, that is amazing. Now change it back.”

  “Really, I kind of like it,” I teased.

  He smiled. It was quite a breakthrough for us. Billy didn’t like me when we met, but as we spent time together he grew comfortable enough to joke with me. Aside from Gavin and Sara, and maybe Danny Johns, he was the only Fae I really trusted.

  “Billy’s first rule of changing things in the physical world: you always change them back—at least those things that don’t belong to you. People notice purple squares, Maggie. They notice all kinds of things. The physical world is for us to enjoy—it’s a beautiful place in its own right. It deserves our respect, not our meddling.”

  I concentrated again, trying to change it back, but it didn’t look the same. Billy placed his hand on the bluff face and the white square disappeared and the crack returned. It was exactly as it had been before.

  “You need to work on that,” he said. “Memorizing what the surface looks like is not enough. You have the ability to sense the pattern. When you know the pattern, changing things back will be much simpler.”

  “I will.”

  “You’ve made progress, and I’m proud of you.” His voice wasn’t exactly warm, but he was sincere.

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “Believe it. I think you’ll have the hang of it very soon.”

  I smiled, even though I doubted what he said.

  “Maggie?” he said with a grin.

  “Yes.”

  “I have two pieces of good news for you.”

  “Finally, some good news,” I joked.

  “I heard from Sara.”

  My heart raced the instant I heard the words. “How is she?”

  “You can’t possibly be worried about her?” he laughed.

  “Well ... yes, I am.”

  He shook his head and smiled, looking up at me with his gray eyes. “She is fine. She says to tell you that she will be back in October.”

  “For the Water trial? Oh, my gosh! Thank you!”

  “Yes,” he said. He handed me the blue stone. I didn’t take it at first. Instead I hugged him and he lightly hugged me back.

  “What else did she say?”

  “She asked me to be your Treoraí.”

  I looked at him, unable to keep the smile off my face.

  “I have agreed,” he said, unleashing my goofy smile, “and the Council has reluctantly agreed as well.”

  “What, were they afraid I’d fall in love with you, too?”

  “That’s inevitable,” he said, laughing as I rolled my eyes. “No, they were reluctant because I am no longer a Seelie. They wanted one of their own, but in the end, Ozara agreed.”

  “Has Sara seen Gavin?”

  “You really do have a one-track mind, don’t you? No, she didn’t say. But Maggie, Sherman was correct, you really must put Gavin out of your mind. He cannot return to you—I think you know that.

  “I do,” I said, with a pang of sadness stabbing me in the chest.

  “I felt that, Maggie. Don’t torture yourself. Accept it, and move on. He would want you to.”

  I knew Billy was right. I forced a smile and nodded.

  “Now come on, we’d better start heading back.”

  I followed him down the trail thinking about a number of questions I’d been reluctant to ask. He was my Treoraí now, so I thought it only fair.

  “There are several things I haven’t figured out, and I wondered whether you would tell me.” I said, testing the water.

  “I’m too old for you,” he said, his voice laced with sarcasm.

  “You’re worse than Rhonda. No, seriously.”

  “Fine, ask away, that is my job.”

  “Why did Gavin risk so much by challenging Chalen and the others in physical form? For that matter, why did they all take physical form?”

  “You are a thinker, aren’t you? We can control the elements in our natural state, but it is very difficult to effect the physical world that way. Earth, Air, Fire and Water all have powerful manifestations in the physical world. Think of it like this: If you want to splash the water in the lake, wouldn’t it be easier to do so when you’re in the water than from inside your bedroom?”

  “That makes sense, but I still don’t get why they took phys
ical form?”

  “It’s my guess that Chalen chose the physical form for their meeting. He maintains physical form for longer periods than any of us—too long, and he’s suffering the side-effects. Anyway, it was easier for Gavin to communicate with him that way. But there is a second reason. The area around that cottage is neutral ground. It is forbidden for the Fae to attack one another anywhere inside the rock walls—they form the Seoladán boundary. That rule is considered more important than the one forbidding trespass on the islands out of cycle. I suspect they both felt relatively safe until the confrontation began.”

  “They were both outside the walls when I got there, just beyond them.”

  “Yes, after the ugliness began, I imagine, they both retreated. Neither would risk breaking the rule—at least until Gavin thought you were in danger and he closed in on Chalen.”

  I remembered watching Gavin, in a ball of flame, cross over the wall and attack Chalen as he, too, had moved just inside the wall. I’d seen it all, but didn’t know what it meant at the time.

  “I remember Gavin saying that he’d been attacked on neutral ground—he wasn’t the first to violate the rule that night.”

  “That may be the case, but I think the Council overlooked it given the scope of Chalen’s accusation.”

  Thinking about the Council’s decision stoked my anger, but I moved on. “I saw something else—the other Fae took their natural form and dove into the earth before the lightning got to them.”

  “Those bolts were strong enough to destroy, Maggie. Had they not changed into Naeshura and plunged into the earth, I’m positive Gavin would have destroyed them for attacking you. The images you showed me were telling. Gavin did nothing more than spar with Chalen and the other Fae until the moment they hurt you. Gavin is incredibly powerful—he could have destroyed all three given a few more seconds.

  “You should also know that, except to go to the islands, Chalen never ventures far from the Seoladán, it is an escape route anytime he needs it. Even so, he was only spared by Ozara’s intervention.”