The Maebown

  “Do you think Fayetteville was damaged very much in the earthquake?” Ronnie asked.

  “Naw,” Mitch said. “We were there when it happened. I saw a few broken windows and this guy’s chimney’s fell over into his yard, but mainly it just knocked out the power.”

  “So nothing like Memphis or Little Rock,” Ronnie speculated.

  “Naw.” Mitch shook his head. “Sis? What happened to Faye? She was with us in the cave and I haven’t seen her in like two weeks.”

  Through the back window of the Lincoln, I saw Sara’s head turn to the left. She was listening.

  “She’s gone,” I said softly.

  I could practically feel him staring at me. In my peripheral vision, I watched his head turn slowly to the windshield.

  “You mean she’s dead, don’t you?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry.”

  “How?’

  “She got caught doing something bad.”

  He turned back to me and huffed. “You can tell me, Mags. It’s not like I’m gonna freak out. Sheesh. She was doing something for them, wasn’t she?”

  Sara’s head jerked to the side. She was definitely listening in, and just as surprised as I was. “How did you know that?”

  In a confident voice that was almost cute, Mitch said, “Please, she was totally creepy. Just like Chalen—and I was right about him, too. Besides, Justice hated her—read that in your journal.”

  I remembered back to Mitch’s reaction to Chalen the day we met him at the Seoladán. He had called Chalen right, but really, everyone thought he was creepy. Picking up on Faye was much more impressive. She had me convinced. “Well, I’ll know to listen to you from now on.”

  “That’d be smart,” he said.

  Ronnie snorted and belly laughed. “Are you getting cocky with me?” I said, trying not to laugh myself.

  “Oh, hello. I’m just tellin’ it like it is,” he said, with a carbon copy of dad’s ornery grin, dimples at full power.

  “Duly noted. Any other words of wisdom?”

  He shifted his eyes to the scene in front of us, but probably didn’t see a thing. I could almost see the gears turning. “I don’t trust that Irish Fae—Dana. And neither does Justice.”

  “I don’t trust her very much, either.” I said in a whisper. In the car in front of us, Sara nodded.

  “She’s a fake, Maggie. She’s all nice to us, but I don’t like the way she looks at me, or Mom…and she hates Sean. He’s a nice guy.”

  “Yes, he is. But how do you know Dana is a fake?”

  “I don’t think she means anything she says, Mags. She’s always giving me a creepy look.” His face wretched like he’d chewed an aspirin.

  “A creepy look?”

  He nodded, his face very serious. “Yes, you know…creepy. She’s not a happy person, but she always acts like she is. I’m afraid of her—my stomach gets all weird when I’m around her.”

  “She creeps me out to, Mags,” Ronnie added.

  “Trust your instincts, Mitch. But you have to keep your thoughts hidden—Billy can teach you how.”

  “I know how already.” His voice was full of confidence and pride.

  “How—never mind. I know. You—”

  “Read the journal,” we said in unison.

  The drive to Fayetteville was a little nerve-wracking. Not being able to project while I drove left me feeling exposed, but I had an ancient covering my flank. And, unlike Dana, I did trust Poseidon. Even though a part of me wanted to write off Mitch’s distrust of her, I harbored my own. His voice added to the chorus of warnings that rambled through my head anytime she was near. She was playing nice at the moment, but a soft moan burbled from my diaphragm when I considered just how fast she’d turn on me the moment she found out that I wouldn’t be sharing the secret of Aether with her.

  Mitch was right about the damage, too. Turning south on Highway 45 from Highway 12, just past the tiny hamlet of Clifty all nestled in rolling green hills, I hadn’t seen any real damage. It wasn’t until we drove through Hindsville, which lay east of Fayetteville, that I saw the first clear evidence that anything had happened. An old brick storefront had collapsed and the broken windows were boarded up on another. A few miles further, we drove past a few old farmhouses with chimney and window damage, and one with a porch that had pulled away from the house when the stone foundation gave way, but none of them bore the damage that had occurred a few hundred miles east. We drove downtown, and I got the sense that everything was fine in Fayetteville. Traffic lights were working, and people drove casually though the busy streets. It was a little sad seeing college kids layered with backpacks walking the sidewalks—seeing what could have been. I guessed that Mom was going to stop at the Square. The farmer’s market was in full swing.

  “What day is it?” I asked.

  “Tuesday. Why?” Ronnie asked.

  “I haven’t known what day it is for weeks. It feels like time has been standing still.”

  “I know. I feel the same way. I just happened to see it on the computer this morning.”

  Mom slowed and pulled to the side, and I behind her. Candace alighted from the rear seat with Sara, who held up one finger.

  “I don’t guess we’re getting out,” I said.

  “No, not yet,” Ronnie replied.

  “What is she doing?” I asked, focused on Candace.

  “Buying flowers.”

  I chuckled. It seemed odd to drive to Fayetteville to buy flowers when we had a cottage garden full of them.

  Mitch surveyed the people milling about at the colorful tents around the square. “Where are we going?”

  “Hmm, I don’t know, exactly. I didn’t ask.”

  Ronnie’s voice seemed strained. “We’re going to see Doug.”

  My heart stopped for a moment and I wrung the steering wheel in my hands waiting for the pain to hit. By the time Candace and Sara climbed back into the car, I was struggling with my emotions. Half a block past the Square, tears rolled down my face. He’d died just two weeks before. We missed the funeral. “Where?”

  “His grandparents had a few plots in the old cemetery next to the University—had them for years I guess. It’s called Evergreen, I think. Candace looked it up online.”

  My heart broke a little more with each beat, and my skin felt clammy.

  “You okay, Sis?”

  My voice didn’t want to work. After clearing my throat, I managed to say, “I’ll be okay.”

  We parked behind a little bank just off Dickson Street. Poseidon compelled the employees to ignore us. It was a beautiful, peaceful place with massive trees and worn headstones, but it wasn’t where Doug belonged. Some of the graves were so old it wasn’t possible to read the dates. Everything about it was wrong. He was too vibrant to be here.

  I’d seen him die. I was in the room with him, his parents, and Chalen when it happened. My feet felt heavy. It was nearly impossible to move forward. Candace was already crying, so was Ronnie.

  “Why did we come here,” I muttered under my breath.

  “Your friends wanted to say goodbye.” Sara said telepathically.

  “I don’t want to be here,” I shot back.

  We found three fresh graves, the dirt raw and undisturbed but for signs of rain. Ronnie and Candace laid flowers on each one. “There’re no headstones…which one is his?” Candace blubbered.

  “The one on the right,” Sara said.

  In an instant, my mind was somewhere else. I could hear them crying, telling stories about him, but the meaning of their words didn’t register in my brain. The ugliness that crouched deep inside me sprang to life, clawing through my waking thoughts, shredding my control. Why did they bring me here? Haven’t I seen enough in the last two days? Like water pouring through gauze, the pain of Caorann’s murder, and the hopelessness I’d felt afterward, bubbled back through the thin veneer of confidence I had wrapped myself in. This time it mixed with rage. More powerful than the rage I felt when Cassandra threatened Mitch at the
farm, and more powerful than the rage I felt when Naji killed my father—I was losing my grip on my mind.

  With a bird’s eye view, I looked down at a pathetic figure wrist-deep in the hardened dirt above his grave. Oh god, how tragic. Candace is losing it, too. As if trying to remember a fading dream, my mind spun with visions of revenge and I almost ignored the scene below me. How did I get up here? I must be projecting. Hatred pulled my attention away, and I focused on Chalen. Make him pay. Kill him.

  Was that Candace bent over the shrieking girl who straddled the grave? Gavin’s there, too. And Billy. I must be dreaming.

  The image below me disappeared. I heard Caorann’s voice saying, “Doug said give ‘em hell, Havana.” That’s a memory, right? Right after he died. Someone is calling my name. I tried to open my eyes, wherever they were, but Chalen’s face came back. I watched him, hovering over Doug’s broken body. Who’s screaming?

  My mind raced through an expanse of darkness. For a moment I had clarity. I was hunting. That’s right. Hunting. Where are you, Chalen?

  THIRTY-TWO

  QUARRY

  I flashed across a long, dizzying distance. Satisfaction filled my mind when I found Chalen. He lurked in the dark, inching forward along trash clogged gutters and filthy sidewalks that glistened with the dampness of rain. The bricks in the alley walls formed thousands of ledges, each caked with decades of grit festering in that forgotten part of the city—wherever it was. I couldn’t smell anything when I projected, but the scene before me forced my mind to fill in the sensory gap—grimy, broken windows behind rusted metal bars and heaping dumpsters told me the air was sour and dank. This was a place where the rain couldn’t fall hard enough to wash the filth away. Chalen slithered along the graffiti-covered alley like a rat looking for a morsel to stuff in its swollen gut.

  The way he moved stoked my anger. Even seeing him shift his eyes up and down the alley enraged me. One desire filled my thoughts: I wanted him dead more than anything. Using the image of Chalen flashing out of existence as motivation, I concentrated on creating Aether. Nothing happened.

  Chalen lifted his pockmarked face and drew long breaths through flared nostrils. He looked comfortable, happy even. My anger swelled, threatening to yank my mind to my body. He slowed near an intersection and worked his milky pupils up and down the street, again sniffing the air. What is he looking for?

  Spreading my senses as wide as possible, I didn’t detect any other Fae—my nemesis prowled alone. Like an apparition, he drifted out of the shadows and crossed a trash-strewn street. That was when I first noticed the package clutched in his boney fingers. He’s got more of the virus, doesn’t he? No wonder he looks happy.

  Anger ripped through my mind, tripping the tether and twisting me like I was being flung out of a trebuchet. I was too pissed off to let my tether win this tug of war, however. I projected closer.

  Two blocks further, Chalen spotted the homeless man before I did. He snored noisily under layers of filthy clothing. A wave of pity hit me when I noticed the wrinkled skin stretched over his bony features. All alone, slumbering in trash, with no one to protect him.

  I expected Chalen to compel fear, like the Arustari did. Instead, the old man seemed to fall into a deeper sleep as his breathing evened out and his mouth gaped open. With nimble fingers, Chalen opened the top of the container, and pressed the claw on his right forefinger into something inside. He stared at the wetness on the end of his nail, and smiled, slowly shifting his gaze back to the slumbering man. Panic tugged my tether as Chalen gently reached for the man’s open mouth.

  Something snapped in my mind. Chalen didn’t move at first, except to pull his glowing finger to his face to get a better look. He yelped and shot backwards when his digit disappeared and the Aether spread to the second knuckle and then the third. Shaking his hand wildly, Chalen slammed into the wall on the other side of the street, scattering debris. The homeless man sat up, bellowing at the disturbance. As the Aether consumed his hand, Chalen turned and winced at the old vagabond.

  “He didn’t do it, Chalen. I did.”

  “Maggie?” he shrieked through gritted teeth. “Face me, face me now.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that. You see, I’m in Arkansas right now—at Doug’s grave. I’m here to avenge him.”

  “That is not possible…” He bellowed, clutching the glowing stub of a wrist. “Where are you girl? Hiding under Clóca?”

  “I want to thank you—I needed practice creating Aether while projecting. You’re just the inspiration I was looking for.”

  When I focused on the danger the vial of virus created for the people of the city, Aether burned it up in the palm of Chalen’s hand. He pressed his gnarled brow together and growled a Fae curse. In a flash, he disappeared down the alley he’d just come up.

  “And here I thought you wanted a fight?”

  I followed him, silently. The Aether on his hand dissipated, leaving a cauterized nub just above his wrist. He ran and cursed, directing energy in an attempt to regenerate. The skin healed above the wound, but nothing grew back. That would apparently take longer. Good.

  “Oh, stuck in physical form? That’s unfortunate, now, isn’t it?”

  “Bitch,” he growled.

  Chalen darted through darkened streets at an impossible speed. The sounds of a distant harbor punctuated the night, but that wasn’t where he was heading. Where he was going didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to make it.

  Not since I drove stone barbs through his feet two years ago had I seen him panicked. Like a small distant flame in an enormous black void, I recognized some hint of empathy for him. The flame threated to turn to guilt. I could feel it weaken my resolve, but anger stalked the dark spaces of my mind, too. I didn’t actually call on the anger. No, I just allowed it to do what it wanted. I doused the flame of empathy by forcing myself to remember Aunt May’s death.

  I imagined hurting him and it startled me when I recognized just how vicious my thoughts were. Don’t go there, you idiot. Just kill him and get it over with. That’s what my mind wanted—the rational part. I knew better than to ignore my little voice, but the dark desire to do Chalen harm was too strong—part of me wanted him to suffer. I let my emotion seep out, just for a second. On cue, he slowed at the shadowed edge of a garden wall, jerking his head around spastically. He’d felt me. He shivered.

  “I can see you,” I projected.

  The look of panic, combined with pain registered on his grotesque face. My emotions mixed again. Somewhere behind the veil of hatred that wrapped my thoughts, I felt revulsion for causing harm, even to Chalen. But Aunt May’s face flashed in my mind’s eye, strengthening my wicked desire to hurt him. Then the image of Doug’s broken body materialized in my mind. Snap. It sent me over the edge. The desire for revenge felt like an unquenchable thirst.

  “You’re going to die today,” I projected.

  A blur to mortal eyes, Chalen moved faster and more erratically, but he couldn’t do anything to shake me—that was impossible. I projected emotion to taunt him. Each time he detected me, he bolted in a different direction.

  “Now you know what your human victims felt like when you stalked them.”

  “Leave me alone,” he howled, his voice filled with desperation.

  “Like you left my aunt alone, or Doug?”

  I plotted his course and imagined him hurting Doug. Aether whirled in front in his path. He reacted, but not quickly enough to completely avoid contact. A pained cry and a gasp later, he fell away, the skin on the right side of his face, neck, and chest, smoking and sizzling. When I tried to direct the energy, it disappeared. As he got to his feet, a thought occurred to me—I imagined him pressing his foot on Dad’s chest and immediately his lower leg was engulfed in Aether. Yelping like a wounded dog, Chalen collapsed and kicked wildly as the flesh dissolved to the bone. He bit down on his good wrist, muffling a scream. Then he begged me to make the pain stop.

  “Not yet. I need to practice.”

&nb
sp; Recognizing the sadistic quality of my words, a part of me shuddered, but like before, the darker part of me took over. It seemed to relish the look of terror in Chalen’s eyes.

  “I know things, important things that can help you. You need only spare me.”

  Just get it over with, my little voice scolded me. “Shut the freaking hell up,” I whispered back, turning my focus to the experiment. What I pictured next was Chalen sinking his fangs into Aunt May’s neck. Aether flowed out of his mouth like neon vomit. His garbled cries echoed in the empty space between darkened buildings.

  “That didn’t work so well,” the dark part of my mind whispered.

  “End my pain, I beg you,” Chalen cried telepathically.

  “So soon?” I projected. “After the agony you’ve put my family through? You made me watch Aunt May die on the island—she trusted you.”

  “I’m sorry for that,” he mumbled, growing part of his jaw back.

  “Doug was my friend—you broke his body…kept him conscious while you pulled bones out of his flesh. I have no pity for you.”

  Chalen rocked on to his stomach and tried to crawl away. A little voice in my head, my conscience, told me to put him out of his misery, but the darker side had control. The tether between mind and body was taut, exerting considerable force, trying to drag me away, but it was not strong enough. Instead, I pictured Chalen’s movements as attacks. His right arm disappeared to the elbow—his left sizzled and disappeared to the shoulder. With each thought, I removed a little more. His screams fueled the rage I felt. While I recognized that my mind was responsible for ripping Chalen apart, I felt detached and far away, like I was no more than a witness to the appalling mayhem.