“Yeah.” Brendan nodded. “I guess you did. I missed you, that’s all.”
Hair shadowed her features but Brendan could tell her mouth was set in a hard line. “I had to check on some things.”
“What kind of things?”
“Personal things,” Charlie snapped.
They were quiet for a moment. The drainpipe creaked gently under Charlie’s weight. The wind gusted, a few flakes of snow clicking on the windowpane.
“I should be going,” Charlie said.
“Wait,” Brendan said. “I saw you talking to Pukh. What did he want?”
“Oh.” Charlie’s eyes slid away. “Nothing in particular. He was just asking about you. I… didn’t tell him anything. Nothing important.”
“Be careful,” Brendan said. “You can’t trust him.”
Anger flashed in Charlie’s sapphire eyes. “Why don’t you just mind your own business, Brendan? Go inside to your family. I’ll take care of myself.”
She turned to go but Brendan held her arm. She reluctantly looked into his face.
He thought of the moment in the basement. The sadness of her voice as she sang. “I’ll miss you.”
Tears stood in her eyes.
He felt his heart skip a beat at the sight of that beautiful face, glowing in the moonlight. He remembered running through the park under the stars.
“Be careful,” he said.
She smiled. Gracefully, she slid down the pipe and landed lightly on the snowy ground. With a final wave, she set out across the backyard. Her body shifted and she became a stag that vaulted the back fence with ease and grace. In a flash, she was gone.
Brendan stared at the place where she’d disappeared for a long while. Just as he was about to close the window, a streak of light flashed out of the night sky and into the bedroom.
“Oh, boy!” BLT crowed. “You really stirred them up, I tell you!”
“Shhh!” Brendan hissed. “People are sleeping.”
BLT looped the loop and lighted on the bed. “Ariel is totally furious with you, but Deirdre and Greenleaf are talking him down.”
“What did Merddyn do?” Somehow, the enigmatic old Faerie’s opinion mattered most to Brendan.
“He said he accepted your decision, which seemed to settle most people down. Then he up and left. He’s gone!”
“What about Pukh?”
“Old Puke was strange. He didn’t seem all that angry. He actually seemed pretty mellow about the whole thing. Lugh is still stuck in the floor, though. Not a happy camper.” BLT started to laugh and it was infectious. Brendan found himself laughing along.
“Brendan?” His mother’s voice from the hallway below interrupted the mirth. “Is someone up there with you?”
“No, Mum!” Brendan answered. He was going to tell them everything. Just not tonight.
“Why are you laughing all by yourself?” she asked. “That’s a sign of insanity, you know. Should I be worried?”
“No!” Brendan called, smiling. “I’m just watching a video on my iPod. Sorry!”
“Time to sleep!” He heard her footfalls as she headed back to her room and closed the door.
“If you’re going to sleep, I’m gonna go out,” BLT announced. “I’ll just have to celebrate for the both of us!”
BLT zipped across the room and waited at the window as Brendan opened it enough to let her escape. He then went and sat on the bed.
He thought about what his mother had asked him. “Should I be worried?”
He suddenly felt confident and optimistic. I really did give the correct answer. No.
He reached under his bed and slid out the cloth bundle that held his father’s sword, now his sword. He peeled back the cloth and revealed the hilt. He clasped his fingers around the smooth crystal and it settled easily in his hand.
As soon as his skin touched the hilt of the weapon, he felt its contentment. It was like holding a cat that falls asleep in your arms. The sensation was so comforting that Brendan felt calmness wash through him. He closed his eyes and cast his mind out, searching for his father’s presence, but there was only the soft purr of the sword. He lay back on his bed and let the hum lull him into sleep.
FAMILY
The next few days passed in happy preparation for Christmas. His mother was cooking and baking. His father spent a lot of time in the basement studio finishing his final Christmas projects for clients.
Brendan had to explain the bruise on his face from the fight with Lugh, but he claimed a clumsy fall on the ice as the culprit. His past history came in handy as an excuse. Luckily, he was now a quick healer thanks to his Faerie blood. He would have had a hard time settling his mother down if she’d seen the gaping, bloody gash the night before. The slash along his ribs had faded. By Christmas Eve it was just a red weal along his side. Fortunately, that was easily hidden beneath his shirt.
He was a bit worried that Delia would refute his story, but the next morning she didn’t say a word. She didn’t even make fun of him for being a clumsy jerk. She was in a pensive mood. If his parents hadn’t been so busy, they might have wondered about the reason, but as it was, they didn’t.
Brendan tried to have a conversation with Delia on a number of occasions, but she refused to talk about what had happened. She would simply walk away, hide in her room, or turn up the TV volume to a level that discouraged conversation. Finally, Brendan just left her alone. She needed to deal with the situation whatever way was best for her. He had to be patient.
He called his friends and checked up on them. He wanted to make sure they weren’t harassed by any Fair Folk. They assured him that they were fine, and they made plans to get together after Christmas.
While his parents were busy preparing the house for the holidays, visiting friends, and taking care of their own business, Brendan spent a lot of time thinking about how he was going to break the news about his secret life to them. He imagined all the possible ways he might broach the subject, what to say and where to say it. He sat in his room, lying on his back and listening to music. He went for long, meandering walks through the city.
By the time Christmas Eve arrived, he still had no idea how he was going to tell his mum and dad what was going on. He was sitting in his bedroom in the dark, racking his brain. There was no obviously easy way. Every time he even imagined broaching the subject, his stomach tied itself in knots.
“Hey.” Delia’s voice was soft but he almost leapt out of his skin. Her head poked up through the trap door in the floor.
“Jeez, Dee. You scared me.”
“Sorry. You could take it as payback for the other day.” Delia smirked.
“Okay.” Brendan smiled. “What do you want?”
“Just to talk,” she said. “Can I come in?”
“Yeah.”
Brendan couldn’t remember the last time, if ever, Delia had been in his room. Sure, she’d stuck her head in and yelled plenty of times, but she’d never crossed the threshold completely. He watched as she climbed up and looked around.
“This is kind of cool.”
“Thanks.”
“It smells like teenage boy, though.”
“That’s what I am, so…”
“Yeah,” she said. “About that…” She pulled the only chair over to the bed and sat down opposite Brendan. “It’s dark.”
“Yeah. I like it dark.”
“People like… like you can see in the dark pretty well though, eh?”
Brendan laughed. “Yeah. People like me can.”
Delia blushed and looked a little uncomfortable. She looked around. “Where’s the little one… What’s her name?”
“BLT?” Brendan offered. “She’s out with some of her friends tonight.”
“Good,” Delia said firmly. “’Cause I wanted us to talk.”
Brendan didn’t answer beyond raising his eyebrows. He just waited.
After a few seconds, Delia seemed to make up her mind. “I’m sorry I haven’t been talking to you lately.”
“That’s not unusual, really…”
“Just shut up, okay? I’ve been thinking a lot about all this and I needed some time to myself to work it out. It’s a lot to take in. I thought you might be a criminal or a drug dealer or something. But it turns out…”