How have you been, hon? Skye’s mom asked in email, after a paragraph of news about exploring Portland with her boyfriend. I miss seeing your art. How are you feeling?
Skye rested her elbows on the counter at Green Fox as she read the message. Sadness overtook her as she dwelled on childhood memories of the rare times her mom was relaxing at home instead of working, and Skye would clamber into her lap with a handful of crayons and insist on drawing with her. Gone, all of that, gone. She might never see her mother again, or her father. Her parents and Livy and Jamie and the rest of the world would never know why she’d vanished or what had happened…
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“THE MERMAIDS DIDN’T KEEP THE RAIN OFF YOU DURING YOUR PADDLE?” KIT TUCKED THE BLANKET OVER LIVY’S shoulder.
Her hair was still damp from the rain, sticking itself into ringlets. “Not their department. I think they try to get people extra wet.”
“Oh, just like me, then.” He captured her laugh in his mouth, rolling her onto her back. He lay kissing her another minute or two, still turned on even though they’d just had sex.
It was Saturday afternoon and she had pulled in to his beach on her kayak, as pre-arranged by text. Grady and Justin were manning the garage from lunch till closing today. Owner’s privilege, getting to take the afternoon off, he’d loftily told them. Of course, they knew what he’d be doing instead of working.
“This is fun,” he murmured. He’d found himself saying it during most of their dates over the past couple of weeks. It was the most fun he’d had in a while, actually. Livy surprised him. When he got her alone, she blossomed from formidable, chilly Forest Service scientist into naughty, up-for-anything friend with benefits. Even setting the sex aside, they hit it off great. They made each other laugh, and kept finding interests in common.
His “little crush” was developing into something that made him think about her at all hours. And worry about her safety at the hands of the goblins, even though Flowerwatch had said they wouldn’t touch her. He didn’t trust any goblin.
“Ever gone swimming at night in summer, when the bioluminescent plankton’s sparkling in the water?” Livy asked.
“Mmm. I love it when you say things like ‘bioluminescent plankton.’ Yeah, ’course I have. It’s awesome. Like swimming through stars.”
“It’s times like that I see why people used to believe in nature spirits. It totally looks like magic. So I don’t know about mermaids, but some kind of sparkly water faeries—maybe I could believe in those. Almost.”
She still grinned, but Kit’s heartbeat began doing funny things, the way it did when he was about to try something especially stupid. “Huh.” He slid off her, leaving one arm draped across her. “What about the forest? You spend a lot of time there. Any…run-ins with the fae, like you and Skye used to make up stories about?”
“The fae?” Livy lifted her eyebrows, teasing but impressed. “Scholarly word there.”
“It’s what people call them sometimes.” He wasn’t even smiling now. He just watched her, and waited for her answer.
She smoothed her hair back and folded an arm behind her head, gazing at the log beams of his ceiling. “Well…I could almost believe it some days. Once in a while.”
His heart beat against his ribs. “Yeah? Why’s that?”
“Skye’s said this too. Like, there’s been a couple of times we swear we saw a path that wasn’t there before. Then we couldn’t find it again later. Just goes to show how easy it is to get turned around in the woods.”
“Was this at dusk? At night?”
“Hmm. I guess right as it was getting dark, yeah. Things get harder to see then, is probably why.”
“Listen. You ever see a path like that, don’t follow it.”
Her eyes turned to him, bemused. “What?”
He lifted up onto his elbow. “I’m serious. Promise me you won’t follow paths like that.”
“Why not?” Doubt sharpened her voice.
“There’s…” He dropped his gaze to his hand, which he ran along her warm skin, between breasts and navel. “My family, we’ve all seen things, things people wouldn’t believe, things I wouldn’t have believed until I saw them myself. First and foremost, between dusk and dawn, do not follow paths that weren’t there before.”
She hitched up onto her elbow too, dislodging his hand. “You’re kind of freaking me out. What is it you think would happen?”
He was almost shaking. He couldn’t just go telling people, especially someone he liked as much as her. But now he’d said this much, and he needed to finish, or he’d sound like a serial killer. Or at least someone aiding and abetting a serial killer.
“Well…you know how there’ve been people found dead in the woods, like that fisherman a while back?”
“He died of exposure, if I recall. It was cold. I mean, yeah, people get lost and die in the woods once in a while, all over the world. It’s not usually foul play.”
“I’m not talking foul play, exactly. Not by other humans.” Kit already wished he hadn’t started down this road, but now he was stuck on it. “It’s more like…enchantment.”
Her eyes narrowed. She waited.
“Fae,” he said, his voice weak. “Goblins, technically. A type of fae. They…followed my family here, generations ago. It was…”
“Wait. What?” Her voice had gone flat, her demeanor buttoning itself all the way back up to hard-line scientist, even while she lay there naked. “Goblins?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re messing with me. Right?”
He shook his head. “I wish.”
She studied him a few more seconds. “You really believe this.”
“It’s a long story and I know it sounds crazy. But I can prove it.”
“How?”
“In order to hear them yourself…it’s dangerous and I don’t recommend it, but you could summon them in the forest. They might answer. They’d open a path to you, then if you don’t take the path you’re all right; that’s the important thing. But you’d at least see the path, and hear them, so you’d know it’s true…”
Livy scooted off the bed and grabbed up her underwear, bra, jeans. She started putting them back on. “Okay, that? Freaks me out even more. You realize you sound like a murderer? You do know that?” Her voice quivered.
His heart dropped as he realized how badly he’d frightened her, how horrible he’d made himself look. “I’m not. I swear. Wait—Livy, come on. Listen to me, please. I’ve never hurt anyone. What I’m trying to do is to keep them from hurting anyone.”
She rushed into her socks, her sweatshirt. “In that case I’m thinking we have very different belief systems. I should…go back and check on Skye…I just have a lot to deal with.” She wouldn’t look at him.
“God, don’t—all right, wait, there’s another way.” He scrambled out of bed and pulled his boxers back on. “I have the letter from my great-grandmother that explains it all. It’s here in the house. I’ll get it and show you.”
“No, I really ought to go. Maybe we can talk about it later.” Dressed in all but her boots, which she’d left by the front door, she padded quickly to the spiral staircase and descended.