“I’ve distressed you,” he said. “Forgive me, that was not my intention.”
“I’m fine, Allard,” I said and changed the subject. “You say Lyrus sent you to find me and Hugh? Why did he leave you in Syla’s hands all these years? Why didn’t he rescue you?”
He looked at me with his big, soft eyes. “Time unwinds differently in the fae lands than it does here in the Verge. What I experienced as a captivity of many years has been but a moment in Lyrus’ time. He has likely not even noticed that I have not yet returned.”
All those stolen years, I thought. “What an ugly bitch.”
He raised his head at that. “Syla is in her middle years now but still quite beautiful. You truly see her as ugly?”
“Hideous,” I said.
“Interesting,” he said, sounding excited. “You must have the soul sight. Your mother did as well.”
There was so much I didn’t know about my mother.
“Soul sight?”
“The ability to see people as they really are, no matter what kind of glamor they project.”
“Then why does Marus still look handsome to me?” I asked. “And why did I not see your nobility at first?”
“You are still new to the Verge. Your powers are not yet fully—”
“Alive?” I asked.
“I would say ‘awakened,’ but yes.”
Another childhood memory suddenly surfaced. Hugh and I were at a birthday party. I don’t think we were even in school yet because after we started school, we didn’t go to parties together.
There was a magician to entertain us and I’d been very impressed when he pulled a fluffy orange tabby out of his top hat instead of a rabbit.
Later, he walked around the party making balloon animals for everyone. I asked him to make me a unicorn and he obliged. When I got home, I’d made the balloon unicorn prance around the room all by itself. Mother had walked in just as the balloon made a particularly high jump, but she thought I’d just thrown it up in the air to amuse myself.
Or maybe she just didn’t want to see what was right in front of her.
“We have to go,” Allard said suddenly, urgently.
“Why?”
“Marus is here.”
“In my dream?” I asked but before the words were out of my mouth, Allard had disappeared. I swam up out of my sleep to find him leaning over me, watching me with hungry eyes.
“Get away from me,” I said and threw out my hand defensively.
Marus recoiled, as if I’d slapped him. “What did you just do to me?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, but I’d felt a surge of power leave my hand and leap toward him.
“Mother,” he called out and a moment later I heard Syla’s harsh voice.
“What?”
He turned to her and began speaking rapidly in a language that sounded like rippling water over smooth stone.
And I realized I understood what they were saying as Syla berated her son for frightening me and he replied that I had used some sort of power to block him away. She was interested in that. “Witch power or fae?” she asked.
“I can’t tell,” he replied sulkily.
She looked over at me and I made my mind go as blank as possible, hoping they would buy my pose of confusion.
Apparently they did because Syla said, “Go back to sleep, Hildegarde. Marus won’t bother you again.”
I nodded and turned on my side. I fell asleep again and this time I dreamt a memory.
Hugh and I were three. He was still not able to say R and said “wabbit” instead of rabbit when we watched cartoons. Our parents talked to us constantly, wanting us to have a wide vocabulary and the tools for communication. And they had noticed Hugh and I had a secret language. Our father was worried about this and so, though she never admitted it, was our mother.
I knew she was worried because I’d heard her talking to her best friend on the phone.
“They’re so strange,” my mother had said. “I worry about what will happen when they start school. Kids can be so cruel.”
My father had come into their bedroom in time to hear this last comment. “The kids will be fine,” he said. “But we should have them tested.”
Mother vetoed that idea. “I don’t want them to feel like freaks.”
Too late, I thought.
And then I’m back in the Dream Verge and floating in a pool beneath a fingernail moon. I can see Allard’s bulky shadow sitting cross-legged nearby.
“You mustn’t let Syla or Marus know that you can understand them,” he said.
“I won’t,” I said.
“You won’t mean to,” he said, sounding worried. “Tomorrow let us explore your talents.”
Yes, I thought, let’s.
CHAPTER SIX
The next morning I slipped away from the cottage before Syla was awake.
Allard was waiting for me beneath a tree, eating a fruit that looked like a hot pink apricot but with a shockingly lime-green, jelly-like flesh.
“What are you eating?” I said, forgetting that in the daytime, he couldn’t speak.
But to my surprise, I heard his voice in my head.
It’s called a sochen, he said. You don’t have them in your world?
“Allard,” I said. “I can hear you.”
His face split into that hideous grin again. I had hoped that would happen, he said without speaking. The Verge can either dampen or amplify a talent. You are heir to both fae and human magic, so….
“Do you think I’ll be able to read Syla and Marus’ minds?” I asked aloud.
Possibly his mind but Syla guards her thoughts very carefully.
I thought he might say something more but instead, he reached up to pull another fruit from the tree.
You must try one. He broke it in half with a practiced twist of his hands and plucked out the large flat seed in the center, discarding it before he handed me the fruit with two hands.
You are the stone of my heart’s fruit.
What?
I looked at him. “What is that, poetry?”
He looked down at his huge feet. I forgot you can understand my tongue.
“It’s a beautiful thing to say.”
Taste, he said.
I could tell he wanted to change the subject so I took a bite of the fruit.
Tastes exploded on my tongue. The delicate flesh practically melted in my mouth, leaving behind a vaguely citric taste that was at once sweet and sour and almost fermented, like a really good Jell-O shot.
“Thank you,” I said.
You’re welcome, he said formally. He looked away from me then and into a shadowy corner of the orchard.
Marus is watching us. We should walk.
I looked around casually but did not see Marus anywhere. It did not surprise me he could blend into the background, like a rattlesnake lying in wait.
Allard walked away from me, following an almost invisible trail in the brush.
Twining vines, some of them with sharp thorns, caught at my clothing and lodged in his pelt. When he judged we were far enough away from Marus not to be observed, Allard slowed down and fell back to walk at my side.
Your mother could summon creatures, he said. Is that one of your talents?
I thought about how easy it was for Hugh to befriend dogs and cats. “No,” I said, “but I think it’s one of my brother’s.”
I saw a yellow flower hanging from a low-lying branch and plucked it. “I can do this,” I said, and held it until the blossom turned orange, then red, then faded to pink. I could feel his amusement and started to bristle until I realized he was taking pleasure in my little trick and not mocking me.
“I can make things move on their own,” I said.
That could be very useful, he said.
“I’ve only done it with small things,” I said, thinking of the balloon animals and small toys I’d flown around my room when I was little.
Why don’t you try it with that rock? He suggested, pointing to a largish chunk of quartz half-embedded in dirt.
I picked it up and hefted it in my hand experimentally. Then I threw it up in the air.
Allard followed its trajectory hopefully and then winced as the rock fell to the ground at my feet.
Damn, I thought, but then I had an idea. I picked it up and threw it again but this time I scooped the air with my other hand, as if grabbing a handful of it, and I flung the air at the stone.
It stopped falling and hovered between us.