Tooth and Nail (8 page)

I actually felt my shoulder blades quiver with tension. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“Seems like keeping information to myself is my character flaw,” she said. “Go open the door.”

I stood rooted to my spot on the carpet, completely unnerved. I wasn’t ready to see Avery. Since he’d left the house this morning I’d met a faerie, been told that my mother was a faerie, been informed that I was half-faerie, and melted into a sensual puddle at a guy leaning against a lamppost who I was now relatively certain also was a faerie.

Not
faeries. Fae.

Yeah, that distinction really just wasn’t sinking in.

“Open the door,” Mom repeated gently, and placed her hands on my shoulders. “Go on. You’re no different than you were before now. Your self-awareness is the only thing that’s changed.” She kissed my forehead, but I saw her crease her own before she left for the kitchen. Somehow I got to the door and opened it.

>=<

I didn’t remember what the three of us talked about over roast turkey, or how many glasses of white wine I had, or how Avery must have kissed me and said, “No problem,” when I told him I wanted to stay overnight with my mother and I’d be back in the morning.

When my mother and I were finally alone again, we made a mutual silent pact to not resume our discussion, and I retreated to my old bedroom. She knew I had questions, and I knew she had answers, but I needed to own this for a while, to turn this new information around and around and inspect it from every angle, the way I would spin and examine each row of a Rubik’s Cube.

Although my glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling had been scratched off years ago and my golden throw rug had flattened into a roughened scrap, this room was still mine. I pushed against the wooden window frame, throwing my whole body behind it once, twice, before it rose, creaking with resistance, the chilly breeze lifting the hem of my T-shirt. I was grateful for it, and for my room, and for the momentary normalcy.

Sinking cross-legged to the floor, I pulled out Frederica’s card and my cell phone, flung both onto the threadbare rug in front of me, and thought.

I thought for a long, long time.

I thought about destiny—
my
destiny. Mom hid me from it. Dad ran away from it. Frederica invited me to accept it. Avery didn’t know a thing about it.

“We need you, Gemma Fae.”

I was half innocence and peace, and half chaos and conflict. Had I always known that, deep down?

My emotions had taken hold of me and shaken me senseless for the last few hours, so I let my brain take over for a while, cooling my core with logic and analysis.
 
My mind only had to turn everything around a few times before it told me what Mom hadn’t yet: That the morning fae, knowing I was out there in the world, had chosen to leave me alone, biding their time. Tracking me down now meant they had a reason, a strong reason.

If there were fae everywhere and they had a large recruiting pool, they could have asked any local fae to join the D.C.-area collection. So this wasn’t just a help-wanted plea. They bridged a three-decade communication gap to find
me
, the hybrid, and I knew why.

There was a threat to the fae again, and they needed a warrior. They needed me to fight.

I could have said no. I could have told them to flap their filmy little wings and get the hell away from me. I could resist their twinkly entreaties, no problem. I was no wimp.

I had to make a decision, and my room had been the location of many decisions I’d made in my life. In here, I’d decided to call Tim Saporino and ask him to the prom because I knew he was too much of a lame-o to ask me first. In here, I’d decided whether to do my math homework before bed, or save it until the morning and do it in the hurry time before homeroom, with my back against the lockers and my books balanced on my knees. In here, I decided to color the sky green-blue instead of blue-green, and my silver horses soared between the clouds, close to the crayon sun, with huge feathered wings that took up half the page. I decided to draw wings even though horses didn’t really have wings. Faeries had wings. But faeries weren’t real.

I had to make a decision, and my room was too full of memories of the me I was until this morning.

Think
, I told myself.
Think rationally. Think the way you would have at work.
When would I make a decision at work? When would I present my findings and make a recommendation?

When I knew for sure that I’d covered every angle, gotten every opinion.

I’d listened to Frederica’s plea, I’d heard Mom’s story, I’d felt the Olde Way imprint my soul. But if I was to deny my so-called destiny, then it was only fair for me to face a roomful of the people—the fae—I was saying no to.

I dialed the phone, and no sooner had I placed it against my ear than I heard Frederica say simply, “Gemma.”

She was wide awake. Why wouldn’t she be? After all, it only made sense that tooth fae worked night shifts, and it wasn’t even eleven o’clock.

“So,” I asked. “You busy tonight?”

“You know I am.” I heard her soothing smile.

I paused, then swallowed. “Mind if I tag along?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” she said. “But I hoped—we hoped—you would.”

CHAPTER 6

F
rom a key on a huge jangling set, Frederica let us into a side street bakery at ten minutes to midnight. It wasn’t open yet, but a gritty sugary scent lingered. The counters were wiped clean, the display cases empty.

We went back through the kitchen, where the floor was very recently wiped clean, and stopped at the back wall.

I thought I was looking at nothing but a wall, but Frederica nudged me a little closer until I found, at eye level, a small but intricately carved wrought iron pair of wings. Like the faerie wings in children’s books. I traced the grooves with my fingernail, and a tingle of fear—or something else?—shivered through my hand.

Frederica stepped forward and discreetly licked the tips of her index and middle finger, then put one finger on each wing.

Suddenly there was a door.

That had
not
been there a moment before.

I would have known I was looking at a door if the large frame and golden knob had been there. But it
hadn’t
. And now it was, with the iron wings square in the middle.

I turned wide eyes at Frederica. She had to be expecting me to flip out, run through the kitchen to the front of the store, crash through the bakery window, and flee, never to be seen again. But she merely turned the knob and opened the door to wave me in.

I’d slipped out of Mom’s house earlier tonight—well, no, I didn’t. I’d walked through the front door, trying to keep quiet not because I didn’t want her to catch me but because she might have fallen asleep. If she noticed my absence for the next couple of hours, she’d know where I was.

Frederica and I had traveled in silence. I resisted the urge to joke that she was driving the hybrid
in
a hybrid, but I let it go even though I was pretty sure she would have gotten a laugh. She was content in our silence, leaving me to percolate my fresh information in my own mind. After sneaking a few glances at her profile—the portrait of serenity—I had pressed my forehead against the window and watched without seeing the D.C. streets. As the familiar scenery blew by, my eyes rested on nothing. Instead it served as a moving backdrop for my thoughts.

Now, I glanced around in a near panic. We were only a few blocks from Smiley’s Gym. I could easily break free from this surreal living dream, run from Frederica and whoever else waited for me inside, kick open a window at Smiley’s and lie across the hard row of chairs until morning. That was me, that was where I belonged: in there. Not where I was going.

But I didn’t run away. Probably because I knew that if I did, Frederica wouldn’t make the slightest move to stop me. I was here on my own volition, and now I had a responsibility to myself to see this through.

So now, I entered through a magical door and allowed Frederica to usher me down a very tight, spooky stairwell. Dark stairwells were generally spooky, and at best, made me wonder why I didn’t take an elevator, and at worst, gave me the feeling of fleeing from fire or gunmen. I looked over my shoulder as we descended, flexing my hands and ready to spring if I needed to, but Frederica didn’t so much as glance around her. Her ballet-slippered toes made no sound, and I clunked behind her in the platform sneakers I’d dug up from my last stay at Mom’s.

We emerged on the underground floor and stopped at a red door at the bottom. I didn’t know what I expected—a sign that said, “Welcome Tooth Faeries” or something—but it was just a door—one I could see—and my heart started to pound. On instinct, I tried to take mental note of possible escape routes. To my left was an impenetrable silver steel wall, but on my right was a hallway with doors, ending in another steel wall.

Closed in and suddenly short of breath, I grabbed Frederica’s shoulder but immediately loosened my rough grip. She was a living porcelain doll and I wouldn’t want to hurt her. But she looked at me, seeming to understand my bout of claustrophobia.

“Where are we?” I asked her. “What was that illusion of a door?”
What was I getting myself into?

Ever patient, she smiled. “We’re in a fae safe house.”

“Safe house?” I repeated stupidly. “Safe from what? What’s after us?”

“We’re vulnerable, Gemma,” she said. “All the time. Innocence is delicate, and the collection is fragile, even though most humans have stopped speaking of fae as real and mischievous or evil, and instead relegated us to Disney movies.”

Her gentle teasing didn’t ease my discomfort. “Then why a safe house?”

“They’re for fae to come together, like for tonight’s moon gathering, or just to be able to talk freely to other local fae. It’s a community center. Of course,” she added, “as a safe house, it’s properly equipped as a shelter in case of natural or human disaster. We have rooms to sleep in down there.” She gestured down the hallway. “Well-stocked, brand-new kitchens, and rec rooms with virtual games. Locked vaults. Emergency headquarters with all the technology we need.”

“Survival,” I said.

“Yes. Everything we fae do is about survival.”

“The carved wings?”

“A marker for a safe house, but also a bit of an inside joke by a fae around the eighteenth century. It was human folklore for a long time that faerie could be killed or frightened off by cold iron. So these simple people would create weapons from iron, and put iron objects outside their homes to keep faeries out.”

“We live in a major city,” I pointed out. “We’re surrounded with iron and steel.”

“Exactly. And the Earth’s inner core is made up of iron. We live on iron, and have done far longer than humans did.” She laughed. “Silly. And ironic, isn’t it, that now our safe houses are protected with iron, to keep the humans out?”

“The bakery’s a front.”

“A fae-owned front, yes. Like at all our locations. All over the world. We know at all times who goes in and out.”

“The magic door?”

“We’re fae,” she said. “What did you expect?”

Good point.

She pushed the red door open, and we walked into a room of bright, smiling, laughing people. Or, rather, fae. But they looked like people. Two long tables were set up against one wall, with plates of brownies and cookies, a coffee machine, and a few bottles of soda with stacks of plastic cups. Fae milled around the food, laughing and chatting with each other, and hugging as they noticed one another, happy as friends.

“I didn’t bring anything,” I said to Frederica, mostly because I didn’t know what else to say.

She laughed, a birdsong of a sound. “I didn’t bring any food either. But I brought you.” She lowered her voice and took hold of my arm. “Maybe you could contribute some orange soda next time? It’s my favorite, but no one ever thinks to bring it.”

“Is this everyone?” I asked, nodding my head to the group. “Every one of us in D.C.?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “Not even close. There are several meetings like this in the city tonight, in other safe houses. We gather at every new moon, half moon and full moon. And there are a lot of fae who only come once in a while.”

I opened my mouth to ask another question but realized the group had gotten very quiet as, one by one, they turned to us. To me.

“Hello, everyone,” Frederica said. “It’s wonderful to see you all again.”

Her greeting was warm, familiar, but rather than acknowledging her, they continued to watch me. Some moved in closer and squinted as if I was an exotic plant. Others leaned back, wide eyed, as if I was a meteor shower.

“Oh,” one breathed. “Welcome.”

“This is Gemma,” Frederica said, and they sighed, a breeze winding through a forest of rustling, soft spring leaves.

I eyed the wide circle of folding chairs in the center of the room, and had the frightening thought that I might be made to sit in the center with everyone around me, ringside for a show they expected me to provide.

“Gemma,” a young woman said. She had a tiny, emerald-green nose stud, and bright eyes to match. “You can sit next to me, if you want.”

“Or sit with me,” a startlingly handsome black man in an azure blue dress shirt said. “It’s so nice to meet you. Gemma,” he said, shaking his head with wonder.

“Mom,” said a little girl. I couldn’t even see her through everyone’s knees. “Is she –“

Someone shushed her.

A few people stepped closer and I didn’t know if I actually edged away to the door or if I just wished I could without seeming rude. I started to lift my fists to my face, ready to defend against the soft smiles and beatific gazes, but Frederica beat me to it. She held up a slender hand. The fae retreated a bit, and the room grew silent again.

“Gemma is new tonight,” she said to them and in those four words, she made it very clear that I was new not just to the group, but to everything. She then turned to me, continuing to hold my elbow and although it was nothing but a feather on my skin, it held me steady and standing and I hoped she wouldn’t let go just yet. “Gemma,” she said to me, but clearly wanting all to hear, “we will leave you be. Leave you to be quiet if that what you need. Feel it out, ask questions if you like.”