Fantasy Life (25 page)

Almost like two channels were trying to take away the program on the channel Emily was watching.

The other story was dark, like it was happening at night,
and that man who had come in the helicopter, who had the same last name Emily used to have and Daddy had, and who had Daddy’s smile when Daddy was feeling good—

(And Emily hated it, hated it, when they said it was because she could do stuff that Daddy went crazy and wasn’t Daddy anymore. Because it meant that when he tried to push her under the water, it was her fault because she got too close to him, and when her lungs hurt and she sent that hurt away—She squeezed her eyes tight and made those thoughts go away. She would forget them, forget them, and think about all the stories going on around her because they were better than what happened to her. Everything was better than what happened to her.)

—that man, he was walking to a hotel room right on the beach, which Great-Grandma Athena made sure he got because she wanted him to smell the bad oil stuff, and he stood at the window and said,
It’s like West Texas, only with water,
and Emily knew what it meant—the ocean that day was flat and went so far you could see the horizon, except he wasn’t just talking about the looks, he had a sense of the creatures that Grandma Cassie and Great-Grandma Athena were trying to protect, and then that was it. Emily didn’t get any more of that story. It kind of faded in and out, as if Mom had put on the parental controls and Emily couldn’t find a way to shut them off.

Emily wanted to say something to her mom about this being true and important and Mom should listen and stop worrying about Grandma trying to manipulate everything, and stop thinking about threats to Emily and start thinking about bigger stuff, but Emily couldn’t open her eyes.

So maybe she was asleep and the extra stuff was stuff she dreamed, and the voices were fading in and out, telling stories—because they were fading in and out, and she did get to see parts, but not other parts, and she knew, for instance, that Grandma Cassie was keeping stuff “close to her chest” because
“it was hers” and nobody else’s and not even Lyssa—Mommy—got to know about it. Because Grandma Cassie was afraid if she mentioned it, it would go away and not be real anymore, and it was all she had left, maybe it was all she had ever had, except for Lyssa (Mommy), and sometimes Lyssa wasn’t even enough to make up for it all.

That was the only thing Emily didn’t like about this place—how sad everybody was and how many secrets everybody had. She wasn’t sure how they could keep all the secrets, because the house wanted to tell her everything. It was talking to her, just like everybody else was, only all this talking didn’t confuse her.

It felt right. It felt good. And if she could just wake up a little bit, she would tell Mommy that, and they would stay, and she would be able to crawl into that four-poster bed in the room upstairs that Grandma Cassie had worked so hard at making perfect for her, the room Emily hadn’t seen yet, except in her maybe-dreams.

Because she was going to need her rest. They all were. Because the black stuff had never really gone away. And it was coming back. Only it was worse.

Something was really mad about it. And something else was trying to change it, and everyone thought the Buckinghams could solve it, and not even Emily was sure of that.

Because, she was afraid, somehow it was going to rest on her, and she was only ten and her daddy was dead, and her mommy was sad, and she didn’t have any friends at all.

She was all by herself and she didn’t want to be. She wanted help and she didn’t know how to get it. All she knew was she didn’t want to leave.

But she also knew she never got what she wanted.

Not anymore.

Cliffside House

“Sam Walters hampered the cleanup efforts?” Lyssa shook her head. Her memories of Sam Walters, albeit few, were of a man who seemed fanatically devoted to his company, a man who would do anything to make certain no one ever spoke of Walters Petroleum in a harsh way.

Of course, he had been much older when she had met him—completely bald, whether through nature or vanity, she wasn’t certain. He had a beautiful skull, perfectly shaped, and very smooth, and he kept it tanned like the rest of his skin. He also still had those pale blue eyes with the pale lashes, making him look like an otherworldly creature, someone whose designer couldn’t quite get him to look human.

“No, he didn’t hamper them.” Athena was sitting at the head of the table, eating daintily. She had made some kind of egg casserole—it wasn’t a soufflé, and it wasn’t an omelette, but the eggs held everything together, rather like huevos rancheros. “He couldn’t hamper the cleanup efforts. This was the first major crisis his own father had put him in charge of, and if it went wrong, then Sam, no matter what his relationship to Old Man Walters was, would no longer work for the company.”

Cassie sat beside Lyssa, picking through her food. Athena had put everything she could find into the egg dish, from bacon pieces to ham to onions, green pepper, and tomatoes. There was even salsa in there, and some spices that made this an evening meal, not a morning one.

It was all surprisingly tasty, and supremely fattening, and it was going to make Lyssa even more tired than she was.

“I don’t remember Old Man Walters,” Lyssa said. “I don’t
even remember anyone talking about him. I thought Reginald’s father was the old man, and he had been in charge forever.”

“Maybe by your husband’s standards, he had been in charge forever.” Athena didn’t look at Lyssa as she said that, and she didn’t have to. Lyssa caught the contempt in Athena’s voice.

Maybe the reasons Athena had given for not visiting Wisconsin had been false. Maybe she could have left the coast unguarded. Maybe she had refused to come because Lyssa had been married to a Walters.

Lyssa stole a glance into the family room. Emily still slept comfortably beneath the quilt Cassie had wrapped around her. Even the smell of food hadn’t woken Emily.

Emily was a Walters too, no matter what her last name now was. She had the Walters genes, just like she had the Buckingham ones. She didn’t look like a Walters—she favored the Buckinghams—but she was a member of that family, a family her own clearly hated.

Lyssa pushed at the eggs in front of her, uncertain why no one had told her any of this before. Cassie watched her closely as if worried about the revelations.

“I think his father died soon after,” Cassie said, and it took Lyssa a moment to realize Cassie was talking about Reginald’s grandfather, Sam’s father, whose first name Lyssa had never known.

“Soon after the accident?” Lyssa asked.

“Soon after Sam returned to Texas,” Athena said, as if that were significant.

Lyssa pushed the tar ball away from her plate. The little, round black bit of oil bothered her more now than it had when she’d first coughed it up.

“None of this is making me feel any better,” she said. “I’m not sure why this happened to me, and I’m still don’t think Emily and I should stay in Cliffside House.”

Both Athena and Cassie looked at her, identical stunned expressions on their faces.

“I’m not sure what you wanted me to get out of this story, except that you didn’t tell me any of this. When I met Reginald at the University of Texas, and I told you I had fallen in love with him, neither of you told me that our two families had a history.”

Lyssa’s voice was rising. She was angrier than she had initially thought.

“I mean, when Sam Walters objected to me marrying Reginald, he said it was because of my family, and I asked Reginald what that meant, and he had no idea, except that his dad had objected to his girlfriends before, usually because they didn’t come from ‘the right set,’ which, to Reginald, meant they didn’t have money. So that’s what we assumed. Not that Sam had met you, Mom, or that he’d found you attractive.”

Lyssa shuddered. That detail bothered her more than she could say.

“I didn’t find him attractive,” Cassie said softly, as if that made everything better.

“So? You answer the small issue and not the big one. How come no one told me that I was getting in the middle of something that predated me? My daughter has paid for this in ways that I couldn’t imagine. Her Walters grandparents have never met her. They never acknowledged her birth, and they’re even fighting her inheritance from her father in court.”

“Based on what?” Athena asked.

“Based on the fact that my husband wasn’t sane when he died, and my daughter was with him at the time. Fortunately, they don’t want the publicity, so every time my lawyer threatens to make this all public, they give in a little. We’re going to win, so I’m told. We’re not far from a settlement. But by then, I’ll be completely in debt. I’ve already paid my lawyer everything I can, and now she’s billing me monthly.”

Lyssa’s voice shook. She pushed her plate away, her eyes
filling with tears. She wiped them away. She was tired and not in complete control of her emotions.

“And then you tell me this stupid story about some oil spill that may or may not have killed all the fantasylife off the coast, and how the Walters family is responsible, and you’re telling me this so that Emily and I will stay here? How dumb do you think I am?”

Both Athena and Cassie were staring at Lyssa as if they couldn’t believe what they were hearing.

“You hate the Walters family too, Grandma,” Lyssa said to Athena. “You’ve made that really clear. Do you want me to stay so that the house can get its revenge on Emily? Is she some kind of sacrifice to the creatures you’ve sworn to protect?”

Athena straightened her back, succeeding in making herself look both powerful and regal. “Maybe if you had let us finish the tale—”

“I’ve heard enough,” Lyssa said.

“Then you’ll have to understand that I don’t sacrifice my family. Your girl is my great-granddaughter, and I would never harm her.”

“Really?” Lyssa snapped. “How do you figure that? You’re as neglectful as the Walters have been. You weren’t even calling her by name when she first arrived. You’ve made sure you haven’t said hello to her yet—not that that’s any different from how you’ve treated her in the past. You’ve never met my Emily, Gram. Don’t you think being treated as a pariah by both sides of the family harms a child? Hmm? Especially for something she can’t change, something that’s a part of her?”

Athena’s cheeks had turned a livid red. Lyssa wasn’t sure she had ever seen her grandmother blush before.

“You never brought her here,” Cassie said softly.

Lyssa set her fork down. She was done eating. She was done, period. It was so typical of her family to blame her for their mistakes.

“Don’t defend Grandma, Mother,” Lyssa said. “You’re a world-class hypocrite yourself. How many times did you come visit? How many times did you hold Emily and act like there was nothing wrong? How many—”

“I love Emily,” Cassie said.

“You could have told us,” Lyssa said. “You knew why her Walters grandparents rejected her, and you never said a word.”

“Of course I didn’t,” Cassie said. “You never told your husband or your child about magic. How can I explain a problem that originates in magic, if they don’t believe in it?”

Lyssa closed her eyes. She was so tired and had wanted so badly for someone else to take care of things for a while. But that wasn’t going to happen.

Now she had to get back into her little car and drive around Anchor Bay, just to see if a small, family-owned hotel still had someone manning the front desk.

She should have gone to Portland after all.

She pushed her chair back. The legs scraped on the stone floor. She rubbed her eyes with two fingers, then looked around the room.

Both Athena and Cassie were watching her as if they were afraid of what she was going to do.

“I’m taking Emily away from here,” Lyssa said. “I’m beginning to realize that she’s not safe anywhere. I’ll talk to you on the phone about training her and helping her control her magical abilities. I’m sure I can do what I need. If not, Mother, you can fly out to wherever we end up and help her. Of course, you can’t, Grandma, because you can’t leave Anchor Bay without a Buckingham.”

Lyssa put as much venom into those last two sentences as she could. She stood up, swayed a little, and headed toward the entry. She’d go to the car, get it ready for Emily, and carry her sleeping daughter out into the storm.

If they couldn’t find a hotel, maybe Gabriel could put
them up for the night, although Lyssa wasn’t sure how she would explain her problem to him. Of course, he had lived in Anchor Bay his whole life. He knew about the Buckinghams, and the magic.

Everyone did.

“Mommy?”

Lyssa turned.

Emily was standing in the doorway, the quilt wrapped around her like a robe. Her short black hair was tousled, and her eyes, round and brown, looked even softer than usual.

“I want to stay,” she said.

Beside Lyssa, Cassie caught her breath.

Lyssa shook her head. “It’s not safe, honey.”

“It’s very safe, Mommy. This place, it loves you.”

Lyssa felt her cheeks warm. “Honey, I—”

“Grandma and Great-grandma aren’t saying everything. They think something bad is coming, and they think we’ll be able to help. If we go away, things’ll just get worse. The house didn’t attack you, Mommy. It asked you for help. You told me you always gotta help when you get asked.”

“The child’s right,” Athena said. “The voices you heard asked for help. They didn’t threaten you at all.”

“The child,” Lyssa said with great emphasis, “is named Emily. I’d like you to give her the courtesy of using her name.”

“Mommy,” Emily said, “Great-grandma likes me. She’s just scared of me.”

Lyssa whirled and looked at Athena. Athena wasn’t afraid of anyone or anything. At least, she never had been, not in Lyssa’s memory.

Athena’s blue eyes met Lyssa’s, and Athena’s lips turned up in a poor attempt at a smile. “The child—your Emily—is right again,” she said. “I never thought I’d be a coward at this stage of my life.”

“What are you afraid of?” Lyssa asked.

“Choices,” Athena said. “Your daughter forces us all to face choices we may not want to face.”