The Jennifer McMahon E-Book Bundle (90 page)

CHAPTER 21

Phoebe

JUNE 11, PRESENT DAY

“W
e’re on our own tonight,” Evie called from the kitchen when Phoebe came through the door, drawn in by an intoxicatingly sweet smell.

“I baked a cake,” Evie said. “From that Betty Crocker mix you got. I was going to make pasta, but since it’s just you and me, I thought maybe we could skip the pasta and go right for the cake.”

“Where’s Sam?” Phoebe asked, doing her best not to sound pissed off or disappointed. She headed into the kitchen, watched Evie (who was wearing the python draped around her neck like a scarf) spread blobs of canned vanilla frosting onto the pink, strawberry-flavored cake. Just looking at it made Phoebe’s teeth hurt. But the idea of cake for dinner sounded perfect. It was something Sam would never consent to. And the food they cooked at home was always so wholesome—it was nice to take a little break. Even when they went out, it was often to the vegan place Sam loved where everything tasted like paste and she’d once had the misfortune of ordering macaroni and “cheese,” not realizing it would be spelt noodles covered in mashed tofu and white beans.

Cake for dinner probably wasn’t the best thing for the baby, but it was better than nothing, right? And these days, with her stomach the way it was, she was just grateful that anything at all appealed to her, even if it was pure sugar.

“He left a message on the machine. He’s working late, then having dinner with his mom.”

Phoebe felt herself stiffen. Sam ate regular dinners there once a month, and when he did, he always brought Phoebe along. Did this mean he’d go straight to Reliance on his own from there? Was he going to tell his mother the truth about everything? Confide in her now that he’d pretty much shut Phoebe out.

“Great,” she said, a fake smile plastered on her face. “All the more for you and me.”

P
hoebe allowed herself one beer even though she knew she shouldn’t. She justified this by telling herself that she might not be keeping the baby anyway. Not with things with Sam the way they were. But if they were to make a choice,
that
particular choice, they’d have to move quickly, which meant she needed to take the first step and tell him she was pregnant. But how, with him being so distant? What was she supposed to do—leave him a cell phone message? An e-mail? A note tucked under the wiper of his truck?

“This is really good,” Phoebe said, diving into her second piece of cake. “Wait until Sam hears what he missed. He’s probably suffering through one of his mom’s tofu casseroles right now,” Phoebe said. Idiot. How could he just ditch her like that? On this of all nights.

She reached into the pocket of her khakis and touched the little bag of teeth. It was silly, really, keeping it with her. But she felt like it somehow tied her to Lisa. Like if she held on to it, maybe she’d stand a chance of finding out the truth. Phoebe didn’t consider herself a superstitious person, but she believed there was more to this world than meets the eye. And carrying around a few ancient horse teeth for luck couldn’t hurt, could it? When she’d called Sam’s mom to report what Dr. Ostrum said about the teeth, Phyllis had thanked her. Phoebe offered to drop them off, and Phyllis said, “No need to bother, dear. Why don’t you keep them? It seems a fitting addition to your odd little collection.”

If the teeth were a treasure of Lisa’s, then Evie might remember them. Maybe she’d even know the story behind them.

Phoebe pulled the bag from her pocket, placed it on the table.

Evie pushed back in her chair, nearly losing her balance, as if Phoebe had just dropped a severed limb onto the table.

“Where did you get that?” Evie looked at Phoebe with fear and suspicion.

“It was Lisa’s,” Phoebe said.

“I know,” Evie said. “The teeth. All those ugly yellow teeth. They were the first gift he left for her. Before she even knew who he was. He came into her room and left them on her goddamn bed.”

“He?”

“Teilo. Where’d you get them, Phoebe? Was it Sam? Did he have Lisa’s teeth?”

“They’re horse teeth. Old horse teeth.”

“I know what they are,” Evie said. She was breathing faster now, struggling a little with each inhalation. “But I don’t think you do. You shouldn’t have them, Phoebe. Anything of Teilo’s, it’s full of magic. Bad magic. It links you to him. Do you understand?”

Phoebe nodded, put the teeth back in her pocket. “I don’t believe in magic,” she said.

“You will,” Evie said.

They ate in silence, forks scraping against plates. Their chewing seemed unnaturally loud.

“S
orry I freaked out like that,” Evie said as she stood to clear the table. There was only one square of cake left, and they’d decided to save it for Sam. “The teeth always kind of creeped me out. And I wasn’t expecting to see them again. I thought Lisa had them with her when she left. The teeth and the charm bracelet. The two things she was never without. Her goddamn gifts from the fairies.” Evie set the dishes back down on the table, reached into her pocket for her cigarettes. Phoebe knew she should stop her, knew Sam would throw a fit when he came home and smelled cigarette smoke, but what was she supposed to do? It wasn’t like she could tell Evie to step outside to light up. “So where’d you get them, Phoebe? Did Sam have them?”

“No. Of course not. Why would Sam have had them?”

“I don’t know. I thought maybe you could tell me. He was the last one to see her that night. And I always thought . . .”

“What?” Phoebe asked, sounding more defensive than she’d meant.

“That he knew more than he was saying.”

Phoebe considered this, wondering if Sam knew something more about Lisa’s disappearance. Mr. Lisa-was-taken-and-there’s-nothing-we-can-do-about-it-so-let’s-all-just-get-on-with-our-lives. Was it possible he was keeping something from them? Some secret he’d been carrying for fifteen years but which was slowly, steadily clawing its way to the surface? It would certainly help explain why he was acting like such a freak lately.

She remembered her conversation with Becca:
there are things Sam’s not telling you
.

“I know it’s been hard on you two with me staying here,” Evie said.

Phoebe shook her head. “Not at all.” She managed another smile, which she sensed Evie saw right through. Evie pushed the hair back out of her eyes.

“Been awhile since I’ve visited the salon,” she said apologetically.

“I could cut it,” Phoebe said, worried she’d sounded a tad too enthusiastic. “I mean, if you want me to. I cut Sam’s hair. And do some of the grooming at the clinic—not that I’m comparing you to a poodle or anything, but I can handle a pair of scissors.”

“I’d love it,” Evie said. “Do whatever you want. When I was a kid, I let my hair get so badly tangled once that my mom had to shave me bald. Some people have the head for it. Mine’s all lumpy. Lisa said it looked like a stubbly potato.”

Phoebe laughed. “No potato haircut. I promise.”

They pulled the kitchen table to one side. Evie grabbed a chair and Phoebe fetched the scissors.

“So what’s the story with this?” Phoebe asked, touching the key dangling from the chain around Evie’s neck.

“Lisa gave it to me. She told me this story that summer about two sisters who went on an adventure with a magic key that was supposed to save them. She said this was the key.”

Phoebe walked around Evie, trying to visualize how to turn the dark tangled mop of hair into something a little more stylish.

“Wanna know the crazy thing? I’ve worn it every day since. I guess I somehow had this idea that one of these days I’d get the chance to use it—that maybe this dumb key was going to help me save Lisa. Stupid, huh?”

“I don’t think it’s stupid at all.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in magic,” Evie said.

“I don’t. But I believe in hope.” She went back to studying Evie’s hair, wondering where to begin.

“Full moon tonight,” Evie said, as if Phoebe didn’t know.

“Yeah,” she said.

“Do you think he’s going to go?” Evie asked. “To Reliance?”

“I have no idea,” Phoebe admitted. “We were planning to go together, but he hasn’t said anything about it in days. Maybe he’s decided to just let the whole thing go. To try to forget about it. He’s kind of perfected it to an art over all these years, so why change anything now?” She bit her lip, thinking she’d said too much. The beer had gotten to her, made her feel warm and open. She ran her fingers through Evie’s hair, deciding to start at the front.

Sam’s warnings echoed in her head: Evie shouldn’t be trusted. There was something going on with her and Lisa that summer.

“Sam wasn’t always this way, you know,” Evie told her as she started cutting.

“What way is that?”

“Closed down. When he was a little boy, he was this fresh, bright-eyed kid—excited all the time, talking nonstop about whatever came into his head. He couldn’t keep a secret if you paid him. Until the fairies came.” Evie’s face darkened.

“So you were there for all of it?” Phoebe asked, tugging at Evie’s bangs, shortening them by several inches with one quick snip of the scissors. “What was it like? When they first came?”

Evie closed her eyes, smiled. “First, there were the bells. It was dusk, and we were supposed to be back in the yard before dark, but we followed Lisa over to the other side of the hill. We heard these bells, like wind chimes almost, this tiny tinkling sound coming from Reliance. Lisa saw them first. Little dots of light, flitting from one place to the next.”

“What? Like lightning bugs?” Phoebe asked. She worked carefully to trim the hair around Evie’s left ear, noticing that it was pierced in three places but that she wore no earrings.

Evie shook her head. “Not at all. It was little white lights, bright and dancing from leaf to leaf, branch to branch, chasing each other down into the old cellar holes. We chased after them, but they all disappeared.

“Lisa knew just what they were. ‘Fairies,’ she said. She was so excited. The next day, we were back in the cellar hole leaving them gifts. Lisa said that maybe then, if we left presents, they’d let us see them.”

“And did they?” Phoebe asked, pausing to step back and assess the back of her hair before she continued cutting. She decided to try to do some layers in the back—something Sam never let her do. Evie’s hair was beautiful really, now that it was combed and clean. It was thick and had a natural wave.

“No. Not Sammy and me anyway. It was Lisa they wanted. She was the one Teilo came for.” Evie’s face twitched a little. Phoebe tried to imagine what it must have been like to be the odd girl out. The one not chosen by the Fairy King. And if Evie and Lisa were as tight as Sam suggested, then it must have been horrible to have Lisa choose the Fairy King over Evie.

“So you never saw him? Never heard him?”

Evie shook her head, which Phoebe grabbed with both her hands, reminding Evie to keep still while she was cutting. “Only Lisa. She said she was the chosen one.”

“But how do you know she wasn’t making it up? Or that this Teilo wasn’t just some weird pervert hiding in the bushes pretending to be the King of the Fairies?”

Evie sighed and was quiet a moment. Phoebe worked the scissors across the back of her head.

“I don’t, I guess. I mean, we were a little doubtful—Sammy especially. But she was so . . .  so caught up in it. Giddy. And she came out of that cellar hole with these little trinkets, gifts from Teilo. They were proof.”

“But they were just everyday objects, right? A coin, a Catholic medal? Nothing otherworldly about that.”

Evie brought her fingers to her lips, chewed on the nails. “I guess not,” she said at last. “We were kids, Phoebe. Lisa told us the fairies were real, that their king came, and there was no point arguing with her. I guess you had to know Lisa for that to make sense. She was so stubborn. And more than that. She was sort of enchanted. Exactly the kind of person the King of the Fairies might come for.”

Evie said this with an expression that was both wistful and slightly bitter.

Phoebe had worked her way back around to the front, facing Evie and trying to make the right side match the left.

“So what do you think happened to her then?” she asked.

“I think”—Evie hesitated, closed her eyes, then opened them—“I think she went with Teilo.”

“What? To the fairy kingdom? Come on, Evie! You can’t tell me you really believe that.”

“Maybe we’ll find out tonight.”

“Do you think it’s really possible,” Phoebe said, stepping back to admire the finished haircut, “that Lisa’s still alive? That it could really be her?”

Evie brushed the hair off her shoulders and stood up.

“The biggest lesson I learned that summer, the one I’ve carried with me my whole life, is that anything is possible.”

Phoebe smiled at her, reached out her hand to take Evie’s, which was cool and clammy.

“Do you really believe that?” Phoebe asked.

“Absolutely,” Evie said, smiling.

“Then come with me,” Phoebe said.

She led Evie to the front door.

Evie pulled away from her, her face sweaty and panicked. “I can’t,” she said.

Phoebe took her hand again. “Just one step out the door. I’ll be right there with you. One step, Evie. Remember, anything’s possible.”

Evie bit her lower lip, closed her eyes, and held her hand out to Phoebe. Phoebe opened the door and they stepped through together. They stood on the top step leading down to the driveway, the rising moon lighting up their faces.

“Open your eyes,” she said in her calmest voice.

Evie did.

“See,” Phoebe said. “You did it.” Evie locked eyes with her. At first, Evie looked frightened, then for just the briefest second it was as if a shade lifted and Phoebe could see someone else in there. Someone brave, sure of herself. More confident than Phoebe herself, even.

And just then, Sam came wheeling into the driveway in his pickup. The shade slammed shut and Evie clawed at Phoebe’s hand, sucking in air with a wheezing fish-out-of-water gulp. Sam jumped out of the cab, face flushed.

“I’m on my way to Reliance,” he said. “You coming?”