The Steward (13 page)

“You start tomorrow after school,” he said softly.

I lost the battle with tears, sobbing and huffing for air, as I spun and buried my face in his chest.

* * *

Mom and Dad left with Mitch before 8:30 am. I finally had a chance to talk with Aunt May. She was ready to talk to me as well.

“Ya want tea?” she asked.

“I’d love some.” I reached for the old tea set we’d used the first time.

“Not that one—I feel like makin’ today special. Would ya go ta the dinin’ room and look’n the buffet, bottom right-hand side, and fetch me the tea set, please?”

I walked around the corner and in the dining room I spotted the large, dark wood buffet. It looked heavy and handmade. When I pulled the lower cabinet door open I found several old pieces of china and silver perched on thick brown shelves. There were two tea sets, one silver, and the other china. The china was very pale, nearly translucent, and painted with tiny flowers that looped around one another in an intricate, continuous ribbon. The silver was a little tarnished. “Which one do you want?”

I heard her rattling laugh. “Oh, the china please, I’m afraid the other needs a bit of polishin’ an’ I’m not up ta that this mornin’,” she said, pouring on her accent a bit thicker than normal.

“That set belonged ta Aunt Lola, Lola O’Shea. I recall sittin’ right there where yer sittin’, sixty years ago, while she made me tea with this set.” For a moment, and with a faint smile on her face, Aunt May appeared to drift back in time, her big brown eyes staring into the distance. Just as quickly, she composed herself and returned to the canister in her hand. She flipped a wire lever and swung the lid back on its hinge. Aunt May picked up the infuser and fumbled it between her fingers. While she looked back at me, smiling with her goofy, crooked grin, the ball sprang open and she began packing it with tealeaves.

“Like I said before, this really is better than nuking a teabag in a cup of water,” I commented.

Aunt May looked at me above her glasses and returned to the tea leaves. “With a proper cup o’ tea, child, you’ll never drink that bagged crap again.” A grumbling laugh filled her throat.

While she worked her magic with the teapot, I thought about the Fae, the Cave, and swimming. The decision I had to make grew more difficult by the hour, it seemed like. I had dozens of questions that she could answer better than anyone. To break the ice, I told her about my research and what I’d read about the Fae.

“Child, I’m sorry. I tried to tell ya most of what’s been written, if not all of it, is crap,” she whispered. “But don’t blame those poor authors. I bet many of ‘em were purposely led astray. The Fae enjoy doin’ that sometimes.” She sipped her tea and closed her eyes for a moment. “Ya looked at those books an’ dug ‘round on the internet ‘cause ya didn’t believe it.”

I couldn’t say anything because she was right, of course.

When she opened her big brown eyes again, she had a sympathetic look. “I understand, Girlie Girl. I wouldn’t-a believed it either if I was in yer shoes. I couldn’t stop ya from lookin’.”

“Chloe and Candace seem really interested in the Weald,” I said.

I told May about all the stories Chloe’d heard, and that I’d deflected her questions.

“It’s definitely best ta keep what ya know ta yerself—remember our promise ta the Fae. The Fontaines’ve approached me several times, each time they hear a new story. I just play along, tryin’ ta sound like the superstitious old kook who lives in the quirky cottage. If I ever told ‘em the truth, I’m afraid they’d be crawlin’ all over the place and I don’t want that. Neither do the Fae. It ain’t safe.” She grabbed my hand and her fingers felt thin … cold. “That isn’t easy for ya, I know, but ya gotta keep it to yerself.”

“Aunt May, one thing you haven’t told me ... because I haven’t asked ... since I passed the trial—will it change me?”

Aunt May nodded. “It won’t change
ya
, specifically, but everything
will
change.”

I shook my head. “I’m not sure I understand.”

“Ya’ll still be Maggie O’Shea, but the way ya think about things’ll change forever. Everything changed for me—I felt like I had a purpose when it happened … I was connected ta this place and all our ancestors. It may sound strange, but I knew where I belonged.”

I felt the connection too, but I still had no idea where I belonged. “Do you ever think about what life would have been like if you hadn’t become the Steward?”

Aunt May nodded again. “What ya really mean ta ask is if I’ve ever regretted my decision ta stay here.”

“Well, yes.”

“When I was fourteen I wanted ta study French in college,” Aunt May said.

I laughed. “French?”

“Oh yeah, I decided that I’d learn the language an’ then move ta Paris where I’d find a smolderin’ly beautiful French husband and eat croissants on the Champs Elysees. Then, when I was fifteen, I decided ta go ta medical school first, become a doctor, and then move ta Paris’n find the smolderin’ husband. I had pictures of apartments in Paris taped ta my mirror. I studied the street maps-a Paris, and I even knew how many steps there are ta the top of the Eiffel Tower.” She looked at me and winked. “One thousand seven hundred an’ ten.”

We both laughed for a moment, and I made a mental note to Google it.

“Then, right before I turned sixteen, I became the Steward in waitin’. I’ve often thought about livin’ in Paris, but I’ve always been happy with the decision I made ta stay here. Besides, I’ve been ta Paris twenty-three times and I’ve eaten more’n my share-a croissants.” She paused and slapped her bottom. “Don’t need no more of ‘em, do I?”

Aunt May continued to tell me about Paris, that she didn’t have any regrets, and I believed her. She was happy here. And I knew she genuinely loved her life, but that didn’t help me resolve anything. I realized, as I listened to her talk about Paris, that my biggest problem was accepting the idea that I was somehow fated to live in Arkansas. I didn’t believe in fate, and I wasn’t ready to drop all of my plans just to spend the rest of my life in this place—connection or not.

“Aunt May, something Sara said yesterday bothers me—well, it’s what she wouldn’t say, actually.”

She took a sip and closed her eyes. “I’m sure. But don’t ya blame Sara—she only tells us what the Seelie Council wants us ta know. They got rules they gotta folla.”

“She said my role was exceptionally important, and made it sound like I was more important to the Fae than just keeping the land intact. Are there problems brewing with the Unseelie?”

Aunt May nodded without opening her eyes. “The Unseelie’re always a problem. Connivin’, vicious … don’t trust-a one’ve ‘em. Gotta be careful ‘bout what ya say round any of ‘em.”

“The stories of people being hurt and killed are true?”

“Yep. A lotta people’ve been hurt on the Weald—most look like accidents, but I know better. There was a young man who worked for the family back’n the thirties. His name was Patrick—a beautiful boy as I heard it. He’d done somethin’ the Fae didn’t like’n they warned gran’pa Willard, the Steward at the time. They told gran’pa ta keep that boy away from the Weald. Course, gran’pa listened—he ran Patrick off, fired him, but that didn’t keep Patrick from comin’ ‘round, sadly. It looked like an accident, but gran’pa told me the Fae did it, and they’d done it before. His death was violent. It shook gran’ma so bad she never once talked ‘bout it. But gran’pa, now, it bothered ‘im even more ‘cause he knew what really happened. This’s the point, Maggie—ya have ta be careful with the Fae, ‘specially the Unseelie.”

I studied Aunt May’s face—she appeared genuinely rattled. “What did they do to him?”

She grimaced as she said, “He died at the bluffs, Maggie.”

“The ones by the lake? Did he fall?”

“No, child, the bluffs up along the trail—he was crushed when part-a the bluff gave way.”

I thought about the floor of the cave and realized, with what little I knew about the Fae, how easy it probably was for them to break the bluff. Then I remembered her making Mitch promise to avoid the bluffs at the lake, the caves, and especially the islands. His safety worried me, and I had to ask—I felt sick about forcing her to remember her son.

“What happened to Kyle?”

Aunt May paused before she said, “Kyle’n David were best friends when they were little—born just nine days apart. They even looked an awful lot like one ‘nother. Kyle was the brightest star’n the sky.” She looked down at her hands for a moment as her voice trailed off.

“He fell off the bluffs—by the lake,” she continued. The pain on her face was palpable, her cheeks shaking a little as she spoke, and I could see her trying to swallow.

“Was it…”

“No,” she cut me off, shaking her head, “least I don’t think so. Rope broke.”

I didn’t intend to ask her any more questions about Kyle, so I quickly changed the subject. “The lake looks really beautiful this morning now that the clouds are gone.”

“Yep, changed a lot over the years,” Aunt May said with a distant look. “When I was about yer age there was nothing but the river down there.” She finally smiled, looking down at the lake. “This was one of the most beautiful river valleys anyone’d ever seen. I remember the ancient trees ‘long the bank shadowin’ the blue-green pools that swirled around the rocks at the bottom of the towerin’ bluffs. My friends’n I spent every summer on the river. It was a very special place.”

Letting the rich, sweet flavor of tea play on my tongue, I thought about her words before I swallowed. “I take it you miss the river—the way everything was?”

“Well, wouldn’t matter much if I did, heh!” Aunt May belted out a raspy laugh as she attempted to regain her typical demeanor. “The fate-a the valley was settled a long time ago by a man named Harvey. He bought a large parcel-a land up river. Some called it Silver Springs, but most locals knew it as Mountain Springs. It was beautiful, nearly as pretty as our place, but not quite!” She chuckled.

“Mr. Harvey was’n entrepreneur. He fell’n love with the valley the first time he saw it, an’ had big plans for Silver Springs—he changed everything. But yeah, I miss the river. The lake was the end of a long dispute between Mr. Harvey and the
Fae.”

“The Fae? How so?” My curiosity was definitely piqued.

“Ya see, Mr. Harvey had money, lots-a money, and he was ambitious. Even ran for president. The only presidential convention ever held in this state took place just a few miles away from here. Anyway, he bought the land up-river’n promptly changed the name-a the entire place ta
Monte Ne.
Then he built himself an unrivaled resort.”

“The Fae were pretty fond-a the river. They didn’t mind when Mr. Harvey moved here, as he wasn’t the first white man ta settle in the valley—the first was yer forefather, Pete O’Shea. So Mr. Harvey started his resort an’ built himself a dam below the springs to make a small lake. He even brought in a gondola from Venice, Italy,

“The Fae’ve never been fond-a humans messin’ with nature, so Willard O’Shea, who lived here at the time with his wife, Melvadine, went ta speak ta Mr. Harvey, asked him to remove the dam. Let’s just say Harvey was unconcerned with anyone else’s riparian rights.”

“What did the Fae do?”

Aunt May grinned. “Well, let’s just say Mr. Harvey’s fortune changed for the worse. The Fae held a powerful grudge over what they saw as Mr. Harvey’s arrogance. The Fae always take revenge when they’ve been wronged—real or imagined. It may not be swift, because the Fae live for a long time and they’re methodical planners, but it’s always certain.

“Poor Mr. Harvey became a very unlucky man. He lost his fortune and he lost Monte Ne—the Fae ran ‘im broke. To add insult ta injury, the Fae influenced the Army Corp-a Engineers ta do the same thing ta Mr. Harvey that he’d done ta the Fae. They were behind the buildin’ of the dam that created Beaver Lake, ya see. The lake swallered up most-a the things Harvey’d built. Even though he’d lost Monte Ne long before the dam was finally done, mostly their doin’ as well, the Fae saw ta it that his grand experiment would always be remembered as a failure. Now there’s not much ta see, only a few ruins-a one ol’ buildin’—the rest’s under water.”

“What do you mean, they ran him broke?”

“There were a lot-a things that swallered up his fortune, but toward the end of his life, Mr. Harvey spent what was left trying ta build a great pyramid. He became obsessed with it. Let’s just say it wasn’t his idea, exactly.”

I recalled Sara telling me that the Fae could glamour humans, and uneasiness crept over me. After a few more minutes, Aunt May complained about feeling tired and went to her room. I went back to the small octagonal library to sit for a little while with Justice, and thought about my decision. I’d never been very good at planning my future-other than swimming, which I knew couldn’t last forever. Aunt May at least had a plan at fifteen—I’d actually flunked career day. The smooth blue surface of the lake glinting through the trees caught my eye. I still had trepidation about walking into the woods, but Justice was with me.

SEVEN

THE EDICT

The warm morning air tempted me to forget just how cold it was a few days ago. I walked down the stone path from the cottage to the lake and admired how the sweet earthy smell played off the rich woody tones of the forest. I hadn’t noticed them before. Brushing my hand across the damp lichen on a large bolder sent a jolt of energy up my arm. It gave me goose bumps, and the sensation felt great.

Still not too excited about the woods, I did have more confidence today. Walking in them this morning gave me a sense of peace. Well, honestly, it helped that Justice came along too. He had refused to leave my side since I emerged from the cave. Just as I thought I could conquer the world with Justice beside me, he bristled, as much as any poodle could, and focused on something by the lake.
Can’t a girl catch a break?

Justice shot down the stairs bisecting the lower bluff line and through the dense stand of cedar trees that blocked my view. “Justice, get back here! Now!” He ignored me. Rushing through the tree line after him, I wondered what, or who, I might find. Images of bears, mountain lions, and Bigfoot came to mind as I cleared the last trees at the beach.