1-16 R

It didn’t really feel right to break the silence after that, even once she’d stopped crying. I felt guilty about causing it. I had a right to know things about my grandfather, but she’d gone into something deeply personal that hadn’t involved me. This – it wasn’t my moment to break. I just sat still while she started rubbing something else into my hair that made it spread out instead of clumping together.

I had a lot of practice sitting like this, just letting my eyes move reflexively across stuff to pretend like I was paying attention. It had been a way to daydream in school – after I’d already finished the classwork for the day – without getting called out for it. It was a good way to let my mind wander.

I was trying to reconcile what she’d described with the grandfather I’d known. Obviously, I’d never had anything like what she’d been through with his eyes happen. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever looked into his eyes the way she described, though. He’d never been the kind of caregiver to have you meet his eyes to get a point across, and I just hated eye contact in general.

Honestly, he’d never tried to get points across very hard.

He – well, he really wasn’t the best parent. We knew he wasn’t our dad, obviously, but he’d still raised us. He was our parent – our only parent – in every way that counted. It didn’t matter that he was hands-off and weird. He fed us, housed us, and paid for everything we needed. He was always there for us if we got hurt, somehow. Even though I couldn’t actually remember him being there watching before the injury, he always came in right away to help. He had never done anything that was actually bad for us.

He was just distant. Reserved.

That’s why the socks in the closet had been so surprising. He hadn’t been the kind of person to do ridiculous displays like that, never really been all that spontaneous or even emotional. Yellow socks with neon-pink polka dots just didn’t fit him, at all. By the same metric, it wasn’t too jarring to find his secret study, then about his entire double life. He just didn’t share things like that. And with how us finding it had gone – maybe he’d been right not to. It obviously wasn’t safe. It had to be because he cared. He loved us; I knew that for a fact.

…right?

He had to have. We were his grandkids. He’d raised us since we were literally babies.

That didn’t change that he’d kept himself so closed off. How, as I thought back further, he really hadn’t met our eyes. He would always tilt his head a little, or move, or do something to break contact whenever Tammy went to look. I’d seen them, sure. They looked like mine did. Or at least – the right one did. The left one always looked a little bit off. It wasn’t anything too weird – not quite heterochromia, since I would sweat the color was identical – but it just had a feeling that didn’t want to be put into words about it. That small feeling that it, specifically, was out of place.

That didn’t matter at all about him loving us. He was just an older man that didn’t care about eye contact. That wasn’t any kind of prerequisite to caring about the children you raised.

Even when we’d done something that made him step in and punish us, he’d always be looking over our shoulders though. That wasn’t just avoiding eye contact, it was like he avoided looking at us entirely. He never really smiled in a way that reached his eyes, either. It always looked hollow, but I’d never seen the kind of sadness in it that Agatha had described. Then again, his attempts at being stern and disciplining us felt forced too.

Tammy had mentioned it a few times once we were old enough to notice, how everything was like an act. She kept saying he behaved like someone doing things without any thought or emotion behind the actions. When we’d first found out about sci-fi stuff she’d actually said he was acting like a robot. We’d both laughed, but I’d just waved the concerns away once we were old enough to talk about them. Those were just things we babbled about as kids; he was a rich man taking care of two little girls. He had to be distant. It didn’t matter that we were literally family – people would gossip no matter what. If he was less reserved, they would’ve said things that were a lot worse.

Besides, he just wasn’t a touchy-feely kind of person.

She’d kept saying he was too distant. The arguments over that were one of our few repeated problems, but they’d died down after we’d settled in at the boarding school and stopped being around him as often. Distance, apparently, solved that problem for her. The irony of it made me smile for a few seconds.

We’d started socializing with people our own age, then, and the old arguments had fallen into the background as we started to have our own things going on. Sports for her, books for me. Every now and then Tammy would mention that we should ask him what happened to Mom – or ask someone else why he acted so differently from their parents – but she’d always end up dropping it. Either I pointed out that not everyone wanted to open up about painful memories, or a few days would pass and it just wouldn’t get brought up again until the next time.

Had she ever actually asked him? I was sure she had, but she’d never mentioned him saying anything. That wasn’t like her.

The more I thought back to childhood the easier it was to match things up from what the older woman had said. Not to the first part of the story, or even the sadness. The last bit, where she’d said he was broken. Thinking about it – that felt right. It wasn’t just that he’d never done anything wacky or spontaneous or emotional, it was that he never did, well, anything. The TV, the bookshelves, the pool – all of it was stuff for us. The books and everything we didn’t use never gathered dust, sure, but I couldn’t remember him ever doing more than carrying a book or two around. He didn’t open or even really look at them. He had his spot in the living room and his chair in the kitchen; he never used any of the others unless it was for helping us. The books on his various desks – at least the ones that us kids could reach and see – always sat open to the same few pages for days on end.

He’d used the computer we had maybe five times after we first got internet, then left it for us. He hadn’t owned a smartphone until Tammy begged him to get them for us as we went off to boarding school. I’d only seen him use it to either call us or call someone for us; even the house phone rarely got used for anything but us.

Well, except for spam calls. Apparently even whatever great wizard he’d been couldn’t completely block them out. He’d always just listen silently to whatever spiel they had, then hang up without a word. More than a few repeat callers had gotten unnerved by that and screamed at him loud enough for us to hear.

It was like he was just making the motions at everything. The only times he broke his routine without us causing it would be around the mirrors. We’d find him staring at one of them at least once a month, then he’d just start moving like he hadn’t. With how often it happened, it couldn’t have just been how he stopped to think. Not with the way his face was almost never blank for those first few seconds when we found him.

That was just uncanny behavior – the emotions there still felt fake.

The closest I could remember to something that felt real from him was a really old memory. I’d been young – like, really, really, young – then, only just learning to read. This was before we had any tutors, back when he was still taking care of us all on his own. I think. Everything that old started to blur together in my head. Digging around trying to recall it hurt. It wasn’t the kind of pain that would stop me – this felt like I was trying to dig through a staticky fog – but it was enough that I decided to shut my eyes to focus better. Agatha might interrupt me if she noticed, but it wasn’t like I needed to see just to sit here and think.

He’d been teaching me; I was pretty sure on that. Probably to read. I’d crawled up into his lap and begged until he started reading a picture book for me. We’d always had a few dozen of them that he’d read out loud for us when I asked, or during teaching time. Tammy never asked herself and always wanted to go run around, but I’d loved the stories. It was a good memory, even if I couldn’t actually remember how he’d gotten the book when I was already on his lap and he hadn’t moved.

He’d been smiling and helping me sound out letters, moving his finger along the page as I squinted to piece together the sentences. It had been some story about a mean dragon and a nice one, not one of the usual children’s books. I couldn’t have been older than two or three. I barely remembered anything from that far back, and it couldn’t have been from after I started remembering stuff.

He’d been smiling at me. Really, truly, smiling. It made his face soften around the eyes in a way I almost never saw. He’d actually looked proud, there, smiling down at the little girl who’d twisted around and started beaming at his approval after managing to read out an entire page. I’d asked him something – about the story, probably – but whatever it was had faded away. It was overshadowed by what came next. When he’d started to answer, he’d called me by a different name.

Almost a decade later, while looking through newspapers archived at the library, I’d learned that it was Mom’s.

When tiny me asked him who he was talking to, he’d frozen. Not in the way that most people mean it, where their expressions shift into fear or panic or regret. No, he’d just stopped. Completely. He’d even stopped breathing; I’d been leaning against his chest when it happened. Even knowing about magic and everything there was no way he could have stopped for as long as I remembered.

Maybe it was just my brain stretching time out because little-me hadn’t known how to deal with panic. I’d poked him everywhere I could reach, but he hadn’t moved or said anything. Not even when I’d started bawling my eyes out. Whatever came next was too faded to really remember. I just knew that after that, he’d been the distant man I could remember. I’d never been on his lap again. He’d never taught me on my own, either; just group lessons with Tammy until the tutors came and we eventually went off to boarding school.

Broken was feeling more and more right. What had happened to Mom for him to end up like that?

I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, not if it had hurt him that badly. I had enough problems of my own to deal with now without piling on even more; whatever it was that had happened to him, what he’d been and how it related to Mom – all of that wasn’t time-sensitive. It could wait until my own nightmare was over.

It wasn’t until I started shivering that I realized I’d been crying again. This time Agatha was the one leaving me to brood as I wiped away the tears. She didn’t comment on the patch of dried blood that I inadvertently showed off on my left hand when I wiped with the right. The wounds were still there, already starting to scab over. Way faster than I’d have expected. Then again, everything else had changed quickly too. Maybe that was just how stuff worked here; the gouge in my leg from the boar definitely wouldn’t have healed overnight without something speeding it up. It didn’t look quite like the rest of me after it, way greyer than a scar should be. Would I end up as a patchwork of differently colored skin after this?

That could actually be kind of cool. The thought was enough to get me to stop crying, at least.

Agatha gave me a few minutes to brood, which I spent just staring at my hands while she pinned my hair up way higher than I usually had it – whenever I did something more complicated than a ponytail, that is.

“Well, we’re done until Master Fearghal decides the theme. I have some snacks here if you want them. Just something light, something good for a recovering girl like you. You might need a bit more meat on your bones, but trust me, you don’t want to overdo it on what they have at the banquets.”

“I know. It’ll trap me here forever.”

“What? No!” Her face went through a few expressions before she went on with, “Well, sometimes. Not here or now. Any food offered freely is good to eat, so is anything that isn’t stolen once you’re in one of the Houses of the Fae. It doesn’t matter anyway. Nobody would challenge Master Fearghal’s claim and it’s not like you can get in a worse situation without that happening. You’ll just make yourself sick if you have too much. The food there’s really rich and the things they have in the air sometimes make you nauseous.”

She took the top off the dish she’d sat down next to all of her supplies, revealing a few pieces of dark bread, an absolutely perfect looking red apple, and a few crumbly bits of some whitish cheese that I definitely wasn’t educated enough to identify. If it was even something normal from Earth and not made from some weird fantasy milk. Not the most appetizing spread, but seeing it was enough to remind my stomach that I hadn’t eaten in I didn’t even know how long.

I still had no clue how much time had passed between all the running for my life, much less how much had gone by between the wolf pinning me down and when that darkness had faded to let the boar chase me.

To my stomach, stuff like that didn’t matter. I was hungry, there was food. So I ate pretty much on instinct. The apple was amazing, and the cheese was – not parmesan. It was sort of nutty, but that was as much as I could say. The bread was a lot softer than it looked, but still took the longest to chew. My mouth was still full when he came in.

I choked and nearly fell out of the chair before my muscles locked up. Nothing magical, just a cold rush of fear. If I pulled away far enough to feel safer, would he take it as an insult? However he’d phrased it, all he’d sworn was that what happened wouldn’t happen again. That didn’t rule out anything worse, or anything even subtly different. Words were empty, even with that clearly magical thread that showed up between us. My hands started shaking again as my thoughts went to those extremes.

I would break if that happened. Just like Grandpa. I didn’t want to end up like that.

I couldn’t make myself look away from him as he settled into a spot just inside the door. It was a miracle that when Agatha finally moved and smacked me on the back, hard enough that the thud of it practically echoed, the wad of soggy bread that I coughed up didn’t hit him. That – that would have been very, very bad.

The first conscious, rather than instinctive, move I made was to pull the towel tighter against my chest and try to look small. The way he gave a shallow nod in Agatha’s direction after looking me over made my stomach lurch.

“Proficient work, as expected of one worthy of serving this House. The Grower’s work is at its best in conflicts the likes of which neither of you will ever see, but his craftmanship shines through much more clearly in a…clean…specimen.”

Agatha bowed towards him but didn’t speak. I was still too scared to be insulted.

“The others will soon arrive, so our guest of honor must be properly attired. Even as a failed heir, tainted with mundane blood, you still extoll the legacy of your creator. With all the weight that represents. The Lady, despite your clear insufficiencies and defects, saw fit to gift you with a spear more than worthy of the Va’Kreth. In light of that, I would be remiss to provide anything less than the proper accoutrements. The irony of one of your lineage bearing their raiment is quite delightful, I must admit. ‘tis a shame that none remain to properly extract the oaths of service, but the wheels of history have chosen to echo themselves regardless.”

I didn’t like the small smile that crossed his face at that, even though the context went straight over my head. It dropped off quickly when he his eyes focused in on my skin.

“The filthy blood that the Flower spawned you from has spoiled your ratios, and so one will have to be resized. That cloth is in the way.”

Agatha’s carefully neutral face didn’t change, but her eyes flicked to meet mine in the mirror as a jolt of pain went up both my chest and my arm. My nails were digging in, hard, right above where the towel ended and my skin began.

“There is not time for this foolishness, Seedling. You will remove it so that I can take proper measurements, or I will have the House’s chosen remove it for you.”

Agatha kept her eyes on mine, but the only movement she made was the smallest shake of the head.

At me. Not at him.

“Y – you won’t touch me?” My voice was thin, cracking halfway through. I felt that strange thread of magic that had connected us go taut as I waited for his response.

“I will forgive this outburst once, Seedling. Work on your memory; I have no need or desire for such vulgar things. Do not insult my skill by assuming I need anything more than sight for measurements. Unless you were glamoured or hexed by the likes of the Lady, I will see all I need from the surface. The towel merely hides folds and joins, the irregularities of mortal flesh that cannot be predicted through clothing without more intense observation than you are worth.”

The condescension was clear, but so was his meaning. The binding stayed solid, unbroken. That, if I was thinking through what it was right, meant that he was telling the truth.

So, after a few deep breaths and more sharp pains where I dug in my nails, I let the towel drop. My eyes stayed shut as tightly as I could keep them. There was nothing for five heartbeats. I counted.

“Stand.”

I did, shakily. By some miracle I didn’t knock anything off the table as I used it for support.

“Turn.”

I kicked the stool and stumbled before recovering. I might’ve made it a full 360, or maybe I stopped somewhere after 270. I wasn’t entirely sure, but my hands at least ended up back on the table.

“Acceptable. Your garb will be delivered by another servant in due time, then you will be taken to be introduced. Remember your etiquette if you wish to be useful.”

He paused. The clink of metal and glass settling onto something rang out.

“This style is traditional for a Va’Kreth initiate. One in disfavor and disgrace such as the Seedling would be required to bear viridescent thorns upon the bands. The Grower’s lineage was entitled to grey markings in other affairs, which shall carry through despite it being a perversion of tradition. You have proven competent in the past; I will leave the cosmetic details and the execution to you, Favored of the House.”