13 Curses (47 page)

She turned to leave, but hesitated. A nagging feeling would not let her go until she had at least tried to resolve what had happened in Rose’s past, and a horrid little thought pushed its way into her mind. She edged closer to her aunt’s built-in cupboard next to the fireplace. Opening it, she breathed in the ever-present scent of dog hair on the clothes hanging on the rail, but ignoring them she looked above to where there was a shelf of clutter, including a box and a pile of well-thumbed books.

Taking the box down, she opened it to find a small pile of baby clothes. She snapped the lid back on and pushed it onto the shelf, her heart thudding. There was something eerie about those clothes in isolation. Just clothes, and no baby…

As she withdrew her hand she caught it on one of the books, and the two nearest the top came sliding
down toward her. She caught them, and stared as she took in their titles, first:
Protection from the Little Folk
, and the second:
Ward: The Power of Protection against Magic
.

“It can’t be,” she whispered to herself, thumbing through the books in disbelief. “It just can’t….”

She paused to read a page that had been folded over at the corner.

Faeries can be discouraged from coming into your home by keeping iron objects, using herbs and flowers (see
here
), and with careful use of salt. Smaller deterrents include keeping pictures and mirrors at angles to prevent faeries from settling on them.

“Crooked pictures,” Red said, turning to the other book, where a page had been marked with an envelope.

Natural Protection Against All Things Fey
, read the heading.
To ward off unwelcome attention from the little folk, there are numerous easily obtainable plants that are known to discourage fey activity.

“
Ash
,” she read aloud. “
Bay, blackberry, clove, garlic, linden, rowan, sandalwood, witch hazel
…” Her eyes lingered over the word “rowan,” then ran down the page where there was a second heading. “
Plants to Avoid… bluebell, elder, foxglove, hawthorn, primrose
…”

“Rowan? Is that… is that
you
?”

Red spun around, dropping the book. Aunt Rose stood in the doorway, staring at her like she was an apparition. She still had her coat on, and her keys were in her hand.

“I don’t understand…. What… what are you doing here?”

“I—” Red faltered, searching for some kind of explanation, or possible escape—but there was none. She was well and truly cornered, and stupidly, had left the fox-skin coat in the living room. The irony was not lost on her—that she had found the mask of Glamour, yet it was the very thing she was prevented from using.

“I… left an injured fox in the living room,” Rose whispered. “The vet was out on an emergency call….” She shook herself. “And now there’s just a fox-fur coat… and you’re in here. Were you wearing that coat? Is it… is it some kind of…
glamour
?”

Red shook her head, nauseated. It was too much to take in—her aunt’s carefully hidden knowledge of fairies and glamour. Hidden for so long, and now revealed.

“I was… looking for something,” she said.

“What?” Rose implored, still frozen in the doorway. “I don’t understand. What were you looking for?”

“A charm,” said Red. “Just a tiny little charm…”

A shadow crossed Rose’s face.

“You mean that mask, don’t you?” Her eyes searched and found Red’s sooty fingertips. “It just appeared one day, out of nowhere. I knew it must be something to do with…
them
, so I tried to get rid of it. Threw it into the bin at first. It came back. So I threw it into the stream…. It still found its way back. I was
hoping that the fire would get rid of it for good… but obviously not. Why do you want it? Where is it?”

“In a safe place,” Red whispered. She could not take her eyes off her aunt, this woman she thought she had known. “And you don’t need to know why. It’s better that way.”

“People are looking for you, Rowan,” Rose said sadly. “Is it true you took those children? Why would you do that?”

Red gave no answer.

“My little Rowanberry. What’s happened to you?”

“Can’t you guess?” Red said bitterly. She gestured to the fairy books. “Is it really that difficult? Why didn’t you tell me you could see fairies? You must have known I could see them too! Why didn’t you share some of this with me, some of this protective knowledge? Instead you kept it all to yourself, along with your other secrets.

“Oh, don’t look so surprised,” Red continued. Her anger had reached boiling point now. “I found the photograph, and the baby clothes. I know your big secret. You had a baby, didn’t you? And I think I can guess what happened to it—the same thing that happened to my brother while we were in care! It was taken, wasn’t it? Taken by the fairies!”

Rose clutched her hand to her throat as if she’d been stung by some poisonous insect.

“James… you mean,
they
took him?”

“Yes,” Red spat. “And I’ve been trying to get him back ever since. But maybe, just maybe if you’d shared
your knowledge with me, or even cared enough to come and get us sooner after my parents died, none of this would have happened! Instead, you left us there for weeks!”

“I didn’t mean to,” Rose said weakly. “I didn’t know what had happened until four weeks after the accident. I’d been abroad, working in an animal sanctuary. Came back to the awful news. I wanted to come sooner, but I’d contracted malaria—I was bedridden for weeks.” She came into the bedroom and slumped on the bed, no longer blocking the door. Red’s route was now open to escape, but her aunt’s words had pierced her and she was unable to move.

“But I did come for you, both of you,” she continued, her head in her hands. “By then it was too late. James had already gone missing… and so had you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about the fairies?” Red repeated obstinately. “Why didn’t you tell me you could see them?”

Rose looked up, her eyes shining with tears.

“Because I can’t.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“It’s the truth. I know they exist, but I don’t see them, at least… not in the way you do. I don’t have the second sight.”

Red held her gaze.

“Then what is all this? Why do you live all alone in this little cottage, surrounding yourself with rowan and iron horseshoes? What are you so afraid of? And what happened to your baby?”

Rose stared back into her lap, and took a deep, shuddering breath.

“If you really want to know, then sit down, and I’ll tell you. It’s time you knew the truth, about everything.”

Red hesitated, then slowly walked over to the bed and perched at the end, away from her aunt. She looked unhinged, sitting there with her frizzy red hair cascading down her back, and her hands twisted in her skirt like a scolded child.

“Everyone knows how I like to be called Rose,” Rose began. “And not Primrose, which is my real name. But no one,
no one
, knows the reason why except me. I vowed I’d take it to the grave, because even if I told anyone they wouldn’t believe me.

“I’d always liked my name,” she continued. “Until one day, in the summer when I was seventeen. It was the day of the carnival. There was one every year at midsummer, and I’d been chosen as a carnival queen. The theme that year was girls who were named after flowers. Naturally, there were a number of girls who took part—a Jasmine, a Lily, two Roses, and two Ivys. But I was the only Primrose. Of course, we dressed to reflect our names. I wore a pretty yellow dress, with green ribbon threaded through it, and a headdress that I made from real, fresh primroses.

“As the carnival rode through the streets and by the woods near where we lived, I noticed a young man smiling up at me from the crowd. He had the blackest hair, and eyes to match. He followed with the crowd
all the way until the carnival procession finished, and there was dancing in the street.

“I danced with him all night, until my feet were blistered and sore. Even then he didn’t want to stop. He had eyes only for me, despite the other girls watching and waiting, hoping for a dance. The night passed in a dream. I felt giddy, dizzy.

“I asked him why he’d chosen me out of all the other girls. He just laughed, and said he liked my name. He liked it
very
much, he said, and he told me how, if used correctly, primroses could be used in a magic to see fairies.

“I thought he was messing about, or was perhaps a traveler who believed in that kind of thing. By that time, of course, I’d realized that I didn’t know
his
name. But when I asked him, he simply laughed, and said it was better that I didn’t know.

“When I could dance no more, he took one of the primroses from my hair. ‘To remember you by,’ he said. Foolishly, I asked what he would leave
me
to remember
him
by, to which his only reply was a strange little smile as he went on his way.” Rose fiddled with her hands in her lap. “I never saw him again after that night. No one did, and no one knew who he was. But whoever he was, he
did
leave me with something to remember him by.” Subconsciously she held a hand to her stomach. “Nine months later I had a child, a tiny, flame-haired baby.”

“A fairy child?” Red whispered. “You had a fairy child?”

Rose nodded bitterly.

“Of course, I knew what was happening to me a long time before the baby was born, even though none of it made sense. At first I denied it could be possible, but it was futile. I remembered the strange little smile, his talk of fairies. How he’d been so fascinated by my name—and refused to give his.” She gave a wry smile.

“After a little research it all made sense. He was a fairy, and he’d left me with a child. I was terrified. I had my life mapped out—I was going to be a vet. There was no room for a baby.

“I told only my sister, your mother,” she whispered. “I couldn’t tell her the father was a fairy. Didn’t need to. She’d seen me dancing with the young man at the carnival and drawn her own conclusions.

“I was desperate. Young, and foolish, barely more than a child myself. And Anna, who had been married to your father for four years already, was yearning for a child. It was she who suggested it. A perfect solution. I would go and live with them, hiding myself away until the baby was born, and meanwhile Anna would fake her own pregnancy and take the child when it was born.

“It went like clockwork. Except when the baby was born, I knew I’d made a mistake. I didn’t want to give it up. I loved it as soon as I saw it… but by then, it was too late. I’d agreed to hand the baby over. I knew it would break Anna’s heart if I went back on my word. And so I didn’t—but it broke my heart instead.”

“My parents had another child? Before me?” Red repeated.

Rose shook her head, bringing her eyes to meet Red’s own green eyes, so very alike….

“No, Rowan,” she said softly. “There was no other child. The baby I’m talking about… it was you.”

Red recoiled.

“It’s not true,” she whispered. “Tell me it’s not…”

“I’m sorry,” Rose croaked. “I’m so sorry. You were never meant to find out, not like this. Not at all…”

“You gave me up?” Red whispered, horrified. “You gave me away? How could you do that?”

“Because I thought it was for the best.” Rose reached toward her pleadingly, but Red sprang away.

“And James?” she asked, her lip quivering.

“He was their son. Not your brother, but your cousin…”

“NO!” Red shouted.

“I made them promise, before you were born, that I could choose your name….”

“Oh, big deal!” Red snarled. “You pass me off to someone else and then expect me to thank you for choosing my name? Does that make you a better mother, somehow?” Her mouth twisted at the word. “You’re not my mother. No! I don’t believe it—I won’t!”

But the look on Rose’s face—the face that was so like her own, now that she knew the truth—convinced her otherwise.

“I chose the name Rowan before you were born,” Rose continued. “I knew it would work whether you
were a boy or a girl. Protecting you was all that mattered, and your name was the only way I could think to do it. Because it was my name, you see, that got me into trouble in the first place… the thing that brought him to me, like a moth to a flame. And so now I’m Rose. Just plain, ordinary Rose—”

“
No!
It doesn’t make any sense—if that was true it makes me half fairy! I can’t be one…. I’m not! I can see them, I’d
know
…”

Rose shook her head. “The name created a barrier, protecting you from everything—even from knowing what you were—and it stopped others with the second sight from seeing what you were—”

Red had heard enough. With a choking sob she jumped up and ran through the cottage. Then she was outside, grabbing her bag from beneath the bush. As she ran back through the garden, out of the side gate past the dogs, she heard Rose’s voice calling after her desperately.

“Rowan, come back! Please, come back!”

She vaulted the front gate and ran, too late remembering the fox-skin coat. She’d left it behind, her source of glamour. Unmasked, exposed, a useless disguise. A pretense that was no longer valid… just like her real mother.