Glimmer (3 page)

Now he was old and withered, looking and feeling ancient beyond his sixty-two years. And there was nothing I could do but watch him slowly fade. My mother was to blame. She’d sucked the life and joy out of him, and left without a second thought to his welfare. She cared only for herself and her own selfish pleasure.

“What did you do tonight, Da?” I asked as I put chamomile tea bags into our cups.

“Sat by the garden.”

He did that just about every day. All his days consisted of now were napping, sitting in the garden, and painting. He had a little studio off the living room where he spent hours creating portraits of my mother. Whether he used charcoal, oil-based paint, or watercolor, every single painting was of her in some form.

Some paintings were lovely, with exquisite attention to detail and eye-appealing color, and some were so dark, so violent and twisted, I even had trouble looking at them. And I knew that was what his soul looked like, a mixture of beauty and darkness, twisted together. Light and dark in conflict. Always in conflict.

That was what being fae-struck did to a person. Made them fractured, disjointed, with a mind barely able to hold onto reality. And an aging withered body to match.

That was my legacy, my secret and my curse. My mother was from the realm of the dark fae, a place steeped in darkness and mystery. I was born to it, but would never see it. Never wanted to either.

The fae were an ancient race of people cloaked in magic and mayhem. Some had even been worshipped as gods and goddesses during the time of the Celtic people. Fairy tales had been invented to describe them, but in reality, there was nothing whimsical about them. They were a dark and dangerous species that I had worked all my life to forget existed. 

Fae blood may have flowed through my veins, but I was human—mind, body and soul.

The teapot whistled and I poured the hot water into our cups, taking them both to the table. I set his in front of him with a spoon. “I hope you wore a sweater. The air was a little cool earlier.”

“I saw some pixies playing in the lavender.”

I dunked the teabag up and down in my cup, trying not to look into his expectant face, set it on a napkin on the table, then picked up my spoon to stir. “Da, I told you to ignore them.”

He banged his fist on the table, rattling his spoon. “I don’t want to ignore them, Nina. I like to watch them. One even talked to me for a spell.”

I rubbed at my forehead where a headache was starting to take hold. I really didn’t want to have another conversation like this, not at one in the morning. “Why don’t you take your tea to bed with you? You should get some sleep.”

“Don’t treat me like a child, A’lona.”

Sighing, I reached across the table and squeezed his withered hand. “I’m not her, Da. I’m not A’lona. I’m your daughter, Nina, remember?”

At first, his eyes were clouded over when he looked at me, but after a turn, they seemed to clear and he smiled as if truly seeing me for the first time.

I returned his smile, overjoyed that he was lucid. He had days where he had no idea where he was. It wasn’t Alzheimer’s. We’d had all the tests. I knew what it was but he didn’t want to admit the truth. He didn’t want to accept that my mother had done this to him.

“I know who you are, my darling.” He squeezed my hand tight. “You just look so much like her, so much like your mother.”

I know he was paying me a compliment. My mother, A’lona, had been breathtakingly beautiful with lustrous dark hair, spring green eyes, and luminous pale flawless complexion. But because of my anger toward her, I hated being compared to her in any way. I hoped and I prayed that I wasn’t anything like her and would never be, no matter what life threw at me.

“Yeah, well, unfortunately I can’t seem to help that. Genetics and all.” I gave him a quick sardonic smile and sipped my tea.

“One day you’ll have to forgive her.”

“Why?”

Picking up his cup, he sat back in his chair and regarded me. “Because some day you may need her.”

“I can’t see that day ever coming, Da. Not when I have you.”

He sipped his drink then set it down on the table. “I won’t always be here, Nina. You know that. Your mother will be around a lot longer.”

“Yeah, well, that can’t be helped either.” Standing, I took my tea to the sink and dumped it. I was no longer in the mood for a nice cup of soothing tea. Talking about my mother had that affect. Anything that comforting or joyful faded when I thought about her.

She had abandoned me when I was ten and I had yet to forgive her. Nor did I see that ever happening. In the past seventeen years, I’d seen her only twice--both times on my birthday, once when I was turning sixteen and the other time when I was turning twenty-one. She’d arrived unexpectedly on the doorstep, bearing gifts for both Da and I. As if expensive presents could make up for her abandonment.

For my sweet sixteenth, she gave me a glass globe. Inside was a tiny village made out of porcelain nestled in a wooded glen beside a tall mountain. When you shook the globe, tiny glowing stars would dance around. Quite beautiful. She told me it was the realm of Nightfall where she had been born, the place she had left us for. Every time I shook it, she said, she would know that I was thinking of her.

Without thanking her for it, I had smashed it into a thousand pieces on the hard wood floor in our living room.

Da had yelled at me and told me how ungrateful I had been. All the while, I glared at A’lona, wishing her to vanish into mist. She had just returned my look, but there had been no anger in her gaze or malice. Just understanding. That had angered me the most. Because if she had truly understood, she wouldn’t have left me in the first place.

I remembered spending the rest of the day in the room, crying and tearing apart all my pretty things. Later, tired and hungry, I had snuck out of my room to the kitchen to snag a piece of my birthday cake. As I crept past my father’s room, I had heard them together. The realization had angered and disgusted me, and I had almost burst into the room to drag her out of the house by her hair. But I didn’t. I couldn’t do that to my father.

After only a day, A’lona had once again disappeared, and my father sunk into a depression, sobbing until his throat was hoarse. For days after, he’d refuse to eat or go to work. A week later, the depression broke and he was back to his normal happy self.

So on my twenty-first birthday when she showed up at the door again, bearing gifts, I had thought for sure that Da would tell her to go back to Nightfall and leave us be. But he didn’t. Once more, he had welcomed her in with open arms.

I understood then why it was that way. He’d been fae-struck and he’d always love her, no matter what and no matter how long she’d leave him for. Humans were cursed to love the fae forever. That was just one of the reasons I wasn’t in a serious relationship. It just wouldn’t be fair to the other person.

That time she had given me an exquisite bracelet made from amethyst and moonstone. Real moonstone, not the beads that pretend they are made from the lunar rock. I had thanked her, kissed her on the cheek, then that night when they had retired to my father’s room, I sneaked outside and buried it in the garden.

Moonflowers grew in that spot now, encircling a small pond where two toads have taken up residence. Every night their dark blue petals unfurled to soak up the moon’s rays--the exact spot where Da always saw the pixies playing. Pixies from Nightfall, the place where my mother was born and lived.

Movement stirred behind me. I hadn’t heard Da move up behind me. He set his empty cup on the counter and placed his quivering hand on my shoulder. I leaned into his touch.

“You have to stop hating her, Nina. It will only eat at you from the inside out.”

I shook my head. “Why should I? What has she done to deserve my forgiveness?”

“She can’t help what she is. Would you fault a wolf from hunting and killing its prey to feed itself?”

Thoughts of Severin instantly filled my mind.

“Its nature is to do what it must to survive.” He squeezed my shoulder again then let his hand fall. “So it is with your mother. She does what she does to survive.”

I didn’t look at him even when he pressed a quick kiss to my cheek and said, “Goodnight, darling. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Night.”

I waited until he’d left the kitchen before I rinsed and set our cups in the dishwasher, his words mulling around in my head. I didn’t want to consider that A’lona had valid motivations for what she did. To me, there couldn’t have been any reason to abandon a child at the tender age of ten. No reason to leave her without any explanation to be raised by her father. I could never have done that. 

I stood at the sink and stared out the big window toward the backyard garden. The moonflowers were in full bloom. Dark petals fluttered in the light breeze as the stamens glowed like fireflies dancing in the moonlight. If I squinted, I knew I would see the buzzing of wings around the pond. Full dark was the perfect time for pixies to play.

Instead, yawning, I turned from the display, clicked off the light in the kitchen and took the stairs to my bedroom. I was too tired to deal with those from Nightfall. I had my own supernatural being to deal with in this realm.

Severin’s sexy rugged face and exquisite naked form planted firmly in my mind as I shed my clothes and slid under the covers. There went my good night’s sleep.

***

Chapter 4

Trying to hide another yawn behind my hand, I nodded to the elderly man telling me about the pains he’d been having in his bowels. Thankfully, I was halfway through my shift. I hadn’t slept well and was having a difficult time keeping my eyes open. Dreams of Severin kept me involved for most of the night.

I finished taking the patient’s blood pressure and marked down the numbers on his chart. “Okay, Mr. Goldman, the doctor will be in right away to see you.”

With the chart in hand, I pulled back the sunny yellow curtain and returned to the triage desk to enter information onto the huge whiteboard on the wall containing room numbers and patient names. As I was writing, Diana slid up in next to me.

“Feeling better?”

I nodded, and then yawned.

She looked me up and down. “Uh-uh. You didn’t get any sleep, did you?”

“I got some.”

“Yesterday get to you?” Without waiting for a reply, she said, “Yeah, that woman’s death got to me too.” She stroked her fingers over the stethoscope wrapped around her neck.

She did that when she had something on her mind.]

“Everyone’s still buzzing about it. Wondering if there are going to be more werewolf attacks.”

“Do we really know that was one?” I asked stiffly as I turned and walked back to the triage desk to grab another patient file.

Diana followed. “Hey, what’s with you?”

I rolled my shoulders, feeling the tension cramping my muscles. “Nothing.”

“Hey, did you hear—” Kevin, one of the other nurses, leaned close to us “—about the body they found in East Hastings early this morning?’

I shook my head.

“Body’s all cut up, organs removed I heard. One of the cops I know said it looked like a ritual killing.”

“Really?” Diana said.

Kevin nodded eagerly, clearly thrilled to be in on the good gossip. “I guess they found some weird rocks with symbols painted on them all in circle around the body. Weird, huh?”

“What kind of symbols?” A sudden chill rushed down my spine. I wrapped my arms around my body in response, trying to rub it away.

“Don’t know.” He shrugged. “Hey, do you think the werewolves are behind it?” he asked, his eyes all lit up.

Before I could say anything, my cell phone vibrated in my pants pocket. I checked the number before I answered and recognized my home number. My father.

He never called me.

I walked away from the nurse’s station and answered it. “What’s wrong?”

“The pixies are after me.”

“Da,” I sighed. “What did I say about them?”

“They’re angry for some reason, Nina. One of them bit my ear.”

“Are you hurt? Did you fall or something in the garden? Do you want me to call Mrs. Duka next door and see if she can come over?” I cradled the phone between my shoulder and ear, while I rubbed at my temple where a headache was brewed.

“Gah! Get away, you pest!”

His voice was shrill making my heart jump in my chest. “Da?”

“Damn it!”

I heard something break in the background. Something that sounded suspiciously like glass.

“No! Get back!”

Then nothing. I listened to a dead line.

As I redialed my home number, Diana watched me out of the corner of her eye. Concern furrowed her brow. “Everything okay?”

“I don’t know yet.” A busy signal buzzed in my ear. I pressed end, then redialed. Again, I got a busy signal.

Flipping my phone closed, I slid it into my pocket. My stomach clenched. I had a very bad feeling that something wasn’t right at my house. Had my father finally gone off the deep end? Or was it something worse? Something from Nightfall.