The Modern Fae's Guide to Surviving Humanity (11 page)

She thought their expectation that she live up to the
boring simplicity of normalcy was a grievous edict when burdened with such an unusual name. More than once in the past she'd asked her parents why, if they wanted her to be normal, they had named her such an outlandish name anyway? It was their response to this that convinced Autumn she had no hope of ever being normal. Parents were supposed to know everything. But they never had a good answer for her—“your mother has a streak of the whimsy, pumpkin,” was not a good or logical answer when you were touting normalcy—which just convinced her that her parents must be abnormal too.

“Abnormality breeds abnormality, that's what Aunt Elana always says.” Speaking to no one in particular, or perhaps more truthfully, no particular “person,” she bent down to brush her fingertips over the delicate petals of the newest member of her family. A gerbera daisy. Orange, with the sweetest fringe of rosy pink on the outer edges. The colors hadn't reached their full potential yet, as the petals had just unfurled far enough to be considered blooming, but the kiss of sun-burnt pink already present carried with it the potential of a masterpiece.

She stepped back, softening her gaze so that she could take in the whole rooftop garden. The mix of colors, scents and shapes was a masterpiece all its own. Better than any of the stuffy portrait paintings her cousin Arleen could do.

Yes, her newest baby was going to fit in just perfectly.

She frowned, fingering the frilly fringe on the shirt her mother had made her wear to school that morning. Okay, maybe it wasn't exactly normal to think of her plants in terms of “children” and “family” but that's how she envisioned them and how she cared for them, too, so that's what she would call them. Normalcy be boogered.

Boogered. That was normal. She'd heard James say it at school just last week and James was the epitome of a typical boy, least that's what her second grade teacher Ms. Banks always said. Besides, lots of girls her age played family with things like stuffed animals, Barbies, or even little plastic spring-hinged balls called Zoobles. If they could pretend that such inanimate objects were “alive” and “real” then why couldn't she attribute personalities to her plants?

Apples to oranges, Autumn. Our plants aren't toys.

“True,” she agreed, nodding her head sagely.

That settled, she tucked her eyelet skirt up under the back of her knees and knelt down, humming softly as she lovingly topped off her potted children with fresh soil. Being up on the roof meant they were exposed to the elements that habitually erode away the top layers, so it was a constant battle to keep their delicate roots covered.

With the warm midafternoon sun beating down on the back of her head, she had gotten most of the way through the first two tiers when the strangest thing happened. And that was saying a lot for a kid who had trouble with normal to begin with.

Her scalp began to tingle.

Not the I-need-to-take-a-bath kind of itchy-tingle, nor even a someone's-behind-me tingle (she got those all the time and this was most decidedly not it) but an obscure from-the-inside-out tingle that made her brain squirm as if being tickled in her skull and her hair threaten to leap right out of her scalp. Even though she knew the tingle was caused by neither of these, she found herself twisting around, searching the flat rooftop with her gaze.

Nothing, of course, but the tickly itch was just as present
as before, worse even as she stood staring past the lip of the roof. Sun, blue sky, city skyline—wait, was that a faint smudge? She squinted her eyes and sure enough, there, in the distance, marking the edge of the sky like the smear of charcoal on a painters sketch, were the most ominous bulk of clouds she'd ever spied.

She gasped, leaning forward instinctively to shield her prized gerbera daisy. If those clouds broke over the city, her daisy would never survive a storm such as that, nor would her violets, or her freshly sprouted sweet peas, or her lilies. And that wasn't even to mention her young cherry tree, sitting proudly in its new pot, the first blush of blooms upon its limbs. The wind would tear the delicate blossoms right off and then … then… .

Tears began to leak from her eyes, running twin paths down each cheek. She knew she could bring in most of her plants. Her mother might sigh and huff and mutter as she helped Autumn drag them down to the apartment, but the cherry tree?

She looked at the proud little tree, measured how much it had grown since last summer. At least six inches, and that was only in height. In that pot? Even if both her and her mother lugged and tugged there was no way they could get it inside and down the stairs without risk. In her mind's eye she saw it tumbling down the stairs, pot smashing, soil scattering, limbs snapping, blossoms and leaves shredding. Autumn wailed just imagining such a travesty.

Leaping up, she raced across the rooftop garden, throwing skinny arms around the navy-glaze pot. “Don't worry. It's not going to happen. I'll save you.”

The cherry tree shivered, its little leaves rustling, the branches rattling, and the blossoms blushing as they bobbed in the still perfectly calm sunshine.

It had heard her!

A breeze swept up, grabbing one of Autumn's chestnut curls, tossing it into her eyes.

Or maybe not.

Her head was beyond tingling now. Needle pricks raced across her scalp, and though her brain seemed to have ceased its squirming it had started an all-out attack from just behind the eyes. That, combined with the not-so-innocent, warm little breath of a breeze did something to her that had never happened before. Autumn, got really, really mad. Not crazy-mad, or Joey-Berchoni-calling-her-a-dork mad, but the furious sort of mad. The shoot-fire-from-your-eyes kind.

She glared at the clouds, wrinkling her nose up in what her mother called her grumpy face, and waggled her finger at the brewing storm. “Go away!”

The cloud rolled closer, unperturbed.

“Go away!” Autumn jumped up, stomping her foot as she jabbed her finger toward the south. “You can go there for all I care, but you are not coming here!”

As she said this, the all-over tingle in her head condensed down to a ball of achy-itchy pain right behind the bridge of her nose. Autumn gasped, closing her eyes as she dug at them with the heels of her hand. Even through the pain, a horrible thought occurred, one she quickly discarded. This could
not
be the itch her parents had been talking about, absolutely could not. This wasn't an itch, it was a really, really bad headache.

Oh stop, oh stop, go away, go away, go away.

And then as suddenly as it had come, it went, bursting like a firecracker in her head: a quick burst of light followed by a
fzzzz
.

When Autumn was sure the last little spark of the
strange headache was gone she straightened, blinking her eyes. Warily, she looked around. Frowned. It seemed strange and somehow not right that nothing had changed while she'd just had the weirdest experience in her life. Cars still honked at each other down on the streets below, her little garden sat unharmed, and there was not a cloud in the sky to mar the warm spring day.

Wait … not a cloud in the sky?

She reached out, curling her hand lightly around the cherry tree's trunk. “That was … weird,” she told it. And definitely not normal. And right now she wanted nothing else more desperately than to be normal.

Autumn took three long deep breaths, trying to make logic of what had just happened. Her strange headache was gone, along with both the squirmy tingle and the storm. The coincidence of those events could not be ignored, but to think that she had anything to do with the storm's disappearance?

“Silly. I'm being silly. Lots of people get tingles or achy limbs or even headaches when there is an approaching storm front. My headache's gone because the storm is gone, right?”

She turned to her garden for confirmation. Their beaming blossoms smiled back at her. Pleased with their assurance, she smiled back. And because it was so important to keep them happy, she pulled out her watering can and started the first of what would be a number of trips down to the apartment for their filtered water.

“But why, mom? Why can't daddy be here to tuck me in?” Autumn tried. She really, really tried, but she couldn't seem to stop the quaver in her voice nor the trembling of her lip.

Her daddy always tucked her in, the nighttime routine always the same. First her mom would come in and sing; her pure voice as sweet and soothing as the goodnight hug and kiss she gave her at the end. Then her father would come in, with a book tucked under his arm and a promise not to fill their daughter's head with nonsense as he passed his wife at the door. He'd shut the door, his angular features stiff and serious as he waited the required five seconds to make sure her mother had gone away.

And then they'd look at each other and smile their conspirators' smiles. Her father would sneak across the room, discarding the stuffy old storybook on the nightstand before stretching out on the bed, his back to the headboard, his legs crossed, and pull her up against his chest so she could listen to his heart as he whispered to her some fantastical story of fairies and unicorns and mermaids and monsters. And then, after, would be the tuck-in. She loved her daddy's tuck-ins. They made her feel safe and loved and, well, perfect.

Autumn could have lived without the story, but not the tuck-in.

“Darling,” Autumn's mother soothed, brushing her cheek with her knuckles. “Your daddy is a weatherman.”

Autumn rolled her eyes thinking that must be the most unhelpful explanation ever.

Her mother chuckled, tucking the sheet up tight around Autumn's chin. “That means sometimes he has to go where the weather is.”

Autumn thought real hard about that. So hard she could feel her skin bunching on her forehead. Her mother wasn't making any sense. The weathermen on TV never went anywhere. OK, maybe sometimes when there was a huge storm. But most of the time they just
pointed at those silly maps on TV, which weren't really maps but green screens that the weathermen had to pretend had real pictures and maps and charts on them.

Daddy had never been on TV. Not in front of those silly maps and not in the middle of a big storm. He said it was because he was more of a “behind-the-scenes guy.” Which made her wonder, would a behind-the-scenes guy really have to go away to track a big storm?

A shiver of worry ran up her spine. She didn't want her daddy in the middle of a big storm. People got hurt. People
died
in big storms.

“When is daddy going to be home?” Her voice was definitely quivering now. She didn't care.

Her mother looked down at her with serious grown-up eyes. Autumn could tell she was debating her answer. She was not only taking too long but she was gnawing her lip again. Mom did that a lot when she was worried or unsure. Autumn really hoped it was the latter.

Then her mother smiled, bending down to tickle her as she delivered another kiss. “Don't worry, darling. Daddy should be home sometime tomorrow.”

But it wasn't tomorrow, nor the next day. Three days and lots of lip-chewing on her mother's part later, Autumn dragged her backpack up the stairs to her apartment and pushed the door open. It had been a terrible day. James and Joey had been relentless in their teasing and Jessica? Argh, could a girl be any more perfectly normal? Who really cared if Autumn liked using big words and so what that she didn't find some stupid square sponge funny? Nope, she didn't feel one ounce of bad for telling them that they had been brainwashed by pop culture and had the intellect of said sponge.

Autumn had stomped halfway across the living room
before she saw him. Her daddy, sprawled on the couch, eyes closed. With a thud, she dropped her book bag and leapt, flinging herself across her daddy's massive chest. He grunted, but then chuckled, his arms tightening around her like bands of steel as he returned her hug. And quite a hug it was.

Maybe if she held on tight enough he would never disappear on her again. If not, then at least it might make up for all the hugs he'd missed while away.

A large hand came up, stroking down the back of her head. “I missed you too, pumpkin.”

“Where were you, daddy?”

“There was quite a storm to the south of here. I had to go and check things out.”

Autumn pushed up, looking down at her daddy. “To the south?”

He nodded, his wide eyes narrowing. “Why, pumpkin, did you—”

“Evan?” They both looked around at the sound of her mother's voice. She stood in the doorway to the kitchen, a steaming cup in her hands.

“Ah! Thank you, Gwen.” He sat up, shifting Autumn over to his side as he reached for the cup, wrapping his large hands around the stoneware. “This should hit the spot.”

“Still cold?”

He sighed. “It was quite the storm.”

Autumn's mother cut her gaze to Autumn, then back to her husband. Whatever message was being sent between the two of them must have been more obvious to them than it was to Autumn because her daddy cleared his throat and turned to her with a smile plastered on his face.

“So what have you been doing while I've been away, pumpkin?”

That was all Autumn needed. She began to fill her daddy in on all the wonderful things that had been happening in her garden while he was away. How her cherry tree had blossomed and her sweet peas were growing so fast they'd started to curl around the fourth string and her gerbera daisy …

“You have to see it daddy! It's so pretty and it has three blossoms on it now. I hoped it would get one or two this year but I never expected it to grow so fast.”

“I did.” He grinned, pinching her cheek. “You have the magic touch, pumpkin.”

“Evan.”

They both looked at her mother. Another wordless message passed between her parents. Autumn couldn't fathom what it was so she shrugged and went back to talking. She really wanted to share her flowers with her dad. He always loved her garden and was so impressed by how she made them all fit together like a master's artist palette, everything working in harmony to create a beautiful blending of colors. That's what he said, always following it up by, “You're the genuine thing, pumpkin. Someday you're going to put your old man to shame.”