Tithe (20 page)

She shivered. “What way?”

“Green,” he said, his eyes like mist, like smoke, like all insubstantial things.

She lost her nerve, looking into those eyes. He was too beautiful. He was a spell she was going to break by sheer accident.

His voice was very soft when he spoke again. “I have had a surfeit of killing, Kaye.”

And whether that was meant as a prayer for the past or a plea for the future, she could not say.

This time, when he lay down on the mattress and drew the comforter over his shoulders, she
watched the cobwebs swing with each gust of air that crept through gaps in the old windows. Words echoed on the edges of her thoughts, phrases she had heard but not heard. She’d seen the scars that ran up and down his chest, dozens of marks, pale white stripes of skin edged in pink.

She imagined the Unseelie Court as she had seen it the night she’d snuck in with Corny, except that now they were all looking at their new toy, a Seelie knight with silver hair and such pretty eyes.

“Roiben?” she whispered into the quiet of the room. “Are you still awake?”

But if he was, he didn’t answer her.

The next time she woke, it was because someone was pounding on the door.

“Kaye, time for you to get up.” Her mother’s voice sounded strained.

Kaye groaned. She unfolded herself stiffly from her uncomfortable position on the little bed, feeling the impression of every metal coil along her back.

The banging didn’t stop. “Your grandmother is going to kill me if I let you miss another day of school. Open this door.”

Kaye lurched out of bed, stumbling over Roiben, and turned the key in the lock.

Roiben sat up, eyes slitted with sleep. “Glamour,” he said rustily.

“Shit.” She had almost opened the door with massive wings attached to her back, and green.

She focused for a moment, drawing energy through her hands, feeling the thrum of it in her fingers. She concentrated on her features, her eyes, her skin, her hair, her wings. Her wrists and ankles were still sore, and she made sure to use the glamour to compensate for the discoloration of the skin where they’d been burned by the iron.

Then she opened the door.

Ellen looked at her and then looked beyond her at Roiben. “Kaye—”

“It’s Halloween, mom,” Kaye said, pitching her voice in a low whine.

“Who’s he?”

“Robin. We got too fucked up to drive anywhere. Don’t look at me like that—we didn’t even sleep in the same bed.”

“Pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Roiben said muzzily. In this context, his formality sounded like drunkenness, and Kaye felt an overwhelming urge to snicker.

Ellen raised her eyebrows. “Fine, sleep it off. Just don’t make it a habit,” she said finally. “And if either of you puke, you clean it up.”

“Okay,” Kaye yawned, closing the door. Considering the sheer volume of vomit she’d cleaned up over the last sixteen years—most of it belonging to her mother—she thought that
was a pretty uncharitable comment, but she was too tired to dwell on it.

A few moments later, Kaye was curled up on the boxspring again, dropping easily back into sleep.

The third time that Kaye woke, it was dark outside the window. She stretched lazily, and her stomach tightened in knots. She reached out to the lamp on the end table and switched it on, bathing the room in dim yellow light.

Roiben was gone.

The pink comforter was crumpled at the foot of the mattress, two pillows beside it. The sheet covering the mattress was pulled off the corner, as though he had slept restlessly. Nothing to suggest where he’d gone; nothing to say good-bye.

She had only asked him to stay for the day. When darkness had come, he had been free to go.

Frantically, she pulled the faerie dress over her head, tossing it on the floor with all the other laundry, tugging on the first clothes she found—a plain white T-shirt and plaid pants with zippers all down the sides. She unbraided her hair and hand-combed it roughly. She had to find him … she would find him….

Kaye stopped with one hand still dragging through tangled hair. He didn’t want her to follow him. If he’d wanted anything more to do
with her, he would have at least said good-bye. She’d apologized and he’d listened. He’d even forgiven her, sort of. That was that. There was no reason to go after him, unless you could count the odd, soft touch of his hand on her cheek or the gentle acceptance of yet another kiss. And what did those things mean anyway? Less than nothing.

But when she went down the stairs, Roiben was there, right there, sitting on her grandmother’s flowery couch, and Ellen was sitting beside him. Kaye’s mother was wearing a red dress and had two sequin devil horns sticking out of her hair.

Kaye stopped on the stairwell, stunned as the utter impossibility of the scene crashed up against the utter normalcy of it. The television was on, and its flickering blue light sharpened Roiben’s features until she couldn’t tell whether he still wore his glamour.

He was drizzling pieces of plain, white bread with honey from the jar, thick amber puddles of it that he as much poured into his mouth as ate.

“Thank you,” he said. “It’s very good.”

Kaye’s mother snorted at his politeness. “I don’t know how you can eat that. Ugh.” Ellen made a face. “Too sweet.”

“It’s perfect.” He grinned and licked his fingers. His smile was so honest and unguarded that it looked out of place on his face. She
wondered if that was what he had looked like before he’d come to the Unseelie Court.

“You’re one twisted young man,” Ellen said, and that only made his grin widen. Kaye wondered whether he was smiling at the jibe or smiling because it was so true.

Kaye walked down a few more steps, and Ellen looked up. Roiben turned to her as well, but she could read nothing in those ashen eyes.

“‘Morning,” Roiben said, and his voice was as warm and slow as the honey he’d been eating.

“You still look like shit, kiddo,” her mother said. “Drink some water and take an aspirin. Liquor makes you dehydrated.”

Kaye snorted and walked down the rest of the stairs.

On the television, a cartoon Batman chased the Joker through a spooky old warehouse. It reminded her of the old merry-go-round building.

“You guys are watching cartoons?”

“The news is on in ten minutes. I want to see the weather. I’m going up to New York for the parade. Oh, honey, when I saw Liz the other day, I told her how you were doing and everything. She said she had something for you.”

“You saw Liz? I thought you were mad at her.”

“Nah. Water under the bridge.” Ellen was always happier when she was in a band.

“So she sent me an album?”

“No. It’s a bag of old clothes. She was going to get rid of them. She can’t fit in any of that stuff anymore. It’s in the dining room. The gray bag.”

Kaye opened the plastic bag. It was full of glittering fabrics, leather and shiny vinyl. And yes, there it was, as shimmeringly purple as in her memories, the catsuit. She pulled it out reverently.

“How come you didn’t tell me the real reason you didn’t want to move to New York?” Ellen glanced meaningfully in Roiben’s direction.

Roiben’s face was carefully expressionless.

Kaye could not seem to marshal her thoughts well enough to find a reply. “Do you guys want some coffee or something?”

Her mother shrugged. “There’s some in the kitchen. I think it’s left over from the morning—I could make some new.”

“No, I’ll get it,” Kaye said.

She went out into the kitchen and poured some of the black stuff into a cup. Adding milk only turned it a dark, sickly gray. She added several liberal spoonfuls of sugar and drank it like penitence.

Roiben hadn’t looked angry at all; to the contrary, he looked absurdly comfortable sprawled on the couch. She should have felt better, but instead it seemed as though the knots in her stomach were tightening.

It was evening already, and soon he would be gone. She wanted him, wanted him to want her more than she had any right or reason to expect from him, and that knowledge was as bitter as the day-old coffee.

“Kaye?” It was Roiben, a nearly empty jar of honey in one hand, leaning against the doorframe.

“Oh, hi,” she said, stupidly, holding up the cup. “This is really bad. I’ll make some new.”

“I’ve been … I wanted to thank you.”

“For what?”

“For explaining what happened. For making me stay here last night.”

She took the old coffee and dumped it in the sink, hiding the embarrassed smile that was playing over her lips. She filled the pot with hot water and swirled a few times before dumping that too.

His voice was very quiet when he spoke again. “For not being afraid of me.”

She snorted. “You’ve got to be kidding. I’m terrified of you.”

He smiled at Kaye, one of his quicksilver smiles, dazzling and brief. “Thank you for hiding it, then. Quite realistic.”

She grinned back at him. “No problem. I mean, if I’d known you liked it this much and all …”

He rolled his eyes, and it was so good to stand there smiling shyly at each other. All the
silly words she had wanted to say to him suddenly began clawing up her throat, desperate to be spoken.

“I’m just glad it’s over,” she said, breaking the spell while she turned to spoon coffee grounds into a filter.

He looked at her incredulously. “Over?”

She stopped in midmotion. “Yeah, over. We’re here and safe and it’s over.”

“Not to distress you,” he said, “but I very much doubt—”

“Kaye!” Ellen called from the other room. “Come see this. There’s a bear loose.”

“Just a minute, Mom,” Kaye called back. She turned to Roiben. “What do you mean not over?”

“Kaye, Faery is a place governed by a set of customs both severe and binding. What you have done has consequences.”

“Everything has consequences,” she said, “and the consequence of this is that the solitary fey are free again, you’re free, and the bad Queen is dead. That seems pretty over to me.”

“Kaye, it’s going to be off by the time you get here,” Ellen called.

Kaye took a deep breath and walked out into the other room.

Ellen was pointing to the screen “Will you look at this?”

On the screen, a newsman was standing in the middle of Allaire State Park announcing
that a man had been murdered and partially devoured. The announcer reported that, judging by the claw marks, authorities were speculating that it was a bear.

“Now I’m hungry,” Kaye said.

The announcer went on, his salt-and-pepper hair slicked back so that it did not move, his voice overly dramatic. “The man’s dog was found attached to the body by a wrist leash and was apparently unharmed. The dog has been taken into custody by the West Long Branch chapter of the SPCA, which is awaiting relatives to come and claim it.”

“I wonder what kind of dog it was,” Kaye said as Roiben came back into the living room.

Ellen made a face. “I’m going to finish my makeup. Can you just find out for me if it’s going to rain? The weather should be on soon.”

“Sure,” Kaye said, sprawling on the couch.

On the television, the same announcer came back on, with another warning about the animal, reporting that there were several unconfirmed reports about missing infants and children. In some of the more unlikely reports, children were stolen from their beds, out of strollers, off swings in playgrounds. No one had seen anything, however, let alone a bear.

A Popcorn Park Zoo representative was speaking at a press conference. The whitehaired man was polishing his glasses methodically, nearly in tears as he explained how it was
difficult to tell what animal had escaped, since this morning all the animals had been found in the wrong cages. The tigers had eaten several of the llamas before they could be separated. The deer had been in a small bird enclosure, panicking in the enclosed space. He suspected PETA. He didn’t understand how this could have happened in such a well-run, tidy zoo.

“In other news, a young girl on her way back from classes at Monmouth University was kidnapped this morning by an unidentified assailant. She was released tonight after a harrowing day in which she was forced to answer riddles to avoid torture. She is currently being held at Monmouth Medical Center and is in stable condition.”

Kaye sat bolt upright. “Riddles?!”

“This is your doing,” Roiben said, looking at Kaye across the dim living room. “What do you think of the first day of the next seven years?”

Kaye shook her head, not understanding.

The screen showed men and women being strapped to stretchers in Thompson Park. They had been found naked, dancing in a circle, and had to be forcibly restrained by police to make them stop. Their clothes were found nearby, and the available identification showed no common link. They were being treated for dehydration and blistered feet.

Behind the cameras, Kaye could easily see the fat toadstools growing in a thick circle.

Kaye rubbed a hand over her face. “But why? I don’t understand.”

Roiben spoke as he began to pace the room. “Everything is always easier when considered black and white, isn’t it? Your friends, are, after all, good and wise, so all solitary fey must be good and wise. Your friends have some respect and fear and knowledge of humans, so all the solitary fey will follow in that example.”

The phone rang, startling her. She got up and answered it. “Hello?”

It was Janet. She sounded subdued. “Hi, Kaye.”

“Um, hi.” Janet was the last person she expected to call.

“I was wondering if you wanted to hang out.”

“What?” Kaye said.

“No, seriously. All of us guys are going to a rave tonight. You want to come?”

“Have you seen the news?”

“No, why?”

Kaye fumbled for an explanation. “There’s supposed to be a bear on the loose.”

“We’re going to the Pier. Don’t be weird. So are you coming?”

“No one should go. Janet, it really isn’t safe.”

“So don’t go,” Janet said. “By the way, have you seen my brother?”

Kaye’s insides suddenly turned to ice. “Corny’s gone?”

“Yeah,” Janet answered. “Since yesterday.”

Kaye couldn’t help wincing. Corny was under the damn hill. She knew it. She looked desperately at Roiben, but he regarded her blankly. He couldn’t hear Janet. He’d never even met Corny.