When Libby Met the Fairies and her Whole Life Went Fae (21 page)

Then suddenly, Dean’s voice, right near her ear. “I see you made it.”

“They’ve posted look-outs,” she whispered.

“So I noticed.”

“Are we going to cut through the woods? In the dark?”

“We’re sure not going down to the road. Want me to carry that?”

She handed him the backpack and he turned and began walking away, into the woods. A branch hit her face and she fell back a half-step, staring into the black. “Dean, wait! I can’t see you.”

“Right here,” he said in a low voice and she heard the faint rustle of forest litter as he came back toward her. “Okay?”

She put her hand out and grabbed onto one of his belt loops. He didn’t object, so that’s how they made their way through the shadows to his cabin. Libby holding on to keep him from moving too fast. To keep from getting lost.

♦ ♦ ♦

“The food’s probably cold,” Libby said as he began unpacking the boxes.

Bo was standing next to him, looking up expectantly. She didn’t blame him. When Dean opened the boxes and the scent wafted out, it smelled divine. Fortunately it didn’t take too long to re-heat it.

♦ ♦ ♦

“I came over there today to look for you,” Dean said. “I wanted to tell you something.”

“Yeah?” They’d finished the food and were sitting on opposite ends of the couch. Dean had opened a bottle of Riesling. It had gone nicely with the Thai food and tasted pretty good afterward, too, and since there was no fire this time he’d lit one of the oil lamps, which cast a dim, warm light from its spot on the bookshelf. She took a sip of wine and noticed the faint bitter smell of the burning lamp oil.

“Here’s the thing,” Dean said. “I think Bo can tell it, when your little people are around.”

Libby lowered her glass. “Really?”

Dean nodded.

“What makes you think so?”

“He acts different. He avoids certain spots.”

“On my land, you mean?”

“It’s hard to tell in the woods, so I don’t know, maybe he does it around here, too. But over on your property, yeah, that’s where I’ve noticed it.”

She looked at Bo. The dog had given up hope on any Thai handouts and was dozing where he’d flopped down on the rug. “So what’s he do, exactly?”

“Well, you were talking to one of them today, right?”

“Yes.”

“Bo circled way around that spot when he headed toward you.”

“Really.”

“And sometimes when we’ve been over that way, when you aren’t there, he’ll start off toward something, a rabbit or something else that’s caught his eye, and then he’ll kind of slow down all of a sudden and . . . I don’t know how else to explain it. He circles.”

“Wow,” she said. “Wow.” She was so happy, all of a sudden, that she felt kind of teary. Which meant only one thing—in the back of her mind she had still wondered if she was a crackpot. A loon. Wasn’t that the most reasonable explanation? “I’m—wow. This is—” She wiped her eyes with her napkin and giggled. “You can’t know what a relief it is, to have you say that.”

“I guess not,” he said. “Are you crying?”

“Kind of.”

“So I see.”

“I’m under a bit of stress.”

He nodded. “They’ve been digging latrines on my property.”

She groaned. Of course they’d knocked on her door, from time to time, calling in to see if they could use her bathroom. Libby, crouched down low against the floor, hiding . . . she’d assumed they’d made trips into town, to the fast food restaurants, maybe.

“I’m so sorry—”

“You need to tell them to leave. You know that, right?”

Libby’s relief had drained away and she felt herself stiffen. “I don’t see how.”

“There are ways.”

“Call the cops?” she said, a touch of sarcasm creeping into her tone.

He looked at her. “That’s always an option. There are others.”

“I don’t want this in the papers. I don’t—the publicity . . .”

“It’s going to make the papers, sooner or later, if you don’t get rid of them. More wine?”

“No, thanks.” She’d been feeling pretty good. But not anymore. “I should probably be getting back.” She glanced at her watch. “Gina and Maisey will be getting home soon.”

“They’re out?”

“They’re at Alex’s.” Libby had been sitting with her right leg tucked under her. It had fallen asleep. She untucked it and put her foot on the floor. She rather wished, now, that she hadn’t mentioned where Gina and Maisey were.

“They’re up to something, aren’t they.” It wasn’t a question, and Libby didn’t answer. He went on anyway. “They’ll take this all away from you, you know. You’re letting your sister control you. And for what?”

“I always have. It keeps the peace.”

“So what?”

“You like peace. Obviously.” He was holed up by himself in the woods, for crying out loud.

“There’s a such thing as standing up for your own happiness,” he answered quietly.

Libby had never liked being lectured. Despite how it may seem, the way she let Gina walk all over her. Yeah, she knew that her situation was a mess. But now who was trying to control her?

So maybe it was the wine, loosening her mouth too much. Maybe she was tired. Or maybe it was safer to turn on Dean than Gina.

Whatever the reason, Libby did something next that she would regret for some time.

She turned mean.

“Stand up for my own happiness?” she said. “You’re one to talk.”

“What?”

“The kids have told me your whole story. Seems that you didn’t exactly stand up for you and your fiancée.”

As soon as she said it, she felt the cruelty of it. This wasn’t her. What was she doing? Why would she say such a thing?

She stole a look at him.

He wasn’t facing her, but she could tell his face had hardened, even in profile.

Her stomach had knotted. “I’m sorry, Dean,” she whispered. “That was a terrible thing to say. Please let me take it back . . .”

He didn’t answer, and she stood up, setting her unfinished wine on the end table. Bo raised his head expectantly. “I should be going.”

He didn’t say a word to her the whole walk back through the woods. Not a word.

She hardly even knew the guy.

But he’d been decent to her. More than once.

And this was how she’d repaid him.

She felt wretched, and it didn’t help to know that she deserved it.

31

She still believed that, sooner or later, it would have all died down of its own accord.

The campers would have had to leave once the weather turned cold. Word would have spread, eventually, about how uncooperative Libby was.

It would have died down.

Granted, the tent village seemed to grow a little more every week. For every camper who packed up and left, it seemed two new groups would arrive. Their parked cars now stretched down the road a quarter mile from her driveway, in both directions, on both sides of the road. License plates from all over. Connecticut. Maine. Oregon. California. Kentucky. Texas.

Gina, meanwhile, was busy “organizing.” Apparently she’d asked Tyler to design a website. She chattered on about it all the time, about the features Tyler was building. It was going to have a guestbook people could sign, she said, and a form for submitting questions to Libby. Well, to the fairies.

Libby pretended to ignore her sister. She was trying to keep her focus on her priorities.
Skin Tones
, of course, since that was her only source of income. And her gardens.

She bought a hand tractor. Put it on a credit card, which she hated to do, it maxed her out. But she needed to till some more land and keep her fallow land mown. And it felt good to climb up onto the thing, to feel the vibration of the engine behind her, the power of it, to crane her neck around and see the newly-turned soil behind her.

She still tried to sneak out, sometimes, so she could work without the campers bothering her. She didn’t have much luck with that. There were so many of them, and they were always watching for her. So she did her best to ignore them, too. It wasn’t always easy. When she sowed her newly-plowed land, for instance, 1:3 mix of alfalfa and comfrey, they got all excited because they guessed who had told her what to plant there. Followed her, pestering her with questions, some of them taking notes in little notebooks.

Once in awhile she did get a minute alone. Not too often. One morning she got a chance to tell the little man that the campers wanted to ask him questions. “So, let them ask,” he’d said. He could be a sour one.

“They want me to ask you questions, then tell them what your answers are.”

“Humans always want shortcuts.”

“What should I tell them?”

“It’s up to you.” And he’d walked away.

She didn’t like it being up to her. She’d been thinking lately about when it was right to take charge of things. It seemed to her she had a pretty good sense of it. She bought the tractor, didn’t she? It wasn’t an easy decision, either. She had to compare brands and decide if she wanted to buy new or second-hand. Ultimately she went second-hand but top of the line. That way, in theory, it wouldn’t fall apart a nanosecond after the warranty expired.

But it’s harder when there are people involved. That’s what always messed her up—she hated going against other peoples’ wishes. So instead she stalled.

This tactic was beginning to irritate Gina, however. Libby still hadn’t asked the little man about her pineapple operation. Every night, just about, Gina phoned Mr. Hawaii, about midnight our time—on Libby’s land line. Apparently their pineapple plants were dying of some sort of rot. “Here, you talk to her,” she would say, and grab Libby by the arm as she walked by, thrusting the receiver into her hand. So she’d listen to Gina’s boyfriend, Farley, give convoluted descriptions of his operation. His biggest worry was the local gods. He’d hired ethnic Hawaiians and was paying them a living wage and his plants were still dying. Libby would mumble something about how she didn’t think she could help on the wage thing and hand the phone back to her glowering sister.

Yeah. It would have died down. Eventually.

Only Gina didn’t want it to die down.

♦ ♦ ♦

Sunday morning.

Libby’s plan was to lay low and try to sneak out by herself. Ha. She was coming down from brushing her teeth when the front door burst open and in strode Gina, with Alex, Maisey and Tyler trailing behind.

Maisey’s hair had been cut. Bob, high forehead. It looked pretty good, actually. With her piercings she could pull off the goth-chic look pretty well.

“Team meeting!” Gina called. “Time to answer some of your guests’ questions.”

Guests, she called them.

Libby took a step backwards. “I never agreed to this, Gina.”

“We’ll do all the work,” Gina said. “Alex, go up to Libby’s office and get a pad and pen.”

Libby scowled. “I’ll get it.” She didn’t want Alex in her office.

When she got back downstairs, Gina called her into the living room. She’d pulled down the bedspread Libby had over the window. “We needed more light,” she said. “Alex is going to take notes.”

Alex looked at Libby and Libby handed her the pad.

“Okay,” Gina said. “First one.” She was sitting on the couch next to Maisey and Tyler, and had a little stack of papers that she’d unfolded and smoothed out on one knee. She picked up one of the papers. “‘Dear Fairy Lady.’”

Alex sniggered and Gina said “Now, now!” but was smiling at her, so Alex kept going: “Sounds like an advice columnist for gays.”

Tyler let out a muffled snort of appreciation.

“‘Dear Fairy Lady,’” Gina repeated. “‘My question is . . .’” She squinted at the page. “Oh, I see what he’s saying. ‘My question is, all the natural world became by evolving. Did fairies evolve, and what did they evolve from? Thank you for answering my question.’”

“How’m I supposed to answer a question like that?”

“I wonder what they did evolve from,” Alex said.

Gina was studying the paper. “Well, we have to say something. Let’s see . . . Alex, you ready?”

“I really don’t think—” Libby fidgeted nervously.

“Tom, his name’s Tom. ‘Dear Tom. Fairies and humans do, in fact, share a common ancestor—’”

“You can’t say that!” Libby jumped up. “They’re . . . like archetypes. Archetypes don’t evolve—”

“You can’t say ‘archetypes,’” Gina said. “Nobody knows what that means. Did you get that, Alex?”

Alex nodded, her pen poised. Libby sat back down. What could she do?

“‘However, as you . . .’ Hmmm. Scratch that.” She thought a second. “Okay, write it this way—”

“I already wrote ‘however.’”

“We’ll have to copy them over.”

Alex nodded.

“Aunt Libby should copy them over,” Tyler said. “Then sign them. In her handwriting and everything.”