The following dawn, I spent a little extra time individually with Becca and Rachel while Katherine slept in. Both were a little more demanding, and though I might have chalked Rachel's aggressiveness up to the internal conflict she had to manage daily, I was completely unprepared when Becca firmly moved my hand to her backside during a kiss that persisted much longer than it had to. The fact that I didn't object worried me too, though not until much later. It's hard to analyze your life choices while in the arms of a beautiful woman, especially when the only one who sees a problem with it is you.
To everyone's surprise, Katherine was awake by breakfast, and as she buttered a slice of toast we received another unexpected visitor. Amy appeared and sat on the counter without a word, her expression grim but much less troubled.
"How are you feeling?" Becca asked.
"Better today," Amy mumbled, grabbing a grape out of the fruit basket, "but to tell you the truth, the recovery wasn't as bad as I expected. Like a morning after drinking Callum's peppered gin."
"I'm intrigued," Rachel said, raising an eyebrow. "But what about the mind fuckery when you crashed? You didn't cry into your pillow half the day?"
"Not really. I felt down, displaced, but it wasn't crippling."
"Then you missed the worst part. Tom was nearby while you were coming down, maybe that helped."
Amy shrugged and helped herself to a blueberry from the bowl that had been set out for her. "Or maybe it's because I'm a different species. The trip down sucked balls for sure, but it was almost worth it. I'd be tempted to ask for another dose, but I think that's a road I'd best avoid."
"You think?"
"Any plans now that you're back on your feet?" I asked.
"I'll be tuning the security system after breakfast. The wards are a little too sensitive, so squirrels and birds keep tripping the alarm, but I can't just dial it down either. There are plenty of Fae that aren't much bigger." She indicated herself with a subtle gesture. "After that, Finn's got me on another project."
"She keeps you busy."
"Better than boredom. I'm motivated anyway, this one's for Meridian."
"Really?" Becca asked. "What are you working on?"
"Maybe nothing, but we'll find out in the next day or two. I'm not ready to spill the tea just yet." Amy yawned, then stood, plucked another berry, then stumped off with a vague wave. "See you all later."
It's hard to imagine someone lethargically bounding away like a hungover grasshopper, but Amy managed it, vanishing before I could ask further questions. I put the subject out of my mind. Any change that affected Meridian affected her, and I trusted her judgment if not Finn's.
Days passed with little change. Moods began to improve all around, and it became easier to sideline our larger problems as minor inconveniences rose up in the moment and took their place.
Most of the complaints centered around the luxuries we'd grown accustomed to in a short time, petty details like an interruption in the shower rotation after Katherine and I began sharing one in the mornings. She suggested we drop the formalities and allow everyone to come and go as they pleased. Rachel agreed. Becca and I dissented, though my ally's protests were weak and I feared losing her support to pressure from the others.
It left me in a strange position. I wasn't particularly shy, and I possessed all the inclinations common to my gender, yet I was the one drawing lines and defending them. I understood why, but balancing respect for their desires and their independence against my responsibilities as a man, a friend, and a lover, had become far more awkward since Katherine and I consummated our relationship. Once again, her predictions had been spot on.
After so much agonizing, the act itself had become the lowest point of contention. My girlfriend had exhibited no obvious changes over time except for a heightened seduction she brought to every interaction, and a slightly wider range of moods that had nothing to do with her declination between morning and evening sex. She even admitted that mornings were gratuitous, that she had no specific need for it, but since we'd already messed the sheets and our schedules were flexible, there was no viable argument against a rematch.
Becca continued her work on the Fferyn and the scrying bowl and fidgeted with her tea recipe, demonstrating surprising, though minor, successes with each. One afternoon she burst out of her room with excitement and called us together on the back porch.
"What's going on?" Rachel asked, rubbing at her bare arms. "Shit, I could cut glass with my nipples right now."
"I'll be quick," Becca replied and handed her the Fferyn while she positioned a small, clay pot full of dirt on the concrete. "I just wanted to show you what I did. I hope I can make it work again."
Magic hadn't always worked out the way we expected it to, but she was possessed by a rare confidence and I didn't want to interrupt. She reclaimed the staff back and turned to face us, cradling it with both hands.
"Should I be here?" I asked, concerned that my presence might interfere, but Becca nodded.
"I want you to stay. Meg told me what to look for, and I found a way to build a kind of—I can't really explain it without going into a bunch of other things that'll take forever. It's like a filter, or a wall."
She grinned and faced the flower pot, then closed her eyes, gripping the staff in one hand with the other straight out, palm forward. A few mumbled words triggered the familiar anticipation. At first there was nothing, then Katherine gasped as a shiny, lime-green tendril broke the surface of the soil, growing before our eyes like a timelapse video. Broad, waxy leaves branched out from the stem as another joined it, then a third, lengthening, budding, then flowering into large, white petals.
I gaped in awe and Katherine clapped her hands, giddy with her friend's success, but Becca's brow knit in concentration and her smile melted away. She finally dropped her arms and opened her eyes, defeated.
"I can't stop it."
"Stop what?"
"Just watch."
After a few seconds, the peace lily began to twist, turning in on itself like a creature in pain. The leaves shriveled, the petals blackened, and it withered, slowly at first, but the decay accelerated until it collapsed into dust, indistinguishable from the soil beneath it.
"Remember Finn's warning about that healing spell?" Becca sighed, though she retained a spark of her original excitement. "I think the same thing is happening here. I got it to stick, but it doesn't know when to stop and the flower just uses itself up."
"It's still pretty wild," I encouraged.
"I guess," she replied with a crooked grin. "I have a lot more control if I don't have to attach the spell to the plant, but it takes longer and it wears you down."
"One day at a time, Becks," Rachel said. She didn't seem as impressed as the rest of us, but that might have been from standing in forty degree weather wearing shorts and a tank top. "This is great, seriously proud of you, but I'm going back inside where it's still summer."
Katherine beamed and hugged Becca like a proud parent. "I'm sure you'll get it with a little more practice."
"Or a lot," Becca shrugged. "There are so many twists and conditions to understanding how it all fits together. I wish I knew more about the Veil, because it's not only a blank page. When you add something it creates these weird currents, and those don't match the currents in the real world but you still need them to flow in the same direction, and it's super hard even to compare them, but I have to line them up and I don't—" She stopped when Katherine put a finger against her lips.
"This is amazing," she said. "You're amazing. Take the compliment."
Becca blushed, opened her mouth, closed it again, then quietly said, "Thank you."
Kelly canceled two of my lab nights that week and remained formal and aloof the rest of the time, more like Miss Gold than herself. I wondered if I had somehow offended her. I still hoped for the opportunity to talk to Kelly about developing a cure, and that would be a lot more difficult without a rapport. So, Miss Barnes, what do you know about the addictive properties of fairy blood? I needed to find a better way to begin that conversation, so I let her brood in peace.
I hadn't seen Penny again since she knocked on the window of the Jeep. Each time I pulled out of the lot I thought of her, wondering how she'd known about Becca. There was nothing safe about her prying into any of our lives, but I avoided that confrontation even more adamantly than a reconciliation with Kelly. I might have begun the long, slow process of coming to terms with my improbable powers, but I still feared them, and Penny's tenacity could become a catalyst for disaster.
At the end of the week I woke long before dawn, spooning Katherine. She had kicked off the sheets after our escapades the night before and it was warm enough in the cabin to sleep without them. She hugged my arm in her sleep with my hand wedged between her breasts, and I fought off the urge to pull away. Years of conditioning wouldn't vanish overnight, but I was making progress.
Instead of waking her, I eased myself out of bed, pulled on a pair of sweat pants, and went for a jog around the island. I wasn't anywhere near ready to accompany the girls on their morning run, but I had improved. The new feeling of strength was refreshing, if I could avoid thinking about Stewart Hall and Gloria, but it wasn't supernatural, nothing like my father. It might not have been magical at all, just a slight increase in stamina and a little less muscle pain, if not for one thing:
Sex with Katherine was indulgent, invigorating, as though our shared passion fueled my endurance. There seemed to be no physical limit, no need to pace myself. At first I feared I was taking something from her, the way a leannan sidhe slowly fed off its victims, but whatever affected me seemed to bring her along for the ride. At least mostly. During the act I often lost myself within the landscape of her anima, and she would occasionally slow me down, or stop me entirely, when her fatigue surpassed her appetite. She was always loving in her corrections, tolerant, teaching without judging.
I knew it was legitimate magic because that vigor didn't extend to every day life and circling the island for half an hour left me gasping. I walked it off for another ten minutes, wandering through the little island grove until I stood before the hawthorn's trunk, a darkness deeper than the pre-dawn sky. It loomed like a crack in space, wearing its silver leaves and red berries like a bloody crown.
I hadn't given it much thought. It had become a fixture, one more oddity in a world where sense was optional. As I approached it that morning, something else shared my interest.
A flicker of light and faint, musical notes, rippling like a reflection of blue-white fire on the surface of a lake, flourished into being and began circling the black tree. The wisp was another fixture, seldom seen since the day Finn coaxed me into sticking my hand inside. It had made a few distant appearances, an uncertain apparition lurking just outside the corner of the eye, then blinking out of sight after a few seconds, but that morning it was clear as moonlight, pulsing to an unsteady rhythm. Waiting.
A keening echoed from the water and I whirled to face the sound. It was only the hunting song of the river dragon. When it didn't repeat I turned back. The air was soundless and still. The wisp was gone. The encounter left me off balance, as in the aftermath of a dream, and I turned back toward the warehouse.
The girls would be up soon, and though it would probably upset Katherine, I longed for a private shower. I undressed and tossed my clothes into the wicker hamper we kept just outside the bath house. I considered turning on all nine shower heads the way Katherine did, but even though it cost us nothing, it felt irresponsible to waste the water, especially when I was the only one beneath them.
An assortment of towels were usually draped over hot water pipes, lending them a comfortable warmth, but whoever bathed last hadn't replaced them. We had extras stacked on the shelves inside, so I slid open the door and parted the curtains, and was greeted by the sound of running water. Someone had left a faucet on all night. Mumbling under my breath, I walked over to shut it off, and froze as I reached over the basin.
Amy reclined in the sink, eyes closed, half submerged beneath the water, and stark naked.
Many things went through my mind in a very short time. The first was that she looked surprisingly human. Her body was a little too thin with limbs that were slightly too long, but everything else was well proportioned. The long, beaded braids of her sandy, blonde hair hung down, framing her shoulders, and the dense freckles covering her back and sides left her stomach and breasts as clear and pale as her face.
While my thoughts left my body petrified, Amy stirred, then stretched, then opened her eyes. She stared at me. I stared back. Then she screamed.
Several minutes later, I sat on a bench across from the vanities, wrapped in a bath sheet, while Amy perched on the edge of the counter with a hand towel wound around her narrow body.
"I said it's fine," she repeated, though she couldn't look me in the eye.
"I'm still sorry."
"How were you supposed to know I'd be in the sink? I should have been more careful."
"Maybe we should put up a sign."
She laughed, only a little nervously, "It's a little late for that."
"You don't have a bathroom in your apartment?"
She shook her head, "Same reason you don't have them in yours. I have a toilet and a sink, but the pipes that come up from the heater don't go anywhere near my rooms. They'd have to tear up a bunch of the existing plumbing. I've always been fine with this," she indicated the sink next to her, "but I guess I need a new solution." I felt no less awkward than I had minutes before.
"I'm sorry," I said again.
"Will you shut up? We saw each other naked, it's not the end of the world. Look, we're not even the same species, so think of me like a sea lion, sunning itself out on the beach."
I scoffed before I could stop myself. "You hardly look like a different species. You could easily pass for human if you were a few feet taller."
"Maybe. Does it really matter? There can't be anything sexual between us. Don't get me wrong, you're enough like a hob that I can appreciate your looks, and your chemistry certainly works on me, but you're not getting anywhere near me with that monster between your legs."
I'd have expected it from Rachel and would have seen it as simple teasing, but from Amy it left me flustered. "I'm not that big," I muttered helplessly.
"Maybe not to you, but that thing is almost as long as my arm."
"If you usually bathe this early," I said to change the subject, "I'll make a point of staying away."
"Don't stress. Living here is pretty chill and maybe that's your fault but it's not a bad thing. If I didn't have a few hang-ups from being a hob, I probably wouldn't have cared at all. I'll get over it, and I'll be more alert from now on."
She dropped to the floor and collected her clothes from a bundle beneath the vanity. "If your conscience is soothed enough, I need to go. It'll be daylight soon, and I want to get a few hours of sleep. But do us both a favor and forget about this, okay?"
I nodded as she left through a hinged panel at the base of the wall, but inwardly, while my stupid brain replayed our encounter on an endless loop, I knew the memory wouldn't vanish soon.
I grabbed a towel and made my way back toward the shower thinking the day was off to one hell of a start. The curtains didn't cover the entire wall, but they were sufficient enough that none of us had made any additional effort toward privacy. I pushed them aside and opened the door, took a step, then another, then I jammed my palms into my eye sockets hard enough to see stars. Rachel had just dropped the last of her night clothes into the hamper.
"Hey Tom," she began. Her voice was bland, almost casual, and she only hesitated for a second. "How's it hanging?" As if in reply, the towel around my waist chose that moment to come loose and fall into a pile around my feet.