Page 22 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
Ace nodded, picking at a maple syrup stain from breakfast on his polo. “I’ve tried eavesdropping,” he confessed, knowing we’d never tell on him. “I can hear them—sometimes they’re shouting—but I never understand what they’re saying—like the words are jumbled.”
“Or you just have terrible hearing,” Vi teased. Ace had fine hearing, but he also had the smallest ears of us Larkspurs.
Ace sniffed, grinning. “Whatever.”
“Why the hell would they gather here in the middle of the night to argue?” I asked. “Daddy doesn’t even like Arbutus Colwort. He called him a crotchety nitpicker after the Yule feast.”
“I asked Aunt Aylie if she knew what was happening.” Vi’s face puckered. “She said, ‘Don’t stick your nose in men’s business, Nebby Nancy.’”
I snorted, her impression dead-on.
“Well, I’m a man,” Ace griped. “But you don’t see them inviting me into their meetings.”
Vi and I shared a smirk but refrained from mentioning that themanbefore us still couldn’t wash his own laundry.
“Is that why you want to know what they’re discussing?” Vi guessed. “You feel left out of the boy’s club?”
“Partly.” His amber eyes clouded. “But I’m more concerned that they’re talking about Dad.”
My heart lurched. “Why would they be discussing him?”
Such gloom had no place in my little brother’s mind. Yet, there it was, evoking flashes of a sad dream in mine. “You see how he is, Amy. He keeps getting worse. What if they’re in there deciding what’s going to happen after he—”
“No,” I cut him off, gritting my teeth. “That isn’t going to happen, Ace. Not for a long time. So, don’t you speak those words and tempt fate.”
“But what if they’re making decisions about us? Without consulting us?”
My anger roiled at just the thought. “They wouldn’t do that,” I bit out.
They better not.
“Dad’s in there with them every night,” Vi reminded Ace. “He wouldn’tletthem do that.”
Ace chewed his lip, wanting to believe her but doubting that he could. “I don’t know. Just—something doesn’t feel right.”
My intuition agreed, but I put on a brave face. “I’m sure it’s nothing major. They’re probably just meeting about Beltane. Maybe their caterer fell through, and they’re struggling to find a new one on short notice.”
“That would explain the shouting,” Vi said. “Can’t put 70 drunk Dananns in a field with nothing to feed them. They might relapse to the old ways—human sacrifice.”
We all laughed, our tension lifting.
That night, after my brother and sister had gone to sleep—in their own beds—I meandered around my room, housing my dorm belongings.
Fianna slinked along my surfaces as I reorganized, marking my new collectibles as her own. After she knocked over a set of standing picture frames, I lifted her Creamsicle body off my bookshelf. “Go find one of your hidey holes,” I tutted, setting her in the hallway with a scratch behind her ear.
She’d made personal retreats out of numerous nooks and crannies throughout our old house. We didn’t know what she used them for, but sometimes she was willfully lost for days.
Meowing, Fianna strutted off.
Frilly lamps lit my room as I padded across my rug. I wore a pair of Soffe shorts and a V-neck tee, quieting my mind with Rusher and other R&B artists. Humming, I clipped my iBloom Shimmy to my shirt and grabbed one of the posters out of the bin I’d used to transport my wall art home. Careful that the sticky tack on its back didn’t deface the glossy image on the front, I unrolled it and pressed it to the wall beside my window seat. My vision blurred upon the Bayview Boys’ smiling faces as I tugged them flat. Just as I affixed their bottom edge to the wall, something beyond my latticed window caught my eye.
Sucking in a breath, I peered around my jacquard curtain panel to find Danann men emerging from a group of cars parked along the curb of our Squirrel Hill street. I recognized Sy Rockrose and his long silver hair. Head bowed, he chatted with Ash Loosestrife, a stocky man who’d worked with my father at the bank before Daddy retired. They opened the iron gate barring them from our front yard.
Behind them walked the other gatherers on my siblings’ list. Arbutus Colwort wore an aged bowler hat and a tweed coat, scowling in the fog. Clem Polkweed trudged across the lamplit pavers leading to our house, almost dozing as he went. He seemed the type to don his nightcap at sundown, so I figured he rarely saw midnight. After Clem came Cole Hawthorne, a handsome man with graying brown hair, the source of his son’s appealing form and lime-green eyes.
Seeing Cole’s progeny taking up the rear, I could’ve cartwheeled. Something in me tightened—something I hadn’t quelled earlier. He lookedyummy, dressed in a zip-up sweater and fitted jeans. Was he there to see me? Maybe he’d sneak away from the others, find me in my room, and—
I shivered at the detailed scenario playing out in my head.
