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I didn’t know whether to cheer for Brigitta or cry. The fertility curse had really screwed up her life, even before she’d been killed, and now it was screwing up Ana’s too. I really hoped I was wrong about a vamp still having his or her fangs in Ana; the poor faeling already had more than enough problems to deal with.
‘Sssometimess a fate ca
‘Gosh, yes, do tell.’ Sylvia gave me an eager look.
‘Sorry, no,’ I said, and reached over and pressed the ‘off ’ button on her phone. Whatever the Morrígan/ Alienbaby show was about, I wasn’t in the mood to discuss it after that sordid little tale. I fixed Sylvia with a look. ‘Thanks for getting rid of the books, Sylvia, but what exactly are you doing here?’
Her phone trilled the theme tune from Dirty Dancing. She cancelled the call and the phone vanished. Two seconds later the hovering family tree and the newspapers did too. The Librarian obviously didn’t want to leave them hanging around (no pun intended). Sylvia smiled coyly. ‘Is that, no, you won’t tell, or no, the Morrígan didn’t show you anything?’
‘You first,’ I said.
‘Fiddlesticks, that’s not fair,’ she pouted.
‘Up to you.’ I shrugged and looked down at my bloodstained clothes. ‘But if you’re not going to talk, then I’m getting cleaned up.’ I turned and headed for the bathroom, saying over my shoulder, ‘Don’t forget to shut the window on your way out.’
‘Wait!’ she called. ‘Wait! I’ll tell. You know you said one of us could court you so long as it wasn’t one of the Twig Gang. Well, here I am.’
I turned to see her standing with her arms outstretched and a big smile on her face. ‘Ta dah!’ She gri
‘ You’ vecome to court me? Somehow I don’t think you’re going to be much use in getting me pregnant—not that I wantto get pregnant,’ I finished quickly.
‘I’m a dryad, silly,’ she giggled. ‘Depending on our tree—mine’s a cherry, Prunus avium—some of us come with a choice of both’—she patted her breasts, then fluffed her skirt—‘ accessories, if you see what I mean. But I prefer to be female, mostly. Especially in the spring. People look at you odd if you’re male and dressed in white and pink.’
Like the Barbie pink cycle helmet wouldn’t do it?‘You’re a hermaphrodite.’
‘Actually, I’m cosexual, since I’m a tree.’ She gave a delighted laugh and clapped her hands together. ‘No one’s told you, have they?’
Evidently, it wasn’t an aspect of fae life that my faerie dog-mother had decided I needed to know, for whatever reason. And there I’d thought Gria
‘Right, so … you like girls, then?’ I said, thinking that having a fluffy-headed cosexual dryad hanging around me was hands-down a better option than Bandana, who came with an excess of sadistic testosterone built in.
‘Girls, boys—or both.’ Her grin stretched wider. ‘It’s spring, my sap’s rising, and I just lovesex.’
Oh, goodie.‘What if I don’t lovegirls?’
‘Oh, but you do! We’ve all seen the YouTube of you kissing that female vamp last year.’ She fa
‘That was an act,’ I said flatly.
‘It was?’ Her exuberance visibly deflated as she regarded me doubtfully. ‘Um, well, I suppose I could change my appearance. But it’s been a long time since I’ve been male. It’ll take me a while.’
I held my hands up. ‘It’s not an issue, okay? I said I’d let a dryad court me, so fine, we’ll court, but courting means exactly that: dating, getting to know each other, finding out if we like each other. Courting does notmean jumping into bed together in the next five minutes, or in the next five hours, or whatever. So, y’know, you can just stay as you are.’
‘Oh, all right.’ Disappointment flickered over her face, then it was gone, replaced by another wide smile. ‘So, do you want to go out and get some di
Not exactly what I had pla
‘Bandana? Oh, you mean Algernon? He’s a willow, they’re dioecious, and he’s strictly male.’ She sighed. ‘He’s also a spiteful, bullying cad, though you know that, don’t you.’
‘Yeah, I do,’ I agreed, and closed the bathroom door, wondering how I was going to get rid of her.
Chapter Seventeen
I turned the shower on and stripped my top off, then heard a high-pitched sound. After a couple of seconds I realised Sylvia was whistling while she worked—maybe the Disney books had been hers too; all we needed now were the seven dwarves to show up. I grimaced at my jeans. Better still, a nice Brownie who knew how to get bloodstains out of denim. I carefully unzipped them, peeled them and my briefs down and kicked them away. Then I stared at my stomach.
A black handprint marked my flesh like a brand.
Crap! The uncomfortable feelings hadn’t been because my jeans were wet, but because Tavish had taggedme with some sort of spell. No wonder his touch had felt like it was burning me. I looked, but the handprint didn’t change, so whatever the spell was, it wasn’t active. Tentatively, I placed my own hand on it. The skin felt leathery and rough, and itchy, as if it were healing; and one finger felt damp. I sniffed it … closed my eyes … sweet, spicy, Christmassy: ci
Which didn’t tell me a damn thing.
I slumped to the floor, and sat staring blindly at the tiles. I was sonot having a good day.
Half an hour later, after the long shower I’d been craving—during which questions had jabbed my mind like carrion crows at a fresh corpse—I wrapped myself in my towelling robe, grabbed a handful of cotton wool balls—the main ingredient of my ‘neutralise the cherry tree’ plan—and walked out into my living room.
Sylvia was standing under my beaded chandelier with her arms outstretched, eyes closed, mouth partially open, a relaxed, oblivious expression on her face. Her dress flared out like a huge white flower, fully repaired, and all her cuts and scratches were gone. Tiny green buds peaked out from under her pink cycle helmet, and small hair-like roots snaked out from her feet, ankles, even the silver sandals, and trailed through the puddle of blood, which was now much smaller than before.
‘I hope you don’t mind,’ she whispered breathlessly without opening her eyes, ‘but blood is such a good fertiliser I couldn’t resist.’
‘’Course not,’ I said, opening my hand and launching the cotton wool into the air with a quick push of my will to activate the spells. Security Stingers ~ the Ultimate Intruder Deterrent. The spells flew towards Sylvia like small pollen-thirsty bees, buzzing around her and wrapping her face and pink cycle helmet in a mass of fine, sticky, sting-laden threads. She jerked, her eyes opening briefly, then she sighed and they closed again, in sleep this time. Her clothes disappeared, leaving her standing naked, apart from her white shorts and the pink cycling helmet; both were obviously real, not part of her Glamour. She didn’t look that different, if you ignored her skin, now greeny-grey bark striated with small brown lenticels, presumably like the trunk of her tree. I waited for her to fall over, aiming to catch her, but she didn’t. When I looked down, I realised her roots had embedded themselves in my wooden floorboards and were holding her in place.