Chapter 20 In Which a Family Re Occurs
In Which a Family Reunion Occurs
I led Sahir inside, my heart still pounding in my ears.
Someone closed the front door behind us; I glanced back to see Gaheris and Lene. What I could see of Lene looked terrified, cowering against the inside of the door.
Our entryway was nearly pitch-black. The house had always been long and low and dark. As a child, I often tripped over shoes in the entryway, even with the dim, watery wall sconces on.
I took a deep breath, orienting myself. A wall of closets stretched away on our left, ending in a corner. The far wall held the pocket doors that separated us from the living space.
I kicked off my boots and gestured to the faeries to do the same.
Then I went to the pocket doors and pushed them open.
This was my grandmother’s house first; we’d moved in when she got sick and I’d grown up with her. My mother insisted that the house was the height of ’70s chic and had refused to redecorate for the past several decades.
The entryway opened directly into the TV.
Not the TV room. The TV, which was a square box about half a foot across.
On the left, a long, narrow, windowless hallway dwindled into darkness.
On the right, a wide living room redolent with green couches and a wall of windows looking out onto a wide grassy lawn.
Sahir pressed against my back, his right hand curling around my right arm.
I shuffled us forward, so that we all stood next to the TV.
The watery gray daylight barely reached under our eaves, so most of the light came from the kitchen, above and below the white saloon doors my grandma so deeply loved.
My mother burst out of the kitchen and stopped, a silhouette against the light.
My dad followed on her heels, bumping into her so they nearly tumbled forward.
We all stood still for a moment, caught up in shock as we stared at each other. I wondered if Gaheris’s hair was backlighting me, making it as difficult for them to see my face as it was for me to see theirs against the light from the kitchen.
“Hello,” Sahir said, using his grip on my arm to step in front of me.
I elbowed him in the ribs and pushed forward. “Mom,” I said. “Dad.”
We all stared at each other, their eyes the only bright points in their faces.
My dad reached out and flicked a light switch, illuminating everyone.
“Miriam Rachel Geld, what are you wearing?” my mom asked.
I deflated.
“How are you here?” my dad asked, pushing past my mom and reaching for me.
I threw myself into his arms, and he held me so tightly I wheezed.
“I wasn’t trapped,” I whispered, feeling my eyes well up. I squeezed my eyes shut until the urge to cry evaporated.
My dad let go of me.
I felt my mother’s hand, tentative, on my back.
“What’s going on?” my dad asked, relinquishing me to her. “I thought you would die if you left.”
I squeezed my mom, my chin on her shoulder. I stared at my dad, standing behind my mom like the Queen’s guard.
“There was a way out,” I said, unsure how to explain what I hadn’t even accepted. “Um, these are my friends,” I added, gesturing behind myself with one arm while I held my mom with the other. “Lene, Gaheris, and Sahir.”
“I am also friends with Doctor Kitten,” Lene said, not looking at anyone. She’d noticed the books on the shelf next to her and begun perusing the titles.
“He’s a good cat,” my dad said.
“You are the tall warm one he speaks of.” Lene’s eyes flashed to my dad. “You are the one who pets him against his fur until the air is full of hair. Then you say, ‘Who is a good puppy?’ even though he is a cat.”
My dad raised an eyebrow at me. “I didn’t tell her that,” I said. “Doctor Kitten did.”
Sahir interrupted with a cough. “I am not only her friend,” he said, and my face heated up. He clasped his right fist to his chest and bowed to my parents. “I am your daughter’s sworn knight and will defend her with my life.”
Sahir conveniently didn’t mention to my parents that he’d just led me through a portal we weren’t totally sure I’d survive with very little advance thought.
“So you have a sworn faerie knight now?” my dad asked, sounding slightly too amused for my liking.
“Can we just all sit down?” I snapped, already irritated.
My parents grouped themselves on the couch across from the TV. Gaheris sat in the armchair nearest them. Lene sat in the armchair inexplicably positioned directly under the TV, and Sahir and I took the love seat across from them.
A painful silence descended.
“Does anyone want anything to drink?” I asked, at the same moment my mom asked, “Did something happen at work?” and my dad asked, “So is this knight thing romantic?” and Lene asked, “Do you happen to have any cats here?”
I shot up. “It’s not romantic, there are no cats, and nothing happened at work,” I said, answering in priority order. “I’m going to go make some tea. You guys just…” I trailed off, unable to decide what the appropriate verb was for this situation. “Sit,” I finished lamely.
My mom stood, too. “I’ll help,” she said. We went into the kitchen.
“Your knight is very hot,” my mom said, loudly, the second the saloon doors swung shut behind us.
Saloon doors, for reference, take up about half of a doorway. They start around your knees and end slightly above your head. They are not, in fact, soundproof.
“Thank you for the feedback, Mom.” I grabbed the electric kettle and started filling it with water.
“I know you think he’s hot, Miri. I saw you ogling him worse than you did Jacob Feldman in tenth grade. And if your eyes were claws, Miri, Jacob Feldman would not have flesh anymore.”
I considered my options: leaving, spontaneously combusting, or suffering through the next half hour. “Wow, Mom, how long have you been sitting on that reference?” I asked.
“Not as long as you’ve been hiding this hunk,” she said.
For a second, I tried to spontaneously combust, but clearly that wasn’t one of my magic faerie powers. Instead, I shut off the water and plopped the kettle on its hot plate.
“Mom, did you know our ring was a faerie ring?” I asked, to distract her.
“I knew I was a witch,” she said, sounding unfazed. “Maybe one of our ancestors was a faerie.”
I debated explaining the differences between witches and faeries to my mother. I debated telling her I’d survived because we had faerie blood in the family. I resolved to do neither, and to schedule the genetic update later.
I started pulling coffee mugs out of the corner cabinet. Most of our mugs were white porcelain, chipped around the rim from decades of use.
“So is the other one half cat?” my mom asked, pretending to whisper at the exact same volume as before. She’d grabbed the tray of tea bags from the pantry across the room.
“Mom,” I groaned. “Not right now.”
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll go ask everyone what tea they want.” She went back into the main area.
I gripped the counter, reminding myself that I loved her dearly, as she asked people for their tea preferences.
“What is tea?” Gaheris asked, and I pressed my forehead to an upper cabinet.
“Leaf water,” Sahir said, before my mom could answer. “We would appreciate three peppermint tisanes, if you have them,” he added.
My mom came back in and started putting tea bags into mugs. “He’s hot and bossy,” she reported, still at full volume. My soul slithered down to my feet.
Nobody spoke in the living room.
The kettle clicked off, and I started pouring cups of tea. My mom took two cups out into the living room. “Here we are,” she said. “Miri’s knight, will you go help Miri with the rest of them?”
I set the empty kettle back on its stand and stared into the darkening depths of a teacup.
Sahir slid up behind me, so quiet that I only noticed his presence when his arm appeared beside mine.
He bent to whisper conspiratorially in my ear, caging me in against the counter.
“Does your mother speak truly? Do you think I am… hot?” he whispered, so softly I could barely hear him.
“I hope a bird nests in you,” I muttered, and he burst out laughing.
“Here’s the tea,” I said, gesturing. He gathered all four cups of tea by unraveling his left hand until the vines of his fingers and palm lay flat in the approximation of a wide tray.
I didn’t really want to hear what my mom would say about that, but I followed him back out.
My mom had given Gaheris the first cup of tea and taken the other.
“Nifty,” my dad grunted, taking a cup of tea off Sahir’s hand-tray. Lene took the second, and Sahir brought the last two to our couch. I sat down as close to the edge as I could, and then he plopped in the middle, pressing his thigh firmly against mine.
Another immeasurable silence descended. My stomach joined my soul in the bottoms of my feet. My brain remained unfortunately alert.
Before anyone could muster up the courage to speak, we heard my grandma coming down the hallway from her bedroom. She shuffled to a stop next to the TV and stared at all of us, sitting in a tableau in her living room.
“Who are you?” she asked the general populace. Grandma had lost much of her sight several years before, and much of her memory as well.
“I’m Gaheris,” Gaheris said cheerfully. Grandma stared at him, clearly attempting to process that his head was on fire.
“Grandma,” I said, standing and putting the teacup down on the table. “It’s me, Miri. I brought some friends.” I crossed the room and put my arms around her.
“Miri?” she repeated, then buried her face in my shoulder. “Oh, Miri. I missed you.” She put her arms around me and pulled me in close, an enveloping familiar vetiver-scented warmth that eased the knot in my throat.
“Here, why don’t you sit down, and you can have my tea?” I offered, bringing her to the couch. When Sahir didn’t move in either direction, I put her on his other side and handed her my mug.
I sat down next to Sahir and pulled my knees as far into the arm of the couch as I could.
Grandma looked over at Sahir and then reached out and touched his face. “Who are you?” she asked.