Chapter 6
LEO’S NOTES
Place: Attic of Chateau de Sal, Newport, RI
Favorite quote: I took a trail through the woods I seldom ventured and came upon a faerie.
She had flowers in her hair and listened to the stories the trees told.
Misc: There is a pine tree in California that is almost five thousand years old. Does it keep stories of the fae?
The next morning, Leo swallowed the last of his pills.
He’d have to visit Deja’s shop to buy another bottle.
He wondered if she and Pan were still close.
Probably. Pan got under your skin as completely as his gift.
At least his itching had receded to his forearm, which meant he was right to have come home, despite… everything.
“Didn’t get lucky?” his dad asked, as Leo entered the kitchen.
Leo blinked at his father. Did he mean with Pan? In the boathouse?
“Finding your book,” his father explained, surreptitiously glancing toward his scratching hand. “Aren’t you looking for one on the island?”
“Oh! Right. Yeah, no. Not yet.”
“Of course he didn’t come home to see us,” his mother said, doing a crossword at the kitchen island. “Everything’s for his books.”
Leo tried not to grimace. She’d never understood why he was so driven. How his body physically ached for manuscripts. She thought it was merely an obsessive hobby he’d never outgrown.
As a kid, his father had traveled a lot for work, building custom kitchens on the mainland.
Leo was nine when he’d realized that with Dad away, he was responsible for Mom when she was faced with magic she didn’t understand.
Their life was so enmeshed with other faerie-kin that she’d often get migraines from the rewritten memories in her brain.
When that happened, Leo would put her to bed and bring her ibuprofen and soup he’d warmed up in the microwave.
It had been a lot for a child to manage, and he’d often hung out with Pan at the Inn or the boathouse to protect his mom.
He’d grown up with his mother relying on him.
Of course, Mom had been there for him too, even though she didn’t understand why he suddenly needed her to drive him to a certain used bookstore in Vermont.
She’d laugh about how spoiled he was, then make a mini-vacation out of their trips, stopping at a special restaurant or an amusement park. One time they’d even gone skiing.
“I visit four times a year!” he told her. “And meet you in Kittery when you’re visiting your sister.”
“It’s not enough,” Dad said, giving him a gentle smile. “It’s never enough.”
“That’s why you should move to Boston,” he told them.
“So you can put us in assisted living?” Mom asked. “We’re barely past sixty! Give us another twenty years.”
“Not for you,” he told her, as he poured himself a cup of coffee. “You can still finish crosswords. But Dad? I don’t know, the old man’s looking rickety.”
“Your father is wiser than ever!” Mom said.
“And handsomer,” Dad added.
Mom laughed, then tilted her head at Leo. “Why are you so convinced there’s a valuable book on Beane?”
“Well, I-I, um,” he stammered, because he hated lying to his mother. “I have this, uh—”
“You know John Peabody died?” Dad interrupted, giving Mom’s shoulder a squeeze. “Gabe’s grandfather? He left a bunch of books to the library, so I asked Leo to check if anything’s valuable. The library needs the money.”
Leo took another sip of coffee. The truth was, he didn’t know how a valuable book had suddenly appeared on Beane.
The island was beautiful and literally magical, with a lovely tight-knit community, but struggling economically.
Other than a few tourist businesses, including the Inn, there wasn’t much spare money.
Maybe a shop had bulk-ordered antique books for a display, or a tourist left something behind by accident. He doubted it was in the library.
“The only priceless thing I want Leo to find is a wife,” Mom said. “Are you still dating that tall girl?”
“Olivia?” he asked. “No, she moved to Birmingham.”
“She left you for Alabama?” Dad said.
Mom added a word to her crossword. “Her loss. I wouldn’t care that you’re single, except that I want grandbabies.”
“I’ll see if I can’t pick some up in town,” he told her.
“Don’t forget to stop at the library.”
“Huh?”
“To look over those books for Albert.”
Leo set his coffee cup on the counter. “Right, yeah.”
“Don’t just check the books for yourself, Leo,” Mom told him. “Help Albert organize them. I’ll call and tell him to expect you.”
Leo shot his father a look. “Thanks.” Now he had to waste his time with crusty books from Gabe’s grandfather’s house.
Dad just shrugged and said, “When are you heading back to Boston? Have you seen Gabe? Grace was telling us that she walked in on him and—”
“Yes!” He didn’t need to hear about Gabe and Pan again, not after what happened in the boathouse. “I saw him for a minute last night. Pandora was there too.”
“She’s still single,” Mom said.
“Except for Gabe,” he said. “You just want to be grandparents-in-law with Grace and Frank.”
“Plus we already love her like a daughter.”
“Well, you’re forgetting she dumped me in high school.”
“I never understood that,” Dad said. “What did you do?”
“Nothing!” Leo claimed. “It just wasn’t meant to be or the right time or… I don’t know.”
The truth was, he hadn’t found anyone he could imagine sharing his life with; not forever, not with the annoying, devoted adoration that his parents still felt for each other. Even after his mom lost her memory for magic.
Dad would deny to his last breath that he regretted anything about Mom, but her lack of a gift made life harder.
Mostly for her, of course. But Leo knew it broke Dad’s heart that he couldn’t share magic with her.
Despite Leo’s happy memories and loving parents, he sometimes felt that his childhood was held together by seams of sadness.
A patchwork of all the moments his mother didn’t understand and couldn’t share.
And that was something he’d vowed to never pass along.
Dad kissed the top of Mom’s head. “As long as you understand the concept, Leo. Find the person you’re willing to fall apart with.”
He used to think Pan was the one, and now she was even more beautiful—not to mention sexier—than Leo remembered. Yet, she still hadn’t gotten her gift and her time was running out. Memories of last night made him wonder if they should try again.
Though Leo wasn’t sure he was strong enough to marry a normal. Not after living in the shadow of his mother’s grief.