Chapter 42
PANDORA’S DIARY
Leo’s bed smelled like Leo, which was a complete betrayal. It was hard to focus on hating him when I kept thinking how good he smelled.
I didn’t hate him, of course. I knew that. I didn’t hate him, but I—I mourned him. He betrayed me. Again. I’d spent my entire adult life trying to convince myself that I was good enough. That I didn’t need a gift to be wanted, to be special.
But Leo never stopped thinking I was unlovable as a normal. He thought it right up to the moment I got my gift—and beyond. My gift was more important to him than my self.
We could really rock our marriage vows: “For better or worse, in sickness and in health, unless you lose your gift in which case fuck off, loser.”
I believed Leo thought he loved me, but he didn’t love me. And even though I knew I loved him, I deserved better than conditional love. I deserved better than a life lived on probation. Gift or not, I deserved someone who loved me without a return guarantee.
And that wasn’t Leo.
So I wiped my tears on his pillow then took a few steadying breaths—and the bedroom window shattered.
Glass exploded and a rock thudded against the far wall, then dropped to the floor.
I froze, trying to understand what just happened, and the rock made a pitiful noise. Because it wasn’t a rock, but a yellow-headed pixie. At the base of the dresser, Bob lay in a heap, his wings askew and his shoulders slumped.
“Bob?” I said, rushing closer. “Oh, Dames, you’re hurt.”
He tilted his little head toward me and tried to smile, but failed. His black calla lily tuxedo was torn, his left wing was ragged, and shimmery blood was seeping from a cut on his cheek.
“Oh, no,” I said, then raised my voice. “Leo! Leo!”
The door immediately opened, like he’d been waiting on the other side. “What’s wrong?”
“Bob,” I said.
When Leo followed my gaze, his expression crumpled. He rushed past me and knelt beside the injured pixie and murmured, “Oh, you poor boy, are you okay? No, no, don’t move, you stay right there.”
Bob blinked at him, then pretended to pop something in his mouth.
“Ha! Yes, all the raspberries you can eat but—don’t move! Let me see you.” Leo ran his fingers gently across the little pixie, then rubbed the blood off his cheek. “You’re okay. You’re okay, thank the Dames, but you need to rest. Pan, hand me my pillow?”
I did as he asked. I didn’t want to see him, I didn’t want to talk to him, but of course I’d help a hurt pixie.
“And Zunny,” he told me, as he laid Bob gently on the pillow. “Bob likes cuddling her.”
I scanned the shelves for Zunny, a now-threadbare zebra-striped bunny that my parents had given Leo as a baby. As Leo settled Bob, I left the room and ran to the kitchen for raspberries. When I returned I found Bob trembling on the pillow, cradling Zunny while Leo crooned to him.
“What happened?” Leo asked, handing Bob a raspberry.
After smooshing berry juice on his face, Bob made claws with his hands and bared his bloody-looking teeth.
“What’s that? A cat?”
Bob mimed “bigger.”
“A big cat? A mountain lion or a—a bear or something?”
Bob nodded emphatically at the last option.
“A bear?”
While licking the raspberry juice from his fingers, Bob shook his head.
“He means something else,” I told Leo. “We don’t have bears or mountain lions.”
Bob pointed to me like “Exactly!” then fell back into his makeshift nest and pulled a striped bunny ear over his face like a sleep mask.
“Let him sleep,” I told Leo.
“Yeah, okay. Okay. Okay.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I just—nothing like this has happened to a pixie before. He got attacked, Pan. What would attack a pixie?”
I almost said, “Maybe an asshole like you,” but he was too upset for that. “I don’t know.”
“I hope nobody else got hurt. At least Bob made it home, but most of the pixies don’t really have a person to—”
“Oh, Dames! Violet and Daffodil!” A jolt of fear sent me scrambling to the door, hoping they were hovering outside playing with Legos, but when I opened it all I saw was an empty hallway. “Oh, shit. Oh, shit. They’ve never stayed away for this long!”
“They’re probably—”
“Why did I lock them out?”
“I guess we needed a little privacy for—”
“I know why, you prick!” I snarled. “For you. I locked them out for some man who is incapable of love!”
He swallowed. “They’re probably waiting at your house, Pan.”
“Don’t you call me that,” I snapped, then gathered my clothes.
He kept trying to talk so I told him to check the rest of the house as I got dressed. I dashed downstairs and through the living room without saying hello to Leora, then sprinted into the blueberry field.
Halfway along the path, a bunch of the glampers called to me, shouting complaints about their tents or something. I ignored them and yelled, “Have you seen a violet or daffodil pixie?”
One of them said something like, “Wild dogs!” but I just kept running.
Through the field, past the shed, around the garden. Gravel crunched under my shoes, then I shoved into the front door of the Inn and shouted, “Has anyone seen Daffodil!?”
“Ah, there you are, Pandora,” Dad said, standing in the lobby with a guest. “We were just talking about—”
“A dead fish!” the guest said. “A dead gutted fish on my porch!”
“So serve it with a lemon wedge,” I snapped. “Have you seen Daffodil?”
“I haven’t, did you—” Dad started.
I ran upstairs and thundered down the hall and shoved my bedroom door open. “Violet? Daffodil?”
There were no reassuring flashes of glittery wings. No flutters of greeting.
“C’mon,” I said under my breath, then louder: “Come out, come out wherever you are!”
I saw movement and almost cheered, but it was just my curtains wafting in the breeze. I sent frantic texts to the faerie-kin on the island until Leo appeared at my bedroom door.
“They’re not at my house,” he said.
My worry and anger brought tears to my eyes. “Why did I spend the fucking night with you? I should’ve been here for them.”
“I’m sure you’ll—”
“I slammed the door on them! What if they’re hurt? What if something happened?”
“It’s not your fault, Pan, it’s—”
“I know that! It’s your fault!”
“How is it—wait.” He cocked his head. “Did you hear that?”
For a second, I couldn’t hear more than the angry rush of blood in my ears, then I noticed a faint rattling. Sounded like it was coming through the open door of my closet. I tilted my head and tracked the sound to one of my Hunter boots, which trembled slightly.
“Is someone in there?” I asked softly.
Violet poked her head from inside the boot. Her cheeks were streaked with tears, and when she saw me she flew up and wrapped herself around my neck in a desperate hug.
I stroked her with a fingertip. “It’s okay, it’s okay, I’m here now.”
After she stopped trembling, she hovered a few inches in front of my face and did a mime similar to Bob’s.
“Where’s Daffodil?” I asked.
Leo looked in the other boot. “Not here.”
Violet took one of her wrists with her other hand and yanked, as if to say that something had dragged Daffodil away.
“Someone grabbed her?” I asked, my voice quavering with such fear and anger that Violet winced. “What? What kind of fucking—”
“Do you know where she is?” Leo interrupted, more gently.
Violet shook her head at him while I took a shaky breath.
“Will you help us search?” he asked.
She swallowed, then nodded.
“You’re very brave,” he told her.
Violet fluttered in pleasure at the praise, then perched on my shoulder.
“She’ll help me search,” I snapped at him. “I don’t even want to look at you right now.”
Violet made a soft pleading sound, and made her eyes big and puppyish.
“Fine!” I surrendered. “We need all the help we can get. But I still don’t like you.”