Bride of Fae (Tethers) (3 page)

She smiled at the back of Dad’s head. He sat so straight and proper, but in the rearview mirror she’d caught the twinkle in his eye. It would have been easier to take the train from Tintagos Halt to Paddington Station and then the tube to Bloomsbury, but this was better. The family would stop in London a few days to see some sights. Piccadilly Circus and the Tower of London were at the top of Marion’s list. She was determined to make a Beefeater crack a smile.

Beverly’s heart squeezed in her her chest. She
loved her family. She just didn’t want to live with them anymore.

Her dad turned left onto the road that circled Tintagos Village. If they stayed on the Ring they’d drive by Igdrasil, the ancient oak at the cliffs of the Severn Sea. The world tree was
said to be a conduit between the chthonic gods who ruled the underworld and the high gods, Brother Sun and Sister Moon. Beverly wasn’t religious, but there was something undeniably mysterious about Igdrasil.

When she was Marion’s age, she climbed the tree and crawled out on
a thick branch that extended past the cliff wall out over the rocks and waves. It was thrilling and terrifying. She lost her grip and fell, but a gust of wind blew her back against Igdrasil’s trunk where she grabbed onto a secure hold and scrambled down to the ground.

She never told anybody what happened, but in her heart she knew she’d been saved by something beyond human reason, something even more mysterious than the golden man, her guardian angel. Perhaps it was Aeolios, the wind god
. Or the spirit of the tree—or the high gods themselves.

After that, being near Igdrasil made her feel
as if she belonged in the world and a power greater than her took notice and cared for her welfare. She liked to go out to the cliffs and lean against Igdrasil’s trunk and watch the clouds change shapes above the bay. That she would miss.

“
Say Marion,” Dad said. “What’s Beverly’s fruitiest class?”

Beverly and Marion rolled their eyes and groaned.
He was about to tell one of his silly jokes.

“What is it, dear?” their mum said indulgently.

“History, of course.” Dad chuckled wickedly. “Because it’s full of dates!”

“Groan!” Beverly said.

“Yeah,” Marion chimed in. “Groan, Dad!”

Dad must have told a million stupid jokes like that over the years, but Mum smiled at him
adoringly. After all this time they were still in love. At their age.

“Hello!” Marion
waved through her window to a middle-aged man walking through tall grass near the Ring road. The Earl of Dumnos. They were passing through Faeview, the earl’s estate.

“Blimey!” Beverly’s dad yelled
in surprise at something ahead on the road.

He
slammed on the brakes. The tires screeched, and Beverly flew forward and struck her forehead on the driver’s headrest. Marion screamed, “Stop! Stop!” The Rambler careened across the carriageway and off the Ring altogether. The car dipped into a rut and jolted upward toward the trees. They passed the earl, his face pale with shock. Then
bam!

Beverly’s temple throbbed with pain
, pulsating harsher each time her sister screamed. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t tell if Marion was hurt or just scared. Then the cries stopped, and that was worse.

The
car door opened, and a man with golden hair and bronze skin leaned over her with a quizzical expression. Her guardian angel. She’d never seen him so close. His eyes sparkled green. He was so beautiful.

“You were right
.” His voice made her think of wildflowers and morning dew.

What did he mean? Right about what?

“Marion,” she said—or hoped she said. She glanced toward her sister’s motionless body.

The golden man nodded and reached across the seat
, floating over Beverly. Marion’s seatbelt unlatched like magic, and he extracted her from the car. She moaned.
She’s alive!
The golden man murmured something reassuring. A tear of relief rolled out the corner of Beverly’s eye.

The golden man
returned and lifted Beverly as if she weighed nothing. He was real. All through her childhood, she’d occasionally caught him watching her. It should have felt creepy, and she should have told her mother. But it never did, and she never did.

She always felt
as though she were an actress in a film he was watching.

Once she’d tried to speak to him, and he disappeared. She never saw him
after that, and over the years she convinced herself he’d been a creature of her imagination. And now this. He must be her guardian angel.

As he laid her on the damp grass, he avoided her gaze. His coldness made her sad. Wouldn’t a guardian angel at least smile? He passed his hand over her face, and her headache vanished.

“The girls are unharmed,” the golden man said to the earl. His voice was as beautiful as his face. More tears slid out of Beverly’s eyes and down her cheeks. So beautiful.

The earl answered.
“But poor Mr. Bratton and his wife.” His voice shook, barely above a whisper, and Beverly understood his meaning.

Her parents were gone.

Four years later. Tintagos Village.

I
N THE KITCHEN AT
the Tragic Fall Inn, Beverly wrapped an order of fish and chips to take away. She grabbed her handbag from behind the front desk and stopped by the pub to tell Ian she was leaving.

Van Morrison’s
Into the Mystic
faded out and Joan Armatrading’s new hit,
Love and Affection,
came on the sound system.

Beverly sang along about being open to persuasion.
So very open
. Sadly, in her twenty-five years no man had been all that persuasive.

“Promises, promises.” The bartender gave her his usual wistful smile. Ian was one of the few single men in Tintagos Village under thirty-five, and he was a great guy, but he set off no spark in her. No magic.

“You’re too young for me, Ian.”

“
And I thought you were a liberated woman,” he said. “Four years is nothing.”

“Not that liberated.” Beverly agreed with women’s lib, but she couldn’t shake
the drilled-in principle that the man should be older than the woman. “You’re a mere babe.”

Ian lowered his voice suggestively.
“I’m wiser than my years, love.”

She
laughed and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “I’ll see you at eight.” Ian was never going to be her lover, but he was a great pal. “Or earlier. They’re collecting Marion at five.”

Her sister was spending the holiday weekend with a school chum. Beverly didn’t usually work Friday evenings, but the Inn
would be packed tonight, the beginning of Mischief Night weekend, and she had nothing better to do. Now that was pitiful.

Ian
poured out four pints for the tourists in the center of the pub. The only other customers were two regulars, Clyde and Jasper at their usual spot by the window. Every day they drank tea and played checkers and watched the people go by in the village square. After “beer o’clock,” as Jasper put it, they moved to bar stools and drank pints.

“Tell your sister I said to have fun.” Ian set the pints on a tray.
“But not to make too much mischief.”

“Ha-ha, very clever.”
Beverly dropped a bottle of beer into her handbag with the fish and chips.

“
I’ll amend that to: No more than a fourteen-year-old girl should.”

Halloween was called Mischief Night in Dumnos
where it was a big deal. Monday was a school holiday, and Marion would be gone the entire three days. They hadn’t been apart that long since their parents died.

“You okay here, Ian?”

“Sure. It’s just the one table and Clyde and Jasper with their game.”

“Clyde must be keen for Sunday,” Beverly said.

Clyde told the best Mischief Night story in the village. The Tragic Fall pub would be packed with locals and tourists, all primed to hear about that terrible night years ago when he walked home alone from this very pub.

I
was young then and full of beans
, Clyde would say.
Cutting through the woods shaves twenty minutes off the journey home, so I left the Ring road
.

At this point, those who knew
the story—or knew about the fae—would laugh at Clyde’s folly, the irony of wanting to save twenty minutes.

The vicar’s first bell
rang through the black night, and I knew midnight had caught me. A chill raced up my spine, and terror gripped my heart.

The
chill racing and the terror gripping Clyde’s heart entered his story last year. It was a big hit, and Beverly expected he’d keep that detail.

But then my fear faded away
as strange and beautiful music floated out from somewhere deep in the trees. Tears of joy streamed down my face, and I followed the enchanting song deep into the woods and deeper still.

Dawn was breaking
when I reached my cottage. I know not where the time went. My soul was filled with happiness a man like me has no expectation of in this life. But my wife was not at my door to greet me. Strangers were living in my house, and quite comfortably. I could see their furniture past the threshold.

I’d been gone but
a few hours, but they said it was seven years.

Poor Clyde
. While he was missing his wife sold their cottage and moved to Manchester to live with her sister. It must not have been true love. She didn’t want him back. Clyde’s old friend Jasper helped get him rehired at the sweater factory, and he settled into a routine of checkers and storytelling.

Beverly had decided to believe Clyde’s story. One had to believe something. Why not the romantic version? Strange things happened all the time in Dumnos. As she well knew.

“Did you see?” Ian nodded toward the cash register. “There’s a letter for you. His lordship’s driver left it while you were in the kitchen.”

A square linen envelope leaned against the register
. Lord Dumnos’s stationery, pale blue bordered with embossed gold stars and a silver crescent moon in the upper corner. It was addressed simply
Miss Beverly Bratton.

“Looks like an invitation,” Ian said, failing to sound nonchalant.

“Very well, Mr. Curious.” Beverly broke the seal and scanned the note. “Goodness. You’re right.” She read aloud:

My Dear Miss Bratton,

Would you do me the honor of paying a call this evening at Bausiney’s End? There is an important matter I wish to discuss with you about your future.

I’ve arranged coverage for your duties tonight at the Tragic Fall. Unless I receive your regrets, my driver will arrive at your home at seven o’clock.

Yours &tc.

Dumnos

“Blimey, aren’t you his lordship’s pet,” Ian said. “I wonder what he means about your future.”

“Lord Dumnos has been kind to us,” Beverly said
, but she had no idea what the letter could mean. “I think the accident traumatized him.”