Tressa's Treasures (The King's Jewel Book 1) (15 page)

For my part, it increased the chances of my enemies finding my sanctuary here at Pine Ridge. For the human? Well, I was not the only fae living incognito here. Many fae felt threatened by humans who could see through their glamour. The danger lies in how they chose to deal with the threat. Not all fae had the same moral standard.

It had taken me a while to work out the details. After doing extensive research in my grandfather's library, I believed I had found a way to make it effective and safe by using a talisman to hold onto my essence and release small doses of healing power over time.

I took advantage of the seclusion of the closed and quiet store to create the talisman and make it beautiful. I disliked grieving in idle silence. At home, the family's Banshee would help carry the weight of everyone's sorrow with her keening.

I sang instead of chanting the required invocation as I worked. Breaking the silence with a song, though it wasn’t the same as a keening, helped sooth my grief.

The following Monday, Matt stopped by the store at the time of his usual morning visit. This surprised me; his visits were usually an excuse to spend time with Holly.

I opened the door and hugged him. He gave me an extra squeeze before letting go. He hadn't known Eileen well, yet pain lined his face. It helped to have a companion to mourn with me.

I insisted he sit while I brewed a special tea for him. My yearning to heal someone needed to be satisfied. If I couldn't work on mending Holly's heart, I would try to help Matt.

I can't say if the tea was actually effective. We were a broody pair.

"Holly told me her parents think she should go back to Fred and try to work things out, now that she's pregnant," he said. "They think she's exaggerating about the beatings."

I nodded. I had guessed this when I heard Fred in the apartment with them.

"They won't let me in to see her." His voice cracked when he spoke.

"They wouldn't let me in either," I said, tears welling up in my eyes.

"I think they're keeping her isolated so they can convince her to return to that ass. After everything she's done to get away..." Matt said.

It was true. Without Eileen, Holly wasn't strong enough to stand up to both Fred and her parents.

"Well, he won't hurt her again if I can help it." Matt drank the last of his tea and stood to go. I walked him to the door, where he hugged me again.

"Thanks for listening, Tressa. You managed to make me feel better," he said.

Perhaps the tea had helped after all. I patted his cheek before he left.

I didn't see Alexander again until late Tuesday evening. He knocked on my door just as I was slipping into bed. I padded downstairs in my nightgown, barefoot. As I opened the door, a gust of wind swirled the flimsy fabric of my nightgown so that it wrapped close around my body.

Neither of us moved nor spoke. We consumed each other with our eyes. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but closed it again without a word. I ached, seeing his pain.

He tried again, this time choking out some words.

"Sorry to come by so late. I took Sophia to spend time with my dad. I just got back."

His eyes carried on the real conversation. They spoke of sorrow, pleading with me not to blame him for being absent and out of touch. Mostly, they begged me to forgive him for not getting to Eileen in time.

When I had regained my ability to move, I pulled him into my embrace. At last—I’d found someone to whom my presence alone was a tonic. A sense of peace coursed through me as his body relaxed against mine; he was my tonic as well.

Relief turned into burning tension as I felt his desire. I flamed with hunger for him, but the time wasn't right. With great effort I stepped away, holding onto his hand in the hope that it would make my movement less offensive.

I wanted him, but not like this. He didn't know who or what I was, and I still held lingering doubts—not about him, but about the consequences if he were to enter into a relationship with me.

He coughed to cover his discomfort.

"I came by to ask if you wanted to go to the funeral with me tomorrow."

"Yes, I would like that," I said, smiling sadly.

"It starts at ten. I'll come get you at 9:30?"

"Okay."

He hesitated before he leaned forward and kissed my cheek. He gave my hand a soft squeeze before letting it go.

"Goodnight."

"Goodnight." My strangled voice was just above a whisper.

I decided on a simple black dress for the funeral. Not wanting to look over embellished, I wore a single strand of pearls around my neck and another around my wrist. Pearls weren't the best stone to hide behind, so I smoothed my hair over my ears to cover their points and wound it into a knot at the nape of my neck to minimize its metallic sheen.

I also wore a black pillbox hat with black netting that fell over my eyes. It was perhaps a bit too circa 1950's, but better to look eccentric than to have my faceted eyes shine for everyone to see.

I held the bracelet I had worked on over the weekend wrapped in tissue paper. I fidgeted with it, wondering how Alexander would react to the gift. His mother's ring was the only piece of jewelry I had ever seen him wear. I would have to get him to wear this piece without telling him why. I hoped he wouldn't resist the idea.

I stepped outside when I heard his footsteps on the path between our homes. His lips turned up into a small smile when he saw me.

"Stunning," he said before kissing me lightly.

He walked me to his truck. Before I got in, I pushed the tissue paper package at him. He looked puzzled, but he took it willingly enough.

"What's this?" he asked.

"A gift."

He crinkled his brow. "What's the occasion?"

"No occasion. You inspired this new design, and I wanted you to have it." I smiled and motioned with my hand for him to open the package.

He tore the paper away to reveal a cuff bracelet carved from an agate crystal I had taken from my grandfather's collection. It was a luscious stone with blue marbling. On its surface I had etched an intricate geographic design.

He held it gingerly, examining the artistry.

"Tressa, you made this? It's magnificent."

"Will you wear it?" I asked.

Alexander slipped it on, using his good left hand to slide it over his right wrist, just as I had imagined.

Eileen had been a popular girl, and she had lived her entire life within a thirty-mile radius of Saint Francis Church. Naturally, a large crowd attended her funeral. People packed the pews and lined the walls of the church. Alexander and I found a spot to stand along the back wall.

Looking out over the congregation, I was able to pick out everyone who had attended that fateful birthday celebration. Rachel and Ricky were on the far left, their daughter sitting between them. Kendra and Matt sat near the front, just three rows behind Holly and her parents.

In fact, the whole town seemed to be there.

An unmistakable sadness permeated the congregation. Quiet sobs and sniffles punctuated the sound of the mourners' hushed conversations.

I trembled with anger when I saw that Fred was one of the pallbearers. Eileen would have hated just having him in attendance, and her parents had given him this honor?

A red-eyed Tom Lynch took the spot behind him. His relationship with Eileen had been more complicated; they had been sweethearts before Tom's loyalty to Fred ripped them apart. I believed his grief was genuine.

The service was a conventional funeral mass. While in the church, Alexander and I took part in the service but didn't speak to each other. We went wordlessly to the car when it was over to join the funeral procession to the cemetery. It was a companionable, if sad, silence.

The cemetery was on a steep and rocky hill. Eileen's freshly dug grave, canopied with a tent, was near the peak. Alexander looked with concern at my high-heeled sandals.

"Are you going to be alright?" he asked.

"Sure and I'll be fine," I assured him.

He took my hand and steadied me as we climbed the ten yards to the gravesite. We stood on the fringe of the crowd, which seemed appropriate, as we weren't her closest friends or family.

A warm breeze kicked up as the priest finished his service, carrying the final words of his prayers to heaven. Goosebumps covered my arms as I felt the grace in his words brush past me. Alexander put his arm around me, pulling me close.

The priest had just invited everyone to come forward to say our final good-byes when Holly called out to me.

"Tressa, will you sing?" Her request came out choked with tears.

"What are you doing?" her mother mumbled under her breath, unaware that I could hear her.

"Eileen loved Tressa’s singing. She would want her to sing now," Holly hissed back. It was the first bit of feistiness I had seen in her since the accident.

Alexander helped me over to the head of the casket where the priest had stood. I looked over at Holly for confirmation. Her eyes were dull and lifeless, but she met my gaze and nodded.

I began my lament as the mourners passed by the gravesite, offering their condolences to the family. Several people stopped at the casket to say a quick prayer or to pull a flower from one of the arrangements to take with them.

By the time my song was finished, most of the mourners had left or were walking to their cars. Only Holly, her parents, Fred and a few stragglers remained. Alexander, of course, still stood beside me.

I took a moment to allow my own feelings to open, mourning the young woman being laid to rest. Unconsciously, I closed my eyes and murmured a traditional Sidhe funeral invocation.

Midway through the prayer, Alexander startled me by pushing me aside. He had moved in front of me to block Fred, who advanced at me swiftly.

"Stop that. Stop it now, you witch," he shouted at me, finger raised and pointing.

"Fred, stop. What are you doing?" Holly called, dissolving into sobs that wracked her entire body. Her anguish broke my resolve, and my own tears overflowed at last.

"Back off, man," Alexander ordered, raising his hands to thwart Fred's progression.

Fred continued his rant, addressing Alexander this time. He was still trying to come at me.

"That woman is a witch. She bewitched me, and she probably has you under her spell too."

A chill ran through me as the breeze picked up again. This time it rustled past Fred, catching his words and taking them with it as it moved. I willed them back, but it was too late.

"Damn it, I said you better back off." Alexander strengthened his stance, squaring off with the other man.

Fred appraised him as if seeing him for the first time. He snickered when his gaze rested on his damaged hand.

"Yeah? What's the cripple going to do, hit me?"

"I know you prefer to hit girls. Cripple or not, believe me, I'll teach you the difference," Alexander said, as his hands balled into fists.

Tom rushed over and stepped between them.

"Alright guys, knock it off," he ordered. He turned his back to Alexander, speaking to Fred in an undertone.

"You just convinced Holly to come home. Do you really want to spoil things now, after you've worked so hard?"

His words filled me with dismay. I looked over the cemetery and saw her parents putting the still sobbing Holly into the limousine.

Fred started down the hill after his wife, but turned to make a parting shot.

"She's with me now. You’d better stay out of my way or I'll see you burn in hell, witch."

Alexander took a menacing step toward him, but Tom put out a hand to stop him.

"Enough."

Tom looked more composed than he had during the service. His body language proclaimed that he was in cop mode and was more comfortable there.

"Mannus, I've got a few questions for you. I can ask you now, or you can drop Tressa off and come to the station. Which will it be?"

Alexander looked over at me.

"Ask whatever you want. I've got nothing to hide."

"I understand you were at
JR's
with Eileen on Friday night?"

"Yeah, I was there. I wasn't 'with' her, if that's what you're asking. I was with Tressa."

"Is that right?" He made it more of a sarcastic statement than a question.

"Yes, that's correct," I spoke up, choosing to act as though it were a question.

"Did you leave the restaurant at any point during the evening?"

"No."

"Not even to have a smoke or make a call?"

"Tom, he was with me all night."

"You were up on stage for a while," Tom pointed out.

"Yes, and I saw him at the table the entire time."

"I understand you got into an argument that night."

"Not me, that's on your boy there. I just tried to back him down. But you know that already. You were there." Alexander lost his patience. "Listen, why don't you tell me what this is about?"