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I read and reread that sentence over and over again, trying to work out how that could be possible. Molly died at birth. My father saw her lifeless body. He held her in his arms. It’s not possible.
“The hospital and that doctor of yours are working together. My girls are important.”
Some of the last words my mother spoke to me charged that the hospital conspired to take Molly. Could she have been right?
I’m pacing back and forth across my room when Addy comes barreling through the door. She stops when she gets a look at me.
“What did I miss?”
I pass the journal to her, last page opened.
Her eyes narrow and then widen animatedly. “The Fae?” She says it as though this revelation is frightening.
“So, Fae are real then?” I laugh because what the hell else can I do? My life keeps getting stranger by the minute.
“I’ve never seen the Fae, but their existence has been discussed in dark corners of the world.” She leans in conspiratorially. “They’re scary creatures.”
“Great. So, monsters worse than new bites?”
“Far worse,” she says apologetically.
I resume my pacing, trying to work out everything I know in order to gain some semblance of understanding. “What do you know about Fae?”
“Not much. Nobody really does.” I turn to her. “They’re very mysterious and supremely powerful. Their magic is unlike anything the coven can weave.”
“I need all the information I can get on Fae.”
She pulls her bottom lip into her mouth and bites down in concentration. “We should probably start in the library. There wouldn’t be a reason for a book on Fae to be hidden.”
We rush from the room and spend the next hour searching every shelf in the library. There are books on trolls and other supernatural creatures, but so far, nothing on the Fae.
“Marina, over here.” Addy’s head is lowered over the cover of a weathered book. “It’s a fairy tale, but I’ve learned that fairy tales are typically born from truth and hidden away under the guise of children’s fictional literature. We wouldn’t want the humans to figure us out.” She winks.
She places the book in the middle of the desk and we both pull up chairs. The book is easily five hundred pages, so we dive in. I don’t know how long we work, but it feels like hours go by. We leaf through the pages, paying careful attention not to miss a single detail. According to Addy, the Fae are tricky, and missing one small detail could change the entire story.
Addy yawns, stretching her arms up over her head.
“It’s been a long day. Why don’t you get some rest?” I suggest, feeling bad that I’ve kept her up this long.
She groans. “I’m sorry, Marina. I know this is important, but I can’t keep my eyes open.”
I smile at her. “I’ll take this shift.”
She smirks, standing, and heads toward the door. Before she leaves, she turns back to me. “You should get some rest too.”
I nod my head in agreement. “I’m just going to look through a few more pages. I’ll go to bed soon.”
With that, she smiles and takes her leave.
I stand from the hard desk chair and head toward the settee by the fireplace, curling up and making myself comfortable because despite what I said, I know damn well I’m not leaving here until every last page has been read. My eyes start to droop sometime later, but the word at the top of the next page has my curiosity piqued.
The Origins of Changelings.
It’s a dark fairy tale that tells of a human child who was switched at birth with a sick fairy child. The humans went on to raise the fairy until it began to show signs of evil. In the end, the fairy child dies, but the humans never learn the fate of their own child. The Fae are wicked creatures if this book is based on any truth.
A pit forms in my stomach. What if Molly truly was taken by the Fae? What are they doing to her? Is she being tortured? Is she a slave? Story after story in this book paints these creatures as malevolent and hostile to humans.
I close my eyes and concentrate on my sister, pulling into my imagination what I think she’d look like today. Allowing myself to believe that maybe she really is out there somewhere. The image is foggy, and the harder I concentrate, the more out of focus she becomes. I don’t know when it happens, but the image of my sister eventually lulls me to sleep.
