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“I might have stayed and enjoyed that some more,” she adds.
Suddenly, I want to melt into the carpets like the glass of water Tabitha dropped that no one has bothered to wipe up yet. I didn’t even give them the details of exactly the type of relationship Sigurd and I developed, but leave it to Gran to make the right assumptions.
“It’s all so much,” Tabitha says. Of us all, she’s been the most surprised and had by far the most questions, ones I tried to answer as simply as I could. “I’m never letting my kids near those woods.”
Probably a good idea, at least until they’re old enough to understand. That’s if she ever tells them.
“You know,” Matt says, gazing out into the yard again. “Your description of that king from your stories sounds a lot like the man standing in the drive right now.”
“What!” I squeak, leaping to my feet. I rush to the window, my jaw dropping open at the sight beyond. There, halfway up my grandmother’s drive is Sigurd. A fae king just strolling up to a human house. The risk of it, the stupidity to—
My heart skips another beat. He’s not alone. Matt goes rigid beside me, and all at once, I know he recognizes the other man with Sigurd.
His dad, Uncle Mark.
Matt can see him. He can see fae.
I don’t have the chance to speak before Matt races to the door, flings it open, and rushes out toward the approaching fae.
“What on earth?” Tabitha exclaims. She moves toward the door and then freezes. Color flees her face, and she sways on her feet. For a moment, I fear she might faint.
And then it strikes me. She can see them too.
“Daddy,” she whispers. And then she’s running out the door and racing across the yard to Matt, where he’s already pulled Uncle Mark into a hug as fierce as the one he gave me.
“My Mark has finally come home too.”
I turn to look at Gran, who seems happy but completely calm, almost as if she expected this, but there’s no way she could have. I didn’t even know he was going to show up here of all places, especially not after how we left things at the door between worlds.
“You’re worried but not surprised.” Gran gives me a quizzical look and adjusts her glasses. She always sees way more than the rest of us and puts the pieces together with ease. “You saw him in that place you were in. In Faery?”
“I did,” I confess. “I’m sorry I didn’t mention it—him. I…” I glance back out the door to where Uncle Mark sits on the ground holding a weeping Tabitha. Matt sits next to them, clasping Uncle Mark’s hand in his.
“It’s best he came himself,” Gran says when words fail me.
I suppose it is. He can tell them all his story, if Tabitha is able to pull herself together enough to hear it. Maybe today this is all they need. Sometimes, words can wait. “But you,” I say. “You truly believed he was alive all this time. You’re not surprised?”
Of all things, she laughs. “I am, but I’ll give them all a few minutes together. It’s not the first time he’s showed up here since he left all those years ago.”
“What?” I stare at her askance.
She rocks in her chair, looking thoughtful. “A couple years ago, he showed up in the yard. But he was quiet, almost like he didn’t want me to see him. I didn’t have my glasses on, so I couldn’t be quite sure. I went in to get them, and by the time I returned, he was almost all the way across the yard and disappearing into the woods. But I knew it was him. I felt it in my bones, and these old bones know a thing or two.”
I gape at her. “You saw him that day.”
Gran could see the fae too. All this time, she’d have been able to see him, to talk to him, but he didn’t know. He thought she couldn’t. Uncle Mark feared none of them could.
“I did.” She nods as if we’re talking about something as simple as the weather. “But he wasn’t ready to talk to me then. Not really. I know my son. I knew he’d come back when he was ready.”
“He’s been happy,” I say, still dumbstruck by the fact that a miscommunication caused me so much grief.
All that time I was in Faery, Uncle Mark could have just explained things to Gran if he’d known she could see him or had the courage to try once more. But then, things might not have turned out how they have, and I’m not sure I’d risk changing this outcome, given the chance.
“He has a great life,” I continue. “He found a new love, a true one this time.”
She nods, thoughtful. “As I always hoped he would.”
Through the edge of the open door, I can see Sigurd’s arm where he sits in Gran’s rocking chair, of all things. The brief sight is so odd I have to blink a few times to make sure I’m not imagining things. A fae king on Gran’s porch, just hanging out in a rocker like he has all the time in the world and this place isn’t toxic to him. I shake my head and glance back at Gran.
