AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“That’s awful.”
“Some would say everything about the Sidhe is awful,” he said. “But equally beautiful with their individual purposes, like poisonous flowers.”
“Maybe that’s why people are so drawn to them,” I mused.
This theory interested him, and he motioned for me to continue. “Explain.”
I hadn’t been prepared to give an exposition. I sputtered and almost declined to answer, but his attention was rapt. He wanted to hear my theories. “We know they’rebetterthan usin so many ways. They’re all the strength and beauty and power humans could never hope to have for themselves, so we crave their love despite their abuses because their love means we are unique. To be favored is a worthwhile danger because it means that among the masses of mortal life, we’ve been singled out and are, in some way, special. That’s what most of us want, isn’t it? To not feel so small and inconsequential in this vast world.”
I hadn’t explained myself well, but a glimmer of appreciation softened his typically stern expression.
“Do you feel inconsequential?” he asked, and the unexpected gentleness in his tone inspired warmth in my chest.
“We all do at some point or another. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar or an idiot.”
My irreverence roused a smile from him. “Well put.”
Nearing the eighth day, when the desk had been mostly cleared of its disorder and we’d moved to the floor piles, I discovered notes written in a scrawl different from the professor’s. It was a shaky, hurried sort of writing as though the pen had been held by a nervous hand. Perhaps I wasn’t his first assistant. This encouraged some jealousy. I’d been second choice, or maybe even a last resort. I sighed but didn’t bother inquiring.
I’d finished transcribing margin notes from one of the professor’s many books into a neat file when his chuckle drew my attention. Mussed hair was becoming his typical style lately, as he often ran his hands through it as he thought, and he sat casually in his wool pullover, looking every bit a preoccupied man of books. He’d relaxed over the past several days, which I counted as a victory. My hopes for camaraderie were heightened when he chuckled again and waved me closer, holding open a battered notebook, the kind I used to carry to classes at St. Mary’s. It had endured a lot and barely held at the spine. Illegible writing filled almost all of the two visible pages, but in the bottom corner existed a cartoonish drawing of some fiend with several eyes and a dreadful but humorous jowl. It was a funny thing, a child’s creation.
“Who drew this?”
“I did,” he said, smiling in a nostalgic, boyish way. “Many years ago when I was a student myself.”
“What in the world is it?”
“The dormitory matron.”
My laughter came so abruptly it was nearly a cackle, and I pressed my fingers to my lips.
“Professor, how awful!” I admonished half-heartedly. “I hope she never knew what you boys thought about her. I’m sure she was doing her best.”
“She was a fair woman, actually, but boys are mean if they’re scolded by a woman who isn’t their mother, especially when their mother is sorely missed.”
My stomach did a flip, bitterness rising into my throat. I had also gone to a boarding school, but my mother had never been missed. He closed the book and stood, his hand brushing against mine like a whisper. An accident, but it made the skin on my knuckles tingle, and I pressed them into my skirt as he passed.
He retrieved his cold cup of coffee from the couch table.
“Where did you go to school?” he asked, sipping the drudges.
I shrugged my shoulders to show that the answer wouldn’t be interesting.
“Mount St. Mary, in New York. I didn’t mind it, but it was dull. No one got into any trouble, really, and the matrons were all decent. The only classes I ever enjoyed were the ancient languages, but those were only twice a week.”
“Was it your interest in old things that brought you to work in Mr. Helm’s shop?”
I froze.
Like a fool, I hadn’t considered what I’d say if someone asked me about how I’d come to be in Massachusetts in an old bookstore, because I hadn’t expected a friendly conversation.
“I…no,” I answered before my hesitation became too obvious. “My parents died, and I was suddenly on my own, so I left New York and traveled to Boston with no plans. Mr. Helm just happened to be hiring.”
I omitted a most crucial part: upon returning home from university graduation, which neither of my parents attended, I’d found the house empty of staff, and both my mother and father shot dead in their room. The investigation revealed a straightforward truth: murder-suicide. Death had been my father’s graduation gift to me. Shortly after their funeral, I’d left the house carrying only a few belongings and woke up in a Massachusetts hospital with a gaping hole in my memory.
Traumatic amnesia.
Mad Millie, my mother’s hateful voice rang in my ears.
