Mother's still frozen on the couch when we get back, and Mom is still fretting and not making sense. Trow's oldest sisters take one look at all of this and have a million questions. I don't blame them.
Roger just says, "This way, please," as if there is no reason to be stalled in the living room with one comatose person and one insane person.
He leads us all back into the kitchen and then he says politely, "Tea?"
Trow's two oldest sisters stare at him, and then one of them says, "What is going on? Who are you?"
"This is going to sound crazy," Trow says.
"Too late to warn us about that," retorts the other sister.
"This is Merrow." Trow gestures at me.
"Yeah," says one of them. "You said."
"She's…" Trow hesitates, looks at me, looks back at his sisters. "She's basically my girlfriend."
They stare at him, juggling the toddler triplets in their arms. "You never mentioned having a girlfriend."
"It never came up."
"The only things that 'come up' are daffodils in the spring," says one of his sisters.
Roger laughs at her in delight. "You must be the one!"
"The one what?" she says blankly.
The other one says to me bluntly, "So are you in some kind of trouble with the law?"
My life is falling to pieces all around me, and these people think it's my fault. I know objectively that they have no reason to think otherwise, but I can't help being offended and bristly. "No, I'm not in trouble with the law," I complain hotly.
"Well, what just happened in our house then?"
"Faeries," Roger answers, putting a teapot down on the table we're surrounding. The guy is apparently obsessed with tea. "Angry royal faeries."
There's a moment of silence.
"Oh my God," says a sister. "Who is this person?"
"I am Roger Williams," he responds smoothly. There's something old-fashioned and genteel about the way he says it. I almost expect him to bow to go along with it.
The sisters blink, then one of them whispers to Trow, "We have to get these people help."
"They don't need help. I know this makes me sound insane, but I think he's telling the truth. Merrow is a faerie." Trow gestures at me. "And she knew something was going to happen, that the babies were in danger."
"Yeah, we were in danger because she was there."
There's a ring of truth to this statement. I followed Trow back to his house, and I took my crazy, stalking, apparent family with me.
But Roger says, "No, no. You're in danger because one of you is a faerie too."
"What?" say Trow's oldest sisters in unison, staring.
"What?" Trow says after them.
"What?" I say, bringing up the rear.
Roger addresses me. "That's why, when you went to read the stars, they brought you to them. One of you is the fay we're looking for." Roger gestures between Trow's two sisters. "Now I need to know about your parentage."
"Our parentage?" Trow bristles.
"Yes. Where is the woman you think is your mother? She would know. The enchantment is still too strong, not yet broken; I can't quite tell which one of you it is."
There's a long moment of silence.
Then Trow says, "Our mother's not here."
"I can see that," Roger agreed.
"No, I mean, our mother left us. Last year. We have no idea where she is."
There is a long pause. I stare at Trow, wondering how it is that he's never told me this. He's never mentioned his parents, but I just assumed he didn't get along with them or something.
"What do you mean?" I ask.
"Exactly what I just said," he snaps. "She left us, so if she's who you need to figure out which of them is the fay and going to save the whole world or whatever it is, then you're not going to get it."
Trow's tone must set one of the babies off, because she begins wailing, and Trow looks at her and takes her into his arms and says, "Sorry. I'm sorry, Tam. Let's go for a bit of a walk." And then Trow just walks with her out the door to the backyard.
I stare after him, stunned.
"I don't understand what is going on," says one of the oldest sisters.
"Can we just go home now?" one of the twins says, and then sniffles.
"It's not safe," Roger says.
"Can they get us here?" I ask. "The…angry royal faeries?"
"Don't be absurd. This house is protected. For now. As well as it can be."
Trow's sisters stare at him. "Reassuring," one says.
"I know this is crazy," I hear myself say, hoping it sounds comforting, "but we're all going to get through this." I mean, I have to believe that, because otherwise I just lost both my mothers today.
"I don't understand what this is," one replies. "You show up and suddenly we're being attacked by faeries?"
"Let me just ask each of you a few questions, to discern your faeriehood," says Roger. "I would simply ask you for your birth dates, but I don't want to uncover you in such a Seelie-obvious fashion, so we'll have to be more roundabout. Do you shudder at the sight of daisies?"
The sisters stare at him, and I look at Trow in the backyard. I can feel Trow's sisters giving me death glares, because as far as they're concerned, they really do think I caused all of this, and maybe I did. Maybe I'm cursed by this stupid prophecy and I've destroyed every single person I love.
I have to get out of this kitchen, this house, all the judgment and evidence of my failures. I'm throbbing all over from being flung against walls and out windows, and my head hurts from holding in all the tears I want to cry, and I feel like I can't breathe. So I follow Trow out into the backyard. Trow is bouncing the baby in his arms a bit as he walks, and she is no longer crying. In fact, she is giggling, and he leans his head down and grins at and nuzzles her. She laughs, and he's adorable.
"Hey," I say.
He looks up, immediately growing wary and a bit shuttered. And I want him not to do that. I want him to tell me that this isn't my fault, that it's going to be okay, that I'll be able to fix this mess, the way Roger Williams so casually seems to think I'm going to be able to.
"You want to know why I didn't tell you, don't you?" Trow demands.
I consider. "It was your story to tell." And I realize that, underneath everything, I am hurt that he didn't tell me, because look at the crazy things he knows about me. The crazy things he knew about me even before today. "But I told you basically everything there is to know about me. I told you about my mom and the dancing stars. I told you about me. And you never did tell me about you, not really. Did you?"
Trow is silent for a long moment. He looks miserable. Finally he says, "My mother abandoned all eight of her children, including three toddlers. It's all I think about, all day, every day. Until there was you. There was you…and for a little while…I didn't think about it. For just that little span of time. Meditating with you, listening to you, watching you smile, that's…I just wanted that. I just wanted you. I…wanted you separate from it all. I know I should have told you, but I…wanted to be selfish for just a little while. The way I can't afford to be at any other time in my life. I'm sorry."
What are you supposed to say to that? I can't come up with anything to say to it. I just look across at him, and he looks across at me, and the baby in his arms is silent, as if realizing how much we're trying to communicate that can't actually be articulated.
And then Trow starts talking again. "We'd never all get placed in the same foster home. We'd get separated. I don't even know if they would manage to keep the triplets together. Can you imagine, separating triplets? Never mind the rest of us. And the triplets are so young, they wouldn't even remember the rest of us, remember that we were a family. Tabitha and Tacita and I, we're the three oldest, and we discussed it all together, after she left, and we said we wouldn't tell anyone."
He takes a deep breath. "And I thought that I didn't want to tell you, that it would be nice to have you be separate and at the same time… You don't understand how exhausted I've been. I would look at you, while we were meditating, and I wanted so badly to tell you how much I needed that, how much those lunches with you were the only time when I didn't feel the weight of seven other people's lives on my shoulders, children to raise and mouths to feed, and all of it my responsibility now, and you could clear my head and make it just you, for just a little while, and that was astonishing. I wanted to keep that forever."
"You can," I say softly. "This doesn't change that."
Trow looks at me for a long moment.
And then he tells me the story.
In the beginning, they were such a normal family. There was him and there was Tabitha and there was Tacita, three children in three years, and they were adored by their parents. Their father was a doctor, a cardiologist, and their mother stayed at home and raised them, and they lived in a picture-perfect suburban house—big yard, swing set, the whole shebang.
And then one day, their father disappeared. Went to work, never came back. Trow was eight, and he remembers it happening, remembers the constant police presence, how his mother never stopped crying, never stopped. They could never explain his father's disappearance, and Trow felt as if the house was constantly overhung with a heavy cloud of suspicion from the rest of the neighborhood, like their family lived under a curse. Trow says they basically lost their mother then, even if she was still around, because she never noticed them; she just wandered through their house like a ghost. There was money, in a safe, a great deal of it, and Trow used it to run the household.
Then one day, their mother went away. No note, no word, nothing. Trow panicked. He was only ten at the time, and he could not take care of the household—he was too young. He went to a teacher at school who he trusted, and he and Tabitha and Tacita became wards of the state and were separated.
And then, months later, his mother arrived back, with infant twin girls, Taevyn and Talon.
"And she got you guys back?" I say, confused.
"Yes. Just like that. I have no idea how." But everything went back to the way it was before. He and Tabitha and Tacita took care of the babies and managed their lives, and then their mother disappeared again.
Trow was older, fourteen, old enough to manage them for a while. And there was still money in the safe, so they got along well. And then their mother came back, just like nothing had ever happened, this time with the triplets, Taheara and Taffy and Tam.
And then, a year ago, she disappeared again, but this time she left a note. And the note said that she had done what she was told, that Trow had his seven sisters, and now she must hide, and she recommended they hide too.
"What did that even mean?" I ask.
"I have no idea," Trow says. "But she was insane, don't you see? She lost her mind when my father disappeared and she never regained it."
"So what happened? Why aren't you still in the house?"
"The money in the safe ran out," Trow says. "We couldn't afford the mortgage. My mother had left behind her checkbooks, and Tabitha looks just like her, so I had Tabitha go to the bank and empty the accounts, but there wasn't nearly as much as I had hoped. And I wasn't about to go back into the foster system. I just couldn't bear it; I couldn't bear to lose them all. They're the only things I have left. All of us, all we have is each other. So we stayed in the house until the bank foreclosed, and then we…came here."
"How?"
"Bus. People don't ask questions on buses, really. And if you pick the right neighborhood, you can get away with a lot. And we happened to pick the best neighborhood. Everyone helps out as much as they can and no one's going to turn us in. I've only got a few more weeks to make it through, and then I'll be eighteen and—"
"You still go to school," I say, amazed. "All of this in your life, and you still manage to go to school."
"We all do. School's important." He hesitates. "I want to be a doctor, like my father. I know it's a long shot but—"
"Are you kidding me?" I wish I was too ladylike to snort but I totally snort there. "All the stuff you've gotten through? You'll definitely get through med school. I wouldn't bet against you."
Trow smiles at me. The baby in his arms blows a raspberry at me. I laugh, and Trow kisses it out of me. This whole thing is insane, but really, wouldn't you say a relationship that can survive all of this can survive anything? I put my hand in his hair, because I can, and I ruffle it and tug at it and love him.
"A few more weeks," I say when Trow pulls back. "When is your birthday?"
"December 21," he says. "Winter solstice. I thought it was nice symmetry with yours."
And suddenly I think of the salt, dancing through the air and spelling out Trow's name. I look at my hand, still in Trow's hair, and I know he cracked his head up against the wall and it was bleeding, but there is no blood, not even the matting of dried blood.
"How's your head?" I say slowly.
He blinks at me in surprise. "It's fine."
"No headache?" I turn him around, peering at the back of his head, pushing his hair this way and that, but there's no blood, no wound, nothing.
"No, I'm fine."
"You cracked it against the wall," I say.
"I know, but it's not hurting me. I'm fine."
"Don't try to be tough for my sake," I say, even though I know he can't fake that there's no blood. "I hurt everywhere."
He turns back to face me and gives me a playful almost-leer. "How can I fix that?" he asks, waggling his eyebrows at me.
I laugh, and he kisses my cheek, and then…I feel better. Every bit of lingering ache from the day falls away from me. I take an abrupt step back, almost stumbling in my haste.
He looks at me in confusion. "What—"
The birthday, and the salt, and the head wound disappearing, and what just happened then, and none of this is normal.
I don't even explain it to Trow. I turn and fling open the door to the kitchen.
"When you fall," Roger is saying to Trow's sisters, "do you fall upside down or right-side up?"
They are just staring at him, and I don't blame them. Everyone looks up at me like I am a welcome diversion.
And I say, "It isn't them. The other fay. It's Trow."
