Home by Dusk

Fiction - by Kathryn Yelinek

For the third time that morning, my office phone rang.

“Zane!” It was Priya at the museum’s ticket counter. “Thank goodness you’re back. There’s a woman here asking for you.” This was code for: Another person’s demanding you take care of some uncanny thing in their life.

Excellent. I pumped my fist in my office. Right then I wanted nothing more than to distract myself from worrying over my dad’s health. In the first call that morning, he’d asked me to take him to his doctor. It was his third round of bronchitis in the seven months since Mom died, the fourth time he’d cracked a rib coughing.

Be there is a second,” I told Priya.

Hoping whatever awaited me would be juicy, I hurried through the North Branch Susquehanna History Museum, past exhibits on coal mining, logging, and the peculiarities of Pennsylvania dialects. As I walked, I wondered who would take over the museum if I left permanently.

The second call that morning had come from the president of Penn State University, inviting me to head up their new research center. I’d work with the brightest minds in uncanny studies, trying to figure out why creatures from myth and legend were coming to life.

Only an idiot would turn down the chance of a lifetime, so naturally I’d asked for time to think it over. Because how could I move two hours away with my dad so sick? Who would run to his house in the next emergency?

At the counter, Priya brightened when she saw me. “Zane! This is Kalin Parsons and her son, Tyler.”

“Mr. Baugher.” Kalin rushed to me. Tears streaked her cheeks, and her grip on my hand was fierce. “You have to tell me if Tyler’s a changeling.”

Oh. Wow. I tamped down the excitement that spiked in my chest. I’d been warning that changelings─look-alikes left behind after fairies stole a child─would start happening at some point. This time, though, it was a shame to be right.

“May I?” I asked, gesturing to Tyler. Kalin nodded urgently, and I knelt down, eager to examine a possible changeling. He was odd enough, to be sure. He sat on the floor in a little alcove by the counter, sucking his fingers. He hadn’t looked up when I entered, or at the introductions. And he was too old for that─seven or eight at least. But there were no obvious signs─no large head, swollen limbs, or unpleasant smell. “Why do you think he’s a changeling?”

“He hasn’t said a word all morning.” Anguish filled her voice. “Normally he’s a motor mouth, even when he’s in pain. He has juvenile idiopathic arthritis,” she explained.

As I checked his fingers for webbing, I nodded to show I understood what that was. Poor kid, saddled with painful joints, joint swelling, fever, and rash. It was a tough path for both kid and parent.

Maybe I should have told her then that I knew a little about having a childhood medical condition. I’d been born with congenital heart defects and not expected to live. But that’s not something to trot out when a kid could be lost in the horror that was Fairy, and this was about Tyler, not me.

“He gets quiet sometimes,” Kalin continued. She was twisting the cuffs of her University of Pittsburgh sweatshirt over and over, as if that could make me work faster. “But never like this. I tried everything: warm towels, wax, playing music. He loves music. He’ll play piano even on bad days. But he just clamped his hands over his ears. Then my dad saw the iron nails over Tyler’s bed were gone.”

I rocked back on my heels. Ever since uncanny things started walking abroad, old ways had crept in. Cold iron over the bed should keep children from being stolen in the night. Tyler was old to be taken, but not impossibly so.

“Who might’ve taken them?” I rose carefully to my feet.

“I don’t know!” She scrubbed a hand over her cheeks. “We live with my parents, but my mom’s away, and my dad would never. So what did you learn, is he a changeling?”

“No obvious signs─”

“But there’s another way to tell? I mean, other than the traditional way of beating him or putting him in the oven?” She shivered at the thought.

“How do you know about those? Most people wouldn’t recognize a possible changeling.”

She shrugged a shoulder, that self-deprecating gesture society seems to breed into women. “I wrote a few articles on the uncanny for Pennsylvania Today.”

A well-respected regional magazine. My respect for her grew. And I was very glad she asked about other possibilities, because I couldn’t beat a changeling, or respect someone who did. “There is one test,” I said slowly, “but I need-ah! Could you remove that string from your coat?”

Without question, she yanked the red string dangling from a loose button. She held it out to me, but I held up my hands, refusing it. Tyler sucked his fingers, unresponsive.

“In Slavic tradition, parents tied red strings around their children’s wrists. The string would unmask any fae who came near it, so if you tie that around Tyler’s arm and he’s a changeling, we should see it.”

Kalin puffed out her cheeks, psyching herself up, then tied the string around Tyler’s left arm.

He hissed, an inhuman sound. His face coarsened, his eyes and mouth becoming gashes against a dark grain. He yanked the string from his arm and flung it to the floor.

As soon as it hit, his face smoothed out, looking human again. He popped his right thumb in his mouth and resumed sucking.

“Oh God!” Kalin reeled back. Her face was stark, a mix of despair, fear, love, and helplessness. “But you can find him, right? Find the real Tyler?”

I hesitated. Nothing was guaranteed when dealing with creatures who weren’t strictly natural.

But Kalin’s gaze on me was intense, and in that moment I wanted nothing more than to give her hope. A doctor had done that for my mom when I was young, promising to replumb my heart. He’d given me a new chance at life.

I thumbed the medallion I wore under my sweater. My mom had worn it every day of her life since she’d gotten that promise. A good luck charm, she’d nearly worn off the image of ouroubus, the snake devouring its own tail. Now I had the chance to bring Tyler back, to save him from the monsters that lurked in Fairy. I had to make this effort, to pay my way forward.

Still, I couldn’t lie. So I said, “I’ll do everything in my power to bring him home.”

Half an hour later, I followed Kalin’s Subaru up the gravel drive to her parents’ house. We turned a corner, and there stood the most beautiful old farmhouse: gray stone walls, steeply pitched roof, candles in the windows. Despite the need to find Tyler, despite the worry over my dad, I ogled the house as I got out of my truck. I loved my cabin in the woods, but old houses like this made me feel all gushy inside. They’re so steeped in stories and legends.

An older man in a blue sweatshirt─Kalin’s father─came out and ushered the changeling inside. Kalin watched them, her face bleak, before she tilted her head toward the back of the house.

“There’s a gazebo in the back, at the intersection of two garden paths. We started making the yard less uncanny-friendly, but maybe we didn’t do enough? The gazebo is still a circle in a crossroads. The fae’d like that for a door into Fairy, right?”

“Absolutely. I wish all the people I worked with knew what you do. Lead the way.”

She gave a grim smile at the praise and led me around the back of the house. The gazebo was charming, all white wood and curving corners. Gray stepping stones led out at the cardinal points through winter-dull beds of native shrubs.

“Okay,” I said. The garden had to be a good quarter acre, lots of ground to cover. “We’re looking for a glistening like sunlight off water. That’ll mark the door into Fairy. It won’t look like a full-sized door.”

Immediately she started searching the dormant bushes at the southeastern corner of the gazebo. “I thought you could only enter or exit Fairy at dawn or dusk. Will we have to wait that long?” It was pushing 1 pm.

“We can get in any time. That’s not a problem. But we have be home by dusk, or we’ll be trapped there. That’s the problem.”

Out by dusk. Eat no food or drink. Tell no lies. Lay claim to nothing that wasn’t yours. These were the rules.

“Oh, God.” She eyed the sun, low in the sky even at midday. We had about four hours.

“I know,” I said. “But there’s still time, and I’m not giving up.”

A few strained minutes later, as I rifled through juniper branches, Kalin said, “I don’t know why Tyler would’ve taken the nails down in his room, if you’re wondering.”

I’d wondered about that. “You said he has bad days?”

“His latest flare-up started last week.”

“Maybe he was looking for an escape from the pain.”

“That’s what his music was for.” Her voice was thick, and I realized she was weeping quietly as she searched.

“I’m sure it helped,” I said gently. “But sometimes when it’s really bad, you want to be somewhere else, be someone else. Maybe he thought he could find that in Fairy.”

She held up one hand, dirty from searching. A gold wedding ring circled her ring finger. “You phrased it so well. I felt that way after Dave died.”

“I’m sorry,” I murmured, and I was. First her husband, now her son. I don’t know why life picks on some people. “For me, when I was little and hurting, I read to escape. I could be talking to wolves or climbing a beanstalk instead of being in the hospital.” At her inquiring raised eyebrow, I explained, “Congenital heart defects. Two open heart surgeries by age nine.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me, too. But I’ve done well since my last surgery. Knock on wood I’ll be fine for another thirty years.” I thumbed my medallion again. As corny as it sounded, I believed it protected my heart, fighting for me as hard as my mom had.

“I hope so, too.”

I wanted to tell her Tyler would be fine in thirty years, that he’d be one of those kids who outgrew their childhood arthritis. But I didn’t know he would. Life could be downright crappy to good kids.

So I kept my mouth shut and worked my way through the rest of the garden. Everything was gray and brown. No glitter. Damn.

“Can I see Tyler’s room?” I asked when we finally admitted defeat. “It might have some clues.”

Kalin nodded, waving me up. She was already on her way out of the garden, and I climbed to my feet. As soon as I did, I knew I should’ve taken it slower. Colors flashed as the world spun.

I grabbed the side of the gazebo and held on as the garden whirled around me.

“Are you okay?” Kalin hurried to my side.

“Just a little lightheaded.” I blinked, trying to get the spinning to stop. “It happens if I get up too fast. Because of my heart. Sorry. Gimme a minute.”

She did. She gave me that minute. Despite her worry and the ticking clock, she waited by my side. It was a gift, and in that moment I renewed my vow to do whatever it took to bring Tyler home to her.

When I was better, we hurried to the house together, me aware all the time of her closeness. It was almost a relief to walk inside to the beauty of the house’s interior: wooden floors, original stone walls, lush carpet. History and present day mixed together in elegance.

Her dad, James, came in from the kitchen, and we shook hands. He had the quiet authority of a college professor.

“Tyler’s room is upstairs,” he said, and I followed him up the gleaming wooden stairs, careful to hop over a black-and-white cat on one step. Kalin headed into the kitchen, where James had lined up various treats on the counter in an attempt to get the silent changeling to spill its secrets. Of course I wanted her to get the changeling to talk, but I was sorry to see her go.

In the midst of the elegant house, Tyler’s room was as messy as any eight-year-old’s. The walls were white, with music staffs stenciled in black. A paraffin wax machine─to help with achy joints─stood on the nightstand next to a book about dinosaurs.

“Where were the nails?” I asked, feeling like I shouldn’t barge into the room.

James pointed out the holes in the wall, within easy reach of a kid standing on the bed. “He hid them in the nightstand drawer, tucked in a sock. The hammer he used is in there, too.”

Which told me nothing except that Tyler was resourceful and determined. But it made me wonder if the fae had taken him even less of a distance than I’d thought. Maybe the door was in his room.

“Can you tell if anything’s been moved in here?”

James shrugged. “It always looks like a hurricane went through.”

That it did. Still, I got down on hands and knees, and together we searched all around the bed, looking for the telltale glitter. I pushed aside wadded up socks, some books, and a few stale raisins. When we found no glitter, we searched the rest of the room, past piles of piano exercise books, a box of crayons, and too many Legos to count.

Nothing. No glimmer.

I drummed my fingers on the windowsill. From there, I had a full view of the gazebo and woods beyond. Everything looked stark, bleak, dead.

“Do you have a place you’re starting seeds inside?” I asked James.

“Never got into that sort of thing. We have enough plants outside to care for.”

Well, drat. Strike three, and I was out of ideas.

“I need some supplies from my truck.”

That was a lie. I carried an emergency kit in my truck, but none of the supplies would help in this case. I just needed an excuse to get out, clear my head, and brainstorm.

I was so deep in thought on the way down the stairs that I tripped over something and nearly pitched head first.

I grabbed the banister and flailed, finally sitting down hard on the step. My heart galloped under my medallion.

“What the─?” Kalin ran in from the kitchen.

James scooped up the black-and-white cat, who had nearly ended my time on this earth. It wriggled in his arms, insisting to be put down.

“I’m so sorry,” Kalin said, clearly mortified. “Dudley usually hides when we have guests over.”

“It’s okay,” I said now that I had firmness underfoot. “Animals usually like me.” Kids, too, which I hoped held true if we found Tyler.

True to form, Dudley came straight to me and rubbed against my knee. No doubt he’d felt the tension in the house that morning and had felt left out during the commotion.

Which gave me an idea.

“Is Dudley an inside-only cat?”

Kalin shook her head. “He’s in and out, why?”

“Any place he usually goes that he’s avoided lately? Or someplace he usually avoids where he went?”

She blinked, as if a lightbulb had flashed before her eyes. “The basement! Normally he follows me down there when I clean the litter boxes, but he refused to go down the last few─maybe three?─mornings.”

Three days. Time enough for a creature to awaken and select its victim. I got to my feet, careful of cats and spinning worlds. “Let’s go.”

The steps to the basement were surprisingly steep. A smell of damp hit me, and I braced for the unpleasantness of cold stone walls and dirt floor. Instead, I gaped at two water-filled canals crossing the basement floor.

“What on earth?”

The shorter canal ran along the left-hand wall. The second, larger canal bisected it in the far corner and ran along the front wall to disappear underground by the door to the outside. Two litter boxes sat by the door.

“Oh, yeah,” Kalin said, is if everybody had canals in their basement. “The house was built over a natural spring. In older days the basement wasn’t enclosed, and cattle drank under here. Now we have sump pumps to pump the water out so the basement doesn’t flood.”

“Fascinating.” It was, both from a local history perspective and the possibility of what fae could be down here. “I’ve heard of spring basements but never got to see one.”

“There aren’t too many around,” she admitted. “But I don’t see any glittering. Does this mean there isn’t a fairy door?”

“It might be a different kind of door.” I surveyed the canals. The largest was maybe as wide as my shoulders and six inches deep. “So many creatures are associated with water.”

Her face paled, and her eyes got wide. “You don’t think something drowned him?”

“Absolutely not. We’d have found him by now if that’d happened.”

She nodded and took a shaky breath.

“We have to─”

The door at the top of the stairs flew open. “The changeling’s talking!” James bellowed. “It’s calling for you, Kalin!”

“Mommy!” A boy’s piping voice floated down.

I bolted for the stairs, Kalin behind me. At the first step, I stopped.

“Wait! This is a distraction. It means we’re close to finding the door.”

“But what if I can get it to tell us where Tyler is?” Kalin peered up the stairs, clearly torn.

It was doubtful, but we couldn’t turn away any possible clue. “Go,” I told her. “Report back immediately if you learn anything.”

She pushed past me, her face grim. “Here,” she said. “If the monster shows, if you need proof I’m Tyler’s mom, here.” She dropped her wedding ring in my palm. “We added the sapphire after he was born. It’s his birthstone.”

Her feet pounded up the stairs. The door slammed behind her. Footsteps crossed overhead to the kitchen. Then all was quiet.

I scrubbed a hand across the back of my neck, annoyed at this interruption. We had about three hours to dusk. If these canals didn’t lead me to Tyler, he was doomed.

So what was living in the spring? And how could I convince it to return Tyler?

I dropped Kalin’s ring─gold band, sapphire in the middle─into my pocket but thought better of it. Wanting no chance it might fall out, I strung it on the chain holding my medallion. Then I stripped off my shoes and socks and rolled up my jeans. The concrete floor felt like ice, and I hopped into the largest canal. The water was bone-chilling, and I grumbled under my breath, hoping whatever lived inside would show soon. Then the bottom of the canal fell away.

I yelled, and was under the water.

I should have smacked the side of the canal. Instead I spun down, down, down into darkness, my lungs straining and the gurgle of water in my ears.

I fetched up on dry land, hacking and sucking in great lungfuls of air. The world around me was brightly lit, and the pebbles under my hands felt pleasantly warm.

I hauled myself to my feet, still coughing. I stood on the edge of a lake. That wouldn’t have been so odd, except I was looking at the lake from inside a cottage without a fourth wall. In front of me was blue water and open sky. The sun was alarming low. Shit. Time was fluid in Fairy, and I’d apparently lost a few hours in the water. If I didn’t find Tyler soon─like in half an hour─we’d both be trapped in Fairy.

Crap, crap, crap.

I took a cautious step into the cottage, searching. There was a fireplace with cooking pot, a bed, and a collection of instruments─flutes, drums, two fiddles, and something that was probably a harpsichord. Under the harpsichord, curled up with his arms around his knees, was Tyler.

He looked like his mom, with short brown hair and a pointed chin. He was even wearing a Pitt sweatshirt like hers.

I knelt down, wanting to grab him and go. But I didn’t want to scare him. “Hey, Tyler. Your mom sent me to bring you home.”

His eyes widened, delight and fear all mixed up. “She’s mad at me for leaving, isn’t she?”

“No! She’s worried and scared but not mad.” Rather like I was. Why was he hiding under the harpsichord? “Whose house is this?”

He glanced around then waved me close. “Agnes’s.”

“Who’s Agnes?” I whispered back.

“She said she’d teach me to play all these instruments and make sure I don’t hurt ever again.”

My skin prickled. Those were some promises, guaranteed to impress a kid like Tyler. “How’s she going to do that?”

He pressed his lips together and ducked his head. Only then did I notice the flutes were carved from bone and the material stretched over the drums was probably human skin. No wonder he was hiding under the harpsichord. I had a moment of profound unease, then the door opened in the far wall.

I scrambled to my feet just as a creature strolled in, looking for all the world like a lass at a Renaissance Faire─peasant blouse, skirt, apron─except her eyes and ears pointed sharply, and her hair and skin were tinged green. Water dripped from the corner of her apron.

A nixie. A female water spirit, lover of music and kidnaper of boys and young men. Like so much else in Fairy, she was fair on the outside and rotten at the core. Her specialty was drowning her victims when she tired of them.

I stepped directly between her and Tyler.

Her eyes narrowed, a cat focusing on its prey. “What brings you here, human?” Her voice rasped deep as a kettledrum, sharp as a war fife.

“You’ve taken something that doesn’t belong to you,” I answered, following the rules of Fairy. “I’ve come to bring this boy home.”

“He’s not yours!” She laughed, bright and brittle. “You have none of the sound of him, none of his artistry.”

“His mother sent me.”

She crossed the room faster than I’d thought possible, and for a moment I thought she meant to hit me. Instead she crouched opposite me by the harpsichord, hissing. “She doesn’t deserve him! Not with his talent! I could teach him such music he will make the stars weep.”

Fancy words. Fae promises. Maybe she would teach him, but he’d die a gasping death not long after.

Tyler huddled against one of the harpsichord’s back legs, bewilderment radiating off of him.

“Is that what she promised you?” I asked gently, trying to get him to focus on me, not her. “Is that why you removed the nails over your bed?”

“I, ah─I─” He looked from Agnes to me, worrying the jean material over his knee. “I removed them so the look-alike could get in my bed.”

That caught me up. “Why would you want that?”

He gave me one of those looks children give when you are obviously too old to understand. “The look-alike doesn’t hurt so my mom won’t have to worry.”

Oh. Something cracked inside of me. I could handle evil creatures with dastardly plans. They were simple. I had no idea how to handle a well-intentioned but utterly wrong child. What could I say to Tyler?

Agnes spoke, soft and coy. “You don’t have to take him back.”

“Of course I do.”

“No, stay. A boy needs a man in his life, yes? Stay and enjoy the fruits of Fairy. What have you always wanted? To eat without growing full? To swim the ocean without growing tired? You need only drink from the lake each day, and all your cares will wash away.”

Here it came, the seducer’s croon of the nixie, enticing and kind. It was attractive, I gave her that.

But it was her words, not her tone, that hit me. Drink from the lake and all my worries would be gone? I had swallowed enough lake water to fill my lungs. No wonder my head hadn’t spun when I scrambled to my feet. It had felt so natural, I hadn’t even noticed.

“My young friend here already has what he wants don’t you?” she smiled prettily at Tyler, who cringed even as he nodded in agreement.

“Strong joints to run and play and swim. Won’t we have fun?”

I wanted to refute her, but it was obvious that he wasn’t hurting. He couldn’t be, not with the way his knees bent, the way his arms wrapped around them. It was such a normal position for a kid I hadn’t thought about it. And with that realization, my head filled with possibilities of what I could do with a normal heart--climb hills without getting winded, ride the rides at amusement parks, never again rip electrocardiogram electrodes from my hairy chest. God, what a life I could have.

“You begin to understand,” Agnes purred. “I hear your poor heart, its off-tempo beat. You’d have no worries about that, if you stay here.”

I have no idea what my face was saying, but Tyler was looking at me with concern, so different from how his eyes had lit up when I said I’d come from his mom.

With that, I remembered why I was there. Not me and my heart. Tyler. Fairy was full of tricks, and I’d nearly fallen for one. Shame on me.

“And shame on you,” I said to Agnes. “What sort of monster preys on a hurting kid?”

She scowled.

“And swimming lakes are all well and good, but I have a father who needs me. And I need him, too.”

She rose, seeming to swell like a wave approaching the shore.

I braced myself. I’m not a fighting man. I don’t have the stamina for physical dust ups. So I pulled out the irrefutable truth: “Tyler doesn’t belong here. By the laws of Fairy, you must give him back.”

“Oh?” Agnes asked, entirely too nonchalant. “But he wants to stay, and that trumps your claim.”

“No, he doesn’t. He wants to see his mom. Right, Tyler?”

Tyler hugged his knees, rocking. My gut twisted at the sight.

“Tyler?” I prompted. “Don’t you want to go home?”

“I miss my mom,” he said, the words almost lost in his knees. “But I don’t hurt here. Could I go somewhere down here with… different instruments?” He turned round, wishful eyes up at me.

They about gutted me. He was asking, as indirectly as he could, if there were some other Fairy place he could go where he wouldn’t hurt and where he could replace Agnes with his mom. Seriously, I thought my gut would explode from wretchedness. Feeling like the rottenest person on earth, I crouched beside him. “No, I’m sorry.”

“Oh.” He rubbed his knee again. I realized he was glorying in being pain free. “Could I take the not hurting with me?”

I wanted to say yes. That was the cruelest part of this whole sordid business. If I’d been offered a place in Fairy as a child, before I knew its murderous ways, I’d have wanted to stay, too. “No,” I said, hating myself as I said it and hating Agnes for making me. “When you go back, you’ll be like before. There’s still no promise you’ll outgrow the arthritis.”

His brows knit. “But─”

“Well, aren’t you a regular spoilsport,” Agnes said, part admonishment, part glee. “Stay, rest. You can make up your mind in the morning.”

Tyler nodded, but I snorted. “No, we can’t. I know the rules. If we’re not out by dusk, we’re trapped here forever.”

Tyler’s head snapped up. “Forever?” He rounded on Agnes. “You said I could play piano for my mom’s birthday.”

“And you can,” she purred.

“But Kalin won’t hear it,” I clarified, guessing the half-lie she’d fed him. “You’ll play it down here.”

At that, Tyler surged to his feet. “I want to go home.”

“Try it!” Agnes hissed. “Swim as far as you like and see if it takes you home.”

She was right. Without her help, we’d never get back to the basement.

Time for my ace card. I pulled the chain from my neck.

“I claim this boy for his mother.” I held out Kalin’s ring. “By the law of Fairy, you must accept this payment and let him go.”

Her lips curled. “No.”

“No? How’s that possible? He wants to go.”

“No,” she said, her voice cracking. She wrapped her arms around her waist as she began to shake.

Alarmed, Tyler pressed close to me. “What’s happening?”

“She’s resisting the laws of Fairy.” I watched, fascinated as much as horrified. I hadn’t known a fae creature could do this. “It’s trying to make her obey.”

“No,” Agnes rasped. “No, no, no.” She rocked back and forth until it seemed she would tip over.

“Enough.” I didn’t want to see any living thing suffer, even her, and the sun was only a finger’s width over the horizon. I grabbed her cold, green-tinged hand and stuffed Kalin’s ring in it. “Here’s payment. Accept it and let us go.”

At once, the shaking stopped.

“Swine,” she spit through clenched teeth. Still, she pressed the ring to her chest. “So be it. You win.”

No time to celebrate. I held out my hand to Tyler. “Come on. I’m taking you home.”

He slid his hand into mine. It felt good, the way he trusted me.

“Wait.” Agnes’s voice cracked like a whip. “You owe me the rest of the payment.”

I clenched my hand around Tyler’s. “What do you mean?”

“The medallion you wear. That too is mine.”

My hand went to my chest. “No, it’s mine. Not his mother’s. It has nothing to do with him.”

“You came here to claim him. You entered my home uninvited. I demand your payment, too.”

My fingers curled over the medallion. “You have no right to it.”

“You drank my lake water. Give me the medallion, or he’ll never find his way home on his own.”

“But─” My heart thudded in protest. I knew my belief in the medallion’s protection was irrational, that it had no power. But my mom had given it to me on her deathbed. I couldn’t just hand it over.

But I had to. A necklace wasn’t worth more than Tylor’s life. Nothing was worth more than those who depended on you. My dad, for one, would go to pieces if I didn’t come home.

My mom wouldn’t have hesitated. She’d fought like a tiger for me. Plus, I’d promised Kalin.

I pulled the chain over my head. “Payment given. You release all claim on him and me.”

“Since I must,” Agnes grumbled. She flicked her fingers toward the shore. “Put one of the lake pebbles under your tongue. They will see you home.”

I did, selecting two flat thin stones the color of wax. Tyler put his under his tongue, and so did I. Hand in hand we walked into the lake, heading home and ready to stay there.

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