child’s gaze was direct, and sad, and very, very sharp.
The little ones see the most of a sidhe, they said. They are not yet blind and deaf.
So Robin paused. “Hello, small one.” The greeting left her before she considered its price, and she winced internally.
“You’re pretty,” the child said flatly. Male or female? Fey as a brughnie, with messy pale hair still sleep-tangled. Not a slattern’s mane to be elflocked into mischief, but fine silk begging to be combed and set right.
“Thank you.” Robin did not point, but she allowed her gaze to drift over the child’s head, back down. “Is that your house?”
“Yeah. Daddy came back again.” The child shrugged. “He drinks.”
Robin nodded. “Mine did, too.” Or rather, Daddy Snowe did. If he had only a little, he’d be friendly. She was suddenly aware of looming over the child and sank down into a crouch, peering through the fence as if she were a small one herself, her skirt brushing the ground around her. “Does he…”
Does he hurt you? But then, no child would tell, would they? Robin never had.
Still, the girl—now that she was this close, Robin could see female instead of just small—stared wide-eyed, as if she’d heard what Robin was about to ask.
A sharp, bright pain lanced through Robin’s chest. She shook her head, thin tendrils of steam rising from her damp shoulders, and glanced down, finding a small white pebble half hid under a brown, dying weed. She grubbed it up, rolled it in her fingers as if it were a pearl from the Wailing River past Brughnie Wood. Chantment flowed, her tongue stinging slightly as she whispered a few words in the Old Language, will taking shape in breath.
When she opened her hand again, a sullen gleam nestled in her palm, traces of wet earth still clinging to it. The rock looked different now, crystalline. “What’s your name, little one?”
The girl hesitated, don’t speak to strangers warring with obey the adult. Robin hunched her shoulders, to appear smaller.
“Cathy,” the child finally whispered. “What’s that? It looks magic.”
You’re far wiser than your parents. “It could be, small Cathy. Does your father drink ale? Beer?”
“He does. What is that?”
Would you understand, if I told you? Mortals grow early into disbelief. “Does he drink it from a can, or a cup?”
“Bottle. They have a deposit. Five cents.” Still wary, but the child stared at the small glowing stone.
“I see.” Robin nodded again. “List well, then. Don’t put this in soda. But the next time you bring him a bottle of beer, you can put this in, no matter how small the neck. It will fit. You can even put it in his coffee cup.”
“Is it bad?” Immediate distrust.
Poisonous, you mean? It’s well that I’m not another sidhe; that would be a very valid question. “It’s not. He won’t even notice, but he’ll never drink ale again. Or anything else that makes him shout, or be mean, or…” It will make him dog-sick to drink, and he’ll stop soon enough. Her throat full, she swallowed hard and continued. “Or anything that makes your mother cry,” she finished.
That was evidently the right thing to say, because the girl’s face eased. She shot a wary glance over her shoulder, and her dirty hand wormed through the fence.
Robin grabbed her wrist, dropped the bollstone into the small palm, closing the fingers around and breathing another syllable or two of chantment. It was as strong as she could make it under such circumstances. “Remember, small Cathy, not in soda.”
“Okay.” Disbelief warred with cautious hope. “You are magic.”
And you are mortal. “Don’t tell a soul. It will break the spell.”
“Okay.” The girl’s eyes were owlish, and she pulled her clenched fist back through the fence. “Here.”
A flicker of small fingers, and a flash of blue. It was a ring, blue plastic, glowing slightly with its own inner light. “For you,” Cathy whispered. “Th-thank you.”
A fullborn might take insult from those two words, or might consider the lack of them an affront, too, as it suited them. Robin merely nodded, picking up the small, sad payment. Maybe instinctive, maybe a young mortal’s generosity—or maybe it was that small Cathy knew, even so young, that nothing at all was ever free.
Robin watched as a pale head bobbed through the weeds and up shaking stairs that had probably once been handmade with care. The door slammed, but not before Robin heard raised voices. A woman’s, angry, and a hangover-blurred man’s, pleading.
She straightened, scuffing the empty dirt-socket