Dead and Gone Page 0,52

I'd be getting used to it," I said out loud, startling myself even more. I didn't want to add up the people I'd killed, though technically most of them weren't people. Before the past two years (maybe even less if I counted down the months), I'd never laid a finger on another person in anger, aside from hitting Jason in the stomach with my plastic baseball bat when he tore my Barbie's hair out.

I pulled myself up sharply. The deed was done now. No going back.

I released the spray head and turned the hose off at the faucet.

In the fading sunlight, it was a little hard to tell, but I thought I'd dispersed the dust pretty thoroughly.

"But not from my memory," I said seriously. Then I had to laugh, and it sounded a little crazy. I was standing out in my backyard hosing down fairy blood and making melodramatic statements all to myself. Next I'd be doing the Hamlet soliloquy that I'd had to memorize in high school.

This afternoon had brought me down hard, to a real bad place.

I bit down on my bottom lip. Now that I was definitely over the intoxication of having a living relative, I had to face the fact that Niall's behavior was charming (mostly) but unpredictable. By his own admission, he'd inadvertently put me at great risk. Maybe I should have wondered before this what my grandfather Fintan had been like. Niall had told me he'd watched over me without ever making himself known, an image that seemed creepy but touching. Niall was creepy and touching, too. Great-uncle Dillon just seemed creepy.

The temperature was dropping with the creeping darkness, and I was shivering by the time I went in the house. The hose might freeze tonight, but I couldn't bring myself to care. There were clothes in the dryer, and I had to eat since I'd missed eating lunch at the mall. It was getting closer to suppertime. I had to concentrate on small things.

Amelia phoned while I was folding the laundry. She told me she was about to leave work and was going to meet Tray for dinner and a movie. She asked me if I wanted to come along, but I said I was busy. Amelia and Tray didn't need a third wheel, and I didn't need to feel like one.

It would have been nice to have some company. But what would I have done for social chitchat?Wow, that trowel slid into his stomach like it was Jell-O .

I shuddered and tried to think of what to do next. An uncritical companion, that was who I needed. I missed the cat we'd called Bob (though he hadn't been born a cat and wasn't one now). Maybe I could get another cat a real one. It wasn't the first time I'd considered going to the animal shelter. I'd better wait until this fairy crisis was over before I did that. There wasn't any point in picking out a pet if I was liable to be abducted or killed at any moment, right? Wouldn't be fair to the animal. I caught myself giggling, and I knew that couldn't be good.

Time to stop brooding; time to get something done. First, I'd clean off the trowel and put it away. I carried it to the kitchen sink, and I scrubbed it and rinsed it. The dull iron seemed to have a new gloss on it, like a bush that had gotten watered after a drought. I held it to the light and stared at the old tool. I shook myself.

Okay, that had really been an unpleasant simile. I banished the idea and scrubbed. When I thought the trowel looked spotless, I washed it and dried it all over again. Then I walked quickly out the back door and through the dark to hang the damn thing back in the toolshed on its designated hook.

I wondered if I might not get a cheap new trowel at Wal-Mart after all. I wasn't sure I could use the iron one the next time I wanted to move some jonquil bulbs. It would feel like using a gun to pry out nails. I hesitated, the trowel poised to hang from its designated hook. Then I made up my mind and carried it back to the house. I paused on the back steps, admiring the last streak of light for a few moments until my stomach growled.

What a long day it had been. I was ready to settle in front of