I almost gasped when I heard the click of the call connecting. But the voice that greeted me was not my mother’s.
“Hathaway residence, may I help you?” the woman said, like I was calling a business or something.
My heart gave a nasty thud in my chest. Oh my God! What did it mean that someone other than my mom was answering? Was she hurt? Sick? Dead?
My whole body was one aching knot of tension, and I could barely manage a whisper, my throat was so tight. “Where’s my mom? Is she all right?” Oh, please, please, please let her be all right! I couldn’t bear it if something had happened to her because I’d run away.
“Dana?” the woman asked. I still didn’t recognize her voice.
“Yes.”
“This is Frances, your neighbor?”
I recognized her now. Frances, who made a point of looking down her nose at my mom and made everything she said sound like a question.
“What are you doing answering our phone?” I demanded. “Where’s my mom?”
“Don’t you worry, Dana honey. Your mom’s just fine. You gave her a nasty fright, you know?”
The last thing I was in the mood for right now was being lectured by our nosy, snotty neighbor. I wanted to crawl through the phone and shake her.
“Please tell me where she is,” I begged, and I guess I sounded pathetic enough that Frances decided not to continue the lecture.
“I imagine she’s somewhere over the Atlantic right about now.”
“What?”
“She’s going to Avalon to find you. I’m watering the plants while she’s gone.”
My mind reeled, though not so much that I couldn’t entertain the cynical thought that Frances was in our house to snoop. If Mom was on a plane right now, then she’d only been gone a few hours, and the plants would hardly need watering yet.
“Mom is coming to Avalon,” I repeated, though I knew I’d heard correctly.
“Yes. She’ll be there tomorrow. She’s real worried about you, sweetie.”
Ugh. I didn’t know Frances anywhere near well enough for her to call me “sweetie.” Hell, I didn’t know anyone well enough for that. But if I tried to correct her, I’d just be on the phone with her longer.
“Thanks for taking care of the plants,” I said. “And if my mom checks in with you, please tell her to call me at my dad’s house.”
I hung up before Frances could answer. To hell with social niceties. My mom was coming to Avalon!
I could hardly believe it. First off, I could hardly believe she’d been sober enough to plan a trip like this at the last moment. Second, I could hardly believe she was just planning to show up out of nowhere. Shouldn’t she have called before taking such a drastic action? I hadn’t had any trouble finding Dad’s number, so she shouldn’t have, either.
Of course, if she’d called before yesterday, she wouldn’t have found me here. It made me wonder if my dad had spoken with her and neglected to tell me about it.
I turned off the light and lay down again, though I was no closer to sleep now than I had been before. I stared at the ceiling and wondered how badly I’d underestimated my mom. I’d fully expected her to get depressed and mopey because I’d left. I’d expected her to feel even more sorry for herself than she had before. Never in a million years would I have expected her to come after me.
Maybe a miracle was actually going to happen. Maybe my running away had finally been the splash of cold water in the face that made her realize what a mess she was making of her life. Maybe it would be the push she needed to get help and stop drinking.
I don’t know how long I lay there like that, wishing, hoping, praying, begging the universe to let it be true, but eventually I managed to fall asleep, and I didn’t wake up until after ten in the morning.
Finn looked almost back to normal the next morning when I came down for breakfast only to find my father already gone for the day. Even the shadows of the bruises were gone from his face, and he didn’t move like a man in pain anymore. I was glad the Fae heal so fast. It helped me feel a little less guilty about what had happened to him yesterday.
I did a double-take when I saw the stranger slumped in the love seat next to Finn. I knew on first sight