I struggled to keep the bag upright. And to keep it out of the puddles that gathered in the low spots, and the horse crap that gave the street a distinctively barnlike smell.
I must have been making some kind of face, because Grace actually volunteered information for the first time I could remember.
“The internal combustion engine does not function in Faerie,” she explained. “Those who have reason to travel between Avalon and Faerie perforce do so on horseback, so you’ll see a great many more horses here than you might in most cities.”
This was probably fascinating information, and no doubt I should be gawking at my exotic surroundings. But the jet lag was too overwhelming, and I was struggling too hard with my stupid luggage to manage it.
I was relieved beyond words when we finally came to a stop in front of a picturesque stone row house. It was three stories high and rather narrow, but the old-fashioned, leaded-glass windows and the window boxes overflowing with white roses gave it a pleasant, homey look.
Aunt Grace muttered something under her breath, and the door made a series of clicking sounds before it swung open. No one had touched it.
Magic, my mind mumbled. But I was too tired and grouchy to be properly impressed.
I didn’t get a good look at the interior, because Grace immediately led me upstairs to the third floor. And no, she didn’t offer to help me haul my bag up the two narrow wooden staircases.
“Here we are,” she said, opening the first door at the top of the stairs.
I hauled my luggage over the threshold, then dropped it gratefully. The room looked really nice, but all I really had eyes for was the huge, soft-looking four-poster bed. Never had a bed looked more inviting.
Grace smiled at my obvious yearning. “I’ll leave you to get some rest,” she said. “There’s an en suite bathroom right through there.” She pointed at a closed door at the other end of the room.
“Thanks,” I said, my tendency toward politeness rearing its ugly head. I took a couple of steps toward the bed. I probably should have fished my toiletries out of my luggage and at least brushed my teeth before collapsing, but the lure of sleep was overpowering.
“Sleep well, dear,” Grace said; then the door closed behind her and she was gone.
I had just reached out and put a hand on the bed to pull back the fluffy down comforter when I heard a distinctive click. I blinked. Surely I hadn’t heard what I thought I’d just heard.
Alarm overriding my fatigue for the moment, I went to the door. I could hear Grace’s footsteps retreating down the wooden stairs. I put my hand on the doorknob, hoping against hope I was wrong. But when I tried to turn the knob, it stayed stubbornly in place.
My dear Aunt Grace had just locked me in.
chapter three
Of course, I had to try pounding on the door and yelling, but I can’t say I was really surprised when that didn’t work. The only other way out of the room was the window. I had to climb up on a chair to look out, and what I saw was discouraging. I was on the third floor, so climbing out the window didn’t seem like the best idea in the world—even if I could have gotten it open, which I couldn’t. There was no lock that I could see, and it didn’t look like it was painted shut, but repeated banging and prying got me nothing but a couple of broken nails.
Why, oh why, had I decided to leave home? I’d been dealing with my mom for my whole life; what would another couple of years have mattered? Hell, it wouldn’t even have been a full two years—just this summer, my senior year at school (I’d skipped a grade in middle school, so I was generally younger than everyone else in my class) and then the summer that followed. After that, I’d be away at college, and I had every intention of going to school as far away from home—wherever that happened to be at the time—as possible.
My eyes were gritty and my head ached, but I couldn’t imagine lying down and taking a nice little nap under the circumstances.
I found myself fidgeting with the cameo once again. Was my father really in jail? If so, what for? Mom had told me some terrible stories about him, but I was convinced at least half of them were lies.