show them that the Fae are out there wreaking havoc, it just doesn’t seem to stick. They slide back again and again to accusations of witchcraft — or worse, to pretending these things aren’t happening at all. Honestly, Perry’s doing well by even acknowledging that the Monster’s real. Half the villagers are convinced it’s either an urban myth — or a demon. Father Caleb’s doing, that,” she added with a roll of her eyes. “Overall, he’s been a good influence, but I sure wish he hadn’t taught them about demons.”
“So it was a pretty dumb move to try to tell him about Kelpies?”
“Not dumb, just misguided.” Elena sighed. “But yeah, pretty dumb. Best case scenario, he thinks you’re some dumb woman with a uterus full of hysteria and dismisses what you said completely.”
“That’s more or less what happened, yeah,” Helen admitted, feeling a flare of irritation at the nasty things Perry had said to her.
“Right.”
“What’s the worst case?”
“Worst case is he takes what you know as evidence that you’re a witch,” Elena said frankly. “He takes that information to the townsfolk, it spreads, and before long you’ve got a crowd of villagers baying for your blood. It almost happened to me.”
“What? Seriously?”
“Yeah. Brendan stopped it, but… well, I still don’t like going to the village if I can help it. It was a little more complicated, with me — a woman who looked like me was actually hurting people a lot, and there was some mistaken identity involved with what went on — but I was horrified by how quickly the villagers turned on me. You try to think people are kind and good at heart, but…” Elena shuddered, frowning into her soup. “And they are, mostly. But they can get scared, Helen. And when they get scared…”
“They do terrible things,” Helen murmured.
Elena nodded, and they sat in silence for a long moment, both of their minds occupied with the awful things human beings were capable of.
Chapter 29
The conversation with Elena gave her a lot to think about. Distracted, ill at ease, and with a restless, nervous energy in her that she couldn’t dispel — something to do with the adrenaline of the interrogation, perhaps — she decided to go and see if she couldn’t make herself useful somewhere. She found the Headwoman in the kitchen, presiding over some baking, and offered herself as a kitchenhand. Blair was grateful for the help. It seemed that with the guard shifts doubled, Brendan had taken it upon himself to draft a few of the kitchenhands into the guard — a kind of militia that they relied on in times of stress. What it meant for Blair was that she was short-handed. Helen felt glad to be of service — she passed a busy afternoon and early evening in the kitchen, helping to keep the place clean as well as rolling up her sleeves to help with dinner. By the time Blair released her from her service with an approving nod of thanks, she was worn out — but feeling a lot better about the impromptu interrogation she’d attempted earlier that afternoon.
She sat with the other women at dinner, losing herself in their chatter. Anna and Nancy were sharing stories of their children, laughing with Elena, who still had so much to look forward to with a baby on the way. She was convinced the child would be a boy — Brendan, though, was staunch in his belief that it was a girl, which was making it difficult to decide on a name.
“It’s bad enough how much he fusses over me,” Elena said, rolling her eyes. “You’d think I was made of glass, not just pregnant.”
“Oh, Donal was the same. Men are stupid. They don’t understand pregnancy, so assume that we’re not strong enough to handle it without their wise advice.”
“Bet you set him straight on that one,” Nancy commented, her eyes gleaming.
Anna chuckled. “Oh, aye. Losing a swordfight to a pregnant woman will change a man’s mind about how frail she is, that’s for certain. I don’t often beat him, but I did that day. Very satisfying.”
That reminded her — she reached into her dress to extract the iron blade that Brendan had given it earlier, turning to Anna. “Speaking of sword fights — do you suppose you could give me a few lessons with this?”
“Oh, iron dagger. Good thinking. And yes, absolutely. You know to put it well away from the cottage if you go to visit Maggie and Darter, right?