You Let Me In - Camilla Bruce Page 0,47
heart then and swallowed all my doubts, chose to believe that what I’d seen was a sign; that the Otherworld wasn’t all lost to me after all, and that maybe one day I would see them again, my Pepper-Man and my Mara. Suddenly, I was laughing instead of crying, standing there in the shower, while the water from the showerhead slowly went from warm to cold and the mist in the bathroom was no more.
When I woke up the next day, long past noon, Pepper-Man was there.
He was sitting on top of the chest of drawers watching me. He looked just like before—when we were married—with his slanted green eyes and chiseled cheekbones, broad shoulders and narrow hips. His hair, which had gradually turned a soft shade of brown, was pooling down in his lap, though it looked more knotted than usual. Relief flooded me and nearly had me in tears again, but then Pepper-Man saw that I was awake and jumped down on the floor.
“So you can see me now? I thought we would have to do this for weeks, running about in the woods, screaming and shouting—”
I couldn’t help but laugh, even if I was crying. “I thought I had lost you for good. You and Mara both.”
“They poisoned you against me,” he raged. “They rose walls between us, lacing your veins with toxins—can you feel it? Feel it slithering through you like a snake?”
“Are you talking about the pills they gave me?” It had never even occurred to me that they would have any effect on my ability to see faeries, even though Dr. Martin had told me that was the very point.
“Of course,” said Pepper-Man, “they are weapons meant to blind you.”
“I didn’t think that was possible.”
“Well, now you do.”
“I threw them all away yesterday.”
“Good riddance, then,” he huffed.
“I thought they only worked on crazy people—”
“Well, women like you, running with faeries, are crazy—whatever that means.”
“Then I’d rather be the crazy one.” I stifled a fresh bout of tears.
He kissed my head then, lay down with me on the bed—the very same bed we had shared while living together as husband and wife. “Do you remember how I told you that everything in nature can be eaten by something? Your pills are nature too; those concoctions that you swallow can eat everything faerie. Do not let them feed you those things again.”
“I won’t.” I laced my fingers in his hair, was so grateful in that moment just to have him back beside me, I didn’t even mind if he scolded me a bit.
“We ran with you last night, Mara and I, and Harriet too, answering your calls and your summons. The gates to the mounds stood open wide, and the water girls licked the blood from your skin, and yet you could not see us. Mara was quite distressed, Gwen had to brew her a calming drought and send her to sleep in the yew tree. It is a dangerous power, the one your Dr. Martin wields, that can make a mother blind to her child.”
“I don’t think he believes himself to be particularly powerful.”
“Even more reason to be scared, then. A sorcerer with no understanding of his craft can do great damage.”
“But I’m here now,” I said, “and the drugs are wearing off. Come and feast.” I pushed the laces of the nightgown away from my neck, lay back, and closed my eyes.
Home at last.
Later that same day I saw Mara. My girl was waiting for me by the edge of the woods, curly hair wild down her back. I cannot describe the joy I felt, holding her in my arms. My beautiful shadow child, for a brief moment lost to me. She kissed me and hugged me and took me by the hand, led me with her into the woods, into the mound where I told her all that had happened; every accusation and every insult, every nasty headline. All my anger came pouring out of me, even the anger I nourished for my family and long kept suppressed.
In hindsight, I should maybe not have done that—but you must understand that I had no idea what she could do.
What damage she would wreak later on.
* * *
Your mother did an interview with the S— Gazette shortly after I came back from my undeserved stint in the hospital. She felt she had to, I suppose, to save face, or to rescue whatever was left of her dignity after I had so rudely spoiled it. This