You Let Me In - Camilla Bruce Page 0,61
out, penning small notes to myself on the pages. The coffee was good. The weather was fine. Ferdinand slept on.
When he finally woke up, with a backache no doubt, the sun was trailing toward the horizon, ready to set. He woke with a start, sat up in the chair, and fumbled with his glasses to set them straight. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, “I’m sorry…”
“What are you so sorry for?” I had just had a lunch-slash-dinner; the empty plate stood before me on top of the manuscript sporting a piece of lettuce and a lemon slice.
“I don’t know. For falling asleep? I didn’t mean to, I swear…”
“No harm in that, but now that you’re awake, some coffee?”
He brushed invisible lint off his clothes and nodded his head vigorously. I left him alone for a moment then, to go inside and pour him a cup. Pepper-Man was in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, waiting for me.
“What does he want?” He nodded in the direction of the porch.
“I don’t know yet.” I poured the coffee. “We’ll have to see, won’t we? Wait for him to talk.”
“Why would he come to you with this, why not your mother? You do not owe him your aid.” Pepper-Man seemed edgy—restless, worried perhaps.
“I am his sister and Mara is my daughter. He can see the faeries too, so where else would he turn?”
“I would not know, but he upsets you, and I do not like to see you upset.”
“Maybe you should talk to Mara about that. She is the one who causes the upset.”
“Mara ceased listening years ago, as you well know.”
“Exactly. The only way to prevent more damage is to hear my brother out, and help him if I can.”
“But I can feel the clouds gathering, Cassie. He smells like blood and fear, that man.”
“Not even you can know the future. Maybe this time we can quench the fire before it even begins.”
He shook his head. “Hardly, it is already burning.”
“That is just her you feel.”
“Yes, it is, and that man out there, he will burn with her too.”
“That man still has nightmares about you, whatever harm could he do?”
“Tommy Tipp was a harmless man too, but think of all the grief and sorrow that he brought.”
“That was different.” I fetched Ferdinand’s mug off the counter. “Tommy Tipp was you.”
Out on the porch, I served my brother coffee and sat down before him.
“She came back,” he said, as I knew he would.
I stifled a sigh, suddenly feeling so old and weary. “Go on.”
“She came back when I was playing, but this time I had locked the doors, so she knocked…”
“And?”
“I let her inside, I couldn’t help it—she’s my niece, and I think I am a little ashamed—no, a lot ashamed, that we have treated her so badly, even if none of us knew she was there.”
“Of course you feel that way, but you couldn’t have known, and even if you invited her to Sunday dinner, she wouldn’t really be there, you know.”
“But what is she, then? What are the faeries?” His eyes were wide open, pleading with me.
“They are nothing,” I told him. “Nothing we can define. They live in the cracks and narrow spaces, in between day and night. They are twilight people. Not quite dead, not quite alive.”
“Thank you,” he said solemnly. “That was very helpful.”
I chuckled a little. “You asked and I answered. You and I are pale fruit, brother, growing in the twilight. I always thought I was the only one of us who did, but it turns out you live there too. We’re not quite at home in any world, and so we are meat for the faeries.”
“It doesn’t seem to bother you, though.”
“It did—it does, but there’s no use fighting it. A man born without an arm doesn’t spend the rest of his life wishing for an arm, he learns to use the one arm that he has. That’s what I do. I learn to be good with what I have—and maybe that one arm is enough, you know. Maybe you can do tricks with that arm; fantastic things no one has ever seen before. That’s how you have to think about it, as a disability you can live with and maybe even transform into a strength.”
“Mara doesn’t think so.”
“My daughter has never known any differently, and she doesn’t know what she’s wishing for.”
“She feels bereft.”
“That she does.”
“She says that if she could, she would be like me—us—and come live with me in my house.”
“You don’t want that, Ferdinand,