The Cursed Blood, стр. 30
Well, almost.
Gramps glared at us both, pulled the card from its colorful cord on the basket handle, glanced at it, then plucked up a sugar cookie and took a hesitant bite. Nodding begrudgingly as he chewed and made his way back to his chair.
“Not bad,” he admitted. “I suppose there’s at least one benefit to having a handsome young grandson about. All the girls will be sending us treats.”
“Not worried about poisons, then?” White Owl asked slyly as he watched Gramps take another bite as he settled back into his chair.
“Why do you think I let you eat one first?” Gramps asked sardonically as he gave his oldest friend a wicked smile and sly wink. Much to Gramps’ amusement the old Master’s eyes widened while he considered that new, slightly treacherous, and decidedly unpleasant line of thought. He busied himself with plucking a few crumbs from his flannel for Manx to lick from his hand instead of looking up at Gramps, who was having a good chuckle at his expense.
I remember the cookies were quite good. At the time I wondered how she had known how much I loved empire biscuits, and how she got them to taste even better than the ones my mom used to bake just before Christmas. If I recall rightly, I ate the whole dozen in a day, and I was thankful for every last bite.
Ever since then (though somehow, we all failed to make the connection) I had fitful nights, waking up and staring at the ceiling in a cold sweat. I never remembered any nightmares or anything like that or could ever put a finger on what it was that was waking me, but I always had an odd empty feeling like I had forgotten something terribly important when I woke.
They were all just fragments swimming about in a sleepy muddle that didn’t make sense and got more nonsensical and confusing the longer I was awake. Trying to remember and make sense of them was like trying to move sand with a fish net.
When I brought it up one morning over ham, home fried potatoes, and eggs, Gramps merely snorted and laughed. Welcoming me to the club as it were. Writing it all up to hormones and me adjusting to a new home and settling into my gift.
White Owl, who much to Manx’s delight had become a regular morning meal guest, hadn’t been so quick to brush it off. Instead insisting that dreams could be important and meaningful, and that such things as I’d described could mean that perhaps there was something important the universe was trying to tell me.
He even suggested I put a notebook and pen on the nightstand and, whenever I woke to jot down whatever I remembered—no matter how odd. Gramps seemed to find all this very funny but on his old friend’s insistence fetched the pen and notepad from his junk drawer nonetheless, if only to make us stop talking about it.
All that I ever got out of it (besides Gramps’ ribbing) when I read the notes I’d written the nights before over breakfast didn’t make much sense—the color yellow, secret bottles of hungry burning evil (which sound like nonsense), something about webs, and flashes of the girl from the Wayfarers who’d later brought me the gift basket. And before you think it, get your bloody mind out of the gutter, it was nothing like those kind of flashes.
Gramps found the whole thing very amusing, making me blush furiously as he proceeded to wink and congratulate me on my crush as he spread some of our new peach preserves on his slice of toast. Advising that I should enjoy the ability to get any dreams, especially nice ones with pretty girls in them while it lasted. He warned that our profession tended to rob our kind of those luxuries after a while.
White Owl was just as baffled but not quite as quick to dismiss things just yet, insisting to much eye rolling from Gramps that I keep up the dream journal and to keep both of them appraised.
Halloween came the next week. This holiday is different in Fey communities, and while they have started trick or treating more recently it’ll always be a time for family gatherings, feasting, bonfires, and remembering those that came before us. In short, what had once been my second favorite celebration of the year, full of good scares, mischief, candy, and fun had become bittersweet.
Sure, Gramps and I carved some jack-o’-lanterns that we lit and set about the porch and gate. Sure, we had tasty apple cider donuts (a seasonal made to order Wayfarers diner specialty much beloved by the Feyish community of the Adirondacks).
White Owl (much to Gramps’ annoyance), even told a scary story that he absolutely insisted was true as we chowed on pepperoni pizza from Sall’s and lounged by the fire. But it just wasn’t the same. Don’t get me wrong, it was fun and all, but it just felt a bit gloomy and discomfited.
The house even got egged and a few of the trees by the gate got hung and garlanded with an impressive amount of toilet paper (we were fairly sure by whom). It was a bit funny watching Gramps charge out the front door after the hysterically laughing hooligans when the first few eggs hit the window.
He came back cursing and wiping at the raw egg oozing down his face. Evidently, it had been an egg ambush. And quite a successful one too by the state of his flannel that he stomped off mutteringly to change. Still though, I couldn’t quite get into it. Everyone knew what was causing my melancholy and everyone tried to act like they didn’t notice.
The next morning over breakfast, Gramps told me we were going into one of the mundane (non-magic non-Fey) towns by one of the Adirondacks’ many pristine lakes