Changeling
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“So, what do you want with Ciaran? Is your Seeker boyfriend looking for him?” Killian finally said lightly, but his face didn’t match his voice.
I fought to hide my surprise at his question. “The Seeker is not my boyfriend,” I said, looking him in the eye. “I found out Ciaran MacEwan is my father, too.”
Killian sat back as if he’d been slapped. His eyes open wide, he scanned me again, looking at my hair, my eyes, my face.
“I realized it in New York,” I explained awkwardly. “I didn’t know until then. But—Ciaran and my mother had an affair, and my mother had me.” And they were m`uirn beatha d`ans, soul mates, and then Ciaran killed her. And a short while ago he tried to kill me. I wondered if Killian had any idea what had happened to me in New York. I figured the odds were against it—he had told me that he and Ciaran weren’t all that close. Appearing out of nowhere, the waitress clanked our plates onto the table in front of us. Killian and I both jumped. After she left, he continued to look at me, stroking his chin.
“What was her name?” he asked finally. “Your mother.”
“Maeve Riordan, of Belwicket.”
I might as well have said Joan of Arc or Queen Elizabeth. He stared at me as if I’d suddenly grown two heads.
“I know that name,” he said faintly. Then, seeming to come back to himself, he shook his head and looked down at his hamburger. “American hamburgers.” He sighed happily. “I’m so sick of mad cow disease.” He picked it up with both hands and took a big bite, closing his eyes in pleasure.
Now what? How did I get from here to having him tell me everything about Ciaran and getting Ciaran to come to Widow’s Vale? Somehow I had to find a way. Every day, every hour counted. At this very minute Alyce was at Practical Magick, feeling a heavy mantle of doom lowering over her head.
“How did you found out about Ciaran?” Killian asked after a minute, taking another bite. Apparently discovering he had a half sister hadn’t dulled his appetite.
“I’ve read Maeve’s Book of Shadows,” I said. “She talks about Ciaran in it. Then in New York, I sort of—got into trouble. Ciaran helped me get out of it. And we figured it out how we knew each other… that he was my father. I–I have his eyes.”
“Yes, you do,” Killian said, studying my face.
“Anyway,” I went on. “He helped me, and he’s my biological father. I didn’t get a chance to really talk to him in New York or even to thank him.” I shrugged and glanced up to find Killian looking at me intently, and I felt a surprising strength coming from him.
“But you weren’t raised by Maeve,” Killian said quietly. “You couldn’t have been. How did you come to be here, in Widow’s Vale?”
“Maeve put me up for adoption,” I explained. “My family, the Rowlandses, adopted me. They’re the only parents I’ve ever known. I have a sister, but not a blood sister, of course. I mean, when I realized that I have an actual half brother… by blood.”
Mary K., please forgive me.
Killian blinked, as if this notion were just occurring to him. He focused on his food, working his way through his burger and shake with steady intent.
As the minutes went by, I felt more and more anxious. What if Killian hated me, the flesh-and-blood evidence of his father betraying his mother? At last he looked up, his plate completely clean. He smiled.
“Well! A little sister,” he said cheerfully. “Brilliant. I always hated being the baby.” He stood and leaned across the table to kiss me on the cheek. “Welcome to the family.” He made a rueful face. “Such as it is. Now. What do they have for pudding here?”
I watched as Killian devoured a slab of chocolate silk pie, and the new silence felt awkward. I studied Killian, trying to think, trying to prod my addled brain into motion. I needed more information from him. That was why eh was here. I needed to know everything he could tell me.
“Was Ciaran a… good father?” I asked.
“Not particularly,” Killian said, sitting sideways on his bench and putting his feet up. “He wasn’t around you a lot, you know. He and mum hate each other. He used to come around a couple of times a year, and he would test us kids and find us all wanting and blame my mother, and she’d cry, and then he’d take off.”
“That isn’t how I pictured it at all,” I said. “I thought, he’s your real father. He would teach you. He would show you magick. I thought you were so lucky to have him around.”
“Nope.” Killian seemed unconcerned, but I could tell it was a facade. “What about you? How’s your dad?”
“Great,” I said. “He’s really brilliant—does all sorts of research and design and experiments. But then he’ll leave his glasses in the fridge, and forget to put gas in his car, so it runs out, and you’ll ask him to get something and find him an hour later, reading in his office.”
Killian laughed. “But he’s nice?”
“Really nice. He loves me a lot.”
“There you go, then.” Killian rubbed his hands together and looked up, as if to say, Shall we go?
“It must be difficult for you,” I said quickly, trying to keep this conversation going. “I mean… I hope you’re not upset with me. For bringing you here. For springing all this stuff on you so quickly.”
Killian looked surprised for a moment, and then he seemed to regard me differently. He gave me a rueful smile. “Well, love, it’s not as though my family life has been The Cosby Show. Finding out I have a sister…” He seemed to take me in, and at that moment I felt a sense of connection to him, like this wasn’t just an awkward conversation between strangers. I sensed in him that—kinship, I guess—that sprang from this less-than-ideal connection by blood. “… well, there are worse ways to spend a Monday afternoon.”
I smiled in response, and immediately started to feel guilty about using Killian to get through to Ciaran. It saddened me to think that he was a real person, my real half brother, with feelings, and I was really only getting to know him as part of a spy maneuver. The fate of Starlocket was a pretty good motivation, but I was beginning to feel that I liked Killian and that I might enjoy getting to know him even if Ciaran wasn’t involved.
“So do you and Ciaran ever… see each other?”
Killian made a face as though he tasted something sour and took a last sip of chocolate milk shake. “No.” He shifted, and I realized that all at once that he was incredibly uncomfortable with this conversation and wanted to flee. “I’m beat sis,” he said as I kicked myself mentally for not changing the subject earlier. “It was lovely speaking with you. I’ll see you around.”
“But—” I watched helplessly as Killian left some money on the table and walked briskly out the door. “Killian! Wait!” I threw some money down on top of Killian’s, grabbed my stuff, and ran out the door behind him. How would he get home? We were too far from anything to walk. Widow’s Vale wasn’t exactly a place were you can hail a taxi.
But I didn’t see Killian in the parking lot, and a quick scan of the highway found no pedestrians, no cars headed in either direction. In fact, I realized, I hadn’t heard a car go by in the last five minutes or so. I looked back at the parking lot, moving closer to study the woods on the perimeter of the lot. There were no footprints anywhere; the ground looked untouched by human feet. Frustrated, I leaned against Das Boot and took my last look around. Where had he gone? Had he actually used magick to get away from me?