Page 14 of The Queen's Box

Miriam exhaled. “A few months later, Wrenna’s belly started to swell, which only made things worse.”

“Stop,” Willow rasped. Her body couldn’t hold any more.

“But she saw the pregnancy through. She had the baby.” Miriam smiled sadly. “She named her Lark.”

“Stop,” Willow cried, and it was like wrenching free from a nightmare, the kind where you try and try to wake up, and finally you do, only to find that the real world is just as ugly. “Please,” she choked, and Miriam’s eyes widened—first in surprise, then in alarm. And then—oh, God, no—

Willow stood up. She could not take this woman’s pity.

“Thank you for sharing your stories,” she said, her teeth so tightly clenched she could have had lockjaw. “Folklore? That’s what it’s called? What an interesting field of study.” She heard how false she sounded and didn’t care a whit.

She gestured at the library door. “But the party. I should get back. My father...” She swallowed. “It’s my job to socialize with the guests.”

Miriam rose slowly. She straightened her soft gray shawl. “Of course. I understand.” She frowned. “Willow, if I upset you—”

“You didn’t!” Willow broke in. “Not at all.” Willow made a smile shape with her mouth and stuck out her hand. “It was nice meeting you. Thanks for stopping by.”

A bewildered-looking Miriam allowed Willow to usher her out of the library. From down the hall, the hum of the party grew louder.

“I’ll tell my dad you liked the library,” Willow said brightly as Miriam opened her purse and rummaged through its interior. “Thanks again for coming.”

Miriam shut the clasp of her purse and offered Willow a business card printed on creamy cardstock.

Dumbly, Willow accepted it.

“My telephone number and home address,” Miriam said. “Drop by any time—and I mean that, Willow. I’ve lost the knack for sleeping as I’ve gotten older, so I rarely bother trying. You’re welcome morning or night, no matter the hour.”

“Thank you. How kind. But I don’t think so.”

She tried to return the card.

Miriam refused to take it.

“You’re going to have questions,” she said. “You’re going to need answers. There’s more to Wrenna’s story—”

“Shh!” said Willow. The hall was vacant save for them, but still, her heart thumped painfully. “I won’t have questions. I don’t want answers. There are no answers anyway.”

“But her story is your story,” Miriam said.

“Not really. Not in my opinion.”

Miriam pressed her lips together, then gave herself a shake. The smile she gave Willow wasn’t fake, like Willow’s had been, but troubled.

“You might not think so,” she said carefully, “but sooner or later, you’ll change your mind. When that time comes, find me.”

CHAPTER FOUR

WILLOW ESCORTED MIRIAM to the foyer and watched from the front door until she was fully and firmly out of the house. Then Willow closed the door and leaned against it, closing her eyes.Wrenna Bratton. My grandmother. A tiny streak of fae, a whiff of magic.

“She had the baby,” Miriam had said, speaking of Willow’s mother, born from rape. “She named her Lark.”

But Willow’s mother was named Mercy. Not Lark.

And Willow’s mother hadn’t been raised by Wrenna, who may or may not have hanged herself, but by Elizabeth Ann Whitmire, who had lived and died a devout Pentecostal Christian and who, by definition, had been anti-faerie all the way. Willow had never met the woman, but she’d heard stories. If anyone so much as mentioned faeries in her presence, Elizabeth Ann Whitmire would have fallen on her knees and begged for the Lord’s protection.

Get thee behind me, Satan!Willow imagined a curdled old woman saying.

Willow’s grandfather, also dead, would have taken it even further, spouting scripture in a trembling voice as bubbles of spit formed at the corners of his mouth.

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