‘You’re not considering it,’ Phil says, a note of incredulity in her voice.
‘Of course I’m not,’ I say. ‘There’s no way I’m going to fairyland on the prince’s terms. Not a chance.’
‘What happens if you don’t go, though?’ Cardy says. ‘Call me a wuss, but I don’t particularly want to be on the receiving end of the prince’s punishment.’
‘You would not face it,’ Tam says. ‘Were you not listening? It is Rhymer who would feel the consequences of your defiance.’
‘Yeah, we all got that, Tam,’ Holly says. ‘You don’t need to explain it back to us.’
The five of us are sprawled around the Blacklin family living room: Cardy and Phil on the floor, Holly draped over an armchair, and Tam and I on the couch.
Tam obviously doesn’t enjoy sitting that close to me, because he gets up and starts to pace. ‘This is all the prince asks of you,’ he says. ‘To go with him to the Summerland.’
‘What do you mean, all?’ I say. ‘It’s a pretty big thing to uproot your life and leave everyone you love to move to a whole different universe, Tam. You of all people should know that.’
‘No,’ he says. He pauses, and runs his hand through his hair in an incredibly Finn-ish gesture. ‘I mean … you are all he asked for? He made no mention of the Silver Lady?’
I resist the urge to look around and check if everyone’s poker faces are adequate. ‘None,’ I say. ‘The prince didn’t mention Emily at all.’
The others know, of course. I spilled the tea on what actually went down in the group chat. We can’t tell Tam that the prince wants Emily, I wrote. The fact that he thinks that the prince has abandoned her is the only thing keeping him on our side.
Holly-Anne Sullivan: we don’t need him on our side
Holly-Anne Sullivan: we can’t trust him
Pearl Linford: we need him on Misrule. He’ll have Emily’s powers AND Finn’s powers.
Holly-Anne Sullivan: I’ll have Emily’s powers
Holly-Anne Sullivan: I’ll be able to find all the shit we need to find
Pearl Linford: that’s not going to help us if we need to heal Finn!
James Cardigan: so the thing about Finn trying to save your sister and the prince poisoning him definitely wasn’t just a nightmare?
Pearl Linford: I’m def not willing to gamble on it being just a dream
Phil Kostakidis: you’re all talking past each other
Phil Kostakidis: no matter where we stand on trusting Tam, we can all agree that telling him the prince actually DOES want Emily back is a bad idea, right?
James Cardigan: right
Pearl Linford: YES
Holly-Anne Sullivan: fine
‘This is the Valentine’s fault,’ Tam says.
‘What?’ I say.
‘Just as he would punish Rhymer for your transgressions,’ he gestures at Cardy, ‘he is punishing the Silver Lady for the Valentine’s. She is written on his bones, and he is written on hers, and he would take her from him just to punish him.’
‘Are you crying?’ Holly asks bluntly.
‘Holly,’ Cardy says warningly, ‘leave it.’
‘So what do we do now?’ Phil asks. ‘What can we do now? Wait?’
I nod. ‘It’s six weeks until Valentine’s Day. We need to spend those six weeks coming up with the most watertight plan we possibly can.’
‘Where’s Julian?’ Cardy asks suddenly. ‘He’s a big part of the plan, right? We need him to open the door. Where is he?’
‘Upstairs,’ Tam says.
‘On his own?’
‘Unconscious.’
‘And … how did he get that way?’ Phil asks.
‘I know more than one way of rendering a person unconscious. Not all of them are violent.’
From the expression on Holly’s face, I know I’m not the only one who noticed the way Tam has not clarified whether he used one of these non-violent methods on Julian.
‘Is he …’ Phil hesitates. ‘How is he?’
‘Confused,’ Tam replies. ‘Aggressive. Afraid. There is a reason he is unconscious.’
‘Hang on,’ Cardy says. ‘I just thought of something.’
‘If it’s how the hell we’re going to manage Julian for the next six weeks, then I will hail you as the smartest person alive, because I have no idea,’ I say. ‘This is a short-term solution. We can’t keep him here forever.’
‘It’s not,’ he says. ‘It’s just … Julian’s such a mess right now because Emily and the prince both hijacked his brain, right? A servant can’t have two masters and all that.’
‘Right,’ I say. ‘I think, anyway.’
‘I …’ He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, psyching himself up. ‘I remember some of what Jenny said yesterday. When she – she took me over. It was like I could hear myself speaking, but not control – that’s not the point. She said that the prince couldn’t find a way into my head, because I was hers.’
‘Yeah, and?’
‘Remember when you fainted because you’d OD’d on all those iron pills and I took you to hospital?’ Cardy says. ‘Didn’t you tell us that the Unseelie possessed Dave and visited you in the middle of the night? How did that happen if he belongs to the prince?’
I blink. It’s a testament to what a total shitstorm the past few months have been that I’ve almost totally forgotten that night.
At any moment we can reach out and take anyone, Dave had wheezed at me through his oxygen mask, looming over my bed, IV needles dangling from his arms. There’s no escape from us. We can take anyone. We can kill anyone. They will all die, and you will live to see them die.
‘Is it possible?’ Cardy’s asking Tam. ‘That someone could be possessed by the Seelie and Unseelie at the same time?’
‘Perhaps,’ Tam replies. ‘But it would be a war. Summer and winter cannot exist at the same time, just as something cannot be hot and cold at once. Whoever was stronger would win. And it is likely that the human would be torn apart in the process.’
‘Dave’s dying, right?’ Holly says. ‘That seems pretty torn apart to me.’
‘He’s lucid, though,’ Phil says. ‘Isn’t he, Pearl?’
I groan. ‘It wasn’t the Unseelie.’
‘What?’ Holly says.
‘It was the prince,’ I say. ‘The whole time, it was him.’
Unless I kill Finn, right? That’s the deal? I can save everyone if I kill Finn?
The thing inside Dave had just smiled at me in response.
I should have realised. I should have seen the dodge around the truth right then and there.
‘Why, though?’ Phil asks. ‘What possible good would that do?’
‘He’s not interested in doing good,’ I say. ‘He was just messing with me. Because he could. Because –’ My hands curl into fists, and my fingernails dig into the palms of my hands. ‘– Because he thought it would be funny.’
One thing I make sure I do before they leave is to make Cardy forget the fairy music. ‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’ he says.
‘As sure as I can be,’ I say. ‘I did it to Phil, and she’s fine. Shad too, last night when I got back from the hospital. And – and Disey.’
‘I just –’ He gestures at nothing, ‘it’s just – the thought of someone in my head, you know? Someone else?’
‘I know, but if I don’t take the music away, your alternative is obsession, insanity, and then probably death,’ I tell him.
He sighs. ‘Fine. Get rid of it. I don’t suppose you can just erase that connection to Jenny while you’re there.’
‘I wouldn’t want to risk trying it. Look at me. And … forget.’
I give Phil the bracelet of Finn’s hair to take to the hospital with her so she can wake up Marcos. It hurts me to give the last little bit of Finn away – to give the last chance to get any answers from Hunter away – but I do it. ‘I’ll come by later and de-music-ify the rest of your family that I haven’t got to yet,’ I tell her. ‘I assume they’ll all be crowded around to see Marcos make his miraculous recovery.’
I hope the same cop is on duty in front of Hunter’s room. I need to de-brainwash her too.
But … if I de-brainwash her, will she spill the beans? Will I get arrested?
‘They must play fairy music all the time in fairyland, right?’ Phil asks Tam.
‘Yes.’
‘What happens to the human babies who hear it before they understand the word forget?’
‘They die,’ he replies, as matter-of-factly as if he’d just said, ‘The sky is blue.’
That matter-of-factness is something we work on together in the next instalment of our How to Be Finn classes, after the others have left and Tam and I have spent a very awkward few minutes conversing with one of his neighbours, who spots us standing in the driveway and comes over for a chat.
‘Is this the new girlfriend, then?’ he says, waggling his eyebrows. ‘You do well with the ladies, don’t you, Finny-boy?’
‘Yes, this is my girlfriend Pearl,’ Tam says stiffly, standing a good two feet away from me.
‘Hi Pearl. Nice to meet you. I live across the street. My son is mates with Matty, and –’
‘Leave,’ Tam says. ‘Now.’
Neighbour-man looks – understandably – taken aback.
‘Sorry, we’re in a bit of a hurry,’ I say. ‘We’re going out. It was nice to meet you, though.’
‘You too, love.’
I try and make Tam understand what he did wrong as we drive away. ‘You need to be more polite,’ I tell him. ‘You’re very … direct sometimes. It’s off-putting.’
‘It is truthful,’ Tam says. ‘I am truthful. And the Valentine cannot lie.’
I pull Finn’s car into the carpark near the oval. It still smells like him, and even though I do my best to ignore it, it sets a low ache thrumming through every part of me. ‘Sure, Finn can’t lie, but because of that, he’s found lots of ways of telling the truth in cosy, cuddly ways. Because he’s also sensitive, and he doesn’t like hurting people’s feelings.’
‘Almost every time I have witnessed you with the Valentine, you have been shouting at each other.’
‘He’s different with me. We grew up shouting at each other, and …’ I sigh. ‘It’s hard to explain. It’s about nothing, most of the time. And … sometimes I even look forward to shouting at him, especially now, when we can make up after. It’s … not a good model for human communication, so you can just forget I said any of that, and stick to polite.’
‘You’re not polite.’
‘I can be plenty polite.’
‘But you’re not,’ he says. ‘Not often. You can be very … direct.’
I shoot him a look. He responds with that slight quirk upwards of the corner of his mouth which is the Tam equivalent to a smile.
‘It’s not off-putting, though,’ he says. ‘I always understand what you mean.’
‘Good to know,’ I say. ‘Lesson One for today – remedial human interaction – is now complete. Let’s move on to Lesson Two – basic driving.’
Given that Tam is an ultimate ninja warrior, it shouldn’t be a surprise that he picks up driving fast, but I wasn’t expecting it to be this fast. ‘Are you sure you’ve never done this before?’ I ask, as he perfectly executes a three-point turn.
‘Of course, I haven’t.’
‘Yeah, well, let’s see how you go in traffic,’ I say. ‘Let’s try driving back to your place. Slowly.’
Either I am the world’s most amazing driving teacher or Tam has a future in Formula One, because our trip back is entirely uneventful. I mean, sure, Haylesford isn’t exactly the traffic capital of the world, but we still have to go through a set of traffic lights and a roundabout on our way back, and there isn’t a driving instructor anywhere that would fail Tam’s approach. ‘So you need to reduce your –’
I stop speaking as he shifts from doing eighty to doing sixty just as we pass the speed limit sign. ‘How did you know to do that?’
‘I can’t read words, but I know numbers,’ he says. ‘The Silver Lady made Holly teach me before I started work at the nursery. I can match the symbols.’ He taps his finger on the odometer.
Work. Shit. Finn missed a shift at the restaurant where he works the night we fought the Riders, and he obviously never called in. I hope he’s still employed.
Or Tam is still employed. What the hell are we going to do when we get Finn back? I made that totally bonkers promise to Tam about him getting to be Finn’s mysterious new brother, but if I somehow against-all-the-odds succeed in getting Finn back, how’s that actually going to work?
Is Haylesford big enough for two Finn Blacklins?
It’s weirdly reassuring that, when Tam pulls back into Finn’s spot in the Blacklins’ driveway, he parks the car slightly crooked. Just because he’s got miraculous driving skills doesn’t mean he can slip effortlessly into Finn’s life. He can put on Finn’s face, but he can’t put on his personality. He can learn to imitate him, but he can’t become everything that Finn is.
‘So I’ll swing by tomorrow,’ I say, getting out of the car. ‘I want to see if we can put together some kind of a map of fairyland, and we can go through how to use a phone again, then maybe we can get you started on reading – mmmpphhh!’
I try to pull away, but Tam’s hand is like iron on the back of my head, his lips pressed to mine.
It’s the worst kiss I’ve ever had in my whole life. Including a few pretty bad ones with Dave. And also that time Simon Anelli tried to kiss me at a party when he was drunk but missed and ended up licking my ear.
We’re both motionless. He’s holding my head to his way too hard, and my lips are painfully crushed between his and my teeth. I try to push him away but he catches my wrist in his free hand, his fingers like a manacle around my wrist. Other than that, we’re not touching at all.
He releases me after about fifteen seconds. ‘The neighbour is watching from his front window,’ he whispers, his forehead resting against mine. ‘It would be strange if I let my girlfriend go without kissing her. That is what the Valentine would do, correct?’
‘Don’t touch me without asking ever again,’ I whisper back.
‘He kissed you?’ Phil asks in a horrified whisper.
‘Not, like, kissed-kissed,’ I reply. ‘More like stage-kissed. For the neighbour’s benefit.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I refuse to believe that someone would unleash a kiss that terrible if they actually meant it.’
‘Maybe he just doesn’t know how to kiss,’ Phil says.
‘Fair point,’ I say. ‘Considering the lifelong boner he’s had for Emily, I doubt he’s been running around making out with people.’
I’ve seen Tam kiss before, I remember. Emily kissed him, when she put the mask on him that made him look identical to Finn. You have served me loyally and faithfully and wonderfully, she told him, tears shining silver on her face in the moonlight. No one can claim they have such a pet as I. But it is time for you to be set free.
I shiver involuntarily. If he works out that I’m lying to him about the prince wanting Emily back, I doubt that forcing awkward, wooden kisses onto me is going to be his primary mode of punishment.
They will never find where I will hide the bodies.
No one’s found Helena’s.
And … at least Helena’s death was quick.
‘Honestly, kissing isn’t that hard, though,’ Phil is saying. ‘Like, it’s not complicated.’
‘Did someone say kissing?’ her aunt Christina says. ‘Are you two talking about boys?’
She winks at us – something I very strongly suspect she would not be doing if Marcos hadn’t made a ‘miraculous’ recovery a little while ago. ‘You have a boyfriend, don’t you, Pearl?’ she says. ‘I’m not surprised – how could anyone not want to listen to your beautiful music all the time?’
‘And that’s my cue,’ I say to Phil. ‘Will you come over here with me for a second, Christina?’
I spend a good couple of hours de-musicifying the rest of Phil’s relatives, while she ticks them off a list of funeral attendees she’s made in her phone. I even manage to nab a couple of work colleagues of Mrs Kostakidis’s who are getting stitches after running their car off the road.
‘That’s everyone in the building,’ Phil says. ‘Let me go to the bathroom real quick, and then we’ll hunt down the rest.’
I look for the cop while Phil’s gone, but she’s not there. There’s a different one standing outside Mr Hunter’s room, and when I very politely ask if I can see him, he snarls, ‘No visitors! Leave now before I arrest you!’ so fiercely that I flee.
I could have used the music on him. I know I could. But a) is my music stronger than the prince’s command to them to stop me from seeing Mr Hunter? Probably not, b) even if I could get in, Marcos is wearing my Finn-hair bracelet, so there’s no way I could wake Hunter up, and c) even if I could get in, and even if Hunter did somehow wake up, the thought of using the power the music gives me over people like that …
It’s thrilling. It’s too thrilling. And that’s exactly why I shouldn’t use it.
So I spend the rest of the day and almost all of the next – bar an interlude for a How To Be Human: Mobile Phone Edition lesson with Tam, where he keeps his hands and his lips thoroughly to himself – relinquishing my power. With Cardy and Holly as our research staff, telling us where to go, Phil and I drive all over town, until we’re sure we’ve freed everyone from the music.
‘That was weirdly fun,’ she says, as we grab a coffee after making our last stop. ‘It’s – you know that feeling you get when you tick something off your to-do list, and you’re like, boom, done, I’ve achieved something?’
‘Yeah,’ I agree.
I know I could tell her how I feel. That it’s also weirdly sad, giving up the power over people that you have no right having. That with people dying every time we turn around, having something, anything that can help you protect yourself is comforting.
I could tell her, but I just got her back, and the thought of being without her again …
‘Thank God it’s socially inappropriate to film things at funerals,’ I say instead. ‘Can you imagine the shit we’d be in if someone filmed me playing and put it on YouTube or something?’
Yeah, that’s right, Pearl, remind her of her mother’s funeral. That’s a much better option.
‘God, that’d be a nightmare,’ Phil says. ‘And speaking of nightmares … have you worked out what you’re going to say to the prince when he comes back tomorrow night?’
‘Well, I was planning to say no, obviously,’ I say. ‘Want to come around tomorrow and help me workshop something a bit more concrete?’
She agrees, and then we manage more than an hour of conversation that’s not about fairies or death or murder or brainwashing or boyfriends (ex or otherwise) at all, and it’s more restful than three full nights of sleep put together.