“You see now. This is what love has wrought,” she screams at me, sounding more banshee than human.
“Hayato…”
My mother’s bloodshot eyes lock on mine, her mouth spewing blood with every word. “Do not let yourself fall in love.”
“Hayato, wake up…”
“It is the most dangerous thing a dragon can do!”
“Hayato, come on, baby, wake up now. Wake up.”
I come awake with a yell…to find a pair of kind brown eyes looking down at me.
Kristal’s eyes…. “Are you okay?” she asks, her worried gaze searching my face.
No, no…I’m not okay. My mother is dead. The two Korean servants supposedly responsible for her death are dead. I watched their executions. The man who oversaw those executions, the man I thought was my father, is also dead.
But fear continues to claw at my chest, like a dragon trying to break free.
“Don’t move,” I warn before rolling her onto her back. “Stay still. Don’t talk.”
Control. That is what I need. I dive between her legs and attack her with my mouth until her worried questions morph into moans.
Control…that is what I need…all I want, I insist to myself as I cover her body with mine and drive deep inside her. Losing myself. Banishing the nightmare with the dream.
She comes again, and I release into her only a few seconds later, my body seizing as I spill into the condom.
But it works. When I roll off of her, the nightmare has faded. My mother’s ghost is no longer screaming blood in my face.
“Can I talk now?”
No…no, she can’t. Talking would be dangerous. Talking might undo me after that nightmare, which was really a memory disguised as a dream.
“I will take a shower, then go downstairs to check the weather,” I tell her, climbing out of bed.
I feel her eyes on me. Sad and confused.
This is why you don’t do relationships, I remind myself. You should let her go. Call off the deal. Get her another room.
But I don’t.
22
Twelve-Thirty
I tell Kristal that I would prefer to have breakfast downstairs when we are both done with our showers. This is a lie. But I’d rather tolerate the noisy dining room than answer any of the questions burning in Kristal’s eyes.
Declan’s mother waves us over to the table where she’s sitting with her son as soon as we walk through the open doorway of the freezing cold dining space. As we file through tables filled with guests wearing a mix of formal morning dresses, summer wear, pajamas, and bathing suits, I studiously ignore all the exclamations of “Here’s the oriental again!” and “I wonder where he’s from? His English isn’t bad at all!”
We find a table filled with toast, bacon, eggs, scones, and several other baked goods when we sit down.
“Instead of setting up the buffet, I made you a special breakfast as a thank you for agreeing to fill in for my stubborn son,” Maeve says, glimpsing our confused looks.
Declan merely glowers at the special spread, and I notice his plate remains empty.
“This looks delicious,” Kristal says, taking the seat beside Maeve. “But you didn’t have to do all of this.”
“I wanted to!” Maeve insists, either not seeing or not caring how angry her son appears to be over her interference in his love life. “Did you have a chance to memorize the poem? I know it’s a tad long, but I think it will sound better if it’s delivered from the heart.”
“It’s all up here,” Kristal assures her, tapping the side of her head. “I did a rotation in the Santa Mail department before I got assigned to Painting, so I’m great at memorizing things. And this was even easier because Gaelic is one of the old fae languages.”
Maeve claps her hands together. “I still can’t believe it. A fairy, a real fairy, reciting a poem to my son’s True Love on his behalf.”
I was having trouble believing it myself. What had started out as a practical offer to convey a message to this Siobhan person in Declan’s stead, had quickly leveled up to ridiculous when Kristal stepped in with an offer to recite a Gaelic love poem on her front step.
I’d merely been attempting to end the standoff between Declan and his mother so that the goal of this trip would be met. My offer had been nothing more than a point of business. Kristal, on the other hand, seemed determined to play into Maeve’s delusions of True Love between Declan and the high school sweetheart he refused to text, much less recite a Gaelic love poem.
“Seriously, it’s no problem,” Kristal says, beaming. “Delivering love poems is so much nicer than what I usually do—speaking of which…”
She winces and pulls out her sketchbook. “Sorry, I won’t be able to eat if I don’t do this first for Hayato…”
As Kristal draws today’s picture of the old man I don’t know, one of the guests seated at the table closest to us turns all the way around in his seat, craning his neck to see what she’s doing.
“The negro’s drawing something now,” he tells the young woman sitting with him. “It looks like a picture of another Oriental. But this one’s much older…”
I grit my teeth when Kristal hands me the quick sketch. If not for being raised to always be polite no matter what was said or done to me, I would have balled up the drawing and tossed it over my shoulder.
Instead, I place it face down on the table as I ask Declan, “Any word on getting to the airport?” Purposefully changing the subject from ex-girlfriends and soon-to-be-dead people.
Declan shakes his head. “The roads are still covered in snow, last I heard. Luckily, Dr. Foss works out of the downstairs of his house, Rodge had to do a special clear and salt just so I could drive us a few blocks over.
“Who is this Rodge?” I ask, even though I can barely hear him over the other guests’ noisy chatter. “Perhaps we could arrange for him to do the same for us, but to the airport?”
“Not a chance!” a voice says behind us.
I turn to see a large, craggy-faced, older man approaching the table. He’s dressed in snow boots, a thick red and black checkered jacket, and one of those hats with flaps. The entire outfit might have been considered a fashion choice in Tokyo. But seeing the snow-flecked all over it, I quickly discern that the old man only had practical reasons in mind when he bought it.
“This is Rodraig Walsh, but all his friends and family call him Rodge,” Maeve says. “The owner of the inn and the third generation of Walshes to run it. He’s the one who used the old snowplow from out back to clear the road for us to both the doctor’s office and Siobhan’s house.”
Maeve gives him a grateful smile, but Rodge glares back at her. “Nor’easter’s done, but the snow’s still coming down. It was a miserable morning getting that patch of road cleared and salted for you. Believe me, I won’t be doing that again anytime soon.”
I open my mouth to offer a dollar amount that might make him reconsider his decision, but before I can, he squints at Kristal and asks, “Speaking of miserable, what’s wrong with you, young woman?”