M - for reference to poison and Lorelei being extra creepy to innocent muggles


Lorelei sat in the armchair closest to the fire, letting the heat of the flames warm her face and her dark red hair. The jeans and sweater she wore felt odd, but they made her look like a muggle. A helpless, harmless muggle with watchful eyes. She stretched her feet out, the only guest here this late afternoon. A newspaper rested on her lap. A cup of tea, now cold, sat on the side table.

She listened to the chatter in the kitchen a room away. The father was chopping vegetables, and the children, home from school, worked on revision at the table. When the trees bloomed outside, the Wold Inn would burst with life.

For now, it stayed quiet.

Lorelei twirled a red petal in her gloved hand. A cat curled up near the fire tracked her movement with a twitch of its tale and bright green eyes. She tucked the petal into the crack between the cushion and the seat. For little paws to find later. Or little hands.

She'd scattered other red petals throughout the house - one in the lowest drawer in the kitchen, one in a low basket by the television, one beneath a chair leg in the dining room, and one in her guest room, inside the pillowcase.

She cursed this house. She had been here, she was here, she could come back again. Curses like these lingered longer than poison, revenge for the little gifts that the Wold children had hidden in Lucy's cottage when they'd been very young. Lorelei had found tiny paper fairy wings stuck in the floorboard cracks. A note tucked into a keyhole. Colorful beads in a lopsided heart shape glued behind the mirror of the medicine cabinet. They were there, they'd been there, and one child had come back, whispering freedom in the house elf's ears.[1]

Wesley Wold.

His younger brother found her now, running to her with light footsteps. As the youngest, Wyatt's hair was still a bright blond, his cherubic cheeks turning red when he laughed or cried.

He wore a red cape with white felt eyes and white felt teeth stitched on the hood in the face of a dragon. Even muggle dragons were nonthreatening. Cute.

"Hello, traveling man," Lorelei used the name he called himself when wearing the cape.

"Aura Traveling Man," he smiled at her. Wyatt glanced at the hall that led to the kitchen, where the eldest, Wendy, was trying to sneak off.

"I'm done, Dad!" The girl had a face full of freckles and the stick-straight strawberry blond hair of her mother.

The father grumbled, but no one could hear little Wyatt in the living room. Good. The child looked relieved too - no older sister to correct the little brother.

"Miss Fenby, guess what. We get to have chicken noodle soup for supper. With a big loaf of bread. Dad's making it."

"Sounds delicious, Wyatt."

Lorelei wouldn't be staying for supper. She glanced at the stairs leading to the second floor. The pentral in the locket around her neck listened closely to the child's voice, stirred by the sound of a name.

"It's really good, if you don't bite into the peppercorns," Wyatt went on.

Lorelei nodded.

"They're the little black pepper things, round, like this," he pinched his thumb and index finger at the pupil of the dragon hood he wore.

She leaned forward, pretending interest in the cape. Lorelei gave a tug on one of the felt teeth. The child smiled, backing away, looking at her gloved hands. He'd been wanting to ask since she'd arrived.

"Miss Fenby?"

"Yes?" Lore smiled too widely. No one was paying enough attention. Soon, Aura Traveling Man would have reason to check the guest book and find a Bryony Fenby, visiting from Bristol.

"Why do you wear gloves?"

"It's a skin reaction," Lorelei shrugged. "I'm a gardener, and the oleander I was tending to left welts on my fingers. Flowers are pretty, but they can be poisonous too. The stem, the leaves, even the petals can cause a rash. Or worse. Did you know that?"

He blinked, unsure.

"Do you want to see?"

She picked at the edge of her glove, revealing a pale, smooth wrist, then paused.

"Let's see your cape first," Lorelei held her hand out expectantly. "It's only fair."

He shuffled his feet, hesitating.

"I know it's yours. Your Christmas present. I'll give it back to you."

No, she wouldn't.

He untied the cape and handed it to her. His faded blue sweater sported a cartoon wolf, just as nonthreatening.

She held the cape in her gloved hands, studying the stitching and the straight edges of the soft felt teeth. "This is very nice. Your mother made it for you?"

He nodded. "She bought the cape, but made it into a dragon."

"I must ask her how. Is she joining us for supper?"

He frowned, looking at the stairs.

"Mummy has a cold. I had a cold in December, and now mummy has a cold."

"You never went to the farm with your older brother, did you."

His brow furrowed. He shook his head, looking at her curiously. Wyatt loved to talk about his older brother, and he'd told her yesterday that Wesley had come home from school one weekend in January. Why, Wyatt? A funeral. A funeral, are you sure? Not now, but in April, when Wesley would visit home again.

Thank you, Wyatt.

"Are you sad about your mum?" Lore softened her voice, folding the cape into a tight roll.

"Yeah?" Wyatt looked confused, unsure of the expected answer.

"Which one?"

"What?"

"Which one are you sad about, Wyatt? Your dead mum, or your dying one?"

She spoke in such a soft, concerned voice, a tone her brother might have used genuinely, that the child merely blinked at the word that had so much weight in this house.

"No one's dying," he whined a little, his eyebrows drawing together.

Lorelei simply stared at him, the softness in her face fading, the pale angles of her skin warmed only by firelight.

The child's face flushed red. He darted forward, kicked at the leg of her chair, and then ran off, racing for the kitchen.

He left the red cape behind. She left him with the truth.

Lorelei rose, slipping the cape into her bag, which was enchanted to hold several other necessities. She'd have to act now. He was the type of child who would run to his father and tell on her, but then again, perhaps not.

Wesley Wold had kept his mouth shut since December, after he'd glimpsed her at the farm. Disappointing. She'd let the child live and he told no tales.

She went to the bottom of the stairs, looking up.

Her foot hovered over the cat curled on the first step, and she carefully stepped over it. She moved slowly, stepping with the creaks of each stair.

You have plenty of time, slow down more, the pentral in her head encouraged her, knowing her thoughts.

The middle of the stairs groaned under her feet.

Don't!

For the first time in a month, the pentral trapped in the locket whispered raggedly in her mind. Ignoring her, Lorelei reached into the pocket of her bag, withdrawing a fragrant, deep red oleander bloom.

Twirling it in her gloved fingers, she reached the top step.

1.	The Solstice

Rhonwen Wold woke with the setting sun. She sat up in bed with a groan, breathing through her mouth. Her dream came back to her in fragments. She'd been standing by a creek next to a washer woman whose hair fell stringy and dark over her shoulders. She'd turned away from Rhonwen, keeping her son's cape from her. The cape bled red into the water, the same color as the woman's thin mouth.

No, no, not your time, the old woman had croaked.

Keep resting.

Something red blotted her vision in the fading sunlight. She reached over, knocking her hand against her water glass, nearly tipping it over. What was that? Soft against her knuckles?

She blinked the sleep from her eyes.

A flower. Red. The stem too long for the water glass.

She glanced toward the door, smiling a little. The door was open. She'd closed and locked it earlier, she could have sworn.

Rhonwen rose from bed, bringing the flower to her face and inhaling deeply as the stem dripped water onto the floor. Her nose itched. She couldn't smell a thing, her nose was so stuffy.

She set the stem back into the glass, intending to put it into a vase later, to thank her children. As she dressed for supper, an itch grew on her fingers, turning them red.