Free Adrift by Elizabeth A. Reeves Page A

couldn’t seem to decide if it was worse to have me around or to have me beyond his control?  If my dad had been around we would have poked fun and made the situation amusing.  How could I tell my beloved land-lady, who was more and more like a mother to me, that her son was… was what, exactly?  Moody?  Cranky? 
    Fascinating?  Despite myself, and his manner, I felt very drawn to him.  I liked him and was beginning to think that, under that brusque exterior of his, we would really get along well.  I looked forward to seeing his homely yet appealing face and missed him on the days he didn’t come around.  On the rare occasion he let his guard down and actually smiled at me, I could feel the blood roaring in my ears.
    So I held my tongue when Maura speculated about an early mid-life crisis or male menstrual cycle to the fabled quick tempers of redheads.  I had a suspicion that Devin was just as conflicted and torn as I was—perhaps more so, as he had all the responsibility of the world, literally the world, on his shoulders.
    I really didn’t want to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.
     
    That night my dreams were particularly vivid.
      Silver mist crept up the shore, thick and heavy.  It felt portentous, like it was telling me something I should understand but I didn’t know the words.
    My mother sat on the docks, her dark hair thrown loosely over her back.  Her fingers flashed in the moonlight.  She was winding yarn into a ball, her face a mask of concentration.
    I sat next to her, but she didn’t even pause in rolling up her yarn.  I wanted to snatch it from her, to throw it into the water and scream at her to pay attention to me, but something held me back.  Perhaps it was that there was so much urgency in her hands as she worked.  As if she were racing against a clock.  Why was she in such a hurry when the Fae need not worry about time?
    I sat and watched her, dangling my feet in the water.  I watched my toes make ripples and found myself tipping forward. I reached out my arms to embrace the water.
    A small, warm, hand touched my arm.  I stared into the wide eyes of my mother.  She looked down at the water, then back into my eyes, then she, with all her might, pushed me away from the water.
     
    I hit the floor in my bedroom.
      I somehow managed to strike my elbow on the side table and whimpered.  That hurt!  My elbow throbbed as I padded out to the kitchen, knowing sleep was far away for me, now.
    Maura sat at the table, staring into a bowl of water and humming to herself.  She looked up when I came into the room and gestured to me.  “The gateway is very thin tonight,” she whispered.  “Can you feel it?”
    I nodded.
    She sighed and picked up the bowl, pouring the water into a few of her potted plants.  “On nights like this, I try to scry,” she confessed, in her normal voice.  “I don’t see anything, but sometimes I hope that I will.”  She blushed like a girl.  “Do you ever wonder what it’s like on the other side?”
    I nodded mutely.  I had never considered that Maura, part-blood as I was, could feel the pull of Faerie too. 
    She shrugged.  “It’s no matter.  I’m very happy with my life.”  She placed a hand on mine.  “Very happy, indeed.  It’s just the curiosity of an old woman.  I do wonder if the grass is greener on that side.  Perhaps the grass isn’t green at all.”  She offered me a cup of herbal tea, but I shook my head.
    “I don’t think my mother wants me,” I said, my eyes on the table.  A few beads of water marred the surface and I skated my fingertips across them. 
    Maura sat back in her chair.  “What makes you think that, Meg?”
    I shrugged, trying to get past the knot of hurt in my chest.  I cleared my throat.  “She pushed me away.”  I described my dream to Maura, and the force at which my mother had thrown me away from her.
    Maura looked thoughtful.  “If it were me,” she said, softly, “and you