22

Violet Miller and the Present

For two days Violet had let those dreadful words play over in her mind. For two days she’d tried to keep herself from thinking about the fact that Mor wasn’t allowed to love. Violet’s heart broke further with each passing second she spent thinking of what her boss must have endured to be labelled in such a way in his lifetime.

Violet watched Mor’s bothered expression as he dropped his fingers from her temples, and the memory of the alley fizzled away from the forefront of her mind. For a moment, they both stood there in silence, looking at each other. She wished she knew what he was thinking, now that he knew what she’d been told about him.

Finally, Mor said, “He’s not lying. Death does follow me.”

Violet looked between his dual-coloured eyes. “That would make a catchy article title.” It was all she could come up with. She hadn’t even said it with enthusiasm.

Mor exhaled a deep breath and turned back toward the door. If he was upset about what the redhead had said about him, he hid it well.

“Mor… I don’t care about what he told me. I don’t believe him,” she tried.

“I don’t care what you believe. Believe whatever you want, Violet,” Mor said back, and something sank through her stomach. She wasn’t sure why it bothered her. She didn’t care what he believed about her, either.

She cleared her throat and followed him out of the bedroom. He moved slowly enough for her to catch up.

“Let’s discuss The Fairy Post,” he moved on.

“You seriously want to talk about the newspaper right now?” she rasped, smoothing down a wrinkle in her sweater that wasn’t really there.

“Let’s have the secretary job interview we never got around to before,” he finished as he headed down the hall toward the stairs. “But I need to bathe first. It feels like I’ve been hibernating for a faeborn year.”

“An interview? But I’m already your secretary,” she objected. “I’ve been taking your calls, writing articles, I organized your office, and I even almost scheduled an interview with The Sprinkled Scoop. I told my old workplace that I’m the Secretary of Doom, too.”

Mor bristled as he descended the emerald-carpeted staircase. “If you’re going to call me Doom, then I’m going to call you Paint-Face,” he stated.

“Paint-Face?” Violet released an odd chuckle. “Why?”

“Because of the colourful paint you put on your face. The peach cream, the rosy lip stain, the black ink on your lashes,” he rattled off as he reached the bottom of the stairs and headed toward the kitchen.

Violet stopped walking on the stairs. “You. Are. Seriously. Terrible,” she stated to his back. “Do you know how rude it is to say that to a girl? And for the record, I wear makeup because it looks good on me,” she snapped.

“Hurry up!” he called, and she started moving again, a scowl etched into her painted face.

Thirty minutes later, after Mor was bathed and squeaky clean, they sat across from each other at the kitchen island. Mor held a latte, and Violet sipped a tall tea with sugar and plenty of ice. The kitchen was a quaint space with a dull window and a few bunches of herbs drying in the muted light. They were spread out on towels, categorized by plant. Baking supplies filled the rest of the countertops: measuring cups, muffin tins, and a spatula, all set in a neat little tower.

“You bake?” Violet asked.

“I worked in a café for numerous months. Baking is in my faeborn blood now. Tell me about your past, Violet Miller,” Mor said, changing the subject. He sipped his latte, waiting.

“My past?” she asked. “Oh, you mean like my work experience?” She scratched her head as she thought. “Well, I was in high school up until two years ago, and you already know I took an internship at The—”

“No.” The simple word cut Violet’s work experience story off at the knees. Mor slid the latte to the side and folded his hands on the countertop. Suddenly it started to feel like a real interview, and Violet’s grip tightened on her iced tea. She wasn’t great at actual interviews.

“The part about you waking up,” he said.

“Oh…”

That was totally not an interview question, but Violet swallowed and cleared her throat. “Um… I was around thirteen years old when I woke up. I don’t remember anything of my life before that, but I remember what it smelled like when I opened my eyes.”

Mor tapped his fingers against his knuckles. “What did it smell like?”

“Well, there was a strong aroma. It was like flowers, and sweet cotton candy, and an earthy tea-like fragrance. Like a circus had passed through while I was sleeping. The grass was damp, and the sun was so bright that it turned the leaves above me fluorescent green. That’s what I remember waking up to—sweet smells and bright leaves.”

“Leaves. So, you were in a forest like the others.” Mor’s hands tightened together.

“I was one of the victims. Maybe the first one, I’m not sure,” Violet admitted outright. There was no point in avoiding it now—Mor had already looked her up on the internet. “It’s why I followed the story when it started happening again to other women this year.”

Mor chewed on his lip. “But the other victims only lost their memories of the twenty-four hours prior to waking up. The human internet told me that you lost all your memories. Every single one up until that day.”

Violet nodded. “I don’t know if it was your friend’s doing or not.”

“I imagine not,” he stated.

“Then we feel the same. I think we’re dealing with two different criminals. Your friend—”

“Enemy,” Mor corrected.

“—being the second one, and my memory-thief being the first.”

Mor let out a long breath and tapped a finger against his folded hands. “There’s something else that’s different. You said you were thirteen years of age. All the human females being targeted now are several years older than that,” he pondered.

“Yes, but we all lost memories. That’s the worst part—the not knowing. Regardless of how long a period of time it was for each of us. You can’t imagine how valuable your memories are until you’ve lost them.” Violet gently banged her toe against the island cupboards when a quiet pause fell between them.

“You talk like you want to remember your past. But sometimes it’s better to forget,” Mor finally said.

“Of course I want to remember.”

“Why?”

Violet tsked, wondering how he could be serious. “Because what if I lost something huge from that life? What if I was… I don’t know… a foreign princess or something? Or my parents were government agents, and that’s why they couldn’t come forward and claim me?” she asked.

Mor raised a brow, a teeny smirk pulling at his mouth. “You think you were a human realm princess?”

“I don’t know! But wouldn’t it be better if I at least knew for sure?” she asked.

Mor stared, his dual-toned eyes seeming slightly unfocused. “What if it wasn’t like that?” he asked in a low voice. “What if it’s better to forget, Human? What if your life was dreadful, and no matter how much you tried to forget, you couldn’t?”

Violet felt a heavy weight linger in his words.

“Do you have something you wish you could forget, Doom?” she asked, and his attention snapped back to the present.

“That’s none of your business.” He took a swig of his latte.

Violet mirrored him, sipping her tea. She thought about how he’d so easily looked into her memory of the alley with a simple touch of his fingers. Mor wasn’t the first fairy she’d ever met, and that realization alone sat like a weight on her chest. After all this time, she had an answer about what had happened to her that day in the forest. After ten years of searching, she now knew she’d been right to suspect the folklore and not the science. She’d been laughed at, she’d had her writing ridiculed, and she hadn’t been taken seriously because of it. Yet… Here was a creature of legend who could steal memories, sitting right across from her.

Violet studied the beautiful, tanned fairy on the other side of the island. “If you can take memories away from people, can you also return the ones they lost?” she asked. Suddenly she couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of that until now. If Mor could let her see what had happened that day, and her whole life before that day, the mystery of who she was would be solved. She sat up straighter in her chair when he didn’t immediately say no.

“What happened when you woke up on the first day you remember? Tell me that bit,” Mor asked, ignoring her question.

Violet slumped back in her seat. She worked her jaw and smoothed down her shorts over her legs. She fidgeted with the handle of her mug, deciding she would try asking again later.

“I wandered from the park forest onto a busy street and into the nearest building, which just happened to be a local news station. It was a zoo after that. I became the mystery girl—a puzzle the whole city tried to solve. ‘Who is the girl in the purple dress?’ That was the first headline. The next was, ‘Why doesn’t a single person recognize her?’ It became like a game. Rewards were offered to anyone able to solve the puzzle, and I was hounded by private investigators.”

Mor folded his arms and leaned back in his seat. “The Shadow Fairy you met is named Luc,” he said. “He’s a nine tailed fox—something of an anomaly among fairies. It means even if I kill him, he’ll keep coming back. And I believe he didn’t arrive in the human realm until six months ago. That’s proof that whoever stole your memories was someone else.” He paused, chewing on the inside of his cheek. “And what is a zoo?”

Violet wasn’t sure whether he was being serious. “You know, a zoo. Like where they keep animals in cages and people can walk around and point at them,” she said.

“Ah. Of course.” Mor nodded. “We have those in the Ever Corners, too. We call them stables. The royals go there when they wish to select a crossbeast to ride. They point like this.” He stuck his nose up and pointed at Violet. “And then the lesser fairies must get the crossbeast fitted with reins.” He took another sip of his latte. “Unfortunately,” he went on without missing a beat, “some of the lesser fairies don’t survive that part. Crossbeasts are quite temperamental.” He set his mug down and flicked a dollop of whipped cream off the brim.

Violet’s mouth hung open. The crazy part was that she still couldn’t tell if he was joking. When he didn’t crack a smile afterward, she grew more afraid he wasn’t.

“Okay. Anyway…” She pushed a loose hair behind her ear. “As for the actual newspaper stuff, I know I’m not the ideal journalist, but—”

“You’re perfect,” Mor stated. “You’re perfect the way you are. Don’t change a thing, Violet Miller.”

Her chest tightened. He hadn’t even batted an eye when he’d said it.

“…reading your articles is like reading a bad fiction novel.” Cedric’s words collided with Mor’s in a strange battle of voices in her head.

Violet dragged her mug up to her mouth and took a long gulp. She spied on him over the cup as he pressed his fingers against his bandaged side like he was testing the pain—he winced.

Violet set her tea back on the counter. “What do you need me to do for this job?” she asked.

Mor shrugged. “Keep The Fairy Post alive when I’m busy. Simple,” was all he said.

A disbelieving chuckle tumbled from her. “Simple? You think being around you is going to be simple?” She laughed for real now, filling the kitchen with cackles. Mor set down his drink.

“No, actually I think it’s going to be rather terrifying. This job doesn’t just come with a quiet office and fancy ink pens, Human. You’ll also be required to take annoying phone calls, clear my schedule at a moment’s notice, and eventually, help me bury a body.”

Violet blanched. “You see the thing is, I’m having a hard time telling if you’re joking today.”

“Once I catch the fox and kill him eight more times,” he clarified. And then, “Don’t worry your pretty little painted face over it. No one will miss him. He has no friends.” He sipped his drink again, tilting the mug to get the last drops. Violet’s jaw dropped.

“That’s a terrible thing to say,” she scolded.

Mor looked up at her in surprise. “Is it? It’s true.”

Violet’s mouth moved a few times. “You know, I didn’t think it was possible to feel bad for that redhead, but you’re starting to make me sympathize with him a little.”

“What?” Mor blinked.

“You know, like when you’re watching a horror movie and you accidentally start rooting for the crazy axe-murderer because he has a sense of humour. I think Luc could be viewed as cool, in a psychopathic, dark villain sort of way.”

Mor slammed his mug down on the counter, making her jump. “Don’t do that, Human,” he warned.

“Do what?”

“Start to like him. He will enchant you if he finds out, whether he has to burn his face off to do it or not.”

Violet released a sound and rolled her eyes. “As if.” Honestly, she had no idea what weird fairy nonsense he was talking about. But she stole another look at Mor as he stood and carried his empty mug to the sink. He didn’t seem like the na?ve sort, but the fact that he thought she could actually fall for the sinister redhead was astounding.

Violet tore her eyes away from his perfect skin and interesting tattoos to look out the window. She didn’t see him approach until he was already on her side of the island. He reached for her iced tea glass, leaning over her where she sat, and her heart fluttered into a wild, startling dance when his face brushed within an inch of hers.

Mor froze with his hand on the cup. Violet nearly jumped when his gaze cut over and he looked right into her eyes. He was too close to be looking at her like this, yet he stared. Then he said, “Don’t do that either, Human.”

Violet’s cheeks flushed. She didn’t know for sure what he was talking about—she’d never said a word of her thoughts out loud. But if her tumbling heart had any guesses…

“Let’s go steal some books from the library,” Mor said, changing the subject to Violet’s relief, and drawing back to stand. “There’s something I need to look up.”