A Coat Red as Holly Read online

  A

  Coat

  Red

  As

  Holly

  By

  Alicia Gaile

  A Coat Red as Holly

  Published by Snowy Wings Publishing at Smashwords

  Copyright 2017 Alicia Gaile.

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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  For Mom, who taught me how to be strong no matter what life throws at you.

  Table of Contents

  I.

  II.

  III.

  IV.

  V.

  About Alicia Gaile

  Other Titles by Alicia Gaile

  Connect with Alicia Gaile

  I.

  Coming back from the dead taught me life was too short to waste. I couldn't expect the faeries to take pity on me again. However, my near-miss with death convinced Mom she needed as much of my time as possible, which was why we stood at opposite ends of the kitchen trying to drum up a conversation when neither of us had anything to say.

  With her back to me, Mom dragged a wooden spoon through the tomato sauce boiling in the pot. It bubbled softly, splattering red drops across her white stovetop.

  "Mrs. Fischer stopped in at the shop today to ask how you were doing. She told me she really enjoyed the book report you turned in for your final project." Despite her conversational tone, I flinched at the words.

  "I'm sure she did." I muttered. "I bet she's been waiting all semester to assign The Scarlet Letter just so she could slap a big, red 'A' next to my name." For an English teacher, Mrs. Fischer didn't understand subtlety very well.

  Mom's shoulders tensed. Mrs. Fischer must have lathered the honey on thick for Mom to swallow her venom without a second thought. Scowling, I chewed on my thumbnail.

  It wasn't enough that the old dragon made me stand up and read my report in front of the class while my baby did somersaults inside my belly. No, she went the extra mile to make sure Mom swallowed a dollop of shame too. I wondered how many customers witnessed Mom's eagerness to believe the false words of praise instead of the usual criticism and complaints about me. Judging by the way she threw a dishrag on the counter and scrubbed furiously at the red stains, it must have been more than a few.

  "You should have said something, Gwen," she said in a pinched voice. "If I'd known...!" It wasn't my assignment that bothered her though. She hated that because of me someone made her look like a fool.

  The low burble of boiling water was the only sound in the kitchen, but I could practically hear Mom's wounded pride trying to repair itself. I searched for a distraction while she absorbed the sting of Mrs. Fischer's sneak attack. I found a target within arm's reach and glanced over my shoulder to make sure she wasn't looking.

  While she tended her sauce like a witch hovering over a cauldron, I rotated the Christmas cards pinned in a neat display on the refrigerator door. I had to be careful not to rustle the pages, but when I finished no two were perfectly aligned anymore. The one from Grandma, I flipped all the way upside down so that it flapped like a mouth from the hot air blowing from the heating vent in the floor.

  The smell of stewed tomatoes overpowered Mom’s kitchen, temporarily masking the mustiness of oak cabinets and crumbling grout.

  My stomach gave a long, rippling growl like a tiger. I put a hand on my belly and pursed my lips in a silent 'shush.' The baby kicked my ribs in reply. I smirked. She wasn’t even born yet, and already she fought me when I told her ‘no.’

  I glanced longingly at the vat of boiling noodles. Mom made the best spaghetti! Just the thought of her homemade meatballs left me wiping a trickle of drool from my chin. I couldn't remember the last time she made it. The thought made me frown.

  "You feeding an army or something?"

  It would be just like her to invite me over just to cook my favorite meal and not invite me to stay. Then again, I was the one gullible enough to fall for a message as vague as the one she left with Grandma, 'I found some things Gwen would want.' Two points to Mom, I guess.

  The 'things' she found were in a brown, plastic, grocery bag looped over the round knob on the drawer by the sink. To get it, I needed to walk up beside her where she was cooking. Considering I was shaped like a human meatball and she was tucked in the corner, I preferred to stay out of her way. Of course, she knew that, which was the reason she hung it there instead of setting it on the counter where I could easily get to it. She wanted me to ask her for it.

  Unlike Mrs. Fischer, Mom knew how to execute a subtle power play like a pro.

  So far, I'd managed to pretend not to notice it hanging there, and in almost an hour she hadn't so much as glanced at the bag. My patience and curiosity were starting to get the best of me, but for the moment, I contented myself upsetting her carefully arranged holiday décor.

  She had her games, and I liked to play mine.

  "Set an extra plate if you're hungry," Mom said with a shrug as she spun her Lazy Susan in search of oregano. "There’s plenty. I ran into Lyall at the grocery store. He said he'd stop by to help get the rest of those boxes down from the attic. It's full of your old books and papers you should go through before I throw them out."

  I dropped the card I was holding—an elegant one with puppies wearing oversized Santa hats outlined in gold leaf from the Rowes two doors down.

  "Lyall's coming here?"

  Once upon a time that wouldn't have been unusual. A year ago, Lyall was a regular at our dinner table. But then again, so was I.

  I spread my knees and tried not to grunt as I squatted to pick up the card. My fingers bumped it between my spread feet and out of sight beneath my belly. I groped blindly before I found it, and heaving myself back up took so much huffing and puffing it surprised me Mom didn’t set her spoon down to come help me out.

  I set the card on the counter. I stared into the cute puppy dog eyes, not really seeing them.

  A lot had changed in the last nine months. I rested my left hand on top of my belly to reassure the baby that I didn't hold any of those changes against her.

  “Gwen, the plates! Didn’t you hear me?”

  I gave a little start and stretched up on my toes to reach up to the second-highest shelf. I was so distracted, I forgot to give her a hard time about ordering me around.

  "He asked how you were doing. No, not those plates, the nice ones." I barely brushed the cheap plastic ones with the tips of my fingers when she corrected me. I threw a dirty look at her, but she was busy wiping sauce off her spoon and pretended not to notice.

  Untying her apron, she smoothed her steam-soaked bangs away from her face. Thanks to the moisture, the feathered layers were honed into tiny darts stabbing down onto her forehead. She surveyed the kitchen with a critical eye. I side-stepped to hide the refrigerator from view.

  Seeing everything in order, she gave a brisk nod before arching a thin, penciled brow at me.

  "He should be here any minute, so try to behave yourself."

  Any moment? My eyes darted to the window above the sink. If I left now maybe I could be gone before he arrived.

  "Really Gwen, I don't know why you insist on being so difficult. He's your friend, for goodness sake. He cares about you! Heaven knows why after the way you've behaved."

  "Mom, I don't want to talk about it!" I didn't want to think about it either, but it was too late for that.

  For the first month or so of my pregnancy, Lyall carried my books
to class and shared his lunch even when I insisted I was full. He claimed a regular seat in detention for refusing to turn the other cheek when slurs and whispers came at me like boxing gloves in a ring.

  "It's no big deal," he assured me on the last day before summer break when I found him rinsing blood out of his mouth in a water fountain by the boy's locker room.

  "Just ignore them. I do. They're going to talk anyway. It's not worth getting upset about it."

  "You didn't hear what they were saying," he muttered. He licked his split lip to see if it had stopped bleeding.

  "And I don't mind—really, I just..." He grimaced. "I just wish you'd tell me what happened. Whose is it?"

  That question formed the bricks my answer slid over like the mortar.

  "I can't tell you, Lyall. You wouldn't understand."

  Each time he asked we laid a new layer. Eventually, we built a wall not even ten years of friendship could overcome or tear down.

  Ignoring the disapproving click of Mom’s tongue, I looked around for my gloves. Before I got the first one on, a creak sounded from the front porch followed by loud swoosh as the storm door swung shut.

  "Hello?" Lyall's high, raspy voice would always make him sound young.

  The floorboards creaked as he shuffled his feet across the carpet. With each step, Mom's antique crystal rattled in the china cabinet as though a giant was clomping through the house. However, when Lyall rounded the corner, he was the same thin, slouching boy he'd always been. His cowlicks stood up more than usual thanks to the wind, and I thought I spotted snow flurries caught in the dark strands. If so, they melted before I could be sure.

  Careful not to look at me, he greeted Mom first. She gave him her brightest customer service smile.

  "Lyall! So glad you could make it. I'd say, 'I hope you're hungry,' but you're a teenage boy. Of course you are!"

  My eyebrows pole-vaulted to the top of my forehead. I'm not sure who her cheery performance was supposed to be for. Lyall and I both knew she was never that excited about having more stomachs to feed. She’d certainly made that point undeniably clear to me anyway.

  Returning her greeting with an equally forced smile of his own, Lyall stripped off his black school hoodie. My eyebrows rose at the sight of muscles flexing across his chest and shoulders he'd never had before. The old, black shirt clung to his triceps in an all-new way as he draped his hoodie on one of the kitchen chairs. Now I knew how he filled the time he used to spend with me. The muscles made him look older, but he was still lanky. Like a puppy, his feet and hands were too big for his frame. They made him clumsy and accident-prone to a cartoonish degree. Even as I watched, his toe caught the table leg and he stumbled.

  Finally, he couldn’t put it off any longer. He sucked in a quick breath and then lifted his head to look at me.

  "Hi, Gwen."

  He managed to make it sound normal, like things were the way they used to be between us. I wished I could shake off the awkwardness so easily.

  I tried to arrange my mouth in a friendly smile, really I did. He'd been my best friend since the fifth grade, practically my only one. Lyall's was the first face I saw when I woke up from my car accident last March, when I learned magic could really bring someone back from the dead, and the crash that should have killed me left me with only a few broken and bruised ribs.

  My lips wouldn’t cooperate. I wasn't as good at hiding behind a smile the way he and my mother could. He took pity on me.

  "Should be any day now, huh?" He tilted his head so his too-long bangs fell into his eyes. With his chin, he pointed at my belly. I placed a hand against the swell. It surprised me how self-conscious I felt. By now, I was used to the sidelong looks. High school had never been easy for me, but after I started to show it became a living nightmare. Thankfully, the fall semester was finally over, and Mom grudgingly agreed to let me get my GED rather than return.

  "Two more weeks." He nodded in a way that told me he’d kept track of the time too. That took me by surprise. I winced.

  He studied my face, asking without words if I was really okay.

  I knew that look. It was the same one he gave me that night in March, the night his older brother, Ian, came home for a visit, and the seniors arranged a bonfire to celebrate his return. That night my world changed forever. Lured by the promise of popular boys and the chance to tempt one into the darkened woods to make out, I followed uninvited like a moth to the flames.

  It's normal to crush on an older boy from school. It's almost expected for girls to scribble love notes and draw hearts around the boy's name. I made the mistake of forgetting that I was an outcast, for daring to daydream about a boy who'd never have me and thinking it was safe to throw such silly notes away.

  It turns out the entertainment for the evening was a dramatic reading of one of my crumpled love notes someone dug out of the trash. Two lines in and Ian and the others were howling.

  I tried to disappear before anyone noticed me, but Lyall watched me slink away and followed me to my car. It’s possible he might not have realized the note was mine if I hadn't been gushing tears like a fountain. He didn't say anything, just stared at me like I'd contracted a cancer that withered me away right before his eyes. Unable to stand his silent pity, I jumped in my car and drove away.

  Looking back, the humiliation wasn't really that bad. Already, it seemed trivial compared to what I’d been through since. It certainly wasn't worth dying over.

  As soon as I thought about it, the memory of that night hit me like the tree that shattered my dashboard ten minutes after leaving Lyall standing in the dark.

  My fingernails bit into the lip of the counter trying to anchor me in the present while my brain flung me into the past. Thanks to the extra blood in my veins from being pregnant, my pulse thundered through my temples like an elephant stampede.

  I hadn't experienced a panic attack in a while, but under the circumstances I wasn't surprised one chose that moment to settle in.

  The moment I saw him I knew he didn't belong to our world.

  Half-blinded by tears I flew too fast around a bend. My high beams lit up the gray stag standing in the road. A monster, he stood bigger than the quarter horses I saw at the county fairs. His antlers were so vast they seemed to rival the trees. Awe, shock, and terror flooded my chest. He lifted his head, and the weight of his stare slammed me back against my seat. Even though he wasn't directly in my path I swerved hard to miss him and slammed straight into a tree.

  The bang of buckling metal exploded in my ears as I smashed chest-first into the steering wheel.

  It never should have happened. Meeting him required too many pieces to come together just right, but against all odds somehow they all did. I don't know if I believe in fate, but that night I discovered forces powerful enough to send fate on her way.

  I missed the first piece of magic that got me out of the car, but I regained consciousness in time to see him transform.

  It happened quickly and gracefully. On moment he stood on four legs, and then he folded forward and rose again with only two. The fur faded to reveal gleaming chestnut skin. His features became more human, but the antlers remained. They were smaller in this form and somehow still managed to come across as regal rather than absurd. And he was big, probably close to seven foot tall.

  A rich, musky smell rose from the furs that made up his cloak. It blended with the scent of tilled-up earth from my car veering off the road. Together, they were strong enough to mask the smell of blood. Or maybe his magic did that considering how much lay splashed around us on the ground.

  “Apologies," he said in a deep, steady voice. " I still forget there are some of your kind that can see me. I'm afraid those taxed with reminding me do so the hard way.”

  He stayed silent for a long time while my breathing labored.

  “As this is my fault I offer to grant you one request within my power, and I assure you my powers are considerable. Just know that to spare you would cause you more pain in the end.”
Hmmm, pain or death? Seemed like a no-brainer to me.

  "There is always a cost," he went on. "The spell will require a life for a life. By the end you may find that death would be easier." I was already dying, and that was agony. Memories surfaced and mixed with my hopes for the future. One day I planned to leave Straifield and find what I’d been missing all my life. I wanted a life full of love, family, and happiness. After everything I’d been through didn’t I deserve that, for just a moment at least?

  A far off siren wailed as a thick haze settled in my mind, distancing me from approaching blue and red flashing lights.

  His shadow moved over me, and he murmured, “It is done.”

  Usually a life for a life sacrifices one for another. When dealing with faeries, never expected them to play by the usual rules.

  "Gwen?" Lyall shook my arm gently, his face inches from mine. I inhaled, taking the sharp smell of alcohol that formed the base of his cologne deep into my lungs. Coughing, I jerked away so he wouldn't see how badly I was shaking.

  "I should go. It's going to be getting dark soon." My voice shook only a little as I reached for my other glove.

  "Don't be silly," Mom said, panting a little as she poured spaghetti into a colander. "It's freezing outside, and there's ice all over the place. Just wait until after we eat and I'll drive you back."

  Luckily, it didn't seem like she'd noticed my little space-out. I glanced at Lyall. He retreated a step and took sudden interest in a chip in the countertop. Grateful he wasn't going to give me away, I cleared my throat.

  "Grandma's cooking tonight. She'll be upset if I don't eat with her."

  Mom's nostrils flared and she opened her mouth to argue, but her attention snagged on the dismantled card display on the refrigerator door. A muscle flexed in her jaw. Despite my panic to get out of there, I hid a triumphant smirk watching her fight the urge to move them back where they belonged.