On the carriage ride home, Emma was in high spirits, but instinct drove her to wipe the smile off her face as soon as she entered her kitchen. Her instinct told her that all was not well.

“Stupid girl.” she mumbled to herself. “Why are you happy? You have nothing to be happy about. That was smooth, in the end, but only in the end, and it should have been smooth from the start.”

Emma opened her cabinet and withdrew her trusty bottle of laudanum and brought it level to her eye. The line was lower than she anticipated. Had she really been drinking that much? She could hardly believe it. She knew she was drinking more than her usual amount, which was fully understandable give current circumstances, but she would have noticed if she drank that much, certainly. But who else would be drinking out of her bottle but herself? Her drinks were simply getting away from her notice, that was the only explanation…

Unless a brownie was drinking it when she wasn’t looking.

And that was certainly a possibility. There were supposed to be, according to her mother and grandmother, little faeries inside every house that would either help with the cleaning if they liked the owners of the house or make things vanish if they didn’t. If the faeries were against her, and she was growing more and more confident that they were,then why wouldn’t they send their little brownies to sip from the one thing that made her increasingly miserable life slightly more tolerable?

Emma was beginning to suspect that the faeries had meddled with her in other ways. Maybe they were the reason Sally McNeil turned out to be a huntress instead of a scholar?

Emma didn’t bother with bringing out a glass. She poured the laudenum down her throat straight from the bottle as she reflected on today’s events. She could see the Kindly Ones plotting in her head, whispering to one another how they would influence each ghost just enough to cause her clients distress and herself mortification.

But perhaps, she thought, the problem wasn’t that it was a trap? Perhaps the problem was simply her inexperience with spiritual matters? She always knew that ghosts changed over time as people did. Understanding that, like understanding that souls and minds were two separate, albeit interrelated, things allowed her to exercise power over the yokels around her, but she had proven that she had underestimated how much and how fast ghosts could change. She had proven to be more like the yokels than she would ever admit to another person.

Maybe her inexperience and the trap were one and the same? What was the expression? Giving someone enough rope to hang themselves? Maybe that’s what the Kindly Ones had done with her…

No, she decided. No, this was not any fault of her own. This was a trap, but it had nothing to do with herself. She had done nothing wrong. She knew these yokels. She had studied them like a huntress studied her prey. They were easy to figure out. They were honest, simple people without complexity.

If her mistake had been limited to Alice, Emma could have believed it was her fault, because she only ever believed little mistakes were her fault. But for Alice and Sally to have gone this badly? The Kindly Ones must have set her up. That was the only explanation. They had used their vast and incomprehensible powers to change things behind the scenes so that she would be humiliated. Maybe the ghosts weren’t actually ghosts? For all she knew she was looking at changelings. What was her guarantee that her power were showing her real ghosts? The faeries? Emma trusted John-a-Doors, he seemed a simple being merely doing his job. But those that stood above him? The nameless, faceless faeries that bossed him around? She didn’t trust them one bit, and her power came from them, not John-a-Doors.

Tomorrow would prove things either one way or the other. One setback was misfortune, two was coincidence, but three was without a doubt a conspiracy. Tomorrow, she would show Duncan McBride to his parents, and he was a sure-fire win unlike the two girls. He was a knight of Galahad or whatever it was they were all called, not a knight of the Round Table, but close to one. What could be objectionable there? Even if he was but a page, even if he cleaned the stables of the knights, he would still be honored. He was, in life, a young man of rather disagreeable character. He was often in trouble with the law. Having any sort of honor in Fairy was a huge improvement over his lot in life.

Tomorrow would be a win for her, Emma was sure of it.

Suddenly, there was a knock at her door.

“John-a-Doors?” Emma exclaimed.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

But she realized that the knock came from her front door and not her wall.

Disappointed, she stood up and went to the front door. She opened it to find Roger McNeil.

“Oh, Roger. It’s you.” Emma did her best to stretch her neck and look over Roger’s shoulders. “Where’s Lucy?”

“Lucy isn’t with me tonight. Lucy doesn’t even know I’m here.”

“Oh? Well, come inside, Roger.”

Roger shook his head. “I’m going to stay long, Ms. Quinn. I only have a few things I want to say to you. First of all, I want you to know that I believe you. For the first time since I’ve met you, I believe that you have fairy powers.”

Emma smiled. “Oh Roger, I’ve always had--”

“I don’t know how you were able to get real fairy powers.” Roger suddenly said. “I don’t care how a conwoman like yourself pulled it off. I suppose the world is unjust enough for anything to happen. But I believe that what you showed me and Lucy tonight was a real vision of Fairy. I believe that the huntress you showed us was Sally.”

“I’m sorry, Roger, but that wasn’t Sally. I made a mistake. I’m glad you finally believe in my powers but--”

“That was Sally.” Roger said sharply. “Ghosts change. Ghosts change dramatically, sometimes more dramatically than the change between childhood and adulthood. It’s a bitter truth that many people overlook, because it’s a painful truth. Even people obsessed with ghosts like my wife overlook it. But it's the truth. I always thought you were a fraud because the Sally you previously showed us was just an image of her physical descriptions, like a painting come to life. I always thought it was a person in a wig. But that was Sally you showed us this evening, that was her.”

“Roger, that wasn’t your daughter honest! I made a mistake!”

“Yes I believe you did. You wouldn’t have summoned up Sally if you knew she had changed so much. You wouldn’t have summoned up Sally if you knew she was going to make Lucy uncomfortable. That’s how I know she was Sally.”

“You’re not making any sense, Roger! You know she was Sally because I made a mistake with my powers?”

“I know she was Sally because you gained nothing by summoning her as she was. It’s not hard figuring out what’s true and what’s not with you around. The truth is what you dispose of because it inconveniences you. Falsehood is what you cultivate.”

Roger slammed his fist on the door.

Emma jumped back.

“It was Sally. Wasn’t it?” Roger asked.

“Roger, I’m sorry if today’s session distressed you! It was not my intention to--”

“It was Sally!” Roger roared. “Say it!”

Emma was nodding before the words reached her mouth. “Y-Yes. It was Sally…” Emma gulped. “But you do realize, Roger, that some contest the conflating of a woman’s mind with a woman’s soul?”

“I’m not one of those. Cal Sally’s ghost Sally, or a part of Sally, or Sally transformed. She is Sally to me, and Sally to Lucy. But you told Lucy that it wasn’t Sally’s ghost. You said it could have been a fairy for all you knew.”

“Was I not supposed to? You saw how upset she got when Sally shot that creature!”

“The anulk, right? Isn’t that what you called it?”

“Yes, the anulk!”

Roger glared at her “I believe you called it a merga.”

“What does it matter what it’s called?”

“I don’t think you quite understand your powers. I don’t know how you got your powers, Emma Quinn, but if you got them like how you got everything in your life, you did it with dishonesty. And if you were dishonest with the Fair Folk, they will repay your dishonesty with pure misery. That’s what my mother always told me.”

“I promise you that these powers were given to me by the Kindly Ones themselves. I did not cheat them. I am not so much a fool as to cheat them of all beings!”

“Then perhaps they’ve cheated you? Looking at you now, you remind me of a young boy picking up his father’s ax--and cutting himself because it’s too heavy for him to use the right way.”

“Why are you here, Roger?” Emma was more than a little frightened of him. He had never seen him this cold, this angry. He had always been a funny little prop in the background of her comedy with Lucy until this moment. “Why are you here in the middle of the night banging on my door? Do you want me to tell you that the ghost was Sally? I already told you that it was, and I’ll tell you as many times as I need to!”

“I want you to end your association with my wife. I was fine with you showing her whoever it was before tonight. I was fine with you doing so because it wasn’t real and it made her smile. But I love my daughter just as much as my wife. You will not look upon my daughter anymore, Emma Quinn.”

“I promise you that I don’t actually speak to the ghosts. I don’t meet with them. I don’t actually give them food.”

“I didn’t think you did. God, I almost can’t hate you.” Roge sneered. “Taking gifts meant for the dead. That’s so craven.”

“Call me what you will, Roger, but all I do, all I’ve ever done, is look at ghosts. I’ve never spoken a word to your daughter. To be completely honest, this was only the second time I’ve ever seen her.”

“That doesn’t matter. I don’t want you to have anything to do with my daughter. I don’t want you to so much as think about my daughter. You will leave Sally to do what she will in peace. Is that clear?”

“But what will I tell your wife?”

“I don’t know. You’re the one that’s good at making up stories. Tell her that there was a fluctuation in the Astral fabric. Tell her your fairy patrons got sacked in a fairy war. Tell her the truth, tell her nothing, it doesn’t matter so long as you make it clear that you and her will never interact again. Do you understand?”

Emma gave a rather helpless nod.

“Good. Break ties with her, and then go away. Go away forever. If you bother my wife or my daughter ever again, I will send you to the faeries the traditional away. Understand?”

Emma nodded again.

“Good night, Emma Quinn, and goodbye.”

Roger shut the door in Emma’s face leaving her alone with her mounting anxiety.