And things had to unfold a bit.
She helped her father, along with the boy named for her birth father, deal with the horses. The boy led them to the community kitchen, where her brothers had already eaten venison burgers and sweet potato fries and were now stuffing in large wedges of cherry pie.
Eddie sat across from them, just grinning.
“They got appetites. Hey, First Dude, go on back and tell Sal we got two more need some grub, and get some yourself.”
“Solid.” Max slapped his father’s hand, sauntered off.
“I was just talking to Will a bit ago.” Eddie rose to pour iced tea into glasses for them. “The thing is, the house where Lana used to live, ah, Will and Arlys have that now. And it wouldn’t be big enough for all of you, not comfortable, especially with the dogs and horses. But there’s a place near me and Fred? It’s out just a bit. We’re farming our place. Never thought I’d be a farmer, but there you go.”
“I am. A farmer,” Simon added.
“You could farm this place, if you wanted. It’s got some land to it, and I’m not using all ours as yet anyway. But the house is good-sized. We’d get it cleaned up for you, and stock it up and all that. If it suits.”
“We’d be grateful.”
“No grateful about it. Lana’s family and so are you. And Will’s not lying about the bacon-saving. I don’t mean no disrespect when I say Fallon’s father? Max meant the world to me.”
“He means a lot to all of us,” Simon said. “We wouldn’t have her without him.”
“Ain’t that the truth?” Eddie had to dash at his eyes that kept wanting to water up, just like the grin kept wanting to split his face in two.
“We could ride on out there after you get some food in you, see if it suits. I expect Katie’s already sending out a committee to scrub the dust out and all that. Grass don’t grow on Katie.”
“Grass can grow on elves if they want.” Ethan shoveled in the last bite of pie. “I guess she’s not an elf.”
“Nope, but we got plenty of them.”
“Your wife’s a faerie. She has red hair and pretty wings. What are you?”
“Just a regular dude.”
Though she didn’t care about the house itself, Fallon wanted to see the land and the positioning. The house turned out to be as big as Eddie said, and what her father called sprawling. She listened as the two men speculated about the big brown brick structure with porches (decks, they called them), and more glass than she’d have liked, which was probably built not long before the Doom, and by somebody with a lot of money and a desire for genial country living.
The boys, eager to claim bedrooms, ran right inside, and her mother, surely thinking of kitchens and practical space, went in after them.
Fallon walked the land. A nice, gentle rolling toward taller hills and mountains shadowed by distance. A winding, meandering creek cut through, a kind of natural boundary between the land here and the farm with its white frame and gray stone house where Eddie lived with his family.
She and her mother could and would add security and warning spells. But she saw a major advantage in the spread of green, the little copse of trees. They could install a training camp right here. She circled around as the men talked about converting a couple of fancy sheds into stables for the horses.
In the back she puzzled over the spread of flat stones, the canopy of slatted wood and madly twisting vines over a kitchen. Why would people build such a big house and put a kitchen outside?
She knew what the big hole in the ground beyond it had been. A swimming pool, now partially full of rainwater. Someone had maintained the gardens beyond that. She imagined Fred and some faerie friends were responsible.
“Oh God, a summer kitchen! As if the one inside isn’t thrilling enough.”
“Why did they need two?”
“Entertainment space,” Lana said, simply glowing as she stepped out of glass doors. “They’d have parties out here, or just family meals during nice weather. It has seven bedrooms—including a second master on the lower level with its own side entry. You should take that, baby. I’ve already told Colin it goes to the oldest. Five and a half baths, a kitchen that brings tears to my eyes. Butler’s pantry, sunroom. Oh, and look at that sweet gazebo. We’ll have to deal with this pool, and I’ll want to plant herbs and medicinals. There’s not much furniture left, but we’ll get more. I’m going to go help the cleaning team—they’ve already started.”
“You love it.”
“I love being back here, seeing people who matter so much to me. I love having enough space while we’re here. And I won’t lie,” she added. “That kitchen makes me want to sing and dance.”
She came out to slide an arm around Fallon’s waist. “But I haven’t forgotten why we’re here.”
“I really need to get back, talk to Will.”
“I know. I talked to Katie, and we’re going to meet at her house at seven. That gives us time to get some things organized here, clean up—the house and ourselves.”
“Okay. Tonight’s good. It’s soon enough.”
“This is a good place, Fallon, do you feel that? Not just New Hope, this place.”
She hadn’t let herself feel yet, but nodded.
“It’ll be good for your dad and the boys while we’re away from home. Living in town, for however long we’re here? It would squeeze at them. And you, too, I think.”
“There’s another empty house.” Fallon gestured across the roll of lawn, past the little copse of trees, to a two-story structure of cedar shakes that had gone sad and gray with time and weather. “It could be a barracks.”
Lana might have sighed, but she nodded. “You want soldiers nearby. I imagine there are other houses in this area, too.”
“We’ll need some. And the land between this house and that. I know you and dad might look and see crops growing, but we need training camps. We need space for drilling, an obstacle course, archery.”
Together they watched a herd of ten deer wander out of the trees to graze on the green.
“I can put in a kitchen garden. Eddie and Fred have their farm, we have the community gardens. We have the horses,” Lana went on. “We can barter for some chickens. It’ll be enough to keep your dad happy. In any case, I think he’ll be more with you than the land for some time to come.”
It pinched at her. “I’m sorry.”
“No, no. No sorrys.”
“It is a good place,” Fallon said. “But we’re outside the perimeter of New Hope security. We’ll need to add some.”
“We will. For now, let’s get our things inside, and you should see your room. You have your own bath and sitting area.”
“I have to go somewhere. Through the crystal. It won’t take long.”
She did like her room, the size, the privacy. The big heavy bed frame curved—her mother called it a sleigh bed. It didn’t boast a mattress or bedding, but she had a bedroll until they found the rest. She liked having her own bath—holding both tub and a glass-walled shower five times the size of the one she’d helped build in Mallick’s cottage.
She’d need a desk or workbench, so she could spread out her maps, plans, reports.
The sitting room had wide glass doors—did these people have no concern about security?—that led out to another spread of flat rocks.
The rest of the level held a family room, a home theater—terms her mother used that reminded Fallon what different worlds they came from—a bar, not for eating but for drinking.
As soon as she could slip away, she closed herself in her new room with the air still stale despite the breeze through the windows they’d opened, and took out her globe.
She slipped through, smelled the green, the earth, the thriving garden.
Mallick wore his big hat with the net as he worked with the bees.
She’d been away from him and here, she realized, nearly as long as she’d been with him. But she knew the music of the bubbling stream, the afternoon shadows, the scent of rosemary thriving in a patch of sunlight.