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this substance, fairies were able to go out in the human world with some degree of assurance that they
wouldn’t get poisoned in the process.
Dillon looked chastened. “No, sorry, Father.”
Niall shook his head as if he were disappointed in Dillon, but his attention was really on the trowel. He
might have been prepared to handle something poisonous to him, but I noticed he still handled it very
carefully.
“It went into him really easily,” I said, and had to repress a sudden wave of nausea. “I don’t know why.
It’s sharp, but it’s not that sharp.”
“Iron can part our flesh like a hot knife in butter,” Niall said.
“Ugh.” Well, at least I knew I hadn’t suddenly gotten superstrong.
“He surprised you?” Dillon asked. Though he didn’t have the fine, fine wrinkles that made my greatgrandfather
even more beautiful, Dillon looked only a little younger than Niall, which made their
relationship all the more disorienting. But when I looked down at the corpse once more, I was
completely back in the present.
“He sure did surprise me. I was just working away weeding the flower bed, and the next thing you
know, he was standing right there telling me how much he was looking forward to killing me. I’d never
done a thing to him. And he scared me, so I kind of came up in a rush with the trowel, and I got him in
the stomach.” Again, I wrestled with my own stomach’s tendency to heave.
“Did he speak any more?” My great-grandfather was trying to ask me casually, but he seemed pretty
interested in my answer.
“No, sir,” I said. “He kind of looked surprised, and then he . . . he died.” I walked over to the steps and
sat down rather suddenly and heavily.
“It’s not exactly like I feel guilty,” I said in a rush of words. “It’s just that he was trying to kill me and
he was happy about it and I never did a thing to him. I didn’t know anything about him, and now he’s
dead.”
Dillon knelt in front of me. He looked into my face. He didn’t exactly look kind, but he looked less
detached. “He was your enemy, and now he is dead,” he said. “This is cause for rejoicing.”
“Not exactly,” I said. I didn’t know how to explain.
“You’re a Christian,” he said, as if he’d discovered I was a hermaphrodite or a fruitarian.
“I’m a real bad one,” I said hurriedly. His lips compressed, and I could see he was trying hard not to
laugh. I’d never felt less like mirth, with the man I’d killed lying a few feet away. I wondered how many
years Murry had walked this earth, and now he was crumpled in a lifeless heap, his blood staining my
gravel. Wait a minute! He wasn’t anymore. He was turning to . . . dust. It wasn’t anything like the
gradual flaking away of a vampire; it was more like someone was erasing Murry.
“Are you cold?” Niall asked. He didn’t seem to think the disappearance of bits of the body was anything
unusual.
“No, sir. I’m just all upset. I mean, I was sunbathing and then I went to see Claude and Claudine, and
now here I am.” I couldn’t take my eyes off the body’s incremental disappearance.
“You’ve been lying in the sun and gardening. We like the sun and sky,” he said, as if that was proof
positive I had a special relationship with the fairy branch of my family. He smiled at me. He was so
beautiful. I felt like an adolescent when I was around him, an adolescent with acne and baby fat. Now I
felt like a murderous adolescent.
“Are you going to gather up his . . . ashes?” I asked. I rose, trying to look brisk and purposeful. Action
would make me feel less miserable.
Two pairs of alien eyes stared at me blankly.
“Why?” Dillon asked.
“To bury them.”
They looked horrified.
“No, not in the ground,” Niall said, trying to sound less revolted than he was. “That isn’t our way.”
“Then what are you going to do with them?” There was quite a heap of glittering powder on my
