Rosemary and Rue

“Is this lane open?”


The voice was gruff, familiar, and more than enough to shake me out of my reverie. I jerked back, one arm going out to the side abruptly enough to knock my chin against the conveyor. Vainly trying to recover a shred of my dignity, I forbade myself to rub it as I straightened up, pasted on a smile, and turned toward the source of the voice, replying, “Yes, sir. Just put your groceries on the belt.”

The man at the end of my lane stared at me, concern evident in his expression. “Root and branch, Toby, didn’t that hurt?”

I forced my smile to stay in place. It wasn’t easy. Through my teeth, I said, “I’ll put some ice on it later. Can I have your groceries, sir?”

The man sighed, beginning to unload his cart. “Are we still doing this? I really hoped we’d be done by now. You sure you don’t want to be done? I can wait around. You can come home with me after your shift. I’m off for the night, and Stacy would love to see you. She’d even make pancakes if I called and told her you were coming . . .”

I didn’t answer him, busying myself instead with running his groceries across the scanner. I’d been doing the job long enough that it didn’t require any concentration to take care of such a simple task. That was a good thing, because he didn’t take my lack of answer as a reason to shut up; he kept rambling, trying to catch my interest as I focused on ringing and bagging his groceries.

Once upon a time—not my favorite phrase by a long shot—I let myself admit that the man now standing in front of my register had a name. Mitch Brown. We were kids together in the Summerlands, the last of the fae countries, the place that exists on the other side of every mirror and beyond every unpierced veil of mist. We were both changelings, mixing human blood with stranger things; Nixie and Hob in his case, Daoine Sidhe in mine. We were about the same age, and both of us were struggling to figure out who we could be, living in a world that was nothing like the one we’d started out in. It was natural that we’d latch onto one another, and to the other changelings who came our way—Kerry, half Hob, half airhead; Julie, half Cait Sidhe, all trouble; and Stacy, weak-blooded Stacy, my best friend and his eventual wife.

“That’ll be twenty-six fifteen,” I said, looking up.

Mitch sighed, brushing colorless blond hair back from his forehead. “Toby . . .”

“Cash or charge, sir?”

Mitch paused before sighing again and pulling out his wallet. “You can’t do this forever, you know,” he said, as he handed the money across to me.

“Three eighty-five is your change,” I replied, putting it down on the divider between us. “Thank you for shopping at Safeway.”

“You have the number,” he said, taking the change and shoving it into his pocket without looking. “Call when you’re ready. Please. Call us.”

Then he was gone, walking toward the exit with broad shoulders clenched tight and grocery bags dwarfed by the size of his hands. Hobs are usually tiny people, but in Mitch’s case, his human heritage won out: he could give your average Bridge Troll a complex. Stacy’s barely five foot three. I’ve never understood how the two of them worked things out, but they must have done it somehow, because they had one kid before I vanished and four more while I was gone. I didn’t want to know that. Mitch told me, just like he insisted on telling me everything else I didn’t want to know. He was trying to pull me back into my life while all I wanted to do was run away from it.

Their eldest, Cassandra, is almost the same age as Gillian.