A muscle in Hatter’s jaw ticked. “We saw her play with Shayera Caron, at some point she was able to control this. She can again.”
That dreaded knot of fear that’d sat in her gut for years suddenly roared to life, choking the breath from her lungs. Because there was the truth she’d hidden for so, so long.
Closing her eyes, she knew what she had to do. “She never played with Shayera.”
Their faces were total blanks. It might have been nice if they’d at least asked a question back, but they were looking at her with the expectation that she still had more to say.
“Bloody hell,” she grimaced, “I lied. The child you saw your daughter playing with in the hall of Forget Me Not was not real.”
“Say again.” Hatter’s scowl was a mile long. Alice’s dress had turned a bloody shade of red.
Just then Miriam’s words returned to haunt her: Why must you always make things more difficult, Dani? If you’d just tell the truth the first time we wouldn’t be in this mess…
Those words had become a sort of running mantra between the two of them throughout the years. At some point Danika figured that she’d eventually learn from it, but no… here she was, in the same mess as always. Digging her way out of a hole she’d created, except this time there was no Miriam to roll her eyes good-naturedly. In fact, the couple before her looked seconds away from lunging and throttling her.
“Please explain how that is possible?” Alice’s voice was deceptively calm.
Moistening her lips once more, Danika gave a nervous chuckle. “It was a golem.”
“Bloody hell!” Hatter shot to his feet piercing Danika with a demonic glare of fury.
Alice, who was a transplant to Kingdom, looked between the two of them with a pretty scowl scrawled on her forehead. “And what exactly is that, dear?” she asked her towering and pacing husband.
With jaw clenched he threw out a fist in Danika’s direction. “It’s a piece of filthy clay designed to appear as human as you or I, only magic lets it live. Why would you bring that into our presence and not tell us what you’d done?” He growled the last bit at Danika who was currently the size of a quarter and trying to hide herself behind a large couch cushion.
With knees shaking, she knew she had to accept their fury and now grovel for them to understand. They were hurting, and facts were, in hindsight deceiving them (even if only to spare them the pain of knowing the truth) had been a rather heinous idea.
“Wait.” Alice held up her hand, her gown was now a soft shade of buttery yellow. “Just wait,” she sighed. “We cannot yell at her, Hatter.”
He still looked as though he wished to wring Danika’s neck, but instead walked back to his wife and gripped her hand. She kissed the his knuckles and nodded, then turned her pointed look toward the quivering fairy.
“Dani,” the scrollwork around her eye formed into the shape of a tear, “please, after all these years I do not doubt your love for us, nor for Chrysa, but you have to tell us once and for all what is happening to our daughter.”
With a heavy heart, Danika nodded, and touching the tip of her star shaped wand to her chest, she grew to human size once more. Wings buzzing in agitation, she started from the beginning. “When the moon cursed your daughter, I went to the council to ask for the books of Lore.”
“Lore?” Alice’s brow quirked.
“The fairy tales,” Hatter supplied for her, but his eyes never left Danika’s face.
She nodded. “Aye, the tales. I’ve researched for years how to break the moon’s curse.”
“But you spelled her that night, Dani. I heard you,” Alice nodded, “you said that she had the—”
“Gift of choice, yes I know I did,” she huffed, “and she still does. Your daughter can decide to not let the curse corrupt her. But curses are never really that easy, otherwise they wouldn’t be called a curse, they’d be called a wrist smack, right?” She chuckled.
They didn’t join in.
Danika cleared her throat. “So basically the curse turns her mad. Each year it only gets worse.”
“But she never manifested—” Hatter rumbled.
“Yes, she did,” Danika grimaced, folding her hands together as her palms grew slick. “I never told you, but when she was four I saw the darkness for myself. It consumed her, curled out of her body and enveloped her like a fog bank. I did not tell you because I did not wish to alarm you.”
Hatter was absolutely still.
As was Alice, but her gown was deepest black. The air was dense with the gathering undercurrent of emotions. Outside a murder of crows cawed.
“That was not your decision to make. You should have told us.” His words pierced Danika’s heart like a barb and she winced.