Page 11 of The Queen's Box

“Yes,” Willow said cautiously.

“Well, she didn’t,” Miriam said.

Now Willow was bewildered. “Whodidn’t? And what didn’t she do? I’m confused.”

Miriam’s expression softened. “I’m not the bad guy here, Willow.” She patted Willow’s knee. “I’m not teasing you or trying to confuse you. I’m not hoping to get anything from you.” She tilted her hand from side to side. “Well, that’s not true. I am, but what I’m hoping for isn’t much. Information, that’s all. But it’s only fair that I begin... and so...”

“Yeees?” Willow said.

“Your mother’s mother. Your grandmother.”

“I know how lineage works.”

“Wrenna Bratton,” said Miriam, and Willow was overcome with the urgent and dreadful feeling of being a child and needing—desperately—to pee. She didn’t need to pee. It was a reflex, that was all, because no one in the Braselton family spoke that name aloud, ever.

Or rather, no one in the Braselton family spoke that name aloudmore than once. When people spoke of Wrenna Bratton, bad things tended to happen. Also, it seemed very strange that Willow had only recently been thinking of Wrenna Bratton and the footstool and the vertiginous moment of no takesies-backsies.

A pendulum swung in Willow’s mind: a woman hanging, dangling, swaying from coarse rope. A baby—Willow’s mother—crying in a crib just feet away.

She took a shaky breath and searched Miriam’s face. “What about her?”

“As I said, your mother thinks she hanged herself. But she didn’t.”

Willow sucked in air, and her eyes went reflexively to the door of the library, just in case. But no one else was here. Just Willow and Miriam, speaking of a dead and dangling woman who, according to Miriam, might not havedangledafter all.

Miriam leaned in. “Willow,” she said carefully, “it’s clear you don’t like talking about this.”

About what? About her dead grandmother, who had saddled her mother with a fear of abandonment so deeply rooted that she had yet to escape its clutches? Now, why in the world wouldn’t Willow like to talk about that?

“We don’t have to,” Miriam said, “if it’s too much.”

A rough laugh escaped from Willow because that was the excuse everyone trotted out when talking about her mother.Better not—it’ll be too much for your mother. Don’t say that in front of Mercy! She’ll take to bed for weeks.

“I can handle it,” she said. “I am not my mother.”

Miriam thought about this, then nodded and settled back into the cushioned sofa. “I’d like to tell you a story, then. The story of your grandmother, Wrenna Bratton, which I’ve pieced together through conducting dozens and dozens of interviews. Wrenna—and those like her—are of particular interest to me. People who are said to have the Old Blood. Fae blood.”

Willow’s pulse quickened. She didn’t want to show it, didn’t want to give anything away, but Miriam had her full attention. “Fae?” she said. “As in... faerie?”

“It was said that Wrenna had a touch of fae blood. And if Wrenna did...” Miriam arched an eyebrow. “As you said, you know how lineage works.”

Willow felt dizzy.

“I’d like to tell you what I know,” Miriam proposed. “Shall I?”

“Yes, please,” said Willow.

So Miriam began.

“Wrenna was born in the North Carolina mountains, in a tiny town called Hemridge. Hemridge, it is said, was one of the last havens for the faeries who once lived peaceably among mortals. Faeries, the Fair Folk, the fae... they weren’t always our enemy, nor we theirs. But we ran them out. We humans have an awful habit of messing things up.”

Willow nodded mutely.

Miriam cocked her head. “Have you been to Hemridge, Willow?”

“No. Never.”

“It’s beautiful—and bountiful. The Smoky Mountains hold vast stretches of wilderness, even now.” She nodded. “The fae knew how to join forces with the land rather than subdue it or battle against it, so the faeries who weren’t killed orcaptured escaped into the mountains and hid. But hiding isn’t a permanent solution. Eventually, the day came when the last faerie of all, a girl not much younger than you, was forced out by the threat of death.”

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