Page 143 of The Other Side

“I never knew where the coins had gone,” Drum said.

“They were always your link to here. I thought maybe that they’d help Osian find you. But they didn’t.”

“They linked us. They told him I was still alive and if I’d had any memory of my time here, I’d have known where the coins went. You knew something was going to happen to me.”

She nodded. “Not what, but I knew you and Osian would be separated. The note in your pocket with your name was the best I could implant in his mind.”

Drum hugged her. “Thank you.”

Osian’s three brothers came with their wives and children who were goggle-eyed at the chance to meet a mortal. The questions were endless but Drum always steered them away from any conversation about his past. Though he was happy to talk about how he’d felt when he’d suddenly found himself on The Other Side. About planes and cars and trains and television and computers, but also about climate change and pollution and war. He tried not to be too negative. There was a lot of good in the world, but bad too. As there was with Faeryland.

“Am I speaking fae?” he whispered to Leaf.

“Yes.”

“Are my fae parents still in the same house.”

“They are. Do you want to see them?”

“I think I’d like to.”

“You want to wait for Osian or shall I take you?”

“You, please.”

“You’re wise not to go with Osian. He might lose his temper. I’ll stay back but I can be there in an instant if you need me.”

And that was how Drum found himself knocking on a door he’d last used twenty years ago.

Delfin answered. She’d hardly changed. Still had long blonde hair, still pencil thin with sharp cheekbones. There were maybe a few more lines on her face. She stared at him without smiling. There was no recognition in her expression, but she’d know he was mortal in a moment. Then she’d guess.

There it is. Her eyes widened and her mouth opened.

“Tadhg,” she whispered.

Oliver came up behind her. He did look older than Drum remembered. He stared at Drum as though he were seeing a ghost.

Oliver sucked in his cheeks, then looked up and down the street. “Come inside.”

“I’d rather not.” Drum took a deep breath.

He wasn’t sure he could have walked inside. He didn’t want to bring back those memories.

“You gave your real son away. I don’t know how you could bear to do that to a child you’d just given birth to.”

Drum didn’t miss the quiver in Delfin’s jaw.

“You took me from the mother who’d given birth to me, kept me for ten years, not kind years, then decided you didn’t want me either.” He swallowed to bring moisture into his mouth. “Why didn’t you want me?”

That question had lingered in his mind for so long, it was a relief it was finally asked. It seemed an age before anyone spoke, and it was Delfin who did.

“Every morning, when I looked at you, I remembered the child I’d lost.”

Not lost. Given away!

“So you punished me for not being him?”

“I… I tried to pretend you were him and I couldn’t.”