The Good Neighbor's Daughter

Chapter 4; Spoons

I stared, awestruck, as the man in the tree leapt from his perch and landed on the ground in a crouch. When he stood up, he had a smirk on his face that looked me up and down like I was prey. He wasn't much older than me, I realized. He had a chin covered in stubble and a tall, noble face. I continued to stare, my mouth agape.

I quickly hid my dagger in the back of my belt. The boy looked down at me like he was graceful angel and I was a lowly bug.

"What brings you here, neighbor?" he asked with a purr to his voice.

I closed my mouth as soon as I realized I was gawking, but the damage was done. I searched his hair for a point of ears, but his were rounded. I relaxed a little, but not a lot. He could have been with the people that attacked me.

"I was just out," I said. "What are you doing out here?" I crossed my arms.

"Oh, thank the dead and damned. You talk normal," he said. He slouched up against a tree and it reminded me of Deer. My heart caught in my throat. Was he alive? Had those two killers gotten him?

"Why wouldn't I talk normal?" I asked as her fiddled with the hem of his sweatshirt.

"Your ears. Aren't you..." He covered his mouth for a second and whispered the last part. "A neighbor?"

I touched my ears, and realized my glamour had worn off. With all the fleeing I had dropped the illusion. "I don't have any neighbors," I said, confused. "Do you mean Fae?"

He instantly jumped away from the tree he was leaning on and covered my mouth, shushing me. "Don't. Don't repeat that."

I scraped his hand away from my face. "What the hell? All I said was—"

"No," he warned. "Don't say it."

"Why can't I say—it?" I asked.

"You're not supposed to say their name or they'll come," the boy warned. "Don't say it."

"Wait, so the nearest—"

"Neighbors."

"The nearest neighbors will come if I say their name?" I mused.

"Technically, any neighbor that hears you will come running. If you know about them, they'll find you," he said. "If you had a specific name, you could summon a specific neighbor."

"Neighbor," I repeated. The boy leaned back against his tree, feeling safer in knowing that I wouldn't say it.

"Why don't you know all this? You're a...neighbor," he asked.

I looked up at the canopy, avoiding his gaze. "I'm not a neighbor," I said. "I don't know what I am."

"You've got the ears of a neighbor, though," he noted. "What makes you different?"

I sat down against a tree, defeated. I didn't know how long it would take the killers to find me, but they didn't know these woods like I did. I was sure I'd find my way out with minimal injury.

I found myself looking to the boy in front of me. He was pale, extremely pale. He and I were opposites. He was ivory. I was onyx. He was almost unnaturally white. The boy had this dark hair that hung down to his shoulders. I realized in the fractured light of the forest that he was handsome, but not the kind of fairy tale prince handsome. He was a darker kind of handsome.