Luke watched Maura go, an acute ache building in the center of his chest. It killed him to see her tears, her sadness. It killed him to see how she had looked at him. As if he were a liar, a monster. How could he protect her—save her life—if he could not convince her to believe who he was, who her father was?

"She's just overwhelmed," Maura's mother said as if reading his thoughts. "It's a lot to process. She'll come around eventually. She always does."

"I am sorry," Luke whispered, rising from his seat. He made his way toward the door, shoulders hunched. "I should go, Mrs. Matthews. Thank you for your time."

Maura's mother rose as well. Then she removed another mug and two clean plates from the cupboard. "Sit," she said. "I'll fix you breakfast. And call me Rachelle. None of that Mrs. BS."

Luke's brow furrowed. "Breakfast? That's not—"

"I said sit." Luke returned to the table and sat without further argument. "I have to remake my breakfast anyway," Rachelle said, "so it's no trouble. And I'd prefer the company rather than eat alone."

Luke looked at the plate of uneaten eggs and toast, now cold, that she had pushed aside upon his arrival. "I'm sorry."

Rachelle turned to him. "Stop apologizing. You have nothing to apologize for. Do you understand?"

Luke nodded mutely, though the gesture felt hollow. After all, there were scores of girls to apologize for, centuries of wrongdoings he doubted he would live long enough to begin atoning for.

"Do you like pancakes?" Rachelle asked, interrupting his thoughts. "Pancakes were Brendan's favorite. God, that man had a sweet tooth," she added with a laugh. "We would spend a small fortune in maple syrup every week at the grocery store. I kept telling him his teeth would rot, but he had the most dazzling smile."

Luke didn't know what to say, so he remained silent as he watched Maura's mother busy herself with measuring and mixing the ingredients for breakfast. He realized that Maura was a younger version of Rachelle, seeming to have inherited everything from her mother except the hair. The hair belonged to Brendan. Luke felt like a fool for not realizing it sooner.

Rachelle placed a mug of tea on the table before him. "There's cream and sugar if you'd like," she said, nodding to the set of crockery in the middle of the table.

He looked up at her. "Why are you being nice to me?"

Rachelle considered him a moment before answering. "Because I think you need someone to be nice to you, Luke. Also, you have given us an unexpected gift. For over a year now it's been just the two of us, Maura and me, but maybe that's about to change. Maybe my husband will be able to come home. Still, it's hard to get your hopes up only to have them repeatedly dashed. I know Maura wants to believe you, but she's afraid."

"You believed me so easily," Luke said.

Rachelle laughed. "Brendan was always a bit . . . different."

"Different?"

Her shoulders rose and fell as she seemed to struggle to find the right words. She turned her back to him once more and resumed breakfast preparations. "Like . . . I don't know. Like he had the light of the universe inside of him. He was just so good and honest, and so incredibly handsome." She shook her head and laughed again. " . . . so incredibly handsome.

"The first time he told me where he came from, I laughed in his face. How could I not? I honestly thought he was crazy. I wondered, who the heck did I just marry? But he kept insisting it was true." She turned back to Luke, her eyes wide. She lowered her voice when she said, "Maura doesn't know this, but I took him to a psychiatrist. I was scared he was losing it, you know? I was afraid that something was wrong with him."

Luke nodded. "It's a difficult truth to believe."

"The doctor prescribed some drugs for him. Brendan took the pills, no questions asked. But even when he was taking the medication, he never wavered from his story. All those drugs did was dull the man I loved. I felt ashamed, like I had forced him to be someone he wasn't. I know doctors and drugs help people who truly need it, but I started to think that maybe there wasn't anything wrong with him. So what if he thought he was some spiritual being who came from some other dimension? There were worse things, right? Still, he agreed never to talk about it again. He said it didn't matter anyway because he had given up that part of himself. He wanted to live as a human. With us."

"Except there was someone on the other side who could not give him up."

Rachelle placed a plate of pancakes in front of Luke. She went to the refrigerator for the tub of butter and bottle of syrup. "I know firsthand how difficult it was to give him up."

Luke allowed a small smile. "I suppose you do."

Rachelle poured more batter into the pan. "Do you know why the queen—Siobhan—is so insistent on having Maura?"

"My mother is a jealous woman," Luke replied around a mouthful of spongy pancake. He had honestly never tasted anything so delicious.

"Your mother," Rachelle replied with a shake of her head. "Now I'm the one who is sorry."

"I don't understand," Luke replied.

Rachelle sat down across from him. "Siobhan is no mother, Luke. She is your warden. You are her prisoner."

"She loves me," Luke said. The food in his stomach felt like a solid, indigestible lump. He took a drink of tea, but it did nothing to help.

Rachelle reached out and placed her hand on top of his. "I'm sure she does love you, in her way. But that is not a mother's love, Luke. A mother's love expects nothing in return. It has no expectations, no conditions. It's unselfish. Love is not meant to be a . . . a cage."

"She's doing what she thinks is best for her subjects, for all of The Otherworld."

"But at the expense of my daughter. At the expense of other girls like her." Rachelle gasped suddenly, something occurring to her. "Those three girls who went missing . . ."

Luke pushed his plate aside, his appetite vanished. "That was my fault."

Rachelle stared at him for a moment before answering. "That wasn't your fault," she said. "You had no choice."

"One always has a choice," Luke replied. Although, with the way things were going lately, he was beginning to wonder if there was any truth to that. 

*****

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