An Embrace of Citrus & Snow (Fallen for a Fae #1)

2. Bo

Chapter two

Bo

“You sent me to a fucking swamp, Robin,” Bo hissed into his phone, hiking his backpack higher. Why the fuck did this airport have so many damned escalators? “I thought you loved me. Is this revenge for something?”

Robin made a sound Bo decided to take as a laugh. Better that than a goddamn snicker.

“You’ve known where you were going for six months, Bo,” Robin said with another ‘laugh.’ Bastard. “You told me, and I quote, ‘I hate all of these fucking places. For your birthday, I’ll let you be an asshole and pick which one I go to.’ Aunt Jan has it on video.”

“Aunt Jan is a fucking snitch.”

“Yeah,” and Bo could hear the bastard grinning . Betrayed by his own brother. “She is. You’ll be here for her birthday?”

A ring of cautious hope hung in those words. Despite being thrown to the dangerous swamplands of North Virginia, Bo didn’t have the heart to say something that sounded like “no.” There was this kind of joking with Robin, and then there was the ‘joking’ that pushed too many buttons they both shied away from.

Bo could be adult enough not to poke their still-healing wounds.

“So long as I don’t die in a fucking swamp, I will be.” Or get run over by some asshole who really needed to get on that fourth escalator. “Promise.”

“Wetlands, Bo. Wetlands. Besides, people destroyed loads of them. You should be safe.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“Learned from the best,” Robin said, their Aunt Jan’s star fucking pupil. “Don’t drown. I hear it’s possible in two inches of water. Have fun with the ghosts.”

“Love you too. Don’t forget to water my plants if this place really is haunted, and I go all Casper. ”

Robin laughed, a real one this time, distant as he disconnected. Bo glanced up in time to see the airport train about ten seconds from leaving, the man who’d nearly knocked him off the escalator comfortably inside.

Fuck it. Bo leaned against one of the pillars and watched the train doors shut. He had a few minutes. Enough time to take a quick selfie, mostly hair and tired eyes and pillar.

I would like to be 4.9k higher, please , he typed. The message might send some fans to do the math and try to figure out where the fuck he was. But that was part of the game. Bo’d checked the schedules to make sure no flights from Denver to Dulles would line up. If the post happened to track with flights from Denver to east Alabama or Philadelphia, that sounded like someone else’s problem. He’d told his fans, more than once, not to try and find him. The places he went to were dangerous, and he worked better alone.

That and stalking was fucking creepy.

Bo finished scheduling the message to go up in eighteen hours just as the next train arrived. Pocketing his phone, he scrubbed his hand through his hair. Time to face the semi-drained wetlands. That, and a big-ass abandoned house in the middle of historical suburbia. He sent Robin a string of alligator emojis and sad faces as the doors closed, just in case the HOAs ate him alive.

Northern Virginia was so … full of trees.

“A different palette,” Aunt Jan had called it, once. “It’s not the same as anywhere else.”

He’d been what? Seventeen. Sulking, and sure she was full of shit. There’d been gray skies lying about later snow, trees stripped of any life, and a deep cold that iced the roads and lungs. It’d taken a couple years of living in a place with proper seasons to see the beauty in trees readying themselves for spring, forests shifting into something peaceful and settled. The taste of snow, melting bright on the tongue and lips.

Mid-November, the road Bo found himself driving down didn’t have much in the way of green or white. Bronze and goldenrod and the occasional rich jade filled the stretch of land on either side by turns. Occasionally, an exit sign for a place named after a founding father interrupted. Then, back to trees.

Probably fucking beautiful after a heavy snow .

Bo nearly missed his exit, mind on leaves and future snowdrifts. He got fucking lucky, not skidding at the sign for Skyler, with pointedly pristine lines directing left for gas and right for the town. Bo checked the gauge and turned left.

The gas station felt worn . Faded paint and chipped asphalt, surrounded by old trees and a single goddamn light outside of the store itself. At least the gas pumps were new. It didn’t smell like he stepped into a horror flick. The inside of the store was clean and shiny looking, except for the scuffed floor. No longer adhering to that ‘about to be murdered vibe.’

Except Bo was alone. No one at the counter or stocking or making noise from behind the Employees Only door. Zero customers. Not even music . Just Bo and the background hum of the ice cream freezers.

“Uh,” Bo said, too loud in the near silent space. “Hello?”

A sound from the back. Possibly a voice.

Fuck. Thank fuck.

There’d been a moment, a breath, where the turn off the road became more than that. A twist of old memories, the whisper of what if. Go down the wrong path, and the creatures will take you. Lead you astray and leave you sleeping under a goddamn tree for ten years.

Except not, because this wasn’t a fucking movie or cautionary tale for children. He loitered by the door anyway, distracting himself with the small, glossy flyers in the little stand near the entrance. Community notices. He was interested in the community.

Upcoming holiday yard sale, with items donated by the wives and mothers of Skyler. A schedule of neighborhood open houses to buy decorations for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Further back, pumpkin patches being opened, hayrides, haunted mazes, apples, and–

“Good evening!”

Bo jumped at the sudden voice behind him, high and bright. He stared at the previously hidden employee, her eyes going wide under the shock of neon pink hair.

“I’m sorry!” She pulled her earbuds out, the same insistent color of her hair, and flashed Bo a quick, hurried smile. “I thought you heard me. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I’m absolutely terrified.” They both laughed; the unsteady chuckle only incredibly uncomfortable people managed. “I thought I’d entered an alternate timeline for a minute. Sorry for lurking like a weirdo? ”

This time, when she laughed, it sounded far less this is freaky as hell and a tad more oh good, I’m not going to die .

Well. Good. Last fucking thing he needed was to startle some poor gas station employee out of their skin and keep them there.

“I’m going to get food and something to drink,” he said, breaking the sudden silence before it stretched too far. “And gas.”

Social contract met, that’s what he did. Snack scavenging while she hummed behind the counter, tapping a clipboard with a pencil.

“Check us out, not spooking each other and everything,” she said when he set his shit on the counter. She’d put on a nametag with Brayleigh scrawled in dark purple. “I get it. The little flyers are cute. I’d get distracted by them, too.”

“I was invested in the yard sale. This place sure likes its Halloween and autumn things.”

Brayleigh scoffed. She spared Bo a glance, curious, before her attention dropped back down to the scanner and his fourth bag of chips.

“You can blame the spooky pony place for that. And the whole ‘big fights during various wars happened here’ stuff. Some big family feuds somewhere, probably. Old towns like this? Fall is our jam .” One last beep, and the final item (a bag of fruity gummies, sue him) dropped into a plastic bag. “How much in gas?”

“Spooky pony place?” Bo blinked, giving her both a blank look and no answer. “Right, gas, thanks. Twenty on four.”

“Gonna be forty-two fifty-seven.”

Bo liked his fucking snacks.

“What’s the spooky pony place?” Bo asked as he ran his card. And he was a fucking idiot, having read ‘locally called the Phantom Stallion House’ at least a dozen times before boarding the plane. “That the house with the ghost horse?”

“Drives my sister up the wall when I call it a spooky pony. I’ve never seen it, but I’m not an idiot, going out to abandoned houses, trying to get a B they’re lying.”

“Too scared of the pony?

“Maybe. Even if it’s just a bunch of moldy wood in there, it’s not safe. But what if the stories are true?” Brayleigh shrugged. She liked to shrug, apparently. “We’re finding new species all the time. I’m not going to be the one to discover a breed of ghost ponies too tall to walk through a door.”

“Right,” Bo said after a beat. Headless fucking horseman. He’d put money on there being someone nearby with a barn and a couple draft horses. Good money. “Maybe I’ll stick to those hayrides.”

Brayleigh laughed, already back to her clipboard and pencil before Bo finished turning away. “Good call.”

Searching for ‘spooky pony place’ came up with a whole different flavor of results than ‘Phantom Stallion House’ or ‘Brookhaven House.’ There were photos, more smudge than shape, of a large dark figure in what might be water, surrounded by what he guessed were probably trees.

Further searches turned up forum posts about long-dead tribes capable of turning into horses, thus: ghost stallion. Which, frankly? Offensive as fuck and historically inaccurate. Not to mention, as many comments were quick to point out, most the sightings had happened in the last century.

Skyler also had the highest number of drownings in that century. He’d give the locals that much; a truly weird number of people met a watery death near the spooky pony house.

What really drew out a “what the fuck “ from Bo was the absolute lack of recent records for the place. No taxes, no new owners, no deaths or inheritances. Nothing, except the Ladies of Skyler petition to commandeer the house. Just horses, drownings, and a beautiful person–probably a man, per the gossip–who sometimes appeared in one of the upstairs windows, described as “ethereal, with long dark hair and sad eyes.”

Who the fuck used the word “ethereal?”

Fuck’s sake.

Bo made a note to hire some actual fucking researchers, people who knew how to do this shit professionally. Maybe ask some other ReelSelf friends about their teams. He spent too many nights sitting up at nearly three AM with his laptop burning his retinas.

“Important things come in threes,” Bo’s mother’d always said. “Three’s the witching hour,” his dad added without fail. And Bo, the little sucker, believed them.

A quarter ’til found Bo with the laptop off and curled under his covers. He sprawled when at home, but this wasn’t that. Strange places meant curled up and blankets pulled close, cheek mashed to unfamiliar pillows.

Tomorrow, he’d look at the spooky pony place and check out the neighborhood. Go eat at a local restaurant, be polite to the waitstaff, say something about here for the sights and ghost tours. It wouldn’t even be a lie. He’d go on a ghost tour, take in the scenery.

Day after that, back to the house at dawn, camcorder in tow. He’d make his way in, moldy wood and all. And he’d find nothing. Just like every other fucking place he trespassed on.

Because this shit wasn’t real. It’d never been anything like true.

“I wish it were,” he said every time someone asked. “Maybe one day. I’m not holding my breath, but I’m crossing my fingers.”

2:50 AM.

Bo closed his eyes and tugged the blanket up to his ears. He fell asleep as the clock hit 2:59.

“Good morning, dreamers,” Bo, the consummate professional, yawned. “It’s a little before sunrise in Skyler, Virginia. For those of you not prone to crawling through the northern bits of EST, that’s roughly half past six in the morning. I’m currently trying to not trip over underbrush- fuck –bleep that–I’m currently trying to not trip over underbrush and failing miserably.”

He spoke in hushed tones as he made his way through the trees, bag of supplies over his shoulder and phone in hand, recording. People liked the found footage vibes. So did Bo. It just meant he faced a substantially higher chance of tripping over his feet or a rogue tree root.

“Weather said it might rain today, which would suck. I don’t think the … holy fuck.” Bo slowed, his head tipping back to get a proper look. “Turns out it’s a lot closer to the road than we thought.”

Only a half mile from a beaten side path to the winding drive. Overgrown, like most places he checked out. Bunches of rust-colored plants with wide, rough-looking leaves dotted the foundation, the lawn grown wild. Very spooky. Super haunted. Probably a lot of creaky floorboards and busted windows.

Vines twisted up the sides of brownstone walls and columns that used to be white. No cracked windows. Just ivy and the red-brown not-quite bushes against a backdrop of oak trees, reds and golds like he’d seen from the road.

The house itself was handsome, maybe three stories if someone counted the attic. There was fuck all for layouts online. Bo guessed purely by its design; while it had the same concave, boxy roof that other buildings from the time period did, it didn’t have the same reach.

“You know the drill, kids,” he said after a long pause, his eyes on the mansion. “Today’s just a sweep to see if it’s safe to walk in, check the stairs, not get arrested, make sure there’s not a hundred-year-old homeowner in there. Tomorrow is the interesting stuff.”

Interesting meaning revealing nothing lived in there but rodents or that aforementioned hundred-year-old homeowner. Whatever. If he aimed the phone a bit higher and squinted at the upstairs windows, he was allowed. For science.

Not his fault that the only sketch he’d found of the pretty ghost made it look like every stereotypical codpiece buster known to man.

“Wish me luck in finding a hot ghost with great hair to make eyes at.” Still laughing, Bo ended the recording. Hoodie: up. Gloves: on, mitten bit pinned back, fingers free. Camcorder: charged, connected, recording, and in hand. Phone: charged, in pocket.

Time to go knock on the door and see if anyone answered.