Read Online An Ordinary Fairy by John Osborne - Free Book Online Page A

kitchen to the couch where they took seats at opposite ends. She grinned at his posture on the couch, but said nothing. Shadow took up station at Noah’s feet.
    Noah pulled his notebook and pen from his shirt pocket and flipped to a blank page. “So what can you tell me about the property here? Has it always been timber?”
    “As far as I know,” she said. Her smile faded. “The property has only been in my family for thirty years. I inherited it from my parents. It belonged to the Jones family for a hundred years before my parents bought it. The Jones’s farmed all around this area and they still have large farm holdings on the east and north sides of the woods, but as far as I know, the woods have always been here.”
    “This must have been a busy place in their day. I bet there wasn’t as much wildlife as today.”
    “No, I would say not. The Big House—that’s what the mansion is called—was a hectic place, with many visitors, and all the field workers lived on the property. You saw part of their old quarters yesterday, and you can still see the old road from there to the eastern fields. I suspect wildlife wasn’t made welcome.”
    “You seem to have changed that since you came here,” Noah said, segueing into another question on his I-think-you’re-a-fairy list. “You have a special affinity for wildlife, and the not so wild life.” He rubbed Shadow’s ears. “Tell me how you sent those ducks back to the pond. And why the deer left when you told her.”
    “I didn’t tell her, I asked her.” Willow’s face flushed, as if she’d been caught saying the wrong thing. “I mean, anyone can coax an animal into doing something, especially if it knows you.”
    Yeah, right.
    “I suppose.” Noah was embarrassed, he knew not why, and stalled by scribbling notes. “I did some research on the property history on the Internet and at the library yesterday, to see what I could find without bothering you.”
    “Any luck?”
    “No. Nothing specific, about the property anyway, except the tax records. I did run across some newspaper articles about your parents’ disappearance. That must have been a difficult time for you.”
    “Yes,” she said quietly. A shadow hung over this woman, a haunting that dominated her presence.
    Now on to the good stuff.
    “One article included a picture,” he said. “Of your mother, I thought, but then I read the caption and found it was you.” Willow’s gaze had wandered away. “You haven’t aged a day in thirty years.”
    Her head snapped up. “Oh, I … you know how newspaper photos are, they aren’t very good.”
    Gotcha!
    “Yes, I do know how newspaper photographs are, and I know this one was microfilmed from a fresh copy of the paper and was well preserved. I also know if I put you in a seventies suit and stood you on the courthouse steps, I could recreate the same photo today.”
    Willow’s face reddened and her breathing quickened.
    “The years don’t add up either,” he said. “I’d say you can’t be forty yet, but that would have made you too young in 1975 to inherit the property and do the things the paper describes. The woman in the newspaper photo is at least twenty-five. That still makes you fifty-five.”
    Willow grew a deeper shade of red and balled her hands into fists.
    Why are you so angry?
    “I was puzzled, so I did some other searches and discovered I can’t find any record of birth, school, graduation … nothing, except for property tax records. I know it’s not polite to ask a lady, but how old are you?”
    “You’re right, it’s not polite!” she snapped. “And it’s none of your business!”
    “It’s a simple question,” Noah shot back. “Just answer it.”
    “Why are you so … wait, you work for Chester Jones, don’t you? That’s it! That’s why you’re nosing around. I bet there isn’t any Outdoor Midwest magazine.”
    “What? I wouldn’t work for a jerk like Chester Jones.”
    “That’s what you say! The Jones