“Yeah?” I asked sharply. “You and Circe, you both think you’ve got it figured out, do you?”

“What I got figured out, child, is that is the first time I’ve seen you spit fire at me in five f**kin’ months. And my Circe could spit fire when she had tonsillitis. She could spit fire at Larry, who was six foot five, weighed three hundred pounds and had a meaty fist bigger than her head. She could handle my crew of twelve guys without them knowin’ they were bein’ handled. That fire, girl, it’s been gone and Circe and me, your friend Marlene, we thought it was because…” he stopped, his jaw flexed at the thought of me being violated then he started again, “but it ain’t. It ain’t that. I don’t see pain in your eyes from memories that are torturin’ you. I see a different kinda pain, darlin’, one I recognize, one I know, one that lives in me.”

“Can we not talk about this?” I asked quietly.

“No, we been not talkin’ about this for five months and you ain’t snappin’ outta it. Now tell me, girl, did you fall in love with him?”

I licked my lips. Then I closed my eyes.

Then I opened them and whispered, “Yes.”

He tipped his head to look at the ceiling, muttering, “Shee-it. Circe warned me this crap happened.”

“Pop –” I started but he tipped his head back to me.

“So why the f**k you come home?”

I blinked. “What?”

“You went to the doc, there was time. You coulda had that kid you’re carryin’ taken care of…” I knew my eyes flashed at the very mention of abortion when he pointed right at me. “That. That right there. You want this kid. That ass**le didn’t force that child on you; you’re carrying it for him. You made that baby and you liked doin’ it. Am I wrong?”

Oh God. Seriously. With my Pop, I didn’t want to go there.

“Pop –”

“Answer me, am I wrong?”

“No,” I bit off.

“I f**kin’ knew it,” he clipped.

“Pop –”

He interrupted me again. “So why’d you come back?”

“It doesn’t matter why,” I returned swiftly.

“It sure as f**k does ‘cause you, Circe, girl, you… you are the product of your mother and me. I didn’t love that one before death and all this time after it for foolish reasons. I did it ‘cause you got a love like that it does… not… die. And I’m tellin’ you, darlin’, I took that bullet instead ‘a her, she would be lookin’ at you with that same dead in her eyes as I’m lookin’ at you with now. The same dead that’s in your eyes as you’re lookin’ at me. We Quinns, we don’t fall in love. We fall in love. And you, girl, you’re in love so what I wanna know is, why the f**k you used up all your magical power, pixie dust and shit and came home when you got his baby inside you and you couldn’t know that you’d ever get back?”

I couldn’t hold up against his words so I didn’t. I just told him because I might as well get it over with.

“He found out I wasn’t from his world.”

“So?”

“He thought I was… wrong. A changeling. He thought I bewitched him. They’re different, primitive. But even here… it’s only because you’re you and you’re my Pop and you love the way you love that you got it with Circe and what happened with me. Any other man, the Circe that came here would be screwed. Not you. She was lucky. I…” I sucked in breath and finished, “was not so lucky.”

“So he don’t listen?”

“He listened, he just didn’t believe me.”

“So you told him and then what?” Pop asked.

“I… well, I guess I spirited myself away.”

“Right then?” Pop pushed and I blinked again.

“No, um… maybe a few hours later.”

He shook his head. “Right, well, gotta say, girl, as much as I don’t wanna give that ass**le nothin’, this I can see. This shit… it’s f**kin’ nuts. Took me a few days to sort my head out when Circe told me what was goin’ on. Thought you’d gone ‘round the bend. You think for a second to give that ass**le a day or two to come to terms with this shit before you hightailed your… pregnant, I might add… ass outta there?”

I stared at him and I did this because no, no I had not.

He shook his head but his eyes never left me. “No, you didn’t. Not my Circe.” He looked to the ceiling and said, “Shee-it,” again before his gaze came back to me. “You’ll never change. Always leadin’ with your heart, lettin’ your emotions get the better of you and not thinkin’ with your head.”

I’d heard that before.

“Pop –”

He leaned forward again. “Girl, you listen to your father.”

Oh shit. He was worse than Diandra when he had something to say.

He kept at me. “I do not want to lose you. I’ll tell you that right now, you go again, it would break my heart. But you go, I would know you went and that grandbaby of mine would have his daddy and you… you would have him too. And I can see by that dead in your eyes that if you went back, you’d have what I had, what I’ve held precious all these years, what I had with your mother before she was lost to us. And I know this, darlin’, I had to go to a whole other f**kin’ world where primitive people lived and I had to piss in the trees and take a shit by a river, I do not f**kin’ care. Your mother was there, that is where I’d f**kin’ be.”

My eyes filled with tears and I whispered, “Pop.”

“And I’ll go on to tell you this, it would be a hard drive, the hardest in my life, but you want me to take you, I’ll drive you to that witch and I’ll hug you hard before you go but you’ll go knowin’ that even though I’ll miss you, I’ll be happy for you, knowin’ you had what I lost.”

I closed my eyes and looked away.

Then I said to the wall. “You don’t get it. He… it was… the whole thing was hard, being with him, adapting to that world, but I stuck by him.” I looked back at Pop. “I stuck by him with every trial thrown at me and when I say that, Pop, I mean I watched women plunging knives in their stomachs and men having their legs cut off and heads sliced clean from their bodies.” Pop’s eyes got big but I kept going. “And I took a man’s life… well, one and half men actually but… whatever. I stuck by it. I stuck by Lahn. Through everything that world and he threw at me. He had one trial, Pop, one and he didn’t have to witness anything that turned his stomach, he didn’t take his first life, he didn’t get betrayed by someone he cared about and nearly lose his life because of it. He just had to believe in me. Simple. Just believe in me. He didn’t. He killed what I felt for him. He killed it dead. I don’t have the power to go back and Circe doesn’t have the power to send me. And I’m not going to that witch, Pop. I’m never going back. I’ll miss it, I made friends, I had a pet tigress who could talk to me and I was a f**king queen for God’s sake. Life was strange and it was insane but it was also good. But I’m not going back. Ever. If what he killed in me never comes alive again, so be it. I’ll have what you had and I’ll make do. I’ll have his child and just like you, that’s going to be good enough for me.”