The Wood Wife by Terri Windling (the false prince TXT) 📕

on a stage built under the limbs of a mesquite tree. Fox was bent over a tangle of wires; he looked up, saw her, and pointed left.

“Fox has saved us a table,” Dora reported. It was close to the stage, with a RESERVED sign on it. Pepe went looking for another chair, Maggie for a pitcher of beer, and Dora sat down with the Foxxe sisters, who were quiet, wary of the crowd.

Maggie came back with a tray loaded down with a sweating pitcher of Dos Equis and bowls of white tortilla chips and green chili salsa, blistering hot. She sat beside Dora and said to her, “Just go ahead and have a good time. You look like you could use it. I’ll have one beer then switch to tonic, so I can drive us home.”

Dora opened her mouth to protest, then she shut it. Maggie was right. She needed this. If Juan had been here, she would have stayed sober to drive home and even that would have provoked an argument. He would never admit when he was drunk, even when he could barely stand. The hell with that. The hell with Juan, she told herself as she knocked back a beer. She was going to let down her hair tonight, and she wasn’t going to think about her husband.

Fox came over to their table, an electric cable looped over his arm. “Howdy. Where’s Juan?” he said to Dora, his eyes flickering pointedly to Maggie and back.

“Painting,” Dora answered flatly.

Fox looked at her closely, his eyes narrowed. Then he turned to the others at the table. “Hi, Maggie. Hey, Pepe,” Fox said, and he gave each of his sisters a kiss on the cheek. “We’re starting here in just a few minutes. We’ve been waiting for Angel, as usual.” He nodded at the notoriously spacey drummer, who was still unpacking his gear. “I’d better go help or we’ll be here all night. And the natives are getting restless.”

The crowd was indeed a rowdy one, which boded well for the dancing. Dora poured herself another beer, amazed at how the first had disappeared. Maggie touched her arm. “Why are some of the band members wearing masks?” she said.

Dora followed her gaze. Two tall black men with long rasta hair had half-masks on with beaky noses; the punky bass player had a mask of rhinestones pushed to the top of her head. “It’s Halloween in a couple of days,” Dora said. “Guess they’re celebrating early.”

“Halloween already? Boy, this month passed fast. It doesn’t feel like October here in the desert, when it’s still so warm.”

“Is this your first night out since you got here?” Dora asked.

“I hate to admit it, but it is.” Maggie smiled a guilty smile, rolling up the sleeves of her Armani jacket. Dora thought she looked very glamorous tonight, and she’d bet good money Fox thought so too. “I’m turning into a hermit up there in the canyon, just like Cooper.”

“Cut yourself some slack. It’s only been a month, and you don’t even know the town yet.”

“I’m not going to get to know it if I shut myself away in Cooper’s house. But you know, it helps me to understand why Cooper was the way he was. I’ve been in the mountains such a short time, and already it’s a shock whenever I come back down. It takes a definite mental adjustment to get used to being around the traffic and the noise.”

“Now you sound like One of Us,” Dora said with satisfaction, sitting back in her chair with her feet propped up on the edge of Pepe’s. “But it was different down here for most of Cooper’s life. The city didn’t gobble up the whole valley until, oh, maybe twenty years ago. I wish that we could go back in time and live in the town he and Anna knew, when more of it was like this neighborhood—a homegrown, desert kind of place. And less of it full of shopping malls like Anywhere, America.”

“Didn’t you live near here?” Maggie asked her.

“Yeah, when we first moved down from Vermont. I was too homesick to appreciate it though. Which was the last thing I ever expected to be—after encouraging Juan to move back near his family just so I could get away from mine.”

Maggie smiled. “Was yours so awful then? I thought you liked your family.”

“I do. Particularly with a continent between us. I’m serious! They’re sweet people, my parents, I love ’em to death. But they’re completely hopeless. They’re still flower children and they’re pushing fifty now. Did I tell you I was raised on a commune?”

“For real?”

“For real. Until I was twelve, anyway. Then they built their own place—a log cabin with a woodstove that always smoked and a wretched freezing outhouse in the back. All terribly PC and organic, of course.” Dora rolled her eyes.

“There were other kids, right? You said it was a big family. All boys but you, do I have that right?”

“Yep. I’m the oldest. Can’t you tell? The practical, responsible type—that’s me. I pretty much raised the other five kids. Seven if you include my parents.” Dora sighed. “I’ll tell you, I’m getting tired of it. Of being sensible. Paying the bills. Wearing fruit on my head in a stupid hotel bar.” She poured more beer, took another hit, and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. “If I stop being the practical one, what do you suppose will happen then? We can all sit around and paint while they turn off the lights and the water, and the bank takes the house.”

Maggie looked at her closely. “I thought you seemed a little tense tonight. Is that what this is about? Did you and Juan have a fight?”

“A fight? It takes two to fight. And that would take too much time away from Juan’s precious paintings.” Dora flushed. She had meant to say the words lightly, as a joke, not in a burst of temper.

Maggie leaned forward and touched