The Time Fetch by Amy Herrick

and no sooner had he downed it than he started calling her Irene again. He took another small glass of brandy and then he began to sing. He had a beautiful Irish tenor and according to his own story, he had won Brigit’s grandmother’s heart with it by singing under her window. Brigit couldn’t remember the last time he had sung. He used to belong to a chorus in Manhattan, but she didn’t think he’d gone to rehearsals for months. This afternoon, though, he sang the song about the green growing rushes and then he sang “The Fiddler’s Green.” Then he had another glass of brandy and he sang the one about Mattie Grove who got caught in bed with Lord Darnell’s wife.There seemed to be an awful lot of Irish songs about people getting caught in bed with other people’s wives.
    He went from one old tune to the next. She wished she could join in with him. She’d had a good voice, too. But that was before. Her mother and the doctors had told her many times that it wasn’t her fault that her brother had died. She’d been taking care of him that night. She’d sung him to sleep and tiptoed out of the room. It wasn’t till her mother went into the room later that anyone knew anything was wrong. It was just something that happened to some babies. She knew it was true, but lately she had been noticing that there were all kinds of ways of knowing things. You learned all kinds of things in school, but believing in them—really believing in them—was another matter. You could know the moon was thousands of miles away and that it was way bigger than a cantaloupe, but believing this was something else.
    Her grandad had closed his eyes and was humming “Wee White Rose.” When he was done, he fell silent and closed his eyes. Perhaps he had fallen asleep. The clock ticked on the wall and the scent of the baking cake filled the air. Outside, the wind went sighing down the alleyway. And then her grandad started to hum again. Brigit was thinking her own thoughts and only half listening. Then she was listening more closely. Where had she heard that melody before? It wasn’t one of his usual songs, she thought. But still, it was familiar. She was sure she had heard it somewhere not too long ago.
    Her grandad sat up in the chair with a groan and looked around the kitchen uncertainly, as if this was not where he had expected to find himself.
    “Ah,” he said sadly. “I was dreaming she’d come back.”
    Brigit went over and put her arms around him. He smiled then and tugged gently on her red braid. “There’s no escaping it, lassie. She gave you this and the heart fire that comes with it.” He frowned as if he were trying to remember something. “Ah, and she gave me something I was to give to you. Now what was it?”
    There was silence in the fragrant kitchen, while outside they could hear the wind moaning and whistling through the alley as if it were looking for something it had lost.
    “Ah, I remember now.” He frowned at her, trying to puzzle something out. “It did not make a whole lot of sense then, did it? She said I was to warn you that time runs short. She said you must remember the girl in the long coat.”

CHAPTER NINE
    Nectar
    One afternoon Red Kerchief gave Feenix an enormous basket of socks to pair. “Make sure they are matched up properly.”
    There must have been four hundred socks in there. Big socks, kneesocks, dirty white sneaker socks, nasty nylon black socks, green socks, striped socks, polka-dotted socks, and socks with little blue poodles printed on them. Where they had all come from, Feenix did not want to think. They didn’t look like the sort of thing witches would wear.
    “Forget it,” she said. “I’m not touching those disgusting things.”
    Skuld picked Feenix up and shook her like a rag doll. Something fell out of Feenix’s pocket and went clattering across the floor.
    Feenix tried to reach for it, but Red Kerchief blocked her way.
    “And what might this be?”
    It was, of course,