Annie ran to her, wrapping her arm around the woman’s thin waist. “Are you okay? Sit down.”
She hustled Miss Cornelia toward a marble bench away from the fountain, anxiously gaping over her shoulder.
“He is gone,” Miss Cornelia said. “He was never truly here. He can only appear in reflections now. But he is so strong, stronger than he’s been in years.”
“You did well,” Mr. Nate said to Miss Cornelia, helping some mermaids back into the fountain.
“I am weak.” Miss Cornelia sighed and laid a hand on Annie’s cheek, focusing her next words on the girl. “This is part of the danger you face, Annie … and you, Jamie … living here.”
For a moment everyone was silent. The mermaids and mermen propped themselves up out of the water, listening. Several pixies landed on Jamie’s shoulders and head.
Annie sucked in her breath, terrified. “But, he is gone?”
“For now.” Miss Cornelia hauled in a breath and stood back up, her posture restored to its typical ramrod straightness. “And let us pray that he never returns.”
15
Dinner
Despite the terrifying experience, Miss Cornelia ordered them all off to dinner, saying she’d meet them there in a moment. Mr. Nate made small talk as he bustled them to a large mahogany door, but Jamie’s brain was full of questions.
“Who was that?” he asked.
“Evil,” Mr. Nate answered, “Pure, unadulterated evil.”
“Miss Cornelia said he took someone. Who did he take?”
“Many.” That was all Mr. Nate would say on the matter. “It’s important to remember that only his reflection can appear in Aurora. Even without our protection, he has been banished. But if his minions find us, they will destroy everything they can.”
Annie grabbed at Jamie’s shirtsleeve. Her hand was still shaking.
“When you say ‘minions,’ do you mean things like trolls?” Annie asked, seeming to read Jamie’s thoughts.
“Yes. And worse.” Mr. Nate gave them a smile, but it was fragile and weak, hardly reassuring. “Now, let’s not think of those things at the moment. Instead, let’s think of dinner.”
He pushed open the door to the dining room, and once again Annie and Jamie found themselves in a room that looked just like a forest. Tree trunks covered the dining room walls, and long sweeping willow branches, intermingled with Spanish moss, draped down from the ceiling toward a table carpeted with light-green lichen and moss. The chairs were made of wooden sticks tied together, and the chandelier hanging above the center of the table reflected the starlight.
Annie rushed forward into the room.
“EVA!” Annie hugged the pigtailed dwarf. “Are you okay?”
“Of course I’m okay. Dwarfs are ALWAYS okay.” Eva pushed Annie away and crossed her arms over her chest. She held a fork in each hand. “Just hungry. Around here, we start with dessert and work our way backward, thank the Stoppers. We get the good stuff first. Brussels sprouts last.”
As if on cue, a dozen pies flew through a doorway opposite and settled into the center of the table as a large-eyed woman called Gramma Doris pointed at them, shouting commands. Annie, Jamie, and Mr. Nate took seats by Eva.
“Cherry, go right and down.”
The cherry pie flopped in front of a giant boy with glasses and a stony face who was sitting next to Jamie. Jamie vaguely recognized him from school. The boy winked and whisked his napkin out as another cherry pie rocketed in front of Mr. Nate.
“Banana cream, ninety degrees left and three down. There.”
The banana cream pie landed in front of Miss Cornelia. Another landed in front of Eva.
“Apple, no. No! Apple, round about, three o’clock.”
The apple pie, flying in a thoroughly confused manner, came to rest in front of an older man with crooked glasses and a stethoscope hung around the neck of his sweater. He marveled at the pie and said, “Absolutely delicious! I love apple pie!”
A plethora of dwarfs applauded as the pecan pies hurtled toward them. A happy-go-lucky fairy sat on one, for a ride.
Bloom hustled into the room and took the seat next to Annie, apologizing for being late.
“Elves are always late!” Eva yelled.
Gramma Doris held up her hands. “Eva. Bloom. No fighting.”
Jamie turned to Mr. Nate, his mind on something other than pie. “Why am I here? I’m not—” Jamie didn’t want to say it out loud all of a sudden. It felt as if being un-magic was some sort of curse or oddity, something to be ashamed of somehow.
“We had to save you from those trolls,” Mr. Nate answered as he lifted a forkful of cherry filling. “But there may be magic in you yet, Jamie Alexander. You never know. And we do allow those who have knowledge of magic to shelter here. You weren’t safe at home, so the Council voted to bring you here.”
Annie was just diving into her pie and Bloom was halfway through his when Gramma Doris relaxed and sat down again. She cast an appraising gaze on Jamie and said, “Name any sort of pie you’d like.”
“He looks like he’d eat anything,” Eva announced, splattering yellow pie filling all over her shirt.
“Eva!” Bloom scolded.
“It’s okay. I would.” Jamie smiled as three pies whisked through the air and landed in front of him. One was chocolate. One had some sort of fruit. The other one was green. “Thank you.”
He barely got out the words before he couldn’t resist any longer and started forking up the food.
“As I was saying, the Council,” Mr. Nate continued, leaning back in his chair, “runs the town. We have representatives of all the major species—”
“Dwarfs. Giants. Witches. Hags. Fairies. Vampires. Shifters. Magical humans,” the boy with the stony face announced, reaching out his hand. “I am SalGoud, by the way, a stone giant. I’ve seen you at school, Jamie. Nice to meet you, Annie.”
Jamie and Annie stopped eating long enough to shake the tall, bespectacled boy’s hand. His skin was soft to touch, but underneath he was made of stones, hard granite like the land of Maine itself.
“Just so you know, stone giants have horrible eyesight,” said SalGoud, “but warm hearts.”
Mr. Nate stopped his town government lesson so that everyone else at the table could be introduced. There was the mayor, whose voice they had heard with Miss Cornelia, and an older man named Ned the Doctor, the town physician and some sort of giant as well. There was Gramma Doris who did much of the cooking, several dwarfs whose names Jamie forgot instantly, much to his embarrassment, a few fairies flitting about, and Tala. The dog stayed pressed against Annie’s legs as he wolfed down a meat pie. One man, Canin, ran the town store. He had a grizzled beard and a gruff voice. When he said hello he sounded like he was coughing. He had dog breath, and the password Mr. Nate gave Jamie suddenly made a lot of sense.
“Maybe I should show them around Aurora tomorrow, since it is the weekend,” SalGoud suggested.
“Well, what a good idea!” said Doris, wiping her hands on her apron. “Give them both a better idea of things. Did Miss Cornelia tell you anything about Aurora, Annie?”
Annie put down her fork and stared up at the red-haired pixies dancing on the chandelier above the long, lichen-covered table.
“We really didn’t have a lot of time,” Annie said apologetically. She peeked to Jamie as if for help.
“Not really,” he said, remembering Miss Cornelia’s warnings and kindness.
The mayor cleared his throat. “I’m sure Annie will be learning even more soon. On Monday morning you start school again, Annie, but in Mount Desert. You catch the bus at seven o’clock. The stop is just outside the town proper. After that you’ll have magic and history lessons.”
Jamie’s heart sank, and his pie didn’t seem quite so appetizing. He didn’t want to leave again. He didn’t want to ever leave this magical town. Maybe he wouldn’t have to. The mayor only mentioned Annie.
“School?” she asked, swishing some blueberries back
and forth on her plate. “I really have to go to school again?”
“Of course.” Miss Cornelia acted shocked. “You and Jamie both.”
No one said anything for a moment, and all the forks stopped in midair.
It was Gramma Doris who broke the silence. “Darn tooting they have to. This town needs its own school, it does.”
“Language, Doris.” The mayor exhaled and fixed Annie with his eyes. “School reminds us of the rest of the world and keeps us grounded in reality. Plus, you must learn math, science, and all the basics. It’s much better to learn them from humans. Humans love that sort of thing.”
Eva crossed her arms in front of her overalls, and a ferret peeked out of the pocket in the middle of her chest. She gave the ferret some piecrust, pushed its head back into the pocket, and grumbled, “That’s fine for you. You don’t have to go.”
“I did. Once, even I was young. I know about bullies and being different, Eva. I remember it far too well. But, we can’t shelter you completely in Aurora. Children must lead full-size lives. That can’t happen if you are stuck in one place,” the mayor said.
Eva sulked for a second and then turned her full attention to her pie, gobbling it up with a total disregard for knives, crumbs, or food on her face.
“Do I have to go, too?” Jamie whispered to Mr. Nate.
“Yes.”
“But what if my grandmother finds me and takes me back?” The thought of it made the pie in Jamie’s stomach feel like lava, threatening to erupt.
“We will keep you safe.” Mr. Nate patted Jamie’s hand with his own, reassuringly. “I promise.”
The conversation turned to the upcoming yearly winter carnival. Then it became a boasting competition among many at the table about who had the best times for the sack race, the obstacle course, the dragon egg toss, and so on.
Ned the Doctor kept taking his glasses off to wipe at his eyes, only to lose his glasses repeatedly. It happened quite regularly, and each time he would place his thickened hand on Annie’s arm and say cordially, “Annie, dear, could you tell me where my glasses are?”
And Annie, who was seated next to him, would pluck his glasses out of the pie or the squash soup, wipe them off with her napkin, and gently place them back on his nose while the fairies giggled.
Each time, Ned the Doctor would pat her shoulder with his gentle hand and announce to the table, “Annie really is a remarkable child. Just remarkable. So clever and with just such a gentle soul. I’m so delighted she’s here. Well done, Eva.”
And then Annie would blush and Eva would gloat and the blond boy, Bloom, would seem to sink a little deeper into his chair. Jamie recognized that feeling. He knew what it was like to feel worthless and a little bit jealous, and wanting to be invisible. Jamie made a mental note: elves are a bit like him.
“Let’s have a midmeal blessing. What was I thinking, forgetting that? SalGoud, do us the honors?” Miss Cornelia asked as she unfolded her napkin and placed it on her lap.
The tall boy swallowed hard and began, “When I sound the fairy call, gather here in silent meeting, Chin to knee on the orchard wall, cooled with dew and cherries eating. Merry, merry, Take a cherry, Mine are sounder, Mine are rounder, Mine are sweeter, For the eater When the dews fall. And you’ll be fairies all.”
“Good one, SalGoud!” Bloom said before shoveling his fork into his stew. “Wow. This is good. I’m starved.”
“Robert Graves, wasn’t it?” Ned the Doctor said, also digging in. “Brilliant choice. Lovely poet. Mmm. Mmm. Delicious meal. Brave company. Life can’t get any better than this.”
“Did you know I got Annie all by myself? Seriously.” Eva bragged while slopping stew all over her shirt. “Rescued her from the clutches of wicked humans, and then we saved Jamie from being eaten—”
“You’ve told us that a hundred times,” Bloom complained, putting down his fork.
“It was a good job heroically done,” Miss Cornelia said, causing Eva to blush bright red.
“I could’ve done it,” Bloom muttered.
“Of course you could,” SalGoud whispered. “You just didn’t have the chance.”
Jamie turned to see if Eva heard. The dwarf hadn’t. She was monstering into her ham hock without a fork. He thought it was pretty disgusting.
Mr. Nate raised his glass in a toast. “For our newest citizens! To Jamie and Annie!”
They all clinked glasses. Annie blushed. Jamie suddenly couldn’t stop smiling.
At one stage, the ferret and Little Mister Number Two and Little Mister Number Four, two of the small dogs that had escaped from the Wiegles, tackled each other and wrestled in the middle of the table, struggling over a leftover appetizer. The dwarfs placed bets on the winners (the ferret was the odds-on favorite) until Gramma Doris snapped her fingers and big, round metal dish covers dropped over each of them, enclosing them in separate containers. This elicited cheers from the fairies, but boos from the dwarfs and pixies.
Canin slammed up from the table, shocking all of them. “You all are carrying on as if our very lives weren’t in danger. As if … as if that little thing of a girl could possibly save us.”
Annie’s eyes grew big, and she seemed to shrink in her seat. Gramma Doris wrapped an arm around her thin shoulders and hushed the wild-haired man. “You stop that, Canin. No need to scare—”
“No need to scare them?” he interrupted, laughing harshly. “Fear keeps us alive. We’ve been safe much too long. Does no one remember the Elf Wars? Does nobody remem-ber what the Raiff—”
“Enough!” the mayor roared, standing from the table and knocking over his chair, causing Tala to bark and several pixies to fly up to the rafters. He ignored them all, centering his attention on Canin’s bent form. “Come with me, Canin. Now.”
He stormed out of the dining room, yanking Canin by his willowy arm.
“Well … ,” Gramma Doris said after a pause. “There he goes. His kind can get so cranky and worried. Don’t let him and his anxiety ruin your appetizer finale.”
And for the second time that night as if on cue, everyone began to eat again. But Annie’s eyes seemed worried, and Bloom kept trying too hard to make jokes that just weren’t funny, and the adults all talked a bit too merrily and a bit too loudly, the way people do when they are pretending that everything is all right.
For Jamie the conversation eradicated any hope of enjoying the rest of his dinner. His heart beat heavy and fast at the thought of the Raiff, and of school, and his grandmother just a yellow bus ride away. Fortunately, the next day was Saturday, his birthday, and school was a good weekend away. But the Raiff? He seemed a lot closer somehow.
After dinner, Jamie and Annie were whisked off into the game room by Eva, SalGoud, and Bloom. Table tennis was set up in the center, a basketball hoop dominated one end, a pool table the other, and there were a few old-fashioned video games along the walls.
“All it needs is a bounce house,” Annie murmured as they entered, giving Jamie big eyes.
They played doubles on table tennis, with Tala picking up any stray balls. SalGoud curled up in an oversize chair, reading Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, which Jamie thought strange until Eva explained that stone giants are very into words, quotes, and knowledge.
“Boring.” Eva yawned. She whacked the Ping-Pong ball so hard that it bounced off the walls before landing back on the table.
“Foul!” Bloom shouted.
She shrugged. “Whatever.”
Bloom and Annie were a team. Jamie and Eva were another. Annie was just as bad as Jamie at trying to hit the tiny white ball, and the game ended up with just Bloom and Eva playing.
“Can you tell me about Aurora?” Jamie asked them as Tala fetched another ball. This time it had rolled beneath the pool table.
“What about it?” Eva asked, wiping the sweat off her forehead with the end of a pigtail.
“How does it work exactly?” Jamie’s confusion raised his voice.
“It’s full of magical people,??
? Bloom said. He took the ball from Tala and thanked the dog before continuing. “It’s set up like any other town, though. There’s a mayor and a town council. There’s a library and a post office. All that stuff.”
“But no school,” Jamie asked, twirling the paddle in his hand.
“Nope. Freaking ridiculous rules,” Eva grumped.
“And when was it founded and all that?” Jamie asked.
She gaped at him. “What would you want to know that for?”
Jamie felt like he was on the spot. “I don’t know. It’s just … well, I didn’t even know this was here and now I live here.”
“I’d like to know, too,” Annie said. She caught the Ping-Pong ball in her hand, stopping the play completely.
“Um …” Eva crossed her arms over her chest.
“History is not Eva’s forte,” SalGoud said from his chair.
“Forte?” Jamie asked.
“What she’s good at,” the stone giant explained, shutting his book and standing up.
He walked to the Ping-Pong table and stood beside the net. Eva and Bloom put their paddles down.
Tala wagged his doggy tail and then slumped down on the floor, falling asleep instantly.
“Eva is anti-history,” Bloom said.
“I’d like to kick history in its neck, if it had one.” Eva picked up her paddle again and began whacking the air with it.
Just then the door opened and the mean-looking girl with the blond hair came in.
“Hey, Megan. You just got here in time for SalGoud’s town history lesson.”
Megan scowled. “Hi, Bloom.”
There was an awkward silence. Dark-green clouds circled around Megan’s head. She shooed them away.
“That means she’s cranky,” Eva muttered. “Them green clouds. She’s always cranky.”
“Maybe if you’d help illustrate, Megan.” SalGoud cleared his throat and began.
As he did, Megan’s clouds formed into people prancing about on the pool table in between the shiny balls.
“Well, at the end of the fifteen hundreds there were a lot of magical people being killed over in Europe, where the founders of Aurora came from. They were tired of being stoned, burned, and accused of being evil. It was a horrible time. I don’t even know how to describe it, actually.”