~~ The End ~~
Thank you for reading my short story! I hope that you enjoyed “Leena and the Giant,” the second of the Tales from Seelie High collection. If you did, please tell your friends about it or leave a review at your favorite retailer or on Goodreads.com.
The Door Opens: New Elphame
September 1, 2014, shortly before 1pm
Angus Shanachie grumbled to himself as he swept the shards of broken glass from the floor of his pub, the Giant’s Head. There had been, of all things, an earthquake earlier that morning. There had never been an earthquake in New Elphame. Not since the town had been founded, anyway. He should know. Fortunately, it had been a small one, although sufficiently large enough to knock several bottles from their shelves behind the bar and to cause an infernal mess of his pub and the adjoining restaurant. And just as the lunch rush had started too.
He had his entire staff over in the diner, cleaning up and taking care of the customers. He was cleaning the pub himself. He preferred to work alone anyway. Not that he was ever alone in the pub. He stopped sweeping for a moment to glare at the huge wooden face that stretched almost from floor to ceiling on the back wall. The carved face grinned with malicious cheerfulness at him.
“Is this your doing?” he asked the Giant.
There was no response, of course. Angus snorted and continued his work.
The door between the pub and the diner swung open, admitting a burst of sound and a tall teenage boy with wild hair and glasses that never seemed to sit straight on his nose. The boy stepped into the room and let the door swing shut behind him, cutting off the noise from the diner once again.
“There you are!” the boy gasped as he reached up to straighten his glasses and run a hand through his light brown hair.
“Where else would I be,” Angus snapped as he glared at the boy. “Stay over there, do you hear? There’s glass all over.”
“From the earthquake? That’s why I’m here. Shanachie, it’s the bell. It’s…it’s not cracked anymore. It tolled.”
“Don’t you think I don’t know that? I heard it myself. The library’s only across the street. Although, as much of a racket as it made, I wouldn’t be surprised if they heard it clear across town.”
“Doesn’t that worry you?” The boy couldn’t stop moving. He obeyed Angus’ instruction to stay where he was, but kept shifting his weight from foot to foot.
“Why should it?” Shanachie got creakily down on one knee and swept a pile of glass shards and dirt into a dust pan.
“Something’s happening! There’s a new girl up at the high school, you know. Moved here last week with her mother, just the two of them. No one knows who they are except the mother took a job over at the elementary school. They’re saying the daughter was in the library when the bell tolled. It’s got to be something to do with her,” the boy said as he bounced back and forth.
“Bah,” Angus scoffed as he got back to his feet. “There’s been newcomers before. Not often, I’ll admit, but it does happen. And someone must know something about the girl’s mother at least. Someone had to offer her the job. And there was plenty of folk in the library. There’s no reason to be making such a fuss. The bell was only ever a warning signal, in any case.”
He had gone up to the library himself to have a look at the bell. It was strange, he had to admit. That bell had been cracked and silent for over a century now. He had never expected to hear it again. He hoped that if it repeated its performance, it would be considerably quieter. His ears were still ringing. But that was still no reason to go rushing around town twittering like a fool.
“A warning, yes!” the boy cried. “But a warning of what? What caused it, Shanachie? What if someone’s been messing with the door?”
“Don’t talk such foolishness, boy. No one even knows the door is there. I don’t know what set the bell off, but that’s no reason to panic.”
“She was in the library too. Did you know? She wouldn’t have done anything, would she?”
“How could she in her state? No, it was just the magic wearing off. No spell lasts forever.”
“Maybe we should up and check it out just to be safe.”
“Now is not the time to go poking around,” Angus said gruffly. “Calm yourself and we’ll go tonight, when there’s no one around. You’d best tell the others. I’ve things to do here. Tell them to meet after sunset.”
For the first time since the boy had come into the pub, he stopped moving. He took in a deep breath, adjusted his glasses one last time, and said, “Yes, I’ll tell them. After sunset. We’ll figure out what happened then.”
As the boy turned to leave, a wave rippled through the pub. It wasn’t sound or light or anything that could be felt by the normal range of human senses. But Angus felt it anyway. Deep in his gut, a familiar tug of power.
The boy felt it too. He whirled around, eyes wide. “It’s open!”
Angus sighed as he limped over to a garbage can and tipped the contents of the dust pan in. Then he carefully set down his broom and turned to face the boy. “She’s not going to be happy about this.”
The Door Opens: The Otherworld
September 1, 2014, shortly before 1pm
Goban waited in the cool darkness of the tunnel, listening for the sounds on the other side of the wall to subside. The midday meal was being served in the dining hall, an enormous room where an entire feast would be laid out on a long side table and would be served to the castle residents by scurrying maids and man servants. The kitchen, which had been bustling all morning, was much quieter now as the last of the silver food-laden trays was carried out. Soon the cook and his staff would be sitting down at their own, much smaller, table in an adjoining room to sample the results of their labors.
Then if he was very, very quiet, Goban could see to it that he and the other children had full bellies for a change.
Their keepers were not particularly cruel. Well, except for her. She was cruel all the time, to everyone—even when she was pretending that she wasn’t. But the others were mostly just thoughtless. The children weren’t particularly important and so they were often forgotten. It had been worse than usual lately. No one had brought them any food for a whole day. The little ones would do nothing but hold their empty stomachs and weep.
So here Goban was, about to do something incredibly dangerous.
He could only hear one set of footsteps clicking on the stone floor of the kitchen. He waited until they clicked across the floor and faded as their owner walked into another room. Pressing his ear as hard as he could to the wall, he listened for a count of thirty, but he could hear no sounds of movement.
Holding his breath, he ran his fingers along the dark tunnel wall until he felt the small indentation. Two fingers pressed into the hollow and with a click that sounded unnaturally loud in the silent tunnel, the small hidden door swung open. This was the dangerous part. If he were caught out of the nursery, he would be taken to her. Not only would he be punished, but the tunnels would be discovered and she would know that he had been spying on her. The thought sent shivers up and down his spine.
But they little ones were crying.
On his hands and knees, Goban crawled through the small door. It opened at the back of the kitchen, beneath a long counter. He crouched there for a moment, his heart pounding in his chest. The longer he waited, the greater the chance that someone would come into the kitchen, so after one deep breath, he crawled out from under the counter and stood up.
The kitchen was a mess. He had done this twice before and both times the room had been pristine in its orderliness, every pan and spice jar carefully arranged in its place. Now dishes and utensils were lying in haphazard piles on counter tops while shards of glass lay in little heaps in the corners, as if they had been hastily swept aside to be dealt with later. It must have been the earthquake that had shook the castle earlier that day. There wasn’t much clutter in the nursery, but what there was had been knocked about as well. It had scared the chil
dren, especially the little ones, badly. That was what had prompted him to promise them food. He had felt he must do something to erase the looks of terrified misery on those little tear stained faces.
A noise from the next room startled him. He crouched back down and prepared to dart into the tunnel, but it was only one of the kitchen staff laughing over his meal. It reminded Goban that he needed to hurry, though.
Pulling out the pillow case he had stuffed down his shirt, he opened it and looked around. There was a loaf of bread on a table. He grabbed it, along with a few pieces of fruit that were lying nearby. On the stove he found a pan full of slightly burnt vegetables that had apparently been deemed unfit to be served in the dining hall. He dumped the pan’s entire contents into his makeshift sack and turned to look for more.
Magic washed through the room. It was a like a wave rushing angrily toward the shore. For a moment, Goban couldn’t breathe the magic was so thick in the air around him. He was used to magic. They were always using it and he had learned to recognize the feel in the air—the almost metallic taste it left in his mouth and the chill that brought out goose bumps on his skin. This, however, was like nothing he had ever felt.
Then it was gone and he could breathe again. He felt like he was going to be sick, though, and in the next room, the kitchen staff was beginning to shout in either