Chapter Twenty-three
It was almost noon, and I was still sitting at the picnic table, my upper body slumped against the damp wood and my head down, staring at Jenks's stump. I'd be dead if Brooke knew the fairy attack had failed and decided to come after me twice in one morning, but I didn't care. I was waiting for a sign of life from Jenks's stump, and I wasn't going inside and possibly miss it. Ivy had gone in to find out how much longer it would be, but that had been, like, five minutes ago.
The spring breeze shifted a curl into my eyes, and I brushed it away, staring, still staring, at the stump as my hip ached from hitting the floor too many times, my arm hurt where the fairy dart had found me, and my fingernails stank of burnt amber. At the end of the table, the fairies were moving around, recovering from their wounds and learning how to walk without their wings, still waiting to learn their fate. The garden was almost silent. Not a bird or insect, not a clatter of wing or pixy wail of mourning. It was eerie, and I sat up, feeling my back crack. "Where is everyone?" I whispered, not expecting an answer.
"Scattered," a fairy said, and I looked at Sidereal standing at the edge of the bubble. "When parents die, the young scatter. They die, or find mates and probably die. None return. "
"Jenks isn't dead," I said quickly, feeling the hurt to the bone, and he grinned to show me his sharp teeth. Stifling a shudder, I looked back to the stump. Jenks's kids were going to leave? "Why leave?" I asked. "The garden isn't going anywhere. "
Sidereal shrugged, his wicked grin turning to a grimace of pain when the skin on his back pulled. "It prevents inbreeding. They're only animals. We drift on the currents far above, listening for funeral songs like wolves listen for the ailing elk. The mourning pixies abandon their garden, and new ones won't move in until all evidence of habitation is gone. That's what we do. Wipe the slate clean. And they call us animals. "
I was sure they scattered from heartache, not to prevent inbreeding, but I said nothing.
"There isn't even a fight unless another fairy clan claims it, too. " Sidereal reached over his shoulder with disjointed arms to fix his clothing, rubbing the stumps of his wings. "That the pixy told his eldest to maintain the garden was unusual. Disgusting, when you think about it. "
"It's not disgusting," I said, insulted. "Jenks told Jax to maintain the garden because he thinks I need pixy backup. " But Jax was gone again, abandoning his father's dreams to follow his own. It was hard to find fault with him, though.
Sidereal was silent for a moment. "Your magic can make you as small as this?" he said doubtfully, looking down at his white, robelike clothes.
It hurt to talk about Jenks, but I said, "Yes. I made Jenks big once. "
The fairy made a dry hiss I was starting to identify as disbelief. "He wouldn't be able to fly that size. The weight would be too much. "
"He didn't have wings. " I looked at the porch, then back to Jenks's stump. "He didn't need them when he was that big. " I was struck by a sudden thought, and my eyes flicked to Sidereal. I could make them big, then small again to give them their wings back.
Then what? I thought. Pat them on the head and tell them to be good? If I gave them their wings back, they'd have a renewed life as well, with no promise that they wouldn't turn around and murder me in my sleep. They had already tried to kill me with that dart. Ivy, too. No, I wasn't going to make them big even for a second.
Sidereal's lips were pulled back in a long-toothed grimace, and his expression was cross. I wondered if he'd had the same thought when he turned away, hissing. "Schhhhsssss. The coven is right. You're a black witch. Cursing yourself to save a pixy. "
"The coven is a bunch of jealous hacks," I said, not believing it but enjoying hearing the words come out of my mouth. "What's the point of being able to do all this if you don't do anything to help your friends? I'm not hurting anyone but myself by getting small. His wife just died, and he needs someone to hold him. And how can you call them animals when they pine to death when the other one dies?" Oh God. Jenks, we need you. Don t follow Matalina just yet. She wanted you to live.
"Your kindness hurts, witch," Sidereal said bitterly, stretching a hand behind him to hold a new pain. "It hurt my people when you saved us from death, and it will hurt the pixy. You are truly a demon. "
My face warmed, and I barked, "Who asked you?" I wasn't hurting Jenks, was I? Should I just let him die with Matalina? Was I being selfish? Maybe. . . maybe a pixy loved so deeply that to continue on would be hell?
Sidereal's black eyes squinted at me as my face went cold, but the creak of the back door turned me around. Adrenaline pulsed as Pierce came out. Ivy was behind him, and then Ceri. Anxious, I stood and wiped my hands off on my jeans. "Where's the other one?" I asked, seeing only two potion vials in Pierce's hand. Ivy winced, and I got it. "You aren't going?"
Ivy took a vial from Pierce and handed it to me. "I saw what went into it," she said as she gave me a hug. My eyes closed and I felt the tears prick again. There was worry for me in her touch. "I can't do this," she whispered, sounding ashamed. "You can. "
Why wasn't I surprised? "Am I making a mistake?" I asked her, miserable about Matalina, but wanting to keep Jenks alive.
Ivy shook her head. Seeing it, Ceri cleared her throat for my attention. "The curses need to be invoked," she said, and I took the finger stick she was extending.
Invoked with demon blood since they were curses. Numb, I snapped the top off the finger stick with my thumb and pricked it in one smooth motion, practice making it easy. The wind ruffled my hair as I massaged the digit, three drops plopping first into my vial, then Pierce's. The scent of redwood blossomed, but my face went cold in the slight breeze when I thought I smelled a hint of burnt amber. No one else seemed to notice it.
Damn it, how much more proof do I need?
Shaking, I looked at Pierce. His expression was empty, and he downed it with no hesitation. "It tastes like the fall," he said as he ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth.
"Dried leaves," I whispered, remembering Jenks saying the same thing. The fairies at the end of the table were all watching, and I wondered, if I freed them would they go back to the coven and tell them everything they had witnessed? Did I even care?
Gathering my courage, I raised the vial. . . then paused. "Clothes," I blurted out. "I can t walk into Jenks's house naked. "
"Jih is bringing them," Ceri said patiently. "For you and Pierce both. "
Satisfied, I downed the vial, waiting for Jenks's snide comment about naked witches in his Garden of Eden, but of course it never came. My heart clenched. The dusty taste of the potion seemed to dry my mouth, and I swallowed, tongue running over my teeth to try to get it off. "That's awful," I said as I made a face and tapped a line. All that was left were the magic words. "What's the word to turn back?" I asked.
Ceri shrugged. "The same to invoke it. "
I thought back to the size charm for Jenks last summer. "Non sum qualis eram?"
The woman's eyes widened, and I had one gasp of air before it was shoved out of me.
Just that fast, it took hold. There was no pain, but I could feel the rush of the ley line spill into me, vibrating every cell until I felt overly full. A sheet of smut-tainted ever-after enveloped me, making my hearing muzzy, but there was a clicking like a trillion abacuses as my cells prepared to shift, turning things on, turning other things off. Then the flow of energy hesitated.
I got another breath in before it was shoved out again. I felt as if I was being squeezed like a tube of toothpaste. Energy flowed out of me as I shrank. My eyes quit working, and I panicked. There was the shattering of something: a hard crack followed by the tinkling of shards. I thought it might be my soul.
With a final pulse echoing in from the line, the curse played itself out. My ears popped and everything sounded off. I opened my eyes to find I was in a black-sheened world of cotton smelling like soap. My shirt. I'd done it. I felt behind me, exhaling when I found no wings.
"I take the smut," I said as I felt the first ping of returning sensation from the ever-after. The rising wave of pain crested, then broke about me to lap a new film of black imbalance over me. I tasted it as I grabbed a fold of shirt and tried to cover myself, thinking the new coating had almost a metallic tang to it. My legs were hairy, as in I-can't-find-my-razor hairy. I wasn't going to look at my armpits, knowing what I'd find. I suddenly realized I'd reset my biological clock yet again. No wonder demons lived forever.
"Nice," I whispered, looking up as I heard the hum of pixy wings and a shaft of light pierced in. It was Jih, looking like an angel as she clambered into my shirt, a haze of blue sparkles about her. A green dress with gold and silver lace was over her arm. Under it was a set of green trousers and a shirt - for Pierce, I was sure. The young pixy woman pushed aside a fold of cloth and stood. She looked to be ten inches shorter than me if we had been human size. Her face was streaked with glitter from her dried tears, and she looked miserable. I knew she was a full adult with a husband and a garden of her own, but she looked ten to me, and my heart went out to her. I wasn't the only one grieving.
"Ms. Rachel," she said, holding out the dress. Her voice sounded exactly the same, which I thought odd. Mine did, too.
"Thanks, Jih," I said, quickly taking the dress and accepting her help putting it on. It crossed over itself in the back and tied in the front to allow for wings. The fabric itself was soft and so light I hardly knew I had it on, making me feel naked anyway. Silver and gold lace decorated it, and apart from my embarrassingly hairy lower legs showing, it fit perfectly. "This is beautiful," I murmured, and Jih managed a sad smile, meeting my eyes for the first time.
"Thank you," she said softly. "I made it last year. It was the first time I'd ever tried making that pattern of lace. It took me all week to convince my mother - "
Her words stopped, and my heart just about broke when she covered her face and started to cry. "Oh, Jih," I said, immediately stumbling over the inside of my shirt to get to her. "I'm so sorry. " I gave the young wife a hug and she sobbed all the harder. "We are all going to miss her, but you probably most of all. You knew her your entire life. "
Pulling back, she nodded as she wiped her eyes with a small cloth pulled from behind the bandage on her arm. She'd fought beside her parents, another pixy tradition broken.
"D-do you think you can get my papa to live?" she stammered, her eyes bright with unshed glitter as she looked up at me, hope in them for the first time.
"Do you think I should?" I asked, wondering if me messing with pixy culture was the right thing to do. It seemed every time I tried to change things for the better, I messed them up.
lih's tears slowed. "I don't know," she said wistfully. "I never thought about having just a mother or a father. They were always one thing. "
She looked up as both the sky and the light were eclipsed. "Excuse me," she said, gathering up Pierce's clothes and darting away. My hair flew everywhere from her backwind, and alarm filled me as my footing became unstable when Ivy carefully pressed the shirt down, exposing me to the world. Pierce hadn't shifted yet, and he blinked at me in bemusement. I wondered if I looked like a woman from his time, making me feel even more awkward.
"Rachel?" Ivy's voice boomed out, and I cowered, hands over my ears.
"Not so loud!" I shouted, and she drew back, uncertainty in her big, fat face. How she looked enormous and the sun and clouds looked the same was beyond me.
"I can't hear her," Ivy said to Ceri. "She just squeaks. "
"Well, I can hear you!" I shouted. Feeling exposed, I awkwardly climbed over my shirt to the ground. My feet were bare, and the earth was squishy. Sure, the dress made me feel like a princess, but it was a pain in the ass. I sure hoped there weren't any rats round. I'd be doing the classic stupid-girl fall if I had to run.
"I couldn't duplicate the pixy magic that amplifies voices," Ceri said, and I jumped when Ivy put her face right next to mine.
"Wow, Rachel," she whispered, sending her orange-juice-scented breath all over me. "You look like a Bite-Me-Betty doll in a prom dress. "
Slumping, I sighed. I couldn't help but wonder if this feeling of being small was why Jenks was so bad tempered. I was never going to get in his face again. Damn it, I had to get in there. He was alone, grieving for his wife.
A series of clicks drew my attention up, and I blanched at the row of savage faces staring down at me from the top of the picnic table. Holy crap. And I thought they were scary when they were six inches tall. Now they were downright terrifying. Sidereal had his arms crossed, his expression unreadable as a bandaged woman stood on tiptoe and spoke in his ear, her white hair all glittery and her legs showing. She dropped back down to her heels, touching her hair as she looked at mine, making me self-conscious about my red hair color.
Above me, Pierce took a breath as I felt him tap a line, but he jerked when Ivy grabbed his arm with a white-knuckled strength. "Keep her safe," she threatened.
"Ivy!" I shouted, or squeaked, rather, and Ivy's brow furrowed. Jih flitted a nervous arc between him and Ceri, Pierce's clothes still in her arms.
"No, I'll allow that's fair," Pierce said, his gaze flicking to me and then back to Ivy's grip on him. "I'm by no means the biggest toad in the puddle when it comes to magic, but Rachel will be safe. See that you do your part in keeping the garden safe. " He touched her hand, and she jerked away at the pulse of green-tinted ever-after. "The coven will assume failure shortly, and I don't want to be burned alive from a fireball shot from a passing carriage. " Frowning, he took a step back as Ivy rubbed her hand. "Non sum qualiseram"
A film of black ever-after coated him. His eyes widened, and then he was gone, his clothes collapsing in a pile. My hair shifted as they hit the ground beside me, and my pulse hammered. He had taken the smut on himself. I knew without asking. I owed him, but he was probably not going to see it that way.
Jih hovered over Pierces old clothes, calling out before she dropped his new ones from about a foot up. The young woman was flustered when she flew back to me, her hands going out to my hair almost before she landed. "Let me fix it," she said. "Quick, before he gets here. "
"It's fine, Jih," I complained, but she tsk-tsked me, slapping my reaching hands when they got too close to her work.
"It's awful," she pronounced, making me feel like a Neanderthal next to her lithe grace. "But it won't be if you would be quiet and let me do this. "
Chafing at the wait, I held still while Ceri and Ivy peered down at Pierce's clothes and waited for him to emerge. Jih quickly braided my hair into a complicated knot that would at least keep it from getting into my face with all the wind from pixy wings and shrinking men. "Now you look better," the pixy said, her grief abating slightly in the task of caring for another.
"Thank you," I whispered, feeling like a princess as she stood beside me while Pierce made his way to us, testing his hand and marveling that the burn was gone. His beard was back, and he looked like an older version of one of Jenks's kids, the one with dark hair, dressed in the traditional tight trousers and gardening jacket. The jacket was loose since it tied in the back as well as the front, and he couldn't manage it alone. It was the same fabric as my dress, but clearly masculine. His feet were bare, and they looked kind of thin. He even had a hat, perched rakishly on his head.
"Rachel," he said as soon as he was close enough, his worry obvious. "Are you well?"
"I'm fine," I said, wishing we could just get moving, then frowned at Ivy and Ceri who were whispering about how cute we looked. "I thought you might sound like Mickey Mouse," I said as he came to a halt beside me.
"Who?" he asked, rubbing his new beard.
"Never mind," I said, gesturing for him to turn around so I could lace his jacket up.
His neck went stiff, but he turned to show me the undone laces. Jih made an embarrassed sound as I tightened them, and I wondered if I was breaking a pixy rule by lacing up a
n unmarried man's shirt. Rolling my eyes at her fluster, I tugged the last one tight and tied it off. "There you go," I said, and Jih's wings blurred to invisibility to make a silver dusting.
The light was suddenly eclipsed, and I jumped, startled when Ceri bent down to us.
"Jumpy little thing, isn't she?" Jih said, and Pierce smiled slightly, startled as well.
Ceri patiently waited until we were all looking at her. "Jih will escort you to the stump and give you a good dusting," she said, looking at us in turn. "I hope you know what you're doing. " She stood, and skirts shifting, she walked to the stairs and went inside, the door slamming behind her in rebuke. I looked at Pierce, doubt rising. I wanted this, Ivy wanted this, but more important, Matalina had wanted this.
"After you, madam pixy," Pierce said, and Jih darted off, gone in an instant.
"Jih!" Ivy shouted, and Pierce and I cowered. "Sorry," she whispered as Jih returned.
"I wasn't going to leave them," she said, hands on her hips as she hovered over us. "I was just making sure it was safe for ground travel. "
"Where's Rex?" I asked, fear stabbing through me.
"Inside. " Jih moved forward and then back. "This way. Mind the glass. "
Glass? I thought, cold, miserable, and worried about Jenks.
Ivy sat at the table beside the fairies, clearly going to stay out here when I was in the wilds. Giving her a wave she couldn't see, I followed Jih. Pierce had one of the fairy swords on his hip, and as the grass closed in, I asked him, "You know how to use that?"
"Absolutely not," he said, "but isn't it a caution? Dash-it-all fine Arkansas toothpick. "
My eyebrows rose. "Oka-a-a-ay. "
We soon found the glass - the remnants of my potion vial, I guess - and we wove through the thick shards carefully, following Jih's gold-dusted path. Every birdcall made my heart race. Every gust of wind in the leaves brought my eyes up, scanning. The grass we walked through had been cut, but it came up to my waist, growing in clumps. A skittering jerked me to a stop.
"Holy crap!" I exclaimed, and Pierce brandished his sword at a hard-plated bug the comparative size of an armadillo. Its antenna waved at us, and I froze, wondering if I could kick it or if it would chew my foot off.
Jih, who was flying a nice safe four inches off the ground, looked down. "It's a roly-poly bug," she explained, her tone saying I was a baby.
"I've never seen one the size of my head before," I muttered.
She dropped lower to give it a kick and it vanished. "It's safer when you can fly," she said lightly. "I was grounded an entire month when I snapped the main vein in my right lower wing. I hated it. Never went outside the entire time. "
No wonder nothing fazed Jenks. Just walking around took guts.
Jih stopped short, her face pale as her wings dusted a melancholy blue. I pushed past her, halting when I found we were at Jenks's stump. The grass ended, giving way to a flat sheet of earth that I remember spanning only a foot or so, but now looked enormous. It was littered with the remnants of battle. The fire where the fairies' weapons had been burned was almost out. The air was clean, but memory put the scent of blood and burnt hair drifting through the clearing. It was quiet. Empty.
Pierce edged even with me, and together we looked at the understated entrance to Jenks's home. It was almost invisible, cut to look like a part of the stump itself. "It's round," he said softly. "I've not seen a round door before. "
"Maybe it's for the wings?" I guessed, glancing up at Jih. "Thank you, Jih. Do you want to come in with us?"
Jih's feet touched the earth beside me, head bowed to hide her tears. "I'll not go any farther," she said, her voice a whisper. "My husband thinks it was wrong for me to have even joined the battle, seeing as it's not truly my garden anymore. But I didn't see any harm if I Visited' my sisters while he was at home making sure no one took our own land. "
"You are your father's daughter as much as your mother's," I said, touching her arm and making her look up. "Always bending the rules. "
She smiled forlornly, causing her to look beautiful, dashed the glitter from her face, and looked at her first home with a faint smile. "I think I'd like my papa back if he was happy. "
I nodded, feeling for the first time that I might be doing some good. "I'll try. "
She rose up with a soft hum, shifting a dust of sparkles over us. Pierce sneezed, and I held my breath. "Now youTl smell right," she said, and with no more, she flew away. The sound of her wings faded remarkably fast.
Pierce smacked his clothes to get the dust off. "Don't you want to smell right?" I asked him, and he raised his eyebrows.
"It's a right smart amount she put down," he said. "Why do we have to smell anyway?"
I didn't know. I really didn't care. Melancholy, I looked out over the distance, feeling the breeze, tasting it almost. It was too quiet for my garden, so long holding the singing or giggling of pixies by sun or starlight. They were either gone or hiding. Pierce gave a small start as I slipped my fingers into his. So I needed his moral support. Eyes forward, I stepped out, feet silent in the manicured dirt as I crossed the opening and watched the door get bigger. My pace didn't falter until I reached it.
My knees went wobbly as I stared at it. Jenks was behind it, mourning his wife. Of all the demons I'd faced, of all the wicked witches, wild Weres, and evil elves, this was the most daunting thing I'd ever done. Jenks's life was on the line. I couldn't fail.
"Should we knock?" Pierce asked as we looked at it.
"Absolutely. " Gathering my courage, I knocked, knowing by the flat sound that it wouldn't carry into the stump any distance. Pierce cleared his throat and pulled himself straight, as if we were calling on neighbors, and after a moment, he glanced at me.
"Can you tap a line?" he asked, his blue eyes showing a hint of trepidation. "I'm a mite skerry to try. I'm of a mind it might explode in me, being so small. "
"I've been connected since we did the spell. It's okay. "
"Oh. " He hesitated, and I felt a tingle between us. "I think we should just go in," he said, his eyes on the wooden door.
Nodding, I pushed the door open.