“Tough break.”
“And . . . um . . . we found a way to get to Pretannica, because we learned that Nimue was keeping the Queen of England prisoner here. Because the queen can knight people, and only knights can kill dragons, and Nimue wants to bring this huge pink dragon named Saxbriton to Earth to protect her while she turns all the Goodco customers into zombies and opens a huge door between Earth and Pretannica. And I visited the High Queen of the fairies and tried to convince her not to invade Earth, but. Well, that didn’t work out too good. But my dad and Merle rescued Queen Elizabeth, apparently, except now we’re all trapped here and can’t get home.”
“Look at you!” said Haskoll. “Busy little guy. No more murders, though?”
“I’m not a murderer!”
“I was just a special case, huh? I guess I should be flattered.”
“If . . . if you died you have no one to blame but yourself. It was you—”
Haskoll made a yak-yak-yak gesture with his ghostly hand. “Whatever. You gotta let this thing go—I’m not here to play the blame game. Hey! Maybe I’m here to play the name game!”
“The what?”
Ghost Haskoll leaped to his feet. “Haskoll Haskoll bo baskoll banana fanana fo faskoll! Mee mi mo maskoll!” he shouted. “Haskoll!”
“Can we maybe—” Scott interjected.
“Let’s do Harvey! Harvey Harvey bo barvey banana fanana fo farvey! Mee mi mo marvey! Harvey! Let’s do the kid who murdered me! Scott Scott bo bott! Banana fanana fo fott—”
Just then Mick pushed through the reeds and stopped at the water’s edge.
“Let’s do Mick! Mick Mick bo bick—”
“There yeh are,” Mick told Scott. “When I got back t’ camp an’ found yeh gone, I worried.”
“Sorry,” said Scott. “Um.” Mick hadn’t appeared to notice Haskoll at all, despite the ghost singing and doing the running man right behind him.
“We should get goin’,” said Mick.
“Yeah. Yeah. So . . . ,” said Scott as he pulled his boots on. “Can the Fay usually see ghosts?”
Mick chuckled. “Ghosts? There’s no such thing, lad.”
“Says the leprechaun,” said Haskoll. Scott watched him over his shoulder as he and Mick made their way back to camp.
“Take care, buddy!” Haskoll added. “See you again soon!”
CHAPTER 2
The young pixie prince named Fee clutched the sill of the backseat window, watching the world pass and pivot around them.
“We are looking for . . . what was it, brother?” he asked. “A riff?”
“A rift,” said Fi. “A door. A way to make the Crossing.”
The others, Fo and Denzil and tiny Polly, struggled with their dignity as they tumbled around the backseat of the taxicab. The pooka Harvey was a spirited driver, and he made each turn as though he’d only thought of it at the last possible second. The mechanical owl, Archimedes, clutched a headrest and swayed in perfect gyroscopic counterbalance to everything Harvey did.
“And this Crossing will take us back to our own world?” asked Fee.
“Aye, little brother. And we will save Scott and Mick from the elves, and show them the doors on Fray’s island that can take them home.”
“And see Morenwyn again, and convince her to join us,” added Fee.
Fi looked out the window. “Perhaps.”
With a shriek, the cab bucked and came to a stop. Polly and the three princes tumbled down onto the floor mats.
“It’th thomewhere around here,” Harvey told them. “You know I can’t thee it.”
“I’ll be able to,” said Polly. “Can you open the door?”
“Hold, Polly,” said Fi. “We should take care how we exit the taxi wagon. Goodco and the Freemen may well have this rift guarded.”
“No one around but thome human on the nextht block,” Harvey told them.
Denzil consulted the map on Merle’s watch. “The rift we sought is on a large city circus. This is not that rift.”
“Yeah,” Harvey agreed with a wave. “I took you thomeplace elthe—to a quieter part of town. There’th a real nice rift here, leadth to the bank of a little pool.”
“How big is it?” asked Polly.
“Big enough for . . . like a thmall cat.”
“Or a rabbit?” said Fi. “How do you know of this rift, exactly?”
Harvey shrugged. “You know, I hear thingth. Big earsth an’ all. You want me to drive you to the other rift? I’ll drive you to the other rift.”
“This is good,” said Polly. “Right? Quieter, like you said.”
Fi gave Harvey a last look, then he and Polly and the other three princes dropped out of the cab and down to the quiet street. The same person still stood alone on the next block. They crept around the rear tire and peered at this person, standing stiffly under a distant streetlamp.
“You think that’s where the Crossing is?” Polly asked Fi.
“I expect so.”
“And the Crossing’s guarded.”
“Indeed it is.”
Polly squinted. “That’s a crossing guard.”
The figure under the streetlight was a stout, elderly Pakistani woman wearing a safety-yellow cap and rain slicker striped with reflective strips. She held a tall pole that was like a wizard’s staff, if you happened to believe that wizards’ staffs were topped with red-and-yellow stop signs, which Polly didn’t.
“What do you think, brother?” Denzil whispered to Fi. “Troll?”
“It’s not a troll,” said Polly. “It’s an old lady who helps kids cross the street. Look—she’s standing on a crosswalk and everything.”
“I was thinking troll,” Fi confided, “as it is guarding a bridge, so to speak. But trolls are no shape-shifters.”
“Probably just an old lady, then,” said Polly.
Harvey arched his neck out the window. “You gonna be okay?” he asked Polly. “I got thingth to do.”
Polly looked down at the crossing guard and back up at the pooka.
“I guess so.” She beamed him a smile. “Well . . . thanks.”
If Harvey didn’t answer right away, it was only because he’d never been thanked for anything before. He wasn’t sure what one did in situations like this. Finally he nodded, and Polly and the pixies helped one another up the curb.
“Could it be an ogre?” asked Fo as they crept down the block.
“Not an ogre,” said Polly. “Lady.”
“Possibly an ogre,” Fi admitted. “Or an ogress? I’ve never heard tell of such a thing, but ‘the twilight’s liminal light doth veil a thousand fairy faces,’ as they say.”
“No one says that,” Polly told them. “It’s not an ogress. In this world there are these people called crossing guards, see, and they help kids get to school.”
“And is school in session now?” Fee asked.
You could tell he wasn’t being snarky about it—he honestly didn’t know. But it was the middle of the night. Polly reluctantly admitted that there was really no reason for the woman to be here. Then she saw the rift.
“It’s there,” she whispered, straining to see the shimmery flicker of it. “Right between the woman’s feet. It’s really small.”
Funny, calling something small when it was easily a whole head taller than she was. Maybe now she should call everything medium or large, she thought, the way they do in fast-food restaurants.
“So . . . ,” said Polly. “Maybe we’re so small we can just sneak right through her feet?”
Fo harumphed. “A pixie does not sneak. A pixie announces himself to his foe, like a gentleman.”
“Does he die like a gentleman too?” asked Polly. “Like when his foe steps on him?”
A cat meowed nearby, and they all tensed. Several seconds passed without incident, so they continued up the block. They’d be at the intersection soon.
“The great hero Cornwallace never sneaked,” said Fee. “He looked each villain in the eye before thrashing him.”
/> “My brother forgets the song of Cornwallace and the honeycomb treasure,” Denzil whispered. “He dressed like a bee.”
Fee shook his head. “I don’t accept the songs as part of official canon. A magic everlasting honeycomb? If it’s so everlasting, how come I’ve never seen it?”
“Cornwallace also used trickery during his adventure in the palace of the mole king.”
“He was facing a ronopolisk. Unarmed!”
“Perhaps we can at least agree, then, that a pixie sneaks when he hasn’t any other option.”
“Well,” said Polly. “I’m not a pixie. Are you gonna get grossed out if I start sneaking right in front of you?”
Fi coughed. “May I propose that we settle this another time?” he said. “As the troll has been eyeing us these past two minutes, I sense the point is moot.”
They stopped and fixed their eyes on the crossing guard. She was leaning on her stop sign, watching them. She waved.
Polly and the pixies waited for a car to pass, then hopped down the curb.
“This is going really good so far,” said Polly. “They’re probably gonna write a song about us, too.”
“Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum!” said the crossing guard with a rubbery grin.
“It’s Denzil, actually,” said Denzil.
“And Polly.”
“That’s not as funny,” the woman said. “I was gonna say, ‘I smell the blood of some pixie men,’ but . . . forget it, it’s ruined now.”
“You were expecting us,” said Fi, and his hand went to the sword at his side. His brothers reached for their belts too, out of habit, but they hadn’t any weapons.
“Was it supposed to be a secret?” said the guard. “Your little jailbreak? With its chemical spill and alarms and man-eating manticore? You lot are about as subtle as a turd.” Her grin quivered. There was something flabby about the way it hung on her face. “I weren’t expecting a tiny girl, I’ll give you that.”
“I drank potions at the Goodco labs!” said Polly. She’d decided that “potions” sounded less irresponsible than “chemicals.”
“You don’t say,” said the guard.
“I do say. Because I realized: how could they get the queen across the Crossing unless they made her really small? Right? ’Cause Goodco only knows about really small rifts like the one between your feet. So I took chemicals until I found the right ones to shrink me and I accidentally got really tiny wings too but I like them even though they aren’t good for anything,” she finished. She thought she’d been pretty clever back at Goodco and felt that she wasn’t getting enough credit for it.
The crossing guard wasn’t impressed, anyway. She laughed with an unpleasant huff that waggled the slack corners of her mouth.
“Oh. Oh, gross,” said Polly. “Ew ew ew that’s just a costume, isn’t it? Please say it’s not real old-lady skin.”
“You like?” The troll raised her arms. Where the skin showed, she looked dark and dimpled as an overstuffed chair. “Coupla goblins made it for me. Not really my size, but it keeps the sun off.”
“There’s no way that fools anyone during the day,” said Polly. “The kids must be terrified of you.”
The troll stepped forward, and shadows pooled in the pits and sockets of her face. “They are terrified of me,” she said, and you could hear the giddiness in her voice. “But they don’t know why. They whisper stories to one another—I hear them, I have very good ears. I’m a witch, or a serial killer. I eat children and keep a cellar full of bones. And it’s all true. Children always know. Don’t you, love?”
“Step aside and let us use the rift,” announced Fi. “And though you be a dreadful thing, you will not be harmed.”
“Heh. Cute.”
“Charge, my brothers!”
The pixies surged forward. Polly started. “What? We’re just rushing the troll? Hoo . . . okay.” She screamed her high-pitched little-girl scream and ran forward with the rest.
The pixie brothers reached the troll as a group but scattered as her foot came down in the middle of them.
“Polly! Where is the rift?”
“Here! Here!”
“Stand in it and make ready! We will distract the brute!”
“I can hear you, you know,” said the troll.
Fee, Fo, and Denzil could only strike at the monster with their fists. And though pixies were strong for their size, the troll was oblivious. Denzil managed by leaps and bounds to scale his way to her shoulders, but when he struck her chin she shook like a wet dog and sent him sailing into a hedge.
“Brother! The rift does not work! Polly remains!”
“I have to wait for something on the other side!” said Polly.
The troll cackled and kicked. Fo caught the edge of her sneaker and tumbled into the street. Soon this same sneaker appeared above Polly, blotting out the light of the streetlamp, and she had no choice but to run or be squashed. Fi appeared at her side and slashed at the troll’s heel with his sword. He cut through both sock and goblin skin to reveal something shaggy and foul underneath.
“Ow! Little pest.”
“Brothers! We must withdraw!”
At this, Fi continued to prod and slash at the troll’s feet while the other three pixies arranged their fingers in their mouths and whistled.
Polly peeked out from under the hedge. “What are they doing?” she asked.
“Whimpering like little babies,” answered the troll.
“Calling to the nightingales, in the manner of a lost fledgling,” corrected Fi, and he stabbed through the toe of her sneaker.
“OW!”
And before long a small flock of confused mother nightingales alighted on the hedgerow. One even swooped close to the troll and beat her wings in her face.
Each of the brothers rushed now to grab at a tail or a tuft of feathers or a leg. The birds, startled, took to the air. Prince Fi curled his arm around Polly’s waist and managed to catch hold of a single talon as the last nightingale flew away.
“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” screamed Polly as they rose, air whooshing all around, the dizzy city streets dropping out from under them.
Through whistling and cajoling, the brothers managed to keep the birds together, and they all reconvened in a cherry tree three houses away. Polly and the brothers dropped free and clutched at branches as the angry nightingales flapped and snapped at them.
Fee stood recklessly upright on a swaying cherry branch as the birds moved away. “We will redouble our efforts and attack again before the troll woman has a chance to recover,” he said.
“Recover from what, exactly?” said Denzil.
“Maybe we should just try another rift,” said Polly. “That troll’s probably calling Goodco right now, an’ there’ll be a thousand army men here soon.”
Fi looked thoughtful. “I doubt that. She’s shown quite handily that she doesn’t need the help, and trolls are solitary creatures.”
Polly shinnied up the branch toward him. “What else do you know about trolls?”
“Hmm. That they’re meant to be slow-witted, but this one seems plenty canny.”
“And that they’re afraid of thunder, supposedly,” said Fo.
“And that sunlight will turn them to stone,” added Denzil.
“I’ve never heard that,” said Fee.
“It’s a lesson from our oldest stories, written and told when our world had a sun, and seasons. But she’s already told us her skin suit protects her.”
Polly frowned. “Does it have to be sunlight, or any light?”
“Sunlight. There is in the sun’s rays some special property fearsome to trolls.”
Polly bounced on her branch, and the others grasped at twigs to keep from falling. “I know this!” she said. “My mom says it constantly. The sun has lots of UV light! Ultraviolet. It’s not so good for people, either—that’s why she’s always smearing me with sunscreen.”
“Well,” said Fee. “This is all well and good if we want to skulk like magpies in this tree all night,
waiting for the sun. Unless you can make it shine at night? And there’s still the troll’s suit to consider.”
Polly thought. Mom was a scientist and was always starting sentences with “Here’s something interesting” or “Have you ever wondered?” Polly mostly just pretended to listen while she thought about soccer or her birthday. And now she wished Mom were here with her, for only the seven hundredth time this week.
“I . . . I bet I could get us a UV light . . . ,” she began. “The birds might know what I’m thinking of, if they’re still willing to help us. Could you ask if any of them know a good place for dead bugs around here?”
The troll (whose name was Underfoot; and whose True Name was Mó-Andlit; and who, in her own private poetry, referred to herself as Gladiola) thought she may as well call it in to Goodco, now. Now that half an hour had passed since the pixies fled, now that it seemed clear they wouldn’t be trying again tonight. She’d tell Goodco and their idiot Freemen that the little smurfs had only just left, of course. Hurry and you might still catch them, she’d say.
She’d just fished her phone from the pocket of her rain slicker when a nightingale swooped low, right in front of her face, and perched atop the hedge on the troll’s corner. The bird (who, if he’d had a name, would have called himself Biggest and Loudest, like all other male nightingales) then commenced to twitter and shriek and make its ray-gun noises at the troll as lustily as it could.
“Shoo,” the troll told it, frowning her Pakistani-woman face. She wished she could show the bird her real face—that would shut it up. She scanned the gutter for something to throw and missed the second nightingale dropping a tiny prince on her rounded back. But she felt the pixie’s sword when it bit into her backbone.
“YEARGH!” the troll bellowed as she twisted and whipped her arms about. “Back for more, blueberry?”
Fi’s weapon, the marginally enchanted sword known as Carpet Nail, was stuck fast in the monster’s back. Fi hung two-handed from its hilt. But he swung himself into a high backflip, landed feetfirst on the crossing guard, and catapulted himself into another flip to avoid the swipe of the troll’s lacquered nails.