Enchanting the Fey- The Complete Series

by Rebecca Bosevski

  My fairy form fell away and my feet splashed into a puddle that smelled like old dirty socks and dead fish.

  For fuck’s sake. This smells disturbingly like the swamplands of the yowie.

  “I was so hoping we wouldn’t have to come here.” I held my nose between my finger and thumb.

  “How else were you going to get yowie fur, Mum?”

  “I don’t know but this place really stinks.”

  “Put up a shield.”

  “I don’t think I can, I am really tired. Can you try?”

  “I don’t know, maybe. How do you do it?”

  “You need to focus on encasing us in your magic, then tell it what you want it to do. There was no cast for it before I did it, so I usually just say, protect me or us or whoever I am trying to shield.”

  She squinted and scrunched up her nose.

  It did nothing. Maybe there are a few things I can do that she can’t do after all.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said un-pinching my nose. “Hopefully we won’t be here long. So where do you think these yowie are going to be?”

  Ava shrugged then smiled and tilted her head. She giggled, staring through me, her beautiful brown eyes gleaming. She righted her head then looked right at me, a huge smile on her face.

  “What?” I asked, sighing and running my hand through my hair. “Where are they?”

  “They kind of aren’t here anymore.”

  “What? Why? Where are they?”

  “Well, turns out they hated the swamp as much as you do, it was their prison. The wall keeping them in fell after you killed Traflier.”

  “So where are they now?”

  “She said they returned to the caves they once called home, before they were usurped.”

  “Why did he banish them?”

  “I don’t know, she didn’t say. Maybe we can ask them? But for now, let’s get out of this swamp and to the opal caves where the yowie are.”

  Ava swung her arm, the portal didn’t come.

  “Umm, Ava, are you okay?”

  “I guess I am tired, too.”

  “Here, let’s try together.” I offered my hand. She looked so sad. “Ava you will get better, I promise.”

  She forced a smile and together we tried a portal. It wasn’t as big as we would have liked but it was there. The shape more like a sideways oval, we had to duck to walk through, but once on the other side the portal blew out to three times the size.

  My head swam, my magic burned inside me. A sweet but slightly tangy smell entered my nose and I stumbled, leaning against a wall to stop myself from falling. I tried a shield to eliminate whatever was getting into my head. The cast worked. Felt solid, too, and after a moment I could think clearly and stand tall. My daughter stood across from me, terror in her eyes.

  “Mum, are you okay? What happened?”

  “I don’t know. But I feel… good.”

  She smiled with relief and I thought again how much harder this would have been without her. Granted Jax probably wouldn’t have been taken into the darkness by the logaras demons if Ava had been born a normal baby several months from now, but who is to say really? Jax and I both had a pretty good track record for getting ourselves into trouble, and I can’t imagine trying to do all this while pregnant.

  The opal caves were beautiful. The energy coming from them was dizzying and I had to reinforce my shield just to keep my wits about me.

  “Mum, don’t look down,” Ava said, holding her hands out in warning.

  “Why?” Of course I looked down. I really should have listened. “MY SHOES!”

  The swamp had coated them in a goo that resembled bird poop, green and shimmery.

  I glared at them, brought my magic to the tips of my toes and sent it out and over the shoes. I thought of the shoes in my apartment in Enmore, a pair of flats I had seen sitting on the floor in the living room. Red. A perfect match for me at the moment, I thought. Then I swapped them. The slime covered shoes vanished and the red ones appeared instead.

  “Happy now?”

  “Yes actually. I feel great.” I smiled at her and then saw her shoes. They were mine too. I began to send my magic to them but felt hers pushing mine back. It was like a magical tug of war.

  Then the slime coating her shoes exploded in tiny bursts, floated in a spiralling mist around her, before falling to the ground in a puddle of green goo.

  “I didn’t know you could do that.”

  “Neither did I. Does that mean I can borrow your blue ones, if I can fix them? Not that I would ever wreck them.”

  “Maybe.” I winked at her. “Come on, let’s find these yowie.”

  We walked through the tunnels of the opal caves listening out for any sounds that would hint to the yowie location. Other than the faintest sound of water trickling behind the cave walls, there was nothing.

  “Maybe the voice was wrong,” I said, taking a left turn into another opal spotted tunnel.

  “No, she was pretty adamant they had returned here. We just have to look harder. What do yowies look like anyway?”

  “Didn’t they show you?”

  “Mum I hear voices, not see pictures.”

  “Sorry, I don’t know how it works. Yowie are like hairy humans. They are about twice our height though, and their heads are always round, not like the diversity of the humans. I read they used to cut their hair because the swamplands would saturate the fur, making it difficult to get around.”

  “So really tall, hairy people?”

  “Pretty much. They should be relatively easy to find, but with so many twists and turns in here it could take us weeks.”

  “We don’t have weeks,” Ava said, leaning against the wall of the caves.

  “I know. We need a spell.” I pulled out the book again and flicked through the pages. “Nothing looks like it will help us,” I grumbled after a few minutes, shutting the book and shoving it back into the bag with the fabled items. “I wish Madel was here, she could have led us through.”

  Ava smirked then swung her arm, through a surprisingly steady portal, about the size of a basketball I saw Madel playing with a little boy by the water.

  “Madel,” I called through the portal. She looked around confused for a moment, then she saw us and ran over.

  “Desmoree, Ava, where are you? It looks so pretty.”

  I did a double take. The last time I had seen her was when she was storming off after my refusal to link the other hytersprites before I left. Now she was all cheery, happy to see me.

  “Umm, we are in the opal caves looking for yowie, but we could do with a hand tracking them. These caves are a labyrinth of tunnels.”

  Madel ran back to the little boy. After a moment the boy toddled off towards some other children playing by the water, who didn’t seem to notice us or didn’t care. Madel came rushing back over, her larger form leaping over rocks and branches easily. Then she flitted to her tiny form, leapt through the portal and landed on my shoulder.

  “So, can I take a pretty opal home with me? They are highly sort after now,” she said softly into my ear as she settled under the strap of my top.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, touching one of the shimmering opals embedded into the wall of the cave. “And how did you get through my shield?”

  “Silly, Desmoree, hytersprites can go anywhere, remember?”

  Except into the darkness to save Jax. I didn’t dare say it.

  Madel wriggled to get comfy. “They are littered throughout Sayeesies. He used to have fey bringing them through all the time. They are used everywhere.”

  “How do I not know this? Why haven’t I seen them?

  “They can be ground and used in many things. They are mixed with orc dust and swept between the cobblestones. Planted under every new tree lining the border. Even the grout that holds the buildings bricks contains it. Everything shimmers in Sayeesies because of the opals power, and every fey is stronger around it.”

  “The portal, the dizzying power I felt when we
got here, that is the opal’s power?” I asked Madel as I lowered my shield a little to test it again. She nodded and I felt the power seep through my weakened shield. It sent a tingle through my skin and flooded my head with a new weight. Reinforcing the shield again I shook my head to clear it and regain my self-control. “Wow, that was intense.”

  We started down a tunnel, Madel giving us directions at each turn. Madel slipped from the strap of my top and leapt into Ava’s hair. Ava held up her hand for Madel to climb onto it and brought the tiny sprite before her eyes.

  “So you said they used to bring them in, why not anymore?” Ava asked as we rounded another corner.

  “Once the yowie returned, no one dares come in here.”

  “Why?”

  “Yowie eat fairies. Didn’t you know?”

  “WHAT?” Ava and I both stopped mid step.

  Madel began to giggle. “Just kidding. They don’t eat fairies. But they don’t like them, and a yowie could probably do some damage too, especially if they think you are going to drive them out again.”

  “Well we can probably hold our own, and we need fur, not pretty stones. Let’s just hope we come across a friendly yowie.”

  “You are about to come across a lot of them, perhaps one is friendly?” Madel giggled, leaping again from Ava’s hand to my shoulder and tucking herself back under the strap.

  “Pity we aren’t angels,” Madel said into my ear.

  “Why is that?” I whispered back.

  “Yowie love angels, it is how he tricked them into the swamp. He made them believe angels waited for them there, then he put up the barrier over the mine and spelled them out.”

  I looked at Ava and cocked an eyebrow. We might not be angels, but Ava sure did look like one, especially in her fairy form.

  A grumble grew as did the sound of running water and when we rounded the next corner we were faced with a waterfall glistening over a wall of opal. At least twenty yowie swam in the crystal clear shimmering waters below.

  Another ten or so surrounded the water’s edge. Laying around looking up at the ceiling of the cave. If they hadn’t been covered almost entirely with fur they could have been any group of people by any swimming hole. If the swimming hole was in a magical land of light.

  One of the outer ones saw us and stood up moving in clumpy steps, its fur bristled as it bared its teeth. Yellow and sharp. Then it snapped a half yelp half howl bringing us the attention of the others. The ones in the water clamoured onto the shore, joining the outer ones stomping towards us.

  “Stop, wait!” I pleaded, holding up my hands, but the growls grew. The yowie bared their teeth as they ploughed towards us. My shield held strong but I didn’t know what power the yowie held; if the opals had an effect on them too they might be able to break through.

  Then, I fell to the left.

  Held tight by furry arms I was pulled over the edge and tumbled down the side towards the opal pool.

  Ava screamed.

  I shoved at the creature atop me, my shield was keeping the opals power from me, but did nothing against the yowie. The yowie clawed at me but I managed to grab its arms before it drew blood.

  “Ava!” I called but she didn’t answer. I let the shield down allowing the flood of power to envelope me. My head spun at the onslaught of energy building, then just when I was about to release it the weight against me ceased. The grunting and howling of the yowie silenced and only the noise of the running water remained. I pushed my shield up to block the opal’s effects and pushed myself up onto my elbows. Through the furry bodies all on bended knee around me I saw her rainbow curls.

  Ava.

  Ava had transformed into her fairy form, her brilliant white feathered wings outstretched and slowly flapping to rise her off the ground.

  The yowie knelt, facing her. I stood and phased so that I could fly up to where she hovered on the higher platform. It was then I was able to see where the yowie who tackled me had come from. A shelf jutted out slightly above the cave opening and looked to lead down another tunnel, it too illuminated by the opal’s power. I landed on the shelf. Ava wafted over and joined me, both of us changing back to our normal forms.

  Madel dropped from a rock above onto my head and I flinched before realising it was her. She slipped down a strand of my hair and settled into her place on my shoulder.

  “Where did you get off to?” I asked, giving her a stern look. It wasn’t the first time she disappeared in a fight. For a magical creature, she was a bit of a scaredy-cat.

  Madel pursed her lips in a sly smile and tucked the strap closer to her waist.

  The yowie all looked up at us, but only one of them stood. I couldn’t tell one from the other, not with all that fur covering them. This one looked like a female though, and she walked rather than trudged, towards the ledge.

  “We have waited for you, angel of light. We have stayed true to your ways even in the dark years trapped in a land with one light. We stayed true, and then you rewarded us by setting us free.”

  She spoke to Ava, not taking her eyes off her. Ava tensed beside me. Did she know what phasing would do? She looks petrified and a little confused.

  “Ava, they think you are an angel.”

  She nodded. “I am not the angel you think I am. I wanted you to stop hurting my mother,” Ava said, nodding towards me. The yowie before us looked from Ava to me confused.

  “Your mother is a fairy?”

  “Yes, my mother is the most powerful fairy to have ever existed.”

  I bit my bottom lip to hold back my protest. I didn’t like her saying that, but more importantly I didn’t believe it.

  “It is true, she defeated her great grandfather and that is the reason you could come home, why you could leave the swamps.”

  “You mean the fairy is how we came to be set free? But you are an angel, I saw your wings, I saw your light. You are how they always said you would be.”

  “Who said she would be?” I asked, but she didn’t look at me, none of them did. They all still stared at Ava, a devotion in their eyes I had only seen once before. In Jax’s eyes.

  “I need some of your fur,” I blurted out. “Ava, ask for some of their fur.”

  Ava smiled at the yowie in a way that was almost as unnerving as the way they looked at her. “She is right, we do need some fur. We need to protect the world from the darkness. Could we please have some?” Ava asked, her tone sweet as pie.

  The female yowie turned to her brood. “The fairy freed us, not the angel,” she said, pointing at me but still not looking at me. “She asks for our fur, the essence of what we are. If we give her what she wants, she could use its transference capabilities to do much harm.”

  “Wait, I don’t want to do harm, I just need the fur. The spell says I need it, it is the last ingredient of the spell that will seal the mouth of hell. Will close the door to the demon realm. I can’t do it without it.” I was starting to sound desperate. I was desperate.

  She turned and finally looked at me. Her head skewed and a large frown showing even through the mass of facial hair.

  “Why would you need to close a door that is not open?”

  “The coven want it open, I need to seal it so it can’t be,” I replied, flatly.

  They snarled at my statement, some stood as if about to pounce on me, their teeth snapping like crocodiles trying to catch their prey. I tried to fortify my shield but it did nothing the last time to stop them tackling me and I seriously doubted it would do anything should they try again. Instead I brought my magic to my fingers, ready to drop my shield and explode my drunken power upon them should they try to hurt Ava.

  I thought my display of power silenced them. As if sensing my magic they stopped glaring and again bowed before us. I didn’t notice that Ava had again phased beside me.

  “Stop doing that,” I said, running my hand down her wing. The feathers felt like silk against my skin.

  “You must listen,” Ava began. “I am the daughter of fairies, but I am
also made of more. I have the blood of angels running in my veins, and it is with this blood that I ask of you to give us what we need. We won’t open the gateway, my father sacrificed himself so that we could seal it, so that no demon could escape and threaten the human world or any other.”

  The female yowie was joined by two males, the bulge in the fur the only real notable difference. That, and their voices.

  “If we give you what you want, you can no longer send fairies to steal our opals,” the one on the left of her grumbled.

  “You can trade like we used to, before we were tricked into leaving our home,” the other added, his voice calmer, though still tinged with hate.

  “You have a deal,” Ava said, and she phased back to her normal form, her wings disappearing into the small of her back.

  The female held up her arms so that the fur running along them hung down slightly. The male on her right took her arm in one clawed hand and with the other, he twisted a small gathering of fur until it tightened against the skin. Then he released her arm and used those claws to snip the bundle free. The female winced at the removal.

  The male brought it to us and I bent down for him to place it in my hand. He hovered over my hand for a moment, the fur barely touching my skin, but tickling the palm of my hand all the same.

  “Our fur can’t be cut by anything by a yowie’s claws, the power it holds is immeasurable. Use it carefully, and use it all. Do not leave any trace of it, for if someone was to get their hands on even a strand, the magic, the power that could transfer, would be devastating.”

  I nodded, every intention to use every stand in the spell to seal the gateway. To seal the demons in hell forever. Just after I get Jax free.

  He paced it in my hand and I pulled a plastic pouch from the bag to hold the strands. I would lose too many having them float throughout the bag.

  “We must go, but thank you again. We will relay your conditions to the other fey. They will not re-enter the mines. You have our word.” Ava took a step backwards into the illuminated tunnel behind us.

  “Thank you,” I said, turning to join her. Madel wriggled on my shoulder.

  “Nice. I wanna go play now, and you both have a gateway to open.”