by Sarina Dorie
“What is he?” I whispered.
Josie led me to an empty table. “I don’t know. Maybe he’s part goblin or leprechaun. Don’t ask.”
The man at the bar swiveled on his chair and looked us over again. He was the only other patron. I pretended I didn’t see him watching.
“How does this place stay open?” I asked Josie.
“Hal closes it most of the summer. But business picks up during the school year. You should see how many kids have internet addictions. This is the busiest place for kids after school and evenings.” She smiled. “And teachers. Of course, we aren’t supposed to be here. We’d usually have to sneak in through the back door and use a private room, but in the evening after the kids have curfew, we can hang out here.”
I didn’t know how I was going to be able to survive without magic and instant access to the internet.
Josie went on. “Twice last year, Thatch caught me here when he was rounding up students. At least that’s what he said he was doing, but I’ll bet he was here for the same reasons I was.” She laughed.
The man at the bar stool grunted. I glanced at him again. He quickly turned away.
Josie turned to him. “What? Don’t act like you aren’t staring.”
He mumbled something that might have been an apology and exited.
“I don’t know what it is about people today.” Josie shook her head in consternation. “Usually the townsfolk are friendly. I would swear everyone is acting like they’d never seen staff from the school here before.”
I had a feeling I knew what was going on. Like Pro Ro, they noticed my resemblance to Alouette Loraline. And like Thatch, they feared I would fall in her footsteps.
I waited impatiently for the fish and chips. My time for getting lessons ready was dwindling away. Dinner arrived within twenty minutes. The meal was good, better than the school’s food, but everything was greasy. I’d probably have indigestion later.
A thought occurred to me. “So, I’m not going to be stuck here forever because I ate Fae food? That fairytale isn’t real?” All those obscure bedtime stories my fairy godmother had read to me as a kid hadn’t just been for enjoyment. Some of them were true.
“That fairytale is true!” Josie said. “But this isn’t Fae food. You’d know if it was. It would make your mouth water and be like mana from the gods.” She wiped her fingers on a cloth napkin. “Most of the food here is harvested in the human world. What is grown here in the borderlands still has too much influence from the Morty world to be considered pure enough to be Fae.”
“So, I should be careful with what I eat?”
“You don’t have to worry at school or at restaurants in towns like Lachlan Falls. But you shouldn’t accept food from strangers—especially not from Fae. It’s like selling your soul to the devil.”
“Right. I will not accept Turkish delight from beautiful women riding sleighs,” I said.
Josie looked at me quizzically. I took it she had never read The Chronicles of Narnia.
She led me down a set of stairs. With each step that we descended, the change in the air grew more obvious. The hairs on my arms prickled.
“Do you feel that?” I pointed to my arm. It was the kind of electricity one felt before lightning and thunder.
She shrugged. “Maybe you’re more sensitive to it than the rest of us. All the more reason for you to stay away from electronics.”
The deeper we descended, the more charged the air grew, and the more energized I felt. My skin tingled pleasantly with the promise of a storm. How strange that I’d only been away from Morty civilization for a few days, but already I noticed how electricity affected me.
Sconces lit the walls with a warm orange glow. We must have gone down two floors before we came to internet utopia. Thirty computers lined three rows of the lab. They were more state-of-the-art than the typical school computer lab. The blue light of two computers screens lit the room. Josie plugged her phone charger into the outlet underneath one and logged on to a computer. I followed suit. It all looked so normal and banal, like I was in some internet café in Eugene.
I didn’t feel my life force sucking away from me via the electronics and outlets. If electricity was supposed to drain my powers, why did it feel like I’d come home the moment I stepped into the internet café?
I couldn’t deny all the times electronics had faltered in my presence. Nor could I deny I was the reason lightning had struck one of my ex-boyfriends. My magic had felt like electricity. I’d blamed everything on sex and arousing thoughts, but there was an electrical component that didn’t make sense. Thatch had given me a book on lightning and thunder elementals that I still needed to read. Maybe I would be able to discover how my magic worked with Thatch’s help.
Or he might hex me, drain all my powers, and have his revenge.
The sign above the printer listed the cost per page. First I printed out my advanced lessons on perspective and portraits, then the beginning level ones on line, shape, and patterns. As I waited, I opened an incognito window to do my secret research with less risk of raising magical alarms—if they had such things.
I wanted to use this time to discover everything I could that the school didn’t want me to know. I looked up blood magic and pain magic. Nothing came up except Dungeons & Dragons stuff. I glanced at Josie’s screen before I typed in the Fae Fertility Paradox and Lost Court. I gave up after scanning five Google pages of irrelevant headings. The time whittled by and I still had so much to do. I printed more vocabulary lists and worksheets for shading, facial proportions, and one-point perspective.
I checked my email and then used Skype to call my mom’s ground line.
My adoptive mom, I corrected myself. My fairy godmother. It felt strange to think of her that way. She picked up on the third ring.
“Hi, Mom, it’s me.” The connection buzzed with static.
“Clarissa!” she squealed. “I’m so happy to hear from you. I’ve been so worried. How is everything? Do you have students yet?”
“No, that’s next week. I’ve been getting my classroom ready. I was thinking it would be nice to have my art supplies here and display some of my art. The classroom is pretty barren. Can you mail stuff to me in this, um, dimension?”
“What? What did you say? There’s too much static.”
Curse Skype for the horrible connection! It was worse than usual. Probably magic interfered with it.
I repeated myself.
“Sure, honey, just email me a list of things you need, and I’ll mail it to the school’s P.O. box. Send that to me too, okay? Or better yet, why don’t I take off work and visit you? I can bring you everything then.”
That was just the kind of thing she would do. “That’s so sweet, Mom, but school is starting, and I have so much to do. Let’s hold off on a visit for a little while.”
“Sure, sure.”
I hated how sad she sounded. “Also, I’m pretty sure I need some money from my bank account transferred into gold currency.”
“Yes, I’d forgotten all about that. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in the Unseen Realm.”
I lowered my voice and glanced at Josie again. She wore headphones plugged into the computer and was playing League of Legends.
“Also, can you pack my lockpick kit?” I quickly added, “It’s for a stairwell that leads to my closet. I need to get in because I don’t have a key.” I wondered if she would be able to hear the lie in my voice. Josie didn’t look up from her computer. I didn’t want her to find out I was planning on stealing that book Thatch had removed the important pages from.
“I’ll look for it,” Mom said.
I lowered my voice just to be safe, afraid how Josie would take it that I had an interest in “restricted” information. “Mom, do you know anything about the Fae Fertility Paradox? It was mentioned in some book I was told to read, but there was no context for it.”
Her voice came out all crackling and loud.
“What? The Fae what?”
I wished I’d brought my headset with a mic to talk into. I repeated myself.
“What book was that in?” she asked.
“Womby’s: A History of the School. I wondered what it was.”
“This is about Alouette Loraline, isn’t it? I don’t want you getting into any of the nonsense she was part of. It was some pretty dark stuff, nothing a good girl like you needs to involve herself in.”
“Math. Science. Computers. That isn’t dark.”
She tsked. “Witchkin have different values than we do. You’ve lived in the Morty Realm your entire life. Some of their rules aren’t going to make sense to you. But I hope you can at least understand why blood magic would be wrong by our standards—and theirs. We do not use other people’s blood to do harm. We do not use pain magic.”
I didn’t want to be that kind of witch if that was what Loraline had done to people.
The papercut and the Guernica incident in my classroom had been worse than I’d first realized. It had been blood magic, and my fairy godmother would have been so disappointed in me, even if she knew it was an accident.
I glanced at Josie. She tapped away at her keyboard and muttered under her breath. I was pretty sure she was cursing—as in swearing—not incanting a spell.
“I’m not going to get into any blood magic or cult-like stuff,” I said. “I just wanted to know what the Fae Fertility Paradox is.”
Static filled the silence, sounding like a demonic language. “I’ve been out of the loop for a long time. I don’t know the specifics of the paradox, but I can tell you about Fae fertility. It’s common knowledge they can’t have children anymore—at least most of them can’t. They need Witchkin, but they resent us. They’re allergic to just about everything in the human world, but they need humans to have children, which gives them the ability to sire Witchkin. There’s a lot more to it than that, but you don’t need to know any more. Let the Fae figure out their own fertility problems.”
“But it isn’t just a Fae problem. It’s why you couldn’t have children. It’s why you adopted Missy and me.”
I hadn’t meant to bring up my deceased sister. The words ached in my chest and made my throat tight.
Growling static filled the silence.
“Honey, I’ve got to go. I have a yoga class at six. Please don’t get involved with the Fae. You saw how the Raven Court can be. They’ll enslave you and chain you to a bed to pop out babies. And even if you’re infertile like I am, they’ll chain you up and use you for their own pleasure just because they can. That’s what Fae do. They use Witchkin. Promise me you won’t get involved, okay?”
“I won’t let the Raven Court chain me to a bed to pop out babies,” I said dryly.
We said our goodbyes. I kept thinking about electricity and Loraline’s experiments. I didn’t know how it related to fertility. Could she have discovered the answer to the Fae Fertility Paradox, but someone hadn’t wanted her to succeed? Or maybe all of this was wishful thinking because I didn’t want to be related to the Wicked Witch of the Pacific Northwest.
I went back to Google Docs and printed out vocabulary lists and warm-up exercises until my time was up and my computer shut down. Josie swore at the computer.
“No!” I said. “I need more time!”
Josie yawned and stretched. “Half an hour depletes our powers so much, that’s about all I’d recommend. Today we really pushed it at forty-five minutes. You really should try to cut back. It isn’t good to depend on computers.”
I didn’t feel drained. I felt more alive and ready to teach than ever, and I still had so much to do. How was I going to be able to balance my computer time between what I needed for art lessons and the information I needed to know about my mother’s magic?
On the way out of the building, Hal waved. “Gold! Bring gold next time.”
“Precious, my precious,” Josie said under her breath.
I burst into giggles. She pushed me out the door where we both busted up.
“How does Hal get internet in another dimension?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” She wiggled her fingers at me. “Magic. Or a generator.”
A generator created electricity and relied on diesel. That had nothing to do with fiber optics, telephone lines, or some way to connect to the internet.
Khaba met us outside, promptly at the appointed time. “How was your … meal?” he asked, a knowing smirk on his face.
“Great!” Josie said. Her eyes were droopier than I remembered. “I love me some fish and chips.”
“Right.” He looked down at us, amused.
Two could play that game. “Have a nice time with your … errands?” I asked.
“What can I say? Some like it Scot.”
I was pretty sure the accent in Lachlan Falls sounded Irish more than Scottish, but what did I know? The Unseen Realm was on the border of Faerie. Plus, it wouldn’t have fit Khaba’s puntastic reply.
I winked at him. “Sounds like someone has a kilt complex.”
His grin widened, the superiority that had been there moments ago fading. “Kilty as charged.”
Josie giggled like a school girl. Khaba patted her on the head. “Come on, ladies. We have one more stop before going back to school. I didn’t have time to go on all my errands.”
“Gee, I wonder why,” I said.
He gave me a playful shove. Where his hand touched my arm, it tingled with magic. Whereas the Raven Court had been as cold as winter, his touch was warm and friendly. I wanted to like Khaba, but I couldn’t forget everything I’d experienced thus far regarding the Fae. How did I know he wasn’t in cahoots with the Raven Court?
Ye Green Grocery was in the center of the village. From the outside, it resembled the other stone buildings. The interior looked like an apothecary made for hippies, the psychedelic colors of the shop modern in comparison.
“I need to restock my supply of sweets,” Khaba said. “It’s a matter of life or death, or else I might not make it through the school year.”
Josie followed him down a bulk food aisle like a puppy. I wondered if I should tell her it was never going to work out.
I perused the aisles, taking in the array of love potions and teas promising eternal youth.
The old man behind the counter had pointed ears and long silver hair parted down the middle. The print on his tie-dyed shirt said, “Hug a tree. Kiss a fairy. How about starting with me?” He squinted at us and readjusted his Lennon-style sunglasses over his nose.
“Well, I’ll be pelted with a rotten goose egg!” His voice came out hoarse and raspy. His accent was less Irish and more British. “Is that Professor Loraline?”
I looked around, realizing he was speaking to me. Ugh. Not another person who was going to hate me for being like my mother.
I ran a hand through my pink hair. “No. Sorry. It just happens I look like her. Tragic coincidence.”
He waved me closer. Reluctantly, I approached the counter.
He scratched the stubble on his chin. “Indeed. You must be related. Have any urges to bathe in the blood of children?”
“Um, no.” Had my mother done that?
“Have you tortured anyone to death or to the brink of death in a rite of pain magic for the supposed good of all Witchkin kind?”
“No. Did she really do that?”
“So they say.” He shrugged. “What about a desire to eat the hearts of your enemies?”
That sounded like a stereotypical witch sort of thing. “I don’t even like chicken hearts.”
He chuckled. “I hear the hearts of your enemies taste just like chicken, so there probably wouldn’t be much difference if one needed a substitute.” He removed his glasses. His eyes were vividly blue, brighter than the sky. “Have ever you killed anyone?”
I swallowed. “Not on purpose.”
He grunted. “I have just the thing for you.”
“I wasn’t going t
o buy anything. I was just looking.”
“Nonsense.” He waved me after him. He shuffled along with a cane, stopping at the shelf of candies, then continued to the bulk food aisle. “You need my maple pecan granola. It will help keep negativity from clinging to your aura.”
I didn’t need granola. School food was free, part of the room and board, even if it was blah. Then I saw it. This wasn’t ordinary granola. It was balls of crunchy, nuggety goodness. I always loved to snack on the bigger chunks that came out of the cereal box. Maybe a snack for those times when school meals didn’t cut it would be nice. It sparkled and shimmered in the light.
“It will cleanse your chakras,” he said. “And believe me, you need it.”
“Do you take credit?” I asked.
He sighed in exasperation. “If I must. Next time bring gold. Or your firstborn child.”
“Ha!” I said. There were plenty of teen mothers I’d met during my internship at high schools who would gladly have paid him in the latter, but he couldn’t be serious.
I paid him at the front register. I found out the old man’s name was Clarence Greenpine.
The old man squinted at Khaba and Josie in the bulk food aisle over his glasses, lowering his voice so that only I could hear. “Keep your friends close, your enemies closer, and Fae … keep them as far from you as possible. You understand me, lass?”
I glanced over my shoulder at Khaba. I didn’t know what to say to that. Khaba was Josie’s friend, and Josie was my only friend so far. He’d been decent to me. I didn’t want to hate him just because everyone else said all Fae were bad.
“Promise me you’ll be careful,” Clarence said.
I nodded. That I would do.
Khaba rolled a wooden wheelbarrow full of candies to the front of the store. I’d never seen anyone purchase so many sweets in my life. Clarence rang him up, but Khaba didn’t pay with cash or a card.
“Credit?” Clarence raised an eyebrow.
Khaba nodded. “I’ll be back later to pay my debts.” He glanced at Josie and me. “When I’m alone.”
