‘Of course.’ Gaela remembered my existence. ‘Guyye, this is Pete.’
He extended a hand to shake, long and white-fingered and strong enough to break every bone in mine. ‘Pete. O-positive, my favourite flavour.’
Gaela smiled. I didn’t.
‘Only joking,’ Guyye added.
‘Of course,’ I said politely.
‘Guyye and I are going to run the Leaning Tower of Pizza together after we’re married,’ said Gaela adoringly. ‘He’s thinking of franchising. He loves pizza as much as I do.’
A vampire who loved pizza? At least selkies and fairies could eat pizza, even if Gaela was the first selkie to make it. But vampires only ate one thing, and it didn’t come with cheese. Or anchovies.
Guyye had hold of Gaela’s hand now and was kissing it from fingertip to wrist, which was about forty-nine kisses too many for a pizza parlour. He didn’t bother looking at me again. I doubted he’d really noticed me at all, not with that O-positive crack. Fairies were all AB-negative. If he’d paid any attention, he’d have known it.
But this was Gaela’s choice, I reminded myself. It had nothing to do with me. I was getting married very soon myself. I had no right to even think about interfering in her life . . .
‘What does a vampire want with a pizza parlour?’ I asked.
Guyye stopped kissing Gaela and finally looked at me. ‘Oh, I have my reasons.’
‘I’m sure you have. What are they?’
Guyye gave me a quick glimpse of fang. It didn’t bother me. I supposed a vampire could blood-suck a fairy, but not if the fairy made himself mosquito-sized. Too small to bite, too fast to fight, and a buzzing mosquito annoyed even vampires. Cobweb and I had found that out when we were joking around as kids.
‘Well?’ I demanded.
Guyye ignored me, picking up Gaela’s hand and giving it another licking. Given where those lips had been, I couldn’t say I’d have wanted them on me. Nor would Gaela if she was in her right mind.
‘Can’t stay, babe,’ Guyye said, with what she obviously assumed was regret. ‘Got a meeting.’ He tapped his nose. ‘Big doings.’
‘Of course. I understand.’ Gaela couldn’t quite hide her disappointment. ‘I just hoped we could look at the wedding menu this evening.’
Now that would be interesting. Pizza and bridesmaids for the main course perhaps? The flower girl for an entrée? And probably not a church wedding, in case the groom, his family and friends all burst into flames.
Guyye smiled at Gaela with extra wattage, giving off so much charisma that even I felt a twinge. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow night, babe. It’ll be a big one, so make sure you put the Closed sign up early. One special sitting only. I’ve got every table booked for you.’
‘Thank you.’ Gaela’s voice sounded like a little girl’s thanking someone for a lollipop.
‘You have every table filled every night,’ I pointed out.
Guyye looked at me as if I were a tomato: fat, red and juicy but of no interest to a vampire. ‘Not with people who matter.’
‘Everyone matters,’ I said, annoyed, then realised he was right. Because of course some people mattered more than others. That was the way the world was made. And Fairyland as well. Titania and Oberon mattered more than all of the rest of us put together. Hippolyta and Theseus mattered more than any of the others in ancient Athens. Puck mattered more than the thousands of fairies who spend their nights putting dew on rosebuds or polishing rainbows. Or doing a tonne of paperwork for the Midsummer’s Eve revels . . .
‘It will be a wonderful night,’ Gaela said softly. ‘I’ll make sure it’s perfect. I’ve even had a new idea for the tomato sauce —’
‘Just be yourself, babe. That’s all we need.’ Guyye made another slow detour of her wrist, kissing his way up her arm, then stood and kissed her briefly on the cheek. ‘Till tomorrow night, darling.’
‘Till tomorrow night,’ Gaela said breathlessly.
She watched him go, striding out as if he owned the place. Which he would, of course, after the wedding.
The other customers looked relieved to have only one person in the room to be devoted to again. They even managed to eat some pizza.
The bunyip and the wombat stood up to pay. I waited till Gaela had processed their credit cards, then sat down at the free table. I was the only diner without a pizza, I realised, till I saw Gaela was carrying one over to me. What a girl. Or selkie.
She waited till I’d taken my first bite — plenty of tomato, a small scattering of cheese, tiny black olives, and a few sliced artichokes with just enough crunch to be perfect — then sat down next to me.
‘It’s wonderful, isn’t it?’ she said softly.
I nodded. ‘There’s something about the crust. How do you keep it thin but light and moist at the same time?’
‘I meant love,’ she said. ‘As for the crust — I let the dough rise slowly for twenty-four hours, use a high-gluten flour and sea water. Sea water is full of minerals, so the crust stays firm despite the softness of the gluten.’
I put the slice down. ‘Gaela, you’re four hundred years old. You have to know about vampires. They enchant their prey.’
She glared at me. ‘I’m not stupid. But Guyye’s never laid a fang on me.’
‘They like to play with their food too.’
She stood up. ‘If that’s all you’ve got to say . . .’
‘I’m sorry. Sit down.’
She hesitated, then sat.
‘Why does he want to marry you?’ I asked.
Her glare grew as hot as melted cheese. ‘Is it so impossible that someone should love me? Really, truly love me, without selkie enchantment?’
‘Of course not. You’re beautiful. Not that it matters to me,’ I added hurriedly. ‘I’m getting married soon myself. But vampires usually don’t go in for all that love stuff.’
‘Known many vampires, have you?’
I shook my head. The only vampires I’d met were the ones Cobweb and I had buzzed, and that was just a quick zoom in and out. Fairies and vampires kept pretty much to themselves. Most of what I knew about them came from —
‘Books and movies,’ said Gaela disgustedly. ‘You’ve absorbed a pile of species-ist clichés. Doesn’t the fact that Guyye wants to marry me prove that vampires can love?’
‘Maybe,’ I admitted. ‘But why do you want to marry him? Apart from him being tall, dark and handsome, irresistible and never needing to use curl-taming conditioner,’ I added quickly.
Her look softened. ‘Because he loves my pizza shop too.’
‘I like your pizza shop. You have a whole café full of customers who adore your pizza shop.’
‘That’s just selkie charm,’ she said dismissively.
‘Trust me, you make the best pizza in ten thousand years. Even if you weren’t a selkie, your café would still be full. And you know it.’
‘I know my pizza is good,’ she said. ‘It has to be, so I can be sure people are coming for it not just because of the magic. But loving pizza isn’t the same as wanting to run a pizza shop. Have you ever heard of a selkie running a pizza shop?’
‘No.’
‘No one else has either. I’m the first selkie who’s ever made pizza. Some selkies choose to live on the land with fishermen for a few years, but that’s not the same as running a business. My family disowned me when I opened this place. None of my so-called friends has even been here.’ She added bitterly, ‘“Go and lure a few fishermen instead,” they told me. “Sing prophecies from the waves. Rescue shipwrecked sailors and leave them on the sand.”’
‘Rescuing sailors is a good thing to do,’ I said.
‘Yes, but it’s not what I want to do with my life. And,’ she said defiantly, ‘my pizzas are good. It took me years to perfect that crust, to find exactly the right cheeses, to experiment with which toppings work together. I don’t think anyone else has ever made Gouda, potato and black olive pizza, but it works, just like sardine and potato are brilliant together too. No cheese, ju
st really thick tomato sauce. And Guyye is the first person —’
‘Vampire.’
‘First person who has ever taken me and my pizzas seriously. I’m more than selkie enchantment to him. I’m . . . I’m me!’ Her blue-green eyes had a challenge in them now. ‘And you know what? I don’t care if Guyye has used charisma on me. He loves me and I love him and we’re going to live our own life together. No enchanting fishermen, no bat-infested castles with a coffin in the dungeon. Just the two of us together, making the best pizza in the world.’
‘And it doesn’t matter that you might only love his vampire glamour?’
‘No. Love is love, isn’t it? He’s right for me, and I am for him.’
I didn’t have anything to say to that. I ate another slice of pizza instead.
The trolls got up to pay, and then the banshees too, still hand in hand. It was usually chilly near a banshee — if you ever get a shiver down your spine and don’t know why, a banshee may be close by — but tonight the air about them was as warm as a spring breeze. I could almost smell rose blossom.
But it was nearly dawn — time for the banshees to howl on the rooftops of all the souls who would die today. And as the sun swung up above the horizon, Guyye would need to take shelter from the daylight . . .
‘What about you?’ Gaela asked, interrupting my thoughts.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You and this Fairy Floss. You don’t seem to mind that your love is going to be caused by enchantment.’
‘Love is love,’ I repeated slowly. Puck even had the creed on a placard in his potion lab.
‘So why are you worrying about me and Guyye?’ She smiled, and suddenly it was as if the moon shone through the café ceiling. ‘You’ll be married, and Guyye and I will be married and making the best pizza in the world. You can bring your Fairy Floss here. Does she like pizza?’
‘I don’t know,’ I admitted.
‘What do you do for a job anyway?’
‘Me personally? Mostly enchant people Their Majesties think should fall in love.’
I didn’t mention the paperwork or the foot massages, but there’d be less paperwork and hopefully no foot massages after I was married and had been promoted.
‘There you are then,’ Gaela said. ‘It doesn’t really matter why people love each other as long as they do.’ She yawned and looked around the café. The last customers were finally finishing their pizzas. ‘I’d better get some sleep. I have to get up mid-afternoon to light the oven, then bring up the driftwood.’ She dimpled. ‘A couple of mermen collect it for me. They love black olives on their pizza. Olives are impossible to get in the sea unless a ship with a decent dining room sinks.’
‘Where do you sleep?’ I asked. I hadn’t seen a door that might lead to a bedroom.
‘In the waves.’ She smiled again and I could almost see the sunrise in it. ‘I’m still a selkie, after all. What about you?’
‘I sleep in a foxglove flower. It’s traditional.’
She stared, obviously comparing my height with a foxglove.
I flicked myself tiny, then full-sized again. ‘See? I can be whatever size I want to be.’
‘Useful.’
‘Saves on rent.’ Not to mention that at the size I was now I’d need slightly over a million rose petals on my kilt to stay decent.
‘There’s a whole foxglove glade for us fairy bachelors,’ I told her. ‘It’s a bit cramped, to be honest, no matter what size I am. But after we’re married, Flossie and I will move into our own mushroom in a fairy ring near Their Majesties.’
I was looking forward to the mushroom — it got chilly in a foxglove flower, and there’s hardly any room for bookcases. Our mushroom was white with red spots and an attractive tilt to the roof, with red and white curtains at the first- and second-floor windows, a bright red door and wooden shutters on the attic. It was right next-door to Puck’s mushroom and almost the same size too, with two bathrooms plus an ensuite, a small library, a mini gym, a potion parlour for me, and a tooth display room for Flossie where she could keep her prize samples; and a childcare centre just across the ring for when Their Majesties decided we should have children. The ring even had its own fairy piper at dawn and dusk, and its cobwebs came pre-jewelled. It was wonderful, far more spacious and polished than the Leaning Tower of Pizza, so I didn’t know why I felt sort of —
‘And you’ll be happy,’ said Gaela slowly.
I nodded. ‘Just as happy as you’ll be with Guyye.’
And she would be happy. Besides, it was in no way my business, whereas making sure these particular Midsummer’s Eve revels were the best ever definitely was my business. But I still hesitated.
‘Can I book a table for tomorrow night?’ I asked.
It would mean I’d need to stretch time to fit in two extra nights, just at my busiest, but what else was TAP for? Besides, I was curious about who these important people were. Plus, with all the extra work to organise the revels, I deserved a decent pizza before my wedding I told myself.
And, okay, I was really worried for Gaela. Just as a friend, of course. There was no reason why fairy fiancés couldn’t have friends, even if they were female and a selkie. But there was something here that smelled fishy, and I didn’t mean seaweed or anchovies.
‘Every table is booked tomorrow night, remember,’ Gaela said.
‘How about the table in the kitchen?’
She gazed at me, considering. ‘It’ll be hot in there with the oven on full blast,’ she warned.
I could make a simple potion of elderberry flowers, frog spawn and adder’s tongue to protect me from too much heat. But it was almost Midsummer’s Eve. Pizza was the last thing I should be thinking about, much less a selkie with sea green-blue eyes.
‘I’ll be here at six o’clock,’ I said.
CHAPTER 7
Puck wasn’t in his official moonlit glade when I TAPed back to Fairyland in a mist of choc-malt milkshake. I found him in a glade near ancient Athens, chuckling with Fairy Pineapple, who was in charge of keeping pineapple spikes sharp. My mind strayed to pizza. What would pineapple be like as a topping? It was sweet like tomato and caramelised nicely when cooked . . . but no one would go for pineapple on pizza . . .
‘And then I made myself into the shape of a stool, and she sat on me,’ Puck was telling Fairy Pineapple. ‘There she was, this wise old aunt, telling the family how her husband had died. Just as everyone was getting out their handkerchiefs, I slipped from under her bum and she fell sprawling on the floor, coughing and crying.’
I sighed. I’d heard this story a thousand times since I was a kid, plus the one about pretending to be some traveller’s horse.
‘Well, they had to laugh, didn’t they?’ said Puck, giggling at his own joke.
‘Most humorous,’ said Fairy Pineapple, hauling himself to his feet. He’d put on weight in the last millennium — an occupational hazard of having to eat pineapple sundaes every day to make sure the sharpness of the spices didn’t affect the sweetness of the pineapple. Or so he said.
‘Hilarious,’ I said. ‘Look, we need to discuss the timing of our Midsummer’s Eve revels now the humans have arranged this play. We don’t want them to be an anticlimax. How about —’
I stopped as I saw Oberon stride into the glade.
‘Shh, here comes His Majesty,’ whispered Puck, noticing him at the same time.
‘And here my mistress,’ muttered Fairy Pineapple. ‘Would that he were gone!’ He tried to hide his bulk behind an olive tree.
I flew up into the tree’s branches to hide a moment before Titania marched in, followed by Moth and Cobweb. The last thing I needed right now was to spend an hour giving Her Majesty a foot rub.
Titania stopped and glared at her husband. She was wearing a new dress of silvered moonlight, with dew-drop diamonds in her hair.
Oberon gave her a condescending look back. ‘Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania,’ he sneered.
I sighed. I’d hoped they would
have made up their quarrel in time for the revels.
‘What, jealous Oberon?’ Titania declaimed, in true royal fashion. ‘Fairies, skip hence. I have forsworn his bed and company.’
She turned to leave, but Oberon grabbed her arm. ‘Tarry, rash wanton. Am not I your lord?’
Titania pulled away. ‘Then I must be your lady,’ she spat at him, ‘but I know when you crept away from Fairyland, pretending to be “Corin”, to recite love poems to amorous Phillida.’
They were at it then, like a pair of battling unicorns, flinging declamations back and forth.
Cobweb looked embarrassed. Moth stared at a beetle slowly beetling its way through the glade, as if he was able to turn off his ears and not listen to their quarrel. Being Moth and able to focus on only one thing at a time, he probably could.
I hoped Their Majesties wouldn’t get carried away again. Last time he was in a rage Oberon had turned every jar of Dew Brew blue for three days; and Titania had made all of earth’s roses black with white skulls on them till she calmed down and ordered her courtiers to fix the problem. It had taken us days to paint the roses back to their proper colours, and weeks to change the memories of the humans who’d noticed them. It was clear we’d missed a few, because the design began to appear on pirate flags, and later on bikies’ biceps.
‘How long do you intend to stay within this wood?’ demanded Oberon.
‘Till after Theseus’s wedding day,’ Titania replied.
Oh, great. If Her Majesty planned to stay here until the Midsummer’s Eve revels, we’d need to organise more attendants than she needed in the well-planned tidiness of Fairyland.
Titania stared at her husband in challenge. ‘Dance with me by moonlight then. Or if not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.’
‘Give me that boy,’ said Oberon flatly, ‘and I will dance with you.’
‘Not for your fairy kingdom. Fairies, away!’ Titania vanished. A second later Cobweb disappeared too.
Moth looked up from the beetle and blinked.
‘They went that way,’ I hissed.
‘Thanks, Peaseblossom,’ he said, and vanished after them.
I should fade away as well, I thought, and get back to the paperwork. But there was something in Oberon’s face that stopped me. I stared down at him. What was he planning?
My Name is Not Peaseblossom Page 5
