"You spend way too much time on the Net." Nesohc back-winged out of Layol's reach.
"Look at me!"
It sounded like the building was covered with bumblebees.
"We don't have time for this. You need to turn that rodent into a hungry flying squirrel with orders to seek and destroy. Do it now!" Nesohc turned to glare at Layol, but his mouth dropped and his eyes became full. "You just flashed old…really old. Crap! You're not a kid! Everything Dek said is true. She saw things, didn't she? There is no academy. Nothing is what it appears to be, just like Mirg said at the buzz."
"Right, Puck's surprise! Now buck up, we'll save the rest of this conversation for after we save Dekram." Layol rapped fingers on the window frame. "Because, like you said, I need to charm that squirrel."
Chapter 16
DETAF STRUTTED BACK and forth in front of Bacs and Etah, kicking up dust clouds that floated in the firelight, and tossing his arms through them. "So, all of you are telling me that you trusted Fire enough to let them use your wings so they could infiltrate Air, Earth and Water while they left you here helpless without your powers? And then what? Come back for you one day? I'd bet my wings that's never gonna happen." Detaf stood ridged, his expression livid as he glared at all of the children. "What about when Soahc, looking like Dekram—all Water and Air—and Egar, looking like me, an Earth fairy, start popping out Fire faelings? You don't think someone is gonna get it and come looking for us? You don't think the Elders will snatch up the faelings and banish Fire from Wandermere?" he shouted at Etah.
"You know, none of you needed to stay here and watch Detaf and me," Dekram interrupted. "And Egar knows that, always knew it."
"What are you talking about?" Etah spat. "You aren't getting us to leave no matter what you say? Whaddya think we are, stupid?"
"He used all of you as much as he used us." Detaf was quick to embellish. "He needed your wings to look like every element but Fire. How else could he-"
"Doesn't matter," Dekram whispered, eyes cast downward. "Humans don't see portals, can't see a fairy if it was sitting on their shoulder. We're human, now. We've lost our powers."
"Yeah, except everything you said is bat scat," he told Detaf, "because we know where two sets of wings are." Bacs pointed glanced at the wingless boys and girls sitting beyond the edge of light coming off the trashcan. "We," Bacs thumbed his chest and pointed at Etah, "can hit the portal anytime we need to."
Detaf locked eyes with Dekram for a human heartbeat and they reflected hope.
"When will you go back through the portal?" Detaf asked.
"Every time we have something to report," Etah said.
Bacs elbowed Etah. "Actually, we should let Egar know she's awake, see what's up next." He glared a warning at Detaf. "Remember," he pointed at the children in the shadows, "they're spelled to react if anyone heads for that door while we're gone. Ask the old man."
"I already did—didn't believe him—almost got..." Detaf glanced at Dekram, "...hurt."
Dekram shuddered.
Etah laughed and comradely backhanded Bacs. "Let's move. Fire's probably waiting by the portal."
As the warehouse door shut out the moonlight behind Bacs and Etah, Dekram headed for the door.
The group of boys and girls stood in unison and stepped into the light. They're eyes were cloudy, vacant, and their movement jerky. They scampered forward.
The old man shot up, tilted his head and shrieked an inhuman trill. The children swiftly scuttled back into the darkness. He hobbled toward Dekram with an impish grin on his wrinkled face.
Detaf moved closer to Dekram, and mumbled, "He sure didn't do that last time they came at me."
Dekram yelped. My life is an impin' Disney movie!
* * *
"THAT WAS CLOSE," Nesohc panted as they landed on the branch of an orange tree in the middle of an orchard.
"No kidding, but the spell will wear off quickly, like all spells in the human world. What we really do on our missions is...um, enlighten, so to speak, plant the seeds and the rest is up to mother nature."
"Whaddya mean?" Nesohc folded his wings and sat on the branch.
"It's what the humans call a conscience. Earth, Air and Water whisper, so to speak, in one ear, after pixies, imps and Fire have whispered in the other. Sometimes it's a lot more technical. We can actually shape the actions of an event by using a spell or glamour, but surely not without the sanction of the Elders."
"So how old are you?"
Lay popped up, wings fluttering. "Time to move on, buddy. Trying to find Dekram over here is gonna be like searching for a three-eyed ant in an ant farm."
Nesohc opened his mouth and promptly shut it when Layol flew upward and out into the orange grove.
* * *
"ARE YOU SEEING this?" Dekram squeaked, feet pushing her out of the firelight. "That," she pointed around Detaf, "was an old man a second ago!"
Detaf hunkered in front of Dekram and gave her bare foot a calming pat as he spoke to the creature before them. "You are not going to hurt her."
The funny little fellow bowed a skinny frame, which looked like it was covered in a green full-body glove, over a bloated belly. Like a graceful praying mantis, he stretched out an arm and placed a wispy hand with four elongated digits over a grin that swallowed the lower half of his face and spread to a pair of small up-turned eyes. "Well of course not," he said in a gruff voice.
Without another word the creature fanned a spray of brightly colored sparkles over Dekram, and then turned on long narrow feet with no visible toes and clomped off, treading invisible stairs, toward a hovering image of a golden cage sitting in a field of clover.
Dekram could see Bacs and Etah in the cage surrounded by a small swarm of Fire Fairies. The children that had been cowering in the shadows were behind the bars as well.
Her eyes becoming heavy, Dekram heard Detaf shout, "Come back here," as though in a dream. Am I going to die now?
Dekram's vision tunneled and quivered like a mirage. Will the lights just wink out and that will be the end of me?
Detaf shouted again, "Are you crazy? She doesn't want me. Take them back! You can't make me do this!"
Dekram heard the green fellow shout, "Don't be so dramatic," and she laughed, thinking that would be something Layol would say.
Dekram felt someone lift her and toss her over a shoulder. She used her dangling palms and pushed against a firm tummy, tuning to see Nesohc's frowning face. She suddenly became very dizzy and tummy sick. Moaning, she shut her eyes tight. Far off, Nesohc's voice consoled, Layol's shouted, and Detaf's contemptuous remarks of protest faded into silence as she thought, what a silly dream.
* * *
"ARE YOU AWAKE?" a familiar gruff voice asked.
Dekram's eyes popped open and immediately formed a mental clarity of her surroundings. The thing in green tights was now more of a twig like creature.
Bright sunshine made her squint and green clover felt cool and soft against her bare legs. At the edge of a tree line in front of her, Dekram recognized a large log. It had been the Black Shamrock. But there was no sign of the black building, no parking lot, this time, nothing but rotted roots and leaves stacked and molded around the log, clumps of brown dirt clinging to them. The creature that now seemed to look like a moving part of the flora walked circles around her.
"Where am I? How did I get here and what have you done with Detaf and the others?" Dekram rapid fired, sucked in a breath and then continued. "Someone slip me a thrill again? Did the Fire fairies bring me back through the portal? This is Wandermere, isn't it? Can you talk, or what?"
With a voice full of gravel, the anomaly spread twig-like lips and sounding like a breeze rustling leaves on a mighty oak, he sang, "Comes the Goddess Aine, a promise she bears. We grasp it, and bless it with tenderness and care."
Red hair corkscrewed through clumps of nature around a face of fall colors and spun about a twiggy frame as his incongruity whirled and danced up a mighty wind, which voca
lly, between hysterical giggles, delivered a more frantic stanza. "They see what they dream. They dream what they see—a world full of chasms, created especially for She. Greed takes it from us, destiny brings it back. Our future is literally a goddess given act."
The wind settled. Leaves floated to the clover and lay quivering at Dekram's feet. With a bow of its branch like body, a nod, and a smile, twig-man became transparent and the funny little fellow dressed in green tights reappeared. With an elegant wave of a spindly arm and a warble-like chuckle that wobbled his belly, his voice chimed the last of an amused response.
"Okay, so like the transforming thing is pixin' me out," Dekram said. "What the heck are you?"
Her question brought on another frolicking response. "Defining our realm would be akin to handing you a cloud. Not like reality, cloaked heavily in humanity's shroud."
"That's not what I asked."
He waved a green arm, bowed deep at the waist, and as he rose, recited, "We are who we wish others to see. Fated and marked are the only two who are what they appear to be."
A chill ran up Dekram's spine and she shuddered with a realization; he was singing about her. Her and Detaf "Are you going to tell me what happens to me next?" Dekram's teeth chattered between her words, bile rose in her throat.
Long hands gently patted her shoulder with knotty fingertips. He turned toward the log and swayed as he chanted, as though he were reading a children's nursery rhyme. "Green Lady, Green Lady, come, begs your child. Bring a cup of Mary. Serve it in your blue limpet shell. Fill the child with wisdom, and break this blessed spell."
"Alrighty now, this is majorly turning all wicked Brothers Grimm, so back off, because you're really scaring me." Dekram pushed away, heels working leaves and clover into a pile of damp foliage around feet. "Could this get any worse?" she shrieked, glaring at a set of wispy green feet attached to her olive colored legs. "O'mifairygodmother! I've turned into my mother!" She reached to touch her foot; a gasp escaped her lips when a delicate green hand attached to a stem-like arm came into view.
I've got to be thrilling. Maybe spelled, charmed? Something! There is no logical explanation, she thought, hands wiggling twig colored appendages in front of her face.
While trying to make sense out of her predicament and the changes in her body, Dekram absentmindedly tried to rake a hand through her hair but it immediately became tangled in what felt like a bird's nest. She jerked a snatch of wild green curls, matted with leaves and twigs, out of her scalp and pitched it at the funny green person. Rubbing her stinging scalp, she screeched, "Putrefied pollen! This feels real! I'm a fricken swamp tree!"
The mature pile of nature tsked. "You are absolutely not a swamp tree. You are an enchanted fairy of wood and water. One of the first, I might add, in centuries. With you we will be able to procreate."
Dekram froze. "Excuse me?" Blustering balls of folly! Etah said they wanted to hook me up with Detaf. Did nature-creature just say "we" and "procreate" in the same sentence? So not going to happen! Monogamous is my middle name. Love one fairy, have a few children, a two-story house, picket fence, maybe two Darner dragonflies in the drive. I will not be a breeding machine! "O'unjustcalamity, I've lost my mind. Where is Layol when I really need her? Maybe if I give a little whistle?"
Dekram sucked in a breath, puckered her lips, but the green-suited fairy filled her vision with a large shaking head, and a serious set of slanted eyes. "Nothing is what it appears to be, child. You have not lost anything; you are merely having an epiphany."
"Epiphany, my butt cheeks. Pan's a psychopath! Soylent Green is people, and I am sooo outta here! I know Lay and Nes are out there looking for me. I need to warn them," Dekram said, backhanding tears off her cheeks. "So if you could just make this illusion go away," she mumbled and sniffled. "I need to get back to the human side..."
"Layol and Nesohc were not who they appeared to be, either, remember?" the walking talking pile of flora said.
Her mind buzzed like static on a television screen. "Can I go with Dek?" Layol had asked of Mrs. Evol. "I think she can handle it, Layol. Join the rest of the class, please," Mrs. Evol had said.
No! No way Lay would have let Fire drug me and drag me through a portal. I don't think Mrs. Evol would have either.
She dismissed his comment with a wave of her green hand. A memory of the portal behind the Black Shamrock flashed in her mind. "Why am I talking to you, anyway?" Dekram shook the cobwebs out of her head and rubbed the butterflies from her stomach. She shot upward, ready to bolt into the woods behind the log, but she fell directly to the earthen floor. "Where are my wings?" she cried, reaching behind her. Oh nooooo! I am my mother's daughter!
The fairy changed to a broken pile of sticks, leaves and clumps of dirt in front of her feet. "Fire has created an illusion with them," the pile rustled.
"But I'm here! You just said that I am back. In fact, you did a little jig as you told me, remember? So whip yourself back into shape and tell me how that happened if I don't have wings? Huh? How?" Dekram told the pile of rubble. "Stop talking in circles. Just lay it out." She rubbed her temples, trying to focus her eyes.
With a whooshing sound, the mass of yard debris swelled like an inner tube. It pulsed and whorled, building up speed, funneled upward and took off like a mini tornado. When it darted back in front of Dekram, it settled. She watched a few leaves float down and land on the clover.
The wood nymph bounced its shoulders and let out a stoic sigh. "Fire fairies are tenacious demons. They can cripple the other species if we were to allow them more power and control. We needed to create a stronger balance. The goddess Aine-"
Dekram huffed, eyes scrunching pain, hand circling a suggestion to move the explanation along.
Twig-man cocked a branched arm and placed a pile of stick fingers on his ample waist. "When one's impatient reactions interrupt one's comprehension, aforementioned one is usually driven to inappropriate action, exasperating chaotic reactions from other ones."
Dekram's brow raised a painful sigh.
Thrashing limbs whispered a tempered storm as the fairy paced. "Fire pulled you and Detaf into the human world. They took your wings. It is clear Egar and Soahc intended to breed; a blasphemy of deceit, appearing to be you and Detaf. As for your chosen affection, Nesohc gave up his wings to your fated mate, and with Layol's help, Detaf brought you—temporarily wearing your loyal friend's wings—back through the portal where I stood patiently waiting."
That doesn't make sense. Why didn't Nes and Lay bring me back? Dekram blinked frustrated tears behind hooded lids. White noise—lost connection—the bathroom at the buzz. Layol's strong voice, "Go ahead, pull my wings off, why don'tcha. Not like I need 'em or anything." And I said, "I'll go back out with Nesohc and leave you stuck right there. At least we'll know where you are." She stared into the small slanted eyes locked on hers. He's pixing me. Did Soahc and Egar flee Wandermere? "I demand to know why you have me captive and who you really are."
The fairy bowed, covering his treelike frame with colorful leafy branches, fluttered to a standing position, eyes twinkling as he danced and sang his name. "I'm a Berrymun, a Berry man-fairy. Some say I guard berries during the day. But when the sky goes black I guard the fairy, and that, my dear, is why you are here in this field today.
"We wait here together for your own protection. Your fated mate and loyal friend will come soon; a challenge has been issued. You three will defend Wandermere and your honor. Together you will strip chaos of your wings and calm the raging fires among us. Then the choice will be yours. Fated or Chosen, what will it be? Your chosen one would assure your happiness in the human world but plague our survival. The other carries the seed to breed the breath of eternal life back into Wandermere—a choice for a true god or goddess to make; should you follow your heart or save your race?"
O'mifairygodmother! Dekram blushed, pink sparkles tinkling softly as they scattered in a breeze. He's telling me the fate of Wandermere lies within my ovaries! Sheezus! Not like
I make real-life decisions like that on a daily basis—what the heck?
Berrymun tilted his head and studied Dekram's face with narrowed eyes. Dekram turned away and shut her eyes. She heard herself ask, "Mom, all the girls bleed monthly. I don't. Do you think there's something wrong with me?" Her mother's shocked look. "You're not spotting are you?" Diuqil's voice echoed, "Take your vitamin before you leave, honey." The school Librarian said, "What if she goes off and gets herself mated to that boy? You know how important she is to our survival." Mrs. Evol's answer echoed, "The council cannot change fate, Mrs. Laretil. Nor should they try."
"Stop! Stop! I've heard enough!" Dekram raised her head and glared at Berrymun. "I do not want this responsibility!"
Chapter 17
"CRY ME A Mutant Ninja Turtle with that teen angst drama. Did you not hear me?"
"Yes, Lay," Dekram, four feet and eleven inches high, with no wings, backhanded her cheeks. "Egar is on his way. Soahc wants to kill me. I have to fight for my wings and Nes made a stupid decision. Blah, blah, blah."
"But it was his decision to make! This is your fight to fight! Get it together!"
"What have you done with my best friend?"
"I'm still here, gal-pal." Buzzing around her friend's face like an annoying mosquito, Layol gave Dekram a smile with turned down lips. "Nes is a changeling, Dek, a human swapped at birth with a fairy child. Don't get me wrong. He's a sweetie, but he's not fairy. He knows this now and has chosen to stay human. We've only been able to produce sickly faelings, all dead within hours after birth. You and Detaf, you guys, could-"
"Why? Why did you," Dekram hiccupped a sob, "let me fall in love with him, then?"
"Because you always had a choice, still do, and I'm right here to back you up, and protect you, no matter what you choose, always have been." Layol flickered back and forth from a mature fairy to the teenster Dekram had grown to know and love. The fairy landed on her shoulder and strutted closer to her ear.
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