“Yes exactly.” Ava beamed and in that moment we were a family like any other. Only we weren’t. Not really. And in the back of my mind, a voice was screaming at me that something bad was coming.
Jax leaned over the counter and whispered in my ear, “are we going to talk about this prophecy?”
Fuck!
3
I FROWNED AND THREW my face into my hands.
I didn’t want to think about the prophecy. Nothing good ever came from a prophecy. The last one literally killed me.
What do the fates have planned for my daughter?
“Des?” Jax pressed.
I shot my head up and glared at him. Slamming my hands down onto the cool counter I felt my magic swell inside, it itched to be set free. To be unleashed upon him. Ava stopped chewing and looked my way. “This is your parents isn’t it?” I asked, remembering what Max had said. “Are you—?”
“Des, no!” Jax said, reaching out and laying his hand over mine. “I know she’s ours, I can feel it. Yes I was a little shocked that our bouncing baby turned out to be a full grown fey, but what are we if not adaptable?”
A new weight fell over my hand and Jax’s gaze fell. I followed and my heart soared when I saw Ava’s hand over his. She was looking at him and smiling, her head tilted in that oh so adorable way.
“See?” I asked her.
Jax looked to me with narrowed eyes but didn’t push the subject.
Maylea cleared her throat and gained our attention. “I think on your daughter’s first day, we can do something a little more special, and a little less doom and gloom, don’t you think?”
“Exactly, so onto the special. Where are my Wagon Wheels?”
She narrowed her eyes at me but I saw her shoot a glance towards the potato drawer.
In a flash I was up and had the drawer open, and my precious Wagon Wheels were freed from their dark and dirty dungeon.
“Why would you put them there? Now the packets are all dirty.”
“When was the last time you helped peel a potato?”
“Fine, it probably would have been a while before I found them there, but that’s if I was physically looking for them. You do know I could have just brought them to me if I wanted, right?”
“No magic in my kitchen, please.”
“Maylea, I will get your magic back. I will get it back for all of you, I swear.”
“Desmoree, this house did just fine without magic for years, all Tanzieths did. We don’t need it.”
“But it’s a part of you.”
“No, it was a part of us. Now, my kitchen, my rules, and I say no magic.”
“Okay, Maylea.” My hands raised in a truce.
“Great grandmother,” Ava said and I stifled a giggle as she referred to her in the name I had offered and not the one Maylea had preferred.
“Yes, my child?”
“Does that mean I cannot do magic in your kitchen too?”
“You can do magic?”
“I can. I am made of more.”
“Ava...” I placed a warning hand on her shoulder.
“It’s okay, Mum, they will understand.”
“I am not sure I understand.”
“What are we talking about?” Jax asked, tossing a blighter berry into the air and catching it in his mouth.
“Yes, do tell Ava. What do you mean you are made of more?” Max added.
I nodded my consent, but quickly covered my mouth with my hand to cast a barrier over the room—one Maylea wouldn’t feel but would protect our words from travelling outside of this space.
“I am made of Angels.”
Max clamoured to his feet, unsure if he believed in what she was saying. Jax however, moved to stand between Ava and I, placing a protective hand on both our shoulders.
“Mum, can I show them how I do what you do?”
“What exactly does she want to show us, Des?” Max asked, Maylea hadn’t said a word. She just stared at Ava, a quizzical scowl on her face.
“How about we do it together?”
Ava leapt to her feet and almost danced to the other side of the room. I joined her and quickly checked that we would have enough room to transform. Ignoring Maylea’s request for no magic in her kitchen, I went first. I morphed into my encrusted bodice and shimmery skirt, my wings like torn leaves, billowed behind me on a breeze that wasn’t there. They still freaked me out a little, but at least I didn’t see the blood on them anymore.
Ava squeezed my hand, then she morphed too. Her dress changed into the pale blue mirror of my own, and this time, instead of revealing her wings afterwards, she had brought them out instantly. The pure white feathers of them reached out and tickled at the edges of my own.
I turned my head to face the others and saw my father on his knees.
“She’s an angel,” he whispered.
“How long has it been since an Angel walked our world?” Jax asked aloud.
“Centuries,” Maylea offered, her stare fixed on Ava.
Mortimer was an Angel, they had all met him before the battle with Traflier. He had even helped to train me fight in the war as he believed it stemmed from his actions. Helping me to defeat Traflier was his way of atoning. But after the war he disappeared. No one else remembered him. Or remembered the essence they fought beside.
For that I was thankful. It would have been horrible for them to remember seeing their loved ones again only to have them ripped away, another price paid. It was bad enough they remembered having their magic before sacrificing it to me so I could defeat him.
“Look guys,” I began phasing back. “I don’t want anyone to know what Ava can do just yet, let’s keep it between us. Jax, I mean your parents too, alright?” Jax frowned momentarily, but then agreed to my request with an upturned lip and a small nod.
“But she is an Angel?” Maylea asked walking around the counter and towards Ava. She reached out her hand to touch Ava’s wing but pulled back before connecting. Ava laughed and it was like tiny bells were ringing all around us. She swept Maylea up in her wings and brought her in for a hug.
“Ava,” I called, and she released Maylea and morphed back to her dress and flats. “Would you like to see the gardens, the sky, all the things that makes this world—your world—a beautiful place?”
Ava tilted her head and giggled. It was the same familiar giggle of a not so shy seer I had met once. Was that who Ava was hearing?
“Can I see the secret garden first?”
“The secret garden?” Maylea asked.
It took me a moment to figure out where she meant. “Do you mean where Jax and I were married? The garden attached to your grandfathers study?”
She smiled brightly and nodded.
“How did she know about that garden?” Jax whispered to Max but still loud enough for us to hear. “She’s a few hours old.”
“Ava has someone helping her learn what she needs to. I mean, I think Ava could be a new kind of receiving fey.” Receiving fey could talk with the seers. Phoneas had been a receiving fey. Pity the seers didn’t feel it was important to keep her within the walls of Sayeesies though. Instead they said nothing and she was ripped apart by one of Traflier’s beasts.
I shook off the memory and offered Ava another berry from the plate. She was easily distracted.
Max took my arm and spoke into my ear. “She has strong magic, so her being a receiving fey is possible, but how can we know that it’s even the seers she’s hearing?”
“Dad, what do you mean? Who else would she be hearing?”
“A few beings hold the power to send communication through a physic channel, and not all of them are good. Des, what if something dark is talking to her?”
Could something evil be talking to my daughter? What if it is? No—it can’t be something evil. She would be scared or something if it wasn’t friendly. Wouldn’t she?
“Ava,” I called, shrugging off father’s grasp on my arm to re-join my daughter at the bench. “The voice you hear, does she have
a name?”
Ava shook her head. “She didn’t tell me one.”
“And there is only one voice you hear?”
She nodded. “She talks funny sometimes, but yes, she’s the only one that talks to me. She told me how to open the door in your room.”
“The voice told you to leave my room?”
“She said I would like the house and it was boring sitting and looking at a book I couldn’t read yet. So she told me the words to make a door. Then I made it. I got to see all the pretty pictures.”
“Dad, you were supposed to be watching the door.” I shot him a glare.
“I know, Des,” he said, his head lowering in shame. “I was, but when I check on her, the door it was locked, and Jax’s parents came, and then, well, you know...”
I did know. They were arguing when I returned from Sayeesies. I heard their voices from down the hall. Not the words, though. Lucky for them.
“Ava, I need you to promise that you will do what I ask in future. Even if the voice tells you something different.”
She looked up at me, her big brown eyes sparkling as brightly as my mother’s once had. “Okay, Mum.”
“Okay, then. I guess we are off to the study,” Max said as he took a step towards the door, but my barrier was still up and when he reached for the handle he froze in place.
“Desmoree, I said no magic in my kitchen.”
“You do realise we just used magic to morph, don’t you?”
“That was an exception, now release your barrier and your father immediately.”
“I was just going to. Man, you can be—”
“Watch it, remember I have far greater hiding places for those treats of yours. Besides, you wouldn’t want your shoes to disappear next would you?”
“You wouldn’t?”
“Test me child and I most certainly will.”
“What did she say?” Ava asked Jax.
“Her shoes,” Jax chuckled. “Maylea will hide her shoes.”
“Oh no, not the pretty blue ones.” Ava looked as distressed as I at the thought of the pretty shoes disappearing.
Maylea winked at her.
“Okay, look, let’s not let this get out of hand. The barrier was a cone of silence, I’ll bring it down.” And I did. In another breath the barrier was released and Max opened the door, unaware any time had passed. As soon as the hall was in view a cheeky little face popped up from around the doorframe.
“Tai, what are you doing here?” Max asked, looking down at him. “What have I told you about sneaking around the house?”
“That if I hear anything good, I should tell you first.”
“Dad!”
“What? You would be surprised the secrets I have learnt in the last week from this child. A true gift for stealth. So Tai, heard anything good?”
Tai looked past Max to Ava and I and smirked. Had he heard past my shield? No, he couldn’t have.
“There was a sprite looking for Dessy,” Tai said, clasping his hands behind his back and swinging his hips side to side.
I knelt down to his level. “Why was a sprite looking for me?”
“It said there is a message for you.”
“Why couldn’t the sprite just tell you the message?”
“The sprite doesn’t talk to the seers, the boy does. Silly, Dessy.”
The prophecy. I looked to Jax and my father.
Jax put his hand on my shoulder. “Go on, we will take Ava to the study, you can meet us there later.” Jax’s gaze shot to my back, the book was tucked in the waist of my jeans and he could probably see it. I turned away, I didn’t want to tell him I had let our day old daughter flick through my all powerful book of spells. Somehow I don’t think he would consider it good parenting.
“Thanks, Tai, where is he, the boy?”
Tai shrugged. “The sprite didn’t say.”
I stood back up and turned to my father, “How old could he be to be a receiving fey already? Doesn’t seem fair.”
“You can never tell when it will present, but the younger the better. If they are still children, they can learn to control the bridge between them and the seers. If they are adults when the ability surfaces, they often can’t close the link and some have even gone a little...” He twirled his pointer finger beside his ear and I rolled my eyes.
“So, do you know where I might find him, this boy?”
“The children are often down by the pools of light playing with water sprites. Perhaps it’s the boy named Malcolm who has this message for you. It has been thought he’s speaking with the seers. He knows too much for his age and often breaks out in laughter for no apparent reason.”
It sounded like how Ava had giggled for no reason.
I kissed him, then Jax, and then took Ava’s hands in mine. “I will be back soon.” Her gaze fell to her feet and her head lowered afterwards. I crouched to see her face better. “Ava, I know I keep running off, but I will be fast as I can. Go and see the study with your father. It’s one of my favourite places, so I know you will love it too.”
She peeked through her long lashes trying to supress her excitement, but the tips of her lips crept up and her eyes shone. I gave her a peck on the forehead before letting her go. Watching as they made their way down the hall towards the study, I was unable to take a step until they rounded the corner.
I took off down the hall and out the front door of my father’s house. The pools of light were in Sayeesies. I could fly the majority of the way but would have to walk the final distance as the tree cover would make it near impossible to land. Phasing brought my magic forwards and flying through the sky calmed my nerves, the faster I soared, the more at ease I felt. It wasn’t what the boy could tell me that worried me, but rather the path I would have to take to get to him. There was no getting away from it, the branches of his tree reached high into the sky. Though they look a lot lower now.
I brought myself down slowly, landing about ten meters from it and shifted back to my normal form. I knew I needed to start walking but my body wouldn’t move.
“You have to go around it to get there,” I reminded myself, but my feet remained planted in place.
I looked up at the waving branches, like dangly arms they slowly reached out, as if they were trying to reach for me. Trying to grab me. Something touched my arm and I jumped, phasing into my fairy form on instinct, both wings enveloping me in a cocoon of seclusion.
As soon as they were around me I came to my senses and phased back. No one was there. It must have been a falling leaf or something. I laughed at myself and started towards Traflier’s tree.
It wasn’t how I had last seen it. The roots were raised out of the ground like enormous earthworms and the branches hung low, draping a curtain of leaves over the entire trunk. You couldn’t make out the door through the greenery.
“What happened here?” I asked myself aloud.
“I did,” Grace said, coming out of nowhere to stand beside me. I was so transfixed by the movement of the leaves that her arrival didn’t startle me as much as I would have expected.
“What do you mean you happened?”
“I removed all of his things. They were Sayeesies things really. Most of what he had in there belonged to the fey. After that, well the tree took back control of itself.” She ran her hand down over the leaves of the closest branch.
“So the door, the library, all of it’s gone?”
“Not gone, it will never be gone, but the tree can grow over it now. One day the door will be sealed by new growth completely. I made sure to empty everything.”
I touched the book still hidden at my back. I had found it there, in his study. The book that awakened my magic and gave me the ability to uncover the truth of who my great-great grandfather really was. “I thought you were headed back to your daughter, Ava wasn’t it?”
My heart ached. “I was, I did. I mean, I did but then I came back. One of the sprites wanted to see me.”
Grace smiled. “Ah, so you are taking yo
ur responsibilities of your position seriously, then. I told the others—”
This had nothing to do with that ridiculous oath, but she didn’t need to know that. “Sure,” I cut her off, trying to keep the disinterest from my tone. “I better be going. Please do pop on over to meet Ava in a week or two. We would be happy to have you at my father’s property.”
“Thank you, Desmoree, I will do that. Send your family my best.” Then she turned and walked away. In the direction I wished I could go. But I couldn’t.
I rounded the tree and saw the pool of light. What looked like all the children of Sayeesies were playing around it, and between them little golden balls flitted about. The water sprites.
Watching them laugh and play with the sprites brought a smile to my face. I scanned the swarm of children looking at the boys as I made my way to the water’s edge.
“Hello? You there,” I said to one boy spinning in a circle with a sprite atop his head. “Are you Malcolm?”
The boy scrunched up his nose and shook his head no. “As if. Malcoma is over there,” he said, pointing to where a boy sat under a tree on his own. A single sprite sat on his knee bouncing up and down, but the boy wasn’t interacting with it. He gazed off into the sky with a creepy expressionless stare.
“You know it isn’t nice to call people names,” I said as I began to walk over to the boy.
The kid blew a raspberry at my back but I didn’t turn around. Instead I quickened my pace. I had to speak to Malcolm. He moved his head and looked straight at me before I even reached him. A cheeky grin formed on his lips before he tilted his head in that familiar way Ava did and looked off into the distance.
The little boy giggled then righted his head.
“Your Jax doesn’t listen.” The boy was looking at me now. I laughed a little and crouched in front of him. The sprite on his knee jumped off and flitted back to the pool with the others.
“What do you mean?”
“They told him to wait, to listen to their message, but he was in too much of a hurry to get back. He didn’t listen properly, he doesn’t remember properly.”
“What did he not remember?” I asked Malcolm, trying to keep the urgency from my voice so as to not scare him. Really, I was screaming inside. What if it is worse than Jax remembered?
Uniting The Fabled Page 4
