The Emerald Staff

by Alison Pensy

“Here,” Vivianna said as she tossed the pebble-like object to Faedra. Faedra caught it and laid it on her open palm. It was a pebble but smooth as glass and black as onyx. She looked up at Vivianna, confused.

  “What is this for?”

  “Make sure not to let it turn completely red.”

  Faedra narrowed her eyes at her foe. “Why? What happens if it turns red?”

  The princess gave a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders. “Time is up.”

  Vivianna took hold of Henry’s arm. His expression changed to one of confusion when he turned to look at Vivianna’s firm grip on him.

  “You have one week, Custodian.” She rapped the staff three times on the ground.

  Faedra saw Henry’s expression change again, to one of fear, as the tiny red laser lights encircled them and they disappeared.

  “NO!” Faedra lunged forward but it was too late, they were gone.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Faedra stared for the longest moment at the empty space where her father had just stood. The fear and confusion on his face now etched into her mind. Her body went numb. It felt like her brain had shut down, she couldn’t think of anything to do, anything to say. No, this couldn’t be happening, not her father, too. Where had Vivianna taken him? With the ruby staff they could be anywhere, in any realm.

  “Hey, you two, what are you doing out here?” Jocelyn’s sing song voice cut through the silence in the darkened courtyard. She looked from Faedra’s shocked face to her brother’s dumbstruck expression, and her smile fell from her cheerful face. The young fairy took a step closer to her friend when she realized something was very wrong.

  “Faedra? What happened?”

  Faedra looked right through her, still fixated on the space her father had occupied just a moment before.

  Jocelyn turned her attention to her brother and questioned him with an expression. He didn’t need her to speak the words to understand she was now directing the same question to him.

  “Vivianna took Henry.” Faen’s voice was blunt, expressionless.

  His younger sister responded with a sharp intake of breath.

  “With the ruby staff?”

  Faen nodded.

  Faedra’s consciousness started to creep back with the sound of Faen’s words.

  Vivianna took my father. She looked at Faen and Jocelyn as if seeing them for the first time.

  Faen moved to rest a reassuring hand on her shoulder, but the young Custodian looked down at it then up at him with a dazed expression, and shrugged her shoulder away with a vicious jerk. Her stunned gaze turning to a glare of hatred.

  Confusion crept over Faen’s features, as cold angry eyes stared up at him.

  “Faedra?” he asked with a hesitant catch in his voice.

  “Get away from me!” She didn’t even recognize her own voice it was so full of malice. “I need to get out of here,” she mumbled to herself as she turned on her heel and headed back into the pub. There was no exit through the back courtyard so she had to go through the pub to escape this nightmare. She threw the door open with such a force that it banged against the outside wall, and started pacing down the corridor towards the front door of the pub. Her steps quickened with every stride until she was running down the hall, trying to escape the demons in her head.

  Lights flickered as she passed them and she could feel her body drawing from the energy there. Anger was surging through her again. She had to get outside before she hurt someone; she couldn’t concentrate enough to control her power this time around. She reached the front door and flung it open, too, which earned her a disgruntled remark from the landlord standing behind the bar. She didn’t care, she couldn’t think right now, she had to go somewhere she could think.

  She burst through the door and exited into the lane outside, looking in both directions for a split second wondering which way to flee. It was a pedestrian walkway, but there was not another soul to be seen in either direction. She took off running up the lane but only got a few feet before her Guardian burst through the front door after her, followed by his little sister.

  “Faedra, stop!” he implored.

  She stopped and spun around to face him, fury flowing through her veins.

  “Stay away from me!”

  He took a pensive step forward but was stopped in his tracks by a bolt of lightning that struck the ground inches from his feet, shattering the brick-weave and sending chunks of cement flying in all directions. Thunder rumbled above them.

  Faen pinched his brows together and gave Faedra a questioning look. “But I did not take your father, Faedra. I did not do this.”

  “Your kind killed my mother, now your kind have taken my father. I never asked for any of this. If it wasn’t for this stupid amulet, my mother would still be alive and my father would still be safe. I would gladly give it to Vivianna, but I can’t even get the blasted thing off!” She tugged at the amulet trying to pull it from her neck, the chain would not break and the clasp was sealed tight.

  Faen tried to move a little closer to his charge while she was distracted with the amulet, but she noticed the movement. She let go of the amulet and held her palms up. The two bobbing blue energy balls that appeared there illuminated her face in an eerie glow. Her eyes were cold and unforgiving. Faen hardly recognized her.

  “I warned you. Stay out of my life!” she yelled as she turned her back to him ready to make her exit up the lane.

  “Please, Faedra. This was not me, I…” Faen’s voice was heavy with emotion. “Please do not leave.”

  She stood still for a moment, emotions whirling inside her head like a tornado. She didn’t turn to face him, didn’t want him to see the tears of pain now flooding down her cheeks. She felt like someone had punched through her chest, grabbed hold of her heart and was wringing all the life out of it. When she did speak her voice was barely a whisper.

  “Your realm has destroyed my family. I don’t want to be connected with that anymore. Stay away from me, Faen, I mean it.” Her voice was calm, and she couldn’t understand how she managed to sound so controlled when her heart was shattering and her body trembled with emotion.

  A loud thunderclap ripped through the sky above them as Faedra took off in a dead run up the lane. The bulbs in the street lamps shattered one by one as she ran past, leaving Faen standing alone in the dark.

  He could hear the revelry inside the pub and looked towards the noise. He flinched slightly when he saw Jocelyn standing in the shadows of the doorway. He’d forgotten she followed him through the door. A worried expression pinched at her usually serene features.

  “She will come around, Brother, she is just angry. You need to go after her. You are her Guardian no matter how angry she feels; it is your duty.”

  Faen turned his attention to the people who were laughing and chatting to one another inside. They were enjoying the evening and looked so happy. He wasn’t sure if he would ever laugh again. Faedra may as well have aimed the lightning bolt straight at his heart because it now felt as shattered as the chunks of cement he stepped over before taking off up the lane and launching himself into the air.

  Faedra walked through the front door of her house in a stunned trance. She couldn’t quite recall how she managed to get home. I must have gotten a taxi. She clicked the door shut behind her and leaned back against it, her whole body still numb with shock. She reached up to her head and dragged her cloche hat off, letting her hand flop back down to her side. Her fingers went limp and the hat slipped out of them and dropped to the floor beside her feet.

  Her eyes scanned the small living room. Everything was in its place and it looked lived in and homey. The furniture was well used and comfortable but she couldn’t even take a step forward to go and sit on the welcoming sofa. Her gaze fell on a mug that stood, still half full of tea, next to her father’s armchair beside the fireplace. She stared at it for a moment, and try as she might she could not tear her gaze away from it. A vision of her father putting it down, half finished, before they left f
or the party swam in her head, and she finally gave up the fight and let her legs give way beneath her as she slid down the door and sat on the floor.

  Tears welled in her eyes until the mug was nothing but a blur. Her father was in mortal danger and she was at a complete loss to know what to do. She couldn’t get the amulet from around her neck and, even if she could, it would be her life in exchange for her father’s. Not that she wouldn’t give her life for his in a heartbeat, she would, but it would only delay the inevitable; he would still die, along with millions of others if Vivianna was intent on destroying the world’s food source.

  She couldn’t think straight. The thoughts swirling through her head were not making any sense, so she allowed the tears to flow down her cheeks. She didn’t have the energy to try and hold them back anymore.

  She drew her knees up to her chest and dropped her forehead on them. A sob escaped, then another and another until her shoulders shook with the emotion now wracking her body. She felt more alone than she had ever felt in her life before. There was no life in the house, all she could hear was the sound of her own crying.

  Faen sat in an upper limb of one of the trees that lined the Bennett’s driveway. He had followed her home from the city, of course. He was her Guardian. He didn’t need his little sister to tell him that he needed to go after her. Spurned or not, he would make sure she was safe until such time that he got reassigned away from her. A thought he didn’t dare contemplate. He was relieved when he watched his charge hail a taxi, and then he followed it back here to her home. At least in the grounds she could not be harmed by any of his kind.

  After finding a good vantage point to keep an eye on the cottage, he settled down on one of the branches. He could see her inside through the windows of the living room. He had never known the Bennett’s to close the curtains in that room and sometimes wondered why they even had them.

  A heavy sigh escaped his lips as he watched the person he cared so much for slide down the door to sit on the floor. He could see the pain on her face even from this distance. His heart ached as he watched her wrap her arms around her knees and sob. Eventually, she curled up in a ball where she sat, and cried herself to sleep. He wanted so much to go to her and scoop her off the cold hard floor, carry her upstairs and tuck her into a warm bed. He knew that was not an option right now. She hated him, he had seen it in her eyes outside the pub. Maybe if he could find her father, she would forgive him, maybe even learn to love him back.

  He leaned his head back against the tree trunk and closed his eyes for a moment. He was trying to think of a way to get her father back, but a solution to that problem was eluding him. How could he possibly find him when Vivianna could have taken him anywhere in any realm? A moment later he opened his eyes with a start and sat up straight. Of course, why hadn’t he thought of that before? His gaze focused back to the cottage and Faedra, she was still asleep on the living room floor. He should be able to get back before she awoke, and the wards around her home would keep her safe until he returned.

  He launched himself out of the tree and headed for the church, and the portal to the Land of Azran. He needed to talk to his father.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Faedra felt stiff as her consciousness forced her to face the world again. With a groan, she pushed herself up to a sitting position. An obnoxious pounding hammered at her brain and she brought the heel of her hand to her forehead, keeping her eyes squeezed shut.

  She was still sitting beside the door of her living room. How long had she been there? Cracking one eye open, she peeked out to look at the clock on the mantel over the fireplace. It was 4:00 a.m. With another groan, she scrubbed at her face with her hands and then raked her fingers through her unruly hair pushing it back out of her eyes.

  For a split second, she couldn’t recall why she was sitting on the floor of her living room at four in the morning, still dressed in her Halloween costume. For that split second, she was blissfully unaware of the turmoil she was about to feel. Then she looked down and saw the black pebble on the floor beside her and reality slammed into her like a wrecking ball.

  “Dad, oh, my God, Dad,” she whispered to herself as the memories from the party flooded into her brain. She picked up the pebble, her eyes widening as she noticed the outer edge had turned a vibrant red.

  She got up off the floor. She had to do something, though, she admitted to not knowing what. But something would come to her, it had to. One thing was for sure she couldn’t do it dressed like a 1920’s flapper girl, not very practical for hunting down evil fairy princesses and rescuing fathers. As she moved towards the door that led to the dining room, the blinking light on the answering machine distracted her. At first, she was going to ignore it but something compelled her to stop and press play.

  There was a tongue-in-cheek message from her uncle, sounding as though he’d had one too many drinks, telling her father off for leaving the party early with a gorgeous woman. He hoped that his brother was having “fun” and did he realize that Faedra and Frederick had also left the party early ‘just a heads up, mate’. Faedra shot a disgusted look at the answer machine as she deleted it. Well, her father may have left the party early with a gorgeous woman but she doubted he would be having any fun, and as for her and Frederick, she couldn’t deny the empty feeling where her heart should be and decided it best not to think about that right now. At least her uncle didn’t suspect anything was wrong at this point in time and that gave her a little leeway before she had to think of an explanation as to why her dad was missing.

  The next message started to play. “Err, hello, this message is for Faedra Bennett. Faedra this is Professor Malley from the university. I was going to wait until Monday but I have to admit to being intrigued, and… well, I wanted to talk to you beforehand. I looked up what those words meant. You told me someone had called you this and I have to wonder why someone would, especially in this language. You see samtero kruwos, well, it means… half blood. Oh, well, I hope you are having a good weekend. I’ll see you in class on Monday and we can discuss it then.”

  Faedra’s jaw went slack as she gaped at the answering machine in disbelief. Suddenly, she knew exactly where to start her search and get some answers.

  Faen stood at the end of the topiary-lined driveway that led to his parent’s house. Although, to call it a house was an understatement. The home he grew up in was noble and stately. The gardens were pristine and well kept. He hadn’t been home for a while and took a moment to soak in the grandeur of it. Snapping himself out of his reverie, he started striding down the majestic sweeping driveway. He could have flown, but, for some reason, he needed to feel the crunch of gravel underfoot and leave footprints behind.

  He reached the front door, turned the large gleaming brass knob to open it and stepped into the marble entrance hall. The stairs swept up in front of him and split in two at the top, leading to both sides of the living quarters. He looked up to admire the ceiling. The intricate gold leaf pattern was still as vibrant and beautiful as he remembered it. He stood silent for a moment to see if he could hear any signs of life. Memories of his childhood came flooding back; he used to love chasing his sister down those stairs and around the servant’s quarters. His mother would scold him whenever she caught him but it was always worth it.

  He blew out a sigh. There was no sound of life from his vantage point. Knowing his mother she would rather be outside on a day like this, tending her flowers in the beautiful garden she loved, than swanning around above stairs and being waited on hand and foot. She had servants to do everything for her, but his mother loved to garden, it was her passion. And if his mother were in her garden, then his father would be out there with her, reading a book and sipping on a mug of hot buttered rum, no doubt.

  He didn’t waste his time by checking upstairs first. Instead he turned to his left and headed for the kitchen, which led to his mother’s garden. As he approached the open kitchen door, he could hear the bustle of servants moving pans and chopping ingredients
. An aroma wafted down the hall towards him; the delicious smell made his mouth water. He realized then that he had not eaten for some time and his stomach growled to remind of that fact.

  He leaned quietly against the doorframe for a moment, content to watch the servants bustle around the kitchen. The kitchen was huge, not quite as big as the one in the castle, but not far from it. Shiny copper pots hung from wrought iron racks suspended above the table. Glass fronted cabinets lined one wall and they were filled with some of the finest china in the land. Along the other wall stood the wide-open fireplace with racks for cooking meat, and next to that, was a big black cooking range.

  He could see the housekeeper discussing menus with the cook at the other end of the kitchen and wandered over to them. The housekeeper took a step back in surprise when she looked up to see him approach, and a wide welcoming smile lit her face.

  “Master Faen, what a lovely surprise. Oh, your mother will be so excited to see you.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Forbes. Do you know where she is?”

  “Oh, yes, Master Faen, she is out in her garden. Said she had herbs to tend to.”

  Faen smiled and inclined his head before making his way out of the kitchen heading for his mother’s garden.

  Upon exiting the back of the house, he strode past the enormous old tree that was surrounded by a carpet of bluebells. It had limbs coming out of the trunk from every conceivable angle. Huge tree limbs grew along the ground and the look of them now sparked memories of the hours spent playing in its branches when he was a child.

  He approached the archway of the walled garden in silence and leaned against the cool brick.

  His father was right where he thought he would be, relaxing in a high backed oak garden chair, reading. A mug of steaming brew standing on a little table beside him. Faen smiled. It felt good to be home. He turned his attention towards his mother who was bending over a raised bed of herbs.