With a Kiss

by Stephanie Fowers

  Chapter Eleven

  For an Ouphe has broken his vestal vow;

  He has loved an earthly maid,

  And left for her his woodland shade;

  He has lain upon her lip of dew,

  And sunned him in her eye of blue,

  Fann'd her cheek with his wing of air,

  Played in the ringlets of her hair

  —Joseph Rodman Drake, The Culprit Fay

  I hadn't slept for three days. I stared at the dresses heaped over my floor. Ever since the "freak earthquake" as my family called it, my room had been more than its usual wreck. Babs tripped over my pink furry rug in my high heels, dressing up in practically everything I owned. "Halley! Halley!" She blew a kiss at me. Hobs had taught her to do that. I could barely respond.

  I pushed my hand up. It flopped against the bed as I pretended to catch the kiss and press it into my cheek. She smiled. Babs had grown another two years overnight, and then another two before my very eyes. I think that made her about six years old. I stared at her with dull eyes. Babs was beautiful; she looked more like my sisters than I ever did. She talked a mile a minute like they did, too.

  "Whatsh thish?" She held up my bracelet, and then tried to fit it over Bugul's oversized blue-and-gold-veined wrist, still asking me questions while he glowered at everyone in the room—especially Hobs. "Where didsh you get thish? Can I wear it?"

  I smiled wanly. Babs had a little speech impediment. It was cute. She strutted around the room in my Midsummer Dream's costume. It was appropriate in so many ways. The play was tonight, and I wasn't sure how, but the show had to go on. It was a funny thing to think about when dying. "Midsummer," I breathed. Hobs messed with my backpack in the corner of the room, and I tried to get his attention. "Midsummer Night's Dream . . . it's tonight."

  "I know. We need earplugs." Hobs threw cotton into my backpack next to some water bottles and a bandanna, as if we actually had someplace to go. He even dressed up for it in warmer clothes. His vintage jeans gave his legs a long, lean look. I, on the other hand, hadn't changed my clothes since yesterday. I had given up trying to find the Sidhe. I was still in my sweats and rumpled tee, not dressed to go anywhere.

  I stared up at him. "You have more clothes than I do."

  His eyes swept significantly over the messy carpet. "No, all your clothes are just on the floor. Get dressed."

  "What for?"

  "June 24th, of course. Midsummer, just like your play. Faeries are making merry and night is drawing nigh. No way am I missing the party again this year." He rescued my arm warmers from the ground and slipped one over my arm like I was a helpless baby—which at this point, I was. "It's cold in the Sidhe." His fingers were rough. He pulled my hand through the other knitted tube. It tickled, and I watched him dumbly, too weak to move. He confiscated the bracelet from Bugul's wrist and threw it into my backpack along with some strange knickknacks from the living room. Even if we were able to get to faeryland, how would I get back home, or to the Otherworld as the faeries called this place? I tried not to think about it.

  Hobs gathered the book of faerytales with his other hand. He slid it into the bag. Bugul straightened and growled out something. Hobs gave him a level look. "There's no way we'd survive out there without it. It's our map out of there."

  "I'm supposed to be in the play tonight." I repeated it like a broken record.

  "Your shadow will do it."

  "My shadow is dumb." I was rewarded with a flick on the head from my shadow's exquisite finger, followed by her shrill giggle. She had been flirting with Hobs all day. I couldn't believe she was even a part of me . . . my airhead part of me. "How will she take over? I can't even . . . see her all the way."

  "You will."

  ". . . too convenient."

  "It is." He didn't spare my simpering shadow a glance, though I couldn't take my eyes off her. She was now me . . . a stupid me. It was strange how I looked with her cheesy smile. She wandered around my messy room in a flirty skirt, a gray striped vest, and—I frowned—my leg warmers. It wouldn't be long before she was stealing Daphne's clothes too. She batted her eyelashes at Hobs and ran into a wall. She wasn't used to having boundaries.

  Hobs laughed and met my eyes. "You're gonna have to fix a lot of things when you get back."

  My shadow took absolutely no offense at that, which worried me. No one would believe she was me for long. "I'd rather go missing."

  "Too bad."

  "Why does she have to be me? Is it because . . . I'm dying?" It scared me how hard it was to catch enough breath to say it.

  "Are you?" I nodded, and he shocked me with a grin. "Good." He squeezed my hand. "You were making me tired just looking at you."

  Bugul snorted at this, but ever since Hobs had discovered his vow of silence, he was completely out of words. Babs continued to decorate the goblin with my jewelry, but nothing would help the poor thing. Maybe that's why Hobs kept stealing the baubles from him and throwing them into my backpack. What is he doing with all that useless stuff, anyway? My irritation gave me fresh energy, though it never lasted long enough to do any good. "What are you packing?"

  "Gifts. Faeries like glittery things." Hobs held a necklace in front of Babs, and she jumped for it, but he held it just out of reach.

  "Whatsh that?" she asked. Bugul folded his arms in silent rage.

  "If we're going to vacation in the Sidhe," Hobs said, "we've got to be able to barter."

  "How will we get there?" I asked.

  "Between wake and sleep, hope and desperation, life and death,” Hobs said. “Whatever. The Sidhe is right in front of us. We're almost there, beautiful girl. No worries."

  "How long . . . ?" I couldn't finish.

  "Depends on if we get caught." Hobs sat heavily down on the side of my bed, peering into my eyes. I couldn't move away, and after a moment he laid gentle fingers against the tiara on my head, his breath warm against my ear. "Listen closely." The jewel glowed over his face, and he seemed to be talking to it. "There are six rules of the Fae." I flinched. Rules were not my strong point. They always got me into trouble. Hobs smirked as if he could read my mind. "It's only six, babe. It's not that hard."

  "Rrrr!" Bugul stood up in outrage, swinging his fists. "Uh-uh!" It was hard not to interpret that Hobs was getting something wrong. "Mmm mmm rrrrsss." That was a little harder to decipher, and I tried to listen more closely, knowing that Hobs would only misinterpret Bugul in his lame attempt to translate. "Mmm mmm."

  Hobs blew my dark hair out of his face and straightened to look at Bugul. "What?"

  "Mmm mmm." Bugul held up seven fingers.

  "Seven." Even half dead, I could figure it out. "There are seven rules, aren't there, Hobs?"

  "Ummm hmmm."

  "Ummm hmmm means no," Hobs said.

  "He's saying seven." I stuck stubbornly to my claim. Let Hobs mute me with a spell if he dared—I wasn't backing down. Babs pulled the Skittles from the backpack. They were the leftovers from our great shopping expedition. If it wasn't for Daphne's mothering, Babs would be just as sick as I was. Babs ceremoniously presented the Skittles to us with her sticky hands.

  "Love the present, Babs." Hobs tossed them into the backpack again. He watched me and growled in defeat. "Okay, seven rules then." Bugul let out a satisfied sigh and Hobs gave him a cold smile, which I knew meant trouble. "First rule—the Otherworldly can't eat faery food. It's forbidden."

  Already, the rules didn't make sense. "Why?"

  "It's disgusting." My forehead wrinkled. That couldn't be the real reason. He touched the tiara over my head, and it rang over my ears in response, repeating the rule back to me: The Otherworldly can't eat faery food. It's forbidden. "You must remember," he said.

  "Did you hear that?" I asked. "Your words . . . they're echoing back at me."

  "It's just a little reminder every time you're tempted to break the rules. No worries. No one else will be able to hear it but you and me. It'll be our little secret. They'll be glad, too, because it's annoying.
"

  Babs had returned to pawing the Skittles, and I sat up too fast, making my head ache. "What happens . . . when faeries eat our food?"

  "Nothing."

  As always, it wasn't fair, and it must have shown on my face, because he pushed me back against my bed with gentle hands. For once he looked serious. "Second rule. If you hear the music of the faeries, run. You must remember." He touched the tiara over my head again. I felt him ingraining it into my memory quite literally. The words circled through my head: If you hear the music of the faeries, run. If you hear the music of the faeries, run.

  I wasn't strong enough to fight against whatever spell he was putting over me. "C'mon, you can't tell me that faeries really sing . . . that bad?" I said.

  He grinned. "They've got nothing on you." He tapped my head again. By now I was used to the ringing that filled my ears at the motion. "Third. Never say thank you." I gave him a curious look, and he shrugged. "It's offensive. That's why we're bringing the gifts. It's the only way to get what we want. You must remember." Never say thank you. It echoed in my head.

  Hobs turned to the scowling Bugul. "We need more shiny things for bargaining. I saw some jewelry in the bathroom. Go get it." Bugul glanced at the bathroom, then at me, shaking his head forcefully. Hobs sighed. "He doesn't like mirrors," he explained. It wasn't hard to know why, and Bugul's eyes narrowed at him. "He's afraid he'll get snatched to the other side. Don't worry, friend, I'll hold your hand if you're scared."

  Hobs reached out for him, and Bugul scrambled away with a growl. Babs happily wrote on the wall behind us with a bright red marker. Bugul snatched it from her grip with an angry swipe and threw it at us on his way to the bathroom. I had a feeling if he could talk, it would've been accompanied with a lecture.

  Hobs winced at Babs' artwork. I couldn't really react, except to lift my head, peering closer at the writing on the wall "What's it say?" I asked.

  Babs bowed her head in shame. "Ish my name."

  I squinted at the wall, but there was no way to decipher the scribbles. "I think it says Lug," Hobs said after a moment. My shadow giggled.

  "Nobody is calling her Lug," I told them both. My shadow rolled her eyes and went to grab something to clean it up with . . . outside of my room! She pranced into the hall. Is she already taking my place? I didn't have enough energy to get nervous about it. At least I couldn't see through her anymore. She looked quite solid. I could die, and no one in this world would be the wiser.

  "It's for the best, Sleeping Beauty," Hobs whispered. He dabbed something onto my eyelids. The glitter fell from my lashes onto my cheeks. My eyes felt even heavier. Hobs started pacing. "It's the fourth rule, actually. Don't use our names, only use euphemisms, nicknames—you never call a faery by their name. It's annoying, and they have to go wherever you call. Or worse, it'll make you go to them." A loud clatter followed the pronouncement, and Hobs let out a pained howl. "Poake-ledden!" He hopped up and down holding the knee that he had run into the dresser.

  Bugul chortled loudly from the bathroom. Hobs growled out, but because of the little devil he was, he had a hard time keeping his own laugh back. He settled back next to me and finished the ritual. "You must remember that." My head rang again as he touched it again. Strangely enough, I felt myself drifting away, his words settling into my dreams. "Never call a faery by their name. It's annoying, and they have to go wherever you call. Or worse, it'll make you go to them. Poake-ledden!"

  The corners of my mouth turned up when I heard the faery swear word caught at the end of the echo. Even in the depths of my exhaustion, I had a bad case of schadenfreude. Babs tried to bury herself into my side, but my bed was too tall for her three-ish foot frame, and she couldn't climb up. As soon as Hobs swung her up beside me, her arms were around me. She watched me with concerned eyes. "Whatsh the matter?"

  I squeezed her hand in response just as I heard the sound of wailing. My eyes strained for the window. Babs' fingers tightened over mine. She was finally old enough to be scared. The Banshees were coming with new, probably stronger orders, and I had no fight to give them. "I can't run . . ."

  "Of course you can't." Hobs grabbed a pair of my old boots he had stashed under the bed. They were made of brown leather, laced up the front, and lined with fur—hardly appropriate summer attire. "It's the fifth rule. You promised you would bring Babs back. You must never break a promise to a faery. You must remember that." His words repeated through me. Never break a promise to a faery. It drifted in and out of my consciousness.

  I was seeing things. Snowflakes fell over my bed. The wailing grew more distant, like it was from another world. I watched the ivy cling to the bed posts with desperate fingers. Dense trees groaned above us in a tower of shadow. The branches creaked under the weight of heavy snow.

  "Sixth rule." Hobs laced the boots onto my leg with an efficient tug. I tried to ignore the fact that they looked terrible with my sweat capris. "Do not trespass the sacred territory of the faeries. You must remember that." Too late. The circlet buzzed over my head in warning, glowing through the dark forest. Is that why Hobs had programmed the rules into me? To remind me every time I was tempted to break them . . . or when I already did? Do not trespass the sacred territory of the faeries.

  The Sidhe could no longer be held from my vision, and I wasn't tired anymore. Energy coursed through my body. It was a rush, and I sprang up from my bed like I was caught in the middle of a sprint. I blinked away the snowflakes from my lashes. My bedroom was still here, but so was this forest. Everything about it was magical and deadly. "Why can I see this?" My heart quickened. "Uh, Hobs, what's happening? I'm not dead, am I?"

  "It's a rebirth. The curse was the only way to get you back to the Sidhe." I stared at this new world. My world was covered with it. A tree here. A desk there. Snow. Wallpaper. It was hard to figure out what was real and what wasn't. This new vision was a part of the curse—it only took pure exhaustion to get me to see what was already around me in this strange new dimension called the Sidhe. Hobs leaned next to me, nudging me with his elbow. "I told you that faeries live here side by side with you . . . in another world."

  Babs' eyes got wide as we watched the forest grow thick around us, choking out my world with it. She huddled close to me, one hand in Hobs', the other in mine. Her thick lashes blinked rapidly. She looked to be about seven now. I wasn't the only one who noticed her little growth spurt—Hobs turned to me, looking regretful. "I don't think anyone will recognize the princess now."

  I shivered. The whole forest shimmered in the cold. The falling snow glittered over the Sidhe. It was scary and beautiful all at once. Just the kind of place where I imagined Red Riding Hood would feel quite comfortable—if her hood was trimmed with fur. "How long has the princess been gone?"

  His eyes roved over my face, then lingered on my lips. "Too long." He brushed the flakes of snow from my cheeks. "Time stopped when she was stolen. Now all we know is winter and war. Everything bad happened when she was taken. The treasures were gone. Bargains were made with the Otherworldly. If we don't get her back soon, I don't think we have long before everything is destroyed."

  I remembered that Hobs had told me that the princess was my age—seventeen. It was a long time. "What happened to you when she left?"

  "I swore I'd get her back, even if it killed me. There's a connection between us—it's hard to explain. I wasn't even sure what it was . . . but," he took a deep breath, "I searched the world for her and there was nothing. No trace of her anywhere. I had lost all hope of ever finding her."

  My world was disappearing into his. I jumped when my tiara murmured a warning into my mind. Do not trespass the sacred territory of the faeries. The reminder made me nervous. It was too late for that. "Hobs, does anything bad happen if I break the rules?"

  "You face the consequences. That's all." The door to my fading bedroom ripped open. Bugul's incensed face peeked out the very moment my bed disappeared out from under me. His grumbles faded into nothingness, and we left the poor guy behi
nd in my bedroom. I shrieked and fell through the air, tumbling into a pile of cold snow.

  Babs landed over me, and I let out a pained ooph. Hobs face-planted next to us. He pulled his head up from the snow, and it trickled from his newly acquired black beanie down his blond hair. He narrowed his dark eyes. We had collapsed in the middle of the forest onto a pile of frozen leaves and ice, our legs making heavy imprints in the snow, but even under all the debris I could see we were in a faery ring. The snow had melted around its boundaries.

  I sat up, squeezing Babs' small hand, though it wasn't as small as before. "My bed?"

  "Um, yeah . . ." Hobs smiled slowly. "It's a faery transporter. I think it did its job."

  With a kiss, one, two, three, the sun circles. Another world you'll see. Yes, the faery queen was right. I was seeing another world. It glistened white. I took a shaky breath.

  Hobs pulled himself up to his elbows, wearing a dark Army jacket. I wasn't really surprised at his change of clothes. It seemed more a trick of the senses anyway. He stretched slowly to his feet, not bothering to brush off the snow as he looked around the dark forest. He slanted a look at me. "Hey, notice anything new, like you have a lot more energy now?"

  Of course I did. I wasn't dying anymore, and it freaked me out. What had the rest of the faery queen's curse done to me? One and two, midnight strokes. Break these bonds and end this hoax. What would happen if I didn't get Babs to her mom in two days after being in this place? I was in a new chapter of the curse. I ran my hands down the goose bumps on my arms. Now that I was more than awake, I was freezing and scared—though I'd never admit it to Hobs. I was glad for the arm warmers and boots. Never mind that I looked like a complete punk in faeryland. "What about Bugul?" I asked.

  "Ah." He dismissed him with a heartless wave of the hand. "He'll find his way back on a moonbeam or a rainbow or something." Somehow I doubted it was that easy.

  I wondered what Hobs had packed for food. Being ravenous must be a side effect of reversing the curse. If I was hungry, my growing girl would be too. I searched the surrounding area for something to eat besides Skittles.

  The Otherworldly can't eat faery food. It's forbidden, the tiara reminded me. I took a deep breath. Seven rules. That was right. I had to keep seven rules. One might already be broken since it looked like I had trespassed sacred faery territory, I wasn't sure, except—wait. I only knew six rules. "Hobs?" I hit his arm, startling him from surveying the area. "What's the last rule?" He tried to look blank, but I wouldn't let him get away with it. "Seven rules like seven days, remember?"

  "Yeah, don't worry about it."

  I scowled, knowing he would've kept the real number from me if it hadn't been for Bugul. We had lost the one person who could keep Hobs honest. Babs snuggled closer to me, and I dropped an arm around her, trying to keep her warm. I was sure Hobs hadn't packed us anything to shield us from this cold, either. "Hobs! Tell me now."

  Hobs wove his fingers behind his head, staring up into the white sky. He looked tense. After a moment, he dropped his hands and stepped closer to me. I reminded myself I had asked for it, so I kept myself from falling back at his determined look. He put a heavy hand on the top of my head. I thought he meant to imprint the last rule, but instead, his fingers trailed down my cheek to my chin. I sucked in my breath, but forced myself to stay where I was.

  He watched me closely as if trying to memorize the details of my face, then he lightly touched my lips with his fingers. "Final rule. Remember this." He tapped my tiara. "Never fall in love with a faery." It gave me a start as his words buzzed through my head. Aside from the tiara's reaction, his words had struck me dumb. I tried to think what he could mean. "It's dangerous . . . especially for, uh, humans."

  With some difficulty, I managed to gather my wits. "Don't worry. I've never fallen in love with any—"

  "I know." He cut me off and smiled at my shocked expression. "But love potions are the faeries' favorite weapons, so be careful, for my sake." Before he could go into detail, a gruff throat cleared behind us. Hobs let me go with an impatient look.

  Something hid in the shadowy woods. I felt as helpless as Hansel and Gretel without the advantage of breadcrumbs. Next came the growling. "What exactly is in this forest?" I asked.

  Hobs let out a misty breath. Dark forms circled us, and Babs jumped back. My arms jerked around her as the forest came fully into focus. Glittering eyes stared at us through the trees.

  "Well, that's inconvenient," Hobs said. "For us, that is, not for them."