by Marie Hall
From the corner of her eye, Danika noted Genevieve’s head poking out from between branches. Snorting, she realized the churlish sprite hadn’t left at all, but was actually hanging on to her every word.
Well, and why not, Danika was a damn fine storyteller. Everyone in Kingdom knew it.
An expectant hush fell around them.
“Now, as I was saying, Jericho was determined to find his beautiful Calanthe…”
~*~
Jericho paced his balustrade. Siria had flooded the sky with so much sun today that’d it’d very nearly blinded him and forced him to hide in the deepest recesses of the floating castle in the sky.
But now his moon was growing stronger and soon it would be his turn to rule the skies.
Impatient now, he pounded his booted feet back and forth, back and forth. The electrical charge of Siria’s presence failed to ignite the potent rage he’d known for so long.
All he felt was a driving need to see Calanthe, to be where she was. He hoped she’d stolen another seed. He wanted her touch, wanted her smell of blossoms to drip all around him…
“You are distracted this night,” Siria’s husky tone set his teeth on edge.
Well, apparently there was a little rage still.
Crossing his arms behind his back, he looked at her. “I suppose I am.”
She was dressed as seductively as ever. This time in a gown spun from fire. It whipped and crackled around her, licking at her toned flesh. Tossing out little bits of sparks with each step she took toward him.
“How do I look today, Jericho?” she inquired with a flirty grin, twirling on her toes.
She was beautiful. In fact, he could even admit that she may be more beautiful than Calanthe.
But beauty was superficial, skin deep. It meant little.
Last night, he’d seen Calanthe. Felt her soul slide upon his. Her purity of heart, her joy and verve… it’d awakened him, made him want in a way he never had before. Siria could never compare.
He shrugged. “You look fine.”
Shocked, she jerked back as if he’d smacked her and then glowered. “This is not why I brought you here.”
Nostrils flaring, he dared to take a step toward her. “Then why did you bring me here? To enslave me? Hmmm?”
Big, fat tears dripped from the corners of her large tawny eyes. But she may have well been made of wax, apart from the tears her facial features did not change. “To love me, as you did back then on Earth.”
Scoffing, he curled his upper lip. “That was a long time ago, do not mistake my feelings for you then, with what I feel for you now. You tricked me, Siria. I will never forgive you for what you’ve done.”
His heart quickened as he noted the radiance of her countenance slowly began to fade.
“You will love me!” she shrieked in a final, fiery burst before vanishing from the strength of his darkness.
Rolling his neck from side to side, he forced Siria’s mood from his thoughts.
Tonight he did not need to think long or hard about what he wished to see. There was only one he wanted to watch and that was Calanthe. In seconds her image coalesced before him and every beat of his heart was a yearning to get closer.
One more day, one more day and he could go to her.
“Calanthe,” he whispered to the image forming before him. He didn’t know what else to say, or if there was even anything else to say… just saying her name felt too big.
Emotions warred within him. His body hummed, the blood sang in his veins, raged through his ears and though he couldn’t smell her now as he had when he’d been that flower, he could vividly remember the wash of her roses, the silken glide of her fingers.
All throughout the night he studied her, learning her, and falling very, very deeply in love…
~*~
Calanthe tiptoed out of her cottage and headed straight for the head mistresses’ home. Swallowing hard, ignoring the revelry all around her she had a mission, and that was to grow another moon flower.
Her obsession had only grown as the day continued. This was foolish, asinine, and all sorts of ridiculous, she understood that. Stealing once from Galeta might be overlooked, stealing twice… she shivered.
No, she bit down on the inside of her cheek, it was downright wicked.
But she had to do it. She couldn’t explain it. From the moment the flower had bloomed for her, it was like a part of her soul had entwined with it. Her heart ached. Literally hurt in her chest, each beat was a throb that bled anew with the thought of never seeing that flower again.
And yes the flower was pretty, and rare, but it was more than that. She didn’t know why, or how, she simply knew that it was.
Shadows crawled menacingly up the sides of Galeta’s enormous mushroom cap cottage. The blue mushroom head gleamed in varying shades. From an electric neon, to a dusky hued navy and everything in between.
A plume of smoke curled from the chimney. But that didn’t mean the head mistress was home yet, she was still in eastern Kingdom, dealing with an improper use of fairy magic infraction. Which was rather ironic considering what Calanthe was in the process of doing.
The head mistress was the most powerful of all fairy, but she wasn’t much liked. Not after the way she’d handled the outbreak of fairy rash a hundred years ago. It hadn’t been the fairies fault that inhaling the toxic fumes of the black mushroom had basically turned them into zombie like trolls hell bent on the destruction of the glen. Rafiella the Red had told Galeta she’d found a cure, that the venom of the sea anemone could undo what the black spores had done. Galeta had heard none of that, she’d been impatient to wait for enough batches of the cure to be made up for the fifty infected fairies.
Instead she’d chosen, under cover of darkness, to not only strip the fairies of their wings, but to banish them to a strange land called Ireland. Last Calanthe had heard the fairies were now known as dark elves, and still infected with the dark spore, were running amok through human lands. It made her sad to know their fate could have been so very different.
Galeta ruled with an iron fist and even though Calanthe’s palms were currently very sweat slickened, it did make it easier to steal from a head mistress she could hardly tolerate.
Her bare feet squished silently into the thick bed of moss leading like a trail to Galeta’s front door. Glancing one final time over her shoulder, she tucked her wings behind her back and turned the knob.
Her heart thrilled in wonder at the beauty of this cottage. Magic was a strange and wonderful thing. The inside of a mushroom cap should be squishy and moldy smelling, but in fact, a fairy could (depending on their inherent power) change the insides to suit their needs.
Galeta was as fairy and girly as the rest of them. Her home was a marvel of gleaming blond wood spiraling staircases that seemed to lead up into infinity. The inside of the home was easily three times the dimension the outside of it would lead one to believe.
Rugs, woven of the finest eastern silk, sparkled with droplets of dew. Crystalline spiders had been commissioned to weave silken webbings formed into the shape of chairs and tables.
Green vines with robin’s blue flowers wrapped lattice style up the walls and around banisters. The glow from hundreds of fireflies trapped in glass jars hung from wooden rafters.
The head mistress certainly knew how to impress. But staying in here for too long was a bad idea. It’d taken hours to shake June’s suspicion that she might try something this reckless tonight.
Calanthe had had to stay and watch the races and drink mug after mug of spiked apple cider, eventually feigning exhaustion just to get her friend to back off long enough for her to make her escape.
But should anyone walk past or peek inside, the jig would be up. Licking her lips, she unfurled her wings just slightly, enough to be able to glide without being forced to walk her way across creaky floorboards and headed toward the fireplace. But more specifically, the large oak cabinet beside the fireplace. That was where Galeta stored her treasur
es.
Once again she found herself prying open the doors, once again she was reaching for the glass jar hidden on the uppermost shelf in the very back row and once again she was plucking a very simple and unadorned seed from inside.
Calanthe had stumbled upon this knowledge by happenstance. All within the glen shunned Miriam the Delighted for her second sight. The seer was as feared as she was held in awe. Galeta had deemed the fairy’s power so potent that she’d banished Miriam to the outer edges of the glen. Many a time Calanthe had wanted to approach Miriam and ask thousands of questions. Questions about the world, about her destiny, about what she’d done to stir up such friction between her and The Blue, but getting too chummy with the seer put one immediately on Galeta’s naughty list and even she dared not cross that line.
Of course there had been the one time in the woods when she’d stumbled across Miriam gathering seed for her own garden and Calanthe had been unable to refrain from asking about the seers favorite flower.
That was the first time she’d heard of the moon flower, ever since then she’d been obsessed with seeing one for herself.
Three nights ago, and completely unexpectedly, Calanthe had received a missive from a blue bird at her window. There’d been a tiny parchment rolled up and tied with a leather string around its bony foot.
It’d been a note from Miriam telling Calanthe that her time was now. That her journey for truth must begin.
Calanthe didn’t question how the note had made it to her, nor what exactly that cryptic statement had meant. All she’d been able to focus on was the last line in the final paragraph:
Moon’s flower seed rests in The Blue’s cottage in the cabinet beside the fire…
Love,
Miriam the Delighted
It wasn’t until she’d flipped the page over that Miriam had given specific direction on how to make it bloom.
Pocketing her prize, she made sure everything looked as it had when she’d entered, and whispering under her breath, magically erased any traces of her ever being here. Then quickly, and quietly, she slipped out the back.
This time she didn’t zig and zag through the trees, it’d taken her hours to disentangle herself from June’s greedy gaze. Moving along the outer edge of the glen, she walked with one purpose in mind.
Returning to the same spot as last night, she went through the exact same ritual she had the night before. With a kiss and a whispered word of affection to the seed she planted it and waited.
And waited…
…and waited
A sighing sound alerted her to the presence of another. June’s spicy scent of hawthorn’s tickled her nose. She should have known it wouldn’t be so easy to deceive her dearest friend.
“June,” she muttered despondently, keeping her gaze on the patch of overturned earth.
“Calanthe,” June’s whisper was even closer now. A second later the athletic little fairy landed on Calanthe’s shoulder, not having shifted her size as she had yesterday. “Why did you steal another seed?”
Finally turning her face aside, realizing the seed had no intention of blooming, she shook her head. “I had to see it again.”
Miniature fingers tapped her jaw. “Yes, but why? You knew it wouldn’t work, you told me so yourself. Only on the night of the thirtieth. Why take the risk for something you knew wouldn’t work?”
Yes, Calanthe had remembered. But part of fairy magic, the most basic and essential part of its power was in belief. The belief that anything was possible. Calanthe had believed that sheer will alone could conjure the flower.
“I’m a fool,” she muttered.
June’s bell like laughter tickled the shell of Calanthe’s ear. “Yes, you are. And if you keep stealing from the head mistress’s home, I’ll eventually have to report you. Please don’t make me do that, Calanthe. I love you too much.”
Swallowing hard, because the reality was she was an idiot. True, she might only be two hundred summers old, but that was still old enough to understand she’d acted the fool.
“Do you think Galeta has counted the seeds?” she asked, not that she really cared one way or another. She’d covered her tracks well, the thievery couldn’t be linked to her. Well, not unless June decided to give her up. But she knew in her heart her friend would remain loyal so long as Calanthe gave her no cause not to be.
June’s rosebud lips tipped down. “You know she has.” With another long-suffering sigh, June jerked her chin in the direction of the glen. “We need to go, Calanthe, and for Kingdom’s sake, do not come here again. We live in a world where secrets cannot exist for long.”
Snorting with laughter, but not because the situation was terribly funny, Calanthe nodded. “Aye, I suppose we should.”
Stopping June from flitting off by lightly pinching into the base of her moth’s wings she frowned.
“Calanthe?” June’s brows gathered into a vee.
Opening and closing her mouth, Calanthe couldn’t understand what was happening to her. She wanted to talk to her friend, to explain that it was more than a flower. That her soul had literally felt as if it’d cleaved to that of the flower’s. That somehow, in a world where happily ever afters existed, she knew she’d found hers.
But even hearing those words ramble through her mind felt absurd in the extreme.
Releasing her wings, she shrugged and gave her a tight-lipped smile. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
Flitting off Calanthe’s shoulder, June hovered in front of her. “Are you sure?”
Withdrawing her star tipped wand made of vines and ivy from her pocket, Calanthe touched it to the tip of her breastbone. The warmth of her magic infused her limbs, shifting her painlessly from human height back to fairy again. With a shake of her wings, Calanthe nodded. “Let’s go before we’re missed.”
“What did you do with the seed?”
Patting her pocket, Calanthe smiled. “And don’t ask me whether I plan to put it back, because we both know the answer. But I promise you now, I will not steal another. Now, c’mon. I do believe I owe you a race!” And with those words, Calanthe zipped back toward the glen, leaving a golden wake of fairy light behind as she attempted to bury the reality that as much as she didn’t want to, she had to leave the obsession behind before it got her, or June, into serious trouble.
Chapter 4
A freckled tiger lily fairy child raised her hand.
“Yes, Juniper,” Danika nodded.
“Did she get caught?” A thread of fear laced her words, probably because while few of those seated around the campfire had ever heard the doomed tale of Jericho’s and Calanthe’s love, all knew to cross Galeta the Blue was a terribly foolish idea. As young as these fairy children were, they understood the gravity of Calanthe’s situation.
Shrugging a plump shoulder, Danika unfurled her hands in a gesture of “I don’t know.”
“Oh, C’mon, Danika,” the primrose wailed. “You have to tell us something.”
“Yes, Dani. Aye. You must tell us,” a choir of tiny bell like voices buzzed all around.
“Children,” she cocked her head with a stern frown, “the telling of a tale must never be rushed. Never, ever, ever. For how could you enjoy the drama, the romance, the betrayal if I were just to blurt it all out at once? Hmm?”
“Ugh,” ten little voices all grumbled at once.
But regardless of their impatience, Danika knew she held them spellbound. Very young fairy were as hyper and prone to restlessness as newborn pups, to see them all seated so patiently, pressing forward on their seats as their jaws hung open watching the images scroll upon the sky… she suspected that this tale would never be forgotten again.
“Now,” she tapped her chin, “where was I?”
Bouncing up and down on her spongy purple toadstool, the tiger lily fairy raised her hand. “It was the third day!”
“Ah yes,” Danika beamed with a clap of her hands. “It was the third day, the one day a month that Jericho could walk the lands of Kingdom.
And so he did…”
~*~
Siria quirked her brow. “Where are you headed to today, Jericho?”
Kneeling on the balustrade, he stared down at the blank, infinite canvas beneath him. Upon waking, he’d known where he would go.
Calanthe called to him. Awakened a hunger, a fire in him he hadn’t known in far too long. He had no clue how he meant to approach her, but he would. Dressing had taken on new importance today.
He’d washed his body at least three times, more from nerves than because he needed to. He simply wanted to impress her. Where he lived, what he wore rarely mattered. Normally he’d wear a dark robe and leave it at that. There was no one around to care, and Siria’s opinion of him had long since stopped mattering.
But last night after Calanthe had returned to her glen, he’d roamed the sights of Kingdom, hoping to be inspired by men’s fashion. He’d never really been a fashionable man, but well he knew the importance of first appearances.
He’d been astonished to discover how varied men’s fashion was in the different realms. In Eastern lands the garb was loose fitting, almost diaphanous on the body. In Wonderland everything was just… odd. Neverland saw so much pirate wear he’d known he could never pull that off. Finally he’d decided a brown coat and pants would have to do.
“Jericho!” Siria snapped, setting his teeth on edge and forcing him to turn away from the veil slowly coalescing with prisms of color. Night was nigh and his heart clenched in his chest.
“What?”
A look of hurt flashed through her golden amber eyes before quickly being replaced with fury. “You could come visit me. There are no barriers tonight, you are free to join me. I feel we should talk, sort things out.”
Chewing on his bottom lip, he swallowed the angry retort. He had no cause to snap at Siria tonight. She was trying to make things right, he knew that. Felt it deep in his soul, but sometimes the past was too thick with pain, to full of hurt to simply let it go.
“You look beautiful tonight, Siria,” he whispered, because it was the truth and just for tonight he wanted a truce, a ceasefire to their constant sparring.
