She loved this building for its charm and grand old elegance that fit the townscape perfectly. In a favorite daydream she had lived here when the building was new. Would her life have been less painful one hundred years ago?
Not with her mother and the string of abusive boyfriends and less-than-loving foster homes. One hundred years ago she wouldn’t have Mabel Gardiner to point her toward opportunities to take control of her life. Hundreds of other teens who fell through the cracks of the legal system would have suffered as well without Mabel.
Wailing sirens right next to her jarred her out of her musing.
She watched a flurry of EMTs exit an ambulance and dash into the police station behind old City Hall. Probably just another loser of a drunk choking on his own vomit. Like her mother.
“None of my business.” She turned away to examine the bricks and mortar at the corner of the building while she waited for an insurance inspector. Old structures required a lot of maintenance and her insurer made sure Phelma Jo kept the building up to code, the real code, not the variance one she’d bribed the outgoing mayor of Skene Falls to issue her for some other properties. She rented commercial space to eight businesses, and four apartments in this four-story building. The oldest commercial building in a town filled with historical homes and businesses.
“I own you,” she caressed the rough brick. “I won’t let them take you away from me.” Her modern properties didn’t satisfy her the way this old place did. She didn’t even mind the expense of keeping it up. Owning something historic in this town moved her up onto the same social rung as Dick and Dusty Carrick.
“Thinking of the devil!” Dick’s smart red BMW convertible rushed past her. He skewed into a parking space right beside the ambulance and dashed into the station.
“Well, maybe this crisis is my business after all. Dick needs to rescue someone. Now that his sister is engaged to Chase Norton, the town Eagle Scout is at loose ends. I wonder what it will take to divert him…”
“I thought I was the town Eagle Scout,” mused a tall man with flaming red hair and a mask of freckles across his face. His bright green eyes twinkled.
Phelma Jo closed her gaping jaw with a snap. Haywood Wheatland paled in comparison to this drop-dead gorgeous hunk of male.
“And you are?” she asked, standing as tall as she could. Even in sensible two-inch heels, the top of her head barely reached his chin. Unconsciously, she smoothed her glossy dark hair, certain that it had to be bristling.
“Ian McEwen, building inspector for Triple Giant Insurance.” He handed her a business card. “If you are Phelma Jo Nelson, then I think we met one summer when we were kids. Mabel Gardiner is my aunt.”
Phelma Jo inspected the card, rubbing her thumb across the embossed lettering to make sure the ink didn’t smear. It looked authentic. He had a hard hat and industrial length measuring tape attached to his belt, and a clipboard tucked under his arm.
“I know Mabel. She’s never mentioned you.”
“I… um…” He blushed a brilliant shade of red that clashed with his hair. “We lost contact at the end of the last summer I lived with her. She objected to my choice of friends and I objected to… some of her rather strange stories about Pixies.”
Phelma Jo snorted in agreement. “I’ve heard some of her crazy stories. And I am Phelma Jo Nelson. I own the building.” She made a show of checking a note on her smart phone. The name matched the notice she’d received. “What do you need from me to get in and get out as quickly as possible without disrupting my tenants?”
“Access to the roof, the basement, the circuit breakers, heat plant, and a sample of the plumbing. Then I’ll determine what else I need to see based on what I do or do not find.” He flashed a grin. She noticed a twisted front tooth and a bit of an overbite. Not as pronounced as her own.
She smiled back, revealing her own crooked teeth. Unlike Dusty and Dick, neither Phelma Jo’s mother nor a string of foster parents could afford braces for her teeth. Now that she had the means to have them fixed, she flaunted the constant reminder of her humble beginnings.
She felt an instant kinship with Mr. McEwen.
“This way. If you don’t mind, I’ll watch while you work. I don’t allow strangers the run of my buildings.”
“If you insist. But I have to insist you wear a hard hat, too. Never know what kinds of bugs, snakes, and low hanging pipes will ambush you.”
“I don’t scare easily, Mr. McEwen. I have my own hardhat at the entrance to the basement boiler room.”
Seven
DUSTY ESCAPED TO THE BASEMENT of the museum in the late afternoon. M’Velle, the high school senior who worked after morning classes, had the tours covered. She also knew how to redirect the kids who wanted a preview of the haunted maze through The Ten Acre Wood—either to plan their own ambushes or avoid tricks by other kids. An hour before closing they shouldn’t have more than the odd family or individual paying to see the inside. At this time of day, most stragglers contented themselves with the outdoor exhibits, especially the pioneer jail. Kids loved climbing in and out, marveling at the dirt floor sunk three feet below ground level. She knew they’d be disappointed when it was locked up during the weekend evening festivities.
She carried under her arm the fat legal-sized envelope from Mabel’s desk and the missing child poster of a girl she’d never seen but would keep an eye out for. Why had Mabel insisted that Dusty and Chase read the envelope’s contents today? Surely nothing could be more important than getting Mabel to the hospital. The EMTs had fixed an oxygen mask over her face and ended her repeated demands for Dusty to read these papers.
No one objected when Chase removed them from Mabel’s reception and dispatch desk. The entire police department was in a bit of an uproar, not knowing how to replace the woman who had always been there as dispatcher, information officer, mother hen, and organizer. On top of that, a big accident on the interstate had demanded the attention of every spare officer, including Chase.
“Chase is too busy to handle this. So I guess I have to read and report,” she mumbled. Somehow, Mabel’s urgency and the locked drawer suggested a demand for privacy. Dusty never did see how Chase managed to open the lock without a key. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
She cleared and cleaned a light table of fragile potsherds and bits of iron from an archaeological dig conducted by community college students. Page by page, she laid out the documents without reading any, until she could view them all. This was her work pattern, get an overview of all the artifacts, then examine each one more closely.
The top page acknowledged the property at Mabel Gardiner’s address to be a historical house of significance to the city of Skene Falls and therefore it could not be torn down or the exterior altered in such a way as to detract from the architecture typical of its building date of 1883. The document went on to describe the home as the original carriage house and gatekeeper dwelling for a now derelict mansion on the corner of that block known as the Corbett House.
“That old? I hadn’t realized the foundations dated that far back.” Dusty had reviewed and filled out enough applications for historic designation as part of her Masters degree to recognize that nothing varied from the usual.
She moved on to the next paper. The Last Will and Testament of Mabel Louise Gardiner. Dusty’s gaze riveted on the document. She felt as if she was invading the privacy of a respected elder statesman—er—stateswoman? Still, Mabel had demanded Dusty and Chase read the documents in their entirety.
She checked the date. Two months before, the day of the Masque Ball and the day Chase had proposed to Dusty. She raised her eyebrows in wonder. The old woman—no one in town knew exactly how old—had an agenda more complex than Dusty figured. She wound her way through the legalese, familiar with the format from historical documents. Wills said a lot about people and ways of life in previous eras. So did household inventories, and Mabel had a complete one attached to the will.
“Oh, my!” Dusty gasped as sh
e read the first bequest. “This can’t be.”
She read it again. Then she whipped out her cell phone.
No signal in the basement.
She moved to stand beneath one of the high windows at ground level. Still no signal. Too many clouds.
Biting her lip, she put all the papers back in the envelope, wound the string around the button to close it and carried it upstairs to her office.
She heard voices from the second-story bedrooms. M’Velle must be doing a tour. Quickly, Dusty checked the downstairs exhibits starting with the original log cabin space that was now the front parlor and then all the mismatched additions. No one else wandered about, not even the volunteers who came in each afternoon to dust and vacuum. She made a quick call from her office phone to the little house across the park grounds that served as gift shop and ticket sales.
“No guests waiting for a tour,” Meggie, the other high school work-study student reported. “Though I’m having trouble with my costume for the parade. I just can’t see myself as the ghost of a missionary wife. Can’t I do something more interesting, Dusty?”
“Not unless you want to be the ghost of the town Madame. But I think Mrs. Shiregrove has dibs on that job.”
Meggie grumbled something and hung up.
Dusty slipped into her office at the back of the building, adjacent to the enclosed sun porch that had become the employee lounge and work space. She flipped the lock on the door and sat at her desk. She’d reorganized the office and cleared out a lot of half-finished projects once Joe had left. The place actually felt like an office now instead of a cluttered closet.
She hated to think what his new office in the faculty wing of the community college looked like. His two daughters, aged four and six, kept their room tidier than he did.
Three deep breaths later she found the courage to open her cell phone again. The landline tempted her, but that was an open line with many extensions in the lounge and the gift shop, as well as the upstairs hall.
“Norton,” Chase answered. He sounded distracted and harassed.
“Chase, is this a bad time to talk?”
“Yeah, kinda. I’ve got traffic backed up for two miles. Can’t get an ambulance or tow truck in. Gonna have to use life flight. And I need the Jaws of Life to get to the last victim. We think he’s dead, but can’t be sure until we get enough space to reach an arm in and feel for a pulse.”
“I won’t keep you. But call me as soon as you have half a minute. Mabel’s papers are… interesting.”
“Yeah, sure. Later.” He hung up in a hurry, barely getting the last syllable through his teeth.
Thistle stood at the gate in the white picket fence. She scanned all of Mabel Gardiner’s front yard in search of her quarry. This town had a lot of picket fences. She smiled as she remembered childish flying games learning to skip from point to point….
She had to forget that part of her life. For now. The highest calling was to befriend those in need. Her friend Mabel needed her to stay here, in a human body, while she was sick.
Thistle adjusted the backpack full of her clothes and toiletries slung over one shoulder. Enough for five days before she’d have to learn how to use the laundry. Hopefully, Mabel didn’t keep the noisy machines in the basement. Thistle might be human now, but she still feared underground. If the earth didn’t absorb and kill her, her fear of underground might.
Roses spilled over the fence almost the entire length. Even this late in the year, hybrids and old-fashioned blossoms mixed their colors and heady fragrance with abandon. Thistle let the perfume invade every one of her senses. If she still had her wings, she’d be drunk in six heartbeats. How did the local Pixies manage to fly a straight line, let alone infiltrate the entire town spying for Mabel?
An arch stretched over the gate providing a trellis for delicate, pink climbing roses. Their abundance of petals hid a myriad of secrets, including at least one Pixie.
“Rosie, may I enter your garden? Mabel sent me,” she called to the queen of Chicory’s tribe. Since becoming human she didn’t have to ask. But it never hurt to be polite.
“Go away!” Rosie yelled back from the flower directly above Thistle’s head. Only it wasn’t a flower. Rosie had curled up in a ball letting her petal gown mimic the adjacent blossoms.
“Rosie, this is important. Mabel is sick. She sent me here to protect you all until she can come home again.”
“We know. Go away. We don’t need you.”
“Yes, you do.”
“What can you do? You’re a woodland Pixie, as wild as a Dandelion. We’re a civilized, garden tribe.”
“Ask anyone in this district how well I tend gardens,” Thistle shot back, affronted. “A Pixie is a Pixie. We all listen to plants of any variety to learn what they need to thrive.” She shifted her gaze, seeking signs of movement or flashes of color.
All quiet. A few insects fluttered about, gathering the last bits of pollen before hibernating for the winter or dying.
“Rosie, where is your tribe?” Thistle asked suspiciously.
“None of your business.”
“It is my business if they are all off fighting valley Pixies, or… or…” Stars above, could they be attacking the Pixies in The Ten Acre Wood, Thistle’s tribe?
Not that Alder, her king and philandering lover, didn’t deserve to be thrown off his throne. His own tribe was the only one with the right to do that.
Thistle didn’t know for sure. She needed to talk to Alder. Not likely to happen while she was exiled to a human body.
“We’re at war, Thistle,” Rosie said in that superior way of hers. “And there’s nothing you can do about it. We all know where your loyalties lie. And it isn’t in my garden.”
“I understand you are angry because you had to dismiss your betrothed, the one the humans called Haywood Wheatland. But you have to know that my loyalty is to all Pixies, no matter which garden, woodland, or meadow they inhabit,” Thistle insisted, surprised that she truly believed her own words.
“Impossible!” Rosie spat. But she uncurled enough to peer at Thistle, incredulous at this unique idea. “Pixies only look as far as their own tribe and territory.”
“Pixies came together once to set up a treaty to protect the Patriarch Oak and make it available to all. We did that when the Faeries went underhill to avoid having to deal with humans. The cowards ran away, leaving Pixies on their own. We deal with humans all the time and we thrive.” Thistle reached up and held her palm out for Rosie to settle on. “We need to band together to protect what is ours.”
The pink Pixie ignored the offer of friendship. “Your king broke the treaty.”
“Alder may have closed The Ten Acre Wood trying to keep Faeries out as well as Pixies in. The new discount store up on the next ridge is threatening the Faery sanctuary. Haywood Wheatland is half Faery. He misunderstood his orders to clear the wood of all Pixies. He thought he had to clear the wood!”
“Haywood is more admirable than Alder. He tried to do something, rather than run away. That is a cowardly Faery trait. Maybe Alder is the half Faery mutant, not Haywood.”
“Alder is an idiot, but he’s not stupid. I’m well rid of him. And if Milkweed was smart, she’d dump him in the pond and leave on her own.”
“Alder won’t let her.” Rosie stepped away from the twisted canes of the climbing rose to step onto Thistle’s hand. “He’s holding her prisoner.”
“Then we need to mount a rescue operation. And rearrange things so that we all work together.”
“How? No one has done such a thing since the time of the Faeries. No one will believe it can be done.” Rosie fluttered her wings in agitation.
“Then you and I will have to put our heads together along with Chicory and his brothers and figure out a way.”
“But… but…”
Thistle eased through the gate and beneath the arch while she talked.
“But Pixies can’t think ahead. Our lives are here, right now, and nothing more.”
>
“Then let me do the thinking. Please, Rosie. This is important. Life for Pixies is changing. We have to think, not just react. All the tribes will listen to you, and I’ll advise you. You will be important. More important than just one queen among many. That’s something no one can give you. You have to earn it. And to earn it, you have to think.”
“Let me sleep on this. It’s almost sunset. Time for me and mine to hide from the night. You may stay in Mabel’s house for now.”
“I will. I promise.” With a smile, Thistle raised her hand and let Rosie fly away. She took a moment to twirl and bask in the glory of the beautiful garden Mabel had provided for her friends. A sadly neglected garden, but still beautiful in its own ramshackle way.
Eight
CHASE RUBBED HIS HANDS ACROSS HIS face and through his hair, trying to scrub away some of his fatigue.
He stared at his key for a long moment trying to remember what it was for and how to use it. The sounds of ripping metal, the cries of the injured, the wails of the grieving, and the angry honking of horns still rang in his ears. Three of the drivers in the chain reaction accident swore they’d seen a miniature man dressed in yellow, with splotchy red-and-gold wings crash into their windshields.
“He flew right at me, then paused in front of the window to make sure I saw him. I had to swerve to avoid hitting him!” They all dictated variations of that statement. One woman said that when the flying man paused, he flickered in and out of view, “Kind of like a computer monitor saving and resetting. Blink and you miss it.”
All of them had passed the sobriety and Breathalyzer tests. Chase hadn’t dared admit to anyone but himself that a Pixie had been at work. But which one? He had a few ideas about that even before he got the call that Haywood Wheatland had escaped county jail. He’d been spotted in Phelma Jo’s office.
Chicory Up: The Pixie Chronicles Page 6
