None of them looked right or left as they flicked their lighters. In the dull, overcast light of the early afternoon, Dusty saw tiny flames flare and retract with each flick. Panic sent her heart racing. She dropped the specially treated dusting cloth, and dashed through the maze of furniture, cradles, and antique toys for the stairs.
“Call nine-one-one!” she yelled to the volunteer about to start a tour in the front parlor. “Call the police! Call the fire department.”
Dusty swung around the last banister on the ball of her foot, changing her trajectory for the front door.
“Dusty? What should I tell them?” Mrs. Sanderson called after her fleeing back.
“Vandals with lighters,” Dusty panted, not pausing.
Then she was on the front porch, visitors and volunteer crowding behind her. Her training to put the safety of visitors first stopped her in her tracks. “Please, go back inside and call the authorities,” she begged Mrs. Sanderson and the two couples in their early sixties.
“There’s Sergeant Norton coming up behind the boys,” Mrs. Sanderson pointed out.
Dusty’s heart did a little flip of gratitude and love for the man. “Chase will take care of this. But you should call for backup in any case,” Dusty insisted, ushering them back into the parlor.
The moment she closed the door behind them, she took off across the grass, leaping over the herb garden and skirting rhododendrons.
“Stop right where you are,” Chase called to the three boys.
They kept on marching toward the carriage barn as if they hadn’t heard the voice of authority behind them.
“Stop, or I’ll shoot!” Chase drew his weapon with one hand, gesturing for Dusty to move out of the line of fire with the other.
She darted to the side, the third point of a triangle with the boys at the top she and Chase on opposite corners.
The boys trod forward, no longer flicking the lighters on and off. The flames held steady even in the slight wind created by their movement.
Anger at the audacity of these children threatened to overwhelm her.
Then a grinding buzz caught her attention. Keeping one eye on the boys, she searched for the source. No mistaking it for anything but a Pixie on a rampage. From the volume, it must be near. Her eye tracked a blur of yellow movement circling the boys’ heads.
Ding dang chug shplach. A discordant blast of noise accompanied the buzz from the big Pixie. The biggest Pixie she could imagine. It must be at least six inches long, instead of the usual four.
Mouth agape, she stared for half a heartbeat that felt like an eternity. Time seemed to slow down, images coming to her in pixilated slideshow images. Chase raised his gun. The boys took one more step closer to the barn.
The Pixie taunted them all, leaving a trail of dull yellow dust tinged with flaking rust. Pixie dust?
Shouldn’t it sparkle? This was not an ordinary Pixie by any stretch of the imagination.
The lead boy pulled his right arm back, ready to cast the lighter into the rattletrap flatbed farm wagon that sagged and warped in all the wrong places.
Ding dang chug shplach.
Dusty almost caught words along with the awful discord. Something about watching flames climb higher and higher. The words “obey me” repeated over and over.
She knew that voice. Where did she know it from?
The jerky rhythm in the almost singing told her that even if Chase managed to shoot the boy, the lighter would still fly forward.
“No!” she yelled, launching herself in a flying tackle.
Neither Chase nor Dick had been able to bring down an opponent outside the end zone with that move. Dusty drew on memories of early ballet classes, cut short by leukemia, and connected with the boy at waist level, dropping them both to the grass.
He still held the lighter in his hand. The flame floundered in the damp grass.
A shot cracked through the tense air.
She braced herself for pain. She heard a dull thud of a bullet impacting wood and dared breathe.
A quick glance showed the boys looking around in bewilderment, staring at their lighters as if they’d never seen them before.
The big Pixie with red boils on its wings had disappeared in silence.
Chase’s heart nearly stopped as he watched Dusty fall simultaneously with his gunshot. He holstered the weapon as he dashed to her side. Hands and knees shaking, he knelt beside her.
“Dusty? Oh, my God. You can’t be hurt. Tell me I didn’t hurt you!” No blood. That was a good sign. What about the kid beneath her?
She shook her head as she roused, bracing herself on stiff arms. “I can’t see.”
“Where are you hurt?” Chase demanded. “Oh, God. Oh, God. What have I done to you!”
“N… nothing. I don’t think anything’s wrong other than a bullet hole either in my barn or the wagon. And I can’t find my glasses to find out what you did hit.” She shook her head again as if ridding her ears of an annoying sound. “Damn, that gun is loud. Louder than that horribly diseased Pixie.”
Chase searched frantically about until he spotted the wire frames about three feet away. That was some tackle to send her glasses flying that far. With a touch of admiration he picked them up and handed them to Dusty. She wiped the lenses with the hem of her apron before seating them firmly on the bridge of her nose.
“Huh?” the boy on the ground muttered. “Wha… what happened?”
“Good question, boy.” Chase checked the other two boys. They stood rock solid, still staring at their lighters as if they held alien weapons. Not exactly alien, but the weapon of choice of a deranged Pixie. “I need to know why you and your buddies were so intent on setting fire to antique exhibits within the bounds of a city park,” Chase replied. He pulled Dusty to her feet, checking again for visible signs of injury. His hands lingered on her waist while his fingers clenched in relief. And guilt for endangering her. He never should have unholstered his weapon.
“I dunno,” the boy replied. “We was sneaking into The Ten Acre Wood for a smoke during lunch break. Next thing I know I’m on the ground, pinned by a ninety-pound girl. Damn, she packs a wallop. I think she broke my ribs.” He coughed shallowly, holding his middle. “Can I sue?” He looked up at his partners in crime. They stared in bewilderment at him. One flame guttered from lack of fuel, and the boy closed the lighter, pocketing it swiftly.
The other boy looked around for an escape, oblivious to the open flame in his hand.
“Not likely. You were in the process of committing a major crime,” Chase snarled. “With those two. You are all under arrest for criminal mischief. You have the right to remain silent…” He probed the boy’s middle with ungentle fingers while he recited the ritual words.
The boy winced a little when Chase pushed harder on his lower rib cage. No cry of pain, no attempt to roll away from the cursory examination. That told Chase the boy was faking it. A typical criminal ploy: make the victim look more guilty than the perpetrator.
“Dusty, please confiscate the lighters from the other two boys,” Chase said firmly and politely. He handed her a new set of gloves and a plastic evidence bag. No sense taking a chance that the potential hoodlum had a lawyer in the family, or one who was a friend of the family. “Before they take it into their heads to finish the job they started.”
A siren erupted in the distance. The deep bleep between whoops told him both fire and police hastened here. Relief and dread warred inside him. He needed help with the boys. He’d have a devil of job explaining why he fired his weapon. The paperwork alone would keep him at his desk for a week, if the captain didn’t fire him on the spot.
All because of a damn Pixie gone mad with bloodlust and a fascination with fire.
Twenty-one
THISTLE STARED AT THE EMPTY SHELF in the middle of Mabel’s refrigerator. “I knew I put three slices of leftover pizza there just two days ago.”
The refrigerator didn’t answer.
But her tummy did. Her mouth s
alivated at the thought of Canadian bacon, mushroom, olive, and fresh tomato. She was hungry and needed to have some lunch soon, before Dick picked her up to go to the courthouse with that awful paper full of lies. Lies she had written.
Thinking about the lies made her stomach clench and her vision grow dark.
No longer hungry, she straightened up and closed the refrigerator door. Just because she wasn’t hungry anymore didn’t mean she knew what had happened to the pizza.
She sniffed cautiously, separating out the smell of old house damp, weather damp, cereal bowls soaking in the sink damp. That didn’t feel right. She’d used one bowl this morning. One bowl of granola and soy milk. So why were there two bowls in the sink?
Thistle closed her eyes and stilled her body, listening to the house as it settled and shifted in the increasing wind. It sighed through a crack in the attic. Or was it a sob?
Step by step she skipped up the stairs, pausing to listen each time the boards creaked. Nothing changed as she crept past the two bedrooms, Mabel’s large one and the smaller guest room where she nested, not wanting to disturb Mabel’s privacy even though she wasn’t home to be disturbed.
The sobs continued. Not a natural sound even in a house as old as this one.
In the middle of the landing she reached up and yanked on the cord fixed to the trapdoor. A ladder unfolded as the trap descended on well-oiled hinges. Thistle had fixed the creak and groan her fist day here when she hunted out the Halloween decorations.
Alder had said a lost child hid in her territory and that Thistle had to help her before she could go home to Pixie. In a few moments maybe the child would no longer be lost. Thistle intended to do what she could to help. But would she go back to Pixie?
Not just because it was time. She might go back if Pixie really needed her. Might. Not for sure, or forever.
Then she climbed hand over hand, no longer fearful of whoever hid up here, grateful the lost one hadn’t chosen the basement as a refuge.
Thistle’s hand slid on a bit of red wax on the top rung of the ladder. It hadn’t been there two days ago. She’d have noticed the big splotch. She sniffed it and found a hint of cinnamon under the oily stuff that made a candle. The lost one had brought burning candles with her. Not a good idea. Fire had a way of escaping and seeking out Pixie strongholds, just because it could.
“Who… who’s there?” came a trembling voice.
“I’m Thistle. I’ve come to help,” she said softly, scanning the shadows in the far corners of the attic. A faint glow off in the corner went out, leaving behind the smell of something burnt.
“You… you can’t help. No one can.” Something moved in the deep corner to her left, beside a tiny window where the glow had been. The ceiling was low over there, where the roof sloped steeply toward the gutter. Someone could wedge themselves in there and pull a box or trunk in front of them and remain unseen. But not unheard.
“Maybe. Maybe not. I can listen. I’m very good at listening.”
“You aren’t Mabel.”
“No. Mabel is sick. I’m helping her by taking care of her house—and her responsibilities.” Thistle sat on the edge of the attic entrance, feet still on the fold-down ladder. Not threatening the lost one by coming too close or appearing aggressive. Slowly she looked over her shoulder into the dim corner. The light from the window suggested the outline of a head with lank, shoulder-length hair.
“It’s cold up here. We can talk downstairs in the parlor. I’ve turned on the furnace to banish the damp.”
“You won’t throw me out?”
“Not if you have a good reason to stay.”
“Depends on what you call a good reason.”
“Are you afraid of someone?”
“Y… yeah.”
“Then I’ll do everything I can to make sure you are safe.”
“You sure?”
“Cross my heart.” Thistle made the gesture beloved of children for many generations to seal a promise, though she’d rather spin in a circle, asking the four winds to acknowledge her oath.
Floorboards creaked and something heavy slid across warped wood. Thistle sat very still. When she judged that her quarry approached, she turned and backed down the ladder. She held the contraption steady, waiting.
After a few moments a pair of tennis shoes, frayed at the toes, appeared on the top step. Long legs, clad in threadbare jeans, followed. Eventually, a girl just blossoming into womanhood stood beside her. Taller than Thistle by half a hand’s breadth and lean, needing to fill out around her bones, shadows hollowed her cheeks and made dark pits of her blue eyes. Dark blonde hair flopped across her brow as she hung her head, surveying Thistle from beneath lowered lids. She clutched a dirty pink backpack by the straps as if afraid to be separated from her few belongings.
Thistle was willing to bet she didn’t have a jacket or blanket in there; only the filthy sweatshirt from some school that she wore for warmth and protection from the elements.
“Where I come from, it’s polite to share names. I’ve told you mine.”
“Um… I’m Hope.”
“Hope.” Thistle tasted the word. “That is not the name your mother gave you. What do you hope for?”
The girl reared her head back in surprise. “How’d you know?”
“I just know. It’s one of my talents. Now what do you hope for?”
“Something different. Something better.”
“Sounds good to me. Let’s go downstairs and get you warm.”
“Can I have a cup of coffee?”
“Let me look to see if I have any. We can talk in the kitchen while I fix you something hot to drink. It’s warm and cozy in there.”
Hope trailed behind Thistle, still holding her backpack, her eyes darting right and left, wary as a bird trapped on the ground.
“I’ve never made coffee before,” Thistle confessed as she pulled a red plastic jug of the grounds from the cupboard. She hated handling the artificial container. When she’d first left Pixie, anything plastic like bags or jars, or synthetic clothing burned her skin wherever it touched. As she got more and more used to her human body, and human life, the discomfort lessened. She still didn’t like it.
“Where did you grow up? The woods?” Hope found the coffeemaker in a different cupboard and set about brewing a pot.
“Yes, actually.” Thistle pulled the folded papers from her little purse and handed them to Hope. “This explains it. I have to leave in a few moments. We can talk more when I get back. Can I trust you here alone?”
“Of course.” Hope rolled her eyes up as only a teenager could manage.
“Promise?”
“Cross my heart.” The girl made the ritual gesture.
“It would help if I knew what you are running from. Or running to.”
Hope hung her head and bit her lip in a gesture reminiscent of Dusty. After a long moment, she straightened up as if she’d found her courage while contemplating her toes. That posture shift also reminded her of Dusty. Except for the height, she could be a close cousin, or sister.
Or niece.
Thistle froze from the inside out at that thought.
“I’m looking for my dad,” Hope said, defiant in her resolve.
“Who is your father?” Thistle didn’t like the quaver in her voice.
“I… I’ve never met him. I didn’t even know his name until I had this huge fight with my mom.”
The sound of a car pulling into the driveway beside the house startled Hope. She took one frantic look at the back door, grabbed her pack and dashed toward the front of the house. By the time Dick knocked on the back door, Thistle heard the attic trap pulled up to conceal the girl once more.
“I know your secret now, Hope. One of them at least. We can’t let you hide much longer. But you are safe for now. We’ll confront your past together.”
“Thank you for seeing us on such short notice, Judge Pepperidge,” Dick said upon entering the richly appointed office.
“No pr
oblem, Dick.” John Pepperidge waved Dick and Thistle to the straight-backed chairs in front of the desk. At forty-three he was the youngest judge in the county. He had a reputation for intelligence and fairness.
His father, George, was the only candidate for mayor of Skene Falls in November. Phelma Jo had withdrawn from the race after the scandal of the fire and logging off of The Ten Acre Wood.
“I haven’t seen much of you since you and Chase dominated the high school football team,” Judge Pepperidge said.
“Those were the glory days.” Dick smiled, not willing to discuss his checkered academic career with this overachiever who succeeded at everything he tried.
“But you landed in a good career, in spite of yourself,” John Pepperidge laughed good-heartedly. “So introduce me.” He half stood and proffered his hand toward Thistle.
Dick made the introductions. Thistle blushed prettily and didn’t say much. She still looked a little pale after that episode writing out her story. Her gaze remained firmly away from both Dick and the judge. That worried Dick. Lying was such a big part of modern life, he didn’t know if he could follow her example. Or live up to her expectations.
For Thistle, he’d try. As soon as they got through this one huge lie about her past.
Necessary, he reminded himself.
“Now tell me what brings you here?” Judge Pepperidge asked. His eyes returned to Thistle again and again, squinting and puzzling as if he should know her but couldn’t remember from where.
Dick almost laughed. Given Thistle’s wide variety of friends from her Pixie days, spanning several generations, she had probably been influential in Johnny Pepperidge’s life, giving a serious and studious boy the gift of laughter and not taking himself too seriously.
Dick’s mirth flipped to jealousy. Had Thistle kissed the judge in his youth as she’d kissed Dick?
Chicory Up: The Pixie Chronicles Page 15
