by Joyce Lavene
How could Canyon ever have taken his place as Bailiff?
“Jessie.” Chase smiled and held out his hands as though I was a skittish mare. “I know you’re in some kind of trouble. I figured you could use a friendly face and a place to spend the night.”
I got to my feet, excited that I’d made some kind of breakthrough with him. Maybe he was starting to remember who I was and why I was in his life.
“Thank you.” I might not have been interested in spending the night in the woods with Robin Hood, but I’d jump at the chance to spend the night with Chase. “You don’t know what this means to me.”
“Sorry I’m late.” My brother, Tony, came up behind me. “Chase said you’ve been having a nervous breakdown or something. I’m here for you, Jessie. My place isn’t very big, but I’m sure we can squeeze in together for a while.”
I was so stunned that Chase had brought Tony to help me—my crazy brother of all people. Chase knew what a handful he could be. How many times had we bailed him out of trouble?
“Really?” My gaze stayed on Chase’s. “This is it? I spend the night with Tony? That’s the answer?”
Chase’s expression was apologetic. “I’m living with Princess Isabelle at the castle, or I’d ask you to stay with me. Sorry, Jessie. Better Tony than Canyon, if the two of you are breaking up. I could check with Village housing tomorrow to see if anything is available.”
“No. That’s okay. I can figure this out. I can check on Village housing myself, if I need to. Thanks Chase.”
He put his hand on mine. “I’m sorry you’re going through a bad time. Let me know if I can do anything else.”
“Sure.” I managed to smile at him even though tears were welling in my eyes. At least he probably thought it was because I was breaking up with Canyon.
To make matters worse, one of the pop-up, late evening thunderstorms that frequently hit the Village from the Atlantic chose that moment to rear its ugly head. Bursts of thunder and lightning came first, followed by drenching rain that swept the cobblestones and sent what visitors were left quickly out the gate.
Tony and I scrambled too. The last look I had at Chase, he was standing in the rain, watching me leave. Was that a trace of sadness in his eyes?
I couldn’t tell because there was too much rain in mine. And really, I hoped he was miserable without me.
We went to one of the Village housing sheds. It was more like a shack than a house. Several people were living together in three bedrooms, a kitchen, and a bathroom. There was no air-conditioning, and it had a lingering scent of dirty socks. It reminded me of being in college.
Most of the workers who were housed in these places were college and high school students. There were also some full-time, adult employees. I stepped over dirty clothes and avoided discarded bits of armor, wigs, and staffs. There was also a horse’s head and the front half of a cow.
“Mi casa—you know what I mean.” Tony sat on one of the lumpy old chairs. “You can stay here as long as you need to. No one will notice another person.”
“Thanks.” I glanced around the dirty room. I’d lived in places like this over summer break for years while I was in college. I’d finally found my own small space but had given it up to live with Chase.
“What happened to you?” he asked. “You’re usually too well organized for something like this. I guess you didn’t see it coming with Canyon, huh?”
I put my hand to my head. It might be the only opportunity I had to tell anyone what really happened. I knew Tony wouldn’t believe me—might even laugh at me. I didn’t care. It was a release just to say it out loud.
He stared at me with our father’s brown eyes. He was left handed like him too. We were both six feet tall, but it looked better on him. His brown hair had a bit of curl in it from our mother’s side. Mine was stick-straight.
“Hey. That’s pretty cool,” he said when I’d finished explaining. “So you’re a time traveler. How’d you do it?”
That was one question I wasn’t expecting.
“I don’t think this is time traveling. Some of the shops and people in the Village are from ten years ago, but some of them are new. Even worse, some of the people are dead.”
Tony sat up straight. “Like who? Am I dead in the future? Is Chase dead? What about that hot girl that sells pretzels down by the Field of Honor?”
“You’re not dead,” I assured him as a few other people wandered into the conversation. They wanted to know if they were dead in the future and if I could help them time travel. Before I knew it, the entire room was filled with young men who wanted to know if I’d used a time machine and where I’d stored it.
It was a long evening full of flat beer and leftover pizza with the rain beating down on the roof. I really hadn’t meant to spark a conversation about whether or not time travel was possible, or if it was happening in the Village. After one in the morning, I just kind of fell asleep in the hard chair. The voices around me kept going until much later.
But I woke abruptly when my cell phone chimed at five a.m. I’d never set an alarm on it. If I had, it certainly wouldn’t have been for that time of the morning. The Village didn’t open until ten. Nights were late here. No one got up before nine.
It took me a few minutes to turn off the alarm. By that time, I was completely awake. The living room was empty, but I could hear snoring from the bedrooms around me.
“Good morning, dear. I hope you’re feeling better this morning.”
I glanced around and finally found a short, older woman sitting in the chair beside me. She was smiling at me and kicking her little feet about a foot off the floor. She was dressed in a bright blue version of Little Red Riding Hood’s hood, cape, and gown.
“I guess I’m okay,” I answered carefully. “Who are you?”
She giggled, kicking her feet until her layers of blue petticoats were bouncing. “I’m Starshine, your fairy godmother, of course.”
Chapter Four
“Of course.” I got out of the chair and stretched. My back hurt and my legs were numb. “I’m going to get breakfast now, if I can find anything besides cold pizza to eat. I’ll see you later.”
“I’d rather go with you, if you don’t mind. We have a lot to talk about and very little time to act on the problems that have been created by your wish.”
“My wish?” I just thought yesterday was weird. “I don’t remember making a wish.”
“Silly girl. I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t made a wish.” Starshine tapped my cheek with her finger. “I suppose I would technically still be in Renaissance Faire Village if you hadn’t made that wish, but I certainly wouldn’t be in this hovel. I don’t think you would be either.”
Her voice was beautiful. It had a chiming quality to it that made it sound as though she were singing. Her hair was long and silver. It hung down her back past her waist. She was only about three feet tall, and that might only have been if she was stretching.
“Okay. I’m in. Why not?” I stared at her as I ran my fingers through my hair so it wasn’t sticking up all over my head. “What wish did I make?”
She cleared her throat. “I wish that Chase wasn’t the Village Bailiff.”
I sat down again. “How did you know I said that?”
“Because I’m your fairy godmother. I hear all your wishes, Jessie, even the ones I think might be better off left unwished—such as this one. There are catastrophic side effects to this kind of wish that most people just don’t realize.”
“I’m asleep, right? Maybe I’m in a coma or something which would explain everything that happened yesterday and you too, with your tiny little feet. No one can walk on feet that small.”
She had feet that would have been too small for some large dolls. And she kept kicking them.
“Or you made an unwise wish and you’re dealing with the aftermath.” She smoothed back her fine hair with a tiny hand.
For just a moment, I was terrified. Was this real? Was she right? Had I lost my m
ind?
Then I realized that no one really had a fairy godmother. No one is out there granting crazy wishes for unsuspecting museum directors. It was all part of the prank—a prolonged, carefully planned and executed prank to be sure. But still a prank.
“Okay. Thanks for the information. I have to go.” No one was fooling me with this, and someone was going to pay when I pranked them later.
“No. Wait. You can’t go out looking that way,” she said.
“Are you gonna change this to a poofy, sparkly gown so I can go to the ball?”
“Some people are so hard to learn,” she told me. “I gave you exactly what you asked for. What more do you want?”
“If you really did this to me, did you think I’d be grateful?” I demanded. “Chase isn’t Bailiff anymore—Canyon is. Chase is with Princess Isabelle, and I’m alone. I’m not the museum director, I’m back doing apprenticeships. None of this is a wish come true.”
She smiled very kindly as though she were dealing with a slow child. “Except for the part about Chase not being Bailiff anymore. That wish has been granted. It’s not my fault that you don’t like the repercussions. That happens sometimes when people haven’t thought through their wish. But you can change that.”
“Change my life back to being happy again?” I mocked her.
“That’s right. But just as you have side effects from your original wish, there could be side effects from you making changes to it.”
I didn’t know if I should scream or sit down and have her tell me what I should do. My life had taken a turn for the weird. Maybe it was the fault of a bad wish. Everything that had changed seemed to have something to do with me or Chase. If I could put everything right again, maybe it would change back.
“Let’s say I believe you.” I started pacing the miniscule uncluttered area of the room. “What would I have to do to change things?”
“Well, you’d certainly want to make Chase fall in love with you again. When you took the part of him away that wanted to be Bailiff, you lost the part of him that wanted to be with you. Human beings are very complicated that way. It’s difficult to change one tiny part of them without changing other aspects.”
“Okay. I took him away from Princess Isabelle once. I could probably do it again. I’d need the right circumstances, but I’m sure he still loves me. He just doesn’t know it right now.”
“And you’d have to solve the murder of the poor fairy that innocently came to the Village with perfectly good intentions, only to find herself struck down in her prime.”
“You mean Apple Blossom? What does that have to do with me and Chase?”
“I would’ve thought that was completely obvious, Jessie. Use your brain, please do. You have to get Chase to help you solve the murder. It was the basis for your wish.”
“In other words if Chase doesn’t get interested in being Bailiff again—”
“No happy ever after for the two of you.” Her miniature, wizened face was sad as she wiped a tear from her eye.
“Wait a minute. If you knew this was going to happen when you granted my wish for him not to be Bailiff, why didn’t you tell me?”
“I had no idea, my dear. Not that I could have stopped you from making your wish.” Starshine straightened her shoulders. “Fairy godmothers have a certain code of ethics.”
“Which doesn’t include telling someone if they’re going to make a wish that will ruin their lives?”
“That’s right. Now, what’s your plan?”
“I don’t know. I need coffee and a cinnamon roll for my brain to function. Let’s go.”
She came along readily. The small wings on her back beat rapidly like a humming bird as she lifted up from the chair and accompanied me out the door. That really threw me. I had to be imagining all this.
Morning sunshine and the hard feel of cobblestones beneath my booted feet made me feel better. Yet, there she was beside me. Her small head bobbed back and forth like a child’s checking for traffic before crossing the street. I decided to check my own sanity and ask the first person I saw if he could see her.
It was an older pirate, one of those that had been around for many years. He wore his hair braided and had a large, real, black mustache that draped across his face.
“Good morrow to you, sir,” I said with a respectful head bow. “I was wondering if I might ask a boon of you.”
He eyed me with the red-eyed gaze of someone who hadn’t slept the night before, and reeked of rum. “Why certainly, lass. What is it ye need?”
“Here. On my right. Do you see anything?”
With one eye closed, he scanned the space beside me. “What is it yer looking for?”
“A fairy, good sir. She is little more than two feet high, dressed in a blue cape, and flying with tiny wings.”
The pirate burst out laughing. “Ye obviously had an even better night than myself, lass. I only saw a green dragon on my way here! Good day to ye.”
He was still laughing as he left.
“There.” Starshine smiled. “Does that make you feel better, Jessie?”
“I wish it did. But when Wanda was dead, some people could see her and some couldn’t. He might be one of those who couldn’t.”
“And did that make Wanda any less real?”
“No.” I grunted. Why did all the crazy magic have to come my way? “Let’s get some coffee.”
I hadn’t realized where Tony had brought me last night. It had been raining too hard, and I’d been too upset to notice.
We were actually close to the camel and elephant enclosure. I could smell them and hear the elephants bellowing. It was a long walk across the Village Green to reach the Monastery Bakery. I could have stopped at one of the spots on this side of the Village, such as Sir Latte’s Beanery, but I preferred the coffee at the bakery. And I really needed a cinnamon roll.
The grass was wet and deep, lush green in the humid morning air. My boots were very thin and soaked right away, along with the hem of my gown. I hadn’t wrangled with Portia at Stylish Frocks for a new costume in a long time. I wasn’t looking forward to it. But sleeping in damp clothes made anything sound better.
“This is such a wonderful place,” Starshine twittered as we crossed the Village. “I can understand why you’d want to live here.”
We went past several performers practicing for the day. Lord Maximus had his birds of prey out, swooping down from the pale blue morning sky to get their treats. Galileo was setting up his telescope and table where he lectured on heavenly bodies—including the lovely young women who visited him.
William Shakespeare aka Pat Snyder was having an in-depth conversation with Sam Da Vinci who was a regular at the Village. The Tornado Twins, Diego and Lorenzo, were trying to make their pet pig follow Lady Godiva in her flesh-colored body suit. But the little pig was too afraid of the beautiful white horse she rode.
“It’s rather like living at the circus, isn’t it?” Starshine asked. “You never know where to look next.”
“That’s true,” I agreed. “I love it. I always have. Chase does too.” I frowned. “Or at least he did.”
“Cheer up. Chase is still the same man you’ve always known and loved. You’re the same person too. Life is different because of your wish, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be together again.”
“Maybe your wishes should come with warnings.”
She frowned. “You might be right. People are more complicated now than when I was a girl. There was less to get wrong when things went bad, you understand.”
“When was that? When were you a girl?”
“Let me see.” She screwed up her face. “I think it’s been a while. I believe—no wait—I’m sure. The real Da Vinci was painting then.”
“You’ve been alive for hundreds of years?”
“In one form or another.” She stopped moving before we went through the door into the Monastery Bakery. “Perhaps there’s something else I should tell you. I don’t want it to come as too great a s
hock to you.”
But before she could tell me, Canyon saw me and came over.
“Jessie. My lady.” He made a gallant try at a graceful bow. “Why are you telling everyone that I kicked you out? I didn’t even know we’d broken up until Manhattan told me. Is something wrong between us? You know I’d do anything to make it right.”
To prove himself, he put his arms around me and began kissing my neck.
Across his shoulder, I saw my fairy godmother clapping her little hands and smiling.
“Whose side are you on anyway?” I hissed. “This isn’t Chase.”
“No. But it is the present Bailiff who will be involved in the murder case. This is your chance to start back to where you want to be.”
She was right. But she didn’t have to be so happy about it.
“Are you on your way in for coffee?” Canyon asked.
“Yes. I’m so glad I ran into you.” I smiled like I was happy about it too. “I wanted to talk to you about the murder in the Village. Have you started investigating that yet?”
“Not really.” He held the rounded door open for me. “You know how I hate these things. I was hoping Detective Almond might solve it before I had to get involved.”
Starshine flew in with us like a large, blue bird. She hovered at a table. Canyon and I took a seat.
The rough wood tables and chairs fit the Renaissance air of the bakery. This was the only place in the Village where no one paid the employees. The monks of the Brotherhood of the Sheaf took their vows to make bread seriously and did so in a religious fashion. I wasn’t sure with the changes around me who was head monk at this time. I saw Brother Carl in his black robe, but Brother John was also there.
“I’ll get us some coffee and cinnamon rolls,” Canyon offered. “I know how you like it, honey. You just sit right here and relax.”
He was trying to be nice. He just wasn’t Chase.
Starshine made a buzzing sound that I hoped she wouldn’t do very often. It reminded me too much of a large bee.
