by Jill Nojack
"But..."
"No buts, Bobby. I know you didn't start that fight, but did you try to stop the gnome from hurting that boy?"
"No...but..."
"Bobby, gnomes aren't pets. I don't know what they are, but they're definitely not pets. I've told you that I don't like you playing with them even though your mother doesn't seem to mind. I don't feel safe about you being around magical creatures."
"But Lizzie is magical, too!"
"Lizzie has an...affliction. Lizzie is different," Steve said, but in his heart, he knew that he had real concerns about what his daughter had become. He hated himself for it, but he didn't feel comfortable with Lizbet's wings, Tanji's ears, the gnomes, pixies, or any of the other fae and magical creatures he'd heard about. He also didn't like that mouthy gruagach Lizbet treated like an old friend. If he had his way, she'd be forbidden to associate with it.
Out of the corner of his eye, Steve saw movement. He looked toward the picture window, and he saw something disappearing from view at the bottom of the frame as he turned. He walked to the window and looked down. Gnomes. Filthy, disgusting gnomes.
"Unbelievable! Bobby, are these the gnomes from your mom's house?" He motioned to Bobby to come to the window and take a look.
Bobby moved to the window and looked down at the gnomes. They looked back up at him, giant grins lighting all of their faces when they saw him, "Yeah, that's Gurrdenn, Kaluum, and...I don't say the names of the other ones right."
"Do they always follow you like this?"
"I guess so. Gurrdenn got into my backpack yesterday, and I didn't know he was there. I told you I didn't mean to take him to school. See? Now you know it's true."
The gnomes called out to Bobby and motioned for him to come play. They began a game that looked similar to tag but also included apparently friendly slaps and kicks. Because they were gnomes, flatulence was involved.
How can anyone stand this? thought Steven. He took out his cell and dialed a number that had been playing on the local radio station for days. "Hello. Yes, is that Ron? This is Steve Moore, Lizbet's father, and you can definitely help me...I'd like to arrange for a gnome removal."
By the second day of school, Lizbet felt better than she had since Fae Day. She didn't have a headache, and when she woke up, she felt fully rested for the first time in a long time. Tanji had been right—the first day of school had been rough, but a lot of people had gotten over the novelty of her wings by the end of the day. Now most people were interacting with her pretty much the same way they always had. It was okay to be at school with no one staring at her.
"Hey, Moore- you going out for track this year?" A friend from last year's team called out from behind while hurrying to catch up.
"Nah," Lizbet replied, "Not so much into the athletic kick this year. I thought I'd focus on my studies."
"Man, that's too bad. You were one of our strongest runners for relay."
"Yeah, whatever. Just not into it anymore, I guess." She didn't want to tell anyone the truth because it hurt too much to talk about it. At the end of the day before, the track coach had sought her out to tell her that the school district administration had voted unanimously to disallow "magically altered" students from competing on the teams. It really stung her when the coach she looked up to practically told her she thought Lizbet was a freak.
Not that the coach was wrong about her. She was a freak. She wished she could take it in stride like Tanji did, even embrace it, but she couldn't.
At least she still had her bike to get a workout if she couldn't be on a team, and she was riding to dad's after school to see Bobby. She hadn’t realized how much Bobby had gotten lost in the shuffle in the past month, and she felt bad about that when her mother mentioned it in her gentle way. She also realized she would be feeling better about everything if she'd been spending time with her brother, being normal, instead of sitting around feeling sorry for herself. Bobby’s joyful approach to life could always cheer her up on a bad day.
The bike ride to school that morning had gone a long way to clear her head and give her some perspective. She was going to make some changes, and the first one was to make sure Bobby knew she hadn't ditched him.
Thomas watched James from the window of their flat. James had popped out to the shops on his own to purchase their dinner, but he was never truly on his own anymore. Three wisps trailed behind him, causing the sidewalk to clear of human traffic around him as he walked. No one wanted to come in contact with the wisps.
The wisps looked the way most people imagined ghosts looked: ephemeral, a milky blue-white, and transparent, no more than a foot wide and three or four feet long. But they weren't ghosts. Each wisp had a small living essence in addition to the magic leftover from the body of a partial fae.
Usually, the wisps floated randomly with no apparent purpose, searching for the feel of their missing half among the humans so that they could be corporeal again. Thomas could feel the magic in them all the time when they were near.
James said he couldn't feel their magic, but they were drawn to him just the same. He thought it was because they could sense Myrddin's memories inside him, and those memories were missing the magic that had once been a part of him. Thomas believed that if James were to open himself to the wisps, they could merge with him, and he would have natural magic again.
James wouldn't discuss it, but Thomas was sure that if James really remembered what he was passing up, he’d change his mind. All he needed was to feel the energizing, electric glow of magic investing the cells of his body again. James had helped Thomas start a new life after he lost his memories. It had become Thomas's fondest desire to give James back the gift of magic in return.
When Lizbet got to her English class and slid into the seat next to Tanji, her friend said, "Eamon says hi. You should go visit him."
"When did you see Eamon?"
"Yesterday. He's helping me with some stuff for the blog I'm doing for Dad's business. Dad says the business shouldn't just be about 'pest control' but also about helping people understand magic and what to do when they come across either a potentially dangerous or potentially friendly new beastie. I think it's great! But...I do need some help, so I hunted Eamon down and dragged him away from the cows for a while."
"He's still hanging out with those cows? Last time I saw him, he said he wanted to go back to Scotland."
"Yeah, I don't know why he's still hanging around here…especially since his great bud Lizbet never visits. But he did mention getting back to the other gruagachs sooner or later. I think he's lonely," Tanji said, "So that's why you should go see him."
"I can't tonight. I promised I'd go see Bobby for a while. He's really upset about what happened at school. I guess Mom thinks he was hanging out with the gnomes so much because the rest of us weren’t paying any attention to him. So, I kind of feel responsible for what happened."
"Yeah, you kind of feel responsible for everything lately," Tanji said as the teacher arrived and the class quieted.
Lizbet strained her way up The Hill, wishing she hadn't stopped riding for so long. The Hill took a much bigger toll on her muscles and motivation than usual, but she resisted the temptation to make it easier by getting off and walking.
She took a moment at the top of The Hill to rest and look upward at the hawks gliding on the air currents above, envying them the easy use of their wings. Then she crossed the road, threw her leg over her bike again, and gave a few quick turns on the pedals before she stood up with one hand out to the breeze to coast down the long, steep slope.
Flying. That's what the coast down the hill feels like. No wings needed. It was the one marvelous thing she could count on when everything else in her life was wrong—that moment when she felt like she was flying.
And then she realized that there was more than coasting going on—her feet lifted off the pedals, and she no longer felt the seat beneath her although she still held the bike with one hand. Then she had to let the handlebar go as the front wheel
left the ground and she lifted off the bike completely. She watched her precious bike bounce into the weeds at the side of the path and topple over, then come to a stop, but she was still moving on the air, free as a hawk.
Her wings didn’t flap, although they were spread wide as they often were without any conscious action on her part. Obviously, it didn’t matter that her wings were useless. She was flying.
Eamon stood at the bottom of the hill, watching the girl descend and then start to rise as her bike fell away beneath her. He muttered to himself, "Fine time to take charge of the magic..."
Eamon ran below her on the path and yelled up to her. "Are ye alright, then? Have control of the situation-like?"
"No, I do not have control of the situation-like! How do I stop?"
"Aim for a soft spot, lass...I see one—follow me!"
Eamon headed for a patch of swampy ground just off the path. The sodden moss underneath squished and sucked at his feet, but he kept running until he found the driest spot and called the girl to him, "Alright, lass, focus on coming toward me."
Lizbet veered slightly toward him, but she took her eyes off him for a moment and traveled back up, following the direction of her gaze.
"Keep your eyes on me now, and think about comin' down. Just gently, gently..." Eamon watched as the girl's flight slowed, and she shifted toward where he was standing. The descent looked awkward, her wings slapping about now but not in a way that seemed to be helpful.
"That's right, lass, focus only on me and think about how you'll be standing here having a conversation in just a moment."
Lizbet slowed, and her feet moved toward the earth as she continued on her uneven flight toward Eamon.
"That's right, put down the landing gear and reach out toward the earth..." Eamon jumped out of the way as one of Lizbet's feet hit the ground a few feet in front of him but her body kept coming forward. She flopped into the moss with a wet whump and pushed herself up on her hands to reveal a face full of muddy water.
She broke into a broad grin. "That was the most amazing thing I've ever done! How do I do it again?"
"I couldn't tell ye. Why not just try?" asked Eamon.
She stood up and took a few steps, and then flew a couple of feet before she landed in the mud again. This time, it was a gentler landing.
"Now, I'm no expert on this, mind, but perhaps you should think lifting more than rolling-like, do ye know what I mean—helicopter take off instead of plane? That might give a better landing."
"A better landing would be good." Lizbet stood up straight with an expression of concentration, her eyebrows rising just a little, as if they could lift her up all by themselves. She rose slightly and hung there. Then she moved forward and back again. With a smile on her face, she turned and flew higher into the sky, going straight up in a controlled spiral.
Eamon smiled when he heard her raucous laughter from above. No doubt about it, he hadn't been wrong about this one. This girl, covered in mud and howling like a banshee, was born to be fae.
CHAPTER SIX
Come Fly With Me
Lizbet called Bobby's cell and said, "Hey runt, come outside. I'm here." Then she looked up and followed in the direction that she gazed. When she reached the balcony and her head crested over the railing, the gnomes that were sitting with their backs to the wall under the picture window of the apartment looked up in fright, jumping to their feet, ready to fight. They lost interest quickly after they identified her, muttering in gnomish, "not the queen, not the queen." Lizbet understood what they said and realized they had mistaken her for Morgan. She thought it was odd that they would do that. The fae had been in her nineties when she'd split from the human Morgan, and, according to Eamon, she’d had been stuck with her elderly appearance in the shadow realm.
When Bobby opened the apartment door, she was hanging in the air on the far side of the second-floor-walkway railing, fluttering her wings a little bit just for the effect. She was beginning to understand that flight and direction was simply a matter of will.
"Lizzie! You're flying!"
"Yep, I'm flyin'. And it's super cool. When you're not grounded anymore, we can see if I'm strong enough to take you for a ride, too. The flying Moores! Woohoo!"
"NO!" Lizbet's father growled as he appeared in the doorway, pulling Bobby behind him and away from her, "Elizabeth, get away from him. Go home. I don't want him around magic. I've had enough. Your mother may put up with this, but I won't."
Lizbet's head started to pound, and she realized she was losing control of the magic that kept her afloat. She began to drop toward the ground a story below, picking up speed as she went. She landed hard, twisting an ankle when she lost her balance as she hit the ground.
She heard her father's voice call down to her from the balcony, "Are you okay?"
"I'm okay, dad. I think I twisted my ankle, though." Lizbet looked up to the balcony where her father peered over with a look of disgust twisting his features. Her heart ached. She had expected to see concern.
"Good. Nothing serious, then. I'll call your mother to pick you up. You need to stay away from Bobby until you realize that magic is dangerous and wrong."
"But dad..."
"Lizzie, you heard me."
"Okay, fine, but don't call mom. I'll call Tanji and ask her for a ride home. Mom doesn't need any more worries!" Lizbet used the pillar of one of the columns that held up the walkway to carefully get herself up onto her good foot. She checked out the ankle with a tentative step and immediately withdrew her weight from it.
Lizbet didn't want Mom to see Dad this way. She was stressed out enough as it was with Bobby's suspension. And, maybe, Lizbet was a little bit afraid that her mother would take her father's side this time.
Thomas sat pondering in the light of a small desktop lamp after having reviewed all of James's notes about the spells Myrddin thought he should learn. None of them would help him to put magic back into someone who no longer had it.
Wasn't getting magic back a form of healing? To him, it was. If James had that knowledge, he should share it. But he also knew that he couldn't ask James for it. He knew that James didn't see himself as broken or lacking in any way without magic.
James had made it clear in their long, late-night discussions that he thought of magic differently than Thomas did: he saw it as academically interesting, something that he could study. He didn't see it as a way of life he should be living.
James was Thomas's only friend. As far as he knew, the only friend he'd ever had. Thomas wanted James to be able to feel the same passion he did for magic. He wanted James to understand the pure physical connection to the elements that magic gave its host. It was an amazing feeling, and it lifted you above the mundane people all around. It was such a gift that James surely couldn't refuse it if it were given to him.
It was really just a question of how to cause James's body to absorb the magic of a few of the wisps that were so drawn to him. He'd thought about it for days, and sitting pondering in near darkness wasn’t bringing him any nearer to sorting it...but then…it was easy, wasn’t it? Why hadn’t he cottoned to it before? It was so simple, and it only required a small trick to accomplish. James would forgive him the trick later when he was once again the powerful sorcerer Myrddin had been. Thomas was sure of it: James would want to be healed, even if he had to be tricked into it.
He wondered if he had time to prepare his gift before they left for the States. He headed for the kitchen and his ever increasing cache of potions.
Lizbet popped the front tire off her bike, and Tanji stowed both pieces in the trunk of her car. Lizbet limped around to the passenger side door, carefully arranging her warm-up jacket across the seat before sitting down so she didn’t get mud on the upholstery.
"I think I can do something about your ankle," Tanji said as she slid into the driver's seat, "Let's go out to the park before I take you home and find a quiet place where I can focus."
"You mean you can heal it?"
"M
aybe. I've been dying for a real human to practice my voodoo on."
"Sure, okay. I guess I trust you on this. Can you heal my dad's screwed up head, too? I really don't know what's up with him. He basically told me that I can't see Bobby until I stop having anything to do with magic. It's not like I can suddenly stop being half-fae." Lizbet's head was pulsing fiercely with the pain now, "And do you think you can do anything about my achy head?"
"I'm pretty sure I can't do anything about your head. I keep telling you, that's not a normal headache. Until you realize that ol’ fae is in there making trouble, you're not going to beat her…I am sorry about your dad, though. My parents have been superstars about everything. Not that my mom has been around anymore than usual. But when I see her, she's cool with it."
"My dad has always been strict, but..."
"Just say it, girl. It sucks."
"Yep. It definitely does."
"Okay, so...we're here," Tanji said as she pulled into a parking spot at the park, "Think you can hobble into the woods a little way with my help? I feel more focused with the magic when I'm away from technology and out in nature."
Lizbet opened the car door and gingerly lifted herself up, favoring her healthy leg. "Yeah, I'm good...but not too far, right?"
"There's a really nice spot through here. It's just a short walk. This is more of a game trail than a path, so we'll have to take it slow." Tanji walked to Lizbet, who threw an arm around Tanji's shoulders, and the girls moved slowly along the path together with Lizbet trying not to wince each time her sore ankle got jostled.
After about ten minutes, the path opened to a small, sunlit meadow, and Tanji helped lower Lizbet to the ground. Lizbet crossed her legs, and Tanji sat across from her in the same position.
