She was prodding Gwen to a question, pushing her to ask about the Piper and his weaknesses, but she wasn’t interested in that. The remark pushed her to another train of thought.
“Don’t mermaids have weaknesses, too?”
Lasiandra splashed onto her back, relaxing, but also bracing herself for a more defensive role in the conversation. “Doesn’t everyone?”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
“But giving you an answer.”
“Don’t mermaids have weaknesses, too?” Gwen repeated.
Cornered, Lasiandra’s options were to directly refuse the question or give an honest answer. On almost every issue, she would sooner tell the truth than alienate her landmaid friend with secrets. Gwen sometimes felt bad for bullying her friend into talking like this, but it was not a potent guilt when it was clear what lengths Lasiandra went to in order to obscure the meaning of her words.
“Mermaids aren’t so different from one another, the way people are,” she answered. “We’re simpler for it. This idea of conflicting desires… there’s no such thing in the dark of the ocean. There is only survival and death, swimming and stagnation, desire and disregard. What we desire… we desire it to the same depths that we swim.”
“And what do you desire?”
“That’s where we differ. Different mermaids have different passions.”
“What do you desire?” Gwen pressed.
Lasiandra had a sly and melancholy look in her eyes, which she refused to show to Gwen directly. Staring back at the stars again, she admitted, “I love it too much to betray it to you.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“I didn’t say that,” Lasiandra said, denying nothing. “But if you wanted something with the same desperation, you would understand.” She looked back to Gwen and smiled. “Maybe someday you will, and we’ll finally be able to bend the stars’ magic in a sky glass and help each other.”
Gwen giggled as the thought of Jay flashed into her head. “I think I might be getting closer,” she whispered.
Lasiandra leaned in, her body slinking forward with her interest. “Do tell.”
The mermaid floated flat on the lake, only one ear out of the water as Gwen lay down on the grass beside the lake. Gwen talked until her throat felt dry, telling her friend everything she could think to say about Jay and the wonderful world in which he—and she—lived. Explaining her suburban reality to a mermaid and looking at it through her curious eyes, she saw a new sort of magic in what she’d had before Peter had whisked her away to Neverland.
She liked talking to Lasiandra. She spoke freely and excitedly, watching as her friend melted into candid and enthusiastic reactions. When Gwen was in control of the conversation, there was none of the clever obfuscation that Lasiandra instinctively applied in order to avoid being too revealing. As she explained falling asleep on Jay’s couch and in his arms, Lasiandra reached out and clutched Gwen’s hand, holding it tight with delight. “That’s so wonderful,” she declared. “He really does care for you, doesn’t he?”
Gwen held Lasiandra’s hand back, squeezing it to communicate all that she couldn’t as she smiled at the stars.
Gwen returned to Tiger Lily’s well before dawn. Her body fell like a rock into bed and into sleep. Most of the morning disappeared while she slept, but Rosemary’s jangling laughter in the other room woke Gwen up before noon. This felt like a definitive victory to her. She was getting up early, compared to the past few days.
Rosemary was as disappointed as the fairies to be regulated to the trailer in daylight hours, but Tiger Lily was used to entertaining children. Her arsenal of manufactured toys and library of picture books were a novel treat for a lost child like Rosemary, who derived a happy satisfaction from reading to Gwen and telling stories to her storyteller. Tiger Lily also had an impressive collection of familiar cartoons on DVD, and Rosemary wanted to watch all the old shows she’d never seen before.
It galled Gwen to think these staples of her childhood had never reached Rosemary. It felt like her little sister belonged to a different generation altogether. When they were both old ladies after half a century in the same millennial era, the cultural intake of their childhoods would seem a trivial thing… but right now, the difference seemed just as massive, if not more, than their age gap.
Tiger Lily left in the afternoon to run errands and have a coffee date with a friend, but returned in persistent good spirits midway through an episode of Kim Possible. Gwen helped her unload groceries from her car—a dented, grey sedan that looked like it had been running shoddily, but reliably, for the past twenty years. While they filled the fridge with food, and shooed the fairies away to keep them from getting trapped in the refrigerator, Rosemary’s attention remained glued to colorful action and cartoon dialogue. Mrs. Hoffman would have had a fit about so much TV in one day, but it seemed natural to binge in front of a screen after literal months of nothing but playing outside.
Gwen’s mind wandered as she unloaded apples and oranges into the fruit drawer, and curiosity prompted her to ask, “Tiger Lily… do you have a job?”
“No,” she chuckled, shuffling frozen foods around her freezer to make space for boxes of pot pies, “I never saw the attraction of those.”
“If you don’t mind me asking,” Gwen continued, “where do you get your money?” It was an impolite question, but she knew Tiger Lily wouldn’t take offense.
“Reparations,” she answered. “They give me enough to stay comfortable.”
It didn’t occur to Gwen until much later that she should have asked whether the reparations came from the Bureau of Indian Affairs or the Magic Relocation Program.
The rest of the day dwindled away in front of books, TV, and toys. The music box and other magical items stayed tucked away, but Gwen fidgeted with the invisible thread Dawn had given her from Irene. She kept it on her at all times, but couldn’t tell if the artifact was reassuring her or feeding her anxieties.
As much time as Gwen devoted to thinking about Jay and her own world, she leapt at the opportunity to be drawn into Rosemary’s world, where no concerns carried over from one day to the next. Her little sister didn’t so much as mention tomorrow, but stayed perfectly present in her afternoon activities until, at last, night fell and broke the childish spell. Purpose seized her spirit as soon as it was dark, and Rosemary was impatient from that moment forward. She insisted she hold onto the mysterious patch, then ran back and forth between the stopped clock and pitch-black window, waiting for it to get either later or darker.
When they finally headed out with Hawkbit and Foxglove, Gwen struggled to keep pace with Rosemary’s flight. Stray snowflakes rolled down from the sky, as white as the girls’ breath. They had bundled up as tight and warm as possible, and didn’t see anyone else out on such a cold and dark Sunday night as they flew to the town center.
They landed inconspicuously all the same, and dashed over to the center of the shopping plaza to continue what they had started the night before. The fountain had been shut off at the end of the weekend in preparation for the chilly temperatures that now threatened to freeze pipes. The fairies stayed in the warm spider-silk purse for fear of dropping dust in the cold. Snowflakes moved down with languid grace, melting on impact with the ground.
Rosemary cranked the music box, and Gwen took a deep breath before launching into her gibberish song. She felt the words vanish from her mouth in the same eerie way her breath vanished in the air, and sensed something was different tonight. Pushing past the feeling, she continued to sing, longer than she had last night. The rats seemed reluctant to venture out from wherever they were hiding from the cold.
Vet mey pollar popping linguid gibber
Tosher lon fet fasten dayton mey tu
Winch toom tapper hashling getly gego
Reser, ebber, vet milday widder roo
The rats wandered toward her on hesitant paws. Their presence concerned her more than their reluctance to come, and Gwen was taken aback w
hen she saw how many more rats had come tonight. It was as if news of this summoning had trickled down their grapevine and drawn even more to come listen to Gwen’s nonsense song. Did the tune mean anything to the rats? Certainly, these rats had never heard the Piper’s song in person.
Twenty rats lined up in front of the girls, their tiny bodies shaking whenever a chilling snowflake fell on their dark fur. They came so close, Gwen could watch their bodies flex as they breathed. The biggest rat didn’t seem to be the same one from last night. This one was even larger. The fairies hid deeper in the spider-silk, not wanting anything to do with the rats. Rosemary’s conviction made her courageous, and she didn’t even flinch as she leaned over to hand the patch to the master rat. He took the fencing patch from George Charelston’s Princeton jacket gingerly between his sharp teeth. Bewitched by the spell, he knew not to tear a single thread of the patch, but deliver it, as Rosemary told him, to the Piper.
As soon as she’d given this order, the rats broke their formation in a frenzy. They had stood on their haunches like soldiers at attention, but they scurried away with their bellies low to the ground. They raced back to whatever cracks and crannies they could find, some even dashing up the adobe style walls. The largest rat, patch in his mouth, bounded without hesitation to the other side of the shopping center. There was nothing frantic in his pace, and he remained under the spell as he hurried away to give the Piper this second, penultimate gift. Rosemary and Gwen were left with nothing but the music box and guilder coin, which would have to wait until the next night.
“How do we know it’s working?” Gwen asked. They had no way of knowing that last night’s rat had even successfully carried the harp string to the Piper. What if the rats were just throwing away these artifacts or padding their nests with them?
Rosemary knew the answer though. “Because more rats came tonight,” she explained, staring after the rodent who would deliver the patch. “Tomorrow, Piper will come.”
Rosemary and Gwen were subject to the same rude awakening when they felt fairies pulling their hair early the next morning. “Owww!” Rosemary whined, only seconds before Gwen felt it too.
“Wha—stop!” Gwen shouted, slapping at the pestering fairy. She opened her eyes and saw an unsettling blue glow. Where were Foxglove and Hawkbit? She’d expected something purple or yellow. The blue fairy pinched her ear, and she attempted to bat it away again. Her eyes were too blurred with sleep to see clearly, but she rubbed them and insisted, “I’m awake! Give me a second.”
His furious trilling jogged her memory of the blue fairy. As her eyes finally focused, she saw the sharp features and angry face of a fairy she’d encountered once before.
“Oxtail?” she asked. He boxed her in the nose, his tiny fist stinging. “Owww! Oxalis?” He grumbled more amenably, and Gwen knew she at least had his name right.
Hawkbit buzzed like a wasp around Rosemary, but Foxglove paced on her wings near the ceiling. They all jittered with panicked motions, shouting over each other. It occurred to Gwen how out of place Oxalis was. Had the ill-tempered fairy ever left Neverland or sought out lost children? A horrible fear settled in her stomach as she realized just how wrong something must be for Oxalis to come to her.
“What’s the matter?”
His fury was indecipherable. She threw the covers off and stood up, trying to catch Foxglove’s attention. “What’s going on, Foxglove? Why is Oxalis here?” Her speech was just as hurried and flustered. There was no following it. Even Rosemary, much better at following fairy speak, couldn’t translate.
Oxalis buzzed into her face. Determined to make his message known, he shouted at Gwen, channeling his frustration into volume not speed.
“Hollyhock?” Gwen gathered.
He buzzed yes, and then continued. It felt like an unpleasant game of charades.
“Drones?” she repeated. Foxglove let out a pained cry, and the reality of it dawned on Gwen. “Oh no.”
The girls raced to Tiger Lily’s room, fairies fast behind. Gwen felt herself lurching back into childhood. Go get the grown-up. Grown-ups know what to do.
“Tiger Lily!” Rosemary exploded into the room, wearing a tiny nightgown borrowed from Neverland. Gwen suddenly felt absurd, rushing into Tiger Lily’s room, hiding behind the lost guise of naivety as her fear surged forward. Who was this woman to her that she could be a friend or an authority, whichever suited Gwen’s needs at the moment?
“What’s the matter?” Tiger Lily cried, bolting upright. She wore a large Washington Redskins jersey like a nightgown and had her hair pulled into two black braids. She was already out of bed before the girls could answer. Without any information, she pulled on a pair of jeans and prepared to deal with some unknown disaster. The fairies were faster to explain than the girls. By the time Gwen had sputtered, “It’s Hollyhock—she’s been taken by drones!” Tiger Lily already understood.
She put a hand to her mouth, covering her inexpressive but expansive grief. Her features stayed like stone on her face as she crossed the room to sit on her reading chair. Folding her legs up, she found a comfortable position on the plush armchair and seemed not to mind the fairies and girls orbiting around her in panic.
“Is she still alive?” Rosemary squeaked. Foxglove wailed.
“Certainly,” Tiger Lily answered. “Her pixie dust is too valuable to their purposes for them to kill her.”
“How do we rescue her?” Rosemary pleaded.
She was not so quick to respond. Her eyes stayed steady, as if she could physically see the problem in front of her. “I don’t know. She’ll be nearby. It will be easier to contain and experiment with her magic if they’re already in a magically dense environment.”
“So she’s in some kind of laboratory?” Gwen guessed. “Somewhere under the control of the Anomalous Activity Department?”
“They have a holding facility that they’ll be keeping her in.” Tiger Lily’s distress was barely visible on her face, but a look of intense concentration gave away how troubled her mind was.
“Where is it?” Rosemary demanded, as if she wanted to charge the facility that very second.
“I don’t know. I just know they have one. It’s where they put magical folks who refuse to join the grown-ups. It’s hidden, with a similar magic that hides Neverland.”
“How on earth do we find it then?” Gwen exclaimed.
Tiger Lily looked her dead in the eye, her composure regained. “The same way you find Neverland: you find someone who has been there before.”
Rosemary’s hands tightened into fists. Gwen felt a chill perch on the top of her spine as that night’s errand gathered even greater importance.
The fairies, still grieving and fearful of the Piper, did not go with the girls that evening. When Rosemary and Gwen showed up by themselves at the town center that night, there were still a few straggling people left. All without children, grown-ups hurried along with packages and presents not yet wrapped. The girls wandered at a meandering pace, as if waiting for a parent or looking at the toy displays in windows themselves. They didn’t worry about running into their own parents… they would have no reason to be out shopping for their children this year. It had an odd effect on Rosemary, being so far removed from every child’s favorite time of year.
“Was running away to Neverland bad?” Rosemary asked, her voice piercing the silence between them as they stared at princess plushies and marble track gizmos. It was a complicated question, and Gwen didn’t know how to answer. Fortunately, Rosemary elaborated. “Will I be on the naughty list this year? I’ve never been on the naughty list.”
Did Gwen dare tell Rosemary what their father had told her? There was no Santa Claus… their parents were responsible for every last inch of mock magic that went into Christmas. Her father had told her, after Rosemary’s disappearance, that Santa Claus no longer existed. He had, once, before the adults determined his job was nothing that they couldn’t do, and his magic was more valuable in their hands than his. She watched
as a lanky blonde woman passed, her arms laden with bags and her hands holding the glowing screen of the phone she was texting on. The world had cashed in Santa Claus for something more exciting but less enchanting, like a teenager leveraging Christmas to get his parents to pay for concert tickets.
“I don’t think Santa Claus will come to Neverland,” Gwen answered, steering away from the more complex realities of the situation. “We probably aren’t on any list, naughty or nice.”
“Why not?” Rosemary asked, finding the simplest way to phrase the hardest questions, as usual.
She watched the people scurry out of the shops threatening to close in the next few minutes. They scampered with the same urgency as the rats. “Well, if nothing else, Santa Claus is a grown-up, and only kids can get to Neverland.”
“Yeah. And Santa only visits families,” Rosemary decided. She left the conversation at that.
The stream of shoppers seeped away. They might as well have dissolved into the ground like rain into thirsty earth. They were bystanders, unaware of the great and magical crime the Hoffman sisters were primed to perpetrate.
The girls wandered slowly, made invisible to the adults by Gwen’s presence. An unattended child would have attracted eyes; a child with an adult would have been noted as a fellow shopper, but a teenager? Gwen was not worth registering. She was a powerless middle ground that needed no attention.
They wandered away from the storefronts, heading back to the fountain, a still sculpture without its water. In the courtyard, they hid themselves from the employees who were locking up shop, and hunkered down on the side of the fountain that faced a tiny Mexican restaurant, long since closed.
“So what happens tonight?” Gwen asked, her nervousness obscured by years of conditioning herself to appear calm and cool in front of her peers.
“Piper comes!” her sister exclaimed as she lifted the music box out of her bag.
“Will there be rats? Are we supposed to give them the coin, or will he come by himself?”
The Piper's Price Page 17
