“Looks like a cleanup of old statutes.” Chase moved down one then back up one. “Why does the Council want to rescind the mayor’s authority to sign work contracts for city maintenance?”
“Can you pull up the original ordinance? I’ve heard rumors that Mayor Seth Johansen is ill and not up to running the city by himself anymore. The Council has just been a rubber stamp for whatever he wanted for as long . . . well, at least since we studied civics in sixth grade,” Dick said.
“Mabel thinks he’s had a stroke. Apparently, he’s leaked a press release to the local paper—should be out on Wednesday—that he’s not going to run again, and he officially endorses Phelma Jo. But a bunch of other people are also announcing their candidacy,” Chase mused, sitting forward to examine the tiny print.
“PJ? Wow, that’s going to be one hot and dirty race.”
“At the moment I’m more interested in the council member who put the item on the agenda.” Chase highlighted the name of George Pepperidge. “Why would he want to limit the power of the mayor when he’s running for the office?”
“Send him an email and ask.”
“But I don’t want him to know where the question comes from.”
“Make up a name and get a quick mail account. Then, as soon as you get an answer, cancel the account.” Dick shrugged.
“You mean like you do when you aren’t sure if you want to date a girl more than once?” Chase sniggered.
“Yeah.” Dick blushed. “So what is this about?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Yes, I do!”
“Okay, I overheard George Pepperidge talking to someone about an offer to log off The Ten Acre Wood. The offer came through an anonymous third-party lawyer from out of town. Couldn’t find them, just stray words drifting down an old ventilation shaft in City Hall. The place is riddled with redundant and abandoned vents, whispering corners, and other weird acoustics. I need to know who Pepperidge was talking to and where they are hiding the paperwork.”
Dick whistled long and low. “That is major. Maybe that’s why Pepperidge wants to take contractual authority away from the mayor, to keep him from signing the permit without a vote from the City Council.”
“Exactly.”
“Email Pepperidge while I think about who else might know.” Dick stood up, ready to go back to the kitchen and think while he chopped veggies. “Is it time to alert Tommy Ledbetter down at the Post?”
“Not yet. We want a little more than pieces of an overheard conversation before we turn Digger loose.” Chase replied.
“How’d he get the nickname Digger? He certainly doesn’t do any investigative reporting,” Dick chuckled. “He’s all gossip and this year’s most fashionable hat at the Garden Club.” And Dick asleep at the wheel while the volunteer fire department loaded flowers.
“Goes back to grade school.” Chase tilted back in the office chair, arms stretched over his head and rotating his neck to relieve tension. “Some girls found him digging for pirate treasure in The Ten Acre Wood.”
“We all dug for pirate treasure by the big oak.”
“But we didn’t get caught. Let’s not get caught on this search. Not yet at least.”
“Thistle, do you know how to do an Internet search?” Dusty asked as they mounted the steps to the enclosed back porch. They’d had a successful afternoon introducing Thistle to her new friends. Few of the old folks wanted to admit they needed help. They gave in to the idea of Thistle “just checking on them” because of Dusty.
“No,” she replied, eyes studying her sandals as if they held all the answers. “Remember how your computer used to go all wild colors and static when I rode the mouse with you?”
“Damn. I was hoping you’d have some ideas about tracking down the people wanting to cut down The Ten Acre Wood.” Dusty bit her lip, juggling options.
“Pixies are tied to Earth and Water. Earth gives us an affinity with the metals in computers, but water drowns it. Faeries are tied to Fire and Air. They have an affinity with the signals flying through the Air, but Fire makes them scatter and become useless. Computers don’t like any of us.”
“Water nurtures Earth and brings forth glorious plants and trees. Air feeds Fire, making it stronger. I wonder if a half-breed could inherit stronger affinity with Earth and Air to overcome Water and Fire. Then they’d be able to handle computers and cell phones,” Dusty mused.
“Don’t even think about half-breeds! They’re monsters out of legends. No one has seen a half-breed since . . . since before the Faeries went underhill. Only one old Faery remained. He took up residence in the Patriarch Oak and pretended to advise and rule Pixies from there. He was too old to breed then. He’s gone now. That’s why Alder is king. He succeeded the old Faery.”
Thistle’s eyes crossed like she remembered something but didn’t want to talk about it. Then her expression cleared. “I have other sources of information.”
“Do I want to know about your sources?” Dusty imagined homeless men sleeping under the bridge or drug addicts hanging out around the back of the liquor store. Chase sometimes talked about gleaning information from such creatures.
“Trust me, if anyone knows about the murdering loggers, I’ll find out. But can we eat first? I’m hungry. And thirsty.”
“Me, too. It’s too hot to cook. Murdering loggers?”
“Yeah, if they cut down The Ten Acre Wood, they’ll murder my whole tribe of Pixies.”
“Oh.”
“Can we have pizza and beer?” Pure joy crossed Thistle’s face.
Dusty almost laughed. “Have I created a monster?”
A puzzled frown marred Thistle’s pert features. For the first time Dusty noticed how pointed her chin and ears were, making the slight uptilt of her eyes look longer. In low light her face would appear something other than human.
Like a Pixie.
“How about a big green salad with hardboiled eggs?”
“Oh, yes, that sounds delightful.” Thistle moved ahead of Dusty into the kitchen. “I’ll tear up the lettuce if you’ll boil the eggs. I’m not sure how to turn on the stove yet.”
Dusty surveyed the half-made salad on the drainboard and the tray of ice cubes melting in the sink.
“Dick!”
“In here, Dusty,” he called from the office.
“Why can’t you clean up after yourself?” Dusty kicked off her shoes and ambled toward the blue light that indicated Dick had his nose engrossed in the computer.
“I got interrupted.” He leaned forward, blocking the screen from her view. Beside him, Chase typed furiously. Then he moved the mouse and clicked. The screen shifted abruptly. He must have sent an email.
“Typical. If we finish fixing your dinner, can I have the computer after we eat?”
“Sure. I’m done now,” Chase said, pushing away from the desk.
“Dusty had a nasty shock at work,” Thistle said.
Dusty glared at her, not sure she wanted her brother to know how she’d hidden in the basement rather than face a bad situation.
“Oh? Why didn’t you call me?” Dick stood and put his arms around Dusty.
She pulled away from him. “Because you’d immediately go into overprotective mode and hide me away. Joe convinced me I need to do something positive. I can’t stop the logging of The Ten Acre Wood by hiding.”
Both Dick and Chase froze.
“What do you know about that?” Chase asked. He sounded wary, and . . . and suspicious.
“I know that Tri-County Logging has a contract to start cutting wood on Friday. I saw the work order faxed from Pixel Industries, Ltd.”
“Friday!” Chase exploded. He stood up so fast the heavy oak office chair that matched the rolltop desk tipped behind him.
“No wonder Pepperidge wants to rescind the mayor’s authority to sign contracts. I bet he’s going to push for a vote tomorrow and make it effective immediately,” Dick said. He righted the chair and sat at the computer, typing quickly.
/> “Getting that piece of business taken care of fast is the only way to stop the logging. I wonder why the rush?” Chase bent over Dick’s shoulder and pointed to something on the screen.
“If they start cutting on schedule, they’ll ruin the Masque Ball,” Dusty said quietly. Tears threatened to spill out. She gulped them back.
No more hiding, she reminded herself. Action, she needed action.
“I can’t get off work tomorrow to sit in on the Council meeting,” Chase said. “Can you go, Dick?”
“I’ll rearrange my appointments. What about you, Dusty, can you come? I’m thinking we need bodies, people who will ask questions, a lot of questions.”
“I’ll send Joe. He’s better at asking questions than I am.” She backed out of the room, fear burning from her belly to her face. Tracking down shadow corporations on the Internet was something she could do. Speaking in public? Never.
You speak in public every time you give a tour of the museum, her conscience reminded her. The inner voice sounded a lot like Thistle.
Nineteen
THISTLE EASED OUT of the crowded kitchen as soon as she finished washing her salad plate and lemonade glass. Her friends argued noisily about Internet searches, persons of influence, places they could eavesdrop. She didn’t really understand what the Internet was, or how to search for things there. Dick and Dusty put a lot of faith in what they could find on that search.
Maybe it was like the garbage dump outside of town. She’d heard from other, more venturesome Pixies that one could find all kinds of wondrous treasures there if you looked long enough and hard enough.
“I’ll do a more conventional search. I’ll meet up with them later at the Old Mill Bar and report on what I find,” she decided as she walked slowly uphill three blocks and then south another five. She’d done a lot of walking today and her feet hurt. If she were still a Pixie, she’d curl up for a nap in the crown of a lush sword fern. “I’m not in Pixie,” she reminded herself. “No naps. This is more important than sore feet.”
Thistle paused at the middle of a white picket fence that came up to her waist in height. Bountiful roses spilled over the top, filling the neighborhood with their heady fragrance. Pinks and yellows dominated with the occasional coral and variegated red and white. None of them smelled as if they were anything but prideful roses.
Dwarfed by its showier cousins, a little pink wild rose climbed and twined around the fence and arched gateway, competing for light and space to grow upward. It smelled exactly right: sweet, fecund, mature, and wise.
She leaned over the fence a bit, cupping a single blossom and bringing it close to her nose and mouth.
“I know you’re in there, Rosie. Come out and talk to me.”
The pink petals fluttered, as if a stray breeze had wandered past.
“Rosie, we used to be friends. I need to talk to you.”
“Yeah, what of it?” came a disgruntled voice. More movement among the yellow stamens at the heart of the blossom.
“The Patriarch Oak is in danger.”
“Not my problem.”
“But it is! All the tribes use the Patriarch Oak for mating flights. If that tree falls, it will be the end of Pixie.”
“Wrong. It will be the end of your tribe.” The petals ruffled again and a tiny snore came from within.
Pursing her lips to keep from shouting her anger, Thistle plucked two of the pink petals and pulled upward. She held the draped skirt of the Pixie by the hem. Rosie hung upside down. She spluttered and spat and kicked to no avail.
“Since time out of mind, all the tribes have used the Patriarch Oak as the center of mating rituals,” Thistle insisted. “We of The Ten Acre Wood are merely the caretakers and guardians. That’s why the old Faery stayed with us, and not you.”
“Yeah, well, have you noticed anyone but your precious King Alder using the oak since he put a crown on his head? Life was better for us all when the ancient Faery still ran things in this part of the world.”
Thistle had to think about that.
“And your buddy the king has used it dozens of times. Not just with you or his queen. Though rumor has it she hasn’t trusted him enough to mate yet. Will you put me down?”
“Say please.”
“Okay, okay, okay. Please put me down. I hate flying upside down by myself. Though Alder does make that fun.”
Thistle wanted to drop the impertinent gossip. Instead, she drew in a deep breath to master her temper, and dumped Rosie into her open palm.
“Whatever your grievance, I need to know who in the human world wants to destroy The Ten Acre Wood.”
“Like I said. That’s your problem. This garden is my territory. You can’t have it. Even before your ignominious exile, you couldn’t come inside the fence without an invitation. The Ten Acre Wood belongs to Alder. No other Pixie can enter without his permission, and that’s been mighty rare. Your territory is not my problem.” Rosie jumped, spread her wings, and flitted off to the safety of a pink dahlia closer to the old carriage house converted into a cottage at the front of the lot.
Thistle reached to grab her, missed, and nearly fell over the fence. The pointed wooden slats jabbed her middle, fiercely.
“Don’t you dare tell those lies about my Alder!” she called after the other Pixie.
He’s not your Alder. He never was, Thistle had to remind herself.
“They aren’t lies. Ask anyone. Ask Milkweed, the queen who won’t mate with your king! ” Rosie called back.
Chase stood on the corner of Tenth Street and Maple Drive, watching Thistle talk to a rosebush in Mabel Gardiner’s front yard.
Why didn’t this surprise him?
He wasn’t sure when he’d stopped doubting her story. Not that he truly believed she was a Pixie, only that it was easier to just accept it than to try to find an alternate story that made everything fit.
Like the aura of thistle-leaf-shaped wings growing out of her back when she collapsed.
Now she talked to something fluttery in her hand. He detected faint traces of movement and a high-pitched buzz that might take the shape of words and sentences.
Three days ago, he’d have thought she cradled a pink dragonfly in her hand.
Today? Today he wondered if the green-and-purple dragonfly he’d captured long ago and Dick had set free really was an insect. He’d never found a dragonfly with those colors or that size in any of the bug books he checked out of the library.
Then Thistle reached too far over the fence toward the escapig . . . thing . . . and nearly fell.
He took two steps to see if she was hurt, but she dashed off down Maple toward Skene Falls Boulevard, or SFB in local parlance.
His feet dragged, unwilling to check out Mabel Gardiner’s two acres—a standard lot facing the street with a long strip between the backyards of adjacent houses that ran nearly the full length of the block—for signs of Pixies. Part of him really didn’t want to know if she’d spoken the truth. He’d rather believe that back lot connecting to the derelict Victorian mansion on Filbert Street was a haven for the homeless and offered privacy for teens to make out under the scraggly apple trees.
If Thistle had spoken the truth, if this Pixie nonsense was real . . .
Dizziness assaulted all of his senses. Colors flashed brighter and more intensely before his eyes. Outlines became crisper and better defined. Talk about upsetting his worldview!
He didn’t know how long he stood there, trying not to think about it, but thinking of nothing else, when Haywood Wheatland sauntered up Tenth from the direction of SFB.
Chase did his best to fade into the mongo pine that leaned over the sidewalk.
He needn’t have worried. The blond man stopped at the same spot Thistle had. He, too, leaned over and cupped a delicate pink blossom in his hand—a delicate, long-fingered hand that looked too fragile to belong to an athletic man. On careful consideration, Haywood Wheatland appeared a lot more slender and lighterboned than on first glance. As if he’d puff
ed himself up the other times Chase had seen him. Or disguised his size by padding his sport coat and adding lifts to his scruffy shoes.
Chase shook his head and closed his eyes, trying to clear it of the multiple images layered one atop another.
When he looked again at Haywood, the man seemed normal, just as tall and robust as he should be.
“Rosie,” he called into the bank of prize-winning roses. “Rosie, my beloved, where are you?”
A pink bug darted out of a showy flower near the house. It flew from bush to flower to tree branch in short, hesitant bursts of energy, pausing at each point as if to rest. Or search for intruders other than Haywood Wheatland.
“Ah, Rosie, sweetheart, there you are.” Haywood held out his palm and the pink bug alighted on it. Its green wings, shaped like rose leaves, rubbed together in a decidedly flirtatious preening.
Then that high-pitched buzz invaded Chase’s head again.
He turned sharply away from the scene. He had too much to do and too much to think about to linger. Digger was expecting him, and then he’d meet up with Dick and Dusty and Thistle at the Old Mill.
But he couldn’t get the thought of Pixies out of his head.
Twenty
THISTLE GRABBED AT THE SMELLY and furry thing Dick plopped on top of her head. He grinned hugely at his joke. She wrinkled her nose and tried not to spit at the ugly lump.
She’d only just stepped across the threshold of the Old Mill Bar and Grill; not even enough time to absorb the smells of spilled beer, sweaty bodies, grilling meat, and . . . and an emotion she guessed was fatigue or wariness. Or both.
“Relax, it’s just a coonskin cap. And it’s fake fur, not the real thing,” he said, spreading the lump out and exposing the striped tail. He wore one, too, the tail hanging over his left ear at a jaunty angle.
“Why would anyone want to wear such a thing?” Then she noticed almost everyone in the bar wore similar headgear.
“It’s coonskin cap night,” Dick explained, taking her elbow and guiding her to a small table in the back corner. Dusty and Chase already sat there, pouring beer into tall frosty glasses from a pitcher. They, too, wore the fuzzy hats with the tail trailing down their backs.
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