Emma and the Silverbell Faeries

by Matthew S. Cox

  Mawr stopped a few steps from the stoop and flopped on his belly. Emma climbed down with extra care, so as not to risk spilling or breaking the bottle of lifewater. She neatened her dress, took a breath, and walked up to the door.

  Kes leapt to the ground and scampered up behind her. Neema remained somewhere in Mawr’s fur, invisible.

  “Confidence, Emma,” said Kes. “Stop trembling.”

  “I’m not scared. I’m nervous.” She raised a hand to knock, but hesitated when she saw her fist shaking.

  “He won’t hurt you.”

  She steeled herself and knocked. “I’m not afraid of being hurt. I’m afraid of it not working.”

  “Don’t you trust Mythandriel?”

  Emma whirled to face him. “I do!” she yelled before whispering, “It’s old nutty mages I don’t trust.”

  “Hello,” said the welcome mat.

  She grimaced as the feeling of wet dog-tongue slid across her soles. “Must you?”

  The door opened, revealing the wild-haired old man. “Child… You have returned.” His expression of surprise melted into the anticipatory stare of a little boy on his birthday. “Have you found the Auracite?”

  “The faerie queen is sure that her people have not taken it.”

  “Blast,” yelled Danithar, growling at the floor. “Deceitful winged rats!”

  “Wait.” Emma held her hand up. “I’m not finished.”

  “Oh, aren’t you now?” Danithar reached forward, grabbed her under the armpits and carried her inside. After setting her in a chair, he folded his arms. “I should not have let you run off. You’re not old enough to be running around. Unless your parents show up looking for you, this is your home now.”

  Kes crept in, looking around.

  “Friend of yours?” asked Danithar. “Be wary of his kind, girl. Tricksters, all.”

  Kes put on an innocent smile.

  “He’s my friend.”

  Danithar rolled his eyes and wagged his eyebrows at the window. “Oh, I’m sure he is.”

  “He is,” said Emma in a flat tone. She slid out of the backpack, set it on the floor between her feet, and retrieved the bottle. “You need to drink this. It will help you.”

  “The man’s correct. Satyrs are known for being tricksters.” Kes bowed at Emma. “But I have not tricked you, nor do I intend to.”

  “What is that?” Danithar started to reach for it, but his attention shot to the window. “The frilled thornbeak returned! I think it’s laid eggs, too.”

  “Danithar,” said Emma.

  He stared out the window mesmerized.

  “Danithar,” said Emma, louder.

  “There has to be five or six eggs… oh to get a look at them.” He squeed.

  “I have something for―”

  The conjurer leaned close to the window, muttering and waving at the birds like an elderly woman cooing at newborn babies.

  Emma raised her voice. “Excuse me, sir, but―”

  “It has! There are eggs in there.” He waved his fists in excitement.

  “Aurcite,” said Emma.

  “It’s Aur-a-cite,” snapped Danithar, whirling to face her. “Please enunciate it properly.”

  “Auracite,” muttered Emma. “Nymira said this will help you.”

  Danithar crept over and gave the bottle a suspicious squint. “And who is this Nymira?”

  “The Faerie Queen.”

  “Oh, I am sure she would adore me drinking this.” He shook his head. “What foul trickery have you been charmed into participating in?”

  “No trick. You’re in the Faerie Realm now, correct?”

  He grumbled. “Yes.”

  “And you know faeries charm people. So don’t you think the Faerie Realm can charm people too?”

  “I suppose that makes―oh, my… look at the plumage on that―”

  Emma stared at the ceiling. “Aurcite.”

  He spun back from the window. “Child, please pronounce the word properly.”

  “Auracite.” Emma held up the bottle. “This will take the curse from your mind.”

  “I’m not drinking anything a faerie made.” White cotton eyebrows knitted close as the wrinkles across his forehead deepened.

  “The faeries didn’t make this. Mythandriel gave it to me.”

  Danithar rolled his eyes. “I’m to believe a goddess handed you a bottle of―my pumpkin bread is done.” He started across the room toward the oven.

  “Aurcite.”

  He whirled to glare at her.

  “Auracite,” said Emma. “There’s an Astari ruin east from here. We went to an old temple and a spirit let me take this from the fountain. It will help you.”

  “Hmm.” Danithar took the bottle and peered into it.

  “My, my,” whispered Emma’s chair. “This little one could use a bath. She reeks of ten-day-old cabbage stew left to sit in someone’s boots.”

  She gasped, mortified.

  Two other empty chairs snickered.

  “I fell in Darbolg swamp.” Emma frowned.

  Danithar leaned over and sniffed at Emma’s hair. He coughed. “My word…”

  Emma blushed and stared down.

  “To the bath!” said Danithar, pointing.

  Emma’s chair galloped down a hallway. She clung to the seat to keep from falling off, wide-eyed and screaming. It burst past a curtain (which pulled itself up out of the way) and stopped short, launching her into a large wooden tub. The curtain closed itself, encircling the tub, an instant later.

  “Umm.” Emma looked around at the biggest bathing vessel she had ever seen.

  “Touch the blue gem,” said Danithar from the far end of the house. “Boy, would you care for something to eat. Oh, look! A speckled firetail in the tree!”

  Kes laughed.

  Two disembodied white gloves floated in, as did a brush and a washcloth. The gloves reached to her expectantly. Emma studied her surroundings, still turning in place, and found a large, blue gem set into the edge on the side where the tub met the wall. She pushed on it, yelping as a magical burst of energy leapt from the gem to her feet. In an instant, she found herself standing in a tubful of warm water, which came up a bit past her knees. A haze of steamy fog settled on the surface, and a faint scent of lavender filled the air.

  The gloves tapped her on the shoulder, pointed at her, and held out a hand.

  Emma removed her dress, and the gloves snatched it before zipping off.

  “Hey! Where are you going?”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” said Danithar from down the hall.

  Emma growled under her breath. “The gloves took my dress!”

  “To wash it,” said Danithar.

  The cloth wrapped itself around a blob of soap, and attacked her. The brush followed suit. No matter how she moved or flailed, both cloth and brush evaded her arms and scrubbed. Emma yelped and dunked herself to the neck, the brush and cloth hovering over her, waiting. The oddity of her situation wore off eventually, and she went under to get her sticky hair wet. When she sat up, the cloth and brush resumed cleaning her. Biting her lip, Emma stood with her arms out to the sides and allowed herself to be washed like a royal with servants attending her bath. Soap leapt onto her head and invisible fingers massaged her scalp, cleaning all the swampy foulness from her hair. As odd as it was to have animated objects attending her, the comfort soon won her over, and she relaxed, allowing herself to enjoy the bath.

  When the cloth wrapped around her knee and tugged, Emma sat and raised her feet out of the water. Unable to help herself, she giggled at the cloth sliding back and forth across the bottoms of her feet and between her toes. A few minutes later, it plunged under the water to rinse before flinging itself to drape over a peg on the wall, hanging limp like an ordinary rag. The brush landed on a shelf and stopped moving.

  Emma sat neck deep in the lavender-scented water, waiting, tapping her foot. “Where is my dress?”

  “The speckled firetail is an interesting creature, b
oy,” said Danithar. “They have litters of two to four, and they stay together for their entire lives.”

  “Aurcite!” yelled Emma.

  “That’s not how you say it,” shouted Danithar.

  Will Nymira be angry with me if I thump him? “Auracite! Now, where is my dress?”

  “Being washed,” said Danithar. “One moment.”

  “I’m done with the bath!”

  Danithar sighed. “Push the blue gem again. Have you never used a bath before?”

  “Yes, but not a magic one.”

  She pressed the blue gem and the water burst into fog, leaving her sitting in an empty tub. A towel plucked itself off another peg. Emma got to her feet and let it dry her, feeling like she’d gone back to being three years old and needed Mama to give her baths again. After a few minutes of standing there with her arms impatiently folded, the gloves returned with her dress, which looked no different from when it had floated away, though it did have a faint scent of flowers. She swiped it and gave the gloves a glare before pulling the garment on. The curtain rushed to the side before she could grab it, making her yelp with surprise and almost fall over. Annoyed at the delay, and more than a little bewildered by the experience of flying objects bathing her, she stormed out to the main room.

  Kes sat on a bench by the windowsill, listening to Danithar ramble on and on about speckled firetails, frostbellies, and thornbeaks and how the different types of birds lived, hunted, and went about their birdly existence. Danithar took great delight in describing the firetails, which turned out not to be birds at all, but squirrel-like creatures with bright orange fur and ruby eyes. When Emma walked in, Kes looked at her and made a face like he’d been hung by a noose.

  She laughed. As awkward as it had been to take a bath in this mad house, she adored not smelling like rotting plants. She ran her fingers through her no-longer-sticky hair, smiling. “Danithar. Please trust me. Drink the blessed water from Mythandriel. It will help you find the Auracite.”

  “You said it correctly!” He clapped, glee clear in his tone.

  “I’ll never say it wrong again if you drink that.”

  He tapped a finger to his chin, wagging his eyebrows up and down. “Hmm.” Danithar picked up the bottle and studied it.

  Emma tapped her foot.

  Four chairs approached like sniffing dogs.

  “Much better,” said one.

  She made a fist as if to punch it, but the chair didn’t react.

  Kes chuckled.

  “Very well.” Danithar opened the stopper and drank. He stopped with a refreshed gasp, put the stopper back, and slammed the bottle down on the table like a man with an ale mug. “That was cold!”

  She nodded.

  Danithar stared into space, his look of confusion growing. Brown swam into the grey from the top of his head down to his beard. The wrinkles in his cheeks and around his eyes faded in seconds as his posture straightened. When he stopped changing, the man appeared to be in his early twenties. He raised his hands, gazing at them. “What… what is this?”

  Emma leaned back, eyebrows rising at the change in his voice. He sounded stronger, more confident, even powerful. “I think this place made you a little nutters. Nymira said that water would cure you.”

  “A little?” muttered Kes.

  Danithar patted himself down before running to a cabinet and flinging open the doors. He rummaged among bottles and jars of powders, blue, red, yellow, green, and gold. He slammed that cabinet and moved to the next, picking among potion bottles and a leather case packed full of wands. “Bah. It’s gone!”

  “The Auracite?” asked Emma.

  “Yes.” He scowled. “Those faeries… They’ll regret stealing from me. I’ll wipe them out to the last.”

  “No!” wailed Emma. “You promised!”

  He squinted at her. “You’re not a goblin are you? Under an illusion?”

  “No. I’m a girl.” She ran over and tugged on his arm. “You can’t hurt the faeries. Please! They didn’t take your crystal.”

  Red-faced with anger, Danithar stormed for the front door. “Animals aren’t working. They’re too vulnerable to eldritch magic. I’ll send another bronze footman. No! A bronze colossus!”

  “Please don’t!” Emma grabbed his arm, but he pulled away and rushed outside. “Keep her safe,” he muttered as if speaking to the door, which slammed itself.

  She tried to follow, but the door refused to open. Emma grunted and struggled at the knob for a little while before giving up and darting to the window. She stared out at the front yard where Danithar dragged a hunk of bronze across the grass. It had the overall shape of a boot, but came up to his neck. If he made something like that metal horror they’d seen in the forest out of that, it would be taller than a house.

  “I could shoot him,” said Kes.

  “No!” Emma whirled away from the window. “He’d hurt you. You’re just a boy. He’s a powerful mage. No… we can’t fight him. We don’t have to fight him. We have to prove the faeries didn’t steal.”

  “How do you prove something to an insane person?”

  Emma scowled. “He doesn’t seem insane now, does he?”

  “Perhaps not as much as before, but he is quite angry.” Kes scratched his chin while thinking.

  “There’s got to be something…” Emma paced around the table, dodging the self-sweeping broom. “The faeries were here, but I believe them.”

  He shrugged.

  Emma stopped, glancing out the window at a bright orange squirrel zipping along a branch. “Nymira said they came here to welcome him to the Faerie Realm… They cleaned his house for him, but he didn’t thank them.”

  “So they played tricks on him.”

  “Right. Maybe they hid the crystal somewhere in the house or outside?”

  “That door won’t let you out.”

  She glared at it. “You can get out. He told it to keep me safe. You look outside. I’ll search inside.”

  “All right. Yell if you need me.” Kes approached the door, which opened for him. Once outside, he grabbed the knob in both hands and held it. “Come on.”

  She bit her lip, and ran for it.

  The door slammed an instant before she got there, accompanied by a loud thump as Kes crashed into it.

  “Ouch,” said Kes from the other side.

  “Are you all right?” Emma pressed herself into the door.

  “Yes. My horns are stuck in the wood.” He grunted, and a faint pop followed. “Follow your first plan?”

  She glared at the knob. “Fine.”

  “If you really want out, I’ll tell Mawr to break it down.”

  Emma laughed. “He would, too.”

  “Right. Searching.” Kes scampered off.

  Metal clanking outside lit a fire of urgency in Emma. Danithar would make something awful to stomp the Elder Grove into bits. She had to stop him.

  “Hmm. What did they do?” She headed for the cabinets. “They cleaned. Let’s start with the cupboards and the drawers. The man was so scatter-brained, maybe he didn’t look.”

  She climbed up to stand on the countertop and opened the first cabinet. Bottles and jars of powders inside gave off powerful fragrances of mint, metal, and earth. One smelled like energy, which is to say it didn’t smell like much of anything but fizzy tingles. She moved the jars around, searching behind them, but found no glowing white crystal.

  After closing the doors, she sidestepped and checked the next cabinet. Again, no crystal. The third cabinet held dishes, which all cried out “pick me, pick me!” at the same time. She moved them enough to look under and around, before proceeding on to the final cabinet. Pots and pans inside kept suspiciously quiet.

  When she lifted one to look under it, it screamed, “No, please!”

  “Eep!” yelled Emma, dropping it. After two breaths, she calmed. “No what?”

  “Don’t cook with me!” wailed the pot. “It hurts!”

  She shivered. “Why would he enchant pots to be ab
le to feel? That’s cruel. I’m not going to cook. I’m searching for something.”

  Two small cauldrons, a soup pot, two pans, and a deep skillet all exhaled with relief.

  Finding nothing, Emma closed the doors and jumped to the floor. She opened each drawer in turn: silverware in the first, wooden rods she assumed the man intended to make wands out of in the next. Another drawer held tools and the one after it contained nails, screws, nuts, sprockets, and springs.

  Emma blinked. “What is all this stuff?”

  The fifth drawer had been packed with shiny stones, all organized by color in little bins. She picked over quartz, several different crystals, agate, cat’s-eye, tiny diamonds, rubies, emeralds, some chalky white rocks, and four bins of black stones.

  “Hmm.” He said it was white like milk, with pink and blue and purple on it… and it would tingle!

  She plucked a stone from the bin of milky ones. Cold, hard, nothing. One by one, she touched the stones, holding them for a second or two before putting them in a pile on the counter out of the way. After testing fourteen of them, a glint of white light flickered from the bottom of the half-full bin. Emma plunged her hand in, fishing for the bright stone, and unearthed a big crystal the size of a man’s thumb.

  Solid white like frozen milk, its eight facets had bands of faint lavender and blue. Both pointed ends appeared pink at the tips. Holding it felt as if an army of nibbling bugs crawled over her hand. All the little hairs on the back of her arm stood on end.

  “The Auracite!”

  Gripping it tight, she ran to the door. “Let me out.”

  “Sorry, child. I must keep you safe,” said the door in the voice of a grandfather.

  “I’m only going to the front yard. Danithar needs to see this. He’s been looking for it.”

  “Patience, girl. I will ask him if it is allowed.”

  She sighed. “I’m ten, not three!”

  After a long, frustrating moment, the door opened.

  Emma ran forward. Danithar rushed from where two seven-foot-tall bronze legs held up the beginnings of a set of metal hips.