by L-J Baker
“She’s my kid sister.”
Rye saw Holly approaching. Just a few feet away, Holly looked up from glaring at the ground. She stopped and stared between Rye and Flora. Her expression underwent a dramatic transformation to settle in a mixture of surprise, horror, and disbelief.
“Hello, Holly,” Flora said.
To Rye’s astonishment, Holly very politely acknowledged her in a calm, quiet voice.
“I could take you and your sister home if you haven’t managed to get a ride with your friends,” Flora said.
“Wow,” Holly said. “You will? Drop through the floor. Oh, Ms. Withe, that would be astronomical. I’ll tell Daisy’s dad to go without us.”
Rye didn’t get a chance to open her mouth before Holly darted away to where the Bark family waited.
“Um. Sorry about that,” Rye said.
Flora smiled. “I took it as a compliment. Actually, I suppose I should be apologising to you. You hadn’t accepted my offer, had you?”
“I wouldn’t dare refuse now. I’m on thin enough ice as it is. My life wouldn’t be worth living if I made her walk home with me after turning down a ride. But, um, thanks. I appreciate it.”
In the light drizzle, Rye grabbed her broom and trotted after Holly and Ms. Withe. The dryad pressed a button on her mobile phone to unlock the doors of a late model sporty flying carpet of the sort that usually figured in advertisements with a near-naked female draped across the front. Rye felt bad about putting her decrepit old broom in the boot. She hoped the bristles didn’t leak. Holly had recovered from her shocked shyness and clearly wanted to take the front passenger seat. Rye folded herself into the back, which did not feel designed for much use. She prayed that her boots and clothes didn’t stain the upholstery. The carpet smelled like it was fresh from a showroom or a groomer’s hardworking hands. She also grew uncomfortably aware of Ms. Withe’s perfume and a tantalising hint of pine sap.
They were moving before Rye realised the magic was running. With barely a purr, the carpet rose swiftly. While Holly chatted animatedly, Rye gripped her seat. Breaking more of Rye’s stereotypes about artists, Ms. Withe flew very fast and high. The flight to the apartment took about half the time Rye would have thought possible.
Rye climbed out of the carpet onto the parking pad outside her seventh floor apartment. Half of the space was hidden beneath junk because they never used it to park. Her own broom had not been able to make it up this high even on the day she’d bought it. She retrieved her sorry broom from the boot and bent to peer in the flying carpet’s window.
“Thanks a lot,” Rye said.
“My pleasure.” Flora pulled a small black card from her purse and passed it to Rye. “Call me. Anytime.”
Rye frowned at the card. She couldn’t read it in the poor light.
“You couldn’t tell me how to get back to Dandelion Avenue?”
Rye started to give directions, but Holly stepped in with what she claimed was a quicker way. Rye straightened and noticed faces at the neighbour’s window. Not surprising. It wasn’t too often a piece of hardware like this carpet made it around here without being stripped and burned.
“Nice meeting you both,” Flora said.
“Yeah. Likewise.” Rye raised a hand. “Thanks again.”
Rye watched the carpet zoom away, then followed Holly inside.
“Astronomical!” Holly flopped into a kitchen chair. “Pinch me. This must be a dream. No, it can’t be. You wouldn’t look like that in any dream of mine. Which means it must be real! Woo hoo!”
Rye put the kettle on to boil and bent to pull vegetables from the cupboard.
“I’m going to die,” Holly said. “Ms. Flora Withe. I’ve ridden in her carpet. It’s exactly what I expected her to fly. Style to the stars! I simply must tell Daisy. She’ll shrivel with envy!”
Holly leaped to her feet, grabbed the phone, and disappeared into her bedroom. Rye shrugged to herself. Holly seemed much more excited about the few minutes they’d spent in Flora Withe’s carpet than winning a prize at school. There were times when Rye wondered if she and Holly were from the same part of Infinity, let alone species.
Rye pulled the black card from her shirt pocket. The printing shimmered silver. It simply said: Flora Withe (959) 445-292.
For the first time in her life, Rye dished up steamed dock roots while preoccupied with thoughts about a woman sexy enough to star in wet dreams.
When Rye tapped on Holly’s bedroom door, Holly lay on her bed with the phone cradled against her ear. She blushed and glared spears at Rye. Pictures of music stars cut from glossy magazines covered the wall above Holly’s bed.
“My relic wants the phone,” Holly said into the receiver. “Call me again, okay?”
She hung up.
“The relic is really here to tell you that dinner is ready,” Rye said.
Holly slouched past Rye and into the kitchen. Rye followed.
“Who was that?” Rye asked.
“Just someone.”
Holly interrupted nibbling a grilled sparrow’s leg to ask, “Can I really spend my prize money on myself?”
“Yeah. Um.” Rye chased a honeysuckle flower around her plate. “Holls?”
“What?”
“Um. About earlier.”
“What?”
“Thing is –”
“Rye! Fey, you can be annoying. It was a boy, okay? His name is Moss. He’s a friend of Daisy’s brother. We talk on the phone sometimes. What else do you want to know?”
Rye blinked. “Actually, I was going to ask you about Ms. Withe.”
“Oh. I left my body when I saw you talking with her.”
“I already apologised for the clothes.”
Holly’s fork froze midway to her mouth. She stared incredulously at Rye. “It was Flora Withe. It wouldn’t have mattered what you were wearing.”
“Really? Why not?”
Holly smacked a hand against her forehead. “Flora Withe! You can’t tell me that you’re the only person in Infinity who doesn’t know who she is.”
“Actually, I can. Who is she?”
“Only the best weaver in ShadeForest City. Probably the whole country. Maybe even the world.”
“Oh.”
During her shift that evening, Rye considered the earlier events as she sweated over the smoky, bubbling fat cauldrons at Pansy’s Fried Sandwiches. Shorn of Holly’s teenage exaggeration and enthusiasm for everything arty, Flora Withe was probably an artist of local renown. Hence her being a guest judge at the school. If her flying carpet was anything to go by, she was fairly successful.
As Rye dunked sandwiches to sizzle in the fat, she savoured memories of Flora Withe. Rye had never met a truly beautiful woman before, nor one who radiated such sensuality.
Holly was asleep by the time Rye returned home from work. From the cooler, Rye grabbed the last of the four small jars of beer she rationed herself to each week. She carried it into the lounge and made up her bed on the couch. She sat awake, sipping, staring at the little black card. Flora Withe (959) 445-292. Call me. Anytime.
Chapter Two
Rye wrestled an arm out of the bedding and smacked the alarm into submission. She grunted as she swung her legs over the side of the couch. It was still dark. Five thirty.
“Crap.”
Rye groped amongst her pile of clothes. She struggled into a tight T-shirt that kept her wings as flat and inconspicuous as possible. The baggy shirt she’d discarded yesterday didn’t smell too bad, so she pulled that on over the T-shirt as she stumbled into the kitchen.
She ate breakfast and made sandwiches for herself and Holly. As Rye stuffed hers into her workbag, Holly appeared rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
“You’re up early,” Holly said.
“So are you. Sorry if I woke you.”
“I have a test today. I couldn’t sleep. Rye, it’s still dark.”
“I have to walk to work this morning. Sandwiches there. Don’t forget to eat breakfast. And good luc
k with the test.”
Rye strode to the door and grabbed her jacket. As she reached for the door, she remembered that it was Fourth Day. Night class tonight. Rye dodged back into the lounge to grab her textbook and assignment. Her bedding lay on the couch still. Rye swiftly debated and decided to leave it. If Holly had friends over, they closeted themselves in her room. Besides, if Holly wanted to, she could just stuff the bedding behind the couch.
Rye trotted down the stairs. Few lights showed in the windows she passed on her way to ground level. The odd carpet and broom sped along in the near-deserted flyways. At the end of the street, Mr. Cloudnut yawned as he opened his All-Purpose store.
“Hey, Rye,” he said. “You’re up early.”
“Yeah,” Rye said. “I’ve got to walk. My broom died. Um. Those wouldn’t be yesterday’s papers, would they?”
“These?” Mr. Cloudnut toed a bundle of newspapers. “Yeah. You want one? Take it. No use to me. I just send them to recycle.”
“Great. Thanks.”
Rye stuffed the paper in her bag and strode away. The chances were that some of yesterday’s ads would still be worth looking at today. It beat paying half a piece for today’s paper.
The city didn’t seem to wake until Rye crossed the bridge to the Westside. She passed several joggers. When she emerged from the Rootway underpass, Rye noticed the time. She was going to be late.
She jogged through the gates into the worksite as the last echoes of the whistle faded. Grub, the half-goblin overseer, glared at her with his yellow eyes.
“Nice of you to interrupt your busy social life to come to work, Woods,” Grub said. “Tenth floor.”
Screw you, wanker. Rye stomped past him. She panted as she slogged up ten flights of stairs. She passed men and women already chiselling, hammering, scraping, and swapping insults. She was exhausted before she even got her tools out of her belt.
At the break, Rye scanned the ads in her newspaper for secondhand brooms.
Knot, a pixie man whose scalp ridges were unusually deep and close together, handed Rye a cup of treacly tea. “You gonna come to the pub tomorrow?”
“Oh, yeah.” Blackie’s antenna jerked upright. “They’re gonna have that band. With the singer with the tits.”
“It’s Spike’s bachelor party,” Knot said. “What do you reckon, Rye? Or you too busy doing your book learning? Homework, like.”
“School is for kids,” Blackie said. “They say she’s all natural. That singer. Can’t be. She’s out to here.”
“I can’t go,” Rye said. “My broom is dead.”
“Oh. And I was thinking you was looking in them ads for a new job,” Knot said. “If’n it’s a broom you’re after, maybe I can help. Brother-in-law’s always tinkering with them. I can ask him if he’s got one for sale, if you like.”
“Great,” Rye said. “But it has to be cheap.”
Rye turned to the national news page.
Detention Centre Suicide. The coroner’s office will be initiating an enquiry into the death of an inmate of the Bramble Street Detention Centre in HedgeCove City. She has been identified as Abstinence, a thirty-five year old fairy, who went by the name of Fern Moonwort. She had been illegally residing in the United Forestlands for the last twelve years after leaving Fairyland without a travel permit. Warders found her dead in her cell yesterday evening. A full autopsy will be carried out, but a reliable source says she took her own life. She was due to be deported to Fairyland this morning.
Beneath the concealment of her clothes, Rye’s wing buds defensively clenched so hard that her chest ached and constricted her breathing.
“Topped herself?” Knot said. He read over Rye’s shoulder.
Rye started and dropped the paper.
“Never met a fairy,” Knot said. “Reckon they must be strange. Wings. And all that religious rubbish. I heard they ain’t got a single bang-ball team in the whole country. Can you imagine that? Not somewhere I’d want to live. Not surprising she’d want to kill herself rather than go back.”
“But those fairy freaks beat our team at the International Games last year,” Blackie said. “We should’ve won.”
“You stupid seedhead,” Knot said. “It was Elfland who did the down trou on us. Fairies don’t never send any teams anywhere. Must be too busy praying and all that crap.”
“Oh,” Blackie said. “Well, it’s a bloody good job those flying freaks don’t have teams. I’ve heard they’re all fucked in the head. And those pointy-eared elf wankers ain’t no better.”
Rye stood and walked away.
During the lunch break, Knot, Blackie, and the boys went off to the nearest pub. Rye perched on a pile of wood rubble and read the newspaper as she ate her sandwiches. In the international section, there was a short piece about the arrival of a new ambassador from Fairyland. The woman had been a highly ranked priestess before taking up her diplomatic post. Rye shuddered, folded the paper, and threw it away.
Rye’s gaze snagged on the green pay phone pod across the street. Call me. Anytime. It would only be polite to call and say thanks for the lift yesterday. Rye was strolling out of the gates before she realised what she was doing. The pod was empty. Rye hesitated before stepping inside. She pulled the little black card from her wallet.
Beep-beep. Beep-beep.
Rye wiped her palm on the backside of her pants. It helped that the screen and camera had been vandalised. The dryad wouldn’t see Rye in her scruffy work clothes.
Click. “Hi. Flora here. Well, Flora’s machine, actually. I’d love to hear from you, so please leave a message. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.” Bleep.
Crap. She hadn’t expected this.
“Um. Hi. Um, look, I… um. I wanted to say thanks. For last night. The lift. In your carpet. You gave me and Holly. Um. From the school. Um. We really appreciated it. Um. Thanks. Um. Bye.”
Rye hung up and let out a long breath. “Why did I do that?”
Conscious of having sweated most of the day, Rye threaded her way to a seat at the rear of the class. Mr. Bulrush handed back assignments. Rye saw her large red A and smiled.
At the end of the two hours, Rye stuffed her notes and book in her bag and smoothed out her homework assignment. She waited until everyone else had gone before approaching Mr. Bulrush’s desk.
“I’m sorry that it’s a bit crumpled,” she said. “I had to finish it at work this afternoon.”
He smiled. “That will not affect the quality of the contents, I’m sure.”
“Thanks. Bye.”
“Ms. Woods? If you have a minute, there’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”
Rye frowned and stepped back. “Sure. What’s wrong? Did I mess something up?”
“Quite the opposite. Ms. Woods, have you given any thought to sitting the national certification exam?”
“What?”
“Your work is very impressive. You’re on course for a pass with distinction. In my opinion, you won’t have any trouble attaining the necessary standard for the national certification, Grade III Exam.”
Rye blinked. “Really? Me? That’s the proper exam, isn’t it, not just the night class one?”
“Yes. The curriculum covers more ground than this night class does, so it would mean some extra reading for you. I’m prepared to help you if you wish to do it.”
Rye chewed her lip. “I could pass the certification?”
He nodded. “Why don’t you think about it? We have a few weeks before the final date for lodging your application for examination.”
On the walk home, Rye’s mind whirred even as her body trudged on empty. She had difficulties finding enough time for the work she did now, but getting a qualification would mean she could start looking for better jobs. She dropped her bag inside the door and went to flop full length on the couch without taking her jacket or boots off. Thank the gods that it was Fifth Day tomorrow. Her body wanted to remain prone for a week. Walking to work would take some getting used to.
&n
bsp; Holly darted into the room. She looked excited. “I thought I heard you. You’ll never guess who was here.”
Rye grunted. “Who?”
Holly perched on the arm of the couch. “You’ll never guess in a trillion billion years.”
“Okay. I won’t. So tell me.”
“You’re a bag of misery tonight. And you stink. You need a shower.”
Rye made the ultimate sacrifice and rolled off the couch onto her feet. Her body complained with aches from every muscle. She didn’t bother looking for her pyjamas before staggering toward the bathroom.
“Rye! Don’t you want know who was here? It was Flora Withe!”
Rye halted in the doorway. “Flora Withe?”
“Yeah. It was utterly astronomical. I thought I was going to die when I opened the door and saw her there. Fey, how I wished she’d come half an hour earlier when Daisy was here. She would’ve shrivelled with envy that Flora Withe came to my home.”
“Did she – What did she come for?”
“She said you left some incoherent message on her answering machine. Which is so utterly you. Just when I think there’s no other way in Infinity that you can embarrass me, you do. It’s a miracle I didn’t die young.”
“I… um, I thanked her for giving us a lift home last night. She didn’t have to come here.”
Holly leaped off the couch arm and strode across to put a hand on Rye’s shoulder. “She would’ve phoned, but someone forgot to give her their number. Rye, you’re so back-then that you should sell yourself to a museum. Don’t worry, I told her for you.”
Rye scowled as she watched Holly disappear into her room and shut the door.
Flora Withe here? Rye ran a hand through her hair. The idea made her extremely uncomfortable. She had not expected her phone call to lead to that. It was just good manners to thank her.
In the bathroom, Rye sank onto the side of the bath and turned on the taps. She didn’t have enough energy to stand in the shower. She dropped her clothes on the floor. As usual, she struggled to peel off her sweat-dampened tight T-shirt. Her first breath of the day after she removed it was the sweetest. Fairy wings had developed to be folded into compact bundles when not in use, but not to be constricted all day. Her wings only slowly unfolded from their cramped position. Rye groaned with pleasure as she sank into the hot water. She should’ve remembered to grab a beer. No, she drank the last of her weekly ration last night.
