Small Town Witch (The Fae of Calaveras County)

by Kristen S. Walker

  “Sure, we’d like some punch,” I said.

  He nodded and headed for the refreshments. Meanwhile, Heather had stepped forward with wide eyes and was fingering the fabric of Lindsey’s dress. “You made this yourself? That’s amazing.”

  Lindsey grinned. “My mom did the hard parts. I did the little enchantment and a lot of things like the straight seams to attach all of the panels together—the busy work.”

  “She’s being modest,” I said. “Lindsey designed that dress. She’s going to be a world-famous fashion designer someday. If you stop by the art class at school, she has a portfolio full of her fabulous design sketches.”

  Lindsey rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. Well, at least I try to mix it up a little. I think you’ve worn that dress at every single party and dance I’ve seen you at since you got it for your thirteenth birthday.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but suddenly Lindsey caught sight of something behind me and her face fell. I turned to look.

  Lindsey’s ex-boyfriend Robert stepped out onto the terrace. Beside him was Daniela, another girl from our school. Daniela was wearing a slinky black dress with red ruffles, like a flamenco dancer, and her curly brown hair was down loose, with a large red flower over her left ear. Daniela was a xana, which was like a faeriekin except that she lived in a river—her family name, Estanislau, comes from the local Stanislaus River, or maybe it’s the other way around. In addition to keeping the water pure, xanas could sing beautifully and kept treasure. Like all faeriekin, Daniela was drop-dead gorgeous in a way that made us humans look dull and plain.

  Robert led Daniela right past the three of us without saying hello, but he glanced at Lindsey with a cold expression. They stepped up onto the empty dance floor which floated over the pond, and began dancing very close together.

  I moved closer to Lindsey and put my arm around her. “That’s a cheap move,” I muttered under my breath.

  I felt her pull herself up straight and she lifted her head defiantly. “I expected something like this,” she said. “That’s fine. I’ll just ignore him.”

  “Do you think you can manage to do that all night?” I said. “It’s pretty tacky the way they’re flaunting it.”

  “I’ll manage somehow.” She turned to Peter, who had just returned carrying four cups of punch by the little handles. “How about we go for a stroll through the gardens? It will be an hour or two before the dancing starts.”

  Peter glanced at the dance floor, opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it and shook his head. He handed me the pair of cups in his left hand and offered his arm to Lindsey. “I’d be happy to.”

  “I’ll catch up with you girls later,” she said to us.

  As the sky grew darker and the party continued to fill up with more people, Heather started sticking closer to my side. When she looked around the room, I could tell that she was getting overwhelmed. Even worse than school, the guests here were an overwhelming majority of magikin: dwarfs, nagas, pookhas, goblins, satyrs and more. The Fae hadn’t arrived through the Veil yet, but it was still a strange sight.

  I grabbed Serafina in a spare moment, and she gave us a tour of the gardens. Heather relaxed a little when we got away from the crowd.

  Then the musicians in the gazebo swapped out for another, larger chamber group, and the dancing began in earnest. I found Kai, alone and in fox form. He was still the same height as me when standing upright on his hind paws, but now he was covered in red fur and his eyes were black. He was dressed in a smart brown suit and purple bow tie.

  I asked him to dance with Heather. “Only if I get to dance with you later,” he said with a toothy grin.

  “Deal.” I smiled back at him.

  Kai danced a song with Heather, and then Glen was her next partner like he’d promised earlier, and then most of the other guys kept coming over and asking her to dance. I had my own share of dance partners, too.

  I was taking a punch break between songs when Heather reappeared at my side. “I think your friend is starting to make a fool of herself.”

  I had a sinking feeling in my stomach as I turned around and looked. Although the musicians were playing a fast song, Daniela and Lindsey were both trying to do some kind of sultry tango which didn’t really follow the beat. With Robert and Peter in their clutches, they stalked around the dance floor and tried to do crazy moves like bending over backwards, which was forcing most of the other dancing pairs to back up out of the way.

  I stood up and tried to push through the crowd around the pond. Lots of other people had noticed by now, too, and they were all standing there watching the show. “Excuse me, pardon me,” I muttered as I dodged around more hoop-skirted ball gowns and dandy courtiers.

  But I was too late. Robert, who had obviously been taking dance lessons but was still not the most coordinated dancer, spun Daniela around the wrong way and knocked her straight into Lindsey.

  That was the final provocation she needed. “You clumsy idiot!” She let go of Peter and whirled around.

  Daniela folded her arms and faced Lindsey down. “My apologies. I didn’t see you edging into my space.”

  “This is my space!” Lindsey shrieked. She lunged for Daniela.

  “Lindsey, no!” I ran up onto the invisible platform, but she didn’t stop. Lindsey yanked the flower out of Daniela’s hair and shoved her so hard that Daniela lost her balance and fell off the edge of the dance floor, landing on her behind in the mud of the pond shore below.

  Two armed guards in the count’s green and gold uniforms, a faeriekin and an ogre, appeared out of thin air in the middle of the dance floor. They each grabbed one of Lindsey’s arms. “Violence in this court is not permitted, and must now result in your immediate expulsion from this party,” the faeriekin said sternly.

  I stopped short in a cluster of dancers. There was nothing I could do to help my friend now, except maybe—I looked around and saw Glen up on the terrace.

  Glen saw my pleading look and nodded. He glided through the crowd of guests, who parted to let him pass, and approached the guards. “There’s no need to restrain her,” he said to them. “She is a friend of mine, and I know that she lost her temper only momentarily. No doubt she already regrets the hastiness of her actions. Please, let her go.”

  The guards exchanged a look, then stepped back and released her, bowing to Glen. “Forgive us. We were following your grandfather’s orders.”

  Lindsey, who had frozen out of shock when the guards grabbed her, took a shuddering breath and rubbed her arms.

  Just then Count Duncan appeared next to Glen. “They acted rightly,” he said, looking down on his grandson. “Whatever her reasons were or how she regrets them, the rules of my house state that she must leave now.”

  Glen bowed his head respectfully to his grandfather. “Then allow me to escort the young lady out of the house.”

  Duncan nodded and stepped aside. Glen offered his arm to Lindsey. She reached out to accept it, but Peter hurried forward. “I’m driving her home,” he said with a pointed look at Glen.

  Glen bowed and indicated for both of them to go ahead. She took Peter’s arm then, and let him walk her quickly out of the party, her head bowed to hide her face. Glen followed behind them at a polite distance.

  I stopped holding my breath and stepped back down onto the ground. The guards and the count teleported off the dance floor, which was the cue for the musicians to start playing again, allowing the other dancers to resume. I saw Robert going to help Daniela up, who didn’t seem to be hurt, and then they also walked out.

  I went back to the bench where Heather was watching the whole thing with wide eyes. “Oh my goodness,” she said when she saw me. “I didn’t think she was going to go that far.”

  I sat down with a sigh. “Lindsey can be a little, um, impulsive sometimes. I tried to stop her.”

  “Do you think that you could take me home early?”

  “The dancing is going to be over in less than an hour,” I said, try
ing to think of how to encourage her to stay. “At midnight, there will be a fireworks show, and then they serve ice cream sundaes that they set on fire—”

  She shook her head. “I think that I’ve had enough excitement for one night. I just want to go home and rest.”

  “Okay. What time do you want me to pick you up tomorrow? There’s brunch running all morning, the swimming pools will be open, and then the games start at noon—” I saw her starting to shake her head again. “You have to at least come back for Glen’s knighthood ceremony at five. You said that you wanted to congratulate him.”

  Heather sighed. “Fine, you can pick me up at four or something.”

  I was disappointed that she was leaving. The evening was going downhill. I would have to hurry to get Heather home if I had any hope of making it back in time for the fireworks, and then I’d see which of my friends were still around to hang out with. At this rate, half of my classmates were already gone.

  I got Heather home and flew right back, but I was still a mile or so away from Quiggs Mountain when I saw the fireworks start to go off. I had to land in a tree to watch them and wait. The view from the tree wasn’t very good because of how far away I was and the fact that the show was designed to be viewed from Doe’s Rest Castle, so I was at a weird angle. Also, I got my hair stuck in a branch, and it hurt when I yanked myself free.

  By the time I finally made it back to the party, I was not in a good mood. Fortunately, a nice flaming ice cream sundae helped take the edge off of my annoyance. After I was served and safely blew the fire out, I sat down to eat my ice cream inside, because it was getting pretty chilly out, and looked around to see who else was around.

  By then, most of the younger guests had gone home, including nearly everyone my age. Heather’s parents aren’t the only ones who like to set a curfew. I knew that Glen and Ashleigh would still be around somewhere, but I didn’t see them. However, I did notice that a lot of Fae and other guests from beyond the Veil had started to arrive.

  Fae are immortal beings that live in the Realm of Faerie. They are tall, over seven or even eight feet sometimes, slender, beautiful, and they sometimes have a faint glow. They also possess very powerful magic. They have one Court, ruled by the Queen, and a whole hierarchy of nobles whose power comes from how closely related they are to the Queen. The world where they live is very different from ours, so inhabitants of Faerie can’t live long on Earth, and vice versa. If you get stuck on the wrong side of the Veil, you could lose your mind or even die. However, they like to visit when they get the chance, especially when there’s a party.

  The faeriekin who live here are all at least some part human. They resemble their otherworldly relatives’ appearance to some extent—taller than average and very beautiful—and they also enjoy extended lifetimes, often up to two or three hundred years. Their political system is modeled on the Faerie Court in the other Realm, although they have tendency to splinter off into smaller kingdoms and factions. Noble titles can be inherited through bloodlines traced back to Fae nobility, granted in recognition of service, or even taken by force.

  The scene inside the main castle building was beginning to resemble a fantastical painting. Mixed in with the mortal party guests were ladies that had dresses spun out of moonlight, gentlemen whose hats came alive to eat ice cream, elegant people who could be either men or women, Fae princesses who literally floated across the floor, people with too many eyes or extra joints in their fingers or impossibly long legs—

  I was not even halfway through eating my ice cream sundae when a tall man dressed entirely in lemon-yellow satin came over and sat down in the chair next to me. “Rosamunde! The little witchling,” he said with a smile that would charm the Faerie Queen herself.

  I smiled back, happy to see him again. “Hello! What name do you have today?” I asked carefully.

  “Dandelion,” he said, winking at me. “And thank you for remembering to ask this time.”

  “You could just wear a name-tag or something,” I suggested.

  He shook his head. “That would take all of the fun out of it. So! How goes things in your world? Have you finally chosen a suitor that will dash my dreams against the rocks and break my heart in twain?” He clasped his hands over his chest dramatically, as if bracing himself against the blow.

  I laughed. It was one of Dandelion’s old games to pretend that I am his one true love, and he must win my hand, but I knew he wasn’t serious. Fae are constantly shifting their natures and their moods, but they are often playful. “No, I am still not dating anyone.”

  “Ah, then there is still hope for me!” He clasped my hand, which was still holding the sundae spoon, and kissed it like a courtier.

  I pulled my hand away from Dandelion. “You are still way too old for me.”

  He pouted. “I can appear any age that I choose. I thought that you would like me tonight—just about eighteen, do you see? I read in one of your magazines that teen girls prefer boys who are a few years older than them.”

  “It’s not how you look. I don’t know how old you actually are, but I’m sure that it’s at least a few millenia out of my range.” But I still smiled. Fae are never boring.

  He sighed. “Never ask a gentleman about his true age,” he said. “By the way, are the other lovely ladies in your family here tonight? Your sister owes me a rematch in chess. I promise not to cheat this time.”

  I had my doubts about whether Dandelion could play any game without trying to cheat, but I kept that thought to myself. “Mom never wants to come and now Akasha doesn’t either. She’s been acting kind of weird lately.”

  He cocked his head to one side like a bird. “Weird? How so?”

  “Well, she’s been complaining about school and stuff. She said that she can’t make any friends because she’s the only human in her class now,” I said, stirring my melting ice cream. “She’s never had a lot of friends, but she didn’t have a problem getting along with other kinds of people before.”

  “Hm.” Dandelion thought about that for a minute.

  I took advantage of his silence to shovel a few spoonfuls of sundae into my mouth before the whole thing was too messy to bother.

  Then he asked, “What does your sister get out of this school? Is there anything that she likes about it?”

  That threw me for a loop. “It’s a great school!” I said. “You can get a great private school education without any religious preaching. They really care about all the different kinds of students, no matter what they are, and they have small classes so they can really focus on giving everyone individual attention. The orchestra is really good. They have some really cool electives, too, like the sorcery class and the magitek lab.”

  Dandelion gave me a stern look. “I know that it is a good school for a lot of the students,” he said. “It is obviously a good school for you. But what is so great about it for your sister? Is she in the magitek lab?”

  “No, she hasn’t learned any magic yet,” I said slowly. “She joined the school paper.”

  “Does she enjoy writing for the school paper?”

  That brought me back to the conversation we had that morning. I was starting to get an uneasy feeling. “She told me that she doesn’t get to write anything for the paper—but that’s because she’s new.”

  “I see.”

  I started to think about the other things that Akasha used to enjoy about school, like all of the different spirit events and volunteering in the classrooms, but Crowther was such a small school that it didn’t have many of those types of things. The only spirit event that we’d had so far this year was a magic show hosted by the sorcery class.

  Finally, I said, “I don’t know that there’s anything Akasha really enjoys about Crowther. It doesn’t have a lot of the stuff that she used to love about her old school.”

  “So, she is at a new school without any of her old friends or activities, and she can’t make friends or do anything special that she can only get at Crowther,” Dandelion said. He
frowned. “Why is she at this school?”

  It sounded harsh the way he said it. I opened my mouth to say that Akasha was going to Crowther because it was the same school that I went to, but then I also remembered her earlier accusation that she never saw me at school anyways, which was mostly true. And in two years, I would graduate and Akasha would be all alone at a school that she hated—a school that she had no reason to like.

  “I don’t know why she’s at the school,” I told Dandelion.

  “Then you have an answer to your problem: find something that she likes at your school, or find her a different school. Also, tell your mother that her continued absence from Court is starting to raise more than a few eyebrows.” He stood up then and offered his hand to me with a smile. “And now, little witchling, I believe you owe me a dance.”

  A servant passing by took my ice cream dish, and I had no excuses, so I accepted Dandelion’s hand. I let him lead me into one of the indoor dance rooms where a jazz band was playing. I noticed with some surprise that a chicken was playing the trumpet in the group.

  “How does a chicken play the trumpet?” I asked Dandelion, wondering how a beak could possibly make an embouchure without any lips.

  “How does a squid keep a diary?” Dandelion replied with a smirk, which didn’t answer my question at all.

  I was busy enough for the rest of the night that I was able to stop thinking about any drama. I only managed to get a few hours of sleep in one of the castle’s guest rooms, but I woke up feeling more wired than tired, especially after I ate numerous sugary dishes at the brunch buffet. I had seconds on the light and fluffy soufflé pancakes with butter and real maple syrup.

  After stuffing myself full of almost too much food to move, I saw that the games had already started. There was Ultimate Frisbee going on in one field, an archery competition in another, and the chess tournament was in full swing in the gazebo. The younger children were being supervised in several party games like musical chairs and Simon Says, but I knew that most of the children would be off in the woods playing an epic game of hide-and-go-seek.