A Psychic with Catitude

by P. D. Workman

  “I’ve heard stories.”

  “Fairy tales,” he scoffed. “Fairies lie.”

  “Pixies lie too.”

  Brannock stared at Jessup. Jessup stared at him. She was tough. She didn’t give up easily.

  “Ruan liked Calliopia,” Jessup said.

  “He did not know her.”

  “They went to school together. He knew her. They probably sat together at lunch. Passed notes during class. Maybe… more.”

  “No,” Demelza insisted. She shook her finger at Jessup. “This did not happen. Never.”

  Reg felt the first wave of pixie emotion radiating from Ruan’s mother. She had not been angry before that. But the thought of her son and Calliopia together aroused hate and disgust, just as recognizable as human emotion. So maybe they had been Romeo and Juliet? Attracted to each other, but forbidden by their parents to have anything to do with each other? They had to hide their feelings for each other. Until what? Until Ruan had broken down and told his parents? Until she’d run away from her family to be with her boyfriend?

  “Calliopia was making a love potion,” Jessup told her. “We know that. If it wasn’t for Ruan, then who was it for? He was the one she wrote about in her diary.”

  “What a silly fairy girl dreams is no concern of ours.”

  “Where is Ruan? I want to talk to him.”

  “If you want to talk to him then you must find him,” Brannock said.

  “Is he in the realm?”

  Brannock considered the question. He looked at his wife. He looked back at Jessup. “He is not.”

  Jessup sighed. She pulled out a business card and held it toward Brannock. “When he returns, I want to talk to him.”

  Brannock hissed, making Jessup jerk back from him.

  “You have no right to command here,” Brannock said fiercely. “Take your edicts away from this place.”

  “It’s just a—”

  “We have talked, as required by the treaty. Now you are done.”

  Jessup withdrew the business card and put it back away.

  “You will not return here on this matter.”

  Jessup gave Reg a tiny nod and they turned toward the door. Demelza was standing there, barring their path. Reg couldn’t help looking over her shoulder to where she had expected to see Demelza. How had the woman moved so fast? And without them seeing her?

  “This one wears wards and cites authority,” Demelza said, looking at Jessup. “But this one…” She considered Reg.

  Reg held up her injured hand. “You don’t want to touch me. I have a… I have fairy blood.”

  Demelza gave a low hiss and bared her teeth. Her ice-cold eyes held Reg paralyzed.

  “She is protected,” Brannock confirmed. “Touch her not.”

  Demelza moved out of their way. Jessup headed out the door. Reg followed closely behind her. She wasn’t about to be left behind to test out her magical protection. She trusted that the witches were right and the fairy blood would protect her from the pixies, but she still couldn’t be one hundred percent sure, and she wasn’t about to stay behind to find out.

  Brannock and Demelza didn’t follow them, or at least if they did, Reg did not see or hear them. But she was starting to understand that the pixies couldn’t always be seen and she didn’t trust that they weren’t close by.

  “Do you know the way out?” she asked Jessup anxiously, unsure whether Jessup had memorized all of the twists and turns they had taken to get to Brannock’s room.

  “We’ll be out of here in a few minutes,” Jessup assured her. “Keep up.”

  ⋆ Chapter Twenty ⋆

  R

  eg breathed a sigh of relief when they stepped out of the last building and into the blinding sunlight. She covered her eyes, tears streaming down her face, and just soaked in the sensation of the sun beating down on her skin. She would never have guessed that it could be so cold just a few feet underground.

  They both stood there for a few minutes, blinded and getting used to the light, before they were able to move and get back into the car. Jessup radioed in a status update. As they drove out of the dead end and again saw the people out on the street, Reg looked at them with new eyes. The children who played and laughed on the sidewalks and in the gutters might not be children at all, but pixies keeping guard, watching as they first approached and then drove away.

  Jessup noticed her interest. “You’ll never look at children the same way again. You’ll always wonder, even when you’re away from this place, how many of them are children and how many are pixies keeping watch or looking for new victims.”

  “Do you believe what they said?”

  “Pixies lie constantly. I can’t rely on anything they said.”

  “Then what was the point in interviewing them?”

  “To observe them and see if they gave anything away. To see if Ruan was there. Or any sign of Calliopia.”

  “How would we know? It’s like a rabbit warren down there.”

  Jessup turned her palm up in a gesture of surrender. “You don’t know if you don’t look.”

  “I suppose not. So did you learn anything?”

  “I don’t think Demelza knew that there was a relationship between Ruan and Calliopia.”

  Reg nodded her agreement. “That was the only time I felt anything from her. She really didn’t like the idea of a romantic relationship between them.”

  “So whatever happened to Calliopia, it wasn’t because Calliopia was lured here. Not by any of the adult pixies.”

  “Do you think she might have originally come here because of Ruan? Because he lured her here to be with him or she thought she could get together with him?”

  “It’s still a possibility. But I don’t get the feeling that we have figured it out yet. I still don’t think we’ve quite put our finger on what happened.”

  “Brannock knew that she had disappeared from her room.”

  “I noticed that too,” Jessup agreed. “But I don’t know if that’s because the pixies had something to do with it, or just that they had heard about it.”

  “Is it true that fairies—”

  Jessup put her hand over her hip and swore. She swerved slightly, making Reg grab onto the handle of the door for support, flashing back to Sarah’s driving. They straightened out and she let the handle go, but Jessup kept swearing.

  “What is it?”

  “My badge! My shield! It was on my belt, so that it’s handy if I need to use it to identify myself, and it’s gone!”

  “You think the pixies stole it?”

  “It didn’t just drop off of its own accord!”

  “I’m sorry. Do you want to go back and get it?”

  Jessup’s fingers tightened on the wheel, and she considered for a moment. But then she shook her head. “Can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s an old trick. Draw someone back to a place by keeping something they value. So they go back looking for it, thinking they’re still protected by whatever wards they set originally… but they’re not.”

  “So you really can’t go back there?”

  “No. You remember what Brannock said? ‘You’re done. You will not return here on this matter.’ So if I went back, it wouldn’t be covered by the treaty. I’d be going in with no official protection.”

  Reg shook her head. “It’s all so complicated. All of these rules…”

  “I imagine it is confusing. I’ve lived here almost all my life. My parents were practitioners, so even though I really don’t have much talent myself, I grew up as part of the community, familiar with all of the rules and how things are done. For you… it must be like moving to a foreign country. You think that all of the customs and laws are going to be the same, but then you find out that they’re not.”

  Reg nodded. “Exactly. Finding out that some of the fairy tale stuff is true… even if I don’t understand all of it… it’s crazy. I keep expecting to find out it’s a joke or that I’ve lost my mind.”

&nb
sp; They were both silent for a while, Jessup seething about her lost shield and Reg trying to analyze everything she had seen and heard to figure out the realities of the new world she was living in.

  “So is it true that fairies steal children from their beds but pixies don’t?”

  Jessup looked at her for a moment and pursed her lips.

  “Good question… I suspect that it’s only half true. Just enough to sound like it’s true to throw us off the scent.”

  “So which half is true?”

  “Fairies definitely have a history of stealing babies or very young children from their cots. It’s a longstanding tradition in literature and fairy tales. The people who like to come up with explanations for folk tales suggest that the fairies stealing a child away was a way to account for infanticide, developmental delays, or negligent parenting. Just say that the fairies took him and that would explain everything.”

  Reg leaned back in her seat, closing her eyes and rubbing her temples and the space between her eyes. It wasn’t like they had done a lot of physical work in walking down to the pixies’ underground burrows, but she was exhausted anyway. Everything seemed to take more energy from her in Black Sands.

  “Okay, so I get infanticide or children wandering off. But how do the fairies stealing babies explain developmental delays? You mean like autism?”

  Jessup nodded. “These babies seem perfectly normal when they are born, right? You can’t tell the difference. But then when they’re not developing as expected or, worse yet, show regression in development, it could be explained by the fact that the fairies had stolen the true child and replaced it with a changeling. A changeling looks the same as the true child, but doesn’t behave like a normal human child. No language. Flapping or spinning or other strange behaviors.”

  “I’ve heard the word before, but I never really knew what a changeling is. So it’s… a fairy baby?”

  “No, more like a counterfeit baby, like an automaton. Not a real human being. Which, again, makes it okay to commit infanticide, because it’s not really a real human child. Just a replica made by the fairies to replace the child they stole.”

  “And what happens to the child that they stole? What do they do with it?”

  “They raise it as their own. To become a fairy.”

  “Don’t they have their own children?”

  “Yes. But fairy children are few and far between. They might only have one baby every few hundred years. Even though a couple may be together for a millennium, they might only have one or two children, not enough to maintain the fairy population. So if they can’t have them, they steal them.”

  “So the Papillons were lucky to have another child so quickly.”

  Jessup was focused on her driving, but after a few seconds, she turned and looked at Reg.

  “Another child?”

  “The baby.”

  “What baby?”

  “Their baby. When we went to the house…”

  “They don’t have a baby. Calliopia was an only child.”

  Reg couldn’t figure out what Jessup was saying. “Okay, then whose baby was it?”

  “They didn’t have a baby. What are you talking about?”

  “The whole time we were there… Mrs. Papillon was holding a baby.”

  “No, she wasn’t.”

  They looked at each other for a brief second, then Jessup had to refocus on her driving. “I don’t understand.”

  “Are you telling me you didn’t see a baby and I did?” Reg asked.

  Jessup nodded. Reg felt the familiar knot in her gut. She had been in trouble so many times for seeing things that weren’t there, she felt sick any time there was even a hint that her imagination was getting away from her.

  “That doesn’t mean you didn’t see what you saw,” Jessup said, glancing over at her again. “I’m not accusing you of making it up or being crazy.”

  “But I saw a baby when there wasn’t one? What does that mean? She had a baby who had died and its spirit is still attached to her? Or she’s pregnant and I saw the baby’s spirit? What?”

  “I don’t know. What did it feel like?”

  Reg thought back to Calliopia’s mother and the baby she had held.

  “It was strange. The baby didn’t cry. She held him… awkwardly. Not the way that a mother holds a baby, more the way that a little girl holds a plastic doll. You know, held all stiff at her shoulder…”

  Jessup thought about that. “I don’t have a clue what that means.”

  “Is she Calliopia’s mother? I mean… she seemed very young. I assumed when I first saw her that she was Callie’s step-mother. A second marriage.”

  “No. As far as I know, she’s Calliopia’s real mother. Remember the pixies. You can’t trust appearances. Some of these long-lived races look very young. It takes hundreds of years for them to age.”

  Reg closed her eyes, trying to recall it more clearly. She tried to see every detail and to hear and smell and feel everything that had happened.

  “What if it was just a doll?” she mused. There was nothing in her recollection that would refute the idea. She hadn’t had a clear look at the baby, it had only been a wrapped bundle in Mrs. Papillon’s arms. But why hadn’t Jessup seen it?

  “Why would she be carrying a doll?” Jessup returned. “And more importantly, why would she hide the fact from us? If it was something from the physical world rather than a spirit, you saw through her concealment spell, but none of the rest of us saw it. It would have to be something of significance.”

  “Does that mean it was incriminating or just private?”

  “Good question. Maybe we should go have a chat with her and ask.”

  We? Reg glanced over at her.

  Jessup raised her brows. “Do you want to come?”

  Reg was worn out after the encounter with the pixies. It would be nice to go home and have a nap and try the next day, but Calliopia might not have that long. If she were being held by the pixies—and the room Reg had seen her in was certainly consistent with the underground hovels of the pixies—she was running out of time.

  “Uh… okay. I’ll come along, if you want me to.”

  Jessup nodded. “Since you’re the one who can see through her concealment, that would be helpful. She could have it right in front of me while I talk myself blue in the face saying that she had a baby the last time we were there, and I wouldn’t know it.”

  ⋆ Chapter Twenty-One ⋆

  T

  he Papillon estate was just as Reg had remembered it, lush and verdant, with the spires of the castles rising up out of the trees as if it had grown there instead of being constructed. There was a feeling of peace and serenity there that hadn’t been present in the underground settlement of the pixies. Reg didn’t know if pixies and fairies were related to each other; to her mind, they couldn’t be more opposite. Other than that they were both magical, long-lived races.

  Reg gave a sigh and breathed in the fresh air. It was invigorating and helped to counteract the anxiety the visit with the pixies had left her with. It was a place where she imagined she could forget all her troubles and live outside of time.

  The butler took longer to answer the door than he had on their previous visit, obviously not expecting anyone. He looked them over and raised one eyebrow in inquiry.

  “Did my lord and lady expect you today?” He obviously knew they did not.

  “Are they in?” Jessup challenged without answering the inquiry. “We have some questions with regard to the investigation.”

  “I will see if they are able to meet with you.”

  “I’m going to have to insist,” Jessup said, her voice hard. “If they will not make themselves available, we’ll have to take additional steps, which they will not be happy about.”

  He looked at them for a few seconds longer, then withdrew to go talk to his masters. Reg studied a little oasis of plants and a water feature as they waited. The trickling sound of the water was soothing, unlike the constant drippin
g in the pixies’ tunnels.

  “If you will follow me.”

  Reg hadn’t even heard the butler’s approach and was startled by his voice. They followed him to a different room from where they had previously met. It appeared to be some kind of work room. Mr. Papillon was not dressed in the same finery as he had been on their previous visit, but in plain linens and an apron. He looked up from his workbench, where there was a line of planting pots, gardening implements, and bags of soil. Reg didn’t know why it should surprise her to find him elbow-deep in gardening, considering all of the plants in and around the house. What did she think? That they just appeared there magically?

  Mrs. Papillon was in the corner of the room, not working, but resting in a natural-colored wicker armchair, the baby bundle in her arms. She looked older than Reg remembered, tired and worn. If fairies took hundreds of years to mature, then Reg wouldn’t have expected to be able to see any changes occurring over a few days. But apparently, even fairies could look bad after a few days worrying over a missing child.

  “Detective Jessup,” Mr. Papillon greeted. “We weren’t expecting to see you today. I hope this means there has been a break in the case and you have come to tell us of your progress.”

  “We are making progress,” Jessup said. “But it is difficult for us to do so when you withhold information from us.”

  He looked down at his pots, transferring rich-smelling soil into them one at a time with a small shovel. “We have told you everything we could. If there is something we neglected to tell you, I assure you it was an oversight.”

  Jessup looked at Reg, asking a silent question. Reg nodded at Mrs. Papillon, confirming to Jessup that she was holding the baby. Jessup stared at the fairy, going nearly cross-eyed, but obviously could not see the baby that was so obvious to Reg.

  “Ms. Rawlins has some questions for your wife.”

  Reg was startled. She had expected to listen and to affirm what Jessup had to say, not to take over the investigatory process.

  “Uh… yeah.” Reg walked across the room to talk face to face with Mrs. Papillon and, hopefully, to get a better look at the baby.