A Dreadful Fairy Book

by Jon Etter

  Shade instantly knew who that person had to be. Her brow furrowed and lips narrowed in grim determination. With a mighty beating of wings, she soared back up the brilliant white cliffs as the last light of day glowed on the watery horizon.

  In which there is a good deal of

  hitting, kicking, slapping and such . . .

  Shade sailed up the Marble Cliffs, then soared over the heads of Lady Perchta and her thugs to land—with only a slight stumble, she noted proudly—between them and the clanging combat of the terribly outnumbered Sir Justinian and Grouse, giving her just enough space from both groups to do what she needed to do before anyone could stop her.

  On seeing her, Ginch and the Professor’s eyes lit up. “Sprootshade! You’re alive!”

  “Good,” Perchta said, swooshing and slashing her sword in front of her. “I would have been so disappointed if your death were as simple, quick, and relatively painless as a quick dip in the sea. Now, Little Owlet, I believe that I shall begin by—”

  “Boring me to death with inane threats?” Shade asked as she tucked Goodnight, Little Sprite in her backpack. “I mean, I’ve read much better threats in some really great books. Maybe you could steal one of those.”

  Lady Perchta growled and bared her perfect white teeth. “I’ll begin by ripping your tongue out!”

  Shade pretended to yawn as she unstrapped the thin valise from the front of her backpack. “Shudderpike used that one in The Tragedy of Lavinia. Pretty gruesome stuff—glad I only skimmed it. So, just curious, you’re not questing for any prey anymore, right?”

  “Only you,” Perchta said, stepping toward her.

  “Great!” Shade undid the latch on the valise. “Say, Sir Justinian? Quick question—I know you’re busy, but still—you aren’t looking for a quest at the moment, are you?”

  “I have one! My quest—hut!—from now until—oof!—my dying day,” the wonderful, very-much-deserving-of-his-own-book Sir Justinian called as he (and Grouse, I suppose) valiantly fought tooth and nail against barbarian and mounted goblin alike, “will be to see—gah!—the treachery of Perchta and Modthryth exposed and—ha!—the land finally cured of the pestilence of the Sluagh Horde forever! Yah!”

  “Good plan,” Shade muttered, opening the valise. “So everybody here either currently has a quest or isn’t really looking for one?”

  “I’d like-a to be free and get in-a the good card game,” Ginch said, struggling with the spriggan pinning his arms to his sides. The Professor nodded in agreement.

  “I don’t think that counts, so we should be good. Hey, Glatis!” Shade yelled into the valise, backing away as Perchta stalked closer. “I need you to come out and come out big!”

  “Do I have to?” a voice whined from inside the bag. “We were about to have a limbo contest.”

  “Yes!” Shade shouted. “Remember the grubsuckers that tried to hunt you when you were little? Well, they kind of want to kill and skin us now!”

  “For starters,” Perchta hissed. “I don’t know what sort of trick you think you’re pulling with that bag, Little Owlet, but let me assure you that—Aagh!”

  Whatever Lady Perchta had planned on assuring Shade of went unassured as a thirty-foot-long creature with the head and neck of a snake (now decorated with a lovely necklace made of purple flowers), body of a leopard, and ox hooves sprang from the small suitcase and planted one of those hooves squarely in the middle of Perchta’s chest. The blow sent her bowling into the wulver and the goblin that were restraining the Professor, knocking them to the ground. From the wriggling heap of fairies, the Professor sprang nimbly and struck the spriggan in the side of the head with a mighty KLANG! of his gauntlet.

  “Oi! I’ll do ya fer that, mate!” the spriggan bellowed, letting loose Ginch with one hand to swat at the Professor. Ginch shoved his freed hand into his jacket and pulled out a deck of cards, which he arched and sent shooting into the spriggan’s face.

  “Fifty-two card pick-up!” Ginch laughed, stomping on the distracted spriggan’s foot, then kicking him in an area far too indelicate to mention. (I’m quite appalled to even have to hint at such an ungentlemanly action!) As the spriggan’s eyes bugged out and he dropped to his knees clutching the . . . area (sigh!), Ginch danced nimbly away. “Actually, sixty-three—I find-a the fifty-two make it harder for me to win.”

  Meanwhile, Glatisant the Questing Beast galloped at the melee where Sir Justinian and Grouse were struggling and opened her mouth to let out a “Roar!” Now you would probably assume (quite understandably) that a roar coming from a thirty-foot serpent/leopard/ox creature would be so terrifying as to freeze the blood in anyone’s veins. However, Glatis, having a lovely, delicate voice that sounds, as luck would have it, very similar to your dainty Aunt Gladys’s, sounded much more like someone’s dainty aunt shouting “roar” than an actual fearsome beast. Rather than strike terror in any of the combatants, her roar merely made the nearest mounted goblin pause and look over its shoulder.

  “Really?” the goblin scoffed. “Is that supposed to—EEYAAAA!”

  Glatis’s roar may not have scared the goblin but being chomped about the middle by a giant snake head and then tossed off a cliff certainly did. Seeing and hearing a screaming goblin soar through the air was enough to make everyone pause. Glatis took this opportunity to rear up on her hind legs, let loose with an equally unterrifying roar, and then whip her head down to exhale a mighty column of flame at two of the human barbarians attempting to lay low the brave Sir Justinian (and, I suppose, Grouse). They shrieked and flailed in a desperate attempt to put out the flames before finally madly dashing off the cliff to plunge themselves in the cool waters below.

  Shade whistled appreciatively. “You never said you could breathe fire, Glatis!”

  Glatis gave her a snakey smile and then belched a puff of smoke. She covered her mouth with a hoof. “Sorry. Breathing fire—burp!—always unsettles—burp!—my tummy. BURP! Horribly embarrassing . . .”

  “Good to know.”

  Seeing three of their fiercest fighters fallen and the others breaking ranks and fleeing, the bear-helmeted goblin spurred his horse on to Lady Perchta’s side. He reached down and swept her gracefully up behind him. Lady Perchta shrieked in frustration and glared at Shade and the rest. “I swear, on my honor as the Duchess of Sighs and on the souls of all my ancestors, I will be avenged! Little Owlet, from this day forth, you and your friends shall—”

  BUUUURP! Glatis belched a massive cloud of fire. The goblin’s horse just barely escaped the flames as it galloped off along the darkening cliffs.

  “Disgusting!” Shade could hear Lady Perchta shouting in the distance. “Dishonorable and disgusting . . .”

  Shade crossed her arms and watched them flee. “Yeah, kind of. But pretty dingle-dangle effective.”

  The Professor clapped his hands and raced over to Glatis, his arms held wide. She instantly transformed into a white fox and jumped into his arms. Sir Justinian limped toward them, sword still in hand.

  “You know—urp!—that we’re on the same side, right?” Glatis purred, batting her long eyelashes.

  “That I do, most noble of beasts.” Sir Justinian smiled broadly. “That I do.”

  “Okay, is everyone all right?” Shade asked, scanning the faces of her companions. She started walking back to the library tree. “Since that’s settled, I need to go return a library book.”

  In which Shade returns a library

  book . . .

  “Open up!” Shade pounded on the door in the tree. “Open up!”

  The Professor walked over shaking his head. He turned the knob and opened the door a sliver before gesturing for Shade to go in.

  “Oh. I didn’t think to try—”

  The Professor sighed and rolled his eyes.

  Shade was about to push the door open then paused. What if they don’t let me come back? she worried. I mean, I don’t think I would let a book thief ever come back to my library. No. I’v
e got to do this. It’s their book, not mine, and they can keep it safer than I ever could. If that means I’m banished forever, then I guess I’ll just have to live with that. Shade gulped—which did nothing to settle her stomach as it twisted itself into a series of increasingly complicated knots—and pushed open the door. She was surprised to find François and Émilie standing right there at the entrance, smiling.

  Okay, weird . . . Shade thought as she took the book from her bag. “Here. I’m sorry—I took this and need to give it back.”

  François sipped his coffee. “Mademoiselle Shade, you did not take ze book. ’E did.”

  Shade looked over her shoulder to see the Professor standing right behind her. He grinned and gave an enthusiastic wave. “What? But how did you—”

  “Oh, we gave it to him to give to you,” Émilie said.

  “You gave it to him?”

  “Oui. It was a test,” François explained.

  “A test?” Shade could feel her face getting hot.

  “Oui! A test.” François beamed. “And it is my pleasure to say zat you—”

  Shade punched him in the shoulder. The gargoyle didn’t flinch. Shade, however, shook her hand, then clutched it with the other. “OW! Thistleprick! Dingle, dangle, donkled thistleprick, thistleprick, THISTLEPRICK!”

  “. . . passed,” François finished. “You know, you really should not ’it people made of ze stone.”

  “Really?” Shade growled through clenched teeth. When she saw that the Professor was pointing at her with his mouth wide in a silent laugh, she slugged him hard in the shoulder with her good hand. He frowned and rubbed at it. “What kind of dingle-dangle test is having him pretend to steal a book for me?”

  Émilie placed a cool, smooth hand on her shoulder. “Your love of literature and learning were undeniable, and in our private conversation Professor Pinky impressed upon us your scholarship and your determination, but we needed proof that your dedication to books was greater than your own personal desire to possess them.”

  “So we ’ave ze test. And you pass wiz flying colors,” François said warmly. “Alzough we did expect you to return ze book a little quicker. Perhaps you wrestle wiz your conscience a bit and—”

  Shade swatted Émilie’s hand from her shoulder. “No, I had to save it from being thrown in the ocean and then save my friends and myself from being killed by a crazy Sluagh noblewoman, who my mother apparently disfigured, and her vicious pack of killers, so I’m terribly sorry if your dingle-dangle coffee got cold while you waited safe and sound in here!”

  François took the coffee cup from his lips and exchanged a sheepish look with the alabaster woman. “Well . . . eh . . . none of zat was part of ze plan . . .”

  “Really?” Shade hauled off and hit the Professor in the shoulder again. He grabbed it and opened his mouth in outrage. “I can’t hit them without breaking my hand, so I had to hit you,” Shade explained. The Professor gave a resigned shrug.

  François sighed and looked into his now empty cup. “Well, if you do not want ze job—”

  “Oh, I’m taking the job! And if you ever pull a dingle-dangle stunt like that again, my friends and I are going to go out and get some sledgehammers and pickaxes and chisels and chip you down until you’re small enough to fit on a chessboard and then we’ll play chess with you. Every night. Long games. And keep you in a box when we’re not playing. Get me?”

  “Mais oui!” François chuckled and turned to Émilie. “Quite ze spitfire we ’ave found, no?”

  “You have no idea!” Shade spun on her heel and headed back outside. “I’m going to get my friends. Find us someplace comfortable to sleep in here!”

  It wasn’t until she was outside that what had just happened finally sunk in.

  Shade gave a little squeal and ran out to where the rest of her friends stood tending to each other’s wounds. “Hey, everybody! We’re going to sleep in the library—where I now work!—tonight! No cold winds! No morning dew! No attacks in the wee hours of the morning!”

  Amid the general appreciative hubbub, the wonderful Sir Justinian raised a hand for attention. “Thank you, good sprite, but as men of combat, my good squire and I must pass, for—”

  “Puckernuts to that,” Grouse grumbled, grabbing his bedroll from their swayback horse. “I’m going in.”

  “But Grouse! We are warriors! Creature comforts—”

  “Are much appreciated, especially after almost dying. Look, I’ve got the chance to sleep someplace warm and dry for a change, plus they probably have some really good cookbooks I can swipe some recipes from. Grouse pushed past Justinian and entered the library, calling over his shoulder, “Be sure to tell the owls and the crickets and the spiders I said, ‘Buzz off!’”

  “That rudeness is a clear violation of chivalric courtesy!” Sir Justinian called after Grouse as everyone else filed past him and into the library. “We will have words about it in the morning!”

  Under orders from the head librarians, Caxton fetched blankets, and everyone sacked out in the great reading room. With moonlight streaming in through the immense windows there, Shade looked around. In the corner, Grouse slept slumped in a high-backed chair with Mastering the Art of French Fairy Cooking by Julia Anklebiter open on his lap. Ginch lay flat on his back on one of the couches, snoring under the hat covering his face. And curled up together on one of the intricately patterned rugs were Glatis and the Professor.

  Tired though she was, it took Shade hours before she could fall asleep, too excited at the thought of spending the rest of her life there amongst the books and her head buzzing with too many questions.

  The next morning, over a lovely breakfast of delicate, fruit-filled pastries and savory sausages (made by the booted cat, Johannes) and a delicious omelet (made by a surprisingly chipper Grouse), Shade asked the librarians: “So what if I had decided to just keep the book? Were you really prepared to lose a book from your collection for the sake of testing my character?”

  “Mais non, my little butterfly,” François assured her between sips of coffee. “Caxton, what time is it?”

  “If oi ’adn’t been swindled out o’ me watch, oi’d know, wouldn’t oi?” Caxton growled, his eyes throwing daggers Ginch’s way.

  Ginch took Caxton’s watch out of his pocket. “It’s-a minute to eight.”

  “Pop on out to ze railing and look at Johannes’s desk, if you please.”

  Shade left the small dining hall and did as the gargoyle suggested. Shade had no idea why she was looking at the big desk with a small stack of books and a few papers on it until suddenly another small stack of books appeared out of nowhere and then another bigger one appeared and then a couple scrolls popped out of nowhere and rolled off and finally an immense tome approximately the size of the door to a sprite’s house thudded on the desktop.

  “One of François’s ideas to make the vast knowledge of the library more available to people,” Émilie explained as Shade returned to the table. “Instead of everyone coming here and poring over the books only when we keep the library open, people can now borrow the books from us. After a week or whenever readers are done with them—or if they are in danger of being damaged—they are magically transported right back here!”

  Shade choked on a bite of omelet. “If they’ll be damaged, they’ll . . . so I didn’t have to risk my life to keep that book from falling into the sea? If I had missed, it would have just popped back here?”

  Johannes nodded as he passed the sausage plate so that Caxton could have thirds. “Ja, safe und sound.”

  Shade punched Ginch in the shoulder. “Hey! Why you hit-a me?”

  Shade pointed across the table at the pixie. “The Professor’s too far away to hit.”

  “That’s-a the good point,” Ginch conceded, rubbing his arm.

  “And since we’re on the subject of new ideas, our first assignment for you is of vital importance to our goal of making books and learning available to everyone,” Émi
lie said.

  “Really?” My first assignment! This is really happening! Shade felt giddy.

  “For too long, knowledge, learning, ze arts, zey ’ave been ’idden away on far-off seashores or locked behind castle walls. Now imagine ze world we would ’ave if everyone could come ’ere and bask in ze light of learning!” François threw his arms wide, sloshing coffee in his enthusiasm. “Look at yourself! Imagine, my little drought-starved lily, ’ow you will blossom now zat ze rain of knowledge will fall upon you every day! And imagine ’ow enlightened ze world would be if everyone ’ad zis chance!”

  As François spoke, Shade got more and more excited. “That sounds amazing! What can I do?”

  “I got-a the question,” Ginch said before François or Émilie could answer Shade. “So you wanna have everybody come-a here, eh? How you think-a everybody get-a here to the edge of the kingdom? I mean, we come-a through the Grum Forest and we get-a attacked by the gooblins and the Perchta and the gooblins and the rats and the gooblins—you know, now I think-a on it, we really get-a attacked by the gooblins a lot . . .”

  “Very astute, Monsieur Ginch. That is the exact problem that we are in the process of solving,” Émilie replied. Ginch smiled and hooked his fingers in his waistcoat pockets, looking quite pleased with himself. “The paths to our seaside paradise are fraught with peril. So rather than have people come here, we have decided to bring here to them. Follow me, if you please.”

  “What do you mean ‘bring here to them’?” Shade asked as they wound their way down to the ground floor. “I mean, I guess letting visitors take books from here does that a little but—”

  “But zey still need to come ’ere to get zem! Precisely!” François said leading them across the grand hall to the exit door. “So we ’ave begun to open up a series of . . . branches to our library.”