"Not so loud!" I shouted, and she drew back, uncertainty in her big, fat face. How she looked enormous and the sun and clouds looked the same was beyond me.
"I can't hear her," Ivy said to Ceri. "She just squeaks."
"Well, I can hear you!" I shouted. Feeling exposed, I awkwardly climbed over my shirt to the ground. My feet were bare, and the earth was squishy. Sure, the dress made me feel like a princess, but it was a pain in the ass. I sure hoped there weren't any rats round. I'd be doing the classic stupid-girl fall if I had to run.
"I couldn't duplicate the pixy magic that amplifies voices," Ceri said, and I jumped when Ivy put her face right next to mine.
"Wow, Rachel," she whispered, sending her orange-juice-scented breath all over me. "You look like a Bite-Me-Betty doll in a prom dress."
Slumping, I sighed. I couldn't help but wonder if this feeling of being small was why Jenks was so bad tempered. I was never going to get in his face again. Damn it, I had to get in there. He was alone, grieving for his wife.
A series of clicks drew my attention up, and I blanched at the row of savage faces staring down at me from the top of the picnic table. Holy crap. And I thought they were scary when they were six inches tall. Now they were downright terrifying. Sidereal had his arms crossed, his expression unreadable as a bandaged woman stood on tiptoe and spoke in his ear, her white hair all glittery and her legs showing. She dropped back down to her heels, touching her hair as she looked at mine, making me self-conscious about my red hair color.
Above me, Pierce took a breath as I felt him tap a line, but he jerked when Ivy grabbed his arm with a white-knuckled strength. "Keep her safe," she threatened.
"Ivy!" I shouted, or squeaked, rather, and Ivy's brow furrowed. Jih flitted a nervous arc between him and Ceri, Pierce's clothes still in her arms.
"No, I'll allow that's fair," Pierce said, his gaze flicking to me and then back to Ivy's grip on him. "I'm by no means the biggest toad in the puddle when it comes to magic, but Rachel will be safe. See that you do your part in keeping the garden safe." He touched her hand, and she jerked away at the pulse of green-tinted ever-after. "The coven will assume failure shortly, and I don't want to be burned alive from a fireball shot from a passing carriage." Frowning, he took a step back as Ivy rubbed her hand. "Non sum qualiseram"
A film of black ever-after coated him. His eyes widened, and then he was gone, his clothes collapsing in a pile. My hair shifted as they hit the ground beside me, and my pulse hammered. He had taken the smut on himself. I knew without asking. I owed him, but he was probably not going to see it that way.
Jih hovered over Pierces old clothes, calling out before she dropped his new ones from about a foot up. The young woman was flustered when she flew back to me, her hands going out to my hair almost before she landed. "Let me fix it," she said. "Quick, before he gets here."
"It's fine, Jih," I complained, but she tsk-tsked me, slapping my reaching hands when they got too close to her work.
"It's awful," she pronounced, making me feel like a Neanderthal next to her lithe grace. "But it won't be if you would be quiet and let me do this."
Chafing at the wait, I held still while Ceri and Ivy peered down at Pierce's clothes and waited for him to emerge. Jih quickly braided my hair into a complicated knot that would at least keep it from getting into my face with all the wind from pixy wings and shrinking men. "Now you look better," the pixy said, her grief abating slightly in the task of caring for another.
"Thank you," I whispered, feeling like a princess as she stood beside me while Pierce made his way to us, testing his hand and marveling that the burn was gone. His beard was back, and he looked like an older version of one of Jenks's kids, the one with dark hair, dressed in the traditional tight trousers and gardening jacket. The jacket was loose since it tied in the back as well as the front, and he couldn't manage it alone. It was the same fabric as my dress, but clearly masculine. His feet were bare, and they looked kind of thin. He even had a hat, perched rakishly on his head.
"Rachel," he said as soon as he was close enough, his worry obvious. "Are you well?"
"I'm fine," I said, wishing we could just get moving, then frowned at Ivy and Ceri who were whispering about how cute we looked. "I thought you might sound like Mickey Mouse," I said as he came to a halt beside me.
"Who?" he asked, rubbing his new beard.
"Never mind," I said, gesturing for him to turn around so I could lace his jacket up.
His neck went stiff, but he turned to show me the undone laces. Jih made an embarrassed sound as I tightened them, and I wondered if I was breaking a pixy rule by lacing up an unmarried man's shirt. Rolling my eyes at her fluster, I tugged the last one tight and tied it off. "There you go," I said, and Jih's wings blurred to invisibility to make a silver dusting.
The light was suddenly eclipsed, and I jumped, startled when Ceri bent down to us.
"Jumpy little thing, isn't she?" Jih said, and Pierce smiled slightly, startled as well.
Ceri patiently waited until we were all looking at her. "Jih will escort you to the stump and give you a good dusting," she said, looking at us in turn. "I hope you know what you're doing." She stood, and skirts shifting, she walked to the stairs and went inside, the door slamming behind her in rebuke. I looked at Pierce, doubt rising. I wanted this, Ivy wanted this, but more important, Matalina had wanted this.
"After you, madam pixy," Pierce said, and Jih darted off, gone in an instant.
"Jih!" Ivy shouted, and Pierce and I cowered. "Sorry," she whispered as Jih returned.
"I wasn't going to leave them," she said, hands on her hips as she hovered over us. "I was just making sure it was safe for ground travel."
"Where's Rex?" I asked, fear stabbing through me.
"Inside." Jih moved forward and then back. "This way. Mind the glass."
Glass? I thought, cold, miserable, and worried about Jenks.
Ivy sat at the table beside the fairies, clearly going to stay out here when I was in the wilds. Giving her a wave she couldn't see, I followed Jih. Pierce had one of the fairy swords on his hip, and as the grass closed in, I asked him, "You know how to use that?"
"Absolutely not," he said, "but isn't it a caution? Dash-it-all fine Arkansas toothpick."
My eyebrows rose. "Oka-a-a-ay."
We soon found the glass - the remnants of my potion vial, I guess - and we wove through the thick shards carefully, following Jih's gold-dusted path. Every birdcall made my heart race. Every gust of wind in the leaves brought my eyes up, scanning. The grass we walked through had been cut, but it came up to my waist, growing in clumps. A skittering jerked me to a stop.
"Holy crap!" I exclaimed, and Pierce brandished his sword at a hard-plated bug the comparative size of an armadillo. Its antenna waved at us, and I froze, wondering if I could kick it or if it would chew my foot off.
Jih, who was flying a nice safe four inches off the ground, looked down. "It's a roly-poly bug," she explained, her tone saying I was a baby.
"I've never seen one the size of my head before," I muttered.
She dropped lower to give it a kick and it vanished. "It's safer when you can fly," she said lightly. "I was grounded an entire month when I snapped the main vein in my right lower wing. I hated it. Never went outside the entire time."
No wonder nothing fazed Jenks. Just walking around took guts.
Jih stopped short, her face pale as her wings dusted a melancholy blue. I pushed past her, halting when I found we were at Jenks's stump. The grass ended, giving way to a flat sheet of earth that I remember spanning only a foot or so, but now looked enormous. It was littered with the remnants of battle. The fire where the fairies' weapons had been burned was almost out. The air was clean, but memory put the scent of blood and burnt hair drifting through the clearing. It was quiet. Empty.
Pierce edged even with me, and together we looked at the understated entrance to Jenks's home. It was almost invisible, cut to look like a part of the stump itself. "It's round," he said softly. "I've not seen a round door before."
"Maybe it's for the wings?" I guessed, glancing up at Jih. "Thank you, Jih. Do you want to come in with us?"
Jih's feet touched the earth beside me, head bowed to hide her tears. "I'll not go any farther," she said, her voice a whisper. "My husband thinks it was wrong for me to have even joined the battle, seeing as it's not truly my garden anymore. But I didn't see any harm if I Visited' my sisters while he was at home making sure no one took our own land."
"You are your father's daughter as much as your mother's," I said, touching her arm and making her look up. "Always bending the rules."
She smiled forlornly, causing her to look beautiful, dashed the glitter from her face, and looked at her first home with a faint smile. "I think I'd like my papa back if he was happy."
I nodded, feeling for the first time that I might be doing some good. "I'll try."
She rose up with a soft hum, shifting a dust of sparkles over us. Pierce sneezed, and I held my breath. "Now youTl smell right," she said, and with no more, she flew away. The sound of her wings faded remarkably fast.
Pierce smacked his clothes to get the dust off. "Don't you want to smell right?" I asked him, and he raised his eyebrows.
"It's a right smart amount she put down," he said. "Why do we have to smell anyway?"
I didn't know. I really didn't care. Melancholy, I looked out over the distance, feeling the breeze, tasting it almost. It was too quiet for my garden, so long holding the singing or giggling of pixies by sun or starlight. They were either gone or hiding. Pierce gave a small start as I slipped my fingers into his. So I needed his moral support. Eyes forward, I stepped out, feet silent in the manicured dirt as I crossed the opening and watched the door get bigger. My pace didn't falter until I reached it.
My knees went wobbly as I stared at it. Jenks was behind it, mourning his wife. Of all the demons I'd faced, of all the wicked witches, wild Weres, and evil elves, this was the most daunting thing I'd ever done. Jenks's life was on the line. I couldn't fail.
"Should we knock?" Pierce asked as we looked at it.
"Absolutely." Gathering my courage, I knocked, knowing by the flat sound that it wouldn't carry into the stump any distance. Pierce cleared his throat and pulled himself straight, as if we were calling on neighbors, and after a moment, he glanced at me.
"Can you tap a line?" he asked, his blue eyes showing a hint of trepidation. "I'm a mite skerry to try. I'm of a mind it might explode in me, being so small."
"I've been connected since we did the spell. It's okay."
"Oh." He hesitated, and I felt a tingle between us. "I think we should just go in," he said, his eyes on the wooden door.
Nodding, I pushed the door open.