Fablehaven: The Complete Series (121 page)

“Not the photo itself,” Kendra said. “Just a peek. How long has it been since you’ve seen his face?”

For an instant, Lena looked wounded, but her serenity returned almost immediately. “Don’t you see that finding the artifact is irrelevant? Everything up there ends. Everything is fleeting, illusory, temporary. All you can show me is a flat image of my beloved, a lifeless memory. The real man is gone. As you will be also.”

“If it truly doesn’t matter, Lena,” Grandpa said from farther back on the pier, “why not tell us? The information means nothing to you, but here, now, for the short time we live and breathe, it matters to us.”

“The old one is yapping now,” complained an unseen naiad.

“Don’t answer him, Lena,” encouraged a second voice. “Wait him out. He’ll be dead before you know it.”

Several voices giggled.

“Have you forgotten our friendship, Lena?” Grandpa asked.

“Please tell us,” Kendra said. “For Patton.” She held up the picture.

Lena’s eyes widened. Her face broke the surface of the water and she mouthed Patton’s name.

“Don’t make us drag you under,” warned a voice.

“Touch me and so help me I’ll abandon you,” Lena murmured, entranced by the image Kendra held.

Lena’s gaze shifted to Kendra. “All right, Kendra. Perhaps this is what he would have wanted. He hid the artifact in the old manor.”

“Where in the manor?”

“It will be hard to find. Go to the northernmost room on the third floor. The safe with the artifact inside appears every Monday at noon for one minute.”

“Does the safe have a key?”

“A combination: right twice to 33, left once to 22, then right to 31.”

Kendra glanced back at Grandpa. He was jotting down the numbers. “Got that?” she asked.

“33–22–31,” he said, giving Lena a funny look.

His former housekeeper averted her eyes shyly.

“I have another question,” Kendra asked. “What did Kurisock do to Patton’s uncle?”

“I don’t know,” Lena said. “Patton never shared that story. It plainly pained him, so I never pressed. He meant to tell me, I think, in his later years. He repeatedly told me I would hear the tale one day.”

“So you know nothing about Kurisock?” Kendra asked.

“Only that he is a demon on this preserve. And he may have been somehow affiliated with the apparition who usurped the manor.”

“What apparition?” Kendra asked.

“It happened before my fall to mortality. Like I said, I never learned the details. The apparition who destroyed Marshal no doubt still resides in the manor. Patton hid the artifact there because it would be well guarded.”

“Marshal was Patton’s uncle?”

“Marshal Burgess.”

“One last thing. There is a silver bowl. The Fairy Queen gave it to me.”

Lena nodded. “Forget the bowl. You cast it into the pond, and we have claimed it.”

“I need it back,” Kendra said. There was a chorus of hearty laughter from the other naiads. “It’s the key for me to safely approach the Fairy Queen again. She may be our only hope of overcoming the plague.”

“Come over to the edge and I’ll hand it to you,” taunted an unseen naiad. Several other voices tittered.

“The bowl is their most treasured keepsake,” Lena said. “They, we, will never relinquish it. I had best go. My sisters become skittish when I spend too much time near the surface.”

Kendra felt tears well in her eyes. “Are you happy, Lena?”

“Happy enough. My sisters have striven to rehabilitate me. The glimpse of Patton was thoughtful, although it made old wounds ache. For the kindness of the gesture, I told you what you wanted. Enjoy what time you have.”

Lena sank into the pond. Kendra stared after her, but the pond was deep, and Lena was soon out of sight.

Grandpa approached behind Kendra, placing his hands on her shoulders. “Well done, Kendra. Very well done.”

“The withered one grabbed the obnoxious one,” observed a voice.

“Push her in!” cried another.

“Let’s get away from here,” Kendra said.

Chapter 17

Preparations

The largest of the three tents Dale had brought from the house was the biggest privately owned tent Seth had ever seen. The square monstrosity had broad purple and yellow stripes and a steep, curving roof that sloped up to a high central pole with a banner at the pinnacle. The flap over the wide entrance was propped on rods to form a sizable awning. The smaller tents were also fairly roomy, but their dimensions and coloring were less eccentric.

Seth sat in the entrance of the tent where he, Warren, and Dale would be staying. Grandma and Grandpa were sharing the big one. And Kendra got her own, which Seth did not like, but sadly he could think of no reasonable arguments why the arrangements should be otherwise. He had resolved that if the weather stayed pleasant, he would go sleep in one of the gazebos.

A barefooted dryad approached Grandpa’s tent. Her long, auburn hair hung past her waist, and her robes evoked memories of bright autumn leaves. She crouched to duck through the entrance. How tall did that make her? Seven feet? More?

Seth had seen several interesting characters come and go from Grandpa’s tent over the past hour. But when he had sought admittance, Grandma had shooed him away, promising that he would soon be part of the conversation.

A red fairy with wings like flower petals shot through the air. Seth could not tell whether she had emerged from Grandpa’s tent or had come whizzing over the top from behind. She hovered for a moment not far from Seth before streaking out of view.

Absently uprooting handfuls of grass, Seth resolved not to be excluded any longer. Clearly Grandpa and Grandma preferred to gather news and opinions in a way that would allow them to regulate the information, sharing only those facts and ideas deemed suitable for his frail brain. But hearing the unedited details from the actual creatures was half the fun, and whether his grandparents believed it or not, Seth knew he was mature enough to handle anything they could hear. Besides, was it his fault that the walls of a tent were so thin?

He rose and strolled to the back of the yellow and purple tent, sitting in the shade on the lawn with his back to the fabric wall. Straining to listen, he tried to look idle and bored. He heard only the clamor of the satyrs playing on the boardwalk.

“You won’t hear anything,” Warren said, coming around the side of the tent.

Seth hopped guiltily to his feet. “I just wanted to relax in the shade.”

“The tent is magically soundproof—a fact you might have known if you’d helped us set it up.”

“I’m sorry, I was—”

Warren held up a hand. “If our roles were reversed, I would have been anxious to meet all the creatures here too. Don’t worry, I would have come and nabbed you had we really needed your help. Have you enjoyed yourself?”

“The centaurs weren’t very nice,” Seth said.

“It looked like they spoke to you. That alone is a feat.”

“What’s with them?”

“In a word, arrogance. They see themselves as the apex of all creation. All else lies beneath their notice.”

“Kind of like fairies,” Seth said.

“Yes and no. Fairies are vain, and find most of our affairs boring, but whatever they pretend, they care what we think of them. Centaurs neither seek nor appreciate our admiration—if anything, they take it for granted. Unlike fairies, centaurs sincerely perceive all other creatures as inherently lower than themselves.”

“They sound like my math teacher,” Seth said.

Warren grinned.

Seth noticed some dark fairies floating just beyond the nearest portion of the hedge wall. “This plague got to the centaurs just like it affected everyone else.”

“Had it not, I doubt they would display any interest,” Warren said. “In fairness, they have some excuse for their haughtiness. Centaurs tend to be brilliant thinkers, gifted artisans, and formidable warriors. Pride itself is their greatest flaw.”

“Seth!” Grandma called from the other side of the tent. “Dale! Warren! Kendra! Come counsel with us.”

“There you go,” Warren said, sounding relieved himself. “The wait is over.”

Part of Seth wondered if Warren had wandered to the back of the tent in order to quietly verify whether it was actually as soundproof as purported. They walked around to the front of the tent, passing the towering dryad with the autumnal robes and an aged satyr with a white goatee and deep laugh lines. Kendra unzipped her tent and came outside. Dale jogged toward them from the direction of the dwarf encampment. Grandma and Grandpa waited at the entrance of the tent and welcomed them inside. Both Stan and Ruth looked tired and careworn.

The tent was so large that Seth half expected to find it furnished, but there were only a pair of rolled sleeping bags in the corner and some gear. They all sat on the floor, which was quite comfortable, thanks to the springy turf underneath. The sunlight filtering through the yellow and purple fabric gave the room an odd cast.

“I have a question,” Kendra said. “If the evil brownies stole the register, can’t they just change the rules and let dark creatures come in here?”

“Most of the boundaries and borders of Fablehaven are fixed by the treaty that established the preserve and are therefore unchangeable while the treaty stands,” Grandma explained. “The register simply allowed us to regulate access to the preserve as a whole and to dictate which creatures could cross the barriers guarding our home. The magical barriers protecting this area are different from most of the boundaries at Fablehaven. Most boundaries are established to limit access by particular types of creature—there are certain sectors where fairies are allowed, and satyrs, and fog giants, and so forth. Some creatures are granted more area to roam than others, based on how potentially harmful they are to others. Since most of the boundaries are divided according to species, when the light creatures started turning dark, they retained access to the same areas.”

“But the border around the pond and this field functions according to affiliation with light or darkness,” Grandpa said. “Once a creature starts drawing more upon darkness than light, that creature can no longer enter here.”

“How long will this place hold off the darkness?” Seth asked.

“We wish we knew,” Grandma said. “Perhaps for a good while. Perhaps for another hour. We can be certain only that our backs are to the wall. We’re almost out of options. If we fail to take effective action, the preserve will soon fall.”

“I conferred with my most trustworthy contacts from among the creatures gathered here,” Grandpa said, his demeanor becoming more official, “in an effort to gauge the level of support we could expect from the various races. I traded words with at least one delegate from most of them, excluding the brownies and the centaurs. As a whole, the creatures here feel sufficiently cornered and intimidated by this plague that I believe we can count on considerable assistance as needed.”

“But we did not want any of them here while we discuss strategy,” Grandma said. “We withheld certain key information. If they should become contaminated, most, if not all, would utterly betray us.”

“Why do the creatures all change so completely?” Kendra asked. “Seth said that Coulter and Tanu kept helping us after they transformed.”

“You ask a difficult question,” Grandpa said. “The short answer is that as nonmagical, mortal beings, humans are affected differently by the plague. The rest requires speculation. For the most part, unapologetically, magical creatures are what they are. They tend to be less self-aware than humans, relying more on instinct. We humans are conflicted beings. Our beliefs don’t always harmonize with our instincts, and our behavior doesn’t always reflect our beliefs. We constantly struggle with right and wrong. We wage war between the person we are and the person we hope to become. We have a lot of practice wrestling with ourselves. As a result, compared to magical creatures, we humans are much more able to suppress our natural inclinations in order to deliberately choose our identities.”