Fablehaven: The Complete Series (36 page)

To one side of Bahumat floated the spectral woman Kendra had seen outside her window on Midsummer Eve. Her ebony wrappings flowed unnaturally, as if she were underwater. The unearthly apparition made Kendra think of a negative photograph.

At the other side of Bahumat stood Muriel, now clad in a gown as black as midnight. She leered at the fairies and glanced confidently at the towering demon.

No imps remained in the room. A crowd of shining fairies faced these final opponents.

Bahumat crouched. Inky darkness gathered around him. The demon sprang forward with a roar like a thousand cannons firing together. A black wall of shadow flowed from Bahumat like a wave of tar. Total darkness engulfed the room. Kendra felt like she had been struck blind. Even with her hands over her ears, the prolonged bellowing of the demon was practically deafening.

There seemed to be no substance to the shadow Bahumat had emitted. It was just darkness. Where were the fairies? Where was their light?

The ground rumbled, and a sound like an avalanche overpowered the demon’s roar. Suddenly daylight flooded the room. Looking up, Kendra beheld a blue sky. The slanted rays of the rising sun fell into the basement. The entire church had been hurled aside!

Descending from above, and charging from all directions, fairies swarmed Bahumat. The demon slashed a fairy with one of its tails, raked another with an impossibly quick swipe of its claws. Jaws snapping, the creature swallowed a yellow fairy whole. Many fairies were falling. While the majority attacked, other fairies laid hands on the injured, curing most of them rapidly.

Muriel stood in a theatrical pose chanting spidery words. A pair of fairies near her turned to glass and shattered. She extended a contorted hand, and another fairy turned to ash and disintegrated in a gray cloud.

Long streamers of ebony fabric flowed from the spectral woman, entangling nearby fairies. The ensnared fairies began to lose their luster and wither. The silver fairy appeared, slicing through the fabric with her ax of fire. Other fairies joined her, using gleaming swords to sever the black material.

The fairies swirling around Bahumat now held ropes. They looked like the ropes that had crisscrossed the front of the alcove, except now they appeared to be woven out of gold. Bahumat kept roaring and swinging and biting, but the ropes were beginning to tangle him up. Knots were forming in them. The draconic creature was slowing down. His great jaws clamped shut, tearing off the gauzy wing of a fairy with markings like a ladybug.

The spectral woman turned and drifted away, her ethereal wrappings no longer quite as flowing. The fairies ignored her departure. A pair of fairies had taken hold of Muriel, and they flung her at Bahumat. Soon she was bound to the demon by flaxen cords. She screeched as her body shriveled with age and her gown turned to rags.

Three fairies alighted atop the demon’s head. They each grabbed a horn and tore it out. The demon wailed. Dozens of fairies seized the ropes binding the demon and hurled Bahumat back into the alcove. Busily the fairies began threading knotted ropes back and forth over the entrance.

Kendra turned. The blue, furry fairy gestured toward the orangutan, and the shackles binding it to the wall fell apart. Another gesture and a burst of light changed the orangutan into Grandpa Sorenson.

The albino fairy pulled the convulsing catfish from the aquarium and changed her back into Lena. “Where’s my Grandma?” Kendra cried.

The red-haired fairy who had freed Seth approached the aquarium. She lifted out a small, putrid slug that had been clinging to the side above the water and changed it back into Grandma.

Grandma Sorenson massaged her temples. “And I thought my mind was muddy as a chicken,” she muttered. Grandpa hurried over and embraced her.

“Do you need milk?” Kendra asked, holding out the bottle to her grandfather.

He shook his head. “We have not slept, and so the veil has not yet covered our eyes.”

A group of fairies gathered near the alcove, extending their arms, palms downward. Soil, clay, and stone began flowing together and piling up until Hugo was reborn. The golem stretched and let out a groan to rival the roars of the banished demon.

The fairies busily healed one another, mending wings and closing wounds. One circle of fairies spread their arms, and fragments of glass skittered together, took the form of a pair of fairies, and came back to life. Several other fairies joined hands and started humming. Particles of ash swirled loosely in their midst, but refused to coalesce. The fairies released one another, and the ash dissipated. Some fairies, it seemed, were beyond rescue.

Several fairies took hold of Hugo and lifted him out of the basement. Others did the same for Grandpa, Grandma, Lena, Seth, and Kendra. Airborne again, Kendra had a view of the destroyed church. The wreckage spread across the clearing for a couple hundred yards. The Forgotten Chapel had not simply been flung aside—it had been obliterated.

The fairies set them down a good distance from the wreckage and the basement. All except Lena. Two fairies were carrying her away. The former naiad was having harsh words with them in a foreign tongue, struggling in their grasp.

Kendra touched Grandpa Sorenson’s arm and nodded toward the commotion.

“Nothing to be done about it,” he sighed as the fairies hauled Lena away. He had an arm around Grandma, holding her close.

“Hey!” Kendra shouted. “Bring Lena back here!” The fairies holding Lena paid her no heed, passing out of sight into the woods.

The remainder of the fairies assembled above the basement, floating in an enormous ring. They had more than tripled their numbers with all the imps they had reclaimed. Kendra had seen many fairies fall during the battle, but most had been revived and healed by the magic of their comrades.

The radiant fairies raised their arms together and started singing. The music sounded impromptu, full of hundreds of interweaving melodies with almost no harmonies. As they sang, the ground in the clearing began to undulate. The wreckage from the church slid across the field, clattering into the open basement. The ground began to quake. The walls of the basement crumbled. The surrounding area folded in and swallowed it up. The field heaved like a stormy sea.

As the undulations subsided, the basement had been replaced by a low hill. The fairy choir became more shrill. Wildflowers and fruit trees began sprouting throughout the clearing and on the hill, coming to full bloom in a matter of seconds. Flowers blossomed all over Hugo, who offered no reaction. When the singing finally ceased, a cheery hill covered by a fragrant array of brilliant blossoms and mature fruit trees had replaced the Forgotten Chapel.

“They made Hugo look all fruity,” Seth complained.

The legion of fairies glided toward them, scooped them up, and carried them on a breakneck flight for home. Kendra relished being part of the mercurial procession, overjoyed at the fortunate ending to the terrible night. Seth whooped the whole way, as if he were riding the coolest roller coaster on the planet.

Finally the fairies deposited them in the yard, where Dale stood waiting. “Now I’ve seen everything,” he said as Grandpa and Grandma Sorenson were set down beside him.

The fairy with short blue hair and silver wings stood before Kendra. “Thank you,” Kendra said. “You did wonderfully. We can never repay you.”

The silver fairy gave a single nod, eyes glittering.

As if responding to a signal, the fairies crowded Kendra, each in turn giving her a quick kiss. As each kiss was bestowed, the fairy reverted to her former size amid dazzling sparks and darted away. The rapid succession of kisses brought overpowering sensations. Again Kendra smelled the earthy aromas of the Fairy Queen—rich soil and young blossoms. She tasted honey and fruit and berries, all sweet beyond comparison. She heard the music of rainfall, the cry of the wind, and the roar of the sea. She felt as if the warmth of the sun were embracing her, flowing through her. The fairies kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her ears, her brow.

When the last of more than three hundred fairies kissed her, Kendra stumbled backwards and sat down hard on the grass. She felt no pain. In fact, she was mildly surprised that she did not float away, she felt so light and drowsy.

Grandpa and Dale helped Kendra to her feet. “I would wager that this young lady has quite a story to tell,” Grandpa said. “And I would also wager that now is not the time. Hugo, attend to your labors.”

Dale was helping Kendra to the house. She felt euphoric and distant. She was glad her family was safe. But she felt so inexplicably blissful, and the troubles of the evening seemed so remote, that she began to wonder whether it had all been a surreal dream.

Grandpa was holding hands with Grandma. “I’m sorry it took so long to get you back,” he said softly.

“I can guess at the reasons,” she said. “We need to talk about you eating my eggs.”

“They weren’t your eggs,” Grandpa protested. “They were the eggs of the hen your mind was inhabiting.”

“I’m glad you can be so detached.”

“There may still be a couple in the fridge.”

Kendra stumbled on her way up the porch steps. Grandpa and Dale helped her onto the porch and into the house. The furniture was back! Nearly all of it had been restored, with some alterations. A couch had been reconstructed as a chair. Some lampshades were made of different material. Jewels had been added to a picture frame.

Could the brownies have worked so fast? Her eyes were drooping. Grandpa was holding Grandma’s hand, whispering something in her ear. Seth was chattering, but the words made no sense. Dale held her shoulders, guiding her. They were almost to the stairs, but she could not keep her eyes open. She felt herself falling, and hands catch-ing her, and then consciousness fled.

Chapter 19

Farewell to Fablehaven

Kendra and Grandpa reclined in the wagon while Hugo pulled them down the road at a leisurely pace. The morning was clear and bright, with a few thin, high clouds barely clinging to existence, accidental brush strokes on a blue canvas. The day would be hot, but for now it was pleasant.

A couple of fairies drifting alongside the wagon waved at Kendra. She waved back and they sped away, weaving around one another. The garden now teemed with fairies, and they paid Kendra a lot of special attention. They seemed pleased whenever she acknowledged them.

“We haven’t really gotten to talk since it all happened,” Kendra said.

“You were sleeping half of the time,” Grandpa replied. It was true. She had slept for two days and two nights straight after the ordeal—a personal best.

“All those kisses knocked me out,” she said.

“You excited to see your parents?” asked Grandpa.

“Yes and no.” It was the third day since Kendra had awakened. Her parents were coming to pick them up this afternoon. “Going home will seem bland after all this.”

“Well, you’ll have fewer demons to worry about.”

Kendra smiled. “True.”

Grandpa folded his arms. “What you did was so special, I don’t know how to speak about it.”

“It barely seems real.”

“Oh, it was real. You mended an irreparable situation, and saved all of our lives in the process. The fairies have not gone to war for centuries. In that state, their power is virtually unrivaled. Bahumat did not stand a chance. What you did was so brave, and so doomed to failure, I can’t think of anyone I know who would have even tried it.”

“It felt like my only hope. Why do you think the Fairy Queen helped me?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe to save the preserve. Maybe she sensed the sincerity of your intentions. Your youth must have helped. I’m sure fairies would much rather follow a little girl into battle than some pompous general. But the truth is, I never would have guessed it would have worked. It was a miracle.”

Hugo stopped the cart. Grandpa climbed down and then helped Kendra. She held the silver bowl that she had taken from the island. They started down a faint path toward an archway in a tall, unkempt hedge.

“Weird how I don’t have to drink the milk anymore,” Kendra said. On the morning she awoke after the fairy kisses, when she went to the window, she saw fairies fluttering about. It had taken a moment to register that she had not yet consumed any milk that day.