Fairy Thief (19 page)

The tree shot her through its hole. She fell into total blackness. Falling and falling — too stunned to scream, she fell further into a space of wide-open, cavernous blackness. She landed not too heavily on a hard, smooth surface. She started to slide down. She picked up momentum, and slid as if she were on a smooth, dry, water slide, barreling around curves, up on the left, then up on the right, down, down, down.

Suddenly, she saw a light ahead. She came upon the light quickly, then was launched into open air, and finally landed with a slam on a gravelly floor. The blare of rushing noise inside her head stopped abruptly. Complete stillness settled on her.

She rubbed her arms gingerly and was surprised to find no marks there. The tree branches hadn’t hurt her at all. A jagged line, the mouth of the cave she was in, was just in front of her. Dazed, she got up and lurched towards the cave opening. When she looked out, she saw blue sky, purple flowers, and the beautiful radiance of the sparkling sun. Behind her, she heard Wo’s giggles heralding his arrival. He plopped out of the cave wall onto the exact spot where she had just been. Tai followed, then Orji.

When Orji landed, they all fell silent and stared at him.

He was laughing, so thrilled to be alive, then looked up to find them all staring at him. He chuckled once more at their solemn expressions. “What?”

“
Look at your arms,” Wo whispered, “Your legs, your
face
!”

Orji looked at his arms and his face turned ashen. He was covered in blood and torn flesh. Purple bruises were already beginning to swell everywhere. Blood dripped from his chin. “Hmm, come to think of it, I can’t move this arm.” He smiled and pointed to his left arm. Then he passed out.

Chapter 11

“
O
h, my God!” Saffron ran over to Orji’s broken body, but was afraid to touch him. She hovered over him uselessly, and pulled at chunks of her hair. She knew she shouldn’t move him — she remembered that much from her first-aid class. He could have a spinal injury. But she didn’t know what else to do. She looked at Tai and Wo. They shrugged.

“
We only use magic to heal. Healing by magic is not always possible, not always
allowed.
” Wo looked outside the mouth of the cave. “And we don’t know where we are.”

Tai sneered at Saffron. Did she expect
them
to do something about Orji? There was a reason they left Saffron’s body where it couldn’t be harmed, and this was that reason. Couldn’t she
ever
figure anything out? “Do you know how much energy it takes to heal a wound?” He pointed at Orji. “Never mind this! It takes extensive magic to heal bones. We don’t know if this realm supports such magic. And even if it does,” he looked at the patchwork of wilderness outside the hole in the cave wall, “we don’t know where we are — what kind of attention we’ll attract. Since he can’t run, we’ll be trapped if somebody or some
thing
comes after us.”

Wo nodded. “We have to get rid of his body as soon as possible.”

Saffron’s mouth dropped open. “Then you’re okay with him going with us?”

Tai snorted, “Of course! This guy just saved our souls!”

“
What? What did he do? What happened back there?” Saffron fell to her knees beside Orji and smoothed the hair back from his forehead. That’s what her mother had always done for her when she was sick. She missed her mother rubbing her forehead, her back.

Wo hugged himself as if to keep from spinning out of his center. “The tree swallowed Tai and me last. It talked to us, finally, just before it dropped us in. It told us it ‘was the man’ who allowed our souls to be saved. It said that the man’s kin used to bring it a magic potion. The potion had allowed it to grow strong and tall — that tree was the
king
of the forest! It told us the name of the potion….” Wo frowned. “Now, what the heck did it say?” He brightened. “He said that Orji’s kin used to bring the potion for it from another realm. The tree called it, The Miracle of Growth. No, wait — that’s not it. Growing Miracles – yeah, that’s it.”

Saffron squinted. “Miracle-Gro?” She jumped to her feet. “Hey! That’s from
my
realm!
Our
realm, Wo!”

Wo nodded and shook his finger at her, “I thought so. I thought it sounded familiar.”

Saffron slowly lowered herself to the dusty, rock floor. She fiddled with Orji’s shirt and wrinkled her nose as she dragged her fingers through a clump of gelled blood. She smeared the stuff back onto his shirt and thanked God she couldn’t smell it. Then she smelled it. She forced herself to look away from him. So, someone in Orji’s family had been a supplier — an outer realm drug dealer to the trees. She sensed there was something criminal about him.

“
It also said,” Tai strolled towards them, “that
she
had not been around in a long time and they needed more Miracle-Gro. It asked us to retrieve some, bring it back.”

“
Back!?” Saffron whined.

Tai flared his wings. “Yes, back! And I agreed — what would you have me do? ‘Oh, please Mr. King of the trees, please lower us immediately so that we may be swallowed up and exist as moaning shadows for the rest of our lives’!”

Saffron ppffftt him. “Can’t we just forget it and not go back?”

Tai turned his back on her and muttered, “I gave him the word of the winged children. Fairy word. It cannot be broken.”

“
Oh, that’s just great.” Saffron put her face in her hands. Then she slapped her thighs and looked down at Orji — at his deeply-gashed wounds and quick-forming bruises. “Well, can’t you do
any
magic?” She walked to the opening in the cave and poked her head through the slit in the rock. “I mean, it doesn’t look like there are any settlements for miles. We’re in the middle of nowhere!” she yelled over her shoulder. “It’s all woods down there.” She came back from the entrance. “It’s so cool-looking, too — purple leaves!” A rip in Orji’s pants caught her eye. It was a long, wide, and jagged tear. Saffron gulped. It exposed the top half of his right thigh, almost revealing his family jewels. “And, we need clothes, too.” She squeaked out, “Orji needs clothes.”

Wo looked at Tai and shook his head ‘no.’ “There are no winged children in this realm. I wouldn’t do it.”

“
How do you know there are no fairies here?” Saffron slapped away a couple of flies that were swarming around her head.

Tai was swatting too; there were more around him. “It’s an essence we have and can detect. That essence is not here.” He shrugged. “Just go ahead and see what happens, Wo.”

Wo raised an eyebrow and gave Tai a doubtful look. “Do you honestly think we’ll get away with it?” He hunched his shoulders and fanned away a fly with his wings. “Why are there flies around us?”

“
You’re asking me? How the hell should I know? And why are they around Saffron? None of us is food for them.”

“
Oh, gross! Hurry up and do something?” Now Saffron was slapping and darting about the cave to get away from them. “Why don’t you know if you can use magic?”

“
We’re not gods, you red-headed sea banshee! We don’t know
everything!”
Tai dry-heaved and spit a fly out of his mouth. He bellowed and stomped. “What the hell is going on with these flies?”

“
This isn’t our realm, Saffron; your guess is as good as ours,” Wo put with more tact. He slapped flies off of his arms and pointed at Orji. “There are no flies around him and look at him — he’s literally a bloody feast!”

“
Well, ask the trees if it’s okay to use magic….” Saffron smacked her ear.

Tai stomped to the cave entrance as he wrapped his wings around his body to shield himself from the flies. He looked like a cocoon made out of a map with green and glowing roads. “Trees,” he shouted, “is it okay if we use magic in this realm?” He leaned forward, poked his head out of his wings, and theatrically cupped his hand behind one ear. “Thank you!” He turned to face Saffron, and in a flat voice —“They have no idea. What’s your next big idea Queen Know-It-All?”

“
Get off me, you sad excuse for a mosquito.” Saffron kicked gravel in his direction.

Tai’s face turned purple. He shot his finger out.

“
Tai, no!” But Wo was too late.

Saffron felt a zap of electricity stab her forehead. She reeled backward and grabbed at her head, knowing it must be completely burned. It wasn’t. Instead, she felt on her scalp, smooth, wriggling tubes, and heard the hissing of snakes. She wailed louder than a police siren when she felt the snakes moving smoothly and coolly between her palms. Her head bobbed and weaved from side to side, forward and back, as the snakes swayed round her head.

“
Eeew,” said Wo, but was clearly amazed at Tai’s fine example of mid-level magic.

Tai looked at Saffron’s snake-ridden head in awe, clearly proud of himself.

“
Turn me back!” Saffron screamed as she saw a triangular head hover out of the corner of her eye. “OhmyGod, turn me back!” The snakes were shooting and springing out from her scalp to catch the flies that swarmed around her head. They were held back, of course, and lunged harder with each consecutive try, till Saffron could feel them pulling at her scalp as if they were her real hair being roughly yanked by ghosts.

A noise caught Wo’s attention. He ran to the slit in the cave wall with Tai close on his heels.

“
There’s our answer to ‘should we use magic here’.” Tai whispered and began to back away from the mouth of the cave.

“
By the stars,” Wo hissed and clutched at Tai’s arm as he backed up with him.

“
What? What?!” Saffron wailed as the snakes dipped to her eyes and nose and ears and tried to sniff her with their darting, pointed tongues.

Now Tai and Wo were clutching each other. They turned as one to stare at Orji’s bloodied and broken body lying on the rock floor, barely clinging to life. They looked back at each other and gasped.

Saffron saw the look, knew what it meant, and forced a measure of calm to replace the rush of dread that currently ruled her. Someone had to take control. She moved like a be-snaked, bobble-head doll to the opening in the cave wall and looked outside.

But before she saw a thing, she heard it: the rush and flow and click of tiny things; the burr of wings and the clack of a billion insect legs. She looked over and saw them come out from behind an impossibly low cloud. She looked down at a dark mass crawling up the mountain towards them. The darkness of a million bees and flies, hornets and wasps, the blackness of a million ants and crickets, of fleas and beetles.

Saffron stumbled back from the opening and ran clear to the opposite wall of the cave. Now she had nothing to say. She stared wide-eyed at the twins. The first wave of insects crawled over the floor and along the wall of the cave, headed straight for them.

“
What do we do?!” Saffron flung herself across Orji’s body. She slapped at the ants that crawled up her ankles and across Orji’s face. Her snakes picked them off one by one, but not fast enough. As a patch of flies began to sip at her eyes, a beetle got past the snakes, and crawled into her ear. She screamed. She dragged the beetle out with her pinky and smashed it on the rock floor with her fist.

The twins slapped at their orifices as the insect world tried to inhabit their brains. They, too, screamed like lost little girls.

Outside, the buzz and drone of billions of insects grew louder, came nearer.

Saffron slapped at the flies on her cheeks, smearing Orji’s blood everywhere.

The twins ran to Orji and Saffron, grabbed each by the arm, and flew them out of the opening of the cave, banging Orji’s head on the way through. They hung suspended in air for only a second above the forest of purple-leaved trees. The sun glared white-hot in the baby-pink sky and framed the black cloud that was almost upon them. They remained motionless save for the hummingbird buzz of Tai and Wo’s wings.

Suddenly, the twins shot straight up, dragging Orji and Saffron with them, up through pink sky and fat, puffy clouds. At one point — Saffron wasn’t exactly sure when — the buzzing stopped. They soared higher through the clear and quiet air.

Tai and Wo hung on to Orji and Saffron for dear life. Saffron slipped out of Tai’s grasp only once, but Wo snatched her back up by the snakes. Nobody said a word until they finally reached the outer edge of the enchanted cloudbank. From there, they walked and flew for short bursts, until they reached the spot where Markis and Saffron slept peacefully. Tai and Wo lowered Orji’s body next to Saffron’s, so that she was between Orji and Markis.