Fairy Thief (31 page)

As they walked the path, Orji kept up a running commentary of all that he’d learned about this realm. Saffron wasn’t really listening, but the drone of his deep, melodic voice soothed and comforted her. She was able to tune out her nudity and concentrate on his voice.

Soon enough, they came upon the twins, who pretended they were just getting back. Orji flashed them a look and gave a slight, almost imperceptible shake of his head.

They looked at Saffron, then back at him with evil hilarity in their eyes.

Orji pursed his lips and slashed his finger across his throat. His movement startled Saffron.

She looked up at him in confusion, wondering what he had just done with his hand.

Orji smiled warmly at her and shook his head.

Saffron looked straight ahead, prepared to zone out, and put her mind somewhere else. She ignored the breeze that kissed her rear.

The twins jumped in front of her. With their little butts a-jiggling, they sang and walked arm-in-arm down the lane.

Saffron made the throat-clearing noise that means, ‘I’m eternally disgusted by you.’ She looked down at her feet and ignored them.

By the time they reached the outskirts of the city, everyone was back to his or her old self. The twins kept passing gas — to them, nothing else in the world was more hysterical. Which made Saffron vicious, which annoyed Orji so much that he felt the need to antagonize her all over again.

“
You know, Saffron,” Tai stopped walking and turned to face her. “had you gone with the cape, instead of that stupid scarf, like I told you — you could have hidden your butt
behind
the cape without drawing too much attention. Too bad for you — you have that
stupid
scarf that just blows in the wind, flops around, and exposes
everything! Ha! Ha! Ha!”
He sneered at her ridiculous get-up. The fuchsia scarf lay over her head like a turban, with the veil-bar forced through it. She looked like a broad from the fifties, ready to get into her powder-blue convertible.

Saffron screamed. A white-hot, rage-filled, blood-curdling, murderous scream. She lunged at Tai.

Orji’s hand shot out. He grabbed her by the hair and turban — it was all that he could reach.

Saffron, yanked back by her head, turned around to gawk at Orji — her eyes wild, her mouth almost foaming.

“
Saffron, c’mon. Leave the VERY immature fairy alone. They don’t hide themselves with their capes in this realm. So, even if you had one, you would still have to wear it like this.” He gathered his cape and threw it over one shoulder to demonstrate. “There’s something else I want to discuss with you, too.”

He continued to talk, although Saffron wasn’t really listening. She was staring at Tai, and willing the untimely destruction of his soul.

“
Before we go to the portal, there’s one little shop we have to stop at…. I promised the shopkeeper we would — he was nice enough to help us acquire these ‘must have’ veils and rods.”

“
What’s the deal with these, anyway?” With much irritation, she adjusted hers for the twentieth time.

“
I never did inquire; we’ll ask the shopkeeper. We’ll have to do it delicately, though. It would be like a stranger walking up to you in the Earthrealm and asking you why you wear underwear. So, tact, Saffron, tact. And, patience, Saffron, patience.”

When they arrived at the first two large pyramid buildings, they peeked between them, down the alleyway, at the townies.

All along, Deva had followed solemnly, as Tai led her along with a rope. She stopped now and sniffed the air. The little hairs around her nose had gone completely white —she had aged considerably, hopping between this realm and the last. Tai and Wo knew she had aged. They also knew she had developed arthritis, and it stung her hip viciously.

Saffron didn’t notice. “I can’t do it.” A harsh breath escaped her lips. “I can’t walk into town like this.”

“
Saffron, it’s no big deal. Tell yourself you’re in a land where it doesn’t matter. Just look around you, revel in this new society, leave, and never see these people again – it’s not like they’re gonna post your ass on Facebook….” Wo smiled at her, but he looked very impatient.

“
Yeah, okay.” She sounded as if she were about to start crying again.

“
Here I go.” Orji walked forward, into the dusty alley, and forward still, into the melee of shoppers. His cloak lay casually over one shoulder, his buttocks shone bright-white in the setting sun.

Saffron’s eyes locked on his rear-end — in awe, in reverence, in primal fascination, and in disgust.

Orji stopped when he reached the crowd and waited for the rest of them. The twins came next — their wings concealed under their cloaks, their cherubic bums poking out of their pants. Deva gimped along behind them.

No Saffron.

“
C’mon, Saffron — just do it.” Orji whispered to himself.

Then suddenly, miraculously, she was there. Her face was drained of all color, but she was there. She looked up at Orji with the most pathetic, hang-dog expression he had ever seen in his life.

He nodded and patted her back. “You can do this, you know. In the end, you’ll be disappointed because no one noticed you….”

She nodded back.

Hand in hand, they walked forward.

Almost instantly, the townspeople on every side of them stopped. ‘Oohs’ and ‘aahs’ broke out among the crowd. People started to whisper loudly and point.

They pointed at Saffron.

Everyone,
everyone
was staring at her. Fifty veiled faces were pointed in her direction. The crowd hushed as if their voices were swallowed up in a vortex, and for one whole minute, no one made a sound.

Saffron felt her entire world stop spinning and come to a crashing halt. With her gravitational pull gone, she teetered like a drunkard. “Ooooh,” she moaned. “OOOhhhh….”

Orji caught her under the armpits just in time. “Saffron,” his call was harsh. “Saffron — get up.” Through gritted teeth he hissed, “I don’t know what’s wrong, but it ain’t your purty rear-end — they haven’t even seen that yet. Up!” He tried heaving her up, then whispered sharply again. “If you would just get a grip, and stand up, please —we can figure this out.” He threw her weight from one arm to the other, trying to get a better grip. He grimaced at the crowd (although he believed he was smiling), “My wife —she’s with child — and the heat is too much for her.”

His words seemed to awaken the people. Some of them moved on in embarrassment, some pretended they weren’t staring at all, and a small few held their ground and continued to stare in wide-eyed fascination.

When Saffron struggled to her feet, a length of her hair crept out from her turban and hung across her face. It glinted gold and red in the afternoon sun.

The crowd that still watched gave a collective sigh when they caught sight of the hair. Women brought their hands to their mouths, little children moved in for a closer look.

Orji watched the crowd watching Saffron’s hair. “Well, I’ll be a Daffrigit,” he muttered. He took Saffron’s hair and smoothed it back under the blinding-pink bindings.

Saffron stood shaking and looked at Orji with glassy eyes.

“
No way, baby — you’re not going to space out on me. You just keep that witchy hair out of sight, and we’ll be okay. Perk up, Saffron, clear your head — we have a walk through town to make.”

Saffron was trying to wake up — she really was. Even as she felt herself fainting, she had tried to stop it. But it tried harder, and pulled her under. The feeling was so sleepy and dreamy-drowsy — how could she resist? Then, she had felt so comfortable lying in Orji’s arms, watching butterflies, thousands of pink butterflies, swirling around in the liquid blue sky. She leaned on him again.

“
Nope, up….” He plopped her unceremoniously to the ground, then bent down to squat in front of her. “Saffron, look at me.” His face was just inches from her own. He looked anxious. “This isn’t the time to give in. You have to get through this….” He snapped his fingers in her face.

That was what did it — that and the fact that he had plopped her on the dirty, stony ground. “You don’t have to be rude,” she hissed.

Orji looked pleased. “I knew you could do it! And you let yourself go pretty far away too, I could tell. Good recovery!”

Saffron shook her head at the ridiculousness of the situation. She stood up, and reached to swipe the embedded gravel she imagined was all over her rear-end. She was doubly startled when she realized, all over again, that her ass was exposed and gravel couldn’t possibly be embedded there, because her butt was like hard plastic. She groaned at the sea of buttocks that milled around her. These people had capes, for God’s sake, and instead of letting the capes hang down their backs (like normal people, she thought), they had their capes flung over one shoulder, and strutted around like peacocks.

“
When in Rome, Saffron….” Orji was gentle when he slid her hair back under her turban; then, he reached around to collect the tails of the scarf, and carefully draped them together over her right shoulder.

“
Oh, how gallant of you, great sir,” she muttered, and refused to look him in the eye.

He smirked. “This is too funny — one day we’ll all look back on this and laugh
.
”
But just as he said that, he sobered. If they ever found Markis, he would be looking back on this alone — Saffron would be long gone. He looked at her. She was gasping and covering her mouth, trying not to look at the townspeople and their derrieres, as she had called them. She was high-maintenance. But he also saw how her face softened when a passing child smiled at her, and how she clenched her fists like a boxer, ready to take out a rough-looking man who shoved past Tai. He adored how she reached up to pat her head and check to see if that glorious red hair had tumbled out again. He loved how her lips always stayed soft and full, even when she bit the bottom one in distress. He made himself sick. “Let’s get going,” came out as a short series of grunts. He flicked irritably at his veil.

His tone snapped Saffron to attention. She was amazed at the way he could be crying laughing one minute, then back to his old grumpy self the next. “Do you have Troll in your bloodline?”

Orji ignored her and pushed a path for them through the crowd.

As they walked, Saffron tried her best to keep her hair under her long, slippery scarf. She had to motion repeatedly for the twins to catch up — they liked to lag behind and gawk at the crowd. When she wasn’t paying attention, they liked to appear out of nowhere and pinch her bum, then jeer at her when she responded to their ghostly touch that she shouldn’t even feel.

By the time Orji announced they were at the shop, Saffron was raging-bull mad.

“
Alright, you little punks. You stay outside and keep watch.” Orji pushed at the twins to keep them from crossing the store’s threshold.

“
What are you talking about, ‘keep watch?’” Tai charged forward as if to force himself through the door.

Orji pointed at the street, “Goddesses with no pants on….”

Wo’s eyebrows shot up as a woman, six feet tall and perfect, sauntered past. Her fluttering veil barely turned in their direction, but it was enough to give all three males in Saffron’s party a start.

Deva bellowed and pawed the ground. She mooed so hard, the ruby hanging from the chain at her neck trembled violently.

“
Oh, it’s okay, baby!” Wo smoothed her nose.

While Tai and Wo fussed over Deva, Orji and Saffron slipped into the shop.

“
Hello, sir — how are you this afternoon?” The clerk greeted them as if this were the first time he had seen Orji, which wasn’t true — he had been waiting with ill-contained patience for his oddball customer to stop talking to those ragamuffins out there, and get into the shop. He had been waiting, poised to say those words, for at least five minutes! He had been waiting for the strange wife to come in too, so he could get on with business and over with business. They definitely weren’t from around here — the wife looked almost
elfin
. And stars-a-bursting — what the hell kind of cloth was on her head, and
red
(!) hair? He clucked his tongue. “Is this your lovely wife, sir?”

“
Yes,” Orji took Saffron’s hand and rubbed his thumb down her fingers as he continued, “Isn’t she beautiful?”

Saffron gave Orji an ill-concealed look filled with malice as the clerk retreated to his desk. She snatched her hand back and rubbed it as if it had been burned. “Stop telling people I’m your wife,” she hissed.