Fairy Thief (33 page)

Saffron stopped in mid-stride, her face contorted with anger and dismay as she ranted, “Oh, brilliant, Orji — now you’ve set her off. I’m the only one who can touch you and understand you…have you forgotten?”

Orji’s face brightened. “Really, now…!” He was still in full-fledged-cocky mode.

Saffron sucked at her teeth. “Oh, please. You know what I mean.” She set off down the hall.

Orji watched her butt as he walked behind her. She had completely forgotten her trap-door was gone. “No, I don’t. Please, tell me exactly what you mean.”

Wo and Tai were still busy watching the other woman walk away. Deva back-kicked a hole in the wall and herded the boys on with her nose.

Saffron yelled back at the twins and Deva, “You, you, and you…NOW!” She pointed rigidly down the hall.

Deva yelled, “Moo!” and stomped her foot.

“
Oh,
now
, you want us to go with you.” Orji allowed her to pull his arm. He enjoyed it.

Saffron scanned the doors as they rushed past. They must have gone by thirty or so before she found it. The insignia was gold and looked exactly like a needle with a door at the top, where the threading hole would be. She released Orji’s arm and pushed through the glass door. There before her was movement in the air like a quivering mirror. A man sat beside it at a very unofficial-looking desk. He was half asleep.

Saffron balked. She tried in vain to keep the fright out of her voice. “We’d like to pass, please.” She held her breath and clamped her teeth. What if he asked for papers? What if they did some kind of physical check, like at the airport?

Orji and the twins shifted uncomfortably. Saffron could make a whole room ache with her energy. The four of them stood silent, their errant veils hanging at different angles of cockeyed. Deva snorted.

“
Well, obviously — I didn’t think you were food services.” The man in charge hacked out a short, phlegmy cough, then indicated a sheet of parchment. “Sign that before you go through.”

And that was that.

The gatekeeper didn’t care about Saffron’s nerves, the weird little boys, the big guy or the old cow. He wanted to go back to sleep.

This time through the transfer, they didn’t experience a flying sensation or pushing or shoving — it was as if they were standing in one spot, and suddenly, painlessly, their bodies started to disappear, piece by tiny piece. After a time, the pieces all came back together. They were about to assume they had gone nowhere at all, when suddenly they heard someone trying to get their attention.

“
Come, come, now — mustn’t loiter in the portal all day! Handle your livestock and present yourselves! A man appeared in front of them, waving them on. He spoke in exclamations and, with his black suit and round head, he looked like an upside-down exclamation. He was not like the other keeper — he stood erect, pressed, and proud. As they emerged into the room, they found everything — the walls, and the few objects therein — impossibly, impeccably, white. They filed past the gatekeeper.

He started to splutter, his face becoming as white as the walls. “What? What?”

Orji heard the panic in the gatekeeper’s voice. He crouched low, ready to be attacked. He whipped his head around to take in the whole room. “What?”

Saffron’s eyes grew wide as she looked longingly at the exit door. “What?”

The twins stiffened and started pushing Deva towards the exit. They said nothing.

The gatekeeper waved his hands in staccato bursts. He waved at them. He waved at what looked like a viewing screen and control panel. “Only two and an animal! Only two and an animal registered!”

Silence.

“
Oh, yes, yes.” Orji clutched his belly in over-the-top, mad-cap hilarity. “I’ll need to speak with you now, sir. He took the gatekeeper by the elbow and led him to a corner of the room where blinding white walls met blinding white floor.

Tai, Wo, Deva, and Saffron congregated by the exit door. They waited while Orji calmed the man — it took forever. With two more words they couldn’t hear, he patted the very tense gatekeeper on the back. Finally, he walked away from the man, crossed the room, and said, “So, we’ll be on our way now. You know you can’t keep royalty waiting.”

The gatekeeper nodded dumbly and never left the corner as they walked out the door.

“
Thank you.” Saffron mumbled. When they were out in the hallway, she breathed a heavy sigh of relief. She looked sharply at Orji, her lips opening to ask the question.

He put his finger to his lips and winked.

She stayed mercifully quiet.

Out in the hallway, the walls, the fixtures, the floor were all sparkling white. They passed people dressed in all white, who gave curt nods in greeting and rushed away.

“
Do you think we’ll have to dress like them?” Tai muttered. He really didn’t want to give up his lederhosen and dark, mysterious cape.

“
Nah,” Orji whispered, “They get transients from the other land through that portal all the time. The people in the Oddrealm were mostly dressed in brown and grey, remember?”

Tai smiled, placated — his lederhosen were grey.

“‘
Oddrealm,’ Orji?

“
No one else gave it a name — so I did.”

“
Can we call it, ‘Psychorealm?’ Saffron nodded in encouragement.

“
No, Saffron, I called that one. You can name this one.” He honked her nose with his knuckles.

Deva mooed forlornly. She was getting hungry — hungry and irritated. She wanted to see the twin’s faces. She hated the ghastly veils.

The twins stopped to console her.

Orji walked on; the suspiciously clean building was starting to make him edgy. He wanted out.

Suddenly, the lights in the hall dimmed, then glared powerfully bright. It hurt their eyes. The lights grew brighter and brighter, till Saffron thought she would be blinded. A noise started in the air, as if someone was approaching from far away with a vacuum cleaner. The machine-like drone became louder until it matched the glare of the lights in intensity.

“
Oh, great.” Orji moaned, but no one heard him over the noise.

Saffron covered her ears and screamed, “What’s happening!”

Tai and Wo simultaneously yelled, “Disappear! Disappear now!” Then the three of them, Wo, Tai, and Deva vanished in a whir of clotted magenta mist. Orji had just desolidified when Saffron screamed.

“
I can’t Orji — I can’t do it! Please! Don’t leave me here!” And she couldn’t do it —not fast enough, and not on demand. It was math class all over again, when her teacher made her go to the board to answer a question. She couldn’t do it. Not even one plus one, not with the pressure on her. Her voice was ragged.

Orji could hardly hear her over the noise. And he couldn’t see her at all because of the light. This light wasn’t normal light; he couldn’t just will it away. He felt for Saffron’s hand and grabbed her.

They ran.

They ran down the hall, towards the source of the noise. Saffron’s eyes felt like they were splitting with pain. Her eardrums popped as if the noise had made them explode. Saffron screamed in agony.

They ran closer into the sound.

“
Why?!” Saffron screamed. “Why are we going this way?!”

But Orji couldn’t hear her.

Then it was as if they ran
through
the sound, because suddenly, the piercing shriek was behind them, along with the glaring lights.

“
Run faster!” Orji roared.

Saffron sprinted as hard as she could. She didn’t turn to see what was behind them. People were coming out of their offices now, and staring in wonder at the two that fled past them — one, a girl with a veil-rod for a headband, and a man with a veil-rod bouncing under his nose.

Orji didn’t really think they would make it, but he ran faster still, and practically dragged Saffron behind him. They raced down a white, marble staircase, across a wide, white-tiled floor that seemed to be growing white, stone columns. The columns were everywhere — an acre of white-tile floor with jutting white, stone columns.

Saffron and Orji sprinted through a white, arched doorway, and into the rainy night. They ran on. Saffron was, by now, almost hyperventilating and tripping on every fourth step. They crossed a street and trotted down a lane that ended at a half-dilapidated barn. The barn was white, of course. Orji shoved one shoulder into the barn door when it wouldn’t give, and finally it sprung open with a loud creak and groan. They stumbled through the barn, bumping into things everywhere, until they reached a back corner, and collapsed together on the floor. Saffron turned her face into Orji’s chest and began to cry. Orji stroked her plastic hair and whispered to her.

“
I think the Portal Police are on to us.” He shut his eyes.

Chapter 17

O
rji’s eyes snapped open. It was dawn and Saffron was awake. She hadn’t shifted in the least, but still, he felt that she was awake and lying patiently against him. He wondered what she was thinking. They had never had this kind of body contact before, and frankly, he thought it was pretty remarkable. He had assumed from the beginning that they would never get this close. Even though there was no physical heat between them, even though her body — which appeared so, so, soft — was only as pliable as a garden hose, he smiled. She was lying against him.

He couldn’t smell her hair. His eyebrows knit into a tight, troubled frown. He loved to hold a woman like this and smell her hair. He remembered the previous evening, how Saffron had wept so bitterly, but when he reached for her, like the day they first met, he touched a living, wax statue. The tears did not come away wet on his fingers. There was no heat emanating from her soft-looking skin, and taut-looking limbs. He could have cried. They were lost moments — he could touch her, but he couldn’t feel her.

He forced out an exaggerated cough.

Saffron shifted, and pretended to wake from a deep sleep.

“
You’re such a faker — I knew you were awake.” Orji smiled and stretched luxuriously, while Saffron popped up and away from him.

She wasn’t very nice when she said, “And I know you were sitting there, smiling, before you decided to go back to your usual troll-like ways!” She tried to stare him down.

The cocky look melted from Orji’s eyes and he tilted his head. “How did you know that?”

Saffron thrust her chin in the air, looking very haughty. Then she looked bewildered as she stared at beams of dusty light which shot through the broken barn wall, and highlighted a rusty, old wagon. “I don’t know.”

For several minutes, they remained silent, each lost in their own thoughts.

Saffron stole a glance at Orji as he concentrated on his twiddling fingers. His cloak was thrown off to the side, discarded without care into a pile of moldy hay. His hair curled slightly on his forehead, his broad shoulders stretched the thinning fabric of his shirt. A small flame grew in her belly, followed by a violent chill that rammed her so hard that she clutched herself for support.

Orji looked up and motioned for her to sit beside him. “The twins will find us eventually. Let’s just rest for a little while and get a grip — okay?”

Oh, God
, Saffron panicked,
What does he want now — to sit on that nasty hay and make out?
“I’ll sit over here. I’m not sitting on that rotten hay.” Her voice was weak and shaking.

Orji frowned. “Honey, do whatever you want — it makes no difference to me — I don’t give a rat’s ass….” He looked away from her, out to the land beyond the broken wall slat.

Saffron’s eyes welled up with tears. She was determined not to let him see. She bit her bottom lip — hard — and tasted blood. She reminded herself not to taste blood. But it was there, the copper taste, all the same. She cleared her throat and forced her voice to be strong. “What the hell happened last night?”

Orji shrugged.

“
Who were they?
What
were they? Can they see us right now? Can they come find us in this barn?”

“
They can’t see us any old time they please, no. They would have to track us, wait for us. They’ll have the portals here well guarded; you can bet on that. They’re waiting for us at the portals….they never stray too far from them.”

“
What will they do if they catch us?”

Orji didn’t answer.

He looked so deeply troubled, so desperate, Saffron didn’t ask again. She assumed he was afraid of, and thinking of their immediate predicament. She was wrong.