Fairy Thief (34 page)

Orji thought of his mother, and the way she used to smile at him. He remembered the way she smelled when she leaned over to kiss him goodnight, and how she liked to play her little wooden flute at sunset. Its forlorn whistle, in hindsight, seemed to proclaim the doom to come. In his mind too, Orji heard his mother screaming. “They’ll kill us.”

Saffron jumped, startled out of the funk she allowed herself to wallow in, the lazy place in her mind. “What?” It had been almost ten minutes since she had asked him the question, and in that time, since he never answered, she had forgotten all about it.

“
The Portal Police,” he looked her square in the eye with a sadness she had never seen — a longing she could not fathom. “They’ll destroy us if they catch us. They have all kinds of weapons to get the job done — be you man or beast — it is simply their pleasure to destroy people’s souls, from the inside out.” He snorted. “Saffron, if I am to understand correctly, your realm still jails the body for infractions. Tell me, is this form of punishment working?”

Saffron thought about prisoners being let out because of overcrowding. She thought of states putting
billions
of dollars into building more and more penitentiaries. She shook her head no.

“
Well, let me tell you what they’ve figured out in the Outerrealms. Some brainy person has figured a way to suck the soul from a body and completely annihilate it. Clever person. As you can imagine, crime is relatively low in many of these realms. ‘Soul annihilation’ is much more threatening than ‘kill someone and we’ll stick you in jail with benefits for a couple of years.’ When a person’s soul is destroyed…you can’t come back —ever.

“
But why would they destroy us just because we went through that portal?” She shook her head incredulously, and pointed at the barn doors. “They
let
us! We signed a paper!”

“
It’s the fairies, Saffron.”

“
What?”

“
Only souls can pass through portals. Souls and animals. Nature. You can bring your potted plant through just fine. But those damn fairies are illegal. Nobody wants those damn fairies in their realms. It has to be them. I guarantee Tai and Wo didn’t register on the gatekeeper’s control screen — he must have alerted the police.”

Saffron could say nothing at first, as thoughts buzzed and bounced around in her head, each trying to get to the top, but only succeeding in confusing her with their frantic urgency.

“
I thought I handled it okay when the gatekeeper became suspicious. I told him Tai and Wo were granted permission to travel with a low profile, a pardon from the king. I told him they were on secret business for the king.” Orji shrugged and raised his eyebrows. “I guess
that
didn’t work.”

Saffron frowned. “Why does this realm have an open portal and the others don’t?”

Orji shrugged. “At one time, they must have made some kind of agreement.”

“
So portals are controlled by people who think they have the right to control them...? That doesn’t seem right.”

Orji scoffed. He actually
agreed
with portal control — he just didn’t want to get caught. “With good reason, Saffron. There are too many crazy people in the world — in all of our worlds! Realm-hopping is illegal to keep the crazies from leaving one ravished realm and doing the same to another.”

They watched a mouse-like creature scurry around a dark corner, fill its mouth with something, then disappear through a hole.

“
It’s important for the five of us to keep a low profile. We don’t want to taint the realms we drop in on with our other-worldly ideas and footprints. Take my world for instance — we’re at war. War is like a disease. If those warlords were to leak into a realm like this…” he pointed towards the barn doors, indicating the land beyond, “…those warlords would start war here — because that’s what they do, that’s who they are. They start wars everywhere and anywhere, hiding behind false justifications. Do these people deserve that?”

Tai and Wo came barreling into the barn, wrestling and kicking. Deva stayed out in the field behind them, swishing her tail at flies and pulling up clumps of green grass. With the passing, most of her face had gone white with age.

Saffron narrowed her eyes. “I’m so mad at all of you….”

Orji laughed. “Girl, what in holy hell are you talking about? Do you have a split personality or something?”

“
Or something,” she gritted out. “Why did you do that to me yesterday? In the store…. Why?”

“
Oh, that.” Orji waved his hand to dismiss her question.

Tai fidgeted and made little hops in the air. “Actually, I’d like to hear the whole story!”

“
No — we don’t have time for the whole story! I want Orji to tell me ‘why,’ and then we’re not going to talk about it anymore. Hey, are Ny and Markis here?”

Tai snarled, “We don’t have time to tell you!”

Orji grinned. “Yesterday was nothing — just a little lesson….”

“
Who said you needed to teach me a lesson?” Her voice raised an octave — she was on course for a full-blown shriek. “I don’t need any lessons from
you.
”

He still looked pleasant. His voice was calm and level. “Sure you do.”

Wo and Tai sat between Orji and Saffron. Their eyes volleyed back and forth as if watching a ping pong match. Presently, Deva came in, still munching. She moseyed over to stand between the twins and chewed her cud with annoying smacks. Every once in a while, her long, white lashes swept leisurely up and down, in a lazy blink.

Saffron waited for Orji to defy her.

“
Look, Saffron. This was the point. That guy, that stranger in the dressing room, he was behaving oddly — correct? He was probably drooling, making weird noises with his throat. His pupils were probably dilated and he may even have been breathing heavy. Right?”

“
Yeah, right! How could you do that to me?”

“
Do what? Right then, at that point in time, you were in
complete
control. There was nothing wrong with you and you knew it.
He
was acting weird,
he
had the problem — and you knew it.”

“
There was a whole lot wrong, Orji, and
you knew
it! My eyes were
exposed.
To them, that’s like a woman walking around with no shirt on in the Earthrealm! He thought I was vulgar!”

“
That’s it right there! Before you ever knew, all of that was going on — you thought there was nothing wrong with the way you were standing there.
And there wasn’t!
Whatever he thought of you, was
his
problem. Why can’t you see that?”

Saffron opened her mouth to speak. She opened and closed it a few more times. She looked like a fish out of water, gulping uselessly for air.

Orji’s smile never wavered. “Nothing bad happened in that store yesterday, Saffron — you did just fine.”

“
Well, you didn’t have to enjoy my little lesson so much.” She pointed an accusing finger at him.

Tai felt like taking a bite out of that finger.

“
You were laughing at me, Orji!” Saffron kicked the rusty, white tractor. Her hair was wild and full of straw. Her pashmina was tied around her waist to cover her bare bum. The others had their capes down to cover theirs.

“
NO, no, no. I was just laughing — laughing in general. Hey, I like to laugh. Everyone should be so lucky. Saffron, you need to laugh more.”

She nodded. “Maybe I’ll find a lesson to give you — so I can laugh.”

Deva groaned.

They all looked at her.

She groaned again. It was a deep and disturbing sound that came right out of her gut. She swayed. It looked like she was about to lean on Tai, but she kept going and crashed to the ground.

Wo screamed.

The twins fell to their knees, calling her name.

But she was already dead.

Chapter 18

S
he was in one of the highest turrets of the castle. In fact, it had taken her close to twenty minutes to walk up to this room. No one else was allowed to enter. It was her special refuge, filled with all of her books, potions and herbs. Rain fell in sheets past the long, narrow openings in the wet, slightly slimy stonewalls. With supple hands, she conducted the mist before her, to keep the image clear. Her fingernails or, talons — to be more precise — were painted blood red. They sliced through the mist, over and over again, always clearing the air to reveal the image of the human girl. Finally, she tired of watching Saffron sleep in Orji’s arms, and let the mist hide the girl from her sight.

She didn’t want to look at Saffron. But, since she was unable to see Ny, she looked at the human girl instead. It caused acrid venom to pool under her forked tongue. Over her long, lean, sinewy body washed the tantalizing urge to take one taloned finger, pry open Saffron’s petulant lips, and breathe fire down her throat. She smiled pleasantly at the thought.

Chapter 19

T
hey passed through more realms. No sign, no hint, of Ny and Markis.

The twin’s pain at the loss of Deva was palpable. It cast a net of anguish over them all, and they drifted through many days like stoic ghosts.

One day, they landed in the most enchanting realm, and would later (tongue firmly in cheek) refer to it as the Perfectrealm.

They emerged at the very tiptop of a high, pointy mountain. Winter sun shone on their faces, but did nothing to melt the snowy mountain cap on which they landed.

“
There are fairies here.” Tai and Wo gave each other a high-five. Saffron jumped up and down while she clapped, and Orji winked at her, but didn’t seem too moved otherwise.

“
How do we get down from here?” Saffron had to yell to be heard above the screaming, wild, mountain wind that had been chiseling the peak for centuries.

Wo smiled and pointed a little to his left. A disc of blown-up rubber appeared, large enough to seat them all. There were nylon handles sewn into the rubber, a set for each being. A rainbow of sparkly, magic residue rose above the mountaintop like a question mark, then blew away in the next gust of icy wind.

Saffron gasped.

“
I’m not walking down this mountain, Saffron. And since you won’t fly….” Wo shrugged.

“
Yeah, but, what the heck are we going to do with that? Why did you use magic to summon that wheel of death? Why don’t you just transport us to the ground?” Saffron screamed as the wind keened louder, nearly piercing her ghostly eardrums.

“
We. Need. To. Start. Having. More. Fun!” Tai looked skyward. “I love you, baby, but I have to let go of this grief!” Tai ran and jumped into the sled.

Saffron shook her head, turned to give them her back, and looked out across the land below. She realized that she was at the top of the very largest mountain she had ever seen or heard of. Most people never got a chance like this in their entire lives. She felt cold as she stood at a loss for words and frowned at her silliness. She had no idea how cold it really was — if she was in her body, she would’ve been dead already, frozen harder than steel, five minutes ago.

She shivered as she stared down at the forests and lakes. To the left, something glittered like a diamond. The clouds below began to drop snow. The fluttering white perfection, of the flakes bolstered her courage, for some reason. She whipped back around and said, “Whatever. Let’s do it.”

They barreled down the mountaintop at breakneck speed. Saffron screamed and cursed. Orji howled and choked on laughter. The twins were feverish with maniacal glee. The tube flipped several times, sending them crashing through the air and bashing into snowbanks and boulders. When they sailed into the tree line, several minutes after takeoff, the tube cruised into trees, sending bodies into flight all over again.

The tube met hard-packed ice. Saffron was shot up into the air when they hit another rock. While the others spun around and around inside, Saffron hung on to one of the nylon handles and screamed from the outside of the tube as she was dragged along. The others didn’t help her in; they were having too much fun watching her fishtail behind them. Eventually, they hoisted her aloft, and continued to rush faster than the wind, for miles down the mountainside. It was over all too soon. The tube slid slower and slower until it came to a complete stop at the base of the mountain. Their laughter turned into grins and exhausted moans.