The Misadventures of Annika Brisby (28 page)

“If she’s going, then we’re going with her.”

“Well, I’m sure we can help,” Dardis nominated herself and Chivanni. Chivanni’s eyes grew wide in surprise. He clearly hadn’t planned on volunteering, but he didn’t have time to protest. Sevan gave a sarcastic harrumph, crossing her arms haughtily.

“So one druid, two vampires, three samodivi and a couple of fairies are going to battle against a potential army of Pazachi extremists?”

“As of right now it’s only a scouting expedition,” Nikola reminded her.

“Well good luck!” Sevan sneered.

“Thank you, I’ll need it,” Zaven said quietly. His sister’s jaw dropped.

“As will I,” Talvi volunteered right after his cousin.

“You’ll need someone who knows the many languages of the land,” Finn advised. “Which I think qualifies me as well.”

“What do you think, Nikola? Is that a good enough start?” Ambrose asked, stroking his short beard.

“It’s acceptable,” he said, looking around at the volunteers. “But this journey is not to be entered into lightly. The last I heard, the Pazachi were living near the Mesoyadna Forest, beyond the Sea of Forneus.”

“The Mesoyadna Forest?” Zaven gasped. “Aren’t those the trees that—”

“Oh, it should be fine to travel through,” Finn said quickly. “It’s dormant this time of year.”

“Yes, but still…” Zaven trailed off, looking like he regretted his decision.

“I don’t care,” Sariel said loudly. “I’m not afraid!”

“But Sariel, we’ve never been that far,” Hilda tried to reason. “The Sea of Forneus? The Mesoyadna Forest?” Sariel gave her daughter a fearless shrug of dismissal.

“If we were to travel to the Dark Horse, we could contact a paladin who would be willing to fight by our side,” Konstantin suggested.

“It wouldn’t be the honorable Justinian, would it?” Nikola asked him. Konstantin’s eyebrows raised in interest.

“Why, yes, it would. You know of him?”

“You could say that,” Nikola smiled softly at his grandmother, who smiled back. “He would be an extremely valuable asset to us, if you know how to locate him. I haven’t seen him in years. But we must leave as soon as possible. Time is working against us.”

“What’s the Dark Horse?” Annika whispered to Finn.

“The Dark Horse is a very old tavern farther up North where Konstantin is from,” he explained. “It sits directly below another gate…another portal that opens up to Bucharest, which is directly south of Transylvania. That’s why so much of vampire lore stems from there. As you’d expect, it’s a popular place for vampires from both worlds to gather.”

“Okay, but what about me?” Annika asked him. “What am I going to do? Just hang out here and wait for you guys to come back?”

“You would be safer here, it’s true,” Ambrose told her gently. “But I’ve already told you that you didn’t end up here by accident. It’s more than ironic that you are trapped between the two worlds. I believe it’s your destiny to go on this journey, and I’m not the only one.”

“Just who else are you talking about?” Sevan screeched. “She won’t last a week!”

“That, my dear niece, is between Annika and the one who told her.” Ambrose said. Talvi squeezed her right hand again, pressing her fingers against her large diamond ring. She remembered sitting in the hot spring, and the dark, magnificent and mysterious creature that had spoken to her without a voice for her words.
You are here because Fate invited you. You cannot go back the way you came. I suggest you go forward instead.
Annika lowered her eyes before anyone could read her thoughts. She’d been under the impression that the unicorn meant she had to finish her journey home, not travel even farther away than she was now. But what if going on this trip was the only way for her to do so?

“Right…right,” she said softly.

“You’ll be in good hands,” Ambrose assured her.

“You already are,” Talvi whispered in her ear, and squeezed her hand again.

“We can leave tomorrow,” Konstantin decided. “It is a little more than two week’s travel north to the Dark Horse, where we must speak with Justinian.” There was silence again around the table.

“That’s it? That’s it? We’re just going to send our children off in less than a day?” Gousine said, growing hysterical. “I forbid you to go Zaven! I
forbid
it! Do you hear me?” Her husband helped her from the table and led her out of the room, but her son ignored her. Zaven’s face was like stone as he let his mother’s hysterics fall on deaf and pointed ears. Sevan rushed to follow them, giving him the worst look she could manage, which was quite appalling. When they were done with their melodramatic exit, Zaven sighed and rolled his eyes.

“I swear, I was born into the wrong family,” he lamented.

“Don’t say that, Zaven,” Ambrose said warmly. “You are my nephew. You are
definitely
in the right family.” Zaven smiled a little and ran his hand through his short blond hair.

“Well, we need to get packing, don’t we?” Finn urged the others. “I suppose we’ll be up all night gathering supplies and whatnot.”

“We can help you with that,” Dardis said cheerfully. “We’ll take care of the food, but we need to get started right away.” She shrank into her original tiny hummingbird size along with Chivanni, and the two of them flitted to the kitchen. The samodivi, Annika and Talvi ran up to his room where the bundles of wood had sat for days untouched. For hours they did nothing but whittle the branches into arrows and listen to music. As she cut the wood with long strokes, Sariel looked giddy for the first time since she’d smoked the pixie-dust laced tobacco. They worked late into the night, and when they came downstairs for a snack, they were nearly clobbered with a bowl of rising bread dough floating through the air.

“What the heck is going on?” Annika asked, amazed.

“We’re cooking, silly!” Chivanni exclaimed. “We’ve got to eat on this trip, so we might as well bring as much as we can.”

“How are you
doing
that?” she asked in wonder, and dodged a row of apples that had come up from the cellar and landed in a basket on the counter. “Is it pixie dust?”

“No!” Dardis choked, “It’s
fairy
dust! Pixie dust could never cooperate the way fairy dust does.”

“Okay then, I’ll just grab a quick bite and get out of here,” she replied, and plucked an apple out of the air.

“Finn’s in the stable with Zaven and Nikola getting the horses ready,” Chivanni said before Talvi could ask. “He told me to tell you not to worry about Ghassan. He’s taking care of him for you.”

“Brilliant,” said Talvi. “It appears that everything is accounted for, but I need to pack a few more things before I go to bed. We’ll see you two in the morning.”

“It nearly
is
morning, you ding-a-ling!” Dardis laughed. Talvi looked out the window and sure enough, the sky was beginning to turn blue with the approach of dawn.

“I guess I’ll see you in a few hours, then,” he said, and he led Annika up the maze of stairs to his chambers.

Back in his room, the faint light tinged the walls with a blue hue. He locked the door shut and all they heard were the birds outside singing to greet the approaching sunrise. She let Talvi guide her to the window by the bed, but rather than climbing under the covers, he abruptly reached around her body and pulled her back against his chest. Suddenly all that mattered was the strength with which he held her, as though he never wanted to let her go. He nuzzled into her neck, making her forget all about the serious atmosphere of the meeting and all that was said about humans disrupting nature so severely that the Pazachi had closed the portals between the two worlds. He held her for a long time, slightly swaying back and forth, and she couldn’t imagine feeling safer than she did right at that moment.

“I suppose it’s going to be a long time before we’re alone together,” she said quietly.

“Mmm hmm,” he hummed. He reached his hands down and untied her pants.

“You’re insatiable. I used to hate that whole refractory period thing, but you’re making me start to miss it,” she joked.

“I do have a tendency to overindulge,” he admitted, nibbling on her ear. “I should exercise more restraint.” She felt her blood pressure rise as he rested his hands inside her pants and slid them down a few inches.

“I thought you said you were going to exercise more restraint,” she scolded, to which he only laughed a little under his breath.

“No…I only said that I
should
.”

Annika felt her body react in anticipation of his next move, but he didn’t budge.

“What’s on your mind?”

He let her go and sat on the window sill, squinting at the last rays of sunlight that pierced through the trees.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No, you didn’t do anything,” he said quietly. “I just don’t want to risk sounding trite. It would be an insult to a creature so exquisite as yourself.”

“Just say it, Talvi.”

“It’s difficult for me to find the words,” he excused, biting his lip. He was still fixated on the sun’s orange light now spilling over the treetops.

“What would sound trite?” she asked. He turned his blue-green eyes to her.

“I…I…” he stammered. “I want you to kiss me.” She sidled up next to him and stroked his hair, eyeing him curiously. He enveloped her in his arms once more and as their lips met, she saw them dancing together, and she saw the top of her head resting on his chest through his eyes. Her body was filled with a sweet joy; she felt a deep love for that girl with her head on his chest. She felt suddenly nauseated to see herself caught in the spell of the vampire from the desert. A rage she hadn’t felt before rose up in her and she saw his arms ripping her from the clutches of the hungry monster. She jerked her head away from his.

“Is that how you felt the other night?” she asked. “It really upset you to see me with Vaj, didn’t it?” There was no other explanation for the vision from his point of view.

“Yes, only more than you’ll ever know.” She took his hand and coaxed him to the bed. She pulled the heavy velvet curtains around them to block the sunlight and tucked the blankets around them, resting her head in the crook of his arm. “I’ve never been possessive, or even jealous of anyone,” he went on, caressing her shoulder as he spoke. “Well, perhaps a little, but nothing like what you do to me. I couldn’t bear it if…I just feel a, a duty to protect you…it’s a very primal sensation. I’ve never felt like this before about anyone, or anything, especially in such a short time. I worry that it comes off as sounding trite.”

“I don’t think it does at all.” She got the feeling he wanted to say more, but she didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t want him actually loving her, not when she was leaving. Amazing chemistry was one thing, but another long term relationship was not part of her future plans.

“I have you right now,” he said before he closed his eyes. “If you think about it, perhaps that’s all that really matters.”

an apology

Annika gained consciousness slowly, thinking she hadn’t slept at all. She ran her hand along the dirty sheets and discovered that she was alone in bed. Sitting up, she pulled back the curtain to reveal an overcast, late morning sky. The fire was dying down in the fireplace, and the white hot coals warmed the room comfortably. She slipped out of bed and saw Talvi fully dressed in his black suede riding outfit, sitting at his desk writing. He seemed very focused on his work, whatever it was. She walked behind him and rested her chin on his shoulder, hugging him gently.

“Ah, you’ve finally woken up. I hope you slept as well as I did.”

“Mmm hmm. What are you writing?”

“It’s nothing,” he said, turning the paper over, scratching his head. “I’ve already packed your bag. I hope you don’t mind. Yuri’s not coming with us, so I borrowed some of her things for you to use.”

“I don’t mind at all.” She didn’t mind that he had packed her bag, but she really didn’t mind that Yuri wasn’t coming with. She’d been cold and prickly towards Annika ever since she arrived, and Annika wasn’t the type of person to bother with such mind games. She reached down into her bag nearby and fished out her camera, only to find that the batteries were dead. She dug through one of the many boxes Talvi kept and put in new ones, snapping a photo of him sitting at his desk. He gave her his most seductive smile as he posed for his photographer.

“What type of camera is that? I want to see,” he demanded rather than asked. She brought it over to him and showed him the instant picture on the screen.

“This is remarkable! Show me how to use it,” he insisted. She took another picture of his room, demonstrating what each button did, and he grabbed it away from her, taking a photo of her wearing nothing but her ring and some very messy hair.

“Talvi! Don’t waste the batteries,” she scolded.

“It’s not wasteful if it’s an image of you,” he said playfully, and took a few more snapshots. “Come sit on my lap and I’ll take our photograph.” She sank onto his thigh and he held his long arm out, capturing the moment forever with a simple ‘
click
’. She finally stood up and gathered her clothes, bringing them over to the washbasin near his bed.

“Perhaps I should pack some extra batteries in your bag. We could have a lot of fun with this,” he suggested with a devious gleam in his eye as he took more pictures of her.

“As long as my journal’s in there, I don’t care what we bring.”

“It’s in there, alright. What a glimpse into your head! This poor Danny fellow seems very droll. Not your type at all. And I see you think I’m a spoiled brat, among other things.”

“You read my journal? That’s private!” she protested. He howled in amusement as he reviewed his photography skills.

“Who doesn’t love to read about themselves? ‘That Talvi thinks he’s so clever, but he’s just a spoiled brat,’” he quoted her, batting his eyes. “‘When he read me my favorite fairy tale, my heart started to melt.’”

“Shut up! I can’t believe you read my journal!”

“If it were truly a secret, you would’ve kept it to yourself, not penned it in ink, you silly girl.” He waved his finger at her in reprimand as he put the camera in her bag, and she couldn’t deny that he had a point; she just didn’t agree with it. He turned around in his chair to watch her wash the rest of her body.

“Do you mind?”

“No, not at all.” His impish smile had returned with full force.

“I have your smell all over me,” she observed, rinsing out the wash cloth.

“I know. You’re mine now,” he replied confidently. He looked on for a while longer, then cleared his throat. “Annika, I…I want you to know that if anyone in this room has been conquered, it’s me,” he said. She slowly turned to look at him. His eyes reflected a serious and resolute expression.

“What do you mean, ‘conquered’?”

“You wrote in your little book that you think I don’t mean the things I say, that I look at you as a conquest because you are a woman. Hopefully you know better by now. I’ve meant everything I’ve said to you since the day I first saw you.”

Annika didn’t know what to respond with, and luckily she didn’t have to. There was a gentle knock on the door. She rushed to put on her pants as he reluctantly poked his head outside to answer it.

“Hi,” a soft female voice said.

“What are
you
doing here?” he asked quietly, blocking the speaker from Annika’s view.

“I need to talk to you. May I come in?”

“I’m a little busy,” he glanced over at Annika, who had just pulled her white blouse over her head. She gave him a questioning look as she tied the green sash around her waist.

“Please? I really need to talk to you,” the woman pled. He dropped his head and opened the door, and in stepped a tall woman clad in black. She wore the same silver buckled knee-high boots, the same black suede pants, the same black suede jacket and the same black shirt underneath, embroidered with the same patterns in silver thread as Talvi’s clothing. The only difference was in the cut of the clothing; it was formed perfectly to her slim body. Her shiny black hair tumbled over her shoulders, falling down to her elbows.

“Yuri, is that you? I didn’t even recognize you without a dress on.” Annika was amazed at the transformation from stuffy, prudent and well-planned Yuri to a woman who appeared ready for adventure.

“I haven’t worn this in a long time. It felt good to put it on,” Yuri said, smiling faintly. Her brother sat on the corner of the desk and folded his arms across his chest, but he didn’t scowl at her.

“I wanted to talk to you both while we could still be alone,” Yuri said. “I just wanted to say how sorry I am, for everything, for all the trouble I’ve caused you both. I’m sorry for the things I said to you, Annika. I’m sorry for all the pain I caused.” She turned to her brother. “It’s none of my business to tell you what to do, as long as you’re happy. I, I was just trying to…I thought I knew what was best for you, but I realize now that I can’t decide that for anyone else. Not for you,” she looked back at Annika with watery eyes. “And not for you, either.”

“It’s okay. It’s not a big deal,” Annika said, dismissing her concern.

“No, it’s a
very
big deal. When you’re a twin, it’s different. You grow up together, you’re connected in a way that no one else understands unless they’re a twin. You get jealous if anyone interferes with your connection. It’s difficult to let go of that, you know?” Her tears spilled over, running down her cheeks, but she remained resolute. “I just want you to know you make my brother very happy. Everyone in the house agrees with that statement, and apparently it was plain to see at the party if I’d only been willing to look.” She turned to her brother again.

“I of all people should want you to be happy. I’m so sorry for the things I said. I’m sorry for not…I’m just sorry.” She began to cry, and Talvi held out his arms and embraced her for a long time.

“I’m sorry too, about Konstantin,” her brother eventually confessed. “Runa’s right. He’s not that bad…at least, not compared to some of the blokes you’ve run around with.” Yuri wiped her eyes and smiled up at him.

“I love you, but you’re always going to be an ass.”

“More likely than not,” he agreed with a good-natured grin. He finally let her go, and looked at her from head to toe while Annika slipped her backpack over her shoulders.

“Are you coming along, then?” he asked, motioning to Yuri’s outfit. She nodded and gave a confident pat on the sword hanging at her side.

“Yes. I’m long overdue to use this,” she said, and grabbed the dark sunglasses off her brother’s desk as the three of them headed downstairs.

They walked into the sunny library where there was a hub of activity going on. Finn and Zaven followed behind the other three, and Ambrose and Althea were arranging things with the samodivi in different piles on the tables. There was a mountain of food, along with cooking supplies, canteens, weapons and armor.

“We’re taking all this?” Annika asked, looking at the tables with a dubious expression. “Where…no,
how
are we going to bring all this stuff with us?” There was a small purple and blue ‘poof’ and Dardis appeared at her side.

“Pish posh, that’s the least of my worries,” she said, and instructed the group to take whatever armor and weapons they might need. Sariel walked over to the stack of weapons and found a sword about the same size as hers, and buckled it around Annika’s waist.

“What’s this for? I thought it was just a scouting mission.”

“It’s best to be prepared. I’d rather have a sword at my side than not have it at all,” Sariel told her with a knowing look that Annika wasn’t about to question.

“Do you have everything you need?” Ambrose asked, handing her a small metal box. Annika looked up at him, and then saw that he’d passed out similar boxes to most of her friends. “This is a Fairy Poppins box. It’s a popular contraption made by fairy metalsmiths.”

“I’m sorry; I thought you just said ‘Fairy Poppins?” Annika was positive that she must have misunderstood, but then Ambrose confirmed,

“I did just say that.”

“What does it do?” she asked, thinking she was nuts.

“It holds practically anything you need it to,” Ambrose winked, and went back to distributing the strange boxes. Chivanni and Dardis began packing up the food, and to Annika’s astonishment, the moment a basket or jar touched the inside of the box it began to shrink, until it was small enough to slip right in. In no time the piles of food, armor, and other gear had been reduced to a handful of containers the size of shoeboxes. Dardis walked over to Zaven and waved her finger at his supplies. They drifted through the air and into the box he was holding before it snapped shut like the satisfied jaws of an alligator.

“Holy crap! That’s just like Mary Poppins’s carpet bag, from the movie!” Annika exclaimed.

“Of course it is,” Finn said. “The Fairy Poppins invented this contraption over a millennia ago. Where else would the idea have come from?”

While Annika watched in wonder, Dardis smiled and moved onto the next pile, coaxing everyone’s supplies into their appropriate container. Every metal box was labeled in strange lettering, similar to what Talvi had scratched in the dirt that one morning in the woods.

“These Fairy Poppins boxes are special. We haven’t used them for this type of purpose in a long time. The writing you see is your name, so you know whose is whose.”

“It looks Greek to me,” Annika frowned, trying to decipher the text.

“No, it’s not Greek, it’s Fae,” Chivanni corrected her. “And by the way, I would make a point to put a bit of silk in the box to keep the contents from shifting too much. I had the most unpleasant experience of having my toast and jam wind up on my nicest dandelion down jacket.”

Yuri jiggled her box a little and locked it tight, placing it into a leather saddlebag while Annika put hers in her backpack. A dark shadow caught the corner of her eye and she glanced up to see two figures in the doorway of Finn’s library; one tall and one short. It was the vampires dressed in their traveling clothes, which completely obscured their delicate skin from the sun’s ferocious rays. During her stay she’d had multiple myths dispelled, and the ones about vampires weren’t any different. They weren’t afraid of garlic, although they didn’t care for the smell; they could be killed by anything being thrust through their heart, not just wooden stakes, and they could stay awake during the day, but the sun would char their bodies to a crisp if they were exposed for too long. The more Annika learned about them, the more they seemed like regular people with a type of sun-related disorder.

“Where is Nikola?” Konstantin asked Ambrose while his glittering eyes surveyed the room.

“He’s saying goodbye to his grandmother,” he replied. “Dragana will stay here with us until he returns for her.”

The group headed outside to the stables, where a row of horses stood, saddled up and anxiously pawing the ground. Annika immediately recognized Ghassan, the only black horse in the group. Beside him stood Galileo and the darker gold palomino that Finn had ridden to the Tortoise and Hare, along with two dark bays. The silver stags ridden by the samodivi were already caught and tied to a fence rail, and an unfamiliar black and white paint horse in the pasture seemed to be making friends with Yuri’s dappled grey mare from across the fence. But of all the pretty horses and striking silver stags, what surprised Annika the most was the sight of a huge elk saddled and standing among them. It took her about three seconds to realize this was probably how Nikola had arrived.

Dragana, Althea, and Anthea had followed them outside with the children in their arms, watching reluctantly as the group attached their belongings to their saddles and mounted up. Dragana hobbled up to Annika and looked deep into her eyes for a long time. She felt a silent understanding pass between them, as if she were being blessed, and she smiled warmly, knowing she was indeed being blessed. And then Dragana did an odd thing; her hand curled around one of the many talismans she wore around her neck, and she pulled it over her head, slipping it around Annika’s shoulders. She looked down and saw it was a pair of fish swimming in opposite directions, one made of sapphire, and the other of red garnet. They were set inside a ring of silver, so that when she turned it around, the fish were visible from either side of the medallion.