Grace smiled. “Ah, so you are taking your responsibilities of your position seriously, then. I told the others—”
This had nothing to do with that ridiculous oath, but she didn’t need to know that. “Sure,” I cut her off, trying to keep the disinterest from my tone. “I better be going. Please do pop on over to meet Ava in a week or two. We would be happy to have you at my father’s property.”
“Thank you, Desmoree, I will do that. Send your family my best.” Then she turned and walked away. In the direction I wished I could go. But I couldn’t.
I rounded the tree and saw the pool of light. What looked like all the children of Sayeesies were playing around it, and between them little golden balls flitted about. The water sprites.
Watching them laugh and play with the sprites brought a smile to my face. I scanned the swarm of children looking at the boys as I made my way to the water’s edge.
“Hello? You there,” I said to one boy spinning in a circle with a sprite atop his head. “Are you Malcolm?”
The boy scrunched up his nose and shook his head no. “As if. Malcoma is over there,” he said, pointing to where a boy sat under a tree on his own. A single sprite sat on his knee bouncing up and down, but the boy wasn’t interacting with it. He gazed off into the sky with a creepy expressionless stare.
“You know it isn’t nice to call people names,” I said as I began to walk over to the boy.
The kid blew a raspberry at my back but I didn’t turn around. Instead I quickened my pace. I had to speak to Malcolm. He moved his head and looked straight at me before I even reached him. A cheeky grin formed on his lips before he tilted his head in that familiar way Ava did and looked off into the distance.
The little boy giggled then righted his head.
“Your Jax doesn’t listen.” The boy was looking at me now. I laughed a little and crouched in front of him. The sprite on his knee jumped off and flitted back to the pool with the others.
“What do you mean?”
“They told him to wait, to listen to their message, but he was in too much of a hurry to get back. He didn’t listen properly, he doesn’t remember properly.”
“What did he not remember?” I asked Malcolm, trying to keep the urgency from my voice so as to not scare him. Really, I was screaming inside. What if it is worse than Jax remembered?
He tilted his head again and I squeezed my hand into a fist, letting the nails of my fingers dig into the palm of my hand.
The boy frowned and reached over taking my clenched fist he unfurled my fingers and ran his soft hand over the red marks my nails had left.
“You have work to do, Desmoree,” he said, looking up at me, his big violet eyes gleaming in the light. “You need to unite the fabled to close the portal into their world.”
“Their world?”
The boy shot me a frown. “The portal is the mouth the darkness will escape. They will be let into the human world first. If you don’t close the portal with the gifts of the fabled, the darkness will overtake their world, and then ours.”
“What is the darkness?”
The boy tilted his head again.
“We don’t have a name for the place where they dwell, but the humans call it hell.”
I remembered how Jax said the mouth of hell would be opened and that by uniting the fabled I could close it.
“What are the fabled? What offerings are you talking about?”
He wrapped his other hand over mine as well and closed his eyes. I could feel the magic in me growing, my hand tingled and I could feel the boy’s energy pressing against my own. I took a chance and let it in.
After a second he let go, stood up, and scampered off to play with the others around the pool.
I stared at the place he once sat going over everything he had just shown me. A vision of creatures, and a cast. The ancient words I would have to recite verbatim to seal the mouth.
I took the book from my back and grabbed a twig from the ground. A simple cast to force an object to trade it’s place brought a pen to my hand and sent the twig to the side table in my room. I whispered my name and flicked to the back of the book where several blank pages remained. I scrawled down the cast as I heard it still repeating in my head. It was a jumble of sounds really. A language long forgotten, but I would have to get it right. I would have to get it all right.
I made my way back towards the tree when Malcolm bounced over to me.
“Hello again,” I greeted him, warily.
“I forgot. You need a new moon.”
“I need a new moon for what?”
“To close it. You can only close it on a new moon.”
“When is that?”
“I don’t know, I’m just a kid.”
I laughed, then thanked him as he took off again to play. The other children didn’t seem to want to interact with him much, but the sprites seemed to enjoy his company. Several of them flitted around him by the water’s edge. He looked happy. Maybe Ava talking to seers isn’t so bad. If he can be happy, she could be too. It doesn’t have to be something scary, I guess.
I jogged around the tree and as soon as I was clear of the branches I phased and flew to Baldea. I hoped Ava was still in the study when I arrived. I didn’t need the heart attack I had gotten when I came back and she wasn’t there before. I didn’t find out where she went. She wasn’t with Jax or dad, so where was she?
I jogged up the stairs as soon as I entered the house. Jax was waiting at the top.
“So how did it go?”
“He shared a vision with me.”
“Really? Cool. What of?”
“Everything we need. He showed me the fabled that can close the mouth of hell.” My mind replayed the vision, and images of the creatures flashed before my eyes.
“You saw the ones we need to find? Des, that’s great.” He stared at me confused. “Why do you look so worried?”
“How do you feel about dragons?”
“You can’t be serious, Des, dragons haven’t existed for centuries,” Jax said.
I slipped the book from my back, quickly whispering my name. It flung open. I tore out the page I scribed the items on and handed it to him.
He didn’t blink. He stared blankly at the paper.
“You said they went into hiding right?” I asked, pinching the top of the paper as I attempted to pull it away.
Jax nodded but he didn’t let go of the list. I could picture the cogs turning in his mind. I didn’t need to think it through. I had seen them. Seen the dragons. And they were only one of the fabled I would have to find to complete the cast.
“Jax, I need the list.” I gave it a little tug and it slipped from his grasp. I folded it and pressed it between the back page and cover of the book, before returning it to the waist of my jeans.
“Are you sure?” Jax finally looked up from his now empty hand to me. “Are you sure dragons still exist?”
I knew Jax had liked dragons as a child, or at least, he had collected a few figures his mother kept after he had grown. They were some of the few things that survived his parent’s house during the battle, and now sat in a drawer in our room. I never really liked dragons. They looked too much like dinosaurs and those things freaked me out.
“Jax, I am sure. They didn’t die out, they are still where they have always been.”
“Then why hasn’t anyone seen them?”
“I don’t know, did anyone specifically go looking for them?”
Jax pondered the question for a moment, the wrinkle on his forehead deepening. “Wow. You mean I could have seen a dragon, had I only gone and looked for one?”
I raised my eyebrows. “Probably.”
“Huh, well that sucks. But hey, I will get to see them now. Can we collect the dragon scale first?”
“I don’t really care what we get first, just that we get it all and get it quick. Where is Ava? Why are you out here?”
He stepped to the side and gestured to his right with a rolling wave of hi
s arm. “Our daughter loves your library almost as much as you do. Max is with her, he’s trying to teach her chess.”
“Chess?”
“Don’t ask.”
I shook my head, took his hand, and we made our way through the halls towards my favourite room in the house. My father’s study. It was mine now too, a gift from him when I came to stay. He said he read mostly in his room now, so better it be used by someone. In truth, I think he just knew how much I loved it and the garden it connected to.
“These are the bishops,” Ava was saying to him as we walked through the door, one of the chess pieces held up in her hand.
“Yes, very good.” He replied, neither of them noticing our entrance.
“Grandpa, have you really read all of these books?”
“Yes he has,” I answered for him. Ava leapt from her seat and dashed to me, wrapping in her arms she squeezed and my heart warmed. Jax released my hand so I could embrace her fully.
“Do you know what books are?” Jax asked, taking the seat she had vacated and moving a pawn on the board.
She giggled again as she released me and turned to face her father. “Yes dad, I know what a book is. And a door, and a room. I know the sky is gold and the grass is green.”
“My sky was blue,” I said under my breath, remembering the beautiful sunny days I would spend on photo shoots in the park near my apartment.
“Blue like your shoes?” Ava asked as she took my arm and turned me to face her. “What sky was blue?”
“Where I grew up. The human realm where I lived. The sky is mostly blue. Not blue like my shoes, though sometimes it can be. It’s also sometimes, orange and pink, violet and teal. Yellow hews glow from where the sun shines and pure white clouds often litter the sky. At night it’s like a blanket of black over the city. There’s too much pollution to see the stars. But when you leave the city you can see them. Millions of tiny lights speckling the blanket of black, and join a golden moon shining brightly above.” I shook my head to disperse the images that my mind had brought forth. Max, Maylea and Jax frowned at me from across the room, but Ava looked up at me, her arm still on mine and her eyes filled with a sparkle not unlike the stars I had just remembered.
“Can I go there one day?”
“Umm…”
“Ava, let’s start with this realm and work our way up,” Maylea offered as she clutched the handle of the French doors that led to my oasis.
Ava looked back at me, a sadness in her eyes I never wanted to see again. I placed my hand on her cheek and she leant into it again. My heart melted.
“One day I will take you there. I will show you where your grandmother raised me, where I once called home. But for now, Maylea is right. Let’s start small.”
I nodded to Maylea and she opened the door. We all stood aside so that Ava could walk in on her own. The garden was in full bloom, the perfect time for her to see it.
Jax had planted several new varieties over the past week or two. Most native to Baldea, but a few from areas of Sayeesies were thriving now too. Dandilillies shone from the far left wall. Their glittering presence a reminder of Jax and my time together before the war with Traflier.
“Do you like it?” I asked and she spun a full circle before facing me a smile spread across her face.
“It’s even more perfect than I thought. You have so many plants here, so many flowers. Do you know what all of them can do?”
“The dandilillies can awaken a Tanzieth, or half Tanzieth too, it seems,” I said, smiling at Jax. “But the others are just flowers, aren’t they?” I was still so naive when it came to the potential magic of things. I had the information there, deep inside. A gift from the Oley. But I struggled more and more to bring it forward. To sort through all of what she had gifted me with. It was like it was fading away, I was losing it to the depths of my memory.
“This is pillywoot root, and if your drink it, it makes you think happy things,” Ava said, kneeling beside a bulbous pink shrub, the root of which arched out of the soil and then back in.
“How do you know that?” Max asked. His brow furrowed for a moment, then he bent down and snapped off a little of the root. His concern morphed into a smirk as his eyes met Ava’s and he placed the portion into his pants pocket.
Ava tilted her head again. “I am made from more.”
“So you know more because you are made from more?”
Ava giggled again and didn’t elaborate further on his question. I raised a hand slightly to discourage any further inquest and they let her be. Let her discover the richness of scent and colours in the space I loved.
After a little while Ava sat on the ground in front of some perry blossom. “I think I am tired, can I sleep now?”
Jax reached her first, and held out his hand for her to take. She reached for me. I took one of her hands and wrapped my arm around her shoulder. I took Jax’s hand and let him lead us both out of the garden and into the room beside ours.
Max had it kitted out with nursery things after the war. I laughed when we walked in and saw the bassinet in the middle of the room.
“I—” Ava began. I felt her sway.
“Jax,” I called just in time for him to turn and help me support her. “Take her, I’ll fix this.” I nodded to the room before us. Jax wrapped his arm around Ava and she leant against him, her eyes closing as he held her up.
I closed the door and pulled the book from my back.
“Is there a cast to make a bed?” Jax asked, his voice a little strained.
“Not exactly.” I whispered my name and opened the book to the page I needed. “But this cast of transformation should turn what we have here, into something a little more suitable.”
I focused on the items in the space, then on the room I had as a child. I brought up my memories of that room and connected it with this one. I felt the power rise in me. The will to alter, to transform. My cheeks warmed as I saw it clearly in my mind, then I said the words, “What I will, you shall become, transformus memorandum.”
The furniture in the room shimmered. I said the cast again and they exploded apart into their pieces. After I said the cast a third time, those pieces re-joined into a small white bed in place of the bassinet, which centred itself on the far wall. A vintage looking, white dressing table appeared on its left, and an ornately carved wardrobe to its right.
“Thank the Fey,” Jax said and he shuffled past me, Ava now cradled in his arms. “She’s exhausted, fell right asleep, standing there leaning on me. He laid her on the bed and covered her with the pale blue blanket that had once adorned the bassinet. “I don’t think our daughter would have fit in that cradle thing.”
“Bassinet,” I corrected.
“Whatever, that thing was tiny.”
“Our daughter was supposed to be tiny too, remember?”
“It’s weird though. Don’t you think? I mean come on, who would have thought that our child would be born fully grown only a few weeks after conception?”
“She’s still a child Jax. She’s still our child,” I said as we made our way out of the room and into our own.
I was exhausted and just wanted to sleep.
What I didn’t want was to be greeted by my in-laws in my bedroom with an ancient book in one hand and a scroll in the other.
“She’s not your child,” Sarah and Mark both said as we entered.
I wonder if Jax will mind if I blow up his parents?
“She will destroy us all,” Mark added, and he unrolled the scroll in front of him. An image of Ava had been painted at the top. Only it wasn’t Ava, not really. This girl had her face but dark hair and the horns of evil set beside a crown of fire.
“You must be joking.” I took a controlled step towards them. “Either that, or you are insane, because only an insane person would come into the room of the most powerful fey in existence and accuse her daughter of being…what? A demon queen?”
My magic rose and burnt inside me. I felt it stretch along my arms until it bur
st in blue lightning bolts at the ends of my fingers.
It would be quick. Just one bolt each would do. It wouldn’t kill them, but they would be out for a while and best of all it would hurt like hell.
Jax laid his hand on my arm and I started to calm.
“Mum, Dad, you can’t really think she’s here to hurt us? She’s your granddaughter, a part of both of you, a part of me.”
“No, she isn’t,” Sarah said, bringing the book forwards and opening it at a section about mid-way through. She read, “One will come as bright as day, and with her bring a power unknown to any world. This power will feed the darkness and bring forth the end.”
“Is there a picture with that one too?” I spat, feeling the hate in me rise again.
“No, but—”
“No!”
“We have to destroy her before she destroys us all.”
“STOP!” I yelled, the power again burning free but this time transforming me into my fairy form in a single breath. “Get out of my room before I kill you where you stand.”
“Des!” Jax gasped.
“Your parents want us to kill our daughter, what do you want me to say?”
“Des,” Jax pleaded. “They are scared. Mum, Dad, go back to the cottage. I will come see you there.”
They veered to walk around me.
“Leave those here,” I said through gritted teeth. I didn’t meet their eye. I was too afraid that if I did, I would kill them. They placed the book and scroll on our bed and then continued out of the room. I didn’t move. I stared at the parchment depicting a demonic version of our daughter. Jax touched my arm and forced me to look away, to face him.
“Des, it isn’t her.”
“I know that!” I spat, the power rising in me again. “That could be any of my ancestors or descendants. Ava looks like my mother, that scroll could be her for all they know.”
“Des, it isn’t your mother, either. Those things, the scrolls, they are not exactly accurate. They are written by the receiving fey of the past. Some of them are prophetic, but most are not.”
“How are you not as mad as me, they just threatened our child?”
Enchanting the Fey- The Complete Series Page 26