Enchanting the Fey- The Complete Series

by Rebecca Bosevski

  “Right. Now let’s get moving to the carousel before there is no light left for Grace to ride.”

  Grace, holding one of each of her parent’s arms swung every two or three steps all the way to the top of the hill that overlooked the carousel. Then, upon seeing it, she let go so that she could sprint the final distance. Two other children were still riding, and so Grace climbed onto a silver painted horse to join them. Traflier and Annabella reached the bottom as the carousel came to a stop and the three bells chimed to signal that it would start again in thirty seconds.

  Traflier watched as Grace struggled to pick which horse or carriage to ride next. She wanted to give each a turn. Finally, she settled on a pink painted horse just as the music began to play and the carousel began to turn. Turning around Traflier saw Annabella had laid out the picnic blanket and started setting out their snacks. He took a place beside her and leaned back against the slope of the grass to watch as his daughter went round and round. The sky already a slight pick to its light. It would be dark soon enough.

  “Grace, would you like something to eat?” he called to her as she passed in front of him.

  “No, Daddy, I want to ride until the stars are out.”

  “Okay, but then you will have to eat something, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Traflier reached for a handful of blighter berries and tossed one up in the air, catching it in his mouth with ease. The next one bounced off his nose and landed in Annabella’s lap.

  “Hey, watch it, buddy,” she chided, popping it into her own mouth and biting down. The berries were sweet yet tart, a perfect combination.

  “Pass me the scrolls you found?” Traflier asked her and they laid them out together on the mat between them.

  “This one is just a copy of another I have read about how to open a gateway,” he began, and was about to roll it up again when he spotted something he didn’t see on the other scroll. “Wait a sec, this here is different. This says that the gateways were placed where the magic was already strongest.”

  “What does the other scroll say?”

  “It said that the gateways are what draws the magic there, without the gateway there would be no portal. But if this scroll is to be believed, a gateway is just a door built over an area already overflowing with magic. A place you could portal to without a gateway at all.”

  “But how would you make a portal?”

  “More importantly, how could someone rewrite the scroll to hide that fact that the gateways aren’t really needed at all? I though the scrolls were scribed by the receiving fey, direct instruction from the seers? What if others are rewrites? What else could they have hidden?”

  “There is something on the back,” Annabella said, lifting the scroll from Traflier’s hands and turned it over so they could both see. Written in bold text only used for warnings in an almost faded ink was the answer to one of his questions.

  Mater Notoros, the most gifted fey with travelling casts created a portal to a new location. Always the adventurer, he stepped through with no line to return if needed. He did not return. A locator cast later found him floating in the seas of a realm only newly discovered. More water than land covers this world and it is below the water his portal opened. Mater was sent into the light and in his memory we change what’s written. Gateways will be placed at each safe portal location. Travels will now only be made through a gateway. No fey will be taught how to open a free portal again.

  “Wow, T. What are you going to do?”

  “I’ll take it up with the elders when we get back. They should know if others have been rewritten, and if they have, when I am an elder I will want to see the original scrolls and I want to know how they changed them. It shouldn’t be possible.”

  Grace had already hopped off the pink horse and was climbing into one of the golden carriages as the two children waved her goodbye and went off with their parents. The sky had grown darker, but the orange glow of the sunset had only just started. There was plenty of time for Grace to ride still.

  “What’s the other scroll?” Traflier asked, and Ana unfurled it as Traflier tossed a few more berries into his mouth.

  “T, is this it? Is this the cast you used to save me?” Ana asked, pointing to a corner of the scroll marked out with a crosshatched frame. “It says it will return life, right?”

  “Not exactly, see here, this symbol isn’t life, it’s magic. It is a cast for returning magic.”

  “But why would you need to return magic, it isn’t like you can take it.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Traflier agreed aloud, but wondered internally if that was what he was doing with the life and power he took from the grass. The strength he needed to save himself and Grace back on the beach came from the back lands. He had never needed a cast to take it though, just the desire, so the same would apply, he assumed, if he chose to return it.

  “This is all a jumble of casts, Anna. This one here in this circle is a cast to change the colour of something. This one is to find someone, a cast we all know how to do, and this one, here, this is to make something move forwards and then back again.” He ran his hand through his always scruffy black hair dejected by the lack of new casts and zero information about the one he couldn’t remember. “Oh, that one could actually be used to make a carousel move in the Feydom. That way we don’t need to obtain the workings of one from here, just commission the structure be built however we want, and the cast would make it go.”

  “Really? T, Grace will be so happy. Maybe we can give it to her for her birthday next cycle?”

  “That sounds great. Now, where are those sweet puffs?”

  She gave him a sideways smile and reached into the basket. He was about to take the largest one from her when Grace reached over and grabbed it just before he could.

  “Ah ah, Daddy, you said we could share this big one, remember?”

  “How about because I love you so much, you can have it all to yourself, just this once?”

  Grace smiled all teeth and then opened her mouth to take an enormous bite of the sugary treat. “Thanks, Daddy,” she mumbled as she ran off to jump on another horse for another go around the carousel.

  “How she doesn’t get dizzy from that thing is beyond me,” Annabella said, looking up at the sky as the oranges had turned to reds and purples and the sun had sunk lower into the horizon. “It will be dark soon, lets head up to the hill to see the stars better.”

  Traflier called out to Grace. “One more turn then we will go up to see the stars, okay?”

  “Okay,” she called back.

  Grace would’ve loved to ride the carousel all night, but it too was on a sensor, in time with the sun of the realm and when the sun went down, the carousel stopped singing.

  As the last horse bobbed up and down and the music faded, Grace climbed down, waving goodbye to them all as she re-joined her parents.

  They climbed up the hill, hand in hand, but when they reached the top a man stepped out from behind a tree and pointed something towards them.

  Something Traflier hadn’t seen before.

  It was silver and shiny and had a tube out the front. The man’s eyes were wide and his hand holding the odd thing shook a little.

  Traflier moved in front of Grace and tried to bring Annabella behind him too but the man yelled at them, “Stop or I’ll shoot ya both, and ya little girl.”

  “Shoot?” Annabella questioned her voice shaking. She might not have known what it meant but the anger of the man told her it wouldn’t be a good thing. “What do you want?”

  “Give me that there, and ya wallet and jewellery,” he said, pointing to the basket.

  Traflier placed it down all the while watching the tube of the device in his hand. What is that thing?

  “The jewellery and wallet too.”

  “We have no wallet,” Traflier said, clutching Grace behind him so she wouldn’t see the man’s angered face.

  “Liar, give me your money, you have to have money.”

 
“We don’t, I swear,” Annabella pleaded, and the man reached out and grabbed her by the hair pulling her into him.

  Traflier reached out but was too slow.

  The man now held the tube against Annabella’s temple as he yelled again, “You give me your jewellery and your money now, or I’ll shoot her.”

  “I have no money, but here take this,” Traflier begged as he watched a tear roll down his Annabella’s cheek.

  Traflier unclasped the band at his wrist, a crystal wrap made by one of the fey in the markets. She had said it would make him feel stronger, the opal dust used to coat the band glistened in the light that now shone from the half-moon above.

  “That can’t be it, give me the watch,” the man spat, and Traflier began to undo the latch, but his hands were shaking, and his fingers fumbled with the clasp. The man reached out to snatch the watch away with the hand once holding Annabella’s hair. Annabella went to move away and there was a flash of light.

  A loud bang.

  A burst of red.

  A child’s scream.

  Annabella fell to the ground as the man ran away and Traflier dropped to the grass beside his wife. The ground began to thicken with the blood rushing from her neck.

  “Anna, I have to get you to the gateway,” Traflier cried, placing one hand over her wound and the other under her to try to lift her from the grass. Her eyes rolled back a little in her head. “Anna, stay with me.”

  “I’ve called an ambulance,” a woman said, startling Traflier, but her eyes were wet with tears, she was no threat. “I’ll go down and meet them at the entrance, so they know where to come.” She disappeared.

  “Mummy,” Grace cried as she looked around her father at her mother fading quickly in front of them.

  “Grace,” Anna breathed out softly. A cough brought a spurt of blood from her mouth. “T, take her home. Go.”

  “No, we all go.” And Traflier ripped a scrap of fabric from his shirt and wrapped it around her neck. Every healing cast he knew was running through his head, but in the human realm he had no magic. I have to get her home!

  “Grace, let’s go,” he said, reaching out and wrapping her arms around his neck. “Just like before okay, hold on tight.”

  Grace nodded, wiping the tears from her eyes she latched onto her father’s neck from behind and with a mighty oomph, Traflier lifted Annabella up and stood at the same time. He ran as best he could with the both of them towards the gateway. The rag at Annabella’s neck was soaked red and he could feel the thick warm blood running over the arm he cradled her with.

  “Just hold on Anna, we are nearly there we are nearly home.” The green vines of the gateways hidden place beckoned him near and he found a new strength, running harder towards it. Reaching the wall of twisted green vines, his face paled, his eyes went wide and he fell to his knees.

  “What is it, Daddy? Take us home, we have to save Mummy.”

  “I can’t. Oh, Anna, I can’t open the gateway. We have to wait, Anna, you have to hold on.”

  “Mummy, hold on!” Grace cried, slipping from her father’s neck and thrashing at the vines of the wall that kept them from their home of magic, and safety. “Let me in I have to save my mummy!” Grace called into the star speckled sky.

  “Anna, please hold on,” Traflier begged her as he watched the colour draining from her skin. Her eyes closed and her breath came slower and slower. “Please, Anna it can’t be too much longer, just hold on. Please. MORTIMER PLEASE HELP US!” he called out, hoping the angel was watching.

  Annabella’s body took on new weight and her breathing stopped. Traflier dropped to the ground and listened to her chest for a heartbeat.

  There was none. Quickly he began pumping her chest.

  Grace stepped over to them. “Mummy’s not bleeding anymore,” she said with the slightest hope in her voice. Traflier looked down at where the scrap had come away from the hole in her neck. Anabella wasn’t bleeding because there was no more blood in her. Beating her chest would do nothing.

  She is gone.

  “Grace, Mummy has gone into the light.”

  Grace lunged forwards throwing her arms around her father’s neck she cried into him as he buried his face in his daughter’s hair and cried too.

  “The gateway hummed to life behind them. Traflier’s tears ceased, his head filled with fire. It is their fault she is gone, he thought looking at the slightest twinkle in the vines that indicated that the path was now, finally open.

  He moved Grace to be against his back again and lifted Annabella up. The faint sound of a siren filled the air as Traflier stepped through the gateway, his daughter holding on for dear life behind him and his wife without life cradled in his arms.

  ***

  TRAFLIER WAITED BEHIND a stall selling fruit for far more than was necessary. There is plenty for everyone, look at the greed the fey have embraced. Another trait of the humans I am sure. He waited, watching the platform for when the elders would arrive.

  The procession of elders began to file across the stage, Elder Pontors last to take his seat. He had not taken his seat since his daughter’s death a week ago, but Traflier had waited until his return to speak to them. What he wanted to do would require all the elders be present. It would be the only way. Stepping from behind the stall he focussed on the faces of the fey who could grant his dream for justice.

  “I come to seek your permission to remove the wards,” Traflier said to them as he reached the edge of the podium.

  Elder Pontors held up a hand to stop him. “You ask for something we cannot grant. The wards are for the protection of the humans as well as the fey.”

  “Protection?” Traflier screamed. “How did it protect your daughter to be in a world where no magic could save her. She would be alive to watch our daughter grow had your wards not been in place.”

  “I remind you, child, who it is you speak with.”

  “How can you refuse me? I need the wards removed so I can find the human who killed my Anna and deliver him the same fate.”

  “You have our answer,” Elder Pontors said, waving his hand to dismiss Traflier.

  “You are weak, all of you. You will see, when I am an elder it will be different.”

  “Ah, now seeing as you bring that up,” Elder Pontors began, and the other elders looked to their feet and the stalls behind him. Anywhere except at Traflier.

  “Yes, what about it?”

  “Well, I have decided not to step down as elder and so there is no opening amongst the twelve for you to take a seat. Until one of the Twelve retires you will not be joining the elders.”

  “What? But you said you were done, you wanted to stand down, why change your mind now?”

  He shot Traflier a glare. “With the Feydom growing every day, it is the Twelve that will guide its direction and it would be best not to start introducing too many changes.”

  “You mean you don’t want me coming in and fixing all your mistakes ‘cause then you would have to admit that the oh so glorious Twelve are the reason Anna is dead. You killed her and now you won’t let me have my revenge. How can you just sit there?”

  “That is enough. You have our decision. Let it be, boy.”

  Traflier took a controlled breath, then with no final thanks to the elders and no nod of respect he turned and left the podium. He trudged through the streets, through the wooded area behind the pool of light and down towards the back lands. He didn’t stop until he reached the darkened grass that once gleamed a brilliant green.

  “I can do this here but there, nothing,” he said aloud to himself. “Mortimer, you must help me, show me how to find the human responsible for this. Please!”

  Mortimer appeared a few feet away, not fully corporeal, more like a mist of a figure, but his eyes were clear as they had ever been. “Your wife has joined the light. You saved her once, you could not again. Be thankful for the extra time you were afforded.”

  “How can you say that? Did you see what happened? Those foul humans stol
e her life away, sent her into the light before her time. If you can’t bring her back, help me obtain justice for her death.”

  “I cannot help you Traflier. I told you, I will have no part in helping you ever again.”

  “Then why did you come?”

  “I came to heed you a warning. The path you are on is a dark one. Don’t let the pain of your loss send you to a place of darkness that your light cannot escape.”

  “You know nothing of loss,” Traflier scowled, and then he did something else. He called for Mortimer’s magic the way he called for the strength of the back lands that sent it black.

  “You don’t have the power to take my Life, Traflier. Goodbye.”

  And Mortimer faded from sight. Traflier growled, falling to his hands and knees. He thought of Annabella, lying there, blood gushing from a wound he couldn’t heal. Grace crying for her mother not to leave her.

  Grace hadn’t left the house since their return. Annabella was well loved among the other sages and it was them who looked after Grace now. For the first couple of days they had looked after him too.

  He clung to her pillow in their bed for the entire first day. Taking in her scent, remembering the great times they shared.

  But soon those great times turned to the repetitive nightmare of her death and the anger took over.

  The fire burnt inside him now, brighter than it ever had. A grunting noise caught his attention and he looked over to see a beast crawl from the water of the back lands’ pink lake.

  Its clawed paws dug deep into the ground and in its mouth was a large fish. Once it climbed free of the water it stood on its back legs and gripping the fish with its claws, it tore through the flesh with gleaming white teeth. Many, many, rows of teeth.

  “They will pay for what they have done. They all will,” Traflier mumbled to himself, before standing and slowly walking towards the dripping wet beast. The fur on its body beaded with the water from the lake.

  He stepped on a stick that crunched under foot and the beast locked eyes with him, dropping what was left of the fish to the ground.