Marian laughed. “It’s alright,” she assured Reg. “It’s just a bird. It’s not going to do anything to hurt you.”
“Last time it attacked me,” Reg snapped back. But it didn’t appear the bird was going to leave his perch this time. He eyed Reg, standing tall on his perch and flapping his wings wildly and emitting a loud squawk. “Darn bird! Why don’t you just shut up!”
There was a poof of feathers from Frostling, and for a moment Reg panicked, worried she had blown up Sarah’s bird.
Frostling gave another squawk, proving that she hadn’t killed him. Reg laughed weakly.
Marian was staring at her. “What did you do?”
“I don’t know. Things like that have been happening lately. I just… I can’t control them.”
“I think we’d better get out of here, before he gets really mad. I don’t want him to wake Sarah back up again.”
“The way she looked… I don’t think anything is going to wake her up. Do you… how long do you think she has?”
Marian shook her head. “Not much longer. I’m just trying to keep her quiet and peaceful… make her last few days or hours good ones.”
“What am I going to do if she dies?” Reg shook her head, feeling overwhelmed. Sarah had been Reg’s pillar since the day she had moved into the community. Sarah had given her a place to live, had helped her get her business established, even checked in to make sure that she had enough to eat, took care of herself, and got to know others in the community. Without her, there was going to be a big hole in Reg’s life. She didn’t know if a hole like that could ever be filled. For the first time, she’d felt like she had a grandmother who cared about her. She’d felt like she belonged in the community. She hadn’t had feelings like that for a long time… or ever.
“I don’t know what any of us are going to do,” Marian said. “She’s been there for all of us… for so many years.”
“How old is she, really?”
“I don’t know. Older than—”
“I know. Older than I think. That’s the answer I get whenever I ask her. Or someone else.”
“I’ve learned that it’s true. Sometimes it’s best just to accept the answer you’re given.”
They walked down the halls, and then down the stairs, neither directing the other, just moving together with one mind.
Reg stopped in the kitchen, looking at the back door. “How would a pixie get into the house? Aren’t they affected by the wards?”
“Oh, yes. I’m sure Sarah would not have allowed an exception for pixies. They can provide helpful services, but they are too unpredictable to count on. It’s best not to let them into your house in the first place.”
“Then how?”
“The only way is if Sarah invited one into the house.”
“But she wouldn’t do that. And if she did, she’d know that it was the pixie who stole her necklace. There wouldn’t be any question of it.”
“I don’t know all of the rules. But if the pixie had left something here, they might be able to come back for it later, when Sarah was not aware there was anyone in the house.”
“That must be it, then! She thought that she was safe, because she didn’t know the pixie had left anything behind. But the pixie had, and then when Sarah was sleeping or out or just doing something else… the pixie could come back and steal the emerald.”
Marian nodded thoughtfully. “I just… can’t think of why she would have invited a pixie into the house to begin with.”
“Maybe she didn’t know it was a pixie. Oh—” Reg grasped for the thought. She knew there was something she should remember. Something she had been thinking about before. “Pixies… what is it… I know there was something about Sarah and pixies and… I can’t think of what it was.”
Reg looked at her watch, then looked back toward her own house, trying to find the lost thought. What if Sarah hadn’t known that the visitor was a pixie?
“Yes! That’s it! I had a young woman come to talk to me. Something about her long-lost sister. And I didn’t realize it at the time because I didn’t know anything about pixies, but when I was thinking about it later, I thought she must have been a pixie.”
“Once you’ve met a few of them, it’s pretty obvious.”
“Well, she wasn’t… not really obvious, I mean. She didn’t have those same brown, worn clothes. I mean, she didn’t look like she was rich, but she didn’t look like the ones I saw underground. Maybe some of them leave…” Reg thought about Ruan picking Calliopia up and running off with her. Where had he taken her? Not back to the burrows, surely. She had already spent too much time down there and was too eager to leave. She would not have consented to go back there so quickly. She’d been happy to see Ruan and to go with him. Reg had assumed at the time that they had both left their communities. They would run away to somewhere nobody knew them, or their history, or what they really were, and try to make their way in the normal human world. Or maybe there was another community like Black Sands where magical folk were accepted and would not be considered suspicious or dangerous.
“What are you thinking?” Marian asked.
“There must be some pixies and fairies who break away from their communities. Join the non-magical world, or travel to other places. They wouldn’t necessarily look the same as the pixies in the community here. If they were trying to blend in with non-practitioners, they would learn that they needed to get new clothes, and how to get them from the Salvation Army or some outreach program. They wouldn’t have to dress like pixies for the rest of their lives.”
“No. I suppose not,” Marian admitted. “But if this pixie was living in Black Sands, then she must be part of their community here.”
“I don’t think she is. I saw her on TV the other day. That’s what made me remember her. She was talking about homeless kids. Runaways and other kids on the street, and what kind of programs they need or are available. She was talking about her sister, who I guess was a runaway.”
“Runaway pixies,” Marian mused. “Who knew. I always thought… I don’t know. I thought they were different from humans that way. That they always stayed with their communities and took care of each other.”
“I don’t think so. Ruan and Calliopia, they didn’t stay.”
“What did this pixie want? The one who came to see you?”
“She wanted me to find her sister. To reach out to her and find out if she were still alive and if I could give her any direction as to where she might have gone.”
“And did you?”
Reg thought back to the session. It had been before Jessup had brought her into Calliopia’s kidnapping. So much had happened in the intervening time that her memories of the young woman were, at best, hazy. They’d had a session. Reg had told her some things… vague suggestions… she had assured the woman that her sister was, in fact, still alive, and if she kept looking, she would find her. “I couldn’t tell her much. But I did my best. She didn’t seem too disappointed. As far as I know, she didn’t lay any kind of curse on me,” Reg said, with a lame laugh.
Marian didn’t crack a smile. “But that was your house, not Sarah’s?”
“Uh… yes. But both houses are Sarah’s property, and if she set wards on the whole property, then wouldn’t her being invited into mine allow her to get back into Sarah’s? Do you think?”
“Someone with better knowledge of wards than me would need to answer that question. But I would think that a direct invitation into her domicile would be needed… I don’t think inviting her into just any other property would do it.”
Then, in a flood, it came back to Reg. When the young woman had first called to set up the appointment, Reg had told her about being in the house in the back, and that the woman needed to come in through the back yard. But despite Reg’s instructions, the woman—the pixie—had gone to the main house. Sarah had kindly escorted her to Reg’s house.
“She… came here first. Sarah brought her to the cottage. I completely forgot that.”
“And if she came to the front door…” Marian bit her lip, considering, and turned her head to look toward the front of the house.
“Then did Sarah just invite her in and walk her through the house to the back…?”
Marian nodded. “Oh, dear.”
“I can’t believe it. I can’t believe neither of us remembered that.”
“A lot of things happen in our lives,” Marian said philosophically. “It’s easy to forget something so… uneventful.”
“I didn’t even remember. Sarah invited her in. Why would she do that?” Reg pounded her forehead with her fist, overcome. “Why didn’t she just tell the pixie to go on around the house to the back?”
“I’m sure she didn’t even think anything of it. A young woman asking for you wouldn’t have seemed like anyone dangerous.”
“It’s just like the witch with the poison apple…”
Marian looked at her.
“Snow White?” Reg prompted.
“How is a runaway pixie like a witch with a poison apple?”
“Because she looked harmless…”
“Oh. I see.”
But Reg didn’t think she saw at all.
Reg returned to her own house, head whirling with the new discoveries, while Marian remained with Sarah to see that she continued to rest peacefully and had all of her needs taken care of if she woke up.
Starlight was sitting on the kitchen counter, staring at the door, waiting for Reg to return. Reg felt like a teenager arriving home late at night to find her parent still waiting up.
“What is it?” she demanded.
Starlight stared at her. Reg felt compelled to tell him the details. Rather than being embarrassed about talking to her cat like he was a human or that she was essentially talking to herself, Reg started to fill him in on the latest developments. She walked up to him and picked him up from the counter. He purred as she walked to the couch and sat down with him, explaining about the ribbon and the pixie. His eyes were alive with interest.
The anger and tension bled away. She didn’t feel so frustrated with herself for not having known the significance of the pixie and with Sarah for having let the young woman into her house.
“So now we know who she invited into the house,” Reg said. “She thought it was just to walk the pixie through the house and that there was no harm in it. She didn’t realize that the pixie left something behind and went back for it later.”
Starlight rubbed against Reg’s hand. Reg scratched his ears. “So what do I do next? I guess… I go find the pixie.”
Starlight put his ears back in a kitty scowl.
“I know. But she’s not in the burrows. She’s left there and is looking for her sister. So it isn’t dangerous for me to go find her and talk to her. She’s just one pixie, and she came to me for help before. I’ll just say that I’m following up. Maybe that I’ve had a vision of her sister, and give her some more nonsense about how she wishes she could be reunited with her family again, but circumstances are preventing it right now. You know, general stuff that she’ll just drink up.”
Starlight didn’t seem to think that was any better. Reg gave Starlight long strokes down his back, making him purr even louder. She laughed at the way his rump lifted every time she got past the middle of his back.
“Hopefully, they keep archives of their shows on their website,” Reg said, pulling out her phone. Which station had it been on? She tried to picture the hosts and searched through morning shows, looking for something that would trigger her memory. She tried a few different search terms, looking for the segment on teen homelessness, and eventually found faces that looked familiar.
“Bingo! There you are.”
She clicked on the link, and the video of the interview started up. Reg waited impatiently for the pixie’s face to appear, nudging the progress meter at the bottom of the video forward every few seconds. Then the woman showed up.
“My sister didn’t have an easy life. We weren’t raised together, but I remember when she was born, how proud I was to have a sister. Recently… well, some bad stuff happened to her and she ran away. I’ve been looking for her, trying to get in touch with her. I want to help her out. I don’t have a lot, but I’m happy to share what I have. I… really miss her. Alicorn… I really miss you. Please let me find you. If anyone knows where she might be, please contact the show.”
The feed changed from the woman’s pleading face to a fuzzy picture of a little girl and a baby, the little girl holding the baby’s face proudly up to her own. Two curly-haired little girls, cute as buttons.
Alicorn? What kind of name was that? Was that the girl’s real name, or a cute nickname, one of those affectionate baby names that parents gave their children?
But focusing on the lost sister wasn’t going to help Reg to find the pixie who had visited her. She ran the video back and copied down the name from the screen when she was first introduced.
Karol Blackmoor. That was the woman’s name. That was who she had to find.
Google was the usual starting point for tracking someone down. But Reg didn’t go there immediately. Instead, she closed her eyes and focused on the name and brought the woman’s face into her mind. Karol Blackmoor. Karol was looking for her sister. She was a pixie, but she didn’t live in their ancestral home. She was living somewhere else, maybe on her own and maybe with friends. Maybe she lived in a shelter or on the street while she searched for her sister; her clothes hadn’t exactly been clean and pressed. Where would Reg find Karol?
Finding Karol didn’t work. It didn’t produce any more results than finding the knife or the emerald had. Why could she suddenly not find the things she was looking for? It had always been one of her strongest gifts.
“Thief!”
The memory of one of Reg’s foster mothers erupted into her thoughts. Fat, red-faced, shaking a wooden spoon in Reg’s direction.
“I won’t have a little thief living in my house! ‘I just found it.’ You really think anyone is going to believe you? You little ungrateful tramp!” The woman grabbed her, dragging her closer, her fingers digging like bird-claws into Reg’s tender shoulder.
Reg resisted, trying to pull away, but her foster mother was not to be deterred.
“I was just helping,” Reg protested, unable to understand why the woman would be angry when Reg had just helped her to find her missing watch. She asked for help. She had been so upset over the loss of the watch, it gave Reg a pain in her heart. She followed the pull of that pain and it led her right to the watch, which she presented to her guardian with delight. That was when things had turned bad.
“You think you can lie and steal and get away with it? That may have happened at other homes, but believe me, I’m not putting up with that kind of behavior here!”
Still hanging on to Reg with one hand, she started to whale into her with the wooden spoon in the other. Reg fought back, kicking, hitting, trying to tear away. She wasn’t going to stay still and submissive for a punishment when she hadn’t done anything wrong. She had been a good and helpful girl, and she was unfairly beaten for it. Her mother threw her to the floor and got in a couple of kicks before Reg managed to scramble to her feet and run, leaving the woman screaming and brandishing the wooden spoon threateningly behind.
⋆ Chapter Twenty-One ⋆
R
eg managed to tear herself away from the memory, but it left her shaking, her heart thumping in panic, desperation, and fury over the unfair treatment. How could her foster mother scream at her and beat her for doing what she was asked? “Help me find my watch,” she had begged, and then punished Reg for doing so.
Starlight’s front paws were on Reg’s chest, and he bumped the top of his head against Reg’s chin and jaw urgently as he purred away. Reg pushed him down, wrapped her arms around him, and cuddled him close.
“It’s okay. I’m okay. It’s nothing. That happened a long time ago.” She’d buried it deep down, pushing away the pain and betrayal. Sure, it wa
s unfair. Life was unfair.
She hadn’t been able to understand at the time why her foster mother had been so angry with her, but as an adult, looking back on it, it made logical sense. Things disappear in a foster home. Kids with nothing are tempted by pretty things. Sometimes not even pretty things, hoarding food or twist ties or used toothbrushes. The way Reg had found the watch, wedged back behind the books on a shelf in the out-of-bounds study, it was obvious that it had not just been dropped or misplaced. Reg had gone directly to it when asked for help. Since no one but the thief could have known where it was secreted away, she was obviously the one who had stolen it in the first place.
Reg never did find out which one of the children had really stolen it. One of them had watched her being beaten for what he had done and not spoken up. At least one of them watching had known that she wasn’t the culprit.
Reg had learned over the years to obfuscate. To look around for an object even when she knew where it was. Put on the show of doing a thorough search. Look in places where she knew it wasn’t. Continue the search after all other searchers had given up, and then turn it up by luck, happening to stumble across it by mere chance. That was the way to find a missing object. She had honed the act over the years, but in spite of her dramatic ability, people had still suspected her. People like Reg would always be suspects, no matter how innocent they really were.
Letticia’s words came back to Reg’s mind.
If you look deep down in yourself, you’ll understand why you are not able to find it.
She had told Reg that the flaw was in herself, not in some outside force. She didn’t suggest that whoever held the emerald had put a blocking spell on it. She didn’t say that it was too far away, or buried underground, or any of the other things people had suggested to her. She had simply told Reg that she knew she had the power, and that if she couldn’t do what she knew she could do, it was because she was blocking herself. Something deep down inside of her was preventing her from finding the emerald and the other things she had sought. Reg herself was the problem.
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