by Erica Ridley
A pair of massive iron doors swung open, revealing—nothing. Darkness. Shadows. Emptiness.
Tendrils of icy air snaked out through the doorway and curled up her bare legs. She shivered at the intrusion of murky nothingness.
“Are you sure this is Purgatory?” she asked doubtfully. “I don’t want to take a wrong turn into Hades.”
“Hades is hot,” said the thin guard, enshrouded in a full-body robe the burnt orange shade of rotting leaves. He nudged her forward. “Go.”
After a quick over-the-shoulder glance to verify the position of the armed guards flanking the passageway back to Nether-Netherland, she straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin, and marched forward.
The big iron doors closed behind her, enveloping her in blackness. The only sounds were her uneven breaths and racing heart. Where were the guards? The other prisoners?
She froze, waiting for someone to come get her, to tell her where to go, what to do.
Nobody came.
The chill swirled around her neck and arms, just cold enough to be uncomfortable but not quite frigid enough for hypothermia. She hugged herself, shivering uncontrollably. The least they could’ve done was loan her enough clothes powder to change out of her tooth fairy uniform. Or turned on a light.
She sniffed the dank air and sneezed. Musty. Mildewy. As if she were the first live thing to cross this border in decades. She took a cautious step forward. The icy cobbled stone floor scraped against the bottom of her bare feet. A faint noise sounded in the distance.
Plink.
Daisy cocked her head.
Plink.
There it was again. A soft, wet plop like a drop of water falling from a leaky roof to splatter onto the cold floor.
Plink. Plink. Plink.
She fought a sneeze, covering her mouth with the inside of her elbow. The air was oppressive, dingy and stale with dust and mold and neglect. When she opened her eyes, she caught the faint wisps of light coming from what looked like the cracks around a door off in the distance. She moved closer, sliding her feet forward over the freezing, uneven ground so she wouldn’t trip over some unknown object lurking in the darkness.
Plink.
The drops fell with no regular pattern. Sometimes several in a row, sometimes none for long minutes. Her shoulders tensed as she anticipated the next wet splatter. Nothing… nothing…
Plink.
She flinched at the sound. Purgatory, it seemed, was annoying.
Not painful, or horrifying, or tortuous, as she imagined Hell, but certainly not the sunny, happy, choirs-of-singing-cherubs bliss of Heaven.
She finally reached the source of the faint light. A door. With something on the other side. Was it better to know or to not know? Could anything be worse than that dark emptiness? She wrenched open the door and blinked to discover herself in a room full of bustling corporate mayhem.
Dingy fluorescent lights hung overhead. Rutted linoleum covered the floor. Shoulder-high cubicles divided the interior space into five-foot by five-foot sections. A cacophony of monotone voices muffled the intermittent plink of the drippy ceiling.
And gray. Everything, everything, was gray.
A long wall dotted with glass dividers separated the apparent office space from what looked like a waiting room the size of Indiana, filled with a winding queue of unhappy people. They shuffled forward, taking their turns at the speakers embedded in the glass dividers before shuffling off to stand in another line.
Daisy rubbed her eyes. “What is this place?”
“Purgatory, of course,” came a bored voice.
She whirled to find a sharp-horned minotaur with a large clipboard hovering behind her. Even without the head of a bull, his over-muscled arms and legs would give any prisoner pause.
“Daisy le Fey, I presume?” His tone indicated he didn’t care if she were the Queen of Nether-Netherland. When she nodded, he gestured with his clipboard. “Says here you’ve been sentenced to the Recently Departed section of Purgatory.”
“Recently Departed?” Daisy repeated blankly.
He pointed at a queue of hovering bodies lined up on the other side of the wall. “Those are incoming human souls who need to be checked in. You’ll be provided with a list of interview questions. All you have to do is take down the information, log their details and duration of stay into the Scales of Justice, and move on to the next person.”
“So, I’m not sentenced to Purgatory, per se.” Slow understanding rekindled her sense of hope. “I’m sentenced to help run Purgatory?”
“Trust me,” the minotaur said. “This is worse.”
She took another look at the queue of incoming souls. “Is Purgatory only for humans?”
“Catholic humans,” he corrected. “Come, I’ll show you to your cubicle, where you’ll spend the next five years.”
A cubicle. Purgatory might be Hell after all. “Are there breaks?”
“You get fifteen minutes every four hours during your twelve-hour shift. The break room is on the other side of that wall of filing cabinets. The soda machine is out of everything but Tab.”
“How often do they refill it?”
He laughed humorlessly. “That’s just how it is. In Hell, prisoners get nothing. In Heaven, sodas come from fountains. We get a self-serve machine that only stocks Tab.” He motioned her into a seat in front of a divider window. “Here’s your copy of the Interview for Incoming Residents. The login password is ‘mediocre,’ no caps. See you on break.”
And with that, he loped out of sight.
She eased into the lumpy swivel chair. Two of the wheels didn’t turn. The back of the chair cantered sideways and fell off when she tried to fix it. This was worse than grad school. There had to be a way out.
Except there wasn’t.
Five years. Five long, long years. Of no friends, no family, no wings… and no Trevor. Five years of only her memories to keep her company, and nothing at all she could do about it.
Morning melted into afternoon while she interviewed incoming residents with growing horror and sympathy. Wives who murdered abusive husbands, fathers who stole to provide for their families, children who prostituted themselves to survive on the streets. No way could she last five days at this window, much less five years. Her heart was bleeding.
She racked her brain for an escape plan. Preferably something legal.
Mr. Squatch had murmured something about trying to appeal, but with Judge Banshee imposing a no visitors ruling, was that still possible? Daisy assumed her lawyer didn’t count as a mere visitor. Matter of fact, she hoped he hurried his furry butt on down as fast as his big feet could take him.
“Busy day,” said a gum-popping pixie the next cube over, jerking her head toward the back door. “Here comes another newbie.”
Daisy craned her neck to see the minotaur interviewing a familiar winged blonde woman in a flowing powder blue gown.
Mama? Here? She leapt to her feet in horror. Visions of her mother’s impassioned outbursts on her behalf replayed through her mind.
Wonderful. She’d not only screwed up her own life, she’d managed to bring her mother down with her. Daisy flipped the sign on her window from “OPEN” to “Back in 15 Minutes.” She sprinted over to the wall of filing cabinets in order to eavesdrop on the conversation with the minotaur.
“Let me get this straight.” Her mother’s words were slow, uncertain. “I’m supposed to straighten the supply closet? That’s all?”
The minotaur sighed, his voice inflectionless and tired as though he’d given this speech more times than he cared to count. “Jobs in Purgatory aren’t difficult. Nor are they fun. Nothing in Purgatory is all bad and nothing in Purgatory is all good. It’s Purgatory.”
Mama nodded slowly.
As happy as she was to see a familiar face, Daisy couldn’t help the guilt congealing in her stomach. She doubted her glamorous mother would be straightening supply closets if her daughter hadn’t been an unmagical screw-up.
When the
shuffle of footsteps grew closer, Daisy flattened herself as close to the wall as possible. She bit back a gasp as the minotaur’s dark-furred hand pointed past the opening between the cabinets, his thick yellow fingernails mere inches from her nose.
“There’s the break room,” he said, the tips of his horns a mere stack of manila folders away. “The supply closet is on the opposite side.”
A flurry of blue silk fluttered past the opening as Mama floated off toward the supply closet. Daisy didn’t move until she was sure the minotaur had returned to his post to wait on the next new recruit.
She slid out between the cabinets, keeping her back flush with the cold metal drawers. When nobody tackled her to the ground, she sucked in a quick breath and dashed around the corner to the hallway.
On her right was a small, dingy room with a big gray table, a marinara-splattered microwave, and a big, whirring soda machine. An orange “Sold Out” light glowed above all the drink selections except Tab.
Daisy hated Tab.
To her left was a cracked wooden door, just enough ajar that both a cool draft and dusty light swirled from the gap. With a final, furtive glance over her shoulder, she slipped inside and squeezed her incredulous mother in a big bear hug.
“Sweetie,” Mama said into Daisy’s hair, her voice choked with unshed tears. “It is so good to see you. I didn’t think I’d find you again… ever.”
Daisy pulled away so she could see her mother’s face. “I didn’t think you’d follow in my footsteps. Why in the world are you down here?”
Mama’s cheeks flushed red. “My outbursts in court paled next to the turning-humans-into-stone incident.”
“Oh no,” Daisy gasped. “How in Hades did D.A. Sangre even find out?”
“She didn’t. Vivian Valdemeer said you told her.” Mama’s tone was even, but her eyes were moist and wounded.
“Why would I? She’s out to get me. I have no idea how—” Daisy slapped her forehead with the palm of one hand. The stupid Mortal Locator. She should’ve password-protected the damn thing when she’d altered the log locations, even if it would’ve caused more trouble. “As much as I needed her help if I was ever going to earn wings, I never did trust her. That woman is toxic.”
“What do you mean, ‘needed’ her help, past tense?” Mama’s hands fisted on her hips. “What else did she do?”
“She knows I’m on to her, but she can’t get rid of me if I don’t come out and say so.” Daisy rested her elbow against the jutting metal shelves. “But I refuse to work for someone who’d get my mother tossed in Purgatory, even if it means I’ll never be a tooth fairy.”
“Oh, sweetie. I’m pleased to hear that, although a little surprised. I didn’t think anything short of a cataclysmic apocalypse could interfere with your quest for wings.”
“Probably not,” Daisy admitted. “I’ll never give up. But I don’t need Vivian’s help at this price. She may be the most visible, high-ranking tooth fairy in Nether-Netherland, but she’s not the only fairy.”
“What are you going to do?” Mama reached out to touch her hair. “If you had your magic wand license, I could put in a good word for you at the Fairy Godmother Association. I’ve tried several times before, but they just won’t accept anyone who can’t—”
“I know, I know. But I’m getting there. I’ve almost worked the bugs out of my mechanical wand.”
“Sweetie, you know they won’t hire someone who uses false magic.”
“I won’t mention that part. Besides, I’ve got five years to work on my résumé.” Daisy rested her cheek against her mother’s shoulder. “As soon as I’m free, I’ll send out as many apprenticeship applications as it takes until I find someone willing to take a chance on me. Without sacrificing my mother. Which brings me to my next question… How long are you here? As much as I’d enjoy your company, please don’t tell me five years. I’ll start crying.” She swiped at her cheek. “Oh crap, I’m already crying.”
Mama kissed her forehead. “Thanks to Vivian’s big mouth, they sent me down to ‘cool off for the night’ for contempt of court. I think it’s the outraged-mother equivalent of a drunk tank.”
“Maybe that’s why you got assigned to supply closet duty. Makes sense for one night.” Daisy glanced around the cramped, windowless area. “Sure wouldn’t be much to do for five years.”
The closet wasn’t much wider than the door leading to the hallway, with the added depth of maybe five or six feet. Metal shelves lined all three non-door walls, leaving a two foot by three-foot square of stained carpet free for Daisy to stand on and her mother to hover over.
Most of the shelves were stacked with legal pads, blank name badges, used binders, and boxes of black pens with erasable ink. Any visible areas of wall were covered with brightly lettered signs, ranging from “Wash Hands after Using the Restroom” to “Stay Safe: Always Wear Safety Goggles.”
Daisy grimaced.
“Thank Jupiter you’re not claustrophobic, or this place would suck even worse.” She slumped against one of the cluttered shelves. “I can’t believe I got you into this.”
“You didn’t get me into anything.” Mama’s soft fingers brushed Daisy’s cheek. “By yelling at the judge, I dug my own hole—and Vivian nailed the coffin shut.”
“But that’s what I mean. It all comes back to Vivian, with special thanks to me. If I hadn’t wanted to earn my wings so bad, I would’ve punched her in the face right after she slipped me that Himalayan Lust Charm.”
Mama goggled at her. “Slipped you a what?”
“That’s how Trevor and I got together in the first place. Not that we weren’t already knee deep in heated glances,” she admitted, “but I wouldn’t have slept with him that first time if we weren’t both under the influence of a wicked potent spell.”
“As your mother, I’m going to ignore ‘that first time’ for a second to say, why in the name of all that’s holy didn’t you tell me earlier?”
“Are you kidding? Who discusses their sex life with their mother?”
A sharp, insistent pain pounded in the back of Daisy’s head. Why hadn’t she complained earlier? Because she was so focused on making fairy above all else, that’s why. Maybe she really was the fool that Vivian had played her for. Or maybe she had deceived herself. She’d suspected Vivian’s motives weren’t one hundred percent altruistic from the moment the dentition spectrometer proved Angus was an adult. She just didn’t want to believe it. To lose her one chance of making fairy.
Thanks to tunnel vision, she’d slipped down the rabbit hole into Purgatory… and dragged her mother with her.
On autopilot since leaving the university for the day, Trevor didn’t realize he’d missed the turnoff for his subdivision until he found himself driving past the tooth fountain he’d taken Daisy to.
Damn it. Some way, somehow, he had to get that woman out of his brain. It was a gimme that he would’ve pursued a relationship with her if they’d met under different circumstances. What he hadn’t expected was regret for not pursuing her even under these circumstances.
The fading sunlight dipped below the rooftops cluttering up the horizon. Before long, he arrived home. Scratch that: to an empty house.
What had Daisy said when they’d first met? She only traveled under cover of night? Well, now it was night. If she wanted him, if she missed him, she would be here. And she wasn’t.
He couldn’t even look at a tree without wishing he had Daisy up against it. And not just in a sexual way. Sure, he’d enjoyed every second of their lovemaking. But he’d also enjoyed taking her to see the fountain, and cuddling on the couch while they pored over the Angus research.
If she’d happened to be human, she’d be damn near perfect. What kind of twisted cosmic fate caused him to fall for the one woman he couldn’t have?
He trudged up the walkway to his front porch. He swung open his front door, turned off the alarm, and stepped inside. No Daisy.
“Stop thinking about her,” he muttered to himself. “
It’s over.”
Exhaling deeply, he tumbled backward onto the couch, his sightless eyes staring through the ceiling.
If he could just talk to her again, do over that last conversation. Maybe there was some way she could give him another chance. Sure, ordinary old Earth didn’t have fairy wings and pixie dust, but Daisy didn’t need any of that crap anyway. She was smart, she was fun, she was perfect just the way she was. Except for the part about her being gone.
A soft ribbit croaked from the aquarium in the corner. Trevor bolted upright. Bubbles. How could he have forgotten Bubbles?
He sprinted across the room to the aquarium. The where-frog sat in one corner, the crumpled paper in another.
Good Lord, he’d forgotten the paper, too. At first he’d just assumed it was a Dear John, and forced it from his mind. But what if it wasn’t?
Maybe Daisy was sitting somewhere in Nether-Netherland missing him just as much as he was missing her. Maybe she’d written him a love letter, asking him to come for her like a white knight off to capture his fair damsel. And him, moping around for no reason!
Fingers trembling, he reached inside the aquarium for the scratchy ball of paper. Excitement coursed through his veins. He’d explain that he wasn’t ignoring her—he’d been too busy wallowing in his misery to realize she needed him right back.
He should probably write her a love letter of his own just to prove it. Maybe even some poetry. What rhymed with Daisy? Hazy. Lazy. Crazy. Maybe he should rhyme “fairy” instead. Was that better? Very. Berry. Marry.
With hope in his heart for the first time since Daisy had disappeared for good, Trevor flattened out the wrinkled paper and froze.
Six little words screamed at him from the top of the page in Daisy’s unmistakable handwriting. Heavy capital letters that sliced through his silly hopes and proved once and for all what a ridiculous dreamer he really was.
“WHY I DON’T WANT TREVOR MASTERSON.”
A vertical line separated the page into two columns. The longer of the two lists read, “Smart. Respected. Respectful. Thoughtful. Sexy. Fun. Friendly. Charming.”