A Basket of Wishes

by Rebecca Paisley

  Splendor noted that his voice was as hollow as a reed. “Jourdian—”

  “And no human magician could have performed such an impossible feat.” Jourdian took a deep breath, assailed by a sense of realization so pressing that he felt his shoulders sag. “You…truly…are…a…fairy.”

  “Aye, husband, that is what I am.”

  “A fairy.” Willing his legs to work, Jourdian rose from the bed and slowly paced around his red, blue, and green room. He paused beside his dresser, fingered one of the evergreen’s boughs, then glanced at the tree’s trunk, which stemmed straight out of the wooden surface of the dresser.

  “Jourdian, I am nay an evil elf,” Splendor tried to reassure him. “You’ve nay a need to fear—”

  A loud and fierce growl on the other side of the door interrupted her.

  “Delicious,” Splendor said.

  “Your swan?” Jourdian had never heard a swan growl, but now he knew firsthand that stranger things could happen.

  Splendor opened the door.

  A grizzly bear stood in the hall, swinging its great head from side to side, slobber spraying from each corner of its tooth-filled mouth.

  “Delicious,” Splendor greeted him. “Come in, sweetling.”

  On its huge back legs, the bear ambled into the room.

  Splendor closed the door, and rubbed her hands down Delicious’s fat, hairy belly. “Jourdian, one other supremely tiny thing I must tell you… Delicious is not a swan. He’s… Well, he is anything he chooses to be. Since we have been here with you, he has been a hog, a donkey, a seal, a turtle, a rooster, a chipmunk, and now he is a bear. He came to be with me when I was but a fairy child, and I named him ‘Delicious’ because he is deliciously wonderful.

  “’Tis a sweet story how he came to be with me, Jourdian. I was in the pond in yonder woods, lying upon a lily pad and basking in the sun. In the next moment I fell into the water. Ordinarily I swim well, but that day I could not because when I fell into the water I became entangled in a bunch of underwater plants. I nearly drowned, husband. Delicious was a fish at the time. A pretty fish, all silvery and with wonderful black eyes and thick, O shaped lips. He saw me struggling in the water plants, and he nudged me back to the surface.”

  She hugged the huge grizzly bear who was Delicious. “He saved my life that day, and I have had him ever since. He was born a cockroach, but was not happy with his lot in life. After all, Jourdian, what use to the world are cockroaches? But he happened upon a witch one day. She set out a dish of sweetened water for him. He would not touch it. She was old, frail, and thin, the witch, and Delicious thought she needed the sugar water more than he. To reward him for his consideration and kindness, the witch cast a spell over him that allowed him to be whatever sort of animal or insect he wished. Delicious could not make up his mind, so the witch gave him unlimited choice throughout his lifetime.”

  Jourdian didn’t bat an eye. He walked to the window. The green window.

  He recalled that Emil had wanted him to court Caroline Pilcher.

  He had refused because Caroline owned a pet python. Caroline also wanted to perform equestrian stunts in a circus.

  Splendor owned a pet that could be whatever it wanted to be. And she rode dragonflies.

  Emil had wanted him to woo Edith Hinderwell.

  He’d declined because Edith wished on stars.

  Splendor didn’t wish on stars. She guarded them. She’d flown all the way to a rice field in China to retrieve one that had fallen from the sky.

  Jourdian pressed his forehead to the cool, green pane of the window. A normal wife, he mused. He’d wanted a simple, unassuming, ordinary, plain, conventional wife.

  “And the duchess of Heathcourte is a fairy,” he said in a choked voice.

  “A Pillywiggin, to be precise,” Splendor added.

  He turned away from the window. “I didn’t want to marry a Pillywiggin,” he ground out between gritted teeth. “I wanted a plain woman! A human woman! And what did I wed? A wing-wearing, stardust-throwing, wish-guarding, dragonfly-riding fairy!”

  In an instant, Splendor’s mist appeared and surrounded her. Jourdian’s rejection of her made her ache; she dissolved into the sparkling haze, covered her face with her hands, and sobbed.

  For a moment, Jourdian stood transfixed, struggling to comprehend what he was seeing. His wife had just been swallowed up by glittering fog. “Splendor?”

  No answer.

  “Splendor?” Jourdian approached the bright cloud and gazed into it, trying to find some hint of the enchanted female who was his wife. “Splendor, come out of there!”

  Several minutes passed before she stepped out of the mist.

  “You dissolved,” Jourdian whispered.

  “You made me sad. When I am extremely upset, my mist appears and embraces me. But I do not remain sad for long. I cannot. Fairy emotions, you see, are not as deep as human emotions.”

  Jourdian had heard of people crawling into their “shells” when distressed, but he’d never met anyone who faded into mist.

  Of course, he’d never met a fairy, either.

  He rammed his fingers through his hair, then saw shining droplets clinging to Splendor’s cheeks. More twinkled from the palms of her hands. “Those are no ordinary tears, are they?” he demanded. “The diamonds I found on the parlor floor after you cried and fled the room… You cry diamonds! It’s no damned wonder you didn’t want the jewels I offered you! You can cry a gleaming mountain of them all by yourself!”

  Battling despair again, Splendor could only nod.

  Jourdian strode to the door. His hand on the knob, he looked over his shoulder. “I am going downstairs now, Splendor, to think and to drink until I cannot think anymore.”

  “But Jourdian, I do not want for you to go down—”

  “It’s my wish. Do you understand? I wish to go downstairs, and I do not wish to be disturbed!”

  Instantly Splendor ceased to argue. Sighing, she lifted her hand toward him.

  Jourdian saw a trail of silver stardust floating toward him. He tried to dodge the magic, but the enchanted lights caught and swirled around him.

  A second later, he was downstairs in the room his mother had called the tea room. Kicking a dainty footstool out of his way, he stormed out of the room and strode to his office. “The tea room,” he muttered, grabbing a bottle of scotch off the liquor cabinet.

  He looked up at the ceiling as if he could see straight into his upstairs chambers. “I didn’t want a cup of blasted tea, damn it all! If you’re going to send me from room to room to room to room, the very least you could do is send me to the ones I want to be in!”

  Not bothering with a glass, he tipped the bottle of liquor to his lips and swallowed until lack of air forced him to stop and take a breath. And then he drank more.

  And more.

  “An annulment,” he murmured to the scotch bottle as he stared down at it. “We’ve not consummated the marriage, and so there is no possibility that she carries my child.”

  He opened a bottle of brandy. Slumping into his office chair, he pondered the idea of the annulment. “I’ve grounds for it,” he slurred. “I’m not married to a human.”

  But how would he explain his reasons for wanting an annulment?

  Reverend Shrewsbury, my wife is a fairy princess, so please annul my marriage.

  He shook his head. Revealing Splendor’s origins wouldn’t get him an annulment. It would get him locked in an insane asylum for the rest of his life.

  “Bloody hell.”

  Jourdian started on the brandy, and an hour later a drunken stupor numbed him to all feelings. He longed for unconsciousness, but just when he was at the verge of falling asleep he saw her.

  Splendor. He couldn’t miss her. She moved toward him in a nimbus of brilliance.

  “I do not imagine I am going against your wish not to be disturbed,” she whispered. “In your state, nothing could disturb you. Go to bed, husband.”

  Jourdian saw her
lift her hand above his head. Her starry magic rained over him, and he wasn’t surprised when he then found himself out of his office chair and tucked into his bed. And sloshed as he was, he didn’t argue with the fairy who’d put him there.

  He simply rolled over and sought the blessedness of sleep.

  Chapter Thirteen

  When Jourdian awakened, bright afternoon sunlight stabbed through his eyelids and his head throbbed with such intense pain that he wanted to scream.

  But he dared not. Even the sound of his own breath intensified his misery. “I’m going to die,” he whispered, wincing from the effort to speak.

  “Die?”

  Splendor’s voice startled him, for he’d thought he was alone. “Don’t move,” he managed to tell her. “This bed is already rolling as if tossed on a stormy sea.”

  She sat up and poked her finger into his shoulder.

  “Ouch, Splendor.”

  “Jourdian, I but touched your shoulder.”

  “My skin hurts. My teeth hurt. God, even my hair hurts.”

  “What is the matter—”

  “I told you not to move. Any second now my head is going to burst wide open.”

  Gently, Splendor laid her palm over his temple. “There, there,” she cooed. “’Tis gone now, the pain.”

  Jourdian opened his eyes, astonished to realize the pain truly was gone. He felt fine.

  But why wouldn’t he? His little fairy nurse had cured him with her fairy medicine.

  At that thought, he groaned, turned to his side, and found himself nose to nose with a porcupine. He didn’t have to think twice to know the quilled creature was Delicious.

  “Jourdian, you slept all night and half of this day. Might we indulge in the art of lovemaking now?” Splendor drifted off the bed and hovered above him, her hair pouring down all over him and Delicious. “’Tis what I told you I wanted to do when you found me near the woods yesterday afternoon. Oh, and I would also remind you of your promise to get me with child.”

  He sat bolt upright, his swift action tossing the porcupine, Delicious, straight off the bed and onto the floor. “A child,” he whispered. Tilting his head back over his shoulders, he reached up, took Splendor’s wrist, and pulled her back down onto the bed. “You’re a fairy.”

  “Aye, that is what I—”

  “So, what’s my son going to be? A damned leprechaun? A troll?”

  She gasped. “You insult me. Trolls are horrible, ugly, and evil beasts who—”

  “Then what is my son going to be?” Jourdian demanded. “Half-human, half-fairy. And he may or may not inherit the powers of Faerie.”

  Wonderful, Jourdian seethed. It was possible that the thirteenth duke of Heathcourte would turn out to be an elf.

  He vaulted out of bed. Barefoot and naked, he crossed the plant-filled room.

  Floating in the air behind him, Splendor followed.

  And when Jourdian turned back toward the bed, she was right in front of his face. “God!”

  “What?”

  “You scared me!”

  “’Tis nay what I meant to do, husband. I only wanted to—”

  “Don’t fly after me like that, damn it all!”

  She wafted to the floor. “Jourdian, the night after our wedding, I asked you to cease shouting at me.”

  He left her where she stood and walked back across the room, looking over his shoulder to see if she was sailing behind him.

  She remained where she was, beside his dresser and the evergreen that grew from it. “Your habit of shouting at me is—”

  “I am not going to discuss my shouting habits, Splendor.” He grabbed the black dressing robe he’d seen her wearing the day before, and yanked it on. “I have barely had time to reconcile myself to the fact that my duchess is a creature of enchantment, and now I must dwell on the prospect that my heir will not drive about the countryside in a gleaming carriage, but upon the back of a damned dragonfly!”

  At his continued shouting, Splendor felt a warmth flare up inside her. Hotter it became, and she realized it was the beginning of anger. She drew back her hand.

  Jourdian had no time to avoid her magic. The silver light sped across the room, coating him from head to toe.

  He opened his mouth to shout again, but found he could not part his lips.

  “You cannot shout at me again, Jourdian,” Splendor informed him, “because I have sealed your lips. I will gladly loosen them, but first I shall have your promise not to raise your voice.”

  He saw fire, but short of wringing her slender neck, he couldn’t think of a single other form of retaliation.

  Splendor folded her arms across her chest and tapped her bare toes on the floor. “I am waiting.”

  He gave a sharp nod of his head, and more stardust fell over him. Lifting his hands to his mouth, he rubbed his fingers all over his lips. “Don’t you ever do that again, Splendor. And put some clothes on, damn it all!”

  “Do not shout at me again. And as for clothing… Well, now that you know I am a fairy, I shall tell you also that neither I nor anyone in the Kingdom of Pillywiggin wears clothes. We are a naked race.”

  “Oh, is that so? Well, this is not the Kingdom of Pillywiggin. This is Heathcourte, here we wear clothes, and don’t you dare glue my lips together for shouting, do you understand? I wish for you not to do it!” He marched to his closet and withdrew a red silk shirt.

  “Red,” he spat. “What in God’s name am I to do with a red shirt? Put my clothes back the way they were!”

  “Nay.”

  “No?”

  “Nay, because you are rousing my irritation again.” Splendor cast a wave of silver stars toward the closet.

  Jourdian cringed, just waiting to fall into another snake pit, to have his lips sewn together, or perhaps to be turned into a rabid dog or some other sort of disgusting beast.

  Nothing happened to him, but his clothes were changing color at the rate of every two seconds. Yellow, turquoise, violet, mauve, pink, orange… Every possible color in the world washed over his clothing, changing each and every garment from hue to hue to hue.

  Jourdian threw the shirt he held down on the floor. In an effort to find one shred of patience, he silently counted to ten. “Stop those colors, Splendor. I wish for you to stop them this very instant and return my clothing and this room to their original states. And get rid of all these confounded trees, vines, flowers, and bushes!”

  Her lips pursed, Splendor obeyed.

  Jourdian looked around, satisfied that everything was back to normal. “Now, wife, sit down.”

  “I do not wish to—”

  “But I wish it.”

  “You take advantage of my willingness to grant your wishes, Jourdian,” she said, but complied by taking a seat in a nearby chair.

  He ignored her chastisement and concentrated on his child, his heir. He couldn’t allow the name of Amberville to die out, not even if it meant bequeathing his title and estate to a half-human with magical powers.

  And yet…

  “Splendor,” he began, “about the child. I—”

  “You will give me one, will you not?”

  Another wave of despair rushed through him. He walked away from the bed. To the window. Back to the bed. Then to the fireplace. “How— What— You— I— Splendor, I’m afraid I have no idea how to get you with child.”

  “What? But you are supposed to know how to make a baby!”

  “I do know, damn it all! But— What I mean is… I know how to make love to a woman. A human woman. Hell, for all I know, I might not be able to get you with child at all! Humans and fairies… Maybe they don’t even mix!”

  “Oh, but they do, Jourdian! I promise you they do! ’Tis one thing of which I am supremely certain!”

  He believed her. “All right, but how do fairies… What are the sexual habits of fairies?”

  “Sexual habits?” Splendor wrinkled her nose. “I am afraid I do not understand.”

  “How do elves make love? Do they
even make love?”

  “Indulge in the art of lovemaking?”

  “Yes. Do they?”

  Her shoulders slumped forward. “How can I answer that, husband? You have yet to make love to me, so there is no possible way I can know if the activity is something fairies do.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “Do you remember what I almost did to you the night after our wedding?”

  She thought. And thought.

  “You said it wouldn’t fit, Splendor.”

  “Oh, that. Yes, I remember.”

  “It will fit, as I told you that night. And when I’m deeply inside you, I’ll spill—”

  He stopped explaining. Would he fit inside her? Dear God, how was he to know? Maybe fairy women were different. Splendor was so fragile. So slight. What if she couldn’t accommodate him? What if he hurt her badly?

  What if her body was simply not meant to accept his, and he killed her?

  The possibility nearly scared him to death.

  “What are you going to spill inside me, Jourdian?”

  He turned to the fire and kicked a stray piece of kindling into the dying flames. “We haven’t reached the point in this conversation to talk about that yet. Splendor, how do Pillywiggins create fairy babies?”

  Splendor began to weep. “I do not know,” she whimpered. “Sweet everlasting, I thought you would be able to tell me!” He turned and watched diamonds cascade into her lap, more wealth than most people earned in a year. “You thought I would be able to tell you? How the hell can I tell you, Splendor, when I’m not a Pillywiggin fairy!”

  “Oh, Jourdian, this is terrible,” Splendor cried. “I trusted you to know how to get me with child, but you are as ignorant as I!”

  “I am not! Were you a human woman, Splendor, I would be bedding you at this very second, make no mistake about that! But what if fairies don’t make babies the way humans do? What if I use the human way to get you with child and then I hurt you? For God’s sake, what if I kill you?”

  “What is bedding?”

  “Making love!”

  “You are shouting again.”

  “I don’t know how to make love to my own wife! Given that, would you have me laugh, dance, and make merry?”