A Basket of Wishes

by Rebecca Paisley

  “Solution?” Splendor asked.

  Calmer now, Harmony lay back upon the sandy shore and watched frosty tree branches sway above. A naughty smile touched her lips as she decided to make Splendor guess the solution herself. “Emil is in love with me,” she announced smugly. “’Tis what I came to tell you this morning. Last night when we left Heathcourte we went sailing in the Mediterranean Sea in a lovely ship with billows and billows of sails that caught the night breeze and carried us far over the waves. On the deck, Emil took me into his arms, kissed me, and told me he loved me. You do know what that means, do you not, Splendor?”

  Splendor nodded miserably. “It means that you can stay in the human world forever. Emil’s love will keep you alive and well, for human love is the most powerful magic… The most powerful…” She soared off the stream bank and back into the frosty air. “Harmony! Sweet everlasting, how could I have been so silly!”

  “It’s always come naturally to you.”

  “Do you know what I am going to do, sister?”

  Harmony rolled her eyes. “I cannot begin to guess.”

  “I am going to win Jourdian’s love! Somehow, I will make him fall in love with me, and then I will never have to return to Faerie!”

  “A truly wonderful idea," Harmony replied, and yawned. “I’m surprised I didn’t think of it myself. But do not forget that although Jourdian’s love will make it unnecessary for you to return to Faerie, you will still have to win Father’s approval to stay here. And you know how Father is, Splendor.”

  Splendor refused to give in to the anxiety created by Harmony’s warning. Surely somehow, some way she could convince her sire to give her his permission to remain in the human world. “I will take up that problem when I am facing it.”

  “You have another problem as well, and ’tis that you remain obligated to give the child you carry now to Pillywiggin,” Harmony cautioned. “The terms of the betrothal are irreversible. We need the child to survive, Splendor, and nothing you do or say will change that fact. And if your son inherits the powers of Faerie, he will be king of Pillywiggin one day. Father would never allow a future monarch to live anywhere but in his kingdom.”

  Splendor’s smile quickly faded. “But—”

  “Once you win Jourdian’s love, explain everything to him. Tell him…um…tell him you’ll give him a dozen more children. Surely if he knows you’ll give him a whole houseful of other offspring, he won’t grieve over the loss of one. And besides, I am sure that if Father finds it in his heart to allow you to stay with Jourdian he will also see fit to permit Jourdian to visit with the boy often, both in Pillywiggin and at Heathcourte. ’Twould be a simple matter to shrink Jourdian so that he could enter our world.”

  Splendor knew her husband well enough to know that he would never consent to allow his son to be raised in Faerie. The lad would be his heir, the next duke of Heathcourte, and Jourdian would fight the devil himself for custody of the boy.

  Splendor could only hope that the power of love would seek, find, and deliver an answer to that problem.

  For now, she would concentrate on obtaining Jourdian’s love. Quickly, she mounted Autumn Fire, waved farewell to Harmony, and urged the mare into a swift canter back toward the barns.

  After leaving her horse in the kind and capable hands of Hopkins, she skimmed down the pebbled path, across the yards, and soon arrived at the manor.

  “Jourdian?” she called upon entering. “Jourdian?”

  Using her magic to pop into room after room, she searched the house for him, finally locating him in his office. “Jourdian!” she shouted, her face wreathed in a smile as she glided toward his desk. “Something supremely remarkable happened to me last night, and I—”

  “Sit down.” He looked up from his desk.

  “I did not think it could happen to me, but it has. Last night, you see—”

  “Sit down.”

  “I spoke with Mrs. Frawley, Ulmstead, and Hopkins, and last night I felt all the symptoms they described to me. After you went to sleep, I began to feel—”

  “For the last time, sit down!”

  His shout shocked her into silence. Unwilling to further antagonize him now, when she was just about to ask him to try to love her, she took a seat in the chair across from him. “’Twould seem I owe you an apology for my strange behavior this morning,” she said quietly. “’Twas not my intention to anger you, husband. If ’tis what I have done, I am sorry.”

  Jourdian moved his papers aside, folded his hands upon his desk, and leaned forward. “I have something to talk to you about, Splendor, and I want you to listen very carefully. You—”

  “I also have something important to talk to you about. I have fallen in—”

  “You interrupted me.”

  “Aye, that is what I did, but what I have to say is so supremely important that I fear I will burst if I cannot tell you what—”

  “When I have finished speaking to you, you may have your say. Now, about your coming into my office whenever the fancy strikes you… You will no longer—”

  “I have fallen in love with you, Jourdian!” Too excited and hopeful to stay seated, Splendor floated off her chair. “I did not think it was possible for a fairy to feel such profound emotion, but I have every sign of being in love.”

  She flew higher above Jourdian’s desk, her hair falling all over his papers, inkwell, and lamp. “I feel a powerful bond to you, as if I am truly attached to you. And when I am not with you, I am bereft. Many times, I am aware of what you will say before you open your mouth to say it, and when you are happy, sad, or worried, I am happy, sad, or worried. Jourdian,” she said softly, her eyes filled with shining happiness, “the short time that I have been with you means more to me than all the years I lived without you.”

  Jourdian swallowed. He’d wanted her to love him. Had wished for it the night they’d made love in the sky.

  And now she loved him. The impossible had happened.

  “Jourdian?”

  He continued to look up at her, still astonished by her declaration. “You love me.”

  “Aye.” Splendor took a deep breath, hoping with all the hope in the world that he would grant the request she was going to make of him. “And because I love you,” she said softly, hesitantly, “I wish for your love in return.”

  He tensed. His eyes the only part of him that moved, Jourdian glanced at the crushed letter he’d received from Percival Brackett. The orchards. Gone because of his damnable weakness for Splendor.

  And now she wanted him to love her?

  He almost laughed. Instead, he rose from his chair and walked straight to the door.

  “Jourdian?” Splendor called, a vague sense of alarm tainting her joy.

  He stopped on the threshold and turned around to face her.

  “Will you try to love me?” Splendor asked. “Please will you try, husband?”

  He felt a muscle in his jaw twitch.

  “No,” was all he said, and then he quit the room.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  During the next fortnight, Splendor caught only passing glimpses of her husband. Jourdian had taken to sleeping in another room on another floor of the mansion, and there he took all his meals as well. He spent the better part of the day in his office, an hour or so riding through the countryside, and passed away the evenings in the library with brandy or port for company.

  Splendor soon resorted to becoming invisible. Thus, she accompanied him to his office during the day and to the library at night. While with him she noticed how preoccupied he was. He would begin to work or read, but after only a short time he would leave his desk or chair and either pace or stare out of the windows. Once he even broke pencils, one after another until he’d broken several dozen in half.

  She longed to comfort him, but dared not disturb him. Her newly discovered love for him helped her to understand that her invasion of his self-imposed solitude would only provoke him further.

  And his anger would only thi
cken the wall he’d built between them.

  Deprived of his strength-giving kisses, however, she had not the energy she needed to remain human sized. At night her lack of vigor presented little problem, for no one expected to see her between midnight and dawn. But during the day she had to make herself seen by the staff.

  Her only recourse was to lock herself inside various rooms in the mansion and shrink until she’d regained enough vigor to become human sized again.

  But the solution to her dilemma created a new quandary involving Pharaoh. The animal continued to escape from Mrs. Frawley’s cottage and had returned to the mansion a half dozen times. Splendor lived in persistent terror of the bloodthirsty Siamese, never knowing if or when he would appear.

  And the day soon came when her worst fears were realized.

  She’d just become Pillywiggin size in the bedroom Jourdian had taken to sleeping in when Mrs. Frawley entered the room, placed a pitcher of water beside the basin that sat upon a small table, and left without shutting the door. The housekeeper had barely exited before Pharaoh appeared.

  Panic nearly caused Splendor to fall off her spot on the dresser. Concealed behind a lamp, she didn’t make a sound, but thought her heart sounded like the beating of a thousand drums.

  She could see Pharaoh clearly. His long tail swishing through the air like a whip, he padded his way into the room, stopping suddenly when he spied an insect crawling along the floorboard beneath one of the windows. He crouched, his glacial blue eyes narrowing as he watched his prey, the hapless insect.

  And then he sprang forward, a flying ball of murder. Splendor gasped, petrified by the thought that the poor insect might have been her.

  But Pharaoh didn’t kill the bug. He turned away from it and looked toward the dresser, his black nose twitching as he caught the scent of a more challenging victim.

  Terror such as she’d never known twisted through Splendor. Her tiny frame shaking uncontrollably, she closed her eyes and tried her hardest to become human sized.

  But she had not the strength. The only thing she could do was fly.

  She soared off the dresser and landed on the top of a drapery cornice, swallowing bitter fear when she saw gruesome delight flare into Pharaoh’s wicked eyes.

  Pharaoh raced across the floor like an arrow shot from a bow. Leaping on to the draperies, he scaled them quickly, his long, sharp claws ripping fabric, his jaws opened slightly in preparation to devour his prey.

  Splendor promptly fell off the cornice. On the floor beneath the window, she curled into a tight ball, waiting in horrible anticipation for the killer cat to sink his teeth into her tender flesh.

  “Pharaoh!” Jourdian’s shout reverberated through the room.

  The cat jumped off the draperies just as Jourdian spotted the naked and tiny Splendor on the floor. “Splendor!”

  Jourdian almost killed himself trying to reach his wife. But before he arrived at the window, he saw Pharaoh snatch something off the floor, chew it, and swallow it.

  “Oh, my God! Splendor! Oh, my God!” Throwing himself to his knees, Jourdian slid the rest of the way to the window. There, he grabbed Pharaoh, pried the cat’s jaws open, and stared into the tooth-filled mouth. “Splendor!” he shouted, his lips right next to Pharaoh’s. “Splendor!”

  “I am here, Jourdian,” came her small voice from the floor. “Here, behind the curtains.”

  Jourdian cast the Siamese aside and quickly took Splendor into his hand. “What—”

  “An insect. He ate an insect.” Still quaking with the fear that Pharaoh might yet catch her, she crawled up inside Jourdian’s shirtsleeve.

  He pulled at his cuff, looked into his sleeve, and saw Splendor trying to wrap her arms around his wrist. “He almost ate you!”

  “Aye, that is what he almost did. Is he gone?”

  Jourdian looked around and saw Pharaoh saunter out of the room. Quickly he rose and shut the door.

  “I have had to keep shrinking, Jourdian, because I have not had any of your kisses,” Splendor explained, still inside his shirtsleeve.

  He walked to the bed and shook his arm until Splendor fell out of his sleeve and landed on one of the plump satin pillows.

  “You saved my life,” Splendor said, gazing up at the giant who was her husband. “Does that mean you love me?”

  Her mention of love, given in the face of what had almost happened to her, rendered Jourdian completely mute for a long, long moment. “I saved you so I would not have to tell the authorities that my missing wife had been eaten by a damned Siamese! What do I have to do, Splendor? Keep you in a cage like a blasted canary?”

  “No, but you could kiss me. ’Twould give me the vigor I need to perform my shape-shifting.”

  “My lips are twice as big as your head!”

  “Perhaps ’twill not matter. Just kiss me, and we shall see what happens.”

  He rammed his fingers through his hair and leaned down toward her tiny form.

  Splendor grabbed hold of his huge bottom lip and pressed her face into the soft skin.

  Startled by the feel of her tiny fingernails pinching his lip, Jourdian gasped and nearly inhaled her.

  “Sweet everlasting, Jourdian, if you do that again, I will find myself trapped inside your lungs!”

  “Splendor—”

  “Don’t talk!” she shouted, the movement of his bottom lip causing her to swing and bounce against his chin.

  He started to tell her to let go when he realized that if he spoke he would knock her senseless. Carefully, he pulled her off his mouth and cradled her in his palm. “I can’t kiss you, Splendor. Isn’t there anything else we can try? I don’t want you staying small like this.”

  Splendor looked down at the bed. “We could make love. Making love makes me supremely strong, Jourdian. Even stronger than does kissing.”

  He stared at her. “Have you lost your mind? If I can’t kiss you, how the bloody hell can I make love to you?”

  “Oh. Well, perhaps just the feel of you next to me will help me.”

  Jourdian didn’t know what else to do but comply. He lay down on the bed and placed Splendor beside his arm.

  “Take off your clothes, Jourdian,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “It could be that the warmth of your skin and the sound of your heartbeat might lend me a bit of vigor.”

  He couldn’t understand why he had to remove all of his clothes, but he was in no mood to argue.

  When he was naked, Splendor climbed upon his chest and sat down on his left nipple. “Would you mind very much if I shifted Pharaoh’s shape? ’Tis something I have pondered doing, but haven’t yet because I felt I should ask your permission first.”

  “Shift his shape?”

  “Aye. Into something less dangerous. A rabbit.”

  Jourdian didn’t need but a half a second to come to his decision. With Pharaoh being a rabbit, he would no longer have to worry about Splendor’s safety. “Do it.”

  “I cannot right now. I am too weak. But I shall turn him into a sweet white bunny with a pink nose when next I see him.”

  Jourdian nodded.

  “I’ve missed you.”

  “Would you just lie down above my heart, please?” he barked down at her.

  “Very well.” She stretched out upon his warm flesh, positioning her head right above his heart. “I can hear your heart. ’Tis loud and strong. You must be very healthy. Have you missed me, too, Jourdian?”

  He sighed without profound aggravation.

  His breath inflated his chest, causing Splendor to roll down over his belly straight between his thighs.

  “Good God!” Jourdian shouted, lifting his head and seeing her hanging on to his sleeping manhood.

  “Jourdian, are you trying to kill me?” Splendor asked. She struggled to her feet, placed her hands on her bare hips, and glared at him.

  He’d never seen a stranger sight in all his life than Splendor standing on his masculinity. He was the only man in the entire world
whose wife could stand on his sex and not turn him into a eunuch.

  Irritated though he was, however, he could not ignore the odd, but pleasurable sensations her tiny feet caused him to feel. “Uh…Splendor, I think you should fly off now.”

  Before she could ask him why, she felt him harden. And looking down, she saw him harden. The sight put her into a playful mood, and she grinned impishly. Singing a merry tune, she held her arms out to her sides and performed a little jig.

  Profound amusement made Jourdian smile. Here he was, he thought, lying on his bed with his wife doing a Highland fling upon the length of his arousal. “I’m going to laugh,” he warned.

  She barely had enough time to dive down to the mattress before he exploded into laughter. Turning to his side, he laughed until tears streamed down his face.

  His laughter caused the bed to bounce. “Jourdian, stop!” Splendor shouted, thrown every which way by the rolling movement of the mattress.

  Gradually, his laughter faded away, and he gently placed Splendor back on his chest. “Do you feel any stronger yet?”

  “Nay. Indeed, I am feeling supremely fatigued.” She lay down again, directly over his chest, and within moments the steady beat of his heart lulled her to sleep.

  With his pinkie finger, Jourdian rubbed her small back. A long while passed, but he finally saw the first silver stars appear around her, indicating that her strength had returned.

  Knowing she would awaken within the next few minutes, he gently placed her upon a pillow and dressed.

  He left quickly.

  Before she could mention the subject of love again.

  Splendor urged Autumn Fire into the snowy woods, Harmony perched between the mare’s ears. “I have not seen you or Emil as of late, Harmony. ’Tis been nearly a week.”

  “Aye.”

  “You are unusually quiet, sister, and yet your eyes glow with joy. Will you not share your happy secret with me? I confess to be in need of glad tidings.”

  Harmony hesitated before answering. Her news was indeed happy, but she wasn’t sure now was the time to relate it. “I do not know if my news will make you happy for me or sadder for yourself.”