Nix laughed, kissed her again and then released her. “And when I want to be pawed by a horny, oversexed butterfly, I'll let you know!”
“I was not pawing you!” Thorn yelled. “Ugh! The very thought is unthinkable!”
“How can a thought be unthinkable?” Nix philosophised, as a huge grin lit up his face. “If it's a thought, then it must be thinkable. In fact, to be a thought in the first place, then you must have already thought it, so the idea of you pawing me must have already been in your mind.”
“Go home!” Thorn growled. “And don't come back!”
Nix cheerfully waved to us all as he stepped into the street. “See you later, you sexy animal,” he announced, winking at Thorn.
Despite herself, Thorn smiled at him. “Go home, Nix, you ratbag,” she announced, grinning. “You can visit us again when you're feeling less insane.”
“Like that's ever going to happen,” Tracey added, in a low voice.
“I heard that!” Nix shouted as he turned the corner, giving us a final wave.
“I think it's time for me to go home as well,” I declared. “It's been a long and exciting day and I'm too old to be up this late.”
“You're not old!” Thorn vigorously protested. “You're in the prime of life.” She looked embarrassed. “At least, you are to me.”
“Me, too,” Tracey enthused.
Thorn gave her an irritated glance. “You're doing it again!” she protested.
“What?” Tracey wanted to know.
“Every time I say something nice about Stephen,” Thorn explained, “you have to copy me.”
“I do not!” Tracey stated.
“Yes, you do!” Thorn insisted. “Why don't you leave him alone?”
“Why don't you?” Tracey replied, jutting out her chin. “He doesn't belong to you!”
“Yes, he does!” Thorn maintained.
“Um, actually, I don't belong to anyone,” I offered in a timid voice.
Thorn spun her head around. “Stay out of this,” she snapped. “This has nothing to do with you.”
“On the contrary,” I claimed, “it appears to have everything to do with me. What’s the matter with you two? Be reasonable. You can't argue over me as if I was the last pork chop on the shelf.”
“Just watch me,” Tracey muttered. “Arugohumna is being so pigheaded.”
“I'm being pigheaded?” Thorn yelled. “What does that make you, then? If I'm the head, you must be the rear end!”
“How dare you!” Tracey shrilled, mortally insulted.
“Stop it!” Trix shouted. “What are you doing? Do you think I want to listen to you yelling at each other? Stop it at once!”
Magically, the tension plummeted. “I'm sorry, my precious,” Tracey apologised, cuddling Trix. “My sister and I sometimes get carried away. It's just something we've always done. We didn't mean to scare you.”
“Yes, I'm sorry too,” Thorn vowed. “Don't take any notice of us. We fight all the time.”
“I can vouch for that,” I interjected, tousling Trix’s hair. “It's their favourite past time, but they hardly ever kill each other.”
Tracey, Thorn and Trix walked with me to Phil’s laboratory and stood around as he attached the transferring electrodes. Trix gave me a shy farewell hug. Tracey indulged herself, I was delighted to say, with a full-blown, and comprehensive kiss, much to Thorn's disgust. Thorn limited her goodbye to a firm embrace, but she embellished it with a kiss on the cheek and cupping my face tenderly in her palms.
“See you later,” I said. “Try to behave.”
“Don't be too long,” Thorn ordered. “I'll be waiting.”
“So will I,” Tracey added.
“There!” Thorn objected. “You’re doing it again!”
“I'm doing what again?”
“Copying me!”
“I'd never did!”
“Yes, you were! Every time I say something to Stephen, you have to copy me! Stop it! It's annoying.”
“You stop it!”
“Would you both stop it?” Trix intervened, sharply. She looked at me in despair. “What am I going to do with them?”
“You can't do anything,” I sympathised, patting her hand. “You just have to go along with it and try to stop them as best you can. You're doing fine so far. They don't fight anywhere near as much when you're around.”
“I think that you're the main cause,” Trix shrewdly said. “Every time they talk about you, there’s bound to be a fight.”
I shrugged, helplessly. “I can't do anything with that,” I confessed. “Hopefully, it’ll all even out in the end.”
“Yeah, and I'll grow wings and fly,” Trix mumbled, under her breath.
Chapter 14
I arrived thankfully back at my own body, pleased to be out of the Tracey/Thorn rivalry. How would that ever sort itself out? How serious were they, anyway? Did they really care for me or were they more interested in fighting over me. They certainly argued a lot and I had a sneaking suspicion that they actually enjoyed the brawling. Besides, I still had a little trouble believing that two such gorgeous females were truly interested in me. It ran contrary to everything I had ever experienced in my life so far. But then again, I was talking about the human world. Maybe fairy women were different. Less picky and more tolerant. They were certainly more emotional. Thorn had a temper that had to be experienced to be believed and Tracey had become overwhelmingly motherly with Trix. Okay, as usual, I had no idea what was going on or what to do about it. Situation normal, then. I'd better get something to eat and leave the philosophy to another time.
Three days went by in relative peace until the unexpected arrival of an agitated Phil. He appeared in the middle of the day, which was a first. Prior to that, I'd only ever seen him in my living quarters at night. I wondered what had happened to disrupt this pattern.
“Stephen, you have to come straight away!” he breathlessly announced as soon as he saw me.
“Why?” I asked. “What's wrong?”
“It's Arugohumna!” he announced in a panicked voice. “She's dying!”
“Dying?” I whispered, my heart giving a sudden jolt. “How? Why?”
“We don't know!” Phil informed me, alighting on the table next to my chair. “She’s in a coma and won't come out of it. You have to save her! Traculimna is frantic.”
“What make you think that I could do anything?” I fretted. “I'm not a doctor and I don't know the first thing about fairy anatomy.”
“But you might know something,” Phil said, urgently. “All our medicines aren't doing anything! You’re our last hope! Come on!” Phil hastily attached the electrodes to my body and I awoke to the anxious face of Trix.
“Stephen?” she anxiously enquired. “Thank heavens! You have to come to the hospital!” She bundled me out of bed and rushed me along the streets until we arrived inside a hospital room where I was greeted by a tear-streaked Tracey.
“I’m losing her!” Tracey wailed. “Stephen, what am I going to do?”
“What happened?” I asked, looking down on a comatose, pale Thorn.
“She was on patrol,” Trix informed me, as Tracey began to sob into a handkerchief. “She staggered back into the house about an hour later, all confused and shaking. Then she collapsed and has been like this ever since.”
“Did she say anything at all?” I asked, taking one of Thorn's hands and holding it in mine. Her hand felt remarkably cold and I stroked it, despairingly.
“She seemed delirious,” Trix shrugged, “babbling something about a giant, yellow head and for it not to touch her. I could make out only a few words.”
“A giant, yellow head?” I repeated, puzzled. “What could she have meant?”
“I have no idea,” Trix sadly admitted.
“What do the doctors say?” I asked. “Can’t they do anything?”
“They’re as baffled as we are,” Trix said. “Nobody has the faintest concept of what's going on, and until we do, we can't do anything for her.”
<
br /> “You poor thing,” I whispered to Thorn, as I continued to caress her hand. “I'm sorry, my dearest, but I don't know what to do either.” Then I noticed a miniscule drop of blood on the webbing of her second finger. I held the finger to my eyes and detected a barely discernible puncture mark.
“What’s this?” I asked, holding up Thorn's hand. “It looks like she's been bitten by something.”
Trix peered at Thorn's hand. “I think you're right,” she agreed. “You can barely see it, but it's there. I’m not surprised the doctors missed it. I wonder …….. hmmm. Giant, yellow head ......?” She snapped her fingers. “Could it be …..?”
“What?” I demanded. “What could it be?”
“I have a theory,” Trix explained. “I think that Arugohumna may have been bitten by a parchini.”
“That's the snake you killed that day at the pool, isn't it?” I asked.
“That's right,” Tracey said, wiping her eyes and joining in the conversation. “And it's a yellow color! Is that what Arugohumna was trying to tell us? For the parchini not to bite her?”
“It's not much,” I reflected, “but it's all we've got. The problem is, what do we do now?”
“I know something!” Trix announced, exultantly. “There’s a cure for the poison! It's a herb that grows in the wilderness.” She began running out the door. “Make sure she stays alive until I get back!” she yelled over her shoulder.
“It'll be faster if I carry you,” Tracey offered, sprinting after her. “Stephen, look after Arugohumna!”
They both disappeared around a corner, leaving me with the recumbent Thorn. “You see, sweetie,” I remarked, squeezing her hand, “things are looking up. Hang in there, my darling. Please don't leave us. There are people here who love you. Don't make us sad.”
I sat beside Thorn’s bed for what seemed like ages, but it can't really have been that long. I willed Thorn to live. To keep fighting. I gently stroked her face and she gave a little sigh. Her breathing, which had become a little erratic, deepened, and her body relaxed to some extent. Encouraged by this, I kept doing it and was rewarded with another sigh. Her breathing definitely improved and I hoped the beneficial results would continue until Trix came back. I lost track of time, engrossed as I was, and jumped in fright when Tracey and Trix burst back into the room.
“We've got it!” Trix shouted, waving a handful of scrubby grass in my face.
“Is Arugohumna still …….. still with us?” Tracey gulped, dreading the answer.
“Yes, she is,” I reassured her. “What do we do next?” I asked Trix.
“We have to make this grass into a drink,” she informed me.
“How do we do that?” Tracey, looking around wildly for anything appropriate.
Trix took a deep breath. “We’ll just have to make do with what we've got,” she declared. “There’s no time for anything fancy. I need a glass.”
I fetched her one. “This might appear to be somewhat gross,” she warned us, “but it's the only way to do it in a hurry.” So saying, she stuffed some of the grass into her mouth and commencing to chew. After a minute, she removed the pulp and spat out some green liquid into the glass. The look on Tracey's face was priceless.
“Are you doing what I think you're doing?” she asked, revolted.
“It does the job,” Trix mumbled, pushing some more of the grass into her mouth and chewing.
After all the grass had been put through this hastily improvised mastication process, Trix held up a glass, half filled with green solution. She went over to Thorn, pushed her into a sitting position, opened her mouth and slowly poured in the liquid. With the glass empty, she gently returned Thorn to her previous prone position and looked around at us.
“How long do we have to wait to see if it worked?” I asked her.
“Not long,” Trix replied. “It works fairly quickly.”
Ten minutes went by and Thorn suddenly groaned. She began to thrash around on the bed and we rushed over to hold her down. After a few minutes of frenetic activity, she weakly subsided. Perspiration beaded her face, but at least her death-like pallor had disappeared. Tracey and I each held one of her hands as we waited for a further reaction. Then Thorn did the one thing we'd all been praying for – she opened her eyes and peered up at us.
“What's going on?” she croaked.
That simple statement initiated a flood of tears from Tracey. “Thank the gods!” she wept. “I thought I'd lost you!” She flung herself on top of a bewildered Thorn, kissing and hugging her alternatively.
“For heaven’s sake, Traculimna,” Thorn protested, “calm down!” She looked across at me. “Stephen, please explain what's happened.”
“You've been very sick, Thorn,” I told her, blinking away a few tears that had appeared in my eyes as well. “In fact, you were dying from a snake bite. The sole reason you're alive now is that Trix knew of a cure for the poison. She saved your life.”
Thorn peered around Tracey’s head at Trix. “You saved me?” she questioned. “Sweetie, I don't know what to say.”
Trix blushed. “It was Stephen who first noticed the bite mark,” Trix confessed. “If it hadn't been for him, we might never have known what to do.”
“Nevertheless,” Thorn remarked, her voice drained and frail, “I owe you my life and I won't forget it.” Then she addressed Tracey. “Get off me, you great lump of a sister! I'm tired and I want to have a sleep. This is a single bed, you know.”
Tracey giggled, interspersed with sobs. “Don't you ever, ever scare me like that again!” she threatened, kissing Thorn on the forehead, then levering herself upright. She looked down at Thorn, her eyes full of love and affection. Then she grinned wickedly. “Of course, if you had died,” she noted, “then I would have had Stephen all to myself.”
Thorn spluttered indignantly. “You conniving cow!” she fumed. “If you think for one second that I’d die and let you do that, then you're grossly mistaken!”
Tracey laughed and clapped her hands in glee. “That's the Thorn mettle I wanted to see,” she announced, grinning. “I was almost afraid that you'd lost it. If you keep that fighting spirit, my dear sister, you'll be out of bed in no time.”
“You ratbag!” Thorn seethed. “You said that just to annoy me!” Then she smiled. “Okay, very funny. You got me. Now, everybody go away. I really do want to sleep.” She gazed around at us. “And bless you all,” she whispered, sincerely. “I mean it. Thank you for your care and devotion. I couldn't wish for better friends.” Her eyes closed and her breathing slowed as she drifted into a healing sleep.
Chapter 15
With Thorn well on the way to recovery, I elected to return home, immensely thankful at the day’s final outcome. Tracy hugged and kissed me in gratitude, cried a few tears of relief, and then kissed me again. I'd be a liar if I said I didn't relish her hugs and kisses although I realised they were being given in appreciation and nothing more. Nevertheless, they were delightful. Trix hugged me also. “You're a hero,” I told her, touching the tip of her nose with my fingertip. “There's no doubt you saved Thorn's life with your wilderness expertise. I wish there was something we could do to repay you.”
“Traculimna lets me live with her,” Trix replied. “She's adopted me into her family and that's the greatest reward I can think of. I don't need anything else.”
“You're such a darling,” I praised, kissing the top of her head. “Look after Thorn for me, will you?”
“I will,” she solemnly promised.
I arrived back in the human world, wryly wondering why everything was such a drama in the underground land. I'd had more excitement in my few visits there then I'd had in my entire life on the surface. It was weird, but exhilarating in a bizarre sort of a way. I wondered what was going to happen next. I also speculated about the Thorn and Tracey fiasco. Would that ever come to a finale ? Of course, the whole situation could be avoided if I accepted them both as my girlfriends. A threesome? Surely I wasn't that crazy. Interesting solu
tion, though. Human consensus would balk at the idea, but perhaps fairy morals differed in this area. If I ever gathered enough courage, I might enquire about it one day.
Two weeks flitted by without contact until I was awakened by an urgent tugging of my earlobe. I opened blurry eyes to behold Phil and, to my surprise, Tracey!
“What's going on?” I asked, yawning. “Don't tell me there's another emergency?”
“Yes, there is,” Phil confirmed.
“Trix has disappeared!” Tracey burst out, hysterically. “My baby is missing!”
“Okay,” I commanded, “everybody calm down and tell me what's happened. From the start, please.”
“It happened two days ago,” Tracey began, mopping the corner of her eyes with a handkerchief. “Trix was shopping, but she never came home. We went looking and found her basket, full of fruit, on the ground, but no sign of her.” Tracey wrung her hands. “I'm positive something horrible has happened to her. She wouldn’t just leave me. She's been kidnapped, I'm sure of it!”
“No,” I agreed, slowly, scratching my chin, “she wouldn’t leave without saying anything. Has there been any ransom note?”
Tracey shook her head vigorously. “Not a thing,” she said.
“Damn!” I pronounced. “Then she could be anywhere! But if it was a kidnapping then a ransom demand should have turned up by now.”
“We'll have to get you there,” Phil advised, unpacking his transfer gear. “You might be able to think of something when you're on the scene.” Soon after the usual electrode attachments, I awoke as a fairy clone, looking up at Thorn.
“You're better!” I cried, in relief.
“Fighting fit,” Thorn replied. “Thanks to you.”
“Thanks to Trix,” I amended.
“Thanks to you both,” Thorn compromised.
“Fill me in,” I urged. “Have you found anything new about Trix?”
“One of the guards on the outer gate said he saw her taking the road out of the settlement,” Thorn informed me.
“Was she alone?”
“He said she was,” Thorn said.
“So, definitely not a kidnapping, then,” I reflected. “Was the guard sure about Trix? I believe there's a number of elves living in the settlement these days.”
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