With a Kiss

by Stephanie Fowers

  Chapter Nine

  Dare you haunt our hallow'd green?

  None but fairies here are seen

  Down and sleep,

  Wake and weep,

  Pinch him black, and pinch him blue

  —Thomas Ravenscroft, The Fairies' Danced

  Faerytales. It was the bible of the faeries. Tales of stolen babies, witches, crown wars. This stuff was all real. I picked up the heavy book from the park bench and turned it over in my hands. I had stuffed all the scraps of Internet information I could in between the pages of the book, and it bulged with useless facts—it was amazing how much time I had when I didn't sleep at night.

  The big buckles on my white canvas ballet flats jingled as I walked through the park. The sunburned blades of grass spread out like Troll hair. Speaking of, I glanced over at Babs. She had grown overnight . . . I mean, she had literally grown overnight. She looked like a two-year-old. The girl had hair now, lots of it—like a little Rapunzel.

  Hobs had put the quickly growing fuzz into two spiked devil horns on her head, dashing any romantic notions I had for either of them. Not that I should have any for him. He stepped over the cracks in the cement, his hand over hers, looking relaxed in his gray pinstriped shorts. He drank me in with a leisurely look. The calm act didn't trick me. He hadn't slept last night either. My cry of distress that I was going to die had thrown him into a flurry of activity. He seemed to be on a mission now too. The problem was that it wasn't mine.

  That morning I had caught him typing with two fingers into the Internet search engine: guy peels off his face at golf course. I didn't get it. He had ripped that off the tabloid he called useless. I was looking for a way back to Babs' home, and he was looking for a Skinwalker. I didn't see how they were connected. Hobs must've figured out how to wipe the history on my computer, because after my brief glimpse over his shoulder, he cleared the screen with a snap of his fingers.

  After that, there was no getting out of him what his plans were. He just watched me in that superior way of his and teased me until I couldn't take anymore. I found myself announcing our outing to the park out of sheer desperation. I had to get out of the house. Now, if I could just get us to faeryland or to the Sidhe. Wherever. I had a whole stack of information on how to do it, though it had better not be as unreliable as the safety precautions against faeries. Faeries liked the woods. And yeah, our town was covered in firs and evergreens, but the Civic League Park was the closest thing to my house that resembled "the woods." Somewhere in this park, I hoped to find an entrance to the faeries' world. Then I would force it open and return Babs before I proved her undoing.

  Babs toddled next to Hobs, and he slowed his stride to match hers. Her bare feet pressed into the hard, dead grass. She tripped on the hem of the overgrown shirt I had tugged over her head that morning. Hobs scooped her up from the sidewalk in one motion and spun her around. His leather flip flops slapped to the rhythm of their makeshift happy dance.

  "What are you doing? You want the world to think she's a flying two-year-old?" I eased Babs away from him and set her on her feet. She had picked up on that walking thing fast. A few hours, actually. After making sure no one had seen her hovering act, I smiled fondly at her. This was the next faerytale on the books, but who were we? I still couldn't figure out whether I was the evil witch or the faery godmother.

  Hobs eyed my arm warmers with distaste—they were striped, bright, and completely inappropriate. "Socks on your arms? You're hot enough without those things." I tugged my arm warmers up defensively. I liked to be different, especially since I was a brown wren in a world of peacocks; and since I was on the subject of animal analogies, Hobs looked like a sleek jaguar, ready to pounce on anything that moved—he was that jittery. And I found myself hopelessly attracted. I groaned. My emotions were pretty bad lately—they were worse than yesterday. I had to either reel them in or murder them brutally before I did something really, really stupid.

  We made our way past an old hippy couple. They held hands. Besides a few dogs and joggers, the park was pretty much deserted. "Wow," Hobs said. "This town is a moving metropolis." He said it right in front of the hippy couple, and I sucked in sharply before I remembered that no one else could hear how rude he was.

  As soon as the couple was out of earshot, I made a fist. "Stop being sarcastic!"

  I should've known that was exactly the reaction Hobs wanted. He smiled in response. I set a patchwork quilt down onto the grass, and he plopped onto it next to my shadow. Being high noon, my shadow was only a sliver, but I gave her a stern glare anyway. She had better stop flirting with Hobs--she was making me look bad--but she ignored me and sidled next to him anyway. He was still talking. "The alternate dimension to this place is like New York for the faeries. Ever since we moved west . . ."

  I didn't want to know. He spoke in riddles anyway. I picked up my list of faery terms, reading through them. The first thing to remember (as Hobs rudely pointed out) was that faeries lived in a parallel realm . . . in raths and cairns. I read that through a couple of times, but to be honest I didn't even know what a rath and a cairn were.

  I sighed, and Babs sighed heavily in return. I put a hand on the hips of my brick-red shorts, squinting back at the list. When the faeries were defeated by the sons of Mil, they took refuge under a place called the Sidhe, pronounced she (I reminded myself); it meant faery mounds. I glanced over at Hobs. "So now you live underground? I suppose you're going to blame us for chasing you there, us big bad earth haters with our pollution and scientific ways and all that."

  "Something like that." Hobs crossed one bony ankle over the other. "Ever heard of Edison? Word is he'd capture faeries and make them give him the secrets of nature. He found a Dryad and made it talk, nasty little thing—still, nothing deserves that. That's how the guy figured out the light bulb." I frowned, not sure if Hobs was still teasing me. "Some of us only bother to live underground on this side of the realm, anyway. We mingle with humans when absolutely necessary. The evil witch isn't the only one who's a threat to Babs."

  "So, um, how did Edison catch a faery exactly?"

  His face got hard. "Why don't you look in the faerytales?"

  I had, and they weren't telling me anything. There were disjointed clues, sure, but I'd have to pull an Edison and catch a faery for any real answers. I glowered at Hobs—I meant a useful faery. Maybe then I could at least wish my way to the other side. Other tales of escape involved Jack and his magic beans. He had climbed into another kingdom with those. So how did I score some of those?

  "Everyone wants a piece of the power from the faery treasure," Hobs said. "Some are more successful than others." He was giving me free information. I tried to act casual so he wouldn't realize it, so I froze. No, freezing was not casual!

  I rolled my eyes and went for it. "What do you mean by faery treasure, Hobs?"

  "Faeries are the holders of the treasures." He punched his finger into the patterns of the blanket, once again shielding his expression from me. "It's what gives us our power. There are those in the Otherworld who want that power, mortals who make deals with faeries for their secrets. Some of these mortals are cursed. Others just greedy. Our rulers, the Twelve—well, they don't make a habit of getting involved with the petty skirmishes of the courts, but they banished the traitors who worked with these mortals from our world to this one after . . . some complications. These dark Fae are still here, creeping around, causing trouble, spilling secrets. Cursed mortals have already stolen more from the Fae than can ever be replaced, and if they learn to use what they've stolen? They'll destroy everything in our world. Oh, and maybe your world, too."

  I took a deep breath, playing with the ends of my dark hair. All I wanted was to return the kid so I didn't have to be involved. I'd mess up everything way more than it was now. My hands went back to my hips, and I tried to forget it. "Okay."

  "Okay," Babs echoed.

  I looked down at her piggy-tailed head; she stood tall, looking very self-important with her h
ands on her hips. Is that how she thought I looked? The little two-year-old copied everything I was doing. I dropped my own hands and chuckled wearily. Why did she even like me, especially in my sleep-deprived condition? If I continued like this, I would fall over. How could I help Babs after that? I scrubbed my tired eyes. If Hobs was warning me about something, I had better listen. "Does this have to do with that Skinwalker from the tabloids?"

  Hobs' tan elbows dug into the blanket. "Skinwalker?"

  He wasn't fooling me. I sat next to him on the blanket. My shadow scooted back with an angry flip of her hair. "The one you were Googling this morning, you hacker. You think he's one of those treasure chasers, don't you?"

  "Just doing my homework. He took his face off in a golf course in Okanogan. That's only thirty minutes away. I had to make sure it didn't have anything to do with us."

  "Did it?"

  "Just more tabloid rubbish, but I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't keep the two of you alive, so you're welcome."

  "Yeah, thanks."

  He looked pained and swiped a hand across his ears as if trying to wipe away the gratitude. What was his problem, anyway? He took a deep breath, and his eyes betrayed his concern. It was touching and completely unexpected. "Believe it or not, our princess is a pretty big deal to us. We want to keep her safe."

  My heart sank, and I allowed myself a self-deprecating snort. It was Babs he was worried about, not me. And why should I care? If this was what normal felt like, I hated it. My eyes burned, and I closed them against the sun. "Yeah yeah, I'm in that play tomorrow, and if I don't get better? Well, I just have to get better. I've got to get both of you out of here ASAP."

  "You're worried about a play?"

  I matched his narrowed look with one of my own. No. I was just as worried about his precious princess as he was, but talking about it only made me scared for her. Babs' big hazel eyes took in everything. After a moment, she noticed we were both talking about her. She tried to distract us by pointing to a tree, all the while babbling incoherently.

  My hand found her hair. Babs was a beautiful baby, so beautiful she'd fit in with the other swans in my family. No one would be the wiser that she wasn't one of ours. If I hadn't been cursed, I'd bag this whole going to faeryland idea and adopt the poor kid. And now I was thinking crazy.

  Hobs pulled himself to his knees and took Babs' hands. His playful eyes crinkled up at the sides, giving him that impish look. "Head butt," he said. Her bobble head came crashing down on his like a spirited goat.

  "Knock it off with the head-butts!" I heaved myself up from the blanket and confiscated the little two-year-old from Hobs to hide her in my arms. I grunted at her weight. The kid was getting heavy. "It's dangerous!"

  Hobs rubbed his sore head. "What are you worried about? Babs is a big girl now. She's potty-trained. Aren't you? Hip hip . . ."

  "Huway!" She grunted free from me and pushed her chubby fist up into the air.

  Hobs was teaching her to get on every nerve I had, like some proud and demented father. "Hip hip . . ." he said.

  "Huway!"

  These two were on the same wavelength. Babs charged Hobs, trying to wrestle him down, her soft arms finding his neck and tugging him against the blanket. My head ached with their shouts of laughter. And everyone thought I was cranky when I actually got sleep?

  "If you knew she was going to grow up so fast, why did you make me buy all those diapers?" I sounded too stern, and Babs covered her face to hide from me.

  Uh-oh.

  I knelt next to her, not sure what to do. Her lips looked like a duck beak and she wouldn't move her hands from her eyes. I hugged her stiff little body. "Hey, it's okay, honey. Hey, look at me, huh? Cutie? I wasn't yelling at you."

  Hobs leaned his head back in exasperation, then gallantly came to my rescue. "Where's Babs? Where'd she go?" The beaked lips tipped reluctantly up. "Where did she go?" She uncovered her face to peer out. "Oh, there she is. There's my beautiful baby." Babs was happier, but it wasn't enough for Hobs. He covered her eyes this time. "Where's Babs?" He kept going until she was giggling just like a little girl should. I found myself smiling at him, too. Hobgoblins were a dangerous thing for babies. Babies liked danger, just like women. I tried to stop smiling and failed miserably. I was a terrible mother. I had to do something right.

  I tugged out the book of faerytales and skimmed through the loose papers I had printed out that morning. After a quick read-through, it became painfully clear we should've done this stuff last night. Faeries generally came out during a full moon, twilight or midnight when the veils between our two worlds were the thinnest. If faeries could leave the Sidhe, we could get in. I just needed to figure out the whos, whats, whens and wheres. I blew my hair from my eyes, turning away from the book. "A faeryland break-in is going to be tougher than I thought."

  Hobs grew guarded at that, and I knew what he was thinking. Yeah, wait the full three days. No way! If he felt a tenth of what I was going through, he would move the world to get us out of here.

  "We have the time of the year right," I said in my slurring voice. "Midsummer Eve is when the fairies are at their merriest. It might be just enough of a distraction to slip past whatever guards they set up against us. We have to be out of here by tomorrow night."—Or, according to the curse, I was a goner. "But faeries are the most powerful on Fridays. And there's no telling what the ones who are after us will do by then." I needed to find a faery trail out of here. "What kind of tree is this?" I pointed to the same tree Babs had tried to distract us with earlier. Hobs shrugged. I knew he was hiding something because of the calm front. I pushed off the quilt to find my shaky feet. "C'mon, what kind of faery are you?" I asked. "Aren't you supposed to know nature and stuff?"

  "I'm not a wood nymph."

  He dragged me back onto the quilt next to him, and I cried out in surprise. "Hobs, let me check out that tree!"

  "In a second. Do you know that guy staring at you?"

  I tried to look, and Hobs stopped me with a shake of his head. "No. Gaze into my eyes like I'm the most attractive man you've ever seen."

  "How's that supposed to help me?"

  He laughed. "It won't, but it's a lot more fun."

  I turned in exasperation to see who he was talking about, and caught some guy watching me. He was the one who played Puck in the Midsummer play. He wore dark shades, definitely the coolest cat in our high school. He sat texting on one of the park benches, wearing his signature red hood. There were loose papers spread over an open book next to him. It couldn't be homework—we were on summer break. He turned his dark head away like he didn't notice me, but I could tell he was very aware.

  After a moment of searching the murkiest depths of my mind, I came up with his name. "Ren. It's just Ren. Don't worry. He's not a threat, just a boy from my high school."

  "—who's madly in love with you. You think he's jealous of us?"

  "No, he thinks I'm crazy because he can't see you and it looks like I'm wrestling with myself, and now I'm talking to myself." Hobs didn't look convinced, and I ducked away to keep him from touching me again. Ren still kept an eye on me from his bench, and I pretended I had been talking to the toddler instead, which was a little less insane than talking to the air. "We need a birch tree or a willow or something." I stood up and circled the tree to the side of us, not really sure what sort it was, but I searched for a knothole anyway. According to my research, if you looked into one, something was supposed to happen. I found one—sap dripped from the nasty hole, and I leaned against the tree to get a better look at the hollow darkness inside.

  "What's the matter with you?"

  I jumped back. Little green men inside the tree hollow shook their fists at me. They sat at a crooked table inside—or was that a mushroom? They looked quite settled in their miniature home furnished with nature. It was pretty cute actually.

  "Get out of here!" the smallest one shouted. He was grumpier than I was. "A little privacy, if you please!"

  I backed away
and Hobs patted me on the back. I jerked away as soon as I saw his pleased expression. Alice never had it this bad going into Wonderland. Of course, once she got in, her story was entirely different from ours, I hoped. "I found the Sidhe," I said, though it would be like elbowing past weasels to get to it.

  "And just how are you going to fit into that little hole?" I could tell Hobs was enjoying my incompetence, but just the fact that the Sidhe existed, even if I couldn't get to it, made me forget to be mad at him. There had to be another way. Streams and wells were supposedly gateways to the Otherworld, or . . .

  I breathed in deeply, seeing there were lots of people in this park. I had a plan, but this was going to be embarrassing. Ren sat on a bench, pretending to text, though I could tell he saw everything behind his dark shades. I didn't blame him—I was putting on a pretty good show. I was about to make a bigger fool of myself and there was nothing for it. Pretending to touch my toes as if stretching for a run, I lowered my head and stared at the world between my knees. Like the Internet suggested, it was the only way to truly see the portal to the Sidhe. Some guy almost fell off his skateboard when I met his eyes, but I wasn't looking at him or the hippies, though now they were giving me the look. I stared past them, and found the faery ring. It was a dark ring of grass against the yellowed lawn. No one would notice it was there if they weren't looking. I popped back up, my face red. "Got it." Without waiting for Hobs, I raced to get to it, my dark hair flying behind me.

  "You sure you want to get caught in that?" Hobs asked in a much-too-careless voice. I should've known that meant trouble. I recalled all the usual dangers of faery rings, but being forced to dance for a hundred years was nothing compared to this sluggish exhaustion. It was probably a rumor started by faeries to discourage humans from trying to pop into their world unannounced—I saw right through it. The sound of Hobs' flip flops quickened into a sprint behind me. I glanced back, and saw him kick them off.

  I dove into the faery ring, putting my hands against the darker grass, but nothing happened. The Sidhe wasn't visible to my waking senses yet. I sat down in the center, noticing that Hobs had stopped short of the ring. Babs tried to follow me in and he tugged her back with one hand. Even my shadow seemed mesmerized by my behavior. None of them were willing to go in.

  I tried to relax, knowing I needed to get into a meditative state. But how? I closed my eyes, folding my legs like pretzels. The only thing that came to mind was to make up a monk-like chant. After a few bars of out-of-tune singing, my eyes slanted open. Hobs stood frozen in front of me like he didn't know what to do. I looked past him, not sure what I wanted to find. A mirage? A rainbow? With my luck, if I caught sight of it, I'd chase it forever and reach nothing. I forced myself to stay focused, and closed my eyes again. I heard a ringing in my ears and tensed. That was the wrong sound. I knew who it came from. A cackle that grew louder. It was the sound of the hag. And she was coming.

  "Get out of there!" Hobs no longer pretended to be calm.

  I tried to fight my way free from the sound, but I couldn't move. I tried to wrench my eyes open, but they were stuck. Nothing would budge me from this spot. My mouth opened, but I couldn't shout for help. I felt her coming for me, her fingers reaching like they had when I was too young to defend myself. They were so horribly familiar, the pale arms from Babs' swirly toy.

  Hobs' arms were around my waist, and he tugged me back. He was surprisingly forceful, and I opened my eyes, seeing that we were far away from the ring and still scrambling away from it. "We've got to get you out of here," he choked out.

  Why? Had he heard it too? My eyes went back to the faery ring. Those things were more dangerous than I thought.

  "It's too late." Hobs threw his head back in disgust. "She knows we're here." He turned to the empty park bench. Ren was gone. "Where did your boyfriend go?" he asked. Everyone was watching us by now, and laughing at us too, but I didn't care. A hideous black dog the size of a horse crept around the tree with the knothole in it, staring at us with strange blue eyes.

  "A Barguest," Hobs muttered.

  "A bar . . . what?"

  "They guard treasure. It means trouble. Let's get out of here."

  I grabbed Babs' tiny wrist and threw the little girl onto my hip, holding her tightly in my arms. Hobs' hand was on my back. We left the park as quickly as we could. My shadow lagged too far behind me to be believable. If anyone was paying attention, they'd know something was wrong. I felt a shudder run through me, and cast a furtive glance over my shoulder. The beast had disappeared.