Chicory Up: The Pixie Chronicles

by Irene Radford

  “Chase, did you show Dusty the CM poster?” Mabel sounded more like herself, less weak and vague. “The kid might follow other teens into the maze.”

  “Not yet. You show her when we get there.”

  “Hope we aren’t too late on that one.”

  Chase didn’t like the unease in Mabel’s warning. He hated the thought of any CM facing the dangerous reality of life on the streets. “Dusty, bring Thistle. We’ll probably need her for a couple of things,” Chase said, dashing out the door. He easily loped the three blocks to Mrs. Spencer’s. This trip reminded him of the day last summer when he’d been summoned to a break-in at the stubborn old lady’s house. The seemingly indestructible teacher had mistaken the furnace control for the fan and nearly died from heat stroke. Chase had found Thistle administering rudimentary first aid before she, too, collapsed from the heat. As she crumbled to the floor, he’d seen a shimmering outline of Pixie wings in the shape of double Thistle leaves.

  That was the first day in his journey toward believing in the tiny creatures. Now he wondered if he was on the way to becoming their champion or their nemesis.

  Thistle sat defiantly, in the hard straight chair in a tiny conference room just beyond the gate Mabel zealously guarded. She crossed her arms, keeping her bandaged hand hidden. Dusty sat across from her at the long table in an equally uncomfortable chair.

  They stared at each other, trying to out-stubborn the friend across the table. Dusty had dragged Thistle away from the edge of The Ten Acre Wood on the east side, at the end of the gravel road. Thistle had spent nearly an hour calming her mind, seeking the center of the magic she used to command with a flick of a Pixie finger. Her meditative trance had allowed her to feel the itch between her shoulder blades where her wings used to lift her above the tug of the Earth with a thought.

  She almost, almost, shrank back to her normal Pixie size.

  Almost. Then Dusty had interrupted with her demands to attend this meeting at the police station. The trance was gone. The will to return to Pixie mixed with her need to stay with Dick and her friends as a human.

  Which was right for her?

  Chicory stretched out on the table to his full length of four inches. He clutched his left arm so that anyone who could see him noticed the white sling, but not his tousled blue hair that was no longer covered by his cap of darker blue flower petals. He moaned as if the world was about to end.

  Thistle was afraid he might be right. If Pixies battled each other across tribal lines, then the balance of nature had twisted and toppled.

  Mabel bustled in, followed by Chase. “Now that we have a bit of privacy, we can get to the bottom of this,” she said, fixing each person with a stern gaze. But her eyes wandered a bit and lost focus. She looked paler than usual. Her police auxiliary uniform had lost its crispness and hung on her as if two sizes too big. If she’d been one of Thistle’s elderly friends, the ones who paid her to check on them twice a day to make sure they ate, let the dogs out, and didn’t leave the stove on, Thistle would have reported her to the free clinic.

  Thistle turned sideways so she wouldn’t have to subject herself to Mabel’s strange gaze. She had a way of worming information out of reluctant witnesses, belligerent drunks, and mischievous teenagers.

  “First order of business,” Chase said, fishing a much folded piece of paper out of his thigh pocket. He placed it on the table so that both she and Chicory could see the face in the photograph. “Have any of you seen this girl around town?”

  Chicory stared at it cross-eyed. “Maybe. Not sure. My attention was elsewhere when I caught a glimpse of girl that might look like her if her hair was longer and dirtier, and she was damp and bedraggled all over.”

  Thistle nodded agreement. “She asked me for directions to your house, Mabel.”

  Chase and Mabel exchanged a look that could have meant many things. None of them good by the frown on the old lady’s face.

  “Next we need to know why Pixies are stealing hawthorn spikes from Mrs. Spencer’s tree.”

  “Hawthorns are shrubs, not trees,” Chicory said. “Their berries are sweet to Pixies but not to humans.”

  “What is going on, Thistle?” Dusty asked gently. She reached her hands across the table like she wanted to touch her.

  Thistle squirmed and pushed her chair back a few inches until it hit the wall.

  Dusty frowned. Thistle hated to disappoint her friend. Of all the people in Skene Falls that Thistle had befriended, Dusty had believed in Pixies longest. Well, except maybe for Dick. But Dick was a boy, not a girl’s best friend forever. Like Dusty.

  “Nothing is going on that concerns you,” Thistle finally said. She kept her gaze on the cracks in the floor, tracing them endlessly around each square. Not a lie. I’m not telling a lie, she reminded herself.

  So why did she feel hot and faint?

  “But it does concern us, Thistle. It affects you and our dear friends who make our gardens flourish. Therefore, we hurt when you hurt,” Mabel insisted. She tried to straighten Chicory’s wingtips. They defied her attention, continuing to curl at the edges. A sure sign that Chicory ailed. Still he leaned into Mabel’s caress, his moans becoming lighter, more rhythmical, like a cat purring.

  “Stop that,” she whispered to Chicory. “You aren’t a cat. Cats are evil. They hunt us and eat us.”

  “Cats hunt Pixies. You aren’t a Pixie anymore, Thistle,” Chase said sternly.

  Thistle recognized the pattern of their comments. She’d seen the same thing on the television last night. They called it Good Cop/Bad Cop. Clearly, Chase had elected the Bad Cop role.

  Thistle looked at Chicory. Chicory returned her gaze. They were in agreement.

  “Pixie business stays within Pixie,” Thistle said. Definitely not a lie. She still didn’t feel well.

  “Not when my roses are drooping and getting the blight from lack of attention by Chicory and his tribe,” Mabel insisted. “Rosie’s in a snit about something and not holding up her end of the bargain; gardening for sanctuary. So spill it, Chicory, or I’ll deed the place to my nephew. He’ll have it subdivided and sold to developers within a week.”

  “You wouldn’t!” Chicory gasped.

  “Try me.” Who was the good cop and who the bad now?

  “We’ll… we’ll sue,” Chicory replied. “We’ve owned those two acres longer than you have.”

  “Legally, you don’t exist.” Chase crossed his arms, then leaned back in his chair, tipping the front legs off the ground. “There is nothing you can do to stop the exchange of land.”

  “I’d need to run it all by the historical preservation committee first,” Dusty added.

  “What about your will, Mabel?” Chicory asked. He stood straight and faced Mabel. His defiant posture lacked a little authority because of the sling and the droopy wing edges.

  “I changed it once. I’ll change it again.” Her eyes started to roll upward and her breathing became labored.

  For a moment Thistle thought the old lady might pass out.

  Chase noticed, too. He leaped up and pressed his fingers to Mabel’s wrist, testing her pulse the same way Dick had taught Thistle. “Mabel?” he asked.

  “What? Oh, oh, oh,” Mabel sputtered coming back to herself with a jerk.

  “Mabel, your pulse is rapid and faint. You are having trouble breathing. I’m calling for an ambulance,” Chase said, reaching for his radio.

  “No, you aren’t. I’m perfectly fine.”

  “Mabel, listen to him,” Thistle said. “I know the signs. You aren’t all right.” She clasped the woman’s hands, shocked that they felt cold enough to send a whole tribe of Pixies into hibernation.

  Mabel’s head wobbled forward. “Thistle, promise me you will take care of my house and garden while I’m sick?” she whispered. “You’ll decorate for Halloween like everyone else in town.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “You’ll notify Chase of unusual visitors? Chase and no one else.”

  �
��Certainly. I won’t let anyone damage your property or steal your belongings.

  “Don’t let my nephew try to sell it.”

  “I won’t. I promise.”

  “Chase, write it up and let me sign it. Thistle is my authorized house sitter and gardener until… until…”

  “There’s no until, Mabel,” Thistle insisted. She moved to stand beside the older woman and wrapped her arm about her shoulders. Thin shoulders. Thistle felt more bone than muscle beneath the uniform shirt. “The doctors will patch you up and you’ll be home in no time.”

  Chase thrust his little shirt-pocket-sized notebook under Mabel’s hands along with a pen. “Sign at the bottom. Dusty and I will witness it. The ambulance will be here any minute.”

  As if to punctuate his statement, a siren wailed in the near distance. Dusty ran to the front of the building to direct them.

  Mabel slowly scratched something on the paper with the pen, as if it weighed more than she did. “Locked drawer. Desk. Here. Papers.”

  “Don’t try to talk, Mabel. We’ll take care of everything.” Thistle removed the pen from Mabel’s suddenly limp hand and returned it and the notebook to Chase.

  He quickly signed his own name beside Mabel’s.

  “Read the papers. Today. Dusty, Chase, one of you read them today,” she insisted.

  The EMTs arrived, wheeling a portable bed with them and carrying huge suitcases full of equipment. Dick hastened behind them.

  Thistle nearly collapsed with relief. Dick would make sure everything was okay. She could depend upon Dick to take care of her and her friends.

  Six

  CHICORY WATCHED IN HORROR as too many humans gathered around Mabel, affixing strange masks to her face, inserting needles bigger than he was into her arm, and speaking too rapidly into mechanical devices. He trembled all over. His wings fluttered but refused to gather air.

  “I need to go with her,” he whispered.

  “Leave that to the humans. You’ll just be in the way,” Thistle whispered back.

  “No, I won’t. I promise I won’t touch anything. I won’t play any tricks either. But I need to be with Mabel. She needs to know that her tribe is watching out for her.”

  “Chicory, you need to go back to your tribe and tell them what has happened. They need to know about Mabel.” Thistle grabbed hold of his tunic to keep him from flying off. “You need to gather your Pixies close so you can protect your territory. With the war on, others will see you as vulnerable without Mabel.”

  “You’re right.” Chicory hung his head, feigning acceptance. “Thanks for the warning.”

  She nodded abruptly and followed the humans out of the little room, leaving him alone.

  In one swift movement he ripped off the sling, noting briefly that the wound had already healed clean. He had full freedom of both arms. Energy returned with a surge of power to his wings.

  He rose quickly to the level of the window, took his bearings, and headed for the sky. Mabel always left the glass open a bit so Pixies could come and go.

  Crack! His head felt ready to explode. “Who shut the damn window!”

  Dum dee dee do dum dum. Thistle’s music chimed between his ears, replacing the discordant clanging caused by violent contact with the glass.

  “I’ll get you for that trick, Thistle.”

  “Yes, you will. But not today. Now go home. You can use the front door. No one is looking at anything but Mabel.”

  Grumbling and spitting, Chicory made his way slowly from doorjamb to chair back to shadowed corner until he found a jail cell with a window open enough for him crawl through. He had to ease his way between the iron bars to avoid devastating burns, but he made it clear without interference. From this back exit he flew straight up the cliff beside the waterfall, catching a much needed drink from the gushing spray, made a quick diversion around The Ten Acre Wood through the museum grounds and then over rooftops and sleepy gardens to Rosie’s territory.

  He found his queen and seven of her family dancing from dead blossom to dead blossom. No one had bothered snapping off the sodden flower heads when they failed to bloom after the autumnal rains came hard and frequent. No one had tidied the leaf mulch or raked the lawn—which needed mowing.

  The All Hallows parade of ghostly founding fathers and pumpkin-headed zombies and hay wagons full of cornstalks and children with painted faces, was supposed to pass right in front of Mabel’s garden. She hadn’t decorated, and the Pixies had left it looking abandoned.

  What to do? What to do?

  Instead, the Pixies in charge of things pranced about in joy.

  “What’s happening?” Chicory asked, snagging Daisy’s wingtip.

  “Queen Rosie is taking Snapdragon as a mate.” She clapped her hands and bounced upward, dragging him with her. “They’re having a mating flight from the big sycamore on All Hallows Eve.” She pointed to the massive old tree in the back lot that ran between the backyards along the entire block of houses. An iron fence separated and protected the back lot from intruders—Pixie and human. Rosie had banished the Dandelions to the wild stretch.

  As they watched, Rosie slowed her celebration to include the big yellow-and-red fellow. They spiraled down into a cupped bloom of a late blooming hybrid tea rose. Rosie’s pink froth disappeared into the vibrant petals of the same color.

  “I thought they were going to take a mating flight,” Chicory snorted. “Shouldn’t they wait until then?”

  “They’re just napping. Rosie likes naps. Winter is coming and we are all sleepy,” Daisy said, her eyes still shining with happiness shared.

  “I noticed,” Chicory said. Once more he surveyed the signs of neglect. Maybe the garden reflected Mabel’s gradual decline in health. If so, then the Pixies needed to double their efforts, to make sure the garden gave back to Mabel some of their energy so she could heal.

  “Wake up, Rosie. Wake up. Mabel’s sick! Her humans have taken her to a hospital,” he cried, shaking the rose stem as fiercely as he could.

  “Wh… what?” Rosie lifted her pink head above the rim of petals. She blinked sleepily, nearing hibernation.

  “Mabel’s taken sick. Her heart doesn’t work right. I think the valley Pixies poisoned her. We have to go kill them. All of them!” Chicory screamed.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Vermilion said on a yawn. She was Rosie’s daughter, from her first mating flight with another rose. “Why would any Pixie want to poison a human?” She stretched and curled back into her bed, as lazy as her mother.

  “Because all the valley tribes are as insane as Haywood Wheatland,” Chicory explained impatiently. That name clicked in the back of his head like he had forgotten something important. Later. He’d remember later. “We’ve no time to lose. We have to attack now while they are still laughing at their trick.” He dragged on the limp arm of Bleeding Heart, a dark pink-and-green fellow who’d crept in from a nearby copse that got felled for new houses. Rosie had made room for him and only him in the tribe. Sixteen Pixies went homeless or broke up their family to nest elsewhere. Chicory had secreted five of them in the wild stretch among the Dandelions. Rosie never crossed the iron fence.

  “We’ve got swords in the hawthorn of our own back corner. We’ve got to arm ourselves and go after the enemy,” Chicory insisted.

  “You bore me, Chicory. It’s nearly noon. Every respectable Pixie is either napping or eating,” Rosie declared.

  “But the valley Pixies aren’t respectable!”

  “And neither are you. You’ve lost your cap. Now go away.”

  “No, Rosie. We can’t afford to ignore the valley Pixies. Not now when Mabel is sick and our land is vulnerable. We are open to attack unless we strike first.”

  “Snapdragon, be a good boy and throw this noisy stinkbug into the cellar!”

  “Not the cellar, Rosie. I’ll die in the cellar.” Chicory gulped nervously. “Pixies are bonded to Earth and Water. If we go underground, we get absorbed. Then we die!”

  “Just like my
Haywood might have died in the horrid old pioneer jail the night of the fire,” Rosie dismissed him.

  Snapdragon rose up from his place beside Rosie and latched onto Chicory’s arm with both hands. Dull-yellow Pixie dust cascaded all around. Chicory’s head reeled with the need to obey the big Pixie he’d tried to kill this morning.

  Rosie’s new lover towered over him.

  “How’d you get so big?” Chicory gulped, wiggling free of the enthrallment. But only his mind worked. His body was still trapped by the more powerful magic of the intruder.

  “Family secret, secret, secret,” Snapdragon replied, tightening his grip. His holey, dull yellow-and-red wings flapped hard enough to throw up a strong breeze. Rosie’s flower shook so violently she had to grab hold of the edges of her petal to keep from falling out.

  The shape of Snapdragon’s face, the half-rotten scent of his pollen, and the odd fan shape of his wings triggered a memory. “I know you,” he whispered.

  “No, you don’t. Don’t, don’t, don’t. And you won’t be around to remind the humans where you’ve seen me. I have special plans, special plans for you and for them, them, them. We’ll start with the cellar, cellar, cellar.”

  The words echoed ominously inside Chicory’s head.

  “Cellar!” Snapdragon crowed. With that, he grabbed Chicory by collar and belt and threw him through a small open window into the crushing darkness.

  The last thing Chicory heard before passing out was the loud thud of the window slamming shut.

  Phelma Jo ran her fingernail idly along the mortar between two bricks on the outside of a building on Main Street.

  Mine! she thought. She’d had a few anxious days last summer when she thought she’d have to take out a second mortgage on this magnificent historical building to make bail for arson. But then Dick Carrick had come to her rescue and testified that Haywood Wheatland had kidnapped her and doused her repeatedly with a date rape drug to guarantee her compliance in his malicious plans to destroy The Ten Acre Wood.

  The judge had dropped the arson charges against her. She hadn’t had to come up with exorbitant bail money, but she had to drop out of the election race for mayor and she’d lost three important commercial clients. Otherwise, her financial portfolio and real estate holdings had remained intact. She’d recover from the scandal and run again for mayor in four years.