Chicory Up: The Pixie Chronicles

by Irene Radford

  She applied some extra pressure and bleach water to a particularly stubborn stain. “Ketchup and mustard.” She frowned at the splotch that had become ingrained in the tile.

  The colors reminded her of something. Something she knew was important but flitted about, just beyond the reach of her thoughts like cottonwood fluff. Or thistle down.

  She giggled at how her name fitted the idea.

  A knock on the back door interrupted her musings linking names to personalities, and how she was the only Pixie capable of long-term thoughts. Why couldn’t she nail down the one that drifted on unseen currents just out of her reach?

  “Hi, Dick.” She greeted her fiancé with a kiss to his cheek. Oh, how she liked that word fiancé. It sounded special, just like the relationship it implied.

  Before she could think further, Dick grabbed her around the waist and drew her into a longer, more intimate kiss. His mobile mouth played teasing games around her face, lingering on her eyelids and at the corner of her smile. Then he plundered her mouth with his own, his tongue dancing with hers.

  “You taste good. Like cinnamon,” he whispered between more light kisses. “Hungry for you.” He held her tighter, his fingers digging into her back with an exciting intensity.

  “I thought we were meeting Chase and Dusty at the Old Mill Bar and Grill,” she protested weakly. For the first time since arriving in Skene Falls, Thistle wished she knew how to cook, so she and Dick could stay here in this cozy little house and while away the evening in each other’s arms.

  “We should go.” He stepped away from her, settled his shoulders, and drew a long breath that expanded his chest all the way down to his bottom rib.

  “Before we do…” Thistle placed her left hand on his chest so that they could both see the wink of the gems in her ring. She also needed to keep touching him, just feel him breathe, let his warmth infuse her hand and her life. “I have something important to tell you.”

  “More important than dinner with Chase and Dusty.”

  “This will only take a moment once I gather the right words.”

  “Start at the beginning. One word at a time.”

  Thistle gulped back her excitement. “You won’t like the first part. Alder came to see me today when I was working.”

  “You’re right. I don’t like that. Was he human or Pixie? ’Cause if he was human, I’ll smash his nose in.” Dick clenched his fists fiercely.

  “He came as a human and left as a Pixie. He left alone, though he asked me to go back to The Ten Acre Wood with him.”

  Dead silence.

  “He said he’d lifted the curse right after he threw me out of Pixie. He said I could have gone back any time if being a Pixie was more important to me than my human friends,” she said all in a rush.

  “He did?”

  “You know what that means?”

  “I hope I do.”

  “That I love you more than I love being a Pixie. And as long as you love me, I will never, ever leave you!”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.” She held out her hand to shake his, as she’d seen people do.

  Instead, he threw his arms around her waist and lifted her high, spinning them both until dizziness and laughter collapsed them on the floor in a long, soul-deep kiss.

  Chicory crept out of Mabel’s house at first light of dawn. The second dawn. He’d slept for most of two nights and an entire day between. This was autumn after all, the time when Pixies usually slept more and more until they hibernated.

  Now he felt like a real Pixie again, ready to greet the dawn with something akin to joy. Joy at being alive after cheating death.

  He breathed in the fresh air of a typical autumnal morning, chill and bright with a heavy layer of dew. The shadows stayed long all day. Later the rain would come. Later. Not now.

  He indulged in a bit of fancy flying, playing tag with arcing prisms that glistened in droplets caught in the cup of flower petals. Freedom! He’d survived the dreaded underground and now looked forward to just being a Pixie without thinking overmuch.

  Enthusiastic moans and groans coming from a white rose with red edges interrupted his celebration of morning. Rosie and her paramour Snapdragon greeted the day with their own ritual.

  “Oh, get a tree,” Chicory grumbled. On the other hand, he didn’t want Rosie bound to that shifty character.

  Shifty. Good word to describe the scoundrel. He might be round and yellow with red splotches now, but Chicory had no doubt that last summer he’d been long and slender and golden, like wheat ripening in the sun.

  What had caused the transformation? He’d said prison food filled with preservatives and growth hormones had made him grow. What would cause the shift in color and shape? Something dire. A poison, maybe?

  Chicory knew that some plants were poison to humans. Pixies never, ever played tricks on people with those plants.

  What would poison a Pixie?

  Underground.

  But Hay was half Faery—if you could believe him—he should be fine underground.

  Chicory looked behind him to check his own wings. They looked whole and clean, sparkling in the slanted morning light.

  “Chicory, you’re alive!” Daisy squealed with delight on a whisper, as if she didn’t want to wake someone. The most recent delight of his life emerged from a screen of semi-tamed wildflowers. She looked tired.

  Chicory reached out and caressed the lines radiating out from her eyes. They relaxed. But a frown remained etched at the corners of her mouth, even when she smiled lovingly at him.

  “I’m staying out of Rosie’s way,” Chicory whispered. He gestured with his head toward her bower. Then, hand in hand, he and Daisy took refuge among the overgrown weeds along the picket fence.

  “Rosie is impossible,” Daisy said. Fierceness tightened her wings together.

  “Have she and her lover done anything about maintaining the garden, or getting the tribe ready for winter?”

  “Nope. They only send our tribe out to do battle with the invaders. Then they ‘nap’ while waiting for them to come back. Unless Snapdragon is particularly angry. Then he leads the soldiers. He’s angry more and more often.”

  “This is wrong. Very, very, wrong.” Chicory held Daisy tightly against his chest, drawing comfort from her, and giving some back.

  “I think the entire tribe knows that now. They’d like a new queen. Or king.” She ran her hands along the outside of his arms, clearly indicating her choice of a new king. “But they’re all afraid of Snapdragon.”

  “He is big. And mean,” Chicory agreed. He remembered all too well the sense of powerlessness when the irate Pixie had grabbed him by collar and belt and thrown him into the deadly cellar.

  Underground. Had five hours in the half-sunken museum jailhouse right after his arrest for helping set fire to The Ten Acre Wood poisoned Hay? Something might be different about that dirt than the protections woven into a Faery hill. But nothing could protect Pixies or Faeries from iron sickness. Chase had forced Hay into iron handcuffs that made him sick and unable to shrink back to Pixie size and escape.

  “Vicious,” Daisy corrected him. “He’s worse than the Murphy family’s three Siamese cats. Combined.”

  “That’s bad.”

  “What are we going to do, Chicory?” A fat tear glistened in her golden-green eyes.

  “Thistle would tell us to oust Snapdragon and Rosie.”

  “Thistle left for work an hour ago. Something about Mrs. Jennings needing her medications an hour before she eats.”

  “Yeah. I know. She doesn’t think like a Pixie anymore. She looks ahead and thinks about consequences.”

  “What are consequences?”

  “The bad things that happen after you play a prank.” Daisy still looked puzzled. “Alder cursing Thistle into human form was a consequence of her making Milkweed late to her wedding.”

  “Oh,” Daisy replied flatly. “Oooohhh!” Her eyes brightened with understanding. “If we oust Rosie and Snapd
ragon, they will try to hurt all of us.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So, what can we do?”

  “We can leave.” An idea buzzed Chicory’s mind like a trapped fly beating against a closed window.

  “But… but… we’d be alone!”

  “Not if we take my brothers, Delph and Aster, and their girlfriends, Marigold and Buttercup, with us.”

  “That’s—um—six.” Daisy had to count on her fingers. “Is that enough for a new tribe?”

  “Not quite. But it’s a start. We can always add a few Dandelions.”

  “Wh… where will we go?” She looked excited and frightened at the same time.

  “Well, Mabel told us to trust Dusty.”

  “Yes. Her museum has a lovely herb garden, but it’s so close to The Ten Acre Wood. Won’t Alder object?”

  “Of course he will. So we’ll go to her home, not the museum. I don’t think there’s a tribe living there. Maybe long ago, but not now. There are lots of flowers and shrubs. Juliet Carrick is trying to compete with Mabel’s roses in some kind of human game.”

  “Let’s take Bleeding Heart. He’s not happy here and only stays because his copse is now an ugly apartment building. Maybe Cinqefoil will follow him.”

  “Good idea. We’ll make it known that any displaced or exiled Pixies are welcome in our new tribe. We’ll be bigger and stronger than any of the others. Do you think we have to take some Dandelions, too? I don’t know if Dusty’s mom will appreciate Dandelions in her yard.”

  “Later. If we need numbers to protect ourselves from an outraged Hay. Should we ask Wisteria?” Daisy looked toward the entwined vines that made a thick trunk climbing over and around, and completely hiding, the wrought iron fence and arched gateway from the main yard to the back property.

  Chicory suddenly realized that the aloof Pixie lived in close proximity to iron every day of her life. Had the poison in the metal warped her personality as Snapdragon’s time in the human prison had changed him into a bloated, diseased monster?

  “I don’t think she’ll come,” Chicory whispered back to Daisy. “I haven’t seen her out of her bower in ages.”

  Around them, the world was coming awake. Birds chattered to each other, squirrels scurried, and Pixies poked their heads above the rim of their sheltering flowers. “Has anyone actually seen Wisteria outside her plant in… oh… three or four summers?”

  “I saw her… um, I think it was last spring.”

  “We’ll let her know she’s welcome once we’ve staked out our territory over at Juliet’s yard. But it has to be her decision.”

  “Each of us who comes has to make that decision. We won’t coerce anyone. Snapdragon does that too much. He’ll try to stop us,” Daisy said, brow furrowed in concentration.

  “I know. Which is why we are leaving with an open invitation to any Pixie who is displaced or uncomfortable or overcrowded. The lost children of our tribes. Those are the Pixies Snapdragon is recruiting for his army.”

  As if called by his name, Snapdragon emerged from the limp rose blossom that had been his bed with Rosie. Without a wing flip of hesitation he darted over the back fence to the wild area. Within seconds he’d marshaled the half-domesticated Pixies—mostly Dandelions—who lived back there. Nominally they looked to Rosie as their queen. Mostly they did as they pleased, when they pleased—just like weeds. A stronger queen than Rosie would have brought them to order long ago.

  They formed into their ranks, making an arrow formation behind Snapdragon. Wings beating in perfect unison, they flew off toward The Ten Acre Wood.

  An army ready to do battle.

  Chicory felt a deep urge to line up with them, become part of the group. Fight and die together, or live and fly together. It didn’t matter which.

  “Chicory, snap out of it!” Daisy yelled anxiously. She grabbed his wingtip and yanked him away from the army.

  Chicory shook his head to rid himself of the magic compulsion that enveloped the army. Faery magic. Evil and malicious, uncaring who got hurt, all to satisfy Faery desires and nothing else.

  “Maybe we can stop the war if we pull all the fighters away,” Daisy said softly.

  “You never know.” He kissed her nose and went about the process of gathering his new family. “Daisy?”

  “Yes, beloved?”

  “When we get settled, will you take a mating flight with me?”

  “From any oak in town.”

  Fifteen

  CHICORY HELD UP HIS HAND, signaling to the troop behind him to stop at the back gate of Juliet Carrick’s home. He sniffed cautiously. A neighbor cat had patrolled the yard within the hour and, from the smell of things, caught a mouse.

  No other predators lingered.

  Juliet had retreated inside after cutting a few roses, escaping the cold drizzle.

  Chicory shivered. Winter was coming. Fast. He needed to find a nesting place for his little band. His family.

  He pointed right and left, directing the Pixies to seek out places to shelter. Bleeding Heart went directly to some drooping leaves of his namesake along the border of the fence line. He began trimming brown leaf edges.

  “We haven’t time to groom just yet,” Chicory reminded him.

  “I can nest within the heart of the stems tonight.” The younger Pixie looked up at him hopefully. He must miss his home plant. Mabel had some growing wild in the back lots, but Pixies had to cross that wrought iron fence to get there. Not all of them had the courage, especially newcomers.

  “Tonight maybe. But that’s not enough shelter for all of us through the winter.” Chicory flew on. “Damn, Juliet keeps a tidy garden. Too tidy. Not even a decorative stump.” He kept seeking among the fake tombstones, fake fire with a cauldron on a tripod, and dubious scarecrows. Juliet never did anything by half. Her carnations and rhododendrons had all been neatly deadheaded, probably by Thistle. A few of the roses still bloomed, but the blossoms were too tight to open and the edges looked brown and too saturated to finish blooming.

  He checked the few trees for woodpecker holes. Nothing. They were all too healthy to attract the birds. Not even an old squirrel nest.

  The rain came faster and harder, some of the drops as big as his head.

  “Under the porch!” he called to one and all.

  “But… but that’s underground,” Delph, his youngest brother protested.

  “Not quite. It’s under the porch. That’s different,” Chicory explained, holding two loose boards apart and counting wings as they passed into the semi-dry area out of the wind.

  Daisy, bless her, found two cracked flower pots filled with dead leaves and a rotting bird’s nest. Temporary, at best. His people deserved better.

  Above him he heard Juliet humming Thistle’s music. Dum dee dee do dum dum.

  Thistle had lived here as a human. Of course her music permeated the house.

  Hmm, what music could he give Juliet to replace that catchy little tune?

  “Time to confront the owner,” he whispered.

  “Couldn’t you just talk to Dusty? She lives here, too,” Daisy said, not minding her voice.

  The humming stopped abruptly in mid-phrase. “Who’s there?” Juliet asked.

  Chicory heard her moving around the porch. She stepped out from the sheltering overhang and peered around the yard.

  “Um… just me,” Chicory said brightly. He flew through the gaping slats and hovered directly in front of Juliet’s nose. His wings beat a new tattoo: Dum dum do do dee dee dum.

  Dick wandered into Dusty’s museum. Officially, the pioneer home held the prestigious title of Skene County Historical Society Museum. Since Dusty had taken over as curator on Labor Day weekend, everyone in town called it Dusty’s place. She spent more time here than at home. At least she wasn’t hiding in the basement anymore.

  He heard a murmur of voices. Only a few words came through. “Lawyer,” and “filed,” and lastly “hospital.” Puzzled, he proceeded inward.

  “Anyone home?” he called
from the front parlor. Then he sneezed. Didn’t anyone dust this place?

  “Back here,” Dusty said, appearing in the doorway to the back of the house. She wore normal slacks and a blazer today instead of pioneer costume. A telltale smudge across her nose and cheek proved she hadn’t given up her basement haunting completely. Her glasses tipped close to the end of her nose. She pushed them back into place before he could get a good look at her eyes, a sure indicator of her mood and health.

  The glasses allowed her to hide almost as much as the basement.

  Dick took care to step up the extra half inch at the doorway. The original log cabin had multiple additions up, down, side to side, and back; each at a slightly different level and style of construction. He wouldn’t refer to the hodgepodge as architecture.

  “What’s up, Dick?” Chase asked from his semipermanent position at the end of the long worktable in the employee lounge.

  Dick grabbed a cup of coffee from the carafe Dusty kept filled. He noted that she had tea: hot, black, and sweet. “No coffee, Sis?” He took the chair beside Chase.

  “Only at home.” She flashed a grin at him while she deliberately closed a fat file folder.

  “If you don’t like coffee, you don’t have to drink it on my account,” Chase said. He covered both of her hands with one of his own.

  “It bugs Mom.”

  “Enough said.” Dick saluted her with his cup and took a long swig. “Shakespeare wouldn’t have drunk coffee, so neither Mom nor Dusty can.”

  “Shakespeare wouldn’t have drunk tea, would he? Seems to me everyone drank ale or small beer,” Chase mused.

  “Since when has a detail bothered my mother? Tea is very British.” Dick imitated a posh English accent. “Therefore, it will substitute very nicely in her obsessive-compulsive brain.”

  “So what brings you to my lair on a cold October morn when sensible tourists and school groups stay home? There will be bunches of kids after school helping with the maze, or scouting it.” Dusty shifted the file onto the chair beside her. Out of sight, out of mind?

  Dick’s curiosity spiked. If she’d left the thing alone, he wouldn’t have noticed it.