Dick’s sweating hands shifted for a better grip. “If we die, we die together,” he grunted through clenched teeth.
New sensations of wonder filled Thistle as she realized he’d grabbed hold of her by her swelling breasts. Her Pixie slenderness curved and grew. And so did his.
Complete and fulfilled, they tumbled the last short distance to land abruptly in the mud at the verge of the pond at the feet of Dusty and Chase.
“It… that was so beautiful,” Dusty gasped in wonder.
“They call it making love for a reason,” Chase answered, dropping a kiss on her nose. “With the right person, for the right reasons, love grows exponentially each time.”
Thistle breathed deeply, relishing the sensation of soft leaf litter and damp earth beneath her cheek and the warmth of Dick’s arms enfolding her naked body against his. “Love. We made love and watched it grow so big Pixie bodies couldn’t contain it anymore.”
“Ahem,” Chase cleared his throat.
Thistle risked opening her eyes enough to see his face flush deep red as he turned around. Dusty followed suit. The two looked at each other with deep longing, then swiveled their heads away. As one, they shed their coats. Dusty’s fell atop Thistle. Dick clutched Chase’s as he shivered with cold. Now that the afterglow of love faded, Thistle, too, felt the chill of a late October morning.
“You two, take my truck,” Chase said, holding his keys out to them, behind his back. “We’ll walk.” He grabbed Dusty’s hand and started off along the path toward the museum.
“Are we really married by Pixie law?” Dick whispered in Thistle’s ear. He nuzzled her neck as he spoke.
“Yes,” she breathed in satisfaction.
“Good, because I’m never letting you leave me again.”
“What about human rituals?”
“We’ll deal with that when the time comes. Right now, you and I are together. And we both need to go home and get out of the cold.”
“Mabel’s house first,” she whispered. “We’ll have a bit of privacy.
Dreams of a hot bath, together, propelled Thistle upward. She didn’t need her wings to right herself. She didn’t miss them at all.
Forty
“BENEDICT! WAKE UP!” Juliet called through the door to her son’s room.
Chicory opened one eye warily. Exhaustion nearly drove him back to sleep before he realized where he was, where Dick wasn’t, and what he had done.
“Um. Getting a shower now,” Chicory called back, to keep Juliet out. He hoped he sounded enough like Dick to stall her.
Then he looked at himself under the sheet and blankets. Gulp. He was big. Really big. Like big enough to fill the bed nearly end-to-end. Okay, Dick was that tall. So far so good.
He tried flexing his wings and discovered them missing. Panic forced him to sit up. He looked awkwardly over his shoulders. Blank. Nothing. Not even an energy signature like during the few times he’d masqueraded as human to help Mabel and Dusty with special chores last summer. Who was he, what was he, without his wings? He was grounded. Helpless. Immobile.
Was this what Thistle had felt like when she landed in Memorial Fountain last summer?
Nope. Not quite. Alder had stripped her of not only her wings, but her lovely lavender skin and purple hair. She’d become truly human.
Chicory still had blue skin. He reached up and pulled down a forelock while rolling his eyes upward. Yup. He had blue hair as well. And broad, muscled shoulders. He thought maybe he was built stockier than Dick, too.
He was still Chicory, just different.
“Benedict? Are you okay? You sound like you have a cold,” Juliet said through the door. “All that sulking. Now get up. I think you have work today, don’t you? It’s Friday. And you need to talk to Hope, and her mother.”
Chicory faked a cough. “Fire last night. Too much smoke. I’m calling in sick.” If he could make the phones work.
Oh, he didn’t have to. Dick took care of that yesterday when they cooked up this scheme together. The memory of Dick’s exact words, postponing several appointments with doctors and clinics popped clear and bright into Chicory’s mind. Hm, so this is what it was like to be human and think ahead.
“I don’t like the sound of that cough, Benedict,” Juliet said at the same time she pushed the door open. “I’ll make you some nice chamomile tea with honey.”
Chicory flipped the sheet back over his naked body. He’d lived with humans long enough to know how they felt about bare skin, especially certain parts of bare skin.
“Oh!” Juliet squeaked back a scream.
“Hi, Mom,” Chicory said and waved to her.
“What… what… have you done to my son!”
“Not much,” Chicory hedged.
“This looks like a lot more than ‘not much.’ Again, what have you done with my son?” She nudged one of the saucers filled with herbs and candles with her toe.
“Um, please don’t do that, Juliet. If you want Dick back, you have to leave the spell circle intact.”
“Oh, my God. You’ve stolen my boy with magic. You’ve made him a changeling. I’ll never see him again.”
“No, no, no, no.” Chicory really hoped he wasn’t lying. “We switched places. Temporarily,” Chicory said. He couldn’t think of a stall that wasn’t an outright lie.
“For… for how long?” Juliet staggered to the armchair in the corner where Dick had heaped his clothes for several days. She seemed oblivious to the creases she added to the mess.
“Just until sunset,” Chicory replied.
“This sounds dangerous. I think you should bring him back right now.” Her chin quivered and her hands shook.
“Sorry. No can do. Once the spell is set, it can’t be reversed until it runs its course.” Chicory smiled, hoping Juliet would find some humor in the situation. Too bad his tiny silk cap didn’t change size with him. He’d like to doff it to her as a token of truce.
“I don’t care. I want my son back. Now.”
“Um, Juliet, aren’t you overreacting just a bit?”
“I said, bring my son back!” she shouted, standing tall and clenching her fists. “Bring him back now, or I’ll throw the lot of you Pixies out into the cold.” She tensed her jaw and thrust it forward belligerently.
“I don’t know how.” Chicory hung his head. He felt hot and cold all over. “Not until the spell runs its course.”
And he had to pee. He couldn’t flit outside or even into the bathroom without embarrassing Juliet, and therefore himself. Something had to give. And soon.
“What do you mean you don’t know how? This is worse than the doctors telling us they didn’t know for sure if they could cure Desdemona. I almost lost my daughter. I. Will. Not. Lose. My son.”
“You won’t lose him. We have to let the spell run out. Or Dick finishes what he set out to do. Disrupting it now might kill us both.”
“No. No. I can’t lose him. I just can’t. I need my boy.” Tears slid down her cheeks, gathering speed and volume.
Panic cramped Chicory’s middle. He didn’t know what to do. Except dash to the bathroom and take care of business.
Juliet buried her face in her hands. He took advantage of her distraction. A few moments later he returned with a thick towel draped around his hips.
“Desdemona is deserting me, getting married. I almost lost her to cancer and now I’m losing her to that… that man! She didn’t come home last night, or the night before.
‘Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend,
More hideous, when though show’st thee in a child,
Than a sea-monster.’”
“Juliet, why does it bother you that your children are growing up and finding lives of their own, mates of their own, homes of their own?” He touched her shoulder in mute sympathy and wondered if he would cross too many boundaries of politeness if he hugged her.
“‘How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is
To have a thankless child!’
I… I
… is that what I’m doing?” She looked at him, truly bewildered. Her tear-ravaged face showed a different Juliet, a vulnerable and lonely woman, middle-aged with huge changes disrupting her ordered life.
“I think so. What happened all those years ago? It made you hold your children so close you smother them; that you have to control everything around you. So you organize, manipulate, and bully people into following your plans.”
“Nothing that is your concern.” She stiffened her spine and made to stand up.
Chicory pushed her down, keeping his hand firmly on her shoulder. “You’re doing it again. Pushing me away rather than facing the truth. Quoting the Bard rather than admitting there is a problem.”
“It is none of your concern.”
“I’m your friend. I’ve taken refuge in your home. If you can’t tell me, an imaginary Pixie who doesn’t exist in your reality, who can you tell?”
“I don’t have to tell anyone.”
“I think you do. If you don’t confront your past, you will have to keep running away from it and never learn to cope with now.”
Juliet froze in place, holding her breath.
Chicory counted the long moments until her eyes regained focus and her chest heaved with indrawn air. Her shoulders slumped and a new spate of tears flowed. “Cancer almost killed my child, and I could do nothing about it. I couldn’t even donate my bone marrow to help cure her. Benedict did it and now they are closer to each other than they are to me, their mother,” she whispered.
“And so you became obsessed with Shakespeare and quote him rather than admit to anyone, including yourself, that you could not control the situation.”
She nodded, gulping back her tears.
“You didn’t do ‘nothing.’ You got Dusty the help she needed, you sat by her side and held her hand through the pain, you gave up your career as a teacher to school her at home. You changed your diet to match her needs. You did not do ‘nothing.’”
“I’ve driven my husband away with my obsessions.”
“He’s not gone for good. Just taking a break.” Chicory flashed his cheekiest grin. “He’ll be back because he loves you and the children you have together. If he didn’t, he’d have divorced you years ago, and taken a mating flight with someone younger and more manageable.”
“You think so?”
“Yup. So, Mom, what’s for breakfast?”
“Now, I promise you’ll only be in skilled nursing care for two weeks,” Phelma Jo assured Mabel as she locked the brakes on a hospital wheelchair.
“I can take care of myself.” Mabel stubbornly crossed her arms, not moving from the side of her hospital bed. She’d dressed in old slacks and shirt with socks and soft shoes, with the help of a nurse’s aide.
“You’ll only need to stay at the facility two weeks if you behave yourself and don’t overdo. If you bring on another heart attack, you’ll be right back here. Indefinitely.” Phelma Jo gave back stubborn for stubborn.
“It’s too expensive,” Mabel insisted, eyeing the wheelchair suspiciously. “And I won’t use one of them damn things.” She kicked at the chair.
“Medicare and your insurance from the police union will cover it all.” Phelma Jo gave up her death grip on the chair’s handles to slide an arm around Mabel’s waist and ease her into her new chariot.
“I hate being dependent,” Mabel grumbled. But she did settle into the chair, testing it for comfort and size. She looked like a shrunken doll. A very stubborn shrunken doll, but too tiny and frail to face the world alone anymore.
“Excuse me, but I’m taking Aunt Mabel home with me,” Ian McEwen said from the doorway.
“The arrangements have already been made for skilled nursing care at a facility. I inspected the place myself. It’s clean and bright and cheerful with an efficient and friendly staff.” She faced Ian with hands on her hips as if he were the enemy and not Mabel’s weak and aging heart.
“I’ve already arranged for daily help to stay with her while I’m at work.”
“But your house isn’t handicap accessible. You’ll have to add a ramp and remodel a bathroom on the ground floor,” Phelma Jo reminded him, triumphantly.
“In the works. I’ll take her now.” They both grabbed the wheelchair handles at the same time, jostling for control.
“Oh, my heart,” Mabel groaned and slumped.
“Mabel!” Phelma Jo and Ian shouted at the same time. “Get a nurse! Help me get her back into bed.”
“Oh, get over yourselves,” Mabel snickered. “Got your attention anyway.” Her gaze shifted back and forth between them.
“Don’t do that again, Aunt Mabel. You scared us,” Ian said on a long exhale.
“I needed you two to stop arguing and work together.
“Hmf.” Phelma Jo stepped back, feeling like an intruder in a family argument. Dammit, she’d been more like family to the old woman than Ian, even though they didn’t share blood. They shared more, a long history, friendship, conspiracy, and a mission.
“Admit it, both of you, you like each other. A lot.”
Phelma Jo risked a brief glance at Ian. Their eyes locked for half a heartbeat, then they both looked away. A guilty flush flamed in her cheeks. The tips of his ears reddened as well.
“So, it looks like I have some work to do with both of you.”
Phelma Jo pointedly looked anywhere but at Ian. He examined the walls as if looking for cracks, or mold, or something, anything but look at her or examine his true feelings.
She felt the same way.
“Phelma Jo, take me to your pristine facility for two weeks. Two weeks only. While I’m there, you, Nephew Ian, will fix up your house so I can stay there in comfort and ease. You will both visit me at the facility every day. At six PM. No variation. I intend to be busy the rest of the day and evening getting well. This town won’t last long without me. Come along now, we’ve work to do. Together, all three of us. And you two together when I can’t go with you.”
Epilogue
“AUNT DUSTY, YOU REALLY NEED to do a final walk through the maze before it opens to the public,” Hope said. She bounced from foot to foot in eagerness. “It’s the professional thing to do.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Dusty watched the girl for signs of an agenda besides the opportunity to be the first one through the maze. She really had two dozen things to do in the next ten minutes, including counting the cash for the admission box, sorting the tickets, making sure the museum had all of its fake (and real) cobwebs in place, that the extra flashlights and light wands were fully charged at the rental table…
“Miss Carrick!” M’Velle hailed her coming up the path from the street. Her multiple black braids with beads woven into them chimed and clicked together with each step. She was dressed as a dancehall girl, in opposite colors to Dusty’s white-and-green costume. “We really need to talk to you.”
“What’s wrong?” Dusty gathered the long skirts, ready to run to the rescue. A lacy wool shawl covered her nearly naked shoulders and a long feather bobbed annoyingly in her hair.
“We’ve got a proposition,” Meggie added breathlessly as she joined her friend. Her blonde hair was bound tightly into a bun tonight, and she wore a prim missionary wife’s calico gown.
The two girls should have swapped roles if they wanted to fit their personalities. But then they wouldn’t really be costumes. And that was the whole point to Halloween!
Dusty wanted to giggle at her observation. She forced herself to soberness to address the girls as an adult and professional.
“Such as?” Dusty eyed her helpers suspiciously.
“You know that we’re on the senior prom committee?” M’Velle asked. She bit her lip in unconscious imitation of Dusty’s nervous habit.
“Yes.”
“We’ve raised a lot of money so we can have the prom at the Dockside Ballroom on the Columbia River,” Meggie said.
“But with the bad economy and all, a lot of kids can’t afford the tickets,” M’Velle
finished.
“So?”
“We thought, and we talked to the rest of the class, that maybe we should hold the prom in the school gym.”
“It’s supposed to be ready to reopen at the end of April. The smoke damage isn’t as bad as we all thought at first. Most of the fire was contained in the front lobby.”
“And this concerns me how?”
“We thought that the school really is as much a part of this town and its traditions as the museum, the maze, the parades, and the other festivals. We should make the reopening of the gym a community event.”
“The jazz band wants to play swing dances and pop music, so we won’t have to hire a DJ.”
“We should have torn down the building and built a whole new one,” Phelma Jo grumbled from behind Dusty. She seemed to be hiding there as Ian McEwen wandered the grounds inspecting electrical cables and placing fire extinguishers in convenient locations. “The insurance would have paid for most of it, and it’s about time this town moved on from the glory days of their high school years. Life really is much better after graduation, but some people will never grow beyond the football field or pompoms.”
“I don’t know about that,” Dusty mused. “Chase’s football skills helped a lot yesterday.”
“And your childhood dance classes stood you in good stead too, baby sister.” Dick dropped a kiss on her hair, batting away the stupid ostrich feather. Then he straightened and turned back to Phelma Jo. “Still running away from your past, Phelma Jo?” He held Thistle’s hand, as he’d done almost continuously since that spectacular mating flight yesterday. He also stayed near Hope as much as possible, frequently with an arm thrown around her shoulders, as he did now.
“I’ve moved onward and upward. I’m not letting memories—bad ones mostly—hold me back.” Phelma Jo glared at him smugly. But she also moved around the admissions table, keeping distance and bodies blocking her from having to watch Ian McEwen.
Chicory Up: The Pixie Chronicles Page 29