Blackthorn: In the Tween

by Jamie Ott

  Chapter 11

  When she woke, Lin found herself in a large thin bed that was too close to the floor. Two women, whom Lin assumed to be maids, walked in. Lin remained where she was not wishing to be seen.

  “Miss,” said one in a squeaky soprano, “breakfast will be served in the Great Hall. It is advised you get ready and come down, now. You‘ll meet the rest of the royal family. I’ve laid out a proper dress for you.”

  After a moment, they left.

  Lin pulled back the canopy and climbed out of bed. There, on a partition, hung a light pink gown and matching shoes that looked like they were made for a child, and then enlarged by magic.

 

  Fifteen minutes later, feeling like a frosted cup cake, she sat down to breakfast at a table that could have seated a hundred. Uncomfortably, her torso faced the table while her legs face to the right. The seat on which she sat was like sitting on a bicycle seat at a table.

  Sitting across from her were four others whom Lin supposed must be the royal family. Ilda was there, too; she sat at one head of the table.

  They were silent as the servers went around, giving them tea and sugar and setting food on their plates. On Lin’s sparkling porcelain, they set three of the tiniest eggs and biscuits she’d ever seen. If she really did stay in Avalon, she was always going to be hungry, she thought.

  After the servers had done, they simply sat there with blank looks on their faces. She was going to ask what they were waiting for; then finally, the Queen made her appearance. She sat and said, “Good morning all. This is Lin; Lin this is Mot, Cris, Lida and Beka, and of course you know Ilda.”

  They were all pale and sparkly with the same deep onyx eyes. Lida had the reddest head of hair she’d ever seen, and Beka had the shiniest head of chocolate brown. Mot was golden tan with a bit of stubble upon his chin; Cris was refined and clean cut, which made him look even more puerile.

  They were excited to meet her. They asked so many questions that she could barely take a bit of her eggs and cream, of which she had second and third helpings before she was full.

  “What’s it like in the human world?” asked Lida in her piccolo voice.

  “It’s a lot like here.”

  “Tell us about your mother, and her mother,” said Cris. “What were they like?”

  “Let her eat,” said Mot. “We’ll have time to ask questions later.”

 

  After breakfast, the Queen insisted they take a walk around the garden because it was her favorite place.

  The garden was the most perfect, most colorful one she’d ever seen. Not a single flower had a single imperfection; even the soil was a strangely smooth and moist consistency that smelled slightly like chocolate.

  Beautiful as it was, Lin was unable to show any interest. All she wanted was to go home.

  Later, the Queen returned to business at the palace. Ilda called a carriage that took them to Milken, the neighboring Fairy town. There, Lin got to witness the daily lives of the common folk. It reminded her of all the Christmas movies she’d seen about the North Pole, except with less technology and more nature elements.

  The carriage had been magically altered to fit Lin’s large size. And through a town that was made entirely of wood, Lin witnessed the lives of the most cheerful people she’d ever seen.

  “How could they all be so happy?” she asked.

  “Not a single one of them have ever wanted,” Cris replied. “There is no cold, no hunger and no exclusion.”

  “That’s not true,” said Lida. “Remember old man Wicker, who was beloved by many? Jealousy got the best of him, and was the end of him.”

  “Well, okay,” said Cris, “but my point is there isn’t as much of that sort of thing here. In the human world, there is nothing but misery, because humans love to hate.”

  “Don’t listen,” said Beka. “We love each other, big or small and flawed, and that’s that.”

  The town could have been drawn from a story book. All the buildings were cut of the same golden-brown wood. Like Blackthorn, they had dress shops and coffee shops, restaurants and pubs. No one had to pay for anything. Each family was expected to work at something, and when others needed it, it was given, and vice versa.

  They rode out to the far ends of the towns where the farmers and the lowest of the Avalonians lived and worked, but even they were happy and seemingly fulfilled. The spirit of the people was unlike that of any human. Everything she’d ever read about Fairies being a utopian society seemed true.

  Lin thought it sounded great, never wanting for anything, but she still wanted her old world. She missed her family and wondered what ever happened to Mara.

  Over lunch at the commoner’s tavern, they proceeded with a million questions about her life on Earth. Lin was served a tiny serving of a pork and cheese sandwich and wine, which she finished in three bites.

  “Who is that dark haired one?,” Lida. “The one you went to dinner with and who works with you.”

  When Lin realized she was talking about Professor Miltion, she said, “How do you watch me from here?”

  “We have a looking room,” Ilda replied.

  “How long have you been watching me?” Lin asked, trying not to sound angry.

  “We’ve been watching you since you were a baby,” said Ilda. “We try to make a trip to the viewing room at least once a week. It’s good to keep up with human affairs.”

  “Yes,” Mot. “You humans are too dangerous. Even after all these years, we look out for you, and here you are.”

  “That’s enough!” said Beka.

  Suddenly, Lin felt even more miserable than when she woke up that morning.

  “Cheer up,” said Cris. “Soon, you’ll warm up to this place; everyone always does.”

  The immediate royal family seemed to think that calling for a party would make her happy, so they dragged her to the center of town. The locals ignited the pyre in the center of the square. Cris snapped his fingers, and a dozen spitted pigs appeared. Slowly, they turned over the flames.

  Fairies appeared from all over the place. Some dressed like noblemen and others wore simple cotton tunics and braided leaves and flowers into their hair.

  “They’re wood nymphs,” the Queen explained to her.

  The town’s people loved to celebrate: A fact they proved over the next several days during which the party never ended. Lin had to sneak off and sleep in the bushes because they wouldn’t let her return to the palace.

  The parties were a source of pride for them. People brought food and drink from homes. When they ran out, the Queen sent her servants to the palace to pillage.

  Hours and hours, they’d sit on their little dais, as the people brought a thousand dishes for them sample. The Fairies could eat like no other and yet it was as if they’d never get full.

  Only Ilda seemed to understand that the festivities were too much for her human body. So instead of allowing her to sleep, she put a spell on her that chased the tired from her body.

  It was a neat spell, and it worked. However, it didn’t relieve her from the irritation of having to deal with all the Fairy folk. They were simply too chipper for her, and their voices like the high pitches of oboes and clarinets and piccolos.

  Watching the elves sing, dance, and play music was dizzying. Despite their sizes, they moved with the speed of a shot gunned bullet. They reminded her of the cartoon of the Tasmanian devil, with the way they loved to spin so fast. What was worse was the merrier they got, the faster they spun. In her drunkenness, she had to look away to keep from getting sick.

  Many of the little men of the town asked Lin to dance. Although she managed to excuse herself, every time, the Queen warned her that she’d been expected to dance at the Winter Ball.

  “Winter ball?”

  “Yes, where we’ll find you a husband. No offence, but you’re getting on by our standards. Just look at those lines on your face, girl.”

  Lin’s jaw dropped.

  Th
e Queen looked at her and said, “For goodness sake, marriage should be the happiest thing in your life.”

  “But Lida and Beka aren’t married, neither is Ilda, my Queen!”

  “Yes, but they’re gonna live thousands of years longer than you will; they’re also much younger than you, in our world. You must be married and quickly,” she said, and paused for effect. “As a member of the royal family, it’s not a choice, but it is your responsibility to deliver legitimate daughters of our race.”

  At that moment, Lin knew that the only way she was going to get home was by escape. But who would help her?

  On the seventh and final night of celebrations, the Queen ordered that they prepare for the Winter Ball. Finally, Lin was allowed back to the palace where she slept for three days. When she woke, it was to find she’d been magically sealed in her room, “lest she runaway,” quoted Sherif of the Queen.

  Lin even contemplated jumping out of her window, which was still several stories high. But when she climbed up on the sill and leapt off, an invisible force bounced her back into through her window, across her room and landed on her bed.

  The next morning, Lin made a violent protest over dinner, but the Queen snapped her finger. Then she was in her room, alone.

  The Queen even used her magic to force Lin to get ready for the ball. It was a strange affair to feel her feet and arms move of their own accord, or rather, the Queen’s.

 

  On the night of the Winter Ball, adorned in a long silvery white dress that sparkled, she was ordered to stand in the greeting hall and bow to the guests.

  She tried to smile but it was too hard. All that kept going through her mind was that she’d have children, one day, that would look like little dolls, and that she could crush with a fist.

  Eventually, the Queen ordered her to sit on a throne beside her, as did the royal family.

  Right as the Fairy orchestra began, a line of suitors gathered before Lin. It was then that Lin believed the Queen when she said that she was old for their species, for it was to be an open marriage; meaning that anyone could appeal to Lin’s senses, if they wished. Well, what stood before her was a line of little male decrepit skeletons more ancient than dinosaurs.

  “Aren’t you going to dance?” asked the Queen.

  “I’m gonna have a little drink first, or a lot…” she mumbled.

  The wait staff brought them crystal glasses of sparkling elderberry wine and the tiniest pigs in blankets. Lin scooped her hand over the entire platter, gathering every single one; then dumped them all in her mouth as if eating crumbs.

  An hour or so later, the Queen insisted she dance or else she’d marry her off to the richest suitor of her choice.

  Lin sighed as she stepped down from her throne, and went to the line and offered the first man her hand. Fortunately, the dancing was slow at that moment, for if he’d spun her, she was sure he would have broken his hip.

  The second Fairy man, whose head barely reached a few inches above her belly, was actually cute. He appeared to be the equivalent of a forty year old man, though Lin knew he was likely a hundred years or more older.

  Then there was a snow white haired man who, nearly crippled and barely able to stand, bragged that he was 5,000 years old, and that if she picked him, he’d share his secret of life with her; that and his one ton gold treasure buried in some secret forest.

  Lin was sure that whatever his secrets, she’d probably die of hunger despite them. All she wanted was a bacon cheeseburger with fries.

  Halfway through the third dance, the ceiling rumbled.

  Lin looked up, as did the others. There was another rumble and then the walls shook.

  The doors to the ball room were blasted open.

  In came a dozen hooded figures.

  Lin couldn’t believe it, and neither did the others, judging by the looks on their faces. She thought they’d all learned their lesson.

  Several of the guests, including Lin were instantly bonded by ropes. Next, in ran Golshem who took aim at the Queen, and everyone around him.

  An enormous fight broke out. Many of the Fairies were losing. Bodies flew, left and right, across the room. Seconds later, they were surrounded by the men in black hoods.

  Golshem stood up near the Queens throne, talking to his henchmen. He looked about ready to turn and give a speech to the crowd. But Lin noticed, through the windows, that they were still in the tween hour with maybe ten minutes of shadow time left. She started chanting the spell.

  Since she was distracted by the moaning of injured Fairies, her spell, which required much focus, was weak.

  “Shadows of this planet, I command you

  Like marionettes, I now bind you

  Stay in your place

  Until we’ve moved through your darkness

  And entered our home, the Earthly plane.”

  “Hey, what is that?” asked her dance partner.

  Black shadows appeared in their midst.

  Lin commanded them to move in the direction of the Wackens that stood next to the Queen’s throne. They barely turned before they swallowed them, including Golshem, Angel and Blair.

  “What happened to them?” asked Ilda.

  Lin couldn’t respond because she went back to chanting and focusing all her strength on sending the shadows to swallow the remaining Wackens, but they died off too soon. To her surprise, the Fairies chanted with her, bringing back the last bit of shadow before it was fully dark.

  The men ran to the door, but with the power of that many Fairies, they couldn’t outrun them.

  “It’s working, it’s working,” said the Fairy man.

  The next second, they were all gone.

  “Where are they?” asked someone across the room.

  “Earth, probably.”

  “You saved us!” said Lin’s old dance partner.

  Instantly, the ball room erupted in roars.

  “You are a hero,” said Mot, who stood and applauded.

  “What will happen if there are other humans still here, in Avalon?”

  “They will find their way home. I promise you,” said Mot. “Eventually, they all do.”

  When everyone was untied, and all the bodies removed from the hall, the Queen said, “Let us continue.”

  “Wait!” Lin shouted.

  “Yes?” asked the Queen.

  “In return for my saving you and the people, maybe you should grant me a wish?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” the crowd murmured and cheered.

  “Yes, my dear,” she said, pulling a four inch long crystal with a silver handle from her hair. “One wish, you may have.”

  “I wish to return to Earth, to Blackthorn, my Queen.”

  The crowd fell silent.

  “I love it here,” Lin said to the crowd. “But I miss my family. Imagine if you were me. You’d never see your mothers again, never your fathers.”

  “I cannot let you leave, Lin, you know that.”

  “Heck with that,” Cris spoke up. “One wish; a promise is a promise.”

  “Yes,” said Ilda. “A promise is a promise.”

  “She’s not happy,” said Beka. “Is it right, us keeping her?”

  The queen turned to the people and asked, “What do you think?”

  “WoooHooo... a promise is a promise,” they clapped and cheered.

  She turned to Lin with a serious look on her face, and said, “If you leave, you can never come back. Do you understand? Once you abandon the Fairies, you are excommunicated for life. We will write you out of the history books, just like Princess Mikhail. That will be the end, and there will never be another future for you or your offspring.”

  “I understand,” said Lin.

  “Then,” said Queen Morgana, as she suspended the crystal above her head, “Go.”

  She threw the crystal at her feet. It busted into little pieces and a white cloud enveloped her.

  When the cloud cleared, she found herself standing in the middle of a street.


  Ten Years Later