by A W Hartoin
I jolted backwards and gasped at a sharp pain in my ankle. “You can talk?”
It sneered and bared its teeth. “You winged fairies think you’re so special. Of course, I can talk. I can also read, or do I have to prove it to you? I suppose you’d never take my word for it.”
“I believe you.”
I must’ve hesitated because its eyes narrowed. The long sinewy tail spiraled into a corkscrew shape and then relaxed, pointing at me, like a crooked finger, and beckoned me forward.
“Come closer,” it said. “Don’t be a stranger. You winged fairies ought to get to know us better, then perhaps the city would be a more peaceable place.”
I remained in my spot, though it felt rude, like I was afraid or disgusted. I was both of those things, but I didn’t want it to be so obvious. The serpent didn’t seem to notice. It bobbed its head pleasantly and said, “You have such pretty wings. I’d like to get a closer look.”
I had the ickiest feeling. Wood fairies are supposed to be able to feel other’s intentions, but since I’d gotten to Paris, my feelings had been all jumbled up. That head on the pike made everything feel bad. But that serpent was worse than bad. In a way, worse than the horen fairies. At least they had a reason to hate me, stupid as it was. The way that serpent looked at me, I knew it would hurt me just because it was something to do, a distraction in an otherwise boring day.
“I have to go,” I said, but before the last word left my lips, the serpent’s tail snapped out at me, missing me by an inch.
“Our day will come. We’ll be second-class citizens no longer. Your king will be defeated and we will rise.” It hissed at me, its long tongue flapping in the breeze.
“He’s not my king, but you’ll never rise, no matter what happens. For you, it’ll always be the same.” It just slipped out, but I meant it. The serpent slung its hindquarters out at me, giving its tail a longer reach. I dodged the slimy thing and flew down the street full speed with my hand on my chest. Iris met me halfway with a worried pucker on her forehead.
“What were you doing?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
She flew beside me, casting sly glances, but not asking anymore questions. I landed on Tess’s shoulder beside Lrag, but sat on the edge far from him, rubbing my swelling ankle and trying to gather my thoughts. What was a second-class citizen? It sounded suspiciously wrong. Was the king doing something to sea serpents, not that I was totally against it, but would it be fair? Did one have to be fair to sea serpents? Lrag came up behind me and wrapped his big red hands around my shoulders and turned me to face him.
“You must stay in the group,” he said. “Anything could happen here. Paris is attracting all the wrong elements. Penrose is counting on us.”
Lrag smiled down on me with the kindest expression. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him what the sea serpent said. He might think he was a second-class citizen, whatever that was, and feel bad. He hugged me tight and pressed my cheek against his warm skin. Then he held me back. “Did that serpent say something to you?”
I blinked. “How did you know it could talk?”
“I didn’t, but I wasn’t counting it out. So what did it say?”
“It was just nasty. Nothing important.”
I don’t think Lrag believed me, but instead of saying so, he pointed up ahead at a gothic tower rising high above the buildings. “There it is. I have a good feeling about this. We’ll find our answers there.”
I nodded, but as I looked up at Notre Dame, for a moment, all I could see was its dark recesses and none of its beauty.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“LOOK, MATILDA! JUGGLERS!” Iris clapped her hands and darted away through the crowd.
Judd went to charge in after her, but Marie held him back. “She’s too small to chase. We’ll find the jugglers.”
And we did find them. Five separate times. Humans must love jugglers because the grounds in front of the cathedral had more jugglers than anything else and there were plenty of things going on from food vendors to violinists playing for the tourists. We found Iris, not in front of a juggler, but watching a puppet show, where the main theme seemed to be puppets beating each other up. Iris was laughing hysterically in the middle of a group of brown-winged fairies, the first large group we’d seen, unless you counted the royal guard beating up the fairy in the metro.
I pulled her from the crowd. “Don’t fly off.”
“It’s like a big party.” Iris grinned at me and then her expression turned to wonder. “Look at that.”
She pointed over the heads of the brown-winged fairies and my mouth fell open. A pale blue dragon the size of a rat swooped over the crowd. It had large googly eyes and wings twice the span of its sleek body.
“It must’ve been dragons that we saw at the airport,” I whispered. “It’s beautiful.”
Then like most beautiful things, the dragon had to go and ruin the moment. It circled a family of humans standing in front of an ice cream cart. The vendor handed the father a large cone of vanilla and just before he took a lick the dragon darted down and pooped. The nuggets hit the ice cream and imbedded in the side, glowing orange and, I’m sorry to say, steaming. The dragon flew off laughing. Its bulging eyes rolling around in its head.
“Ewww,” said Iris. “Dragons are disgusting.”
“I wish I hadn’t seen that,” I said.
The dad licked his ice cream and made a face. He took another tentative nibble and then consumed the rest.
“Couldn’t he taste that?” asked Iris.
“I think he did.” I shuddered. “But it was only one lick worth of gross.”
“Ewwww.”
A new crowd formed around us and we found ourselves getting swept back toward the puppet show. My wings kept brushing against others. After the third time I turned to the female brown-winged fairy beside me. She looked like a mom with an etching of wrinkles around her eyes and her hair drawn back into a careless ponytail. The next time my wing touched hers, I said, “Excuse me. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hit you.”
She smiled and responded in english with a strong French accent. “It is nothing.”
“Can I ask you a question?” I asked.
“Of course.”
“Do you happen to know where the vermillion are?”
She drew back and then flew into my face with a finger jabbing me in the chest. “Why do you ask about those traitors? Who are you?”
I flew back and bumped into another brown-winged fairy. He spoke in french and the woman answered him. The only word I caught was vermillion. Soon we had a crowd around us. I pushed Iris behind me as the woman got into my face.
“I said, who are you?” she asked.
“We’re from America. I don’t know anything about traitors. I thought they were healers,” I said.
The woman translated and the angry faces around us softened just a little.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Matilda Elliot.”
“Well, Mademoiselle Elliot, I wouldn’t be throwing that name around. It could get you into trouble.”
“Aren’t they healers?” I was afraid to ask, but we had to know what was going on.
A man in the crowd flew in, his broad wings beating gusts of air in my face. He yelled in French and then spit on the ground. The woman waved him and the rest away.
“What did he say?”
“He said the dogs of the crown will die with them. You’d do well to remember that.”
I lowered my voice. “So they’re not healers. I have a friend that’s ill. I thought they might help her.”
She laughed, a raw and angry look on her face. “They are healers to the crown. They’d let your friend die in the dirt before they’d give a wingbeat to help.”
“I’m sorry I asked. I didn’t know,” I said, edging backward and pushing Iris with my hand.
“Now you do,” said the woman. “Welcome to Paris. Bon chance.”
She flitted away into the crowd and landed on the roof of a vendor selling pastry. Hovering in great swarms around it were fairies of every description. Most were brown-winged, but there were some multicolored wings, too. None like our Whipplethorn luminescent wings, though. We were conspicuous with our glow in such drab company.
The swarm spread out and I got a good view of the roof. The woman was standing in front of a wingless fairy. He was small, like a spriggan, wearing a wrinkly pair of brown pants and a tie, but no shirt covered his greenish skin. Only his snout and bat-like ears told me he definitely wasn’t a spriggan. The fairy stood on a box, wearing a red hat and shouting at a group of other wingless fairies and waving a roll of parchment around.
“What species is he?” I asked Iris.
“A hobgoblin, maybe. The Speciesapedia says they’re friendly and nice.”
The hobgoblin jumped around screaming and spraying spit.
“He must be the exception. I wonder what he’s saying.”
Tess came up and made like she was talking to Judd. “I think he’s saying something about wine. Wait. I’ve got it. He says the king wants to take their wine.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” said Judd.
“Speak for yourself,” said Marie, coming up and taking him by the arm. “Let’s go inside. The hooligans are out here. Usually I like hooligans, but not today.”
Judd grinned and brushed his long brown hair out of his eyes. “Dad says I’m a hooligan. You still like me, don’t you?”
Tess found a break in the crowd and led us past humans with enormous cameras, jabbering in half a dozen languages.
“You’re not plotting the death of the royal family,” said Marie.
“The whole family?” asked Tess. “Even the kids?”
“The whole family.”
“Who said that?” asked Judd.
“I heard at least five different groups discussing it. They want their freedom and they’re willing to buy it with blood.” Marie stopped beside a metal fence where the humans had formed a queue to get into the cathedral.
Iris flew in front of Marie. “But why would killing kids help them?”
“It would be the end of the Bourbon family, an end to the monarchy. They — ”
Before Marie could continue, a beautiful fairy with rather small green wings flew in her face. The fairy slashed the air with a parchment scroll and yelled in Marie’s face in French. Marie answered her. I didn’t understand anything, but the words Bourbon and Capet. Those were repeated a bunch of times.
Then the fairy, still clearly angry, darted over to Lrag and Bentha on Tess’s shoulder. She caterwauled at them for a good two minutes. Lrag kept saying he didn’t know what she was talking about and then she spotted Bentha’s sword. She pointed at it and then Tess, Judd, and Marie. She shouted, “Égalité!” Then she thrust the parchment into Bentha’s hand and flew away.
“Dude,” said Judd. “What was that about?”
Marie grabbed Judd’s hand. “You don’t see fairies. Not Matilda. Not any of them.”
“But why?” asked Iris.
“They think seers are on the side of the king. Now everyone look at the cathedral. That’s what we’re here for.” She took out her camera and began snapping pictures.
Tess and Judd shrugged at each other and craned their necks to look up at the stone edifice. I landed next to Bentha and peeked at the scroll he’d unrolled. It was in French, but I got the gist from the decapitated crowned heads at the top. Some of them were small. One an infant.
“We are travelers in a monster’s paradise,” said Lrag, his broad face more solemn than I’d ever seen it.
“The dogs!” Bentha drew his sword and went to ram it through the parchment. I snatched it away.
“No,” I said, tucking it into my belt. “Anyone could see.”
Bentha bowed to me. “My lady is wise. Let us continue our search.”
Marie nodded as if to Judd. “We’ll go inside now.”
Tess started toward the end of the line, but Marie stopped her. “Not that way, dear. I don’t do lines.”
“But how are we going to get in?” asked Tess.
“Follow me.” Marie marched down the fence and then skirted a low hedge. Notre Dame had three pairs of red doors, each inside of a different set of arches, so ornate my eyes didn’t know where to look. The human figures lining the sides of the arches wore draped material and carried crosses or other things. Each one had a different face. Above those statues were more statues. It went on and on.
“Humans are amazing.” Iris started to dart away toward the doors, but I nabbed her wing and pulled her back onto Tess’s shoulder.
“We have to stay together,” I said. “You can look when we get closer.”
It wouldn’t be long. Marie made a beeline for the middle doors, ignoring the guards and the pointing tourists in their line. She stomped up the stone stairs and we almost made it to the door when a guard ran over and intercepted us. Marie listened politely as he spoke in French slowly.
“What’s he saying?” Judd asked Tess.
“I think he said we’re cutting.”
The guard pointed to the back of the line and Marie shook her head. She opened her square black handbag and gave him her passport and a battered brown envelope. He said no, but Marie insisted he look inside the envelope. The guard sighed and pulled out a thick sheath of papers and then frowned. Marie cocked an eyebrow at him and he stared at her for a moment. She made a shooing gesture and he ran back to the other guards. They all poured over the paperwork, glancing with disbelief at Marie.
“What’s going on?” asked Judd. “Are you on the terrorist watchlist or something?”
“Not hardly. I have a pass,” said Marie, her eyes twinkling. “I don’t use it much, but it’s always fun when I do.”
“You have a pass for Notre Dame?” asked Tess.
“I have a pass for everything in France.”
The guards stopped looking at Marie’s paperwork and folded it back up. One took the envelope and sprinted inside, nearly bowling over a Japanese couple and their children.
“Now we’re getting somewhere.” Marie smiled with satisfaction.
Judd tugged on her sleeve. “So how do you get a pass like that?”
“You serve the French people with distinction.”
“Were you in a war?”
“I fought several wars, so you two won’t have to. Don’t screw it up.”
The guard ran back out and returned to Marie. He bowed low and offered his arm to her. The other guards went down the queue explaining things to the tourists. I caught the words “hero”, “war”, and “sacrifice” when they spoke English.
The guard walked Marie to the center doors and two other guards rushed over to open them for her. Marie took her passport and envelope back. The guards all kissed her hand and she turned back to us. “We’re in, my little ankle-biters.”
Tess stepped through the doors and into the coolness of the cathedral. I shivered and all the breath whooshed out of my body as Tess walked between ginormous columns and out into the main section. Notre Dame was pretty awesome on the outside, if you didn’t mind bloodthirsty revolutionaries and a certain creepiness. The inside was a totally different story. It glowed golden with rows of stone columns down each side that led up to an impossibly high arched ceiling. After the crush outside, few humans wove in between the columns, taking pictures of all the stained glass. Grandma Vi was here. She gave birth to Mom in the treasury. I could almost feel Grandma there with us. She’d be smiling.
“I feel better now,” said Iris.
“We all do,” said Lrag.
“What do you think, Bentha?” I asked.
Bentha didn’t answer. His head was tilted up and he sniffed deeply.
Lrag rolled his small eyes. “Ignore him. We’ll find some answers on our own.”
Bentha’s eyes popped open. “I, Bentha, will find the answers.” He readied himself to leap off Tess’s
shoulder.
“We need a plan,” said Marie. “We’ll split up and meet back here in two hours.” Then she lowered her voice and bent close to Tess’s ear. “Remember, you’re just tourists. Don’t use the words Bourbon or Capet to anyone.”
“Why not?” asked Iris.
“It doesn’t matter. We just have to find someone who will talk about the vermillion without attacking us,” I said.
Bentha saluted us and dove off Tess’s shoulder. He landed on the black and white checkerboard tile and ran under a lamppost. Judd patted his sister’s shoulder and casually picked up Lrag and set him on the back of a chair. He climbed down out of sight.
Iris and I flew up, trying to look like we didn’t know Tess and she couldn’t see. It was difficult, I can tell you. Once you’ve been seen, it’s hard to pretend you haven’t been. It wasn’t hard for Tess. Her blue eyes went blank and she wandered away behind Judd. We were on our own.
Notre Dame is enormous. It’s even more enormous when you’re trying to find someone who knows about the vermillion and won’t scratch your face off for asking.
“This isn’t working,” said Iris with a yawn.
I landed on the polished wood inside the cathedral’s treasury. Iris landed beside me and promptly plopped down on her rump.
“I don’t want to fly anymore. It’s hopeless. We’ve been everywhere,” she said as she flopped over.
I stretched out beside her and studied the treasury ceiling. It wasn’t as impressive as you’d think, just stone bricks. I was hoping for some mosaics or at least some gold. It was the treasury after all. But it like, Notre Dame, was a bust. It might’ve been the center of fairy life when Grandma Vi and Lucien were here, but now it was the center of the revolution. They even changed the name to the Temple of Reason. I couldn’t see what was so reasonable about it. Every fairy in it was completely nuts. I tried everything. I asked about famous healers, where to get potions or spells. Everyone was so suspicious. No one would say anything that wasn’t about freedom or killing the king. Of course they wanted to kill anyone that had anything to do with the king or the royal government. That meant the vermillion. If we were going to find them, we’d have to find some royalists.