This job should be over quickly. Point and shoot was pretty much all there was to it. And think really bad, insect-pest-infested thoughts. It only took her forty-five minutes to cover the front yard; now to the back.
What’s this? There were some new beds over there next to the woods. She walked over and zapped them. The arbor birches and crab apples? Too strong for her spells, she figured. She zapped them anyway. There, over next to the fence, were the perilous angel’s trumpets. Holding her nose, she shot them a long-distance spell with only one hand, then scurried out of range to work her mayhem on the rest of the Fremont gardens.
But what in the name of Lucifer’s lighter was this? A blue glow emanated from somewhere in the center of the yard. It came from the base of the ash tree that dominated the otherwise open area of flower beds and lawn. The light wavered, then steadied. Its flickering cast eerie shadows against the fence, the lilac bushes, and the variegated dogwoods. Dr. Sproot suddenly realized that the glow was coming from the fairy house. And what was that? Tiny squeaks. Little mouse-scurrying sounds.
“My God,” Dr. Sproot whispered. “It’s the fairies. There are actually fairies in the fairy house. What are they doing there? They’re plotting against me. They mean to do me harm.”
Dr. Sproot listened harder. They weren’t speaking English, that was for sure. They were talking so fast. What was that? Other voices. These were coming from behind her. Before long, they were coming from everywhere, hundreds of unrecognizable voices that were actually more like murmurings and hissings than talking. What were they saying? She jumped. What was that wriggling around, tickling her toes? She looked down. The purple bloom of a clematis stared up at her and smiled in an anthropomorphic way. It had a nose. It had teeth. It had eyes. It had . . . a mustache?
Rapidly, the clematis spiraled around her bare legs, constricting her like a python wrapping itself around a feral pig. Dr. Sproot screamed, wondering if her scream would carry above the voices. She aimed her fingers at the monster flower, but felt no energy in them. Her powers seemed drained. The clematis understood. It grinned up at her. Then, she ran, yanking the constricting clematis out by its horrible roots. Not seeing the split-rail fence until it was too late, she slammed into it, causing her to fold up at the midriff, then somersault over, landing on her back. It knocked the wind out of her.
What was that hissing? Looking up and over to the right, she beheld her worst nightmare: An angel’s trumpet had pushed its white, trumpet-like bloom to within four inches of her face and was exhaling a mist directly at her. The little droplets coated her cheeks and forehead. Close your eyes, thought Dr. Sproot, lying there, aching, and feeling the still-living clematis tighten its hold on her leg. She held her breath to keep the brain-scrambling exhalations of the angel’s trumpets from entering her lungs and causing her to hallucinate. She thought that and keeping her eyes closed should keep the poisons at bay; they wouldn’t be able to get into her nervous system through the pores of her skin.
Suddenly, the clematis began to move again. It was past her knee, working its way up her leg and toward her shorts. She lifted her head to see it leering at her. Dr. Sproot screamed and scrambled to her feet. She sat up, grabbed the clematis, and clasped it hard at the closest bloom’s throat until it drooped and its lolling tongue stuck out of its very reasonable facsimile of a human mouth. The angel’s trumpet was still there, hissing at her like a coiled snake. The mist had by now worked its way into the membrane of her eyes. In a gasp for air, she had inhaled it, too. It was only a matter of time before she’d go hopscotching through psychedelic fruitcake land. What was that? Next to the fairy house, which was still emanating its blue light, a great hulking mass of green trundled down the steps and into the Fremonts’ driveway.
“Human sod!” Dr. Sproot moaned. “A giant chunk of human sod! Oh, my God!” Fighting hard against the addling process that was turning her brain into a mush of non-existent colors and Strawberry Alarm Clock songs, Dr. Sproot forced her aching body into a jog toward the woods. Branches and twigs swatted at her and scratched her limbs. She tripped over a root and got a mouthful of forest clutter that began moving and talking inside her mouth.
“Blaaaght!” went Dr. Sproot, spitting out the leaves, and moss, and twigs that then scurried away, chattering.
Using every ounce of strength that remained in her, she pulled herself up, and banged her head against an overhanging branch. She stumbled on, moaning and crying, for what seemed like an hour before finally emerging into the open, and onto the Fletchers’ driveway. There were steps under her feet now. If she could only climb she could work her way into thinning air, which would clear her head, wouldn’t it? Climb. Climb. Climb.
More flowers were talking to her. Where did they come from? They were urgent, pulling and pushing her. They were assaulting her! She punched at them, pulled them, and reached with both hands to throttle them into unconsciousness. Then, something acrid and horrible splashed into her face and she found herself clawing at it, then clawing at her face to get the horrible liquid off. It was tearing at her eyes. Blinding her.
When she woke up the plants were gone. They weren’t babbling at her anymore. But her eyes stung like hell. She was strapped to something and being rolled somewhere. Then, she was inside a warm, restful place that was moving. It felt like a womb. Comforting. And, most important, there were no flowers bent on exploring her private parts. But her eyes . . .
Marta and Edith brushed off the green blanket they had used to camouflage themselves, rolled it up, and threw it in the backseat of Marta’s car. They were tittering like a couple of teenagers.
“You make an excellent fairy, Edith,” Marta whispered. “Better than a witch.”
“I’d give anything to have been able to record that scene,” Edith whispered back. “I just hope Dr. Sproot’s all right.”
“Don’t waste your sympathy on her, Edith. She got a little shock to her system, that’s all. One thing’s for sure—the Fremonts probably won’t have to worry about her bothering them again.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Edith said. “The bile in her is strong and resilient. And I’m afraid we didn’t catch her in time to stop most of her spells. I wouldn’t count her out of the picture by any means.”
“Hmmmm,” said Marta. “Well, I dropped them a little warning note on the patio. And you think your spell can counteract hers?”
“Yes, but it might have a delayed effect. I tried to stop hers first. Then, in case the stop-spell doesn’t work, I tried another. But since this was a rush job, and I had to do it from the street while she was still working the front yard, I’m not sure how effective it’ll be. I didn’t get to do my little twirling thing, too, where I turn to face all directions of the compass. To say nothing of the weather not cooperating.”
Marta shrugged, then stiffened and cocked her ear; she thought she could hear the distant squeal of hinges.
“Well, look at it this way,” she said. “The good weather made it a lot easier to get up to the fairy house and light that candle. Though how we managed to get up there without Dr. Sproot hearing us I’ll never know. Too absorbed in her spell casting, I guess. And this job was one heck of a lot less miserable than last year’s.”
“No lie,” Edith said. “That gives me the shivers just thinking about it.”
Over at the Fremonts’, through the network of their flowers, vines, and shrubs, they could see the white points of the motion-detector lights illuminating the patio. Then, a form emerged, carrying what looked like a tapered and remarkably smooth branch.
“George Fremont,” whispered Marta as she and Edith crouched close to the car. “With his baseball bat. If Dr. Sproot comes back, she’s going to get whacked.” Edith shuddered with suppressed laughter.
“So what was your excuse?” asked Marta.
“Uh . . . ?”
“For being out so late.”
“Oh,” Edith said. “Out with the girls. At Charlene’s house. Really late. Taking along a couple
of fifths of vodka from the store supply. Yours?”
“None needed. Ham sleeps like a log.”
Sirens sounded in the distance.
“Uh-oh,” Marta said. “We’d better make tracks, pronto.”
Nan met George as he came through the back door, Smokestack Gaines bat in one hand and a piece of paper in the other.
“What in God’s name is going on out there!” she barked. “I guess every loony within a twenty-mile radius feels she can go caterwauling through our backyard at all hours of the morning, eh? Who was it? Did you take her down?”
“It was that idiot Dr. Sproot.”
“No surprise there. Back for more fun, eh? No more Mr. and Mrs. Nice Guy for us, George. Our days of turning the other cheek are over. Did you smack her with your bat?”
“No.”
“No? Got away from you, eh? What’s the point of having a bat if you can’t whack somebody with it? What’s that you’re holding?”
“Found it on the patio.”
Nan grabbed it out of George’s hands, pulled a handwritten note out of the envelope, and read it.
“It says, ‘Dear George and Nan, pay close attention to your flowers. Dr. Phyllis Sproot is up to no good. Hope we can help. Two friends.’ What friends, huh? That’s what I want to know. Everyone we know who gardens is a certifiable nutcase. Okay, I’m going to go get me a weapon and we’re going to go out there and track down Dr. Phyllis Sproot. Once we find her, I’m not responsible for my actions.”
“No need for that, Nan-bee.”
“Don’t try to stop me, George!” said Nan from the kitchen as she studied her cutlery for their attributes in the realm of cutting, thrusting, and stabbing.
“I mean, Dr. Sproot is gone. Apparently, she ran screaming up to the Fletchers’ door and Jeri Fletcher gave her a face full of Mace. When I got there, an ambulance and the police were already there. They had Dr. Sproot strapped to a gurney and were rolling her into the ambulance. She was babbling something about fairies.”
“George,” said Nan, looking out the kitchen window. “What’s that blue glow out there?”
“The what?”
“The blue glow. There’s a blue light coming out of the fairy house. Isn’t that the color fairies are supposed to like? Could you go check that out, please?”
“Uh, maybe if they’re fairies, we should leave them alone. I doubt that fairies like people poking around their homes with baseball bats.”
“Get out there, George!”
There was the rustle of feet coming down the hallway behind them.
“What’s all the racket?” said Mary, with Cullen and Ellis crowding in behind her.
“Oh, nothing, kids. Some wacko went running through the yard, and the police hauled her away. And I guess we’ve got some fairies partying out there in the fairy house. I’m trying to steel your father to go out there and check them out.”
“Fairies?” said Mary. “Sweet!”
“There’s no such thing as fairies,” said Cullen. “Crisis over. I’m going back to bed.”
“Me too,” said Ellis. “Hey, Dad, don’t go hitting anything with that bat, okay? That thing’s gotta be worth a thousand bucks now.” Cullen and Ellis slogged back to their bedrooms.
“I’ll go with you, Daddy,” said Mary. “Let’s go introduce ourselves to the fairies. If you can talk to flowers, I bet you can speak fairy language, too.” Mary bolted noisily out the door, with George tagging sheepishly behind her.
“Pssst, fairies,” Mary whispered as she tiptoed toward the center of the yard. “Hello there, fairies. Can you hear me, fairies?”
“Tell them we mean them no harm,” whispered George, also tiptoeing, and trailing a few feet behind her. Mary turned to look at him.
“Daddy!” she said. “Daddy! Better lose the bat. They might think you want to knock their little fairy house out of the park.”
“What? Okay, sure.” George knelt down slowly and gingerly laid the bat on the ground as Mary arrived at the ash tree and leaned slowly over the fairy house. Then, she started giggling.
“What?” said George.
“It’s just a candle, Daddy. Somebody put a blue candle jar inside the fairy house. That’s what’s causing the blue glow, not fairy stuff. Darn it, I wanted to meet some fairies. Nice job, Dad. You really got me goin’ there. Fess up.”
“Huh?” said George, who was now standing next to Mary and staring down groggily at the blue candle, which had been placed expertly inside the miniature house. “Whaddya mean, ‘nice touch’?”
“The candle. You and Mom put it there, didn’t you?”
“I certainly did not. And neither did your mother, as far as I know . . . Yikes!”
“Yikes what?”
“If we didn’t put it there, and you didn’t put it there, and I’m reasonably sure Cullen and Ellis wouldn’t have put it there, then who did?”
“Well, I sure didn’t put that candle there,” blurted Nan in her normal voice. George and Mary jumped.
“Nan-bee!” said George.
“Mom!” said Mary, pressing her hands over her breastbone and panting for breath. “You just about scared me out of my britches!”
“Good thing I didn’t have old Smokestack in my hand,” said George. “Otherwise, I would have popped you good. Whack first, ask questions later.”
“So,” said Mary, “who put the candle there, then? Sheeesh! If it wasn’t any of us, maybe it’s fairies who put it here. Big honkin’ fairies.”
“It’s probably the same person who left us the warning note on the patio,” Nan said.
“What warning note?” asked Mary.
“A note telling us our flowers are in danger.”
George, his attention having been drawn to a rectangular pale object that he could barely see on the ground, leaned over to pick it up.
“Maybe this is a calling card from our fairy friends,” he said. “Hey, it’s a business card.” George moved onto the patio so he could read what was written on it. “It says, ‘Small-pet séances. Bring your beloved pet back to life. First consultation free.’ Then, there’s a phone number. It’s signed ‘Sarah Twiddle.’ Sarah Twiddle?”
“Also known as Sarah the Witch,” Nan said. “Remember, George? From last year?”
“Oh, yes, our nefarious gardening witch. Also known in liquor-and-appliance-store circles as Edith Merton. The same Edith Merton who dressed up in her dead mother’s clothes and who you almost cut to shreds in the hosta bed.”
“With the butcher knife.”
“Yeah. Too bad you didn’t use it when you had the chance.”
All three gazed skyward as if they might catch a glimpse of Sarah the Witch doing loop-de-loops on her broomstick.
“Gardening witch!” Mary cried. “Sweet! Can I meet her? That’d be almost as good as meeting up with a bunch of fairies.”
27
Archaeology
A familiar-looking car pulled into the driveway. Following close behind was a red sports car with the top down. Just as they expected, it was Miss Price who got out of the first car. A dapper-looking chap dawdled behind the steering wheel of the red sports car, then got out after Miss Price leaned over to have a few words with him. There was something weird about that car; Nan couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
“Hmmm,” she said. “Now that’s a Rolls-Royce, right, George?”
George shook his head in amused disbelief.
“That, Nan-bee, is a vintage Triumph. British sports car. You can tell it’s British because the driver’s side is where the passenger side is in our American cars. See? That’s how the Brits do it.”
“Ohhhh. I knew there was something odd about it.”
“I’m guessing that’s probably Miss Price’s lawyer.”
Miss Price led the way up the steps, clomping purposefully toward the Fremonts at a pace her companion could barely keep up with. Once on the top step, she waggled a hand in their direction. The Fremonts figured it to be her weird form of gr
eeting, one meant solely as an announcement and to convey no warmth at all.
“Miss Price,” said Nan. “What a pleasant surprise. What brings you to this neck of the woods?’
“Pleasant surprise?” Miss Price snapped. “I wouldn’t have guessed a visit of mine would be a pleasant surprise in any way after what we’ve been through.”
“You clearly don’t recognize sarcasm when you hear it, Miss Price,” Nan retorted.
“What we’ve been through, Miss Price?” said George. “How exactly is it you’ve been inconvenienced? Oh, and while we’re at it, our attorney has cautioned us not to say anything to you that might have the slightest connection to our case. We’re suing you. Or haven’t you heard?”
“So, mum’s the word,” added Nan with a short, brittle cackle.
“Yes, I got served the other day,” said Miss Price. “Incomprehensible. I have no idea what it says. Just for the record, what exactly is it you’re suing me for?”
“We’re seeking an injunction to keep you off our property once and for all,” George said. “And damages for our little explosion.”
“Hmmm,” said Miss Price. “And what have I done to deserve this?”
“Well, the explosion part is pretty self-evident, isn’t it?”
“You can see that we’ve patched up the fence,” Miss Price said. “I’ve already made arrangements to repair the neighbor house. That takes time, though. It’s a big job. Our insurance companies are handling the damages to your house.”
“Aha,” said Dr. Lick. “I was wondering . . . Gee whiz, the whole side of the house is gone.”
“This is a matter between the Fremonts and myself,” Miss Price snapped. “It need be of no concern to you and doesn’t affect our current mutual interest.”
Dr. Lick smiled meekly, and raised his arms in a sign of resigned agreement.
“There’s also your constant poking around in our property,” Nan said. “That includes sending that pair of idiots to cut down our tree. They were looking for something.”
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