by Russ Colson
“Well, they’re worried.”
“Not enough to offer to help, apparently,” I said, slamming the van door shut and heading back towards the Expo Center. “But they have their own lives and their own—”
“Free the faeries!” a protester screamed at us. “Exploiters!”
Inside the critter totes, my faeries made rude gestures at the Faeries’ Rights Activists, and I was less than pleased myself. “Don’t screech at me, young man. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You’ll be sorry when—”
We shoved past him, shaking our heads. “Fanatics,” Greg said. He stopped short, and I bumped into him. Then he bulled his way forward with an inarticulate shout.
I craned my neck and saw that his aquariums were askew on the table. The curtains he used to keep his faeries hidden until the proper moment had been pulled aside. Who would breach show etiquette that way?
Apparently the two tall strangers standing there, arms crossed and brows knit, would. I felt my stomach plummet. What were they doing here?
Greg wasn’t intimidated. He marched right up to the Fair Folk representatives and got in their faces. “Get away from my setup,” he snarled. “You’re disturbing my faeries.” Indeed, some of his faeries huddled in the backs of their aquariums, while others were preparing for battle, tossing little fireballs from hand to hand.
“You have enslaved our kin,” one of the strangers said. “I would have thought that you, of all people, would be more empathetic to this issue.”
Oh dear, I thought, rushing forward to stand beside Greg. The Fae really should not have said that. Greg is one of the few black men showing on the circuit, and, although he’s well-known, sometimes he still encounters subtle little digs.
“They look unhappy to you?” Greg gestured at his faeries. Their aquariums were palatial, with carpeting, plush pillows, hammocks, and toys. Everyone knows he loves them like they were his own children, and it shows in his results.
“A gilded cage is yet a cage.”
One of the faeries flew out of the open top of her aquarium and lobbed a fireball at the Fae, setting his hair alight and giving the lie to the statement that the faeries were caged.
I gaped. This was the other reason Greg always goes home with a stack of blue ribbons—and more often than not, Best in Show. His faerie had sky-blue Luna Moth wings. No one else had even conceived of moth wings—I’d thought I’d had a breakthrough when my last egg clutch had produced a faerie with iridescent purple dragonfly wings. Most other breeders were still concentrating on things like that, or bigger and more elaborate butterfly wings. Greg had gone in a totally different direction.
The glaring faerie floated down to sit cross-legged sit on a cushion in her aquarium, while the Fae slapped furiously at his hair to put the fire out.
“The truth is,” I said, “the faeries like us, and this whole thing is a cooperative effort. You and those people outside are sadly misinformed.”
The Fae shot an angry glance toward the door, and Greg got an a-ha! expression. “Did one of them contact you about the poor oppressed little faeries?” At the Fae’s reluctant nod, Greg continued, “As you can see, none of them is held here against their will. All the aquariums have open tops and they can leave at any time. But they don’t.”
“They like to show off,” I said. “Look around.” Most of the show people bustled about, getting ready and avoiding this particular corner of the room. The faeries not hidden behind curtains played or slept or ate at will. Some of them preened, or sat still while they were being groomed.
“This isn’t dignified,” the other Fae protested.
Greg rolled his eyes. “They’re not you. Their standards of dignity are different. And it’s hard to be dignified when you’re four inches tall.”
“Fine. We will leave. But we will be watching.” They vanished in a puff of aromatic vapor.
“Well, my secret’s out,” Greg groused.
“So pretty!” I was still delighted. “May I see?”
He reached into the aquarium, and the faerie hopped up onto his hand, fanning her wings out and pirouetting. “Why do the rest of us even bother to show up?” I asked. “Beautiful. You realize that the committee has to make new categories for you every year?”
Greg looked a little smug as the faerie flew back into her aquarium. “Well, you know, it’s not easy. I’ve been working a long time to get something like this.”
I nodded, and began setting up my own area. Even with five generations a year, progress on new varieties is painfully slow. My own pride and joy, Amethyst, was the result of a year and a half of mixing and matching and experimenting. The process is complicated by the fact that faeries are picky, and sometimes outright refuse to procreate with the mates we carefully choose for them. That can throw an entire breeding program into a tailspin.
Alec Anderson strolled up and clapped Greg on the back. Greg grimaced. “Nicely done, Greg,” said Alec. “For a minute there I thought they were going to give us some problems.”
I turned my back on Alec and busied myself getting the rest of my setup ready. Rumor had it that Alec sometimes artificially inseminated his faeries, and even used genetic engineering, which would be grounds for suspension if he ever got caught. No one had proven anything—yet—so he was still allowed free rein on the circuit. That didn’t mean I had to like him.
“Artemis knew how to take care of business,” Greg said. His tones were clipped; he didn’t much enjoy Alec’s company either.
“Just how did you manage those wings?” Alec nattered on. He either didn’t know or didn’t care that Greg didn’t want to talk to him. I snorted. As if Greg was going to tell him.
“Sorry, man,” Greg said, not sounding sorry at all. “I don’t tell my secrets to anyone. You know that.”
“You’ll take ‘em to your grave, eh?” Alec clapped him on the back again, and I saw Greg ball a fist briefly, out of the corner of my eye, before he relaxed. “You know, some folks might resort to...dishonorable means, to get at the knowledge you’ve got locked up in your head.”
I spun around at those words, which sounded almost like a threat. Alec’s expression was bland, his eyes behind their gold-rimmed spectacles giving nothing away. “Anyway,” Alec continued, “I just wanted to congratulate you on your breakthrough. I’ll let you get back to your stuff.” He strolled away as nonchalantly as he’d approached, and I felt a sudden urge to wash my hands in carbolic soap.
“Eugh,” Sheila Jenkins said, giving Alec a wide berth before hugging me. She was one of the up-and-coming Junior Handlers, whom I had taken under my wing a couple of years prior. “Am I the only one who wants to smack the snot out of that guy every time I see him?”
“No, dear, we all do. How are you today? Nervous?” This was Sheila’s first time showing in regular classes—now that she was sixteen, she was deemed barely old enough to compete with adults.
“You know how a fly bounces itself against a window pane trying to get out?” Sheila took a deep breath and brushed a stray lock of long brown hair behind her ear. “Yeah, about like that.”
I eyed her shapeless sweatshirt and faded jeans with disapproval. “I hope you’re planning on changing your clothes. I like to think I taught you better than to go into the ring dressed like that.”
“Of course,” Sheila said, somewhat indignant. “What do you take me for?” She hefted a gym bag. “I just didn’t want my nice clothes to get dirty while I set up.”
“Who did you bring?” Greg asked.
“Imli and Yarrow.” Sheila gestured at her setup, and we turned to look. Imli had Giant Swallowtail wings and feathery moth antennae, and Sheila had been as surprised as anyone at the combination. However, Imli had given Sheila an excuse to break out of Junior Handling, and she’d been grooming him for weeks for this show. Yarrow had Tiger Swallowtail wings and liked to compete in the Solo Dancing class. “Imli’s been acting funny today too.”
“You’ll all be fine,�
� I said, waving a hand. “Should’ve seen me in my first adult class. I made my faerie so nervous he flew up into the rafters and it took three hours to coax him down. But I didn’t have as good a rapport with him as you do with Imli and Yarrow.”
Sheila’s eyes widened. She put her hand over her mouth, muttered, “Excuse me,” and darted for the restroom, clutching her gym bag.
Greg chuckled. “Show jitters. We all had them when we first started.”
“I told her not to eat anything this morning.” I tsked and turned to arrange my faerie furniture in the aquariums, but was interrupted again.
“Hi, Grandma.” My seventeen-year-old grandson stood there, half shame-faced, half defiant, wearing a “Free the Faeries” t-shirt.
“Oh, Tommy.” I sighed. “How did you get caught up in that ridiculous cause?”
“It’s not ridiculous! You guys are exploiting these poor little creatures and making tons of money out of them. It’s not right, Grandma.”
“No one who does this is in it for the money.” My gaze slid across to Alec, and I corrected myself. “No one who’s reputable does this for the money. What money? Tell it to my minivan, with over a hundred thousand miles on it.” My mouth twitched. “You’ve been watching me do this since you were five years old, Tommy. Have you ever seen me mistreat one of my faeries?”
“Well, no, but—”
I steamrolled over him. “Ever seen anyone here mistreat a faerie? You know most of these people.”
“There’s that Alec guy...”
“And he’s this close to getting kicked off the circuit. You know, we all have our pet theories about him, and he’s going to get caught one of these days. We police our own, you know. Just because you don’t see it happening doesn’t mean it’s not. It only means that we choose not to air our dirty laundry to outsiders.” Examining Tommy shrewdly, I said, “It’s a girl, isn’t it?”
He looked at the floor, and I knew I had him. “I thought I could get her attention this way,” he mumbled. “She doesn’t even know I exist.”
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake. Have you tried simply asking her out?”
His expression was horrified. “I couldn’t do that! I’m just...me. And she’s—” He glanced around the room in a hunted fashion, stopped briefly on Sheila—who had changed into the business suit she was going to wear in the ring and appeared quite grown-up now—and flinched away as if the girl had thwacked him on the nose with a newspaper.
I almost laughed, but stopped myself. Tommy looked absolutely miserable. However, the show equivalent of dipping Sheila’s pigtails in ink wasn’t going to win him any points. “First of all,” I said briskly, “change out of that ludicrous shirt. Any impression you make with it will be less than favorable. Second, comb your hair out of your face and stand up straight. You’re a fine young man, Tommy, but be a little more imaginative.” I spun him around and shoved him toward a shirt vendor. “Just talk to her. You’ll be fine.”
He began to object, but I poked him in the back, and he trudged off with a defeated air to buy more suitable attire. I chuckled and went back to arranging the rest of my faerie furniture, then transferred the faeries from the critter totes into their new homes.
I was one short.
I counted again, and still came up one missing. My knees weakened when I realized which it was.
Greg saw me stagger and was right there, his hand under my elbow. “Emily? What’s wrong?”
“Amethyst. My faerie with purple wings.” I could hardly believe I was saying it. “She’s gone.”
¤
Someone unfolded my chair from its bag, and I sank into it gratefully. Someone else gave me a cup of water, and I fished an aspirin bottle out of my purse and swallowed a pill. After a few moments of deep breathing and purposeful relaxation, my heartbeat slowed to an acceptable rate.
It sped up again when Sheila rushed toward us, brandishing a piece of paper. “I found this on your windshield,” Sheila said, panting slightly. “What does it mean?” She looked at me more closely, having been outside during the hullabaloo. “Are you all right?”
“Amethyst is missing,” I said, “along with her tote. So someone took her.” I read the note. “Apparently...whoever left this.” I showed it to Greg, and his lips tightened with anger. It was handwritten in block capitals:
TELL ME HOW YOU BRED A FAERIE LIKE THIS OR YOU’LL NEVER SEE HER AGAIN. SEND THE INFORMATION TO PO BOX 275, HERE IN TOWN. DO NOT GO TO THE POLICE. ONCE I HAVE THE INFORMATION I’LL TELL YOU WHERE TO FIND HER.
“You know, I don’t like Alec, but I never thought he’d sink to this level,” Greg said, jumping to the same conclusion that I had. Alec had been conspicuously absent from the concerned crowd that had surrounded me after my discovery. “I’ll be right back.” He stomped off in the direction of Alec’s setup.
A few moments later, he returned, frogmarching Alec, who was complaining loudly. “Tell the lady what you did with her faerie,” Greg said, dropping him.
“I didn’t take her friggin’ faerie!”
“Who else would write a note like this?” Greg waved it in front of Alec’s face. Alec grabbed it and looked it over while Greg continued. “Everyone knows you’re not above stealing secrets, and if you can’t get them by being sneaky, you’ll try other means.”
“I’m glad you have such a high opinion of me, but do you really think I’d be so stupid as to kidnap a high-profile faerie at the biggest show of the season and then leave such a bald-faced note?” Alec rolled his eyes. “Please. Give me credit for some intelligence.”
Reluctantly, I found myself in agreement. This wasn’t his style. I made a shooing motion with one hand, covering my eyes with the other. “Go away, Alec. You’re tiresome.”
Alec twitched his suit back into place and gathered the shreds of his dignity. “You’re lucky I don’t sue you for libel, Carson.” He spun on his heel and retreated to his own setup across the room.
“Libel is written. Idiot. I’ll keep an eye on him anyway,” Greg said. “I’m not convinced he didn’t have anything to do with it.”
Tommy rushed up and gave me a hug. “Grandma, are you okay? I just heard.” He must have been changing in the restroom; I noted with some approval that he now wore a black t-shirt emblazoned with a faerie sporting swallowtail wings. He grabbed a chair, turned it around, and sat on it backwards.
“I’ll be fine once we find Amethyst,” I said. “She must still be around here somewhere.” The show officials had locked the building down—no one could leave without heavy scrutiny. Of course, if Amethyst had been taken out before I’d missed her, that wouldn’t accomplish anything.
“Who’d do something like this?” Tommy asked. “It’s horrible.” His eyes slid toward the doors, where the protesters outside still chanted.
I picked up on his unease. “Have you heard anything from them?”
“Just that it serves you right and they hope the faerie finds happiness in her freedom.”
My throat felt as if it wanted to clench shut. “Do you think one of them took her and set her loose? She’d die out there on her own.”
Tommy leaped to his feet. “I’ll go ask around.”
“You might want to change your shirt again,” I said wearily. If Amethyst had been “freed,” depending on where, I had no hope of ever seeing her again. Faeries are terrible at directions, and cats and birds see them as natural prey.
“Oh. Yeah.” He glanced down at the one he was wearing, then at Sheila. “Don’t worry, Grandma. We’ll find her.”
I couldn’t help worrying, but bless his heart. “Thank you, Tommy.” He sped away.
Sheila sat in the chair he’d just vacated. “I don’t think it was a protester. Have they even been in the building?”
I shrugged. “It’s a public place, and just because we don’t recognize someone as a protester doesn’t mean one wasn’t here. They’re not all wearing dead-obvious t-shirts.”
Greg glared in Alec’s direction. “I still think that
little weasel had something to do with it.” He squinted. “What in the world is he doing?”
I turned my head. “Same as the rest of us should be doing. Giving his faeries a final spruce-up before they call his class.”
“With a perfume spritzer?” Sheila said. “Something’s not right. If he—”
A runner came down the aisles, calling “First classes in fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes, guys.”
We all fumbled with our schedules to see if we were up. I didn’t much feel like showing, but I had seven other faeries to think about, and some of them were close to getting titles. Not going into the ring would be terribly unfair to them.
I had one in the Bred-By-Owner/Exhibitor Novice class, which was for getting young faeries used to the hustle and bustle of the ring. The class was split between the predatory—and sometimes cannibalistic—dragonfly-winged faeries and their more pacifist butterfly-winged cousins, in case of accidents. Greg would go up against Alec and several others in the Monarch Wing Adult class. Sheila was free until the afternoon, and volunteered to stay and watch over our setups so nothing further happened.
I specialize in dragonfly wings. This particular faerie had green hair and wings, and I’d named her Jade. Jade hovered in her tote, a sure sign of nervousness, and I tried my best to soothe her, with little success. She must be picking up on my own state of mind, I thought. Several people commiserated with me over the loss of Amethyst, which didn’t actually help. I took deep breaths and told myself to concentrate before my turn came to put Jade through her paces. This calmed her only a little, and she clung to me, barely showing her exquisitely-veined wings. We garnered a white ribbon for the class, which was disappointing, but I gave Jade a piece of sausage anyway, as she’d done her best under trying circumstances.
A commotion by Greg’s ring arrested my attention as I headed back to my setup, and I craned my neck to look. Several faeries were airborne over there, which was far from normal, and a couple were even lobbing fireballs back and forth.