"Music and sugar cookies improve everything. Still sounds like you're taking advantage of the royal name and all... but if so, keep it up. There has to be some benefit to being Queen, and if improving my best friend's dating life is it, I'll take it."
Lani curtsied, "Thanks, Your Majesty," she said, not entirely able to help giggling.
Megan joined in, then stood. “We'll all talk about it tomorrow as we head home.”
Chapter 7: Close-Knit Family
Their house might have been the least decorated on the street—that part was normal. What brought tears to Megan's eyes was that the house was decorated for Christmas at all. White and blue lights lined the edge of the roof, and there were a few giant paper snowflakes taped to the insides of the front windows.
As holiday decor went, it was nothing fancy, but the fact her mother had made the effort without prompting or help made it a lot prettier to Megan than the neighbors with all of their light-up snowmen, reindeer displays, or extensive light shows.
When she went into the house, she was met with a fierce hug. Megan hugged her mother back, not letting go for a few minutes. Finally, Sheila O'Reilly drew back. Megan searched for any hint of the brittleness in her mother's eyes, thankful when there was no sign of it there.
There was nevertheless plenty of fear, though.
In looking for reassurance, after drawing back for the hug, Mrs. O'Reilly started with Justin. "Everyone's stayed safe?"
"Yes ma'am."
Sheila looked to Lani next. "And everyone's stayed sane?"
"That might take some rigorous defining, but... mostly"
Sheila nodded, then looked to Cassia. “You should call your band more often. Erin, Katja, and Cris are all worried sick about you.” Sheila reflected for a moment. “Violet's more worried serene.”
“Okay, that sounds serious,” Cassia said. “Thanks.”
Sheila nodded more sharply, then leveled a look at Ashling—and the Count.
“And what aren't you two telling everyone today?”
"Caw."
"I've been very honest and straightforward, per my usual M.O.," Ashling said, "But the Count lost his burrow owl."
Sheila smiled. "Well, tell him to stop looking in the trees: why do you think they call it a burrow owl? And the soil is just fine, thanks."
Ashling beamed at the answer and nodded.
As Megan and Lani blinked slightly, Sheila moved on. "Kerr, right?"
The brownie shuffled foot to foot, offering up a little wave. "Everyone's been well fed," Kerr volunteered, without being asked.
"Oh, good," Sheila said with a smile. "By the way, Megan, speaking of being prepared, why was this in the far corner of your closet, sandwiched between old snack wrappers and even older notebooks?" She held up an amulet jury-rigged from a first aid kit. Megan quickly recognized it as the sample of her blood, used to fool Peadar's redcap senses into believing Kerr's illusion two years ago.
"Is that where it was? I hadn't really thought about it in a long time. Sorry. Did that worry you?”
Sheila deadpanned back. "No, sweetie. Whenever I find out that my Faerie-Queen daughter has been leaving a makeshift necklace with a drop of her magically influenceable blood lying around ahead of the end of all things, I'm very chill about it."
Megan blushed, accepting the necklace. "I'll take better care of it. I promise."
Sheila was about to respond when her phone rang. She answered it, happily at first, but after a few seconds, went pale. "Girls, everyone, we need to go."
"Mom?" Megan said, "What's the matter?"
"We need to go help Kalea. Mack is missing."
***
The small group arrived at the Kahales' home to find Mrs. Kahale in a near-panic. She quickly hugged Lani, all the while talking too fast for Megan to follow the details clearly.
"Wait, what happened to Mack?" Megan asked, trying to clarify.
Her mother, meanwhile, had her cell phone in hand and was staring at it, jaw clenched.
Kalea Kahale took a deep breath. "He's gone. He was just playing, and then he wasn't there."
"Where did he go missing?" Lani asked. Megan knew her best friend well enough to tell from the waver in her voice and body language that she was nearly as panicked as her mother, but trying very hard not to show it.
Kalea showed them to the back yard. "He was playing with Victor. Then things went quiet. I went back to check on him, and Victor was asleep, and Mack was gone. No shouts, no signs of any struggle, nothing."
The detail with the dog prevented Megan from asking about chances he'd gone exploring or otherwise escaped the back yard on his own. Instead, she went straight to that. "Asleep?"
Kalea nodded, "Kumuhana isn't supposed to be home for a few hours. But if you could get him a message?" She glanced at Ashling.
"Hold up just a second," Megan said, crouching next to where Victor was sleeping. "I mean, yes, that's important. But if we can find a sign of whoever did it, Ashling might be able help us find them faster."
Kalea wrung her hands, looking to Lani for advice. Lani nodded, crouching next to Megan, and Justin joined them. "I think he had to have been drugged," Megan said.
Justin nodded, examining Victor's face. Even being handled, the dog remained fast asleep. "No mess like he'd been fed anything, but..." He held a hand up after a little more examination, opening it to reveal a handful of tiny black grains. "Anyone know what these are?"
Kerr stepped up to examine them. "Poppy seeds, enchanted. Someone put them to sleep."
Overhearing that, Sheila put her phone back in her pocket. "You're sure? So this was definitely someone..."
"Magical, yes," Kerr confirmed, studying the seeds more. "I use things like these for my anti-insomnia muffins, but not in this kind of concentration."
Kalea Kahale continued wringing her hands, looking closely at the seeds on Justin's hand. "Any side-effects? What did they do to my Mack?"
"No other effects," Kerr assured her. "They're a pretty straightforward enchantment, just put him to sleep for a while."
Megan started sifting through the grass. "There's more of them," she said, starting to crawl along, searching carefully. "Quite a few more."
"Then let's let the experts handle it,” Cassia said, taking some of the seeds from Kerr, and letting the kittens sniff at them while Cassia spoke instructions to them. "They'll track whoever it is a lot faster. Long as they don't go to sleep themselves."
"They should be okay," Kerr said, "Long as they don't get a big dose at once and inhale it all too hard. I'll whip something up to counter the effect."
"I'll... go help out, I guess," Sheila offered, following the brownie inside. Sheila paused near the door. "Come on, Kalea, we could use a hand."
Kalea hesitated, looking conflicted, but at a chance to make a meaningful contribution, she followed Sheila and Kerr into the kitchen.
Once they had the scent, the cats got right to work, moving across the grass, heads down. Megan was hopeful at first, as they seemed to pick up speed. Then both doubled back. Then again, starting to turn uneven circles about the yard, moving unevenly from one end to the other.
"It was a good idea, but maybe the seeds were just scattered everywhere?" Megan said.
Cassia shook her head. "Give it a minute. They look like they're on to something."
Lani narrowed her eyes, watching them move. "They look like Mack."
"I know you're worried, but don't start hallucinating," Megan said.
"No, I mean, they look like Mack when he gets to go to the big playground at Seattle Center."
Megan watched a little longer. "...Oh, yeah, running back and forth on the big maze painted on the ground."
“Technically, the thing in the playground isn't a maze," Ashling said. "And neither is this. Line up, ladies and Justin." She urged the Count to follow their steps in flight as best he could "We're going to walk a labyrinth."
Justin thought quickly. “Before we do that, I will bring Victor inside and
mention that we are going after Mack.” He moved to do so.
Megan fell into step right behind Ashling. "I don't see how this is going to help. We're just kind of walking in circles and patterns."
Ashling glanced back. "Remember how I told you that you should only listen to Steven Tyler under specific circumstances?"
Megan blinked. "I think so, yes."
"This is one of those. Keep walking this way. Afterwards, go back to assuming that he's probably a terrible example."
Justin came outside and fell in step.
"This is serious. Can't we go a little faster?" Lani asked.
Cassia put a hand on Lani's shoulder as they walked. "She's going as fast as she can. Hidden pathways are tricky. And we're not that far behind whoever did this. When we figure it out, me and the boys'll make them think twice next time. Or just avoid next times and tear them apart."
Lani nodded. "Okay, I know she's doing her best. I just... we've been worried about this. It was such a relief that he was seven, and nearing the collectability cutoff, with nothing going wrong. And now..."
Megan glanced back for just a moment, trying to give her friend a reassuring smile, before resuming watching Ashling to make sure she didn't lose the trail. "He'll be okay. Whoever took him didn't hurt Victor, and obviously wanted to take Mack without hurting him."
As they got further into walking the labyrinth pattern, the world began to blur in Megan's peripheral vision. The blur got gradually brighter, until the Kahales' back yard, and Earth, started to fade away entirely.
Chapter 8: Unraveling
Megan tripped over the next step on the staircase, flailing, and caught a handrail just in time to get her balance back before falling. The smells of the Seattle neighborhood were replaced with that of dust and old house smell. The grass was replaced with wooden stairs that extended some way out ahead of them. Megan looked up—to see more stairs, and then the floor. Peering over the edge of the case past the handrail, she could see ceiling in the distance. Vertigo threatened to overtake her, along with a brief sensation that gravity might shift and send her falling what, to her senses, was up, but it passed, and she remained on the stairs. The sounds from the cats, as if they were simultaneously trying to cough up hairballs, told her she wasn't entirely alone.
"Which way?" she asked, locating Ashling a few stairs ahead of her, as she tried to get used to the M.C. Escher-esque setting.
"Down this staircase, left on the next one. Just follow me," Ashling responded.
Megan would have gotten lost at least a dozen times just in the stairways and hallways, with their subjective gravity. She also never would have found the correct books to pull to cause the library shelves to turn to reveal secret passages into more networks of disorienting halls and stairs.
Ashling never hesitated, however, in guiding the group through the network, until they finally came to the first room that didn't look like a study or library—a knitting room, full of comfortable loveseats and easy chairs situated on one wall, albeit not all situated at right angles with the floor, with gravity that turned out to be equally accommodating along the bare floor, or the sitting wall.
The ceiling and its single easy chair and child-sized water bed, however, remained inaccessible, save to Mack, fast asleep in the bed, and Robin Goodfellow, occupying the far-too-big-for-him chair while knitting away on a sweater.
"Mack!" Lani tried to run to him, but ended up tumbling back to the floor when she tried to move to the ceiling. Despite the fall and the non-Euclidian geometry, Lani was back up in a second. "Give him back, right now!" she shouted towards the ceiling.
"I'm afraid that'd be against the rules," Robin answered calmly, not even looking up from his work with multiple knitting needles and one large hook, which almost looked like half a paperclip.
"Rules?" Lani glared up at him. "Fine. What do we need to do to get him back?"
"So you'd be challenging me to a game to get me to return your collector's-item brother, yes? Are you doing that personally? Because I know you're the official Smart Girl, but when you walk into a battle of wits with a huge chip on your shoulder, best to bring some backup. Besides..." He turned his eyes directly to Megan, and something looked...off about his trademark smirk. "Besides, the buck stops here, right? It's Winter and everything."
"Yeah, I'm in," Megan said. Her foot snagged a chair that had been waiting, tipped at a 45-degree angle, and she sat down. "What's the game?"
"A bit of a variant on 20 Questions. We take turns asking. We have to answer honestly. First one to fail to do so loses."
"Okay. We win, you give Mack back. What do you want if you win?"
Robin casually stuck the hook-clip-thing back in his mouth as he knitted. "What have you got?"
Megan narrowed her eyes. "B-flat?"
"Sure. As the host, I'll naturally go first."
Cassia glanced at Megan, looking suspicious. "You've dealt with him before. Are you sure you want to do this?"
"I don't want to do any of this—except get Mack back, and I will," Megan said.
"Correct and honest," Robin said, glancing downward at Cassia. "But that's the only substitute-asking by full-blooded fae in the room, or Ashling will turn it into 1000 questions."
"I would not," Ashling insisted. "Round numbers are suspicious in this context. 427 questions is the version of the game nature intended."
"I am highly in favor of being suspect," Robin answered. "We're playing 20. Nonetheless, correct. Your turn," he said to Megan, who was already trying to figure out what just happened.
"So, it's really that easy, not riddles or anything? I just need to answer honestly?" she asked.
"Truths can be the most difficult thing of all," Robin said. "Or far fewer people would have spent their existences in search of it. Besides, that's two questions... but I'll allow it in this case. But be more careful, wouldn't want to violate the rules. Yes, it's that sort of game. My turn. Why do you think I took Mack?"
Megan paused, terrified of an incorrect answer. She knew they got Mack back if she won the game, but was she giving the fae permission to take him if she lost? She looked to Lani, to see her looking angry, but hopeful. Lani just nodded, verifying she trusted Megan's solution over anything she'd come up with. Megan took a deep breath, and answered with the absolute truth, even if she knew it was usually a losing answer in most question games: "I have no idea." Then she paused. "But you left a trail. I think you want something else entirely."
"Thoughtful and honest, if non-specific. Maybe I should have made this a guessing game. That would be fun. Your turn."
He'd thrown her off, and she had a lot of questions left, so Megan went for trying to take some initiative back and throw Robin off his game as well, along with indicating they had options if he reneged on the deal. "You know we can have you tracked? Peadar's still got a taste of you."
Robin shuddered. "Can't forget. Especially not now. My turn. So... Do you really feel comfortable dating someone who calls you Majesty?"
The glare that Justin was leveling at Robin was temporarily interrupted by a quirked brow. He attempted to resume, but Megan noticed him glancing towards her, unable to hide some curiosity.
Lani bristled. "How the heck does that count?"
Megan held up a hand toward Lani and stared at Robin. "No," said Megan. "But it's better than not dating the person who happens to think he needs to call me that sometimes. My turn. Why did you take Mack?"
"To make you ask me questions. My turn: have you ever been to the Fishing Hole?"
"No. My turn. Why should I wish I'd been to the Fishing Hole?"
"Because if you'd gone in the last year and a half, you might have noticed something buried there."
A year and a half before meant the attempt to raise Balor, with the cracking of the ice during the process and the sudden, inexplicable acceleration afterward.
“My turn,” Robin continued. “What is it you think General Inwar wants?”
"I think he wants to save Faer
ie from the Fomoire. He's not real worried about Earth, but ...well, he's a guy trying to do what he thinks is right. He probably figures Earth will get sorted out once he's won.”
Robin smiled, but there wasn't the usual manic glee behind it. The expression was, in fact, almost sad. Trying to puzzle that one out, Megan used her next question. "What do you think General Inwar wants?"
Robin nodded. "I know what he wants, and you're right, but you don't know the half of it. He wants to save the worlds, Earth included. But it's not what you'd call saving, and it's not what you'd call winning.”
Megan blinked in surprise, looking to Lani, then back to Robin. She was about to ask for more information, but Robin stepped in with his question first.
"I know what he's planning. I know you're not satisfied with all his plans. What were you planning to do about it?"
Remembering the last time Robin got involved with their plans, Megan really didn't want to tell him, but she'd agreed to tell the truth. At the very least, it didn't demand the whole truth, in detail, or she'd have gotten more out of Robin's last answer. If he wanted more, he could use more questions. "We were considering going to Gorias." She went straight in to her next question. “Robin, what did the General bury at the Fishing Hole?"
Robin knitted quietly for a few more seconds. "Balor's body had to go somewhere when Inwar's crews carried it off for disposal. It went towards bringing the Fomoire back, so they can destroy the castle and bring the Fimbulwinter. You didn't think the ice broke quite that fast on its own, did you?"
"I had no idea what to think about the ice. But he really brought this war on? You agreed he wants to save the world."
"The war was going to happen, but not yet. I wasn't expecting it, but there's an everything-melting corpse that says the General got tired of waiting.” Instead of looking at her, Robin arranged fancy stitches on the hook. “One of the things on his treasure hunt list is the Gjallerhorn, to call his Gods back. He knows the dokkalfar are trying to prevent that and trying to mess with fate. But for it to be Ragnarok, everyone has to come to play. Did you really think the Gods coming back would be a salvation?" To punctuate the drama of the question, Robin went back to a steady pace with the various needles.
All's Fair (Fair Folk Chronicles Book 4) Page 4