by Tara Maya, Elle Casey, J L Bryan, Anthea Sharp, Jenna Elizabeth Johnson, Alexia Purdy (epub)
“The Queensguard,” Grizlemor whispered. “They'll kill us both if they see you.”
“Ho there!” The tool-seller bellowed at Grizlemor. He was short and stocky, with a beard that nearly reached his belt. “What might I sell you today? We have the finest flints from the Valley of Gog, lovely stone hammers from the Caves of Dormundy—”
“Quiet, dwarf!” Grizlemor snapped. The three armored fairies approached them along the street.
“You'll not quiet me, goblin!” the dwarf replied. “Why, I'll speak all day of the fineness of these hand-crafted tools, good for all manner of carpentry, masonry, sculptory, or makery! Only the best stones, only the best—”
“Fine, fine, I'll buy one!” Grizlemor handed the dwarf a golden ring from one of his pockets.
“Ah, the gentleman goblin would like to trade at last!” the dwarf said. He sniffed the ring, licked it, then bit it with his wide teeth. “And what is your pleasure today? I have chisels of the greatest quality—”
“I don't care, just be quiet!” Grizlemor whispered.
“Perhaps your friend would like....” The dwarf's brow furrowed as he stared at Jason. “What manner of Folk are you?”
“He's an ogre,” Grizlemor said.
“An ogre! He's hardly ugly enough for that!”
“Among his people, he is considered the ugliest ogre of all,” Grizlemor said.
The dwarf turned to face the three Queensguard fairies approaching his cart. “And how might I serve you, great fairies of the Guard?”
Grizlemor tightened his grasp on Jason's mouth. If the armored fairies leaned too far over the cart, they would see Jason and Grizlemor hiding there.
“Dwarves require a special license to sell inside the city walls,” one of the Queensguard fairies said. “Do you have your paperwork in order?”
“Oh, yes, sir...” The dwarf reached under the cart and patted his hand across an empty shelf. “I'm certain I have the scroll here somewhere...”
“There is a fine if you don't have your scroll,” the Queensguard fairy said.
“Of course, of course,” the dwarf said. He held out the gold ring that Grizlemor had given him. “Will this suffice for today?”
The fairy took the ring and inspected it. Then he closed it in his fist, and the three black-armored fairies continued along the street.
The dwarf frowned at Grizlemor. “I suppose you'll want to complete your purchase now.”
“Forget about it,” Grizlemor said. He stood and pulled Jason to his feet. “Come along, young...ogre. We have business ahead.” Grizlemor led him along the street.
“Thank you, good sir!” the dwarf yelled after him. “This was my best sale of the day! I would appreciate your repeat business, gentle goblin!”
“Why won't he be quiet?” Grizlemor muttered under his breath.
The goblin took them to a quieter area of the city, where mossy stone walls lined the street. Little round wooden doors were built into the wall, only a few inches apart from each other.
Ahead of them, Jason could hear enchanting music, like nothing he'd ever heard before. It soothed him and energized him at the same time. He wanted to dance his way down the street.
“Here we are.” Grizlemor approached one of the round wooden doors. “My very humble home. I shall check my stash-hole...where are you going?”
Jason had passed right by, barely hearing the goblin. The music drew him forward, as if it had taken control of his feet.
Grizlemor hurried to catch up. “We've just passed my house.”
“What is that music?” Jason asked. He followed the curved street around until he saw the source of it.
Ahead of him, there was a small park full of wildflowers at the intersection of two curving streets. People danced at the middle of the park—and they didn't look like fairies, but normal people, between the ages of ten and twenty, boys and girls, all different races, all dressed in very different clothes. They danced within a ring of large, spotted mushrooms.
Four musicians sat outside the ring of mushrooms on a woven-grass blanket. A hairy orange creature, bigger than a normal man, pounded a hand drum. Tusks jutting up from his lower jaw kept his face in a permanent snarl. A pink-haired female fairy played a small silver harp inscribed with floral-shaped runes. A young man with goat horns and hooves blew into an instrument made of a row of hollow reeds, arranged from shortest to longest and lashed together.
The leader of the band seemed to be the fairy with dark, violet-streaked hair and a matching violet heart tattoo on her arm. She played a six-stringed instrument with a neck that bent sharply back toward her. Jason recognized this as a lute, a kind of medieval guitar. She sang as she played, in a language Jason didn't recognize, and her voice was beautiful. She walked among the other musicians, nodding in approval as they played.
“We've missed our stop, young sir,” Grizlemor said.
“What's happening here?” Jason said. “That music...”
“Makes you want to join in the dance, doesn't it?” Grizlemor smiled with his blunt yellow teeth.
“Those people dancing aren't fairies, are they?”
“They are human children. Like you.”
“I thought you said humans weren't allowed here.”
“They've only come to dance. They stumble in, here and there, all over the world. Through fairy rings—” Grizlemor pointed to the ring of mushrooms “—and other little doors to Faerie. They dance until exhausted, then return home in the morning.”
“Why?”
“Because they cannot help it. The music draws out their energy, and their energy recharges our magical atmosphere.”
“Are the instruments magic?” Jason asked.
“All things in the realm run on magic,” Grizlemor said. “Now, if we could go back and conclude our business, young sir...”
Jason continued to watch, hypnotized by the fairy music. His body swayed, and his feet moved, wanting to dance.
“I want to stay and listen,” Jason said.
“You should come with me.”
“Just a minute longer,” Jason said.
The goblin sighed again. “Stay right here if you must. But do nothing to call attention to yourself. I will return with your necklace, and then you must return home.”
“Sure, sure...” Jason said, barely able to pay attention to the goblin. The music was amazing, opening his heart, making him feel every emotion at once. He hardly noticed when the goblin shuffled away.
Then the dancers began to fall, exhausted. When they hit the ground, they disappeared. The kids faded from view until the circle of mushrooms was empty, and the musicians stopped playing.
Jason blinked several times as he remembered himself. For a minute, he'd been unable to think of anything but the music. He'd never heard anything like it, music that made him feel excited and blissful while it played, and then sad and lonely when it stopped. The instruments really must have been magic.
The lute-playing fairy lifted the strap from her shoulders and laid the lute down on the grass blanket. She stretched and said something to the band. The four of them walked across the street and into an open-air cafe, where they bought drinks served in large, cup-shaped yellow lilies. The two fairies and the little goat-man sat at a stained-glass table, in chairs made of delicate little strands of wood. The huge, hairy drum player had to squat beside them because his giant orange butt would have obviously crushed the fairy chairs.
Jason glanced behind him. Grizlemor was nowhere in sight, and he wouldn't be surprised if the goblin wasn't planning to return. There were countless little round doors packed in tight rows along the wall—Jason would never be able to figure out the one to Grizlemor's house.
On the other hand...he wondered what his band could accomplish if they had those magic fairy instruments to play. He imagined crowds of people entranced by the music, unable to stop dancing until they fell over from exhaustion. With the magic instruments, they'd be able to get gigs all over Minneapolis, maybe e
ven play somewhere in Chicago. And that would make Erin extremely happy, probably more than any stupid necklace.
Jason strolled up the street to the little park, keeping his head low. He checked across the street, down the alley. Nobody in the band was looking this way. They looked pretty exhausted from their set.
Jason picked up the lute. It was carved from heavy, dark wood with runes carved all over the surface. The tuning pegs glittered like gold. Violet amethysts were embedded here and there in the soundboard, and instead of an open sound hole, it had three floral shapes carved under the strings. The lute felt warm and inviting in his hands, heating his fingers like sunlight.
He looked over at the cafe again. So far, nobody had noticed him. Even with all the fireflies, there was still some darkness in the city night.
Jason could barely fit the little lute's leather strap over his shoulder and neck. The instrument pressed tight against his back.
He picked up the drum, which was covered with more of the strange fairy runes, and also had a strap for carrying and wearing. The interior was hollow, so he placed the reed pipes and the little silver harp inside it. Then he slung the drum's strap over the opposite shoulder from the lute.
Jason glanced sideways toward the fairy cafe as he started back down the street. The fairies were chatting rapidly now, as if energized by their drinks.
He walked away feeling extremely nervous, but he resisted the urge to run until he was out of sight of the cafe. Then he took off down the street, going back the way he'd come, through the crowded market.
The theft wasn't such a bad thing, Jason reasoned, because obviously the fairies were using the instruments to take advantage of people. Luring kids down here, draining them of their energy, sending them back exhausted...that didn't seem like a very nice thing to do. What had the goblin said? The fairies stole young people's energy to help power their magic.
He followed the curving roads out to the stone arch, then really put on speed when he hit the cobblestone road through the dark forest. He ran past tree after tree with the little doors built into them, until he saw an arched green door in an old elm. It looked like the door through which he'd entered the world of Faerie.
Jason ducked and entered the door, and closed it tight behind him. He ran up the spiraling root-and-dirt staircase. The stairwell grew narrower, darker and more cramped as he climbed back to his own world.
Chapter Six
By the time he reached the small door at the top of the stairs, Jason was covered in a fresh layer of dirt. He pushed open the arched green door and faced an unexpected rush of bright sunlight. How could it be daytime? He'd only been gone a couple of hours, at most. It shouldn't be much later than midnight.
He poked his head out the door. It was definitely daytime, though still shadowy in Mrs. Dullahan's back yard. It wasn't early morning light, either, but the full brightness of midday or afternoon.
His parents were going to kill him.
Jason looked at the house. Mrs. Dullahan wasn't outside, thankfully, and the narrow windows were shuttered or hung with dark curtains. Maybe she wouldn't see him.
The tiny doorway didn't look big enough for Jason to fit through. He took the instruments off his shoulders, and he put the lute outside first, laying it carefully in the high weeds. Then he pushed the drum out, scraping it on both sides as he forced it out the door. He lay flat on the ground and just barely managed to squirm his way through the little doorway.
Once he was out, the door slowly swung closed, while both the doorway and the door itself shrunk back to their original, even smaller size, as if the doorway had stretched to let him out.
Jason got to his feet and brushed off leaves and dirt. He wondered how many hours had passed. He'd left Katie alone, scared of the “monster” she'd seen. How long had she been waiting for him?
He climbed one of the old trees and out on a limb over the wall, then switched to another tree and climbed down. The instruments were strangely heavy for their small size, and they’d already made his back and shoulders sore.
He trudged through the woods, feeling drained, eager to reach his own bed and collapse. He knew he wouldn't get it so easy, though, if he'd left Katie alone all night. He'd have to get yelled at for a long time before he could sleep.
Jason reached his back yard, and he stopped in the garage to hide the instruments. His dad had an old Corvette convertible under a tarp, which had been there about as long as Jason could remember. He tucked the instruments in the narrow space between the draped car and the garage wall.
Then he approached the door into the house, took a deep breath, and walked inside.
His father was in the living room watching a fishing show, and he immediately stood up when Jason walked in.
“He's back,” Jason's father announced. Jason's mother came down the short flight of steps from the kitchen. Katie trailed behind her, looking scared.
Jason's parents stood together and glared at him.
“Um...hi,” Jason said.
“Hi?” his mother said. “Hi? After what you put us through, all you can say is 'hi'?”
“I'm sorry,” Jason said.
“Where have you been, Jason?” his father asked.
“And who were you with?” his mother asked. “And why are you so filthy?”
“It's really hard to explain,” Jason said.
“I told you,” Katie spoke up. “He chased after the monster. The burglar monster. Cause it stoled your earrings.”
“Oh, yeah, I got your earrings back, Mom!” Jason took the ruby pair of earrings from his pocket.
“They're covered in dirt!” His mom took them from his soil-encrusted hand. “Why did you take these?”
“I didn't,” Jason said. “It was—”
“The monster!” Katie interrupted. “The monster stole them and Jason brought them back. Like he said he was.”
“Katie, go to your room,” his mom said.
“Why am I in trouble? What did I do?”
“You're not in trouble. Just go.”
“But, the monster—” Katie began.
“Listen to your mother, Katie,” his dad said. “We need to have a talk with Jason.”
Katie frowned and stomped up the stairs to the kitchen.
“You still haven't told us where you were,” his dad said.
“I was in the woods. A guy stole Mom's earrings, and I chased after him, and...”
“And what?” his mom asked.
“Then I got them back.”
“From where?” his dad asked. “Who was this person?”
“It's really hard to explain. Can I just go to bed? I'll try to explain later.”
“You will not 'just go to bed,'” his mother said. “We were worried sick. You left your cell phone here, too, so we couldn't call you. Were you with those wild kids from that band again?”
“They aren't that wild,” Jason said.
“Mildred Zweig?” she asked. “And the Schneidowski kid? That Kavanagh girl, with all the weird colored hair? What's that hair about, if she's not wild?”
“How wild can you get in Chippewa Falls, anyway?” Jason asked. “Wearing plaid socks that don't match? Ordering the Tutti Frutti ice cream at The Creamery, just because nobody else does?”
“Don't be a smartmouth,” his mom said. “What were you thinking, leaving your little sister alone like that? Don't you know she was terrified when we got home?”
“No, I wasn't!” Katie shouted down the stairs. “Cause Jason got rid of the monster!”
“Katie, go to your room!” his father shouted. “Jason, you're grounded. Obviously.”
“For how long?” Jason asked.
“We'll talk in a month.”
“But I have band practice. And our audition is Thursday—”
“You are not going to Minneapolis with those kids!” Jason's mother said. “Not after disappearing all night like that!”
Jason still couldn't understand how time had flown by so quickly.
“But I have to at least go to the audition with everybody,” Jason said.
“Jason, no,” his dad said. “Not one more word about it.”
“But they're counting on me—”
“You should have thought of that before you decided to leave your sister alone and spend the night out with your friends,” his mom said.
Jason realized it was pointless to argue anymore. If he told his parents he'd chased a goblin to the fairy world, he'd probably just get grounded even longer. And sent to a psychiatrist.
“Now, go and wash up,” his mom said. “You're dripping dirt all over my carpet. And stay in your room while we rest. We were up all night worried about you.”
Chapter Seven
Though he was very tired, Jason couldn't get to sleep Sunday night. He kept looking at his window, waiting for something to crawl through into his room—Grizlemor the goblin maybe, or a violet-haired fairy with a heart tattoo, or the hairy ogre-creature that played the drum. He jumped every time the wind made the trees creak outside. He was still awake when his alarm went off for school.
Monday morning, Jason left the house through the garage. Before he left, he peeked behind the old Corvette and lifted the drop cloth he'd used to cover the stolen instruments.
What he found surprised him. All four of the instruments had shrunk in size until they looked like toys. The lute was smaller than a violin, the harp would have fit in the palm of his hand, and the set of reed pipes was no bigger than a whistle. The drum was the size of a cupcake.
Jason could just imagine how Erin, Mitch and Dred would react if he brought these to school and suggested they use them to make music. They would laugh at him, or think he was crazy, or both. What had seemed like a brilliant idea in the land of Faerie on Saturday night looked ridiculous in the gray light of a Monday morning.
He covered up the instruments again, got on his bike, and rode to school.