B0075M2D1U EBOK

by Julie Cassar

  After Nick dropped me off at home, I wanted to get a hold of Anya and Brennan and tell them what had happened. I called their cottage and left them a message. No use in telling them the whole sordid story on their voice mail. I’d just wait until I could speak with them in person tomorrow. There was nothing else I could do for the night but dream about the amazing kiss that Nick and I shared on my front porch just before he left.

  Chapter 17

  Tuesday morning I awoke to Leo screaming my name from the bottom of the stairs. “RUUUBBYY! HEY! Roooob! Jeremy’s here to see you!” Geesh! Did he have scream at the top of his lungs like that? And why was Jeremy over so early in the morning without calling first? “RUUUBBBYYY!!! Getcher lazy butt UP!” Leo yelled again.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I half-heartedly shouted back. “C’mon up, Jer.” I heard Jeremy climb up the stairs two at a time. He popped his head into my doorway as I sat up in my bed, rubbing my eyes. “What the hell are you doing here so early in the morning?” I yawned.

  “Well good morning to you too, Miss Sassitude! Ruby, sweetie. It’s like, almost noon. I was dying to hear about your date with Mr. Hotness. I called an hour ago and Leo told me you were still sleeping. Well, hang on a sec,” he put his fingers thoughtfully to his chin as he remembered, “Actually, what he said was, ‘Scooby is still curled up dreaming about chasing fire trucks.’ I couldn’t wait any longer, so I just came over.” Jeremy sat down on the edge of my bed, wearing his black jeans, black wristbands and red and black t-shirt. Did the kid realize it was summer and probably going to be over eighty degrees today? Geesh. I got all sticky just looking at him and said, “Jeremy, you should really consider wearing shorts. It is summer, ya know?” I dragged myself out of bed and walked out of my room to use the bathroom. Jeremy just shook his head. “You are so crabby in the morning, ya know?” he called after me.

  I finished up and walked back into my room to hear Jeremy exclaim, “Pretty flowers!” Did Nick give them to you?” he wiggled his eyebrows playfully as he walked over to smell them.

  Just looking at the beautiful white peonies in the vase on my dresser made me smile all over again. “Yeah,” I sighed. “It was wonderful, Jeremy…other than when I ended up drenched in the lake, everything was perfect.”

  “You WHAT?!” Jeremy looked at me with wide eyes. I shook my head, “Long story. I’ll tell ya, just lemme get dressed first.”

  “Okay, I’ll give you some privacy. I’ll just go put some fresh water in these,” he said, as he took the vase of flowers off my dresser and walked towards the bathroom. I pulled out a pair of cutoffs and a clean t-shirt to put on just as I heard the familiar soda-pop fizzing sound.

  “What are you guys doing here?!” I hissed at Anya and Brennan, “Jeremy is right next door in the bathroom!” Anya and Brennan looked surprised. They were usually so good at knowing when I was alone. I guess Sirrush being here really was throwing off their magic.

  At that very moment, Jeremy walked back into the room.

  Uh-oh.

  He jerked to a stop, holding the vase of flowers in his hands, “Wha…Wher…How did you guys get here?” looking dumbfounded and glancing back and forth between Anya and Brennan. “I only stepped into the bathroom for like, thirty seconds and I left the door open. I didn’t see or hear you guys come up the stairs.” He was blinking and shaking his head, trying to figure out how Anya and Brennan got past him and into my room without him noticing.

  I started to stutter, “Ah, Ummm…” when Brennan thankfully cut me off, “It’s okay, Ruby. We’ve known Jeremy long enough. He’s trustworthy. We may as well tell him. It’s just getting too difficult to keep it a secret from him any longer.”

  “Tell me what? What secret? What’s going on?” Jeremy asked, looking at all of us his eyes suddenly getting huge with excitement, “Oooohhh! I know! Are you two secretly in love and having a torrid affair?!?!” he exclaimed. “Oh. But that wouldn’t explain why Anya was here….Or how the two of you got in here without me seeing…”

  “No! We are not secretly in love!” I retorted. “Geesh Jeremy! Gimme a break! I like Nick, remember?”

  “Ohhh, right, right, right. Okay. Soooo, what’s the deal? What’s going on?”

  Anya and Brennan looked at me. Great. So now it’s my job to tell Jeremy about the two fairies standing in my room? Ugh. I took a deep a breath and said, “Okay. Here goes…Jeremy, I see fairies.” I felt like that kid from the movie who saw dead people.

  “Oh. Ha ha. Nice. Calling me a fairy, real original.” Jeremy oozed sarcasm.

  I shook my head, closing my eyes and pinching the bridge of my nose with my fingers, “No. I mean… I really, literally can see fairies. As in, winged, magical creatures from another realm.” I looked at Jeremy, who stood there looking as confused as ever. He wasn’t getting it, so I turned to Anya and Brennan and said, “Okay guys. Do the pop thing,” and POP they were gone.

  “WHAT THE HELL!?!?” Jeremy shouted, obviously astounded as he dropped the vase of peonies he was holding in his hands. It shattered on the hardwood floor, spilling water and broken glass everywhere as he raced over to where Anya and Brennan were just standing, looking wildly around.

  I sighed again. “I told you. I see fairies. And Anya and Brennan are two of them.”

  Jeremy whirled around to look at me and exclaimed, “Seriously? Ohmygosh ohmygosh ohmygosh! This is so freaking cool!”

  Just then, Anya and Brennan soda-pop fizzed back into the room from their swirly mist. Jeremy’s eyes bugged out and the color drained from his face. “Oh sweet Lord. I need to sit down,” he murmured as he went to sit on my bed, staring blankly at Anya and Brennan and looking like he might pass out.

  I tiptoed over the broken glass and water on the floor and went to sit on the bed next to Jeremy. Anya reached down to pick up the flowers. “I’ll just get something to put these in,” she said as she walked lightly out of the room. Brennan stood there, feet spread apart, his arms folded across his chest, staring at me and Jeremy on the bed, “Is he gonna be okay?” Brennan asked. “Of course he’s gonna be okay,” I snapped as I put my arm around Jeremy.

  “You really are quite crabby in the morning,” Jeremy said again as he looked over at me, half-smiling and seemingly coming out of his dumb-struck state. “I’m sorry about dropping the flowers,” he said. I waved it off, “No biggie,” I answered. “But now you know. Anya and Brennan are fairies. I’ve been seeing them since I was five years old. And most people can’t see them, except when they appear like they just did to you. That’s them in their human form. They can choose when to show themselves.”

  “This is some seriously cool shit.” Jeremy said, shaking his head.

  I smiled, “Yeah. I know.”

  Then, Jeremy suddenly smacked my shoulder and pouted, “I cannot believe you kept it from me all this time!”

  “Ooowwww!!!! That hurt!” I said, rubbing the side of my arm and shoulder where he smacked me. Jeremy snorted, “Oh, get over it.”

  At that moment, Anya walked back into the room and placed the vase of peonies back on the dresser. “So, we all good?” she questioned, looking from me to Jeremy and back to me again. I nodded, “Yep. We’re good. But…I think he should probably hear everything.”

  “There’s more??” Jeremy shrilled, his eyes widening.

  Anya looked at Brennan and he silently nodded.

  “Brace yourself Jer,” I said as I squeezed his shoulder, “You’ll definitely wanna stay sitting for this.”

  Chapter 18

  Jeremy was pacing my room, while I was sweeping up the last of the broken glass from the earlier dropped vase. “I cannot believe there’s a freaking dragon living in Lake City!” he excitedly said, as he was shaking his head and walking around my room. “I mean. A real, honest to goodness diggidy-damn dragon! And lemme see if I got this straight…he came through to our world on the Blue Moon using some jabooble-scooble magic, healed himself in the lake, and is now nesting somewhere nearby and flying around causing all
kinds of trouble? And you guys are like, fairy royalty and part of some huge Royal Counsel?”

  “Pretty much,” I shrugged as I swept the last of the glass into the dustpan and emptied it in the trash.

  “You can see why we never told anyone of our presence in your world,” Anya said. “It is just so much safer for everyone involved if we keep our secrets. Your modern world is simply not capable of accepting fairies, let alone dragons. There are no more slayers. There are no more well-known, human-accepted Wizards, like the great Merlin…they’ve been written off simply as lore. Could you imagine if a dragon was caught? There would be all kinds of scientific experiments done, or he would be kept in a zoo, instead of being treated as a living, breathing, intelligent and powerful being.” I sensed an air of disgust in her tone at her revelation of a dragon being kept in a zoo, but she kept her royal calm as she stood next to Brennan. They both somehow seemed like they aged ten years since I last saw them.

  “Of course! Of course!” Jeremy whole-heartedly agreed and started wildly flaying and gesturing his hands all over the place, as he continued, “But now that I know, I can totally help you guys! I mean…this is soooo exciting! Dragon slaying and fairy magic! It’s like I’m stuck in the middle of a Harry Potter book! This is so excellent!” He was actually giddy.

  I just shook my head. “It’s not so great, Jeremy. We have got a craptastic problem on our hands. I actually came face-to-face with Sirrush and he is one nasty dude.” Just then, Brennan angrily marched over to me and grabbed my shoulders, practically shaking me, “You WHAT?!” Anya stood there, as every muscle in her body appeared to stiffen with tension, and stared at me with wide eyes.

  “Chill, Brennan! Geesh,” I frowned, pushing him away from me. “I was gonna tell you guys…Remember? I called you and left a message last night? But then you all decided to soda-pop fizz in front of Jeremy and blah, blah, blah…Gimme a break!” I was so annoyed that he was acting like I had kept something from him. It’s not like I was going to keep it a secret. We just had gone through the whole ordeal of filling Jeremy in on everything and I just hadn’t gotten to telling them about my run-in with Mr. Crazyass Dragon yet.

  “So what exactly happened with your ‘face-to-face’ Ruby?” Anya asked, looking only slightly less-pissed at me than Brennan did.

  “Wellll…it’s like this. See, me and Nick rented a boat from Paddletime and we went out to watch the sunset. Nick took us near the island – you know the place Jer – I saw something that I thought could be Sirrush’s nest. Then, the crazyass beast decided to show himself!”

  Jeremy covered his mouth with his hand and gasped like a little girl while Anya and Brennan stood frozen, looking shocked.

  “He came up behind Nick. Thankfully, he didn’t notice –”

  “Ha. Big surprise,” Brennan sarcastically interrupted. He seemed to have come out of his state of shock. I shot him a nasty warning glance and continued on, “But it was close. I swear, that crazy dragon looked right at me and then knocked on the bottom of our boat a few times…he actually made me fall out!”

  Jeremy bobbed his head with understanding, exclaiming, “Ohhh! That’s how you ended up soaking wet!”

  I nodded, “Exactly. But thankfully, we got the hell outta there before anything else could happen.”

  Anya still looked worried as her pale face was serious and full of concern as she asked, “Nick doesn’t suspect anything?” I stood firm, shaking my head, sure of my answer. “Nope. Don’t think so. I stood up in the boat to distract him and he thought I just lost my balance and fell out because I made the boat rock.” Brennan snickered again and I shot him another evil look.

  “Well, that’s good,” Anya sighed with relief, and seemed to slightly relax. “At least we don’t have to worry about him telling the whole town about our little problem.”

  “But how do we catch him?” Jeremy anxiously asked. He was practically bouncing off the walls with excitement, “I mean, what do we do next?”

  Brennan’s posture stiffened as he puffed out his chest, putting on an air of regality. “Well, first we need to go check if that’s really Sirrush’s nest,” Brennan calmly stated. Sure, now all of a sudden he was all business again. Snickering at me falling out of the boat with Nick was okay, but now that talk has shifted back to Sirrush, he’s all formal and direct. Looking at him stand there so stoically and….majestic…was just so weird. It was so unlike him. This was a side to Brennan that I never saw before. He continued with a serious look etched into his face, “Then we should report back to my Father and the Royal Counsel to let them know that we’ve located his hiding place. Maybe they’ll have more information for us as to how to proceed.” Although I did hear a slight hint of worry in his voice, I didn’t understand how he could seem so calm about all of this. With Jeremy so jacked up feeling like he was Ron Weasley, and my stomach nervously twisting with anticipation, I was growing more uneasy about this entire situation.

  I asked the all-important question, “Soooo, when do we have to go? I mean, can’t you just go tell the Counsel and get some kind of fairy police to come and handle this? And why do the two of you seem so darn calm about this?!” I barely contained my anxiety as I looked back and forth between the two royal fairies standing in front of me. I’m just a kid for Pete’s sake! What do I know about catching a dragon? I can tell you what I know…nothing! I shouldn’t be doing this!

  Anya spoke up, “We aren’t that calm, Ruby. But we have seen problems like this before. The situation is serious, but we need to be careful and react accordingly. Things could go awry faster than you can blink. A calm and focused approach is necessary. It is how we have been taught to react. But, trust me, we are anxious too.” I heard the bit of tension creep into her voice at the last statement. She continued with a bit more urgency in her voice, “Well, we know that Sirrush is nesting somewhere around the Lake. We need to find exactly where his nest is soon. The Royal Counsel is anxious to proceed. Dragons sleep most of the day. So it’d be safer for us if we go during the daylight.”

  “Oh yeah…I suppose that makes sense,” I agreed, “Every time he’s been spotted, or has caused some damage somewhere, it was in the evening or at night. Well, except for the first time I saw him in the water, that Saturday afternoon when we met to swim and I thought it was trash bobbing around in the water.”

  Anya nodded, “That’s right. But that Friday before was the night of the Blue Moon, so he had just come through the portal. He was swimming in the water to accelerate his healing time. And his biological clock was probably off due to shifting worlds.”

  Jeremy piped up, “Oh! You mean like jet lag or something?”

  Anya smiled, “Right. Something like that.” She went on, with a more serious tone to her voice, “And now that he has fully healed and is causing more trouble, we need to take care of the problem. Immediately.”

  “Okay,” I sighed, tension heavy in my voice, “So when do we go check out old Cyrus’s nest?” I knew I wasn’t saying the slimy beast’s name correctly, but I really didn’t care. I silently hoped to hear, ‘Never.’ (And I even crossed my fingers behind my back, just for good measure.)

  No such luck.

  “Right away…as soon as you’re dressed,” Brennan answered quickly as he ushered the others out of my room. Oh sure, now he seems to be all impatient and ready to get moving. Brennan’s mood swings from his calm, royal act to swift urgency was making me nuts. I blew out a big sigh, hoping to release some of the tension I felt crawling through my veins.

  I threw my hair into a pony tail, dressed quickly, and slipped on my old, ratty black converse. Old and ratty, yes. But broken-in and super-comfy.

  “Okay guys,” I announced as I firmly marched out into the hallway, “Let’s go find a dragon’s nest!” I hoped I sounded more confident than I felt.

  Chapter 19

  We hurried over to Anya and Brennan’s cottage so we could take their speedboat over to the island. (Of course, they have a super-fast, super-nice boat
. What kind of fairy royalty would they be if they didn’t?) Jeremy was practically skipping with excitement and I was just nervously trying to make my feet work. Brennan and Anya moved with quick confidence. I, however, wasn’t so confident. I had seen this monster before and I wasn’t exactly looking forward to seeing it again. As we all piled into the boat, I noticed Anya’s arms were full of strange grasses and flowers and asked, “Whatcha got there? Dragon treats?” I was hoping to lighten the tension in the air with my little joke. She firmly shook her head, “Just some plants from home. We might need them.”

  “Need them for what?” I asked.

  “Hopefully nothing,” Anya said as she looked away from me. Ahhh. One of those excellent, cryptic fairy answers that I loved so much. Not.

  We got there much quicker than Nick and I did the other night. With their super-fast boat we were there in less than ten minutes. Brennan slowed the boat down as we came closer to the island. He looked around at each of our watching eyes and said, “I’m going to anchor it on the other side and we’ll have to wade in, okay?” We all nodded.

  As we made our way quietly through the murky water, all I could think about were those Rambo movies….you know – where the army guys are creeping through gross, jungle-y weeds and stuff? That’s what I felt like. (Only without the firearms…or the Comanche helicopter back-up.) I should’ve thought to bring something to defend myself against a dragon. But what could I have brought? A garden trowel? A kitchen knife? Darn it. Why do I always think of these things after the fact? I followed Brennan onto the shore of the island, with Jeremy behind me and Anya trailing him. The fairies wanted to be on either side of Jeremy and I, ‘in case anything happened.’ Yeah. That thought didn’t make me feel so good. Brennan looked back at me and I pointed ahead to where I had seen the nest. We carefully made our way through the branches, brush and fallen trees.