The Maker, the Teacher, and the Monster

by Leah Cutter

  “They deal with haunted places, spirits, like that. The next largest group are the Fortunetellers,” Nora said.

  “They deal with the future,” Dale added. “And do divinations, from cards, wax, tea leaves, those kinds of things.’

  “The rarest are the Makers,” Nora said. “They deal with the present. Do transformations.”

  “Like grass to rope. Or a tiny ring into a big circle,” Dale said, gesturing. Then he gave Nora a false scowl. “Or a drop of water into a bucketful.”

  Nora just shrugged. It had only been the one time. And he’d been asking for it.

  “So you’re a Maker?” Mom asked. She looked wary. “I mean, you’re always making stuff, right?”

  “Not the same,” Nora said. Though she’d thought that way for a long while, that the only magic worth anything was the magic of hard sticks and a single piece of yarn transformed into something wearable.

  “But it helped,” Dale said.

  “But it helped,” Nora agreed. It had been her natural path. She’d just never imagined where it would lead her.

  “How do you transform something?” Mom asked, looking from one twin to the other.

  “Magic,” Dale said with a grin.

  Nora sighed and rolled her eyes. “Let me show you.” She walked to the far side of the couch where she’d already put three wooden dowels, each one and a half inches in diameter, and about two feet long.

  “Oooo,” Dale said. “Whatcha gonna make, Nor?”

  “Just watch.” Nora did have to admit this part was kind of fun, even if the larger transformations left her tired.

  Nora picked up the coffee table sitting in front of the couch and moved it out of the way, then pushed back the other chairs, so there was a large, open space between the couch, the chairs, and the wall. She placed the three sticks in the center of the space, then knelt down, and pressed them tightly together in her hands.

  With a deep calming breath, Nora closed her eyes and pushed everything else out of her mind. In her head, she played the rhythmic clicking noise of a spinning wheel. She clearly imagined the three dowels in her hands, solid wood that she’d picked up as scraps and had Dale saw off the ends, making them all the same length.

  In her mind’s eye, Nora saw the dowels expand. First, they grew greater in diameter, to three inches, then six. She pushed the ends out, so they’d reach the edge of the clear space, maybe four feet away.

  Then she started multiplying them. Instead of the three large dowels that she held in her hands, there were now six, then nine, then twelve.

  When they’d spread out as wide as Nora could hold her arms open, she drew herself back, finding the quiet of her own mind again, before she opened her eyes.

  Mom still sat in her chair, her mouth gaping open. “Is that—are they real?” she asked.

  Nora nodded, tired but not exhausted. “You can touch them.”

  Mom slid slowly to her knees, then reached out a hand, keeping her body as far away from the transformed dowels as she could.

  “They’re warm,” she said.

  “Yes,” Nora said. She rubbed her hands on her thighs. They burned. They’d stay warmer than the rest of her for the remainder of the night, maybe part of the next day as well.

  “You—you do this,” Mom said. “Often?”

  “No,” Nora said. “Makes me sleepy.” She may have been exaggerating a little—the transformations didn’t make her as tired as they used to.

  “And you?” Mom said, turning and accusing Dale. “What can you do?”

  “Nope, Mom, Nor here’s the magical one,” Dale said, holding up his hands as if he were giving up. “I just deal with clockwork.”

  “Some might call that a magical ability,” Nora pointed out, going back to one of their oldest fights.

  “And they’d be wrong. Yeah, I have an affinity for it. But other people do it, can understand it,” Dale said. “What you do, Nora, that’s special. Really.”

  “Idiot,” Nora said, the word slipping out.

  “Demented,” Dale said softly.

  Nora heard the love behind it still.

  * * *

  Denise lay in her bed, eyes closed, but her mind still raced. She should just get up and do some work because she doubted she’d ever actually get to sleep. Though could she concentrate enough to work? Probably not.

  With a sigh, Denise rolled over onto her other side again. Her own daughter had some kind of magical ability. Called herself a Maker. How could that be? Had it come from her side of the family? Were these sorts of things inherited? Dale took after her father, always wanting to tinker and fix things, while Nora did take after her mother...

  Denise thought back, trying to remember any time when she’d been a child that she might have accused her mother of magic. The only incidents that stuck out were the times her mother had picked up the phone before it rang. She’d claimed once that she’d been about to make a phone call, and another time, that the phone had buzzed.

  But Denise had thought it strange at the time, and suspected her mother had lied.

  Now, Denise remembered one other thing—when her mother had laughingly predicted every song a radio station was about to play, before they played it, for almost a full hour. She’d said it was because the station had a regular playlist that they always followed.

  Had that been her mother showing Denise her magical abilities? That she was—what was it that Nora and Dale had called them—a Fortuneteller?

  Her mother—Grandma Lilly as the twins called her—had also been the one to teach Nora how to knit and do needlework. Had she seen Nora’s potential and tried to direct it?

  It was a shame both of her parents were dead now and she couldn’t ask them. Tragic car accident involving a snowy day and an icy bridge. And her father had always been such a careful driver, too.

  Couldn’t get more guidance for Nora.

  Though Nora hadn’t said anything, Denise could tell her daughter was reaching, struggling. She needed a teacher for her magic. Whoever had taught her the knotwork hadn’t stuck around: Nora was constantly experimenting on her own, limited only by her own imagination. She needed knowledge, though.

  Denise turned onto her back and opened her eyes, staring up at the darkened ceiling. Could the fairies help? Something nudged the back of her mind. Hadn’t that fellow, what was his name, the ugly one, Cornelius, said he wanted to help the twins?

  He must have.

  The memory of holding the green agate in her palm soothed Denise. She imagined herself fingering the little stone, rolling it in her pocket. Her racing thoughts calmed and slowed.

  The next time Denise saw Cornelius, she’d have to be sure to invite him into the house so they could talk about Nora’s training.

  * * *

  Kostya the dwarf stood opposite the Maker’s house—panting, sweating freely, hands and knees shaking, heart beating savagely—but it had worked.

  Even as powerful as the girl had gotten, she hadn’t seen him.

  She’d known something wasn’t right and had spent too long staring right where he’d been standing. For more than a few breaths, Kostya thought all his preparation had been for naught.

  But the Maker still hadn’t seen him.

  Kostya gave a huge sigh of relief and tried to still his shaking hands. That didn’t work, so he lowered himself onto the ground, moaning softly as his muscles burned and his old bones creaked. He sat there trying to recover his strength for a while, knowing it would never come fully back, never again.

  As much as he fought against it, he was dying.

  The damage he’d taken during the tunnel explosion that had destroyed Queen Adele’s great machine and much of the fairy kingdom palace had been too much. Plus, he’d deliberately chosen to speed along the aging processes by having foreign magic woven directly into his skin.

  And that magic had worked. He was invisible, hidden to all.

  He would have to be sure to include his success in his next report to the dwarve
n king.

  The initial steps toward his revenge were final. The fairies knew he was there, but the Maker didn’t. And the dwarven king appeared to be believing everything Kostya reported, both the truths and the half-truths about the Greater Oregon Fairy Kingdom.

  Time to mark where they lived, setting traps, then bringing down the wrath of all the dwarves on all of them, human and fairy alike.

  By fall, they’d all be dead.

  Chapter Four

  Garung glanced to the right, nodding to Sree, then to the left, smiling at Pravir. They were finally here! In the air! Flying strongly, on their way north.

  A part of him had thought it would never happen.

  The sky above them was coated in dark night, with hundreds of stars lending their light and strength to the fliers. Below them lay the coast, with the darker ocean to the left, spread like a living, moving blanket, hiding away the life underneath. The few manmade lights they flew above reflected the water like a net, sparkling at the corner knots.

  Oh, the poems Garung could write about this night! How the wind buffeted his wings and strengthened his resolve, how the light from the stars slid down from the heavens and would make even the moon goddess weep. How—

  “Garung!” came an urgent cry from behind.

  Garung looked behind him, sighed, and raised his left fist, before pointing toward the land.

  One of the younger students needed a break. Again.

  Garung contained his sigh of frustration and led the fairy pack inland, searching for a clearing in the coastal pines. They were never going to get there if they kept stopping this way!

  Then again, it was only the second night. The fairies would grow stronger.

  Or he’d threaten to leave them behind. Again.

  As soon as they’d landed, the two girls who’d signaled for the break took off, running and giggling, into the woods.

  What were they doing? This was no time for games!

  Before Garung could go after them, Titir put his hand on Garung’s arm, stopping him. “They’ve never been outside before,” he said softly, his eyes wide with wonder. “They’ve never ‘rolled in the pine needles on a soft night’s hearth,’” he said, ending with a quote from one of Garung’s favorite poems.

  “But—” Garung stopped himself and shook his head. Couldn’t they wait until the next scheduled break? Or until they’d flown more than just a few miles?

  He’d never been this scattered, not even on their first journey. He’d flown straight and true.

  Then again, their troop had been the first to leave, and not one of the students knew what was out past the kingdom’s boarders. They’d been too scared to do much exploring.

  His troop had proven that it was safe to travel up the coast, despite their losses, which had mostly happened because of the explosion. At least they’d been allowed to leave—Cornelius had made it known that the dwarf Kostya had been responsible for the explosion, not the southerners.

  But they’d also no longer been welcome.

  Adele had assured Garung and the council that the northern kingdom would welcome her back with open arms.

  If that had been true, why hadn’t she gone to them, instead of flying so far south? One of the excuses she’d given was that the explosion had destroyed the tinkers with enough experience to repair her wings, and so she’d gone to where she could get healed.

  That Garung believed.

  Adele had also murmured about how some in the court hadn’t been wanting to follow her lead, but she’d been a good queen.

  Garung knew the truth and kept silent about it: As queen, Adele had made her people work on the great machinery while letting her kingdom fall into disrepair.

  He’d seen his own council do the same, only instead of directing the people to a single project they didn’t direct the people at all, with the same results: Skills were lost because there were no apprentices to hand knowledge down to. Instead of traditional crafts, fairies spent their time on the new fabrics and new skills, such as the new silk and long-lasting plastics.

  And now there were only a few woodcarvers worth the name, and fewer blacksmiths, farmers, even soap makers.

  One of the things Adele hadn’t seen (or guessed, though she was smarter than Garung had initially thought) was that the bags that Garung and the other leaders carried didn’t just contain things for their journey, but gifts: Items to tempt the fairies from the northern kingdom to migrate south. More of the new cloth, marvelous jewels that were factory made, as well as intricately woven artwork.

  The softer things that his people excelled at.

  Though Garung had no watch, he still kept time in his head, in the human fashion. After about ten minutes, he called out, “Rest over. We should go.”

  The two who’d initially called the break were nowhere to be seen.

  Garung asked their friends where they’d gone, but the two boys just shook their heads grimly. They understood that this was business and that they needed to be flying again, soon. It was much safer for them in the air. Though the dwarves had been defeated and driven away centuries before, the return of Kostya had unsettled Garung. Plus, there were wild creatures in this woods, both mundane and not, who wouldn’t hesitated to attack a fairy on the ground.

  Just as Garung was about to organize the fairies into a search party to go after the two, in the general direction he’d seen them leave, they came bursting back through the trees.

  Even in the dim light, Garung could see they’d grown pale.

  “We’re not alone,” Frieda said.

  “There are other fairies here!” her friend added.

  “We found one of the lost troops,” Frieda proclaimed.

  * * *

  Right on cue, the soft knock came on Dale’s bedroom door.

  “Come on in, Nor,” he said. He’d been tempted to tease her, tell her to go away, he wasn’t interested, but he knew she was still shaken from talking with Mom earlier. And though he was her brother, he tried not to be an ass to her. At least, not all the time.

  Dale put aside the clock he’d been working on. Though he’d accumulated a lot of tools and measuring devices (particularly from Grandpa Lewis, when he’d died) and Dale had built himself a tiny workbench, he still sometimes missed the bench he’d had at their old house, the one he’d had to leave behind when they’d run from Dad.

  One of the good things that had come from Dad finding out where they were was that Dale and Nora had been able to contact their grandparents and their friends again. Officer Palace had stopped by often, too, at least for the first year or so.

  Had the officer and his mom dated? Nora thought so, but Dale wasn’t sure. Mom would have said something.

  “Hey,” Nora said, coming in and bouncing on his bed, deliberately messing it up.

  Dale sighed. It was one of the ways he was opposite his twin: He liked order, with his bed made, and his tools straightened and hanging precisely on the wall. Nora reveled in mess. She always had half a dozen projects scattered across her floor, notes taken in half a dozen places instead of ordered in a single three-ring binder, even her pillows were mismatched.

  “Whatcha working on?” Nora asked, staying on the bed instead of coming over to bother him.

  Dale held up the pretty, blue-and-white porcelain clock for her to see. “The insides had to be completely replaced, I’m afraid,” Dale said. While the outside was still an antique, the works were now modern. “It would have cost too much to try to get the parts on eBay or somewhere.”

  “Is it for Betty?” Nora asked.

  “Uh huh,” Dale said, as nonchalantly as he could, sliding the clock back onto his desk. When he looked up, Nora was staring directly at him. “What?” he challenged.

  “Why’d your voice go all funny?” Nora asked innocently enough.

  “It didn’t,” Dale denied.

  “Is there something going on between you and Miss Betty, perhaps?” his sister teased.

  “Please,” Dale said, rolling his
eyes. Betty was ancient—maybe even in her fifties.

  “But there’s someone,” Nora persisted.

  “Nora, this is the time when I’m telling you to butt out,” Dale said firmly.

  “Oh.”

  Dale relished the way Nora blinked and sat back. Good. He hadn’t told her to get out of his business very often. Though they weren’t fraternal twins—they couldn’t talk without saying a word, like the twins he’d read about—they were still really close, closer than most brothers and sisters.

  Having a secret like the fairy kingdom and saving the world hadn’t hurt their closeness, either.

  But sometimes—Dale just needed his space. Nora had more friends than Dale, would hang out with them all the time if she could. Dale needed the peace and quiet of his room sometimes, to sit all alone and work on things. Mostly Dale didn’t mind sharing everything with Nora, but sometimes he needed his privacy.

  It had taken Nora a while to realize that when Dale said “butt out” like that, he meant it. He tried to only do it for important things, and not for everything.

  “Brett tried to give me a ring,” Nora said, all in a rush.

  Now it was Dale’s turn to say, “Oh.”

  Brett was okay. He worked with his hands, which was good. But he wasn’t special enough, not for Nora. He was like the world before magic and the fairies. Nora needed someone who was special, like she was. Not someone so mundane. Dale suspected that was why Nora liked Brett—someone who was normal. She still had problems accepting her magic sometimes.

  “I wouldn’t take it,” Nora added.

  “Was it an engagement ring?” Dale asked. Because he might have had to say something about Brett if he’d asked Nora to marry him.

  “No, just a promise ring,” Nora said. “I would have taken it. I wanted to take it.”

  “But?” Dale prompted. Nora needed to get away from Port City, away to college, where she’d find someone more special.

  “The ring was from old Eli,” Nora explained. “It wasn’t right.”

  “What do you mean?” Dale asked. “Was it magic?” That would have been kind of cool.

  Nora nodded. “It felt slippery. I don’t know why.” She gave an exasperated sigh. “I wish a teacher would show up. I know there’s so much more I could be doing, but I don’t know how!”