by Gayla Twist
“Look,” Mr. B said in a soft voice. Right in front of them, some of the faye had gathered in the exact center of the mushroom ring. The coral bells had started playing an otherworldly melody, and the fairies, linking arms in groups of twos or threes, started dancing to the music. As the sylphs danced, they stirred up pollen from the flowers, or maybe it was simply fairy dust, but a shimmering sheen of gold wafted through the air powdering the men and causing a few sneezes.
Before any of the humans even knew what they were about, they found themselves dancing, too, leaping and twirling, laughing and frolicking. The fairies rose into the air, beating their colorful wings, and began darting about, loosening collars and pulling off boots. A small girl dressed in blue made off with one of Mr. B’s pearl cuff links. It was from a set his father had given him when he’d turned sixteen, so he hated to lose it but found himself laughing anyway and dancing all the more uninhibitedly.
The faye plied the men with more honeysuckle wine, lifting the small thimbles to their lips and spilling it in their mouths again and again. Shirtfronts came undone, and studs were strewn about the grass. The men were all singing a nonsense song that didn’t have any proper words, or at least none that human’s could understand, and they would simultaneously leap into the air when the melody rose then drop down onto the ground when it descended.
After a while, they were all too exhausted, not to mention drunk on wine and fairy magic, to stay standing any longer. They tumbled onto the grass and gasped for air, still humming snatches of the tune and giggling from time to time. “I do believe I just saw a pair of men’s trousers fly away,” Mr. B said. The sight had broken him out of a reverie that involved staring at a very small cloud that was tinged with pink and gold as the sun threatened to dip below the horizon.
“They may very well be yours,” Sebastian informed the Sorcerer.
“Couldn’t be,” Mr. B replied, suddenly finding it very hard to keep his eyelids open. “I don’t seem to be wearing any.”
Chapter 18: The Trouble with Fairies
“Anyone know the whereabouts of Sonny?” Mrs. Popplewell asked at breakfast. The young man’s bed hadn’t been slept in, and his clothes weren’t strewn about the floor of his room. That was the mother’s first tip that something was not right.
Violet looked up from her breakfast. “I haven’t seen him since yesterday,” the girl said. “He was going with Mr. B to meet the Du Mondes.”
“The Du Mondes?” her mother asked, obviously not remembering the details of the cottage rental.
“It’s those Vampires,” Cyril said with a smirk. “The ones to which Mr. Wainbright rented.”
“On Cyril’s recommendation,” Violet added, shooting her fiancé an angry look.
“Oh, that was good of you, Cyril,” Mrs. Popplewell said, a bit distracted. “I suppose I could send a note around to Mr. B and see if he knows where Sonny has gone off to.”
“Who are you sending?” Cyril asked, a bit curious. The Popplewells only kept a cook and a maid, neither of which seemed appropriate to send out with a hastily scrawled note.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” was the reply. Mrs. Popplewell went into the next room to retrieve a fresh piece of stationery from her writing desk. She wrote a quick note and addressed the envelope to Mr. B. If she had been sending the correspondence by post she would have applied a seal with wax, but seeing that it was just a quick message, she didn’t bother. That was one of the benefits of having such an easygoing High Sorcerer. Mrs. Popplewell clapped the envelope between her hands then started rubbing it between her palms, faster and faster, while she whispered a simple incantation. The note appeared to dissolve between her fingertips until nothing was there at all. Then the good lady returned to her daughter and future son-in-law in the breakfast room.
A few minutes later, once Mrs. Popplewell had tucked into eggs and toast, the note reappeared to the left of her place setting. “Oh dear,” she murmured. “Mr. B doesn’t appear to be about.” She looked over at her daughter. “I wonder if the two of you wouldn’t mind dropping by to see Mr. Wainbright’s new tenants after breakfast. “Just to check if the young man is about or if he’s gone missing, too.”
“I have a few business correspondences that I was hoping to take care of this morning,” Mr. Wilberforce said, looking pale. He didn’t mind using a Vampire for a bit of a prank, but paying a call on one, even during daylight hours, was a bit more than he’d bargained for.
“Can’t that wait for now?” Mrs. Popplewell asked, not clueing in on his discomfort. “They’re friends of yours, of course, so I’m sure you’ve been intending to call on them in the next day or two anyway.”
“They’re no friends of mine, I can assure you,” Cyril said, looking a bit red and speaking into his napkin under the guise of wiping his chin. “I just happened to know they were looking for a cottage; that’s all.”
“We’d be glad to go over,” Violet assured her mother, who was starting to look a bit worried. “I’m sure there’s an explanation for everything. Cyril and I will straighten it out.”
“Send me a note once you know anything,” Mrs. Popplewell said, causing her daughter to scrunch her nose. Violet was awfully good at sending notes, but they rarely appeared at their proper destination.
“Do you think it’s quite safe?” Cyril asked an hour later as he escorted his fiancée to the Wainbright cottages. “Calling on a Vampire, I mean. You don’t think they’ve, you know, had Sonny over for dinner,” he said with a significant look.
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous. If you’re so afraid of Vampires then I’d ask why you invited a couple to live in the neighbourhood?” Violet demanded. She was still vexed with him for his nasty trick, and she hadn’t slept well the night before. She kept having dreams of Cyril wearing his glasses to their marital bed, and it was oddly disquieting. Plus, the knowledge that Sebastian and his father were only a stone’s throw from Gallows Road left her feeling unsettled. She couldn’t help but recall the last time she’d seen the young Du Monde.
“I’m not afraid,” Cyril snapped at her. “And it doesn’t serve whoever lives in the neighbourhood once I’ve pried you away from living with the bumpkins and we’ve moved to town.”
Violet said nothing of his rude remark but instead chewed the side of her lip and knitted her eyebrows together. It had never occurred to her that she’d be expected to give up her home completely once she was married.
“I’m afraid I haven’t seen hide or hair of them,” was the Count Du Monde’s response once they’d knocked on the cottage door and he’d answered, still in his dressing robe, his graying hair tousled. “It’s not like Sebastian not to tell me where he’s headed or when I can expect him back.”
Violet stepped inside the cottage at the Count Du Monde’s request so that he wouldn’t have to stand there with the morning sun beating down on him, but Cyril was more reluctant to enter the Vampire’s abode. He’d not even wanted to so much as ring the bell, so Violet had to do it.
“I was feeling a bit under the weather yesterday, so I spent most the day in my coffin,” the Count explained. “When I did rise, I found that we’d had visitors. Not the Vampire sort because there was food consumed. I could tell by the dishes. And I think they must have had honeysuckle wine, if I’m not mistaken. The smell was very familiar to be, but then it was something my brothers and I used to sneak from the cupboard when I was a boy.”
“That would be from my mother,” Violet said with a nod. Mrs. Popplewell was known to send a jug of the flower mead around for the slightest reason. “Was there any clue at all where they might have gone?”
“No, not that I could make out,” said Count Du Monde. “I did notice one strange thing. I have a collection of bone china thimbles. They were Sebastian’s mother’s, and I’ve always kept them. Well, for some reason, they seem to be missing.”
“Perhaps they were stolen,” Cyril suggested. He’d managed to ease himself into the room.
“I doubt it,” sa
id the old man. “The silver’s all here, but the thimbles are gone. That doesn’t sound like much of a robbery to me.”
“Missing thimbles and honeysuckle wine,” Violet mused to herself. Then, looking up at the Count’s concerned face, she said, “Don’t worry. I think I have an inkling where they’ve gone.”
“Should I attend you?” the elder Vampire asked, his voice catching a note of alarm. “Is there any chance of danger?”
Violet suppressed a giggle. “No,” she assured him. “No danger that I am aware of. Either your son will be home within the hour or I’ll send you a note as to when you can expect him.”
“I really should go with you,” Count Du Monde insisted, peering out the window at the bright blue sky.
“It’s such a sunny morning,” the girl said, placing a comforting hand on his forearm. “I see no reason to expose you to harmful rays. Just trust me when I say the men have been up to hijinks rather than any type of danger.”
Violet led her fiancé through the woods and glades of the Surrey countryside. “It’s a very tall tree with a peculiar fork,” she instructed him as she tried to divine their path.
“What do you mean by a peculiar fork?” Cyril wanted to know as he picked his way along. He’d already felt the need to state that, “If I’d known we were going to go mountaineering, I would have worn different boots,” but seeing that any incline they encountered was very mild, the girl assumed it was a Mortal way of joking.
“I’m not sure how else to describe it,” Violet admitted. “I guess it looks a bit like a devil’s fork, if you can imagine that as being a part of a tree.
Mr. Wilberforce could not imagine it; nor did he want to. In Cyril’s world, trees only forked in a good Christian manner. Miss Popplewell was a charming girl, the young gentleman allowed, but her pagan ways were sometimes quite alarming.
“I say. What’s that?” Cyril bent at the waist, two fingers steadying his pince-nez, to examine a man’s boot that was half hidden under a shrub.
“Oh,” the girl exclaimed. “I think you’d better bring that along with us.”
“Whatever for?” Mr. Wilberforce asked, viewing the boot with distaste.
“You’ll see,” was her answer as she attempted to suppress a giggle. “We must be getting close.”
“I’d rather not,” the young man admitted, making a face at the footwear.
“Please just bring the boot, Cyril,” Violet said with a sigh of frustration. Looking down, she saw something shiny sparkling in the sunlight and retrieved a pearl cuff link from the grass. The initials engraved on the back read LWB. “I wonder if this belongs to Mr. B,” she said, mostly to herself.
Cyril frowned. “What cause would Mr. Beelzebub have to be scattering cuff links about?”
They walked a little further, gathering up a straw hat that looked remarkably like a boater that Sonny preferred to wear during the summer months and the other pearl cuff link. “It’s like following a trail of bread crumbs,” Violet said with a laugh.
They passed through another small copse of birch and then into an open glade. “There,” Violet said, squinting at three very peculiar colored mounds in the grass. “I think we’ve found our wayward friends.”
Cyril adjusted his spectacles, convinced he was staring at three large, pale-colored boulders in a field of toadstools and lilies of the valley. “Where?” he wondered aloud.
His fiancée laughed, gesturing towards the boulders. “There,” she said. “I think it’s a better idea for you to wake them rather than me.”
Still unaware of what was happening, Cyril cautiously approached the boulders to investigate. When he glanced back in Miss Popplewell’s direction, he saw that, although giggling, she had demurely turned away.
At closer range, Cyril realized that the boulders were, in fact, his future brother-in-law, the holy man, and the Vampire, completely undressed and happily snoozing in the meadow, curled in the fetal position. “Quick, Violet, shield your eyes!” he called out to his fiancée, but his warning served no purpose as the girl’s back was already turned.
Feeling the anger that can come with extreme embarrassment, Mr. Wilberforce shouted at the men. “Get up this instant! You are all making a spectacle of yourselves.”
Nobody moved. Nobody made a peep. There was only the sound of the wind and a honeybee browsing amongst the flowers.
“I say,” he exclaimed, prodding at Sonny with the tip of the boot. “You can’t lie around like that all day.”
“Why ever not?” the young man grumbled, obviously reluctant to relinquish his slumber.
“Because you haven’t got any clothes on,” Mr. Wilberforce sputtered.
Sonny’s eyes flew open. “Oh.” Propping himself up on one elbow, he looked around. “Good morning, there, Violet,” he called to his sister.
“Good morning.” She returned his greeting without turning around. “Dancing with the fairies again?”
“Yes,” he said with a sheepish grin. “What gave us away?”
“What do you mean, fairies?” Cyril asked, looking around the field as if he feared a swarm of angry bees.
“You know, the wee folk,” Sonny told him while giving Mr. B and Sebastian a bit of a nudge. “Wake up, fellows,” he told them. “It’s time to pay the piper.” Returning his attention to Cyril he asked, “I don’t suppose you happened to bring any spare clothes?”
“Certainly not,” was Cyril’s crisp reply.
“Good Goddess,” Mr. B exclaimed, finally gaining his senses and scrambling about for something to cover himself. “Where the devil have our clothes got off to?”
Undaunted by his future brother-in-law’s disdain, Sonny called out, “Sis, I was wondering if you might conjure us up something to wear. I was planning on asking out the Collins girl and if we have to go parading through town completely starkers, I’m sure she’ll say no.”
“Very well,” Violet said with an indulgent sigh. Pulling her wand from her pocket, she stood very still, closed her eyes, and listened to the wind. She carefully turned one way and then the other until she heard the faint sound of clothing flapping on a line. Circling her wand quickly through the air in tight little circles, Violet whispered a short spell. A moment later, a small whirlwind appeared beneath the clothesline. It grew rapidly larger and larger until the wind was strong enough to yank the clothing free.
Still keeping her wand twirling, Miss Popplewell made little tugs with it in her direction, and the clothes started dancing across the backyard of whoever had done the wash and heading towards the glade where the men concealed their nude figures. “I’ll have something for you in a moment,” Violet assured them without looking in their direction. The clothes started sashaying into view as she spoke.
“Oh, no you won’t,” said an angry woman’s voice, the sturdy figure of a farmer’s wife also appearing on the horizon. “You keep trying to steal my clothes, and I’ll call the constable,” she said, snatching a man’s undershirt from the whirlwind.
“You must forgive us, dear lady,” Mr. B said, quite embarrassed and doing his best to conceal himself. “But you see, we find ourselves quite undressed. We only wish to borrow your garments for an hour or two so that we can return to our homes and dress ourselves properly.”
“That’s what you say, but I know how it will be,” the woman replied, not at all embarrassed by the nudity. “I’ll sit around all day waiting, and you’ll never come back. Then I’ll have to explain to my husband why his Sunday shirt’s gone missing again and send him after you to take it out of your hide. That’s thieving, you know.”
“My good woman, you don’t understand,” Mr. B said, doing his best to placate her. “We have no intention of stealing your clothes. It’s just we’ve had a bit of trouble with the…” and here he was at a loss for what to say. She was, after all, a Mortal woman.
“Trouble with fairies. Yes, I know all about them,” she said, snatching a pair of pants out of the sky, not at all moved towards charity. “This entire are
a is infested with them. I’ve had my husband spray for fairies a dozen times, and it never does any good. Then fine gentlemen like yourselves encourage them by setting out cups of wine and dancing about like fools. Next thing you know, your clothes are all gone, and you decide to help yourselves from my washing,” she all but shouted while grabbing at the clothes that twirled past. “Well, I’m sick of the fairies, and I’m sick of thieving gentlemen, and I’m not going to put up with it anymore. Find somebody else to steal from, you good for nothings.”
With the last pair of socks tucked under her arm, she turned to go, pausing for a moment to shout over her shoulder, “And stay off my property, or I’ll sic the dog on you.”
“Nice spell work, there, Violet,” Sonny said in a teasing voice.
“Oh, be good, or I’ll leave you to figure your own troubles out,” his sister fired back at him.
“Try getting something from the house,” Sonny suggested.
“Oh, right.” Violet turned to go.
“With your wand, not with your feet,” her brother prompted.
“I hate to be a bother, but has anyone at least seen the umbrella? It is awfully bright out this morning,” Sebastian said, finally finding his voice.
“And try to find Sebastian’s umbrella first,” Sonny said. “We really don’t want to bring him back to his father as a piece of overcooked bacon.”
“Hush,” Violet said, trying to focus on her brother’s wardrobe way back on Gallows Road.
Ten minutes later, the men were all dressed again. It was a bit of luck that Sonny had mentioned searching for the umbrella because Violet’s wand found it with ease—and that gave her an idea. In the end, Miss Popplewell discovered it easier to gather the clothing from what the fairies had discarded in the surrounding countryside. She’d been able to conjure most of what the men had lost. Fairies have no real use for human clothes. Mr. Du Monde’s pants were nowhere to be found, although he had his choice of three surplus pairs that must have been left by previous visitors to the glade who had proffered sweet drink and enjoyed a bit of dancing.