"Anyway," Chase continued. "You're right, Grandfather. It's a portal."
It didn't take long for the fairies' story to pour out of the boys.
"I can't believe she hit you!" exclaimed Persephone, who'd been listening on the edge of her seat.
"Surprised me, too." Chase rubbed his nose, where he now had a small red handprint. "I never realized fairies could be so tough."
"Looks like you got a weird zit," said Andy, squinting at Chase's injury.
"I wish you guys would've waited for us," said Nori grumpily. "I wanted to meet the fairies, too." She eyeballed Chase's face, where, besides the fairy handprint, he had a black and purple lump on his forehead. "Well, at least Alex got you back for attacking him."
"I didn't do that!" said Alex, shaking his head. "It was the flying carpet."
"I don't think that rug likes me," said Chase as he gingerly touched his injury.
"We need to get all the magical communities to band together to help destroy the evil that is destroying them." Alex's shoulders slumped. "Which is my family."
"Did you tell the fairies this?" asked Nori, looking worried.
"Heavens, no!" said Alex. "I think they would've strung me up by my toes over a pit of ravenous lions. Even though they're quite tiny, I still wouldn't want to mess with them."
Grandfather pulled off his glasses and polished them on his handkerchief. "It sounds as though we need to get going on this as soon as possible," he murmured.
"Okay, then," said Chase, jumping up, "let's pack some things and go."
"Hold it. You're not going anywhere, Chase," said Ben. "You have school tomorrow. Remember?"
Chase plopped back into his chair. "Oh, yeah. And I still have to read that dumb old book."
"And write a report," added Persephone.
Chase groaned. "Man! It's gonna take forever."
"Talk about ruining things," said Andy grumpily.
"Don't remind me how stupid I am!" snapped Chase.
"You're not stupid," said Persephone. "Just…uh…interested in other things."
Nori bent down and picked up the book Chase had discarded earlier. "I don't want to make a habit of this, but this is an emergency." She flipped open the book and placed it on a side table. "Give me your hand," she said, holding out hers, palm up.
Chase placed his hand into his cousin's and watched as she held her other palm over the book. The pages began to glow, then golden sparkling light flowed from it and into Nori. A tingling sensation shot up Chase's arm and into his brain. He gasped as the words from the book poured into him.
Nori released his hand and slammed the book shut. "There you go. Now you can write your report."
"Wow, Nori. Thanks!" he said. "That's amazing. I even understand all those weird old words. You have the coolest power!"
"That was nice of you, Nori," said Persephone. "Considering how lousy he, um, we have acted toward you lately."
Nori shrugged. "Forget it, okay?"
"And luckily, I only have one more week of school left," said Chase.
"Cool!" said Andy. "Then we'll be ready to go."
"Be ready to go where?" asked Anne, walking into the room.
Great, thought Chase, rolling his eyes. Why does Mom always show up at the wrong time? He looked at his dad, then at Grandfather. "Well? Who's going to tell her?"
Grandfather sighed. "I suppose I will." He gestured at Anne to join them. "Why don't you have a seat, Anne?"
Andy jumped to his feet. "You can have my chair, Mom. And how 'bout a cookie? Did you get a cool new hairdo?"
Nice, Andy, Chase thought. Some kissing up can't hurt.
"Anne," began Grandfather, "I know our last venture to rescue Janie didn't work out, but now something else has come up."
"Okay," said Anne, her eyes darting from one guilty face to another.
"We're gonna go ask all the other magical people for help to fight the bad guys!" exclaimed Andy.
Chase slapped his hand to his forehead, grimacing when it made his lump ache even more. Leave it to Andy to blurt it out like he was only telling her the weather report.
"You're doing what?" said Anne, staring at her youngest son. She shook her head. "No. You are not going anywhere, young man."
"But the fairies said we have to!"
"There shouldn't be any fighting, Anne," said Benjamin.
"That's fine!" snapped Anne. "If the rest of you want to go off like a bunch of idiots again and maybe put yourselves in danger, then go ahead. I wasn't able to stop you last time, so why would I expect this time to be any different? But I don't care what any fairies said: Andy is staying here."
"What?" yelled Andy. "But I want to go with them!"
"I said no," said Anne firmly as she stared at her husband. "And I won't be overruled this time."
Andy turned to Ben. "Dad? Please?"
"Sorry, Andy, but I'm with your mother on this," said Ben. "We don't know what we'll be walking into, and I'll feel better knowing you're safe here at home."
"Aw, come on!" Andy swung around to look at Chase. "Will you stick up for me?"
Chase stared down at his tapping sneaker toe. Ever since Andy had been almost killed in Blackshire, Chase had been riddled with guilt. Even now, every time he looked at Andy's scarred face, he was angry at himself for not keeping his brother safer. "I agree with Mom and Dad," he said at last.
"No!" Andy yelled. His gaze darted from one face to another, but it didn't take long for him to realize they were all on the same side, and it wasn't his. "This sucks!'
Chase cringed. "I'm sorry, shrimp."
"You all suck!" Andy cried before running from the room.
Anne rubbed her forehead and sighed. "Thank goodness Andy is taken care of—" She paused and pointed at Alex. "—but what about him?"
Alex shrank back into the corner of his chair as if trying to hide from the scorching anger and hatred shooting from Anne's eyes.
"It looks like Alex is going," said Chase.
"You're trusting a Marlowe to go with you?" asked Anne.
"Go ahead and tell her," said Alex, sighing. "I'm dreadfully sorry for causing all these problems for everyone."
"Tell me what?" said Anne.
"His family tortured him," said Ben flatly. "You think I look bad? His scars are worse."
Anne's hand flew up to cover her mouth. "You—you've been tortured, too?"
Chase knew Alex hated showing his scars, but, gritting his teeth, he bared them anyway. Even if he had to look at those every day, Chase didn't think he'd ever get used to the awful sight. He gulped and rubbed his own scars, which were nothing when compared to Alex's. Or his dad's. Or Andy's.
All the color drained from Anne's face. "Oh my gosh! Those people are so horrible they'd even…and he's just a boy."
"And all because I didn't agree with what they were doing," said Alex, his voice full of bitterness.
"Good, we're all together on this, then," said Grandfather, breaking into the silence that followed Alex's words. "We'll prepare for you to leave next weekend, and then we'll pray for your quest to be successful."
CHAPTER NINETEEN
To Trust (or Not to Trust)
Chase stomped up and down the Enchantment Room. "I don't know," he groaned. "Even with all those scars, he's still a Marlowe! That's never going to change."
"I thought you decided you were definitely going through with this," said Persephone. "If you want him to believe you've started to trust him, giving him an enchanted object will help. Although, you'll need to keep a better eye on him."
Chase stopped pacing. "The thing is, I kind of like the guy."
"You're not the only one," said Persephone. "Your mom's being nicer to him, too."
"I know! Right after she saw what they'd done to him, she wanted to start rubbing ointment on his wounds," said Chase with a snort. "Why can't he be a creep like the rest of them?" He reached up to his shoulder to pat Maxwell's he
ad. "Even Max likes him. Okay then, I'm going for it." Straightening his shoulders, Chase walked to one of the many glowing symbols embedded in the walls. He pulled a black cord with a red stone hanging from it out of his pocket. "What powers should I enchant into this? I'll do one for the cord and one for the stone."
"I don't know, whatever you think, but I've decided to add the magic that lets you shoot things from your fingertips to one of my earrings," she said, pulling the small piece of jewelry out of her ear lobe. "I need a great power for fighting."
"I guess Alex could use some extra protection." Chase slapped the necklace to the symbol. "I enchant this stone with the Shielding power." Golden light shot from the symbol and into the red stone. It glowed brightly before returning to normal. He held it in the palm of his hand and stared at it for a moment. "I can't believe I'm trying to protect the guy. Crap! I hate to admit it, but I like a Marlowe! I never thought I'd see the day."
"It could be worse," said Persephone. "You could be madly in love with one."
"If I even look like it might happen, you have my permission to blast me into outer space," he said as he pressed the black cord to the symbol and enchanted another power into it. He tucked the cord into his back pocket, where he also had Andy's teleporting baseball card hidden. It was getting harder to keep the loss of his enchanted race car a secret, since everyone usually expected Chase to teleport them around. "Okay. You ready to go? It's almost time to meet those guys to practice some magical fighting. Then after I turn in my homework, we can finally leave."
Maxwell hissed in his ear. Chase heaved a deep sigh. "All right, you can go on the quest with us. And I told you I'm sorry I didn't take you along when we went to see the fairies, but you were sleeping."
"Would you two like to be alone?" asked Persephone, raising an eyebrow.
"He, uh, hates to be left behind," said Chase sheepishly.
Persephone grinned. "What are you guys now? Batman and Robin?"
Chase rolled his eyes. "Seems like it, huh? All we need are some cool capes." He grasped Persephone's arm. "The Library."
Seconds later, they whirled into the middle of the gigantic library.
"Where have you guys been?" yelled Nori from her chair by the stone fireplace. "We had to eat practically three whole pizzas while we waited for you."
"You had to?" said Persephone as she hurried across the floor and snatched one of the last few slices. "Yum, thanks for saving me some."
Chase pulled the black cord from his pocket and tossed it to Alex, who deftly caught it. "What's this?" he asked, then grinned. "Does this mean you fancy me now?"
Chase rolled his eyes. "Hardly. I enchanted it with a couple powers for you."
"You did?" exclaimed Nori. "Wow! I never thought I'd see the day."
Alex also looked as if he was having a hard time believing Chase would do anything nice for him. "Well, what powers did you give me?"
"Probably lame ones," scoffed Nori, "like the power to make bunnies like you, or to turn daffodils into butterflies."
"I don't know if those powers even exist," said Andy, who was sprawled on the floor rubbing his stomach. "Ugh, I ate too much pizza."
"One's shielding. Thought you could use some protection," said Chase. "And the other is the ability to change your feet into any footwear."
"See?" said Nori. "Lame. Well, not shielding, but the other one."
"Oh, that power isn't lame," said Persephone as she grabbed another slice of pizza. "It's really cool. It's one of the powers Chase inherited from Grandfather last summer. Show them, Chase."
Chase nodded as he pulled Maxwell off his shoulder and placed him on the back of a chair. "First, Persephone, could you conjure up a basketball and a hoop for me, please?"
Persephone clicked her fingers. Pop! Pop! A ball appeared in Chase's hands while a red basketball hoop materialized on one of the walls. He looked down at his feet. "Basketball sneakers." A split second later, his regular sneakers were replaced with fancy black and silver ones.
Expertly dribbling the ball, Chase bounded across the floor to the net. He whirled, jumped, and slam-dunked the ball into it. Darting away, he circled the fountain of a towering dragon, which was spewing jelly beans from its mouth. He grabbed a handful of candy on the way by while spinning the ball on his fingertip. Running to the far end of the room, he turned and gave the ball a toss. It sailed through the air and swished through the net again.
"Whoa!" said Alex and Nori together.
"Chase usually sucks at basketball," said Andy. "He's a better soccer player."
Chase jogged over to them. "Okay, you try it."
"I ask for any sort of shoes?" said Alex as he slipped the cord around his neck.
"Yeah, but not just shoes," said Chase. "It's anything you can wear on your feet."
"Er…I'd like some ninja footwear? Hey, it worked!" he exclaimed when his regular shoes instantly disappeared and black, split-toe boots were there in place of them.
Jumping up, he performed a spinning kick and sent one of the armchairs soaring across the room. It crashed into the wall and broke into several pieces. He then somersaulted across the floor. Without missing a beat, he ran up one of the walls and flipped back over onto his feet. Dozens of books tumbled to the floor.
"Uh, Alex, shouldn't you stop now?" called Nori as Alex cartwheeled across a table and dragon-kicked a suit of armor across the room.
"I can't make it stop!" he panted. "And I'm having a dreadful time controlling it!" He completed several backward flips to the tall oak tree in the corner and scaled the thick trunk, as if he were a monkey.
"Say, 'normal footwear' and they'll change back!" yelled Chase.
"Normal footwear!" cried Alex. Suddenly losing his ability to climb without a ladder, he flopped to the floor. "Ow! Bloody—er—heck!"
Nori raced to his side. "Are you okay?"
"Of course," he choked out. "It's nothing I can't handle." He pushed himself to his feet and staggered to a chair. "You should've warned me."
Chase grinned. "And miss the show? Don't worry, you'll get the hang of it."
Alex returned his grin. "It is a bit brilliant."
"You should've seen Chase the first time he found out he had that power," said Persephone. "He sneezed, and next thing he knew, he was wearing roller skates. He couldn't get those things to work right to save his life. He finally had to crawl on the floor until he sneezed again and magicked them away."
Everyone laughed.
"I wish I could've seen him," said Nori, between giggles.
"Oh yeah?" said Chase. "And what about the time you turned us all into goats?"
"She did?" said Alex.
Nori blushed several shades of red. "It was an accident. I'd just started to learn other magic besides my own."
"So what we're saying, Alex, is," said Persephone, "don't feel bad. We've all had our magical mishaps around here."
Alex arched his back and rubbed his shoulder. "Does this mean you trust me enough to seriously want me on the quest with you?"
"I really mean it," said Chase. "You're welcome to come along. No arguments."
"What about me?" said Andy. "I still wanna go."
"We've already been over this," said Chase as he blew out a puff of air. "You have to stay here." And I don't want to worry about keeping an eye on you.
"It's not fair!" cried Andy as he stomped in a circle. "Everyone gets to go but me."
"Mom's not going," said Chase. "And neither is Grandfather."
"Big deal," grumbled Andy. "She's Mom and he's too sick."
"You'll live," said Chase. "At least that's the plan." He wasn't going to admit it out loud, but he felt bad Andy wasn't able to go, but not bad enough to say yes.
"So you trust Alex, but not me?"
"It's not about trust," said Chase, losing patience. "It's about keeping you safe. Give it a rest!" He turned to the other kids. "Okay, we need to practice all our magic together. You
know, work on some good strategies, fighting moves, and other things."
"I can't watch this," mumbled Andy. He pushed his glasses up higher on his nose and trudged from the room.
"I kind of feel sorry for him," said Nori, watching Andy until he disappeared from sight. "But I still feel like part of it was my fault he got hurt last time. Especially every time I look at his face."
"I know. We all do," said Persephone as she walked to the books scattered across the floor and began picking them up. She stopped to read several of the titles. "Hey, you guys, maybe we should take a look at some of these books."
Chase took the book she was holding out. "Magical People and Creatures of the World by Augusta May Tinker." He looked up. "Wow! Aunt Augusta wrote a book."
"Maybe it'll help us decide who we should ask for help from first," said Persephone, grabbing the book back and thumbing through it.
Nori glanced down at another book lying upside-down and open. "Here's an interesting one," she said. "Charms to Live by." She flipped it over. "It looks like a book of those magical charms you like to play with, Chase. Here's one for polishing fingernails."
She read the instructions. "Okay, here goes." Sticking out her tongue, she licked all her fingernails before saying, "Pingo, blue." Instantly, all her nails were colored sapphire-blue. "Cool! I never have to fight with polish again."
Chase shook his head. "I can't believe they have a charm for something so goofy." He grinned. "What if you want to paint your toenails?"
"Then you can do it for me," she retorted.
"Gross!" he exclaimed, wrinkling his nose.
"You know what?" said Persephone, looking up from the page she was reading. "I think we need to go see the leprechauns first."
"Why the leprechauns?" asked Chase. Using one of his powers from Grandfather, he shrunk the charm book to the size of a wallet and slid it into his back pocket.
Persephone tapped her finger on the page. "It says here they will share their good luck and fortune with those they deem worthy."
"So what makes someone worthy?" said Chase.
"Beats me," said Persephone. "I don't care about fortune, but we could use some good luck right about now, don't you think?"
Chase Tinker and the HOUSE OF DESTINY Page 14