by L-J Baker
“You expect me to stay locked up in here all day? But shouldn’t we be out doing something? Like getting a lawyer?”
“Holls, please. One day won’t kill us. Will it? Please.”
Holly looked unconvinced, but she slouched back into her bedroom and turned her music up. Rye pulled her bedroom door shut.
Rye sat at her desk and looked over her notes for menu plans. She found it impossible to concentrate. For all her assurances to Holly, she could not shake the feeling of a noose. She still had not told Holly the whole truth. She had not admitted that her own application for refugee status would founder because she was a wanted criminal.
For the sixth time, someone pounded on the front door. Rye glared as if she could see through the intervening wall. She wanted to stomp out there and beat the shit out of whoever it was.
Shortly after the knocking stopped, Holly opened the living room door. She looked excited. “Rye? I’ve been thinking. You could get us ident numbers today. You can buy everything if you know the right people.”
Having tried this method herself, Rye was unsurprised at the suggestion. “No. That’s not the answer.”
“But why not? I bet we could find someone around here or the burrowers to sell us ones.”
“If you get caught with a fake ident, you can kiss your citizenship application goodbye. And those scholarship people wouldn’t be very eager to give money to a girl with a criminal record.”
Holly scowled. “You stomp on everything I want to do, don’t you?”
“Only the stupid stuff.”
Holly stormed back into her bedroom and turned her music up even louder. That and the occasional pounding on the door made Rye feel like a cornered animal cowering at the back of her cage. It didn’t help her to shore up the belief that she was on top of her problems.
Chapter Eighteen
Rye fetched herself another beer. She usually didn’t drink more than one a day, but this was an extraordinary morning.
Holly’s music momentarily blasted louder. Her bedroom door shut again. Rye listened. The bathroom door opened and shut.
Rye swallowed some of her beer and noticed that she’d doodled Flora’s name all over her notebook. If only she had really been the bogle-brownie mixed-breed person she passed herself off as rather than the fairy she was. If only she were not an illegal immigrant. If only she had been some rich, talented, famous person who knew which was Flora’s favourite table at the restaurant. If only she had not kissed Flora in the park.
Rye sighed. That music was getting irritating.
Rye went into the hall to knock on Holly’s door. “Holls? Can you please turn that down? It’s bad enough that we’re stuck in here without driving each other mad. Holls?”
Rye opened the door. The room was empty. She turned the sound volume down.
About an hour later, Rye knocked on the bathroom door. “Holls? I’m busting for a pee.”
No reply.
Rye tried the door. It wasn’t locked, so she pushed it open. The room was empty. Devoid of not only Holly but any steam from a shower or bath. There were no wet towels on the floor or Holly’s discarded clothes draped over the towel rack.
“Crap. No. She wouldn’t.”
Rye darted into the hall. The front door bolt had been slid back. Rye strode outside. Of course, Holly was nowhere to be seen.
Rye knelt to mend the phone cord. She dialled the Barks’ number.
No one answered. She belatedly remembered Holly telling her that they’d gone to a wedding.
Rye strode into Holly’s bedroom. Holly’s privacy be damned. She rummaged through the books and notes on Holly’s desk. She had to have a list of her friends’ phone numbers. Rye yanked the drawers open. She found a dog-eared little notebook. It contained addresses, phone numbers, and cryptic comments about Holly’s friends. Moss F. 645-239. Cute. CTWE!! MM?? Kissed!!!! First time?
Rye dropped onto Holly’s bed. First time did not refer to being kissed. Rye knew that for a fact. First time must mean sex. Holly had had sex with this boy Rye had never met? Other girls Holly’s age were sexually active, but Rye had not imagined that Holly would have lost her virginity by now. She had not thought of Holly as beyond handholding and kissing. She seemed so young. She did not have her wings. Fairy women didn’t go to the men until they had their wings. But this was not Fairyland.
“Fey.”
At least Holly would not be in danger of an unwanted pregnancy. That could not happen until she finished her physical development, as signalled by the appearance of her wings. But what about diseases? Had Rye covered that in her inarticulate, acutely embarrassed discussion about sex? Had Holly been listening?
“No point worrying about this now. I’ve got to find her. We can worry about sex later.”
Rye phoned Moss’s number. His mother told her that he was not home. He’d gone out early this morning. She did not know when he might be back. No, she had not seen Holly Woods.
Rye returned Holly’s notebook to the drawer. Mr. Bumble watched her from the bed. Rye sat and picked him up.
“I bought you for her at a second-hand shop. She loved you. She wouldn’t let you out of her sight for years. You had to sleep with us every night. She cried when she couldn’t find you. She told you everything. Does she still tell you things? No? Me neither.”
Rye sighed and smoothed one of Mr. Bumble’s bent wings.
“Where did we go wrong, Mr. B? How did I make a complete mess of my life? All I ever tried to do was make things right. I tried so hard. I couldn’t give her everything I wanted to. I thought I’d given her what she needed. But it turns out I didn’t even manage to keep her safe.”
Rye set Mr. Bumble on Holly’s pillow.
“I can fix it, can’t I? I have to.”
Rye sagged back onto Holly’s bed and stared up at the ceiling. A patch of fungus grew up there.
“Flora. I loved her so much. I still do. More than anything in Infinity.” Rye threaded her hands into her hair and tugged. “Not more than Holly. Different. Do you understand, Mr. B? I never felt so good about myself as when I was with Flora. I was happy when I made her happy. It killed me to see her cry. Being with her on those Fifth Day mornings was like stepping into a different world. A happy one.”
Rye frowned.
“I’m proud of Holly. And I love her to death. I’d do anything for her. But Flora… ”
Rye sighed and turned her head to look at Mr. Bumble.
“Am I ever going to find someone else remotely like her? Something died in me in that gallery when I watched her walk out with that Frond.”
The phone rang.
Rye leaped off the bed and dashed into the hall to snatch up the phone. “Hello?”
“Hello, ma’am. I’m trying to get in touch with Ms. Rye Woods,” a strange female voice said.
“And who the fuck would you be?”
Pause. “I’m Constable Maple, ma’am, from the Hollowberry Police Station. Would you be, or know the whereabouts of, Ms. Rye Woods?”
Rye could feel her eyes widen with shock. Police?
“Hello?” Constable Maple said. “Ma’am? Are you still there?”
“Um.” Rye swallowed with difficulty. “Yeah.”
“We found this contact number for Miss Holly Woods. I really need to find Rye Woods because –”
“Holly? Oh, shit. Is she okay? Has anything happened to her?”
“You are Ms. Rye Woods?”
“Yes! Yes, I’m Rye. Holly’s sister. Please. What has happened?”
“Holly is currently being held in the Youth Section at Hollowberry Police Station.”
“Held?”
“She was a passenger in a carpet which was involved in a traffic incident. She –”
“A crash? She’s hurt?”
“No, ma’am,” Constable Maple said. “Your sister was in the back. She was unharmed. However, she is intoxicated and some of the occupants of the carpet were found in possession of certain restricted substances
.”
Rye sagged against the wall with a hand to her head. Drunk. Drugs. Fuck. She would kill Holly for this.
“She was using drugs?” Rye asked.
“Miss Woods did not have any restricted substances about her person,” Constable Maple said. “Though her proximity to others so in possession will require her to undergo a course about drug abuse. This will all be explained to you at the station, ma’am. We need you to come to pick up Holly.”
“Yeah, of course.”
Rye set the handset down. Holly drunk and in a carpet full of idiots who were doing drugs! What the fuck was she thinking? And now she was at a police station. Rye’s chest tightened. She drew a restricted breath. They would take all sorts of details. Her species? If Holly was drunk, would she tell the usual story or would she blurt out the truth? And ident number. The police would want that.
“Crap.”
Rye’s hands shook as she put her jacket on. Her body moved reluctantly as if some back part of her brain was sending secret, panicked instructions to her limbs not to go anywhere near the police.
She climbed on her broom and flew off down the street. She remained in the low, slow lane. She tried talking to herself in an effort to keep calm. Slow, even breathing. She wiped sweaty palms on her thighs.
The kauri tree had Municipal Police engraved across the front and highlighted in bright orange lights. She, Rye Woods, illegal alien, had to walk in there, amongst all those police, and get her sister back. Rye could hear her own breathing. Shallow and fast. Her primitive survival instincts tried to elbow aside her rational self. The organism that was Rye craved safety. Every fibre of her being wanted to turn around and flee.
A pair of police pixies came out the door. Rye flinched. They walked past without giving her a glance. Rye’s heart hammered so hard that it might break out of her chest.
“Holly,” Rye whispered.
She took a deep breath and strode down the narrowing tunnel of her vision to the door.
A sprite woman in a police uniform stood behind a large desk. Doors with hand pad locks were the only way out of the foyer apart from the main doors. Posters on the walls recommended ways to deter burglary, shoplifting, and carpet theft.
“Can I help you, ma’am?” the spite asked.
“Um.” Rye clenched her fists tight enough to dig her short fingernails into her palms. “Um. I got a call. About… about my sister. Holly Woods. I’ve come to take her home.”
“Is she being held, ma’am? Is that what you mean?”
“Um. Yeah. Youth Section.”
“Okay, ma’am. Let me just check.”
Rye chewed her lip and sweated while the sprite tapped something beneath the level of the desk. The main doors opened. Rye started. A couple of brownies came to stand behind her. She forced her hands to unclench. Stay calm.
“Here we are,” the sprite policewoman said. “Holly Woods. Ma’am? Are you feeling okay? Perhaps you’d like to sit?”
“Um. No, thanks. I’m fine. I have to take Holly home. Where is she?”
The sprite’s antennae twitched. “I’ve notified one of the officers in the Youth Section. He’ll be here shortly, ma’am.”
“Oh. Right. Thanks.”
Rye stepped aside and let the brownies talk to the woman at the desk. She sweated profusely. The veins in her neck throbbed uncomfortably. But she could conquer this. For Holly.
One of the locked doors opened. A tall bogle policeman stepped out. “Ms. Woods? I’m Sergeant Rivers, ma’am. If you’d like to come this way.”
He held the door open for her. Rye did not want to go any deeper inside the station. Not past locked doors. But she had no choice. Holly needed her.
“Holly isn’t in very much trouble, ma’am,” he said.
“She… she’s a good kid.”
“I’m sure she is. We see this sort of event all too frequently. A group of teenagers together.”
He said more, but Rye found it hard to concentrate. She walked past desks at which uniformed people sat. Some glanced at her. Her wing muscles hurt. She was feeling light-headed. Her breathing would not slow down.
“Here, ma’am.” Sergeant Rivers pointed to a chair. “If you’ll take a seat. We just need a few details from you.”
“I thought –” She could feel her brain shutting down. “Holly. I… I came to take… to take her home.”
“Ma’am? Are you feeling all right? Please sit. I’ll fetch you some water.”
“No. I… I want Holly.”
“Of course,” Sergeant Rivers said. “She’s not under arrest. We’re only holding her because she’s intoxicated. But there are some details we need about her, ma’am. Her full address, citizen ident number, date of birth –”
His other words slipped into sounds without meaning. Rye tried hard to concentrate, but thinking was so hard.
“Ma’am? Why don’t you sit down? Should I ask the apothecary to come here? You’re really not looking so good.” Sergeant Rivers put a hand on Rye’s shoulder.
Rye hit him. Her mind blanked.
Chapter Nineteen
“Ms. Woods? Are you back with us at last?” Rye peeled open her eyes. She lay on her side. A young gremlin woman peered down at her.
“How are you feeling?” the gremlin asked.
Rye didn’t feel anything. Neither surprise, nor curiosity, nor much of her body.
“We’ll soon have you up and about again.” The gremlin wore a nurse’s green tunic almost the same shade as her skin. She fiddled with something near the end of the bed.
Rye noted the rails on the side of the bed, the empty cleanliness of the room, and the antiseptic smell. This must be an infirmary. When she tried to take stock of herself, she discovered stiffness. Every muscle ached and protested at her slightest move. What, in the name of the Almighty King and Queen of the Fey, had she done? The brown chitinous cast on her right arm jogged no memories of how she had broken it. When she rolled onto her back, her right wing bud screamed with pain. Rye gasped and awkwardly rolled back onto her side.
A tall, lithe banshee woman wearing a doctor’s red tunic entered. Very attractive. Though not a match for Flora. “Good afternoon, Ms. Woods. I’m Doctor Trefoil. How are you feeling?”
“Um. Confused.”
The doctor catalogued Rye’s broken arm, snapped wing supports, and miscellaneous contusions.
“Is that why I feel so stiff?” Rye asked.
“You reacted badly to the standard antidote to the police stinger.”
“What?”
Rye listened with incredulity as the doctor explained, in not always straightforward language, that she had been brought into the infirmary four days ago from a police station. The police had stuck her in the back of the thigh with the stinger they used to immobilise violent perpetrators. Something in her fairy metabolism had reacted adversely with the antidote that the doctors had administered to reverse the stinger. That had sent her into some weird fever and left her unconscious for those four days.
“Police station?” Rye said. “Why was I at a police station?”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to ask the police that.”
Rye cooperated passively with the doctor’s examination. Police station? Fey. What had she done?
After the doctor left, Rye lay frowning at the tips of her fingers protruding from her cast. What had happened? What could she remember doing last? That annoying gremlin reporter? No. She’d argued with Holly.
Rye went cold.
“No,” she whispered. Not Holly. Anything but that. Don’t let me have hurt her.
Rye squeezed her eyes shut and saw her mother lying dead at her feet.
“No!”
Rye shoved herself upright. Her muscles shrieked protest. She awkwardly jerked the sheet aside one-handed. The railings on the side of the bed made it difficult and uncomfortable to climb out. Her feet hit the floor and sent a jolt all through her body. Rye gasped and grabbed the railing. Fever? It felt like they’d put her through
a blender for several days.
The door opened. The gremlin nurse came in.
“Ms. Woods! You shouldn’t be out of bed.”
As the nurse gently but firmly herded Rye back to bed, Rye saw an orange-uniformed policeman at the window in the top half of the door. Rye felt like her heart stopped.
“What did I do?” Rye asked. “Did I hurt Holly? I have to know.”
“My job is to take care of you while you’re here,” the nurse said. “Now, let’s get you under this sheet. Please lie back.”
“I have to know.”
“Perhaps you’d better ask the policeman. Now, let me check your temperature.” The nurse stuck something on the side of Rye’s neck.
“Can you ask him to come in. Please? It’s important.”
Shortly after the nurse strode out, the policeman entered. His presence triggered a familiar jolt of fear.
“Yes, ma’am? The nurse said you wanted to say something.” He held a pencil and notebook. “I should remind you that you’re still under arrest.”
Something hard and large and cold dropped through the bottom of Rye’s stomach. “Arrest? What… what for?”
“Assaulting a police officer. Resisting arrest. And damage to government property.”
Rye’s breath caught in her throat. It took her several long moments to get it back. “Did I hurt anyone else?”
The policeman wrote in his notebook. “I believe you hit several officers in the station, ma’am.”
“Anyone else? My… my sister. Is she okay?”
“Your sister, ma’am? I’m afraid I don’t know nothing about anyone else.”
Rye lay chewing her lip. If she’d hurt Holly, surely they would have charged her with that, too.
Much later, though how much Rye couldn’t tell because there was no clock in the room, the door opened. A male leprechaun and a female sylph walked in. Both wore dark suits. The sylph exchanged a quiet word with the policeman. That stopped him from following the suits into the room. Rye’s wings tried to tighten defensively against her back. Her broken one hurt. Rye greeted the unidentified pair with a wince.
“Ms. Rye Woods?” the leprechaun said.