The Floating Room

by Brian Olsen

  “But!” She holds up a finger. “If I think this is getting too dangerous, I’m spilling the beans! Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  She pokes my shoulder. “If Nate breaks up with me when he finds out I kept this from him, I’ll be your worst nightmare, Chris Armstrong.”

  “He won’t. He’s crazy about you. He’ll blame me, don’t worry.”

  “He better.” She stands and brushes off her pants, then extends a hand. “The bell’s going to ring soon. Are you okay to go back to class?”

  I take her hand and get to my feet. “I’m better than okay. Watch this.”

  I want to be over there, by that tree, and I don’t want to travel the distance in between.

  “Sun.”

  And the world jumps. I don’t feel like I move at all, but Jasmine is suddenly a few feet further away.

  She beams at me, and claps her hands. “We can free the fairies!”

  I smile back at her. “We can free them all.”

  Seventeen

  “Fairies.” Tannyl runs his finger down the page, scanning the text of the fairies’ entry. “Yes, I agree with Jasmine. The fairies described here are a good choice to contact next.”

  After school the six of us gathered in that same spot in the woods where I first teleported. Alisa said Tannyl’s been going a little stir-crazy hiding in the prop storage room all day, so we continued magic class outside.

  “Aren’t fairies dangerous?” Alisa asks. She’s sitting next to Tannyl in the grass, looking over his shoulder. I haven’t had a chance to ask her how lunch went, but she seems a tiny bit more comfortable with him.

  “They can be,” he answers. “But they are mischievous, not evil, and if they take a liking to you they can be quite helpful.”

  “How so?”

  “They grant wishes.”

  All the rest of us perk up at this. “Wishes?” I ask. “There are fairy logomancers?”

  Tannyl laughs. “No, logomancy is unique to humans. Fairy magic is not bound by a word, but they can only cast spells at the request of another. And only small magic, trivial boons, nothing of great significance. But they are quick to offer to grant such wishes.”

  Nate stretches his legs out. “You’re talking about them like they’re all the same.”

  “Forgive me, Nate. You are correct. Fairies are a diverse people, known by many names, and of course each subspecies is made up of individuals, with their own minds.” He taps the image. It shows a group of little winged people in a sun-lit meadow, dancing and flying around a ring of standing stones. “Still, the fairies described here, the ones from which most other types are descended, are known for their love of bargains.”

  “Is that bad?” I ask. “Even weak magic might be helpful.”

  “Ah.” He shakes his head. “No. This is important. Do not make any bargains, or accept any gifts, no matter how small. The cost they would demand would far outweigh any assistance their weak magic could grant. They will not take offense to refusals. In fact, fairies’ tricks are so familiar I think they would be shocked if anyone fell for one.”

  “That’s in your world,” Zane points out. “People here wouldn’t be so prepared. They hear fairies, they think cute little Tinkerbells.”

  Jasmine gasps. “Is Tinkerbell real? Are we going to meet Tinkerbell?”

  Zane holds his hands out, gesturing to Jasmine as if to say, “See?”

  “I have never met this Tinkerbell,” Tannyl says. “But you are correct, Zane. I keep forgetting how much the world has changed, and how little you know of peoples other than humans.”

  Nate leans over and smacks Tannyl’s ankles. “You’re getting there, buddy. A few more movie nights and you’ll be all caught up.”

  Alisa frowns. “What have you been showing him?”

  Tannyl grins. “Nate showed me the plays of this world.”

  “Movies,” Nate corrects. “Plays are with live actors. The moving pictures are movies and TV shows.”

  Tannyl nods solemnly. “Yes. You told me this. I will remember.”

  “What movies?” Alisa repeats.

  “I don’t remember the titles,” Tannyl answers. “They are very loud, and there is much fighting. I would like to visit this land of Hong Kong and test my prowess against their warriors.”

  “Oh, lord.” Alisa shakes her head. “Remind me to show you something besides martial arts movies.”

  Tannyl smiles at her. “I would like that very much.”

  Alisa fights back a smile as she takes the book from Tannyl. “Okay. So, if fairies like to make dangerous bargains, and people aren’t as wise to their tricks as they used to be, maybe we should wait? What about those Japanese nightmare eaters? If we can go anywhere, why not start with somebody who might be able to protect us from the Nightmare Queen?”

  Jasmine shoots me a quick look that I don’t think anybody else notices, then says, “Oh, no, please, can we do fairies first? We’ll be careful!”

  Nate nudges her. “You want to go in this time?”

  “Oh.” Her expression falls a little. “I’m not sure. I don’t think so. I was thinking maybe you’d bring one out and I could meet them then.”

  “So long as we are all careful in what we say,” Tannyl says, “we are unlikely to face danger in the fairies’ false world. We can, at least, inform them of what has befallen them, even if we are not immediately able to release them.”

  “But isn’t that true of the…what were they called?” Zane asks.

  “Baku,” Alisa answers.

  “Right. Isn’t that true of them, too?”

  “The baku are not intelligent, at least not as we would define it,” Tannyl says. “They are a magical species, but not a true people.”

  “Even better,” Zane continues. “We don’t have to explain anything, or worry about them offering us a magic muffin basket or whatever. We can just make friends with them. We can all keep one under our beds or something. Keep us safe.”

  “And ten under Chris’s bed,” Alisa says with a laugh. “Just to be extra safe.”

  Nate puts his arm around Jasmine. “What do you say, babe? You saw the pictures. They’re cute. Kind of. Don’t you want a baku for a friend?”

  “Um…”

  Jasmine looks at me for help. I’m amazed she’s held out so long on my behalf. I’m sure the idea of a pet magical creature is making her heart squee, but she also knows I don’t want to stop the memories the Nightmare Queen has been showing me.

  Alisa, Nate and Zane are all on board with heading to Japan. But Tannyl seems uncomfortable. He’s been avoiding looking at me. More than normal, I mean.

  “What’s up, Tannyl?” I ask. “Something bugging you?”

  He meets my eyes quickly, then looks away. “Perhaps it’s nothing.”

  “It’s something to do with the Common King, isn’t it?”

  He still doesn’t look at me.

  “Just say it. I’m not avoiding the topic.”

  He looks to Alisa for approval. She gives him a curious look, then nods.

  He sighs. “After you…I mean to say, after the Common King took the throne, he targeted the baku, likely because of their effectiveness against his queen. As I said, the baku are not intelligent, but they are not quite dumb animals, either.”

  “So they might recognize me,” I say. “And hold a grudge.”

  He finally meets my gaze. “You almost wiped them out, Chris. Yes, it’s possible the survivors might recognize you. It is said that a baku can eat hopes and desires as well as nightmares. Are not your hopes and desires what give you the strength to resist the memories of the Common King?”

  Everyone’s quiet.

  Zane takes my hand. “All right. We leave the baku for a while.”

  “Aren’t we going to keep facing this, though?” Alisa says. “I’m sorry, Chris, but aren’t all the magical creatures going to have a grudge against you?”

  “And Zane, too,” Nate adds. “The elves think you and Liefer and the res
t betrayed them by locking them away. Once we tell the other creatures the truth, won’t they feel the same? I would.”

  “But not the fairies,” Tannyl says. “That is why I think Jasmine’s suggestion is wise. These types of fairies care little for the politics of other species, and the Common King never bothered with them. He stirred up the people against them, yes, but they can flit back and forth between the fay so easily it was never worth the effort of pursuing them. They may recognize Chris, but I doubt they will hold the Common King’s actions against him.”

  “What about Zane?” I ask.

  Tannyl frowns. “How they will react to Zane’s involvement in their imprisonment, I am less certain. I suppose it depends on how they are coping with it. Fairies are hard to predict. They enjoy new things. For all I know, they may enjoy the mystery of their new surroundings.”

  “Okay!” Jasmine stamps the ground. “I’m making a decision! Fairies!”

  Nate nods. “They’re okay with Chris but might hate Zane? I’m sold.”

  “Hey,” Zane says. “I thought we were doing better.”

  Nate snaps and points at him. “Keep thinking that.”

  Everybody gets up. Jasmine grills Tannyl for more info about the fairies, and while everybody’s listening, Zane leans into me and says softly, “Sometimes I think Nate’s forgiven me and sometimes I think he hasn’t.”

  Same with me, maybe. But I kiss him and say, “He’s okay. There’s a lot of history and he’s gonna take some shots now and then. Think of it as him letting the pressure out slowly and be glad it’s not coming out as one big explosion.”

  He nods, then looks at our friends and sighs. “So we’re spending date night doing another group thing, huh?”

  “If this really is just a meet-and-greet like Tannyl thinks, it shouldn’t take long. We can have our date when we get back.”

  “Yeah! Okay. What, like, dinner and a movie?”

  “How about dinner at Carelli’s and then a walk around the pond?”

  He bites his lip. “Romantic. I like it.”

  Nate slaps a tree. “All right! Let’s get this done.” He laughs. “Chris is about to teleport us to London! How crazy is that?”

  “Can you do it?” Alisa asks. “With all of us? You feel ready for that?”

  “Yeah. I teleported Jasmine all over the place while we were waiting for you.”

  “It’s super fun!” Jasmine says. “Like an amusement park ride but not throw-uppy at all!”

  “Where is this London?” Tannyl asks. “Is it far?”

  “Across an ocean,” Zane answers. “Chris, you’re not worried about the distance?”

  I shrug. “I teleported us to my yard and back. It felt exactly the same as going a couple feet. I don’t think distance matters.”

  “How come you’re able to do this now?” he asks. “You weren’t before.”

  Not ready to talk about the steps and the floating room. I didn’t even let that part slip to Jasmine when I was freaking out.

  “Getting better with practice, I guess,” I answer. “My only concern is going someplace I haven’t been before. We went to London when I was, like, six, but I don’t remember it well.”

  Alisa opens her phone. “I know where the fairies are, roughly. I’ll narrow in when we’re close, like we did with the lightning bird’s coin.” She slides something on the screen around, then shows me her phone. “Here. Street view on someplace nearby. Can you get us there?”

  I look at it. “Charing Cross Road. Yeah, I can picture that.”

  “Wait, wait, wait.” Nate looks at the map. “Isn’t that a major street? With lots of people around to see us suddenly appear from nowhere?”

  “There’s a smaller side street.” I tap another part of the map. “Cecil Court. I’ll take us there.”

  “Still.”

  “What else can we do?” Alisa says. “The artifact is there, so we need to be close by.”

  “People are gonna react,” Nate continues. “They’ll take videos, like at the mall. How will we explain to Liefer why we went to London?”

  Alisa huffs. “What are we supposed to do, Nate? Yes, maybe that’ll happen, and we’ll have to deal with it, but then people will forget, or at least they’ll stop thinking about it as something unusual, and we can get on with it. It’s how the Moment works.”

  Nate glowers at her. “Yeah. I’m aware. All right, let’s get it done, then, while I still think it’s cool.”

  “Everybody put a hand on me,” I say.

  “Now we’re talking!” Nate whistles at me. “Hands on the hardbody, everyone.”

  I laugh. “Your body’s harder than mine.”

  He beams at me. “You always say the right thing. I knew we were friends for a reason.”

  They all touch me. Zane makes a show of grabbing my butt, I think for Nate’s benefit, but Nate ignores it. Alisa holds the phone up so I can focus on the image.

  A slight breeze blows, making the tree branches above us shake. The sun shines down on me. It feels nice. Like a good omen.

  Okay. Just like I did before. It’s trickier than making fire. When I use logomancy I have to use my word to communicate with something, to tell it what I want it to do, but in this case I’m not telling my hand to catch on fire or my room to light up. I’m sort of talking to space itself. To the whole world, telling it how I want it to shift around me.

  I take a breath. It’s the same thing. Size doesn’t matter. Distance doesn’t matter. Communicating my will, that’s what matters.

  I want the six of us to disappear from this place, and appear in that spot in the picture. Wait. Not actually in the picture. The real-world location that’s shown in that picture. Right in that spot there, against that building, or if something’s there now that isn’t there in the picture, then put us in the nearest open spot. I want us to travel to that spot instantly without passing through the distance in between, and I want us all to arrive safely, just as we are now.

  Wait. I can do better.

  When I say my word, don’t transport us there instantly. Wait until the next moment when nobody happens to be looking at that exact spot, and teleport us there then.

  I hope that works.

  “Sun.”

  Outwardly, nothing changes. We’re still in the woods. But I feel something. I hear the Logos, humming louder in my head.

  Zane squeezes my butt. “That’s all right. Want to try—”

  We all jump a little as the uneven dirt and grass beneath our feet turns to gray pavement.

  “—again?”

  We’re on a narrow, pedestrian-only side street, lined with small independent bookshops. A young woman stands next to us, talking on her cell phone. Her body is orientated in our direction, but her head is turned sideways, looking in the window.

  “They didn’t have it,” she says into the phone. “They— Oh!” She drops the phone from her mouth and puts her hand on her heart. “You scared me half to death! Where did you come from?”

  She’s got an English accent.

  I feel hot, but it’s a good feeling. I teleported six people over three thousand miles in the blink of an eye.

  And all I had to do was climb a single step.

  Eighteen

  “This is so cool!” Nate grabs my arm. “Dude, you teleported further than Liefer ever did, and that’s his whole thing! That’s, like, all he does, and you do it better than him!”

  “He does other stuff that I can’t,” I say, but my cheeks warm with pride.

  Nate’s right. This is big. I’ve been thinking of it just in terms of finding the artifacts and freeing the magical creatures, but if I can teleport anywhere, even someplace I’ve never been, that could be a huge help with whatever Miller’s planning, not to mention if Liefer decides to end our truce. I need to practice this more. Test my limits.

  But right now, we need to get our bearings. I took us right where I wanted, Cecil Court, just off Charing Cross Road. It’s a wide pedestrian alley, with no cars. No
w that I’m here it looks vaguely familiar from my childhood vacation. Dad’s a huge reader and there are a ton of bookstores here, so we came more than once.

  There are a lot of people walking by on Charing Cross Road and on the other cross street at the far end from us, St. Martin’s Lane. But there are only a couple on Cecil Court. The bookstores are all really cute, with wooden signs hanging from bars jutting out over the pavement. There are a few sandwich boards, too, telling us which stores specialize in music or mysticism or first editions, and a couple of bins of cheap paperbacks set up outside to lure in passers-by. Apart from the woman on the cell phone, who moves away from us with a nasty glare, nobody’s paying us the slightest bit of attention.

  “That was lucky,” Alisa says. “I guess nobody saw us appear.”

  “Not luck.” I crack my knuckles, grinning. “I worked it into the spell, to wait to move us until nobody was looking. That’s why it took a second after I said my word.”

  “Nice.” Zane squeezes my behind. “That was smart. Geez, you’re getting good fast.”

  “Yes.” Tannyl’s not smiling. His hand moves a little, like it wants to grab his hidden dagger but doesn’t. “You are, indeed, becoming more powerful, Chris.”

  That kills the mood a little.

  Jasmine brings a little cheeriness back by hugging every one of us in rapid succession. “We’re in London! I love England so much! Oh my gosh, this is the best!” She runs around the tall black lamppost in the center of the street, holding on by one arm. “Can we see a play? My parents take me here almost every summer and last year we saw a show at Shakespeare’s Globe and we stood the whole time and it was so much fun!” She stops for breath. “Can we do that?”

  Alisa laughs. “I think we’re too late to see a show, Jaz. It’s five hours later here than it is at home. We should probably find the artifact before anything else.”

  “And then we need to get back.” Zane takes my hand. “Some of us have a date tonight. A private date.”

  I would have thought Jasmine was all squeed out, but she manages another one, cupping her hands under her chin. “Oh, so cute! Yes, come on, you guys, let’s get serious.” She skips a ways down the street. “Fairies, fairies, fairies!”