by A W Hartoin
“Just a few days, I should think.”
“You’ll stay with us. I insist,” said Mom. “We’re so relieved that you’re here.”
“Mom,” I said.
“Matilda.” Mom gave me a hard look and shooed us into the hall. We gathered under my favorite foxfire fungus, Beatrice. Her soft green glow lit the hall and made curves and shadows on our faces.
“I don’t like this at all,” I said. “Miss Penrose doesn’t have an allergy, not even close. And Mom’s letting that Lucrece stay here.”
“She seems okay,” said Iris.
“She seems like someone I’d have known in my former life,” said Horc. “My advice: lock your doors.”
CHAPTER SIX
I WOKE SCREAMING. Everything was black and a clinging weight pressed on my face. Someone yelled my name and yanked me upright. The weight was peeled off my eyes and I blinked at the light. Mom kneeled beside me tugging at the side of my face.
“Stay calm,” she said. “Everything’s fine.”
“Everything’s fine” is what mothers say when it is definitely not fine.
Iris rushed in and stopped at my feet. “Wow.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“It’s just lizards, honey,” said Mom.
I held up my arm and it was completely green. Lizards covered me from wingtip to wingtip. I screamed and flailed my arms.
“Stop that.” Mom flicked the tip of my nose, probably the only thing visible with all the lizards on my face. “Iris, help me,” said Mom.
Dad rushed in with Horc and they peeled me like a green banana. Dad dumped an armload of lizards out the window and struggled to contain his laughter. Mom wasn’t amused. Moms rarely are when it comes to infestations of any kind.
“Look,” she said. “You woke up Penrose.”
I looked up at the bed beside me. I’d forgotten that I’d made a pallet in Miss Penrose’s room to be close to her in the night. A thin, pale hand waved to me over the edge. I got up, checked myself for lizards, and then took Miss Penrose’s pulse. It was as weak as it had been the day before, but she smiled at me with blue lips.
“Not you, too,” I said. “Lizards stuck to faces is not funny.”
“Yes, it is.” Each word was said with a wisp of breath that she could ill afford to lose.
“You probably shouldn’t talk. Mom, can you listen to her heart?” I asked.
“Not necessary,” said Lucrece, coming in and holding a steaming teacup. “I’ve prepared some chamomile tea.”
“She’s nearly as bad as yesterday,” I said. “She doesn’t need tea. Can you get kaki persimmon root?”
“Perhaps, but she doesn’t need it.” Lucrece came in and filled the room with her lavender perfume. Iris started sneezing.
Lucrece told Mom and Dad to sit Miss Penrose up. They eased her forward and plumped her pillows. Miss Penrose wavered and her eyes lost focus.
“Is it worse?” I asked.
“It’s not worse,” said Lucrece. “She just needs her tea.”
Miss Penrose began to pant and her lips turned a deeper shade of blue.
“Lay her down!” I yelled.
“Hush now,” said Lucrece. “You’ll overexcite her.”
Miss Penrose looked at me and tried to raise a hand.
“Lay her down!”
Mom stood up. “You heard Lucrece. She just needs to drink her tea. Now take Horc and go to the kitchen.”
Dad pushed Iris, Horc, and me out of the room and closed the door. I held Horc tight to my chest and felt his strong heart beating against me.
“Her breathing is worse,” said Iris, her blue eyes round and shiny.
“Take me to the kitchen,” said Horc.
“This is no time for food,” I said.
“I agree. Take me.”
I did it because I didn’t know what else to do. They wouldn’t let me in and they definitely weren’t going to let me give Miss Penrose the meadowsweet and ma huang again.
Iris wrung her hands as I set Horc in his highchair. I had to get back in that room. Horc grabbed a biting stick off the table and gave it a chomp while violently twisting it. He yelped in pain and the stick came out of his mouth splintered and bloody.
I leapt to his side. “What did you do?”
He opened his mouth wide and I saw jagged splinters protruding from his jaw. Blood flowed and filled his mouth, overflowing his bottom teeth. With that he began caterwauling like I’d never heard, only pausing once to say, “Help her.”
I stood dumb for a second as Mom, Dad, and Lucrece ran into the kitchen. Then I shook off my astonishment and slipped out, running to my room. I opened Grandma Vi’s bag and loaded a dropper with the meadowsweet and ma huang. Then I ran to Miss Penrose’s room and closed the door behind me.
Miss Penrose panted on the bed. Her lips were so dark blue, they were almost black. The tea lay untouched beside her. I held up the dropper.
“Do you want it?” I asked.
She opened her mouth and I squeezed the medicine onto her tongue. She closed her eyes and I slipped the dropper in my pocket. Her breathing slowed slightly and her pulse improved. I wiped a bead of sweat off my temple and collapsed onto the stool beside her bed.
“What are we going to do?” I asked, laying my head down on the cool silk quilt covering the bed.
Miss Penrose stroked my hair. I could feel the coolness of her skin through my heavy hair. Everything about her was compromised, even her temperature. She tapped my head and I looked up to find her eyes on me.
“You don’t have to do anything, Matilda,” she said.
“Yes, I do.” I swallowed and told her the diagnosis. It was the last thing I wanted to do, but she had to know Lucrece’s nonsense was just that. “You have congestive heart failure. I found it in Grandma Vi’s books.”
“That’s very bad, isn’t it?”
“There’s a cure. Kaki persimmon root. I just have to get it.”
“You can’t change fate.” Her hand dropped from my head and her eyes closed. “I’m so tired. I’ve never been so tired.”
“It’s not fate, Miss Penrose. It’s just an illness like any other. I’ll get the root and everything will be okay.”
“Don’t get yourself in trouble over me.”
“I don’t care about that.”
“You should.”
“I don’t.” I took her hand and pressed it to my cheek. Unbidden, a tear dripped down, crossed her fingers, and plopped on the purple silk, making a dark splotch. “I’m going to get that root and I don’t care what anyone says about it.”
She touched my hand and without opening her eyes gestured to the tea.
“You want the tea? Seriously?”
She gestured again and I helped her to bring the cup up close to her mouth.
Lucrece ran in and asked, “What are you doing?”
I jumped, slopping the tea on Miss Penrose’s quilt. Mom came in with a bloody cloth. “Oh, thank goodness. She’s just giving Penrose the tea.”
Lucrece eyed me. I don’t think she believed it for a second.
“How’s Horc?” I asked.
“Bloody and miserable,” said Mom. “He drove those splinters deep. I’m surprised he hasn’t done it before, the way he goes after wood.”
“Since you’re a junior healer, what would you do for the bleeding, dear?” asked Lucrece.
“I’d give him a hot compress of myrrh and arnica,” I said as sweetly as I could muster. It was a strain, I can tell you.
“Excellent.” Lucrece smiled at me and left the room to get myrrh and arnica, no doubt.
Mom kissed the top of my head. “See? Lucrece knows what she’s doing. Miss Penrose is resting easy and Lucrece will fix Horc right up.”
“She had to ask me what to do for him, Mom,” I said. I didn’t tell her that I’d dosed Miss Penrose again. She’d just get mad and make sure I didn’t interfere with Lucrece’s so-called treatment again.
“Lucrece knew the answer. She
was just testing you.”
I didn’t bother to argue. Once an adult made up their mind, sense was no longer a factor. Lucrece was the healer and I was the kid. Nothing I said would change that.
Iris waved at me from the door. She had a miserable-looking Horc on her hip.
Miss Penrose opened her eyes to slits and mouthed, “Be careful.”
“You can go, Matilda,” said Mom, taking the teacup from me. “I’ll take care of Penrose.”
I squeezed Miss Penrose’s hand and then followed Iris to my room. I closed the door and we arranged Horc on my pillows and I checked his poor mouth. His gum was shredded from where the splinters had been, but it looked like Lucrece had gotten them all out. I sniffed the compress he had: myrrh and arnica. No surprise there.
“Is it helping?” I asked the little boulder that sat on my favorite pillow, stinking it up.
“Yes, but Lucrece doesn’t know what she’s doing.” It was hard to read his lips with the compress stuck in his mouth, but that’s what it looked like.
“I can’t believe you did that.” Iris’s eyes began leaking and she threw her arms around Horc.
“I am a wood fairy. We do what is right. No matter what,” he said.
“You’re a better wood fairy than most.” I rubbed his lumpy head. “But we can’t count on injuries to be able to dose Miss Penrose. It won’t cure her. It’s only holding off the inevitable. We need that kaki persimmon root.”
Horc took out his compress, flipped the bloody side up, and put it back in. He sighed and looked at me with an intensity I rarely saw from him, unless it involved food or biting. “I know where to get it,” he said.
“Really? Where?”
“The spriggans.”
Iris made a face. The last time we’d seen the spriggans, they’d stolen Easy and started what I’d heard was an increasingly bitter rivalry with our friends the dryads. On the other hand, they were traders with a long reach. If anyone could get kaki persimmon root it was them.
“Mom would never let us go back to the antique mall,” said Iris.
“That’s why we’re not going to ask her or Dad either,” I said.
“We can’t ask the spriggans, Matilda. They hate us.”
“You don’t have to go,” I said, not meaning it at all. I needed Iris’s ears. She’d been my shadow since birth for good reason.
Iris crossed her arms. “If you’re going, I’m going. But I still don’t think they’ll give us anything.”
“You’re right,” said Horc. “They hate you and they won’t give you anything. But spriggans are interested in profit above everything else. You’ll have to have something to exchange.”
I looked at the pattern of lumps on his head. “I’ll have to think about that.”
“Think hard. It has to be something good,” Horc said.
I did think about it. I thought good and hard. The only thing we had that the spriggans wanted was Easy and he was obviously off the table. We had food and woodcarving skills, but that was it.
“Iris, can you go get Gerald and Ursula? We’re going to need them both.”
“What for?”
“I want Gerald with us in the mall. He always knows everything.”
Iris crossed her arms. “He does not.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Fine. He knows mostly everything. What about Ursula? She’s not allowed to do anything with us.”
“Ursula can help Horc take care of Miss Penrose,” I said.
“I don’t know about that. Gregor will freak if she comes over here,” said Iris.
“She’ll figure something out. It’s for Miss Penrose, not us. Now go to their windows and, for goodness sake, avoid Gregor and Eunice at all costs.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I’m going to have a talk with Tess and Judd.”
“And I am to do what?” asked Horc.
“Sit there and look pathetic. It’ll distract Mom.”
I opened my fleur-de-lis window. It was one of the bigger ones in the house and stretched from floor to ceiling, easy for Iris, plump as she was, to get through. But before Iris could step on the sill, a lizard slipped in. Instead of going straight for me like usual, it ran to my wardrobe and slid through the doors that were open a crack.
“That’s odd,” said Horc.
“It sure is.” I opened the door and pushed my clothes aside. There, in a basket of my dirty clothes, was the lizard. “Oh, gross!”
Iris giggled, but didn’t seem all that surprised. “Mom was right. You didn’t take your dirty clothes to the laundry and something did grow on them.”
“This is ridiculous.” I frowned down at the lizard who’d made a nest and was curled around five babies the length of my little finger. They all looked up at me with adoring eyes.
I reached for the nearest baby and Iris grabbed my arm. “You can’t. They’re too little. They probably don’t even have their wing things yet.”
“So I’m supposed to just let these lizards stay in my wardrobe?”
“Yes.” She crossed her arms.
I threw up my hands and went back to the window. “Fine, but you’d better go before Mom comes in to check on Horc.”
Iris stepped on the sill and hesitated. “Do you really want to go to the spriggans?”
“A door has closed. We have to find a window,” I said paraphrasing one of our dad’s sayings.
“I wish there was another window.”
“We’re lucky to have the one we’ve got.” I kissed Horc on the top of his knobby head.
Iris’s lip trembled, but she flew off anyway. I followed her after calling out to Mom that I was off to see Tess. I left quickly so she wouldn’t have a chance to stop me. I flew out to find the dogs, Ellie and Nora, pointing their snouts at my window. There had been no dogs at Whipplethorn Manor and those two were the first I’d ever encountered. It took awhile to realize that they were dogs, since they were so weird-looking. But once I’d gotten Tess and Judd to see me, they’d explained the dogs were shar-pei, a Chinese breed. I had no proof, but I was pretty sure shar-pei meant weird-looking in Chinese.
The dogs looked at me, if you could call it looking. Their skin was so saggy it covered their eyes and hung off their bodies like it was meant for dogs two sizes bigger. I waved and they wagged their short curly tails. I couldn’t believe I’d ever been afraid of them. They were as aggressive as stuffed animals. I flitted across the living room, followed by the dogs, still wagging, and spotted Judd in the kitchen. I almost went to tell him about Miss Penrose when I saw Rebecca, his mom, there with him, looking irritated as she often did. She pointed to an empty milk jug and threw up her arms. Judd had developed a bad habit of putting empty containers back in the fridge. I couldn’t talk to him until Rebecca was through crabbing at him, and it could be awhile, since it was the third time that week. He just wouldn’t learn.
I flew up the staircase, across the landing, and into Tess’s room. Her room was pink with stacks of books intermingled with dolls, ice skates, and lacrosse equipment. Tess was curled up in the middle of the bed under her lace canopy, her pretty face slack in sleep. I almost landed on the bed when I spotted her cat, Coconut, curled up under Tess’s arm looking for all the world like a rattlesnake. She had pale blue eyes that watched me coldly. Nothing got past Coconut. She hated fairies as much as the dogs loved us. She spent a good deal of the last six months trying to eat us. Iris was convinced she was only playing and continually tried to pet her. She’d been snatched from Coconut’s jaws more than once, but like Judd, she was slow to learn.
Coconut slithered from under Tess’s arm and stretched, extending her long white claws and looking pointedly at me. I couldn’t get to Tess with Coconut standing guard. I’d tried it before and ended up between two of those claws, screaming for help. Tess saved me before Coconut snapped my head off, but it was an experience I didn’t want to repeat.
I landed on the larger shar-pei’s nose and looked where her eyes w
ere supposed to be. “Girls, I need to get rid of that cat. Do you hear me?”
Ellie and Nora wagged harder. The humans thought the girls were dumb as a box of rocks because they obeyed, never got into anything, and couldn’t comprehend fetching. We fairies knew it wasn’t a lack of intelligence, it was an excess of goodness. They didn’t fetch because in their minds they weren’t going to bother you by bringing something back that you were obviously trying to get rid of.
“Okay, girls. Get the cat!”
I flew up and the dogs bounded across the room and leapt up on the side of the bed. Coconut arched and hissed. Ellie snapped at her and she zipped past the dogs and out of the room. Tess sat up yawning. “Ellie? What are you doing? Don’t bite Coconut.”
I landed on her knee. “They weren’t going to bite her. I just needed her to leave.”
“Why?”
“Because I need to talk to you and I don’t want to be a cat snack.”
“Coconut’s a good cat. She wouldn’t eat you.”
“You and Iris are delusional. Coconut is a fairy-eater in training.”
Tess stuck her chin out and tossed her long brown hair back over her shoulders. “You shouldn’t insult people’s pets. I don’t insult yours.”
“I don’t have any pets.”
“The lizards.”
“They’re not pets. They’re vermin.”
“But they’re so cute.”
“You wouldn’t think so if you woke up with them covering your face.”
“They love you.”
“Don’t remind me.” I flew up to hover close to her face. “We have a situation, Tess. We need your help.”
“Is it about Whipplethorn?” she asked, sitting up straight.
Tess had once helped me get back to Whipplethorn Manor in hopes of finding my parents. They weren’t there and Whipplethorn had been destroyed. It was a moment I didn’t like to think about. I preferred to pretend Whipplethorn was still there, magnificent against the backdrop of the national forest, awaiting my return.
“No,” I said. “It’s about Miss Penrose. She’s sick, very sick, and we need a medicine.”
“Mom has all kinds of stuff.”
“No. It’s fairy medication. It has to be prepared a certain way.”