by Lynn Donovan
A wild dog of some sort, jackals perhaps, had a dominant alpha female and an omega female. Miss Alpha stopped nursing her pups because they had sharp teeth, so the pups went to the omega female and nursed on her. The documentary observers zoomed in on Omega’s face. She gritted her teeth and whined as the pups nursed, while the alpha female stood near, daring her to not feed the pups.
That was how Abbie felt about these faeries’ fascination with her. They had a right to learn about her. She wanted to learn about them. She just wished they weren’t so obnoxiously entangled in her hair and playing with her eyelashes. One sat in her ear. Her wings tickled.
She shivered. “I can’t take that! Please don’t get in my ear!”
The one that had been in her ear swooped away but came right back and buried herself in strands of Abbie’s hair. Abbie sighed. At least it was better than before. She walked swiftly through her building, her sister at her side, and finally reached the sanctity of her office-lab. “Here. This is my office. You’ll be safe here.”
She collapsed in her chair. “This is my desk. Can you all come here to my desk top” —she patted it— “and let me have a good look at you?”
They complied. Aura led the way in flight to delicately land toe first on the calendar blotter. Abbie marveled at how gracefully they moved, like a skilled ballerina. Aura faced Abbie and waited for the others to join her. Abbie fervently rubbed her scalp. A moaned escaped her lips.
“Now.” Abbie pulled out a magnifying glass from a drawer and lifted it to her face. “Let’s have a look.”
Aura giggled. Karole pressed over Abbie’s shoulder to see through the glass too. Abbie shoved her back. She’d seriously had enough of being crowded today. “Give me a minute.”
Karole frowned but stood back. The faerie turned slowly as if looking at themselves in a mirror. Some struck poses like a run-way model and then turned. Abbie chuckled
The creatures were amazing. Fully formed human-like bodies, but where a human’s shoulder blades are, they had wings. Four opalescent wings to be exact. They looked so delicate. As if any amount of pressure would crumble their wings or crush their bodies. Something about them all seemed feminine. “Are you all female?”
They smiled and turned their heads toward Aura. She seemed to consider Abbie’s question. “Yes. We are like you.”
“Do you have males?”
The faeries held their midsections and laughed. Aura glared at her sisters. They controlled their humor and stood attentive. Aura turned back to Abbie’s huge eye in the big round glass.“Of course! But they are few.”
Abbie turned to her sister. “Hmm, makes me think of a beehive, mostly females and a few drones for breeding and…” Abbie turned to the faeries. “What do your males do?”
Again the faeries giggled. Were they embarrassed or laughing at her ignorance? Aura stepped forward. “Our males work hard. They forage for food. They are strong and brave, and they—”
Aura seemed to be searching for the right word. “They serve Mother Righteous, and when we need more faeries, they, well… they breed with our faerie queen.” She lowered her voice. “Oh, but we don’t call her Queen!”
Abbie turned to her sister again, “See? Like bees. Isn’t that fascinating?”
Karole leaned close to them. “Are you hungry? What do you eat?”
Aura turned toward Karole with a frown. Karole gestured putting food in her mouth. The faeries just stared at her with big eyes and open mouths.
“I’m googling it.” Karole snatched out her phone.
“WHAT?” Abbie cocked her head back. “You think anything you find on Google is going to be accurate! Faeries are a myth!”
The faeries gasped.
Abbie crunched her face. “No offense… but in our world, you’re a myth.”
Aura hovered just inches from Abbie’s face. “In our world love is a myth.”
Abbie stared at Aura. “You have a point. But still…”
Karole pointed at her cell phone. “According to fairy folklore experts, ‘fairies prefer natural foods, with pixie pears and mallow fruits being their favorites. Fairies love foods that are sweet and are prepared with… saffron. Among fairies’ favorite foods are milk with honey, plain milk, sweet butter, and honey cakes.’”
Aura nodded and landed next to her sisters on the desk blotter. “Crystalized honey is the best. Diamond eats it all the time.”
One of the faeries nodded.
Ah, Abbie considered her, that one must be Diamond. She stood a few millimeters taller than Aura. And her crystalized hair seemed more purple. Aura had more of a blue tint to her crystal spikes.
“Amethyst prefers saffron on everything.” Another faerie coyly dipped her head toward her shoulder and drug her toe across the blotter.
Ah, she’s Amethyst. She was shorter than Aura and maybe a little rounder. Amethyst suited her for a name, her crystal-like hair reflected that pinkish-purple hue.
“I can’t believe Google is accurate. This is crazy.” Abbie observed the subtle differences between the faeries. If she looked long enough, she could see distinctions. She turned to her sister. “Does this mean… our worlds have… somehow they’ve been here… before?”
Karole shrugged and continued her assessment.
“So high-energy type foods?” Karole remained pressed in close. Abbie elbowed her, moving her away from the faeries, but Karole shoved her back, determined to see them. Abbie sighed and handed her sister the magnifying glass.
Leaning back in her chair, Abbie crossed her arms over her chest. “Why did you press angry emotions at Joseph?”
Aura shrugged. “It is what we do.”
Diamond flutter beside Aura. “We have to.”
Amethyst sprang from the desk top. “Mother Righteous demands it.”
The faeries leapt into the air agitated. “Gives us worth.” “We must serve her.”
Aura held up her hand to quiet their chatter. “Layla is wrong.”
The other faeries gasped at Aura’s boldness.
Aura continued. “Faeries press emotions. This is what keeps us alive in Velona.”
Abbie rocked in her chair, giving Karole room to make her observations and to process what the faeries were saying. Karole glanced at Abbie then turned back to the faeries. “What do you mean? It is your worth?”
The faeries all landed delicately on the desk. Aura stood closest to Abbie. Diamond animatedly spoke to Aura. Aura shrugged one shoulder, her wings snapped taut behind her, and then folded against her back. “She… She doesn’t allow…”
Diamond turned to Abbie. “Mother Righteous banned love a long, long, long, long, long—“
Aura pushed Diamond down. She rolled back on her bottom. Aura finished, “Time ago.”
She paced back and forth, while Diamond slowly recovered her stance. She glared at Aura. Abbie couldn’t be sure, she had given the magnifying glass to her sister, but she swore Diamond stuck out her tongue at Aura and blew a raspberry.
Abbie snorted a chuckle. Obviously this mother righteous had a tyrannical reign over these faeries and it was a subject that caused them a great deal of anxiety.
Another faerie approached the front of the standing swarm. “Love has been forgotten by most.” Another came forward. “But some still believe…” Then another. “that it exists.” Aura shoved them back and took the dominate position.
All of the faeries finished in unison, “But we saw it.”
Diamond stepped forward. “With you and… him.”
Aura hung her head. “I’m sorry we pushed anger on him.”
Amethyst nodded. “Our normal way is the normal way. But we can stop, here.”
Diamond stepped out of the cluster. “Mother Righteous’s power is not felt… here.”
Another faerie spoke up. “In Velona, when we see good feelings, we squash it.” She slammed her fist into her palm.
Aura darted a quick glance toward her and back to Abbie. “You understand?”
Abbie
swallowed. “I suppose I do understand about normal ways, but I don’t understand why anyone would want a world where love didn’t exist.”
Aura shrugged. “It is Mother Righteous’s normal way.” Another faerie flew up just hovering above the desk top. “She rules Velona.” Yet another swooped next to the second. “She is the Queen.”
Aura glared at her sisters. “Amethyst, Diamond! I can tell her.” She turned back to Abbie. “We think love hurt our Queen long ago. She demanded love be… removed… for so long.” Another faerie flew out. “We thought it was this way everywhere.” She nodded reassuringly.
Aura fluttered as if to block her. “Not all of us thought it a myth. I knew.” Aura drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I hoped. But I know now.”
Abbie frowned. “Yeah, about that. You know, I just met Dr. Assad.” She glanced at Karole. “I mean, I’ve wanted to meet him before. He’s attractive, but—”
“Oh. There’s so much more!” Aura seemed to puff out her chest. “Your prism stream aligned. It was beautiful. It was small, thin, but my guess is it will only grow stronger.”
Abbie squinted. “Grow… stronger? How could you possibly—”
“Wait a minute.” Karole leaned closer to Aura. “If this mother righteous has banned love, how do you know that’s what you saw?”
Aura hovered in front of Karole’s face. The faerie looked thoughtful. “We… just… know.”
Karole drew back. “Hmm. Interesting.”
Abbie gasped. “Oh good grief, what time is it?”
Karole turned her watch on her wrist and checked the time. “Six o’clock.”
“We’re supposed to meet Joseph at The Oasis.” She turned to the faeries. “How on earth am I going to go with these… faeries hanging all over me?”
“Maybe we can put them in a box or something.”
The faeries took flight and vanished into Abbie’s hair.
Abbie stared at her sister. “Something tells me that won’t work.”
Karole smirked a mischievous smile. “Gee, why?”
A tickling sensation crawled across Abbie’s head and traversed down her neck. She shivered.
“Well.” Karole lifted her brow. “We missed the de-briefing. I don’t have any idea what they are telling everybody, but my guess is they are denying everything. They may even be requiring all witnesses to the… accident to stay on-site.”
Abbie shrugged. “But The Oasis is on-site.”
“Well, if you want to have this first date with Joseph, I suggest you make… your little friends understand that they’ve gotta stay here, or something.”
Abbie rotated her eyeball to the farthest most corner of her socket in an attempt to see even one faerie. “You hear that? If I walk out of this office, you’ve got to stay here.”
“We stay with you!” All the little voices squeaked from under her hair.
She looked into her sister’s face, and smiled as if Karole were taking her picture. “How do I look?”
“Disheveled.”
“Ugh. I’ve got a shower here in my lab and a change of clothes, but how can I get cleaned up with faeries in my hair?” Abbie dropped her head into her hands. “Who am I kidding? I can’t go to The Oasis with faeries in my hair! Somebody will see them and then they’ll know they came from that fog, and then all hell will break loose.”
Karole’s eyes roved over Abbie’s head and the faeries protruding between the strands. “Can they get out of your hair long enough for you to take a shower?”
Tears sprang to Abbie’s eyes “I have no idea.”
Chapter Eight
Karole drove her red Dodge Charger the half mile around the VEIL facility’s paved road from her sister’s QuESO Department to The Oasis Cantina near the east gate. She had no idea if Joseph Assad would be there or if anybody would be there, but she’d promised her sister she’d try.
She pulled into The Oasis’s parking lot astounded by the number of vehicles. “Will you look at this…” she said to herself.
So many cars and trucks. It was the fullest she’d ever seen this lot, any lot, for that matter, at VEIL. She supposed nearly everybody was here. And why not? Those who experienced the accident would naturally end up here. Alcohol and camaraderie. People needed to wind down with a drink and talk about what happened.
Karole drove slowly, but there were no empty spaces. Finally, she parked in front of the end vehicle parallel parked along the road leading to the east gate. This would be a bit of a hike, but she’d promised Abbie.
People inside The Oasis were four to a two top, six and eight to a four top. They stood between the stools where others sat at the bar. They leaned against the outer walls. A large group of scientists were frantically filling up napkins with scribbles. Probably trying to figure out what went wrong. Better to write on the napkins then to start writing on the walls, Karole mused. Not that it couldn’t happen. This bar was on-site for a reason and anyone who worked here was fully cleared for Top Secret exposure. They did that for the brainiacs to be able to talk through their obscure calculations over a beer or coffee without exposing secrets to the non-cleared civilian population in Loville.
She walked into the bar, leaned past Sandy East, who slumped over a glass of wine, and signaled to the bartender she wanted a drink. Sandy smiled but it didn’t look joyful. Karole smiled back with a practiced everything’s-going-to-be-alright smile that doctors just naturally learn to give people.
Bert, the bartender, approached Karole with a peaked eyebrow. His way of asking what she wanted. “I’ll have a Pepsi and lime.”
His response consisted of his head tipping back. He went about making her drink. She tossed a five-dollar bill on the bar and he gave her change. Sandy’s eyes leveled with Karole’s.
“I heard the whole facility went on lock down. Has it been lifted yet?”
Sandy nodded. “Yeah. Stettler told everybody it was a small accident, but everything was being taken care of.” She gulped her wine. “He told everyone to take the day off, and tomorrow, let’s resume work like normal. Except the Ops Center staff. We said we could take a few days off, with pay, but we must remember anything that happens out here is top secret.” A laugh seemed forced, then caught in her throat, like a hiccup. “That’s why everybody’s here. Nobody wants to go home. It was just too… weird.”
Karole touched Sandy’s shoulder. “It only makes sense everybody would end up here at The Oasis. This is where we can talk about it.”
Sandy nodded and lifted two fingers toward the bartender. Bert refilled her glass. “Yeah. I guess you’re right. From the looks on these faces, there’s more processing than talking going on. But I get what you’re saying. This is the only bar with clearance for top secret conversations.”
Karole nodded.
Sandy tipped her head toward the table of scientists. “See, they end up here trying to figure out what went wrong with that experiment. I wonder why Holly Teak isn’t here? There’s her lab-buddy.”
Karole let her eyes rove over the others sitting along the walls, then she perused the tables. She knew nearly everyone in this bar.
She spotted Assad sitting alone in a two-top booth. “Um, excuse me, Sandy. There’s someone here I need to speak to.”
Sandy looked over her wine glass at Karole as she swigged the last dregs. “Oh, sure.” She wiped spilled wine from her lip and held up two fingers for Bert.
Karole hesitated before leaving. “You know, you should consider staying in a temporary apartment tonight. It’s what they are here for.”
She waited until Sandy nodded.
“That’s what Stettler said, too.” Her speech was slurred. Karole hoped she took him up on the offer.
She pushed her way through standing people to get to the booth where Assad sat. “Mind if I sit down?”
He looked up with a smile and instantly frowned. “I thought you were Abbie. I never realized how much you two sound alike.”
Karole sat. “Yeah, we’ve been tol
d that most of our lives. I think she sounds more like Mother. I guess that means I sound like Mother…”
He smiled with a slight chuckle. Karole took her time, diagnosing what his morose appearance meant. Did he want to see Abbie tonight, even after the… incident with the faeries on the mountain? She assessed he probably did. “So. You are here because there’s nowhere else to go that’s safe to talk about what happened, or… are you really waiting to see my sister?”
His eyes popped up to her. “Honestly, I had hoped to see Abbie. Then I thought we’d—” Concern washed over his face. “Is she alright? Those things didn’t hurt her, did they?”
“No!” Karole held up her hand to stop him from speaking. “Shh. Don’t say anything specific. She wants to see you too. It’s just that… she, we felt it was best for her to stay in her office. I, she wanted me to see if you wanted to go there… where it’s more private.”
He stared at her as if he were deciphering what she wasn’t saying. “She’s alright?”
“Yes.”
“Then, sure. I’ll go to her office.” He slid out of the booth and extended a hand to Karole. She smiled and slid out on her own. “You’re very sweet. I see why she likes you.”
“She does?” Joseph paused.
“Well, sure. You think I’d come here if she didn’t really want to see you?”
“Oh. Right.” He took Karole’s elbow and guided her through the crowd.
“Okay, my little friends. I need to take a shower and you need to give me some space.” Abbie waited. She could feel the faeries squirming around on her scalp. “Please let me wash my hair.”
She jerked the shower curtain back. “See, this is a shower. I’m going to take off all my clothes and get in. You can—”
She looked around the small bathroom. “You can sit here on the curtain rod and watch.”
She cringed. Having over a dozen little creatures watching her take a shower felt… weird. But it was better than trying to wash her hair with them in it. She patted the top of the rod. Aura flew out, then another followed. Soon all the faeries sat in a line on the rod, like small birds on the phone lines. Abbie giggled. “You remind me of my sister’s sun visor when Sonic had those collectible plastic animals on their straws.”