Call to Arms (War of the Fae: Book 2) (34 page)

The witch looked up, sniffing the air, looking around the room.
 
“
Who
are you talking to?”

I could feel Tim quivering.

“Um, no one?”

The witch picked up a wooden spoon and banged it down hard on the tabletop – then she pointed it at me threateningly.
 
“I
don’t
.
 
Like.
 
Liars.”
 
The menace in her voice was unmistakable.

“Fine.
 
I was talking to Tim the pixie in my hair.”

Her eyes lit up and began to sparkle.
 
“Did you say ‘pixie’?”

“Yes.
 
Pixie.
 
Little guy?
 
Wings?
 
Nervous too.”

She cackled.
 
“Oh, what a joy!
 
A pixie has come to my house.
 
Isn’t that nice.
 
I so rarely see pixies anymore.
 
I used to have a pixie here, yes, I did.
 
But he left, oh, yes he did.
 
Flew right out that door.”
 
She poked her spoon in the general direction of the green door.

She shuffled over closer to me until she was at my elbow.
 
“Oh, pixie!
 
Come out to see Maggie, won’t you?
 
Come now ... Melvin and Marshall won’t hurt you, WILL YOU MY PETS
?!
”
 

I cringed at the last bit, it was yelled so loudly near my ear.
 
I guess she had to yell since they were hard of hearing.

I heard some clinking and shuffling on one of the shelves in front of us.
 
The witch was still looking up at me, searching around my head for the pixie.
 
But I was more interested in the sounds I’d heard.
 
I caught a movement near one of the jars that was dusty and covered in cobwebs.
 
A nose with whiskers popped out from behind it.

“Wow.
 
That’s a big friggin’ rat.”

The witch turned.
 
“Ah, yes.
 
Melvin.
 
MOMMA’S BIG BOY, AREN’T YOU MELVIN
?!
”

Man, this witch was going to give me a headache if I had to sit in here for much longer listening to her yell at her deaf rats.

I cleared my throat to get her attention.
 
“So anyway, Maggie, my friend Tim the pixie, who, ah, thinks you’re just the coolest, smartest witch he knows,”

“Be careful fae girl.
 
Lies ... ”

“Oh, shit.
 
Yeah.
 
So maybe you’re the only witch he knows, I’m not sure.
 
But he seemed to think you could help my friend.
 
And none of the witches back where we live know how to fix his problem, so that means if Tim told me to come here, you must be a pretty kickass witch.
 
And that’s the truth, I swear.”

She shuffled over to her table, reaching below it to grab a black pot, which she heaved up and dropped onto the table with a bang.
 
Her big, gnarly, matted and dirty pet rat didn’t even flinch at the noise, but Tim and I sure did.
 
I think I lost another few hairs by the roots.
 

The pot had four short, squat feet on it.
 
The entire thing was sooty black and had a metal ring-type handle at the top.
 
She turned to the shelves behind her and started pulling things off, putting them on the table next to the pot while singing to herself, “Something green, something green, nothing’s good without something green ... ”

I kept talking without waiting for her response, since she didn’t seem to want to contribute to the conversation much.
 
“So my friend was shot in the back with an arrow that had some kind of spell on it.”

She picked up the dead crow from the table and looked at it, saying, “You’re not green.”
 
And then she threw it into the pot.
 

I tried not to feel sick to my stomach, but it was hard.
 
She wasn’t even going to pluck it or take the head off?
 
Oof
.

“Mmmm,” I said, getting ready to comment favorably on her ingredient list, but with a warning look from her I altered my comment, “that doesn’t look delicious at all.”

She cackled at me as she picked up and set down different bottles and jars on her shelves, looking for something she wasn’t finding.
 
“You may tell me about your friend.”

My eyes moved from the pot to the rat that was now fully out from behind the jar.
 
He was the size of a small cat.
 
“Shit, Tim, no wonder you’re afraid of mice here in the forest.
 
If they’re even half the size of that
mofo
, you’d make a nice meal for one of ‘em.”

“Your friend!” she barked.

“Oh, yeah, sorry.
 
So he got shot in the back with the arrow and fell asleep or was paralyzed.
 
He’s been in this coma for a few days now.
 
His pupils don’t react to the light.”

I felt Tim creep out of my hair and stand behind my ear, still quivering.
 
“Tell her his pulse is slow, one half normal rate, and his heart rate is irregular.”

“His pulse ... ”

“I’m not deaf!
 
I can hear your pixie!”

“Oh.
 
Well, you have better hearing than I do, then.
 
I can barely hear him.”

“So!” she yelled, turning around back to the table, holding a purple glass jar in her wrinkled, liver-spotted hand.
 
“Are you here for the spelled friend or for your hearing problem?”

I looked at her like she was nuts.
 
“For my friend.
 
I don’t have a hearing problem.”

She put the purple jar down at the table and squinted at me.
 
“Did you not just say you
cannot
hear your pixie?”

“Yeah, but that’s normal.
 
He has microscopic vocal chords.”

“A simple spell, girl, a simple spell will rectify your problem.”

I hadn’t thought about that.
 
“Well, my first priority is my sick friend.
 
If you can also help me with my, uh, hearing problem ... well, that would be good too, I guess.”

The witch smiled at me craftily.
 
It made me instantly nervous.

“Yes, I can help you.
 
I know what ills your friend.
 
There are Dark Fae in these woods who have arrows of the hawthorn soaked in tincture of dropwort and calotropis.
 
An angry mixture.
 
What has your friend done to upset them?”

“Well, the arrow was meant for me actually.”

She raised her gray eyebrow at me.
 
“You are the elemental tapping into the ley lines.
 
I have felt your touch.”

I tried not to feel guilty about something that may have bothered her.
 
My eyes went back and forth as I shrugged and cringed a little at the same time.
 
“That might have been me.
 
Sorry if it ... interfered with your signal or whatever.”

She cackled, jabbing her spoon out in the air for emphasis at the end of every sentence.
 
“No apology
necessary
.
 
It was
fun
.
 
I haven’t felt that energized in
centuries
.”
 
She thrust her spoon at me.
 
“You have a rough and undisciplined spirit and terrible technique.”
 
She paused for a minute to suck her gnarly teeth.
  
“ ...
but
you have power.
 
Great power.
 
You could be a formidable force in this world.
 
With the correct training, of course.”

“The fae say they’re going to help me learn.”

She snorted, grumbling to herself.
 
I got the impression she wasn’t impressed with this program.

“So, do you think you can help me, then?”

“A bargain!” she shouted.

Dammit
.
 
How did I know this wasn’t going to be easy?

“What kind of bargain?”

“Two spells.
 
One to help your friend.
 
One to solve your hearing problem.”

“Okaaaay.”

“For one green pixie wing!”
 
She cackled like crazy then, clearly delighted with her end of the deal.

I was instantly pissed.
 
I’d come all the way out here and hung around her gross house with her mangy rats for nothing.
 

“You crazy bitch.
 
Are you a sadist or what?
 
No one’s ripping off anyone’s wings so you can mix it into some nasty dead crow brew.”
 
I turned to leave.
 
“Come on, Tim.
 
We’re outta here.”

The demented witch started to whistle through the space in her teeth.
 
I could hear jars clanking as she moved them around.

Tim pulled my hair hard and yelled,
“Wait!”

“Tim, I swear to all that is holy, if you fucking pull my hair
one more time
... ”

“Wait.
 
Please.
 
Go back,” he pleaded in my ear.

I was nearly to the door.
 
I snuck a look back at the witch; she was busy adding things from the jars to the crow in the pot, all while singing about adding something green, whatever that meant.
 
I shuddered, thinking about what a horrid stew that was going to make.
 
Disgusting
.

Tim moved closer to my ear as I turned back to the door.
 
“You have to make the bargain with her.”

I spoke as low as I could. “No friggin’ way, Tim!
 
You’re nuts!
 
She wants to dismember you!”

“Listen.
 
Pixie wings grow back.
 
I’ll just grow another one.”

I hesitated a second.
 
“Yeah, but that’s gotta hurt, having it ripped off.”

He didn’t answer me right away.

“Tell the truth, Tim,” I warned.
 
I felt like the witch for a brief second – tired of all the lies.
 
Frightening to think that we might have something in common.

“It hurts ... but not a lot!
 
And we have to do this, or your friend will be gone forever.”

“What
?!
”

“I have seen this sickness before.
 
What the witch said earlier ... it is an angry poison that has been used against him.
 
If he is not helped soon, there will be no help for him at all.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!
 
Why is this happening?”
 
I was frustrated, mad, and sad all at the same time.
 
To save a friend who had helped me, I had to dismember another friend offering to help me.
 
My life as a fae was seriously messed up.

Tim continued his plea.
 
“You saved me.
 
I owe you.
 
Let me do this for your friend.”

“That was a low blow, Tim.
 
We have a bargain already.
 
I saved you in exchange for two promises, which you have kept.”

“Pixies do what they have to do.
 
I do not demand anything in return for my wing.
 
It is a gift.”

“How are you going to fly?
 
How long will it take for your wing to grow back?”

“I won’t be able to fly without two wings, so I will need to depend on you to help me, at least for a little while.
 
You can hide me in your room until I heal if you want.
 
Or someplace out here in the forest.”

“No way, Tim.
 
I’d never leave you out here where something could ... I don’t know.
 
Eat you?
 
Rip your other wing off?”
 
I shuddered to think how dangerous this world could be to a one-winged pixie.
 
He was small, but he had a life to live as big as Chase’s, as big as mine, as big as any big person’s I knew.
 
And now I knew his heart was huge too.
 
I felt like I was agreeing to let him pull an arm off for me.
 
It was actually kind of revolting in a way.

“I don’t know, Tim.
 
I can’t make that decision.
 
It’s too much.”

“You don’t have to.”

With that, he flew off my shoulder and over to the witch.
 
He landed on the edge of her pot.
 
“Take the wing, witch.
 
The bargain has been struck.”