Queen of the Fae: Book Two in the Fae Unbound Series (Fae Unbound Teen Young Adult Fantasy Series) (19 page)

Tanji sat in a lumpy, upholstered chair across from where James and Thomas filled the small couch in James's apartment.

"So...here's the thing...Lizbet's in detention for magically choking a boy who slapped her on the butt today. Which is too bad, because that kid needs to be choked once in a while, but that's also definitely not something Lizbet would do."

James nodded. "Yeah, I don't believe for a minute Lizbet would act like that, even if evil-Morgan integrated with her. I don't feel much influence from Myrddin's personality unless I'm actually seeking it out. It's been useful when I've had to deal with the elves, but I have to concentrate hard to get access to how to behave as Myrddin. Is that how it is with you and Langoureth?"

"Uhuh. Nail, meet head. I don't think it should be any different for Lizbet and Morgan. Morgan finally figured something out that let her get her way."

"Can you think of anything that Lizbet has been doing differently in the past few days?"

"She was trying to stay awake so that Morgan couldn't take her over again. She was
really
upset about Morgan coming on to you. Pretty much, it was, 'no way is that witch stealing my boyfriend!'." Tanji glanced to Thomas. "Thomas and I worked up a potion that helped her stay awake and she was taking that, but it only lasted a few hours at a time. She also tried to make sure that someone was with her when she was sleeping, like when you were there the day she had to come home from school."

"Yeah, but that didn't work, because that's the day Morgan got friendly with me. Was Lizbet taking the potion then?"

"No. We hadn't made it yet."

"Thomas, what potion did you make her? I don't remember telling you about any potions that would help someone stay awake."

Thomas shook his head, "No, it wasn't one you gave me. Lizbet gave me the potion. She'd written it down in Druidic and gave it to me to make for her. But I couldn’t really read it, so I asked Tanji to help. I assumed she got it from the human Morgan's memories."

"This just doesn’t sound right—Thomas, when did she give it to you?" James asked.

"The other day, right after you called the lightning."

James and Tanji exchanged glances. "Oh great..." said James. "Okay, kids. First, Thomas—I'll need to know everything that was in that potion. Second, Tanji—go home, get Langoureth's book, and come right back. We may need it."

Bobby went out to the backyard after school and was surprised to find that the gnomes were arrayed in a circle, looking solemn rather than playing.

Gurrdenn, who wore the hollowed out head of a rat as a headpiece, walked out from the center of the circle and took his hand, pulling him to the center to sit on the small pile of furs where Gurrdenn had previously been sitting. One of the furs looked suspiciously like a stray cat that had been roaming the neighborhood last week. Bobby sat down, expecting whatever the gnomes were doing to soon turn into a game, but instead, the gnomes stood up and began to walk solemnly in a circle, chanting quietly.

Bobby knew what would happen—in a minute, they would start to act silly and noisy again, and, of course, they did. And then he expected them to break out dancing, and, of course, they did. He figured it was time for him to stand up and join in, and, of course, he did, starting out by spinning around and laughing loudly in the center of the circle.

It was only when he tried to leave the center and join the circle that he realized something was wrong. 

Bobby ran into an invisible wall after walking three feet or so, just inside where the gnomes circled around him. He tried to move out into the circle on another side, and he was trapped there, too.

He put his hands up in front of him and felt along the invisible barrier. It went all the way around him, following the gnome's circle exactly. He was trapped. He didn't know what to think.

"Gurrdenn?"

"Bobby", the gnome answered back.

"What kind of game is this?"

"Bobby stay. Bobby no school. No father take away. Bobby stay."

Bobby looked down at him, wide-eyed, then he shouted as loud as he could, "Mom! Mom! Help, mom!"

His mother poked her head out into the back yard and said, "Bobby, what's wrong?"

 "Mom, can you come out? Please. I...the gnomes..."

Bobby could see that mom look worried. She walked quickly out to the garden and came over to him. Bobby thought she’d run into the invisible wall, but she walked right up to him and kneeled down. "What's wrong, sweetie?"

Bobby felt stupid for letting the gnomes trick him with one of their games. He reached out and took her hand and said, "Nothing, mom. I just wanted to know if you would color with me. Let’s go in the house."

"Sure, I've got a little while before I need to start getting dinner ready. Maybe you can even help me with that."

It all would have been fine if his mom hadn't walked through the invisible wall without him. 

Mom turned back to look at him as his hand pulled out of hers. From knee level, a small voice piped up to him, "Bobby stay."

James kept his voice down as he talked into the phone, "Eamon, we've got unintended consequences in spades...you better get over here to the Moores’."

James turned around and walked back to where Sheila Moore sat on the ground with her arm around her son, who lay his head on her shoulder and looked ready to burst into tears.

James crouched down so that he was near eye level with the boy, "Hey, buddy, no problem. Eamon's on his way over, and between the two of us, we'll take care of it. If the world's most powerful wizard and a short guy with the world's ugliest hair can't sort this out..."

He'd hoped Bobby might laugh at that. He didn't.

The gnomes had gone about their business for the most part now that their god wouldn't be taking off anytime soon. The majority of the huddle was trying to scare up a bird or two for dinner in the ferns at the back of the yard, but James could see Gurrdenn lurking behind the birdbath, keeping an eye on Bobby and Sheila.

James stood up and walked toward him, "Hey Gurrdenn, come on out here for a minute."

The gnome walked forward and stood looking up at James.

"Let Bobby go. He won't leave you, but he needs to be freed."

"No."

"Gurrdenn, you should be reasonable. Bobby’s just a little boy."

"No."

"Sheesh. Well, thanks for that productive talk."

From behind, James heard, "Dinnae I tell ye not to try being reasonable with a gnome? Stubbornest creatures alive. Mostly, they just don't have enough room in their tiny brains to reverse a decision. No, we'll need something more powerful. Something a bit dangerous perhaps."

Eamon walked forward and stood half a foot away from the gnome, looking down at him. They stood and stared at each for a moment, neither one looking away despite the intensity of their stares. Then Eamon spoke, "D'ye know, I'm thinking that we could have Lizbet ask her pet elf to bring one of those dragons over from Europe. Gurrdenn, you've heard the tales, haven't ye? Isn't that why the gnomes ended up crossing the seas on the ships anyway, to escape them? To be able to go above the ground again without fear of being dinner?"

Gurrdenn didn't flinch. "Bobby stay."

"Right, like I said...stubborn. Join me on the patio, lad? I think we'll need to think on this at greater length."

Eamon called out to Mrs. Moore, "Sheila, could you join us for a moment? I have a request."

When Sheila approached them, Eamon asked her to try to keep Lizbet away from the house for a while. Morgan would be of no use, and having her there might make the situation worse, as Morgan truly hated gnomes. Sheila went into the house to make the call.

"Sure, Mrs. M, I can do that. Good luck...I'm sure that it won't go on for much longer…I’m sure James can help...and I can handle the Queen. She thinks I've been taken in, so it's no biggie to keep up the charade."

Tanji grabbed her car keys out of her purse, picked up her phone, and typed a text to Lizbet as she waved to Thomas on her way out of the apartment:

“pk u up at skl and eat at mine 2nite - parents sd yes”

Tanji waited for a response. It came back quickly.

“ok I will be out front”

Tanji slid into the driver's seat of the car and turned the music on loud. She wasn't looking forward to pretending she was enjoying Morgan’s company.

Morgan waved her hand in front of Mr. Hill's face and he started moving again. She tried so very hard not to throw her head back and laugh as she said, "Five o’clock, Mr. Hill. Time for us to go." The teacher looked at the clock, disoriented.

The other kids, who’d stayed playing cards and having a fine time directly underneath the nose of the frozen teacher, snickered as they followed her out.

Sheila and Bobby put up the pup tent, and Sheila handed the sleeping bags in to her son. If he was trapped here, she could at least try to make it seem fun while they waited for a solution. 

"You know what? What we need to really make this fun is some snacks...I have just the thing. I'll be right back."

Sheila went to the house and returned with a bag of snack-size chocolate bars she kept for Bobby's daily lunch bag treat. She handed one to him and peeled the wrapper off her own. Then, she opened her laptop and accessed the family’s streaming movie account and started up Bobby's favorite movie.

"Thanks, mom!"

"Well, it's a special occasion, isn't it? How often do you get to camp out on a school night, right?" Sheila said to the now contented-looking boy. She looked up to where James and Eamon were talking animatedly on the porch. "Honey, I'm going to talk to James for a minute, and then I'll be back to watch the movie with you."

Sheila walked up to the porch and sat on the far side of the table between James and Eamon so that she could keep an eye on Bobby in the garden, not that he was going anywhere any time soon.

She listened for a while as the other two talked about possible solutions to the problem but broke in when Eamon said, "Well, if the gnomes that cast the spell die, then the spell is released..."

"You're going to kill the gnomes? I don't think so!"

"Sheila, I'm sorry. I wasn't suggestin' that we do away with them necessarily. I'm just layin' out all the options...the thing is, and I hate to say it, but James and I might have precipitated this problem. We were tryin' to prevent the gnomes following Bobby to school, as they seem to be very protective of him these days. There was a second scuffle with another child, one of Bobby's friends..."

"I didn't know about that."

"No, the child wasn't badly hurt, and the school didn't know that the gnomes were involved...but it was gettin' out of hand, so we tricked one of the gnomes into putting up a barrier so that they can't leave the yard. We thought that would take care of things, but as ye see, now they won't let Bobby leave, either.”

"Well, I might have had a part in that, too. Bobby's father came by last night, threatening to take him back to his place. I stopped that cold, but Gurrdenn's always looking in at the windows for Bobby—it's been creepy lately, really. He might have heard us talking...it got...heated."

"Aye, that makes sense. If they feared he'd be taken away, that might cause them to restrict the lad's range of movement."

"Eamon, I don't care
why
they did it. And all of us did what we thought was going to be best for Bobby, so let's just find a way to solve the problem and not worry about who to blame."

"Sheila, we've not hit on a solution yet. I'll talk to their elders, and perhaps we can strike a deal with them in time, but it's difficult to reason with a gnome. If they believe somethin', it's nearly impossible to get them to listen to the other side."

"Ah, like children, then."

"As you say. Perhaps you should take a run at them. You've more experience in that area than either James or I do."

"If you don't have any success, I certainly will."

“And then, after we’ve rescued the one, we need to rescue your other child who’s trapped in a very different way. I’m so sorry, Sheila, for everything that’s happened.”

Tanji walked into the den, dropped the box of twigs, herbs, and colored twine they would use to make the pixie wards on the coffee table, and sat down on the couch next to pretend-Lizbet.

"Any ideas for on a movie while we knock out pixie wards?"

Lizbet shook her head, "You go ahead and choose."

Tanji checked her streaming movie queue and settled on a superhero flick, something escapist that didn't have magic in it. Once upon a time she enjoyed fantasy movies, but now that she understood magic and magical creatures, they seemed silly. Magic was both more and less than the way it was portrayed. Now that the fae had returned, the whole genre was going to need a makeover—and it certainly couldn't be called "fantasy" anymore.

She brought microwave popcorn and iced tea out to the table, and they worked silently while they watched the movie. Tanji tried to get some social going, but every time she did, “Lizbet” would reply with only "yes" or "no" or just nod. Dull. She wanted her friend back.

Whatever. Decent movie. Salty popcorn. The Queen wasn’t getting Lizbet into any trouble at the moment, and they were getting a lot of pixie wards done for the store, and that store was going to pay for her trip to Scotland to see Langoureth's country for herself. She tried hard to ignore the fact that her best friend was in serious danger and focus on other things. At least 'ol Queenie wasn't flying Lizbet's body around a couple of countries for her own nefarious purposes tonight.

Tanji's phone rang. When she looked at the caller information, she excused herself and went to her room to take the call.

"Yeah, I can get her back there. I think she's bored out of her mind anyway...okay, I'll try. See ya."