Queen of the Fae: Book Two in the Fae Unbound Series (Fae Unbound Teen Young Adult Fantasy Series) (5 page)

"Steven, I'm furious about the whole thing..." his mother said. Bobby put his head on his knees and hugged them tightly to his chest. He began to rock just a little, but he told himself he wouldn't cry.

"Well, something needs to be done. It's not acceptable..."

His mother's voice grew quieter and he couldn't hear her for a little while.

"… but can you take him?"

"Yes, call me back when you know. Thank you, Steve..."

Bobby started to cry quietly. Now he was even going to be sent away.

"Bobby?" his mother called, then walked into the hallway and nearly fell over the weeping boy as she rounded the corner.

"Please don't send me away. I didn't do it, really. I didn't do it!" he managed between sobs.

His mother collapsed to the floor and pulled him close to her, nearly bursting into tears herself. "Oh Bobby, I'm not mad at you...I'm mad at lots of people, but I'm not mad at you. Your father isn't mad at you, either. That's not why I asked him to let you stay there. It's because you can't stay home alone. I can't have time off work until later in the week. Someone has to be able to stay with you while you’re suspended. Your father is sometimes able to work from home, that’s why I asked him if you could stay there." She smoothed his hair and pulled him even closer.

Bobby sniffled a few more times and said, "Are you sure?"

"Honey, I’m completely sure. I know that you wouldn't do what the Principal said you did, and I know you would never lie to me about it even if you did do it. If that Principal thinks that gnomes don't have minds of their own, then she has obviously never met a gnome! And to say that Lizbet is practicing magic because of something she has no control over..." His mom took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. "She's just wrong, Bobby, and it made me mad. But that's between adults, not between you and the principal, okay? I don't want you getting angry and getting in trouble again."

"Yeah, okay, mom." Bobby snuggled into his mother's arms and stopped crying.

Gurrdenn motioned Meshharr, Gorjunn, and Kaluum to follow him. They were unusually silent for gnomes. Below the window, they formed a gnome pyramid and Gurrdenn scrambled to the top. He could see Bobby inside, sitting down and watching a picture box. A man, the father, entered the room and sat down next to him.

Gurrdenn jumped down and looked around, trying to figure out how the huddle could build a burrow on the hard walkway, high in the air, so far away from the yielding earth.

Bobby called to his father, "Can I watch TV?"

Mr. Moore walked into the small living room and joined Bobby on the couch. "Looks like you've already turned it on without asking. Don't you have any schoolwork?"

"No. You have to pick it up from my teacher after school, remember?"

"Yes, I remember. But being suspended from school shouldn't be a vacation. I'm trying to think if there are any chores you could do until you have some homework..."

"But..."

"No buts, Bobby. I know you didn't start that fight, but did you try to stop the gnome from hurting that boy?"

"No...but..."

"Bobby, gnomes aren't pets. I don't know what they are, but they're definitely not pets. I've told you that I don't like you playing with them even though your mother doesn't seem to mind. I don't feel safe about you being around magical creatures."

"But Lizzie is magical, too!"

"Lizzie has an...affliction. Lizzie is different," Steve said, but in his heart, he knew that he had real concerns about what his daughter had become. He hated himself for it, but he didn't feel comfortable with Lizbet's wings, Tanji's ears, the gnomes, pixies, or any of the other fae and magical creatures he'd heard about. He also didn't like that mouthy gruagach Lizbet treated like an old friend. If he had his way, she'd be forbidden to associate with it.

Out of the corner of his eye, Steve saw movement. He looked toward the picture window, and he saw something disappearing from view at the bottom of the frame as he turned. He walked to the window and looked down.
Gnomes. Filthy, disgusting gnomes
.

"Unbelievable! Bobby, are these the gnomes from your mom's house?" He motioned to Bobby to come to the window and take a look.

Bobby moved to the window and looked down at the gnomes. They looked back up at him, giant grins lighting all of their faces when they saw him, "Yeah, that's Gurrdenn, Kaluum, and...I don't say the names of the other ones right."

"Do they always follow you like this?"

"I guess so. Gurrdenn got into my backpack yesterday, and I didn't know he was there. I told you I didn't mean to take him to school. See? Now you know it's true."

The gnomes called out to Bobby and motioned for him to come play. They began a game that looked similar to tag but also included apparently friendly slaps and kicks. Because they were gnomes, flatulence was involved. 

How can anyone stand this?
thought Steven. He took out his cell and dialed a number that had been playing on the local radio station for days. "Hello. Yes, is that Ron? This is Steve Moore, Lizbet's father, and you can definitely help me...I'd like to arrange for a gnome removal."

By the second day of school, Lizbet felt better than she had since Fae Day. She didn't have a headache, and when she woke up, she felt fully rested for the first time in a long time. Tanji had been right—the first day of school had been rough, but a lot of people had gotten over the novelty of her wings by the end of the day. Now most people were interacting with her pretty much the same way they always had. It was okay to be at school with no one staring at her.

"Hey, Moore- you going out for track this year?" A friend from last year's team called out from behind while hurrying to catch up.

"Nah," Lizbet replied, "Not so much into the athletic kick this year. I thought I'd focus on my studies."

"Man, that's too bad. You were one of our strongest runners for relay."

"Yeah, whatever. Just not into it anymore, I guess." She didn't want to tell anyone the truth because it hurt too much to talk about it. At the end of the day before, the track coach had sought her out to tell her that the school district administration had voted unanimously to disallow "magically altered" students from competing on the teams. It really stung her when the coach she looked up to practically told her she thought Lizbet was a freak. 

Not that the coach was wrong about her. She
was
a freak. She wished she could take it in stride like Tanji did, even embrace it, but she couldn't.

At least she still had her bike to get a workout if she couldn't be on a team, and she was riding to dad's after school to see Bobby. She hadn’t realized how much Bobby had gotten lost in the shuffle in the past month, and she felt bad about that when her mother mentioned it in her gentle way. She also realized she would be feeling better about everything if she'd been spending time with her brother, being normal, instead of sitting around feeling sorry for herself. Bobby’s joyful approach to life could always cheer her up on a bad day.

The bike ride to school that morning had gone a long way to clear her head and give her some perspective. She was going to make some changes, and the first one was to make sure Bobby knew she hadn't ditched him.

Thomas watched James from the window of their flat. James had popped out to the shops on his own to purchase their dinner, but he was never truly on his own anymore. Three wisps trailed behind him, causing the sidewalk to clear of human traffic around him as he walked. No one wanted to come in contact with the wisps. 

The wisps looked the way most people imagined ghosts looked: ephemeral, a milky blue-white, and transparent, no more than a foot wide and three or four feet long. But they weren't ghosts. Each wisp had a small living essence in addition to the magic leftover from the body of a partial fae. 

Usually, the wisps floated randomly with no apparent purpose, searching for the feel of their missing half among the humans so that they could be corporeal again. Thomas could feel the magic in them all the time when they were near. 

James said he couldn't feel their magic, but they were drawn to him just the same. He thought it was because they could sense Myrddin's memories inside him, and those memories were missing the magic that had once been a part of him. Thomas believed that if James were to open himself to the wisps, they could merge with him, and he would have natural magic again.

James wouldn't discuss it, but Thomas was sure that if James really remembered what he was passing up, he’d change his mind. All he needed was to feel the energizing, electric glow of magic investing the cells of his body again. James had helped Thomas start a new life after he lost his memories. It had become Thomas's fondest desire to give James back the gift of magic in return.

When Lizbet got to her English class and slid into the seat next to Tanji, her friend said, "Eamon says hi. You should go visit him."

"When did you see Eamon?"

"Yesterday. He's helping me with some stuff for the blog I'm doing for Dad's business. Dad says the business shouldn't just be about 'pest control' but also about helping people understand magic and what to do when they come across either a potentially dangerous or potentially friendly new beastie. I think it's great! But...I do need some help, so I hunted Eamon down and dragged him away from the cows for a while."

"He's still hanging out with those cows? Last time I saw him, he said he wanted to go back to Scotland."

"Yeah, I don't know why he's still hanging around here…especially since his great bud Lizbet never visits. But he did mention getting back to the other gruagachs sooner or later. I think he's lonely," Tanji said, "So that's why you should go see him."

"I can't tonight. I promised I'd go see Bobby for a while. He's really upset about what happened at school. I guess Mom thinks he was hanging out with the gnomes so much because the rest of us weren’t paying any attention to him. So, I kind of feel responsible for what happened."

"Yeah, you kind of feel responsible for everything lately," Tanji said as the teacher arrived and the class quieted.

Lizbet strained her way up The Hill, wishing she hadn't stopped riding for so long. The Hill took a much bigger toll on her muscles and motivation than usual, but she resisted the temptation to make it easier by getting off and walking. 

She took a moment at the top of The Hill to rest and look upward at the hawks gliding on the air currents above, envying them the easy use of their wings. Then she crossed the road, threw her leg over her bike again, and gave a few quick turns on the pedals before she stood up with one hand out to the breeze to coast down the long, steep slope.

Flying. That's what the coast down the hill feels like. No wings needed. It was the one marvelous thing she could count on when everything else in her life was wrong—that moment when she felt like she was flying.

And then she realized that there was more than coasting going on—her feet lifted off the pedals, and she no longer felt the seat beneath her although she still held the bike with one hand. Then she had to let the handlebar go as the front wheel left the ground and she lifted off the bike completely. She watched her precious bike bounce into the weeds at the side of the path and topple over, then come to a stop, but she was still moving on the air, free as a hawk.