Long Tom slept in a ball at Eliza’s feet, burrowed into the comforter covered in pastel cartoon characters. The big tomcat rarely left the seven-year-old’s side except for the occasional foray outside. The only sound in the room was the quiet hum of the air conditioning.
At thirteen minutes past midnight, a sound woke the feline. He looked over at the crack in the baseboard near the corner. A scent reached his nostrils. His fur rose and a hiss escaped his jaws as an ancient, instinctive hatred filled him. He jumped off the bed and stalked to the corner without a sound. He sniffed at the small hole in the wall, his tail huge with alarm.
When the attack came, it was too fast for even the nimble cat to escape. He let out a caterwaul of pain that nearly woke Eliza… then quiet returned to the room.
The trio had trouble holding a conversation over Eliza’s wails and Dale’s angry shouting into the telephone.
“I toldja it was the Unseelie! Toldja!” Thornspur said over and over as they sat inside the kitchen cabinet.
“Yah. Poor kit got pointy-stuck,” Mudlick said. “Stuck.”
Featherpetal rolled her eyes. “Whose fault is that, addlebrain?” She pointed at Mudlick.
Mudlick’s big, toad-like mouth turned down in a frown. He pulled his threadbare cap over his eyes.
“He’s gonna cry again, Petal!” Thornspur said.
“I don’t care.” She crossed her arms as sobbing came from beneath the cap. Her stern expression softened and she patted Mudlick on his back. “It’s all right, Mudlick. We’ll fix it.”
Mudlick pulled up his cap as plump tears rolled down his oversized cheeks. He gave her a soulful look. “Fix?”
“Yes, we’ll fix it,” she said.
“How we gonna do that, Petal?” Thornspur asked.
“Umm… I’m working on it,” she said. “First, we have to make sure that book is safely out of mortal hands.”
Eliza looked over at Long Tom’s bed and felt the tears coming again. It was mixed with a dull anger towards whoever had done such an evil thing to her beloved cat. Her father still talked with the police over the phone as he tried to comfort her.
“I’m telling you that some hooligan was in my house, officer!” Dale said into the receiver. “The cat was inside last night and I found it hanging from a tree this morning!”
Eliza started wailing again.
“I’m sorry, honey,” Dale said as he silently berated himself. “I’ll get you a new cat.”
“I don’t wanna new cat! I want Long Tom!” she screamed.
Dale’s ex-wife Anna had picked a wonderful time to be out of town. He tried explaining the situation to another unsympathetic policeman before taking Eliza to his sister’s house and rushing into work.
“Okey doke! They’re all gone!” Thornspur said, squinting out the window into the painful sunlight.
“Gone,” Mudlick said as he sucked on his toes.
“Let’s get to searching. We know the Chronicle’s here somewhere and there’s no glamour on it. We’ll be thorough and it shouldn’t take long.”
“Thurra,” Mudlick said as he walked along the carpet. “Fuzzy.”
Featherpetal sighed. She flew out of the air duct and hovered in front of the bookshelf. None of the books looked familiar, despite a large number of Gaelic words. This mortal had a lot of books. Thornspur hovered next to her.
“Where should we start?” Thornspur asked.
“Grab a book and start reading.”
“And Mudlick?” Thornspur pointed at the floor where the plump spriggan bumped into a trashcan, spilling its contents over the floor.
“Try to keep him from setting the house on fire.”
“That’s it, then,” Featherpetal said, shoving the last book back into the case. She looked around at the ransacked chaos of the father’s den. Mudlick’s legs stuck out from underneath a couch cushion. “It’s not here.”
“It’s gotta be, Petal!” Thornspur said. “We didn’t get drawn here by accident! Someone spoke our true names!”
“So where…?” Featherpetal looked over at a painting of a sunflower. One side of the painting rattled from the air blasting it from a nearby vent. She flew over and pulled the side open, revealing a hidden safe.
“Iron!” Thornspur shouted.
“Irrun!” Mudlick yelled from underneath the cushion.
“Calm down. It’s only a safe,” she said—but kept a discreet distance.
“They’ve warded it against us!”
Mudlick yelled incoherently.
“Will you two shut up? Mortals use iron all the time. It doesn’t hurt them, remember?” She landed on top of the desk and looked up at the formidable obstacle. “The father must have recognized the book as valuable and put it in there.”
“What do we do?” Thornspur asked. “We can’t go through iron!”
“Irrun!”
“We don’t have to, addlebrains. He’ll open it eventually. Once it’s out, we can take it back,” Featherpetal said, “before he can call forth any more of the Unseelie.” She looked around at the wrecked room. “Now we have to fix this den back the way we found it.”
“What? I’m a Pixie Knight! Not a Brownie!” Thornspur shouted.
“Bwownie!”
“You’ll do what I say. We can’t alarm the mortals any more or he might never take the book back out.”
“But…!”
“Start cleaning.”
Eliza sniffed and rubbed at her reddened eyes as she looked down at the spot where Long Tom slept the night before. She felt like crying again, but she was emotionally spent.
Her father ransacked the house trying to find out how someone had gotten inside. Finding nothing, he resorted to changing the locks. The locksmith assured him that the locks he removed hadn’t been tampered with.
After spending an hour double-checking every window, Dale sat up with his daughter as she read some old storybooks. Dale used to read to Eliza but she was now a voracious reader who disdained help unless it was a very big word. Eliza eventually succumbed to sleep
“Why are we watching this mortal girl?” Thornspur asked as they looked down from the ceiling vent.
“She pretty,” Mudlick said with a grin.
“Because whatever Unseelie is lurking below might come back tonight. And it might not be satisfied with killing a cat,” Featherpetal said.
“So?” Thornspur said.
Featherpetal pointed at Eliza. “She could be harmed or killed.”
“So?”
Featherpetal sighed. “If the covenant with the mortal world is broken—even if it’s done by a minor Unseelie—we might get the blame. Especially after Mudlick was the one who lost the Chronicle.”
Mudlick frowned and started to cry again.
“Will you stop that? I said we’ll fix it!”
“What does one mortal life matter, more or less?” Thornspur asked.
Featherpetal raised an eyebrow. “Maybe you’d like to take that up with Queen Titania or King Oberon?”
Thornspur’s eyes widened.
“Break the covenant—or allow it to be broken—and they will find out. And neither one will be happy.”
“’Beron!” Mudlick cringed in fear.
“I guess we can watch the mortal brat for a few nights.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say.”
Mudlick looked down at Eliza and a grin split his broad face. “She pretty one. We guard.”
A half-asleep Eliza touched the indentation where Long Tom had once lain. She felt tears coming again when she heard the sound: an unhealthy skittering from the baseboard in the corner. She bit her lip in fear and tried to see through the gloom.
At first she thought it was a rat. She wanted to scream but her breath froze in her lungs. The dark shape slouched forth from the crack and stood on two legs. Two red sparks on its face glared at her.
Eliza found her voice and screamed.
“Daddy!”
A guttural laugh came from the misshapen form.
“No one hear you, mortal meat.”
She screamed louder, which caused more laughter. The small, humped form crawled up onto her bed. Frost rolled off its back.
“I give you reason to scream, meat.”
Eliza fumbled with her lamp. If she could turn on the light, she’d wake from the nightmare. Her fingertips touched the switch and light spilled over the bed. Instead of vanishing, the creature merely flinched from the light and Eliza got a good look. The thing had dark skin, a huge head with oversized jaws and was dressed in scraps of fur.
Eliza wanted to scream again, but she couldn’t find the breath as the creature scrambled up the covers towards her. It left a trail of luminescent drool in its wake. It chuckled with every step, drinking in her fear.
Its chuckling stopped when another small figure landed in front of it. It was a tiny, winged man a few inches tall, dressed in garish blue silk and wielding a rapier. The miniature man was unnaturally slender and moved like lightning.
“Hold, boggart! This mortal child is under the protection of Thornspur the Pixie Knight!” Thornspur said, moving his rapier with blurring speed.
The boggart froze in surprise for a moment.
“Begone! Get lost, you Unseelie ruffian!” Thornspur danced around in an elaborate series of fencing moves.
The boggart’s eyes narrowed. “My mortal meat.”
“No, she’s not!” Thornspur said.
The boggart lashed out with one of its long arms and knocked Thornspur the length of the bed. He skidded to a stop, his head spinning and rapier imbedded in a teddy bear.
“Haw!” the boggart said and advanced towards Eliza again, setting off renewed terror. A second winged figure landed next to the first. This one was a miniature woman in a shimmering, feather-fringed dress.
“You acorn-brain! Next time stab first and threaten later!” Featherpetal said.
“He cheated!” Thornspur said, getting to his feet.
The boggart was nearly to Eliza’s feet when another small figure dropped in front of the boggart. This figure had no wings and its arms were nearly as thick as its stout body.
“You no hurt pretty mortal!”
The boggart’s eyes widened in fear. “Spriggan!”
“Yah!” Mudlick said as his oversized fist propelled the boggart across the room to imbed into the wall. As mighty as the blow was, the boggart wouldn’t have been killed except that chance interceded. A steel stud poked out of the baseboard just inside of the drywall, impaling the boggart. The boggart let out a gurgling moan of pain and smoke poured from its mouth. It twitched a few more times and then dissolved into a foul cloud of gas.
“Go poof!” Mudlick said with a satisfied nod.
The three faeries had a moment of silence. It was a solemn thing when one of the sidhe perished—even one of the Unseelie Court. Eliza stared at the three tiny humanoids with a combination of wonder and fear.
Featherpetal, Thornspur and Mudlick stood in front of Eliza. Mudlick, being a bit top-heavy, fell over and looked up at Eliza with an upside-down grin.
Eliza giggled despite her fear.
“You pretty,” Mudlick said.
“She can see us! I mean really see us!” Thornspur said.
“She has the sight,” Featherpetal said. “A human child with elf-sight. I didn’t think there were any left.”
“A-are you gonna hurt me?” Eliza asked in a small voice, clutching her comforter to her face.
“No, child,” Featherpetal said. “We’re here to protect you.”
“Purtect!” Mudlick said, righting himself.
“Okay,” Eliza said, as if that made perfect sense. She pointed at the hole in her wall. “What was that?”
“Boggart.” Thornspur sneered. “Foul minion of the Unseelie Court!”
“The Un… what?”
“Unseelie Court,” Thornspur said. “The dark children of the Sidhe.”
“Children of the she?” Eliza’s forehead crinkled up in confusion. “She who?”
“Not ‘she’—sidhe.”
“That’s what I said—she.” Eliza folded her arms defiantly.
“No, no!” Thornspur jumped up and down, fists pumping in frustration.
“Leave it be, Thornspur,” Featherpetal said, stifling a grin. “She doesn’t understand.”
Thornspur scowled.
“We are of the light faerie folk,” Featherpetal said, picking her words carefully. She pointed at the hole in the wall. “That was one of the dark faerie folk.”
Eliza’s face brightened. “You’re good fairies!”
“Close enough,” Featherpetal said. “My name is Featherpetal and I’m a sprite. My friend with the sword is Thornspur, a Pixie Knight.”
Thornspur bowed with a flourish of his cap, evincing another giggle from Eliza.
“And this is Mudlick… a Spriggan,” Featherpetal said with a sigh.
Mudlick grinned and hugged Eliza’s leg. Eliza squeaked in surprise when the pressure on her thigh became painful.
“Careful, Mudlick,” Featherpetal said. “Sometimes you don’t know your own strength.”
The grip released.
“You’re strong!” Eliza said with wonder.
“Yah. Spriggan strong.” Mudlick smacked a fist into his palm with a crack.
“Wow.”
“You pretty,” Mudlick said.
Eliza smiled. “You hit him good.”
“Yah. Boggart go poof.”
“Boggart?”
“That was a boggart, child. A lesser Unseelie… I mean a lesser dark faerie. We think he slew your pet.”
Eliza’s face scrunched up and she started crying.
“Why is she doing that?” Thornspur asked.
“Her pet died, emptyhead!” Featherpetal said.
“Poor kit!” Mudlick started crying in time with Eliza’s sobs.
“Now they’re both doing it!” Thornspur said. “Stop it!”
They both cried louder.
Thornspur opened his mouth to yell again but Featherpetal slapped her hand over it.
“Hush! That’s not helping.” Before Thornspur could pull her hand away, Featherpetal started singing. Her voice was honeysuckle-sweet and her words spoke of elfin meadows and streams of liquid moonlight. Eliza’s crying trickled off and her eyelids grew heavy. Her head drooped over the pillow and after a moment she was asleep. Mudlick’s crying stopped.
“That’s better,” Featherpetal said. “We’ll guard her until sunrise and then visit her again tomorrow night. You!” She pointed at Thornspur. “Fix the hole in the wall.”
“I’m no Brownie!”
She glared at him until he complied.
“Daddy said I had a nightmare,” Eliza told her visitors the following night. “He didn’t believe me.”
“He may not see us anyway,” Featherpetal said, “if he doesn’t have the sight.”
“The sight?”
“Elf-sight. You can see through our glamours.”
“Glamour? Like supermodels?”
Now it was Featherpetal’s turn to be confused. “I… don’t think so. It… it’s an image. An illusion that mortals have trouble seeing through.”
“You mean it’s not real.”
“Yes.”
“’Kay.”
“What’s your name, child?”
“Eliza.”
“That’s a fine name,” Featherpetal said.
“Pretty,” Mudlick said. Thornspur had no comment.
“How come bad fairies are tryin’ to hurt me? Why’d they kill poor Long Tom?”
“Long Tom?”
“My cat.”
“Oh. Well, dark faeries rarely need a reason to harm mortal creatures, but they and the cat folk have an old enmity,” Featherpetal said.
“Nimmity?”
“They’re enemies.”
“Oh. But that boggey thing was gonna hurt me.”
“Boggarts delight in pain and fear. After your cat was gone he thought it was safe to harm you.”
“Boggart go poof!” Mudlick said.
“Yes, Mudlick—Boggart go poof,” Featherpetal said.
“Will you stop saying that?” Thornspur said.
“Where’d it come from?”
Featherpetal pointed towards the crack in the baseboard. “It emerged from the depths of your house through there.”
“Is it dead?”
“Quite dead.”
“How come it came here?” Eliza asked. “And how come you’re here?”
“Your father has a book that is dangerous for mortals to possess. It has a portion of the Chronicles of Faerie. Several true names of the Seelie and Unseelie are contained within its pages. To speak names draws attention of faerie folk. Much as we three were drawn here.”
“I don’t unnerstand.”
“True names have power in the Courts,” Thornspur said, “if spoken properly and completely.”
“Oh,” Eliza said.
“Your father must have read portions of the Chronicle aloud. It was only good fortune that we were drawn as well as the boggart. The Chronicle has names of many potent faeries,” Featherpetal said.
“Potent?”
“Powerful.”
“Oh.”
“And we need to retrieve the book from your father’s safe before he can draw in more Unseelie—dark faeries. Until we do your household is in deadly peril,” Featherpetal said. “Can you help us get inside his safe?”
Eliza shook her head. “Daddy told me to never go near the safe. That’s where he keeps his guns.”
“Guns?” Featherpetal asked.
“Mortal weapons,” Thornspur said.
“Oh yes, now I remember. Loud, smoky things.”
“Make boom,” Mudlick said.
“We don’t want your father’s guns, we want the book,” Featherpetal said. “Before it’s too late. Will you help us?”
“I dunno. Dad’ll be awful mad.”
“We can’t do it without you, child. The safe contains far too much iron for us to bypass.”
“Iron?”
“Yes, iron. It’s deadly to all faerie folk except the dwarves. The purer it is, the more deadly. We can’t even touch pure iron without burning.”
“Like silver to a werewolf?” Eliza asked, wide-eyed.
“Yes child, something like that.”
Thornspur rolled his eyes.
“How come my daddy has your book?”
“It was lost a short time ago. Your family and mine have some history. It ended up with your clan back in Ireland during one of our family squabbles.”
“Ireland? My great-great-sumthin’ grandpaw lived in Ireland, I think.”
Featherpetal frowned. “That’s a long time for mortals?”
“Well, yeah!”
Featherpetal shrugged. “Time is different for my folk. Mudlick lost the book to your kin right before they had some sort of famine. Then we lost track of it until a few nights ago. We didn’t even know it was on this continent. You mortals move very fast.”
“Enough chit-chat!” Thornspur said, his wings buzzing like an angered bumblebee. “We need to get into that safe!”
“I dunno….” Eliza bit her lip.
“Pplleaase…?” Mudlick said as he hugged her leg. “Mudlick lost book. Me sorry.”
Eliza smiled. “’Kay.”
“Good,” Featherpetal said. “Until we do, we’ll have to remain on guard at night. The boggart may not have been the only Unseelie drawn in.”
Eliza looked around the dark room in trepidation. “There might be more bad fairies?”
“Have no fear, child. We’ll make sure you’re safe if there are. Now sleep.”
Featherpetal sang her to sleep again. Mudlick curled up at her feet in Long Tom’s vacant spot.
“Mrs. Gable’s cat just had a bunch of kittens,” Dale said at breakfast the next morning. “Did you want to maybe pick a kitten?”
Eliza’s face momentarily brightened and then sunk again. The pain of losing Long Tom was still too fresh. She shook her head.
“Okay, but if you change your mind let me know. It’ll be a few days before she’s given them all away.”
“’Kay, daddy.”
“Sylvia is going to watch you this afternoon. Please don’t give her a hard time.”
Eliza beamed and nodded. Sylvia had a habit of chatting on the internet for long periods. During her chats she was oblivious to Eliza’s activities.
Eliza closed the door to her father’s den. Featherpetal and Thornspur flew down from the ceiling. Mudlick sat on top of the oaken desk.
“Well?” Thornspur asked.
“She’s on the internet talking about boys. She wouldn’t notice me jumping out the window.”
“Internet?” Featherpetal blinked.
“Yeah. Computer stuff.”
“Computer?” Thornspur asked.
“Yeah. It’s a thinking machine. Kinda.” Eliza began to get frustrated.
“Never mind,” Featherpetal said. “If I remember correctly, if you turn the dial on a safe in the right directions, it opens.”
Thornspur opened the false painting.
“I don’t see a dial,” Thornspur said. “Just a bunch of black squares with numbers.”
“It’s got a keypad,” Eliza said.
“A what?”
“You push the buttons in the right order and the safe opens.”
“Oh. What order?” Featherpetal asked.
“I dunno. But I think Dad’s got it written down somewhere in here.”
“Where?”
Eliza shrugged. “Maybe in the desk.”
The quartet discovered that Eliza’s father wasn’t the most organized fellow. The antique oaken writing desk was crammed with papers in every drawer as well as stacks on top. Eliza, Featherpetal and Thornspur dug through the reams of paperwork. Mudlick tried to help but kept forgetting what he was doing.
“What’s a ‘1040 form’,” Featherpetal asked, squinting at the tiny print.
“I dunno. The box said ‘taxes’,” Eliza said.
“Taxes?” Thornspur asked.
“Tribute,” Featherpetal said.
Thornspur glared at the piles of paper. “How is this tribute? Where are the jewels or moonlight wine?”
Nobody had an answer.
“This is boring,” Eliza said at the forty-minute mark. “I’m tired.”
“She’s right. This is worse than spinning straw into gold,” Thornspur said, tossing several receipts into the air.
Mudlick snored from the bottom desk drawer.
Featherpetal bit her lip in frustration. Her eyes swam from the dozens of pages she’d read through. “How many numbers does the ‘keypad’ need?”
Eliza shrugged. “I dunno.”
Featherpetal rolled her eyes. “Does he open the safe a lot?”
“Not too much. He takes the guns out to shoot at the range or to clean ‘em. I think that’s all.”
“Then he’d probably keep the numbers someplace easy to find.” Featherpetal pulled the top drawer open. It was difficult to open entirely due to notepads, loose papers and manila envelopes stuffed inside. Thornspur and Featherpetal crawled through the debris.
“I found it!” Thornspur yelled with triumph.
“So did I,” Featherpetal said, holding up another note with ‘Safe #’ scrawled across it. After going through the notes, over a dozen different numbers were found.
“Which one is it?” Thornspur asked, flitting around in frustration. “Why is there more than one?”
“I guess daddy changed the combination. He’s real careful.”
“So which one is the last one?” Featherpetal rifled through the notes, trying to discern the latest.
“I dunno. We can just try ‘em all, can’t we?”
“I suppose.”
After the third wrong number, a light next to the keypad glowed red and the LCD display said: Too many incorrect entries.
“What’s that mean?” Thornspur asked.
After trying to enter more combinations and discovering that the keypad was unresponsive, they gave up. Eliza looked around at the debris and started stuffing papers back into the drawers and boxes.
“Will daddy notice that we messed things up?” Eliza asked.
“Child, did we really mess things up more than they were already messed up?”
Eliza giggled. She slipped back into her room without Sylvia even looking up from the computer’s monitor.
“I can geas him,” Featherpetal said that night.
“Geese?” Eliza frowned. “You’re gonna turn my daddy into a goose?”
“No, no!” Featherpetal said. “I said geas.”
Eliza blinked in incomprehension.
“Enchantment.”
“Huh?”
Featherpetal thought carefully. “A magic charm.”
Eliza’s face brightened. “Oh!”
“He will believe that he needs to get his gun for some reason and will go and open the safe. Once he does, we’ll go in and get the Chronicle.”
“That’s not bad,” Thornspur said. “When?”
“Once he’s asleep. It’s easier to do when he’s asleep, especially if he has elf-sight.”
Eliza lost interest when Mudlick started tickling her. The powerful spriggan was surprisingly gentle with the girl and his smile illuminated the room. It took several tries to get the attention of the two.
“Do I need to do anything?” Eliza asked between laughs.
“I don’t think so. Once the safe is open we should be able to safely retrieve the Chronicle as long as we don’t touch the iron.”
“Okay,” Eliza said, losing interest. She went back to playing with Mudlick.
“You stay here and keep an eye out,” Featherpetal said to Thornspur.
“What? Why?”
Featherpetal’s voice went down to a whisper. “There may be another Unseelie in the house. Someone has to guard her and I may need Mudlick’s strength to retrieve the book.”
Thornspur puffed up with pride and fondled the hilt of his rapier. “I’ll keep her safe.”
“I never had any doubt.”
It was nearly midnight when Dale slipped into a troubled sleep. He’d spent all evening paying bills online and reviewing the state of his finances—after checking all the doors and windows again. Once his breathing steadied, Featherpetal began her haunting song of charm. Dale’s mind was wrapped in a potent geas that urged him into quasi-wakefulness. He stumbled into his den in a quest for his 9mm pistol. His sleepy fingers botched the combination once, but the second time the safe came open. He pulled out the pistol and staggered off in search of an imaginary burglar. Once he departed, Featherpetal flew Mudlick up to the safe.
“Careful, Mudlick. Don’t touch the sides with bare skin.”
“Yah,” Mudlick said, walking over the steel safe’s bottom wearing Eliza’s bunny slippers. He looked through the piles of paperwork contained within the small cubicle, tossing out folders of financial records. After a minute his face poked back out.
“Well?”
“Not here,” Mudlick said.
“What?”
“Nuffin’ here.”
The two of them looked through the safe three times before giving up.
“But… but where else would he keep it?”
Mudlick shrugged. “Maybe he not have it.”
“Somebody spoke the names. If it wasn’t him…” Featherpetal’s eyes widened.
“What matter?”
“Eliza! That boggart didn’t seek out her father, he sought her out! She must have spoken the names!” Featherpetal smacked her forehead. “Curse me for a Nixie! I should have realized it earlier! I’ll bet only a human with elf-sight can read the names properly! He was captured too easily by my geas to have it, so…”
Gunshots and Eliza’s screams echoed through the house.
When the dark shape emerged from the crack in the baseboard, Thornspur unsheathed his bronze rapier and flew over to confront it. Part of him wanted to call out to his two friends for help, but pride—combined with a realization that they probably wouldn’t hear him—stayed his tongue. He landed on the hardwood floor in an en garde position. Then he realized what kind of Unseelie he faced.
A goblin.
A trickle of fear penetrated his heart. It was the most fearsome of the lesser Unseelie. It was devilishly clever, strong and ruthless. He didn’t know if all three of them could beat such a foe, forget doing it alone.
“Ahh… Pixie Knight,” the goblin said with a voice like a strangling infant. “Tiny Pixie Knight. You wish to fight me?” Its dark, warty form was twice Thornspur’s size, even hunchbacked as it was.
Thornspur swallowed.
The goblin laughed. “If you step aside and let me have the mortal morsel, I will let you live.”
For an instant Thornspur considered the offer. The goblin was more powerful than he was, but Thornspur was quicker. If he wanted to escape, he could. He caught a glimpse of Eliza’s sleeping face illuminated in the moonlight. If he fled, the goblin would kill her and eat her heart. Even without considering how angry King Oberon would be to allow the death of a mortal at faerie hands, she was… nice. He steeled his courage and faced the goblin.
“If you retreat now, I’ll let you live, goblin!”
The goblin’s yellow-glowing eyes narrowed with anger.
“I’m going to pull off those wings, Pixie.”
The goblin attacked and Thornspur flew to meet him.
Dale held the pistol in his hands as he staggered drunkenly through the darkened house. There was a burglar out there—that much he knew—but he was a bit fuzzy on the other details. In fact, everything was fuzzy and he’d run into the kitchen wall a few times before he realized it wouldn’t get out of his way. A distant part of him thought that he should be a bit more alarmed about an intruder, but couldn’t quite fathom why.
After navigating the kitchen and the hall, he came to his daughter’s bedroom and fumbled with the doorknob.
Thornspur’s duel with the goblin was silent except for the goblin’s laughs. Thornspur’s tactics were simple: he flew at the goblin, sliced its face or shoulders with his blade and then flew back before the goblin’s powerful claws could rend him apart. With a slower Unseelie it would have been easy, but a goblin was only slightly slower than a Pixie. He’d already received several superficial scratches from the goblin’s claws. The wounds his blade made to the goblin didn’t slow it in the slightest. It licked at the dark blood seeping from the scratches as if it was nectar.
It was a magnificent display of Seelie swordsmanship, but the end was never in doubt. The goblin’s claws tore into Thornspur’s side and wing, spinning him around and smashing him into the distant bookcase. His blade went flying and was lost underneath a small avalanche of books.
The sound woke Eliza. When she caught sight of the goblin, she screamed. The goblin smiled and stalked towards her, slavering in anticipation. Thornspur struggled to escape the pile of books but was pinned by a weighty tome.
“Face me, goblin!” Thornspur shouted in challenge.
“Snack first.” The goblin smiled. “Girl heart. Nummy.”
Eliza’s bedroom door opened and her father stood there with a pistol. In Dale’s groggy perceptions there was an intruder in the same room as his daughter—although he couldn’t see it exactly. The pistol rang out, putting several rounds into the goblin’s chest. What would have been fatal to a human intruder merely stung the goblin. The Unseelie whirled and lunged at Dale, who was too dazed to evade the attack. He would have died except a pair of small-but-powerful arms propelled him the length of the hall into the living room couch. He spiraled down into unconsciousness.
“Eliza-daddy run!” Mudlick said as he threw Dale from the goblin’s path. Deprived of its primary target, it lashed out at the spriggan, sending Mudlick flying into the kitchen with droplets of faerie blood splashing the wall.
“Mudlick!” Featherpetal screamed as she flew over the goblin’s head, interposing her winsome body between the goblin and Eliza. Thornspur had squirmed free from the books and recovered his rapier. His wings damaged, he climbed on top of Eliza’s bed for his last stand.
“I’m scared, Thornspur,” Eliza said.
“We won’t let him hurt you,” Thornspur said, trying to project confidence he didn’t feel.
“Sprite and pixie. Pixie and sprite. In my belly for a midsummer delight. Hur!” the goblin said as it walked forward. It took its time, savoring the hunt.
“Not only are you revolting, but so is your poetry,” Featherpetal said. Taking a deep breath, she sang. It wasn’t a quiet, relaxing melody. This was a single, powerful note that rattled teeth, set every dog barking within a square mile and cracked most of the glass in the house. It was directed at the goblin and he smacked his misshaped hands over his pointed ears. Grimacing, he moved forward against the force of the sonic assault. Step by step, he closed the distance.
Mudlick pulled his body out of the side of the kitchen cabinet. Three deep claw wounds trailed down the side of his torso but the hardy spriggan didn’t notice.
“Goblin bad,” Mudlick said. He looked around the darkened kitchen until his eyes fell onto the pegs where oven mitts hung. Then an object sitting on top of the stove caught his eye. A rare spark of inspiration shot through his under-utilized brain.
Featherpetal watched her death approaching, but she wouldn’t yield. Thornspur urged Eliza towards the window, but her father had secured it too well. The single note wavered and started to fail. The goblin’s sadistic grin widened as it smashed Featherpetal to the ground, putting an abrupt end to her song. Thornspur leapt to the attack but was slapped aside with contempt. The goblin grabbed Featherpetal in a grip of steel and covered her mouth. Its fingers gripped one of her delicate wings.
“Sprite wing,” the goblin said. “Like paper.”
Featherpetal writhed in agony as the goblin pulled harder on her wing. His sadistic smile outshone his yellow eyes.
“Pain taste good.”
The goblin recoiled in agony as the iron frying pan came down on top of its head with all the force Mudlick could muster. He wore the clumsy, oversized oven mitts on his hands as he swung the pan.
“Goblin bad!” Mudlick said as he swung again. Smoke poured from the goblin’s head at every blow. The goblin dropped Featherpetal and tried to escape the deadly assault. The iron pan rose and fell like an executioner’s axe. The goblin let out a hideous shriek as Mudlick drove it into the floorboards like a nail. Foul-smelling vapors poured out from underneath the pan after Mudlick’s final blow. A charred outline was all that remained of the goblin.
Mudlick grinned, satisfied. “Goblin go poof!”
“I can’t believe she had the Chronicle the whole time!” Thornspur said as Featherpetal examined his healing wounds. The yellowed Chronicle sat next to them, covered with crayon stains. It had been one of the books that had pinned him, covered with a different book jacket. “Why didn’t she tell us?”
“She’s only a child, Thornspur,” Featherpetal said. Mudlick and Eliza played with dolls on the floor. Eliza dressed Mudlick in one of her doll’s dresses and they were having tea together. Mudlick was oblivious to how ridiculous he looked. “She thought it was a story book and our true names sounded like gibberish to her.”
“Well she nearly got us killed—and she slept through my epic duel!” He folded his arms and jutted his chin out. “She thinks Mudlick’s a great hero but… aww, never mind.”
Featherpetal grasped Thornspur by his chin and looked into his eyes.
“I know what you did, Pixie Knight Thornspur. You saved her life by facing a goblin in single combat. You’re the bravest Pixie I’ve ever known.” She kissed him on the lips.
Thornspur’s cheeks turned cherry-red as he swelled with pride. For once he was at a loss for words.
“There’s no more presence of the Unseelie here. The crack into the Unseelie Courts has closed.” She pointed at the corner where the baseboard was now whole. “I’ve sung new memories into her father’s mind. He’ll forget all of this in a day. There’s no reason for us to stay. Now comes the hard part.”
“Hard part?”
“Parting those two.” Featherpetal pointed at Mudlick and Eliza.
“But I want you to stay!” Eliza said, tears rolling down her cheeks.
“Mudlick want to stay!” Mudlick cried in time to Eliza’s sobs.
“To stay in the mortal world would violate the Changeling Accord! Do you want to risk the wrath of King Oberon?” Featherpetal said.
“Don’t care!” Mudlick hugged Eliza’s leg. “Wanna stay with Eliza!”
Eliza hugged him back. “Stay!”
“Oh, by the Weird Sisters! You can’t!”
“Why?” Eliza and Mudlick asked.
“I just told you…!”
Thornspur took her by the shoulder and shook his head, smiling.
“You can’t out-stubborn a spriggan, Petal,” he said.
Featherpetal opened her mouth to disagree but the sight of Eliza and Mudlick hugging melted her resolve.
“All right, but you’ve got to maintain a glamour whenever you’re around other humans.”
Mudlick nodded vigorously. “What Mudlick look like?”
“Kitty!” Eliza said.
“I’m telling you, Anna, that cat is weird,” Dale said to his cell phone as he sat on the porch watching Eliza play along the sidewalk. The plump, black-and-white cat she’d named Mudlick—he had no idea where that name came from—followed wherever Eliza went. The two of them chased lightning bugs in the deepening evening.
“Weird how?” Anna asked over the phone.
Dale squirmed. “Well, for one thing I don’t know where the devil it came from. It looks pretty healthy for a stray.”
“But you got it shots and everything, right?”
“Oh yeah. The vet said it was—and I quote—‘the healthiest cat I ever saw.’”
“So what’s the problem?”
“It… looks at me like it understands what I’m saying.”
There was a moment of silence on the line.
“Yeah, I know what that sounds like, Anna.”
“I’m glad.”
Dale was momentarily distracted when a local dog moved in Eliza’s direction. Their neighbors did a poor job of controlling the huge German Shepherd, and Dale constantly worried about the aggressive beast harming his daughter. Repeated requests had little impact on the neighbors. He relaxed when it moved away.
“And… have you ever seen a cat smile before, Anna?”
“That’s just a snarl.”
“No, I mean smile. Like the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland.”
Another pause. “Have you been drinking, Dale?”
Dale sighed. “I knew it was a mistake saying anything.”
“I’m sorry, Dale, but how did you expect me to react?”
“I was hoping…” Dale trailed off when the German Shepherd reappeared and ran towards Eliza. He dropped the cellphone and bolted towards his daughter. That’s when he saw the German Shepherd retreating at high speed. He froze in the middle of the lawn and his eye twitched a little. He walked to the back yard and picked up the cellphone.
“Dale? Dale? Are you all right?”
“I… I haven’t been drinking. But I intend to start as soon as I hang up.”
“What?”
“Anna, I think I just saw…”
“Yes?”
“I could swear—swear—I just saw our daughter’s cat chasing away the neighbor’s dog with a baseball bat in its paws…”
About the Author
Charles D. Shell is a native of southwestern Virginia. His story “Boneyard Prophet” was recently published in Threads: A NeoVerse Anthology.