That night Maude and Tanker demanded I sit down with them, and this time they didn’t seem to be making light of their parental roles. As I sat before my opened package, Maude flitted back and forth via her wings, while Tanker sat cross-legged over the tabletop—blue bubbles streaming from his pipe as he stared down at me with pointed eyes.
“You can’t date the heir,” he said, once more making it nearly impossible to take him seriously, as he was wearing an orange bikini top and red-flowered board shorts—a conk shell necklace strewn around his neck.
“I’m not!” I exclaimed, slamming my fists down over the yellow table.
Technically I wasn’t, I mean, we hadn’t said we were going steady or anything. Honestly, I wasn’t really very clear on the rules of dating in the human world, let alone in this one.
“Then who sent this to you?” he asked.
As she flew by my seat, I shot Maude an unhappy glance. Why had she told him? I’d thought we’d settled this argument earlier after I’d stormed out of the kitchen and stalked off to my room. I was getting rather good at being a teenager.
“How am I supposed to know?” I asked, with my arms crossed tightly across my chest. “Maybe the dress shop owner thought I should have it. I am the famous lost Erwain after all,” I added sarcastically.
Maude scoffed. “Esmerelda Waukine wouldn’t even give the king a free robe if he requested it, let alone send you this dress out of the kindness of her heart.”
“No, she wouldn’t.” Tanker was frowning at me. “We know that dress is from Sir Toby, Makayla, so why don’t you just come out with it.”
“So what? I’m not allowed to see people here? What if I said I wanted to start splitting my time between Garlandia and home?” Maude looked over at me expectantly. “If I did that, it would be unfair to tell me I couldn’t have friends, or boyfriends.”
“Sir Toby cannot be a boyfriend! Elves cannot be boyfriends!” Tanker exclaimed, pounding his fist on the table so hard that the package bounced.
“Who do you expect me to date then? A ten-hundred-year-old faery! Oh, I know, how about a gnome, they love my cooking.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Makayla,” Tanker argued, “there are plenty of younger fey than that.” Signaling to Maude, he said, “Why Ericka Blume is two hundred and thirteen if you fancy a she faery, or Jerome down off Skyway is only two hundred and fifty-three!”
“Gross!” I stood up and swiped both the package and my wand up into my arms. Yellow, orange, and brown dust had begun radiating from my shoulders, and as it did Maude and Tanker looked at it, wide-eyed. “Who cares who sent this to me anyway! It’s beautiful and I’m keeping it!”
I was upstairs when Tanker knocked on my door, playing with the two runes I’d collected from my little side business—the dress hanging from a hanger on the outside of my closet, and Kevin on my lap.
“May I come in, Makayla?”
“I don’t care,” I retorted, shaking my head.
The door opened slowly, and he walked in.
“You know the rules of this land; I know you do.”
I laid down the runes next to the secret stone Toby had given me and sat up, readjusting Kevin so his head wasn’t digging into my stomach. “I’ve been informed, yes. But I think it’s absolute shit.”
“What you think about it doesn’t matter. Keeping you alive does.”
I took a deep breath, and then instead of arguing with him, I simply let it all out. “Back in the human world I didn’t even have friends my own age until just before I came here. Not ever. I didn’t think I cared, not until I met Cee-Cee and Jeremy. And until I met Toby—I just, I’ve never done anything that kids my age should be doing. It’s stunted me, which is bizarre because I’ve always thought myself light years ahead of my peers.” Wrapping my fingers around Kevin’s floppy ears, I muttered, “What kind of girl grows up thinking more about a handshake than a first kiss?”
Tanker’s wings lowered from where they’d been raised over his head.
Looking up at him, I tried to reason. “I know the rules here, but what if someone had told you that you couldn’t marry Maude? Finding someone who I feel this way about . . . it’s not a small thing to me. And I don’t really care what he is or who he is, because when I’m around him I could care less about making lists, or how much work I’m missing by being here, or—or about odd or even numbers, or whether the hand towel and the pictures hanging in the hallway are straight or not—”
“Is that who’s been doing that?” Tanker said in revelation, suddenly forgetting about our argument. “Do you know how frustrating it is for me to dry my hands when the towel is hanging straight?”
“I have trouble breathing when it’s not.”
He looked down at me as though I was some strange new breed he’d just discovered.
“Why does everything have to be so perfect all the time, Makayla?”
I looked away from him, a hot tear manifesting in my right eye. “I don’t know. Maybe because I never felt complete, so I was trying everything I could to figure how to even myself out.”
He lowered himself down to the edge of my bed—an awful lot like my mom did back home. Placing a hand over my ankle, he asked, “How many colors are there now?”
“What?”
“In that little notebook of yours, the one Helene gave you. How many colors of dust have you noted?”
My jaw dropped. “How do you know about that?”
“Come on, you don’t really think we’ve let you go on entirely by yourself—not with someone out there abducting faeries. The only time we haven’t had eyes on you is when Sir Toby comes into the forest, at which point our patrol Ardeens have been shut out. I’m assuming he’s been using elfin magic to secure the perimeter around the two of you so word doesn’t get back to the king.”
“You already knew about him . . . and that I was getting help from Helene?”
He inhaled through his nose and nodded.
“Are you mad that I went behind your back?”
“Mad, no. Disappointed, yes.” He looked down at his hands.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and I meant it. “For what it’s worth, I think Helene ditched me. I haven’t had a proper lesson in almost a week.”
He repeated his initial question. “How many colors?”
“Oh . . . right.” I leaned to the side and pulled out my notebook. “Let’s see. Purple, orange, brown, blue, red, green, and now,” I pulled out my pencil, “yellow.”
“You’ve been busy.” He smiled. “I think you’re ready.”
I looked up from the list. “For what?”
“To learn to fly.”
I straightened right up, causing Kevin to groan. “Really?”
“I think so. But this time you’re going to let your mother and I teach you. It’s only fair.”
I nodded, and I didn’t even care that he’d called Maude my mother. “Of course, yes. When can we start?”
He patted my ankle. “Tomorrow. Meet us in the garden at sunrise.”
“Okay,” I said enthusiastically as he stood back up.
He glanced at the ball gown on his way out.
“And Makayla—”
“Yes?”
Lowering his voice considerably, he said, “I’m not saying I agree with the law, but you’ve seen what happens to those who ignore it. You may call us Tanker and Maude as much as you like, but we remain your mother and father, and you, our daughter. We are prepared to do whatever it takes to keep you from making the biggest mistake of your life . . . to keep you safe.”
“I get it, but surely you must—”
He cut me off, holding up his hand. “It’s not up for debate. Have you ever considered that Sir Toby is baiting you?”
“Baiting me? For what?” I was appalled at the mere suggestion.
“He is the king’s nephew, and I daresay there isn’t an elf in King Loral’s company who hasn’t turned someone to stone.”
“Are you insinuating that Toby has murdered—”
“I’m only stating the obvious. I know you think you have feelings for him, but elfin magic is powerful too. He could be making you feel this way so that he and his uncle can better get to you.”
“For what?” I hinged forward. “What could he possibly gain from pretending to like me?”
Hesitating, he lowered his voice once more. “Those wings of yours were almost taken once, and the only creatures who have ever harmed others in this kingdom have been under the king’s reign.”
“But why would he pretend to like me when all he or the king have to do is pluck me from this forest? It all seems like a giant waste of time if what you are suggesting is true.”
“I’m only warning you, Makayla, that is all. It is one thing to get your heart broken, but another thing altogether—”
“No . . . That’s—that’s ridiculous. Toby isn’t baiting me and he would never turn a living creature to stone. He doesn’t have it in him.”
Tanker just stood there, staring at me, for what felt like a lifetime. Finally, he retorted, “Sir Toby most likely already has used his wand on a living creature. In fact, I would bet my dust on it.” And then he slipped out of my room, leaving my tongue coated with the foul taste of repression.