Chicory Up: The Pixie Chronicles (9 page)

Biting her lip, she put all the papers back in the envelope, wound the string around the button to close it and carried it upstairs to her office.

She heard voices from the second-story bedrooms. M’Velle must be doing a tour. Quickly, Dusty checked the downstairs exhibits starting with the original log cabin space that was now the front parlor and then all the mismatched additions. No one else wandered about, not even the volunteers who came in each afternoon to dust and vacuum. She made a quick call from her office phone to the little house across the park grounds that served as gift shop and ticket sales.

“No guests waiting for a tour,” Meggie, the other high school work-study student reported. “Though I’m having trouble with my costume for the parade. I just can’t see myself as the ghost of a missionary wife. Can’t I do something more interesting, Dusty?”

“Not unless you want to be the ghost of the town Madame. But I think Mrs. Shiregrove has dibs on that job.”

Meggie grumbled something and hung up.

Dusty slipped into her office at the back of the building, adjacent to the enclosed sun porch that had become the employee lounge and work space. She flipped the lock on the door and sat at her desk. She’d reorganized the office and cleared out a lot of half-finished projects once Joe had left. The place actually felt like an office now instead of a cluttered closet.

She hated to think what his new office in the faculty wing of the community college looked like. His two daughters, aged four and six, kept their room tidier than he did.

Three deep breaths later she found the courage to open her cell phone again. The landline tempted her, but that was an open line with many extensions in the lounge and the gift shop, as well as the upstairs hall.

“Norton,” Chase answered. He sounded distracted and harassed.

“Chase, is this a bad time to talk?”

“Yeah, kinda. I’ve got traffic backed up for two miles. Can’t get an ambulance or tow truck in. Gonna have to use life flight. And I need the Jaws of Life to get to the last victim. We think he’s dead, but can’t be sure until we get enough space to reach an arm in and feel for a pulse.”

“I won’t keep you. But call me as soon as you have half a minute. Mabel’s papers are… interesting.”

“Yeah, sure. Later.” He hung up in a hurry, barely getting the last syllable through his teeth.

Thistle stood at the gate in the white picket fence. She scanned all of Mabel Gardiner’s front yard in search of her quarry. This town had a lot of picket fences. She smiled as she remembered childish flying games learning to skip from point to point….

She had to forget that part of her life. For now. The highest calling was to befriend those in need. Her friend Mabel needed her to stay here, in a human body, while she was sick.

Thistle adjusted the backpack full of her clothes and toiletries slung over one shoulder. Enough for five days before she’d have to learn how to use the laundry. Hopefully, Mabel didn’t keep the noisy machines in the basement. Thistle might be human now, but she still feared underground. If the earth didn’t absorb and kill her, her fear of underground might.

Roses spilled over the fence almost the entire length. Even this late in the year, hybrids and old-fashioned blossoms mixed their colors and heady fragrance with abandon. Thistle let the perfume invade every one of her senses. If she still had her wings, she’d be drunk in six heartbeats. How did the local Pixies manage to fly a straight line, let alone infiltrate the entire town spying for Mabel?

An arch stretched over the gate providing a trellis for delicate, pink climbing roses. Their abundance of petals hid a myriad of secrets, including at least one Pixie.

“Rosie, may I enter your garden? Mabel sent me,” she called to the queen of Chicory’s tribe. Since becoming
human she didn’t have to ask. But it never hurt to be polite.

“Go away!” Rosie yelled back from the flower directly above Thistle’s head. Only it wasn’t a flower. Rosie had curled up in a ball letting her petal gown mimic the adjacent blossoms.

“Rosie, this is important. Mabel is sick. She sent me here to protect you all until she can come home again.”

“We know. Go away. We don’t need you.”

“Yes, you do.”

“What can you do? You’re a woodland Pixie, as wild as a Dandelion. We’re a civilized, garden tribe.”

“Ask anyone in this district how well I tend gardens,” Thistle shot back, affronted. “A Pixie is a Pixie. We all listen to plants of any variety to learn what they need to thrive.” She shifted her gaze, seeking signs of movement or flashes of color.

All quiet. A few insects fluttered about, gathering the last bits of pollen before hibernating for the winter or dying.

“Rosie, where is your tribe?” Thistle asked suspiciously.

“None of your business.”

“It is my business if they are all off fighting valley Pixies, or… or…” Stars above, could they be attacking the Pixies in The Ten Acre Wood, Thistle’s tribe?

Not that Alder, her king and philandering lover, didn’t deserve to be thrown off his throne. His own tribe was the only one with the right to do that.

Thistle didn’t know for sure. She needed to talk to Alder. Not likely to happen while she was exiled to a human body.

“We’re at war, Thistle,” Rosie said in that superior way of hers. “And there’s nothing you can do about it. We all know where your loyalties lie. And it isn’t in my garden.”

“I understand you are angry because you had to dismiss your betrothed, the one the humans called Haywood Wheatland. But you have to know that my loyalty is to all Pixies, no matter which garden, woodland, or meadow they inhabit,” Thistle insisted, surprised that she truly believed her own words.

“Impossible!” Rosie spat. But she uncurled enough to
peer at Thistle, incredulous at this unique idea. “Pixies only look as far as their own tribe and territory.”

“Pixies came together once to set up a treaty to protect the Patriarch Oak and make it available to all. We did that when the Faeries went underhill to avoid having to deal with humans. The cowards ran away, leaving Pixies on their own. We deal with humans all the time and we thrive.” Thistle reached up and held her palm out for Rosie to settle on. “We need to band together to protect what is ours.”

The pink Pixie ignored the offer of friendship. “Your king broke the treaty.”

“Alder may have closed The Ten Acre Wood trying to keep Faeries out as well as Pixies in. The new discount store up on the next ridge is threatening the Faery sanctuary. Haywood Wheatland is half Faery. He misunderstood his orders to clear the wood of all Pixies. He thought he had to clear the wood!”

“Haywood is more admirable than Alder. He tried to
do
something, rather than run away. That is a cowardly Faery trait. Maybe Alder is the half Faery mutant, not Haywood.”

“Alder
is
an idiot, but he’s not stupid. I’m well rid of him. And if Milkweed was smart, she’d dump him in the pond and leave on her own.”

“Alder won’t let her.” Rosie stepped away from the twisted canes of the climbing rose to step onto Thistle’s hand. “He’s holding her prisoner.”

“Then we need to mount a rescue operation. And rearrange things so that we all work together.”

“How? No one has done such a thing since the time of the Faeries. No one will believe it can be done.” Rosie fluttered her wings in agitation.

“Then you and I will have to put our heads together along with Chicory and his brothers and figure out a way.”

“But… but…”

Thistle eased through the gate and beneath the arch while she talked.

“But Pixies can’t think ahead. Our lives are here, right now, and nothing more.”

“Then let me do the thinking. Please, Rosie. This is important. Life for Pixies is changing. We have to
think
, not
just react. All the tribes will listen to you, and I’ll advise you. You will be important. More important than just one queen among many. That’s something no one can give you. You have to earn it. And to earn it, you have to
think
.”

“Let me sleep on this. It’s almost sunset. Time for me and mine to hide from the night. You may stay in Mabel’s house for now.”

“I will. I promise.” With a smile, Thistle raised her hand and let Rosie fly away. She took a moment to twirl and bask in the glory of the beautiful garden Mabel had provided for her friends. A sadly neglected garden, but still beautiful in its own ramshackle way.

C
HASE RUBBED HIS HANDS ACROSS HIS face and through his hair, trying to scrub away some of his fatigue.

He stared at his key for a long moment trying to remember what it was for and how to use it. The sounds of ripping metal, the cries of the injured, the wails of the grieving, and the angry honking of horns still rang in his ears. Three of the drivers in the chain reaction accident swore they’d seen a miniature man dressed in yellow, with splotchy red-and-gold wings crash into their windshields.

“He flew right at me, then paused in front of the window to make sure I saw him. I had to swerve to avoid hitting him!” They all dictated variations of that statement. One woman said that when the flying man paused, he flickered in and out of view, “Kind of like a computer monitor saving and resetting. Blink and you miss it.”

All of them had passed the sobriety and Breathalyzer tests. Chase hadn’t dared admit to anyone but himself that a Pixie had been at work. But which one? He had a few ideas about that even before he got the call that Haywood Wheatland had escaped county jail. He’d been spotted in Phelma Jo’s office.

Chase shivered, suddenly chilled to the bone.

Then he opened the door of his tiny apartment. The heavenly aroma of garlic and tomatoes with herbs and stuff he never bothered to use when he cooked for himself greeted him. The chill faded, his stomach woke up, and his mind began to work again. Sort of.

“Dusty, is that you?” It had to be. No one else had a key to his apartment.

“Supper’s ready. Get washed up while I put everything on the table,” she called back from the galley kitchen that flowed into his dining/living room space.

“What kind of organic concoction that tastes like cardboard has she thrown together?” he asked himself as he splashed cool water on his face. Then he stumbled to the small round table that separated the kitchen from the living room. He only had two chairs. She occupied one. He took the other, eyeing the pile of whole wheat pasta and tomato sauce with some kind of ground meat—organic turkey he’d bet—on his garage sale china plates. He’d bet the parmesan was a variation of soy cheese, too. More cardboard.

“Eat this,” Dusty said gently, shoving the plate closer to him. “You’ll feel better.”

“I’m too tired to eat,” he mumbled. Dusty’s healthy, organic diet—ingrained while she endured chemo as a child—had looked and smelled better than he thought it would. As tired as he was, he just couldn’t summon a bit of appetite for the food he suspected would be tasteless.

“Why don’t we run down to the café. My sister will fix us dinner. She’s changed the menu. There’s Desdemona’s Delight, a veggie sandwich on whole wheat bread with soy cream cheese. And she added some gluten-free stuff. She wants to broaden the customer base to include people who think they can’t eat out.”

“No. You need to eat now, not an hour from now when we get served at Norton’s.”

Dusty had come to take care of him. He couldn’t ever remember her doing that. The Universe needed to take care of Dusty.

“You’ll sleep better if you eat something and take a shower,” she coaxed.

“One bite,” he agreed, too tired to fight her. When had the shy little girl he’d teased unmercifully become so strong?

Last summer when Thistle had begun working her magic on the town
. What would happen to them all if malevolent magic and mayhem from the yellow Pixie with gold-and-red
wings replaced the gentle, good-humored nurturing from Thistle Down?

A second bite followed the first, then a third, and pretty soon he was soaking up the last of the sauce with a piece of garlic toast—whole grain bread with soy parmesan and, he was sure, organic butter.

“This is really good. I never thought your natural diet would have any taste at all.”