Now You See It... (15 page)

Tiffanie repeated, to make sure she had it right: "Berrech has captured Julian?"

"Yeah, Berrech and four other guys. Elves."

"How long ago?"

I glanced at my wristwatch. "Almost two hours."

"Don't mess with me," Tiffanie warned. "We were in school two hours ago."

"Time flies when you're having fun." I held out my wrist for her to see my watch, which indicated it
was getting close to five. My mother would definitely be at the nursing home by now, and wondering where I was.

Tiffanie made an impatient brushing-away gesture. "Not how long has it been since you saw him," she said. "How long has it been
here?
"

I gave the only appropriate response: "Huh?"

Eleni caught on faster. "Time didn't move here in Kazaran Dahaani while Jeannette was with me?"

Tiffanie said, "Well, obviously time doesn't
stop
here while
you personally
are not paying attention, but no matter how much time you spend away, you always come back to the same time you left from. How long has it been here?"

"Fifteen minutes?" I guessed.

Had it really been only fifteen minutes? I'd assumed that—while I'd been back in the 1950s, semi-successfully dodging cars and totally unsuccessfully dodging Eleni's questions—Berrech and his bully elves had had more than enough time to do whatever they wanted to Julian. I'd been sure it was too late to help him, anyway. I wouldn't have been so intent on leaving Eleni behind and losing Larry if I'd realized how little time had actually passed.

Of course, that was easy to say now that I had people with expectations of me—and no way to get
out without
proving
to them and to myself that I was a cowardly weasel.

Tiffanie got to her feet, looking ready to do the hundred-yard dash.

"Excuse me," Eleni said, "but shouldn't we have a plan?"

"No time!" Tiffanie said. "Which way did they take him?"

Eleni knocked my hand down as I pointed, and said, "First we need to—" but it was too late. Tiffanie was on her feet and running down the path.

The dog, after hesitating a moment, followed.

"
Stop
her," Eleni commanded me. "I can't run in these heels."

"Yeah, but...," I started to say, thinking,
Tiffanie has everything under control. We can go home.

"Stop her!" Eleni gave me a shove even as she slipped off her high heels, and started running, too.

I could abandon Tiffanie; I could abandon Julian; but—even if we hadn't been related—I couldn't abandon Eleni. She kept expecting the best of me, and I kept thinking it would be nice to be the person she thought I was.

I quickly passed her and started closing in on Tiffanie. Tiffanie sure was fast for an old crone who jiggled and bounced so much I was sure she was going to hurt herself. "Tiffanie!" I called. "You can't do this all alone!"

The dog yipped, evidently pointing out she
wasn't
all alone.

Tiffanie stopped, panting hard and pressing her hand to her side. She pulled the hem of her skimpy top down to cover her old-lady belly button.

Eleni caught up. "Can you do that thing you do?" she asked. "To those elves? Like you did with the dog?"

"No," Tiffanie had to admit. "Maybe one, but certainly not all at once—elves are hard to bespell." Looking like it hurt her to accept our help, she asked, "All right—what's your plan?"

"Gosh, I don't have a plan," Eleni admitted. "I don't know enough about the situation."

Tiffanie growled in frustration but didn't start running again, which probably had more to do with her age than Eleni's persuasive abilities.

"Who are these other elves?" Eleni asked. "Why have they taken Julian?"

"All right," Tiffanie said, still breathing heavily, "the history lesson in brief: Julian's father is Nivyn the king. Berrech is the son of King Nivyn's brother, Vediss. Vediss was the elder, but when the old king, their father, was dying, he knew Vediss did not have the disposition to be a wise ruler, and he named Nivyn his successor."

We were already beyond my idea of
brief.

Tiffanie continued, "It's hard to tell if Vediss was as comfortable with that decision as he seemed, but for certain Berrech feels an injustice was done. Whatever King Nivyn says, Berrech will argue for the opposite."

"That's a lot of names to keep straight," I complained when she stopped for a breath.

"Don't talk to me about names," she snapped, and I considered myself lucky that she didn't take the opportunity to call me "Wendy."

"Where this affects you two, Eleni and
Jeannette,
is in the king's policy toward humans. The old king had declared humans too volatile a species and he closed the gates
his
father's father had built when humans and elves shared each other's worlds. Kazaran Dahaani was cut off from Earth for many generations of humankind."

I wanted to ask her about the generations of elfkind, but she didn't give me a chance.

"King Nivyn believes humans are a worthwhile species, and that elves and humans have much to offer one another despite their differences, and so he has reopened the gates, and has even sent his son into the human world to learn more of it. Being opposed to all the king stands for, Berrech, therefore, believes humans are worse than dangerous: They are careless of their own world, and Berrech feels that with their advancing technology they will destroy both their world and ours. He wants to rid Earth of humans. Do you see why this is serious?"

It would be hard not to.

Eleni asked, "Where do these glasses Jeannette found come in?"

Tiffanie opened her hand. She was still holding the one remaining lens. "I don't know what this is. I've never seen anything like it: something that strips away the supernatural. I can sense magic in it—but I can't detect any spell."

"Who could have made them?" Eleni pressed. "And why?"

"I have no idea
who,
" Tiffanie said. "
Why
would seem to be to allow someone to find those of us from Kazaran Dahaani who have gone to Earth, to see
beyond the glamours we have cast to pass unnoticed among you."

"And who would that benefit?" Eleni asked, though she could guess as well as I could.

"Berrech," Tiffanie said. "Berrech could use that to track us down. To find Julian, certainly, before you led the poor boy right into his hands."

How was I to know?

She gave me a hard look. "He was just trying to
talk
to you," she said in an accusing tone. "When neither of you came out of that nursing home, I went in and found you'd caused an uproar running all over the garden and then disappearing. I figured you must have gone through the gate." She shook her head at my foolishness.

"I didn't know he wasn't going to hurt me," I protested.

Tiffanie didn't point out that I was whining. Apparently she was still thinking about those glasses. "Berrech could also use them to find the rest of us. I suppose he could have arranged for bad things to happen to us, bad things he could blame on the humans, to sway public opinion his way: proof that humans are dangerous to our kind and should be destroyed."

"I didn't know," I muttered again.

Eleni patted my shoulder reassuringly. She said, "So, someone sympathetic to Berrech's cause made the glasses ... And then what? Accidentally dropped them on Jeannette's front lawn? That would be a happy coincidence for the good guys."

"Yeah," Tiffanie said, "lost stuff, stuff showing up—if I didn't know better, I'd say a spreenie was involved in that."

"
Larry,
" Eleni and I said simultaneously.

Tiffanie eyed us suspiciously. "Who's Larry?"

"A little blue annoyance factory," I explained. Brave soul that he was, he'd deserted us when it looked as though we were about to be dismembered. But after he'd stuck with me back in 1953, after he'd all but dragged us back here, it was hard to believe he'd gone far. "Larry!" I shouted. "Larry, you get your miserable blue butt out here!"

Eleni joined in, once again in a tone that displayed no anger: "Larry? Larry, where are you?"

The dog barked.

Tiffanie put her hands on her hips and glowered in all directions.

Well, I couldn't blame Larry for not wanting to come out to
that
face. We needed to entice him out, and while I was wondering how to do that, I remembered his snacking on that sock hanging from
the clothesline. Did spreenies only like freshly laundered socks?

I threw myself down on the ground, unlaced my sneaker, and whipped off my sock. "A sock, Larry." I waved it in the air. "A nice, warm"—would
sweaty
be a good or bad adjective as far as he was concerned?—"mmm, tasty sock."

It was a silly plan.

But it worked.

Larry came darting out from the branches of a nearby tree and snatched the sock out of my hand.

"You survived," he said, hovering just out of my reach. "How nice for you." He crammed the sock into his mouth.

Though he seemed preoccupied with his ... treat ... when Tiffanie made a grab for him, he shot a couple feet higher in the air.

Eleni asked, "Where did you get the glasses, Larry?"

Munching happily away, Larry mumbled something that sounded like...

"
Vediss?
" Tiffanie squealed.

"Where, exactly?" Eleni asked.

"Give me one of your stockings, sweetie," Larry said to her, still chewing his wad of sock, "and I'll tell you."

"You disgusting little pervert," I said.

"Yes," Larry cooed, "but that's why you love me."

"I hate you," I corrected him, but Eleni was already sitting on the ground taking off a stocking. I shooed him away when he zoomed in trying to catch a better look.

Eleni dangled the stocking. "Where?" she asked.

"There's a cave, near Dragons' Cove. Give me a kiss, and I'll tell you
how
they work."

"I'm dying here," I groaned in protest.

But Eleni puckered her lips.

Larry swooped in, grabbed the stocking—which, I was glad to see, showed he had his priorities in the right place: food before sexual harassment—and momentarily brushed his itty-bitty lips against hers.

Tiffanie tried her stop-action spell on him, but he was too quick, darting hummingbird-fashion, there one second, somewhere else the next.

"Silly, silly girls," he called all of us. "The lenses are magical, but they haven't been bespelled."

"Just
talk,
spreenie," Tiffanie commanded.

"Been going to high school for almost twenty years now," he jeered at her, "and you still don't know anything."

"Larry," Eleni wheedled, "you promised you'd explain."

"How is glass made?" Larry asked.

Tiffanie was in a bad mood from his insult, and she shot back, "Who cares?"

"In a glass factory," I guessed.

"With sand," Eleni said.

"A prize for the pretty lady!" Larry said, pointing at Eleni. "And what does Dragons' Cove have plenty of?"

"Sand?" Eleni asked.

"A wonderful guess!" Larry cheered. "And...," he prompted.

"Dragons?"

"Hooray!" Larry said, and jammed the whole stocking into his mouth.

It was Tiffanie who put it all together: "Generations of dragons have gone to Dragons' Cove to lay their eggs. The sand there must have a high dragon-shell content. So glass lenses made with that sand might have magical properties."

Larry made an expansive gesture with this arms. "Who says you're as dumb as you look?" he asked.

Tiffanie tried again to stop him in his tracks.

"Course," he added, having bobbed away, "I would have told you even without the stocking or the kiss. I don't like Berrech. And his socks taste even sweatier than yours," he told me.

Eleni, who'd suddenly caught on that she'd been kissed by someone who'd just eaten a sweaty sock, rubbed the back of her hand across her mouth.

I said, "So now, at least, we know where Berrech is probably taking Julian."

Tiffanie considered, wanting—I suspect—to call me an idiot who was
always
wrong.

"'Cause," I explained, "would Berrech just take Julian back to the old Berrech homestead in the middle of Elf Village or wherever, and hold him prisoner there in the hopes that none of the neighbors would notice? Or would he take him to the cave his father's conducting secret experiments at?"

Larry blew a big, wet kiss in my direction.

"This is beginning to sound like a plan," Tiffanie grudgingly agreed.

Our plan, such as it was, was to hurry—now that we had done such a good job of delaying Tiffanie. But at least now we knew where Berrech was taking Julian, so Tiffanie wouldn't lose time trying to track them. The reason we were in a rush was because—for now—the good guys (we assumed that was us) equaled the bad guys (Berrech and his four hench-elves). The odds would only get worse once they reached the cave, where Berrech's dad, Vediss, was likely to be, maybe with even more supporters.

Five or six trained warrior elves versus five of us: me (Little Miss Always-Chosen-Last-in-Team-Sports),
Eleni (Miss Innocent of 1953), Tiffanie (who, no matter what she looked like when she fixed herself up, without magic looked about a hundred years beyond prime), Larry (whose bravery in the face of danger we'd witnessed when the dog was set on teaching us the difference between his territory and the rest of the world), and the dog.

Though the dog could understand human speech, he only spoke Dog; and Tiffanie, it turned out, was the only one among us who was fluent in Dog. No big surprise there. She told us that he told her his name was Brave Heart.

"Funny," I said, "you don't look like Mel Gibson."

Tiffanie, the only one who caught my reference, didn't think it was funny.

Larry asked, "What if we run into a group of elves and there's no way of knowing whether they're part of Berrech's faction or the king's?"

Tiffanie said, "Berrech doesn't have that many supporters."

I wondered how many was "not that many," but I didn't ask just in case I didn't like the answer.