Ticket to Faerie (2 page)

Alyssa showed her the ticket. "Can I use this?"

"Nope." The woman snatched the ticket from Alyssa and
handed it to the snake. It bit the ticket and punched two holes in one
end. "This's just a voucher. Where ya wanna go?"

Alyssa blinked several times, and shrugged her
shoulders.

"Faerie's a big place, dearie. Ya gotta have some idea where
ya wanna go, or who ya wanna meet, or what ya wanna bring
back."

"Bring back." Alyssa thought of all the unkind things she'd
said about Grandma, under her breath and to her friends, and the
visits to the hospital she'd made excuses to avoid. Then too, if
Grandma couldn't return to Faerie because she'd already visited
three times, and Alyssa brought back something to help her, surely
her dad would finally let her get her belly button pierced. Of course,
she'd have to convince him the magic worked. Maybe her mom
would help her with that.

She put her hands on the counter in front of the woman.
"Could I bring back something to save my grandma?"

"'Pends. What's her problem?"

"She has cancer, pancreatic cancer."

The woman scratched at her chin. "Don't know. I'd try
Giserella's." She reached behind her, retrieved a white mouse which
she handed to Alyssa. "Here's your ticket."

Alyssa cupped her hands around the little creature, but it
made no move to escape. "Can I bring my dog?"

"Does your dog want to go?"

"What?"

"Does your dog want to go?" The woman leaned out the
window of the ticket booth. "Hey, Max, you wanna go with this
girl?"

"Yeah, her mom expects me to watch out for her."

Alyssa stared at him. Grandma had given her Max when he
was just a wiggling nine-pound puppy, but she had never heard him
speak before. She dropped onto the bench that protruded from one
side of the ticket booth. "Don't worry, love," the mouse in her hands
squeaked. "You'll get used to it."

She had to grit her teeth to avoid dropping the mouse. "I
suppose all the animals in Faerie talk?"

"Just the intelligent ones."

Max laughed, or at least that's what Alyssa thought he meant
by a half-howl, half-bark.

To her relief, no one spoke again until Alyssa heard horses
galloping, a carriage creaking, and someone shouting. She ran to
untie Max's leash. Only then did she notice that the asphalt highway
that led into Hillsboro had turned into a dirt road. A team of four big
bay mares pulled a purple coach almost as big as her Dad's pickup
around the bend. The brawny fellow on the high front seat held the
reins in big furry paws. He wore leather knee-length breeches and a
homespun singlet under a leather vest. His head, on which he wore a
felt woodsman's hat, resembled a grizzly bear's.

The bear jumped down from his seat and opened the coach
door. "Ticket?"

Alyssa opened the hand with the mouse in it. "Good morrow,
Coachman," the little creature said.

The bear tipped his hat. "Good morrow, yourself, Miss Lilse.
Headed back, are we?"

"First chance I've had." The mouse crawled up Alyssa's arm,
her little feet tickling Alyssa's skin, and settled on her shoulder.

The bear offered one paw to Alyssa. She used it to pull
herself up into the coach. The front facing seat was occupied, so she
sat on the backward one.
Figures. I'll probably get sick from riding
the wrong way.
The bear leaned over, waited while Max jumped
onto his back and from there leapt to the top of the carriage, and
slammed the door. Moments later the coach lurched forward.

When her eyes adjusted to the dim light, Alyssa looked at
the passengers who sat across from her on the tufted leather seat. A
young woman wearing voluminous velvet skirts and a tight bodice
that pressed her breasts into mounds under her chin sat next to a fox
in a three-piece black gabardine suit with a matching top hat.

Alyssa closed her eyes and settled her pack next to her on
the seat. Fortunately, neither the woman nor the fox offered to
introduce themselves. She couldn't wrap her brain around talking
mice and green-skinned ticket takers, never mind a fox dressed up as
a noble.

She had no idea how long or in what direction the coach
traveled, but when it stopped again, her rear felt sore and her back
ached from trying to maintain her seat.

"Giserella's," the bear said.

The young woman gasped and looked at Alyssa with eyes
opened wide. The fox tucked her hand under its foreleg and she
leaned against him.

Alyssa swallowed hard and clutched at her pack, but let the
bear help her down from the carriage. Max had already jumped
down from the top of the coach and he sat on the side of the road, his
leash in his mouth.

When she took the handle from him, he asked: "Can we
dispense with that here? I'll keep the collar on if you insist, but," he
looked from side to side, "I do have my dignity."

"Whatever," Alyssa muttered. She guessed a talking dog
didn't need a leash so she tucked it into her backpack, slipped her
arms into the pack's straps, and eased them up onto her shoulders.
The mouse resettled on top of the strap, and Alyssa turned her head
to look at it. "Do you know where we're supposed to go?"

Max raised one paw and pointed toward a path off the main
road that led into a thick strand of trees. "Giserella's is that
way."

Alyssa stared at Max. "How in the world do you know?" On
the other side of the road, shoulder-high rows of corn lined a field
behind a low stone wall. Except for the red, green, orange, blue, and
pink tassels, Alyssa could be standing on a road anywhere in the
western Oregon countryside.
This just can't be real.

"Everyone knows how to get to Giserella's, love," the mouse
whispered into Alyssa's ear. "The trick is to find your way out
again."

Alyssa reached into the side pocket of her pack and pulled
out the compass. She held it in her hand until the needle stopped
moving and pointed in the direction of the path.

"Sorry, love, that's not going to do you much good here." The
mouse snorted. "But then, that's why you have a ticket."

"Why not? That must be north." Alyssa pointed in the
direction that the compass did.

"Turn around three times."

Alyssa blew out her breath and did as the mouse instructed.
The compass needle now pointed down the road in the direction
they had come.
Well, this sucks.
She put it back into her pack,
wondering how many of the other items she had chosen to bring
with would also prove useless. Max pranced down the trail and she
followed him. After walking through the silent woods for what
seemed like miles and drinking half the water in one of her bottles,
she spotted a cottage nestled among the trees near the path. Smoke
drifted from the brick chimney and black and purple flowers
bloomed in planters hanging from the windows on either side of the
purple wooden door.

Max turned off the path to follow flat stones that led to the
cottage door.

Alyssa trailed after him and banged on the door.

A little girl opened it. "Yes?" She had blond pigtails, almost
as long as she stood tall, and wore a purple and black checked
pinafore over a starched taffeta dress with puffed sleeves and a full
skirt. The dress fabric shifted between purple and black.

"We're looking for Giserella," Alyssa said.

"I'm Giserella. Why?"

"The ticket lady said I could get a magic potion from you to
cure my grandma from pancreatic cancer."
She didn't say you were
just a brat
.

Giserella put her little fists on her hips. "And why would I
want to give you that?"

"We've got cool stuff to give you," Max said.

Alyssa glared at him.

"Oh." Giserella tilted her head to one side. "Like what?"

Max pushed his nose at the pack. The mouse stepped away
from the strap and Alyssa lifted it off her shoulders. She reached into
the outside pocket, pulled out the compass and offered it to
Giserella.

"What do I want with this?" She handed it back to Alyssa. "It
won't work here."

Alyssa rummaged around in her pack, trying to decide what
she could part with. Max nudged her elbow when she touched the
MP3 player. Reluctantly, she withdrew it. "What about this?"

"That's more like it." The girl's lips curled upward and
Alyssa noticed that her teeth came to sharp points. "Of course, this
might get you a cure for breast cancer or maybe lung cancer. But,
pancreatic cancer, that's a little trickier." She held the MP3 player up
to her ear and shook it.

Alyssa, while trying to find the cell phone that seemed to
have gotten buried in the bottom of the pack, pulled out her t-shirt
and set it on the porch.

Giserella picked it up. "Very nice." She held up the black
t-shirt with a purple Pink Floyd emblem on it. "All right, then, I'll
make you a potion. It'll take me a while. You may as well come inside
and wait."

Alyssa bent down to whisper in Max's ear. "Stupid dog, I'm
out an MP3 player 'cause a you." He ignored her and they followed
Giserella into the cottage. The top of the doorway grazed Alyssa's
hair and the ceiling inside wasn't much higher. When Giserella
pointed to a wooden rocking chair in front of the fireplace, Alyssa sat
in it.

Giserella bustled about, throwing things into an iron pot
hanging from a metal hook that swung out from the fireplace.

Alyssa couldn't identify everything that went into the pot,
but she saw a copper coin, several black feathers, a small block of
wood, a handful of pebbles, an apple core, a dead rat, and a live
snake.
This is so stupid
.

Giserella left the cottage and came back with a bucket that
she emptied into the pot. She counted out seventeen drops from a
blue glass bottle in the shape of a unicorn; the liquid emerged from
its horn. She pushed the kettle over the fire.

Alyssa gripped the arms of the chair so she wouldn't bolt out
the door, and stared at the pot. Finally, after what seemed like
forever, she saw the liquid inside bubbling. Giserella dragged a tall
stool over to the corner, climbed on it, and pulled a spiderweb from
the ceiling. Holding two of the corners, she kept it intact until she
draped it over the pot.

Geez, how disgusting is that?

Wiping her hands on her pinafore, Giserella sat in a smaller
version of the rocker that held Alyssa. "How long has your
grandmother had cancer?"

"Not quite a year." Alyssa swallowed her anger about the
MP3 player and tried to be civil. "Mom says she might not make it 'til
Christmas."

"Shoulda come sooner. She'll have to drink a lot. Make her
take a glassful while standing on one foot and holding her breath
every time she takes a piss 'til it's gone."

Alyssa stared. "Don't think Grandma can stand, never mind
on one foot."

"Someone can support her, that's okay. But she's gotta hold
her breath." Giserella rocked back and forth, kicking the floor with
her heels.

Alyssa scrabbled about in her backpack until she found a
scrap of paper and the dragon pen. She repeated the instructions as
she wrote them down. "Glassful every time she pees while standing
on one foot and holding her breath." She looked up. "She supposed to
do all this while taking a leak?"

"No, she can do it after."

"Which foot?"
Does any of this matter. No way is this stuff
going to work and Grandma shouldn't have to drink something so
nasty.

"Don't matter."

"How big a glass."

"Any size, just make sure it's completely full and she drinks
it all."

Alyssa looked up. "So a shot glass and a water glass work the
same?"

Giserella nodded. "Shot glass'll just take her longer to finish
the jug, but if she's having trouble swallowing..."

Alyssa rolled back her eyes, but wrote that down too.
Grandma was a stickler for precise instructions so she would bring
her precise instructions. She tucked the paper into her pocket and
returned the pen to her pack.

The snake in the pot screamed.

Giserella jumped up, pulled the snake out of the pot, and
swung the kettle from the fire. Using a wooden ladle, she transferred
the liquid in the pot to a purple clay jug bigger than Alyssa's
backpack. Then she blew through the hole three times, and stuck a
cork in it. "There ya go. Careful going back to the coach stop."

"Thanks a lot." If the stuff in the jug didn't work, no way
would her dad buy her a new MP3 player. "I hope you like the music
I have on the MP3 player."

"Music? No, I don't need any music, thanks."

Alyssa put on her backpack and struggled to hoist the jug up
so she could carry it out of the cottage. "Stupid dog," she said as soon
as the door closed behind them. "She doesn't even know what to do
with my MP3 player."

"You're the one who decided to use your ticket to get a cure
for your grandmother." Max trotted toward the path. "Not my fault
you brought stuff you couldn't live without." He turned and looked
over his shoulder. "Only two kinds of people visit Giserella: those
who bring her presents that she likes and those she eats for
supper."

Alyssa shuddered, and dismissed the idea as folderol,
another one of Dad's favorite words. When she got to the path that
led back to the road, she set the jug down. She couldn't carry it in her
arms all the way back to the coach stop. After she stared at it for a
few minutes, she pulled Max's leash from her pack, strung it through
the two handles of the jug, and attached the clip to the loop. She
lifted the leash onto her shoulder, resting it on the padded strap of
her pack, and set off to follow the path back toward the road.

"Wrong way." Max headed in the other direction.

"But that's the way we came." Alyssa looked around,
confused. She couldn't see Giserella's cottage.

"That's the way here; it's not the way back." Max kept
walking.