Ursula Vernon Read online

  “Not that one!” said Wendell, clutching his book of fairy tales close. “It happens all the time in the stories. Whenever anybody agrees to that, it turns out to be their daughter or something awful like that, who was standing behind the mill.”

  “I don’t have a daughter,” said Danny. “I’m a kid! And what mill? Like a windmill? You’re going to have to slow down and translate for those of us that don’t speak Fairy-tale Nerd.”

  Wendell gave him a withering look and went back to the book.

  “He’d probably be willing to take your firstborn,” said the fox conversationally. “You know, when you do have one.”

  Danny didn’t like any of these options. Five years of your life was a lot, and while Christiana could be annoying, he didn’t feel right about trading her to the fairies for his mother. If he’d brought Big Eddy the school bully along, that would be a different story.

  And while trading away his firstborn would be easy, Danny suspected that he might feel a little differently about it once he actually had kids.

  “Possibly you can find something else to trade,” said the fox. “I don’t know. But it’s best to go in being prepared.” He wiggled a bit. “Now I’ve upheld my end of the bargain—will you uphold yours, maiden true?”

  Christiana sighed and stepped up to the edge of the path. “You guys better hold my feet so I don’t fall into the street.”

  There wasn’t a street for miles around, but Danny and Wendell got the gist. Danny grabbed the back of her shirt, and Wendell grabbed her tail to keep her from rolling out of the path.

  The coughing fit resulting from all those unrhymable words was truly impressive. For a minute Danny thought Christiana was going to have a seizure. She fell to her knees and nearly face-planted in the ferns outside the line of pebbles. Her shoulders shook, her scales rattled, and her eyes streamed tears.

  Wendell dropped her tail, wiped his hand over her snout, and leaned out over the edge of the path, a single tear hanging from the tip of one claw. The fox trembled with excitement.

  Christiana coughed harder. Danny was afraid he was going to have to sit on her to keep her from rolling off the path.

  The tear fell onto the spell.

  There was a shout that seemed to come from all directions of the woods, and the spell gave a great hiss and fizzle. The fox leaped to his feet, did a backflip, and tore off into the woods.

  “That was awful,” Christiana said, when the coughing finally stopped. She lay wheezing on the mossy ground. “Even worse than a whole-grain waffle.”

  “I don’t know if I’d go that far,” said Wendell, “but he could have at least said thank you.”

  “A fox’s gratitude is like a fox’s dinner,” said a dry voice. “Both are soon over.”

  The trio whirled. Well, Danny and Wendell whirled, anyway—Christiana just groaned and put her arm over her eyes.

  There was something standing by the edge of the path twenty feet away.

  The creature looked like a cat . . . sort of. It was at least more like a cat than it was like anything else. It stood upright and had a long fluffy tail, enormous ears, and a hairless, gnarled face with sharp teeth.

  It was black as char from head to toe, except for a white crescent on its chest.

  It was also one of the ugliest things that Danny had ever seen.

  “Err,” said Danny. “Hi?”

  It grinned. It had a lot of unpleasant-looking teeth. Danny went to school with a lot of kids who were very well-endowed in the dentistry department, so the sheer number didn’t bother him, but the way they looked cracked and yellowed and broken certainly did.

  “Hello, young masters,” said the cat-thing, and bowed.

  Danny looked at Wendell. Wendell looked at Danny.

  “It can’t get us if we’re on the path,” muttered Danny finally, and took several careful steps down the mossy road toward the monster. Wendell gulped and followed. Christiana sighed and plodded after.

  When he was a little closer, Danny saw something that made his heart sink. The trees opened up into a sunny glade, and the ferns parted to reveal another path crossing theirs at right angles.

  This one was also edged in white stones and was identical to theirs.

  “Which way do we go?” whispered Wendell.

  “I’m not sure,” said Danny.

  The cat-thing stood at the crossroads. It had black eyes with electric green pupils.

  “Its eyes are weirding me out,” hissed Wendell in Danny’s ear.

  Apparently the cat-thing had very good hearing. It grinned even wider and said, “We are as we were all made, are we not, young masters?”

  Danny had met some really ugly things in his life, and they weren’t all bad. The wrinkle-faced bat his cousin Stephen kept was kinda sweet, and the giant potato salad that lived in the sewers had been very helpful to him over the years.

  Somehow he didn’t think that was going to be the case with the cat-thing.

  Still, if it had seen something that might help . . .

  “You didn’t happen to see my mom come by here, did you?” he asked. “Maybe last night.”

  The cat-thing’s smile widened. “I might. I see many things with these eyes of mine.” It glanced at Wendell. The iguana flushed.

  “Well, did you see that?”

  “That would be telling,” said the cat.

  “Um,” said Wendell, looking into his book. “Are you a Cat Sidhe, by any chance?”

  “It’s pronounced shee,” said the cat, “not siddy.” The tip of its tail flicked. “And I am indeed.” It eyed the book with dislike.

  “What does the book say?” asked Danny.

  “Not to trust it,” said Wendell.

  “It says they like crossroads,” said Wendell, turning the page. “And it’ll try to lure us off the path.”

  “Lure is such an ugly word,” murmured the cat. “Entice, perhaps . . .”

  Danny looked at the Cat Sidhe. It gazed innocently up at the sky, lacing its claws under its chin. “Well . . . perhaps a nibble. A small one. Not so you’d notice . . .”

  “Right,” said Danny. “Never mind, then.” He gazed at the three pathways. “I guess we just keep going straight and hope we catch up with my mom . . .”

  “Wouldn’t do that if I were you,” said the Cat Sidhe, polishing its claws on the white splash of fur.

  “So you did see them go by!” said Danny.

  “She was being fairy-led, you understand,” said the cat.

  “It’s all in chapter two. Fairies use music to lead you places,” said Wendell. “You can’t help yourself.”

  “Actually, in this case it was a couple of guys with spears,” said the cat. “But the same basic principle, I assure you.”

  Danny felt his blood boil.

  He advanced on the Cat Sidhe, feeling fire scalding the back of his throat. “Which way did they go? Tell me right now, or I’ll—”

  “Or you’ll what?” asked the cat silkily.

  “I’ll—”

  What exactly he might do—and Danny wasn’t quite sure himself—was lost as Wendell grabbed his shoulder. The dragon tried to shrug the iguana off, but then Christiana was on his other side, hissing, “Do the math! Stay on the path!”

  Danny looked down, and saw one foot hovering over the line of white pebbles.

  The Cat Sidhe made a disappointed noise as Danny stepped back from the edge of the crossroads. His throat ached worse than the time he’d gotten strep, but getting eaten by some mutant fairy cat wasn’t going to help his mom at all. Still, the fire had to go somewhere . . .

  “Very impressive, I must say. Pity nothing’s real today.”

  Danny sighed. His anger was gone, replaced with weariness. He just couldn’t win. Christiana fi
nally got to see him breathe fire, and she was convinced that she was dreaming.

  “Look,” said Wendell, patting his shoulder, “we’ve been walking for hours. You’ve got, like, low blood sugar or something. Let’s eat lunch. I know you put pudding cups in there.”

  Danny did not particularly feel like a pudding cup, but Wendell was probably right. Anyway, he had no idea which way they were supposed to go, so they might as well sit down here and eat.

  The moss was soft and springy. The Cat Sidhe was still watching them intently, so the trio turned their backs to eat their sandwiches.

  Danny picked at his peanut butter and jelly. Wendell, however, who was running on half a bran waffle from breakfast, devoured two and dug through his backpack for the promised pudding cup.

  Wendell paused with the spoon an inch from his lips.

  “Ignore him,” muttered Danny, “it’s probably just another trick.”

  The Cat Sidhe let out a wail of despair, seemingly right over their heads. All three of them jumped, and Wendell threw himself flat, only to watch his pudding cup go flying.

  Danny dove to keep Wendell from falling off the path—a pudding cup wasn’t worth his friend’s life, although given the bran waffle situation, he could understand if the iguana felt differently—but the Cat Sidhe was ignoring them completely. It was staring at the ground under its paws, growling softly to itself.

  “Where is it? Where did it go?”

  “Moose-pafter?” Danny whispered to Wendell.

  The iguana shook his head. “Working with what she’s got, I guess . . .”

  The cat-thing, apparently untroubled by allegations of moose-paftering, said, “Yes, yes! That! What is it? Give it to me!” It hurried right up to the corner of the crossroads and put up its paws hungrily.

  It occurred to Danny that possibly his great-grandfather wasn’t senile after all.

  “Good gravy,” said Wendell, while Danny’s mouth hung open, “they really do have a thing about spoons!”

  “Spoon!” moaned the Cat Sidhe. “Even the name is beautiful! O spoon, my spoon, by the light of the moon . . .”

  “It’s not your spoon until you dance to our tune.”

  Danny stepped up beside her. “That’s right, kitty-cat! Tell us which way my mom and those guys with spears went, and then you can have the spoon.”

  The Cat Sidhe wrung its paws together. “Right,” it said. “They went down the right path. Now give me the spoon!”

  Danny took the spoon from Christiana and started to hold it out, but Wendell grabbed his arm. “Don’t trust it!” the iguana hissed. “Make it promise!”

  Wendell dug in his backpack, and quickly came up with the sheet of notepaper he’d written the fairy oath on. “Promise you’re telling us the truth,” the iguana demanded, shoving his glasses up on his nose. “Swear by—um—‘by ash and oak and rowan tree’ that you’re not lying.”

  The Cat Sidhe hissed like a boiling kettle and wrung its tail in its hands. “Nasty little lizards!”

  “Look who’s talking . . .” muttered Danny.

  “They went left,” said the cat angrily. “In the direction of the fairy king’s court. By ash and oak and rowan tree, I vow ’tis true. Now give me the spoon!”

  Danny looked at Wendell. Wendell nodded.

  The Cat Sidhe wailed and dove after it. They could hear the creature rooting through the undergrowth as they shouldered their packs and walked down the left-hand fork.

  The path dipped gently downward, crossing a small brook and running in loops and zigzags through a weedy marsh. Strange plants grew from the boggy ground.

  “That’s a weird one,” Danny said, pointing to a line of thick green tubes with spotted throats and oddly curled tops.

  “Those are pitcher plants,” said Wendell. “We’ve got them in our world too. They eat flies.”

  “Oooooh.” Danny eyed the plants with new respect. “Wicked!”

  “Mind you, the flies in our world don’t usually wear hats . . .”

  Danny was feeling better about life. Possibly it was the sandwich, possibly the knowledge that they were on the right track again. He was also very glad to learn that the fairies apparently really did like spoons, and that his great-granddad’s oath seemed to bind them somehow. Things were looking up.

  He continued to feel this way right up until they ran into the guys with spears.

  The fairy guards were big, grown-up-sized reptiles, but they didn’t look much like the lizard kids at school. They had large black eyes, and each one had an enormous set of wings, like a dragonfly’s, coming out of his back.

  They stood on either side of the path, and crossed their spears over it.

  “Halt, travelers!” cried one. “Stand and be recognized!”

  “Or else!” cried the other.

  Wendell squeaked and hid behind Danny.

  “Reptiles with insect wings? When will I stop seeing things . . . ?” asked Christiana.

  “Hmmmph!” said one guard. “A fool’s errand, dragon-child. Go back to your home and your hoard.”

  “Or else!” said the other guard.

  Danny took another step forward. He wondered if the guards could actually stab him if he was on the path. The spears were made out of some kind of stone, chipped into a leaf shape, and they looked awfully pointy.

  “I’m going to see the fairy king,” said Danny. “He took my mom, and I want her back!” He took another step forward.

  “The king’s court is not for the likes of you,” said the first guard. “His Majesty does not welcome uninvited guests.”

  “Or else!” said the second guard.

  There was a brief pause while everybody tried to figure out where that went in the conversation. The first guard sighed. “Morty, that’s not when you say that.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “He’s my sister’s kid,” said the first guard apologetically. “He’s not real bright, but my sister said I had to give him a job . . .”

  “Or else!” said Morty happily.

  Christiana put her hand over her mouth. Muffled giggles escaped through her fingers.

  “Look,” said Danny, putting his hands on his hips, “I’m going through, and I’m going to find the king and I’m going to get my mom back.” He took a deep breath. He could feel fire in the back of his throat, where it had been burning ever since his mom had vanished into the fairy ring. “So you guys are gonna get out of my way . . .”

  “Or else?”

  “No, Morty, you don’t say it when he’s threatening us, you say it when I’m threatening them . . .”

  Christiana put her face in her hands.

  “We could go,” said Wendell helpfully. “You know. Come back later when you’ve got your lines sorted out better?”

  “Well . . .”

  “If we see your sister, we’ll be sure to tell her that you stopped us,” added Danny.

  “Oh, hey, would you?” The first guard looked pleased. “I’d appreciate that.”

  “Down this path, I assume?” asked Danny nonchalantly, stepping under the crossed spears.

  “Most likely,” said the guard. “You’ll be sure to tell her that we stopped you?”

  “In our tracks,” said Wendell. “Thoroughly halted.” The guard beamed as the trio sauntered away.

  Behind them, they heard the first guard saying, “Okay, Morty, let’s go over this once more, and at least try to remember it this time . . .”

  The court of the fairy king lay in the middle of a clearing of ancient trees with gnarled trunks. The trees grew so closely together that the path had begun to run up the roots and partway along the fal
len trunks, marked by chipped white lines of bark.

  Long before they reached the clearing, they began to hear strange noises. First there was that high, haunting, desperate music that Danny had heard coming from the fairy ring—then it would break off, and there would be a skirl of whooping laughter, and deep grunting, slobbering noises, and the sound of distant voices.

  A few hours ago, Danny would have found the noises creepy. After spending half a day walking through Faerie, they just seemed like more of the same.

  The trio reached the edge of the clearing and looked inside. Tall lizards with enormous dragonfly wings lounged about the clearing. They looked very relaxed. Some were eating and drinking. There were other, stranger things too—tiny creatures like puffs of dandelion down with big eyes, and lumpy, scabby creatures like bat-winged toads.

  “Look, over there!” whispered Wendell by Danny’s ear. “Under the big tree!”

  In the center of the clearing was a tall oak tree, and under it was some kind of leafy pavilion. Vines grew over the pillars holding it up. A very tall lizard sat under it, with a pair of enormous white pigs on either side of him. Silver collars glittered around their throats.

  “He’s got pigs on a chain,” whispered Danny. “That’s pretty weird. I wonder if he’s the king of the fairies.”

  “Not there,” Wendell hissed. “Over there!”

  He pointed. Danny followed the iguana’s finger, and felt his stomach lurch.

  “I don’t want to cause you rage,” Christiana whispered, “but isn’t that your mom in that cage?”

  Danny almost scorched his tongue and had to huff smoke out his nostrils. His mom! How dare they put her in a cage?Who did those fairies think they were?