Fairy Metal Thunder
(Songs of Magic #1)
by
J. L. Bryan
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 Jeffrey L. Bryan. All rights reserved.
The Songs of Magic series by J. L. Bryan
On Smashwords:
Fairy Metal Thunder
Fairyland (coming June 2012)
See more J.L. Bryan books on Smashwords
Smashwords License Statement
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Chapter One
After school, Jason rode his bicycle across town to Mitch's house for band practice, with his guitar case strapped to his back. His palms coated the handlebars with nervous sweat. He'd spent the whole day ignoring his teachers while he furiously scribbled lines of the new song, crossed them out, and rewrote them. He'd accumulated three notebook pages' worth of jumbled, blotchy words, plus ink stains all over his fingers.
During sixth period Social Studies, he had very carefully copied these bits of song onto a single page, using the most legible handwriting he could muster. He'd titled the song “Angel Sky” and then hesitated a minute before writing “For Erin” underneath the title. Then he'd folded it into neat squares and tucked it in his pocket, where it now burned like a handful of hot coals.
He paused at the top of Mitch's street. He could see Mitch's house, four doors down, the garage door open and waiting for him. He could hear Mitch warming up on the keyboard, the fake piano sound echoing through the tree-lined neighborhood.
Jason's nerves were rattling. He'd never shown the group any of his songs. Erin was the singer and the songwriter of the group. Like Jason, she was a junior at Chippewa Falls High. Unlike Jason, she was actually talented at writing lyrics.
“Hey, little kid, need a ride?” a girl's voice asked. He jumped in surprise and nearly fell from his bike. While he was lost in thought, Dred had pulled up alongside him in her beaten-up '97 Chevy van. She snickered at Jason. Dred was a year older, close to graduation. She was a broad-shouldered girl who liked Doc Martins and ragged plaid shirts.
“You’re hilarious,” Jason said.
“Race you!” Dred stomped her gas pedal until she was halfway down the street, then slammed her brakes and twisted into Mitch's driveway.
“Yeah, that's fair,” Jason muttered as he pedaled down the street. Dred—or “Mildred” if you wanted to get punched in the face—was the band's drummer. She was a senior like Mitch, a year older than Jason and Erin. Her van was perfect for transporting the band to gigs. Hopefully, they would actually have a gig one day.
Jason turned into Mitch's driveway and parked his bike just outside the open garage. Dred was already there, juggling her drumsticks as she sat down behind her drum kit.
“Yo, Jason!” Mitch said. He sat at the keyboard, his long hair unleashed from the plaid driving hat he usually wore, and he pushed his John Lennon-style glasses higher on his nose. His t-shirt depicted ghosts chasing Pac-Man through a maze. Pac-Man's thought balloon read: “This is a stupid way to live.”
Behind Mitch hung a poster of pop star Claudia Lafayette, in concert, wearing a pink dress and a headset with a microphone, pointing straight out to the audience while she sang. Mitch claimed the poster of the cheesy singer, whose bubble-gum songs could stick in your ear and repeat themselves all day long, was supposed to be ironic. He said the same about his Claudia Lafayette T-shirt.
“What's up?” Jason asked.
“Just stoking the flames.” Mitch resumed playing his keyboard, switching it to a deep electric organ sound. “Making the magic happen, man.”
Jason sat in a lawn chair and took his guitar out of the case. He plucked a few chords and tried to tune it, but couldn't hear anything over the keyboard.
When he looked up, he realized Erin had arrived, and his heart skipped. He gave her an awkward smile and tried not to stare. He thought Erin was beautiful, with her intense green eyes and blond hair dyed with blue and green streaks. Her hair was long and usually hung down all over her face. Jason always wanted to brush her hair back behind her ear so he could see her better.
He waved to her, but she'd already turned away to hang her jacket on a hook over the workbench.
“About time!” Mitch yelled over the noise. Then he realized he was the source of the noise and stopped playing the keyboard. “Where have you been?”
“Zach had to drop off a couple other people first,” Erin said. “Chill out, Mitch.”
“It's Mick,” Mitch said.
“You can't be Mick. Mick isn't short for Mitch,” Dred said. “It's for Mickey, or maybe Michael—”
“Don't tell me what nickname I can be…Mildred,” Mitch said. “It's a free country.”
“Don't call me Mildred!”
“Don't tell me I can't be Mick!”
“Okay, kids,” Erin said. “Do you want to fight, or do you want to play?”
“Fight,” Dred replied. She aimed a drumstick at Mitch's head.
“I'll be ready as soon as you admit that I can use 'Mick' for my stage name. It's really not that far from Mitch—”
Dred interrupted him with a short, loud drum solo, ending with a cymbal crash. Mitch scowled.
Jason tried to work up the nerve to tell Erin he'd written a song for her, but he couldn't seem to get his mouth working. Though he'd gone to school with Erin since her parents moved to Chippewa Falls back in ninth grade, he hadn't spoken with her very much at all. The sight of her always seemed to lock up his mouth, and his brain along with it. He'd been thrilled when Mitch asked Jason to join their band a couple of months earlier. According to Mitch, their previous guitarist had been “a total spaz who never showed up for practice.”
Instead of talking, Jason strummed his guitar to warm up his fingers.
“Good,” Erin said. “At least somebody takes this seriously.”
“Let's go,” Mitch said. He played his fingers across the keys, and an electrically synthesized piano buzzed over the speakers.
Erin blew a short tune on her harmonica, then spoke into an imaginary microphone.
“Hello, Wisconsin!” she shouted. Mitch played the sound of an audience applauding from his synthesizer. “We are the Assorted Zebras! Who's ready to rock?”
“Don't say that,” Dred said. “It's cheesy.”
“Just count us off, Dred,” Mitch said.
“What are we playing?” Dred asked.
“This is a song I wrote for my boyfriend Zach,” Erin told the imaginary audience. “It's called 'The First Road Out of Here.'”
Dred tapped out a beat, and then Mitch and Jason joined in with the keyboard and guitar. The song started slow, with long, sad sounds from Erin's harmonica. Then she sang:
We've been in this town so long,
I forgot the world outside...
So let's escape tonight,
It's time to take a ride...
Then the song became loud and fast.
Let's run together
To that place where there's no fear,
The place we want to go,
The first road out of here!
Jason's fingers flew across his strings as the tempo accelerated. A few little kids from the neighborhood, three boys and a girl, showed up on bikes and scooters and sat in the driveway to listen, as they sometimes did. Erin smiled and waved, clearly delighted to have an audience, even if they were in elementary school and one boy was more interested in picking his nose than watching the show. Two of the kids were even nice enough to applaud when the song ended.
“Can you play some Weird Al?” the nose-picking boy requested.
“Yeah, do a Weird Al polka!” another boy said.
“We're just practicing our own songs right now,” Erin told them. “Want to hear those?”
“Who cares?” the biggest boy asked. He rode away on his scooter, and the two other boys followed. The little girl remained, but rested her chin in her hand and looked bored.
“I've got something fun,” Erin said. “It's called 'Cinderella Night.' Want to hear it?”
“I guess,” the little girl sighed.
Dred tapped out four beats, then Jason and Mitch joined in. Erin sang the upbeat song about a girl sneaking out and meeting a boy in a nightclub.
The little girl smiled, entertained at last.
They played two more of Erin's songs. Jason tried not to pay attention to Erin's hips swaying as she danced, or the pale stretch of her belly that sometimes peeked out over her low-slung jeans. He tried to focus on making the music.
Erin stopped halfway through the third song.
“We need to mix it up,” Erin said. “It's all fast, dancey stuff.”
“What we really need is a killer love song,” Mitch said. “One of those everybody-get-out-your-lighter things.”
“I don't have anything like that,” Erin said.
“Maybe I'll write one,” Mitch said.
“You? Writing a love song?” Dred snorted.
“Like you could do better,” Mitch said. “Yours would probably end with the girl killing her boyfriend and burying him in the back yard.”
“I think your songs are good, Erin,” Jason said.
“Thanks, Jason, but Mitch is right. We need a good, slow love song. I just don't know how to write something like that.”
Jason's hand dropped to his jeans pocket. The song was folded up there, “Angel Sky,” all about falling in love. He hesitated, wishing he hadn't written “For Erin” underneath the song title. Everybody would laugh at him if they saw that. Erin would probably think he was a weirdo for writing a song for her.
“I'll be right back,” Jason said. He put his guitar aside and walked toward the door into the house.
“Whoa, hold it,” Mitch said. He stopped Jason with a hand on his elbow. “Where are you going?”
“The bathroom.” Jason planned to find a pen inside the house and scratch out the dedication. Then he could show everyone the song without getting ragged on. Or at least, they'd pick on him a little less. And Erin wouldn't decide he was an obsessive stalker freak to be avoided.
“No way. My mom says nobody's allowed in the house when she's not home,” Mitch told him.
“Since when?” Dred asked.
“She says some of her jewelry's gone missing or something.”
“And she thinks we stole it?” Dred asked.
“Well, my mom didn't accuse any of you of stealing, exactly,” Mitch said, but he glanced at Dred. “She just says nobody's allowed in the house if she's not home. She's doing the night shift at the hospital, so that's a long time. Jason, why don’t you go whizz in the back yard?”
“Oh,” Jason said. That wouldn't help. Jason doubted he would find a pen or marker out back.
“What's wrong?” Mitch asked. “Were you going to drop a number two?”
Jason felt his face turn red. Why did Mitch have to say something like that right in front of Erin?
“He was!” Dred said. “Look at him blush.”
“I wasn't!” Jason said.
“Yeah, right,” Mitch said. “Just hold it, man.”
“I'm...” Jason realized he couldn't think of a single thing to say that would make this conversation less humiliating. He wished he could escape into a hole in the earth somewhere, and maybe never come back.
He was saved by an even worse turn of events. A red Mitsubishi Spyder pulled into the driveway with its top down. This was Zach Wagner, a senior over at the Catholic high school, who was best known for modeling in the “Plaidwear” section of the Fleet Farm catalog since he was thirteen. He had flawless skin, a haircut that probably cost a hundred dollars, and dark blue eyes. Erin's boyfriend.
Zach stood up inside his car and drummed his hands on the top of the windshield. He pushed his sunglasses on top of his forehead. “Let's go, Erin! Those orphans aren't going to entertain themselves.”
“What's up, Zach?” Mitch waved, falling into suck-up mode at the sight of Chippewa's most famous male model.
“Yo, Mick! Dred! New guitar guy!” Zach gave a mocking little salute. “Sorry to take your singer away, but we've got a busy night of important stuff.”
“You're leaving already?” Dred asked Erin.
“I have to. We're going to a benefit for Stuffed Animals for Orphans, over in Minneapolis. Zach says everyone else in the Minneapolis acting community is helping out.” Erin gathered up her purse.
“He’s not an actor,” Jason said. “He's a male model.”
“You can't go now,” Dred said. “We have the audition next week.”
“Erin! Yo! Orphans! Stuffed animals!” Zach shouted.
“I'm coming!” Erin grabbed her backpack.
“You guys want us to play at the benefit?” Mitch shouted to Zach. “Cause we could do that. We can just pack it up into Dred's van and follow you to the Cities.”
“Um...thanks anyway, Mick!” Zach said, with a wink and a thumbs up. “Stuffed Animals for Orphans appreciates your support. In fact, if you guys want to make a donation, I'll pass it along. There are lots of orphans out there who don't have stuffed animals.”
“Oh, that's a good idea,” Erin said. “Does anybody want to donate?”
Mitch grumbled something under his breath as he took out his wallet and gave Erin a couple of dollars. Dred donated a five-dollar bill from her money clip.
Erin smiled at Jason as she walked toward him, holding out her hand.
Jason searched all his pockets. He came up with twelve cents.
“Sorry, I don't have more on me,” Jason said sheepishly. That's me, he thought, no money and no car.
“That's okay. Thanks.” Erin gave him a quick half of a hug. “I'll be back here for rehearsal tomorrow.”
Jason watched her climb into the car with Zach, kiss him, and drop into the passenger seat. He felt a little despair as they pulled out of the driveway and drove away.
“You know, I like that guy,” Mitch said.
Jason nodded. Everybody liked Zach, of course. Perfect Zach.
Chapter Two
Jason sat at the dinner table, where his father read the newspaper, and his six-year-old sister Katie was sculpting what looked like a hippopotamus out of her mashed potatoes.
“George, stop reading at the table,” Jason's mom said as she placed a platter of bratwurst and sauerkraut on the table. “Katie, stop playing with your food. Can't we have a nice family dinner here?”
Jason helped himself to a brat and spooned mustard onto his plate.
“What's wrong with you, Jason?” his mom asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You look so sad.”
“I'm okay.” Jason shrugged and poked listlessly at the bratwurst. On the inside, he was beating himself up for not showing Erin the song, for being stupid enough to actually put her name on it, and for letting Mitch embarrass him in front of her. The song was still folded in his pocket, unseen by anyone.
“You know—George, would you please stop reading that paper?—we talked about you at the Lutheran Ladies meeting yesterday.”
“Me or Dad?” Jason asked.
“You, Jason. Do you know Mrs. Dullahan, over on the east end of town?”
“The witch?” Katie asked.
“Katie! She is not a witch. She's just a very lonely old woman with nobody to help her. I can't believe you would say that.”
“Everybody knows Mrs. Dullahan's a witch!” Katie said. “If you trick-or-treat at her house, she'll turn you into a toad.”
“That is not true, Katie,” Jason's mom said. “Don't say such awful things about people.”
“She is scary,” Jason said. “Kip Ericson threw a football over her wall one time, and it came back all flat and burned up.”
“Kip Ericson shouldn't be harassing old ladies,” Jason's mom said. “Anyway. Jason. She lives all alone in that big house of hers, and she's so elderly. It's obvious she's having trouble keeping up her yard.”
“Good thing most of it's hidden behind that wall,” Jason's dad commented, without looking up from the paper. “What you can see is an eyesore.”
“She can hardly be expected to do yard work at her age,” Jason's mom said.
“How old is she, anyway?” Jason asked.
“A hundred and fifty!” Katie volunteered.
“Nobody's a hundred and fifty, Katie,” Jason's mom said. “But she's very elderly, and she clearly can't do for herself. That's why I decided to volunteer my capable yet unemployed son to go and help her around the house.”
“You said what?” Jason asked, startled.
“Just little things,” his mom told him. “Mow the lawn, trim those wild shrubs, maybe do something about all that moss on her wall.”
“Those don't sound like little things,” Jason said.
“She'll turn you into a toad!” Katie said.
“Katie, enough! Jason, it would be nice if you would do a few things to help out your elders. It builds character. The poor woman's completely cut off from everyone.”
“Maybe she likes being cut off,” Jason said. “How do we even know she wants help?”
“Why wouldn't she?” his mom asked.
“Anyway, I’m busy with school.” Jason hated the idea of going to Mrs. Dullahan's house. Every kid in town learned to fear her. Terrible stories were whispered about her. Jason was old enough to know that she wasn't really a witch or anything supernatural, but he couldn't help feeling scared of her anyway.
“School didn't stop you from working at the car wash,” his dad said. “Might as well find something useful to do with yourself, now that you quit your job.”
“Dad, I told you, I only got that job so I could save up for my guitar. Now I don't need to work anymore.”
“Must be nice,” his dad said, returning his attention to the paper.
“I don't know what's gotten into you with that guitar,” his mom said. “You hardly ever practice your clarinet anymore. You'll have to work a lot harder if you want to be first chair in the school band next year.”
“I'm not too worried about that,” Jason said.
“You'd better worry about it. That Laura Wu is going to be serious competition for you,” his mom said. “I want to see you working hard.”
“I don't really like the clarinet. I like the guitar.”
“What's not to like about the clarinet?” His mom looked scandalized. “You used to love your clarinet.”
“I wouldn't say I loved it.”
“Well, I was first chair clarinet in my high school band,” his mom said. “If I can manage it, you can, too. And your father's right, we can't just let you loaf around with your friends all summer.”
“We're not loafing, we're rehearsing.”
“What you're not doing is working,” his dad said. “You know, at a job? If you want to come to Bill's House of Tractor with me, Bill might be able to find work for you.” Jason's dad sold farm equipment at Bill's, a large retailer in Eau Claire.
“Um...” Jason said. The idea of having his dad for his boss wasn't quite as terrifying as the thought of going to Mrs. Dullahan's house, but it was up there.
“Why don't you drop by Mrs. Dullahan's tomorrow afternoon?” his mom said. “Introduce yourself and volunteer to help out? That would be so nice.”
“She'll probably think I'm trying to scam her.”
“A nice young man like you?” his mom asked. “Besides, you'll be bringing one of Dotty Schuler's famous muffin baskets. That should settle any of her concerns.”
“I can't tomorrow,” Jason said. “We have rehearsal. There's an audition at The Patch in Minneapolis next week.”
“Oh, I don't know,” his mother said. “I don't like the idea of you going into the Cities with you friends. That's a rough area. You could get into trouble.”
“There aren't any rough areas in Minneapolis,” Jason said. “You make it sound like Las Vegas.”
“Don't smartmouth your mother,” his dad said.
“I'm not, Dad!”
“Don't yell at your father,” his mom said. “I don't want to hear any more nonsense about this. You're going to Mrs. Dullahan's tomorrow, and you're going to be pleasant and useful.”
Jason sighed and stirred his mashed potatoes.
Chapter Three
After school on Friday, Jason picked up a cellophane-wrapped, ribbon-topped muffin basket from Mrs. Schuler, who ran a small gift shop in town. He pedaled over to Mrs. Dullahan's, whose house was several streets away from his own, at the dead end of a road just outside town. It was atop a small hill, surrounded by huge old trees whose limbs gnarled together to form a dark canopy. The weeds under the trees were thick as cornstalks.
Jason rode his bike up the short length of driveway and stopped at the gate. A high brick wall, thick with moss and mold, blocked most of Mrs. Dullahan's lawn from view. He could see one wooden turret of her house beyond it, with its single narrow window shuttered tight.
The gate itself was a massive pair of wooden doors, inscribed with strange floral and geometric designs, and these were full of moss, too. The whole area around her house felt chilly, though the rest of the town was warmed nicely by the May sunlight. It was nearly summer.
A rusty metal box, with little speaker holes and a single unmarked button, was built into the brick wall by the gate. Jason felt uneasy as he pushed the button.
He stood there for a minute, waiting. Apparently, she wasn't going to answer, and that was a relief. He turned his bike around.
“Who's there?” a raspy voice clicked out from the rusty box.
“Oh!” Jason said. “Um, hi, Mrs. Dullahan. My name is Jason Becker. My mom and the Lutheran Ladies sent me over here.” The lady didn't say anything, so he added, “Yeah...They said I should help you with yard work or something.”
“Go away,” the lady's voice replied.
“Okay,” Jason said. “Should I just leave the muffin basket by the gate, or....?”
“Go away!”
“All right, sorry!” Jason started to put the muffin basket down, but then reconsidered. If the old lady didn't want it, he could bring it to band practice for everybody to eat. Maybe Erin would like that.
He pedaled to Mitch's house with the muffin basket dangling from his handlebar. Dred's van was in the driveway, and the garage door was wide open, but no music was roaring out.
“What's wrong?” Jason asked as he parked his bike just outside the garage. He set the muffin basket on the workbench. “Can't play without me?”
Mitch, Dred and Erin were in the garage, but they weren't touching their instruments. Instead, they were moving boxes aside and looking carefully at the floor, searching for something.
“I lost my necklace,” Erin said. “The gold one with the little emeralds on the pendant? Have you seen it anywhere, Jason?”
“No, sorry. You lost it here?”
“I don't know. I've been looking everywhere.” Erin's eyes were glistening like she wanted to cry, but she was holding it back. “I've searched at home, at school, at The Creamery...”
“We'll find it,” Mitch said. He looked around the base of the drum kit.
“I already checked there,” Dred said.
“I'll help.” Jason knelt and peered under the workbench on one side of the garage. He knew the necklace Erin was talking about. She wore it almost every day. It matched her green eyes. “When was the last time you saw it?”
“A couple days ago. I don't really remember.”
“We've been looking for fifteen minutes. I'm pretty sure it's not here,” Dred said.
Erin frowned and turned her face away from everyone. She crossed her arms. “Never mind. I'm sorry for wasting everybody's time. Thanks for trying.”
“I'll check out in the yard.” Jason walked outside to look over the driveway and the grass.
In the garage, Dred tapped impatiently on her drums.
“Thanks, anyway, Jason,” Erin said. “Let's just play.”
“You sure?” Jason asked. “I can keep looking.”
“Nah, it's cool.” Erin shook her head and tucked a lock of green hair behind her ear. “Forget I said anything, okay? We have to practice for the audition.”
Jason took his guitar out of the case, which he'd left in Mitch's garage the previous night. “I meant to tell you guys, I can't come tomorrow night, either. I have to babysit Katie.”
“That's two days in a row,” Mitch said. “The audition is next week, Jason. I told you when you joined, you have to take the band seriously.”
“I do take it seriously! My parents don't. I can't help it.”
“You miss practice today, you miss it again tomorrow—” Mitch said.
“I didn't miss it today, though. Mrs. Dullahan didn't want me at her house any more than I wanted to be there.” Jason held up the muffin basket. “Who wants a muffin? Erin, chocolate chip?”
“Thanks! I could use some chocolate.” Erin smiled at him, and he suddenly felt soft and warm inside.
Jason punched through the cellophane and handed the muffins out. Mitch took both raspberry muffins and stuffed them in his mouth, puffing out his cheeks like a chipmunk.
“So, no more missing practice,” Mitch said to Jason, spraying wet muffin bits as he spoke. “Got it?”
“I have to stay home tomorrow,” Jason said. “I'll be lucky if my parents even let me go to the audition. My mom's still not sure. It's a school night.”
“Dude, you're seventeen already,” Dred said. “You should be able to go anywhere you want.”
“Okay, just call my mom and tell her that,” Jason said.
“You're not going to make the audition?” Mitch asked, looking alarmed.
“I'll make it. I can handle my parents. But that means staying home tomorrow.”
“Work it out,” Mitch said. “Don't miss another practice after tomorrow. And don't mess up this audition!”
“I won't,” Jason said. He looked at Erin. “Are you feeling better?”
“Yep, don't worry about me. I'm the happiest girl in the world.” Erin said. She blew cheerful notes on the harmonica. “Let's play.”
Chapter Four
Saturday night, Jason sat at home in his living room, his guitar in his lap, trying to pick out the music for “Angel Sky,” the song he'd written for Erin. He was having trouble getting the music and lyrics to flow together.
His mother had dragged his father to a collectible ceramics convention in Minneapolis, an hour away, and they still weren't back.
“Jason?” Katie asked. She stood in the doorway of the living room in her Bert and Ernie pajamas.
“What is it, Katie?”
“Um...” She fidgeted, looking nervous.
“What's wrong? You should be sleeping.”
“I know, but...there's a monster.”
Jason sighed and put his guitar down. “Did you have a bad dream?”
“It's not a dream! I saw it go into Mom and Dad's room.”
“If it's not in your room, you don't have anything to worry about.”
“But I could be next!” Katie looked terrified.
“You're completely safe, Katie. There's no monster.”
“Is too!”
“Okay.” Jason stood up and stretched. “Let's go check it out. I’ll show you there's nothing to be scared of.”
“Thanks, Jason.” She took his hand as he walked toward the steps, something she hadn't done in a couple of years. She really was frightened.
They walked upstairs and to the end of the short hall in their split-level house. Katie stayed back, clinging to the frame of her bedroom door, while Jason approached the master bedroom.
“See, Katie?” he said. “Mom and Dad’s door is still closed. How could a monster get into their room?”
“He just went puff,” Katie said.
“He went puff, huh?” Jason said. He had no idea what that meant, but Katie had a very busy imagination.
Jason pushed open the door to his parents' room and glanced inside. “See, Katie, there's no....”
But Jason had seen something. He looked again.
There it was—a small creature, about two feet high, standing on his parents' dresser. It looked like a tiny person, dressed in a ratty, dirty wool overcoat, with a woolen cap pulled low over its eyes. Its pudgy green hands pawed through his mother's jewelry box. Jason watched the creature drop a pair of ruby earrings into a pocket of its coat.
“Hey!” Jason said.
The little creature jumped and spun around to face him. Its face was green and ugly, with an underbite, its eyes big and yellow under the low bill of the cap.
“What are you?” Jason asked.
The thing growled a little, then disappeared in a puff of green smoke. It reappeared in the space in front of the dresser, near the bottom drawer, and landed on its feet, which were clad in small, badly cracked leather shoes. It ran across the carpet to the window. It disappeared in another green puff, then reappeared standing on the windowsill.
“Stop!” Jason yelled. “Give that back!”
The little creature stuck out its dark green tongue at Jason, then disappeared with another puff of smoke. It reappeared on the little ledge outside the window, waved at Jason with a smile full of yellow, crooked teeth, and then hopped out of sight.
“Hey!” Jason ran to the window and opened it. He saw the creature blink in and out of visibility as it tumbled to the back yard, leaving a trail of green smoke fading in the air.
Jason hurried out of his parents' room, past Katie, who was crouching behind her door, poking out her head.
“Did you see the monster?” she whispered.
“Don't worry, I chased it away.” Jason started down the steps. “But it stole some jewelry from Mom. I'll go get it back.”
Katie stepped out of her room and walked to the top stair.
“Can I come?” she asked.
“No, Katie! Wait here. I'll be right back.”
“But I want to come with!” Katie crossed her arms and pouted.
“No! I'm serious, Katie.”
Jason ran through the living room and out onto their concrete slab of a patio. He saw the little green man trampling through a flower bed at the edge of the yard. The creature reached the neighbor's split-rail fence and puffed through it.
Jason raced to the fence and leaped over. When his shoes hit the ground, the creature turned its green face to look back at him, snarled, and put on speed. It puffed in and out of sight, jumping forward about a foot each time.
Jason hurried to keep up as the creature shot forward across his neighbor's lawns. The little thing could move fast, but Jason had much longer legs than it did, and he gained on the creature.
He was determined to catch it, and not just to recover his mother's stolen earrings. If this little monster was the one who'd been stealing jewelry all over town, then it might have Erin's necklace, too. Jason could already imagine how happy Erin would be when Jason returned it to her.
He chased the creature into Mrs. Gottfried's yard, which was full of toy windmills and fake plastic birds. Jason caught up with it and reached one hand down to grab the creature by the scruff of its neck. Then the creature disappeared in another green puff, and Jason realized too late that the little monster had led him directly toward a low stone bench. Jason was running too fast to stop.
His shins cracked into the bench, and Jason spilled forward, falling among a family of plastic ducks.
Ahead of him, the little creature turned and laughed, revealing its crooked yellow teeth again. Its laughter sounded like a hyena.
By the time Jason scrambled to his feet, the green creature was across Mrs. Gottfried's lawn and puffing its way across the main road outside Jason's neighborhood.
Jason chased him through three more neighborhoods, activating motion-detector lights here and there when he came too close to a house. The little green guy seemed to have no effect on the motion detectors—they only clicked to life when Jason passed.
Then Jason chased him down an overgrown trail through the woods. The green creature reached a brick wall ahead, stuck its tongue out at Jason while waving the stolen earrings, then vanished in a puff of smoke.
Jason reached the wall and slapped his hands uselessly against it. The wall was ten feet high, covered in moss and mold. Jason realized it was the wall around Mrs. Dullahan's yard.
“Come back here!” Jason yelled. He thought he heard a hyena-ish giggle on the other side.
Jason picked one of the tall old trees next to the wall and climbed it as quickly as he could. He scrambled out on a thick limb over the wall, struggling to catch his breath. He'd been running nonstop.
Below him, the deep black shadows of Mrs. Dullahan's yard were scarcely pierced by the thin moonlight. It was inhabited by big old oak trees, almost as dense as a forest. The few patches of ground he could see were overgrown with tall weeds as thick as bamboo, and for a moment he was just glad he didn't have to mow her yard for her.
Then Jason saw a streak of weeds ripple, as if a rabbit were dashing between them.
He didn't have time to find a safe way down. Jason held his breath and dropped from the limb into the darkness below.
Something hard and wooden, the size of a shoebox, crunched under his ribs as he slammed into the ground.
Jason rolled up to his feet and looked at his aching side. He'd landed on what looked like a carved wooden squirrel, its mouth and eyes wide with fright. The fearful expression was heightened by the fact that Jason had just broken its head from its body.
Looking around, his eyes adjusting to the shadows and moonlight, he saw more little wooden creatures—toads and rabbits and even a full-size deer. A wooden owl perched on a limb overhead.
All around him, little paths paved with moss twisted through the high weeds.
The paths snaked across the yard, curving across each other at little intersections. Each path ended at one of the giant old trees, at ornate little doors no more than a foot or two high, which appeared to be built into the tree trunks. He saw the little green creature scurry through an arched green door in a dark elm tree. It pulled the door most of the way shut.
Jason jumped after him, grabbing the tiny knob just before the door closed. The brass doorknob was the size of a child's marble in his fingers.
“Hey, come back!” Jason yelled. He pulled the door open, but the little green creature was nowhere in sight.
The interior of the tree was hollow. A series of roots formed a kind of staircase that spiraled down below the tree, out of sight.
“You're kidding,” Jason said. He looked up at the dark shape of Mrs. Dullahan's house against the night sky. Maybe she wasn't a witch, but there was definitely something strange going on at her place.
Jason stuck his head into the open door. He looked up, into the hollow shaft of the tree, but it was completely dark.
Below, around the bend of the root-steps, he saw the slight glow of distant light. He could hear the faintest hint of music, and smell traces of wet, blossoming flowers and baking bread in the air.
He put his hands inside the tree and crept forward as far as he could. He scrunched his shoulders and squeezed deeper inside, looking a little farther around the curve.
Somehow, he was able to fit even more of himself through the door, as if it expanded slightly for him. He crawled further down and around the root-and-dirt staircase, worried that the little green creature might pop out and hit him, or maybe bite him in the nose, but he was too curious to stop now.
The curving space seemed to widen even more as he crawled forward, so he could let his shoulders relax and spread out. He crawled down another twist of the steps, and then he was completely inside the tree.
The stairwell grew even wider as he moved forward on his hands and knees. The walls were made of packed dirt and more tree roots, and a few fireflies provided some light along the way. These fireflies were much larger and brighter than any he'd seen before, and their light was red and orange.
He crawled around and around, and soon the stairwell was wide enough for him to stand, though he had to almost double over, his back brushing against the ceiling.
He followed it down and down, around and around. Had it been a staircase in a building, he would have descended five or six stories by now. He kept going.
Finally, after hundreds of steps, he reached a door. He seemed to be standing inside the round shaft of the tree trunk, though he should have been deep underground now, far below the roots of the elm tree. Golden sap dripped along the heartwood walls. His hands were covered in the sticky stuff, and probably his shirt, which felt glued to his back.
The door in front of him looked just like the green arched door he'd entered above, except much larger. He would still have to duck his head to pass through it, but he wouldn't need to crawl.
Jason touched the brass doorknob, and then he hesitated. None of this made any sense. How could there be such a long staircase under the tree? And where could this door possibly lead? Was he going to be attacked by a bunch of angry little green creatures on the other side?
Then he remembered his purpose—recover Erin's necklace, and his mom's earrings, from the little green creature, who was probably still running away from him.
Jason took a deep breath and pushed open the little door.
Chapter Five
The door opened onto a cobblestone road curving through a dark forest. A number of the trees beside the road had little doors built into them. Jason turned and saw that he'd just emerged from a tree himself. He looked up along the trunk and saw it branched out into little limbs overhead, like a normal tree. Impossible. How could it be connected to the tree in Mrs. Dullahan's yard?
It was nighttime, but the forest was illuminated by swarms of fireflies, which glowed in a bright spectrum of winking colors—shimmering gold, fire-red, sunset orange.
He stepped onto the road, and a wooden cart came clattering around the bend. It was drawn by a pair of shaggy blue goats, and driven by what looked like a small girl with long sapphire blue hair that streamed out behind her like a cape.
“Out of the way, road-troll!” she shouted, and Jason scrambled back off the road. As she rocketed past, he thought he saw a pair of waxy, gossamer wings protruding from her shoulder blades. Little glass bottles full of frothy blue milk gleamed in the cart behind her, packed into place with golden hay.
Jason watched her clatter away around the next bend. She passed a low figure in a ratty woolen coat and hat, who strolled along the side of the road. It looked exactly like the little green man Jason had been chasing, only it was three or four feet tall now. Clearly, the creature believed it had escaped Jason. It was even whistling while it walked.
Jason ran up behind it. The creature heard his footsteps and looked back with a smirk, but then gasped and widened its yellow eyes when it saw Jason. The creature lowered his head and began to run.
“Stop!” Jason yelled. He grabbed the creature's arm, turned it around to face him, and then lifted it up by its shoulders.
“You can't be here!” The creature struggled in his grasp, kicking at Jason's chest and stomach. “You must go back!”
“Where are we?” Jason asked.
“You don't know?” The creature breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. Good. Just go back and forget all that you've seen.”
“No. You stole something from my house.”
“Ah, yes.” The creature reached into one of the many pockets in his coat and brought out the ruby earrings. “There you are. Now take them and leave. Go back through the same door. Your life is in danger as long as you're here.”
“And the necklace,” Jason said.
“Necklace, necklace...I don't believe I took a necklace from your house, young sir.”
“Erin's necklace. Gold and emeralds.”
“Doesn't ring a bell.”
“You know you stole it from Erin a few days ago,” Jason said. He gave the little creature a shake. “Give it back.”
“Yes, yes! Anything's possible. Just put me down so I can check my pockets.”
“Forget it.”
“I won't run!” The creature gave a toothy, yellow smile, as if trying to appear innocent. “I swear it by the Sacred Cesspool of Gorbulorgh.”
“The what?”
“The ancestral homeland of goblins!” The little creature looked at him indignantly.
“You're a goblin?” Jason asked.
“Naturally. What did you think?”
“I don't know...a leprechaun?”
“Leprechauns! I spit on leprechauns! I tie their shoelaces together to make them trip and fall! Leprechauns, indeed!”
“Just give me her necklace.”
“As I said, I cannot search my pockets in my present position. You must put me down.”
“Don't even think about running again.”
“I had truthfully not considered it, young sir.”
Jason carefully set the goblin on his feet, but held tight to the collar of his coat. The goblin reached into various pockets, pulling out rings, jeweled broaches, golden watches. “Necklace...necklace...ah! There you are!”
The goblin held out a silver, heart-shaped locket.
“That's not it,” Jason said. “It's gold, with emeralds, like I said.”
“So picky!” The goblin pulled more shiny objects out of more pockets. “I don't seem to have such a thing. I do apologize, young sir.”
“Where is it?”
“I must have added it to my stash-hole at home. Are you sure you wouldn't prefer a nice diamond bracelet instead?”
“I want that necklace,” Jason said.
“Understood, understood,” the goblin said. “Allow me to make an offer. You return home the way you came, and never speak of what you saw here. Tomorrow night, I will return this necklace to your home.”
“No. I want it now.”
“That's not possible!” the goblin said. “I cannot take you with me into Sidhe City. The Queen would have me killed for leading a human here. And you too, for entering her realm uninvited.”
“I'm not letting you go,” Jason said. “I'm not stupid. I know you'll never come back.”
“I am insulted, young sir.”
“Just take me to where her necklace is. I'll leave as soon as I have Erin's necklace in my hand, okay?”
“It would be better if you waited here,” the goblin said. “Hide behind those trees. I'll be right back.”
“You're not getting away from me,” Jason said.
The goblin sighed and slumped his shoulders. He looked ahead on the road, in the direction where he'd been walking.
“Slouch,” the goblin said.
“What did you call me?”
“I'm telling you to slouch. Make yourself shorter. Snarl up your lips and try not to look so...human. You don't want everyone in the city staring at you.”
“I shouldn't look human? Where are we, really?”
“Your kind call this the Otherworld.”
Jason gave him a blank stare. “What are you talking about?”
“Annwn. Tïr na nǑg. Faerie. Am I jingling anything loose yet?” the goblin asked.
“Fairies? Like little people with wings? That’s crazy...” Jason thought of the small woman with the translucent wings who'd just driven past. “Are you serious?”
“Obviously, you know nothing of fairies,” the goblin snorted. “Or you would show more fear.”
“We're talking about little people with little wings, right? Like in Peter Pan?” He pointed ahead. “You're saying that girl was a fairy?”
“The most fearsome creatures in the realm,” the goblin said. “It's why they get to name the realm, you see?”
“Whatever.” Jason shook his head. He couldn't imagine little pixies with colorful wings as dangerous. The goblin was obviously just trying to scare him. “Let's get going. I need to get back home.”
“More than you know,” the goblin said. He began walking, and Jason stayed close beside him in case he tried to run.
“What's your name?” Jason asked. “Do goblins have names?”
“We have names!” the goblin snapped. “I am called Grizlemor the Cranky. And you?”
“Jason.”
“Just Jason?”
“Jason the Guy Who Wants That Necklace Back.”
The goblin sighed again. “When we reach the city, look no one in the eye. Say nothing. Just keep behind me and try not to draw attention to yourself.”
The road led them to a great mound of a city, where the buildings were made of stone and live trees with sprawling roots and limbs. The city was arranged in terraces rising up the hillside. High above them, the top of the hill was encircled by a towering wall built of golden hexagonal bricks.
“What's that?” Jason asked, pointing to the huge wall.
“Don't point!” Grizlemor slapped Jason's hand down. “It's rude. That is the Queen's palace. We want to stay far from there. Don't even look in that direction.”
“Okay, calm down,” Jason said. “You really are cranky.”
They walked under a high stone archway carved with the images of flowers and animals. As they stepped into the city, the cobblestone road beneath their feet turned into a street of brightly colored crushed pebbles.
Big swarms of fireflies lit up the city in red, golds, oranges, blues and purples. The stone and living-tree buildings all had round, curving shapes—he didn't see a square corner or a straight line anywhere.
Though it was nighttime, the fairy creatures crowded the city streets, and Jason saw long pastel hair and colorful transparent wings everywhere he looked. The fairies were selling flowers, jewels, rugs, shoes, pottery...all of it strangely small, designed for these people who stood no more than three to four feet high. Cheerful music played everywhere, strings and flutes and bells.
While most of the city dwellers appeared to be fairies, Jason also glimpsed other kinds of creatures mixed in here and there—little people with animal horns, or tusks, or long, pointy ears. He felt dizzy at all the strangeness, and he stooped over as far as he could so he didn't stick up above the crowd. He kept close behind Grizlemor.
“This way! Hide!” Grizlemor snapped, grabbing Jason's arm. They ducked behind a cart full of small, polished hand tools made of stone and flint.
“Why are we hiding?” Jason asked. Grizlemor covered his mouth with a calloused hand that smelled like sour spinach, and then the goblin pointed.
A group of three male fairies stalked down the street, and the crowd parted to make room for them. Their faces were youthful, like all the fairies, but their eyes looked hard, dark, and old. They wore segmented black armor, with their wings jutting out the back. Long swords hung in black sheaths at their hips. They ate fruit and flowers from the merchants they passed, but they didn't pay for it. The merchants just looked down at their feet and let them take whatever they wanted.
“The Queensguard,” Grizlemor whispered. “They'll kill us both if they see you.”
“Ho there!” The tool-seller bellowed at Grizlemor. He was short and stocky, with a beard that nearly reached his belt. “What might I sell you today? We have the finest flints from the Valley of Gog, lovely stone hammers from the Caves of Dormundy—”
“Quiet, dwarf!” Grizlemor snapped. The three armored fairies approached them along the street.
“You'll not quiet me, goblin!” the dwarf replied. “Why, I'll speak all day of the fineness of these hand-crafted tools, good for all manner of carpentry, masonry, sculptory, or makery! Only the best stones, only the best—”
“Fine, fine, I'll buy one!” Grizlemor handed the dwarf a golden ring from one of his pockets.
“Ah, the gentleman goblin would like to trade at last!” the dwarf said. He sniffed the ring, licked it, then bit it with his wide teeth. “And what is your pleasure today? I have chisels of the greatest quality—”
“I don't care, just be quiet!” Grizlemor whispered.
“Perhaps your friend would like....” The dwarf's brow furrowed as he stared at Jason. “What manner of Folk are you?”
“He's an ogre,” Grizlemor said.
“An ogre! He's hardly ugly enough for that!”
“Among his people, he is considered the ugliest ogre of all,” Grizlemor said.
The dwarf turned to face the three Queensguard fairies approaching his cart. “And how might I serve you, great fairies of the Guard?”
Grizlemor tightened his grasp on Jason's mouth. If the armored fairies leaned too far over the cart, they would see Jason and Grizlemor hiding there.
“Dwarves require a special license to sell inside the city walls,” one of the Queensguard fairies said. “Do you have your paperwork in order?”
“Oh, yes, sir...” The dwarf reached under the cart and patted his hand across an empty shelf. “I'm certain I have the scroll here somewhere...”
“There is a fine if you don't have your scroll,” the Queensguard fairy said.
“Of course, of course,” the dwarf said. He held out the gold ring that Grizlemor had given him. “Will this suffice for today?”
The fairy took the ring and inspected it. Then he closed it in his fist, and the three black-armored fairies continued along the street.
The dwarf frowned at Grizlemor. “I suppose you'll want to complete your purchase now.”
“Forget about it,” Grizlemor said. He stood and pulled Jason to his feet. “Come along, young...ogre. We have business ahead.” Grizlemor led him along the street.
“Thank you, good sir!” the dwarf yelled after him. “This was my best sale of the day! I would appreciate your repeat business, gentle goblin!”
“Why won't he be quiet?” Grizlemor muttered under his breath.
The goblin took them to a quieter area of the city, where mossy stone walls lined the street. Little round wooden doors were built into the wall, only a few inches apart from each other.
Ahead of them, Jason could hear enchanting music, like nothing he'd ever heard before. It soothed him and energized him at the same time. He wanted to dance his way down the street.
“Here we are.” Grizlemor approached one of the round wooden doors. “My very humble home. I shall check my stash-hole...where are you going?”
Jason had passed right by, barely hearing the goblin. The music drew him forward, as if it had taken control of his feet.
Grizlemor hurried to catch up. “We've just passed my house.”
“What is that music?” Jason asked. He followed the curved street around until he saw the source of it.
Ahead of him, there was a small park full of wildflowers at the intersection of two curving streets. People danced at the middle of the park—and they didn't look like fairies, but normal people, between the ages of ten and twenty, boys and girls, all different races, all dressed in very different clothes. They danced within a ring of large, spotted mushrooms.
Four musicians sat outside the ring of mushrooms on a woven-grass blanket. A hairy orange creature, bigger than a normal man, pounded a hand drum. Tusks jutting up from his lower jaw kept his face in a permanent snarl. A pink-haired female fairy played a small silver harp inscribed with floral-shaped runes. A young man with goat horns and hooves blew into an instrument made of a row of hollow reeds, arranged from shortest to longest and lashed together.
The leader of the band seemed to be the fairy with dark, violet-streaked hair and a matching violet heart tattoo on her arm. She played a six-stringed instrument with a neck that bent sharply back toward her. Jason recognized this as a lute, a kind of medieval guitar. She sang as she played, in a language Jason didn't recognize, and her voice was beautiful. She walked among the other musicians, nodding in approval as they played.
“We've missed our stop, young sir,” Grizlemor said.
“What's happening here?” Jason said. “That music...”
“Makes you want to join in the dance, doesn't it?” Grizlemor smiled with his blunt yellow teeth.
“Those people dancing aren't fairies, are they?”
“They are human children. Like you.”
“I thought you said humans weren't allowed here.”
“They've only come to dance. They stumble in, here and there, all over the world. Through fairy rings—” Grizlemor pointed to the ring of mushrooms “—and other little doors to Faerie. They dance until exhausted, then return home in the morning.”
“Why?”
“Because they cannot help it. The music draws out their energy, and their energy recharges our magical atmosphere.”
“Are the instruments magic?” Jason asked.
“All things in the realm run on magic,” Grizlemor said. “Now, if we could go back and conclude our business, young sir...”
Jason continued to watch, hypnotized by the fairy music. His body swayed, and his feet moved, wanting to dance.
“I want to stay and listen,” Jason said.
“You should come with me.”
“Just a minute longer,” Jason said.
The goblin sighed again. “Stay right here if you must. But do nothing to call attention to yourself. I will return with your necklace, and then you must return home.”
“Sure, sure...” Jason said, barely able to pay attention to the goblin. The music was amazing, opening his heart, making him feel every emotion at once. He hardly noticed when the goblin shuffled away.
Then the dancers began to fall, exhausted. When they hit the ground, they disappeared. The kids faded from view until the circle of mushrooms was empty, and the musicians stopped playing.
Jason blinked several times as he remembered himself. For a minute, he'd been unable to think of anything but the music. He'd never heard anything like it, music that made him feel excited and blissful while it played, and then sad and lonely when it stopped. The instruments really must have been magic.
The lute-playing fairy lifted the strap from her shoulders and laid the lute down on the grass blanket. She stretched and said something to the band. The four of them walked across the street and into an open-air cafe, where they bought drinks served in large, cup-shaped yellow lilies. The two fairies and the little goat-man sat at a stained-glass table, in chairs made of delicate little strands of wood. The huge, hairy drum player had to squat beside them because his giant orange butt would have obviously crushed the fairy chairs.
Jason glanced behind him. Grizlemor was nowhere in sight, and he wouldn't be surprised if the goblin wasn't planning to return. There were countless little round doors packed in tight rows along the wall—Jason would never be able to figure out the one to Grizlemor's house.
On the other hand...he wondered what his band could accomplish if they had those magic fairy instruments to play. He imagined crowds of people entranced by the music, unable to stop dancing until they fell over from exhaustion. With the magic instruments, they'd be able to get gigs all over Minneapolis, maybe even play somewhere in Chicago. And that would make Erin extremely happy, probably more than any stupid necklace.
Jason strolled up the street to the little park, keeping his head low. He checked across the street, down the alley. Nobody in the band was looking this way. They looked pretty exhausted from their set.
Jason picked up the lute. It was carved from heavy, dark wood with runes carved all over the surface. The tuning pegs glittered like gold. Violet amethysts were embedded here and there in the soundboard, and instead of an open sound hole, it had three floral shapes carved under the strings. The lute felt warm and inviting in his hands, heating his fingers like sunlight.
He looked over at the cafe again. So far, nobody had noticed him. Even with all the fireflies, there was still some darkness in the city night.
Jason could barely fit the little lute's leather strap over his shoulder and neck. The instrument pressed tight against his back.
He picked up the drum, which was covered with more of the strange fairy runes, and also had a strap for carrying and wearing. The interior was hollow, so he placed the reed pipes and the little silver harp inside it. Then he slung the drum's strap over the opposite shoulder from the lute.
Jason glanced sideways toward the fairy cafe as he started back down the street. The fairies were chatting rapidly now, as if energized by their drinks.
He walked away feeling extremely nervous, but he resisted the urge to run until he was out of sight of the cafe. Then he took off down the street, going back the way he'd come, through the crowded market.
The theft wasn't such a bad thing, Jason reasoned, because obviously the fairies were using the instruments to take advantage of people. Luring kids down here, draining them of their energy, sending them back exhausted...that didn't seem like a very nice thing to do. What had the goblin said? The fairies stole young people's energy to help power their magic.
He followed the curving roads out to the stone arch, then really put on speed when he hit the cobblestone road through the dark forest. He ran past tree after tree with the little doors built into them, until he saw an arched green door in an old elm. It looked like the door through which he'd entered the world of Faerie.
Jason ducked and entered the door, and closed it tight behind him. He ran up the spiraling root-and-dirt staircase. The stairwell grew narrower, darker and more cramped as he climbed back to his own world.
Chapter Six
By the time he reached the small door at the top of the stairs, Jason was covered in a fresh layer of dirt. He pushed open the arched green door and faced an unexpected rush of bright sunlight. How could it be daytime? He'd only been gone a couple of hours, at most. It shouldn't be much later than midnight.
He poked his head out the door. It was definitely daytime, though still shadowy in Mrs. Dullahan's back yard. It wasn't early morning light, either, but the full brightness of midday or afternoon.
His parents were going to kill him.
Jason looked at the house. Mrs. Dullahan wasn't outside, thankfully, and the narrow windows were shuttered or hung with dark curtains. Maybe she wouldn't see him.
The tiny doorway didn't look big enough for Jason to fit through. He took the instruments off his shoulders, and he put the lute outside first, laying it carefully in the high weeds. Then he pushed the drum out, scraping it on both sides as he forced it out the door. He lay flat on the ground and just barely managed to squirm his way through the little doorway.
Download this book for your ebook reader.
(Pages 1-32 show above.)