Brendan scrambled to his feet in a panic. “Nobody!” He heard Delia mounting the stairs.
“There’s someone up there with you! I heard you talking to someone.”
In a split second, Brendan scooped up a squirming BLT and stuffed her into the drawer of his bedside table. “Be quiet,” he hissed at the little Faerie before slamming the drawer shut. He turned just as his sister’s head rose up above the floor.
“Who’s up here?” She glared around the small room.
“I’m up here, idiot. Who do you think?” Brendan tried to look innocent. He prayed that BLT had the sense to keep her mouth shut.
Delia narrowed her eyes, studying his face. “You’re lying! I heard you talking to someone just now.”
“I was doing some homework… for Drama Club. Rehearsing lines.”
“Since when are you in Drama Club?”
“Since when is it any of your business?”
“Since you started acting all weird.”
“I’m not acting weird. I’m acting. Now get out of my room.”
“I know you’re up to something. And I know I heard you talking to someone.”
“Get out! You aren’t allowed up here. Get lost!”
“Make me!”
Brendan was about to do just that. He made it two steps across the floor when the nightstand rattled loudly. Brendan froze. The table rattled again, practically leaping off the floor.
Delia stared in shock. “What was THAT?”
“What?” Brendan asked innocently.
“The nightstand moved.”
“I didn’t see anything.”
With a bang, the drawer shot out of the stand and hit the opposite wall. In a shower of sparks, BLT came whizzing out of the drawer and buzzed around the room like a miniature comet.
“Oh no!” Brendan groaned.
Delia shrieked as BLT swooped toward her face. Throwing up her hands for protection, she lost her balance and fell backwards down the staircase. A loud thud told Brendan she had landed on the floor in the hallway below. He rushed to the opening and looked down to see his sister lying flat on her back on the carpet, her eyes wide with surprise and her mouth a round little o.
“Are you all right?”
Delia blinked up at him once. Twice. Then, she began to shriek and point at Brendan. “It’s on your SHOULDER! WHAT IS IT? A BUG!”
Brendan turned his head to see BLT squatting on his shoulder, a half-eaten M amp;M in her sticky hands and a mad grin on her face. Her eyes were glossy as marbles.
“Look what I found in the drawer!” She took another bite of the candy and zipped off to resume her circuitous transit of Brendan’s bedroom. Delia shrieked and leapt to her feet. “MUM! MUM!” She ran off down the stairs. “There’s some kind of KILLER BUG in Brendan’s room!”
Brendan felt a wave of relief. Delia couldn’t see BLT’s true appearance.^ 28 He’d have far less trouble explaining a big bug than explaining a Faerie. He shook his head and descended the staircase to help calm his now-hysterical sister.
He smoothed things over with Delia, convincing her he’d driven the wasp out of the open window of his room. In a sense, he was telling the truth. He’d shooed BLT out his window and told her to stay away for the rest of the night. She could stand the cold. She just didn’t like it. On nights when she was banished from the house, she’d fly off to meet up with other Lesser Faeries in the park or go hunting for sweets. She always managed to take care of herself.
He went downstairs to find that his father had arrived home from work at the cafe and it was time for dinner. He suddenly realized he was absolutely starving. Time flew by as he sat with his family and listened to his father regale them all with his impressions of the customers he’d served that day. Even Delia seemed to relax and forget her scare, laughing in spite of her protestations that her father was the least funny man in the world and that his stories were the dumbest in the world.
When he was with his family, he could almost forget about the weirdness of the Faerie world and his place in it. He could forget about the Art, Gatherings of Clans, and Proving Challenges. Here, at the kitchen table, eating meatloaf with his mother and father and even his annoying sister, he belonged. He was home.
Weary but content after a couple more cookies, Brendan trudged up to his room with no thought in his mind but sleep. He peeled off his clothes, donned his T-shirt and pyjama bottoms, and lay down on the bed. He was almost asleep when he remembered he still hadn’t called Harold and Dmitri to apologize. He reached for his Faerie phone. His fingers rested on the smooth grain of the wood for a moment before he pulled his hand away. He decided he was too tired to face explaining his screw-up to his friends. He lay back and was asleep in minutes.
Charlie stood in the shadows, watching as the light in the attic went out. It was chilly but she didn’t feel a thing.
“He’s going to sleep,” she said softly, seemingly to herself. No one was with her in the lane. “He still does that. It’s very strange. He’s so tied to his Human habits. It’s sad but kind of sweet, too, his feelings for these people.”
There was a rustle of wings. A hawk with snowy white plumage lighted to perch on the fence beside Charlie. The bird of prey blinked bright blue eyes and hooted softly.
Charlie nodded. “That’s true. His attachment to his Human family is the way to get close to him.”
The hawk flapped its broad wings and the air around it smudged and smeared. The shape of the bird stretched and its plumage darkened. The next instant, an old man stood leaning against the fence. He wore a rumpled tweed suit and a flat cap. “It’s his greatest weakness but perhaps his greatest strength, too. That’s the key to his passion. It’s what will set him apart.”
“He’s very reluctant to let me in,” Charlie explained. “He distrusts strangers.”
“Few could resist your charms, my dear Charles.”
“He’s doing just fine,” she snorted, hanging her head.
The old man raised Charlie’s chin and looked into her eyes. He smiled. “Show him how wonderful our world can be. You will succeed, I’m sure.”
Reluctantly she nodded. “I have an idea that might work.” Her brow furrowed. “Have you found out any more about my family?”
“No,” the old man said sadly. “I haven’t given up, but the trail is centuries old. It will take some time.
“Now, I must be gone,” he said. “Don’t worry. You will wear him down.” As he raised his arms, his form melted down and collapsed. The bird sat in his place on the fence post. The hawk clicked its beak and rose with a powerful snap of its wings, throwing itself into the frigid night sky.
“Yes.” She nodded and held out her bare arm. A weasellike shape stretched from her elbow to her wrist, etched into her skin with black ink. The tattoo shivered, writhed, and then detached itself from her skin, thickening and expanding until the creature it depicted had become a separate entity, dark as the shadows under the fence. The creature chittered softly and swarmed up her arm until it wreathed her shoulders like a living scarf. “Yes, Tweezers. It’s time to take the gloves off.”
^ 27 I think most brothers would agree that sisters are terrifying and to be avoided until at least the age of forty and then approached only with great caution.
^ 28 All Faeries have glamours or magical disguises to hide their true nature from Humans. While Greater Faeries take the Human form to move among us, as Brendan does, Lesser Faeries are forced to take on appropriate disguises for their size: mice, insects, birds, etc. BLT, being a contrary sort of individual, settled on an ugly, hairy fly, but she could have been a butterfly or a hummingbird. I think we agree that wouldn’t be in keeping with her personality.
PART 2
The Shadow Dancer
Another Note from the Narrator
Ha! Things are certainly heating up. Mysterious hawks in the dark of night! Sisters spying on brothers! Chocolate chip cookies! Oh, what a tangled web of intrigue and deception.