“What is that?” Delia gasped.
“Hold on!” Harold cried. He dug into his backpack and produced a leather portfolio crammed with papers. He flipped through a few sheets of scribbles and finally said, “Aha!” He laid the picture on the keys of the laptop and pointed to a drawing. “That’s her! I drew her! I knew these pictures were of real people and things. I knew it!”
The drawing was just a rough charcoal sketch, but it undeniably portrayed the creature on the screen.
“It’s a little person?” Delia couldn’t believe her eyes. “Is this some kind of joke? An optical illusion?”
Dmitri shook his head. “How could it be?”
“How could I draw this before I saw it on the screen?” Harold asked. “I must have seen her on the day I lost.”
“But… ” Delia struggled. “But… she’s tiny! There aren’t people that small! It’s impossible. It’s crazy!”
“Crazy or not, it would appear to be true,” Dmitri decided. “You can’t deny it. She’s there before our sight.”
“Before our eyes!” Harold and Delia snapped together.
“Whatever,” Dmitri conceded. “So the question is, what do we do now?”
Delia stood up. “I’m going to confront Brendan.”
“No!” Dmitri grabbed her arm. “You can’t do that. We need to know more.”
“Get your cabbagy hand off me.” Delia tore her arm away. “I have to make him tell me what’s going on. My family might be in danger.”
“You don’t know that,” Harold pointed out.
“I don’t think Brendan would ever do anything to harm you or your family,” Dmitri said. “He’s a good person.”
“How do you know? You obviously don’t know him at all!” Delia shouted. She turned and flung the door open. “What…?”
Standing in the doorway was an old woman, her head wrapped in a shawl. Her face was ancient and wrinkled but her blue eyes were bright. She wore a thick woollen dressing gown over her nightclothes and a pair of fluffy blue slippers on her bare yellow feet.
The woman croaked in words in a strange language. She pointed at Delia and croaked again, more insistently.
“Babka!” Dmitri cried in alarm. “What are you doing out of bed?” He leapt up and went to the old woman, taking her arm. He spoke a few words in the same strange language and tried to guide her back to the house. She struggled against him, shouting again.
“What’s with her?” Delia asked. “What’s she saying?”
“She’s my babka, my grandmother. She’s speaking Polish. She seems quite upset. She keeps saying, ‘The Prince is going to the island.’”
“The island? What Prince?”
“She could mean Ward’s Island. Where we followed Brendan,” Harold suggested.
“But who is the Prince?” Delia asked. “Brendan?”
The old woman pointed a gnarled finger at Delia. “Tak! Tak! Prinz Brendan!”
“How does she know?” Delia said, skepticism clear on her face.
“She is what we call a vrooshka,” Dmitri explained. “A psycho.”
“Psychic,” Harold corrected.
Delia looked at the old woman. She had a thought. “Ask her this. Tell her we followed Brendan to the island but we lost him there. How can we follow him?”
“She should be in her bed,” Dmitri said. “In fact, I don’t think she’s been up on her feet for months… ”
“Just ask her!”
Dmitri shook his head and turned to his babka. He spoke in Polish and the old woman nodded. She answered in a rapid stream of words. When she was done, Dmitri translated. “She says we must find one who can see. She is too old to make the trip but there is another. He was an enemy but now he’s a friend. The Prince gave him Sight, though the Prince was not aware of the gift. Find the former nemesis.”^ 50
“The former nemesis?” Delia was confused. “Who could that possibly be?”
“Excuse me,” Harold interjected meekly.
“What?” Delia barked.
Harold swallowed. “I, uh… I think I might know who the nemesis is.”
^ 48 I’ve always wondered why they call them saw horses. Why not saw cows or saw pigs or some other four-legged saw creature. I mean, cows are much less skittish than horses. A cow would certainly stay still while you were sawing something. I wouldn’t expect any such cooperation from a horse. Still, I’m not in charge.
^ 49 A perogy is a Polish dumpling containing any number of fillings, ranging from potato and cheese to minced meats to pickled cabbage. I’ve heard rumours of a dessert perogy filled with chocolate pudding and even a Mexican-style perogy stuffed with candies and small trinkets, hung from a tree and beaten with a stick. Or it might have been a pinata. I don’t get invited to a lot of parties.
^ 50 A nemesis is a person’s arch-enemy. It’s an old Greek word. Every hero has his nemesis. Peter Pan had Captain Hook. David had Goliath. My personal nemesis is a parrot named Crackers who curses me every time I walk by the pet shop down the street. Curse you, Crackers! Curse you!
THE LAST DAY
Brendan tried his best to meditate in the Faerie style. He didn’t have enough time to sleep before going to school. But he found he couldn’t settle his mind because of what had happened when he’d come back to the house this morning before dawn.
He had parted with Kim and come through the back gate to find BLT waiting for him. She was very upset.
“Where did you go?” she demanded, zipping up to his face and bopping him painfully on the nose with one tiny fist.
“Ow! That hurt!”
“Serves you right. I was worried sick!” the little Faerie sniffed. She crossed her arms and hung in the air, her wings whirring. “Well?”
“I… ” he stammered. “I needed some time to think.”
“Some time to think?” She whizzed in a circle. “And you left me out in the night alone again?”
“I thought you’d be able to handle yourself,” Brendan said, hoping to appeal to her pride.
“Of course I can. I was worried about you.” She seemed slightly mollified. “Where did you go?”
“Kim and I went Dawn-flying. We saw Pukh arrive.”
BLT’s eyes went wide. “You saw the Wild Hunt. Was it marvellous?”
“It was… pretty impressive.” Brendan had meant to say “terrifying,” but he didn’t want BLT to think he was afraid. “Anyway, it was nice to see Kim. I’ve missed her.”
BLT arched an eyebrow. “Oh you have, have you? She missed you, too, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, he is blind,” she cried to the stars. “Well, obviously…”
Brendan expected her to keep speaking but she stopped dead, her entire body tense. She began searching the yard with her tiny eyes. “What? What’s the matter?” he asked.
Her voice came out in a tense whisper. “We are being watched.” Suddenly, she screeched and rocketed off into the air. She made a beeline straight for a telephone pole that overlooked the Clairs’ yard. She slammed into the pole and tore at something with her hands. It came away from the wood with a snap. Carrying it in her hands, she brought it over to Brendan. He held out his hand and she dropped a small webcam into his palm. It was cracked and broken but still recognizable. They could be bought at any electronics store.
“What was that doing there?”
“Spies!” BLT hissed.
“Who would want to spy on me?” Brendan asked in shock.
“Not a Faerie spy. This is Metal Folk work.”
On that note, they had gone inside. BLT refused to budge from her lookout spot by the window and stayed up muttering until she fell asleep and began to snore noisily. Brendan couldn’t stop worrying about the camera. As he tried to meditate, he turned the question over in his head.
Who would want to spy on me? Mum and Dad? Maybe. But no. His dad could do stuff with his amps and knew a little bit about computers, but he only knew music software. His mum didn’t know much about computers at all. She could type, but that was it. Besides, it wasn’t their style. They’d just ask him if they had a problem with him. They wouldn’t sneak around.