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"Tir na n'Og" by Scattercat

A gang of runaway changeling children - faerie beings left for human parents - faces a crucial decision as their adopted home comes under attack.

Category: Short Story

Tags: fantasy, faeries, changelings, urban fantasy

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The plastic bottle of Diet Coke warmed slowly in my hands. I paced across the dusty square and the dry fountain. Maybe Turk would want it? No, the sun was high and bright still; Turk would be sulking under his decorative bridge down by the fish pond. Scuzz? The last I'd seen her, she'd been heading for the old balloon-popping booths with a handful of knives and darts. She'd carved new targets out of wood to hang on the back walls. They were crude faces – Scuzz was never much good at making things – but they were helpfully labeled with everyone's names. Turk, Roweena, Bee – that's me – and Simon. I wondered if she'd replace Simon's target when it wore down. Probably not a good time to ask, not even if I was bringing her a soda. I didn't like to interrupt Scuzz when she was playing with her targets.I sighed. The soda would go to waste. I wasn't going to drink it, that was for sure. I didn't even like touching the bottle, let alone actually put that horrible sickly-sweet fake sugar taste in my mouth.

Roweena was up in the Tower, working her loom. My feet raised little clouds with every step, as if I were a rain god. Pleasant thoughts; it had been a dry spring and looked like a drier summer to come. The square had been packed dirt, back when this was the Stafford County Renaissance Faire. Now it was just dust, a chipped fountain with no water, and a maypole leaning at a crazy angle.

The Tower wasn't big, only four stories tall. Once you were past the first floor, the inside was all business, unvarnished wood and drywall. The illusion didn't extend into the employee areas. Seems to me it would have been hard to stay in character as a damsel in distress or whatever, but I never had to run a Renfaire.

I could hear Roweena's loom from the bottom of the tower. Click-clack, click-clack. I used to come up here all the time to watch the shuttle diving back and forth between the threads as they shifted up and down. The loom was an enormous pile of wood and levers and wheels and complicated metal teeth. I don't know how she'd gotten the whole thing up there to her room. Before my time. Roweena was the next oldest, after Simon. Just the oldest now, I guess.

The room at the top of the Tower was a tiny space, barely large enough to hold the loom and Roweena and her collections. A dressing room, really, which I guess was what it used to be. There was a big window and a balcony outside, oversized in comparison, probably so that damsel in distress could lean out and cry for a brave knight. With heaving bosoms and whatnot. I pushed open the door.

“I was expecting you,” said Roweena. She didn't turn around, so I didn't see her green eyes widen dramatically at the pronouncement. I knew she was doing it anyway.

“I need you to check the threads, 'Weena,” I said. “We need to know what's going to happen.”

“Why didn't you come in by the window?”

I bit my lip and clenched my hands on my skirt. “You know why. I can't. I never have.”

Roweena nodded and kept weaving. I watched the pattern emerging from the end of the loom. My fingers kept tightening on the cloth of my skirt, as though it were a leash on my patience. Talking with Roweena was like that, sometimes.

At last, Roweena sighed and held out her hand. I gave her the lukewarm soda. She twisted the cap off and threw the full bottle out the window. I heard it hit the ground, imagined it fizzing out into the thirsty earth. Wouldn't be nourishing any plants, that stuff.

Roweena studied the numbers on the inside of the cap. Random digits. Supposedly you could enter those at some website and win prizes or something. I waited. The room was stuffy, even with the enormous window. I wanted to be out in the sun, smelling the trees instead of this dusty-musty room.

“Still the same,” said Roweena. “We're doomed.” She placed the cap on top of a teetering pyramid of soda caps, all colors and sizes. We watched it sway for a moment. “They'll be here tomorrow to start tearing down the buildings. It'll be a mall by June .”

I blinked. Roweena had volunteered information. Specific information, even. She must be really upset. “What should we do?” I said.

Roweena wouldn't look at me. She picked up the shuttle and plucked at the thread, twining it through her fingers. They were thin and delicate, like the thread itself, and just a little too long for a regular human.

“Let's go shopping,” I said.

Someone had to be decisive around here.


#


The old man at the 7-11 didn't recognize us. They don't, generally. Adults, I mean. I don't know what they see when they look at us. Normal kids, I guess. Just not the same ones every time.

Turk probably looked like a Rasta-dude, with his dark blue-green skin and his hair like kelp. With her height, Scuzz couldn't have looked older than six, seven at the outside, but grown-ups didn't condescend to her like they usually do with little kids. If they did, Scuzz would smile at them. I think her teeth still looked sharp, even under the glamor. Made them jump, anyway. Roweena would be easy. She already looked like a normal teenager, just a little tall, a little thin, a little pale. A little spacey. Roweena's weirdness was mostly in her head, not her body, pointy ears notwithstanding.

Me? Sometimes they could see the wings and sometimes they couldn't. When they did, they assumed the wings were fake, like they could see the straps. Same with my hair. I'd seen normal kids, human kids, with more colors than I had, though theirs didn't shift around through the spectrum like mine did. I don't know what I'd have done if I'd been born in the days before neon hair dye was commonplace. Maybe the glamor would be stronger if it had to hide more. Maybe I'd just have been burned at the stake really early on.

The bell over the door jangled when we entered. I managed not to flinch. Turk and Scuzz broke away to either side when we entered, making for the snacks and candy. Scuzz already had her Hello Kitty backpack unzipped.

I glanced at Roweena, but she was staring at the TV where the lotto numbers were flashing. Her lips were moving, her slit-pupiled eyes dilated and distant.

Great. That left me.

“Hi!” I said, giving him my brightest smile.

His eyes, dark even against his swarthy skin, roved up and down over all four-foot-nothing of me, pausing at my shoulders. “What are you supposed to be?”

“I'm a flower faerie in the body of a human girl,” I told him.

He smiled then, charmed by the sincerity in this strange little girl's voice. They never believed my lies, but they didn't believe the truth, either. “So which is it, faerie or human?” he said.

“A little of both, not quite either,” I said. I could hear packages crinkling in the candy aisle. Scuzz chuckled to herself in her oddly deep voice. The old man's eyes started to wander in that direction, his expression darkening. I flicked a little bit of sideways at him, and his attention returned to me. His smile came back, a little glassy-eyed.

I hate glamors. I'm no good at them. I hate using any sideways, of course, because it attracts Riders, but I'm no good at being fascinating, either. I need the help, even if I can't be subtle about it.

“They call me Bee,” I said. I shot a look at Roweena, hoping she'd pitch in. She used to be excellent at decoy. Adults ate out of her hand. Especially men.

“Because of the wings?”

“Not really,” I said. Roweena had pulled out a bunch of magazines and was shaking the card inserts onto the floor. “It's short for Bumblebee.” The old man looked confused. Maybe I was pushing the glamor too hard. I eased back, let the sideways dribble away. “Bumblebees can fly even though they shouldn't. I'm the other way around.”

The guy was confused. Confusion is bad. You don't want them thinking about things. I changed tactics.

“What's your name?” I said, all but fluttering my eyelashes.

“George,” he said. His faced relaxed.

“Oh! Do you own this store?” As if I didn't know.

George smiled. Now that I wasn't disrupting his mental state with non-sequiturs, my little charm spell would lull him almost to sleep. We talked, and I kept his attention on things behind the counter, the magazines and cigarettes, the heinous sausages glistening in their display case. That's how I operate; I point to things. Look at that, I say. That's way more interesting than little old me. Roweena could make herself enthralling. Simon used to be able to do it, too. But Simon was gone, and Roweena... I think Roweena was going, too. I just didn't know where.

A piercing shriek interrupted me and George in mid-chatter. Roweena leapt to her feet in a cloud of pre-paid bulk postage. “They're coming!” she screamed. She'd torn up one of the cards. Bits of it stuck to her ebony hair like confetti.

George blinked and shook his head. His eyes focused on me for the first time. “Wait,” he said. “I know you. I've seen you... before...”

He didn't get any further before Roweena snatched my wrist and tugged me toward the door.

I dug in my heels. “Roweena, what-?”

“Run!” Roweena said. I looked around for the others.

Turk was already legging it for the door, his flat troll-feet slapping against the tiles. Scuzz veered around the corner, skidding and trailing snack-size bags of chips from her open backpack.

“What's this *****?” Scuzz said.

“I don't know,” I told her. I pulled at my arm, but Roweena clutched it in both hands. “'Weena just went nuts.”

“If Roweena says go, we go,” Turk grunted. He darted back and scooped Scuzz into his arms. Scuzz squawked in protest.

“Hey!” George said, his eyes clear. “You kids... stop! Stop, thief!” He lunged across the counter at me.

I made a quick circular gesture and snapped my fingers, releasing a little more sideways. His lunge fell short as he stumbled, his shoelaces suddenly and inexplicably tied together. His feet went out from under him and he fell.

What can I say? I love the classics.

As the sideways thrummed in me, Roweena screamed again. She dropped my arm as if I'd become burning hot. That's when I realized what she must have seen in the cards.

“Salt the earth!” I swore. “Riders!”

Turk said nothing, but he stopped and held the door open for me. In his arms, Scuzz was silent and wide-eyed. Roweena, so urgent a second ago, was staring off into space. She made a keening sound, deep in her throat.

That was what really scared me. That was when I really knew Roweena, the old Roweena, was gone, and wouldn't be coming back.

“You kids!” George shouted from behind the counter. “I'm calling the cops!” There was a thump and a crash.

No one said anything. No one moved.

That left me.

“Let's go,” I said. I wrapped an arm around Roweena and ushered her out the door. Her lips were moving again, her eyes tracking some private horror.

“Where are we going?” said Turk.

“Home!” Scuzz shrilled.

“No,” I said. “We can’t risk leading them there. Not if it's Riders.” I pointed. “Out, out to the fields. Away from us and Crayl and anyone else keeping a gang in the city.”

“We'll be alone.”

“Same as always, then,” I said. “Same as always.”

And we ran, out of the store, out of the city. I threw a veil behind us - no point in avoiding large workings now, with a Rider already on our trail - and I felt Scuzz weakening a tree branch overhead. A deadfall, they used to call that sort of thing. It probably wouldn't do much, but it'd slow the Rider down, at least. Scattering spells like seeds in a field, we ran for our lives.


#


The summer sun was high and hot and gloriously bright. We walked by the side of the highway, preferring the sharp gravel to the frying-pan heat of the asphalt. Corn and wheat rustled in gentle waves to either side, acres of fields with a distant, dark outline of trees. Our moods improved a little more with every second that passed without the sound of pursuing hoofbeats. Between Turk's gangly speed, Scuzz's traps, and my misdirections, we'd left a pretty tangled trail behind us. We were feeling good. We'd beaten a Rider!

“Pah!” Turk spat something mangled and brightly colored. He offered me an open package of candy. “Here.”

“Such a gentleman, Turk.” I looked at the package. “Swedish fish?”

“Thought it'd be fish-flavored,” said Turk.

Scuzz barked a laugh. “You and Simon and your weird thing for fish.”

I cringed and glanced at Roweena, but she just kept walking, head down, hair covering her face. Maybe she hadn't heard.

“I like fish,” said Turk, a little defensively.

“Yuck,” said Scuzz. “No blood in them.” She gnawed at a spicy stick of dried meat.

“I saw Simon,” said Roweena abruptly. We all turned to look at her.

“What, in one of your stupid visions?” said Scuzz, shoving another handful of jerky into her mouth.

“No,” said Roweena. “I went to see him in his new life.” She paused. We waited. “He looked happy.”

“Ignorance is bliss,” I muttered.

“It was like he'd always lived there,” said Roweena. “He was on the swim team. He had friends. I think they even had baby pictures of him.”

“Yeah, it's all prepared,” said Scuzz. “I think I know what a trap looks like.”

“He's happy,” said Turk. “That's all that matters.”

“Why'd you do that, anyway?” said Scuzz. She leveled a sharp-nailed finger at Roweena. “You said it was dangerous. What if he'd seen you? You'd have been caught for sure.”

“I think he did see me,” said Roweena. “He didn't recognize me. Looked right through me, like every other mortal does, when I want them to.” Her voice was light, airy, as though she were discussing the weather. As though it didn't hurt. “I wanted to see what it was like, I suppose. We might all end up there soon.”

“What, because they're tearing down the Faire?” I shook my head. “We can stop them. We've done it before. Protected our home, I mean.”

“From a gang of bored teenagers,” said Roweena. “This will be different.”

I'd been wishing for the old, take-charge Roweena to come back. Now that she was acting like her old self again, she was just annoying me. Typical. “We did it before, and we'll do it again.”

“There are other options.”

Roweena spun on Turk, her eyes flashing. “Such as? Going to live with Crayl and his hooligans over in the Monster Mansion? Please! I'd rather go with the Riders.”

I shuddered. “Don't say that, 'Weena. Bad luck.”

Turk shrugged.

Scuzz's beady black eyes darted between Turk and Roweena. “Whattaya mean?” she said. “What's he talkin' about?”

“He means the Hill,” I said. “Going to the other side.”

That gave even Scuzz pause. She rallied quickly, though. She always did. “I don't see what's so bad about Crayl's gang. He's fun. He told me I have an invitation any time I want it.”

My eyebrows rose. “When did that happen?”

“I do lots of stuff you don't know about,” said Scuzz, sniffing. “Just cause I'm short don't mean I'm helpless alone.” She bared her teeth in her feral grin.

“It's because Simon left, isn't it?” I said. I didn't manage to keep the sharp tone out of my voice. “That's when everything started falling apart.” I didn't look at Roweena, who had gone quiet behind her curtain of hair.

“It's not my fault he took his candy ***** and ditched us!” said Scuzz. “I didn't owe him *****. I still don't. Neither do you, even if you want to pretend you did. He left us, remember?” She jabbed a daggerlike finger at me with each syllable. I felt my fists ball up. My wings fluttered; they always betrayed my moods, more even than my face.

Turk rumbled something deep in his throat and interposed himself between us. I opened my mouth, but before I could speak, Roweena stirred again.

“It's here,” she said.

We heard it, then: a distant rumble, like a summer storm, though the skies were clear. I spotted a black speck, far down the road but growing rapidly nearer.

“A motorcycle,” Scuzz sneered.

“A Rider,” Roweena said.

“A guise. Like ours,” I said.

Scuzz blinked. “They can do that?”

I shrugged. “Either that or 'Weena's gone completely insane.” I didn't say that I thought that very well might be true. She was nowhere near stable, that was for sure.

“It's a Rider,” said Turk. I glanced up at his algae-colored face. His gills pulsed on his neck. He looked down, meeting my gaze. “What do we do?”

Why are you asking me? I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to cry. I wanted Roweena to instruct me. I wanted Simon back. I wanted everything back, back how it used to be.

There was one thing I didn't want.

I didn't want the Rider to catch us.

They left remnants, sometimes. A warning, or a boast. I don't know how Riders think. I'm not even sure they do think. But I've seen the broken, bubbling husks they've left behind. If I closed my eyes, I could see the others, like they'd be after the Riders came. I could see Roweena. She was so fragile, more now than ever. She didn't need any more tears on her cheeks.

“We run,” I said.

“Even Turk can't outrun a motorcycle,” said Scuzz.

“So we go where it can't follow, my little goblin buddy.” Scuzz blinked; kind words always confused her. “Into the fields,” I went on. “I'll stay behind and cover you.”

Turk frowned, his canines dimpling his lower lip.

“Kinda dangerous,” said Scuzz. “I mean, better you than me, but...”

“It's the best way,” said Roweena. “This plan has the highest probability of success.”

I smiled at her. There was a light in her eyes again, a dangerous gleam, but better than the flat emptiness that had lived there so often lately. She smiled back at me, with half her mouth.

Scuzz didn't need to be told twice. Honestly, I was kind of touched she'd protested as much as she had. She darted to the side, into the cornstalks, crunching through the fallen fragments of last year's crop. Roweena followed, melting away with hardly a whisper. Turk took a step back, nodded once, and pushed into the field after the girls, bending to keep his head below the corn's tufted tips.

I turned to the road and the dark shape that roared toward me. I could make out some details already: black leather – black everything, really – and the marble-pale gleam of the Rider's face. It would be icy-still, I knew, and white as bone, but its eyes would be dark. Serpent's eyes. Shark's eyes. And behind those perfectly-shaped lips...

I calmed my breathing and reached my arms out to either side. This would not be easy. It would take subtlety, of a sort. The Riders could smell it when we touched the sideways part. It drew them like flies to a corpse. One Rider could take out an entire gang of runaways, easy, maybe even several working together. I was alone, but the corn pollen was swirling up into the air, disturbed by my friends' passage. Not a lot, this late in the year, but some. Enough, I hoped. The flowers, the pollen, the burgeoning seeds, it was a bank of energy, a bubbling cauldron of potential. I could do a major working with that power, try to match strength with a Rider directly.

Or I could do this.

A trickle of power leaked from inside of me, from the part that was sideways to the rest of the world, and the energy of the dancing pollen started to crystallize around me. I flowed out into it, into the web I'd spun, spreading further and further away. I didn't try to hide, to craft a veil and hope the Rider didn't pierce it. Instead, I used the Rider's own keen senses against it; I shouted my presence, announced it to the world, filled every field and copse for miles around with the flavor of me. For a brief moment, I was everywhere, barely anything left in my stupid half-and-half body, my mind swirling in a hundred eddies, peeking out from a thousand different places, in new bodies that grew with the sun and never asked questions. I was free. It was almost like flying.

Down the road, the rumbling engine slowed. The Rider smelled me, smelled me everywhere. Smelled me, not my friends. Smelled Bumblebee instead of Turk, instead of Scuzz. Instead of Roweena.

The downside to this plan, of course, was that there was a center to the spell, and at that center was one half-grown half-girl half-faerie who'd just bitten off a lot more than she could chew.

I pulled down the strongest veil I dared to risk and ran for the cornfield across the road. The hot tar burned my feet. In the distance, I heard an engine snarl and tires squeal like a whinnying horse.


#


I ran through the forest. I could hear the Rider behind me not as a sound but as an absence of sound. All the creatures of the woods went silent when it passed. I could still hear the purr of its motorcycle in the distance; I knew better than to try and steal it, even if I’d known how to drive one. Their mounts were loyal to them.

My veil kept it from knowing my exact location, but it knew roughly where I was. It followed my physical traces as much as its own sideways senses. Even moving slowly and carefully, even without its mount, it was faster than I was. I needed to lose it.

Circling back, I veered too near. I caught a glimpse of shiny black through the trees. The Rider stopped, head cocked, then turned in my direction. It cast about from side to side like a dog catching a scent. It aimed something at me, or at least my general direction. Some kind of gun, I think. I dodged behind a tree as there was a soft click-phut sound and the foliage around me exploded as dozens of pellets whipped through the trees and underbrush. I felt a sting in my left arm, and then nothing. I touched my skin, but I couldn’t feel anything; the skin was unbroken, but totally numb. It was cold to the touch.

I ran some more. The Rider was poking into the underbrush in a rough semicircle. Looking for my fallen body? Tough luck, cowboy, I thought.

My spell started to fade after an hour or so. Sometimes I wished I wasn’t as good at misdirection as I am. I was flagging, and the Rider was still behind me, though falling further back. I came to a field of kudzu, the clinging vines covering the other plants in a thick blanket of glossy green leaves. No way could I get across it without leaving a trail that might as well be a neon sign saying “She’s over here!”

I glanced over my shoulder. No sign of the Rider yet. This might be my best chance.

I took a deep breath and concentrated. I couldn’t use any sideways on this; it had to be all me. My wings fluttered, moving more coherently, with more purpose. I focused more. The fluttering became a purr, then a hum. I knew they’d be nearly invisible now, like hummingbird wings. Slowly, I lifted up into the air, a few inches above the soil. The effort was almost too much; my vision started spiraling in, darkness flickering at the edges of my sight. My back ached like someone had slapped me with a hot iron. I pushed myself forward, flailing my arms for balance. My toes brushed the tips of the leaves as I passed over.

On the far side, I collapsed against a tree. I still had to hide. I dropped to the ground and whispered to the kudzu, just the barest flicker of sideways, and the wide leaves rustled slightly as they shifted to cover me. I tucked my head under my arms, trying to cover the bright colors of my hair, and willed my exhausted wings to stillness.

I heard the field go quiet when the Rider arrived, the insects and birds silenced by its presence. It paced the far edge of the field, looking for my trail. I cowered in my shelter of vines, my lips shaping desperate pleas. The Rider snuffled, then snorted. Then, I swear by the sun and stars, it chuckled. The field came alive again when it left, heading back the way it came.

I lay frozen on the ground, not daring to move until the sun touched the horizon.


#


It was dark when I stumbled into the jousting field. The grass had grown until it was waist high. I sank into it, smelled the warm green soul of it, tried to hold in tears. Pain, exhaustion, frustration, anger. I hate the night. I hate the dark, the cold rock of the Earth blocking the sun, trapping us in our own shadows.

Obviously, I'm not a night-bloomer.

When I'd recovered a little, I went looking for the others. I found them by the main gate, the imposing fort-like wall, complete with a portcullis. The general aura of impregnability was spoiled a bit by the turnstiles placed at regular intervals. They were all on the top of the wall, staring down at the trucks and trailers parked outside like siege engines.

“What the hell happened to you!?”

“Language, Scuzz,” I said. My voice came out in a creak and I started coughing.

“***** language.”

Turk put a moist arm around my shoulders and guided me to a chair. “We were worried,” he said.

“No need,” I managed. “Got away clean.” I tried not to cradle my left arm, tucked immobile against my body.

“The hell you did!” said Scuzz. “I smell blood.”

She would.

“Nothing serious,” I said. “He had a shotgun. Sawed-off or something. The pellets spread out a little further than I thought they would, anyway. It clipped my arm.”

Roweena looked up. It was the first time she'd acknowledged my return. “Elf-shot,” she said. “You're lucky to be alive.” Her green eyes were luminous in the moonlight. “You're going to get sick. It'll get worse, fast. The shot digs through your body. When it reaches your heart, you'll die.”

“A cure?” said Turk.

Roweena shook her head. “It's difficult. We need a silver knife, an iron nail, some helenium, wormwood, strawberry leaves...”

“It can wait,” I said. “I'm fine for now. We have to stop the construction. That's what's important.”

“They just dropped off the last of the machines,” said Scuzz. “More coming tomorrow.”

“Then here's what we do,” I said. I willed my voice stronger. Somehow, the news that I was dying made the old fears seem a lot less relevant. “'Weena, you figure out where they're going to start and plot out a map. After that, we're taking a trip to the library for some research. Turk, I want you to flood the ground in those areas. Thick mud, a real soup. Scuzz-”

“Who made you the boss?”

“-you're going to break things.”

Scuzz displayed her needle teeth. “Aye-aye, cap'n!”

“All the machines here, ruin them. So they never work again. Then we're all taking a trip.” I heaved myself to my feet, ignoring the icy numbness that was spreading up past my elbow. “We're going to cut this thing off at the head.”


#


I would have thought a real-estate developer would have had a nicer house. Like a mansion or something. Maybe it doesn't pay as well as it used to. The computers at the library were super helpful, even if we had to break in to use them. We even had a little map we'd printed out. Score one for technology, I guess.

The house itself was depressingly ordinary. Turk let us in by punching a window, and then we went to work. Well, mostly we sat and let Scuzz get to work. That girl has a talent for destructive mayhem that is a wonder and a terror to behold. I think we don't let her out often enough.

While Scuzz was going medieval on the kitchenware, Turk caught us a squirrel. I mumbled an apology as he snapped its little neck, and then we used the blood to write a message across the living room wall. Nothing specific. We wanted to scare him off the job, not lead him to our hiding place. “Keep out of the woods!” “Beware the Faire.” Like that.

“You'll see,” I said as we left. My lips felt swollen and my tongue was dry. I think Turk was carrying me. “They'll leave. In the morning, they'll be all... gone. We did it, guys, you guys. I know we did it...”

The last thing I remember is Roweena's sad smile and her hand, cool and gentle on my forehead. Then darkness.

I hate the dark.

I drifted for a while. Things flashed past that didn't make much sense. Sounds, images. I saw the Tower on fire, with Roweena hanging off the balcony and halfway out of a ridiculous low-cut Renfaire-garb dress. Simon was there, charging the tower on a horse that had Scuzz's face. Turk stood in the way, grown tall and monstrous. His teeth had become tusks, his hair a green-tinged pelt. Simon just smiled and lowered the visor of his shining silver armor. Too late I realized his armor was only painted silver, that underneath it was black. Black leather. White face. Simon's lance didn't waver as he charged. The flashing point was aimed directly at Turk's chest.

I tried to call out, to warn Turk that it wasn't Simon, not really, that it wasn't a game and he wouldn't turn away, but I couldn't move. I was trapped in the cold and the dark, buried in the earth, covered in my own shadow.

Roweena saw, too, saw the not-Simon. She jumped from the window, flames licking at her heels, and suddenly I was with her, falling.

“You can't stop it, Bee,” Roweena said. She smiled. “You can't even fly.”

We hit Simon's lance, then, and it plunged through Roweena's body and into mine. My arm seared with sudden heat and pain and I wanted to go back, back to the cold and the dark. I fell. I couldn't fly.

Above me, Roweena hung on the end of the lance. Turk roared and battered at the Simon-Rider thing. The horse with Scuzz's face bucked and kicked, trying to throw the Rider. I realized I was holding the lance. Roweena was speared through. It must have hurt. I couldn't have stood it, but Roweena's smiled never wavered, her eyes boring into mine like my lance pierced her chest. Her blood was flowing, running in crimson streamers down the wooden haft of the lance. It dripped on my face, hot and salty-sweet.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

I opened my eyes. It was dark and cold and for a horrible second I thought the dream was starting over again. I could hear water, though. Splashing, flowing... and dripping. On me. I rolled over and winced as pain shot up my left arm. Better that than the creeping numbness.

I saw light ahead of me, and I half-crawled toward it. I emerged, blinking, from under Turk's bridge. I was wrapped in a blanket, a colorful pattern I almost recognized. It was a little clammy. I discarded it in favor of the sunshine. I felt my wings flexing, swelling and unwrinkling as they drank in the warmth of the sun.

There was a tang to the air that didn't belong. Trees, yes. Dust and dirt, yes. Mildew and the stagnant water of the fish-pond, yes and yes. But underneath those was something harsher. Like a fire.

Turk was up on the battlements. I headed that way, moving slowly. My whole left side was stiff and aching. I didn't really want to see what Turk was looking at. I knew what would be there.

I clambered up the ladder and crouched beside Turk. He was a chilly presence; no body heat to speak of. We looked over the wall for a while.

“Thanks for the blanket,” I said.

“Roweena,” he responded.

“Oh. How... is she?”

“Don't know. She went up the Tower, after you were safe.”

“After they sent more workers and more machines,” I said flatly. The field below was a hive of activity. Ants. No, termites. Eating my home out from under me.

Turk shrugged.

“I thought it would work.” I was a little surprised to hear my voice in a hard monotone.

“We tried,” said Turk. He didn't move, just sat with his knees tucked under his chin, his ape-like arms wrapped around his legs.

We watched the men on the field for a while. Trucks, chains, winches. Freeing the vehicles stuck in the mud. There were a lot of men out there. More than we'd expected. One of them looked up, and I thought I saw a gleam of bone-white skin and dark, dark eyes.

“We can try again,” I said. I couldn't not say it. “We'll make a new plan. I can help more, now that I'm better. We could-”

“No,” said Turk. “Better this way.”

And that was it, really. Roweena left. No one knew when. I'd have thought she'd have said goodbye to me, at least. Still, I could tell when she was gone. I went up to her room. The loom was there, disassembled and packed neatly. All the bits and bobs and doodads I never learned the names of. The whole room had been meticulously cleaned. I didn't cry until I found the two garbage bags, neatly tied off, full of bottlecaps.

I saw Roweena, later. She was tan, and rounder than she used to be, laughing with a handful of other teens. Girls, mostly. A few boys. One of them had blond hair and a swimmer's build. It might have been Simon. They looked happy together.

I noticed Scuzz a couple of times after that, running with the goblin tribe from the Monster Mansion. She saw me once and blew a raspberry. I guess that counts, for Scuzz.

The workers had demolished the front gate and most of the empty shops on the old King's Causeway when Turk made the trek up the Tower. I was sitting on the balcony, watching the wreckers at work.

“You're going too?”

“Yup,” said Turk.

My lips twisted. “Going to find your real home? The parents who didn't want you and don't remember you? The place you left because it didn't fit?”

“Nope.”

“Kind of figured.”

We sat for a while, looking out the window together.

“It won't be any better, you know,” I told him. “You'll still forget everything. You'll still change. It's just you'll be a m-” I cut myself off.

“Monster,” said Turk. “But I'll be a happy monster. I'll know what I am.”

“Getting under the Hill is hard,” I said.

He nodded. “The Riders, the Guardians, and the hidden road.”

“Good luck,” I said. I offered him my hand. He shook it gently, as if afraid that already his strength would have grown enough to crush me.

That left me.

I walked down the stairs. I left by the jousting field so the workers wouldn't see me. The highway was pretty much like I'd left it, sun-baked asphalt, black and sticky. West was the city, where Simon was on the swim team and Roweena had joined the drama club. Somewhere behind me, Turk was pushing through briars and hedges, looking for a door that was sideways to the world. My wings twitched, flapped twice. East, more empty amusement parks and a decrepit spooky ride where Scuzz and her gang terrorized the local children and gorged themselves on stolen sweets.

In the city there was a home for me, the home I was meant for. All I had to do was walk into it, and I'd be the daughter they'd always wanted. The daughter they suddenly remembered. I'd have friends and birthday parties and a real bed. I could even still have rainbow hair, if I wanted it.

I'd have to dye, though.

I started walking. Straight ahead, into the cornfields. Somewhere, I'll find a new city. I'll go door to door and knock. “Hi!” I'll say. “I'm Bee. It's short for Bumblebee. I'm part human girl and part flower faerie; a little of both and not quite either. Can I be your new daughter?”

Maybe someday someone will say yes.


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Category Name: My Thoughts

I did not enjoy this story. I am not even sure what problem the protagonist faced. This story was okay. The story would have been better if the author had introduced the problem differently and made it feel more pressing. I really enjoyed this story. The author did a good job pulling me into the story by introducing an immediate and important problem for the protagonist.

This section is for overall comments and general ideas. The score should reflect how much you enjoyed the story.

Category Name: Character Development

The characters were not dynamic, credible, interesting, memorable or unique. I don’t care about or understand the characters because they were poorly developed. The characters were somewhat dynamic, credible, interesting, memorable and unique. I partially understood the thoughts, feelings, and actions of the characters. I somewhat connected with and care about the characters. The characters were very dynamic, credible, interesting, memorable and unique. I thoroughly understood their thoughts, feelings and actions. I felt connected with and cared about the characters.

This is act of bringing a character to life on the page. It is a combination of the author’s description of the character and the character’s dialog, action, and thoughts. Though all characters should be believable, the protagonist and antagonist are usually the most developed characters.

Category Name: Plot

I finished reading the story so the plot must have unfolded, but I am not sure what the plot was. The characters did not achieve or grow by solving the problems they faced in this story. There were definite wrinkles in the way the plot unfolded leading to the final conflict. The plot was loosely tied to the achievement and growth of the characters. The way the protagonist overcame some of the problems flowed unnaturally with the story. I could see the plot unfolding through a series of escalating problems that lead to the final conflict. The plot helped me understand the achievements and growth of the characters. The way the protagonist overcame the problems flowed naturally with the st

In fiction a plot is all the events in a story, particularly rendered towards the achievement of some particular artistic or emotional effect. In other words it's what mostly happened in the story. The plot draws the reader into the character's lives and helps the reader understand the choices that the characters make.

Category Name: Dialog

The dialog seemed like cold words on paper. I had a hard time following it. I didn’t learn very much about the characters through the dialog. Through the dialog I could sometimes see the characters learn and grow while occasionally discovering new facets of their personalities. The dialog was generally consistent with the character. Through the dialog I could see the characters learn and grow while simultaneously discovering new facets of their personalities. The dialog was true to the character and it helped me understand the characters emotions.

Category Name: Setting

The setting created a haze in my mind that detracted from the story. I am lost in time and space because I don’t know when or where this story takes place. The setting was described adequately, but not well enough to bring it to life in my mind. The setting did not add to or detract from the story. I am pretty sure I know when and where the story takes place. The author engaged all of my senses while vividly describing the setting. The setting helped me better understand the setting and plot. I know when and where this story takes place.

The setting is where a story takes place. The choice of setting and its description helps the story come alive in the mind of the reader. Appropriate setting contributes to the plot and mood of the story.

Category Name: Mechanics

The story contained so many mechanical errors that it was hard to follow the plot or understand certain sentences or paragraphs. Occasional mechanical errors were distracting, but these errors did not inhibit me from being able to understand the plot or connect with characters in the story. I rarely if ever noticed mechanical errors. As far as I could tell, the writing was clear and correct.

Mechanics includes sentence structure, verb agreement, grammar, spelling, voice, punctuation and aspects of basic style.

Note: The purpose of ReviewFuse reviews is NOT to provide comprehensive copy editing, but rather to "ignite creativity." Reviewers should not feel obliged to point out every grammar or spelling error (though they certainly can if they wish), but should focus on this area only to the degree that errors make a story hard to follow or understand.

Inline comments are the most helpful and important aspects of your review.

Click on a paragraph or highlight text from the paragraph to provide inline comments. While detailed grammar correction is welcome, the purpose of inline commenting is to spark the author's creativity. This is best done by expressing feelings, questions, and concerns you have about the story while you are reading.

1. The plastic bottle of Diet Coke warmed slowly in my hands. I paced across the dusty square and the dry fountain. Maybe Turk would want it? No, the sun was high and bright still; Turk would be sulking under his decorative bridge down by the fish pond. Scuzz? The last I'd seen her, she'd been heading for the old balloon-popping booths with a handful of knives and darts. She'd carved new targets out of wood to hang on the back walls. They were crude faces – Scuzz was never much good at making things – but they were helpfully labeled with everyone's names. Turk, Roweena, Bee – that's me – and Simon. I wondered if she'd replace Simon's target when it wore down. Probably not a good time to ask, not even if I was bringing her a soda. I didn't like to interrupt Scuzz when she was playing with her targets.I sighed. The soda would go to waste. I wasn't going to drink it, that was for sure. I didn't even like touching the bottle, let alone actually put that horrible sickly-sweet fake sugar taste in my mouth.

2. Roweena was up in the Tower, working her loom. My feet raised little clouds with every step, as if I were a rain god. Pleasant thoughts; it had been a dry spring and looked like a drier summer to come. The square had been packed dirt, back when this was the Stafford County Renaissance Faire. Now it was just dust, a chipped fountain with no water, and a maypole leaning at a crazy angle.

3. The Tower wasn't big, only four stories tall. Once you were past the first floor, the inside was all business, unvarnished wood and drywall. The illusion didn't extend into the employee areas. Seems to me it would have been hard to stay in character as a damsel in distress or whatever, but I never had to run a Renfaire.

4. I could hear Roweena's loom from the bottom of the tower. Click-clack, click-clack. I used to come up here all the time to watch the shuttle diving back and forth between the threads as they shifted up and down. The loom was an enormous pile of wood and levers and wheels and complicated metal teeth. I don't know how she'd gotten the whole thing up there to her room. Before my time. Roweena was the next oldest, after Simon. Just the oldest now, I guess.

5. The room at the top of the Tower was a tiny space, barely large enough to hold the loom and Roweena and her collections. A dressing room, really, which I guess was what it used to be. There was a big window and a balcony outside, oversized in comparison, probably so that damsel in distress could lean out and cry for a brave knight. With heaving bosoms and whatnot. I pushed open the door.

6. “I was expecting you,” said Roweena. She didn't turn around, so I didn't see her green eyes widen dramatically at the pronouncement. I knew she was doing it anyway.

7. “I need you to check the threads, 'Weena,” I said. “We need to know what's going to happen.”

8. “Why didn't you come in by the window?”

9. I bit my lip and clenched my hands on my skirt. “You know why. I can't. I never have.”

10. Roweena nodded and kept weaving. I watched the pattern emerging from the end of the loom. My fingers kept tightening on the cloth of my skirt, as though it were a leash on my patience. Talking with Roweena was like that, sometimes.

11. At last, Roweena sighed and held out her hand. I gave her the lukewarm soda. She twisted the cap off and threw the full bottle out the window. I heard it hit the ground, imagined it fizzing out into the thirsty earth. Wouldn't be nourishing any plants, that stuff.

12. Roweena studied the numbers on the inside of the cap. Random digits. Supposedly you could enter those at some website and win prizes or something. I waited. The room was stuffy, even with the enormous window. I wanted to be out in the sun, smelling the trees instead of this dusty-musty room.

13. “Still the same,” said Roweena. “We're doomed.” She placed the cap on top of a teetering pyramid of soda caps, all colors and sizes. We watched it sway for a moment. “They'll be here tomorrow to start tearing down the buildings. It'll be a mall by June .”

14. I blinked. Roweena had volunteered information. Specific information, even. She must be really upset. “What should we do?” I said.

15. Roweena wouldn't look at me. She picked up the shuttle and plucked at the thread, twining it through her fingers. They were thin and delicate, like the thread itself, and just a little too long for a regular human.

16. “Let's go shopping,” I said.

17. Someone had to be decisive around here.

18.

19. #

20.

21. The old man at the 7-11 didn't recognize us. They don't, generally. Adults, I mean. I don't know what they see when they look at us. Normal kids, I guess. Just not the same ones every time.

22. Turk probably looked like a Rasta-dude, with his dark blue-green skin and his hair like kelp. With her height, Scuzz couldn't have looked older than six, seven at the outside, but grown-ups didn't condescend to her like they usually do with little kids. If they did, Scuzz would smile at them. I think her teeth still looked sharp, even under the glamor. Made them jump, anyway. Roweena would be easy. She already looked like a normal teenager, just a little tall, a little thin, a little pale. A little spacey. Roweena's weirdness was mostly in her head, not her body, pointy ears notwithstanding.

23. Me? Sometimes they could see the wings and sometimes they couldn't. When they did, they assumed the wings were fake, like they could see the straps. Same with my hair. I'd seen normal kids, human kids, with more colors than I had, though theirs didn't shift around through the spectrum like mine did. I don't know what I'd have done if I'd been born in the days before neon hair dye was commonplace. Maybe the glamor would be stronger if it had to hide more. Maybe I'd just have been burned at the stake really early on.

24. The bell over the door jangled when we entered. I managed not to flinch. Turk and Scuzz broke away to either side when we entered, making for the snacks and candy. Scuzz already had her Hello Kitty backpack unzipped.

25. I glanced at Roweena, but she was staring at the TV where the lotto numbers were flashing. Her lips were moving, her slit-pupiled eyes dilated and distant.

26. Great. That left me.

27. “Hi!” I said, giving him my brightest smile.

28. His eyes, dark even against his swarthy skin, roved up and down over all four-foot-nothing of me, pausing at my shoulders. “What are you supposed to be?”

29. “I'm a flower faerie in the body of a human girl,” I told him.

30. He smiled then, charmed by the sincerity in this strange little girl's voice. They never believed my lies, but they didn't believe the truth, either. “So which is it, faerie or human?” he said.

31. “A little of both, not quite either,” I said. I could hear packages crinkling in the candy aisle. Scuzz chuckled to herself in her oddly deep voice. The old man's eyes started to wander in that direction, his expression darkening. I flicked a little bit of sideways at him, and his attention returned to me. His smile came back, a little glassy-eyed.

32. I hate glamors. I'm no good at them. I hate using any sideways, of course, because it attracts Riders, but I'm no good at being fascinating, either. I need the help, even if I can't be subtle about it.

33. “They call me Bee,” I said. I shot a look at Roweena, hoping she'd pitch in. She used to be excellent at decoy. Adults ate out of her hand. Especially men.

34. “Because of the wings?”

35. “Not really,” I said. Roweena had pulled out a bunch of magazines and was shaking the card inserts onto the floor. “It's short for Bumblebee.” The old man looked confused. Maybe I was pushing the glamor too hard. I eased back, let the sideways dribble away. “Bumblebees can fly even though they shouldn't. I'm the other way around.”

36. The guy was confused. Confusion is bad. You don't want them thinking about things. I changed tactics.

37. “What's your name?” I said, all but fluttering my eyelashes.

38. “George,” he said. His faced relaxed.

39. “Oh! Do you own this store?” As if I didn't know.

40. George smiled. Now that I wasn't disrupting his mental state with non-sequiturs, my little charm spell would lull him almost to sleep. We talked, and I kept his attention on things behind the counter, the magazines and cigarettes, the heinous sausages glistening in their display case. That's how I operate; I point to things. Look at that, I say. That's way more interesting than little old me. Roweena could make herself enthralling. Simon used to be able to do it, too. But Simon was gone, and Roweena... I think Roweena was going, too. I just didn't know where.

41. A piercing shriek interrupted me and George in mid-chatter. Roweena leapt to her feet in a cloud of pre-paid bulk postage. “They're coming!” she screamed. She'd torn up one of the cards. Bits of it stuck to her ebony hair like confetti.

42. George blinked and shook his head. His eyes focused on me for the first time. “Wait,” he said. “I know you. I've seen you... before...”

43. He didn't get any further before Roweena snatched my wrist and tugged me toward the door.

44. I dug in my heels. “Roweena, what-?”

45. “Run!” Roweena said. I looked around for the others.

46. Turk was already legging it for the door, his flat troll-feet slapping against the tiles. Scuzz veered around the corner, skidding and trailing snack-size bags of chips from her open backpack.

47. “What's this *****?” Scuzz said.

48. “I don't know,” I told her. I pulled at my arm, but Roweena clutched it in both hands. “'Weena just went nuts.”

49. “If Roweena says go, we go,” Turk grunted. He darted back and scooped Scuzz into his arms. Scuzz squawked in protest.

50. “Hey!” George said, his eyes clear. “You kids... stop! Stop, thief!” He lunged across the counter at me.

51. I made a quick circular gesture and snapped my fingers, releasing a little more sideways. His lunge fell short as he stumbled, his shoelaces suddenly and inexplicably tied together. His feet went out from under him and he fell.

52. What can I say? I love the classics.

53. As the sideways thrummed in me, Roweena screamed again. She dropped my arm as if I'd become burning hot. That's when I realized what she must have seen in the cards.

54. “Salt the earth!” I swore. “Riders!”

55. Turk said nothing, but he stopped and held the door open for me. In his arms, Scuzz was silent and wide-eyed. Roweena, so urgent a second ago, was staring off into space. She made a keening sound, deep in her throat.

56. That was what really scared me. That was when I really knew Roweena, the old Roweena, was gone, and wouldn't be coming back.

57. “You kids!” George shouted from behind the counter. “I'm calling the cops!” There was a thump and a crash.

58. No one said anything. No one moved.

59. That left me.

60. “Let's go,” I said. I wrapped an arm around Roweena and ushered her out the door. Her lips were moving again, her eyes tracking some private horror.

61. “Where are we going?” said Turk.

62. “Home!” Scuzz shrilled.

63. “No,” I said. “We can’t risk leading them there. Not if it's Riders.” I pointed. “Out, out to the fields. Away from us and Crayl and anyone else keeping a gang in the city.”

64. “We'll be alone.”

65. “Same as always, then,” I said. “Same as always.”

66. And we ran, out of the store, out of the city. I threw a veil behind us - no point in avoiding large workings now, with a Rider already on our trail - and I felt Scuzz weakening a tree branch overhead. A deadfall, they used to call that sort of thing. It probably wouldn't do much, but it'd slow the Rider down, at least. Scattering spells like seeds in a field, we ran for our lives.

67.

68. #

69.

70. The summer sun was high and hot and gloriously bright. We walked by the side of the highway, preferring the sharp gravel to the frying-pan heat of the asphalt. Corn and wheat rustled in gentle waves to either side, acres of fields with a distant, dark outline of trees. Our moods improved a little more with every second that passed without the sound of pursuing hoofbeats. Between Turk's gangly speed, Scuzz's traps, and my misdirections, we'd left a pretty tangled trail behind us. We were feeling good. We'd beaten a Rider!

71. “Pah!” Turk spat something mangled and brightly colored. He offered me an open package of candy. “Here.”

72. “Such a gentleman, Turk.” I looked at the package. “Swedish fish?”

73. “Thought it'd be fish-flavored,” said Turk.

74. Scuzz barked a laugh. “You and Simon and your weird thing for fish.”

75. I cringed and glanced at Roweena, but she just kept walking, head down, hair covering her face. Maybe she hadn't heard.

76. “I like fish,” said Turk, a little defensively.

77. “Yuck,” said Scuzz. “No blood in them.” She gnawed at a spicy stick of dried meat.

78. “I saw Simon,” said Roweena abruptly. We all turned to look at her.

79. “What, in one of your stupid visions?” said Scuzz, shoving another handful of jerky into her mouth.

80. “No,” said Roweena. “I went to see him in his new life.” She paused. We waited. “He looked happy.”

81. “Ignorance is bliss,” I muttered.

82. “It was like he'd always lived there,” said Roweena. “He was on the swim team. He had friends. I think they even had baby pictures of him.”

83. “Yeah, it's all prepared,” said Scuzz. “I think I know what a trap looks like.”

84. “He's happy,” said Turk. “That's all that matters.”

85. “Why'd you do that, anyway?” said Scuzz. She leveled a sharp-nailed finger at Roweena. “You said it was dangerous. What if he'd seen you? You'd have been caught for sure.”

86. “I think he did see me,” said Roweena. “He didn't recognize me. Looked right through me, like every other mortal does, when I want them to.” Her voice was light, airy, as though she were discussing the weather. As though it didn't hurt. “I wanted to see what it was like, I suppose. We might all end up there soon.”

87. “What, because they're tearing down the Faire?” I shook my head. “We can stop them. We've done it before. Protected our home, I mean.”

88. “From a gang of bored teenagers,” said Roweena. “This will be different.”

89. I'd been wishing for the old, take-charge Roweena to come back. Now that she was acting like her old self again, she was just annoying me. Typical. “We did it before, and we'll do it again.”

90. “There are other options.”

91. Roweena spun on Turk, her eyes flashing. “Such as? Going to live with Crayl and his hooligans over in the Monster Mansion? Please! I'd rather go with the Riders.”

92. I shuddered. “Don't say that, 'Weena. Bad luck.”

93. Turk shrugged.

94. Scuzz's beady black eyes darted between Turk and Roweena. “Whattaya mean?” she said. “What's he talkin' about?”

95. “He means the Hill,” I said. “Going to the other side.”

96. That gave even Scuzz pause. She rallied quickly, though. She always did. “I don't see what's so bad about Crayl's gang. He's fun. He told me I have an invitation any time I want it.”

97. My eyebrows rose. “When did that happen?”

98. “I do lots of stuff you don't know about,” said Scuzz, sniffing. “Just cause I'm short don't mean I'm helpless alone.” She bared her teeth in her feral grin.

99. “It's because Simon left, isn't it?” I said. I didn't manage to keep the sharp tone out of my voice. “That's when everything started falling apart.” I didn't look at Roweena, who had gone quiet behind her curtain of hair.

100. “It's not my fault he took his candy ***** and ditched us!” said Scuzz. “I didn't owe him *****. I still don't. Neither do you, even if you want to pretend you did. He left us, remember?” She jabbed a daggerlike finger at me with each syllable. I felt my fists ball up. My wings fluttered; they always betrayed my moods, more even than my face.

101. Turk rumbled something deep in his throat and interposed himself between us. I opened my mouth, but before I could speak, Roweena stirred again.

102. “It's here,” she said.

103. We heard it, then: a distant rumble, like a summer storm, though the skies were clear. I spotted a black speck, far down the road but growing rapidly nearer.

104. “A motorcycle,” Scuzz sneered.

105. “A Rider,” Roweena said.

106. “A guise. Like ours,” I said.

107. Scuzz blinked. “They can do that?”

108. I shrugged. “Either that or 'Weena's gone completely insane.” I didn't say that I thought that very well might be true. She was nowhere near stable, that was for sure.

109. “It's a Rider,” said Turk. I glanced up at his algae-colored face. His gills pulsed on his neck. He looked down, meeting my gaze. “What do we do?”

110. Why are you asking me? I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to cry. I wanted Roweena to instruct me. I wanted Simon back. I wanted everything back, back how it used to be.

111. There was one thing I didn't want.

112. I didn't want the Rider to catch us.

113. They left remnants, sometimes. A warning, or a boast. I don't know how Riders think. I'm not even sure they do think. But I've seen the broken, bubbling husks they've left behind. If I closed my eyes, I could see the others, like they'd be after the Riders came. I could see Roweena. She was so fragile, more now than ever. She didn't need any more tears on her cheeks.

114. “We run,” I said.

115. “Even Turk can't outrun a motorcycle,” said Scuzz.

116. “So we go where it can't follow, my little goblin buddy.” Scuzz blinked; kind words always confused her. “Into the fields,” I went on. “I'll stay behind and cover you.”

117. Turk frowned, his canines dimpling his lower lip.

118. “Kinda dangerous,” said Scuzz. “I mean, better you than me, but...”

119. “It's the best way,” said Roweena. “This plan has the highest probability of success.”

120. I smiled at her. There was a light in her eyes again, a dangerous gleam, but better than the flat emptiness that had lived there so often lately. She smiled back at me, with half her mouth.

121. Scuzz didn't need to be told twice. Honestly, I was kind of touched she'd protested as much as she had. She darted to the side, into the cornstalks, crunching through the fallen fragments of last year's crop. Roweena followed, melting away with hardly a whisper. Turk took a step back, nodded once, and pushed into the field after the girls, bending to keep his head below the corn's tufted tips.

122. I turned to the road and the dark shape that roared toward me. I could make out some details already: black leather – black everything, really – and the marble-pale gleam of the Rider's face. It would be icy-still, I knew, and white as bone, but its eyes would be dark. Serpent's eyes. Shark's eyes. And behind those perfectly-shaped lips...

123. I calmed my breathing and reached my arms out to either side. This would not be easy. It would take subtlety, of a sort. The Riders could smell it when we touched the sideways part. It drew them like flies to a corpse. One Rider could take out an entire gang of runaways, easy, maybe even several working together. I was alone, but the corn pollen was swirling up into the air, disturbed by my friends' passage. Not a lot, this late in the year, but some. Enough, I hoped. The flowers, the pollen, the burgeoning seeds, it was a bank of energy, a bubbling cauldron of potential. I could do a major working with that power, try to match strength with a Rider directly.

124. Or I could do this.

125. A trickle of power leaked from inside of me, from the part that was sideways to the rest of the world, and the energy of the dancing pollen started to crystallize around me. I flowed out into it, into the web I'd spun, spreading further and further away. I didn't try to hide, to craft a veil and hope the Rider didn't pierce it. Instead, I used the Rider's own keen senses against it; I shouted my presence, announced it to the world, filled every field and copse for miles around with the flavor of me. For a brief moment, I was everywhere, barely anything left in my stupid half-and-half body, my mind swirling in a hundred eddies, peeking out from a thousand different places, in new bodies that grew with the sun and never asked questions. I was free. It was almost like flying.

126. Down the road, the rumbling engine slowed. The Rider smelled me, smelled me everywhere. Smelled me, not my friends. Smelled Bumblebee instead of Turk, instead of Scuzz. Instead of Roweena.

127. The downside to this plan, of course, was that there was a center to the spell, and at that center was one half-grown half-girl half-faerie who'd just bitten off a lot more than she could chew.

128. I pulled down the strongest veil I dared to risk and ran for the cornfield across the road. The hot tar burned my feet. In the distance, I heard an engine snarl and tires squeal like a whinnying horse.

129.

130. #

131.

132. I ran through the forest. I could hear the Rider behind me not as a sound but as an absence of sound. All the creatures of the woods went silent when it passed. I could still hear the purr of its motorcycle in the distance; I knew better than to try and steal it, even if I’d known how to drive one. Their mounts were loyal to them.

133. My veil kept it from knowing my exact location, but it knew roughly where I was. It followed my physical traces as much as its own sideways senses. Even moving slowly and carefully, even without its mount, it was faster than I was. I needed to lose it.

134. Circling back, I veered too near. I caught a glimpse of shiny black through the trees. The Rider stopped, head cocked, then turned in my direction. It cast about from side to side like a dog catching a scent. It aimed something at me, or at least my general direction. Some kind of gun, I think. I dodged behind a tree as there was a soft click-phut sound and the foliage around me exploded as dozens of pellets whipped through the trees and underbrush. I felt a sting in my left arm, and then nothing. I touched my skin, but I couldn’t feel anything; the skin was unbroken, but totally numb. It was cold to the touch.

135. I ran some more. The Rider was poking into the underbrush in a rough semicircle. Looking for my fallen body? Tough luck, cowboy, I thought.

136. My spell started to fade after an hour or so. Sometimes I wished I wasn’t as good at misdirection as I am. I was flagging, and the Rider was still behind me, though falling further back. I came to a field of kudzu, the clinging vines covering the other plants in a thick blanket of glossy green leaves. No way could I get across it without leaving a trail that might as well be a neon sign saying “She’s over here!”

137. I glanced over my shoulder. No sign of the Rider yet. This might be my best chance.

138. I took a deep breath and concentrated. I couldn’t use any sideways on this; it had to be all me. My wings fluttered, moving more coherently, with more purpose. I focused more. The fluttering became a purr, then a hum. I knew they’d be nearly invisible now, like hummingbird wings. Slowly, I lifted up into the air, a few inches above the soil. The effort was almost too much; my vision started spiraling in, darkness flickering at the edges of my sight. My back ached like someone had slapped me with a hot iron. I pushed myself forward, flailing my arms for balance. My toes brushed the tips of the leaves as I passed over.

139. On the far side, I collapsed against a tree. I still had to hide. I dropped to the ground and whispered to the kudzu, just the barest flicker of sideways, and the wide leaves rustled slightly as they shifted to cover me. I tucked my head under my arms, trying to cover the bright colors of my hair, and willed my exhausted wings to stillness.

140. I heard the field go quiet when the Rider arrived, the insects and birds silenced by its presence. It paced the far edge of the field, looking for my trail. I cowered in my shelter of vines, my lips shaping desperate pleas. The Rider snuffled, then snorted. Then, I swear by the sun and stars, it chuckled. The field came alive again when it left, heading back the way it came.

141. I lay frozen on the ground, not daring to move until the sun touched the horizon.

142.

143. #

144.

145. It was dark when I stumbled into the jousting field. The grass had grown until it was waist high. I sank into it, smelled the warm green soul of it, tried to hold in tears. Pain, exhaustion, frustration, anger. I hate the night. I hate the dark, the cold rock of the Earth blocking the sun, trapping us in our own shadows.

146. Obviously, I'm not a night-bloomer.

147. When I'd recovered a little, I went looking for the others. I found them by the main gate, the imposing fort-like wall, complete with a portcullis. The general aura of impregnability was spoiled a bit by the turnstiles placed at regular intervals. They were all on the top of the wall, staring down at the trucks and trailers parked outside like siege engines.

148. “What the hell happened to you!?”

149. “Language, Scuzz,” I said. My voice came out in a creak and I started coughing.

150. “***** language.”

151. Turk put a moist arm around my shoulders and guided me to a chair. “We were worried,” he said.

152. “No need,” I managed. “Got away clean.” I tried not to cradle my left arm, tucked immobile against my body.

153. “The hell you did!” said Scuzz. “I smell blood.”

154. She would.

155. “Nothing serious,” I said. “He had a shotgun. Sawed-off or something. The pellets spread out a little further than I thought they would, anyway. It clipped my arm.”

156. Roweena looked up. It was the first time she'd acknowledged my return. “Elf-shot,” she said. “You're lucky to be alive.” Her green eyes were luminous in the moonlight. “You're going to get sick. It'll get worse, fast. The shot digs through your body. When it reaches your heart, you'll die.”

157. “A cure?” said Turk.

158. Roweena shook her head. “It's difficult. We need a silver knife, an iron nail, some helenium, wormwood, strawberry leaves...”

159. “It can wait,” I said. “I'm fine for now. We have to stop the construction. That's what's important.”

160. “They just dropped off the last of the machines,” said Scuzz. “More coming tomorrow.”

161. “Then here's what we do,” I said. I willed my voice stronger. Somehow, the news that I was dying made the old fears seem a lot less relevant. “'Weena, you figure out where they're going to start and plot out a map. After that, we're taking a trip to the library for some research. Turk, I want you to flood the ground in those areas. Thick mud, a real soup. Scuzz-”

162. “Who made you the boss?”

163. “-you're going to break things.”

164. Scuzz displayed her needle teeth. “Aye-aye, cap'n!”

165. “All the machines here, ruin them. So they never work again. Then we're all taking a trip.” I heaved myself to my feet, ignoring the icy numbness that was spreading up past my elbow. “We're going to cut this thing off at the head.”

166.

167. #

168.

169. I would have thought a real-estate developer would have had a nicer house. Like a mansion or something. Maybe it doesn't pay as well as it used to. The computers at the library were super helpful, even if we had to break in to use them. We even had a little map we'd printed out. Score one for technology, I guess.

170. The house itself was depressingly ordinary. Turk let us in by punching a window, and then we went to work. Well, mostly we sat and let Scuzz get to work. That girl has a talent for destructive mayhem that is a wonder and a terror to behold. I think we don't let her out often enough.

171. While Scuzz was going medieval on the kitchenware, Turk caught us a squirrel. I mumbled an apology as he snapped its little neck, and then we used the blood to write a message across the living room wall. Nothing specific. We wanted to scare him off the job, not lead him to our hiding place. “Keep out of the woods!” “Beware the Faire.” Like that.

172. “You'll see,” I said as we left. My lips felt swollen and my tongue was dry. I think Turk was carrying me. “They'll leave. In the morning, they'll be all... gone. We did it, guys, you guys. I know we did it...”

173. The last thing I remember is Roweena's sad smile and her hand, cool and gentle on my forehead. Then darkness.

174. I hate the dark.

175. I drifted for a while. Things flashed past that didn't make much sense. Sounds, images. I saw the Tower on fire, with Roweena hanging off the balcony and halfway out of a ridiculous low-cut Renfaire-garb dress. Simon was there, charging the tower on a horse that had Scuzz's face. Turk stood in the way, grown tall and monstrous. His teeth had become tusks, his hair a green-tinged pelt. Simon just smiled and lowered the visor of his shining silver armor. Too late I realized his armor was only painted silver, that underneath it was black. Black leather. White face. Simon's lance didn't waver as he charged. The flashing point was aimed directly at Turk's chest.

176. I tried to call out, to warn Turk that it wasn't Simon, not really, that it wasn't a game and he wouldn't turn away, but I couldn't move. I was trapped in the cold and the dark, buried in the earth, covered in my own shadow.

177. Roweena saw, too, saw the not-Simon. She jumped from the window, flames licking at her heels, and suddenly I was with her, falling.

178. “You can't stop it, Bee,” Roweena said. She smiled. “You can't even fly.”

179. We hit Simon's lance, then, and it plunged through Roweena's body and into mine. My arm seared with sudden heat and pain and I wanted to go back, back to the cold and the dark. I fell. I couldn't fly.

180. Above me, Roweena hung on the end of the lance. Turk roared and battered at the Simon-Rider thing. The horse with Scuzz's face bucked and kicked, trying to throw the Rider. I realized I was holding the lance. Roweena was speared through. It must have hurt. I couldn't have stood it, but Roweena's smiled never wavered, her eyes boring into mine like my lance pierced her chest. Her blood was flowing, running in crimson streamers down the wooden haft of the lance. It dripped on my face, hot and salty-sweet.

181. Drip.

182. Drip.

183. Drip.

184. I opened my eyes. It was dark and cold and for a horrible second I thought the dream was starting over again. I could hear water, though. Splashing, flowing... and dripping. On me. I rolled over and winced as pain shot up my left arm. Better that than the creeping numbness.

185. I saw light ahead of me, and I half-crawled toward it. I emerged, blinking, from under Turk's bridge. I was wrapped in a blanket, a colorful pattern I almost recognized. It was a little clammy. I discarded it in favor of the sunshine. I felt my wings flexing, swelling and unwrinkling as they drank in the warmth of the sun.

186. There was a tang to the air that didn't belong. Trees, yes. Dust and dirt, yes. Mildew and the stagnant water of the fish-pond, yes and yes. But underneath those was something harsher. Like a fire.

187. Turk was up on the battlements. I headed that way, moving slowly. My whole left side was stiff and aching. I didn't really want to see what Turk was looking at. I knew what would be there.

188. I clambered up the ladder and crouched beside Turk. He was a chilly presence; no body heat to speak of. We looked over the wall for a while.

189. “Thanks for the blanket,” I said.

190. “Roweena,” he responded.

191. “Oh. How... is she?”

192. “Don't know. She went up the Tower, after you were safe.”

193. “After they sent more workers and more machines,” I said flatly. The field below was a hive of activity. Ants. No, termites. Eating my home out from under me.

194. Turk shrugged.

195. “I thought it would work.” I was a little surprised to hear my voice in a hard monotone.

196. “We tried,” said Turk. He didn't move, just sat with his knees tucked under his chin, his ape-like arms wrapped around his legs.

197. We watched the men on the field for a while. Trucks, chains, winches. Freeing the vehicles stuck in the mud. There were a lot of men out there. More than we'd expected. One of them looked up, and I thought I saw a gleam of bone-white skin and dark, dark eyes.

198. “We can try again,” I said. I couldn't not say it. “We'll make a new plan. I can help more, now that I'm better. We could-”

199. “No,” said Turk. “Better this way.”

200. And that was it, really. Roweena left. No one knew when. I'd have thought she'd have said goodbye to me, at least. Still, I could tell when she was gone. I went up to her room. The loom was there, disassembled and packed neatly. All the bits and bobs and doodads I never learned the names of. The whole room had been meticulously cleaned. I didn't cry until I found the two garbage bags, neatly tied off, full of bottlecaps.

201. I saw Roweena, later. She was tan, and rounder than she used to be, laughing with a handful of other teens. Girls, mostly. A few boys. One of them had blond hair and a swimmer's build. It might have been Simon. They looked happy together.

202. I noticed Scuzz a couple of times after that, running with the goblin tribe from the Monster Mansion. She saw me once and blew a raspberry. I guess that counts, for Scuzz.

203. The workers had demolished the front gate and most of the empty shops on the old King's Causeway when Turk made the trek up the Tower. I was sitting on the balcony, watching the wreckers at work.

204. “You're going too?”

205. “Yup,” said Turk.

206. My lips twisted. “Going to find your real home? The parents who didn't want you and don't remember you? The place you left because it didn't fit?”

207. “Nope.”

208. “Kind of figured.”

209. We sat for a while, looking out the window together.

210. “It won't be any better, you know,” I told him. “You'll still forget everything. You'll still change. It's just you'll be a m-” I cut myself off.

211. “Monster,” said Turk. “But I'll be a happy monster. I'll know what I am.”

212. “Getting under the Hill is hard,” I said.

213. He nodded. “The Riders, the Guardians, and the hidden road.”

214. “Good luck,” I said. I offered him my hand. He shook it gently, as if afraid that already his strength would have grown enough to crush me.

215. That left me.

216. I walked down the stairs. I left by the jousting field so the workers wouldn't see me. The highway was pretty much like I'd left it, sun-baked asphalt, black and sticky. West was the city, where Simon was on the swim team and Roweena had joined the drama club. Somewhere behind me, Turk was pushing through briars and hedges, looking for a door that was sideways to the world. My wings twitched, flapped twice. East, more empty amusement parks and a decrepit spooky ride where Scuzz and her gang terrorized the local children and gorged themselves on stolen sweets.

217. In the city there was a home for me, the home I was meant for. All I had to do was walk into it, and I'd be the daughter they'd always wanted. The daughter they suddenly remembered. I'd have friends and birthday parties and a real bed. I could even still have rainbow hair, if I wanted it.

218. I'd have to dye, though.

219. I started walking. Straight ahead, into the cornfields. Somewhere, I'll find a new city. I'll go door to door and knock. “Hi!” I'll say. “I'm Bee. It's short for Bumblebee. I'm part human girl and part flower faerie; a little of both and not quite either. Can I be your new daughter?”

220. Maybe someday someone will say yes.

221.

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