I was cleaning the main filters and had the main flow of water running into the large tank. It was raining so I was letting some of the water discharge go instead of saving it to water the garden.
Dan shadow stepped down to a dry area under an awning. “I saw your paintings. You do that and raise fish?”
I smiled. “Good morning, Dan. How did you sleep?”
He returned my smile. “Best bed ever. There was a note saying I didn’t have to risk the weather. Is it really okay for me to stay a bit?”
I said, “If you play some music for them, they may get all needy and try to guilt you into staying for a while. But there’s an ulterior motive, sort of. It isn’t a deal breaker or even a bargain, but Mr. Hebert collects Fairylands and would like to turn them to a profit. Part of that plan involves getting to know a few Goblins in hopes that there might be one interested in exploring Fairylands. Another goal is for me to be gifted with the sight and a few other things.”
Dan asked, “Have you been to Fairy?”
“Yep and it’s as scary as they say. They’ll poison you as soon as shake your hand, and after they have poisoned you, they’ll ask if you want breakfast. While we’re on the subject, it’s a bit late for breakfast, but how does a fried catfish po’boy sound for lunch?”
Dan came over to look down at the sand I was rinsing out. “Really good. Phil, I know it’s hard to resist, and without a family around you, even harder, but keeping cats is dangerous. I saw a couple of the Wize once. You don’t want to end up half-cat and deformed.”
I shook my head. “I’m not taking them into shadow. Besides, Mr. Hebert spends more time with them than I do.”
#
While eating po’boys, Mr. Hebert said, “Weather reports may be lying, but they say the weather will be clear. The broker who’s managing the sale of the place up in Arkansas thinks we can get more if we build a platform or put up a house and have a large room around the gateway. I haven’t seen the property, so do you think you could shadow step up there and summon me?
“I don’t want to spend a few million building a lodge or something without having a better idea about what we’re looking at, and while the broker comes well recommended, the recommendations are all from Daemons, so let’s keep a count on our fingers.”
I nodded. “If the broker’s savvy, can I just summon him?”
Mr. Hebert said, “Once again, that might be just the trap a Daemon would plan. Better not get summoned into a warded place or worse. I realize it’s more work, but let’s be careful.”
Dan looked at me. “Is this a Fairyland you want to visit?”
Mr. Hebert said, “No. This one’s much too dangerous. They stabbed Phil. Could’ve killed him. We want to sell it and let it be someone else’s problem.”
#
Dan and I were sailing through shadow with the dawn sun shining through the trees. We were going north though so we had to backtrack and find better paths a few times. The sun was well up above the trees by the time we got to the ravine with the gateway over it.
I summoned Mr. Hebert, and he came out with his camera and started taking pictures. “Phil, building a lodge here would be great, but getting a road here to do it would make it a lot more expensive. I say we drop our price to a quarter what we’re asking and just sell it quick. You’re getting half of it. Are you good with that?”
I said, “I don’t feel good with getting half of half, that’s a lot, and I’d feel bad about passing a dangerous investment on to someone else.”
Mr. Hebert said, “It’ll be a wizard or a Daemon who may just know how to manage these things. I almost feel bad for the Folk on the other side of the gateway.”
Dan got closer to Mr. Hebert and me. “I think I saw something bright move over there.”
Mr. Hebert held out his hand. I summoned Uncle Anthony and took Dan, Mr. Hebert, and myself home.
#
Dan had already taken his double bass out of the music room, so I knew he had decided he was close to outstaying his welcome. In a way, I was relieved because I wanted to get back to working clay and painting, and I felt obliged to entertain him when he was here.
I’d already steamed and pressed the suits I was giving him so there wasn’t much for me to do but to see him off.
It was twilight and as he took off into shadow and disappeared, I heard someone clear their throat.
Count Juniper was up on the pedestal of a statue of a mounted horseman. The horse was well carved, but the details of the horseman were so bad, I contemplated trying to fix the carving by removing the horseman.
Count Juniper said, “Rummage hired me again. Thou must know that she still considers herself in thy debt.”
I shrugged. “Doest thou want some bread pudding?”
He said, “Of course, of course, but she wants to see if trade negotiations might be possible.”
I shook my head. “I’m afraid I’m too likely to offend such a great lady and her court. Let me get thee some bread pudding to take with thee though.”
He said, “My friend was delighted by the gift of the bread pudding and disappointed that he never got to hear thee play.”
I said, “Once again, I’m a common Goblin and not the sort to deal with royalty. I’m ever so glad that my meager efforts didn’t offend anyone.”
Count Juniper jumped down from the pedestal and looked up at me. “Thou must know that in my profession we often lament the insane confidence and obvious greed of the mortals that we most often entertain. Yet I’m finding now that greedy and overconfident folk may be harder to please, but they’re a lot less difficult to manage than thou art.”
I asked, “Doest thou want to come in? I’ll fix up the bread pudding.”
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Count Juniper winced. “Thou hast two deadly cats in there that would love the chance of cornering me. No, I’ll stay out here, thank thee very much.”
I bowed to him. “I’ll be right back with some bread pudding.”
He said, “Queen Rummage is prepared to pay for thee not to sell the property her gateway’s on.”
I said, “I’ll have to talk with Mr. Hebert. Canst I summon thee later?”
He looked at the door and then back at me.
I bowed. “Don’t worry, I’ll bring thee pudding in either case.”
#
Sunday was overcast and raining again, so I decided not to go to the jam session. Uncle Anthony and I spent the evening painting as we discussed the shed we were going to put up for working clay in. Every time we discussed it, we ended up deciding it needed to be larger.
Mr. Hebert came in and sat. “I had the most interesting discussion with the broker. When I told him we were contemplating taking the Arkansas property off the market, he was absolutely delighted. Then he turned the conversation around to Goblins and music. He mentioned a Goblin music Festival in Gary, Indiana, that happens every full moon.”
I asked, “Did you ever mention you had a Goblin living with you?”
Mr. Hebert shook his head.
Uncle Anthony gestured with his paintbrush. “More than a few of the Fairy gentry and higher ranked probably know of your association. I can’t even begin to tell you how loudly this screams, ‘Setup!’”
Mr. Hebert squinted at me like he was evaluating things. “It would be just like a Daemon to have you lured to a meeting where a raid on the Goblins was in the works. I would avoid it like the plague.”
I considered what he’d said. “Can we go out to the tack room?”
Uncle Anthony, Mr. Hebert, and I all went down to the underground steel vault and sealed ourselves in.
“If I went days early and warned a few Goblins, how likely would that be the trap?”
Uncle Anthony asked, “How’re you going to find other Goblins?”
I said, “There are going to be common bottlenecks of shadow where Goblins travel. I’ll avoid the ones that are potentially dangerous, but so will most Goblins. Goblins can feel the passage of other Goblins, so it’ll be easy for me to find a few and, unless they’re skittish, make contact.
“If they’re skittish, then the odds are they won’t be going to a music festival anyway.”
Uncle Anthony said, “We can both tell you’re going to do this, and you’re going to be careful. Could you summon us before you get into town so we could be ready to bring you back in a moment’s notice?”
“Yes. I can even regularly check in with you and let you know how it’s going. If it looks dangerous, we could keep a connection open.”
#
I was using the shadow of a train track and making good time. I rested in the shadows of the train track’s rock bed as trains passed by. I had just crossed a river when I felt the gentlest ripple in the shadow. I took off through woods, jumping shadow to shadow and taking myself to the tops of trees then down to the ground, moving as silently and smoothly as I could.
What had passed me was something more comfortable in shadow than me. I slowed and hid and felt the gentle ripple again. I took to the leaf bed and it continued chasing. I fled shadow to shadow, dodging in the best way I knew. The gentle shadow’s touch was still trailing me.
As I ran, it became clear. I was being herded to the river. It wanted to corner me in a turn of the river, and it was keeping the pressure on me. That was fine by me. I didn’t mind the water. As I approached the bank, I felt the shadows ahead. I took off deep and lost myself in the weeds before coming up to the opposite bank. I had to come to the shadows of the weeds growing from a sandbar. I stepped out of shadow and into full sun. Whatever was in shadow would not be able to follow me here.
I stepped out of the weeds. My feet were wet, but I was dressed for that and used to muck and mud. A pair of girls were sitting on a blanket having a picnic. They saw me and one of them waved. I walked past, not getting close. I wanted to be out of sight before I summoned Mr. Hebert and left. Then I would find another path to Gary, Indiana.
At the point where I was closest to the girls, I glanced over at them. They almost looked like Goblin girls. Both of them looked a couple of years older than me and both were cute.
One of them cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, “Phil, we’ve been waiting for you.”
I was stranded on a large sandbank in full sun. By the time I summoned Mr. Hebert, they could easily pull a gun out of their gear and shoot me. I walked over and stood where we could talk.
One of the girls twirled the hair by her ear and revealed that it was pointed. She laughed. “You look so serious.”
The other girl said, “Don’t tease him. We don’t want to run him off. Phil, let me explain all of this. Very shortly, you are going to be a Fairy King. Maybe even a true king of Fairy. Then you’re going to get an ever so lovely Fairyland.”
I turned. A black truck was driving up.
I turned back to them. The one playing with her hair said, “Don’t worry, that would be the Shadow’s Queen.
A tall, beautiful Daemon I’d met years before stepped out of the truck. It was the Shadow’s Queen.
She brushed back her hair. “You’re as good as they say. That was a delightful chase you led me on. We were quite well prepared, or you might have lost me. Phil, you have befriended two ancient unique treasures, and we fear that the coming years might be dangerous for them. We think you’re the only one who can keep them safe. Don’t worry. You’ll have help. But at least for a few years, we need you to take Roland and Anthony with you and fade to Fairy.
The truck was turning around, but she didn’t even glance back. “Time passes so fast in Real, I shouldn’t have stayed so long. Yet, I wouldn’t have missed this chase. Girls, take good care of this boy. The Fates say that while he isn’t much to look at now, you might regret letting this one pass you by.”
She nodded to me and transformed into a large black bird with outstretched wings. I flinched and dropped to the ground. I turned my head to see her swoop, fold her wings for a moment, grab a chicken wing from one of the girls’ plates, and take off flying. As she crossed the river, she dropped the chicken wing and sailed into the woods that she had recently chased me through.
Twirly-hair girl asked, “Why’d she steal it if she was just going to drop it in the river?”
The other girl said, “She just figured out it was store-bought. You know how picky she is.”
They both nodded. Twirly-hair girl said, “Don’t worry about us chasing you. We were picked for this because we don’t wanna ever grow up, and we look close enough to your physical age.”
The other girl said, “That and we both look so sweet that butter won’t melt in our mouths.”
She stuck out her tongue a short way like a cat might.
I asked, “Why set this up and scare me if you just wanted to talk. If you knew enough about me to set this up, what was the point?”
Cat-tongue girl said, “Folk are easier to predict when they get scared. In case you haven’t noticed, the neighborhood you live in is full of interesting people. Having anyone from our group visit you might have drawn some interesting attention. We managed the dam downstream and lowered the water. This part of the sandbar’s usually under water. It’ll rain soon and will wash away any physical, mental, or psychic impressions on this sandbar so we have a sort of temporal privacy. It’ll be under running water, so a lot of creatures that might be interested won’t venture into this area anyway. The question was how to get you right here, right now, in the full sun that also washes impressions away and prevents some folk from hearing.”
Twirly-hair girl pointed to the other girl. “I’m Effa and this is Nia. Don’t worry about the Goblin Music Festival, it was never in danger and is being watched over. Don’t worry about the weather. If you summon me this full moon coming, say about late afternoon, you can bring a friend. Expect a few hugs since you warned me about the horrible raid that was going to happen, and you were so very heroic to do so.”
I shook my head. “But I didn’t.”
Nia smiled at me. “You were going to, and you still planned to after you escaped us.” She held out a girls’ purse and dropped it. “It’s so brave of you to want to go to the Festival just to be sure I got my purse back after I dropped it. The small box and everything in it is for you, though. Return the rest to me when you come.”
Effa twirled her hair and pulled back a corner of the blanket they sat on, exposing a large stone embedded in the sandy bank. There was a Fairy gateway on it.
Nia pointed at the rock and said, “Off to Fairy with you, and we’ll see you at the Festival. I look forward to the wonderful surprise of playing music with the man who came to our rescue.”
I asked, “What do you play?”
She giggled. “A double bass, silly.” She pointed sternly to the rock. I almost blushed from the cute of it, so I went through the gateway as it was my only quick escape from having her see me blush.