I was smiling before I examined the stone lump that was looking less and less like a statue. The stone appeared to be absorbing Mr. Hubert’s clothing, and there was stone growing out over the crate. If there was a problem, it was probably too late. Mr. Hubert no longer appeared to be Mr. Hubert. I watched as the crate was pulled in, and the bandages sunk into the stone.

Mr. Hubert asked, “Phil, could you play for me?”

I cried tears of relief mixed with anxiety as I started in on my most complex rhythms. I watched as the stone became an egg shape and started absorbing the edge of the pool next to it and part of the basement floor.

Mr. Hubert said, “The kittens want in.”

I shadow stepped up to the door to the manor and let the cats in. I shadow stepped back.

Fuzzy shadow stepped to the top of the egg.

I said, “Fuzzy, get down, you might get taken into the stone.”

Mr. Hubert said, “It will be okay, Phil. His purr is helping. Keep playing, please.”

I kept playing.

Mr. Hubert asked, “Do you have anything to eat? Metals and human food.”

Count Juniper had just re-gifted me with materials so I made small blocks of aluminum, silver, gold, iron, zinc, copper, and tin. I opened the magic food box and took out boxes of food and put them beside the stone egg.

The egg flowed over the food boxes and blocks of metal. Mr. Hubert said, “Not so much of the metals and more of the food, please.”

I kept feeding the egg as Mr. Hubert requested more things. I played music and watched as the egg destroyed the tiles on the floor and the pool enlarged as the egg moved. The cats took turns sitting on the egg as the egg shifted changed shape and grew.

I slept and woke. I let the cats in when Mr. Hubert told me they were there. I ate and played music.

Mr. Hubert said, “I will need new clothing. Can I ask you to go to our house in Louisiana and bring me a few changes?”

I nodded, not certain if he could see my nod. “It will take a bit. My entrance to Real isn’t in Louisiana, and the weather is not ideal.”

Mr. Hubert said, “Slow time here while you are gone. I am not fully awake when you are missing right now.”

#

I was picking through what I thought was suitable clothing that Mr. Hubert liked to wear when Count Juniper appeared. “I still need to train thee so let’s ignore thy station for a bit longer if thou wilt.”

“No need for formalities, Count Juniper, thou hast been good to me, and thou art an old acquaintance now. Let’s ignore any formalities in the future as well.”

Count Juniper said, “Rummage wouldst be happy to let thee have the Fairyland that hast a gateway here on this property. She hast made some improvements but thinks they might go some way towards reparations.

“She was quite nervous when she heard thou wert King of Snipsnort. Only the most dangerous of Fairylords retain names that might make others jest. It is a sign that thou would welcome a fight and consider defending thy name fine sport. That and the question of the Dutchess Byebye. There is quite a bit of question as to whether thou art in league with her or thou hast defeated her.”

I smiled. “I have adopted her. We’re brother and sister now.”

I got together a few sets of clothing and put them in a suitcase for Mr. Hubert. Holding shoes in one hand and the suitcase in another I transformed into another me. “Pardon, Count Juniper, I need to get back and watch over Mr. Hubert.”

Count Juniper said, “Call me when it is a good time. Thou wilt need some re-gifting and training before it can all be settled in. I would hate for a student of mine to not be in the best of form.”

I nodded and went to Fairy.

#

As I played, Mr. Hubert said, “I will be quiet for a bit. Please keep playing. We are close to done.”

Since the pool had been leaking I had reworked a bit of the floor and made a raised area for me to put my cajon on so I could sit high and dry while the egg ate through the floor. The top of the egg was just barely over the water when the egg started to crack. I kept playing. Odd quivery goo oozed out of the cracks and sections of stone shell flowed and stuck to the goo as it dropped. Mr. Hubert stretched and felt blindly for the edges of the stone shell and stood. He wiped the goo from his face. He no longer resembled Mr. Hubert.

He wiped goo from his arms and then slung it. I slipped into shadow with my cajon and moved it to the top of the stair before going back down.

Mr. Hubert opened his eyes. “Silica gel is always such a mess to clean up. Let me check on Anthony.”

Using the stone egg shell to balance, he climbed out of the egg and slopped of more of the gel onto the ground. He spent a while scraping it off with a section of egg shell and then got into the pool with Uncle Anthony.

He lay down and pulled apart the crate enough to hug the statue. “Uncle Anthony is coming along fine. He is close to self-aware. Should be himself in another couple of months.”

I said, “You’re not yourself, Mr. Hubert.”

Mr. Hubert lifted his head and looked at me questioningly.

I made a gossamer mirror.

Mr. Hubert said, “I need more light.”

I made an illusion of light. “Can you see now?”

Mr. Hubert said, “No change.”

He slopped more of the jiggly white goo off himself as I played around trying to make a light. I made a more complicated illusion of a candle and Mr. Hubert said, “That works.”

I put illusions of wall-mounted candles with mirrors behind them as Mr. Hubert stood in front of the mirror.

He looked back at me in the reflection before posing and looking at himself. “Nice, but who am I?”

I shook my head. “Mr. Hubert, you look younger, like you might still be in college, maybe.”

He smiled at the mirror and started taking blobs of goo from his hair. “Since, I look a lot younger, just call me Roland. No need for Mr. and that is kind of dated anyway.”

I nodded as Count Juniper summoned me. “King Snipsnort, Count Juniper requests thy audience.”

I said, “One moment, Count Juniper.”

I turned into me with shoes and a suitcase, “Count Juniper’s calling. Your clothing is here. I am going upstairs. Are you okay down here?”

Roland said, “Fine, but the clothing is going to be loose on me. I’m not as bulky as I was.”

#

Upstairs I said, “I am free to talk now.”

Count Juniper said, “If thou wouldst visit with me and Queen Rummage, we would be most grateful.”

Ready to turn into a rooster or dive into shadow, I let Count Juniper bring me to where he was.

#

We were in the Fairyland where I had first been abducted. We were on a pieced-together stone platform with a ring of columns around us and a ring above that. Seats surrounded the ring and a young tree grew in an opening in the center. Around us was a hedge, and from being here before, I suspected it was part of a maze. In the distance, I could see a nice manor house and a lake with boathouses and boats lifted above the water in slung cradles.

There were ample shadows as the sun was just above the horizon.

A young lady in bronze fish scale armor was sitting on a bench. She inclined her head toward me. “Snipsnort, once again I must apologize for our first meeting.”

I said, “I have recovered nicely and bear thee no ill will.”

She looked over at Count Juniper and then back at me. I walked to the hedge since the sun was coming up quickly and noticed that there were wholesome-looking blackberries. I picked one and ate it without thinking. I felt the world connect to me. I looked back at Count Juniper and Queen Rummage. Thinking this might take a while, I sped time up to a hundred years here per day in Real.

I felt a touch of resistance but decided to ignore it as I changed the time.

Count Juniper exchanged a glance with Queen Rummage.

Queen Rummage said, “I was going to offer this world to thee, repairs and all, as a peace offering, yet thou hast managed to take it on thy own.”

I realized that since I was connected to this world I could come here at will and since there was a gateway to Mr. Hubert’s—I mean, Roland’s place—I could go there in moments. Suddenly getting back and fourth was no longer a struggle. I also realized that I didn’t want to manage yet another world.

“Dearest Queen Rummage, whilst I intend to visit this world of my first abduction on a regular basis, I would much rather remain a good neighbor to thee and have thee keep this realm as thine own. So long as humans are not to be abducted and relations are kept kindly and cordial, I think we can in some ways share this world. Apart from the visitation, I plan to only lightly use this world but, I must—”

I thought about it and wanted to remain humble sounding but maintain a bit of a potential threat. So I continued, “—as The Fishmonger Fairy King, ask what fish is stocked in the lakes below and dust thou need some fish to stock it with? I do love to catch a fish from time to time.”

She looked again at Count Juniper and Count Juniper smiled at me. “Sire, on my part thy offer seems more like a gift to Rummage than a price asked.”

She looked at Count Juniper with a questioning look.

Count Juniper said, “If dear Rummage thou dust stop and imagine the gossip. Those that might question thy strength and wish to test thy mettle for thy realms, must now take into account that Snipsnort and Byebye would be part and parcel with dealing with thee. As long as thou didst maintain a good connection with Snipsnort, it would be a rare fool that would think to challenge thee.”

She looked at me and asked, “What are the real costs of this deal?”

Count Juniper said, “Since, despite being so strong, Snipsnort is new to such things, it might be in thine own best interest that he be gifted more thoroughly. I, of course, would profit from such an arrangement since Snipsnort and I get along so well. Yet if thou dust consider that thy realm is made more secure and thou art retaining two realms, a few dozen more giftings might not be much of a price.”

Rummage looked at the Count. “Dearest Juniper, thy original deal involved wish fulfillment and as always thou has managed it wondrously. Yet I do question how this further duty does thee profit?”

Count Juniper said, “As I would be gifting and training the young lord, I would have to be in turn trained and gifted with a few things I might not already have. I have not the discipline to be a king, nor the violent turn to be a duke, yet I can handle gifting with the best of them.

“In addition, I measure the friendship with Snipsnort highly and ‘til thou has tasted his bread pudding thou has no idea what joy can be had by dining.”

#

I had no way to get to the Festival. The weather was bad, and no one was answering my summons. In the yard at Roland’s house, I had arranged lights and shadows, but since there was lightning, I was reluctant to shadow step. With time set to match with Real, I was hoping someone would summon me. I sat at a table up in the manor house and opened the briefcase.

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Someone had created a life for me that I had never had. My parents met in a waiting room in Switzerland where the doctor was an expert in the genetic disorder that eventually killed them. There were a number of doctors with different specialties who had studied the disorder.

I had an estate that managed my wealth for me and an empire of junkyards, and toxic waste laden land that had been bought cheap. The entire setup was strange. The corporate conglomeration had existed since the late seventies, and there were notes indicating that the areas had been cleaned up and yet the clean-up continued operations and payments to people who had suffered from exposure still continued. I was getting angry as I read about the histories of land that had been ruined by pollution. Companies that had dumped materials they knew were toxic and never had a thought to what they were ruining. A lot of what they were dumping was upstream of the sort of bogs and swamps I grew up in and loved.

As I read and reread each part I started to almost cry for the fictional me that they had made up. Poor rich kid raised by doting parents that had recently passed way. His parents kept him away from everyone in the mistaken fear that he was susceptible to disease. I reread the part about how even today, I carried sanitizer to spray things with before I touched them and wore a mask when I was around people. The clean, careful kid they described was going to be hard to portray.

Since I worked trout lines and gutted fish, I pretty much considered my time swimming in lakes and rivers as regular bathing. More often than not, I let my clothing dry while wearing it and hardly bothered with baths and showers unless I was trying to get new customers. I figured I was cleaner than most nine-year-old kids.

This poor kid though had the sort of life that would make kid crazy. I memorized details and read on.

It started to come together. The kid liked to play and since he was scared of contact with others, he usually kept a masked bodyguard with him, and everyone else had to leave the junkyards that he was going to play in. The kid did sculpture and found art, so he would bring new junk into the junkyard or take junk away. This gave me an excuse to take Roland as my masked bodyguard to junkyards, make a mess of things, and then leave with a few items that I was interested in.

I kept reading and rereading to memorize the parts that I might have to remember later.

Fuzzy came and curled up on the table beside me as I worked my way through all the papers. This stuff was going to be a playground and fun, but pretending to be Phil Thibodeaux wasn’t. I got to the last folder. It described my estates. I had nine of them, and the staff at each of them had never met me. They knew that if I ever showed up, they would all be expected to stay out of the main suite. All nine of the estates had a member who was aware that I practiced magic and were ready to answer a summons. One of my estates was a small hotel in Chicago where I kept a nice apartment for myself.

I quickly read through the rest and took one of the surgical masks that was in the briefcase and put it on. I put on a pair of the disposable gloves and summoned my contact in Chicago.

“One moment, sir, while I get my mask and gloves.”

I waited still connected looking at the area as he put gloves and a mask on. When he was ready, he brought me through and then backed up out of the room and closed the door without talking to me. It was creepy, but this was how Phil Thibodeaux lived. I looked around the apartment. Clean, practically sterile. The only spark of personality were the pictures of heavy equipment on the walls. Phil Thibodeaux had a serious thing for cranes, big rigs and bulldozers. In another room, there were models of heavy equipment in glass displays. Someone had gone all out creating a cover for me. Oddly, since I have lived as a Goblin in a swamp, there is more evidence for the existence of Phil Thibodeaux than there is for the kid who used to go around selling fish.

A long closet was filled with clothing: suits, work clothing, hard hats, and orange vests with reflectors. Some of the clothing was worn looking. Most of it looked new.

It made me feel like an impostor. Phil Thibodeaux was the real deal. This, more than Fairy, made me want to run and hide. Someone had a lot of plans for me. Someone had spent a lot of time and money on all of this.

It was okay when I thought it was someone who just wanted to protect a pair of Titans, and I was the only way to do it. That made sense. This was crazy. It was like I was a construction site secret agent. Someone planned for me to do something and had provided me with a cover that was way too complete. While I considered this a way to protect and help Roland Hubert, it all seemed fine. Now that I was targeted, this was creeping me out.

To play along though, I took a shower and cleaned up. I dressed in more than one of the outfits provided and went out to the hotel and down to the parking lot. Out on the street and away from the hotels outside cameras, I took to shadows. Partway, I turned into me without the mask and continued shadow stepping to the Goblin Music Festival.

#

The security booth was staffed by girls who didn’t recognize me, but the lines were short so they checked me for weapons and let me past. As soon I was clear, I used the shadows and took the shade from the top of a light mounted on the side of the building up to the shade above the lamp and quickly found my way to where my family was listening to the music. Jordan noticed me so I appeared beside him.

Because of the noise, I spoke to him in Fairy speech, “Jordan, how’s it going?”

Jordan said, “I never knew there were so many Goblins and such a party was possible. How are you doing, Phil?”

I nodded to the music. “Things are stranger and stranger. Jordan, take care of the family, I’m not going to visit for a while. I’m scared what sort of attention I might bring with me. You have a new sister. I had no choice. I had to adopt her. Don’t worry about taking care of her, she is tougher than the rest of us.”

Jordan sighed. “You’re fading to Fairy, then?”

I said, “Worse, I think I’m tangled up in too much real. If I disappear, don’t ever come looking. The shadows I may be visiting are deep ones.”

Jordan turned to look at me, but I slid to shadow and blurred my trails. In the dark paths, Goblins were everywhere, sliding along every shadow strong enough to make a trail. I blended in and disappeared. I looked for Caerwyn and didn’t find him.

This was the worst place to sit in shadow. Goblins, with the feeling of alcohol or worse, hid in every convenient patch of shade. If ever there was a place where one might get shadow burn or become one of the Wize, this was it. I had no urge to become part of a two-headed Goblin, so I stepped out and made my way through the crowd looking for Caerwyn or anyone else I might recognize.

On a crowded catwalk, I made my way past couples and clusters of Goblins looking down at the band and moving enough to make me wonder what the load limit of the catwalk was. Gifting took over and I looked at the support rods going up to steel beams and decided the catwalk was more than tough enough. Odd how gifting can give you spots of talent like bright areas in darkness. If you asked me to tell you the circumference of a circle, I would have to give you a blank look. If you asked me the circumference of a three-foot diameter steel reinforced cement column, I could give you the weight, load characteristics, circumference, and volume for a range of lengths instantly.

Now I felt even more like an impostor. Phil Thibodeaux was the real deal. He just hit his head when he didn’t have a hard hat on, and now he has a delusion of growing up in a swamp.

One of the Goblin girls I had seen in the security area waved to me and beckoned for me to follow her.

I glanced down at the band and shrugged. I wasn’t going to find out what was happening out here on the catwalk. She held the door for me so I went into the office area.

She had me sit down in a large empty conference room and gestured to a seat with a keyboard, mouse, and three screens in front of it. I sat down.

There were pdfs open and .mov files ready to watch. I started reading articles and then commentary and details on the articles. I watched several videos, and I was getting madder and madder. It was all about companies leaving destruction behind them and then moving assets to other companies leaving employees without benefits or jobs. Communities destroyed and poisoned. Employees exposed to toxins while the money slipped away silently after causing destruction than might take hundreds of years and more for the poisons to recede enough for humans to dwell in places that were once considered their homes.

I was getting angry, and I was frightened at how easily they had managed to bring me to such a peak of rage. I got up and went to the door. The Goblin girl had been waiting for me. It felt like she knew exactly when I was going to get up and come to the door. She led me downstairs and down to a boiler room. She walked to an ancient steel furnace that was no longer connected to the heating ducts. A remnant left inside a building because it was too large and would be too much work to remove. She opened the rusty door to the furnace. Inside, Goblin girls sat with a woman who I guessed had to be a Daemon. She had that sort of look. Her skin was as darker than skin ever was, more like a silhouette of darkness than a form, and her face seemed to pull yours to look at it. Her eyes were closed, and she was breathing slowly and deeply.

I looked at the Goblin girls. Nia, the girl I had returned the purse to, was pointing to the empty seat between the dark woman and her. Ready to take myself to Fairy if anything happened, I stepped into the furnace and sat down. As I sat, I heard the furnace door shut behind me.

The woman I sat beside put her hand on mine. I pulled it back and she said, “He will do.”

I asked, “Do what?”

She held out her hand. I shook my head. I looked up at her. Her eyes were like staring up at the stars on dark night. I don’t mean this romantically or poetically. They were beautiful but not like eyes. The effect was creepy enough to make me want to flee to Fairy and never come back.

She said, “Learn how to destroy my kind. We have come up with a way to do it, and you are one of the few who can master all that it will take.”

I tried not to show how repulsed by all of this I was.

She said, “Phil, I am a traitor to my kind. I have fallen in love with this world, and I would rather not see it destroyed like so many others have been. My kind is destruction. I no longer fear for my own existence. That is why I am here in a chamber that no other member of my race would even approach.”

I said, “I fear and avoid Daemons, but I don’t want to hunt them down and kill them.”

She said, “Oh no, I am not a Daemon. I am older than that. I am a Djinn of the worst type. You will not hunt us down. No, you will make our lives inconvenient. My kind will hunt you down. Then, in self-defense, you will end their eternal destruction.”

Nia said, “You see Phil you really are a hero. Look at it this way, if you could save the world, and the world needed you, if the bogs and swamps with all the frogs and fish were threatened, how far would you go?”

I asked, “With all that you can do, why do you need me?”

Nia smiled. “Oddly enough, Phil, we’re quite limited, and we can only do things when certain folk are looking the other way and even then only on special occasions. The resources you have been handed were set up long ago, back when we had a bit more freedom. Tonight, well, this morning, we are all going to go away. Fade to Fairy, as it were. So you will be a free agent in all of this. With all the trails the Goblins are leaving, nothing will leave a trace that anyone can follow. This room will be brought to a high heat later and any residual evidence will disappear. Besides, this old factory is yours. It only makes sense that you might let the Goblins use it from time to time.”

The Djinn said, “Use the name ‘Midnight Treason’ to summon me when you need me, Phil. I was planning to stay for the rest of this meeting, but I am beginning to get shaky here in the presence of all this iron. I wanted to make a bold show of my commitment, but—”

She started look around and breathing heavily. A Goblin girl knocked on the side of the furnace and the door opened.

Nia reached over and put her hand on the Djinn’s hand and shadow stepped out of the furnace with her. The furnace door was closed again.

Another Goblin girl said, “A man will be waiting to see you. You need to visit him this coming Sunday.”

She handed one of those folded sheets that they hand out at the front of churches. In pencil, a name on the bulletin was circled, Deacon Dan, the person who was going to give the reading Tomorrow.

I nodded and memorized the address. It was in Chicago, but I would have to check a map to find it.

The girl who slid the church bulletin to me slid a jar containing dry blade of grass across the table. “This is the best we could manage. Later, but before you go to church, chew on that. No need to swallow.”

I held the jar up. “What is it?”

The girl shook her head. “That would be part of a complex discussion, and we have already taken too long. Caerwyn should be out looking at your heavy equipment collection out back.”

The furnace door opened, and the girls all shadow stepped away leaving me alone at the table. I shadow stepped out of the furnace as a Goblin girl with a five-gallon metal can that looked like it contained camp stove fuel appeared by the door.

I shadow stepped out of the building and over to the shadows made by the treads on a crane.

Caerwyn was sitting beside a Goblin girl but not the Goblin girl that was trying to become his girlfriend. “Tell her I like her, but she is what eighty years old, maybe? I don’t feel right going after a girl that young. It’s not that I don’t think it couldn’t work out, but some folk talk, and I don’t want to put her through that sort of thing.”

I stepped out of shadow. I don’t know anything about relations with girls, but I could tell this conversation wasn’t going to end well.

Caerwyn got up. “Phil, I should probably split this scene.” I nodded and then nodded to the girl. She smiled at me. I offered Caerwyn my hand and took him to Fairy.

Under the gazebo at the seven-way crossroads, Dutchess Byebye, Lady Anteater, and Hippydippy were marching in a circle on the round platform in the middle of the crossroads while singing, “Bye, Bye Miss American Pie.”

Duchess Byebye asked Caerwyn, “Do you know any songs with the words ‘bye-bye’ in them?”

Caerwyn said, “Bye-bye love, and Bye-bye Blackbird?”

Duchess Byebye said, “You passed. Do you want to turn into a rooster?”

Caerwyn said, “You’d have to transform me. I never managed to learn how to do it on my own.”

Lady Anteater got up close to Caerwyn. “He’s telling the truth, so we may never know if he is a chicken or a rooster.”

Byebye grabbed my leg. “My little brother.”

I picked her up and put her on my shoulders. “My little sister.”

Hippydippy said, “No, he is our grandfather the horse, silly. You’re the baby in the family, so you can’t have a little brother.”

Byebye said, “No, he and I are really, really brother and sister. Right, Phil?”

I said, “Right, Byebye. Everyone, this is Caerwyn. Caerwyn, meet my sister Duchess Byebye. She’s the one sitting on my shoulders. This lady here is your new girlfriend, Lady Anteater. This is Hippydippy, the poor sad girl that Lady Anteather stole you from. This is all pretend. Unless you want to be another horse like me. Playing house can get complicated.”

Caerwyn asked Hippydippy, “Do you want to ride on my shoulders?”

Hippydippy nodded. Caerwyn picked her up and said, “See, I’m a horse.”

Lady Anteater put her arm around Caerwyn. “My boyfriend is a horse.”

Caerwyn said, “I thought you said it wouldn’t be complicated if I was a horse.”

Byebye patted my head. “We could all be a horsie family. I’m the baby horse, so Snipsnort is a baby horse, too. Caerwyn can be the weird uncle horse that no one lets anyone else be alone with.”

Caerwyn looked at me. “This is getting worse by the minute.”

Hippydippy said, “My horsie is the best horsie. He’s a Sabino!”

Lady Anteater said, “Sabinos are spotted.”

Hippydippy laughed. “He is one big spot so his horsie name is ‘Spot.’”

Caerwyn asked, “Is it always like this?”

I nodded.

Caerwyn put Hippydippy down. “Sorry, I hear my mother calling.” Caerwyn waved a finger at me and disappeared.

Hippydippy looked up at me. “That went well. What game are we playing next?”

Dutchess Byebye made a giddyup move on my shoulders. “Get the kitty! I wanna get the kitty!”

Hippydippy shook her head. “She says she saw a shadow kitty.”

Lady Anteater made circles around her ears with her finger. “Byebye should have her name changed to Lala, ‘cause she has totally gone lala.”

Duchess Byebye stood on my shoulders and jumped down. “I’ll go find it and show you. You’ll see my shadow kitty.”

Byebye disappeared into shadows. Her wake seemed to leave changes in the shadows behind her. I needed to give her some lessons in shadow stepping. I went into shadow and rode on the ripples she left behind her. She blindly charged through shadows and ended up in a large tree on a ridge.

I appeared on a limb on the opposite side of the tree. “Dear sister, I need to teach you the tricks of shadows.”

She asked, “Can I catch cats?”

I said, “That remains to be seen, but if thy movements were more stealthy thou might have a better chance.”

She nodded and looked at me intently. “You believe me when I say I saw a cat in shadows?”

I nodded. “Yes, I believe thee. But first let’s play follow the leader, and I will show you how to move more swiftly, more quietly, and keep safe from the dangers of shadow and light.”

We played in shadow until she was worn out. “Brother Phil, I’ll summon you when I wake up.”

I nodded and watched her slide more gently into shadow. She was easy to teach since she was so brave. I feared that braveness though. Too many Goblins have disappeared through the years for anyone to consider the paths we trace safe.