Chapter 22

  We picked our way through the ratling remains and followed Penny into the rows of corn. D.T. insisted on going ahead of me, holding her hammer ready in both hands, and Sparkle flew along above us to light our way.

  Penny led us into the woods, to a large, low pile of dead wood and rocks. "It goes down into the ground a bit," Penny observed, "and it reeks of those creatures. We should destroy it."

  D.T. looked at me. I looked back. "What?"

  She gestured to the pile. "Can you burn it out?"

  I grimaced. "I can't really do fire magic. I could probably spark a fire with some lightning, but without actual fire magic I couldn't sustain or spread the flames."

  She blinked a few times, looking surprised. "Oh. Well…if you three will be okay here for a few minutes, I'll run back to the house. I bet George has a jerrycan of petrol or two and some firelighters. Can you handle a controlled burn with that rain cloud of yours?"

  I took a deep breath and let out. "I'm not completely tapped out yet," I said. "I can handle it."

  She nodded. "All right. Don't go anywhere." She turned and headed back toward the house.

  "Sparkle, go with her to light her way, please!" I said.

  Sparkle smiled at me and zoomed after D.T.

  Penny and I stood there together, listening to the soft late-summer wind making the trees creak around us. "Is it empty?" I asked her, gesturing to the den.

  She hesitated. "There may be young within," she said softly. "I hear small movements, and the scent of those things is still strong and fresh. Which is why I recommended we destroy it."

  I nodded. "You've never seen anything like them before?"

  Penny shook her head somberly. "Never have I even heard of the like. I have seen wizards produce many a strange construct, but nothing like these. And nothing that smelled so…profoundly wrong." She scrunched up her nose and blew out a breath as if to clear it. "They are foul creatures, and do not belong in this world. Or any other that I have seen."

  I shivered a little and hugged myself, feeling a chill that had nothing to do with the cool night air. "You're scaring me a little," I said softly.

  She nodded. "I know. And I'm sorry. But you must understand, both that what we do here this night is a necessary part of your job as Guardian, and that this may only be the first of many such incidents."

  I hugged myself a bit tighter. "Ah."

  She leaned lightly against my leg, and I could feel her warmth clearly, both pressed against me physically and in the back of my mind, from her emotions. "You have done very well tonight," she said softly. "No wizard I have met could have done better." She paused for a moment, then added, "They could have done it with more panache, perhaps, but not better."

  It took me a moment to realize she was teasing me, which made me smile. I hunkered down and ruffled her ears and rubbed her neck.

  "You have had easy days so far," Penny said softly, "barring only your encounter with von Einhardt. I fear there may be difficult days ahead."

  "The spirit in the scarecrows said there was change coming," I said just as softly, following her train of thoughts. "And what Father Hill and Jessie Rhodes said…that the Church and the UNSDI don't think the supernatural world can remain hidden for much longer..."

  Penny leaned against me and nodded. "Yes. I think I feel can it too, like a distant storm building on the horizon. Can you? If you listen?"

  I closed my eyes and concentrated on the world around me, listening to the trees creaking and the leaves rustling. The earth was soft beneath my boots, and I smelled a mix of earth, broken limbs, and fallen leaves, overlaid by a faint, unpleasant scent that I didn't know. There was something in the air…a feeling and a smell…that made me think there might be rain in the forecast somewhere.

  The den before us, now that I was concentrating, jangled my magical senses unpleasantly. It was like someone had added a badly tuned minor chord to the music of the world.

  And nagging at the very edge of those magical senses, I felt a strange tension. It was distant, and so faint that I never would have noticed it if I hadn't been looking for it specifically.

  "I think I do," I said quietly. "I can also feel how wrong this den is," I added. Then I ruffled Penny's fur one more time and rose. "You're right, this needed to be done."

  "There may be difficult days ahead," Penny said again, uneasily.

  I smiled down at her, and something popped into my head. "Some days are diamond," I quoted John Denver, "some days are stone."

  Penny looked up at me and tipped her head, then nodded. "What Ms. Rhodes said. It is from a song, yes?"

  I smiled. "I'll play it for you when we get home."

  "I would like that. It sounds very wise."

  D.T. and Sparkle returned then, D.T.'s heavy footfalls crunching through the woods. She was lugging a large, old-fashioned jerrycan, and had her war hammer stuck through the back of her vest, its head poking up behind her left shoulder. Sparkle was fluttering along behind her carrying a tied bundle of square-cut sticks.

  "Whew," D.T. said, putting the jerrycan down and stretching as Sparkle fluttered down and deposited the bundle of sticks beside it. "Either I'm very tired, or that thing is heavier than it looks. Probably both." She thumbed back over her shoulder. "Sparkle helped me talk to the scarecrows…they're gathering up the ratling bodies and piling them up for us. I figured we could burn them next."

  "Good thinking," I said. "How do we go about doing this?"

  D.T. doused the den in petrol, soaked several sticks of the kindling wood Sparkle had carried back in the stuff, then lit them and tossed them in. It didn't take long for the dead wood mixed in with the rock of the den to catch, and the whole thing burned.

  Not merrily.

  The resultant fire was smoky, dark red rather than orange and yellow, and did not look at all natural. I circled the burn with a ring of my little rain clouds to make sure it didn't spread, and added a bit of a breeze to keep the rather noxious smoke from blowing into our faces.

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  At some point, the den caved in, and we all thought we heard faint squeals come from within for a few minutes before stopping.

  D.T. stood with an arm looped around my shoulders on one side, and Penny pressed against my legs on the other, with Sparkle sitting atop my head. We stayed like that until the whole thing had burned down to embers, and I was too tired to keep my little rain storm going.

  It was a little after midnight when we returned to the fields and the Roberts house. The scarecrows had long since finished piling up the ratling corpses (and parts), but it was a surprise to find the pile burning sullenly, and George Roberts himself standing not far from the pumpkin-headed scarecrow. He had a red bandanna pressed over the lower part of his face, covering his mouth and nose, and I couldn't blame him…the smoke coming off the pyre was foul.

  We skirted around it, keeping our distance, and he moved to meet us, lowering the bandanna as he approached. "Hope you don't mind. When I saw them," he nodded to the cluster of scarecrows, "which are pretty obviously friendly, piling that trash up, I figured you meant to burn it."

  I nodded. "They are, and we did. I don't think I have the juice left to stop it from spreading, though."

  He smiled. "I started digging a firebreak around the pile, and when the scarecrows saw what I was doing they stepped in and finished it for me."

  I returned his smiled. "Well, thanks for taking care of it for us."

  "My pleasure," he said, then looked back at the pyre. "What the hell were they?"

  I shook my head ruefully. "I'm calling them ratlings, but only because I have no idea what they were."

  "Is this normal for you?" George asked incredulously.

  I shook my head again. "George, to be completely honest with you, my life has become so odd that I don't really know what's in the same time zone as normal anymore."

  We all turned and looked at the pyre, standing in silence for a few minutes until the pumpkin-headed scarecrow plodded over and bowed to us. "I thank thee, Guardian, for thy assistance in this matter. The land and the family are safe now?"

  "We found and burned out their den," I replied, startling George a little. "Penny wasn't able to find any other traces of the creatures in the area."

  The scarecrow sighed in relief. "Good. I will hold to our agreement: For a year and a day, I will protect the landholder's herd from sickness and injury, and I will ensure that his crops are bountiful." It looked at George, then back to me. "Should he wish to extend this agreement, please tell him that he need only leave a small offering for me on the spring equinox…fresh loaves of bread, and a jug of fresh milk, as of old; bounty of the harvest."

  I explained this to George, who turned and addressed the scarecrow directly. "I will, old spirit," he said, bowing respectfully. "I will, and gladly too."

  The scarecrow smiled, a surprisingly warm expression on the Jack-O-Lantern head, and bowed deeply to George. Then it shambled back to stand before the pyre as the other twelve scarecrows began to wander off. They dispersed into the fields, planting themselves and falling still, until only the pumpkin-headed scarecrow remained animate, watching over the pyre.

  George took a deep breath and let it out. "I think I need to get some sleep. This is a lot to digest all at once." He turned to me and offered his hand. "Lady Reid, you have my sincerest and deepest thanks for your help this evening."

  I shook his hand warmly. "Please, just Caley. I'm happy I could help."

  He shook D.T.'s hand with murmured thanks and repeated his appreciation to Sparkle and Penny, then headed for the house, mopping his forehead with the bandanna.

  Sparkle landed on my shoulder and Penny stood beside me on one side, with D.T. on the other. We watched the pyre for a little while, before D.T. quietly said, "It's kind of like going back to the old ways, isn't it? Appeasing the local spirit of the land with gifts from the harvest."

  "That's what the old ways were for," Sparkle said, sounding wiser than her usual light-hearted behavior. "Those rituals were meant to acknowledge the spirits of the land…to ask for their protection and aid in the year to come. But many of those spirits were forgotten or ignored, and have been asleep for a long time."

  "How long?" D.T. asked curiously.

  Sparkle shrugged.

  Penny laughed softly. "Asking a fairy about time is like asking the sky why the grass is green. From what my grand-dam taught me, Ms. Burroughs, many spirits of the earth have been asleep for more than two hundred years. Men chose to stop believing in them, and so they sleep to conserve their strength."

  "That would roughly line up with the Industrial Revolution," I observed.

  We were all silent again for a little while, and I was almost asleep on my feet when D.T. nudged me gently with her elbow. "Well, I guess there's something to all those old rituals after all. Are you sure you aren't some sort of druid?"

  I chuckled. "Not that I know of." I rubbed my eyes, yawned, and stretched. But I thought about the way I'd sensed the magic of the world when Penny had told me to try, and wondered.

  "I think I'd better drive you home," she said, leaning in to look at me closely. "You can collect your car sometime tomorrow or the day after. You look hollowed out."

  I thought about protesting for a moment, but looking inward confirmed her concern. "I am. I've never cast that many spells at one time before. I'm exhausted."

  "I just need to make sure we're done here," I said, and walked over to the remaining scarecrow. It turned its empty eyes toward me and nodded politely. "I need rest," I said to it politely, "is there anything else you need from me this eve?"

  It smiled gently. "Nay, Guardian. I will tend the pyre, and can control it should it grow. Thy work is done, and done well. Thee and thine have earned thy rest. The protection of this land and family you may leave again in my hands."

  I bowed politely to it. "Thank you. Good night."

  "Good night to thee and thine, Guardian." With that, it turned its eyes back on the pyre and fell still.

  We piled back into D.T.'s police cruiser and started back toward town. I must have dozed off, because the next thing I knew I was cradled in D.T.'s arms, being carried past Ken into the Hall's foyer, and Ken was mid-sentence.

  "…Magical exhaustion is definitely a thing, Ms. Burroughs," he was saying quietly. "She'll be fine after she's had a solid eight hours of sleep and a good meal."

  "I'm awake," I said, and sounded muzzy and half-asleep even to myself. "I just feel like my head's full of cotton batting."

  Ken chuckled. "From what Ms. Burroughs has been telling me, that doesn't surprise me."

  "Please call me D.T.," she said. "Come on, sorceress, which way to your bedroom?"

  I concentrated…or tried to…and pointed to the double doors that led deeper into the Hall. "Through there. First door on the right. I think. But I can walk."

  "I couldn't even wake you up in the cruiser," D.T. said, sounding more than a little worried. "I can carry you a few more feet."

  Ken opened the doors for her, and she stopped as she entered the hallway, staring at the seemingly endless length of it. "Holy shit," she said softly.

  "It's a bit disorienting at first," Ken said. "But we're right here," he pointed to the very door I'd noted. It had a perfectly formed little purple blown-glass fairy dangling from a nail, which had been hammered into the door at the base of a carved oak leaf. My bedroom door.

  He opened it for her and D.T. carried me in, followed by Sparkle and Penny. "Well, this is much more the thing," she said in a relieved tone, and set me down on the edge of the bed. "Come on, hon, let's get those boots off, then you can sleep."

  As she knelt down, I started to protest, "I can…"

  She waved me off, already untying my Doc Martens. "Hush. I can tell you're so tired you can barely see straight, and I don't mind. You were amazing tonight."

  I felt my cheeks heat up as she tugged one boot off and went to work on the other. "I just did what I had to."

  "Says the obviously very powerful sorceress," she teased gently. "You did a lot more than I did."

  "I couldn't have done it without you," I protested. "You kept those things from getting close to me. I'd've been on the run without you."

  D.T. considered that for a moment, then smiled up at me. "I suppose that's true. Well, I'm glad I was able to help."

  As she tugged off my other boot, Penny hopped up on the end of the bed and stretched out, yawning hugely and putting her head down. D.T. smiled and lifted my legs up onto the bed. "I suggest you do the same," she said. "Where'd Sparkle go?"

  "Up here," Sparkle said from where she was already stretched out in her nightlight, the spherical silver bird cage dangling from the center of my bed's canopy.

  "Well, that's just cool," D.T. said.

  I took a moment to wriggle out of my shorts, leaving me in just my leggings and Henley top, then shuffled back a little so that my head hit the pillow when I lay back. "Thank you, Dejah Thoris," I said sleepily, rolling onto my side facing the windows.

  She shut the lights off, then whistled softly. "What's with all the colored lights out there?"

  "Fairies," I murmured, feeling sleep dragging me down.

  "Seriously?"

  The last thing I saw before sleep claimed me was D.T. standing in front of my bedroom windows, staring at the dancing lights of my fairies in the darkened field beyond.

  Faeflight is now available on my Patreon. I've promised myself that I won't hound people about it. Also a reminder that from here, I'm only going to be posting chapters on Sundays to give myself a bit of breathing room to work on my writing. My work stress and anxiety levels are already high, I don't want my writing to become part of that. Please forgive me.

  Chapter notes: I thought long and hard about having them try to track back the origin of these creatures past the den...and decided that it's just not realistic at this point in Caley's career. Not only is this her first real monster hunt, but by the time they get there she's already exhausted, Penny hasn't been able to track their scent past that point, Sparkle is Sparkle (very much an 'of the moment' character, bless her), and D.T. is having her own silent issues with what they're doing (as you'll see in the next chapter).

  Kinnear Chronicles update: The first two chapters of the next book, Broken Circle, are done, but...I'm struggling. I might scrap the plot and start from scratch. It feels slow and boring, even to me (and I realize that my stories seem slow and boring to some people to begin with).