One
In most fairy tales, the fairies are the good guys. They’re godmothers or magical blue ladies who turn puppets into real boys. The problem with that is most fairy tales are sixty percent bullshit, thirty percent wishful thinking, and ten percent horrifying unknown. That’s not to say there are no fairy godmothers; I just never saw one.
More often than not, I saw the other side of it: the bloodsucking, strangle-you-for-fun variety of fairy. For every benevolent shoemaker or wish granter, there was a killer. Which meant I needed to be ready. Steel-toed boots were always a good idea, and they went well with my dark clothes and roughly twenty thousand talismans, all silver and iron and anti-fairy. I could have pulled off the punk goth thing, except living with a single father meant no piercings or blue streaks until I was thirty or he was dead. And with a pair of twelve-year-old brothers, there’d be no slipping a stud out before I got home.
About the most I could do was cut my dark hair up to my chin and draw on some black eyeliner. My dad tolerated that much. But then, he didn’t know exactly why I wore the steel-toed boots or why my jewelry included an iron nail on a chain. He probably suspected, though.
I checked the time. Eight-eighteen. The wind pierced through my dark jacket and into my skin like it had some kind of personal problem with me. I huddled into myself, drawing my knees to my chest. Somewhere out in the town, other high-school seniors were likely hanging out and drinking or smoking. Odds were they’d all die of lung cancer someday. Still, they were having fun and blissfully shortening their lives while I sat on a church stoop alone, waiting for some priest to get with the program and take me to kill some fairies.
The door to the church creaked open. I scrambled to my feet. Father Gooding stepped outside, a large, black duffel bag slung over one shoulder. He stooped just a bit, so it would be a little easier to make direct eye contact. Friggin’ tall people. Hard to name the greater injustice: that he was six foot four or that I was five two.
“I apologize,” he said, locking the door behind him. “The choirmaster called. I really couldn’t hang up without arousing suspicion.”
“So tell them,” I said, and I hated the tight, wheezy tenor of my voice after too long in the cold.
Gooding arched a brow. “That’s awfully rich coming from you, Miss Johnson. Does your family know about your extracurricular activities?”
“The whole reason my dad moved here was because of the fairies,” I reminded him. “And because he knows you protect people from them.”
Gooding gave me that oh-so-disappointed Catholic look of his and sighed. “Bryn, we discussed this. What I’m teaching you is dangerous. Potentially life-threatening. Your family deserves to know in case I have to call them to the hospital.” The same lecture he’d given me for the last three years, ever since he first agreed to take me as his apprentice.
“Well, you haven’t yet,” I pointed out. Gooding’s little half frown would have made a marble statue confess its sins. I diverted my gaze. “You know my dad’s got a lot on his plate, and Ash and Jake are just kids. Besides. You said it yourself: You need the help. There’s too many of them popping up lately.”
Gooding’s lips thinned, but he stopped angling for direct eye contact. Once again, Gooding chose the high road. He just loved to do that. Sometimes that worked in my favor; sometimes it drove me crazy. But it was too cold for me to decide whether his prissiness was a blessing or a curse.
“Come along, then, Bryn.”
Gooding took off across the long stretch of yellowed grass behind the church, and I had to half jog to keep up with his sweeping gait. Well, at least it warmed me up.
“You’re right, though,” he said. “This is the third call from Postoak Road this month. They’re getting more active.”
Another visit to Postoak Road, easily the crummiest place in Easterton, Pennsylvania, but not for the reasons most people thought. By day, Postoak Road was an overgrown stretch of dirt with a line of ancient houses held up by sheer willpower. At night, it turned into the hottest haunt for all of fairykind and the practical classroom for my anti-fairy education. Holy water for redcaps, gifts and thank-yous for brownies, seeds or salt for boggarts, dropping down and praying for a little good luck with garden gnomes.
And now an “exorcism.” Air quotes included. Clearly, we were helping some poor, terrified someone who had no idea what was happening.
I cracked my knuckles as I followed Gooding across the deadened field, down the dirt road, and up the creaking porch to number seventeen, Postoak Road. Petunia-filled planters hung from the eaves while charming plaques stating that HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS and LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED tried to distract visitors from the ancient wood and crooked steps. More than likely, it was all a newlywed couple could afford. Our house hadn’t looked much better when Dad moved the twins and me to the United States. If I wanted to be honest, it didn’t look much better now.
Something dark moved on the banister of the porch, just at the edge of my peripheral vision. Like a whistle on the breeze, there came a shrill voice. “Missy!”
My heart slammed like a piston in my chest. What was a shadeling doing out here? Had one of the boys lit the microwave on fire? No. The little imp would be in a panic if that were the case. Sometimes they followed me outside the house, but if this one crossed Gooding’s path, it would end up as a pile of dark goo. I closed my eyes and made a sharp, jerking motion with one hand. I’d have to deal with it later.
Fingers brushed gently against my elbow. Even though I knew who it was, I jerked away.
Gooding held up his hands. “It’s only me,” he said. “Are you all right? Will you be able to focus tonight?”
“You know it,” I muttered, crossing my arms. “Just love killing me some Tinkerbell.”
Gooding pulled one of his “God is disappointed in you” faces, but before he opened his mouth, the door cracked open to reveal a plump woman in a floral top. Her bloodshot eyes flicked uncertainly to me, then to Gooding as if to ask, What the hell?
“Father,” she breathed. “I thought … Well, I thought we agreed to be discreet about this.”
“Miss Johnson is my assistant, Mrs. Barnett,” Gooding assured her. “Trust me, she’s a very capable young woman. Why, she even helped with Mrs. Clegg’s trouble.”
Mrs. Barnett’s lips twisted into a pained grimace. It took everything I had not to shift from foot to foot like an anxious toddler. I knew exactly what I looked like: dark hair, dark clothes, dark eyeliner, and let’s not forget the charming moniker of “Crazy Man’s Kid” courtesy of Dad’s reputation around town.
I bit the inside of my cheek and stole another quick glance at the banister. Lucky for us both, the shadeling had disappeared.
Mrs. Barnett nodded and stepped aside, gesturing us in. “It started a few weeks ago,” she said in a hushed voice. “I thought it was colic. But he was hungry all the time and…”
She led us through a pink-carpeted living room packed with the same kitschy cheer as the porch. I wrinkled my nose at a smiling porcelain fairy, holding a mushroom as an umbrella and beaming up at me like it was so innocent.
As Mrs. Barnett led us down her tidy hallway, I turned the fairy to face the wall and followed her to the door at the end. A bright blue plaque reading ARTHUR had been glued to the wood, surrounded by paper cutouts of a smiling sun, fluffy clouds, and plump little airplanes. Mrs. Barnett paused at the door, her fingers hovering over the handle.