The Fairy Portal Second Edition

Chapter Eight

Clementine only agreed to help them because they were Florence's grandchildren, Blake was sure. Dix seemed a little more invested in helping Tassie, but both were very non-committal about what the results might be. Still, it couldn't be anything too dangerous, or they wouldn't have agreed to try.

The five of them sat around the little table again, Tassie up on Blake's shoulder. It was unnerving to have other people look and speak directly at and to her, but Clementine, Dix, and Grandma Florence all did just that. Clementine cleared off the table and pulled off and folded up the black silk cloth that covered it, revealing a cut down the middle. She unfolded it. The table was the Ouija board, the letters and words ornately painted in golden-yellow directly onto the black wood. Clementine produced a glass and handed it to Dix, who handed it to Blake. The younger woman left the room without a word. Dix sighed.

"She's never been comfortable with the Good Folk, not since the first time," she said.

"I don't blame her," Florenece muttered. She wasn't keen on her grandchildren playing with the Otherworld, but if what they had said was true -- and she had no reason to believe they'd lie -- the Otherworld was already playing with them, and they needed to know what to do about it. They couldn't have Redcaps wandering the woods. Things would go back to the way they'd been in the Old Days, when any of the Fair Folk could grab a human off the road, or from their bed.

Blake looked down at the glass in his hands and Dix said, "Put it top down in the top middle of the board and put your first two fingers on either side."

Blake did so. Dix put her fingers over his, and continued, "Tassie, I need your hands on it, too."

Tassie fluttered over from Blake's shoulder and hovered in midair like a hummingbird, her hands on the edge of the glass in between Blake and Dix's fingers.

Dix took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Everyone else followed suit.

"Kings and Queens of the Gentry of the Forest, we reach out to you for information and to ask for advice. Are you present?"

For a moment, everything was still. Then the glass shuddered, and slid over to the "Yes." Blake's breath caught, but he allowed his fingers to move with the glass. He stayed silent and let Dix and Tassie take the lead.

"Are you willing to converse with us?"

Yes.

"Kings and Queens of the Gentry of the Forest," Tassie began again. "our portal has been down for months. The humans are planning to rip it down, and we don't know what to do to stop it. Can you help us?"

Yes.

"What should we do?"

The glass slowly moved between the letters, pausing every few moments to lay emphasis on whichever character it was covering.

Arrwynnjn.

"It's gibberish," Blake started to say, but Dix interrupted him with a sharp look.

Tassie muttered each letter aloud to herself as the glass spelled out the their answer, and finally, when it stopped, she spelled it out again, quicker. She bit her lip and gave a sharp nod.

"Can you send anyone through?"

No.

"Are you trapped?"

Yes.

"Am I trapped?"

Yes.

Tassie inhaled sharply and her hair shivered like hundreds of rattlesnakes.

"How can we open it again?"