Through the Fairy Ring

Chapter Twenty-Eight

"Do you know where we're going?" I whispered. My voice carried over the silence of our surroundings, and I winced.

Arden pointed down the main corridor. "That way."

"Maybe we should get a plan together." Maybe we should have done that outside, before people might hear us.

"The plan is to find some Pixie dust. They must have some in storage somewhere. We just need to find the room."

I tip-toed down the corridor, Frederick at my side and Arden right behind me. Every little sound—which was usually a bird or a squirrel overhead—made my shoulders tense. "Right. But we don't know where to look. And what happens when some Pixies find us in their home?"

"We'll tell them we were worried because no one answered the door, and could we please see Amena."

The hallway changed to the cathedral arch tree branches. An odd greenish light glowed around us. "Isn't the Pixie dust just one ingredient to the antidote? How are we going to know how to use it, even if we do find some?"

"One thing at a time. Let's find the dust, first." Arden pulled me down a corridor on our right. "If I remember, the living spaces are on the left of the main corridor. The ritual and healing rooms, educational rooms and such are on the right. If we can find the ritual room, there should be a connecting room that houses all the items for the rituals. Surely there would be some Pixie dust in it."

I followed Arden through another doorway into a cave-like room. The rock walls had detailed images of Devil's Tower and the surrounding area carved into them. Soft yellow orbs, like the ones I could create, floated along the ceiling at regular intervals. Small fabric rugs, which reminded me of prayer mats, scattered on the floor. A large space remained open along the far-side wall.

"Stay here and make sure no one comes. I'm going to check the side room." Arden crossed the room, angling toward the doorway in the upper left corner. He barely opened the door before I heard him mutter something that resembled a curse word. "Hazel, you need to see this."

I weaved my way through the rugs. "Did you find some Pixie dust?" That wouldn't make him so somber. Maybe he found bones we'd have to grind up. Or, worse yet, maybe he found a corpse waiting for the ritual. I steeled myself for a gruesome discovery.

Instead I found Arden kneeling several feet from a tiny metal cage. A dark haired, dark eyed little boy about five or six years old peered at me from behind the bars. His face was dirty, but tears had left clean tracks down his cheeks.

"Oh my god!" I rushed to the cage. The child scrambled backward, pushing himself into a ball in the corner, his eyes wild with fear.

I dropped to my knees and raised my hands so he could see them. "No, it's okay. We're going to help you."

Arden eased himself to sit beside me, while he projected the reassuring warmth of Daragward magic toward the child. He gave the boy a friendly smile. "I'm going to see if I can open the door, all right? Don't be afraid."

The boy continued to stare at us with large eyes, his arms wrapped around his knees. What had the Pixies done to him? What was he even doing here? The Pixies were supposed to protect humans, not kidnap them.

I followed Arden's lead and moved slowly to the edge of the cage. "Hey, you're going to be okay. We're going to take care of you. We'll get you back to your family. You have a family, don't you?"

The boys eyes filled with tears, and his mouth twisted into a pink knot.

"No, no. Don't cry! Listen, my name's Hazel, and he's Arden. I have children. My sister is about your age, and my little boy is just a baby. I can't imagine how your mother must be feeling." I couldn't stop myself from talking, mostly because I was afraid if I didn't distract the boy, he would start to cry. Or I might, imagining the terror he and his family must be going through. "What's your name?"

He made no effort to respond.

"Do you know how long you've been here?" Still nothing. I glanced at Arden, whose face grew stormier with each second he tried to open the lock.

"Do you have any brothers or sisters? Pets?"

A gleam of something lit the little boy's eyes. "Do you have a dog? Or maybe you're more a cat person?"

The boy shook his head, and hid his face on his legs, but said, "Dog."

"A dog! Is it a big dog or a little one?"

One brown eye peeked at me over his knee. "Big."

"Okay! Well, that's lovely, to have a big dog. Do you know what kind it is? Or, what's its name?"

"Gods!" Arden sat back on his heels, his forehead wrinkled in frustration. "It won't open. There is a ward that stops any magic from opening it. We're going to have to find the physical key."

The boy's lower lip trembled. "Don't go."

"One of us will stay, right Arden?"

"If two of us are looking, we will find the key sooner." Arden flipped his braid over his shoulder.

"Wait, I know." I turned to the boy. "I bet you didn't know I have a special cat. His name is Frederick, and he understands people. Would you like to see him? He's in the other room. Let me get him."

I got to my feet and jogged into the ritual room. "Frederick, where are you?"

A meow came from the hallway. Frederick poked his head into the room.

"Can you come here? There's a boy..."

Frederick streaked around me and disappeared into the side room. By the time I'd returned, Frederick had squeezed between the bars and was sitting in the boy's lap.

Arden shut the end door of a row of cupboards situated along the back wall. "Nothing here. No dust, no key. Nothing."

All right, then. We'd have to go on a key hunt. I knelt down next to the cage. The boy stroked the space between Fredrick's ears and whispered to him, which Frederick rewarded with a low, satisfied purr. "What did I tell you? He loves you! Listen, we'll be right back, okay?"

The boy didn't even notice us leave. I pulled Arden to a stop before we got into the hallway.

"Do you think that's the child Brother Wilford talked about?"

"Probably. I'll go back into the living quarters and see if I can find Amena's room. She might have a key there. You go farther toward the front door and see what you can find."

"Okay. Let's hurry. I'll meet you back at the boy." I trotted as quietly as I could toward the main part of the Pixie house, stopping in each of the rooms I passed on the way. I searched sitting rooms similar to the one I'd been in with Amena, but with smaller than average chairs and sofas, a music room filled with a variety of stringed instruments, and an extensive library filled with books of all sizes sitting on shelves made of intertwined tree branches. Each was empty of people, and none held the key. Or Pixie dust, either.

The lack of occupants was starting to freak me out. Something was rotten in the State of Pixieland.

I reached the front door empty handed and turned around, wondering where the kitchen was. Kitchens always had junk drawers, which often held keys. I headed back down the hallway toward the living quarters and Arden.

A loud squeak emanated from a door just ahead of me, and I froze. In the middle of a stretch of plain hallway, I had no where to hide. I backed up, keeping my eyes on the door.

Where was Arden?

I tripped over a tree root and slammed to the ground. I landed square on my back, hard enough to send the air wooshing from my body and numb my lungs.

"Hazel?"

I looked up into Drostan's face, a perplexed expression knotting his eyebrows together.

"What are you doing here?" He squatted next to me and took my arm to help me stand. "In fact, how did you get in? I thought everyone was at the meeting."