Wood Sprites

24: Joy

The news was full of the attack on Windwolf and his disappearance. Lacking concrete details, the media filled in with speculation. What was known as fact was that the viceroy and his bodyguards had been traveling in two separate Rolls-Royces from the south edge of the Rim. At some point the two vehicles had been separated. Near dawn, Windwolf’s car was found in an area called Fairywood, along with the body of his driver. To Louise’s guilty relief, the sekasha that had been killed was Hawk Scream; the warrior’s neck had been broken by a large animal. Since the police were involved in the shoot-out on Veterans Bridge, the search for Windwolf had been left to the EIA.

Knowing that the very people that attacked Windwolf also controlled the EIA, Louise was afraid that he might be dead. The only thing that gave her hope was an odd dream she had about him surviving the night without magic to protect him.

Certainly the media had decided that the viceroy was dead; they debated who would replace Windwolf and what his death would mean to Pittsburgh. Would the elves declare war on the humans? Should the UN pull in extra troops just in case to protect the human population? Or would the elves consider that a sign of aggression? Analysts pointed out that this wasn’t the first time that a sekasha had been killed by an animal while guarding Windwolf. Five years earlier, humans had a caged saurus on display at the fairgrounds. When the massive lizard broke free, it had wounded the viceroy and mauled one of his bodyguards before Windwolf killed it with a flame strike. The elves hadn’t threatened war at the time; they had simply deported the humans responsible.

Other sources, though, pointed out that Windwolf had been the one who meted out the punishment on the criminally negligent. Sparrow’s sense of justice was unknown. Analysts were optimistic. Louise was not.

It was surreal to stand on the train platform, hear the endless speculation, and know what the rest of the world didn’t. Surely this is what a sighted person would feel like in a country of blind people.

Sparrow would take command of the Westernlands until Queen Soulful Ember could choose a new viceroy. Between the moles in the EIA and her leadership of the Elves, Pittsburgh had fallen into the hands of the very people who had attacked Windwolf. There had been a reason that Sparrow wanted Windwolf dead. It may have been solely for the ability to start a war. By secretly controlling both sides, Sparrow could easily manipulate conflicts until humans and elves were at each other’s throats.

Zahara ambushed them at the top of the stairs to the fifth-grade floor. “Did you see the news?”

“About Windwolf?” Louise felt guilty. Guilty that she hadn’t been able to warn anyone on Elfhome. Guilty that she hadn’t told any of her friends. Guilty that they needed to go on acting like they knew nothing about forces of evil trying to destroy the peace that existed between humans and elves.

“No. Not that. That sucks. I mean about Nigel Reid.”

“What happened to Nigel?” Louise cried. The last twenty-four hours had been nothing but bad news.

“He’s going to Elfhome!” Zahara obviously thought this was good news. “NBC announced it this morning! He’s going to be doing a show called Chased by Monsters, and they’re going to start filming next Shutdown.”

“Last I heard, he was filming the pilot here on Earth.” The twins had verified Aunt Kitty’s news while arranging to give Nigel the gossamer call at the gala.

“What? No. The network pulled serious strings yesterday and pushed the visas through.”

“Why?” Louise cried. “This is the worse time possible for him to go!”

“Taggart,” Jillian muttered darkly.

“Huh?” Zahara was lost in the conversation.

“Taggart is a famous war correspondent,” Jillian explained. “He left CNN to team up with Nigel to do nature documentaries. NBC must be counting on war breaking out and want someone there that can cover it for them.”

“Why would a war break out?” Zahara asked.

The bell for homeroom saved Louise from having to answer.

With the addition of Iggy and three of his biggest pirate classmates, they were trooped downstairs to the auditorium for an entire day of flying. They were going to choreograph the fight scene on the Jolly Roger. The main focus of the battle was Hook and Peter’s duel, but the three Darling children would flit about on the edges, having their own moments as they took on and conquered a pirate. Louise had written big sweeping fight music for the battle, but it needed logical pauses in the score for Jillian and the others to deliver their lines.

Louise took her place at the control board and opened up a browser to the Internet. As Zahara claimed, NBC stated that Nigel would be sent to Elfhome next Shutdown to film Chased by Monsters. Horrible, horrible title for such a noble, gentle, and intelligent man. What was he thinking? She checked Nigel’s website. He had the same information that he’d featured a week ago. It was possible that the sudden change had flooded him with things that needed to be done since he had only twenty-some days to prepare for filming on another planet and get to the Pittsburgh border. The NBC press release said nothing about Windwolf or Taggart or EIA or visa problems. Zahara’s statement about the network pulling strings sounded right, but where would she get that idea, since she clearly wasn’t thinking about political ramifications?

Louise checked Jello Shots. The website was in furious debate. The source of Zahara’s comment was obvious as the fans weighed in on how NBC had rammed Nigel through the EIA’s visa bottleneck. What would their beloved Lemon-Lime do about Windwolf’s death? Would Lemon-Lime ignore it and continue on with Prince Yardstick or herald in Sparrow as the new viceroy of the Westernlands?

The question made Louise want to rage. She would never acknowledge Sparrow’s character, Jerked, as viceroy, even if the real person claimed the title. Prince Yardstick would survive the attack in their videos.

A new thread popped up: Did Lemon-Lime put Nigel in the last video knowing that Taggart would be needed on Elfhome?

Louise stared at the heading in dismay and anger. They had made the video before they had overheard Sparrow plotting. And certainly, they had never expected to be able to influence anyone to the point of getting Nigel a visa to Elfhome. If they’d known all that was coming and the extent of their fame. .

They did know what was going on. They knew Sparrow and others were kidnapping scientists to build a secret gate between worlds. They knew that the scientists were balking when they discovered that their work would plunge Elfhome into war. They knew that Sparrow and Ambassador Feng had been behind the plot to kill Windwolf. They knew that there were moles in the EIA, using that agency to keep out anyone who might investigate their activities.

They knew. And as Lemon-Lime, they could do something about it.

Louise took a deep, cleansing breath. Right. Lemon-Lime was going on the warpath. It was a good thing that she needed to write fight music already.

“You did what?” Jillian cried as they detoured to the grocery store after school. It was odd walking through the store knowing that they could afford to buy anything they wanted.

“I had a dream last night that Windwolf survived the attack. Peter Pan and Tinker Bell — the fairy, not our sister — saved him while riding hoverbikes, so I turned it into a video. I called it The Queen’s Salvage.”

“What — what — what?”

“I think Orville was supposed to be Peter Pan in my dream because Tinker Bell looked like Alexander.” She picked up a bag of cheddar-flavored goldfish crackers. Their mother usually insisted on healthy snacks like carrots and grapes.

“This is all kinds of wrong. First off, we don’t know if Windwolf survived.”

“No one will know until next Shutdown, but everyone is acting like he was killed. If we don’t remind people that he might be alive, the UN is going to steamroll through several votes, including the quarantine zone expansion, which they were putting on hold. Oh! Chocolate-covered strawberries.”

“Okay.” Jillian looked at her as if she’d grown a second head.

Louise shook the strawberries at Jillian. “The person most vocal about pushing through the votes? Ambassador Feng. They’re using this attack to leverage what they want. And we’ve got to stop them.”

“Us?”

“We’re the only ones that seem to know the truth.” Louise added the strawberries to her basket.

“What if they get mad and start to look for us?”

“Jello Shots have been trying to figure out who we are for the last two years. We apparently are like world-class ninjas because a hundred thousand geeks haven’t been able to find a clue.”

“I don’t know if that’s scary or sad.”

“I think it’s both.” Louise picked up premium beef jerky that their mother would never, never buy because of how horribly expensive it was.

“Yeah, both.” Jillian eyed the basket. “Why are you buying so much junk? You know we’ll have to hide it all.”

“Because we can,” Louise said. “Besides, I want something in case we get hungry. We’ve got lots of work to do. Thank God we’re nearly done with saving the babies.”

“So this video is of Peter Pan and Tinker Bell saving Windwolf?”

Louise laughed. “No, I just riffed on my dream. Two Pittsburghers save him. I don’t even name them. The guy is dressed up as an African explorer. The girl looks like Tinker Bell with the blond hair and the breasts, but she has a flamethrower. They kill this saurus chasing Windwolf and take him to the Neighborhood of Make-Believe.”

“That is so weird. Why?”

“I had a dream about Nigel in Pittsburgh. I just smashed the two dreams together to protect Alexander.”

“Okay, that works.” They stopped in the kitchen equipment aisle and considered the tools. They needed heavy gloves, tongs, and something to stand in for the rack holding the vials of frozen embryos so they could practice stealing them out of the liquid nitrogen vaults. “Did you check on the snake?”

“Yes, we can pick it up tomorrow afternoon. All we need to do is make sure ice doesn’t melt in the nactka and we’re ready to roll.”

They’d been so upset the night of the robbery that they’d just brought the nactka home inside the gift-shop box and hidden it away in the back of their closet. There it had stayed, untouched.

They set up for the experiment on their desk, arranging the magic generator, oven mitts, scissors, a thermometer, and a glass of normal ice. They’d toyed with stealing a cup of liquid nitrogen out of the chemistry lab at school, but the long commute on the crowded train made it unsafe and impractical.

Her first impression of the nactka, as Louise lifted it out of its box, remained of a delicately etched monster-size egg. According to the codex, much like Dufae’s box, it required magic to open and close, but once sealed, it would hold whatever was inside in stasis without magic. Louise suspected — if she had translated the Elvish and understood quantum physics as well as she thought — that the device acted like a miniature gate, teleporting whatever was inside from the moment the nactka was sealed to the moment that it was unsealed.

They set the nactka carefully on the magic generator. While Jillian filmed the experiments, Louise took an outside reading of it with the thermometer and made note that it was the same temperature as the room.

“We need to test the ice before it melts.” Jillian pointed her new camera at the glass filled with ice.

“I’m hurrying.” Louise spoke the keyword to unseal the nactka.

The dome of the device cracked at the lines and unfolded like a flower, as if the cream-colored shell was on hinges. They both yelped in surprise as a creature popped up out of the trap and hissed angrily. Before Louise could get a clear look at it, the creature sprang to the edge of the desk, then to her footboard, and then bounced off the glass of the window.

“What is it?” Jillian backed way, trying to film the animal as it bounced around the room like a rubber ball.

“Umm.” Louise got the impression of a small snaky body and a mouth full of teeth. No snake she’d ever seen moved with leaps and bounds. It landed back on the desk beside the nactka and shoved it aside to stand on the magic generator. “I don’t know.” Louise tore open the bag of goldfish crackers and put one of the bright orange fish on the edge of the desk. She softly snapped her fingers; might as well start training it now. “Cracker?”

She sat on her bed, giving the creature an opportunity to investigate the food.

“I don’t think snakes eat crackers.” Jillian worked the zoom controls on her camera.

The creature sniffed loudly and then darted forward to snatch up the goldfish. It opened wide and shoved the cracker into its surprisingly large mouth.

“I don’t think it’s a snake.” Louise slid another goldfish onto the edge of the desk after the creature retreated back to the generator. She snapped her fingers together softly. “Cracker? Snakes don’t have legs.”

“Gecko?” Jillian guessed.

The goldfish was snatched up, crammed into the mouth full of teeth, and chomped loudly. Crumbs rained down on the desktop to be picked up with delicate claw-tipped fingers.

“I–I don’t think geckos have hands.”

Jillian attempted to keep filming and turn on her tablet. “Logically, it’s most likely an Elfhome species of lizard, meaning that it’s dependent on magic to exist, which is why it’s staying near the generator.”

“I think it looks—” Louise squeaked as the thing suddenly leapt onto her shoulder.

They eyed each other nearly nose to nose. It was only about six inches long, covered in scales of a delicate rose color. It clung to her with tiny little pinpricks as claws poked through her shirt. There were five claws on each foot. It had a mane of long slender filaments that seemed too thick to be hair.

It snapped its tiny fingers, opened its wide mouth full of teeth, and said in a tiny, childlike voice, “Cracker!”

Louise blinked in surprise and then fumbled out a small handful of goldfish and held them up to the creature, forgetting to give the training prompt.

It used both front paws to grab up the crackers and shove them all into its mouth, one by one, at express speed. When Louise’s palm was empty, the creature snapped its fingers again and commanded, “Cracker!”

“It can talk!” Jillian whispered.

“She has thumbs.” Louise fed it another cracker while carefully shifting closer to the generator.

“She?”

“She feels like a girl to me.” Louise wondered if the crackers were actually good for the little thing.

The creature snapped her fingers and commanded, “Cracker!”

“Where are the strawberries?” Louise asked.

“Here!” Jillian found the clear plastic container with the chocolate-dipped strawberries.

Chocolate could be fatal to dogs, so Louise picked it off.

“Cracker!” There was impatient snapping of tiny fingers. “Cracker!”

Louise offered the bare strawberry. A giant of its type, the fruit dwarfed the head of the little creature that eyed it dubiously. It looked from Louise to the massive strawberry to Louise and then back to the fruit.

“Strawberry.” Louise took a bite to show that it was edible. “Strawberry?”

The creature plucked the fruit out of her hand, turned it around and around in puzzled study, and then sniffed it. It took one cautious nibble and then, eyes going wide, crammed the entire fruit into its mouth.

“Oh, she’s so cute.” Jillian zoomed in with her camera. “Nom, nom, nom, nom. But what is she?”

“You know, she looks like one of those dragons on Chinese menus.”

The dragon looked up. “Nom, nom, nom, nom.” It snapped its fingers. “Strawberry!”

They took turns feeding her the strawberries and looking up information on Elfhome dragons.

“There’s almost nothing here,” Jillian complained.

“While apparently dragons vary in size, they are reported to be very large, fire-breathing, and dangerous,” Louise read what she found aloud. “Approach with caution. Maybe she’s a baby dragon.”

“Do you think she can breathe fire?” Jillian asked.

They stared at the baby dragon who was munching on the last strawberry.

“Nom, nom, nom.” She licked her fingers and then snapped them. “Cracker!”

“She eats a lot,” Jillian said.

Louise broke open the bag of beef jerky. The baby dragon had learned that new containers equaled new food. The little creature grasped the bag of beef jerky in one hand and with the other was stuffing pieces of the dried meat into its mouth as fast as it could chew. “Nom, nom, nom!”

“Good thing you got so many snacks,” Jillian said.

“We should give her a name.”

“We’re keeping her? What do we tell Mom and Dad?”

“We don’t have to tell them. We’ll keep her in our room. We could get a little aquarium for her when we’re at school.”

Jillian shook her head. “That’s not going to work. Sooner or later, they’re going to find out.”

“We just need to buy some time until we can figure out what to tell them. We can come up with some story about finding her in the subway or something.” It couldn’t be “buying,” because they’d try to make them take the dragon back to the mythical store. There was also the uneasy question of where they’d gotten the money to buy an exotic pet. “Think of it as a challenge.”

Jillian flopped onto her bed. “I never thought I’d get tired of lying.”

“We need to name her.”

“Let’s call her Greedy Gut.” Jillian patted the bed beside her. “Greedy Gut! Greedy Gut!”

The baby dragon stuck out its tongue and blew a raspberry.

“I don’t think she likes that name.”

So while the baby dragon polished off the beef jerky, they tried out names. They had named lots of characters in the past, but nothing alive with a personality that they couldn’t change at whim.

Louise felt like a name was floating on the edge of her awareness, but she couldn’t quite grasp it. “It should be something bright, and happy, and female.”

“Bossy.” Jillian got another raspberry for the suggestion. “She reminds me of some senile old grandmother.”

The name finally came within reach. “Joy. I think her name is Joy.” No raspberry. “See, she likes it.”

Jillian came to eye the baby dragon. “No, she’s just falling asleep now that all the food is gone. I think her name is Bottomless Pit.”

“Her name is Joy,” Louise repeated more firmly. “And you can’t blame her for being hungry; she hasn’t had anything to eat for hundreds of years.”

Jillian gasped. “Oh my God! Lou! What’s in the other eleven nactka still in the box?”

“Oh no!” Louise leapt to the codex and quickly looked up the longest passage regarding the device. “Twelve loaded nactka! They all have something in them!”

“Eleven more like her?” Jillian eyed the baby dragon. “What would we do with twelve of them?”

Louise was amazed that Jillian even asked the question. “She’s obviously very intelligent. She might even be smarter than a human. It’s been — what — five minutes and she already knows three words of English.”

“‘Nom, nom, nom’ is not a word,” Jillian said.

“We need to get them out of the box!”

“What if the elves took the box? They were going to take three items.”

They hacked into the museum and checked the security monitors, but the box had always been screened from the cameras. There was no way of telling if the box was still there.

“They would have to tell France that the elves took the box.” Louise dove into the e-mail system to sift through the curator’s mailbox. Dated late Friday night was an e-mail to the curator at the Louvre explaining that the elves had asked for the return of the box. Not surprisingly, there was no answer until early Monday morning Eastern Standard Time — or normal business hours for Greenwich time — objecting and asking the AMNH not to allow the elves to take the box. The answer was short and simple: the elves had already returned to Elfhome with it.

The Louvre sent back a caustic answer that ended with, “Thankfully the EIA spared us the loss of the tiara.”

Jillian swore softly. “That’s right. The EIA told the French just to send the box.”

Louise checked on the other two items. They were both small pieces of jewelry, obviously worth a good deal in terms of gold and gems but otherwise insignificant. “These are decoys. If they just took the box, everyone would talk only about it, but with the obviously worthwhile items, the box isn’t interesting.”

“If they wanted it, does that mean they know what’s in it?”

“Dufae said he stole the box on Elfhome. Maybe he stole it from Sparrow.”

Joy had crawled into Louise’s lap and fallen asleep. She looked so cute asleep. She was sprawled on her back, front paws on her full tummy and one back leg twitching in time with her soft little snores. Louise stroked one finger over Joy’s buttery-soft hide. The baby dragon nuzzled into her palm with a small purr and then lapsed back into snores.

What was Sparrow going to do with the other eleven?