A Fairy Tale (16 page)

The sisters exchanged a look fraught with meaning. “I thought it took a bit more than that,” Athena said softly.

While they were still caught off-guard, Sophie continued, watching their reactions carefully. “I went in last night to find Tallulah and arrange Emily’s freedom. Before I could reach her, I was attacked. The fairies I was with said the attackers were Maeve’s men. Maeve was the one Tallulah sent after Emily before. But they weren’t dressed like Tallulah’s people. They looked like something out of the Rat Pack era.”

Amelia and Athena exchanged another meaningful look. “I’ll get the chart,” Athena said, hurrying to the shop’s back room.

“Please, have a seat.” Amelia gestured toward the bentwood chairs at a table in the corner. She went to the door, flipped the sign to “closed,” and turned the lock. “This is best done without interruption,” she explained.

Athena returned, hauling a roll of paper nearly as tall as she was. Amelia hooked a loop of ribbon from the top left-hand corner onto a bit of ironwork on the wall, then Athena unrolled the paper and hooked the right-hand loop of ribbon onto another bit of ironwork.

Oh dear,
Sophie thought when she saw the poster.
She’s made a collage.
It was like a giant scrapbook page, filled with photos cut from magazines, stenciled lettering, and fancy borders, all covered in clear adhesive paper. The two elderly sisters positioned themselves on either side of the poster, and Sophie, feeling like she was back in school, folded her hands in her lap and listened attentively.

“Contrary to what Edmund Spenser thought, there is no queen of all the fairies,” Amelia began.

“Though there may have been in his day because we know there once was, but who she was and what happened to her has been forgotten,” Athena interjected.

With the tiniest of glares at her older sister, Amelia continued, “Instead, there are courts within the Realm, each having its own ruler. These rulers consider themselves to be kings or queens, but they only rule the fairies who have sworn loyalty to that court.”

“They’re like fairy gangs,” Athena said. “They dress and act in ways that fit with the theme of that court. We’ve identified a few of these courts.” She pointed to her poster, which contained pictures cut from magazine articles about the
Lord of the Rings
films, stills from old black-and-white musicals and Doris Day movies, among others. “They seem to be emulating human eras or trends—at least, some of them are. Some of the older courts may have influenced human trends of their time.”

“Maeve has a court?” Sophie asked.

“Maeve’s court is new—if you can even call it an official court,” Amelia said. “There were no signs of it until perhaps fifteen years ago.”

Athena pointed to the Doris Day photos. “She seems to have adopted the mid-twentieth century as the theme of her court—Doris Day,
Breakfast at Tiffany’s,
and the Rat Pack.”

“She was still part of Tallulah’s clan fourteen years ago, though she may have been building a clique of her own,” Sophie said. “Of course, there’s no way of knowing how long ago that was to them. Then she was more like the wild ones. Who leads them?”

“Those are the free fairies,” Amelia said. “They don’t belong to any court, and they answer to no one. They make up by far the majority of the fairy population, and they include the small folk as well as some of the less humanoid denizens of the Realm. If they ever did unite behind a leader, they could easily rule the entire Realm, but they have no interest in either the power or the responsibility. You were accurate to call them wild.”

Sophie nodded. “Those are the ones I know.”

Athena came over and sat in the chair next to Sophie. “How do you know them?”

“I grew up with them. I found them dancing in the woods behind my grandparents’ house when I was very small, and I kept going back until I was almost eighteen. Tallulah led the group I knew, but I stayed away after she tried to take Emily, presumably as her payment for teaching me to dance. Not that I agreed to that bargain, but that’s how they work.”

“They’ve been after Emily here, as well,” Athena said. “We tried to protect her. We masked her aura so they wouldn’t be able to identify her.”

“You did
what
?” Sophie blurted before she could moderate her response. While fairies were commonplace to her and she didn’t question her ability to know when something had happened to a loved one, she didn’t know humans could do magic.

“The fairies see with senses beyond vision,” Amelia explained. “They see a person’s—fairy or human—aura.”

“Yes, I know,” Sophie interrupted impatiently. “But I didn’t realize that could be changed.”

“Not changed so much as hidden.”

“And with unintended consequences,” Athena put in.

“The other missing women,” Sophie surmised. “Detective Murray said there were three other than Emily, including his wife.”

Amelia sighed. “We discovered Emily not long after Jennifer Murray’s disappearance when she visited our shop. The similarity was striking, and her tea leaves suggested that she was the one being pursued. That was when we offered Emily a job so we could look out for her, masked her aura, and suggested she look at the apartment downstairs from Michael Murray. We knew he’d keep a close eye on her, after what happened to his wife.”

Sophie had thought she had a very high tolerance level for weirdness, but this was enough to make her dizzy. She turned the conversation back toward more comfortable areas, like fairy politics. “Why has the throne remained empty all this time?”

“That has been our job, in part,” Amelia said. “We are enchantresses, and our assignment is to make sure no one takes that throne. It would not go well for mankind if the fairies were to unite, especially not now, when people have forgotten how to deal with fairies and protect themselves. So, we disrupt any effort by any of the rulers to seek the throne.”

“How do you know so much about that world if you can’t enter the Realm?” Sophie asked. She felt like she was being told a fairy tale, and these women had made up the whole thing.

“There are places where the worlds meet,” Amelia said. “Not all fae live in the Realm, and most of those in the Realm don’t venture outside. They meet at the markets, and we attend those to learn what’s going on and attempt to influence events.”

“You’ll have to come with us to the next market,” Athena said, far too enthusiastically. “We need you to round out our numbers, and I’m sure you’re the one we’ve been looking for.”

Sophie had hoped that she might have allies who knew what was really happening, but now she feared these two were insane, with just enough of the truth to sound marginally coherent. If they thought they were enchantresses tasked with influencing fairy politics, they had to be touched in the head. Sadly, most people who thought they knew about fairies turned out to be quite mad—or perhaps had been driven mad by the knowledge. Was that her future? She wondered if she could flee without looking rude. “I’m not an enchantress,” she said as firmly as possible.

“Then what do you think you are?” Amelia asked. Sophie opened her mouth to say that she was a ballet teacher, but Amelia cut her off. “Don’t play dumb. You consort with fairies. Ordinary people don’t do that. You come and go at will from the Realm. Even we can’t do that. We’ve heard Emily’s stories about your uncanny knack for knowing when things will happen or what people are thinking—and for bending people to your will. Even if you’ve never been formally trained in its use, you have power.”

Sophie was no longer worried about appearing rude. She stood, snapped her fingers to summon Beau, and said, “I’m sorry for taking up so much of your time. Thank you for your assistance.”

Athena hopped to her feet and ran to get between Sophie and the door. “But we need you! We’re one short.”

“One short?” Sophie asked, already regretting the question but too curious not to ask it.

“We usually work in threes—it’s a traditional thing. You know, the phases of woman, maiden, mother, and crone. Amelia’s the mother, and I’m afraid I’ve become the crone after aging out of the maiden role. Amelia’s daughter married and left us years ago. You’re just what we need. You are a maiden, obviously.”

Sophie felt her face flame. “I don’t see how that’s any business of yours,” she said haughtily as she tried to sidestep Athena to get to the door. If she had magical powers, she would have used them to vanish from this place.

Athena took her arm in a gesture that appeared to be reassuring, even while it imposed an iron grip to keep Sophie from escaping. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, my dear,” she said soothingly. “It’s just rare these days. That rather complicates staffing for us.”

If she’d tried to speak, she would have stammered or sputtered, so Sophie kept her mouth shut and held her head up high as she fought to will some of the blood to leave her face. Athena was right, it wasn’t anything to be ashamed of. Besides, her hometown was hardly a target-rich environment for eligible men, and she was related to most of those who were halfway decent. Then there was the fact that most men were utterly terrified of her.

It wasn’t as though she had time to date, either, not between school and ballet training, and then later her family and civic responsibilities. Even if there had been a man she found appealing who wasn’t related to her and wasn’t afraid to ask her out, she couldn’t possibly have found time to develop a relationship.

She realized then that she’d been silent for so long that the silence had become as awkward as stammering and sputtering would have been. “I’m only here to find Emily, and then I have to return home,” she said. “I’m therefore not a suitable candidate for the position.”

She picked up Beau’s leash and turned to leave. Her hand had grasped the door handle when Amelia said from behind her, “Do you think you’ll be able to rescue Emily on your own?”

Sophie ignored her. “I need to be going. Good day.” She opened the door and ran blindly up the steps and then down the sidewalk. If she’d known Emily was working for people that unstable, she’d have come to deal with the situation much sooner. Two crazy old women like that, responsible for keeping the fairy realm from uniting in order to protect mankind from a fairy invasion? Ridiculous! And they wanted her to join them because she was also an enchantress, with her pitiful lack of a love life a key factor in her qualifications? Impossible!

She was a ballet teacher in a small Louisiana town. She’d danced with fairies as a child, and as a result she knew a thing or two, but that was all. She certainly didn’t have magical powers.

But they had been right about one thing. She wouldn’t be able to rescue Emily on her own, not using her usual tactics. She’d need to be better prepared this time, armed with more than a horseshoe keychain and a bulldog.

The Murray Residence

Thursday, 3:30 p.m.

Michael was dozing on the sofa when a knock on the door woke him. He sat up and smoothed his hair with his good hand, expecting the visitor to be Sophie, but then a voice boomed, “It’s Tanaka, I still have a key, so don’t get up.” A second later, the door opened and Tanaka entered.

He raised a foil pan. “Marisol’s mother sent enchiladas. And Copeland says you’d better get well soon because he doesn’t think he can take much more griping about her mother.”

“Tell him to get shot. That’s how I got a break,” Michael quipped.

Tanaka put the pan in the refrigerator, then came into the living room and sat in the chair he’d taken the day before. “I don’t know why Mari’s sending food if you’re well enough to be back at work,” he said, leaning back and crossing his right ankle over his left knee.

“Back at work?”

“Yeah, all that legwork you did last night. I told you to take it easy.”

“I just went to the theater and got a few names. I was trying to help.”

Tanaka nodded, then said, “It did give me a head start, but now you are off this case for good, you hear me?”

Michael raised his good hand in surrender. “Loud and clear. I saw the doctor this morning, and I’ve been resting since then. I’ll leave the search for Emily up to you from now on. Is there any news on that front?”

Tanaka wagged a finger at him. “Ah, ah, ah. There you go again.”

“Oh, come on, Tank, you only got involved in this because you were worried about me. Aren’t you worried what I might do if I don’t know what’s going on?”

Tanaka sighed as his shoulders sagged. “Okay, but this is totally off the record. You didn’t hear it from me. I’ve got a memo out to see which of our guys were at the diner that night, and the waitress is meeting with a sketch artist this afternoon. I talked to the friends, and I’ve gotta say, they don’t add up.”

Trying not to show any reaction, Michael asked, “How so?”

“They seem surprisingly hazy about events after they left the diner. They didn’t remember any other person joining them—didn’t even remember the guy asking for an autograph, but they remember getting home with crystal clarity. It’s weird.”

“I was wondering if you’d catch that.”

“You got the same thing?”

“Yeah. Do you think they’re behind it?”

“My gut says no, but I’ve gotta go with the evidence and consider them persons of interest, at the very least. Not only do they not have alibis, but they were with her when she vanished and claim not to have noticed.” He paused, then asked, “Have you talked to your ballerina today?”

“I had breakfast with her. Why, haven’t you?”

“Not yet. Haven’t heard a peep from her.”

Michael wasn’t sure he should say anything, but Tank needed to know, so he said, “I get this strange feeling that she’s not all that interested in the investigation. She flew all the way here, but I had to talk her into calling the police. It was my idea to go to the theater and talk to people. She rolled her eyes at the fliers the theater people were handing out. She hasn’t called you for updates. She seems to care about Emily, but she’s not trying too hard to find her. Not through the normal channels, anyway.”

Tanaka was too good a detective not to pick up on the way he worded that. “What do you mean?”