Faerie Dust Dead (The Luna Devere Series Book 2) (7 page)

Ari shook her head. “There were
no faeries or creatures of any kind in the area. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to
take the dust for use in my leaded glass creations. When the faeries saw what
I’d done, they were excited and offered small bits of dust. One of them told me
they weren’t allowed to do so, and I promised not to tell. They are quite
mischievous, and like to break the rules whenever they think they can get away
with it. We made a deal and I kept their offerings to myself. They spread their
dust around and let me know where to find it.”

Even though his eyes never
warmed, Calis offered a half-baked apology. “There was more evidence of dust in
the woods today. I may have jumped to conclusions about your part in their
demise, but I must insist you discontinue using faeries dust.”

I smirked over how it must have
pained him to admit he was mistaken. I gave Arianna a slight nod. She took a
deep breath and agreed to Calis’s request.

“I’ll get rid of the dust I
have. As for the pixie, I don’t exactly know how that came to be. One morning I
went into the studio to fire up the furnace and there he was,” Ari said with a
shrug. “He came out of the shadows, claimed he’d protect me while I worked with
the dust and that I should gather as much of it as I could...” Ari’s voice
trailed off, then she said, “Now that I think about it, there’s been less dust
available to work with these past few weeks. The faeries drop the dust in the
woods, I collect and cover it immediately so it doesn’t fade. With the pixie
present for longer periods of time, I’ve been reluctant to leave my work.” Ari
locked eyes with Calis. “Is he dangerous to the faeries? If so, why?”

Calis ignored her questions
with one of his own. “He’s ferocious, you say?”

Ari nodded. “I was sure he’d
spell Luna, so we left the studio the day she came over.”

“Does this pixie have a name?”
Calis asked.

The conversation had taken a
leap into a place I wasn’t sure I wanted to go. Magic, pixies, and the death of
faeries were subjects for story tellers, not for reality. I shivered slightly
and then turned my attention back to the present.

“Does his name matter? We
aren’t going to invite him for tea, are we?” I asked drily.

“It matters; believe me,” Calis
said in a sharp tone.

Arianna wrung her hands before
she admitted to not knowing. “It never occurred to me to ask. He is scary and I
wasn’t about to push my luck. I might be in as much danger from him as the faeries
are.”

Calis agreed with a nod. “Find
out what he’s called, if you can. I have an idea who he is, I just need to know
before we move ahead.”

I glanced at my watch. Work
awaited me at the Junction. Glass cases needed to be washed and readied for the
following day, floors had to be scrubbed, and stock replaced. That was just the
beginning of what had to be done.

“Can we wrap this up? I have to
get back to the shop,” I said.

“As long as I know you’ll both
work with me on this, I feel confident the faeries can be saved.” Calis glanced
at each of us and said, “Keep what we’ve spoken of to yourselves. It’s as much
for your safety, as it is for the faeries.”

In agreement, I gave him a nod,
and Arianna muttered something about hard work for naught. I glanced at her
over my shoulder as Calis and I reached the door and said, “If things get any
more serious, there’ll be no recovering from what could happen to all of us.
There’s magic afoot, Ari. You and I both know it.”

Abashed, Ari assured me she
understood. With a heavy sigh, she closed the door behind us and I heard the
lock click into place. As we walked away, I glanced back and saw her peering
out the small window framed in the door.

Calis walked alongside me on
the path. The time had flown and the dusky evening had settled into darkness.
Tuned to hear any noise that might come from what lived in the trees and brush,
I was surprised when there was no sound at all in the woods.

The faeries were absent… I saw
no critters, and I could only put it down to the company I kept. If I found
Calis a bit fearsome, then perhaps he exuded enough power to strike fear into
the hearts of all who lived in the wooded acres between me and Arianna. Before
I could open my mouth, Calis said, “Strangely, there aren’t any creatures about
tonight. Any idea why, Luna?”

“No, but I was thinking the
same thing. Maybe they know you’re here and why. Maybe they want to avoid you
at all costs, and maybe I should take that as a sign.”

Soft laughter met my words as
he closed his hand around my upper arm. “You’ve given me your word that you’ll
help me out; don’t go back on it now. I’m not from here, which means you have
information that may be useful when it comes to dealing with others and moving
through the surroundings.”

The pressure of his fingers
seemed to burn my skin. Unwilling to let him know I found him disturbing, I
came to a halt and faced him squarely. “If you aren’t from here, where are you
from?” Did he mean he wasn’t from Earth or was he just from another part of the
country? The United States is quite large.

He smiled full-on and I stepped
back. He said, “Don’t worry about where I’m from, but worry about where we will
end up if we don’t straighten out this faerie matter.” He moved on.

We’d made it to the clearing
outside the house in a matter of seconds. I heard Riddles yowl loudly. In a
rush to find him, I tripped over my own feet, fell to the ground with an
oomph
and skinned my knees on the brick garden path.

Calis grasped my arms and
dragged me to my feet. “Are you always this graceful?” he asked as he inspected
my knees in the light from the porch. I thanked my lucky stars that I’d had
motion sensor lighting installed when I’d first moved into the Junction. It had
come in handy more than once.

“Your knees are scraped and
bleeding. You’ll need to deal with that immediately. The cat will be fine, he
just knows I’m here and doesn’t like it one bit. I’ll talk to you tomorrow,
sometime,” Calis said.

I leaned over and gently
touched the scrapes with my fingertips. When I straightened up to answer him, I
found I was alone at the edge of the path. Riddles sat gawking at me on the top
step of the porch. He no longer yowled and screamed, but appeared quiet and
serene.

With my hand on my hip, I
scolded him. “Sure, now that I’ve injured myself trying to save you from God
knows what, you sit there like the Lord of the Manor. You need a serious
attitude adjustment, Riddles. I thought you’d come to harm only to find out you
don’t like Calis and you’ve made that quite plain.” I topped the stairs, entered
the house with Riddles on my heels and locked up behind me.

Once my knees were cleaned and
bandaged, I set about cleaning the cooler cases before I readied the shelves
for the round of cupcakes that would make their debut in the morning. Annie and
Dilly had done their part in setting up for the next day, but I had floors to
wash and stock to set out. With Riddles nearby, I worked my way through it all.
He lolled on the countertop while I placed new trinkets on shelves and filled a
rack with books on faerie lore. It was wonderful how the gift shop merchandise
fairly flew out the door. With a smile, I thought of the many people who poured
over faerie folk illustrations and read the captions handwritten by the
authors. It was a pleasure to see others as rapt as I was with a very real fascination
for fae life.

Finished for the day, Riddles
and I headed to our small flat. He munched cat crunchies from his bowl while I
made an omelet for supper. All the while, I considered the events that now
plagued me worse than a bad rash.

At the table, I made my way
through the omelet and flipped pages of my father’s journal. I had started to
scour it when I’d first pulled the bunch of them from the storage closet. I’d
reached the section on pixies and found myself enthralled with what he’d
written and illustrated. I studied each picture and read paragraphs of
information, amazed at how in-depth his knowledge of fae folk had been. Why
hadn’t I realized before now, that this was here to educate me? Had I not
wanted to believe there was more to the fae than I could see, or was aware of?
How foolish I’d been to let this precious research fall by the wayside,
untouched and unread.

After I’d gleaned what I could
from the pages of one journal, I moved to a soft cushioned chair, plucked
another book from the pile and began skimming it. I was unsure what to look
for. If I’d seen the pixie who had lingered in the shadows of Ari’s studio, I
might have a better idea of what would be useful. I set the book aside and was leaning
back in a wide yawn when the phone rang.

Devin’s voice filtered over the
line, swelling my heart just to hear him speak. Goodness, I missed him.

“You wouldn’t happen to be
home, would you?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t be on the phone
with you if I was home,” he answered with a chuckle. I’d be in bed with you,
right now.”

“
Crap.
I knew it was too
much to hope for. Any idea on the exact date of your return?” I insisted on
knowing.

“Like I said, it’ll be awhile.
Charles has come up with another project or two he’d like me to do before I
leave, so you’ll have to hang in there. You could come down here for a visit,
you know, Western Massachusetts isn’t that far away,” Devin said.

I sighed and said, “That’s not
likely to happen, we’ve been incredibly busy here. As it is, I have to get more
help in, at least until the holiday season is over.”

“Business is good, then. The
regular help will be happy, and maybe you’ll be able get some rest after
Christmas.” Devin laughed. “The end of the season is only a month or so away.
I’m sure you can manage to not overwork yourself.”

“I guess. Honestly, I’m not
complaining… It’s the other stuff that has me worried.”

The silence on the phone lasted
for what seemed an hour, but it was surely only a second or two before Devin
asked, “What other stuff? Do you mean Arianna?”

His voice changed, and the cool
quality of his voice raised the hairs on the back of my neck. Instantly, I
became suspicious of his reluctance to discuss Arianna with me. I said, “The
faeries are being drained of their dust, Devin. Ari acts like she’s lost her
marbles, and hasn’t a clue as to what the hell is going on. Gosh, if I thought
for one moment her crackers had crumbled, I’d pack up and leave town. I’ve had
enough crazy people in my life to last me a long time.”

All right, I was on a rant. The
past summer had left me short tempered in the crazies’ department. With everything
that was taking place, I felt like I was living a bad dream from which I
couldn’t awaken. Top that with Devin’s unwillingness to tell me what he knew about
Arianna, and… Well, it all left me on overload. The fact that I’d left Calis
out of the conversation also left me uncomfortable, but should I need him,
Devin was too far away to be of any use to me anyway.

“You sound a bit hysterical,
Luna. I can’t come back right now, so you’ll have to make the best of things.
You can do that, can’t you?” Devin asked in a serious tone.

I took a deep breath and rubbed
my forehead. “Sure, I’ll manage. Give my love to the Mr. and Mrs. and hug them
for me, too. I’ll talk to you soon.” When the line went dead, I hung up the
phone and rested my head against the back of the arm chair.
Was I losing my
mind, or what?
It seemed everyone had an agenda but me. Darn, that’s
annoying.

It occurred to me that I’d have
to look out for myself, no matter what life threw my way. I wondered what the
future held.

Chapter
6

The alarm clock sounded, bringing my day to
a new start. Dressed in slacks and a jersey, I headed downstairs to the
creation station and began the cupcake-making process. Within a few hours, I’d
baked dozens of cupcake varieties and was heavy handedly frosting them.

Rich, creamy frosting swirled
atop luscious white chocolate chip cakes, brownie and strawberry cake cupcakes,
and a dozen or so apple cobbler cupcakes, among others. My favorite – banana
cupcakes – were covered with cinnamon, cream-cheese, buttercream frosting. I
topped luscious candy corn cupcakes with a layer of basic yellow frosting, and
then added orange-buttercream frosting on top of that and then scooped on a
dollop of white frosting. I tucked in two pieces of candy corn as
embellishments.

Cinnamon-toast cupcakes held
vanilla buttercream frosting, sprinkled with sugar cinnamon-flavored crystals.
I frosted the peanut butter cupcakes and added a small square of chocolate
along with a single section of a graham cracker crisp. Once the embellishments
were finished, I loaded a few trays onto the dumbwaiter shelves and left the
remaining cupcakes in covered containers on the countertop of the station.

With little more than an hour
to spare before the help would arrive, I headed into the office and wrote
checks for outstanding bills. By the time I’d finished, there were sounds of
footsteps on the stairs. Annie called to me and asked if I was okay. I smiled
and went to greet her.

“I saw the lights on down here
and wondered if all was well,” Annie said with concern.

“Everything is fine. I wanted
to catch up on some bill paying after the cakes were done.” I glanced past
Annie and asked, “Is Dilly coming in today?”

“As far as I know. She must
have gotten her car repairs straightened away, or I’d have had a call from
her,” Annie answered as she set the first tea urn of water to heat. She glanced
at me with a curious look.

“You didn’t go out or meet with
that nutter after we left, did you?” she asked.

“As a matter of fact, I did.” I
raised my hands as she opened her mouth to speak and said, “Don’t get upset. I
didn’t have much choice, and what he said made sense.” I took the second urn
from her and plugged the cord into the electric socket.