The Fairy-Tale Matchmaker (18 page)

“My story, remember!” Roger told him. “Anyway, when I told Alphonse and Bertie what I'd seen, they had me go to the Fey Law Enforcement Agency. The FLEA went after Lewis, and he was locked away for a year. Before he went to jail, he sent one of his men to kidnap me.”

“Tom Tom had Roger for less than an hour before the police caught him,” said Alphonse. “It scared us all, so we went into hiding. I wish I knew how they found us today.”

“I think I might know,” said Cory. “A woman came by my home this morning. She looked through my notebook when I left the room and may have seen your address there. I suppose it's possible that she told the wolf.”

“So it's your fault!” Bertie exclaimed.

“Now we're going to have to move again!” cried Roger. “Where are we going to go?”

Alphonse sighed. “We'll have to start looking. And I did so like this neighborhood.”

“Did you call the FLEA today?” asked Cory.

“Why? I would just make Lewis madder and then he'd come back for sure. We want him to go away and stay away.”

“But the FLEA could protect you,” said Cory.

Alphonse shook his head. “What are they going to do—camp out in front of our house? They won't do anything until something dire happens first. No, the only thing that can protect us is a house with stout walls and we're going to have to find that ourselves!”

When Cory returned to her uncle's house, she sent a message to Johnny Blue as soon as she walked in the door. All she did was ask him to come see her, because she wasn't sure what else to say. The pigs weren't going to contact the FLEA, but at least she could report her side of what had happened. She felt terrible about what the wolf had done and was convinced that it
was
all her fault. If only she hadn't written their names and addresses in her notebook. If only she hadn't let Mary Mary in the house, or left her alone in the room. If only … Cory sat on the edge of a chair and stared
blindly out the window. She could “if only” from here to tomorrow, but that wasn't going to change the real reason this had happened: she had left the Tooth Fairy Guild and tried to make a living without it.

Cory glanced down when Noodles made a chirring sound and shoved his head into the palm of her hand. His big, dark eyes looked sympathetic, almost as if he understood what she was thinking. “It's my fault, Noodles. I feel just awful! It was one thing to mess up my own life, but I never meant to mess up anyone else's! I was trying to help people; instead I'm making some of their lives more difficult. And look at poor Uncle Micah. He was kind enough to let me stay with him, and what has he gotten for it? His house vandalized, his rug torn up … Well, that part was your fault, Noodles, but it still happened because I'm here. What should I do, Noodles? I can't keep going like this!”

The woodchuck chirred again and Cory reached down to pet him.
At least he's all right
, she thought.

There was a knock on the door a few minutes later. When Johnny Blue saw her face, he took her hands in his as if to console her. It was the first time he had touched her and it made her stomach queasier than ever. She pulled away and tried to make it look natural by bending down to pick up Noodles. The feeling eased but didn't go away.

“What's wrong?” he asked.

Cory glanced at him, wondering if he had noticed her reaction for what it was, but decided that he was talking about the message. “I wanted to tell you about something that happened to some friends of mine. They're pigs, and I mean that literally. Three brothers, actually, who had a run-in with a wolf a few years ago. The FLEA locked the wolf away, but not before he told one of his henchmen to kidnap the youngest pig. The young man was found and sent to jail, too. The pigs moved away and were safe for a time, until they met me. After I went to their house to mow their lawns, I put their names in my notebook. A woman named Mary Mary came by and looked through my notebook when I was out of the room. Before you know it, the wolf had found the pigs and threatened to blow down their houses. He actually blew down two of them and they all took refuge in the third.”

Noodles squirmed in Cory's arms, so she set him on the floor again. He ambled over to Johnny and bumped his head against the young man, asking to be picked up.

“And you feel responsible for the wolf finding the pigs,” said Johnny.

When Noodles became more insistent, Johnny bent down to scratch the woodchuck's head.

Cory shrugged and said, “If I hadn't written their
addresses in my notebook, that woman wouldn't have read them and the pigs would still be safe in their homes. But that isn't why I asked you to come see me. I knew something wasn't right about that woman, Mary Mary, when she was here. I should have told you then. I have a feeling that she might have something to do with the TFG, and I was hoping you could find out if it's true. Are they trying to get at me through my friends now? It was bad enough when they made it rain or sent plagues of seagulls, but it's so much worse if they are actually taking it out on people I'm trying to help.”

“I'll see what I can find out,” Johnny told her. When he said good-bye, Cory thought his eyes looked sad, and she hoped it wasn't because of her.

When Cory stumbled out of her room the next morning, knuckling the sleep from her eyes, she noticed that the front door was standing open. “Uncle Micah?” she called.

“I'm out here,” her uncle replied from the front porch. “We've had another visitor.”

Cory's heart sank as she headed for the porch. What awful thing had the TFG done this time? Expecting to find splattered mud or squirming worms, she was surprised to see that the vandalism was actually pretty. Someone had planted bright red poppies in the front lawn, spelling out
Corialis Feathering Is a Traitor!

“The flowers are so beautiful that I almost hate to dig them up,” her uncle told her.

“If only it said something nice,” said Cory.

Micah turned to face her. “Are you too busy to deal with this today? You could dig them up or mow them down. Mowing would be faster if you're pinched for time.”

“I think I'll transplant them,” Cory told him. “I don't have any plans until tonight. Zephyr is playing at the Shady Nook, but I'm free until then. The way things are going, I think I'd rather stay home today anyway.”

“In that case,” said Micah, “you can plant them wherever you'd like.”

“I know just where to put them,” said Cory. “But first I should send a message to Johnny.”

This time she kept the message very short.

More vandalism.

Cory

Cory was outside waiting for Johnny when he rode up on a solar cycle. The cycle reminded her of the noisy motorcycles she'd seen in the human world, only these were solar powered and nearly silent. A rider started the cycle by pedaling for a minute or two. After that, the solar power kicked in and he wouldn't need to pedal again unless the day became overcast. The more expensive cycles were spell powered and never needed pedaling, but Johnny's was the less-expensive kind.

After propping his cycle against a tree, Johnny came to the porch to see her.

“It was like this when my uncle got up this morning,” Cory told him as she gestured to the flowers. “I love the poppies and would leave them there if they didn't call me a traitor.”

Johnny nodded and went right to work examining the flowers and writing things down on a fresh leaf while she stood on the porch and watched him.

“Someone took a lot of care in planting these flowers,” Johnny said a few minutes later. “Whoever did it planted them at just the right depth. If we were to dig them up now, I bet we'd find that they had been fertilized, too. It looks like flower-fairy work. If the Tooth Fairy Guild is behind this, they must have enlisted the Flower Fairy Guild to help them.”

“I met a woman recently who told me that she used to be a flower fairy, but after she married a human the guild kicked her out and tried to ruin her life.”

“I had no idea that the guilds did this kind of thing,” said Johnny. “I don't know if anyone in the squad does either. To be honest, the officers act like I'm wasting my time here. I tried to find out if that woman, Mary Mary, is a member of the TFG, but the guild is very secretive. When I asked the members of the squad, they were less than helpful. I'll keep digging and see what I can find.
Speaking of digging, would you like some help with the flowers? Do you want to dig them up or mow them down or what?”

“Actually, I thought I'd transplant them and—”

A faint chime rang nearby. Johnny patted his pocket and pulled out a rigid, flat leaf. After studying it for a moment, he put it back in his pocket and said, “I have to go. Send me another message if anything else happens. I'll try to see what I can learn about the guilds.”

Cory watched Johnny ride off, wishing he could have stayed a little longer. He was nearly out of sight when she went back inside to feed Noodles and eat her own breakfast. When they were finished, she lugged him outside and kept an eye on him while she dug up the plants at the end of the sentence. She was placing the plants in a basket to carry to another part of the yard when a little woman walking her boar stopped by.

“ ‘Corialis Feathering is a trai' …,” the woman read. “At first I thought you were planting the flowers, but now I see you're digging them up. What's wrong with them? Did you misspell something?”

Cory sighed. It was bad enough explaining to people she knew that she'd quit the guild. It was worse if the people asking questions were strangers. Who in their right mind leaves a prestigious career without knowing
what she's going to do next? Even so, Cory hated lying even more than she hated explaining herself.

“I quit the Tooth Fairy Guild recently,” she finally said. “They're showing how mad they are by doing things like this. Before I started digging the flowers up, it said, ‘Corialis Feathering Is a Traitor.' ”

“A guild did that? Pay them no mind. The guilds think they can run our lives. They don't own us, and it's about time they learned it.”

“You sound as if you were in a guild,” Cory said.

“No, but two different witches' guilds have tried to make me join. The OWOW, or Organized Witches of the World, and the WU, Witches United. I'm an independent and always have been. Theodore! Stop rooting around those flowers! This isn't your yard.”

The boar snorted and turned to look at the witch. Taking a beet out of her purse, she waved it in the air until the boar came waddling over. “I'd better go,” said the witch. “Theo gets ornery if he's not fed right after his walk. We're neighbors, by the way. I live two doors down in the house with the miniature mangrove swamp in the back.”

“Nice to meet you!” said Cory.

“You, too!” said the witch. “I'm Wanita, by the way. Too bad about the flowers. They are pretty!”

“Would you like some?” Cory asked, gesturing to the rest of the poppy sentence. “I really don't need so many.”

“I
could
use some in my window box …”

“Help yourself!” Cory told her.

Promising to return with a basket for the plants, Wanita left, taking her boar home. Minutes later, Salazar and his iguana, Boris, passed by. The genie wouldn't have stopped if the iguana hadn't seen the flowers and tried to drag his owner halfway across the yard.

“Sorry about this,” Salazar said as he pulled the iguana off the lawn. The lizard had a mouthful of blossoms and kept turning its head to eye the rest.

“It's all right,” said Cory. “It just means there are fewer to transplant.”

“ ‘Corialis Featheri,' ” read the genie.

Wanita arrived in a puff of smoke with a large, flat-bottomed basket. “… ‘Is a Traitor!' I don't mean she is, but that's what the sign said. The Tooth Fairy Guild is persecuting her because she quit the guild.”

“Really?” said Salazar, his wispy blue eyebrows shooting up. “Good for you! I wish I'd quit the Genie Guild when I was young enough to do something else. I retired last year after a thousand years of the same old drudgery. Oh, sure, I enjoyed the job for a century or two, but after that it was the same thing, year after year. If I could
have found another way to make a living, I would have done it a dozen times over. So, what is it you do now?”

“I'm sort of between careers,” said Cory. “Right now, I'm taking jobs here and there until I find what I really want to do.”

“That's a good idea!” said the witch. “A lot of people would be happier if they turned their favorite pursuit into a career. I know that I've been happier since I started creating mayhem.”

Wanita was still talking when the brown-haired, cat-eyed girl who lived down the street strolled to the edge of the yard. The black leopard she was walking sat down beside her to stare at Cory. “What's going on?” the girl asked. “Are you planning some sort of party? Because if you are, I want in. What's that you wrote? ‘Corialis Featheri' … Is having a birthday party? Is that what it's going to say?”

“I didn't actually write this,” Cory said as she glanced at the poppies. When she turned back to the girl, she blinked and stared openmouthed. A spotted leopard now sat where the girl had stood, and a girl with long black hair stood where the black leopard had been sitting.

“The Tooth Fairy Guild did it,” announced Wanita. “Don't mind Felice and Selene,” she told Cory. “They're shape-shifters and love to play that trick on people. They live in the house just past mine.”

The girl with the long dark hair laughed. “Sorry, we can't resist. I'm Selene and my sister is Felice.”

The air shimmered around the spotted leopard and it disappeared, leaving the girl with brown hair in its place. “Whoever planted the flowers did a beautiful job. I didn't know the members of the Tooth Fairy Guild were so good with plants,” she said. “If you ask me, they had a flower fairy do it.”