Chapter Twenty-Two
“Which direction do you think she went?”
Cindy, Ashley, and Shelly, the three oldest faery princesses after Naliti, rolled their eyes simultaneously—whether at Maddy’s tone or the fact she was repeating the same question she’d asked two seconds earlier, Pax couldn’t tell.
Faery princesses were champion eye rollers.
“I don’t know. Naliti is in charge of us, not the other way around.” Cindy was the second-born princess, and when Naliti was gone, it fell to her to manage her sisters.
Maddy and Pax looked at each other in dismay.
This was the one who ate silicon packs on a dare.
“Does your father know?” Pax asked.
The sisters gasped but Maddy shook her head. “No. I’d have warned you.”
Oberon, king of the faeries, was asleep on the sixth floor.
None of those guests would enjoy being awakened on a world with no magic.
Oberon would be even less amused to be awoken and told his eldest daughter was missing.
If peeling Denis out of a bar two seconds before picking a fight with a motorcycle gang was enough to put Maddy in a pissy mood for days, Pax couldn’t imagine how she would handle cleaning up after Oberon in a rampage.
Entire cities had fallen the last time that guy was in a mood.
The snow had melted into formations resembling black coral sticking to the curbs and undersides of cars. Everything was cold and wet, and the sky threatened bad weather to the west.
The five of them stood in the parking lot of Donuts Delite, the last place Naliti had been seen.
“Can you use your phone oracles to get me a list of the clothing and jewelry markets nearby?” Pax asked.
Shelly, the youngest of the three faeries, snorted in derision. “That’s what you think? Naliti hasn’t returned because she was shopping?”
What else would she be doing? There weren’t any woodland fields nearby in which to cavort, nor were there male faery brothels to be found.
Shelly shook her head. “Shopping wouldn’t keep her out all night. Now, a museum might. She’s kind of obsessed with the Corning Museum of Glass.”
“I’ll bet you a tube of Clé de Peau concealer she got stuck in a book or a lab somewhere while wearing an invisibility spell and was locked in overnight,” Cindy said. “It’s happened before.”
“Happened before?” Maddy exclaimed. “Why didn’t anyone tell us?”
Cindy rolled her eyes. “Right. Like we’d be all, hey, Maddy, a bunch of us were out—”
“A bunch of you were out?” Pax yelled. A man getting into his car carrying two boxes of pastries looked over at them with concern.
“Sorry,” Pax apologized. “Sorry, that was too loud.”
“You never said we couldn’t leave the building,” Cindy objected.
“What part of the memo entitled ‘No One Is to Leave the Building’ gave you the impression you could leave the building?” Maddy asked.
The princesses looked at one another.
“Ummm, which memo was that?” Ashley asked. “We get about ten a day from you, Maddy.”
“Honestly, it’s like you’re single-handedly bent on taking down the entire rain forest with the number of notices we get from you,” Cindy said.
She held up a finger, “Monday we got a memo about not slamming the lobby door, Tuesday”—she held up two more fingers—“we get two memos, one about weather strips on the windows and one about the e’s from the Scrabble games, six memos on Wednesday—”
Shelly crossed her arms. “Besides, Denis and Joey Z. are always going places. So are you and Pax.”
“Because we can fit in and act like humans,” Maddy scolded. “No one would know we were from another world.”
“We fit in,” Shelly objected.
Cindy was a six-foot-tall Black woman with dark skin, blue hair, several nose rings, and today she was wearing a black lace top covered in rhinestones and a pink fluffy sort of skirt barely covering her tail.
Shelly was four foot eight inches with light bronze skin, had recently shaved her head, sported a pierced tongue, pierced cheeks, and was dressed in a tube of material.
Ashley was five foot eight, had yellow horns, and her skin was the color of a birch tree.
“Well, Naliti fits in and that’s the point,” Cindy reminded them. “She looks like a small woman with brown skin, which is low status on this world. Except for people like Miss Nekesa and the lady behind the register at Dogtown, these humans aren’t nice to those with low status.”
Pax did not inquire as to what was a Dogtown and why the faeries were familiar with the employees there—mostly because he knew the answer would make him yell again. Instead, he had to agree with the princess.
“You are correct,” he said, not without sympathy. “A small woman with dark skin is at a disadvantage on this world. Even more reason, once we find Naliti, you and your sisters stay home from now on. All of you will be at risk.”
“We should split up.” Maddy spoke directly to Pax, tired of dealing with the princesses. “The Hag in 6G can make up a searching spell bound to work for at least a little while before it loses its potency out here.”
Pax nodded. He set a hand on Cindy’s shoulder, aware of their fear. None of them had spelled a word or shouted a “Yeah” since he’d arrived. Even their rhinestones appeared dull in the wan sunlight.
“Don’t worry, we’ll find her. Naliti has more common sense than most of the guests. I’m sure she’s keeping a low profile and will be back soon.”
Cindy nodded, but Ashley and Shelly glanced at each other and frowned.
“Ashley, you come back with me and get the money to pay the Hag,” Maddy said. “Cindy, you and Shelly buy three boxes of donuts to keep up our energy. Do not forget to order some of those cannoli donuts while you are there. Pax…”
Whatever Maddy was going to say was left forever unheard in the wake of an explosion that shook the ground beneath their feet.
“OMG, never mind,” Shelly squealed. “I know where Naliti is now.”
· · ·
The days were getting longer now and much of the snow had disappeared. Although Pax had left the rubber mats out in the lobby on which to wipe the slush, the walk up to Number Five had been clear for a few days and three enormous snow boots sat at the end of a mat so dry its edges curled.
The boots struck a melancholy chord as Josie and Amos walked through the lobby on their way to the science museum parking lot. Al and Gloria were taking Amos to a special showing of The Night Sky with Disney Princesses at the museum’s planetarium.
“Mom, what are you going to do tonight when I’m with Grampa Al and Grandma Gloria?” Amos asked as they exited the building and began the trek three blocks north.
“Probably go to the library,” Josie said. It was only a little bit after four and Amos was going out to dinner after the show, so she had her evening free. “Maybe do some grocery shopping and laundry.”
“That sounds fun,” Amos said, jumping over puddles and getting dirty water on the back of his corduroys. “You wanna come to dinner wif us?”
“No, but you be sure to tell me everything you and Grandma Gloria talk about, okay?”
Josie had looked up family lawyers in the area, wanting to be prepared if the worst case happened. Eventually, she would have to confront Gloria head-on, but that fight would require resources.
It was fine standing up to gnomes and demanding orgasms from magical knights, but facing off against her mother-in-law took a whole other level of courage.
“What if we goes to McDonald’s?” Amos asked. “You don’t want to come?”
Josie opened her mouth to say something nice, and not the truth, when the ground shook beneath their feet and an enormous pink-and-lime-green cloud blew out the glass atrium of the science museum.
Oh shit. Josie would know those colors anywhere. She took Amos’s hand and ran toward the explosion, rather than away from it.
“What was that, Mom?” Amos cried as they made their way to the back of the museum where the parking lot was located.
A crowd had gathered on the street in front of the museum and folks who had come for the planetarium show were out of their cars and pointing toward the sky.
That was a pastel mushroom cloud slowly dissipating into the pewter-gray sky, leaving behind the scent of Bath & Bodyworks Cherry Blossom Shower Gel. The shattered glass strewn across the museum roof glittered like rhinestones, although who knew? They could be actual rhinestones.
“Oh, man,” Josie whispered to herself. “Oh, man, oh, man, oh, man.”
From the east side of the lot, a gaggle of faery princesses appeared, Cindy front and center.
“Mom, look, it’s Cindy. She has blue hair today,” Amos cried.
Yup. Yup, she did.
“Amos?”
Oh, look. The cherry on top of the shit sundae. A few cars over, Gloria and Al were frantically waving, Gloria’s horrified glance hopping between Cindy’s blue hair, the pink-and-green tendrils of smoke wafting from the roof of the museum, and Amos.
As soon as Gloria called Amos’s name, Cindy and her sisters’ heads turned in unison and they changed their course, now heading directly for Josie and Amos.
Having spotted them, Gloria began pulling Al away from the car and toward what was shaping up to be a giant clusterfuck right at Josie’s feet.
Yay.
“Hi, Ms. LaChiusa. Hi, Amos.” Cindy waved.
“Hi, Cindy. Hi, Shelly. Hi, Ashley. Did you see an esploshun?” Amos cried.
“What is happening?” Josie asked Cindy, her attention split between Gloria and Al and the people who were finally emerging from the damaged museum. Thankfully, none of them were screaming in terror or shouting anything about faery cheerleaders.
“Naliti is missing—was missing,” Cindy said, turning her attention to the museum as well. “She’s been gone all night. We were out looking for her when we heard the explosion.”
As Josie suspected from the color of the cloud, Princess Naliti was behind this. But why? She was the most sensible of the faery cheerleaders. If Naliti couldn’t be counted on to keep a low profile, there’s no way they would be able to keep the tenants of Number Five under wraps.