Chapter 8 #2
Before dinner, he sat his children down and explained what had happened to their great-grandfather.
Not telling them what had happened, just that he was dead and wouldn’t bother them anymore.
Jacob seemed the happiest that he was gone, him being the youngest male child he had, he wondered if he’d been picked out because of his age. It certainly seemed that way to him.
Telling his parents what had happened, he answered as many questions as he could.
There weren’t that many, so he’d been right in thinking that they knew.
Either one of them could see little bits in the future, so he wrote it off to that.
When mom hugged Celesta and told her she was proud of her.
Dad, as usual, had a bit of candy to hand out to the other children, and he made them all happy. Dad was like that.
It was three days later when he remembered that he wanted to look into the book of dragons.
It said that he’d been killed for things unbecoming of a dragon.
And right in the spot where it talked about who had killed him, all it said was Dragon Slayer.
He was glad. He didn’t want anyone to know right now that his little girl was the one who had done it. It was hard enough for him to believe.
Fowler went about his business as king of the other realm and kept up with the flowers. There were other duties that he had to do, but for the most part, he was to keep the faeries in line as well as them working on the newest batch of flowers being planted. He loved his job.
He also got to work with his brothers. That was the best part of being in the other realm, too.
They would come to see him occasionally, and they would go flying.
Being his other half was the best of both worlds, and he was happy that he’d be able to be his dragon with them.
They were all going to go flying tonight in his realm so that the women could watch them.
He loved it when Amy and his kids sat on the ground and watched him play in the skies.
Someday soon, his kids would be able to join them, and he was excited about that as well.
It took him most of the day to get the faeries busy with the new plants.
He didn’t usually have to watch over them so tightly, but since this was an old plant, one that had been gone from the earthly realm for decades, he wanted to get it right.
Someday soon, someone would find the flower again in a patch that would be discovered soon, and they’d try to bring it back.
He hoped so. It was not only a beautiful flower, but it had medicinal properties to it that would help a lot of people someday.
“Your lordship? There is a problem with the house that his lordship lived in. There is magic there that will not allow us to clean the place up.” He asked if they’d spoken to Amy.
“Yes, sir. We have even been to see the former queen. Lady Morning isn’t talking to anyone today.
She said that she’d handle it tomorrow.”
“So why are you coming to me today if she said she’d take care of it tomorrow?” He told him. “I can understand the need for it to be cleaned out, but wait until tomorrow. Her ladyship Morning has only just lost her husband recently, so it stands to reason she is a little emotional.”
She was more than likely having a nice jig if he knew her like he did.
Hiding away so that no one would know that she was having trouble keeping her happy emotions in check.
His death had been long in coming, and he was glad that he’d been taken care of.
He kept thinking about how everyone seemed to know he was trouble but himself.
He was happy that he could no longer harm his children, either.
He’d been hearing all kinds of things about the former king and his ways around the realm.
He’d been ordering the faeries around as if he had a right to, and they were torn between not helping him.
Fowler knew too that he’d been talking to the trolls lately about rebelling against the king and queen, himself and Amy, to get better wages.
He paid them a fair coin for what they did, and they seemed to be all right with that.
It had been just William starting up trouble where he had no business.
There were other things, too, that he’d been hearing about, and he was not too happy that he could only die the one time. He should have been killed long ago.
~*~
Madison heard the rumors that William was dead, but didn’t know what to believe.
He’d heard that the dragon slayer had killed him, and he’d not known that there had been a dragon slayer found.
Just as he was going to see his brother Fowler about it, he ran into Dyson.
The two of them talked it over and couldn’t believe it either that someone had been found to take the position of dragon slayer.
Neither one of them could guess who it had been.
“It has to be one of the children of Sidney. He has the oldest kids other than you and Emma. And you have only the one in comparison.” He said that he thought it might be a faerie that had been born long ago and was just now getting around to killing William.
“If you were to ask me, he should have been killed a long time ago. To think that he’d been beating the others when he didn’t get his way. ”
“Grandmother shouldn’t have allowed him back into the castle after he decided that he wanted to come back to live with her.
I had no idea that he was beating her, too, before he went into the fade.
” He told his brother that he’d been thinking that he’d been made to go to the fade, much like Grannie had been made to retire long ago.
“Could be that. I never thought of that.”
They talked about how sad Grandmother had been of late. Of course, she would have been with him knocking her around all the time. But they didn’t know why she hadn’t taken him to task and zapped him into another realm.
“Pride, I’m thinking. She would have been very ashamed to have him knocking her around when she has her daughter to think of.
I’m amazed every time I saw them together that Mom didn’t kill him off.
She had to know that he was doing things to her mom.
” Dyson asked if he thought that she had killed him.
“I don’t know why, but I don’t think so.
Mom would have had to have gotten permission from her mom, and that would have been the end of it.
No, Mom didn’t do it. Besides, she’s not the dragon slayer.
We would have heard about that before now. ”
“I guess so.” They speculated on who it could be when their kids all got together.
Even when Fowler’s children joined their kids, did they think much about it.
They’d been hanging out together for years.
“I have a lot of things to do today before we go to the other realm and talk to Fowler. I wonder what the meeting is about? Do you suppose he’s going to tell us who did the job?
I’d like to congratulate them if I knew.
And to thank them for getting rid of the bastard. ”
Madison watched his children play with the others and was still amazed that he’d not noticed that William was harming them.
He would have had to have threatened them with certain death for them not to have told on him.
Especially his oldest. At twelve years old, he had to know that it wasn’t right for him to knock the kids around.
He got all worked up just thinking about it.
His children were not playthings for a monster like William.
“Have you told your kids that he’s gone?
I told mine this morning, and they were jumping for joy.
I find that to be the saddest thing of all.
That they’re happy that their own great-grandfather is dead.
They’d be devastated if anything were to happen to grandmother or our parents.
They love our kids so much.” Dyson agreed with his brother and told him that he’d told his kids just before coming over here.
They had reacted about the same way. “I just don’t know how I could have missed it. How come they didn’t come to us?”
They talked about other things, yet still came back to William.
He wondered what the man was thinking about harming the children when they’d done nothing to him.
He looked at little Celesta as she played dollies with her cousins.
She was such a sweet little thing that he wished his own girls were like her just a little bit.
“She is sweet, that one is.” He nodded as she played tea with two of his daughters. “I’m betting that we’re going to have to keep an eye on her when she grows up. Someone will take advantage of her, and that will be all she wrote. Those brothers of hers will make sure that she’s all right, too.”
“I’m betting that they protect her when she needs it.
She’s going to be a heartbreaker, too. Just look at those green eyes.
The same color as our mom.” He thought of something.
“Do you suppose that Mom will take her under her wing and make sure she can defend herself? I’d hope so.
Maybe we should talk to Fowler about her.
I’d hate for him to be aware that someone was hurting his little girl. ”
They talked about their own children and were hurt because they’d been hurt and not known about it.
That was what they were going to talk to them about tonight.
All the parents were going to be giving their children the news that their great-grandfather was gone if they didn’t know already.
And to ask them why they’d not come to them.
It could have been a simple thing that he’d threatened them, but they didn’t think so.
He’d been doing it to all the kids, and someone should have come to them at some point.