Chapter 32
PANDORA’S DIARY
Okay, real talk, Diary. I know Leo disapproves of me freeing the pixies and brownies and gnomes, so maybe I am avoiding him a little. And yeah, I missed a couple of his texts. And when he asked me to meet him at the library, I told him I was busy.
And I was!
I mean, I’d spent an entire day telling brownies not to move into the normals’ houses, and wasted two mornings trying to convince pixies that when normals shrieked in surprise that wasn’t a good thing.
I wasn’t about to let Beane Isle lose any tourists over brownie shenanigans.
They’d gotten into makeup drawers and jewelry boxes so often that I heard normals talking about poltergeists.
There were even a few videos going around, showing shoelaces tying themselves in knots and bras spinning like helicopter blades. Fortunately, the creatures didn’t appear on film, and I tasked a bunch of young, relatively online faerie-kin with talking about the pranks they were playing on tourists.
Anyway, I was genuinely busy. Plus, Leo wanted to meet at the library to end all this, while I wanted it to go on forever.
I guess what I really wanted was for him to want it to go on forever.
No. Forget I wrote that. I just need to remember that I can go on without Leo forever. He said he’s changed, but he hasn’t. Except now that I’m used to him again, I’m not sure I can live without him.
At least I have Violet and Daffodil, my two most loyal pixies.
This afternoon, I sat in the Inn’s lobby answering the usual questions about my gift awakening.
Violet and Daffodil like to act out the story as I tell it, which always gets laughs when they imitate the brownies.
I didn’t tell the whole tale, though, because Leo had sent an ominous text to me, Deja, and Shrig, warning us not to mention the manuscript to anyone who didn’t already know about it.
Dames only knows what will happen if it gets into the wrong hands, he’d told us.
Which made me wonder if he thought it already had. Still, I left out that part of the story as I addressed the guests, and only mentioned that I’d been in the library when my gift finally manifested.
“You think the library is a magical incubator, no?” a woman who’d recently arrived from Berlin asked. She looked extremely urbane for a faerie-kin, with a sharply cut bob, multiple piercings, and cherry red fingernails.
“I beg your pardon?” I said.
“There is talk that magic was drawn into the library. That these creatures suckled on the energy of the faerie-kin before leaving, as you say, the nest?”
The image of suckling creatures stopped me. “Uh…”
“That is the idiom, no? ‘Leaving the nest’? Or ‘flying the coop?’”
“Yes, but my own theory is that there are places, or items, which are so heavy with memory that they suck up magic like, um, vacuum cleaners. So while we aren’t certain, we do think the—” I remembered not to mention the manuscript.
“That there was enough magical energy on Beane Isle to give those memories wings, so to speak. Once those memories were vivid enough, I could free them into the world.”
“Ah! This is spectacular. And vhat creature will you next bring to life?”
“Oh, I can’t choose. I’m more of a midwife than anything else.”
She asked a few more questions about my gift, and I tried to answer though I barely understood it myself.
I’d used the manuscript to recall the creatures, so maybe other fae texts would let me to do the same?
Of course, I hadn’t been alone. Leo was there with his gift for books, Deja could smell the magic, and Shrig was the one who read that ancient language.
So maybe it had been all of our magic combined that freed the creatures.
Yet somehow I knew I was central. There must be other objects and places imbued with fae memories I could recall. Maybe that should be my new goal in life. Traveling the world looking for ancient fae echoes the way Leo sought out manuscripts.
The thought of Leo brought a pang to my heart. He wouldn’t approve of me holding court at the Inn, letting people know about my gift. Encouraging the creatures, reveling in this new world of revealed magic. Because he was a dickhead.
But here was the thing, Diary: I wanted him and I wanted magic.
I wanted pixie friends and gnome friends. (The brownies, I could take or leave.) And I wanted to remain at the center of the most thrilling events ever to unfold on Beane Island.
So where was he now? He should have been celebrating my success, not badgering me about the library. Just because he was a little concerned I was going to, like, destroy the world or something was no excuse.
The woman from Berlin tapped her cherry-red fingernails on the arm of her chair and asked, “How does your gift feel?”
“Like remembering a song after spending a week with only three of the notes in my head.” I smiled. “Except instead of a song, I recall the traces of ancient fae magic, a glimpse of the enchantments that water the roots of the world.”
And as I said it, I realized how important those roots were. The roots of magic, of memory—of childhood and of love. And that I was rooted in Leo’s life, as much as he was rooted in mine.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” I said. “I have some business I need to attend to.”
Daffodil landed on my left shoulder while Violet landed on my right. They touched my neck for balance, and waved like princesses as we left the room.