Chapter 43
LEO’S NOTES
Place: Planned Parenthood used book sale, San Francisco, CA
Favorite quote: You can’t stay in your corner of the forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.
Leo didn’t understand why Pan was so upset. He understood why she was a little upset, maybe, but saying he only wanted to be with a faerie-kin was like saying he wanted to be with someone with whom he had a common language. And the thing was, they did. She was gifted!
Okay, yeah, he probably wasn’t being completely honest with himself.
He definitely had some shit to work out, but he didn’t have time to sort through his feelings while Pan still needed him.
Knowing that he’d made her cry was almost physically painful.
Still, he wasn’t sure what to do—other than keep his mouth shut and help her find Daffodil.
Well, and grab some fresh muffins when they bustled past the kitchen, because at least he could feed her.
“Let’s try the glampers,” she said, when they’d finished searching the Inn.
He offered her one of Sheila’s blueberry crumble muffins. “Does Daffodil hang out with them?”
“Not often, but—” She took the muffin. “I heard them muttering when I ran past. The glampers. Maybe they saw something.”
She took a bite then frowned at him and headed outside.
Despite his feeling of foreboding, the morning sun shone cheerily in a cloudless sky and the crisp sea air felt fresh and clean.
He followed the still-seething Pan across the blueberry field to Pixie Camp.
At first glance, the tents looked as pretty as ever, with gold fringed doorways through which he saw comfy chairs and sleeping cots.
Except when he looked closer, he noticed rips in the tent walls, a pile of broken wine bottles, and a stuffed unicorn with its eyes torn out.
“You there!” a middle-aged faerie-kin woman snapped at Pan. “You work at the Inn!”
“I’m looking for a pixie,” Pan told her. “Daffodil. Her wings are like—”
“I don’t care about pixies, I care about the wild dogs that almost ate Tabitha!” The woman gestured to her husband, who held a trembling whippet in his arms.
“Wild dogs?” Leo asked. “Beane Isle doesn’t even have coyotes.”
“Look around!” the women said, gesturing to the damage. “Who do you think did this? Brownies? The brownies ran away when that pack of dogs started yipping and growling.”
The husband covered the whippet’s ears and said, “Bad dogs.”
“They rampaged through the camp at three in the morning,” the woman said.
“What did they look like?” Leo asked. “Were they all different breeds or—”
“How should we know? Nobody crawled out of their tent to get bitten. We just heard them and saw their shadows.”
“Awful shadows,” her husband said, with a shudder.
“And now we want refunds,” the woman said. “This is a health and safety hazard. We’re going to report you!”
“To who?” Pan said, her eyes sparking with temper. “The faerie-kin elders?”
“We’ll tell the owners,” Leo assured the woman, ushering Pan away before she went berserk on them. “I’m sure they’ll take care of everything.”
Pan stomped halfway across the field toward her father’s garden before she suddenly stopped. “What if it was brownies? One did snap at me yesterday.”
“You think they’re getting out of control?”
“They were never in control,” she said. “I don’t know. What else could be happening?”
“Could it be the missing pets?”
“Oh. Hm. You introduce a few hundred magical creatures onto an island, it makes sense that the dogs run for the woods and form packs. But would labs and poodles attack? And where’s Daffodil?”
She sounded so heartbroken that he wanted to take her in his arms. Instead, he tagged along as she checked her father’s garden, then the beach—because Daffodil liked playing with the shorebirds.
They checked the boathouse, before heading back to the Inn, but halfway there they found Pan’s father gazing in horror at his tomatoes.
“They ate the stems,” he said, as if in shock. “They bit clean through the stems.”
Leo looked closer, and saw that the tomato plants were wilting in their frames. And Frank was right: every single stem had been chewed through just above the ground.
“Oh, Dad,” Pan said.
“And they did terrible things to my kale,” he continued.
“What did they do?”
“Unspeakable things,” he said.
Pan comforted him for a minute, but when she mentioned Daffodil was missing he shooed her away to continue the search.
“Where else have you spent time recently?” Leo said. “Deja’s shop and the Driftwood?”
“Right,” Pan said. “That makes sense. Maybe she went somewhere familiar.” She started toward the cart, then paused outside the kitchen door. “You don’t have to come with us.”
“I want to.”
“Let me rephrase. You’re not invited. I can’t handle you right now.”
“I’ll drive,” he said. “That way you can check the side of the road on the way.”
She frowned at him and was about to answer when from inside the kitchen Sheila howled, “My sourdough! Did someone piss in my… Grace! GRACE!”
“Let’s go,” Pan said, and jogged toward the cart.
Leo drove while Pan yelled, “Daffodil! Daaaaffodilll!” and Violet swooped alongside, either looking for clues or chasing butterflies.
As he followed a curve, Leo caught sight of a cart zooming toward them. It looked like it was on the wrong side of the road, but he couldn’t tell with the sun in his eyes. He slowed, steered further right—and the other cart veered toward them.
“Shit!” he said, and jerked the wheel hard.
Pan yelped and braced herself. She didn’t need Leo to steady her, but he couldn’t help himself. He put one hand on the steering wheel and one hand on Pan.
The other cart smashed into the left front corner of theirs. A headlamp burst and metal screamed against metal. Leo swore again as his cart skidded through the gravel shoulder and bumped into the trunk of a fir tree while the other cart sped off.
“What the hell?” Pan cried. “Who the fuck was that?”
“No idea. You okay?”
“Just a little freaked out.” Pan held out her hand for a frightened Violet to land upon, and asked her, “Did you see the driver?”
The little pixie did a “scary bear” mime like Bob had.
“I refuse to believe a bear is commandeering golf carts,” Leo said.
Pan stroked Violet. “No one would be surprised if brownies went for a joy ride.”
“So you think they are going feral?”
“I don’t know what else to think. Except that we still need to find Daffodil.”
He grunted and put the transmission into reverse, but when he pressed the accelerator, the cart only moved two inches before jerking to a halt, the wheels spinning in place.
“We’re stuck in the gravel,” he said.
“I’ll steer.” Pan slid across the bench seat. “You push.”
Leo caught himself an instant before he kissed her head, then went around to the front of the cart. He leaned over, put his hands on the hood, and stopped short. He knelt and peered at the front axle for a moment before his brain accepted what his eyes were seeing.
“You need to see this,” he called.
“Oh, Dames,” Pan said. “What now?”