Chapter 3
Emma returns with a crayon in each hand: one black, one red. She settles cross-legged on the living room floor and gets to work, her tongue poking out in fierce concentration.
Paxton and I exchange a glance as she draws in silence. The crayons make a soft scratching sound across the paper. Karen leans in from the loveseat, her posture tense.
Emma draws first a lopsided head with almond-shaped eyes colored in red, a mouth full of jagged, uneven triangles—teeth, and lots of them.
When she’s finished, she places my notepad on the glass coffee table, face up. Her hand lingers there for a second as she pulls her stuffed koala closer to her chest. “That’s what I saw,” she says quietly, like saying it out loud might make it real again.
Karen leans closer and gasps, hands covering her mouth. “Oh my God. I had no idea how terrible...”
“I told you, Mom. Lots of teeth.”
I lean closer, ready to take a picture of the drawing and send it to Mom, but before I can do anything, something shifts in the room, subtle but unmistakable. The air grows heavier, like we’ve just stepped inside a storm that hasn’t broken yet.
I straighten, scanning the ceiling. “Did the lights flicker just now?”
“No,” Karen says, voice tight.
Paxton grabs my hand. “Tammy,” she whispers. “Something’s here.”
Her fingers are ice cold.
Then Karen screams and stumbles back, pointing a shaking finger at the coffee table. “The drawing,” she rasps. “It... it moved.”
I whip my head around and see it.
The crude face on the college-ruled paper is turning. Slowly. Deliberately. Its red eyes blink.
Once.
Twice.
Karen lets out another choked scream and collapses on the loveseat. Her husband guides her down with one hand while scooping Emma up with the other. “We’re going upstairs,” he announces. “She’s not sleeping alone tonight.”
They vanish up the stairs, and suddenly it’s just Karen, Paxton, and me in the room with the paper that shouldn’t move but did.
Karen backs away from it. “What kind of sick joke is this? Is this some kind of trick?”
“It’s no trick,” I say gently, carefully stepping toward the table. “I think... something dark is attached to this drawing.”
Karen looks like she might faint.
I crouch by the table, place my hand over the paper but not touching.
I close my eyes.
Yes, there’s a strange pull here.
Like a beacon.
“We at Moon Investigations,” I say softly, standing again, but avoiding looking at the drawing, “specialize in... unusual cases. Paranormal disturbances. Hauntings. Curses. Demons. Monsters. That kind of thing.”
Karen sways on the couch, then steadies herself on the cushions.
“I’m not just some dumb kid playing detective,” I add. “I’ve inherited some magical abilities that help me fight these things.”
Karen’s eyes widen. “Magical? Are you a witch?”
I nod. “Yes and no. Not a dark watch. No black magic or anything. And I wouldn’t say any of this if I couldn’t prove it.”
She narrows her eye and steps back. I don’t blame her. “What do you mean, prove?”
Paxton steps back, too, knowing what’s coming, but I keep things relatively tame. Taking a deep breath, I open the valve, so to speak, and let the magic flow through me. As it does, I lift slowly from the ground. Just a few inches, and hover above the carpet.
Karen stares, mouth open, backing away toward the far wall. “Oh. My. God!”
I lower myself slowly.
Paxton stares at me like I’m her favorite superhero. “What?” I ask her. I mean, she has legit seen me turn into bears, panthers, birds, and a mouse.
“You have fairy wings, Lady TamTam,” she says with a slight bow. “I’ve never seen them before.”
She’s not wrong. The wings aren’t physical.
They’re energetic. But they do the job. Yeah, they were something Queen Maple said would come about, eventually.
I had hoped, of course, because who wouldn’t want fairy wings?
But they had been a long time coming. Until I had discovered them not terribly long ago in my bedroom one night.
They just wanted to appear. I couldn’t stop them.
“Ah, no one’s called me ‘Lady TamTam’ in a while.” I ruffle her hair.
“So, to keep count. Mom has her dark wings. Ant now has glowing angel wings. And you have fairy wings. I didn’t know I was adopted into a family of bird people!”
“Shh!” I say, and cover her mouth with my hand and pull her into me.
“I-I saw them, too,” says Karen. “What are...” But her voice trails off.
“What am I? I’m a fairy witch, but please keep this between us, okay?”
“A fairy witch... okay, wow. That’s a new one.”
“I’m going to take this with me,” I say to Karen, carefully lifting my notebook and the living drawing from the coffee table, closing it even as the image inside squeals in fury.
Maybe it’s afraid of the dark, which is ironic.
I tuck my notebook into the crook of my arm.
“I think the drawing is attracting whatever it was that attacked your daughter. I know just what to do with it, and I think I can help you.”
Karen presses her hands together like she’s praying. “Please... please help us. Just keep that thing away from my daughter.”
“I’ll do my best, I promise. It made a mistake coming here. And I’m going to make sure it never returns.”
Karen nods, teary-eyed, exhausted herself.
Paxton and I take our leave, the door shutting gently behind us.
We walk back to the Prius in silence. My notepad shifts slightly in my purse, like the drawing within is trying to break free.
Once we’re inside my car and the doors are locked, I start it with the push of a button.
“So,” Paxton says softly. “Where to now?”
I grip the steering wheel and pull out of the cul-de-sac.
“We need to speak to Queen Maple,” I say. “We need real answers. And I have a feeling she’ll know a thing or two about rogue fairies.”
“Doesn’t she live far away from here?”
“She does, but I know a shortcut. Many shortcuts, in fact. They’re all over.”
“Fairy doors?”
“You got it, kiddo. We just need to find a park with at least one magical tree.”