Chapter 18
1238 Words
nudged him with my elbow. "Thanks. I appreciate the backup." I was picturing the small dragon when I said that. Not that I didn't trust the wyvern or anything, but she had her own agenda, and I wasn't sure it would always be on the same track as mine, especially once we got into the weird place known as the Gray—the way darker void than the lighter one I'd gotten stuck in recently—where trolls liked to hang out and snack on girls and little pixies.
As we made our way down the hall and then out into the meadow, my nerves started to get the better of me. It felt like the temperature had dropped ten degrees. I started to hum the song from the Wizard of Oz under my breath. I wished we were off to see the wizard. I was pretty sure that that guy was a lot nicer than the creatures we were about to meet up with.
We reached the edge of the trees where the forest started in earnest and I heard a buzzing, and then suddenly there was a tiny pixie coming at us. I waited for him to splat into my chest or my face, but he flew right past me and joined his parents off to my right. I stopped and stared at him in fascination. He was wearing an outfit that made him look like a teenie weenie Boy Scout. He even had a neck scarf and a couple of little badges on his chest. He saluted his father. "Agent Willy reporting for duty."
Tim stiffened his body with his arms at his sides and then lifted his hand in a strong salute. "Agent Willy, it's good to see you. Report on your progress."
Willy grinned from ear to ear. "I did it, Daddy. I told him. Just like you said."
Tim held up his hand for a high-five. "Good job, Willy. Daddy's proud."
Willy tried like heck to execute that high-five too, but he missed his dad's hand entirely. He didn't seem to notice, though; he was too busy turning to look at his mom next, still grinning like a fool. "I did it, Mama. Just like you told me."
She held her arms out and he came in for a quick hug. "Good job, little one. You make Mama proud."
He withdrew from his mother's embrace and turned around, flying just in front of his parents in superhero position.
I couldn't stop smiling. "Good job, Baby Bee."
He didn't even flinch.
"Hey, what's up, little dude? How about a high one?" I held up a finger for him to fly over and tap.
He acted like I didn't say anything.
"Hey, little pixie person. Willy Bee. What's up? You got some pollyballs stuck in your ears or something?" I laughed at my awesome pixie joke, but I was alone in appreciating my humor. The forest got really quiet.
Tim came over and sat on my shoulder as we started walking again. His voice dropped really low. "Yeah, sooo, you might want to just relax on the whole high-one stuff and wait for him to come to you."
"Why? What's going on?" I was completely in the dark.
"He's still mad at you."
"Mad at me? 'Still'…as in…he's been mad at me for a while?" I stopped walking. "What on earth would he be mad at me for?"
"Well, it seems as though you broke a promise to the little guy, and he's not very happy about it." I could hear censure in Tim's voice.
"A promise? What promise?" I was thinking that the baby pixie had maybe gotten into some spoiled honey or something, because somebody in that meadow was drunk, and it sure wasn't me.
"Apparently, the last time he saw you, you told him you would come back and play with him, and then…well…you didn't."
I searched my brain for that memory and something vague did pop up. "I might've said something like that. I think maybe he wanted to play with me, but I was in the middle of doing something crazy, so I just told him we'd do it later."
"Yeah, well, you didn't really follow through on that promise, did you?"
The injustice caused my voice to go higher. "There was no way I could have! I got stuck in the white void. Geez. It's not like I don't have anything better to do than play hide the pollyballs up somebody's a*s with a pixie baby."
"You might want to lower your voice. You're not helping your situation."
I didn't know what Tim was worried about. That baby pixie of his wasn't paying me any attention; he was totally ghosting me. "Damn," I said more softly, "that little guy sure can hold a grudge."
"You have no idea. And it is a lot of work to get back into his good graces, let me tell you. He can get pretty obsessive sometimes. I mean, it's good because it means he can channel, but sometimes it's exhausting. The key is redirecting that obsession into other channels…more fruitful endeavors." He chuckled with an almost evil parental glee.
The way Tim said it flicked a switch on in my head. "Don't tell me, let me guess…he was all pissed off at the elemental, so you channelled that anger into this so-called training."
"We might have taken advantage of the situation a little bit, but I'm not going to apologize for finally getting an angle on this kid. It's been good for him."
I looked over at Abby and she had clearly overheard our conversation. She was giving us a thumbs-up behind her other hand so Willy wouldn't see it.
I rolled my eyes. "Fine. I guess I don't have to worry about having pollyballs stored in my nose anymore, at least."
"Probably not."Tim's answer should've made me ridiculously happy, but it didn't. It wasn't that I wanted the little guy shoving s**t up my nose when I was asleep, but he only did that to people he really cared about. And although he was a pain in the butt most of the time, he was a nice little guy and he was pretty hilarious. I realized I was actually going to miss his friendship and that the value of such a thing was not at all related to the size of the fae sharing it with me.
I raised my voice so Willy could hear me, but acted like I was speaking to Tim. "Well, I hope Baby Bee decides to forgive me one day, because I sure am sorry for hurting his feelings, and you know…we could play spider nakies and do all kinda cool stuff if he ever decided to talk to me again."
Willy's voice came loud and clear from a few feet away. "Guess what, Mama… I don't like to play spider nakies anymore because I'm not a baby. I'm a ayygent now. I'm a ayygent of the fae."
"Is that so?" she asked. "Because, you know, playing spider nakies is pretty fun. You may want to do that a little while longer, while you're still small, because once you're big you can't do it anymore."
"I'm not small. I'm big." He flew out ahead of everybody with his chest puffed out.
- Writer
