And Ruin Followed Behind Her

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

I lugged that stupid book all the way home under one arm while I held my boots in the other. It must have been three hundred pounds, and the trip took forever because I wandered the back roads and alleyways to avoid any white vans or racist students looking for me.

I knew Chandler like the back of my hand. In order to avoid racist scumbags and stay safe growing up, I’d learned every short cut and back alley junction in town. If anybody could get home from the park without being seen by Big Jim Lewis and his ilk, it was me.

When I finally made it home, the house was eerily dark. I was supposed to meet Mama for dinner but decided just to come home. She wouldn’t wait for me to eat anyway and I just couldn’t deal with any more sideways looks.

Besides, I had work to do. The old woman’s book was at least seven hundred pages, and I was determined to finish it before morning. I’d often binge-read textbooks in college and this was no different.

I made myself a peanut butter sandwich and sat cross legged on the floor with the massive tome sprawled out in front of me. Dust had settled into the grooves of the red leather cover and latched on tightly. No matter how hard I scrubbed my fingers into the nooks of the leather, the dust wouldn’t budge. It had likely been there for generations and the idea that a simple scrub from my icky fingers would clean it was insulting to dust of all kinds.

There was no author listed, either on the cover or inside pages, which felt like they’d been soaked in coffee and left to dry for a quarter century. Each of the chapters—there were a hundred or so—chronicled the life of a different person: Argus, Zabina, Rasmus, Akta, Bilal, Grok, and dozens of others. The text itself looked handwritten with ornate images drawn into margins every bit as ornate as the Book of Kells. Every few chapters the writing changed slightly, as if a new person had taken over transcription after the last one gave up or died.

I turned back to the beginning and started at the first chapter, entitled “Obren, the First Pixie.”

Back in the days before time, in the lands of milk and honey, the gods toiled creating life. They molded amoeba that turned into fish. When those fish matured, they turned into rats, who turned into cats, who turned into bats, and eventually into all the creatures known throughout the world today.

But the world of governance was a slow one, filled with doldrum at every turn. Mostly, the gods just watched their creations mature over the years. It took generation upon generation for single-celled organisms to grow into humans.

While they waited, the gods built more entertaining creatures. In this way, they made the first monsters of legend. They created goblins and orcs, trolls and ghouls, giants and satyrs. Among the other monsters, they created the most beautiful creature ever to walk on Earth, one who could fly and disappear at will, and who could govern all other monsters with pride and love.

These they called pixies, and the first was called Obren. Cast from one rib each from the goddess Aphrodite and the god Apollo, the great pixie Obren was immortal like a god, but full of free will like a human, able to mix between the two.

The creation of such a creature infuriated the cherubs of Mount Olympus, who were designed as servants to the gods. They lacked the free will given to Obren and envied him for it.

It took little time for the gods to become enamored with Obren. They loved him best, because he chose to serve the gods where the cherubs were forced into servitude, and for that Obren was rewarded with a wife, Lymeria, and children, Boatus, Yilar, Galertus, and Molvin, and their children begot more children, who begot more children.

For a time, the pixie race flourished across the land. They oversaw monsters from dinosaurs to minotaurs, and down to the smallest sprite. Then, humans emerged, children of the evolution of monkeys. Humans were the last evolution of Earth before the gods could leave to begin another civilization across the stars, and for that reason, the gods’ affection turned from pixies to humanity.

Obren, great steward of the gods, did not like humans any more than the cherubs liked him, as they curried the favors of the gods above all others, but the gods demanded he live among the humans and help them grow into a sustainable race capable of ruling the planet.

Obren would not allow an inferior species like man to rule over him, so he and his kin plotted to overthrow the humans at their nascent stages. As powerful as the pixies were, it wouldn’t take much to destroy the entire race.

However, Obren’s plan was thwarted by Cercopes, god of monkeys and overseer of the great evolution from monkeys to humans. For his treachery, Obren was sentenced to mortality, and his children were cursed to live amongst humanity for the rest of their days lest they have their powers taken away from them.

While the story wasn’t without its moments, how did a magical story about fairies relate to my life?

I was incensed and didn’t want to continue, but I wanted to know why I could disappear from one place and reappear in another. The old woman told me she had the knowledge I needed, and the confidence that accompanied her words convinced me she told the truth.

And I’d promised her I would read the book before I returned to her, so I flipped through to another story toward the back. This one had a beautifully calligraphed title, with flowers adorning the margins: Zabina.

The pixie race dwindled over the centuries since the days of Obren, until they were little more than a memory by the time of Zabina, one of a small band of true blood pixies that remained.

Zabina grew up in the Kingdom of Renault, named after the first king to conquer it. Before his conquest, Zabina’s people flourished on the land, in complete harmony with the monsters and people who called it home.

However, peace with nature did not satisfy King Renault, who forced his will on the people of his kingdom and resented the monsters for their incredible power. He turned his subjects against them, sending heralds to warn of the great power monsters possessed, claiming they could destroy humanity if not contained.

Previously content to live in peace, the people of Renault’s kingdom grew frightened of monsters. At the heart of Renault’s hatred was the race of pixies. They were human-like, but more powerful than a human could ever hope to become, with a longer life than King Renault could hope to live.

By the time Zabina was grown, the tension between Renault and the monsters in his land was a raging fire. No longer could monsters work with humans or trade with them. Instead, they were relegated to a place called The Veil. Beyond it, monsters were unable to travel without being viciously attacked, imprisoned, and in the worst instances, killed.

Zabina and her pixie brethren were a formidable fighting force, though they were few in numbers, they were strong willed. They did not take kindly to the world of men encroaching on their land, so they took up arms against their oppressors, fighting through the forests and sweeping through towns.

For a time, they seemed to be winning their fight. While the king lived in a mighty castle which was easily attacked, and fought with knights who wore bulky armor, the pixies lived in a secret town in the trees which the king could not find and fought in the shadows where the knights were not effective. But the gods are cruel, and they did not forget the fate of Obren, and they took their revenge on poor Zabina.

Zabina’s job was to patrol the woods for intruders. It was on one of these journeys that she met a young man, a human named Sir Reginald, with whom she instantly bonded. Over the months, their bond grew into lust, and that lust grew until they consummated it. From her womb, two children came forth: Akta and Rasmus, firstborn of a hybrid race of human and pixie, and two of the last pixies born before their race faded into memory.

Zabina hoped that her loving mixed-race children would be enough to stop the war, but Sir Reginald had other plans. He could not be associated with a lowly pixie, as he was meant to be king.

Yes, Zabina realized all too late that her lover was none other than Prince Odgeir, crown prince of the kingdom. He never loved her at all. Instead, he used his wiles to trick Zabina, and sought information from her about the location of her pixie stronghold. In trusting him, she had doomed her people.

In the dead of night, Prince Odgeir stormed the great pixie city of Shangri La and murdered their best soldiers. The pixie army crumbled, and Zabina was left with nothing except the guilt of her betrayal.

She was captured and brought to the castle with her daughter Akta, who would learn to become a great hunter of the same monsters that were also her kin, while Rasmus escaped into the forest in the arms of Ylfinger, who led a group of trolls and orcs. They were the end of the great pixie race, decimated by love and destroyed by hate.

I slammed the book closed, furious that somebody was trying to pass it off as history. If magical creatures were real, where were the bones of pixies? Where was the historical record of the magical beasts spoken about in folklore? It was all too convenient that the only people who “knew” they existed were crackpots and crazies?

No. I couldn’t believe anything in the book. I set it down on the broken coffee table I didn’t have time to fix and rose to my feet to take my plate back to the kitchen. While I washed and dried it, along with a few other dishes in the sink, I considered my game plan.

The next morning, I would go to the shop and return the book, thank the old lady for her time, and never see her again. I had hoped Pixie Dust might reveal who I was, or why I could disappear, or possibly why Big Jim and his cronies were suddenly after me with such fervor.

I was making my way back toward the couch in the living room when I saw the two bright lights shining through the front window. Instinctively, I hit the floor. Creeping to the window, I peeked out. Parked across the street was the same white van that had followed me earlier. I couldn’t make out the driver through the light, but I knew who was in the car waiting for me. It was the Shadow Men who flanked Jim Bob earlier in the day.

I locked the front door and shoved the lumpy, brown couch in front of it. I knew what they were doing. They were telling me they knew where I lived, and there was nowhere to hide. They didn’t have to be coy about it, either. Eventually they would get me.

And right now, Mama was still out getting food and I didn’t know when she would be back. She could be anywhere, maybe even walking up the street right now, completely oblivious. They could just snatch her. After all, one uppity, black woman is as good as another. She did slap Duncan, and in another time that would have been enough to warrant a death sentence.

I ran over to the phone and called Charlotte’s. After a few rings, Martha, the kindly waitress who served us every time we went, picked up the receiver.

“Hello? Yes, this is Julia Freeman. Is my mother there?”

“Sorry, I haven’t see her,” Martha replied.

There was that little Chinese restaurant just off from the park, Dim Sum. I flipped through the phone book until I found the number and dialed it. Again, the phone rang. The owner’s wife picked up.

“Hi. This is Julia Freeman. My mother eats there a lot. She’s a lovely, older, black woman. Have you seen her?”

A pause. “No. Sorry. She’s not here today.”

I hung up the phone again. My knees buckled from under me and I collapsed on the ground, crying so hard my whole body heaved.

That’s when the upstairs light clicked on, and I heard footsteps above me. “What damn fool thing are you doing down there?”

“Mama!” I shouted, jumping to my feet.

She peeked her head down from the stairs. “Yeah, it’s me. What kind of fool racket are you making?”

“Mama! I thought you were out.”

“I was out. And then I was back. I was very tired today, so I laid down. Must’ve lost track of time. Did you eat?”

I hopped up the stairs and squeezed her tight. “I love you. Did you know that?”

A smile crept across her face. “I love you, too, baby, even when you’re being a damn fool. Now, can you tell me what’s going on?”

I nuzzled in closer to her. I didn’t have the heart to tell her what happened to me. “In a minute.”