Wine and Spirits Sequel/Rewrite

I have a tendency to get ahead of myself. For instance, when I was writing Wine and Spirits I was already fantasizing that it would be so popular that I would be coerced into writing a sequel. I started developing a vague idea about a corporation selling magic to humans, and a scheme to market enslaved pixies as children’s toys. Naturally, I set this idea aside when I abandoned Wine and Spirits, but it resurfaced years later when I was working in an elementary school. I realized that with a little retooling it could be approached as a stand-alone story aimed at kids, and got to work writing it. I only ended up with three extremely short chapters and some bits and pieces I was going to squeeze in later. The title was going to be either Fairy Xmas, just plain Xmas, or Mark of the Beast.

PROLOGUE

     In fairy tales, the forest is wild and mysterious, beautiful and terrible all at once, full of strange creatures and magic. The local powers that be forbid people from going into the woods. They represent the unknown, the unpredictability of nature and the darkness that lies within all men.

     These places also exist in modern times; ancient, primeval worlds in which people aren’t allowed to build homes or do business. They are called national parks. Not so long ago in one such place, in the far away land of Plitvice, Croatia, a tiny boat drifted lazily down an underground river. One man on board held up a small lantern and peered into the black water while the other stood with a net in hand, poised for something to happen. They waited in silence, listening to the faint trickling and splashing noises until the first one suddenly pointed and shouted “There!”

     The second man plunged his net into the water and dumped his catch into a glass jar. He held it up in the lantern light. The creature inside had a long, slender body with four short, thin legs. Its skin was smooth and pale pink. It’s head resembled that of a sea horse, with one important difference: the face was completely featureless. There was no eyes and no nostrils, and the mouth was invisible when shut.

     “Say…you know what these things kind of look like?” the man with the net said thoughtfully.

     “No. And  neither do you, if you know what’s good for you,” the other man replied without taking his eyes off the river. His partner nodded, ignored the tiny spark that flashed against the inside of the jar, and set it aside with the others. The boat drifted on, its light disappearing into the deep shadows of the cave.

1

     The man on TV wasn’t handsome, exactly, but he was attractive in his own way. The youthful glimmer in his eye overshadowed the fact that he was old and mostly bald. He smiled warmly like a proud grandpa and spoke in a voice like a purring cat. His dark business suit seemed strangely out of place as he walked around the beautiful garden on screen.

     “You know, folks,” he began, talking to the camera, “I’ve never had any children of my own, but I can imagine how hard it must be for parents these days. Nearly every morning you send them out into the cold, cruel world all by themselves. Far too many of them come home at night to an empty house or a babysitter while you work two jobs just to make ends meet. It’s all you can do to keep them clothed and fed, when what they really need is a friend. That’s why this holiday season Craft, Incorporated is introducing its first ever product just for kids.” At this point, a tiny fairy flew up from somewhere in the background and landed lightly on the old man’s hand. “Our fairies will be your child’s constant companion and playmate, a protector to watch over them when you can’t.” The camera zoomed in on the old man’s face. “Just think of it as our gift to you.”

     The screen went blank and Tom Goodacre turned to his wife and daughter for their opinion. “What did you think?”

     “It was great, honey,” Mrs. Goodacre said, putting her hand on his shoulder. “I never thought you’d convince Mr. Collatz to be in it himself.”

     Tom Goodacre was marketing director for Craft, Incorporated, a corporation that sold health food, nutritional supplements, instructional books, and a popular wine made from pomegranate, all cleverly disguised as ‘magic’. In private or in business meetings they described everything scientifically, but their advertising appealed to people’s belief in the supernatural. Cooking and self-help books were ‘spell books’; medicines were ‘potions’ and ‘elixirs’. This technique had taken them from a local business to a multinational, publicly traded company in barely two years. Mr. Collatz was founder and CEO.

     Mr. Goodacre smiled proudly about the commercial he had produced himself. If everything went according to plan, it would be broadcast around the country in a few weeks. If. He looked down at his 7 year old daughter, Audrey.

     “What about you, sweetie? Did you like it?”

     “Is it really like that, daddy? A tiny little woman that flies?” she asked skeptically. Before he had a chance to answer, she added, “And are you going to get me one?”

     “It’s funny you ask that. You see, the company needs to do some more testing before the fairies are released to the public, real world testing, with actual kids.” He reached under the end table next to the couch and pulled out a colorful cardboard box. “Do you think you could help me out with that?”

     “Oh, daddy!” Audrey exclaimed, giving her father a big hug.

     “Just remember, sweetie, you’re a product tester. I need you to tell me if anything doesn’t work right, like if she’s mean or has a hard time understanding you.”

     “I will, daddy,” the little girl promised as she took her present to her bedroom. Mr. Goodacre watched her go until he sensed his wife staring at the back of his head. She began to scold him as soon as Audrey was out of hearing range.

     “Suppose something does go wrong, and you have to take it away. It won’t be all hugs and ‘oh daddy’s then.”

     “Nothing will go wrong,” Mr. Goodacre answered as he hurried off to Audrey’s room. He found her examining the fairy through the clear front panel of the box. In some ways, it looked just like the fairies you see in movies and picture books. Her dark hair was pulled back in a bun with a few stray strands hanging around her face, and she wore a simple, backless dress which allowed for her x-shaped, dragonfly-like wings. However, she wasn’t as pretty as Audrey expected. She had pale skin and a thin frame, and her nose turned up slightly like a pig’s. It all made her look a bit like a skeleton, and the sleepy expression on her face didn’t help.

     Audrey eagerly opened the top flap of the box, but instead of the top of the fairy’s head she found a second flap with a little ring taped to it. The ring was the same color as the fairy’s dress, and cursive writing on the flap read “Put this magic ring on now and never take it off, so your fairy can always find you!” Knowing you should always do what boxes told you, Audrey slipped the ring on.

     “So how does it work, anyway?” she asked her father. He was usually honest with her about the products Craft sold. He didn’t want her to grow up gullible, or to catch him in a lie. This time Mr. Goodacre just shrugged.

     “They didn’t tell me. I assume it’s a robot, or maybe some kind of hologram. Now come on, let her out.”

     Audrey opened the second flap and the fairy shot out so fast it almost hit her in the face. It began to fly frantically around the room, darting off in one direction, stopping suddenly, and going a different way over and over again. “What’s it doing?” Audrey asked her father.

     “I think it’s calibrating itself, adjusting to the constraints of the room,” he guessed uncertainly as the fairy finally landed on its hands and knees at Audrey’s feet, panting with exhaustion. He picked up the empty box. “I almost forgot, each fairy has its own unique name to make it more personal. This one is…Trixie? That’s odd. I thought fairies had names like Tinkerbell and Peaceblossom.”

     “I’ll call her…Marmalade,” said Audrey. The fairy was still on all fours in front of the little girl, looking at the ground. Its breathing had steadied, but Audrey thought she heard a tiny sigh before it looked up.

     “I like it!” said the fairy in a high, squeaky voice, flashing a toothy grin.

     For the next two weeks Audrey and Marmalade got along perfectly. The kids at school were all jealous of Audrey’s incredible new ‘toy’. She (for Audrey had begun calling Marmalade ‘she’ instead of ‘it’) joined in all the games at recess. The girls particularly liked using her as a doll, having her put on different outfits and styling her hair. They instructed her to give the boys’ superhero action figures big, wet kisses and giggled hysterically when she did. She was, naturally, very good at tag, since she could catch everyone and they could rarely catch her.

     It was also handy having a friend that could fly. If anyone got a ball stuck up on the roof, Marmalade could go get it. She helped Mrs. Goodacre reach things on the top shelf at the grocery store. Once, Audrey missed the bus after school and decided to walk home, even though she never had before. Marmalade kept her from getting lost by flying up high enough to see the Goodacre house and yelling out directions.

     Simply put, Marmalade was smart, friendly and well-behaved. Audrey’s reports to her father were overwhelmingly positive. She couldn’t come up with any serious complaints.

     Then one night when Audrey and Marmalade were taking a bath together, the fairy asked if she could use the toilet. Audrey had never understood why Craft, Inc., had designed a toy that needed to go to the bathroom, but she was pleased at this new development. She was always a little uncomfortable with the fairy’s usual habit of doing her business behind a bush. She nodded her approval and Marmalade disappeared to the other side of the shower curtain. After a few minutes passed without the toilet flushing, Audrey peeked through the curtain to see what was going on. Her friend was nowhere near the toilet, but was instead on the windowsill, trying with all her strength to open the window.

     “Marmalade!” Audrey said sharply but quietly, not wanting her parents to hear. Startled, the fairy fell to the floor and dropped something that had been hanging around her neck. It was Audrey’s magic ring, the one that came with Marmalade. Audrey always took it off for her bath.

     Audrey picked up the ring and stared at it in her hand. Suddenly, she understood what the fairy had been doing when she first got out of her box. She was testing how far she could get from the ring, like it was some sort of leash.

     The little girl put the ring on and looked down at Marmalade. This creature looked so pathetic, crouched and naked with her long dark hair flattened and limp, that Audrey couldn’t demand an explanation. Instead she turned away, drained the bath tub and began drying off. Marmalade followed her lead. They didn’t speak to each other for the rest of the evening.

     Audrey didn’t know what to do. She was attached to Marmalade, and if she mentioned this to her father he might take the fairy away. She slept fitfully that night, and around 11:00 she looked towards her bedroom window, where she saw Marmalade next to it on the dresser. She was sitting with her knees hugged to her chest, staring sadly out into the night.

     “You can go, if you really want to.”

     Marmalade jumped. She was so lost in thought that she hadn’t heard Audrey walk up behind her. “What did you say?” she asked, her voice shaking.

     “You can go,” Audrey repeated, placing her ring on the dresser, “to explore, or whatever it is you want to do. Just promise you’ll be back in the morning. I’ll be in big trouble with my dad otherwise.”

     Marmalade could barely contain her excitement as she snatched up the ring. “Okay. I promise.” Audrey opened the window and the fairy nearly flew out, but then stopped and turned back to her owner. “Can I borrow some of your doll clothes?”

     Audrey nodded. Marmalade went into Audrey’s enormous dollhouse (her father always got her the best toys) and emerged wearing a T-shirt, brown sweatshirt jacket and jeans. She wore her hair down instead of the usual bun, and her wings somehow stuck out the back of the jacket. Of course, her wings did that with all the doll clothes Audrey’s friends made her wear; whenever they asked how she did it, she simply shrugged and said “Magic.”

     “Is that how you like to dress?” Audrey asked, a bit surprised by the casual street clothes.

     “Pretty much.”

    “Is there anything else I can do to make you happier?”

     The fairy thought for a moment. “Well, I really do prefer Trixie.” With that, the tiny creature was off, and Audrey’s life was changed forever.

2

Trixie the pixie

     “Look who finally decided to join us,” Mr. Goodacre greeted Audrey as she arrived at the breakfast table the next morning. He swallowed the last spoonful of his oatmeal, which, as always, was flavored with various ingredients recommended by a Craft cookbook. Audrey’s bowl was cold; she had come downstairs much later than usual. Her father peered over her shoulder. “Where’s Marmalade?”

     “She had a hard time sleeping last night, so she’s taking a nap. That’s why I’m so late, too. She kept me up.” Audrey hadn’t actually slept at all. She was late because she was busy making up excuses. Marmalade, or Trixie, or whoever she was, wasn’t back yet.

     “Hmm. Must be a programming error, or a problem with the charging system,” Mr. Goodacre thought aloud. “Maybe she should come to work with me for a checkup.”

     “No!” Audrey blurted out. Seeing her father’s surprise, she quickly added “She looked so peaceful. I hate to wake her up.”

     Mr. Goodacre looked Audrey straight in the eye for a moment. “All right. But if this happens again I have to.” He carried his dishes to the sink. “You know how important she is.”

     “I do,” Audrey agreed, being completely honest for the first time that morning. She ate her breakfast as quickly as she could, grateful her father hadn’t noticed the missing ring. ‘Never take it off’, the package had said. Why did she take it off?

     Just when Audrey was convinced she would never see the fairy again, she heard a little tap at the school bus window. Trixie was hovering outside, having caught up with them at a stop light. Audrey let her in.

     “Sorry,” said Trixie, landing on her friend’s shoulder and holding the ring out for her to take.

     “You’d better be,” Audrey whispered back. “You could’ve got me in so much trouble!” She took a minute to calm down, then asked, “Did you do what you needed to?”

Trixie nodded and they left it at that.

     At recess that day all the girls wanted to know about their tiny friend’s new look. Audrey told them only a small part of the story, saying that her fairy was sad and they had a talk about what would make her happy. When she brought up the name change, Trixie added that she didn’t want to be called a fairy anymore. She claimed she was technically a pixie, though she had a hard time explaining the difference. Audrey’s friends admitted they had always thought Marmalade the fairy was a bit phony, and they all agreed they liked Trixie the pixie better.

     At home Audrey and Trixie had to repeat the same explanation for the Goodacres. Mr. Goodacre wasn’t sure that ‘pixies’ would sell as well as ‘fairies’, but he said he’d tell his coworkers they liked to pick their own clothing. It made good sense, he said, since they were all being given unique personalities. Mrs. Goodacre usually wasn’t interested in specific details of her husband’s work, but this statement piqued her curiosity.

     “You mean they’re already manufacturing them?” she asked. “I thought they were waiting to see how things went with Trixie.”

     “They haven’t gone into full-scale production, but they can’t wait entirely. Each fairy takes so long to make that…”

     Audrey stopped listening as her dad talked about boring business stuff like quotas and contracts. She noticed that Trixie was apparently upset by the subject. Her hands were balled up into tight little fists and she was frowning. Audrey assumed she was annoyed about the pixie vs. fairy thing. Luckily, Mrs. Goodacre soon changed the subject.

     “So what do you think about this weekend?”

     “I don’t know. I suppose it would be sort of a waste not to use it.”

     “Use what?” Audrey asked.

     “That new family resort in the city is having their grand opening this weekend, and we got free reservations in the mail today,” her father explained. “It was some sort of random drawing.”

     “You mean the place with the indoor water park and the arcade and the bowling alley and--”

     “That’s the one,” Mr. Goodacre interrupted, knowing Audrey could go on all night. “I’m a little worried about Trixie, though. It’s one thing to show her off in our quiet little suburb with people we know, but taking her to a big hotel with a bunch of strangers could draw more attention than we’re ready for.”

     “That’s okay,” Trixie chimed in. “Whenever someone’s around I can just pretend I’m a normal doll.” To demonstrate she abruptly went stiff with her arms at her sides and her legs straight, causing her to tip over and hit her head on the table. Audrey giggled as the pixie remained motionless, staring blankly at the ceiling.

     “You really think you can keep that up all weekend?” Mr. Goodacre asked. The pixie didn’t move. “Trixie?” Again, there was silence. Mr. Goodacre rolled his eyes. “Point taken.”

     “So we can go?” Audrey said anxiously.

     “I don’t see why not.”

     “Yay!” Audrey hopped down from her chair and aroused Trixie by lightly poking her ticklish stomach. “Come on. Let’s go see if I’ve got a bathing suit for you!”

     Audrey was so excited about the weekend that she barely thought anymore about her friend’s mysterious behavior. The family got to the resort on Saturday morning and had a wonderful, fun-filled day in spite of the huge crowds that had showed up for opening weekend. True to her word, Trixie remained almost entirely motionless when anyone besides Audrey was looking. To everyone around them it just looked like the little girl was particularly attached to her doll, carrying it around wherever she went. That night the Goodacres had dinner at the fancier of the hotels two restaurants, choosing to avoid the loud, cafeteria-like one where most young families ate. They were seated at a table for four, and Audrey placed Trixie in the extra chair.

     A pretty young waitress came to their table. “Hi, folks. My name’s Brianna and I’ll be taking care of you today. Can I start you off with something to drink?”

     “My wife and I will have a glass of the red from Craft Vineyards,” said Mr. Goodacre, referring to the wine sold by his own company.

     “Sure, that’s very popular,” Brianna remarked, writing it on a little pad of paper. She turned to Audrey. “And you, miss? What’s your poison?”

     Audrey smiled. “Do you have chocolate milk?”

     “Naturally. I’ll have those right out for you.”

     Brianna walked off to the kitchen and returned a few minutes later with the drinks on a tray. She set out the wine, Audrey’s milk, and a fourth glass the size of a thimble, also full of chocolate milk. “I took the liberty of bringing some for your shy friend.” She indicated Trixie, who still wasn’t moving, then winked at Audrey’s parents. “On the house, of course,”

     Once the family ordered their food and Brianna left, Trixie grabbed the milk, chugged it greedily, and went stiff again. This time the quick transformation was enough to make even Mr. and Mrs. Goodacre chuckle.

     After dinner, the family went to their hotel room and settled in for the night. Audrey’s parents were so tired that they fell asleep in their clothes, on top of the blankets. Audrey and Trixie, however, stayed up later than usual, watching cartoons on TV. They’d been doing this for a couple of hours when Trixie flew over to the TV and switched it off.

     “I’m bored,” she whined to Audrey. “Let’s go see if the pool is still open.”

     “We can’t go down there without my parents.”

     “I thought watching you when they can’t is part of what I was made for.”

     “I guess so. Shouldn’t we at least ask, though?”

     Trixie shrugged. “If you insist.”

     Audrey went over to her parent’s bed. “Hey, mom?” She shook her mother gently. “Mom?” Mrs. Goodacre didn’t respond. Audrey shook harder, but her mother still wouldn’t get up. Her dad was the same.

     “We can leave and get back without them ever knowing,” said Trixie. “And I bet we’ll have the pool all to ourselves. Think how much fun it will be without the crowds.”

     “Well…okay,” Audrey agreed. She got her swimsuit from the bathroom, where her mother had hung it to dry, and they quietly slipped into the hallway. They rode the elevator to the ground floor. The lobby seemed deserted as they crossed it on the way to the pool.

     “Do your parents know you’re here?”

     Startled, Audrey looked around for the source of the voice. She eventually found Brianna the waitress, sitting in one of the lobby chairs with a newspaper in her lap, and began to answer. “No, but Trixie--”. Audrey stopped and slapped her hand over her own mouth, realizing the pixie was moving around in front of a stranger.

     “It’s okay,” said Brianna, standing up and holding her hand out as a perch for Trixie. “I know more about her than you do.” She addressed the pixie. “Are they asleep?”

     “Very,” said Trixie.

     “How did you know my parents were sleeping?” Audrey asked suspiciously. Brianna reached into an enormous purse sitting next to her chair and pulled out a small glass bottle Audrey recognized as a sleeping potion sold by her father’s company. It was half empty. “You put that in my daddy’s drink?”

     “He shouldn’t sell magic if he doesn’t expect people to use it.”

     “But it’s not magic,” Audrey corrected her. “It’s just medicine, or--or tea, or something.”

     “Of course it is,” the waitress agreed. “And Trixie is just a toy, made in a factory. Just a robot, or a hologram. Or something.”

     Audrey had been maintaining eye contact with Brianna, but at this point she looked down at her own feet. Maybe if she couldn’t see the waitress, she would go away. Maybe she would stop talking. Maybe she wouldn’t tell Audrey what she already suspected.

     Brianna knelt next to the little girl and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Do you really believe that,” she continued, “or do you think Trixie is real? Alive? Not made and packaged, but born and caged?”

     Audrey raised her head. She couldn’t bring herself to answer the question, so instead she said what she wished she had said a few minutes earlier. “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”

     “Introduce us.” Brianna ordered Trixie, who had landed on the floor between them.

     “Brianna, this is Audrey…my friend,” the pixie began, looking up at the child with a reassuring smile. “And Audrey, this is Brianna, my fairy godmother.”

3

     “Fairy godmother? You mean she grants wishes?”

     “Not exactly,” said Trixie. “Godmothers are sort of the fairy police. They keep us out of trouble, or get us out when we’re already in.”

     “That’s right,” Brianna agreed. “And Audrey, your dad’s company is in trouble. His boss is a vampire.”

     “Mr. Collatz drinks people’s blood?” Audrey couldn’t believe it.

     “He does, but that’s not the issue. I can accept a vampire here and there. Predators happen. The problem is his business. The cheap stuff he sells is pretty harmless, just herbal remedies and such, but he’s got more expensive products that could be dangerous in the wrong hands. I’ve heard rumors of military contracts, which can’t possibly be good. And now I find out he’s capturing pixies, selling them as pets or slaves. It’s time to intervene.”

     “OK. What do you need me for?”

     “I don’t. I need Trixie, tonight and probably some other nights, too. All you have to do is give us your ring and keep your dad from suspecting anything.”

     “No.”

     Brianna’s face showed that she hadn’t seen this coming. “What do you mean ‘no’?”

     “The night Trixie was gone was awful,” said Audrey. “I’m not letting her out of my sight again. If she’s coming with you, so am I.”

     Brianna groaned. “I guess we don’t have a choice.”

     “We’ve got a lot of choices,” Trixie said, counting them on her fingers. “Cut off her hand, put her to sleep, kill her…”

     “You just said we were friends!” Audrey interrupted, a little less offended than she probably should have been.

     “I meant good choices, Trixie. Any of those things would warn Collatz that we’re after him. We need the element of surprise, and that means we need Audrey.” Brianna put her purse over her shoulder. “Let’s go. The Goodacres won’t be asleep forever.”

     “Where are we going, anyway?” Audrey asked as they went out into the cool, dry autumn air. The question was aimed at the fairy godmother, as Audrey liked her more than Trixie at the moment, but the pixie answered first.

     “We’re going to break my friends out of the Craft, Inc. building.”

     “No, we’re not,” Brianna corrected her. “You’re taking us to where you were captured.”

     “What does it matter where we were captured? We know where they are now, so let’s just go get them.”

     “You’ve only seen the building from the inside. We don’t know how it’s guarded, and even if we got your friends out, Collatz has plenty of time to capture more of them. To take him down for good we need more information, and the scene of the crime is the best place to start. Besides, maybe they’ll be willing to help.”

     “They who?” Audrey asked, even though her first question hadn’t been answered. This one wasn’t either. She didn’t ask another until they had been walking the streets of Detroit for more than an hour.

     “How much further do we have to go?” she whined. “Do you always have to walk everywhere?”

     “I don’t,” Trixie said smugly, fluttering above the little girl’s shoulder.

     “We’re going there,” Brianna answered, pointing just ahead of them at the huge bridge that connects Detroit to Canada.

     “I used to live there,” Trixie told Audrey. “My friends and I had a little loft in that first tower in the lake, before all of this happened.”

     “I’m so sorry, Trixie,” said Audrey. “I didn’t know. I mean, I sort of wondered, but I thought…” She struggled to find the words to defend herself. “It didn’t seem…I couldn’t really believe…”

     “It’s alright,” Brianna interrupted. “You didn’t think pixies were real. You’re not supposed to. That’s how we like it. Right, Trixie?”

     Trixie made a face Audrey had only seen once before, when her dad was talking about manufacturing pixies. Trixie didn’t like hiding and lying and pretending, even if she was good at it. The weeks she spent as happy little Marmalade had been torture.

     As they got closer to the bridge, Audrey could see a group of homeless men standing underneath it. They were gathered around a fire built in trash can, just like she had seen in cartoons and movies. The only difference was that these men were built like professional wrestlers, tall and wide with legs as big around as Audrey’s waist. They stood so still one could almost mistake them for statues.

     “Trolls,” said Brianna, anticipating Audrey’s question. “When we get up there you need to be quiet and stay out of the way. They don’t like humans, or anybody, really, and I can’t guarantee your safety if you upset them.”

     “What did humans ever do to them?”

     “Seriously?” said Brianna, looking to see if the little girl was being sarcastic. She wasn’t. “They hate because they’re hated. One of the only reasons magical creatures have survived as long as we have is because some humans admire or feel sorry for us. Someone like me or Trixie doesn’t strike you as a threat, at least not at first. But a giant? You’re scared of them immediately, because they have an obvious tactical advantage. They’ve been especially persecuted. Think about it; most of humanity’s old stories about trolls, giants, and ogres involve killing them. Nobody loves a giant. Now, shush. We’re almost there.”

     The trio got within a few feet of the trolls before one looked in their direction. He apparently knew who Brianna was, because he immediately pointed at Trixie and told the fairy godmother “I would have expected you to come about that one and her friends long ago. They are unwisely conspicuous.”

     “So you know each other?”

     “We are familiar.” He gestured towards some graffiti on one of the concrete pillars which read “PIXIES RULE. TROLLS DROOL.” Brianna glanced angrily at Trixie before continuing.

     “Not long ago they were attacked by a flock of bats, out there over the water. Were you here that night?”

     “Where do you suppose I go?”

     “Did you see anything unusual that night, besides the bats?”

     “Occasionally human transients join us down here. We think little of it. Sometimes we eat them. That night there was a girl. Young; pretty; out of place. She went over there by the water and spoke some words into the air. The bats flew in--I did not see from where -- and circled her for a moment as she spoke more. Then they prepared their ambush for the pixies.”

     “So it was a witch. Do you remember anything more specific we could use to identify her?”

     “There was a charm around her neck, like this.” He poked a long stick into his fire until one end was charred, then used it like a giant pencil to draw a strange circular symbol next to Trixie’s graffiti. Brianna studied it.

     “Hmm. It could be a rune, or maybe a mandala.”

     “It’s a hood ornament,” said Trixie.

     “Are you sure?” asked Audrey, forgetting, as children will, that she was supposed to be quiet. “My dad’s taken me to the auto show a few times, and I’ve never seen that.”

     “That’s because they don’t make that car anymore.”

     “How could you possibly know that?” said Brianna, knowing pixies rarely go car shopping.

     “The factory’s on the other side of town. It’s been abandoned for years.”

     “Show me,” Brianna ordered the pixie, and then stopped her as she started to fly away. “Wait.” She turned to the troll. “I might need some muscle later, to stop Craft, Inc. and whoever else is behind this. Can I count on you?”

     “You would have me help the humans?” The troll laughed at this. “They are ignorant children and should be treated as such, allowed to pay the consequences for their mistakes so they can learn from them. I will not stand in the way of that.”

     “Who said this was about the humans? Craft is enslaving pixies, not humans. Do you think they’ll stop there? Do you think you’re safe?”

     “You of all people should know, godmother, that no one is safe.”

     Brianna could see that the conversation was over. She nodded to Trixie and followed as the pixie started towards the factory. Audrey followed for about ten paces before she remembered something the fairy godmother had said earlier. She suddenly ran back to the troll, gave him a quick hug, and returned to the group. The troll looked at Brianna, who smiled awkwardly and shrugged before continuing on her way. 

     In the abandoned factory mentioned by Trixie, the trio meets a group of “witches” (Brianna’s term, not theirs) who live off the grid and try to have as little impact on the world as possible. The local wildlife has accepted them as harmless, and many of the witches’ decisions are based on observing and imitating the animals. A young woman named Sidra, who seems to be the leader but refuses to acknowledge anyone following her, suspects the person seen by the troll was an old friend named Charisse. Charisse, who “always had a way with animals”, had left the group because she didn’t have the strength of will to live without society’s safety nets. Brianna asks Sidra if she could influence Charisse to come back from ‘”the dark side”, but Sidra refuses to get involved. Brianna takes Audrey and Trixie back to the Goodacres until she can plan their next move.

     A week later Brianna, unable to find any more help from the fairy community, decides Trixie’s direct approach of breaking into the Craft building might be the best option. They get inside using Mr. Goodacre’s ID card and meet the rest of the captured pixies, including B and Peia, who Trixie lived with in Detroit, and Lara, queen of the violent, primitive tribe they ran away from. The breakout fails because all of the pixies are bound to magic rings being worn by either Collatz or Charisse, but Brianna does at least get some important information. According to Lara, Craft, Inc. is breeding dragons.

     With the situation increasingly desperate, Audrey reluctantly agrees to let Brianna ‘kidnap’ her, hoping that Mr. Goodacre can either negotiate with Mr. Collatz or help shut him down. He and Brianna meet on Halloween while Audrey and Trixie trick-or-treat in the neighborhood. She explains the situation to him only to find out that he‘s known about it all along. While they’re talking a freight train pulls up on some nearby tracks; a car with some of Trixie‘s old graffiti stops right in front of her and Audrey. The door opens and a dragon lunges out, followed by more from the other cars. In the ensuing chaos, Mr. Goodacre gets away with Audrey, promising he’ll always keep her safe at any cost.

     The dragons’ influence on the weather plunges Detroit into constant darkness. Audrey is closely guarded while Brianna and Trixie pull together one final plan: hijacking trucks that will carry the captive pixies to stores where they’ll be sold. They succeed but most of the pixies won’t come with them, having decided to help Collatz wipe out the human race. Only Trixie and her friends B and Peia choose not to participate, as they’ve gotten used to mooching off of humans. They run off on their own instead.

     On Thanksgiving, Craft, Inc. cuts off the supply of their popular wine, which is secretly tainted with vampire blood. The customers who have become dependent on it suffer withdrawal, becoming increasingly irritable and dangerous. This happens just in time for Black Friday shopping, when parents are competing to get their hands on the limited supply of Craft’s hot new toy. Brief, minor riots erupt, but most of the parents make it home with their dangerous prize.

     Unlike Trixie, who was under some kind of sleeping spell before Audrey opened her box, the pixies who collaborate with Collatz are wide awake. They emerge from their boxes well before Christmas and, as their new ‘owners’ become frightened of their changing parents, encourage them to run away from home. Though she’s now without a pixie of her own, Audrey follows some of her friends, having learned that her father intends to turn her into a vampire.

     Meanwhile, the witch Sidra is walking in the woods (or, rather, the overgrown lot surrounding her abandoned factory) when she comes upon a coyote pursuing a rabbit. The rabbit, one of many animals who has gotten used to the witches, hides behind Sidra. Sidra’s normal habit would be to protect the rabbit, but today she notices the desperate hunger in the coyote’s eyes. She realizes that denying the coyote its meal violates her basic moral code (“harm no one”) and steps aside, abandoning the rabbit to its fate.

     The runaways encounter Brianna, who convinces them to follow her to potential safety in Canada. Unfortunately, the bridge is blocked by the trolls, who are eager to see humanity suffer for its mistakes. Brianna thinks she might be able to get past them and doesn’t see hope anywhere else, but the pixies claim there’s a safer place right in Detroit. The kids trust them except for Audrey, who follows simply because she doesn’t want to abandon her friends.  

     The pixies lead the children to Craft, Inc., where Collatz, Charisse, and other vampires are waiting to feed on the healthy young victims. Before they can, Sidra and the other witches arrive to offer themselves to the vampires, believing that hiding from them would be unfair. Charisse hesitates to attack her former friends, which proves to be just the distraction that Trixie, B, and Peia need to save the day. High above the crowd, they open a hole in the clouds to let the sun shine through, trapping the vampires in the shadow of the building. They’re still there when the dragons, drawn by the light, show up to destroy it, leaving the kids and the pixies a world of their own that they’ll have to learn to survive in.

ASSORTED PIECES

One of the tricky things about fantasy stories is that you have to establish the ‘rules’ of your fictional universe. I have a hard time working these organically into the story, so I planned on including explanations like the following as epigraphs or footnotes, inspired mostly by Jasper Fforde’s “Thursday Next” novels.

     The word “fairy”, derived in a roundabout way by the Latin for “fate”, has been used to describe magical creatures of every size, shape, color, and creed. Over the centuries it’s been defined in so many ways that it’s lost all meaning. “Pixie”, on the other hand, almost always describes small magical creatures. Early mythology draws a distinction between the two races, even indicating that they’re rivals. For these reasons, today’s magical community identifies “pixies” as tiny winged creatures, while “fairy” is a general term for anyone born magic. All pixies, therefore, are technically fairies, but not all fairies are pixies.

     On close examination, the fairy godmother is a bizarre concept. Godmothers are traditionally participants in the Christian rite of baptism. Fairies, in contrast, are specifically pagan; some have even defined them as the ghosts of children who died before baptism. 

     In the loose social structure of fairies, godmother is one of the few leadership roles. Much like a human godparent is supposed to help their godchild lead a Christian life, a fairy godmother is supposed to help their people exist peacefully in Judeo-Christian cultures. In the past this sometimes meant granting wishes for humans in order to gain their favor. Nowadays it mostly means seeking out safe hiding places and discouraging the public use of magic.

Confused by a lack of obvious distinguishing characteristics, Audrey asks Brianna about the differences between humans, fairies, and vampires. Brianna explains that humans have some subtle biological differences, but vampires and fairies mostly differ philosophically.

     “Do you like strawberries?” Audrey nodded. “Suppose you’re wandering through the woods and you see a patch of ripe, juicy wild strawberries. What would you do?”

     Audrey thought for a moment. “Do they belong to someone? I mean, whose land are they on?”

     “They’re free for the taking.”

     “Then I guess I would eat some, and maybe take some home.”

     “Right there,” Brianna exclaimed, “that’s the difference. Vampires, and most humans, would eat their fill and take the rest for later. They might even memorize where the plants are growing, or dig them up. A fairy would just eat their fill and move on.” Brianna frowned. “And this clique of witches, from the looks of it, would probably sit there admiring the strawberries and starve to death.”

     “Isn’t that kind of a waste, though, to leave the berries? What if nobody else finds them, and they just sit there?”

     “When you say ‘nobody’, you mean ‘no human’. There’s a lot other ‘bodies’ out there. Any number of mammals, birds, or insects (but few reptiles, and no fish) might come along to eat the berries. And if they don’t, the bacteria responsible for decomposition will. Either way, the berries will become part of the earth, and eventually --it could take millennia, but eventually-- that strawberry will be a strawberry again, which is the whole point of its existence. But if you take it home and put it in the freezer and forget about it, that’s the end. It just stays there, stuck, not really anything."

After encountering several different magical beings that seem to hold little regard for Brianna, Audrey gets curious about her position as “fairy godmother”.

     “None of these people seem to like you very much. Why did they elect you in the first place?”

     “Elect? I wasn’t elected.”

     “Then how did you become a fairy godmother?”

     “The same way pixies become pixies and trolls become trolls. You’re born a certain way: tiny or big, or with a tendency to stick your nose in other people’s business. Somebody calls you a fairy godmother --behind your back, usually-- and the name sticks. Before long people actually come looking for your help, like Trixie did."

The importance of and power behind names is a big theme in the story. At one point Brianna tries explaining it to Audrey with a visualization exercise.

     Audrey and Brianna were floating out in space, far enough away to see the whole planet, or at least the half of it that was facing them. Audrey had seen plenty of drawings and photographs of this, but none did justice to the indescribable beauty. She was perfectly awestruck and shot a great big smile at Brianna…who was no longer there.

     It occurred to Audrey that she was in space. Space, a cold dark vacuum with no noticeable gravity and no air, just miles and miles of nothing. Audrey screamed at the top of her lungs and no sound came out.

     “Audrey!”

     Suddenly she felt the ground beneath her crossed legs and opened her eyes, and she was sitting in the park again, gasping for air as if she had been underwater. “It’s okay,” Brianna assured her, “you’re alright. It was just an illusion. And that’s what a name is, too. Do you understand? It’s an imaginary separation that allows us to look at the world and appreciate it, but it’s dangerous because we start to think it’s real. That makes us feel alone and scared, and we do stupid things to try and regain a connection we never lost. I’m still right here; the Earth and the universe are still right here. You just had to open your eyes.”

The topic comes up again later; the comment at the end is a reference to the witches.

     “I may have given you the wrong impression. Your name can be dangerous, but you can’t just give it up. Then you’d have to take someone else’s.”

     “What do you mean?”

     “Like when a soldier says he doing something for his country. He’s given up his name and taken the country’s. It’s bad for him because it makes him forget he’s responsible for his own actions, and it’s bad for the country because…well, how would you feel about someone going around doing things in your name?”

     “But aren’t you doing all of this for your people?”

     “Oh, no. Not at all. I’m doing all of this because Collatz winning would be bad for me.”

     “Isn’t that a little selfish?”

     “Absolutely. You have to be a little selfish to recognize that anything that happens anywhere affects you, and you have to be a little arrogant to see that everything you do affects everyone else. But if you would feel safer with people that are completely selfless and humble, I know where you can find them. They’re hiding in an old factory across town, politely waiting for the world to end.”

     

Lara, queen of the local pixie tribe, explains their philosophy to Audrey:

     “Our lives are nasty, brutish, and short, but at least they’re honest. We refuse to accept the fantasy that our families or our governments or our rules can overcome death. Death is daily. Death is life.”

Brianna, on dragons:

     “It’s not right of me to hate dragons. They’re a lot like people. People like light; when they see a dark corner they shine a light in it. Dragons like darkness. They’re born in it. They’re comfortable with it. So when they see a light, they try to put it out.”

 After learning that Brianna lives in a blighted house with no electricity and mushrooms growing from the floorboards, Audrey gets curious:

     “Can I ask you something? If the fae all live outside or in places like this, shouldn’t you be somewhere that it’s warm all the time?”

     “That would be nice,” Brianna answered, “but humans like those places too. When you’re trying to hide from humans you have to live in places they consider uninhabitable, like the forest, the desert, caves, or Detroit.”