Into the Woods: Tales from the Hollows and Beyond(69)
Author: Kim Harrison

Jenks darted to a second, smaller hearth at the outskirts of the room for the box that held kindling. Insurance wouldn’t allow a fire inside the church, and the kit had never made it inside. And if I’m interviewing a client, he thought, worried he might not make a good impression, it should be by more than the glow of my dust. The interview should be given the honor of the main hearth in the center of the room.

Vincet slid his sword away, his wings shivering for warmth as he looked at the ceilings.

"Um, you want to sit down?" Jenks said again as he returned with the kindling, and Vincet gingerly lowered himself to the edge of the cushion beside the dark fire pit. Though never starting outright war, poaching was a plague upon pixy society. Even being used to bending the rules, Jenks felt a territorial surge when Vincet’s eyes scanned the dim room.

"I heard you lived in a castle of oak," Vincet said, clearly in awe. "Where is everyone?"

Watching him, Jenks struck the rocks together, whispering the words to honor the pixies who first stole a live flame and to ask for a prosperous season. Matalina should be at his side as he started the season’s first flame, and he felt a pang of worry, wondering if it was wrong to do this without her.

"Right now we’re living in the church," he said as an ember caught the charred linen, glowing as he added bits of fluff. "We’re going to move out this week." I hope.

Vincet’s wings stilled. "You live inside. With . . . lunkers?"

Smiling, Jenks began placing small sticks. With an instinctive shift of the muscles at the base of his wings, he modified the dust he was laying down to make it more flammable. It caught immediately, and stray bits floated up like motes of stars. "For the winter so we don’t have to hibernate. I’ve seen snow," he said proudly. "It burns, almost, and turns your fingers blue."

Perhaps I could turn one of the storage rooms into an office? he thought as he set the first of the larger sticks on the flames and rose from his knees. But the thought of Matalina’s eyes, pained as strangers violated their home repeatedly, made him wince. She was a grand woman, saying nothing when his fairy-dusted schemes burned in his brain. Better to ask Rachel to bury a flowerpot upside down in the garden beside the gate at the edge of the property. Hang a sign out or something. If he was going to help Cincinnati’s pixies, he should be prepared.

"I need your help," Vincet said again, and Jenks’s dust rivaled the firelight.

"We don’t hire ourselves out for territory disputes," Jenks said, not knowing what else the pixy buck could want.

"I’d not ask," Vincet said, clearly affronted as his wings slipped a yellow dust. "If I can’t hold a piece of ground, I don’t deserve to garden it. My claim is strong. My wife and I have land, three terrified children from last year, and six newlings. I had seven yesterday."

Though the young pixy’s voice was even, his smooth, childlike face clenched in heartache. Seeing his pain, Jenks settled back, impressed that this was his second season as a father, and he had managed to raise three children already. It had taken him and Matalina two seasons to get their first newlings past the winter, and no newlings at all had survived that third winter. "I’m sorry," he said. "Food is hard at this time of year."

Vincet had his head bowed, mourning. "It’s not the food. We have enough, and both Noel and I would gladly go hungry to feed our children. It’s the statue." His head came up, and Jenks felt a stab of concern at Vincet’s haunted expression. "You’ve got to help me-you work with a witch. It’s magic. It’s driving my daughter mad in her sleep, and last night, when I kept her awake, it killed one of my newlings."

Jenks’s wings angled to catch the heat from the fire, and a sudden surge of warmth drove out the chill that had taken him. A statue? Leaning forward, Jenks wished he had a clipboard or a pencil like Ivy always had when she interviewed clients. He didn’t know what to say, but a pen always made Ivy look like she knew what she was doing. "A statue?" he prompted, and Vincet bobbed his head, his blond hair going everywhere.

"That’s how we got the garden," he said, his words faster now that Jenks was listening. "It’s in a park. The flower beds abandoned. No sign of pixy or fairy. We didn’t know why. Last year, we held a spot of ground in the hills, but lunkers cut it down, built a house, and didn’t put in any flowers or trees to replace what they destroyed. I barely got my family out alive when the dozers came. Noel-that’s my wife-was near her time. She couldn’t fly much. The park was empty. We didn’t know the ground was cursed. I thought it was goddess-sent, and now my children . . . The newlings . . . They’re dying in their sleep, burning up!"

Jenks crossed his knees, trying to look unaffected by Vincet’s outburst, but in reality, he was worried. Rachel always got as much information as she could before saying yes or no. He didn’t know what difference it made, but he asked, "What park are you in?"

Vincet licked his lips. "I don’t know. I’ve not heard anyone say the name of the place yet. I’ll take you there. It’s by a long set of steps in the middle of a grassy place. It was perfect. We took the flower beds, dug out a small room under the roots of a dogwood. Noel brought to life seven newlings. We were even thinking of naming them. Then Vi, my daughter, began sleepflying."

Frowning, Jenks shivered his wings for some light as he sat across the fire from him. "Sleepflying? She’ll outgrow it. One of my sons spent a summer waking up in the garden more than his bed." Jenks smiled. There was always some question if Jumoke had been sleepflying, or simply looking for solitude. His middle-brood son endured a lot of good-natured ribbing from his elder siblings due to his brown hair and hazel eyes, rare to the point of shame among pixies.

Vincet made a rude huff, the dust from his wings turning black. "Did your son scream in pain as his wings smoldered while he beat at a statue? Did his aura become sickly, and pale? My daughter isn’t sleepflying, she’s being attacked. I can’t wake her up until the moon passes its zenith. Even if I bend her wing backward. It’s been happening every night now that the moon is nearly full."

Vincet’s face went riven with grief, and his head dropped. "Last night I kept her awake, and the statue attacked a newling. Noel held him as he died, unable to breathe, he was screaming so. It was . . ." The young pixy’s wings drooped, and he wiped his eyes, black dust slipping from his fingers when the tear dried. "I couldn’t wake him. We tried and tried, but he just kept screaming as his wings turned to powder and his dust burned inside him."

Horrified, Jenks shifted on his cushion, not knowing what to say. Vincet’s child had burned alive?