Into the Woods: Tales from the Hollows and Beyond(70)
Author: Kim Harrison

Vincet met his eyes, begging without saying a word. "Noel is afraid to let the newlings sleep," he whispered, his hands wringing and his wings still as he sat on Jenks’s winter-musty cushion. "My children are terrified of the dark. A pixy shouldn’t be afraid of the dark. It’s where we belong, under the sun and moon."

Jenks’s paternal instincts tugged on him. Vincet wasn’t much older than Jax-his eldest now on his own. If he hadn’t seen Vincet’s fear, he would have said the pixy buck was dust-struck. Taking a stick as thick as his arm, Jenks knelt to put it on the fire, dusting it heavily to help it catch. "I don’t see how a statue can cause children to go wandering," he said hesitantly, "much less set their dust on fire. Are you sure that’s the cause? Maybe it’s a mold or a fungus."

Vincet’s dust turned a muddy shade of red as it pooled about his boots. "It’s not a mold or fungus!" he exclaimed, and Jenks eyed his sword. "It’s the statue! Nothing grows on it. It’s cursed! And why would her aura shift like that? Something is in her!"

Jenks’s wings hummed as he drew back from the hearth. Making a statue come to life to torment pixies didn’t sound like witch magic, but there were other things that hadn’t come out of the closet when the pixies, vampires, and witches had-things that would cause humans to raze the forests and plow the abandoned smaller towns into dust if they knew. But a statue? And why would a statue want to destroy itself? Unless . . . something was trapped in it?

"Have you felt anything?" he asked, and Vincet glanced at the dark tunnel behind him.

"No." He shifted uncomfortably, looking at his sword. "Neither has Noel. I’ve nothing to give you but my sword, but I’d gladly hand it over to you if you’ll help us. I’m lost. I can defend my land from fairies, hummers, crows, and rats, but I can’t see what is killing my children. Please, Jenks. I’ve come such a long way. Will you help me?"

Embarrassed, Jenks looked at the young man’s sword as Vincet held it out to him, his face riven with helplessness. "I won’t take another man’s steel," Jenks said gruffly, and the young pixy went terrified.

"I have nothing else . . ." he said, the tip of the sword falling to rest on his knees.

"Now, I wouldn’t say that," Jenks said, and Vincet’s wings filled the room with the sound of a thousand bees and the glow of the sun. "You have two hands. Can you make a dragonfly hut out of a flowerpot?"

Vincet’s hope turned to disgust. "I’ll not take charity," he said, standing up with his sword in a tight grip. "And I’m not stupid. You have a castle and a large family. You can make a dragonfly hut yourself."

"No!" Jenks said, standing up after him. "I want an office on the edge of the property, on the street side of the wall that divides the garden from the road. Can you build me that? Under the lilac? And paint me a sign if I give you the letters for it? It’s not garden work, and I can’t ask my children to make me an office. My wife would pluck my wings!"

Vincet hesitated. His eyes shut in a slow blink, and when they opened, hope shone again. "I can do that."

Smiling, Jenks wondered if Jax had made half as honorable a man. The dust-caked idiot had run off, poorly trained, with a thief. Jenks’s last words to him had been harsh, and it bothered him, for once a child left the garden, he was gone forever. Usually. But Jenks’s kids were changing that tradition, too. "I’ll take a look," Jenks said. "Me and my partner, Bis," he added in a sudden thought. Rachel never went on a run without backup. He should take someone, too. "If I can help you, then you’ll build me an office out of a flowerpot."

Looking up at him, Vincet nodded, relief a golden dust slipping from him. "Thank you," he said, sliding his sword away with a firm intent. "Can you come now?"

Jenks looked askance at the ceiling to estimate the light. The sun was down by the looks of it, and Bis would be awake. "Absolutely. But, ah, I have to let my wife know where I’m going."

Vincet sighed knowingly, and together they flew up the short passage to the sun, leaving the fire to go out by itself.

PIXY SITUATIONS, INQUIRE HERE, Jenks thought as he guided Vincet to the garden wall to sit with Jumoke while he talked with Matalina. What harm could ever come of that?

TWO

Hands on his hips to maintain his balance, Jenks shifted his wing angle to keep his position as the night wind gusted against him. Before him, the distant evening traffic was a background hum to the loud TVs, radios, and phone conversations beating on his ears in the dark, coming from the brightly lit townhouses across the street. Behind him were the soft sounds of a wooded park. The noise from the nearby city was almost intolerable, but the small garden space with its two statues and profusion of flowers in the middle of the city was worth the noise pollution. The barrage was likely reduced to low thumps and rumbles underground where Vincet had begun to make a home for his young family.

His middle was empty, and as he waited for Vincet to return from telling Noel they were back, Jenks fumbled in a waist pack for a sticky wad of nectar, honey, and peanut butter. His human partners were clueless, but if he didn’t eat every few hours, he’d suffer. What Rachel and Ivy didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

"That’s the statue, eh?" he said when Vincet rejoined him and they both came to rest on the back of a nearby bench. It was across the sidewalk from Vincet’s flower beds, and staying off the greenery made both of them happier-even if he had been invited and was wearing his red bandanna like a belt. He hesitated, and then thinking it might be required as part of his new "helping" role, he offered Vincet a sweetball. He’d never given food to anyone outside his family before. It felt odd, and Vincet blinked at him, clearly shocked at the offer.

"No, thank you," he said, looking confused. "Um. Yes, that’s the statue." Vincet pointed at the closest statue, and Jenks slipped the second sweetball away. "It won’t attack until the moon is higher," Vincet added, more at ease now that the food was put away. Wings shivering, he glanced up at the moon, a day shy of full. "It attacks at midnight, not the lunkers’ clocked midnight, but the real midmoon when it’s at its zenith."

Jenks’s attention dropped to the twin statues spaced about ten feet apart, surrounded by new annuals and low shrubs. Both had a Greek look about them, with a classic beauty of smooth lines and draping robes. The older statue was black in places from pollution, making it almost more beautiful. Carved ringlets of hair pulled back and braided framed a young-looking face, almost innocent in her expression. Her stone robes did little to hide her admittedly shapely legs from her thighs down. There was a flaccid water sack on her belt, and her fingers were wrapped about the butt of a sword, pushing into the pedestal at her toe.