Irene Radford - Thistle Down

She was alone. Time to find some answers. She needed to talk to Alder, who seemed to be at the heart of all the problems besetting her friends.

From Mrs. Jennings’ house, she walked two blocks north and then another three west until she faced a seemingly impenetrable wall of trees and undergrowth. The bracken and sword ferns had grown so intertwined they obscured any path that might lurk beneath them. Even the narrow drainage ditch between the graveled shoulder of the rotting road and the ferns looked solidly overgrown.

They drooped with dry dust, looking tired and extremely thirsty. All the life and luster had drained out of them.

No matter. She could find the path. She’d flown along the narrow opening dozens of times a day for as long as she had sought friends among the children playing in the forest.

One step in the center of the ditch and her foot sank deep among the tall grasses, thistles, tansy, and Queen Anne’s lace. Most of the plant tops tickled her knees. Except the thistles. Her namesake. Those prickled her arms all the way up to her elbows. She scratched the irritating dots.

Then she paused, wondering if she scratched and annoyed people the way the spines of the plant did. Even as she thought about it, some of the stickers worked their way under her skin, persistent, incapable of being ignored.

She giggled at the thought of how she had worked her way into the lives of Dick and Dusty. Unrelentingly.

But she couldn’t let laughter and fun deter her from her task.

She took another step, up this time into the first thicket of bracken and more grass going to seed and thistles flowering, brilliant purple and delicately fragrant. A few of those had begun to fluff white as the seeds worked their way outward from the center. The season marched toward autumn. The days grew shorter.

Surely rain and cooler temperatures had to come soon to give the humans and the plants some relief.

Pixies thrived in summer heat and the cool spring and autumn. Only in deepest winter did they seek shelter, huddling together and sleeping most of the day and night until the days brightened again.

“I must be truly human now if I’m uncomfortable,” she mused as perspiration trickled down her back and between her breasts. “The time is long past for me to return to Pixie. Maybe then I won’t hurt so bad because I can’t let Dick love me.”

She took one more step and… flew backward, landing on her butt in the rough gravel.

Her hands stung and her back ached. Her senses reeled and darkness crowded in from the sides. She desperately needed to put her head down.

Nothing soft and comfortable showed itself within reach.

“What?” Tears flowed down her cheeks in pain and disappointment. This was the second time she’d been thrown out of Pixie and landed in a humiliating lump.

“You’re an exile. You can’t go back until Alder says you can go back,” a man laughed from behind her.

She twisted around to see who mocked her.

“Haywood Wheatland.”

He bowed formally, like a proper Pixie. He stayed a good twenty feet away. Not proper Pixie protocol. He should come to arm’s length and wait for an invitation to rub wings.

“Who are you?” she asked, scrambling upward, desperately seeking balance and dignity. Her head took a few heartbeats to catch up with the rest of her. She stumbled and had to plant her feet in a wide stance to stay upright.

“Look closer at your precious Ten Acre Wood, Thistle Down. Look and see what rejects you.”

She peered at the line of trees marking the boundary of her tribe’s territory. A wall of shimmering energy, much like the aura around frantically flapping Pixie wings swam into view.

“You and only you are the reason for that wall. Now no Pixie can enter or leave The Ten Acre Wood until Alder takes it down. And he won’t. Not until Milkweed agrees to a mating flight.”

“Maybe he’s trying to keep Milkweed from returning to her valley home?”

Haywood gulped, then paused in thought. He finally nodded agreement.

“She’s both smart and stupid,” Thistle spat.

Haywood cocked his head in question.

“She’s smart not to trust Alder. Trusting him to a mating flight is no guarantee he’ll be faithful to her afterward.”

“You should know.”

“Yes. He betrayed me, and probably others.”

“Then why is she stupid?”

“If she took the mating flight, the treaty between her tribe and Alder’s would stand. She would be queen. A powerful leader of the most important Pixie territory. She could wrest control from him as soon as she exposed his underhanded manipulation of his tribe. Then she could dictate who could use the Patriarch Oak and when.”

Thistle vented her anger by brushing dirt and gravel off her skirt and legs. Jagged bits of rock clung to her, stinging worse than thistle spines. Scrapes burned, and she ached all over. Long scratches and drops of blood trickled down her arms and legs, like the stream trying to gain enough momentum to plunge over the cliff in high summer.

“Granted. Milkweed needs to control the situation,” Haywood mused. “That doesn’t change anything, though. You are still exiled and powerless. Soon the chain saws will bring down Alder and the Patriarch Oak. Soon he’ll have no power, no prestige, no queen, and no territory.” He smiled, showing too many pointed yellow teeth the same color as his hair. In the slanted afternoon light he looked like sun-ripened hay ready to ignite into flames if the temperature increased one degree.

Hay? Haywood?

“Stars above and earth below, you’re Milkweed’s brother!”

“Guilty as charged.” He bowed again, laughing. But his mirth sounded harsh and gravelly, not at all bright and chiming like most Pixies.

“You! You’re behind the logging,” she accused.

“Not me. I signed nothing. Everything is in Phelma Jo’s name.”

“She hasn’t the imagination to think this up. She couldn’t see Pixies as a child. She thought we were all dragonflies.” So did Chase, but he was learning that life grew beyond logic and the limits of practical explanations.

“The mayor and the lawyers won’t believe that,” Hay smirked.

“You’re from the valley. I bet you learned all about computers and bending rules from the boys you befriended. But how can you get close to anything digital? They go all static…” Oh, my. A fiery aura, compatibility with computers, pointy teeth.

He was no ordinary Pixie. She’d bet her wings that he was only half Pixie. Dusty had it right. Half Pixie and half Faery gave him control over all four elements and which ones dominated.

That was why she couldn’t get close to him. His Faery blood repelled her, like… like magnets or something.

She backed up two steps in fear.

“My boys do love their video games. They learned to like blowing things up from their games. And they love hacking, just to see how far they can get inside other people’s computers. I am their faithful friend, learning as much from them as they do from me. Tonight they’ll succeed at both their hobbies by taking control over all the computerized carnival rides and then blowing up the Ferris wheel.” He almost glowed with pride. Or was that just Faery fire?

“Doesn’t it bother you that besides destroying our oldest and grandest tradition, you will break Dusty’s heart? You lied to her from the beginning. You said you loved her and then you kissed her. That shreds the first law of Pixie, never to hurt a friend.” Thistle clenched her fists. She wanted to hit him, knock him over the cliff, send him back to his traitorous forebears.

But she needed to find Chase, or Dusty, or Dick, someone who could stop the boys from hurting people at the carnival.

“Dusty is my only regret,” Hay sighed. “I had not intended to fall in love with her. She is so cute and innocent. Still very much a child in many ways. She tugs at my heartstrings in ways that my betrothed never could. But my engagement to Rosie was negotiated long ago. I will not violate that treaty.”