The Thirteenth Fairy Page 8

  “If only we could raise an alarm somehow!” Zera clasps her hands in despair.

  Raise an alarm? Let everyone in the immediate vicinity know that they’re in danger? Filomena ransacks her backpack and comes up with it. “My emergency whistle!” she says. “Mum said it could wake up all of Los Angeles. It’s the latest design. It’s not just a whistle but some kind of megaphone recording, too.”

  “Can you use it?” asks Zera.

  “Of course.”

  “Go!” says Zera. “Hurry!”

  Filomena walks to the open window and puts the whistle to her lips. Then she turns back to them. “You guys should cover your ears.”

  She blows into the whistle, which lets out an ear-piercing, sound-barrier-destroying shriek, and when she presses a button, a deep robotic voice announces, “EMERGENCY! EMERGENCY! THIS IS AN EMERGENCY! EMERGENCY! THIS IS AN EMERGENCY! TAKE SHELTER! THIS IS AN EMERGENCY!”

  “We are indeed lucky to have you,” Zera says. Then she closes the curtains and curses vehemently. “Sorry.”

  “It’s all right,” says Alistair. “I learned some new curses while we were away. I can share them with you.”

  But this isn’t the time for jokes. Outside, the creatures and citizens of Vineland are running into their cottages, dens, sheds, and anywhere else they can find shelter, tripping over and running into one another as they frantically scurry for safety. Filomena sees the White Rabbit almost drop his timepiece, and Goldilocks is hoofing it back to her own cottage.

  “We need to prepare for battle,” says Zera. “Follow me!”

  She rushes out of the room and into her bedroom, where she bends down and picks up a floorboard that didn’t look loose, and then another. She trades each of their places with the other. Then she makes quick work of moving around floorboards, rearranging them in an intricate pattern that Filomena can’t quite follow with her eyes or memory. Even in her haste, Zera is graceful and elegant, as if she’s done this a thousand times. Filomena fears that she has.

  “I keep my weapons here,” says Zera.

  Filomena feels a shudder in her bones as the realization hits her deeper this time. They are all truly in danger. What started out as awe-inspiring and a whole lot of fun has suddenly taken a dark and unpredictable turn. The panicked screams coming from outside the cottage remind her just how real this all is.

  And then, a familiar sound. One she never wanted to hear again. Only this time, she’s not imagining it. The cackling begins. The wicked laughter, the hysteria. The shrill and satisfied screeching.

  The battle has begun.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THE BATTLE

  Filomena tries to remember what she knows about ogres from the books: They like to roast their victims before eating them. Ugh!

  “They must know you’re in Vineland,” Jack says to Filomena as Zera works frantically to unlock the floorboards. “Someone must have tipped them off. I don’t think anyone would have done so willingly, but after enough pain and torture…”

  “Someone must have cracked,” Alistair says, then shakes his head. “I hate them. I wish they’d leave us alone. I just want this to stop.”

  “Me too, Alistair. Me too.” At last, the floorboards open and Zera begins to hoist up weapons, handing Jack a bow and arrow and removing axes and knives from the stash. “They’re here for me. And I can’t leave the people of Vineland to suffer. Vineland was kind enough to give me refuge when the sultan was slain and my kingdom taken. I will not leave it to fear and ruin.”

  “Neither will I,” says Jack, picking up knives and stuffing them into his boots.

  Filomena feels as if she can’t breathe. Outside, everything is eerily quiet. Too quiet. Everyone is hidden. Doors are shut and bolted, windows locked and curtains drawn.

  Vineland is holding its breath.

  Then: the sound of marching.

  The ogres are on their way. In the books, the ogres are described as the ogre queen’s servant-soldier hybrids, obeying her every command to destroy and cause destruction. Filomena swallows hard, telling herself to be brave. That no moment has ever mattered as much as this one is about to. Her very life may well depend on it.

  Zera draws back the curtains a sliver, and through it they can see the ogre army. They’re aligned in sloppy rows, for ogres don’t like order, and they are snorting and stamping their feet, eager for mayhem. The ogres are even worse than their description in the book: hideous, deformed, piglike creatures, with massive boils on their leathery hides that their armor doesn’t cover. They’re carrying swords and shields; the archers among them carry crossbows aimed at the sky, ready to rain down fire on the thatched cottages of the village.

  “Do we have a plan?” Alistair asks nervously, fidgeting with his hands.

  “No,” Jack says. “But knowing we don’t have a plan is better than not knowing we need one.”

  “That doesn’t make us feel better,” says Filomena.

  “If we can bring down the general, the rest of the army will scatter,” says Zera.

  “Which one’s the general?” asks Alistair.

  They look out the window. “That one,” says Jack.

  An ogre the size of four ogres comes into view. This one is even uglier and meaner-looking than the rest and wields an ugly club wrapped in barbed wire.

  “I’ll use my vines to pull him off his gryphon,” says Jack.

  “And I’ll kill him with this,” says Zera, pulling out a silver blade from her waistband. “Dragon’s Tooth sword. Cuts through anything. My sister Antonia made this one for me.”

  “You guys stay here,” says Jack. “Stay safe. Don’t do anything stupid.”

  “But—” Filomena begins to protest.

  “No buts,” says Jack. “Stay here. That’s an order.”

  “But I know all the spells!” says Filomena. “I can help! There are only two of you against all of them!”

  She does have a point.

  “She’s been useful so far,” says Zera.

  “See?” says Filomena triumphantly.

  “We’re going out there?” asks Alistair.

  “No, not you,” says Jack. “You stay inside.”

  “If Filomena gets to fight, I do, too,” Alistair argues. “I’ll take this,” he says, picking out a large hammer.

  Seeing that Alistair won’t be dissuaded, Jack gives in. “Fine. But you guys stick close.”

  He doesn’t have to tell Filomena twice. She inches as close as she can to Alistair and Jack without her nose touching either of their backs, and braces herself for battle.

  “Let’s go,” says Jack.

  For a moment, nothing happens. Everyone is tense, and no one moves.

  Then Zera speaks one word: “Now.”

  And they charge out of the cottage. They huddle close together, moving forward in a cluster, but once they burst into the clearing and the line of fire, they scatter, Jack and Zera running in a zigzag manner to get to the ogre general.

  Thunderbolts crackle and crash from the sky, striking the ground with a vengeance. The ogres roar as they set cottages on fire, and when the inhabitants run out, they stomp on them. They’re terrifying in their size and strength, tossing creatures and fairies every which way as they crush and destroy everything in sight.

  Smoke sifts into the air with a scorched scent that loiters in your nostrils, a heaviness overtaking your lungs.

  She thinks she hears Zera and Jack shouting out a spell, chanting together. Alistair joins in, she can hear him behind her, but she can’t turn back to look at him. She’s too terrified. Why didn’t she agree to stay in the cottage? What was she thinking? She narrowly dodges a thunderbolt and a tree thrown in her general direction.

  Filomena tries to remember a spell—any spell—but she’s too rattled as an ogre stomps his way toward them, his earth-shaking footsteps approaching from behind. She’s trembling as she swivels her head, unable to move the rest of her body as she stares up at the massive beast. She squeezes her eyes shut an
d prays he doesn’t step on her or pick her up and fling her across the way.

  But just as the ogre is about to reach them, a cry of rage rises above the mayhem.

  Filomena looks up to see that Jack has used his vines to lasso the ogre general and pull him off his monstrous steed. Zera, her dark hair aflame, has leapt quickly on top of the general, her Dragon’s Tooth sword held high.

  “For the Forest and the Vine, the Wood and the Trees!” Zera screams. “And for Parsa!”

  With a mighty force, she stabs the ogre general right in the heart.

  There is a monstrous roar, and then the ogre general explodes into a million pieces, his dark dust a cloud over the landscape.

  There is a communal shriek, and all of a sudden the ogres retreat. The thunderbolts stop. The stomping footsteps come to a halt, replaced by the sound of running.

  As quickly as they arrived, the ogres disappear.

  A chilling quiet stretches over what’s left of Vineland, covering it like a blanket, like velvet in a casket, laying the riot to rest.

  Filomena closes her eyes again and tilts her head back, breathing a sigh of relief. But upon the exhale, she’s so busy trying to collect herself and fathom what just happened, she doesn’t notice the gargantuan ogre still standing there watching them, even though the others have started fleeing.

  Because at the precise moment Filomena is thanking the stars that everyone left standing is safe, Alistair is captured without a sound.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  THE RESCUE

  “Help!” Alistair screams, and Filomena turns around. Just as she believed the gruesome and relentless attack was over, it hit close to home. Alistair is in the grips of an ogre giant’s fist.

  Filomena looks for Jack or Zera, but they’re too far away, helping creatures wounded or trapped by the attack.

  It’s up to her, standing small at the gigantic feet of this humongous ogre. And I thought Algebra One Honors is hard. She shakes her head at the silly things she’d feared before all … this.

  The ogre doesn’t see her; he’s too busy trying to get a good look at Alistair, the tiny boy in his mammoth fist.

  Filomena hears a distinct snap, followed by a pain-stricken groan from somewhere above her.

  “Ahhhh!” Alistair wails in the sky, his face contorting with agony.

  The ogre brings Alistair right by his eye and roars in satisfaction. “Got you now, you little bugger!”

  Alistair screams again.

  Filomena can’t take it anymore. She has to do something to save him! She bends down and grabs a few rocks, throwing them at the ogre to try to distract him before he kills Alistair.

  But the rocks bounce off his leg like pebbles. The ogre doesn’t even flinch.

  As much as Filomena wants to call out for Jack or Zera to help her, she knows time is ticking, and with every second that passes, another of Alistair’s bones could be breaking.

  She thinks back to the books. I know all the spells, she’d announced just moments earlier. I can help.

  She remembers one chapter in particular where an ogre sweeps a princess off her feet, only it isn’t in a good way. It was horrifying, just like this. In the book, Jack saves the princess by loosening the limbs of the ogre with a particular spell, basically turning the enemy’s extremities into Jell-O-like appendages.

  She remembers the chapter. She remembers the scene. She remembers what the princess is wearing. But the spell … It’s on the tip of her tongue, but she can’t recall where it starts or ends, or anything in between.

  Alistair shrieks in pain again, and she mumbles to herself, covering her ears so she can think straight.

  How did it go?

  Quick. ‘Ogre be quick…’

  No … It went, ‘Ogre, ogre…’

  She rolls the words around in her mind a few times, rearranging them as Zera had done to the floorboards.

  It comes to her all at once. She stumbles at first, attempting to remember the tongue twister’s true order. But there’s no time to perfect the rhyme. She decides to just spit it out and hope she gets it right. Alistair’s life depends on it.

  “Ogre be feeble, ogre be thick! Ogre be sluggish, ogre be sick! Ogre droop under this limbless kiss, until every bit of you is mush and twist!” she chants, over and over, until she’s screaming the words into the sky. “OGRE BE FEEBLE! OGRE BE THICK! OGRE BE SLUGGISH! OGRE BE SICK! OGRE DROOP UNDER THIS LIMBLESS KISS, UNTIL EVERY BIT OF YOU IS MUSH AND TWIST!”

  She feels her voice going hoarse as the ogre stumbles, gently at first, like he’s about to sneeze. But almost instantly, before he can recover his footing, his face starts drooping. His mouth settles into a permanent frown.

  His flesh goes formless, starting at the neck. What was once nimble becomes numb, the skin sagging into a gloppy substance. She watches his one arm go limp and then start flopping around like a rubber snake. Next goes the other arm, the one attached to the hand gripping Alistair.

  The fist becomes fluidlike, and Alistair suddenly looks as if he’s caught in a bowl of skin soup. Filomena gags while watching the transformation. The ogre is rendered powerless as his legs go next, his kneecaps turning into pure tissue and becoming formless, bending and meandering and twisting at angles that could make even the strongest stomach turn.

  The giant falls to the ground in a heavy, aimless flop, his malleable body parts still detouring with a mind of their own. Filomena tries not to puke as she races to Alistair, who’s still in the sloshy grip of the erstwhile powerful ogre, now a mushy pile on the ground.

  Filomena climbs over the ogre, sinking into his skin like it’s quicksand. As disgusting as it is, she searches her way around the saggy baggy sea and finally finds Alistair. She only sees his head, but she yells for him to try to reach his hand out so she can help him.

  He’s struggling to breathe, but his hand juts out and she grabs it, pulling him from the goop.

  She groans and yanks as hard as she can. Jack and Zera suddenly appear right behind her.

  “Hey! I remember using that spell,” says Jack. “Let me guess, that’s in the books?”

  “You know it! I’m a big reader, remember?” Filomena says between grunts. “Help me get him out of here! He’s drowning in bone-drool!”

  Jack rushes to her side and grabs what’s available of Alistair’s arm, the rest still sunken in the sloppy skin-ship.

  With a little help from Jack Stalker, Filomena’s last tug frees Alistair from the ogre’s gooey clutches, and she and Alistair go flying backward.

  She crawls toward Alistair, checking him over. Zera kneels beside her, also inspecting the boy for injury.

  “Where does it hurt?” Filomena asks Alistair.

  “Everywhere and after,” he says with a groan. “But if you think this is bad, you should see the other guy.”

  Filomena laughs, and they all turn their heads to the puddle of ogre, still melting by their feet.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THE FEAST

  After the last of the ogres have retreated, leaving wreckage and ruin in their wake, Zera starts tending to the injured. There are too many creatures to count, bloody and hurt in the aftermath of the attack. Those who are unharmed, including Jack and Filomena, assist her, and they carry or drag as many bodies as they can to a makeshift healing center in one of the big barns. The structure isn’t totally intact, but it’s sturdy enough to keep them safe and warm inside.

  Zera organizes the pixies and asks them to work their magic on the wounded, healing their injuries to the best of their abilities. Some are unable to heal the others properly, due to injuries they themselves have sustained during the assault. But she remains steadfast in her mission to help. She tends to as many as she can, quickly and with a resolute purpose. Her grace never wavers, nor does her kindness or patience. Filomena finds herself wishing Zera were her big sister. No one would tease her back home if the clever fairy was her protector.

  Filomena sits at Alistair’s bedside as Jack helps Zera
take care of the others. Alistair’s been healed quite well, after what appeared to be some broken ribs. But there’s nothing the pixies can do for the bruising that’s already started to manifest all over his body. It’s an unfortunate side effect not only of the incident that required the healing in the first place, but also of the healing process itself. They can fix some things, but they cannot perfect or control how it takes shape.

  Filomena looks at him with a sympathetic smile. “How ya doin’, bud?” she asks, purposely sounding jocular to cheer him up.

  “I’m feeling better. Still quite sore, but that’s to be expected when you’re nearly squeezed to death by an ogre,” he replies with a smirk, and she’s glad to see he didn’t lose his sense of humor in the traumatic event.

  “You don’t say,” she says, laughing. “How long do you think you’ll be stuck in this bed?”

  “Not sure. I know I can’t move around just yet. The magic takes time to work its way through the body. If I move around, I could seriously hinder it and wind up with more legs than any person should have. Or worse, something internal could go wrong. What if I could never eat again because my intestine wound up in my heart?”

  Filomena shakes her head, but the thought of it frightens her, and she realizes how close they came to losing him altogether. “I’m sure that won’t happen. Just … stay still.”

  “You couldn’t trade me a hundred Lily Licks not to,” replies Alistair.

  She tilts her head. “Lily Licks?”

  “Yeah, you know, the little white-and-yellow suckers? Lilies?”

  She shakes her head. “No, but what is it with you and flowers?”

  “What is it with you and no flowers?” he counters.

  Just as Filomena is about to answer, Zera’s voice rings throughout the large room, and Filomena turns to listen.

  Zera announces that she will be providing a feast for the survivors, and the meal is already being prepared. An assortment of food and drink will be served, and all are welcome to attend. She adds that although the injured have to unfortunately remain here for their own safety, dishes will be brought to them by the helpers and healers so they can eat comfortably without risking further injury. She closes her message by saying how thankful she is for everyone’s assistance—and resilience—today.