Slumber (13 page)

Her mind scrambled to find some excuse, any excuse, but thinking had become so hard now, and she didn't hold back a big sigh of relief when she saw that the person at the door wasn't Violet at all but Aryenis, the fairy who didn't talk.

Aryenis didn't seem surprised to find her in Violet's room. Part of her brain told her that was kind of weird, but then Aryenis walked up to Ruby and touched the scarf wrapped around her throat to hide the necklace, and that was
definitely
weird.

As soon as Aryenis' fingers came away from the scarf, Ruby's brain cleared.
Mom! Shelley!
How could she have forgotten them? She was trying to save them!

“I need to wake up,” she muttered. “I'm falling under the Slumber, aren't I?”

Aryenis, watching her solemnly, nodded.

“Shit.” Ruby put a hand to her head and gave it a shake. Her mind was so muddled, but she had to focus. “How did you know about the necklace?” she asked Aryenis.

No answer. At least Aryenis wasn't hostile or even amused by Ruby's predicament. She was just…waiting.

Ruby wrenched her mind to what Tam had said about Aryenis when she first met the fairy. It wasn't that Aryenis couldn't talk, it was that she wouldn't. Big difference. “Can you at least tell me how to break the curse on me and my family?”

Aryenis shook her head. Did that mean she didn't know how to break the spell, or that she was refusing?

Focus.
Desperately, Ruby looked around. On Violet's cluttered dresser, she saw a crumpled napkin, which she snatched up along with an eyeliner pencil. “Can you write?”

To Ruby's total relief, Aryenis took the napkin and pencil. She cleared a tiny space off the top of Violet's dresser, laid the napkin down, and after trying a few times to get her fingers around the pencil properly, like she'd almost forgotten how, wrote haltingly. Then she handed Ruby the napkin.

The hell? Instead of words, Aryenis had drawn a series of primitive pictures like Egyptian hieroglyphs. Or like the gold symbol on the blue door to the forever-locked room down the hall. Ruby stared at the drawing of a flower, a crown, a pair of lips, and a stick figure holding out its hands with something cupped in them. Was this fairy language? Or a big joke?

“What does it mean?” she asked.

But Aryenis was backing out of the room. She pointed to the napkin, then was gone.

Ruby stared at the drawings again. A flower. A crown. Lips. A figure holding its hands out. It made no sense.

The faint strains of music filtered to her from outside, drawing Ruby's attention back to the window. She looked down at the lake. Her breath caught. Twinkling will-o-the-wisp lights were floating all over the lawn that surrounded the lake! Everyone down there was dancing among them, laughing, and having a good time. Such a good time.

She wanted to have a good time too.

Ruby put the napkin in her pocket next to her cellphone and told herself she'd try to figure it out later. Right now it was very important that she go back to the lake and see the lights.

But when she hurried back outside, the lights had gone. So had the fairies. No music, no laughter. Nothing but the wind whispering through the trees, the rippling of dark water, and the smell of crushed grass lingering in the warm air.

“Ruby.”

She turned to find Tam standing beside her. She hadn't heard him approach.

“I missed the party,” she said sadly.

“I'm sorry, Ruby.”

“Everything's messed up. I'm trying so hard to…to…” She trailed off. She was trying to do what?

Tam's expression was grave. “There was never any way to save your family,” he answered. “I knew that when I brought you here.”

“You did?”

“But I also know that you'll be alright soon.” He held out his hand. The gold ring on his index finger gleamed in the moonlight. “Dance with me?”

Music started playing again, a seductive slow beat. Ruby took his hand and sighed when he pulled her into his arms. They swayed together, and Ruby gasped when the will-o-the-wisp lights floated down from the sky again and started dancing with them too.

Tam wiped away the tears streaming down her cheeks with his thumbs. Then he kissed her forehead. “Don't worry, Ruby. You won't be sad for long.”

He slid his hand down the side of her body toward her hip. His touch sent electric shivers down her spine, and Ruby leaned in to him, wanting more. Then Tam pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and held down the button on the top, turning it off, before sliding it back into her pocket.

Should she tell him to leave it on? But why? She tried to figure it out, but the only thing she could focus on was Tam's arms around her, feeling so good.

And that everything was beautiful.

So beautiful.

“Come on!”

Ruby grabbed Tam's hand and together they raced down the corridors of Cottingley. The figure of a boy naked down to his boxer briefs, a mask over his face, a crown of antlers on his head, whisked around a corner, just out of reach. “He's getting away!” Ruby shrieked. “After him!”

Tam stumbled after her, laughing. “He can't get away,” he gasped between chuckles. “Where's he going to go?”

Rushing footsteps sounded behind them, then more laughing voices. “I know, but we have to run him down first!”

Ruby didn't know why. She didn't care. She was having the best time of her life right now, because hunting was the most fun thing in the world and hunting with Tam was fun times infinity.

The stag-boy took a couple more twists and turns through the halls until he ran into a dead end at the French doors leading out to the patio. Frantically, he rattled the doorknob, but it was locked.

“We're gonna get him!” Ruby screamed.

“Hell, yes!” Tam yelled.

The boy took a step back from the door and then started kicking it over and over until it gave way with a crash of splintered wood and shattered glass.

“He fucking kicked the door down!” Tam laughed and pumped his fist. “Whoo!”

The boy leaped through the wreckage and out into the night.

Between the running and the laughing, Ruby could barely catch her breath. The whole situation was
so
hilarious! “We can't let him get away, Tam.”

“No.” They skittered to a halt in front of the door's debris and looked out to see the guy's pale figure running down the patio steps and across the lawn. “We can't.”

The others were catching up to them now. Some wore masks too, but unlike the stag-boy's antler-headed mask, these were made of pounded gold or silver and were super-old with features that didn't quite sit in the right places: gaping mouths that were too low, hollow eyes off kilter, eyebrows that arched grotesquely. They reminded Ruby of a movie she'd seen once about ancient Greek gods, and she was sure they were freaking the guy out. That was funny too.

The fairy hunting pack was laughing and exclaiming.

“Holy shit, look at that!”

“Omigod, what a mess.”

“The dude is stronger than he looks, ha ha!”

One of the fairies, wearing a halter-top, leather shorts, and gladiator sandals with straps that crisscrossed all the way to her knees, lifted her gold mask and gazed after the escaping boy. It was Violet. “Desperate people do desperate things.”

Skye tore her mask off with a shriek of laughter and pointed. “Look at him, he's running as fast as he can.”

“Won't do him any good,” Ash remarked. Cosette shook her head in agreement. They both wore matching leather vests, only Cosette was naked under hers, her breasts practically falling out.

“That's why it's so funny!” Skye screamed.

Tam took Ruby's hand and helped her pick her way carefully over the glass. The others followed them until everyone had gathered on the patio, peering out into the night.

“There he is!” someone yelled, pointing to a pale streak near the lakeshore.

“After him!” Tam shouted and then they were off, running down the patio toward the figure now veering away from the lake and toward the woods.

They tore across the lawn, whooping and screaming. The guy had almost reached the woods, but he was slowing down, winded, his chest heaving in and out, and they'd caught up in almost no time. Ruby's fingers reached out to graze his arm, but he swerved at the last second and she tripped.

She lurched forward and would have face-planted, but Tam caught her and together they rolled in the grass laughing, Tam's body protecting Ruby from bruises until they came to a stop. He was laughing down into her face, the stars behind his head. “Gotcha,” he murmured in her ear.

She snuggled into his arms. “I almost caught him!” she said.

“You were right there, baby.”

Exhilaration coursed through her. She seriously thought she'd never had more fun in her life! Tam was so gorgeous, his arms holding her felt so good, and he was hers, here and now. She lifted her head and kissed him. He returned the kiss eagerly, crushing her back into the grass. Her body responded and she arched into him while his kiss blistered her lips. At that moment, Ruby thought she could go on and on kissing Tam forever, but the thundering of the hunt pulsed the ground underneath them, and then she remembered. She was missing out on the game!

She scrambled to her feet and hauled Tam up beside her. “Let's go!”

“Why such a rush?” Tam smiled slowly. “Why don't we stay here a while longer?”

Ruby almost lay back down with him…

No, I can't miss the hunt!

“Come on, I want to see who catches the stag! We can't let Violet get there first, right?”

Tam laughed his agreement, and they stumbled after the hunt. The pack had flushed the stag-boy away from the woods toward the gardens. The boy leaped onto the low stone wall surrounding the garden and launched himself into the branches of a big oak. The first few branches broke under his weight and he jumped again and again until he found sturdier ones and began to climb.

The hunt gathered underneath the tree.

“Where the fuck does he think he's going?” Yukio said.

“Nowhere.” Violet, her skin glowing, picked up a rock the size of a baseball and hefted it.

The stag-boy had reached a couple branches higher but now huddled against the trunk desperately trying to find the next branch that would bear his weight. Light from the mansion shafted onto his face and Ruby could see the whites of boy's eyes inside the mask. He was gasping and shaking so hard he could hardly keep hold. Violet took aim with the rock and let it fly. It struck him on the leg, and he cried out.

“Let me try!” Skye picked up a rock and threw it at him. It missed, but the next one didn't. It hit him in the ribs and drew some blood too.

“Omigod, that's so awesome.” Amleth handed Ohira a rock. Ohira's swirly dragon tattoo gleamed on her sweaty skin. She whispered a word and the rock split in two, leaving a razor sharp edge. Then she took aim and chucked it.

The rock landed on the guy's upper arm, laying it open. Blood splattered down on them.

“OHHHHHH!!!!” they yelled in unison.

“Bullseye!” Ash shouted.

The rest started looking for rocks and whispering to them too.

Ruby choked with laughter. Did the guy know how funny he looked trying to dodge the hail of sharpened rocks while the antlers of his stag's mask caught in the branches and he scrabbled at the tree trunk, desperately trying to hold on?

“Fall! Fall! Fall!” they chanted. Ruby fist-pumped with the others and shouted too. “FALL FALL FALL—”

There was a hand on her arm.
Tam
. He was looking at her weirdly, as though he wasn't having fun any more. “Ruby,” he said. “I don't think—”

She leant forward, silenced him with another deep kiss.

“I'll bring him down.” Violet picked up a rock, the biggest one yet. It seemed way too heavy to be thrown, but she drew back her arm and in a whirling move like a discus thrower, launched it into the tree.

It smashed into the boy's chest. Wind-milling, he couldn't keep his balance and dropped, landing on the low stone wall, head-first.

The squishy crack of his bones breaking was like a jolt of electricity through Ruby's whole body. Horror flooded through her. The guy's body bounced awkwardly and then sprawled onto the ground in front of them in a tangle of unmoving limbs. Blood gushed out of the top of his head where his skull had split in two.

“Oh, gross!” Skye yelped.

“Super-gross!” Ohira squealed between giggles. She wiped the blood that had sprayed across her face with the back of her hand.

Ruby felt her limbs start to shake, and she clung to Tam. She looked around at the rest of the fairies. They were laughing too, taking off their masks and high-fiving each other. Violet lifted her mask and gazed with contempt at the mangled body. “I thought he'd last a little longer,” she said. “What a weakling.”

Tam gently disentangled himself from Ruby's arms and nudged the boy with a toe. His arm flopped down from his unmoving chest, but other than that, he lay still while blood pooled sluggishly in the grass.

Ruby stared at the body. They'd just killed a guy. No, they killed a boy. A human, like her. And she stood by and laughed while they did it.

What the hell was wrong with her?

Like a fog lifting, her mind cleared and her senses became completely sharp. She could smell the piney air wafting from the woods as it blended with the iron reek of fresh-spilled blood; she could see every detail of the boy's body, every cut and bruise and broken bone; she could hear the fairies tittering while the wind stirred and crickets chirped.

“Someone better bury him or he'll start to stink,” Yukio was saying. “You do it, Vi, you made the killing blow.”

Violet just gave Yukio a disdainful glance.

“Well, Ash, then.”

“No way. You do it.”

“Come on, dude, it's your turn. You got out of it last time.”

Last time? How many people had died at Cottingley? Ruby shoved her way between them and knelt next to the body.

“Um, you're going to get blood on your hands,” Cosette said.

Ignoring her, Ruby gently lifted the mask from the boy's broken face.

She recognized the brown hair, the blue eyes staring sightlessly up at her.

It was Shawn Mosely.

Ruby heard Tam's intake of breath behind her.

“No big loss, he wasn't that great in bed,” Faelan said with a shrug. She dangled her gold mask from one finger and began wandering back to the mansion with some of the others.

Ruby stumbled back from Shawn's limp form, breathing deeply, trying not to vomit. “Tam,” she whispered. “This is awful. We need to call the cops.”

“It's too late for that, Ruby.”

She whipped her head around. Tam was looking sadly at her.

“Shawn is dead. I…we…just
murdered
him.” Her voice broke on a sob. Oh God, just a minute ago she was laughing about the way they were torturing him up in that tree…

“I'm sorry, Madison. I tried to get through to you, but the Slumber was too much.” Tam reached for her, but she jerked away.

“Oooh, looks like there's trouble in paradise,” Violet snickered. “You didn't happen to know that human, did you?”

Ruby spun around. Violet was smirking at her.

“You,” she said. “It was you who…”

“She's not very smart, Tam,” sneered Violet. “I guess I better use small words and spell it out for you both.” She flicked at a stray drop of blood that had stuck to her leather shorts and turned to Tam. “I saw him leave with your trailer trash girl when she first came here. I tried to find her, but you must have hidden her from me. Shawn was the next best thing.” She grinned triumphantly.

“No.” Ruby backed away, shaking her head. A sob bubbled out of her throat.

Tam leapt forward, holding up one beautiful, ageless hand that was pointed at Violet in accusation. The gold ring on his index finger gleamed dully by moonlight.

“How dare you,” he growled. “How many more, Violet? How many more humans are you going to kill just to spite me?”

“As many as I like.”

“You're going to regret this. You've crossed a line.” He turned back to Ruby. “Are you okay?”

“Am I okay? Of course I'm not okay! You people—you fairies—are sick. All of you, this whole place”—she swung her arm wildly around—“is sick!”

“You're freaking out,” Tam said reasonably. “Understandable, if this is the first dead body you've seen, but there's nothing more we can do for him—”

Ruby wanted to tear at her hair. “I'm not freaking out!” she yelled. “I'm having a normal reaction to murder! Shawn had a mother and a father. Maybe a brother, a sister. He had a life, Tam. Until we took it away.”

The other fairies had gone completely silent, watching them.

“So, what do you propose I do about it now?” Tam said. His eyes shifted to the others watching them, then back to Ruby. “I tried to warn you. And I can't bring him back.”

“You've done enough.” She took a deep breath. “I'm out of here. I want nothing more to do with Cottingley and the psycho games you play. And Tam, I want nothing more to do with you either.”

Tam had gone still. “Don't say something you'll regret later.”

“I reject you,” she said very clearly, very calmly. So there could be no mistake. “And all of Cottingley.”

As soon as the words left her mouth, the ground underneath her trembled. Dizziness washed over her and she lurched, trying to keep her balance.

Violet gasped. “It's that fucking trailer trash bitch!” she snarled. She whirled to Tam. “You tricked me!”

Ruby swayed, feeing nauseous, drained. How long had she been here under Tam's spell? Days? Weeks?
Months
?

Where was Shelley? Was her mom even still
alive
?

“Who the fuck do you think you are, trying to trick me?” Violet screamed at Ruby. “You insignificant…
human
!”

Violet swung at her, but Ruby was too weak to do anything about it except lift her arms in a pathetic attempt to protect herself.

Before Violet's fist could connect with her face, Tam jumped between them. He caught Violet's wrists and wrestled her away from Ruby. Either Violet was as strong as Tam or her anger lent her superhuman strength, because she was able to push him back a few paces.

“Asshole!” she screamed. “
Zhopa! Bhokio!
Fucking jerk!” She tried to rake her nails down his cheek, but he shoved her away.

“Back off,” he grunted. “Calm down.”