The Emerald Staff (5 page)

“Would you like to join us for dinner?” she
asked the already redundant question.

“Thank you, that would be most kind,” Faen
replied in his usual courteous manner.

Her father sighed inwardly. Even the young
man’s manners were impeccable.

They entered the restaurant and Faedra was
relieved when they were seated without delay, as was her grumbling
stomach. The hostess led them to a booth and they settled in to
wait for their waitress.

“I’m so glad you don’t mind me not having the
party at the house,” Henry said after the waitress had taken their
order.

“Mind, Dad? Why would I mind?” Faedra
asked.

“Well, I thought it would be fun to have it
there. The place is so old with lots of character, but I thought
Anna had a very good point when she suggested we hold it in the
city. I mean, most of the people coming live around here, and we do
live somewhat out in the sticks. At least this way they can get
taxis home without it costing them an arm and a leg.”

“And we won’t have to clean up afterwards,
either,” Faedra admitted. “I think the place you have booked has
loads of character, too. It will be perfect, especially after we’ve
trimmed it up with all those decorations.”

“Actually, Anna picked the place.”

“It’s a good choice. I can’t wait to meet
her. I bet next week is going to drag on.”

The new lady in her father’s life had
persuaded Henry to hold the party in one of the many pubs in the
city. Most of them had a room they hired out for just such
occasions. And more to the point, most of the pubs were hundreds of
years old with plenty of olde worlde character.

The city was a medieval city, after all, and
once boasted a church for every week of the year and a pub for
every day. Faedra thought it quite amusing to see where people’s
priorities lay in years gone by. Things hadn’t changed much over
the centuries either. A lot of the churches were now defunct and
housing anything from a puppet theatre to a nightclub. The pubs,
however, were still prevalent and the one Anna had chosen for their
Halloween bash was aptly named
The Murderers.

Faedra knew the week would drag on, and it
did, which came as no surprise to her. Quite often during her
classes, she found herself drifting off, wondering what Faen would
pick for them to dress up as for the party on Saturday. This class
was no different but at least they were nearing the end of the
week. She was so looking forward to letting her hair down
and
finally meeting her dad’s new girlfriend.

He had been floating around the house all
week and it was driving her crazy. She asked him on more than one
occasion to invite Anna to dinner so she could meet her before the
party, but for one reason or another, Anna had called to postpone
or cancel at the last minute. Well, it was nearly the weekend so
the wait was almost over.

The bell sounded, making Faedra jump at the
sudden noise that dragged her back to the here and now. She had not
focused on most of the lecture and knew she would pay for it with
extra study time to catch up, but the thought of what the weekend
would hold was more than enough to make up for that small penance.
Plus the fact, Faen was sitting right next to her and knew this
subject matter all too well, she would just pick his brains later
on. She closed her books and slid them in her backpack, then rose
to join the throng of students leaving the lecture hall.

She had almost made it to the door when she
remembered her task. As luck would have it, one of the girls
sitting behind them was trying to hold Faen in a conversation, and
he, being too polite to ignore her, offered his opinion on the
subject. Faedra saw her chance and took it.

“I forgot something, I’ll be right back,” she
said to Faen, turning in the opposite direction.

“What is it? I can get it for you,” he
replied, trying to break free from the conversation he was being
held in.

“No, it’s okay you carry on. I’ll be back in
minute.”

Faen narrowed his eyes at her, to which the
Custodian gave him a cheeky wink. He pinched his brow. He turned to
follow her but the girl carrying on the conversation held his arm,
her expression expectant.

“So what do you think about the legend of the
Unseelie?
” she asked.

He was reluctant but he turned back to face
the girl at his side. Now that was
the
question, wasn’t it?
Considering he had spent most of his life training to fight the
Unseelie.
And now he was protecting the Custodian from them.
They were hardly a ‘legend’ but he couldn’t very well tell her
that.

“I think they were a very cruel race.”

Faedra hurried down the aisle between the
rows of seats curving in a semi-circle around the auditorium. She
made her way towards the front where the professor was wiping the
board clean ready for the next lecturer. She stood quietly waiting
for him to finish before she interrupted him. He had his back to
her and almost finished erasing the writing when he stopped
mid-stroke. Sensing someone was there, he turned.

“Excuse me, Professor,” Faedra spoke in
response to his questioning look. “I would like to ask you a
question.”

“Faedra Bennett, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Well, ask away my dear, I haven’t got all
day.”

“Erm,” she hesitated.

The professor raised his wiry gray eyebrows
waiting for her question.

“I wonder if you might know what something
means,” Faedra continued. “Two words I keep hearing and I’m not
even sure what language they are, but I have a feeling it’s an
ancient one.”

“Go on,” the professor prompted. Faedra had
piqued his interest now. Ancient languages were one of his
preferred subjects. In fact, he found himself rather passionate
about them.

“
Samtero kruwos
, do you recognize
it?”

The professor’s eyebrows shot up even higher,
if that were possible, almost reaching the shock of smoky gray hair
that crept down his forehead. Faedra’s heart skipped a beat; it was
obvious by the professor’s surprised expression that he knew what
language she had just spoken.

He rubbed his chin. “Where on earth did you
hear that?”

Faedra hesitated, chewing on the inside of
her lip. “Someone called me those words,” she revealed after a
moment, but that was as much as she was willing to give away.

“Did they now? Although, I find that hard to
believe seeing that it sounds Proto-Celtic. A language that hasn’t
been spoken since around 800 B.C. so we believe. I am part of the
team currently working on the phonology of that long forgotten
language.”

He eyed her with suspicion. Wondering where a
freshman would have come across a language that obscure, and who
would have spoken it to her.

“Do you know what it means?” Faedra asked,
hardly able to contain her excitement at finding out what her
friends had been so eager to try and hide from her.

“Not off the top of my head, no,” he
replied.

Faedra’s shoulders slumped a little. So near,
yet so far.

“But I can find out for you. I will have to
dig through my research papers. It may take a few days.” He took
out a pad and pen from his briefcase and scribbled down the
words.

“Thank you.” Faedra turned and headed towards
the hallway.

“Faedra,” the professor called after her,
stopping her in her tracks. She turned to look at him.

“I’d be most interested to know where you
came to hear those words.”

Yeah, I bet you would,
the young
Custodian thought, but responded with a fleeting smile.

“Hmmm,” the professor mumbled as he turned
back to finish his job of erasing the board. It was obvious his
student was going to remain tight-lipped on the matter. Faedra
breathed a sigh of relief that her professor decided not to press
the issue, and continued on to the exit.

Thankfully, the short dark haired girl who
had allowed Faedra her chance to slip away and ask the
all-important question was still holding Faen captive. It was a
question she knew Faen did not want her to find the answer to, and
that, in itself, bothered her more than she cared to admit. She did
not like the fact that her Guardian would keep secrets from her,
but this subject had been a closed one, as far as he was concerned.
What was he trying to keep from her and why was it so important to
do so?

“Found it,” she said, waving her pen in the
air as she joined them.

Faen arched an eyebrow. He had seen her pack
the pen away before she got up from her seat, but he said nothing
at her blatant untruth.

Halloween arrived, and not a moment too soon,
as far as Faedra was concerned. She, her father and Jocelyn were
walking up the lane that led to the pub, laden down with bags of
decorations and other goodies. When they got to the entrance of the
pub, they all stood for a moment and looked up at the pub sign.
This was sure to be a good venue for their party. The sign had a
couple of macabre figures wearing black cloaks painted on it, and
underneath was the lettering
The Murderers
. It was actually
only a nickname for the pub but one that all the locals used more
than its real name, so the sign was rare, as pub signs go, having a
different name and picture on each side.

They filed into the old building where the
landlord, who was standing behind the bar, greeted them. He eyed
their bags full of Halloween goodies.

“Mr. Bennett, I presume.”

Henry nodded.

“This way please.” The landlord gestured for
them to follow him with a sweep of his arm.

Anna had certainly picked the perfect place.
The pub dated back to 1530 but got its nickname after a brutal
murder that occurred there in 1895 had closed the pub down. It was
reopened almost a century later, give or take a couple of decades,
but the nickname stuck and now more people knew the pub by that
name than its original.

Faedra looked around as they wandered towards
the room they had hired for the party. The pub was full of nooks
and crannies and still had a lot of the original features of the
old building. It oozed character and atmosphere with its exposed
beams and brickwork. There were pictures of infamous criminals hung
on the walls. Old barrels with cushioned tops used for seats
surrounded sturdy wooden tables nestled into intimate alcoves.

“This place is perfect,” Faedra said as she
soaked in the mood of the location. Her senses tingled. There was
an energy in the room; she could feel it but couldn’t quite place
it. It didn’t feel threatening so she shrugged it off. It was
hardly surprising with all the people who had come and gone over
the centuries, she was bound to pick up on something.

“Feel free to decorate it as you want,” the
landlord stated, “just make sure to take it all down when you’re
done.”

“We will, thank you,” Henry replied.

The landlord nodded and left them to their
own devices.

“Come on, Jocelyn, we’ll start over here,”
Faedra said, clasping her hand around the young fairy’s arm and
almost dragging her to one corner of the room.

After about an hour of pinning and tacking,
the three stood side-by-side, hands on hips, and admired their
handy work.

“That looks so cool,” Faedra said.

“Yep, I think we did a good job,” Henry
replied, nodding his head.

“I can’t wait until tonight,” Jocelyn
added.

“Well, come on then, let’s go home and get
into our costumes.” Henry said, motioning the others towards the
door.

Faedra still had no idea what her costume
was. She only hoped that Faen kept his promise and had one picked
out for her, otherwise, she would be looking like the odd one out,
being the only person at the party in
normal
clothing.

Faen didn’t disappoint. No sooner had they
parked the car in the driveway Faen’s shaggy white dog form came
bounding over to greet them, wagging his tail. Faedra got out of
the car and scratched behind his ears. When they entered the
cottage Faen proceeded to nudge Faedra towards her room, much to
her father’s amusement.

“Looks like he’s got something to show you,”
her dad observed with a wry grin.

His daughter went with it and obediently
climbed the stairs to her room, her beloved dog hot on her
heels.

When Faedra opened her bedroom door her
costume was lying on the bed. She closed the door behind them and
let out a little gasp of delight. Lined up on her bed in a neat row
was a claret red 1920’s flapper dress complete with rows of fringe
that covered the entire length of it. Next to that lay a red and
black boa, a long strand of black beads, a pair of black stockings,
and red cloche hat. On the floor beside the bed was a pair of black
satin Mary-Jane heels. Her eyes widened in awe as they skimmed over
the costume Faen had chosen for her and she whirled round to give
her dog a hug but he was now in his fae form and dressed in his
costume. She stopped dead and gaped, open-mouthed.

Faedra raked her eyes down the length of him.
He was wearing a double-breasted gray pinstripe suit, a black shirt
with a white tie knotted at his throat. On his head was a black
fedora with a white hatband, and black and white
spats
adorned his feet. He was even holding the obligatory violin case.
Boy did he look good as a gangster.

Faedra blew out a long slow whistle.

“Do you like it?” Faen asked, hesitant.

She was almost drooling, couldn’t he see
that?

“Uh-huh,” she mumbled, a little lost for
words.

“I thought we could go as Bonnie and
Clyde.”

“I don’t think Clyde was ever that good
looking,” she mumbled under her breath.

“Sorry?”