Circle of Seasons

December 22, 1995:

     It doesn't snow in Houston at Christmas.  
I wish it would.  How can you have winter 
without snow?  It's not fair to have cold if 
there will be no snow.  By northern standards, 
we don't have winter at all.  

     Instead, it is just grey and dismal for 
three months.  It's worse than being snowed 
in.  At least then you have something pretty 
to look at, instead of leafless trees and dead 
grass.  It looks like my life.

     Okay, maybe it's not that bad.  I have 
three children who love me. They're good kids, 
better than I was when I was their age.  They 
all take more after their father than me, even 
though I raised them.  I don't mind. I ran 
with a gang, cut people up, swore, drank, and 
snuck out of the house
every night when I was a kid.  Their father 
was a good man.  Jean's the oldest.  She's at 
UT now.  She's supposed to be home tonight.  
Robert will be coming with her.  He's at UT 
also, one of the wide recievers on the 
football team.  Phoebe got home already.  
She's a freshman at a little
school called Southwestern.  She wants to be a 
politician one day.  It's her dream.  I had a 
dream once.  To live forever with the man I 
loved, wandering the world, wild and young and 
free forever.  Death to our enemies and joy to 
our friends.  I would be rich, and wise and 
beautiful forever.  
   

     That was when I thought things could last 
forever.  I looked in the mirror today.  I saw 
a woman with long black hair like her mother, 
blue eyes like her mother, pale skin, and a 
body starting to show the ravages of time, but 
still clinging to youth.  I've kept in shape.  
Exercise keeps me sane, I think.  Even Mom 
exercises now.  She looks better now than she 
did at my age.  My mother was beautiful when 
she was young, so was I, and so are my 
children.  Well, my daughters.  Robert will 
never be considered handsome,
but the rest of him looks good, just like his 
father.  When I look at him, I see his father 
as he was when I met him.  It almost makes me 
cry sometimes.  

     My daughter's namesake called today.  I 
named Phoebe after my best friend from high 
school.  They both have the same hair and 
eyes, but my daughter is pale like me, and my 
friend is dark, a Mediterranean complexion.  I 
never thought I'd hear from her ever again.  
She's in Vermont for Christmas.  A grown woman 
running with a gang.  I can't believe it.  But 
then again, she always did love to travel.  I 
guess she's living my dream.  Someone had to.  
I haven't seen her face to face since Peter's 
funeral.  That was a little more than fifteen 
years ago...
  

Fall, 1980:

      My hands moved of their own voilition, 
sliding my wedding ring up and down my ring 
finger, talking to each other in that secret 
code they always seemed to adopt whenever I 
was nervous or lonely.  Looking out the 
sliding
glass door, I saw a grey, overcast day, a day 
when even the trees, turning to red and gold, 
seemed depressed.  One by one, the leaves fell 
from the trees.  I watched the grey clouds and 
prayed for rain.  I did not want to face the 
future, my future.  Perhaps, somehow, 
somewhere, I could avoid this.  He was dead.  
What has been done, cannot be undone.  Yet I 
strove to deny it.  I still do.  I gave it up 
for him.  What was left to give up, anyway.  
All for nothing.  Three children, no husband, 
and a home with the
mortgage only half paid.  

     Jeannie tugged on my leg.  "When's Daddy 
coming back, mommie?":  She was young, like I 
was once, so long ago.  Ages ago, it seems.  
She was only five, too young to understand her 
father was gone forever.  There would be
no returning this time.  Not in a blaze of 
glory, or even a whimper.  Just a random car 
accident.  Not his fault.  It was never his 
fault when bad things happened, even when it 
was his fault.  But I didn't care.  He was 
mine, and I was his.  There is no perfection 
in this world, that too I
learned long ago.  He loved me, and no one 
else.  That was all that mattered.  Now, even 
that was gone.  Crumbled and blown away, like 
the falling orange leaves.  He'd been dead for 
three days, and now it was time for the 
funeral.  

     What could I say?  How could I face them?  
I was alone, except for the children now.  But 
they were no substitute for Peter, just as he 
had been no substitute for...no, I won't think 
of him.  He left me long ago.  Those days are 
gone, gone and crumbled to dust.  He left me 
too, but at least Peter didn't leave me for 
someone else.  How can I even be thinking of 
him at a time like this?  I hate him.  God, I 
wish he was here...

Indian Summer 1972:

     Picnics and barbecue, that's what Labor 
Day means in the South, at least here in 
Houston.  And the start of school pushed back 
one more day.  When you're 17, school is 
death, 'least around here.  We hated school, 
hated it with a passion.  We understood the 
truth instinctively then that
later we all forgot.  Our education system is 
designed to produce cookie cutter people for a 
factory, or young, upwardly mobile sellouts to 
man the desks and drive the corporations into 
the future.  Who wanted that kind of
future?  Not us.  We would make our own 
future.  The summer of Love was past, but we 
remembered.  I was in love.  His name was the 
Eggman.  Okay, that wasn't his real name, but 
our real names were boring.  I was the Walrus, 
he was the Eggman.  Sure the Beatles had just 
broken up, but we
didn't think it would last.  There had always 
been the Beatles.  We knew that.  Ever since 
we were little, they had been making music.  
Their hair style might change, they might get 
on or off drugs, but there would always be the 
Beatles.  I should have known that the end of 
that meant the end of all my certainties.  But 
until that afternoon, I could deny the awful 
truth.  All things end in time.

     I laid out in the backyard under the sun.  
One more day of summer freedom.  Well, almost 
summer.  Indian summer lasts a long time in 
Houston.  Indeed, better to say we have a long 
summer, and a very short fall.  I had a very 
nice tan of which I was very proud.  Long 
hours in the sun bleached
my blonde hair even paler, and darkened my 
skin almost enough to match his.

     His, being of course, the Eggman.  He had 
a permanent tan courtesy of his Scilian 
ancestors, although he didn't act anything at 
all like the people from The Godfather.  We 
saw that movie together.  It was our last real 
date.  I'd been busy getting ready for school, 
so was he.  And his family had dragged him off 
to Italy again.  He usually got his way, but 
not on this.  We really thought he'd be able 
to smooth-talk his way out of it, and if that 
didn't work, a little applied magic would.  It 
didn't.  Or so I thought.  

     The phone rang.  "MARTHA!  Phone for you.  
It's Patty!"  I groaned.  What kind of loser 
name is that, anyway?  Who names their kids 
Martha and George?  Yeesh.  Oh well, I'd 
always been able to get away with anything 
with them, ever since I was little.  They were 
good to me, although I guess
I didn't really realize it much at the time.  
I retied the bikini top in the back, got up, 
and ambled inside.  Running in a bikini isn't 
much fun.  Not enough support when you've got 
as much up top as me.

     "I'm right in the middle of working on my 
back for when the Eggman gets home.  What is 
it?  Can it wait?"  Yeesh, Patty always called 
when I was trying to get my back done.  Like 
clockwork.  I sometimes wondered if she sent 
Chimera to watch me or something, so she'd 
know to call when I was
trying to get my back even.  Patty had another 
name too.  She was Number 9.  An old joke, 
older than the Beatles song, but it was oh, so 
perfect.  I'll tell you the story about that 
some other time.  

     "He's been home, Walrus."  I blinked.  
Obviously, I had not heard this correctly.  He 
wasn't supposed to be home until tomorrow.  

     "That's...not possible!  He woulda' 
called me!  Did something go wrong?  Is he 
sick?  Why did they come home early?"  Panic 
ran through me.  His family never comes back 
early.  Not in the 17 years I've known him.  
Okay, I don't actually remember much about the 
first couple of those years
except for that one time it snowed, and 
getting chased by a dog when I was three, but 
I wasn't old and senile yet!  

     "He never left, Walrus.  The Eggman's 
been with Candy this whole time."  I blinked.  
Must be going deaf.  With Candy?  That slut?  
No way!  Even if he cheated on me, at least 
he'd show some taste!

     "You're joking."  I tried denial.

     "I've seen him three times.  So has 
Golden Eyes."  That's what we called Debbie.  
'Course, most people couldn't see why we 
called her that, but that made it all the 
better a joke.  I stared at the phone as if it 
had  bit me. "Walrus, you there?  Hello?"  It 
had bit me indeed.  For a moment, the phone 
was a snake, a snake that grinned at me.  It 
had done its duty, the venom sunk deep.

     "I'm going to kill him."  Grr!  How could 
he lie to me like that?  With Candy?  I'd rip 
him apart.  Hell hath no fury like a woman 
scorned.  Especially when you go way back like 
me and Eggman.  I'd loved him for years, and 
known him for...as long as I can remember 
almost.  Was it really
over?  It wasn't fair!  Love is supposed to 
last forever, damnit!

     Midsummer's day, 1971:

     The full moon over Houston is a beautiful 
sight.  Well, I think it is, so shut up 
already.  Summer nights seem to last forever.  
I was truly alive then.  We ran out all night, 
every night, then came home and collapsed just
before the sun rose in the sky.  There were 
nine of us, me, the Eggman, Golden Eyes, 
Snake, Spoon, Knife, Fork (triplets! Three 
faeries in one family!  Always amazed me), 
Sandra Dee, and Number Nine.  You might be 
wondering why
Sandra Dee had such a mundaner name.  Well, it 
wasn't her real name, but she was just so 
innocent.  Of course, Childlings always are.  
I can remember running with the Wilders when I 
was just a Childling.  Not enough childlings 
for them to have their own gangs.  And she was 
Number Nine's sister, so she had to take care 
of her.  I always wondered what Number Nine's 
parents thought of her taking her eight year 
old sister out with her at night... guess we 
found out later on down the line.

      Midsummer's day is a holy day for us.  
The height of summer, the height of Glamour.  
We were drunk on it, running under the 
moonlight.  Eiluned was having a party, down 
at the Blue Key.  None of us were legal, 
especially Sandra Dee, but we didn't care, and 
neither did they.  Noblesse Oblige and all 
that junk, ya know.  These were the good 
days... before the massacre, before the war, 
when all of us simply rejoiced that they had 
come back to us.  The world was full of 
Glamour again.  

      We boiled in through the door.  Old Tom 
took one look at us, smiled, and waved us in, 
then chased off three mundaners who'd been 
attracted by the noise.  None of that lot 
tonight.  The music surrounded us, the smoke 
filled our noses, the lights took our eyes.  I 
danced the stars across the sky that night.  
Eggman and I whirled about the floor, our 
bodies moving like the moon around the earth, 
the earth around the sun, spinning in circles 
around the floor and each other.  We all 
danced.  Heck, I even danced with Knife, and 
he's a nut.  'Course, his whole family is a 
bit wacked, except for Fork.  Ever since he 
got big enough to toss his pa around, they've 
had a lot less violence in that house.  Fork's 
a nice guy.  If I hadn't met the Eggman, I'd 
probably be attached to Fork at the hip.  He 
just doesn't quite have... I dunno, there's 
something the Eggman has that
I need that Fork doesn't.  He's fun to dance 
with though.  He just kind of lumbers around 
and smiles at you.  We're all beautiful to 
him, even Snake with her pale skin and that 
long stringy hair.  

      She loves him and he loves her.  I'd 
have never believed it.  I didn't think Snake 
could love anyone.  I was wrong, and happy to 
be wrong.  We were all in love, some of us 
with each other, some with mundaners.  Summer 
is made for love, I guess.  I have to admit 
that Knife's girlfriend
was the scariest person in the universe, but I 
guess when you're scary, it's natural to love 
someone scary.  She was the sort of person who 
ambushes and beats up muggers in her spare 
time.  Okay, I never actually saw her do 
that...but I'd believe it if she did.  

      The Eiluned sat up on his throne and 
watched us dance, all the commoners, whirling 
about, gyrating, shaking and hustling, as the 
music played on.  I think that's how you refer 
to him.  All those noble's titles always 
confused me.  He was a duke, one of the 
highest in all the kingdom. 
That's because Houston is a holy place for us.  
It was here that the mists were pierced.  By 
mundaners!  That's the really shocking thing!  
After...uh, a really long time of being cut 
off, the ways burst open, on the day a man 
walked on the moon.

Moon Day the First (July 20, 1969)

     Normally, I'd have been out with Snake 
and Golden Eyes and Eggman on a warm summer 
night.  We'd finally gotten old enough we 
didn't have to sneak out of the house any 
more.  Of course, the parents still didn't 
want us to stay out as late as we wanted, but 
better to only sneak out for part of the night 
instead of the whole thing.  But not tonight.  
There wasn't a person in the nation who owned 
a TV set who wasn't home that night.  Golden 
Eyes was over at our house.  I'd tried to get 
Snake and the Eggman over too, but their 
families wanted them home for once.  

     "Look, Martha!  They're about to do it!"  
Mom's face glowed.  It was a race, a contest, 
and the good guys had won.  We had put a man 
on the moon. Even an old mundaner like mom 
could sense the power...we had broken a bond.
 Mankind was free to soar to the stars, our 
chains cast off.  

     Our eyes in unison with millions of other 
gazed on as a bulky figure clad in white, with 
a mirror for a face climbed down a ladder and 
spoke words we would never forget.  "One small 
step for a man.  One giant step for mankind."  
We had done it.  The universe was ours.

     The phone rang.  I ignored it, mom 
ignored it, heck, the whole world ignored it.  
Who wanted to use the phone at a time like 
this?  Dad smiled, an event sufficiently rare 
that I suspected Mom probably could have cited 
every time she'd ever seen him smile.  "We'll 
be living on the moon by the turn of the 
century, we will.  I'll be too old, but one of 
you kids may walk there one day, and look up 
and see the earth."  His voice trailed off.

      The phone, on the other hand, did not.  
It kept ringing as if it would ring forever.  
Finally, mom had enough.  "Martha, get the 
phone before it explodes."  I blinked.  Mom 
made a joke?  Wow, that's one for the record
books.  I love my parents, but I think they 
had to hock their sense of humor during the 
depression or something.  Or was that before 
their time?  I never was much good at history.  
They're just so...earthbound.  But now...I'd 
never seen them like this...drawn out of 
themselves, if only for
a moment.  If only they could always be like 
this. Dreaming.  I could almost smell it.  I 
reached out and took a little, just a little 
for myself.  

	You have to be careful, you know.  I'm 
no ravager, but I need Glamour too, just like 
anyone else.  Even the mundaners need it, I 
realized.  If there was more of it, maybe my 
parents wouldn't be so dullsville.  Had they 
ever really been young?  I hadn't believed it 
before now, but looking at them, I could see 
they had been like me once, well maybe not 
entirely like me, but closer than they were 
now.  

     The phone rang again, and I finally 
picked it up.  "Yeah?  WHAT is it?  We're 
busy."  Okay, I shouldn't have been so rough, 
but I was kinda distracted, okay?  Well, 
anyway, it was Eggman.  

     "Look outside," was all he said.  Look 
outside?  Why?  As usual, he knew what I was 
thinking before I could say it.  "Trust me, 
Walrus.  You want to see what's outside.  Just 
look out the window."

     "The only thing outside our living room 
window is trees, Eggman.  You flipped out from 
too much soda pop again?"  I never let him 
forget the time he drank twelve Cokes in 3 
hours and was bouncing off the walls.  
Literally.  He wasn't able to sleep for over a 
day.  It was pretty funny, but kind of scary.  

     "Look at the sky!  They're coming back!"  
I blinked.  Coming back?  Who's coming back?  
Count Dracula maybe?  Naah, only vampire I'd 
ever met wasn't anything like the movies.  
Ugly as sin and lived in the sewer.   

     "You have been drinking too much soda 
pop.  Or did the aliens land in your backyard 
again?"  They hadn't been real aliens, but we 
did have some fun from that.  Panicked the 
neighborhood good.  

     "JUST DO IT!"  Well, I'd take a look and 
indulge him.  I went to the window, and then I 
saw it.  I guess we all did, all of the 
special ones.  There was a shaft of light 
stabbing down to the south of Houston.  More 
shafts spiraling off through space to other 
parts of the earth, too.  I could almost taste 
the glamour, the sheer power...Was it coming 
down to us or going up to them?  The light 
almost creaked, like a door that had been left 
unoiled for too long.  They were spiral 
staircases into the sky... and...people on 
them?  No way.  I couldn't possibly see them 
this far away.  I had to be imagining things.  
I could vaguely hear some babbling nearby, 
then turned and realized I had stretched the 
phone cord all the way and was no longer 
holding the phone next to my head.  I backed 
up.

     "Staircases into the sky...Could it 
be...the stories claim it's on the moon, 
somehow, I mean..."  Now I was babbling as 
much as Eggman.  "We've got to go see!"

     "I'll meet you in two hours.  I won't be 
able to slip away until then, I think."  I 
nodded.  Even for this, I didn't want to leave 
my family while the spell lasted.  And I 
wanted to see men walk on the moon.  I could 
feel the power in the air.  Could it be?  The 
Golden Age come again?  Just like all the 
stories I learned when I was just a childling.  
I was so naive then...

May 2, 1963:

     I heard the rap-tap-tapping on my window.  
Three knocks.  That meant it was Phoebe, my 
bestest friend.  I slowly opened the window so 
Mommy and Daddy wouldn't hear me.  Phoebe 
slipped and fell on me and we both thumped
on the ground.  Luckily, Mommy and Daddy sleep 
really well, and Georgie has his own bedroom 
now, so I don't have to sneak past him.  

     We both lay there for a moment, then got 
up.  As usual, she had forgotten to put on her 
special clothing and was wearing her pajamas.  
Phoebe's my bestest friend, but she forgets 
things, sometimes.  

     "Where's your special clothes, Phoebe?"  

     Phoebe scratched her head.  "The 
boogeyman took them?  I think my brother ate 
them."  Her brother was just old enough to put 
things in his mouth.  All the time.  He bit 
the head off Phoebe's Barbie.

     I laughed.  I could just imagine Bobby 
chewing on clothing.  He was only two.  He 
wasn't big like us.  We had to hurry, or our 
gang would give up on us.  We were really 
proud that we'd gotten into the Night Runners.  
Why, some of them were 14 years old!  
Practically grumps.  Me and Phoebe
and Harold were the only childers in the gang.  
Harold thought we should start our own gang, 
but sometimes you need grownups until you get 
bigger.  And three people isn't much of a 
gang.  

	Harold is a cutie, though, even with 
horns.  I'm going to marry him one day.  
Phoebe wants to marry him
too, but then we'd have to be Mormons.  Well, 
that's what Daddy said when I asked him about 
it, and he's always right.  Well, usually 
right.  

	But he won't let me stay out late, and 
it's really important!  We have a big feud 
with the...uh, whatever they're called this 
week.  But whoever they are, we
have to go out at night and protect our 
territory, or we might wake up one day and 
have them laughing at us!  Or something.  
Anyway, it's important.  And tonight was even 
more important!  It's Belltine, or something 
like that.  Stories and food and partying and 
junk.  

     "Can I borrow some of yours, Martha?"  I 
nodded.  Martha.  Why couldn't I have a neat 
name like Phoebe?  When I'm bigger, I think 
I'll change my name.  To something... 
different.  Martha sounds like some fat old 
woman doing laundry.  We put on our special 
clothing and slipped out into the night.  They 
were waiting for us down at the corner.  
Harold and all the wilders with their special 
names.  Farstrider and Silver Tongue and Bubba 
(mean and ugly, but really tough)  and Orphea 
and Artemis and that
one I can't say right.  Me and Harold and 
Phoebe all want to have special names too, but 
we can't hardly ever come up with any good 
ideas.  

     Tonight we had something special.  All 
the gangs of us had gathered to have a big 
party and jump over fires and stuff.  There 
was a wandering motley in town, staying with 
the gypsies.  Some of them were gypsies, I 
think.  There were lots of us there, all 
changelings, come to hear Blind
Hari, an old gypsy minstrel.  He was one of 
us, an Eshu.  You know, the ones who get lost 
all the time and like to collect stories?  

	Harold likes to tell me the gypsies are 
people who want to be Eshu, but I always 
thought they were Indians.  Phoebe thinks 
we're both silly, but I can't understand
the story she told me to explain where gypsies 
really come from.  It's too long for me to 
remember, but she's good with stories.    

      Well, anyway, there were billions and 
billions of us there to hear him tell us 
stories of how it used to be, back before the 
wall of sleep went up and we all got cut off 
from Arcadia, our real home...

Sunsebb, 1295:
 
     The torches guttered low in the cold 
winds blowing down from the Alps.  All was 
silent in the normally merry court of Caer 
Grunwald.  Peastongue the sorceror had studied 
the omens and made his pronouncement on the 
day of High Summer:  On Sunsebb, in the year 
1192, the Grunwald trod to Arcadia
would close, perhaps forever.  Almost all were 
gone from the city beneath the hill.  Only 
Lady Marigold and her most faithful servants 
remained, staying to guard the way for 
whatever faeries wished to flee to Arcadia 
before this way closed like so many others.

     No one knew for sure what had happened, 
but in the past centuries, the ancient roads 
to Arcadia had closed one by one.  There had 
been a time, ages past, when men and faerie 
danced together as one.  That time was long 
gone, lost in the mystery of the Sundering, 
when the wall of sleep went up
and cut the world in two, dividing man and 
faerie, Arcadia and Earth.  Yet, there were 
still times when the roads were open, and the 
faerie could return to dance under the stars 
and summon men back to the ancient fellowship.  

     And so the Fae kept fortresses to guard 
the ways, and founded kingdoms to rule the 
shadows and to protect the Dreaming, the power 
of the Fae.  They needed the mortals, for the 
mortals held the power of glamour, of dreams.  
Dreams are the lifeblood of the fae.  Where 
mortals dream, there we will be found, to 
share in the dreams and weave our webs of 
Glamour, that the dreams might be spread to 
all.  

     Something was snuffing out the Dreaming, 
putting out the light of the world, inch by 
inch.  The wells of glamour were drying up.  
We still don't know for sure what happened.  
Those left behind by the closing of the 
gateways had to put on mortal guises, or 
slowly starve for lack of glamour. Only a few 
pockets remained to sustain those who needed 
glamour to live.  

     So Lady Marigold stood to watch the 
gateway, that all might find their way back to 
our home Arcadia who could.  The door would 
stand open until midnight.  Only eight had 
remained behind with her, to watch the ways, 
for evil stalked the land.

     Besides the usual run of bandits and 
petty thieves, themselves little threat to 
those wielding the power of the Fae, both the 
Church and the ancient Order of Hermes was out 
stalking those who wielded the power of 
Glamour.  The church had long opposed the fae, 
for we were an unrepentantly
pagan people, rejoicing in the cycle of 
seasons and the worship of the old goddesses 
and gods of hunt, harvest, health and home.  
Therefore, they stalked us, sending the 
Inquisition to hound us and drive us from our 
holy sites and reconsecrate them to their god.  
They claimed he brought eternal life, but to 
us, his servants brought only death.  
     Still, we were used to that.  If it had 
been the church alone, we could have 
persevered, but it was not.  The order of 
Hermes had been sometimes friends, sometimes 
foes.  One of their thirteen houses had been 
our allies, our lovers, and our friends for 
centuries.  The world was turning against the 
Hermetics as well as us.  Our allies in the 
Houses had fled with us to Arcadia, where the 
magic still flowed freely.  Something was 
slowly choking their sources of power...but we 
were power incarnate.  Long ago, some evil 
mage had learned to drain faeries of their 
power to fuel his own, and that knowlege had 
spread.  As their power drained away, they 
began to hunt us to gain power, and many a 
member of the Kithain had fallen to their 
might.  It was to guard the ways against such 
as them, and against the foul creatures that 
still sometimes stalk the night, that Lady
Marigold and her companions stood guard.  

       Lady Marigold sat on her throne and 
waited, waited for her love to return to her.  
Flamehair, Slither, Slicer, and Nimblefingers 
were supposed to be back already.  They had 
left two days ago to meet the last motley 
expected to arrive before the gate closed.  
Belphoebe sat near her telling her stories of 
days long ago to soothe her.  Belphoebe had a 
soothing voice and a pleasant face, though her 
own beauty was but a candle to the blazing 
bonfire of Lady Marigold.  Lady Marigold had 
red-gold hair to her waist, deep blue eyes, 
and a soft, angular face.  She was clad in all 
the finery of a noble of house Dafyd, purple 
and gold and black.  A sword sat to one side 
of her throne, and a crossbow at the other 
side.  Her companion, Belphoebe, had black 
hair and bronze skin, clad in tans and greys, 
a fine
robe, though cut for travelling.  But she was 
most noted for her golden eyes, her ready wit, 
and her powers of divination.

     "I must know what has happened.  
Something is wrong.  They should be here by 
now."  Lady Marigold's fingers would have dug 
into her chair if she had the strength, as it 
was, all she could do was grip it tightly.  

     "Do we have any mirrors we can spare?"  
Belphoebe said.  

     Lady Marigold laughed sadly.  "If you can 
find it, we can spare it.  We shall not need 
anything we have not already taken into the 
Dreaming.  So much left behind..."  Her voice 
trailed off, and the memories flitted through 
her head...dancing at Highsummer, jousting at 
Pennons, playing
tricks on the mortals at Samhain, storytelling 
at Imbolc, the wild festival of Carnival,  and 
the high morris dance of the Greening...days 
of joy and mirth come to an end.  

	Not that life would be hard or painful 
in the Dreaming, yet it seemed wrong to leave.  
We are the dreams of mortals, they gave us 
birth, she thought.  If their dreams abandon 
them, how will they ever learn to dream again?  
They need us and we need them.  Yet if we 
stay, we must perish or cease to be what we 
were. The winter is upon us.  Winter is the 
season of death.  We were not made to die....I 
want to live.  But I also want to stay.  How 
can I have both?

     Belphoebe left as Lady Marigold sat and 
thought.  Soon, she returned, bearing a 
mirror.  "Mirror, Mirror in the hall, show us 
one and show us all."  She hurled the mirror 
to the floor, and it shattered into nine 
shards.  Bending over, she carefully picked up 
a shard.  "Hmm, Fortress is
up in the watchtower."

     "I know that!  What about Flamehair?  And 
Slither, Slicer, and Nimblefingers?"  Lady 
Marigold began nervously moving her golden 
ring up and down her fingers.  She always did 
that when she was nervous. 

     "Hmm, Calico is off playing with some 
cats just outside the Caer. Cutler is working 
on that big clock again.  Oops, the canary 
just fell off."  Lady Marigold twitched. 
Belphoebe smiled and picked up another shard.  
"Ah, there they are."

     "Well?  WELL?"

     Belphoebe smiled again.  Probably they 
had just stopped so Slicer could eat someone's 
wagon again.  Redcaps were scary eaters.  
Actually, redcaps were just plain scary, even 
the relatively sane ones like Slicer.  She 
gazed into the shard and her eyes widened.  
"Not good."

     "WHAT DO YOU MEAN NOT GOOD?"  Lady 
Marigold sprung off the throne and lept over 
to Belphoebe, gazing over her shoulder at the 
shard, despite knowing that only Belphoebe 
could see its secrets.  

     "Hermetics.  They've captured them."   
Belphoebe shuddered.  If the Hermetics took 
you, and you were one of the Fae, you'd hardly 
be recognizable by the time they were 
finished, all of your glamour gone.  Nothing 
left but a mortal shell, and that old beyond 
your wildest nightmares.  Assuming you didn't 
die from it.  Assuming they didn't have
interesting experiments to perform on you as 
well.  To say the least, no one would ever 
call the Hermetics the Gentle Folk.  They made 
some of the Unseelie look pleasant and kind.  
They hadn't always been so bad, but 
desperation makes wolves of the best, and they 
were desperate indeed.

     "Then we must rescue them.  I shall not 
suffer those under my protection to fall into 
the hands of my enemies.  Gather the horses.  
We must ride."  She took up her sword.  "This 
I do swear:  I shall not falter or leave this 
realm until all those under my protection be 
brought safely home to the Dreaming.  This I 
do swear by my immortal nature and my title as 
Lady of Caer Grunwald.  I am the last of House 
Dafyd to walk upon the Earth, and I shall 
abide her until all those who look to us are 
brought home."  As she lifted her sword high 
over her head, the rays of the afternoon sun 
struck it, reflecting about the room.  Glamour 
swirled about
her and a single note sounded in the air.  The 
oath was sworn, the pact sealed.

     "Was that really necessary, Lady?  We all 
know your devotion to Flamehair, but didn't 
you already..."

     "I am the last of Dafyd to walk this 
world.  We shall not falter in our duties.  I 
will recover those who come to Grunwald, or I 
shall perish in the attempt."   She began 
striding for the door.  

     Belphoebe followed her.  "What of the 
gate?  We have less than twelve hours before 
it closes, at best.  Assuming Peastongue saw 
correctly."

     "Peastongue is never wrong about the 
future, only the present.  I should have asked 
him to stay."  They strode through the halls 
of the fortress, Belphoebe struggling to keep 
up with Lady Marigold, who walked at a manic 
pace.  "But he wanted to help his children at 
Caer Shannon, so I
let him go."

     "We shall do the best we can, my lady."  
Belphoebe sighed deep inside.  Doom was 
coming.  She could smell it.  She might be 
only half the diviner Peastongue was, but she 
had watched too many of the Sidhe ride to 
their doom not to know when it approached.  At 
least she hadn't fallen into
depression like Lord Melliance of Caer Ludd, 
who had sat and brooded on his throne when his 
wife was slain by werewolves.  He had simply 
sat and never moved again, even when the Caer 
had to be abandoned.  Belphoebe's last memory 
of him was of his blue eyes staring straight 
through her, his beard
down to his knees and ivy creepers starting to 
grow up his throne.  If the onslaught of 
Banality hadn't killed him, he might still be 
there.  

	The Sidhe had ruled the fae for ages 
beyond reckoning, and likewise had been noted 
for their rages and depressions for all that 
time.  They were the incarnation of noble 
honor, but also of the darker sides of 
nobility in all times and places.  When a 
Sidhe broke, there was nothing to be done but 
to wait for them to come to their senses.  
Belphoebe had served the last of the Dafyds 
for many years, but now she feared the time 
would come soon when there was not one to 
serve.  No matter.  The gamble was worth it if 
the captured Fae could be saved.  And if not, 
hopefully someone would survive to spread the 
tale of the last stand of Lady Marigold and 
her eight companions.

May 2, 1963:
     
     Harold laughed faintly and poked me.  "I 
thought Daffy was a duck!" He fell over 
laughing and so did I.  "Now we know what 
happened to the last of the Dafyds.  She went 
into movies."

     Phoebe frowned.  "We'll never find out if 
you two don't shut up!  I wanna hear the 
story."  Phoebe's eyes glinted yellow in the 
firelight, although only we could see that.  
To her mama and daddy, her eyes were hazel 
like theirs, but us faeries could see what she 
really looked like.  She still had the brown 
hair and the forever tan either way, but only 
us special people could see her magic eyes.  
She saw stuff, sometimes.  We all knew a 
little magic, but she was good at it.  Silver 
eyes to see the wind, blue eyes to rule, 
golden eyes to see the future, brown eyes to 
speak to the earth, green eyes to decieve, red 
eyes for slaying, and hazel eyes to...uh, I 
can't remember.  Phoebe's eyes saw things 
others couldn't.  Harold had green eyes, but I 
knew he'd never decieve me.  I'm gonna marry 
him one day.  

Moon Day the First

     I snuck out of the house once the 
parentals went to bed.  How were we gonna get 
where we were going in the middle of the 
night?  None of us were old enough to drive.  
Not that we'd let that stop us before, but car 
theft's just not my style.  I mean, this was 
really important, but we
needed to get where we were going fast, and if 
the cops stopped us again, we'd have to waste 
Glamour on them.  Then again, the air was 
practically thick with Glamour.  Hmm, maybe I 
could commandeer us a cop car.  That would get 
us where we're going in style and fast!  Yeah, 
good idea.

      Far off I could hear the sound of 
hoofbeats.  Hoofbeats?  In my home town?  I 
haven't ever seen a horse except for once when 
I saw some old-style gypsies, and I guess once 
when we went to the circus.  Snake blinked.  
"Horses?" she whispered, then turned her head 
and sniffed the air.  Snake is kinda tall and 
gangly, with stringy hair, pale skin, and 
brown eyes.  She always wears black, even 
though it drives her parents nuts.  Ugly as 
all get out, looks like she ought to be in the 
Adams'
Family, but one of my three best friends.  

	"Where did Harold get horses?"  she 
whispered.  Snake always whispers.  It drives 
us all nuts sometimes.  I
heard her yell once.  She almost got up to my 
normal vocal level, then had a sore throat for 
a day.  That's the problem with being Slurg, 
or Sluath, or whatever they're called.  The 
snakey ones.  Well, if she thought it was 
Harold with horses, then it was.  I've seen 
her find people by smell in a dark room and 
spot a bluebird half a mile away.  

     "Call him Eggman.  That's his name with 
us now."  Harold and I were pretty proud of 
our nicknames.  Googa Googa Joob.  Snake was 
still looking for a better one, but we'd kinda 
dried up our brains coming up with ours. 
Golden Eyes had been pretty obvious, but we 
just couldn't come up with a good one for 
Snake, although Eggman called her Penny Lane 
sometimes.  She really hated that one.   

     The horses trotted into sight, with 
Harold astride one, leading the others by 
their reins and sheer force of will.  His red 
hair ruffled in the wind, too short to really 
blow in the wind.  I could see his horns 
clearly.  They were still pretty short, but 
they were starting to really stick out above 
his hair now.  One day, they'd be close to 
half a foot long or more and curve backwards.  
Seeing him made me realize how strange I was.  
I was a faerie without kin.  

	There are eight kinds of us living on 
the Earth:  Trolls, Boggans, Knockers, Eshu, 
Pooka, Satyrs, Sluagh, and Redcaps.  Once 
there had been dozens of kinds of faeries, but 
most had died when the great autumn of the Fae 
began.  The Sidhe had survived, but all of 
them were gone.  They had ruled us, then 
abandoned us when the glamour faded.  Yet I 
had their hair, their look, their beauty.  Yet 
it was impossible.  They had all left but a 
few, and those did not reincarnate as Sidhe.  
Every other kind of Faerie returns eventually, 
reborn, but if a Sidhe recieves a proper wake 
that she might be reborn, she returns as a 
commoner.  The Sidhe must have their wake in 
the Dreaming, or cease to be Sidhe.  Such was 
the price of their rule.  I think that's why 
they abandoned us.  They were too fond of life 
to accept eternal death, and too proud to lose 
their rank.  So when the ways closed, they had 
to leave.  So what was I?  I couldn't be a 
Sidhe, yet, I had none of the marks or powers 
of other Fae.  Was I special?  Why?

     Harold laughed and startled me out my 
reverie, then hoisted me up onto a horse 
beside him.  "Now we ride!"  Snake and Golden 
Eyes blinked then leaped up onto the other two 
horses.  

     "Where'd you get four chimerical horses?"  
I asked as we started to gallop off down the 
street.  "For that matter, how are we going to 
avoid being seen?"  Chimerical things have a 
tendency to evaporate if the mundanes see you 
defying reality with them.  To a mundane, we'd 
look like we were riding on air, unless she 
was really young, really drunk, or
enchanted.  

     "We don't have to!  They're real!"  
Harold laughed as we headed down 9th street.  

     "Where did you find four horses in this 
town at this hour?"  Golden Eyes said.  

       "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, 
Golden Eyes."  Harold smiled that enigmatic 
smile and winked one of his green eyes at me.  

Midsummer's Day, 1971

     I took a break from dancing and went over 
to the punch bowl.  Eggman
was off dancing with Sandra Dee.  Well, mostly 
he was whirling her around
and round in the air as she laughed and 
everyone else dived for cover. 
Even the Eiluned was smiling at the odd sight 
of a wilder satyr dancing
with a eight year old pooka.  Eggman always 
was good with little kids.  He
and Fork always made sure Sandra Dee was safe 
when we went off on our
adventures.  Her parents would still kill us 
if they had any idea she was
off at a wild party with us, but I knew that 
with those two around, she was
probably safer than she was in her own house.

     Fork and Snake joined me at the 
punchbowl.  I wondered for a moment
how many different people had tampered with 
it.  I think even the nobles had
spiked it.  Looking at Fork and Snake together 
was always kind of surreal. 
He was tall and blond and huge, she was tall,  
but skinny as a bean pole
with stringy black hair and pale skin.  The 
nordic god and the Adams'
family refugee.  Fork had muscles on his 
muscles.  "They look cute
together," Snake whispered, smiling.  "I hope 
you're not jealous."

      I laughed.  Only a crazy person could 
get jealous of their boyfriend
dancing with an eight year old.  "I dunno, I 
think she's too old for him." 
Snake collapsed laughing.  Fork blinked.

     "Eh?"  Snake and I laughed more.  Fork's 
a great guy, but sometimes he
just doesn't get it.  He cleared his throat 
and spoke.  "I'm glad you two
have such a good relationship.  Satyrs aren't 
exactly noted for their
faithfulness and I just worry that..."

     Good old Fork.  Straight to the point.  
Trolls aren't noted for
subtlety.  It can be a pain, but you have to 
respect it.  Probably Snake
put him up to it.  She's not very good at 
expressing herself, so she tends
to get people to say things for her.  I'm not 
worried though.  Eggman's
special.  He's no normal satyr.  I've known 
him since we were both knee
high to a grasshopper.  I know he can't help 
looking at other women.  No
man can.  But that's where it ends.  Ever 
since we learned we both really
had red hair, we knew we were meant for each 
other.  I feel like I've known
him forever.  I guess I sort of have.  As long 
as I can remember.  "I'm not
worried.  I trust him.  He knows I won't cheat 
on him and vice versa.  Love
is forever."

     Snake smiled and said faintly, "You 
always say that."

     "Only because it's true."  We ought to 
swear the oathbond, I thought.   Yeah, I'll 
talk to him about it later tonight.  Fork 
looked at me a bit nervously.  He was probably 
still worried the topic might make me angry.  
Everyone thinks I have a temper, but really, 
I'm pretty mellow.

Indian Summer 1972
     
     I gripped the phone so tightly I thought 
it would break in my hands. 
"Martha, are you okay, dear?  Is it bad news?"  
Mother hovered over my
shoulder looking worried.  I had had to work 
hard to get her to accept
Harold.  Mom tries to be fair, but her family 
taught her to dislike
Italians.  Old feuds from New York or 
something.  If she heard about this,
I'd get the "all about Italians" lecture 
again.  I'd probably cut off her
head if I had to listen to that again.  

     "I've got to go talk to someone, mom."  I 
slammed down the phone, then
realized I'd just hung up on Number Nine.  I 
sighed, picked the phone back
up and dialed her.  "Sorry about that, Number 
Nine."  My mother sighed. 
She thought the Beatles were ridiculous and so 
were our nicknames.  For
just a moment, I could almost understand why.  
Was this really the end? 
Were we going to break apart just like the 
Beatles?  How could he do this
to me?  "I'm gonna go talk to him."  

     Number Nine spoke hesitantly, "I'm 
sorry...I thought you should know. 
I mean...I knew it would make you angry, but I 
thought you should know.  I
mean...It might not be something bad.  I just, 
uh..."  I growled and
gripped the phone tightly.  "Just don't go 
armed!  You might do something
crazy."

     "I won't..."  I hesitated.  Mom was 
listening.  If she knew I had a
crossbow and five knives in my closet, she'd 
explode.  At least she
couldn't see the sword, or the dress.  Not 
that she disapproved of dresses,
but I think it would have been just a bit too 
revealing for her.  Eggman
liked it.  Bastard!  "I'm on my way over 
there."  No doubt she'd call up
everyone and try to stop me.  Or help me kill 
him.  Hard to be sure.  Guess
I'll find out.

Fall, 1980

     I looked down as I felt another tug on my 
skirt.  It was Jeannie
again, with Bobby.  He's four.  Mom probably 
had Phoebe.  She's only three.  Mom loves her 
grandchildren very much.  Jeannie had her 
teddy bear.  She
takes Mr. Bear everywhere.  I see her talking 
to him sometimes.  Now she
was holding him up to me.  "Mr. Bear wants to 
give you a hug, Mommy.  He
says you look sad."

      I swept Jeannie and Mr. Bear up into my 
lap, and Bobby too, and
hugged all three of them.  The tears flowed.  
They held me as I cried and
cried and cried.  My youth was gone.  My 
husband was gone.  My dreams were
gone.  Only my children and their love 
remained.  A child loves with all
her heart, hates with all her heart, gives 
with all her heart and demands
with all of it too.  They needed me, and oh 
God, I needed them.  God...hah.  What could he 
know about pain?  Men...they always run away 
when you really
need them.  Even if they don't mean 
to...Peter, oh Peter, if I ever meet
the man who killed you, I'll rip him apart 
with my bare hands.  How will I
ever go on without you?

December 22, 1995

     The call came when I was in the backyard 
target shooting.  When I get
really angry or frustrated, I go in the 
backyard and start plunking bolts
into the targets Robert set up.  I still have 
the crossbow.  Mom never did
learn about it.  It takes me back to my youth, 
I guess.  I've gone to a few
crossbow meets, even, won a few prizes.  I 
even got in the local paper. 
"Crossbow Toting Mother of Three Wins First 
Place in Competition"   The
kids called me Annie Oakley for weeks after 
that.  It had a great picture
of me in a Dirty Harry pose with the caption 
"Make My Day".  It's still up
on the refrigerator.  

      It's hard to explain how it can be so 
therapeutic.  I just kind of
relax my mind and become one with it.  Nothing 
exists but me, the crossbow
and the target.  The kids like to watch me, 
sometimes.  I'm not half the
shot Spoon was.  Of course, he had a funky 
repeating crossbow he made himself.  He made 
me one, but it just never quite worked right 
for anyone else.  It's in a box up in the 
attic.  I keep intending to take it down and 
try to figure out how to make it work, but I 
don't know if anyone, even him, could get it 
to work after sitting in a box all these 
years.  But I can't bear to throw it away.  
It's the only memento I have left of him.  He 
died...so horribly.    

     When the phone rang, I yelled, "Can you 
get it, Phoebe?"  then
realized Phoebe was out with friends.  I put 
down my crossbow and ran
inside.  "Hello."  The cat bolted.  She's a 
fat old Calico.  I named her
Pooka.  Another remembrance for a dead friend.  
I'm surrounded by reminders
of death and those who moved on.  At least she 
didn't end up in the asylum,
like Knife.  

     I started at the voice.  "Hello, Walrus.  
It's Golden Eyes."  The cat
looked up resentfully at me, now that her 
panic was over.  I was standing
in her favorite spot, where the light from the 
skylight and the window
mingle and keep the carpet warm.  "I'm coming 
home for Christmas."

     I blinked.  "You...what?  Your parents 
think you're dead!  I thought
you said you'd never come home again.  You 
haven't seen your parents since
what, 1980?"  She ran away from home in 1974, 
but she made it to Peter's
funeral.  Her parents and her had a big fight 
and she left, swearing never
to return.  

     "Dad's sick.  Terri thinks this might be 
the last time.  I have to see
him, to say goodbye, before he dies.  I never 
wanted my parents and I to
hate each other.  But you know how it was 
after that night..."  Oh how I
remembered.  I wish I could forget.  It was 
the nail in the coffin of my
youth.  

Beltaine, The night of long knives (May 2, 
1973)

     We thought of it as a kind of early 
graduation party.  There were
seven of us graduating.  Sandra Dee was only 
ten, but she was there too. 
She was still part of our gang.  We could see 
the writing on the wall. 
College was coming, and we'd be scattering to 
the winds.  Number Nine had
been looking around, trying to find some 
people for Sandra Dee to hang out
with.  We still hadn't found her a good 
nickname.  

     It was Beltaine, the great feast of 
Spring, a night of love and peace.
 There's a big open field out to the northeast 
of town, where all of us get
together to celebrate.  I remember we had 
gypsies there once.  All the
nobles were there, and the commoners.  Things 
had been tense lately.  When
the Sidhe fled during the Shattering, when all 
the Glamour dried up, those
of us left behind had chosen new nobles.  But 
the Sidhe who returned to us
on Moon Day expected to just take up where 
they left off.  We were glad to
have them, yet the new old leaders and the old 
new leaders were at odds. 
The Sidhe are proud beyond measure, but the 
Trolls and Satyrs and Boggans
and whatnot who had led us in their absence 
were willing to try and compete
in that regard. 

     I'd had to go pick up Patty and her new 
boyfriend and Sandra Dee. 
When I got them, Tommy (the boyfriend) and her 
were already smoking some
pot.  One look at him and I could tell she'd 
enchanted his pot again. 
Well, he wouldn't likely remember anything 
from tonight anyway.  I smiled
sadly.  I hadn't had a date since sometime 
last year.  Since I lost the
Eggman.  I felt so old.  Eighteen, beautiful, 
one of the most special
nights of the year, and I didn't have a date.  
We drove out to the field in
my Malibu Classic.  It was an ugly car, but it 
had been for sale cheap, and
that was what was important.  I got a flat 
along the way.  Luckily, Tommy
is good with cars.  We got the flat tire 
replaced in no time.  Except then
we ran out of gas, got stuck in traffic, and 
somehow managed to get lost.

     We finally made it to the field, two 
hours late.  It was a warground. 
Tents on fire.  Trolls and Sidhe slashing at 
each other, Redcaps attacking
anything that moved, dozens of Faeries in a 
state of chaos.  "Woah...." 
Tommy said, "It looks like something outta 
Tolkein.  This is good stuff." 
He took another toke from his weed.  

     
"Ohmygodwhat'sgoingonwhyiseveryonekillingeacho
ther?"  Sandra Dee said. Her eyes seemed huge, 
her face plastered against the windowglass.  
She spoke a mile a minute, words blurring 
together like those big words I had to learn 
in German class.  They don't say traffic jam.  
The german equivalent translates literally as 
falling avalanches of metal.  Well, anyway, it 
looked like a war zone.  

     "Stay here.  I'm going to see what's 
going on."  I left the engine
running.  "Number Nine, you have the chair."  
I hope they make a Star Trek
movie one day.  That was a cool show.  But I 
guess they've all moved on to
other things.  Probably wouldn't make any 
money anyway.  Show wouldn't have
been cancelled if it had enough fans to 
support a movie.  Enough of that.  

     "What are you going to do, Walrus?"  
Patty scrambled into the command
chair...uh, the driver's seat.  

      "Are you gonna spank them for being bad, 
Walrus?"  Sandra Dee said. 
She was tugging on her hair again.  Those cat 
ears always stuck out when
she did that.  

     "I'm going to find as many of us as I can 
and get us out of here."  I
drew my knife and plunged into the crowd.  Why 
was everyone fighting?  On
Beltaine?  Where had all these weapons come 
from anyway?  I only had a
knife and not my sword, because Beltaine is 
supposed to be a night of
peace!  Had everyone gone mad?

     I waded into the riot, dodging the 
blades, chairs, and rocks.  I found
Snake trying to drag Fork out of a tent.  
"What the hell's going on,
Snake?"

     "They killed Count Longbranch."  Her 
voice was almost impossible to
hear.  

	"Who did?  Did someone get drunk?  Was 
it a duel?"

	"We've been betrayed!  The Eiluned and 
his men slaughtered all the
non-Sidhe nobles.  With cold iron!"  I froze 
in place.  Cold Iron?  But
that meant...no rebirth.  The true death.  A 
faerie slain with cold iron
will never be reborn.  I could feel a icy hand 
grasping at my heart.  This
new age of faerie glory had been nothing but a 
false spring.  This would
mean war.  War to the death.  How could they 
be such fools?  Surely it was
nothing that couldn't have been worked out.  
PROUD BASTARDS!  I wouldn't
stand for this.  I had expected to feast on 
Glamour this night, to share
with my kind, and instead, we were 
slaughtering each other like mundaners! 
I drew all the Glamour I could to the front of 
my mind and let out a great
shout.  "STOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

      Instinct wove the Glamour into a spell 
of power.  My voice echoed
across the camp, carrying the power of 
command.  Almost the entire camp
froze in place.  Only the Eiluned, his sister, 
and his brother still moved.  The rest of the 
camp, even the cold iron bearing bodyguards 
who were
carving a path for them out of the festival 
grounds.  Insane bastard! 
Whatever had possessed him to do this?

     "WHY!?"  I shouted to the heavens.  "Why 
have you done this?"

     His face was frozen in a mask of rage, 
and...something else.  "We have
had enough of the impertinence.  It is time 
that the commoners be shown
their place, half-breed.  We are the rulers of 
the Sidhe, and we expect to
be obeyed.  All across Tir'na'og, we have 
risen this night and slain those
who usurped our rightful place in our absence.  
The Summer Country belongs
to the Sidhe, and those who choose to accept 
our rule may stay.  All others
must perish or depart.  Even as we speak, Lord 
Dafyll is securing the land
you call California.  In the days to come, all 
shall kneel or die."

     I stared at him.  How could I possibly be 
such as him?  Perhaps I was
somehow some sort of half-breed, with the 
saner half being the non-Sidhe
half.  Indeed, I had been stunned when I 
learned I was Sidhe...

Moon Day the First

     We galloped to the base of the great 
spiral of light.  It stabbed to the earth in a 
forest far south of the city.  We could 
normally have never reached there in any 
reasonable time, but with so much glamour in 
the air, it had been child's play for Snake to 
weave a cantrip to make the horses as fast as 
cars.  If anyone had noticed us, they would 
probably have thought they were dreaming.  And 
to some extent, they would have been right, 
for the power of the Fae is the power of 
dreams.  

     Perhaps thirty or forty of our kindred 
fae were here, all the gangs in the city.  
Count Longbranch, the sort of leader of our 
city's fae, a grump Boggan was here, with his 
court, such as it was.  He held the only 
freehold near Houston, a refuge for us, full 
of wine and song and good cheer.  Especially 
wine.  Most of us were wilders and grumps.  
Childlings either wouldn't have noticed, or 
got lost, or stopped to pick flowers, or just 
not been able to get here.  I noticed a boggan 
about my age, holding the hand
of a little five year old pooka.  She must 
have had her sainday recently.  Really tiny 
children rarely awake to their faerie nature.  
I was five when I had my sainday.  Me and 
Eggman had the same sainday.

     We could see figures on the spiral of 
light.  Men and women on horses. Red hair, 
white, gold and blue, eyes of silver and gold  
and blue and green.  They were beautiful 
beyond the imagining.  We all froze and 
stared. I had always been considered quite a 
looker, but many of them surpassed me.  Music 
played from phantom instruments as they rode 
into sight.  

     All were silent, and then the Count 
spoke.  "The Sidhe. They...They've come back."  
We stared.  Was this...a trod?  No one even 
remembered where most of them were, now.  
There hadn't been an open trod in over 600 
years.  Was the way to the Dreaming reopened?  

     Murmers began to spread.  Was this what 
it had been like?  Was the long winter over?  
A new age of Glamour to begin?  All from a 
single footstep.  The mundaners had saved 
us...

     One Sidhe took the lead, riding beneath a 
double banner.  The top banner was a gold 
falcon, facing left with a gold leaf in its 
beak, wings raised, legs splayed, against a 
green field.  The bottom banner was two silver 
crescent moons on black above a black pentacle 
on silver.  He looked
old, well, older than me or even the count.  
His demeanor was haughty and proud, yet lit 
with a smile.  I could hear the Count 
muttering.  "Eiluned and Gwydion.  He must be 
of Eiluned, but sworn to a Gwydion.  But what 
rank?"

     "I am Duke Mavros of House Eiluned, sworn 
to King Greyhawk of House Gwydion, king of the 
Kingdom of the Burning Sun.  We have returned 
to our ancient kingdoms to lead you into the 
light of a new spring!"  He gestured
and the air filled with sweet scents and 
music.  "Let the news go forth!"

     Count Longbranch stepped forward.  "I am 
Count Longbranch.  I hold the Longbranch 
freehold, the only one to survive the 
Shattering in this area." He bowed in his 
stumpy Boggan way.  He was perhaps only a 
little more than half the height of the Duke, 
and even his best finery couldn't have 
compared to what the Duke probably wore to 
bed, but he was our Count and we were proud of 
him.  Sure, the only command he'd ever given 
that I'd seen obeyed outside his freehold was 
"Drink Up!"  but that didn't matter.  He was a 
noble, hereditary for hundreds of years, so he 
deserved respect.  Were all these people 
nobles?  There weren't enough freeholds to go 
around.  Or were there?  Who knows how many 
might have reawakened.  Perhaps the whole 
world might be one big freehold now.  It 
certainly felt like it.  

     The Duke paused as if he had heard his 
mother-in-law was here and angry.  "Count?"  
He seemed genuinely surprised, looking around 
the crowd, trying to figure out who spoke.  

     The Count jumped up and down, then a 
wilder troll hefted him and lifted him up onto 
his shoulders.  I think his name was Frank.  
I'd seen him at a few festivals.  Kinda cute.  
He spoke, with that deep rumbly voice trolls 
have.  "This is our count, Mr. Duke.  Count 
Longbranch."  The Count
smiled and waved.  

     The Duke seemed to be saying something, 
but no words came out that I could hear.  
Snake started to laugh, loud enough that I 
could even hear it.  "What's so funny, Snake?"

     "I can hear him talking to himself.  He 
seems to think we must have chosen the Boggans 
to rule us in the absence of the Sidhe."  I 
started laughing.  We'd all be doing charity 
work and gossiping for a living if the Boggans 
were the rulers of the Fae.  Might make a good 
joke for Carnival,
though.  

     One of the Sidhe spoke.  "Girl, come over 
here."  I kept laughing.  She blinked, then 
pointed at me.  "You, with the red hair."  
Harold and I started forward, then I stopped 
him.  

     "She said girl, Harold."  He blinked and 
blushed.

     I soon reached the front of the crowd.  
"Who are you, girl?  What is your kith?"

     I blushed.  "I don't know.   I've never 
seen a faerie like me before. Until now."  
They looked like me.  I wasn't as beautiful as 
the most lovely of them, but I could see the 
resemblences.  The angles of my face, my 
pointed ears, the eyes....they were my people.  
But that was impossible. 
The sidhe had left!  All of them!  Unless you 
listened to old faerie tales, like that one 
about Lady Marigold...

Sunsebb, 1292:

     Lady Marigold had gathered her 
companions, those that were still with her.  
Fortress the troll on his great destrier, 
Cutler the knocker in his old bronze chariot 
with the wheel that kept coming off, Belphoebe 
astride her white Arabian steed, and Calico 
perched up on Lady Marigold's saddle, which 
sat on a great white winged horse.  She hadn't 
ridden Astra in months.  It was no longer safe 
to ride him outside the holy days.  But this 
too was a holy day, if a bitter and sad one.  
Sunsebb, the shortest day of the year, when 
the sun died and was reborn the next day.  
This might be her last time to let him spread 
his wings and fly.  

     Fortress grumbled under his breath.  His 
love was in the hands of the Hermetics.  He 
would avenge her or die.  Belphoebe saw the 
light of determination in her companion's 
eyes.  Lady Marigold raised her sword high.  
Whiterazor it was called, the honor blade of 
Caer Grunwald.  Whiterazor could cut through 
anything, including Glamour, magick, and
infernal power.

     Whiterazor had another power.  Used 
properly, it could cut through...the fabric of 
the pattern of the world?  Through distance 
itself?  No one was quite sure exactly what it 
did, but if you knew where you were going and 
where you were, you could cut a way from the 
second to the first.  Only on the four days of 
the Sun, Sunsebb, Highsummer, Risingday, and 
Settingday, could it be wielded such.  Lady 
Marigold slashed a great circle in the air, 
then cut across it with two strokes, forming a 
t.  The air shimmered and the view through 
where she had slashed changed to that of the
base of the great hill upon which Covenant 
Grunwald of the Hermetic House of Tytalus sat.  
Once, in the days of glory, Covenant and Caer 
had been allies.  Those days had passed.  
Covenant Grunwald also sank into winter.  Many 
of its magi were lost in twilight, the madness 
that takes some magi in
old age.  The others plotted against one 
another, trained the few apprentices crazy 
enough to come there, and raided the 
surroundings for the dwindling supplies of 
magical power.  

     The Covenant glowed with an eerie blue 
light as we approached.  Belphoebe pulled out 
a compass and chanted over it.  She had 
replaced the sliver of magnetite with a hair 
from Flamehair's bed.  The compass spun and 
pointed towards the heavily built up southern 
end of the main building of
the Covenant.  There were walls and a locked 
gate to bar their way, but it was little 
barrier to them.  Calico lept up to the wall 
with a piece of chalk in her mouth, then lept 
about sketching out a door.  Everyone sighed 
and closed their eyes.  Soon Calico stood 
before them in human form, much more able to 
draw a door.  Phooka could change shape, but 
only if no one was looking.  She then knocked 
three times and opened it.  They rode inside, 
leaving the door open for the getaway.  

     Closer to the house, they could see the 
blue glow came from the central hall of the 
Covenant.  It looked like a duel was in 
progress there, the ancient custom of 
Certamen.  Two of the old masters must have 
finally come to blows.  Most of the magi would 
be busy watching the duel.  

     As they slipped in one of the side doors, 
Calico paused and stared into the great hall, 
looking at one of the magi, an aged man 
dressed in blue robes, his balding head shiny 
in the glow of the Certamen weaponry. He 
shouted imprecations in latin and hurled a 
spear of fire at his opponent, another old 
man, dressed in red.  

     "Why are they fighting?  Surely with all 
the power they have, they don't need to fight 
each other to get what they want."  She 
stared, fascinated by the raging battle.

     Belphoebe shook her head.  So naive.  
Even for a young faerie, Calico was naive.  
"Mages get increasingly cranky.  They fight 
exactly because they have power.  They have so 
much power they expect everyone to submit to 
them the way the magic does.  They may start 
out seeking power to do
something, but the power is always inadequate.  
So they find more power, but it doesn't 
satisfy them either.  Even if they gain the 
power to achieve their goals, they discover 
new ones, and ones beyond those.  You can 
never solve all the problems of the world, or 
do everything, but people try
anyway.  Some of them go on forever trying to 
get more and more power, and power over people 
is one of the most satisfying forms.  Life is 
not a game to be won, but some people don't 
realize that."  

	Belphoebe sighed.  "Some people never 
realize that.  It doesn't help that old mages 
tend to lose touch with reality.  One of them 
probably thinks the other is a devil or a 
dragon in disguise or some old dead enemy of 
his."  Taking Calico by the arm, she dragged 
her inside.  "Come on, they'll still be at 
each other when we're leaving.  I hope."

 Moonday the First
 
     The Sidhe looked at me, at each other and 
back at me.  "You are Sidhe.  Yet how?  No 
Sidhe has walked the world of mortals for at 
least six hundred years."

     What could I say to that?  "Uh, yeah.  
I'd heard that.  I dunno.  I just live here."  
Everyone laughed, even the Sidhe.  I have a 
people...It's a little disappointing not to be 
unique, but it can be nice to be part of 
something.  "Does this mean I need to buy a 
horse?"  More laughter.  I
smiled.  This was going to be great!

Beltaine, 1973

     I lifted my knife and pointed at him.  "I 
challenge you to a duel, Duke, by my blood 
right as a Countess of the Sidhe."  They had 
decided I should be a Countess once they had 
established that I was apparently descended 
from a Countess.  I even had one of the new 
freeholds, for what
it was worth.  A nice clearing, when I had 
time to visit it.  I might need to go hide 
there after this.  

     "A duel?  So be it, Countess."  He put 
some extra sneer into my title.  I should have 
thought of that for when I had said his title.  
Oh well, no use crying over spilt milk, I 
suppose Mom would say.  

     We faced off, while the others remained 
transfixed by my cantrip of command.  The 
other two nobles retreated to watch.  I knew 
they would not interfere.  If I had been a 
commoner, they would have cut me down, but I 
was Sidhe, and Sidhe had rights.  They might 
despise me, or challenge me in
turn, but they would not interfere.  

     I grabbed a handy sword from one of the 
onlooking fae, and the duel began.  It was not 
a duel to go down in history.  I was decent 
with a sword, but he had hundreds of years of 
practice.  It soon became obvious to me that 
he was just toying with me, dragging it out to 
relieve the boredom
that eternal life can bring.  We circled the 
camp, weaving in and out of knots of yet still 
held fae.  I had never woven such a powerful 
cantrip before.  Soon we had almost returned 
to our original position on the field.  I bled 
from several cuts to the arm, while he had 
only a single small cut on the hand to show he 
had even been fighting.  

     "Give it up, child.  You cannot win.  
Surrender and I shall spare your life.  You 
are too lovely to throw your life away, much 
as you have wasted it to date."  He spun his 
blade about to try to disarm me, but I dodged, 
drawing both of us into the line of fire of 
one of the Duke's immobile
bodyguards, a boggan carrying a loaded 
crossbow, finger on the trigger, loaded with 
an iron tipped bolt.  I slowly backed towards 
the guard, drawing the Duke in closer, praying 
he did not guess what I had in mind.  

    He pressed his assault and I saw he 
intended to force me towards a nearby Troll, 
frozen with a iron tipped spear thrust 
forward.  I smiled and let him force me 
backwards, backwards, until the spearpoint was 
almost in my back and the Duke was directly in 
front of the crossbowman.  Ducking and rolling 
behind the crossbowman, I muttered words of 
power and wove a weak cantrip of Ledgerdemain, 
the art of moving things.  I have little 
talent in that Art, but I had enough to pull a 
trigger.  The Duke turned just in time
to be shot in the front instead of the side.  
He collapsed, scrabbling at the arrow, trying 
to pull it out as it drained his glamour.  The 
two watching nobles flinched.

     I leaped forward and held my sword to his 
throat.  "Yield or suffer the death from which 
there is no returning."

     He scowled, then sighed.  "The victory is 
yours.  I yield."

     "Swear on your word of honor that you 
will yield your title to me and obey me in all 
things."

     "Never!"

     "I've never seen anyone die from cold 
iron before.  I guess I'll learn from watching 
you."

     Already the Duke looked weaker.  He 
cursed loudly, then said, "I yield my title to 
you, Duchess of Houston.  My fealty is yours.  
May I know old age if I lie."  I felt a surge, 
a change.  Duchess of Houston.  What a 
worthless honor, when so many had fallen here.  
It would not bring Count Longbranch back to 
life, nor save me when the angry Sidhe came.  
Yet, it was a beginning.  Count Longbranch 
would be avenged.  The storm season was 
coming.

Pennons(October 2), 1973

     We called it the night of Long Knives.  
Knife died that night, but Fork and Spoon 
avenged him.  We tried and executed the old 
Duke's guards.  Claiming you were just 
following orders doesn't cut it with me.  As 
they killed with iron, they died by it.  Three 
years of war between the Nobles and the 
Commoners followed on that night.  We fought 
at first, driving off Count Basil.  Then Duke 
Dafyl himself came after us.  But so did 
someone else.  An aged faerie named 
Peastongue.  He was a Sidhe, but sick of the 
whole war.  He wasn't from any of the five 
houses exiled to Earth.  Yes, that's right.  
Exiled.  Driven out.  They were criminals cast 
into exile.  The other eight houses
had forced them out.  But he wasn't of any of 
them.  He was a Dafyd, like in that old faerie 
tale.  In fact, he claimed to be the very same 
Peastongue of Caer Grunwald.  Whoever he was, 
he was a godsend.  

     Peastongue pointed out that Houston was 
mine by right now, and that as long as I was 
willing to swear a nominal loyalty to the king 
of the kingdom we were in, we could run our 
duchy as we saw fit.  To offer an oath of 
fealty to those maniacs galled me, yet there 
was no way we could stand
against them.  Better to wait and gather our 
strength for a future day of reckoning.  I 
kneeled to King Greyhawk of House Gwydion, 
King of the Kingdom of the Burning Sands on 
the day of Pennons.  My people would be safe.  
That was what mattered.

     I missed my first semester of college 
because of all this.  We all did.  I had to 
glamour my own parents so they wouldn't mind.  
I hated doing that, but this was important.  
The war raged on without us.  With Peastongue 
to guide us, we weaseled out of having to 
support the war.  I appointed Fork my regent, 
and left for college.  He wasn't going to go 
to college anyway.  His destiny was to one day 
take over his father's car repair shop.  He 
and Spoon are still running it, I think.  

	I left that phase of my life behind and 
threw myself into my studies, trying to forget 
the horrors I had seen, knowing Houston was in 
good hands.  Golden Eyes and Number Nine tried 
college too.  Golden Eyes decided she prefered 
the faerie life to school, joined a wandering 
motley, and vanished into the maelstrom of war 
that was still going off.  None of us know 
what happened to Number Nine.  She just 
vanished from school one day.  No body, no 
note, none of
her possessions gone.  I have dreams about her 
sometimes.

	Snake married Fork.  I still see them 
sometimes, and we trade stories about our old 
adventures, and I catch up on how the Duchy is 
doing.  It's Fork's now.  I formally 
transferred it to him after the war ended.  I 
didn't want to be in charge, even in name.  
Lots of people have told the story of High 
King David, so I won't go into it. When he 
came to power, he ended the war and brought 
peace between noble and commoner.  The war 
ended in 1976.  Symbolic, I guess.  

December 22, 1995

     It would be good to see Phoebe again.  It 
had been so long.  I called up Fork and Snake.  
All four of us could get together.  If we were 
really lucky, Sandra Dee would wander into 
town, and Spoon would be here for Christmas.  
It wouldn't be all of us, but it would be more 
of us than had
been together in years and years.  

     I heard the door fly open and a trail of 
giggles and happy voices zoomed in through the 
front door and down the hallway towards 
Phoebe's room.  She and her girlfriends had 
been out, doing something.  No doubt of 
earthshattering importance in their own minds.  
Finding out who Sandy was
dating, and oh how geeky Mindi looked with 
that new haircut, and wow, isn't George such a 
stud?

     There came a knock at the door, then the 
bell rang, then I heard a cat scratching at 
it, then the bell rang again, and several more 
knocks.  For a moment I had a mental image of 
a pack of cats butting their heads against
the door, scratching the door and climbing on 
each other to reach the doorbell.  I laughed 
and went to the door.  When I opened it, it 
was a pack of children and one cat.  A 
slightly battered looking calico stopped 
scratching at the door and bolted inside the 
house.  I rolled my eyes. 

	Getting a cat out of your house is a 
pain.  Taking another look at the children, I 
saw they were a gang of kids I'd seen around 
the neighborhood a few times.  Two blond white 
boys, a brunette oriental girl and a red 
headed
white girl, and a handsome little black boy, 
about two years younger than the rest, wearing 
a Houston Oiler's cap.  This was the first 
time I'd ever seen them this close.  There 
was...something odd about them, but I wasn't 
sure what.  

     The little oriental girl spoke first.  
She was eight, like most of them.  "Hi.  The 
kitty said we should come talk to you."

     I smiled and wondered what kind of game 
they were playing.  "Why did the kitty want 
you to talk to me?"

     The child looked around in the bushes, 
then said, "The bad people are gonna kill the 
Eggman if someone doesn't save him quick."

     I blinked.  "The Eggman?"  It couldn't 
be...Him?  Here in Houston?  How had these 
children found out?  This had to be some kind 
of coincidence.  And why now?  I didn't have 
time for this...

     "You don't look like a Walrus to me, but 
she said it was really important to tell you."  
The children shuffled about, looking kind of 
nervous.  Whoever had sent them knew about my 
old nickname.  I'd hardly used that name in 
twenty years.  The Walrus was dead, or at 
least sleeping.  And the Eggman.  I hadn't 
seen him in nearly 20 years...No, more than 20 
now that I thought about it.  Not counting 
dreams.  Did I scare him off?  I had been so 
wrong...

Indian Summer 1972

    I decided to walk over to Eggman's house.  
It was only a few blocks, and I needed to save 
money for gas, even though it was pretty 
cheap.  By the time I got out of my house, I 
could see Frank and Snake, trying to casually 
lounge at the corner as if it was some kind of 
coincidence that they were hanging out three 
blocks from Snake's house on a day when I was 
ready to explode.  I contemplated just 
sweeping angrily past them, but decided they'd 
just follow me anyway.  Better to act innocent 
as if I wasn't aware that Number Nine must 
have called them before she called me.  Was I 
that predictable?  I guess so.  

     Fork smiled sadly at me, while Snake gave 
me her usual enigmatic look.  "Hi, Walrus, 
what's wrong?"

     "I have to go break a few eggs.  Wanna 
come see a beating?"  I tried to keep my tone 
light, but even I could hear the anger in my 
voice now.  Damn it, Harold!  How could you do 
this to me?  To me?  Your first, closest 
friend?  You said you'd love me forever...

     "Sure," Fork said.  "I think Humptedy 
Dumpty may need putting back together again 
after you're done."  Snake smirked.  

     All the King's horses and all the King's 
men wouldn't be able to put the Eggman back 
together all right, I thought.  Not after what 
I'm gonna do to him.

     We picked up the others one by one, the 
whole gang, pretending to wash their cars, 
chasing cats (Sandra Dee), or pretending they 
were taking a walk, and just happened to be 
going my way.  I didn't care.  I wanted 
witnesses.  Or maybe I wanted them to stop me.  
I can't remember for sure
any more.

     Soon, far too soon, we reached the 
Eggman's house.  Eggman's dad's car was in the 
driveway.  Eggman didn't have a car;  his 
family didn't have enough money and neither 
did he.  Of course, some of that was because 
he spent a lot of it on me.  Suddenly, I found 
myself wondering if he'd really
been faithful to me on all those family 
vacations like he said he was.  What if he'd 
been cheating all those times too?

      I froze up in front of the door.  Should 
I just walk in and try to surprise him?  
Knock?  Scream and break the door to 
splinters?  I guess it was a good thing I 
hadn't brought anything but my knives.  
Sneaking a sword past Mom would be too 
difficult.  

     Fork ended my dilemna by knocking on the 
door with his usual three knocks.  Fork always 
knocks three times, so hard you think the door 
will break.  Soon I heard feet coming towards 
the door.  Snake whispered, "It sounds like 
Eggman."  I blinked.  She always unnerves me 
with the way she can tell who is coming just 
by their footsteps.  I've seen her follow
people by smell too.  I wonder, if a dog could 
talk, could it do all these things too?  
They've got keen senses, right?  

     The door opened.  It was Eggman, dressed 
in a paint splattered white t-shirt and paint 
splattered jeans.  He was barefoot as usual, 
and he rather clearly hadn't combed his hair 
today.  "Hiya, Fork..."  He trailed off as he 
saw all of us there.  "Uh, Walrus, I can 
explain..."

     "I don't want an explanation!  I want 
your head!  On a stick!"  I grabbed his collar 
and pushed him backwards into the house.  He 
stumbled as I shoved him down the hall, 
jabbing a finger from my other hand into his 
chest after every sentence.  "Why didn't you 
tell me you were still here!  Why didn't you 
call me?  I've been missing you for a week!  
AND WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING WITH CANDY!?"

     He paled slightly, not that most people 
would notice, but I know Eggman very well.  I 
can always tell when he's been up to 
something.  The wool may be over his parent's 
eyes, but he's never been able to pull it over 
mine.  "Calm down, Walrus.  I just wanted 
to..."

     "Just wanted to what?  Run around on me 
without me finding out?  How could you do this 
to me?"  I was starting to cry as I shouted.  
Fork reached out to pull me off of Eggman, but 
he never was very fast, and I'd shoved Eggman 
into the living room before Fork could stop 
me.  Candy was
there with a small paintbrush in her hands of 
all things and a palette of paint.  For that 
matter, there were plastic slipcovers over all 
of the furniture and one wall was half blue, 
half white.  There were several brushes and 
buckets of paint by the wall.  Also, there was 
an easel set up in one corner of the room, 
with a canvas on it next to a small table with 
some photos on it.  Was she painting him 
painting the room or something?

     I stopped, the sheer oddness of the whole 
set up distracting me from my rage.  The TV 
was playing in one corner, some moronic 
cartoon about a bear stealing picnic baskets.  
Eggman smiled faintly.  "Dad decided I had
to stay home and paint the house because my 
grades weren't very good last year.  So I've 
been doing that for a week.  But I always 
bring you something special, so I paid Candace 
to do a special painting for me.  She's really 
good."

     Candy smiled that inane smile of her and 
turned the easel around.  It was a painting of 
me and Eggman together.  She'd done it from 
some pictures that Eggman had.  One of them 
was a castle in Europe his family had visited 
last summer.  I think his family must have 
sunk half their money into those trips...but 
his parents couldn't bear to forget where they 
had been born, and wanted their kids to know 
it too.  Another picture was of me, a third of 
him, and a fourth of us together.  She'd 
combined them to pose us in
front of the castle in medieval style clothes.  
It was a beautiful castle, too.  I'd never 
realized she was so good at painting.  I 
wouldn't have thought her capable of 
intelligent thought either, though.

     "It...It's beautiful."   The painting 
wasn't quite finished, but it was lovely.  
Something stirred deep inside me, as if I had 
seen the castle before.  

     Eggman smiled.  "Just like you.  I wanted 
to surprise you with it."

     "It's called Grunwaldschloss.  'Green 
Forest Castle' in English.  It was rebuilt in 
the mid fourteenth century by a German count 
who inherited the area and found a mysterious 
abandoned castle on the site.  The records are 
too vague to tell who built the original, but 
supposedly it was even
more beautiful than it appears here.  The 
local peasants claimed that it had sat 
abandoned for fifty years by the time Count 
Anschluss found it."  I looked around, trying 
to figure out who was speaking.  Clearly they 
were female, but they didn't sound like anyone 
I knew.  "Supposedly the faeries had cursed 
the site or something.  Didn't stop Count 
Anschluss, although he died without a direct 
male heir.  So did  the next five Counts who 
lived there.  The next one had the place 
exorcised and they stopped having that 
problem.  Or so the stories say.  I think the 
Bavarian government runs it now."  I finally 
tracked down the voice.  It sounded like 
Candy, except for saying something intelligent 
and using words with more than two syllables.  

     Eggman nodded.  "Yeah.  A beautiful 
place.  If it was ever cursed, the curse must 
be gone now.  Not that I know much about 
curses."

     Golden Eyes smiled.  "They tend to be 
pretty obvious, most of the time.  Withered 
heaths and all that."

     Everyone was relaxing as it became 
obvious that there wasn't going to be a 
bloodbath.  I had wronged him with my doubts 
and accusations.  I should have known better.  
I was going to have to...apologize.  I hate 
apologizing almost as much as I hate being 
wrong enough to have to apologize.  Before I 
could muster the willpower to do it, Candy 
spoke
again.  "Should we show her the special 
feature, Harry?"

     Eggman smiled.  "I think so, Candace."  
Harry?  No one calls Eggman Harry.  He hates 
being called that.  Then again, I don't think 
anyone calls Candy Candace except her mother.  

     Candy said, "Your own parents probably 
wouldn't recognize you this way, but they 
won't be able to see this either."  She 
muttered a few words, Latin, maybe?  The 
picture shimmered and changed.  The castle was 
yet more
beautiful, with a full moon hanging over it.  
Eggman and I stood before the castle in our 
full faerie forms.  I stared at the painting, 
as did everyone else.  Candy looked at me, 
then the painting.  "Hmm.  I think I need to 
lighten the shade of red I used for your 
hair."

      The room fell silent as the impact of 
what had just happened sank in on us.  
Glamour.  Magic.  The painting was magic.  
Candy made the painting, therefore...We all 
turned and stared at Candy, who smiled at us.  
"I see Harry is better at keeping a secret 
than I ever thought he was.  Roger Thompson is 
my uncle, you see.  I think you know him 
better as Count Longbranch."

     I nearly fainted.  She was kinain, and I 
had never even guessed.  Some people have 
faerie blood, you see, but aren't actual full 
faeries.  They can learn some faerie magic, 
but need faeries to give them the glamour to 
power it.  She must have known about me for 
months, maybe years, and I'd never had a clue.  

     Candy laughed at our stunned faces.  
"Everyone wonders why I'm my uncle's favorite 
niece.  Now you know.  And I've known the 
stories about Caer Grunwald ever since I was a 
child and went to that Beltaine festival when 
the gypsies came."  

     I remembered that.  I had loved that 
story.  So romantic, but such a tragic ending 
it had...

Sunsebb, 1295 AD.

      The band of fae wended their way down 
the stairs into the dungeons deep below the 
old Covenant.  Once these cells had held 
criminals and horrible monsters that the 
Covenant had captured.  In the spring of 
youth, the Covenant had earned a reputation 
for skill at capturing the monsters
that stalked the night and the dark unholy 
places deep in the wilderness and for hunting 
down criminals.  The Grunwald was vast in 
those days, and the Fae still danced freely in 
the old holy sites.  The peasants gave thanks 
to the Order of Hermes for their protection, 
to the Church for its
blessings, and to the Good Folk for their 
grace and favor.  

     That had been centuries ago, though it 
seemed almost but yesterday to the Fae.  The 
peasants had cut down much of the forest, the 
church had exorcised the unholy places, and 
resanctified the holy sites.  The fae danced 
no longer in the forest, and the peasants hid 
when the magi walked
among them, on the few occassions when the 
magi still felt it necessary to do so.  Now 
the dungeon held unruly apprentices, faithless 
servants, and hapless magical beings awaiting 
execution or the draining of their magic.  

     Calico slipped back to the tiny band 
after scouting ahead.  "There's two men in 
chainmail with cold iron weapons sitting in 
the guardpost, and a bored looking apprentice.  
He was busy complaining about not getting to 
see the duel."  

     "Cold iron.  No doubt they are expecting 
us,"  Fortress said.  

     "We've got to take them down with the 
first blow, or they'll rip us apart.  And if 
we use much glamour, it might alert the other 
mages."  Lady Marigold considered her options.  

     Belphoebe smiled.  "I have an idea.  
Mages and their servants get awfully lonely 
with no women around."  She began divesting 
herself of all of her bulky winter clothing.

     "Aren't you afraid you'll catch a cold 
like that?"  Calico said.  The other fae tried 
not to laugh.  Briefly, Belphoebe wondered if 
Calico would ever really catch up.  She 
probably had no idea why Belphoebe was taking 
her clothing off either.

     Soon, Belphoebe was ready.  She shivered 
slightly.  Maybe I will get a cold, she 
thought.  It was too late for worries;  she 
sauntered into view in her undergarments.  The 
guards and the apprentice stared.  The 
apprentice probably hadn't seen a real female 
since he entered this place. 
You'd think the mages had taken vows of 
chastity or something from the way so many 
covenants tried to keep women out entirely.  

      "Um...are you lost, miss?"  the 
apprentice said.  He looked concerned rather 
than lustful like he was supposed to.  Just my 
luck that the one apprentice who isn't 
interested in women yet would be on duty, 
Belphoebe thought.  The guards however, 
drooled according to plan.  Belphoebe tilted 
her head seductively, or at least she hoped it 
was seductively.  

     Raising her voice to an even higher pitch 
than it was usually, she said, "Oh my.  I seem 
to have gotten lost.  Can someone help me find 
my way back to my quarters?  I went to take a 
bath and now I'm lost."  

      "You're certainly lost,"  the apprentice 
said.  "I'll guide you back to your quarters.  
You two stay here and keep an eye out.  I'll 
be right back."

     "I think we need to escort the lady,"  
the guard on the left said.

     "I think Gunther's right.  If something 
gets loose from the duel, she could be in 
danger,"  the other guard said.  

     "I don't think either of them was 
planning to summon anything.  Well, I guess no 
one is going to break in here.  Those faeries 
would have to be insane to try to break into 
the Covenant, anyway.  Hans, you stay here.  
I'll take Gunther with me just in case,"  the 
apprentice said.  

     Gunther smiled and lead the way back into 
the hallway, only to be promptly clocked in 
the head by Fortress with a mace as they came 
around the bend.  He slumped and Belphoebe 
grabbed the apprentice, covering his mouth.  
"You can't cast if you can't speak.  Don't try 
anything and we'll let you live.  We're just 
here to get our friends."  The apprentice 
nodded, being no fool.  Belphoebe then yelled, 
"HELP!"

     Hans sprinted into the hallway, only to 
be clocked by Fortress.  Hans crumpled to the 
ground.  Lady Marigold grabbed the keys from 
the apprentice.  "Liberate them all, Faerie or 
not.  We shall teach this covenant what it 
means to rouse the anger of Caer Grunwald."

      There were several dozen prisoners, some 
of them guards who had been disorderly, two 
magi from an enemy covenant, five bandits, an 
unfortunate whore, and two dozen captive 
faeries.  Only one person wasn't there who 
Lady Marigold had hoped to rescue:  Flamehair.  
She ran from cell to cell, double, triple, and 
quadruple checking.  It didn't help.  "WHERE 
IS HE?" she shouted.  

     A small childling boggan tugged on her 
leg.  "I think they took the big satyr to see 
the fight or something."

      Lady Marigold cursed.  "Hellfire and 
Damnation!  One of the mages is going to use 
him in the duel."

     "May have already used him,"  Slither 
whispered.  She was a tall Sluagh with stringy 
hair down to the base of her back and brown 
eyes.  

	The apprentice said hesitantly, "I think 
Masters Oliver and Fritz are going at it, and 
Fritz had the satyr 
dragged upstairs before the duel began."

     "Then we must hurry.  Slither, Calico, 
and Nimblefingers, get everyone out of here 
and back to Caer Grunwald.  The rest of us are 
going to try and rescue Flamehair before it's 
too late."  She spun on one heel and began 
running for the stairs.  Slither, Calico, and 
Nimblefingers began hustling the prisoners 
towards the way they had come in, while the 
others followed Lady Marigold.

     They sprinted through the halls of the 
Covenant, slowed by the necessity to find 
their way through an unfamiliar building 
without a guide.  Soon, they reached the great 
hall of the Covenant.  In the center, the 
tables had been moved back and a great circle 
painted on the floor.  A circle of 
bewhiskered, aging magi, their apprentices, 
and their servants surrounded the painted 
ring, within which two magi were dueling to 
the death.  This was the ritual of Certamen, 
an ancient dueling form of the Order of 
Hermes.  The circle would prevent the magical 
energies from escaping and harming the 
bystanders.

     No one noticed the arrival of five more 
people at first.  Master Oliver, a tall, fat 
man, stood at one side of the arena, 
surrounded by floating plates with small 
bottles, knives, rocks, feathers, and bits of 
skin on them.  A gleaming golden warrior stood 
in front of him, parrying a
series of blasts of flame from a phoenix 
flying round about it.  On the other side of 
the circle, Master Fritz, who was short and 
dark, sat in a chair.  There was a handsome 
red haired satyr chained to his chair, hunched 
over with hands chained closely to his feet.  
Next to the satyr floated six
gemstones and a single shiny red scale that 
looked like it might have come from some sort 
of giant reptile or fish.  Both of the magi 
were old, greying, and wrinkled.  They had 
seen decades pass since they began their 
studies here, and much had changed in that 
time.  They had always been rivals, but as 
time passed, their arrogance had grown along 
with their power, and now they had finally 
come to blows.

     The faeries watched the duel for a few 
seconds, then Lady Marigold whispered her plan 
to the others.  Belphoebe sighed faintly.  
This could easily mean the death of all of 
them if anything went wrong.  She began 
circling the crowd.  Her task was to make a 
diversion.  Well, the arts of
illusion and befuddlement were one of her 
strongpoints, though she was better at the art 
of soothsaying.  Hmm.  Ah, a giant rampaging 
monster.  Happens all the time in Hermetic 
strongholds.  

     Belphoebe got out a small ball of clay 
and molded it into the shape of a giant red 
lizard, then began to move it across a table.  
A huge vivid version of the monster appeared 
at one end of the hall and bellowed, 
attracting everyone's attention.  Several magi 
began chanting, waving wands, or running for 
the exits, with most of the other spectators 
taking that third option also.  The dueling 
wizards ignored the monster.  Fritz gestured 
with one hand and a ball of flame began to 
grow in it, Flamehair
visibly aging as it did so.

     A great shout rang out across the hall.  
The other four faeries charged through the 
scattering crowd and into the Certamen circle, 
which keeps things in, but isn't very good at 
keeping things out.  The two masters blinked 
and paused in their efforts to kill one 
another.  In the few seconds it took them to 
realize this wasn't a ploy by their enemy,
Fortress had grabbed Fritz's right hand and 
bent the fingers backwards, breaking the 
bones.  Fritz collapsed screaming as Lady 
Marigold severed the chains with Whiterazor.  
Slither, Slicer, and Cutler assaulted the 
phoenix, knocking it from the air with faerie 
blades of bluish bronze.  Flamehair
finally looked up, his red hair now shot 
through with grey, a few wrinkles marking his 
formerly youthful face.  

     "You came for me."  His eyes held much 
pain, yet relief and surprise were washing it 
away.  

      Lady Marigold smiled back at him.  "Of 
course I did.  Now we've got to get you out of 
here."

     "You killed Fritz."  Oliver spoke in the 
manner of one delivering a message of great 
wisdom.

     "And his little birdie too,"  Slither 
whispered.  "I guess this means you win."

     Oliver's eyes lit up.  "Why yes!  I win 
again!  HAHAHAHAAH!"  He danced around in a 
little circle, his fat quivering from his 
rapid movement.  

     Fritz moaned.  "Bastards..."

     Fortress knocked him down.  "You're the 
bastard!  Kidnapping innocent faeries and 
draining them for power!  Using us like we 
were animals to be slaughtered at pleasure!"

     Outside the circle, several of the magi 
were trying to battle the illusionary monster, 
while some of the others had now noticed the 
interruption of the duel.  

     "You're not even human!  You don't have 
souls!  You're not any more equal to us than a 
dragon or a unicorn...And we need the power 
you have."  Fritz coughed.  He was getting too 
old for this kind of abuse.  "We are the 
guardians... cough... of humanity.  We light 
the highway to ascension for the masses.  
We...cough cough...are all that stands between 
them and the forces of darkness."

     "Tell it to your apprentices.  We're 
leaving."  Lady Marigold turned and sliced at 
the air with Whiterazor.  Nothing happened.  
She blanched.

     Fritz coughed and cackled.  "No magic can 
leave while I still live.  And now you pay for 
what you have done."

     Belphoebe watched in horror along with 
the other bystanders as Fritz grabbed the six 
gems from the air with his still good hand.  
He chanted three brief words and flames 
erupted inside the circle, a blazing hellfire
of destruction.  The Certamen circle turned 
deep red, then the flames faded.  Nothing 
remained inside the circle but ash and White 
Razor, which fell to the ground.  All around 
simply stood and stared.  Before anyone could 
react, Belphoebe sprinted forward and grabbed 
Whiterazor.  She
couldn't let it fall into the hands of the 
Hermetics.  I shall never forget you, my 
friends.   Your story will not be forgotten 
while I have lips to speak, she thought, and 
sliced open the air, stepping through the gash 
to a
place far away.  She would never forget that 
day, and she made sure the tale would be sung, 
down through the ages.

Indian Summer 1972

     Definitely a tragic ending.  But it 
looked like my love story wasn't over after 
all.  Candy was really a nice person after 
all.  Eggman had a beautiful painting for me, 
and we were still in love.  Nothing could 
possibly go wrong, right?

     Wrong.  He vanished a week later.  All he 
left me was the painting and a note.  "I love 
you, Walrus, but I don't know if I'll be able 
to always be true to you as you have to me.  
Satyrs find it hard to be faithful, and I 
don't want to betray you, so I think it's 
better if I leave before I can. 
I know you'll be able to find someone better 
than me who will be able to be true to you.  
You'll always be my one true love.  Love, the 
Eggman."

     I cried for weeks.  It took me years 
before I fell in love again, but it was never 
quite the same.  Part of me died when the 
Eggman left me.  I never have understood how 
he could have been so afraid of the 
future...so afraid he broke my heart to avoid 
breaking my heart.  Stupid men.  They think 
they have to protect you, so they do such 
foolish things.

December 22, 1995

     I snapped back to reality when I realized 
one of the children was pulling on my leg.  
"Are you okay, lady?"

     "Where is the Eggman?"  If he was really 
here, I had to help him.  I had loved him.  
Part of me still did.  I couldn't leave him in 
danger.  Why had he come back?  And how had 
these children found out?  

     An adult voice spoke from behind me, a 
female voice, one I had not heard in many 
years.  "The Hermetics have him.  I think he's 
going to be used in some ritual.  We came here 
trying to save some faerie childlings they had 
kidnapped."  It came from a blond woman, 
dressed in one of my sets of T-shirts and 
jeans, which didn't quite fit her slender 
figure right. She was about eight years 
younger than me.  I barely recognized her.

     "Calico?"

     "In the flesh."  She ran forward and 
hugged me.  "It's been so long."

     I started to cry.  Everyone come home for 
Christmas, just like in that old song...but 
this wasn't going to be a happy Christmas.  
"I'll call...I'll...They'll want to 
know...It's been so long."  The tears took me 
and I just couldn't stop.  



     



     


     


      
Lady Marigold=Martha=Walrus=Sidhe
Flamehair=Harold=Eggman=Satyr
Slither=Susan=Snake=Sluagh
Cutler=Samuel=Spoon=Knocker
Slicer=Kevin=Knife=Redcap
Fortress=Frank=Fork=Troll
Belphoebe=Phoebe=Golden Eyes=Eshu 
Calico=Sandra Dee=Sandra Dee=Pooka (cat)
Nimblefingers=Patty=Number Nine=Boggan