Chicory Up

Irene Radford

Description

Being a Pixie King isn't all that it's cracked up to be.Chicory has always been a carefree ditch-weed of a Pixie. But now there's a war brewing between Pixie tribes, and Chicory has to take responsibility for himself and for a growing group of displaced Pixies. Finding shelter for them means he has to play nice with humans and not play tricks on them. Well, some tricks are necessary so big people don't take themselves too seriously.The offer of shelter in human Juliet's attic comes at a price. She keeps interfering with Chicory's plans to fix the romances of her children. And then there is a lost teen looking for her father. And his sweetheart Daisy may not have the patience to wait for him. All of them have to learn that running away isn't the answer.He needs to take his own advice and stop the war among the Pixies. But that's going to take more magic than Chicory possesses. Can all of his friends work together to help him save Pixie?

Informations

• Publié par: Book View Cafe
• Date de parution: 27 octobre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781611389166
• Langue: English

Extrait

CHICORY UP

Pixie Chronicles#2
Irene Radford
www.bookviewcafe.com Book View Café Edition October 27, 2020 ISBN: 978-1-61138-916-6 Copyright 2013 Phyllis Irene Radford
 
ONE
“DUM, DEE DEE, DODUM DUM,” Thistle Down hummed her own special music as she bent over thedarkest red rose in the garden. The rose swayed in time with her song as if alight breeze stirred through the dawn air on this damp October morning. Withthe plant duly lulled into cooperation, she flicked a cotton swab around theinside petals.
“Got it!” shechortled, holding up the swab, now covered in rich pollen.
“Now to find alikely partner. You know you all want to help me create a purple rose, the samecolor my hair used to be.”
The rose respondedby piercing her finger with a long thorn where she still held the stem.
“Ouch!” she protested,sucking her wound. She tasted a single drop of crimson blood, the same color asthe rose. “You had no call to do that. You’re just being selfish by keeping allthat lovely pollen to yourself. If I were still a Pixie, you’d gladly share soI could have a good meal.”
The rose stood talland proud, not at all repentant.
“Or maybe you preferto feed treacherous Faeries instead of honest Pixies,” she accused.
Another thorn jabbedher butt.
“Ouch. There was noneed for that, you nasty rose.” But the plant stood straight and silent denyingher accusation. It hadn’t reached behind her.
She swung around. Aflutter of movement without substance drew her eye in wild spirals up and down,back and forth, and around and around. Thistle spun about trying to follow theblue blur. Her head couldn’t keep up, sending her into dizzy wobbles. Shestaggered around the side yard, arms out, trying to find her balance whileavoiding the fake tombstone Halloween decorations.
If only she had herPixie wings back, she’d right herself quite readily.
The stabbing paincame again. She jumped, slapping her hand over her wounded bottom.
“Stop it!” sheyelled at the blue blur that was now joined by a bright yellow-and-red one.“Slow down so I can see you when you attack me.”
A sly giggle eruptedfrom somewhere behind her, in the vicinity of the last of the dahlias.
She focused on howthe tall blossom-heavy stalks swayed and nodded. Her head stopped spinning atlast, just before she encountered the witch’s cauldron suspended by a tripodover a fake fire. The witch mannequins hadn’t yet gravitated from attic toyard; otherwise she’d have crashed into them and sent the entire displaysprawling.
Onelast deep breath, then she closed her eyes and reopened them looking for the thing out of place. There! She spotted the Pixie, asplotch of not-quite-right golden yellow with purply-red streaks against thegreenery. A dashing fellow all decked out in sunset colors. His translucentfaded brown wings took the form of multiple sheaves of grass woven together.Their edges looked limp and curled in odd places with a few holes crusted inred around the edges.
That did not lookhealthy.
She didn’t recognizehim. He wasn’t from one of the local tribes.
The blue blur zoomedin on the yellow fellow, a long spike from a hawthorn tree held out like asword.
“Chicory?” Shefollowed the blue-garbed male. He’d lost his multi-petal cap, and a thin trailof red blood dripped down his left arm.
Thistle slid herhand around him, capturing him easily. A sure sign that the wound slowed himdown.
“Let me go,” Chicoryprotested. He wiggled and squirmed, jabbing at her tiredly with his thornsword. The point barely pricked her palm.
“Chicory, what ailsyou?”
“Seeking refuge atthe hands of a human,” the yellow fellow’s voice sounded a bit ragged andbreathless as it slid up and down an atonal scale in squeaks and slurs. Notmusical at all. More like that awful noise teens called “Rock.”
“I was captured,”Chicory protested to his opponent. “At least I’m not hiding from the finersoldier.”
“Soldier? What’sthis about? Pixies have no soldiers, no armies. We do not war among ourselves,”Thistle said.
“What’s she talkingabout? Talking about? She’s no Pixie. No Pixie.” The yellow male peeked outfrom behind the heavy flower head that nearly mimicked his own colors.
“She used to be ourown Thistle Down,” Chicory yelled back. Then he lowered his voice to a whisper,“Walk me closer, Thistle. I’ll stab him from behind.”
“No, I won’t. Nowexplain yourselves. Why are you fighting, and who is this stranger? He’s notfrom any of the tribes and gardens in Skene Falls.”
“No, he’s from thevalley.” Somewhat recovered from his exertions, Chicory stood taller andbrandished his sword again.
“If he’s from thevalley…”
“He’s Snapdragon,another of Milkweed’s relatives, out to avenge her disgrace. And he’s trying tosteal our queen.”
“Milkweed.” Angerchurned through Thistle. “The woman who stole my mate.”
“I thought Alderbetrayed you by making the silly white trollop his queen.
But she never took amating flight with him once she discovered how many
femaleshe had flown with already, including you. And now this intruder thinks heshould have a mating flight with our Rosie to compensate, or something.”
“Whatever.” Thistlewished the story of Alder’s betrayal would die an ignoble death instead ofbecoming part of Pixie mythology.
“Milkweed ended themarriage treaty, marriage treaty, but Alder won’t let my sister go home! Gohome!” yelled the yellow fellow.
Huh? He sounded likeDusty’s computer, pausing and resetting. That meant something. Somethingimportant. But Thistle couldn’t remember what.
“Excuse me, miss,” atentative voice came from the other side of the rose hedge.
Thistle looked uphastily, holding Chicory behind her, as fiercely as possible to keep him fromzooming over to see who interrupted his argument with Milkweed’s relative.
“Can I help you?”Thistle asked.
“Um… I’m a bitlost.” A teenage girl stepped to the side so that she was visible between thedeep-red rose and a cream-colored one with pink-fading-to-yellow edges. Shelooked cold, shivering in her thin T-shirt and faded jeans.
She carried a limppink backpack on one shoulder. Something about her lank, dark blonde hairhanging in ringlets reminded Thistle of someone.
“Where do you needto go?” Thistle shifted her hold on Chicory as he jabbed her palm with hissword. The shape of the girl’s chin and the set of her brow also lookedfamiliar. Who?
“I’m looking forMabel. Um… I think her last name’s Gardiner. Mabel Gardiner, yeah that’s it.”The girl child, just barely bursting into womanhood, leaned forward between theroses, peering at the Queen Anne style house with the huge wraparound porch andconical tower that dominated the corner lot.
Curious , Thistle thought. Maybe she was just cold and damp enough to need toget indoors quickly.
Not long after dawn,Mabel might not have left home for work.
“Lemme see,” Chicorywhispered, momentarily distracted from his fight with the yellow Pixie. “Shemight be one of Mabel’s waifs. I need to know…”
Thistle closed herhand around Chicory once more.
“Tenth Street andMaple Drive. Small cottage with a white picket fence, and a climbing rose overthe gate,” Thistle said.
The girl lookedblank.
“Two blocks that wayto Maple Drive, then another three uphill.”
“Oh, okay.” The girltook one last look at the hot pink house with purple-and-green trim, shiftedher backpack to the other shoulder, and hurried away.
“Curious,” Thistlemused again. She let her gaze follow the girl.
Chicory used herdistraction to squirm free and zipped toward his opponent. Like most Pixies, hehad no memory and less concentration.
“You should followthe girl,” Thistle called to him.
“Whatgirl? This is more important!” he yelled fiercely as he thrust his sword deepinto the yellow dahlia.
Yellow and redsprang up just in time. His wings fluttered erratically, the red veinsdeepening in color and spreading outward. Chicory followed his every looparound the plastic skeleton hanging from a tree branch. They soared above thecauldron, and dove through the tombstones. Both of their wickedly sharp,miniature swords flashed and jabbed.
“Stop it!” They bothignored Thistle’s plea. “Stop it. Pixies don’t fight each other. That’s whathumans do.”
“Wrong,” both Pixiesyelled back at her. “Wrong, wrong, wrong,”
Snapdragon repeated.
“What do you mean?We’re supposed to befriend those in need of a friend.
That girl needshelp. Pixie help.”
“Whatever,” Chicorymuttered, still absorbed in his murderous task.
“There hasn’t been awar among Pixies in… in… for as long as any of us can remember.”
Chicory stabbedagain. He pushed his reach too far. His wings couldn’t keep up with his bodyand he tumbled toward the grass.
Thistle dove tocatch him in her hands, sliding on the dew-slick lawn until her head fetched upagainst the plywood-and-plaster grave marker for WilliamShakespeare—conveniently the death date was left blank. According to Juliet,Thistle’s hostess and her best friend’s mother, the Bard would never die as longas his plays were performed and read.
Green stains spreadall along the side of Thistle’s gray sweatshirt and blue jeans. Her body stungeverywhere she made contact with the ground.
At the last second,she caught Chicory by the wingtip between two fingernails. His feet dangled aneyelash width above the longest tip of the lawn that had been cut the daybefore.
“Lemme go!” Chicoryprotested. He wiggled and stabbed at her with his thorn.
“Not until you tellme why you and that stranger are trying to kill each other.”
“Because that’s whatPixies do! What Pixies do!” Snapdragon chortled.
“Just ask theDandelions. Just ask the Dandelions.”
“No, we don’t killeach other,” Thistle protested. “We have marriage treaties among our kings andqueens to prevent that. And Dandelions will follow anyone rather than make adecision on their own.” Evidenced by a troop of them winding a maze among thegarish Halloween decorations.
“The peace treatygiving supervision of the Patriarch Oak to your tribe, Thistle, is broken, andso are all the marriage treaties between the valley and ridge