Deadman's Blood (25 page)

“That would be great. You are so good to me, Sweetie. I’m sorry I was crabby,” she said remorsefully.

“Not a problem. The electrician’s name is Ryan, oh and by the way…we should be getting a shipment of my special diet today. I must say, I’m a bit famished myself. If it comes, can you put it in the basement fridge for me? The fridge is locked and the key is in an empty coffee can in the cupboard over the stove.”

“Yeah. No problem. I forget sometimes that you are a vampire,” she said, chuckling.

He smiled and kissed her on the forehead.

Though she tried to rest as Devon had suggested, she couldn’t so she decided to do some gardening. Out the back door she went to the weeds that were threatening their encroachment of the back door. She worked diligently for a half an hour or so. The sun was peeking out behind passing clouds, making it not too hot for such work. The sun would be blocked just long enough to cool her off when it would poke its glorious head out just in time to warm her before she became chilled.

She turned around to work on another area when she came across a patch of clover meandering its way between the stepping stones that headed for the potting shed. Their tiny, pinkish purple flowers had already bloomed and dropped their heads. Darby thought it must have been a beautiful picture to see a few weeks before.

Thinking back to her childhood and her grandmother’s stories, she thought she would hunt for a four leaf clover just for fun. It was tedious and the task grew tiresome after a few minutes. When she was about to give up and head for another area to pull weeds, she spied a possibility. Squatting down with only her mud clogs touching the damp ground; she reached out and picked her prize, holding it between her thumb and forefinger.

As grandma Lorelai had always said, “If you are lucky enough to spy a four leaf clover, you should pick it, close your eyes and kiss it making a wish, then throw it over your left shoulder.”

“Why, Grandma?” Darby and Rowan would ask.

“Well, girls, kissing it and wishing on it as soon as it is picked will double your luck. You know you can’t keep it! The Faeries collect them when they are tossed and make magic Faerie dust from them. Not giving it to the Faeries to use is just selfish. Besides, like all living things, once you pick it, it quickly dies - wilting first, then drying out and turning brownish green until all its magic is gone and it crumbles and mixes back in with Mother Earth’s blanket of soil.”

Remembering what her grandmother had taught her, she quickly brought it to her lips, closed her eyes, and kissed it. Before she opened her eyes and right after she made her wish, she tossed the four-leaf clover over her left shoulder and opened her eyes.

To her amazement, a face that she could only describe as cherub-like was just inches from her own face. She fell back on her butt in shock. The world seemed different somehow - brighter, more colorful, like having had very dark sunglasses on all her life and finally taking them off. The childlike figure stared at her, studying her.

Darby noticed she had the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen. They were a mixture of blue and purple making her look unreal. The girl cocked her head slightly trying to take in all she could of Darby and as she did so Darby noticed her skin seemed to sparkle very slightly. But it was when a set of transparent, iridescent wings fluttered behind the childlike girl, that Darby felt her eyes might pop out of her head.
Am I dreaming?
she thought to herself. Finally finding words to use, Darby asked, “Who are you? What are you?”

At first the girl seemed confused, but suddenly she looked behind as if to see if someone was standing there, and realized that Darby was speaking to her. That’s when SHE fell back onto her butt. As she did, a tiny plume of what Darby could only assume was Faerie dust permeated around the girl then fell tinkling to the ground and disappeared as if they were raindrops being absorbed into the soil.

The girl asked, “You can you see me? Hear me?” She seemed flabbergasted by the concept and slightly scared.

“Of course I can. It would be hard to miss someone with wings,” Darby said.

“But…I’ve been here off and on for days and you couldn’t see me then. Why can you see me now?” the girl asked.

“I don’t know, unless the stories my grandmother told me were true,” Darby said.

“What did she say? What did she say?” the girl asked excitedly, clapping her hands together as she jumped to her feet.

“She said if you were lucky enough to find a four-leaf clover that your luck would abound and all that was hidden would be seen, but I thought it was just an old wives tale,” Darby said as she stood brushing herself off.

“Your grandmother was right, of course, but it doesn’t work for just any human…you must be a Seer for the four-leaf clover’s special magic to work. We were so worried, you’d not been taught the ways of a Seer. We’ve been waiting for you for so long and finally you are here,” she said, swinging back and forth, her beautiful dress swishing and sprinkling sparkling dust around her feet.

“What are you talking about? Who are you?” Darby asked.

“I thought it would be obvious, I’m a Faerie, silly,” the girl answered.

“A Faerie. Am I still in bed sleeping and this is all a dream?” Darby wondered.

“No. But if you’d like me to pinch you….” The girl said eagerly.

“No, no…that’s okay. So what is your name, my little Faerie?” Darby inquired.

“My name is Yanna,” the girl answered.

“Well, Yanna, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Darby,” Darby said.

“Oh, I know who you are. We all do,” the girl admitted.

“When you say
we
, who are you referring to?” Darby asked.

“All the Faeries in the Everworld. We’ve been waiting for you for a long time,” Yanna clarified.

“ALL the Faeries…in Everworld.” Darby shook her head as if somehow that might make some sense of what Yanna was telling her. “Where might the ‘Everworld’ be?”

“Right here, it’s just on another plane,” the girl explained.

“How do you enter a plane?” Darby wondered.

“Well, you can be guided by one of the fae or use magic. There are doorways here and there, they just have to be opened,” the girl told her.

“You said that the Faeries have been waiting for me?” Darby asked.

“Oh, yes. Some very anxiously,” the girl exclaimed.

“And the others?” Darby wondered.

“There are those that hoped you would never find your way here, but you did, just as Mother Earth said you would,” Yanna relayed.

“Mother Earth…you mean she’s real?” Darby asked.

“Of course!” the girl said matter-of-factly.

“Is she a Faerie?” Darby wondered.

“Are you teasing me? You know all this already…why are you asking so many questions?” the girl inquired.

Darby looked at her blankly in confusion.

“You were trained as a Seer, weren’t you?” the girl asked.

Darby felt instantly embarrassed at Yanna’s disappointment when Darby shook her head.

“Ha ha…told you, Yanna,” a cynical voice said from behind a nearby tree where another cherubic face appeared. As the Faerie stepped out into view, Darby noticed similarities, but where Yanna was bright and sparkling, this Faerie was dark and drab.

“Oh shush, Annay,” Yanna said as the Faerie came to stand next to her.

Annay mimicked Yanna, “‘Oh shush, Annay,’ you never listen to me, Yanna. I told you your ‘heroine’ would turn out to be useless.” Tears welled up in Yanna’s purple eyes, and in contrast, Annay’s orange eyes seemed to sparkle with fire.

“I knew it. Everybody has been going on and on about the ‘Seer who will come and save the Everworld.’ What a bunch of malarkey.” With that, Yanna’s eyes spilled over and tears ran down her face and turned to what looked like hard little clear crystals at her feet.

Darby asked, “And who are you?”

“I’m her sister, Annay. Have you been finding it hard to find things lately, oh ‘Great Seer’?”

“Are you the one that has been moving stuff around and switching the sugar to salt?” Darby asked Annay.

“That’s me!” Annay said proudly.

Mortified, Yanna said, “Oh Annay. I told you not to do those things. That was a terrible thing to do.”

“But she isn’t the ‘Great Seer’ everyone thought she was going to be. I knew it all along, so I had a little fun,” Annay explained.

“I’m so sorry, Darby, for the way my sister has been acting. Mother will be most disappointed with your shenanigans…” She paused for a moment pondering the disappointment.

“Mother is too sick to care what I’ve been up to, no thanks to the Great Seer,” Annay said.

“What do you mean? No thanks to me?” Darby asked.

“You were our last hope of saving our mother, the Summer Queen. She’s fallen ill and thrown the balance of the power of the seasons off kilter. If she dies, before I become of age, the power will be tipped to Winter’s court. If the Winter Queen comes into power like that, she will shift the Earth’s seasons to her favor and throw us into a dark and cold ice age.”

“I don’t understand, Yanna…why would you need a Seer? Wouldn’t you need a Healer or someone who can help her with her ailment?” Darby asked.

“No. The sickness our mother endures was brought on from a very powerful old Faerie magic and there is only one thing that can cure it - the last drop of the ‘Elixir of Life’.”

“The Elixir of Life?” Darby repeated.

“Yes. The Elixir of Life was a gift from God himself to Mother Earth, for all her good deeds and hard work in making this such a beautiful world. The purest water from the springs formed from within the earth was placed in this bottle and blessed by God’s own love. Mother Earth was to give one drop of the elixir to anyone she felt had earned a second chance at life to prove their goodness to humanity. Over the ages it has been used sparingly by Mother Earth and given to those dying who could benefit all the world until there was only one drop left.”

“So why not just ask Mother Earth for it?”

“Because a long time ago, a Seer named Biddy O’Conner was given the bottle as a token of appreciation for some unknown deed done for Mother Earth herself. Biddy found that by looking into the bottle with one eye and keeping the other eye open as well, she could see what ailed people and sometimes see the future. She never accepted money for these services for she felt selfishness would take the powers away. She did accept gifts from people but she would always give away that which was left over from her own needs for food and shelter. It’s been said that no other could look upon the bottle’s last drop of the elixir, as she did, or they would die or go mad.”

“So we’ll just get the bottle of elixir from Biddy,” Darby said.

“Biddy died a long time ago and with her passing she gave the bottle to the priest who administered her last rites, passing on the power to look into the bottle to help people, but the priest was superstitious and thought it could only be evil witchcraft that was inside the bottle. He cast it into Kilbarron Lake with hundreds of bottles of Irish whiskey and other alcohol he decided were the root of the sinning in his parish. Humans, Faeries, and other worldly creatures have tried their hand at finding the bottle at the bottom of the lake, but to no avail.”

“Then why would I be able to find it, if I were the Seer you spoke of?” Darby wondered.

“Because you are kin. Biddy was related to Turloch O’Connor, King of Conaught, as are you. She was the most powerful Seer on her thread of the lineage, as you are on the O’Reilly thread,” Yanna explained.

“Okay…I get the lineage thing, but how can a Seer help?” Darby asked.

“Because you and Biddy are related and both Seers, you will be able to find the bottle,” Yanna told her.

“It doesn’t really matter anyway. You have no powers as a Seer, so you can’t help!” Annay said matter-of-factly.

“Don’t you care that your mother is ill?” Yanna scolded her sister.

“I do care, but I don’t see how putting all our hopes into a human that doesn’t care about our world or the fae, makes much sense,” Annay said.

“You don’t trust humans, I take it?” Darby asked.

“Nope,” Annay answered.

“Why?” Darby wondered.

“Because they are just selfish, useless beings that have no purpose on this planet but to destroy it.” She fluttered her dark purple opaque wings as she said this angrily.

Darby thought on Annay’s words for a moment before responding. “Sadly, you are right about some. We can be selfish and we are destroying our earth, but we are not ALL bad. There are some that do try to make things better. Is there a way I can help without being a Seer?” Darby inquired.

“I’m afraid not, Darby,” Yanna said and Annay scoffed.

“What if I could learn what I could about being a Seer, would it help?” Darby asked.

“You’re useless to us either way,” Annay blurted nastily.

Yanna jabbed her in the ribs then said, “We’ve waited so long as it is; we couldn’t possibly wait long enough for you to be trained - that takes years - a lifetime even.”