Longwood v. Sanderson VIII, "The Bumper Cars Case": Against public outcry from Fairies and Pixies alike, the Fairy Council ruled in favor of Sanderson Chipixie concerning the legal adoption of the angels Garrett Cabrera, Elizabeth Lovell, and Kenneth Lovell on the grounds that he had attained the age of maturity as determined in Whimsifinado v. Caudwell and neither was legal adoption expressly forbidden nor directly indicated as illegitimate by the ruling of that case. As Pixies are beyond Fairy jurisdiction, the details of direct contact shall be left for the Head Pixie to determine. Regardless, on the grounds of Amity Angel Safety and Protective Recall Agency v. Abdul, binding Pixie magic to Angel magic ["wish"] remains prohibited so far as it relates to the question of [directly] siphoning the health of the Angel core ["heart"] for a magical boost; the binding locks on the three angels in question shall not be lifted prior the moulting of their mortal skins. The physical and mental health of a Guardian's angel[s] is to remain, as always, the first priority of all members of the Seelie Court.


Late in the afternoon of sticky Sunday, I first tied my tie, then slid down from the chestnut tree to the clipped grass and scored an impressive array of scratches in the process. My arms were searing. I stared at them, bleary-brained. Something with sharp teeth had torn my skin to streamers. Me. I'd done it to myself. Why did I do that? Made no sense.

As I picked at scabbed patches of dry green-brown blood, I made a list of things I wanted. Water. Maybe even a shower. My wing to heal. To find H.P. and Flappy Bob, obviously. Did I want food? I wasn't the type of pixie who ever ate very much. I'd snacked on chestnuts for most of the night anyway. Before I headed out anywhere, I gathered up the ones that remained and stuck them in the pockets of my dirty suit coat. That was another thing I wanted- to wash my clothes. And not at Thomas's house.

I heard whistles and clapping. Feet skidded across yellow grass and punted soft balls through the air. Another soccer game was in progress. Nibbling on my lip, I picked my way through the parking lot. No humans caught me, although several magpies and a wandering gray cat sized me up with deep suspicion.

The magpies had cornered a bag of Doritos in the gutter. I approached in an attempt to frighten them off, and they cawed in warning. When I flapped my wings, they flapped back. Typically, that was how it went. Birds were never sure what to think of us- three-foot-tall creatures that bore the traits of both human predators and delicious insects.

Today, I was mostly insect. They chased me across the lot to the main road, me with my sliced arms shielding my head. Their beaks nipped my wings. Talons scraped the back of my neck and snagged in my shirt. Not because they thought they could eat me, perhaps, so much as instinct related to the look of my wasp wings. I threw a rock at them, clipped one above the eye, and they regrouped by the Dorito bag. Flipping up my collar, I set off up the road. My wings, still useless for flight, were at least able to fan me down.

After a few minutes, I crossed paths with a creek and satisfied my thirst. Then I continued walking. As I went, I massaged my sore arms. Though I'd rinsed them in the water, infection remained a serious possibility.

Even though it pained me, internally as much as on the outside, I knew I had no choice. If H.P. hadn't reunited with me yet, he was still looking. He needed the scent of those pheromones. I ripped another small chunk from my skin. Minty, buttery dog hair caressed the roof of my mouth. The scent could carry for a quarter of a mile. He'd come; Fairies could taste, Anti-Fairies were all born with sharp hearing, and the Refracted had excellent vision, but Pixies arguably had the greatest sense of smell. Until then, I'd make my way back to Tam's farm where I'd last seen the car.

First, I found the bus stop. When I checked my pockets, I came up with no human money. No use trying to pass as a child then, especially in my muddy gray suit. I kept to places of cover and walked on, cutting through unfenced backyards and patches of woods.

I'd grown sick of the warm and bitter taste, so when my bleeding stopped, I took up a sharp stone from the road, spit on it to clear away what dirt I could, and sawed another cut near my shoulder through my shirt. H.P. didn't come, so he was likely already back at the truck waiting for me, and must have been out of range. My walking against the wind probably didn't make matters any easier for him.

Minutes trickled like dry sand through my fingers. The next time I found water, I dunked my cowlick in it. I found a stick and trailed it through the dust of the back Jetmore roads. I whistled tunes and tested out a few song lyrics I'd been writing and revising over the last week. Sweat dribbled down both my front and my back until my white shirt turned translucent. My tongue poked from between my lips, panting, for a different reason than the autumn heat.

Forty-something minutes later, when I stumbled across Tam's farm, I stopped in my tracks. The pick-up truck was just gone. Only the marks of its wheels alongside the ATV treads in the mud implied that it had ever existed. An incomprehensible word left my lips. Abandoning my stick, I rushed forward and patted my hands in the air where I had seen it last, in case it had become invisible. But it wasn't. I shouted H.P.'s name and slit another gash along my elbow to see if he was around. But he wasn't.

I put my right thumb and forefinger into my mouth and squeezed my teeth. I'd given the keys to Flappy as a toy when we'd been trapped by the black cat. Someone had stolen the car and the baby. H.P. was on their trail. That made logical sense, of course- Flappy Bob could not produce pheromones in his blood the way I could. H.P. could not afford to lose him and could come back for me. He trusted me to take care of myself in his temporary absence. Once he had secured Flappy, he would return.

My wings twitched. Folding the apex in my small hand, I paced along the road. He would come. That, at least, was obvious. He could scent my pheromones. Responding to them was instinct for any nearby pixie. He'd come back once he retrieved Flappy. All I had to do was wait. Waiting I could do. Few pixies were better at waiting than I was. I could wait and wait and wait. It came naturally to me, waiting. I'd been raised to wait with the utmost patience. If I put my mind to it, I could wait for anything.

"You want an apple?"

I glanced up as I completed another line of pacing, and paused on the scuffed toes of my shoes. Tam leaned against the edge of the horse corral, all blonde-haired and freckle-faced, crunching through an apple of her own. A second one, she held out to me. I gazed back at her without blinking.

"Oh, so we're using tinfoil hats now. Pixie. Pixie. Do I look like an elf to you?"

"So it's not going to protect me from getting blasted by your dad-king or anyone?"

"No! Why would I line my hat with tinfoil if it blocked the effects of magic on me? That's ridiculous and unintelligent. I'd lose all strength to pry it off and then asphyxiate."

"Oh, thank you. I was praying you'd say so. I was broiling." She took off the cone of foil and replaced it with a wide straw brim. She bought it! She actually bought it!

Come on, H.P. Anytime now.

"You've been tromping back and forth out here for three and somethin' hours. You gotta eat sometime. It's too hot to be wearing those long sleeves- what you need's a nice farm hat like this one, see. Come on. Apple for ya' thoughts, Prince Sanderson."

Still watching the lump of foil through slitted eyes, I asked, "Where's Thomas?"

"I was gonna ask you, snap case. Or ask you where his mind is, anyway. Seems like it flew the coop after I left his place th'other night." She bit into her apple again. Flecks of cool juice sprayed the dirt. "I don't gotta get straight A's to guess that you're behind this."

I brushed a few purple droplets from my arm. "Jorgen wiped his memory. Do you have water?"

She smiled. "Right here in my pretty glass bottle. You want some, don't you? Who's Jorgen?"

"The Fairy ambassador and Head Keeper of Da Rules. We had a run-in with Ronald and Thomas got caught in the crossfire. In my defense, I warned him." I reached up for the apple. Tam pulled it away. Excuse me? That wasn't how this worked.

"How do I get his memories back in him?"

I climbed onto the first horizontal beam of the fence, straining for her water bottle, which she'd placed on the fence post beside the tinfoil. "You can't. Well, you can; we have to keep them until you shed your mortal skins for legal reasons - mff - outlined in Ebonii v. Cairo, but the Fairy Council has to approve it, and that doesn't happen a lot." My fingers swiped only empty air. I shifted a step closer, grinding my teeth. "They have to like you. Think you can be helpful. That stuff."

She slid the bottle an inch in the opposite direction. "Why are you still around here? You spying or somethin'?"

"The Head Pixie is supposed to meet me here. I'm just waiting for him to come back. If you don't cause me any trouble, I can assure you we won't cause any for you." I tried a second time to take the apple. Again, Tam drew it back like a fishing line. She edged a hint further over the fence so her hat nearly brushed up against mine. I leaned as far back as possible without releasing my hold on the slat, wings fluttering.

"Is he the chrome dome with glasses in the suit with the big forehead and pointy hat?"

Suppressing my cringe at each misplaced modifier, I said, "Did you see him?"

Tam pointed down the dirt path. "He drove off yesterday. Almost hit that big tree stump where the ax is. Hey, you want a sunflower seed?"

I studied the road with just one eye, then refocused my attention on her pale freckles. "How long ago did he drive back this way?"

"Huh?"

"H.P. wouldn't drive away from Jetmore knowing that I was still here." My fingers came in contact with the hot tinfoil. I yanked them back and only just caught myself before I could have stuck them in my mouth. Very unprofessional, that. "When did he turn around?"

"Cripes, I dunno. I wasn't watching the whole time. I got things to do with my life." Tam lowered the apple. As my one available hand neared it, she flipped it to her other palm above my head. "Nah, I'm just messing with you. Here, take it. And however much water you want- I'll get more later. Got it? That bottle's glass, so take care. Can you eat all that by yourself?"

Dropping back to the road, I sunk my teeth into the apple. It was warmer and drier than I'd wanted it to be, but I chewed it anyway. As I chewed, I thought. As I thought, I worried. Jetmore wasn't necessarily a large town by human standards, but it wouldn't be easy to locate him. I'd have to walk up and down, cutting my hands and waving my blood around in the air, all the while avoiding pestering humans.

"You gonna stay out here all day?" Tam asked, watching as I took to pacing again, with her bottle in hand and its cap between my fingers.

"He'll come back. I'm supposed to meet him here."

"Where're you going?"

"Home to Pixie World."

"Oh yeah. That name's lame."

"On paper it's officially called Meum-Nōmen-Domus-Est-Spriggan-Hame-Vivite-Vitam-Vestram-Et-Nihil-Paenite, but even we have difficulty saying it. Sometimes 'Sprigganhame' works for shorthand." I took another bite of apple and transferred sticky juice from my mouth to the back of my wrist. The bottle clinked against the lower clasp on my suit. A fruit fly buzzed around my head.

"You look like you're dressed up for a funeral or a wedding."

I glanced down at my messy clothes. "It's just what H.P. wants me to wear every day. For work. We're supposed to make a good impression."

"S'it uncomfortable?"

"I've hardly worn anything else since I lived with the will o' the wisps when I was a nymph." My fingers fiddled with my tie, which I'd loosened about forty-five minutes ago and should probably fix in Tam's presence. "I hope H.P. hasn't run into any of them. They lived a little further north, around the Nebraska area, Kalysta, Gabbi, Coral, Idona, Veruka, Canary and all them, but they did disperse some after the Great Flood…"

"Which one have you pinned?"

I wrinkled my nose. "I haven't pinned Idona. Why would you say that?"

"Your shades don't much cover your eyes when I'm all the way up here, and I could see 'em darting when you started listing names." Tam finished off her apple and put her thumb in her mouth. "And now you're getting defensive about just one of them. She cute?"

Shaking my head, I continued my pacing. "Idona was something like a foster sister to me when I was much, much younger, and even if she weren't, pixies do not fall in love."

"Uh-huh. Then where do your adorable baby pixies come from?"

"From the Head Pixie, actually. We're an all-drake race who reproduce on our own, without copulation. Do you know anything about the Pix- er, Wolbachia bacterium? No, I suppose not. Before your time; urging Simeon Wolbach's many-great grandsons to bring his field guides and journals from Yugopotamia to Earth took sixteen generations alone. We're still recovering from how much we had to shell out for Cupid to retranslate them- vendetta against all of us for the number of times Anti-Sanderson's declared war on the pixie exhibit of his family's menagerie, you know. Charming little place. Five hundred years I'll never get back and Madigan's entire childhood was destroyed, but charming. Hmm. Do you know how amoebas divide? Pixie reproduction is something like that- that's what his big forehead's for. And the nymphs are rather wrinkly. Not very adorable."

Tam stuck her tongue out at me. "Cheap and gross and weird. I won't push it. Uh… You sure you don't want more water with the last of that apple?"

"Save it for the selkies. I don't expect to be here much longer." Handing the empty glass bottle back through the fence, I stared up the road where I had come. "He should be back soon. He's supposed to meet me here. Perhaps he ran into trouble."

She watched me walk and walk, but I halted when she said, "Should I get the baby?"

"What… baby?"

"He was with you guys, right? My aunt took the baby out of your car, before the Head Pixie went back to it and drove off someplace."

A tremor ran across my wings. "Did he… see?"

"Yeah, think so. I saw him sitting up on the barn roof. My aunt fed the baby some corn and stuff, and then I looked out the window and he just drove away. The Head Pixie king guy, I mean. I was amazed he could reach the pedals. Like magic."

I folded my hands over my nose as best as I could around the remnents of the apple. "No, no, no…"

"Well, if you don't want the baby-"

"I won't believe you." My fingers slid into my ears. "H.P. didn't… He wouldn't… He's not the type to…" Shaking out my wings, I tossed aside the thin apple core. "Would you bring me Flappy Bob? I… I suppose I must be on my way."

Tam froze like marble. "That's Flappy Bob? You kidnapped Flappy Bob Flappotini, the baby clown? Cripes, we're gonna be in mega trouble when the cops show up. How do we explain this? 'I'm sorry, sir, but the fairies brought him to us'. Oh! Changeling children! You really-"

I frowned back at her. "Excuse me, but only huldufólk engage in the changeling children mess. And I can personally assure you, we did not kidnap him. In fact, I'd go so far as to say we rescued him. He'd have died if we hadn't stretched out our hand. Believe me, I'd rather have stayed in Pixie World."

She mimicked my expression, squinting. "So, you're telling me you came down to Earth to help him?"

"Yes, he wasn't safe where he was. His parents don't treat him kindly or responsibly- sometimes they bash his head or twist his limbs. He still isn't safe here with you, either. His heart is very sick and he needs magical help. Now, may I take him? Only H.P. knows where he needs to go. He's magic."

"I'll have to get him away from my aunt," she grumbled, scooping up my discarded apple core. "Flappy Bob. You've gotta be joshing me." Lacing her fingers together, she stretched her arms above her head. "Have you ever ridden a horse before, Prince Sanderson?"

Flashbacks from the War of the Angels played out before my eyes. Me clutching Longwood's sweaty, nervous body and straining over my shoulder to see if H.P. was following us or still spinning thick lines of magic between his fingers at the tall pink gate of Anti-Pixie Isle. Hawkins clinging to my neck as he waved cookies above his head and his voice hoarse from shouting like an auctioneer. Wilcox's violet muscles rippling beneath me, black mane whipping against my mouth. "I've ridden a pegasus."

"That'll do. Duck beneath the fence and let's get you on Gingersnap."

"On… the horse. Me. A pixie on a horse."

"Trust me, when I come running back out here, you're gonna want to already be on the horse. Don't sweat it." Tam walked away across the corral, motioning with her hand. She didn't snap her fingers to signal me to follow. Huh. With a last look at the dusty road, I took a hold of one of the fence rungs and slipped after her. Tam brushed and saddled the brown horse while I from a safe distance studied the tinfoil hat for signs of sentience, and when she was satisfied that all was in order, she held out her hands for me. Ignoring the gesture, I placed my fist in the stirrup and boosted myself up. She did need to lift me there at the end, but she didn't swing me straight up from the ground like some sort of toy.

"You steady?"

I wrapped both hands around the knob at the front lip of the saddle. "Good as I can be. However, I fail to see the purpose in my being up here."

"You'll need to make a getaway," was her reply as she swung over the fence and started towards the door.

"Hm. Smoof no. I said I'd ridden a pegasus. I didn't say I'd controlled him. His mind's only there so-so once the fagigglyne is pumping- We crashed into the High Count's castle- Tam? If this is a trick, I'm jumping off and you won't find me. Tam?"

She disappeared inside with a flick of blonde pigtails. I'd hardly blinked two or three times before she returned, hefting a blue backpack. This was passed up to me with a shrug. "Thomas and I usually go hunting for butterfly fairies when the rain drives them up around this time, but his heart's not in it anymore."

"What's in here?" I asked, holding the bag as far from my body as I could manage without dropping it. Not an easy feat with it as heavy as it was. The contents clicked and clacked.

"A flashlight, a whistle, a net, chunk of bread, couple apples, nuts, some more tinfoil, and glass bottles full of drinking water. There's like seven of those, so try not to drop any 'cuz that's all you're getting. Just hold that for me- I need that backpack for school tomorrow."

I continued to hold the bag as far from my body as I could manage without dropping it. "I'm not going anywhere with a net. Get rid of it."

She gave me a curious look, but flipped up the top flap and pulled the soft fishing net from the bag. "You don't like it?" she asked when I bared my teeth.

"Get rid of it."

"So it would bother you if I came at you like-"

"Get rid of it!" I flailed my arms as she clamped the net over my head, tickling my sides with her fingers as she let out odd guttural noises. My teeth nipped one knuckle. Then, chuckling, she pulled the net back. Bundling it up, she tossed it across the corral. Part of it looped on the edge of the fence and caught. I eyed it for a moment, but when it stopped swaying and continued to dangle, I allowed myself to relax.

"You may as well lose the tinfoil. I doubt the opportunity to put it to use will crop up."

"Sure. Still good sitting here? Right-o. I'll be back in a minute with your kidnapped clown child." Again, Tam bounded off. I focused my attention to the saddlehorn, kneading it with my fingers and palms. Sizzling fire burned so hot along my aching arms, I couldn't feel it anymore. They'd heal when I took a nap while in contact with a starpiece, but it couldn't come soon enough.

My fingers began to pluck at Gingersnap's mane until she turned her neck and snorted at me. I stared her down. Then my eyes trailed back to the farmhouse. I didn't trust humans. I didn't trust Tam. And I especially didn't trust what she'd said about H.P. driving away without Flappy Bob. He must not have realized Flappy wasn't in the car. In fact, Flappy probably was in the car, and this was all a trap and Tam would come running out with a bigger net or a jacket flipped inside out. H.P. would be hunting through Jetmore for me, and here I was, lollygagging on work hours-

Just as I was sliding down from Gingersnap's saddle, Tam ran back from the farmhouse holding a yellow bundle spotted with red patches. "What's your problem, skittertoes?" she puffed to the twitching horse. "You don't like Sanderson? Here," to me, "get back up there. My aunt won't stay in the kitchen forever."

Flappy's choking cries died as he saw me. He reached up his arms. I reached down as Tam tucked him into my hold. Flappy felt my face with his fingers, and saw that it was good. He cooed and sighed. Then he spit up on his chest. I pretended not to notice as it crept beneath my collar.

"Can you hold him?" Tam asked, swinging herself up behind me. "Might help if you sit him up in front of you. And here, I got you my grandpa's hat. Cute, huh? And I'm not just sayin' that 'cuz it looks just like mine. He's got ten, so you can keep that. Do I just squeeze it here between your head and your little floating pointy cap?"

"It's- too big- What are you-?"

Snapping the reins, kicking the horse's sides, Tam drove Gingersnap through the gate of the corral (which she'd thankfully opened when she'd returned with the little clown). Flappy clapped his hands and I wrapped my free arm around his chest. "What are you doing? Get off! This makes no sense! This is neither safe nor in the plan!"

"Yee-haw! Now, that's rocking out! This is what fun is, Mickey Mouse!"

I almost dropped Flappy again. All of him. Off the side of the horse where the hooves would have sliced through his eye sockets and crushed his skull into his brain. As long as I was clutching him, I couldn't whip around and sink my teeth into Tam's skin. Yes. Very fun.

"I thought your wings would hurt when you beat them against me, but they're soft. Can you pixie-types really fly with those teeny things? Whoa, watch the hat. You'll lose it."

Gingersnap broke into a gallop along the dirt path. My stomach bobbed in multiple directions, like I was flying through winter turbulence. Tam called out, but I didn't hear what she said.

After a damp, sickening afternoon of blurry Kansas rocks, dipping fields, and the occasional attempt to down some water against the bright sun, Tam pulled in the reins. "This is as far as I can take you."

A shell jumped up and down in my throat as I peered across the looming gray-brown grasslands and young continents of winter wheat. Light hills rolled one into the next, sprinkled with puffy yellow flowers. No chamomile. "You aren't coming all the way?"

"I've gotta split home by dinner. The only reason I took you at all is 'cuz I don't want my family gettin' caught with a stolen baby. I was real careful not to get my fingerprints on him. Don't bring him back."

I examined the long drop between me and the ground. Tam dismounted and, prying Flappy from my fingers, helped me to the wild grass. Flappy was next. Then she emptied the blue backpack.

"I need this for school," she said again. "How much can you carry?"

"I…"

"Let me help. I'm a good stacker. Let's see. I can squeeze an apple in either one of your pockets. Put the nuts in here. Hey, chestnuts! You like pens, I see. I think your watch chain is neat. Is this a wallet? One crumpled, dead daisy (You sure you didn't pin that girl you were talking about?) Jacket on. Now you can hold the baby like this. Back to my stuff. Squeeze the bread here between your chest and the baby. I can stick three, four- five water bottles in this space here under your neck. That works out- I'll take the empty one and this one home with me. Flashlight goes here. Adorable straw hat goes on your head. There. Ready, set, you bet. How d'ya like them peaches?"

I raised my eyebrows. "I can't move. If I move, I'll drop everything. I'm unsteady on my feet as it is."

Tam shook her head. "Then take one step at a time. Yeah, right now. Come on. There you go. See? Not terribly hard. You just gotta make it all across the grasslands like that." Then she stood, dusting her pants. "I'm off. I really gotta go, or I'll get my hide tanned."

I bit my lower lip and stared up at her face. "What's this part of the state like?"

"It's all wheat and sand sagebrush pretty far out. Li'l sorghum, and maybe corn. Loads of open prairie. See that silver ribbon about a hill over? State road. You can follow that 'til you hit Missouri if you want. Both a' you, drink your water. Don't get overheated. Straight up, lose the long sleeves sooner rather than later. You might wanna take cover early if you see the low, dark clouds sweeping in too close. It's s'posed to rain tomorrow. I dunno how it is for pixies, but Thomas used to say the butterfly fairies came out in the rain 'cuz their tunnels leak and it makes 'em nervous. You can see them around the rocks and sagebrush sometimes, 'specially if you go further north." She blew sticky hair from her mouth. "You said it was still east to your Pixie World?"

"Maybe an hour or two from here." Then I remembered how much I was carrying, and sucked at my gums. "Maybe three hours."

"Wish I could come. Well, if that Fairy Council of yours ever wants to return my friend's memories, just swing by." Tam rubbed her lower jaw. "And if anyone asks who kidnapped the clown, I wasn't in on it. No kidding- don't get me involved. I'm putting my faith in you, 'cuz I saw the blue fairy invent a horse from thin air and, well, we know Ronald's fairies seem like they're nice 'cuz he's always happy these days. So don't screw this up. Just take care of the kid, okay? Find him a happy family."

"Can you really not stay longer? You're bound to be more familiar with this place than I am."

"You'll figure somethin' out," she called, turning Gingersnap westward. She tipped her straw hat. "Are you the Pixie prince or ain't you?"

Reins flicked. Hooves smacked the hard road. They went off, leaving me on the grasslands all alone. Clutching Flappy and the supplies, I began to pick my way down the first rise, but then I was struck by a thought and stumbled a few yards back, dropping items. The flashlight rolled away. My hat blew from my head, bumped against my floating cap, thought about it, then settled back down until a second gust finally tore it off. One of the water bottles shattered over a half-buried stone and spilled its precious liquid into the grass.

"I appreciate all your generosity, Tam! I'll see if I can't make your success my annual project someday! You, and your future children! I'll watch over them myself and I promise they'll be well cared for!"

I stayed until they almost disappeared, but averted my gaze before she and the horse could cross over the horizon. China used to tell us that if you said good-bye and watched the Unwinged until you couldn't see them anymore, then the next time you crossed their path would be at their gravesite.

I picked up the bread, the flashlight, my hat. I dropped the whistle in the process, but at least caught the remaining four water bottles before they too could break. Flappy gurgled with spit bubbles and slapped my face. Readjusting my balance, I stared at my growing shadow in the dying grass. Now… Where did we go? What did we do? What did we eat? Which trail did we walk? Where did we rest? Which animals did we avoid? When were we too far past Mushroom Rock? What if I missed it? I didn't come down to Earth often. Not for lengthy periods of time. I wasn't as familiar with this area as H.P. was…

It took me a moment to realize I'd drawn blood from my lip. Like Flappy, I spit. Then, waddling penguin-like, I meandered down the first hill. He made warbled noises, and I didn't get far. Eventually, the whine in my throat overpowered my ears, filling the air with the buzzing of wasp wings. Depositing everything I held, I raced back up the hill and brought my hands to my mouth.

"Tam! Tam? Come back! I can't- I can't do this on my own! Don't leave me! Not all alone! Please, please- not alone! I need directions! Tell me what to do!"

She couldn't hear me. I ran down the hill, still calling her name. I ran for three hills. Then, puffing from the unfamiliar strain on my awkward feet, I flopped onto my stomach. Blood roared and whirled in my ears. After a moment, I mopped my forehead with my tie and rolled onto my back.

"H.P.! Sir, where are you? I need you!" Scratching at my arms- sitting up- biting again- shoulders trembling- the droplets stinging and falling on my slacks and shifting between pink and purple and maybe a flash of green- "H.P.!"

When my arms were sufficiently soaked in blood, I clutched my knees to my chest and set my chin on top of them. The apexes of my wings pressed against my temples. I shook my head. More than once. The wind blew mainly from the east, away from Pixie World, but on occasion it would shift back and the scent of my pheromones would twirl away in that direction. Empty, empty expanse of grasslands.

The most difficult pill to swallow, I think, was the half hour it took to peel my hands away from my mouth and, with deliberate Pixie care, pretend that I didn't remember how he'd had me sit in the car while he went back to be sentimental about his golf course.

Flappy's howling eventually became too much for me to ignore, even three hills away and with the wind carrying his cries this way and that. Scraping dirt from a few of my still-bleeding bite marks, most of them having relatively calmed to purple again, I hauled myself back to him.

There were facts to face. This wasn't Flappy's cornfield, with H.P. hiding just nearby. This wasn't Eunice's fence, with her clipping steadily at the chain links with her garden shears. The spotlight was focused solely on me. Taking care of me.

The wind had scattered the supplies. Tracking down the hat alone took five minutes. Even Flappy's blanket had torn loose from around him, and the baby himself had crawled part of the way over the next rise. I gathered it all together with the emotionless expression expected from my kind. Flappy greeted me by taking my collar in his fists and spitting up. I gave up counting the soppy human tears. He had to understand that I couldn't pay attention to him all the time. I had things to do. If he wanted my respect, he needed to earn it. Pull his own weight. Aid me in shouldering my burdens too. That's what gives somebody worth.

Avoiding the state road was obvious. The first human who saw me was bound to question what I was doing, wandering out here with potentially stolen goods and a kidnapped, whining baby. The trip had to be made in bursts. Hat or no hat, Flappy and I could only last for so long before I needed to carefully set everything down for water. By the time I got packed up again, he'd whine for more. The hat didn't fit on my head and blew off multiple times. I continually dropped the flashlight or the whistle or the bread. Sometimes, just the sheer amount of all I had tipped me on its own, and I either beat my wings hard to recalibrate my footing, or plunged forward without being able to put out my hands to brace for impact. H.P. wouldn't have fallen. He was used to accounting for the weight of his own pointed head.

Don't… tell him I said that.

The sun oozed down, quick as fairy wingbeats. I kept glancing back each time I remembered I was on a time crunch, which perhaps I shouldn't have done, as it caused more items to spill across the grass. If H.P. were here, he would have managed to come up with a better system for carrying the supplies. He was good at things like that. Somehow, he'd get all the bottles to balance up, or maybe hold the bread in his mouth. That sort of worked, didn't it?

My cheeks were almost certainly bright red. I was panting. Actually panting, like a human. How revolting. The next time Flappy whined for a water break, I pulled my tie all the way off. Frowning in what might be considered a thoughtful manner, I tilted it back and forth in my hands. Then I poured the last of the second bottle's precious liquid over it. Once I had, I looped it around my forehead so the wet soaked into my scalp and kept back my hair. Maybe I could get in on this innovation business after all. My gray jacket, I knotted around my waist. It brushed the back of my knees with every step. I told Flappy it was my princely cape.

After a time, we ran across one of those wide sorghum fields that Tam had mentioned. I got turned around in it, and several times ended up in the wrong corner. We depleted our water drip by drip. During one of our rests, I spotted a shadow against the blue sky. Butterfly wings flared in blue and black. Just circling. The bread in my mouth fell to the dirt.

"Will o' the wisp."

"Wih wisp? Wee wisk? Ah!"

I pressed myself deeper into the sorghum, holding my palm to Flappy's mouth. We stared upwards. Waiting.

"No, no, no… Not today. Not without my starpiece. Not today."

Flappy made a noise, but I shushed him again and hunkered further down in the plants. Sharp, dry leaves crunched beside my ear. My tongue begged for another sip of water. The will o' the wisp eventually moved off southward, but Kalysta's burrow system had been further north. I'd witnessed too many Anti-Fairies run screaming from boomerangs to fall for the double-take trick, so I didn't shift position or draw my hand back from Flappy's mouth until she passed back a few minutes later. Then, when I was sure she'd gone, I took up our things again, and we moved onward.

Sweat. Bled. Down my face. My lips had been chapped for what must have been an hour and a half. Step. Upon step. After. Little. Step. When we next stopped, I removed my shoes and wriggled my toes in my socks. I couldn't go on like this, with my feet overheated and crushed up. My neat classy shoes weren't designed for walking long distances. But I couldn't leave them here. I took a bite of dry apple, then tossed it and the second one aside. They weren't worth keeping, and I needed the pocket space for my shoes and wallet and watch on its chain.

"You smell like a crate of those, all rotten," I told Flappy as I licked the insides of the latest water bottle. He scrunched up his nose like I'd offended him, but he couldn't sob much more than he already was. I'd tuned out the choking noise… forty-five minutes back? An hour and forty-five? There was a limit to the amount of problems I could manage. He wasn't one. Not anymore. Had he ever been? I couldn't remember that time. It didn't matter. Very little mattered. Pixie World couldn't be too much farther, terribly.

Perhaps H.P. would be waiting for me there, pacing back and forth at the bottom of the Bridge. Would he shout when he saw me stumble over the nearest hill, or would I shout to him first? What was the quickest way to deposit my load so I might run scampering to him? Could I wheedle physical touch from him too, our agreement never to hug notwithstanding? Just- just a pat on the head, or maybe on the shoulder- both shoulders, if I was lucky, him holding me out at arms' length, with warm eye contact, and he'd give the nod of 'Okay' and allow me to press my head against his chest and tell me he'd been worried that I'd been killed. I'd shiver from the entire embrace while he scratched me in that spot I liked most behind my left ear. Wouldn't he like to know all about how I'd ridden a horse! With a human, no less! And that I'd sat still and quiet and been passed over by a will o' the wisp! He'd give a little "Ha, ha," when I told of how I'd pried Ronald from his fairies, and be furious with Jorgen for kicking me aside like scum from the sewer, of course.

Flappy tugged on my sleeve. "Waddirk. Waddirk."

"There isn't much left," I told him, uncapping the second to last milk bottle. Water bottle. Soda bottle. Dust bottle. What was supposed to be in it, again? "Don't spill. Don't drink too much- Flappy, don't throw! Flappy Bob, no. You're very lucky you're low to the ground and this didn't hit a rock and break like that other one. We can't afford to lose any of it. I almost dropped those myself several times."

He put his fist in his mouth and sucked unhappily at a knuckle.

We were deeper in will o' the wisp country now, and I didn't much like the stormy clouds that were developing on the northern horizon. I clung to spots of cover when I could- fields of corn, winter wheat, more sorghum, deep trenches that might contain a trickle of sickly-smelling mud, even human farmhouses. After every step, I dropped something with a whoosh noise, and wasted precious minutes gathering everything together again. And again. What's the word I'm looking for? Ah, yes: Again.

I licked my chapped lips. In this way, I'd never reach the Bit Bridge before it grew so dark that I risked stumbling into a rattlesnake. If I slept out here, the rattlesnakes might stumble into me, and the mosquitoes would croon sweet nothings to my skin as they tickled out my blood. And the wisps were out. But I couldn't just stop. I was so close. Perhaps if I didn't have these supplies weighing me down, I could still make it.

With a half-relieved grunt, I tossed down everything I had and shifted my gaze back and forth between each piece. H.P. used to play a sort of game with us, when Hawkins, Wilcox, Longwood or myself complained about things we didn't have during the War of the Angels: He'd draw a triangle in the dirt with his pointer finger, then at each of the three points place something that we had all agreed we wanted. "All right," he'd say as the four of us crowded around. "Pick two." That was how he divided our rations, and we'd form alliances as we squabbled and backstabbed one another until we all slept with eyes open and didn't trust one another even for weeks after the war had ended. This one time, only Longwood had settled on broccoli while the rest of us split between bread and soup, and the Tuatha Dé Danann only knew how I had sucked up to him when our food ran out and even Robin struggled to sneak us more from the kitchens with his sticky fingers…

I hadn't known he'd taught us a life lesson, or that I'd be using it like this one day. As I studied my options, I ran my right thumb over the knuckles of my left hand, over and over and over. I had a flashlight. Bread. A whistle. A hat. A bottle and a half of water. And the baby. Pick two. Pick two. Pick two.

The flashlight I could afford to lose- if I abandoned supplies, I'd reach Pixie World before dark. If I didn't make it, then a single beam of light wouldn't reveal too many crevices and dangerous animals anyway.

The whistle was useless. Why did I still have that?

The hat wasn't worth keeping. It was much too big to stay on my head, and the wind always blew it off and forced me to backtrack for it. The burning sun had to taper off and cool sometime.

I didn't need the food. I'd been hungry before, and now I was a mere hour or so away from my destination. The water was more important. With empty arms, I could hold four bottles without the risk of dropping them, a fifth between my teeth, and a sixth in the waistband of my pants. That way, I could fill them if I ran across a source of water- I knew there was at least one stream coming up. That much I remembered about the area from the last time I'd popped down here, maybe seventeen to twenty years ago.

My fingers hesitated. Flappy was large, difficult to keep a grip on, a never-ending drain on my water, and… served no purpose, really. He didn't smell good, he constantly spit, and if he made too much more noise then the will o' the wisps might find us, just like Kalysta had caught H.P. back when he was toting little nymph Sanderson around with him. If I did run across one, I'd have to defend both myself and him. And he was so heavy, and his blanket made him so hot against my skin, and he yanked my hair and took my shades and jabbed his fingernails in my eyes…

Taking Flappy in my arms, I bent down to pick up the water bottles that I could. It turned out that holding a bottle in my teeth didn't work. They were too sore from biting my arms, or perhaps from clenching and jarring as I'd ridden the horse with Tam. The bottle in my waistband slipped, and slid down my legs to my feet after I'd only taken a few steps. The whole neck snapped off.

I looked at the little clown, with his inky black hair. I looked at the eastern horizon. I looked at the beating sun. I looked at my hands, and closed them into fists. Once upon a time, there had been past versions of Sandersons abandoned by their… their, er… well, their caretaker. In will o' the wisp burrows. On Yugopotamia. Battles. Prison cells. Anti-Fairy World. Cornfields. Fences. Dirt roads. Prairies. This same prairie, blanketed in snow and two hundred fifty thousand years in its past.

As difficult as it would make the journey, deep down in my soul, I knew what had to be done. This wasn't just about me. H.P. expected certain things of me, desired certain things of me. I had to prove that I could come through for him.

I divided my supplies in two piles: what I was leaving behind and what I was taking with me. Before going anywhere, I broke off some of my bread and gave it to Flappy, and let him drink as much water as he wanted, too. It would be the last meal until nightfall.

He exploded into that human defensive behavior again, with the cherry-faced sobbing, as I left him beneath the sagebrush clump with Tam's hat on his round human head.