A/N: Thank you, Leyapearl, SnowPrincess88, Stork Hardy, & LaurenHardy13 for the reviews! Again, all my readers are great - you folks are making my day, in the middle of some tough times.
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If they thought for one second that Joe would leave it at that…
Taken back to the hospital room. Put back into bed. Ordered to "rest". As if Joe would really rest, as if he would just sit here, with Frank dying.
Joe squeezed his eyes shut. No. He couldn't leave it at that. He couldn't let his brother die.
When you do something wrong, you make it right, Mar had told them. You've got your own brain, Mom had said, you're the only one to blame for what you do.
Joe studied the IV line. Just a small catheter, the nurse had said when Joe asked his usual flood of questions over anything new and interesting. She'd explained a lot, and fascinated, Joe had watched. It'd hurt going in, but now it was just taped there, and he'd been warned to be careful of that arm. The whole process had looked simple enough.
Decision made.
He picked at the tape and carefully peeled it off, then, gritting his teeth, he pulled the IV line straight back. It hurt…then it really hurt, but it slid out with a squirt of blood. Joe clamped down on his arm, counted to sixty three times, then peeked to make sure the bleeding had stopped. Done.
Aunt Gertrude had brought clean clothes earlier. The nurses had said that Joe could probably go home tomorrow — Christmas — but Joe wasn't going to wait that long. Keeping a wary eye on the door, Joe dressed quickly, pulled on his coat, then cracked the door open. No one in sight. Luckily his room was in the back corner, out of immediate sight of the nurses' station. Joe ran out and over to Kris's room, paused, listened at her door to make sure there weren't any adults inside, then slipped in.
Kris startled up. "Joe?"
"I need your help." Joe dropped onto the foot of her bed. "You knew about Click. You gave him milk. You could talk to him. You kept saying something about rules. That means you know stuff about fairies. Click's an elf. Right?"
"A brownie. Elves are big like us."
Joe ignored that. "Frank's dying. I'm not going to just sit here. I'm going to get them."
For a long moment, Kris didn't answer. Then her hands clenched around the sheets. "Me too. You're taking me with you."
"No!" Joe knew what Dad would say. No, forget Dad, Mar would scalp him.
"How'd you get this thing out?" Kris held her IV'd arm out.
"Forget it! It's my job. Mine. Not yours. You got us into this."
"That's why I'm going. To help you get out!"
"No!"
Glaring, arms crossed, she settled back in her bed. "Then I'm not talking."
Joe shrugged. He'd figure it out on his own then. With a glare of his own, Joe slid from the bed.
"You go, and I'll yell! They'll lock you in your room, and then Frank'll die, and it'll be all your fault because you're too stupid to take me with you!"
"Kris!"
"Frank's dying because of me,"Kris said fiercely. "Don't you dare leave me behind. Don't you dare."
"You little snot!"
Kris only held her arm out again. Waiting.
Jaw clenched, Joe gave in. Fine, he'd let her tag along for now, just until they got home. Joe helped her pick at the tape, and she didn't even flinch when he pulled the IV straight out, though she did bend over her arm, shivering. He turned his back, watching the door and listening for Mar and Dad as Kris got dressed.
"It's still bleeding a little," Kris said.
"We'll get a band-aid at home." Joe glared back. "Unless you wanna chicken out like a baby."
Kris only jerked on her coat, and together they slipped out of the room.
Taking the elevator was out. Too many adults would stop and question a pair of kids by themselves. Taking a deep breath, Joe pushed open the stairwell door: coast clear. They ran down the stairs, made it to the lobby, then out the front doors.
Luckily the Hardys' and Mountainhawk homes weren't far from the hospital, close enough to cut through backyards and avoid the too-visible roads. Getting to Chet's house would be another matter. Joe fidgeted on Kris's front porch, eyeing his own front door. Aunt Gertrude was home, since her car was in the driveway. If she spotted them…
"C'mon." Kris pushed open her front door.
Joe blinked — Mar left it unlocked? He followed Kris in, careful to wipe his sneakers on the mat. Mar was already going to scalp him for getting Kris involved. Leaving wet sneaker prints all over the carpet would be a definite death sentence.
"Here." Kris dug into her pockets and handed him Frank's jackknife. "Fairies hate iron."
"That's why you made me touch it," Joe said.
Kris nodded. Joe followed her back to the kitchen, where she rooted around in the lower cabinets. "Your grandmas tell all those cool stories," Kris said. "Don't you listen?"
"Well, no, they're just…" Joe stopped. No, not just kid stories, not anymore. Think. He had to think. He had to remember those stories. Gramma Kelly's especially, even though she spent most of her storytelling trying to cuddle Joe like a baby — he was the youngest of all the grandkids. Her stories were always about "the Fair Folk" of the old country. "Something about wood. Some special wood."
"Ash." Kris dragged a pan out and stood up: Mar's humungous cast iron skillet. It was almost too big for Kris to hold. "Rowan. It protects against fairy magic."
Joe snapped his fingers."My bat! Baseball bats are made of ash." Then he bit his lip. Sneaking past Aunt Gertrude — he and Frank had never managed that. "But Aunt Gertrude's home."
"Where is it?"
"With Fred." Fred was the monster in his and Frank's closet. Joe had "killed" it with his bat when he was little, his special souvenir Red Sox bat that Dad had gotten for Joe the first time that Dad had taken the brothers to Fenway Park, the bat that Carl Yastrzemski had personally autographed. Big, red-fake-furred and googly-eyed goofy, Fred-the-tamed-monster now sat next to Joe's bed, Hawaiian lei, sunglasses, and all.
"I'll get it." Before Joe could stop her, Kris ran out the front door, dropping the skillet on the floor at Joe's feet.
Great. The little tagalong would get them discovered and blow the plan before Joe ever had a chance. Might as well get bandages before everything went down the drain. Joe clumped upstairs and had just found the box when the front door slammed. Footsteps ran up the stairs, then Kris appeared in the bathroom doorway and handed him the bat and a brown-bag packet that had Joe's name written on it. The bag had a shiny green bow on it.
Joe stared. "How…?" She'd gotten by Aunt Gertrude?
"Your aunt's busy cooking." Kris looked away. "There was a bag there for Frank, too."
Joe swallowed the sudden lump in his throat. Without opening it, he knew what the bag was. Mom had made special Christmas cookies every Christmas Eve, and it just wasn't Christmas until the house smelled of roasted almond and vanilla. Last year Aunt Gertrude had taken over, and it wasn't the same. It just wasn't. Still, Frank would get his share. Joe would make sure of it.
But Kris had gotten into the kitchen while Aunt Gertrude was cooking and had stolen cookies? "You," Joe said fervently, "are Moriarty. The Saint. Alexander Mundy. All them rolled up."
Kris only picked up the box of bandages and didn't react at all to those names. Maybe she didn't know those stories. After rolling her sleeve up, she peeled one of the bandage papers apart.
"Wow." Joe stared. Where the IV had been was now a huge bruise covering her whole forearm, black and blue with yellow around the edges.
She shrugged. "No big deal."
No big deal? A bruise that big? Joe opened his mouth, then decided he didn't want to know. "C'mon. Before Dad finds we're gone."
Scrambling over fences, cutting through backyards — they left a wide, obvious trail of footprints behind them. All the other kids out playing would disguise that, but Joe was dreading getting out to the road. They had to, to get to the Mortons' farm. There was another farm between Bayport town limits and the Mortons, and that farmer was notoriously trigger-happy with a rock-salt-loaded shotgun.
It'd been too long by this point, long enough for Dad to find them gone. Dad would figure out where they were going. All it would take would be one phone call, and Mr. Morton would let loose the big dopey sheepdog and the too-smart border collies. The border collies, especially — Mrs. Morton had used one of those collies to tend Frank, Joe, and Chet when they were little, when Dad and Mom had asked her to babysit. It'd been embarrassing.
Watching the traffic, Joe and Kris waited in the trees. Nothing recognizable, and they scrambled onto the road and towards Morton farm, Kris with the iron skillet, a flashlight, and the cookies securely in her backpack, along with a loaf of wheat bread and a jar of Mar's homemade peanut butter — if they ended up gone another week, they'd need food — and Joe with the bat slung over his shoulder. The sun turned the snow-covered fields and trees into a blinding glory of sparkling white and glittering ice, and the breeze nipped their exposed faces. Every passing car had Joe turning to look, expecting Dad to cut them off and drag them back.
Finally they reached the Morton farm. No dogs that Joe could see, and no cars, either, not even Mr. Morton's battered pickup. All the Christmas lights were on, and the Nativity scene was out, hand-carved out of oak and maple by Chet's granddad before WW II. It was old, with cracked, fading paint, but Joe loved it. The age made it solid. Real. Holy.
Joe touched one of the wooden sheep. Chet's unauthorized attempt to repaint it last year had given it eyes like Cookie Monster. "There's something about fairies and baptized babies. Maybe a cross?"
"That's vampires," Kris said. "And baptized didn't stop her from hurting Frank."
The gray monster had said something about stinking-of-his-kingdom, but Kris had a point. Maybe it meant something else, then. Joe studied the baby Jesus. If only they had some magic to make it seem like a real baby to trade for Frank's life. If only. Then Joe shook his head. If-onlies never solved anything. Dad always said that.
Wait…
Tugging Kris after him, Joe skirted the house, then dashed towards the barn. Still no one in sight, even as Joe pulled open the creaky barn door.
The Mortons were slowly replacing their livestock fencing, since the ancient wooden fence was rotting away. While Mr. Morton was using plain steel for most of it, Mrs. Morton had insisted on decorative cast ironwork for the parts closest to the house. That part hadn't worked so well and the fencing company had refused to take the stuff back, so the spiky black iron was piled in the barn.
Joe hefted one of the poles up. Heavy, but wield-able. Anything to help Frank. Anything to force that monster to undo whatever it did. If fairies hated iron, then Joe wanted a nuke.
"Cold iron!" Kris tried to pick one up, but couldn't.
"Hang onto this." Joe handed her his bat. He needed both hands to carry the pole.
The yard was a morass of churned-up snow and earth, all the snow trampled down by hordes of boot- and dog-prints, and candy wrappers and styrofoam cups littered the woods. Joe grinned — Kris's blazes were huge, raw livid things. She had also piled lots of rocks and twig-arrows at the base of each tree, and the hole itself had a dozen twig-and-rock arrows around it.
"Okay, fairies," Joe muttered, "you're up against the Monster-Killer and the Queen of Thieves now. You're in trouble." He scowled, studying the hole and the ground. It was an awfully long drop.
"That's hawthorn," Kris whispered. "The fairy tree."
Maybe they didn't need to go down the hole, then. Glaring at the tree, Joe set the point of the spiky iron against the trunk.
Kris grabbed his arm. "Don't! The tree can't help it that fairies like it. And it's marking the spot so we can find it. It's helping us." She dropped her gaze. "It hates me because I cut it. Don't get it hating you, too."
Little elves, fairy monsters that looked like Mom, and now hating trees. Then again, that was in Gramma Kelly's stories, too, to always be polite and to never turn away help, no matter how small.
No matter what it looked like.
The tree's berry-laden twigs shook harder than the breeze accounted for. Joe took the pole away, and the trembling slowly stopped. "Do things like this always happen around you?"
Kris scuffed at the snow. "Papa said it was because of the devil."
"That's stupid," Joe informed her. "You just need a couple big brothers to keep you out of trouble." Granted, this didn't count as keeping out of trouble.
Then Joe spotted something. Half-hidden in the snow, a rope was tied around the base of the tree and led down into the hole. The adults hadn't taken it after they'd rescued him and Frank? Joe scowled. They'd just left it with all the other trash messing up the woods.
Useful trash, anyway. Joe tossed the iron pole down, then swung over the edge, hanging onto the rope and feeling out the toe-holds: cold wet roots, slippery rocks, rough earth. The rope had knots tied into it at various intervals, but it was still a nervous, slippery descent.
Kris didn't bother with the rope. She clambered over the edge and inched her way down the natural toe- and hand-holds, dropping the last half to hit the ground and huddled there, panting.
"You could've used the rope," Joe said.
She shook her head. "I told you. The tree hates me."
He and Frank had always teased her about the spooky stuff game she played, but now it wasn't funny anymore. Joe shuddered as he picked the iron pole back up. "C'mon." He had her turn so he could rummage in the backpack, pulled out the flashlight and handed it to her.
It was too quiet down here, too closed-in, all sound muffled and the air smelling of rotten wood, wet rock, and earth. With the flashlight, Joe was too aware of the rock and earth above him, close, heavy, and suffocating.
"Joe." Kris shone the flashlight towards the deep shadows — what they hadn't seen before, because of the dark.
Thin white sticks and one grayish-white rock.
Curiosity was a strong draw. Bones and a broken skull lay among rotting scraps of cloth embroidered with flowers. All of it too small to be an adult. Joe glanced back towards where the rope dangled, still thankfully, gratefully there. But who…?
"Chet's grandma," Kris whispered. "That story about her baby sister. That monster got her."
Swallowing, Joe nodded. The story had been creepy. "Or she fell down here and they never found her."
Kris touched the small skull. "She's not here anymore. She's gone."
Okay, now Kris was just getting weird. But the thought of a little girl starving to death in the cold dark all alone…Joe shuddered. "We'll tell Dad when we get back." When. When. "C'mon."
Slowly they made their way down the tunnel to the glittery cubby-space, then on to the larger chamber where the monster-thing had been. Joe stopped, disappointed — there was no carved, glowing cavern now, just glistening, twisted rock dripping with water.
"I knew you two would show up."
With a yell, Joe jumped, dropping the metal pole with a terrific, clanging bang against the stone as Kris squeaked and dropped the flashlight.
Clay leaned against the near wall.
He didn't look surprised or angry. Clay pushed away from the wall, shining his own flashlight over them as he walked over. "Your parents are watching your houses. I told 'em I'd cover here. Now. Mind telling me why you're doing something so phenomenally stupid?"
"How'd you get here?" Joe said, incredulous. "We didn't see you. There wasn't any car at the Mortons!"
"You're talking to a Ranger used to hiding from North Koreans. Answer the question."
Kris grabbed the iron pole, but only managed to lift it partway up, and Joe took hold to help. The man still looked like Clay.
"Touch the iron," Kris demanded in a shaking voice.
"Huh. You two have some brains, after all." Clay pulled off his right glove and gripped the end of the iron. "Satisfied? Now what do you think you're pulling?"
Joe scowled. Maybe Kris didn't know everything about fairies. "Who won the World Series last year?"
Clay's mouth quirked. "No clue. I hate baseball. I can tell you anything you want to know about the Jets, though. Now. You two are turning right back around and both your butts are going straight back to the hospital."
"No way," Joe said.
"You don't get a choice, bud."
"My brother's dying! Don't tell me what I don't get!"
Light burst in, cutting them all off with an implosion of wind and glory.
Joe took a step back, but hung onto the iron. This time, the wind didn't smell like grass or apples or spring — it stank of old rock, dead water, and stale air.
It wasn't Mom, either.
All Joe saw was something tall, haloed in golden light that streamed from an open archway behind tearing, he squinted, then wished he hadn't — it was beautiful, glowing like the stained glass in the town's Catholic church.
"My dear child." The woman's voice was light and silvery, as if a hand caressed wind chimes. Something deep inside Joe jumped in response. "I knew you would return."
"Wow," Kris breathed.
Joe tightened his grip on the iron, but whatever it was, it remained graceful and beautiful. He hefted the pole in both hands. "You're killing my brother," he said to the light. "Leave him alone, or else."
"You think to assault me?" The woman sounded amused. "My dear, sweet son. Harm me, and the doorway closes. You lose all chance at healing the sick one."
"I'm not your son!"
"Gentle little one." She smiled, the aren't-you-so-cute look that adults used and Joe hated. "I have watched you for a long time. You are no warrior. You have too gentle a heart." She leaned close, her gaze only on Joe. "But perhaps…we can bargain."
This wasn't how it was supposed to go. In all the TV shows, the good guy confronting the bad guy caused the villain to surrender, or give a confession, or start crying — Joe often wondered why Dad refused to watch Perry Mason. But the fairy woman didn't seem impressed by the iron nuke and definitely wasn't bursting into tears.
Okay, now what?
Joe glanced at Clay; Clay was staring hard at the woman, and didn't seem to be paying attention to Joe or Kris. But behind the fairy woman, someone peeped out into the cavern — Click. Wide-eyed, the little brownie gestured frantically at Joe and Kris, pointing at the pole, then at the ground at his feet.
The woman turned to see what Joe was looking at. Rage twisted her face, and she lunged at Click, who squeaked and dodged towards Joe and Kris.
Joe didn't stop to reason it out. He wrenched the pole from Kris's grasp and hurled it at the doorway.
Clattering to the rock, the pole skidded into the glowing arch, only a bare inch or two poking outside.
With a hissing intake of breath, the woman rounded. She stared at the archway, the pole, then turned back, glaring down. "Do not dare return, little sídheog," she said softly. "Not ever."
Chittering loudly, Click hid behind them, gripping Kris's right leg, as Joe wrenched Frank's jackknife out of his pocket and Kris brandished the bat. Joe made a mental note to teach her baseball. Her grip was awful.
"You locked it open," Kris whispered to Joe. "Click says they can't close it with the iron like that."
The iron had cut away part of the light in the archway, an ugly black hole eclipsing the singing brilliance, and distressed cries echoed beyond it. "Heal my brother," Joe said, "and I'll get that thing out of there."
The woman smiled. "Is that all you wish?"
Was this woman stupid? Joe opened his mouth, but Click chittered frantically.
"He says it's not Frank. It's a changeling." Kris gulped. "Frank's in there. With her."
"No, he's not!" Joe had held Frank's hand. Frank had helped them escape. It'd been real! "Frank's going to die!"
"Yes," the woman said. "He will."
"He won't!" Kris spat. "You fairies snatch kids and leave changelings in their place. The changelings die and no one can cure 'em and you still have the kid."
"She's right, buddy. It's not your brother in the hospital. Mar and your dad proved it." Clay's mouth quirked again. "The Sidhe haven't caught on to fingerprints. Then again, they don't notice much about us. You really need to pay better attention, lady."
"They play games with your brother's life." The woman sounded bored. "The sick one dies while they chatter."
Joe wasn't sure he trusted Clay. The man could say anything to get them to go home. He definitely didn't trust the fairy woman. Kris, he trusted…and now Click…but…
Frank.
Joe's hand clenched around the knife. Frank's scout-knife, the knife Frank was so proud of. The knife he carried everywhere, that he never let go. The knife Frank had dropped and had told Joe to hang on to.
…and fairies hated iron…
Heart pounding, Joe raised his head. "The iron stays. You can't close that door until we get it out." He brandished the knife at the woman. "Let my brother go. Bring him out."
"You demand much for little. You intruded on my realm. You brought the cold ironhere and threaten my person and my realm with it. Your brother will pay the price for your arrogance." Gone was the gentle soothing. The woman leaned towards them, her face sharp, feral, hungry. "Remove the iron. Or his screams will haunt your nightmares."
Joe swallowed. "You hurt my brother, and I'm not removing nothing."
"I hurt your brother, and he will bleed, whether or not you remove the iron." The woman's gaze bored into Joe. "Shall we find out how much blood it takes?" She smiled slowly, baring teeth. "Or…perhaps…we trade, instead. You, for him."
Click chittered again. "She doesn't know where Frank is," Kris said. "She doesn't have him. He got away."
The light around the woman burst into raging silver fire. Raising a burning hand, she took a single step forward, but halted when Joe raised the knife and Kris waved the bat. "Come within my reach, little sídheog,"the woman snarled. "Do so, and the bards will shudder at your fate for eons of this world."
To Joe's delighted shock, Click stuck his thumbs in his ears, waggled his hands like donkey-ears, and stuck his tongue out in a loud, rude raspberry.
But why did she stop? Joe couldn't figure that out. It was just him and Kris. The little bit of iron in the jackknife couldn't stop fire like that, and if the fairy could do that, Joe didn't have much chance of winning this.
It didn't matter. Joe had to get his brother out, no matter what, and no matter what was promised, the fairy woman would twist it to something bad, something that would hurt them and Frank. And if she had people in there hunting Frank — no. No.
Never play by the bad guy's rules, Dad always said.
Tightening his grip on the knife, Joe glanced at Kris, then at the archway, and she nodded. Swallowing hard, Joe tensed —
— and got grabbed.
Clay had him in a tight grip, hauling Joe back and away. "No, you don't. You two are getting out of here now."
Struggling, squirming, Joe bit, kicked, his heel ramming into something soft — just as Kris whacked Clay in the crotch with the bat. Clay swore, dropped Joe, and Joe scrabbled away. Kris shoved the bat at him, and Joe fumbled, nearly dropped it, then rounded and swung as the fairy woman, who'd lunged for them —
The bat crunched into her face.
Fairy or not, the woman shrieked.
Joe didn't wait. He dodged Clay's grasp, then dove past the woman…
…and through the archway.