BELLA
One of two things is happening. One possibility is that I am hallucinating because of all that stress and lack of sleep that have accumulated over the past few days. The only other choice is that Dakota has found love. She walks by Nathaniel and keeps making eyes at him. I can't lie to myself, it's kind of weird. It's not that I think that Dakota should be alone, because I definitely don't. It's just that she has never shown much interest towards being in a relationship. In fact, until right now, I have never seen her even holding hands with anyone. Wait, they are holding hands?
Other than the odd factor, the trip back to the safe house is uneventful. The entire population of the safe house is sitting in Jen's room with a book in their hands. For some reason I am not surprised at all. The ones that need sleep look dead on their feed. By the way they are looking at us, we look no better. Dakota might be more cheerful, but she still has bags under her eyes.
"Everybody, this is Nathaniel," Dakota announces in a sing-song voice.
"The Healer?" Jake asks us, his voice as dead as he looks.
"So I'm told," Nathaniel answers him, looking at the immortals before him.
"That is great. I'm Carlisle. I hope you don't mind my observing," Carlisle responds.
"Of course I don't mind. I take it that you are the vampire doctor," Nathaniel assures him.
"Okay, all those who require sleep, except Nathaniel of course, must get some shut-eye. I mean it, doctor's orders," Carlisle states firmly.
"Are you serious?" Eliot asks.
"As a heart-attack," he assures us.
The Cullen family, sans Carlisle, herds us to our respective suites. I guess there is no choice about when to have my discussion with Edward. We will just have to set aside time after I have slept enough to look more alive than he is.
CARLISLE
I know I come across as too concerned, but they just looked so tired. Anyway, that gives Nathaniel a chance to examine Jen without a lot of distractions. He looks like he is giving a normal examination. Her blood pressure, heart rate, and brain activity is checked and double checked. I watch him closely, but if I did not know he was a Healer, I would think that he was a mortal doctor. He takes in the piles of books around the room.
"You have quite a collection," Nathaniel comments.
"They belong to Jen, Bella, and Dakota," I reply.
"So, you checked based on the material here?" he asks.
"Yes, well, I did what I could." Where is he going with this?
"Did you mark these sections?" he persists.
"No, Jen did," I answer honestly.
"She is very methodical. All of the appropriate sections have been flagged. When did she mark it?" I don't know if this curiosity is normal or dangerous for the girls.
"Um, she just recently marked them. Why do you ask?" I am going to get some answers before I give any more.
"I just wanted to know if she knew it was coming, because that impacts how the spell will affect her," Nathaniel assures me. Maybe I should have talked to Bella and Dakota a bit before I sent them off to bed.
"I wish…" I start to say, but Nathaniel launches himself across the room to slap his hand on my mouth.
"I realize that as a vampire, clearly you are new to the whole immortal thing. However, you should only ever say that if you want a faerie to appear," the Healer explains in a whisper.
"Do you hear wind chimes?" I ask, distracted.
"Oh no, too late," Nathaniel groans.
My children and wife join us in a flash. They all look as confused as I do. The chimes get louder and louder. Nathaniel places his fingers on his temples like he is getting a headache. Some kind of pale cloud appears. It looks like it was tie-dyed with pastel colors. The cloud grows to fill the room to where we cannot see past our noses. I reach out and take Emse's hand in mine. The cloud dissipates as quickly as it appeared and the chimes finally stop. Standing before us is what looks like a little girl in pigtails and wearing a pink tutu. She has butterfly-like wings that have swirls of pinks and a tiara. To complete the whole image, she is holding in her right hand a glittery wand with a star that contains even more glitter on its top.
"Hello to you all! I am glad to meet you. My name is Sara," the tiny girl sings to us.
"That's not going to get confusing at all," Rosalie states.
"Hello. If you don't mind my asking, what are you?" Alice asks tentatively.
"I'm a pixie of course," Sara sweetly answers.
"I'm…confused," Emmett comments.
"Oh, you are vampires, aren't you? Let me explain then. By saying 'I wish' you call a faerie to you. Faeries can only use magic to grant wishes and we must stay with the one that calls us until they make a certain number of wishes," she explains to us.
"Didn't you say you were a pixie?" Emmett inquires.
"I am a pixie. That's what a girl faerie is called, silly. Boy faeries are called leprechauns," Sara wrinkles her nose at my son.
"How many wishes does Carlisle get?" Rosalie interrupts her husband's guffaws.
"They can't tell you that," Nathaniel sighs.
"So they just hang around, granting whatever you wish for?" Jasper asks quietly.
"Well, not really, I'm afraid. There are a few restrictions. For example, if you were to wish for that witch to be cured, I couldn't do that. Even though I completely want to, she is magically wounded and can only be fully healed by a Healer or the one who cursed her. I mean, I'm not a genie. Their magic is completely unlimited," Sara informs us all, not just Jasper.
"I don't understand you reaction," I tell Nathaniel.
"Well, Sara is sweet, but not all faeries are like that," he starts to answer.
"It's sad, but true," Sara adds.
"The fact is, faeries are dominated by one of two things. One is a sweet disposition that makes them caring and careful to grant the wish you mean, not necessarily what you say. The other is vengeful disposition that makes them grant what you say in such a way as you do not want it at all and they get amusement from it. The first ones number about one for every eight of the second ones. A faerie like Sara is rare," Nathaniel finishes his answer. You learn something new every day around here.