Demona stood impatiently in the village phone booth, waiting for the operator to get Xanatos on the line and see if he would accept the charges. The child of Oberon had been standing just outside the booth, watching her curiously, but had since wandered to explore the shops and stalls on the quiet street. The guiding wand had led them there first, so she took it at face value that calling Xanatos was the more urgent of the tasks before her. It had been years since she had seen the village, and never by daylight. Except for a more recent resurfacing of the roadway and a few new shops, it seemed more or less the same to her as the last time she'd been obligated to visit.
The operator's voice returned and stated that the call would be connected.
"Good morning, Adelpha!" Xanatos' voice greeted enthusiastically, "We've been waiting to hear from you! How is Scotland?" She smiled at his familiar audacity. Clearly, he had her traced and he wanted her to know it, first and foremost.
"Scotland is…still here," she replied tepidly, "I hope I didn't wake you."
"You know me. Sleep is overrated. Where are Lexington and Goliath?"
"That's a fair question, and I don't have a specific answer for it. They were with me when we arrived, but they didn't return before sunrise, so I'm still looking for them myself."
"I presume you've been on Avalon all this time?"
"That's correct," she replied, hoping he wouldn't ask about the nights spent on Bain Felix. The child of Oberon had returned and was tapping impatiently on the pane of glass, pointing to a brightly colored parasol across the road with an ice cream cart beneath it.
"Exactly as I suspected," Xanatos chuckled, "And now I suppose you are all entrapped in a quest, which you must continue until Avalon allows you to return?"
"Not if I can help it," she grumbled, opening the door a crack so the squirming boy could stick his head in.
"Did he answer?" the young fairy asked excitedly and she nodded while shushing him away.
"Ask him for some money!" he ordered impatiently, eyeing up the tempting images of frozen treats on ice cream cart.
"Be still!" she scolded under her breath.
"Who is that?" Xanatos demanded suspiciously and the boy's eyes widened as he giggled at the sound of the man's voice over the phone.
"Oh, it's just a friend I've made," she replied, then she held out the phone to the boy and said sarcastically, "Do you wish to say 'hello?'" He shook his head emphatically and his eyes got wider as he backed away until he had pressed himself into the corner of the cramped box.
"I can have someone there to fetch you in a matter of hours," Xanatos explained, "If you are ready to come home."
"Well, I…" she stammered, thinking of what Goliath had said about their purpose as well as what the young fairy had told her about her quest not yet being fulfilled.
"I'm not sure," she admitted reluctantly.
"Your daughter wishes to speak to you," he told her.
"Angela?" she asked, realizing that dawn was still hours away on the other side of the sea, "Please put her on."
"All right," he replied sarcastically, "But make it snappy. This call isn't cheap!"
"Mother?" Angela greeted anxiously, "Are you alright? Where have you been?"
"I'm alright. I've been on Avalon. I would have told you, but there wasn't time. Your father and Lexington are with me here in Scotland now. And guess who else is with us? Your sister, Ophelia, who wants to return with us to New York. I hoped that would please you a bit?"
"Oh, Mother," she replied forlornly, "Please come home quickly! We've been worried sick about all of you, and I've needed you especially. I'll be delivering my first egg soon."
"How wonderful!" Demona replied happily, but Angela sounded worried.
"You promised you would help me," she reminded her.
"I know," she replied, "I want so much to be there with you. It can't be too much longer. But Goliath says we must finish out our quest and allow Avalon to take us where it will, and as much as I don't care to admit it, I think he may be right."
"Yes," she relented, but added hopefully, "Surely, before my time comes, you'll return to us. Avalon must know that where you most need to be is right here!"
They talked for a few more minutes, until Angela became so tired she had to excuse herself. Demona's eyes brimmed with tears at her daughter's farewell, until finally, the receiver was returned to Xanatos.
"So," he demanded, getting to the point of the matter, "Should I send an aircraft for you?" Demona looked at the boy, who had become solemn-faced as he shook his head 'no'.
"Not yet," she replied and she could almost see Xanatos' face as he sighed on the other side of the line.
"Very well," he replied, "But know that I am watching you and I still have control of your implants as long as you are anywhere in our world. If you get into any trouble, I'll not hesitate to bring you home whether you like it or not!" She bristled at his insolence, and was about to argue but she caught sight of the boy's face, again fixated on the ice cream cart outside and she suddenly thought of a change of subject.
"Send me some money," she ordered without politeness or formality.
"Money?" he replied in a mocking tone, "This call alone is costing me two pounds a minute! Now you want more money?"
"My friend wants some ice cream," she explained, "And it isn't as if you don't have it."
"What friend is this?" he demanded.
"Why Xanatos, I thought you were the Sultan of Surveillance . You tell me!"
She could hear him grumbling in the background as his voice was overtaken by a chorus of keyboard clicks.
"There's a small roadside park across the road from you, with the ruins of an old church in it," he directed, "Go and wait there."
The line clicked and went to the dial tone.
Intrigued, she invited the child of Oberon to accompany her to the park. There were a few children in the playground there, who didn't even look up as they passed, though Demona noticed that the young fairy eyed them with longing.
"Do you wish to play with them?" she asked.
"No," he replied nonchalantly, but his attention remained on the game they were enjoying, which he watched with fascination.
"You said you could shapeshift and make yourself look more like a mortal child."
"I could. But I think I'll just wait here with you."
Demona felt a bit sad for the halfling boy. She reckoned it was difficult to live between two worlds, never belonging completely to either of them. In a sense, it was similar to the way she felt about the clan. She knew she could never fully be one of them again, but at the same time, how could she ever be whole anywhere else? It got her to think again of who the young halfling was and what his name might be.
"What did you see that had you so frightened, when you looked at my fate before?" she asked him.
"I'm not frightened," he argued.
"You looked and sounded pretty terrified," she replied.
"Well, I'm not," he explained arrogantly, "Fate readings are only what might happen, not what must happen, and my father says that a person can make their own fate."
"Oh really?" she replied, raising a brow at his haughty attitude.
"Really," he insisted, "I know what I'm doing and I've got friends to help me. I've got it all under control."
She chuckled at the childish confidence beaming from his face.
"You remind me of someone," she told him.
"Do I?" he asked with a wide-eyed smile, "Who?"
"Another boy I knew, a fair bit older than you, but just as arrogant. He believed he could do anything he wanted, that nothing could stop him, that he was completely invincible, and that he would live forever."
"What happened to him?" he asked in amazement.
She considered the question for a moment before admitting, "All manner of wonderful things."
"Like what?" he urged, now fully engaged in the story.
"Well, he became rich and powerful. He made all of his dreams come true. He found love and happiness." She paused, thinking.
"And then what happened?" he asked.
"That's it," she told him.
"Nothing ever happened to teach him his lesson?" he asked. The very idea that someone like that could have the audacity to end up happily every after seemed to cause him great scandal.
"Nothing. He's still rich, powerful, beloved, and invincible."
"No one's ever told me a story like that before," he informed her, as if questioning the appropriateness of it.
"Well, that's the way things work out sometimes, in the real world," she explained, starting to feel a little less confident herself about her anticlimactic tale and its lack of a good moral. They settled into silence, waiting to hear word from the arrogant millionaire thousands of miles across the sea.
"It's actually the best story I ever heard!" he declared quietly, after a while.
A moment later, the ice cream trolley made its way into the park, driven by a man on a bicycle who announced its arrival with a loud, bright horn which caused the children in the playground to jump up and race to their mothers, begging for pocket money.
The child of Oberon approached the cart as well, examining the photos of several brightly colored swirls of soft serve ice cream on cones.
"Mornin, laddie," greeted a man in a white jacket and gray cap, "Have you seen a red-haired lady in the park today? She should be dressed a wee bit strange."
"Yes," he replied, looking a bit confused as he pointed over his shoulder at the red-haired woman in a loin cloth, seated on the bench directly behind him. The man looked even more confused as he peered over the bench at the playing field beyond.
"Where?" he asked and the boy looked over his shoulder at Demona, motioning for her to remove the magical hood that kept her invisible to mortals. She did, and rose quickly and the man stuttered,
"Oh, sorry, Love! I didn't see you there." He opened the basket on the back of his bicycle, and pulled out a manila envelope.
"I'm meant to give this to you," he said, handing her the envelope. She took it and, turning away toward the young one, she opened it to reveal a thousand pounds in notes.
"Would you look at that! Xanatos really does us taken care of," she declared, clearly impressed by the man's quick turnaround, "You know what that means."
"Now we can buy ice cream!" the boy cheered.
"Yes," she agreed, "But it also means he's watching every move we make, and, what's more, he has agents all over the world who will do his bidding for the right price. We'd best be careful."
Xanatos hadn't mentioned tracing her to Bain Felix when they'd spoken on the phone, and she hoped it meant that he hadn't done so. If he knew of the coordinates of the hidden island, his life was in danger if he ever revealed that knowledge. Still, she didn't know how to press such information out of him without risking giving him more than he might already have.
As they sat together on the bench, and the boy finished his ice cream, a man in an unseasonably long coat passed them. Despite his strange attire, they wouldn't have noticed him, except for the guiding wand which began to hum and spark again even from where Demona had secured it in her belt.
"Shhh!" she scolded it, not wishing to call attention to themselves.
"It wants us to follow that man," he told her, stuffing the last of the sugar cone into his mouth, "Come on!"