Rachel and Kirsty looked at the worried fairy glaring up at them, he had gone almost as pale as he was before he'd eaten they food they'd brought. They looked at each other.
"Jean said it was about reflections of the nature of things, and Laura and Strange told us to look for balance, and Morse explained to look for all the fairies in places that reflect and balance them, their likes and things," Rachel explained.
"So we looked in the big city, at all the rowing clubs, and up and down the river," continued Kirsty.
"We even asked Kirsty's Mum to take us to the big music shop on The Broad."
"But no luck," concluded Kirsty sadly.
"You did well girls, James does love to row and he plays the guitar and piano beautifully. If he'd have been a lass he would probably have graduated from school as a Music Fairy. What about here? In your village?"
"We were going to go to the music shop and rowing club here, today, but then we saw on the news about the murder, so we thought a crime scene was an even more likely place," Rachel said, defensively.
"We thought we might find both of you together."
"Oh no," Robbie said sadly, shaking his head, "those goblins are wicked. They took great pleasure in separating us. They knew about the wedding, you see."
"What wedding?" the girls asked together.
"Ours."
The girls looked down at the angry older fairy. They had seen on the news that gay people could now get married. They hadn't thought about fairies getting married at all, straight or gay! But that was probably because most of the fairies they'd met were girls who seemed only a few years older than them, but since they were magical they might have been hundreds of years old, really.
Robbie obviously mistook their looks of confusion, as he snapped, "James and I, we were supposed to be married this Saturday."
Kirsty and Rachel glanced at each other before looking down again; guessing at how awful the little male fairy must be feeling. No wonder to Robbie nothing else mattered other than finding James.
"That's so sad!" Kirsty said.
"Then we need to find him!" Rachel said firmly. "But where shall we try? Rowing club or music shop? And what do we do if he's not at either!"
"Let's not think about that until it happens!" Robbie said, flying up out of the Wendy House. Leaving the biscuit tin behind, the girls climbed out and stood up. The rain was now falling in a fine mist that wetted them right through and made everything a foggy blur. There was not one other person left in the park.
Kirsty looked at her watch. "Look at the time!" she wailed. "My Mum will be getting worried, and if she does she might phone my uncle and he'll tell her he saw us and what we said!"
Rachel grabbed Kirsty's wrist and looked at her watch too, "Never mind that, the music shop will be closing soon, and then it won't open until Monday, after I've gone home!"
"It'll be quicker if we fly then," Robbie said decisively, and with a smooth action, he pulled out his wand from inside a little brown leather holster he wore under his jacket and with a flick of a wrist, the girls were showered in sparkling little footballs and cricket balls, and felt themselves yet again shrink down to fairy size, their wings growing as they did so. As soon as they were both fairy sized, the girls took to the air, with Kirsty leading the way, the three of them flew to the music shop on the village's little High Street.
The shop was in-between the bakery and a charity shop for the local hospice, with an old-fashioned front with a smallish bay window displaying guitars and violins and sheet music. They flew in the door as it opened with a jingle of the bell that hung over the top of the door. Two teenaged boys in baggy jeans worn too low and beanies balanced precariously on the back of their floppy hair cuts were going into the shop, and they flew in right over the boys' heads, unnoticed. Robbie led them to the back of the shop and pointed to the floor in the corner, tucked behind an upright piano and a double bass,
"It's be quicker if you're full sized," he said. "I'll fly around the top shelves you can't see, you girls take a side of the shop each," and with that he waved his wand and the girls felt themselves grow back to their normal size, quickly flying down to the dirty brown carpet before they lost their wings.
The shop was tiny, over-crowded, and dimly lit. Only the owner, a man with straggling, thinning on top, long, grey, hair and a neatly trimmed goatee beard and the two skater boys were in the shop. He looked up, startled, when the girls emerged from behind the instruments.
"Oh!" Kirsty said, trying not to look as startled as he. She glanced at her friend.
"I came to get some new viola strings," Rachel said, sliding her hand into her jeans pocket and fingering the little money left over from the spending money her Mum had given her for half-term.
Kirsty realised Rachel's panic and pulled out the three five pound notes they had earned at the golf course from her own pocket. "My treat, remember Rachel, and I need a new guitar pick. I'll just look over here..." She wandered to the opposite side of the shop to the counter, to a wall of guitars of all types, glancing up at Robbie as he was systematically circling the shop shelves and displays. On the floor was a big box of reduced sheet music and another, smaller one, of brightly coloured plectrums. As she squatted she heard Rachel ask if she might look around at the lovely instruments and the man turned back to the two skater boys and began to talk about some band she hadn't heard of.
Rachel took the other side of the shop, displaying few second hand classical instruments and a notice board full of handwritten notes advertising tutors and classes and requests for a drummer or a singer, plus a big County Music sign about free classes and opportunities through school to join a brass band and a musical theatre group. Various strings for all sorts of instruments in plastic packets were scattered about shelves, as were various brass and wind accoutrements, plus a pizza box and sandwich wrappers on the floor, a jam jar with pens and drumsticks and another with half dead bluebells and tiny white flowers her Mum called 'shirt buttons' that grew in the woods about the same time as the bluebells. She gasped, clamping her hand on her mouth, as she saw another jar, this one slightly bigger, an old coffee jar, with a screw lid, lying on its side behind a stack of dusty music sheets. She looked up, hurriedly, a bit panicked, but the shop owner was busy lifting down a black electric guitar for the boy in the grey beanie.
Kirsty saw her look and came over, looking up at Robbie as she did so, pointing at Rachel. She had a pink pick in her hand, for the excuse,
"Do you like this one?" she asked as she came up to Rachel, but it turned out they needed no distraction. The boy sat down on a stool the owner gave him and was plucking out a gentle rift, far mellower than the girls would have expected. His friend began to sing in a beautiful baritone.
"Talented kids," Robbie said as he fluttered down to land on the shelf in front of Rachel. Kirsty came up and stood next to her. Rachel pointed at the coffee jar at the back, pressed to the wall, almost completely hidden by shadow. The slightest of movement and colour had caught Rachel's eye.
The three of them looked into the grey shadows. Kirsty gasped and Robbie grinned as they saw the littlest of a flutter of purple.
"Are they wings?" Rachel whispered.
Robbie stepped forward, stumbling then flying over the papers and packets of strings and dust, landing gracefully down in front of the coffee jar. He put his hand on it and knocked on the glass with his tiny fist.
"Girls," he called, sounding worried.
"Yes?" Kirsty whispered back, while Rachel gave a glance to the teenagers and the shopkeeper. They were discussing chords and lyrics and paid the girls no attention.
"Can you open the top, he seems to be unconscious. I can't wake him and I can't shift the lid, even with magic. Jack Frost must have cast a sealing spell!"
Rachel reached up, standing on tiptoe and picked it up. She gasped as she bought the jar into the light. James had short golden hair and the most beautiful lilac wings, which were fluttering slightly, as he slept. At last she hoped he was asleep. In his arms he hugged a tiny acoustic guitar of honey blond wood.
Robbie flew around it frantically, still banging on the glass, calling out, "James, James!"
Kirsty carefully took the jar from Rachel and twisted the lid. It came away easily to her, but she supposed such spells had no effect on a human. As soon as the lid was off, Robbie flew in and touched James face, and shook his shoulder,
"James! James! Wake up!"
Kirsty looked at Rachel, biting her lip with worry. "We have to get out of here before they finish their music talks," she said.
Rachel nodded, "Quick, put the jar in my bag," she said, opening it. Kirsty slid the jar with both fairies inside very carefully; squashing the snacks Rachel had packed that morning, in case they found a fairy that, like Strange, had not been fed by goblins for days. It had been a good job, too, as poor Robbie had been famished.
Rachel closed the bag and handed Kirsty the packet of viola strings. "You said you'd treat me," she said, "I'll wait by the door."
Hurriedly, Kirsty went to the counter. The owner looked up from talking to the two boys, "Have you chosen love?"
"I'd like this one, please, and the strings are for my friend."
"Violin?" asked the boy in the grey beanie.
"Viola," Rachel called from the door.
"And you play the guitar?"
Kirsty nodded, holding out the money to the man.
"Shame you're both so little, we could make a band together."
Kirsty felt herself blush and also felt, rather than saw, her best friend, scowl at her.
"I don't mean to be rude," Rachel called, "but my friend's Mum wanted us back ages ago."
"Of course, off you pop," the show owner said, giving Kirsty the pink guitar pick and viola strings in a candy striped paper bag, along with her change. She mumbled her thanks, and with a little glance to the teenagers, rushed to the door that Rachel held open. It shut behind them with a clang.
Robbie lifted the bag flap and flew out. "He's stirring a little. If you could put some of that water in the thimble for me..." he looked sick with worry. "I don't think he's eaten since we've were taken out of the station by that - Jack Frost's henchmen!"
"We must get somewhere private, and quickly then," Kirsty said firmly.
"I can't make you wee, we'll never manage the jar, and I'm not flying carrying the lad over my shoulder, I tried that once, did me back in for days. No fairy magic would fix it, laid up, bored out of my brains..."
Kirsty and Rachel looked at the older male fairy curiously.
"What? I'm babbling, I know, but I'm worried..."
"In here," Rachel said, seeing the bakery was still open. It was also a little teashop.
They went in, but the owner, a friend of Kirsty's mother, came out from the back,
"There you are Kirsty, I've just had your Mum on the phone, wondering if you were here. She said you've been gone all day, and what with that torrential rain..."
"We got caught in it, and had to sit in the Wendy House under the climbing frame at the park. We just made a dash here Mrs Gregg. Can we have two lemonades and two iced buns please?"
"Right you are dear. But I'll just let your Mum know you're safe, okay. Sit yourself down."
The girls rushed over to the darkest, furthest corner of the cafe section and, as soon as Mrs Gregg put down two glasses of home-made lemonade and two plates with pink, sticky, iced buns and left them to go out back, carefully Rachel pulled out the coffee jar, while Robbie fluttered around her head, anxiously. She laid it carefully on to the red and white gingham checked tablecloth, gently taking of the lid. Robbie immediately crawled inside and gently stroked James' face, then not so gently, shook his shoulder,
"James! James! Wake up! Are you alright? Tell me you're alright?"
On the third shake of his shoulders, James's eyelids fluttered open, "Is there an earthquake? Oh! Robbie! Did they put you in here? Am I dreaming?"
He sat up and shook his head and his wings, stretching his arms above his head. "I feel so dizzy. And hungry."
"You're dizzy because you're hungry. Come out. The girls have some food."
"Out?" James still sounded half asleep and mystified. But he followed Robbie out of the jar, standing up and stretching, before looking up at the two human girls, looking down at him and his fiancé. He was very tall and thin, dressed in a pale grey suit with a lavender shirt and dark purple skinny tie and two-tone pointed black and brown shoes.
"Thank you so much. You must be Rachel and Kirsty who have so wonderfully assisted their Majesties and the girls." He frowned and looked worried, biting at his lip, then bringing his fingers to his mouth and biting at the side of his thumbnail. Rachel noticed that he wasn't quite so beautiful as she first had thought, his face was too long, and his ears stuck out. But his wings, now out of the distorting glass jar, were a beautiful iridescent pale purple, catching the fading evening light as it shone through the bakery window. "But the station... everyone else...?" James asked, looking at the girls, then at Robbie.
Robbie put his hand on James' arm. There were instant sparkles that leapt from both fairies, white, purple and pink surrounding them for a moment. "You're the last one pet. The girls have found the station and everyone else, including the retired officers. Jack Frost took them from the retirement home."
"The..." James glanced at the girls. "Wicked, nasty... Are they okay?"
Robbie looked at the girls, who nodded. Kirsty carefully broke a corner off her iced bun and held it gently in the tips of her forefinger and thumb to James, who took it gratefully, sitting down. Rachel fetched the thimble from her bag and poured a measure of lemonade and gave it to him.
"We can go home," he said after a while of eating and drinking. "The girls must come too, their Majesties will have a reward, and they must come to our..." he stopped himself and frowned. "How long have I been a prisoner in that jar? How long have I been left? I lost track of time some days ago. When I went to sleep I was so hungry I... have we missed it Robbie?"
"It is Saturday today," Kirsty told the two fairies.
"Yes, we have," Robbie sighed, sitting down next to James, and putting his arm around him. Again the girls were thrilled to see sparkles. They smiled at each other, before looking back at the two police fairies more seriously. It must be so upsetting to realise you have missed your wedding by being held captive by Jack Frost's goblins for days!
"I hate Jack Frost," he huffed angrily.
Robbie nodded, and the two fairies sat there a while, hugging each other tightly. Then James stood up and went back to the jam jar.
"James, what the...?"
"My guitar," James said sadly, coming back out of the jar holding his guitar in both hands – the neck was snapped. "The goblins. They broke it. I hate them too," he muttered sadly.
"The... wicked...!" Robbie leapt into the air and flew to James, hugging him tightly again. The girls were thrilled to see all the sparkles that surrounded them, blue this time, as well as white, purple and pink. "We'll get a you new one from Ellie."
They sat back down again, holding hands while James picked up another piece of bun. Rachel poured him another thimble of lemonade. Robbie fiddled with James' hand a while, before saying firmly,
"James, love, it's not our wedding that's the worst casualty. Whilst we CID fairies were still missing, there were more violent crimes here, with humans, than usual. Those goblins stuck me in a tin and buried me in a garden where a couple of thugs broke into the bungalow and killed a poor little old lady. I sent out my seeing eye, they were coming back every day to rob and harm another elderly person. How can we get the police to listen to us, or at least, two little human girls? Don't you fret about our wedding; we can do that any day. Put your big brain to solving that!" Then Robbie moved so fast, grasping hold of James and they flew quickly up to the ceiling, a flurry of black and white and lilac shimmering wings.
"I don't want to hurry you girls," Mrs Gregg said, coming up to their table with a tray and a cloth, "but I need to close now, and your Mum really is expecting you back, Kirsty."
Kirsty stood up, nodding, while Rachel gathered up their belongings into the bag, looking up at the fairies. While Kirsty thanked Mrs Gregg and followed her to the till to pay, Rachel held open the flap of the bag and the two police fairies flew in, James still too tired and weak to fly far.
