The Kingdom of the Fae

Chapter 6

There was something familiar about him, now that she thought about it. The Verundin theatre was really only one portal to the other realm, as Lucas put it. They were in his car, and driving toward the other one, before it too got too much attention from the Fae. The last time, the Fae had been held back by the glass windows and the house, but this time, they might not be as lucky. 

As Lucas put it, as long as Drew was in a mortal body, and she could see the Fae, she was as good as dead. 

They stopped in front of the Beads' magic shop. It seemed as if she already knew they were coming. She stood in the screen door, with a grim and quite scared expression on her face; it was very unlike her usual toothless smile. 

Drew walked in first and then Lucas. The trinkets seemed as though they had barely moved. There were shelves of old decaying spell books and grimoires and wooden display cases with all different kinds of ingerdients like "eye of newt" and "silk worm larvae". She nearly gagged when she saw the jar containing "dead man's toe".

"Hannah, do you remember me?" Lucas said to the old lady. 

She kept her distance behind the counter and simply looked at him with blank scared eyes, and then, slowly, she nodded. 

"Do you remember the deal we made?" 

 She nodded again.

"I need to use the portal. I told you one day I might need it."

She pointed with one shaking finger to the other side of the shop to a set of stairs that led to an upstairs Drew had never noticed before. But then again, she had only been in the shop once before. 

Lucas looked at Drew, "This portal will lead to the inside of the Verundin, we can go there through traditional means without being ambushed".

Drew didn't know that she wanted to open the portal so much, but what she did know that this was the only way to get all of the Fae out of her life forever. She didn't even know how she felt about Lucas. What she didn't anticipate was remembering some things that she didn't know had happened. 

She was going to follow Lucas up the stairs, when the Hannah, the old woman she had thought was Beads, grabbed her hand and with a strange and ancient voice she said, "Beware the Fae" Drew tried to nget her to let go of her hand but Hannah only pulled her closer and whispered in her ear, "but not this one so much, he is already on the verge of dying. I know it, I saw it in the mirror on the other side of the shop. You are really the only thing keeping him alive right now." Drew struggled to take in this new information, as Hannah continued, "don't let anyone know, don't let him know that you have the sight. Simply looking like the dead princess does not make you the ressurected princess" 

So she wasn't really a Fae after all. Then who had been that strange girl speaking in an ancient druid language, acting like one of the possessed, that Aunt Georgina had been talking about? That Aunt Georgina had thought was Drew?

She walked quickly to catch up with Lucas. Her footsteps didn't make a sound as she followed him because of the carpeted floor. Then she noticed again, the smell of liquor becoming stronger and stronger as they walked up. She saw an old musty attic room with a small bed on the side and a large mirror on the other side. The glass in the mirror seemed to ripple like water. When Lucas appeared in the mirror, he seemed so faded, but when Drew saw herself holding onto his hand, his reflection lit up again. She felt guilty for offering him false condolence. 

He was going to pass through when the Red Caps came. The smell of liquor became over powering. Someone crashed a glass bottle over her head and after the initial shock, she collapsed to the ground and through eyelids that she could barely keep open she saw the strange faces and bright red hair of the Fae that had knocked her out. She could see Lucas attacking them, his irises were white and he could freeze three at a time and turn them into snow. Drew became even more afraid of what Fae were capable of. More and more Red Caps came out of the portal. 

"Lucas" Drew yelled, worried.

She tried to crawl closer but felt a blow to her face again. Apparently, they had only come for her, "the key". While Lucas was busy fighting, two had lifted her by the arms and glimmered back through the portal...into darkness.