8.23 The Pooka’s Wife
“It’s coming closer!” I screamed, which popped Ben’s head out of the coach again. “Daniel, you many have to scare the varmint away,” Ben said. Meanwhile, one of the werewolves came loping over. He growled at the dragon, but didn’t do anything more. The other wolf, Bob, I think, based on the darker color of his coat, leaped at the dragon. Timothy edged back and away, side-stepping carefully in a way that still allowed me to keep my seat on his back, but the dragon dodged both wolves and despite Timothy’s retreat, surged closer. I suddenly felt a wetness on my arm, a wetness that spread even through the long-sleeved cloth of the gown’s sleeves. “Dragons aren’t poisonous, are they?” I asked. “This one just licked me, I think.” The coach with the queen came to a complete, but the soldiers following the queen’s vehicle kept right on coming. In a moment they had surrounded us with their frankly rank-smelling soldier bodies. Swords and knives were out. Attack mode was in the soldiers’ eyes and postures. “Help!” I shrieked, feeling panicked more from the battle-eager troops than from the slimy-tongued creature on the ground beside me. I guess the dragon was feeling a little worried, too, because he bleated loudly, then fluttered his wings once and flew upward, landing on my lap. Before I could push him away, his head lay crushed against my breast, his eyes had shut, and like a small, terrified child he was shaking. I should have felt even more panic from a strange beast having climbed into my lap, but the dragon was clinging timidly and issuing sad, little sobbing sounds. “Back away, everyone,” I yelled. “You’re frightening him.” The soldiers backed. The wolves stopped growling, and Timothy, my pooka husband, froze mid-prance. I started petting the small dragon, trying to soothe him with babytalk like I would a clingy child, one desperate for reassurance in an alarmingly frightening world. Once again, the dragon’s tongue lapped at my sleeve, then he turned suddenly and gave me a kiss on my cheek. It was startling, but not slurpy. I wanted to wipe any moisture away, but I merely cooed louder. Daniel’s bird fluttered off the pooka and landed beside me, changing shape before my eyes. Back in his human pose, he said, “He means you no harm, Penelope.” Although Daniel occasionally entered my mind to communicate something, it was far different than Timothy’s interior voice. This time, Daniel, knowing how I felt about such intrusions simply spoke out loud. The thunderbird/thundergod took a step closer to me, then reached out to touch the dragon’s silvery tail. “He is lost, Penelope, separated from his mother. He thinks you will help him find her,” Daniel said. “Can you toss him down?” Timothy asked, using mind-speech since he was still in his pooka form. The dragon’s claws were sharp as barbed wire, but he was being careful not to hurt me. The suggestion of releasing those claws from the material of my dress and doing what Timothy suggested, I instantly rejected. No one could hurl off a frightened baby. The little one needed me. Besides, we had to find his mother. Daniel had said the dragon was lost. Queen Moragana was peering out at me through the window of her fancy coach. “The dragon has bonded with you, Penelope. Obviously, you no longer need to find his mother. You are his mother.”
8.22 The Pooka’s Wife
Penelope: I suppose I sounded like a brat wanting to rush back to the ship, I told myself. I was with my husband and friends (Although, I must admit that Timothy didn’t like me to call them that. He preferred that I refer to Bob, Terry, Daniel, and Ben as: the team or the crew. But really, the men were more than that; they really were my friends.) Anyway, I was sitting atop my husband who’s a pooka. He looks like an obsidian-black and well-muscled stallion. Of course, since he’s my husband, Timothy doesn’t prance around and try to run away with me like a horse might, because my husband knows that I’m not a good rider. We were just walking. As we treaded down the loveliest path you’ve ever seen with tall redwood trees intermixed, strangely, with full-leaved trees that could be willow or oak or some mixture, but all of them busy reaching to the sky in foresty dimensions, I kept asking myself how this was all possible. Easy. We were plodding along beside a fancy carriage with two queens inside, and the path of our travel was in Faeryland, so I guess one should expect to see yellow daisies beside pink carnations, purple roses, African violets, and a colorful mixture of flowers I’d never seen before and would have trouble even guessing what family they belonged in. I’d also seen furry little creatures with squirrel tales, rabbit ears, and spots of green. It was a whole different world, and as I said, most people would be delighted to visit here. I kept repeating that in my mind, but splotches of fear kept getting in the way. I was honestly afraid of the Fae and their rules and regulations, and scared to death that my babble-mouth or muteness (It goes both ways.) would make me say or do something wrong, and then I’d be sentenced to an ugly cell dungeon cell or at least a long sentence of servitude in Faeryland. So, even though I kept telling myself how lucky I was to see all this . . . Oh, my. “What was that?” I screamed. A small gray creature, well, mostly gray, just decided to pop onto the path. He had an alligator mouth with teeth as sharp as a shark. Timothy, my husband, who has the ability to link minds with me, told me not to be frightened by the creature’s teeth. He added: It’s only a young dragon. “A dragon!” I yelled out, causing Ben, who was currently inside the carriage with the two queens, to poke his head through the open window and peer out at me. “That dragon will not harm you,” Ben said to reassure me, but at that moment a huge bird flapped down to land on Timothy’s neck. I wanted to jump off the pooka and run, but I didn’t, because Ben called out, “It’s only Daniel, Penelope.” As I said, it was a strange world I’d found myself in. I remembered when my life was no more weird than choosing which café to get lunch at or listening to the other secretaries tell me about their encounters in the dating world. And now . . . The bird, or Daniel as he was called in the human world, stroked my fingers with its/his beak. I think that was supposed to be reassurance. I liked Daniel, but his claws were gripping Timothy’s mane, and they looked fully capable of rending flesh. His beak was pointier than a can opener. Darling, nothing and no one will hurt you with us nearby. And the queen will make sure of that as well. Calm yourself. Your heart is beating a tom-tom of rapidity. Easy for Timothy to say, except, perhaps he couldn’t see that the dragon on my right side had just grown a couple of feet taller and was inching closer.
8.21 The Pooka’s Wife
Terry: This whole place was giving me the creeps. We had found Penelope, so I didn’t understand why we didn’t just reverse the magic that had gotten us here, and take off before any of this: forced to go to the queen’s court business. I respected my boss. He’d never steer us wrong. I just didn’t understand the Fae babble about it all. But, when Timothy told us to head outside, change our shape, and run alongside him, I resigned myself to future days stuck in Faeryland. Too bad because the cruise ship had better food, a swimming pool, and quality beds. Plus, we got to see a real cool show. I wouldn’t mind seeing several more of those. I’d read that there was a magic show scheduled. Not the real magic stuff like the Fae practiced, which was scary bad, but the fake kind where little, white rabbits hid inside stove-pipe hats. But Bob and I didn’t call the shots. We waited until all the soldiers and the two queens came outside. Penelope was in Timothy’s arms, where she should be. Daniel had already turned into some kind of bird, a falcon, I think, although it was bigger than most of its kind. I had no idea what Ben would do. He didn’t have a second shape. Ah. I head the queen inviting/commanding him to sit inside the royal carriage. That solved one problem. I glanced at Bob. He was still munching on something, doing his chipmunk imitation, which, of course, wasn’t his real animal. He was a wolf, like me. The two of us eyed the royals and Ben, then watched the soldiers with their four captives. Apparently, those guys would be footing it. Tough luck on them, but maybe jogging for miles was part of their training. I was just wondering if Timothy was going to tell Bob and me to change our shape when I saw Timothy gently push his wife to the side, then right in front of us, he rippled into a huge black monster of a horse. If a person had an eye for horseflesh, I bet they’d salivate over Timothy. He made a very fine-looking horse, I mean, pooka. I was wondering how Penelope was supposed to climb up onto the pooka’s back, but Bob went rushing over. “Let me help,” Bob called out. I wasn’t sure Timothy would go for that, but since the pooka was in his horse form, I guess he couldn’t protest. Anyway. Bob lifted up Penelope, placed her on her husband’s back, and that was that. Last of all were the two of us. Seeing as how everyone was waiting then for us, a minute later, Bob and I did our thing. With my wolfy tongue dangling down in eagerness, we set out at a full run, Bob and I, not minding a quick jaunt through the forest, we started our journey toward the queen’s court.
8.20 The Pooka’s Wife
Timothy: Ben knew Queen Moragana best, I supposed. When Andrew and I had stayed at Court, we’d been very young and very stupid. All of remembered of the queen, to be honest, is that she chased me around, trying to get me into her bed. The funny thing is that the other young nobles would have readily volunteered for that position and would have thoroughly enjoyed her attentions, but that kind of relationship was not for me. Once the queen had informed me that she and I were related, any bed play was an obvious no for me. And then there were the things my dad had said about the oddities of Faeryland. I’d thought at the time that the stories he’d told us were pure fantasy, something he’d made up. Andrew and I used to laugh, in fact. But Faeryland was real, and so were the many regulations, the court jockeying for positions, the back stabbings, the trickery, and all the deceits. Court was not a place I’d ever wanted to return to, but it seemed inevitable now. With Penelope bound to the kingdom for a while, so was I. At the moment, it was making me uneasy that Ben had cozied up to Penelope. I trusted her completely, and I think that Ben was a good sort, but he was Fae. I was reminded that he belonged firstly to the queen. That would make me weary of him from now on. Still, Ben did seem to have a calming influence, almost as much as Daniel always did. I supposed, in a way, that Penelope benefited from the whole crew of guards. Each one offered her something that I couldn’t. As if my wife felt my thoughts at that moment, she reached out to me, taking my hand in hers. My fingers, used to holding swords in the olden days, lifting up bails of hay or boulders on the days of the Wild West, and even lately with my hefting paintings about, must feel rough against her delicate hands. Many men in my class would spend time getting manicures and smoothing out their hard-earned calluses, but I never found the time for such things, even if I’d believed it worthwhile. My wife never seemed to mind, however. Her fingers were massaging mine, calming me as I longed to provide her with an equal portion of soothing for having endured this whole kidnapping misadventure. “Prince Cadarone, your wife is fine. She has completely recovered from her misfortune at Queen Beatrice’s abduction. Besides, one can only go forward, never back. What is done is done.” One of the most irritating things of being near a Fae queen is that they sensed your thoughts and then often responded with trite sayings. But instead of addressing my feelings about that, I asked, “Is there a carriage to take us back to Court, Your Majesty?” The queen laughed. “Why should Penelope need that when your young wife has her very own Pooka to ride.”
8.19 The Pooka’s Wife
“Don’t you want to be magical?” Queen Moragana asked. I laughed then glanced about the room. Even the soldiers’ eyes were focused on me, as if this were a crucial moment in time. “We are what we are,” I responded, treating the subject lightly as if it were unimportant, but what was I supposed to say, that I wanted to become Fae? I presumed that the Fae were born as Fae, not changed by a potion or created by some Fae Queen’s mumbo jumbo recitation. “Do not be impertinent,” the queen reacted in a voice raised into a higher octave. She sniffed into a scented hankie as if I’d insulted her. I felt Timothy fidget in the chair beside me, which meant that I was on the borderline of queenly anger. I sighed and restrained my aggravation. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to be impertinent. It’s only that I don’t have all the wonderful powers that you and your Fae court have. I can’t do the magnificent things that Timothy can either. Humans are totally without such benefits.” Queen Moragana shook her head, then flashed a searching look at Timothy. “Prince Cadarone, haven’t you explained any of this to the girl?” she thundered, so loudly that I quivered with regret for my big mouth, which had apparently provoked her. But before Timothy could get a word in, the queen continued. “You, Pe ne lop ee are going to acquire powers. I have seen it. You married a Pooka who is Fae, a prince of the Fae. Of course you will become High Born. It is the law, and in Faery, that means you must acquaint yourself with your abilities, whether you want them or not.” With that said, Queen Moragana went back to her eating, munching on a baked apple as if she’d saved the best for last. It was a good thing I wasn’t being called on to say anything more because I’d been completely tongue-tied by astonishment. I didn’t look at Timothy or any of the people around me. I just picked up the scone I’d been nibbling on and took another bite. Ben came over, moving his chair to sit beside me. Then he plopped down and with his puppy eyes of kindness, said, “The queen likes you, Penelope. I’ve never heard her lecture anyone so severely. That is not her habit. Most people she merely avoids speaking to.” I wanted to say that I wished she had avoided me, but I was pretty sure that she was listening to Ben’s words. Sometimes, silence really is the best response.
8.18 The Pooka’s Wife
I was almost feeling sick to my stomach for not having eaten in so long. I think they call that low blood sugar, but maybe it was just starvation setting in. However, I still wasn’t planning to eat anything if doing so would keep me longer in this strange place. I wanted to GO HOME, or rather back to the ship. But then the queen and Timothy both assured me that I could eat without being required to spend more time in Faeryland. That was super good news. I dived into a plate of scones. These had apricot bits inside them, not pomegranate seeds, which I found somewhat relieving. Next, on the plate that Timothy handed me, he’d placed a baked apple, a piece of the roasted pig, I mean, pork, and a pile of mashed pumpkin. I picked up a fork and tasted the pumpkin. Oh, my. Delicious. Someone had prepared it with whipped cream and orange peel. The dish was sweet, I think, from honey drippings, and it made me wish I could eat nothing but pumpkin. Especially not the pig! When the pumpkin was gone, I tasted the apple. Yummy. Stuffed with cinnamon and something sweetly caramelized. In between my samplings of these things, I finished off my apricot scone. Timothy brought me another when he saw me glancing back at the table with, I suppose, a look of longing. We were sitting in chairs formed into a circle, but I could have gotten up and gotten my own scone. I told him that, but he just smiled at me. Out team of guards were also eating. No chairs for them, but it didn’t seem to bother them. They and some of the soldiers had just plopped down on the floor and were holding their plates in their laps, enjoying the food as much as I was. Bob, especially, because I saw that he had a stack of scones piled on his plate. Terry had loaded his plate with sliced pork. His personal mountain lay like slabs of concrete. Daniel was also enjoying his feast, but Ben wasn’t part of the floor crowd. I glanced about and finally saw him catering to Queen Beatrice. He’d delivered her a plate filled with goodies, and she was eating like she was starved, although I’d seen her munching on the breakfast spread earlier. “All right, Ben. Go serve yourself,” Queen Moragana said, and Ben jumped up and headed to the table. So, had that been his punishment, to have to serve the Kidnap Queen as well as being forced to wait for his own meal? “What magic can you do, Penelope?” Queen Moragana suddenly asked me. I’d just taken a bite of Mr. Piggy and almost choked on it. “Magic? I’m just a human. Your Majesty,” I said, when my coughing finally stopped and I could speak again.
8.17 The Pooka’s Wife
8.17 Penelope: I was worried about what was going on with poor Ben, teetering on the cliff between his friendship with Timothy (and possibly me) and in front of an irate Queen Moragana. The latter looked like she was giving Ben what for concerning the fact that Timothy and the crew had all disobeyed direct orders. I wanted to intercede, but what if something I said made it worse? I tugged at Timothy’s arm and whispered, “Can’t we help Ben?” Timothy hadn’t seem overly concerned about the situation with his head chef and friend, but he looked down at me and nodded briefly. “Queen Moragana, is the food now safe for Penelope to eat?” Timothy suddenly interjected into the very loud dressing-down currently taking place. That brought the queen’s eyes over to us. But instead of responding to Timothy’s question, she stared at me, not even glancing at my husband “Lord Stauff is your friend?” she asked me. Of course I had no idea who that was until Timothy whispered, “She means Ben.” “Oh, yes. Ben, Lord Stauff. . . Wow, he’s a lord!” I shouted out. “Is that like in: ten lords a leaping?” Everyone in the room stared at me with blank faces, even Timothy. I guess the next time I was forced to entertain, I’d need to introduce the Twelve Days of Christmas song to everyone. But the queen was still waiting for a response that made sense, so I replied: “Absolutely! All these guys are my best of friends. That’s Bob, Terry, Daniel, and Ben, or Lord Stauff, as you call him.” I pointed out each of them as I named them so the queen would know who was who, as well as giving her a ready answer, even though I really didn’t understand her line of questioning. “So, you think that these males should be praised for entering Faery when ordered not to,” she taunted me as if she were an attorney just waiting for me to fall into her trap. Timothy, knowing me as he did, squeezed my hand, which was supposed to mean: don’t antagonize the queen. I noticed that that my husband wasn’t saying anything in mind-speech. Was that because the queen could hear his thoughts when he did, which produced another of a thousand questions I needed to ask. I shuffled the query into my brain box for later. “I think, Your Royal Queenship,” I said, forgetting how the others had addressed her. Was that title sufficient? “I think that friends will push against all rules to assist those they care about. Isn’t that the nature of friendship, that we help each other?” The queen’s eyes continued to pierce mine. Did she have x-ray vision or something? I was just about to add something else to my argument when she let out a hump sound, then clapped her hands together once. “Let’s eat,” she said.
8.16 The Pooka’s Wife
Bob: All this Faery stuff was dumb. Telling us we couldn’t eat. I had a pocketful of these scone things, and I’d already eaten several. I felt just fine. No poison in them. No faery dust that I could taste. Besides, I wasn’t human like Penelope. I was a werewolf. We didn’t get sick. Terry kept eyeing me as I continued to munch on the sort of sweet biscuit things. They had some kind of fruit in them. Red dots. Probably raisins. There were probably red grapes. Terry didn’t like bread stuff. He was always worrying about not getting what the humans at our gym called love handles. I kept assuring him that we wolves didn’t get fat. We ran through the forest at night. And we ate meat. Meat couldn’t make you fat. These bread things were pretty good. I liked cookies and pastries. Were these pastries? It was too bad they took the platter of them away. I grabbed as many as I could get, filling both pockets, but I didn’t want to act greedy. Strange how the mean queen said we shouldn’t have eaten the Faery food. Blah. That was just superstition. Probably the Faeries just wanted folks to be scared of Faeryland. What were we waiting for, anyway? Time to get back to the ship. We had what we came for. Except Ben was talking to that queen lady, and I think he was being scolded. Poor man. I liked the fellow. Daniel I wasn’t so sure about. He was weird, if you asked me. Terry said he was cool, but Terry was liberal about things like that. He didn’t mind if a guy talked all big words and meditation. Penelope was sure looking like something the cat dragged inside after playing in the rain. Not that she was a lizard or something, but I’d never seen her looking grubby before. Her eyes had black rims, not like some Goth kid, but from lack of sleep. Probably from being treated bad. That bad queen, the eviler of the two, ought to get mauled a bit. I’d do it, but Penelope wouldn’t like that. Neither would Timothy. He was pretty much a straight shooter now. He’d end someone, if that person deserved it, but he wasn’t big on roughness for the sake of . . . Penelope was talking to me, telling me to stop eating the scones. I didn’t want to do that, but I’d obey. Boss had told us to follow his wife’s orders whenever she gave us any. She wasn’t like that, though. She didn’t like telling us to do stuff. I liked that about her. Actually, I liked everything about her, except her telling me not to eat any more of the scones. I chewed what was in my mouth and nodded my head. Then I turned about, emptied my pockets, and stuffed the rest of them into my mouth. Okay. I’d always do what she asked. No more scones.
8.15 The Pooka’s Wife
Timothy: Of course they didn’t see how amazing Penelope was. Kidnapped, starved because she was afraid to eat Faery foods based not on something I had told her, but concerning a piece of mythology she’d learned in school . . . Here she stood, withstanding criticism, threats, and drawn battlelines with two queens fussing at her, belittling her, and Queen Beatrice having forced her to be the entertainment of the day. My poor wife must have been scared and lonely in her captivity. Penelope deserved praise and consideration, loving tenderness. Not this … this catastrophe. The whole scene enraged me. Yet, even worse was the realization that I was the cause of this turmoil, this horror. If Penelope had not married me, none of this would have happened to her. Queen Moragana would never understand my anger. She would assume that a human could not feel as deeply as a Fae. The rest of the Court would be like that, too, following Queen Moragana’s attitude precisely. They would all look down on my darling, treating her like a subspecies. But I wouldn’t stand for it. I’d . . . My mind was spinning in circles, cursing the situation, feeling guilt for my role in it, and . . . “Timothy,” my wife entreated softly. “I still can’t eat anything here, right?” That did it. I exploded. “Queen Moragana, fix this, I implore you. My wife is famished from not eating, exhausted, and . . .” I didn’t want to say dirty, but scanning that stained pale yellow gown, torn on one side, wrinkled throughout, and obviously not a good fit or fashion for her. . . “dressed in grimy rags unbefitting to her position.” Okay, I stumbled over being so blunt with her standing there, now cowering in shame. Words had defeated me. I saw immediately how I’d crushed her more than the rebukes of the two queens. I shifted closer, picked up Penelope’s hand, and kissed it. “But in spite of that,” I hurried to say quickly, staring down into her tearful eyes. “My wife is still the most beautiful woman in the world. Her goodness shines . . . no matter what you’ve disgraced her loveliness with.” Queen Beatrice was the first to speak. “That dress was all we had. We raided the larders of a noble lady from my court. Only we had no shoes to fit her.” Queen Moragana spoke up second, honing in on the most important aspect of my speech. “Penelope, dear. I will bless this food for you. You will not go without eating. Nor will it keep you here longer than required to flush out the drink you sipped. Before you know it you will be free to journey back to your honeymoon voyage. “As to the dress and lack of shoes . . .” She shook her head, pondering that problem as if she were mortal, one lacking any magic. “Let us dine here, then we will hustle you back to my Court where gowns will fill the closets of your wardrobe, and the bed will be like an enchanted cloud of softness. The pillows will soothe you. The coverlets will monitor the correct temperature of your body at all times. I give you my word that we will take care of you perfectly, my dear, young human.”
8.14 The Pooka’s Wife
“Queen Moragana, if you will permit me to argue my side,” Timothy said, bowing to her. “My beloved wife, my perfect beloved wife, has no familiarity with the Fae by your decree. I have kept Penelope free of all Fae lore, as is the law of dealing with humans, but, as she has now entered Faeryland and will be staying here a bit, I will indeed instruct her on the rules and customs of this land.” “Clever Prince Cadarone,” Queen Moragana said with a full-throttled smile. “You are most correct. She was human, so, therefore kept ignorant. Of course. But now things have changed. She is changed. No longer human, but not yet Pooka wife-changed, I think. Yes, she remains in the in between. That in itself is an intriguing point.” She sat down in the chair that Queen Beatrice had formerly claimed, stared at the other woman and said, “What do you think, Beatrice? Do you see any indication that the girl is anything more than a normal human?” Queen Beatrice darted a look in my direction, then glared down at Queen Moragana. “That is my dining chair. Are you stealing that from me, too?” Queen Moragana stared over at her and laughed. “You do realize that you have been conquered, Beatrice. Nothing here belongs to you now. It is all mine. She glanced about her, took note of the peeling wall paint, the dust and dirt, the saggy chairs, and sighed heavily. “Never mind. I will not keep this pile of rubbish. However, there will be punishment for you in spite of your position and your mental unstableness.” “Mental unstableness!” Queen Beatrice cried out. “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled potatoes, and Susie sells seashells. That proves that I have a firm grip on my capacities.” The Kidnapper Queen was actually looking quite unsure of herself at that point. Her face had puckered up, her eyes begun to leak, and her mouth was pouting in a manner more suitable for a toddler than a woman of indeterminate age. The soap opera of the two queens and my husband, the pooka, was interrupted by the arrival of a group of soldiers carrying in platters of food. But where would they put it with the table still laid out as it had been since early in the morning? I turned to look and saw that everything had not only been hauled away, but the whole area had been cleaned. A faded blue cloth was spread over the sagging table, and tableware and dishes, so pristine with clean, they were all shining with golden highlights, now occupied a corner of the table. Goblets decorated the other side, multi-jeweled, gold-rimmed, and equally sparkling. The first soldier set down a huge platter with roasted meat. As he turned the platter to the front, I saw that it was a cooked pig with an apple in its mouth. The sight of that almost took my appetite away. More soldiers delivered other platters: chunks of fruit, rye and wheat breads, carrots and potatoes with green beans, and what I thought were beets, but turned out to be cooked red apples.