Unbound

“I’d not ask,” Vincet said, clearly affronted as his wings slipped a yellow dust. “If I can’t hold a piece of ground, I don’t deserve to garden it. My claim is strong. My wife and I have land, three terrified children from last year, and six newlings. I had seven yesterday.”

Though the young pixy’s voice was even, his smooth, childlike face clenched in heartache. Seeing his pain, Jenks settled back, impressed that this was his second season as a father, and he had managed to raise three children already. It had taken him and Matalina two seasons to get their first newlings past the winter, and no newlings at all had survived that third winter. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Food is hard at this time of year.”

Vincet had his head bowed, mourning. “It’s not the food. We have enough, and both Noel and I would gladly go hungry to feed our children. It’s the statue.” His head came up, and Jenks felt a stab of concern at Vincet’s haunted expression. “You’ve got to help me—you work with a witch. It’s magic. It’s driving my daughter mad in her sleep, and last night, when I kept her awake, it killed one of my newlings.”

Jenks’s wings angled to catch the heat from the fire, and a sudden surge of warmth drove out the chill that had taken him. A statue? Leaning forward, Jenks wished he had a clipboard or a pencil like Ivy always had when she interviewed clients. He didn’t know what to say, but a pen always made Ivy look like she knew what she was doing. “A statue?” he prompted, and Vincet bobbed his head, his blond hair going everywhere.

“That’s how we got the garden,” he said, his words faster now that Jenks was listening. “It’s in a park. The flower beds abandoned. No sign of pixy or fairy. We didn’t know why. Last year, we held a spot of ground in the hills, but lunkers cut it down, built a house, and didn’t put in any flowers or trees to replace what they destroyed. I barely got my family out alive when the dozers came. Noel—that’s my wife—was near her time. She couldn’t fly much. The park was empty. We didn’t know the ground was cursed. I thought it was goddess-sent, and now my children…The newlings…They’re dying in their sleep, burning up!”

Jenks crossed his knees, trying to look unaffected by Vincet’s outburst, but in reality, he was worried. Rachel always got as much information as she could before saying yes or no. He didn’t know what difference it made, but he asked, “What park are you in?”

Vincet licked his lips. “I don’t know. I’ve not heard anyone say the name of the place yet. I’ll take you there. It’s by a long set of steps in the middle of a grassy place. It was perfect. We took the flower beds, dug out a small room under the roots of a dogwood. Noel brought to life seven newlings. We were even thinking of naming them. Then Vi, my daughter, began sleepflying.”

Frowning, Jenks shivered his wings for some light as he sat across the fire from him. “Sleepflying? She’ll outgrow it. One of my sons spent a summer waking up in the garden more than his bed.” Jenks smiled. There was always some question if Jumoke had been sleepflying, or simply looking for solitude. His middle-brood son endured a lot of good-natured ribbing from his elder siblings due to his brown hair and hazel eyes, rare to the point of shame among pixies.

Vincet made a rude huff, the dust from his wings turning black. “Did your son scream in pain as his wings smoldered while he beat at a statue? Did his aura become sickly, and pale? My daughter isn’t sleepflying, she’s being attacked. I can’t wake her up until the moon passes its zenith. Even if I bend her wing backward. It’s been happening every night now that the moon is nearly full.”

Vincet’s face went riven with grief, and his head dropped. “Last night I kept her awake, and the statue attacked a newling. Noel held him as he died, unable to breathe, he was screaming so. It was…” The young pixy’s wings drooped, and he wiped his eyes, black dust slipping from his fingers when the tear dried. “I couldn’t wake him. We tried and tried, but he just kept screaming as his wings turned to powder and his dust burned inside him.”

Horrified, Jenks shifted on his cushion, not knowing what to say. Vincet’s child had burned alive?

Vincet met his eyes, begging without saying a word. “Noel is afraid to let the newlings sleep,” he whispered, his hands wringing and his wings still as he sat on Jenks’s winter-musty cushion. “My children are terrified of the dark. A pixy shouldn’t be afraid of the dark. It’s where we belong, under the sun and moon.”

Jenks’s paternal instincts tugged on him. Vincet wasn’t much older than Jax—his eldest now on his own. If he hadn’t seen Vincet’s fear, he would have said the pixy buck was dust-struck. Taking a stick as thick as his arm, Jenks knelt to put it on the fire, dusting it heavily to help it catch. “I don’t see how a statue can cause children to go wandering,” he said hesitantly, “much less set their dust on fire. Are you sure that’s the cause? Maybe it’s a mold or a fungus.”