Wondrous Strange

Mindi turned Kelley to face the mirror and wrapped the stiff, sparkling garment around her rib cage, holding the two ends together at the back.

“Perfect.”

Kelley smiled for the first time that day. Getting into costume was always one of the best parts of the whole process for her. She looked at her reflection in the mirror and could almost see a fairy queen lurking in there somewhere. Light glinted off the rhinestone detailing along the top hem and the embroidered front panel of the corset.

“Hey, Mindi?” Kelley touched her necklace, which also sparkled in the mirrored reflection. “Do you think I can keep this on for the show?”

“What is that?” Mindi peered through the half-glasses perched on her nose. “Like a four-leaf clover or something?”

“Yeah. The stones are green amber. My aunt gave it to me when I was a baby.” Kelley rolled her eyes a little, admitting, “It’s sort of a good-luck charm.”

“Sure, hon,” Mindi said. “It’s pretty-the green goes with your costume. And as far as I’m concerned, this production can use all the luck it can beg, borrow, or steal!”

“Thanks, Mindi.”

“Don’t mention it. Now get your butt out there-you’re due onstage for your bower scene in five.”

Grabbing her wings from the hook on the door, Kelley ran down the hallway, the exhaustion that had weighed her down all morning left behind in the dressing room.

VIII

The Avalon Grande turned out to be an old church converted into a theater, and it held more than one surprise for Sonny and Maddox. Aside from the fact that it was disconcerting to watch a bunch of mortals wandering around pretending they were nobles of the Faerie courts, it was substantially more disconcerting to discover that not all of the actors were, in fact, mortal. It was Maddox who noticed it.

“Well now,” he murmured in a tone of voice that made Sonny turn and look. “There’s interesting for you.”

“What? Where?” Sonny craned his neck to see what it was that Maddox had seen.

“There.”

“Maddox, if you’re pointing at something, I can’t see it. We’re invisible,” Sonny hissed. They had secreted themselves in a dim alcove backstage and had called up strong veils just for good measure.

“That one way over there-in the green tunic. The one playing Puck.”

“What about him?”

“Let’s just say he’s not exactly ‘acting’ the part.”

“He’s a boucca?” Sonny’s eyes went wide.

“Sh!” The veils might have hidden them from the sight of humans-even other Janus-and all but the most powerful Faerie, but they didn’t mask the sounds of their voices, and the acoustics in the old building were surprisingly good.

“Sorry.” Sonny stared at the actor in green cartwheeling around on the stage. “Are you serious, Madd?”

“The real deal.” Maddox’s tone was tinged with wariness. Boucca were a rare breed of Fae that were almost as powerful as High Fae royalty. Characteristically mysterious and notoriously changeable in their moods and allegiances, they had been known to serve the various Faerie courts, but mostly preferred to serve themselves. Wherever they went, stories of mischief and mayhem abounded. They were a colorful lot, flamboyant, but they also had a reputation for being dangerous if provoked.

Sonny was dubious. The figure cavorting clownishly around the stage, hanging upside down by his knees from the set scaffolding as he said his lines, didn’t seem so very threatening. “Gods. No wonder he’s slumming at a theater. Pooks and their bloody theatrics.”

“Yeah, see…I wouldn’t call him a ‘pook’ to his face if I were you.”

“Ooh, I’m scared.” Sonny snorted, but he cast his Janus awareness in that direction, to get a sense of whatever it was about the boucca that had managed to impress Maddox so very much. After a moment he frowned. “I’m not reading him.”

“No-and you won’t.” There was a great deal of respect in Maddox’s voice. “That there isn’t just any garden- variety boucca. He’s old magic. Powerful. A boucca like that can fly under your Janus radar without so much as breaking a sweat.”

“How can you know for sure?”

“I recognize him. I used to see him coming and going from the Unseelie Court in the days before Auberon shut the Gates. Before your time, Sonn.”

Sonny blinked. “You don’t mean to tell me he’s the original Puck?”

“Dunno,” Maddox mused. “I heard a rumor that the actual Puck has been stuck in the mortal realm for the last hundred years or so-trapped in a jar of honey buried under a rock somewhere in Ireland. Ever since he did something that royally pissed off a leprechaun.”

“Wow.” Sonny whistled low. “I wonder what he did to deserve that.”

“Who knows? Consider it a cautionary tale.” Maddox chuckled. “Leprechauns have their own fair share of ancient power and no discernible sense of humor.”

From a seat in the audience, one of the mortals-the director, it seemed-had called a stop to the boucca’s scene, apparently satisfied with the work done on it (or perhaps just tired of telling Puck to “quit bouncing around the bloody set”). At any rate, they moved on to a scene with Sonny’s girl from the park.

“C’mon, let’s get closer,” Sonny whispered to Maddox as he stepped farther into the wings, nearer to the stage proper.

“Why?”

“We might be able to find out something about her. You know-get a clue.”

“You suit yourself. I’m not getting any closer to that boucca than I have to.”

“Fine. Go have a look around outside then. See if you can find a kelpie tied up anywhere.”

“I don’t even see why you think there’s any connection. That girl could have dropped her script anytime,” Maddox muttered as he turned to leave. “It could have been sitting there for days. Weeks.”

Sonny had considered that, but he had also seen the girl-Kelley-with the very same script only an hour or two before he’d found it beside the Lake. He’d found the crushed rose. It was hers, all right. He knew it. Now he just needed to find out what she’d been doing there. And what, if anything, she knew about a dangerous Faerie horse.

“Come, now a roundel and a fairy song…”

The girl made her entrance through the center stage arch, lifting the trailing edge of her skirt and stepping gracefully up a set of stairs and onto the floating platform suspended by cables that represented Titania’s bower. Garlands of silk flowers hung from the tops of ivy-wound poles, and gauze and organza draperies hung in filmy panels around the sides and back. The whole thing was lit in shades of green, gold, and blue to mimic a dappled forest.

It was sort of pretty, Sonny supposed, but nothing the least bit like any of the places where Titania and her Seelie Court were likely to spend time.

Gauze wings sprouted from the girl’s shoulders, held there by elastic ribbon. Somehow, despite the ridiculous contraption, “Titania” managed to impart a kind of Faelike elegance to the lines as she went about assigning various duties to her fairy attendants.

“Some keep back the clamorous owl that nightly hoots and wonders at our quaint spirits.” The girl finished her commands, reclining among the cushions. “Sing me now asleep, then to your offices, and let me rest.”

A few members of the fairy dance corps flitted away into the wings to do her queenly bidding while the rest gathered about, kneeling or perching on the set rigging. They began to sing:

“You spotted snakes with double tongue,

Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;