Fairy Bad Day(20)

“I’m sorry, Jones. Are you okay?” Curtis asked in a surprisingly soft voice, and Emma found the tension that had been building up between her shoulder blades start to ease.

“Yeah.” She let out a sigh and turned to him. “Except for the fact that I can apparently see invisible fairies that are the size of dragons and that no one has ever heard of before. And here I was thinking my life couldn’t get any weirder.”

“Maybe you just haven’t heard of this one before?” Curtis said in a hopeful voice, but Emma shook her head.

“When Kessler stuck me with the fairies, I made sure I read every single book I could find on them—not that there were many—and trust me, there was nothing remotely like a darkhel. Or even a fairy that stands over a foot high, for that matter.” She rubbed her sore eye as her frustration started to mount again. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“I know,” Curtis agreed, before pushing his ugly glasses up onto his wild curls and frowning. “First they talked about darkhels, and then they said all that mumbo jumbo about the Pure One. I mean, what was that about?”

Emma was immediately diverted as she studied his face in surprise. “You’re kidding, right? You haven’t heard of the Pure One?”

“Um, no.” Curtis looked at her blankly. “What is it?”

“According to the legend, Sir Francis was so upset that a demon had killed his only brother that he decided to shut the Gate of Linaria once and for all to stop any more elementals from getting out. Because the gate disappears and reappears all the time, it took him ages to track it down, and then when he did he used some hocus-pocus spell to seal it. Apparently, part of the spell included five drops of blood from a nameless male child. The blood was meant to represent purity and innocence. Personally, I think it’s a little gross. But the point is that ever since he sealed the gate, the elementals have been looking for the descendant of the nameless child so they can use its blood to reverse the spell, reopen the Gate of Linaria, and let all of their buddies who got trapped on the other side come through.”

Curtis widened his eyes. “Okay, so I knew that the Gate of Linaria disappeared and reappeared all the time, but I had no idea the spell could be reversed by using someone’s blood. I thought it was sealed forever.”

“It is,” Emma assured him. “The Pure One is just a kid’s story. And I can’t believe you’ve never heard it before.”

Curtis put his glasses back on, and for a moment his jaw tightened again. Emma looked at him in surprise. Up until today she hadn’t taken him for being moody. Finally, he gave a nonchalant shrug as he studied his fingers. “My folks weren’t big storytellers. So let’s get back to the facts. How do you think the Pure One stuff ties in with this darkhel creature?”

“It doesn’t.” Emma shook her head. “The fairies were just trying to mess with us because they didn’t want us to ask them any more questions about the darkhel. I guess they succeeded.”

“I wouldn’t say that. Look. Over there.” As he spoke, he gave her a soft nudge and directed her gaze to the level below, where, sure enough, one of the fairies was hovering around a woman holding a Starbucks cup. Typical: fairies loved frappuccinos almost as much as they loved Skittles. The rest of them were just off to the side, and Emma felt a sense of relief go racing through her as she hurried toward the escalators, never taking her eyes off the tiny creatures. Despite his crutches, Curtis was right behind her as they made their way to the next level and discreetly squeezed through the crowd to where the fairy was still hovering.

“By the way, thanks for helping me find them again,” she grudgingly said in a low voice as they carefully drew closer. “I really appreciate it.”

“It’s no biggie.” Curtis gave a casual shrug before shooting her a lopsided smile that suddenly made Emma understand why so many of the sophomore girls talked about him. She shook her head as if to dislodge the thought from her mind as the fairies came to a halt and started to throw Skittles at them. However, Emma, who had been caught by this trick one too many times, let the raining candy fall harmlessly to the ground and watched as the fairies darted this way and that before they doubled back and made a beeline for the entrance of a Gap store.

“Gotcha.” She grinned as she reached for Curtis’s arm and nudged him to follow her toward the store. But just before they got there, Emma caught sight of a familiar-looking blonde-haired woman over by a perfume cart just outside the entrance.

What? No. Emma momentarily forgot about the fairies as her spine stiffened, and she only just resisted the urge to groan. Seriously, of all the perfume carts in the world, why did Olivia have to be at this one?

“Quick, turn around and run,” she said in a low voice as she tugged at Curtis’s sleeve and shot the entrance of the store one last look. Catching up to the fairies was her chance to prove to Principal Kessler that she hadn’t made the darkhel up, but she couldn’t let Olivia see them either. Talk about being stuck between a rock and a fairy bad place.

“Run?” He frowned as he glanced at his crutches.

“Okay, I’ll run and you hobble,” she suggested, but before she could go anywhere, Curtis caught her by the arm and narrowed his eyes as he pushed his glasses back into his mop of curls.

“Why are we running away from them? We’ve got them cornered. They’re in the store. Besides, you just told me that we couldn’t take our eyes off them or—”