Crimes of the Fay II, Chapter 36

“Let’s see if he’s smarter than last time!” Aidan aimed at the leafy wall in front of us and commanded his wand, “Create a hole!” A small window formed, and Aidan assessed, “Apparently, I got dumber, but he stayed the same! Okay, let’s try this again! Large h-!”

“Could you not?” a man larger than my hand requested. We stared in amazement as a crowd of these small dudes in loincloths began rapidly repairing the domain that Aidan destroyed! The little fellow who previously spoke encouraged his peers, “Come on, guys! Wade warned us that this might happen! Let’s keep going!”

Aidan mumbled, “Damn! He did get smarter!”

I told the minute men, “Alright then, we won’t mess up your work anymore and be on our way!”

“Oh, I don’t think so! We can’t let you leave!” Another one of them threatened us with an ax in his hand as dozens of others did the same. “We were hired to protect these parts, and-!”

“Large hole!” Aidan exasperatedly interrupted his speech.

After the opening was manifested, the axeman cried out in frustration, but we ignored him and his colleagues as we stepped over them and went onto the other side.

The instant we distanced ourselves from that bunch, we found ourselves in the midst of another set of them! “O-M-G! How many of you are there?” Minna moaned. 

“Man, I feel like Gulliver!” I remarked.

“Who’s that?” a member of the throng inquired.

I replied, “Ooh, you haven’t heard? Well, once there was a traveler who stumbled across a land where- spray lots of water!” Our miniscule adversaries didn’t realize that they were in danger fast enough! I sprayed them like I would with a hose, and they washed away from our vicinity! I briskly wiped my hands, and then I posed to the others, “How deep do you imagine their weapons would have cut us?”

Aidan responded to me, “I was picturing something like a chihuahua bite. Large hole!” 

While Minna went through this newly-formed entryway, she commented, “You know, I was a bit nervous about our odds of success, but now it seems like this whole ordeal will be a breeze!”

Suddenly, a strong wind hurled itself in our direction! If that wasn’t bad enough, it was accompanied by a horrible shrieking and a very offensive odor! I asked the other two, “Is this another monster, or did Wade’s illness give him some major digestive issues?”

Soon after I expressed that, a woman with green, mossy skin and seaweed hair appeared above us! Her breath made us all literally gag, so when she got close enough, Aidan bode his wand, “Give her a mint!” A peppermint candy flew into her throat, and the green lady choked on it! She collapsed onto the wall, which made a gap big enough for us to walk through it! “That was convenient!” Aidan noted as we moved on.

We came to a long aisle, and although it was a relief to no longer manufacture chasms for our travel, we had the worry of what would emerge from the various passageways that sprang from it! We cautiously crept forward, and after a minute, we espied a shadow lurking from around the corner! We assumed it was somebody lying in wait, so we prepared ourselves to ambush them. Aidan and I jumped into the intersection and yelled, “Freeze!”

To our astonishment, the object of our concern was already as still as anything could get! “Is that a statue?” Minna queried.

The figure looked as though it were made of marble, but Aidan and I examined it just to be sure. It didn’t react to any of our movements or gestures, and when I laid a finger on it, nothing occurred except for me getting a bit of dust on myself! “Why is there a giant fish statue here? It doesn’t seem to serve any purpose! I mean, it seems like a lot of work to bring it here simply to scare us!” I grumped. Aidan and Minna shrugged, and with an eye backwards in the event that this was some sort of trick, we traversed onto the next one.

“Oh gosh! That row has a statue too!” Minna assessed.

“Be careful! It could be real!” I cautioned her.

Minna dismissed that as she indicated to the silhouette on the ground, “It’s a giant flower! How’s that supposed to repot in the clouds?”

Aidan considered this concept for a moment, “Hmm… That is a valid point! Wait! That doesn’t mean you should-!”

It was of no avail! She took his pensiveness as consent and went right up to it! Aidan and I ran to catch up to her, and when we came into her view, she merrily waved to us while calmly standing beside an enormous, jade plant with buds the size of a piano! She confidently relayed to us, “See? It’s totally harmless! And very realistic! The paint on it almost makes it seem like a genuine-!”

Preceding the completion of that sentence, the bud unhinged its mighty mandible and engulfed half of her body! During her desperate flailing of her legs, Aidan petitioned me, “How do we kill a flower that doesn’t need soil for its roots!”

“Easy!” I aimed my wand at the base of the stalk that was presently trying to digest Minna, and I ordered, “Set it on fire!” The stem burst into flames, and the flora shrieked as it spat Minna out! “Unlike the noni sapling, I don’t feel guilty about this blaze!”

“I hope they’ve sorted out the drought problem by the time we get back- I’m gonna need a long shower!” Minna asserted as she examined the slimy entrails that covered her as a result of that venture. “So, I’ll go out on a limb and say that this thing isn’t a statue!” Aidan rolled his eyes, and I presumed that she learned her lesson as we continued our journey.

At the next intersection, we didn’t see anything waiting for us. “This has gotta be a trap!” Aidan articulated. Minna and I agreed, and we paused our gait briefly to ensure our safety, and even though we didn’t perceive anything that caused us to doubt our security, we still felt hesitant in crossing that lane! Eventually, Aidan begrudgingly esteemed, “Well, we can’t fight Wade from here, so…”

Minna guessed, “So, we’ll practice here until we can?” Aidan and I gave her a reproachful stare, so she sighed, “I’ll go first! It’s nice that I can’t die again, but it kinda sucks that I can still feel pain!”

Guilt over this decision twinged inside of me a tad, but we didn’t really have any other option! Minna got to the halfway mark without incident, so we stepped forward with my remorse ebbing. At least I felt decently until the floor beneath started to shake! I groaned, “Oh no! Whatever that is, it sounds like there’s a lot of them!”

We gazed at the cacophony barreling towards us, and we braced ourselves for the worst! I expected to view a frightening herd of monsters, but to my astonishment, they were merely wild boars! “Really, Wade? What’s so scary about a slew of pigs?”

“Isn’t that what killed Kaleo?” Aidan probed.

“Dammit!” I shouted as they drew closer. Their teeth had considerable size to them, and their sheer number worried us! Aidan and I racked our brains to come up with a jinx that would vanquish them all, but we found that to be unnecessary! The air above us darkened, and a rush of gliding wings befell upon us! Initially, I regarded this as another opponent for us to conquer, but in actuality, this herculean hawk did not fancy us for its meal! The swines all scurried to avoid its talons, but for one unlucky hog, the bird managed to snatch it and fly off! The remainder of the assemblage returned to their sanctuary. “Okey-dokey!” I verbalized as we pressed on.

We had one more set of paths to contend with prior to getting to the Fate Particle, and none of us were fooled into believing that this final stretch would be a cake walk, although we were tempted into letting our guard down when we beheld two unmoving entities! “Yeah, so those look like buffalo! If they were alive, they couldn’t resist moving, right?” Aidan speculated.

I recommended, “We should be ready  just in case they aren’t weird pieces of art!”

Aidan nodded, and we both positioned our wands in a defensive manner while Minna lingered behind us. Upon closer inspection, I could discern the craniums of these creatures appeared bovine, but the torso was human! “Wade and Jera are playing a joke on us, aren’t they?” Minna catchized.

“I dunno about Jera, but Wade has no sense of humor!” I conveyed to her. “And while that louse is a dog, he’s technically human! Moreover, we’ve encountered one of these guys before…”

“Hey, it’s our old buddy!” Aidan joshed as we faced two frozen Minotaurs. Either one of them could have been the replica, but we were positive a specific effigy was, in reality, a cowardly beast we met prior to this instance! We kept our wands at the ready out of an abundance of caution, but we relaxed considerably! Aidan sardonically stated, “Oh, he’s not talking to us! Whatever shall we do?”

I pretended to mull it over, “Hmm… Well, one of these two could be an enemy, so we had better destroy them both just to be sure!”

We raised our wands as though we truly meant to emit a potent amount of magic, and the Minotaur on the left relented, “Fine, I’m not a statue! Don’t hurt me for following orders!” As he backed away further into the depths of the labyrinth, he advised, “Watch out for the hidden door by the exit!” When he got far enough away from our trio, he turned and fled.

“Why did he bring this idiot back?” Aidan questioned. “Seriously, what good did he do last round?”

“Wade was probably desperate!” I conjectured. “For real, how many massive creatures can a dying man bring up here?” We shrugged and then ambled towards the ultimate phase of this affair.

We could feel a static energy emanating from the boundaries of this nearly translucent orb covering a small beam of light, and despite having such a close proximity to our destination, we did not maintain the naive mindset of all obstacles being overcome, especially with that Minotaur’s guidance. We tiptoed towards the platform until I spotted it. “There’s the door he mentioned!”

Minna curiously canvassed us, “Where do you suspect it leads to?”

“Let’s not find out!” Aidan suggested.

“This was his grand finale?” I scoffed. “He’s losing his touch!” As we bypassed the trapdoor, we found ourselves on a surface that raised itself above the maze! “Oh… Maybe he hasn’t!”

An ethereal male’s voice commanded us, “In order to proceed, you must answer this cryptic complexity…”

Aidan griped, “Ugh! I hate riddles!”

The voice sonorously broadcasted, “What begins every dawn and is the first thing you see at dusk? Daybreak couldn’t exist without it, and midday is centered around it. It can’t be found in the sun, but no day can exist without it! What is it?”

“What do we do?” I whispered to Aidan.

“No clue!” He fretfully reported. “Last time, we were able to go around the riddle-giver, but I don’t see how we can avoid the-.”

Gazing down with eyes sparkling from excitement, Minna shrieked, “It’s the Night Marchers!”

The enigmatic individual lost his celestial tone as he hollered, “Oh, shit! It’s her!”

Our expanse abruptly plummeted to its original place! As we recovered our stance, we beheld a group of ghostly warriors all scrambling to escape us! Minna called out, “Hold on, don’t go! We have so much to discuss! I’m not living anymore, so we should be friends!”

“Minna, don’t!” I vociferated due to her entrance into the Fate Particle’s realm. I tried to warn her, but I was too late…

Crimes of the Fay II, Chapter 35

“It’s the rush of euphoria that did it!” Minna prattled on. “The endorphins that were released when I fell in love was so addicting! That’s why I neglected my medication and allowed myself to fall in love with practically every man I interacted with! Don’t feel bad though- you were still more special, Aidan!”

“Huh?” Aidan’s bored torpor got jerked away when she mentioned his name. When her words sunk in, he sarcastically murmured, “Oh, darn! What a shame that I wasn’t the only one you obsessed over and stalked!”

As our giant, reptilian ride began to grow weary from scuttling along the rocky coast, his patience grew thin and he beseeched Aidan and me, “Can I toss her into the ocean? Please!”

I responded to him, “You’ve already asked us that, the answer is still no! Unfortunately, we need her.”

Moe gritted his teeth, or whatever salamanders have in their mouths, and Minna went on, “It made no sense to take a supplement that took away my joy, so I-!”

“Don’t talk for the rest of the trip!” I commanded her. She opened her mouth to protest, and I insisted, “We need to concentrate! We’re looking for signs of Wade or the Island of Death, which could be real subtle! The fate of humanity is on the line, so will you please let us focus?” Minna’s eyes grew wide at that unpleasant prospect, and I could tell she was on the verge of objecting again, but thankfully, she decided against it and instead held her breath and nodded in agreement.

“At least those orange hues were just from the sun rising!” Aidan remarked. “That was a relief! It had me paranoid that we were too late! Damn those beautiful Hawaiian dawns!”

I commented, “Gosh, our poor family is out there working in the fields right now! Assuming Mother survived that… incident! Man, it seems such a shame to survive only to die in the apocalypse!” 

Aidan speculated, “I bet Jera abandoned him to go work on their doomsday project! I wonder if Mother ripped him a new one for his jaunt off the premises! I imagine he was originally ordered to stay there twenty-four seven in case of a code gray! How many codes do you think they have?”

“No idea! What I can’t figure out is why Mother wanted to restore Lake Ana Wai if she planned on destroying the planet afterwards!” I brought up.

“A few people realized that my gift was on Moku Oka Make,” Moe filled us in. “They wanted to tempt me back so I could help them find it in order for them to use the island’s healing power for their own benefit.”

I surmised, “Ah, so they were trying to maintain their goal of wiping out humankind by remedying their woes. Or they wanted to use it as a fundraising measure. Or both!”

Aidan consoled himself, “If we’re having this much trouble finding it, then Wade probably is too! And he’s on foot too! We should be okay! Ha! This is probably the most exercise that lazy slob has gotten in ages!”

“I dunno, prison yards have excellent workout equipment!” I joked.

“Oh!” Minna sharply gasped.

I warned her, “I swear, you utter one more sentence and we’ll drop you off and find a new Fay to help us!”

Moe requested, “Can we do that?”

“That’ll take more time, which we don’t have,” I decreed. “Who knows, Wade could pop up right when we decide to give up, and then we’d have to start this process all over again! We gotta stay the course, we’re bound to discover it soon! I mean, how much coastline does this state have?’

“It’ll have more in a minute, the tide is getting low,” Moe observed.

Minna couldn’t resist it anymore and burst out, “My tanning rock is visible then! You’ll see the sandar in a second!”

I directed Moe, “Stop here, please!” Moe obliged me, and I motioned for everyone to slide off. I then solemnly addressed Minna, “Listen, we-.”

“Eek! There it is!” Minn shrieked in delight as the land formation came into view while the sea began to recede.

“Minna, you’re… We… Can you look at me for a moment?” I demanded. She somewhat unwillingly took her eyes off of her coveted sight, and I remorsefully let her know, “We’re going to pursue this project with someone else.” Minna’s expression became sullenly shocked, and Moe celebrated in pure relief. I expounded, “We’re trying to save the world, and you’re distracting us from something vital to our existence! We’re gonna go into the nearby village and find another Fay to assist us in the Ploutonion.” I didn’t relish the minutes, hours, or even days it might take to accomplish this task, but at this juncture, Minna was doing more harm than good, so it didn’t seem like we had much of a choice.

All of a sudden, Moe cried out, “There are my flowers!”

With our intrigue peaked, Aidan and I whipped our heads in the direction that Moe was staring at. Just a bit distant from a few smaller rock formations, a mostly bare mass came into view with a ray of sunlight shining down at the grassy knoll, and in the middle of this terrain stood a modest bush with red flowers consisting of a bunch of tiny spikes in each bloom. It took a considerable stretch for it to register to us that seeing these blossoms signified that we had located our long awaited objective, but once it sunk in, I joyfully regarded Minna, “Yeah… so, I was obviously just kidding about firing you! Let’s go!”

We all ran down the sandbar, and Minna wondered, “Wow! If I had simply gone a bit further, I could have been cured of my disability while I was still alive?”

“Try not to think about it!” I advised her. “Like I’m not gonna think about the fact that if Aidan or I cared about getting some color to our pale skin, we could have found this locale several days ago!”

“Uh-oh! We’ve got company!” Aidan notified us. We gazed in the direction that he gestured to, and we beheld Wade and Jera in a tiny rowboat oaring their way to the Island of Death! “Huh! What are the odds that we’d all stumble across this joint at the same time?”

I exclaimed, “We can’t let them touch that site!”

Minna lamented, “If my wand hadn’t morphed into this teleportation headband, I could’ve magicked us over there!”

“We don’t need a spell! Climb on my back again!” Moe lowered himself down for us.

“Oh, you can swim?” Minna enquired.

Moe reacted rather indignantly to that, “Can I, a water guardian, swim? Is that a serious question?”

Minna lied, “No!”

We all mounted the immense lizard once more, and as he dog-paddled towards the spot, Wade and Jera increased their speed! The pair of them got ahead of us, and while Moe put more haste into his movements, it appeared inevitable that the dastardly duo would reach this destination before us! We got within inches of his vessel, and Wade taunted us, “Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah! I’m going to stop myself from dying, and then I’m gonna kill you!”

“Oh, the hell you are!” I shot back. I pulled Minna and Aidan into his craft, linked arms with both Wade and Minna, and then ordered Minna, “Take us to the Ploutonion!”

“No!” Wade growled. As Aidan linked arms with Jera and Minna, Wade pulled out his wand and threatened Minna, “You try it, and it’ll be the last thing you’ll ever do!”

Minna defiantly differed, “No, the last thing I ever did was sing out to this puff of mist I thought was the Night Marchers! I’m dead, obviously death threats don’t scare me! God, why does everyone try to do that?” She closed her eyes and concentrated as much as she could. Wade let out a cowardly scream, and we were instantly sucked out of this dimension!

It had been two years since I last visited the Ploutonion, and I almost forgot what an uncomfortable experience it had been! Traveling between voids felt like getting sucked into a narrow tube and being squeezed out the other side! It was worse than trying on skinny jeans! We landed on a surface as smooth as glass and as cold as ice, and I couldn’t see any of the fog because my face had planted into the ground! Or was it technically sky, I had no clue! I mumbled to Aidan, “Remind me again why this was a smart idea!”

“I dunno… Weren’t we trying to prevent him from going here too?” Aidan raised his dizzy noggin in an attempt to assess the situation.

“Wade? Brother, speak to me!” Jera shook a very limp body.

Aidan recanted his statement, “Nevermind! You got him killed, this plan was brilliant!” Wade started muttering incoherent phrases, and Aidan’s visage soured. “Damn!”

Wade marveled, “I got into Heaven? I knew murdering those imbeciles was the right thing to do!” He glanced up, saw us there, and changed his tune, “Oh, you’re here, so I haven’t arrived in an eternal paradise yet!”

“That’s okay though! You wanna become a Fay too and rule the new society!” Jera reminded him.

“Oh, yeah! It’s all coming back to me now!” Wade held his arm up so that Jera could aid him in gaining an upright position.

Jera grabbed his palm, and he strove to get him up, but he couldn’t budge him an inch! “Dude! No offense, but you need to lose some weight!”

Wade snapped, “I did! I’ve lost sixty pounds since I became sick! I’m not the problem! You need to gain some muscles!” He picked himself up, and when he espied the bemused smiles we bore, he sneered, “Go ahead, enjoy yourselves! I’m closer to the exit, and that leads to… Oh, crap! We were right by Moku Oka Make this whole time? Ugh! It’s fine, it’s fine! I’ll just go get completely healed, and then we can come back here to kick their-!”

“Cuff him!” I instructed my wand. A pair of silver shackles shot out of it and flew straight towards him! He ducked, but I still stared at the wand with a fresh realization. “They’re voice activated! No wonder it was so hard to get them to work in the usual manner!”

“Great! We’ve lost the element of surprise!” Aidan griped.

Wade brandished his weapon, but he lost some of his swagger when I pointed out, “You’ll use the last of your strength killing us, and then no one will be able to destroy humanity!”

Hope swirled within me upon seeing his bluster crumple, but then he broke out in a devilish grin that made my inner alarm bells fire off on all cylinders! He maliciously leered, “I’ll see you on the other side!”

“On the other side of what?” Minna queried, which annoyed me at first. Once I thought about it, it morphed into an excellent question! Our addlement only heightened as he aimed his wand to the sky, or whatever was above us in this instance, and suddenly, a poof of smoke billowed out! Prior to any of us having the ability to take action against him, a cloudy haze enveloped the entire vicinity!

“Well, if we can’t see, he can’t either, right?” Aidan posed to me.

I heard scuffling in the near distance, so I directed my wand, “Shine a light!” Once the space around us was illuminated, we discerned that Wade and Jera were gone! My initial theory was that he had gone to Moku Oka Make, and I mentally prepared myself to hex him the instant he returned, but when I heard his raucous laughter on the opposite end of the portal, I presumed, “He’s in the maze! He’s going for the Fate Particle! I doubt he’s strong enough to do the job, but we better go get him just in case he can destroy it!”

Aidan recommended, “Let’s search for the backdoor this time!” 

We spread apart and each felt around the structure in front of us. Minna eventually announced, “I found it! But it’s locked!”

“Not a problem! Aidan went to the entrance and bade his wand, “Unlock it!” The handle jiggled, but it didn’t become ajar. “My voice activation is busted!”

“Only I can access the backdoor! It’s a spell!” Wade shouted to us. 

I glanced at the entryway to the labyrinth, and I sighed, “We gotta go through this again! And once again, I’m in my sweatpants with no bra!”

Aidan encouraged me, “We got through this before, we can do it again! Let’s go outsmart some monsters and save the earth! But let’s pray he croaks faster than we can get there… just in case!” Minna and I nodded, and then we took a deep breath as we set foot into the intricate passage!

Crimes of the Fay II, Chapter 34

“Who’s there?” Mother fretfully wondered. She glanced around at her obsequious Fays, and they all shrugged in bafflement. She turned to us in our treetop enclosure and grilled us, “Is that one of your friends?”

“No,” I told her truthfully. “There were only two other people out there with us, and technically, they’re your friends!”

Mother didn’t seem very reassured by my pronouncement of a possible ally being the perpetrator of the bushes’ shaking. She pointed her wand at the shrubs and depravedly ordered, “Show yourself or I’ll shoot!” No one emerged, so she decreed, “Fine! You leave me no choice!” She ejected a green light at the foliage, and after the entire plant got enveloped with the jinx, it disappeared into the air, which made Mother smirk. “There! No one can survive that! Whoever is in there is dead as a doornail! She returned her focus to us… for a second! She gazed back at the site of the spell with an expression of uncertainty. “Someone go check!” 

Nobody volunteered. After a bout of anxious silence, Adrian piped up, “I don’t wanna meet the guy that can survive a hex like that!” 

“Or it could have been a girl! Just saying…” Minna spouted indignantly.

“Do you know something about this?” Mother stationed her wand in a threatening manner towards Minna.

Minna coolly responded, “No. But even if I did, you don’t scare me with that thing! I’m dead as a doornail! By the way, what does that mean? Are doornails ever really alive?”

Merripen asked Minna, “Aren’t you afraid of leaving Earth without making up for your sins?”

“I don’t care if I don’t go to Heaven,” Minna answered. “I don’t deserve to go there for all of the trouble I’ve caused!”

“But you’re mentally ill- that’s not a crime!” Aidan contended.

Minna enlightened him, “It is if you purposely don’t take your medication! I have a degree in psychology, I knew the effect my actions would cause and did it anyway! I made people miserable for completely selfish reasons, that’s why I became a Fay Folk! Actually, I’m kinda surprised I didn’t go straight to Hell! What good have I done for anyone?”

Aidan strove to come up with something, “Aw, that’s not true! You… Sometimes, you… I… Well…”

“Enough of this nonsense!” Mother redirected the conversation to her original purpose. “Jera, you’re clearly hiding from your duties, so your cowardice has merited you with this unpleasant task. Go check who I killed.” There was no reply, so Mother repeated her command, “Jera, go check!” When she discerned no movement from him, she shrieked, “Jera! How dare you disobey me!”

“He isn’t here,” Merripen reported.

Mother’s face contorted into confusion. “He isn’t? Oh no! You don’t think…?” All of the lackeys grew worried about this grim possibility, and Mother bit her lip in guilt. “I don’t know why he wouldn’t have said something to me though! … Will somebody please check?”

I volunteered, “I’ll do it!” I didn’t believe she would actually release me for this venture, but hey, it was worth a shot! I suppose I should have been apprehensive about getting hurt too, but the rustling started after we got trapped, so I sort of figured whatever it was had shown up out of a fidelity to us. I hoped that this ally was still alive, unless it wasn’t an ally! If Wade had stashed himself there, then her lethal activity would have done the entire planet a gigantic favor…

“Yeah, right!” Mother acted disdainfully to my request. “Did I give you the impression that I’m easily fooled?”

“Yes!” I grinned mischievously. “Especially after we heard your bought into the ploy of a manipulative convict, Selene!”

The Fays all gasped at my audacity, and Mother looked a bit shocked to get called by her actual name! She quickly collected herself, and then she barked, “Hama! I’m picking you to do this, and if you don’t, I’ll-!”

Hama begrudgingly agreed, “Okay, okay! But if something happens to me, I-!”

“Nothing is gonna happen to you!” Mother asserted. Hama appeared skeptical, but he heeded her wishes. He tiptoed to the bush, slowly moved a branch aside, and… WHACK! Something slapped him hard enough that he flew across the clearing and into a nearby tree! “Oh, I guess I was wrong!” Mother casually wrote that incident off.

“What’d you see, Hama?” Adrian queried to Hama, who hadn’t moved or breathed since the violent impact. Mother rolled her eyes in a fashion that clearly indicated that she was about to call him a moron, but prior to her opportunity to get that harsh phrasing out, the ground beneath Hama opened up! A vortex that echoed a ghoulish scream sucked his body in! Once the atmosphere shifted to its normal self, Adrian pondered, “Wait, did he die?”

“Moron!” Mother muttered without any attempt to shield her mean opinion from the object of her scorn. Preceding Adrian getting a chance to respond to that though, Mother snapped, “Go see what did that!”

All of the remaining Fays vehemently protested, and Merripen frightfully remarked, “Absolutely not! I want to make up for my wrongdoings before I meet my maker!”

Mother let out a frustrated howl, and then she growled, “Fine! I’ll do it, you big babies!” All of the Fays scooted back in anticipation of the negative consequences of this decision, and I could tell that everyone expected Mother to imperil herself into the shrubbery, but instead, she brandished her wand once more. Her cronies ogled at her in disbelief, so she justified her behavior, “What? I need to conserve my energy to deal with our enemies, including these do-gooders!”

“Is do-gooder supposed to be an insult?” I inquired cheekily.

“Keep talking, it’ll be your last words!” Mother replied in an exasperatedly irate tone. She grew even more agitated by my beam of pride at a successful jab at her, and she faltered in getting her mind off of that as she swiveled towards the greenery. She concentrated on the effect she meant to produce, and after a minute, the plant got lifted away from its roots…

All of the apocalyptic worshippers fled as the floor shook tremendously! Something large ran in our direction, but not a soul could see what it was! Mother seemed at a loss on how to proceed, and she took too long to do something- whatever it was picked Mother up and flung her to the farmhouse in the distance!

Once the vanishment of the threat had sunk in, Minna posed to us, “So, are we saved or not?”

“By the time we bust out of this cage, Wade probably will have found the Island of Death! He’ll be in the Ploutonion faster than we can say rescue!” Aidan lamented.

“Rescue!” Minna exclaimed. “Is he there now?”

Aidan shook his head but chose not to verbally acknowledge her antics. He alternatively opted to bring up, “Even if we do free ourselves will we even be safe? Is… whatever that was on our side or simply against all humans in its territory?”

I morosely held up my wand and dismally articulated, “If that… thing-a-ma-bob has left, Mother will most likely revisit this scene and finish the job. Or she croaked, and since we didn’t have a single friendly person witness this event, nobody knows we’re here! We’ll rot inside of this cage all ‘cause we can’t get these stupid wands to just freakin’ get us out of here!” Right after I spoke, magic came out of my wand, and the bottom of the structure disappeared! We fell onto the dirt, and I puzzled, “How did I do that?”

“Yay! We’re saved!” Minna rejoiced. All of a sudden, a salamander almost as tall as the trees appeared in front of us! It looked like a gentle orange with black stripes reptile whose yellow eyes stared at us curiously, but its sheer size was enough to cause an urgent alarm in us! “Or maybe not! Do you eat humans?”

“Why are you talking to it like it can understand you?” Aidan pressed Minna. “It’s a wild animal!”

In a firm but affable male’s voice, the creature spoke to us, “I don’t know about wild! I can act civilly when I need to!”

I gasped, “Holy smokes! It can talk!”

“He can, and yet he isn’t!” Minna observed. “Are you gonna answer my question?’

“I’m not going to eat you,” he assured us. “You two are the only humans I can trust.” He gestured towards Aidan and me, and then he addressed Minna, “I’m leery about you because these two don’t have full confidence in you.”

Minna looked offended, so I apologized for that hurtful honesty, “Sorry!” Minna was miffed, but I didn’t feel that assuaging her was the biggest priority at this juncture! I turned to the creature and asked, “What do you want with us then?”

The creature answered, “I want you to stop those two kanaka ino’s from destroying Kāne’s great lands!”

“Oh! You’re the moe of Lake Ana Wai, aren’t you?” Aidan realized.

“Correct,” he confirmed, “but it’s pronounced mo’o.”

Aidan requested, “Listen, I have trouble saying that word for some reason. Can I just call you Moe?”

The creature made a somewhat vexed visage, but he assented, “Fine.”

“Thank you for your assistance in this quest!” I cordially regarded Moe in an attempt to stay in his good graces. “We’re honored to have gained your trust! I take it humans have not been very kind to you!”

“Not lately!” Moe grumbled. “For years, human beings respected me, and I respected them for taking care of the earth! Then, one day, a selfish man took my flowers! They were merely a small bunch, but I got them at Pele’s wedding! It was special, I never get any prizes like that! Maybe it didn’t mean much to Kaleo, but it meant a lot to me!”

I reacted in shock, “Kaleo? Kaleo stole your gift?”

Moe affirmed, “Yes! Apparently, he wanted to punish the Pomaikais for hiring Fay Folks by upsetting me and causing destruction to the region! He thought he and his wife could atone for that atrocity by taking care of the farm, but I’m still furious! I mean, he stole my flowers! Who does that?”

“We can get them back for you,” Aidan offered. “We gotta go to the Island of Death anyways to prevent those doomsdayers from getting cured and, well, doomsdaying us!”

“If you can obtain them throughout the course of your work, I would appreciate it!” Moe pleasantly vocalized. “But your first priority should be to thwart this catastrophe!”

I pledged to him, “You can count on us! We’re ready!”

Minna echoed that sentiment, “Yeah!” She reached for her wand, but then she recalled, “Hmm…. Can you give me a sec to remember how to do hand-to-hand combat?”

Aidan slapped his forehead in frustration, and Moe forewarned her, “We don’t have time for that! We must get going immediately!” Minna frowned as we all got up to prepare for this undertaking. Aidan and I exuded pure confidence to Moe, and Moe proudly smiled at us! It was a gratifying occasion, but once a considerable stretch had elapsed, we all started to grimace. Moe eventually broached us, “So… Where are we going?”

“You don’t know where the Island of Death is?” Aidan catechized.

“If I did, do you imagine I’d leave my flowers there?” Moe riposted, which Aidan couldn’t argue with.

I recommended, “It’s somewhere off the coast of Kai Lawai’a. We can head there and just search for the two world-ending pricks! Whether trekking Moku Oka Make or taking a leak, we’ll detain them and bar them from continuing this travesty!”

Everyone concurred with my logic, and Moe lowered himself down for us. “Climb on!” It felt strange mounting a giant lizard, but after we were on him, it didn’t feel that different from riding a horse. Once we positioned ourselves on his back, he stood up, which caused Minna to fall. He annoyedly placed her on him again, and as we took off towards the east, I speculated about the orange hues in sky, wondering if its presence was purely a coincidence or if we were already too late to halt the collapse of society as we knew it…

Crimes of the Fay II, Chapter 33

“I’m dreaming! This is a dream! It has gotta be dreamt!” Aidan stammered while his widened eyes stared at the horror that had appeared before him.

“This is the kind of thing you dream about?” Wade snidely remarked to him. “Wow, that says a lot about you! Don’t you think?”

I defended my boyfriend, “Excuse me? You’re judging him? You’re a bonafide serial killer! You’re standing by the corpse of one of your victims now!” I indicated to Minna, who laid motionless by the wheelchair that had been slammed against the house.

Wade disputed, “That was an accident! I was just trying to move her out of the way so I could -.”

“Murder us?” Aidan guessed.

“No!” Wade claimed. Aidan didn’t believe him, so Wade went on, “Seriously! I came to this property to talk to someone! Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to do you in if I could, but I can’t touch you while you’re in that building’s perimeter. See?” He stepped forward and crashed into an invisible fence.

Aidan scoffed, “Oh, so it’s a mere coincidence that you were visiting one of your friends who happened to live adjacent to where your enemies live?”

Wade insisted, “Yes! I came to Hawaii ‘cause I read about the Island of Death from the prison’s internet, and I’ve been trying to find it so I could cure my heart failure. I nearly had a heart attack when I saw you at the airport in the same gate as me!”

“Well, it’s lucky you survived so that you could die at your self-inflicted apocalypse!” I sarcastically regarded him.

“No, I shall be reborn as a Fay!” Wade asserted. “I’m doing humanity a favor, so I won’t truly leave this earth! I-!”

Aidan interrupted, “Hold on a second! How were you on the same plane as us? The FBI screened the passengers thoroughly!”

Wade laughed, “They didn’t check the dog carriers in the luggage area! I wanted to ride in the cabin, but the flight attendants made Jera check me…”

“Jera?” I reacted incredulously. “He’s your contact here? But I would’ve noticed if a bright orange Fay was on board!”

“My foster brother was still alive when we got here,” Wade enlightened us. “He had… a little accident!”

Aidan theorized, “You killed your foster brother?”

Wade spat, “Of course not! I needed him! When we were sneaking around the rainforest, he tripped and hit his head pretty hard! Thank the stars he became a Fay! Actually, that worked out better than I hoped since he found this cult! Before our influence, all they did was pray for the end of the world! Now, Selene can recruit more people for my magnificent army to guard my palace when humanity is wiped out and I take over as the global emperor!”

“If your lackeys are the only ones who are left, why do you need an army?” I questioned him.

“Shut up!” Wade barked. “Okay, are we done with the interrogation? I’ve got things to do…”

I held my wand up and commanded him, “Don’t move a muscle! We’re not gonna hang back and allow you to destroy the planet! We’re lawfully detaining you!”

Wade snickered, “Oh, you got those sticks to function?”

“Shit! That’s right! He’s been watching us,” I grumbled. 

“You say that like it’s not a huge bombshell!” Aidan noted. “A deadly adversary was here this whole time, and that doesn’t freak you out?”

I contended, “No. I said he was here ages ago, didn’t I?”

Aidan bickered, “Couldn’t you wait ‘til after we foil the bad guy to throw that in my face?”

I shot back, “You brought it up! I-!”

Preceding the completion of my sentence, I espied Wade conjuring up a folding chair watching our banter in amusement. When he saw our attention shift sway, he taunted us, “Please, go on! I have all night!”

“You just said you have things to do!” Aidan pointed out. 

“Whatever!” he huffed. “I do have urgent business to attend to, but I gotta take care of you two meddlers, don’t I?”

I retorted, “No, you don’t! You really don’t! You could let us live- it’s been working out this entire duration, why mess with a good thing?”

Wade conjured up a snack bag, and as he munched, he relayed to us, “If I assassinated you earlier, everyone would’ve known it was me, but now that you know the truth, I can’t let you leave!” He maniacally laughed, and then he added, “You gotta leave that territory sometime! Or you could try facing me now and see if your twigs match my lovely, police-issued wand!”

“A wand you stole!” Aidan exclaimed.

“Psh! I’m already facing seven billion life sentences for my attempt to wipe out humanity! What do I care if they tack on another misdemeanor? Ooh, don’t you miss it?” Wade taunted us. 

Aidan and I wanted to have a private discussion, but we also didn’t want to let Wade out of our sight, so we resorted to whispering while he goaded us. “Maybe we can jinx him while he’s stuffing his face,” Aidan propounded.

I considered that notion briefly, but then I concluded, “If our spell didn’t work, then it would only take him seconds to grab Officer Pálido’s wand and take us out! We can’t risk leaving any of the others alone with him- they could get hurt!” Aidan glanced over at Minna’s body, and I iterated my argument, “Exactly!”

“What if one of us distracts him while the other attacks?” Aidan suggested.

“Hmm… Yeah, maybe! Maybe we could spread out a bit- he couldn’t get both of us at once!” I determined. “So, how do we distract him?”

Aidan recommended, “You should flash him!” I gave him a reproachful stare, and he stuck by his idea, “What? You have a nice rack- who wouldn’t get enticed?”

Prior to delivering a biting remark to that atrocious submission, I noticed someone else standing there from the corner of my eye. I swiveled in that direction, and it was Jera! He had an overly excited but dumb expression planted on his visage, and when he finally caught onto our focus on him, he commented, “What? I was waiting to see her go topless!”

Aidan’s mood soured at Jera’s ogling, and I was too furious to highlight the consequences of his terrible plan! I aimed my wand at Jera, and Aidan strove to stop me, but I was too quick! A flurry of sparks flooded his vision, not what I meant to do! He was able to wipe them from his scope fairly easily, which annoyed me at how far off my magic’s desired effect was! Aidan beseeched me, “Let’s not waste energy on perverts!”

“Jera! Come join me for the show!” Wade pulled out “his” wand to conjure another seat.

“If we’re gonna find that island, we gotta move!” Jera advocated. “You could kick the bucket before we stumble across the remedy to your illness, then how are we gonna demolish the wall around the Fate Particle? A Fay couldn’t do it, and I don’t know any magian with the balls to do it! Earth may wind up going on like usual- what happens then?”

I badgered them, “Then we’ll live our lives while you two go to Hell where you belong!” They both became affronted, but I ignored them as I posed to Aidan, “How did Agent Hearne let this idiot on the plane when he obviously has a connection to that prick?”

Jera filled me in, “I was a paralegal for his prosecutors. As far as they knew, I was a dedicated man of the law! They had no clue I’ve been helping my foster brother all along!”

“You have?” Aidan responded in shock. “Then how come I’ve never heard of you?”

“Um, ‘cause I didn’t wanna go to prison! Duh!” Jera sneered. “Everyone was so fixated on the murders, no one ever paused to dig into who made the drugs that funded his operation!” Aidan and I exchanged nov-verbal words of bafflement, and Jera directed Wade, “Come on! We’re wasting precious minutes here! In a few hours, I gotta make those morons do agriculture stuff!”

Wade argued, “We can’t leave them here! They’ll foil our scheme! They always do!”

Jera differed, “They can’t escape this compound! ‘Mother’ made sure of that! Now, let’s go!”

As they walked away, Wade turned around to bid us farewell, “I’ll see you later! Or maybe I won’t!” He guffawed thoroughly at his own joke throughout the course of their departure.

“Are we really gonna do this?” Aidan petitioned me as we watched the dastardly pair grow distant.

“We have to!” I persisted. “We can’t let him get healthy and obliterate the human race!”

Aidan reluctantly agreed, “That’s true! But still, I wish we had decently performing wands to stand more of a chance of winning! Or at least living!”

I debated that, “We don’t need wands! Remember how our first face-off ended? We won without magic!”

“Uh, I’ll have to take your word on that- I was unconscious throughout most of that confrontation!” Aidan articulated. “Okay, let’s-!”

“Hey, guys!” Minna popped back up as a purple Fay. “What’d I miss?”

Aidan muttered, “Wonderful timing, as always! We’ll be back, so watch over-.”

Minna stated, “Oh no, I’m coming with you! That guy murdered me, and…” She noticed feeling had returned to her legs, so she tested her mobility, and when she stood up, she proclaimed, “I don’t need a wheelchair anymore! It’s a miracle! I’m so blessed!”

“And you’re also dead!” I denoted.

“We’re gonna lose him! We need to hurry!” Aidan conveyed to me. We ran towards the wooded area behind the farm, and Minna tagged along too. Aidan told her, “You can’t come! It’s dangerous!”

Minna shrugged. “And? I’m not technically alive anymore, so…”

Aidan still seemed hesitant, and my initial thought was to leave her behind, but then another thought occurred to me. “If Wade goes into the Ploutonion, we’ll need to follow him in somehow…” Aidan growled, but he didn’t object any longer, which Minna and I took as consent. The three of us bolted for Wade and his cohort…

…For a few seconds! When we got to the edge, Adrian entered onto our path and blocked us from moving forward! “Get back to your home!” he snarled.

“That’s what we’re trying to do!” I riposted. I picked up a handful of dirt and threw it into his eyes. While he winced over his misfortune, we marched towards the exit of that land. “That was easy!”

“Mother, we have a code gray!” Adrian spoke into a walkie-talkie.

Minna inquired, “What’s that?”

Aidan replied, “Let’s not stick around long enough to find out!” All of a sudden, we were surrounded by various colored, rough looking Fay Folks, and Aidan shouted to Minna, “You had to ask!”

“Where are you going?” Merripen probed.

“Nowhere! We love it here!’ I sardonically uttered. They advanced towards us, so I whipped out my wand and threatened, “Don’t even think about it!” Aidan gawked at me in startlement, so I quietly communicated to him, “They don’t need to know it’s crap! And who knows, maybe I’ll produce more than sparks! I’ll do to them what I attempted to do to Jera!”

Aidan pondered, “What exactly was that?”

“We outnumber them! Grab it!” Merripen ordered.

“Hey! Isn’t anyone gonna mention my death?” Minna canvassed the lot.

She pouted as they ignored her and aggressively approached us. Aidan brought out his wand, and we stood back to back in order to get a 360 view of everyone. Theri guerilla tactics failed, and they were baffled on how to act next! I grinned, and then I instructed Aidan, “Let’s move sideways, and-.”

Suddenly, we felt the floor beneath us lift up, and we got enveloped by metal bars! This confused us until “Mother” came strolling up to our vicinity. “Nice try! Except that it wasn’t so nice ‘cause now I have to kill you!”

Minna verbalized, “Too late!”

“Mother” raised her wand, and for a moment, I feared we were done for! I wouldn’t let the transpire willingly though! Prior to enacting a fast defense, I observed the bushes beneath us begin to shake…

Crimes of the Fay II, Chapter 32

“Yes! We’re saved!” I rejoiced. Aidan and I cheered as we hugged each other in celebration of this discovery.

“What’s that?” Willow inquired as half the household peeked inside of my hidey closet out of intrigue of our suddenly festive demeanors.

Aidan reacted in aghast, “You don’t know what a landline is?” The younger kids stared at us blankly, so Aidan somewhat irritatedly educated them, “It’s a phone!”

Mason presumed, “Oh good! We can go on the FBI’s FriendBook page and get help!”

“No, you dummy! It’s too old for that!” Harper upbraided her little brother. “All it can probably do is text!”

“Uh, no! It-!” Aidan couldn’t finish that sentence due to how flabbergasted he became from their ignorance on the subject.

I deduced, “This closet must have been a phone booth in the past! It costs fifty cents. Hmm… who collects the money from here? Oh well! Someone hand me my purse!”

Laraleigh used her wand to magick my handbag to me, and after gazing at it for a second, I sighed, “This just isn’t as pretty as the purple one in that shop!”

“Focus!” Aidan reminded me.

“Right!” I dug out a couple of quarters, and my pulse quickened at the prospect of calling Agent Hearne and getting out of this abyss! I joyfully envisioned the expression of shock and defeat on “Mother’s” face when the federal government raided her illicitly acquired home, and I hoped we could get our mobile devices back prior to that glorious moment so I could get a picture and savor it forever! I put the change up to the slot with a huge grin on my face, but it rapidly got erased when something occurred to me. “Crap! We can’t do this!”

Mom asked, “Why not?”

I answered, “I don’t know Agent Hearne’s phone number! I don’t know anyone’s phone number! All of my contacts are on my cellphone!”

“Can we call information and get them to transfer us to him?” Laraleigh probed. “Is that still a thing?”

“They’re not likely to connect us to anyone who’s under top secret protection,” Aidan pointed out. “And it’s not like we can call 911 and make them send a SWAT team either! We’re lowly farmers to them, they won’t simply take our word for it that we need that sort of service! And if we told them an evil cult bought our shoddy land to hold us captive in order to assist them with ending the world! They’ll think we’re nuts!”

From a distance, Minna brought up, “To be fair, it doesn’t seem like they have a solid plan for that! They really want it to happen, but they… Hold on, why am I being fair to those jerks?”

Kinsey suggested, “We could call 911 and tell them we’ve been kidnapped as our real identities. If Wade hears that, he’d come here, and the police could round him up and we could take care of both problems at once! I know it’s risky, but Wade couldn’t take on the entire organization singlehandedly, right?”

“Wade almost took our entire apartment building in his attempt to kill us,” I countered. “He’d burn this entire estate to the ground if had to! But, more than likely, he’d befriend ‘Mother’ and hide somewhere on the property to ambush us. Plus, if the entire law enforcement community in Hawaii knew the truth and they didn’t catch him, we’d have to get whole new aliases and move again! This time it could be somewhere even further from home too! What was next on your list, Aidan? Wasn’t it in southern Mexico?”

“I’m pretty sure it was Tahiti,” Aidan conjectured. “Maybe in the next round, we could at least get better names than Swetinbedde!”

After clicking my tongue in annoyance, I insisted, “We’re not going through this drama again! I don’t wanna run anymore! Except for running away from The End Is My Friend! We have to find someone trustworthy to contact Agent Hearne! But no one could just look him up in yellow pages or anything! Ugh! Too bad we aren’t expecting a visit from the Department of Agriculture soon! We know we can trust Clifton to talk to Agent Hearne for us!”

Jackson conveyed to Minna, “It sucks that you were never able to flirt with those Night Marcher dudes! It would’ve been nice to have a friend deliver a message for us!”

In that instance, I got struck with a jolt of inspiration! “That’s it!”

“No, it’s not!” Aidan disagreed. “Minna never saw those mythological men! And who’s to say they’d do us any favors like that?”

“How do you know I never succeeded?” Minna challenged him.

Aidan responded, “Oh, please! If you did, you’d never shut up about it!” Minna indicated that his assessment was valid.

Mom queried, “How did that give you an idea?”

“It didn’t.” As I dug through my purse, I explained, “The friend part did though!”

“But we don’t have any friends out here!” Laraleigh balked. “If we did, I wouldn’t have sent that coconut to myself! Oof, ‘Mother’ ain’t likely to give that to us, is she?”

Prior to anyone reacting to that, I finally found it! I held the business card up in the air, and I declared, “We’re gonna call Samena!”

Aidan objected, “But she’s not our friend! In fact, I’m pretty certain she hates us!”

“But she’s a detective!” I argued. “She’s a fellow in law enforcement, we can trust her to deliver a message to Clifton!”

“Won’t that be kinda confusing for her as to why we’re trying to talk about a hostage situation with someone from the Department of Agriculture?” Kinsey questioned.

I assured her, “No! Not when we give her the real story of what’s going on!”

Jackson fretted, “Didn’t you say it was bad to tell cops who we really are? Aren’t we gonna get in trouble for doing that?”

“We’re in trouble now!” I retorted. “If we don’t, she’ll get the impression we’re drunk or crazy! Or both! Besides, we were ordered not to reveal our names to anyone who would put it into the police system, but this is her personal cellphone, so she can keep it secret.”

“But will she?” Aidan wondered. “What if she believes we’re pranking her and turns us in? I mean, we’d get some officers over here, but then Wade may go after us in whatever sanitarium they inevitably throw us in because we stuck to our outlandish account!”

I considered this notion, but instead of debating her trustworthiness further, I decided to pose to him, “Do we have any other choice but to take the chance? What else are we supposed to do? Dial a random number and hope the person on the other end calls for help?”

Harper remarked, “Hey! That sounds like fun!”

“We’re not doing that!” Laraleigh informed her, which prompted Harper to pout. I was almost positive Aidan’s reference to pranks caused this backlash and not her desire to desperately plead to strangers for assistance.

“Oh, there’s a phone number on the old pizza boxes!” Mom recalled.

Minna delighted in that possibility, “Ooh! We can call my romeo, and he’ll come to our rescue because he loves me too much to let me carry on with such a terrible fate!”

Mom surmised, “Oh, I gave a stupid suggestion, didn’t I?”

“Let me get you that box!” Minna did a spell and sent the trajectory towards the closet. Her overenthusiasm caused her to miss, and after it bounced off of the wall, it hit Mason. “Oh gosh! Mason…” Mason glanced up in expectation of an apology, but instead, Minna requested, “Can you hand that over to Shannon?”

I appealed to Mason, “Please don’t! We’re not contacting her quote en quote romeo!”

Laraleigh instructed Mason, “Put it back in the recycling.”

“Okay…!” Mason agreed with a devious smile and stance that clearly demonstrated his objective of “accidentally” missing the bin. Laraleigh snatched the box away prior to that occurring though!

“So, we’re all agreed on calling Samena?” I petitioned the group. In unison, Minna made another bid for the pizza guy and Harper advocated for calling the randoms, and once I had enough of that cacophony, I cut them off, “I wasn’t mandating a unanimous decision! Samena it is!”

Their antics had pushed my patience close enough to the limits that I no longer felt anxious about the call. I put the coins in the slot, dialed the number on the card, and held the receiver so that Aidan could hear the conversation too. It rang on the other end, and my anticipation went through the roof! I couldn’t wait to speak to someone who could put the wheels of rescue into motion! All of a sudden, Samena’s voice stoically articulated, “Hi. You’ve reached Detective Samena Tajana with the Kalahala Police Department’s Investigation Bureau…”

Once I perceived a pause, I took a deep breath and introduced myself, “Hello, this is-!”

“I’m sorry I can’t come to the phone right now,” the outgoing message continued. “Please leave a detailed description of why you called, and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible!”

“Son of a-!” I didn’t complete my vexed venting since the voicemail indicated that it was about to beep and allow me to record a communication for that number, and I had to swiftly forget my grievances for this momentous task! With a firm, professional tone, I verbalized, “Hey, Detective Tajana! This is Sophia, and I’m with Kennedy. You know us as the Swetinbeddes, but that’s an alias issued to us by the FBI. Kennedy is Aiddan Maddox of the Anaknock Undercover Unit, and I”m Detective Shannon Vidette of the Slygow County P.D. We’ve been kidnapped and forced to remain in Lani Noni against our will! We need to you to relay this  to Clifton Bartlett in the Department of Agriculture so he can contact Agent Hearne and take action against a hostile-.”

The automated service attached to her number interrupted, “Thank you for calling! Goodbye!”

It stunned me to have gotten dropped at such a critical juncture, and following my full process of what transpired, I huffed, “She said to leave a detailed message! They don’t give you much time to do that!”

“I think you got the important info out,” Aidan determined.

“So, now what?” Kinsey pondered.

I shrugged. “Now, we wait! Either she’ll use the number this showed up as on her Caller ID and return our call, or she’ll research our claims, see it’s legit, and we’ll get reinforcements.”

Jackson catechized, “Okay, but what do we do ‘til then?”

For a minute, we all stood in silence from the uncertainty of how to proceed. I expected Aidan to pipe up with another one of his famous motivational speeches, but instead, Mom asserted, “Now, we eat! What does everyone want for dinner?”

“I’m kinda craving pizza again actually…” Laraleigh admitted.

“Great! Let’s call my romeo!” Minna chirped.

Aidan commented, “There’s no way we can afford a tip large enough for the delivery person who braves a dangerous cult to give us our food!”

That night, I didn’t expect to get any sleep, but I previously thought that this eventuality would have stemmed from angst over my surgery the next day, but right then, I grew fearful from not having the opportunity to do that! My senses stayed on high alert in hopes of hearing the telephone ringing, but everything was unusually quiet! I glimpsed at a nearby clock, and I saw that we were due to report to the field in mere hours! I couldn’t stand the notion of forgoing a vital procedure in order to do unwilling labor for that conniving witch, and Samena was taking too long to respond, so I decreed that we needed to tackle this dilemma ourselves immediately! 

As soon as I flipped up my blanket, Aidan warned me, “Don’t you dare!”

“What? I was just going to the bathroom…” I feigned innocence. Aidan didn’t buy that at all, so I contended, “I can’t sit by and do nothing! What if no one is coming?”

“They’re expecting you to act out,” Aidan opined. “If you behave too rashly, you’re playing right into the enemy’s hands!”

I quarreled, “But if we don’t do something, we-!” Preceding my completion of that dispute, a huge thump banged against the side of the building! It was a blow of enough strength that it forced everyone to wake up in alarm! Aidan and I felt our peace enforcement instincts brimming, so we grabbed our wands and raced to investigate!

We tiptoed along the side of the dwelling with our weapons out as the cold wind carried an eerie echo! We discerned movement on the lawn, so I figuratively crossed my fingers that we’d stumble across something as innocuous as Anela again! When we rounded the corner, we beheld something that was a much bigger problem than a pesky goat…

Crimes of the Fay II, Chapter 31

Lightning cracked somewhere behind us, and we all jumped before we could put the key in the lock of our abode! After a booming clap of thunder blared above us, the children winced, and Willow spat, “Stupid, scary storm!”

“Be thankful that it’s here!” Laraleigh advised her as Mom opened the front door. “Otherwise, we’d still be in the field!”

“I wish I wasn’t so talented at gardening!” Mom bemoaned as she threw herself onto the couch. “That made them force me into extra vegetable raising, and all that non-stop planting makes me wanna replace my garden with a rockbed! Well, when we finally get out of this hellhole anyways!”

Aidan grumped, “You mean if we get out of this hellhole! Clifton’s tracker will show us never leaving the farm, so he’ll have no idea that anything is wrong! Not ‘til Agent Hearne tries to contact us…!” 

This line of thought made Aidan feel hopeful until Kinsey differed, “No, I’m almost certain they’ll have someone answer it and pretend it’s one of us. That’s what so many murderers do, and the police don’t think anything is wrong ‘til it’s too late!”

“Wow! That’s a very accurate assessment!” Aidan noted.

“Uh, yeah! I’m training myself to become a criminal analyst, so I have to be accurate! What? Why else did you think I’ve been studying all of those stories about killers?” Kinsey posed to us. No one responded because none of us wanted to admit that she had us worried for quite some time!

Mason brought up, “You know, I wasn’t doing my homework all year ‘cause it seemed so hard, but this is hard! When we go to class again, I won’t complain and I’ll thank my lucky stars I get to do that instead of this crap!”

Harper griped, “Mason! You swore! Mama!”

“I don’t care!” Laraleigh huffed as she plopped onto a chair in the dining room. Harper looked offended, so Laraleigh expounded on her decision, “What? What do you want me to do? It’s not like I can ground him or take away his internet privileges- ‘Mother’ already did that! Besides, I wouldn’t be tattling on anyone if I were you! He probably has a ton of dirt on you, Miss Troublemaker!” Harper grew sheepish and apparently opted to withdraw her grievance.

“Isn’t there some sort of law against child labor?” Minna queried.

I finally joined the conversation by bellowing, “Yes! It’s also mandatory to provide schooling to minors under sixteen! But those are minor offenses compared to the multiple felonies they’ve garnered from kidnapping us! Yes, we were sent to live here, but they can’t force us to stay here! Except they can ‘cause nobody knows they’re doing it! And why are they doing it? So we can help them collect money for them to recruit more people into this cult! ‘Mother’ and her goons are taking advantage of individuals in vulnerable positions! She’s making Fay Folks believe that they can get into Heaven by doing this, but really, they’re henchmen to an evil organization! All of those poor souls out there have no clue that they got fooled! Not that knowing the truth has done us any good! How can they justify taking away our lives? How can they still maintain their assumption of getting into Heaven? My fibroids are only gonna grow since I can’t go to my surgery tomorrow! Do they care that they’ll make me suffer? What if something happens to the rest of you? We can’t let them push us into harm’s way! We have to do something!”

Thinking about our dire circumstances got me so steamed up that I nearly marched straight out of this house to give them a verbal reckoning, but then Jackson piped up, “You can’t just go and fight them all! You don’t even have a wand!”

“You could use these!” Minna reached out of the rear window and held up the faulty wands that the FBI issued us.

“Don’t encourage her!” Mom admonished Minna.

I grasped onto these wands like I found buried treasure! They didn’t take all of our weapons away… “These will work!”

Aidan disagreed, “No, they won’t! That’s why we gave them to the kids as punishment!”

“You got that toolbox to levitate!” I argued. “They can work, and they have to! I won’t support their demonic efforts a second longer than I have to! I’m ending this today- with or without anyone’s help!” Luckily for me, the storm calmed down a lot when I chose to go out there- I got so riled up that I made a beeline out of there without considering the consequences! Aidan exasperatedly groaned, but he tailed me pretty closely.

“You two be careful! I do want grandkids one day!” Mom shouted to us prior to our departure.

I stood in the middle of the deadened grassland that “Mother” earmarked for elderberry bushes, and I glanced around for one of her minions lurking about! I finally saw a big Fay patrolling around the perimeter by some leafy trees, and Aidan whispered, “Shannon, no!” I was in too foul of a mood to listen to reason, and I hid behind a scarecrow to shield myself from the Fay’s view. I aimed my trajectory, and…

Desperately beseeching the wand to perform, I encouraged it, “Come on!” He disappeared from the clearing, and I muttered, “Damn!”

Aidan breathed a sigh of relief and attempted to guide me back to our dwelling. “Good! Now why don’t we spend the rest of the evening relaxing to prepare for- oh!”

I slipped away and snuck into some brush. I crouched low, and I concentrated as much as I could! My heart beat wildly as he inched closer and closer to my proximity, and my anticipation heightened as I pictured myself achieving success in this ambush! Soon, we could use his freshly incapicitated state to get out of this nightmare! I couldn’t fathom anyone in the closest town who would be willing to overlook our unfavorable reputation and let us use their phones though! I supposed that if I told them about all of the wickedness that the Fay Folks were involved in out there that they’d be more prone to assist, but then I realized if they did comply, I wouldn’t know how to get a hold of anyone- I haven’t memorized a phone number since the nineties! I shook my head and resolved to figure that out later. The guard was right there, my opportunity arrived! I raised my wand, and…

“No!” I growled as he passed by without me producing even a spark! Actually, my outburst propelled a couple of sparks out of the wand, but it didn’t lift my dampened spirits whatsoever! I felt very tempted to throw that twig out of my sight, but I didn’t want to alert any of the other underlings to our proximity, so I kept it. Plus, the wands in our hands were the only ones we had access to, and I didn’t want to lose it. It had to operate properly sometime– Agent Hearne wouldn’t have issued them to us if they didn’t, right?”

“Ready to go home yet?” Aidan inquired.

I emphatically replied, “Yes! I’ve been ready to go home since we arrived in Hawaii! What I’m not ready for is to go back to the shack!” I buried my face into my palms, and I lamented, “He was right there! I could have gotten him if I had my normal wand! Ugh! I would’ve been better off trying to trip him with this stick!”

Aidan put a sympathetic arm around my shoulders and consoled me, “We’ll find a solution eventually! At the moment, we’re too emotional to make any rational decisions, so let’s pause for a stretch and-!”

“We can’t pause though!” I cried out. “We’re in jeopardy, we have to tell the authorities! The longer we wait, the worse it’ll get! I already had two weeks of my life stolen from me, how much more do I have to give up?” The very notion of enduring this torture for a significant stint made my breath grow short, and Aidan was about to tend to me when, all of a sudden…

“Hey!” a male’s voice boomed, causing us both to flinch! I was already panicky about one dilemma, and now I had another! I felt positive he intended to deal us a severe punishment, but then he amusedly regarded us, “No hanky-panky out here! Return to your residence!” 

For the second instance that month, Aidan and I were in the midst of a secretive expedition only to get interrupted by somebody assuming we were making love! And just like on the plane, we let them maintain that misconception in order to keep our true mission clandestine! I spent the entire jaunt hoping to persuade my magic to emerge, but unfortunately, we reached our territory with nothing to show for that effort except possibly some salacious rumors amongst the staff!

All I wanted to do when we went inside was go into my hidey closet and forget that this spectacular failure ever happened, but shortly after we set foot in the habitation, the Fay hollered, “New rule: everyone has to keep their pants on outdoors!”

The others all looked as incredulously, and Aidan snidely articulated, “Oh yeah, like we were actually doing it during monsoon weather in the middle of our kidnapper’s stomping grounds!”

“So, did you create an escape route?” Jackson eagerly petitioned us. Aidan and I gave him a peeved stare, but he didn’t get the hint… “Is that a yes?”

“Jeez, Louise! No wonder you’re flunking everything!” Laraleigh slapped her forehead and shook it out of frustration.

Willow asked us, “So, what do we do now?”

I couldn’t answer that because I had no inkling on what to do! Aidan confidently assured her, “We’ll think of something! Hang tight, we-!” I didn’t share his optimistic sentiments, and I couldn’t bear to listen to his rosy outlook at the pinnacle of my despair, so I dashed into my safe haven before he finished his speech!

Assuming that he would follow me in momentarily, I scooted up to the very back of the space. Sure enough, it didn’t take long for Aidan to join me. I turned away from him though since I knew what he intended to say, and I had no patience to endure it! “Don’t tell me everything is gonna be alright!”

“But it will be!” Aidan insisted.

“No, it won’t!” I argued. “Not without a solid plan anyways! We’re outnumbered and essentially wandless, we can’t do this on our own!”

Aidan mulled it over for a moment. “Well, there’s always fire! If burn up a building with large enough flames, it would have to get the attention of the authorities!”

I chewed on  that concept for a flash, but then I had to shoot it down, “If any emergency workers visited this area, ‘Mother’ would simply pretend all is well while simultaneously preventing us from leaving or speaking with anyone. Besides, how would we create a huge blaze without magic?”

“I bet Harper has something up her sleeves!” Aidan reckoned.

“Heck yeah I do!” Harper confirmed.

I yelled, “No fires!” Her disappointment was quite audible, and I was too malcontent to satisfy my curiosity on what some of those methods might have been. Instead, I opined, “We need an ally from the outside to give us aid! Somehow, we gotta work out a technique of communicating without getting our adversaries attention that doesn’t involve magic or mobile devices.”

Harper proposed, “We could do smoke signals!”

“No fires!” I repeated. She exhaled in exasperation.

“We could try to get these wands to run…” Aidan adduced.

It beleaguered me to envision myself spending the night waving these wands around in vain, and the fact that this was our only avenue maddened me! I banged my noggin against the surface I faced from sheer disgruntlement… a little too hard! I produced a small hole in the wall! “Ow!” I pulled myself up, but preceding Aidan’s inevitable words of comfort, I spotted something in that chasm… “Woah!”

Aidan probed, “What is it?” I didn’t respond; I immediately tore off pieces of the structure, and he must have recognized that I wouldn’t have done that without a valid cause because he participated in this endeavor too. When we removed enough debris to get a full grasp of what existed there, we both gasped! The remedy to our predicament may have been in this edifice all along…

Crimes of the Fay II, Chapter 30

“This seems so sudden!” Aidan remarked as we emerged from our cottage and headed towards the front of the property.

“Yeah! I’m so curious who was desperate to buy a farm with very little crops and a broken aqueduct!” I was glad to hear that Aidan shared my suspicions about this hasty purchase! We didn’t get a chance to discuss it last night because, well, you know- the usual chaos ensued! No one else seemed particularly worried though! I guessed that they assumed that the new owners would abide by the same routine, but I had a feeling that this entailed more than a mere change in management…

Mom scoffed, “You guys are too untrusting! Why can’t you just hope for the best?”

I countered, “I’ll hope for the best when the evidence takes us in that direction! This transaction is too strange for optimism!”

“It is pretty weird!” Kinsey concurred with our argument. “Usually, this is the part of the story where everyone gets murdered!”

“See? We’re not that pessimistic!” Aidan pointed out to Mom.

As we neared our destination, I lowered my volume as I posed to the others, “Doesn’t this make anyone else nervous?”

Jackson piped up, “I’m a little anxious about skipping some of my classes…”

“Why? You afraid of getting an even lower F?” Laraleigh probed.

“Welcome, dear friends!” A woman walked outside wearing a long, white dress and bare feet. Her curly, blonde hair was adorned with a crown of blue and white flowers as well as green leaves, and her sapphire eyes gazed slightly above our heads as though she was staring deep into the sky. Her appearance gave off the impression of a total bohemian, but something about her aura gave me a sickly sensation at the pit of my stomach! “Are we having a rough morning?”

With big, goo-goo eyes, Jackson responded, “I forgot!”

The woman giggled in a very doll-like tone, a quality that didn’t normally make me edgy… “You can forget all of your previous troubles for I am creating a blissful paradise for you to reside in! You may call me Mother!”

“Can we not?” I shot back. Everyone but Aidan stared at me in shock of my curtness, but I didn’t care! First of all, I wasn’t about to use the term “mother” for someone who must have been at least ten years younger than me! Second, and more importantly, it is not normal to go by an alias like that! I couldn’t put my finger on why it was yet, but to me, this move proved she was up to no good, and I resolved to prove it prior to anything drastic happening!

“Ah, I can see you need my assistance more than anyone, Sophia Swetinbedde! … The previous owners of this land had files on all of you.” She added when she beheld the baffled expression on my face. “I know all about my new tenants!”

With the knowledge of our true identities on my mind, I grinned slyly and cracked, “Oh, I doubt that!”

Mother eyeballed me as though she were trying to scan my brain to gain the information I hid, but eventually, she let it go and announced, “Let me give you a tour of the premises and share my vision with you! Merripen! Jera! Adrian! Come, let’s journey through the grounds!”

I fully expected three similarly clothed men to emerge and keep guard of their mistress, but to my startlement, three Fay Folks came out! The fire orange one stood to her left, the crimson one stood to her right, and the mantis green one was tall enough to be seen as he stood behind her. They were rather buff, and not one of them smiled, so they stood in great contrast to Mother! And yet nobody else’s apprehension seemed to heighten! Although I was certain Aidan’s law enforcement instincts must have been setting off alarm bells! His cool visage didn’t give away any of his qualms though, and Mother didn’t grow skeptical of him as her observed, “Your roommates are all Fays!”

“We are all one community here!” Mother spoke in ethereal vocalization and put her hands together as if in prayer, and I was glad that she missed me rolling my eyes! “We are all brethren, we share the same space. Speaking of the space, allow me to show it to you!”

“Allow her! Psh! Like we have a choice!” I muttered under my breath as one of the Fays opened the gate leading to the front yard. One of them glanced behind him as if he was trying to detect who had committed a grave offense, and I struck a nonchalant pose so I could avoid castigation. I had no idea what these potential adversaries were capable of, so I committed myself to biting my tongue going forward!

Mother spread her arms proudly to display what laid in front of her on the dirt road. “Ta-da!”

Harper noted, “It looks the same.”

“Temporarily, yes! But feel the spirit! Doesn’t it feel different?” Mother petitioned us. None of us understood enough about this subject to feign interest to humor her, so we sort of hung out there awkwardly and shrugged.

“What? What’s happening? What are we looking at?” Minna shouted to us from a distance.

Mother broke from her cherub-like demeanor and puzzled, “Who’s that?”

Aidan filled her in, “That’s my stalker. Since she’s forced to work with us, they put a restraining order spell on her, which prevents her from going within ten feet of me. I guess they thought it’d make things tolerable, but it hasn’t helped much!” Mother seemed uncomfortable with that concept, so Aidan offered, “I can have the police come and remove it if you want.”

“No!” Mother refused with more intensity than she meant to. She swiftly smiled and continued in a more sing-song manner, “That won’t be necessary. We can work around any challenge!” As soon as she turned her back, Aidan and I exchanged vigilant glances. Mother then directed us, “Follow me, my children!”

“Wow! You have a lot of Fays working for you!” Mason remarked as we neared the old egg farm and saw numerous Fay Folks doing reconstruction.

Mother illuminated us, “We are a colony dedicated to rehabilitation of the recently departed! We provide an environment for them to grow morally and spiritually so that they can get into Heaven.”

Mom nudged me. “Hey, Sophia! That sounds right up your alley!” I grinned while I was in Mother’s scope, but I wiped that away as soon as she wasn’t.

“This sector is devoted to worship,” Mother went on. “We hold services each day, but you are permitted to enter the premises during your free hours to pray if you’d like.” She traversed a bit further, and we stopped outside of the cave where Lake Ana Wai used to exist. “I have assigned a special team to research how to restore these waters.”

“Can Kennedy and I get placed on this team?” I requested.

Mother denied me, “No!”

Aidan whispered to me, “Thanks for being so snarky with her!” I felt a twinge of guilt over that, but I withstood greater angst picturing myself sucking up to her so we could gain access to this project! I had no inclination of divulging any of the intelligence we gathered throughout our unofficial investigation, but I was certainly curious as to what, if anything, they learned about the mo’o’s disappearing gift!

When we all turned around, Minna espied our movements and assured us, “I can roll backwards, it’s cool!”

“This will be our source of income,” Mother elucidated. “We shall harvest the livestock and a select few shall deliver it to the market for sale. That few have already been chosen.” She indicated to me, which didn’t phase me in the slightest. Unless Lopaka stashed something in his old territory which related to our case, I could have cared less about entering into this territory!

“I wonder if he at least took Anela!” Mom fretfully checked over the animals to make sure that this particular goat hadn’t gotten left behind. It would have been pretty heart-wrenching if he was willing to abandon a beloved pet, but I had no inkling on where he went from here, so I didn’t know what we could have done about it if he had committed that misdeed!

Mother guided us back to the Hekekias’ previous abode, and she relayed to us, “This shall be the marketing headquarters as well as mine. Soon, our community will grow by the hundreds, maybe even the thousands! We’ll all live and work together until that sweet day we meet our maker!”

Minna hollered, “Holy smokes! I thought our quarters were crowded before you all came!”

I cringed at the notion of sharing our lodgings with dozens of individuals we didn’t know! My only sense of hopefulness came from the idea that the kids would create an uncomfortable enough experience that no one would want to stay! To my surprise, Mother was cringing too! She begrudgingly told us, “We are not permitted access to your residence, so it will remain solely yours!” It relieved me to hear this until she threw in, “I still expect you to report to the fields at dawn!”

“Dawn? Why on God’s green earth would you make us wake up at such a hellish hour?” Laraleigh reacted in aghast. I was thankful she said it and not me- I imagined that if I had done it, I would have had to go through some kind of horrible punishment for my pattern of back-talk towards her! Furthermore, it alleviated me that they were starting to grasp onto the fact that we were not in an optimal situation at the present! I crossed my fingers that we could return to our dwelling after this tour so I could convince everyone to pack their bags and hightail it out of here! I was sure that Agent Hearne would have understood our motive for doing so once we described the details of this bizarre interaction!

“Every minute is precious! We cannot waste the daylight!” Mother reasoned.

Adian strove to uphold a significant level of politeness with her as he argued, “Listen, I’m guessing your files portrayed us as skilled farmers, but we actually suck at it! We would prove to be better assets for your organization if we took on a role more of our style. We’re more of the intellectual types…”

Willow unexpectedly discerned, “Wait, an F grade is bad? I was thinking we were at the top!”

“Grades aren’t always indicative of genius!” Aidan struggled to smooth that out. “Look at Einstein, he-!”

“I wouldn’t worry about school anymore,” Mother advised. “You won’t be going anymore!”

Laraleigh speculated, “What, did they just flunk them and say to try again next semester?”

Mother announced, “No. I’m turning off your internet.” All of us gaped at this development, but prior to any of us protesting this, she sweetly reckoned, “Well, I can’t have you communicating with the outer world, can I? No one can until you’ve attained a momentous degree of trustworthiness! Oh, that reminds me- take their devices and wands!”

Merripen, Jera, and Adrian encircled us in addition to several of their colleagues, and I considered breaking protocol to fight them off, but I couldn’t have possibly executed a spell with an enemy at every angle! Regardless of where I aimed, someone out of my range of sight could have easily knocked my weapon from my grip! If I did a hex to harm them all, I would have risked injuring one of us in the process! I very reluctantly handed over my wand and cellphone, and my insides began twisting around in knots- there was no escape from this place!

“You can’t run away now!” a Fay leered to Minna as he stole her wand. 

“Is than an ableist joke?” Minna retorted as she gestured to her wheelchair.

The entire group was frozen from bewilderment, and I couldn’t resist spouting, “I told you! Is anyone else scared yet?”

Mom disdainfully regarded me, “Is this something you wanted to be right about?” She had a valid point, so I buttoned my lip.

Mother smirked, and then she ominously bade us, “All hail The End Is My Friend!” As some Fay Folks unveiled the new sign, I pondered how we were going to get out of this jam!

Crimes of the Fay II, Chapter 29

“What a fantastic day!” Mom happily declared as we walked towards the cottage.

“Yeah… Fantastic!” I derisively muttered as I peeled a piece of seaweed off of my drenched clothing. Aidan didn’t say a word, but as he cleaned off his wet outfit too, his visage plainly displayed his agreement with my sentiments.

Laraleigh enquired to Aidan and me, “What were guys trying to do? Make love by the beach?”

Aidan remarked, “Oh! I didn’t even think of that!”

“Really?” Laraleigh reacted in surprise.

“Yeah, that surprises me too!” Aidan rubbed his chin as he contemplated this observation.

Laraleigh probed, ‘What were you doing by the shoreline then?”

Prior to reuniting with our family, Aidan and I agreed that we couldn’t reveal the truth of our excursion to any of them. It was paramount that we kept our unofficial investigation of Lake Ana Wai under wraps to ensure Agent Hearne didn’t find out and shut our project down, but I also was fairly certain that Wade was in our neighborhood, so I didn’t want him to learn how much we knew about his movements! Not that this afternoon helped us gain much more knowledge! We were still pretty sure that the mo’o’s gift got stashed on the Island of Death, but we didn’t get anything from exploring the seashore other than soaked! We considered telling them about the healing aspect of that legendary land, but I was in no mood for anyone to question my sanity that night! As if the sting of failure after a long day’s work wasn’t bad enough, I had surgery scheduled just around the corner, so I didn’t need any more stress! Aidan and I came to a consensus on what to reveal to them, and Aidan delivered the explanation, “I love the ocean, you know that! I’ve been dying to see it since we got here, and I guess you can say I saw more of it than I planned!”

“You got to see the Pacific like you wanted, so why the sad faces?” Mom queried us. “You encountered a small splash, why is that such a big deal?”

“Um, first of all, this wasn’t a small splash!” I rather vexedly responded to her. “And second, did you not hear the part where I said I’m having an operation on Friday?”

I expected Mom to utter something encouraging to soothe my nerves or perhaps mourn the lost opportunity to become a grandmother, but instead, she cheerily waved that tidbit off, “Oh, but you’re gonna feel so much better once it’s done! And you’ll have a new family member around to assist you in your recovery!” She indicated to the cat carrier in her hands.

Aidan reminded her, “The shelter told you that you can take care of it while they try and locate its owner, so you shouldn’t count on keeping it permanently! It’s not your baby, more like a foster child!”

“But if they don’t figure out who he belongs to, then he’ll be mine!” She kissed the cage and cooed, “Your new brothers and sisters are gonna love you!”

“They’re probably hiding from whatever trouble the kids are up to currently,” I commented.

Laraleigh took offense to that. “Hey! They don’t always misbehave!”

We opened the front door, and we were greeted with a cloud of multiple colors! Once it cleared, I saw that my garments had a variety of hues now on them! Several piles of bright powders remained on the ground, and Minna hollered, “See! You should have cleaned this crap up when I ordered you to!”

“Ooh! Mama, she sweared!” Willow ran over and tattled.

“What in the blue blazes are y’all doing?” Laraleigh bellowed. “You’re all failing your classes, and this is how you spend your time? Jeez, can you do something other than break rules? Or at least be more productive when you do it/ God, you didn’t even try to cheat, did you?”

The kids all ceased their antics and hung their heads in shame, which seemed more of an effort to appease their mother than actual guilt, and while Laraleigh searched for the right verbiage to admonish them, my mom grabbed a broom and assessed, “We need to clear this up before we let the new cat out!”

While the youngsters gasped in delight, Aidan briefed them, “It’s only temporary! The shelt is trying to find its family, so it’s more like babysitting.”

“Ooh! I wanna meet who we’re kitty-sitting!” Mason exclaimed, a feeling that his siblings all shared. I couldn’t fathom why- the eight felines who already roamed our house were a handful enough! Well, when they weren’t cowering from these jumpy juveniles that is! What exactly did they think would happen with this one?

“As soon as we can tidy this place up, you can meet him,” Mom relayed to them as she swiftly swept.

Harper instantly volunteered, “I’ll lend a hand!”

Preceding her ability to execute a spell, Laraleigh grabbed her wrist and grilled her, “Where did you get this?”

“Uncle Aidan and Shannon’s wands weren’t working, so we threw them out the window,” Harper explained. “Minna let us use hers.”

“That’s a lie!” Minna disputed. “I took a short nap during their lessons, and they stole it!”

Harper corrected her, “Borrowed! It’s not like we were gonna keep it! We just wanted to play color tag!”

Laraleigh built up a lot of steam from that rationalization, but Mom cut her off before she let it out, “Could you save it for later? Poor Jinx is probably already scared enough!” Laraleigh seemed miffed by that request, but she bit her lip and complied. Some of mom’s other pets curiously began to emerge and approach the cage tentatively. Once Laraleigh magicked the dust away, Mom opened the enclosure, and…

Jinx came running out hissing, and the other animals scurried away in fright! Jinx didn’t know where was safe for him to take cover, so he rushed all over the abode, and since his peers couldn’t’ predict his actions, they too darted around in random directions! I got overwhelmed pretty quickly, and I dearly wanted to seek refuge in my hidey closet, but I was afraid to accidentally move into the warpath! As I watched this pandemonium unfold, I pondered how long it would take for things to calm down…

All of a sudden, the doorbell rang, and all of the catapulting cats found their havens in a jiffy from the perceived danger! I folded my arms in annoyance of how unnecessary their previous chaos had been, and I almost voiced this observation, but it then occurred to me that perhaps their instincts weren’t wrong about our guests! We never had visitors, and there was only a single individual I reckoned would have any desire to darken our doorstep…

“Wow! I didn’t know this building had a doorbell!” Jackson expressed in a pleasant surprise. As Aidan cautiously studied the entryway, Jackson asked, “Isn’t anybody gonna get that?” 

“Stay back!” I instructed everyone as I whipped my wand out. Aidan readied himself to open the door up, and my adrenaline skyrocketed! I was positive that Wade discovered our activity in Kai Lawai’a and followed us to the premises to stop us from completing our mission! I had no clue how he bypassed the security measures that surrounded the property, but I would have to figure that out later! I had been waiting for this showdown for a long time! Okay, it hadn’t been that long, but it felt like it! Anyways, I was more than prepared to bring this misadventure to a finish! Aidan made the entrance ajar, and I steeled myself up for the fight of a lifetime, and…

The Hekekias gazed at us in total startlement! I wanted to feel sympathy for them stumbling into such a dicey situation, but I had to undo all of the bluster I had just built up! The two Fays stood there awkwardly for a moment, and then Kaleo inquired, “Uh… Is this a bad time?”

Mom genially replied, “No! Why would you think that?”

While she pet a cat who gotten covered in powder that Laraleigh had missed, Laraleigh was trying to persuade her children to give Minna her wand back and Aidan as well as I had to calm ourselves out of a state of agitation, so I could easily comprehend why the Hekekias would feel hesitant on entering inside! I privately prayed that they wouldn’t have too much intrigue on all that recently transpired, and thankfully, Kalani simply cleared her throat, ignored the oddities in front of her, and announced, “We have something important to tell you…”

I fully expected them to divulge some cocamame excuse for canceling another shift tomorrow, and I couldn’t grasp why they were taking so long to convey this to us! I had such a mentally exhausting afternoon that all I yearned to do for the remainder of the evening was dig out that wine I got on the plane and strive to forget all of my aggravation, so every minute they waffled on this nonsense cost me a fraction of my dearly needed relaxation! I couldn’t prevent my expression from staring at them with total impatience as I waited!

“We sold Lani Noni!” Kaleo finally admitted. The entire household froze upon hearing this update! I imagined that nobody could’ve predicted this eventuality! It caught us all so off guard that we stood there in total silence! I doubted that it even got that silent when we all slumbered! My jaw dropped at the shock of this upheaval! I didn’t have the faintest inkling that they were even thinking of doing this, so it took a lengthy stretch to absorb it!

“Jinx just got here!” Mom cried out. “He’s not ready to make another move!”

She brought up something that hadn’t dawned on me until she articulated it, which I sort of felt ashamed about because I esteemed that it ought to have been at the forefront of my mind! “Oh, darn! We gotta go live somewhere else now! What a shame!” I meant to say that with an ounce of false sincerity, but it didn’t come out that way!

Kalani assured us, “No, no! We discussed your circumstances with the new owner, and she’s more than delighted to allow you all to stay here!”

“Oh!” I couldn’t fake enthusiasm at that one since I had gotten my hopes up that we might actually get the chance to reside in a dwelling with more accommodations towards our needs!

“Why did you sell it?” Aidan petitioned them.

Kaleo filled us in, “They offered us a bunch of cash for it! More than it’s likely worth! The lady who purchased Lopaka’s property wanted ours too, and I would have turned her down if it hadn’t been for the fact that she adamantly insisted that she intends to restore the territory to its former glory, and that’s all I ever wanted really! Well, that’s not say that I didn’t want the money- I just didn’t picture it as possible for Fay Folks to ever get that kind of dough!”

Kalani added, “It’s been a pleasure being your bosses and landlords, but we feel that we’re leaving you in good hands!”

She extended her palm for me to shake, and I took it out of politeness, but something didn’t settle right with me! Who spends so much capital on an unprofitable plot? This person put an offer on Lopaka’s ranch, and then they immediately bought this hovel next door? What could they possibly have seen in this territory that made it so lucrative? And why would they permit a family of ten (or nineteen if you counted the critters) to occupy a piece of their newly acquired acreage? I couldn’t quite put my finger on why, but this transaction had a quality to it that made me truly uneasy! As the Hekekias merrily vacated the vicinity, I watched them go with surmounting concern… What exactly did they just unleash on us?