“We?” Jane said. “No, no, this is not a family project.”
Alton turned to Geoffrey. “Tell her. You know how elves are. If it’s a subject that they’ve been avoiding, then they’re only going to talk to ‘one on the inside,’ not total outsiders.”
Geoffrey nodded slowly. “Yeah, he’s right. The elves have dozens of words that track alliances. There’s someone in your household. A member of another household that is Beholden to the same domana as yours. Then there’s the households who have different domana but their lord is in alignment with your lord.”
“You don’t think they’ll talk to Hal or Nigel, but they’ll talk to you?” Jane asked Alton.
“They might not even talk to me,” Alton said. “The whole oni thing has them rattled. After that first attack on Windwolf, they tested to see if I was an oni in disguise.”
“You didn’t tell me that,” Jane said.
“It was no big deal,” Alton said. “They cast some type of spell on me to make sure I was human. It took two seconds and it didn’t hurt.”
“The spell simply removes any magical disguise,” Geoffrey said. “It’s completely harmless as long as you’re not oni.”
“They did it to you too?” Jane growled. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you’d be pissed off,” Alton said. “Besides, it was no big deal. It was like getting a background check for a car loan or something. The spell was written out on a strip of paper. They called it a biatau. They laid it on my arm, said the activation word, and boom, it was over. It felt like pulling off a wool sweater in a dry house. The enclaves wanted to be sure I was selling them food that was safe to eat.”
Geoffrey added in, “I needed access to the non-public areas of Raisin Sauce’s enclave where Oak Spindle has his workshop.”
“Raisin Sauce!” Nigel murmured. “The elves have such marvelous names.”
“The Viceroy is at Poppymeadows,” Geoffrey said. “So we won’t be able to talk to anyone there. The enclave closes to public when he’s in residence. I think Raisin Sauce is our best bet.”
Alton nodded. “If that fails, we should try Chili Pepper. He’s likes to talk.”
“We should still talk to the young elves,” Taggart said. “That way it would seem as if we learned enough to ask the older ones the more advanced questions.”
“I can talk to some of my friends,” Geoffrey said. “They might know something even if it happened before they were born. Certainly we could all talk some about historic events like the Revolutionary War, the Civil War and the World Wars. They might be even more willing, since it’s ancient history to them, instead of something they lived through.”
The conversation was interrupted with the need to clear the table and wash dishes. For the second time in a row, a small miracle happened and her brothers finished up quickly without soaking one another. Her family moved into her spacious living room. They reviewed video and brainstormed interview questions that they could ask to draw out information that they already knew. Boo kept Joey entertained with his new sketch book and colored pencils. Joey settled into drawing, successfully distracted.
“Hal’s opening on the deck of the Queen is five minutes exactly,” Jane said. “It’s a little long if we get good footage on the river in the next few days, but we can edit it down slightly if needed. We can follow with footage from Sandcastle. Maynard actually asking Hal for help will explain how Hal went from PG&B to Monsters in Our Midst. Let’s start here at timestamp 9:52 and run to 11:37 for a total of one minute and forty-five seconds. That leaves us just shy of fifteen minutes of explaining about the eggs and hopefully finding them. If we don’t find the nests before Friday night, we might ask our viewers for help finding the eggs before they hatch.”
“Are you sure you want help?” Alton asked. “It could turn into a circus.”
“It would make the common person feel like they’re part of the solution,” Jane said. “It would go a long way uniting us when everything else is dividing us into factions.”
Joey came to climb into Jane’s lap. “Look! I drew Boo when she gets her wings!”
“Wow, that’s a wonderful picture!” Jane said before the subject matter sunk in because it was amazing drawing for a six-year-old. Her family loved to put up pictures that her brothers and cousin drew, so Jane was well educated on the average artistic abilities of children. At six, kids normally drew stick figures with big round heads. Joey had rendered Boo in detail that seemed more on par of a child in high school. The drawing had all Boo’s limbs on scale with her body. Her platinum blonde hair fell in curls down over her shoulders. She wore jeans without shoes, her crow feet plainly visible. Her massive wings were as pale as her hair, spread wide, dwarfing her. If Jane had not seen Yumiko’s wingspan in person, she would think it was a child’s exaggeration of scale. In the drawing, Boo smiled with happiness.
Jane’s stomach rolled with a sick feeling. Did Boo want wings that badly? Would they make her happy or would they make her more aware that the oni twisted her body into something alien?
“What is this?” Nigel leaned over to point at a small lizard in the background.
“That’s Providence!” Joey said. “He’s the guardian spirit of the tengu. He gave us our wings after the oni changed us. The oni gave us the desire to fly but no way to do it.”
“What type of creature is Providence?” Nigel asked.
“He’s a dragon!” Joey said. “Not like the ones in Harry Potter. He doesn’t have wings. He has a mane, like a lion, kind of. He used it to cast spells.”
“Can he talk?” Nigel asked.
“Only to the Chosen One,” Joey sighed. “We haven’t been able to talk to Providence for years and years. Not since Jin Wong went into space.”
“Hush.” Yumiko said. “We don’t tell outsiders about Providence.”
“Please, this is very important,” Nigel said. “I need to know about Providence.”
“There is nothing to tell,” Yumiko said. “His body is dead. His spirit cannot speak with us. We’re drifting, lost, without his guidance.”
“What would the oni do if they captured a living dragon?” Nigel asked.
Yumiko glanced suspiciously at Jane. She obviously thought that Jane had revealed the truth about Tinker.
“Nigel, why are you asking about dragons?” Jane asked to make it clear that she hadn’t talked to the man.
Nigel gave Yumiko a searching look as if he was trying to judge her trustworthiness. Finally he sighed and glanced to Taggart. “I’m sorry I haven’t told you everything. I was protecting Lemon-Lime Jello. When I spoke to them in New York City, they had a wee dragon with them.”
“What?” Yumiko cried. “Who is this — this — Did you say Jello?”
“I don’t know their real names.” Nigel started out by carefully concealing the real identity of the twin girls. “They asked to meet with me anonymously. I left the meeting place up to them. They chose a charity event on Mid-Summer’s Eve. It was run by NBC and they set up an elaborate spread that featured this massive five-tiered cake. It was a white cake with vanilla frosting and…”
“Forget about the cake!” Yumiko shouted. “What about the dragon?”
Nigel made soothing motions with his hands. “The cake looms large in the story.”
Yumiko leaned closer to Nigel. “Tell me about the dragon!”