Willa tried a smile. “How are you?” Looking up, she spotted Mab sitting on a rafter. “Hi, Mab, how’s things?”
The fairy queen turned away in disdain, refusing to speak. The other fairies began their angry chittering again.
“One at a time, please! I can’t understand you,” pleaded Willa. One fairy with a clipboard flew up, taking charge.
“Her High and Mighty Highness would like to communicate her complaints.” She whipped a tiny piece of paper off the clipboard and handed it to Willa.
“Um, thank you, Miss …?”
“My name is Saracenia, Sarah for short. I am Her Most Bountiful Majesty’s personal assistant.” Sarah was a pretty little thing, dressed in a velvety moss robe, clutching a clipboard and quill pen and regarding Willa with a very serious air. Willa peered at the tiny paper, which said:
1 ugly
2 stinky
3 vulgar
4 hairy
5 filthy
6 smelly
“‘Stinky’ and ‘smelly’ are technically the same thing.” Willa handed back the paper. “Who are you talking about anyway, the builders?”
“Of course!” snapped Sarah. “It is the position of our Most Ethereal One that the builders are utterly and entirely unacceptable!”
Robert stomped his hooves on the earthen floor. “Agreed! I will NOT share my living quarters with the scoundrels!” A chorus of fairy voices chimed in agreement.
“Please be reasonable,” begged Willa. “We desperately need a new house, and they’ve come to build us one.”
Robert scowled. Sarah scowled. Up on her rafter, Mab scowled. Willa took a last desperate stab. “You think you’ve got it bad? I have to share a bathroom with Belle!”
Robert snorted. Through the gloom, Willa thought she saw him hiding a smile. She stepped around him, squinting into the darkness.
“Where are they? I’d like to meet them. Oh!”
On all sides of the stable, nine figures were at work, slinging hammocks from the rafters and unpacking duffel bags. Nine stocky and very short men. Dwarves, to be precise, all looking at her with dark, unblinking eyes. They were uncannily garden gnomish, only missing the red caps. And they were definitely not human; their heads were massive, easily three times human size. The only thing keeping their big heads and huge hands from tipping them right over was the immense size of their feet. They were grimy and unkempt, in ancient leather garments and very muddy boots.
“Um … hello,” Willa ventured. They didn’t answer, just stared at her with those black button eyes. Unnerved, she turned back to Robert. “Listen, you won’t be roommates for too long. As soon as they build the first few rooms of the house, you can move in.” She looked to the dwarves. “Right?”
Some head-scratching, foot-shuffling, sideways glances, shaking of heads.
“No?” Willa raised an eyebrow.
The dwarves all looked to the one with the longest beard and most ornately embroidered jacket. Apparently the leader, he stepped up and looked very sternly at Willa, gesturing to himself and the other dwarves.
“When the first rooms are built, you’ll move in?” Willa put her hands on her hips. The dwarf leader crossed his arms defiantly. They regarded one another for a moment or two until Willa gave in.
“All right. You can be the first to move in, but only if you make the stable more secure before you begin on the house.” She gestured to the collapsed back wall of the stable, which Tengu and Robert had propped up with charred beams they’d pulled from the wreckage of the house. She’d always felt it was on the brink of falling down again. The dwarf leader walked over and gave it a long inspection. Then he nodded and held out a large hand. Willa shook it, her own hand disappearing in his rough grip.
“Okay,” Willa announced. “The dwarves will make the stable safe and then work on the house. They’ll be the first to move into the house, and then they’ll work on it extra fast.” She looked pointedly at the leader, but he kept his poker face. The other dwarves averted their eyes. One examined his blackened nails.
Willa was not filled with confidence, but at least Robert had calmed down. He backed into his corner of the stable and sat down, glowering. Willa looked up to see Mab whispering into Sarah’s ear. Sarah snapped her clipboard shut, put the quill pen behind her ear, and flew down to report.
“Our Supremely Serene Queen will allow this intrusion, but only on a temporary basis.”
“Thank you, Mab,” smiled Willa. She turned to the corner. “And you, Robert?”
“For you, Willa, I will put up with them,” he sniffed. “But I’m not going to like it.”
Chapter Two
In which the dwarves begin work and the phoenix drives everyone up the wall
“Why dwarves?” asked Willa when next she saw Horace. They were sitting at the lookout on Hanlan’s Hill, in the wooded park at the edge of town. Horace had his binoculars out and was scanning the sky for birds.
“Who better?” he answered. “Dwarves have been blacksmiths since the very dawn of time, but when the market for horseshoes declined, they branched out into all the trades. They’re marvellous workers, loyal, good-hearted …”
“I’m not sure how a crew of fairy-tale dwarves is going to help us keep a low profile in the neighbourhood,” Willa sighed.
At this Horace could only shrug and grin. Willa gazed at the town below, her mind awhirl with anxious thoughts about unreliable construction dwarves and how angry Robert would be if he had to spend the winter in the stable. And about what Mab might do. And her algebra quiz on Friday. And when Mom might have a total meltdown over their houseguests.
“Horace, what do you know about Belle before she came to Eldritch Manor?”
Horace thought for a moment. “Nothing at all. She’s not much for … sharing.”
Willa snorted. “You can say that again. Belle is the most unsharing person I’ve ever met!”
High above, large birds were circling. In the woods a flock of little birds lifted and skittered across her sight. Far out on the ocean, a cloud of seagulls rose and dropped behind the fishing boats. She took a deep breath. Thinking about her Grandpa out there on the water made her smile.
“Lots of birds about,” she ventured. “What are those ones way up high? Some kind of hawk?”
Horace trained his binoculars on them, nodding eagerly. “Yes, those are … those are …” He lowered the binoculars, frowning. “Drat. It’s right on the tip of my tongue. Just a moment, I’ll remember.”
Willa waited, watching as he put a palm to his forehead. A long moment passed.
“It’s all right, I was just
