said much more. She wore a long-sleeved peasant blouse today that covered Molly, the fairy tattoo on her shoulder that sometimes came to life and flitted around the shop like Tinker Bell’s shadow. “Need anything?”
“No, you’re busy. I’ll just grab my cat.” Keelie looked at the orange behemoth. “Come on, Knot, time to go home.”
In typical cat fashion, Knot ignored her, turning his green eyes toward the wall that was covered in framed pictures of tattoos. Knot wasn’t really a cat—he was a fairy, just as Zabrina was, and he liked to hang around with her.
“Take him with you, Keelie. He’s been chasing Molly.” Zabrina widened her eyes and jerked her chin toward her tattooed shoulder.
Keelie glared at the cat. “You are so evil.” He purred, as she knew he would. “You shouldn’t stay where you aren’t wanted.” She knew better than to drag him out, but he’d come along in a minute. He just didn’t want her to think he was a pushover. Keelie waved at the bedraggled, tired-looking white water rafters who’d come in for their souvenir tats. A few waved back, and she ducked out of the shop.
She headed south, hoping to see Barrow the dwarf at his parents’ hardware store, since she was dying to talk to someone about the letter. She crossed the street in front of the diner. A fuzzy orange blur beat her to it. Keelie knew Knot couldn’t resist seeing what she was up to.
Loud banging rang from the narrow old warehouse that occupied the space next to the hardware store, its mellow bricks covered in ivy. Barrow was in his sculpture workshop. His metal sculptures decorated many of the lawns around town, and were popular with the tourists and white water rafters.
She tugged open one of the sagging white doors (pine, from the river’s shore), and stepped into the gloom. “Barrow, you here?”
“Back here, Keelie.”
She turned toward his voice, but didn’t move until her eyes had adjusted to the dark. Barrow’s family lived underground, and this was normal lighting for him.
Her vision cleared slowly, until she saw the dwarf at the other end of the warehouse next to a wide kiddie pool, his welding torch and tanks behind him. Keelie’s eyes widened when she saw that the pool held the water sprite who lived in the stream in the Dread Forest. The little fishlike sprite was sitting on a rock in the center of the pool, her tail fins splashing lightly and her head thrown back so that her long, green, yarnlike hair flowed down to the water behind her. Barrow had a serious crush on the sprite.
“Keelie, you remember Plu, don’t you?”
Plu? She’d never learned the sprite’s name, but the bubbly sounding word fit her. “Hi, Plu. Nice to see you again.”
The sprite opened her large lavender eyes and then smiled when she saw Keelie. “I wondered who it was that could see me.”
Knot rubbed against the side of the kiddie pool.
“I’m doing her portrait,” Barrow explained. The dwarf seemed to be about Keelie’s age, even though at three feet tall he was the same height as her father’s friend, Sir Davey. Keelie had met Barrow last fall Under-the-Hill, which was the underground land where the dwarves lived (the fae had once lived there too, although in recent years only the darkest fae, such as trolls and Red Caps, remained). Dad and Grandmother had been surprised to hear of the existence of this subterranean homeland; the elves had lived atop it for centuries without ever knowing it. The trees, whose roots delved deep, had kept the secret.
Keelie drew closer and looked over Barrow’s shoulder. So far, the portrait consisted of three battered steel cutouts welded together.
“I’m just starting.” Barrow must have noticed her expression. “I’m going to curl steel ribbons for her hair.” The sprite laughed and Barrow blushed. He had it bad.
“It sounds great,” Keelie said, still not sure how it would work out. She was no artist. “I got a letter from my mom’s lawyers. They sold our house.”
“The one in the city?” Barrow pulled a heavy leather hood over his head, then dropped a thick metal shield with a tiny, thick glass window in its center over his face. “Step back and don’t look at the flame.”
Keelie backed away and turned from the slight “whump,” which was followed by the hissing roar of the welding torch. “I’d better leave you to it. See you later.”
Barrow motioned absently, his attention on his work. As she was leaving he