What Hasn't Happened

Hi, this is Summer. Sorry it’s been so long since we’ve written. We had some problems with our internet, and then things got really busy for our family, especially Blakeney. Life has been going pretty well for us in the meantime. We’ve settled into our new school, and we’re making new friends. It didn’t take long before we were back into our activities, either.

Here’s what hasn’t happened, though. Marigold hasn’t gone home. In a way, that’s a good thing. No… I shouldn’t even say “in a way.” It’s been wonderful having her here and getting to know her. She gets along really well with all of us, and she fits right in. It seems like she belongs here. Sometimes it’s hard to remember she’s a guest.

And that’s the weird part. We thought she was just coming for a visit, but she’s been here for three months. No explanation, no estimated time of departure, and apparently her parents aren’t concerned.

When she first got here, she didn’t bother about calling home. Finally, the adults insisted she had to give them a phone number so they could talk to her parents; we’re all happy to have her here, but Inna pointed out that we could get in major trouble if we kept her here and her parents didn’t know where she was. Marigold procrastinated as long as she could get away with it, but finally she gave Blakeney a number.

Every time one of the adults tried calling, the phone on the other end would just ring and ring. No one ever picked up, and it never went to voicemail. For a few days, they thought they were just calling at inconvenient times, but as more time went by and there was never an answer, the adults started to get worried again. Marigold just shrugged and said that clearly her folks weren’t stressed about the situation. But obviously, Blakeney, Inna, Maia, and Gia weren’t convinced.

School started. We knew Marigold was supposed to be homeschooled this year, and she said her parents would be fine with her just going to school with me. The grownups just exchanged a look. Homeschooling is one thing – several of the kids in our family are homeschooled – but generally the parents would want to have some input in terms of what their kid was learning. Homeschooling is very different from the kid just going to some random school, know what I mean?

Finally, the adults decided that they just weren’t going to get anything out of Marigold, and they were going to have to get some answers themselves. It was awkward going behind her back, but how else were we ever going to figure out what’s going on?

While the rest of the girls in our family were in school, Blakeney, Inna, Kirsten, and Bree – they had the day off – drove up to Ontario. They figured that if they couldn’t get Marigold’s parents on the phone, they would have to go to the address and talk to them in person. When they got to Toronto, they had no problem finding where Marigold had told us she lived… but there was no house there.

It wasn’t like that time we went to visit Cécile and Marie-Grace, and found the house they’d been living in had just been burned down. This was a vacant lot. There had been nothing standing there for a long time. There were just a few foundation stones overgrown with waist-high weeds. There was no way Marigold and her parents had been living in a house here as of August.

Bree wondered if maybe they were homeless, and they’d been living in the lot but Marigold was too embarrassed to say anything about that part. There was no sign of anyone camping there, either, but we figured maybe they’d already moved on. We asked around, but everyone in the neighbourhood told us that no one had been staying in the vacant lot for years, homeless or otherwise. So that didn’t turn out to be it, either.

After that trip to Ontario, we’re even more confused than we were before. We’re not quite sure what to do. If this were a normal situation, we would have called the police a long time ago and let them sort it out… but as you recall, we aren’t normal. Marigold is one of the fairy folk. She still hasn’t admitted that, but we can tell. Involving the human police isn’t likely to help.

We’re not sure if we should confront Marigold – she’ll probably just make more excuses if we tell her what we found. I’m not sure how to find out more if she won’t tell us. I hate having to be suspicious of my own twin. The truth is, though, I don’t really know her all that well, even though we’re biological sisters.

We’re happy to have her here. As long as she wants to stay, she can. We’re worried about her, though. We need to figure out what’s going on.

Love,

Summer

Questioning the Sister

Hi, this is Summer again. I know you've been waiting for an update on the strange situation with my twin sister showing up out of nowhere after disappearing for awhile. And I know I should really have been asking her questions. I know you guys want to know... and I realize that we need to know.

To be honest, though, I've been putting off asking those questions, like where she went, or how she got here, or how she knew where to find us, or why she isn't contacting her parents. I was scared to ask. I was afraid she'd disappear again, like she did the last time I questioned her. I'd rather know nothing than lose her. So I didn't ask.

The adults weren't quite so relaxed about it, though. They gave her a night to settle in before pushing the issue, but then Blakeney said Marigold had to call her parents and let them know she was alright, because if they thought we'd kidnapped her than we'd be in big trouble. Marigold said okay, but then Blakeney said that one of the adults needed to talk to them too, and then Marigold didn't seem quite so happy about the whole thing. She put it off for several hours, and then when she finally called, it just rang and rang and no one picked up. We've tried calling them many more times since then, but no one ever answers.

Obviously we're starting to get both worried and a little suspicious about what's going on.

Inna took Marigold aside and asked her if anything bad was happening at home. If someone was hurting Marigold or mistreating her, she needed to say something, and we would make sure she was safe and got help. Inna promised not to do anything that would put Marigold in danger, and not to say anything to anyone who might harm her... but Marigold just smiled and said again that nothing was wrong.

Marigold has been cheerful most of the time, and we're having fun. She and Kaya have been comparing modern dance moves, and they tried to teach the rest of us - hilarity ensued. Marigold has even been hitting it off with Kiwi, which is good, because I was afraid Kiwi would be jealous again. Instead, they're out turning cartwheels together in the yard.

We're not sure what to do, though. We're happy to have Marigold stay here as long as wants. She can even move in, according to the adults - but it's hard when everything is so secret. I hope that soon she can open up.

There's something else weird, too. Bree, Inna, Fiona, and Senara all get the sense that Marigold has some kind of fairy ancestry. But... she's my twin! How is that possible when I don't? Very weird...

Love,
Summer

The Disappearing Twin

Hi, this is Summer again. You're going to be sick of hearing from me, but there are new developments in my twin saga. Well, actually... the new development is sort of a lack of a development. I should back up, though.

A couple of days ago, Marigold told me she wanted to come visit. She was pretty vague about some things, though... like when she was coming, or how she was getting here, or what her parents had to say about the whole thing. We hadn't really resolved anything when she said she had to go, but I figured I'd just talk to her about it the next time we chatted.

There hasn't been a next time. I haven't heard anything from Marigold since that conversation. She hasn't been online or answered e-mails. I've tried phoning her, but it always goes to voicemail. I'm starting to get really worried!

I'm not sure what I can do about it, though. She lives really far away. I don't know her street address, or her parents' first names. All I know is her surname and that she lives in Toronto - but it's a pretty common name, and there are dozens of families in the phone listings. I don't want to bug her, but I don't know if she's alright or not, and I don't know how to find out.

In other news, Inna has been hearing rumours that the group of fair folk (fairies) we rescued Senara from - we found out that they call themselves the Stonecrown Court, after our rocky landscape  - are really upset at us, and are planning to do something to get back at us. This... isn't really a big surprise. We actually kind of figured. Maybe we should be more scared, but this was kind of just the expected result.

This isn't the first time we've had powerful supernatural creatures after us. I'm honestly more worried about Marigold.

Love,
Summer

On Midsummer's Night

"You have no chance.

No chance at all.

Why throw your lives away?"

-Javert, 

"The Final Battle," Les Mis musical

Hi, this is Bree. Good news - we're not dead! We all made it through our fight against the evil superpowered werewolf named John Carrow. Senara is still with us, and wasn't sacrificed to feed the beast's appetite as the fair folk had intended for her.

I just wanted to get that out of the way, for those of you who have been concerned about us. We're still alive, so no worries about us. Now, I'll tell you how it all happened.

***

By the day of the Summer Solstice - the day the fair folk were going to feed Senara to Carrow to keep him from attacking their people for the next seven years, until his next scheduled feeding of an innocent kid - we had the vague outlines of a plan. We knew we had till nightfall, so during the day, we went to the site where the "sacrifice" was supposed to take place, hoping to work out the details of what we were going to do.

What we found was not encouraging. It was basically just a wide open field.

"This is not the ideal place to face an indestructible monster," I said aloud, an understatement. We'd try to hold our line, but all he'd have to do is get behind us once, and... things would become unpleasant. We knew that Carrow wasn't all that bright, at least not in his hungry state. It was pretty much going to be a feeding frenzy. But I didn't think even a crazed hungry werewolf wouldn't consider the advantages that open terrain would give him. We also had no real ideas for how to trap him there.

We didn't give up, though. Giving up is not our strong point. Instead, we walked around the area. About a quarter of a mile away, we found a cave.

"This would be perfect," I said rather wistfully.

Molly made a face. "Yeah," she said. "Assuming your diplomatic skills are good enough to talk Carrow into fighting us over here instead..."

Obviously, my diplomatic skills are not actually up to that challenge. In fact, my diplomatic skills are fairly nonexistent. What Molly said gave me an idea, though. After a moment's thought, I had what I realized might be a fairly workable plan. This made me nervous, because I don't consider myself much of a strategist. A plan created by Bree may, by definition, be doomed to failure. But somehow, some part of me was feeling a little flicker of confidence.

"Felicity, do you think you could use your calming powers on a whole crowd of people at once?" I asked abruptly.

"Um... possibly...?" was Felicity's hesitant reply.

I grimaced. "I was hoping for something more along the lines of 'Absolutely, Bree!' But I guess that will have to do."

Kaya spoke up, and said, "I think I can help her. I can use my power to read the emotions of each of the people in the group in turn. If I notice she's losing anyone, I can point them out so she can focus on them."

"Great!" I replied. I could hear myself sounding a little cheerful. "Senara, have you ever met Carrow?"

She shook her head. Senara had been looking pale all that day, and she'd been pretty quiet.

I beamed at that, which was, in retrospect, probably rather inappropriate. "Excellent! Then he won't know your scent. He'll just be sniffing generically for one of the fair folk. I need to go make a phone call now."

Kirsten said in a rather superior voice, "I don't think this is the time to conform to teenage stereotypes, Bree."

I stuck my tongue out at her. "It's not a social call. I need to call my drama teacher."

The girls all looked confused, since school is out and drama club is over for the summer. "Why do you need to talk to her?" Josefina asked curiously.

"I need something from the costume storage," I said, my brain buzzing with plans. "I need to borrow a blonde wig."


***


When night had fallen, we trailed in a solemn line - almost a procession - to the field we'd surveyed earlier. A dejected blonde figure in a white robe walked between the Greens and Roses, and she stared down at the ground, her posture showing her despair like a beacon. The field was full of the fair folk, who were similarly robed, but in green, black, grey, and dark blue rather than white. There was another figure, too. Carrow. He wasn't easy to see in the low light, but he was hulking and furry. And huge. Very huge. It was hard to tell if he was a werewolf or a small hill, except for the glistening teeth.

Inna stopped, and spoke to them in a sad but confident voice. "We are here to surrender Senara to you. We cannot hope to fight you, John Carrow, and we are not prepared to throw our family's lives away in a futile losing battle to save one teenage girl. There is nothing more we can do. You can have the girl, if you spare the rest of us."

Hearing this, Senara took off at a run, not willing to be werewolf food even if we were willing to give her up. Except... it wasn't actually Senara. Because that was the plan. It was a trick all along. It was me. Senara was safe at home, with Blakeney, Gia, Maia, Summer, Kiwi, and Ev to protect her. I was the one wearing the white robe. And thanks to my drama teacher, I was wearing a blonde wig.

Remember what my super power is? I can run really, really, really fast. Because I'm a descendant of the fair folk too, I was banking on Carrow not being able to tell Senara and me apart. I was right. I took off in the direction of the cave, and Carrow followed me, thinking his sacrifice had gotten scared and had run away.

Felicity, Kaya, and Molly stayed back to deal with the fair folk. We weren't quite sure what the other fairies were going to do. It was unclear what side they would take. Molly hastily started putting up a barrier of ice to slow them down just in case, while Felicity pacified them with Kaya's help.

Kirsten and Josefina were waiting at the cave. Once I had Carrow in position at the mouth of it, I ducked out of the way. Kirsten started using her power to shatter the stones above the mouth of the cave, creating a rockslide and rapidly filling the opening with debris. Carrow hesitated a moment, unsure which direction to go. Josefina helped him decide by blocking his way out with a wall of fire, so his only option to avoid the falling rocks was to go deeper into the cave. Kirsten hastily finished walling him in.

Carrow won't be trapped forever. He doesn't need to be, though. He's weakening rapidly, and as long as he doesn't consume fae blood in the meantime, he'll turn into a normal werewolf. The fair folk are happy to be rid of him and not to have to sacrifice their own to him anymore, so they aren't going to help him. In fact, they offered their enchantments to help keep him in, which we dubiously had to accept.

Obviously, Senara going home after this is out of the question. She doesn't want to live with people who were going to let her die a brutal death at the hands of a werewolf to save their own skins. Senara is going to stay with us, and we're going to adopt her. So that's happy news for everyone.

I wish I could end this on that completely upbeat note. But... this isn't totally a win. Remember Senara's sister, Sakura? The fair folk still have her. Inna was supposed to get her away while the rest of us were busy with Carrow and the audience, but the fairy crowd didn't bring her with them. Sakura is still a prisoner, although they probably won't hurt her. She's more useful as a hostage than she would be as a corpse, even though the fae aren't thrilled with Senara for surviving.

We'll find her, though. We aren't giving up. Not on Senara... and not on Sakura, either.

Love,
Bree

Down to the Wire

Hi, this is Bree again. In all our news of our trip, we may have made our readers forget that Senara is in danger from an evil super-werewolf named John Carrow, and that we don't have much time to decide what to do. In fact, our deadline is tomorrow night. That's when the "sacrifice" of Senara to the werewolf is supposed to happen. As much as we still have that happy post-trip relaxed summer vacation feeling, and as excited as we are about Maia and Gia's news, we haven't forgotten that.

Unfortunately, we're still not quite sure what we're going to do. We have to find some way of preventing Carrow from killing Senara, and then trapping him until his power fades. There has to be some way of containing him. We just... haven't quite thought of one yet.

Everyone is pretty on edge about that.

Yesterday, Blakeney wanted to post on AGPT about how we wear the Real Me tunic top, so one of us needed to model it. Senara volunteered, so I took a picture of her wearing it. Then I snapped a closeup of her face, because we didn't really have any pictures of her yet.

When Kirsten saw the photos on the camera, she yelled at me. She said I was being morbid, and accused me of giving up and thinking Senara was going to die. Kirsten thought the photos were supposed to be like an obituary. Something to remember her by.

That's not it at all, though. I still truly believe, no matter what the odds, that we're going to save her. I wanted to post her pictures because I think she's going to be around for a long time, and our friends should have the chance to get to know her.

So this is what Senara looks like. Not because she's going to die, but because she's going to live.

Love,
Bree

But of course, it couldn't be that easy, right?

Hi everyone. This is Bree again. You guys are going to be sick of me writing so many of the posts lately. Since I'm the person Senara has decided to open up to the most (to the extent she's opening up to anyone) though, I've been the one who has a lot of news lately. So here goes. ;-)

Ever since I came up with a couple of ideas to try to help with Senara's frightening situation, I've been feeling pretty good about how things are going to go. As you know, being complacent is a very, very bad thing. Several of our friends who commented reminded us of that, and while we knew it was true, it was hard to see how it could go drastically wrong.

Of course, I knew it couldn't be that easy. I just didn't see exactly where things were going to fall through.

The thing is, I should have been able to, because Senara already told me an important detail I never considered. The whole 'being fed to a werewolf' thing kind of overshadowed the one offhand comment... which turned out to be something very, very crucial.

I'm getting ahead of myself at this point, though. Back to the beginning. Well, not the very beginning - it's not like I'm going to start telling you about my birth or anything - but the beginning of the current major complication. ;-)

We knew that in order to get Senara freed to leave the city, we needed to tell the fair folk about our trip. They aren't the easiest people to contact. It's fairly easy for them to get in touch with us; they either leave something in our mailbox (which various vampire groups tend to do also) or build a fairy ring out of stones somewhere we're likely to see it. Contacting them back isn't all that easy, because we can't just drop a note in the mail, and they don't live in a fixed location but move around, so we can't just drop by.

I wondered if the fairy circle thing would work in reverse, so I went to the nearest local park and tried to build one. There's this small stand of trees - not really the woods, but close enough to provide a little concealment. I found a small clearing, and built a ring of stones. (Fortunately, finding rocks in Newfoundland is not at all difficult. Newfoundland pretty much is one giant rock with some soil clinging to it.) My ring wasn't as symmetrical or tidy as theirs are, but to be fair, I've had less practice. I thought I did alright. Once I'd built it, I sat down to wait, leaning against a tree. After about an hour, I got bored and took out my book to read. It was a couple of hours after that when they finally showed up. I looked up from my book and saw a little group of them there, including our usual fairy rep. I didn't hear them coming, and normally I have pretty good ears.

"Yes, Bree?" the woman asked politely. There was no rudeness in her tone, and although I thought I got a sense she was impatient, I couldn't have pointed to anything in her voice or body language that specifically conveyed that. She certainly wasn't acting threatening. I filed away in my brain that we'd found a way to get in touch with them.

Then, briefly, I explained our trip, and asked that Senara be allowed to come along. Their reaction was not what I had anticipated.

I didn't expect them to say no, mind you. I didn't see how they could. Their ruse was that they had sent Senara here to learn about human culture - so how could they argue against us taking her to experience the culture of Italy, Hungary, and Croatia as well as Canada? They would have to either say yes or drop their charade, and dropping the charade would be a major step I would be surprised if they were willing to take.

I did expect them to be reluctant, though. I expected them to be flustered or taken off guard. I expected them to try to come up with excuses, but ultimately have to give in to my superior logic.

When they gave each other a brief look and then the spokesfairy responded enthusiastically, though, my heart sank - because I knew something was very wrong. I had dramatically miscalculated somehow. I just still couldn't see where or what.

The spokesfairy smiled, in a way that didn't quite reach her eyes. "What a lovely idea, Bree!" she replied cheerfully. Too cheerfully. Like she was calling my bluff... or like what I had done didn't matter. "Of course Senara has our permission. I hope she has a wonderful trip."

"Wow... well... um... thanks," I stammered.

The woman's eyes narrowed, and for an instant she didn't look cheery. She looked predatory. Then the smile returned, and she added, "Tell Senara to be a good girl while she's away. Tell her to make us proud. Senara knows the consequences if she breaks the rules and causes trouble."

Oh. Yeah. I hadn't thought to ask Senara about that. It hadn't occurred to me that the fair folk had to have some kind of backup plan to make their sacrifice stay put. I wondered what.

It wasn't like they were going to tell me, of course, so I just said I'd tell Senara their message, and then thanked them again for letting her come on our trip. I wasn't really feeling all that grateful to them for anything at that point, but I didn't want to be impolite - impoliteness is a huge issue for most of the fair folk, and I didn't want to start a big conflict with them over something so minor.

The fair folk sort of melted back in the scenery as they usually do when it's time for them to go, and I took a moment to scatter the rocks so they wouldn't look so intentional. Then, with my mind still racing from this new development, I set off on the short walk home.

I didn't see much point in procrastinating, so as soon as I was back at the house, I told Senara what had happened.

For the first time, I saw Senara angry. Even when she was talking about her own impending death, she only sounded sad. A couple of times, she got annoyed with me for asking too many questions. She's never been like this with me, though. Really, truly upset.

"I didn't ask for your help, Bree!" she shouted.

"I'm sorry," I said sincerely. "I should have asked you before I talked to them."

"I don't mean that! You're missing the point. I never asked for your help in the first place! I never asked you to save me! And I don't want you to."

This took me aback. I mean, yeah, technically it's true. Senara never has asked us to protect her. She never asked for our help. But I thought it was just... you know, assumed. She obviously doesn't want to die. So I thought wanting our help was just sort of implied.

Apparently not. Yeah, I was admittedly being somewhat presumptuous, just jumping in to try to save the day. It was still hard for me to understand why she would reject our help outright, though. It didn't make a lot of sense.

Then I remembered:

"If I find some way to escape again, someone else will die in my place. Someone I care very much about protecting."


That's what Senara told me when we first talked about the plan the fair folk had for her. Like I said above, at the time it didn't really register. I mean, I was listening, but I saw it as more of a 'cross that bridge when we come to it' issue. I thought we could save Senara, and then worry about protecting her family and friends from retribution. Suddenly I realized that I had completely misunderstood. Senara wasn't just worried about retaliation in the abstract.

The fairy court must already have a hostage.

"Who did they take from you?" I asked.

"My older sister," Senara replied.

I thought she was going to just leave it at that, but I guess she was feeling unusually chatty, because for once Senara kept talking.

"She was supposed to be safe from this," Senara said, sounding like she was talking to herself. "She was being raised by our father among humans. I was kept with my mother in the fairy court. I never knew her very well. Do you understand, Bree?"

"Yes," I replied. And yeah, actually this all sounded very, very familiar.

Some of you probably remember this, but Fiona is my biological sister. We weren't really raised in the same home for any significant period of time, though. When she was a baby and I was little, our parents split up. My mother took Fiona, and my father kept me. Neither of those situations exactly worked out fantastically. Both homes were pretty dysfunctional. At some point while Fiona was a baby, our mother lost custody permanently to the state and my sister was placed in the foster care system. I'm not sure exactly what went wrong; no one ever told me, and Fiona was too young at the time to remember. I'll probably never know, because we're not currently in contact with either of our biological parents. I guess in the end, it doesn't really matter. Fiona and I are sisters who - for whatever reason - were raised pretty much entirely apart.

Would I give my life for Fiona? Would I stay and be a sacrifice, if it meant they'd let her go? Would I have done it before we ever actually had the chance to live together, and I barely knew her?

Yes. Yes, I would. It wouldn't even take a moment's thought. Of course I would do that. I'd do it for any of my sisters, now that my family has grown larger. It's not even a question.

"What's her name?" I asked.

"Sakura," Senara said quietly, as though even speaking the name too loudly would put her sister in more jeopardy.

I reached across the table and squeezed her hand. "We'll save her too," I promised. "She won't have to take your place, and this is never going to happen again. We'll find some way to stop Carrow. No more kids are going to have to die for him."

I didn't tell her that it was a promise. I meant it as one, though. This makes things harder, but harder doesn't mean giving up. It just means digging in for a difficult fight, and sticking it out till we win.

Love,
Bree

Nightmares and Ideas

"What can't we face if we're together?

What's in this place that we can't weather? 

Apocalypse?

We've all been there.

The same old trips...

Why should we care?"

-Buffy, the musical episode

Hi, this is Bree again. Ever since my last, rather revealing conversation with Senara, I've been pretty stressed about the whole thing. Senara, on the other hand, seems strangely calm - like by telling us, it was the final acceptance of her fate or something. Which, of course, I'm not alright with. We're going to need her to fight... to "rage, rage against the dying of the light," to quote poet Dylan Thomas... rather than just going along with what they're planning. We'll do our best to save her life, though, whether she helps us or not. It'll just be easier if she cooperates a little.

Because of all my fretting, it's not really all that surprising that I'm having bad dreams, too. I keep having the same nightmare - the giant werewolf attacking Senara, her white robe staining red. I'm not sure why that detail about the robe got so stuck in my head. I guess the whole thing is just so upsetting that I need something more minor to focus on. Somehow, that just seems symbolic of the cruelty of the whole thing; dress her in white, so everyone can see the blood when they make their "sacrifice" of a young girl to be werewolf food.

Fortunately, not all my fretting has been nonproductive. I've actually come up with some ideas that I think may be decently helpful. That is:

Okay, we have the problem of an indestructible fairy-augmented werewolf, right? The whole reason for this sacrifice is that the fair folk couldn't come up with any way to destroy him, so odds are we won't be able to either. For about a day, this stumped me. I was talking to Summer about it... and suddenly I had a brainstorm. We don't have to destroy him, necessarily. We just have to find some way to contain him. If we can just imprison him for awhile - and I don't think it'll need to be for that long, since he's close to the end of the seven year cycle and is due for a feeding - he'll revert to being a regular werewolf. Which, you know, is still fairly daunting under most circumstances... but we have our own werewolf, four vampires, three people with fae blood, and a bunch with super powers. If Carrow's enchantment wears off, we can totally take him. Unless the fair folk get rid of him first, even.

Another potential problem is that because of the vow we made to be Senara's hosts, Senara is confined to our house. There's like an invisible force field thing that keeps her in. We're not sure how far it extends; it's at least far enough that she can attend my school with me, but that's within walking distance. We doubt she can leave the city, though... and keeping her at a distance would be very helpful in protecting her. I had an idea about that too. And luckily for us, all it really involves is telling the truth to the fair folk. They don't even have to know that we know about their plans for Senara.

On the first day of June, we fly to the United States, where we'll meet up with Blakeney's mother, and fly with her to Italy to begin our trip. When we thought Senara might really just be here as an "exchange student," we booked a ticket for her too, because we thought that traveling would be good for her education about humanity. I was thinking about the trip today... and another idea hit me.

We should contact the fair folk and let them know about the trip, but act like we don't know what their game is. If they're going to stick to their story that they sent us Senara so we could teach her about the human world, I don't see how they could say no. We don't know where the force field boundaries are - but they're definitely not as far as Rochester, let alone Italy or Eastern Europe. If they say Senara can travel with us, they have to let her off the leash. And there isn't much excuse for them to say no without dropping their charade, which we don't think they're going to do. All we have to do is act innocent enough that they don't suspect a hidden motive.

I'm still pretty tense about the whole thing. But now that I've actually had a couple of ideas, I feel a lot more confident than I did. The odds no longer seem impossible. Tough, sure... but tough is doable.

Love,
Bree

Bewareness

Hi folks, this is Bree again, with some major werewolf-y (and Senara-related) news. As you probably recall, we'd been trying to track down the werewolf who bit Gia. So far, we'd had no luck besides a blurry photo Josefina managed to snap. We didn't know who the werewolf was, or where he or she lives while in human form.

Today - not for the first time - I was looking on the internet for pictures of werewolves, trying to find a snapshot or even a somewhat realistic drawing that matched ours. Also not for the first time, I was having no luck. Occasionally one would catch my eye as a possibility, but nothing was panning out. After getting excited over nothing for a third or fourth time, I sighed and sat back in my chair.

This change of angle suddenly called to my attention the fact that Senara, who is sharing my room, was watching me instead reading the book she was pretending to be absorbed in. Before I had a chance to ask whether I had food on my face or my shirt inside out or something, Senara noticed me noticing her, and got to the point.

"Your family shouldn't hunt this beast, Bree," Senara said quietly. "This creature is simply too dangerous."

I appreciated her concern. Really I did. And it's not like we don't know we could be blundering into trouble. The problem is... if not us, then who is going to do it? As far as we know, we're the only ones around here who can deal with things like this. Well, technically the fairies could too, but they don't care much about matters that primarily affect humans, so they wouldn't intervene on their own, and we can't become indebted to them every time something goes wrong. For all practical purposes, it's us or no one - and no one isn't an option when there's a bitey werewolf on the loose.

"I know," I replied. "We realize it's dangerous. But we can't just stand by and do nothing."

Senara shook her head. "You have no idea what you are dealing with. This is not a natural creature, but one with more power than you imagine."

"We realize it's a werewolf, Senara," I reminded her, wondering how she had managed to miss that. The 'big dog' story didn't hold up past the first time Gia turned into a wolf after being bitten.

Senara nodded that she was aware. And I suddenly wondered what could be more dangerous than a rogue werewolf.

"You don't need to worry about this, Bree," Senara said. Before I could argue, she went on, "The creature will not attack again."

At this point, I was very interested in what our fairy 'exchange student' knew about this, and how. I closed the laptop lid, turned my chair around, and looked her straight in the eye. "Senara, what is going on? What is your involvement with this, anyway?"

Senara looked down, breaking eye contact, and said, "It's my fault that Gia got attacked. I... was reluctant in my duties. It will not happen again."

"What duties?" I asked, even more confused now. "What exactly do you mean? You had never even met Gia when she was bitten. How could you blame yourself for not protecting someone you didn't know existed? I think you'd better start from the beginning."

She sighed... and she did. The truth was something I'd never expected in a million years.

"This werewolf was an ordinary werewolf once... nearly four hundred years ago," Senara said. "He was among the first English colonists who came to this island; his name was John Carrow. He disappeared into the forest - killed, his comrades said, but actually bitten and turned into a supernatural creature. His existence was much harder than Gia's. He didn't have a family like yours to support him. But he might have had an ordinary life by werewolf standards, had he not accidentally run right into the middle of a war between two fairy courts."

Senara didn't have to explain - because I knew from Inna already - that the sort of war she was describing happens all the time among the fair folk, unbeknownst to humans. The fairy world is very fragmented into courts and clans, and they often fight about things outsiders wouldn't even understand. I nodded that I got what she was saying.

Senara continued, "One of the courts decided to put the werewolf to good use. Their enchanters augmented his powers with fairy charms, making him all but indestructible, and in exchange he was bound to fight for them in their war..."

I was starting to catch on. "But wars eventually end," I guessed. "And then they were left with an indestructible werewolf and no idea what to do with him?"

She smiled that I had gotten it, and replied, "Exactly. At first, they just let him run wild. The enchantment they had put on him required a death - a fairy sacrificed, blood spilled. With time, this blood enchantment would wear off. If they simply ignored him long enough, he would revert to his original werewolf form."

"How did he feel about it?" I asked.

"Indeed, Bree. Carrow didn't accept that at all. He felt entitled to the new powers he had fought in their war to earn. He started killing, no longer fighting a war but randomly, trying to attract as much attention as possible so he couldn't be ignored. Most of his victims were human, simply because they were easier to find. One night, though, he came upon a solitary group of fae. He ambushed them and spilled their blood, and suddenly, his waning powers were restored to full strength again. Now he knew what to do to keep what he didn't want to lose."

She went on, "I'm sure you're still wondering what this has to do with Gia - or with me. But I will come to that part of the tale soon. When some of their own were killed, the fair folk knew they needed to find some way of containing the beast. They debated ways to destroy him, but no one had any ideas for how that could be accomplished. Instead, they negotiated an agreement with him. A peace treaty, if you will."

With my heart sinking, because I knew I wasn't going to like the answer, I asked, "What did he want?"

Senara smiled again, but this time she looked sad. "I'm sure it won't come as a surprise. He wanted fairies to murder, so he could retain his powers. What he didn't know, though, and what the court who augmented him did, was that he didn't have to kill fairies on a regular basis for his powers to remain fully active. He only had to kill one fairy every seven years. The agreement was that he would be given one at every seven year interval, as a sacrifice. In exchange, he would leave the other fairies alone, and not attract the attention of the humans."

It was all starting to make sense. What Senara is hiding. Why she thinks she knows when she's going to die. And why she blames herself for Carrow's attack on Gia.

"Are you the next sacrifice?" I asked.

Senara nodded her head.

I had known she was going to say yes. I mean, I had already figured it out. But somehow, seeing her nod was still like a punch in the gut.

"Someone is chosen every seven years," Senara said. "Someone young - strong, with powerful blood - works the best, so that is what they provide for him. As time has passed, the ritual has evolved to the point the fair folk choose someone they'd like to be rid of anyway. I caused trouble for them by wanting to learn about humans. They considered that disloyal. So they chose me, and that is the truth of the 'exchange student' story."

"That's terrible!" I said, sputtering and struggling to put together a sentence, upset as I was. "That's...! And what about Gia...?"

Senara looked ashamed. "I... did not accept my role at first. I did not want to die. So I ran away. Carrow heard that his sacrifice had escaped, so he sent a warning. Biting a human. Gia was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It happened because I'm a coward, Bree. I'm sorry."

I shook my head, my brain racing a mile a minute. "It's not your fault," I said. My voice sounded weird, even in my own ears. "Of course you didn't want to die. Who would? But what I don't understand is... why send you to us? The fair folk have to know that we aren't just going to stand back and let you die. So... why involve us at all? Why not just quietly murder you so we'd never know? I don't mean to sound callous, but - if they wanted to sacrifice you, why would they send you to people who would do everything possible to prevent that from happening?"

"Because with you, they could make a binding contract," Senara said. "They didn't believe me that I wouldn't try to run away again. I won't - not after what happened to poor Gia because of me - but they aren't going to risk it again. So they bound me to you. And the 'exchange' part is, they took a hostage, just to be extra sure. If I find some way to escape again, someone else will die in my place. Someone... someone I care very much about protecting. I can't run away from your home. It's as if there's an invisible wall that will keep me in. On Midsummer's Eve, the fair folk will gather. I'll be dressed in a white robe. And... everyone will watch as they give me as a sacrifice to the beast."

I shook my head. "There's one problem with that theory. They gave you to us. And we're going to find some way to protect you. I promise. You aren't going to die."

"Thank you, Bree," Senara replied... but I could tell she didn't actually believe me. She didn't think we'd be able to save her.

I think differently, though. We've prevailed against seemingly impossible odds before. We have a little over a month to figure something out. And I'm confident that - scary indestructible werewolf creature or no scary indestructible werewolf creature - we'll find a way to save Senara.

Love,
Bree

Talking to Senara

Hi, this is Bree again. So, I posted previously (wow, I've been writing a lot of the entries lately!) about how we made a deal with the fairy folk, they called in the favour by asking us to take in a fairy girl temporarily as an "exchange student" learning about humans, and yesterday our guest, Senara, arrived.

For several reasons, the family decided that Senara should share a room with me. We could have shifted things around so she'd have her own room, but that would have made things rather cramped for the rest of us... and even more importantly, we wanted to keep an eye on her just in case, since we're not sure why the fair folk decided to send her to us. Once we met her, there was a third reason too - she seems so unsure here, I want to be able to keep her company. I'm not sure if it'll help that I have fairy blood or not, since I was raised human. Maybe it's better than nothing? Either way, I think it's best for Senara not to be alone all the time.

Yesterday, we just kind of gave her space and let her process things. That's not to say we didn't talk to her. We did, but when she kept it on the small talk level, we didn't push for a deeper conversation.

After giving her a day to settle in, though, I decided it was time to have a real chat. Senara was up in our room, so I knocked - it's a little odd to knock when it's my own bedroom, but I didn't want to be impolite - and found her sitting on the floor staring off into space out the window, even though it was dark. It seemed like she was meditating or something, so I didn't interrupt. I just waited till she was done.

When Senara finally looked away from the window, I thought maybe she had tears in her eyes. She quickly managed to hide it, though, and soon she was smiling again. I was pretty sure she was smiling for my benefit, not because she was really happy all of a sudden. I think she just didn't want me to see that she was upset.

"Do you miss your home?" I asked.

"Hm...?" Senara replied absently, like she hadn't really heard me.

"Do you miss living with the other fairies?" I asked, rephrasing slightly.

She nodded, then blushed a little, like she'd said something rude. "It's nice here, too, though," she replied diplomatically.

"Well, this is only temporary," I said, trying to be comforting... but somehow Senara took it in a completely unintended way.

"Thanks for reminding me!" she snapped sarcastically.

At this point, I was rather baffled. She had just said she missed her home. So why was she mad at me for reminding her that she's just a guest here, and she doesn't have to stay forever? I wondered if maybe I'd made her feel unwelcome. She has to know that this is payment for a favour on our part, not something we just volunteered for. We probably would have been willing to host her either way if she'd asked, but there's a lot more going on here, and that complicates things. I tried to backpedal a bit.

"Not that we don't want you to have a nice long visit or anything," I assured her. "You can stay as long as you want. Heck, never leave if you don't want to go."

Senara stared at me for, like, a full minute. Now, a minute doesn't normally seem like a lot of time, but when someone is using it to look you directly in the eye, a minute seems awkwardly, interminably long indeed.

"You don't know?" she finally asked. "No one told you...?"

I waited for her to finish her sentence, but it eventually became clear that when she trailed off, she had trailed off for good.

"Told me what?" I asked.

Senara shrugged and looked down. "Nothing," she said in that quiet tone that tells you it's definitely not nothing.

Realizing I wasn't likely to get any more info by pushing, and I might make her just clam up entirely, I said, "I just meant that if you want to be with the fairy folk again, you should remind yourself that you aren't stuck here forever or anything. As far as I'm concerned, though, you can be my roommate for life if you want."

Senara looked at me with this expression like... well, like I was being sweet but totally missing the point. "Thank you," she replied, and changed the subject to a complicated question about the constellations we can see from this latitude that I couldn't answer without looking it up online. I kind of got the feeling that sending me off to look for information was on purpose so I'd stop questioning her.

So... is it just me, or was that a little weird? I mean, I get it if she's just homesick. I would be too, if I randomly got sent off to live with her family, even if I wanted to be an "exchange student" - and we aren't totally sure to what degree this was even actually Senara's choice. I can't help thinking there's something else going on, though. Something deeper than just missing familiar things and people.

Am I reading too much into nothing?

Love,
Bree

She's Here!

Hi, this is Bree. Sorry it's been about a week since our last blog post. We've been busy with school stuff, and not a lot has really happened in the meantime. Gia did her werewolf transformation thing three times, uneventfully. Each time it happens, she seems to adjust more quickly, and to experience less shock over it. I think that gradually, it'll become part of her normal life. Or at least her "new normal," as most of us in this family have had to redefine our sense of what's normal several times.

We had a really nice Easter. Some of us went to mass in the morning, then we had a yummy family dinner. The food was traditional Newfoundland holiday food: turkey, potatoes, gravy, stuffing, vegetables, and salt beef. Then we had lemon meringue pie for dessert. After we ate, we had an egg hunt. It was too rainy and cold to do an outside one, but we had fun hiding and finding our dyed hard boiled eggs indoors. Hunting eggs was followed by lots of Easter candy.

Since the holiday weekend, things have been busy but mundane. School has been hectic, because we're getting toward the end of the semester. We've been doing our usual extracurricular activities. Kaya, Fiona, Marie-Grace, and Cécile are eagerly awaiting the casting for their spring recital and story ballet; they'll find out on Monday what parts they got. All the students are in the recital, but not everyone is cast in the story ballet, so they're excited to find out if they get to do both.

Today, though... we had other big news!

In the afternoon, shortly after we'd gotten home from school, the doorbell rang. Ever since the fair folk told us how we were supposed to repay our debt, we've kind of jumped every time someone comes to the door, wondering who would be there. If it would be... her. Our "exchange student." Would she be nice? Mean? Would we be friends? Would she be indifferent to us? Or would we have an enemy living in the same house with us?

We got apprehensive every time someone knocked or rang the bell. Up till yesterday, it was always just a friend coming over, or a delivery, or someone collecting money for charity. When we opened the door this afternoon, we knew this was something different.

She was about my age. Small, slight, slender. Her hair was blonde and long, and her eyes were hazel, but there was something about the shape of them that suggested she had some East Asian ancestry, in spite of her colouring. She was wearing a sort of robe, green with white designs that looked like flakes of snow, and despite the fact that it's still chilly here in April, her feet were bare.

The girl smiled at us... but there was something hesitant about the smile. She was charming - deliberately so - but I could tell she was pretty nervous, too.

Suddenly, I felt bad for her. We've had a lot of emotions about the fair folk lately  - apprehension, frustration, fear. But we haven't really thought about how our "exchange student" would feel about the exchange. Just about how she would act toward us. In that moment, I realized she was probably a lot more scared than we were. After all, this was our house. We have a big family, and we're quite close knit. This girl was all alone. And that's a lot to walk into.

"Hi," I said. "I'm Bree."

I stuck out my hand, and the girl grasped it lightly and then released it instead of shaking it, like I saw Inna do with the fae woman in the clearing.

"Greetings," she replied. "My name is Senara. Thank you for allowing me into your home."

Senara smiled, but she looked a little grim as she stepped through our door. Since then, she's mostly been in her room - which is also my room. I'm going to be sharing with her. I've been giving her some space, but it's getting to be about bedtime, so I guess we'll kind of have to talk then. I'm looking forward to getting to know her, and finding out why she's really here.

Love,
Bree

The Favour Has Been Called In

Hey there, this is Bree. There is no real news on our werewolf hunt. We've still been doing pretty much the same thing Kaya described when she first told you about our plans, but so far we've had no luck. We're going to keep trying, though, because the werewolf that bit Gia is still out there.

Tonight is the "official" full moon for our time zone, but the moon was full enough last night that Gia had her first transformation of the month. Everything just seemed easier this time. It didn't take as long for her to shift forms - she went into the safe room before sunset, so we didn't have to try to persuade her to go after she shifted - and overall she seemed a lot quieter and less destructive than last month. Last time she destroyed some furniture and caused some serious damage to the walls. Yesterday, the worst that happened to the room was some scratch marks around the door.

When she was human again this morning, Gia confirmed that it has been easier. As well as being faster, the transformation didn't hurt as much this month. It seems like her body is getting used to it. She also said that she felt slightly more in control of the process this time. Although last night she couldn't have fought the change, she thinks that with time, she may learn to be able to decide whether to change or not, or even possibly to change at other times. For the first time, she actually seemed positive about the whole thing, rather than just grimly accepting - so we tried to be positive and encouraging, too.

***

The biggest news today isn't werewolf-related, though. Remember how when we defeated The Elders, we had asked the local fairies for help... and they agreed, but told us we owed them a favour? Well, ever since then we've been kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Whatever they wanted us to do, it was probably going to big, because the favour they did for us was enormous. Inna had also warned us that it was likely to be something pretty odious, because the fair folk take favours seriously and don't waste a favour owed on frivolous things.

When Inna got back from jogging this morning, she told us she'd seen a fairy circle in the local park. We knew this was meant as a message for us, because normally the fair folk don't venture into the city. Even the woods in a city park aren't woodsy enough for them. If they even came this close to our downtown row house, they must really want to talk to us.

What could that mean? Clearly, the favour was getting called in.

I went to the fairy circle with Inna, because both of us have fairy blood, so they prefer to deal with us than with the other family members. (Fiona has fairy blood too, because she and I are biological sisters, but she's only ten years old, so we don't like to bring her to these meetings because we don't totally trust that it would be safe for her.) We waited for about twenty minutes, and then three of the fair folk emerged from the woods.

Last time we met with them, we saw fairies of all shapes and shades and types, but these three were all pretty human-looking like me and Inna, because we were in a more public place and might be spotted by "civilians."

"Greetings, Inna and Bree," the fairy spokesperson said, and we gave our greetings back to her. (She seemed to find it amusing that I greeted her with "hi," rather than something more formal.) The fairies seemed calm and relaxed, which made me nervous. What exactly were they here to ask? They made small talk with Inna for a few minutes, but my mind was focused on our debt to them, and I couldn't really think of anything suitably mundane to say.

Finally, they got to the point. "We have decided how you will repay the favour you owe us," the spokeswoman said. I braced myself, but she continued, "A young relative of ours wishes to learn more of the human ways. She will stay with you as your guest, and observe the activities of the mortals. It will be as though she is... what do the humans call it? An exchange student. Will you accept those terms?"

"Yes, we will," Inna replied... as I knew she would to pretty much whatever they asked. To say no, or even to question it further, would be a major breach of etiquette, and could have bad consequences. She had explained to me in advance that she would have to agree unless they asked us to do something totally immoral.

Inna briefly grasped hands with the woman to seal the bargain, then the fae melted back into the woods so effortlessly that even though I was watching them the whole time, I barely saw them go. As we headed back toward home, I was pretty relieved and elated. That wasn't bad at all! I had expected a task that would put us in life-threatening peril. Putting up with a guest for awhile, even if she was annoying, seemed like nothing in comparison to what I'd anticipated. Once I'd gotten past my initial reaction, though, I noticed Inna was still pensive, and even more visibly worried than before.

"What's going on?" I asked. "It seems like we got off easy..."

"Yes, it does, Bree," Inna replied, biting her lip. "That's what concerns me. What they ask is nothing. The fair folk aren't fools. They know that in exchange for help in a battle, a major favour is owed. Why would they choose something so small, unless...?"

"Unless there was more to it than that?" I guessed.

"Exactly," Inna replied, sighing. "I wish I could have asked, but I would have been pushing my luck after what they did for us. They might have killed us both for such rudeness. We'll just have to wait and see."

I nodded, glad that she hadn't gotten us ripped apart or eaten. "Any idea what the catch might be?"

Inna shook her head. "No idea. I can't think of anything at all. The fair folk can omit information from an agreement of this sort, but they can't outright lie. I can't think of anything they might be hiding, since what they did tell us has to be true. And... that is the part that worries me the most! The not knowing!"

I could see why. We didn't have time to dwell on that, though, because the sun was starting to get low in the sky, and we all try to be home when Gia transforms, so there's more help to control her just in case. I've been thinking about it the whole evening, though.

What do the fairies really want? What is it that could be behind this simple request?

Love,
Bree

Developments

"The day returns, but nevermore

Returns the traveler to the shore.

And the tide rises, the tide falls." 

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Hi everyone. This is Bree. Sorry it's been so long since we've updated.

It's all Blakeney's fault. She's been busy and blah, and as a result none of us have had much time to blog. ;-)

First of all, we wanted to thank our readers for nominating us in the AGPT Academy Awards Best Writing category! We are really honoured! Whether or not we win, we're grateful to be nominated. :-)

If you want to vote, click here. All the other nominees are excellent bloggers, so you can't go wrong no matter which one you choose.

***

Now, on to news!

Did I make contact with the fairies about helping us defend against the vampires who call themselves The Elders? And did I get eaten by the fair folk in the process?

The answers are yes and no respectively... although I guess the "not eaten" part is kind of assumed because I'm typing here.

It took us awhile to find them. The first time we met the fairies, it was by accident. Fiona and I stumbled upon a fairy circle and danced with them, and by the time we called the others, they'd disappeared. We didn't know how to find them on purpose. We tried walking through the woods to see if they showed up, and they didn't. (Evelyn wonders if it was too cold and they had gone underground; she may be right.) We tried leaving notes under rocks and tied to trees. The notes usually vanished, but there was no other sign the message had been received, so maybe they just disintegrated in the weather or blew away. Or maybe they did get what we were saying, because two days ago, we found another fairy circle while we were hiking in the woods.

Inna and I went to the centre of the circle and waited. Nothing happened for a long time, so we started telling jokes, and she taught me a fairy song. Hours passed. I thought no one was coming after all. The sun began to set, and in the half-darkness of dusk, the in-between time between day and night, suddenly there were people standing all around us. Some of them looked like regular people, just beautiful and... glowing somehow. Some had skin that was blue or green or purple. Others had horns or hooves or wings.

They looked at us for awhile, and then a woman stepped forward. "Why did you come?" she asked.

Inna explained the situation, and the fairies started to speak to each other in low voices. I could barely hear what they were saying. Then the fairy woman said, "This is none of our concern. Why would we be involved in the affairs of the bloodsuckers?"

Which I thought was a little unfair, since Inna had told me some fairies eat people too. I didn't say that, though. I said, "They're in your territory, and we think they're trying to take it over. They're trying to clear out the local vampires. Maybe it's just out of the goodness of their hearts to protect the humans, but..."

But no one really believed that. We knew better, and so did the fair folk.

"We will discuss the matter," the fairy woman said. "In two days time, we will tell you what, if anything, we will do."

I was going to say more to try to convince them, but Inna nodded and said, "Thank you." I guess this was one of those fair folk etiquette things she was telling me about before. I guess you don't outright argue with them if you want to have any hope of success.

Today, there was a leaf in our mailbox, a broad one from a maple. It was still fresh and green, like spring. On it was written, "We will do you a favour. You will owe us one in exchange." It wasn't signed. It didn't need to be.

Inna seemed grim, but not surprised. I think she expected there would be a cost. Now we're waiting again, to see what the fair folk do about the vampire problem... and what we'll have to do to pay them back.

Love,
Bree

My Bad Idea

Hello everyone, this is Marie-Grace, in my first ever blog post! I hope I'm doing it correctly. The topic of today's writing is... well... a bad idea I had. Unfortunately when it comes to ideas, when no one has a better one, sometimes you have to use any idea that seems like it might suffice, no matter how terrible it is.

The problem: What do you do when a group of powerful vampires with a major superiority complex seems determined to meddle in your lives and cause you (potentially lethal) trouble?

The most obvious solution, of course, is strength in numbers. The Elders may be powerful because of sheer force, but they've made a lot of enemies over the years, because they've bullied a lot of other vampires, and because they're so petty and territorial. They may be feared, but they aren't particularly liked. If we could get enough vampires to gather here, we would have pretty good odds of prevailing in a fight. (Kirsten thinks we should hold this fight at the local stadium and sell tickets.) All we would really need to do is arrange the meeting, and make sure we've stacked the deck with enough vampires who share the mutual enemy.

There is a major obstacle involved in this solution, though. We're fairly sure we could get enough vampires here, and that they'd be willing to help - if only out of dislike for The Elders, rather than out of any particular fondness for us. We're fairly sure that our side would win; there are enough disgruntled vampires for that, if they could just be organized in an effort. Unfortunately, we're also fairly sure that we would not be able to control our own "side" once they were here.

Not all vampires are content to live on rats and pigeons. Not all vampires are nice. Not all vampires care about human life at all.

Introducing a large number of new vampires - many of whom would have no moral dietary constraints at all - into our local area would be unimaginably irresponsible. We would have no way of preventing them from feeding on the human inhabitants. Any vampire alone is potentially dangerous, but congregating many of them in the same place would be a disaster. People would die.

So... saving our own lives in that way is not an option.

We've been pondering, for the last few weeks, what we could do instead. That was the purpose of my library trip - trying to find out the details of how The Elders lost fights in the past, and what the other side did to win. The information was sketchy; The Elders are too proud to keep much record of their few defeats. One theme did come up several times, though. Even as I was dropping out a window and fleeing for my life, a plan was starting to form in my mind.

The only problem is, it's an admittedly terrible idea!

I decided to suggest it to Bree, first, since I would need her help if it was going to work. Casually, I mentioned my research, and then said, "I think I know where we could get another ally."

"Vampire allies?" Bree asked.

I shook my head. "No. Someone from nearby." I took a deep breath, and then said my bad idea. "The fairies could help us."

Bree blinked a few times. Finally, she said carefully, as though afraid of hurting my feelings in spite of my life-threatening stupidity, "Yeah, I'm sure they could help... but what makes you think they would?"

I was prepared for this question, because I'd thought through it myself a hundred times. "I do have my reasons to think so. As Inna told us, fairies and vampires often don't get along. The fair folk don't seem to mind a few of us being here, as long as we don't bother them... but what would they think of The Elders, storming into their territory, bothering the inhabitants, fighting with other vampires, and acting like they own the place? The Elders seem to be trying to establish a foothold of control here, maybe permanently. I don't think the fair folk will be pleased about it. I think they'll want to protect their own land, even if they don't care at all what happens to our family."

"You realize that some fairies do also eat people?" Bree pointed out.

I nodded. "I realize that. Although fewer of them do, and less frequently. Also, though, they're already here. Whatever they've been doing in this place over the centuries, humans have found a way to adapt and thrive anyway. We wouldn't be introducing a new menace into the local environment, or changing the balance."

"That's great," Bree said. "But how will you contact them? They don't show themselves to just anyone. What if you can't find them?"

I'd thought through that part, too. "I'm not going to be the one finding them, Bree," I said quietly. "I already know they wouldn't help me. I don't think they'd even let a vampire see them. I think they'd talk to you, though, if you sought them out. You and Fiona and Inna. You three have fairy blood. I think that would matter to them. I think they'd at least listen to what you have to say."

Bree thought for a moment. The expression on her face was one I recognized... stage fright. She didn't disagree, or think I was an idiot. She was just afraid she wouldn't be able to pull off her own part in it. Somehow, that was comforting - maybe because I knew she really could.

"Okay," Bree finally said. "I'll try. I think Inna and Fiona would be willing to try, too. We should seek them out as soon as we can, I think. We don't know when The Elders are going to be back, and this may take some negotiation. The fair folk may not agree right away. We'll need all the time we can get to talk it over with them." With that, I was in absolutely agreement.

When I presented my idea to the rest of the family, there were the same predictable objections. (And Molly accused me of being a "stereotypical suicidal vampire.") It was easier, though, because Bree was already on my side, so I knew it wasn't absolute insanity. Partial insanity, maybe... but it was insanity without a totally sane option we could have chosen instead. Eventually, we all came to an agreement.

Now, we'll just have to see if it works...

Love,
Marie-Grace

All Together

Hi everyone! Good news! :-)

Wait, I'm not going to tell you. I'm going to show you. Here goes:

That's right. Cécile and Marie-Grace are here! Yay!

When last we blogged, Cécile and Marie-Grace had left us a coded message, then Cécile met me and Blakeney in Upstate New York. Now, we're all back in Newfoundland, but up till the last minute we weren't sure Marie-Grace was going to make it back with us. Here's how it happened...

When Cécile came to meet us, the two of them had decided that her job was to make sure we were okay and help protect us if needed - and Marie-Grace's job was to do "research." When it's put in those terms, Marie-Grace's job sounded safer, so I wasn't all that worried about her. I should have been. Because it turns out "research" meant sneaking into the private library kept by the evil vampires called The Elders to look at their most secret texts, to find out their hidden history and look for ways to defeat them.

Yeah, it's probably best that I didn't know that at the time, because I would have been a basket case worrying about her. :-P

We did get concerned, anyway, when Marie-Grace didn't contact us as expected. As it turns out, she got caught by The Elders. Fortunately (I guess?) they decided to make an example of her rather than just killing her outright, so they locked her in an empty room of their library while they decided the details of what to do with her. Even more fortunately, she got away. Although she'd been injured in the initial scuffle with them, Marie-Grace managed to climb a bookshelf, break a window, and squeeze herself out of it before they noticed anything amiss. When she showed up, she was pretty banged up and sore from the fight and the fall from the window to the ground, but she was alive, and we were thrilled.

Marie-Grace made it back in time to travel home with us. We took the bus from Buffalo to Toronto - during the day, which posed a problem for our two vampires. So... we had to pack them in suitcases. Poor girls. They didn't seem worse for the wear afterward, though, and they got to have normal seats on the plane from Toronto to home because the flight was after dark.

The Elders are totally going to try to get revenge for Marie-Grace's escape, as well as their laundry list of other issues with our family. We're trying to prepare ourselves as best we can. For now, though, we're just really glad our friends are safe.

There's another thing to be glad about, too. Marie-Grace and Cécile are at our house, staying with us. We're not going to risk them being attacked again while all alone. Luckily (and probably partly because where they were living before got burned down) they agreed with us about the safety in numbers thing, even though they're still worried about putting us in more danger. We'd rather be in more danger together, though, than risk losing them again.

Sorry we haven't been very good at staying up to date with the blog lately. We've been kind of distracted with life stuff and travel. Pretty soon, though, we're hoping to do posts on: our various holiday trips, the holidays for the girls who stayed here in Newfoundland, Cécile and Marie-Grace's history before we met them, and my research into fairy lore and my own background.

For now, though, Happy New Year! It's good to have our household together again... and I include Marie-Grace and Cécile in that, whether they know it yet or not. ;-)

Love,
Bree

Fairy Lessons

Hi, this is Bree. It took me a few days to get over the shock of what Inna told me, and Inna was really nice about it. She was normal and friendly, but didn't bring it up. After I'd had some time to adjust, I went next door and asked her to tell me everything I would need to know about being one of the Fae, so I could tell Fiona too. Inna seemed relieved that I'd started to accept the news, and she told me some things we should be aware of. I took notes. I'm going to copy what she told me into the blog so our friends will know too. It's late, but I'm having trouble sleeping, so I may as well get this written down.

***

1.) There are lots of different kinds of fairies.


Big ones, small ones, tall ones, short ones... nice ones, and mean ones. Some look pretty much like humans, with just a certain "something" to distinguish them. Some look really different. Some have horns, or hooves, or odd coloured eyes, or skin and hair colours humans can't be born with, like green or purple. A few have wings, although that's less common that pop culture portrays. There are a lot of different kinds of talents, abilities, and magical powers. There isn't an easy way to define all of us.


2.) Not all fairies are nice.


This is important to remember. It's kind of like humans. Some are great, most are alright most of the time, and some are really horrible. You shouldn't automatically trust a fairy, any more than you should automatically take the word of a human stranger. Many groups of fairies value deception and illusion, so you need to be careful of that. Some fairies are malicious for fun, and some take "jokes" too far. Being one of the Fae doesn't mean you have to be a bad person, though. I'm still the same person I was all along.


3.) Different kinds have different cultures and customs.


Fairies are as diverse as... well, human cultures. Maybe more so, because all humans are humans, and different kinds of Fae can be totally different creatures. What is seen as a compliment to one group may be an insult to another, and vice versa. Some value secrecy, and some see how far they can push it without being discovered. Some live in big groups, and some live in families or completely alone.

If you don't know who you're dealing with, it's better to be as cautious and neutral as possible. If you do know who you're dealing with, you can score a lot of points by being aware of their ways, and can avoid their usual wiles.


4.) They don't all get along.


There's a lot of in-fighting among the Fae, both within groups and between groups. In fact, fairies can be quite horrible and cruel to each other, as well as to humans. It's important to remember that, and to avoid getting into the middle of arguments you don't understand.


5.) In many parts of the world, there are two main groups, the Seelie Court and the Unseelie Court.


This is apparently one of the main rivalries in the fairy world. (But not the only rivalry... there are lots, probably more rivalries than there are Fae since many have more than one.) The Seelie Court are more concerned for appearances and custom, and the Unseelie are more wild and crazy.

Some people think that the Seelie are good and the Unseelie are bad, but... it's more complicated than that. The Seelie are more concerned about being thought to be good, but both can be really mean, and members of both can be really nice. It's more down to the individuals involved.

From a political standpoint, though, the two courts are important to know about.


6.) The fact someone doesn't look like a fairy doesn't mean they aren't.


I kind of knew this, because... well... me. Blakeney says my skin is hard to photograph right, but other than that - no difference from anyone else. If you passed me or Inna on the street, you wouldn't think we looked unusual.

Of course, some fairies can't pass for humans at all, because of size, or unusual features like horns or wings, or because their skin, hair, or eyes aren't possible for regular people.

However, the fact someone can pass for human doesn't mean they are.


7.) Fairies have powers. They don't always reveal those powers or their real plans. So don't underestimate them.


This one is kind of self-explanatory, and it makes sense. No one wants to put all their cards on the table in front of a potential enemy; according to Inna, in the world of the Fae, almost anyone is a potential enemy. It's smart to pretend to be weak. Most are not weak, so it's dangerous to believe them that they are.


8.) Not all vampires know about fairies, and not all fairies know about vampires - but when they do, they often don't get along.


This one makes sense in a way too, I guess. Supernatural immortals trying to live in the same territory are likely to get in each other's way. Inna thinks there's more to it than that, though. Something more fundamental to the cultures that makes them decide to be enemies.

I don't think it's something we're born with. I've never felt animosity to the vampires I live with, and they've never felt any toward the Fae members of the family. I think it's something learned and passed down. We can live in peace. We're doing it in this household. We just shouldn't count on others to abide by it.

Which of course means more potential danger. Since we have both fairies and vampires in our family, we'll likely have the displeasure of both sides if they find out about us. (This is probably also why those vampires Inna knew were so keen to kill her when she made the mad.) At least if we know the truth, we can be on our guard... but we really don't need more enemies to deal with. Hopefully they'll all just leave us alone.


***


For now, that's the basics. There are a lot of things to learn about different types, different groups, and different customs. If I'm every going to interact with other Fae, I'm going to have to learn about their traditions and talents. If I'm going to know all I should about myself, I'm going to need to research our background.

It's a lot to take in. But somehow I've started thinking in terms of "because I'm one of the Fae" rather than "if I'm one of the Fae." Odd.

In a weird way, I feel like I know myself better now. Like a big piece that was missing finally clicked into place. Unlike a few days ago, now I'm excited to learn more!

Love,
Bree

Not Human

Hi, this is Bree again. I had two conversations today that are kind of... blowing my mind. I'm going to share them with you, so you can help me think them through.

The first conversation was with Clare. She came to my room to bring back a book I lent her, and before she left, she said casually, "By the way, you know your new friends are vampires too, right?"

I'm pretty sure my jaw literally dropped. No, I did not know that, and I'm fairly sure Kaya and Fiona didn't either. "You mean Cécile and Marie-Grace?" I asked stupidly, although I'm not sure who else could fit the title of 'new friends' at this point.

"Yeah." Clare raised an eyebrow. "You can't tell?"

I shook my head, still trying to take in this information. I was about to ask her why she hadn't said something before, and then I realized she hadn't actually met them before last night. The first time Marie-Grace and Cécile came to our house, Clare was out hunting. Then the day they went sledding with the younger girls, Clare had gone to the snowball fight with the rest of us older ones. The tree lighting at the park was the first time Clare had been introduced to them in person, so she hadn't really been holding out.

If it was a vampires-recognize-vampires thing, why hadn't Tabitha...? Oh, wait. Tabitha totally freaked out when they were over here. At the time, we thought it was the strangers with unfamiliar human blood issue. But what if it was really some kind of territorial thing, or something? Tabitha still hasn't talked about that night. Maybe she assumed we already knew.

We didn't, though. All of us were totally surprised. I mean, we haven't seen them during the daytime... but in Newfoundland in the winter, "daytime" is over by around the end of the school day. There are a lot of regular people we haven't seen in daytime either. Plus there's the way they dress. We figured it was just personal taste - but what if they dress in older styles because they really are old? Which they must be, because they have no reaction to being around humans at all, even at ballet where the occasional bleeding injury is inevitable. They must have been practicing self-control for a long time to get that good.

I talked it over with my sisters, to decide what to do, and we decided... we're not really going to do anything. They aren't a danger to us. Kaya and Fiona are going to tell them we know, just so they won't have to worry about it anymore, but there's no reason for it to affect our friendship.

This new news was something to get used to. Mainly just because it was weird that we didn't figure it out on our own, and Clare had to tell us. Vampires aren't really very surprising to us anymore, which is an odd thing to realize.

Then came... the other thing. Which for me was even more mind blowing.

I decided to talk to Inna about the possible fairy incident over the weekend. I figured if she knew about vampires, maybe she knew about fairies too. Worth a try, right?

It may seem like a weird thing to have a conversation about, but talking about fairies was in some ways easier than vampires. Here in Newfoundland, a lot of people believe in fairies. For some people, it's even seen as sort of... disloyal... to say you don't, because it's part of the local culture. I'm not originally from here, and neither is Inna, but somehow it makes a difference.

When I asked Inna about fairies, she kind of sighed, and leaned on the kitchen counter. "I thought you might ask," she said, and she sounded kind of tired. "Bree, there's something I think you should know. I don't think you're entirely human."

I just kind of blinked. Of course I am! What else would I be?

Inna went on, "I think the reason they showed themselves to you is that you have fairy blood, yourself. I've wondered about it since I met you and Fiona, but I wasn't sure till now."

I suddenly flashed back to the earlier conversation. (Now you see why I wrote all that down for you? It was so you could follow my flashback. :-P) Clare had said she could just tell Marie-Grace and Cécile are vampires because she's a vampire herself. And that might mean...

"You know because you're one too?" I suggested tentatively.

Inna smiled, and said, "Yes. Very good, Bree."

Tomorrow, Inna is going to tell me some things I need to know about fairies. I just couldn't handle more information today. I'm still kind of in shock. Cécile and Marie-Grace aren't human. Inna isn't human. And if she's right, my little sister isn't human... and I'm not human either.

I might not be human.

This is crazy.

But it feels...

True.

Love,
Bree