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