Chapter 14

Jak wasn’t really sure how he and Jeremy got to be friends. It had happened in gym class when Jak had decided to help the struggling students through the obstacle course. Jeremy had ended up helping, too, even though the gym teacher had been angry at both of them. Suddenly Jak felt comfortable with Jeremy, almost as if they had known each other for years.

They’d gotten in the habit of meeting after Jeremy’s football practice to hang out or go to Mama Mia’s for pizza. Jak had discovered that he loved human food and ate there as often as he could to avoid Gammi’s cooking. She meant well, but even for a goblin her cooking was awful.

The two boys were walking down the street in front of the school late one afternoon when Jak saw Tamisin on the front steps. “Do you know her?” he asked.

Jeremy followed his friend’s gaze and nodded. “Sure. That’s Tamisin. She’s an underclassman like us. Her brother’s a senior. He’s on the football team. Good guy. I’ll introduce you to him some time.”

“Yeah, okay,” said Jak, still watching Tamisin.

“Oh, I get it! Tam is the one you want to meet. Hold on just a second and I’ll call her over. Hey, Tamisin! Over here!”

Tamisin looked up and waved. She was smiling when she reached the curb and said, “Hi, Jeremy. What’s up?”

Just like the first time he saw her, Tamisin wore her hair loose so that it framed her face. Her hair looked like spun silk that caught the sunlight and seemed to hold it. Jak’s fingers itched to touch it to see if it was as soft and warm as it looked. He missed what Jeremy said, but caught Tamisin saying, “ … ran into each other right after he started here.”

Jak smiled, unaccountably pleased that she remembered.

“You should smile more often,” Tamisin said, smiling in return.

Sure that she knew something he didn’t, he nodded and said, “All right. But why?”

He liked the way her hair rippled when she shrugged. “You’ll make more friends that way,” she replied.

A cat meowed and Jak glanced across the street. Cats had been following him everywhere he went, just like they had that Halloween. He liked cats, of course. He couldn’t help but like them; everyone in the Cattawampus clan did. It was just that they tended to get underfoot at the most inopportune times.

Jak turned away from the cat when he heard Jeremy talking to someone else. Two girls had arrived while he’d been distracted. One of them was looking at Jeremy, but the other was staring at Jak as if he were a piece of pizza and she hadn’t eaten for three days. “You’re the new boy, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said and turned back to Jeremy. Catching his friend’s eye, he jerked his head at Tamisin.

“So, Tamisin,” Jeremy began. “You busy? Jak and I are headed over to—”

The cat Jak had seen across the street had crossed over to his side. Purring loudly, it rammed its head into the back of Jak’s knee, almost knocking him off balance. “Don’t do that!” Jak said, trying to push the cat away with his foot.

He forgot all about the animal when he heard the new girl say Tamisin’s name. “… Why are you here so late?” the girl asked, smirking. “Were you getting extra help today or was it detention?”

Startled, Jak turned to Tamisin. If they had detention here, did they have a pit as well? He couldn’t imagine someone as frail looking as the girl with hair like sunshine at the bottom of a hole that sunlight never reached.

“I had dance practice and—,” said Tamisin, but then the girl interrupted her.

“I can’t imagine why you’re wasting your time talking to her, Jak. You’re new here, so I guess you haven’t heard about Tamisin. She’s a freak—everybody knows it. I bet you’ve never seen ears like hers. Here,” the girl said as she handed her books to her friend. “Look at this!”

Jak was surprised when the girl reached out and pushed Tamisin’s hair behind her ear. “Have you ever seen anything like that?” the girl said, looking pleased with herself.

Jak didn’t know what to say. Tamisin’s ears were narrow and pointed, just like those of certain fey back home. From the way the other girl was talking, ears like that couldn’t be normal in the human world. Instead of thinking Tamisin looked freakish, however, Jak thought her ears were beautiful.

“Give it a rest, Kendra,” Jeremy told the girl. “Nobody cares what her ears look like.”

A second cat had joined the first, and now both animals were rubbing against Jak’s ankles. He was trying to shoo them off when another girl joined them.

“That’s Heather,” Jeremy told Jak.

“Hey,” said Jak.

“It’s nice to meet you,” she said, her voice sounding odd. Jak wondered if she was sick.

Tamisin must have thought so, too, because she took a close look at the girl and asked her if she was all right.

Heather rubbed her eyes and mentioned something about a cat. When she noticed the two cats rubbing against Jak’s legs, she backed away as if he had the goblin plague or something. Self-conscious now, Jak tried to get away from the cats, but they followed him, still purring. “I told you to stop that!” he said.

Heather sneezed and a moment later Tamisin was hustling her away, talking about taking her home.

The next few weeks were confusing for Jak. He suspected that Tamisin was the girl he was meant to take back with him, but that was based solely on her ears; she never did or said anything unusual, and the weather seemed to be normal when she was around. If she was the girl, being able to control lightning meant that she was a creature of power, human or not, and as such he couldn’t treat her like a normal person.

On the weekends Jak explored the end of town where the school was located. He found the lightning-blasted tree the goblins had told him about and the street where they had first seen the girl. Then, one day he came across a forest. It was tiny compared with anything in the land of the fey, but it was pretty and there was a stream leading to a small waterfall.

As time passed, Gammi became more insistent that Jak do something and do it soon. “Time’s a-wasting and Targin won’t take kindly to a delay. The Gate has already opened once since we’ve been here. Who knows when it’ll open again? If you’re sure Tamisin is the one we’re looking for, invite her over the next time the Gate opens. We’ll find a way to get her through.”

“That’s just it,” said Jak. “I’m not sure Tamisin is the one. I don’t want to rush things and scare her. If she really can control lightning, she’d be harder to get through if she was frightened.”

“Frightened … Ha!” Gammi said, pulling a live mouse out of a cage by its tail. “I’ll frighten her myself if it means we can get her through the Gate.”

Jak looked away as his grandmother popped the squirming mouse in her mouth and bit down. “I’ll take care of it,” he said.

Although Jak saw Tamisin in the halls at school, it was always from a distance and she usually had a group of friends around her. He listened for any news of her, however, and asked Jeremy about her while trying not to seem too anxious. According to Jeremy, her brother said that all she did lately was dance and that he was sick of hearing the same music over and over again. Then Jak heard that the dance group she was in was going to perform, and he was the first one in line at the school box office.

The night of the performance Jak told Gammi and Bert where he was going.

“Good,” said Gammi. “I have my jewelry-making group coming over tonight. Bert’s going to get me more teeth for necklaces, aren’t you, Bert?”

Gammi had met some old ladies in the park and offered to teach them her favorite crafts. Most of them were too nearsighted to see that she looked a little different, and the others didn’t seem to care.

When the first of Gammi’s friends came to the door, Jak slipped out the back and walked the eleven blocks to school. Since he’d gotten his ticket early, he’d been able to get a good seat up front and center. At first he watched the dances without much interest, disappointed each time Tamisin failed to appear. But when she finally stepped onto the stage, he didn’t recognize her right away. She looked like something from another world—his.

Her beginning steps were tentative, but when the music quickened, her movements became stronger and bolder. As she leaped and twirled, Jak held his breath. She seemed to float across the stage like the dandelion puffs he had chased when he was young.

Jak wasn’t the only one caught up in her dancing. All around him people gasped when a leap carried her farther than they’d expected or when she twirled longer than they thought possible. Her dancing made Jak think of a breeze cooling his face after a good run, or rustling the leaves in the forest around his uncle’s den. It was a calming dance, it was a ferocious dance, and through it all Jak felt closer to home than he had since the day he’d left.

The only sound in the auditorium was Tamisin’s music. No one spoke, or coughed or shuffled their feet or got up to get a drink of water, and when it was over and the last note faded away, the room remained silent until it seemed everyone was frozen in place. Then the cheering began as one person after another broke free of the reverie Tamisin’s dancing had created. She looked up from her last position, smiling, then rose to her feet and bowed as gracefully as if she were still performing.

As soon as Tamisin left the stage, Jak got up from his seat. He thought about waiting inside for her, but decided not to when he saw the people milling around, so he went to the parking lot in the back, hoping she would come out that door. He was surprised to see lights twinkling around the school, knowing exactly what they were. “What are fairies doing here?” he wondered. “There must be a Gate open nearby.” Most fey wouldn’t travel to the human side without good cause; those who did never went far from an open Gate since the magic that escaped diminished the farther they traveled from it. Those who went too far were unable to do even the most basic magic, like disguising themselves from curious eyes. To have so many fairies come through at once meant either that multiple Gates had opened, or something truly extraordinary had happened to summon them.

The crowd that had filled the auditorium began streaming into the parking lot. People began pointing at the fairies, calling them “fireflies” and “amazing,” and then something rustled in the branches of the tree behind him, saying, “Psst! Hey, Jak, is that you?”

“Who is that?” Jak asked, peering into the shadows.

There was the scrape of claws on bark and a masked face emerged right above him. “It’s me, Tobi! How ya doin’, Jak? Yer friends were all worried about ya.”

“I was sent home. Didn’t you hear?”

“Yeah, but we thought ya were comin’ back. Then Nihlo told everybody that ya were in big trouble and that his father was real mad at ya and was sendin’ ya away. We knew it couldn’t be over breakin’ Nihlo’s leg. He deserved it. Anyway, when ya didn’t come back, I thought Nihlo might be tellin’ the truth for once, until I talked to yer uncle, that is.”

“You talked to my uncle?” said Jak.

“He sent for me,” said Tobi. “Somebody told him I’d seen the girl who threw the lightnin’. She didn’t throw it at me, of course, but I seen her face when she saw me.”

“What did Targin want from you?” asked Jak.

“To help ya find the girl. Yer uncle said that he gave ya a picture, but it was lousy, so he sent me ’cause I’d gotten a good look at her. I’ve been livin’ in the trees near here fer weeks now. I saw her once, but she got away. I think she lives in a big building with stone statues out front and a lot of other humans goin’ in and out, ’cause that’s where she goes every day after school.”

“A big building? Maybe she lives in an apartment.”

“All I know is lots of people come out of it with books, but she’s the only one I seen goin’ into it every day.”

“It sounds more like the library than an apartment. Why would she go there every day, unless … Are you sure she didn’t see you?”

“What, me? I’m so good at sneakin’ around that nobody could see me! Even my own mother wouldn’t … Wait … There she is, over there by that other girl.”

“Your mother?”

“No, the girl who saw me! There she is right there!”

“Do you mean the girl with the blond hair that looks like sunshine and—”

“Yeah, that’s her. The one with yella hair. She’s the one who looked right at me with her eyes all big and scary.”

Jak smiled to himself. He’d been right all along. “Thanks, Tobi. I guess you did what you came for, so you can go back now.” Jak didn’t want him around when he was about to talk to Tamisin.

“Actually,” said Tobi, “I’m supposed to stay here. Yer uncle thought ya’d need some help bringin’ her back.”

“So now he thinks I can’t handle it? I already have two goblins here to help me. How many more does he think he has to send? You go back and tell my uncle that I can take care of this myself, and I don’t need any more help!”

“He ain’t gonna like that and I don’t want to be the one to tell him anythin’ he ain’t gonna like. He’s already irked that ya haven’t brought her back yet.”

“Just blame it all on me. Tell him that I made you go back.”

“But ya wouldn’t! Yer too nice to … Okay, okay, I’m going!”

Jak had bared his teeth and growled the way he’d seen Nihlo do, making the little goblin scoot backward up the branch. Since his own teeth were just teeth and not fangs, Jak doubted that he looked very frightening, but it appeared to be enough to convince Tobi that he was serious. “Tell him that I said I can handle it!” Jak shouted after the fleeing goblin. “Tell him that I don’t know why he sent you!”

Jak was so angry when he turned away from the tree that he forgot why he was there until he saw Tamisin coming toward him across the parking lot.

“Jak, is that you?”

“Tamisin! I was hoping to catch you here. Your dance was great! It made me think of things I miss from my old home. It was very … eloquent.” Jak felt stupid after he said it. There were a thousand things he should have said instead, but the only thing that came to mind sounded flat.

Even so, Tamisin smiled at him as if he’d said the most wonderful thing. “Thank you,” she said. “That’s very kind of you.”

Jak didn’t want her to get the wrong idea. He hadn’t said it just to be nice. “Oh, I’m not being kind. I mean it. For the first time I think I know what it means to be homesick.”

Tamisin’s smile faded. “I’m sorry! I never intended to make anyone feel bad.”

Jak could have kicked himself, certain that he’d finally said the worst thing he could have. “Don’t be sorry,” he said in a rush. “I enjoyed your dance. You don’t have any plans now, do you? I mean, if you’d like to get something to eat, we could …”

And then her father was calling to her, telling her that they had to go.

“I know, Dad. I’m coming,” she shouted, then turned back to Jak saying, “Thanks for the invitation. Maybe some other time.”

This was all wrong. Jak had to talk to her and it had to be soon. “Yeah. About that…”

But Tamisin was already moving toward her parents’ car, saying, “I’ve got to go.”

“Sure,” he said, so disappointed that he felt like kicking something. He watched as the car drove away, taking with it the girl he’d come so far to find.

Jak hung around Tamisin’s locker on Monday morning, but she got to school late and didn’t have time to talk. He didn’t see her that afternoon. When the same thing happened on Tuesday, he began to think that she was avoiding him. Even so, he was watching for her on Wednesday morning. He could see right away that Tamisin wasn’t feeling well. Her cheeks were flushed and she didn’t seem to notice him when he called to her in the hall. That afternoon he was hanging out while Jeremy talked to Heather when Tamisin ran past them to her locker. Jak was already walking over when she pulled out her backpack, letting a flood of books and papers cascade onto the floor. Her hands were shaking when he bent down to help her.

Although Tamisin turned down his offer, Jak insisted on picking up the papers. He was smiling as he handed them to her until he saw a look of pain in her eyes. “Is everything all right?” he asked. When he tried to help her get up, she shook off his hand.

“I’m fine,” she said through gritted teeth. “I can manage on my own.”

I’ve been so stupid, thought Jak, suddenly convinced that she didn’t want to have anything to do with him. “Don’t let me keep you,” he said.

When he got home that afternoon he called to Gammi as he walked in the door. “We’re going to have a party on Halloween. The Gate will be open then and it will be the perfect time to take Tamisin through. I’ll drag her here if I have to. She made it clear today that she doesn’t like me, which is going to make it that much harder to persuade her to go through the Gate with me. I doubt she’s going to change her mind between now and Halloween.”

“I’ll talk to Bert,” said Gammi. “He’ll take care of the decorations and I’ll see to the food.”

Even though Jak had made his plans, he hated the idea of forcing anyone through a Gate, and was still hoping to get Tamisin to trust him. When she didn’t come to school the next day, Jak learned from Jeremy that her brother Kyle had said that she had been sick the night before and had locked herself in her room. He didn’t know what was wrong with her.

It was Friday when Tamisin finally returned to school. She looked different that morning, and it took Jak a moment to understand why. Her long hair was pulled back and secured with a ribbon, leaving her ears uncovered. She wasn’t wearing any makeup either, and when she walked in front of one of the big floor-to-ceiling windows in the hall, her cheeks and the bridge of her nose sparkled in the sunlight. Jak pushed his way through the crowded hallway and reached her locker when she was putting her things inside. When she glanced up, he smiled and said, “I’m glad you’re back. I heard you were sick.”

“I’m fine now,” she replied, flashing him a brief smile of her own.

The first bell rang and she took a note from her pocket. “I have to get this to the office,” she said.

Jak nodded. “Yeah. I’ve gotta go, too. But first I wanted to ask—would you like to have lunch with me on Saturday? I know a good spot for a picnic.”

Tamisin paused, then surprised him when she said, “That sounds like fun.”

“Great!” he replied. “I’ll pick you up at noon.”

Jak watched her walk away. She seemed different somehow, and it wasn’t just her hair and skin. She seemed more vibrant, as if she’d changed from the inside as well. He wondered what could have happened to make such a change in just a few days.

Jak got directions to Tamisin’s house from Jeremy. When he mentioned that he was taking her on a picnic, Jeremy told him to put the food in a basket and to take a blanket to sit on. All the blankets in the house had been mouse-chewed, but Jak had found an old plastic shower curtain decorated with neon tropical fish that he thought would work.

When he arrived at Tamisin’s house, she looked happy to see him. Three cats had followed him to her door, but she didn’t say anything when the animals joined them on their walk. It was a glorious day with a clear blue sky and only a slight chill to the air. As they headed back toward the school property and into the woods beyond, Jak took a deep breath and relaxed. The school was her territory. The woods were his.

They didn’t have to go far into the woods before they reached Jak’s stream, which they followed until they could no longer hear traffic from the road. Jak led Tamisin to the waterfall and a pretty spot under the trees. Her eyes lit up when she saw the tumbling water. “This is great,” she said. “I didn’t know there was anything like this around here.”

“I thought you’d like it,” Jak said as he set the basket on the ground. It wasn’t anything special—he knew of much prettier places near his uncle’s den—but it would do. “Are you hungry yet?” he asked. “We could eat now if you are.”

“I’m famished,” said Tamisin. “I didn’t eat breakfast this morning. I was working in the garden, trying to get it ready for winter.”

“You like to garden?” he said, taking the shower curtain out of the basket and shaking it so that it billowed out before settling onto the ground.

“I’ve always loved working with plants,” she said.

Jak glanced at her ears and nodded. That made sense, considering. He’d been wondering ever since he first saw Tamisin’s ears that day in front of the school, but it wasn’t until he’d seen her without makeup that Jak had been certain. Tamisin had fairy ancestry; the sparkles on her cheeks, the translucent skin, and the slender-tipped ears were all a giveaway. Jak wondered if she knew the truth herself. More than likely she was a halfling like him, although he had seen both of her parents the night Tamisin performed and he could have sworn that neither of them had a drop of fey in them. Being a halfling would explain why she could see the fey, but it didn’t explain the weather.

While Jak straightened the shower curtain, Tamisin set the basket in the middle and opened the lid. “Oh!” she said, taking out the plate piled high with slices of cold pizza. Jak had made a special trip to Mama Mia’s that morning and had bought the biggest pizza they had—with anchovies, of course, which he considered the best part.

“Don’t you like pizza?” he asked.

“Sure!” she said. “I’ve just never had it on a picnic before.”

“There are eggs, too,” he said, pointing at the basket.

“Oh, good! I love hard-boiled eggs.”

“I never would have thought of boiling them,” Jak said. “I always eat them raw. Here, you’re supposed to eat them like this.” Using one hand, he cracked the shell, broke it apart, and poured it into his mouth. When he glanced at Tamisin, she was grimacing, an expression he thought looked awfully funny on her sweet, delicate face.

Jak couldn’t help himself and began to laugh. His laughter must have been contagious, because soon Tamisin was laughing with him. Then something moved on the other side of the stream, catching Jak’s eye, and he no longer felt like laughing. The cats had noticed it as well. One by one they stood and stalked toward the stream, ears flattened to their heads and tails lashing. They were growling deep in their throats so softly that only someone with cat-goblin hearing could hear them.

“Here,” Jak said, handing Tamisin the basket. “Why don’t you try the cookies? My grandmother’s friend sent them over. I have to take care of something.”

“Sure,” Tamisin said, setting the basket on her lap.

Trying to act nonchalant, Jak strolled to the stream. Although he couldn’t be sure, he’d thought he’d seen a goblin face peering at him through the leaves. He wouldn’t have noticed it at all if it hadn’t been autumn with half the leaves already on the forest floor. The face had been there for just a moment, and had gone just as quickly. It occurred to Jak that his uncle might have gotten tired of waiting and had sent someone else to get the girl. He resented that his uncle didn’t trust him to do it; he also felt more than a little angry. After all, he was the one who had found the girl and gotten to know her.

Noting where he thought the face had appeared, Jak crossed the stream in one bound. The cats dashed across a fallen branch, following him to the other side. An orange tabby ran under his feet, making Jak stumble into the underbrush. A goblin who had been hiding under the fallen leaves squawked in surprise and jumped up, scattering leaves and twigs as he ran off, clacking his sharp little beak. Jak followed the goblin as far as a sycamore tree, where a shower of broken twigs and pieces of old bird’s nest pelted him from above. Protecting his head with his arms, Jak dodged out of the way and peered up into the tree where two bird goblins were crouched amid the branches. “I just want to talk to you,” he said.

“Jak, are you all right?” Tamisin called to him.

He paused long enough to call back, “Just fine” before grabbing one of the lowest branches and swinging up into the tree. The bird goblins chattered at each other and climbed higher. Jak was halfway up when the goblins jumped out of the tree and disappeared into a tulip poplar.

Lowering himself from branch to branch, Jak tried to decide what to do. While he wanted to run the goblins down and make them tell him what they were up to, he was eager to get back to Tamisin so the date wouldn’t be completely ruined. When a rock clipped his ear, Jak nearly fell the last few yards. He slipped and caught himself, but now he was really mad. Silently seething, he returned to the stream long enough to collect a fistful of stones and check to make sure that Tamisin was still all right.

“I’ll be right back!” he shouted, not wanting her to think he’d deserted her. She was sitting with her back to him, but instead of turning around she just waved.

Certain that she was still eating, Jak returned to the woods and waited for a goblin to show itself. The moment he saw movement in a tree, he took careful aim and hurled a rock, hitting something with an audible thunk!

“Ow!” yelled a voice and Tobi peeked out, the orange and yellow leaves framing his small, masked face. “Why’d ya do that?” he shouted, rubbing his chest.

Jak was frowning when he stalked to the base of the tree. “What are you doing here?” he asked. “Are you with the bird goblins? Did my uncle send them?”

“Do I look like I’ve sprouted feathers?” asked Tobi. The cats pressed themselves against Jak’s legs as if to protect him, glaring at the raccoon goblin. When the big tomcat took a step toward Tobi, the little goblin raised his cudgel and shook it. “Call off yer cats, Jak. Ya know I’m on yer side.”

“Then tell me why you’re here,” ordered Jak.

“I came to warn ya that there are other goblins who want the girl now, and ya gotta be extra careful. Word got out that Targin wants her, so they’re comin’ over every time they find an open Gate, tryin’ to get her for themselves. They figure if Targin wants her, she must be worth wantin’. Some are stayin’ too, spendin’ all their time lookin’, though they don’t know what she looks like. They shouldn’t be able to get their claws on her unless ya show her to ’em.”

Jak turned and started running back toward the stream. Branches whipped his face while gnarled roots tried to trip his feet, making his pace frustratingly slow. Like a fool, he had left Tamisin alone in the woods, easy prey for a goblin. No matter what anyone said about her, he doubted that she could defend herself, with or without lightning. When he saw that Tobi was scurrying alongside the cats, trying to keep up with him, he asked, “Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”

“I came … soon as I heard about it!” panted Tobi.

Jak paused to look across the stream. From where he stood he could see Tamisin sitting where he had left her, yet even from a distance he could tell that something wasn’t right. Her hair no longer looked like sunlight and gold, but was dull and limp. The way she sat was different, too; she normally had a graceful quality that came out even when she wasn’t in motion. It was apparent in the way she held her head and positioned her body, an unconscious thing that was as much a part of her as the way she breathed. Only now her body looked stiff and she held her head angled to the side like a …

Jak fairly flew across the stream and was at her side before he could draw another breath. And then he knew why she looked so different—it wasn’t Tamisin at all. A girl of the bird-goblin clan sat holding the picnic basket on her lap. Cookie crumbs dotted her beak when she glanced up at Jak, and she cackled with laughter when she saw how mad he looked. “We’ve got her now!” she said, just before she threw the picnic basket at him.

Jak caught the basket and tossed it aside, but the girl had already fled into the forest, the cats on her heels.

“Who was that?” asked Tobi.

“Not Tamisin, obviously,” growled Jak.

“Did ya think it was?” When Jak didn’t reply, Tobi gasped. “Ya did, didn’t ya? Ya don’t mean to say that ya brought her here? What were ya thinkin’?”

Jak glared at his friend. “Not what I would have been if someone had warned me in time.” Turning away from Tobi, Jak cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Tamisin, where are you?”

“I’m over here!” she shouted back, as if there was nothing wrong.

Jak began to run in the direction of her voice. He found her in a meadow surrounded by out-of-season wildflowers with her arms already loaded with an enormous bouquet. The relief he felt when he saw her was enough to make him stagger.

“Can you believe all these flowers?” she asked. “I didn’t mean to wander off, but after I saw the first one …”

“I’d better get you home so you can put them in water,” Jak said, wanting to hurry her out of the forest as quickly as he could. “They won’t last long if you don’t.”

Tamisin looked stricken. “You’re right,” she said. “I didn’t think of that. I’m so sorry that we never got to look around.”

“It’s all right,” said Jak. “We can do that another time.”

He had no intention of looking around anymore. He’d already seen enough. Flowers blooming out of season usually meant that fairies had been there, and with so many in one spot it probably meant that there was a Gate to the land of the fey somewhere in the meadow. The bird goblins must have moved a few flowers, luring Tamisin there so they could take advantage of the Gate and make her walk through. If he hadn’t found her when he had, she might very well have gone through the Gate without knowing it. True, he could take her through himself, but he had no idea where they might end up and who might be waiting for them. The Gate in his backyard led to somewhere familiar and safe, where the other goblins wouldn’t be ready for her. It was the only Gate he intended to use.

Since he had unknowingly shown Tamisin to the bird clan, he wasn’t about to compound his mistake by showing them where she lived, so he copied what he suspected Tamisin had done to Tobi and took her home the long way, stopping at the library long enough to walk through and out a back door. They were standing on her front porch when he finally asked her what he’d wanted to all along.

“I’m having a party at my house on Halloween. I’d like it if you could come.”

“That’s a school night, isn’t it?”

“I guess so,” said Jak. “Is that a problem?”

Tamisin glanced at the door to her house, then back at him. “My parents won’t like it, but I’ll come. Do you mind if I bring my friend Heather?”

“Not at all,” said Jak, wondering who else he should put on the guest list. He was about to leave when he remembered a paper in his pocket. “Here’s my phone number and address. It starts at seven-thirty.”

“I’ll be there,” she replied before slipping through her front door.

Jak spent the entire walk home puzzling over some things that were bothering him. There was too much about what his uncle wanted him to do that just didn’t make sense. He was convinced that Tamisin’s ability to see goblins wasn’t the reason Targin wanted her, despite what he’d said. Humans probably wouldn’t believe her if she told them what she’d seen, and even if they did, what could they do? And that story about the lightning … Jak hadn’t seen any sign that Tamisin was capable of controlling it. If Targin wanted her because of the lightning, he was going to be awfully disappointed. And if it wasn’t the reason, Jak couldn’t imagine what it might be.

And then there were the bird goblins. Tobi had said that they wanted her because they’d heard that Targin did. That goblin girl had acted as if it was a competition and whoever took Tamisin back had won something. But they might not even know about Tamisin’s supposed skill with the weather. Goblins were known for being vicious, especially when they were angry. If Tamisin couldn’t call lightning and the bird goblins found out that they’d gone to so much trouble to fetch a human whose only special talent was that she could see the fey, they were bound to take it out on her.

Although it hadn’t mattered to Jak before he met Tamisin, he was getting to know her now and didn’t like the idea of tricking her into going with him. Then again, if she couldn’t control the weather, there was no real reason to take her back. But he couldn’t leave her behind, knowing that the bird goblins were after her.