Day and Knight (All's Fae in Love and Chocolate)

DAY AND KNIGHT

ALL'S FAE IN LOVE AND CHOCOLATE

Story #1

By

Michelle L. Levigne

Uncial Press       Aloha, Oregon

2011

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events described herein are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ISBN 13: 978-1-60174-116-5

ISBN 10: 1-60174-116-2

Day and Knight

Copyright © 2011 by Michelle L. Levigne

Cover art and design by Victoria Conrad

Copyright © 2011

The original three ALL'S FAE IN LOVE AND CHOCOLATE short stories--Day and Knight, Smoke and Mirrors, and She Blinded Me with Science--were published electronically, separately, between 2005 and 2006, by New Concepts Publishing. An anthology of all three stories was made available in paper in 2006.

All rights reserved. Except for use in review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the author or publisher.

Published by Uncial Press,

an imprint of GCT, Inc.

Visit us at http://www.uncialpress.com

Chapter One

Anybody with any sense at all knows children have a magic of their own.

The Fae, being essentially magical creatures, found it hard to resist the surge of energy, alertness and personal magic that came from being in the presence of just a few Human children. Which, Glori supposed, was why the false belief in Fae kidnapping infants became so prevalent and so frustratingly hard to stamp out. Then the Industrial Revolution polluted the magical atmosphere by shortening childhood. As the 20th century turned into the 21st, there was less magic to be found out in the erroneously labeled real world.

What was a Fae supposed to do?

Get hold of Human children and prolong their childhood, of course.

Today, an enterprising Fae who didn't want to live in the hidden Fae Enclaves--and lose access to the latest movies and TV shows--didn't have to go through the legal wrangling of adopting a Human child. She could become an elementary school teacher or run a daycare center. With the help of a few judicious cleaning, security, bully-prevention and healing spells, the place practically ran itself, leaving her free to play with the little darlings.

Glori only took two dozen or so children at a time, because that was all she could manage on her own, even with the help of her magic. It was the smallest number she could get away with before someone started asking uncomfortable questions, such as how she controlled all those children without helpers. She sometimes wondered how ordinary daycare teachers managed without magic, even with the help of three or four assistants. Routine was of paramount importance, of course.

Monday was Dreaming Day. The children loved sitting in the story circle on their personal magic carpets and telling about their adventures every weekend. Glori wrote their words on the white boards that covered one wall of the room, to help the children practice their alphabet. Reading was very important.

Then the children painted pictures or made sculptures of clay or paper, or built incredible machines out of blocks and Tinker Toys or Legos or whatever they found in the magically replenished bins of scrips and scraps. They finished up the day making up stories about whatever they had created and performed little plays using the clothes she bought at the Salvation Army store. Sometimes after they left, Glori gave life to the five-legged dogs and the trees with tentacles instead of roots or the houses on stilts and let them run around for a while.

Tuesday was Field Trip day. She loaded her charges into her van, which always had just enough seats, no matter how many children she loaded into it. She always drove through the park, which brought them out at their destination before anyone could ask, Are we there yet? No matter how far away it was. Even in another city. The art museum, the zoo, the natural history museum, the county fair, the health museum, the local newspaper, the candy factory. All of them were within a ten-minute ride. Glori did regret having to mute the psychedelic rainbow that surrounded the van when she warped time and space, but she didn't want to risk the children talking too much about their mode of transportation.

Wednesday was School Day, for the children to learn colors, letters, numbers and geography. If she slipped a little Fae geography into the lessons, who would know? No one listened to children when they prattled about countries and cities that no one had heard of.

Thursday was Career Day, when working people came into the daycare in the mornings and talked about their jobs. Then, in the afternoon, the children played at being that particular worker. Policemen and firemen were extremely popular, along with veterinarians, bakers, florists and magicians. Glori was delighted when her cousin Alexi, who had become a magician in Las Vegas, spent the day teaching the children magic tricks that didn't need any real magic.

The only occupation she never introduced to her children with a guest speaker was that of an exterminator. Insects of any kind gave her the collywobbles. She expended twice as much magical energy on the spells to repel all kinds of vermin, from dust mites to cockroaches to rats, as she spent on all her other spells that ran the daycare, combined.

Friday was Anything Day, when the children could make suggestions and vote on what they wanted to do. Seven times out of ten, they wanted stories in the afternoon, after a hard morning of playing on the playground and coloring pictures and eating their lunches like ladies and gentlemen.

Glori loved storytime the best. Especially when the children asked her to wear her Faerie Princess hat, tall and conical, with lots of gossamer veils. She loved telling them true stories about the Fae, about magic spells that went wrong in funny ways. They loved stories about brave knights and clever princesses who wandered into the land of the Fae and earned the right to stay. She always had at least two children who wanted to sit on her lap while she told the stories. Thanks to her spells, no one argued, though sometimes tears threatened.

And sometimes, when she finished telling an especially involved story about magic, the children made up magic spells of their own. Glori loved watching the streamers of magic forming in the air, powered by their innocent, pure belief. As soon as the children stopped, as soon as they let something distract them or their parents came to take them home, the hazy rainbow streaks of magic faded immediately. Fridays were beautiful and special to her, but sometimes they were painful and sad, because they reminded her that her precious children weren't hers, they weren't even Fae, and when they grew up they would lose almost all their magic.

All in all, however, life was perfect. The only thing that could make her life any better was to have a child of her own, but Glori was still a very young Fae. She had decades to go until she was old enough to have a baby. Besides, having a baby meant finding a husband, and she had yet to meet a single Fae male worth the trouble of housebreaking him.

Because, to be honest, she knew she wasn't quite housebroken herself. Glori suspected the reason she loved children so much was because she was still very much a child. Thanks to her housecleaning spells, she rarely had to pick up after herself at the end of the day. She snapped her fingers to set the spells in motion, then closed the door on the daycare and walked away. She didn't even lock up. The doors and windows closed and locked themselves. The wastebaskets slid around the room and the trash jumped into them, and then the garbage bags inside the wastebaskets tied themselves and flew to the bin in the storage room. Blocks, dolls and trucks toddled over to wherever they belonged. Mops and brooms took care of crumbs and sticky spots where juice had spilled during the day.

The sanitation and healing spells went to work to eradicate any germs that had crept in with the children during the day. The vermin-repelling spells focused on any insects or larger pests that had approached the daycare during the day. When Glori walked into her daycare every morning, everything was glistening clean, sanitized and safe for her children. What more could a young, single, independent Fae girl want out of life?

Her life and her business were perfect for twelve years, four months and three days, until that particular Monday morning, when Glori walked into her daycare center and found it overrun.

Infested.

Filthy.

Disgusting.

Part of it was her fault. She had closed the door on the