Read Online Chicory Up: The Pixie Chronicles by Irene Radford - Free Book Online Page B

and work space. She flipped the lock on the door and sat at her desk. She’d reorganized the office and cleared out a lot of half-finished projects once Joe had left. The place actually felt like an office now instead of a cluttered closet.
    She hated to think what his new office in the faculty wing of the community college looked like. His two daughters, aged four and six, kept their room tidier than he did.
    Three deep breaths later she found the courage to open her cell phone again. The landline tempted her, but that was an open line with many extensions in the lounge and the gift shop, as well as the upstairs hall.
    “Norton,” Chase answered. He sounded distracted and harassed.
    “Chase, is this a bad time to talk?”
    “Yeah, kinda. I’ve got traffic backed up for two miles. Can’t get an ambulance or tow truck in. Gonna have to use life flight. And I need the Jaws of Life to get to the last victim. We think he’s dead, but can’t be sure until we get enough space to reach an arm in and feel for a pulse.”
    “I won’t keep you. But call me as soon as you have half a minute. Mabel’s papers are… interesting.”
    “Yeah, sure. Later.” He hung up in a hurry, barely getting the last syllable through his teeth.

    Thistle stood at the gate in the white picket fence. She scanned all of Mabel Gardiner’s front yard in search of her quarry. This town had a lot of picket fences. She smiled as she remembered childish flying games learning to skip from point to point….
    She had to forget that part of her life. For now. The highest calling was to befriend those in need. Her friend Mabel needed her to stay here, in a human body, while she was sick.
    Thistle adjusted the backpack full of her clothes and toiletries slung over one shoulder. Enough for five days before she’d have to learn how to use the laundry. Hopefully, Mabel didn’t keep the noisy machines in the basement. Thistle might be human now, but she still feared underground. If the earth didn’t absorb and kill her, her fear of underground might.
    Roses spilled over the fence almost the entire length. Even this late in the year, hybrids and old-fashioned blossoms mixed their colors and heady fragrance with abandon. Thistle let the perfume invade every one of her senses. If she still had her wings, she’d be drunk in six heartbeats. How did the local Pixies manage to fly a straight line, let alone infiltrate the entire town spying for Mabel?
    An arch stretched over the gate providing a trellis for delicate, pink climbing roses. Their abundance of petals hid a myriad of secrets, including at least one Pixie.
    “Rosie, may I enter your garden? Mabel sent me,” she called to the queen of Chicory’s tribe. Since becominghuman she didn’t have to ask. But it never hurt to be polite.
    “Go away!” Rosie yelled back from the flower directly above Thistle’s head. Only it wasn’t a flower. Rosie had curled up in a ball letting her petal gown mimic the adjacent blossoms.
    “Rosie, this is important. Mabel is sick. She sent me here to protect you all until she can come home again.”
    “We know. Go away. We don’t need you.”
    “Yes, you do.”
    “What can you do? You’re a woodland Pixie, as wild as a Dandelion. We’re a civilized, garden tribe.”
    “Ask anyone in this district how well I tend gardens,” Thistle shot back, affronted. “A Pixie is a Pixie. We all listen to plants of any variety to learn what they need to thrive.” She shifted her gaze, seeking signs of movement or flashes of color.
    All quiet. A few insects fluttered about, gathering the last bits of pollen before hibernating for the winter or dying.
    “Rosie, where is your tribe?” Thistle asked suspiciously.
    “None of your business.”
    “It is my business if they are all off fighting valley Pixies, or… or…” Stars above, could they be attacking the Pixies in The Ten Acre Wood, Thistle’s tribe?
    Not that Alder, her king and philandering lover, didn’t deserve