Chapter Nine

Paul Treble had listened as Dora had described the possum abuse she’d witnessed, then explained politely that, with no injured possum as evidence, there was little he could do. “I can see how that’d be disturbing, ma’am,” he’d affirmed. “Poor varmint, all bug-eyed and hissing and whatnot. Bet his little naked, ratty tail was whipping around all over the place.” Officer Treble had shaken his head in disgust. “Sounds like the critter got away from Mr Rossi in one piece, though, and since it’s not anybody’s pet…” He shrugged.

Dora had sent Paul on his way with a frozen loaf of banana bread for his trouble, then locked up the house. “Damn that Lowell Rossi,” she mumbled. “Why does he have to be such a nut-job?” She made her way back to the kitchen.

There, on the counter next to the kitchen sink, sat a box wrapped in shiny dark brown paper and tied with a deep green ribbon. “Huh,” she muttered, remembering that Lowell had had it under his arm when he’d arrived, along with that bouquet of purple stink blossoms. A rose crafted of heavy ivory paper adorned the box. On one pale petal the name ‘Dora’ was written in ornate cursive.

She placed the box to her kitchen table and sat down, indecisive. “Oh well,” she mumbled. “I don’t have to keep it if I don’t want it, after all.” She untied the satin ribbon and unwrapped the gift.

Nestled in a piece of silky white fabric was an ornate wooden candle holder with a fan-shaped cap on a slender pole. A tissue-wrapped set of slender yellow candles was tucked into the side of the box. “Oh!” Dora breathed. “How lovely, a pyramid windmill.” She shook her head, bemused. “This is about the last thing I’d expect a man like Lowell Rossi to give me. Onion flowers seem much more his speed.”

At the base of the candleholder was a fairy-tale castle, complete with parapets and an arched front door, surrounded by intricately carved trees. Dora fetched a lighter from a kitchen drawer and set the four beeswax tapers aglow. Within seconds, the fan above the castle started to spin from the flames’ rising heat.

Dora spied a tiny, ribbon-wrapped scroll poking out from between two of the trees. She unrolled it and read its contents.

-I don’t live in a little cabin ~ L.

Dora sank back into her chair, utterly baffled, and watched the pyramid’s fan turn. She sank into a reverie, imagining the fantastical goings-on in such a castle—fairies and feasts and enchantments. She could almost hear the lilting music that the elves would play during one of the castle’s grand parties and the tinkling laughter of flower sprites.

Suddenly, she had the overwhelming desire for a long, hot bath.

When the tub was nearly full of steaming water, Dora poured in some lily-of-the-valley bath oil and tested the water with one toe. Scorching. Perfect.

She stepped into the bath and rested her head on a rolled bath towel. The strange, beautiful pyramid windmill continued to spin on the stool where she’d placed it, right next to the bath. The filmy cloth it had been packed in was arranged beneath it so that the carved scene appeared to float on a white cloud. Dora took a sip from a brimming glass of merlot. “What’s your story, Lowell Rossi?” she murmured. The blade moved silently, magically, over the castle’s elegant spires.

When the wine glass was drained and the water had cooled somewhat, Dora stood on rubbery legs. A fatigue so intense that it was almost luxuriant fell on her. Bleary-eyed, she stepped from the tub, intent on toweling off and slipping between her covers for a nap.

Her wet feet slid on the tiled floor of the bathroom, however, and Dora’s legs flew out from under her. She felt a blinding pain at the back of her head then, strangely, saw a growing yellow light. The fairy-tale castle began to dance in the flames, set aglow by the burning white cloud beneath it, then all faded to darkness.

* * * *

Lowell sat in a bubbling mud bath between his brothers with a snarl on his face. “Can’t find the wretched little bugger,” he grimaced. “Been through the elf village, the dryad grove and questioned every shifty little gnome I’ve come across.” He glowered. “Probably hiding out with the trolls.”

“Bufo’s a squirrely little guy. I wouldn’t have pegged him for a delinquent, though,” Korbin noted. His long hair lay in silt-covered cords on his shoulders.

“Gonna be a flattened delinquent, once I get ahold of him,” Lowell grumbled.

“So Bufo was deliberately tearing stuff up and making messes at Dora’s place? Doesn’t sound like something a gnome would do, does it?” Brock mused. “Are you sure you’ve got the whole story?”

“Aye, he threw around the flour and the potting soil and the laundry. Creepy little thing, that one. Destructive, messy, sneaky.” Lowell grunted. He let his head fall back on the edge of the tub and closed his eyes. “I’ll just have to go back and tell Dora everything.”

“She might be too scared of you, brother. After all, you’re a certified possum-abuser,” Brock chuckled.

Lowell ignored him and tried to let the mud ease away his stress. He scrubbed a double handful of the Healing Earth over his face and let its power soak into his skin. It was too much to ask, really. Love a woman enough to want to be with her forever, but not be allowed to reveal the most important aspect of his life? Of course Dora thought he was nuts. He’d just have to tell her everything, get her to understand the real truth, and she’d certainly be willing to relocate to Prescott Woods. She’d be crazy not to. He rubbed the silky mud on his biceps. Maybe get Carmen in on the conversation since Dora trusted her. Yes, it would work. It had to.

“Psssht!” Korbin whispered. “Looks like we’ve got a visitor.”

Lowell furrowed his brows. “Huh?” He wiped the mud from his eyelids, then squinted at a crouched figure near the entrance to the bathing area. “Bufo,” he growled. “You’ve got one hell of a lot of nerve.” He stood, mud running down his naked body in rivulets, and cracked his knuckles. “I’ve been looking for you, gnome.”

Korbin and Brock rose and flanked Lowell. The three men emerged, dripping, from the mud bath and surrounded Bufo in a menacing triangle. “You’re gonna bitterly regret the day you decided to tangle with the woman I love, gnome. You should have never set one nasty little gnome foot near Bohemian Rhapsody.”

“Will you let me go?” he whispered to Brock.

“No,” Brock answered, shaking his head grimly. “We will not let you go.”

“Let me go!” Bufo beseeched Korbin.

“We will not let you go.” Korbin glowered.

“Oh, mumsy of mine…” Bufo sniveled and lifted his moist eyes to the ceiling. Visibly shaking, he bobbed his head. “Here I am then, all mawkish and ’umble before you Fair Folk devils, knowing for sure and certain that I’ve done wrong. You to do as you will to poor Bufo—poor, poor Bufo. But first—” The gnome gulped. His knobby Adam’s apple slid up and down his throat. “There’s trouble. Badness. Burning.” He raised his gnarled hands to the stone roof of the chamber and shrieked. “’Tis most frightening!” He fixed his crazed, bulging eyes on Lowell. “Fire at Bohemian Rhapsody!”

“Fire!” Lowell grabbed his kilt as Korbin scooped up his trousers and Brock picked up his hiking shorts. As he buckled his kilt in place, Lowell caught Brock’s eye and saw an impish gleam. He smiled grimly as Brock thumped Bufo on the back of his bulbous head, then all three brothers ran from the chamber.

* * * *

Three fire engines, sirens wailing, veered into the drive of Dora’s home as the Rossi brothers arrived. A group of neighbors stood silently in the road, watching, with their arms about each other and worried looks on their faces. Bohemian Rhapsody was completely engulfed in flames.

Brock and Korbin paused in the shadows, but Lowell ran full-tilt towards the house. He leapt through a window, sending shards of glass to the ground in a tinkling spray.

“Was that a wolf?” one woman exclaimed. “Did you see that?”

Lowell ran from room to room, hunched and coughing in the smoke. His feet blistered and his lungs screamed for relief. The Iris Room, the Dogwood Room, the Daffodil Room… He stumbled past them all, heading down the hall to the only place that mattered—The Queen Anne’s Lace Suite.

The smoldering bed was empty. Lowell, heart thumping, hurried to the bathroom, and there he saw her, spread out on the tiled floor in a room lifted from a nightmare. The walls, the ceiling, the cabinets—all crackled and flamed. Chunks of the ceiling had fallen upon Dora, who lay motionless, her skin cracked and blackened, on the floor. Lowell raised the window in her bedroom, immune to the scalding heat of the sill. He darted back into her bedroom to grab her pink velour robe from its place at the end of her bed and wrapped it around her as he lifted her from the floor. She made no response when he jumped from the window and bore her away from the blazing, doomed structure.

Lowell stuck to the shadows as he ran, not bothering to turn when he noticed Korbin and Brock alongside him. “Is she living, brother?” Korbin asked.

“Of course she is, damn it.” Lowell increased his speed when the dark expanse of Prescott Woods entered his sight.

“Where are you taking her?” Brock questioned.

Lowell’s bare, blistered feet thudded on the woodland undergrowth. “You have to ask, Brock?” He stole a glance at the pink bundle in his arms. “You, of all people?”

Lowell’s body ached and pains assaulted him with every step, but he refused to slow down. At last, Castle Speranza came into sight. Lowell ran past the front door, around the side of his home and past the pond at its rear.

Paloma bolted from the castle and reached the door set into the squat stone archway before he did. “Get out of the way, woman!” Lowell bellowed. “I won’t argue with you about this.”

She unfastened the bolt on the door and swung it wide. “Just getting the door for you, Lowell,” Paloma said sharply, “seeing as your hands are full.”

Lowell swept past her and hurried through the torch-lit corridor. He headed towards the more private mud bath and eased onto the rim of the tub. Carmen, out of breath, dashed into the chamber. The robe fell back from Dora’s head and Carmen cried out at the sight of her friend’s tortured skin and hairless scalp. “Oh my god, it’s true,” she gasped. “Oh, Dora!”

Lowell opened the front of Dora’s robe, but the velour stuck to her burnt skin and tore it, sending a thin trickle of blood over his arms. “Just leave it,” Carmen said. “The Living Earth will soak through.” She splashed into the mud bath, fully clothed, to help Lowell lower himself and Dora into it. “She’s still breathing?” Carmen whispered.

Lowell sat in the warm liquid earth and cradled Dora in his arms. His cheeks trembled and he squeezed his eyes closed. “I don’t know, Carmen,” he forced out. “She hasn’t made a sound since I found her.”

Carmen moved closer and poured handfuls of mud over Dora’s head.

“We’ll just have to wait then. I’m in no hurry.” She looked up as Brock, Korbin, and Paloma entered the enclosed space. Brock held a goblet in his hands.

“Healing Waters,” he said quietly. “For Dora.”

Carmen took the vessel from him and held it to Dora’s mouth. She tipped it to pour some between her lips, but it dribbled right out again and ran over her chin. Carmen’s hand trembled as she placed the goblet on the floor next to the sunken bath. “We’ll try again in a little bit,” she whispered.

Lowell scooped another handful of mud and let it trickle over Dora’s head. “Yes, we will,” he agreed.

Brock and Paloma exchanged worried glances.