If Wishes Were Pennies

1

There was a sprite standing on the passenger seat of my car. And she was pissed. 

"You can't just forsake these folks, Penny," she said, stamping her foot. Her wings buzzed, emphasizing her anger, but her bark was worse than her bite. Usually.

"Name's not Penny. And yes, I can," I said, and turned the key, starting the engine of my emerald Camaro. It was ancient, the paint more rust than sparkling green, but it had a nice throaty engine. 

And I had places to be, things to do. 

"You've got time. It won't take but a minute, and you know it," she said. By human standards her voice was high, as if she'd been sipping on helium. Given that she smelled strongly of pineapple and coconut, it was most likely she'd been sipping on piña coladas.  

Standing only six inches tall, Kedekoi was small, but boy, was she fierce. She claimed to once have fought alongside William Wallace, and given her current body language, I wasn't going to argue. Not about that anyway. 

"I have an appointment."

She sighed, easing some of her anger. "They need your help."

I tightened my grip on the steering wheel as I navigated Toronto's snow-slushed streets. There was a time when I would have gone to help someone right away, but I'd learned caution since then, and if there was one thing I knew, it was that if it could wait, then it should. 

"It can't wait," Ked said, as if she could read my mind. She couldn't. Sprites didn't have that power. Kedekoi had been with me for a while; she knew my expressions well enough by now. "The weather has really affected them."

"Tell them to get out of town and go south." That was standard procedure for a lot of people in the city. Sometimes I wondered if anyone settled here for long. It seemed Toronto was an interchange for so many. Here for a short time, then on to greener pastures. 

"They would if they had any money. That's what they need you for." Her tone suggested I was being dense, and maybe I was. 

"And where am I supposed to get leaves at this time of year in weather like this?" I challenged, but it was a half-hearted effort and I knew it. 

Ked grinned. "Taken care of." 

I raised an eyebrow at her. "Is this a set-up?"

"I thought ahead," she corrected. "I knew you were going to complain about the lack of leaves and the weather."

"There's a reason why this is a Summer power," I muttered. 

"You're a good faerie, Penny," Ked said, flying up to ride on the dashboard. I was a sucker for the helpless, and Ked knew it. 

"My name's not Penny."

She'd given me that name when we met several years ago. She saw me turning oak leaves into twenty-dollar bills and handing them out to needy fey living in dark underpasses. "Penny for your thoughts," she'd said, and somehow the name stuck. 

Faeries, like Ked, had existed among humans ever since 5/5/2000 when the veil that separated our realms fell at the hands of a magical boost from the planetary alignment and an unknown group of super-powered spell-casters. Most faeries had taken on a human-form and blended in; and the others kept themselves well hidden from human eyes.

Except for me. I'd always lived among humans.

I was a faerie—exactly what kind of faerie I had no idea. I had exactly one power. For most of my life I believed I was human—just a human who had an affinity for oak trees. 

But like I said, I'd learned my lesson. I quit that trick ages ago. 

"It won't be like that this time," she said. It wasn't as though she could read my thoughts. No doubt we were both thinking of what happened and what we could have done differently. 

Frost had cut the autumn air that night—sharp, tiny needles that etched glass, stung cheeks and noses, and made eyes water—a harsh reminder that winter was on the way. Kedekoi had been out, fluttering around the neighbourhood in the doll-size parka and boots I'd bought. In order to get her to wear them, I'd had to put them in my trash bin—gifts were an insult to Ked's kind. She repaid me with loyalty and with her experience and knowledge of the faerie world. I'd come to rely on her battle experience. It wasn't the battle part I doubted, for clearly Ked had seen the horrors of the battlefield, and given how quick she was with a sword, she'd fought for her life more than once. It was the William Wallace part I doubted. 

That night she'd come back from her test flight all in a flap about these homeless faeries she'd witnessed down by the harbour front. Water fey, and shivering from having just swam up to shore.

"Why aren't they going dormant for the winter?" I'd wanted to know. 

She hadn't stopped to ask. Just saw them and wanted to help. So we went.

"You're a bleeding heart, Ked," I'd said. 

"So are you, Penny," she'd said. 

The wipers thumped and swished away the wet snow falling on the windshield. My fingertips had gone cold, and I shivered despite the heat running full blast in the car. I could blame the weather, but I knew it wasn't.

"Where are we going this time?" I asked with a sigh, trying to expel the feeling of dread. 

She grinned, bouncing and clapping on the car seat. "I knew you wouldn't forsake these folks, Penny."

2

Navigating the downtown in a snowstorm had to be the biggest pain in the butt about life in the City—and it was made all the more ridiculous by the kamikaze bicyclists. I mean, who rides a bike in the snow?

"Crank up the heat, already. This place is like an icebox," she barked impatiently. 

The heat was already on full and pointed at the windshield and floor of the car for maximum distribution. I reached for the fan control and turned it up a notch. "Everything all right, Ked? You seem a little on edge."

She groaned. "It's this damn cold weather. It's driving me crazy."

"It's driving the whole city crazy," I agreed softly. 

"Yeah," she said in a voice so quiet I almost didn't hear her. 

There was much about Ked that remained a mystery to me. I had no idea where she lived, and on cold days like today, I had to wonder. She refused to live with me in my apartment, but then I lived next to an auto shop and had railroad tracks for a back yard. She called it my iron castle. But then, I had good reasons to surround myself with iron.

Sometimes at night she would come by an open window for the pieces of bread I would leave on the sill. She would never take money from me. I had no idea if she was Summer fey or if she could make money for herself. Maybe she had a barter system with the other sprites. If there were other sprites in Toronto. She'd not mentioned any. 

"So who are these poor, forsaken folks I'm meeting?" We pulled up outside the World's Biggest Bookstore and I parked my car but left the engine running. Truth was, I still hadn't decided if I was going to help them or not. 

"You're meeting a wood-wife here," Ked said. She was up on the dashboard; she nodded her head in the direction of the bookstore. "She said the others are nearby."

"So no ambush this time."

Ked grimaced. "I learned my lesson, Penny. Look, I even picked out a public place for the meeting."

"And you asked around? She's definitely a wood-wife?"

"I asked around." Her tone suggested she hadn't given it much effort. I also noted she didn't confirm the faerie's race. 

Tapping my finger on the wheel, I considered my options. Ked didn't wish me harm, I knew that much, but she'd made her share of mistakes. She had a habit of wearing that big, giant, bleeding heart of hers on her sleeve and leaping before she looked. We all made mistakes. I was far from perfect. 

I wanted to help, but I had an appointment with someone who could get me out of this town-- and do it quietly. 

It was just one wood-wife. How long would it take to talk to her? Maybe Ked was right. Maybe I should at least hear what she had to say. 

But that memory of last fall plagued me. I'd thought I was helping a bunch of merfolk, the Asrai. Helpless Summer fey set adrift by shifting ocean currents and washed up on the shores of Toronto.

I should have known that wasn't a mistake the merfolk would make. They'd stick to salt water. Their lives depended on it. If only I'd had time to do more research. If only I knew more about the fae, about my kind.

Should Kedekoi have known about the Asrai or the extra precautions required to deal with them? Perhaps. She seemed to know a lot about the fae, but even she didn't know the leprechaun would be there or that he was wanted.  Neither of us had seen that coming.

With a sigh I shut off the engine and held open my shoulder bag. 

"You're a good person, Penny." Kedekoi smiled before she hopped into my oversized black pleather bag, burying herself among my wallet, keys and spare wool scarf. 

But the feeling of dread wrapped itself around my chest like a pair of mixed-martial artists locked in an armbar. I should be running from this town… 

I paused before getting out of the car, my chest heavy, a rolling in my stomach. 

"What are you waiting for?" Ked asked. 

I covered my hesitation with "Should I bring my knife?"

"After last time, you should always bring your knife."

I pulled the blade—four inches of cold steel—out from under my seat and added it to my bag. "Let's just hope no one gets killed this time."

3

I had no idea if it was truly the World's Biggest Bookstore or not. It was big. Two floors with an escalator and yards and yards of shelves filled with books. And somewhere in here I had to find a wood-wife. 

"What does she look like?" I asked Ked. 

"Red hair, orange sweater, tan pants. You know. Typical wood-wife."

I didn't know much about wood-wives at all—only what I'd read in the mythology books: namely that they lived in the woods and were known for asking favours. As I wandered among the aisles, I could see why she would be comfortable in a bookstore: a city environment didn't have much to offer in the way of woods and forests, but books would provide temporary comfort.

I found her in the mystery section. Sitting on a chair with her head bent over an open book, her long auburn locks flowed down her back and spilled around her shoulders. She wore tan pants and an orange sweater as Kedekoi had described, with tan boots and a long blue knit scarf wrapped around her neck. 

"What's her name?" I whispered into my bag. 

"Kerry," Ked whispered back.

I approached with caution, as if I'd found a friend I hadn't seen in years but wasn't sure if it was her. Humans didn't know about our kind, and for their own peace of mind it was better they never find out.

"Kerry?"

She lifted her head, turning her face up at me. The mythology books had said a wood-wife had a wizened face, but just what that entailed was left open for interpretation. A jolt of shock grabbed me as I found myself looking at a face that could be Christopher Walken's sister. But the rest of her couldn't be more than twenty-five years old.

I blinked back my shock and stuck out my hand. "You wanted to meet with me? I'm—" 

Kerry stood and closed the book, but held on to it. Her eyes roamed to my outstretched hand; her hand did not. I pulled my hand back and grabbed the handles of my bag, holding it around my shoulder as though it might fall off. 

"Your assistant suggested you could help us," she said. 

"My assistant? You mean Kedekoi?" I laughed. "She's more of a friend, really. An acquaintance, even. Troublemaker is probably the most accurate term."

My bag jostled on my shoulder and a heard a muffled, "Hey!"

"What do you think I can do for you, Kerry?" I knew she wanted me to turn leaves into cash so she could do whatever it was she wanted, but here's the thing: I don't work for free. Not anymore. 

The wood-wife turned her head and looked over both shoulders.  "Is there somewhere else we could talk? I noticed there's a sushi bar up the street."

Plagued by the events of autumn, Kedekoi and I answered in unison with a firm, "No. No sushi."

She blinked, taken aback. "All right. We can do this here, just not here."

We got the drift. Several more customers were scattered around the mystery section, perusing the shelves. Standing on my tippy toes, a quick scan proved most of the areas had someone in them. Except Reference. So we went there, where we found a corner and stood so we could see any incoming customers. With my bag hanging under my right shoulder, Kedekoi got a good view, too.

"We need your help," Kerry began. 

"Obviously," I answered. "Who's 'we'?"

"Myself and several wood nymphs."

I looked down where Kedekoi's head poked out of the bag. "Wood nymphs," I said pointedly. Wood nymphs were the land equivalent of Asrai: beautiful, young maidens. Attractive to young men. And for these two races, dangerously so. 

Kedekoi shrugged sheepishly, her cheeks candy apple red. She hadn't known.

"Specifically they are hyleoroi. Watchers of the woods," Kerry said. "They asked me to help get them out of town. Now I am asking for your assistance."

"Who are you running from, Kerry?" I asked softly. Fear leaked out and was visible in her body posture, in the way she licked her lips, tapped her fingers, cast furtive glances up and down the aisles. 

"You don't need to know for this transaction," she said quickly. "We can't pay much, but—"

"Who?" I insisted.

"You're better off not knowing—"

I spun on my heel. It was exactly not knowing that got me into trouble last fall. "I'm out of here."

"Please," she called out. "You're our last hope."

I stopped, listening for what I needed to hear. 

"We ran out of money last week," Kerry said. "Jobs are scarce this time of year. The girls have been talking about prostitution, but I—"

I turned around to face her. "Tell me who you're running from."

She lowered her eyes. "The Wild Hunt."

"The Wild Hunt," I said, flashing my eyes at Kedekoi. Her shoulders sagged and she looked away. She knew how much trouble this brought, how deep we were in it this time. 

The Wild Hunt was like the Hells Angels of the faerie realm. Terrorists. They liked to hunt their fellow faeries for fun and profit. You could say they were assassins, but it was more than a job for them. It was entertainment.

"We have the oak leaves," Kerry said. "Just turn them for us and we'll be on our way."

Oh, if only it were that simple. I'd missed my appointment, missed my own opportunity to get out of town. Now I didn't know when I'd catch another.

"We can pay. Take the job and half the leaves are yours," Kerry said. 

They were desperate. More so than me. There was more to their story and I needed to hear it. 

I took a deep breath, hoping I wasn't going to regret this. "Show me."

4

We followed Kerry down the street and around the corner to a restaurant that specialized in organic, preservative-free Mexican food, where the girls sat squeezed around a small table. The six girls—late teens, early twenties—were thin limbed and tall with long, straight hair of varying shades of blond and brunette. They should have had no problem getting work from a modelling agency, if they could stay in town for a while. But being on the run from the Wild Hunt made it impossible to settle down. 

I felt sorry for them. They'd had to give up their home-- their forest-- to live on the run. Their round eyes were sad and filled with fear. Were they questioning their identity? 

Kerry and I sat at a neighbouring table. It looked like the girls had been sharing one salad between them. I wanted to buy them all cheeseburgers and French fries—get some meat on their bones. I waved one of the girls over and told her to take everyone over and get some food. Big, fat burritos for everyone.

"My treat," I added and handed her some twenty-dollar bills. Real twenties, not leaf-turned.

"You didn't have to do that," Kerry said. Her green eyes shone with appreciation. 

"How did they get into this mess?" I asked. 

She leaned forward, her forearms on the table, fingers clasped. "I meant it when I said you were better off not knowing."

"And I meant it when I said I need to know." 

She pinched her mouth closed in a way that said she was going to be stubborn about this, so I decided she needed to know my reasons. Tit for tat, after all. 

"Look," I began. "We had a job go bad on us last fall. We thought we were helping out a bunch of lost Asrai. Then along came a leprechaun. You know what those little Irish freaks are like. No doubt he saw gold when looked at the girls. It made for a bad combination. The leprechaun got one look at the Asrai, fell under their love spell and decided he not only wanted to marry all five of them, but they were now firmly his treasure. No amount of bartering on our part could convince him to let the girls go so we could get them back to the ocean."

"You said you thought they were Asrai. They weren't?" Kerry asked, interested. 

I looked her right in the eyes when I said, "They were Fuath, Hunt sympathizers-- water folk like Asrai, but evil. The love spell was real, the rest was a glamour. It was an ambush, and the girls were the bait."

I saw the puzzle pieces click into place for her. She slumped back in her chair. "The Wild Hunt."

"The Hunt was after the leprechaun. He fought for his life as soon as he saw them. Killed two of the Fuath. We barely got out of there alive." I didn't mention who or how many we'd had to kill to get away. I didn't think she really needed to know any more than that. If it hadn't been for Kedekoi's battle experience, I wouldn't still be grass-side up.

But I was never eating sushi again.

I drew in a breath, preparing to break the bad news. "The fact is—"

"Now you're wanted by the Wild Hunt," she finished with a nod. 

"Right now I'm on their radar, not high on their wanted list. But if I help you with this, and they find out, I'll go up a few notches."

"They won't find out from us," she said firmly.

"I'd like to believe that," I said, "but here's the other thing you need to know: my cash is traceable. If they find you, one sniff of my cash and they'll know I helped you."

Her shoulders sagged. 

"Do you see why I need to know?" I said. "I need to know why I'm putting my life on the line to help you. I need to know what kind of trouble I'm adding to my pile."

She fiddled with the end of her scarf, folding and unfolding the knitted yarn. 

"I wish none of this had happened," she said quietly. She glanced over at the girls lined up at the counter, watching their burritos being prepared. 

"If wishes were pennies," Kedekoi said solemnly from my open bag. Her life was as much on the line as mine, but the Wild Hunt would find me a hell of a lot sooner than her. 

Kerry watched the girls as she spoke. "One of the Hunters took an interest in Erin. He wanted her. Wanted her to bring her friends. Maybe he wanted them for bait, I don't know. She refused. When the girls brought her to me, she was black and blue and could hardly walk. As soon as she told me it was the Hunt, we piled into the van and hit the road. Didn't look back."

"And he's still hunting her?" I watched the girls file back to their booth, chatting and laughing like normal girls, like there wasn't darkness behind their eyes. 

"We've been lucky to get away a couple of times now: Saskatoon, Winnipeg. Just as we get settled, they find us."

"Why did he let her go in the first place?" I asked. 

"The hunt," Kedekoi said. "It's more sporting to let her go and hunt her down later than to kill her in captivity."

I was in way over my head. Any Hunter willing to cross the country to hunt a girl for saying no was serious bad news. What would he do to me if he found out I helped her get away? 

"Where are you going to go?" I asked. I put my forearms on the table and leaned forward.

Kerry straightened. "Does that mean you'll help us?"

"Undecided. What are your plans? Where are you going? What makes you think you can get away this time?"

"I have a cousin in North Carolina. She has ties to the Summer Court. We'll be safe with her."

I nodded. Sounded kind of vague to me. She probably hadn't contacted the cousin yet for fear of the Hunt finding out her plan. That she was willing to tell me this much showed how much she trusted me. And how desperate she was. 

"Show me the leaves," I said. 

"So you'll do it?" Kedekoi sounded hopeful and surprised. I didn't blame her; I was surprised I hadn't walked out long ago.

"Show me what you brought me to work with," I said. 

Kerry motioned for one of the girls to bring over a stuffed plastic shopping bag. The girl put down her burrito, brought over the bag, and held it open. The leaves were dry and curling in on themselves, but at least they were still green.  

It wasn't much but it would have to do. 

For the love of all that was old and powerful, Kedekoi was right. These folks were desperate. They needed me. 

5

"Penny for your thoughts," Kedekoi said as we stood under the falling snow and watched the van drive off into the night. 

"I hope they're going to be all right."

"I think they will. You did the right thing, Penny."

"Hmmm."

"What about us? What are we going to do?"

I still wanted to get out of town, to find a forest where I could hide. The Wild Hunt was coming. That van was driving away with traces of me, but if all went well, I would have someone who owed me a favour-- someone with ties to the Summer Court. 

Toronto was a city of transitions, a transit city. I'd thought I was one of those in transition, but maybe, just maybe, it was my job to make pennies from wishes, to help those blowing through like leaves on the wind. 

I let out a sigh. "Let's go home."

***

(originally published in Canadian Creatures by Schreyer Ink Publishing, 2018.)