Chapter Four

 

Parker felt Nina approached by her shoulder, and the poof of magic flowed around her like a veil. She looked down to watch as her entire body disappeared from view. Next Bridget flew up and started to sprinkle a dust concoction upon her head and Parker could not smell her black cherry perfume she put on earlier that morning.

“And you are now set for going, remember stay close to Nina, we’ll keep an eye out on this end.”
“Be safe, don’t be brash.”
“and whatever you do”
Both of the fairies together said, “Don’t fight the big, fat giant!”

Parker, with Nina sitting upon her shoulder, stepped over the stones of the fairy circle and felt the immediate jolt. The scenario of forest shifted and changed into a different setting altogether. Walls of rock curved away into darker paths that led further into the cavern depths. On the rocks Parker could see makeshift torches lit with a tiny flame and noticed several of them were marking the path with light.

Nina shivered in fright as Parker moved onward. She let her eyes get accustomed to the dim light as she walked. They walked for some time, until the path opened up into a large open space. A large grey table, about five feet in height, was stationed in the middle of the room. There also happened to be two large chairs of similar height.

“P-Pa-Parker, are y-you s-s-sure about th-th-this?” Nina stuttered as she hid in the raven hair. The detective did her best to help her friend, but it was a bit eerie. It looked to be a living room space, and there even happened to an area to cook and eat food.

“We’ll be fine, I trust you’ll keep us safe.”

“Keep who safe?” A third, booming voice filled the space where Parker stood. In her mind, she knew she might be in trouble. Apparently they had been heard. “I know someone—something is here. Leave before I get angry!”

Again the male voice boomed, Parker silently made her way to hide behind the chair, and felt the ground shake as two large giant feet plodded into the room. “I will not be tricked by you fairies—I know you’re here! I will not take your mean words! I did nothing wrong!”

Parker whispered back to Nina when the giant had turned away to search his kitchen. “Did you guys do something to him?”


“uh…. no?” Nina guessed, and Parker sighed.

“Can you drop the enchantments? I think I can talk to him.”

Nina’s eyes almost bulged out from her tiny head. “Trust a GIANT? Parker, you can’t trust them! They eat people!” Her little voice carried in the room, and Parker had to shush her before the squeak of the chair alerted them. Parker looked up to see the form of a Giant male, big nose and large warts alongside his chin. He had buck teeth that gave him quite the overbite. His large ears poked out beneath the matted greying hair that stopped short of his shoulder. His clothes, torn at miscellaneous spots, led Parker to believe he had not gotten decent clothes since he first made this his home.

“I do not eat Humes! I will not be tricked foul fairies, I know where you are!” And with his large fingers with disheveled fingernails, he pulled out a pouch and dumped the contents onto what he assumed was fairies.

Parker sputtered as white powder flew over her figure, decorating her entire body with… flour? She sniffed the powder before squishing the contents between her fingers.

“Ohhhh nooo!” Nina cried, and just like that her enchantment dropped.

“You are not fairy creature. Who are you?” The giant’s voice boomed in Parker’s ear as she felt the veil disappear.

“I am not, I am Detective Parker. May I ask who I am speaking with?” She flicked off some of the flour attached to her clothes as she stepped forward. Her eyes brim with honesty.

“I am Ryke, I am hill giant. I was gifted this land by Fairy Queen Titania after helping her with favor. I want no trouble.”

Parker smiled, “Ryke, I apologize for entering your home without a warrant. May I ask you a few questions about your home and I will leave?”

Ryke pulled out his chair and gave her a scrutinizing look. “Why you in my home hume Parker?” He sat in the chair and continued to give her a narrowed look. She could see his unibrow tightened in distrust.

“I was looking for some people Ryke—twelve years ago they disappeared from my realm. I was looking into any magical means and found your fairy circle outside. I stepped in with some fairies help, but I see you don’t get along.” Parker explained and looked to Nina. “Why do you not like Ryke? He seems nice to me.”

Nina crossed her arms. “He took our circle away Parker, it was ours first. He is a meanie.”

“I wasn’t mean. I was gifted it from our queen!” Ryke looked on the verge of tears.

“It’s okay Ryke, I will try to get to the bottom of this. Can you think back to twelve years ago while I chat with my friend?” Ryke nodded his head.

Parker turned to her friend within her hair. “I think what needs to happen is an apology first Nina, I believe your Queen Titania gifted him this circle. Isn’t it wrong to hurt others when they haven’t done anything to you?” Parker looked between Ryke and Nina before she amassed a long sigh.


The detective stood in her pile of dumped flour. “I’m sorry Parker, we were just so mad. He just up and took our circle without so much of a peep. I know Queen Titania gifted it to him for his favor, but he wasn’t a good fairy. Who would want a scary giant on their lands? Not us—we made a deal with another human to prevent him from entering the realm, made it hard for him to leave the misted forest.”

Parker gave her a bizarre look. “Someone made a deal with you?

“I remember I was gifted this circle thirteen years ago.” Ryke popped in from his seat. He peered down at her small five foot eight height comparably to his eleven foot height stature. Even sitting, he was taller.

“I’m sorry Parker, we were told to never speak of the deal to anyone. Even though it might answer your questions about the case. I’m sorry.” Nina deflated onto Parker’s shoulder as if she had been discovered as a villain.

“Hang on, you were—” Parker processed this before shaking her head. Fairy deals. Nina wouldn’t be able to break her deal. Unless she wanted to face the wrath of the Seelie courts. Parker smiled and looked up to Ryke.

“You said you remember being gifted this circle thirteen years ago, that’s good. Were there any humans that stumbled into your cavern home?”

Ryke thought about this. “No, but I do recall the fairies playing with some Hume family. They blew this dust of forgottenness on them and poof—this other Hume came out and directed them out of the forest. I don’t know what happened after. I couldn’t leave the forest. That Hume dropped a vial of Mist that covered the forest. I get bad headaches whenever I’m there—so I stay home.” Ryke thought long and hard. “There was a colorful object by my circle that looked semi decent, but it didn’t taste good. I left it outside.”

Parker connected a few dots in her head. That would explain the chewed up shoe. “So this Hume, a human, collected this family? Do you remember what they looked like?”

Nina’s cheeks were puffed up, but not because she was angry. She really wanted to say something, and couldn’t. Parker thought it might have been with her deals from early on.

“I remember it was a Hume man. And, same shirt.” Ryke poked at Parker’s police uniform with a dirty finger. She forgave the dirt smudged attire for some strange new events unfolding.

“Thank you for your time Ryke. If you’d like, I would love to have a cup of tea and talk with you. I can bring some of my friends!” The Giant seemed surprised by this, and nodded his head.

“Yeah, I like friends. That would be great. I haven’t had friends over in a long time.”

Parker reached her small hand up to give him a firm handshake. “It’s nice to meet you. I’ll bring over my friend Wesley, and we’ll have a fun time. I have to go now, is that alright?”

Ryke smiled a toothy grin. “Yes, come this way, I’ll lead you to the circle Hume friend Parker.”

Nina burst out from Parker’s hair with more red in her cheeks than normal. “I’m sorry too Ryke. I was mean and shouldn’t have called you names. Can I come over to play as well? I promise to be on my best behavior.”

Ryke looked at the tiny pink fairy and smiled. He extended a hand, almost mimicking Parker in her manner, to Nina. “Little fairy Nina is friend of Ryke, if fairy wishes it. I only want good friends. Not tricksters.”

Nina grabbed hold onto his index finger and squeezed. “No tricks, promise. I’m sorry once more.”

Ryke escorted the both of them to his fairy circle and bid them both farewell. They felt the jolt of magic teleport them once more to their home realm. Both of them were greeted by Bridget and Yodel who buzzed to Nina about what happened. Likewise they explained the situation and a new lead in the case. Parker frowned though.

“This human wore my same shirt.” She looked down at her uniform. “I need more information.” The fairies gave Parker a sad look. “We’re sorry we couldn’t tell you more on that deal. We actually could get in trouble for just mentioning the deal. Sorry Parker, but may we go home?”

Parker smiled to her fairy friends, “Yes, you can. I’ll be over bright and early tomorrow for some tea. We can also talk when I can start my work schedule for you.”

Nina smiled, her eyes sparkled with surprise. “Are you sure? My magic was dispelled in Ryke’s cavern.”

The detective smiled and gestured to herself. “You kept your end of the bargain, I made it back safe and sound. I’ll keep my end of the bargain.”

“Yay, yay!” Nina cheered, while the other two danced sprightly in the air.

“Let’s go tell Titania of the good news! Let’s tell her we made friends with Ryke, the giant!”

Yodel nodded. “Absolutely! Let’s go inform her and bring lots of friends for Ryke too!”

The fairies chattered and glimmered with excitement before racing off into the misty forest. Parker wandered the path, putting evidence gloves on, and picked up the articles of clothes from the missing families case for later.

>>>>>>>

When Parker arrived back at the station, she was one of the only officers in the building. Everyone had been busy with the high priority from that morning involving the FBI, so she assumed the lack of personnel was for that one reason.

And it also gave her more room to investigate. She looked over the archives for any potential police dealings in the forest within the last decade, and nothing came up. What made matters worse, this case seemed to have a oddly familiar tone to the one that recently occurred. Which meant it might also involve a bad cop. It would be difficult to ask around her co-workers about this either. She slammed the last of her fresh tea down before slumping over her laid paperwork. Her desk, which had been once a sloven mess, had become a chaotic spring of papers, evidence bags, and nonsensical fairy things.

And it led nowhere.

“My brain is going to melt if I do not get some hot coffee.” Parker squeezed the bridge of her nose to alleviate the headache she acquired from not enough caffeine. The tea she brewed earlier was only caffeine free, and it made her exhausted self extremely irritable. With her other hand, she reached for the two day old mug filled with stale coffee from one of her many night meetings within the precinct between her, herself, and the books.

She felt the dull ceramic touch her dry bottom lip and felt the room-temp liquid fill her mouth. And was immediately disappointed. The sound of the elevator dinged as Parker placed her mug back down on her makeshift coaster of old paper napkins stained with brown rings from other cups.

“Hello?” She yelled over to the entrance, pushing her chair away from the desk to see who had joined her in her coffee-less misery. She saw Officer Colten rushing in with quite the frenzied expression.

“Detective! We need you upstairs!”

Parker jolted up, the coffee forgotten about as the worst case scenarios jumped into her head. Some magical creatures were hurt, an officer might have died, a magical based suicide or murder—her mind raced as the blonde hair, sweat dripping officer explained.

“A fairy set fire to the Charmed Brews Cafe!”