One Fine Fae

  One Fine Fae

  Molly Harper

  This book is licensed to you for your personal enjoyment only.

  This book may not be sold, shared, or given away.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the writer’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  One Fine Fae

  Copyright © 2020 by Molly Harper

  Ebook ISBN: 9781641971751

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  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  This ebook is based on an Audible Original audiobook.

  No part of this work may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  NYLA Publishing

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  Contents

  1. Charlotte

  2. Leonard

  3. Charlotte

  4. Leonard

  5. Charlotte

  6. Charlotte

  7. Leonard

  8. Charlotte

  About the Author

  Also by Molly Harper

  1

  Charlotte

  Charlotte McBee was accustomed to the incredulous looks she got while driving her over-sized airstream trailer down the highway. Nobody expected the Silver Stork. But had she known about the wedding taking place in Mystic Bayou’s town square, she probably would have taken another route.

  Charlotte slumped in the seat of her truck, practically folding her small frame into the space under the steering wheel as hundreds of eyes followed the Silver Stork’s progress down Main Street.

  It wasn’t that Charlotte was embarrassed of her beautiful metal darling, but she’d seen enough wedding reality shows to know that distracting guests from the bride could end in violence. And Charlotte had been driving for too long to put up much of a fight.

  Charlotte thought she could park near the League office complex, but then realized that the collection of temporary buildings that housed their offices and employees was on the opposite side of the square – directly behind the wedding party. So, she just eased down the street to the Mystic Bayou Parish Hall and parked across multiple spots.

  The “town proper” was like so many rural small towns where she’d worked in her ten years as a midwife consulting for the International League for Interspecies Cooperation – one main street that included most of the town’s businesses and municipal buildings branching out into a “tree” of residential streets with small one-level houses. She imagined that most of the locals lived in the dense swamplands that surrounded this tiny spot of civilization.

  Charlotte hopped out of the truck, groaning in relief as she stretched her legs, short as they were. Most of the wedding guests seemed to have stopped staring and returned to their merriment. According to her official League welcome email, she was supposed to talk to an AJ Lancaster, the executive director of the League’s operation here in town. She pulled her fancy satellite smart phone from her pocket, an essential when the League sent her to some of the most remote locations in the continental United States. She dialed Lancaster’s cell phone number, but he didn’t pick up.

  She glanced up and down Main Street, wondering whether there was some place she could grab something to eat. Most of the businesses, small single-story, cement block affairs, seemed to be owned by a “Boone.” The local bank, a boat dealership, the grocery store, the beauty salon, the hardware store – all of their signs practically shouted “Boone,” The only eateries seemed to be a gray and navy building called The Ice Cream Depot, and “Bathtilda’s Pie Shop, Home of the World’s Best Chocolate Rhubarb Pie,” both of which were closed.

  She paused, chewing her lip in disappointed distress. After a long day of driving, she’d really been looking forward to something that she hadn’t cobbled together herself in her kitchenette. And it didn’t help that the wedding party seemed to center around some sort of meat-laden firepit. The smoke wafting across the square smelled like absolute heaven.

  “Hello!”

  Charlotte turned to see a man in a dark bespoke suit, all broad shoulders and dark blond hair, walking briskly towards her. He looked like a central casting version of an upwardly mobile prosecutor. She hoped desperately that she hadn’t violated some archaic local parking law. She didn’t have time to serve in the local … wait, did they have a local jail here? She didn’t see one.

  “Hi, there, are you Charlotte McBee, by any chance?” Mr. Upwardly Mobile asked, extending his hand for a shake.

  “I am,” Charlotte said.

  The man grinned broadly. “I’m Alex Lancaster, generally known as AJ Lancaster on my stationery. The head office said you’d wrapped up your previous assignment early and should be arriving in town this weekend,” he said.

  Alex Lancaster, the League’s new executive director of the Mystic Bayou project. Her boss. And she didn’t think she’d combed her unruly hair since driving through Arkansas.

  It was possible to sigh inside her own head, right?

  “They told you about the Silver Stork, didn’t they?” she said, cringing slightly as she shook his hand.

  “They did say it would make you easy to spot, which it did,” he said brightly, gesturing towards the gathering of people who were pretending they weren’t watching the exchange. “Are you hungry? We could get you fed while you’re introduced to everybody.”

  “Oh, I would hate to intrude,” she said, shaking her head. “The happy couple aren’t expecting me and I couldn’t just join in. It’s bad manners.”

  “Actually, the bride is one of your prospective patients … and one of your supervisors. Besides, Jillian’s been on edge, waiting for you to get into town. If she knew who you were, she’d probably drag you across the square herself.” He paused and shuddered. “Actually, come to think of it, I think I could be in a lot of trouble if I didn’t introduce you. She took off Adam McTeague’s eyebrows the other day when he tried to talk over a scheduled bathroom break during a committee meeting. Pregnant phoenixes are dangerous in ways I did not expect.”

  “Well, if you put it that way,” she sighed, glancing down at her cotton shorts and jean jacket. “Should I change?”

  “Jillian won’t care what you’re wearing. She knows you’re here to help her,” he said, offering her his elbow like some Austenian hero. “We’re really relieved to have someone of your skill set joining us. We have Dr. Carmody running the clinic, but with predicted local population growth after the ‘incident,’ our mathematicians are also predicting a considerable spike in pregnancies over the next few years.”

  Any League employee hearing the word ‘incident’ could only think of one monumental event in the supernatural community over the last few months. A Louisville man named Eustace Cornwell, a satyr whose family was the basis for the Pope Lick Monster legend, lost an argument over a parking space and shifted in front of dozens of people. Most of those people had smart phones and Youtube accounts. It was simply too much exposure for the League to cover up. Humanity was informed that the nightmares that used to keep them shivering under thatched roofs at night-from fairies to sea monsters-it was all real. Real and secretly living beside them since time immemorial, and now the truth was out.

  Humanity, as a whole … did not handle this well. There was a massive wave of protests, petitions, and inaccurate Facebook posts that had some humans believing that supernatural creatures had been plotting for years to take over the world, as opposed to slowly being pushed out of all their natural spaces by the far larger human population. Watching politicians arguing on the news over whether supernaturals should have to sign up for some sort of registry, Charlotte wondered if it would have been easier if humans found out that one mythological creature existed at a time. The League could announce one a week, “Unicorns are real, but most of them are very cranky. Definitely don’t try to tickle them,” and then the next week, “OK, mermaids, too.” She thought maybe it would have been kinder to slowly introduce the concept as opposed to ripping off the monster Band-Aid all at once.

  Fortunately, the League had been preparing for this eventuality for years. They circulated millions of free copies of a book written by Jillian Ramsay, PhD, while she’d lived in Mystic Bayou, where humans and “magique” (the local umbrella term for all supernatural types) had lived in harmony for generations. The Bayou: A Whole-Hearted Approach to a Blended Community was a slightly altered version of a manual Dr. Ramsay had written for League officials, explaining how the two populations of the “(Name Redacted) Bayou” managed to do just that, with minimal violence, while mingling their cultures and bloodlines. Dr. Ramsay had gone on the news and talk show circuit, explaining how absolutely normal the lives of most magique were, that humans had likely lived next door to magique for years and come to no harm. So, it stood to reason that they would continue to be fine and perhaps losing their shit on a world-wide scale was a little premature.

  The whole mess was unnerving, but somehow, as Alex led her through the crowd, Charlotte couldn’t help but feel it was a distant problem, far from this place. The lively accordion-heavy music, bright and happy, churned over the chatter and laughter. Bottles in every conceivable color of glass hung from the tree branches overhead and she thought
she saw tiny lights glowing inside of them. It was difficult to tell, in the golden afternoon light. Cheerful, home-spun floral arrangements practically dripped from every stationery surface. Small round tables placed sporadically around the square groaned under the weight of the guests’ heaped plates. People were happy here, celebrating the union of two of their own–eating and drinking and dancing as if the world outside wasn’t going completely bonkers. And it was a relief to feel like she was a tiny part of it.

  “So how dramatic of a population increase are we talking here?” Charlotte asked.

  “Well, we’ve had about forty ‘outsiders’ move here since the incident. It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s about forty times the normal number of people who choose to move here in an average year. Aside from League employees who have been assigned to the Bayou, that is. There are no rental properties to be had in town. Most of them are living in an ‘impromptu’ RV park on the end of Main Street. We have good reason to believe that’s not going to slow down,” Alex said.

  Charlotte hummed in agreement. Since the release of Jillian’s book, humans seemed to think that (Name Redacted) Bayou was a sort of supernatural Disneyland, where they could find answers for all of the universe’s big questions or just live out their lifelong dream of seeing a Sasquatch. And supernatural creatures saw it as a chance to settle into the sort of life they’d always dreamed of, accepted and “normal” and living with people who understood their unique situations. Most of the changes the League made to the “public” version of the book were aimed at protecting the anonymity of the town and its residents, but … well, the internet existed. Frankly, Charlotte was surprised the town wasn’t overrun.

  She spotted the bridal couple, posing for a wedding party portrait in front of a carved stone fountain. The fountain featured an assortment of mythical creatures sheltered under the wings of a dragon. Jillian was wearing a long-sleeved white lace dress with an empire waist, that only served to emphasize the curve of her belly, which she was happily stroking. The bridesmaids were wearing white dresses remarkably similar to Jillian’s, though their flower crowns were less ornate. The groom was a tall, lean man, hovering over Jillian with an expression that seemed equal parts joy and anxiety.

  Charlotte supposed she couldn’t blame him. Dr. Ramsay had a very busy couple of months recently, under intense media scrutiny. Her assurances, written and verbal, had done quite a bit to quell the public post-Pope Lick Monster panic. The headlines became less apocalyptic. The social media posts became marginally more reasonable. Markets stabilized. Charlotte had an enormous amount of respect for Jillian, particularly the icy dignity with which she testified before Congress, while very politely telling them that proposing registries to deal with the magique instead of, say, having a conversation with said magique was an act of self-destructive incompetence.

  Like Jillian, who had also used that same glacial gravitas to inform the political types that it was “none of their business” what sort of magie she was, Charlotte’s family had elected not to publicly announce that Charlotte and her mother, Lizzie, were a type of Romanian fae called zana. Not because the McBees were afraid of being hurt, but because they were afraid that Lizzie’s patients and their families would decide they didn’t want to be treated by a magie. In a location as secluded and remote as Waller Forge, Tennessee, that could be dangerous for pregnant women, human or magie.

  Compared to a lot of modern fae she knew, Charlotte had enjoyed a relatively idyllic childhood–stable, living in one place, with both parents. Her mother was a midwife as were her ancestors, all the way down the line back to the old country before deforestation drove them across the Atlantic. Her Granny’s services were so in demand in Baby Booming Appalachia, people didn’t ask a lot of questions. They just wanted their babies born safe and healthy. Charlotte was fortunate that there was enough human blood in her line that she didn’t have the typical fae metal allergies or the “strange spinal abnormalities.” (Also known as wings.)

  Lizzie McBee saw it as the family duty to provide humans with a peaceful, safe path into the world. She delighted in bestowing lifelong gifts on babies. Charlotte saw it as a heap of pressure. What if she picked the wrong gift? What if the child was meant to be a world-saving scientist and Charlotte gave her a beautiful singing voice–which was nice and all, but so was a cure for cancer. So Charlotte tried to give babies the gifts they would need in this strange, turbulent world–courage, strength, determination, and the ability to know when to abstain from social media. Let other fairies worry about temporary things like beauty and talent.

  “You’ve stumbled into the best possible way to be introduced to all of the movers and shakers here in town,” Alex told her. He pointed to the radiant blond bride. “That’s obviously Jillian–author of this year’s most-read book and our official liaison between locals and the League, and sometimes the rest of the world. That’s her new husband, Bael Boone. He’s a dragon shifter, the local sheriff, and related to half of the business-owners in town, but his family is a sore subject and you definitely don’t want to bring it up. The tall guy with the beard, who looks like a biker gang and a superhero franchise had a terrifying baby, that’s Mayor Zed Berend. He is very protective of … well, everybody. But the whole wedding party in particular. And he can turn into a giant bear, so it’s best not to bring out that protective side. The maid of honor there, standing right next to the bride? That’s Sonja Fong, the director of operations. She’s the real power around here, the one who keeps us running. I just have the title. Her mate is Will Carmody, the other groomsman and our local doctor. The pretty brunette, laughing at the Mayor? Danica Teel, an energy manipulator doing research on atmospheric anomalies and the love of Zed’s life.”

  “That is a lot to remember,” she sighed, watching as the bridal party joked and jostled each other around with practiced ease.

  “I have a chart with profile pictures,” he whispered. “I keep it taped to the back of my closet door. I’ll make you a copy, if you promise not to tell anybody. It covers every major player in town, including the mamas who will feed you into submission.”

  “I will memorize it and then burn it,” she promised, making him chuckle.

  Instead of a traditional wedding cake, the happy couple had elected to have an enormous tower of pies arranged on a custom-made display with dozens of tiered supports. It looked mismatched and delicious, guarded by a tiny brownie whose scowling face was nearly covered by her enormous corsage. Bael and Jillian carefully fed each other a slice of some sort of chocolate pie. Charlotte noticed that no one encouraged them to smash the pie into each other’s faces, which she appreciated.

  In the hubbub of people claiming their pie slices, Alex called the bridal couple over. If Jillian was confused by a complete stranger showing up at her wedding reception, she didn’t show it, simply smiling and kissing Charlotte’s cheek when Alex introduced her.

  “Sorry, I’m just flying a little high on all the nuptial joy.” She giggled when Charlotte seemed surprised.

  “This is Charlotte McBee, the midwife we talked about,” Alex said.

  If Charlotte had been surprised by the cheek kiss, she was stunned by lean, lethal-looking Bael throwing his muscled arms around her shoulders and hugging her like his life depended on it. “Oh, thank goodness!”

  Dragons were possessive and dangerously protective of pregnant mates. And yet, this man was … hugging her?

  “I’m just so glad you’re here,” Bael said, still hugging Charlotte. “She’s got a giant metal egg inside her. Please help.”

  Jillian shook her head, bemused. “Bael’s a little overwhelmed by the idea of how the egg is going to get out.”

  “We’ll figure that out just as soon as possible,” Charlotte promised him, turning to Jillian. “You’re my ‘priority case,’ according to Ms. Hiyashi.”