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Peanut Butter & Magic
Just in time for Christmas, a short fantasy story from the oft-enchanted
pen of Elizabeth Burton.
Lilybelle loved to visit her grandmother more than anything. When she was a baby, before she started to go to school, she spent every day with Gramma while Mommy and Daddy went to work. She and Gramma did everything together. They went for long walks in the park and Gramma taught Lily the names of all the flowers and trees and birds. They worked in Gramma’s garden and Gramma told Lily which plants helped people feel better and which ones made food taste good. Best of all, though, Lily liked it when they baked cookies. Gramma made the best cookies in the world, full of chocolate chips and nuts and raisins and other things Lily loved. Her favorites, though, were Gramma¹s peanut butter cookies. They were sweet and buttery and full of crunchy nuts and sunflower seeds, with just the littlest taste of cinnamon. Gramma only made them when Lily was feeling sad or afraid or sick, tiny cookies like a doll’s saucer and they always made Lily feel better. Sometimes, she asked Gramma, why they couldn’t have the peanut butter cookies all the time? ‘Because then they wouldn’t be so special, would they?’ Gramma said. ‘You should always have something you like better than anything that you only have once in a while so that the having is a special treat.’ Mommy and Daddy knew how much Lily liked visiting Gramma, so they said it was okay when she wanted to have her seventh birthday party there. Gramma made all of Lily’s favorites for dinner and for dessert there was her favorite cake -- dark, rich fudge with peppermint icing. It had ‘Happy Birthday Lily’ on it in pink frosting and two blue frosting roses and a real daisy. Lily blew out the candles with one puff and everybody clapped their hands. ‘Did you make a good wish?’ Mommy asked. ‘Uh-huh. I wished for-’ ‘Ssh! Mustn’t tell,’ Mommy said, ‘or it won’t come true.’ ‘Rubbish!’ Gramma whispered in Lily’s ear as she leaned down to cut the cake and Lily hid a giggle behind her hand. They all had cake and strawberry ice cream, although Mommy only ate a bite or two so she wouldn¹t get fat. Then Mommy and Daddy left for a grown-up party and Lily and Gramma cleaned up the kitchen. ‘Do wishes come true if you blow out all the candles, Gramma?’ Lily asked as she carefully set the dishes in the dishwasher. ‘Wishes come true if you believe in your heart that they will and if you wish for what will make you strong and wise.’ ‘Did you wish lots of wishes when you were a little girl like me?’ ‘Yes, I did. Lots and lots of wishes.’ ‘Did they all come true?’ Gramma pushed the dishwasher closed and turned it on, then smiled at Lilybelle. ‘The ones that mattered, Tiger Lily’, she said. ‘Now it¹s time for a story before bedtime.’ Lily hurried into her sleepshirt with the daisies on it and her slippers that looked like bear’s feet and ran back down the stairs to join Gramma in the big wooden rocker. They sat by the fire and Gramma told Lily her favorite story, the one about the fairy princess who gave up her kingdom to marry a poor scholar. It was a sad story because the scholar died when his son was only as old as Lilybelle. ‘Was the fairy princess sad?’ she asked, just as she always did. ‘Yes, she was but she was happy, too, because she had known love greater than any she had ever felt in all the long years she had lived.’ ‘Do fairies live forever, Gramma?’ ‘No, Tiger Lily. But if they stay in Fairyland, they will live a very, very long time. Now, my love, enough questions. A brush of the teeth and then dreamtime.’ Tucked into her bed in her special room, Lily thought about what it might be like to be a fairy princess and live a long, long time until she fell asleep. Deep in the night she woke up, not sure what had interrupted her dream of riding a white pony through a meadow of nodding daisies. She sat up, frightened without knowing why, and opened her mouth to call Gramma. Someone’s big hand clapped over her mouth and a strong arm lifted her and rolled her in her new quilt. She cried and wiggled but the kidnapper - Lily had heard about kidnappers - carried her away. *** Eltheon strode into the Great Hall with the child pressed against his shoulder. Karlen turned from staring at the fire and his face twitched. ‘Is that it?’ he asked as Eltheon set the bundle on the floor. ‘See for yourself.’ Karlen yanked the quilt apart and the child scrambled to her feet. She was terrified, her great blue eyes dark with panic and her cheeks glossy with tears. For a moment, Eltheon was sure she would bolt and he would have to chase her. Instead, she took a deep breath, bit her trembling lip and drew herself up until her back was straight and her chin lofty. ‘I want to go home’, she said. Karlen took his time, strolling around her with his elbow on one hand, rubbing his chin with the other. ‘Not much to look at, is it?’ he said finally. The tyke’s cheeks turned red, and the fear in her eyes snapped into outrage. ‘I’m not an it!’ she objected, stamping one bare foot. ‘I’m a girl.’ ‘You¹re a blasted nuisance, and if you don’t keep that tongue still, I’ll cut it out and feed it to my hounds’, Karlen roared. The child’s outburst of courage disintegrated and she began to cry. Not loudly, just soft, shivering little hiccups while tears rolled down her face. Eltheon ground his teeth - there was no need for this. ‘What’s to be done with her?’ he asked, wondering belatedly if he might not have made a mistake agreeing to help Karlen. ‘Put her someplace out of the way until I need her. It’s your house - surely you have some appropriate storage space.’ Eltheon picked up the quilt and knelt on one knee in front of the girl. ‘You must come with me now, Your Highness,’ he said gently, ignoring Karlen¹s sneer. ‘Please, Mr. Kidnapper, I won¹t tell anybody. Just take me home, please? I want my Gramma.’ ‘I can’t take you home, Your Highness...’ ‘Stop calling her that!’ Karlen hissed. ‘She’s an abomination, a taint on the True Blood.’ Eltheon stood up and looked the older man in the eye. ‘I agreed to go into Otherworld and bring her here because I believe it is time there was a monarch on the throne,’ he said coldly. ‘Don’t make me regret my choice.’ Turning back to the child, he draped the quilt around her and picked her up. She fought him, but by the time he started up the stairs in the west tower she had surrendered. ‘What is your name, little one?’ ‘Lilybelle.’ ‘It is a beautiful name. Just right for a princess.’ ‘I’m not a princess,’ she protested. ‘Princesses only live in castles and I live in a house.’ ‘But you are in a castle, so perhaps you have become a princess.’ She gave him a look that questioned his intelligence. ‘I don’t live here. I was kidnapped here. And I want to go home.’ They were on the third level now and he opened the door to the old nursery. He put her down and lit enough candles to chase away most of the dark. The child wandered about, looking at the dusty toys, then turned back to confront him. ‘What’s your name?’ she demanded, clutching the quilt around her shoulders against the chill. ‘I am Eltheon, third son of Eleon, Count of Tulethanon. The one who shouts so is my cousin, Prince Karlen.’ The child’s eyes widened with surprise when she heard Karlen’s name. ‘Like Prince Karlen who wanted to marry the fairy princess so he could be king only she loved the poor scholar and ran away and married him instead?’ Eltheon frowned. Was it possible the child did know who she was? The sprites sent to spy on her had sworn she did not. If they were wrong, he feared Karlen would never be content to merely show her to the Regency Council. A child completely ignorant of her heritage would be no obstacle to his bid for the empty throne. One who knew her heritage was another matter altogether. ‘You know of Prince Karlen and Princess Deliatha?’ ‘My Gramma told me. She tells it a lot because it’s my favorite story, even if it is sad and makes us cry.’ Eltheon went back into the stairwell and shouted. A footman responded within a few minutes and took the order for coals for the fire and clean bedding. When Eltheon returned to the room, Lilybelle was standing by the narrow cot, turned toward the candle on the night table with her face knotted in effort. ‘Are you ill, Your...Lilybelle?’ he asked, suddenly afraid he had hurt her with the rough abduction. ‘I’m wishing,’ she said, not opening her scrunched-up eyes. ‘I’m wishing I was home right now!’ She drew a deep breath and blew it at the candle. The tiny flame flickered and dimmed, but the magic he had used to ignite it kept it burning. He closed his eyes in relief. If the child had possessed any real power, she could have snuffed the light easily. She looked at the candle and sighed. ‘I guess I can’t wish hard enough,’ she said. * * * Lilybelle was scared, more scared even than last Halloween when Mommy took her to the Haunted House at school. The tall man, Eltheon, who had carried her to this dirty, messy room seemed nice, even if he was a nasty old kidnapper. She didn’t like the other man at all. He was ugly and he roared like a monster. She wanted her own room and her Sally Dog. Most of all, she wanted her Gramma. She tried to be a big girl and not cry like Mommy told her but she didn’t feel very big and the tears came. The tall man sat on the bed and lifted her onto his lap. ‘I am sorry, little one,’ he said, putting her head against his shoulder. She wanted to stay mad at him, but he was so nice and she was so scared and he made her feel safe. ‘I promise you will be free by tomorrow midday and I will then take you home.’ ‘Cross your throat and hope to choke?’ Lily sat upright and glared him in the eye. Eltheon smiled. He was very handsome when he smiled, like a movie star. ‘Cross my throat and hope to choke’, he agreed. A lot of people came into the room. They built a fire in the fireplace and cleaned off the bed and put fresh sheets on it and a pillow. When they had all gone away again, Eltheon put her down on the bed and tucked her in under the quilt. ‘Sleep, little one’, he said. ‘Tomorrow night it shall be your own bed that cradles you.’ ‘I can’t sleep. I’m too scared.’ He smiled again and leaned down and kissed her on the forehead the way Daddy did and suddenly she wasn¹t so scared and she yawned and her eyes drifted shut... * * * She woke the next morning and wished she would be back home when she opened her eyes. She wasn’t, though, and the sight of the dusty old room almost made her cry again. ‘Old crybaby!’ she muttered to herself. ‘Crying won’t help.’ She got out of bed, wrapped in the quilt, and went to crouch by the fire. It hadn’t burned down the way Gramma’s did when she left it lit all night so Lily could play camp-out but it really didn’t make you warm unless you sat right in front of it. Gramma had left the part about castles being cold and damp out of her stories of the fairy princess. The door behind her opened with a sudden squeal of hinges and she turned. She hoped it was Eltheon and not the Monster Prince. It was neither one. ‘Gramma!’ Lily dropped the quilt and ran into Gramma¹s arms. ‘Ssh, baby’,Gramma warned, hugging her tight then pulling Lily¹s jeans and sweatshirt from an old tote bag. ‘Quickly, into your clothes and we’ll be out of here.’ ‘How did you find me, Gramma?’ ‘That’s a long story we haven¹t time for right now. Here, you tie one shoe and I’ll do the other.’ When Lily had all her clothes on, they started down the long, twisty stairs. Lily stayed close to the wall because there was no banister. She was sad about leaving her brand-new quilt and her sleepshirt behind’ but all she wanted now was to go home. Lily and Gramma reached the bottom of the stairs. Gramma slowly opened the door into the rest of the castle and peeked around it. She turned her head and put her finger on her lips to remind Lily to be quiet - as if Lily was a baby and didn’t know that. Voices passed outside, talking about silly stuff and laughing and then Gramma took Lily¹s hand and led her back to the big room where she’d seen the Monster Prince. He was sitting at a big table with three other people, another man and two ladies. They were all sound asleep, which was stupid because they looked like they were in the middle of eating breakfast. As she and Gramma passed them, Lily sniffed. She knew that smell Gramma’s peanut butter cookies. Sure enough, there was a plate of them in the middle of the table. They were different from the ones she made for Lily, though. These were big as real saucers and lumpy with whole peanuts. Lily¹s mouth watered, and she wished they didn’t have to escape so she could have one. ‘Are they dead?’ she whispered as Gramma led her out into the little hall where the door was. ‘A very good question.’ Gramma turned back toward the doorway and pushed Lily behind her but Lily wasn¹t afraid of Eltheon. She stepped back out where he could see her, and he smiled and winked. ‘They’re asleep’, Gramma said. ‘Can¹t you hear Karlen’s snores?’ Eltheon came closer, looking at Lily and then at Gramma and then at Lily again. He nodded once and winked at Lily again and she couldn¹t help smiling at him. ‘Let us go, Eltheon’, Gramma said in a voice Lily had never heard her use before. She sounded like Daddy did when Lily didn’t do as she was told. ‘What good will it do you to take her away now that he knows where to find her, Delia? As long as the throne is empty and Karlen wants it, she will always be in danger. She and your son.’ ‘Do you know my daddy?’ Lily asked, surprised. ‘Hush, Tiger Lily. We¹ll go in a minute.’ Gramma looked at Eltheon again and Lily could tell she was afraid. Lily had never seen Gramma afraid and suddenly she got scared again, too. ‘Let¹s go now, Gramma’, she whispered. Gramma squeezed her hand. ‘David is no danger to Karlen and Lily is only a child. Surely even he wouldn’t stoop to harming a child?’ Eltheon’s face got hard and angry the way Daddy’s did when he talked about the little babies with AIDS and the people who sold drugs to kids. ‘What about Herenel?’ he asked. ‘My brother? An accident - he fell...’ ‘An accident easily arranged a curious toddler, a nurse’s moment of inattention, a fourth-story balcony. He has not admitted it, but he hints.’ Lily didn’t know what they were talking about but Gramma’s face got really pale, like she was going to be sick. ‘What’s wrong, Gramma?’ Behind them, the snoring stopped. The Monster Prince was waking up! ‘The Land needs you, Delia’, Eltheon said. ‘My life is there now, in Otherworld with my son and my husband’s people. I haven’t the power I had before it was all I could do to open the gate and come for Lily.’ The Monster Prince was all awake and shouting and Lily hid behind Gramma when she heard his boots come pounding toward them. He stopped in the doorway, glaring at them. ‘I’ll have your guts, old woman’, he yelled. ‘You tried to poison me.’ ‘Don’t be a fool, Karlen’, Gramma said in that funny new voice. ‘If I’d meant to poison you, you’d be dead. It’s a common nut in Otherworld that acts as a mild soporific on our kind. It’s perfectly harmless.’ The Monster Prince stared at Gramma and then he came a few steps closer. ‘Delia?’ he said. He took another step and put his hand on the big knife in his belt but Eltheon came between him and Gramma and they stared at one another for a long time. Then the Monster Prince stepped back. ‘Well, this is even better’, he said. ‘I was going to show the brat to the Regency Council, let them see how the True Blood has thinned. This is even better.’ ‘Let them go, Karlen’, Eltheon said. ‘No! This business has gone on long enough. The throne is empty, the True Blood gone. I am the next rightful heir. Even if they want this pitiful old woman, they won¹t take her when there is no one to succeed her.’ The other people at the table were awake now, too, and they came to see what all the yelling was about. They stared at her Gramma the way the Monster Prince had and then they looked at each other. What was so funny-looking about Gramma? She looked just like she always did to Lily. ‘Here, see for yourselves what I have been telling you’, the Monster Prince said, pointing at Lily and Gramma. ‘This is what Otherworld has done to the True Blood. It is your duty to acknowledge the right of my house to replace it.’ Lily glared her best glare at him. She wanted to go home and she wanted her breakfast and she needed to go to the bathroom. She couldn’t do any of that and it was all his fault. He made her mad, always yelling and pointing and being nasty, and she wanted him to just go home and leave her and her Gramma alone. Suddenly, a blue light flashed and the Monster Prince was gone. The grown-ups all stared at the empty place where he’d been and then at each other. Finally, they all turned and stared at Lily. Gramma crouched down so she and Lily were the same size, and she had on her serious face. ‘Tiger Lily, did you wish Prince Karlen away?’ Lily bit her lip, sure she had done a bad thing and would be grounded forever. But she couldn’t lie to Gramma. She nodded slowly. ‘I’m hungry, Gramma’, she said to try and explain. ‘And I need to go to the bathroom and he just kept yelling and...’ ‘Yes, love, I understand, but...where did you wish for him to go?’ Lily looked at Eltheon and then at the three strangers. They were all looking back and they all had their serious faces on, too. She was in big trouble. ‘I just wanted him to go home’, she whispered. ‘I didn¹t mean to do anything bad.’ Everybody sighed and their eyes started to twinkle and Lily thought maybe she hadn’t done something too awful after all. ‘So much for the weakening of the True Blood’, one of the stranger ladies said. ‘But, Delia, this can’t go on. You have a responsibility.’ Gramma stood up and looked at the lady and her serious face came back. ‘And what of my responsibility to my son and to Lily? They are my family. I have a life in Otherworld, one that I love. Am I to just throw it all away to come here and be an empty symbol?’ Lily was thinking very hard, trying to understand what they were talking about. She hadn’t had time before, being so scared and all, but now she was starting to think she knew what was going on. She slipped away from Gramma¹s argument with the strangers and tugged on Eltheon’s hand. ‘Eltheon, is my Gramma the fairy princess?’ she asked him very quietly. Eltheon smiled. ‘She was once. And should be again. Her mother the Queen has been gone for three years and the people are like children without their mother.’ Lily knew about that, because Daddy helped little kids who couldn’t live with their mothers and fathers. Sometimes, he took her along when he visited the shelter and she always felt sad afterwards. The children looked so lost and lonely. Lily loved her Gramma but it wasn’t fair to keep her all to herself if the children here in this world needed her. ‘Gramma.’ The grown-ups all stopped fighting and looked at Lily. She glanced up at Eltheon and he smiled and squeezed her hand. ‘It’s okay if you want to stay here and take care of the other kids.’ Gramma came over and knelt in front of her. ‘But if I stay now, I can never go back’, she said. ‘To stay in a different world, you have to change yourself and it’s too dangerous to do it more than twice.’ Lily understood what Gramma meant. If Gramma stayed here, there would be no more long walks in the park, no more planting seeds in the garden and watching them grow, no more afternoons in the sunny-bright kitchen among the smells of butter and sugar and chocolate. She would have to learn her own stories and tell them to herself and when the world was too big for a little girl she would have to be strong and grow up to manage it. ‘Can I come visit you sometimes?’ she asked. ‘From time to time because now that your power is awake you must learn how to use it. But only for one day each month from midday to midday. The gate between the worlds must not be opened too often or the seal becomes weak.’ Lily stared at the tips of her sneakers. She hurt in her heart thinking of not seeing Gramma every day, not sharing hugs and tears and laughter. But she was only one little girl and she had Mommy and Daddy. There were many more here that Eltheon said needed Gramma, too. ‘It’s still okay’, she said, although her throat was all tight and now her voice sounded funny. Even knowing she had done magic because she knew that’s how she had made the Monster Prince go away didn’t help her feel any better. ‘You should stay here.’ Gramma took Lily in her arms and they hugged. They were both crying but for some reason Lily didn’t feel all-over sad like she thought she would. When Gramma let her go, she wiped her eyes on her sleeve and looked at the other grown-ups. They were smiling at her, the kind of proud smile Mommy and Daddy gave her when she got a gold star at school. Then Eltheon got down on one knee and picked up her hand and kissed it, just like a knight in a fairy tale. ‘You have the heart of a true princess and I will be your knight to the end of my days’, he said. ‘Whatever you wish that is in my power to grant, it is yours.’ Lily felt like giggling but she had an idea that would be rude. Suddenly, she remembered there was something that she wanted a lot. ‘Good’, she said. ‘Can I use your bathroom?’ ~ # ~ (c) Elizabeth Burton - all rights reserved. Elizabeth Burton is a writer and freelance book editor transplanted from Pennsylvania to Austin, TX. A former journalist, she has previously had three short stories published: ‘Somewhere in Her Smile’, ‘Simple Sarah and Slippery Sam’ (which was also a Writers of the Future finalist) and ‘Troll Call’. The editor-in-chief and acquisitions editor for Zumaya Publications, she also reviews for, edits and publishes a monthly review of books, ‘The Blue Iris Journal’. Ms. Burton's first novel, ‘Dreams Of Darkness: Book 1 of The Everdark War’, is available as a trade paperback and ebook from Zumaya Publications. The sequel, ‘Shadow of the Scorpion’, will be published in 2003. A third book, ‘The Ugly Princess’ will be published in early 2003 as an ebook from Double Dragon E-Books and in paperback from Zumaya. Zumaya: www.zumaypublications.com The Blue Iris Journal: www.blueirisjournal.com Book info: ‘Dreams of Darkness: Book 1 of The Everdark Wars’ (pub: Zumaya Publications Adult Fantasy. 307 page paperback, Price: $15 (US) .Download: Palm, Rocket, eBookman, Hiebook, PDF, MobiPocket, MSReader, $6. (Note: Palm and PDF only are $6 from Booksurge, which also does the paperback. The other formats are $5.10 at Fictionwise.) ISBN 1-894869-80-X
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OTHER CONTENT - January 2003
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