BREAD BASKET CASES

Okay, yeah, this is freaky." Lend's eyes were wide as he looked around, drinking in the Faerie Realms in all their Technicolor glory. Down in the village, people bustled about, laughing and playing. The mood was like a holiday. Every day in faerie-glamoured happy land was a holiday, which made what we had to do even worse.

Reth stood straight, alert, then relaxed, his shoulders slumping. "There are no fey here at the moment. I suggest you hurry."

"What are we going to do with them once we wake them up?" Jack asked.

"Take them to a safe location protected by my queen, where we will have time to decide what to do next. Do you remember the meadow bordered by trees where you took Evelyn?"

Jack nodded.

"Sounds good to me." I shivered, though it wasn't cold. It was the perfect temperature, lazily warm, the air sweet and gentle on my tongue. This place creeped me the bleep out.

Lend handed Jack and me a loaf of bread each. Reth turned away from it. He looked pale, with faint blue shadows under his eyes. "I shall be back shortly," he said, then took a step to the side, shimmered, and disappeared. I hoped he was going to do some sort of faerie healing thing. He wasn't supposed to be weak. He was supposed to be scary and intimidating and beautiful.

"Keep your eyes out for Carlee," I said. My stomach tied in nervous knots as we walked down into the small, green valley. I didn't know which I hoped for more-that we'd find her here or that we wouldn't.

A small child skipped along a path ahead, stopping to smile when he noticed us. "Hello! Are you new?"

Jack squatted down, smiling and reaching out to ruffle the boy's head of thick brown hair. "Nope, been here for ages. Hey, I have something for you." He broke off a piece of bread and handed it to the child, who obediently put it in his mouth. His face went white with shock and then he gagged, spitting the bread out all over the ground. Huge tears rolled down his cheeks and he started wailing.

My impulse was to run forward and wrap him in a hug, but Jack beat me to it, pulling the kid in and standing up, cradling the sobbing boy to his shoulder. He patted his back soothingly, whispering words I couldn't hear and didn't think it was my place to.

I had chosen right with Jack.

He looked back at us, his eyes haunted but determined. "We've got a lot more to do. Come on."

Fortunately the kid's wails had drawn a bit of a crowd, and people were gathering around us. Their clothes were simple and beautiful, all in creams and greens and browns. Each of them looked concerned about the boy, but their concern was tempered by a happy contentment they couldn't help but glow with. We'd fix that soon enough.

"Hello!" I smiled in a way I hoped was reassuring. "We've got something for all of you. If you'll line up and take one each, and then when it's time, we'll tell you to eat it."

"What is it?" a little girl, her burnished copper hair spun into tight braids, asked. "Is it from the queen?"

"Yup. From the queen. She wants you to eat this."

I tore off pieces of the bread and put it into hand after hand after hand, Lend and I going down opposite ends toward each other to meet in the middle. The little boy's sobs were quiet, a background music to the disturbing scene. Each person smiled and thanked me as I gave them a piece, and I wondered whether or not they'd regret thanking me. Was it better to be ignorantly, blissfully, falsely happy, or to be awake and aware of the horror your life had become?

I thought back on everything that had happened to me since that night Lend broke into the Center. It felt like a lifetime ago. Since then, I'd gone from being naive, trusting, and utterly secure about my place in the world, to being tossed around on a storm, losing who I was, losing my sense of purpose, even losing what I was when I found out my father was a faerie.

But in the end, I was glad. I wouldn't trade what I'd learned or suffered or become for anything. It was better to know. Because when you knew, you could choose. The faeries loathed and even killed humans for using faerie names for control-yet they thought nothing of taking even the choice to decide how to feel from people.

I put a piece of bread into the last hand and looked up at Lend. Nodding firmly, I knew. This was right.

"Okay, go ahead and eat it!"

Everyone raised their hands in unison, and Lend and I cringed in anticipation. A few seconds later half of them were on the ground, vomiting; the other half looked like they wanted to.

"What did you do to us?" a black woman with closely cropped hair asked. "What did-Oh, dear heaven, where am I?" She put a hand to her heart and staggered back a couple of steps, looking wildly around.

"I can explain." Jack's voice was tired but clear. "Please listen."

I put my hand on Lend's arm while Jack detailed what had been done to them. "I'm going to look for Carlee, see if we missed anyone else. Stay here in case Jack needs help?"

Lend nodded, his face troubled as everyone around dealt with their reawakened awareness with varying levels of shock and dismay.

I hurried past them and into the village. A couple of stragglers were coming toward the group, so I handed them pieces of bread with the instruction to eat it when they saw the blond boy talking. I guess that was the only nice thing about people under heavy faerie sedation: they were conveniently complacent.

I looked into every building that I passed, but they were almost entirely empty, and none of the new people was the one I was looking for. I was nearly out of bread, too, so I pointed them in Jack's direction and told them to ask for something to eat. Finally I came to the end of the village, and I was sure that no one was left in it. My heart fluttered hopefully in my chest-maybe Carlee wasn't ever here. Maybe she really had run away or made some other gloriously mundane, human mistake.

Then I saw a teen girl standing on the lip of the hill at the other end of the village's narrow valley. Her long, dark brown hair floated on the gentle breeze as she stared out, away from me.

My feet felt like lead as I climbed the hill, past the gentle green and purple meadow flowers, to stand next to her. Blinking back tears I turned to face her, still hoping that maybe, maybe, maybe...

It was her.

"Hello." She smiled at me without recognition. "I'm waiting for my love to come back. He brought me here, and he said he'd be back. So I'm waiting for him."

I reached out and took her hand, trying my hardest not to cry. "I need you to come back to the village. We have something for you."

She kept smiling, but she looked at me more closely. She seemed different here without her usual layers and layers of mascara. Younger. So much more vulnerable. I didn't want to wake her up from this, didn't want to shatter this dream reality for her. "Do I know you?" she asked.

"Yeah, you do. Come back with me."

"Oh, I can't. I'm waiting for him. You can wait with me, if you'd like to."

I squeezed her hand. "He's not coming back, Carlee."

When I said her name, her whole body stiffened, her eyes opening wide and clearing, as though a veil over them had lifted. "Carlee," she whispered.

I nodded and waited for her to freak out, to start screaming or crying, bracing myself and getting ready to hug her or carry her back to the village, whatever it took. For a few impossibly long moments she didn't say anything, didn't move, and I wondered if the shock had broken her brain. Then her brown eyes locked on mine again, narrowing into slits.

"I'm gonna kill that effing creep."

I laughed, relief flooding through me, and threw my arms around her neck.

"No, seriously. I'm going to kill him! I can't believe I bought his stupid lines! I don't care how pretty he was, I mean, have you seen what I'm wearing?"

Laughing, I nodded into her shoulder. "So not the style."

"I know, right? I look like an extra in some fantasy movie. Some stupid fantasy movie."

I pulled away, searching her face. "You're going to be okay, right?"

"As soon as I figure out what's going on, sure."

"Remember that cute guy, Jack?"

"The one who never called?"

"That's the one. You and he are going to have a long chat."

Her face brightened considerably at the idea of talking with a cute boy. She really was still Carlee, and I felt about a thousand pounds lighter knowing that, regardless of what her life would be like from now on, at least she would be my Carlee.

"How does my hair look?"

"Fabulous, as always."

We started walking down the hill when Reth appeared in front of us. Carlee glared at him. "Oh, I am so done with your type!"

"He's on our side," I said.

"Evelyn, the dancers are safe, but I think you and I should attend to the others immediately."

It took me a second to realize he was talking about the pregnant girls. My previously buoyant spirits plummeted. "Okay. Carlee, Jack and Lend are over there." I pointed to where you could just see the crowd. "They'll probably need your help calming everyone down and getting you all moved somewhere safe."

"I can do that. But you and I need to have a talk, like, soon. Because this is some seriously freaky crap, you know?"

"Oh, I know." I smiled sadly at her, and she turned and ran down the hill toward everyone else. Maybe besides totally underestimating paranormals, IPCA's greatest sin was totally underestimating normal people's ability to adapt and accept everything hidden going on in their world.

I gripped the bag of the last bits of bread in one hand and took Reth's in my other. The scenery spun around us in a blur of gold and green, and suddenly we were smack in the middle of another meadow, next to the lavender stream and surrounded by girls pregnant with future little versions of me.

They blinked curiously, nonplussed by our sudden appearance. "Hello," one girl, a brunette with a heart-shaped face who looked barely older than me, said.

"Here." I ripped off a piece of bread and shoved it into her hand. "Eat this. All of you." Lacking so much as a curious look, the other girls took pieces and put them into their mouths.

And chewed.

And swallowed.

And continued to look at me, without a single change.