The End

PART TEN (the last part of Anise!)

Anise opened her eyes.  She could see everything very clearly but it didn't look real at all to her. She was in a small bed beside a window in a room with soft carpet on the floor, flowery wallpaper and a lot of chairs. The chairs were occupied by a crowd of people, and more were standing. They were the Macandrews (some of them). 
“She's awake,” someone whispered. 
“Where am I?” asked Anise. 
“You're in the recovery centre in Instan city.” said Mrs Macandrew, smiling happily at her. 
“What happened?” said Anise, sitting up. 
“Queen Devo and Prince Ivro are dead and we are assuming Evo has fled into the mountains.” said a strange man who was standing in front of the heater at the back of the room, with a huge grin on his face. 
“Who are you? How did it happen?” 
“You killed the Queen and the Prince.” 
“What?” 
“You wouldn't remember, you were recovering from enforced hibernation.” 
“What?” A large tear began trying to find its way out of Anise's eye, happily assuming that it was going to single-handedly save the eye from dehydration and get itself splashed on a whole square inch of the bedspread and gain fame and fortune among the dust particles. As it was, it only managed to cover a square centimetre and Anise's body decided that reinforcements were necessary. The first tear was most disappointed. 
Mrs Macandrew had seen it fall and hurried everyone out of the room. She closed the door and came over to sit on the bed. She put her arms around Anise, who, after a few minutes, fell asleep. Mrs Macandrew silently left the room. 

During the month which followed, Anise found that she now had three uncles, six aunts, one grandmother and a lot of other relatives and friends of her parents. It was very overwhelming but she got through it with the help of Mrs Macandrew and Patrick.  Patrick spent a lot of time with her in that month but she never noticed until one day, when they were walking in the garden, he asked Anise a question.
“Anise?” 
“Yes, Patrick?” 
“Er... Anise, do you like me?” 
“Yes.” 
“Okay.” 
One night her bed was too hot so she went for a walk after trying to destroy her pillow. She wore only her nightdress and a dark blue coat both of which were supplied by the recovery centre. After a bit of wandering around she found herself in the garden and sat down on the fluffy green moss (which is oddly enough called grass), underneath a small foundation tree and waited, she didn't know why or what for. She soon gave up and walked up the hill to where a bridge passed over the stream. It was a beautiful still night, three moons were out and there were no clouds to speak of. Anise walked to the middle of the bridge and sighed. This was how Patrick found her an hour later when he came out for the same reason.

“Patrick?” 

“Yes Anise?” 

“I've changed my mind. Not all men are wicked."
"Well that's nice to know." 

And they married a long time after, when they were old enough.

THE END

How I felt when I finished this book

Right, on to the next book!

The Rescue

PART NINE
If some fairies are not warmed up the right way after enforced hibernation, they can sometimes go a bit berserk and destroy anything in their path. Luckily this will only last quarter of an hour, after which the fairies will become unconscious. Unluckily, if they do not receive proper treatment they may die. While this is happening no fairy is capable of any kind of thought, rational or otherwise. After they recover they will have no memory of what has happened to them after their enforced hibernation.

Patrick looked over his bed at Ruth who was writing in her diary.

The immortals had somehow found out that they were siblings and connected their rooms. It wasn't all that uncomfortable, although there was no furniture apart from two beds, one chair and one bookshelf. They had been very kindly given a kitchen where Ruth now spent most of her time as a distraction from where she was and what had happened. She also took to writing down things which hadn't actually taken place.

They didn't talk much.  Most of Patrick's time was spent in reading as there was an infinite number of books which were replaced every week. It had been almost a month since they had arrived there. This could only be told by the electronic calendar/clock on the wall as there were no windows. They heard a rumble and the sound of someone speaking very loudly outside, followed by a loud crash which shook the floor. All the lights went out. 

“What is it, Patrick?” asked Ruth, 

“I don't know.” There was a soft buzz and a small amount of light appeared from the far wall. “The door's open!” 

“Shall we get out?” 

“Not yet, wait until we know it's safe.”

Earlier that day the guards had noticed a strange woman wandering along the wall above the large gate which led into the palace. 
“Hey! Who are you?” called one particularly large guard, named Frank, brandishing his gun. The stranger advanced. 
“Hello, I'm looking for Queen Devo's palace, could you tell me where it is?” 
“Er... this is the queens' palace.” 
“Oh thankyou, I've been searching all night.  You must be a guard, pleased to meet you. My name is Ivan. What's yours?”

Ivan shook Franks' hand with both of hers, demonstrating that she was quite as strong as he was. 
“My name is Frank and I am a guard.” 
“Well, Frank, how is life as a guard treating you?” 
“Well it's not the most interesting job in the world, most days there's nothing to guard the palace against, speaking of that, what are you doing here? You didn't spend all night searching just to ask me about my job did you?” 
“I did.” 
“You came just for that?” 
“Well... not you personally, I'm... taking a survey on how the palace guards here are being treated.” At that moment Tom, who had been guarding the other side of the wall, came over to see what they were doing and if he could help Frank in any way. 
“Can I help you with anything?” he asked 
“Yes thankyou, my name is Ivan. I'm taking a survey. Nice to meet you. What's your name?” 
“Uh, Tom.” 
“Tom, could you possibly call over that other guard who I can see at the other end of the wall?” 
“Alright. Ben, come over here!” 
“Thankyou. You're a very obliging young man.” Ben soon reached them and looked questioningly at Tom, 
“What is it sir?” 
“Hello you must be Ben, my name is Ivan.” 
“She's taking a survey.” 
“Oh. How do you do?” he held out his hand. 
Tom, who had happened to glance over the wall, tapped Frank on the shoulder. “Uh, Frank... I think you should look...”

“What is it? What the-?” On seeing the crowd of fairy soldiers arrayed in front of the wall, silently observing the little group, Franks' first reaction was to gasp in horror and his second reaction would have been to sound the alarm but it was cut off abruptly by a violent blow to the top of his head from his own gun wielded by Ivan who dealt with the others in the same manner, leaving them in a silent heap on the ground. 

“'Morning! Do you want the gates open?” Ivan yelled down. 

“Yes thankyou!” the fairy captain yelled back, 

“Right. I'll be with you in a minute.”  The gates were soon open and the army inside. It was the custom of the fairy army when they fought to be as quiet as possible and not to kill anybody but to merely render them unconscious, especially as they were on a raid rather than at war.  Because of this, no one really noticed until almost the afternoon. By then most of the troops were either locked in closets or lying around somewhere probably dreaming of a strange aunt named Annie with an apron made from live rabbits or of flying trough the clouds with a dog named Mat. So the general called for the next best thing: the prison guards. After the call was sent out, the fairies blew up the power lines but that didn't matter, except for the small problem of how they were to find each other in the pitch dark.

When Ivis received the call she was in one of her “Depressions” where she would just sit on a chair and be as negative as possible.

Once she had threatened suicide and would have done it too if there had been anything to do it with which there very luckily wasn't. Why they still kept her as a guard is a mystery. When the call came she decided she had had enough and shot herself with her gun. A minute after, the power went off.

Now would be a favourable time to explain just what was happening: back at the Macandrews' house, as soon as the immortals had left, the whole family group had set out for the nearest fairy base to tell them what had happened to Patrick, Ruth and Anise. This was a long journey so it was nearly a month before the fairy army were informed and did something about it. Ivan, one of their best scouts had been sent to open the gates for them and you know the rest.

Due to the sudden rise in temperature Anise was soon awake. The first thing she saw was that what had been a black wall before the loss of power was now merely a sheet of glass blocking her from the room beyond. The second thing she saw as she stood up was the horrifying sight of Ivis lying dead on the floor.

Anise stood for a few minutes and stared, the temperature rising all the time and the puddle of blood on the floor increasing slowly in size. Suddenly she leapt up and hurled herself at the wall of glass until it shattered. Anise charged at the door and smashed it as well. Outside she met the prince who was on his way to give a rousing speech to fire up the troops, but he was doomed. Anise fell upon him and strangled him. She charged through the palace and soon found her way to Queen Devo's private apartments which she swept through like a whirlwind until she found the Queen herself in a large sitting room writing something down by the light of a small lamp. When she saw Anise she shrieked and backed away into a sofa but Anise was upon her before she could move any further and the life was soon crushed out of her.

Anise fell down in a crumpled heap on the floor. This was the scene which met the eyes of Evo who had come down because of the noise. Evo was twelve, with blonde hair and green eyes. She had the same interests and prejudices as her mother, was devoted to making Devo proud of her, was of strong arm, mind and will and very clever. She was horrified to see the dead and bloodstained body of her mother lying on the sofa

Anise, on the floor, also appeared to be dead and was bleeding from cuts in her arms and legs. Evo rushed to the sofa to confirm her suspicions. She did not cry, she was not as weak as that. The paper on the table caught her eye. She snatched it up and read it rapidly. It was the right to the immortal throne. She stuffed it into her pocket and left the room. It is said that after this she took the few troops still conscious and fled deep into the mountains through a secret tunnel and from there began to raise an army large enough to drive the fairies from Outer Earth. Meanwhile the fairies were quickly gaining ground and soon there was not one immortal on his or her feet in the palace.  The army was able to penetrate the inner rooms where they found Devo and Anise.  Once they had rescued all the prisoners, including Anise, Patrick and Ruth they returned to fairy territory.  Anise was put in the recovery centre in Instan City but it was nearly half a month, (80 normal days), before she regained consciousness.

END PART NINE

The next part of Anise will be the last. I shall be putting a new book on here soon.

Queen Devo

PART EIGHT

Devo had been born to wealthy parents and she was already quite influential by the time she was eight. She had been recognised as part of the Immortal council when she was ten and at eleven she she was made special adviser to the queen which was the highest position anyone who wasn't actually ruling could have. But when she was 15 something happened, no one ever found out exactly what. One day in the month of winter, (or the second month.), Devo and a young courtier disappeared without leaving any trace. In the month of spring, (or the third month.), she was found unconscious in the cockpit of a freighting ship.

She never told anyone what happened to her companion. Afterwards she was not the same. Soon she was made queen and married a man of great wealth and good position but who she never really loved. They had two sons, Simon and Ivro. Devo loved Ivro the best and spent most of her spare time with him, sadly neglecting her younger son and her husband, so when Ivro was killed by the Tuesday 14 fire she accused his father and his brother of causing his death and the fire but the general public thought otherwise. A month afterward Simon and his father vanished. The next year she married again, this time to a man who, although handsome,was not the most respectable man. Devo loved him dearly but found him rather trying. They had three children, two girls, Evo and Aira, and one boy, Iro. One day Devo found incriminating information about her husband. She was of course not very happy and a month later her husband disappeared. After this Devo said she would never marry again. These were not her only problems, her daughter Aira had sided with the fairies against Devo. One day she received the information that her daughter was going to travel by air to spy on her. With Aira were her best spies and good friends Sam and Jill Edward and their daughter Anise. Devo sent her soldiers to mt Duvet to shoot down the plane as it flew over.

They succeeded but Anise Edward escaped. This was not found out until 11 years later and Iro was sent to dispose of Anise but she escaped again. Devo sent raiding parties to every possible place Anise could have gone and inspected all the prisoners herself with Iro and soon found her. She put Anise in enforced hibernation which was very easy to do to fairies. The other prisoners were kept isolated in case Anise had told them about the aeroplane crash.

The Queen

PART SEVEN

Anise sat on the floor and tried to collect her thoughts; she had been taken from the Macandrews' house with Ruth to the big grey thing.  (It was in fact an Immortal slave freighting ship), where she had been put into a little cold grey room by herself and then into this small room in a strange square building and kept there for a few hours. She had been taken there by a strange lady who said Anise would be sent to the capital at 4:00 B. At the aforesaid time Anise and a group of other prisoners were put back on board the ship. They soon reached their destination and were given uniforms to put on. When they had finished dressing they were marched through a hanger into a lift and through some gates. As they went on the sun sank lower and it began to get cold and dark. Ahead lights began to appear. As they reached the first very large building they looked back to catch a last glimpse of the setting sun.

Anise felt sadly that she might not be seeing the sun again for a long time. There were more lights and now and then a vehicle passed. Soon they reached a reasonably large building where they stayed until the 1^st 3:00. then they were marched into a truly enormous building where a large group of soldiers was waiting in the largest room Anise had ever seen. As they neared the group Anise saw with horror that the prince was there, near the middle of the group, standing behind a tall lady with a gold crown on her head.

Anise had never been so scared in her life. She was sure that whatever they did to her it wouldn't be something nice, seeing what the prince had done last time. When they reached the group the prince, who didn't look the least bit interested in anything going on around him, straightened, put his hands behind his back and whispered something to the lady who told something to the guards.  Two of them came forward and dragged Anise roughly toward the lady who stared severely down her nose at her.

“Do you know why you are here?” 
Anise took a deep breath. “No.” she said with some effort. 
The lady raised an eyebrow, “Your name is Anise isn't it?” 
“Yes.” 
“And you are fourteen and were in an aeroplane crash when you were three?” 
“Y-yes.” 
“Do you know why it crashed?”  
“no.”  
“Do you know where?” 
“yes.” 
“Do you know who I am?” 
“n-no.” 
“I am Queen Devo of the Immortals and you are all My slaves.”  The Queen turned to one of the guards, “Take this girl to floor N5 room 17 and send Ivis to guard her. Captain, take the other prisoners to floor N3, rooms 26, 27, 28 and so on, then go to floor P6 and wait for further instructions. You may go.”  They went. 
Anise was marched by the guard through a door and into a lift which took them down to floor N5. It was dark and everything was black and shining in a very unfriendly manner. Room 17 wasn't much better.  On the floor was a hard mattress and on the black shiny wall was a black shiny box with glowing lights and numbers on it. There was no blanket or pillow. Behind a screen was a very small bathroom with no bath or towels. When the guards had left Anise sat on the floor and cried quietly. She felt completely and horribly alone.  She wondered unhappily what had happened to the rest of the Macandrews and if they were still alive and if she'd ever see them again. She felt cold air blowing on her legs and knew what was happening. Before she lost consciousness she thought of everyone at the maid school and knew at the back of her mind that she would never see them again.

Immortal territory

PART SIX

Looking down on Outer Earth you will see that on the great northern continent there is a great desert near the sea.  North of this desert there is a great fertile plain and to the east of this is a line of mountains, the coal mountains. In these mountains is a city.

This is part of the Immortal territory and the plain is the slave lands.

In the slave lands are towns and villages named after days of the week where the working slaves and their managers live. Each town or village has at least five managers living in it in large houses. Every month the managers change to a different village. The slaves are taken from the lands around Immortal territories on raids and are flown in on large freight ships which look like metal fish.

They are taken to the Immortal capital in the mountains

where they are given their uniforms and inspected and told what jobs they will have and that it is futile to try to escape because of all the wonderful security and blah de blah de blah. Next they are issued with identity cards and flown to one of the various towns where they will probably work for the rest of their lives. Practically every citizen in Immortal territory has at least one slave so they are in high demand.  A household slave will, in small families, run errands and cook meals and generally do the housework.  A family slave will look after the children, a private slave has a number of different jobs, a show slave is chosen for her appearance and a work slave works in the slave lands or in the mines in the mountains.

The Thing

PART FIVE

“Is this your house?” said Anise, 
“Yes, some of it.” in front of them was a mass of tree roots with a door and a few windows in it. 

Anise was not impressed. Patrick opened the door and they went in. Inside was a straight, door-lined hallway which they walked down into a large room with comfortable seats along the walls. In one corner were three small girls playing quietly with dolls and on one of the seats was a girl who looked about fifteen, sitting rocking a small baby. She looked up as they entered, 
“You're late again, Patrick.” she said, 
“I know, Lily.” 
“Your lunch is in the kitchen if you want it. Who's this?” she said, turning to Anise, 
“This is Anise. Anise, this is my sister.” Lily stood up and put the baby in a basket. 
“Are you hungry, Anise?” 
“Yes, thank you.” 
“This way then.” they walked to a room which was very obviously a kitchen, at one end was a large fire with two or three ovens above it, the walls were lined with cupboards and draws and utensils of all kinds were hung on hooks. In the middle of the room was a long table at which was a lady rolling out bread. 
“Mother, Patrick's home.” said Lily. 
The lady, who didn't look old enough to be anyone's mother, looked up at Patrick reproachfully, “You're late again. Your lunch is over here. Who's this?” she looked at Anise, 
“This is Anise, I found her in the forest.” Patrick's mother seemed quite pleased to see Anise and offered her something to eat. While Anise was eating it Patrick's mother, who told Anise to call her Mrs Macandrew, and Lily asked her how old she was and where she was from and who her relatives were and things like that.
"Where did you come from before you went to the maid school?" Mrs Macandrew asked at one point in the conversation.
"I don't know. the only thing I remember before I went there is that I was in a plane crash." Anise replied.
"And that was when you were three?" asked Lily.
"Yes."
"And you're fourteen now?"
"Yes."
"Wasn't there a plane crash in those mountains about that time which everyone where I came from made the most enormous fuss about?" Said Mrs Macandrew, looking at her daughter. "They said it must have been shot down by the Immortals or something and then they couldn't find it."
"I don't know, Mother"
"Well. maybe it was a different one. I don't know."
"What's a plane crash Anise?" Asked Lily.
After that was finished Anise was shown around the house and garden and found that the house was enormous and Patrick had a very large family who mostly didn't actually live in that house and also about the town which wasn't that far away. As Anise didn't really want to go back to the school in the mountains and as the place in which she found herself was a very nice place she was in no hurry to leave, in fact she stayed a week. One day she was in the attic with Patrick looking at old books when there was a loud roaring noise outside. They ran downstairs to investigate and found Mrs Macandrew in the hall with baby Andrew in her arms. She was looking very agitated. “What is it?” asked Patrick, 
“I don't know.” 
“Mother!” called one of the girls from the living room, “there's a great big thing out there!” 
“I'm just coming!”

 Mrs Macandrew called back. She hurried to the door with Anise behind her. When she looked out of the living room window she gasped in terror, outside was an enormous shape in the air moving slowly toward the ground.

 “Lily,” said Mrs Macandrew, “tell everyone to get inside and go to the cellar tunnel as quickly as possible.” 
“Yes Mother.” said Lily. 
 Mrs Macandrew turned to Anise, “Where's Patrick?” 
“I don't know, I'm sure he was here a minute ago.” 
“Mother look!” said Renata, pointing out the window at the thing which had landed half on the vegetable garden and half on one of the paddocks in front of the house, almost covered in a cloud of its own smoke. 
“Come on, we need to go.” said Mrs Macandrew, turning to the door, 
“Patrick!” screamed Renata, for as the smoke cleared a little, they could see two people dragging Patrick toward the thing.  
“Oh no.” whispered Mrs Macandrew. A swirl of smoke obscured the window for a moment. When it had cleared away Patrick was gone but there were several strange men coming toward the house. “Now we really must go.” said Mrs Macandrew, “Follow me, quickly.” they hurried down the passage, collecting Macandrews on the way, down the stairs and into the cellar. Once there a trap door was revealed and everyone went down the ladder underneath it. There was a quick head count and it was found that Ruth, who was as old as Anise and had brown skin, was missing. 
“I'll go and find her.” said Anise.
“If she's at the other end of the house there's another trap door in the guest room.” said Mr Macandrew, before she left. The house was completely silent as Anise searched through the rooms, she found Ruth in the library reading a book.

 She looked up as Anise came in. “What is it?” she asked.
“We need to get to the cellar tunnel now.” said Anise. 
“Why?” 
“There's a great big... thing outside.” 
“oh.” they walked quickly to the guest room and found the trap door under the built-in and curtained bed but before they could get in they heard steps in the hallway. Ruth dropped the trap door and it clicked shut. 
“I think I heard something down this way.” said a strange voice. The steps drew nearer. 
Ruth yanked at the trap door, “It won't open, it's jammed!”

 she whispered, 
“You shouldn't have shut it!” Anise hissed back.
“There are people in this room, look, my scanner's flashing.” came the strange voice again. Ruth finally got the trap door un-jammed but just as she was lifting it the door of the room opened and three men and one woman were in the room 

END OF PART FIVE 

William Macandrew and His Sons

PART FOUR

Many years ago, when the town of Sconston was just a few scattered cottages, a man named William Macandrew came with his wife Abigail, who was a fairy, and decided to settle there.

At first people thought he was strange because he had built himself an underground house in the forest and other people didn't like the forest. But as he could trace his ancestors back to when they used to live on Earth and because he was a good worker, nothing much was said about it. William continued to be a good worker, in fact by then he had quite a large farm and a rapidly growing family. Because of this, he was labeled: “Successful”. Then some of his children grew up and got families of their own and the successful William became a rather important person in the now large town. The inhabitants then decided that William was not only successful but he was now “Wealthy”. Then out of no one knew where there came a king and a government who right after he was crowned started taxing the land to bits. No one liked this so William's eldest son, Mark, who owned a lot of land, went up to the castle and gave them all a good telling off.

After that, there was only a little bit of taxing and William's third son, Steven, became part of the government to keep it that way. The king's private excuse was that he was rather afraid of William because the Macandrews had lots of friends in and out of town and also William had quite a few daughters and the king had a son who would want a wife at some point. Life was quiet for a while until Patrick, William's seventh son, turned eight and was allowed to go outside unsupervised. He was intrigued by the forest and started making secret expeditions into it. His mother objected to this when she found out where he had been going and tried to get him interested in one of the local girls because having a female friend would encourage him to stay at home. However, whenever the girls came visiting Patrick always managed to be somewhere else. Once, when he was 15, he pretended to be friendly to one of the girls and then went and lost her in the forest. His excuse was that he forgot she was there and ran on ahead, accidentally rubbing out his foot marks and absentmindedly climbing a tree.

After that his mother gave up and concentrated on her other children.

Patrick thought that the only reason for marrying was so that the men could tell the women what to do and he didn't really feel like doing that. In all the romantic books he had read the characters would marry after a very short period of time, this even happened in history, even the very old stuff.

Patrick decided he wasn't going to marry any of the local girls or he would have fallen in love with one of them already. He had been thinking about this when he heard Anise screaming and he continued to think about it for the rest of the day.

Patrick

PART THREE

When Anise awoke she thought she had fallen out of bed, (she had once and hadn't woken up until someone had stepped on her.), because it was so cold and the ground was so hard. Then she remembered what happened last night. She opened her eyes. She was lying on the ground in the dark and her hands and feet were tied. She looked around and saw two glowing spots which had apparently come out of nowhere and which were coming closer. As her senses started to recover from the shock they had received the night before Anise made out that what was coming toward her was a lady in a green dress crawling on her hands and knees. 
“ Where am I?” asked Anise, 
“That is what everyone says.” said the lady, “you are in my cave. Some kidnappers disguised as a prince and his escort put you in here. You are in Nearfair forest and it is the second nine o'clock.” (owing to the outer earth days being 48 hours long the day and night are split up so the first half of the night which starts at the first one is spent as an earth day is spent and the rest of the night is spent in sleeping. It is the same with the day except the first hours are called A and the second hours are called B.) The lady bent down and started untying Anise's hands and feet.

“horrible stuff rope is, I do not see why everyone who comes here is tied up in it. I have got quite a store of it at the back.” while she had been talking the lady had only managed to untie one hand and was starting on the other with difficulty. She had very strange eyes. 
“Is there a light?” said Anise, who was feeling strangely relaxed, 
“No, but I can see in the dark.” 
“So can I...” said Anise, nothing seemed to matter any more. 
“I hope you do not fall asleep because if you do, it will be very boring when it is time to eat you.” for some reason this did not disturb Anise in the least. “and I might wake you up enough for you to scream and then someone else might come and I could eat them too.” the lady's hands were looking more and more like claws now but Anise hardly cared. “I think I will sleep and then I will eat you.” the lady crawled to the far end of the cave and disappeared. With a great effort Anise got up and looked around, she was beginning to realise that her situation was actually rather dangerous and so started to look for a way out, before she could find one however, the lady woke up and crawled lazily into view. She was now much larger than before and was almost entirely covered in scales, her hands and feet were more like those of a lizard than anything else her teeth were very pointed and most of hair had gone. “You're properly awake. That means you will scream and then there will be lots of fun.” she sounded as if she wasn't used to speaking English. Suddenly she lunged forward with all her sharp teeth and claws showing.

 Anise did scream, in fact she screamed so loudly that everyone for two kilometers around must have heard her. Then the lady knocked her over so hard that she lost consciousness. Anise's first thought on awakening was that it must not be good for people to get knocked out as much as twice in a night and that she hoped she didn't get consumption. Or was it concussion? she couldn't remember. She felt as if she was sinking into something and getting flattened in the process and also slightly sick. She opened her eyes and looked around. Someone was sitting on one of the large rocks, which seemed to be very plentiful just here, watching her with interest. Anise glared at him, which she soon had to stop because of her headache and the fact that she was very tired. He grinned which seemed to make everything in Anise's world worse. 
“Are you better?” he asked, 
“No” 
“You're sure?” 
“Yes. My head hurts and so do my arms and legs. I think I should know if I'm better or not.” she sat up and looked around, “What was that thing?” she asked, 
“That was a Drahgohlah. It eats people and animals and is very smart. When something gets into its cave it puts them half to sleep and then eats them. It's like a small clever spider except more playful. it is also very dangerous but a good hard whack on the nose makes them go limp and you can just walk away.” (on outer earth there were large animals which looked and behaved like spiders and so were called spiders but these animals had lungs and they didn't spin webs. Their skins were also very valuable.) “you'll feel a bit depressed for a few hours but it's just the after effects.” he got off the rock, “By the way my name is Patrick. What's yours and where do you come from?” 
“Anise. I'm from the mountain maid school” 
“Oh. Do you want to come to my house? It's not far and I can carry you.” Anise had been firmly told not to trust strange men who offered her lifts to their houses.
“No thank you, I can walk.” She stood up and walked to a nearby tree and turned to Patrick with a defiant look. “see?” 
 “Alright, this way.” Patrick walked past Anise and into the trees. Anise stared after him in disbelief, how could anyone be so rude? She would just go and tell him what she thought of him. He turned as she came up behind him, 
“Good, I was beginning to think you had decided not to come at all.” Anise opened her mouth to say that she had decided not to come and that she was very annoyed at him and didn't want to go anywhere with him in the first place but she was interrupted, “by the way why were you in that cave?” 
“some very nasty people put me in there.” 
“Do you know who?” 
“no, but I wouldn't be surprised if you were one of them. Also-” 
“Oh no, I'm not a nasty person, in fact I'm quite a nice person. What on earth put such an idea into your head?” (the phrase originally coming from earth was at that time popular in the places on outer earth settled by humans.) 
“The fact that all men are wicked except the married ones.” 
“that's a bit hard on the men though isn't it?” 
“I don't think so. But-” 
“if we hurry we'll be there in time for lunch. Mother said we'd be having pancakes today.” Anise wondered how much it would hurt Patrick if she kicked him or if it would hurt him more if she just slapped him. Patrick continued to talk. And talk. Soon Anise lost patience and yelled at him. “EXCUSE ME SIR! I have been trying to speak to you for the last ten minutes and did you notice? Oh no. You were too busy thinking what a nice person you are to rescue a poor helpless girl from a... a...”

“Drahgohlah.” 
“yes that thing, well I am not entirely helpless let me tell you, I could knock you out if I wanted to, and I didn't want to come with you anyway, I was going to tell you but you didn't listen, you were too busy talking. I feel like killing you!” she kicked him and he fell over. He got quickly up and Anise rushed at him, he caught her and shoved her down and she rolled among the roots of a nearby tree. Anise leaned against a root and started to cry quietly. For a while there was silence except for occasional sniffs from Anise, then Patrick said, “Are you a fairy?” 
“Yes.” 
“Ah. I'm a half fairy.” there was a pause, “we should be getting on.” said Patrick. Anise stood up and followed him into the trees.

END OF PART THREE

Eleven Years Later

ELEVEN EARTH YEARS LATER

The sun shone down on the mountains and in the little valley where the maid school was as the girls and teachers waved to a cart which was rounding a corner carrying four girls who were now of age and were allowed to go and see the world. When the cart was out of sight all the girls went back inside. Anise, (who was now fourteen years old but looked younger), had always wondered what the outside world was like.

Her only memories of it was a big man, (her father), yelling at everyone to put their heads down and storm clouds out the window and an explosion. She had promised herself she would never forget it.

Anise had never seen a man, except her father, so she thought they were wicked because burglars were always men, and the people she had been taught to avoid were always men, well mostly. She knew that men married women but she assumed this was so the women could reform the men. She had decided thereafter that she wouldn't marry ever. She still couldn't help thinking it would be very exciting to see the outside world.

It was that evening when the life-changing event happened; Anise was reading a book sitting in one of the library chairs when Marigold burst into the door and ran over to Anise.(behavior strictly forbidden by order of the etiquette book.) “Anise! Anise! There's a prince and his escort up stairs and they want to see everyone!” “Do they look wicked?” “Yes, the prince especially, he has brown hair. Everyone is assembling in the hall.”

Anise stood up, she was shorter than Marigold and looked two years younger. Her hair was short and black and still no one knew exactly what colour her eyes were. 

When she was in a crowd she was usually overlooked unless the person looking knew what he was looking for. On the other hand she herself noticed lots of things. Most importantly she had the power of persuasion.

The girls walked quickly to the hall where there was already quite a crowd. The prince, (who did indeed have brown hair), was standing at the far end of the hall in front of a line of girls which he was surveying with disconcerting calmness.

When Anise's turn came she tried to make herself as unnoticeable as possible by standing near but not on the end, her efforts were in vain however for the prince saw her as soon as the line came to the front and asked her to step forward. “I shall see you this evening. I am searching for a little girl who was lost eleven years ago.” he waved his hand and the hall quickly emptied. In the bedroom Anise sat down on a bed and tried to compose herself; she was just going to be left alone with the first man she had ever met, that was all, and he was probably just going to ask her some questions and then he would leave. Probably. She was so nervous she only ate half her tea. Soon she was alone with the prince who was looking more wicked than ever from his chair. “Your name is Anise, isn't it?” he said, 
“Yes it is.” 
“and you're fourteen?” she nodded, “you were three when you got here? Did you come here in a...” 

“do you mean a plane?” 
“yes. What was your father's name?” 
“um... I don't know.” 
“your mother's name?” 
“Jill I think.”
 The prince nodded, a wicked smile spreading over his face. He tapped the floor with his foot and suddenly his escort appeared out of nowhere and knocked Anise out.

END OF PART TWO

Anise: Fairy/1 ft tall

Anise: Fairy/1 ft tall/black hair/unknown eye colour/small suitcase/3 yrs old/blue dress/brown coat/pink shoes.

Private flight ------- to NearFair from great ocean over mountains. 

Seat 7.

The snow was all around, grey blankets of it which looked rather ghostly at this time of night. Or maybe it was early morning, Anise couldn't tell. She wasn't sure where she was, she wasn't in fairyland, the land she knew. She shivered and looked out of the window at the wreckage of the aeroplane. Anise was three, had long straight hair and eyes which no one could tell the colour of. She and her parents had lived on one of the islands in the middle of the great ocean. That morning they had set off from the island on a secret expedition to find out if the immortals were planning an invasion. While they were flying over the border mountains something had happened to the engines and the plane had crashed on Mt Duvet, one of the closest mountains to human country. Anise looked out again, but there still was no sign of anything living. Suddenly, to her right, she saw a light, the light of a candle through a small window made to keep the cold out and save glass.

 Anise searched the cabin for a scarf or hat she could use to keep warm, but she only found the sleeve of somebody's jacket which she used for a scarf. She climbed out of the hole in the wall and made for the light as fast as she could. The light was coming from a large stone building, when she reached it her hands were so cold she could hardly lift the heavy knocker on the large wooden door. The knock echoed for some time and then there was silence, soon followed by the sound of footsteps coming closer. Suddenly she shivered so hard her teeth rattled and cold started seeping into her body, the footsteps now sounded unbearably loud and went right through her head. The wind howled and it was so cold Anise could hardly move or feel anything. Her head hurt so much that she screamed and everything went black.

When Anise awoke she still could hardly feel anything and her head was throbbing so hard she couldn't hear anything. It seemed as if she had slept for a very long time. She opened her eyes with difficulty and blinked a few times. She couldn't see anything very clearly. Her head and throat and toes ached, and she suddenly realized to her horror that her lovely long black hair had been cut short. Anise felt like crying, but she didn't because someone came into the room at that moment with a tray of nice looking food.

“Here is your breakfast.” 

 said the person. She was tall and thin and wore a dark blue dress and a white apron. She put the tray down on the bed and went out of the door. Anise took the tray and started eating hungrily. On the tray there was toasted brown bread, a cup of warm watered-down milk and a small bowl of stock. When Anise had finished all this she put the tray on the bed side table and went back to sleep. When she next woke there was a different tray on the table with a cup of vegetable and meat soup. Anise ate this and being bored she made a drum set out of her cup and spoon. The lady soon came back and took them away! Anise folded her arms and sulked. Nothing happened so she went back to sleep. She next awoke to see the lady sitting in a chair at the side of the room. Anise sat up and looked at her. Her hair was grey and her dress was faded and creased. “Are you feeling better?” she said, Anise nodded. “Good. What's your name and how old are you?” “Anise. I'm fwee.” said Anise with pride, “Ah, we don't have many three year-olds in this school but I'm sure you'll like it here. My name is Helen, I'm in charge of the 10-16 year-olds. Your teacher will be Margaret. There are five other little girls of your age and all the others are four and over. This way and I'll get you dressed.” Anise was soon walking down some narrow stairs wearing a dark green dress and a white pinafore. They came to a very large room with a fire at one end and tables in rows. There was a line of girls at one table with two large pots and three large loaves of bread at one end of the table and stacks of bowls at the other. Helen walked up to one of the girls, “Emily, you asked me before if you could look after one of the smaller girls, this is Anise and she is three. You will be looking after her.” “yes ma'am.” said Emily, curtsying. Helen disappeared out through a door. “you're new, aren't you?” “yes” said Anise, looking at her feet, “do you want some porridge?” Anise nodded. “I'll get you some then.” she led Anise to one of the tables with little girls sitting around it. Anise sat down beside a small girl with blonde hair in piggy tails. “hello, what's your name?” said the girl, “Anise.” said Anise in a small voice, “oh that's a nice name. My name's marigold and I am three.” said the girl, importantly, “I'm fwee too.” said Anise, “not fwee it's thir-ee.”

 “fir-ee.” “thir-ee!”

 “ffirr-ee!” “never mind. What are you going to be when you grow up? I'm going to be a cook.” “I don't know.” said Anise. When Emily came back she found them deep in conversation about no one knows what except small girls.

This school is the Maid School and in the maid school you learn how to be a good servant. You could be a lady's maid, a scullery maid, a maid of all work, a cook, (all the girls learned how to cook and sew and sometimes embroider, but if you were going to be a cook you had to have special lessons.), you could be a nurse or a gardener or a governess. With all of these you had to know what to do in an emergency and every week a bell would ring and everyone would pretend to panic while one of the bigger girls got them into orderly lines and walked them outside.

 Each night there was a great thumping noise as the girls whose night it was practiced defending the school against burglars, (large bits of wood.), fighting them off with whatever was handy which was usually a pillow and a hairbrush or comb and was once a frying pan from the kitchen. They were of course all taught to read and write when they were ready and some maths. When a girl had a birthday she got a special breakfast and a small cake at tea time. When she turned 16, (which was when the girls were allowed to leave), she would get a novel. This was always very exciting as most of the books at the school were instructive. Every day after the morning lessons they would all go out for a walk supervised by the teachers and afterward they would all have a lesson in etiquette. They slept in a large room with a stove at one end and there were often three girls to a bed, but no one minded, it was warmer like that.

On this particular day a dark shape wandered around the wreckage of the aeroplane, looking under bits and pieces with no apparent purpose. 

Once it looked up, cursed under its breath and disappeared under something for on the ridge above the crash there were two people, Anise and Emily. “look, vere's va plane I was in. It got bwoken.”

 said Anise, pointing, “oh.” said Emily, who was rather nervous because the teachers couldn't see them “um, we should really be getting back now, I think I can hear Margaret calling us. We should go now.” “my mummy was in vere.” said Anise as they walked back to the teachers. The figure reappeared and continuing to curse it started to kick bits of plane about. 

When it had finished this violent exhibition it bowed and said- no it didn't, it stomped away with its hands in its pockets.

END OF PART ONE