Stories, Chapter 7
School was so exciting. There were only two days left! We didn't do anything, just played games or laughed at the fact that high schoolers were taking exams today. We wouldn't have to for another year.
Me and Rebbecca made plans for the summer, ridiculous things that would never actually happen. Go to Paris, kiss Robert Pattinson, star in a movie with him. We enjoyed the freedom of the day because tomorrow we would be in an all day assembly, to honor good students, teachers got flowers from everyone, a movie would be put together of pictures taken this year from field trips, yada yada yada.

After school, when I got home, Lina was waiting on my bed. My parents hadn't known she was here.
" Lina! What are you doing here?" I asked her.
" Just a quick thing. My dad just wants me to making sure your coming tonite."
" Of course, why wouldn't I?" I said with a slightly confused smile.
" Just in case you thought we were postponing until the end of school."
" Oh, no I didn't." I told her.
" Ok, so you'll be over midnight?"
" Yeah."
" Great, and bring walking shoes." She smiled and disappeared before I could ask why. Well, I guess that means I get to take a break from my magic lessons.  

Midnight came fast, and it turned out to be the most adventurous, informative nights of my life. Geane had thought of a great idea, to show me Lyra. We went on a bit of a field trip around the town, and while he showed me all these different places, he taught me history, there was a lot I didn't know. He started out by telling me that Lyra had 10 cities, and it was only about the size of Delaware, with a fraction of its population, only 150,000 inhabitants.
There had never been many fairies, not as many as humans anyway. Then, about 20 years before I was born, the war started. Huge bombs were dropped by the monsters, who had enlisted the help of vultures. Over half the population died. Than, over the fallowing years, the fighting killed off more and more fairies, concluding with the battle I went missing in, where a quarter of the remaining fairies were killed. After that, the fighting had died down, and the people of Lyra had begun to rebuild. It was a horrible and destructive story that had Geane tearing up at the memories of the people he lost. But as the queen of this wounded civilization, I needed to know. But that wasn't even the end. War was on the horizon, the people felt it, spies had heard our enemy's planing, and  me and Artemis were back just in time to help our people.
Our tour continued, Geane told me about the towns in Lyra. We were in the capital, Corona. And then there was Nova, Maple, Vine, Lightning, Sparks, Feather, Leaves, Rain and Oak. But we started in Corona. There were 2 town squares, Moon square, and Whitelight  square, renamed after Queen Marcel died there. That was my favorite. It stones were white and reflected the lamp light. A fountain spurted water into itself with gentle, musical splashes. There was a statue of a fairy, she had no face, but her head was tilted the sky. Her arms were to raised up, water was swirling around her and her wings. The base she stood on had names carved in it. I read a few, Meredith, Jenna, Amanda. Where had I seen those names before?
I don't know, look on the other side.
I did. The names went all the way around, ending in Marcel.
You get the feeling thats not right? I asked.
Yeah somethings... wrong.
"What is this?" I asked Gene.
" The whitelight statue." His eyes stared up at her face. " Its the image on the whitelight's pendant."
" A necklace?" Me and Artemis asked at the same time.
" Kinda, there are two age old necklaces in our history. The first, the Queens Necklace. You might of seen it in the castle because it goes there when the queen dies." Geane conjured another bubble showing the same necklace I found in the velvet box in the queen's room.
" And are they just for fun?" I asked
" No, no. Apparently the Queen's Necklace lets the current queen contact past queens." Lina told me, her eyes wide.
" And then there is the White light's Pendant." Geane carried on. "I've never seen it, so I can't show you, but it's that statue only not water. The chain is long enough that it can be hidden under the queens clothes, or even worn as a belt."
" Why would it be hidden?" I asked.
" Tell her the freaky thing about it!" Lina chirped.
" It only shows up for a whitelight." Geane turned to me, eyes full of mystery. "When the currant queen it not a whitelight, it dissapears. No one knows were it goes. Thats one of the ways a queen knows if she is a 'chosen one', it shows up. And the whitelight never tells what she is, it would put too much pressure on her. So the necklace gets hidden."
" Creepy." I comments, our minds in a daze.
Does that look familiar to you? Artemis asked.
Yes, but, no.
Where could we of seen it?
I don't know, the castle maybe? I scratched my head.
We'll check later, I guess.
So we pushed that out of our heads and enjoyed the rest of the tour.
All the towns were different. And named accordingly. Lightning had cracks in the stones from all the thunder storms they got, the lightning struck the ground a lot. And in Rain too, their neighbor. But only on the outskirts. And in Oak, huge trees grew so close together the majority of the inhabitants lived in high, well built tree houses. Leaves was Oak's neighbor, and Gene told me that in the fall, when the leave of all the oaks turned brown and fell off, the all blew into Leaves, which got so covered in them fairies had to send swoops of air across their doors to get out. In Feather, they had a pigeon/bird problem. Feathers littered the street and hung on doorways and signs. They had to have people to clean up the uh, droppings too. And in Maple, everything smelled like syrup from all the maple trees around.
The other interesting thing about Maple, was that the "capital" was here. It wasn't the capital like Austin is to Texas, its the place for government. I asked Geane what the fairies have been doing without a queen.
" It took a while but we finally figured out what to do." Geane informed me. " We've always had a parliament, advisors to the queen. So they kinda took over... Truth is no one really likes them. Their decisions are more for the good of society than helpful. Some people are natural born leaders, but they aren't."
Hmm, I never thought of that. Artemis piped up.
What?
Actually helping people with their problems. Being a decision maker, I was focusing on the war aspect.
Because thats the biggest problem right now. The fairies don't even know we exist yet. Geeze this is going to get confusing, I carried on. How will this work? Your the queen, but your IN me.
I don't think I'm the only queen this time around. I smiled at her reassuring words, but still worried about our condition, and the problems we faced in the future.

The next morning, I had my pancakes with syrup I bought from this quaint little all night market.
" Hey, this is really good! Did I buy this?" My mom asked. I smiled.
" Of course, were else could it of come from?" I giggled, in high spirits. School was almost over! With the hours I've been operating on, I needed the freedom of summer. And Artemis needed to learn how to power up.
As predicted, the all day assembly was so boring, even the teachers started talking amongst themselves. Rebbecca  invited me to sleep over her house, bringing up the fact that I hadn't for a really long time. I told her I couldn't, making up some excuse about going over my grandmas for a party, but promising to sleep over sometime before the end of next week. And this, was the downside of freedom, I wasn't getting the liberty of going to my friends houses.
But I told my parents thats where I was when I left for Lyra at 6. Geane had told me to come earlier when I left last night, and he seemed really excited about it. So did Lina, and they refused to tell me why, saying it was some big secret. Nothing seemed different when I got to their house, but Geane said the surprise wasn't at his house.
" Were going down the street." He said.
" Um, OK." I fallowed them out the door and down the cobble stone path, wondering what the surprise could be. And I had never seen so many fairies walking around outside. At 3 in the morning I had only seen a few, and they hadn't seen me. But now, there were bunches of them, just enjoying the beautiful summer sunset created by the fairies to mimic Earth's cycles.
I got a few odd looks, as we walked. Around here everyone knew everyone else, and I was "new". And I guess my clothes were kinda odd, most fairies wore cotton, flannel, and most girls wore skirts or dresses, and wore either leather sandals or no shoes at all. But I was wearing jeans capris and plastic flip flops. But the house we stopped at was only down the street and around the corner, something about it made Artemis perk up.
Hey, I think I know this place...
What is it?
I..I don't know...
Geane knocked on the door, and then opened it, waving us inside. I fallowed hesitantly, looking left and right. Everything was so familiar somehow.
A woman came out of the kitchen, a little kid hiding behind her. She came into the light, and both me and Artemis froze in shock.