Serial Saturday: "Fairies Under Glass" Part 13

Part 13

"Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum"

Lewis sighed as he opened his closet to get dressed the next day. The fairykind had turned the small space into quite the living complex, with strange buildings that seemed grown right out of the plaster and wood in the wall--yet nothing seemed displaced or used up. What exactly was the secret of the fairies' ability to "make things"?

"Can we come with you?" Ashwyn asked immediately, as Lewis prepared for his classes that day.

Lewis shook his head. "I think it's safest for you all if you stay hidden while I'm at class. If you really need to go somewhere, wait for me at the museum. You won't be noticed if you stay around the roof level. Hardly anyone looks up when they're walking toward the door. You'll be able to see me coming, too."

"We will await your coming," replied the Queen.

All through the day's lessons, Lewis couldn't concentrate. His thoughts reminded him constantly that as soon as he was alone in Moulton House, he would have to figure out some way to wake the sleeping giant. Would she accidentally squash him? Swallow him? Drop him from some terrible height? What if she knocked over the free-standing displays? There was no way he'd be able to clean up from that! And what if, after reviving her, she didn't want to resume her paralyzed state again? What if he couldn't induce that without some of Krasimir Schlimme's potion?

Math, Literature, and Science all flew by in a blur behind these real questions Lewis faced. As he walked out of his final class for the day, Lewis knew he was going to have to depend on evening Study Hall sessions to know what he was supposed to have learned that day.
If I even survive my shift, he thought miserably to himself.

His heart thudded harder than ever in his chest as he ascended the steps toward the entrance of Moulton House. He paused just in front of the door as fairies descended from the roof, while the elves crawled out from around the sculpted masonry to crawl toward the open pocket on his backpack. Once he heard Ashwyn whisper, "We're all in!" Lewis reached back and zipped the pocket shut. He steadied himself and entered the museum as if everything was completely normal.

The caution tape around Exhibit Hall G had been removed, but a sign out front said that the hall was closed until the special "unveiling" of the new exhibit that evening.

"Great," Lewis muttered as he ducked into the closet with his locker. "That means I've only got a couple hours of my shift to do my job and figure out how to waken the giant."

He put on his uniform and unzipped the pocket of his backpack so the fairykind could come out.
"Make sure nobody sees you," he warned. "Especially Adolf--he seems really suspicious of me for some reason."

"Ashwyn will go with you," the Queen decided. "When you are ready to revive the giant, she can come tell us that all is well."

Lewis nodded. "That sounds like a good idea."

Ashwyn happily ducked into her customary pocket, and Lewis wheeled the cart out into the hallway.
Krasimir Schlimme stood discussing some logistics with Mr. Gilroy.

The curator waved and nodded to Lewis as he tried to slip by without attracting too much attention.
"Ah, Grant! Right on time, as usual. You noticed the sign outside the exhibit hall, I hope?"

Lewis bobbed his head as Gilroy kept talking.

"Yes, Mr. Schlimme is very keen on having his latest sculpture on display for guided tours and events only, so you can complete half your shift now, and make up the other half this evening, immediately after the event. Understood?"

"Yes sir," Lewis replied with a nod toward Krasimir Schlimme.

The artist's dark eyes gleamed as he watched Lewis without blinking. Did he realize that this young man was responsible for the theft of one of his stored displays? Or that the very fairy Queen he tried to disguise was free and well and hiding in the locker room?
Lewis didn't wait around to guess at the answer to these questions. It was time to sweep the floors so he could revive the giant.

Cleaning took the better part of only one hour, so Lewis knew as he finished the last quadrant of the room that he could take his time with the giant and not worry about being disturbed. He pulled up the flap of his pocket and whispered, "Go get the others."

Ashwyn zoomed off like a pellet from a BB gun, leaving Lewis standing in front of the sleeping giant.
She lay on her right side, facing the rest of the room, with her right hand resting on the pillow and her left arm draped across her chest. Her knees were drawn up, and yet her whole body took up the entire length of the thirty-foot mattress. Lewis paced the length up and down, working out the mental calculations to try and figure out the dimensions. Judging by the length of her torso, he estimated that her head would be very close, if not touching, the twenty-foot ceilings if she sat up. Extrapolating from that the length of her legs, he estimated her full height to be just under sixty feet.

He eyed the nearest display wall, a mere fifteen feet away from her. "There's definitely not enough room for a giant in this space," he muttered to himself.

The fairykind joined him, voicing their surprise and concern at seeing Krasimir's captives on display for the first time since being revived.
"Look! It's Maritia! I guess he encroached upon the South Glens, then!"
"That monster! Look what he's done to Fenter and his whole family! It's disgusting!"
"Humans pay money to see stuff like this?" shouted a skeptical elf. "How bizarre!"

The Queen flew over to land on the pedestal beside Lewis. 

He nodded up to the giant. "So," he said, "how do I do this?"

The Queen tapped her chin. "Let me see..." she said, flying up toward the giant's face. After a few minutes of inspection, she returned with the report.

"Her eyes are fastened shut with wires wrapped around the lashes," she said. "It appears that these must function in the same way as the metal spears the Hunter used to pin us fairykind onto his displays. Remove the wires, and she will awaken as easily as we did."

Lewis tensed, not too thrilled that he had actually reached this point. "And after I awaken her?" he asked the Queen. "After I get her to take the cover off the unicorn display, how do I put her back again?"

The Queen wagged her head. "I do not know; but perhaps you may ask the unicorn, once he is revived. He would have enough knowledge."

"Hurry, Lewis," Ashwyn urged. "The other fairies and I have been disrupting the blinking eyes around the room, so no one sees you standing here, but we can't take too long, remember?"

Lewis glanced over his shoulder at the shimmering fairies circling the security cameras. Now or never. He steeled his nerves and reached up to climb the ten-foot mattress.

It took some effort to find purchase in the thick fabric, but at last, Lewis heaved himself up onto the soft, bouncy surface. The huge arm was just six feet away. He stepped forward and rested his hand on the skin. It shifted slightly at his touch, almost like real skin, but at the same time, the limb felt stiff and immobile--much like the fairy "sculptures" had been before he removed the staples. He felt his pulse racing again as he made his way toward the pillow. It was too high and too soft to climb, but her wrist rested close enough for him to jump and grab, like the monkey bars on the playground. Lewis tried to plant his feet for enough purchase on the soft mattress, and after a few tries, he bounced high enough to wrap his arms around the giant's wrist and pull himself up onto her hand.

Now he was standing right next to her face. The tip of her nose was level with his eyes, and even standing that close, he couldn't see that she was breathing at all. How did Krasimir Schlimme keep them alive with the paralytic? Lewis stepped a little closer, and he could clearly see the wires holding her eyelids shut. No bigger than the twist-ties that would sometimes hold shut those bags of rolls his mom would get for their holiday dinners, Lewis could easily reach in and untwist them, so he started with the right eye. With each wire he removed (placing it in his pocket for later), he would freeze and check to see if any change had taken place. He definitely hoped he had time to get clear of her before she woke up! Nothing moved, though, and so he continued. He finished the right eye and reached for the right one--but after the first few wires closest to her nose, the rest were too high for him to reach. Holding his breath in trepidation, Lewis climbed onto the bridge of the giant's nose to reach the rest of the bound eyelashes. The pockets of his cover-alls bulged with handfuls of wire by the time he slipped the last one off. The moment he did so, the lashes sprang apart--and the massive eye opened.

Lewis had no other choice but to cling to the bridge of the giant's nose as she rolled onto her back with a soft moan.

"Mm... Where'm I..." she slurred, raising her right hand to rub her eye. Lewis could tell that she was about to try sitting up, so he reached for her nearest finger--the pinkie, which was almost as thick as his body--and grabbed on for dear life. It felt like riding the world's worst roller coaster as the hand swung around, still raised in front of the reclining girl's face.

"What's happening?" She muttered. "Oh... my head..."

Lewis could feel his grip slipping, as his head angled downward against her pinkie. He ventured a glance toward her face, and their eyes met. Her face contorted in fear and amazement.

"What is that?" She gasped, flinging her hand to the side.

Lewis lost his grip and coasted several yards through the air, landing hard on his back in the middle of the exhibit hall with a sharp, "Oof!"

Stars danced in his vision as his head rang with the impact, and it took several gasps to finally regain the breath that had been knocked out of him.

In the midst of this, he watched the giant sit up, look around, and bump her head on the ceiling.
"What is this place?" she shouted, her voice resounding around the room. "Why is everything so small? Let me out! Let me out!"

The giant was definitely awake now. The huge bare foot swung down from the mattress, sending the nearest display wall crashing down in several large chunks. The noise and the mess only worried her further, and she covered her face with her hands. Her elbow struck the wall, leaving a sizable dent fourteen feet up; how was he ever going to explain that? Lewis huddled on the floor, waiting for things to stop crashing around him so that he could introduce himself to the newest refugee from another world.

Finally, all was quiet, and the only sound was the reverberating whimpers of a very terrified giantess.

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