The forgotten queen

Chapter 2

               For the whole day, Jay was never involved in any class, not even geography with Mrs Myer which she usually loved. All she could think about was her mysterious new teacher, Miss Glyn who had just waltzed into her life bringing answers to a question she had been asking herself for seven years, where is my mom? When the bell finally rung for school closing, she grabbed her bag and rushed to the library, forgetting the tradition of drinking hot cocoa with Susan at Belle's. Mrs Smith, the libarian nodded at her and pointed in the direction of a table, northwest from their location. how did she know? thought Jay, but she didn't have time to dwell on the thought for too long, because in a sphere of swirling ice sat Glynn, a crown of frost on her head, Glyn smiled and motioned to Jay, "oh finally" she said, snapping her fingers, "I do hate waiting" "h-h-h how d-did y-y-y-you d-d-do th-th-that?" stammered Jay. Glynn touched her crown and in a burst of snow, everything dissapeared. "no time for that now" said Glyn, "first answer my question, do you want to find your mom?" Jay nodded, unable to form words."good" said Glyn waving her fingers again and in the mist this time formed a book.It looked like glass but on a closer look Jay saw it was ice. "This book has most of the answers you need, I might not always be here" Said Glyn. "but to sum it up Jay, you are a faerie." The silence hung in the air for a few seconds befoe Jay exclaimed, finally finding her voice "a fairy?!That's not possible!". "but it is!" replied Glyn impatiently "and a dangerous fae at that, you see Jay, you happen to be of the third court."

                      What? thought Jay and as if seeing her thoughts, Glyn started to talk to Jay as if reading from a book, " The faerie world is divided in two, the seelie and the unseelie court, the seelie being the milder court, and the unseelie being the more dangerous court" She paused and sighed before continuing, "but there was a queen, one who wasn't of either court, she formed her own court, she is known as quen lea of the third court" Jay, who was still standing, took a seat opposite Glyn, listening attentively. "queen lea was so powerful, that a trace of that power runs through every one of queen lea's court members" said Glyn. "for this, queen lea was to be killed. queen lea vanished, and the third court fell apart, afraid to suffer queen Lea's fate" 

                        A frost crown formed in the air again, Jay reached out to touch it and it flew to her head, nestling itself in her black locks before vanishing like it had done on Glyn's head. Glyn continued; "but several years later, a new queen arose, unafraid she ruled the third court, more powerful than ever, she ruled the whole of the fae realm with an iron fist, bloodshed everywhere, but she had a child.." said Glyn. Glyn stopped refusing to finish the story. "where is my mother?" asked Jay, a pleading note in her voice. "you cannot know till you are ready" said Glynn. "when will I be ready?"  said Jay, hurriedly, she was tired of questions, she wanted answers, she remembered how she had felt warm in the snow earlier in the morning, how she always felt on the first day of winter. is it because I'm a fairy? she thought. Glyn spoke, breaking her thoughts,  "after you bring me, the twelve gems of fae, you will get your answer."

                       "but how?" said Jay. "this" replied Glyn, motionining to the book of ice "map" Glyn said and the book began to flip pages till it landed on a map, the map was large, taking two pages of ice, it was scattered with little black crosses, and in the margins were little jottings, all in a strange language Jay could not understand. "Take human form" said Glyn and almost immideately, the book turned into a children's storybook made of plain paper. "all you need do," said Glyn, her long manicured fingernails stretching across the book "is speak to it" Glyn could make sense of the scribbling now, it was a chart that said seelie on one side, and unseelie on the other, six gems were listed under each of them with unclear numbers and words smashed together at the front of each gem name. "what are those?" said Jay, in reply Glyn groaned, "they told me you were smart" she muttered to herself. "figure it out!" Jay was about to yell that it was impossible when she noticed something, it was a small minor detail that helped her decipher everything, the dot of the i that spelt seelie, was leaning to the right, her geography teacher often wrote with the dot of her i's leaning right. when Jay had asked, Mrs Myers had said, "it comes from drawing a  lot of maps, when I'm drawing longitude and latitude lines, they are never really straight, always like a sixty six degree angle" Jay remembered Mrs Myers saying but telling the specific longitude and latitude of a place,a computer could tell you where it is, jay hoped a fae handbook could do the same. "scan coordinates, reveal location" she said she waited, disappointed as the numbers remained the same. GLyn smiled and pointed to the paper "the fae are a tricky bunch, look harder" she stared hard and slowly the numbers began to dance around the page, forming locations and places. Glyn smiled, "you have proven your intelligence, read up on glamour, see you tomorrow." And then she was gone.

             Jay held the book cautiously, waiting for it to turn into a magical thingamabob but when it stayed as a children's book, she stuffed it into her bagpack and ran out of the library, she had a lot of explaining to do, and Bell's was the best place to do it.