"We can't fight it on its ground and win," said Samuel.

"So what does that mean?" I asked.

"It means we need to get it on our territory. It means we need bait," said Holt, looking up at me.

I pursed my lips.

It was obvious what they were saying, or avoiding saying. What I needed to do.

What they weren't saying was that I was the bait.

Chapter Twenty.

The four of us talked until Mrs. Hightower came to find us. She said that Carley hadn't been feeling well; apparently she hadn't shared with her mother what had just happened with Nick, and had gone to bed early.

Everyone thanked Mrs. Hightower for the meal. Once she'd gone back into the house we got back to talking about the plan. As far as I could tell it was going to be the exact opposite of what we had been doing before. Until then the Fairies had done everything they could to make sure that I was never alone, especially at night when the Water Sprite might take advantage of the fact that everyone else was asleep, and attack.

Now the plan was to leave me alone until the Water Sprite sensed that I was defenseless. I protested that I could take care of myself, but Holt pointed out that that wasn't true, because if it had been I wouldn't have been dragged off into the water the other day. I couldn't argue with that.

Susan pointed out that even if the Water Sprite didn't know they were there, they'd always be watching me. I wasn't sure this made me feel any better.

"I don't want Lydia or Leslie to have any turns 'guarding' me," I said. I tried to say it casually, but Samuel frowned a little.

"I know they make you uncomfortable, Autumn, but they really are trustworthy," he said.

"Okay," I said, still not sure but not willing to push it without some support from the others.

In the end it was Susan who nudged Samuel, the only one who really had a chance. My mind flashed back to the rumor that Susan had always had a thing for Samuel. Now that I saw her with him I wondered if it was true.

"Alright," he said. "No Lydia or Leslie, but we might need them when the time comes to actually defeat the thing," he pointed out.

"We can get Logan too," said Holt. "He needs the fighting practice anyway."

I was surprised to hear him say it, because I hadn't pictured Fairies as needing to be battle ready. Feeling yet again the frustration of not knowing enough about Fairy magic and customs, I tried not to blame Holt, but a little resentment crept in anyhow.

Finally, we all broke up for the night. Holt was still going to stay with me, because we wanted the Water Sprite to attack me during the day when everyone else was awake, but he didn't want Samuel to know, so we just kept chatting on the porch until after Samuel left.

For the third night in a row I fell asleep, comfortable and protected in the circle of his arms.

When I woke up in the morning he was gone, as I had known he would be; I was used to his pre-dawn disappearances by now.

Once I was up and dressed for work, I headed downstairs. There was no sign of Carley or her mom, so I ate quickly and headed for the front door.

Just as I was reaching to open it, a voice from behind me said, "Can I walk with you?" Carley was coming down the stairs in running shorts and a t-shirt. Her hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail. There were bags under her eyes.

"Of course," I replied. "I was just on my way to work."

Carley fell into step next to me as we headed out the door.

"Nick's such a jerk," said Carley, kicking a pebble down the road. "How could he say that stuff to me? In front of Holt and Samuel! It's awful. I can't imagine what they must have thought of me. If he didn't like our arrangement he should have said so. I didn't ask him to get in a fight with Jake over my...honor. He thinks that somehow now that he has a black eye for me he has the right to tell me what to do! How dare he?"

Carley's rant had taken us almost to the Roths' house. Their garden was beautiful, as always. No one but me, the Roths, and the Cheshires knew that just a month ago all of the flowers had actually been destroyed. The Roths had worked hard to regrow them and used a bit of Glamour where they couldn't rush the process.

"Don't you think?" Carley asked when I didn't answer immediately.

"I don't think he should have done what he did," I said. "He shouldn't have confronted you in front of everyone like that."

"But you agree with what he said?" Carley asked, incredulous.

"I think he likes you and he wants more than hooking up and you knew that. If you didn't want to date him you shouldn't have used him for s.e.x," I said. I was a little surprised at myself, because normally I kept my opinions to myself and just let Carley vent. Who was I to tell her what to do? But I liked Nick, and I thought Carley did too.

"If he didn't want to hook up he shouldn't have kissed me," said Carley stubbornly. "He and I have no agreement and I can do what I want."

"Of course you can do what you want," I said, eyeing the door to UP, UP and Away. One good thing about the summer's ending would be that I didn't have to work for Mrs. Fritter any more, at least for a while.

She started to say triumphantly that she knew she could when I continued, "But if you do, you might lose Nick. And, Carley," I continued before she could interrupt me again, "I'm not sure that flirting with Big Jake when he's hammered is what you want."

Carley gasped. She couldn't believe that I'd actually said it. To be honest I couldn't either, but she'd wanted to talk about it and I had honestly told her what I thought.

"I knew you'd defend him," Carley sputtered at me.

"What?" I said. "I'm not defending him. He shouldn't have done what he did, but he cares about you!"

"You're defending him so that you can have Holt and Samuel all to yourself," Carley cried.

"What?" I almost yelled back. "What are you accusing me of?"

"You don't want compet.i.tion with Samuel or Holt," said Carley. "You want to keep both of them fawning all over you!"

I was dumbstruck. I felt like I was having some sort of out of body experience where Carley was accusing some other girl of flirting with all the guys and I was watching nervously.

"You aren't even arguing," said Carley, throwing up her hands.

"Because...because it's just so crazy," I stammered. "How could you think that of me?" I realized that we were having an argument right in front of UP, UP and Away, where everyone could hear us, but there wasn't anything I could do at this point; we were too far into it.

"You know what, Carley? This isn't about me," I said. "I gotta go to work." I marched past her and yanked the door open.

"What do you mean it isn't about you?" Carley yelled after me. "What do you mean?"

But I was already inside, too p.i.s.sed off to listen to any more of it. Carley thought that if I wasn't "hogging" Samuel or Holt they would somehow magically be available to her a and not only that, she seemed to a.s.sume that if I was out of the way, her happiness with one or the other of them would inevitably follow.

I could barely decide what to wear in the morning, let alone which guy's Rose I would accept so that I'd spend the rest of my life with him, and here Carley was yelling at me about it as if it was just another intrigue. With a life-sucking Water Sprite trying to attack me I just didn't need it, and I was too angry to be fair to Carley and remember that she didn't know a thing about the Water Sprite, the Rose, or anything else to do with the Fairies.

Because of Carley's wanting to talk to me a actually, wanting to accuse me of keeping Samuel and Holt from her a I hadn't had time to think through the plan we'd come up with the night before, as I had meant to do on the walk to work this morning.

Basically, the Fairies would take turns watching me during the day, but at a safe enough distance that the Water Sprite might try to get me down to the water again. Someone, probably Holt, would still stay with me at night. If they couldn't catch the Water Sprite that way then tomorrow I'd actually have to go to the beach, and they'd be there, ready for a fight. They'd been vague about what they'd actually do to the Sprite, but they'd a.s.sured me, after I demanded to be a.s.sured, that it wouldn't be killed. It sounded like they would trap it in some sort of magical net, but they wouldn't tell me any more than that.

"Good morning, Autumn." Mrs. Fritter was standing behind the counter. Today she wore an eye-watering shade of yellow with pink-rimmed gla.s.ses. It was funny how at the beginning of the summer I'd liked her and now she drove me crazy. And by funny I mean tragic.

"Autumn, I wanted to talk to you about your performance," she said when I'd come around to the other side of the counter.

"My what?" I said.

"Come into the office," said Mrs. Fritter. The only other time she'd asked me to go back to the office was when I'd accidentally lost ten bucks and she'd given me a long lecture about responsibility and how the next time it would come out of my paycheck.

Her office was small and cramped, with lots of pictures from magazines on the walls.

"I didn't want to say this in front of customers," she said, turning to look at me and crossing her hands in front of her.

"Say what?" I asked. I hated this job, but somehow I was still nervous.

"Autumn, your performance recently has a well, it hasn't been good," she informed me with a sad shake of her head. "In fact, it's been bad."

"It has?" I asked. I had no idea what she was talking about. I was never late, I hadn't lost any money since the ten dollars incident, I was polite, and I had never broken a dish, although I was sure that would change at some point. So what was her problem?

"I think I know what it has to do with," said Mrs. Fritter. "I think I know what's causing it."

"You do?" I asked, incredulous. This oughta be good.

"Mr. Roth has returned and with it your distraction," she said, sounding sadder and sadder. "You simply cannot go on like this. You need to surround yourself with good people to succeed, not those who will bring you down."

"What did he ever do to you?" I blurted out before I could stop myself. "He's a nice upstanding guy. I've never seen him say anything mean to anyone."

"Excuse me? Do not talk back to me. You are a child. I am an adult. Your parents have dumped you here without adequate supervision and will be surprised when you run amok. Well, I won't have it. Not at my establishment."

"You can't tell me who I can and cannot see when I'm not here," I pointed out to her.

"Oh no, my dear, I'd never do that," said Mrs. Fritter. "I simply tell you now. Your performance had better improve or I think it would be best if you found another place of employment."

I seriously couldn't believe my ears. Was this lady nuts? I couldn't wait to text Holt and tell him, but soon after she delivered that absurd lecture she shooed me out of the office. I was left to go work my shift, streaming mad at everyone and everything.

I was mad at Carley for accusing me of guy hopping. I was mad at Mrs. Fritter for lecturing me. I was even a little mad at Holt and Samuel for not being honest with me about this Water Sprite problem.

I sighed. Maybe being mad at Holt and Samuel wasn't fair; they were doing their best. I just hoped it was enough. I had faith that they wouldn't let anything hurt me. Now all I had to do was have faith in myself.

Chapter Twenty-One.

When my shift was over I left with barely a goodbye for Mrs. Fritter. One way or the other, I wasn't going to be working there much longer.

It was early afternoon when I got outside. While I walked I checked my phone. There was one text from Holt, simply saying that Logan was going to help out with the Water Sprite if we needed him to, since I had vetoed Lydia and Leslie. I texted him back an okay.

I started to try to find out what Carley was up to, but thought better of it. She was mad at me, and I thought she was being totally unreasonable, so it was probably better if we just left each other alone. Plus, if I didn't get in touch with her maybe she'd get in touch with Nick. I was pretty sure Nick had no intention of contacting her, so she was going to have to do the dirty work. For once.

I'd had a lot of friends who had hooked up before, but never two that seemed to care about each other like Nick and Carley did. Now they had basically just broken up, without ever having been together. Sweet.

My thoughts soon shifted away from Nick and Carley as I realized that I was walking straight towards Samuel. Unfortunately, Lydia and Leslie were with him. I took a deep breath. Maybe they wouldn't see me.

As they got nearer, I tried not to look as if I was afraid of them, but as far as I was concerned there was a good chance they were helping the Water Sprite try to kill me. I was definitely scared of them. And they could tell.

When they came up to me, Leslie started to giggle. "Oh, look who it is. The girl who thinks she can ban us from Water Sprite hunting."

"I'm surprised you're speaking up, Leslie. Normally you let Lydia do all the talking," I replied.

"Alright," said Samuel. "Let's not start. Les, Lyd, you guys both know that Holt, Susan, and I can handle the Water Sprite."

"Yeah, and what about you and Susan?" asked Lydia. "She's been around an awful lot lately."

I looked at Lydia stupidly. "What do you mean? Of course they've been spending a lot of time together. They have to protect me."

"My, my, you are a self-involved little thing, aren't you?" asked Lydia.

I glared at her. My mother says I'm an excellent glarer; must be from all those years of practice. I would never tell Lydia that, though. She was the sort of girl who was too mature to need advice from her mother, or to approve of anyone else who did.

"Anyway, we were heading to lunch," said Leslie pointedly.

"Want to come?" asked Samuel. In the bright afternoon light his hair shone black and he flashed me a smile. Somewhere underneath his skin were the marks that identified him as a Fairy, but I couldn't see them.

"No thanks," I said, and silently I added I'd rather drink nail polish remover than go to lunch with those two. They'd probably poison my food. I knew I was being overly dramatic, but I did NOT want to be around them.

I waved goodbye and kept walking. Lydia gave me a smirk, Leslie ignored me, and Samuel looked at me ruefully.

I started for home again. Holt hadn't said anything about hanging out today and I guess we couldn't if we were trying to give the Water Sprite the opportunity to capture me. It made me miss Carley all the more, but I still wasn't going to call her.

When I got home there was no sign of Nick's car in the driveway a not that I'd been expecting it a and Carley wasn't inside. Relieved to get out of the heat, I plopped down on the couch with a sandwich and a gla.s.s of apple juice.

My phone buzzed before I could even finish the sandwich. I picked it up and checked. It was from Carley. "Hey, come down to the water. Nick and I are here."

I frowned and texted her back, "You guys patched things up?" Carley wasn't the type to grovel or apologize before she knew it was absolutely necessary.

After a few minutes with no response, I grabbed up my tote and headed back outside into the heat. It would have been nice if Carley had bothered to respond, but I decided it was good anyway that the two of them were getting along again. I would never have said it to Carley, but I thought Nick was good for her.

When I got there the sand was packed with people. As usual it felt like everyone in town plus a few hundred tourists were crowding around the water. I was just glad that they were safe from the Water Sprite, since we now knew that it only wanted me.