They thought they were safer up there out of my reach. Disgusted, I dropped the broken stems and stalked to the shed. They wouldn’t come to me, so I would go to them. I had a ladder. The blujays in the graveyard called, enjoying something new to gossip about as I struggled with the 12 foot length of metal. It smacked against the lower branches as I manuvered it against the trunk, and with a shrill of protest, the nest emptied in an explosion of orange and blue butterfly wings. I put a foot on the first rail, puffing a blond strand of hair out of my eyes. I hated to do this but if they ruined the garden, Glen’s kids would starve. "Now!" came a loud demand, and I cried out when sharp pings pinched my back. Cowering, I ducked my head and spun. The ladder slipped, crashing down into the very flower bed they had destroyed. Ticked, I looked up. they were lobbing last year’s acorns at me, the sharp ends hard enough to hurt. "You little boogers!" I cried glad to have mty pain amulet on. "Again!" the leader shouted. My eyes widened at the hadful of acorns coming at me. "Rhombus"," I said, the trigger word instigating a hard learned series of mental exercises into an almost instinctive action. Quicker than thought, my awareness touched the small ley line in the graveyard. Energy filled me, the balance equalizing in the time between my memory and action. I spun around, toe touche, sketching a rough circle, and ley line force filled it, closing it. I could have done this last night and avoided a trouncing but for the charmed silver they had put on me. A shimmering band of ever-after flashed into existence the molecule-thin sheet of alternate reality arching to a close over my head and six feet under my feet, making an oblong bubble that prevented anything more obnoxious than air to pass through. It was sloppy and wouldn’t hold a demon but the acorns pinged off of it. It worked against bullets too. "Knock it off!" I exclaimed , flustered. The usual red sheen of energy shifted to gold as it took on the main color of my aura. Seeing me safe but trapped in a bubble, the largest fairy fluttered down on his moth-like wings, his hands on his hips and his gosammer, spider-web-drapped hair making him look like a six-inch negative of the grim reaper. His lips were a stark red against his pale face, but he was tougher than sinew. He was a garden fairy, not one of the assasins that had almost killed me last spring, but he was still accustomed to fighting for his right to live. "Go inside and we won’t hurt you," he said, leering. I snickered. What were they going to do? Butterfly kiss me to death? An excited whisper pilled my attention to the row of neighborhood kids watching from over the tall wall surrounding the graveyard. Their eyes were wide as I tried to best tiny little flying things, something every inderlander knew was impossible. Crap, I was acting like a ignorant human. But it wa Glen’s garden and I’d hold them off as long as I could.