Wood Sprites

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2014 by Wen Spencer

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

http://www.baen.com

ISBN: 978-1-4767-3671-6

eISBN: 978-1-62579-310-2

Cover art by Stephen Hickman

First Baen printing, September 2014

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Spencer, Wen.

Wood sprites / Wen Spencer.

pages cm — (Elfhome; 4)

ISBN 978-1-4767-3671-6 (hardback)

1. Twin sisters — Fiction. 2. Gifted persons — Fiction. 3. Imaginary places — Fiction. 4. Families — Fiction. 5. Imaginary wars and battles — Fiction. I. Title.

PS3619.P4665W88 2014

813’.6—dc23

2014020008

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Pages by Joy Freeman (http://www.pagesbyjoy.com)

Printed in the United States of America

Electronic Version by Baen Books

http://www.baen.com

Acknowledgments

Books are not the effort of just one person.

Many thanks to the people who gave me a

helping hand during the course of this book.

Dan Kosak

Brian Chee

Andy Bradford

Bonnie Funk

Kevin Geiselman

Ruth L. Heller, DVM

Nancy Janda

Laurel Jamieson Lohrey

Sue Petroulas

Hope Erica Ring, M.D.

June Drexler Robertson

David Stein

N. A. Young

Aaron, Becky, Katie, and Josh Wollerton for being

willing subjects of science experiments for fiction.

The Barflies at Baen’s Bar who were willing to

figure out exactly what I said thirteen years ago.

And especially Traci Scroggins, who fought the good fight.

To my sister, Kathy Sue Flower

Who is eighteen months older and yet has

always been shorter than me. She wore dresses

that matched mine. She shared long summers of

secret forts and rambling adventures. She slept in

the top bunk of our bed year in and year out.

Because of her, I have an inkling

of what it is to be a twin.

1: What's In Your Easter Basket?

Louise Georgina Mayer learned many important life lessons the week before her ninth birthday. The first was that flour was indeed explosive. The second was not to experiment with explosives indoors — or at least not in a small wooden playhouse that doubled as a film studio. The third was that adults — firemen, EMTs, policemen, her parents — liked to state the obvious when trying to make a point. Yes, she realized that they’d miscalculated while still airborne — thank you very much. The fourth was that her twin sister rocked — Jillian sat there with blood streaming down her face and managed a wide-eyed story of innocence that pinned the entire event on their Barbie dolls. Fifth was that people believed the stupidest things if you delivered the story while bleeding.

Sixth was that her parents were liars.

“That can’t be right,” she told the emergency room nurse who was applying the bracelet to her wrist that claimed she was blood-type AB. The man blithely ignored her, so she said it louder and clearer. “That’s not right.”

“Hm? What isn’t right, sweetie?” the nurse asked although by his tone he still wasn’t paying attention.

“I’m blood-type O,” Louise stated firmly. She was going to be a geneticist someday. Maybe. A geneticist or an animal trainer or a circus performer. Unlike Jillian, Louise couldn’t decide what she wanted to do with her life. Jillian wanted to write, act, and direct big-budget action movies, hence the entire flour explosion. According to their alibi, Barbie was merely pinned under her pink convertible in a blizzard. In truth, the planned small explosion was special effects for Soulful Ember, queen of the elves, using magic to defeat an army of man-eating black-willow trees. It was supposed to be the climax of episode twenty-four in their partially accurate series chronicling the history of Earth’s twin sister, Elfhome.

“Type O?” The nurse became focused. He picked up a tester, and there was a sudden sharp pain in her finger. The machine beeped, and he shook his head. “No, you’re AB positive. See. Here, let’s do your sister.”

He made Jillian wince, and the machine beeped again. The display said: AB+.

Which was completely impossible. Both of her parents were blood-type O, which was amazing because they were such different people. Their father was tall, weedy thin, Nordic pale, and hopelessly nerdy looking. Their mother was an equally tall African-American warrior queen who struggled daily not to be anything but solid built. Two type-O people made a boring genetic grid: O across the board with the only possible outcome being O. Louise and Jillian weren’t identical twins, which made it even more impossible.