Epilogue
I stayed for a day to see Fidelity settle in with the O'Dochertys and she seemed to be fine, if somewhat overwhelmed by the love that was shown her. They had even prepared her own bedroom, but she spent most of her time with Caer, they had a lot of catching up to do.
Before I left, I managed to get through to Angela at the coffee shop on a telephone conference call at the O'Docherty farm house, and Fidelity was able to have an emotional telephone call with her. Fidelity ws eager to apologise for loosing her uniform when it was incinerated at
The Facility on the orders of Mr Blue and offered top pay somehow. Angela told her to forget about it and that she understood. Thanks to a protest by the government of the Irish Republic, Angela was able to tell Fidelity that she had been cleared of terrorism offences that had been used as a justification for tasering her and that a compensation order had been made to give her. The commander of the team also offered his resignation, but it was not accepted, they had been acting on good faith, never the less the officer applied for a transfer away from fire arms duties.
I left for a flight to Heathrow and then took the train to Luton to pick my car up. It was then a long lonely drive home.
My next job was to visit the hostel to collect what meagre belonging Fidelity had left behind and pay up any rent she owed. The clothes she had brought with her when I rescued her from the Mystical Realms had fallen apart. No wonder she was so short on clothes. I wished she had mentioned it, but she had been so conditioned to not speak unless spoken to, that she had dared not ask.
I told them at the hostel that Fidelity had been confused about her age and used the Korean system to explain that she had actually been fifteen, not sixteen. I thought it best to be honest in case of any come back. The manager was quite understanding and said how he suspected this, but decided not to pursue it as he in his opinion he was not impressed with the record of the local authority social services department, and she may have ended up at the hostel anyway. I told him about how Fidelity had missed meals there because she was frightened of a specific individual she found intimidating. I also mentioned how she had been so short of clothes that all she had was the one shirt and trousers she wore at the coffee shop which she washed every night and tried to keep warm with one blanket whilst they dried. The hostel manager said, if she had only asked, they would have given her some spare clothes and extra blankets to keep warm, again her lack of self confidence meant she did not dare ask.
As far as the man who intimidated her, he turned out to be a harmless hostel employee and was mortified, again had they known they could have done something to assure her that she was not in danger of being assaulted. The employee wrote her a personal letter of apology and worked on how to make sure his appearance would be less intimidating. The hostel then tightened up its procedures of caring for vulnerable young people so this in theory would not happen again.
While I was home, Caer kept me informed by her Bebo account on the progress she was making in "Her rehabilitation of Fid" She mentioned an incident when Fidelity was carrying a small pile of plates and tripped on a kitchen tile that had worked loose and all but one of them were broken. Fidelity had a massive panic attack, as under Yagel such clumsiness would have resulted in a severe beating, and she had cut herself badly from the fall and from trying to clear the broken plates by hand. Instead of the beating she expected, Shaun had knelt down and lifted her head up and told her it was ok, and it was more his fault for not fixing the floor. That whole afternoon, Caer and her father spent ages on Caer"s bed with their arms around a tearful Fidelity, whilst Caer"s mother, Felicity treated Fidelity"s wounds. All showing he that they unconditionally loved her and that no one would ever be allowed to lay a finger on her, like Yagel and Mr Blue had done. Apparently Mr and Mrs O'Docherty
did not believe in physical violence against children or anyone and had never laid a finger on Caer or Timothy. Timothy helped by safely clearing up the broken pottery. Fidelity"s healing would take longer to achieve and it was not the kind that a magical potion such as the one from the Troll captain could achieve over night.
After a few days, myself and Angela the manageress from the coffee shop flew from the local airport to Dublin and from there on to Shannon, as Shamus and his pals had managed to help Shaun and Felicity fast track Fidelity"s adoption process. As they had successfully raised her twin sister and another child, how could the local social services object, which of course they never did. Dana had managed to get time to come across, but Fox was involved in the hearings concerning what had gone on at the Facility.
So on Christmas eve, the former Spirit of Fidelity, a former minor spirit of virtue, now a normal mortal human became plain Fidelity O'Docherty. There was hardly a dry eye in the house as everyone celebrated her special day. Through out the process Caer never left her side or let go of her hand, or was it the other way around. This had been her first Christmas present, a new family to love and be loved by.
Dana had to leave after the process but left a gift of FBI special agent sweatshirts and caps for the whole family. Angela had brought down a brand new uniform for her as well as her last wage packet, converted conveniently into the Irish currency. That meeting was equally emotional as Angela had to keep telling her that she had done nothing wrong when Fidelity had wanted to apologise for leaving her in the lurch. Angela even brought down a "congratulations on your adoption" card, signed by other members of staff and some of the regular customers who missed her. I had no idea where she had got it, but Angela was very resourceful.
We also caught the last flights out, as we both felt that the new increased O'Docherty family deserved time together alone. We both thanked God for the fairies who had risked the wrath of the Spirit of Lust and the Lord Low troll to deliver Caer to a family, so she could one day help her sister change from living under brutality to living with unconditional love. The Spirit of True love would have been pleased
On the wider point, the report Fox gave to the Americans put pressure on the British to suspend the snatch squads, and a new head of the Facility was appointed. Rumour was that Mr Sepia was promoted to the position who used their resources to help the Home Office in the conventional war on terrorism. The hunting down of IDE"s was indefinitely suspended, because of the fidelity case. Officially Fidelity"s detention was blamed on intelligence failure and over zealousness by Mr Blue.
Both the British and the Americans on the recommendation of the two American observers we met, opened dialogue with the Republic of Ireland to get advice on their IDE registration scheme, although intrusions from the Mystical Realms were rare, after all interfering in the affairs of mortals was still a crime over there.
Then one day, well into the New Year, I was reading another blog entry from Caer about how Fid was progressing. She went on about how she was coming out of her shell flinching less around men, and even managed to psyche her self up to ask her new father if she could visit the nearby town. Like most Teenagers, Caer had found a worthy cause, but unlike such causes as banning of hunting, global warning or aids awareness, Caer"s was the healing of her twin sister, and she was doing a fine job of it too.
I closed down the lap top, it was opening time, and I had agreed to visit Angela after work to show her the latest from the O'Docherty twins.
I jumped; in front of me was the Prince Low Troll
I immediately thought of the twins, "You can not touch those two now" I told the Prince Low Troll, "They are mortals now"
The Prince Low Troll rolled his eyes up and then said in exasperation "We have no interest in them now"
Then he winked and added "Nice job, two less meddling Spirits off of the books, although for Spirits of virtue they were quite well behaved"
"Then why are you here" I asked
"I have come for you"
"Why, what have I done now"
"Graeme, my friend" The Prince Low Troll added, "You have been appointed our new leader in the Mystical Realms"
"ME????"
To be Continued
In Season Five of the Mystical Realms Sagas