Escape from Draconia: Mikki Madigan's First Adventure: Mikki Madigan, Fairy Warrior, #1

By Lori Covington

Mikki Madigan is a normal, redheaded Canadian kid--or at least she thinks she is! Her beliefs begin to change when she wakes to a thunderous explosion that tears her house apart. Now, her parents and brother are gone--kidnapped by the minions of an evil Fairy Queen and spirited away to parts unknown.
All Mikki has to rely on is her instinct and the lessons her parents taught her. She must find her family and liberate them; she must roam the worlds--fairy and human-- to rescue them from the depths of Draconia. Along the way, this "normal" 8-year old realizes she's not as normal as she thought. And her lessons with Queen Ariel and the frightening trip through Draconia helps her unearth a long-buried family secret. Warring fairy tribes, gigantic insects and boiling lakes test her ingenuity and courage. Friends emerge from unlikely places and enemies are all around. Travel with Mikki to places you never expected to go and share her adventures in Escape from Draconia: Mikki Madigan's First Adventure.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lori Covington
• Release date: May 25, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201276553

Lori Covington

Beatrice Bechonne is the romance pen name of Lori Covington, and has her own herstory and habits. While Lori may be found in the garden, deadheading roses and pulling weeds, Beatrice is more likely to be soaking in a bubble bath with a glass of Champagne. Lori wears patchouli and peppermint; Beatrice, Chanel. Jeans and t's--silk kimonos and fluffy-topped mules. You get the idea.

Book preview

For my mother, who taught me to love words. For my father, who has given me precious time to think. And for Grace, who gave me a nudge. I am so grateful.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2000 by Lori Covington

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review. For more information, address: [e-mail]

First paperback edition May 2022

ISBN: 9798827009979 (paperback)

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B007NMVMCI (e-book)

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www.lori.covington.weebly.com

CHAPTER 1

KIDNAPPED

Mikki Madigan woke up on Saturday morning, just as the sun was pulling aside the green and white checkered curtains at her bedroom window. The oak tree outside was chirping with sparrows and a light breeze blew golden, leaf-falling scents into the room. Mikki stretched her toes, feeling the end of the sheet tucked in tightly at the bottom of the bed. Raising her arms over her head, she pressed them against her ears, and listened to her heartbeat.

She looked at her arms and made a face at all the golden spots: Mom said lots of redheads have freckles, and that someday Mikki wouldn’t mind them. But Mikki minded them a lot. She minded when kids at school called her Pinto-Pony because of her wild red hair and freckled face. She didn’t especially care to be called Red or Carrot-Top either. When boys at school teased her with nicknames (which they did because she was a cute girl who didn’t know she was cute), she could feel her face getting pinker and pinker until she was so angry she thought the top of her head might blow off. When she reached her boiling point, one especially nasty boy would yell out, She’s mad again! Mikki’s Madigan! and run off shrieking with laughter. But he always ran as fast as he could, because Mikki’s brother Tom had taught her to fight like a boy. Boys who didn’t run extremely fast had Indian burns and various other painful bruises to show for their teasing.

These thoughts were making Mikki frown, but when she remembered that today was the start of a long weekend, she grinned and threw back the covers. Jumping out of bed, she ran in place for a minute, just until she started breathing hard. Then she touched her toes and reached for the sky - ten times. Dad called it her morning routine, and Mikki felt wide awake and ready for anything after doing these few exercises.

As soon as she stopped jumping around, Mikki noticed something strange in the house. She sniffed the air - there was no smell of blueberry muffins or bacon or the other usual wonderful food smells that started Saturday and Sunday at the Madigans’ house. Her big brother Tom wasn’t playing his bugle or jumping on his bed either. There was no hum of conversation from the breakfast nook where Mom and Dad spent their weekend mornings drinking coffee and doing the crossword puzzle. In fact, there was no sound at all from downstairs.

Suddenly there was an enormous sound—an explosion! WHOOM! Mikki felt the floor shift under her feet and the wood creaked with the sound of splitting trees, bowed upwards by the force of the blast. The entire house lifted off its foundations, hovered above the ground for one-two-three seconds, then settled back with a rousing CRRASSH. Mikki was knocked to the floor. She no longer felt ready for anything.

She hauled herself off the floor and blew on her left hand which was scraped and bleeding. Her bed was on the other side of the room, against the closet door. The window was cracked in a jagged X. Hiking up her pajama pants so she didn’t trip over them (they were an old pair of Dad’s PJ’s she had cut down to wear to bed when he got new ones), Mikki avoided the glass from a broken light bulb in the stairwell and made her way downstairs.

Mom? She called, but heard no reply.

Hey, Dad? But no one answered. Mikki dashed through the house, where overturned dining-room chairs and book scattered all over the living-room testified to the huge thumping the house had taken. She ran out into the back garden, which was empty except for a couple of squirrels who were chasing each other over the rose trellis and chattering with nerves. They sounded frightened: their almond-shaped eyes gleamed at her as though they knew what had happened but were afraid to tell.

She walked into the kitchen and stopped, now certain that something was terribly wrong. The kitchen seemed to be completely unaffected by the recent upheaval. The coffee canister sat on the counter and the pot was in the sink, half-filled with fresh water. Only an emergency would take Dad away from his morning cup of coffee. Now Mikki was getting seriously worried. Her parents wouldn't just go off and leave her alone without a phone call or a note. There had to be a note. And sure enough, on the pine table in the breakfast nook, on top of the New York Times crossword puzzle, was a paper lunch-sack, scribbled on, the writer too rushed to even think straight. Mikki’s heart was thudding now, and her mouth went dry, because although she recognized Mom’s handwriting, she also saw the haste that made it messier than usual. She smoothed the rough, brown paper, and began to read.

Mikki—they're taking us away! Tommy too, but you're asleep and safe. There's no time—do your best, trust your instincts. Be careful. Love, Mom.

When Mikki put the letter down, the oddest thing happened. Her mother’s handwriting seemed to flicker, and then disappeared like a string of lights that had been unplugged. She picked the letter up, and with the same sort of flicker, the handwriting reappeared. She put it down again, and it became a blank piece of paper bag. She picked it up, and it was a letter again!

Mikki had always known her mother was different from other moms, but this was a new twist: what else might she discover about her family now that they were gone? Where could they be? Who took them away?

Mikki read the letter again, hardly believing her eyes. It sounded like her family had been taken against their will, and her being asleep upstairs had kept her from being kidnapped too. She felt kind of sick when she realized she was all alone. A thousand thoughts rushed through her mind, and she tried to catch them as they flooded through her. She was too scared to cry, but she was breathing like she'd been running hard. She thought of going to the police, but she was worried that they wouldn't know what to do with magic letters and disappearing adults. She had a feeling something was very wrong. She knew that Mom and Dad wouldn’t have willingly left her alone, and that whatever lifted her house off the ground had to be something evil and magic. She knew it was up to her to find her parents if she could.

Folding the letter, she put it in the pocket of her pajama shirt. Then she took the coffeepot out of the sink, measured in three scoops of coffee like Dad always did, and set the pot on the stove. She turned on the flame and while the coffee perked, she ran upstairs, washed, brushed her hair, and put on her overalls and her lucky T-shirt with the sunflower on the front.

I’m going to need all the luck I can get, she muttered to herself, yanking the denim straps over her shoulders and clicking the button into the brass loop. Then she clattered downstairs again, where she carefully poured half a cup of coffee into Dad’s cup, then topped it off with cold milk and a heaping spoonful of sugar. She could almost hear her father saying Whew! I really need this cuppa Joe. while he tinked his spoon against the sides of his cup. She’d always thought it was funny that Dad stirred his coffee even though he drank it black, and she could tell Mom thought so too, because she would watch him and smile to herself. Mikki had always dreamed of the day when she’d be grown-up enough to drink coffee, but she never expected to be grown-up at eight years old.

She drank her coffee, making a face at the bitter taste even milk and sugar couldn’t disguise. Rummaging through the refrigerator to find some breakfast, she finally settled on last night’s mashed potatoes and a slice of meatloaf. She ate her meal cold, sitting at the breakfast nook. When she was finished, she took her dishes to the sink and washed them, something Mikki usually avoided whenever she could. In fact, she had once proposed to her parents that they switch to paper plates entirely, but they laughed and explained that without dishes that needed washing, eight-year-olds wouldn’t be able to earn allowances! She washed her dishes remembering the dishwashing discussion. Then she sat again at the breakfast table, to make a plan.

Annamika Willow Madigan was tall for her age. She was quiet and a little shy. She loved animals and being outdoors, but she also liked to read and daydream. She did okay in school, but she didn’t especially like it. Mom and Dad often took her and Tom out of classes for weeks at a time to travel and see interesting things. They did their homework just the same, and although her teachers complained loudly, Mikki’s parents agreed that their children were getting a fine education in the time they spent away from school. The family had traveled to Italy and Greece, and they were planning a bicycle trip to Ireland next year. The whole family took part in planning the route, the budget and packing, and it was hard to tell who was more excited, the kids or the grown-ups.

Now Mikki was on her own. She couldn't keep going to school and hoping that her family would magically reappear. Something weirdly huge had happened, and it seemed that life was calling on her to do something different. But what?

Dragging a kitchen chair over to the freezer, she reached inside and way to the back, where a large glass jar gleamed in the corner. Clambering down, she set it on the counter. The jar frosted over as soon as the warm air hit it, and she grabbed a rubber glove from under the sink to get a good grip on the lid, which was frozen shut. A couple of good twists with the glove and the jar gave up its lid. Mikki reached in, pulling out the wad of bills her mother had stashed inside for some unnamed emergency. She counted two-hundred and sixty four dollars. The money looked like a fortune, but from hearing her parents working on the family budget, she knew she’d have to be careful to make it last. She sat at the table, trying to decide what she should do, and the only answer that came to her was that in order to search for her family, she would need to do some traveling herself. Her hand brushed the newspaper where the crossword puzzle remained half-done. Under the puzzle she felt a hard lump. She moved the paper and discovered her mother’s thick gold wedding ring. Mom never took that ring off! But she had in this case, to leave a talisman for her daughter. Mikki took some twine from the junk drawer, and slid the ring onto it. Knotting the end tightly, she placed it over her head. She would bring Mom’s ring back to her.

Mikki spent the next hour getting ready. She took Tom’s backpack, which was bigger than hers, from the hall closet, and placed inside it everything she thought she might need on a trip; Pepto-Bismol, toothpaste, clean socks and underwear, a book, the money from the jar, and a set of long-johns. She lifted the pack, which was now considerably heavier, and considered for a moment. Then she added a roll of toilet paper, just in case. Just like Mom did before they went on a long trip, Mikki checked to make sure all the windows were locked, that none of the taps were dripping, and that the stove was off. Taking the extra house key from the hook behind the door, she took a deep breath, stepped out onto the porch and locked the door behind her.

CHAPTER 2

Leaving Home

Mikki set off down the street like she knew exactly where she was headed, although she only had a vague idea. She was headed for the docks, where fishing boats, research vessels, cruise ships and private yachts appeared daily on their way to and from exciting locations. She and Tom had gone down to the harbor with Mom a thousand times: Mom was enchanted by the ocean and enjoyed looking at and talking about boats and ships. The family often strolled the harbor with other people of the town, sometimes talking to crew members who streamed off the ships to make telephone calls, invade the nearby laundromats and meet pretty girls in the downtown streets. Many of the citizens of St. John's took an evening walk along the docks the same way members of landlocked towns might walk in the downtown park square; bundled in warm sweaters against the swift breezes they chatted, greeted their neighbors and admired the fine ships docked along the harbor.

Mikki had often seen her mother look after a departing vessel with such longing in her eyes that it seemed like she would give anything to sign on the ship and go away too. To Mikki, most of the ships looked large and somewhat threatening, but her mother explained the ways of ocean life so fondly, she just made it all sound exciting and fun. Tom once asked their mother where she had gotten her understanding of ocean life, and she answered in a way that surprised both her children..

Oh, she said. I've loved the sea for ages. In my previous life I was a sailor on a big, square-masted schooner. I sailed for years, worked hard and saved my money, then became master of my own ship. Leaning down to her amazed children, she whispered with a wink, I was a rum-runner. I bought cane sugar and rum in Barbados, filled up the hold of my ship, and brought the cargo to Newfoundland. In Newfoundland, I bought salted codfish and ran it back down to the Caribbean Islands.

Mikki didn’t know what to say. Mom was usually pretty down-to-earth, but she was clearly telling a story. Tom was confused.

Mom, he asked. How old were you in your... previous life?

Mom thought for a moment, looking serious. Well, Honey, she answered slowly, "I remember being fifteen to start, and my parents both died of scarlet fever. I was alone. I didn’t have a home, and I wanted adventure like any teenager, so I signed on with a whaling vessel named Follower. I worked my way up, saved my money and bought my own ship when I was thirty years old. I was just forty-two when my own ship hit an iceberg in the night and