England Needs This Holiday. Truly, It Does.

So, this past week, Danni introduced me to the Thanksgiving holiday. Well, rather, re-introduced me. I have celebrated Thanksgiving before when the Gallaghers were living in Wales not long ago. It was a rather hurried affair with some cranberries, a large roasted goose, and mashed potatoes. I would have been more impressed if my less than creative sister hadn't simply gone and bought everything pre-made.

But this year, it was up to yours truly to provide an excellent holiday celebration for my poor parent-deprived niece. So I Googled traditional Thanksgiving dinner and I made every single one I could manage.

The sweet potatoes were my favorite. I used a graham cracker, baked apple and marshmallow topping. My turkey was a thing of beauty, crammed with the most savory stuffing. I do believe that even Danni liked it, though she wouldn't be so favorable if she knew what I put in the stuffing. We'll just not say anything about that.

Mashed potatoes, homemade cranberry sauce, bread pudding, fried okra and green bean casserole, and a magnificent pumpkin pie for dessert. I am amazing.

Anyway, yesterday I decided to use the leftovers to create the sandwich of a lifetime. It was, in fact, the most fantastic creation that this world has ever seen. I'm pretty sure that the Faeries would think it was magic. I used a little of everything from Thanksgiving dinner and piled it between two very large slices of bread.

Heaven.

For some reason, Danni would not eat one. She did, however, eat the Thanksgiving pizza that I formed in which everything went into a crust, topped with smoked gruyer and some brie.

I am the British Lord of Thanksgiving.

Transworld Politics And Other Faerie Stories

So, apparently, my sister and brother-in-law are going to go off to find some faerie miscreant and they need me to watch their precious, little daughter whilst they are away. Funny, since their daughter is a sixteen year old girl who is highly trained in hand to hand combat and weapons skills from two different dimensions and has, as far as I am aware, been a miniature grown-up since she was five. Nevertheless, I, being a wonderful sort of uncle, am going to move from London to the States and be with dear, little Danni until her parents return.

I suppose, in the interest of general understanding, I should give some account of the history of faeries in this world and the formation of the Transworld Congress, at least in a little more detail. It will help you understand why I, as a half-blood, am still allowed to live in this world whilst others are imprisoned and sent back to the Otherworld without so much as a souvenir photo of La Tour Eiffel.

No one knows when the first channels opened up between our worlds, but my guess is that it was more than a few millennia ago. Back in yonder years, quaint little heathens worshipped magic users as gods. You know, Prometheus the Fire Bringer and Lugh the All Around Amazing Chap. You had supernatural disasters and curses and all sorts of wonderful events taking place that no one today believes actually happened. That was back when magic users walked through the channels without so much as a stamped visa.

As time went on, more channels began to open up, probably due to faeries figuring out how to do it themselves. Some people began to notice that humans were vanishing, never to be seen again, and magical events were taking place that were causing an unseemly amount of damage. I’m talking people killed, towns destroyed, the whole lot. I’m not sure if it was a human or a faerie who first suggested that we were destroying each other’s worlds and that something needed to be done.

In 1818, a congress assembled unofficially in some neutral location between-worlds. They created a document called the Transworld Peace that has been enacted every since. Basically, the faeries will watch their ends of the channels and we’ll watch ours. Any trespassers will be immediately sent back to be disciplined. It’s worked out fabulously.

Well, most of the time. Every now and then, things get messy. And people like me end up being born. Luckily for me, I didn’t get enough magic in my system to hurt the human world’s magickless atmosphere. I do have enough so that if I ever did want to foray into Faerie, I could. But I don’t want to. I am rich, happy, comfortable, and entirely not interested in meddling with Transworld affairs. Leave that to Amanda and Geoff.

Rich, Handsome, Charming... Half-Faerie...

So if the choice before me is whether to finish signing a veritable mountain of paperwork that has something or other to do with a million or so dollars that my business wants to invest in an upstart software company or write a ridiculous little biography about myself, I suppose I may as well take a break. It is lunchtime, at any rate, and I have a peanut butter and cucumber sandwich waiting for me. I think I’ll add mustard.

My name is Liam Caslow and I am the unfortunate offspring of Romeo and Juliet. Oh yes, they were star crossed and dramatic and died in each other’s arms and everything. They did manage to survive for twelve years after having me, which I guess puts them ahead of Shakespeare’s originals. My father, I’m told, was a hunter, stationed in the minute hamlet of Coverdale in Yorkshire, England. Good spot to catch faeries, you know. Lots of channels between our world and the Otherworld in Coverdale for who knows what reason. My mum, who was Fae, apparently sneaked through one of those channels for a bit of sight seeing in the mundane world. She and my father fell madly in love. Of course, that’s forbidden, and not just because it’s a disgustingly romantic cliché. They went underground for years. When I was born, I was immediately packed off to live with my great aunt (on my father’s side) and I only saw them every few months – or years, depending on how things were going. They started some sort of revolution, but it ended badly. They both died, as did poor Great Aunt Mary Ellen of a stroke that same month.

If it hadn’t been for Oliver and Hannah Caslow, I would probably have been shipped off to one of those special facilities for mistakes like me. The Caslows were hunters, but they realized that I didn’t have enough magic in me to damage the mundane world and convinced the Transworld Congress to let me stay on this side of the channels. The Caslows adopted me. I thought myself pretty lucky.

At least until I met my new sister Amanda. She is… well, let’s just say that my life has been much easier since she crossed the pond with her new American husband Geoff Gallagher. They stayed in the family business, hunting illegal crossers from the Otherworld. Seem to do pretty well for themselves. I’ve heard that they’re two of the best in the business—

But, then, I’ve made it very clear to my parents, my sister and brother-in-law, my niece, and anyone else who’s interested, that I don’t want to know what’s going on in the transworld. I don’t want a job as a courier. Really, I don’t want to be involved.

So why is Amanda leaving me messages? Again?