Read Faerie Wars 03 - Ruler of the Realm for Free Online

worming - and Mr Fogarty wasn't here. The story was that Mr Fogarty had gone to visit his daughter in New Zealand.

    If that really was a story.

    The thought struck Henry like a thunderbolt. He knew Mr Fogarty was Gatekeeper of the Faerie Realm. He knew Blue was crowned Faerie Empress. Henry had even visited the Realm himself. But standing here in Mr Fogarty's kitchen, feeding Mr Fogarty's cat, it all seemed ... it all seemed ...

    The light went out as if the bulb had blown. Henry ignored it. It wasn't really dark yet and he could change it later. He'd be out of here in a minute anyway.

    ... It all seemed mad, was what he wanted to say. He was a teenager, for God's sake. How many teenagers did he know who believed in fairies? There were no such things as fairies, there was no such place as Fairyland. No such place as Fairyland. It echoed like a voice in his head.

    The trouble was, he remembered Fairyland. Henry set the Whiskas pouches down beside Hodge's plate on the counter-top. If he remembered Fairyland, there had to be something wrong. There had to be something wrong with his memory. He stared down at the cat, who was staring up at him in beady expectation. There had to be something wrong with his mind!

    All of a sudden, Henry felt very much afraid.

    To Hodge's indignant howl, he walked out of the kitchen into Mr Fogarty's back garden. There was a constriction in his chest and he needed air. The twilight outside had taken on a bluish tinge and there was a slight vibration in the ground as if there were some heavy lorries passing. Henry felt like throwing up.

    No such place as Fairyland, the voice repeated in his head.

    It had all started to make a ghastly sort of sense. He knew stress could make you ill - his father had had a grumbling ulcer for years, just because he was in a high-powered job - and a lot of stress could make you mentally ill. Everybody knew that. You just thought it could never happen to you.

    And he had been under a lot of stress, hadn't he? His mother was having an affair. His father had been thrown out of their home. (And had found himself a girlfriend, don't forget.) His parents were definitely going to get divorced, even though neither of them would admit it. Which meant Henry might be put into some sort of orphan's home until he was eighteen. Or he'd have to live with his mother and Aisling, which was worse. Of course he was under stress. He was under more stress right now than he'd ever been in his life. All he wanted was to get away, away from his rotten mother and his rotten sister and his stupid weak father and all the hassles at home ...

    And wasn't that exactly what he'd done? Hadn't he escaped from all of it? Hadn't he created a fantasy world and simply ...

    No such place as Fairyland.

    ... lived in it?

    The more he thought about it, the more sense it made. The Fairyland of his imagination was nothing like the Fairyland you read about in books. His was full of heroes - the sort of people Henry longed to be and never was. And teenagers were in charge. Pyrgus was a prince and could have been Emperor if he'd been interested. Blue was Queen now, absolute ruler of the Realm. She could do whatever she wanted. If you were a teenage boy and needed to create a fantasy world, wouldn't you dream up one where teenagers were in charge?

    The vibration underneath his feet seemed to be getting more pronounced. How many passing lorries could there be?

    Henry stared at the buddleia bush where he'd first met Pyrgus. Where he thought he'd first met Pyrgus. It all seemed so real. But then dreams seemed real while you were dreaming them and hallucinations seemed real to a lunatic.

    Blue seemed real. Henry remembered the first time he'd seen her. She was stepping into her bath at the time.

    Suddenly he knew where that came from. He didn't have a girlfriend. Well, he had Charlie Severs, but she was a friend who just happened to be a girl. They weren't an item or anything like that. They didn't ...