by Devon Monk
“That’s it?” Jame asked.
I ran back through the last two days. “That’s it. Other than that, I’ve been around Spud and the dragon pig and random people walking through the stores and at Hogan’s bakery.”
“You’ve come into contact with a lot of people.”
“It’s a social kind of job.”
He inhaled one last time, exhaled, and rubbed his face with the hand that was not around Ben.
“If it doesn’t turn up soon, we’d still like to look around your house. We know it’s not outside of Ordinary. We don’t…none of us think it has been taken that far. But if it has, and if it ends up in the wrong hands…”
This was new territory for me. I didn’t know exactly what would happen if it ended up outside of Ordinary.
“What happens if your clan symbol ends up in someone else’s hands?”
He grinned, and it was hard and cold and showed just a little fang. “We get it back.”
“War?” I asked.
“War’s one way.”
That wasn’t unheard of outside our borders. Inside Ordinary, we had rules against that kind of violence. The supernaturals could hold grudges if they wanted, but peace had to be maintained.
“You know to keep that outside of Ordinary, right? These are peaceful streets. And I expect us all to work together to keep them that way.”
“You know we will, Chief,” he said.
I nodded, because I did know. Part of what made this community work was all the people in the community reaching out, pitching in, raising voices, and listening. Listening went a heck of a long way toward peace.
“All right. We’ll back-burner my house search, but if it doesn’t show up, you are welcome to go through it. Is there anywhere else you want to sniff out? If so, make sure I or one of the other officers come with you.”
“I don’t need a babysitter.”
“If you want to make sure whoever stole the Heartwood doesn’t get off on a technicality, you call on us. Understand? I know this is important to your clan. I know it’s precious. And tempers can flare. Let’s do this thoughtfully and follow the law. So we don’t make any mistakes.”
He was still frowning, but he nodded.
Ben, still standing with one arm around Jame, rolled his eyes and mouthed: werewolves.
I smiled. “Okay, good. You two let me know if you need anything.”
Ben gave me a little eyebrow waggle and tightened his arm around Jame’s waist. He leaned in and said something I couldn’t hear, but Jame responded with a low growl that almost sounded like a purr. Ben chuckled.
So all good there. Good.
I checked my phone. Five o’clock. I had an hour to kill before meeting Ryder. Time for a shower and change of clothes.
I made my way to the Jeep, and as I was passing a shop, a dress in the window caught my eye. It was a simple A-line with a scooped neck. A summer dress made of whites and a spray of blues that reminded me of the lake, of still water outside my window where the blue heron and turtles soaked in the sunlight.
It reminded me of peaceful times with Ryder, just the two of us on the deck he’d helped his father build, the town all around us, but somehow far away. The two of us in our own little world.
He had said come in casual nice, and since I only owned two dresses, maybe stepping out of my routine a little might be a good thing.
“If it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t fit,” I reasoned, stepping into the resale shop. The little bell tinkled to announce my entrance.
The goddess Tyche, who went by Cheryl, wore a kilt over ripped jeans and a light flowery blouse that showed off her bronze shoulders and the straps of her black under tank. Her springy black hair was tugged into place by a deep turquoise headband. She looked up from something she was embroidering—and the shock that registered over her purple reading glasses was a palpable thing.
“Delaney? Is everything all right? Is it the apocalypse? It’s the apocalypse, isn’t it? And I wasn’t even done with my cross-stitch. Ah, well. Want a drink?”
She tossed the hooped material on the chair next to her and bent to retrieve a large bottle of very nice whiskey. “Glass or bottle?”
She hooked two coffee cups and set them, clack, clack, down on the countertop. She was already pouring by the time I walked over.
“No apocalypse,” I said.
“You sure?” She paused in the pour. Only one cup had any hooch in it. I picked up the empty and turned it upside down. “Nothing’s wrong. Well, nothing more than the normal.”
“Then why are you in here? Is it Myra’s birthday? Jean’s?”
“I’m shopping.”
She blinked. Owl like. “For whom?”
“Me.”
The silence could have swallowed a whale.
“All right,” she finally said. “Sure. Of course. And that’s because…” She swayed toward the rack of T-shirts and jeans, behind which were some sturdy overalls and puffy winter barn jackets.
“No, I—”
She changed course and pointed at a rack of boots and a wet suit that I was pretty sure was made out of Kevlar.
“Gods no. No offense.”
She winked and took a swig of the whiskey. “How about I stop guessing? What caught your eye?”
Now I was feeling self-conscious. “This was a…bad idea.”
“Delaney Reed.” Her voice filled up the room with wind and laughter and the sweet call of a bird that didn’t exist on this continent, nor on several others. “You will not step one foot out of this shop until you point at the thing that brought you in here in the first place.”
She took another sip of whiskey and walked past me to the door. She flipped the sign to the “closed” side, slid the lock, then killed the front lights in the window.
“There. Now it’s just us girls. So what did you see? I have private changing rooms down this little hall, and if you don’t want to come out of there to look at whatever it is in a larger mirror, you don’t have to.”
“You’re making a big thing out of nothing. You can…” I waved at the lock, at the door, at the lights.
“Nope. This is my store. I set the hours. Oh, plus I’m drunk. Oh, hold on.” She held up a finger and took a huge gulp out of the cup. “There we go. I can’t serve customers until I sober up, can I?”
I shook my head, embarrassed, but grateful that she’d closed the door and made this a safe place. For some reason, dresses always threw me. They made me feel vulnerable. It’s why I only owned two.
“The dress.”
She leaned forward. “The what?”
“The…uh…dress. In the window.”
She pivoted on the balls of her feet and did a slow scan of her front window. There were half a dozen dresses there and one smart suit with a skirt.
I didn’t have to say anything else. She set her cup on the counter and walked straight over to the dress I had seen.
Clouds and blue, with just a little yellow. Now that I looked at it closer I realized it was water and sunlight and time.
It was Patience.
And that was all a part of life, wasn’t it?
“Let me put this in the changing room for you. While I do that, I want you to…” She nodded at the whiskey. “One sip. When one is out of practice wearing a dress, a little liquid courage will do one good.”
I glanced at the bottle, but didn’t pour myself a drink. I didn’t drink on duty.
“I’m going to give you two choices, all right?” she said from down the hall. “But I don’t want you to come back here yet. Two choices.”
I moved away from the bottle, glanced at her cross-stitch—a sweet, grandmotherly, flower-filled frame with the words, “We had sex in this room,” in neat little block letters—then moved on to the rack of jackets.
The jackets were practical. Some had a little style, and I thought maybe I should just get one of those and call off the whole dress thing.
But she was back before I could decide between the Army gr
een corduroy and the Army green denim.
Her gaze ticked to the jackets. I dropped my hand back to my side.
“Those are men’s jackets, Delaney.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m not going to let you buy one of those.”
“I wasn’t—”
“Not even for Ryder, who is a fine-looking man, but even he couldn’t make those look good.”
“Maybe I’ll just—”
“Two choices.” She held up one finger. Her fingernail was painted with a tiny ribbon and I thought maybe a blue bird. It was cute. I wondered where she had her nails done. And if they might call her away right now for an emergency appointment.
“Choice one: Walk with me through my shop, and I’ll show you a few things. I’ll let you say no to all of them but three.”
“I only came in here for…it was just one dress…”
“You have never been in my shop.”
“That’s not true.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You have never been in my shop to shop. Handing out flyers for Bertie does not count.”
“Okay. I don’t shop here. But that doesn’t mean—”
“I think what it means is that, for whatever reason, today was the day that you thought you could take some time for yourself. Shop for something nice. I don’t expect this urge to seize you for another decade. So while you are here, while you have the time— ”
I opened my mouth.
“—no matter how short,” she went on, “I am going to make the most of it.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “What’s the second choice?”
“You can go to the dressing room, and let me bring you six things to try on.”
I did the math which was unnecessary since three things I chose was a lot less work than six things she chose.
“One,” I said, holding up my finger.
“Excellent,” she said.
“You came in for the dress. I’m going to guess you already do just fine shopping for jeans and practical shoes and shorts?”
“Yes.” Buying other clothing didn’t bother me, but when I faced dress choices I sort of fell flat.
Myra had always been into dresses. Jean too. I’d followed in my father’s footsteps. Tried to mimic him, fill shoes I was much too young to put on.
Maybe it was that, the power of being in slacks, in pants, in uniform that had kept me away from dresses. Or maybe it was just that because my sisters had taken to dresses so easily, I felt like they’d learned a secret language I’d never figured out.
“There are a few things to have in the closet for when the mood hits you. I know you prefer denim and casual on your days off.”
“Or my running clothes.”
She nodded, her eyes skimming over my body as if she could calculate which things in this shop might be right for me.
“We’re going to start easy and go wild. It should take us ten minutes to pick, then you can try on at least three selections besides the dress. Ready?”
Her eyes were bright, her face a glowy flush. She wasn’t drunk. Gods, even on vacation, had a high tolerance for things like that. She was excited.
“So ready,” I said with zero enthusiasm.
The three items ended up all coming from that circular rack. A sweater in an early morning gray—cashmere, I thought—with just the tiniest hint of beading at the low, open collar. Another dress, this one full length and more loosely structured than my first pick, in browns and greens that reminded me of Tiki heads. Lastly, and to my surprise, a pair of slacks that were high-waisted and so wide-legged they had more material than both the dresses combined.
She waved me toward the dressing room and returned to the main area to turn on music.
I shucked out of my uniform, pulled on the pants and shrugged the sweater over my tank.
They say clothes make the man, but dang, they didn’t do too badly for the woman either. The pants fit like a glove, skimming from the mid-hip to ankle so that they actually showed off less than my old, faded, holey jeans.
I liked them. Much more than I thought I would.
“I heard a zipper and you got quiet. What do you think so far?”
“It’s…not what I expected.”
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing, Delaney?”
“Good?”
“That sounds like a question.”
“Good,” I repeated.
I changed from the slacks into the brown dress, the top of which was structured just like my tank top. Not bad.
“Brown dress fits,” I said.
“But you don’t love it. That’s what this is about. Finding something you love. Try the other one.”
I hesitated, my hand on the cool fabric. What if it didn’t fit? What if I looked weird in it? What if it was a statement that I was ready for change between Ryder and me? A change that didn’t send him out of town until three o’clock in the morning.
A statement I was ready for us to move out of this rut.
The dress slid on easily, there was a zipper, but I didn’t have to undo it to shimmy my way into the fabric. I didn’t know if that was a good sign or a bad sign.
I tugged it a bit as it fell into place, delicate across my skin, but strong too, like a kind of armor.
Snug in the right places but still loose enough for full range of motion.
Point one for the dress.
I stared down at it, not quite ready to look in the mirror. I liked how it fell right above my knee, but not so high that I’d have to do that weird, sideways, half slide thing Myra and Jean did getting in and out of cars and restaurant booths when they were in mini-skirt mode.
The colors were good.
“Do you like it? Does it fit?” I smelled the sweet, smoky hint of whiskey in the air. Maybe she really was going to close the shop for the rest of the day.
“I…um…haven’t looked.”
There was a pause. I told myself it was no big deal. It was just a dress. Just a—
—chance for change—
—piece of clothing.
“Open the door, and I’ll tell you if I like it,” she suggested.
I opened the door.
Her expression gave nothing away. She had that distant look I’d seen tailors in movies adopt.
“This is your dress.”
“What?”
“You can take it off and never look at yourself in it, but this dress is going home with you. It’s yours.”
“It’s not mine until I buy it.”
“This was made for you. Now get out of it, and I’ll put it in the bag with…” She glanced at the other clothing. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. You don’t have to take any of the rest of it. But this dress goes in your closet. If you leave it hanging in there for a decade without wearing it, I will personally kick you in the shins.”
She gave me a smile with wild hunt mischief in it.
“Come on. Give.” Cheryl made a grab for the skirt, but I stepped out of reach.
“Hold on, handsy. I want to see it. Especially if I’m going to be collecting shin bruises for the next decade.”
“Both shins.” She did a little double kick. I laughed and finally looked in the mirror.
I saw joy, and it stopped me cold.
I had wanted the dress because it made me think of Ryder, of us together, of softer, easier times. It made me think about our future, the one we still hadn’t found the time to talk about.
Marriage, I thought, looking at the white of the skirt, soft and delicate. Rings, vows, and then a life. One not defined by gods or monsters or duty or jobs. One defined by us.
Relationships didn’t come with road maps. Didn’t come with rules. If we…
—exchanged rings, exchanged vows—
…really talked about things, really decided to stay together for the long run—whatever that meant to both of us—then we were stepping off into uncharted waters.
“It’s too much,” I said.
“Okay, it’s o
kay. Just change out of it. No problem.”
“Why are you being nice all of a sudden?”
“I’ve been nice the entire time. I even offered you booze. You are too suspicious for your own good, Delaney Reed.”
“Yeah, well, it comes with the job. Do you know how many trickster gods are in this town?”
She just laughed her summer laugh and waved me back into the dressing room.
“A lot,” I said as she pushed against the door while I leaned on it, both of us not really trying to win. “Too many!”
“Oh, like you’d have it any other way!”
“I would.”
“You’d be bored.”
Yeah, I would, but there was no way I was going to admit it.
The door clicked, and I got out of the dress, missing its softness once I was back in my sweaty uniform. I stepped out of the dressing room.
“You have a great shop.”
She glanced at my hand. “Did you decide on the sweater?”
“And the pants.”
She took both from me to ring them up. “It will be just one minute, if you want to browse. My reader’s slow today.”
She frowned at her credit card machine and punched buttons. I left her to it and wandered the shop.
I found myself staring at the wet suit wondering if I could dare Jean into wearing it during the High Tea Tide. She’d do it, if there was something she really wanted on the line.
“There we go,” she finally said. “Didn’t mean to keep you waiting. I know you have that dinner with Ryder tonight.” She handed me my card, a receipt, and a reused, clean paper bag. The good kind with handles.
Huh.
“How do you know about my dinner with Ryder?”
She blinked once, gave me the owl eyes. “Oh, I must have heard it from someone.”
“Crow?”
She tried for the innocent, confused look again, but her mouth shifted into a mischievous grin. “Trickster gods, amiright? That Crow. He’s just so…Crow.”
“He is a pain in my neck,” I grumbled as I swiped up my purchases and gave her a stern look. “If you see him, tell him he is not invited to the dinner.”
“Got it. Not invited.” She grinned like a crazy person. “I am sure telling him that will definitely keep him away.”
“It better,” I said, “if he knows what’s good for him.” I waved, pushed out the door, and let it tinkle shut on her laughter.
