“It’s funny,” Ulric said. “They are out-helping each other. Jessie’s mom doesn’t seem to notice the tiff, but Mr. Tom is getting more wound up by the second.”
“It’s only funny because it isn’t your mom and butler,” Jess said.
“This is true.”
She curled her hand around Austin’s arm. “This close enough?” She looked up at him as they walked, using her other hand to pull out the deep brown fabric covering her athletic frame. “You said to wear a muumuu, right?” She laughed, clearly delighted. “It’s actually a great idea for when we change. One piece of clothing, no stress.”
“That is a good idea,” Niamh said. “Have Earl order me one or two. Something other than brown, though. You look like a stack of turd.”
“No undies? For shame,” Ulric cried. “What has happened to your modesty?”
“You’ve all ruined me,” Jess replied, laughing.
Austin gritted his teeth, trying not to think about what was under that drab brown fabric.
He stopped, ripped off his shirt, and tossed it at Niamh to put in the sack. “Let’s get to it. We don’t want to be late for dinner.”
Six
Pete sat on an overly hot blanket that unfortunately made his begonias sweat in the pretty comfortable, though a little stiff, armchair, watching a huge TV with crystal-clear clarity that hinted at the finer things in life. Amazing how a few more pixels meant all the difference at halftime.
He glanced at the wooden fireplace mantel, a pretty neat old-school carving that really lent some class to the place. Real craftsmanship had gone into that mantel; he could tell by the quality work and attention to detail. Unfortunately, that attention to detail was starting to wear on his grasp of reality.
He’d first checked it out last night, after sitting in this same chair. At the time, he’d thought the scene was of a mountain meadow with a sun, some trees, and a lone man carrying a spear, or maybe a woman with small tits. It had reminded him of those cave drawings in National Geographic. Obviously the carving had been a little more fleshed out—no stick figures—but the spear had definitely hearkened to more primitive times.
This morning, though, the scene was completely different. It showed a log cabin in a prairie-like setting with some kids sitting around the fire. There was no way he would’ve thought a log cabin in a prairie was like a cave painting—that just didn’t make sense. Why would cavemen envision a house when they lived in a cave? Either he’d had too much hooch last night, or he’d seen some other carving in the house and thought it was in this room.
The last was highly likely. They were everywhere, the carvings, in almost every downstairs room.
Except the same thing had happened in that front-facing sitting room last night, the one he’d sat in before moving to the TV room. He could have sworn the images had changed. It had started out as a grisly scene someone should’ve gotten fired over, and the next moment it was a high mountain tableau with a couple of blackbirds. Later…something else. He couldn’t remember what. It hadn’t been blackbirds, at any rate. He would’ve noticed. Blackbirds were a nuisance. He hated seeing them, even in wooden carvings.
Maybe he was just overtired. That car ride had been long, made longer by Martha getting them lost. She did not understand these new high-tech phones with the built-in navigation. Either she’d pick the wrong address in an entirely different city, or she’d forget to tell him when to turn (she hated using the voice option but constantly missed the cues).
Another glance reassured him the prairie scene was still there, so that was a good sign. He couldn’t afford to crack up. He was nearly positive Martha would check him into a home if he lost his faculties.
Think of the devil…
She walked into the room, wringing her hands with an anxious look on her face.
“He just will not let me help.” She huffed and sat down in the chair next to his, separated by a small end table, and looked absently at the TV. “He made us lunch, he got us drinks, he cleaned up—he is really going out of his way for us. The least I can do is clean up the kitchen for him. But no, he hustled me right out. It is bad enough he fought me to pay for the groceries. It really is too much. Entirely too much.”
“He’s the butler. That’s what he does.”
Martha clucked her tongue. “Butler.” She shook her head. “Who do we know that has a butler?”
“Jessie, apparently. He’s as old as the hills. He’ll probably drop dead before we leave the place.”
“Oh, Pete, that’s terrible.” She would’ve swatted him if she’d been closer.
He slid a glance at the carving, careful not to be noticed. Still a prairie. He issued a soft sigh.
“How can she afford a butler?” Martha said, straightening the already straightened coasters.
“I’ll bet he works for cheap. He’s probably worried that if he retires now he’ll die—”
“Pete, would you stop?”
“She didn’t want to kill him off by putting him out of a job.”
“I swear, you’re terrible. He’s not that much older than us. The gardener is…somewhat…up in his years, though.”
“He is much older than us, and that gardener looks like a walking corpse. They were probably a two-for-one deal. It’s a real motley crew Jessie has hanging around this place.”
“Yes, but how can she afford them and this big old house?”
“Cheap area—cheaper than we’re used to, at any rate—and you said it yourself: it’s old. She probably got it for a steal. That Peggy woman probably gave it away. It’s going to need all sorts of repairs.”
“She does have those nice gentleman for roommates at the moment. That’s something. She certainly has the space for them. Though what is this house’s love of capes, I’ll never know.” She clucked her tongue again. “A butler. No, that’s just absurd. Our Jessie isn’t the type to have a butler. Can you imagine?” She sucked in a breath. “Oh, Pete, what if they are dating? What if—”
“He’d die if anything got physical. I don’t think you need to worry about that.”
A pop caught his attention on the opposite side of the wooden mantelpiece, which, mercifully, still showed the carving of the prairie. He glanced over, finding a new crack running up from the ground to about door height, where it zipped to the side in another straight line. If he hadn’t been in full possession of his mental faculties, he would have said it looked an awful lot like a door. A secret door, into some sort of bluish glowing area inside the wall.
“Do you see? The house is old. It’s falling apart.” He pulled his gaze away lest it open a little more. A crack he could handle. A door opening by itself he could not.
A pitter-patter thumped across the ceiling, like a toddler running on the floor above.
He and Martha both looked up.
“I sure hope that’s not a rat,” Martha said.
“That would be an awfully big rat.”
“Remember that movie with those large rats? This house might have something like that, only those rats existed in swamps.”
Sometimes he had no idea what his wife was talking about, but he’d learned early on in their marriage that it was best just to agree.
“Uh-huh,” he said, directing his gaze back to the TV.
She stood as the thumping sounded a second time, the pitter-patter moving back the other way.
“I hope she’s not hiding a child somewhere in this house,” Martha said, walking to the newly formed crack in the wall and shoving at it. It clicked shut, like a door latching.
There shouldn’t be a door in the wall that randomly opened by itself. Especially not one that glowed an eerie blue. There had to be another explanation.
He snuck a glance at the fireplace. Prairie. Clearly he’d imagined the different scene or noticed it elsewhere in the house—that was the only explanation.
“If this place is falling apart, it’ll be expensive to fix.” Martha looked up and down the wall. The crack was completely gon
e, the wall flush. If Martha hadn’t seen it as well, he would’ve thought he was seeing things. She couldn’t put him in a home if she was seeing the same things. Still, he’d best ignore it, just in case.
“She’s a grown woman, Martha. She knows what she’s doing,” he said, turning up the volume.
“Well.” Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her put her hands on her hips. She was getting stubborn. “I’m going to do some dusting. Surely a butler up in his years takes ages to get around to everything. Since he won’t let me braise the roast, at least I can find another way to be of help.”
“‘Don’t call me Shirley,’” he said out of reflex, quoting the movie Airplane!
The pitter-patter sounded for the third time.
“And I will check out whatever that is. God, I hope she isn’t hiding some sort of love child,” she muttered, heading out. “We haven’t seen her for a while. Maybe she adopted. Lord only knows what she’s gotten up to. Starting a new life might’ve addled her brain, poor dear…”
Her voice trailed off, so Pete didn’t hear where her train of thought led her, but he suspected it would somehow end where it always did—with Martha wondering if all his marbles were still rolling around in his head.
He chanced a glance at that mantel, just for grins.
An utterly flat piece of wood waited for him, no carvings or designs or anything, except for a woman in the center, staring at him.
“O-kay.” He flicked off the TV, placed the remote on the little table next to his chair, and stood. Time to get some air. He’d check out the garden first, and deal with the rat infestation later. There would be no re-homing him, thank you very much. He just had to get a grip on reality and then he’d be all set. No better place than a garden to clear his head and regroup. There was very little in a garden that had ever been able to shock him.
Seven
I touched down, out of breath, having flown to and from the mountain where the basajaun lived. Unfortunately, it was a large mountain, and we hadn’t been able to find him quickly enough. With dinner fast approaching, we’d decided to head home and look for him later.
Changing from my gargoyle form to my human form was a breeze now. It was slightly more difficult to pretend it was natural and comfortable to walk around nude within a group.
I tried to keep from covering myself as Ulric changed into his human form and reached into the sack of clothes he’d carried for the group, making it so Niamh didn’t have to wear it around her neck.
“Jessie, here.” He tossed my shapeless brown dress to me.
I shrugged it on as the others changed. Edgar was the only one who didn’t have to change, but I could tell he was grateful for the chance to take some deep breaths to calm down after being dangled above the ground by one of the gargoyles. He wasn’t very keen on heights.
“Where’s Austin?” Niamh asked, not at all worried that she was still partway through changing. I was the only one who seemed to care about the whole naked thing.
As if on cue, the enormous snow-white polar bear cut through the trees ahead, nearing the patch of flowers that had been munched on. For such a large creature, he was eerily silent, but he was venturing a little too close to the edge of the wood for my liking. I doubted my parents would be staring out the windows at the back of the house, and even if they were, the long shadows should mask Austin’s movements, but just in case…
I started forward to meet him, wanting to look at his wounds again anyway. We’d practiced the tripwire spell before heading out, and it hadn’t gone well—or rather it had gone too well. Austin had insisted he was fine before we left for the mountain, but I knew for a fact that the guy could handle a great deal of pain. I’d attempted to heal him from the air, but I’d sensed it wasn’t working properly from that height, especially with my level of fatigue. If he was still in pain, I wanted to do whatever I could to help.
“It bears repeating that the basajaun might not have been on his mountain because he’s been here, robbing the flowers,” Edgar mumbled.
“If he’s been here so recently, Austin will smell him,” Niamh replied, “and so ye can shut it.”
“Amen,” Cedric said. “I still don’t understand why you are so worried about those flowers. You have a million of them. Only a small portion are being eaten in a place they shouldn’t even be planted. Why not just forget about it?”
“Why don’t I just…” Edgar scoffed indignantly, and I tuned him out. If Cedric didn’t know not to question Edgar’s idiosyncrasies, there was no help for him.
The flare of light from Austin’s shift back into human made me squint, and the searing heat coated my front. It only lasted a moment, and then he stood facing me, his chest rising and falling with fatigue. I’d made everyone fly slowly, and thanks to Ivy House magic, he had the stamina of a twenty-year-old. He shouldn’t be this winded, which meant…
I tore down my block on our magical connection, allowing me to check in with his emotions and, most importantly, his pain level. A swell of agony made me stagger. The speed and distance had clearly made Austin exponentially worse than when we’d set out, but he hadn’t cried uncle or slowed down.
Jasper was by my side in an instant, his hand on my arm, steadying me.
“You good?” Jasper asked, crowding my side, peering down into my face.
“Was the flight too long?” Ulric hurried over.
“I’m fine. It isn’t me. It’s Austin.” I shrugged Jasper off, reaching Austin a moment later. “You idiot. What were you doing? I could’ve stopped and healed—”
The words died on my lips. My dad stood twenty paces away, a daisy in one hand and his other hanging limp at his side. He stared at Austin, frozen, his face slack and his eyes wide. He’d seen him shift. He’d seen a polar bear where no polar bear should be, then watched as it changed into a man.
“Dad?” I said, stepping forward quickly, almost positive the blood was draining from my face.
He blinked rapidly a few times as I marched through the rows of clustered flowers, wondering how the hell I was going to talk my way out of this one. Someone else followed me, and a glance confirmed it was Ulric, who was great at spinning a tale out of thin air.
“Hey, Dad, whatcha doin’?” I stopped in front of him.
He cocked his head before swinging his face to me slowly. He cleared his throat. “I was just checking out the gardens. Why do you let him plant so many flowers? I can barely breathe through the smell back here. Up near the house, though, he has some really good-looking rosebushes. I’d like to get his secret on those. I can’t keep the deer from eating mine.”
“Yeah, totally. He loves talking about flowers. Say, listen, you looked a little shaken up a moment ago. You okay?” I reached back and touched Ulric’s arm, a silent cue to get ready.
“Well, I’ll tell you what.” Dad huffed. “You were all over me about airing out my begonias, but you don’t say boo to your friend there, doing the exact same thing. You see? I know what I’m about. If a young, fit man like that needs a little air on his nether regions, don’t you think I do, too?”
It was my turn to stare and then blink rapidly, my mouth hanging open and my eyebrows at my hairline. “His…begonias?”
“Yes. Look at him there, letting it all hang out. Sometimes a man just needs to air out the bells and tackle.”
“This is true, sir,” Ulric said, and I could’ve kicked him. My father didn’t need a green light to walk around naked.
“Anything…else on your mind?” I asked tentatively.
“Yeah, that butler is in charge of dinner, and I think it’ll actually be ready when your mother said it would. It’s a Christmas miracle.”
“Christmas miracle?” Ulric said.
“You kids better wash up.” My dad nodded, turned, and strode for the house as though nothing too crazy had gone on.
“Maybe he didn’t see,” I said, watching him go, the daisy still in his hand.
“Maybe…” Ulric said. “But he coul
d see Austin standing in the trees, and a naked man is a lot less conspicuous than a polar bear.”
“But…wouldn’t he say something?”
“Jessie, we could use your help over here,” Niamh called.
“I’m good.” Not one ounce of pain made it into Austin’s words, and yet I could feel that he was nearly crippled with it. I’d really gotten him good with way more power than I’d known I possessed. Ivy House must’ve increased my access again, apparently under the impression I could handle it. And maybe I could, but Austin was another story. Thank God he’d been in his bear form when he tripped that magical wire.
“Hand me my clothes,” he said.
“Jessie,” Niamh said.
Forgetting about my dad for the time being, I jogged back to Austin, standing tall and proud, acting the part of the tough guy who didn’t feel pain. Even though I knew better.
“I got this.” I took Austin’s clothes from Niamh, who’d picked up the sack Ulric had dropped a moment ago. “Everyone else hit the showers. Oh…” I snapped and pointed at each of them in turn. “You can try the clam dip, but don’t eat much of it. It’s a hot commodity in my family. She didn’t make enough for this many people.”
“No, thanks.” Ulric made a face and started walking toward the house. Jasper and Cedric followed, with Niamh close behind.
“Jessie, did I hear correctly that your father wanted to speak with me?” I nodded, and Edgar edged closer. “I hadn’t intended to go in for dinner. Maybe I’ll just pop in afterward?”
“That’s fine, Edgar. Or chat with him tomorrow.”
“Oh.” Edgar smiled, his fangs tucked away, for once, and his teeth whiter than I remembered. He must’ve asked Agnes for an elixir that would help. He’d really been putting in an effort to pass for normal with the parents staying. “That’s a much better idea, yes. I think I’ll just grab a spot in the woods somewhere and watch what comes by.”
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