We all stood there for an uncomfortable moment, me the crammed-in, forgetful giant, Sif the increasingly-annoyed-by-unknown-magic elf, and Sal the magical axe who wasn’t really helping.
“Maybe I should come back another day,” I said.
Except I shouldn’t, because I should be fighting the magic. Because Ellie needed me to, or at least that’s what I kept telling myself every time the concealments tossed a head full of confusion at me.
Sif the Golden stared past my shoulder. “Sure thing.”
They were tossing confusion at Sif, too. How was I supposed to fight that? How was I supposed to make inroads when I couldn’t even identify the undergrowth that needed clearing? How could I make life better if I couldn’t make out a goal?
And whose life was I supposed to make better, anyway?
“I’m sorry for bothering you, Sif.” I backed out of the skinny wedge of the doorway, Sal in front of me and the golden elf behind, and pushed my way toward the front of the store.
She continued to stare past my shoulder, but this time she looked out the shop’s big display window. “Is Magnus back? That’s a Tesla.” She pointed.
Expensive cars weren’t all that unusual in Alfheim. Aaron Carlson across the lake drove some German-built SUV. But Teslas were still uncommon.
It slid by the shop like a glossy black beetle on its way to destroy the local crops.
“Who blacks out their windows in Minnesota?” Sif asked.
Sal did not like the Tesla. At all. I latched onto the one non-confusing thing I’d encountered since entering the shop, and pushed my way out the door and onto the sidewalk. “What do you sense?” I asked my axe.
Something, but she wasn’t sure what it meant. There were layers of interacting magic here and she still felt as confused as I did.
The Tesla whined on by and disappeared around the corner.
“I’ll place a special order,” Sif said from the shop’s doorway. “How’s that sound?”
“What?” I asked. I glanced at the elf watching me. She was talking about the bike, not the automobile.
My brain wanted to answer with another umm but I bit it back. “Thank you.”
Sif’s magic shifted upward from its usual low-level shimmer to a brightness closer to what flowed around the more powerful elves. “Alfheim is a land of abundance,” she said. “There are those who wish to consume it.”
Then her magic dropped back into its normal low level of shimmer.
The confusion returned—which meant Ellie’s concealment enchantments had something to do with this moment. What, though, I couldn’t parse.
Sif walked over and put her hand on my elbow. “Frank,” she said, “trust your gut.”
“I will,” I said, and gave her a quick side-hug.
She grinned. “Text the store if you want me to add onto the order.” Then she waved me on my way.
Sal and I strolled down Main Street, but the other decorated store fronts, the music store, and the bead place all, for some reason, wiggled at my sensibilities in a way not unlike what I’d just experienced in the back of Sif’s shop.
My axe vibrated. She, too, found tonight’s confusion disconcerting.
“We’ll figure it out,” I said, though I wasn’t sure I agreed with my own words.
Sal didn’t respond. We walked around the other vehicles in the lot, and opened up my truck. I tucked her into her pocket behind the passenger seat and started up Bloodyhood.
Looked as if I’d return home without a new bike, or mittens, or even a kitten for my niece.
I pulled out of the lot and toward home—and all the confusion that awaited me there, too.
Chapter 11
Isabella Martinez and her brood were waiting to turn onto the road when I pulled up to my driveway. I couldn’t turn in, not with her crossover taking up most of the drive’s mouth, so I waved her through.
She smiled and waved, and Sophia rolled down her window. “Bye, Mr. Victorsson!” she shouted.
“Bye, Sophia!” I called as they pulled out onto the road. The Martinez children all waved as they made their way home.
I parked, and gathered Sal. The sun had dropped below the tree line and a soft golden glow filtered through the last remaining leaves. A cool breeze moved off the lake. Acorns dropping from Lizzy’s oak plinked across the rocks of the driveway like tiny hollow drums.
Autumn receded. Soon the beats would come from shifting ice on the lake—which meant I needed to finish cleaning the garage.
I rubbed at my forehead. The bike still needed fixing—or I needed to figure out how to actually order one from Sif’s shop.
Damned concealment enchantments.
“How am I supposed to fix this problem if I can’t get a firm grasp on the problem that needs fixing?” I half-called toward the trees. “I can’t help if I can’t remember what I’m helping,” I grumbled.
The front door opened. Maura stepped to the threshold and leaned against the door jamb. “Who are you talking to?” she asked.
My elven sister looked tired, which made sense, since she’d spent the afternoon with two nine-year-olds. Her magic shimmered as always, though, and didn’t look any worse for wear.
“Sal,” I fibbed.
Maura shook her head as if neither she nor my axe agreed, but unsurprisingly let it go. “The girls spent the entire afternoon on the deck skipping rocks and painting.” She moved out of the way as I walked into the house. “Sophia’s got quite the arm.” She mimicked a quality rock-skipping maneuver.
“She probably inherited Ed’s eye.” Her father was good with his sidearm.
Maura’s face took on a look of concentration that said it’s more than Ed’s eye, but she didn’t say anything.
“What?” I asked as we walked into the house.
“Nothing.” She opened her mouth as if to say what nothing meant, but closed her lips and walked away, toward the kitchen.
“Maura?” I called. Why would she hide something from me? “Does this have anything to do with why your father hasn’t brought Ed into elf-space?” Because Ed and his family weren’t “regular” mundanes, any more than I was.
Maura shrugged. “It’s complicated.”
I followed Maura into the kitchen and set Sal on her bed, a blanket on top of the mounted cabinets opposite the sink. She was safe up there, and not obvious. She sighed and did her version of snuggling in for a nap. Mostly, she wouldn’t talk to me again until I took her down, or unless she sensed a threat.
My axe was an excellent home security system.
“Complicated how?” I asked.
Akeyla, who sat at the kitchen table, looked up from her coloring book. “Uncle Frank!”
“Hey, pumpkin,” I said.
She smiled and went back to adding blue shading to a flower.
Maura picked up the stasis satchel meant for Rose’s notebook. I’d left it sitting by the phone, next to the extra cellphone I kept forgetting about.
“Lennart made this?” she asked.
She was trying to distract me from my questions. “How is it complicated, Maura?” It didn’t seem complicated to me.
She nodded toward Akeyla as if to say not now, which didn’t help, and only made me want to ask what was so horrible about Ed’s daughter that Maura wouldn’t speak of it in front of her own daughter.
This was clearly an elf thing. I crossed my arms. “To protect Rose’s notebook.” I nodded toward the satchel.
Maura waved her hand over the buttery leather, and the blue-purple shimmer of Lennart’s suspension spell didn’t respond. She flicked her finger and a subtle sigil appeared around her fingertips. Again, the suspension spell ignored her.
“Quality work,” she said.
“It is,” I responded.
She glared at me and shook her head no again.
I glanced at Akeyla, who kept on coloring happily. She hadn’t heard my questions about her friend.
Maura wasn’t going to talk about it in front of her daughter, so I let it go. �
�I think Lennart’s a little lonely up there at the brewery with only Bjorn,” I said, the stratifications of “arguing with the magic” be damned. I could, at least, fight this little corner of the magic’s “wants.”
She ran her finger over the leather again. “He’s so shy,” she said. “For a Thorsson, I mean.”
I leaned close so Akeyla wouldn’t hear, though I knew she would. “He wants Akeyla to come by and pick out a kitten.” We couldn’t talk about Sophia, but we could talk about Lennart.
Akeyla dropped her blue pencil. “A kitten?”
Maura glared at me again. “Bjorn’s cats are special.”
“I think you should invite Lennart over for dinner.” I leaned against the kitchen island. “Akeyla and I could go to a movie.”
“Can we get a kitten?” Akeyla bounced around the island and into the center of the kitchen.
Maura set down the satchel. “Not until we’re settled.”
She meant a place of her own that matched Akeyla’s particular magical needs. “There are lots on the other side of the lake,” I said. “You two are welcome here as long as you need to stay.”
“I want a kitten!” Akeyla yelled. “They’re fluffy!”
Maura pinched the bridge of her nose. “Not until we get our own place,” she said.
Akeyla frowned. “Oh.”
“Let’s talk about it after the wolves run, okay?” I said. The last thing we needed right now was a fluffy distraction while we were sorting the latest set of problems. “Besides, we need to ask Marcus Aurelius, remember?”
Akeyla’s magic swirled around her in a controlled, yet excited way. My niece was hatching a plan.
“Lennart and Bjorn may have homes for this litter,” I said, doing my best to get ahead of whatever nefarious kid-idea was forming in her little elven head. “We all need to work together to make sure we do the best for the kittens.”
At least Akeyla wasn’t asking for a unicorn or a Pegasus-style flying horse. Neither of which existed, but one never knew with strong elven magic around.
“Oh,” she said again. “I want to ask Mr. Bjorn. Can I ask Mr. Bjorn at the feast?”
“Maybe your mommy can ask Mr. Lennart,” I said.
Maura glared at me again. “Maybe you can ask my father.”
She meant about Sophia. “About the complicated parts?” I asked.
Would Arne answer my questions about Ed? Something told me that he would not, at least not until the runs were finished and we’d taken care of the interloper. But that little something was also telling me that this particular “elf thing” could very well cause us issues in the near future.
“Who wants spaghetti?” I asked.
Akeyla jumped up and down again. “I do!”
Maura shook her head and walked toward the refrigerator.
The satchel had been sitting there all week. Why hadn’t I taken care of Rose’s notebook?
“I’ll be back in a minute.” I scooped up the satchel.
Sitting under the bag was one of Akeyla’s school notebooks. I flipped it open.
It was full of Ellie notes. Notes I’d written but did not remember doing so.
Was I angry with the enchantments? Resigned? I couldn’t tell, but Maura moving the satchel had reminded me that I had a phone full of notes I’d looked at this morning, and Ellie had asked for her bike and a phone.
The bike needed to wait, but I could deliver the phone now.
I picked up the cellphone box. I also stuffed a fat marker into my back pocket so I could write notes on the box. The sun was about to set, and I’d better set out the phone before I forgot why I’d bought it. “Sal doesn’t like the satchel, so I thought I’d put it and Rose’s notebook in the garage.”
Maura’s magic jiggled ever so slightly. “I don’t like that notebook.”
None of the elves liked it, but Maura and Akeyla mostly kept their opinions to themselves because, I suspected, they didn’t want to be crabby guests.
“It’ll be out of the house and in the garage—on the hook in the back above the cooler.” Best she knew where it was, just in case.
She continued to frown at me. “You should probably lock the garage.”
I wasn’t always consistent about security. Now, with Sal here, it didn’t seem all that important. Besides, if the house was unlocked, Ellie could get in if she needed me.
Did she need me? “I’ll be back in a moment.” I couldn’t remember, so I did the next best thing. I ducked into my bedroom to fetch Rose’s notebook, and went outside to leave Ellie a message.
I found a photo in the satchel. A photo of me, on my deck. A photo that clearly showed magic.
I’m not one to swear. Swearing was seen as the antithesis of eloquence. Eloquence was something I cultivated to make myself less lumbering and monstrous. But sometimes the universe needed to be reminded that not everything it did was appreciated.
Rose’s notebook didn’t seem to care about the photo. It didn’t give me a new special object, or even a hint of magic. The notebook just was, so I slipped it into the satchel and hung it on the hook.
I took the photo with me as I walked around my house to the path leading away from my deck. I set it on the rail and flipped open the school notebook containing my Ellie notes. I could take photos of each page, of notes that clearly showed anxiety about not remembering Chihiro’s address. Of the kangaroo I must have drawn. Of the story about San Francisco.
That photo was in the satchel, which meant it had been dropped inside by someone, probably me. The plate was a daguerreotype with sepia overtones, but in color. And it was cocooned in magic.
Ellie had taken it. When I didn’t know, but it showed me, if not happy, at least calm during my time sunning under a morning sun.
The one time of day I never, ever remembered Ellie or my attempts to find her.
I swore again. “I don’t like mixed messages,” I said out into the trees. Not that this message was mixed. If anything, it was as clear as the sunshine in the photo.
I set the photo aside and opened the notebook to the first clean page. Then I set it to the side also, and I pulled out the pen.
The marker would cling to the cellphone box’s cellophane window. I scrawled Chihiro’s number and address are in the memory across the plastic, then So are mine. I’d also had the guy at the store copy over my entire cache of Ellie notes.
Then I picked up the notebook. I don’t know what to do, I wrote. Should I tell her how frustrating the clues she left behind were? When was the last time I talked to her? What did she need? Because I was losing my patience.
Your bike needs extra repairs. I’ll find you a new one, I added. Then I set the box on top of the notebook of Ellie's information.
The night was clear, if cool. The phone and the book would be fine out on the deck all night. If they were still here in the morning, I guessed I’d have myself a frustrating moment of trying to figure out why I’d left them on the rail in the first place.
I capped the marker, tucked it into my pocket, and pulled out my phone. Best to add a note to my notes about why I left the notebook. I snapped a photo and added it to the app.
Shadows moved out in the trees. I’d better go in before the forgetting I never remembered descended on my poor…
I looked back at Akeyla putting away her pencils. Why had I come out here? We were about to eat.
I rubbed my frustrated head.
My phone buzzed. A message popped up. You have not texted this week. I thought it best to check in.
The name said Chihiro Hatanaka.
Who the hell—wait, the two kitsune in Las Vegas connected us. Chihiro lived in Japan and was helping me to…
I couldn’t remember. I looked out at the lake, then back at the house. Why was I outside? It was dinnertime. Akeyla sat at the table with her colored pencils and I’d come out here to… What?
You’re helping me with something, I responded. I don’t remember what.
Concealment enchantments, she r
esponded.
Enchantments? Had the kitsune set me up because they knew about our French interloper before we did? How did I get lucky enough to get this contact? Are you a kami? I asked.
Because if she was kami, I could be calling more trouble down on Alfheim.
Chihiro texted back an indication of laughter. No, no, she answered. I am a researcher.
Researcher?
The evening’s reset has already happened, she texted. I can give insight.
I walked toward the house. Insight is exactly what I need, I responded.
I will do my best, Mr. Victorsson, she answered.
Finally, some good news. Thank you, I texted, and set about making the most of this random opportunity.
Chapter 12
About a year ago, Chihiro had stumbled into Ellie’s concealment enchantments.
Ellie, it seemed, found a small measure of peace in places kami walked, and they’d met at a temple that day. Chihiro carried no memory of Ellie, but had felt a connection anyway. They’d come to enjoy the spring weather and the cherry blossoms. It had been a lovely day, but a chill had settled onto Ellie. She’d borrowed Chihiro’s jacket.
Ellie had felt the return pull, the one that set off each evening’s reset. She’d left Chihiro’s company early, because the farther away she was from her cottage, the more unpleasant the move. She’d forgotten to return the borrowed jacket.
When Chihiro realized she did not have her keys, and had left them in a pocket, she’d run in the direction Ellie had gone.
The cottage, Chihiro said, must have been distracted by its nightly closing to the world. Distracted and metamorphosing into whatever it became when it reset, because Chihiro had walked right up to the front door.
If Chihiro could do it, so could I. I just needed to find the cottage. Or ask Ellie where she lived, which I had obviously never done.
Chihiro said that not once had she thought to ask Ellie about her home, or to follow, or to look for the cottage the many times they had talked prior to her accidently following Ellie. She suspected the hiding of location information was part of the concealment enchantments, and that I’d have to figure out a way to circumvent that bit of slight-of-hand, unless I, too, accidently found Ellie’s home.
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