Pooka in My Pantry

by R. L. Naquin

  He stepped inside the office, the sun shining behind him like an angelic aura. He was wearing his paramedic uniform. For a moment before the door swung shut, I could hear Art outside, clicking his damn pen. Then it was the two of us, alone in my office.

  Riley took the seat across from me without a word. We sat like that for a good two minutes, looking at each other in silence.

  We both broke at the same time.

  “Riley, I’m really sorry, I don’t know what happened.”

  “Zoey, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t trying to interfere.”

  We both laughed.

  “It was my fault,” I said. “I felt so bad afterward. You were right. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was being selfish.”

  “No, I was the one who was wrong.” He reached out and took my hand. “I went to the clinic and talked to Andrew. Milo’s going to be fine. You were right to stop me.”

  “What happened exactly? I opened my mouth to tell you to back off and everything went wonky.”

  “I think you used Aegis mojo on us. Art was really pissed.”

  “Art can kiss my ass. It’s you I’m worried about.”

  “I’m fine. You tapped into something, I guess. It was weird. It was like you physically pushed me backward, but you didn’t touch me.”

  “I didn’t know. I’m so sorry.” I looked down at the hand still curled in my lap, vaguely ashamed, but still unsure of what I’d actually done.

  He shrugged. “I guess we can be pretty sure this Aegis thing isn’t a crock.”

  I started to object, but it felt weak. The evidence was stacking up. If I were an Aegis, then I’d be the best Aegis I could be. It didn’t mean I would let the Board erase my life. That was another matter all together. I’d face that when I came to it. “Any idea what it really means to be an Aegis? Other than, you know, taking care of the Hidden, and I guess, keeping Death at bay under extreme circumstances.”

  “Until Art sprang it on you, I didn’t know anything. I’m learning as we go. But Art’s more nervous now than when we first got here. He was so sure you were faking.”

  “Kind of hard to fake being something you’ve never heard of.”

  “Art’s not real trusting. I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

  I laughed. “I may have.”

  He reached across the desk and took my other hand. “Are we okay, then?”

  “You forgive me for being a psycho?”

  “If you’ll forgive me for trying to kill your friend’s dog.”

  “Fox.”

  “Yeah. Fox.”

  I smiled, this time with genuine feeling, free of awkwardness. “Deal.”

  He grinned, and it reached all the way into his gray eyes. “So, do we dare try another date?”

  The idea was both exciting and terrifying. “Another first date? Do we keep trying until nobody dies or nearly drowns?”

  He tilted his head to the side in thought. “How about we skip over it and call it, I don’t know, the fifth date. That way the pressure for it to be perfect is off.”

  “Not a bad idea. Nothing fancy. No candles to set fire to anything. No dance floor to slip on. Something simple.”

  “When’s the last time you went to the zoo?”

  “Ooh, I like it. I haven’t been there since I was a kid. Comfy clothes. Simple food. Good idea. I’ve got a vow renewal to do on Saturday, so we’ll have to wait till Sunday.”

  He frowned. “How about earlier? I’m off tomorrow. Any chance you can play hooky?”

  “Yeah, maybe. I can check with Sara.” I stopped, suspicious. “Why the hurry?”

  “No reason.”

  His eyes flicked to the wall behind me. “Riley. Tell me.”

  “I just want to spend time with you.”

  I thought about it. When the week was over, the Board’s trial would end. Either I’d be dead or relocated, according to the rules Art had laid out for me. The fact was, I had no intention of letting either of those things happen. With everything going on, I hadn’t really thought very much about it, past surviving.

  But no amount of explaining this to Riley was going to make him more comfortable. In his mind, he was going to lose me, no matter what.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” I said. “Thanks to the Leprechaun Mafia, Sara’s staying at my house. I’ll talk to her when I get home and then call you.”

  He pulled me with him when he walked to the door. We’d only really kissed the one time, and my stomach fluttered with nerves and expectation. He had a determined set to his jaw that would have been funny if I weren’t so nervous. He took me by the shoulders to face him, his expression earnest.

  “There’s been far too little kissing,” he said. “That needs to end.”

  I was going to answer him, but he didn’t give me time. He pulled me close and pressed his lips against mine. The kiss was soft, yet demanding, as if time were short and he wanted to make it count. And it did count. It counted very much.

  I melted into him, my mouth answering his. There was need and want mixed together in that kiss, and it lasted forever and for only a second. He pulled away before I had my bearings, and a small whimper escaped from me.

  He grinned and let me go. “Let me know if you can come play tomorrow.”

  My breath caught in my throat. “I will.”

  He left me like that, feeling hot and empty, and more than a little foolish watching through the window as he disappeared down the street.

  “Slick move,” I said to the empty room. I took a deep breath and gathered my stuff up to leave.

  * * *

  I had one last errand to run before home. With the bomb Maurice had dropped the night before, I really needed to see Aggie. I parked in my own driveway and went through the woods to her little cottage.

  “Your mother was an Aegis?”

  Aggie’s puzzlement was genuine—I could feel it. Her confusion was also mixed with a generous helping of worry.

  “Sweetheart, if I’m missing memories too, then maybe it wasn’t the childhood trauma of losing your mother that took away your earlier memories.”

  “Who would be able to do that, though? And why would they do it to you, too?”

  Her white curls bounced when she shook her head. “I don’t know. Obviously, it didn’t work as well on me as it did you. I remember Clara. I just didn’t remember the part about her being an Aegis.”

  “I wonder why Maurice still remembers.”

  “I imagine it’s because he wasn’t there when she left.”

  “Or when she was taken. Aggie, where do you think she is?”

  The corners of her mouth turned down, and her eyes clouded. “Anywhere, by now. It’s been so long.”

  She plied me with cookies and ice-cold milk, and we sat at a wrought-iron patio table outside watching the sun set. Iris lay in the grass, playing with a pair of fire salamanders and munching on a few cookies of his own.

  “I want to look for her,” I said. “But I don’t know where to start.”

  Aggie patted my hand, her rings sparkling in the last rays of day. “You’ll find a way.”

  She removed a soft, velvet bag with a drawstring from her pocket. “Maybe these can give you a lead.”

  Aggie shook the pouch and muttered a few words I didn’t recognize. She loosened the string and held the bag open toward me. “Pick three. But don’t look.”

  I hesitated. I had no idea what she had in there. They could be bugs, or bones, or teeth. I decided to trust her. She hadn’t led me wrong yet.

  My hand dipped in, felt around, and emerged clutching three misshapen rocks, each with a gold symbol carved and painted into the surface. She took them from me and placed them on the table, squinting down at them. One gnarled finger pointed to a stone.

  �
��Well, this one tells me good things about that reaper boy you’re seeing. So, that’s nice.”

  I could feel my cheeks burn, and my stomach flipped over with the memory of our last kiss. “Yeah. That’s going fine. What else?”

  She pointed at the second one, frowning. “Fire. I see a lot of fire. There’s smoke, and screaming, and running.”

  I sat up straighter. “Where? When does this happen? Is that the past, on the cruise ship?”

  She smiled and shrugged, her earrings jingling like tiny bells. “I can’t say, sweetheart. But it’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Fire, smoke, screaming, running—but nothing to worry about. Aggie, sometimes I’m not sure you’re connected to reality.”

  She ignored me and tapped her finger on the last stone. “Now, this. This is interesting. It’s the symbol for that which is lost. Not death, mind you. Lost things and people. But it’s not about your mother. Or if it is, it’s not only about her. I think something bigger may be coming, my darling. You need to be extra cautious. I don’t like this at all.”

  I didn’t like it either. But there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. Aggie had nothing concrete to offer me, and I was still knee-deep in several other problems.

  She scooped the stones up and put them away. With her face tightened in a serious expression that seemed almost foreign to her, she gripped both my hands.

  “Be very careful, Zoey. Whatever is coming could be the answer to all your questions. Or it could be the end of everything we know.”

  I shivered. “How can I be prepared if you can’t tell me anything specific?”

  “You’ve got a little time, I think. Fix today’s problems first. The one thing I know is you can’t fight whatever’s coming if you die before it gets here.” She let go of my hands, and smiled again in the bright way I was used to. “Besides, you have to come back and tell me all about your reaper boy when things have calmed down.”

  I grinned. “I’ll be back. I promise.”

  I thanked her with a hug and left with Iris.

  Sara, of course, was not happy when I told her I needed the next day off to play at the zoo with a hot reaper. Not my most altruistic request ever.

  “Zoey, I’ve got two appointments tomorrow. If you’d let me out of the damn house, I wouldn’t have a problem with it, but somebody’s got to meet with my clients tomorrow. Either I go, or you do. We can’t both be off.”

  Rather than call Riley and tell him I couldn’t make it, I did the most illogical thing I could think of. I gave Sara my gargoyle rock.

  She held it up to the light, squinting. “So, this is good luck? It just looks like a rock.”

  “It’s...” I paused, hesitating to tell her it was made of boogers from a gargoyle. “Yeah. A magic rock. It’ll keep you safe.”

  “What about you?”

  I shrugged. “I’ll be with Riley. He hasn’t let me die yet.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The door wasn’t open all the way before Riley’s distress leaked through to me.

  “I am so sorry,” he said.

  I frowned and checked the clock on the living room wall. “You’re not late. You’re a few minutes early.”

  “No, that’s not it.”

  “You’re cancelling?”

  “No, but I’ll understand if you do.” He took a step back and lifted his chin toward his car. Art was in the back seat, his beady little eyes scowling at me.

  “You’re kidding me. You couldn’t ditch him?”

  “I’m still technically on probation. I have to distract him with a question on procedural logistics if I want to take a shower. That buys me about a half hour while he scours through rule books for a solid definition.”

  “Can we throw him in with the lions?”

  “Great idea. We’ll need a raw steak and a staple gun. Otherwise, the lions won’t move quick enough, and he’ll lecture them to death.”

  The drive to the zoo was awkward. Every time Riley and I tried to talk, I could hear the scratching of a pen recording our every word. And then the damn clicking.

  Click click. Click click.

  He made my skin itch. I could also feel him behind me, his disapproval and outright dislike rolling off him in waves. Click click. Click click.

  I tried to break the silence. Oh, who I am kidding? I tried to irritate him.

  “Hey Art.” I turned my head toward the back of the car, but didn’t make an effort to look directly at him. “You know so much about me, how about you share a little about yourself? Married? Kids? Chia pet?”

  Click click. Click click. “My life is no concern of yours.”

  “I’ll take that as a no, since you won’t contribute to the conversation on your own.” I pretended to think about it a minute. “Let’s see. Your militant love of rules and regulations is a clue. I’m going with divorced after the first year, having learned that your new wife wasn’t interested in maintaining your strict underwear-washing schedule.”

  He made a choked, harrumphing sound. “That’s not at all true.”

  “Didn’t make it the whole year, huh? I can understand that. Rules are important. If she couldn’t follow them, she shouldn’t have agreed to marry you.”

  “Miss Donovan, I don’t find this at all humorous.”

  I ignored him. “Mind you, the cat was pretty well trained, so it was cruel of her to take him when she left. You must have been devastated.”

  “Cats are filthy creatures.”

  “Oh, not Bernie. Your Bernie was fastidious in his litter habits. It’s really a shame. I’m sure you miss him very much.”

  Click click. Click click. He muttered something under his breath, but I missed it.

  Riley let go of the wheel with one hand and grabbed mine. “Leave him be,” he said in a low voice. I could tell he was amused. I was probably making things worse for Riley in the long run by goading Art. Most likely for myself as well.

  I felt a little better for a while, but the clicking and the scratching continued, wearing on my nerves and making me twitchy.

  “Art, do you have any idea how irritating that sound is?”

  Click click. “What sound? I’ve not said a word.”

  “That neurotic habit you have of playing with your pen. Would you stop it already? It’s more telling than an eye tick or a nervous foot tapping. Maybe you should see a shrink.”

  Click. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Perhaps you’re delusional and need to see someone yourself.” Click.

  I twisted around and found him grinning at me, thumb poised over the button. Click.

  “That’s it.” I pushed myself over the seat and snatched the pen from his hand. He looked startled, but didn’t react. I sat forward in my seat held down the button to open the window, and tossed out the pen.

  Watching the traffic flow past, I let myself feel a little smug.

  Click click.

  I swiveled around and found him scribbling in his notebook with a fresh pen, a smirk plastered across his pudgy face. I wanted to punch him in the throat. Right below his flabby second chin.

  “Would the two of you grow up?” Riley reached forward and turned up the radio. “You’re like a couple of kids. We’re almost there. Don’t make me pull this car over.”

  I grinned up at him. “Sorry, Dad.”

  He winked at me and laced his fingers through mine. I don’t know what he had inside of him that kept him from killing Art, but his particular brand of calm flowed through his hand and into mine. I took a deep breath and felt better, bathed in his warmth. As long as I held on to Riley, Art had a chance of surviving the day without my impaling him on an elephant tusk.

  The idea still had some appeal, though.

  Once we were parked and made it into the zoo,
Art trailed at a decent distance. He stayed far enough behind that the clicking was muffled, and as long as I didn’t look at him, I couldn’t see him perpetually taking notes on our every action. It was almost possible to forget he was there.

  We hit the north end of the zoo first. Riley was determined not to miss anything, and the petting zoo, he reasoned, was usually the first thing to get dropped when legs got tired. So that’s where we began.

  Art couldn’t maintain his distance in such a small area. I made a point of ignoring him and went through the double swinging doors first, smacking him with the door as I let it swing shut.

  The minute I came through, roughly twenty goat heads popped up and looked in my direction. At the other end of the corral, a group of kids on a field trip fed the goats from the pellet machine.

  I had no pellets to offer. I had no hidden sandwich in my pocket. I wasn’t wearing a bologna pantsuit. There was no reason for the attention coming my way, but come it did. It was Zoey Day at the petting zoo. Every goat and sheep in the pen made a run for me. Within seconds, I was surrounded by a frantic, bleating mass of animals.

  I feared for my safety. I feared for my purse. I feared for the integrity of my jeans, as hooves and teeth scraped and prodded. Heads butted at me, and stubby horns pushed into the sides of my legs and hips.

  They weren’t trying to hurt me. I felt their primal, simplistic emotions battering through my filter like tiny Vikings making landfall and waving their battleaxes on their way to pillage my village. No sacking, though. Just joyful, enthusiastic pillaging of my personal space. The goats were being affectionate. En masse like that, it was overwhelming.

  I’d never been a huge fan of goats, ever since I was a little girl. One Easter, I had a new, pretty pink dress and lacy white socks. I loved that dress. The skirt poofed out when I twirled. Dad thought it would be fun to take Mom and me to the zoo that day, and the petting zoo was my favorite. Until I ran low on food pellets. One huge goat with a runny eye started nibbling on the hem of my dress. At first, I thought it was funny. As more of my dress disappeared into his jaws, my giggles took on a more panicked quality, and then turned to tears.