Lost in Mist and Shadow: A Between the Worlds Novel

by Morgan Daimler

  Down in the kitchen Jason was just starting the coffee. Allie headed over towards the cabinet to grab some cereal while she waited for that to brew. “Morning Jase. How are you doing?”

  He yawned, “Not bad, considering I’ve only been up for a little bit. What are you doing?”

  “Getting breakfast while I wait for the coffee.”

  “Cereal isn’t breakfast, it’s what breakfast eats. Honestly Allie you have the worst diet. Sit down and I’ll make you a real breakfast,” he started pulling pans out while he talked, obviously not waiting for her to agree or argue.

  Slightly amused she said, “What do you have against cereal? And for your information Mr. Nutrition usually I don’t eat breakfast at all I just have coffee.”

  “Since when? You’ve always eaten breakfast.”

  “Since I don’t know, weeks now,” she shrugged, sitting down at the table.

  He made an annoyed noise. “Don’t make me chase you around like a grumpy mother bugging you about eating right.”

  As soon as he spoke he froze looking embarrassed. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  She cocked her head to the side, “Why?”

  “For mentioning mothers.”

  “Ummm okay, but why? It doesn’t bother me.”

  “Oh”, he looked puzzled. “But I thought…it doesn’t make you sad to think about your mom?”

  “Well, it’s a little weird,” Allie said nonplussed, “and I don’t think about her often. I do wonder sometimes how she’s doing, because I don’t talk to her often.”

  “Oh!” Jason blushed hard, and looked with great interest at what he was doing on the stove. “She’s still alive! I mean…I just thought, er, assumed I mean…”

  Allie smiled taking pity on his discomfort and knowing when he was nervous he would babble and that she’d better intervene. “Jason my mother’s not dead. She just decided when I was little that it would be better for me not to be with her, so I went to live with my dad, and then after he died I came here to stay with my grandmother.”

  He was silent for a bit while she tried to guess what he was cooking. Something with eggs and there was definitely the sizzle of bacon…her stomach growled loudly at the smell.

  “I can understand that,” he said finally. “The not keeping in touch thing. I don’t talk to my parents often either. My mom’s kind of hard to pin down anyway and my dad’s back in Japan, but we don’t talk.”

  “Family,” Allie agreed, “just because you’re related doesn’t mean you have anything in common.”

  They both fell silent. Jason busied himself cooking and Allie sat at the table wondering for the first time in years what her mother was doing. Bleidd wandered in, stopped and looked from Jason to Allie, thrown off by the solemn atmosphere. She smiled at his wary expression, “Good morning sunshine.”

  That made him smile, “Good morning. You’re in a good mood today.”

  He went over to get coffee and added, “Good morning Jason.”

  “’Morning,” Jason said amiably. “Breakfast?”

  “Have I ever said no?” Bleidd quipped. He joined Allie at the table and to her surprise handed her a cup of coffee. She started to reach for it and hesitated.

  “Allie,” he said reproachfully, while Jason started moving food to plates, “surely you don’t think I’d make any assumptions if you take a drink form me?”

  Her lips twitched in a smile, but she still didn’t quite reach for the cup, “I don’t know Bleidd. Maybe you would. After all since I’m obviously not your guest if I take a drink you fixed for me, by elven custom it would mean we were lovers – or that you were my servant.”

  Jason’s eyes went wide as he walked over with the food, but Bleidd ignored him, still holding out the cup. “Perhaps I am your servant.”

  Jason set a plate of eggs and bacon down in front of Allie and another in front of Bleidd. He rushed back to grab his own food, watching the interplay at the table with great interest.

  “You’re a lot of things Bleidd, but you are no one’s servant,” Allie shot back.

  He kept holding the coffee cup out, as if he’d be comfortable holding it forever. “You agreed to court me too Allie, but I know you better than he does. Ten years versus a few months. I know you won’t be comfortable doing anything that you feel compromises your honor, even if your idea of honor is an amalgam of human and elven ideals. If you’re in his bed I won’t even try to trick you or win you into mine because I’d be losing the war to win a battle. That’s fine. I’ll just have to convince you that you’d rather choose me without that as a factor. And I have no doubt I can.”

  His cocky grin made her roll her eyes and blush, feeling confused by his total confidence. He genuinely meant what he was saying. Before she could think of a safe response he edged the cup closer to her, “Go on Allie, take it. No elven strings attached. Consider it a romantic gesture, since I know you don’t like boxed chocolate or dead flowers.”

  For some reason that reminded her in a very visceral way of his mouth on her skin the other day and she looked down, even more flustered. She reached out and took the coffee, her fingers brushing his, and tried to act as if his flirting wasn’t bothering her, “I’m not sure how romantic coffee is, but since I’d like to eat my breakfast before it gets cold, I’ll concede this round to you.”

  He smiled widely, and Jason’s eyes ricocheted between the two of them. She turned her attention to him, “Thanks for breakfast Jason, it’s delicious. On a completely unrelated note, what’s up with work? Are they letting you back yet?”

  He made a face “Not yet, but there’s a hearing Wednesday. Basically I have to show up and explain why I did what I did and if I can convince them I’m not dangerous to myself or the other guys they might not fire me. They probably will demote me or cut my pay or something though.”

  “Well, that sucks,” Allie said.

  “Hey I’ve got no one to blame but myself,” Jason said, spearing a chunk of eggs with his fork.

  “Is there no way to convince them to ignore the infraction?” Bleidd asked, thoughtfully.

  “If there is I can’t think of it,” Jason said. “But speaking of crappy personal problems how are yours going Allie?”

  “Gee thanks for that segue, Jase,” Allie said, wadding up a napkin and tossing it at him.

  Bleidd looked at her sharply, ignoring the teasing, “What problems Allie? What is going on?”

  “Thanks Jason,” Allie muttered again, then louder, “Just the usual mess that is my life.”

  “Allie…”Bleidd said, his tone making it clear he wasn’t going to let this go. Across the table Jason was giving her a look too, and she knew if she didn’t fill Bleidd in Jason probably would.

  Well crap Allie thought, taking a huge mouthful of food. I guess there’s no reason not to tell him, except that he’s likely to overreact. But then again he is my friend and I’m letting all this courting business mess that up. Would I have told him before? Yes I would definitely have told him, so why am I hesitating to tell him now? She chewed slowly to buy time Damn all this adult relationship stuff anyway. It’s all just too complicated. Why can’t things be easy like they used to be?

  She swallowed trying to decide how to start. “Well, it’s kind of complicated, but basically someone’s been leaving dead animals by the doors at my store, and someone smashed my front windows-“

  “Woah! Someone smashed your windows?” Jason interrupted “When did that happen?”

  “Yesterday, but since my cameras aren’t working-“

  “But don’t you ward your store?”

  “Jason stop interrupting! Of course I ward the store but only for certain things. I can’t ward it for everything. If someone broke in to steal or actually try to get into the store it would have triggered the wards but I can’t set that sort of thing on the glass because people touch it and bump against it all the time, it would constantly be setting them off or breaking them. I have the ward set just inside the windows and aimed for specific
things, but I never thought to include the glass itself – so sue me for not thinking of every possibility! – and when the glass broke it broke the spell itself. I’ll set something better next time,” she finally ran out of breath about the same time she ran out words.

  “Oh,” Jason said, looking more than slightly bowled over.

  “Wait, back up,” Bleidd said, “your cameras aren’t working?”

  “No the system went down about the same time the animals started.”

  Bleidd looked very, very unhappy at that, and Allie could feel a grim displeasure radiating off of him. Allie pushed on deciding to break the worst part of her recent adventures to him before he could think too much about whoever was harassing her. “And the Guard also asked me to help with a missing person’s case they’re working on. And I tried to be clever and bargain with them, because everyone keeps saying how foolish I was last time not to have.”

  Amusement warred with annoyance on his face. “And how did that go?”

  “About as badly as you’d expect. I think I’ve been deputized,” she replied flatly.

  Jason’s mouth fell open in shock. Bleidd’s eyebrows went up but the previously Outcast elf didn’t look totally surprised. Allie met his eyes, “You expected something like this?”

  “I expected something,” he hedged. “The Elven Guard is nothing if not pragmatic. And I doubted your Guardsman would leave things as they were…”

  He stopped suddenly with the look of someone who has said too much. She tilted her head to the side, unconsciously using elven body language to tell him he had her full attention, “You think when I refused to go with him he set out to find another way to…what? Tie me to him somehow?”

  The look of trepidation on his face was so funny she couldn’t help laughing, as Jason ate his breakfast and watched the exchange with open interest. “Bleidd, you can be honest. I’m not offended. I’m curious about your thoughts on it. I was worried I’d blundered into this myself trying to outsmart people I should know better than to try to play a game of wits with.”

  “No,” he said cautiously, looking intently at his food,” I doubt you created this situation, although you may have helped provide the chance for him, or them, to gain something they already wanted.”

  “Meaning me,” she pushed, trying to be certain she understood what he was saying.

  “Meaning the abilities and potential you have. You can be a great asset to the Guard Allie, perhaps more than anyone else not only because of your gift but because of your fluency with both languages and cultures,” he said, still not looking at her.

  “I’m not as great with the culture as everyone likes to think,” she said wryly. “And you know if that’s true of me it’s also true of you.”

  He blanched, “Please feel free not to mention that to Captain Zarethyn.”

  Allie smirked into her coffee, “Not a problem since I haven’t seen him in weeks.”

  Jason stood up, carrying his empty plate and cup over to the sink. “So what do you guys think of Shawn?”

  Allie and Bleidd looked at each other, both hesitating. Finally Bleidd spoke. “I think he is very young.”

  “You think everyone who isn’t Fey and is under 60 is very young,” Jason snorted. “Come on Allie, what’d you think?”

  “Ummmm. Can’t I plead the fifth?” Allie asked

  “Allie!”

  “Okay, okay! He seems very eager to make a good impression and he’s never met a conversation he doesn’t like, okay?” Allie sighed, trying to be honest without being mean.

  “Liz seems to like him well enough,” Bleidd added.

  “Liz seems to like him too well,” Jason muttered while he washed the pans, forgetting that Allie and Bleidd could hear him. Bleidd tactfully ignored him but Allie didn’t.

  “What does that mean?”

  Jason squirmed, “Umm. Well. Nothing. Just that Liz is really friendly with the new guy.”

  Allie gave him her best disapproving look, “Jason you know she has a boyfriend.”

  “We know she has a boyfriend,” Bleidd said, “but maybe she’s not remembering.”

  “Guys!” Allie shook her head, “You can’t be serious. Liz isn’t like that. She doesn’t have it in her. She’s just trying to be nice and honestly maybe reliving her teenage popular years a little bit. But nothing’s going on with those two.”

  “If you say so,” Jason agreed, while Bleidd continued to look skeptical.

  “Yeah,” Allie said forcefully, “I say so. So no more talk like that.”

  “Where are the theater duo anyway?” Jason asked lounging against the counter as Allie cleaned up her own dishes.

  “Probably still sleeping. With that play rehearsing and that other charity thing going on at the theater I think they’ve been pretty busy,” Allie said. “Anyway as much fun as the gossip game is I’ve got to get to work.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Jason said.

  At the exact same moment Bleidd said, “Wait a moment and I’ll go with you.”

  She stopped and turned looking at both of her friends, puzzled, “What’s up?”

  The two men were looking at each other as if waiting for the other one to speak. Allie risked using her empathy to read them and was surprised to feel worry from both. “Guys, I’m fine. I don’t need someone with me all the time. A couple dead animals and some broken windows doesn’t mean anything. It could be kids messing with me – come to think of it I had some teenagers in the store who wanted to mess around with necromancy that got pissed when I wouldn’t help them. It could be them. It’s nothing to get this worked up about.”

  “You could have a stalker,” Jason said seriously.

  “A stalker? Jason you have got to be kidding.”

  “It could be someone who means you harm Allie, I don’t think it’s wise to ignore this,” Bleidd said.

  “You are being ridiculous. Both of you.”

  “Without the cameras working anything could happen and if you are alone…no I don’t like it Allie,” Bleidd said, shaking his head. She could feel his resolve hardening.

  “Well rest assured the cameras are getting fixed,” Allie said stiffly, wishing there was some way to change the subject.

  To her complete annoyance they both shook their heads. Bleidd pressed the issue, “Until they are fixed I don’t think you should be alone.”

  Jason nodded, “Its escalating Allie, from animals to the windows. Now maybe you’re right and it’s really nothing but some pissed off kids. But what if you’re wrong? You think I can live with myself if you talk me out of hanging out with you to make sure you stay safe and something happens to you? And it’s not like I have anywhere else to be.”

  She pressed her lips together, wanting to keep arguing but she could feel their joint resolve. She remembered only too well what it had been like during the murder investigation, having the Elven Guard following her everywhere. Having her whole life taken over by other people. She did not want that to happen again. But was it worth alienating her only real friends to prove that she was independent and didn’t need anyone’s help? Hadn’t she just learned that the only way to keep a relationship was to let people in, not push them away? She groaned, “Crap.”

  Bleidd looked disapproving but Jason smiled triumphantly, correctly reading her. “Give me fifteen minutes and I’ll be ready to go.”

  “Fine, but hurry up I have to run an errand on the way in,” she relented, sighing as he ran out of the kitchen. As soon as he was gone Bleidd stood and crossed over to where Allie was standing, pulling her into a loose embrace. She tensed but held herself still.

  He spoke in Elvish, “Please Allie, don’t take risks just to prove something to me or anyone else about your self-sufficiency. I have no doubt you can take care of yourself, you have been doing it for a long time, but if you are in danger…don’t risk yourself for nothing. Let us help you. For the Gods’ sakes let Jessilaen help you.”

  “If you are saying that,” she replied slowly in the
same language, “then you must truly be worried.”

  ******************************************

  “Rose is really nice,” Jason said later as they pulled into the parking lot of Between the Worlds.

  “Yeah,” Allie agreed, “she is. I’m glad you two hit it off so well.”

  Allie had brought Jason with her to go pick up the sculpture at the co-op and much to her relief he and Rose had liked each other immediately. She didn’t know why it mattered to her but she wanted Rose to like Jason and vice versa. As it turned out she didn’t need to worry on that count; Jason had been completely enamored with the artist and her artwork and Rose, for her part, had seemed to take to Jason just as well. Before they left Jason had agreed to help Rose learn her way around town, something that Allie thought was a brilliant idea. It would get Rose out a bit and get her acclimated to all the little oddities of Ashwood and it would give Jason something to do besides worry about his upcoming hearing.

  “Hang on a sec while I get this unlocked,” Allie said, stepping up to the door and lowering the wards as she turned the key. She wouldn’t admit it to anyone but she was relieved to see an empty doorstep and feel the wards still in place. Everything seemed calm and peaceful, a typical late spring morning in Ashwood. The sun filtered down through the tree branches, just starting to unfurl new leaves, and a slight breeze kept the air pleasantly warm but not hot. The little wrens over the door peeped for their food and further out Allie could hear the sound of traffic picking up on Main Street.

  Feeling a sudden surge of cheer Allie pushed the door open. Maybe, she thought, things are turning around. Aloud she said, “Come on in Jase, make yourself at home. You’ll see my day is pretty boring.”

  “Can’t be worse than hanging around the house all day.”

  “Give it time, you might change your mind,” she said smiling as she checked the phone messages. In between the usual batches of curiosity seekers, reporters from out-of-town papers still looking for a new angle on the story, and hang-ups, were a couple special orders for books. Allie’s smile widened as she quickly jotted down the pertinent information.