“I am fine. I am safe. All is well here, I swear to you. We were just bystanders – we saw it happen. I don’t think it had anything to do with me or us or anything we are doing. We just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,” she said, soothingly, she had reached the corner of her own building and could see that both the office building across the street from her store and Lei’s store were burning. She closed her eyes in horrified sympathy for her pixy friend.
“Allie, are you sure you are safe?” he asked again and she reminded herself that he was worried not nagging. At least not nagging on purpose.
“Really I’m fine. I’m just upset. I know the pixie who owns the store that’s burning and she’d always been kind to me. I don’t know what she’s going to do now,” Allie thought to him, letting him feel some of her sadness.
“The building that is burning is owned by a pixie?”
“Yes, Curious Curios. And the building next to it also on fire, I think that’s just an office building though, I don’t know who owns it,” she thought back feeling tired.
“I am on my way,” he thought, “Stay where you are.”
“Jess, no, I don’t want you to get in trouble-“
“If the victim is a member of Fairy then it is the business of the Guard to investigate” he said. “Someone will be sent out anyway, and it matters little if I come with them to supervise.”
Allie wasn’t so sure about that logic, but she sighed and dialed 911 to report the fire. There was no point arguing with him when he got like this. Aloud she said to herself “You could have stayed home and dealt with the emotional fallout of your friend getting laid but no you had to find an excuse to go out. Way to go Allie. You have officially become a crime magnet.”
Chapter 10 - Wednesday
Allie stumbled down to the kitchen yawning. She found Shawn sitting at the table eating pancakes. A quick glance showed Jason at the stove, a pile of pancakes on a plate next to him. She felt a twinge of awkwardness. Tonight was his disciplinary hearing, but they had barely spoken since the night of the fire. She knew he had to be nervous, and that had probably motivated this mid-week big breakfast, but she wasn’t sure what to say to him.
She grabbed a cup of coffee and sat down at the table, nodding to Shawn.
“Good morning Allie,” he said.
“Morning Shawn,” and then feeling like she should, “Morning Jason.”
“Hey Allie,” Jason said from the stove, not turning around. Allie took a big gulp of coffee to cover her unease and tried to ignore the feeling of worry coming from Jason.
“So how are things going?” Shawn asked, between mouthfuls of his breakfast.
“Oh, ummm. Fine I guess. Quiet,” Allie said. And it was true, in the two days since the fire things had been quiet, almost eerily so, particularly after the initial dust settled. She and Jason were treating each other with kid gloves, which made her feel sad. Whenever she was near him she sensed his worry and unease around her, and she kept struggling with her own divided loyalties about his secret. For all intents and purposes he was human; except that technically he wasn’t entirely. She went back and forth about what should matter more: what Jason himself was or what his ancestry was. And he felt nervous around her which made her feel nervous, and that quickly became a very circular situation.
Bleidd had been furious when he found out that she’d gone out after he and his guest had retreated to his room and had gotten into a huge fight with Jason, who he blamed for everything that subsequently happened. That was especially awkward for both Allie and Jason who couldn’t tell him what Jason had done to save Allie’s life. Curious Curios and the office building had burnt to the ground and Allie had been up until nearly dawn giving her statement, repeatedly, to the police who seemed to think the people she and Jason had seen were the arsonists who had been hitting different locations around town. At work Allie was forced to stare out at the burned out hulk of the buildings, which was depressing. She still hadn’t seen Lei. And the missing person-cum-murder investigation with the Guard had stalled while the police and Elven Guard argued over who had jurisdiction, as the police were insisting it was a copycat killer and DNA had proven him to be fully human, while the elves insisted it was tied to the previous ritual murders and the current missing girl case.
“I don’t know how you do it. Me, I’d be hiding under my bed,” Shawn smiled harder when he said it, but Allie shifted in her seat, feeling even more awkward. What was it about Shawn that always made her feel so off balance?
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Well, you know, finding bodies, watching someone burn a building down, that’s pretty crazy stuff. I’d be afraid just from seeing stuff like that, you know. It’s really intense. But you just keep getting up and going to work. That’s pretty brave,” he said gesturing with his fork for emphasis.
“Ah, well, I don’t know about brave…” she said, flustered.
“You are brave Allie,” Jason said suddenly, still not turning from the stove.
“Well I have some good friends watching my back,” she said quietly.
“Yeah,” Shawn piped in breaking the almost-moment before it could fully form, “I guess having a boyfriend who’s a cop, Fairy police, I don’t know what the term for that is, but you know what I mean, and another one who’s good with magic would be reassuring.”
Allie felt herself blushing, “I only have one boyfriend.”
Shawn looked perplexed, “Oh, maybe I got confused I thought you were dating the guy who stays over here sometimes and, um, Bleidd.”
Allie took another bracing gulp from her cup, “I’m dating Jessilaen yes. I am not dating Bleidd. We’re just good friends, although he would like it to be more than that.”
Seeing the confusion on Shawn’s face she sighed, “It’s kind of complicated Shawn. Elves don’t date the way humans do.”
“Yeah, I remember you saying that before. I guess I don’t get it,” he said.
“Elves don’t date, in general. Their culture is polyamorous and they don’t usually have long term relationships,” she said, trying to choose her words carefully.
“Oh. So they don’t have marriage?” he said, struggling to wrap his head around the idea.
“No they do, but marriage is all about uniting family lines to have heirs or to join families for political reasons. It’s not much about emotions,” she said.
As she spoke Jason set a plate down in front of her heaped with pancakes and bacon. She looked up at him quizzically, but he avoided her eyes, muttering, “Coffee is not breakfast.”
“Thanks,” she murmured, wishing she knew how to breach this weirdness between them.
Shawn, oblivious to the interplay between his two roommates, stayed focus on the conversation, “Not to sound crude but doesn’t that make it hard on kids born out of marriage? I mean if they’re, ummm, you know hooking up with all sorts of different people, I mean how do you figure out who the dad is? Or do elves use DNA testing?”
For a moment Allie looked at him blankly, the question so bizarre from an elven point of view she wasn’t sure how to process it. Then her human upbringing kicked in and translated. “It doesn’t work that way for them, although there is a spell that works kind of like a DNA test in identifying who a child’s father is, but it isn’t a big deal.”
“Why not?” he sounded fascinated, and even Jason who had joined them at the table with his own breakfast looked interested.
“Elves are matriarchal and matrilineal,” she said simply. “A child’s mother is the one who the child inherits from, if the child is a girl.”
“What about boys?” Shawn asked.
“Boys don’t inherit unless there are no daughters, and even then usually it passes to a granddaughter, although that gets tricky,” she said.
“Why?” he had stopped eating now and was fully absorbed in the discussion.
“Because a granddaughter of someone who only has sons is clearly someone else’s daughter.
They belong to her clan, not the grandmother’s – because what clan you belong to depends on what clan your mother belonged to – and you don’t inherit across clans, only within.”
Shawn blinked slowly, trying to process all of that. “Okay. But, umm, what about the dads? Do they just not matter?”
“Oh, no, of course the father matters, just not from a legal point of view and the legal stuff is the big deal. A child belongs to it’s mother, but obviously the father is involved in the child’s life too.”
“That seems so weird,” Shawn said, looking fascinated.
Allie shrugged, “That’s about how elves feel about the way human’s do things.”
“Wait, I’m confused again,” Shawn said. “You’re last name is McCarthy though, right? Isn’t that a human name?”
“Yeah, it was my father’s last name. Elves don’t use surnames so it’s just easier for me to use his,” Allie said thinking and my grandmother wouldn’t have had it any other way.
“So what would your name be in, ummm, you know, among elves?”
“Ahhh, well it’d just be my name and my clan,” Allie said, caught off guard.
“How’s that work? I mean what’s yours for example?” Shawn pressed.
Allie licked her lips. “Uhhh. My clan? Draighean.”
“Drine?” he repeated clumsily.
She tried again more slowly, “Dray-een. So my name would be Aliaine of clan Draighean.”
The words felt strange on her tongue after so many years. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d discussed her clan – possibly never since coming to live with her grandmother. Even with the elves she encountered in Ashwood, including Jess, she used her human name. She picked up the fork on her plate and started picking at her food, which was getting cold.
“So if you had kids,” Shawn said, still working to get what Allie had been saying so far, “they’d be part of that clan too, not the clan of whoever their dad was?”
“Right,” Allie said around a mouthful of food. “Unless it was contracted that way.” And then anticipating his next question as he opened his mouth she went on. “Like I said before marriages are very contractual deals, so it can be written into a marriage contract that one condition is that a child belong to the father’s clan instead of the mothers, but that’s really uncommon.”
“Right,” he said frowning,” and without a contract, er, marriage, the dad has no legal claim at all, it’s just the mom’s child.”
Allie shrugged, chewing some bacon. “I guess you could look at it that way, although you can kind of say the same thing about unwed humans. And like I said the father is still involved, he just doesn’t have the same kind of claim on the child.”
“Huh,” Shawn smiled, “I guess I’m glad I’m human, our way seems easier.”
Allie shrugged again. “They both have their flaws, in my opinion. The human way favors men too much and…”
“What do you mean?” he interrupted.
“Well children have their father’s name, not their mothers don’t they? Usually?” Allie said.
“I guess,” he was frowning now, but she pushed on.
“And men want sons to carry on their family name don’t they?”
“Well, yeah,” he said. At the other end of the table Jason smirked, seeing where she was going and enjoying it.
“And so some people prefer sons to daughters, and favor boys, and boys in general are seen differently – as the head of the household, the breadwinner, the dominant partner, and all that right?” she said, eating another mouthful of pancakes.
“Ahhh, well, yeah I guess,” he looked uncertain now.
“Well for elves it’s all reversed to favor girls that way. Women lead clans, women lead family units, lines of succession pass through women so daughters are preferred to sons, and so on. It’s just different slants to the same approach,” she said.
“But there are Fairy Kings aren’t there?”
“Sure, just like ancient earth had queens – if there are no daughters to inherit it passes to a son until he has a daughter or granddaughter.”
“Huh,” Shawn nodded. “That’s a lot to wrap your head around.”
“The polyamory part is nice,” Jason said, still smirking.
Shawn actually blushed, “I don’t know if I could handle more than one woman at once.”
“Woman or man,” Allie couldn’t resist saying, “Elves also don’t really have a concept of sexual preference.”
Shawn blushed scarlet, “Oh, really? I mean, I’d heard, I mean people say things, but I didn’t…ummm, I think I’m all set with my girlfriend.”
“You have a girlfriend?” Jason asked, in real surprise.
“Yeah, why?” Shawn sounded nervous now.
“It’s okay, we just kind of thought….I mean you sort of flirt a lot with Liz,” Allie said trying to be diplomatic.
Shawn looked down, then cleared his throat, “Well it’s just…she’s my boss, you know? And I really, really need this room. I was kind of sleeping in my car until she said she had this room open and so I just…it’s just important that she’s happy with me being here.”
Allie felt a surge of unexpected sympathy for him. “It’s okay Shawn. Liz is pretty cool. You’ll get settled in here and you don’t need to worry about getting people to like you.”
“Yeah,” Jason agreed. “She doesn’t have to be your best friend to rent you a room.”
“I know, I just worry about not having a place to stay. I guess maybe I over compensate. I mean you guys are all so tight and you’ve known each other for so long and you’re all so, I dunno, interesting, you know? Really. I guess I just feel like the new kid in school.”
“I guess I understand that,” Jason said, while Allie finished her cold breakfast, “I remember when I first moved in, it was a little intimidating. But once you get settled you’ll see it’s all pretty boring and relaxed.”
“As long as I’m here long enough to settle in,” Shawn said, smiling. It was the first genuine smile Allie had seen from him. He got up and brought his plate over to the sink, washing it quickly.
Jason turned to Allie the awkwardness back in full force. “Ummm. Bleidd asked me to go with you today, since he has to work.”
Allie nodded, “Okay. I’ll be ready in about half an hour.”
Jason nodded and headed back over to the stove to clean up without another word. Allie sighed. It was going to be a long day.
***********************************
Once at the store Jason had grabbed a novel off one of the shelves, claimed his favorite chair, and hadn’t said a word to Allie. For her part she kept focused on busy work when she didn’t have customers.
Midafternoon that strange young elf, Sal, came back in but she had a big group of tourists and didn’t have time to talk to him. She would have loved to find out why he was still in town and if he was still ducking his adult supervision, but by the time she cleared up the other customers he had gone. She heard the bells clang in that oddly muffled way as he slipped out.
Shortly afterwards it quieted down so Allie, in a desperate bid to keep busy while Jason read, dug out her feather duster and started dusting the shelves. She was back in the rare book section when she heard the bells ringing again and a familiar voice asking for her. She limped quickly out to find detectives Riordan and Smythe standing near the door.
“Detectives, I didn’t expect to see you. Are you done with my car yet?” she couldn’t quite disguise the eagerness in her voice. She really wanted to have her own car back and at least the illusion of freedom it represented.
The detectives exchanged an inscrutable look. “What?” Allie asked, suddenly uneasy. “What’s wrong? Did something happen to my car?”
“Ms. McCarthy we’d like to talk to you for a minute, if you have some time,” detective Smythe said, his voice very professional. She looked from one to the other.
“What’s going on?” she asked again.
“We’ve gott
en the results back from the tires and we found something unexpected,” detective Riordan said, like someone about to break bad news. Jason had gotten up and walked over to stand near Allie.
“Okay,” she said, feeling the tension radiating from both of the men. Her stomach knotted in response and she fought down hysterical giggling, grateful that at least she didn’t have to worry about panic attacks anymore. “Could you just tell me what it is because dragging it out like this is freaking me out.”
Riordan grimaced slightly, “Well, to be blunt then, we found traces of blood on the tires, we think from the knife used to cut them. We ran the blood thinking it might be animal and it wasn’t. It was from the Elven Guard who was killed in front of your house.”
Aeyliss? Allie thought, truly shocked. But – no. That would mean that whoever cut my tires killed her. But that’s impossible because Walters did that and he’s dead…
Jason stepped up putting a hand on her shoulder, and she felt his concern wrapping around her. “Allie? Are you okay?”
“That’s impossible,” she whispered.
“Ms. McCarthy, I can’t express how much this concerns us,” detective Smythe said, his voice as sincere as his feelings. “This ties the person harassing you directly to the death of an Elven Guard. Your life is very likely in danger as well.”
Allie shook her head slightly and Riordan spoke up, “Ms. McCarthy, I know this is upsetting, but if the person who killed the Elven Guard is the one targeting you we can only assume they mean to hurt you.”
“Kill me. You think they want to kill me,” she said, her voice intense.
Riordan sighed, “You are a member of the Elven Guard yourself now, and you’re dating one as well. That could be enough motivation for whoever this is.”
“Walters killed Aeyliss,” Allie said, her voice stiff and hard. “And he’s dead.”
Both detectives shifted uncomfortably. Riordan spoke in a soothing voice, “We never tied him conclusively to her death. It was all circumstantial, admittedly strong enough at the time to close it. But it’s within the realm of possibility that she was killed by someone else and that whoever that person is has now fixated on you.”
Lost in Mist and Shadow: A Between the Worlds Novel Page 26
