To his great relief, his new friend leaned back in his chair, whistled softly, and shook his head. There was no scorn, no amusement, but something akin to wonder, mixed with sympathy.
"Ouch. Nice that you've got friends and family on the outside who can help out, let you get around and actually put the short circuit to good use." Will nodded. "I've heard about Alexi and Megan. It seems to me her father is a distant relative, maybe by marriage. Phill and I don't spend that much time back home--too stuffy and enclosed, know what I mean?" He grinned when Harry nodded. "So I don't really hear all the gossip, who's calling who out for rebellion and hauling others in front of the Fae Disciplinary Council for violations of the Invisibility to Mortals Act, or some such stupid political nonsense. Maybe I should head out to Vegas and give them a visit. Just to offer her some support from family."
"From what I hear, she wasn't really accepted until Alexi married her," Harry offered.
"Yeah, the old folks--anybody over six hundred--can be pretty snobby and unreasonable. Why punish the Halflings for the philandering of their parents, anyway? It's not like they chose to be born."
"You don't know the half of it. Alexi and I have another cousin who spends all her time in the Human realms as a daycare teacher."
"Oooh, nice power source right there, all those kids." Will nodded appreciatively.
"She hooked up with a guy who has some Fae blood way far back, and he had to get free of a curse put on a distant, distant ancestor back when there were knights in dented armor running around. Sure, curse the bozo who tried to cut the points off your ears or force you to grant him three wishes, but don't punish his kids and their kids. That's just overkill."
"Fae have long, nasty memories." Will sighed.
"So do you mind my asking what Philomena blew circuits about?"
"I'd rather not talk about it. Still can't figure it out myself. I should probably go talk to Angela, but you know how women are. They stick together. She'll probably tell me it was something I should have seen and done something about fifty years ago."
"Yeah, typical. But I'd still like to talk to her about my problem."
"Don't know if she can cure a wonky invisibility spell," Will offered with a grin.
"No, more like figuring out how Bethany is magic, but doesn't really have magic. It shorted out my anti-invisibility spell and my invisibility spell at the same time, in a public place. How am I supposed to keep her safe from the lunatic fans and give her a nice, quiet, family Christmas, if I can't depend on things to stay the way they are and where I put them?"
"Good point." He got up, snapped his fingers, and several dollar bills landed on the table. "Let me give you the nickel tour, then."
Will gave Harry a running monologue on the various shops and current events in Neighborlee as they walked down several streets and made a few strategic turns. He sometimes slowed his words, looking around as yet another woman only distantly similar to Phill crossed their path. Harry swallowed a grin. Whatever was wrong with Will and Phill, it was clear his new friend was smitten with her, as the old-timers said. Couldn't he see that?
Or was that the problem?
"Will?" A shiny black pickup extended cab pulled up next to them as they approached a stoplight intersection. A pretty blonde leaned out the window. "Have you seen Phill?"
"Not for a couple days." Will stepped up to the truck. "Something wrong?"
"No, I just haven't seen her or you and..." The young woman's gaze strayed from Will to Harry. "Hargrove?"
"Hey, Lori." He sighed and silently asked if there was a convention of Fae descending on Neighborlee for the holidays.
"You look great. What are you doing here?"
"Business. In fact, I need to get back to the hotel to meet my client." He nodded to Will. "Thanks for the help. Bethany's taking me on the tour, so we'll probably end up at Divine's. Nice seeing you again, Lori."
"Hargrove, wait." A purplish-pink haze spilled through the air as Lori leaned further out the window of the truck cab. "Please, don't run off."
"Not running. I just have to be somewhere else soon. I'll catch up with you later." He continued down the street and consciously fought not to burst into a mad dash--or worse, let go of his control over the anti-invisibility spell.
He had been spying on Lori and several of her best friends when he had his accident with the invisibility spell. Her face would be forever linked with his accident and the problems that had plagued him ever since. It didn't help matters any that Lori had laughed at him for years when they were growing up. Nice laughter, mostly, but she had thought his dreams were silly, of becoming an explorer of the outer limit realms where few Fae had gone and survived to return.
She had apologized and blamed immaturity, but that had never really taken away the embarrassment and the lingering discomfort of memories. The less time Harry had to spend in Angeloria's presence, where she would remember and maybe make the mistake of telling others about his foolishness and his accident, the happier he would be. Especially Bethany. Harry had been able to give Bethany the gist of his difficulties, and she had been sensitive enough not to ask for details.
He couldn't bear it if she heard the full truth of his immaturity and stupidity--and his tendency to spy on people when he should have had the courage and intelligence to confront them directly. The last thing Harry wanted was for Bethany to either feel sorry for him, or worse, be disgusted by him.
He had time to kill, so he stopped at a bakery on the same street as the hotel, where the very air tasted of chocolate and melt-in-your-mouth pastry. He saw enormous chocolate muffins displayed in the window and went in for one. Strictly for medical purposes, of course.
By the time he got to the front of the line in the very crowded little bakery, his order of one triple chocolate mega-muffin had grown. Chocolate chocolate-chip biscotti dipped in dark chocolate, three triple chocolate mega-muffins, and a chocolate lava cake that he told them to not even bother putting in a bag. He held the warm mini cake filled with steaming hot fudge in one gloveless hand and ate it as he wandered down the street.
Harry settled on a bench in front of the hotel to nibble blissfully at his treat and watch the traffic of the town. Families played on the skating rink in the center of town. Children built snowmen by the gazebo. Various shopkeepers and city workers decorated the gazebo and other municipal buildings.
The fancy glitter and living magic of Fae high celebrations couldn't hold a candle to the joy and fun and slightly tacky old-fashioned glitter and glitz of small town Americana at the holidays. He loved it. Maybe, if he could keep control of his invisibility spell affliction, he would just stay out here in the Human realms. Who needed to go home to the Fae realms where everybody knew about his problems? If the people of Neighborlee could overlook conversations like he had with Will, and go on about their business without blinking, maybe he had found the place to stay.
Or maybe it was the fact that this was Bethany's hometown that made him love the place.
"I'm in paradise right now," he muttered as he licked the last of the cooling fudge off his fingertips.
For punctuation, a car pulled up to the curb in front of the hotel. The window rolled down on the passenger side and Bethany leaned over from the driver's seat.
"Hey, sailor, new in town?" She waggled her eyebrows at him. When Harry leaped to his feet, she burst out in that delightful, chiming laughter he loved.
He took two steps to the car and remembered he had forgotten his bags of bakery. He turned back, slipped on a patch of ice, twisted sideways, then jolted as his feet hit the un-iced sidewalk.
"Are you okay?" she called, as he carefully continued reaching for his bag. Harry had a horrified vision of hitting that ice again on the return trip and losing all that life-giving dark chocolate.
"Fine." His face radiated enough heat to melt all the ice in the skating rink on the town square. Harry yanked on the handle of the door, half-expecting to find it locked. It swung open and he slid into the car
.
It occurred to him that in that moment of total confusion, he should have lost control of his anti-invisibility spell. Then again, according to what Will had told him a little while ago, no one would even notice that he had gone invisible for a few seconds.
"Please tell me you love chocolate as much as I do," Bethany said, as he tossed the bakery bags on the seat between them.
"Triple chocolate mega-muffins or chocolate on chocolate on chocolate biscotti?"
"Marry me," she groaned. "A man who finally understands that chocolate is one of the essential vitamins."
"You better be careful, Miss Bethany. I might just take you up on that," Harry said. His hands shook a little as he dug into a bakery bag and pulled out the first thing he found.
His heart jolted a little and a soft voice wailed in the back of his mind when he pulled out a mega-muffin. He consoled himself that he had bought three. The awed delight in Bethany's eyes and her brilliant smile more than repaid him when he handed it over.
"So, have you got your bearings enough? Do you have any idea where you want to start with the tour?"
"Well... I ran into this guy at the coffee shop. He said Divine's Emporium would be a good starting point."
"Yeah, definitely. I wonder what Angela'll make of you?"
* * * *
"Hargrove?"
The voice that came out of nowhere when he followed Bethany into Divine's Emporium didn't shock Harry. It was the fact that when he saw the source, he recognized the face--just not so small. He belatedly remembered Will had mentioned Maurice being at Divine's Emporium, but the name just hadn't clicked. Then again, how many Maurices did he know of, even in the Fae realms? Harry's face burned and he felt his anti-invisibility spell slipping as he stared at the other Fae man.
"What are you doing here?" he blurted, and was glad to look ahead and see Bethany had continued on into a room with a counter and a cash register just inside the doorway.
"Exile. Man, you must have really had your head buried in your research, not to hear that I got caught by the Disciplinary Council." Maurice fluttered his wings so fast they were a blur, and came in for a landing on a shelf almost on eye level with Harry. "What do you think?"
"What? You have to wear them during daylight hours?" Harry bit his tongue against asking if he had to shrink himself to try out the wings. If they weren't so frilly and glittery and extravagant, he might have felt a little jealous.
"Pal, these things are attached, permanent-like, until my exile is over." Maurice shrugged. "What are you doing in town, anyway?"
"Bethany." He gestured toward the main room. "Guard duty."
"Guard? Like... You're going into bodyguard work?"
"More like letting my invisibility spell wrap around her so she can avoid some loonies and have a semi-normal Christmas at home with her father."
"If she's from around here, I doubt there's any such thing as 'normal' Christmas at home." He chortled and leaped up, turned a triple somersault and glided down to land on Harry's shoulder. "Be a pal and introduce me, would ya? If you can."
"What do you mean, if I can?" Harry obediently continued down the aisle to the main room.
"Part of my exile is that I'm pretty much invisible and un-hearable to most Humans. Except the ones with a lot of magic."
"Bethany's got something, but I'm still trying to figure out of it's real magic, or something else."
"Well, we're having an actual convention of Fae this year. I wonder why," the blonde woman behind the counter said with a bemused smile, as Harry stepped into the room. "Another old friend, or a cousin?"
"Old school pal," Maurice said. "Angie-baby, meet Hargrove. Hey, I didn't think of this before, but maybe there's a cure in Divine's for what ails him. And I'm betting I just got an answer to my other question." He leaped up from Harry's shoulder and fluttered over to hover in front of Bethany, on a level with her wide, staring eyes. "How ya doing, babe?"
"Maurice," Angela said, shaking her head, fighting not to smile.
"Uh...fine," Bethany said. She swallowed hard and glanced sideways at Harry. "I'm not imagining things, am I?"
"Bethany, meet Maurice, an old friend from back home. Maurice, this is Bethany Miller, movie star and current object of adoration by hundreds of psychos who don't know the meaning of words such as 'no' and 'restraining order.'" Harry breathed another sigh of relief when his words earned an eye-roll and muffled laughter from Bethany. He didn't know what he would have done if she hadn't taken his words as the teasing he meant.
"Nice to meet ya, kiddo." Maurice came in for a landing on the counter. "I just love it when people show up who can actually talk to me and see me. It gets really hard for Angela here, sometimes being the only who can talk back. I might be easy on the eyes, but not the nerves, know what I mean?"
Bethany giggled, which was exactly the right response, both for her and Maurice's sake. Harry just wished he hadn't been close enough to see the admiring once-over look Maurice gave her. Bethany wasn't his, but he had come to a realization during his chocolate glut that he was more than interested in staking a claim.
As soon as he got some answers to the root of whatever magic ran through this town, and how it had soaked into Bethany so she was magic more than she had magic. And from the considering look Angela gave him, head tilted to one side, lips slightly pursed, Harry sensed he might just be able to get all his answers from her. At the very least, he wouldn't have to do much explaining, since she obviously was on good terms with Maurice.
"Did you say you were exiled here?" Harry shook his head. "I don't see how this could be a place of exile. It's fantastic. The energy, the magic running through this town--"
"I knew it." Bethany pulled over a tall stool and settled at the counter, elbows on the marble surface. "There's always been something special about this place. You're why I am the way I am, why I see things that shouldn't be there, and I can... Oh, I don't know, finagle things to get out of jams. Most of the time. Maybe why I managed to be in the right place at the right time. Like Harry said--magic, right?"
"In a sense." Angela reached across the counter and caught hold of one of Bethany's hands. "But in a larger sense... Well, it's your own fault. The magic is in you. You inherited it from your mother."
"My...mother?" Bethany's happy, rosy glow faded about ten notches. She glanced at Harry. He moved over and rested a hand on her shoulder, ready to support her in whatever she needed. "What about my mother?"
"In the simplest terms, she was a guardian. Of otherness. You've heard about the odd tendency for lost and abandoned children to be found or to end up in and around Neighborlee, in the children's home?" Angela waited until Bethany nodded. "Your mother was a lost child. Or as our current mayor refers to them, 'lost boys,' à la Peter Pan. She had some minor talents, including glimpses of the future, of the intents of people's hearts, some mild telekinesis. She and I were dear friends, from the moment she first walked in the door of my shop."
"So you're a guardian too," Harry said quietly. He didn't like the tiny frown lines gathering around Bethany's eyes and mouth. It didn't take much guessing to realize that some of this information was totally new to her.
"Another kind of guardian. Neighborlee seems to be a gathering place for the odd and unusual and even visitors from other realms, other dimensions. I've met a number of unusual characters and powers. That's how I became connected to some representatives of the Fae, and how I became Maurice's parole officer for two years."
"Parole officer." He rolled the words around in his mouth and mind. They certainly fit Maurice, with his tendency to go overboard with his pranks and ideas of justice--and to get into trouble with the powers that be.
"Mom died in an accident," Bethany said, her voice a strained semi-whisper. "Things Dad has said over the years, things I remember... He didn't know about her being a...what did you call it? Guardian?" She waited until Angela shook her head. "But this guarding got her killed?"
"She gave her life protecting th
is town, and stopped something very nasty from opening a doorway that would have brought our reality into dangerous contact with something it should never touch." Angela reached up with one hand to cup Bethany's cheek, brush a few strands of hair back from her face. "At least, we thought she had shut the door. It looks like she only slowed the process and blunted the enemy's power, delayed the inevitable."
"Uh... This nastiness is coming through?" Harry wondered why he hadn't sensed the inimical elements when he flew overhead. Certainly he should have sensed the discord in the power that pulsed through Neighborlee.
"It tried to, about two years ago. We had some very interesting events... Something seems to be either waiting, sleeping deep underneath the town, or it is able to open a dimensional doorway that is buried far below us. It's been stunned and sent away. For now, anyway." She closed her eyes a moment and shook her head. "I'm sorry, Bethany. I was pleased when your acting took you away. You don't have your mother's strength or any of her gifts, and I didn't want you drawn into this battle. She wouldn't have wanted you saddled with her responsibility."
"But there are others like her?" The pallor had left Bethany's skin. She rested more of her weight on her arms on the counter. The frown lines had smoothed out in her forehead. Harry suspected deep concentration, maybe even a little angry fascination, had taken the place of her pain and sorrow.
"Oh, indeed. You remember Lanie Zephyr?"
"She was my English teacher and basketball coach." Her expression softened. "You have to meet her, Harry. When she got hurt and left teaching, she started doing comedy and--" Her mouth dropped open and she paused, wide-eyed, for about five seconds. "She was doing guarding when she got hurt, wasn't she?"
"She is still guarding this town, with her friends. Lanie is one of the 'lost boys,' so to speak." Angela nodded. She glanced at Harry. "I assume Bethany knows about the Fae, since she's with you. Could you explain to her the basics of dimensions and doorways and realms?"
Have Yourself a Faerie Little Christmas Page 14
