by Tanya Huff
Shit. If Katie’d mentioned the cemetery, Allie would worry.
Worried on top of angry; not good.
Charlie slipped out of the Wood in the enclosed courtyard behind The Enchantment Emporium, the Calgary junk shop Allie had inherited from her grandmother—Charlie’s Auntie Catherine and the oldest of the family’s three Wild Powers. The shrubs in the small center planting were in full bloom even though, given the season, they should’ve been completely dormant. “Okay, that’s weird.”
She twisted around. The lights were on in Auntie Gwen’s loft over the garage, but neither Auntie Gwen nor Joe were in the window, even though both of them would have felt her emerge. Joe wasn’t family, as such, and while he might be a little tall for a Leprechaun, he was fullblood Fey with all the sensitivity and proclivity to angst that included. They had to have known she was the reason for Allie’s mood and Auntie Gwen, at least, wouldn’t want to miss the finale.
“I guess she’s got her hands on his Lucky Charms.”
The rim shot from her backing band was one of its few inarguable perks.
Facing the store again, Charlie noted that no one looked down from the apartment windows either. The lights were on in the kitchen/living room. The twins’ bedroom, the bedroom that used to be Jack’s, was dark.
She didn’t look up at the sky. Didn’t listen for the sound of wings.
The back door was unlocked. As the door could be only be accessed from the courtyard and the only way into the courtyard was through the Wood by way of the shrubbery or through the garage, the door was always unlocked. The last kid to try and break in through the garage had found himself in culinary school. The one before that still hadn’t been found.
In the hall behind the store, Charlie turned left toward the stairs leading up to the apartment and paused in front of the large, rectangular mirror that dominated the space. The mirror needed no external light source to cast a reflection and although the background was a familiar expanse of Jack’s golden scales to scale, it had, to Charlie’s surprise, not changed a thing about her Docs, cargo pants, and leather jacket. Even her Dresden Dolls T-shirt had made an appearance.
Her eyes were still Gale gray, her hair dark blonde and barely long enough again to tie back. She’d gotten the small scar through her eyebrow when she was seven and pitched headfirst out of the treehouse. Had her Uncle Tomas, Allie’s father, not made an impossible catch, she’d have probably broken her neck. The shiny, quarter-sized scar on her jaw had been a burn last year and to this day Charlie had no idea if Auntie Gwen’s and now you know what happens when you get too close to a dragon had been a comment on only the flame.
She’d shut down “Ring of Fire” hard enough to hear strings snap.
Allie, who had a degree in Art History she’d actually got to use for a while before the grant paying her salary had run out, had declared the mirror to be an 1870s Renaissance Victorian original. Charlie, who almost had a degree in Sociology, Music, Drama, and/or English depending on how almost ended up being defined, considered it more a friend. Auntie Catherine, as willing as any auntie to take credit where credit may or may not have been due, had found it and hung it but denied having anything to do with its working.
As she watched, a red-brown stain spread out over the fabric covering her reflection’s heart.
“It wasn’t that bad. I’m fine.”
The stain split to show a gaping wound with a fleck of gold in its depths.
“You’re a romantic. I swear, it wasn’t that bad.” One hand on the heavy walnut frame, Charlie leaned in and rested her forehead against the glass. The mirror knew because the mirror always knew. She didn’t know why it had chosen to keep her secret, but she was grateful. Considering the shit she’d given Allie about the angsting she’d done over her entirely unrequited and borderline cliché feelings for Michael, her gay best friend, Charlie was fully aware that payback would be a bitch.
At least she wasn’t angsting. Running, sure. Angsting, no.
“So, any idea what’s up with Allie?”
When she leaned back, her reflection wore a hazmat suit and stood knee-deep in dirty diapers.
“Did Jack try to feed the twins raw liver again?”
The pile grew.
“I’d ask if you knew something I didn’t, but since you usually do, I’m going to go upstairs and take my lumps.”
Her reflection held a shield.
“Thanks.”
A line of charms to keep the twins away from the edge of the landing had been added to the standard protections around the apartment door. It seemed they’d figured out the doorknob while she’d been gone.
“And the lock?” Charlie wondered. “And the charms?” She hadn’t been gone that long.
She fumbled out her key. Graham, for all that being a seventh son of a seventh son made him a special snowflake, couldn’t charm his way in and out, so the rest of the family had gotten out of the habit. Show time. A deep breath and a reminder that Allie loved her, and she slowly pushed open the door.
“Hi, honey, I’m home.”
A piece of pie splattered against the wall beside her head.
CHARLIE WIPED AWAY FLAKES OF PASTRY, opened her mouth to apologize, and snapped it closed again.
With two years and dozens of other cousins separating them, she hadn’t been particularly close to Allie until she’d taken that first Walk in the Wood at fifteen and gotten hopelessly lost. Literally, lost without hope. She’d wandered for about two days; no food, no water, no idea of how to get out and then, in amongst the cacophony of sound slamming against her from all sides, she’d heard a simple and familiar melody that said, this way home. Allie’s song had not only kept Charlie’s first Walk in the Wood from being her last Walk in the Wood, but had taught her how to separate the sound into paths she could follow. That alone would have been reason enough for Charlie to believe Allie was something special, but after feeding her, her younger cousin had all but carried her upstairs, put her to bed, and stood guard outside the door to the room, refusing the aunties entry until Charlie’d recovered enough to cope with their interrogation.
While they hadn’t exactly been attached at the hip ever since, their lives had been entwined. And if Charlie had come second in Allie’s life to Michael and then Graham, she’d never minded because Allie had always come second to the music.
As it turned out, Charlie’d been right all along and Allie really was something special, objectively speaking. Powerful enough to have defeated a or possibly the Dragon Queen, she’d claimed and held Calgary, Alberta; all one million, two hundred and fourteen thousand, eight hundred and thirty-nine people, one million, two hundred and fourteen thousand, eight hundred and thirty-eight souls plus assorted Fey and family. For the most part, the city rocked on as it always had, but, when push came to shove, it didn’t have to.
Now, Allie sat on the nearer of the two sofas, wiping her hand with a paper towel, an empty plate in front of her on the coffee table, tendrils of power extended far enough to lift the hair off the back of Charlie’s neck and trail a heated touch up her spine. The only other time Allie’d ever been so overt, she’d been . . .
“Holy crap, you’re pregnant again.”
Katie, sitting on Allie’s right, moved her plate and half-eaten piece of pie out of reach. Graham, on Allie’s left, wasn’t quite fast enough. Fortunately, he’d nearly finished.
Charlie swiped this second splattered bit of pie off her cheek and sucked the sticky pastry off her fingers. Apple. Auntie Mary’s if she wasn’t mistaken. Allie’s mother made amazing apple pie—not too juicy, not too sweet, and barely charmed. Get enough sleep. Eat properly. Use the potty.
She frowned. Use the potty? “Aren’t the twins a little young for pie?”
“You’ve been gone for three weeks,” Allie reminded her.
“I know, but . . .”
“Mom’s
just trying to help.”
“I get that.” Allie anchored second circle and couldn’t leave Calgary, and Auntie Mary was still disentangling herself from Darsden East where she’d anchored second circle before crossing to first. It was weird thinking of her as an auntie, but it happened to all Gale girls in time. Technically, first circle, like third, could go where they wanted, but with Allie’s brother David in antlers in Calgary, the older aunties had decided Auntie Mary needed to be more connected to Uncle Arthur in Ontario before she risked it. And they’d all ignored Auntie Ruby muttering about the insipid morality of the masses and how they should have shot the balloon out of the sky the moment the damned thing appeared. When the twins were a little older, Charlie’d promised to run them back east to meet their grandmother and the rest of the family, but for now, all Auntie Mary could do was bake. “Does she know about the . . .” The expression on Allie’s face cut off potential teasing before it reached Charlie’s mouth. “. . . new pregnancy.”
“No. I wanted to tell you first.”
That wasn’t it. Or that wasn’t all of it, at least. Allie’s pique drowned out the rest of the reason. It was, Charlie acknowledged, impressively loud pique.
“But you hung up on me.”
The lights flickered.
“Is that the twins?” Katie jumped to her feet, head cocked toward the smaller bedroom and the sound of silence from two peacefully sleeping babies. “I should check on them.”
Graham shot her a look as he stood, suggesting that, as they were his peacefully sleeping babies, he should have dibs on using them as an excuse to flee. “I think I . . . I left my laptop in the store. I’ll just go down and check.”
Later, Charlie had every intention of calling them both out on their cowardice. Right now, she let them run—exchanging a quick kiss with Graham as he passed her on his way to the door. When it was just the two of them, she crossed to sit beside Allie on the sofa, sliding into Katie’s spot because Graham’s wasn’t hers to take.
Half-dismantled wooden train tracks made a figure eight between the overstuffed sofas. Plush animals had been piled high on one of the two matching chairs, folded laundry on the other. Four loaves of zucchini bread cooled on a rack on the kitchen counter and a pile of zucchini still to be dealt with had been stacked on the enormous dining room table. Kitchen, living room, dining room, all one big room with nowhere to hide. Although, in fairness, if Allie were really angry, there was nowhere in Calgary to hide.
Bare feet on the edge of the coffee table, Allie grabbed a throw cushion and clutched it to her stomach. “I’m not mad,” she said, fingers picking at a bit of scorched fabric.
“You threw a piece of apple pie at my head. Sorry, two pieces.”
“I’m not mad anymore.” She flicked a bit of charred fluff out from under her fingernails. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want an explanation.”
“For?”
“Hanging up. Blowing me off to go to a bar. For not being there when I needed you.”
“Allie . . .”
“A better explanation than I’m Wild, Charlie, because that’s not an explanation, that’s an excuse!”
She hadn’t been ready to come home. She hadn’t wanted Allie to talk her into it. If she was to go home, she’d go because it was her choice because she was Wild, damn it. And yes, she had other reasons, but they were her reasons and none of Allie’s business.
Charlie searched for an explanation Allie would accept and found, “I had to banish a shadow from a cemetery.”
Gray eyes narrowed. Well, technically gray eye because Charlie was looking at Allie’s profile, but she assumed they still worked as a pair. “You were already on your way home, then. Go back to hanging up on me and try again.”
“There was bouzouki music.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It’s like a mandolin on steroids.”
“What is?”
“A bouzouki.”
“I still don’t know what that means, but go on.”
Before Charlie could explain, or even work out what exactly the explanation was beyond I heard bouzouki music and I followed it, her phone rang.
“That’s a classic ring,” Allie pointed out as Charlie ran for the gig bag she’d hung by the door and rummaged in the outer pockets. “No appropriate, ironic, and/or sarcastic music?”
“About two weeks ago, every auntie switched to “We Are Family.” So when I hit my limit on Sister Sledge, I locked the classic ring in.”
“You can do that?”
“I was desperate.”
“How do you know which auntie it is?”
“Does it matter?” Charlie sighed. “Hel . . .”
“So you’re there,” Auntie Bea sniffed. Auntie Bea was the senior of the four aunties now living in Calgary. The aunties themselves would say they had no hierarchy, but then the aunties themselves said a lot of things the rest of the family couldn’t get away with. “Good.”
“Actually, I’m in Baltimore, Auntie Bea. It’s two-thirty in the morning, and you woke me out of a sound sleep.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Charlotte; you’re clearly in Calgary.”
“Because I answered the phone?”
“Because the stoplights are working again. As you seem to have returned from where the wild things are . . .”
Charlie buried a yawn in her forearm. Aunties being clever. Just what the world needed.
“. . . you could make an effort to think of someone other than yourself and be there for your cousin.”
“I am here for my cousin.”
“I was referring to emotional support, rather than the soothing balm of your mere presence.”
“I got that.”
“We offered our support, singly and collectively, but Alysha . . .”
Refused them entry to the apartment, Charlie figured, since none of them were there.
“. . . wanted you.”
“I know.”
Charlie could practically hear Auntie Bea forcing her teeth to unclench. “So what was the problem?”
“I’m not sure you actually want to know . . .”
“Charlotte, we’re her family. We want to help.”
“It’s a sex thing, Auntie Bea. It seems that while I was gone, Graham just couldn’t match my practiced ability at . . .” Charlie snickered as Auntie Bea hung up. Some aunties would have wanted the details. And then offered advice. The trick, as with most performances, was knowing the audience.
Allie snorted. “They can tell when you’re lying, you know.”
“Unless Graham got in some serious practicing while I was gone, it wasn’t a lie.”
“Wanting to talk to you about the pregnancy before I made it common knowledge does not make my emotional state your responsibility.”
After giving serious thought to throwing her phone out the window, Charlie tossed it on the coffee table and sat back down. “I know.”
“I’m fully capable of being responsible for myself, this branch of the family, two babies, these new babies, the last zucchini out of Auntie Carmen’s cold frame, and as much of Calgary as needs me at any given time.”
The pique shifted and Charlie almost heard . . . No. Gone again. “I know.”
“Stop saying that!” Allie took a deep breath and clutched the cushion a little tighter. “Okay, let’s go back to when you heard bouzouki music.”
“And I followed it.” She raised a hand before Allie could protest. “I’m not being facetious, Allie-cat. I was supposed to talk to that bouzouki player. I might not have known that for sure when I walked in, but it was hard to miss by the end of the evening.”
“Why?”
“No one called while I was with him.”
“Yes, that’s impressive, but I meant why were you supposed to talk to him?”
“He needed my help. Maybe even my blessing for the road.”
Allie shifted on the sofa, turning to stare at her for a long moment. “Your blessing?” she said at last. The lights flickered again.
“I’m not ruling out this being a setup for some shit still to come, but, yeah, my blessing. In a musical sense. And a couple of phone numbers.”
The noise Allie made in response was almost a growl. “He isn’t family, Charlie, I am, and I needed . . .”
“You wanted,” Charlie cut her off. “Not the same . . . Hang on.” Frowning, she teased out a piece of information that had nearly slipped by. “These new babies? Twins again? Boys?” she asked when Allie nodded.
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“Not something I’d make a mistake about.”
“Because Uncle Arthur is failing to hold just like Uncle Evan did, and when the center of the family is weak, more boys are born to raise the odds of one with strength enough for the job.” There’d been no Hunt called for over thirty years, but the aunties had called for two in the three years since Allie’d transplanted a new branch of the family to Calgary. Charlie swung her feet up onto the coffee table and slumped down against the sofa cushions. In a family that ran five to one, girls over boys, Allie and Graham’s twin sons were already proof of the shifting powers at the center of the family. A second set of twin boys? The aunties would be smug and Uncle Arthur would get at least a year’s reprieve. “Weren’t you going to wait until the boys were older?”
To her surprise, Allie laughed. “Remember back when Graham was an assassin for Jonathon Samuel Gale and he never missed? Well, we just found another way his seventh son of a seventh son thing manifests.”
“Through his dick?”
“Through not missing! Sperm. Egg. Bam. His dick is incidental. Not to me,” she added hurriedly while Charlie cursed that last beer and the two times zones between Baltimore and Calgary that slowed her response, because incidental dicks were comedy gold. “He’s a little freaked about it because he feels like he made some kind of unilateral decision even though I explained, again, the difference between using power—like a Gale—and controlling power—like a sorcerer—and I just talked him down from that, so please don’t tease him about it.”
