“Thank you.” Marcy smiled timidly, settling back.
Keith was content to sit and eat cake and watch Ludmilla handle getting Marcy to relax. She was a good hostess, and it wasn’t long before the girl was talking more freely, asking and answering questions as if she had known the old woman all her life. Keith already felt that way. He’d dropped by to see Ludmilla a few times since Hollow Tree got rolling.
Marcy obviously felt shy about discussing her new relationship, but Ludmilla drew her out naturally, reassuring her. She had stories to tell about Enoch as a child that made Keith gape in disbelief, comparing them to the taciturn adult he knew now. “He has always been most loyal and loving,” Ludmilla insisted. “I am the one he confides in. He comes to visit me frequently. He was so jealous when he saw you two out together. I worried he might do something bad. His feelings were most strong.”
“When was that?” Marcy asked.
“He visited me that one rainy day,” Ludmilla smiled, “when I had baked for them, and he came to bring my cakes and breads away. He wished to talk to me, the only person he knew apart from his family and people. About you, my dear. We talked so long he went home after dark.”
“Yeah,” said Keith, nodding. “That boy with the grocery bag a few weeks ago, after Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. When he made a face at me yesterday, I remembered where I had seen that expression before.”
Marcy smiled shyly. “I recognized him, but I didn’t know then why he was so angry. We’ve talked a lot over the last few days. I love hearing about how he grew up. He learned all sorts of skills—” Marcy took off the necklace she was wearing and showed it to Ludmilla. “See? The end beads stick together without a clasp. I don’t know if there’s magnets in it, or what?”
“Amazing,” Keith said, peering at the string of wooden beads between Ludmilla’s hands. He accepted it from her and played with the end beads, putting them together and drawing them apart. “It doesn’t have to be magnets. You know what’s it made of? Um, professional curiosity,” he said apologetically, noticing Marcy’s perturbed glare.
“If you must know, it’s applewood. He had to take care of his sister Maura when she was little while the village was being built. She and Holl were the first ones born after they got here. The bigger children had to keep the babies quiet until they sealed off that part of the basement.”
“This I know,” Ludmilla nodded, remembering, with a little smile on her lips.
“Boy, wait ’til I bring that one up to Holl,” Keith said, filing it for later teasing. “He thinks I make noise.”
“And he told me how his father came to be sort of the village headman,” Marcy went on, ignoring Keith. “Everyone respects his father. They’re all so opinionated, and they still listen to his decisions. Enoch wants to earn that kind of respect for himself.”
“Who’s his father?” asked Keith, trying to place an older Enoch.
“Didn’t you guess, Keith, even after telling me Mrs. Hempert’s story? I’m surprised. He’s the Master’s son.”
“It figures,” Keith groaned, striking the side of his head as realization dawned. “They’ve got a lot in common. Especially the temperaments.”
“But Enoch admires Keith a lot for being gutsy enough to confront him,” Marcy turned to Ludmilla, “and for not letting it get to him when Enoch was rude.”
“So,” Ludmilla twinkled, “I am sorry you are deprived of a girlfriend, but I am happy.”
“I’m happy about it, too.” Keith admitted. “Really.”
“And I am proud of you, too, Keith,” the old woman said, reaching forward to pat him on the arm. “You have done a great thing for my little ones. I am pleased.”
Keith beamed. “It’s nice to hear you say that. I need a reality check every so often.”
“In the light of my reality, you are deserving of appreciation.”
“Oh, Keith, you are a doll,” Marcy insisted, kissing him.
Keith glowed. “Just don’t do that in front of Enoch,” he told her. “He said he’d paste me one. He’s worse than Carl.”
O O O
“If you are yet admitting that you are talking to me,” Ludmilla told them as she escorted them to the door, “give my old friends my greetings.”
“Not yet,” Keith told her, bending down to kiss her lightly on the cheek. “But I will.”
O O O
In the dark of night, Keith pulled his ancient midnight blue Ford Mustang around to the side of Gillington Library, and waited anxiously as the little folk stole in and out of the wall, carrying newspaper-wrapped bundles piled high in their arms. He worried that passersby might hear them, but their footsteps made less noise than the fallen leaves whispering over the ground. A haze of snowflakes speckled the beam from the streetlight. The trunk was nearly filled to capacity when Holl signaled that the last of the cargo was inside, and Keith jumped quickly out and slammed it down. He kept an eye out for patrols. As the last of the elves disappeared back into their home, he flicked on the headlights, and idled quietly forward, his tires crunching gently on the freezing pavement. The security patrol passed by him, shining its search lamp into his window for the college sticker. Keith let out a long sigh of relief when it drove away from him.
He hurried back to the dormitory lots. The shipments to the local shops he intended to deliver in the morning before classes, and the others that had been promised to out of town shops for tomorrow he would drop off after lunch, before Sociology class in the library basement. Hollow Tree Industries was at last under way.
O O O
When Keith’s car had gone, a single figure slunk out of the bushes where it had been watching the whole operation, and tried to catch the sliding chunk of facade before it closed all the way. Under its clawing fingers, the masonry ground back into place, leaving no sign it had ever moved. Listening to make sure no one was approaching, the figure threw its shoulder against the block, but it held firm. It tried again. No movement. With a growl, the watcher pulled a pointed chisel out of a pocket, and began to pry at the stone block. The tool’s blade hopped out of the long groove and screeched across its stone face. With another glance around, the figure continued to scrape and dig with the chisel, attempting to force open the elves’ back door.
O O O
In the “Would You Believe” column in the holiday ad edition of the Midwestern gazette, a little girl was quoted as having seen one of Santa’s elves. “He smiled at me,” she said. “I been a good girl all year, and Santa knows.” The columnist didn’t appear to take her too seriously, but Catra did. She knew instantly what the source of the little girl’s apparition had been. When she brought it to the attention of the elders, they asked Enoch to be more circumspect on his outings to see Marcy.
“We still don’t know where the other articles are coming from,” Catra told him, “but this one we do. Stay low!”
Enoch agreed somewhat reluctantly to comply. “Perhaps I should have grown a mustache,” he said ruefully.
***
Chapter 22
Ms. Voordman recognized Keith right away when he called at her gift shop. “Hello, Hollow Tree,” she said, appraising the stacked packages in his arms. Her thin black eyebrows climbed halfway up her forehead. “Right this way. I’ll be in the office, Diane,” she called. “Watch the door.”
“Yes, Ms. Voordman,” came a voice from between the shelves near the front of the shop. Keith looked over that way. He couldn’t see anybody. Whoever had spoken must be on her knees. Or an elf. He grinned to himself as he followed the shop owner. The porcelain figures smiled blithely at him as he went by.
“Good,” Ms. Voordman said, gesturing to him to put down his packages. “Let’s see ’em.” She began to unwind newspaper and drop it on the floor.
When all of the bundles were unwrapped, she pounced on the lanterns, and held them up one at a time. “These three are mine,” she announced, separating her choices from the others. Keith couldn’t see that there was much to choose between, but
he did notice that wherever a section called for a piece of wood larger than five inches square, two or more smaller bits had been neatly joined together somehow.
All of the items had a semi-parquet appearance. He didn’t understand why the elves had made them that way, but the effect was kind of pretty. The ones Ms. Voordman had latched onto were the nicest. “I like the way the filigree pattern works with the various grains in the panel. Real artistry. I’ll see that the right people get a look at these, and I’ll talk to you about another order when I know how they sell. Ah!” she cried with a pleased expression, snatching up a couple of small items. “My cookie cutters!”
On his way out, Keith heard the bump and scrape of items being set on the metal shelves, and craned his neck around the corner to see who was doing the stocking. A slender girl blinked up at him from her seat on the floor, flipping back fine blond locks of shoulder-length hair. She wouldn’t quite have qualified for Aristotle’s Ideal of Beauty, but she was beautiful. The bright blue-green eyes and well-molded cheekbones of her triangular face were appealing and attractive. Keith blinked stupidly, trying to find his tongue, and finally stammered out, “Hello.”
Her lips curved up at the corners. “Hi.” The dustcloth she held in one hand dropped softly to the floor.
“New here?” Keith couldn’t believe how much trouble he was having speaking.
“Oh, no,” she said. “I’ve been working here all semester. I think I know you from somewhere.”
Keith gave up trying to find his tongue and whipped one of his new business cards from his wallet instead.
“Yes,” the girl nodded, reading the card. “Wooden handcrafts. Keith Doyle. Ms. Voordman mentioned you.” She smiled at him and handed the card back. She had a delightful smile. He liked the way she said his name. They looked at each other, waiting for the other to break the silence.
“Well,” Keith swallowed. “I’ll see you.” He started for the door.
“My name’s Diane,” the girl called out. Keith looked back at her, but didn’t halt his forward momentum, and he and the door met with a bang. He staggered back, looking surprised. The bell jingled indignantly, and Diane laughed out loud.
“Nice to meet you,” Keith said, gathering himself together, and pulled the door open. “Can’t think what that door was doing there.” Still grinning, Diane waggled her fingers at him and bent her head to her work. He made it out the door this time, feeling a deep exhilaration.
He had a bounce in his step the rest of the day. His awareness that his car was badly in need of a tune-up brought no more than a resigned, “Oh, well.” The steadily worsening weather affected him not at all. There was no good reason for his high mood. There had been no declaration of undying love between them, no vows of friendship … not even a promise to have lunch together, and yet he knew that he had just met someone wonderful, and he wanted to see more of her.
O O O
In Sociology class, Carl found that he was being entirely isolated. That weirdo Doyle was back and he was deep in conversation with Holl. The two of them were excitedly pushing pieces of paper back and forth between them. Wasn’t one of those the elf gave Doyle a check? Where would he get a check? There was something strange going on here, and he couldn’t hear well enough to tell what it was.
Goodman and Eisley were into another debate about politics. Teri and those elf girls were giggling about something while waiting for class to start. He noticed that the little ones were starting to dress differently than before. Their new clothes more resembled the kind of thing he was used to seeing outside. More changes had taken place over the last few weeks than in the whole year and a half he had been coming down here. Marcy seemed more odd than ever. She had given up her seat next to him in favor of one beside the black-haired boy. Their heads were close together, and Marcy was gazing at the kid with a sort of hero worship in her eyes. If there were no other explanation for it, he’d say that they were … involved. Child molesting. That was too sick for Carl to contemplate. He turned away from them. But now he was facing Keith again. With a growl, he stared down at his books.
He was frustrated. There wasn’t any facet of his life which hadn’t been polluted by Keith Doyle. The dorm, Student Senate—even though Doyle had conceded the victory on the library, it still showed Carl that Doyle could ruin anything he wanted to, and there wasn’t anything he could do to stop him—and Marcy. He wasn’t sure how Doyle was involved in making him lose his girlfriend, but he was positive there was a connection. Pat Morgan felt the nerd was harmless, but Carl could have given him plenty of examples of his potential for destruction.
And now the little people were doing something mysterious, and his rival was a part of it. He had seen them together twice now, late at night. How they could trust him, Carl couldn’t understand. He was making money off of them, if that was really a check he had just seen. He almost voiced his question, but the only person in the room not engaged in another conversation was Marm, and he had been ignoring Carl firmly for the last four weeks after their argument. Instead, the bearded elf sat with his nose deep in a textbook, making notes on a scrap of paper. Final exams were only a few weeks away, and the Master liked to keep his class ahead of the University schedule.
O O O
Lee Eisley looked around him with suspicion. He watched the little ones hungrily, feeling even more than before that they might vanish before his eyes. When he heard Teri inviting Maura and the others to get together with her outside of class, he started violently. If they left the library, they would disappear, and he would never see them again. He felt almost proprietary toward them, and he resented Keith for his easy familiarity, since it was difficult for Lee to conceive of making them his friends. He still hadn’t forgiven Keith for the Student Senate debacle. It was working his way through the back of his mind that he might do something about the worry that Keith caused him.
O O O
Holl stopped Keith in the middle of his fourteenth description of Diane and asked, “What am I supposed to do with all the papers you handed me last night?”
Keith, unaware of the ire simmering about him, snapped out of his reverie and got back to business. “As treasurer of Hollow Tree Industries, you need to fill those out so we can send them in. The IRS requires that we have an Employer I.D. number. And we’ll need a resale number, too.”
“But these are corporation forms, slow child. I read all those booklets from the Small Business Administration. We decided that it would be a better plan to make you a sole proprietorship, in case you don’t remember my mentioning it. We cannot be employees since we do not have social security numbers or verifiable addresses.”
“Oh, yeah,” Keith said, hitting himself in the side of the head. “I’ve got things on my mind.”
“You’ve mentioned her.”
Keith grinned. “Well, I’ll get the right forms. Sorry. Thanks for the check, by the way. It takes a big bite out of the advance money, but I really do need it.” Keith patted his breast pocket happily. “Is there anything else you need? All tax deductible as business expenses. More tape? Sharpening stones? Glue?”
“Wood,” said Holl promptly. “We need wood.”
***
Chapter 23
Saturday morning, Keith drove his car to the rear of Gillington Library, reached behind him to undo the lock, and kept lookout until the rear door opened and slammed shut and the car sagged slightly on its elderly springs. He had company. “Stay down until I’m off campus,” he commanded.
“Just as you say,” came a muffled voice from behind him.
When he was well out of Midwestern’s environs, he called, “Okay.” Two faces popped up from under the tarpaulin in his rearview mirror: Holl’s and Enoch’s.
“Hi, Enoch,” Keith said, surprised. “I was only expecting Holl. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“He’s the hardwoods expert,” Holl explained. “So long as we were shopping, I brought him along. I didn’t think you’d mind.”
�
�Not at all,” Keith assured him mildly. “Strap in, okay? This state has a seat belt law.”
He drove along the narrow country roads as Holl explained the object of their quest. “We’ve used firewood, old furniture the University has discarded, scraps of lumber from the woodshop, but at last we’ve run out of stock, and there’re orders yet to fulfill. There isn’t time to cure cut wood, though we have some aging. We’re about out of anything larger than sawdust.” His voice died away as his head turned from side to side, catching all he could of the scenery. Keith didn’t think he had blinked since they left.
“I noticed,” Keith said, remembering the patchwork lanterns. “Although I wasn’t sure you weren’t making things that way on purpose. They looked pretty.”
“There’s far more work in little bits,” Enoch said.
“True. Wood’s the one thing you can’t do without in a woodcraft business,” Keith acknowledged.
“Yer a master of the obvious,” the black-haired elf complained.
“Yup. We needed a real source anyway. What we want is a lumberyard that sells cheap, or one who won’t mind selling to us wholesale. What kinds of woods are you interested in? Enoch? Hey!” He shouted to gain the black-haired elf’s attention. Enoch was staring out the window with a look of concentration. “Is something the matter?”
“First time in an automobile,” Enoch said hoarsely, watching the telephone poles flick by with alarming speed. His hand clutched the arm rest tightly.
“Mine, too,” put in Holl, though he didn’t look nervous, only excited. He watched a field full of seated cows go by, his eyes as round as theirs.
“Does it bother you?” Keith asked, concerned.
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