Tooth and Nail

by Jennifer Safrey

  I had a flash of the warrior I’d seen, the warrior I’d been for a frightening few moments—in the internment camp. He’d done this duty. He’d died for this duty.

  To do less would dishonor what I was.

  The sugary, cavity-inducing scent was fierce in here, beckoning me closer to his sleepy head, closer to his pillow.

  I cracked the door open just a little bit wider and edged inside. I moved closer, closer, and tripped over a toy truck in the center of the room. Catching myself before I collapsed on top of bed and kid, I froze again as the truck rolled into a corner. I waited for the rustle of someone waking up and deciding to investigate, but somehow I remained the lone conscious person in the apartment. When I was arm-distance from the bed, I reached across the space and slid my hand under the pillow.

  And closed my fingers around the tooth.

  Instantly wrapped in a thin, lacy blanket of peace, I fell into the rainbow void. Emotion surged through me and I swayed on my feet as a single voice, made up of millions, sang a tuneless melody meant just for me, made up of my own shimmering soul. I smiled through the light that surrounded me, the white purity that I never wanted to leave. We all come from here. It’s not gone…

  I slowly came back and realized I was on my knees on the ropey rug. Standing, I looked again at the boy in the bed, and gratitude overwhelmed me, almost sending me to my knees again. “Thank you,” I whispered. This child, all these children, had no idea of the gift they gave us, but one day we’d repay them with our gift, the one we spent so long re-creating.

  I didn’t have a decoy to leave, since I hadn’t gotten my fake-tooth kit yet, but I was less than concerned. His parents would assume the tooth dropped onto the floor and rolled somewhere, and wouldn’t worry about it when they went to exchange it for money. In fact, since the tooth was still here and the parents were already asleep, this one might have been yanked out by its owner and pushed under the pillow without parental notification. In which case, a little someone was going to be disappointed in the morning. I considered leaving him a few bills but being childfree myself, I had no idea of the going rate.

  I stuffed the tooth in my pants pocket, then crept back into the hall and turned the bedroom doorknob until it caught. I did it, I thought. I’m almost out. I can’t believe I pulled this off. My pride swelled from the inside out.

  When I reached the kitchen, moving from thick shag carpet to tile floor, I heard distinct footsteps on the tile behind me.

  My heart jumped into my throat. Oh, shit.

  Wait! My mind screamed. Breathe! But as I whirled around, my body’s instincts won the battle for supremacy and I had a flash of unbearable pain before my wings crashed out, noiseless but heavy.

  I closed my eyes a moment, trying to keep my balance and, at the same time, hold on to the certain last moment of my normal life before I was discovered as a freak show.

  When I opened my eyes, there was no one. But when I looked down, there was a little girl—and I mean little, three years old, tops—clutching a battered stuffed Piglet in both hands.

  I kept my intention going. It hummed through all the cells in my body and I knew it was working and that I should be formless and blinking. But as this tiny girl stood there calmly returning my gaze with serious brown eyes, I realized she could see me.

  She was still innocent enough to see me.

  I struggled to recall whether the manual mentioned what to do in this kind of Grinch-meets-Cindy-Lou-Who situation, but obviously I’d skipped that chapter. Her blond hair hung around her adorable face in rumpled ringlets. Her yellow ruffled nightgown fell to the floor, hiding her toes.

  Somehow, she seemed to understand this was a moment meant only for the two of us. To her, it made complete sense that I should be standing in her kitchen in the middle of the night. She was unsurprised, and pleased. She smiled at me. Uncertain, I smiled back.

  “You should be in bed,” I whispered.

  “I heard you in Mike’s room.” Her whisper was more exaggerated. She understood this was a game and she was eager to play. “You’re the tooth faerie.”

  I slipped my hand into my pocket and grasped Mike’s tooth. I held it out for Cindy Lou to see. “I need to take this back to”—uh—“back to my castle.”

  “I know,” she said. “Want to play Barbie with me?”

  “I’m sorry, honey,” I said, “but I have to go home. And it’s time for you to go back to bed. This is just a dream.”

  She giggled. “No, it’s not.”

  So much for trying to outsmart her. “This is our secret, okay?”

  “Okay.” She smiled again. I knew full well she’d tell her parents she saw the tooth faerie, but I also knew full well they’d tell her to stop making up silly stories. She was a tiny little thing with an incomplete memory system. She would forget all about me.

  As I repocketed the tooth, Cindy Lou stretched out her arms. I knelt down and let her hug me. Calm washed over me, and my wings retracted. The skin on my back sealed over. I wrapped my arms around her, emotion swirling in my throat and chest.

  “I’m Juliette,” she said sleepily into my ear.

  “Juliette,” I said, “when you get bigger, and your first tooth falls out, I’ll come back to visit you.”

  “Okay,” she said. We let go of each other, and I turned her around and patted her on the behind. She trotted back down the hall, turning once to wave at me.

  I waited until she disappeared into her little room at the very end of the hallway, then untied my hoodie and tugged it on to cover my now-backless T-shirt. I backed out of the apartment, ran down the hall, slammed down nine flights of stairs and scooted out of the lobby without a glance at the security guard.

  My bike was where I’d left it, leaning outside the lobby door. I yanked it upright and straddled it, walking it awkwardly toward the street, then slid my hand in my pocket and drew out the tooth. I held it in the middle of my palm, breathing the sweet essence in for just one moment more before my job was complete.

  The sound of a throat clearing spooked me, and I dropped the tooth. It landed next to my sneaker, and I snatched it up. When it was safely in my pocket, I looked up.

  I found myself in front of one of the property’s round fountains, but in the dark, I hadn’t seen the man until now.

  He held a cigarette and didn’t appear to be waiting for anyone or anything. He was just passing time, blowing smoke—smoke that my nose hadn’t detected around the tooth’s overwhelming sweetness. He looked me up and down—not lecherous, merely observing. He wore black-rimmed glasses balanced on a small nose, and a faded Pac-Man T-shirt which had seen better decades. One of his sneakers was untied. He was young, late twenties, tops. Headphones snaked up to his ears from an mp3 player attached to his belt loop. He was just anyone.

  But something about him turned my senses on high alert—something about the way his gaze seemed to record my features for later use. His half-smile was untrustworthy.

  I acknowledged him with a nod, because not to would imply some kind of guilt.

  “Late night at the Watergate,” he said. “We can’t be up to any good, eh?”

  I stopped my bike and looked him square in the eye. “Guess you can only speak for yourself.”

  He took a long, leisurely drag, and turned his head to blow out. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

  “Deal,” I replied, then pushed off. If he said anything further, the sudden rush of wind in my ears drowned it out.

  CHAPTER 10

  Avery was buried under the covers in deep slumber when I’d left. Good thing I hadn’t tried to intend my fae butt through this door, because now Avery was awake. Awake and sitting at the kitchen table, phone pressed to his ear, his forehead cradled in his hand.

  The note I’d left for him was there on the table—“Couldn’t sleep, went for a bike ride”—so I figured the distress on his face hadn’t been caused by my unexpected disappearance. I listened to just enough of his conversation to gather he was speaking
with one of his campaign aides, so I slipped back into the bedroom to allow him privacy. My sweats were comfortable enough to sleep in, but I didn’t want to wear them anymore, so I tossed them into the corner and pulled on a white tank top and striped cotton lounge pants. The blankets were rumpled where Avery had no doubt jumped up and sprinted for his phone, and when I slipped into the space he’d vacated, I found the sheets had completely cooled. He’d been on the phone for some time.

  I didn’t want to even think about my activities of the past hour, insanely paranoid that somehow my secret excursion would show on my face, but I couldn’t help it. I was psyched that it was now mission accomplished. After I’d left Watergate, I’d followed the directions on my Fae Phone to a drop box hidden in the side wall of a small hair salon on 24th Street. I’d unfolded the perforated envelope I’d torn out of the manual, sealed the tooth inside, and dropped it in like it was going back to Netflix. In fact, it would be picked up and sent to Headquarters for identification and testing. I’d seen the fae in the Root packing up the little teeth, and they’d ship this one and others to one of several shrines around the world, where it would be stored under controlled conditions.

  Every tooth counted toward the dream, and I had done my part tonight.

  It hadn’t been easy, by any means. But it hadn’t been impossible. And next time I would do it better. I vowed to read the manual tomorrow. Cover to cover.

  If I’d survived tonight with zero training, I could only imagine it would get easier from here. I would study like crazy. I would be a tooth fae ninja. Get in, get the tooth, get out. And as long as Avery didn’t doubt my perpetual insomnia, I could do this.

  Avery came into the bedroom and tossed the phone on the dresser. A few papers slid in its wake and landed on the floor. I tended to deposit anything without a home onto the dresser, and it was covered with junk mail, matchless socks and ponytail holders. He covered his face with both hands and rubbed.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “I had to fire Tim.”

  “Tim … “

  “One of my researchers.”

  “Oh, right. Why?”

  He shook his head, his mouth hanging open. “He was at a Waterfront bar some night last week, telling everyone who would listen that I was a terrible candidate. He went on about my lack of experience, and said he couldn’t stand to work for me but he was waiting it out until another opportunity came along.”

  I was surprised, to say the least. “Probably just some drunken ramblings of an idiot who’d had a bad day.”

  “Well, he rambled to the wrong person, and the D.C. Digger broke it on his blog a couple of hours ago.”

  I knew the D.C. Digger. Well, not personally. His identity had been guessed at, maybe correctly, but never confirmed. The notorious political blogger had a knack for finding out little ugly things and getting them out there in the public. He had yet to break anything major, but no doubt he someday would. And tonight, it seemed he had his sights trained on Avery.

  Avery sat on the edge of the bed, his back to me, staring out the window. Although all he probably could see was the reflection of me in the bed, staring at his back.

  “So you fired Tim. You did the right thing,” I told him.

  “Of course I did the right thing, Gemma,” he said sharply. “I know that, and you know that, but the press doesn’t know that. When they pick up this story, all they’ll care about is one of my aides was disloyal. I bet they won’t even print his name. It will just be ‘Avery McCormack’s aide.’”

  “Former aide,” I said, “as of now. When did you find out about this?”

  “Half-hour ago.”

  “You fired him as soon as you found out. That’s your answer if the press gives you a hard time, and I don’t think they will. You had no idea that he felt the way he did.”

  “But it was my judgment to bring him on to my team.”

  “And it was your judgment to can him.”

  “You don’t get it,” he said, but his voice had lost the edge. “My judgment is my best thing going, and now one of the people I brought close to me just stabbed me in the back.”

  I swallowed hard. “You haven’t come so far in politics and law by being naïve. Don’t start doubting your own judgment because of the people around you.”

  He raked his fingers through his hair. “But it’s the people around me that I need to trust.”

  I fell against the headboard and turned my gaze to the ceiling. I couldn’t look at his vulnerable back. Guilt wrapped itself around my midsection and squeezed tight.

  “Come over here,” I said.

  He crawled up to the pillows and I switched off the bedside lamp. He turned on his side and I wrapped my arms around him, tucking my knees into the crooks of his. I pressed against his back, trying to warm it, protect it.

  We stayed that way, quiet but awake, for a while. Eventually I said, “We met two years ago, almost exactly.”

  He shifted. “You’re right.”

  “You were taking pictures of the cherry blossoms,” I recalled.

  “And you rode by on your bike, right through my picture.”

  “I apologized.”

  “You did. But then you asked me if I was a tourist, and I said no, that I was just a local hobbyist photographer. And you said…”

  “I said, ‘Cherry blossoms. Why are you taking pictures of something so touristy and completely unoriginal? They’re beautiful but you see them every year. How can any one be special and unique?’”

  “And I said, ‘Well, I see a lot of beautiful blondes too. How can any one be special and unique?’”

  “And I said …”

  “You said nothing,” Avery said. “I shut your belligerence right down. There was no possible reply to my flawless logic.”

  I looked over his shoulder. My eyes had adjusted enough in the dark to see the vertical line of small framed cherry blossom photos beside the window.

  “Why did you talk to me that day?” Avery asked. “Why didn’t you ride on by?”

  I ran my hand down his arm. “I don’t know. I saw the way you looked at those flowers. Maybe I wanted to see how it felt to have someone—you—look at me like that.”

  “I look at you like that every day. Sometimes when you don’t even notice.” He lifted my hand and kissed my palm. “When did you go out?”

  “Probably right before your phone call.”

  “You couldn’t sleep? Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I love you, Gemma,” he whispered. “I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “The stress, it’s really getting to me.”

  “I know. But it’ll be okay, really. You’re doing great.”

  “I’m doing great with you,” he said. “This moment—us, right here—no matter what else happens, this is what I can trust.”

  He inhaled deeply, and when he breathed out, I felt his body relax against my newly stiffened one.

  “Try to get some sleep,” he whispered.

  No chance of that.

  >=<

  When I walked into The Root Center, each pair of eyes landed on me. I was still a celebrity sighting, and it still made me very, very uncomfortable. “Archives?” I asked the nearest fae young man.

  “It’s upstairs, then the end of the hall,” he said. “Would you like me to bring you there?”

  “No,” I said, happy for the chance for some solo exploring in a headquarters of my heritage. “Just point the way.”

  He nodded at a side door and I jogged up the steps.

  A little ways down, I came to a windowed door and I peeked in. Children, lots of them. Fae children listening to a teacher, watching maps slide across a holographic screen like the ones in The Root. They scribbled in notebooks and, I was amused to notice, surreptitiously passed notes and chewed gum. Fae or human, kids were kids.

  A little boy in the front row glanced up at me and I was reluctant to wave and disrupt
the lesson, but there was no need. His eyes widened in recognition, but then he dropped his gaze, only to peek back at me with a sly smile. I returned it. I’d be his secret today.

  I backed away from the door and moved on.

  Near the end of the hallway, I found a black door which I might have ignored, but I was intrigued by the white flickering light that slid out the gaps under and around the door. I pushed it open and stumbled into blackness.

  Blackness for just a moment before bright light burst to life—below me.

  I was in a projection room, with a man beside me manipulating a control board. “Hi, Gemma,” he said, and again I had that strange sensation of unwanted celebrity, but I was grateful his greeting wasn’t accompanied by an amazed stare. He was too busy.

  I went to the glassed-in window and looked down at one woman seated cross-legged on the floor in a planetarium-like room. All around her and above her was a rainforest—large, wet, green leaves close enough to brush from her face; gentle raindrops soft enough to cover her shoulders in a mist; airy cries of exotic birds behind the music of a breathy flute. I saw her seeing it—and hearing it and breathing it like it was real. The lush splendor would have been real to me too, I knew, if I were in her place and not where I was, looking down at her like God.

  Slowly, so slowly, the image faded and changed. The blue-green wet sky dried out to a sandy red, and the fresh trees dissolved into heated dirt. I resisted the urge to wipe grit from my eyes before I turned and asked the projectionist, “What is this?”

  “The Morning Shrines,” he said, then clarified, “our sacred places.”

  “Sacred places?”

  “Where our artifacts are stored,” he said reverently. “Our remains of history. And our storing place.”

  He didn’t have to clarify that. The storing place for all those teeth, all that innocence.

  “The old holds onto the new,” he added.

  “Where?” I asked. “Where are these places?”

  “One on each continent.”

  I raised a brow. “The one on this continent…?”

  “Sedona. Would you like to go?”

  “Yes. But I can’t. Serious business here.”