FSF Magazine, August 2007

by Spilogale Authors

"Ah, my lady is as wise as she is ... interesting looking,” Bixby said. “In days of yore, in the Old Country, the family Tiernan ran an inn out of their own home, as was the custom. They were good folk, and wise as well in the ways of the Little People. They knew enough to court our favor with a saucer of milk on the doorstep and the occasional barrel of beer set out on Midsummer's Eve.

  "But times do change, if loyalties do not, and when the last of the Tiernan deserted the Old Country for these shores, swearing to open an inn in the New World, we could not bear to be parted from him."

  "More like you couldn't bear to be parted from the free beer,” Bella remarked.

  Bixby shrugged shoulders as curved as the side of an earthenware pot. “If only our bond to the Tiernan had been limited to beer! But once in this land, the world turned upside-down. One night, a mere two hundred years ago, our master was moved to sit upon his doorsill with a cup of the sacred brew in his hands. In an absent-minded moment, he left it there when he went in to bed, and there, alas, we found it.” Bixby sighed.

  "Wait a minute,” Bella held up one finger. “Are you telling me that you got hooked on coffee after one cup?"

  "One sip,” Bixby corrected her. “I was not the only one to whom our master owed the bond of nightly tribute. We all of us partook, and so became enslaved to the sacred brew."

  "All? How many of you little buggers are there?” Bella asked. Bixby said a number. “That many? Jesus."

  "Of course I am counting the staff in all the hotels in the Tiernan Group chain,” the brownie clarified. “For in time, our master's business thrived, growing from a simple wayside inn to a lodging empire."

  "All for the price of a cup of coffee per worker per day?"

  "Well, we prefer cinnamon lattés. And a nice piece of cherry danish now and then never killed anyone, but the sacred brew is enough to retain our services."

  "Now that's what I call getting value for money.” Bella glowered at the brownie. “You'd think those Tiernan Group greedheads would pass the savings on to the guest, or at least not make such a stink when a poor, hard-working woman takes one or two insignificant little items from one of these overpriced broom closets."

  "As milady says.” Bixby fell naturally into his the-provider-of-the-caffeine-is-always-right mindset with his new mistress. “Shame to the Tiernan! Hail to the Franklin!” He leaped to his feet and swept Bella's bulging suitcase onto his shoulder as if it weighed no more than a used tea bag. “Shall we go?"

  "Not so fast,” Bella said. “I've got to get dressed first. And pay that miserably inflated bill.” She gave him a cunning look. “I don't suppose you can make it go bye-bye?"

  Bixby hung his head. “Alas, the workings within these walls are no longer within the scope of my powers to affect."

  "Damn. Well, tell you what: You go let your boss know that you're working for me now while I get dressed, pay the bill, and—"

  "There will be no need for me to give notice, milady,” Bixby said. He twitched, and his otherworldly appearance was once again swallowed up by the rather unglamorous glamour of his chosen human form. “I assure you, that as a humble brownie, no one will miss me at all."

  * * * *

  Though Bella Franklin possessed the piranha-like ability to strip a hotel room to the bones while simultaneously justifying the garnered loot as “Just getting my money's worth,” her own apartment suffered for want of similar minimalizing treatment. It was an Aladdin's cave of clutter, showcasing some of Bella's prouder trophies from previous Speranza Storm conventions. Notepads, pens, coffee mugs, and assorted décor accessories including that endangered species, the ashtray, littered all available surfaces. Plates, cutlery, and mini-ketchups from ransacked room service trays crammed the kitchen. Home goods liberally decked with the logos of every major lodging chain in the United States were everywhere.

  All of that changed once Bixby arrived. The first thing he did was to shed his human glamour. The second was to junk all hotel-plundered toiletries whose seniority had become gloppy senility. The third was to do a spot of Dumpster-diving to retrieve what he'd trashed after Bella yowled that he was trying to reduce her to penury by throwing away decade-old shampoo. The fourth was to stow the remaining clutter, then give the entire establishment a thorough scrub-up, from floorboards to soffits. All this took a week. It would have taken longer if he'd been allowed any downtime, but Bella was adamant about getting the full value of his indentured services. She did not permit the harried brownie one moment's rest, save the unavoidable necessity of letting him observe the Holy Hour (or, as mere mortal unbelievers would term it, a daily coffee break). He told her early on that without it, he would die.

  "Well, we can't have that,” said Bella. “I've hardly begun to get my money's worth out of you."

  "Milady is too kind,” said Bixby.

  On the seventh day, when the brownie looked ready to drop from exhaustion, his new mistress commanded him to change his glamour to her specifications, just for giggles. Soon Bixby stood transformed into a poi-and-passion Romance hero, bronzed body glistening with coconut oil, blue-black hair streaming past his waist, skimpy sarong holding on by a literal thread, and one hibiscus blossom for garnish. Bella was still licking her lips in approval when there came a knock on the door.

  "That had better not be old Mrs. Kenmore from across the hall,” she muttered. She opened the door with a loud, “No, you cannot borrow a cup of sugar!” but instead of finding that aged pest dithering on the doormat, she confronted a quartet of uninvited callers.

  Radiating suspicion, Bella frowned at the two women in their cheap cotton dresses, the two men in their white, short-sleeved shirts and plain black trousers. “What do you want?” she demanded.

  "Bixby, ma'am.” The reply came in four-part harmony, as if it were the most natural request in the world.

  "Bix—I don't know what you're talking about,” Bella said quickly.

  "The hell you don't!” the smaller woman snapped.

  "Selina, such language!” The other female clapped her hands to her ears.

  "Ahhh, get over it, Mel,” Selina replied. “We didn't come here to play pattycake with this brownie-stealing bimbo.” She scowled at Bella. “We watched the hotel surveillance tapes so we know he left with you. Cough ‘im up, Toots!"

  "Sorry, not interested, got all the crazy I need, ‘bye now.” Bella shut the door swiftly, only to be thwarted by a size 14-EEEE foot wedged between the panel and the jamb. Naturally enough, it belonged to the bigger of the two men. She gave him an icy look. “All right, what are you?"

  The shorter man stepped forward. “Good day to you, ma'am. My name is Berry, and these are my friends and associates, Tom, Selina, and Melusine."

  "I didn't ask who you were,” Bella replied tartly. “I asked what. I know all about the special staffing arrangements at Tiernan House hotels."

  "Do you, now.” Berry's pleasant smile turned sour. “Ma'am, we'd be happy to remove our glamours. We're not ashamed of our natural forms. However, your neighbors might not react well to seeing us as we are. May we come in? Merely to talk, I assure you. We'll do you no harm. You have my oath as an engineer.” Berry snapped his fingers and an ancient slide-rule appeared in his hand. He kissed it reverently before banishing it to realms invisible.

  "Just a second.” Bella ducked back inside her apartment for a moment. “Swear on this and I'll believe you.” She held out a small electric coffee bean grinder.

  The four exchanged a look of wide-eyed apprehension. In a faltering voice, Melusine asked, “How did you know about the blesséd—the blesséd—?"

  "The blesséd Mill?” Bella chuckled. “I'm a fast learner and Bixby's a good teacher. Swear on it, or stay in the hall."

  The larger man scowled. “Can't say as I favor yer attitude,” he said. “Like my old Dad used to say t’ me, he'd say, ‘Tom, seeing as how we're trolls, Bad Attitude's kinda Standard Optivating Proceed-thingie for us. But that's no reason you got to take it from a dab o’ mortal meat you can
smash into paste ‘thout a second thought, mostly cause us trolls got enough trouble layin’ hands on a first thought.’ Good ol’ Dad!"

  With that, Tom dropped the glamour upon him and stood revealed in all his monstrous glory. His street clothes vanished. Every hulking muscle, wart, and tusk, every talon and square inch of skin the color of a lichen-crusted boulder, all blossomed on Bella Franklin's doorstep, topped by a spiffy blue cap embroidered with the words hotel security. A monumental roar broke from his leathery lips. It shook the floor, curled and crispy-fried the edges of the cheap hallway carpeting, and brought down a shower of plaster from the ceiling.

  It also fetched Mrs. Kenmore from across the hall. The old lady took one look at Tom in his natural state, squealed like a mouse in a hamburger press, and slammed the door hard enough to cause a second blizzard of plaster flakes.

  Bella clucked her tongue. “Now look what you did.” Unfazed by the troll, she turned her head and called over one shoulder: “Hey, Bixby! I've got another job for you."

  The sarong-clad brownie appeared at Bella's side before the last word left her lips. He dragged himself past the four visitors without so much as a nod to any of them, including the fully manifested troll, and set his hand-held vacuum cleaner to work on the fallen plaster.

  "Bixby!” Berry exclaimed over the roar of the motor. “Don't you know us?"

  Bixby snapped off the vacuum and turned his head slowly. “Of course I do. Very kind of you to come seeking me, my dear comrades, but I'm afraid it's no use. She's laid the bond of bean and brew upon me. I am hers.” He finished the job and mumbled a feeble “Aloha,” as he shuffled back into the apartment. The four visitors watched his broken-spirited retreat with grave dismay. Tom the troll sniffled mightily as tears of sympathy streamed down his craggy cheeks, and he blew his nose in his Hotel Security guard cap.

  "Let'm go!” he cried, shaking one boulder of a fist under Bella's nose. “Let'm go now, or else I'll—I'll—I'll pop you a good ‘un!"

  Bella grinned. “What, not grind my bones to make your bread? As if you could do either! Save your threats, lummox. I've only been toying with you. I know you needn't swear an oath on this thing—” she waggled the coffee grinder in the troll's face. “—to ensure my safety. The holy rule of hospitality forbids a host from ever doing harm to his guest. Well, I was a guest of House Tiernan—at obscenely high prices, might I add—and since I paid my hotel bill in full, none of you can lay one grubby finger on me."

  Berry sighed. “More of Bixby's teachings, ma'am?"

  "Exactly. So, now that we all know where we stand—” She stepped farther back into the apartment and made a highly sarcastic bow. “—care to come in?"

  The four trooped into Bella's apartment in hangdog single file. Tom remained trollish, and the rest cast away their mortal glamours at the threshold, like so many overcoats. Berry the self-confessed engineer shrank by about a foot, becoming a burly dwarf, though dressed more in keeping with the boardroom than the whole woodland cottage/underground kingdom/dig-dig-dig-heigh-ho hoo-hah. Only a mustard yellow pocket protector took his ensemble from chic to geek. He clambered onto Bella's sofa with some effort, sparing Tom a cautionary word not to sit on anything, lest it be smashed to tinder.

  Sharp-tongued Selina shrank even more than Berry, down to the size of a sparrow. She buzzed under Bella's nose on lacy pink wings and left a sparkling contrail in her wake. Bella licked her lips and tasted confectioner's sugar, which made sense in view of the pixie's minuscule chef's tunic and toque blanche. Selina alit on the lip of a garishly painted vase, booty from Bella's one hotel stay south of the border, and idly twiddled a needle-sized wooden spoon.

  As for Melusine, her dowdy dress became a clean, utilitarian pair of overalls girdled by a well-appointed tool belt. She patted one of the wrenches fondly with a webbed hand the color of ripe honeydew melon.

  Bella's gimlet eyes zeroed in on the rosy frill of external gills framing Melusine's serene face. “Hey, little mermaid, where's your fishtail?"

  Melusine blushed pale mint. “Oh, I'm no mermaid, ma'am. I tend to the Hotel Tiernan's plumbing, and I couldn't do that from a fish tank. I'm an ondine.” Bella gave her a blank stare, so she added, “A water-sprite.” This only evoked further visual Variations in the Key of D'uh. “I'm kith and kin to nixies and naiads and—and—Oh, hang it all.” Mel slumped in one of Bella's tatty armchairs, fiercely muttering, “Bloody mythological illiterate."

  "I suppose it's no use offering you coffee?” Bella's smug, too-sweet question was a taunt, not a proposal of hospitality.

  Selina the pixie made a gesture as rude as it was nigh imperceptible, but Berry simply said, “Tea will be fine, ma'am. Herbal, please. Very good of you to go to the trouble."

  "Oh, it's no trouble for me.” Bella barked orders into the kitchen where the captive brownie languished. While Bixby brewed and served some prime chamomile (hand-picked in Massachusetts, hand-swiped from the Sheraton in Boston), Bella told her callers, “Now, listen up, you refugees from Better Gnomes and Gardens, once that tea's ready, you've got ten minutes to drink up and get out. If you've got anything to say to me, say it now."

  "Ma'am, as you know, we've come for our comrade,” Berry said calmly.

  "And as you know, fat chance,” Bella returned. “This is the best freebie I ever brought home from a hotel stay, and that's a fact."

  "Y'know, ma'am,” Tom the troll said in his gritty voice. “If you c'n see fit t’ let Bixby go, outer th’ kindness o’ yer heart, we'd be more'n willin’ t’ pervide th’ selfsame services fer you as he's incumbently doin’ ‘round this place. We'd come by twice weekly, reg'lar as th’ Holy Hour, and tidy yer home up a treat. I might not look it, but I've a good paw fer wipin’ winders."

  "Wiping out windows, you mean,” Selina said. Melusine shushed her.

  Bella curled her lip. “Twice weekly cleaning? Instead of household chores done twenty-four seven by someone at my beck and call? I don't think so."

  "Please, ma'am, have pity,” Mel implored. “If Bixby's kept apart from his Seelie kinfolk for too long, he'll waste away."

  "He's related to seals?"

  "Not seals, but the Seelie,” Mel said, and ran right back into Bella's amassed lifetime ignorance, head first. But the plucky ondine was nothing if not a tryer. “The Fair Folk. The Little People. The Fey, the Good Neighbors, the Hidden Helpers, the Underhill Posse, the Goblin Marketeers, the—"

  "Hey, think Santa's friggin’ elves, okay?” Selina broke in before poor Mel burst a water vessel in frustration.

  Bella was enlightened but unmoved. “What's that to me?"

  "Nothing, apparently,” Berry said dryly. “Ma'am, in all my life as a dwarf and an engineer, I've run into some tough problems, but you make building the Hoover Dam look easy as letting two beavers loose at a Christmas tree farm."

  "Spare me your beavers,” Bella said. “I'm willing to bet you your weight in pure Kona coffee that you've got some completely self-serving reason for coming to Bixby's rescue. Nobody does good deeds for nothing, not in this world. I wasn't born yesterday."

  "I'll say you weren't,” Selina declared cheerfully.

  "Ma'am, if that's what you believe, I pity you,” Berry said. “No wonder you cram your sorry little life with hotel freebies. It's empty otherwise."

  Bella laughed so hard she spritzed Tom with tea. While the troll dabbed at his dripping face with a tissue (from a box Bella had wrested out of the wall dispenser at a Hilton in Baltimore), she subjected Berry to a double helping of scorn. “Oh, that's rich! I'll tell you what, you sanctimonious twerp, how about a little wager?"

  She fetched a bag of whole-bean Jamaica Blue Mountain from the kitchen and slapped it down, appropriately enough, on the coffee table. “See this? I didn't take it from any hotel, motel, or bed-and-breakfast in existence. It's mine. I bought it with my own hard-earned money, and at the price that money-grubbing grocery store chain charged for it, I had every right to take that double handful of butterscotch dr
ops from the bulk candy bin!"

  "Ma'am, if you think we're about to risk our own freedom by drinking a drop of that, you've mistaken us for fools,” Berry said solemnly.

  "In other words, fat ass!” Selina put in.

  "Don'cher mean ‘fat chance'?” Tom the troll asked, always helpful.

  "I call ‘em like I see ‘em."

  Bella ignored the barb. “I don't want you to drink it, I want you to swear on it."

  "You're free and easy calling for oaths, ma'am,” Berry said, his eyes narrowing. “First on the blesséd Mill, now on the beans of bliss. Don't trifle with our faith for your own amusement."

  "Not this time. If you've honestly come to free Bixby just because it's the right thing to do, it honors the sacred ties of friendship, it's all a part of the brotherhood of the seals—"

  "The Seelie!” Mel shouted.

  "—then swear so on these beans and I swear I'll let him go, here and now. But if you can't do that, you've got to grant me one wish, something beyond Bixby's powers, something I've always wanted with all my heart."

  "A winning personality?” Selina suggested.

  "A party, you flying glob of snot,” Bella replied coldly. “A fabulous party, so I can finally brownnose the top brass at Speranza Storm Cosmetics in style. Kissing up to those hairsprayed hags is the only way to get ahead in this business, the straight road to earning all the top salesmanship awards, the cruises, the cars—"

  "The ultimate freebies,” Mel murmured, demurely eyeing the droplets of anticipatory drool forming at the corners of Bella's mouth.

  "I'd think a salesmanship award was based on merit alone,” Berry remarked.

  Bella sniffed. “Shows what you know, Peewee. It's a hard world, and the only way to get ahead is to take what you can, help yourself, and above all ... think fast!” She hardballed the bag of coffee beans right at the dwarf's face. Mel gave a cry of alarm, but before Berry's nose met a dark-roasted doom, his hand shot up instinctively and intercepted the missile. Bella did her impression of a cream-stuffed cat. “The consecrated caffeine's in your court now, big boy, so how's about that oath?"