by Elin Wyn
“What are you going to do?” Arabella asked me, her voice one of the sweetest things I had ever heard. Going down on one knee so that I was level with her, I smiled.
“I’m going to make sure the bad guys have something more important to them than us to take care of,” I told her, still fascinated by how similar she was to her mother.
There were the same dimples in the corners of her mouth, as well as a faint touch of freckles on her nose. “I’ll be back.”
“Promise?”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “I promise.” Exchanging a glance with Megan, I brushed my lips over hers.
“Do you want the weapon?” I whispered, hoping that Arabella’s hearing was no sharper than that of an adult human.
Megan bit her lip. “I don’t want it anywhere near Arabella, but I don’t want those ass- jerks coming any closer to us, either.”
I slid the pistol from my pack into Megan’s hands. “Watch the safety. Don’t bring it out until you’re sure you need it.”
She nodded, face pale.
“Back soon.”
Stepping back around the tree, I slipped my pack back on and shifted back. Multiple shifts would take a toll on my energy reserves, but I didn’t want to be away from Megan and Arabella for any longer than absolutely necessary.
In the end, it took me about five minutes to get there.
Still hidden in the woods, I watched as guards ran across the courtyard in a frenzy, still trying to make sense of everything that had happened.
Thankfully, they didn’t seem to be trained pros, or else most of them would already be giving us chase in their cars.
By the look of things, only now did they seem ready to leave the compound.
Not that I’d let them.
Slipping past their perimeter, I couldn’t help but notice the stench, as if thousands of pounds of frozen, rotting meat were rapidly defrosting.
I smiled to myself. Tracing Megan through the compound, I’d found where she’d dismantled the building’s cooling system.
It had been clever of her to realize Bonven needed the temperature carefully controlled around his experiments.
Now I just needed to give her work a finishing touch.
Placing my pack on the floor, I pushed the random bits I’d collected along the way to the side.
Underneath were six small smooth spheres of a dark gray. I grabbed a couple of them, feeling their coldness against the palm of my hand, and gave them a squeeze.
Almost at once, Vondin runes appeared on their surfaces, marking a countdown. I set the timer on all of them and then placed them around the perimeter.
Vondin explosives were off-limits in this operation, but I was way past caring.
By coming here and revealing myself, I had already compromised the mission.
The explosives would just be an additional charge for the High Command to press against me.
“And that’s done,” I muttered under my breath after placing the last explosive sphere.
They formed a perimeter of their own, and I’d set them so that the explosion would have its center point right where the compound’s main building was.
That was one of the advantages of Vondin explosives—the minerals inside the charges would hold onto the detonation, transforming it into energy that could be directed toward a nearby location of my choosing.
Once I got back to Megan and Arabella, I found them sitting under a large pine tree, curled into each other. The moment they saw me, they immediately jumped to their feet, anxious.
“It’s finished,” I said with a smile.
“What is?”
“It won’t take long,” I continued. “Come, I’ll show you.”
Taking Megan’s hand, I led her and Arabella up an incline that ended on a cliff edge. From up there we could see the compound, its buildings a stark contrast to the peaceful white scenario around it.
“What are we supposed to be looking at?”
Right at that moment, a large ball of fire erupted right in the middle of the compound, blue flames violently jumping up into the air.
Even from a distance, I could hear every single window shattering, the shockwave strong enough to make a couple of the guards’ trucks roll over, the surrounding trees bending back to absorb its strength.
“You’d already done the first work, compromising his systems that kept the experiments viable.” I kissed the top of her head. “I just gave it a little push.”
“Ryant, I—”
“You don’t need to say anything,” I said. “I did it because I wanted to.”
Smiling, Megan went on her tiptoes and gently brushed her lips against mine. I returned her smile, and then the two of us simply looked down, watching Bonven’s hellish compound burn to the ground.
Without saying a word, Arabella stood between us and held both our hands.
So this, I thought, this is how it feels to be human.
Not bad.
Not bad at all.
Megan
“Now what, Mommy?” Arabella asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said. I turned to Ryant. “Any suggestions?”
“We can’t go back to the cabins,” he said. “If anyone survived, that will be the first place Dr. Bonven looks for you.”
“Not to mention there’s no hot water, electricity, or food,” I added.
“That sounds just like the Enchanted Cottage!” Arabella exclaimed. “Can we go there?”
“It’s nothing like the Enchanted Cottage, honey. There aren’t any fairies in the woods to clean the place,” I said.
“But there are things like him,” Arabella pointed at Ryant. “Isn’t he magic?”
Thanks to my old Grimm’s Fairy Tales book and Disney movies, magic was a subject Arabella was more than comfortable with. I figured I’d let her continue to think Ryant was some kind of magic creature.
That was easier for her to wrap her head around than him being an alien. Maybe when she’s seven, I’d introduce her to Star Wars and break the news to her then.
Or, if Ryant wasn’t around when she turned seven, I’d just hope memories of his alien form would get mixed up with her make-believe friends.
I really hoped Ryant would still be around when she turned seven.
And eight.
And thirty-eight.
I shook my head. I was getting ahead of myself. I shouldn’t start planning my future until I had a plan for where we were going to sleep tonight.
“Yes,” I laughed. “But not everything that has magic is required to clean your house.”
“We can clean it together!” Arabella insisted.
“It’s not near a McDonald’s,” I said.
“Oh,” Arabella wrinkled her nose. “Never mind, then.”
Good. At least I didn’t have to explain to her that mommy became a criminal when she broke into the cabin.
Arabella’d had enough for one day.
I certainly had.
“There has to be shelter somewhere,” Ryant said. “What would people from…around here do in a situation like this?”
I appreciated his careful choice of words.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I never thought I’d be one of those people who end up in a situation like this. I’m afraid I don’t have my handy survival guide available.”
“You have one of those?” Ryant asked.
“No,” I chuckled. “It’s an expression.”
“Those cabins we found were only for summer, right?” he asked.
“That’s right.”
“Do they not have winter cabins in this area?”
I paused to think about it.
Surely, there had to be some kind of lodge for snow enthusiasts.
“If I were on vacation, where would I want to go,” I muttered to myself.
The winter sun broke through the clouds. As if it were a sign, the tallest peak on the mountain range flashed gold in the light of the sun.
“I see why they call it Gold Peak,” I
grinned. “Look how pretty!” I pointed for Arabella.
“Can we stay on the magic mountain, Mommy?” Arabella asked.
“No,” I shook my head. “It’s far too cold up on that mountain for us. Aren’t you chilly now?”
“No,” Arabella lied, even though her hands were like ice where they flopped out from the rolled-up sleeves of my hoodie. I wrapped her little hands in mine, though mine weren’t much warmer, despite Ryant’s jacket.
“I bet there’s a place to stay with a view of the mountains,” I wagered. “Let’s head back to town and ask around.”
“Shall I?” Ryant offered.
“If you don’t mind. Aren’t we heavy?” I asked.
Ryant laughed, but abruptly stopped when he realized I wasn’t joking.
“I’m made to carry much heavier loads than a woman and her offspring,” he assured me.
“What’s an offspring?” Arabella asked.
“It’s a you,” I replied. “Want to watch Ryant change again?”
“Yes!” Arabella cried excitedly.
“Remember,” I told her gently. “What Ryant can do is our special secret.”
“I remember,” she nodded seriously. “We have to make sure the government doesn’t learn about fairies.”
I’d never mentioned the government to her in all of this.
I had no idea where she got the notion, but I sure wasn’t going to contradict her if it meant keeping Ryant a secret.
“You okay, Mommy?” Arabella tilted her head. I realized I’d been staring at her like she’d grown a second head.
“Yes,” I said quickly. “You just keep amazing me, kiddo.”
“I know.”
We turned our attention to Ryant as he transformed before our eyes. When he was ready for us to climb on his back, he grunted.
I placed Arabella as far up on his neck as I could so she could grab his antlers for balance and climbed on behind her.
We took off at an impressive speed. The landscape blurred as Ryant galloped through snow that would’ve trapped most vehicles. It took less than twenty minutes to get to the main center of Gold Peak.
Ryant transformed into his handsome self out of sight so that he wouldn’t attract attention from anyone who happened upon him and redressed while I carried Arabella into a general store and inquired about lodging.
Well, there’d be some attention to the shirtless man in the cold, but at least we could try to avoid having him arrested for indecent exposure.
I felt like they might be more sympathetic to me if I appeared to be a stranded single mother, which I sort of was.
Kind of.
“Sorry, sweetie, the main hotel is all booked up for the holidays,” the grizzled man behind the counter said. “Wait a minute, let me check on something.”
Without another word, he picked up an old phone, punched numbers, and waited. “Rose, room for company?”
He grunted and nodded and hung up.
“Head out this way, and she’ll find a bed for you.”
He drew a rough map, showing a path on the edge of town and a cluster of boxes.
Another quick gallop through the snow, and we arrived at what must’ve been ski chalets.
“I’ll do the talking,” I said to Ryant as we entered the squat but cozy building that served as the lobby.
Ryant nodded and took Arabella from my arms. She’d become heavy as she dozed, doing that amazing thing where kids seem to gain ten pounds when they fall asleep.
She settled against his chest looking like the most content little kid in the world, and I couldn’t help but smile at the picture.
“Hello,” I said softly to the small old woman sitting at the front desk.
“Hello, dearie. Do you have a reservation?”
“Not exactly,” I said. “This is sort of hard to explain, but we’ve had some bad luck.”
“I’d say so,” she said, standing up to her full height, which couldn’t have been more than five feet. “You three look like you’ve had a dickens of a time.”
“We have.” I hadn’t thought about how bedraggled we looked.
Arabella wore the same clothing she’d worn the day she was taken. My clothes were torn in several places from wiggling through the air vent at the compound. Ryant looked like he’s recently fought a bear, which he kind of did.
“Did your car break down on one of the trails?” the old woman asked. “Gus didn’t say much. Never does, the old grump.”
“Yes,” I said quickly and prayed Arabella wouldn’t open her mouth to contradict me. That kid didn’t have a dishonest bone in her body, which ordinarily I adored about her. “We’ve been walking for hours.”
“Gracious!” the old woman cried. “Come this way.”
She ushered us into a parlor with a roaring fire and a tea service ready and waiting. I eagerly accepted a cup.
When the old woman offered one to Ryant, he glanced at me.
“I think you’ll like it,” I nodded.
“Thank you,” Ryant said as he was served. The old woman gave Arabella a small tea cake.
“My name is Mrs. Rosamunde but you can call me Granny Rose. Everyone does.”
“Thank you, Granny Rose.” The phrase felt strange to say, but it also comforted me somehow.
“Let me be straight with you,” she said with surprising directness. “I noticed smoke coming from the other side of the ice fields. I don’t know what’s out there, but I know it’s a horrible place. People who go out that way don’t often come back.”
“Smoke?” I said carefully.
“People in town said they saw you coming from that way,” Granny Rose said. “I’m not going to ask what happened, but I know the three of you look and smell too rough to have only been walking a few hours from a broken-down car.”
“Oh. Well. I… We…” I stammered, struggling to come up with anything to say to explain our appearance.
Granny Rose raised a hand to silence me.
“Like I said, I won’t ask questions.” She gave me a stern look. “I can’t turn you three away, not in the state you’re in. You can stay a few nights on the house until you get yourself sorted.”
I nearly spat out my tea.
“You don’t have to do that,” I blurted, though I had no means of payment. Her outright generosity caught me off guard.
“I know,” she shrugged. “But it’s been a good winter for the lodge and I try to be a nice person. Let me get a key for you.”
“Thank you so much.” I didn’t know what else to say. “Thank you.”
“It’s no trouble at all, dear.” Granny Rose patted my cheek as she stood up.
She left and came back with a key to the cabin closest to the lobby building. I took the key and thanked her about fifty more times before Ryant pulled me out of the room.
The cabin so generously given to us by Granny Rose was a massive improvement on the last one. For one thing, this one had power. It was also clean and made up nicely, with two fluffy beds, a roaring fireplace, and a cozy sitting area.
“I like it,” Arabella said decisively from Ryant’s arms. He set her down so she could explore. I expected her to start rooting around in drawers or the fridge. Instead, she climbed right into bed.
“Tired?” I asked her. She nodded as she rubbed her eyes. I walked over to the bed and helped her take her shoes off.
“Tomorrow, we’ll find you some more clothes,” I told her. I had barely finished my sentence when Arabella dropped off to sleep. I let out a quiet sigh of relief.
“She’s usually a bad sleeper,” I explained to Ryant. “It takes hours to get her down.”
“She’s understandably exhausted,” he said, taking a seat on the other bed. I sat down beside him.
“We should talk about you,” I said.
“What about me?”
“Well, what’s next for you?” I wasn’t sure how to have this conversation.
There aren’t any guidelines for how to interact with a hot alien, a
s least, none that I’d read. “You came here for a reason, right?”
“Yes,” he said. “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.”
“What is it, exactly?” I asked.
“It’s a data stick,” he explained. “About this long, a six sided crystal. I’d know it if I saw it.”
We fell into an odd silence. At that moment, Arabella let out a sigh and violently rolled over. I worried she was going to wake herself, so I watched her. As she moved, something fell out of the pocket of my hoodie that she still wore like a muumuu.
“What’s that?” I murmured and stepped close to her.
She wrapped her hand around a long shard of crystal. “It was pretty, Mommy. I tried to show you before.” Still clutching it, she sank back into sleep.
“Is that it?” I pointed to the thing in her pudgy first.
Ryant’s eyes went wide.
“Yes,” he exclaimed. Out of habit, I pressed my finger over my lips.
I carefully extracted it from her hand and passed it to Ryant.
“Let’s talk about this outside,” I whispered to him in case Arabella was playing possum.
We sat on a small bench on the porch of the cabin.
“So, mission completed?” I laughed awkwardly.
“I suppose so,” he replied, turning over the crystal in his hand. I wanted to ask what it did, but I probably wouldn’t understand it if he told me.
Surely, it was some kind of super-advanced alien technology.
“Do you have a way to get back to your planet?” I asked.
“I can make a call,” he nodded.
“Can I persuade you to stay the night?” I asked. “Arabella will want to say goodbye when you leave.”
“Actually,” Ryant turned to me, taking my hands in his. “I was thinking I could stick around for a while, if that’s okay. The data stick isn’t important. I was sent here by my superiors to learn a lesson. I think I’ve learned it, but I’ve also learned something else.”
“Oh?” My heart pounded.
“I care about you, Megan. I care about Arabella, too. I can’t just leave not knowing if you two are going to be okay. You don’t even have transportation back to wherever you came from,” he said. “I want to stay and help.”
