by ReGi McClain
“What if I specify that I’ll pay double, but only if I get to talk to the faerie?”
“They’ll hire an actress and put some glitter makeup on her.”
“Well, it’s a chance for a cure. Maybe. Probably not. Anyway, reserve the whole summer for me if you can.”
“That’s sixty thou, Sis.”
“I did the math, Jason. I have a master’s in finance, remember?”
“Yeah, but ”
“Just do it.”
“Okay. It’s your money.”
Jason alternated between stuffing his mouth and filling out online forms. Harsha munched at a sluggish pace, thinking about what she needed to do to get ready for the trip. Thanks to a combination of card counting during her college years, playing the stock market, her current well-paid position, and the rents from her Vegas quadriplex, she could afford to blow sixty thousand dollars, but it wasn’t pocket change. On top of the price of the trip, Jason would need a second caregiver to cover the hours she usually took care of him, which added another several thousand to what she paid for his regular care, and she needed to stock up on pre-packaged foods and take-out gift cards in case the caregivers lacked cooking skills. Not to mention the plane tickets and the possibility of needing to rush home if Jason took an unexpected turn for the worst.
In addition to the money, she needed to consider the time off. Her bosses, the Vyacheslavs, gave her leeway because of her condition, but a whole summer was a lot to ask. Especially since it came on the heels of her recovery from Ashley’s attack. Her rental property gave her plenty to live on without ever touching her retirement or savings accounts, which made quitting an option, but she liked her job. Besides, if she failed find a cure, she wanted work to keep her mind off… stuff. She needed to find a way to get the time off without giving up her position.
Late on the third day of mulling over this plan or that, she hit upon one she thought might work. Might. She threw ingredients into her dough-maker before bedtime and set the timer to finish around four in the morning. Nervousness kept her tossing and turning until the ding gave her permission to rise the next morning. Before she bothered to take a shower, she got to work pounding in butter, folding, pounding again. Without a trace of guilt, she sneaked into Jason’s room and stole some of his precious chocolate chip supply, an indulgence she disapproved of because chocolate made him sicker, to finish off her creations.
Five minutes before she wanted to leave, she transferred the piping-hot pastries to boxes, being sure to leave one apiece for Jason and his caregiver. She arrived at the office half an hour early, about ten minutes before Jamala’s usual arrival, in order to make the tea herself. She set a steaming cup of orange spice and a plate of pastries on Jamala’s desk before starting her day’s work.
When she heard the outer office door open, she called a cheery, “Good morning!” to her assistant, startling a string of French profanities out of the pretty Haitian.
Jamala walked in holding her plate and teacup. “Don’t do that, Boss-lady! You scared the skin off me.”
Harsha winced. “Sorry.”
Jamala set her plate and cup on top of Harsha’s stack of papers. “What is this?”
“I thought it might be nice if I made the tea this morning.”
“Uh-huh. What about these?” She waggled a finger at the pastry, one hand propped on her hip.
“Breakfast.”
“Those are chocolate croissants.”
“Some people eat them for breakfast.”
“The chocolate is melted. Did you microwave them?”
“No.”
“Then why are they warm?”
“Because I made them this morning.”
“Ah ha! I knew it. This is not breakfast. This is a bribe.” She narrowed her eyes. “What are you up to, Harsha Mooreland?”
Harsha suppressed a laugh at Jamala’s squinty-eyed accusation and interrogation. “I need some time off.”
“How much time?”
“All summer.”
Jamala shook her micro braids and tapped her foot. “You came back from some crazy doctor-thing that took you out for two weeks and now you want to take off all summer? Mr. Vyacheslav won’t let you.” She stabbed her thumb at herself. “I won’t let you.”
Harsha pushed the plate of pastries toward Jamala while trying to imitate the puppy face Jason liked to torment her with. She found it difficult to keep from smiling at her assistant’s dramatic protest, however, and doubted she looked much like Jason, who mastered the perfect pout at three years old.
Jamala cocked an eyebrow. “Your face is too stunning for the puppy-dog eyes. It’s more suited for seduction and that won’t work on me. Besides, I can see you are trying not to laugh.”
Harsha dropped the look. “Taxes are taken care of, I finished an internal audit last week, and I’ve set everything up so the finance office will practically run itself.”
“What if any new potential investors come around?”
“Mr. Vyacheslav can be very persuasive when he wishes. All you’ll need to do is get the papers signed and then you can play with the money.”
“Ha! You say it like it’s a game. I’ll make a deal with you. You get Dr. Vyacheslav to go along with you on this, and I will, too.”
“Deal. I’ll need to take her some coffee. Do you mind making it?”
“I better. You never get it right.”
Jamala went back to her own office, with her croissants, mumbling about good pastry and terrible coffee. A few minutes later, Harsha sneaked across the clinic to Dr. Vyacheslav’s office with a cup of Jamala-perfect coffee and a plate of croissants, careful to avoid other people. While Mr. Vyacheslav took care of the business side of Ho’ola, his wife oversaw the care of the clients. A combination of logic and smooth talk swayed Mr. Vyacheslav in most matters. Dr. Vyacheslav, on the other hand, needed artful persuading.
“Come in,” Dr. Vyacheslav called in response to Harsha’s tap.
To Harsha’s ear, the doctor, a lean woman who maintained a strict paleo diet as a good example to her patients, sounded tired and unhappy, her usual state. Ashamed of what she intended to do, but justifying it with the adage desperate times call for desperate measures , Harsha balanced the plate of pastries on her forearm long enough to twist the knob. She caught the plate before it tipped and pushed the door open with her hip. “Good morning!”
Dr. Vyacheslav’s keen eyes scrutinized her. “Harsha? What is it you want?”
“Oh, I thought it might be nice ”
“No, you didn’t. What do you want?”
Looks like I picked a bad day to ask for favors. She seems extra stressed. Harsha held her cheery smile, hoping to brighten her boss’s mood. “I made them myself.” She set the croissants and coffee on the desk. “This morning.”
Dr. Vyacheslav leaned over to scrutinize the offerings. “Did you make the coffee, too?”
“No. Jamala made that.”
“Good. My last experience with your coffee didn’t end well.” Dr. Vyacheslav leaned closer to the croissants. “You know those are awful for you, right? Definitely not on the paleo diet. I bet you even used real butter.”
Harsha kept smiling. Not many people knew of the doctor’s weakness for French pastries. Harsha had caught the doctor red-handed once, surprising the whole tragic tale of carbohydrate cravings and chocolate addiction out of her boss.
Her conscience niggled her. Exploiting this weakness is as bad as being a drug dealer . She hushed it by pointing out the doctor’s incredible self-discipline and repeating desperate times to herself.
“They do smell wonderful. Is it dark chocolate? Dark chocolate has some benefits.” Dr. Vyacheslav leaned closer to inhale the yeasty fragrance and bit her lip.
Harsha nudged the plate closer, her prize in view.
Dr. Vyacheslav jumped out of her seat and locked the door. Reseating herself, she took an enormous bite of croissant. She slid down in her chair, free arm hanging to the side, eyes rolled back i
n her head. “Mmmm… Whatever you want, itsh yoursh. Jush don’t tell my hushband or my patiensh about thish.”
Dr. Vyacheslav disliked preemptive explanations, so Harsha answered without attempting any. “I need the whole summer off.”
Dr. Vyacheslav swallowed. Her eyes flicked from Harsha’s eyes, to Harsha’s wrist. Before Harsha took the job at Ho’ola, she had visited as a patient. Her condition baffled Dr. Vyacheslav as much as all the others. “Trying again so soon? After what happened?”
“Not exactly. It’s like a…” Quest? That sounded melodramatic for a couple months of camping. “A camp. It’s a vacation. A real one, with no doctors.”
Dr. Vyacheslav lifted a brow, her expression hovering on the edge of amusement. “Dancing on hilltops?”
Harsha leveled a wry expression at her employer. “I should not have told you about that.”
Dr. Vyacheslav pursed her lips and wiped at her mouth, hiding a smile, Harsha guessed. “Can Jamala handle it?”
“I’m sure of it.”
Dr. Vyacheslav eyed the remaining croissant. “Do you have any more of these?”
“Another dozen waiting in the car.”
“Bring me the rest without anyone seeing you, and you can have your summer off.”
Chapter 6
Harsha’s plane touched down in Anchorage on a crisp May morning. The weeks between her appointment with Dr. Brown and the moment she found herself staring out the airport window went by with the paradoxical quality of seeming to drag themselves along at a sloth’s pace, all the while outpacing the average cheetah. Now, she found it hard to believe she stood in Alaska, committed to a faerie hunt, of all things.
Horrified to see patches of snow littering the outdoors, she dove into the extra bag she’d filled with warm clothing and fished out the thickest coat she owned. A couple wearing t-shirts and shorts, year-round residents, she guessed, snickered in her direction. She ignored them. As far as she was concerned, there had to be some tweak in their DNA for them to want to live anywhere that stayed so cold for so many months of the year. She zipped her coat up to her chin, picked up her bags, stepped outside, and hailed a cab.
Fifteen minutes later, she stood outside Zeeb’s Sasquatch Tours. Or rather, she stood staring at a house occupying the address given on the website. She grimaced at the bright yellow paint. Only the neat lettering on the door and windows indicated the building served as a place of business rather than a private residence for a banana enthusiast. She took a deep breath to steel her nerves, turned the handle, and stepped inside.
A young woman with a pierced eyebrow, numerous tattoos, and a nametag declaring her to be Melanie stood behind a counter, tapping at a keyboard. She smiled as soon as she noticed Harsha. “Welcome to Zeeb’s Sasquatch Tours, Ms. Mooreland.”
“Umm… Thank you.”
“You booked the whole summer, remember?” she answered Harsha’s confusion. “We only expected one person to walk through those doors with bags. Everyone else is just stopping in for information.”
Harsha looked around. Three chairs lined one wall. “Is it okay if I put my luggage down?”
“Of course. Drop your bags anywhere. Zeeb will come get them when it’s time to go.”
Harsha took the girl at her word and let the bags drop out of her tired arms. With no attempt at gracefulness, she flopped into a chair. A local magazine provided mediocre entertainment while she waited for her tour guide. As she came to the last paragraph in a short article analyzing the value of live bait in salmon fishing, a male tenor announced his arrival.
“I see our client is here.”
If the receptionist’s appearance seemed a little unorthodox before, Harsha decided she looked downright elegant in contrast to her employer. He wore loose, faded jeans so threadbare at the knees they promised to sport holes soon and a baggy T-shirt displaying the Hard Rock Cafe logo of the nineties. Blond dreadlocks hung to his shoulders, framing a face covered by a full beard. A dog collar, studded with half-inch spikes and complete with a set of license tags, peeked out from the visible slices of neck between his dreadlocks and beard. His clear blue eyes arrested attention. They smiled all on their own, faint crinkles at the corners enhancing the merriment shining out from them. His lips stretched without parting to complete the smile as he took her right hand in his and gave it a single shake.
“You must be Ms. Mooreland.”
Harsha stood to face him, but before she could answer, a woman walked in. She wore her copper hair in a French braid. Nine pairs of earrings graced her ears while three long necklaces competed for space on her neck. One of them suspended a palm-sized wooden medallion near her waist. She wore an orange blouse over a long, billowy skirt in colors that reminded Harsha of pictures taken during the sixties.
“So, you’re our faerie hunter?”
“Harsha Mooreland.” It seems their names aren’t the only unusual things about them . “Yes. I’m looking forward to it.” She offered her hand to the woman.
“Seraph. Nice to meet you.” The copper-headed woman’s skin felt hot and dry, as if she had folded a load of towels before walking into the room, and her fingers did not complete the clasp. “I’m really looking forward to this. We’ve never had a faerie seeker before.” She went on to outline the trip.
The room wobbled and Harsha felt a faint coming on. She rarely fainted. At least, rarely without help from medical idiots and rarely relative to other members of her family. When it happened, she could trace it to some minor detail she had forgotten. Like eating. She searched her mind, trying to remember what she’d missed recently, but it wandered away from her as her vision darkened.
“Are you okay?” Seraph’s light touch brushed her shoulder. “You look a bit pale.”
I’m here looking for a faerie. What about looking for faeries says, ‘all right?’ On top of that, I forgot to… to… “I need to sit down.”
She staggered backward to where she hoped a chair waited for her and collapsed into it a second before the faint took her.
When she revived, Zeeb stood over her, frowning. She guessed his thoughts. She opened her mouth to explain, but he and Seraph stepped out of the room.
Melanie handed her a cup of water. “Uh oh. I don’t think they’re gonna let you go on a tour. That’s bad for us, you know.”
Harsha nodded, embarrassed and feeling like a flaky idiot. She knew all about the financial impact of a customer withdrawing a long-term reservation at the last second. “I’m sorry.”
Melanie shrugged. “You’re not the first. Zeeb always makes it somehow. If he doesn't have any customers of his own, he leads fishing charters for someone else.”
Melanie returned to her place behind the counter. Harsha stared down at her cup of water. Water. Right.
She tried to remember if she had drunk her normal two cups in the morning. Nope. Just one cup of coffee on the plane.
“Stupid,” she whispered to herself. Stupid, stupid. If I get sent home without so much as a picture of Alaska to show for my trouble because I forgot to drink water this morning, I’m going to join Jason on the couch and die like I’m dying when I get home.
Seraph’s voice startled her out of her morbid reverie. “So, our faerie hunter is prone to some health problems she forgot to mention when she filled out her personal information? Occasional weakness? Do you ever get nausea or pains in your arm?”
Harsha understood their concerns. From a business perspective, she presented a liability with the potential to cost them their livelihoods, but this wasn’t about their business. This was about her life.
If faeries are real and if we can find one.
She forced away thoughts of giving up and running home, put her cup down, and stood up. She tilted her chin down to show mild contrition but kept her tone light and reassuring. “No. I don’t have any heart problems. You don’t need to worry about that.”
Zeeb stepped into her line of sight, hairy arms crossed over his chest. “But you didn’t mention any health c
oncerns at all.”
Uh oh. Her stomach knotted. “I didn’t set up the tour. My brother filled out the forms for me.”
Zeeb threw his arms in the air.
Harsha wondered what Jason had written on the form. Or rather, what he’d neglected to write. For all she knew, he’d told them she surfed the pipeline. If he messed this trip up for me, he’s eating unsalted oatmeal for a week.
Seraph crossed her arms over her chest and stuck out a hip. “So, you want to see faeries instead of sasquatch, your brother books you a tour but leaves out some vital health information, and, let me guess, you can’t pay for a whole summer of gallivanting in the wilderness?”
So, money is your weak spot. Not surprising. She felt a small victory coming on and tried not to be smug. “Well, you’re right about the first two. As for the money…” She reached into her purse to retrieve a cashier’s check for thirty thousand dollars. “That’s not a problem.”
Seraph snatched the check, surprising Harsha. She bit her lip as she counted the zeros with her long pointer fingernail.
“Whoa! No one’s ever handed you thirty thous up front, Zeeb!”
“Hush, Melanie,” Seraph scolded, though her eyes glittered as she recounted the zeros.
Zeeb took the check from Seraph and began examining it for authenticity, going over the details. Seraph peered over his shoulder, eyes dilated and lips parted. With a deep sigh and a mild protest from Seraph, Zeeb handed the check back.
Melanie slumped and muttered, “Knew it was too good to be true.”
Zeeb crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s real all right, but we can’t take someone with health problems on a tour of the bush. Especially not someone who lied about those health problems.”
Harsha took a step toward him, ready to argue. “But ”
He held up his hand. “I get it. Your brother lied. You didn’t bother to answer the questions yourself, though, and that’s lie enough for me.”