by Susan Harper
Holly fumbled with her keys at the door, and then she heard an odd sound coming from the other side. She paused to listen. Was someone in her apartment? She put her ear to the door, and it sounded like a scuffling sort of noise. “Oh my gosh, a stupid squirrel or something got in my apartment,” she grumbled, and it was then that she recalled leaving her window open the night before after making devilled eggs and stinking up the apartment. So, she concluded, this was her own fault and didn’t need to wake up the apartment manager. I’m sure I can handle a little creature…
Holly entered the dark apartment and immediately went for the kitchen to toss the bag in the trash. She flipped on the lights, and it was then that she realized that her window was in fact closed. This caused a slight feeling of alarm. If she had closed the window, how did something get in? She looked around. “Hello?” she asked anxiously, starting toward the front door. What if someone had broken in?
Then she heard a crashing sound from under her kitchen counter and sighed in relief. It wasn’t a person, certainly, hidden in those tiny cabinets. She went back to her squirrel theory, but the closed window still had her a bit on edge. Her mop had been left in the corner off the kitchen, so she grabbed it to use to chase the squirrel off after first opening the window again. Her hope was that she would be able to chase whatever it was out the window.
Holly gripped the mop and then opened the door of the kitchen cabinet where she kept all of her pots and pans. She didn’t see anything, so she assumed it had found its way toward the back of the storage. The last thing she was going to do was stick her head down there and risk getting mauled by a squirrel or racoon or whatever it was that had decided to make her apartment home that night. She instead kicked the side of the counter, hoping the noise would scare it out. She heard the pots and pans bang about and a slight hissing that reminded her of a cat. “Come on out, little guy. Just want to get you out of my apartment. Come on out…” Holly said and kicked the kitchen counter for a second time.
The second kick must have scared it enough because something red and green came zipping out, hissing and snarling. It moved too quickly for Holly to get a good glimpse of it, but it brought several pots and pans falling out of the cabinet when it came. Then it darted toward the living room, and it paused while sitting on the back of her little couch. “What in the world!” Holly cried as her brain tried to decipher what strange little humanoid creature was staring back at her and snarling and gashing its sharp teeth.
The thing growled. Its ridiculous pointed ears twitching madly. Its black eyes seemed to be staring at her, but she couldn’t really tell. It wore a silly pointed green hat on its head and matching green clothes with red accents at the collar, wrists, and ankles. Its body was covered in fur, making it look almost like a cat-human hybrid glaring back at her. “Okay, out! Out!” Holly exclaimed, pointing toward the window.
It followed her finger and looked toward the window. It then looked back at her, shook its head, and proceeded to rip up her couch cushions. “No! No!” Holly wailed, hurrying over to it, but before she could catch it, the thing had already darted back to the kitchen where it proceeded to raid her cabinets and throw her glassware across the apartment at her, shattering whenever she was unable to catch it. Holly whipped out her phone. This thing was clearly not a mortal creature. This thing had come out of the portal for sure. “Monica!” Holly screamed into the phone the moment she heard her friend’s voice. “I need you now!”
6
Monica had to make a U-turn on her bike almost as soon as she had arrived at her cottage. Abigail groaned a bit from within the bike’s basket. “This basket is itchy,” Abigail complained. “You couldn’t have conjured something nicer?”
“Stop complaining,” Monica said as she sped her bike around toward Holly’s apartment complex. “I’m not the one who conjured it, remember? I can’t do shapeshifting spells like that. Mona did it. And I think she did a wonderful job.”
“The whole bike is dingy,” Abigail said. “You could use a new seat. Definitely a new basket…”
“My broom was a little worn,” Monica said, referring to the very bike she sat on. “So, the bike is of the same quality as the broom.”
“It could use some work,” Abigail said as they continued down the road.
It had gotten late, so there weren’t many people out and about. Looking up, Monica could see that it was pretty cloudy that night. “Want to go broom?” Monica asked.
“Please,” Abigail said. “This basket is irritating me.”
“Broom,” Monica said to the bike, tapping it a few times on the handle.
The next thing Monica knew, they were sitting on a broomstick. She kicked off, and up they went, soaring high above the clouds. “I’m not used to sitting on the front,” Abigail said. “When we fly, I’m normally behind you.”
“Well, the basket for the bike goes on the front. If I’m going to switch from bike to broom in mid-travel, you’re going to be sitting up front still,” Monica said.
“Here’s a thought—if you switched from broom to bike while I was sitting on the back, would I just fall off since there is nowhere to sit behind you on the bike?” Abigail asked.
“Excellent point. We should probably not do that in mid-ride if you’re sitting in the back like your normally do,” Monica said. They zipped through the clouds, and the cold wind sent a slight chill through them as Holly’s apartment came into view.
Monica told the broom to go back into bike mode, and it did as they came to a soft landing on the pavement. Abigail was once again in the basket, complaining of how it was starting to fall apart. Monica parked the bike, and Abigail hopped down and followed her up toward Holly’s apartment. The door was cracked open, so they invited themselves in to a rather hysterical scene of Abigail running around with a mop chasing a fast, little creature that had clearly had a good time destroying everything in sight. Everything had been torn off the walls by this point, the television was turned over, the couch ripped to shreds, and her dishes were broken and laid out all over the floor.
“Help me!” Holly wailed, looking as though her patience for the situation had long ago left her.
“Why on earth do you have an elf in your apartment?” Abigail asked.
“An elf! That’s what this stupid thing is?” Holly asked, swinging her mop at it as it ran past her ankles. “Eek!” she cried as the thing attempted to nip at her before running right into her bedroom door and knocking itself off its feet. “Ha! That’s what you get!” Holly snapped and flung her mop at it, trying to hit it. The thing had jumped up too quickly though and had darted back in Monica’s direction, running right between her legs and into a side table, knocking over a vase and shattering it.
“My mom gave me that!” Holly shrieked. “Monica, do something!”
Monica tried not to laugh. “Okay, you got…a laundry basket or something?”
Holly darted toward the back of the apartment and arrived back in moments with a large, baby blue-colored basket. The two women proceeded to try to corner the thing so that they could throw the basket over it while Abigail sat on top of the stove to avoid getting smacked with Holly’s mop. The elf growled and snarled the whole time until, finally, Holly managed to scare the thing straight toward Monica in time for her to throw the basket over it and sit on top. This angered the elf tremendously, and it snarled and hissed.
“I thought that book you gave me on mystics said elves were tall. What is this little gremlin thing?” Holly asked, panting and wiping her brow.
“There are all sorts of elf breeds,” Monica said and waved Holly over, encouraging her to sit on the basket in her place so that she could get her wand out. “The taller ones are mountain elves and country elves. This little thing is definitely a North Pole elf.”
“Oh, okay,” Holly said, but then as what Monica said registered with her, she sat upright on the basket. “Wait, North Pole? You don’t mean to tell me this thing is—”
Abigail interrupted. �
��Hurry up, Monica,” she said. “This thing clearly hasn’t eaten in days if it’s looking like that.”
“Hold up!” Holly exclaimed, but Monica was already busying herself in Holly’s kitchen and not paying her any mind.
“I think I can handle a baking spell,” Monica said, waving her wand around and muttering a few incantations. Everything suddenly seemed to come to life in Holly’s kitchen, zipping around and mixing, beating and pouring. The oven door popped open on its own just as Holly’s kitchen supplies finished with the dough and plopped into the oven. “Should be ready in just ten minutes,” Monica said. “Honestly, North Pole elves in the middle of Bankstown!” She knelt and stared into the basket at the creature whose hands were scratching at the side trying to get out. “All right, spill it, what are you doing in Bankstown in the middle of November?”
The elf glared at her. It made a snarly, hissing sound that resembled noises you’d hear in a reptile house at a zoo.
“Excuse me!” Holly shrieked. “You can’t just tell me that there is an elf from the North Pole in my apartment and not explain to me if this thing is one of—”
The timer dinged, and the cookies came flying out of the oven and landed on one of the few plates the creature didn’t destroy during its maddening prancing about the apartment. Monica went and picked up the plate. “Okay, hop up, Holly,” Monica said, still putting one free hand on top of the basket so the elf couldn’t escape. Carefully and quickly, she threw the plate of cookies under the basket with the elf and it began devouring them like a wild animal.
Holly finally stomped her foot. “Is this thing a Christmas elf?” she demanded.
“Well, yeah, what other elf do you know that lives at the North Pole?” Abigail asked with a yawn.
Holly looked like she was about to have a complete and total meltdown. “Calm down,” Monica said. “You’ve seen weirder things before.”
“No, I’m pretty sure seeing one of Santa’s elves eating cookies while trapped under a laundry basket in my apartment pretty much tops it,” Holly said, pointing and gasping. “Wait! Santa… Oh my gosh, he’s real!”
“Can we focus?” Abigail said, clearing her throat. “Has it eaten the whole plate?”
“Yeah, looks like it,” Monica said, removing the basket.
The elf was lying flat on its back, an enormous pudge at its belly. It was significantly less hairy than before and more human-looking, though it still had some rather cat-like features. “You all right?” Abigail asked, still hiding on the counter.
The elf gave them a thumbs up. Monica rolled her eyes. “What are you doing here?”
The thing merely hissed in reply.
“Not exactly what I pictured as a kid,” Holly grumbled under her breath.
“North Pole elves are usually quite friendly,” Monica said. “But they’re not supposed to be this far from home. It affects them. The thing probably hasn’t had any sugar in days, either, and that’s not helping.”
“The elves need sugar?” Holly asked.
“Well, duh. You really think one guy eats all those cookies everyone leaves out on Christmas Eve?” Abigail asked. “That’s for the elves. North Pole elves need the sugar when they’re traveling, or they’ll turn into…well…that.”
“This is nuts,” Holly said.
Monica’s phone buzzed. “Oh, perfect,” she said.
“What?” Holly asked.
“It’s Ronnie,” Monica said. “I managed to find his blog earlier tonight, and I messaged him on it to see if he’d be willing to meet up to talk. I know he was pretty close to the crime scene when Isaac was arrested, so I wanted to ask him some questions to see if he has seen anything. Plus, I got to thinking, if someone used Isaac’s pen to killed Luke, maybe they were trying to frame him? Ronnie’s blog competes with Isaac’s, right?”
“Right,” Holly said.
“So, I think that makes him a suspect,” Monica said. “Maybe he was trying to get rid of his competition.”
“Seems like a stretch,” Holly said. “But I guess it’s possible. I want to help, though.”
“What do you mean?” Monica asked.
“Look, I know you hired me to work the shop so that you can do stuff like this on occasion, but this one is kind of personal, you know? It’s Isaac,” Holly said. “He’s been my best friend for pretty much my entire life. We met in grade school, for crying out loud. I need to help in any way that I can, and I just don’t know if sitting around at the bookshop is going to be the best way for me to help.”
Monica nodded. “I understand. This one is pretty close to home for you. Maybe my Aunt Wilma wouldn’t mind stepping in? She’s got everyone thinking that she’s in town visiting me anyways, don’t need people thinking she actually flew all the way from Chicago for one day. No one is going to believe that. As far as everyone else is concerned, she is in town for Thanksgiving and needs to show her face around town a bit. I’ll ask her in the morning if she wouldn’t mind stepping in.”
“Thanks, Monica,” Holly said. “So, when are we meeting Ronnie?
“First thing in the morning,” Monica said. “So, you need to get some rest, because it’s going to be a long day tomorrow if we are going to be helping Brian out with the investigation.”
Holly’s eyes darted toward the elf lying in a diabetic coma on the floor. “What am I supposed to do with that thing? There is no way I’m sleeping in here with it if it’s going to turn into a little gremlin thing again.”
“We’ll stay here tonight with you until we can figure out what to do with it,” Monica said. “And I guess we’ll just do a girls slumber party and bake cookies for the thing.”
Holly smirked. “So long as I get to eat some too, I’m game.”
7
The elf had to be put back under a laundry basket the following morning as it had sprouted more hair and fangs. Once Monica had baked several batches of cookies and fed the elf a few, she felt confident in leaving Abigail behind to occasionally toss a cookie down to it from the kitchen counter until they could decide what to do with it. For now, Monica and Holly had work to do. They headed out once the elf and Abigail were settled, and they went straight for the bookshop on the mystic’s side to have Mona fetch Aunt Wilma who, thankfully, was more than willing to look after her old shop for a bit to help free up Holly.
Once the shop was taken care of, the two women headed toward a coffee shop not too far from the bookstore where Ronnie had agreed to meet them. But it only took them about ten seconds of conversing to realize this guy adored Isaac and that there was no way he would have ever framed the man. “I mean, did you or did you not read his last post on aliens right here in Bankstown?” he asked, practically jumping up and down. Monica wasn’t sure whether it was from excitement or the fact that he had ordered a double shot of espresso in his cup.
“Can’t say that I have,” Holly said.
“It was incredible. That stuff he publishes for the paper doesn’t compare to the raw investigative journalism that he does on his blogs,” Ronnie said. “The man is an internet legend after his interview with MUFON.”
“MUFON?” Monica asked, and Holly cleared her throat like she wanted to avoid the subject.
“Is there anything you can tell us about what happened at the Turkey Trot? Did you see anything? Were you with Isaac at all?” Holly asked.
“Not sure if there is much I can say.” Ronnie shrugged. “I’m afraid I wasn’t too close at the time.”
“But you were within the vicinity?” Monica asked. “Officer Brian said you were one of the first ones on the scene.”
“Yeah, I was there. I got there before that Jehu guy did. I just saw Luke lying there and Isaac standing over him looking pretty shocked,” Ronnie said.
This news made Monica cringe. “Was there…anyone else there other than Isaac and Luke when you showed up?”
“No, just them two. Then I got there, and then Jehu came walking up and jumped Isaac the second he saw his buddy lying out like that,�
�� Ronnie said. “It was all pretty crazy. Jehu didn’t even give Isaac a chance to explain himself or anything. I mean, it did look pretty bad, but it’s not like Isaac had any blood on him or anything that would make someone automatically assume it was him. I mean, wouldn’t that be crazy, though? You know what I think really happened?”
“What?” Monica asked hopefully.
“I’m thinking Isaac was set up.”
Holly too seemed to be leaning in now, hoping to hear more. “Oh? By who?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Ronnie asked as though he suddenly found them both to be a bit slow. “Isaac has been uncovering the truth since he was a kid! My guess is the overseers, the aliens, they’ve gotten tired of him poking the fire. They’re behind this!”
Their coffee meetup ended pretty quickly after that. Clearly, Ronnie was not going to be too much help. He did, however, confirm that Isaac was in fact found alone with Luke, which did not look good for Isaac’s case. The morning had come and gone, and soon Brian was calling Monica to meet for lunch at a nearby sandwich shop to talk about the case.
Monica rode her broom in bike form, able to balance despite going slow enough for Holly to travel next to her at a slow walking pace—it was a magical object, after all. She figured she could ride side-saddle on the thing without a problem. They arrived outside the sub shop, and Monica left her bike out in front of the shop’s window right where they saw Brian seated. They headed inside, sharing the booth across from him. He smiled at them both, but then glanced out the window. “Monica, you really do need to get a chain or something for that bike,” Brian said. “Someone is going to steal it. And you don’t wear a helmet or anything, I notice.”