by Brey Willows
“I’m ordering Chinese takeout.” She didn’t ask what anyone wanted, and proceeded to order what sounded like just about everything on the menu.
Maggie took her bag upstairs and shouted down. “I’m taking a shower. Down in a few.” She let the water run and dumped the contents of her duffle bag on the bed. It felt like ages since she’d left, though it hadn’t been very long at all. She took out the notebook, the pouch with her paintbrush and hag stone in it, and the jar of marbles they’d forgotten to inquire about at the marketplace. Damn. Mal had told them it was old power, but they could have used more information to understand what they were. She set the jar on the bookshelf and figured they’d learn what the marbles were for at some point.
The shower felt heavenly, and it was good to be in her own space again. She towel-dried her hair and ran a comb through it. She’d always been grateful that her shade of red was a deeper, darker one than the bright orange so many kids got teased for, and her time in the fairy world seemed to have made it even richer, if that was possible. It fell in long wet waves over her back and made her shiver. She’d always liked the way it felt against her naked skin. She shook off the weird concentration on her looks and got dressed. Was she thinking about the way she looked because of her attraction to Kody? What did Kody see when she looked at Maggie? That look in their bedroom the other night suggested it wasn’t something horrible, anyway.
She headed downstairs, and Kody jumped up and passed her on the stairs.
“My turn, if that’s okay?” She didn’t really wait for an answer.
Maggie joined Brenda and Blech in front of the crackling fire. Brenda was skimming through a magazine, and Blech lay stretched on the rug in front of the fire, sleeping. The quiet was lovely. Maggie let her thoughts roam free, skimming over the last few days and coming back to questions. The buzzer rang and Brenda jumped up to go get the Chinese food. When she got back, she and Maggie set out plates and opened all the cartons. Kody came down just as they were finishing setting up, and they quickly piled their plates full. Kody’s hair, which was just brushing her collar, was tousled and sexy when wet, and she smelled of some kind of soap Maggie couldn’t place but would forever associate with Kody. It was musky and sensual, like a forest wrapped in silk sheets.
When they sat down, Maggie turned to Brenda. “Are you okay? You’ve been pretty quiet since we got back.”
Brenda stabbed her chopsticks into the noodles but didn’t pick any up. “I’m okay. I’ve been thinking about how funny life is. That you can want to fit in so bad you look for somewhere else that accepts you, but then you go home, and you realize it’s there you want to fit in, and everything else is just…” She shrugged.
“We’ll go back, Bren. You’ll find your place, just like I have.” Kody’s smile was kind.
“Says the sex god of fairy tale land.” Brenda threw a noodle at Kody. “I’m not sure you can fully understand when you’re six feet of gorgeous sex toy.”
“Hey, we all have our crosses to bear.” Kody gave that half grin that made Brenda’s point perfectly.
Blech woke and transformed into Shamus. He stretched and yawned and got himself a plate of food. “Has anyone looked at the book yet?”
Maggie shook her head. “I thought I’d wait until after dinner, so we can do it together.”
“Very thoughtful of you.” Shamus’s ears twitched like he was listening for something, but he didn’t say anything about it.
There was talk about how good the food was, and what they’d enjoyed in the other world, and what they’d miss until they went back. When they were all done and everything had been packed away, Maggie picked up the book and joined the others by the fire. The weight and feel of it were reassuring, but the questions of who was writing it and how much they knew still bothered her.
She opened it to the last page she’d read and found she could turn to the next chapter. She read out loud.
Welcome back, tale spinner. Now you know who you are and what needs to be done. You understand the peril the world is in, both the one you were born to and the one you were raised in. These are difficult times, and you must be ready.
“How does the writer know we’re back and what we learned? Doesn’t anyone else find it kind of creepy?”
Brenda shrugged. “At least someone knows what’s going on. I like the feeling that someone is watching out for me.”
Kody nodded her agreement, and Shamus burped. Maggie continued to read out loud.
You want to know what the steps are once you’ve contained those you need to deal with. Once, it was simple. You would contain them, take them to the story keeper of their tale, and the story keeper would then deal with them. Often, they’d be locked away and reminded of their part in the story, and until they agreed to be magically bound to their story, they weren’t allowed free. The story keepers had that ability.
Maggie paused, thinking about her issues with free will. Magically bound to a story meant they were in the role they were given, forever. It sounded an awful lot like a prison sentence.
“Maggie?” Kody’s expression was questioning.
“Sorry. Just thinking.” She kept reading.
Now, however, times have changed. Many story keepers were murdered during the same purge that took all the spinners and shepherds. While it was true that the villains were the first to demand freedom, there were others who also simply wanted to live their lives, free of the constraints of their stories. They, too, turned against the story keepers. There are now only a few left, and they’ve gone into hiding. This means you will have to be the one to take a creature to its sector and bind it to keep it there. Your newfound powers will give you that ability.
Maggie’s stomach turned. She was going to be responsible for imprisoning people in stories they didn’t want to be in? That felt wrong on many levels. The others were watching her, and she decided it wasn’t something she needed to ponder alone.
“How do you guys feel about that? About being forced to stay in your story?”
Shamus fluffed his fur and left off licking his paw. “We weren’t. And many aren’t.”
Maggie made a rolling motion with her hand. “More, please?”
He looked at Brenda, who took up his explanation. “We’re outcasts, and we don’t fit into the main story arcs. Plenty of people live in our world who don’t have a part in the big stories, or whose stories are old and forgotten, so they can just go about their lives now. Shamus and I got left out, which means we didn’t have to be in the story at all. In a way, that’s shite because it means we don’t fit, we don’t have a place. But it also means we get to choose our own lives, like we did when we came here to be with you.”
Maggie looked at Shamus. “I’ve heard you speak in more than three sentences. Why couldn’t you say that?”
In response, he turned his back on her and shimmered into Blech, who laid in front of the fire with his ears twitching but his back to them.
“You can be a real butthead.” Maggie rolled her eyes and turned to Kody. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s complicated.” She got up and poured herself a drink. “I think I came up against a whole lot of people who weren’t doing anything wrong, but who were choosing lines of work they shouldn’t be doing in keeping with the tales of their sector. Like a farmer who was just meant to be a simple person, but who sold it all and went to the city to become an astronomer. We needed the farmer in the tale, and we told him he had to go back.”
Maggie stared at Kody, appalled. Is this what spinning tales meant? Keeping people in boxes? “And did you force him to go back?”
Kody sighed and looked at the book. “No. Jess and I didn’t do that. If we felt someone just wanted a different life, we told them what we were supposed to tell them, but we let them go. Sometimes it left a gap in the tale but never enough to cause an issue. It was only the ones hurting people or stepping so far out of their tale that they caused havoc that we really stepped in. But if it had caused a majo
r issue in a story?” She shrugged. “I don’t know what we would have done, honestly.”
That made Maggie feel marginally better. At least she knew Kody was already on her side if she decided she didn’t want to go that route. She returned to the book, far less enamored with it, and the author, now.
Fairy tales must remain balanced and in tune with the societies that use them. They are representations of what a society considers right and wrong, and how to overcome the monsters. They are used to teach young people the value of life, and how to take a journey that involves peril and change. When fairy tales become muted, when they shuffle and get lost, so too do the lessons they give the cultures who read them. If they become too diffused, too chaotic, the worlds will separate. New tales won’t be born, and old tales will begin to fade. The two worlds depend on each other. This is why there must be a spinner. You must keep the balance.
Maggie hated that in some philosophical way, the book made sense. Words, stories, tales…they held power. She knew that. But she was going to have to find a way to do this job without crushing the people she was also supposed to protect. She put the book down, not ready for any more. The fire snapped and crackled in the heavy silence.
“I guess I’ll head to my apartment.” Kody stood and took her glass to the sink.
Brenda, too, got up. “Yeah, it will be good to sleep in my own bed tonight.” She gave Maggie a hug. “I’ll come back around ten tomorrow morning, and I’ll bring coffee and bagels.”
“Sounds good.” Maggie watched her leave and then closed the door. She turned to Kody, who was watching her with an expression that took Maggie’s breath away and made her stomach flip. She jumped when Blech rubbed against her leg and raised his paw to the door. She opened it, and he sauntered out with a swish of his tail.
Maggie closed it again, and this time when she turned Kody was within touching distance. She raised her hand slowly and touched Maggie’s face.
“I’ve let ghosts haunt me for too long. This might be a mistake, but I want you.” She grinned. “And I know you want me.”
Maggie swallowed against the weird combination of panic and desire that flooded her. There’d been no mistaking the look in Kody’s eyes at the inn, and now that the fear was gone, that look came with such intense desire her knees nearly buckled. Kody’s hand slid into Maggie’s hair, and she shivered at how good it felt.
“Can we keep working together if we do this?”
Kody’s other hand slid over Maggie’s waist. “I don’t think we can work well together if we don’t. I go to sleep thinking about you, I wake up thinking about you. I hide it, I focus on what we’re doing. But green sands and monkey tits, Maggie, I want you, and when I feel the way you look at me…”
“Are you sure you’re ready? I mean, after what you told me today?” Maggie didn’t want to ask the question because she knew there was only one answer she wanted. But she had to know.
Kody’s gaze was like the caress of a feather as she looked from Maggie’s eyes to her lips. “I’ve been fighting my attraction to you all this time because of our obligations, and because of ghosts. I’m done fighting, and the ghosts can rest. I’m done with them.”
Maggie didn’t need to hear it again. She tilted her head, and their lips came together in a crush of desperate heat. Kody pressed her against the door, one hand tangled in her hair and the other caressing the skin under her T-shirt. Maggie wrapped her arms around Kody’s neck, holding her close, desperate not to let go. She was wet and groaned when Kody’s thigh slid between her legs, pushing the seam of her jeans against her and making the dull smolder turn into a pounding flame. Their kiss was searing, so hot she felt like she couldn’t breathe and would gladly die in the inferno if it just wouldn’t end.
She became vaguely aware of the sound of a buzz, like a power line, that kept growing louder. It became so distracting she broke away from the kiss and looked over Kody’s shoulder. “Oh shit!”
Kody jerked away, her eyes unfocused and her body still pressed against Maggie’s. “What is it?”
“Look.” Maggie gently pushed her back so she’d turn around. Blue forked sparks like tiny lightning bolts were zapping through the air around them, throwing the room into light and shadow as quickly as they appeared and flashed away.
Kody leaned back against Maggie, who wrapped her arms around Kody’s waist. “Well, that’s new.”
As they watched, and the heat between them began to dim, so too did the little flashes of lightning.
“Did we do that?” Maggie asked as the last few faded away.
“If I had to guess, I’d say yes. Nothing like literally setting the house on fire during sex.” Kody turned in Maggie’s embrace and cupped her cheek with her palm. “Maybe we should slow down a little. Neither of us is going anywhere, and maybe we should wait until we’re in a land where we can control this.”
Maggie raised her eyebrows. “And if we can’t control it, even there?”
Kody grinned. “Then we keep rebuilding the house.” She leaned in and gave Maggie a long, slow kiss. “I’m going to go back to my place tonight, but maybe tomorrow we can make other plans.”
Though she was disappointed, Maggie knew she was right. “I’d like that.” She put her hand over Kody’s heart. “Can I ask you something? Are you sure you’re ready? I mean, I wouldn’t want to be…to be…”
“A notch on my bedpost? Or a rebound from a memory?” Kody smiled gently, her thumb stroking Maggie’s cheek. “It’s amazing how fast you can heal when you face something instead of running from it. I’ve had plenty of sex, but I think we both know we’re going to be more than that, and I have to say, that makes me feel like I’ve been shot with a cocaine bullet. So we’ll take it slow, but I definitely want us to go there. Okay?”
Maggie pushed her cheek into Kody’s caress, loving the way it felt. “Okay. I won’t say it sounds like a good idea, because it sounds like a terrible idea if it goes to hell and we still have to work together. But I also know it’s the right idea. So…okay.”
Kody chuckled and kissed Maggie’s forehead. “In that case, good night, Mags. I’ll see you in the morning.” She picked up her bag and moved to the front door Maggie was holding open. “If you need me, call.” She put her hand over Maggie’s heart. “I’ll feel you.”
Maggie watched until the door leading to the elevator closed behind Kody and then closed her own. Without her little crew there it felt strangely empty. She hadn’t been alone for a while, something she’d never minded before, but now it felt foreign.
After double checking that the back door was secure, she poured herself a drink and headed upstairs to bed. The fire between her and Kody had been magical, and surely that meant it was something special. God knew she’d never thrown literal sparks with any other lover. But then, with others it had always been a surface thing, nothing to get attached to or worked up about. Kody was special. She was sexy, yeah. But she was also funny, and kind, and caring. Maggie wanted to keep getting to know her, and if they enjoyed some physical getting-to-know-you time, that was a bonus. She threw on her pj’s and snuggled into bed. The journey she was on was bizarre, unbelievable, and exciting. She couldn’t wait to put the next plans into play, and as she fell asleep, she couldn’t think of another time she’d so looked forward to living another day.
Chapter Twenty-four
Wanted: Keeper of the keys. Reward if found. Evidence required. Contact woodwitch1
Maggie was already dressed and ready to go before Kody and Brenda were set to arrive. She’d woken with things running through her mind, and although she wasn’t ready to share them yet, she could feel the options of her new role falling into place. She’d woken to find Blech curled up at the bottom of her bed, and when she’d gotten up, he’d grumbled, farted, and rolled over.
Shamus came down the stairs now, and he didn’t look much less grumpy. She stroked his head and his tail swished in response, but he didn’t say anything. Someone knocked, and Maggie’s stomach flippe
d as she hurried to the door, ready to see Kody again. But it was Brenda, balancing a bag of bagels on four tall drinks.
“If I didn’t understand why, I’d be insulted by how disappointed you look.” Brenda wiggled her eyebrows and came inside.
“I have no idea what you mean.” Maggie couldn’t help smiling though.
“Girl, you two were ready to eat each other alive last night. I had to go find myself a date for the rest of the night because of your horny teenage hormones messing with mine.” Brenda took out the bagels and cream cheese and gave Shamus a cuddle when he moved up next to her to sniff everything.
“I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works.” Maggie wasn’t sure what else to say, but another knock at the door saved her.
This time it was Kody, and she pulled her into a kiss before Maggie had even opened the door all the way. Maggie melted into her, her hands on Kody’s thick biceps.
“Wow. That’s so hot,” Brenda said with a mouthful of bagel.
Kody rested her forehead against Maggie’s and smiled. “Yeah, it is.”
“You’re lucky you didn’t burn the cottage down last night.” Shamus sat with a glob of cream cheese on his claw, which he was licking at daintily. “If one of those sparks had caught the books we would have had a serious problem.”
Kody bounced into the kitchen, looking like a different person than the one who had opened the door to Maggie when all this had started. Her energy was lighter, her eyes were clear of pain and vibrant, and the smile she turned to Maggie was breathtaking.
“And that, my little furry friend, is why we’ve decided not to take it much further until we’re back in our world. I don’t think this one can handle what we are together.” She winked at Maggie and pulled her close when Maggie went to get her own breakfast. “But good to know you were watching through a window or something, little perv.”