Project Elfhome

by Wen Spencer

  Taggart was slowly taking off his hiking boots, apparently bullied into joining. “I have hobbit feet. Big and hairy.” And he did. They were epic.

  All eyes turned to Jane.

  “The kids need baths,” Jane announced to keep from being roped into this odd display.

  Taggart tilted his head slightly to indicate she should look at her sister.

  Unshed tears shimmered in Boo’s eyes. The whole foot display, then, was for her sake.

  Jane sighed and sat down on the edge of her battered coffee table. She pulled off her boots and socks and reluctantly put out her feet for inspection. Five heads bent over her toes to inspect them.

  “Uh,” Taggart breathed in surprise. “I didn’t think you were the type to paint your toenails.”

  Boo gave a wordless squeal of delight and launched herself into Jane’s arms. “Purple!”

  “Yes, purple just for you.” Jane hugged her baby sister tight. Over her mass of white blond curls, she saw Taggart raise an eyebrow in question. “It’s her favorite color.”

  In the weeks leading up to Boo’s kidnapping, the little girl had begged and pleaded with Jane to have a full manicure. Jane never knew what had triggered it, but had resisted because she had tried it once when she was eleven and loathed the results. Her right hand had looked like she dipped her fingers into the polish, and in less than a day, she’d picked most of the polish off.

  On the morning Boo had gone missing, Jane had bought a bottle of purple nail polish. They’d sat on the tailgate of their family pickup truck and painted all their toenails as her younger brothers slept off a night of trying to kill one another. It had been a quiet moment of ritual girl bonding.

  Two hours later, Boo vanished out of their life. Taken. Presumed killed.

  Every week after that, for eight years, Jane had painted her toenails the same exact purple.

  * * *

  If Jane had a quarter for every time she’d washed one of her younger siblings, she could invest in an automatic baby washer. With the exception of his feet and the fact he didn’t act like the shampoo was acid, Joey proved to be no different than any of her younger brothers. It was a little unsettling when he used his feet like a second pair of hands; he could even unscrew bottle tops with them.

  Boo surprised her by asking for help with washing her hair. It scared Jane what evidence of abuse she would find under Boo’s dirty clothes. Jane silently called herself a coward as she filled the tub with fresh water and added lavender-scented bath salt. Seeing scars would be nothing compared to the pain of wearing them.

  It was a relief, though, that Boo had no noticeable scars. Only her birdlike feet marked what damage her kidnappers had done to her. Boo kept them under the surface of the foamy water. Either she was still ashamed of them or it didn’t occur to her that she could use them like hands.

  Boo’s hair proved to be just as wild and curly and white as when she was six. It surprised Jane since most of her family had been towheads as children but by fourteen their hair had changed to honey gold.

  “He liked my hair pale.” Boo pulled one of the wet locks of hair forward to gaze at sadly. “He did a spell so it would never change color.”

  “Who did?”

  “Kajo. He did that first. Just the color. He was going to make me an elf next, but then Danni said I was too dangerous of a toy to keep. That he was only keeping me because of some sick mommy obsession and he should get rid of me before I could hurt him.”

  Jane felt like someone had just punched her hard in the stomach. “He took you to be a toy?”

  Boo shook her head vehemently. “No. I was stupid. I’d seen Kajo with Danni. Her hair was just like mine. I wanted to meet her, so I followed them all the way to a warehouse where they were meeting with Lord Tomtom. He has cat ears and a tail. Even a six-year-old can tell he isn’t human. He was going to kill me, but Kajo stopped him. Kajo liked my hair.”

  “Kajo and Lord Tomtom are both oni?”

  Boo wrinkled up her nose. “There’s all sorts of oni. There’s the purebloods but there’s not a lot of those in Pittsburgh. Some of the officers are purebloods; they wear face paint to make themselves scarier. And then there’s the lesser bloods who’d been bred with animals. They don’t need face paint to be scary. And then there’s the greater bloods like Kajo and his Eyes. They look almost human.”

  “What do you mean by Eyes?”

  “They’re women who can see the future.” Boo said. “I think they’re related to Kajo. Danni calls him ‘big brother’ when she’s mad at him.”

  The mention of brothers drove all other thoughts out of Jane’s mind with the sudden realization she was going to have to tell her family that she’d found Boo. Jane shuddered a little at the thought of how their five brothers were going to take the news.

  How long could she put it off?

  * * *

  Jane threw away the dirty rags that Boo and Joey had been wearing. Luckily she had a massive closet full of kid’s clothes. Her mother and aunts had kept every stitch of clothing that Jane’s generation had outgrown. The price for taking over the family estate was storing all the clothes until the next generation could grow into them. Jane enforced military order on the closet to keep it from being reduced to pure chaos every few months. She standardized on twenty-seven gallon, airtight, stackable, heavy plastic bins. They were labeled and organized by sex and sizes. She pointed Boo toward the handful of girl containers and then pulled down one labeled “Boy’s size 5” for Joey.

  When she opened up the bin, Joey gave a cry of joy and snatched up the topmost piece of clothing.

  “Ravenclaw!” He held up a black shirt. “That’s my house!”

  “It is?” The long-sleeved shirt had a large bird that looked more like an eagle than a raven.

  He hugged the shirt to his chest. “At Hogwarts there are four houses: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Slytherin, and us! Ravenclaw! Our element is air and we’re smart!”

  “Oh! Harry Potter!” Her brother Geoffrey had gone through a phase when he was about ten. It was what inspired him to learn magic, which led to his carpentry since ironwood could only be crafted with spells and magically sharp tools. He was the only human in the city that could work with the wood. He shipped his furniture as far away as New York and Los Angeles. The shirt most likely had been his.

  Joey nodded enthusiastically. “Riki read to me every night before bed. When we would finish a book, we’d watch the movie.” The smile faded. “We’d just finished Prisoner of Azkaban, but we didn’t get to see the movie.” He held up the shirt. “Can I have it?”

  The shirt was in the wrong bin; it was at least three sizes too big. Jane couldn’t say no. It really didn’t matter that the shirt didn’t fit; after what Joey had been through, he deserved any little thing that could make him happy.

  “Sure.” She helped him pull the shirt over his head. It came to his knees and his hands were lost in the sleeves.

  “There, you look like a true Ravenclaw now.” She rolled up the sleeves until his hands appeared.

  “I’m just like Harry,” Joey tented out the shirt so he could study the decal. “The oni killed my parents when I was just a baby. I live with my Aunt Katsumi and Uncle Hiro, but they’re not mean at all. I have three cousins instead of one; Riki, Mickey and Keiko. None of them are like Dudley. Aunty Nori is Mickey’s aunt, not mine, just like Marge Dursley, but she’s not mean either. She always brings presents for all of us and plays Sturdy Birdy with me. We live hidden in among muggles, who don’t know anything about magic or monsters.”

  Jane gazed at him, so tiny and helpless. It was starting to hit home that she’d taken a child. Being that he had been chained to the floor inside a cage, it seemed a perfectly justified action. But keeping him was filled with moral ambiguity. Boo said that she was now genetically his sister, and certainly their matching crow feet seemed to support that claim.

  You can’t pick your family, Boo reminded Jane, but you still have to do right by them.
>
  For Jane, “do right” was to return Joey to the family that obviously loved him if they were reading nightly to him. The only problem was that it didn’t sound like Joey’s family lived in Pittsburgh. If they did, the people around him would know about magic and monsters. “Do you know where your aunt and uncle live? What is their address?”

  “Three eight three five Startouch Drive, Pasadena, California, nine one one oh seven.”

  “California?” Jane echoed with dismay.

  Joey nodded.

  Returning him to his family wasn’t going to happen any time soon. She had no idea how she was going to get him back to Earth. With the EIA infiltrated by oni, she couldn’t use official channels. She knew that there were people that smuggled in illegal immigrants, but for the time being, she could trust no one but family. Jane couldn’t even call Joey’s aunt and uncle. She would have to wait until Shutdown when Pittsburgh returned to Earth to contact them. The poor people. She knew firsthand the grief that they must be going through.

  That her family was still going through. Jane sighed, deciding to at least call her mother. She would still be at her café downtown. Jane would have to wait until her mother closed up; otherwise there might be strangers there to overhear the conversation. Actually, Jane realized it would be best to just ask her to come to Hyeholde and not to go into details on the phone.

  * * *

  Said conversation did not go as planned. Her mother was tired and already upset. Jane’s youngest brother, Guy, had been in yet another fight at summer school.

  “Mom! Mom! I’ll knock some sense into Guy! Just…please…I need you here. It’s really important.”

  “Can’t you come to the house?”

  Her mom still lived on their old street. The world’s biggest gossips, Mike and Mitsuko Barker lived in the house next door. The Barkers were the type of people that you could trust with your kids but not your secrets. The standing joke was “Telephone, telegraph, tell a Barker.”

  “Mom, my boss saddled me with two new people…”

  “Yes, Mitsy Barker was telling me about them. She saw you on the television with Chloe Polanski. Nigel Reid! What’s he like?”

  What her mom was really asking was “do you find him sexually attractive?” and “can I start asking about grandchildren?” One would think raising seven children was enough for anyone, but apparently it was the people who had lots of kids that looked forward to a houseful of even more.

  For some reason all Jane could think of was Taggart wearing only his pajama bottoms and the arrow of dark hair pointing down to his beltline. And the fact he smelled heavenly at all times.

  “Jane?” Which really meant, “You didn’t say ‘no’ like usual.”

  “There’s someone I really want you to meet,” Jane said truthfully. “Not Nigel. Someone else. But I’m really tied up here and can’t bring them to the house.”

  “Okay.” Her mother’s voice was fully of surprise and curiosity. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’ll stop and pick up something to cook.”

  Translation: I’ll properly welcome this mystery man into the family.

  “That would be good.” Jane hung up. She leaned her head against the kitchen wall and considered banging it a few times. Why was it easier to deal with the heavily armed oni than her family?

  Taggart chose that moment to walk into the kitchen. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes.” My mother is coming to pin someone down and force them to propose. And she’s not picky as to who. “No.” Considering the last forty-eight hours, maybe that was the wrong thing to say. “I’m not sure.” Jane didn’t want to explain her mother’s pending siege, so she tackled the other thing that had her unbalanced. “I never thought it would turn out this way. I mean, this is the way I wanted it to. Prayed it would. But I always thought that if we were lucky, the most we’d ever recover was a few gnawed bones that we’d never be totally sure were hers. This? This is too good to be true. I keep thinking I’ll wake up and find out it was a dream.”

  Taggart smiled gently at her and leaned in close. “It’s not a dream. You’re awake and she’s in the other room, safe and sound, watching a movie. Harry Potter, I think.”

  Chesty stood up, alert but not growling.

  “We’re getting visitors.” Jane went to her gun rack and got down her rifle.

  Taggart glanced to Chesty. “Trouble?”

  “Probably not, but I wasn’t expecting anyone. Stay put.”

  Outside she could hear the deep rumble of a big truck coming. As it neared, the timbre grew familiar. It was her brother Alton’s Ford pickup. She swung her rifle onto her back, but stayed hidden from sight while he slowed and turned into her long drive.

  When she was sure it was only Alton, she drifted out to meet him. He took note of the rifle on her shoulder. He lifted his rifle out of his gun rack before swinging down out of the cab.

  “What’s wrong?” He scanned the woods around Hyeholde. Alton had been as fair as Boo as a child. Since their baby sister had disappeared, he’d grown increasingly dark and scruffy. His honey-blond hair was down to his shoulders, and recently he’d stared to grow a beard.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” Jane said. “Just being careful.”

  “Ah.” He sounded unconvinced. “So Brandy called me for no reason at all to tell me to hunt you down and sit on you.”

  “Like that would work.”

  He shrugged. All her brothers were tall and strong but they’d had a lifetime of being whooped by Jane. They were naturally reluctant to get her riled up but pride made them equally reluctant to admit that they were scared of her.

  “I got an elk while picking blueberries,” Alton said. “I figured I’d come out and check on you.”

  Alton made a living by foraging for fruits and nuts that grew wild now that half the farms in Pittsburgh were abandoned. He sold his finds to the elf enclaves and the handful of restaurants still in business. When it started to snow, he’d switch to hunting big game. It was early in the year for him to bag an elk; the midsummer heat made it difficult to properly age the meat. What he wasn’t saying was that he needed to borrow her garage which been converted out of Hyeholde’s old springhouse.

  Jane nodded but added terms. “I want some of the blueberries and meat.”

  Alton put out his hand to seal the deal with a fist bump. “Brandy said you’re working with a new crew.” He pitched the last as a question, tilting his head toward the Chased by Monsters production truck. “Is Hal okay? I heard he set himself on fire.”

  “He’s fine.” Jane glanced into the back of his pickup. A young red elk bull filled the truck’s bed. The big male was a cousin to the Eastern Elk, which had gone extinct in Pennsylvania in 1877. She hadn’t known that fact until she and Hal had done a Pittsburgh Backyard and Garden episode on a young bull that was terrorizing Observatory Hill. A herd of elk might make a good show for Chased by Monsters. The oni were suppressing information out of Pittsburgh in preparation for a guerilla war with the elves. To build human support for the city, Jane and her crews needed to show the interesting upside of living on Elfhome. Bountiful big game would win the hunters over. “Where did you bag it?”

  “Down by Brownsville, almost to the Rim. There’s a mated pair of saurus with little ones or a warg pack or something pushing herds into the South Hills. I could have dropped two or three but I’m not sure where I’d age all the meat. Want me to bag you one?”

  She shook her head. “I want to film a herd.”

  “Ah, okay.” He circled back to the start of the conversation. “So why does Brandy want me to sit on you?”

  There was no avoiding it so she might as jump to the truth like ripping off a bandage. “I found out who took Boo and where they were holding her.”

  “What?” he shouted. “What are we doing here? Why haven’t you gone after her? Why didn’t you call us? Why would Brandy want me to sit on you?”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Jane was glad that she’d left her brothers out of the re
scue mission. “I need you to calm down and promise me…”

  “No,” Alton snapped. “I’m going after her, with or without you.”

  Jane punched him in the stomach. He clamped down on a cry of pain and took a swing at her but she’d already ducked out of his reach. He really needed to learn to keep his guard up. “Listen to me.”

  He unleashed a string of curses as he staggered back, rubbing his stomach.

  “And stop swearing; you sound like a whore. I’ve already went after her.”

  “Oh, freaking hell, Jane, you could have started with it was another false lead!”

  “Shut up and listen. I need you to promise me that you won’t tell a soul about Boo.”

  “What?”

  “You need to keep your mouth shut. No one can know about Boo and Joey. Promise me.”

  “Who the hell is Joey?”

  Jane sighed. It would be easier to explain this only once to all of her family but that was a recipe for sheer chaos. “You’ve been listening to the news? Did you hear that besides Earth and Elfhome with the elves, there’s a third parallel universe where the world is Onihida and its people are called oni. There used to be ways to go from universe to universe via caves.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” He made a motion that she should jump to her point. “Magic resonance through the rocks, blah blah blah, same effect that transfers Pittsburgh to Elfhome. Wormholes between mirror worlds. Some with magic, some without. Wait? You mean the oni took Boo?”

  Jane signaled for him to wait. “The oni and the elves had a war three hundred years ago. It started on Onihida but it spilled onto Earth in China. The oni managed to push a small army through their pathway before the elves pulled down the caves. Part of that force were tengu; humans who had been merged with crows as punishment.”

  “The tengu took Boo too? Why? I could see them taking Tinker now that she’s a…”

  “Just shut up and listen!” Jane cried. “The tengu had been normal humans. They couldn’t easily find their way back and forth between the two worlds, but they were doing it. Onihida was like the Aladdin’s treasure cave and giant’s castle in ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ and every fairy tale you ever heard. It was filled with monsters but if you were cunning and brave, there was gold and treasure. Or at least, that’s the legend that lured the tengu to Onihida.”