Just as I reached the door, I heard a familiar voice. "Helen, who was that?"
The woman—Helen—whose voice was back to being several octaves too high, replied, "Party crasher. But don't worry, Belinda, I chased her away."
Keeping my head down and face turned away from the women, I fled.
Knowing my mother was inside certainly put a crimp in my plans to find and capture Flint. I could come back later when my mother wasn't present, but the fact remained that I'd already lost too much time on this hunt. Flint could have been and gone, moved to a new location. And I wouldn't know until I had a look inside.
It was a public building.
She was busy with her meeting.
And my gut said there was a fae inside. At least one. The feeling was there, but it was weird, and I needed to know why it was weird. Why this place?
It was now or never because I wasn't giving up on this case.
There was a staff entrance at the side of the building. I followed the shovelled and salted path around the corner and pulled out my phone to text my progress to Magnusson.
I had a message from Luke. Voicemail. I played it.
"Good morning, Beautiful. We've been invited to dinner with my parents tonight. I'm sorry. I know it's last minute. And I know it's my parents. Sorry about that, too. Mother stopped by my office today and she knew something was up, so I ended up telling her about our engagement. Now they want to celebrate. We don't have to. Just send me a message when you get this and I'll cancel. Okay? I love you."
Oh great.
Dinner with the future in-laws? Ugh.
But I knew how much this dinner would mean to Luke. He didn't say so, but it was important to him. Family was important to him. I could suck it up for one night.
I texted my progress to Magnusson and then headed for the side entrance.
12
Strung across the pavilion, little lights twinkled in greeting. Tiny warm beacons on a cold winter's night. To a seven-year-old, the lights dazzled like stars, child-friendly champagne bubbles, sparkling against the freshly fallen snow. I gasped with delight as my father lifted me out of the car.
"The trees," I exclaimed. "They're sparkling!"
"It's just lights, Julia," my mother said. "Calm down."
My father took my mitten-clad hand. "Oh, let her enjoy the moment, Belinda."
He pointed to the frosty-twinkly trees all around the gardens. "The trees have been winterstruck," he said.
"It's called hoar frost," my mother corrected.
Cheerful violins grew louder as we left the car in the parking lot and headed for the pavilion, our footsteps crunching on the snow, my stomach in knots of anticipation for the annual Friends of the Breckenridge Conservatory Christmas party. I looked up, filled with wonder. My breath made wispy white clouds against the star-filled sky.
We shed our coats inside the doors where several coat racks had been set up to receive guests' wintery outerwear. We put our boots below our coats. My father donned Italian leather dress shoes while my mother put on heels and handed me a pair of slippers. She took a stiff hand to the wrinkles that had formed on my dress in the car, while cursing the winter static lifting my hair out of the tight braids.
"Try not to spill anything on this dress tonight, Julia. It's organza," she said, and began running through a long list of expectations for me.
Having finished with his shoes, my father stepped forward and took my hand again. "She'll be fine, Belinda," he said. He smiled warmly at me.
When we entered the main room, people swarmed my parents, offering drinks and appetizers, talking about politics and news of the day. I was nearly trampled a few times, but stubbornly clung to my father's hand.
Much to my surprise, I wasn't allowed to sit at one of the big tables with my parents. I was told to sit with the other children at a short table near the giant Christmas tree.
Everything would have been fine if it weren't for the Hemminger boys. Twins. Who never got along in the best of times. On this magical night, with a small orchestra and a choir singing like angels, these boys started a food fight.
I panicked. I knew for sure that if my dress got dirty, I'd likely wear the punishment with a sore butt later. I backed away from the table, waiting for someone to notice.
"Psst." The lower branches of the giant Christmas tree swayed, the delicate glass ornaments tinkling.
Another girl waved at me to seek shelter under the tree from the flying chunks of meat pie and mashed potatoes.
So I did.
I pushed aside the branches and slipped under the tree. I looked up and gasped.
It was a real tree. With a trunk I could hug and branches I could climb. In fact, my companion was already several branches above me.
Magic surrounded me with the twinkling lights and sparkle of the tinsel and glass ornaments. Between the branches, I glimpsed the adults enjoying their meal and the live music. The other children down below hadn't noticed my escape, still absorbed in their vegetable warfare.
I sat on a branch next to the girl. My cheeks hurt from grinning so much.
About the same size as me, she wore a navy-blue velvet dress. Cream-coloured stockings covered her legs. She swung her shiny black shoes to the rhythm of the music. Under the lights of the tree, her blond hair shone like a halo. I remember her being friendly, but I can’t remember her face.
Isn't it funny how faces fade from memories?
She reached into a pocket in her skirt. I remember feeling a pang of jealousy that her skirt had pockets. She pulled out something clenched in her fist. She opened her hand and held it out to me. There, on her palm, lay a glass pinecone strung with a dark green ribbon.
She gestured for me to take it.
It was the kind of pinecone that wasn't fully opened. It was heavy in my hand. The scales pushed into my palm and I ran my thumb over the bumps.
"It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," I whispered.
We sat in that tree swaying to the music. It could have been forever. It could have been only five minutes. It was the loveliest, most magical experience of my life.
At some point I realized the music had faded away and I heard my mother calling my name.
"I have to leave now," I said.
She smiled and nodded. We began to climb down the tree. It was a little more difficult climbing with a glass pinecone clutched in my hand.
We reached the bottom and I turned to crawl out, but somehow realized she didn't intend to leave the tree.
"Won't your mother be looking for you, too?" I asked.
She smiled.
My mother shouted for me, sounding frantic. I scrambled out from under the tree. The brightness of the lights and the lateness of the hour made me squint my eyes shut and stumble like a newborn fawn.
A pair of hands snatched me and lifted me up. I recognized my father's cologne and the warmth of his arms around me.
My mother's shrieks brought me fully awake. "Where have you—WHAT happened to your dress?"
I had no idea what she was talking about. I'd stayed out of the food fight.
"There's tree sap all over your dress, young lady."
"Tree sap?" my father said. "But it's an artificial tree."
"I have no idea how she managed this, but the dress is completely ruined. Look at it!"
Artificial tree? No, it was a real tree.
I tried to explain about the tree and the girl, but my mother wasn't listening.
"It's all right now, Belinda," Father said. "We found her. She's safe. Let's go home now."
I buried my face into my father's shoulder.
"Fine," she relented. "We'll deal with this at home."
Father put me down. Mother held my coat open. I quickly threw my arms into it so I could get back to Father.
"What is that?" Mother asked. "What is that in your hand?"
I looked at Father. He nodded.
"It's a pinecone," I said, unwrapping my fingers and showing it to him.
/>
"Where did you get this?" Mother snapped. "Did you take it from the tree?"
I shook my head. "A girl gave it to me."
"I think you took it from the tree. You're going to put it back right now."
"No. No, a girl gave it to me. Honest. She's my friend. She gave it to me." Tears streamed down my face. I struggled to catch my breath. Mother grew impatient when I cried.
"What girl?"
"She was—she was in the tree with me."
"Give it to me." She held out her hand. "It doesn't belong to you. It belongs to the Conservatory."
I shook my head.
Mother sighed. "Clearly the girl took the ornament from the tree. Now give it back, Julia."
Father cleared his throat. "Maybe a little girl did give it to her. It doesn’t match any of the other ornaments."
"Then where's this girl now? Nearly everyone has gone home."
"More than a few drinks were consumed tonight. It's possible she was left behind. We should check to be sure."
"She's lying. It's bad manners to tell lies, Julia. Now, I'm giving you one last chance to tell the truth."
I clutched the glass pinecone to my chest. There was only one way to make them believe me. I ran for the tree.
My heart pounded wildly, but I clearly heard my mother say, "Robert, get the car. I'll get Julia. We're going home."
I reached the tree, dove under the branches, and started climbing. But this time, the tree was different. Gone was the sturdy trunk with rough bark. Now the tree was made of metal rods that bent under my weight.
"Julia! Julia! Get out of there this minute!"
I looked up at the crisscrossing branches wrapped in wires with twinkle lights. The magic was gone.
Worse, there was no sign of the girl.
Mother grabbed hold of my ankle and yanked me out, dragging me across the floor.
"Give. Me. That. Ornament."
I rolled and kicked, trying to escape her grasp. I clawed for anything I could grab to aid my getaway. I latched onto a tree branch. And I pulled.
Twisting around, I saw the look of horror on my mother's face. She started yelling no. But she wasn't looking at me. Her eyes were on the giant tree above us as the top of it tilted toward the ground.
Everything moved in slow motion. I released the branch. My mother scooped me up into her arms and rolled us out of the tree's path to shelter next to the wall.
I lost my grip on the pinecone. It tumbled from my hand and bounced across the floor. Once. Twice. And then it smashed to pieces just as the tree crashed to the ground.
The room swelled with the swish of branches and tinsel, quickly followed by smashing glass from the small lights to the larger ornaments. As a grand finale, the big gold star, once pretty with lights atop the tree, disintegrated when it hit the floor.
All was silent.
That night, I received the spanking of a lifetime.
13
The side entrance was for staff members, and marked as such with black lettering on the white door. I grabbed the handle, yanked the door open, and went inside.
I found a hallway that led to the kitchen. Sounds of busy cooking activities floated down the hallway with sweet and savoury scents on a warm, humid breeze. I thought I detected buttery squash, roast chicken, and industrial dish soap. Along that hallway were doors marked for a staff room, a storage room, and the basement.
The staff room was used too frequently, and the storage room contained mostly cleaning supplies. The basement was where most of the storage was kept, transported to the second floor by service elevator.
The basement was constructed of large cement blocks painted grey. The floor, also cement, was painted black. For the most part, the space was open. This side of the room had an empty area that was clearly designated for the tables and chairs that were currently in use upstairs, and the rest of the room was packed with rows of shelving. The shelves at this end were stacked with boxes of dishes and glassware, plastic totes labelled with the type, size, and colour of linens contained within. As I moved along toward the back of the room, the shelved items changed to seasonal decorations for special occasions, and changed again to gardening items—different soil types, fertilizers, insecticides, cardboard boxes labelled with the types of bulbs contained within. As I travelled, the smells in the room changed from the warm soups they were making upstairs to rubbery plastic to harsh chemicals to earthy soil. I reached the end of the rows and found something interesting: a door.
The door was marked "Employees Only" and it was locked.
Now, I could have turned away and waited for Magnusson, but he might not be able to join me for hours. And I was already here. My fae-dar said this was the place: my veins thrummed, my spine tingled with anticipation. There was something behind this door, and I was guessing the employees had no idea what it was. Probably all of them assumed someone among them had the key, but I would bet none of them actually did.
Fortunately, that wasn't an issue for me. Early in my training, Magnusson showed me how to pick a lock. Some fae tended to lock themselves behind closed doors—overwhelmed by iron or smog or humans—making the art of picking locks a necessary job skill. I had a lock-picking set stashed between my cell phone and its rubbery case. I pulled out my phone, unclipped the case, and removed the tools. I reassembled my phone and checked for a reply from Magnusson. Nothing. With a sigh, I put my phone back in my pocket and went to work on the lock. A few minutes later, I gave the knob a twist and pushed the door open.
It was dark, but it felt like a big room, at least as big as the room behind me. Maybe bigger. The air was warm and smelled earthy and green, but was otherwise still. I waited for my eyes to adjust to the darker room before opening the door enough to slip inside. I tucked the lock picks into my jacket and pulled out my phone to have on hand just in case my eyes didn't adjust enough. I slipped my other hand around my gun and I went in.
The floor in here was hard-packed earth; my footsteps churned up the smell of compost and mushrooms. There were dark shapes along the floor, but even as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I couldn't make them out. I took out my phone and put on the flashlight app. The built-in flash came on and lit up the room.
Bodies lay entwined all over the place, stacked up next to each other like cordwood. Long pale limbs. Short dark limbs. Limbs of other colours. Limbs with fur. And the faces. It was as though they were all born of summer's bounty of leaves and flowers, birds and fauna. Creatures of the night. Creatures of sweet dreams. Creatures of nightmares.
I froze. My heart pounded against my ribcage. My mind raced to catch up to what I was seeing.
What the hell was this? Fae. Clearly they are fae, Ivory. Get a grip.
Yeah. Grip. Good idea.
I pulled my gun out of my pocket.
They weren't moving. So at least there was that.
I breathed open-mouthed as the rest of my body tried to catch up with my racing heart. I forced myself to take a deep breath and swallow against my dry throat.
Though I desperately wanted to slip back out that door and run away, I needed to know the extent of what I was looking at so I could report it to someone who might be able to answer the questions that were bombing my mind. I continued to walk through the carnage.
Faces turned away from the bright light on my phone. I halted, tingling with fear.
Okay. Not dead. Just sleeping?
What the fuck was this place?
I tried to keep the light of my phone dim as I moved down an empty path cut through the centre of the room. I kept my footsteps light on the dirt floor. They continued to sleep.
There seemed to be no end to the room; the darkness went on forever. I found no sign of either Hammond or Flint.
Where the hell was Flint?
He’d come to this address.
Magnusson needed to know about this. There was so much about this that wasn't right. We needed to do something to protect these fae. They were so exposed. If I could pick the
lock, someone else could too.
I turned my phone over in my hand to start dialling and headed for the door.
Something reached out in the dark and snagged my left ankle. I swung the light around. Long pale fingers wrapped around my boot. I traced the light over the long, extended arm to a pale face surrounded by wild nest of dark hair. Her eyes were wide open and seeing.
"You trespass," she hissed.
"I-I'm sorry," I stammered.
"Tressssspassssss."
I struggled to free my ankle and get away from her. "Let me go. Let me go. Let me leave this place."
Panic started to rise, pressing against the back of my throat. My mind raced, heart slammed. What if she put out an alarm? What if she woke the others? Oh my God. I would never get out.
I yanked my leg harder until it came free. I glanced over my shoulder and backed up toward the door.
She rose from the tangle of bodies on the floor in a long, white, diaphanous gown that gave her the appearance of rising out of sea foam. The bodies shifted, rearranging themselves, creaking like tree branches shifting in the wind.
"State your purpose," she said, sounding more coherent. Her eyes were narrowed in anger, her tone accusing. I put her at about six feet in height.
"I--I'm looking for someone."
"Looking." She tilted her head slightly to the side. I wondered how strong her neck must be, having to carry that massive nest—it wasn’t made of hair—and I thought perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps her dark eyes were narrowed in concentration and her tone questioning. Or maybe I was just hoping that was the case.
"I promise you, there's someone who should be here," I said. "He…he can make sparks fly from his hands. He's made of some kind of rock—nite…nitrine."
I couldn't very well call him Flint. She wouldn't know who that was, and I didn't know his real name.
"He came here," I continued.
I backed against the wall next to the door. She stopped in front of me, just within arms' reach. Up close, I wasn't sure she had hair; I was pretty sure it was all nest. With dried up flowers. And small creatures—birds, squirrels—curled up in hibernating bundles.
Winterstruck: an urban fantasy supernatural crime thriller Page 9