Sebastian nodded. “You know I was. I have to say I was genuinely shocked when you grabbed me up like that. I mean besides being a scary situation, I know I’m not exactly the smallest guy, even in fox form.”
“You’re trying to tell me that you’re, what? A were-fox?” she finally looked up at him, scrutinizing his face for any sign of the joke. He just frowned and looked a bit confused.
“Of course not, I’m—” Sebastian’s frown grew. “Wait. You mean you…”
He sat back on his heels and ran his hand through his hair in a gesture that reflected Kai’s habit. He took a breath. Sarah waited, giving him time to get his thoughts together. His face went through a series of expressions from worry to surprise to thoughtfulness, back to worry. Either he was genuinely taken aback by her lack of knowledge that he’d been sure she had, or he was the best actor she’d ever seen. Finally, he glanced back up at her.
“You really had no idea?” he asked, finally. “Wow. Okay. I thought for sure that Miss Rosie would have mentioned it. In general, I mean, not me specifically. I’m not that arrogant.”
“Mentioned what? Apparently when I came out here I had no idea about anything!” Sarah’s emotional roller coaster of a day finally crested the final hill and hurtled straight into frustrated anger. She stood up and started pacing. “Apparently Gran knew all sorts of things that she deliberately hid from me. We talked all the time! I thought we were so close, but I guess I wasn’t close enough for her to tell me that there are were-foxes in her neighborhood! And Doc knows some sort of huge secret that she refuses to tell me because it’s a family matter, and on top of that, apparently my mother knows something about all of it and she won’t tell me anything! At least I expect that sort of crap from her, but Gran?
And now there’s Doc and you come knocking on my door and it feels like everyone knows about all these secrets except for me, and I’m being deliberately kept in the dark about it all! And speaking of dark, there’s something out there in the dark that’s easily the most terrifying thing that ever was, and there’s more than one of them right outside my new home! You’d think that’s the sort of thing that someone would mention? Maybe ’Surprise, your grandmother has been dying for months and never bothered to mention it, and now she’s dead, so sorry! But you inherited her house! It’s a lovely place in a nice quiet neighborhood with a jogging path and terrifying nightmare monsters! But there’s were-foxes living down the street, so that’s ok.’ I have had it with all this crap!”
She stormed back and forth, gesturing wildly and stabbing a finger at Sebastian who sat back on his heels, wide-eyed and silent. It dawned on her that she had spent the whole of her life having hugely important information being deliberately hidden from her. Her mother, well. That made sense at least. Elaine’d spent Sarah’s entire life dictating who she would be, what she would do, and how she would behave. If her mother could have moved, spoken, and even thought for Sarah, she would have done that too, probably! But Gran?
Gran had seemed like the only person in Sarah’s life that was totally honest and open with her. She let Sarah talk about anything she wanted to, from the mystery and adventure books she read in secret to her crush on the guy at the ice cream shop she went to one summer. Things that she couldn’t tell anyone else she’d told Gran, and apparently Gran was hiding a whole world of… of what exactly? Sarah ran up against the wall of ignorance that had been deliberately constructed around her life, and facing that, her anger fled like water spilling out of a glass.
Which she had also been doing, it turned out, as she’d gestured wildly with the glass in her hand still half full. Sebastian saw that she was finished pacing and quietly went to grab a towel to clean up the water she’d sloshed around as she ranted. Sarah just stood there and felt herself turn beet red. She let him draw her back to the sofa to sit down.
“I don’t know what to tell you about, well, most of that really. I honestly thought you already knew or I wouldn’t have sprung it on you like that at all. I can tell you about myself though, if that would help you.” He sat next to her carefully. She just wanted to curl up in a hole somewhere and pull it in after her. Instead she just nodded. She wanted to know everything that Gran hadn’t told her.
“Well, you already know my name is Sebastian. I’m technically Kai’s half brother, but we don’t really care about the half part.” He shrugged. “We usually don’t even make the distinction— my folks got married when Kai was about five years old and my other half brother was about four. Dad never treated us any differently that I noticed, but it does factor in a little. To explaining things, at I mean. See, our mother is half kitsune— that’s a sort of Japanese fox spirit— so I have a few abilities that humans don’t. Like being able to run around as a fox, for example. I’m not very strong, though, because my dad is one hundred percent human, so I’m only a quarter kitsune. If that makes sense?”
Sarah blinked, letting the statement settle into her brain.
“As far as math goes, it makes sense. Otherwise it sounds entirely crazy,” she said. Sebastian sighed and nodded. “Can you prove it? Show me this fox form?”
“Well normally I could, but Doc would murder me if I pop these stitches,” he shrugged out of his jacket and pulled up the sleeve of his tshirt. There was a bandage taped to his right arm, slanting diagonally from the front of his shoulder, down to the back of his elbow. “There are only four actual stitches up by my shoulder, but the wound was pretty long, I guess.” He peeled back a corner of the bandage, near the top and showed her the stitches. It would scar, but not too badly. Doc did decent work. And lived up to her nickname, apparently.
“Why didn’t you go to the hospital?” Sarah asked. “Is Doc really a doctor?”
“Well, first off, what do you think they’d say if I told them I was wounded by a cold, soulless hole in the universe given form while I was running around as a fox? Second, there was more than just blood and mud to clean out of that. Wights leave wounds that fester in the spirit, not just the body. Doc had to clean that poison out as well, which isn’t something an EMT is trained in usually,” he grimaced. “And no, she’s not a doctor sort of doctor, but she does patch up the minor stuff and anything that normal medical science can’t deal with, like wight wounds.”
“That looks painful. I’m sorry,” she said as he covered the injury back up. “But that really tells me that you can’t prove what you’re saying. And that means, basically, that you’re a strange man in my house.” Sarah somehow knew that she wasn’t in danger from Sebastian— after all, if he’d meant her harm he could have done anything he wanted when she fainted. But she still didn’t entirely believe that there were such things as monsters, let alone— what was it he’d said, kitsune? Did she? It felt for a moment like Gran and her mother were fighting inside her head and she had to shake them silent again when Sebastian started speaking.
“Well, there’s this,” he turned his hand over, palm flat, and a small fire sprang up to float about an inch off his skin. It flickered blue and green and Sarah could feel the heat coming off it. She knew her eyes were wide with shock. Her mind struggled for any sort of rational explanation.
“That’s quite a magic trick,” she managed, finally. Sebastian grinned at her.
“It certainly is,” he raised his hand and the fire floated off his palm to circle the room slowly until it came to float in front of her, chest high, like a puppy showing off a new trick and waiting for praise.
“It’s called foxfire,” Sebastian said, waving a hand and letting it wink out. Sarah just turned to him with her eyes wide.
“I don’t know if I can handle this.”
Seven
Sarah struggled to accept the suddenly terrifying place the world now was. No, that wasn’t quite right, actually. What she struggled with was the fact that she couldn’t find the shock that she was sure she should be feeling at the discovery. The thing that was frightening her the most, she realized, was that there was a part of her that was nodding and
saying well that finally makes some sense! It was the part of her that sounded an awful lot like Gran.
“Hey, I’m really sorry. I didn’t want to scare you. I just wanted to show that I’m not lying or anything. ” Sebastian was frowning at her again. “You’re white as a sheet, Sarah.” He’d watched the color drain out of her face and clearly felt terrible, knowing that his showing off had caused it.
“I woke up this morning in a totally normal, sane place. Now…” she said.
“You’re still in the same place now, you just know more about it,” Sebastian said. “I’m honestly shocked that Miss Rosie didn’t tell you about all this. I mean, she was friends with my grandmother. She knew all about us. Heck, she taught Doc all she knows! If Miss Rosie was still alive I’d have probably come here instead, this morning.” He grinned. “She’d have been more gentle about it, too. Doc’s got fingers like jackhammers sometimes.”
“My grandmother knew, about all this,” she waved her hand vaguely around to encompass the whole area, “and she never told me.” Sarah felt entirely lost. The one person she’d felt she could trust apparently hadn’t trusted her. Somehow now that the shock had passed, the knowledge that the world wasn’t perfectly mundane and grey like Elaine had always insisted just felt right. Sarah needed to know more.
“That’s the part I don’t understand. It’s just so weird. She talked about you all the time. That’s probably why I assumed you knew all about me, to begin with, I guess. She talked about you so much that in my head I feel like we’ve known each other for years already,” Sebastian said.
“She did?”
“Yeah. I actually thought about looking you up the last couple of times I went to visit my folks. Dad teaches economics at NYU, so we go out to visit at least once a year or so. I got out there and realized I don’t have your phone number, though.” He ducked his head and ran his hand through his hair again. Sarah blinked at him and felt a grin trying to reach her face. Crazy kitsune thing aside, he was being pretty sweet, and honestly either he wasn’t lying about being quarter fox spirit or he was a master magician to pull off that fire trick.
“Well, I guess you have Gran’s landline number somewhere. And now I have my cell phone back,” she waved at the backpack he’d dropped by the door, “you can have that number too. It’s only fair, really. Your brother gave me yours already. And it seems like a really good idea to have some friends in the area, whatever Mom says.” Remembering her mother’s phone call, she retrieved the bag and dug out her phone. Sure enough, three missed calls and two voicemails. And several text messages.
“You okay? You’ve gone pale again.” Sebastian asked.
“It’s my mother. She’s a large part of why I’m here right now in the first place. She’s super controlling, and all she cares about are appearances and social status, and she called a bit before you got here— and a lot before that, apparently. She’s not very happy that I’m here at all, and then I told her I’m staying for a while and she sort of lost it.” Sarah looked up at him and saw the worry in his eyes. “She didn’t like Gran, and hates California.”
“That sounds like it’s her loss then. There’s a ton of great stuff out here. I’d be happy to show you around if you want.” He smiled, and Sarah had to smile back at the shy expression. “Look, I know that this is a lot to take in all at once. Like you said, you woke up thinking the world was one way, and it turns out to be totally different, and that’s got to be pretty hard to deal with. If you’re not busy, maybe you should just take some time to settle down. Take care of yourself, you know? Have you had lunch?”
Sarah shook her head. In fact, her stomach lurched slightly at the idea of food and she realized that she hadn’t eaten at all yet today.
“We could if you want to that is... I mean, we could go get something to eat maybe?” He ducked his head. Sarah blinked at him. Really this was too much.
“Are you asking me out for a lunch date?” The absurdity of the day was clearly not over. At least this was a welcome oddness. Sebastian scrubbed his hand through his hair again, making the sandy strands stand up at odd angles and causing him look like he’d just rolled out of bed.
“I guess so. You should eat anyway,” he said. “I totally understand if you just want some time alone, though. It’s been a crazy day for you.”
Sarah shook her head.
“No. I think it’s a great idea. I don’t think I want to be alone at this point anyway.” She looked around at the room. Her grandmother’s room still, it had felt so cozy and welcoming when she’d gotten here just a week ago. Now it felt mysterious and slightly shadowy. “Just let me get my purse.”
Sebastian took Sarah to a small pho place he knew of not very far off. It was one of those family-run places in a strip mall, with cracked laminate tabletops and handwritten poster board specials, and Sarah thought that she’d never had soup so intensely satisfying.
“I always think that when you’re feeling stressed or tired or overwhelmed, a good hot bowl of chicken soup is the best cure,” Sebastian said. Sarah could only nod as she slurped noodles and shoveled fat pieces of chicken into her mouth. She hadn’t realized how truly ravenous she was until they’d stepped into the place and she smelled the steam wafting out of pots in the back. She felt entirely hollow inside.
“This is amazing. I’ve never had pho before. Mom would never be caught dead in a place like this.” Sarah grinned over the giant bowl.
“I’m glad you’re willing to risk it.” He grinned back. “This is one of my favorite places around here. If Ma notices we’re here she’ll come out and cluck at us like a brooding hen, even though I don’t speak Vietnamese. She’s sweet, and I think she’s adopted me.”
“You come here a lot, then?” Sarah laughed. Oh, man, it felt so good to laugh. Sebastian nodded.
“At least once a week. Usually more like two or three times a week. I let them know when I’m going out of town or Steve there at the counter will lay into me for worrying Ma when I get back,” he answered. “So what was your plan for today, before it got completely derailed?”
“Well, I didn’t have any really. I just woke up early and decided to go for a walk. And that didn’t really turn out very well, I guess. I think I’ll just stick to the house from now on.” She shuddered at the memory of her adventure this morning. “Then Doc said something odd about how Gran always planned to leave me her house, and she seemed so, I don’t know, uncomfortable talking about it. She wouldn’t say why, though, or what she was thinking about. She did say she was sure that Gran left me a note or something that would explain things. So I started going through her files, and I had just gotten through her medical bills when you showed up.”
“Wow. And you had a fight with your mom on top of everything? No wonder you were on edge when I showed up. It’s been a pretty awful day for you, hasn’t it? I’m super sorry for just dropping in like that.”
They sat there in a comfortable silence for a few minutes. It was funny how easy it was to talk to Sebastian, she thought. It usually took her months to warm up to a new person. After all, you never knew if you could trust someone until you’d known them for a while, right? People were usually so deceptive and untrustworthy, it took a long time to screen out those who were worthy unless they had a sterling reputation already. She should probably find some way to get away from whatever insanity was infecting her today, and that probably meant staying away from Gran’s neighbors.
“Wow. I can actually watch you pulling into your shell. That’s amazing.” Sebastian said.
“What do you mean?” Sarah jerked, startled out of her thoughts.
“I mean you got this really far away look in your eyes and then you started hunching into your shoulders like a turtle. What were you thinking about?” Sarah looked up at him, wary and nervous. Could he read minds, too?
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said. Sebastian frowned for a moment, but then shrugged.
“Well, I won’t pry,” he said finally. “But you
sure don’t look happy about it, whatever it is. Do you think you’ll finish going through Miss Rosie’s files this afternoon, or did you want to just take some time off?”
Sarah considered him. His face was open and friendly, and she would swear there was genuine concern in his soft brown eyes. Now that she looked, she realized that they weren’t just plain brown, but had little flecks of amber in them, reminding her of the fox he claimed was a part of him. She let her mind flicker briefly over the shadow monsters— wights, they were called?— and decided to put at least a little trust in this man. After all, the idea of being all alone out here with those things roaming around was just too much.
And so what if she didn’t know him very well? That’s how you made a friend, right? You start out not knowing them at all, and then learn about them as you go? And not only that he seemed much more willing to explain things than Doc had.
“I pretty much finished the files already, I think. If she left me any sort of message, it wasn’t in there.” She sighed and forced her shoulders to relax. “I honestly don’t really know where else to look.”
“Well, you should probably take an inventory of the house anyway. Just to know what’s there if for no other reason, but I remember when my grandmother died there was a ton of insurance stuff to deal with.” He pointed out. “If you want some help, I don’t have anything scheduled for a while. Well, Doc’s going to check the stitches, but that’s pretty flexible.” There was still worry on his face, she saw, but it was tempered by something else.
“That would be great. I don’t think I want to be alone right now anyway,” she said. She smiled when she said it, but she knew that the expression didn’t chase the nervousness out of her own eyes.
When they got back to the house, they stood looking around the room, wondering where to start.
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