by Kaje Harper
Nosy old buzzard.
Darien’s earlier emptiness— soothed by Pip’s enthusiasm and the fun of shoveling— crept back in to weigh him down. Another disapproving old man spoiling Christmas. It was a theme.
Pip nudged his leg, as if sensing his mood. He reached down to fondle the dog’s ears. I wonder what Dad would think of Pip. A dog, at least, he might approve of. Their family collie had died years before Mom, but his father always liked animals. He’s not a bad guy, really. Ferngold on the other hand…
The last drops of coffee slowed and stopped. Darien turned off the machine, opened the cupboard, and hesitated. Basic? Fancy? What would back up Silas the best?
He ended up filling the nicest mugs, adding a little pitcher for the cream, a sugar bowl, and the sweet rolls, and putting everything on a souvenir tray from… he peered at the picture and writing… Kew Gardens, 1893. Huh. That’d better be fancy enough for Ferngold. Might remind the old fart of his very distant youth. He added a couple of clean napkins, spoons.
Pip bounced at his side. “The rolls smell really good. Is cinnamon okay for dogs?”
“As far as I know.” Darien broke off a tiny piece for him. “Now, try to, um.” He didn’t want to say behave yourself like some kind of schoolmarm. “That’s Ferngold, the head of the local Guild council. He’s not a fan of, well, much of anything that isn’t sober and serious.”
“I’ll be serious.” Pip walked to the doorway with stiff steps, then glanced over his shoulder with his eyes bright.
Oh, God. Darien picked up the tray and headed for Silas’s study.
The door stood ajar, but he couldn’t hear any voices. He used a hip-bump to swing the door wide and set the tray on the desk. Silas stood behind the heavy antique, with Ferngold looming across from him, coat still on though unbuttoned, his arms folded. Darien could almost see the air between them vibrating.
“Shall I take your coat, sir?” Darien asked. See, look at me making nice.
Ferngold gave him a chilly stare, but pulled out of his sleeves and held his greatcoat out.
Darien took it, glanced around the coat-tree-deprived room, and folded the heavy garment as neatly as he could over the back of one of the chairs.
Ferngold turned to Silas. “Now that your apprentice is here, are you ready to listen to me?”
“Can we have sweet rolls while we listen?” Pip asked, then his tail drooped. “Sorry. But good food would make people happier, right?”
Silas said, “Please help yourself to coffee and rolls, sir, and have a seat. I’ll tell you how this odd match came about.”
Darien wasn’t crazy about being called odd but Silas had a decade more experience in knowing how to suck up to Ferngold. He picked up his mug— black coffee for this discussion, thank you very much— and leaned on the wall across from Ferngold, with Pip at his side, watching Silas.
Ferngold hesitated, but the aroma of a fresh brew and the glistening icing worked their magic. He took a mug, emptied the cream jug to whiten his coffee, and set two buns on a plate on his knee. “Explain, Thornwood.”
Silas gave him a succinct rundown of Pip’s unexpected arrival— not mentioning the pup’s confession of having snuggled his sibling during the moment of the transition. “We don’t know how or why he managed to cross over to our world, but he’s firmly bonded to Darien, so we’re making the best of things.”
“Humph.” Ferngold set his already-empty plate on the corner of the desk and bent down to stare at Pip. “Come here, familiar.”
“I’m Pip.” The little dog went and sat in front of Ferngold.
“What are you doing here? Why did you bond with an apprentice instead of the sorcerer who called you?”
“I don’t know who called me,” Pip said. “I was there, and then I was here, out under the sky. I’m a dog and it’s fun. Darien smelled so good, I knew he was mine.”
“It doesn’t work that way.” Ferngold’s tone rose. “You should have appeared in a casting circle, with the practitioner who’d sent his appeal to your world.”
“There wasn’t a circle. There was snow, though, and Grim.” Pip tipped his nose up at the bookcase where Grim crouched, watching them.
“Ah, yes, Grimalkin.” Ferngold peered up at the cat. “You’re a senior familiar. What do you make of this? Why did you allow this… irresponsible bonding?”
“Allow?” Grim yawned. “Are you under the impression familiars control each other? Have you asked Clicks about that?”
From Ferngold’s front pocket, the gecko’s high voice said, “We’re independent entities. No one controls us.”
Ferngold stroked his pocket, a surprisingly gentle gesture. “Of course. I’m not implying otherwise. But this pairing is very irregular. Quite upends the normal practice. The boy and the dog should come to the Guild hall right away. I’ll need to study them in detail, to see how this could possibly have occurred, and what can be done about them.”
“He’s not a boy,” Silas said.
“I’m not a boy,” Darien said over the top of him. He tried to give Silas a look that said both Thank you and don’t fight my battles for me. He doubted the full message came across, but Silas did stop talking. “We’re not some kind of specimens for you to study. Pip’s here now, he’s my familiar, and there’s nothing to be done about us.”
“You forget yourself,” Ferngold snapped. “You’re still subject to Guild authority.”
Darien didn’t know exactly how far Guild authority went. Are there Guild policemen? Something to ask Silas later. “I’m not trying to make trouble. But I don’t see how my familiar is a Guild problem. Lots of sorcerers have a familiar. You do.”
“We can’t have chaos.” Ferngold’s lips twisted. “Familiars popping up out of thin air, bonding with anyone just walking by. Untrained youngsters skipping all their training.”
Grim said, “If another familiar appears unsummoned, those worries may be justified. But I think Pip is unique.”
Pip’s tail thumped the floor in a fast tattoo.
Grim opened his mouth, then glanced at Ferngold and said nothing, his tail twitching. Darien imagined him swallowing back some Pip-squashing remark, for solidarity in front of the Guild sorcerer, and smiled to himself.
“Well.” Ferngold took another long stare at Pip. “We’ll leave the topic open, for now. But you may be assured I’ll bring this irregular pairing up at the next council meeting.”
Silas said, “Why did you come out here on such a snowy day, sir? I can’t imagine the rumors justified such a trek.”
“What? No.” Ferngold straightened. “No, I have another job for you.”
“Job?”
“A simple one. A poltergeist. The usual fee.”
“You didn’t choose to phone me?”
“The snow brought down the phone lines somewhere in your area. Damned inconvenience, you living out here. The haunting site is a seasonal business, so the proprietor needs this ’geist cleared out immediately.”
Silas said. “Tell me the details.”
“Mr. Stevenson owns the local Christmas tree farm. This year, he opened up a fallow section for cutting, and his customers who frequented that area heard unexplained noises, crying and other unpleasantness. They searched and found no footprints in the snow, no explanation. His customers became uneasy enough to leave without making purchases.”
“Potential ghost,” Silas agreed.
“Yes, of course. Then he had two reports of clients who had pinecones thrown at them, and yesterday a dead tree toppled and almost hit a gentleman. A family reported a feeling of dread that drove them from the lot. The haunting has become bad for his business.”
“I imagine,” Silas said in a very bland voice. “Of course, I’ll see what I can do.”
“Only a week to Christmas,” Ferngold said. “He offered us a nice bonus if we can get his problem taken care of by tomorrow.”
That explained Ferngold taking his fancy car out on the snowy streets. Darien had a feeling that the
word “bonus” was very useful when talking to Ferngold.
“If I complete this tonight, I get the bonus on top of the standard fee?” Silas asked.
“Half the amount, per usual.” Ferngold reached into a pocket and came out with a folded paper. “I’ve written the details there. The phone number won’t be much use to you, but I can potentially call him to confirm, when I arrive home.”
“Please do.” Silas set the paper aside on his desk. “Tell him we’ll be there at sunset. Four-thirty.”
“Very well.” Ferngold drained the dregs of his coffee and set the mug back on the desk. “I expect to hear of your success.”
As he stood, his gecko familiar scurried out of his front pocket and up to his shoulder, peering down at Pip. “We haven’t forgotten the familiar problem.” Clicks made a whirring sound. “What’s your actual name, puppy? Where are you from? Which school?”
Grim leaped to land on the desk with a thud, bright eyes fixed on the gecko, his tail-tip flicking. “No. Don’t answer that, Pip. Really, my dear scaly friend, you know the rules. No names, no details.”
The gecko rolled his lidless eyes. “This is a unique situation.”
“Not sufficiently unique.” Grim gave the gecko a hard stare, until the lizard clicked rapidly and scuttled back down into Ferngold’s pocket.
Ferngold cleared his throat. “We will address this situation at a full meeting. For now, I expect to hear word when you’ve completed your little task.”
“Yes, of course.” Silas came out from behind the desk and held Ferngold’s coat for him. “Allow me, sir.”
Ferngold made a disgruntled sound, but let Silas valet him and then escort him out.
Darien waited until he’d heard the front door open and close to say, “Little task.”
“So a poltergeist should be,” Grim noted. “Although since you’ve come into our lives, there has been a new level of… unpredictability.”
“The ghost two days ago was nothing special.” Silas had been called out to deal with someone moaning in an old barn. He hadn’t needed more than ten minutes to lure and dispatch the ghost. That’d been boring, even. How weird has my life become, that Silas sending a ghost to its rest is boring?
“We can live in hope, young Darien.” Grim jumped to the floor and glanced at Pip. “You, come along. We’ll review poltergeist lore.”
“My Fetch has gotten stronger,” Pip said proudly. “I’ll protect everyone.”
“You do that. After you memorize the parts that don’t involve Fetching.” Grim led the way out. Pip gave Darien a panting smile and little tail-wag, but trotted after the cat obediently.
Silas came back in, dusting his hands on his thighs. “Well, that went better than I expected.”
“It did?”
“Heck, yes. I thought Ferngold might have a fit and insist on trying to confiscate Pip.”
“Can they do that?” Screw them all!
“No. Not really. Threaten, sure, but we don’t have to listen.”
“Are there Guild police who’d come after us?”
“Not as such. If the council thought you and Pip were a real threat, they would draft useful members to contain you. But serving is voluntary, and no sorcerer is going to jump at the chance to take someone’s familiar away from them.”
“Not even if they thought they might get him instead?” That new nightmare haunted his sleep— Pip being dragged off to the sorcerer he was supposed to be with. To add to the hissing voices and Crosby’s head turning into a crow with fiery eyes and Silas in the River— stop thinking about that shit.
Silas slung an arm around his shoulders. “You’re bonded. If Grimalkin says so, you can rest assured its undeniable. You’re not going to lose him.”
Darien leaned against him. “Good. Because yeah, not an option.”
Silas turned his loose embrace into a hug, then bent and kissed Darien. Darien threaded his fingers in Silas’s hair and returned the kiss, soft and sweet, because this part the bastards on the council could never take from them. They could keep me from fucking him. They can’t keep me from loving him.
His stomach still flip-flopped in odd ways when he let himself think those words. I love him. Silas Thornwood. Silas’s strong arms tightened around his shoulders. Darien tangled his fingers in Silas’s hair and pulled him down harder. Mine. He parted Silas’s lips with his tongue. Silas sighed and opened for him. Yes.
When they pulled back, Silas’s lips looked reddened from Darien’s nips, and his chin glistened damply. Silas swiped the back of his hand across his mouth and grinned. “We have hours to kill till sundown. Whatever shall we do to fill them?”
“I have some ideas.” Darien let go and tugged his shirt straight. “And after that, I’m going to write to my father.”
“Really?” Silas’s tone became encouraging. “Tell me if I can help.”
Not much you can do for me in this. Except of course, being there. Which is worth more than all the rest. “Maybe enough stamps for air-mail to France?”
“Of course. Envelope and paper too, if you need them.”
“Right. Good idea. Afterward.” He took Silas’s long fingers in his, and tugged him toward the doorway. Silas followed willingly. An edge of surprise still sharpened Darien’s pleasure, each time Silas let him take the lead, take control. Not just let but wanted him to. “I’m going to suck you hard, and then fuck you. Before I write to my father.”
“The mouth on you,” Silas said cheerfully, not for the first time.
“My mouth on you is the point.” Mouth, hands, heart— God help me, someday I’ll have to tell my father I’m in love, even if the name and sex have to stay a secret. I hope he’ll be happy for me.
Picking up the pace, he led Silas up the stairs to their room.
Chapter 3
They pulled into the Christmas tree lot just before dusk. Two other cars occupied spaces close to the entrance, but Silas pulled the Studebaker into the farthest spot, scanning the location to get a feel for the setup. A small wooden hut with a stovepipe through the roof stood on the opposite corner of the lot. Three rows of rope fencing supported an array of cut pines and firs, while a sign said, “Cut Your Own” with an arrow pointing off to the left. Strings of twinkling white and colored electric lights haphazardly festooned the hut and fences.
The farm was well outside the town limits. All around them, tall woods loomed up against the colorful sky. To the left, the natural mix of pine, oak, and poplar was replaced by a monoculture of towering firs, perhaps what remained of a long-ago planting, grown out of range for anything except New York’s Rockefeller Center.
Darien jumped out of the car and held the door for the familiars to follow him. Silas watched him turn in a circle and breathe deep. “I love the smell of pine trees, don’t you, Si?”
Silas leaned on his open doorframe. The sun had fallen below the treeline, and the filtered mellow light was kind, making Darien look almost like the boy who’d stumbled in through Silas’s wards. I nearly sent him away. He couldn’t imagine his home without Darien now.
Pip whirled in a circle and barked a few times at the hut, the simple sound loud and cheerful, but startling, when Silas was used to the pup’s words. Unending words. What do you know, he is capable of caution.
A big man in a plaid parka came out of the doorway, tugging on a wool hat, and strode over to them. He nodded a greeting, hands shoved deep in his jacket pockets as if warding off a handshake. “Howdy, folks, what can I do for you? Six-footer? Seven?”
“Are you Mr. Stevenson?”
“That’s me. You can call me Bob.”
Silas shut his door. “You asked for help with a ghost problem.”
“Oh, you’re those fellas?” He eyed them up and down. “You don’t look like much. No insult intended. Is that your dog?”
Darien said, “Yes. Pip. We thought he could come along for the run. Is that all right?”
“No nose off my face. Lots of folks bring their dogs. Is he magi
c too?” The man laughed.
Silas chuckled in return. “The ghosts are my domain. Why don’t you tell me what the problem seems to be.”
Stevenson lowered his voice. “It’s in lot seventeen. I just opened that lot up this year, four- and five-footers in there ready to harvest. I didn’t notice anything myself, mind, and I harvested a couple dozen before the snow, for the cut variety.” He waved at the trees leaning on the rope fences. “But when folks started going back there to cut their own, well, they started… hearing things.”
“What sort of things?”
“Someone calling. Crying, like. Someone lost. I went back with the first two families and we searched. Nothing there, neither time. Now, even people who don’t hear anything say the woods feel spooky back there, and they don’t stick around to cut their tree. I didn’t send people there for a couple weeks, but then the other small-tree section got picked over, so I opened seventeen up again.”
“What happened?”
“More crying. A couple of women said they had pinecones thrown at them. Hit their hair. I tried to tell ’em squirrels will do that, but they said there were none about. They were spooked.”
“So you called my Guild?”
“Well, not then. I figured the fuss would blow over. There’s no such thing as ghosts, really. Just a bit of nonsense. But then a family out there had a dead poplar come crashing down. Fell right across their path. Scared the bejesus out of ’em. They said someone laughed, laughed and shouted. That night, I was reading the evening paper and I seen this ad, folks who take care of supposed ghosts and hauntings. So I called.”
“And here we are.”
“You’re gonna prove the crying’s a hoax, right? Figure out who’s making trouble?”
The effects of the Great Spell often made people waver between belief and disbelief. Stevenson’s skepticism was irrelevant, as long as he paid the bill. Silas said reassuringly, “One way or another, we’ll make sure your problem is solved.”
“Good. ’Cause this business of mine is a two months of the year thing. I can’t afford folks running off scared, losing customers this close to Christmas. I got bills to pay.”