by R. L. Naquin
The Fates department had determined through whatever weird methods they used down there that several of these people were meant for each other. They did not, however, say which ones. Those of us working in the Cupid department were left with these gaping Sudoku grids that we had to sort through and attempt to place the right couples together in the right squares.
I squinted at the profiles beneath the photos. Derrick of the smoldering eyes was a dentist. I dragged his picture to the upper-left square. Felicia, a redhead with a lovely smile, was a veterinarian. I dropped her next to him. Hey, she obviously had good dental hygiene, a fact I was certain would appeal to Derrick. To her right, based entirely on her job as a veterinarian, I placed Stan, a blonde surfer with a golden retriever. But the grid line between the two blinked red.
No good. I took a closer look. Okay. So, Stan was gay. I tried placing him underneath Derrick’s picture. The screen remained steady.
“Interesting.” I tapped the screen with a chewed fingernail. “Dr. Derrick goes either way, don’t you, buddy?”
Except that I could see absolutely nothing compatible between Stan and Derrick other than the fact that they both enjoyed the company of men. I sighed and dragged Stan to the bottom left corner of the grid for holding.
The Fates department probably thought this entire process was hilarious.
Stephanie, a stockbroker, was originally from a small town in Alabama—a much more likely match for Derrick, who came from a different small town in Alabama. I placed her picture where Stan’s had been, directly beneath Derrick.
The key now was finding another match that might fit beneath the veterinarian and to the right of the stockbroker.
This was always the part that hung me up. Whenever I made it this far, I panicked. How could two different men be possible matches for the same two women?
I scanned the other twelve faces staring at me from the screen. Ah. Dave. Long hair tied in a ponytail. Charming grin. No job. Dave was an artist who made beaded jewelry and sold it to tourists on the boardwalk for cash, then couch surfed for a place to sleep.
Dave was a project. Two successful women. One handsome freeloader. I dropped Dave’s photo next to Stephanie and beneath Felicia.
I groaned. Putting Dave in a middle spot instead of on an edge meant I would have to find four women who were potential love matches for him. I really didn’t want to give this lowlife that many shots at love. Where was the justice in that? Smoldering-eyed Derrick with an education, a career, and an open mind only got two possible mates.
Maybe it was the right answer, but I wasn’t going to be responsible for it. I hit reset. Maybe if I started over with someone else in the corner—Deadbeat Dave, for instance—I’d get a better idea of where everyone was supposed to go.
Gods, I sucked at this.
Two hours later I had a reasonable grid setup that I thought was, if not right, at least partially right. The next step would be fieldwork. As much as I hated setting the grid, donning the Cupid wings and running around town invisible to meddle in people’s lives was worse.
I was worse.
On one assignment, I’d helpfully tipped over a man’s coffee on a woman because I had the vague idea that this was what they called a “meet-cute” in the movies. Her hand was badly scalded, which meant she was unable to make the flute audition for the Miami Symphony Orchestra. She lost her dream job, then sued the pants off the guy who’d spilled his coffee on her. He lost his construction business and moved back to his parents’ house in Missouri.
Not a meet-cute.
In the seven months I’d been in the Cupid department, I’d made three successful matches. Two of them were during training, so I’d had help. I was on very thin ice.
I glanced up at my assigned wings hanging on a hook next to Ellen’s. Her cutesy giggles drifted across the office and over the wall of my cubicle. Ellen was cut out for this. Ellen had an instinct. Ellen was freaking adorable.
As I rose to make my reluctant way to grab my wings off their hook, I backed my chair into something solid. When I turned, I found the mail guy pushing his cart right behind me.
“Oh, sorry, Rudy. I didn’t realize you were there.”
He grinned. “My fault, Dory.” He reached into his bag. “Got a package for you.”
Rudy handed me a red velvet box, no bigger than a grapefruit and shaped like a heart.
I frowned. “Who’s it from?”
Rudy shrugged. “No idea. I just make the deliveries.” He skipped away, every few steps lifting off the floor with the aid of his winged sandals.
I dropped back into my chair and stared at the box. It was beautiful in its simplicity—the dark red almost a burgundy. The point on the bottom was rounded, giving the heart a more friendly feeling, like a bubble or a twelve-year-old girl’s dots above her letters.
The velvet was smooth and luxurious against my fingertips as I lifted the lid. I had no idea what to expect.
Candy. Jewelry. Someone else’s present delivered to me by mistake. Even a dead mouse. Any of those things could have been in the box and barely fazed me. What was really in there shocked the hell out of me.
At first, I thought the box was empty. A light flashed from its inky depths, and I dropped the damn thing on my desk. Lavender smoke puffed out, laced with sparkles and the smell of roses.
The smoke cleared and a moving image of the bosslady smiled up at me. “Please see me in my office, Miss Anderson. And bring your wings with you.” The face dissolved.
Bosslady hadn’t been in the office in months. I shivered. This was probably a very bad thing. I’d once heard of a woman in the Muse department who couldn’t complete her artist quota. They’d demoted her to Hades and made her a poop scooper for the three-headed dog, Cerberus.
As much as I hated cupid duty, I did not want to scoop monster-sized dog poop.
I moved to the wall and unhooked my wings. They seemed so light in my hands for being so large. If I slipped them on, I’d be invisible once I left the building. I shook my head. There was nowhere to hide. They’d find me eventually.
And maybe scooping dog poop the size of a bowling ball would turn out to be my calling. Cupid sure wasn’t it.
I knocked on the office door and waited for the sensual voice of my boss to invite me in. The door opened on its own.
When you’re in the presence of a goddess, it’s difficult to figure out where to look. This particular goddess was an even bigger problem.
Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, adorned the pink, frilly office like a centerpiece at a wedding reception. She was breathtaking, smelled like a botanical garden after a spring rain, and sounded like a purring kitten. She was also practically naked by current cultural standards. The frothy bit of fabric she had draped over her hid nothing.
“How wonderful to see you, Miss Anderson. Please. Set your wings on the table next to you and have a seat.”
I did what I was told, swallowing a lump in my throat and keeping my gaze on her pink marble desk. Disappointing a goddess—especially this goddess—was the most embarrassing and shameful thing I’d ever done. It was worse than the time I’d tucked the back of my skirt into my pantyhose on a dinner date with a chiropractor named Chip. The maître d’ stopped me, but not before I’d marched clear across Andre’s waving my baggy white granny panties at everyone in the dining room.
Yet, this was worse.
Aphrodite stared at me until I met the gaze of her lavender eyes. She cleared her throat, and it sounded like a choir of harmonizing lilies. “As you know, Dory, your success rate has been…unfortunate.”
I nodded. “Yes, ma’am.” In comparison, my voice was a hoarse, unlovely whisper.
“Oh, now. It’s not a tragedy. No one’s going to chain you to a rock and let a vulture eat your liver over and over.” She laughed and it sounded like adorable white mice ringing miniature golden bells in their tiny paws.
She clapped her hands and the door opened again. I twisted in my chair for a bet
ter view. In strode a tallish man with brown hair and large brown eyes behind a pair of gold-rimmed glasses. He pushed the glasses up the bridge of his nose and cleared his throat.
“Dory, I’d like you to meet Ben.”
He nodded at me and smiled. “Hi, Dory.”
I didn’t say anything. My jaw felt frozen shut.
Aphrodite rose and handed Ben a file with my name on it. “Ben will be taking you to your new assignment.” She continued to speak behind me, but I hardly heard her. Something about Hercules being my new supervisor, and cleaning Augean stables or something.
She seemed to be waiting for me to respond, so I lifted my hand to acknowledge her. “Okay,” I said. “Thank you.”
Ben’s eyes sparkled like a disco ball at a skating rink. He smiled and touched my hand. “Shall we go?”
I nodded. My heart thudded in my chest, and my stomach danced the Macarena.
We walked through the office, and behind me I heard Aphrodite’s voice again. “Well done, Ellen. Ben was a perfect choice.”
I glanced over my shoulder at Ellen. She gave me an adorable grin and wiggled her fingers at me in a cutesy wave. I didn’t care in the least. She’d done me an enormous favor.
“What do you say we try to get you a better assignment?” Ben took my hand. “Do you believe in Fate?”
I smiled up at him, and the warmth of his gaze spread over me like a soft fur. “They’re two floors down, right?”
Behind us, someone rang the matchmaker bell long and loud, and the office went wild.
“Hidden Holidays”
A Monster Haven Short Story
This holiday-themed Monster Haven short takes place between book two, Pooka in My Pantry, and book three, Fairies in My Fireplace. It was previously published in 2014 as a single.
While I’d been busy at work helping a bride who’d gone over budget, the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future had vomited themselves across my living room. The mess left me nowhere to step without crunching a glass ball underfoot. My head spun from a sensory overload of color, sound, and texture.
I stood on the threshold, wondering if I should go around back and enter through the kitchen door instead. Or maybe get a hotel until Christmas was over and Maurice, my closet-monster roommate, put everything away.
Maurice leaped out of a mound of lights, and the grin on his face was so large it took up half his head, dwarfing his big yellow eyes. “You’re home early! I wanted to surprise you!”
“Surprise.” I gave him a half-hearted smile. “I could leave and come back later.”
Brenda Lee belted from Maurice’s iPod, insisting that everyone should be rocking around the Christmas tree.
He shook his head, and several loops of colored lights slipped to his shoulders. “The tree will be here in a few minutes. You can help me decorate it.” Shuffling his legs through the piles of decorations so he didn’t step on anything, Maurice reached the chair closest to me and cleared it of boxes. “Sit, sit, sit. I’ll get you something to drink.”
I waved my hand at the mess around us. “I’m fine. The living room isn’t. I’m not going to dehydrate and blow away.”
As it stood, I couldn’t imagine where the hell a tree was supposed to go.
The floor had no path to the kitchen or to the hallway. My options were few. Or rather, two—leave through the front door or have a seat. I stepped around a three-foot tall nutcracker in a Santa hat and sank into the chair, clutching my purse to me as if it were a shield.
A strand of tinsel puffed into the air and floated past my head.
“Maurice, where did you get all of this?” My eyes and face felt as if they’d stretched into an expression of shell-shocked horror. I did my best to force the muscles to relax.
But there was so much of it. Piles of gold and silver and red garland. Boxes of ornaments in individual compartments. Three electric angels sat side by side on the mantle, their wings squeaking open and closed in tandem. Nutcrackers in all sorts of designs and sizes. I counted six nativity scenes around the room in various materials—cornhusk dolls, ceramics, carved wood, and even LEGO bricks. A stack of wreaths covered the coffee table, and the sofa was a mass of tree skirts, stockings, Christmas-themed throws and pillows, and no less than five stuffed Rudolphs.
Maurice, looking satisfied with his haul, put his hands on his hips and winked at me. “I got it all out of the closet.” He flipped a wall switch and the lights trailing around the room all went on at once, nearly blinding me.
Multicolored lights, white lights, strands of all blue, all green, and all yellow. Tube lights. Neon lights. Dripping icicle lights. Old-fashioned outdoor lights with enormous bulbs. Glowing, flashing, twinkling, chasing in every pattern possible. A family of lawn-ornament deer in the far corner came to life, their heads nodding, white lights glowing from their wire frames.
I groaned and closed my eyes. My eyelids were far too thin to block out the bombardment.
My resident closet monster had gone on a closet raid.
“You stole all this stuff?”
Maurice puffed out his chest in indignation. “Borrowed. Only from people who won’t need it this year. I’ll put it back.”
I opened my eyes in alarm and regretted it. “Oh my God, Maurice. Turn those off. Please?”
He flipped the switch, leaving us in blessed early-evening light. “You okay? You don’t look so good.”
“It’s just a lot.” I smoothed my fingertips over the crease that appeared between my eyebrows. “I think I need some air.”
Maurice’s grin downgraded to a bewildered smile. “Yeah. Okay. Go take a walk.” His smile grew an inch. “Iris will be here with the tree soon, and Molly and the kids are coming over to help decorate. We’ll have it all fixed up by the time you get back.”
I pulled myself to my feet. A motion-activated snowman ensemble rang tiny bells and sang Frosty the Snowman. “I’m sorry, Maurice. I don’t mean to bring down the merriment. Christmas hasn’t really been my thing for a long time. I’m a little overwhelmed.”
He reached across the coffee table, knocking a few wreaths aside, and grabbed my hand. “I understand. We’ll save you a few ornaments to hang when you get back.”
Even with my empathic walls up, Maurice’s disappointment leaked through my filters, squeezing my heart and giving me a good dose of guilt.
On my way to the door I managed not to break anything, and the only thing I knocked over was a mesh-covered kangaroo draped in colored lights and red ribbons.
Once my feet hit the gravel on my driveway, I took a deep breath to clear my head.
A lot had happened in the last six months or so. A lot had changed. I’d lived alone in my quiet house by the bay, mostly only social when my business partner and best friend, Sara, forced me into it. I hadn’t known I was an empath, that the world was full of magical creatures, and that I was an Aegis whose job it was to take care of them.
I didn’t mind. I embraced the change. I was happy. I even had a boyfriend who, though a soul-collecting reaper, was still the most stable and normal guy I’d ever gone out with. I had a closet-monster roommate, a skunk-ape bodyguard, and a family of brownies living in a mushroom in my backyard. My life was pretty awesome these days.
None of that meant I was prepared for a ginormous family Christmas with all the trimmings and over-the-top celebrating.
I turned toward my backyard and let the breeze coming from the nearby water blow through my hair and coax away some of the tightness in my chest. My scarf and gloves, while excessive farther inland in Northern California, were necessary for a December walk along the water. I looped the pink and green knitted fabric around my neck, pulled on the black and yellow-striped fingerless gloves, and buttoned up my wool coat.
As I made my way through the grass toward the tree line, I mumbled to myself like a crazy woman, paying little attention to my surroundings. Still, I’d lived in the same house nearly my whole life, so I knew the way to the beach and made it there mostly
on autopilot.
My green skirt fluttered around my ankles and caught on the rubber soles of my Doc Marten boots. I tripped and took a nosedive into the trees.
I rolled over. From the pine-needled floor, I gazed through the canopy at the grey, darkening sky.
That’s what you get for being a sour Scrooge when people are trying to be nice.
I snorted and sat up. In the distance, twigs snapped and bushes rustled in rapid succession. Iris, my skunk-ape bodyguard, burst into the clearing a few feet away. He towered over me in all his shaggy glory.
Iris squatted beside me, his brown eyes filled with concerned. Although I couldn’t understand the exact words for the clicks and grunts he made, I understood his meaning.
“I’m fine.” I unhooked my long skirt from where it was caught on my low heel. “Just clumsy.”
Iris held out two huge hands covered in dark hair. Despite his size, he was gentle and tugged me to my feet without any jarring movements. He growled low in his throat and released one of my hands, then pulled me through the woods past towering eucalyptuses, stubby bushes, and thick oaks. A few yards in, he came to an abrupt halt. I bumped my nose into his upper arm.
Even up close, he smelled like a florist shop.
His thick lips pulled into a grin, not unlike the one Maurice had been sporting earlier. He chuffed and waved at a pine tree a few feet away. A small axe leaned against it, as if someone—Iris—had been preparing to cut the tree down before being interrupted.
And that’s where I came in with my ninja ballerina moves. If my lack of enthusiasm doesn’t kill Christmas for everyone, my lack of grace will keep them distracted.
“Is this the tree you picked out for us?”
He nodded, his eyes serious. When I didn’t say anything right away, he shifted his enormous feet and his smile wavered.