by R. L. Naquin
He wanted me to love it. I pushed aside my concerns that a tree that size wouldn’t make it through my door or stand upright in my living room. I ignored my worry about bugs, snakes, mice, and other woodland creatures the tree might be harboring.
I squeezed Iris’s hand—which was to say, I flexed my hand that was buried inside of his huge one. “It’s really lovely, Iris. Thank you.” I swallowed thoughts of how much real estate the branches would take up in my living room and smiled. “You did a wonderful job picking it out.”
He grunted, and pride puffed from him in a cloud, settling over us both in a soft mantel. Iris let go of my hand and grabbed his axe to get me the biggest, nicest Christmas tree I would probably ever have.
I watched a moment as he swung for the first cut. The axe looked so small in his grip. I shook my head and resumed my walk.
At the edge of my property, before reaching the path down to the beach, I passed the hip-high mushroom that housed my friend Molly and her kids. The brownie family fit comfortably inside, with several rooms carved from the mushroom and tiny wooden furniture to make them comfortable. Lights burned in the window cutouts, and little Abby sang louder than her older brothers, with no concern for the actual words.
“Bells on Bob’s tail ring! Making cherries bright! What fun it is to ride and sing a spraying song tonight! Oh!”
I stifled a giggle and walked past. I didn’t want to interrupt.
My boots crunched on the gravelly sand of the winding path to the beach, and my skirt snagged twice on the overgrown branches of the bushes guiding the way.
I wasn’t a Grinch about the whole Christmas thing. My heart didn’t need to grow three sizes before I could join the Who feast and be the one to carve the roast beast. I wasn’t a Scrooge who needed a lesson in my past in order to preserve my future.
I was well acquainted with my past. At eight, my mom disappeared. I now knew the Board of Hidden Affairs had tampered with our memories so we wouldn’t know where she went, but it didn’t keep us from feeling the hole she left, especially around the holidays.
Dad had tried his best, but he was too confused, too hurt. He never fully recovered from Mom’s loss, and Christmas after that was a low-key event. We put up a few decorations from my childhood—paper snowflakes Dad had cut from construction paper leftover from a school project I’d done on Nefertiti. A pair of cups and saucers Mom and I had painted in red, gold, and green at a ceramics shop. A blobby nativity scene I’d made out of homemade clay when I was four. The tree got smaller each year until I hit high school. By then, it was a sad, tabletop affair as pitiful and limp as Charlie Brown’s tree before Linus and the gang showed it some love.
The idea of Iris’s ginormous tree in my living room made me a little claustrophobic.
After Dad died and I moved back home, I didn’t do much more than put out the sad little artificial tree with a few ribbons and gold balls on it. I liked Christmas. I even liked big gaudy trees. But I liked them at the mall or in the ski lodge where Sara and I usually spent the entire week of Christmas and New Year’s. It was tidier that way.
I plopped onto my favorite rock and let out a tired sigh. This year I had a lot more than myself and Sara to worry about. I wouldn’t be running off to hide at a ski resort.
Not that I skied much. Mostly I sat inside by the fire drinking hot chocolate laced with Irish cream. Heavily laced.
This year, Sara would be going without me. She might as well. Skiing was more her thing anyway. I’d miss her, though. It would be our first Christmas apart in ten years.
I stretched my legs and dug my heels in the sand, wishing it were warm enough to take my boots off and bury my toes. Tilting my head back, I let the wind blow away my grumpy mood and inhaled the intoxicating scents of the salt water, pine, and eucalyptus.
Gulls squawked. Waves crashed. A foghorn groaned. Someone sniffled and sobbed.
I snapped my head around to look. Not far away, a scrawny teenaged boy huddled against a large rock, gazing across the water and crying. Also, as was often the case with people I came across lately, he was naked.
My life is so weird.
The kid was curled in a ball, arms wrapped around his legs. He rocked in time with the movement of the waves. He didn’t react as I approached, but he paused his rocking to rub his forearm across his face in an attempt to clear it of snot and tears.
Thick, dark hair curled around his ears and trailed a few inches over his shoulders. The wind tossed it away from his face, giving me a clear view of his profile. From a few feet away, I could see the moisture clinging to his impossibly long eyelashes. The kid probably would break a lot of teenaged hearts once he filled out.
“Hey.” I kept my voice soft, trying not to startle him.
He jerked his head toward me, and his dark brown eyes grew wide.
“I’m sorry!” His voice was rough, and the words were more like a bark than any human sound. He moved to stand, bracing his palm on the rock behind him.
“No, sit. You’re fine.” I held out my hands and smiled to reassure him. “I won’t hurt you.”
The tops of his feet were covered in a down of dark fuzz, and his toes were webbed. Hobbit? No. For one thing, hobbits didn’t like water. And for another—as far as I knew—hobbits were fiction.
Like skunk-apes and closet monsters and brownies.
To show the kid I wasn’t a threat, I folded my legs and sank into a sitting position. Cold, damp sand soaked through the back of my skirt within seconds. I tried not to wiggle and make it worse.
The kid resumed his seat but kept his muscles bunched as if ready to flee at a second’s notice. “I have to watch, in case they come back.” He glanced at me from the corner of his eye, then went back to gazing out at the water.
I watched with him for a few minutes, though I had no idea who we were waiting for. The sun completed its descent, and the last sliver blinked out.
“Did you hear it?” I asked.
He tilted his head toward me. “Hear what?”
“The sun. It sizzles when the last bit drops into the water.”
Human or not, teenagers have a universal language of facial expressions reserved for adults they think are complete idiots. I’d never been the recipient of such a look before now, but I didn’t hate it. It meant I had his attention at least.
He snorted at me and returned to whale watching—or whatever it was he was doing. He shivered and clutched his arms tighter around his legs.
“It’s kind of cold to be sitting out here naked. Do you want to borrow my coat?”
He swiveled his head toward me, and his big eyes filled with liquid. “I have my own coat.” A sob caught in his throat, and he swiped at his face to dry a stray tear. He swallowed hard. “I used to, anyway.”
I took off my coat and tossed it toward him. “Take mine until yours turns up. At least I have clothes on.”
Not a lot of clothes, but more than Naked Boy.
I didn’t think he’d take my offering at first, but he shivered again and snatched up the wool coat, draping it around his shoulders. “Thanks.”
I scooted closer, as casual as I could be with a wet-sand wedgie creeping up my backside. “I’m Zoey.”
He nodded. “I know.” His fingers clutched the fabric tighter around his thin frame. “I’m Owen.” He paused, and the muscle along his jaw tightened. “We were coming to look at you.”
I frowned. “Look at me? Who’s ‘we’? And why were you coming to see me?”
I hoped by “look at you” he meant they were coming for a cup of hot cocoa and some of Maurice’s delicious Christmas cookies.
I glanced at the kid’s weird feet. So, not human. And he and someone else had been on their way to see me when some unnamed tragedy struck and left him naked and alone half a mile from my house, afraid to move a muscle.
Out in the bay, a splash caught Owen’s attention. He sat up straighter and froze.
“Owen.” I touched his shoulder. “Who are we waiting for
?”
“Brynn and Rhys, my sister and brother. They got scared and swam away.”
I squinted at the darkening waves. “What do they look like?”
“Seals, of course. They wouldn’t be swimming in their human forms, not with that undercurrent.”
“Oh.” I’d only been part of the Hidden world for less than six months. In that time, I’d come across quite a few types of mythological creatures and urban legends. I didn’t always know what the hell they were, but I’d read about selkies—seal people who shed their pelts and became human for short periods. Granted, I’d always been under the impression that selkies were all female, but at least I was able to follow his conversation. Not all the Hidden were that familiar to me.
My skin, already cold from volunteering my coat, felt like ice. “You lost your coat.”
He nodded, miserable. “We came ashore and shed our pelts.” He bit his lip. “Today is the Feast of Llyr, so we danced on the beach in celebration. When we were tired, we were going to climb the path to your house to look at the new Aegis. We went to get our pelts to wrap around ourselves and…” He stopped and bowed his head.
Waves of sadness rolled off his skin and choked me with its intensity. “Oh, Owen.” I squeezed his hand. “Your pelt was missing?”
He nodded, head still hanging over his knees. “The other two were still there. We must’ve interrupted the thief. My siblings would’ve stayed, but I told them to go. I was afraid whoever took my pelt would be back. And maybe they could go for help.” His voice broke, and his shoulders shook, this time with emotion rather than cold.
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry.” I put an arm around him, and he tilted into me, crying. My other arm wrapped around him, and I held him until he was cried out, like my mom did for me when I was little.
There wasn’t much else I could do, though. I was furious that someone would do something so awful. Stealing a selkie’s pelt was on the list of lowest things a person could possibly do. In fairy tales, fisherman did it to force selkies to be their wives, which was definitely not cool.
Owen sniffled and sat up, wiping away his tears. “They’re not coming back, are they?”
I had a mother who disappeared and never came back. I was not the one to ask about family loyalty.
“How about we get you safe and warm, get some food in your stomach? Then maybe we can try to figure out who took your pelt and where your family is.”
He nodded, and we helped each other to our feet.
“I guess if they come back, they can find your house, right?” His eyes were so hopeful, begging for reassurance.
I gave him steady, firm look. “Owen, everybody finds me, eventually. Don’t you worry.”
As we turned away from the water to make our way back home, two things happened at once.
Ahead of us, twigs snapped and trees shook, as if something very large and very angry were tearing through the woods toward us. Behind us, frantic voices shouted Owen’s name.
We both halted in mid-step. Owen spun around, my coat flapping like a cape. He glanced over his shoulder at whatever terror lurked just out of sight in the forest, then tore back to the water. A naked girl and a naked boy, both a little younger than Owen, stood grinning in the waves, water splashing around their knees.
The terrible thing in the woods crashed from the tree line, growling and snorting. I took two steps back before I realized it was Iris.
Iris dangling a short, stocky man in the air by one foot.
I turned toward the kids and gave them a signal I hoped they’d understand to mean they were safe to come up from the water. Without waiting to see if they’d follow, I picked my way up the path to inspect what Iris had caught for me.
The man twisted in Iris’s grip, but he didn’t struggle much. The dark suit was good quality, and the one shoe the guy still wore looked expensive. Blood had rushed to his chubby face, flooding it with pink—a terrible look for someone with such orange hair.
A gold shamrock pinned to his lapel twinkled in the twilight.
I groaned. “I thought I got rid of all you guys a few months ago.”
A mob of leprechauns had rolled into town and tried to set up a protection racket in Sausalito. Several people were hurt or killed when they refused to pay. After collecting all their lucky shamrocks, I’d booted them out of town and told them not to come back. This guy showing up in my backyard was not a good sign. Maybe I wasn’t as scary as I’d hoped.
The man blinked at me from his inverted position, and a slow smile spread across his face. “Fin. Fin Jones, at your service, madam.” He pulled a business card from his inside coat pocket and held it out to me.
Iris chuffed and gave me an incredulous look. I shrugged and took the card.
Finnegan Jones
Acquisitions and Treasure Hunting
If you want it, I’ll find it.
I made a sour face and tucked the card in my blouse. “Mr. Jones, give me a reason not to let my friend snap you like a twig. The Leprechaun Mafia is not welcome on my property. Your people have been warned.”
His salesman smile didn’t waver. “Madam, there’s no such thing as this ‘Leprechaun Mafia’ you speak of. And if you’re referring to that small incident with the Sacramento Brotherhood, those events occurred in Sausalito. I’m an independent contractor, unassociated with the Brotherhood.” He had the audacity to wink at me. “And this isn’t Sausalito, either.”
I bent low to look him in the eye, and I spoke through gritted teeth. “You’re in my woods, and a selkie pelt has gone missing. Theft is not a business model. Hand it over or I let Iris beat it out of you.”
Iris shook the leprechaun for emphasis. I nearly ruined the effect by smiling at Iris. Having backup was awesome.
Fin held his hands out. “Please, no. The suit is expensive and I’ve already lost a loafer. If you’ll have the gentleman put me down, I’ll hand over the pelt. I don’t want trouble.”
I nodded and Iris dropped Fin. On his head.
The small man took a moment to shake sand from his hair and brush the wrinkles from his clothes. He reached into his pocket for a flat box, about the size of a woman’s wallet, then pinched it open. A pile of fur sprang out, as if it had been under pressure. The pelt was far larger than the box, but since I owned a magical purse with similar properties, I didn’t question how it fit.
“My pelt!” Owen ran past me in a naked streak, scooping the pelt into his arms and rubbing it against his face.
Brynn and Rhys appeared on either side of me, their pelts draped around them like blankets.
Brynn grinned at me, and her dark eyes lit her face. “We went for help.”
I frowned. “How did you talk to Iris from the water?
Rhys puffed out his chest. “We found a sea serpent. She said she knows you and would take care of it.”
“Frannie.” I smiled. “I haven’t seen her since she and her baby rescued me from sharks after I fell overboard from a dinner cruise.”
That sounded ridiculous, even to myself. And I’d lived it. The kids didn’t even blink.
How a sea serpent had gotten word to a skunk-ape I had no idea, but I knew the two were friends. It made a weird sort of sense, given the context of my currently wacky life.
“Can I go now?” Fin stood to the side watching us, his arms folded across his chest.
I squinted at the sky. Full dark was nearly here, and I had to get back home before I couldn’t see my way through the trees. Maurice would be worried soon.
“Here’s the deal, Fin.” I gave him the full-on force of my most serious stink-eye. “You get the hell out of this town. You do not operate your business anywhere in the Bay Area. If I hear anything about you, even a whisper, I will find you. Iris is not the only scary friend I have, and I will not hesitate to send some of these terrifying people after you.” I intensified my stink-eye. “You understand?”
The leprechaun nodded. “I understand.”
“Leave.”
He back
ed away from us and disappeared into the woods. Iris grunted a question at me.
“I agree. Follow him out to make sure.” I patted Iris on the arm. “Thank you.”
Iris took off into the trees, silent despite his size. When he wanted me to hear him, the trees rocked and crashed. If he didn’t want to be heard, like now, he could walk right next to me and I wouldn’t hear a whisper.
When I turned to the kids, they were already wiggling into their sealskins. Owen paused and gave me a soft smile. “We need to swim now. Thank you for keeping me company.”
I shrugged. “I couldn’t let you sit there all by yourself.” I glanced up the hill in the direction of my house. “If you ever need anything…”
“We know where to find you!” Brynn’s chubby cheeks sprouted whiskers, and her tanned face grew darker with fur. Before my eyes, all three melted into their seal forms, then flopped across the beach into the water.
I heard splashes, but the light was too dim for me to see. The selkies were gone, and I was alone in the dark with a hike through the woods to get home. I picked up my discarded coat, brushed the sand from it, and slipped it on.
Maurice was probably having a heart attack with worry.
I picked my way up the path, then stepped into the dark woods. To my surprise, the trees came alive with dancing lights along the path home. As I walked, fairies from behind flittered past me, lighting the way ahead.
Somebody was always looking out for me.
A few minutes later, I was back in my own yard. The house itself lit my way from there, though I noticed Molly’s mushroom sat in darkness. Cheery music floated toward me and drew me toward the warmth of my house. From that far away, I still couldn’t make out the words or the tune being played.
It didn’t matter how much of a mess the living room was. If Maurice wanted to have a big, gaudy Christmas, then I would share it with him. I’d been selfish earlier. Maurice was family now. Maybe it was time for some new traditions.
And we’d figure out how to make Iris’s ginormous tree work, as soon as he finished chasing off the leprechaun.