Unwrapping Mr. Roth

by Holley Trent

  “Stay away from me, Nick,” she’d said, and then she thought about Kori and teleported back to North Carolina. “Just stay away from me.”

  So, she’d gotten fired from teaching Zumba, obviously, and it seemed Kurt was now telling her she was out of yet another job.

  She let out a shuddering breath. “I haven’t been home to check my mail in a while, Kurt.”

  “Well, your letter is probably in there. Hal pretty much cut and run. Hope you ain’t waitin’ on no paychecks.”

  “Shit.”

  He grunted. “Yep. Figured you were. Look, we’re all mad about the childcare situation, but some of the teachers said they’d watch the kids off the books till we find somethin’ else. Was wonderin’ why your name won’t up there. I see why, now. They’re gone, girl. Nobody knows where they are, but with all the back rent they owe and all the May deposits they were holding, they could be anywhere.”

  “Fuckers.”

  “Yeah, you said it. Well. Good luck, I guess. Let me know if you wanna do some babysitting.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  Gillian didn’t move until the tail end of Kurt’s pickup truck rounded the corner.

  “Well, I guess you can spend more time at the palace now,” Kori said. “Uncle Nick will be pleased. Maybe that’ll improve his mood.”

  “I wish I could care about his mood. You know what I do care about?”

  “What?”

  “His neck. I’m still going to wring it.”

  “Could you wait until after Christmas?”

  “Oh, sure,” Gillian said flatly, starting for her car. “I forgot. I should think like an elf. Kids have to get their presents first, right?”

  “Exactly.”

  ***

  Gillian teleported Kori to the palace sunroom where most of the nymphs were trying to finish up their homeschooling packets before Christmas, and then sat in her near-empty chambers twiddling her thumbs.

  Annoyed through she might have been, she couldn’t sit around being unproductive. If she had to be there for the time being, she wanted to do something beyond plotting the homicide of the elf king, so she set off in search of Eldora. She found the nymph way down on the bottom floor in the main kitchen.

  Eldora stood at the counter with her fists buried in a monstrous mound of bread dough. The cook sat idly by reading a German newspaper.

  “Hello, Gillian.” Eldora pulled her hands out of the sticky stuff and slapped the pile into a tidy round dome shape.

  “Are you slumming it down here, Eldora?”

  Eldora laughed. “No, I always go visit my Sídhe friends before Christmas if I can sneak into their part of the realm,” she said as she wiped her hands clean on a white dishtowel. “Depends on who’s guarding the portals, but old man Fergus usually knows to look for me and he’ll let me through. My Sídhe friends love my elf loaves. In exchange for them, they do me boons.”

  “Like charming the girls, you mean.”

  “Yes. I suspect if I were to ask them for favors, they’d do them without expecting anything in return. I just hate the idea of not giving anything back when they try so hard to be kind to me. They’d probably be in horrible trouble with their queen if she found out.”

  “Another party for me to worry about, huh?”

  Eldora nodded. “One of many. Rhiannon would certainly be a threat for you.”

  “Thank you for the honesty.” Gillian leaned against the kitchen island and plucked a pear from the fruit bowl. “I don’t understand all the fighting. Groups outside of your particular brand of elf, sure—I can see there being beef. But within your own house? It doesn’t make sense for there to be so much suspicion and hostility.”

  Eldora chuckled and laid a damp cloth over the yeasty pile of dough. “I heard about your little run-in with Horty. She’s actually the most belligerent of the triplets. I figured you could handle her, though.”

  Gillian gaped. “You knew she’d pick a fight?”

  “I guessed she would.” Eldora wrapped an arm around Gillian’s shoulders and led Gillian out of the kitchen and into the dim, drafty hallway. “Don’t take it personally, dear. The girls need to be put in line, and it’s your job to do it.”

  “No. This isn’t my job. I’m just here temporarily.”

  “I wish you’d rethink that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re suited for the job.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Eldora sighed. “All I can do is try to change your mind.”

  “You can try, but you and I both know I don’t belong here. I’ve got a life in North Carolina, and there’s nothing for me to accomplish here. Nick got what he wanted already.”

  Eldora gave Gillian’s hand a gentle but scolding squeeze. “We’ll agree to disagree, shall we? And, look, my daughters couldn’t give a whit of care about etiquette. They’re opportunists. They’re like guppies who’d eat their own fry if hungry enough. Nymphs often are.”

  “And you’re not?” Gillian didn’t mean to sound so damned suspicious, but she had to know if her mother-in-law was feeling hungry herself.

  “No. Neither is Kori, nor the rest of the girls, for that matter.”

  “Why? Or is this another complicated thing like elf aging?”

  “No, it’s not complicated at all. It’s a plain factor of breeding. My husband was a megalomaniac, and unfortunately, my daughters inherited that trait.”

  “And Nick didn’t?”

  “No. Nick got the bloodlust. His brother got the recklessness.”

  “Wow. Nice husband, you had.”

  “Yes. Well, we hope bringing some fresh blood in will water down some of our more…hmm…undesirable traits. Too much inbreeding.”

  Gillian stopped them in the middle of the hallway and put her hands up. “Look, Eldora, I know you mean well, but I really don’t want to be a part of the elfin revolution. I don’t belong here. This isn’t my world.”

  “It wasn’t my world, either, dear. I adapted.”

  “But you wanted to.”

  Eldora made a yes-and-no waffling hand gesture.

  Before Gillian could spit out her rebuttal, Eldora put her arm back around Gillian’s shoulders and got them walking again. Eldora said nothing. Just walked.

  In the sunroom, she sat Gillian down on the long cushioned bench in front of the window and turned so their knees touched.

  “I sympathize with you, Gillian, I really do. You got thrown into this mess without a primer and it’s all snowballed since the day you married Nicholas. But hear me out. Matches like yours don’t tend to be one-sided. Obviously Nicholas needed something from you. Perhaps you needed something from him, as well?”

  “Besides him absorbing my debt, you mean.”

  Eldora made a dismissive swish of her hand. “Drop in the bucket. Give it some thought, though. Certainly, there’s something you need from him?”

  Do I? Gillian had to give it some thought. She was so used to not expecting anything from people, so she was perhaps blind to what he might offer her besides money and sex. Those were nice to have, but she needed more than that.

  “Oh! There you are.” Kori entered the sunroom carrying an opaque plastic garment bag over her shoulder.

  “What is that?” Gillian asked.

  “Your dress for the ball. Uncle Nick says you need to try it on because he only guessed your size.”

  Gillian furrowed her brow. “Ball? What ball?”

  Eldora cleared her throat and shook her head at her grandchild.

  “What?” Kori asked. “He did. He even sent the seamstress. Oh, Gillian, it’s so cool! Since we’re in the palace this year and can’t be snatched, Uncle Nick said he’d have the ugly charm lifted for the ball so we can actually dance with boys. Isn’t that awesome?”

  “Kori, I’m trying to talk Gillian off a ledge here,” Eldora said. “You just pushed her back onto it.”

  Gillian slouched against the window and covered her face with her hands. “Lay it all out no
w. What else do I have to do to get through Christmas?”

  “Well, there’s the ball, obviously, which is the twenty-third,” Kori said. “There’s a board meeting that same morning which you have to attend.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re on the board now. You take Grandmother’s seat.”

  Gillian dropped her hands and looked to the elder nymph.

  “I would remain on the board to give you respite, but I suspect you would be more suited for the job,” Eldora said meekly, and she cringed.

  That tugged at Gillian’s heartstrings. Eldora had been pulled into a job she hadn’t wanted, too, and she simply didn’t have Gillian’s balls. If Gillian could ease the woman’s anxiety for even a little while, she’d do it.

  “Of course,” Kori continued, “you get to deliver some gifts on the evening of the twenty-fourth with Uncle Nick.”

  “I’ll pass,” Gillian muttered. As far as she was concerned, being Nick’s wife for the moment absolved her of her duties playing Mrs. Claus.

  “The twenty-fifth is actually a pretty relaxing day,” Kori. “We have a really big breakfast and a really big dinner and in between the two we usually lie around like lazy hounds. The twenty-sixth…well.” Kori shrugged. “I guess that’ll be the day of one of the elf king’s destructive tantrums if you hightail it out of here.”

  “You make it sound like I have a choice. He’s admitted he’s kidnapped me. One way or another, there’s going to be a tantrum. The question will be whether it’ll be his or mine.”

  Eldora pinched the bridge of her nose. “Dammit, Nicholas.”

  ***

  On Wednesday the twenty-third, Gillian was all set to tell the elves to hell with their ball. All the politics and bickering on display at the board meeting had set her head reeling. Really, the meeting was less about how to distribute toys to deserving boys and girls, and more about which elf or fairy or whatever faction had committed which transgression. She needed a glossary just to keep up with it all, which Eldora had kindly provided her. Nick was being absolutely unhelpful in assuaging her distress at the situation and in fact seemed to be ignoring her altogether.

  That suited her fine for the moment. She was brainstorming creative ways to back out of the event and having tea with the nymph teens out in the sunroom when Agnes ran in wearing a maniacal grin on her face.

  Oh hell, what now?

  “Milady, I found them!” Agnes hustled over to the bench toting Puffer. He wore a little red and green gingham bow he would have never worn for Gillian.

  Gillian sighed. “Who did you find?”

  Agnes held a tablet computer out to her.

  “Your old bosses, is who. You know, the ones who shut down the school?”

  Gillian snatched the device from her, and she scanned through screens of maps, the last of which included a pin on their location at that precise moment. They were somewhere in West Virginia.

  “How’d you get this information?” Gillian narrowed her eyes at the half-kobold helper. “And why?”

  Agnes gave a dismissive flick of her hand. “Ain’t done nothing for you we wouldn’t have done for Mr. Nick. And it was easy. We had the teamsters keep their eyes peeled for their camper in case they should see it while they was out on the highways. Of all people, Merle Evans spotted it when he was making his last run up to Canada.”

  “Huh.”

  “Yeah. We been keeping an eye on it ever since.”

  “What are you even going to do with that information, Gillian?” Kori asked as she let Puffer lick bacon grease off her fingertips. “Uncle Nick would use it to kick someone’s ass.”

  “Good thing I’m not Nick, but why doncha wash your hands? We can go run a little errand.”

  Kori gave Gillian a suspicious stare.

  “What?” Gillian asked, giving one of her curls an angry twist.

  “What kind of errand?”

  “A queenly one. You could stay here, if you’d like. I just thought maybe you’d like some fresh air.”

  “You’re going to get in trouble with Uncle Nick.”

  “I’m going on queen’s business. I’ll take it up with Nick myself later.” What’s one more thing to argue about?

  Kori turned on her heel. “I’ll get your cloak.”

  ***

  Gillian teleported Kori to the coordinates from Agnes’ map, and found themselves smack-dab in the middle of a no-frills RV campground.

  “Ew!” Kori clamped her nostrils closed between her thumb and forefinger and did a quick skip around a mud hole.

  Noticing the necrotic smell and the cloud of germ-carrying black flies hovering around the nearby trash skips, Gillian decided their little junket would be a short one. She might have been a country girl, but she had her limits to how much nature she could stand all at once.

  She did a businesslike walk over to the door of the RV, pulling Kori along by the crook of her arm. Gillian gave the door a brisk knock and pushed Kori in front of it before fleeing to a spot where she couldn’t be easily seen. Heavy footsteps sounded inside the big beige vehicle, and the door, with its hinges in urgent need of oiling, creaked open.

  “Yes?” came Gillian’s former boss Gina’s voice.

  Kori felt around for some words, hemming and hawing. “I’m sorry to bother you, ma’am, I know y’all done got real com’table. I’m from this here campground, mm-kay? County says we’ve got a bit of a backup with our sewage going on out here and that the fumes are, uh, above rec’mended levels.”

  Gillian clasped her hand over her mouth and nose before her snort could come out.

  “I’m sorry, what?” Gina asked.

  “What I’m sayin’, ma’am, is that we’re gon’ have to ebac…evacey…backyouate, hell, clear on out of this here campground until we can unplug the body. I, uh, mean…run a snake. It’s a sanitary concern, you see.”

  “Well, lord, honey, I can’t move just yet. My husband’s not here. He took the car to the bank in town. I have to wait until he gets back.”

  Gillian would have bet a pint of fudge brownie ice cream that money he was depositing belonged to the preschool parents. Three hundred bucks made a huge difference to folks in their tax brackets, and she was going to get it, even if she had to throw some blows. She hated people who took advantage of others.

  “What bank?” Gillian threw her voice and did her best impersonation of Kori’s singsong soprano.

  Sometimes with the ring, such as on the day she and Hortense had their altercation, Gillian could pop into places just by thinking about a person. Usually, though, she had to have a specific spot in mind, else she’d land nowhere near her intended location. She needed more info if she were going to catch Hal.

  “Well, there’s only one bank in town, honey. Why?”

  “No reason!” Kori squeaked. “Uh, y’all head on out as soon as y’all can. Don’t light no matches or nothin’.”

  “Oh-kay, then.” Gina closed the door.

  Kori crouched low and scampered around to the front of the RV. “Don’t ever do that to me again!” she whispered, her silver eyes wild and wide.

  “Oh, hush, you did great.” Gillian grabbed Kori by the collar of her cloak, said a little prayer, and thought, bankbankbank!

  They teleported to First Fourth Bank, twenty feet from the ATM where Hal was stabbing numbers onto the keypad with one hand and stuffing a wad of cash into his back pocket with the other.

  Gillian mouthed to Kori, “You grab the money, I’ll deal with the rest.”

  Gillian checked the lot for witnesses and, seeing none, padded up behind the florid man with the stealth only a plant nymph and one pissed-off former nursery school teacher could manage. As Kori slipped her hand into his back pocket to grab the cash—all the while making a blech face—Gillian pressed two fingers into Hal’s back and barked in a deep voice, “Don’t turn around. This is a stickup!”

  It was the best she could come up with.

  Hal put up his hands, dropping his ATM card ont
o the dusty sidewalk in the process. “Don’t shoot!”

  “Cooperate, and I won’t. How much money do you have in that account?”

  “Uh, I dunno!” he said, his hands and arms starting to quiver.

  She poked her fingers into his shoulder blade just a bit harder.

  “I mean, shit, not much! I took most of it out already. You know, you can only take out so much per day.”

  Gillian mouthed, “How much?” to Kori, who was counting the bills she’d found in Hal’s pocket, and Kori mouthed back, “One thousand.”

  One thousand dollars was at least fourteen thousand dollars short of the May tuition the parents had paid in advance and several thousand dollars. She didn’t even try to mentally tally the paychecks the teachers and staff were still owed. She didn’t know what Hal and Gina owed in rent, but she was going to let Kurt worry about that. As a commercial property owner, he probably had his own ways of squeezing money out of folks.

  Gillian covered Hal’s eyes with her free hand and nodded down to the ground, indicating that Kori should pick up the ATM card.

  Kori snapped it up, and went one step further and retrieved Hal’s wallet, checkbook, and keys from his other pocket.

  Smart. That’ll slow him down for a while.

  Gillian took her gun-fingers off his back, grabbed Kori’s arm, and quickly teleported them back to the campground. Hiding behind a tree, she dialed Agnes’ number.

  “Yeah?” Agnes answered in her usual raspy bark.

  “Hey, do we have any wreckers or rigs around that can pull an RV?”

  “Heh heh, sure do. What do you want to do, just make a little trouble for them or liquidate it?”

  Thinking of all that money people were hurting for, Gillian said, “Liquidate it.”

  “Oh, we’re good at liquidating.” Agnes laughed and the pure evilness of her cackle made the little hairs on Gillian’s arms stand on end. “Give ’em ten minutes to get there. Try to get any passengers out, eh? It’d actually be easier if they weren’t around to see their vehicle’s, uh, departure.”