WinterJacked: Book One: Rude Awakening

by Athena Grayson

  Her mother lived in fear. She refused to do the same. Not in a world where smartphone technology existed, the army could shoot people with lasers from space, and NASA could put a person on the same moon that was supposed to be the home of a rice-making rabbit. If youkai—or whatever they called themselves, kindred or something—existed, then they could be dealt with from a position of strength as well as weakness. She tuned her hearing into their conversation.

  Jack didn’t seem to be standing at the strong end of the negotiating table.

  Hold up, lady, her logical mind cautioned. You’re about due for a nervous breakdown about this. You’ve just discovered that your mother was right all along. She tried to close her eyes, to analyze, but the force holding her frozen didn’t even let her do that. She felt strangely calm, though, as if part of her already accepted this new facet to reality and was ready to move on, skip the breakdown altogether.

  Truth be told, the strange, monochromatic tableau in which she was a frozen observer to Jack’s interaction with the creature was only the latest in a series of reality-questioning occurrences during the evening. Jack’s attraction to her had been the biggest shock. She still reeled more from the intense make-out session on the chaise lounge than she did from this. When she thought of all the time she’d spent actively not-pining for him—No, Nancy came on the scene, they got serious pretty quickly, and then he was married and that was the end of that. Even if he had returned the attraction, she still wouldn’t have acted on it.

  But where did all this fit into Jack’s life? How long had he been subject to the spirit world, and where did his involvement come from? His mother, when Lin had met her at Jack’s wedding, certainly hadn’t seemed the superstitious type. Bailey knew Jack the longest—was this something Bailey knew? She couldn’t imagine Bailey knowing and not telling Starla, and if this was up anyone’s alley, it would be Starla’s. Her best friend lived up to her “evil Tinkerbell” image gleefully. After all, it was Starla who’d made the clearing in the woods a “faerie circle.”

  Judging by what the hooded spirit said to Jack, he needed to leave a gift for the circle’s maker. But the being didn’t specify what kind of gift. Mason and Maggie wanted to see faerie magic, so Starla had made the circle for her kids, she said. Lin didn’t want to dwell on the implications of a faerie trap working on one of their oldest friends, but Starla’s intentions were benign—in this, at least. She hoped.

  But if Starla could make something on a whim, for her kids, out of common landscaping plantings which imprisoned Jack just as surely as a concrete bunker…what else was out there waiting for him? How long had he been facing it alone?

  And did she really want to know the answers?

  ~*~

  Typical of the bastard to appear, upend his life, and leave him again with more questions than before. Jack shook himself when Inverse space reverted back to the normal world. His heart raced for a moment or two as normal time caught up with him and glanced around, frantic, wondering if he’d moved too far from his original spot before the Seneschal showed up.

  “So.” Lin’s expression maintained a slight amusement at his apparent lack of coordination.

  He straightened, trying to shake off the twitchy feeling of being out of time. “So.” What had they been talking about before the Seneschal showed up and ruined his night?

  She moved back into the clearing, just enough that the faint glow of the circle line pierced her body. Her gaze was curiously fixed on him, as she shifted her body back and forth, in and out of the line of the circle.

  “This is it.” She hitched up her wrap over her shoulders.

  “This is what?” Jack tried to ignore it, but he couldn’t help noticing. What if that red line wasn’t as innocuous to her as it seemed?

  “This is that thing.” She dropped her arms, swinging them back and forth. The glow from the circle painted streaks across her wrists in time with her movements. She stepped all the way back into the clearing.

  He backed up. He turned to the side to avoid the chaise as she took another step forward. “What thing?”

  “The thing that we’re not talking about. There’s always a thing, in a relationship.” She paced in front of him, and he felt a little like the dish of milk in his kitchen before the Chillsprites dug into it.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The lie was the most bald-faced lie he’d ever told in his life.

  “I’m talking about the thing that we’re not talking about.”

  He shifted from foot to foot. “What thing? We’re not talking about a thing.” His gut tightened. Was she having second thoughts about starting something with him? Even if it did turn out to be—her words—just stress relief? And why wasn’t he encouraging her to have those second thoughts? Hadn’t the evening shown him he couldn’t even flirt with a beautiful woman without some supernatural disaster crashing into him?

  She threw her arms wide. “Exactly. We’re not talking about the thing that we’re not talking about!”

  “No! I mean, we’re not not-talking about anything.” He raked a hand through his hair. He had a very good subject to not-talk about with her. A subject that should remain not-talked about under any circumstances. If he could just keep it not-talked about, then he might have a chance—

  He might have a chance to make a thing with Lin work out. And he wanted that chance. In spite of all the very good reasons not to take it, he wanted it.

  She let out an exasperated sigh. “Oh, Jack.” She shoved him backwards with both hands.

  The push took him by surprise and he staggered back, just over the crimson line.

  A flash of dull red sparked the air around him. The dry slide of withered branches sussed behind him, and his back landed against a solid, thorny wall of rose canes. “Ow!”

  “That’s the thing,” she said.

  “I can explain...” He began, then sighed. His face fell. “But not without sounding crazy.”

  “I’m fluent in crazy. Try me.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not—I can’t bring you into my madness. I’m not joking when I call it that. It’s absolute craziness that will mess up your life the same way I’ve screwed up mine. I like you. I want you like I haven’t wanted anyone in too many years, but—”

  “Jack, my life’s pretty effed up already. I lost my job today, I’ve got no prospects lined up, and I’ve got issues of my own I’ve avoided dealing with. Who doesn’t, at our age?”

  “This is a whole different league of effed up.” How could he explain to her when the very explanation was guaranteed to get him committed?

  “Jack, I saw the whole thing.”

  “I—you what?” Open up and swallow me whole, he begged the leaf-littered ground. A dull ache in his groin throbbed with the memory of Lin’s strong legs wrapped around him, but that was nothing compared to the deeper ache in his chest. I actually thought I had it there for a minute. A normal night.

  ~*~

  “You heard me. I saw it all. Your ‘crazy’ if you want to call it that.”

  His mouth went dry. His tongue, numb. “I—er—” What? Was he sorry? If so, why the immense relief pulling down from his spine all the way through his legs right to the dirt beneath their feet? “You’re not freaked out?”

  She raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You never met my mother, did you?” When he shook his head, she continued. “My mother is the most superstitious woman ever to have come out of Japan. My dad’s a folklorist. I used to swear I was adopted, but my feet are totally my dad’s right down to an hereditary crooked pinkie toe.” She held up one foot to make her point, even though it was still encased in a party-dress heel.

  “I—”

  “I used to find magic charms stuffed into my sack lunch growing up.” She didn’t wait for him to respond. “I’m probably going to freak out once it hits that, of all the things for my mother to be right about, it had to be this. For now, I noticed that you seem to have a problem, and that problem impacts my potential g
ood time tonight.” She smiled a smile worthy of a shark. He was still too busy being floored to react. “So I’m going to help you out.”

  He found his voice. “You’re going to what?” Maybe not so much his voice, but one borrowed from a passing squeaky toy belonging to one of Starla’s kids. “Also, I’m now intensely curious about your pinkie toes.”

  “They’re freakish. Every time I get a pedicure, I’m the center of attention.” She glanced around. “I can’t see the line anymore. I could when you were talking to that…whatever. But I can tell you who put it there, and maybe why.”

  “O…kay.” Fat lot of help he was. All he could do was try to keep his jaw from dropping onto the ground. She’d said she expected a freak-out, but so far, it didn’t seem to be happening. In fact, she was taking charge of this the same way she might have stalked into a development meeting behind schedule back in the early days of EvoWorld, when everybody did two and three jobs.

  “Starla set this place up. Bailey dug the fire pit and cleared the big undergrowth, but Starla brought in the roses and holly.” She motioned to the rosebushes that still kept a grip on his jacket.

  Belatedly, he realized he was resting comfortably against the solid barrier. “Nice job, she did.” His lips twisted.

  “She did it on purpose.”

  That was a kick in the gut. “The hell? Why would she—”

  “For her kids. She made a magic circle for her kids.”

  Jack lost the battle with his jaw and it dropped. “Who does that?” Starla? Sweet, caring, motherly Starla creating traps for Chillsprites? “What kind of sadistic—”

  “It was the kids’ idea. I doubt they meant it as sadistic. Because, you know, five year olds.” She trailed off and stared at him.

  “What?” He hunched into his jacket.

  Lin shook her head. “Nothing. Starla created the circle because her kids wanted to see f—”

  He pressed two fingers against her lips before she could continue. “Please…don’t use the F-word.” It wasn’t as if his own mind hadn’t danced around it. But that was a one-way ticket to Crazytown. Start tossing the F-word around and that was undeniable proof of non compos mentis.

  She rolled her eyes. “The twins wanted to see f—” at his glare, she stuttered. “Uh, ‘special people’ magic. Will that do?”

  He scowled. “Again, I ask, who does that? I don’t know any…of that stuff.” He looked up, meeting Lin’s eyes. “Er, does Starla?”

  Lin rolled her eyes again. “Starla knows glitter. It’s the same thing to a five year old.” She stepped closer to him. “I think—and I guess we’ll be testing the theory—is that you need to trick yourself out of the trap. That’s how it happens in the stories. Somebody tries to catch a spirit for good luck and ends up getting more than they bargained for. The lesson is not to mess with spirits.”

  He held out his arms. “Well, I’m very much not a spirit, and I’m certainly not going to trick my way out of a trap set by a pair of precocious five year olds and their insane mother.” He said the last with a scowl. He and Starla would need to have words about her children’s idea of landscaping. “I guess I have to leave a gift.” He reached for his wallet.

  She held out a hand to stop him. “I think the gift you need to leave is something the circle-makers expect. You have to leave the gift they would want to get.”

  “They’d turn down a twenty?”

  She sent another skeptic’s glare his way. “They’re five. Money is dirty green paper. Starla puts glitter on the front porch during the full moons and they think the fairies came and visited.”

  Yes, he was definitely going to have words with Starla. “If she wants Oddlings in her house, she should come to mine, see how that’s working out for me,” he groused. “I guess I picked the wrong week to stop carrying glitter around in my pockets.” He gave her a hopeful glance. “Maybe you could run back to the house and see if Starla’s got some? The only glitter around here is the stuff you’re wearing.”

  She glanced down at her dress. “You know, that’s not a half-bad idea.” She bunched up the skirt of her dress. “Help me rip it.”

  “What—no, I’m not going to trash your clothes!”

  She waved one hand. With the other, she separated the semi-sheer overskirt from the main skirt. “Not like I’ll need this for the company Christmas party anymore.” She sent him a sidelong look. “Besides, I wanted you to rip my dress off me tonight one way or another.”

  He halted as a hot spike streaked through him. “Even after all that—” He knelt in front of her. If she was determined to shred her dress, not much he could do to stop it. His hands sought out and found her stockinged leg underneath the skirt. He glanced up to see her reaction.

  A mysterious half-smile tugged at the corners of her lips. “I have some new questions about the aftermath, but the rest of it hasn’t changed one little bit.”

  Something in his chest leaped. He’d have called it his heart, but he had a feeling more than one of his organs wanted in on the fun. Like his suddenly-nervous stomach, and maybe some other glands south of there that twitched back to life. “Now I want to get out of this circle more than ever.”

  “Let’s leave them two magic snowflakes.” She fluffled her overskirt and he was enveloped in a cloud of faint perfume and woman.

  Rawr, he thought, breathing in. He found a snowflake by touch against the scratchy glitter and stiff glue. The fabric wouldn’t easily tear until he used his teeth. “How’s this for me tearing your clothes off? I’m even doing it with my teeth.”

  She laughed. The laughter shivered through her body and sent another whiff of perfume and faint woodsmoke to wreath his head. As the netting tore, he felt something in him give way. She hadn’t run screaming. She stayed…and flirted. And made it clear she wanted more.

  His fingers shook as he finished tearing a polygon of glittery snowflake material from her dress into two mismatched pieces.

  “Put them in the beer cooler, that way they won’t blow away or get stolen by fabulous raccoons.”

  Jack did as instructed. “I really hope it’s my gifting that springs the trap, and not their receiving. Aren’t they at their grandparents for the whole weekend?”

  She held out her hand. “Let’s find out together.”

  He threaded his fingers through hers and stepped towards the path, and the red line he could still see fairly clearly. He held up a cautious hand in front of him, so he wouldn’t smash his nose—again—against the barrier, if it still refused to let him through.

  The red laser-line diffused at his fingertips. Beside him, Lin took an excited breath. Fingertips, palms, wrists—the diffusion grew wider, wide enough for his body to pass through and he did, stepping through to the path on the other side.

  And again, the world flipped white.

  ~*~

  Lin moved through where she guessed the line was, a little ahead of Jack, since she already knew it didn’t seem to affect her. But one instant, the moon glowed overhead, the faint lights from the house painted the shadows gold, and the stars twinkled overhead. The next, she was stuck in that photographer’s flash again, only this time, she could move. “Well. This is…new.”

  Jack took the hand that had pushed through the barrier and slapped it against the side of his face, exaggerating a drag down to his jaw. “What the hell is it now?” He glanced around, getting twitchy on her. Maybe he was expecting that spirit-guide again. “Seneschal?”

  “Is that what you call it? The youkai—the spirit?” She surprised herself when the Japanese word for it jumped so readily to mind.

  He glanced at her. “The—spirit? I think the Seneschal’s solid, but yeah. I call it the Seneschal because it seems to be in charge of a lot of things, but not in charge, if you know what I’m saying.” He peered around the landscape. “It’s different. When the Seneschal appeared in the trap, we were still in the world.” He pointed. “It’s different now.”

  The trees in stark white over a softer,
hazier paleness of distance populated either side of the path, but the house was nowhere to be found in the trees. “The house is gone.” A little curl of uncertainty twisted around in her stomach. Pearly fog obscured the place where the house ought to be. “Where did the house go?”

  Jack reached for her hand, concern masking his features. “It’s probably still there. This is different from before. The Seneschal comes to bother me out of time. This is—” He glanced around again, a slight frown creasing his brow. “This is out of place. I’ve been here once or twice.”

  She felt her own face scrunch up in a skeptical expression. “You…come here often?”

  He huffed a humorless laugh. “Not hardly. I was chasing one of the Oddlings—Oh, God, how do I explain this.” He looked up, as if the sky would provide answers. “I came here before by accident. Right after my mother’s burial. I thought I’d had an—an episode of some sort. I left the funeral procession and started walking out of the graveyard, and I spotted something that, I don’t know, beckoned me. I thought it was someone else from the service, but I couldn’t get close enough to catch up.”

  A spirit lured him. Mother’s tales were full of hapless victims lured off safe paths by spirits. According to Mother, Jack ought to be lucky to be alive and not fed to something or forced to work in a bath house for eternity or something. But she couldn’t really take him to task without being hypocritical. After all, she never believed her mother’s stories, either. “That had to have freaked you out.”

  “I don’t remember being afraid.” He shook his head. “I recognized the streets, and the buildings were all in the right places.” He gestured around. “It was daytime until I left the cemetery, then it turned to night. I thought I had a gap in my memory, because I ended up at home. Nancy freaked out because I hadn’t been seen for hours—”

  “I remember that.” She remembered the bright early-May day of his mother’s interment. Of being afraid to approach him, because what do you say besides, ‘I’m sorry,’ and she’d already said that so many times. “Everyone thought you were with someone else.” She remembered that Nancy had worn a steadily more pinched expression as the hours of the wake wore on and none of her dispatches to find Jack yielded results.