Alphas for the Holidays

by Mandy M. Roth

  But Dr. Thayer was heading for the back of the room. She stopped at one of the built-in, glass-fronted bookcases.

  Bonnie could already see that instead of books, the shelves held numerous artifacts.

  Her heart pounded as she saw five more of the animal figures. A deer, a hawk, a mother bear with cub…

  The walls were closing in, so she drank in a big breath and tried to anchor herself.

  “Here we have a tambourine,” Dr. Thayer exclaimed. “See how the suede and the beautiful scarlet staining have survived all the years. My grandfather adored all the Lenape adornments. They have been kept under glass since they came into his possession.”

  “It’s beautiful, Dr. Thayer. What lovely animal figures,” Grace said calmly.

  “Oh, they’re treasures,” Dr. Thayer enthused. “Let me get them out, dear, so you can see them better.”

  Bonnie watched with bated breath as Dr. Thayer carefully arranged the animals on a small side table next to an arm chair by the shelf.

  Somehow, though they had been placed down randomly, they all faced Bonnie. Their dark, concave eyes seemed to be imploring her.

  “Helen,” Mac said, “let me show you what I’ve collected myself.”

  He lifted his rumpled leather messenger bag to the table opposite and began to rummage through it, as Dr. Thayer looked on in horror.

  Back by the shelf, Bonnie watched as Grace knelt by the animal figures.

  Grace’s hand darted out to caress the hawk, gentle as a butterfly landing on a flower. Instantly, her eyes shut tight and her beautiful face contorted.

  Had she seen some sort of vision?

  Of course. Grace wasn’t a shifter. She was some kind of witch. That’s why Mac had called her.

  Grace pulled her hand away and opened her eyes.

  “They’re overwhelmed with magic. Not just a drop, an ocean,” she whispered to Bonnie. “These are what we’re looking for.”

  They stood and joined Mac at the table.

  “Dr. Thayer, the animals are exquisite. I would very much like to photograph them and record their details for my research,” Bonnie said bravely.

  “May we borrow them?” Mac asked lightly.

  Dr. Thayer scoffed. “Those animals won’t be leaving this study. If you want pictures, take them here.”

  “Perhaps we can make a trade?” Mac offered.

  “The tomahawk is very interesting,” Dr. Thayer said. “But it’s not the same as hand carvings.”

  “I have something even better,” Mac explained.

  He pulled a beach towel out of his bag, and carefully unwrapped three pieces of red clay pottery.

  Bonnie couldn’t help but notice Dr. Thayer’s eyes light up.

  “Incredible,” she breathed.

  “Would you like to trade?” Mac asked.

  Dr. Thayer studied each piece carefully.

  “They’re authentic, Mac, and incredibly rare. Why would you part with them?” she asked.

  “I have a special interest in the animals,” he told her. “And I know you’ll take care of the pottery better than I will.”

  Dr. Thayer sniffed in agreement.

  “I will indeed, and you are most welcome to come and see it anytime. Though a phone call first is always appreciated.” She gave him a look, which he acknowledged.

  “Now, about the animals,” she said sternly. “Do you know how to care for them?”

  “I’ve got a collection at home already, Mac assured her. “Under glass.”

  “No direct sunlight,” she warned him.

  “No, no direct sunlight,” he agreed, closing up his bag.

  Helen packed the animals into a cardboard crate with a special divider. Bonnie suppressed a shudder as she put the lid down on top, trapping the little creatures in the darkness.

  Animals secured, they said their goodbyes and headed to the car.

  “There are only twelve,” Bonnie worried out loud. “There should be one more.”

  “I think know where to find the last one,” Grace told her, hopping into her squad car. “Follow me.”

  Chapter 14

  Bonnie clutched the box of animals as the car bumped along behind Grace, toward the small green house at the end of the gravel lane. This was a part of Tarker’s Hollow she hadn’t seen before. And it actually looked like home.

  “These houses were built right after the second world war,” Mac explained, as if the humble houses needed excusing.

  It made sense to Bonnie. The 1950s had been a time when so many young soldiers were coming home and getting married. There was no time to wait for stone mansions to be built.

  Before the cars were parked, the front door to the house swung open and a girl slipped out.

  Cressida was one of those women who had a sort of reckless beauty about her in spite of what Bonnie felt was a concerted effort not to make herself look pretty.

  Cressida’s tousled blonde hair hung partly in front of her large brown eyes as she studied Bonnie and Mac through the windshield with thinly veiled interest.

  They got out of the car as Grace emerged from the police car in front of them, and greeted Cressida with a hug.

  “Uh, hey, Cressida,” Mac said a little awkwardly.

  “Hi, Mac,” Cressida winked back.

  Yeah, they’d slept together.

  Bonnie had to smile at the idea that the other woman had tried to pawn off leftovers on her. Though in a town without that many shifters, it was probably pretty common.

  “I hope you’re not looking for your money back on that date,” Cressida said. “Am I under arrest or something?”

  Bonnie laughed, Mac didn’t.

  “We wanted to know, have you ever seen something like this?” Bonnie asked Cressida, offering up the fox, whose tiny form she had been cradling in her hands.

  Cressida looked down at it.

  “Sure,” she offered, “my granddad’s got one like it. A crow.”

  “Can we see it?” Bonnie asked.

  Cressida shrugged.

  “Sure, hang on.”

  She slipped back in the door. When she came out, she was wearing an old pea coat that somehow looked like she’d picked it up at a thrift store, and like it had been custom tailored for her at the same time.

  She opened her cupped hands to show them the figure.

  Bonnie, Mac, and Grace bent over it.

  The little crow perched low in her palm.

  “That’s it,” Bonnie breathed.

  “What’s it?” Cressida asked, a bit impatiently.

  “We’ll explain on the way,” Mac announced, looking up at the pumpkin orange glow on the horizon. “Let’s go.”

  Night was coming.

  Chapter 15

  By the time they reached the amphitheater, the fiery sunset had already begun to fade.

  Bonnie fought to stay patient. Soon the shadows would be upon them. Who knew how many chances she had to help these creatures?

  She’d done her best to explain why there were there on the walk from the cars. Surprisingly, no one had questioned her sanity at any point.

  Mac carried the box of animals down the stone stairs, a calm and determined look on his face, while Grace and Cressida argued good-naturedly about whether the amphitheater itself could be another portal.

  “I’ve always felt strong magic here,” Grace told Cressida, earnestly.

  “I don’t know about that. But there is something… weird about this place,” Cressida admitted.

  “Do you get a feeling about it, Mac? Like something is about to happen?” Grace asked him.

  “I’m getting nothing, ladies,” he replied. “Just the same old amphitheater. You both probably snuck out here to smoke when you were teenagers.”

  “As a matter of fact, I didn’t,” Grace smiled, “but now I know how you spent your high school years.”

  Cressida smirked, and Mac pretended to sigh, but was obviously a little delighted at the teasing.

  Bonnie wasn’t part of thei
r old friendship, but she felt like maybe she could be, one day.

  Tonight she was too busy scanning the edge of the trees.

  Everyone reached the stage, then looked expectantly at Bonnie.

  “Now, what?” Cressida asked, as if she were asking if they wanted ketchup with their fries.

  A slight movement at the tree line caught her eye. It could have been a trick of the light, but Bonnie knew better by now.

  Cressida’s face slackened with wonder.

  “They’re here,” Bonnie said.

  “I see them,” Cressida whispered, her eyes wide.

  Bonnie saw them too. Shyly, they crept toward the fading light, scampering, crawling, soaring closer to the humans.

  Remembering the vision, Bonnie took the box of figures from Mac.

  “Form a circle,” she told the other three. They obeyed without question. Cressida was trembling now and Grace’s mouth was set in a thin line. Only Mac watched Bonnie with a pleasant alertness. He really wasn’t getting any of it.

  Carefully, Bonnie laid the animals in the snow in a circle surrounding her new friends. She tried not to think about what Dr. Thayer would say if she saw these precious artifacts strewn on the ground.

  When the circle was complete, the shadow creatures grew still. They held back against the trees, as if they were uncertain.

  Nothing happened.

  Bonnie remembered the chant, the song. Her heart sank as she realized that of course it was a necessary part of the magic. And she would never remember it.

  Cressida’s gasp districted Bonnie from her reverie. She looked up to see what the other woman was looking at.

  From beneath a snowy pine, a shadow crept. Long, slender snout, large ears, long, lean body.

  The fox. Tokala.

  The shadow lifted again before her eyes, narrowing, widening, and shifting into the shadow of a man once again.

  He approached, and Bonnie tried her best to open to him as his spirit entered her body.

  She knew it should be frightening, or cold.

  But it was like slipping on her father’s old high school letter jacket - safe, fragrant, and familiar.

  Tokala left her in her own world this time. But his words flowed through her.

  Hurry, love, he told her.

  Bonnie couldn’t sing. She had hidden in the back row of church choir and lip synched at birthday parties all her life.

  She opened her mouth and sang the song, loud and strong. The words flowed from her as if she were the mouth of a great river.

  As Bonnie sang, the shadows ventured out of the woods.

  The doe shadow darted out on careful hooves. When she found her totem, her dark form deepened and she took on the color of fall leaves, vibrant and beautiful, as she turned from a shadow animal into a spirit doe, and floated above the totem.

  Next came the bear, and her cub. Her papoose.

  One by one, the other animals came, each leaving their shadow behind and transforming to a spirit animal upon finding the proper totem.

  At last there was only one totem left.

  Bonnie felt it as soon as Tokala left her body. He slipped out of her mournfully and she felt empty without him.

  His shadow dove into a fox shape once more.

  But before the color touched even the tip of his tail, a horrible hissing sound froze them all.

  From the center of the circle, a black fog rose, billowing. Then it formed swirling tentacles that stretched up, up, toward the sky.

  One of the arms lashed out and coiled over the spirit doe, sucking her in, just like in Bonnie’s vision.

  Fear paralyzed Bonnie, rooting her in place.

  Cressida screamed, then dove at the thing, transforming mid-leap into a sleek, silver wolf, and shredding her clothing in the process.

  Bonnie had never seen anything move so fast.

  The wolf snapped at the fog fiercely, but she sailed right through it, landing hard on the ground on the outside of the circle with a yelp.

  Bonnie’s hair whipped in the wind. It was happening again. There was nothing she could do. Even Tokala…

  And then she remembered.

  Wrenching herself from the circle, she launched herself at Mac, ripping the messenger bag from his arms.

  He raised his hands as if to imply he wanted no trouble.

  But she had already dumped the whole thing on the ground and found what she wanted. Thank god Thayer hadn’t been interested.

  The tomahawk glowed dimly in the last pink rays of sunlight. Its stone head was just the right shape to have notched the ring of seats that made up the original circle.

  Bonnie fed her own anger into it. The sorrow she felt after reading the tale of the Lenni Lenape. Her sense of loss at being uprooted. Her loneliness. Her fear.

  The glow brightened until the stone shone clear in the twilight.

  Raising the axe over her head, Bonnie ran for the circle.

  When she brought the tomahawk down the first time, the fog let it through, but Bonnie sensed the tension. Like gelatin beginning to form, she felt the steam coagulating, and lopped at it again.

  The second time it pulled like taffy, and she had to wrench her arm back to retrieve the tomahawk.

  The swirling arms no longer attacked the spirit animals. Instead they pulsed, turning toward Bonnie.

  She was a librarian, not a fighter, and she wondered how many more times she could attack or how much damage she could withstand.

  But then she thought of Tokala.

  Maybe she had it wrong. Instead of fear and anger, she tried to channel the love she felt for her newfound mate into the blade.

  Instantly, light intensified until it was almost too much to bear.

  She let out a primal scream, and when she brought the tomahawk down for the third time, it connected like a steel hammer on a pane of glass.

  An ugly squeal accompanied the dissolution of the thing.

  But Bonnie only had eyes for the animals.

  Collapsing to the ground, she dropped the tomahawk and watched as the doe regained its color. It swirled in place for a moment, meeting her eyes as if to thank her, then broke away and disappeared into the sky. The hawk followed it, then the bears.

  A wave of peacefulness settled over Bonnie.

  They were going home.

  She did it.

  The crow twirled once toward the heavens and seemed to think better of it. It wheeled swiftly in the air, and then rocketed straight into Cressida, nearly knocking the wolf off her feet. She shifted back into human form, and stared in wonder.

  By the time Bonnie looked up again, the only spirit left was the fox.

  His beautiful fiery fur swirled in the pull of the spirit world. His soulful eyes studied hers sadly.

  Bonnie watched him, knowing this was the end. And it was for the best.

  Instead of moving upward, he began to shrink.

  Down he circled, down and down until he was so tiny, she could barely see him.

  She blinked away her tears, and all that remained of him was the wooden fox totem.

  No.

  It wasn’t fair.

  He had given everything to save his tribe. How could he spend another hundred and fifty years encased in wood?

  Bonnie covered her eyes and wept like a child, long, hitching sobs wracking her body, trying to remember his song, so that she could sing it to the lonely little figure, so that she would never forget.

  “Bonnie,” Cressida whispered harshly from across the circle.

  Bonnie looked up at the sound of a groan, like a house settling.

  The wooden figure expanded, pushing upward like a tree growing in a time-lapse film.

  Up and up it came, fox features stretched out of proportion, until it stood as a man. Tall and lean and lightly muscled.

  Tokala moved toward Bonnie, his colors filling in with every step. Warm copper skin, sad eyes the color of a midnight lake, shining black hair. He stood before her, real. Real as in her dream.

 
“My brave love,” he said to her, his eyes sparkling.

  Bonnie launched herself at him. If he wasn’t real, she needed to know right away.

  He caught her up in his warm arms and swung her around in a circle, laughing.

  Then he placed her down, carefully, so carefully.

  She lost herself in the promise of his eyes.

  Somewhere, Grace was asking if everyone was okay.

  “I know what we need to do now,” Cressida said in a tone that sent shivers down her spine.

  Bonnie put them out of her head.

  Tokala bent to kiss her.

  Chapter 16

  Before Tokala’s lips could brush Bonnie’s, Mac cleared his throat loudly.

  Bonnie whirled on him with an involuntary growl, for the second time in twenty-four hours.

  Mac looked amused this time.

  “I just wanted to offer you two a ride home,” he said, looking up in a tree, and mercifully away from Bonnie’s burning cheeks.

  “Um, sure, is that okay with you?” she asked Tokala.

  “I am in favor of the plan that gets me into your bed fastest,” he said, nodding down at her.

  Bonnie blushed even more deeply than before, and Mac cleared his throat again.

  “Where is your horse?” Tokala asked.

  “Oh wow,” Mac began. “A lot of things have changed…”

  “You know what, we’ll walk,” Bonnie announced, grabbing Tokala by the arm and yanking him toward the stone steps.

  “Wait,” Mac said, removing his coat and offering it to Tokala.

  Tokala nodded his thanks and shrugged it on. It just barely covered the best of his assets.

  Bonnie tugged at his arm again.

  He rumbled a deep laugh, and followed her.

  Chapter 17

  Bonnie opened the door to her apartment and they stepped inside.

  The place felt immediately smaller with Tokala there. His huge frame nearly touched the sloping ceiling.

  He looked unconcerned with his surroundings though. Bonnie wondered absently whether the cozy space reminded him of the wigwams where he would have spent his life… before.

  “Would you like something to eat—” she began.