Writer of Fantasy. Wielder of Red Pens.

Tag: more odds than ends (Page 7 of 20)

Manuscripts

“Gloves,” Halima said without looking up.

“Talk to me like I’ve never been around manuscripts before,” June replied lightly, pulling on her own pair. “What’s the museum want?”

“Help figuring out what they have, mostly.” Halima pushed back a long curtain of dark hair, revealing eyes red from dust. “How did someone just ‘happen’ to find 15th century documents in their attics?”

“And palimpsests,” June added, studying the traces of writing underneath the inked lines. “Even older. I love those cat drawings the monks did.”

“Better,” Halima announced smugly. “Take a look at this one. Some sort of legal agreement, a land sale.”

“Whaddaya know…”

“Yep. Guess this monk had opinions on the landowner.”

The women stared at the early medieval drawing.

“Yep,” June said, and hovered her finger just above a red and black horned finger. “The devil really is in the details.”

***

More at MOTE!

Not Another Ren Faire

June’s fingers clenched on the stairwell windowsill in utter disbelief. It took her mouth working three times to cooperate with her throat, and another few seconds for her lungs to remember to suck in oxygen.

Her voice still came out a wheeze. “Whaaaaa?”

The petite woman she shared an office hallway with stopped half a flight below. Dr. Christa Pham gazed upward in bewilderment. “Aren’t you coming?”

“Wha?” June tried again, and cleared her throat. She pointed over her shoulder, although it felt like a wild flail. By the look on her colleague’s face, it was. “Who thought it was a good idea to set up another festival in the courtyard?”

Christa tapped a sensible flat with impatience and headed for the next landing. “What on earth are you talking about?”

June felt the blood drain from her face. “I can’t go through that again just yet,” she mumbled. “It’s too soon since that blasted Renaissance Faire popped up.”

The folklore professor studied the view out the window. “Ah, lovely, they roofed it over this year.”

“You knew?” June felt her throat start to close again and tried to massage her neck with oddly frozen fingers. “What is it this time? The campus chili cookoff?”

“Interdepartmental trick-or-treating,” the other woman said brightly.

June sat down heavily on the cold tile stairwell. Oxford flats headed her way, and it was all she could do to focus on the shining leather.

“Relax,” Christa said dryly. “It’s a career fair. Happens every year. Didn’t you see the email?”

June grasped the railing and her colleague’s extended hand in another, hauling herself to her feet while wanting to collapse limply with relief. “As long as I don’t have to suddenly run the whole thing, we’re good.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

She kept a grip on the handrail until they reached the bottom of the stairwell, releasing it with reluctance.

Christa paused before opening the door to the chill New Hampshire autumn air. “Do try not to swordfight anyone this month, June.”

***

This week’s prompt came from Leigh Kimmel. Who thought it was a good idea to roof over the courtyard and turn it into another exhibit hall?

Mine went to nother Mike, who also fixed the randomizer (thanks, nother Mike!): “For the last time, it’s not funny to mix up the water caltrops and the baby bats!”

Check it out—and play along!—over at MOTE!

Amuse-Bouche

“Rain,” Hayes said inanely, staring out his truck window at the rolling water that had appeared out of perfect blue skies not moments before. He felt like he’d had to shout the word over the downpour. “Worse than predicted.”

Kea smirked upward, Geo perched on her shoulder. “No one ever pays attention in the rain. We’ll be able to sneak right into the dragon lady’s home.”

“Wait, you did this?”

The Fae peeked out from behind her eight-year-old human seeming. “You have a lot to learn about magic.”

“Could have just stayed at the office,” Geo grumbled. “Where it was nice and dry.”

“I’m sorry, did a frog just complain about it being too wet outside?” Hayes asked incredulously.

“I have a delicate constitution,” he said primly, and set a long-fingered hand on Kea’s braid. “Nor do I want to be eaten as an amuse-bouche by a dragon.”

Hayes nearly dented the steering wheel to keep his hands from shaking. “My boss is an actual dragon?!

***

A quick blurb this week for MOTE, inspired by AC Young’s prompt about the weather. It was a trade this week – go check it out!

Temporary Magic

“Hayes,” the man greeted him, and set down his book. He peered over the edge of the counter with wide eyes. “Who’s this?”

“Jimmy, this is Kea, my – my daughter.” He stumbled over the word, and felt the sharp sting of a kick on his ankle.

Jimmy leaned back and gave him a look filled with regret. “I am sorry, but I can’t let her in the building. It’s not bring your daughter to work day and nobody told me, right?”

“It’s all right,” Kea said in a soft, clear voice. She gave the security guard a winning smile. “I can just stay here with you while Dad runs in and grabs what he needs.”

“That’d be lovely,” he agreed, turning to face her.

Just in time to get a handful of golden glitter blown into his face. She smacked her palms together, scattering glowing dust mites onto the floor where they faded against the uneven marble floor.

“Thank you for the guest all-access badge, Jimmy,” Kea said coolly.

He blinked and dug into a drawer filled with a row of badges in a wide rainbow of colors. “Of course.”

Hayes waited until they entered the elevator. “What was that?”

Geo poked his head out from underneath his suit lapel, where he’d hidden in Haye’s shirt pocket. “Jimmy’ll be fine. Stop worrying.”

Kea nodded agreement with the frog. “It’s leprechauns all the way down.”

He threw out a hand and rolled his eyes.

She laughed at his impatient confusion. “Temporary magic.”

The ancient elevator dinged onto his usual floor, for once cooperating with something resembling more speed than a snail on its reluctant way to a medieval battle. He suspected Kea’s silent assistance.

“You’ll be able to do that soon,” she added just as he exited the creaking box of doom.

He caught his stumble against the table, spilling Geo unceremoniously into a flowerpot, as she flounced down the hall toward his office.

***

I’m late! Just a quick snippet today (and apparently switching POV again, whoops – still drinking coffee). Becky inspired this piece with leprechauns all the way down, while nother Mike got my prompt this week, over at MOTE: “You don’t want to know what happens next.”

It’s been rather hectic here, for a number of reasons, but the goal is still to make LibertyCon. Who’s with me?

An administrative note: On the off chance someone reads this and wants to sign up for the newsletter — hahaha, no one signs up for the newsletter, I did it as part of a contract requirement and haven’t sent one in two years — for the time being, you will no longer automatically receive the free download of the Paladin University newspaper interview with June.

Why? Turns out, no one had downloaded it for two years. Plus, generating content is more important than getting all this set up properly as a business — I’m writing again, and Paladin’s Legacy is back in progress— especially since this is a side gig I do mostly for fun. It was enough of a pain to set it up that I’m not going to remove the option on the website, either, because eventually I will need it again and no. I am not going through that again.

The point being, if you sign up for the newsletter and want a copy of the (very) short story, just email me.

The Valkyrie’s Trophy

Gunnr groaned at the hope on her roommate’s face and nearly shut the front door before making her way into the townhouse.

“Svava,” she warned. “I could feel you getting ready to pounce the second I turned onto the street. And unless you have a horn of mead, you’ll hear nothing.”

A faint hmph came from the footsteps heading toward the bar. A few moments later, her sister pressed a long-familiar carved horn into her hand.

Gunnr took a moment to savor the exquisite carvings that commemorated a battle long forgotten. “They don’t make them like Magnus anymore.”

Svava raised her own horn. “To fallen heroes we carried to Valhalla.”

“Hail,” Gunnr echoed, and let the blueberry-orange blossom sweetness flower over her tongue before dropping her head back onto the soft pillows.

“So?” Impatience seeped into Svava’s voice. “This dating app is the most entertainment I’ve had since television was invented.”

“Disaster, as usual,” she replied, and let out a yawn.

“Oh, no,” came the fierce reply. “I’ll take your mead away if you try to fall apart on me before paying story tribute. Now spill.”

“Well,” Gunnr said, “I can’t tell you how the steak is, because we never made it to dinner.”

“And yet you’re not home early,” Svava noted, and pulled her tangle of braids and limbs off the couch. “Refill?”

Gunnr tipped her horn back and held it out. “Please. After tonight, I need it. This is getting ridiculous.”

“But it’s so amazing to hear.”

“Less fun to live through.” She yawned again. “The guy shows up, and suddenly it’s obvious why we’re at the one Western-themed steakhouse in town. I could have lived with the clearly just-purchased leather cowboy hat—”

Svava handed the drinking horn back with a snicker and rolled her eyes in salute at the horned helmet they kept hung in pride of place on their shared trophy wall. The helmet was an inside joke between the Valkyries, made of pink and purple plastic.

“—but I had my doubts about the string tie. But he tried, you know? Only too hard, because he went all macho and annoying. Even Magnus never called me ‘little lady.'”

“Ooof,” was Svava’s only commentary.

“That’s it? No tirade on feminism or how you’d have dropped him before reaching the great hall?”

She grinned, her face framed by two blonde braids that shone in the dimly lit room. “You’re clearly not done yet.”

“No,” Gunnr admitted, and stretched her legs before pulling herself into a comfortable ball on the overstuffed couch. “As it turned out, the steakhouse was located next to a bank.”

“Now we’re getting started.” Svava’s grin grew impossibly wider.

“As it turns out, Cowboy Jon soiled himself when the bank robbers blew the wrong wall. And then he ran, but bounced right off the server.”

Gunnr took another sip of mead, wistfully longing for the sizzling steak with its crisp diamond char pattern. It had looked delicious, even lying on the floor next to Cowboy Jon’s hat.

She flashed teeth at her sister. “He knocked over the food, the server, and abandoned his hat, but he fled so fast, he was the only one who made it out before the bank robbers turned it into a hostage situation.”

Svava waved a carefree hand. “Presumably, you took care of that.”

“Obviously.” Gunnr stroked the sword tattoo on her arm. “Though the ravens still need feeding. Anyway, I got caught by the police wanting witness statements.”

“Was anyone was about to admit they saw a sword-wielding Valkyrie?”

“The waiter suggested the bomb, and everyone basically nodded along and said they didn’t see clearly.”

Laughing, Svava drained her horn. “I love the power of suggestion.”

“Anyway, I grabbed spaghetti from that takeout place on the drive home, because the steakhouse’s kitchen shut down once the cops arrived. Which reminds me.” Gunnr dug into the pocket of her skinny jeans and pulled out a small card in a white envelope. “We have a gift card, if you still want to know how the food tastes. The waiter’s a believer. He saw everything and didn’t wish it away like the others.”

“The cops must have known the explosion didn’t kill the would-be robbers.”

“They chalked it up to little green men, I believe,” Gunnr said. “Though I’m starting to be concerned about how many of these stories are circulating around town. Someone will take notice of blondes wielding swords. I don’t want to move again just yet.”

“Maybe,” Svava mused. She stopped playing with the end of her braids and flipped her hair over her shoulder. “But can you imagine Cowboy Jon’s reaction when the cops show up to interview him?”

Gunnr’s smile was vicious this time. “I can’t wait.”

Her sister smiled as sweetly as the mead they’d been sipping. “Sister-mine? You might as well go get your trophy from where you left it on the porch.”

“You know me too well.” Gunnr untangled her legs from the pile of pillows and headed for the front door.

By the time she returned, Svava had already cleared a spot on the trophy wall, just under the shining plastic helmet. A spot just large enough for a brand-new leather cowboy hat.

***

This week’s MOTE prompt was inspired by Becky Jones’ spaghetti western suggestion. My prompt went back to Becky: “Castle doesn’t do any good if you forget to draw the bridge.” Check it, and more, out at More Odds Than Ends!

First Date

Gunnr fiddled with her water glass, making designs of the rings left by condensation atop the stained wooden table nestled in the back corner of the restaurant. She had to stop herself from automatically forming patterns her date wouldn’t appreciate. An ability to create magical portals to Valhalla wasn’t exactly first date conversation material.

Although her date in question was about to be late, and if he didn’t show up out of breath and full of apologies, she wasn’t sure she’d stay for dinner. Even if the smokiness of good barbeque did make her mouth water.

Anyone who thought Valkyries—reformed Valkyries, she sternly reminded herself—didn’t have military precision and a whole lot of self-respect to boot needed a lesson. Why, the number of idiot warriors who’d wound up wearing their mead rather than drinking it—

She cut off her train of thought and stood as a man who actually resembled his photograph raced up to her table, hand extended.

“Gunnr, right?” At her nod, he continued. “I’m so sorry. I showed up early, then only realized I went to their other location across town when I walked inside.” He gave a half apologetic smile and squeezed her hand before letting it go. “Anyway, you look beautiful, and I hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long.”

Plausible. The other location had to shut down last year. But how did he not notice it’s a kebab restaurant now? Gunnr told her internal worthiness detector to shush as she smoothed her skirt and sat back down. “It’s nice to meet you in person at last, AJ.”

He smoothed his beard and gave her a once over as he settled in and picked up the menu waiting for him, catching the server with a waved hand and rattling off his order. And hers as well, waving off the server before she could stop him.

Gunnr gritted her teeth. “I don’t drink sweet tea.”

“You’ll love it,” he reassured her. “It’s great here.”

Something tense in her neck twitched with a painful twang. She slapped the menu off to the side, the plastic slightly sticky under her fingers with the ghost of sweet barbeque sauce.

His eyes roamed over her again, this time with a faint frown. “Yes, quite the beauty, aren’t you? Other than the tattoos.”

Her free hand crept up to stroke the ravens decorating her bare shoulder. “I beg your pardon?”

“A little aggressive, don’t you think? Ravens, swords, wings. You’re covered.”

“Aggressive?” Gunnr stared. “My name literally means ‘war,’ and you think my tattoos are aggressive?”

She pulled her phone from her skirt pocket with one hand, texting a quick frowny face to her sister Bryn. It had been their emergency exit signal since they were children, although the frowns had been on faces then, not screens, and filled with exaggerated nuance lost to technology.

“Maybe if it were a dainty butterfly or a flower, someplace hidden, that comes with a cute innocent story. Not, like…a drunken Cancun story.”

AJ shrugged. “I don’t think it’ll work out between us, honey. That’s a dealbreaker for me.”

Her phone pinged with a message. Sorry. It’s early. Are you sure?

Gunnr firmed her jaw and gave the message a thumbs up, then dropped the device back into her pocket. “I don’t believe you’ve given me enough of a chance to be your ‘honey.'”

“We can still split dinner if you want,” he offered, and turned to study the restaurant’s other patrons.

Her phone rang. The opening strains of Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” rose through the dining room, cutting through the din of conversation and silverware.

“Rude,” AJ commented primly, and finally turned to meet her wrath. His face paled behind the dark beard.

“As rude as ordering for someone you’ve just met, then asking them to pay for it?” Her voice was a silk-wrapped bar of iron, ready for the forge. Centuries of experience watching her sisters told her that storm clouds swarmed around her head.

She could feel the crackle as lightning ran down her white-blonde hair with a friendly hello, dancing with the freedom she’d not permitted the battle-storm in well over a decade.

Her phone stopped, and silence filled the room. It rang again. It would continue ringing until she answered.

“As rude as showing up late with lies on your tongue?”

Gunnr’s wings burst forth from the shoulder blade tattoos AJ had sneered at earlier.

da da da DAA DA da da da DAAAA DAA

Her phone stopped ringing.

AJ was the only person stupid enough to relax.

The rest of the diners broke and ran when the music restarted a third time. Though it might have been the ravens comfortably perched atop her shoulders.

They can handle wings and lightning, but never my lovely flying death omens. Gunnr licked her lips and gave the birds a fond smile as they launched to circle above her date, cawing.

“Uhhh…” AJ attempted. “Maybe I should go.”

The sword tattooed on her arm vanished and reappeared in her hand, winds whipping stray paper towels around the restaurant.

“I am the chooser of the slain!” she howled into the storm. She dropped her head and bared her teeth at him. “And you — you — are not worthy.”

She headed for the door with a shimmy of her hips, her steps almost dancing to the familiar music of death and battle. “Come back when you’re done with him, my feathered friends.”

***

Finally done, a few days late, after some house hiccups. Thanks, A.C. Young! I weaponized your Wagner inspiration. Leigh Kimmel got my prompt about the villains’ newsletter last week. And onto this week!

A Wisp of Persuasion

I’d always found ice cream to make hard conversations better, even when they weren’t mine. It worked almost every time. Smashing hard lumps of vanilla into chocolate syrup until they’d blended into a less aerated version of soft serve without sending frozen sugar into the air was an excellent focus to maneuver past the impossible. Or distract from anything worth avoiding.

Like this assertion that I might be able to keep my wisp of a fey daughter from crumbling into debris and motes of magic dust I couldn’t even see.

I prefer being an observer, even if I was a con man gone legit. No one’s ever suspicious of an eavesdropper at the ice cream shop.

“We’re wasting time, Hayes,” Geo said from his perch on my shoulder, and Kea nodded from her seat on the bench.

“I’m having trouble believing this is possible,” I admitted, and dumped my ice cream into the flower pot beside me unfinished. “Magic, through willpower alone?”

“No,” they said in unison.

“You’re a persuasion mage,” Kea said.

“That’s why you were a successful con artist for so long,” Geo said. “Why your penetration tests work, even when they shouldn’t. Which is using your powers for good.”

“You know what else would be?” Kea said with an edge an eight-year-old shouldn’t have. “I’d like to keep living.”

I looked at her, trying to see past the embodiment of my dreams. Trying to see anything but the embodiment of my lost wife and daughter.

“What bargain do I make?”

The words were a whisper, but her lips stretched into a smile anyway. “Now you’re starting to ask the right questions for a mage.”

“Not sure you can afford not to decide otherwise,” Geo said acidly. “Unless you want to end up a slave to her, possibly frog-sized? She doesn’t like you, you know. Perhaps she’d find a cockroach more useful than your current form.”

I lifted him off my shoulder and set him down on the bench, then looked at them both, hoping desire trumped skepticism. “What do I do?”

Geo opened his mouth, but no words came out. The compulsion spell, presumably. He gave Kea a bulging-eyed look of desperation.

She obliged. “You just want me to continue to exist past the deadline.” Her dark eyes were hopeful now, as childlike as her first exploratory bite of the discarded ice cream. “Persuasion mages work mostly on instinct and belief.”

I rested my hands on my knees and stared at the concrete wall in front of me, elbows stiff, and wondered if that’s why no one else had tried to come into this lovely garden spot while we were here.

“I don’t know how I can keep that up forever,” I said slowly. “Wouldn’t I have to continue wishing you to be alive? What happens when I fall asleep? Or dare to think of planning for—for the future?” I wouldn’t say the words out loud. “Isn’t it like not thinking of a pink elephant?”

“What?”

Geo sighed with enough force the bench rumbled. “Just get past the critical moment and it should be fine. You can do a single moment.”

“Which is in five minutes,” Kea added. “So figure it out, Dad.”

“You’re going to be a handful,” I retorted, and we settled into comfortable silence, watching customers enjoy frozen treats and a most enthusiastic Labrador puppy encounter ice cream for the first time.

If this didn’t work, watching him try to lick vanilla off his nose was a good way to go. It made Kea giggle, anyway, though I could tell she wanted to race over and join the rolling herd of organized chaos.

“Thirty seconds,” Geo warned.

I closed my eyes and felt the cold sweat of nerves break out at my temples, a habit I’d thought I’d long since controlled. But then, I didn’t usually delve into memory.

I’d lost the exact shape of her eyes until 24 hours ago, but I’d never forget the sound of my wife’s laughter. I’d tap into that joy to keep the daughter of my dreams alive.

In the end, it was anticlimactic. Kea touched my arm and grinned up at me. “We’re past the deadline.”

Struggling to smile, I felt tears streak my face in wonder as a burble of laughter escaped my throat involuntarily. “You’re sure?”

She nodded, a delightful grin on her face. “Didn’t you feel the magic pop?”

I had no idea what she was talking about, but pulled her and Geo in for a hug anyway, trying not to squash the frog out of sheer excitement.

That’s how I saw the meteor hit the ground, tightening my arms around them as the only protection I could manage in time.

It came as a ball of blazing flame and scattered screams, trailing soot and chunks of rock, clipping the edge of the ice cream shop and splashing a shower of dirt across unsuspecting vehicles.

A car alarm blared as I stood to inspect the damage—silenced by the wave of a pale arm in pristine robes emerging from the crater.

This time, my tears were of rage. Who knew hell would be this damp? To yank my daughter away, moments after she’d truly been born?

I’d be damned if the Marble Witch would win this time.

I probably was anyway.

***

Not quite as hoped, but out of time for now. This week’s prompt was a trade with Cedar Sanderson. Go check it out! Update! Not a trade. Inspiration came from Becky Jones.

The Most Dangerous Emotion

“Bye, Kea!” An anonymous boy waved solemnly as I scooped a few minutes away from the picnic’s planned end.

My “daughter” had been a hit with the crowd of slightly awkward engineers and computer scientists. Clever, cute, and intensely interested in interrogating those with greater knowledge about hacking gadgets and gizmos? They’d accepted her as a miniature adult without question. She’d go far in their world.

Or would, if the clock weren’t ticking.

Kea was exactly what I’d asked the Marble Witch to create. And in just a few hours, she’d dissolve back into the fallen petals of her fantastic origin. That was the promise, and we both knew it.

I saw both sadness and joy in her eyes today. At least we could end it with ice cream. I put the truck in drive and myself on automatic.

Morbidly, I found myself practicing answers in my head in case she disappeared early. No, there wasn’t a little girl here. Are you sure you didn’t mean that child playing over there?

I wasn’t sure I could handle the heartbreak again when she left me. More time was all I desperately wanted, and each second ticked away faster than I could process it into the insufficient wetware known as memory.

“Hayes.” The frog on my shoulder was surprisingly difficult to ignore, nor was it typically worth it. Tonight, it was. I’d only known the overgrown tadpole a week, but it was the longest week of my life bar one terrible year that had vanished into a bottle.

With Kea’s “pet” on my shoulder, I’d had to admit to my new fake boss that he’d been in my briefcase after all, during the infamous ribbiting interview. She’d burst out laughing, not knowing all three of us were infiltrators, sent to bring down her empire.

“Hayes,” Geo said again. “Look, did you ever stop to think about why she picked you for this job?”

He never said the witch’s name, I’d noticed. He persisted, much to my disgruntled dismay.

“Why she needed you, specifically? Con artists are a dime a dozen.”

“I’m a pentester,” I said petulantly.

Even Kea rolled her eyes. “He’s right.”

At her words, I jerked the steering wheel to the side of the road. “Wha—I don’t know what to ask, so why don’t you help me out here?”

“I can’t,” Geo said glumly. “I can hint. That’s it.”

“He’s under a compulsion spell not to tell you,” Kea said. “But I’m not. I wasn’t supposed to exist long enough to need one. But it’s good practice for you to know how to maneuver this world.”

Her eyes were dark and sly, suddenly older than her apparent eight years, and I was forcibly reminded that she was not my daughter, but a fey creature of wild spring magic.

I swallowed. “You’re created from magic.”

Geo tugged on my ear from his perch on my shoulder. “And she is interested in…?”

“Magic,” I answered automatically. “That’s the whole reason for this job, it’s got to be.”

“And that means…” He was the world’s smallest and least patient teacher.

“She chose me because…” I trailed off. “Can’t have magic. That’d be ridiculous.”

He flicked my ear with a sticky finger. “Clueless, you are. Do things ever happen just because you believe in them? Because you want them? More than careful preparation can explain?”

I met Kea’s eyes, bright and eager, eight years old again. “You’re the daughter of my dreams.”

“Takes a powerful dreamer to manifest,” she said wistfully. “Perhaps you need to try dreaming more deeply.”

It was ridiculous. Utterly insane. That I could simply will this delightful creature into continued existence?

“It’s because I’m also the daughter of your heart,” she whispered, and grinned up at me with a missing tooth.

I threw the truck into drive and gunned the engine, mind racing with plans at a speed I’d never expected to feel again, unnatural sharpness as the jigsaw took four-dimensional shape inside my head. I’d been trudging through life and it was time to celebrate. And to plan.

“We need ice cream for the rest of this conversation.”

Hope was the most dangerous emotion in the world, and it filled all three of us like we wouldn’t shatter on the ground when the witch discovered our treachery.

If my suspicions were correct, she’d know within the hour that the magic she’d expected to recover when Kea dissolved was stolen by a newly awakened mage.

I hadn’t a clue how to use magic, but I wouldn’t fail my daughter a second time.

***

Whew, made it! Cedar’s prompt was sadness and joy, and mine went to Becky Jones. Go check them all out, over at MOTE!

Daughter, Shoplifted

I put Kea-not-Chloe to bed — mine, because the house hadn’t kindly obliged by sprouting another room when the Marble Witch had created her out of springtime scraps and squelched longings — and shut the door quietly.

Walked into the kitchen. Headed straight for the fridge and a beer. Opened it. And that’s when I slumped over the kitchen counter like a man who’s had his world shattered a thousand times and walked through walking dreams so strong they’d formed into jagged nightmares.

That’s what I was, after all, and it was time to stop pretending I was man enough to handle it. If the witch killed me for not pulling this job, well.

I’d deserved it since Tulsa.

The couch I’d be spending the night upon looked decided lumpy, but staring at it was better than staring at the bedroom door where I’d just read my makeshift daughter a bedtime story. Miniaturized, so I knew it must have been Geo’s, with well-worn corners.

In a day, it might be all either of us had to remember her by.

“You can’t keep her, Hayes.” Geo looked up from the thick bundle of newspaper he’d been pretending to read and pulled a frog-sized cigar and one of those snappy metal lighters from the inside of his smoking jacket. “She’s not a normal girl.”

“I know.” My voice was hoarse, barely audible in the small room. I slugged back half the beer and set it carefully down. “You’ve been quieter than usual.”

He flicked the lighter with restless familiarity. “I had kids, once upon a time.”

“A lot of tadpoles, I imagine.” The joke fell flat, but I hadn’t bothered with the right emphasis.

Geo took his time lighting the world’s smallest poison-wrapped leaf and puffed a few times. “Wasn’t always like this. Froglike. A long time ago.”

Bracing my hands on the cheap linoleum, I pushed myself up with effort. “Same.” I studied the cold bottle, watching condensation drip and pucker a poorly-adhered label. “Had a daughter, once.”

He looked at me silently, a tiny curl of smoke wafting over his head and out the open window. Twilight silhouetted the amphibian from his padded chair.

The couch I’d be sleeping on tonight would reek of it. The floor might be more comfortable after all.

“Back in Tulsa,” I started. My voice broke, and I shook my head. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

“Doesn’t it? What were you thinking?” He hopped down and headed toward me with a purpose, heading straight upward on the wall with sticky fingers in that way that made me dizzy.

“I didn’t,” I started to protest.

“You damn well did.” He blew the last of the smoke in my face and tossed the burning end of his cigar into the sink, dark eyes angry, sideways oval pupils narrow. Sticky hands gripped the collar of my shirt before I even knew he’d leapt upon my chest.

“Come on, man.” I tried to brush him off.

He wasn’t having it. “Playing with fire, that’s what you are. Racing through life like you don’t care.”

“Con man’s an excellent gig for those who prefer avoiding life,” I ventured. “And more dangerous than I’d anticipated. It’s why I went legit.”

“Right, because pentesting isn’t a nice term for the exact same thing. A con job. What kind of life is that for a daughter?”

“Low blow,” I grated out, tugging him futilely.

“You challenged the witch!” He shook my collar with surprising strength. “And you claim to have learned after Tulsa?”

I froze. “How…what d’you know about that?”

“You asked the witch for a daughter. A human being! Like you were going to the store and could just buy one!”

“Hey—”

Geo pitched his voice high. “Oh, honey, while you’re at the store, would you mind, would you pick up—”

I cut him off, a flush of anger washing over me. “Then I will damn well shoplift her if it means I get to keep my daughter!”

The smoke he’d blown into my face giggled and swirled around my nose. Once, twice, thrice. And then it zipped out the door.

“From your mouth to the fae’s ears,” Geo murmured. He looked up at me, relaxed again. “You’ll need their help to counter her magic. Dangerous, though.”

“I’ll be careful.” For her, I thought but didn’t say.

He heard it anyway, when I looked at the closed bedroom door.

“Better start planning.” He released my shirt and hopped his way toward his bedroom. “You’ll have to be careful. Or you might end up a frog.”

***

This week, Padre challenged me with “Honey, while you’re at the store, would you mind grabbing…”, plus I worked in the spare prompt of an excellent gig for those preferring to avoid life. My prompt went to Becky Jones with the case of the missing post-it note. Find these, and more, over at MOTE! Join us!

Tulsa, Redux

Part one is here.

Part two is here.

Frogger helped me out when I couldn’t solve the riddle. Begrudgingly, I’m sure, and I’ll owe Geo later for this. It was a surprise he bothered after I’d inadvertently left him behind.

“It’s spring,” I complained, staring out the window. “Real spring. It’s sixty degrees Fahrenheit. We don’t even get frost warnings anymore, not for weeks.” I said it with the confidence of a first-time gardener who devotedly watched local weather newscasters for reports on the safe planting time. The words weren’t even borrowed but entirely stolen from a single forecast I’d watched last night.

“Uh-huh.” He turned the page of his pint-sized newspaper. I guess those tablet readers and his frog fingers didn’t get along well, but don’t ask me where a booklet the size of a bakery roll came from every day. I just paid for it, along with everything else for my unexpected roommate.

Don’t get me started on the coupons showing up from the pet store, or the kitchen cupboard filled with his snacks. I’m never opening that one again. Not after the midnight snack fiasco.

“Too warm for snow,” I continued, banging down my coffee and leaving a circular splatter of droplets to stain the counter. “Even if I drive north. The picnic’s tomorrow. Maybe I should go with the sick kid plan.”

“Then people will avoid you,” he said, and turned another page without looking up. “The goal is to get them talking. Be friendly, not Typhoid Mary.”

“This is your fault,” I muttered. “You just had to croak where the dragon lady could hear you.”

Geo let out a long-suffering sigh and set down the paper. I’d found him a padded doll’s chair and table, and he looked for all the world like a British aristocrat of the late 1800s. Probably because he insisted on wearing a velvet smoking jacket.

“You see that tree on the edge of the property?” Geo hopped toward me, fastidiously avoiding the coffee debris, and jumped on the window, sticking to the glass with ease. He poked in the direction of an apple tree, covered in white blossoms. “Watch as the wind hits it.”

The tree in question was one of a cluster, inside a mulched garden where the previous occupant had once devoted significant effort. Green things poked through the damp wood chips, and the dew-covered grass grew long around the edges where the landlord hadn’t trimmed.

The breeze caught and spindly branches swayed. A shower of flower petals drifted sideways, floating to scatter across the garden, light covering dark in a gentle wave.

“I’ll be damned,” I said, letting out a low whistle. “Looks just like it.”

“Probably, with the company you keep,” the frog said gruffly. “Looks like you’ve got what you need to create your magical daughter out of spun snow.”

It took me a second to realize he was replying to the first part of what I’d said. “Um, thanks.”

“Don’t ever thank magical creatures,” he said, staring out at the tree. “And don’t take magic so literally. Find the loophole.”

I could have sworn he muttered, “they certainly will,” but it might have been my imagination. I didn’t push it. Something in his manner told me Geo’d had tadpoles, once, and for all his bluster, might enjoy having a kid around.

Anyone who’d handled an army of pollywogs could help me keep a human child alive for a day. I’d wanted kids, once, until my world had dissolved.

He cleared his throat and tapped the glass again. “You’d better get going if you want to collect them all. Those petals look beautiful now, but rot quickly.”

“All?”

He gave me a withering look, which was better than his previous half sympathetic state. I’d grown used to derision. “Magic has a cost.”

It wasn’t until the Marble Witch showed up—nearly at sundown, after I was smudged with dirt stuck to my face and soaked in stale sweat—that I realized how high the cost would be. And it had nothing to do with tediously sorting out the pink flowers blown in from two yards over.

“You’re learning.”

I hid my startle and carefully put another handful of petals into the enormous burlap bag, folding the rough cloth over the edge before it snagged open again on the rusted wheelbarrow it rested inside. “I try to be adaptable.”

Penetration testing depended on looking like you belonged, especially the physical component of it. No, not just looking like it, the target had to know you were meant to be there. Even my body language changed when I took a job, to match the new normal. You could say I was used to adaptability. Thrived on fast-paced change, even.

I was still bent over the bag of petals that would become the daughter I didn’t have when the Marble Witch’s breath blew across the back of my neck like an Alaskan winter in the middle of the night.

Yeah, finding out magic was real might be stretching my ability to maneuver with whatever life threw at me. I didn’t know the norms. Didn’t know how to blend.

“That’s enough for your needs.” She backed away, studying the cluster of trees that still blew petals across us both. “A clever adaptation. I wouldn’t have expected it of you.”

I gestured toward the rented house. “It’s the view from the coffeepot.” I didn’t mention the frog’s involvement. Something in my gut told me she wouldn’t like it, and never mind that she’d left him here with me intentionally.

She slammed her staff upon the ground — had she been carrying a staff a moment before? — and slashed the burlap sack with a knife that absolutely had been created out of thin air.  

My gaze snagged upon her robes as she began chanting in a language my ears refused to hear. Pressure built, and it became difficult to breathe. I fell to my knees atop shreds of mulch and yesterday’s rotted apple blossom petals, clutching my chest. My eyes were still fixed upon the cloth that looked like nothing so much as the arctic sea, rippling hypnotically, shades of icy blue, the kind of water that killed you in minutes.

Or created the daughter you thought you’d never have. The air shattered from its frozen bubble of magic as the pressure broke from inside this springtime grove.

I sucked in ragged breaths with newfound gratitude for oxygen as the Marble Witch leaned on her staff, robes rippling in the breeze. Once more the fabric masqueraded as mere clothing rather than an intoxicating ocean. Perhaps the hag had weaknesses after all.

Her eyes flashed icicles at me, and it belated occurred to me that perhaps I should learn to control my thoughts when she was in the vicinity.

“Her name is Chloe,” the witch snapped. “You have until tomorrow’s full sundown. Payment has been offered and accepted, using the snow that falls in sunlight and the daughter of your dreams.”

“Wait, what?” Had she meant that part about dreams literally? Where was that frog to interpret when I needed him?

She was already gone, leaving behind a young girl of perhaps eight at best, wearing a dress made of woven vines and holding a small crystal of indeterminate color that pulsed with the witch’s ice magic. Dark hair, dark eyes, and when I looked at her, she winked with great seriousness. She used her whole face, exactly like a child who’s discovered but not mastered winking yet.

“I’m not really Chloe,” she said with a cheeky grin. “I just let her think that.”

“I know,” I said, and felt my heart breaking already.

I’d thought this might be Tulsa redux. A simple job gone wrong, the disaster that cost everything. The city that destroyed without mercy the future of a screaming man in mourning. Now I knew.

This wouldn’t be Tulsa.

This was going to be so much worse.

***

I don’t know where this story is headed yet, but I’m having fun with it and eagerly awaiting the next prompt to continue this tale from MOTE. It’s a nice break from Peter and June (yes, I’m working on it, I swear!).

This week’s suggestion came from Cedar Sanderson: I knew immediately her name was not Chloe.

And can’t wait to see what nother Mike does with my suggestion: She followed a trail of fireflies.

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