Forest Moon Rising (26 page)

Gollum just sits there staring at my message. I blink and flash.

Ouch that hurts my head. My babe had better appreciate what I go through for her. This is going to require a big dose of beer and OJ to cure the headache.

And still Gollum sits there.

“Hey! Professor Van der Hoyden-Smythe, wake up. The love of your life needs you.”

At last I think I’m getting through those thick glasses. He lets them slide down his long nose until they almost fall off. Then he caresses the words on the screen with a delicate fingertip, tracing the shape of the italic capitals as if they were the scar on my dahling Tess’ face. The interdimensional scar that should be invisible to him, but isn’t.

That’s how I know he is the only man for Tess. He can see the scar. Donovan can feel it, but he can’t see it.

Pansy Sean can’t see it or feel it.

At last Gollum blinks rapidly and shakes his head as if clearing it.

Then he pushes his glasses back firmly onto the bridge of his nose and deletes my message!

Stupid idiot.

He starts scrolling through the rest of his email, replying here, saving there.

As tired as I am, I force a few phosphors to rearrange themselves.

THIS IS IMPORTANT YOU DUMB ASS. CALL TESS BEFORE SHE MAKES A HUGE MISTAKE. SHE NEEDS YOUR HELP.

Then I push myself halfway through the screen so he can see me.

Of course to his semi mundane brain I look like a rough squiggle of a cartoon, but he should get the message.

On the fourth ring I answered the phone, just before it went to voice mail. The caller ID said private name and number.

I don’t usually answer calls I can’t identify. Something in my gut said I needed to talk to this person. Too much was happening. Too many coincidences had fallen into place.

“Tess, don’t hang up on me,” Sean said hurriedly.

“Do I have a reason to hang up on you, Sean?”

Allie made an “Oh” with her mouth and withdrew, closing the office door on her way out.

“I hope not.”

Should I tell him right away that tomorrow looked impossible to see him?

No. Better to play it safe and find out if he wanted to continue seeing me before I sent the message that I was having second thoughts, when I wasn’t.

“Have you thought about our last conversation?” I asked instead.

“Yes.” He sounded cautious. “I did some research too.”

“Oh?” What could he find about me and the Warriors of the Celestial Blade? Not much. We were pledged to secrecy. But as more and more rogue portals opened between worlds and more and more demons infiltrated our society, we had to move out of the Citadels and into everyday life, thus exposing ourselves to possible discovery every time we invoked the Celestial Blade.

“Actually, I talked to Nurse Newman.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “What did Squishy tell you?”

“Odd nickname for a woman so solidly built and strong ... But that’s another topic for another day. She too told me to read your books, that the protagonist is you even if the setting is different.”

Gulp.

“And ...”

“And it’s a little hard to swallow.”

“Okay. You’re skeptical. What does that mean for us?”

“I think we need to talk. I delivered another strange baby Saturday night, Sunday morning actually, right at the set of the full moon. I called in Nurse Newman to consult. The mother is fine and has the number to call for the support group you set up. I really think I need to talk to you about this. Can I see you tomorrow?”

“Actually, are you working tonight?”

“Until nine. I’m on a coffee break right now. What did you have in mind?”

I looked at the clock, almost five.

“I’d like to introduce you to two of those woodland babies grown up a bit.”

He whistled long and low.

“How about I bring Chinese for four.”

“Sounds wonderful. Um....”

“Um what?”

“There’ll be five of us. My brother’s fiancée is staying with me for a while—she’s my best friend actually, we’ve known each other since kindergarten. It’s a little crowded here. I don’t suppose you have a spare camp cot or air mattress hanging around?”

“As a matter of fact I do. I have a full camping set up for when my dad and I go fishing every spring,” he said on a chuckle.

I heard a page in the background.

“I’ve got to go. I’ll see you about nine-thirty.”

I
WASTED A LOT OF TIME pacing my office. I schemed and plotted, discarded all my thoughts and started over again.

Allie finally knocked on the door with two mugs of coffee in her hands. “I threw together a vegetarian pot pie. It’s hot. I wasn’t sure what the girls would eat.”

“Besides greasy pizza?” I drank deeply of the coffee, grateful for the caffeine hit, hoping it would clear the increasing number of cobwebs in my brain.

“Yeah. I figured we should start introducing them to normal food and clothes. Oh, Tess, they have nothing. Not even toothbrushes.”

“I guess we need to raid the nearest discount store. As soon as we’ve eaten.” I stepped toward the doorway.

Can we go to the mall?
Scrap popped in right in front of me.
After beer and OJ.

“You do look a little peckish. What have you been up to?” I eyed him suspiciously. His transparent green had faded to fairly ugly khaki and he had none of the glow he usually carried after a visit to Gingko.

We settled at the kitchen bar. I didn’t want the girls to get in the habit of carrying their plates into the far corners of the condo. I was bad enough about that.

“Card table and chairs are on the list,” Allie hissed at me as we dug into the casserole. Allie knew how to cook hearty for New England winters. Rich in turnip and barley, along with tomatoes and cauliflower, she’d topped the dish with two inches of mashed potatoes and a garnish of sharp cheddar cheese.

Salal and Blackberry practically inhaled it—after some basic instruction on how to use a fork and a napkin instead of fingers and tongues.

“I cooked, you clean up, share the chores,” Allie insisted as the girls pushed their plates aside.

“Of course. Father always insisted on chores before fun. May we watch TV?” They looked too eager.

I eyed the last portion of pot pie. I didn’t really need it, no matter how good it tasted. It would make a nice lunch for one person.

“We need to take you shopping,” I said instead. “Clothes and toiletries before TV. We should get going if we’re going to be back before Dr. Connolly gets here.”

“Doctor?” Blackberry reared back, suddenly suspicious.

“Yes. My friend is a physician.”

“We don’t need a physician.” Blackberry backed up, hands in front of her as if warding off something unpleasant.

“He’s a friend. This is not a professional visit.” I glared back at both girls. “Why do you fear doctors?”

“Nothing.” They shrugged and took the dirty plates and cutlery to the sink.

Another sticky topic to be approached carefully. Slowly. After we’d built some emotional trust.

“Father says that physicians are money sucking leeches who don’t know anything,” Salal whispered on her way past me.

I arched my back and scanned the room, assessing what we needed to make the place habitable for two extra people. Bed, eating table and chairs, more seating in the living room. Everything!

A tentative knock on the door sent my heart into my throat. It couldn’t be Sean. Not three hours early!

If anything, I’d expect a doctor to be late.

Go ahead and answer it, dahling,
Scrap commanded. His dinner of beer and OJ had revived him enough to send him bouncing from wine rack to TV to coatrack to top of the fridge and back again.
This is a good one. It really, really is. I promise. You’ll thank me later.

That made me stop short with my hand almost on the doorknob. “Why don’t I believe you, Scrap?”

“There was the time you forgot to tell me about Donovan being a gargoyle. There was the time you spent so much time painting iodine on your cat scratches that you forgot to follow WindScribe ...

“If you say so.” For the first time in a year and a half I regretted not moving the spy hole from six feet up to my eye level. With Scrap around I didn’t need it. Until now.

“You’d better be right, Scrap, or you are toast. Remember who buys your beer and OJ.” With that I yanked the door open and moved into a defensive stance.

All the blood rushed from my head and feet to my heart. Blackness crowded my vision.

Gollum stood there holding a single red rose and looking extremely sheepish.

“Don’t pass out on me, Tess,” he said, grabbing me around the waist, while managing to keep the rose undamaged.

“Um ...” Not the most intelligent thing to say. It was all I could manage.

“Okay, girls, you and I are going shopping,” Allie sang out.

“But the dishes ...” Salal protested.

“... Will still be there when we get back.” Allie herded them out the door.

“Is that her boyfriend?” Salal whispered as she passed us.

“Will they have sex?” Blackberry continued in the same tone of voice.

I didn’t hear Allie’s reply over the rushing of blood in my ears that accompanied my blush.

“What was that about?” Gollum finally asked as he set me firmly on my own two feet, balanced and semi-coherent. “Did your email refer to those girls?”

“What email?” I moved back, putting distance and safety between us. The strength of his arm holding me up had felt so good, so right, like the other half of me had come home. I couldn’t allow that.

“Ah, I suspect Scrap had a hand in that communication.”

See ya, babe. I’m off to the mall with the girls. Think I can get a new boa, or maybe a hat with a veil out of this?
He popped out with an audible displacement of air.

I stepped into the kitchen and tackled the few dirty dishes left. The girls had done a good job of cleaning up, unlike most teenagers I’d known.

Gollum, being Gollum, picked up the dish towel and began drying the clean pieces.

“So, why did I get a rather imperative summons from your imp?” he finally asked when the silence between us ceased to be companionable and grew uncomfortable.

“I’m adopting the two Nörglein girls.”

“Have you thought through the consequences?”

“Not entirely. But I have to get them away from their father. He’s abusive, both physically and emotionally, and ... and sexually exploiting them, turning them into little more than prostitutes just to get more Kajiri babies,” I blurted out.

“Okay. What do we need to do?”

“Too much. Everything. I need to make it look legal. Probably forge some birth certificates to begin with. I presume Allie will help them select a few clothes and toiletries.”

“What else? Schools? Money?”

“A bigger house real soon. And the housing market has gone belly up. I can’t afford to buy something new until I sell this place, probably for a lot less than I bought it for. I can’t afford to move!”

“Slow down and breathe. We’ll make lists, prioritize. What else?”

“I need to assess their schooling so I know how much intensive tutoring they need before I can put them in public school.”

“Home schooling is a viable option. I can get you curriculums and study aids.”

“I can’t seem to get the damn book written so I can have the money to do all this.”

Suddenly, the enormity of it all overwhelmed me. I just stood there at the sink with my hands in rapidly cooling soapy water. More than a few tears fell.