“Ana, I need you to bring some more plates outside.”
“Un minuto mama,” called Ana from her room.
“Ana,” her mother said with a note of exasperation.
“Sorry. Yes mom, just give me a minute.”
Ana came down adjusting the pink skirt her mother had picked
out for her earlier that morning. Normally she didn’t mind Ana speaking to her
in Spanish, but whenever there was a large family gathering it was a point of
pride to have her daughter speak only English with no trace of a Spanish accent
to be heard. Ana thought it was strange, considering her mother's accent was
very thick, but shrugged it off as yet another way her mother was strange.
Her father came down right afterwards, carrying several
speakers to set up on the patio. “Angela,” Fernando asked his wife, “Did Rina
let you know if she was coming?”
“Titi Rina might come?” Ana squealed.
“Yes,” her mother said. She looked at Fernando and said,
“And Catarina is bringing el loco.”
“El loco?” Ana asked, picturing a man in a straightjacket
with foam in his mouth while he laughed like a maniac.
“Angela, you'll give Ana strange notions, as if she needed any help with that” Ana’s father said to his wife.
He then turned to his wide-eyed daughter. “He’s just an eccentric friend of your Aunt
Rina’s, probably no crazier than you are mihijita."
“Sometimes I wonder which one of us has the crazier family,”
Angela said. “Though it’s always funny when she’s in
the same room as your sister Natalia. She’ll probably be crossing herself all
day once Titi Rina arrives.”
“If you both think your families are crazy, then
why are we throwing a family reunion?”
“Because family is family,” Angela said.
“Now go on and get those platters out there.”
The guests began arriving shortly after Ana’s father
finished setting up the sound system. The lively music only made Ana more restless as she waited for her Aunt Rina
to arrive. After dutifully kissing and hugging every aunt, uncle, and cousin
she sat and picked at her food until she saw her come through the patio doors,
carrying a gift bag and accompanied by the person she presumed her mother
called “el loco.”
“Titi Rina!” Ana yelled, deserting her plate and propelling
herself into her aunt’s arms.
“Reinita!” Rina answered, hugging her niece. Rina’s wavy,
dark hair was swept back from her face by a large, colorful swath of fabric.
Stifling a giggle, she noticed her Aunt Natalia look their way, making a face.
She didn’t approve of Aunt Rina’s tattoo on her arm, a star in a circle surrounded
by pretty flowers, which was very visible because of the sleeveless summer
dress she wore. Ana knew her parents didn’t care for it either; the words
“midlife crisis” were often mentioned when the topic was brought up.
“Reinita!” said the man standing by her aunt. “I didn’t know
I was in the presence of royalty!” He dropped to one knee, flourishing his arm.
“Milady Ana, it’s an honor. Your aunt has told me a lot about you.”
Rina laughed. So did Ana, even though she thought he was
more goofy than funny. As crazy people went, he seemed pretty ordinary to Ana.
His pale skin certainly stood out among the coffee and cream hues of her
relatives but she couldn’t see anything she would consider crazy. She thought
he looked a little like what people thought of as hippies, but older, with his
salt and pepper hair pulled back into a pony tail. She noticed that the fabric
of her aunt’s head band matched the fabric of the man’s shirt, a bold African
print. Their purses were different though.
Crazy? No. But definitely kind of weird, which was good because she
liked weird.
“Ana, this is Orion. Orion, Ana.”
“What did my aunt say about me?”
“Well for one she said you liked dolls.”
“That’s true,” Ana said making a face. “But a lot of girls
do. That’s nothing special.”
“She also said you were very imaginative and liked learning
about different countries. So when I saw this little guy,” Orion said, reaching
into his bag and pulling out a small doll, “I figured you’d give him a good
home. He’s pretty special.”
“He really is,” Titi Rina added. “We got him especially for
you.”
Ana took hold of the doll and looked him over. She didn’t
have one like this. Many of her dolls came from stores, but considering his
shirt and pants also matched the African print Orion and Titi Rina were
wearing, she figured he had to be handmade. A cheerful smile was stitched onto
the doll’s nut brown face. Ana ran her
finger over the yarn making up the doll’s hair, studying it for a moment before
a large grin exploded onto her face.
“Cool!” said Ana. “Thanks Mr. Orion! Thanks Titi Rina!”
“Just Orion, Ana. Now I’ve also heard that there were going
to be empanadas at this party. Mind showing me where?”
Ana led Orion and Titi Rina to the platter holding the
savory, meat-filled pockets of dough and helped herself to one as well. After
she finished hers, she excused herself to go play hide and seek with her
cousins.
Ana giggled as she ran towards the park across the street
where her cousins were playing. Hide and seek was as good an excuse as any to
take the time to examine the doll Mr. Orion gave her more carefully. She was
fairly sure she knew what was so special about it, but a crowded back yard was
no place to find out. She didn’t even think inside her house was a great idea,
with so many people wandering in and out. That was too bad, because she would
have liked to have Yuuki meet whatever was in the doll as well. She sometimes
wondered if the kitsune had any other fae friends.
As she stepped up on the sidewalk leading into the park, a
fox came up from behind her, snatching the doll and heading towards the more
heavily wooded running trail. Ana stopped herself from yelling; she didn’t want
any of the grownups nosing in on this. But she didn’t want to be left out
either. She ran after Yuuki, but the fox quickly pulled ahead and out of sight.
Ana kept running. It might take her a while, but she had a good idea where
Yuuki was going.
Ajani figured there might be some sort of
confrontation; this was just a little sooner than he expected. The red fox
tightly gripping the doll’s body Ajani hid in didn’t have the feel of an
ordinary fox. He waited until they were well into the path; no use in scaring
the little girl or any other humans that might be nearby. Then he slid out of the
doll as easily as slipping off a coat, grew to human height and leveled his favorite
sword, an ida, at the fox
The fox snarled, took a step back and went through its own
transformation. Red fur became long red hair, coming from a face hidden behind
a snarling, bestial mask. The figure grew, also to human height, wearing a deep
purple kimono tied by a yellow sash. The opposing fae had its weapon, a lethal
looking katana, at the ready as well.
“I will give you one chance,” the kimono-clad fae said in a
musical voice. “Leave now and do not return or I will cut you to ribbons.”
“No can do. I made a promise to make sure that little girl
isn’t being bothered by anything, well, anything like you.”
“She is not being bothered,” the mysterious fae
replied. “You can return to where you came from now.”
“Nothing personal, but that’s just not going to cut it. If I
knew what kind of fae you are, I’d have a better idea if you could be counted
on to be helpful or even just truthful. Nah, you’ll need to come with me. I
have a buddy who can give me a better idea of your motives. If you haven’t
harmed or don’t plan to harm the girl, there’s nothing to fear.”
The painted on eyes of the mask the other fae wore narrowed.
“Leave with you? That would be convenient for any partner you had waiting for
me to leave that home defenseless so they can enter.”
“Suspicious much? I’ll give you my word there’s no other fae
but me interested in what’s going on in there,” Ajani said.
“As you do not know what I am, I do not know what you are.
You say you are kami, or fae rather, but you dress in the form of a young human
male of this era. You say you have no other fae accomplices, so if you are
telling the truth, which I am far from certain about, then there is still the
matter of the friend you wish me to see, obviously human and probably a mage.
Mage or not, I have no way of discerning the human’s intentions and again, I am
not leaving this home open to attack, especially if the human is skilled in
magical arts. Whomever it is can come to me.”
“Sorry. I’m not leaving you alone and giving you a chance to
get up to no good while I’m gone.”
The fae made a motion with his, her – Ajani couldn’t quite
tell – hand. Immediately, the world around Ajani shifted and blended.
Disoriented, he looked around. The landscape around him had become bizarre. Trees grew sideways from rocks, the small pond that had been behind him
floated above Ajani and patches of grass and ground splattered in among sky. The
spot he had been standing on had vanished into air and instinctively Ajani
scrambled onto what looked like the nearest piece of earth he could stand on.
“Have it your way.” The fox fae’s voice floated around Ajani
like dandelion fluff caught in a breeze. “Neither of us will leave. But you
will answer my questions to my satisfaction or I shall see if I am still as
adept with my katana as I was two hundred years ago.”
Ajani closed his eyes and the feeling of vertigo left him.
He shifted his foot feeling firm ground beneath him. A glamour, and a very
powerful one at that; glamours didn’t normally effect other fae so strongly.
But Ajani still had the rest of his senses left, which as a fae of the hunt
were very keen indeed. Though Ajani hadn’t done more than what he considered
“gentleman’s hunting” with Orion in the last few decades, he was still a hunter down to his core.
And foxes? Foxes were prey.
Ajani swung out with his ida and felt the jolt of steel
connecting with steel. He stepped forward, eyes closed the whole time using
every instinct he had to parry the fox’s blows and strike a few of his own.
He barely noticed the first meeting of the katana and skin.
Ajani definitely felt the second though. By the fifth cut, he was fuming. It
didn’t matter what part of the world they came from - a fox is always going to
fight dirty, he thought. A fetid smell rose up around Ajani, not only
interfering with his ability to find the fox, but making him fight down nausea
as well.
Before the sixth cut had a chance to hit home, a scream
interrupted the fight. Ajani finally felt his ida strike a solid blow as
it happened. The fox fae cried out “Ana-chan!” in a panic. All at once the
rotting smell evaporated.
Ajani stumbled towards the sound of the scream. The glamour
that fox put out was strong enough to severely effect a fae; any human caught
in it could go permanently mad if exposed to it for too long.
“Sit tight Ana!”
he yelled, not knowing if it would do any good.
“Yuuki-kun,” he heard Ana whimper. And then a new scent
filled the air.
Baking cookies… snickerdoodles? Ajani thought. Mingled with
the smell of cookies were the flowers.
Ajani tentatively opened his eyes. At first he thought the
world had returned to normal, but patches of purple flowers were in bloom where
there hadn’t been any before. The light in the clearing also changed, making
everything seem softer. Ajani took a look at his sore body. Most of his wounds
were superficial, though the one on his leg would require a bit of care.
He got a bit of grim satisfaction at seeing the fox fae. Ajani
had managed to slash it deeply on the left arm. But that didn’t stop the fox
fae from cradling the girl with the right.
“Ana-chan, are you alright?”
“Yuuki-kun, I had a nightmare while I was awake. The world
was melting and rotting away…”
“Pffft. No nightmares here. Don’t you know I eat nightmares
until there’s nothing left of them but my farts?”
The girl giggled. “You’re a kitsune not a baku!”
Ajani breathed a sigh of relief. At the sound, the fox fae
remembered Ajani was still there and glared. Ajani put his ida down. The fox
fae nodded after a moment and turned back to Ana.
“Is she going to be
OK?” Ajani asked.
“Who’s that?” Ana asked, opening her eyes. In the second
before she did the fox waved weakly with its free hand and both of their wounds
faded from sight. Ajani could still feel his though and was pretty sure the
same applied to the fox but was glad the kid didn’t have to open her eyes to
anything more horrible than patches of lavender in a running path that looked
like it was designed by Disney.
“Oh hey,” she said smiling. “I was wondering when you were
coming out of the doll.”
“You knew?” both Ajani and the fox fae asked.
“Of course. I can see people like you and Yuuki-kun pretty
easily. Do you live in the city? It’s usually city fae that dress normal. Did
my aunt meet you in the city?”
“Your aunt?” Yuuki asked. “Natalia?”
“No silly! Titi Rina!” Ana laughed. “She’s the only one in
the family that gets me,” she said looking at Ajani. “I always wondered if she
could see fae too, but I was too scared to ask. People either think you're a
baby or you’re crazy if you say you can see fae. Can she see too Ajani?”
“Not quite,” Ajani answered. “She can feel if fae are
around, but not much more than that. She’s working on it though. That’s why I’m
here. She could feel something fae, but couldn’t tell what it was. She asked
Orion and I to help figure out what sort of fae was hanging around her niece.”
“It’s just Yuuki-kun.”
“Oh yeah, just a cross between Morgan LeFay and the Bride
from Kill Bill, yeah, nothing major.”
The fox fae started laughing.
“Should I have said Darth Vader?” Ajani asked.
Just then they heard the murmur of voices a distance away,
but coming closer. Titi Rina’s voice was the clearest “The scream came from
over there.” Quickly Yuuki became a plush fox toy and Ajani got back into the
doll. At least it was a good place to rest, Ajani thought. He was going to need
it.
“Ana querida,” Titi Rina said as she saw her niece. Ana’s
parents’ faces went from concern to relief as they saw their daughter sitting
there safe and sound, holding her toys. “We heard you yelling and were scared.
What happened?”
“I – I thought I saw a bear.”
“Dios mio!” Ana’s mother exclaimed. “Those things are
getting out of hand. I read about one that was found near the supermarket last
week. Thank god you weren’t attacked!”
As the chattering adults brought the young girl back to the
house, Ajani thought he’d feel very sorry for any bear dumb enough to try to go
after this particular kid. Real damn sorry.
