Elfhome

12: MORNING AFTER

The fire alarm screamed Oilcan awake. It died moments later, a wooden sword through its heart, but its death only muted the sound slightly as the rest of the fire alarms in the condo were still screaming.

“It’s a fire alarm!” he shouted to forestall the death of his other alarms. “Something is burning!”

Sometime during the night, Thorne had pulled on her underwear and arranged her weapons close at hand. She placed her hand against the door and, finding it cool, triggered her shields, jerked open the door, and disappeared down the hall. A moment later, the screams of children joined in that of the fire alarms.

“Shit, shit, shit.” Oilcan grabbed clean boxers, tugging them on one leg at a time as he hopped after her.

Smoke was pouring out of his microwave. Thorne looked like she was considering skewering it. The children were ping-ponging around the living room like frightened mice.

“Wait! Wait! Wait!” he shouted over the screaming fire alarms and children to stop Thorne. The microwave was counting down from eighty-seven minutes while a bag of popcorn blazed. He grabbed the fire extinguisher off the wall, flipped open the microwave door, and blasted foam over the burning bag. “There, it’s out. We’ve just got to clear out the smoke to stop the alarms.” He wove through the children to open the sliding glass door to the balcony. It was mid-morning outside, surprising him by how late he’d slept in. “It’s all right! It’s all right! The noise will stop in a little while.”

He went to open his front door and discovered the children had built a barricade in front of it out of his recliner and one of his end tables. He picked up the end table and carried it back into the living room. The kitchen counter was covered with his pantry goods. All the boxes and bags, from his baking soda to his polenta — were sitting open. Thankfully they hadn’t figured out how to open the cans.

“I’m sorry,” Merry said. “We were hungry, so I thought we could make pop pop pop.”

“It’s called popcorn.” He gave her the English word. He had made her a bag of it on her first night in Pittsburgh and played her High School Musical. “You should have just woken me up.”

Merry’s glance toward Thorne explained why the children had decided to fend for themselves. This was not the morning he should have slept in.

He muscled the recliner back to where it belonged and then propped open his front door and the building’s main entrance down the hall. He came back into his apartment to discover that the children clearly regarded the open door as more alarming than the nearly naked and armed sekasha.

“There were people talking.” Cattail Reeds pointed out into the hall. “Just beyond the door.”

“There are other humans that live in this building. They are. .” Friendly? Not completely. The other tenants regarded him as their lazy handyman. They resented that he wasn’t around every hour of the day, fixing all the little things that went wrong in the building. His lease, though, stipulated that he was only responsible for the heating, the air conditioning, and the elevator. “They’re harmless.”

Her eyes went wide suddenly, warning him that someone was at the open door.

Margaret was head of the building association. “Do I need to call the fire department, Orville?”

No matter how many times he asked her to use his nickname, she insisted on his real name. “A bag of popcorn just got left in the microwave too long. The alarms will go off as soon as I get the smoke cleared out.”

She glanced down over him, making him realize that he was still just in his boxers, and then flicked her gaze over Thorne in her underwear and the children in the hospice gowns that looked like pajamas. “You can’t sublet your bedrooms. You can’t have these — people move in.”

Her voice suggested he had a herd of pigs in his apartment. He was getting so sick and tired of bigotry from every angle. He thought Pittsburgh was better than this. “I’m not subletting. I’ve adopted these kids. Thorne will not be living here.”

She glanced over the elves again. “Five children?” She shook her head. “No.”

“I have three bedrooms—”

“The co-op board will never approve six people for your square footage. Four is the most we would consider.”

“Fine,” he snapped. Thankfully the alarms shut off, so he kicked the prop on his door free. “I’ll find another place to live.”

He slammed his door shut. Immediately there was a knock on it. He jerked it back open, expecting Margaret.

Blue Sky jumped back from his snarled “What?” and held up a basket. “I brought breakfast!”

“Sorry. Come in.” Oilcan stepped back to let the half-elf in. Blue wore tennis shoes, blue jeans, and a black T-shirt that expounded “It’s all about racing.” Only his eyes and ears gave him away as a half-elf.

“Did you just get kicked out of your building?” Blue Sky pointed over his shoulder to where Margaret had been standing.

“Yes.” Oilcan took a deep breath as he realized that Blue would probably tell Tinker, and she would hit the roof. As of late, Tinker had been stomping over everyone in her path Godzilla-style. It was tempting to unleash her but the place was cramped for six and the kids weren’t comfortable with strangers living so close. “No. Not really. This place is too small. I needed to move.”

Blue Sky took in the chaos of the kitchen, the smoke lingering in the air, and the fact that Oilcan was still in his underwear and smiled brightly. “I thought Tinker was just trying to ditch me when she told me to come help you, but I guess you really do need me.”

“Yes, I could use some help.” Oilcan really needed to get dressed. He pointed to the Stone Clan children in approximate order of their ages. “This is Fields of Barley, Cattail Reeds, Rustle of Leaves, Merry, and Baby Duck. This is Blue Sky. He was born here in Pittsburgh. Listen to him.” And then added in English, “Make sure they don’t burn down the place while I’m putting on clothes.”

“We’re supposed to obey a Wind Clan baby?” Baby Duck whispered to Fields of Barley.

“He is sekasha first,” Thorne Scratch said. “And you will obey him as you would obey me.”

The children flinched back from her, and Baby Duck quietly said, “Quiee.”

Oilcan, Tinker, and Blue Sky had all learned how to drive on go-karts that Tinker made out of lawn mowers and leaf blowers. They’d blocked off deserted streets on Neville Island and raced through the abandoned neighborhood at insane speeds. Blue Sky might look ten years old, but he had a driver’s license and could probably outdrive anyone in the city — as long as he could reach the pedals and see over the dashboard. Thus it was no surprise that Tinker had sent Blue Sky in one of the viceroy’s Rolls Royces. It was raining, after all, and the cab of Oilcan’s pickup could only fit three people comfortably.

Figuring out who should ride where was like the logic problem of ferrying a fox, a chicken, and grain across a river in a rowboat. There were eight of them; too many to comfortably fit in the Rolls. He and Blue were the only ones that could drive. All the kids but Merry and Blue were terrified of Thorne. Rustle of Leaves’ left arm was splinted, inked with healing spells, and was still healing, so he couldn’t be squeezed into a shared seat. In the end, the only logical configuration had Blue driving the Rolls with all the kids, and Oilcan following with Thorne in his pickup.

Luckily for Oilcan’s nerves, it was a short trip. No oni leapt out to snatch up the kids and take them away.

Tooloo’s was the only store in Pittsburgh that sold used elfin clothes, albeit usually to elf-obsessed humans. Her place was in McKees Rocks, just a few blocks from John Montana’s gas station. From the street, her store looked like a tiny little hole in the wall, just one large glass block window and a thick bulletproof glass door. Only the hand-painted English and Elvish running under the window, stating BREAD, BUTTER, EGGS, FISH, FOWL, HONEY, INTERNET ACCESS, MILK, SPELLCASTING, TELEPHONE, TRANSLATIONS, VIDEO RENTALS gave a clue to what lay hidden within.

Tooloo had carved out an entire farm from what had been pure city. Orchards and pastures and terraced gardens climbed a hill that was too steep to build on. Outbuildings that started life as garages had been repurposed into chicken coops, dovecotes and a milking barn. For some unfathomable reason, Oilcan and Tinker had spent endless hours working the farm under the guise of being babysat by the old half-elf. How Tooloo ended up as his grandfather’s primary babysitter was one of the unsolved mysteries of his childhood. It was a relationship set in stone by the time Oilcan came to Pittsburgh. He’d asked Tinker about it once when they were little and discovered she was under the delusion it somehow involved spinning straw into gold. (Looking back, he really should have disabused her of that lie, but it was so cute he let it stand.)

“My brother always said that we looked like we poured a can of oil over us and then rolled in dirt all day,” Blue was telling the kids as they got out of the car. “At some point we just started to call him ‘oil can.’ That’s what Oilcan means.”

The bells on the doorjamb jangled as Thorne opened the door and stalked into the dimly lit store. Oilcan kept close on her heels, not sure how Tooloo would react to the sekasha. Hell, there was no telling how Tooloo would react to anything. The old half-elf defied logic and reason; Oilcan suspected she did it to keep people at a distance.

Tooloo was stocking the stand-up refrigerator case with milk and eggs. As always, she was in an elegant dress of elfin silk, faded and threadbare with age, and battered high-top tennis shoes. Her ankle-length silver hair was braided into a thick cord. She glanced up with a look of mild surprise as Thorne entered. Then her eyes went wide when she saw Oilcan and the children.

“No!” Tooloo wailed and leapt up. “No, no, no!”

For one moment he thought she was going to object to the Stone Clan invasion, but she swooped down on Oilcan and caught him by both ears.

“Ow, Tooloo! Thorne!” He caught Thorne by the wrist to keep her from drawing her sword. “Tooloo!”

The old half-elf let go of his ears only to press his face between her hands and peer closely at him. Tooloo smelled of smoke and honey; she must have been working with her beehives prior to opening her store. “Oh, my little wood sprite! It’s you, just you.”

“Yeah, it’s me.” Oilcan tried to pull his face out from between her hands, but she had him fast.

“Get your hands off him,” Thorne growled.

Tooloo turned her attention to the warrior. “Shame on you. By the sword and the blood.” Tooloo spat. “My little wood sprite is not for you.”

“This is Thorne Scratch.” Who looked like she was about to slice and dice the crazy half-elf into small pieces. “She’s a Stone Clan sekasha.”

“I have eyes. I can see.” Tooloo let him go. “Stupid guard dog. Tear the throat out of one master only to give its leash to another. Loves the pat on the head and the toss of the ball too much to leave it for true freedom.”

Thankfully Tooloo had switched to English. Thorne Scratch continued to glare hard enough to cut.

“Tooloo, we’re just here for stuff for the kids.” Oilcan was glad that the kids had already trailed off after Blue Sky, who was explaining the use of the plastic shopping baskets that Tooloo had salvaged from Walgreens.

Tooloo spat again but went back to stocking the refrigerator, muttering darkly. “It be all well and good if they were satisfied at staying on the leash, but they’ve wound it tight around all the rest, binding everyone in place. Humans understand true revolution. Fight to be free and then stay free — don’t just hand the keys over to the next master that rises up.”

Oilcan had learned that when the half-elf got on a rant, there was no reasoning with her.

“You be careful of them.” Tooloo crashed the milk bottles into the case. “The Stone Clan are the worst of the domana bastards. They were so sure that they would be the next masters after the Skin Clan were thrown down. Want is a dangerous thing. It’s a seed planted in darkness that grows in secret. It grows and grows until it consumes you. Don’t let them get their hands on you, or they’ll twist you around and then murder you in your sleep.”

“I’ll be careful,” Oilcan promised.

Tooloo harrumphed and stomped out the back of her store without another word.

Relieved, Oilcan went to check on the kids. He found Fields of Barley down the next aisle, loading bottles of spices into one of the Walgreen baskets.

“There are clothes in the other room,” Oilcan said.

Barley nodded. “Cattail Reeds is looking at them. She is a seamstress; she’ll find something for me. If I’m going to be doing the cooking, I need more pots, dishes, spices, knives. .” He closed his eyes tight, his breath suddenly ragged.

“Are you okay?” Oilcan asked gently.

“They took my knives. They used my paring knife to cut my hair, and then they took them.”

What could he say in the face of that? “I’m sorry.”

Barley nodded rapidly, blinking. “It’s — it’s just my knives were made for me, the best I could afford.”

Oilcan glanced around, but Tooloo had no knives for sale. “There are other places to buy things. I’m sure we can find knives if we look—”

“Yes, I know. In truth, my knives would have not lasted more than one or two hundred years. I feel stupid. I thought I could come and start an enclave. I was in the city no more than an hour before I was captured. What idiocy to think I could protect others when I could not even protect myself.”

“One failure does not make a life,” Oilcan said. “The important thing is you’re alive. You failed because you knew nothing about Pittsburgh. Once you know the city, you can try again.”

“The mistake I made was thinking I could do it alone,” Barley said. “It’s a major undertaking. It takes lots of people.”

Oilcan nodded encouragingly.

“We could start one with the six of us. Blue Sky told us that we would be leaving that unsafe place with humans.”

“What? Wait. No.”

“We’re staying there?” Barley’s dismay at the condo was clear; the young male’s façade started to crumble at the edges. His hands trembled slightly, and he blinked rapidly to keep tears out of his eyes.

“We’re not staying,” Oilcan quickly reassured him. “I don’t know where we will be going. I haven’t had time to think about it.”

“Good. It’s far too small and vulnerable.” Barley ticked the points off on his fingers. “Everyone will need their own space to maintain the harmony of our household. The commons needs to be at least five times bigger than where we are now. The bathing room should be separate from the toilets. We need a safe room. We need garden space. We need—”

“Okay.” Oilcan held up his hands to stem the flow of information. If opening an enclave was Barley’s dream, then the elf had probably spent decades studying their design and function.

Somehow this felt all very familiar. Tinker been this focused when she decided that opening a salvage yard would be the answer to many of their problems. “No one is going to think we’re helpless orphans if we’re running a successful business.” She’d been right, as usual. Every cop in Pittsburgh knew they were living on their own but looked the other way since they were obviously doing well enough to be left alone.

“We’ll start looking for a new place to live after we leave here,” Oilcan promised.

Barley nodded and wiped at his eyes. “Thank you, Sama.”

Cattail Reeds came up with a bundle of clothes in her arms. She was already dressed in a black-checked miniskirt and a pink-flowered baby-doll shirt. “I will have to take in most of these; everything is too big. Hold this please, Sama.” She pushed the clothes into Oilcan’s arms and then tugged free a pair of black denim jeans. “We’ll have to roll up the cuff until I can shorten these, but they should fit Barley in the waist and inseam.”

She had to show Barley how to zip up the jeans, but her eye was perfect; the pants were a perfect fit. She sighed at a cotton tunic that was Wind Clan blue. “If we can dye this, it will work well.” She flipped it over her shoulder. She pulled out a black Steeler’s T-shirt and held it out to Barley. “Will you wear this?”

“What is it?” Barley took the shirt and examined it closely.

“It’s human fashion!” Cattail grinned. “Isn’t it awesome? They write on their clothes. You should see what they do with patterns. I want to get some of their fabric and make dresses and tops.”

“But what does it mean?” Barley held out the shirt so the NFL logo was prominent.

Oilcan spent several minutes trying to explain professional football and the Pittsburgh habit of clinging to the memory of something that didn’t exist anymore. All the professional sports teams had left immediately after it became clear that Pittsburgh would routinely be stranded on Elfhome. Hoverbike racing had filled the void.

“Sama.” Rustle of Leaves came out of the next room, trailing Blue Sky and Merry. He was wearing earbuds linked to an iPod by white cords. He held the MP3 player out to Oilcan. It was old but irreplaceable now that Pittsburgh was stranded permanently on Elfhome.

“I told him it’s expensive,” Blue Sky said. “Tooloo wants over a hundred dollars for it.”

“You can have it,” Oilcan said. Rustle of Leaves was the one he was most worried about; the quiet male wouldn’t be able to put his captivity behind him if he never regained the use of his arm. Music would be a comfort and a distraction for him.

Rustle of Leaves smiled his thanks.

“Here.” Cattail Reeds dug through the clothes to find khaki slacks and a white button-down shirt for Rustle of Leaves. She and Merry helped Rustle strip down and eased him into the new clothes. Oilcan was glad that the kids all seemed to be taking care of each other. It was only after Rustle was dressed that Oilcan realized that Blue seemed to be on the brink of losing it.

“Hey.” Oilcan pulled the boy aside. “Are you okay?”

And just like that, Blue Sky wasn’t a confident seventeen-year-old but a rattled ten-year-old. He wrapped his arms around Oilcan and buried his face into Oilcan’s side. It was always so odd when something like this served as a reminder that Blue Sky wasn’t just short for his age, but actually stuck young. Oilcan and Tinker had moved forward, grown up, and somehow Blue Sky had ended up left behind.

“What’s wrong?” Oilcan asked quietly in English.

Blue Sky mumbled something into Oilcan’s shirt; the only words that Oilcan could pick out were “hurt” and “so bad.” The boy had seen Rustle’s massive bruises, the fresh ragged wounds, and the ink of all the healing spells needed to save Rustle’s life. What could Oilcan say? “It’s okay” was so inadequate, especially with the knowledge that the oni were still out there, fully capable of doing it to someone else.

“I know,” Oilcan said finally.

To be brutally honest with himself, he’d been grief stricken at first when Tinker had been transformed into an elf and then whisked away to Aum Reanu. What made it bearable was seeing how much she loved her new family and how much they loved her. He constantly searched for ways to be okay with the sudden turn of events. He reminded himself that sooner or later she would have married, that at least she hadn’t gone to Earth and been a full universe away, that he didn’t have to worry that if something happened to him, she’d be left alone in Pittsburgh. And now he could add that he was glad Tinker would be there for Blue all the years it took for the half-elf to grow up.

“Is that everything?” Tooloo asked at the overflowing checkout counter.

Baby Duck squeezed in between Cattail Reeds and Fields of Barley and held out six baby chicks. “Quiee.”

There were exclamations of delight from all the kids, and each picked up a chick to cuddle. He knew, though, that Tooloo never sold live chickens in the store and all her eggs were refrigerated for hours. Baby Duck must have gone out the back and raided Tooloo’s chicken coop.

“Oh, Baby Duck.” He didn’t have a heart to tell her no without even asking Tooloo. “Can we have the chicks, too, please?”

The old half-elf pressed her lips into a tight line, but after a moment, said, “Oh, my poor little wood sprite, you don’t stand a chance.”