Glimmers of Garlands Page 2

  “I miss you!” she said. “You’re standing right here and I still miss you.”

  “Well, stop it,” I said. “Come on in. Mom just pulled gingerbread men out of the oven and Jasmine enchanted them to catcall everyone who walks by. She thinks it’s funny.”

  Olivia snorted.

  I helped her off with her coat, hugged her again, and led her into the kitchen. Mom hugged her, and then Dad cornered her to ask about Humdrum baking. And it was a good thing, because everyone else in the room looked starstruck to the point of awkwardness.

  “It’s just Olivia,” I said in an undertone to Nicole.

  “Yeah, but she’s like a big deal now,” Nicole hissed back. “This is weird.”

  “I think it’s cool,” Crystal said. She leaned over my shoulder and picked a peanut cluster off the tray of holiday treats that was sitting on the island. “I haven’t seen her since—”

  She cut herself off by shoving the peanut cluster into her mouth.

  She hadn’t seen Olivia since Maia’s wedding, which had been a grade-A disaster. I flicked my fingers and cast a glamour over my face before anyone could notice me flushing.

  We were interrupted by the front doorbell ringing several times in a row, followed immediately by the sound of the door opening and footsteps coming down the hall.

  “Hi, family!” Maia gushed loudly as she entered the room, still wrapped in her bright purple coat. Andrew followed behind her, carrying several paper bags. He looked overloaded. Maia, of course, was carrying nothing besides her enormous sense of self-importance.

  There was another flurry of hugs and greetings. Maia settled into the remaining empty seat at the island and draped her coat across the back.

  “Sorry we’re late,” Andrew said. He bent down and kissed Mom on the cheek. “Traffic on the Rainbow was terrible.”

  I still hadn’t figured out how Maia had landed him. Sure, he was kind of a bird-obsessed dork, but he’d turned out to be a really nice guy.

  Maia, on the other hand, was already staring at me with that look in her eyes. She tilted her head.

  “Is that how you’re wearing your hair these days?” she said, smiling sweetly.

  “Yeah, Maia,” I said, matching her tone and simpering expression. “It’s called a ponytail. I invented it.”

  She held up her hands. “Sorry for living,” she said, looking around for support.

  Jasmine rolled her eyes, but too quickly for Maia to catch her.

  “Could one of you help with the potatoes?” Mom said.

  Nicole jumped up to help. Jasmine propped her elbows on the counter and began picking through the treats tray. Some of the kids tore through the kitchen, and Jennifer ordered them to go play in the family room. I tried to catch Olivia’s eye, but she was still being cornered by Dad and his zillion and one questions about how Humdrums kept themselves from starving.

  “When is Juliet going to get here?” Crystal asked. “I haven’t talked to her in a couple of weeks.”

  “I mirrored last night,” Jasmine said. “She and Phoebe aren’t going to make it until the week before Christmas.”

  “It’s too bad she’s chosen to come so late,” Maia said. “Christmas is about family, after all. As a mother, I think it’s really important that we all be together during the holidays.”

  I opened my mouth, but a strong jolt of energy suddenly hit me. It was a familiar energy, but still felt disconcerting, like a remix of an old song. I looked over to see Olivia just barely shake her head at me.

  She’s driving me insane, I sent back, in the form of a jittery wave of prickles in my stomach.

  Olivia’s response was immediate, a calming sense of someone pouring cool water down my arms. Relax, it meant. You’re fine.

  It was so freaky being able to communicate with her like this. I’d tried for years and she’d never been able to sense more than the strongest jolts of emotion. But now, with her faerie gifts awake, we were having entire conversations in physical sensation.

  “Seriously try leaving the oven shut the whole time,” she said to my dad. “I think it’ll make a big difference. Anyway, I’m sorry, I’ve got to head out. I lost track of the time.”

  Dad looked disappointed. “You’re welcome to stay,” he said. “There’s going to be a lot of food.”

  “I wish I could,” she said. “Something urgent has come up. You know how it goes. Work never stops.” She waved her hand, like it was normal for someone her age to be talking about the pressures of her advanced professional career. I’d always thought I would be the one doing that, while she plodded through the years of Humdrum school it would take for her to become a biologist. Life was weird.

  “Actually,” she said, like the idea had just occurred to her. “Would you guys mind if I took Imogen with me?”

  Mom looked up at that. Then she glanced at my face, over to Maia, and back to Olivia.

  “I could really use her help,” Olivia said.

  “I literally just said—” Maia started, but Mom cut her off.

  “Of course,” Mom said. “You girls go spend some time together. Olivia, I expect you to join us for dinner sometime this week,” she added sternly.

  Olivia grinned. “I’ll be here,” she said.

  She caught my eye, and we were gone before anyone had a chance to say anything else.

  ***

  I stood on the cement edge of the fountain. Gallons upon gallons of water were launched into the sky and fell back down again in ribbons of frothy white. I felt a slight tingle—a rush of remembered power—and then I flipped a copper coin into the water.

  “Rose City Rescue,” I said.

  The water in the pool began to churn and burble, accepting the destination, and a translucent sprite rose up from the water.

  “Fare for two accepted,” she said, in a cool, professional voice. “You may enter.”

  I stepped into the pool. Olivia followed. The bottoms of our jeans stayed dry amidst the bubbles, and the ribbons of water that fell around us didn’t soak through our coats, or even seem to touch them.

  “Please keep your hands and arms inside the pool at all times,” the sprite said, then added, more brightly, “Oh, hey, Imogen.”

  Up close, and with some concentration, I recognized her.

  “Hey, Meri,” I said. She leaned over to give me a quick hug. Her watery blue body left a faint sense of moisture on my clothes, but not enough to leave a mark. She pulled back and twirled her rippling finger counterclockwise.

  The pool began to spin at the same rate as her finger, slowly at first. By the time her finger reached its third go-round, we were moving so quickly the world around us blurred. Water from the jets rained down, filling my vision with melting gray and white.

  A moment later, the pool slowed down and came to a stop.

  I turned around. Water fell from a statue of a child holding a watering can. The cement pool beneath us had been replaced with a tiled one. I felt exhilarated by the ride, but Olivia looked a little sick.

  We stepped out and into a quiet neighborhood. A Humdrum man walking past with his dog didn’t seem to notice us.

  “Thanks for traveling via the Fountain Network!” Meri said cheerfully. “Catch you later!”

  She seemed to collapse back into the water, where I knew she was most at ease.

  Olivia tilted her head and observed the pool for a moment.

  “I like the fountains better like this,” she finally said. She pursed her lips, then looked at me. “This was a good idea.”

  “I know,” I said. “All my ideas are good.” I winked at her, and led the way down the street.

  The shelter was a small brick building with a small sandwich-board sign out front reading Senior Adoption Month: All senior pet adoption fees only $10! An adorable gray cat snuggled up to a fluffy white dog on the board.

  Inside, the building was cool and shadowed. A semi-circular desk sat in the middle of the lobby, surrounded by racks of leashes and toys.

  I s
miled brightly at the woman behind the counter. Her fluffy blonde hair was straight out of the eighties, but her eyeliner was so on point that I got a little jealous.

  “Can we just go see the animals?” I said.

  She nodded toward a door to my left. “Be sure to sanitize between rooms,” she said.

  “Thanks!” I said brightly.

  “Thanks,” Olivia echoed.

  We went through the door and into a long hallway, smearing sharp-smelling hand sanitizer from a wall dispenser onto our hands as we walked. I could practically feel it drying my skin out, though it was nothing a little charmed coconut hand cream couldn’t solve. A door to our left said CATS & KITTENS in a bubbly font surrounded by painted paw prints, and Olivia pushed the door open to reveal a room lined with metal cages.

  It was obviously naptime. Most of the cats were out cold on fleece blankets. A few opened green or amber eyes, then closed them sleepily again. A couple of tails twitched. One older cat with wild black fur jumped up and began rubbing against the bars of his cage.

  I immediately went to him and pulled him out. He rammed his head against my head, demanding scratches.

  Cats were basically the greatest thing in the world. I’d never been allowed to have one growing up, because Maia had allergies, but I’d adopted practically every stray in the neighborhood. Eventually, I wore down Mom enough that she’d let me feed them in the garage, and, while they were strictly banned from the house, it wasn’t like it was impossible to sneak one up to my room now and then.

  It was embarrassing that any Glim had allergies in the first place. We had magic for that sort of thing, but Maia always insisted that the charms to relieve her symptoms didn’t do enough.

  “I’m not sure what we’re looking for,” Olivia said. She hesitantly poked her finger into one of the cages. One of the kittens inside wobbled up to sniff it, and Liv smiled just a little bit. She’d never been allowed to have pets either, but unlike me, she’d never broken the rules.

  “It was the toys, wasn’t it?” I said.

  She nodded, and pulled her glasses down until they rested on the tip of her nose. She squinted over them and looked into a few of the cages.

  “There’s a tiny bit of magic clinging to them,” she said. “Just wisps here and there.”

  I propped the black cat in the crook of my arm and reached into his cage for the small felted fish in the back corner. Olivia took it, examined it, and then pulled her wand from where it had been wedged in her hair. The silver glinted in the fluorescent light. She waved the tip around the toy as if she were collecting cobwebs, then flicked the wand at the ceiling.

  A faint thread of gold flew up from the wand, arced up, and then fell to the floor where it dissolved like smoke.

  Olivia frowned.

  “That should have worked,” she said. “It should have led us to whoever enchanted this into being.”

  “Are you sure someone enchanted it into being?” I said. “Or did someone maybe just buy it and happen to leave some of their aura on it?”

  The black cat began purring as I stroked his ears. They were soft and just big enough for my thumb to give them a perfect massage. Contentment rose off of him like steam.

  “Maybe,” she said. “It looks hand-stitched, though. And there must have been a lot of magic on this for it to still be here. Granted, we should have sent someone to investigate it earlier, but Amani doesn’t want to scare anyone over what’s probably nothing.”

  I held my hand out for the toy. It did look handmade, with artful irregularities in the stitches around the eyes and tail. And it felt full of magic—a nice kind that warmed my palm.

  The door to the cat room opened and a girl came in with a few small dishes of food balanced on a tray. She set the tray on a chair.

  “Medicine time,” she said. “Don’t mind me.”

  But of course we had to mind her, because this wasn’t a conversation we could have in front of just anybody. Olivia pretended to be interested in one of the cats that had woken up at the sound of the girl’s entrance. I booped noses with the black cat, who was still purring like a lawnmower.

  “I’m just going to leave this here,” the girl said, as she set one of the dishes in my cat’s cage. “Would you be sure he doesn’t knock it over when he gets back in? Ronald’s a little clumsy.” She scratched his head as she passed us on her way back to her tray. Then she stopped dead and stared at Olivia.

  “Oh my gosh,” she said, eyes wide. “You’re Heir Olivia.”

  I felt Olivia’s energy contract as she cringed, but she stayed composed and her smile stayed fixed on her face.

  “I am,” she said kindly. “Hi.”

  I narrowed my eyes at the girl. It didn’t actually help me see her better—I couldn’t see magic, like Olivia could—but it did focus my energy. Something about her felt intense and I got an impression of jewel tones and fire.

  “Witch?” I said.

  She swallowed hard and nodded.

  “Are you the one who reported the gifts that appeared here?” Olivia said. She was keeping her voice gentle, I noticed, like she was trying not to spook this girl. How often did she have encounters like this? She seemed to know her presence was weirding the poor witch out.

  Again, the girl nodded. Then she cleared her throat and managed, “Yes, my lady.”

  I felt Olivia’s discomfort flutter in my own stomach, like we’d just dropped too fast in an elevator. Her face stayed neutral. It was weird to see. Usually everything Olivia felt danced across her features. I’d have to inspect her for a glamour later.

  Now, though, I had to listen.

  “You can call me Olivia.”

  “I’m Alicia, Lady Olivia,” the girl said.

  The cat in my arms suddenly decided he’d had enough love, and started trying to squirm out of my arms. “I’m Imogen,” I said, catching him before he managed to wiggle free. I put him back in his cage, careful to make sure he didn’t step in his food dish. I latched the cage and turned back in time to see Alicia dip a quick curtsy. I bit my tongue to stifle a laugh.

  “Can you tell us more about what happened?” Olivia said. “We’re, um, curious about your benefactor.”

  Alicia smoothed her hands on her skirt, which, I noticed, was awesome. The whole thing was patterned in gorgeous embroidery featuring what looked like Victorian nature diagrams—elegant images of flowers and fruit, with the plants’ names stitched underneath in spidery script. I saw Olivia’s eyes flicker down toward the skirt, and her aura spiked with interest before she turned her attention back to Alicia’s fumbling narrative.

  “I’m usually the one to do the morning rounds,” she said. “You know, feeding, cleaning up messes, making sure all the animals are okay.”

  Olivia smiled her encouragement.

  “And, well, the other day, I came in and something was different. It took me a few minutes to realize what it was, because, you know, the animals all have blankets or toys or whatever. We try really hard to make sure they have possessions of their own. It seems to help them feel more secure.” She realized she was rambling and swallowed again. “But then I realized I hadn’t seen a lot of those toys before, and then I realized they had a lot of magic stuck to them. It seems like faerie magic, or maybe djinn? I don’t know, I can’t really tell their magic apart. Anyway, so I thought it was a little weird, and Queen Amani’s asked people to report anything suspicious in their neighborhoods—you know, after the whole Oracle incident.” She suddenly seemed unable to look straight at Olivia, awed in the face of the faerie who had overpowered the second most powerful being in our world.

  She didn’t look at me. My role in things had been played down. Olivia had made sure of that. I was amazed at how quickly people had forgotten. If I was honest, it made me feel a little invisible.

  “So I reported it,” she finished. She got the courage to look Olivia in the eye. “You don’t think it’s the Oracle again, do you, my lady?”

  Olivia shook her head with way mor
e confidence than I knew she felt.

  “No, not at all,” she said. “Us being here is more of a formality than anything. We mostly just wanted to come snuggle the animals.”

  Alicia brightened up. “Are you looking for a pet?”

  “Oh, no,” Olivia said. “No, I wouldn’t have time for one right now.” She glanced at the kitten she’d been poking at earlier. “Maybe someday.”

  “I wish I could be more helpful,” Alicia said. “We have security cameras, of course, but they didn’t show anything. My coworker is convinced it was her boyfriend trying to surprise her, but he’s Hum.”

  “Maybe he has a Glim friend,” Olivia said.

  A silence descended, and after a moment, I realized Alicia was waiting for her future queen to dismiss her. I send a nudge of energy toward Olivia.

  “Thanks for your help,” Olivia said. “I’m sorry to take up so much of your time. Please, don’t let us get in your way.”

  “Let’s go check out the dogs before we go,” I suggested.

  “Great idea.” I could feel Olivia’s relief at getting out of there. She smiled at Alicia again, and added, “I love your skirt, by the way,” as we left. Alicia turned pink.

  Olivia frowned as we petted the dogs through the bars on their kennels. I was sending healing energy toward an elderly Chihuahua, who licked my fingers and looked almost excited enough to wet himself, when she spoke.

  “There’s nothing here,” she said.

  “Except super perfect puppies,” I said, mostly to the dog. His tail wagged so hard his back legs went with it. “Yes, who’s a good boy?” I said, while Olivia kept frowning at me. I ignored her sour expression. “You’re a good boy,” I said, and the dog looked like he was about to die from happiness. “Such a handsome old man.”

  “What are we supposed to do now?”

  I sent the dog one last burst of love, then leaned back on my heels and looked at her.

  “You’re going to have to wait for the next attack,” I said. “Which will probably involve marshmallows or cupcakes or something.”