Glimmers of Garlands Read online

  “Psst,” a voice hissed. “Toss me another handful of those bows. I underestimated.”

  The speaker was a blond girl I didn’t recognize. She had to be either Violet or Anastasia. Irene handed her few large red velvet bows, all smushed together, and the girl darted up into the branches of a pine tree that was already hung with decorations.

  The branches above her shook and rattled, sending down a rain of needles. I could almost smell them through the mirror.

  “Thanks,” said Elliot’s voice from the middle of the tree. One of his arms appeared between the upper branches, and he fastened a bow.

  Olivia waved her wand, and the mirror’s view rotated in a slow circle. The Elvira crew was in a park, that was for sure, but I was pretty sure the park hadn’t looked like that when they’d arrived. The pine trees were loaded with sparkling Christmas lights and hung with ornaments and bows. A few bare-branched deciduous trees had been draped with garlands of popcorn and hung with pinecones covered in peanut butter and bird seed. They’d strung golden bells between branches, assembled reindeer made of wire and Christmas lights, and propped up glittering gold words that said things like HOPE and JOY and LOVE.

  “Violet, any more battery packs?” Irene asked, just as the mirror’s focus slid onto her.

  “Just those two,” Violet said. She was small and black-haired; the first girl we’d seen climbing the tree must be Anastasia. She handed Irene two small battery packs attached to strings of white lights. Violet switched out the AAs with batteries that looked identical to the Humdrum versions, but which I recognized as elf-made. Those lights would stay glowing for years on a single charge.

  “Almost done,” Elliot called. They must have managed to glamour the whole park. He wasn’t bothering to keep his voice down.

  “But why?” Olivia said.

  I watched as Irene and Violet hung the last string of lights on the park’s sign. I recognized the name. It was in one of the poorer areas of town.

  “I think—” I said, and then stared hard at the mirror, trying to sense every bit of their energy I could. Picking up auras through mirrors wasn’t the most reliable magic, but they felt exactly like their shop. They felt good. “I think they’re just being nice,” I said. “I think they’re, like… spreading Christmas spirit.”

  It was a weird thought. I was all over Christmas. I was all over holidays, period, as well as any other opportunity to eat chocolate and go overboard on the fairy dust. But the holiday had never been about the benevolent spirit of the thing for me. That seemed like an attitude that belonged in corny holiday movies and starry-eyed Glim documentaries about Santa’s workshop up north.

  These guys, though—they were feeling it.

  No, better than that. They were acting on it.

  “We’re done,” Anastasia said. “I think so, anyway.”

  “Have to be. We’re out of decorations,” Violet said.

  They stood in a row, blowing on their hands, admiring their work.

  “I know we spent too much money on this,” Violet said. “But I’m glad we did. Even if it means we have to close up shop and move everything back to Elliot’s apartment.”

  “That’s because it’s Elliot’s apartment,” Elliot said, grinning.

  “Let’s worry about that after the holidays,” Irene said. She rubbed her hands together, seeming to be aware of the cold for the first time since we’d started watching. “For now, I just want to be happy.”

  Olivia and I exchanged glances. In the mirror, Elliot wrapped his arms around Irene and Anastasia, and Anastasia wrapped her free arm around Violet. They huddled together, watching their Christmas lights twinkle, while their faces glowed with happiness.

  Who were these people?

  “I think they’re the real thing,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Olivia said. “I’ll run a few background checks in the morning, but—this doesn’t seem sinister.”

  “It’s sweet,” I said. “Look at their faces.” I leaned in toward the mirror. I wished I could bottle the joy in their eyes and chug it whenever I was having a bad day.

  We watched them until they walked back to their car, still with their arms around each other. Irene glanced over her shoulder, and the reflection of the lights brightened her dark eyes.

  Nothing smelled so much like an overenthusiastic garden than a bunch of Glims in a room together. At least fifty people stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the conference room, which was too small to comfortably hold all of them, and I was accosted by lilac and gardenia and plumeria on every side.

  I’d gotten to the press conference early enough to snag a seat where Olivia could see me. She sat at the far end of the room on a low built-in stage carpeted in the same dull silver as the rest of the room, with cameras and enchanted microphones pointed her way. Queen Amani was speaking now about the Goblin King’s announcement to cut jobs in his sunstone mines, which was just about the most boring thing I’d ever heard. I made faces at Olivia while she tried not to look at me.

  Then it was her turn. Everyone on the stage had their auras locked down tight; when I reached out toward them, I was hit with a wall of control. If “decorum” were an emotion, that’s what their collective vibe would have felt like. Queen Amani wore a tasteful black dress and gold jewelry; Olivia wore a cream silk blouse and pencil skirt that wasn’t quite fitted enough to give her a butt. She fiddled with a sapphire earring and then put her hand in her lap.

  I sent her a wave of energy: You’ve got this, girl.

  She looked up, flashed me a smile, and then trained her eyes on Queen Amani.

  “And now, I’d like you to turn your attention to Heir Olivia,” Queen Amani said. She held the room lightly, keeping everyone’s eyes on her as though it took no effort at all to be that dazzling and strong and calm. I knew she didn’t always feel like that. I’d seen her on the mirror with Kelda, pleading with her to see reason and trading sharp barbs with her when their conversations reached the edge of civility. She was just as much of a regular person as the rest of us, but you wouldn’t know it to look at her now. She was a spider, and everyone in this room was in her web, and she could control our emotions with the tiniest tug of her silken threads. She was glorious.

  And then Olivia stood up, and she was not so glorious. She was really nervous, in fact, and the pit of my stomach twisted along with hers. Her aura was locked down behind the stage’s invisible barrier, of course, but I knew the tense lines of her hands and the way she bit the inside of her cheek before she spoke.

  I caught her eye and gave her a thumbs up. She took a deep breath.

  “Thank you all for attending today,” she said. “Your passion for sharing the news with the Glimmering world inspires me daily. It’s my hope that you’ll help me today, by spreading the word about something important happening in our communities.”

  She glanced at me. I smiled wider.

  “As some of you may have heard, there have been rumors of a mysterious entity in our city performing what seem to be random acts of kindness.”

  The journalists shuffled slightly; the interest in the room sharpened.

  “Some say this entity has hostile intentions; that its actions are meant as a diversion to disguise different, less charitable motives. Today, I’m happy to be able to announce that I have looked into these allegations and into the individuals performing these actions. While I am not at liberty to divulge names or personally identifying details, I am able to assure you, with my fullest confidence, that they mean no harm.”

  A cacophony of voices rose up. They’d all been silent while Queen Amani spoke, but Olivia didn’t yet have the presence to keep them quiet. I tensed and waited to see how Olivia would respond, but it was the queen who stepped in. Silently, without moving a muscle, she sent a wave of quelling energy through the room. The voices fell to silence at once, like trees finding stillness after a gust of wind.

  Olivia glanced at her, nodded, and continued.

  “As I said, I will not identify the pers
on behind these acts,” she said. “They have chosen to remain anonymous, and I have chosen to respect their privacy. I expect all of you to grant them the same courtesy.”

  I caught waves of disappointment from around the room, some stronger than others. Olivia must have felt it, too, but she only smiled.

  “I’m not sharing this information only to put your minds at ease,” she said. “I have higher hopes. This past year has been a time of extreme turmoil in our community. We have faced uncertainty and division, and this, I fear, has caused many of us to mistrust one another, and to mistrust those among us who choose to openly pursue goodness.” She glanced around, dark eyes alert. “Well, I think that’s ridiculous. We have so much to offer, not only to one another but to the Humdrum communities that surround us. That’s why, today, I would like to extend a challenge to everyone within reach of my words.

  “I absolutely approve of our anonymous benefactors’ kindness campaign, and I’d like to see us embrace it. Those of you who are able, please look around and see what you might do to lift the spirits of the people around you. Consider how you might improve your community. Give back to the world however you feel moved. Someone in this city has gone out of their way to show us what our world could look like if we all chose to take one small positive action, and I’d like every Glim to consider how you might take that kindness and pass it on.”

  She took a deep breath.

  “This has been a stressful year,” Olivia said. She was calmer, now, and everyone hung on her words like they had Queen Amani’s. “It’s time to step back and focus on the good things.”

  The room broke into polite applause. Olivia let out a sigh and smiled. I gave her a thumbs-up again, and this time, my fingers were kind of dancing. I was so freaking proud of her I thought I might burst with it.

  Olivia wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. I touched my wand, which was tucked in a long, thin pocket inside my jacket, and sent a burst of warmth toward her. She gasped and then relaxed into a sigh.

  It was amazing. She was the Heir, the future Faerie Queen, and she still didn’t remember that she could use magic to keep herself from freezing on a drizzly December afternoon.

  “What about this?” she said, holding up a hair clip worked with tiny filigree roses.

  “Eh, I always get hair clips for Crystal,” I said. She’d had a Rapunzel Story when I was seven, back when she was a twenty-five-year-old with hair past her butt and a mind full of romantic daydreams. She’d been locked in the ivory tower of graduate school until Sean had come along and knocked her up with the twins, at which point she’d chopped off all her hair and moved to the suburbs. I’d been utterly devastated at the loss of her gorgeous hair and insisted on giving her hair ornaments for years—in the hopes that she’d come to her senses and grow it all back—until it was just habit. My plans had never worked, though, and it was past time for me to come up with a more interesting present.

  I put my hands on my hips and looked around the Saturday Market. I knew every booth. More than that, I knew what was going to be inside every booth, and it drove me crazy. Where was I supposed to get something interesting and unique for each of my five-zillion relatives for Christmas? The Humdrum mall?

  “I have no idea what to get my mom,” Olivia said. She picked up a cloth-bound journal, turned it over, and set it back down again. “I don’t even know what she’s into these days.”

  “You could buy Daniel one of these, though,” I said. I handed her a journal bound in black suede.

  “Probably will,” she said. “Oh, crap, I need to remember to send over the Allures this evening.”

  This sounded more seductive than Olivia usually went for, especially when it came to her little brother.

  “What, now?”

  “Allure Miniature Roses,” she said. “I’ve been raising some in pots and Daniel wanted to borrow some for his date with Devyn tonight. Wants to set the mood.”

  “Are they finally dating?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “About time.”

  She turned the journal over and flipped through it. I’d felt a few charms clinging to its pages, mostly spells to enhance clarity and creativity. She handed a few coins to the person running the stall, who thanked her and wrapped the book up for her. Olivia’s glamour kept the woman from realizing who she was, and it was a good thing, too, because last time we’d tried to go shopping we’d gotten into an actual argument with a guy who insisted on gifting his wares to the Heir despite her objections.

  “Hurray,” Olivia said dryly as she dropped the book into her crocheted shopping bag. “We found one gift for one of our relatives.”

  I scowled around the market. This shouldn’t be so hard. But the Glim wares were all mixed in with the Humdrum wares, and the stalls here didn’t change as often as I’d have liked them to. My family shopped at the market on a regular basis; anything they might really want that I could afford, they’d probably have already gotten for themselves.

  We turned into a booth full of paper lanterns and colorful glass lamp shades. Nothing here. I almost ran into a kid as we turned out.

  “Oh, sorry,” I said, but he continued to stand in the entrance, shifting from foot to foot. He couldn’t be more than twelve or thirteen, and he had the awkward look of a middle schooler whose ears were growing faster than the rest of him. His hair was sandy and just a bit too long, and his cheeks were dusted with freckles. A younger girl with darker hair stood next to him, her face tense with anticipation.

  “Excuse me,” the boy said. He wasn’t directing his words at me. Olivia, distracted by a rack of stained glass Christmas ornaments, didn’t look up.

  “Excuse me, Heir Olivia,” he tried again.

  I gave him a look, the kind I gave my nieces and nephews when I wanted them to stop harassing me. But he already had Olivia’s attention. She came over to him, frowning a little.

  “Can I help you?”

  A flutter of nerves rose off him, but he did his best to master the emotion.

  “I just wanted to tell you, Heir Olivia,” he said. “I read about your Kindness Campaign in the newspaper, and so my sister and me, we decided to bring caramel popcorn to all our neighbors. And my mom, she’s going to give socks and diapers to the women’s shelter.”

  He stood, tense, desperately hoping for her approval. Olivia’s face cracked open into a huge smile.

  “That’s awesome!” she said. “Good job! I’ll bet your caramel corn is super good, and that’s really nice of your mom.”

  The kid looked like he was going to explode with pride. I couldn’t help grinning at him, too. He was beyond adorable. The sister next to him turned pink when she caught me looking at her, but her little chest was puffed out, too.

  “High-five, guys,” Olivia said.

  They each about took her hand off with their high-fives.

  “You guys keep spreading holiday cheer, okay? You can be my helpers.”

  The kid almost keeled over and died with delight. He bounced on his toes a couple times.

  “How’d you know it was me?” Olivia said. “I thought I had a glamour on.”

  The little boy pointed at his sister. “She can see through glamours,” he said. The girl nodded. “Cool gift, huh?”

  “Very cool. Well, thanks for letting me know what you’re doing. You guys made my day!”

  I smiled at the kids again, and we ushered ourselves along before one of them actually fainted with the excitement.

  Olivia waited until they were out of earshot before bursting into laughter.

  “That was the best thing,” she said.

  “Looks like your campaign’s taking off,” I said.

  “Not mine,” she said. “Elvira’s. I hope they know what they started.”

  “I hope they can keep it up,” I said.

  It had been bugging me. Elvira was fantastic, and its individual members seemed like the nicest people on the planet. Based on what they’d said after decorating the park, though
, they weren’t going to have the resources to keep being fantastic. They were running out of money to keep their shop open, and what money they did have was going to their attempts to brighten up the city. It was stupidly unfair that they were going to go out of business just because it was hard to make a living downtown.

  And that was really all it was. I’d done a little snooping, via a JinxNet database I’d had access to through my work at Wishes Fulfilled. No one had bothered to change the password since I left, which meant I could comb through the business records and personal data of almost anyone in the city.

  Elvira had been run as an online business for two years before they’d opened up shop. Their downtown rent was astronomical, their marketing efforts were virtually nonexistent, and they had all the talent in the world with none of the luck needed to keep their doors open.

  They were awesome, and they were going to disappear for what basically boiled down to no good reason. And even if I did all my holiday shopping there, it wouldn’t be enough.

  It made me grumpy.

  “What are you getting your dad?” I said.

  “He’s easy,” Olivia said. “Sculpture from this Irish artist he likes. The dude’s really popular in pretentious Glim circles.”

  Her tone was dismissive, but I knew better. Olivia’s family would never not be a sensitive topic. The Feye parents were getting along better than they had, but they weren’t anything like mine. Walking into their house was a chilly experience, and I was thrilled Olivia was full-time at the Heir’s Residence now.

  “Sounds perfect,” I said, eager to get her off the topic I’d stupidly brought up. “Maia’s easy too, at least. I’ll just get her a bunch of baby crap. Probably covered in clichés like, ‘Sorry, ladies, my daddy’s taken.’ Maia would love that.”

  “That’s three of our relatives down, then,” Olivia said. “You want to try to get to a few Glimmering stores before they close?”

  It was what we’d been trying to avoid. There were Glimmering shops all through Portland, and some of them were amazing—but they were scattered across the city, and what with Olivia’s crazy schedule, we were already short on time.