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When Liliana woke up, she was clean and in her own bed. The tick, tick, ticking of her many clocks sounded exactly as they should. Nothing could be too terribly wrong in the world as long as her clocks kept ticking along.
She wondered idly who had bathed her. Her left arm rested in a sling with lots of gauze to pad her injured shoulder. All her injuries had been bandaged and the glass chunks removed, but she didn’t feel the itchiness of stitches. If she had been taken to a hospital, they would have put stitches in her skin that she would have to cut out before her fast-healing skin absorbed them. She had been well cared for by someone who was familiar with spider-kin needs. She suspected Doctor Nudd.
The only thing that hurt was her head.
She touched the back of her head gently and found an impressive goose egg.
Ow.
Beside her, on her little nightstand, next to a stained-glass lamp shaped like a tulip that she had found in a garage sale forty years ago, waited a note and a small bottle of white powder. The label on the bottle read, “Amphidosone.” Liliana had been given amphidosone before. It was made from skin secretions of a frog-kin species, was highly addictive, and as “sopor” was sold on the street as a recreational drug. Taken in reasonable amounts, it proved an excellent analgesic for both Fae and beast-kin like her.
The note said, “Half a teaspoon dissolved in liquid for pain, as needed, at least four hours apart.” Signed illegibly, the scrawl appeared short and had a capital N at the beginning. Doctor Nudd it was.
Rolling to a sitting position, she groaned. The only reason none of her injuries hurt before was because she hadn’t moved. Now, everything hurt. She looked longingly at the white powder. In addition to dulling the pain, though, it would affect her like several shots of tequila affected a human. She had things to do before she could impair herself to that extent.
Her clocks said 7:20, and the sunshine coming through her brightly colored curtains said morning. She had appointments today. But she couldn’t remember exactly when the first one would be. Her pounding head made thinking difficult.
Very slowly and gingerly, wearing a moss-green nightgown someone had dressed her in from of one of her own drawers, her feet bare, she walked to the room housing her business.
One of the shelves in her former dining room did not hold arcane knickknacks or clocks. It held big faux leather-bound books and an old-fashioned telephone with a handset connected to it by a curly wire. She replaced the old rotary phone late in the previous century when it became difficult to call many places without the tones push-button phones made. She had seen no reason to replace it since then, even though some people now considered voice-only wired phones to be antiques.
So she would not have to stay on her feet, she picked up the base and carried it to the table. The long cord trailed behind her.
Liliana lifted the largest book off the shelf with her one usable arm and considerable difficulty. She stifled a whimper. There were excellent reasons for the bandages along her ribs.
Pushing the crystal ball off-center, she set the big book on the round table. She would have to put that back later. The book with tabs on the side with the letters of the alphabet on them wasn’t as heavy as the appointment book, thank goodness.
Ah. She had four appointments today, the first at 9:30 AM. She opened the book to the appropriate page to get the contact information for her first client and sat down carefully to avoid jarring her injuries. People might look down on her for using paper to keep track of contact information, but it could never be hacked and it was never “down,” unlike the more modern ways of storing customer data.
One by one, she called all four of her clients for the day in the order of their appointments and either left a message or spoke to them, canceling or rescheduling. She considered also calling the clients she had scheduled for tomorrow, but decided not to. It was bad for business to cancel appointments, and hopefully, she would be feeling better by then.
Liliana lifted the huge appointment book and the smaller address book with difficulty and put them back on the shelf. She started to put the phone back but stopped. She picked up the receiver and dialed a number from memory. The phone rang twice.
“Willoughby residence,” a cheerful voice answered.
“Hello, Mrs. Willoughby. You asked to schedule an appointment for next week. I can do that now.”
“Madame Anna! I’m so glad to hear from you. I was worried sick. You seemed so upset when I left yesterday.”
The rabbit-kin’s comments warmed her. Liliana hadn’t known anyone worried about her. “I am fine.”
“That’s wonderful to hear. Could I come in today then?”
“I am not that fine.”
“Oh no. Are you hurt? Are you sick? Was it that red wolf? You said he wasn’t dangerous, and Ben, Mr. Harper I mean, my boy Sam’s teacher, he said that his Pete was a really good man. He doesn’t know that he’s a wolf-kin though, right? Of course he doesn’t, him being a Normal and all. But in any case, you said the red wolf might die, and he didn’t come home last night, and now Ben’s real worried. I’m not worried, of course, not about a Celtic werewolf of all people, but I thought I’d ask anyway. For Ben. I wouldn’t want him to worry unnecessarily after all.”
Liliana started to answer, but Janice Willoughby did not seem to have much of a need to breathe.
“Ben’s such a sweet man, and a wonderful teacher, Sam’s favorite. I’d hate to see him get hurt. He loved the cookies and the cake I baked, and we really hit it off. It would be a crying shame if anything happened to his young man.”
In a single day, Liliana marveled at how Pete had transformed from an evil werewolf beast who might eat Janice’s children to the wolf-kin beloved of her son’s favorite teacher.
To make certain that Pete was all right, Liliana opened her fourth eyes for a moment. He, too, was clean, bandaged, and in bed. The bed was huge, big enough for a half-dozen people to sleep in at once, and had an open window beside it with sheer blowing curtains.
Oh. Doctor Nudd’s house.
She closed her fourth eyes quickly. The extra vision made her dizzy and nauseous.
