“Yeah. But he does all the things with us,” I replied as the three of us got on the lift. “Look. Here’s Lucky in the championship cup. Here’s him riding a mechanical bull. And here’s my favorite, him getting a lap dance at a strip club in Glitter City.” I handed her my phone.
“Oh. I see.” Fiona looked through the photos.
“Hockey players are weird. Wait, you don’t know that Verity invented Lucky?” Hale asked.
“Really?” Oh, right. Grif met Verity before he became a Knight, he just didn't find her again until he moved to New York.
“Yeah. There was some airplane seat thing where he wanted both seats and she was like,What, you need it for your imaginary cat?He let her sit in the other seat and ran with it, starting off with,Don’t sit on Lucky,naming him.And thus Lucky-the-imaginary-cat was born,” Hale said.
“I didn’t know that. Verity came up with Lucky. Huh.”
“I think she got the idea from our baby sister, Hope. Every time we went to Grace’s, Hope insisted there was a cat. Gracedoesn’t have a cat. Chickens. A hedgehog. Rabbits. No cat. It was at Grace’s wedding that Grace sort of put together that Hope had a cat as an imaginary friend and the cat lived at Grace’s.
“After the wedding, Hope brought her imaginary cat friend home with us. When Verity moved, Hope insisted that the cat went with her. We’ve mushed Lucky and Hopes’ imaginary friend together since Hope insists that her imaginary cat now lives in New York with Verity.” Hale took a selfie as we went up the mountain, the sun starting to set.
Oh. I pondered that for a moment.
“Did Hope ever describe him?” I asked, curious.
“Yeah. Black cat, blue eyes, collar.”
Just as I thought. Small children could see things adults couldn’t.
“I… I think Lucky might be real. I’m guessing that he’s a duende, a mischievous spirit, and we just can’t see him,” I confessed.
Hale thought for a minute. “Maybe? I swear I’ve seen Hope playing with an actual cat.”
“At Verity’s wedding? Because I saw a black cat with blue eyes at Verity’s wedding. Okay, I was drunk off my ass and high on the drugs you brought, but I saw him. He was sad. That’s why I brought him back to New York with me while they went on their honeymoon and shit.” While I could have been seeing things, I’d like to believe Lucky was a duende who preferred hanging out with a hockey team instead of whatever he should be doing.
“Some other times, too. But I wasn’t sober. Still…” Hale’s look went pensive.
“Um, perhaps we should leave the fae alone?” Fiona shook her head. “I don’t know what a duende is, but Cat-Sith–fae cats–are black cats that steal souls and aren’t anyone to mess with.”
“Mmmm…” Hale’s head lolled to one side. “I feel like maybe he’s more of an interdimensional being, one that’s not corporeal in this world. Given he originated at Grace’s, and Compass BioTek does crazy-ass shit, I’d absolutely believe they opened a portal somewhere using a supercollider or some shit straight from a book. They do weird things when bored at work. But…” He looked at Fiona. “If the fae realm is really another dimension, sort of like where the gods live, and they came to our world through a portal or something, then maybe he is fae or a god, or something.”
I sucked in a breath. “That makes so much sense. Lucky is absolutely a trickster spirit.”
“Yeah, we’re going to leave Lucky alone. Wedon’tmake deals with the fae or invite them in.” Fiona shook her head.
“Too late. Also, he’s harmless,” I told her.
“Until you stick to him and get dragged into a lake.” She rubbed her forehead.
My phone buzzed with a video of chickens.
Grif
Lucky got loose and is chasing the chickens. Don’t worry, Jonas will catch him.
Me
Oh good, I wouldn’t want him to be waiting for me to get him.
I looked around at the sun setting. Lots of people were on the lifts, both going places on the mountain and skiing–they had night runs. “This is so pretty. Let’s get a photo.”
Fiona took a selfie of the three of us.
Holding out my phone as far as I could, I snapped a photo, too. My phone buzzed with a text from Gwen. It slipped from my hand, dropping to the snow far, far below.
