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It wasn’t anywhere good.
Claire patted my shoulder. “Do you at least have a babysitter?”
I nodded to the small, huddled figure in the corner, who was trying to hide behind the rocking chair. “It’s okay, Gessa. You can go.”
Two tiny brown eyes peered at me myopically for a moment from under a fall of dark brown curls. Then their owner jumped to her full height of three foot two and scurried out the door. She never needed to be told twice.
“Olga was doing it,” I said, referring to the very competent secretary I’d recently acquired. “But she’s trying to start her business up again, and she can’t stay all night. And the freeloaders downstairs scatter to the four winds every time I so much as look at—”
“What freeloaders?”
Oops. “Uh, well, when they heard she’d moved out here, some of Olga’s old employees decided to come, too. And since they’re also relatives, she didn’t feel like she could say no….”
“Are you trying to tell me that there’s a colony of trolls living in my basement?”
“I probably should have worked up to it more.”
“At least that explains the smell.”
“That’s Stinky,” I admitted. “He believes in living up to his name.”
“Well, maybe you should get him a better one!”
“I tried. There are no colonies of Brownies around here, but I located some Duergars who live over in Queens. But they just told me they thought he was already well named!”
“He’s a half-breed,” she said sadly, her fingers carding through his hair. “They probably didn’t like him.”
“They did tell me that their people have to earn their names. They just use a nickname before then.”
“Earn them how?”
“They didn’t say. But the elders have to award them, apparently, and you ca
n guess what the odds are of that in his case. When he gets older, I’ll let him decide what he wants to be called.” I pushed up the window, letting in the night breeze. “And it’s not so bad once you get—”
I broke off abruptly. For the second time that night, I saw something that had me questioning my sanity. More than usual, I mean.
The trees on the lot are mostly original, and the granddaddy of them all grew outside that window: a massive, old cottonwood that had to have been more than a sapling when the house was built. Its tear- shaped leaves were dancing as the wind swept along the side of the house, causing a rustling, shifting kaleidoscope of dark green, silver and deep black. And for a moment, in the contrast of light and shadow, I thought I saw…
“Dory—” Claire touched my shoulder and I flinched. She frowned. “What is it?”
“Do you see… anything… in the tree?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light.
She peered around. “What? You mean the squirrel’s nest?”
I swallowed. “I think I need a drink.”
“Well, that’s what I’ve been saying.” She sighed. “Is there no alcohol in this house?”
“I may be able to come up with something.”
“Wonderful. Let’s sit on the porch, though. I could use some air.”
Claire went to her old room to find some clothes, and I went to the kitchen for a couple of glasses from the drying rack. I was just pulling up the trapdoor in the hall, where I keep the good stuff, when she clattered downstairs. She was wearing a green wraparound shirt that matched her eyes and old jeans, and she had a well-behaved baby on each hip.
“I don’t know how long we’ll be able to stay outside. It looks like a storm’s blowing up,” she told me, before catching my expression. “What?”
“You managed to get Stinky into clothes?” The fuzzy armful on her left hip was wearing a pair of bright blue running shorts, like it was no big deal. The last time I’d gotten him dressed, I’d practically had to have Olga sit on him.
