Wood Sprites

“We want this set,” Anna said firmly. “Now. I would suggest you don’t offer anything else or I’ll have my lawyers draw up a bait-and-switch lawsuit.”

The salesman blinked at her for a minute and a half, gears spinning wildly as he considered all the ramifications. Without a sample, he couldn’t sell more sets, but there was a chance that no one else would be willing to pay for such expensive furniture. Or that another salesperson might close the future sales. His eyes went to the confirmation of payment from Anna’s bank. The amount could have bought their house in Astoria. He winced, obviously thinking of the commission he would lose if Anna backed out of the sale.

Anna relented and sweetened the deal. “Deliver it within the week and we’ll take a second identical set.”

“Identical?” the salesman’s voice broke. “Okay. How does tomorrow sound?”

35: Of Course You Realize This Means War

Another night, another nightmare.

Louise jerked awake, breaking free of the bad dream. She’d gone to sleep feeling safe in the high loft bed, but the nightmare had stripped away all sense of being protected by Esme’s spirit. Panting with fear, Louise touched each of her family members to make sure they were all safely huddled around her. Jillian was curled into a tight ball, her back pressing against Louise. Joy slept tucked between them. Nikola lay carefully beside her so his weight wouldn’t crush them.

Nikola lifted his head as she sat up. “What’s wrong?”

“I had a bad dream. Bad, bad dream!” She hugged him tight, using his solid presence to drive away the horrible visions. Since arriving at the mansion, every night she’d had a nightmare, but this one was the worst. Ming had locked the twins in a birdcage, deep in caves under the mansion. All the babies had been killed when Nikola tried to free the twins. “Promise me you won’t fight. Please, whatever happens, don’t ever try to protect me or Jillian.”

“But — but — but that’s my function.”

“No, that was Tesla’s function, but you’re not Tesla. You’re Nikola and I love you so much and I couldn’t stand to lose you. You have to be made into real babies and get to do everything real people do. You need to laugh and eat and sleep.”

“I don’t know. Sleep doesn’t seem to be very interesting. You just lie there.”

“Please promise me. You’re really just a little fragile egg inside of Tesla. If that egg breaks, you’ll die. Tesla has to protect you.”

“If someone is hurting you. .”

“Jillian and I can get ourselves out of any problem we get into. We’ve been doing it for a long, long time. If someone grabs one or both of us, or locks us up, or even if they seem to hurt us, you can’t do anything to try and save us. Promise me that you won’t.”

“Lou!” he whimpered.

“You have to trust us, Nikola. We can take care of ourselves. You need to trust us to do that.”

“Sometimes I feel so useless.”

“If things go bad, the most useful thing you can do is to just pretend you’re a robot that anyone can order around.”

“Just do nothing while someone is hurting—”

“You’ll be doing something. You’ll be acting. Just like Jillian was Peter Pan in the play. Your character is the robot dog, Tesla, and nothing more.”

He made a soft whimpering noise. Louise suspected that if he were a real little boy, he’d be crying. It was so sad that all he could do was little half vocalizations so it sounded like he was mumbling “Ow. . ow. . ow. . ow.” She was sure that the pain was real, but he had no way to shed tears.

“It’s okay. It’s okay.” She stroked his head. “It was just a dream.”

Only she knew it wasn’t.

How ironic that she’d discovered that she actually had a special magical gift, only to have it scare the shit out of her. This knowing was confusing and horrifying. She could see the future, and it was the stuff of nightmares. Obviously there had to be a way to use her ability to pick a future she wanted; Ming wouldn’t hold Anna so dear if he couldn’t use her gift for his own gain. Louise felt like she was trapped in a maze with dozens of literal “dead” ends.

She’d been keeping her promise to Aunt Kitty, unconsciously waiting for her to pull off some legal miracle so that they could live with her. Louise had been too scared to be honest with herself. Jillian might have spent the last ten days curled up in bed, but Louise truthfully hadn’t been much better. She’d limited herself to spying on the secret elves and being overwhelmed by everything.

The awful truth was that Aunt Kitty wasn’t going to win custody of the twins. She didn’t have the money to win a legal battle against Anna. The only way the girls could live with her was if she took them and ran. To stay hidden, Aunt Kitty would have to abandon her songwriting career, something she’d worked her entire life to create. If they were found, Aunt Kitty could be arrested for kidnapping. The best their aunt could hope for was simply going bankrupt, and the worst was spending the rest of her life in prison.