Wood Sprites

“What’s sex?” the babies asked in chorus.

Louise blushed hotly. “It’s icky stuff that adults do.”

“What kind of icky stuff?” The babies started into a barrage of questions. “If it’s icky, why do they want to do it? Is it like eating Brussels sprouts?”

Brussels sprouts? “I don’t want to have to explain it. It’s icky. Don’t ask.”

The babies were working systematically through the postings. Louise noticed that one post further down was generating thousands of shares per second. It was titled “Announcing Prince Windwolf and Princess Tinker.” She clicked it and discovered someone had used the documentary to do a 3D rendering of Alexander and then paired her with a scale model of Windwolf. The animator had dressed the male elf in a white tuxedo with his long black hair falling loosely over his shoulders. Alexander wore a skin-tight elfin gown of fairy silk in Wind Clan blue. They stood holding hands, looking like two teenagers about to go to the prom. They bowed to the camera and then turned to look into each other’s eyes. Music started and the two started to waltz. During the documentary, Alexander hadn’t gotten down off the truck bed, so she never seemed overly short. But if the render was correct, Louise and Jillian weren’t going to get much taller.

Louise realized that the animation on the waltz was very good quality. She checked the credits and squeaked with surprise. A real animation studio had created the piece.

With sudden foreboding, Louise closed the Jello Shots forum and did a general search on the title. There were a hundred pages of hits. Apparently frustrated by the lack of pictures of Alexander and Windwolf together, one of the tabloid new feeds had paid for the animation. “What is a Wood Sprite?” had also become a meme with various odd animals PhotoShopped onto the flat bed, licking the cherry ice pop. Red pandas. Koala bears. Gibson monkeys. And most alarming, one featuring Disney’s version of Tinker Bell. Whimpering, Louise typed in “Princess Alexander Graham Bell” and Alexander’s picture came up complete with a small bio explaining that she was the daughter of Leonardo da Vinci Dufae. The information apparently had been supplied by the EIA Director, Derek Maynard. Unlike all the pictures of Alexander covered in mud, the bio had frames from the documentary. The family resemblance between Alexander and the twins was unmistakable.

Yves was going to find the photos. Yves was going to see the family resemblance and realize what Esme had done. He was going to know what the twins were.

* * *

“We need to go.” Louise told Jillian when she woke her twin. She fought to keep her voice calm and level even though the enormity of what was ahead of them scared her. They still hadn’t figured out how they were going to get away from the mansion without getting caught or where they were going to go or how they were going to stay hidden. “Let’s get packed to leave.”

“Huh?” Jillian sat up, rubbing at her eyes. “Now? What happened?”

“The Jello Shots dug up a bunch of videos of Alexander and they’re getting plastered everywhere. Sooner or later, Yves is going to figure everything out. We’ve got to go before he does.”

Jillian squinted at her, apparently still half-asleep, stepping through the logic. “Videos?”

“Of Tinker and Oilcan!” Chuck Norris squeaked.

“Racing!” Red Gingham Jawbreaker cried.

“But we can’t get to Elfhome now!” Nikola cried. “It’s twenty-five days to Shutdown. We haven’t moved all the money yet. .”

“. . and we don’t have all the mice!” the girls chorused with Nikola.

“I know.” Louise waved them all to be calm, even though fear skittered about inside her. “Everything can go as planned — just someplace else — not here — as far away from here as possible.”

The babies rapid-fired questions in excited squeaks. “Where are we going? How are we going to get there? Can we make the mini-hoverbikes first? We can use the magic generators. Oh, we’ll need to make more generators to make one for each of us. We’re taking the mice, too, aren’t we? What are we taking with us?”

“Holy hell!” Jillian cried. “Where did the mice come from?”

Louise let the babies explain in a confusing four-part narrative. She could only think of all the things tucked into the back of the walk-in closet. Their favorite Christmas ornaments. The family tree that had hung over the fireplace in living room. Their mom’s wedding rings. Everything so precious that it hurt to look at them. Too painful for Jillian to even deal with. Were they going to have to abandon it all?

If we can rob a museum without getting caught, we can sneak back later and get our stuff.

Even as she tried to comfort herself, she knew it wasn’t true. The future that was hurtling toward them was dark and full of pain, and there would be no coming back.