Advanced Mythology (32 page)

Chapter 30

“This is beautiful stuff, Tiron,” Keith said, admiring the sculptures as the elves wrapped them in newspaper and packed them in cartons for delivery to Galleria Tony. Far from wanting to withdraw from the marketplace, they were looking forward to expanding. Keith considered it, but decided that it would be okay to bring more merchandise to the Galleria because Beach had already been there. He wouldn’t backtrack to places where he hadn’t found anything. Besides, Thom Albert had called him three times a week since January asking for more.

Keith kept glancing toward the door with an ever-diminishing sense of hope. It was Valentine’s Day. He wanted to take Diane out for dinner, but he hadn’t heard from her yet. He had left numerous messages, hoping he didn’t sound as desperate as he felt. Since their disastrous weekend at the beginning of January, she’d been screening her calls through her answering machine, nor was she responding to e-mails. She came to the Elf Master’s class, but she arrived only minutes before it began, and always left before Keith could catch her alone. She was going out of her way to avoid him. He missed her tremendously. He had tried showing up unannounced at her apartment, but she had not opened the door. He’d sent little presents with love notes attached. She’d call or e-mail to thank him,
but that was about it. Their conversations were short, always ending with Diane saying she had to go study. Before he’d left Chicago he had had flowers delivered to her with a note asking her out to dinner. He had even worn his new Armani suit to please her.

He hadn’t had as much time as he would have liked to devote to making up or anything but work and homework. Professor Larsen was riding the Entrepreneurship class hard, demanding that they revise the assigned business plan over and over until any of them could be an instant success in the real-life marketplace, and just add money. And luck. Keith had kept in mind from first semester the basic premise of a business like Hollow Tree—anything to take some of the foot-slogging research out of the way—but he was designing it as though it was meant to employ Big Folk and pay actual expenses. There was an incredible amount of planning and calculation to come up with a property that could survive its first two years without going bankrupt. Thank goodness Dr. Li’s afternoon class in Business Accounting dovetailed into the morning course—no accident on the part of the program’s designers, of course.

Keith stroked the cherrywood carving of a doe and was surprised to feel a smooth force under his fingertips. “Why do these have magic in them? Do they move, like some of the kids’ toys?”

Tiron grinned. “And wouldn’t that make the Big Ones drop their jaws? Nothing so dramatic. I’ve given them a bit of enhancement to keep them from ever deteriorating. I don’t mind it if the wood takes on the luster of age, but I’d take it amiss if I should outlive my work.”

Keith clicked his tongue as he set the carving down on a pile of newsprint. “I wish I could do anything half as well as you carve.”

“Ah, well,” the Irish elf said, coloring faintly with pleasure, “I just see what’s in the wood, and I bring it out with me knife. You’ve got your own talents, you do.”

“Not like this,” Keith said, folding paper around the doe. He regretted hiding its beauty away, but even a mild protection spell might not keep it from getting banged up in the trunk of his Mustang. He looked forward to the expression on the face of the gallery owner when he unwrapped it and all of the other treasures the elves had made. Holl brought over a dolphin made of a fine-grained, pale, yellow-green wood. It leaped, effortlessly, from a heavy base that allowed it to arch outward without support underneath. “Holl, that is terrific.”

“Catering to the masses, are we?” Tiron asked in his leisurely fashion. He leaned back with a lazy, insouciant grin. “All the rage with the nature-lovin’ Big Folk, dolphins are. And baby seals—have you done a baby seal as well?”

“The wood suggested the shape,” Holl said, not rising to the bait.

“Did it? Did it look like a dollar sign, then? See the way the grain fights against the line,” Tiron said, pointing to the dolphin’s side. Frowning at his cavalier tone, Keith leaned close.

“I can’t see anything wrong with it. It looks great to me.”

“Oh, well, you’re not an expert. He’s forcing his design,” Tiron said, taking his knife out of his sheath and using it as a pointer. “This grain suggests a more undulating design. You could have done a squid or a mermaid out of the same piece, with a natural flow. This is poor workmanship.”

“It’s nothing of the kind!” Enoch burst out. He had listened as long as he could to the criticism. How Tiron dared pick on Holl, knowing the burdens he was carrying!

The Conservatives continued to harp upon how naked they felt without the boundary charm, and how lowering it hadn’t solved the problem with their unwanted visitor. In addition, they were on the lookout for Keith’s attackers, another reason that they thought the charm should be renewed at full strength. Even they had to admit morale was better now that they were not so much under stress from the spell, but they were smug in the knowledge that Holl’s grand plan had failed to do what he had claimed it would. Enoch didn’t consider it a failure. Holl had been able to keep an uneasy truce going, believing that leaving the ways open was the only possible solution.

The fact was they no idea why the creature should still be hanging around since they opened the portal, but there it was. The initial peace of mind the Folk had enjoyed was fading fast. The creature was attracted to the energy that arose from both magic and strife. He could feel its influence behind the occasional battles that arose, suspecting that it had a role in creating them. It continued to behave like a poltergeist, knocking things over, interfering with the cellar and spoiling everyone’s mood, but its visits were far less frequent. Of all this Enoch could say nothing so long as the Big One was listening, but Tiron ought to have known better. Why bring it up now?

He glanced around the workroom. Oh, ho, so it was a show. The pretty sisters were behind Tiron. His cockle-doodling was for their benefit, not to impress Keith Doyle. Enoch said flatly, “Holl’s work is good work. If you can’t give a compliment where it’s earned, then keep your words to yourself.”

“Well, you’ve hardly done better, have you?” Tiron asked, his plot discovered. He stood up, ready for a fight. “Ye’ve carved a piece of tree to look like—a tree!”

Enoch turned to regard his handiwork, the depiction of a gnarled old oak, its crown leaning protectively over a doe and its fawn nestled in the knobby roots. “And what’s wrong with it?”

“Well, it’s hardly imaginative, is it?”

That was so unjust that Enoch stared at him for a second. Keith sat there with his mouth open, not understanding the fires that were raging under the surface. Holl hastily put aside his own hurt feelings to restore calm.

“Let’s keep peace in the house,” he pleaded.

“Will you not defend yourself?” Enoch asked Holl, openly annoyed even though he knew the bogie must be enjoying his display of bad temper. “You’ve reason to be proud of your work. This popinjay thinks because he’s traveled a thousand miles he can lecture us.”

“Three thousand,” Catra said, with a record-keeper’s passion for accuracy.

“Don’t you go defending him,” Enoch snarled. “His rudeness is inexcusable.”

“Don’t you snap at me,” Catra said, shocked. “I’m not a part of this.”

“I don’t wish to cause more upset,” Holl said carefully.

“Hey, what’s going on here?” Keith Doyle asked, his kind face wearing a puzzled expression. “There’s no reason to get bent out of shape.
All
these pieces are great. Thom’s going to go nuts. People will be buying them as soon as I unwrap them.”

“Keith Doyle is right,” Ronard said. “Our skill’s unmatched. That’s the point.”

“What do you know?” Tiron said, shoving his red face into the bigger and slower male’s face. “The only thing you’ve hewed worth using is firewood.”

“That’s not fair,” Ronard said, working his big jaw. Normally a pleasant, good-natured soul, he was controlling himself with difficulty.

“The tree should be saying that about your use of its wood!”

“And who do you think you are, babbling on about your over-ornamented baubles?”

“They’re not over-ornamented,” Catra said, with perhaps more care for accuracy than for her longtime boyfriend’s feelings. “Tiron’s style is very classical.”

Grinning, Tiron thrust his chin at the bigger, slower male. “There, you see? She agrees with me.”

“Catra!” Ronard said, his feelings hurt.

“I’m being no more than accurate,” the Archivist said, surprised. Ronard looked dumbfounded.

“He insulted me! What accurate thing have you got to say about that?”

“Well, it wasn’t nice of him, surely.”

“What kind of a boiled-egg response is that? Can’t you tell him off as smartly as you did me?”

“Why? What good would it do?”

“Don’t you call my sister a boiled egg!” Candlepat snapped.

Ronard’s nostrils flared out like a bull’s. “Stay out of this!”

“Don’t you shout at my sister,” Catra flared.

“Well, the two of you don’t seem to know who your friends are, do you?” Ronard replied hotly.

“I think I do know,” Catra exclaimed. She grabbed Tiron by the arm and marched away.

“Wait a moment,” Tiron protested. “I wasn’t …”

“Tiron! Don’t go!” Candlepat cried, her lovely face running with tears. “There’s a curse on this house!” Keith felt in his pocket for a handkerchief.

“Here,” he said, offering it to her. “It’s just a spat. You’ll all fix it up before dinner, right?”

“Ah, no, it’ll never be the same again,” Candlepat wailed, throwing herself into his arms.

“It’ll be okay. You’ll see,” Keith said.

“Oh, Keith Doyle,” Candlepat said. She nestled against him and put her head on his chest. Keith sat awkwardly with the attractive elf on his lap, wanting to pat her on the shoulder comfortingly but not knowing quite where to put his hands. She may have been the size of a child, but she had the body of a full-grown woman, and a very attractive one at that. He was also aware of the eyes of others on him. The room felt suddenly hot. Candlepat grabbed his face between her hands and brought it eye to eye with hers. “You’re the only one who cares about me.” She started to kiss him over and over.

“Candlepat, no, mmph!” In between passionate smooches, he protested and tried to pull away, but she paid no attention. He was terrified, intrigued, embarrassed, horrified, and astonished all at once. It was a fantasy and a nightmare.

“A-hem!” Keith looked up at the sound of a throat being cleared.

Diane stood over them, her hands on her hips. The balance of the moment tilted abruptly and inexorably to nightmare.

“Uh,” Keith said weakly, “Happy Valentine’s Day?”

Of all the wrong things to say in the universe, that was at the top of the list as the most incorrect choice of any he could possibly have made. For one second her face was blank with shock. In the next moment, anger flooded in, changing it into a reddening mask of rage.

“So this is what you mean when you say you miss me! I never want to see you again!” Head high, she spun on her heel and marched away. She paused on the threshold of the barn to add, “And you can forget about the cold cuts for your party!”

“Diane!” Keith shouted. He tried to detach himself, but Candlepat hung on like ivy clinging to a tree.

“Ah, no, now, don’t run away again,” she pleaded. “You’re always trying to skip away from me.”

“Look, Candlepat, I’m sorry,” Keith said, trying to fathom the depth of the disaster that had just occurred. “Diane!”

* * *

Diane strode up the gravel path toward her car, slipping every other step on the ice. It wasn’t bad enough that Keith was still lusting after “Doris,” now he was starting to get involved with elf women! Or maybe, she thought, choking back an angry sob, that had been the problem from the beginning: why he wouldn’t commit to her. Why stick with one woman when he had a farmful of willing females who owed him their lives? He hadn’t even looked up at her when she’d arrived. And that Candlepat! Kissing him right in front of her! A fireball had erupted up out of one of the table saws at that moment, exactly defining how Diane felt. How dare she! How dare he!

She resented all of them, but Keith most of all. This elf business was his deal, not hers. Oh, she was grateful for the extra education, and God knew she’d never have made it all the way through college without the scholarship money that they gave her—money she fully intended to pay back one day—but other things had happened to her, things that would never have happened in a million years if not for them. She’d been kidnapped by a Secret Service agent in Ireland, spent days being frantic about Keith when he’d disappeared down a sinkhole in Scotland, and spent the most humiliating morning of her life shopping with the Invisible Man. For all she knew, she herself was being stalked by bogeymen. Well, never again.

She was so angry that she couldn’t separate her car key. It fell out of her hand into the snow next to the path. She fished it up, bit her glove off, and pried the freezing tongues of metal apart. She hurried toward her car, only wanting to go and hide somewhere. Humiliated in front of everyone and by the person she thought she could trust most of all in the world.

She heard shouts over the wind whistling between the house and the trees.

“Wait, Diane!” “Wait, don’t go!” “Diane!” She stiffened her back, thinking it was Keith, but the voices coming up behind her were female.

Diane ignored them. If Keith didn’t have the sense to know when she was serious, she’d find someone else who would appreciate her. Her eyes were full of tears, freezing into slush in the cold. Her lashes clumped together, and she brushed at them with her glove. She bumped into something, someone, and blinked her eyes hard to clear them. A heart-shaped face with sympathetic blue eyes framed by a white parka hood peered up at her.

“Go away, Marcy. You’re responsible for this.”

“Me?” Marcy asked. “How?”

Diane thought of saying that she’d been the one who led Keith to the Little Folk in the first place, but the truth was that Keith had followed
her
to their hidden classroom. Marcy wasn’t to blame just because she got married and Diane wasn’t even engaged yet. It was all Keith, as usual. Maura and Dola hurried to take her hand and offer her a handkerchief before she was aware that she was crying.