Bigfootloose and Finn Fancy Free

 

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Book two! I guess I have to admit at this point this isn't a dream. At least, I haven't shown up at any readings in my underwear. Yet.

I'm writing these acknowledgments in July 2015. I wrote
Bigfootloose
during 2014, which was hands down one of the busiest, insaniest, most emotional-rollercoastery years of my life, between serious Life Changes and the craziness of Writers of the Future and
Finn Fancy
. It was also a year of tragedies, controversies, and difficult conversations for many (and not just because of the
How I Met Your Mother
finale).

As such, my thanks go out to all those who tempered my angst and supported my dream.

To the readers and fans of
Finn Fancy
who came to my readings, wrote reviews, had me on your blog, invited me to your book club, got a
FFN
tattoo, built a small shrine to
FFN,
invented new ice cream flavors like Fudge Fancy Nutomancy, or named all your children after my characters: this adventure continues thanks to you, and for you, and I hope you enjoy the results. And if you read this and think
Wow, I really missed some opportunities there to prove my love of Finn Fancy,
well, now there's
Bigfootloose
. Sasquatches and knitting = so much potential! Just remember, pictures or it didn't happen.

To all the librarians and booksellers who recommended
Finn Fancy Necromancy
, and those who invited me or hosted me for readings, you all seriously rock (and, though I would never say it for fear of appearing immodest,
people
say you have excellent taste).

To my parents, Frank, Mary, and Elaine; my biggest fan, Dave Henderson; and the rest of my family: thank goodness you share blood ties with me, otherwise your level of support would be kind of creepy.

To my family most deeply affected during this time, who have offered me love and understanding and continued support: Shelly, Lucas, and Kylie, may every day bring you magic.

To Christy Varonfakis, without whom I really might have shown up at a reading in my underwear—and then realized it wasn't even my reading. Or my underwear. I'm grateful for every bench and every nudge, and look forward to many more.

To everyone who critiqued
Bigfootloose,
or provided reassurances through the inevitable dark period of Imposter Syndrome, thank you. To name a few (alphabetically): Curtis Chen, Isis D'Shaun, Lauren Dixon, Spencer Ellsworth, Neile Graham, Lucas Johnson, Tod McCoy, Kat Richardson, Vicki Saunders, and Emily Skaftun. If your name should be here but isn't, due to my terrible memory, I blame Infomancers for altering reality; but now you can make me feel bad every time I see you and I'll buy you a drink out of guilt, so, you know, that's not bad, right?

To everyone at Tor, especially my editor and
Finn Fancy
champion, Beth Meacham, without whom, again,
Finn Fancy
would not exist; the tireless Amy Stapp, who keeps the process moving along; my awesome publicist, Desirae Friesen, and the queen of publicity, Patty Garcia, for all their help in spreading the
Finn Fancy
love; the copyediting (and geek savvy) skills of Edwin Chapman; and everyone else who has contributed to the life of the Finn Fancy books—thank you, truly.

To Peter Lutjen, Irene Gallo, Tomislav, and the rest of the Tor art and design department, thank you for the look of the Finn Fancy series. The covers certainly stand out, and I've grown quite fond of them.

And, last but not least, to my agent, Cameron McClure, who has provided all the support and agentiness I could have hoped for, and to Katie Shea Boutillier and everyone else at Donald Maass Literary Agency, who have far more than earned that 15 percent: I hope I make a million dollars someday. You know, just for you.

 

1

Once Bitten Twice Shy

Imagine the sweetest-smelling perfume, something candy-like, perhaps worn by tweenaged girls. Now, pour a bottle of that into your eyes. Welcome to the joys of fairy embalming.

I stood beside a stainless-steel worktable on which a fairy's parakeet-sized body rested, in the familiar chill and antiseptic smell of our family's basement necrotorium—a mortuary for the magical.

And by fairy, I don't mean a true Fey. Actually, I'm not even sure what a Fey smell might be. During the twenty-five years I spent exiled in the Fey Other Realm, I don't think I smelled anything that didn't come from my own imagination. No, by fairy I mean the little flitting Tinkerbells you see in gardens, especially in a charming little waterfront town like our own Port Townsend. Well, that you'd be able to see if you were a human arcana gifted with magic, or a feyblood creature like the fairies themselves.

The fun part of this job, or at least the creative part that I actually enjoyed sometimes, was hours away. I would reconstruct the fairy's features using putty and cosmetics so that you'd never know she'd enjoyed a brief and shocking birdbrained attraction to the brightly colored insulators on an electric fence—and then been hit by a weed whacker before waking. I had, however, carefully glued the plastic wings on after the Department of Alchemical Administration came and collected the real ones, a donation for which the fairy's family would receive generous payment.

My younger brother Pete stood opposite me, his huge body hunched over the table as he monitored the embalming tubes that ran into the fairy's body. Petey had always been a big guy—not fat, or all muscle, just big like a grizzly. His round baby face scrunched up in a frown of concentration that better belonged on a child trying to eat Cream of Wheat with chopsticks, and fit his nature much more than his considerable size did.

My girlfriend, Dawn, sat on a stool in the corner strumming her guitar, the incandescent lighting glinting off the silver rings that covered her every finger. Her hair, a springy cloud of fading turquoise with black roots, masked her eyes as she leaned over her guitar, but she occasionally paused to lift up the decapitated head of my old
Six Million Dollar Man
doll that hung from a cord around her neck and look through his bionic eye at the fairy. The toy head had a crystal jutting out of the neck and a crown of rune-covered metal, an artifact my father created in one of his (more) lucid moments, that enabled mundanes to see the normally hidden world of magical energies and creatures. But Dawn's mundy senses still made her impervious to the fairy odor.

For me, even the smells of embalming fluids and bleach couldn't mask the cloying smell.

Pete removed the customized embalming tubes with the kind of delicateness one might expect from a Jedi manscaping his nethers with a lightsaber. Despite his size, Pete was one of the gentlest people I knew. Or at least, he used to be. Since being bitten by waerwolves three months ago, he'd cycled between reclusive and rabid as he struggled to control the Fey wolf spirit that now shared his body.

*I envy your brother,* a voice sounded in my head. *If a body must needs be shared, then a wolf seems a most desirable companion. At least a wolf spirit knows how to have fun.*

Alynon Infedriel, Fey knight of the Silver Court, former changeling for yours truly, and pain in my spiritual buttocks, gave a martyred sigh only I could hear, and fell silent. I wasn't sure how a Fey spirit trapped inside my brain could sigh when he didn't have actual lungs or breath of his own, but he did. A lot.

When I'd returned from exile in the Other Realm, I was supposed to inherit twenty-five years of catch-up memories from Alynon as he departed back to his own Fey body. Instead, an accident had caused me to be stuck with him in my head.

That had been a real lose-lose kind of day.

“Shut it,” I muttered at Alynon.

“I'm getting to it!” Pete said, the hint of a growl creeping into his voice.

“What? Oh, no, I didn't mean shut the incisions,” I said. “I was talking to the royal Feyn in my Butt.”

“Oh.” Pete hunched in on himself a bit more and began stapling the incisions closed. Now it was my turn to sigh.

*Sincerely,* Alynon continued, *your nature could benefit from a touch of bestiality. I am certain Dawn would enjoy it.*

Dawn stopped her strumming. “What'd Aly say?”

“Nothing worth repeating,” I replied.

*Liar,* Alynon said. *You know I am right. Bright, but that I still had control of your body. Pax laws or no, I'd tear me off a piece of that.*

Really?
I thought, focusing the thought on him so that he could hear it.
“Tear me off a piece of that”? What does that even mean? I think you wasted your time in our world if that's the kind of thing you filled your head with.

Dawn's eyes narrowed slightly as she leaned toward me, exposing her cleavage.

*Mayhap,* Alynon said. *But speaking of my head, I know where I'd like to—*

Seriously?!

Dawn leaned back. “I can tell you're still arguing with him about something.”

*Indeed, seriously!* Alynon responded. *I spent twenty-five years in this hormone factory you call a body, being bombarded with sexual images left and right,
and
I was forbidden by Pax Law to act on any—*

Wow, I really feel for you. That sounds so much worse than being without a real body and having your memories fed on by Fey.

*That's not my point. I am merely saying, it
may
have made me a little sex-obsessed.*

Gee, you think?

*What I
think
is you're crazy for not ripping her clothes off and—*

“There,” Dawn said. “Only Aly can make your eye twitch like that.”