Fiction River: Unnatural Worlds (13 page)

“What is it with feelings? I’m feeling…! I’m
feeling… I’m feeling great, actually,” she said, as she considered
her furry paws and felt her tail starting its slow swing back and
forth. “Maw Maw, what the hell is going on?”

“The Raconteur has indeed returned.”

***

For generations in Recontere, Louisiana, the
Raconteur had not so much told stories as created the people to
live them. Some became Roux-Ga-Roux, werewolf shape-shifters.
Others became nearly translucent, their glowing skin becoming “The
Dancing Lights,” or
Feu Follets
. These “myths” of the swamp
and more were The Storied of Nexus, living a life unlike any other.
Truly,
Joie De Vivre
in its purest form.

And then it stopped. The latest Raconteur,
George Robichaud, had disappeared in the early 1970s. With him went
the stories and the characters his family had always created to
live them. The last generation, that of George’s father, were the
last Storied. Years passed, generations grew older, and soon tales
were created to explain why women like Maw Maw were so different
than their children and grandchildren. Burdened with a secret they
could share only amongst themselves, they grew quieter every year
as their grandchildren moved away and their generation died—and
Recontere died with them.

Children like Ashley grew up knowing the
words
Joie De Vivre
, but never really living them—until this
morning, when Maw Maw explained it all.

Now, there was one thing Ashley wanted to
do.

***

Running around the track before cheerleading
practice—Niki said her costume looked like she’d slept in it—Ashley
walked to the end of the cheerleading line when she was done, just
as she had dozens of times before.

“Fur bag!” Niki bellowed. “Go get my dog some
water!”

Happy to oblige, Ashley took the leash of the
suddenly quivering and back-pedaling dog. Straining on her leash,
it seemed Princess had decided that strangling herself was
preferable to being anywhere close to the terrifying scent coming
from Ashley.

“What the hell is wrong with you, dog?” Niki
asked without an ounce of compassion, as the dog began to whine
even louder. “And what do you want, fuzz-wuz?” Niki sneered,
clearly impressed at her ability to call Ashley a different name
every time.

“I was wondering if you could tell me after
practice what the rules are for officially challenging for your
job?”

“Sure: lose about 40 pounds,” Niki said,
laughing for a few moments before stopping. “Wait, you’re serious,
aren’t you? You realize for every minute of mine you waste after
practice I’m going to make you run a lap?”

“OK,” Ashley said. “That sounds fair.”

“Sounds ridiculous,” Niki said. “Go run a lap
now for wasting my minute. And another 12 after that for wasting a
minute of every girl on this team.”

Willingly beginning her run, Ashley was on
her third lap before she heard Niki starting to yell: “Hey! Where’s
my dog? I paid good money for that thing!”

“Maybe it’s with someone else…?” Portia
said.

“Someone else? Who else has my good taste?
They wouldn’t even sell you a dog on the internet…”

Smiling, and then outright laughing, Ashley
continued her run, joyful that Niki’s disappointments were only
beginning. The soon-to-be former captain was right about one thing,
however, Ashley thought as she picked a jingle bell out of her
teeth: The dog really did have good taste.

Introduction to “Here, Kitty
Kitty”

Annie Reed is an award-winning mystery
writer, but her most popular stories are about Diz and Dee, who run
a detective agency in a Seattle-like place filled with magic. Last
year, Annie went to an anime convention with her daughter.

“
The cosplayers at the convention blew me
away with the creativity and variety of their costumes,” Annie
writes. “When I got the invitation for
Unnatural Worlds
, I
thought it would be the perfect opportunity to introduce Diz &
Dee to anime and cosplay. My daughter, of course, takes total
credit for providing me with the inspiration for ‘Here, Kitty
Kitty.’ She’s not too far off.”

Here, Kitty Kitty

Annie Reed

I dove behind my desk as my miniature Zen
garden went whizzing past me. The garden’s stone base slammed into
the wall right about where my head had been a split second ago,
sand rained down into my hair, and I wondered what else I’d left
lying around the front office that the little fairy might decide to
throw at me.

My name’s Dee, and I’m a private
investigator. Clients usually don’t show up at my office and launch
deadly weapons at me. Along with my partner, Diz, I run D & D
Investigations. People—and by that I’m loosely referring to elves,
leprechauns, Greek gods, and my family—hire us to find loved ones
who’ve gone missing. We rent office space in a shabby building on
the inland side of Moretown Bay. The neighborhood’s seen better
times, but I like it. A masseuse with a unique flair for marketing
and questionable taste in aromatics has a shop across the street,
and there’s an Asian store next to the office run by a very nice
lady who two days ago introduced me to the little fairy currently
hovering over my desk and yelling at me in Japanese.

I don’t speak Japanese. I think my dog might
since his usual Golden Retriever grin was dialed up to a near
giggle.

“Want to let me in on the joke?” I asked him
as I crouched behind my desk clutching my battered executive chair
like it was a shield.

Dog didn’t say anything. He only speaks to me
in my visions. And yes, that’s his name until he tells me
otherwise.

We’d been having a nice afternoon at the
office, Dog and I, up until the fairy barged through the door. Diz
was off doing whatever tall, grumpy, gorgeous elves do—by
themselves—after they crack a case with their partner. Dog had been
curled up asleep in a small patch of actual sunshine coming through
the front windows. I didn’t blame him. Clouds, rain, and mist are
the norm in Moretown Bay. Rare slices of sunshine should always be
celebrated with a good nap. My cat was probably doing the same
thing in my upstairs apartment unless she was still pouting. She
hasn’t quite forgiven me for allowing a dog to invade her life.

Faced with an office full of sleeping animals
and no cases to work on, I’d been trying to distract myself from
obsessing over my terminally single state, this time with Zen
meditation. Diz told me recently that I should learn to live in the
moment and enjoy the process instead of focusing so hard on the
results. He thinks that might help me control my visions. I’m not
an elf or a fairy or any other brand of magical folk. Vanilla
human, that’s me, only with a seriously unreliable touch of
precognition. Since I suck at living in the moment, I thought
learning Zen meditation might help; hence the little desk-top sand
garden I’d purchased at the Asian market two days ago.

I’d been sitting at my desk raking lines in
that stupid little plot of sand for what seemed like hours, trying
to stop thinking about my partner’s pointy ears and the one time
I’d witnessed the tantalizing curve of his towel-covered derriere
and just be in the moment, when our latest supposedly happy client
flew in the door, picked up the Zen garden, and threw it at my
head. I ducked just in time. She’s got quite an arm for someone
only ten inches tall.

“Okay, okay!” I said from behind the safety
of my desk. Which, let’s face it, isn’t all that safe when the
fairy hurling weapons at your head can fly just about anywhere she
wants to. “I get that you’re angry. Want to let me in on why?”

After all, Diz and I found the ceramic
figurine the fairy had hired us to find. We don’t normally track
down missing objects, but Mrs. Takahashi, the nice lady who owns
the Asian store, had asked...well, nicely. Two days after we were
hired, we delivered the four-inch tall, white ceramic figurine of a
cat to Mrs. Takahashi, who thanked us profusely and assured us she
would give it to the fairy right away.

That had been two hours ago. It was pretty
safe to say something had gone wrong, I just had no idea what.

The office door flew open again. I risked
taking a peek around the corner of my desk to see what new trouble
had descended on my quiet afternoon.

Mrs. Takahashi stood in the same spot of
sunshine Dog had been sleeping in before he decided, like me, that
hiding behind my desk was a pretty good idea.

Short and slender and about sixty years old,
Mrs. Takahashi was the most well-liked person I knew. Even my cat
liked her. I didn’t know if there was a Mr. Takahashi. I don’t
think anyone did. From what everyone told me, Mrs. Takahashi and
her store had been part of the neighborhood long before Diz and I
opened our business. She was kind and patient and pretty much kept
to herself. I’d never even heard her raise her voice.

Until now.

At least she wasn’t yelling at me. The little
fairy who’d tried to bean me with my desktop garden had turned her
tirade on Mrs. Takahashi, who sounded like she was holding her own
in the argument. I couldn’t tell for sure since Mrs. Takahashi
wasn’t speaking English either.

“Think we should make a run for it?” I asked
Dog.

He sneezed and shook his head.

Yeah, probably not a good idea. It’s not wise
to annoy fairies. It’s even worse to run from them.

I raised my hand, wishing I had a white flag
I could wave. “Truce?” I asked.

The rapid-fire argument ceased.

When I poked my head up from behind my desk,
both the fairy and Mrs. Takahashi were staring at me. The fairy had
her hands on her tiny hips. She was dressed in a white leather
skirt and matching lace-up vest that bared her belly and managed to
leave her wings unencumbered. Black hair frizzed around her head
like dandelion fluff dipped in India ink. She wore white chunk-heel
boots, and she was hovering about six inches away from Mrs.
Takahashi’s face, the beat of her wings making Mrs. Takahashi’s
grey hair flutter in the breeze.

The fairy was beautiful—most fairies are—but
her outfit made her look like one of the ball-joint dolls Mrs.
Takahashi kept in a locked case behind the checkout counter in her
store. The dolls looked like a cross between someone’s Asian
schoolgirl fantasy, with their pleated skirts and white blouses and
knee-high socks, and the delicate-faced characters I’d seen on the
covers of the manga books Mrs. Takahashi sold. I’d asked her once
why she kept the dolls locked away since they were the only things
she kept under lock and key. She said they were very expensive, and
then she quoted me a price for the smallest doll that was more than
a month’s rent for my office and apartment combined. I don’t think
she’s ever sold a single doll. I can’t say that I’m surprised.

Since the little fairy didn’t look like she
was about to throw anything else at me—at least for the moment—I
quit using my chair as a shield and sat down in it instead. “So,” I
said. “Someone want to tell me what’s going on? In English?”

Mrs. Takahashi inclined her head at me. “So
sorry. It appears you and your partner were duped.”

Duped?

She gave a quick sideways glance at the angry
fairy. “The little statue you found was not the right one. She says
you have tricked her. She is very angry.”

“I got that part.”

My scalp was starting to itch. I rubbed at
it, and sand sifted down on top of my desk. It wasn’t bad enough my
hair frizzed when it was damp, which was pretty much all the time,
now I had a headful of sandy dandruff. Too bad that wasn’t the sum
total of my problems.

Fairies are difficult beings to do business
with. “Doing business” is perilously close to bargaining, and fairy
bargains rarely turn out well for the non-fey involved. The only
reason I’d agreed to find the little ceramic figurine for this
particular fairy was because Mrs. Takahashi had asked. Nicely.

“Please tell her I’m very sorry for the mix
up,” I said to Mrs. Takahashi. “My partner and I, we weren’t aware
there would be more than one figurine that fit the description she
gave us. We’ll be happy to keep looking for the right one.”

I waited while Mrs. Takahashi translated.
When she finished, the little fairy still looked angry, but at
least she no longer looked lethal.

“I do have one question,” I said. “If there’s
more than one white ceramic cat figurine like that one out there,
how can we tell when we’ve got the right one?”

While I waited for the translation, Dog came
over and rested his head on my leg. I petted him and he wagged his
tail. Sometimes I almost think he’s just a dog.

The little fairy’s response was short. Mrs.
Takahashi kept looking at her like she expected the fairy to say
something else, but the fairy just gestured in my direction.

Mrs. Takahashi shrugged. “She says you’ll
know.”

“We’ll know?”

“Yes. That is all she’ll say.”

We’ll know.

Oh, great.

Diz was just going to love this.

***

“We’ll know?”

Diz did not love this if his pacing back and
forth in our front office was any indication. Well, that and the
glower.

My partner’s not the most Zen elf in
existence, which, when I thought about it, made his advice to me to
enjoy the process definitely a pot say hello to kettle kind of
thing. Back when Diz and I were both detectives with the Moretown
Bay Police Department, he was bad cop to my sympathetic cop. Since
he’s built like The Rock before The Rock became a movie star and
has the intense stare to go with the muscles, Diz was a natural at
bad cop.

I got stuck with Diz because no one else in
the department could put up with his bad disposition. Although to
be fair, he got the short end of that deal. No one wanted to
partner with me either since my only qualification for the magical
side of police work was a smidgen of precognition that kicked in
whenever it felt like it. All this “be in the moment” stuff was
supposed to help me control my precog visions. So far it had worked
once, which was the vision where I met Dog. I’d thought he was just
part of the vision—a part that talked back to me, no less—then Dog
had shown up at my door and made himself at home.