Wildcat Fireflies (10 page)

“And your mom was there too?” Tens didn’t talk about
his family. I never knew if it was because it hurt too much or because he didn’t want me to know. More likely he didn’t think any of it was applicable to today and tomorrow. To us.

He shifted against me. “Yeah, watching with me. She held my hand. I’d forgotten what her hands felt like. So fragile I felt each bone. But strong. So completely capable. And she smelled like jasmine in the late afternoon.”

I warmed with the love in his voice. I nodded, hoping he’d continue.

“Then Grandfather arrived at the diner and the whole scene changed. He limped into the building with his walking stick and everything grew dark. The spoon clattered to the table, the ice cream melted instantly. The couple stilled, frightened, and Mom’s hand tightened in mine. Grandfather didn’t say a word, simply grabbed the girl, and then Perimo was there and the Nocti swarmed in.”

He rushed his words together, with pain and anguish. I gripped his waist for support, leaning more fully against him. “But no one else noticed the Nocti tearing down the building. Someone grabbed Mom and pulled her hand from my grasp. I couldn’t hold on.” He thrust me away to stand. His breathing grew ragged and hurried. Again. Sweat plastered his hair to his head in odd angles.

“Just a dream. It was just a dream.” Tens let go of me completely and staggered over to the kitchen sink, gulping down water from the running tap. He drank like a man who needed more than water.

I shivered. Bad dream or not, the mention of Perimo’s
name made my stomach twist into knots. The Nocti, short for Aternocti, were the balance to the Fenestra. While we helped souls achieve peace and find an afterlife of joy, they caused chaos and destruction to suck souls to the lightless place.
Hell
, to use a popular term, but it was more than a Heaven-versus-Hell thing, more than just Light versus Dark, or Good versus Evil.

I glanced at the clock and saw that dawn was not far away.

Tens came back to bed and brushed my hair from my face. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

“I’m okay. Are you?” I didn’t mind the role reversal, I just wished I knew what to say or do to make him feel better.

He tugged on ragged running shoes from his army surplus duffel bag. No socks. “Go back to sleep. I’m going to go for a run, get rid of this adrenaline.” He kissed me, preoccupied as he tugged a clean shirt over his head, then a sweatshirt. “It was only a dream.”

I lay back and stared at the ceiling. I hoped he was right, but what if my seeing Auntie and him seeing his mom and grandfather were connected?
What if we need to find out more about his past before we have a future? What if these aren’t dreams, but visions?

I threw on dry clothes, turned on the laptop, and started Googling local churches, looking for any Father Anthonys in the state of Indiana.

Hours later, when I stepped out onto the path heading toward Helios’s kitchen door, Tens was clearing ivy
from the trees and the stepping stones. He’d come back from the run, showered, and headed out to work on the grounds without speaking. He waved to me, frowning absently. I’d learned not to take his frowns personally.
Not always
. He shuttered his face, and his emotions, like he was forever prepared to ride out level-five emotional hurricanes alone. He let me behind his walls chink by chink. It wasn’t that I had to earn his love or his protection—those were given—but we were still working on friendship and communication. He wanted me to be vulnerable and open to him, but didn’t understand I needed the same thing in return.

The scent of ginger and lemon billowed off fluffy scones cooling on the counter. “Good morning. Are you hungry?” Joi turned from the oven with a smile and friendly eyes.

In the not-so-big-but-notable-changes column, I’d been eating breakfast and enjoying it for several weeks.
Surprise, surprise
. “No, the coffee cake was wonderful. Thank you for—”

She cut me off. “McClamroch family recipe. Best there is with a cup of strong black tea. Are you ready to work, or do you need another day to get your bearings?”

I fairly buzzed with pent-up energy. “I’m ready.”
Ready to do something, anything to keep my hands busy while my mind wanders through the maze that is my life
.

“Good, that’s what I like to hear. We do a lot of the baking now, but I’ve got that covered. The servers arrive at ten-thirty to help prep the dining room. I know it’s not
glamorous, but I need you to dust all the shelves—that means moving the inventory off them and putting it back exactly so. And clean the mirrors, the glass cases. Can you do all that?”

I nodded. “Seems like a good way to get familiar with the products too, right?”

She beamed like I’d passed a crucial test. “Exactly. That way you’ll be able to help customers find things. The upstairs rooms need it the worst—they’re where we store the out-of-season holiday merchandise. Right now they’re more storage than anything else, but customers insist on going up there even if it’s a mess. We’ll need to bring down all the Valentine’s Day goodies and display those later today, plus add the inventory arriving this week. Start with the dusting. When we begin serving, I’ll need you in the kitchen trying to stay on top of the dishes. But best to start—”

“With the dusting?” I said. Clearly, she was blessed with a battery that never lost juice. I envied her multitasking. The entire time she instructed and trained me, she flew around the kitchen, both hands blurring in busyness.

“And if you see anything you’d like, we’ll run a tab and take it off your paycheck later.” She smiled.

I headed up the stairs armed with feather dusters, paper towels, and Windex. The rote work gave me time to consider our next steps. Father Anthony, Custos, a girl and a cat. My suspicion that Custos was more than a wolf was worth exploring.
Is she Divine? Part of the Creators’ help Mom wrote about?

Seeing the chaos, I huffed out a breath and surveyed the disaster around me. Strewn together in piles like they’d been brought up and deposited hurriedly were stockings jumbled among gift wrap, stuffed bears wearing quintessential holiday sweaters, and artificial trees full of sparkling ornaments crammed under the eaves. The rest was stacked on shelves and rocking chairs and piled into decorative baskets of red and green. Overwhelmed for a second, I found the irony in getting exactly what I wished for.
Busy hands. Busy mind
.

I cleared off a tiny section of the floor and began the cleaning in small increments. I couldn’t imagine shoppers pawing through for long. I turned inside myself, toward the big questions that weighed so heavily on my heart.
Why did Auntie have the woman with her each time I saw her? Could Father Anthony tell us who she was or where to find the girl? Why couldn’t Auntie be like OnStar and give us step-by-step directions to the goal? Why all the subterfuge?

Joi called me down to meet the servers when they arrived, showed me the reservation book, and taught me how to answer the phone. Once the sign was turned to Open, the door had barely banged shut after the first customer before other regulars glided through. Friends and families came to browse, to eat, to catch up.

“Joi, can I organize the scrapbook section, too?” I pointed up at the ceiling.

“It needs it, doesn’t it?” She sighed.

I nodded, not wanting to overstep.

“Of course—make pages too if you’d like. It’s addictive!”

“Thanks.” I got back to work, careful to clean first, arrange second.

As I put the scrapbooking room in order, I found myself picking out stickers and doodads, brads and paper cutouts. I arranged them on a page of parchment, paying no attention, until I heard footsteps on the stairs. Then I folded the paper and stuffed it into my waistband for later. Customers browsed, chattering like finches as they shuffled around my newly arranged area. I got out of their way as quickly as I could. With the dining room full, the kitchen needed me more than the dust bunnies did.

When Tens bustled into the kitchen to eat lunch, I showed him the page I’d made. “I think maybe I’ve found my thing.” I knew the excitement in my voice might be difficult for him to understand, but these feelings were hard to articulate.

“Y
our thing? Could you be more specific?” He glanced down at the page, back at me, then turned to concentrate on his Irish stew in a dismissal that stung.

“My quilting
thing
,” I snapped.
So it isn’t rocket science, but still
.

He put his spoon down and raised his eyebrows. “I thought you didn’t like to quilt.”

I sat, shaking my head. “I like to quilt, but I’m more a pincushion than a fabric maestro. Bloody cotton isn’t warm and cozy to me.” Nor were the holes upon holes I put into
my fingers trying to sew by hand. Machines scared me. I’d be the first self-amputee, of my whole hand, if I tried that.

“Okay, so?” He didn’t get it. He stuffed a cheddar biscuit in his mouth.

“Scrapbooking.” I tapped the page.

He swallowed, then spoke around the remaining crumbs. “Scrapbooking?”

“Look.” I pushed my page closer to him, as if proximity would bring understanding.

“Um, wow?” His tone said he knew he wasn’t giving me what I wanted, but that didn’t mean he could. He picked the page up, then set it down again.

I smacked him lightly with it.

“Ow!” He pretended I’d really hurt him.

“Paper cut?” I sneered playfully, teasing him while tracing the Eiffel Tower’s black shadow with my finger.

He peered at me, then the paper. “What is it? Paris?”

I sighed. “That guy from the other night—this was his window scene.”

“The ambulance?” He stretched, his legs bumping mine.

“Yes, that one.”

Comprehension filled his eyes. “So, now you’re going to scrapbook your window scenes? Or the souls’ memories?”

I shrugged it off. “Maybe. I don’t know. I just went with it.” But suddenly it didn’t feel like quite the right fit. I’d give another couple of souls their own pages before I searched for another thing. I sighed. Until I started to tell
him about it, I really thought this might be it. Now doubt crept in and camped.

“No, I get it.”

“Reading the journal, it’s clear Fenestras each have a way to remember and let go at the same time. A way to … I don’t know … to—”

“To cope with the souls?”

“Yeah, with all the pieces we see and feel and hold on to even after the soul has made it through. I’m searching for my own. Did Auntie talk about it with you? Her quilting? Should I be doing that even if it doesn’t feel right?” A sliver of jealousy wiggled in my heart. Tens knew more and had spent more time with Auntie than I had the chance to, and that felt odd.

“About her quilts and whatever your coping type might be?”

I nodded.

“Not really. I know she worried, hoped maybe you’d have the knack for the quilts too. It seems like it’s something you have to find on your own, in your own way. I don’t think she obsessed about it. Not that part.” The implication was he had much bigger things to worry about when it came to me.
Thanks
.

He finished eating in silence and I played with my serving of stew. Then he went back out to the yard without a kiss or a bye.
Clingy much?
I berated myself; it felt like weakness to need him. I had times where I needed almost constant reassurance from him. I hated being that girl. Would that get better the longer we were together?

When the lunch crowd descended on the tearoom, I made my way to the sink and tried to keep up with the porcelain, crystal, and china. Then at my ebb another tide of late-afternoon tea ladies brought dainty teacups, fragile saucers, and tiny plates to the counters around me. I broke only three.

I stared out the window as Tens manically cleaned the gardens of winter debris, then tackled the curls of kudzu and ivy creeping up the trunks of leafless maple and tulip trees. He scrubbed stone statuary and peeled moss from the outdoor furniture. While I watched, my hands pruned up, reddened, and chapped in the dishwater.

Hours flew by as the ache in my feet crawled up my legs and into my back, sending piercing arrows through my hips. I wasn’t used to working this hard. I needed more stamina.

“All done.” Joi breezed through the kitchen. “Last check. We may have a few shoppers for the final hour, but probably no more dishes.”

I almost cheered, but I was too tired.

“How many did you break?”

I flinched and said apologetically, “Three? I will totally pay for them.”

“Nah, that’s not bad for a beginner. Are you okay? You don’t look well.” Joi crowded me against the sink and felt my forehead like a television mom might. My own would have kept her distance.

“I’m okay.” I tried to reassure her, but fell short of convincing.

“Are you sure you should be working? Aren’t you recovering from something? Suffering?” She wouldn’t drop it and her sincerity felt genuine.

It didn’t feel right to lie, so I evaded. “I was ill last fall; I’m just getting back on my feet. It’s nothing. I’ll be fine. I don’t have a lot of stamina. Not yet.”

“Hmm.” She accepted my half answer without continued pressure, but clearly she would have appreciated, maybe even enjoyed, more details. “Well, Tens has done the work of
ten
men today. So you both take tomorrow off. If you need a place to stay without working, let me know and we’ll talk it out, okay? I like having someone I trust in the cottage to keep an eye on the business at night.”

“I don’t need tomorrow off,” I protested halfheartedly.

“I say you do. And I’m always right.” She smiled at me. “Wrap up the leftovers and take them with you, then get out of here. And tell Tens to lazy up a bit—he gets paid by the hour.” She smiled and petted my hair, much like Sammy used to.