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Eight

 

The Big Bad

 

The wolf stalked the underbrush, wary of larger predators while himself searching for prey. The scent of the forest was in his nostrils, snowy, clean, with a spicy-sweet fragrance of woodsmoke from a camp not as far from him as the people there might think.

His body slunk through the branches without breaking them; his feet trod the ground without marking the fallen leaves that still lay bare under the trees and brush though snow lay farther from the trunks.

Farley Mowat would have loved this wolf. He was actually only looking for rabbits, squirrels, quail, even a deer if he could bring one down. He truly had no conscious designs on human beings—gone were the days when he killed them and took their ears and other parts for bounty.

But when he spotted the flash of red on the trail below and, slithering down to investigate, spied the little figure scrambling furtively up the trail with many glances behind her, old impulses he had hoped were dead rushed up in him. She was alone and stinking of fear, not of him, but of something else. Well, he thought as he grinned his lupine grin to himself, she'd change her mind about that pretty quick.

Without a sound he worked his way ahead of her, and when she turned a bend in the path, he stepped out onto the trail in front of her.

"Hi, sweetheart, what brings you to this neck of the woods?" he asked, and closed in for the kill.

She didn't ask what he wanted or beg for mercy or plead innocence or go down on her knees or any of the things he expected. She sure could scream, though.

 

* * * 

 

Sno snapped, screaming at the top of her lungs, picking up handfuls of snow and throwing them in the face of the shaggy-looking man advancing on her with his hands extended and a hideous grin. He had long hair and a long beard and his teeth were yellow, exuding smoker's breath. They looked sharp, and he looked hungry. Wild thoughts of werewolves skimmed the surface of her mind, careening like crazy colors as she screamed over and over again, as much in rage as in fear.

And then he lunged—God, she was really having a bad day—and as his hands closed over her throat, he was lifted off.

"Trip-Wire! Hey, Trip-Wire, buddy, come on away from that little girl. She ain't no gook!" another man said.

Sno wiggled out from under the man and stood back, both hands gripping snowballs so tightly the snow was melting. "What is it with you men today? Full moon? Huh? First that geek on the bike tries to stab me, and now—and now—"

And now rage overtook her and she began to shake and howl a little herself. The shaggy man looked shamefaced and buried his head in the shoulder of the man who had grabbed him, while five other men half-slid, half-ran down the hill behind them.

Thoughts of gang rape and torture murder danced in Sno's head.

"Who the hell are you?" everybody said in unison.

Later, back at the camp, wearing one of Doc's sweaters and a pair of jeans borrowed from Drifty, who was the smallest of the group, and wrapped in a camouflage quilt, Sno finished telling them how she came to be there. She felt better now. Nobody had tried anything funny. They'd fed her fresh fish and pots of coffee and shot warning looks at each other and protective ones toward her. Trip-Wire, the guy who'd scared her, had apparently had some kinda flashback and thought he was back in the Vietnam War and she was an enemy or something.

He was really sorry, she could tell. Especially when she told them that she had just escaped the weirdo on the bike with the knife.

"So, who was this guy who was trying to kill you?" the tall bearded one, Doc, asked. God, these guys were old. Older than Raydir, even.

"Never saw him before in my life," Sno told him. "And he was wearing a helmet, so I couldn't see his face. But something he said—"

"What?" Dead-Eye, the crewcut with the eyepatch, asked. "What did the bastard say to you, honey?"

"He—he said I shouldn't go home again. He said he didn't want to kill me, but somebody with connections wanted me dead."

"You think you know who it is?"

She nodded. "Gerardine. Raydir's wife. She hates me, and I never did anything to her, I swear."

"Gerardine?" asked Maurice, the black guy the others called "Doper," when they forgot that he preferred his given name. "The model? She's your stepmom?"

"Yeah."

"Well, darlin', it's perfectly obvious to me why the woman wouldn't be able to stand you," Maurice said. "You're competition, love. Absolutely stunning, and she is, frankly, getting on a bit. The woman must be thirty-five if she's a day."

"Forty-three," Sno said.

"No! You don't say!"

Sno nodded. "I mean, you can hardly tell, because she's always got on all the makeup and stuff. And I'm no competition—I don't want all those guys bothering me. I'm just thirteen, and I want to go to college. I like boys and all that, but only when they're really nice, and a lot of the ones at Raydir's house aren't. They just grab."

"Anybody bring the signal flares?" Doc asked. "We better call in the troopers."

"No!" Sno said. "They'll take me home."

"Not if you tell them what happened."

"They won't believe me," Sno told him.

"Because they'll think you're the spoiled rich kid of famous parents?"

"No, 'cause I got busted a while back for doing drugs and I'm on probation now. God, I wish I had a joint."

"Me too," the seven vets said in unison.

"But we're done with that stuff now," Doc said. "And you should be too. None of that crap's good for you, and we ought to know. Anyway, we have to call the troopers. You can't stay here."

"Why not?"

"'Cause this is a men's retreat. We're living barracks style. There's no room for a girl."

"Huh!" she said. "One of those 'no girls allowed' clubs. That is so sexist and so unfair. Besides," she said, her voice dropping, "I've got noplace else to go. If you turn me over to the troopers, I'll be dead." Doc folded his arms and looked at the ground. The others avoided her eyes when she tried to plead with them. Her voice broke. "So, okay, what do I have to do to stay alive? Cook? Clean? Give you blow jobs? What?"

"Don't," said Doc, "tempt us. This is tough enough as it is."

"I can't go back there. I can't." The events of the day, the knife, the long bike ride, all closed in on her. "I thought I wanted to die when Mama was killed, but I don't. I don't. I don't."

Maurice stepped forward and enveloped her in a hug. "Oh, come on, fellows. I was getting tired of all of this singlemindedly hairy-chested stuff anyway. What's getting in touch with your warrior self good for if you can't protect a little girl in trouble? Can't she stay? She could sleep with me and, as you know, she'd be safe as with her own—well, safer than with her stepmom. She'd be the daughter, the little sister I never had."

"Oh, cut it out, Maurice, and let the kid go," Doc said. "We agreed that this was for us alone. We didn't even bring our own sons—we sure don't need a sweet young thing, even if she does have a mouth on her like a Marine. She'd get us all in deep shit.""So what?" said Trip-Wire, who hadn't said a word since they returned to camp. "It's not like we ain't been there before."

 

* * *

 

"So?" Rose asked, when she and Felicity were back on 99 headed toward downtown Seattle. She had ridden away from the stable as Felicity suggested, because although she had qualms about leaving Cindy to the mercies of the stepsisters, the empty-headed Carlson girl, and the possibly psychotic Felicity, she had needed to clear her head. When she returned from her trot around the park, she saw that the BMW was gone, the horses were groomed, and Cindy and Felicity were chatting happily while oiling and polishing tack.

Cindy polished with a rather determinedly grim set to her mouth, a tension that was the aftermath of her encounter with Perdita and Pammie. Felicity proposed that they all go to dinner, and they repaired to Jake's Place where the food was so good it was almost magical, Rose had to admit. The meal lightened Cindy's mood a bit. Good meals were not something she took for granted.

After dinner, Rose was so sleepy from the exercise, fresh air and good food that she sat in happy, dazed silence, as Felicity and Cindy continued to talk horses until the restaurant closed, and they dropped Cindy off at the tiny basement apartment she was house-sitting on Burke Avenue North in Wallingford.

"So what?"

"So did you wave your wand, say any magic words, make sure things would all turn out right for Cindy?"

"No, but I promised to speak to her employer if those little tarts made trouble."

"That's all?" Rose surprised herself by blurting out. To her chagrin, she found she was actually disappointed. Felicity was such good company, and so practical and ordinary about horses and that sort of thing, that she had stopped thinking of her as a harmless nut and more as a charming eccentric. Well, she was British and apparently well off. Didn't that qualify her to be eccentric? But somewhere along the line, while talking to the woman, Rose had begun to accept all the stuff about magic the same way she would a friend talking about an interest in shell collecting or bungee jumping, which was certainly crazier than anything Felicity had brought up so far. And now she was unhappy because the woman had, naturally enough, not produced. So which of them had failed to keep both oars in the water, hmmm? Nevertheless . . .

"Yes, that, and I plan to bring her employer's establishment a great deal of business," Felicity continued in a quite sane way.

"I thought you were going to prove your magic powers to me," Rose challenged. Maybe it was wrong to try to get somebody to leap back into the chasm between them and reality again, but she was beginning to feel as if she had imagined their original conversation, and she wanted to keep all of this clear. Really, she ought to be glad Felicity hadn't driven her to a bluff somewhere and driven off, expecting the car to turn into a dragon or something.

"Just my powers. Remember, I told you that we only use the least possible magical force to do a job."

Rose just stopped herself from crying, "Aha!"

Felicity continued, "Your friend Cindy seems to me to be managing admirably on her own, despite the formidable opposition, and isn't that what you modern girls expect of yourselves?"

Rose felt defensive now on Cindy's behalf as well as her own. "You've got no idea of the hell she's been through, of what she's up against," she said.

"She told me. But she's persevering."

"Well, that's nice." Drop it, Rosie. Drop it, she told herself, but she found she had developed a morbid fascination with the subject, with confronting Felicity with the difference between what she believed she was and could do and what she was actually doing. "But weren't you going to prove to me that you were the fairy godmother by making everything like a fairy tale and providing happy endings?"

"I don't have to make everything like a fairy tale. It already is, if only you knew," Felicity said with a strange, grim set to her mouth. "As for my role, I'm here to help you and those who can benefit from my assistance. Even if I had unlimited powers, I couldn't do anything for some of your clients. Those who are more than a little mad, those who find their magic in chemicals of one sort or another, are not clear enough to receive or use the assistance I can offer. Neither can I undo the effects of AIDS or other terminal illnesses. I cannot replace limbs or restore life to the dead. But there are a great many good things remaining, including one thing that seems to be very much missing these days . . ."

"Yes?"

Felicity sighed and tossed her silvery hair, and took her eyes from the highway for a moment to fix them on Rose with a penetrating stare. "Romance."

"Romance? When what we need is soup kitchens and housing and medicine and treatment programs and shelters and education?"

Felicity shrugged. "I didn't say you don't need those things too, but nonetheless, just as much, romance."

That did it! Felicity was definitely out of touch with reality after all. In her most therapeutic voice, with a touch of the humor Felicity seemed well able to tolerate, Rose gently explained, "It is true, Felicity, that nowadays, in this country at least, we don't wait for princes to come to the rescue much anymore. They're in short supply these days, and it's a long wait and 'happily ever after,' frankly, is a literary device."

"How very sophisticated of you," Felicity said stiffly. "But honestly, Rose, what would you know about it?"

"Romance? I've had my . . ."

"No, the way relationships work in fairy tales. I suggest you do some research before you continue with the world-weary remarks as if you invented disappointment. It isn't becoming, it isn't therapeutic and it isn't useful."

"Well, excu-use me," Rose said, stung more than she would have imagined.

"Now, then, if you don't mind, I have quite a lot to do if I'm to be of help. Here's the ferry terminal. I think you'll find the 11:15 was late in docking and will be waiting for you if you hurry."

"Gee, promise me if we don't reach Bremerton by midnight you won't turn the ferry into a pumpkin. That's a long, cold swim."

"Very funny."

 

* * *

 

The wind was rising and the night sky spitting freezing rain by the time Rose drove up to her half-renovated house.

She'd stopped by the mailbox on the way, but there was nothing but a new Spiegel's sale catalog, three bills, and a postcard. There was, however, a plastic bag with the rectangular outline of a package poking its way through the bottom hanging from her doorknob. A furry face peered anxiously through the glass door and her senior cat, Oprah, a sleek brown Siamese mix, nearly tripped her as she stepped inside.

Dumping everything on the kitchen table, she scurried to turn up the furnace and use the bathroom, to which she was followed by Oprah and the other two cats, Sally Jessy and Phil, rubbing, purring, mewing at her not to forget her most important responsibilities. This in spite of the fact that they had dishes full of dry cat food and water at all times.

Since she didn't have to get up the next day and had slept in a bit that morning, she put the kettle on for diet hot chocolate and lit a fire in her fireplace. Her house had been a real find—a stone farmhouse, two stories, all wood interior with this terrific stone fireplace. She'd started a little remodeling with money she'd inherited when her mother died. Downstairs, the kitchen was roomy and convenient, the living room cozy with the fireplace as its centerpiece, a patio, a glassed-in porch, and a former bedroom she used as a library, plus a bathroom that was much more adequate since the remodeling. Upstairs were her room, a guest room, and an extra room in which she kept her vintage clothing and jewelry, plus a fourth former bedroom now made into a decadent master bath complete with double sinks, shower and Jacuzzi tub. She, of all people, did not need a personal fairy godmother, she thought with some satisfaction.

When the chocolate was made and the fire was laid, she turned her attention to the mail and to the parcel on the doorknob. Opening the plastic sack and peeking inside, she saw a package wrapped like a birthday present in shiny paper and iridescent ribbon. Opening it, she found a large secondhand volume of Grimm's Fairy Tales.

"Now how did she . . .?" Rose muttered to herself as she flung the paper aside. There was no card and no inscription. Of course, the book could have come from Linden, with whom she'd had the first conversation about fairy godmothers, but Linden would have sent a card as well and sent it UPS. She always used UPS. But if it hadn't come from Linden, there could only be one other person, and that seemed close to impossible. She smiled. It was a nice book and a good joke anyway.

Settling down by the fire with cup in hand and cats fighting over her lap, she began to read.

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