Into the Woods: Tales from the Hollows and Beyond(111)
Author: Kim Harrison

"Unless you’re talking about that nasty-looking whale-watching boat," Jenks said, his expression pinched as he bobbed on the water and looked into the distance.

Trent’s head slipped under as shock stilled his slowly moving legs. "That’s the pickup boat!" he sputtered, kicking violently and steadying Lucy.

"That rat trap?" Jenks blinked, his wings turning an embarrassed red. "Oh man, I’m sorry," he said, rising up and looking to the north. "Damn, I’m sorry, Trent. I though you had some sort of fancy-ass speedboat arranged to pick us up. I’ll go get them. They can’t see you from here. Hang on. I didn’t think you’d rely on something as chancy as a whale-watching tour boat!"

"Neither would the Withons," Trent said, his exasperation turning into a weary elation, but Jenks had already zipped off. He should have told Jenks what to look for. Why did he keep treating him like an accessory? The man was more efficient than Quen at thinking on his feet and had more endurance than one of his racehorses.

From inside the tiny boat, Lucy began to cry, scared upon waking up in a rocking, shifting world of color and sound after her bland sterile room at the Withons’. Treading water, Trent looked in the direction that Jenks had gone, hearing a boat but not seeing it. He carefully pulled back the protective cover, using his weight to lean it enough that he could see in.

"Hi," he whispered, and her eyes fastened on him, her momentary confusion at finding him with his hair plastered to his head passing at the sound of his voice. "We’re going to be okay, Lucy," he said, and she kicked at him as if disagreeing. "You watch, Jenks is going to get them, and we’ll be okay."

A marine horn tooted, and he looked up, waving at the row of people standing at the railing of the two-story whale-watching boat, binoculars all aimed at him. His heart pounded, and he felt a wash of protectiveness pass through him. Lucy’s eyes drifted, finding Jenks as the pixy spiraled down, dusting heavily. "I told them you were waterskiing and the boat crashed," he said, darting off his first landing place that was within Lucy’s reach.

"Excuse me?" Trent pushed the damp hair from his face.

"Seriously, I told them you misjudged the tides, and your boat drifted off while you were out walkies with your kid," he added, kicking at the air-filled cradle. "You’re going to have to explain it from there. I don’t know what you’re going to tell them about her ears."

Trent frowned, thinking it was a bad story to begin with, but the chugging of the boat’s engine was growing loud, and Jenks darted off as helping hands reached over the side of the boat. Some were brown from the sun, others white with age, but he smiled as he accepted them, feeling reborn as they took first Lucy, then himself, dripping from the water.

It was a confused babble of excitement as tourists cooed over Lucy, making her cry until he took her back. The men surrounded Trent, talking of tides and past fishing excursions, and he sniffed, saying as little as he could, accepting the blanket that someone offered him, and then the diaper and cleaning cloths from someone else, cheerfully given from a worn diaper bag. No one remarked upon Lucy’s ears, no one asked what they were doing in the water. For the first time, he felt accepted as a person, and the new emotion soaked into him. The difference had to be Lucy.

Finally all the questions were answered, all the women pacified, all the men in a corner still talking of the dangers of being on the water, all the kids distracted by Jenks on the far side of the boat. The sun was warm, and he held his daughter in his arms, both of them in borrowed clothes, both swaddled in blankets against the stiff wind.

Finding no eyes on them, Trent slipped to the lee side of the wind next to the boathouse, settling into the patch of sun with a tired sigh. The soft thrum of the engine worked its way up into him, as he sat with his back to the wall, his feet propped up most ungentlemanly on the seat so he could hold Lucy more securely.

Smiling, he looked down at her sleeping, her soft frown easing as he touched her tiny hand with a single finger, watching the way the wind shifted her fair hair about her pointy ears. "I think we’re going to be okay, Lucy," he whispered, and he leaned his head back, eyes shutting against the bright sun, listening to the wind and water, peace and exhaustion working together to ease him into the first good sleep in days.

They would be okay. He believed it to the bottom of his soul. Rescuing Lucy was the easy part. Surviving the next twenty years was going to be a little more chancy. After today, he thought he could do it with help, and now he thought he had the courage to ask for it.

Lucy would give him strength.

BEYOND THE HOLLOWS

Pet Shop Boys

I originally wrote "Pet Shop Boys" as one of two possibilities for an anthology. I don’t submit to many anthologies, but this group came to me through my agent, impressed with my Dawn Cook titles, and asked me to try my hand at writing about vampires. This was before the dual nature of Kim and Dawn had been revealed, and I was so tickled they asked that my automatic no turned into a yes. I worked up two shorts, trying to get as far away from the Hollows vampire mythology as I could. Under the advice of my agent that "Pet Shop Boys" had the potential to become a series, I retained it to sit in my cabinet until now.

I’ve long loved the idea of the fey living in a world twin to ours, passing through to snare the unwary when the veil was the thinnest. Bringing vampires into the mix was the icing on the cake.

ONE

Good luck with the puppy," Cooper called as the boy leaned back against the glass door, the bells ringing as he tried to push it open. It wasn’t until the boy’s dad lent a hand that the night air slipped in with a dusting of snow and they got outside, their new bundle of yaps and wet spots on the carpet wiggling in the boy’s arms.

"And have a merry Christmas," he muttered as the door jingled closed behind them. He didn’t like selling dogs and cats when there were strays that needed homes, but the owner, Kay, insisted on always having dogs, and sometimes cats. The Lab pup was the last of the litter, and the shop now felt empty without the soft snuffing and hush of paws on newspaper.

Tired, Cooper rubbed the back of his neck, head bowed as he came around the counter to hang up the six collars the father and boy had been deciding between. Snatching a fold of newspapers, he knelt by the open-topped mesh corral to wad up the used paper and lay new for the next litter. The bubbling of the fish tanks and twittering of finches slowly returned the pet shop into the peaceful haven that had convinced him to work here at minimum wage instead of taking the professor’s assistant job he’d turned down three years ago.