I broke off abruptly. For the second time that night, I saw something that had me questioning my sanity. More than usual, I mean.
The trees on the lot are mostly original, and the granddaddy of them all grew outside that window: a massive, old cottonwood that had to have been more than a sapling when the house was built. Its tear-shaped leaves were dancing as the wind swept along the side of the house, causing a rustling, shifting kaleidoscope of dark green, silver and deep black. And for a moment, in the contrast of light and shadow, I thought I saw . . .
“Dory—” Claire touched my shoulder and I flinched. She frowned. “What is it?”
“Do you see . . . anything . . . in the tree?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light.
She peered around. “What? You mean the squirrel’s nest?”
I swallowed. “I think I need a drink.”
“Well, that’s what I’ve been saying.” She sighed. “Is there no alcohol in this house?”
“I may be able to come up with something.”
“Wonderful. Let’s sit on the porch, though. I could use some air.”
Claire went to her old room to find some clothes, and I went to the kitchen for a couple of glasses from the drying rack. I was just pulling up the trapdoor in the hall, where I keep the good stuff, when she clattered downstairs. She was wearing a green wraparound shirt that matched her eyes and old jeans, and she had a well-behaved baby on each hip.
“I don’t know how long we’ll be able to stay outside. It looks like a storm’s blowing up,” she told me, before catching my expression. “What?”
“You managed to get Stinky into clothes?” The fuzzy armful on her left hip was wearing a pair of bright blue running shorts, like it was no big deal. The last time I’d gotten him dressed, I’d practically had to have Olga sit on him.
“He did it himself.”
I shot him the evil eye. Okay, now I knew he was trying to make me look bad.
I grabbed a couple of bottles from the small space, shut the door and carefully replaced the carpet runner. “I didn’t know we had a smugglers’ hole,” Claire said, following me down the hall.
“There are hidden compartments all over the place. I think your uncle used them for storage.”
Claire’s late uncle Pip had been a bootlegger, and a highly successful one, at that. He’d purchased the place when the captain died and quickly realized he’d hit the jackpot. Two ley lines—the rivers of power generated when worlds collide on a metaphysical level—crossed directly underneath the foundation. The result was a rare commodity known as a ley-line sink, which generated enormous magical power.
It was the equivalent of free electricity for life. Only instead of lamps and refrigerators, he’d used it to power wards and portals, including a highly illegal portal to Faerie. It allowed him to bypass the heavily regulated—and heavily taxed—interworld trade system. And not any old trade either. He’d gone straight for the gold and started trafficking in the volatile substance known as fey wine.
The magical community’s police force didn’t catch on because he didn’t use any of the official portals. The fey didn’t pay him much attention because he wasn’t purchasing the wine directly, just the ingredients, and probably from many different sources. Once he had them in hand, he’d set up a still in the basement and started making magic.
“But why do you need it?” Claire asked. “There’s plenty of cabinet space.”
I glanced at her over my shoulder. “Have you ever seen trolls drink?”
She laughed, and suddenly she looked like Claire—the real one, not this pursed-lipped stranger. “They don’t show up too often at court!”
“Well, if they ever do, hide the liquor.” I bumped the back door open with a hip and stepped out into the sound of crickets and the smell of impending rain.
I paused to scan the yard, because I am not prone to hallucinations. But the only thing out of the ordinary was the weather. In the square of sky visible above the trees that bordered the right side and back of the yard, clouds hung low and ominous, seeming to glow from the inside. And above the neighbor’s privacy fence on the left, near the horizon, a sheet of gray rain wavered in the wind like a billowing curtain.
“What is it?” Claire was peering into the darkness with me. Red curls whipped around her face, blowing across the lenses of the pair of glasses she’d dug up somewhere.
“You still need those things even though . . .” I made a gesture that encompassed the whole thing in the hall.
She shifted, looking slightly uncomfortable. “Yes. In this form, anyway. My other . . . Well, it actually sees better at night.”
I usually did, too, but it wasn’t helping right now. I leaned through the porch railing to look up into the branches of the massive cottonwood. Some of them overhung the porch, but all I saw were rustling leaves. I concentrated on the more sensitive peripheral vision, paying attention to any change in the light, any shifting forms. But the result was the same: nothing.