He lifted a finger and poked her in the forehead. “This little crease is going to end up permanent if you aren’t careful.”
“Stop that!” She swatted his hand away.
Kol laughed, and it felt surprisingly good. He was almost always the most irritable person in the room, either being picked on by other elves or dealing with the stress of not meeting expectations, but Piper filled that role too expertly to be usurped, and if he had to suffer under her complaints, he might as well have a little fun.
She scrunched up her face as if she might really tell him what was on her mind and then hefted a sigh, turning to dig through the box at her side. “Look, doing this is important. It keeps everyone occupied and makes them feel like a family right away.” From the box, she pulled a length of flocked greenery dotted with red berries and took it with her as she trudged up the stairs.
He watched her go, tipping his head, but her too-long sweater blocked what would have been a nice view. “You’re already a family.”
“Well, sure, but sometimes they need a little help.”
Right on cue, one of the youngest children started crying.
“Damn it, Luke!”
“I didn’t mean to!”
Piper stopped on the mid-stair landing, squeezed her eyes shut, took a breath, and finally dangled the garland down to him.
Kol made a face at the plastic feel of it in his hands but fed it back up to her through the spindles in the railing.
“I did ask them to be careful with the tree. Is it doing all right?” she finally asked, her voice a little softer.
Kol wanted to complain, but trees were a lot hardier than people. “So far, yes. I checked it this morning, and it’s happy enough.”
“It’s happy?” Her dark brows rose high. “Like, it likes us?”
“I didnotsay that.” The garland came back down and smacked him in the nose. “It’s just not dying.Yet.”
That didn’t deter her from smiling, which was as pleasant as it was rare, and there was a prickling at the back of Kol’s neck similar to when he first entered Everroot Grove. That was probably good for the tree at the very least.
The garland was fed down to him again, but Kol came to a stop, that magical feeling drained away in an instant. There, jutting out from the edge of the step, was a…creature. A stuffed creature, a human-shaped creature, but a creature nonetheless. He picked it up, twiggy limbs covered in red fabric, a little pointed hat, and a horrifying grin on its plastic face.
“What in the nether is this?”
“What’s wha—oh, put that back! You’re not supposed to touch it, it’s magic!”
Kol did exactly as Piper said, flooded with bad childhood memories, and then he realized how absurd it was for a human to say such a thing. “Magic?”
“Oh, er, no, not like your kind of magic.” She leaned over the railing, closer to him. “That’s just what they tell the kids to make them behave. He’s one of Santa’s scouts or something. We call him Buddy the elf…”
Kol clicked his tongue, realizing then what it was meant to be. In the same moment, so did Piper, and their eyes met. “This is extraordinarily offensive.”
She looked stricken, but even he couldn’t keep up the grimace he’d pasted on, and he started laughing again. Gods, it really did feel good to be the one doing the prodding for once.
Piper grimaced. “Look, I don’t have anything to do with it.” She reached the last step and tied off the garland.
“You mean there’s something going on around here that you’re not entirely responsible for?”
“That’s the one thing I refuse to touch.”
Now that he believed as one of her aunts swept over to request Piper’s help lighting the fireplace.
A few hours later, the tree was covered in glittering baubles but remained unharmed. Piper’s heavily pregnant cousin was working to even out a section that the kids had overburdened, and her father and uncle were untangling an unruly ball of string lights, arguing about who put them away so poorly.
Kol thoughtlessly picked up an ornament from the coffee table as an excuse to go over and inspect the branches. Needles littered the hardwoods, and the bucket could use a little more water, but when he sought out the threads of magic that would let him check in on the tree, they remained sound. The alcyon spruce was maybe a little irritated, feeding off the being it had bound itself to in lieu of its enchanted grove, but was coping well enough.
Out past the window, the MacLean cabin’s back deck was covered in a thick dusting of snow, and a downy woodpecker was perched on the railing. Its head twitched, beady eyes finding Kol’s, and he saw a flash of red in them. Not a downy one then, despite looking so similar.What are you doing out of the grove?
