“Grams!” Piper popped back up to her feet and delicately wrapped her arms around the elderly woman on the threshold. Behind her, two more aunts and their daughter bustled in with more bags, one all bright greetings, and the other complaining about their driver—they were not taking a ride-share back to the airport, and Piper agreed to drive them herself while remaining in the hug with her grandmother. That would be everyone, and that meant it was time to start dinner.
Lasagna wasn’t quick, but the kitchen was tucked into a corner of the house, and people only poked their heads in to check on how it was coming every twenty or so minutes. The others caught up elsewhere, the kids ran about and yelled, and at some point, Aunt Susan would order everyone into the basement to bring up the decorations, all of which left Piper in the relative quiet of bubbling pots and softly playing carols.
She gave the bolognese a last stir as she read over the recipe’s steps again. It wasn’t the first time she made it alone, but she needed to be sure she hadn’t screwed up the amounts as was too often the case. Running a finger down the page and the added pencil marks for a double batch, faded but not yet gone, she knew she should trace over them with permanent ink, but then they wouldn’t really be her mother’s anymore.
Don’t be lazy, shred your own mozz!
She grinned at that note, remembering the year she used pre-shredded cheese. Everyone else swore they couldn’t tell, but Piper never made that mistake again.
“Almost done, sweetie? The troops are getting restless.”
“About to go in the oven,” she called back to her father who had appeared silently in the doorway to the kitchen. “Try to hold off a mutiny, it’ll only be an hour more.”
He lingered there a moment like he might say something else, but then he just nodded and returned to the den.
She set to the assembly quicker, arranging noodles in the massive pans and splattering sauce all over the counter when one cousin chased another into the kitchen armed with wrapping paper tubes. The dog only tripped her twice after that, and then Uncle Russ came in searching for snacks, the last obstacle between her and the oven. With a timer set, there was only cleanup left, but the dirty pots would still be waiting for her if she took a breather, so she pulled on the extra pair of mud boots sitting by the sliding door and sneaked outside.
In just her sweater, the evening air was exceptionally brisk, but stepping out onto the small side deck off the kitchen was a reprieve from the heat of the stove. The sun had already dipped behind the trees, and a halo of light rose over the forest, painting the sky golden. Light filtered out from the kitchen behind her, warm and yellow as it spread across the deck, the chatter of her family and the music muffled behind the glass door. She wiped snow off the railing to lean against it and took a deep breath of crisp winter air.
Piper was no stranger to sneaking moments of peace, though her brain never really quieted. There weren’t going to be enough beds now that all of Russ’s boys were there, and she needed to add a trip to the airport to her planner for the twenty-sixth. She took another breath and tried to let tranquility settle in, shaking away those thoughts. It didn’t really work, but then a new thought layered itself atop the others: she was standing out on the deck all alone.
“Hey, Piper, where are the keys?” Presley’s voice cut into the quiet, and the sudden hollow feeling was swept away. He hung out the slider like he had been frozen mid-action, ready to slingshot himself right back inside when he got his answer.
“On the table by the front door.”
“No, I already looked—”
“Beside the bear statue and under your gloves, right next to the yellow bowl that we put all the other keys in.”
“Oh, I didn’t check there. Thanks!” He yanked himself back inside just as a black and red ball of fluff sprinted out between his legs. The terrier bounded down the steps, plaid sweater catching the last of the light before disappearing between the trees.
“Oops.” Presley’s face creased with apology. “You want me to…”
“No, it’s fine.” Piper waved him off then trudged down the stairs herself. Doc never went far, and she was the only person who could get him to come when she called anyway.
She hustled across the snowy side lawn to the dark edge of the wood. There was no underbrush, so wading into the forest wasn’t difficult, but beneath the trees, everything was grey-blue and dim. She followed the terrier’s deepening tracks as she stumbled over an unseen tree root, but as luck and plot would have it, his stubby legs couldn’t outmaneuver hers.
“There you are.” Piper snatched the dog by his long middle and hoisted him up into her arms. “You can’t run off like that, you’re going to get yourself eaten by a…moose?”
3
Three Funny Words
But what if someone wakes up? There are alotof humans in that house.”
The fehszar tipped its antlered head.
“IknowI have to,” Kol grumbled then huffed.
The fehszar huffed right back, a fine time to be mocking him, but he probably deserved it.What kind of EPA employee loses a tree?
Kol was frazzled, a feeling both foreign and overwhelming, so he didn’t sense any other presence in the wood nor did he hear approaching paws or a chastising voice. Instead, he busied himself with pulling off a glove and grabbing the nearest branch, muttering all the while about impossibilities and how they really should stay that way. In his frustrated state, opening a connection between himself and the forest took greater concentration, the threads of magic knotted and frayed, but he could still find them as he searched the root systems for something,anything, that might help.
The fehszar’s second huff broke through his focus, and he grunted back. “What?”
She dipped her massive head, black eyes gleaming in exactly the way he hoped they wouldn’t.
“Shit.”
