Page 43 of In Your Light

“Oh, I am. I wasn’t sure if I should go help Beau and Hudson in the garden first or if it’s too early. I should have asked them last night.”

“Don’t worry about it today,” Ciaran said. “Go see your friend. Let him know you’re okay. I’m sure he’s worried. Or wondering how you got on, anyway.”

“I take it your chores were a priority back home?” Sawyer asked.

Fyn nodded. “Oh yes, but it’s important to prepare for harvests and to ensure the herd has enough food and supplies.”

“I bet,” he said. “We all have chores here, too, but we also have a foot in the human world, so we can buy goods when we need them.” He then looked at Fyn’s shirt. “Do you need a coat? Were you warm enough last night? Need more blankets? Was the house okay? Not too drafty, I hope.”

Fyn couldn’t help but smile. “No, I’m fine. The house is great. More than I ever expected. So thank you.”

Ciaran laughed. “He was worried about you last night.”

That made Fyn’s heart swell. “I appreciate it.”

Ciaran kissed Sawyer’s cheek. “Be back soon.” Then he stood on the edge of the pier, winked at Sawyer, and fell backwards. There was no splash; he simply melted into the water. A second later, a long red tentacle tossed his boardshorts onto the pier, waved, then disappeared.

Sawyer laughed as he picked up the wet shorts. “Lucky I love him.”

“That’s so cool,” Fyn said, still peering over the edge down into the dark water. He couldn’t see Ciaran. He couldn’t see anything in there.

“It is, isn’t it?” Sawyer said, wringing the water out of the shorts.

Then, the door to the small white building on the pier opened, and a little black kitten came racing out, quickly followed by a second kitten, then a third and fourth. Their tails were up, eyes wide, and they raced along the pier as fast as their little legs would take them, clambering onto the jetty, then zooming past Fyn and Sawyer. And, without pausing for a moment, all four simply ran off the end, launching themselves at the water.

“Wait!” Aurin yelled with his hand poised in the air, but it was too late. They were gone. He sighed, dropping his arm, resigned.

Sawyer snorted out a laugh. “Ciaran’s down there,” he said.

Salem appeared behind Aurin. “I’ll go,” he said with a kiss to the top of Aurin’s head. He then dropped his pants, kicked them back in through the doorway, and dove into the water.

Aurin smiled as he walked over to them. “They’re getting so fast. And it doesn’t help that Nyx wants to race everyone all the time. We’re going to make them spend more time as humans.”

“Because they can’t run as fast?” Sawyer asked.

“Yes!” Aurin said with a laugh. “Exactly.”

“They are the cutest little things I’ve ever seen,” Fyn said. “I cannot believe how cute they are.”

“They really are,” Aurin said softly. “Cute and adorable one minute, little monsters the next.”

Sawyer nodded to the buildings. “Well, while Pappa and Uncle Ciaran are on little monster duty, let’s get Dadda a proper coffee and some breakfast.”

Aurin groaned. “Coffee sounds good.”

“Come on, Fyn,” Sawyer said. “If you have time before you need to leave? We’ll show you the store and the café, and I can point out where everyone lives.”

Knowing Zaq would be doing his chores first, Fyn gave a nod. “I have time.”

The boundary was easy to miss unless you knew what to look for. To human eyes, it was no more than a gully in a forest full of gullies and ridges, boulders and massive fallen trees. To those who belonged to the forest, it hummed with an invisible line.

It felt a little strange, Fyn could admit, to come from the outside. But everything within the forest and the mountain was all so familiar to Fyn. He’d raced up the mountain, enjoying the fresh air and smell of earth.

Winter was a time of waiting. Waiting for new shoots, new buds, new growth, and he could feel the forest hunkered down and biding its time, anticipating spring.

He jumped up onto the largest fallen Huon pine and sat, his legs dangling, his feet still a metre from the ground. It was covered in moss and vines as the forest reclaimed it.

Fyn smiled despite himself. Waiting had never been his strength. His real legs ached to be hooves again, to pace through the undergrowth without worrying about footprints or appearances.