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“Good morning, Squally.”

The foot-wide, cloud-shaped virtual assistant (or VA) sat on the middle row of her bookcase. The other shelves were packed with textbooks on coding, artificial intelligence, and mathematical principles.

Squally’s seamlessly integrated digital screen showed a resting face of two round black eyes and a line for a smile before it animated to life. “Good morning, Devra.”

Despite being capable of depicting fourteen human emotions and counting, its emoji-like expressions gave the classic puffy-white cumulus cloud a look that Devra feared was more like a toy than a high-end virtual assistant that could one day rival major players such as Amazon Alexa. But her department had little influence on the design team.

“Today’s temperature is sunny with a high of six degrees Celsius and a chance of late-night flurries.” The cloud blinked and gave a cute U-shaped smile. “Are you enjoying your morning so far?”

“I am, thank you.”

Devra and the company that employed her, StormNetix Innovations—whose slogan “Storming into your home with better technology!” felt a bit aggressive to her—had discovered a gap in the market that could allow their relatively small start-up to break through.

The market of lonely people.

Squally would provide the same services as Alexa while also providing a sense of friendship, an edge of humour and compassion, with a state-of-the-art conversational mode. Devra had convinced the project manager that Squally would be a great hit with single women around the age of thirty who worked from home and owned a cat.

Tabs hissed at her empty bowl.

Not only was Devra a highly skilled programmer with machine learning expertise, she was also their product’s primary audience. The perfect alpha tester.

Devra rose and poured the dehydrated cat food she’d purchased online into Tabs’ bowl by the front window. “What’s on the agenda for today, Squally?”

The VA’s voice was high and feminine. “Your Saturday to-do list contains three items: renew HelloFresh subscription, fix kitchen sink, and clean the bathroom.”

“I suppose the good news is you can already strike number two from—”

Devra’s speech ground to a halt.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t catch that. What did you want me to do?”

Devra couldn’t respond. Her gaze was fixed on the man standing outside in front of a moving van, a pile of cardboard boxes beside him. A shirtless man. She watched as he picked up a box, a heavy one it seemed, given the strain in his forearms, the bulge of his thick biceps, the ripple of muscles cascading down his back. Who ventured outdoors shirtless in December? Sure, it was a couple degrees above freezing today, in that curious way Calgary weather could shift from deathly abyss to comfortably temperate in the span of a few hours, but it was still winter.

This was it, just as she’d feared. Her new neighbour was some weirdo nudist who would stand in his kitchen and drink coffee butt-naked in clear view of her side window. Exposing those thick ridges that ran alongside his spine. The sculpted slope from wide shoulders down to a trim waist. Those taut muscles even lower still, partially visible underneath the tight fit of his joggers.

Although the more she thought about it, the less certain she was that this would be such a bad thing. Until he turned in her direction and she saw his face.

Her breath left her. It was the man from the hardware store. That excessively jolly borderline stalker who had forced her to topple a mountain of teddy bears just to escape him.

She ducked below the window frame as if he’d thrown a live grenade.

“Squally,” she hiss-whispered, “be prepared to call 911, on my mark.”

“Okay!” Squally replied cheerfully. “Standing by to call 911.”

This couldn’t be happening. No. It was too cruel. It was too…

Except it wasn’t too anything. It was right on point for the curse. Of course her new neighbour would be a possible serial killer who had already caught her scent.

She peeked over the windowsill. The man stepped out of his house brushing a sheen of sweat from his brow even as an icy mist formed in the air as he exhaled. He strode down the front walkway, now followed by two giggly girls with flowing blond hair. No, not girls. Devra examined them more closely. The sharp planes of their faces. The creases. The hint of feminine curves despite being slight in stature.

And Devra’s next thought was Elves.

These two women were the man’s elves.

The notion tremored through her like an aftershock.

“Squally, call the—”