Chapter 5 In Which I Call My Mother #4
I sent before I could think too hard about it.
I needed my to-do list.
Out of habit, I glanced under my desk for my backpack and almost wasn’t surprised to find it lying there. Either I had put it there and didn’t remember, or… magic.
I hooked my foot into a strap and pulled it toward me. I found my hot pink daily planner and a pen in the bottom of my bag, both coated with unidentifiable crumbs.
Flipping the planner open to the bookmark, I stuck the pen in my mouth. Yesterday’s to-do list stared up at me.
Must do:
Make a list
Model updates
Meeting notes summary
Map competitive landscape
Gym
I had not gone to the gym.
Should do:
Set up mentor meeting with Levi
Read daily newsletters
Last 12 months pitches—update
Change cat litter
Balls. What should I do about my gym membership?
My computer pinged. Jeff had sent me a new email. Subject line: I KNOW ABOUT THE CLOUD, MIRI. SEND DOCUMENTS WHEN I ASK FOR THEM. THANKS. JEFF.
The body of the email was empty.
I fought back the wince that usually accompanied Jeff’s emails. I hadn’t done anything wrong.
I should cancel my gym membership.
I flipped my notebook to the next page and started a new list.
Make a list
Model review with Levi
I stopped writing midsentence, pinching the pen so hard it hurt my middle finger. What was the point? What did any of my reviews matter now that I had to stay in the same damn position for the next ten years?
Sighing, I pondered what I actually needed to do—I needed to tell my friends what had happened. But I’d do that later, when I had a good amount of free time to vent.
I needed to do boring logistical adult things, like figure out if they had mail forwarding to Faerie and what to do about my apartment. But that was like giving up too soon. So all that left was: I needed to call my mom and tell her what had happened with the Princeling.
Before I could think further about it, I dialed her number.
“Honey?” she said, picking up on the second ring. “Miriam? I was getting worried.”
“Hey, Mom,” I croaked. “Sorry.” Unable to take it any longer, I stood up and started pacing around the room.
“I’m on a walk with Grandma,” she said. “We’ve almost made it around the block.” I walked past the foot of the bed.
“Oh, Grandma,” I said. “Tell her I love her.” I passed the door. I tried to imagine never getting another hug from my grandma, who was soft and warm and said I love you I love you I love you in a hoarse litany whenever I called. Something caught in my throat.
“Miriam loves you,” my mom said. I could hear Grandma saying “Oh, Miriam?” through the line. I rounded the waterfall shower and passed the open-air toilet.
“Mom, let’s chat tonight, okay?” I said.
“No, tell me what happened,” she said, her voice closer to the phone now. She must have taken me off speaker. Now the desk, on my right. And the bed again.
“We made a deal.” I started biting my thumbnail. “If I teach faeries about humans for ten years and manage to keep my job, he’ll give me resources to find a way out.” I sat down on the bed next to Doctor Kitten. Whatever style the bedspread had been in the morning, it was now cat fur chic.
“Did you get a copy of the contract?” my mom asked. “You need to define ‘resources.’ In fact, you need to make sure every term is defined. Otherwise, he has wiggle room.”
Doctor Kitten nibbled at my ring. I took it off and put it on the bed for him to bat at.
“I was planning to do that,” I said irritably to my mother. I had not been planning to do that, but it was a fantastic idea.
“Ten years is too long. Didn’t you negotiate?”
“Yeah, down from thirty,” I said, fuming.
“Send me the contract and I’ll take a look.” In the background, I could hear my grandma saying something about dinner. “No, Mom, we won’t have oatmeal for dinner,” my mom added. “I’ll make us tomato soup.”
“Is Grandma sick again?” I asked, sitting down on the bed.
“No,” my mom lied.
“Okay.” I patted Doctor Kitten on the head. “I’m going to hang up and get that contract.”
“Okay! I love you,” she said.
“I love you, too,” I said. I hung up before she could say anything else.
I glanced at the clock. 3:14 p.m.
Stood up and returned to my desk.
Glanced at my inbox. Forty-five unread emails.
Started an email to Levi requesting a video call for the model review.
But I couldn’t do it.
I opened a blank Word document and typed out what the Princeling had said.
You will teach my people of humans, whenever they ask and whatever they ask, for ten years. For that period, you will also retain your job—this should be manageable for you. And if you can complete both of these tasks to my satisfaction, then all of my resources will be laid at your feet.
I started a new Excel spreadsheet and added all of the words we needed to define.
Teach—Miri will provide accurate information to the best of her knowledge and within reasonable expectations; Miri will provide a set number of classes for a set number of hours, to be defined by both parties
Retain—Miri will not resign from her job; if she is fired or laid off, that is still considered fulfillment of this term
Ten years—ten human years based on the Gregorian calendar starting at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on August 25, 2022
Princeling’s satisfaction—Miri has met all reasonable demands set forth in both the “Teach” and “Retain” definitions
Princeling’s resources—All information, written and oral, and all people, which may provide additional context about human imprisonment in Faerie, and any other documentation or information which may assist Miri in leaving Faerie without dying
Laid at your feet—Accessible to Miri in a way that she can be reasonably expected to use based on her human limitations (e.g., no tomes written in dead languages or extended quests involving the obtention of documents from a dragon’s hoard, etc. etc.)
I sent this document to the Gray Knight, with a quick note requesting any edits within the next few hours.
Then I resumed my email to Levi. And tried my best not to look out the window, at the too-green grass and sunless blue sky.
The Gray Knight sent me a note that said Received and revising. She didn’t send any further information.
Around seven p.m., I gave up on work and opened YouTube on my cell phone. I found a humor video from my favorite satirist and clicked on it.
The requisite pre-video advertisement popped up, a retro Elf off the Shelf replay.
I couldn’t help it—I let out a laugh. Of all the videos to be showing me right now, I couldn’t believe the algorithm chose this one.
Instead of skipping it, I watched as the too-bright swirling shapes danced behind the industrious elves in the foreground.
In 2017, an advertisement for a kitschy brand called Elf off the Shelf went viral on YouTube. The premise was simple. Some guy with CGI and a great props budget had photoshopped Santa’s helpers into a thirty-three-second clip advertising higher-quality and less-expensive household goods.
People loved Elf off the Shelf. Until the founder, Oboe Micknickelstein, showed up on the Today show standing three foot six and claiming his pointy ears were real.
And that was how Humanity, capital H, discovered that the supernatural really existed.
Everyone was enraged. Some people claimed it was insensitive, racist, or absurd.
Others felt this was a hoax propagated by their political enemies to “normalize weirdos.” And a third group was immediately convinced that elves existed, they’d been right all along, and industrialization was a horrifying blight corrupting a once-pure species.
Then a reactionary group called the third group infantilizing, and the discourse degenerated from there.
Doctor Kitten, hearing the familiar opening notes of the web video, came to my side and pawed at my leg. I hefted him under the ribs and slid him into my lap, much like a slab of pudding. He twisted in my lap to sit facing the phone screen. I scratched under his chin.
As it always did, his weight on my legs calmed me slightly. I hadn’t realized how hard my heart was pounding.
“We will get out of this,” I told him. “We’ll get home.”
I stared down at the inky black area on his head, where it went pink at the delicate skin of his left ear. I supposed it didn’t matter to him if we got home or not.
We’d barely started the video when the first knock came. The pounding on my door was almost unsurprising. Doctor Kitten looked up at me, as if to say This is a you problem. Then he hopped off my lap, landed with an unbecoming thump on the floor, and launched himself into my bed.
“Coming,” I said, sparing one glance back at the Doctor, who had curled into a cat’s equivalent of a Fibonacci circle and tucked his eyes under his own back paws. Sahir opened the door before I could cross the room.
His suit was torn, and in addition to the cat scratches from earlier he now had a black eye.
“Holy cow,” I said as I stepped into the hall, closing the door behind me. “Did you fall down the stairs?”
“Your colleagues accosted me on a smoke break, actually,” he said, showing me his wrist, which had a circular burn mark on it.
My intestinal system did a weird thing. It felt like my kidneys tried to jump through my esophagus at the exact second my stomach made a determined dive at my left foot.
I stumbled, having been successfully unbalanced by my stomach, and Sahir grabbed my arm.
“My who did what?”
“The short smart one and the tall stupid one were outside when I left the office and demanded your return.”
“My return?” I asked, shock making my face blank. And then, “Did they get fired?” A few faeries passing by turned to look at me with unabashed curiosity. “Sorry,” I said out of habit. “I didn’t mean to be so loud.”
“Fired for fisticuffs?” Sahir snorted derisively. “Has the madness afflicted you? The attack was honest and returned in equal measure. Then I left them, for I had business to attend to here.”
Sahir started walking down the hall and motioned for me to go with him; still in shock, I let my feet follow his. He kept his gaze forward, clearly ignoring my horror.
Around us the other faeries had formed a sort of herd. I felt like the middle penguin in a waddling flock, but a generally unhappy middle penguin full of ennui.
Sahir maneuvered us to the edge of the group, his right arm outstretched. People seemed to recognize him, or maybe nobody wanted to touch me—they parted when we got too close. He opened the cafeteria door and gestured several others through. He and I followed last.
The cafeteria was much fuller than it had been at breakfast or lunch, almost every seat taken. I stopped, startled by the cacophony of howls and hoots and clicks, and the forest of curling horns and inhuman heads and even a few tucked wingtips.
Sahir took my hand, pulling me along in a gesture so seamless that it felt almost natural.
His hand was warm on mine, the calluses on his fingertips brushing my knuckles.
My eyes slid shut at the raw-silk feel of his thumb rubbing a circle into the back of my hand.
I blinked until the jelly of my knees solidified, and followed him toward the serving area.
“You should know, Miriam,” he said slowly, as though he wasn’t sure he wanted to share whatever came next. “I swore your health on my life. It was all that would appease them.”
I could barely hear him over the din. “What does that mean?”
It had gotten louder, a lot of scraping chairs on the floor. We were in the center of the room now, surrounded by tables on all sides.
“I bound myself to you in fealty,” he said, louder, just as a hush fell across the room. Everyone had stood, and they were all staring at us. “I am your knight.”
“Well, then,” someone drawled behind us. “If you are already hers, I gather you will not become a knight of mine, Sahir.”
The Princeling had arrived.