Chapter Seven
“Goodness, it’s hot!” Marty woke up sweating, flinging back his blanket and remembering just in time not to sit up fully or he’d hit his head on a branch… Which was when he realized he wasn’t in his shelter.
“O-kay,” Marty said slowly, looking around what was a very nice room. “I must be still asleep.” Dropping his blanket, he pinched his arm. “Ouch. Not sleeping. Hey, fluffy butt,” he called to his animal side who was still asleep. “What happened last night?”
His raccoon had been busy the night before and wasn’t a morning being at the best of times. Marty decided to start with the basics.
Clothes on and I have my blanket… That was it. There was a new, fluffy blanket over the top of the one he already had. “That’s why I was so hot.” But the shelter, the trees, his cauldron, and even his little log seats were all gone. Someone had replaced them with a proper room, one would assume in a house.
“Was it the strawberries? Were they magic after all?” Scrambling off the bed, Marty opened and poked his head around one door. “A real live bathroom… Oh, oh, I will be using you in a minute, hang on.” He quickly shut the door and went over to the other one.
“More house?” Marty’s eyes widened as he took in a beautiful sitting room, an actual kitchen sink and a pantry, and a fireplace that had wood in it was burning happily. “No wonder it’s hot.”
Marty saw his cauldron placed next to the fireplace. Hurrying over, he poked at the ashes in there. That had gone out. “Never mind, my friend,” he said, patting the cauldron. “You did your best with what I gave you.”
Swirling around, Marty could barely take it all in. Then, he noticed the view out of the window and hurried over to the large French doors. They weren’t locked. Stepping outside, Marty stood on a concrete patio, getting his bearings. “I’m on the same land, just in a different place. How did that happen?” If Marty looked to the left, he could see the trees where his camp had been over in the distance. The swimming pool he’d admired from his camp was now outside the door of where he’d been sleeping.
“Did I sleepwalk here?” That didn’t seem likely. Marty was sure he wasn’t the type of person to break into a building while he was awake, let alone asleep.
What about the hothouse? His raccoon was finally awake, although he didn’t seem bothered by their change of circumstances.
“I didn’t break into the hothouse, the door was unlocked.” Peering over his shoulder, Marty looked back inside the house, searching for clues. He shivered, the sudden change from warm to chilly was something he hadn’t felt for a while. Hurrying back inside, Marty closed the door, keeping the warmth inside for now.
There’s a note on the little table. At least his raccoon was checking out the details of the living area.
“Note?” Marty turned, noticing the bowl of strawberries, and next to it was a piece of what looked like very elegant paper. “What does it say?”
You could try reading it.
“You woke up with attitude this morning, didn’t you?” Crossing the room to retrieve the note, Marty worried for a moment. Reading wasn’t one of his better skills. But the note wasn’t very long.
“This is your new home. You will be safe and warm here.” Marty sounded out the words slowly, tracing over the letters. “Treat e-ver-y…everything in this house as yours.” Marty’s arms dropped to his side. “Mine? Mine!?” He realized he was screeching and quickly dropped his voice.
“Does that mean this is mine?” he slapped the table. “Or this is mine?” Another hand on the couch. “Mine? Mine? Is this a strawberry thing? Is this because I ate the magical strawberry? Or…or…or is this because I didn’t eat all the strawberries and left some for someone else? Is it the strawberry? Is it?”
Did someone sign the note? His raccoon was sounding far too calm about everything, but then, he was probably glad to be indoors for a while. I understand that’s what people do when they leave someone a message.
Marty quickly looked at the paper still in his hand. “There’s just a large A at the bottom. I don’t know anyone who has a name that starts with A .” He lifted the paper up to his nose, sniffing. “I can smell magic.” He moved the paper away from his nose and sniffed the air. “The same magic that’s in here – just traces of it, but it’s the same.”
I think you should sniff your sneakers.
“Eww… I don’t think so. I mean, you know I do my best to keep them clean, but things happen, and they’re old…” Marty looked down at his feet. They were bare. “Where’re my shoes?”
You almost stepped on them when you jumped off the bed.
Marty hurried to the bedroom, and sure enough, his shoes had been placed on the floor at the bottom of the bed. “Did you see who took these off my feet? You had to have done, to know they were put on the floor.” He reached down and picked up his shoes.
Maybe. Marty got the impression his raccoon was being sneaky.
“I thought when I was asleep, then so were you.”
I can’t keep us safe if I’m sleeping.
That made Marty stop for a moment. “You do that, don’t you? That is so sweet of you. Thank you for doing that.”
Sniff the sneaker. It’s the only thing I saw him touch.
“Him? What him? A magical him?”
Sniff!
Marty wrinkled his nose. His sneakers were well past their best. But he moved them up to his nose, sniffing and then pulling his head away.
No. That’s not enough. Sniff again. On the sides.
“I really need to pee.” Marty leaned his head closer to the sneakers again, sniffing along the sides of his shoes. At first, all he could smell was more magic, but he felt his raccoon come forward as he sniffed again, and this time, he smelled something not magic, nor the residue of his smell in shoes he’d worn every day for at least two years.
Metals was Marty’s first impression. Iron, steel, gold, and silver, with undertones of well-worn leather and magic. But it wasn’t the smell so much that caught Marty’s attention, it was the way that scent made him feel.
He suddenly felt flush, as if someone had poured warm water into every vein in his body. His skin tingled all over, and Marty was sure if he looked in the mirror, his hair would be standing up on end. “What is that smell? What’s happening to me?”
Mate! His raccoon was jumping up and down. Our mate saved us and gave us a home. Our mate!
Unwilling to rain on his animal spirit’s parade, Marty dropped his sneakers on the floor and went through to the pristine bathroom. All Marty could think when he heard the word mate was that the “him” wasn’t there, and on the scale of rejections from one to a hundred, that had to rank at one thousand and three.
That sucked and no amount of optimism was going to hide that.
/~/~/~/~/
Marty had showered. He’d turned the water as hot as he could stand and stayed under the water for at least half an hour. The shampoos and soaps were appreciated, as were the thick towels he dried himself with when he finally turned the shower tap off. He even found a comb in one of the drawers of the bathroom counter and tugged that through his wet waves.
The clothes left for him in the closet were only slightly too big. Marty picked a pair of jeans, a muscle shirt, and a clean hoodie and slid his feet into a pair of sheepskin boots that had a sturdy sole on them.
He found the food – lots of food. Marty hadn’t seen that much food outside of the grocery store. Unsure whether he could hold his brain together long enough to cook anything without burning it, Marty made a pile of sandwiches with various toppings, and after finding some orange juice, he went and sat at a small table on the patio to eat them. He sent a mental thanks to his benefactor when the plate and glass were empty and went back inside to check the fire. The wood on the fire didn’t look any more burned down than it had that morning.
Curled up on the couch, Marty tried to count his blessings. There were so many of them. It was peaceful not trying to find a place where he wasn’t buffeted by the wind. Being warm was a blessing usually reserved for summer, which was still months away. He’d eaten breads, and deli meats, and he even found a jar of pickles in the small refrigerator. His original clothes were in the washer-dryer combination he found in a small utility room, along with his original blanket. Being clean, having a full belly, and having a roof over his head were things Marty never took for granted, and yet in that moment, he had them all.
“And I am grateful. Genuinely grateful.” Marty looked up at the bookshelves. Most of the shelves were full of big thick books that Marty doubted he could read even if he wanted to. In his head, big books had big words, and Marty’s brain was already tired. On one of the shelves, Marty noticed what looked like a drawing pad, and there was a cup with pencils and pens beside it. Getting up, he went and collected a pencil and the paper and went back to the couch again.
“Tell me about him.” Marty kept his voice low. He knew his raccoon was keeping an eye on him, and Marty could only try to do the same. He had felt it, like a physical pain, when his raccoon realized why Marty felt so dejected.
It wasn’t easy to see him, and I only caught a glimpse. His raccoon sounded so apologetic. I believe he used his magic to block anyone from sensing him – sight, sound, and scent. He must be very powerful.
“But you know he’s a him,” Marty coaxed gently. “Tall, short, big, small?”
Tall, big, an ancient being.
Marty took note of the impressions his raccoon was sending him, his pencil moving quickly across the page.
Long silver hair tied back off his face, big coat. Hard jaw, straight nose.
Filling in the details, Marty added shading to the facial details, the impression of stubble, and dark eyebrows.
His eyes were intense, like they could look into your soul and know what you did twenty years before on a Tuesday.
“Why a Tuesday?” Marty was diverted from his drawing to ask.
You told me nothing ever happens on a Tuesday.
Chuckling, Marty found something else to be grateful for in that moment. His sweet raccoon was usually his responsible side, but every now and again, he said something random that reminded Marty of how in tune with each other they were. “I don’t even know what day of the week it is now,” he said, adding some darkness to the eyes. “Is this similar to our translucent mate? Have I captured his likeness?”
That’s him. Marty felt his raccoon’s sorrow because it mirrored his own.
“Well, it’s been fun drawing again,” he said with determined cheer. “I haven’t been able to do that for the longest time.”
Tearing the page off the pad, Marty got up, taking it over to the bookshelves and propping it up against a stack of books. “Sitting around moping isn’t going to do us any good. Let’s go for a walk through the woodland area, get some fresh air.”
He glanced at the fire. The wood still looked like it had the morning before. “I guess that won’t go out, but if we don’t have to worry about basic necessities for a bit, I’m going to have to find something else to do.” Because sitting around and thinking is just going to remind me of all that I’ve lost, including my mate, and that’s not healthy for anyone.