Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Tiny feet scatter across the hardwood like a flock of startled pigeons.
“Miss Izzie! Miss Izzie! There’s a monster in the costume closet!”
Jilly tugs at my practice skirt with the desperate urgency of someone reporting a genuine emergency.
Her tutu is askew, her ballet slippers are on the wrong feet, and her face is flushed with the particular excitement that children reserve for things that are either terrifying or absolutely wonderful.
“Jilly, we’ve talked about this.” I crouch to her level, trying to keep one eye on the rest of my tiny dancers as they cluster near the far wall. “Mrs. Patterson’s Pomeranian is not a monster, even if he does—”
“It’s not a dog.” Jilly’s eyes are enormous. “It’s got big yellow eyes and pointy teeth and it stole my ribbon!”
A shriek from the costume closet punctuates her statement.
I straighten, every instinct on high alert. The children’s class is my favorite, but it’s also the most chaotic. Keeping track of twelve tiny humans while teaching them basic ballet positions is challenging under normal circumstances.
These are rapidly becoming abnormal circumstances.
“Everyone stay by the barre,” I call, using my firm instructor voice. “Miss Bianca will be right back from her break, and—”
Another shriek. This one is followed by giggling, which is somehow more concerning.
“It tickles!” someone yells from inside the closet. “Its tail tickles!”
Tail?
I move toward the costume closet, my brain cycling through rational explanations. A cat, maybe. Bellamy Cove has plenty of strays, and they’ve been known to slip through open windows. Or a raccoon—we had one get into the community center last year, and the resulting chaos had made the local paper.
But raccoons don’t have tails that tickle. And raccoons definitely don’t have—
I throw open the closet door.
Two enormous yellow eyes blink up at me from a pile of practice tutus.
The creature is small, not more than two feet tall at most, with bat-like ears that swivel toward me like satellite dishes. Tiny horns curl from its forehead. Its skin is a mottled gray-blue, currently shifting toward a panicked purple as it registers my presence.
In its arms, it clutches approximately seven ribbons, three dance shoes, and a juice box.
“Oh,” I say, because my brain has apparently decided to take a vacation.
Everyone knows supernatural creatures exist but, at least in Bellamy Cove, they are generally discreet enough to be politely ignored.
No one mentions the fact that Solomon Abbott is a selkie as well as the best lobster fisherman in town.
Just like it’s common knowledge that old Jamie Allenby is a werewolf, but everyone simply avoids his property during a full moon and accepts his presence the rest of the month.
This creature is not discreet. He is very clearly Other as he hisses, then bolts out of the closet.
“Monster!” Jilly screams with delight as it rockets past her, trailing ribbons like a small, demonic comet. “The monster’s coming!”
Chaos erupts.
The children scatter in twelve different directions, some chasing the creature, some fleeing from it, and at least two unable to decide.
The little gray-blue thing ricochets off walls, knocks over my silk plant, and somehow manages to acquire additional stolen items during its frantic circuit of the studio including a hair tie from Emma’s ponytail, a water bottle from the parent observation area, and what appears to be someone’s car keys.
Mrs. Delacroix screams. Her daughter, oblivious to her mother’s terror, claps her hands and yells, “Catch it! Catch it!”
I should be panicking. I should be calling animal control or the police or possibly an exorcist. Instead, I find myself frozen in place, watching the creature vault over the balance beam with surprising grace, my brain finally connecting dots I should have connected weeks ago.
Yellow eyes in the mirror. Missing practice shoes. Papers that vanished into thin air.
Mal, blaming “drafts.”
The front door bangs open.
“Nix!” Mal’s voice cuts through the chaos. “Nix, get over here right now!”
Nix freezes mid-leap. Its ears flatten against its skull, and i skin shifts from panicked purple to a guilty, muddy green.
“Squeeeeak,” it says, in what I can only describe as an apologetic sound.
“Don’t you squeak at me.” Mal strides across the studio, completely ignoring the appalled parents and enchanted children. “We talked about this. We had extensive conversations about appropriate behavior in public spaces. What part of ‘stay in the apartment’ was unclear?”
Nix’s lower lip trembles. The effect is disturbingly adorable.
“The small humans have ribbons,” it says, in a high-pitched, scratchy voice. “Shiny ribbons. Nix wanted shiny.”
“Nix can’t have shiny things that don’t belong to Nix.”
“But—”
“No.” Mal snatches the juice box from its grip. “And what is this? You don’t even drink juice.”
“It has a straw.” Nix clutches the remaining stolen items tighter. “Nix likes straws.”
I become aware that I’m staring. Also that the entire room is staring. Mrs. Delacroix has her phone out, potentially calling 911 or potentially recording video evidence of a grown man scolding what appears to be a real-life goblin.
“Mal.” My voice sounds strange to my own ears. “What is that?”
He looks up, seeming to notice me for the first time, and guilt flickers across his face, followed by a kind of resigned amusement.
“Ah.” He clears his throat. “I can explain.”
“You can explain the small monster that’s been creating chaos in my studio.”
“He’s not a monster. He’s an imp.”
“Oh, well, that clarifies everything.”
“He’s my imp. Sort of. It’s complicated.”
“Your imp.” I’m aware that my voice is rising, that the parents are shuffling their children toward the exit, and that this is exactly the kind of scene that destroys studio reputations.
“You have a pet imp. A pet imp that’s been invading my studio, terrifying my students, and stealing dance shoes. ”
“To be fair, he only stole the one shoe. The other times were just... reconnaissance.”
“Reconnaissance?!”
Nix takes advantage of our standoff to inch toward the door. Mal snags him by the scruff without looking, years of practice evident in the gesture.
“Perhaps,” he says carefully, “we should discuss this somewhere more private?”
I look around the studio. Three children are crying.
Two are trying to catch Nix’s attention with increasingly elaborate waves.
Mrs. Delacroix is definitely recording video.
And Bianca has appeared in the doorway, holding her phone and wearing an expression that suggests she’s already drafted several social media posts about the incident.
“Class is dismissed,” I announce. “Early. Due to... circumstances.”
Parents surge toward the door, clutching children and casting horrified glances at Nix. Jilly breaks free from her mother’s grip long enough to wave goodbye.
“Bye, monster! Come back soon!”
Nix waves back with one tiny clawed hand, and I could swear he’s smiling.
“It’s not as strange as it seems.”
“You have an imp.”
“Yes.”
“An imp that talks.”
“Most of them do, actually. Nix is just chattier than average.”
“An imp that’s been living in my studio, stealing my belongings, and apparently conducting reconnaissance for what, exactly?”
We’re in my office, door firmly closed. Nix is perched on the filing cabinet, methodically sorting through his stolen treasures with an expression of pure contentment. He’s surrendered some of the items that clearly belong to students, but he’s clutching the juice box like it’s a precious artifact.
“He wasn’t exactly conducting reconnaissance,” Mal says. “More like... investigating.”
“What was he investigating?”
Mal hesitates. The pause stretches long enough that I start to feel the first real tendrils of alarm. In all the weeks I’ve known him, he’s never hesitated like this. He’s never seemed anything less than completely, irritatingly confident.
“You,” he finally admits.
“Me.”
“You specifically, yes.”
I wait for the punchline. For the charming deflection and the smooth explanation that makes everything seem perfectly reasonable. It doesn’t come.
“Why,” I ask slowly, “would your imp be investigating me?”
“Because I asked him to.”
I feel my expression shift, my walls rising instinctively. All those weeks of stolen glances and lingering touches, all those moments that felt genuine—were they part of some kind of agenda?
“Before you jump to conclusions,” Mal adds quickly, “it wasn’t anything sinister. I was just... curious.”
“Curious about what?”
“About you. About this place. About why you reacted so strongly when I first walked into your class.”
“I reacted strongly because you were late.”
“You reacted strongly because you felt something.” His eyes meet mine, and for once there’s no humor in them. “The same thing I felt. I wanted to understand it.”
My heart is pounding. “So you sent your imp to spy on me.”
“To observe. Discreetly. Which he was supposed to do without getting caught.” He shoots Nix a pointed look. “Someone got distracted by shiny objects.”
“Shiny,” Nix agrees mournfully, petting a stolen ribbon.
“This is insane.” I press my palms against my desk, grounding myself. “You have an imp. An actual, literal imp. With horns and a tail and—what else? What else are you hiding?”
The question hangs in the air.
Mal’s hand moves almost unconsciously to the leather bracelet on his wrist.
“Everyone hides something,” he says quietly.
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only answer I can give you right now.”
“Convenient.”
“Not particularly.” He runs a hand through his hair, and for a moment he looks tired. Ancient, almost—though that doesn’t make sense for a man who appears to be in his mid-thirties. “There are things about me that would... complicate matters.”
“More complicated than a talking imp?”