I had terrible dreams, of people stalking me, and I used “people” in the most generous terminology possible, because people generally didn’t turn into screaming pits of voids and follow you around threatening to devour all you hold dear.  I didn’t suspect any portents, just nightmares.  One gets them sometimes; they’re not always full of meaning and destiny.  Heck, it could just have been my stomach complaining about the sugar in the cake pops.

I brushed my teeth, thinking, but I couldn’t tell you what I was thinking about at all.  I just knew that I was wondering how sylphs and sulphur connected, if they did at all.  Fart fairies? I suppressed a giggle. That wasn’t a question I was asking, if only to avoid (for once!) the disgusted look or, worse, finding out they were serious.

Sometimes you get what you ask for and you realize you asked for the wrong thing entirely.  Not just that whole monkey’s paw thing (and don’t monkeys have hands? I was unclear as to when the primate differences ended) but also in that there are things you can’t unsee. I lived in a world of magic; maybe you could find someone to manipulate your memory, but it’s always just a patch, never a change.  Or maybe it’s because I dealt with witches, not wizards. Nomenclature, you know?

Time heals all wounds, right? Even those you rip the bandaid off of… and even scars fade, unless, I suppose, you pick at them.  I pick at thoughts like I’m trying to dig in at my brain, sometimes.

Breath fresh, clean clothes, face washed, maybe not in that order, I opened my bedroom door with a big flourish and put myself in the frame like I was a superhero observing my conquests.  I immediately dropped the chest-pop pose as I stared at what I had thought was my apartment.

Have you ever come home and found a couch moved in such a design that you keep bumping into it not because it is in the way but because you are used to zigging left instead of zagging right?  That’s kind of what it was.  My computer desk and chair were in the same place.  My bookshelves by the door were in the same place, along with my ceramic octopus cup for my keys, the spare change slash dice rolling bin, and the laminated card stuck to the doorframe that reminded me to grab my keys, wallet, and phone that I got from a past job.   Everything else was moved around, and I wasn’t sure if I liked it.  There was still access to all of the various shelves (housing books, toys, movies, whatnot) and of course, the kitchen.

No, I kind of liked the difference, but I was still reeling from the impact of change. I wasn’t sure I’d leave everything here, but I’d think about it.  There were places for standing, places for sitting, places to be together, and places to be alone.  I hadn’t known the fey to be interior designers, but then, it’s not like you can tell from looking, right?  Besides, sidh were often considered to be very malleable, so maybe there was something to it.

Nen and Rayya watched me.  Nen was in sharp black that I couldn’t quite guess the origin of… could have been one of my washclothes, pants, shirts, or even the cover of a book. His hair was shock-white and spiky.  Rayya was in white, of course, but there was lace as well as linen.  They stood a little taller than the counter in the kitchen, and said nothing.

I sat down on the couch, and checked to make sure the television was still connected.  I still had the place to put my feet, but the lighting was different.  I noticed a faint color on the blinds I hadn’t noticed before, a more blue tint to the white, and it occurred to me it might just be that they were clean.  Everything was clean.  Seriously clean.  I put my nose to the cushions on the couch, ignoring their staring, and noticed it smelled slightly like fall.  I couldn’t tell you what particular part of the scent made it autumnesque, but something about it reminded me of the crunch of leaves and the spray of colour and the chill just touching the air.  Despite it being basically a desert, we had seasons in Colorado, if only in comparison to more western states.

It was different than how the sibs smelled. I didn’t go around sniffing people, but they had their own scents, for certain. They smelled a little like the sea, and not the dead fish smell of beaches or marinas, but the salt spray you got a few miles out, where the storms begin to build strength.  And other things; sugar, mostly.

“Interesting,” I said.  It was kind of a compromise between thanks and praise.  Words were important to them, and I knew they would see both of those things in there, unlike the usual use of ‘interesting’ which was more an enthusiasm-quasher.  The, “I want to say something about it, but I’m not really moved to say anything in particular,” ‘interesting’ was a pet peeve of mine.  In this case, I made sure I said it with warmth and a sense of awe.

The books were all on the shelves, but I couldn’t immediately determine the methodology, other than they refused to do anything alphabetically.  At least the series were basically in the same region, so I wouldn’t be frustrated trying to find the second book of anything.  Especially important when I got things from the library – at least the two of them understood ‘borrowing’ as much as it wasn’t like the information or entertainment you derived from a book left with the physical object.  It did feel a little bit more like stealing when they put it that way, but I also understand people have been known to return books to bookstores, and that was heinous to me.

“Who’s ready for a shopping trip?” I asked.  So far this party hadn’t hurt too much, so I might as well gird my loins (except I liked my jeans) and meet the fiercesome beast of the grocery.

“Well, you cannot lie to me, but you can shade the truth until water is purple, the sky is green, and the moon is indeed a tasty spanakopita,” I said, finally, trying to turn the mood.

“Have you eaten moon?” Nen asked.  “Held pieces of it? Visited?”

“No,” I admitted.  There was an exhibit once of moon rock nearby, but my mother forbade me because of the radioactivity.  At least, that’s the reason she gave me.  It wasn’t like I was generally absorbing radioactivity that I knew of, but can you really see yourself glow in the dark?

“Then you cannot with definite personal experience exclude the spanakopita qualities of the moon.  It is telling, however, that you can provide impersonal experience that allows you to determine that your moon, at least, is less likely to be made of spanakopita.  Spanakopita is a spinach pie, is it not?”

“According to the menus of the Greek places I’ve eaten at, yeah.”  I shrugged. I was only guessing on how to pronounce it, too.

“I shall include it,” Rayya said, as if answering a question Nen had asked.  If he had, it hadn’t been allowed.

“Oh no. We’re going shopping?” I asked, making it sound like a groan.

“Unless you prefer I pilfer and acquire things by other means,” Rayya left it hanging.

“What, you think I’m suddenly growing a conscience? Oh wait, I did tell you no murdering.” I sighed.  “Okay.  Unless there’s anything else, I’m going to bed.” I yawned, as if to punctuate it.

“There are other things,” Rayya said.

“But,” Nen glanced at her, “none which require your sleep-deprived presence.”

Rayya appeared to accede, with a hint of a grin disguised by a flash of the white fabric of her shoulder. She would use the excess fabric as a veil, I noticed. A tell, in a poker sense, maybe? I knew better than to play cards with the two of them. No doubt there’d be some magical fallout, and I’d lose my dignity.

I believe I have some of my dignity.  They may have gotten my goat enough that it recognized them as surrogate parents, but it was my goat, darnit.

I mean, in a metaphorical sense.  I didn’t even have a cat.

“Do you think we should get a cat?” I asked aloud.

“Most people say, ‘Goodnight,'” Nen said, half-chidingly.

“I am not sure it would be entirely irresponsible,” Rayya said.

“I’d have to pay a pet deposit,” I noted. “You two don’t eat cats?” I asked, quickly.

“They are relatively unobjectionable,” Rayya said.

“I have not yet,” Nen said. “They give you furballs.”

“I’m not sure that’s how that works,” I said. “But Kermit used it to keep someone off of him, and I respect that.”

“Kermit is indeed wise, except for his interest in the pig,” Rayya said, seriously.

“I think it was suppose to represent that love is weird and confusing and not always predictable or logical.  Or kosher.”  I might have felt a little bad about adding that last.

Nen made a directly human response, rolling his eyes, but Rayya only tilted her head. “The dietary laws?”

“Forbid eating pork, yes,” I said. “Um, there’s a lot more to it, though. Compassion in the ways of killing a beast, I think.  No pain upon its death.  Not eating anything that slithers upon its belly.  No mixing of milk and meat, like mother and child.  I think chicken omelettes are okay, but I’m just kind of guessing at that.  There are some birds you can’t eat, though.  Owls.  Swans.”

“They are wise laws for a people in a desert, and also for those unsure of the world upon which they’ve put their feet,” Rayya said.  “Also, counsel against inebriation in heat, and requiring time for a tree to mature before its fruits can be harvested.”  She made one of those rolling shrugs.

“I have to admit, other than a lot of humour from Jewish comedians, I’m not up on the religion. Nothing against them, of course. I mean, from the little I do know, it does seem rather… reasonable?  There’s a few not wearing satin on Sundays kinds of things, which isn’t a thing, I know, but I don’t remember the actual one, but most of it seems like you said, good rules of thumb for where and when they were.”

“Don’t they all?” Nen asked.

“It’s a generous premise,” I allowed, “but I think there are methods and nuances for change that might put different rules in different light.  Like languages trying to remain pure, and still needing to talk about cyberware or something, something those people who had never seen a turtle could necessarily experience in their native tongue.”

“A patois for the tortoise challenged?” Nen teased.

“If it hides in a shell and has the propensity to be dropped on its back by an eagle, does it quack like a duck?” I asked.

He gave me the point with a wry smile and a nod.  I felt like I had won something grand, but kept it to myself: crowing about the points kind of diffused their impact.  That was a human thing, by the way; the fey liked to crow occasionally.  Which was a weird term for something more like a rooster, but crows could be quite the gossips.

Or so I’d surmised.

“I am not entirely sure how we got into a religious discussion after I suddenly decided I might want a cat, if you could call that a decision. I am guessing you are correct and going to sleep is probably a good choice at this point.”  I caught myself yawning again. “Will I be waking up to a house decorated in sheep guts and glitter?” I asked.

“Would you like to?” Nen asked, teasingly.

“Are those traditional decorations for you?” Rayya asked, looking suspicious.   “I was thinking…” she trailed off.  “Paper,” she decided.

“Well, that is the traditional first anniversary gift, were we married,” I said.  “I find myself more of a modern guy.  You know, clocks.  Because right now mine seems to be warning me that if I don’t go to bed, I’m likely to turn into a pumpkin.”

I paused.  “No,” I just said.  They’d understand.

I considered the term for a while.  The problem is, the only familiars I was really, um, familiar with were generally cats. Oh, I knew a couple of dogs, but as a rule of thumb dogs were suspicious of magic. One turtle. A very odd turtle to be sure, I actually thought the turtle might have been a wizard who had done something, well, bad, with reality. I was sure there were others, but no one kept a human as one.  Maybe a cat girl from anime? Nah.  Plus, she’d have to have those cute pointed ears on the top of her head, and her ears appeared (app-EAR-ed?) to be normal.

I shook my head. What was a familiar, then?  I had a handful of definitions to choose from, magic being that lovely place of overlapping terminology based on a combination of sources in common.  The lowest denominator of magic, some of it being based on terms in science fiction or casual deterioration of religious vocabulary, I supposed.  I occasionally toyed with the idea of writing a book about a time in the future where magic was a standardized form of study and the terms were set, but if I was writing it while it wouldn’t have terrible Latin-based constructions I’d probably still be terrible and lose some culture’s contribution.

Which was an amusing side-note to being “woke,” as an opposition to the living dream of the maya.  I had struggled with the term ‘awake’ already, personally caught between Shirley Jackson’s, “No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream,” and Peter S. Beagle’s, ” Most people are wide awake only now and then—on special occasions, as you might say. But a magician is wide awake all the time, on call for everything, which is why most people call him a magician.”  I kind of put myself (in both cases) as someone too prone to hitting the snooze button.

But that’s far from knowing what Nen meant as ‘a familiar.’ Was Janet someone like the Sources of Fionavar, there to be tapped for power? A companion to offer occasional guidance, like Rosetta of Joan Carris’ Witch-Cat? Or what he seemed to be suggesting, a convenient host for demons to pop in and out of?  And where did the sigils fall into it, if anywhere?

“What do you mean by ‘familiar’?” I finally asked.

“Touched,” Rayya said, but there was the hint of her hiding her smile.  Nen turned to share some kind of expression with her, but I didn’t catch what it was.

“Touched,” I repeated. “And what does that mean?” I was afraid to keep speculating as it would drag me down rabbit holes I had no intention of touching with the hares of my chinny-chin-chin.

Nevermind. It didn’t sound good even to the weird depths of my head.

“Just as you are,” she said.

“Oh, I’m touched, all right. Touched by your compassion and easy-to-comprehend descriptions,” I said, making sure the sarcasm was laid out nice and evenly. “What do you mean?”

“Do you know what day it is?” Nen asked, and I don’t know why I detected a bit of anxiety to it.

“Um,” I glanced at my watch to tell him.

“Tomorrow will be a year and a day,” Nen said.

“Since… a year and a day ago?” I glanced at my calendar.

I hadn’t planned on any kind of celebration, any kind of anniversary marking my return to the world.  I still had many of the same problems, the same questions, but I had fit right back in, culture shock retreating like a wave on the shore of my personal beach-being… which meant it probably hadn’t been all that much of a tidal wave.  “Oh,” I said, feeling like I had to respond to him.

He and his sister had been unwanted guests at first. Not like the kind on Ed’s pens, but an evil I only found necessary the time I watched Nen fight a Beyonder I originally called a demon.  Since learning more about demons, I wasn’t sure I would keep the epithet.  Over the … year, I guess, they’d turned more like friends.  Even after our spat where Nen had said he wasn’t there to be one… we bought books together, and I remembered to get them cake pops, and I knew their favourite cereals, and even if we didn’t understand each other a lot of the time, we were… friends.  Right?

I felt very cold and alone in the dark for a moment.

“What does that mean?” I finally asked.  He hadn’t said anything, just stared at me with his strange eyes and his wild hair, and his weird clothes and everything I had actually learned to find kind of adorable, to be honest.  I put up with the weird organic and herbal soaps and their occasional silences and pointed looks.

He glanced at Rayya, and I believe my heart jumped a beat.

She inclined her head to him, and he turned back to me.  “Nothing.  Except perhaps we should have a…” he took a deep breath, and said, conversationally, “party.”

“A party?” I asked? My emotions were strained.

“A party,” he said, and I didn’t understand his look.

“Who would we invite?” I asked, ignoring everything we’d been talking about up to that point.

“I will write the guest list,” Rayya said.  She was leaning on the door, now.

“It’s kind of short notice,” I pointed out.

“The people who need to come will find time in their schedule,” she said, and I got a creepy vibe from it.

“Don’t go killing loved ones or anything,” I warned, as if I could stop her. “That’s never a great way to have a celebration.  And it is a celebration, right?” if my voice cracked a little on that last, I ignored it.

“Yes,” but there was a pause I was getting ready to over-analyze.  Nen shook his head.  “I cannot lie to you. We have made a decision.”

If I had learned nothing over the year, I might have asked more questions, but I could tell now.  It wasn’t body language, exactly, what they shared, but it was a sense I had grown.

I would ask more questions.  Later.

“So,” I said, realizing that was preamble enough, “what’s up?” I asked, as I put on my seat belt.

Nen climbed up next to me and frowned at the door.  He just gestured.  “Drive,” he said.

I arched an eyebrow at him.  “Yes, sir, okay sir, whatever you say, sir,” I muttered.  “Jeeves does as sir says, sir,” I continued the ridiculous monologue for about twenty more seconds, or as long as it took me to take a safe left turn from the parking lot on to the busy street.  (I always drive safely, previous car issues aside.)

The car was another rental, because I still hadn’t chosen a good replacement. I meant to get around to it, but I hated shopping for cars. Maybe it’s unmanly, but I just want something that gets me there.  I’d picked it up just before my trip to lunch with Eve, but it was due to be back at the end of the week.  I didn’t like the way my right knee kept hitting the console, so I wouldn’t be getting one of these, whatever it was.

A flash in the mirror showed Rayya sitting in the back seat.  I don’t know how they do it, but I know their little disappearances have to be related to the other’s presence.  And not just as my bodyguards, or whatever, but I think it was something to do with them, specifically.

“So?” I asked again into the silence.

“You are not being followed,” Rayya said.

“Good?” I mean, I was sure it was, but I gave the inflection the question that suggested maybe I was expecting something more than this particular answer.

“Is it possible that your job was actually related closer to the one regarding the demon?” Nen asked, in one of those casual ways attorneys ready to put the smack down on a court case on television had.

“If I say it sounds like outrageous coincidence, you’ll quote rule number 39, right?” It was an NCIS reference; we’d spent a little time binge-watching it because I had been making some point about magic being an accepted part of modern television.  Crime drama had a lot of it, and not just in getting DNA results.

“Perhaps,” he said.  Because like all of his kind, he liked a little wiggle room.  It meant ‘Yes,’ and I knew it.  I probably shouldn’t just relegate it to their ‘kind’ like they were some homogeneous group, but I did mean the “word abusers” of myth or something.  Not that calling them “word abusers” was any less a violation of the language.  Of course, English was a notorious criminal at that, anyway.

“What did I miss?” I asked. “This sounded like it was very recent, and our suspect, if you will, has been at large for a while.” I decided to treat it more like a role playing game.

“What do vampires want?” Rayya asked from the back seat.

“Food? No, that’s too easy.  Power.  That’s a classic.”  I tried to think it through.  Aurora has all these blinking left turn yellow arrows that I find a lot easier than their traffic circles.  I just don’t understand how you get out of them without going over some lines.  It doesn’t feel right.  “If I want to be basic, all life wants a chance to make more life, right? Which is a terrible biological constraint and we thinking beings should be above it.  Sometimes life just wants to have fun,” I muttered.

“How do vampires make baby vampires?” Nen asked.

“Ugh. Do they really? I thought vampires just make more of themselves by convincing others to take on the deal.  I mean, there’s the classic bite and suck, but that’s the disease metaphor.  Those are like vampire polyps, mystically connected to the original vampire, right? Unless they can prepare the host for another… you know this gets really gross the more I think of it, right?”

“`Skeevy,’ I believe, was the term you used previously.”  Nen made it a statement.

“So… Janet’s a demon?” I asked. “I don’t follow.  Wouldn’t I know?  Or was she becoming a host for the demon parasite or something?”

“What if we suggested that the real difference between vampires and demons were that demons were less likely to take root, and instead spread their taint between multiple souls?”  Rayya asked.

“I’d say that there were too many religious overtones in that sentence for it to make real sense to me,” I quipped. “But is that a real thing?”

“Too many religious overtones or our suggestion?” Nen asked.

“The latter, thanks.” I rolled my eyes. We pulled into the parking lot, and I could see Rayya slip out first, probably to give an ‘all clear’ to Nen.  Such was the life of a celebrity.

Okay, I’m totally not a celebrity, but it was easier to think that than to think I was in any kind of trouble.

“Janet is not a demon,” Nen said.  He walked with me to the door, and waited for me patiently to find my keys. (Why do I always tell myself right hand pocket and end up with them on the left? Human perversity, no doubt.)

“Good to know. She was cute. Maybe a little young for me,” I considered.  “I mean, not terribly so, but she had a feeling of youth, which is supposed to be invigorating, but I don’t want to be on the skeevy side of things.  You don’t even understand what I’m talking about, do you?”

“I know you talk a lot,” Rayya said, briskly, coming in through the door after us.

“The concept of consent is a magical one, yes,” Nen said, “but not as definite as you’d like to believe.  You would likely find many of our interpretations skeevy.”

“You like the word?” I grinned, turning on the lights from my chair.  Rayya locked the door behind us.

“There’s a satisfaction to it, given that it seems a little less puissant than ‘squicky,’ and it seems to fill a part of that particular spectrum with better finesse.” Nen said.

“The internet is a wonderful thing.  So what about Janet? If she’s not a demon, what is she?”

“She is a … familiar,” Nen decided.