2: TEAM MISCHIEF
“Oilcan.” The tiny voice whispered in the ultrasonic range. “Oilcan!”
He opened his eyes and blinked. And blinked again. Four mice on tiny hoverbikes stood in the pool of light on his nightstand. They wore racing goggles perched on their heads and scarfs of various colors wrapped about their necks.
“We did it!” The pink-scarfed mouse fist-pumped its little paw. “Hooyah!”
This made the other three mice cheer and clap their hands.
“Hello?” Oilcan whispered. He might be dreaming—or his life just got a whole lot odder.
“Oilcan, we have an important mission for you!” Pink Mouse cried.
“Life and death!” the Green Mouse and Red Mouse squeaked in unison.
“Me?” He couldn’t imagine what he could do for talking mice.
“You are Orville Wright, correct?” Blue Mouse asked. Unlike the other three, this one sounded male. Like Christopher Robin to be exact.
Oilcan glanced around, trying to determine if he was actually awake or still asleep. His new bedroom at Sacred Heart still disoriented him by the unfamiliar play of darkness and moonlight through the tall windows. The bed beside him was empty. Thorne Scratch had gotten up, turned on the lamp, and gotten dressed. Her sword and armor were missing.
He seemed awake…
“And you hate your name, correct?” Pink asked. “Orrrville.”
Which was exactly how the kids in grade school used to mangle his name.
“Yeah,” Oilcan said. “But what does that have to do with anything?”
“You have to find us wonderful names!” Red and Green cried. “Orville Oilcan, you’re our only hope!”
“They don’t want to call me Chuck Norris,” Pink explained. “They want to call me Charlene! Chaaarleeennnneee!”
“And they say we can’t be Jawbreaker!” Red and Green cried.
“Jawbreaker?” Oilcan echoed.
A wordless squeal of delight and the rattle of hard sugar candy within a cardboard box announced a fifth visitor. A tiny dragon phased out of his nightstand with its discovery. Oilcan thought for a moment that Impatience had somehow been reduced to squirrel size. He realized that the colors were wrong. This tiny dragon was a delicate dusky pink color instead of bold red.
The dragon held up the box of Everlasting Gobstoppers that Oilcan had bought for Impatience. In a little girl voice, it said, “Candy! Yummy!”
She tore open the box. She stuck in her arm up to her armpit, fished about and pulled out a piece of candy the size of her fist. “Nom, nom, nom!”
“Jawbreakers are Joy’s favorite candy!” Green and Red explained in unison.
“By the time we can do anything about our names, it’s going to be too late,” Chuck Norris said. “We’ll be stuck with horrible names. Once those names get pinned on us, we won’t be able to get everyone to use the ones we really want.”
Their point wasn’t completely off since Oilcan still had people who refused to call him anything but Orville. All the tax forms and legal documents too, required him to use his “real” name.
“We want cool names!” the Jawbreakers cried.
“I want to be Chuck Norris. If Alexander can be Alexander Graham Bell then I can be Chuck Norris Dufae.”
Dufae? That was his mother’s maiden name. Were these mice somehow related to him? Were they descendants of some long-lost great-great-uncle? His grandfather had handed out some stupid names to his grandchildren—Orville Wright and Alexander Graham Bell—but Oilcan never thought being bad at naming children was a genetic trait.
Two kids both called Jawbreaker was worse than anything his grandfather handed out. It should be easy to pick out something better.
“What names do you want?” Oilcan asked.
“Crimson Death!” Red cried.
“Cthulhu!” Green cried.
This wasn’t going to be simple as it sounded. This was so surreal. It had to be a dream. He glanced down at the mice feet. His notepad lay open with his to-do list written on the top piece of paper.
Find more dishes for Barley. Thrift clothes for Cattail Reeds? Sheet music for Merry and Rustle. Dog food for Repeat. Find out where the piglet came from! Tell Baby Duck no more pets!
If he could read the list, was he really dreaming? If he wasn’t dreaming, was there really a tiny dragon standing on his nightstand, inhaling gumballs? Whose “children” were these mice? Were they really related to him?
The door of his bedroom opened.
“Code red!” Chuck Norris cried. “Abort!”
She vanished, along with Crimson Death and Cthulhu. The tiny dragon bounded away, phasing through the wall.
The mouse in blue was the only one that remained. “Please, Oilcan, help them. I don’t want to be the only one with a cool name.”
“What’s your name?” Oilcan asked.
“Nikola Tesla Dufae.” Nikola looked past Oilcan toward the opening door. “Got-to-go-bye!”
“Domou?” Thorne Scratch stalked into the room, ejae drawn and pointed toward the nightstand. “Who are you talking to?”
That was a good question.
“I might have been talking in my sleep,” Oilcan said.
Thorne Scratch looked troubled as she sheathed her ejae. “Most domana do not true dream but most are not wood sprites.”
Tinker had told him about her odd Wizard of Oz dreams fueled by her mother desperately calling for help. What in the world could the mice symbolize? What was the importance of the weird names?
He realized that his nightstand was littered with pieces of cardboard. He picked up a jagged shard of brightly colored paper. It was the remains of the Everlasting Gobstopper box.
His future was going to be very odd if it involved a miniature dragon and talking mice.
“A runner from cousin is at the door.” That explained why Thorne was awake and armed. “Beloved Tinker of the Wind wishes to talk to you immediately. She wants you to bring your copy of the Dufae Codex.”
“The Codex?” Oilcan glanced at his bedside clock to confirm that it was indeed in the middle of the night. Tinker was still recovering from breaking her arm twice. She should be deep asleep, not in mad-scientist mode. “Oh, that can’t be good.”
He was right. Something was obviously very, very wrong. He’d seen Tinker that afternoon. She’d been surprisingly polished and all princess like, complete with an elegant tea with little tarts and finger sandwiches. She’d given him a fistful of cash with the promise of more later, they’d mapped out a plan for the future like old times, and he’d gone home to paint his door Wind Clan Blue.
Someone had rattled her cage after he left. Hard.
Tinker was still in her nightgown but had pulled on steel-toed work boots. She was clumping around Poppymeadows’ dining room as loudly as her hundred pounds allowed. She must have had a bath prior to going to sleep as she had serious bed head that made her look somewhat crazed. Pieces of paper were taped to the walls, and she was weaving colored thread from one point to another.
Her Hand looked slightly frightened.
Thorne Scratch gave Oilcan a questioning glance. She’d never really met the Godzilla of Pittsburgh in full rampage. He motioned to his First to be silent and still; Tinker rarely noticed anything that wasn’t moving when she was in this mode. Thorne wordlessly took up guard one step back and to the left of him.
“How hard is to find a pair of pants, for gods’ sake?” Tinker shouted. “Is this all the lamps we can get? It still looks like a cave in here!”
There were a dozen mismatched lamps scattered about, trying to fight back the dark “intimate dining” ambiance of the restaurant.
“We’re still looking, domi,” a tengu said from the shadows and disappeared without a sound.
“What’s wrong, Tink?” Oilcan asked.
“I just got handed several ticking bombs! I’m trying to defuse them all at the same time.” She held out her hand and twiddled her fingers through a “gimme” motion. “Let me see your Codex.” She flipped through the pages of his digital copy at a furious speed. She would pause occasionally to swear loudly. “Damn! Damn! Damn! Yours is doctored too. Our paranoid grandfather cut us off at the knees by giving us both the same highly edited version of the Dufae Codex. There are pages and pages of stuff he left out on purpose. Look!” She snatched up the original version. She flipped to the last page and read it aloud. “My beloved grandchildren, Leo was killed by his efforts to build a gateway to Elfhome. Dufae’s enemies have been on Earth all this time. It is possible that they already have the contents of Dufae’s lost box. Stay hidden. Trust only each other and no one else. Keep yourself safe. Keep yourself safe!” She shouted the last sentence a second time after reading it aloud. “Why write this and then hide it from us? I wouldn’t have applied to CMU if I had known this! I wouldn’t have trusted Riki when he showed up. There’s so many things I would have done differently this summer if I’d just had the original.”
“You did have the original.” Oilcan felt the need to point out. “He knew we’d find it after he died.”
Tinker gave him a hurt look, like he’d thrust a knife into her. “It was buried in his files with all the other secrets he didn’t want me to know!”
“I’m sorry.” He felt guilty. She was rattled; he should have just sided with her. The truth could have waited until another day. “It was a shitty thing to do but you know how he was. He hid out on that island under a fake name. He’d help anyone but if they got too friendly, he would start hiding from them. It’s what really killed him. He didn’t trust anyone. When he got sick, he wouldn’t go to the hospital. He didn’t even want you to call Lain. If he’d just taken care of himself, he might have lived for a hundred more years. We are—were—part elf.”
She rubbed either sleep or tears out of her eyes. “We’re missing hundreds of pages. Grandpa copied only the stuff focused on certain spells. There’s big sections that seem to be just raw data output of something. I don’t know what. I’m going to have to figure out how to search through the original just for information on the box.”
“What ticking bombs do you need to defuse? Literal bombs or figurative?” With Tinker one could never be sure. It was a good thing to find out quickly. “What can I do to help?”
She glanced about the chaos that she was brewing. Her gaze settled on the pictures connected with the multicolored string. “You were ten when your mother was killed. You know what it’s like to lose your parents, live with people you don’t know, and be dragged to a completely new world to live.”
“Yes,” Oilcan said slowly. They had a long-standing agreement that they’d never talk about his mother’s murder. He didn’t like talking to anyone about it, not even Tinker.
“So imagine me—two of me at the same time—at nine years old,” Tinker continued. “The two mini-mes had a normal childhood on Earth in New York City. Regular house for a family of four—whatever that looks like. School. No monsters. Just like you when you grew up in Boston. These mini-mes had actual parents—like you did—that had been killed in some manner. I don’t think in front of the mini-mes, but it’s possible.”
“Are we talking theoretical nine-year-old girls?” Oilcan asked carefully. “Or are there real children involved?”
“Real live orphans! Try to keep up!”
Oilcan sucked in his breath as the memory of warm blood seeping under bare toes flashed through his mind. Twelve years. One would think he would start to forget. Certainly he had no clear memory of the series of foster parents who followed until his grandfather arrived from another world; he only remembered the sense of being adrift in a sea of strangers. The night his mother died, however, was etched in stone. Along with it, a sense of guilt for not doing something to save his mother.
“Now,” Tinker charged on, seemingly unaware of the emotional storm she’d just triggered in him. “We’re talking mini-me—did I mention there are two? Well, actually, six but four aren’t born yet, so we’ll deal with them later. Two nine-year-old mini-mes. Crazy smart like me; they worked magic while on Earth. God knows what else they’re capable of—including using the Spell Stones. I know that if someone tried to make me live somewhere against my will, there would be hell to pay. Because I’m me, ‘hell to pay’ could be mind-boggling. Two of me—mind-blowing. The choices are: living with Esme, who is their rightful mother.” Tinker pointed at a photo of her mother taped to the wall. Tinker indicated Lain’s picture beside Esme’s. “Lain—although that’s nearly the same since Esme is living with Lain right now. Me—but what do I know about raising kids? You—but you have a house full of kids already. Forge, who promises to be good but I don’t really trust him completely. Gracie, who was married to my father and loved him desperately but I know almost nothing else about her.” Tinker tapped a hand-drawn picture of a tengu woman that stood in for Gracie. “She’s Jin’s cousin, one of the Chosen bloodline, and the flock’s ‘dream crow,’ which means she can see the future. We would be unleashing two of me on a woman who does not know what I’m capable of. I take that back—Gracie might suspect what I’m like since she was in space when I fell off the planet. No. No. I still think she’ll be totally blindsided, but who wouldn’t be—except for maybe Lain because she’s lived through one of me already.”
“Sunder,” Stormsong murmured.
“I am not giving up my siblings to be political hostages,” Tinker snapped.
Tinker’s Hand flinched. If the Stone Clan viewed the children as their responsibility, fighting could break out among the elves while they were still at war with the oni.
Oilcan stared at the pictures on the wall, trying to grasp all the implications. “I think—I think I need coffee.”
“There’s tea.” Tinker waved toward the pot. “Coffee tastes like shit now.”
He kept expecting things to taste the same and being surprised when they weren’t. The tea was an explosion of subtle flavors. It was a forceful reminder that he’d been changed from a human to an elf via powerful magic—against his will—by Forge.
Two cups of tea later, Oilcan said. “Start over. What do you mean, two of you?”
Tinker scrubbed at her hair, making it stand up like an annoyed hedgehog’s quills. “Jin was just here. The tengu rescued six of my siblings while I was busy blowing up Neville Island. Jin had been here in town, overseeing the search for the both of us and something about a train wreck at Oktoberfest.” She paused to pick up a pen and paper. “This is the first I’ve heard about the train. I need to find out if the trains can still run; we need that connection with the East Coast.”
Tinker wrote herself a note. “Jin was exhausted; I told him to go get some sleep.” She continued explaining where the mini-Tinkers had come from and how they came to be. When she got to the baby dragon and the four unborn siblings, Oilcan felt an odd dawning sense of horror and confusion.
“Four Dufae babies?” Oilcan repeated. “Three girls and a boy?”
“That’s weirdly specific,” Tinker said as Stormsong said, “Yes.”
Oilcan pinched the bridge of his nose. How did he know? How in God’s name did they manage to “talk” to him? They weren’t born yet! Had being turned into an elf somehow reinforced his wood sprite heritage, unlocking new abilities? Or had he just imagined it all? No, he couldn’t explain the shredded jawbreaker box. He had to accept the situation and then give the best advice he could. He pointed at the threads connecting the photographs on the wall. “What does the string represent?”
“Since you could tap the Stone Clan Spell Stones before you were even spell-worked into a true full elf, this is going to go political quickly,” Tinker said. “Even if the mini-mes can’t call the stones, the children are going to be considered domana caste. The different-colored string tracks who the Wyverns will allow to act as guardian, who has the needed security level to keep the children safe, and who the twins might accept as foster parents. The last one is the tricky one. You’ve been in their shoes. Who do you think the twins would want to be their foster parent?”
“Couldn’t we just ask the twins?” Oilcan asked.
“We can,” Tinker said “can” as if it was a horrible idea. “One of the bad things about being smarter than everyone else: I’ve always thought I knew everything. Like—like dating Nathan. I thought that was harmless. You told me it was a bad idea. Tooloo told me it would end badly. I thought I was right and everyone else was being stupid. I was wrong and Nathan ended up dead.”
Oilcan had to admit that she was right. Tinker plowed through people because she was always so sure she knew better. He shuddered at the thought of living through her tween years again—times two.
Tinker continued. “Grandpa rarely said no, but he always limited my choices. Like that time that I wanted to play with dynamite. He allowed me to design and build a delivery system for flinging it into the river, and then he never bought dynamite again.”
“I’m always amazed you survived your childhood,” Stormsong murmured in English.
Oilcan pointed to the string. “You want to figure out the best choices and then only present those as options to the mini-mes.”
“Yes.” Tinker pointed to the pictures of the Shanske sisters. “I don’t know Esme well but I know Lain will not be okay with trying to raise six mini-mes at once. Lain will want to split the kids up. She will probably take the two older kids and farm out the babies to separate foster parents. Lain most likely thinks that no one can handle more than two Dufae at a time—and she might be right. When I was nine, though, I would have arm-wrestled a saurus to keep my family together. I don’t know if Esme would want to deal with six kids at once. Lain is the older sister and it’s her house. Not to say that Esme couldn’t start up her own household, but she just did the impossible to make Lain happy. I think Esme would want Lain to share her…I don’t know what to call it. Happiness? Insanity?”
That explained the single strand of thread connecting to Esme’s and Lain’s pictures.
Tinker pointed at the hand drawing of Gracie. It had a single thread running to it. “Gracie has an unlimited number of babysitters at Haven but the Wyverns aren’t going to agree to that.”
“No, they will not,” Pony said firmly. By his tone, he might not allow it either.
Tinker indicated the newspaper clipping with the photo of Forge that had multiple strands connecting to it. “The Wyverns would allow Forge to foster the children. He has a large household, and has that whole grandpa thing going on, but we couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t pick up the kids and move back to Easternlands. I wouldn’t be happy there after living in Pittsburgh. Coming from someplace like New York City? The twins would hate it. If they’re like me, that could lead to very bad things.”
It left the heavily connected photos of Oilcan and Tinker.
They stood and eyed the pictures in long silence.
“Frankly, this scares the shit out of me,” Tinker finally admitted. In eight simple words, it explained the insanity of the pictures, the thread, and the heavy stomping in the middle of the night. “Being a big sister would rock, but being ‘Mom’ frightens me. Baby songbirds. Kittens. Peeps. Every little and helpless thing that I’ve tried to raise, ended up dead. I’m not good at it. I half-expected to kill Windwolf when he landed in my lap.”
“You will have all of us,” Pony said quietly. “My mother helped raise Wolf Who Rules. We can help raise all of your siblings.”
Pony’s words did little to lessen the scared look on Tinker’s face, probably because she knew that her little sisters could think rings around the sekasha warriors. Six of them at once? Oilcan thought of the little Dufae mice, already plotting when they weren’t yet born.
Tinker was right to be scared.
He gazed at all the threads leading to his photo. In theory, he was well suited to take six more kids. He had spare bedrooms. Forge had stated he was going to stay in Pittsburgh with his ten sekasha warriors. At some point the rest of Forge’s household should arrive, adding dozens of laedin-caste guards. Thorne Scratch had plans on how they could add to Oilcan’s Hand.
Maybe if he hadn’t talked to the mice, he would be more willing to gamble that his household could handle the added chaos of Tinker’s siblings. The mice made him honestly consider the problem.
Their grandfather, Tim Dufae, had barely been able to ride herd on Tinker when it was just her. Oilcan had been only ten years old and newly orphaned when he came to Elfhome. He had been an emotional train wreck from watching his mother be murdered by his father. Yet he’d still found himself acting as a semi-parent to his six-year-old cousin. He supposed it just came with the territory of being in a household with a younger child. He’d been lucky that Tinker adored him from the first day. She never tried to make trouble for him; it just worked out that way.
The five Stone Clan children in his care had been betrayed by their clan, captured by the enemy, imprisoned without hope of rescue, raped and tortured, and had watched helplessly as other children were slaughtered and eaten. Rustle’s arm was still shattered. Baby Duck had amnesia with no idea what her real name was or how she ended up in Pittsburgh. Cattail Reeds and Barley were emotionally fragile. Merry was already acting as emotional support for the other four children since Oilcan kept her safe from being kidnapped. To make those kids be semi-parents to six Tinkers? No, that would be criminal.
“I think it needs to be you,” Oilcan said.
“I—I—I—please?” Tinker said. “At least think about it?”
He didn’t want to say yes but looking at her with bed head, steel-toed boots and nightgown on, he had doubts that Tinker’s household could cope with another two magical girl geniuses terrorizing them, let alone six. It might also end up like Lain and Tinker’s relationship—they often butted their heads together like big-horn sheep. Tinker might not get along with her little sisters.
Thorne Scratch shifted so she was in his side vision. Once she had his attention, she nodded to indicate that she was sure it would be fine for him to take the twins.
She was so naïve.
Oilcan looked down at his feet so he wouldn’t have to meet their eyes. Could he actually say yes, considering the state of his kids? Yes, being semi-parent to Tinker had been harrowing at times, but Tinker had always listened to him when he put his foot down. She could be reasoned with. She’d been insanely mature for her age, even at six years old. By thirteen, Tinker had set up her own business and, in most practical terms, conducted herself as an adult. Tinker had shown him nothing but compassion when he arrived on Elfhome. The twins would probably be considerate of his kids’ emotional state. It might even be helpful to have someone else at Sacred Heart who understood human technology.
He looked back up at the strings connecting the various photos of possible guardians. “I’ll take the kids. I can see if Esme wants to live with me for a while to give the twins options. Maybe even Gracie too. Not as part of my household but like co-mothers for the babies or something. I don’t know. We can get inventive. This is Pittsburgh.”