Tanis took them back to the court. There was no sign of Ian or Michael, but one of them had put her empty sandwich plate in the kitchen sink. Emily went to the coat closet and took down a large plastic storage box.
“This is the stuff I took with me.” She pulled out a backpack, an old Polaroid camera, hiking boots and a sheathed knife. “There were extra clothes too, and a bag of energy bars. The food kept replenishing itself but that didn’t matter after a while.”
“Why?” Tanis sat next to Emily on the raised living room floor.
“Folk don’t need to eat, or sleep, or any of that bodily maintenance stuff.”
“And you’re Folk?”
“Yep.”
“And you’re only 23?”
Emily shrugged. “In years I’ve lived, I guess.” She tried a smile. “That makes you the older one.”
“Five years younger isn’t too much. That’s what I was from you, before. What’s left?” She nudged the box with her foot.
Emily drew the box closer and drew out a tunic of sturdy homespun fabric. “What I wore most of the time I was in the Sidhe. There are honest-to-Moses leggings, too. Like, medieval leggings, not yoga ones. A sprite’s village gave them to me.”
Tanis touched the fabric, biting her lip. “You said you could prove all this.”
Emily stood up and walked back to her room, Tanis cautiously following. Kneeling in front of the open closet, Emily banged a spot on the inner wall. With a magnetic click, a small panel swung open and Emily pulled out a strongbox, setting it in her lap. The combination spun open easily, revealing a stack of Polaroid photos, some papers and a rubber-banded envelope of cash.
“It’s getting late, so this won’t be as impressive.” Emily handed the envelope to Tanis and perched on the bed. “The king gave me this money so I could buy Polaroid film for the hare.”
“The who?”
Emily blushed. “Right, I skipped that. Um. There is a hare, not a rabbit, who is a scientist.”
Tanis shifted from foot to foot, picking at the rubberband.
“Yeah. Anyway, the hare—”
“Does it have a name?”
“No, he doesn’t. Or, if he does, I don’t know it. Names have power, you don’t just give them out.”
“Right.”
“Anyway, the hare found that instant film works like a magic mirror and can show the true nature of things. I bought him film and cameras in exchange for allowing the kids to go freely into the Sidhe. It was sort of a government-funded project, hence the money. Count it.”
Tanis thumbed through the bills. “There’s a lot here.” She drew one out. “Oh wow, some are super old, without all the colours and whatever.”
“Yeah.”
“So, how does this prove anything?”
“Give me some.”
Tanis handed over three of the newer-looking twenties. “What, does it magically replenish itself?”
“Well. Yeah.” Emily shrugged as she folded the bills and stuck them in her hip pocket. “We figured out that it doesn’t refill until you spend what you took out. So, okay, count what is left and stay here. I’ll go and spend this at the corner store, or something. When I come back, you count it again.”
Tanis’ eyes went big as she counted the money. She nodded and Emily left.
***
Emily felt stupid spending sixty dollars on convenience store food. Even with the inflated prices of ‘convenience,’ it was still what felt like a very silly amount of snacks. Full bags knocked against her legs as she pushed open her front door.
Tanis sat on the couch, looking through the strong box. She had a pile of letters next to her, written in Emily’s cramped teenage print. She looked up from the photograph she was holding with wet eyes, her freckled nose red and running.
Emily started unloading the bags onto the kitchen island. “I hope you feel like chips and dip. Also, weird candy.”
“I read the letters to your aunt.” Tanis sniffed.
“I figured you would.” Emily wrinkled her nose at a particularly garish bag of chips and shrugged. “Did you count the money?”
Tanis shook her head, then hunched over the envelope. “There’s more, but not quite what was there before.”
“Oh.” Emily dug into her pocket and pulled out some rumpled bills and coins. “I couldn’t spend it all.” She walked over, opening the chips with her teeth, and handed Tanis the change. “If you put it back in there, it’ll all be twenties again later.”
As she closed the envelope, Tanis stared into the middle distance. Emily took it from her hands, slipping the rubber band back on. She put everything back in the strong box and moved it to the coffee table.
Sitting next to Tanis, with room between, Emily tried one of the chips.
“Oh, that is gross.” She looked at the bag. “It’s like barbecued feet.” Emily felt like she was floating, all the things she’d been protecting were open, their bellies exposed, and here she was struggling to finish chewing something very stupid. The two sat on the couch in silence and Emily mindlessly ate another chip. She made a strangled noise and angrily set the bag as far away as she could.
Tanis snickered, tears beginning to spill freely down her face. “Dude.” Her laughter grew.
“Shut up.” Emily’s eyes filled as she started giggling.
They leaned against each other as they both broke into a giddiness that cycled between laughter and tears.
***
They stayed up late, Tanis asking Emily for more and more detail about the Sidhe. They tried each of the junk foods Emily had picked up, deciding that most of them would probably be better appreciated by Ian, Michael, or a trash can.
Emily showed Tanis the engraving on her knife, carefully leaving most of the blade sheathed. “I had to look up how to clean the blood off of it. Did you know you have to remember to oil it regularly, even when it’s in storage?”
“It doesn’t still turn into a sword when you pull it out all the way?” Tanis was cuddled under a knobby crocheted blanket.
“No, it just happened the once on this side, when I confronted all the adults. I think the context has to be right for magic to work in the mundane world.”
“Like the money.” Tanis threw a side glance at the envelope. They’d checked it earlier, the change had gone and all the bills twenties again. “You’ve never had problems with the serial numbers? It’s real money?”
“As far as we can tell. While we were first figuring everything out, we used it more often. Nobody found leaves or blank paper in their cash drawers.”
“Leaves?”
“It’s a fairy trick. Like, a glamour? But this stuff isn’t. It’s cold, hard, cash. My theory is that as long as I keep buying the hare film and cameras with it, it’ll keep refilling itself.”
Emily got up and started making coffee.
“What are you doing, it’s like, midnight.”
“Are you sleepy?”
“No.”
“Then, coffee.” Emily watched the kettle as it slowly built up a rumble.
Tanis looked at the photographs again. Most showed the glowing aura that identified the Folk, or magic items. Tanis had given up finding some sign that it was camera tricks or costumes. The people with bird feet had actual bird feet.
Emily had taken a photograph of each of the kids when they first entered the Sidhe, then again when she felt they had figured their Folk backgrounds out. The second image always looked like a double exposure, the fairy nature superimposed over each teenage face.
“Okay, Abby is a tree-person, a dryad.” Tanis rumpled her short hair, frowning. “Matty is a mer-person, Tank and Dawn are sprites, Michael is an elf, and Ian is a what?”
“An ogre.” Emily poured steaming water over coffee grounds. “So is Hannah, to her endless disgust.”
“What are you?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t find out who my parents were and knowing what kind of Folk you are is the key to unlocking all that stuff.” She shrugged. “I don’t like the Sidhe, so I don’t really care. Magic items work for me, that’s all I need.”
Emily brought the cups over to the coffee table and Tanis slipped coasters under them just before they touched the wood.
“So, what are you going to do about Abby?”
Emily sighed. “Go in and find out what’s going on. If I have to, I’ll do it with nobody sitting watch and not come back until I’ve found her.”
“And you could disappear for decades.”
“Or hours, or a century.”
“You can’t do that.” Tanis frowned, her grimness offset by the bright and ugly blanket she’d wrapped around her. “You have responsibilities.”
“I plan on giving my two weeks at the cafe, I’m not a dick.”
“Not just work, god-dammit.” Tanis playfully punched Emily’s arm, but hard enough to sting. “Me.”
Emily deflated into the couch, hands on her face. “I know. The other kids are, as Michael so bluntly informed me yesterday, fine without me. But I don’t want to leave you.”
“And what about your life?”
She peered at Tanis through her fingers. “What life?” Emily barked a laugh. “I have you, I have the kids, who are now adults. I read sometimes. I listen to music. But that’s it.”
“Dammit, Emily.” Tanis blew angrily on her coffee to cool it. She grimaced quietly at Emily through most of the cup and fell asleep soon after finishing it.
Emily stood, finishing her second cup of coffee, and looked at her girlfriend asleep on the couch, her round face finally relaxed into some sort of peace. Tanis didn’t have work the next day so Emily decided against waking her. She briefly considered carrying her to bed, but decided that would end badly. Tanis was the athletic one. With a shrug, Emily tidied the living room and fell into bed to catch a few hours of sleep before opening the coffee shop.
This post is part of The Consoling Divide – Serialised. See the archive and overall content warnings here, and find more of my writing here. I’m over on both Comradery and Patreon, if you feel like supporting my creative endeavours. If you’d like to subscribe to this story, here’s a handy email box for you: