Wood Sprites

“Be nice!” Louise carefully took Joy from Gracie’s shoulder, mindful of Joy’s claws. “She’s here to help us. We need to move the babies.”

“Move?” Joy said doubtfully.

“Oni are coming!” Louise pointed to the east where birds rose up, scattered by something moving unseen in the dense forest. “We have to leave. You need to move the babies.”

Joy eyed Louise for a long moment, as if totally confounded by the request.

“Please, Joy. The babies love you so much, and they’re totally helpless right now. You need to help them or the oni will find them and. .” The possibilities were too awful to say.

Joy sat back on her haunches, mane bristling out like it was filled with static electricity. She puffed up like a balloon and then howled. The sound rushed up the scale from a low rumble to a sonic shrill shriek. For a mile in all directions, startled birds flew up into the air. Overhead, the gossamer shied away.

Louise stuck her fingers into her ears, but she could still feel the sound in her bones. All the hairs on her arms raised up, and her hair felt like it was trying to stand on end. “Joy! What are you—?”

The rest of the sentence caught in Louise’s throat as the gleaming ghost of a dragon appeared in front of her. Its hide was a deep gold to Joy’s dusky rose color. Its mouth moved and Louise felt ripples of something move across her skin. But she heard nothing — only the wind rushing over the hilltop.

“Providence!” Gracie whispered with surprise.

Joy waved both paws at the ghost and launched into a tirade in some language that Louise had never heard before. The baby dragon threw in hand gestures she had obviously learned off the streets of New York and a butt wiggle.

There was loud rush of wind and a second dragon appeared, this one blood red and smaller. Smaller being relative — it looked nearly fifteen feet long from whiskered nose to crocodile-like spiked tail. Its eyebrows lifted with surprise at the sight of Joy and Louise. When it leaned in to press a paw to Louise’s chest (scaring her by its sheer size), Joy smacked its paw away.

“Mine!” Joy plastered herself to the side of Louise’s head.

“This is Impatience.” Gracie whispered an introduction. “He’s — he’s — helpful.”

Joy renewed her tirade. Louise guessed that the baby dragon had summoned the dragons to ask for their help. Louise wasn’t sure it would actually work; Joy was being extremely rude.

The conversation came to a sudden halt as all three dragons turned to eye Gracie.

The tengu woman looked surprised and then nodded, replying in their flowing language.

Crow Boy landed silently beside Louise and knelt down in respect to Providence. He listened for a moment and his eyes widened and he gave Gracie a worried look.

“What’s going on?” Louise whispered. “The oni are coming! We don’t have time to stand around and talk!”

Conversation stopped again as everyone focused on her.

Louise squeaked in surprise. “What?”

Providence pointed a long clawed finger at her and then flicked it up, toward the gossamer.

Crow Boy bowed his head low and rose, scooping up Louise.

“Hey!” Louise cried as Joy leapt to Gracie’s shoulder. “Wait! Are they going to move the babies?”

“Yes, they are.” Crow Boy vaulted upwards, unfurling his great black wings. “We must be ready to leave as soon as they do.”

Louise glanced back down at Gracie and gasped. The tengu woman blazed as if crafted from light. “What are they doing to her?”

“She agreed to be the babies’ surrogate mother.”

“She said she couldn’t.”

“They are making it so she can. Joy needed Providence’s permission to use his dream crow.”

A mote of light wafted from where the broken nactka sat to the gathering of dragons. It merged with Gracie.

Louise went limp in Crow Boy’s arms as he winged upwards. It was done. For better or worse, the babies were on their way to becoming real.

46: Rock-A-Bye Baby, On A Treetop

“I still say it’s a little creepy,” Jillian said sleepily.

Open warfare between the elves and oni had spilled into the streets of Pittsburgh. The tengu had allied with Alexander, hence the reference to “Tinker domi.” Hours before the twins had stolen the gossamer, however, Alexander had gone into hiding. Until Alexander resurfaced, the tengu wanted to keep the girls and the babies safely hidden. So the twins were living with Gracie at the tengus’ secret village.

Gracie had a little house, two hundred feet up a massive old ironwood tree. It was charming until the twins realized it had no Internet and its meager power came from a mix of tiny windmills and solar panels. There was no refrigerator or television or even electric lights.

After dark, they were only permitted elf shines that drifted about the room like fireflies. Enchanting, unless you actually wanted to see something. There wasn’t much that they could do after dusk except talk and sleep.

Not that Louise really minded: the enforced rest was healing. Jillian stopped hiding behind masks and stated hard truths in her own voice.