Chapter Text
The smell of coffee and bacon found Jim before his alarm clock did. Sunlight flooded his vision as he pulled his head out from under his comforter, and he winced at the unexpected assault on his senses. It was far later than he had planned to get up. He snaked a hand over the side of his bed and grabbed for his alarm clock, then groaned. “8:39” glowed back at him in harsh, red numerals. No bell icon adorned the upper right-hand corner of the clock’s face.
His alarm clock would never find him if he never set it.
Jim allowed the clock to fall back down onto his bedside dresser, let his face to fall back down onto his pillow, and spoke a mostly muffled expletive out into the universe. Eventually, with some effort, he pulled himself out from the comfortable darkness beneath his covers and into the too-bright morning. Things weren’t going according to plan...but he could make this work. He hurriedly dressed himself and grabbed his backpack from the foot of his bed.
The front pouch remained partially unzipped and, from within it, the corner of a wooden artifact poked out. Jim hastily pulled the item out and stuffed it underneath some of the clothing in one of his dresser drawers. That would have to wait until later now. There was no way that he could go into the nursery with both Strickler and his mother awake, not without looking suspicious.
His bag now free of evidence, Jim slung it over his shoulder and hurried down the stairs.
Both his mother and Strickler were seated at the dining room table when he greeted them. The latter, it appeared, had managed this morning’s meal again: breakfast sandwiches, with bacon if his nose was any reliable indicator. They were decently-sized sandwiches, Jim noted as he watched his mother take a bite, with romaine lettuce, a thick slice of tomato, the aforementioned bacon, and an egg, all confined between a sliced everything bagel. He begrudgingly admitted that they looked delicious.
That fact might have annoyed him even more.
“Morning, sweetie,” his mother finally managed after swallowing her bite. Strickler tipped his mug of coffee toward Jim in greeting.
The teen pushed down his conflicted emotions and focused on the positive: he wouldn’t need to cobble something together last minute or hork down a bowl of cereal. Probably. “Those look great! If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were challenging me for my position as top household chef.”
The changeling smirked, and Jim wasn’t sure if he should take that as confirmation, or if that level of smugness was just his baseline.
“I’m glad to hear that they’re worthy of your approval,” Strickler said, accepting the compliment. “Yours is wrapped up on the counter. We weren’t sure how long you would sleep, given how late you all returned last night.”
Jim slipped into the kitchen and, sure enough, a third sandwich sat on the kitchen’s island, wrapped tightly in aluminum foil. His mother’s voice filtered through the kitchen window as he was grabbing a paper bag and working on packing his meal to-go.
“How was the park yesterday?”
“Not too crowded!” he responded, stopping to consider the fruit in the fruit bowl. He dropped an apple into the bag for good measure and stuffed everything down with a few napkins. “We forgot to bring Toby’s Dramamine though, so Claire had to portal back to grab it.”
There was a pause, then Barbara followed up with, “Oh, Nancy didn’t have any in her purse?”
Jim was ever-so-glad for the wall between them. He swallowed nervously and lied, “Nope! Real surprise! She’s usually got everything in there.” And considering Jim knew that she regularly carried everything from over-the-counter medications to emergency underwear for both herself and her grandson in her bag, that last part, at least, was true.
He heard his mother hum underneath her breath and crossed his fingers that she would let the matter drop. Zipping his bag shut, he schooled his face into something that looked a lot more calm and collected than he felt and walked back out of the kitchen. His mother was staring intently at him over the top of her mug of coffee. She took a long sip, but said nothing.
Strickler filled the silence in her stead. “It seems that you’re in a rush this morning. What plans do you have for today?”
Jim happily took the opportunity to divert the conversation. “Oh, you know, hanging out with Toby. Blinky asked us to grab a few things from down in Trollmarket that he left behind, so we’ll probably head down there at some point before it gets too hot outside. It might be dark without the Heartstone, but it’s still got built-in air-conditioning.”
The changeling’s look turned pensive. He offered a cautionary warning, “Just be careful. I suspect some things down there may be less...dead than originally expected.”
“Yeah...we’ll keep that in mind,” Jim agreed. He was pretty sure the “less than dead” things were zombie Gumm-Gumms, but that was not a conversation he wanted to have with his mother already on high alert. Aaarrrgghh had already taken out a fair number of them during a previous trip. It was too bright out now to easily bring the Krubera along, but Toby had his Warhammer.
Jim had nothing, and he definitely didn’t like that. His mother would like it a lot less. Maybe Blinky’s request could wait until the evening.
Strickler nodded, seemingly satisfied that the teen had been adequately warned. Jim took that as his cue to escape, before his mother’s scrutiny returned. “Well, I’m gonna head out. You two have a good day!”
“Please be careful,” his mother entreated, watching him beat a hasty retreat toward the door.
“I will! Later! Love you!” And with that, the teen successfully fled the premises.
Walter grinned and took a long, calm sip of his coffee. Once the door shut, he opined, “Personally, I would have gone with the Dramamine in Nancy’s purse being expired as my cover story.”
Barbara sighed and set her mug down on the table. “I’m not even mad about the law-breaking at this point. I’m more upset that he’s not being honest. Again.”
Which made sense, given the teen’s history of keeping information from her to protect her peace of mind. Walter nodded solemnly in solidarity.
Across the table, Barbara downed the rest of her coffee in a single swig. When she set the mug down, it connected with the tabletop just a little harder than necessary. Barbara was letting her anger stew, Walter observed, allowing it to simmer in the background until it inevitably concentrated into something decidedly more bitter.
“It may be worth a conversation later,” he suggested gently.
She looked up at him, then gave a gentle huff. “I know. I just wish..,” she trailed off.
Walter waited patiently for her to consider her answer.
“No, you’re right. He should know better, but it’s not worth getting upset about. At least nothing went wrong,” Barbara acknowledged. “We can talk to him when he gets home.”
At the side of the house, both heard the garage door slide open. There was a snippet of muffled conversation, clearer for Walter than it was for Barbara, as Jim started to inform Toby that, “No, Tobes, I overslept. It’s still in-” but abruptly cut himself off. This was followed shortly after by the faint clicking of a bicycle chain as Jim wheeled his bike out of the building. The garage door whirred and clunked a second time, signaling that he had officially left the building.
Any conversation would definitely need to wait now.
“By the way, Walter, I think I have an idea for our first new ‘spice,” Barbara began. Walter quirked one of his brow ridges and turned his full attention back to her. She continued, a smirk forming on her face, “Did you know that Nancy teaches rumba?”
“...I’m not sure I was aware, no.”
“At the park, on Thursday evenings,” Barbara continued, folding her arms atop the table and leaning closer. “It should be close enough to sunset that it shouldn’t be an issue for you.”
Walter tapped a claw-tip against his mug. A smile formed at the corner of his lips. “Barbara, I wasn’t aware you had an interest in dance.”
“I’ve been to the club before,” she informed him, almost defensively. Though she followed up her admission with a quieter, “In college. Almost twenty years ago.”
Walter snorted with laughter.
Barbara rolled her eyes and asked, “Alright, mister, when’s the last time you went dancing? During Queen Victoria’s reign?”
Her question did not improve the situation, as he only laughed harder. After a few moments, he placed a hand over his heart and admitted, “Dancing was an indispensable skill among certain social circles in that era, so I certainly have experience with ballroom dancing. And I remember the rumba being a dance craze near the beginning of the 20th century. But I’m positive that I’ve been dancing more recently than the 1800s.”
“It sounds like you have stories,” Barbara said, which elicited a sly grin from her boyfriend. “You’ll have to tell me about what kinds of secret changeling missions got you out on the dance floor sometime.”
She was sure that they were interesting, to say the least. The way that Walter’s smirk deepened almost confirmed it.
“Do you like dancing?” She asked in earnest.
“Oh, of course,” he confirmed. Barbara breathed a sigh of relief. She had been worried that the idea might fall flat. James had hated dancing, and getting that man to participate in anything he didn’t enjoy had been...well, impossible, hadn’t it? Even parenting, in the end.
The sound of Walter’s chair sliding against the hardwood floor drew her back out of her thoughts. The changeling collected his dishes, then hers. As he circled back around her, he leaned down close enough to whisper in her ear, “Especially when I have such a desirable partner.”
Barbara felt the telltale flush of heat creep up her neck and into her face as he sauntered into the kitchen.
---
The first order of business was calling Nancy, who confirmed that there was ample room in the class for “beginners.” And of course they could stay close to the treeline: it takes two to rumba and how could they do that if Barbara’s partner turned to ash? And, oh! Her boyfriend, Varvatos, would even be back for the night! They could make it a double date! Barbara wasn’t sure that she had ever met the Akiridion soldier properly, but that did sound like a cute idea. She enrolled the two of them without a second thought.
The second order of business was finding an outfit for the date. A quick search of Barbara’s closet turned up a few potential candidates: a couple of nice blouses, a selection of dress slacks, neatly pressed, for when work required more formal attire than scrubs, and a few pencil skirts, most of which had already made an appearance during previous evening dates with Walter. She combed through her closet a second time, ticking off hangers one by one until she reached the end.
She could have sworn she had some sundresses stowed away somewhere. Something flowy and loose, that would twirl with her when she moved her hips. Something to show off that “desirability” Walter had mentioned earlier, and turn the tables on his merciless flirtations. Barbara shut the doors to her closet and placed a finger against her chin, contemplating where she had last seen the dress she had in mind. A quick check of the storage bins under her bed turned up nothing suitable. Assuming she hadn’t donated them at some point, that left a few last possible places they could be.
“Walter!” Barbara called, slipping out of her room and back down the stairs. She found the changeling in the living room, carrying their last remaining baby of the current batch against his shoulder as he milled around the living room. “Do you remember finding any of my clothing in the spare bedroom, back when you moved in?”
The baby on his shoulder gripped onto his turtleneck and made a face. Walter began patting the child's back as he approached. He thought on her question for a few moments, then offered a tentative, “I believe so. There were a few things shoved to the back of the closet, and on top of the shelves. I admittedly pushed them further back when I moved my belongings in.”
Barbara made her way into the nursery with him in tow. There was a crib positioned in front of the closet door, with a total of four crammed into the narrow room like sardines in a tin, and barely enough space to walk between them. Her brow furrowed as she puzzled out the best way to shift them.
Behind her, the baby hiccuped, then made a little whining noise of discontent. Walter nudged her with his arm and motioned for her to take the child. Barbara obliged, shifting the child onto her own shoulder and stepping back, out of the way. Once she did, Walter pulled the first crib back toward the door to the room. He slipped into the space that created and eased the closet door open.
If the nursery was crowded, the closet beyond was positively packed. A narrow set of drawers had been fitted inside and several items sat atop it. Around the aforementioned bureau, a curious assortment of hanging clothing was packed tightly to either side. On the shelf that ran near the ceiling, several boxes, briefcases, and a small chest had been neatly arranged, like some type of storage tetris game. What appeared to be Walter’s life from before was condensed into a tiny spare closet. Barbara gaped at the nightmare cache. Where should she even start?
Walter’s brow furrowed as he immediately noticed something off about the scene before him, something decidedly different than her own. He carefully picked a small circular object adorned with crystals up from where it lay flat atop the bureau. When he did, Barbara noticed that the center was filled with swirling green light. It formed a flat surface across the center of the artifact, almost like some kind of supernatural mirror or portal.
Walter tentatively stuck a hand into it, confirming it to be the latter when nothing came out the other side. Barbara watched, intrigued. He pulled his hand back through and shook his fingers. She didn’t see anything on them, so she wasn’t sure what that was about. He gave the ring a quick shake and the portal at its center coalesced into a pinpoint of light before blinking out.
He must have noticed her watching, because he turned his head toward her and told her, “This is a fetch. It’s a small portal into the Darklands. We used them..,” he trailed off, his gaze shifting to the baby on her shoulder. His lip curled, and a touch of guilt bled onto his face. “We used them to swap young changelings with familiars.”
Barbara looked down at the small child curled against her chest. The baby hiccuped again and scrunched up her face. Barbara tightened her grip on the child, just a little.
She knew those days were past...she knew that Walter wouldn’t toss the child back through that portal, no matter how much she fussed. But the knowledge still sat heavily enough on her chest that it unsettled her and triggered some deeply rooted protective instinct to hold the child just a little closer.
Walter quietly set the fetch back onto its stand and cleared his throat. “It normally requires physical touch from someone living to activate it. I’m not sure how it could have activated in the closet, even if it fell over.”
Barbara squeezed her way between the cribs to where he stood. She bumped her shoulder against his gently, to grab his attention, then offered him back the baby. He looked unsure, glancing briefly between Barbara and the child, before hesitantly plucking the fussy child out of her arms. With her arms free, Barbara muscled her way into the overly-packed closet, shoving clusters of clothing towards the bureau so that she could try to squeeze her arms toward the back. It was a tight fit, but she could almost see the end of the stack.
Nothing on this end. Barbara ducked between Walter and the drawers to check the other side.
While she searched, Walter continued his inspection of the closet. With his free hand, he picked through the remaining items sitting atop the bureau, righting a few and organizing them more neatly. Once he was satisfied, he paused and considered the rest of the closet. An idea struck him, and he eased open one of the top drawers. The drawer itself seemed relatively empty in comparison to the rest of the closet. Barbara watched as he reached a hand inside and shuffled the contents around. His brow furrowed again. He checked the drawer next to it, and once more removed nothing.
Barbara paused her own search to ask, “What’s wrong?”
“Something is missing,” Walter replied. He tapped a claw against the top of the bureau, deliberating, then concluded, “I think I know how Jim and his friends planned to avoid legal trouble if they were pulled over yesterday.”
“How?”
The changeling pulled another drawer open, just to be sure. This one was stuffed to the brim with scrolls and old tomes. Walter exhaled forcefully, then turned back to her. “The spare glamour mask I keep in here is missing.”
Barbara processed what he had said, then inquired, “You think he stole it?”
“Borrowed,” Walter clarified, “though borrowing usually involves asking the owner.” He couldn’t help the little growl that escaped him as he shut the drawer. Something inside made a strange skittering noise. Barbara wasn’t sure that she wanted to know what caused it.
Walter resumed rubbing circles into the baby’s back. Barbara wasn’t sure who that action was supposed to soothe more: Walter or the baby. They were definitely going to need to have a talk with Jim.
Barbara set her anger aside and resumed her own search. This side was more packed than the first, she noted. Taking the easiest route, she pulled a cluster of hangers out, easing the clothing attached to them out of the stack as she did. These clothes were placed over the side of the nearest crib, out of the way. She grabbed a second group of hangers, attempting to do the same as she had done with the first handful, and something...several somethings within made a rustling sound.
Barbara stopped pulling on the second cluster of clothing immediately, freezing in place. Walter stepped up beside her and peered into the confines of the crowded closet. The noise stopped.
“Don’t move,” Walter advised. He carefully deposited the baby into the crib that presently sat in front of the door to the room. Then, free of his burden, squeezed past her and closer to where the noise originated. Once in position, he motioned for her to yank the clothing out.
Barbara pulled the clothing free of the closet. A flurry of purple-colored beetles flew out with it. Barbara screamed and immediately swung her only weapon, the clothing, directly into the swarm.
“Wait!” Walter cried, but it was too late. Beetles flew everywhere.
Barbara took another swing, ignoring Walter’s warning. More beetles flew out of the clothing she was swinging. The air was alight with the glowing little insects. Several landed on her person and in her hair. Several swarmed Walter, flying directly at his face and dive-bombing him from overhead. They filled the whole room, landing on every surface imaginable, including the baby.
And then they started...Barbara could only describe the noise as “farting.” The room filled with the smell of sulfur and smoke. And burning hair. Barbara swatted at the bugs on her head, crushing at least one in the process. It made one, final flatulent noise before smearing into her bun. She grimaced at the feel of its insides against her scalp, but continued smacking and squishing her attackers mercilessly.
Next to her, Walter was doing much the same, smashing the insects on his person, on the walls, stepping on the ones on the floor. It seemed to barely make a dent in their numbers. The room was filled with the grotesque trumpeting of their gaseous assault. Inside one of the cribs, the sheets began to smolder as a cluster of the insects began munching on the fabric. In another crib, the baby giggled with delight, before joining their chorus as she finally managed to burp out the trapped gas that had been bothering her.
Walter pushed Barbara toward the empty corner of the room, away from the source of the swarm. He implored her to, “Take the child and go!”
Barbara flicked a beetle out of the baby’s hair and snatched her out of the crib. Walter yanked the crib back toward himself, just far enough that the door could be opened. He shot Barbara a frantic look and bid her again to, “Take her outside! I need to get rid of these pests!”
She hated to leave him in there, but trusted him to be better equipped to deal with the onslaught. Barbara wedged the door open and slipped out of the room. Several beetles whizzed out with her, whirling and looping into the much more spacious foyer area, before Barbara managed to pull the door shut behind herself. She quickly deposited the baby into the playpen in the living room, then returned to address her much smaller swarm.
The floor and walls were patterned with little pops of purple goo by the time she was almost done. Within the room, a refrain of toots and rips continued to sound off. She could hear Walter yelp, then growl at the “Miserable little firestarters” that had, she assumed, managed to somehow catch him or his clothes on fire. He called them several less polite names as he squished his way to victory.
Another beetle trumpeted past her right ear, and Barbara swatted at it. The insect fled and tried to scuttle under the door to the basement. She slammed her heel down onto it before it could escape. It died with a thunderous noise, sending a cloud of noxious air up into her face.
This was exhausting and disgusting in equal measure.
Eventually, Walter emerged from the room, scorched and covered in smears of purple guts. He shut the door behind him quickly; the infestation was presumably not entirely eradicated. In his hand, he held the fetch, still activated. He looked at her, then paused. With a disgusted grimace, he reached into the collar of his turtleneck and extracted another beetle. This one was hurled directly into the tiny portal, which he promptly turned off.
“Walter...what were those?”
“Scorch beetles,” he ground out as he patted himself down, checking his person for any more hitchhikers. Once satisfied, he straightened out his shirt and attempted to brush the beetle detritus off of himself. Pieces of purple carapace fell off of him like tiny shards of glitter. The insects’ insides only smeared further into the fabric as he brushed over them. He sighed and gave up. “They’re native to the Darklands. Much like insects found on the surface, they reproduce rapidly, particularly once they find a reliable food source. They eat fiber: clothing, paper, various textiles and the like.”
“Like clothing moths?” Barbara asked, and Walter nodded.
“But bigger and with a greater capacity for damage,” he confirmed. “When threatened, they release a mildly combustible gas that they can use to ignite flammable surfaces. Usually just enough to make surfaces start smoldering, not enough to cause an explosion...not in small quantities at least. That was a particularly large swarm though.”
"Is that why the room smells like sulfur and they kept making that..," she gestured vaguely with her hands, avoiding the childish word that came first to her mind.
Walter filled in the gaps, offering the more polite alternative, "Sound like they're passing wind? Yes... unfortunately."
Barbara made a face and glanced over at the tiny room that, she assumed, was slowly filling with gas. “We need to crack the window.”
The changeling glanced over at the door, then back at her. He looked decidedly unhappy with the idea of jumping back into the fray. His discontent was written on his face as he countered with, "I've never heard of them managing to cause an actual explosion."
Barbara scoffed and held out her hand, beckoning him to give her the fetch. He pulled it back toward himself before she could grab it. With a loud huff, she crossed her arms over her chest and glared the changeling down. "Walter!"
"Alright! Alright, just give me a moment to-"
Barbara marched past him and cracked the door open. Inside the room, dozens of scorch beetles perked up and noisily rattled their elytra in warning. She took a deep breath, held it, and slid back into the room with them. They took to the air immediately and resumed their menacing chorus.
Walter hastily slipped into the room behind her and activated the fetch. While she wove around the cribs, toward the window, he swept the tiny portal through the air like a small, inter-dimensional net. The "captured" beetles were harmlessly scooped back into their native environment.
That seemed like a much less messy way of dealing with them.
Barbara wrenched the room's small window open and relished the wave of fresh air that rushed in. The remaining beetles scattered at the sudden change in light and airflow in the room, buzzing underneath cribs and back into the safety of the closet. She watched one try and fail to squeeze itself into the central air vent, its body too thick to fit between the metal slats. With any luck, that meant they were relatively contained...for now.
When she turned back to Walter, she found him fishing a few more out from under a blanket in one of the cribs. He tossed them casually through the fetch before closing the portal once more. Barbara took in the chaotic state of the room: cribs shoved this way and that, clothing strewn across the floor, knocked down and kicked about in their panic, the closet door pinned open, its contents spilling out into the nearest crib. Some of the clothing and bed sheets, she noted, had developed scorch-marks. The nursery was a disaster zone.
With a sigh, she carefully eased one of the cribs aside and shimmied between it and the closet. Inside, she heard a multitude of beetles scuttle away from her approach. She screwed up her face, anticipating a fresh wave of them, and plunged her arm back into the crammed closet.
"Barbara, what on Earth-" Walter started, but she cut him off.
"If we had to come back in here anyway, I might as well grab my dress," she explained. He stared at her, bewildered. Inside the closet, she felt a couple of beetles land on her arm, then scuttle frantically away. Barbara fought back the urge to draw her arm back and powered on, pushing Walter’s clothing aside and working her way to the back, where she knew her own to be.
If that dress was somewhere other than this closet, she was going to lose it.
As she worked, the beetles began migrating, scurrying away into corners and crevices, behind the dresser, and a deeper into fabric folds. A few took flight, back into the air around them. Walter grabbed as many as he could with the fetch, swatting them out of the air and directly into the Darklands.
Finally, Barbara’s hand closed around loose, silky fabric. She carefully unhooked Walter’s clothing from the rack and set it down on the floor for the time being. In the dark recesses of the closet sat a handful of dresses, varying from casual to formal, as well as her graduation robe. At the very back, zipped into a plastic garment bag for protection, sat her wedding dress. Barbara snatched the other dresses and her graduation gown by their hangers and pulled them out of the scorch beetle nest.
The wedding dress was left behind. They could have it, for all that she cared.
The other dresses were passed to Walter, who promptly shook them out to dislodge any hitchhikers. A half dozen or so whirled into the air, letting loose an encore of toots and poots. The changeling rolled his eyes. He enjoyed a good pun, but “fart jokes” were a tad too juvenile for his tastes. Teaching teenagers for a few decades had certainly not improved his opinion of them either.
Barbara hoisted Walter’s clothing back off the floor of the closet and quickly rehung them. More scorch beetles scattered. She shuddered as one tried to hide in her pant leg and, in a panic, shook the beastie off. Once all of the clothing was back where it had been, she shut the closet door and trapped as many of the offending insects inside as possible.
Walter passed her clothing back to her as she approached. She accepted it with a smile, giving the dresses a few extra shakes for good measure. No further insects emerged, at least from the clothing. Her boyfriend snagged one that had attempted to nestle into her bun, and flicked it haphazardly through the glowing portal and home.
Barbara shot him a look of gratitude and inclined her head toward the door. The crib was shoved out of the way again and he opened it for her, motioning her to pass through first with a flourish and a little bow. They both made a quick exit from the infested room and shut the door behind them.
The first thing Barbara did was pat herself down. No hidden bugs to be found, much to her relief. Just a disgusting amount of bug juice and parts. “I need to shower...so badly.”
“I second those sentiments,” Walter chimed in, running his claws along the inside of his collar and the hems of his pants. A beetle burrowed deeper into the curl of his hair. Feeling the movement, he immediately squashed it with a terse growl. “In all my centuries, I have never seen a scorch beetle infestation that bad. Outside of the Darklands, that is.”
Barbara was beginning to get the feeling that everything in the Darklands was either dangerous, combustible, or intent on eating everything else. No wonder Walter and the other changelings had been so desperate to get out. She could almost understand the scorch beetles hasty migration into her closet. Which brought her back to the question of, “How in the world did they even get in there?”
“If I had to guess,” Walter posited, “they snuck through the fetch while it remained activated. When I picked it up, it was looped over the edge of its stand. Part of the stand was poking through the portal, leaving it half on the surface world, half in the Darklands. Theoretically, that could result in the portal remaining open.”
“Theoretically?”
Walter led the way into the living room. “I’ve never attempted to keep the fetch active for an extended period of time. An hour at most, perhaps? Good things rarely come out of the Darklands.”
Barbara took one look at the couch and decided against sitting on anything fabric. Scorch beetle guts were probably just as hard to get out as goblin viscera. She pivoted into the dining room and collapsed onto a wooden chair. The dresses landed on top of the table and flowed across its surface. Out of the corner of her vision, she thought she saw something shift beneath the fabric and shuddered. They would need to do a thorough check of each garment, just to be sure. She looked back up at Walter as he approached, thoroughly exhausted from their mid-day fiasco.
“What I don’t understand,” Walter mused, sliding into a chair next to her, “is how the portal opened in the first place.” He placed the fetch atop her dresses, then folded his hands in front of himself in thought.
“Unless…”
“You don’t think the kids were messing with it...do you?” Barbara suggested.
Walter narrowed his eyes, staring intently at the fetch, then agreed with her assessment. “That seems the most likely sequence of events. If they never deactivated it before setting it down-”
The sound of the front door unlocking and cracking open caught both adults’ attention, and Walter stopped mid-sentence. Jim and Toby moseyed into the foyer, the picture of conviviality. Their bags thudded heavily against the floor and banister as they cast them aside in a tumble of limbs and boyish antics.
“Hey, mom! Hey, Mr. Strickler!”
“Hey Dr. L, Mr. S!”
“We decided to..,” Jim trailed off as he saw the table, the pile of dresses, the fetch, and the two very grimy adults.
“Kids,” Barbara said sternly, “we need to talk.”
Toby swallowed audibly, and whispered to Jim, “Please tell me my Nana isn’t sitting on the couch. I don’t need a repeat of the goblin incident.”
A rogue scorch beetle buzzed into the foyer, performing an aerial loop-de-loop before landing on Jim’s head.
“Pretty sure it’s not goblins this time,” Jim whispered back.
“Sit,” Barbara ordered, her patience running out. “Now.”
---
Jim returned the glamour mask when confronted, a bit sullen but without an argument or further attempts to cover their crimes. It appeared that Walter’s deduction was correct: the mask was a back-up plan, so that one of them could appear to be an adult in the car if pulled over. Clever, but ultimately unneeded. Toby had driven them safely to and from the park without incident or police involvement. Well...without involvement beyond Detective Scott grilling them about their plans at the park for the day. Darci had managed that situation for them, though, no glamour mask required.
The matter of the fetch being activated was also in line with the changeling’s suspicions: Toby had activated it to poke his head through. Just to check things out. The teen had placed the fetch back on its stand before they left the room, and assumed it would turn itself off. It had likely fallen when they closed either the drawer or the door to the closet. None of the teens had taken notice at the time.
They were apologetic about the theft, and the scorch beetles...less so about the law breaking, but Barbara could let that one slide. They had made the journey safely, and that was the important part. Jim had been oddly abrasive when it came to Walter’s scolding, but Barbara suspected that she had an idea what that was about.
But that was a conversation for another day.
Most of Barbara’s dresses, much to her relief, escaped the scorch beetle nest undamaged. The one she had in mind: a light and airy cotton number in robin’s egg blue, had a few nibbles taken out. It was a cheap purchase, though, made back when she was freshly divorced, and not thought about in years. It was a good excuse to buy a new dress, really...but Walter insisted that it was salvageable. He whisked it off for repairs before she could reassure him that it was replaceable.
He returned it the next day, and the dress he presented her with was, honestly, an upgrade. The hem was shorter, which was unavoidable given where the insects had been chewing. A cream-colored trim had been added around the waistline and the hem of the dress. A small cluster of fabric roses, dark blue and fashioned out of satin, had been sewn over a hole that had been burned into the waistline.
“Are you my fairy godfather?” Barbara asked, deadpan, holding the dress up so she could inspect his handiwork.
Walter snorted, then inclined his head and angled his horns forward. “I do bear a striking resemblance to Maleficent.” He just laughed when Barbara playfully smacked him on the arm.
“She’s not a fairy godmother. But I’m serious, Walt. Where did you learn to sew dresses like this?” She draped the dress over her chest, inspecting how it fell on her form. Definitely shorter...but flirtation had been the plan all along, hadn’t it?
“Nancy helped quite a bit,” he admitted. Tapping a claw against the rosettes, he noted, “These were a donation from a dress that ‘hasn’t fit her in years.’”
“Very thrifty of both of you.” Barbara folded the dress carefully over her arm. She would have to thank the older woman when they met later in the week. It was a very sweet gesture.
When she looked up from the garment, Walter was beaming at her proudly. “I’m glad you like it. I look forward to seeing how it fits.”
Barbara shot him a sly smirk. That was the least surprising part of all of this. Nevertheless, anticipation made for a better meal. And so, she dangled the promise before him enticingly. “You’ll have to wait for Thursday.”
Her lover slipped his hand beneath hers and brought it to his lips. He ghosted a kiss over her knuckles, teasing her back. “With bated breath.”