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It’s Rhiannon’s turn on the helpline again, despite the fact that she’s not very good at it – not what anyone would call warm and fuzzy or even useful, anyway.
She cracks her gum – something that drives Molly half-mad – as she picks up. “Help desk. What’s the situation?”
Molly grits her teeth. There’s a script – a specific one – that they’re meant to use, to ascertain who it is they’re helping, what aid they need and who it is they should be put through to. They’re not a helpdesk, after all, but a helpline, and part of that means –
“Okay.” Rhiannon drags out the ‘o’ in it, the skepticism in her voice clear. “And you found it where? On your front porch, you said?”
It takes everything she has to keep typing and not patch in and take over the call herself – or, worse, walk over and snatch it out of her hands, apologizing to whomever’s on the other end before asking them to restate the problem.
“Okay, so.” Rhiannon cracks her gum again. “I’m gonna go ahead and patch you through to our child welfare services, mmmkay? They’ll make an appointment with you and follow up later this afternoon, depending where in the queue you fall. Okay? Okay. Mmhm, you’re welcome.” Another crack. “Buh-bye.”
She presses the button to transfer the call (at least getting that part right; it’s what she’s best at, after all), slamming the phone back in its cradle.
“Another mix-up on addresses,” she says, twirling in her desk chair and looking over at Molly, blowing a bubble as she does so, a fluorescent green that puts her in mind less of bubblegum and more of radioactive waste. “Wanna guess which it was?”
“Not really.”
Rhiannon keeps talking as though she’d played along. “Woke up this morning to find her milk and egg delivery gone – local organic farm, I guess, they do deliveries by bicycle – and a baby left in its place. Not a typical changeling thing, sounds like a case of someone’s wish getting misdelivered, y’know?”
“Yup.” Molly glances over at her. “Did you ask her how old the baby was, if there were any signs that it’s – they’re – not human…?”
Another bubble. “Nah.”
It takes everything she has not to say something. “Okay, so, you know we’re supposed to ask about that, right? Like, that’s part of our job?”
Rhiannon pops the bubble. “Yeah.”
“Okay. So. We have the script, and you deviated from it, because…?”
Bubble, pop, bubble, pop – the tell-tale, ‘I’m thinking about it’. “Child welfare services is going to test it anyway, aren’t they?”
Patience, Molly reminds herself. Be patient; you were new once, too. Never mind that she’d been most of the way through her LCSW when she’d applied, because it was supposed to be temporary. Get back on your feet, figure out what you want to do.
Two years on, she’s still not sure what she wants to do, but she does know that Rhiannon is not helping. “Child welfare services will help if it’s a child,” she says, trying to keep her tone neutral to pleasant. “There’s obvious tells if it’s not, and it saves both us and the community member time if we’re able to patch them through to the right department. For instance, if she’d mentioned that the baby had wings, we could probably guess that it was non-human, and as such, refer her to someone who could test if it was a case of a fallen angel or one of the Good Neighbors.”
Rhiannon nods, thoughtful, and grabs a tissue from the box on her desk. Spitting her gum into it, she tosses it into the trash before opening a new stick, shoving it into her mouth and chewing. “Okay,” she says. “But the Good Neighbors all have iridescent wings. We know that.”
Count backwards from ten, and count your blessings: at least she spat it into a tissue. “Not all of them,” Molly says. “Some of them –”
The phone rings, cutting her off.
“Can you get it?” Rhiannon asks. “I gotta pee.”
Without waiting for an answer, she lumbers to the washroom.
This is not my fucking life, Molly thinks, though she does pick up the receiver from the cradle on her desk, hitting the button to transfer it. “Thank you for calling the New Arcadia Supernatural Helpline,” she says. “Please describe the nature of your inquiry and ATU index number, if known, so I may better assist you.”
“Uh,” says the voice on the other end of the line. “I think my air fryer is haunted? I went to go make chicken nuggets in it earlier today, and now my kitchen’s full of them?”
Molly rubs her temples. “Okay,” she says. “Is it your air fryer, or does it belong to someone else in your household?”
“Uh.” A beat, then: “Okay technically it’s my roommate’s and she told me not to use it because it’s kinda finicky, but like, it’s a brand I’ve totally heard of and, like, it’s an air fryer – how hard can it be?”
“Right. Are the chicken nuggets currently pouring out of the air fryer basket, or is it cooking them and they overflow when you open the basket?”
“Uh. Well, it dings and then it flings itself open, and there are nuggets in it,” says the voice on the other end of the line. “Is that, like, normal?”
Molly jots down on the pad beside the phone: ATU 565. “Nope,” she says. “But it’s not haunted. I’m going to patch you through to tech support, and they’ll go ahead and give you a few command phases to stop it from making stuff.”
“...okay. So I can’t just unplug it?”
“No,” she says patiently. “If you unplug it, there’s every chance it’ll go gallivanting through town flinging nuggets at everyone it sees.”
There is a long pause, then: “Shit. Uh…”
“Stay on the line, please, and I’ll –”
Click.
She sits back in the chair, rubbing her temples, Rhiannon emerging from the bathroom just as she hangs up the phone.
“Thanks,” she says. “Can I, like, go to lunch?”
Molly glances at the clock. It’s barely eleven. “Uh. What time did your shift start?”
“Nine.”
She shakes her head. Rhiannon sighs, cracking her gum for what feels like the thousandth time that afternoon. Count backward from ten, she thinks again, tired.
“I have, like, a thing at one. Can’t I leave now?”
You’re not her supervisor. Why do you care?
“Whatever. Just go.”
Rhiannon doesn’t come back from lunch. Molly mans the helpline the rest of the morning, verging into the afternoon, only switching off when Bran shows up for the night shift, clearly hungover.
“Your turn,” she says, because there’s roughly a thousand fucking other things to do, and no time to do them in. “Good luck?”
“Uh…” He rubs his eyes. “Yeah, sure, okay. What’s the call volume been like today?”
“Pretty steady, normal for a Wednesday.”
“Nothing really bad?” Meaning, nothing of the kind that’s going to involve a lot of paperwork or the kinds of supernatural events gone wrong that lives in everyone’s nightmares.
“Not since that 720 last week.”
“Fuck.” He shudders. “Still glad I wasn’t on call for that one. Did they say when Lena would be coming back?”
“Official word is that she’s on indefinite medical leave and we’re hiring a temp,” she says. “So, uh. No?”
“Cool. Any word on the temp?”
“Only that Sharon’s been looking for someone and hasn’t found anyone yet,” she says. “Are you good to take over the line, or…?”
“Uh.” He rubs his face. “Yeah, sec. Sorry.”
“Uh-huh.”
The phone rings again. Molly can see the wheels turning in his head as it does – shit, will she get it, or…? He’s pallid, sweat standing out on his forehead. Maybe not a hangover?
“I’ll get it,” she says. “Go, hang out in the bathroom for a few minutes, splash some cold water on your face, see if you feel better.”
“Thanks, dude,” he says, clearly grateful. “Uh. Sorry. Think –”
He bolts for it, closing the door behind him as he does. Molly can hear him coughing, loud and wet, the sounds echoing off the tile. Definitely not a hangover then, she thinks, sighing as she picks up before running through the usual script.
“Um, this is the supernatural line?” says the lady on the other end. “I have a question…I mean, it’s silly, but – I think you might be able to help, so…”
“This is the helpline,” Molly says, as pleasantly as she can manage. “Ask it, and if I can’t answer, I’ll transfer you to someone who can.”
“Um,” she says. “So I just got home from vacation – uh. My roommate says that she was christened as a baby, and when she was…no one invited her evil aunt, um.”
Molly takes a deep breath, sure she already knows where this one is going. “Was she instructed to stay away from spindles, sewing needles, or other implements, lest she find herself faced with sudden doom?”
“...yeah,” says the woman on the other end. “How did you…?”
“Okay,” she says. “This is going to sound like an odd question, but is your house now surrounded by rosebushes, blackberry brambles, or other thorned vines?”
Silence, then: “Yeah,” says the woman on the other end. “Seriously, how did you know?”
“Great,” she says. “Does your roommate have a significant other?”
Silence, again. “I’m sorry?”
“Does your roommate have a significant other? Boyfriend, girlfriend, partner – including queerplatonic or platonic life partner – anyone that would be considered to love her?” She clicks a pen as she waits for the woman on the other end to answer.
“Um, she’s in a situationship, I guess, we’d call it? He’s kind of a dick, but –”
“Okay,” Molly interrupts. “Would she be happy to see him if she woke up and found him in your house?”
“Uh. I think so?”
“Great,” she says. “Okay, so. I’m going to transfer you to our horticulture team, who are going to give you advice on what to do about the thorns. When I transfer you, the phrase you’ll want to use is that it’s an ATU 410: Sleeping Beauty. After I transfer you, if you have a way to contact her, uh, situationship, I suggest you do so. Tell him to come over and that it’s important. The hort people should be able to give you more details. Understood?”
“Sleeping beauty?” The caller sounds skeptical. “But, like, she’s not even hot –”
“Great,” says Molly, taking this as understanding. “Good luck!”
She hits the button to transfer it to the horticulture department, glancing at the clock as she does – for they keep banker’s hours, and if it’s near 5, there’s a chance they won’t answer. It’s 4:15, early enough that they should, and if they don’t, she can file a formal complaint. Thank God.
ATU 410, she writes, on the pad beneath the others. The 565 is there, along with the note about the baby this morning (mostly, to follow up with child welfare, because it doesn’t seem like a straightforward ATU situation), and the other calls from the day (a 306 and a 440 that was resolved, thankfully, on the phone).
The wet sounds from the bathroom don’t stop. She sighs, knocking at the door. “Bran? You okay buddy?”
A cough, and he comes out without washing his hands, something that makes Molly want to gag. “Yeah, um,” he says. There’s a rose petal stuck to his chin with spit.
“...Bran?”
He sighs. “If I say that it’s a classic 480, would you believe me?”
“No,” she says. “You’re a guy and you don’t have any siblings or step-siblings.”
“Okay, so that doesn’t necessarily rule it out – we saw that guy who had roommates that all ended up with it, what, last year?” he reminds her. “So it could be –”
“Except you’re not spitting out flowers and diamonds every time you talk,” she says. “So it’s not that.”
Bran sighs. “Fuck.”
“Still haven’t told Amanda how you felt, and now it’s turned into full-blown Hanahaki?” The flower-coughing disease isn’t new – it’s been around for at least fifteen years – but it’s new enough that it doesn’t have an ATU Index number yet. “Are you going to tell her?”
“Eventually,” he says. “Uh…look, I know it’s bad timing, but…”
“Go home,” she says. “Fill out a medical leave request form – you won’t be any use until you talk to her and get past it.”
“Yeah,” he says glumly. “Easier said than done.”
“She’s going to know anyway, dude, if you show up hacking up roses every time you see her,” Molly points out. “Get it over with. If she rejects you, at least you won’t have fucking Hanahaki anymore.”
“Guess dying’s not an option?” Bran shakes his head. “Kidding, fuck – yeah, I’ll – yeah.”
“Go home. I’ll call someone in to cover.”
“Okay.”
Calling in someone to cover means phoning Jess, who swears but says that she’ll come in, because she needs the money, not that she says as much. Molly shouldn’t know this, exactly, since they’re on separate shifts and all, but –
Well.
They’re friends, sort of. In an ideal world, they wouldn’t have met: Molly would have more reliable coworkers, and so Jess (who works nights) and her wouldn’t ever have crossed paths. She’d have seen her notes on the pad next to the phone (doodles, mostly; Jess is an artist, and she likes to draw little things while she waits for those that call in to explain their problems), but never actually talked to her, never gotten to know – well. Yeah.
Jess is great, is the thing. She’s just Molly’s type. Undercut, motorcycle, strong sense of social justice. An artist who works the helpline at night because the shift differential is killer, and she’s still trying to sell her photographs. She’s open about being queer, has made it clear that she doesn’t give a fuck what any of the rest of them think about her, ignoring digs from some of the higher-ups about her attire, pointing out that she’s within the dress code, which isn’t gendered, so what’s the big deal? Every time Molly has to work late and they overlap, she’s left with butterflies in her stomach. Jess is fucking great.
She’s also out of Molly’s fucking league, and she knows it. Molly’s not cool. If asked, she’d say that she wants to be cool, but she’s just…not. Dresses and cardigans at work, because that’s professionalism; slacks sometimes. Hair kept long enough to pull back in a chignon, because it’s easy. Minimal makeup and lipstick, so as to blend in and not rock the boat. Jess has an eyebrow ring and her hair is colored (on the underside of the undercut) bright blue. Molly’s hair is the same dull brown it has been since it darkened from being blonde as a child. Jess drives a motorcycle; Molly has a Honda Civic she’s still making payments on.
Jess has goals, something she’s working toward, while Molly is just sort of – well.
The helpline was supposed to be temporary while she figured out what she wanted to do. Social work, right, except she’d kind of burned out, midway through her master’s, and now it’s just – killing time. She’s probably qualified for other stuff – she has the BA, after all – but “other stuff” hasn’t shaken out, or not yet. She wants to help people; the helpline technically helps people, she can pay her bills and she’s finally at a point where she doesn’t need a roommate, even if she has to live out in a shoebox in the fucking suburbs, so.
If asked, Molly would say she’s not in love with Jess. She just thinks she’s cool, and it’s not like meeting other queer women is particular easy in New Arcadia, not when you’re half-afraid, after working the helpline all day, that anyone you meet who is hot and also into you isn’t human – is a vampire or one of the daoine sidhe and so you’re at risk of being eaten or, worse, eating their fruit and getting stuck under the hill for a year and a day (or longer; there’s support groups for people who have just come out after having been gone for decades). Not that she really goes out much. Too many stories about what can go wrong, how things can twist until suddenly, she’s the one who needs to call the helpline. There’s a reason she’s the one who covers for everyone, and that reason is: she doesn’t have a life. She has a cat named Bruce and a handful of houseplants that Bruce hasn’t eaten and which she has yet to kill. She has a book club that meets once a month at the library, some hobbies that get her out and talking to people (though they’re not exactly the kind of thing that’s going to help her get a girlfriend – knitting is fun and all, but most of the stitch’n’bitch group is over the age of 60 and married). Her brother lives in the city and she sees him and his wife sometimes for dinner, whenever they say that they want to take her out, because both of them make more money than she does. Her life is pretty full, it’s just –
It would be cool, right, to have a girlfriend again. She hasn’t dated anyone since college. Jess is handsome and she’s also unattainable – they work together, Molly’s pretty sure it’s forbidden in the employee handbook, whatever. She can daydream about what it might be like to ride pillion, because it’s not ever going to fucking happen.
The phone rings again, ending this line of thinking. Molly picks it up, the usual script, and (able to tell that it’s a classic 500, a familiar one, and one that she can perhaps fix, without needing to transfer their call), starts walking the caller through the various different agencies in New Arcadia that can help them find the name of the fey creature that has been promised their first-born in exchange for help with their mortgage payments.
Jess shows up even earlier than she’d promised, because (as she puts it): “If I didn’t, Mol, you’d be pulling a twelve-hour shift, and you and I both know the assholes in the main office aren’t going to authorize any more overtime for you.”
“Thanks,” she says, then: “Hey, I mean, they finally said they’re going to hire someone since Lena’s out indefinitely and that puts us below four people on day shift.” Finally.
“Yeah, right. Think it’ll happen?”
“No,” she admits. “But a girl can dream, right?”
“Uh-huh.
The phone rings, and Jess answers it. This is her out, the thing that can see her clock out, waving, as she listens to her one maybe-friend at the office (well, besides Bran, who barely counts) ask the caller on the other end of the line, gently: “Your girlfriend’s hair is how long?”
Classic 310, Molly thinks, which is probably a sign that she needs to go home, that she’s thinking in numbers and how to help callers (in this case, “false imprisonment is something to call the police about, my dude, not the helpline”). She waves and clocks out, walking down to the garage where her Civic is parked. It’s after 7. She’s been at work since 8:30, not quite twelve hours. She’ll still get overtime, maybe, unless they go ahead and do what they’ve been talking about, promote her to “office manager”. Tiny pay bump, and she’d be salaried, no more OT. She’s managed to fight it off so far, but –
“Miss,” says an old woman, hunched in the stairwell. “I’m afraid I’ve gotten turned around. Could you give an old lady directions?”
The thing about working for the helpline is that Molly knows – really knows – all the ways that talking to strangers can go wrong. There’s only a handful of rules to follow, and one of them is be polite to everyone you meet. It’s not necessary to go far out of her way to help someone – the guy who had once asked her for a ride to Ephraim was probably not a wizard capable of cursing her, for instance, so it had been enough to simply tell him she was sorry and that she hoped he’d find someone who give him a lift – but being polite to the elderly is more or less a gimme. She can list off all the ways that it’s likely to go wrong if she doesn’t.
“I’d be happy to,” she says. Not strictly true, but close enough. “Where are you trying to find, ma’am?” The ma’am is maybe overkill, but better safe than sorry.
“There’s a restaurant, my son told me he wanted me to meet him at it…” She rattles off an address. Molly sighs – it’s not far, but it’s difficult to find – and shifts her bag from one shoulder to the other.
“Look,” she says. “You’re pretty near it – but it’s hard to find. I can show you, if that would help? The door is down one of the alleys – it’s tough to see if you don’t know what you’re looking for. All right?”
“Oh, thank you, dearie,” says the old lady – who is, it should be noted, the perfect archetype of what an old crone should look like, right down to the wrinkled face (“wrinkled as a walnut”, as the stories go) and the drab brown cloak she wears over her hunched shoulders. “You are a good girl.”
Molly is the wrong side of 30 to be called a girl, but she lets it slide, leading her back down the block, to the alley with its faded painted sign, the one that says where the wine bar is (the hip and trendy wine bar of the sort that gets named in different periodicals around the city as where to take a date – which is not where she would expect a literal wizened old crone to go, let alone meet her son, but – perhaps it’s better not to ask).
“Here we are,” she says, pushing the door open and holding it for her. “Enjoy your night, all right?”
“Not so fast, dearie.”
She bites the inside of her cheek to keep from saying anything, sure that this is where it happens. Fuck. I really, really hope it’s not a Diamonds and Toads situation.
“For one good deed deserves another.” The crone is getting younger as she looks at her, straightening, her hair no longer snowy white but a perfect platinum blonde, the wrinkles all but melting off her face as the cloak turns into a pretty brown corduroy dress. She’s younger than Molly now, barely twenty if she’s a day, smiling at her with too-white, too-even teeth. “I have seen into your heart, Margaret Kirkland, and I know your deepest desire. I will give you a gift – one that you cannot refute, even as you think you are not worthy…”
Fuck. Please, please not a 480, I don’t want to spit out diamonds every time I talk. Spells like those are rare, but not unheard of. They’re tricky to reverse, and the easiest way is to wait the year and a day until they’re finished (for nothing lasts forever, not even “good” magic), and hope for the best, but…
She smiles at Molly as she rummages in the pockets of her dress, pulling out a tarot deck. “Draw a card,” she says. “And draw your fate.”
This, at least, is a variation on the standard. “I hardly did anything, good lady,” she tries. “There’s no reason for you to reward me for simply kindness, I promise –”
“Oh, but it was not only simple kindness,” says the woman. “And this is not a traditional reward. I know what you fear, Molly. It is not that.”
Okay, so not a 480. Great.
She is aware that they are blocking the door to the wine bar. It’s near sunset, the light beginning to fade. In a few minutes the alley will be dark, the wine bar will come to life, and she’ll be right in the way, having the worst experience of her life and inconveniencing everyone else in the process. “Okay,” she says. “Um, if you’re sure.”
“Draw a card,” the woman urges her. “And draw your fate.” She holds the deck before Molly’s eyes. The cards all have different backs, some of them different sizes. It’s not a traditional deck, but she saw what it was, the flash of a card – The Hanged Man – long enough to know what it is she’s getting herself into.
“Okay.” She wishes, irreverently, that she’d thought to carry salt and iron in her pockets, the way her mom did at different points. Holy water, to be used against vampires, but the Fair Folk don’t love it, either. Something, anything, any charm – except she works at the helpline, and she knows how these things go, how to avoid these situations, and isn’t it just her luck to have ended up in an unavoidable one?
The woman fans the cards out in front of her. She sees a flash of something metallic – foil on a card, maybe – before they’re shuffled, fanned out again. “Draw.”
She takes a deep breath, reaching forward and taking it. Not one of the major arcana, she hopes. Just – cups or something, something benign…
“The Four of Wands,” says the woman, nodding at the card in her hand. It’s illustrated with a smiling image of two women, wearing matching white gowns, an arbor of grapes behind them, roses before them and strewn about their feet. “That’s a nice one, and no mistake. I know what blessing I ought to give to you.”
She hums, leaning forward and touching a finger to Molly’s chest. She can feel the warmth even through her cardigan, the gentle gold spark that emerges, sitting on the wool knit like a tiny star before it is absorbed.
“There,” says the woman. “There is your reward, and well may it serve you.”
“Um. Thank…thank you?” Nothing comes out when she speaks, and that at least is a relief. “I’m – grateful, truly, thank you.”
“No need to thank me,” says the woman. “You’ll see.”
She walks into the wine bar, leaving Molly standing on the pavement outside.
Taking a deep breath, she shakes her head, making back for the parking garage, heading toward her house, very aware that she’ll have to figure out what happened later, but later can wait – Bruce will want to be fed, and she needs to figure out her own dinner, too.
The rest of the night is without mishaps. Molly doesn’t spit out flowers and diamonds when she speaks, and there’s no weird mark on her skin, nothing to indicate what happened. She looks up the card – the Four of Wands isn’t a bad one, after all, and all the guides she finds online tell her it’s about happiness and security, or else celebration of achievement.
“I guess I’m getting promoted,” she tells Bruce, popping open one of the tins of wet food and portioning it out for him. “Which will hopefully mean more money and recognition of what I’ve done, and not just – you know.”
Bruce meows at her, less in agreement and more in “human, please put my food down”, and so she does, setting it on the floor before figuring out her own supper. There’s leftovers, of course, or –
“Fuck it,” she murmurs, dialing the number of the Thai place. They’re within walking distance, and even if it’s dark, the night is fine, and (from everything she knows about the helpline), one encounter means that she’s not likely to have another for a while. She puts her order in – masaman curry, an extra container of rice and something they call baby veggie rolls – and shrugs on a jacket before walking down to go get it. Absolutely nothing happens – it’s an ordinary night – and the woman who mans the phones and hands over her order doesn’t say anything about how she looks different or strange, so…
Maybe it’s nothing.
She goes home, eating the curry in front of the TV, packaging up the other half of it to take to work with her for lunch tomorrow, glad that it’s nothing serious.
Rhiannon calls out the next day. “Sorry,” she says. Molly can hear the crack of her gum over the phone as she says it. “Something came up.”
“Are you okay?” She doesn’t really care, but it is technically the helpline, so if the answer is no…
“Well.” Another pop. “Do you remember last week when I went to that rave and I called out the next day because I wasn’t sober yet?”
Molly sighs. “I remember you calling out because you said you were getting over the stomach flu,” she says. “I take it that’s what you’re referring to?”
“Mmmhm.” Crack. “I think it was a whatchacallit…a, like, 310?”
“No, it wasn’t, or you wouldn’t have been at work.” She rubs her temples. “310 is Maiden Locked In Tower – we’ve been over this at least four times. The codes might not mean much to you, but they’re required for our reports, and –”
“Okay, so what’s a Cinderella one?”
“510A.” Rhiannon’s words sink in. “Wait, what?”
“Yeah,” she says. “I went to a rave out in the desert – you know, you get GPS coordinates and stuff and you show up at a certain spot, whatever, don’t get busted by the cops – and, like. I mean I wasn’t supposed to be there, because like, I didn’t have an outfit or whatever, but some nice woman asked if I had any water, and when I gave her a bottle, she said that one good turn deserved another, that my luck would turn around, and she waved a wand and I suddenly had on this like, amazing outfit? Except she said it would vanish at 2am. So yeah, I went dancing, met a cute guy, except I lost track of time, so when the alarm on my phone started going off, I was still rolling and I panicked and bolted. Lost a shoe. Uh. He found it, turns out that he’s like, mega-rich, and anyway he wants me to go on a yacht tour of the world with him? We’re going to get married, maybe.”
“I…” 510A isn’t very common, but happily-ever-after doesn’t last. Year and a day, she reminds herself. If she’s lucky, he won’t demand a prenup. “Okay, so –”
“Honestly like, I’ll just send my resignation forms to Sharon later today, but I definitely won’t be in today and I know you get, like, weird about that. Thanks.”
“I don’t –”
Silence, as Rhiannon hangs up.
Of all the people, Molly thinks, staring at the phone, stunned. Okay.
She calls Bran – who answers the phone, still hacking, thus making it clear that he’s not coming in – and, after some trepidation, dials Jess, hoping that it’s early enough that she won’t have gone to bed yet.
“Hey,” she says, when she picks up. “Mol?”
“The one and only.” Something tickles the back of her throat, and so she clears it. “Um, apparently Rhiannon got 510A’d – and so she’s quit, and Bran is out sick, so that means, with Lena gone…”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.” The tickle develops into a full-blown need to cough. She tries clearing her throat again, and when that doesn’t work, she brings her arm up, pressing her face into the crook of it, hoping she can do it quietly.
Jess keeps talking. “I can come in at six,” she says. “Give you some relief. Tell the fuckos in HR that they need to bring in a temp, like, pronto – you’re already at how many hours?”
At least 30, and it’s only Wednesday, but she’s not going to tell Jess that. She coughs, the tickle getting worse, and tries clearing her throat again. “Enough,” she says, hoarse. “I’ll call Sharon, too, but if you can come in early tonight…”
“Yeah,” Jess says. “Fuck.”
“We’ll get a temp.” She’s going to cough again, she knows it. She fights it down. “I’ll try Bran again – he’s got fucking Hanahaki, if you can believe it? See if he can’t confess in a text or something, get it over with so he can come in.”
“Shit, that dweeb has Hanahaki?” Jess laughs. “Okay, cool. Let me know.”
She hangs up, leaving Molly standing in the office, hacking. She can feel something in her throat as she does it, until finally –
She can feel it emerging into her throat, spitting it into the trashcan beside her desk: a perfect red carnation.
What the fuck?
It doesn’t happen again the rest of the morning. She calls Sharon, who listens patiently to what she has to say before sighing and stating that she’ll have a temp in the office before lunchtime. She’s as good as her word, too, for by ten AM there’s a very nervous-looking young man standing in reception, asking if this is where he’s meant to report to.
“Because, um – I’m new,” he says. “But I have phone experience, uh…”
“Great.” She doesn’t have time to train him, not really, but it’s better than nothing. “I’m Molly. I’m – well, you’ll be working with me.”
“Noah,” he says. “Pleasure?”
“Pleasure.” She walks him through the binder with its scripts, shows him how there’s an index with tale-type numbers (“ATU Index, if you’re not familiar – it’s a classification system for folklore, but it’s really handy for what we do”) – as well as the more straightforward index with page numbers for what to refer to in the case of the most common scenarios.
“We don’t get a lot of cold calls,” she says. “Mostly it’s people who have been referred to us, who know who they need to be transferred to, but who have to go through the intake process. They’ll have an ATU Index for you – you just need to refer to the manual to know where to refer them to. If you get stuck, you can ask me.”
“Thanks.” He has that deer in the headlights look that she recognizes from her own first day. “So, if I just stick to the script –”
“If you stick to the script, that’ll take care of, oh, 90% of all the calls we get,” she reassures him. “The rest of them are all pretty straightforward too, and you’ll learn, but for today –”
The phone rings. Noah looks over at her, frightened.
“Answer it,” she urges him. “Give it a shot.”
“Um, okay.” He picks up, running through the spiel, then: “Okay, um, 425A…? Did I hear you right?”
Animal bridegroom, Molly thinks. Cursebreaker needed.
Satisfied that he’s got it in hand, she settles at her desk to answer the followup emails from Child Welfare about yesterday’s call about the baby, fixing what Rhiannon had initially screwed up.
It’s an ordinary day and it might be all right, except Jess comes in at 6 – before the temp leaves, thus frightening him, for he isn’t expecting her, and when she rolls up, he jumps – and as soon as Molly sees her, the cough comes back, full force. She’d looked up Hanahaki – is it contagious, mostly – and was relieved to see that it wasn’t. That she hadn’t coughed up any more flowers was also a relief, though of course that goes out the window as soon as Jess is in, for she coughs up another carnation, followed by an iris, a daisy, and bachelor’s buttons. She tries to be quiet about it, hoping that she won’t get caught, but no dice, for as soon as she straightens up from under her desk, Jess and Noah are both upon her.
“Dude,” says Jess, looking into the can. “Do you have Hanahaki? Seriously?”
Noah clears his throat. “Hanahaki – at least, if given as a traditional curse – is usually one type of flower, of various colors. This doesn’t look like Hanahaki.” Jess stares at him, and he clarifies: “I…wrote my undergraduate thesis on the manifestation of different curses – and that was one of them, because it is a curse, though it’s an unusual one, for it’s cast without intent…”
Another cough, this one bringing up yellow pansies. “Um,” she says, spitting them into the trash. “I don’t think I have Hanahaki? I, um.”
“Do you know the language of the flowers?” Noah asks. “Is this happening all the time? There’s been other manifestations of it – if you keep away from the object of affection, it won’t happen – all you have to do is…”
“Okay,” she says. “No, I don’t know the language of the flowers. That’s a thing?”
“It was for the Victorians.” He fidgets. “It’s – I had a girlfriend who was really into, um –”
“Can you translate it?” Jess asks. “Maybe it’ll, like. Help? If we know what it is?”
“Uh.” The deer in the headlights look comes back. “I mean, I know the – the romantic ones, yeah.”
“Okay,” says Jess. “So can you read these?”
“Um. I’m – I’m just a temp?” he hedges. “I’m not – this is my first day? I don’t want to –”
“Just say it.” Molly can feel another flower coming on, so if there’s an answer, an easy one, she wants it. “I ran into – well, one of the Fair Folk last night, and I think – I think this is her doing, so if you can interpret it – if it is a message –”
“Okay.” Noah clears his throat. “So, um. Red carnations: ‘my heart aches for you.’”
“Jesus,” says Jess.
The phone rings elsewhere in the office. Dead, Molly thinks. I’m dead and I’m in hell, this isn’t a gift, it’s –
“One of us should get that, maybe?” Noah says.
“There’s an answering service.” Jess shakes her head. “This first, then we’ll – look, it’s after five, they know there’s a chance it’ll go to it. If Sharon yells, blame me.”
“Um. Okay.” He peers into the can again. “The iris – ‘I send a message.’ Daisy – ‘I love you truly.’ The cornflower, uh – ‘be gentle with me’.”
Molly feels flowers coming up again, the tickling sensation back. “Oh God,” she mutters, bending over the can, spitting up what comes out. It’s a tulip this time.
Jess looks over at Noah again, who blushes, but says: “Red tulips are, uh. ‘I declare my love.’ That’s it?”
“It sounds like Hanahaki,” Jess says. “But you say it’s not, because it’s multiple types of flowers – okay, so. One of the Fair Ones? What happened?”
“I helped her and she had me draw a tarot card.” Jess sighs at this, shaking her head. “And I did, and now – here we are.”
“What card?”
“Four of Wands.” Molly shrugs. “I looked it up? It’s not anything bad.”
“Definitely not something that should have you coughing up flowers, unless – you said Bran has Hanahaki? Is it contagious?”
They both look at Noah, who shakes his head. “It’s not actually a disease, you know. It’s a curse, and it can be broken.”
Going to the cursebreakers about what is ultimately a very minor problem – when Molly knows how long their turnaround times are and how awful some of the solutions are – feels less than optimal. “Cool,” she says. “I mean, it’s not straightforward Hanahaki – I haven’t been coughing, like, hardly at all.”
“She’s right.” Noah looks at her, nodding. “You didn’t start coughing at all until Jess showed up.”
Dead and in hell.
“Wait, what?”
“Yeah, I mean –” The phone rings again.
“Noah,” Molly says. “Get that.”
“Are you –?”
“Go answer it, before Sharon has a coronary because we let it go to the answering service twice when there are three of us clocked in.”
“Um, okay.”
He crosses the office to go get it, while Molly starts rounding up her stuff, determined to make an escape while she can. I’m not in love with Jess, she thinks, irritated. I think she’s cool, but she’s not into me, and that’s – fine, whatever, I can live with that; if it’s a traditional Fey thing, it’s, what, a year and a day? I’ll cough up flowers whenever I talk to her, I guess, but if we get enough people in – it won’t happen all the time, so…
She shuts down her computer, picking up her cardigan off the back of her chair and shrugging it on as she zips her lunchbox shut, grabs her purse. Over the phone, Noah is reassuring someone – with a 503, from the sound of it, which is nice and straightforward, nothing to be done except to congratulate them on having the musical talent to get the Fair Folk to fix their scoliosis, apparently. Jess will help him clock out, he’s not been here quite eight hours yet, and that’s – that?
“Hey,” says Jess, as she heads for the door. “Just a second –”
“Look, it’s – I’ve got to go,” Molly says. She taps her badge on the time clock, breaking for the parking garage, grateful that there don’t seem to be any more flowers in her (yet).
Jess follows her out. “I was going to say, I haven’t actually clocked in yet,” she says. “It’s still early, I just – look, will you stop for two seconds and talk to me?”
Molly sighs, turning to face her. Get it over with. Just accept that it’s a one-sided crush, move on – isn’t that what you told Bran? She has considerably more sympathy for him now that she knows what he’s going through – not to the same extent, but still.
“What do you want me to say?” she asks. “I got – well, I don’t think she’d call it cursed, but it feels like a curse, and –”
“If it’s a curse, a kiss will break it,” says Jess. “Right?”
Uh.
“It’s – look, I didn’t do a whole degree in this stuff, but I know at least that much. Isn’t it what we tell everyone that’s afflicted with a Sleeping Beauty situation?”
“I mean,” Molly says. “Yeah, we do, but –”
“Okay then,” says Jess. “Then all I have to do is – ?”
“It’s not – I mean, look, it’s not –”
“If you don’t want this, I won’t. Just tell me.”
Molly stays silent.
“Okay then,” says Jess, and kisses her.
As kisses go, it’s not a remarkable one. Just a quick brush of the lips, really; hardly enough to deserve being called a kiss. Still, it’s – there’s something to it. Jess’s mouth is warm on hers, and that first short press is followed by a second one, Molly throwing all caution to the wind, telling herself it’s just in case, leaning forward and kissing her properly. Longer, slightly more desperate, because if she only gets to have this once, well –
Might as well enjoy it.
Jess kisses her back, pushing her into the wall, the cement blocks gritty against the back of Molly’s cardigan. She’s going to need to wash it, which will throw off her plans, but –
She’s kissing me. Jess is kissing me.
They break after a moment, both of them panting.
“Been wanting to do that a while,” Jess admits. “Never thought you were interested. I asked you about coming to a gallery opening once, and you said –”
“Oh, fuck, was that you asking me out?”
“Feeling you out, but yeah.” She steps back, rubbing the back of her neck. “You said – you had something you had to do…?”
Molly laughs. “My brother and his wife,” she says. “They – Chuck likes to take me out to dinner once a month or so. I was supposed to meet them that night, that’s why I asked about how late it ran –”
“Right, yeah, I just thought – thought you’d picked up on what it was.” She clears her throat. “So. Um.”
“So.” Four of Wands. Celebration. “I know you work nights, but, like. I’m free Saturday, if you wanna grab dinner?” She’s throwing caution to the wind, she knows, perfectly aware that this might fuck up her promotion. She’s also perfectly aware that she doesn’t really care. Do I even want this job? Fuck, what if I did something else?
“Yeah?” Jess sounds – hopeful, and what world is it she lives in, where this is something she can just have, that she can just do, that a stupid tarot card trick from one of the Fair Ones, because she’d found herself in a 480 after all, leads to getting her hearts’ desire? “Yeah, that would be – yeah, that’d be great.”
A good one, she thinks. “Okay. There’s – I know a really good sushi place…”
Molly whistles as she comes into work the next morning. Noah is there waiting for her when she arrives, along with another temp, who introduces herself as Dana and says that she’s looking forward to getting to know both of them – “I worked on a similar helpline in Ulster when I lived there? It’s been a few years, but I think I know my way around things…”
The morning is smooth. The woman with the baby left in place of milk reports that her neighbors (who have been wanting a child and who apparently performed some kind of ritual about it) are happy to adopt the infant. Tech support calls to let them know that the rogue air fryer has been found, while she sees on social media that the Sleeping Beauty situation has also been resolved. Why we do this job, Molly thinks, closing multiple case files. It’s not all bad, is it?
Bran doesn’t call in, but as she’s getting ready to close things down (and is about to call Jess and ask if she can come in early again), he shows up, on time and with an apology gift in the form of a bar of her favorite chocolate, looking much improved.
“So,” he says. “Um. My girlfriend says this is for you, ‘cos – if you hadn’t prodded me, I might’ve died of Hanahaki? So, thanks.”
She laughs, taking it. “Glad you’re back.”
“Yeah. Did I miss anything?”
Noah makes a noise that might be interpreted as a laugh, while Molly shakes her head.
“I’ll fill you in later,” she says. “Jess is on at the usual time…”
“Great –”
“ – and if you want to make up any hours, we’re both off Friday.” Sharon had come through, after all, and Jess is technically off tomorrow at 4 – with Sharon herself planning to come down to the office to answer phones and do what needs doing. I need to do formal on-boarding for the two new hires as it stands, her email had read. Please consider this an invitation to take some much-needed time off.
“Finally asked her out, huh?” Bran teases. “Cool, yeah, I might –”
No time like the present. “I did, actually,” she says. “We’re going out Saturday, but no – I’m over on my hours, and so I’m taking the day off.”
“Yeah, that makes sense,” Bran says, the second half clearly hitting before the first does, then: “Wait, seriously?”
“Seriously.” She grins. “Long story, tell you later?”
“Uh, yeah.” He blinks. “You’d better?”
“Will,” she says. The phone rings again, and she sighs, looking over at Noah – who is already on a call – and Bran, who hasn’t quite clocked in yet…
“I’ll get this one.”