night before, I’d left a message on her answering machine, a hulking box on the kitchen counter that was attached to the landline, the only form of communication with the outside world that she had. She wasn’t a technophobe, and I’d seen her throw down some sophisticated Google searches at the library, but she had zero interest in having technology in her house. That had been true in the 80s when I’d been growing up, and she’d refused to have a television, and I was sure it remained true.
I knocked on the sturdy wood-plank door, eyeing another piece of art mounted on it, a bulbous bronze thing that seemed a mix between a gargoyle and a shrunken head. The magic was faint, but I guessed it was the equivalent of an alarm system or maybe a doorbell camera. When had Mom decided she needed all of this stuff?
The door opened, and the pock-faced, scarred, refrigerator of a man looming inside almost had me running back to the car for Chopper and Fezzik. He was six inches taller than my six feet, his head almost brushing the door frame, and there was no way he weighed less than two-fifty. And none of it was fat.
See? Sindari observed from the car. She has found a mate.
Uh, I really doubt it.
The guy couldn’t be more than twenty-five.
He is young and virile. Good for her. Your mother must be a powerful and strong female to attract such a mate at her age.
“I’m Val.” I decided to get to the bottom of this rather than listening to Sindari’s commentary. “Is my mom here? I left a message…”
Yes, I’d successfully left that message. That had to mean this was still my mom’s home. Unless she’d moved and had the number transferred…
He squinted at me. “You made the opekun go off.”
“If that means cat detector, there’s a reason.”
He glanced at the door hanging. “The guardian. It detects magic.”
“There’s a bunch of it in the car. My mom? Did she move or what?”
He went back to squinting at me. I couldn’t tell if this guy was slow or only looked slow. “You say you are Sigrid’s daughter, but I have lived here six months, and you’ve never visited. She’s spoken only rarely of you.”
“Yeah, we’re not that close.” I wasn’t about to explain to the Neanderthal why I stayed away from the people I cared about.
“The opekun tells me not to trust you. You may be a demon in disguise.”
“Does it talk to you often? I know a therapist, if you need a referral.”
The uproarious squawking of geese interrupted whatever his response was going to be. I whirled in time to see my silver tiger bounding through the trees and springing for his prey.
“Sindari!” I yelled as the birds flew away en mass, feathers fluttering down in their wake.
Only when he hit the water did I realize the geese hadn’t been his target. He could have caught one if he’d wished to. He landed in the river with a great splash, then proceeded to frolic like a kitten in the shallows.
“Is that a tiger?” my mom’s nutty houseguest asked.
“Really more of a service animal. I’ll be right back.” I jogged toward the bank, glancing at the house visible through the trees to the right. A dog was barking through a fence at Sindari.
“What are you doing?” I wrapped my fingers around the cat figurine, prepared to send him back to his realm.
Cleansing my nostrils. Sindari flopped on his side below the bank, water lapping at his hips.
“What? Cats don’t like water. What are you doing?”
I am a tiger, not a cat, and swimming is joyous. I have webbed paws. He stuck one into the air, demonstrating his soggy webbing. But I had to clean myself because that dreadful pet urinated in its cage and stank up the air. And those sitting in the air. I do not believe it is pleased to have been left in a box in the car with a tiger.
Ugh. I dropped my forehead into my palm. When I find the crazy elf that tried to blow up Colonel Willard’s building, I’m going to slice her in half with Chopper. I don’t care if she’s the last elf on Earth.
Leaving Sindari to clean himself, I headed back to the front door. A squirrel chattered angrily at me from a tree branch. It was possible I shouldn’t have called Sindari out for my road trip.
The houseguest was staring back and forth from me to the