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Elliot could smell Gimble before she saw her. She had nested into a beanbag chair on the floor of the media room, not really reading. Z brought her tea, and kept music going, flipping and replacing records when the time called for it. She was giving Elliot some distance, letting her have space to let things settle again. That’s when the smell of cookie floated into the room.
Z looked up, then over at the stairs down to the first floor, and then to Elliot.
“She’s here,” Z said. “You want to go meet her?”
Elliot looked up. She had been staring at the wall for the last hour. Her ears perked, and she nodded. Z helped her up and guided her down to the kitchen.
The kitchen looked like it had been remodeled in the last three decades or so. The counters were tile, blue and white, and an island separated the kitchen from one of the sitting rooms of the house. The appliances must have been high tech when they were new, but they showed their age. But there were two big windows that let in the receding light of the day, and the white cabinets really helped brighten everything up.
Gimble was bent over the over, pulling a tray of cookies out. Elliot jumped when she recognized her, just as she had been a few nights ago, when she was scaring the monster away. She wore a nice dress that went down past her knees, but everything else about her looked the same as that night. She placed the tray of cookies on the tile counter and closed the oven.
“Hello,” she said, as warm as her baking, looking right at Elliot. She stood up straight, and moved with a grace that must have been practiced. “I had hoped to make this a little more formal, but it sounds like there were circumstances beyond our control.”
Elliot realized her jaw had gone slack, and that Gimble was probably waiting for an answer. “Yeah, sorry.”
“No need to apologize. I’m glad you’re both safe.”
“We should talk about what happened,” Z said. “He was bi-locating.”
Gimble’s big, soft looking ears perked. “That is something, isn’t it? Ty and Meryl should know about this. Cassie too, just in case he goes looking for trouble.”
Z nodded. She started to leave when Elliot caught her by the arm. Z patted her hand.
“I’m just going to give you two some privacy. I’m not going anywhere.”
Elliot nodded and reluctantly let her go. When she turned back, she found Gimble watching her carefully.
“You are quite anxious,” she said.
Elliot nodded. “I’ve… this has been a lot.”
“I bet it has,” Gimble said. Elliot could hear now the Cantonese accent slipping into her speech. “But you’re here. I expect you have a lot of questions.”
“You’re a witch too,” Elliot said. She squeezed her eyes shut. Of course she was.
“Like you, I had my own discovery. You, I think, handled yours better than mine.”
“I had to leave college because of mine,” Elliot said. “I guess not the discovery. Just the fear part.”
Gimble turned back to the cookies. She began to scoop them off of the tray and plate them. “I would love to hear it if you don’t mind sharing.”
Elliot looked down at the floor. “How many of you are there?”
“Covens like ours? Or Witches in general?”
Elliot shrugged.
“There’s four of us,” Gimble said. “You’ve met most of us now. But there are other covens out there, spread out throughout the Sound. Cassie you’ve met. She doesn’t have a coven, but she does host a lot of us. On a good night, you could meet dozens of witches at her place.”
Elliot thought about this. “That’s kind of neat.”
“It’s nice to know who your peers are,” Gimble said. “When we need, we have a network of people we can call on.”
“Call on for what?” Elliot asked, her tail twitching. “What do you do? Why do you want me?”
Gimble set a kettle on the stove and turned on the burner. She considered the question, watching the flame under the kettle. “Survival is the easiest answer,” she said. “There’s a macro answer I’m sure. We do what any other community does: we connect, we uplift, and we thrive, even as those who seek to hurt us threaten us. Sometimes that means taking a bag of veggies from our gardens to someone who needs to eat, or having a potluck dinner with a couple of other covens, and inviting those who we know could use it. It means making sure those people leave with all of the leftovers they can carry. It means if you lose your job or your living situation, you never have to worry about sleeping on the street. This giant house isn’t just for me to live in by myself.”
Elliot thought about sleeping on Z’s couch, and how quickly Z had been to offer that up.
“It means we protect each other. And we speak up for those who can’t. We watch the backs of our own and push back at power. You ever put a hex on someone?”
“I mean,” Elliot started. “No? I… don’t know how?”
“It’s something to be careful with, but it’s how some covens make sure certain people don’t hurt others again.”
“So why do you want me?” Elliot asked. “I’m not a fighter. I’m not, like, strong.”
“You’re curious,” Gimble said. “I bet you could tell me everything about banshee right now.”
Elliot started to open her mouth, but stopped. Shit, Gimble was right.
“Which one is your favorite?” Gimble asked. She produced a pour over funnel from her cabinet and began to make coffee.
“Mothman,” Elliot said softly. “People think of him as a monster but he was trying to warn everyone that something was about to happen.”
“That makes you very happy,” Gimble said.
“Ha, yeah,” Elliot said, looking away. “I’ve always liked monsters, at least when they’re not chasing me.”
“I bet seeing a Sounder for the first time was exciting.”
“The tall guys? It’s just getting overwhelming, honestly.”
Gimble nodded. “I feel that.” She handed Elliot a coffee cup and a cookie on a plate. “Peanut butter.”
Elliot made a sound that would never be construed as language, but still clearly meant subdued joy.
Gimble pulled a stool up to her counter and sat with Elliot, folding her hands together. “Tell me about being a Lockesmith.”
Elliot looked up, her eyes wide. She tried to chew her way through half a cookie. “Ha ha, god that’s such a dumb name.”
“You enjoy it,” Gimble said, a statement of fact.
“I kind of hate that I like it.” She took a moment to think. “He disappeared on camera. No one knows why. How could you not be curious about that?”
Gimble leaned in closer. “Things are happening,” she said, a little quieter. “We don’t think they’re coincidence.”
“What?”
“Locke disappearing. That banshee. Those are just two of the things that shouldn’t have happened. The soda machine on Capitol Hill disappeared.”
Elliot swallowed hard. “What?? How?”
“No one knows. It left a note, though. ‘Went for a walk’.”
“Yikes.”
“Yeah,” Gimble said. “And that boy that’s been following you. It could mean a couple of things, but I believe he is part of all of this. The covens in the area all know something is happening. We want to find out what.”
Elliot considered this. “Okay. I get it. I want in.”
Gimble smiled broadly. “Yes? You’d like to join us?”
“You seem like your heart is in the right place,” Elliot said. “And if you’re planning to kill me, that’s like a bonus.”
“I know you’re joking, but please don’t, not about that. We’re so happy to have you.”
“I’m not hearing that you aren’t planning to kill me…”
Gimble took Elliot’s hand in her own. “I promise we will take care of you. No killing. You’re too valuable to us to lose.” She patted Elliot’s hand. “Unless you fuck your magic up, then we will vaporize you like a gamer pulling some serious cotton.”
“I… I don’t know what that means,” Elliot said.
Gimble leaned over and hugged her. “I’m so happy you’re joining us. Let’s start training this weekend.”
Elliot agreed. She finished her cookie, and thought a moment. Her ear twitched. “I pushed someone down the stairs. That’s why I had quit college.”
Gimble propped her chin up with her hand and listened.
“There was this bully, he always could see me, no matter what. He would follow me around between classes in college, just berating me. Just saying the worst things. He never hit me, but he never had to. I was… I am weird. I give off a weird vibe I think? I’m spooky and I like monsters and… and I look too much like a boy. And so he made sure I knew.
“I ran away when I pushed him down the stairs in our dorms. The thing was, I was in my room, behind a locked door when it happened. He was outside my door and all I could think about is him falling down the stairs an the next thing I knew…” Elliot held her chin shut a moment, looking away from Gimble. “Also, somehow, he caught on fire.
“At first I was sure no one would be able to pin that on me, but everyone was talking. So in the middle of the night I packed up everything I could carry and fled. I caught the train in Spokane and came over here where no one knew me.”
Gimble reached out and took Elliot’s hand in hers. “There’s no need to be ashamed. Or afraid. You are and will always be safe with us. You are not a burden or anyone to be ashamed of.”
Elliot’s ears twitched. Gimble had pushed several buttons very quickly with what she had just said.
“I do find the fire very impressive, though,” Gimble added with a slight sparkle in her eye. Elliot didn’t laugh, but she did smile, just a little.
That night, Gimble sent Elliot away with a bag full of cookies, and two containers of home made dumplings and stir fry. They opened a door to Z’s apartment, said their goodbyes, and suddenly Elliot was back in the central district. She longed for nothing more than the couch, and before Z could say anything, she collapsed on it, falling asleep almost instantly.
When she awoke in the morning, she found she had been covered up with a blanket. And for a moment, she felt peaceful.
[g]