Scherzo (Book Two of the Muse Series)

8. Lumberjacks

"Wake up!  Ells!  Hey, Ells!  Wake up!  Elmaaaa!  Did you know that menstrual cups are an actual thing?" Mills was literally jumping on the bed, waving her iPhone around for me to see the image of the little rubber dish on the brand's home page.

"Seriously, Ells!  And it holds 25ccs!  Can you imagine? And here's the coolest part--when you buy one, the company gives one to Kenya!"

"Kenya?" I queried, closing my eyes again in hopes that this conversation would float away and not be replaced by dreams featuring female monthly management devices.

"Yeah, to Kenya. The country.  Well, not the whole country, because what would they all do with all of those menstrual cups, but to school-age girls in Kenya, so they can go to class even when Aunt Flo is in town."  She flopped down beside me to show me the website, almost as awestruck as when she first saw Tristan's fangs.  "Where have these things been all of my menstruating life?"

Five weeks had passed since Tristan and Theo's grand departure with Boris for Eastern Europe. On Chace's firmly bitched order, we were both living in the den for the foreseeable future, and both of us had constant werewolf guard detail 24-7.  Every day, outside the hospital or the recital hall, one of the guys was pacing, in either human or wolf form, our own furry patrol unit.  We were even grounded for the Christmas holiday, which didn't bother me, given that my mom was sufficiently wrapped up with the new boyfriend anyway.  As for Mills, I think she was relieved to have some reason to skip yet another dependebly ridiculous holiday with the rest of the Covington-Goldsteins.

So, the two of us hunkered down in the plush comfort of the den.  In that space of a month, Mills and I had as much fun as best friends could possibly have, and that's a lot.  With some help from the wolves, we had also burned through every conversation known to man, from physics to faeries and from minestrone to men.  She and Chace had bonded in a big way too.  They regularly sat together on the park bench in the backyard garden, chatting and smoking.  The latter activity bothered me.  When I told her that, though, she replied in a way that reinforced for me that this whole situation was not quite as easy to handle as she made it seem.  "Are you kidding me?" she had said teasingly.  "I'm hanging out with vampires and werewolves.  I kinda think that packs more of a punch than a few Virgina Slims.  Besides," she had then admitted more soberly into my eyes, "I'm really in sync with all of this.  Truly.  But there's got to be some kind of release valve, Ells." And so she smoked.
But all in all, Mills appeared to be faring well.  Well enough to bounce up and down on the bed again like a hyper-caffeinated baby gorilla until finally plopping back down beside me and yawning.  I sighed, attempting to ride the gentle wave of drowsiness threading through me to sail back into sweet sleep.  No luck, though--the whole den was apparently conspiring against me.
"Girlfriends!" sang out Chace, rapping the door repeatedly with the flat fingers of his hand.  "We have guests!  Get your high and tight booties on out here, please!"
I threw on a pair of sweatpants and a tee shirt and walked into the living room while fumbling with my ponytail holder.  "Who's here," I yawned, elastic held in midair.  When I opened my eyes, I found myself staring into Mike's grinning face.  Mike's grinning, fully-bearded face.  My gut belied my calm exterior, offering a little leap of joy at his hale, blue-eyed gleam.  He looked fresh, exhilarated, and ... sexy.  Extremely, flat-out, ruggedly sexy.  Wow.  I ran to him and threw my arms around his man-thick shoulders.
Behind me I heard Mills giggle, but she ran to him too for a genuine embrace.  "Why Doolittle, you have neck hair!" she chuckled into his cheek.
"Well, as I understand it, facial hair is rather en vogue at the moment," he grinned back at both of us, "and I daresay more comfortable as well in Siberia at this time of year.  One does not desire to be on fashion's naughty list, does one?"  He stroked at his chin playfully, laughed, and began to sing loudly and in a few simultaneous keys, "Oh, I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK, I sleep all night and I--"
"--Tea?" called Chace with a touch of urgency from the kitchen.
"Very kind of you, yes please," Jeremiah Johnson responded as he hung up his heavy overcoat in the hall closet.  The next thing I knew, he was  right behind me with both hands on my arms, the heat of his chest radiating onto my skin.  "I have indeed missed you," he whispered softly into my ear (and, indirectly, into my belly), then turned me around to gently stroke my face.  I watched as an idea suddenly lit up his gaze.  "And I owe you a debt of gratitude as well!  Voila!  The fruits of your counsel!"
From a zipper pouch in his leather shoulder bag, he pulled out an eyeglass case, and opening it, lifted out the very same thick-lensed, wire-rimmed glasses I'd seen in Alaska.  With what was almost a giggle, he popped them onto his smiling face, looking at me.  A millisecond later, though, the smile wiped itself away and and Mike let out a long, low-pitched sigh of awe.
"Elma, darling, you are truly stunning," he breathed, thunderstruck.  "Truly, truly stunning."  He was whispering, his wide eyes flowing over my face, my eyes, my hair.  He just kept staring, mesmerized, until Chace broke the spell.
"Damn, son, it's a good thing you're actually human, or Ms. Siren here would have your nuts in her pocket before you could say 'Anbesol.'"
I ran to the bathroom and looked in the three-way mirror.  Same old Elma.  Same old face, same old hair, same ... new siren.  As I thought the word, a single lock of hair curled up from where it lay against my shoulder.  Then another.  Then another.  As it continued to wave, it began to grow; I could feel the thickening softness slide uniformly down my back.  Then there was color--red on brown on blond, all three hues woven together expertly into a bright and kaleidoscopic whole.  My skin followed, every blemish or dull spot correcting itself into perfect porcelain before my eyes.  Those eyes were the last to evolve, one becoming a brighter shade of hazel and the other a brilliant,  shimmering, almost unearthly green.
I. Was. A. Siren.
I stared at myself numbly for several minutes, closing those haunting eyes and opening them again and again.  Each time, the image looking back at me grew clearer, like an eye chart through the progressing lenses an opthalmology exam.  This was me--the real me, the image that every supernatural creature in the world would always see, myself included.  Here was the Elma that Mike now saw with his spectacles, the one the wolves looked upon ... and the one that Tristan saw and saw into, saw through.
When I was able to calm myself down enough to return to the living room, I found Jerome at the laptop, flanked by a grimacing Chace and a nondescript, puffy Lance, who apparently had also been awakened by the Sheldon Cooper alarm clock, though more recently than I had been.  "What's up?" I offered, trying to sound more nonchalant than I felt.
"Not a fucking thing unless Jerome figures out how to work the damn machine," Chace snapped blandly in response.
"It's not my fault you've chosen not to embrace technology," Jerome countered without looking up at him.  "Of course, we're not all so old that we can remember doing math on an abacus."  I had by this point learned to ignore Chace's afflicted gasps and poignant responses like the now-offered "You bitch!" and instead peered more closely at the screen to see what the trouble was.  A video conference tool was open, the other user's camera pointing to a room--well, pointing to half a chair and a wall, to be exact.
"My dulcet darling," Mike cooed in my general direction, "do you reckon you may be equipped with the knowledge of how to repair the image so that we are able to see Roan more adequately?  It appears that our lupine friends are a bit flummoxed at the moment."
It was the maximize button on the upper right hand side of the screen.  That was it.  I hit it, and the room across the world instantly grew larger in synchrony with Jerome's thanks and Chace's renewed cussing.  In view now were an entire chair, a door, and beside it ... shit.  Beside it was Tristan wearing an unbuttoned flannel shirt with a white tank underneath, and sporting hair as multidirectional and messed up—and hot—as I'd ever seen it.  Every inch of me began to ache. But on a realistic note, I mused to myself, matching flannel?  Seriously?  Yep, this whole camaraderie thing was officially going too far.  But, if I had noticed it, surely so had a few others in the room.  And 3, 2, 1 ...
"What are you guys, The Mandrell Sisters?"  Blank stares lined the room everywhere except on one face. Chace responded to Mills' joke with a high-pitched cackle of shocked delight, the only one present who had been alive and living in America long enough to get the reference, except for my classic TV-philic best friend, that is.
"Oh shit! Oh, shit that's good! Can I be Irlene? Bring out the fuckin' Krofft puppets!" Unreal.
We all had to wait until the two of them had finished laughing--Chace's soprano bellow was so loud that there was absolutely no getting around it to have a conversation of any sort.  Once he'd adequately tuckered himself out and wiped his eyes with the hood of Jerome's cashmere sweatshirt, we could successfully converse with both the live and virtual sisters Mandrell.
As expected, Tristan was less than amused.  "We've had quite a measure of success here," she said with a businesslike, slightly irked tone, "and Boris and I will be en route back to the US in short order.  However, we shall not be returning to Winter Rain."
"Sounds quite dreary, mate, to be fair," Mike interrupted, turning to face the folks in the room.  "It's all really rather a coup, you see."  As he looked to me during his monologue, he stopped again in his tracks, staring.  "Elma--may I just say again that you do indeed make an exquisite siren."
"Thanks, Mike," I muttered, blood rising into my cheeks.  "But what's the news?"
"Yes, well," he continued, clearing his throat and pushing up his glasses, "if you remember, back at Hava Java Chace had mentioned to us that there was a revolt of sorts in the works.  Well, it appears that this uprising is indeed connected to Roo, who, as we know, is in turn connected with the curse and it's recent lifting, so to speak."
"Not news," offered Mills flatly.  "What else?"
"Right, right, all in good time," Mike
continued good-naturedly, beginning to pace the room while stroking his new facial hair in a way that fit him extraordinarily well. "We managed to intercept in our travels a few of Roo's former associates, who now live in a fascinating community of weres with--"
"We have had many fruitful discussions here, and are now attempting to locate Roo directly," Tristan interrupted from the laptop.  We are making significant progress, and hope to have made contact very soon.  Once we do so, we plan to arrange a direct negotiation.  We are confident that will be all that is necessary. Theo will provide the remainder of the update directly.  That is all."  And with that, she hung up. Now what?