Page 5 of Winter Lost

There was a lot more obvious magic involved in the decorating than Uncle Mike usually allowed. Or maybe my recently acquired sensitivity to magic was still acting up.

I gave the vines on the wall a wary look. Were there more of them than there had been just a moment ago?

The deep green vines could have been an odd variety of ivy, or some other creeping kind of plant, but they looked like holly to me. I wasn’t a gardener, but even so, I was fairly certain that holly was usually found as a bush. Here, though, the thin willowlike withes covered in the distinctive spiky leaves and bright red berries wove through the vines to create a festive yet somehow oddly creepy air.

The knotted trunk of an ancient oak—which hadn’t been here at all two weeks ago—occupied one corner of the room. Its winter-bare branches reached up to the ceiling of the pub, which, once my attention was drawn to it, appeared to be higher than usual. Where the branches intersected the ceiling, they transformed into a painted version, an unreal canopy of gray bark that spread out over the crowded venue. Those gray branches, both painted and real, were burdened with an infestation of mistletoe that dripped down into the room.

The oak looked so much a part of the pub that I wondered if Uncle Mike had created it as part of his holiday decor—or if it had always been there and we were only privileged to see it now as the shortest day of the year approached.

I didn’t see Mary Jo in the main seating area, so I wove my way forward through the scattered tables and wandering people. Courtesy usually kept the dance floor in the back free of people who weren’t dancing, which served to lessen the density of the crowd somewhat. If I could reach the dance floor, I could edge around to the back rooms.

I broke through the mass finally. A passing bump from someone else trying to get through the crowd knocked me sideways, and I put a foot on the rough old flooring, this night clear even of dancers. Through the sole of my shoe, magic sizzled my synapses in a way that was consuming, if not quite unpleasant. I momentarily forgot the phone call, my tardiness (I had not wanted to be late to this meeting), and the importance of what I hoped to build tonight.

I stood a moment, dazed by sensation, before I realized where the magic was coming from: the Christmas tree in the center of the empty dance floor. As impressive as the old oak had been, it was this second tree that held true power. Gradually, the scent of bodies, of ivy and other greenery, faded away and all I could smell was pine.

The magic that held me faded, though it still burbled joyously through me, wiping away the weariness of the day and the black stain of fear left by Bonarata’s call. The euphoria wasn’t real, not quite, but I couldn’t help the smile that spread across my face.

Like the oak, the pine tree appeared to be part of the original structure of the pub. It erupted in the middle of the worn boards of the dance floor, rippling the nearby boards in an image of its root system. Mesmerized, called, I crossed the room until I stood near enough to touch it. It only occurred to me later that no one else approached it—even though the pub was tightly packed everywhere else. The dance floor usually wasn’t empty.

Spiderwebs covered the branches in graceful drapes of silver and gold. Airflow in the pub tore the fine gold strands, and they dropped to rest in glittering patterns on the dark green needles. My eyes caught the movement of dozens of tiny golden spiders spinning more gold for the tree.

The silver threads were tougher. A branch moved and I saw a single spider, its body the size of an acorn and the color of the silver web it wove. I felt it look back at me. Felt her look back at me. I knew the silver spider wasn’t a spider. Or maybe she wasn’t just a spider. Once she had moved mountains and hunted dangerous prey; now she was content to weave beautiful decorations. Or possibly eat coyote shapeshifters like me.

Hidden in my sneakers, my toes flexed uneasily. I was not arachnophobic, quite, but the same recent events that allowed me to feel the thing that lurked in the shape of a spider made me uneasy around them.

A light flashed between me and the spider, and I realized the flickering bits of brightness that illuminated the tree were not small electric Christmas lights. They were tiny…creatures flitting around the branches with housewifely intent, eating the gold spiderwebs—though they left the silver ones alone. Once my eyes figured out how to see them, I could spot dozens of the bright creatures in the holly berries, mistletoe, and other greenery scattered around the pub at large.

I’d been so focused on the tree and its occupants that I’d quit paying attention to the crowd. Truthfully, ever since the pack had entered into an agreement with the fae, I’d been becoming more comfortable in Uncle Mike’s. It made me less wary, knowing I was among allies. But that didn’t mean we were all friends. Standing alone on the dance floor, I might as well have had a spotlight on me.

“Think it’s pretty?” asked a rough voice to my left. “Like our Christmas tree, do you, little coyote?”

I’d subconsciously noticed that the crowd had quieted down since I’d stepped up to the tree. Now every sound except the piped-in music fell silent, giving way to the growing menace. I took a quick glance around but didn’t see Uncle Mike. Not everyone in the place was looking at me, but even the ones who weren’t were paying attention.

Being called a coyote wasn’t an insult—I shapeshifted into a coyote. But the venom in the word “Christmas” would have dropped a full-grown bull dead if it had been of the literal rather than figurative type.

The fae conflated most of their present struggle for survival with the spread of Christianity in Europe. To the fae, Christmas was a four-letter word as foul as anything Ben, our pack’s champion filthy-mouthed wolf, had ever said. Which made me wonder why they had a Christmas tree growing out of their dance floor.

“Solstice, surely,” I returned, trying to sound calm—and mostly succeeding. “Here by the green man’s table, the old ways are followed.”

Uncle Mike was a green man—whatever that meant, because he was neither green nor, strictly speaking, a man. It didn’t matter what a green man was right now. I used the term to remind them all that Uncle Mike held sway here. He didn’t take kindly to fights breaking out among his guests.

“Stolen from us, your Christmas tree,” growled the same voice, which I now saw belonged to a woman in a business suit who sat alone. Though the place was crowded, the other three seats at her small table were empty—meaning she was unpleasant or dangerous. Likely both. She’d been here awhile, judging by the nearly drained pitcher. Goody. Nothing I like better than interacting with a belligerent drunken fae, because that always turns out well.

Just because she had no friends with her didn’t mean she couldn’t inspire the fae crowded in here to wipe the floor with me. I’d survived being raised by werewolves when my superpower was changing into a thirty-five-pound coyote by being observant. Now I observed that the atmosphere was growing increasingly ugly. I looked around and saw a few familiar faces. I met the eyes of a woman who worked at my bank.

She was a troll, a different variety from the one who had damaged the suspension bridge—much more intelligent if less powerfully destructive. She gave me a small smile with a hint of anticipation, as if she could see my blood on the floor in the future.

In the far corner, a man drew my attention because he didn’t seem to notice the drama coalescing in the center of the room. I could only see the back of his head, but I was pretty sure it was the human-seeming of the frost giant Ymir. He owed me—sort of. But he was the kind of being to make a situation like this worse rather than better. Hopefully he kept right on not noticing the building tide of violence.

I needed to stall. Until someone told Uncle Mike that trouble was brewing. To that end, I relaxed deliberately, settling onto the balls of my feet.

“Stolen,” I agreed, nodding my head at the fae woman who had addressed me. I didn’t try explaining who had stolen the idea of a Christmas tree from whom.

Zee had once told me that cutting down trees, bringing them indoors, and decorating them to celebrate Christmas had been a human thing. He had also added, “Placing Christmas near the winter solstice was clever psychologische Politik on the part of the early Christian church.”

“Clearly it was stolen,” said Uncle Mike from somewhere behind me, his voice dropping on the room like a heavy wet blanket dropped on open flames. “Beautiful things often are.”

The scowling woman closed her mouth with an audible snap and looked at her drink as if it were suddenly interesting. I turned to see Uncle Mike walking toward me, all white-toothed smiles and commanding eyes. The ugliness rising in the crowded pub subsided reluctantly as patrons pretended they had not been paying attention to me at all.

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