Page 18 of Office of the Lost

“Nope.I was adopted.Not a clue who my bio family was.My parents never said, and the paperwork was lost at some point.Anyway, they didn’t have any other kids.”He’d been more than enough, probably.He’d been a handful.

“Wh-what happened to you after your parents passed away?It must have been so awful.”Crispin’s voice was thick with sympathy, the kind Leopold usually hated.But coming from the fae, it sounded sincere.

Leopold hadn’t expected that.“Foster care.Kinda got bounced around until I grew up.”None of his foster parents had been terrible by any means.But none had been willing or able to keep him either, because not long after he’d settle into a new house, disasters would start to happen.He once overheard a social worker referring to him as Bad-Luck Lane.

But feeling sorry for himself was even worse than feeling pukey, so Leopold was almost relieved when he spied something gray and amorphous skulking through the trees nearby.“Um, Fromlith?”

“Yeah, I saw it.Don’t worry.I’ll roar if it comes too close.”

The last time Fromlith roared, Leopold had temporarily blacked out, and he wasn’t eager to repeat that.He clutched the giant’s hair more tightly.“Do you know what it is?And why it’s chasing us?”

“Nope.I’ve never seen anything like it.But it smells weird.Like the time Aunt Brogrog got tipsy and decided to make scallion-pickle cupcakes.”

Leopold’s stomach was displeased by that concept and made its displeasure known with another queasy lurch.He shut his eyes tight and tried not to think about bad baking, bad gray monster clouds, bad memories, or any of the day’s other unpleasantries.

He might have actually dozed off a little bit.Aside from messing things up, he possessed one additional superpower, which was the ability to nap anywhere under nearly any circumstances.He’d probably developed the knack when he was a little kid, because no matter where he and his parents had lived, they’d always ended up with noisy neighbors.Or maybe he’d picked it up while in foster care, when, depending on his circumstances, he’d sometimes slept on narrow institutional cots, in unfamiliar cars, or even in office chairs.

This time he came awake fully when Fromlith halted.“Is the monster here again?”Leopold asked sleepily, looking around.They were in a small valley with a steep slope ahead of them.The hillside was covered in pebbles and small rocks, all the same dull gray as old concrete.The valley floor was also mostly gray stone, although it was scattered with short scraggly plants in shades of pale periwinkle.

“No monsters here.”Fromlith stooped so that Leopold and Crispin could slide off his shoulders.Crispin landed gracefully, as if executing a dance move, but Leopold stumbled and fell, scraping a hoof loudly against a sharp rock and tweaking his ankle.

He scrambled back to his feet.“How do you know there aren’t any monsters?”

“No self-respecting monster would come anywhere near here.It’s… uninspiring.And nothing you find in these parts tastes good anyway.”Fromlith’s stomach rumbled as if in agreement, shaking the ground.

“Thus the name,” said Crispin, looking pleased with himself for figuring it out.“The Pond of Disappointment.”

Fromlith nodded sadly.“Some of my ancestors tried to build a vacation resort here, on account of the waterfront.They came with high hopes, but nothing worked out.The buildings were poorly constructed.The food was bland.The weather was always too hot or too cold.There was nothing to do except swim, but the pond—which started out as a lake, I guess—shrank until it was too cramped for giants.So everyone left.”

Leopold didn’t say so, but he could relate.On the few occasions when he’d had enough spare cash to go on vacation, he hadn’t had fun.The Grand Canyon had been so foggy he could barely see beyond the end of his nose, let alone into the storied depths.His campsite in the Sierras was evacuated due to a forest fire.When he visited a quaint little coastal town, all the shops and restaurants were closed due to a power outage, signs on the beach warned of sewage contamination, and his motel room was infested with bedbugs.

“But where’s the pond?”Crispin peered at the sad little valley.

He had a point.There was not a drop of water in sight.

“Over that hill.”Fromlith pointed.“But if it’s all the same to you, I’m going to say good-bye here.The pond is a real downer.”

Although Leopold didn’t relish climbing that slope, especially with his sore ankle, he couldn’t really ask Fromlith for more.The guy had been more than generous.

Apparently concluding the same thing, Crispin gave Fromlith a courtly bow.“Of course.Thank you for your assistance.”

“And you’ll tell the Mother of Fae that I didn’t harm a hair on your head?”

“I’ll tell her that you were a perfect gentleman, and provided…enormousassistance.”

This must have pleased Fromlith, for he beamed, bent, and clapped Crispin hard enough on the back to send the desk fae flying into Leopold.This time they both fell down, legs and antlers tangled.It took them a while to recover—and on Leopold’s part, a fair bit of swearing—and by the time they did, Fromlith was already stomping off into the distance, heading eagerly back to his enormous tiny house.

Crispin brushed himself off.“Let’s do this, shall we?My perfecality score?—”

“Is dropping by the minute.I know.Fine.”He was ready to get this nightmare over with.Sore ankle notwithstanding, he started up the hill.

It was hard going.There was a path of sorts, but sometimes it disappeared and they had to find it again.At times the slope was so steep that they both had to proceed on all fours, which at least turned out to be easier as deer-things than in their usual forms, but even then the scree tended to shift beneath them.Leopold thought he’d be relieved when they reached the top, but he wasn’t—not when he saw the equally steep downward path to a patch of water with all the charm of a sewage treatment pond.

“Ugh,” said Crispin, gazing down at it.

“Agreed.”

“There’s a lovely little pool near my home, you know.Crystal-clear water surrounded by soft fragrant grasses and tiny flowers.Sometimes Minkis and I go for a dip after I get home from OotL, before I fix dinner.”His gaze was unfocused, and a slow smile spread across his face, making him more handsome.

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