Page 43 of The Claiming of the Shrew
“Sometimes,” Fawkes said warily, and Leah thought of him bringing her trash the other day. Her shrew was still unusually calm and subdued, which it was starting to look like would be a regular thing in his presence. Not that it couldn’t still bounce around and shriek like a toddler in a ball pit. She could unfortunately relate all too well to having an impulsive shift animal that wanted her to do unwise things.
Maggie shuddered a little. “I try to handle the urge. I really do.” She looked wistful. “It’s just that sometimes things aresoshiny”
“You’re a kleptomaniac magpie?” Fawkes asked. He sounded skeptical. “I mean, my raccoon loves to rummage in garbage cans, but I don’t find myself dumpster diving every time I walk past the kitchens.”
“I tried to control it,” Maggie protested. “For years. It’s just gotten worse and worse. I lost a few different jobs for stealing, and others because I was afraid someone would find out about it.”
“Was that your plan here?” Leah asked. “You were going to run before we could turn you in?”
Maggie looked at the open suitcase and ran her hand through her hair. “I guess so. I couldn’t think what else to do. But I’m so tired of it.” She looked at them with a resigned attitude. “I guess it’s up to you now. Who have you told?”
“No one, yet,” Fawkes said. “Hester knows, and she has the rest of the stolen stuff. I already got back the pieces that I was here for.” He took Leah’s hand. “Honestly, I still don’t know what to do. Leah, what do you think?”
Leah squeezed his fingers. “I don’t want you to have to leave either, Maggie. If we have to bring in a new director a day before the play opens, it’s going to be a disaster. Weneedyou. But we also need you not to go around stealing anything that isn’t nailed down. Is there some kind of therapy for magpie kleptomaniacs?”
“I’ll ... try,” Maggie said. “I can control it better when I’m not shifting. So I won’t shift for the next week or so, while we go through the opening days of the play. And then I’ll start looking into therapy, and I promise I’ll give back everything I took, if I can remember whose it is.” She looked back and forth between them. “I’m going to try, I swear.”
Fawkes looked at Leah, who shrugged.
“I’ll accept that—if you apologize to me personally in front of the crew and tell them that you were wrong and you’re very sorry and I’m reinstated.”
Maggie smiled ruefully and held out a hand. “Deal.”
For once, after everything that had happened, opening night went more smoothly than it had any right to.
Gloria was still out of commission as the lead (her attempts to get the dye out of her hair had caused part of it to fall out) so Leah had to go on as her understudy. She was a ball of stress beforehand, but she came off the final bow practically walking on air. She bounced into Fawkes’s arms. “Did you see me? Wasn’t I good? I remembered everything! I sang all the songs!”
The night was honestly a blur. There had been the usual opening-night problems, people forgetting their lines, effects that didn’t quite work as intended. But it helped that their first few shows would be for a small, shifter-only audience at the lodge. Stacey, the crocodile, snapped at everyone and occasionally shifted onstage and smoothly switched to her Lost Boy role, keeping the audience in stitches. Leah still could not get over the sheer weightless delight of swooping through the air on ropes as Pan, with her crutches waiting below her; she still used them as Pan when she needed to stand, and no one said a thing.
Even Gloria gave her a subdued but genuine congratulation afterwards.
The raucous afterparty went late into the night, and then Leah and Fawkes went up to the honeymoon suite and collapsed on the big bed.
“I think I’m too tired for anything but too wired to go to sleep.” Leah flopped on her back and stared up at the ceiling. “I was thestar. It was amazing. My shrew was too stunned at being in the spotlight to even scream about it, except now and then when I was flying.Flying, Fawkes!”
Fawkes grinned. He lay stretched out beside her on the bed, playing with her hair. “Are you going to be sorry when Gloria is ready to go onstage again?”
“No, I don’t think so.” Leah folded her hands over her stomach and lay gazing up at the ceiling and the scenes her imagination imprinted there. “It was wonderful. It was all I dreamed of. I’m glad I got to do it, and I’m both excited and terrified about doing it tomorrow night again. But .... it’s not what I want to do all summer, let alone for the rest of my life. I’m glad I got to experience it. But, it’s funny to realize this now, I don’t really think I want to be in the spotlight all the time.” She rolled on her side to look at him, flopping an arm over his hip. “I think I prefer being behind the scenes.”
“Making gadgets?”
“That. But also skulking around investigating things. That was fun, Fawkes. I can see why you like it.”
“It’s not all fun and games and returning stolen jewelry to people.” Fawkes ran a hand down her arm. “I mean, even on this case, you got knocked out and trapped in a coffee can. But mostly, it’s not dangerous either. It’s just boring.”
“I guessed so. But I still want to find out. I think I could be really happy as a private investigator.” She gazed into his face, already picturing the future. “Do you think your partner might want another partner? Or maybe even we could go into business for ourselves?”
A slow grin spread across Fawkes’s face. “I’ll talk to Sam. Actually,we’lltalk to Sam. You should meet him. I think he’d like you. But the thing is, he’s been talking lately aboutgetting out of field work. Believe it or not, he actually likes the paperwork side of things. He’d be happy sitting behind a desk all the time, and maybe with two other people to do field work instead of just one, we can all get what we want.”
“I don’t know about having a boss full time, Fawkes. I don’t really deal well with people telling me what to do. I mean, I’d try?—”
“Oh, no, no. I’m not suggesting Sam would be our boss. Full partners all the way, three ways, if we do this. But like I said, we need to talk to Sam about it.”
“Speaking of detective work, what exactly are we going to tell Hester?” Leah asked. “Are you still putting her off?”
“I ... might have given her the impression that Ralph was responsible,” Fawkes said, looking up at the ceiling. “Not in so many words, but he’s gone and he’s not here to defend himself, and he did look pretty responsible. Plus, this way you get to be the big hero for helping catch him.”
“That would explain a few otherwise incomprehensible things Hester said to me at the afterparty.” She reached a hand for a pillow and flopped it in the general direction of his head. “Thanks for warning me.”
