“Hey, Hector, I hear you’re an OG at this store.”
“Five months.” Hector pulled the last two pink dice from the box and placed them in the display window by the front door. Behind him the “Happy olidays” sign that had lost its “H” fluttered in the air. A plastic Santa and reindeer
Wan December sunlight shone down on Fairyland, softening the edges of nearby buildings. The clear blue sky boded well for the first day of business at Frank’s Detective Agency.
My detective agency.
I turned toward my desk, clapping my fore-hooves in anticipation. Perhaps my first case would be a big one, like those portrayed
“Merry Christmas, Eliza.”
My husband Reynolds ruffled my dark hair, waking me. I came to on the living room couch with a gasp and wiped my mouth. My fingers passed over the pillow lines on my face.
It was nice to have a body again, after being dead for so long.
The thought
The zombies had the stronghold surrounded. But what else was new?
Kicking my feet up on my desk, I clicked on my handheld recorder. “This is Commander Corinthia II—that’s ‘Cori’ to my friends, ‘Commander’ to the rest of you—with an update on our situation. It’s day…” I glanced at the walls of my concrete room. The hordes of tally marks looked like the desperate clawing of the undead. “…day unknown of The Z Siege. The Oasis is holding up fairly well.” What could zombies do to a concrete fortress in the middle of a desert? Arm themselves with cactus battering rams and charge?
“Jack!” I shove a strand of wild red hair beneath the hood of my cloak. “Come out right now!”
As I stomp through the moonlit snow to reach the lake just ahead, my thoughts swirl back to the hustle and bustle of party preparations this morning. To Jack and Holly off in the corner
I was indoors but surrounded by snowflakes, my heart pounding. Did a blizzard wreck the roof? No, I was in a theater and about to perform in The Burton School of Dance’s 1995 production of The Nutcracker.
My best friend Jasmine was the Snow Queen. “Snowflakes together!” she stage-whispered, pumping her fist.
Where is she? I crouched on the roof of a flat, stone building overlooking a cobbled alley, pulling the brim of my cavalier hat closer to my nose. She promised to be here an hour ago. I rose slowly. I should get back to the zeppelin now. The crew will be wondering what happened to me.
Read it now
“Mr. Thompson left his house, truck, and bank account to you, Courtney. Kim, he left you his… catapult.” I gritted my teeth, bracing myself for the older sister’s understandable outrage. Dealing with this kind of reaction is the toughest part of my job.
But it was Courtney who sprang to her feet.
“I’m not good at being a human,” I explain, crunching a dead leaf under my feet as I take a step closer to the sidewalk bench. “I’ve been practicing, but I’m amateur at best. Humans, they’re… close to what I am, but I can’t avoid making them nervous around me.”
Big Ben chimes the late hour several blocks away.
“Here’s the tracks the thief left, Frank.” Fairyland Hardware’s proprietor Marvin pointed to a muddy patch of ground behind the store.
I ambled over to look. Word about my crime-solving prowess had gotten around. These days, Frank’s Detective Agency was the first stop for most Fairyland folk when they had a mystery to unravel, and that worked for me.
From my third-row seat in the press room at the county sheriff’s office, I stretched my neck to see Detective Luz Margolis at the lectern.
Camera shutters clicked as she spoke. “Dental records leave no doubt: the body recently recovered from Lake Herring is missing tech entrepreneur Rachel Framer. The medical examiner estimates she’s been dead approximately three weeks.”
“It’s hopeless,” I moaned to the windowpane.
Rain trickled down outside, like the glass was sobbing sympathetically. A small comfort, but I didn’t really want company in my misery. What I needed was time and inspiration. The window could give neither.
I’d tried using it for inspiration already, but there’s usually a severe lack of windows in dungeon cells.
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