With my Gauntlette gear stashed where I could retrieve it once we got parental aggro to drop, Saoirse helped me walk back through the green verge towards the house. We had a story we could tell — which she loved, because it was more trickery.
I also had a promise to keep. Somehow, this fox girl hadn't seen a heist movie! God, she was going to love them.
Mum and dad were in the kitchen, which was at the back of the house, so they saw us stumble out of the green verge pretty much instantly. Both of them rushed outside while I leaned on Saoirse. We only got half way through the half-wild vegetable garden that dad insisted he was keeping track of, when they reached us.
“Tia, my sweet girl, what have you done this time?” Mum huffed in frustration. “And who is this young lady?”
“I slipped and fell leg-first into a rusty old bike that was hidden under some vines,” I said sheepishly. “This is Saoirse. Um… can we go inside? It's pretty dangerous out here…”
“Then why are you out here, kiddo?!” Dad exclaimed, frustrated.
I puffed out my cheeks and shrugged. “Soairse needed help.”
Both my parents eyed the spirit girl suspiciously, but led us inside despite any reservations they had that they weren't mentioning. No joke, they always had some sort of opinion about whatever I was up to, so this was business as usual.
“So uh…” I began, when they'd led us into the living room — their room of choice for telling me off.
To my surprise, dad took point in this particular scolding by sitting us down on a sofa while he seated himself in an armchair. “What were you doing outside?”
“I saw a fox girl in the verge… she was, uh… naked, and looked cold,” I said, not having to fake the blush that came to my cheeks. When she swapped to her humanoid form, I hadn't had any warning and saw a lot of skin. As for her fox form, we decided not to tell them about it because that form had been seen out with Gauntlette.
My parents seemed to notice then that Saoirse was wearing my clothes. Mum tilted her head at the other girl, inspecting her from head to toe — fox ears swivelling as they attempted to pull more information out of her with raw focus alone.
Saoirse swallowed hard and looked to me, eyes pleading for direction.
“She was lost and confused, and I thought maybe we could help her?” I suggested tentatively.
“Where are your parents? Why were you outside, nude?” Mum demanded, narrowing her eyes while she stood near the kitchen door, arms crossed. Her gaze flicked to me for a second. “There's a lot of dangerous stuff happening right now. We don't know if she's actually a spirit trying to… do something.”
“O-oh, yes,” Saoirse blurted. “I am. I'm a spirit, and I'm here to… uh, try and be safe?”
I reached over and touched her shoulder reassuringly.
“Jane,” Dad said, frowning at my mum. “Try to contain your mama-bear urges for a moment, please?”
Mum shot him an acidic look, but didn't say anything.
“Saoirse is a spirit — actually, she's the same species of spirit that me and mum’s ancestors interacted with,” I told them quickly. “She's fifteen years old, she got dumped here on Earth by the Concord Event, and she's been hiding in the verge stealing trash to get food. Her parents are both…”
I looked to my new spirit friend for answers on that one. She hadn't told me anything about that. I forgot to even ask.
“Dead,” she stated quietly, her hands threading nervously together. “Killed by the Fog That Twists. A fogbank rolled into our village one day — no warning. My clan cared for me as best they could, but… orphans get the shit end of the stick in most worlds, so…”
I shuffled over the space between us on the sofa and hugged her. She tensed, then blurted, “Oh no, I'm being accosted.”
Laughing, I squeezed her and let go. Goofy fox forgot how she was cuddled into my chest like an hour ago.
“I'm very sorry. The news has said a little about the sprits returning, but… how do we know what you're saying is true?” dad asked, with a voice like he was trying to be gentle, and failing because he was too suspicious.
The question stumped her, and her lower lip trembled for a moment before she went still. “I can… I can leave, if you'd like. Thank you, Tia, for bringing me inside, I—”
I glared at her, and her jaw clicked shut. To my parents, I said, “If she wanted to hurt me, she had the perfect opportunity when I was out there. I mean, you saw her helping me in. My leg hurts.”
Mum was staring at Saoirse with a lot of thoughts swirling around behind her eyes. I imagined an aquarium, with a bunch of normal fish swimming past the windows, then the dark shape of a shark would glide past.
In the end, though, her pursed lips softened into a smile. “Our kin has a reputation for trickery, but it's almost never malicious. They can also be guides or pathfinders. However… if it weren't for Tia being a girl now…”
I shot my mum a look. I had not made the choice to accept what'd happened yet.
Saoirse grimaced. “I know, I know. The trickery part is true. I um… gods, this hurts… I'm not telling you the whole truth.”
She looked like she was about to gag, admitting that. I couldn't help but grin. “Hey, I'm not telling you, or my parents the whole truth about a lot of things.”
“You're lying to me about something?” Saoirse asked, sounding genuinely hurt.
“Um,” I tugged at one of my ears. “We got the same ears, stupid.”
“Oh, yes…” she narrowed her eyes. “We had a deal. You already teased me once about that. I'm feeling pretty untrusting right now.”
I giggled. “Okay, okay. Hold on.”
Hopping up off the sofa, I dipped around dad’s chair, then tried to rush out the living room door. My leg dropped out from under me, and I crashed face-first into the wall.
“Ow…” I groaned, rolling over to find Saoirse already having rushed to sit beside me.
Dad wasn't far behind, and he scooped me up, while mum started seriously looking at my leg. They crowded Saoirse out, so she quickly backpedalled away, returning to the sofa.
“What was that, kiddo?” Dad asked, bemused.
“I promised to give Saoirse shampoo and conditioner if she told me what being a spirit is all about,” I grumbled, wincing when dad placed me back on the sofa.
“Is that all the deal was about?” Mum asked, looking up with a growing frown.
“Yeah,” I said, at the same time that Saoirse murmured, “That's pretty much it.”
Mum sighed. “Okay… so let me see if I understand the situation. Saorise, do you swear on your true name that you are indeed fifteen years old, a fox spirit, and that your parents are dead. Do you also swear on your true name that you don’t intend to hurt anyone in this family?”
Wow, that was not okay. That was so not okay. Mum might not realise it, but if she pulled that on a more powerful spirit, she could’ve found herself in a duel to the death or something, if granddad’s book was to be believed. A spirit’s true name was only useful if you could speak it, and it was an all-or-nothing type of deal — full control.
“Ma’am, that’s not… not how it works. You need to know it, and if you knew it, you wouldn’t need me to promise anything,” Saoirse said, eyes wide with fear. You could tell she was scared when she muttered under her breath, “Don’t call her a fed. Don’t call her a fed. This isn’t a snark time. Don’t have a scarf moment.”
“Will you tell your name to me?” Mum asked, her tone a challenge.
Okay, I didn’t like that. “Mum, stop being a b— mean. She’s scared and she needs safety, not all this crap. True name stuff is super rude.”
I could see Saoirse’s panic was beginning to spread into potential action. Her ears were fully back, and she was looking around at the doors and windows like a thief looking for exits. Wiggling my way out of dad’s worried embrace and pushing mum away, I hobbled over to my new friend, collapsed onto the sofa, and threw my arms around her.
“I’ll fight anyone who is mean to you,” I said seriously. Then I glared at my parents, “And if that means I fight my own mum and dad, then oh well. It’s not like they don’t fight each other all the time anyway.”
“Young lady!” Mum exploded.
“What, you don’t?” I demanded, matching her energy decibel for decibel. “Dad’s always wanking on about how much of an enlightened centrist he is while he guzzles propaganda from whatever firehose he can find. Then, you sit there and just let him do that until it becomes a problem for you specifically, then you both yell at each other until you’re both too angry to think. Once that happens, you go fuck each other until you make empty apologies and the cycle fucking repeats.”
Was any of that relevant to my hurting leg or the fact that Saoirse needed a home? Was it relevant to how we should honestly be taking me to the hospital cos my leg was feeling like shit? No — the answer was no to both. I don’t know why I was dredging up irrelevant bullshit right now. I was tired, I was in pain, and I just—
Tears started streaming down my face out of nowhere, and I slumped into the sofa beside my fox cousin. Beside me, I could feel Saoirse resonating with the tension that hung in the air like the strings of a piano after a cat had scampered across the keys — or, a fox, in this case.
Mum and dad were still silent as I sniffled and sobbed, but I felt Saoirse’s shaking hand take mine. She probably wanted to bolt out the door right now, so I was really grateful she was staying.
I felt like shit. My leg hurt, my chest hurt, my shoulder hurt, and I’d met my goddamn murderer again tonight. Oh, and mum kept calling me a girl, even though I hadn’t gotten a choice in that either. I was not okay, and like, I get that I’d brought a strange spirit into our house and mum was worried but… I could tell that she was treating my new friend like shit because she was angry that I’d snuck out again. She always did it.
Finally, mum spoke, and her voice was still very much not happy with me, but she was keeping herself chill anyway. “Tia. We’ll discuss this outburst later. It’s obvious that you’re in pain, and upset. We’ll get that checked out. Saoirse, I’m sorry but you might have to find somewhere else to stay tonight. We need to have—”
“Jane, what are you saying?” Dad asked, staring at his wife like she’d just suggested they kill and eat a puppy. “You and Tia are half-spirits — that’s halfway to what she is. This girl needs shelter, and look at them both. Saoirse isn’t going to hurt Tia. Hell, by the sound of things… she might be the only one in this room who isn’t — that includes Tia. The girl stays here. We’re not sending her out into that storm to be killed by a monster or taken advantage of.”
Through my bleary, tear-fogged eyes, I stared in dumbfounded confusion as my dad had a heart transplant performed on him right here in the living room. Mum was just as shocked as me, with her mouth hanging slightly open.
Clearing her throat, she looked over at Saoirse, then back at dad. “Where will she go?”
“In the guest room,” dad said, matter-of-factly.
Mum pursed her lips. “That’s meant for—”
“For who, Jane?” Dad asked, so, so gently. What was going on? What was I watching?
Slowly, mum’s shoulders sagged, and she blinked several times, staring at her husband. A sniff from me sent her eyes in my direction for a second, but when she met my tear-filled stare, she quickly looked away.
“Okay. We need to get Tia to the hospital,” she said softly. “By the looks of things, her leg has a small fracture somewhere. Greenstick, maybe. I’ll… I can do that. If you can get the room ready for Saoirse?”
Dad stood up and approached her, then took her into his arms when she didn’t stop him. “Thanks, love.”