That didn’t mean I’d deleted Valerie’s email account. For one thing, Valerie had been a beloved contestant on Dance or Die, one of the few reality competitions completely based on skill, instead of relying on how much drama the contestants could stir up to amuse the producers. If she’d disappeared completely, it would have been a scandal and something for people to investigate. The official story was that she was taking a year off from teaching dance in Manhattan while she put her head back together. I maintained her Facebook fan page and answered her email. Eventually, it would all taper off, more than it already had, and Valerie would be able to rest in peace.
That was the idea, anyway. I skimmed the subject lines in her inbox, opening the messages that looked interesting. Most were reports from the fan page. A few pieces of spam, as always, had managed to slither past the filters. One of my old dance buddies was asking whether there was any chance I’d be attending a competition in Kansas, since he needed a partner, his having decided to get pregnant. Another dancer I used to compete with wanted to know if it was true that I’d snapped my leg like a twig doing one of my, quote, “stupid jumps.” And the producers of Dance or Die wanted to know about my availability.
Wait. What?
I opened the email again, forcing myself to read slowly this time. The producers of Dance or Die were interested in knowing whether I was in “fighting shape” and available for a project to begin in six weeks, and last up to two months after that.
“Two months,” I muttered. “That’s the length of a competition season.”
“What?” asked Dominic.
“Uh.” I twisted to look at him. He was frying something on the stove; I sniffed the air. Bacon. He was making me bacon. My aggravating, wonderful, ex-Covenant husband, who had no real idea what the dance part of my life entailed, was making me bacon.
“I need to set the alarm when we go to bed,” I said. “I need to make a phone call.”
The Dance or Die production offices were located in Burbank, California, which meant we were at least in the same time zone, even if Southern California should really be considered a whole other world. They opened at nine. The alarm went off at eight fifty-five, almost three hours after Dominic and I had finally crawled into bed.
Dominic made an unhappy noise and attempted to burrow deeper into his pillow, lacing his hands together behind his head like he could somehow convince the noise that he’d already surrendered and no longer needed to be tormented. I leaned over him to slap the alarm off, only to find myself facing a veritable sea of mice. They covered the floor beside the bed, looking up at me with wide and hopeful eyes.
“What?” I hissed. Realizing my mistake, I hurriedly added, “And do not hail me, Dominic is trying to sleep.”
“Failing,” came Dominic’s woeful comment, voice muffled by his pillow.
The mice looked somewhat deflated. A small voice from the back of the crowd peeped a soft “Hail,” and was shushed by the mice around it. I raised an eyebrow. The leader of this merry band—identifiable by the fact that it was wearing a fancy cloak made of braided doll hair—stepped forward, motioning for the rest to be quiet.
“Hail to Verity, the Arboreal Priestess, bride to the God of Hard Choices in Dark Places,” it squeaked. “Today begins the great feast of Dammit, Enid, Where Is That Girl, I Know She Tells You When She’s Sneaking Out. We have come to beg a re-creation.”
I was still partially asleep, and it took me a moment to remember which holiday they were talking about. “Wait—isn’t this the one where Grandma Alice got lost in the woods for almost a whole day, and then wound up at Grandpa Thomas’ house for the first time?”
The mice nodded vigorously, and this time there were multiple soft, forbidden “hails” from the center of the crowd.
“Sorry, guys.” I shook my head. “I normally like a good romp around the woods as much as the next girl, but I have some work I need to do today. Work that can’t be done from a tree. Go ask Antimony, I’m sure she’d be happy to.”
“The Precise Priestess said, upon your return home, ‘Oh, Thank God, At Least With Barbie Back In The House, I Won’t Have To Do Every Single Ritual,’” said the lead mouse, fanning out its whiskers. “Was she so wrong?”
Aeslin mice have an eidetic memory for everything they see and hear, and it’s against their religion to misquote their gods—i.e., us. Which meant Antimony was definitely at the end of her patience. Also that she had definitely called me “Barbie.” I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. “She wasn’t wrong, no, but I can’t do it today,” I said. “I have to make some phone calls, and you know the cell service in the woods sucks. It’s important. Sorry. I’ll do the next one.” None of the rituals were actually dangerous for the humans the mice recruited to act them out. Sometimes slimy, and occasionally embarrassing, but the mice would never hurt us. They loved us too much for that.
“As you say, Priestess,” said the head priest, ears drooping.
I sighed. The jury’s still out on whether the Aeslin mice guilt trip us intentionally, or whether they’re just really, really good at it, but the fact remains that every time we say “no,” they react like the world is ending—and there’s only one way to fix it. “Meet me in the kitchen in an hour,” I said. “Cheese and cake will be provided.”