Seanan McGuire - Late Eclipses

The lack of clerks wasn’t a problem, thanks to my shopping companions. May was racing through the store fast enough that she might as well have been on roller skates. Our mutual friend, Danny, was moving more sedately; it’s just that he was doing it while being more than seven feet tall. He’s not actually all that big, for a Bridge Troll, but he’s good for getting things off of high shelves.

“Hey!” May jogged toward me with an armload of cantaloupes. She dumped them unceremoniously into the cart, without regard for what might be crushed in the process. “Did you know there were pixies in the produce section?”

“Yes, and so did you.” I tapped my temple. No one’s ever quite figured out what makes Fetches appear, but when they do, they come equipped with all the memories of the person they mirror. They’re death omens; once a Fetch with your face shows up, your days are supposed to be numbered. Lucky for me, May has about as much innate interest in following rules as I do, and she’s actually saved my life on at least one occasion. As far as I know, I’m the first person to live more than a month past the arrival of a Fetch—and I’m definitely the first person to ask their Fetch to move in.

May’s store of borrowed memories includes my mind-numbing stint as a Safeway checkout girl. That’s not a period of my life I like to dwell on, although the cynic in me insists on pointing out that fewer people were trying to kill me in those days. And yet, without all those attempts on my life, I wouldn’t have needed a Fetch, and I’d have missed out on May’s excellent vegetarian lasagna. There’s a bright side to everything.

May pouted. Yet another expression never worn by my face until the universe decided to make a copy of it. “You take the fun out of everything.”

“That’s me,” I agreed. “Toby Daye, assassin of fun.”

“You should put that on your business cards,” said Danny, chuckling as he came around the corner. I promptly elbowed him. I just as promptly winced, making him chuckle even more. Bridge Trolls have skin like granite. Hitting them is a good way to break a knuckle.

I glowered. “Not funny.”

“I disagree,” said May amiably.

“Oh, go get the bread,” I said.

“On it!” She saluted before zipping off again.

Danny gave me a sidelong look. “You okay? You seem tense.”

“It’s the store.” I shook my head. “I know this is the best place to get groceries, but there’s a reason I mostly live on things that come from drive-thru windows.”

“Maybe that’s why you got a Fetch. She’s the nutrition fairy, here to punish you for all those double cheeseburgers.”

“Well, that explains why she keeps trying to make me eat salad.” I started dropping boxes of Pop-Tarts into the cart. Danny rolled his eyes and moved pointedly toward the granola bars.

I wasn’t always a connoisseur of fast food hamburgers and microwave burritos. I’ve never been a very good cook—my ex-fiancé once compared my meatloaf to roadkill—but I used to make more of an effort. Then my liege lord asked me for a “little favor” and I wound up spending fourteen years as an enchanted fish. It was difficult to work up any enthusiasm about learning to make a casserole after that.

Curses and contradictions are the story of a changeling’s life, mine maybe more than most. Changelings aren’t stolen human children; we’re crossbreeds, born to both worlds, belonging fully to neither. My mother was fae, and my father … well, wasn’t. I was raised human until Mom’s family found us and hauled us off to the Summerlands. Mom didn’t want to go, and she mostly raised me through neglect after that. I ran away as soon as I thought I was old enough, and immediately fell in with a bad crowd. It’s a sadly common story, but I got lucky. Good luck and good friends got me out of a bad situation, and I swore fealty to Sylvester Torquill, a man who didn’t care how mixed-up my blood was. I met a human man, fell in love, and made my mother’s mistakes all over again, even down to deserting my own little girl. Like mother, like daughter.

May eyed the Pop-Tarts as she returned with the bread. “Do we really need those?”

“They’re part of a balanced breakfast.”

“In what reality?”

“Mine.” I grabbed another box of Pop-Tarts. “Danny, we got everything?”

“We do,” he said, and lifted the three industrial-sized bags of cat litter from the floor, hoisting them with ease. “Let’s get out of here.”

“That assumes we can get somebody to ring us up.” I started pushing the cart forward. “We could be reduced to shoplifting if my former coworkers stay in hiding.”

“That’s our girl.” Danny patted my shoulder with one huge hand, nearly knocking me off my feet. “Making friends wherever she goes.”

“Something like that,” I muttered.

May can be as susceptible to colorful displays as any six-year-old; she tossed five candy bars into the cart while we waited in the checkout lane. I raised an eyebrow. “Do you need that much chocolate?”

“You get to criticize the amount of chocolate I eat when I get to criticize the amount of coffee you drink.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Low blow.”

“Yet so well aimed.”

The door to the employee break room opened, and Pete—the night manager and my former boss—started toward us, expression suggesting that he’d just bitten into something sour. He usually looked like that when he had to interact with customers. That the customers included me was just a bonus.

“October,” he said. He had the decency to try sounding surprised. He just lacked the acting skill to pull it off. He glanced at May and Danny, eyebrows rising in much more realistic confusion. Whoever warned the staff that I was in the store hadn’t bothered to pass along the fact that I was traveling with my identical twin.

“Pete,” I replied. “Busy night?”

His cheeks reddened. “Inventory.”

Inventory would mean more staffers in the store, not fewer. I didn’t call him on it. “Right. Well, this is my friend Danny,” Danny nodded, his sheer size making the gesture intimidating, “and my sister, May.”

“Hi!” May grinned, rocking back on her heels. “Nice to meet you. Thanks for being so awesome to Tobes when she worked here.”

“Uh,” said Pete. “Right.”

I couldn’t blame him. Meeting May has that effect on people, especially the ones who’ve known me for any length of time. She looks almost exactly like me, and people don’t expect that level of pep to come out of my mouth. She’s taken steps to distinguish herself from me, piercing her ears six times and getting a feathered bob before streaking her ashy brown hair with magenta and electric blue, but the underlying bone structure has stayed the same.

Pete rang up the groceries on a sort of swift autopilot, bagging them himself when no one came out to help him. He didn’t try to make conversation. In a rare display of mercy, May didn’t try to force him.

The total was over three hundred dollars: painful, but not unexpected, considering that we’d been down to ramen noodles and mystery cans from the back of the cupboard. I paid cash. Pete frowned but didn’t comment. Sometimes it’s better not to know.

“Nice to see you again, Pete,” I said, starting to push the cart forward. Danny and May followed, both keeping quiet for once.

We’d almost reached the door when Pete called, hesitantly, “Are things … you were pretty miserable when you were here. Are things better now?”

I looked back over my shoulder, breaking into a wide, honest smile as I said, “Things are wonderful.”

Pete nodded. I nodded back, and we left the store without another word.

We were trying to fit everything into the car when May stiffened, eyes narrowing. “Someone’s coming.”