“Boo sky.” Moon Dog mangled the English. “What does it mean? No one could tell me.”
Oilcan translated it into Elvish, not bothering with Blue Sky’s last name of Montana as it would be too difficult to explain.
“That’s it? Nothing else? No indication of time of day? The color of the morning sky is not the same as the late afternoon. Morning is full of bright expectations while the evening is somber with failure. Did the priestess not say?”
“I believe he was named by his mother; she is a human.” Oilcan had never met the woman; she’d gotten sick and left for Earth before Oilcan came to Elfhome. John Montana wasn’t the type to pick fancy names — his pets were called Stray Mama Cat, Gray Kitten, and Guppy Fish.
“Waya!” Moon Dog said. “It is an inios name. ‘The color of the sky without clouds.’ There are no omens there. It is a name that is at peace with itself.”
Blue Sky was returning with an extremely old man. The store manager was bent with age. His white puff of thin hair looked like the head of a dandelion about to go to seed.
The manager glanced briefly at Oilcan and the seated Moon Dog before focusing on Thorne in the more reassuring Wind Clan Blue. Judging by the widening of his eyes and his step backward, the man recognized that Thorne Scratch was a sekasha. “I don’t speak Elvish,” he said to Blue Sky. “Do they know that I don’t take elf coins? Our books aren’t set up to deal with it. Up one day. Down the next. You never know the real value of the gold coins.”
“I’m—” Oilcan caught himself before he claimed that he was really a human, at least in his own head. He needed to stop feeling the need to explain to others about the complications in his life. What was, was. Others didn’t need to understand or sympathize. “I’m the one buying the furniture. I speak English and I have American currency.”
Oilcan took out the bills that he’d gotten yesterday after Tinker bankrolled him. “I want this blue sectional and the pink French country love seat to start.” Baby Duck only had a mattress in her room. The twins probably could use a love seat as they might want their room to be a refuge from all the strangers. He scanned the couches selection for a second small piece. “And that other tufted white settee.”
The old man blew out his breath. “I don’t have anyone right now to load these pieces. My stock boys are off playing spy or hero or something. It’s all hush-hush and code words stupidity. All I know is their ‘cell leader’ called them about an hour ago about a ‘recon mission’ and they took off.”
“We’ll handle it,” Oilcan said. They’d come with enough people to move anything. “How much for the three?”
“Hold on, let me tally it.” The store manager took out a paper waiter’s pad that looked nearly as old as the man. He flipped a grubby cover over, took a stub of pencil out, and started to scratch out numbers. “Three and five and three is eleven. Carry the one.”
Oilcan glanced at Blue Sky to find the boy glaring at Moon Dog. Luckily the young warrior was fixated on the store manager.
“What’s wrong with him?” Moon Dog asked in Elvish.
Wrong? Oilcan eyed the man again. Then it dawned on him. “Oh, he’s just very old.”
“Old?” Moon Dog echoed. He clearly had never seen any living being that could classify as “old” before. Even the elfhounds lived ten times longer than an Earth dog.
“Yes,” Oilcan said.
“Waya!” Moon Dog breathed softly.
Oilcan still didn’t know why Moon Dog was in Pittsburgh, but it was obvious that everything in the city was new and amazing to the young sekasha. Hopefully it would mean that the holy warrior wouldn’t be dangerous to anyone. Still, the faster that they got done, the sooner they could gracefully scrape off the male.
Oilcan switched to English to tell the manager, “We need a bunch of beds too. The whole package: headboards, mattresses, sheets, and such.”
The manager paused to wave toward the far wall. “Bed frames, headboards, linens, and the rest are over there. None of our mattresses are new, but they’re cleaned and verified that they don’t have bedbugs or lice or whatnot. We’re not allowed to sell them during Shutdown, but that hasn’t been an issue for a month or so.”
“Go find a bed that you like,” Oilcan said in Elvish. He pointed at Baby Duck but included Spot and Blue Sky with a wiggle of his finger. He switched back to English for Spot’s sake. “Explain to her ‘twin-size.’ We really can’t handle a lot of big beds for everyone.”
“Yes, sama!” Baby Duck skipped off, the picture of sunshine and happiness. Of all the kids, she was rebounding the best, but it could be because she had literally wiped the memories of everything from her mind — who she was, where she was from, why she had come to Pittsburgh, along with all the torture that the oni had inflicted on her.
Blue Sky nodded like a commando given orders and followed Baby Duck. Spot looked puzzled but trailed after them. Perhaps the half-oni boy was too young to know the difference in bed sizes, or maybe the half-oni living situation didn’t afford the children separate beds. Oilcan really should find out since the half-oni were now his responsibility in name. It begged the question as to how he could fix any problems they had without stepping on Tommy Chang’s toes.
The manager eyed the cash in Oilcan’s hand. “I’ll tag these as sold and keep a running tally of what you want.”
Tagging the pieces apparently involved getting supplies from somewhere else in the store, as the old man headed off at a slow shuffle.
Oilcan considered the overstuffed chairs. Should he get more for his other kids? The oni had taken everything that the kids had brought with them to Pittsburgh. Other than their mattresses, the kids’ bedrooms were empty.
They’d painted the rooms in cheerful colors that the kids had picked out. Cattail Reeds was making bright curtains for the tall windows. Oilcan had provided paintings to scatter through the building; each kid had chosen a favorite from his collection to hang in their room. It seemed too little, especially since Oilcan planned to fill up the twins’ bedroom with furniture.
He should check to see if the others wanted a chair.
“I’d like a worktable, if we can find one.” Cattail Reeds had been trying on clothes with Rebecca. They both wore long, flowing bohemian dresses in shades of red. “As wide and long as possible so I can lay out pieces of any outfits I’m working on. Also, if we can, a rack like one of these.” She gestured to the metal display rack holding the dresses on hangers. “And some better lights. It’s hard to sew with just the elf shines.”
The two musicians had tucked themselves into the corner with all the instruments and sheet music and couldn’t be budged.
“No. No chairs!” Merry said. The two had found drumsticks and were taking turns testing them out on a practice pad. “I like having the space to work on my instrument. A worktable, maybe, and some lights. Humans have good lights.”
Rustle twirled his drumstick with his left hand. His right arm was still broken. “Me too. If we want to sit, we can use the common room. I’m glad for the space, though, to get away. The dormitories we had at Court were tiny and crowded. It always felt like we were stacked like pickled herrings.”
“I would love more of these dishes.” Barley held out a sleek, modern soup bowl in a cobalt blue with a gold-plated rim. “We need at least a hundred sets to run an enclave. This would be perfect for us, but there’s just this one.”
Andy and Guy had been helping Barley root through the mismatched dishes. For some reason, Andy had a pot on his head like a helmet. With Andy it was hard to tell if he was fooling around or he had put the pot in the one place where he couldn’t misplace it. Probably the latter. Guy seemed to be working in earnest despite the fact he was listening to the radio. One earbud dangled on his chest, broadcasting Marti Wulfow’s afternoon show on WESA. The other was firmly in his ear.