Ever After (Rachel Morgan)

to tend his children.

Chapter Fifteen
    T he faint ringing of the phone vibrated against the inside of my skull, and though I tried to incorporate the sound into my dreams of tiny purple hallways and black doors the size of acorns, it pushed itself into my conscious thought, shoving me awake.
    The phone is ringing.
    Eyes open, I stared at my clock glowing a steady 7:47. “Are you kidding me?” I whispered, and I rolled over on my stomach and put the pillow over my head. I’d only been asleep for a couple of hours and wasn’t planning on getting up until noon.
    I’d gone to bed late, not sleeping well with my dreams of shrinking rooms and being crushed in that singularity that Al had been trapped in making my sleep restless. That the sun was up seemed an insult, the bright rays making it past my curtain. Jenks would get the phone. It wouldn’t be for me, anyway. No one hired a demon, and not at seven freaking forty-seven in the morning.
    I sighed in relief as the phone finally quit. Then it started again. I groaned, wishing it would go away.
    “Ra-a-a-ache!” Jenks’s voice scraped along every nerve I had, and I propped myself up on my elbows.
    “What!” I shouted, all the way awake now.
    “My kids found Wayde’s glue. I’m unsticking Rex’s whiskers. Will you get that?”
    “Are you serious?” I exclaimed.
    “You want to hold the cat instead?”
    I threw my pillow to the floor. Grumbling, I swung my feet down, jerking them back from the cold. “It’s not even eight yet,” I muttered, trying and failing to get my hair to lie flat as I looked in my dresser mirror. No, I didn’t want to hold a hysterical cat who had had her whiskers glued together. God! I’d be happy when Ivy got home.
    I reached for my blue terrycloth robe and jammed my arms in the sleeves. I couldn’t find the slipper the pixies had been playing with yesterday, and staggering down the hall with a scuff-pad, scuff-pad, I tied my robe shut, ready to ream out the magazine salesman who was likely trying to work his way around our answering machine. Everyone important had my cell-phone number. If it was an emergency, they’d call me there.
    I squinted in the brighter light in the kitchen, feeling ill from the lack of sleep. Trent’s stack of books sat waiting. There wasn’t a single pixy anywhere, and I wondered if Jenks had finally gotten them all out in the garden. It was spookily quiet.
    “I’m coming!” I griped as the phone kept ringing, and ticked, I reached for the receiver. My heart seemed to catch when I saw the caller ID. It was Trent.
    I picked up the phone, not knowing what was going on anymore. “Trent?” I said as I hesitantly put the receiver to my ear, not sure if I should be worried or mad. “What by God’s little green apples are you doing calling me at seven forty-seven in the morning?”
    There was a short silence, and then a familiar feminine voice said, “Sorry, wrong number.”
    I took a fast breath. “Ellasbeth?” I exclaimed, pushing the receiver tighter against my ear. “Is that you?”
    Again there was silence. I could hear Ray crying in the background, and my spine stiffened. “Ellasbeth,” I said softly, a hand to my forehead as I turned away from the bright kitchen window. “Trent and I have not slept together. Ever. I think you and he make a great couple. Can I please go back to sleep now?” This was ridiculous. Leave it to Ellasbeth to go poking around the first chance she got.
    “I didn’t know it was you,” the woman said, the thread of fear in her voice waking me up faster than slamming a double grande. “You’re the first number on Trenton’s emergency list.”
    Ray was still crying. “Where’s Trent?” She didn’t say anything, and I hunched over the phone as Jenks came in, a worried gold dust slipping from him. “Look you . . . elf woman,” I said, not wanting her to hang up on me. “I know you don’t like me, but so help your trickster goddess, if you don’t tell me why you’re calling Trent’s emergency numbers, I’m going to crawl through this telephone line and strangle you.”
    Jenks landed on the rim of my vat of saltwater, his expression becoming concerned when Ellasbeth took a frustrated breath. “He’s gone! I think he went into the ever-after to get Lucy.”
    My grip on the phone tightened, and Jenks’s wings hummed to life. Trent went off on his own? He dropped a perfectly good plan in my lap and went off and left me here? Son of a