Shelf-Made Man

Chapter 10

Chapter

Ten

K issing Alfie was one of the best activities Tobias could think of. But they’d just been involved in a car chase, they didn’t know if the trolls had survived their trip into the pond, and in any case, Tobias didn’t want to explain things to an irate farmer or the local sheriff.

So he pulled away from Alfie with considerable reluctance, put the car into gear, and headed back to the freeway that would take them to San Francisco.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “Your bruises didn’t get banged up too bad?”

“That was magnificent.”

Tobias wasn’t sure whether Alfie meant his driving or the kiss and decided not to ask. Either way, it was a compliment. “I never thought I’d do that in real life.”

“I’m sorry that I?—”

“I’m not complaining. I enjoyed it. Honestly, it was even better than yesterday’s fight. ”

He received one of Alfie’s leg squeezes. Tobias was really starting to like those. They were so… affirming.

“The Emperor used to host annual sporting competitions,” Alfie said. “Archery, wrestling, footraces… those sorts of things. Athletes could win prizes, and the kingdoms represented by the winners could brag about it. Occasionally, minor border disputes and trade negotiations were settled through the games. Much better than warfare.”

Tobias figured this was something like the Olympics. “Did you participate?”

Alfie laughed. “No! I am not remotely talented enough. But I did attend as Father’s representative, and it was great fun to watch. Of course there was also quite a lot of feasting, drinking, and fucking. They were wonderful events. But the reason I mention it is that you would make a worthy competitor.”

“Me?” Now it was Tobias’s turn to laugh. “I run slow and have no idea how to shoot arrows. Unless car racing is one of the contests, I wouldn’t be much good.”

“We don’t have motor vehicles. But Tobias, I am certain that you would excel at anything you put your mind to. You are formidable. You’ve bested trolls twice in two days, and very few could say the same.”

This would have been an excellent opening for Tobias to reveal his identity. But he kept his mouth shut.

Driving in San Francisco and the surrounding areas was almost as harrowing as racing trolls. The traffic was mostly stop-and-go, and the streets and freeways did unpredictable things like veering off in strange directions and splitting up in ways one wouldn’t expect. But Alfie was enchanted by the Bay Bridge and fascinated by the city itself. “Look at those big ships!” he exclaimed. “And those buildings—they’re so tall and shiny.”

“No freighters or skyscrapers where you live?”

“We’re far from the sea, and we live in modest buildings. Even the Royal Palace isn’t—” Alfie stopped and sighed. “It’s not especially grand, as palaces go. But it was my home.”

“I’m sorry.”

“And I apologize for being maudlin. I’m very grateful to be alive at all, and look what adventures I’m having! My life was never this interesting before.”

Tobias had been thinking the same thing about his own life not that long ago. And interesting was an ambiguous term. Mysterious fungal infections could be interesting, as could that weird noise your car was making, or the letter you recently received from the IRS. He’d spent most of his life assuming that predictable and safe were better than interesting. But now he wasn’t so sure.

“YOLO,” he said out loud.

“Pardon?”

“It’s something Aunt Virginia told me when I visited her last. Right before she gave me the box with you inside, in fact. It means you only live once . She was advising me to crawl out of my shell and live more fully.”

Tobias maneuvered along the streets, carefully avoiding lost tourists and foolhardy pedestrians. He’d been to Aunt Virginia’s condo only once in the past decade and had never driven there himself. But with his troll skills, he inherently knew the way. He wondered idly whether his magical tracking abilities took into account current road conditions the way Google Maps did, or whether he was simply routed the shortest way. That might be interesting to experiment with, someday. If he didn’t die first.

“Tobias, may I ask you a question?”

“Of course.” Tobias was a little distracted, watching people hanging off a cable car that was chugging up a hill. How did the city’s lawyers let them get away with that?

“You said that when I was entrusted to you, I was, erm, a doll.”

“Yeah. I mean, more of a figurine, I guess? Like a really nice Christmas decoration.”

Alfie chuckled. “I’m glad I was of some use, at least. But I was wondering—how did you transform me back to life?”

“I didn’t. I left you on my shelf and then the next day crash ! There you were on my living room floor. Bleeding.” A small wave of nausea hit him at the memory.

“And no wizards entered your house in the interim?”

Tobias shook his head. “Not that I know of. I don’t actually know any wizards.”

Alfie was silent for a few moments. “That’s puzzling.”

There was a lot of that going around in Tobias’s life lately. He turned a corner, narrowly missing a jaywalking man with several Macy’s bags in one hand and a cell phone in the other.

“Are you sure you didn’t do anything to reanimate me?” asked Alfie. “Think carefully, please.”

Tobias tried to remember every event from the moment he’d opened the shoebox, but it wasn’t easy. “I unwrapped you and put you on the shelf. That was about it. The next day I worked until dinner. Then THC snickerdoodles.”

“What is that?”

“Cookies. With, uh, cannabis.” Then he added, in case Alfie didn’t know, “A relatively mild psychoactive drug.”

He felt a little embarrassed, although he didn’t use the drug often or irresponsibly and didn’t think that there was anything immoral about getting stoned now and then. It just felt sort of sad that he was eating weed cookies all by himself when most other people were out celebrating the season with friends or family.

Alfie put a hand on Tobias’s arm. “You combined a sweet pastry with a mind-opening substance? ”

“Um, yeah?”

“Many of our important magic rituals begin that way. What did you do next?”

They were at a seemingly endless red light behind a long line of other cars, which gave Tobias a chance to think. “TV. Legos. That’s about—” He stopped and felt his cheeks heat even before he described his next actions. “I kinda admitted to you—doll you, I mean—that I was lonely. And… I said I wished you were real.”

Alfie gasped and jerked his hand away as if he’d been burned.

“What’s wrong?” Tobias turned his head to see Alfie staring at him, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape. His face was even paler than usual, but the tips of his ears had gone bright red. “Alfie?” Tobias was ready to pull over despite the horrendous traffic.

But then Alfie blinked a few times and shook his head, his expression deeply troubled. “I… I need a bit of time to… think.”

This wasn’t good, whatever it was. But someone was honking impatiently. “Should I continue driving to Aunt Virginia’s? We’re about ten minutes away.”

“Yes. Please.”

There was a thick and heavy silence between them now. Tobias’s insides—instead of reminding him of a cinnamon roll—felt filled with gravel. The nasty kind that works its way into your shoes and hurts when you walk.

Aunt Virginia’s building perched atop Russian Hill, but after circling the nearby blocks several times, Tobias couldn’t find a place to park. He eventually resorted to temporarily blocking someone’s driveway in order to consult his phone, which directed him to a parking garage near Ghirardelli Square, several blocks away.

When he and Alfie emerged onto the street after stowing the car, he expected Alfie to pause and admire the view of the bay, which was very pretty. However, he was clearly too distracted to do more than glance at the water and then trudge alongside Tobias up the steep hill. Mindful of Alfie’s injuries, Tobias walked slowly.

“That’s her,” he said, pointing to the building when they were a block away. It wasn’t a particularly necessary piece of information, but the lack of talking was getting on his nerves.

Alfie didn’t answer, but just a few steps later, he grabbed Tobias’s arm and pulled him to a halt. “I need to tell you something.” Judging from Alfie’s expression, it wasn’t a good something.

Well, if they were going to be discussing bad shit, Tobias might as well fess up. He owed Alfie his honesty. “Me too.” It was as good a spot as any, with that nice view below them. To their side was a low concrete railing with a steep drop-off on the other side. If Alfie was too horrified, maybe he’d push Tobias over the edge. At least hitting the hard ground below would be a softer landing than experiencing Alfie’s rejection.

“May I go first?” When Tobias responded with a nod, Alfie sighed. “This is… very difficult. But I must ask….” He swallowed loudly. “There is a magical ritual that some of my people engage in around the time of the winter solstice. They eat pastries and drink a special tea that causes temporary mental fogginess and sometimes hallucinations. They build elaborate constructions out of clay and twigs—these are meant to help concentrate the will. They watch short dramatic reenactments of historical events. And then they express their hearts’ deepest desire in hopes that it will come to pass.”

Uh oh. That sounded remarkably like Tobias’s evening with the snickerdoodles and Legos. “And?” Tobias prompted, throat thick.

“And often their wishes are granted.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

Alfie paused for a moment. He looked so delicate in his too-large borrowed clothes, standing on a sidewalk so far from his home, his pale hair tousled by the breeze. Tobias wanted to wrap his arms around him and protect him from everything. He wanted to see those blue eyes sparkle when they were trained on him, that generous mouth spread in a wide grin, and feel those long-fingered hands cradling his neck.

“The ritual is intended to find people a mate,” Alfie said softly. “If the conjuring is successful, the supplicant will find their true love.”

Appalled, Tobias gaped. “I trapped you in a love spell? Oh my God, Alfie, I didn’t mean?—”

Alfie quieted him with a hand. “No, no. You’ ve done nothing of the kind. The spell doesn’t force anyone to do anything, and it doesn’t construct love where none previously existed. It simply draws to the supplicant the individual who is their best possible match.”

Tobias let out a relieved breath. “So I didn’t enchant you or anything.”

“You did not. Quite the opposite, in fact. Your actions resulted in returning me to my living state, for which I am deeply grateful.”

“Then why did you look so horrified?”

“On your behalf. Because you had no notion what you were doing, and now it turns out that your best match is me. An elf who has nothing to offer you except danger, who comes from an entirely different world, who will soon be taken by trolls and….” He glanced away, but then turned back. “You deserve so much better.”

Oh God. Neither cinnamon rolls nor gravel were inside Tobias now. Nope—he had a full-fledged cyclone in there, just like in The Wizard of Oz , complete with cows, nasty neighbors on bicycles, and other debris.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“Alfie, there is nobody I’d rather have than you. I don’t care about the magic or… or fated mates, or whatever the deal is. If I could have you even for a short time, I’d consider myself the luckiest guy in two worlds.”

A smile bloomed slowly on Alfie’s face and he blinked away tears. But when he took a step toward Tobias, arms raised, ready for an embrace, Tobias stopped him with a raised hand. “But there’s something you have to know,” said Tobias.

“Yes?”

Tobias took a deep breath and said the four hardest words of his life: “I am a troll.”