The Fox’s Tale

No one was waiting for us as we exited, which caused us both to breathe a sigh of relief and then laugh at each other.

“Two hours.”

I looked around for the voice that had spoken. Ellery spotted its source first.

“Fitz,” she cried, running to him for a hug. “I thought you still had finals. Did you say two hours?”

“Two hours,” he repeated. He turned his attention to me. “Hey, I’m Ellis, but you can call me Fitz. Welcome to House Sinclair.”

“Alexander, but everyone but Elly calls me Xander,” I said as I shook his hand.

It disturbed me how much Ellery’s uncles looked alike, in terms of build, facial features, and coloring. I bounced my eyes between her and Fitz and fought to keep from openly staring.

Ellery looked like Fitz and the others and yet there was clearly something besides her hair color that was different about her features. I couldn’t put my finger on it. But Fitz started to say something else and I let it drop from my mind, deciding it was probably just her mother’s influence.

“Yeah, I know who you are. I’ve been hearing about you for years.” He rolled his eyes and smirked.

“Fitz!”

“Ah, Elly. You know I have to tease you a little bit. Two hours. We all knew that the Suite would give you a long time, but two hours?”

Ellery shook her head at Fitz and I took her hand back into mine. “I know we were in there for longer than two hours.”

“One minute here is the equivalent of one day in there,” Fitz informed me in a matter of fact tone. I did the math.

“Four months! Four months? Holy shitballs.” Talk about a sex marathon!

“Jones is going to be annoyed, you know. He hates it when someone beats him at anything. I never thought anyone would top three weeks, but you guys smashed it.” He looked from my bewildered expression to Ellery’s blushing cheeks and laughed. “Come on, I’ll escort you guys to your apartment.”

“Apartment?”

Fitz threw his hands in the air. “Ah, El, didn’t you come up for air at all? That’s part of what is supposed to happen in there: talking.”

“I started to explain, but we got distracted,” she retorted in a justifiably defensive tone.

“I’ll just bet you did.” Fitz muttered as he led us down a hall. “The house put you guys all by yourselves so as to not disturb the sensibilities of Ethan and Billy or to have your ears assaulted by the sounds of the munchkins.”

Ellery snorted. “Please. I had to deal with Ethan and Billy’s mixed up feelings for years. It would serve them right if they have to squirm.”

I piped up. “No, no squirming. I don’t want any of them letting their thoughts stray to that subject, especially not Coach Murphy.”

Fitz laughed. “Dude, Billy is the last person you need to worry about. It’s Jones that’s going to have a problem. He’s so protective of Ellery I’m surprised he didn’t insist she wear full body armor everywhere.”

“Fitz.” Ellery’s voice carried a warning that he ignored.

“Here we are. Enjoy your last night together before you face the family tomorrow.”

“Um, thanks? I guess?”

Fitz looked me up and down. “I’ll make myself scarce. I don’t want to see you carry Elderflower over the threshold, although I guess you technically did that already.”

“Ellis Fitzgerald, you know I hate that name, and if you call me that one more time I will tell Michelle every one of your dirty little secrets.”

Fitz’s eyes went wide and the amusement and color drained from his face. “You wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t I?”

Fitz looked at me for quarter, but I just shook my head. “Even I know better than to piss her off man, and you’ve known her for her whole life. I’m not getting in the middle of this.”

Fitz huffed in defeat. “Fine. Enjoy,” he muttered before slinking off.

“You don’t have to wait too much longer, Fitzy! Just two more years,” Ellery called after him.

He waved his middle finger back at her, but didn’t turn around. I waited until he rounded the corner before asking, “why do they keep calling you Elderflower?”

Ellery scowled. “That was what my grandmother wanted to name me, but my mother refused. However, certain members of my family like to use it as a pet name, including my grandmother. It is so fucking annoying. Fitz doesn’t typically do use it though. He’s feeling jealous.”

She looked up at me and her face brightened. “Shall we check out our new home?”

I opened the door and gestured for her to enter. “After you, Princess.”

“Thank you, kind sir,” she replied and stepped in. She gasped and I stepped in to see what caused that response.

“Damn.” We walked into a spacious living room decorated in a mix of sleek contemporary and warm antique furniture. The floors were hardwood and each grouping of furniture had an Oriental rug with it. Directly opposite the entrance was a fireplace of field stone with a window on either side.

The left wall was covered almost entirely with built-in bookshelves save for the double doors in the center, while the right had gorgeous artwork flanking a cased opening that led to a hallway opposite the doors on the left. Ellery and I went our separate ways as we explored. I was drawn to the grouping of framed photographs on one of the end tables.

“How the hell did these pictures get here?” I asked; shocked to my toes by seeing framed photographs of myself with my parents. There was one of me as a ten year old in my basketball uniform, and another from Yule when I was five. I turned to find Ellery, but she was enraptured by some of the artwork on the wall.

“What’s captured your attention so thoroughly?” I asked as I crossed the room to join her.

“This lithograph. I saw it at an arts festival when I was seven and I begged Mumsy and Papa for it, but they wouldn’t buy it. They thought I was becoming obsessed with foxes and by extension you.”

I looked at the artwork and grinned. It was of a red fox sitting in a fairy ring of mushrooms. “Oh really? Obsessed with me?”

“No one can possibly understand what my life has been like, except, perhaps, twins who have been separated. Every day was filled with an ache of longing for someone who wasn’t there. At times it physically hurt me, and I didn’t understand when I was a child why I couldn’t be with you.”

She bit her lower lip as tears welled in her eyes.

“It’s okay, Ellery, you’re with me now, and I’m never going to leave you,” I whispered as I pulled her in for a hug. “Let’s check out the rest of this place, and maybe you can tell me how come pictures from my parents’ house are here.”

She sniffled and gave a small chuckle. “They’re here because they’re important to you. Almost everything you owned or have a deep emotional attachment to was brought here by magic while we were in the Suite.”

My eyebrows shot up. “You’re joking right?”

“Not even a little bit. Check out the bookshelves if you don’t believe me.”

I walked back across the room, suspicious of what I might find. I studied the bookcases and found my old yearbooks, another framed picture of me with my parents, a scrapbook of my sports life so far that my mother had complied over the years, my grandfather’s embosser from his law firm, the books from the bookcase in my old bedroom, and a Funko Pop of Rocket Raccoon that had been on my dresser.

“You weren’t joking. This is freaky.”

Ellery came up behind me and wrapped her arms around my waist. “The kitchen, dining room, and a powder room are through the cased opening. That means our bedroom is through those doors. Shall we check it out?”

“Ladies first.” I opened the door, allowing Ellery to go in first. She started to laugh and I immediately saw why. The bed from the Suite was in our bedroom.

“I, for one, am happy to see our old friend. I grew quite fond of it.” I gave it a friendly pat.

“I wonder if everyone else got their bed from the Suite? It seems like far too personal of a question to ask,” she mused as she walked farther into the bedroom.

I wandered around and found a dressing room like you would expect to find in a multimillion dollar mansion, with a large walk-in closet off of one side, and a bathroom that looked suspiciously like the one we had in the Suite on the other.

All of my clothes, shoes and other crap from my closet at home had found their way into this new one. I shook my head in awe of the family I was going to become a part of.

Ellery paused at the door. “Let’s get ready for bed, Foxy.”

“Didn’t we just wake up?”

“Yes and no. Take a moment to really feel the signals your body is sending you.”

Fatigue hit me like a sandbag. “Oh, hell. Yeah, I’m game for bed.” Despite my exhaustion I couldn’t stop myself from sending her a roguish grin. “Do you wear pajamas, Princess?”

“Let me surprise you. You hit the bathroom first, I’ll explore the closet.”