Boon

Madeleine Robins

All Mia needed was a reliable babysitter. What she got was a fight with the forces of Faery...

It’s hard to find Pampers in Elfland. Mia tried everywhere in her neighborhood, then went farther west: the big Duane Reade on Second Avenue, the Pathmark on Ninth Street, Ricky’s Discount, all out. Since the first elves had come down from the Catskills and people started calling Alphabet City Elfland, baby supplies had been mostly squeezed off the shelves by stuff likely to appeal to them: hair glitter, face paint, herbal supplements. Finally she found some in a bodega on the corner of Tenth Street. Diapers, and in Gabi’s size, too, but the price! It took three minutes of going through her bag and her wallet and turning out her pockets to come up with fifteen dollars in bills and change. All the while the guy behind the counter was giving her a hard time: “Mas rapida, chica!” Two elves in the line behind her had their heads together, giggling. Gabi, hungry and with a diaper that had gone beyond wet, wailed miserably from her stroller.

“I know, I know, mami. Just a tiny moment—” Mia pushed the last bill across the counter. The clerk shoved the Pampers back at her. She tucked the package under her arm as the elves—in too-perfectly paint-spattered T-shirts and fringed leggings—pushed past her and thumped a six-pack of Corona Extra on the counter. They looked familiar. From that bunch of artists in the basement apartment, maybe. Mia felt a flash of anger, swallowed it, and wheeled Gabi’s stroller out of the store.

At home Mia dressed for work. Gabi, freshly diapered and chewing on a piece of bagel, was playing with the plastic blocks Mia had bought at the Goodwill last month when her tips had been good. She piled three blocks on top of each other and crowed happily. “Mi-ya Mama! Mi-ya!”

“Miro, mami. I see! Very good!”

Mia put on lipstick. It was almost gone; the edge of the tube scraped her lip. Maybe, if the tips were good tonight, she could buy another tomorrow. She liked this color: it made her look older than her twenty years. She thought of herself and Cleo in junior high, boosting makeup from the Wal-Mart in Sedona: thick black eyeliner and glitter across her cheekbones, the pink streak she’d worn in her hair that had made Mama shriek loud enough to bring Papa running. Another world.

She sighed and started to pack Gabi’s bag with things to take down the hall to Mrs. Proschkja, who took care of GabiFSF, while Mia worked. With the bag stuffed to overflowing, Mia glanced at the clock.

“Ay, it’s late. Okay, mami, let’s go. Time to visit Nana.” Mia pulled her coat on, slung her bag over one shoulder, looped Gabi’s bag over the same arm, and bent to pick her daughter up. Of course Gabi didn’t want to go. “Wan’ bok,” she wailed, reaching back for the blocks. “Mama, wan bok, no Nana!”

“I know, baby, I know.” Mia balanced Gabi, squirming and wailing, in her left arm; with the right she locked the apartment door. Gabi cried a little as they went down the hall, but stopped as they turned the corner to Mrs. Proschkja’s apartment. They knocked on the door together.

Mrs. Proschkja’s broad, lined face peered around the edge of the door, caution replaced instantly with pleasure. She led the way into the apartment, carrying Gabi like a prize. She panted a little with the exertion, turned and looked at the clock. “See the time! You run, now, Amelia, you’re late. Say good-bye to Mama, Gabi!”

From Mrs. Proschkja’s arms, Gabi leaned forward, pursed her lips and gave Mia a sweet wet kiss. Mia kissed her daughter, dropped Gabi’s bag on Mrs. Proschkja’s mossy couch, and turned to run down the hall.

“Be good, mami! I’ll see you soon!”

The train was waiting in the station when she got there, but her Metrocard wouldn’t swipe. The clerk, looking bored, waved her through the service door and she made it onto the train just before the doors closed. She swung down into a seat.

“They magicked themselves through the turnstiles,” the woman sitting next to her muttered. She jutted her chin at a crowd of elves at the end of the car, dressed in silk and lace and leather. “So no one else’s Metrocards work. Thought it was a big joke.” She raised her voice. “Most of us have to work for a living.”

The elves looked at the woman, laughed, and turned their backs.

“They should go back to the mountains where they came from!” the woman said. “Who wants ‘em here anyway?”

Mia slid down the bench away from the woman, not wanting to be a part of any attention she drew. Who knew what elves might do? Some people thought elves were so glamorous, so artistic and cool. Mia was tired of them, beautiful even when they were working to look tattered and bohemian. She was tired of elf-music, tired of elvish art in the galleries south of her neighborhood, sick to death of elvish customers at the restaurant where she worked. Not that Mia said any of that. She wanted a quiet ride to the restaurant, the chance to relax a little before her shift. Most of us have to work for a living. She closed her eyes and sat back, listening for the Fiftieth Street stop.

The restaurant was busy that night. Mostly humans, but early on Mia got a mixed party, big spenders, high maintenance. She did her best to get everything right, to put on that suggestion of deference that elves seemed to set such store by from wait-staff, as if they were all the Queen of England or something. These were in the music business, nailing down the details of a tour of elvish bands; she listened to the bitchy gossip and negotiations as they drank and bickered and ordered expensive food. The party stayed at their table for almost three hours, until even Carlo, the manager, began to get edgy about turnover. Then one of the men signaled for the check. Mia felt like she’d been running a race. And for all that, a thirty-dollar tip to put into the pool, on a three-hundred-fifty-dollar tab. She had four other tables. She didn’t have time to think about it.

Just before closing a party of elves came in. She hated elf- only parties: elves spoke to her as if she were an invisible spirit, as if she were not real. I’ll tell you who’s not real, Mia thought. But she took their orders, took their changes, smiled and repeated the specials, replaced the order which was deemed unacceptable, watched as all the other tables in the restaurant emptied. She brought them Aquavit and Framboise and demitasse and ignored the blister that was coming up on her heel. They continued to talk to the air. When they got up to leave, Mia tried not to swoop down on their table too obviously to clear it.

She put the card slip in her pocket without even looking at the tip. Something else caught her attention; by one of the places, half hidden under a napkin, was a gold bracelet. It was beautiful, heavy gold links separated by little flowers made of crystal. It glittered in the guttering candlelight.

“You forgot this! Wait!” She could see the tail of the last elf’s coat as the door swung shut. She followed, went out of the restaurant door and saw the crowd of them walking down Fifty-first Street. “Excuse me! Wait!” she called again. The blister on her heel burst with a hot pain.

One of the elves turned around. When she saw Mia running toward her in her waiter’s outfit her head tilted to one side as if she was considering something new and curious.

“You forgot this!” Mia said again, holding out the bracelet at arm’s length. All the elves had stopped and turned around. Several of them started to laugh—tiny, affected laughs, like they couldn’t be bothered to draw enough air for a real guffaw. The first elf smiled slowly.

“You mistake,” she said mistily. “That is a ... gratuity. It is for you. For your need.” She had a strong accent. Mia stood for a second trying to understand what she was saying.

Then, “I can’t,” she said. “It’s too—the restaurant would never—”

The elf seemed to grow taller, but it was all posture and attitude, not magic. “You will not accept a gift, freely given?” She was still smiling, but Mia was suddenly scared. She took a step back.

“Yes, okay. It’s very nice of you. I just wanted to make sure.”

“Go then,” the elf said. She turned away and the group started down the street again.

Mia looked down at the bracelet in her hand. Then she stuck the thing in her pocket and went back in the restaurant to help close up. She offered to put the bracelet in the tip pool, but people rolled their eyes: “How’re we gonna divide that up?” So she rode the subway home that night with bracelet a weight in her pocket, almost hoping someone would mug her and take the damned thing with him. Fairy gold. Wasn’t it supposed to melt away in the morning?

When she got home Mia collected the heavily sleeping Gabi from Mrs. Proschkja’s apartment with whispered thank yous, handed over her sitting money, and went home for the night. The next afternoon, on the way to the park with Gabi, Mia offered the bracelet at a couple of pawn shops on Fourteenth Street: no takers. At the last one the guy looked at her, looked at Gabi, shook his head and told her she’d been stiffed. “That elf-stuff’s a glut on the market, honey.”

When they got home from the park Mia dropped the bracelet into her jewelry box and forgot about it.

oOo

When she got home from the restaurant on Wednesday morning Mia saw a mixed human-elf crowd in front of her building, gawking and murmuring, and an ambulance. Panic surged through her; her hands and feet tingled as she pushed through the crowd and ran up the stairs, unreasonably certain that something had happened to Gabi. Uniformed men filled her hallway; there was a gurney with equipment and bags hanging off it. Mia breathed in sharply: it was an adult on the gurney. Then the EMS pushed the gurney by and she saw it was Mrs. Proschkja. Her face was gray and her eyes half- closed; they were giving her oxygen. She was still alive.

“Gabi? My little girl—” Mia tried to look past the cop standing by the door. “Mrs. P was taking care of her. Where’s Gabi?”

“There’s a kid in there, they’re taking care of—”

Mia pushed past him, ashamed of her rudeness. Inside Mrs. Proschkja’s apartment she saw another EMS worker packing up equipment; beyond her, Gabi sat between two elves, playing happily.

“Gabi? Leave her alone!” she said to the elves. “Gabi, come here, mami.” She reached for her child and the elves— no, not elves, they were too short and swarthy, gnomes, maybe?—stepped away. “Come here,” Mia said again.

The gnome nearest Gabi bowed. He was short: his head hardly came to her waist. He wore yellow pants and a red T- shirt from Famiglia Pizza. His legs were so bowed and his belly so round, he looked like a red bowling ball set on top of two pieces of elbow macaroni. The ruffled blade of gray hair in the center of his skull made his head look pointed; his nose was long and beaky, and his bony ears twisted a half turn at the top. His skin was a pale translucent brown. And he smelled like—like what? Something dark and damp and earthy.

Gabi, safe in Mia’s arms, laughed and reached for the gnome. Mia pulled her back.

“The o’d woman is sick. We have ’ooked after your baby,” the gnome said. He had a deep, low voice, and his ls were so soft they sounded like ys. “My wife and I.”

Mia swallowed. “Thank you.” Her heart was slowing down a little now that she had Gabi in her arms. “What happened to Mrs. P?”

The gnome shrugged. “I do not know. She is not dead. But you wi’ need someone to watch the baby when you work.”

“Yeah, well.” Was he offering? As if. “It’ll be okay. Thanks for your help.”

“If the ’ady does not return, what wi’ you do?” the gnome asked. Despite his appearance and the gruff voice, he sounded polite. “We ’ike chi’dren.” He showed her a mouthful of narrow, jagged teeth, more teeth than a human would have. It was probably supposed to be a smile. “We wi’ watch him.”

“Her,” Mia said automatically. It was an offer. She could feel tears starting in her eyes. It was too many things at once. The scare of seeing the ambulance, and finding Mrs. P so sick, and the damned Fair Folk watching her baby. “No. No thank you,” she said. “I’m sure Mrs. Proschkja will be okay soon.”

The gnome nodded as if he had expected her answer. “You may ask about us. We can give you—” he paused as if searching for the right word. “References. We are in apartment 4C.”

The gnome reached out and pulled the other one forward: a she-gnome, shorter than he, wearing a lavender polo shirt and a tiger print skirt so short Mia could see the veins on her brown, bowed thighs. The spike of hair on her head was orange; her nose was not quite as large as his, but her ears were longer and more twisted, with tiny diamond studs running along their edge.

“My wife,” the gnome said, and bowed.

The she-gnome curtsied—hard to do in that short skirt. “We ’ike the baby,” she said. Her voice was as deep as his. Her eyes were hopeful.

“No, really,” Mia said. “Please, it’s okay, thank you, I don’t want—”

But Gabi was struggling in Mia’s arms, reaching for the gnomes, giggling. “Play!” she demanded, grabbing for one of the brown hands.

The she-gnome smiled. “Such a big gir’! So smart! So pretty!”

“No,” Mia said hopelessly.

“It is ‘ate,” the male said. “You wi’ wish to put the baby to bed. We wi’ come tomorrow. You can watch us with the chi’d.” The gnome took his wife’s hand again; they both bowed and left the apartment. Mia, feeling woozy with relief and shock, took Gabi home and put her to bed.

In the morning Mia called Beth Israel and found out that Mrs. Proschkja had had a stroke, was resting comfortably, but was unlikely to return home. She left a get-well message, then she started calling around, looking for sitters. She didn’t know many people in the neighborhood, couldn’t afford a sitting service—most people wanted more per hour than she made. By noon Mia was struggling not to cry as she fed Gabi. After lunch they went to the park and Mia looked for sitter listings on the community board. When they got home again she made more calls. Nothing. She couldn’t afford to lose a night’s pay, but by four o’clock she was ready to call and ask someone to cover her shift at the restaurant. Then the doorbell rang.

It was the gnomes.

“Here are the ... references.” He held out a sheet of typing paper. “Ca’ them. They wi’ te’ you.”

“No, I—”

Gabi charged out from the bedroom to greet the visitors. The gnome stepped around Mia and waved his short fingers at Gabi. “What is her name?”

“Gabi!” Gabi announced.

“So smart! So pretty!” The she-gnome stepped around Mia too, and sat down with Gabi on the rug. She smiled. Mia jumped to see all those teeth so close to her daughter’s soft skin. “I’m ’eafdrop. This is Oakmoss.” She gave the names to Gabi, not to Mia. Gabi repeated the names Gabi-style: Yeafop and Okmof. The gnomes smiled at each other as if she had given them a present.

Oakmoss looked up at Mia, still standing by the open door. “Ca’, p’ease. You need he’p. We are good he’pers.”

“I’m sure you are,” Mia said. “I’m sure—”

“Ca’,” Oakmoss said firmly.

The references were all glowing, if a little odd.

“I’m calling about Leafdrop and Oakmoss Brown—” Those were the names typed at the top of the reference paper. Each time, before she could say anything else, the people at the other end of the line assured her enthusiastically that Mr. and Mrs. Brown were hard workers, great with children, very responsible. “A dream come true,” one woman said. Only when she asked, “Why did they leave?” was there ever a hesitation. “Well, you know, that’s their way,” said the first woman she called. Another got a little teary, but would only say, “It was my fault. They were so wonderful!”

Mia got off the phone and found Oakmoss Brown reading to Gabi in that deep, growly voice. The toddler sat next to him, reaching up to play with the tuft of hair on the crown of his head. Mia caught a flash of movement from the kitchen, Mrs. Brown scurrying around doing something. Before Mia could ask what, she came out carrying a tray, prettily set with bowls and Mia’s two unchipped glasses and a flower—where had that come from?—floating in a teacup. The stew in the bowls smelled like heaven, a rich, savory smell, better than anything Mama used to make, and certainly better than Mia’s own cooking. Mrs. Brown put the tray down on the coffee table—the only surface one could eat off in the living room— and went back to the kitchen. Gabi, who normally had to be coaxed to eat, came at once to the table and let Oakmoss Brown put a bib around her neck.

“You have spoken to them?” he asked, when Mia began to eat.

She took a bite of the stew and nodded. “Everyone said very nice things,” she said. She still felt weird, unsettled by the thought of these creatures taking care of Gabi, but how could she say that, sitting there and eating his wife’s cooking? “But I don’t know, two of you? I can’t afford—”

“A bow’ of mi’k,” the brownie said firmly. “You may ’eave it here when we come. And p’ease: never say ‘Thank You.’ You must not. We are not—” the little man ducked his head and his brown skin reddened. “We are embarrassed.”

Mia shook her head. “A bowl of milk? That’s not enough, I can’t just—”

Mr. Brown nodded firmly. “You can go to work tonight. We wi’ take care of the baby Gabi.”

Feeling a little breathtaken, Mia said, “Tonight?” But tonight meant tonight’s pay, and she needed the money. She always needed the money. “Okay,” she said at last.

Before Mrs. Proschkja’s stroke Mia had thought she had her life organized pretty well, but the old woman’s sudden illness—and the arrival of the Browns—had shown her how rickety that structure was. The first night had been hard—Mia had called three times, and raced home after work, fearful that she’d made a terrible mistake, that Gabi would be gone, or dead. She found her daughter tucked into bed, smiling in her sleep.

Gradually Mia got used to the new sturdiness of her life. The Browns arrived at five every evening; Leafdrop cooked and cleaned and Oakmoss played with Gabi. Mia left for work with an increasing sense of security; when she got home each night the apartment would be clean, Gabi would be sleeping soundly, and there would be dinner warming in the oven. In the afternoon Mia put out two bowls of milk on the table—by the door, Oakmoss told her, was more traditional, but didn’t work in a cockroach-infested city building. The hardest part was to remember not to say “thank you.”

“That stew was delicious,” she could say to Leafdrop, or “Gabi said she had fun with you,” to Oakmoss. But if either of the Browns thought Mia was about to say “thank you” they would raise fingers to their lips as if to signal her to keep the words sealed inside.

For the first time since Gabi’s birth Mia’s finances stabilized too. Without having to pay for babysitting she was able to save money. She could buy Pampers—when she could find them—without having to turn out her sofa for lost change. She could even save a little money for emergencies or Christmas. A weight, or several weights, had been lifted from her shoulders, and she felt closer to her real age than she had since she had found out that she was pregnant.

Oakmoss had asked about that. “Where is the baby’s father? Does he not want to see her and p’ay with her?”

Mia shrugged. “If he does, he never said so. He disappeared when I told him I was pregnant.”

Leafdrop looked up from playing with Gabi. “Your fami’y permitted such dishonor?”

Mia laughed unpleasantly. “My family are a couple thousand miles away, and they think I dishonored things enough by myself. When I told my mother I was pregnant she called me—” Mia would not say the word in front of Gabi. “My dad said I should have an abortion and all Mama said was that would make me a murderer too. I don’t think they were worrying much about dishonor to me.”

Oakmoss swung Gabi up over his head—he must be very strong, Mia thought. Gabi was nearly as tall as he was. “They have lost much,” he said, and tickled the baby’s stomach with his long, bony nose.

Gabi’s crowing laughter filled the apartment. “Yeah, I guess so,” Mia agreed. It was not a thought that had occurred to her before.

The elves in the basement apartment moved out, taking dozens of paint-smeared canvasses and some heavy Victorian-looking furniture with them. They made a point of saying good-bye to Mia and Gabi, bowing and wishing them well in those misty, vague voices. It was a week or so before Mia caught sight of the new tenant—another elf, knife-thin, dressed in a Wall Street suit, with an icy manner that made Mia miss the artist-elves. He stood at the door by the mailboxes, watching. Mia wheeled Gabi into the building, folded the stroller, and started up the stairs with the stroller in one hand and Gabi in the other. He said nothing, just looked, his back pressed against his door as if he didn’t want to get too close to them. “Like I was a bug,” Mia said later to David at the restaurant.

“They all think we’re bugs,” David said, and used a kitchen towel to clean off the edge of a dish.

“Not like this one,” Mia said. “I didn’t realize before the old ones moved out, but they were nice. For elves. This one—I don’t like him.” “Well, it’s not like you need to. This is New York.” David put two more plates on his tray and started back to the dining room.

The Browns did not mention the elf in the basement, but from what Mia could see, they kept pretty much to themselves. The only people they seemed interested in were Mia and Gabi. They arrived one night as Mia was getting ready for work and Gabi played with Mia’s jewelry box, ringing her arms with cheap bangles and putting earrings in her hair.

“You need more jewe’s in your hair,” Oakmoss advised Gabi in that growling voice. He reached to scoop up a string of beads, then stopped. He looked as if he had just seen a snake among the necklaces.

“How did you find this?” He pointed at the gold-and-crystal elf bracelet.

“Oh.” Mia put the last pin in her hair. “It was a tip from an elf. At the restaurant.”

“It is worth much,” Oakmoss said. Leafdrop, just behind him, nodded solemnly.

“Maybe. I tried to pawn it, but no one was buying.”

Oakmoss’s brushy eyebrows rose almost into his hair. “You shou’d not—what? Pawn it? It is very va’able. It has power.”

“Power? What kind of—is it safe that Gabi’s playing with it?”

“It wi’ not hurt the baby,” Oakmoss assured her. “But it is a powerfu’ token—”

“Maybe to your kind.” Mia looked at him. Oakmoss looked upset. “Relax. I won’t pawn it. But I’m not wearing it, either.”

The gnome relaxed a little. “Good.” He took up several earrings and planted them in Gabi’s curly hair. “Very pretty gir’.”

Sometimes, after that, the Browns would talk about elven things. Mia heard a little of why the elves had come down from the mountains—some sort of political thing, a coup that sent half of Faery running down from the Catskills into the countryside and then into New York. She got the feeling that, whatever disagreements had driven the elves out, they’d brought their old ways of thinking with them.

“The great ones do not mix with us,” Oakmoss told her.

“Well, people like to keep to their own kind.”

“No. We serve. They do not. Our wor’d—you do not have the right word for it. Position, high to ’ow, ob’igation, honor—”

“Class? Humans got plenty of classes, Oakmoss.”

“Not ’ike the great ones. The o’d ones fear being here, fear that the—” he said something that sounded like a liquid sneeze. “It wi’ be weakened if they ’ive among humans ’ong.”

“So that creep in the basement thinks he’s better than we are, and doesn’t want to catch human cooties?” Mia asked. Oakmoss looked puzzled, and she had to explain what cooties were; by the time she was done she had to leave to work.

If Mia had not had a dentist appointment she would never have seen the elven code at work. Oakmoss and Leafdrop had come early to take Gabi to the park. Mia got home first and was struggling to pry the mail out of her mailbox when the door to the building opened. Oakmoss Brown was holding the door as Leafdrop and Gabi came in, Gabi chattering happily and holding up a handful of dried leaves.

“Mama! See yeafs, Mama!” Gabi shook her hand out of Leafdrop’s and went toward Mia, who dropped to one knee to greet her.

“Out of my way.” The words were drawled with such ice Mia shivered. It was the new elven tenant, standing just behind Leafdrop in the doorway. He held one hand up, as if ready to strike the gnome. Leafdrop shrank back like she really expected a blow. Gabi, halfway across the hall, stopped to see what was happening. She wheeled around, looked up at the elf, and laughed.

A look went across the elf’s face that scared Mia: it held anger, pleasure, satisfaction, and hunger, and she wanted that look nowhere near her baby. Mia put an arm out to gather Gabi to her as the elf started forward.

Oakmoss let the door go and jumped in front of Gabi, farther than his short bowed legs should have taken him. He stood like a barrier, both arms up.

“No, ’ord,” he said. His low growl was shaky.

The elf raised his hand farther, preparing to knock Oakmoss across the room. But by now Mia had grabbed Gabi up and knelt with her daughter in her arms, glaring up at the elf. She was not sure what was going on, but she knew the elf’s look scared the hell out of her.

“Let me pass,” the elf said. His voice was silky and cold.

Oakmoss was trembling. He dropped his arms but stayed where he was. “No, ‘ord. My apo’ogies.” He bowed deeply, but did not move.

The elf glared down at the gnome. He said something in that silky, cold voice, in a language Mia did not understand. Leafdrop gave a thin, wailing cry, putting her hand over her mouth to contain the sound. The elf looked over his shoulder to where she stood, pressed against the door sill, and said something to her. Then he turned back to Oakmoss and very deliberately moved his foot as if to step through him.

The gnome did not move.

For another minute the five of them stood in the hallway as if they had frozen there: Mia with Gabi squirming in her arms; Oakmoss facing down the elf; Leafdrop cowering by the door.

Then the elf spat out some words, turned and left the building, pressing so close to Leafdrop that she staggered against the wall trying not to get in his way. Oakmoss went at once to his wife. Mia stuffed the mail into her pocket and picked Gabi up. Later on, upstairs, when Leafdrop was bathing Gabi, Mia asked Oakmoss what had happened.

“He wanted the baby, and he did not ’ike it when I would not ‘et him pass.”

“He wanted Gabi?” Mia had a brief, panic-funny image of the elf on his knees with Gabi, playing peek-a-boo. “Like hell. For what?”

Oakmoss shrugged. “I do not know what a great one wants, but there is—” he seemed to be searching for a word, but shook his head as if it would not come to him. “It is as if that one has been turned from his proper way. I could not give him Gabi.”

“I should hope not!” Mia said, looking fearfully at Oakmoss. “You saying, if that elf didn’t seem bent, you’d have just handed Gabi over?”

“No, no. We are bound to obey the great ones, but our—” he said something in the Elven language he had spoken earlier. “Our duty to you and the baby is more powerfu’.”

“More powerful—” It was all that Fair Folk stuff, and Mia didn’t understand it. Just as long as Gabi was safe. “What did he say to you?”

Oakmoss pursed his lips and looked down as if he were remembering. “He ca’ed us names. He said we wou’d pay for our disobedience. They wi’ make us return to the home beyond the mountain.” He looked up. “You wi’ need to find a new babysitter.”

“What? They can’t do that.” Mia felt a full-body flush of panic. The Browns were in danger, and with them, the world that she had constructed in the last few months that was not simply a race from one crisis to the next. “What will they do to you? They’re going to punish you? Because you wouldn’t let him take Gabi? You should get a prize!”

Leafdrop appeared in the doorway, folding one of Gabi’s sweaters. “Humans say so,” she agreed. “My Oakmoss is very brave.” Oakmoss looked down; the scalp around his tuft of gray hair flushed red. “But great ones have ru’es. Browns are bound to obey them.”

“The great ones have rules to let them steal human children? I thought that was all fairy tale garbage—that’s why you guys were allowed to stay in our world, the elvish leaders swore that they don’t steal children or—”

“They do not. We do not. But even among humans there are persons who are—bent,” Oakmoss said gruffly, as if it were rude to remind Mia of it.

“Isn’t there some elf I can talk to? Tell them that you weren’t rude, you just didn’t let him take Gabi, you followed the rules? Isn’t there, like, a department for—for Fair Folk like you?”

“There is on’y the counci’ that ru’es us a’. And the great ones do not ’isten to dirtdiggers or minions.”

“Minions?” Mia stood up. “Minions? Maybe under the mountain they don’t, but this is New York City. We don’t have minions.” She looked down at Oakmoss and felt an urge to ruffle her fingers through his tuft of gray hair. “Who do I talk to?”

Oakmoss shook his head. “When we are ca’ed we wi’ have to go.”

Mia imagined a summons of some sort, a piece of paper or parchment. Something she would help them fight. She waited to hear about a summons, but the Browns said nothing. After a while she began to hope the whole matter would be forgotten. The Browns arrived to take care of Gabi each evening; Mia came home to find the apartment clean and a late supper waiting. She left out the milk and remembered not to say thank you. Whatever problems the elf in the basement had, he wasn’t bothering her or the Browns.

And then, on a Thursday night, she got a call at work. The restaurant was busy and she had just delivered three osso buco and a pot-au-feu to table seven; Carlo waved at her when she ducked back into the kitchen. It was Leafdrop on the phone.

“You must come. They have summoned us and wi’ not wait ’ong.”

Mia pled a babysitting crisis; her anxiety must have shown on her face, for Carlo not only let her go without complaint, he gave her cab fare. Mia directed the cab to the corner of Tenth Street and Avenue A and sat back, twirling a lock of hair with one hand and tapping out a rhythm with the other. When the cab pulled up at the curb she threw the fare at the driver and began to run. There was a small crowd of elves in front of her building. Without apology Mia elbowed her way through the crowd. Seated on the top step of the brownstone stoop were Oakmoss and Leafdrop Brown, with Gabi between them. Gabi was in her pajamas, asleep, her thumb slipping out of her mouth, her head a dark blur of curls against Leafdrop’s pink and yellow skirt. Two elves, tall in somber black, stood in front of them. Both wore rings and bangles, both wore badges on golden chains—the Elf Police? Mia thought. Behind them in the doorway, eyes lit with malice, was the elf from the basement. There was a weird, electric feeling in the crowd, a charge Mia could not understand. But she knew there was danger—to the Browns, maybe to Gabi and herself.

She took a breath and asked, “Is there a problem?”

One of the elves in black answered her. “This is a matter for the Fair Folk.” Yeah, this was a cop, all right. Move along, folks, nothin’ to see here.

“Well, not if it involves my child and her babysitters, it isn’t.” Mia used her best polite-but-firm tone, the one she used at the bank just before the I’m-not-afraid-to-get-angry- and-make-a-scene tone. “What’s up?”

“A complaint has been made,” the elf said again. “A breech in—” he turned to his companion and asked something. They conferred for a moment. “A breech,” he finished simply. “These interfered with the one who complained.”

“These what? Who complained? If you’re talking about the Browns—I want to complain right back. That guy there—” Mia pointed a finger at the elf from the basement—”he tried to take my daughter. The Browns stopped him. If that’s the interference you’re talking about—”

The elf in black drew his brows together. “That is a serious charge.” He turned to the basement elf and rattled off something. There was a murmur of dismay from the elvish crowd watching on the street. The elf from the basement sneered and said something else, full of hisses and sharp edges, but the official elf cut him off and repeated what he’d said. For the first time Mia saw the basement elf look uneasy; his long silvery eyes went from one elf-in-black to the other and back again. His chin went up and he said something.

The second of the elves-in-black shook his head and stepped past the Browns and Gabi. The basement elf spat out a long complicated stream of language but did not try to back away, even when the elf-in-black took him by the arm and began to walk him down the stairs. He stopped on the step next to the Browns, looking down at them, smiling a frightening smile. He said something to the first elf-in-black, then looked at Mia.

“They are lost to you,” he said. Then he was pulled past them and through the crowd of elves at the foot of the stairs. Mia didn’t care where they were taking him, just so he was gone.

She moved past the remaining elf-in-black and climbed the stairs to the Browns and Gabi. Silent, Leafdrop picked the child up and gave her to Mia.

“We wi’ miss you,” Oakmoss said. “It was good, having you and Gabi as our fami’y.” He stood up and looked to the remaining elf.

Mia, who had been shifting Gabi in her arms so that her daughter’s head was nestled comfortably just under her chin, looked up. “What?” She looked at Leafdrop, who got to her feet but did not look at her. “Where are you going?”

The elf sighed deeply. “They are forfeit,” he said.

“What? But I told you—”

“That one will be dealt with. What he attempted is not permitted. You have our word and our hand on it, he will be punished. But these—” he gestured to the Browns. “They honored the pledges of our Folk to your kind, but to do so, they broke a more ancient law. They are forfeit. I am sorry.”

Mia felt a tug on her arm. Oakmoss was looking up at her, his long bony nose quivering. “We are forfeit,” he agreed. “But the baby is safe. Do not be sad.”

“Sad? Hell, I’m angry. You can’t take these people!”

There was a ripple of noise—laughter—from the crowd at the foot of the stairs.

“They are forfeit,” the elf said again.

“They are family,” Mia said. “You heard him!”

Again that swell of noise from the crowd. The elf shook his head. “They cannot be family.”

“Why not?” Mia thought of her parents, and of Gabi’s vanished father, and of what little good the bonds of blood had done her. She thought of Carlo and the waiters at the restaurant, and of Mrs. Proschkja, and of the Browns. “Of course they are.”

“Family is blood and clan and sept,” the elf said, like someone explaining to a slow child. “Family is obligation and history—”

“We have the obligation, we have the history. We don’t need the blood. Blood’s the least part of family.”

 “Think carefully what you say,” the elf cautioned her. “There are ways to redeem the forfeit, but is that truly what you wish? To take one of our kind, or their kind, into your clan, you must be willing to give something. Something of value.” He looked deliberately at Gabi.

Mia took a step back, almost tripping over Oakmoss.

“You want me to buy them? With my daughter?”

The elf closed his eyes and put his hand to his forehead as if he had a headache. His long fingers glittered in the streetlight; he had a ring for every finger. At last he looked at Mia. “Say rather that, if you have the price, you might pay the penalty yourself and save your—family members.”

“No, no, no,” Leafdrop was saying, low. “Not for us.”

Oakmoss stood handfast with his wife, shaking his head.

It was nightmarish; Mia could not give the elves her child, that was not a question. But let them go? Stand there and watch while the Browns were taken away? That wasn’t right either. She started calculating how much she made. Maybe they would take payment over time? She had nothing to barter with: a silver-plated jug from the Goodwill, her diamond chip earrings, the little gold crucifix her grandmother had given her. The elves, with their rings and bangles, would laugh themselves to death if she brought those out.

Mia breathed in suddenly. “Wait. Don’t go. Please.”

She ran up the stairs and into the building. By the time she reached her apartment she was panting, Gabi a dead weight in her arms. Mia put her daughter down and got out her jewelry box. On the bottom, under a tangle of necklaces and earrings, the elven bracelet shone sullenly. Mia grabbed Gabi, who grumbled in her sleep and subsided, and ran back downstairs.

“This!” She held the bracelet out to the elf. “Will this pay the penalty?”

The elf’s eyes opened wide. “Where did you get this?”

“It was given to me. A gift, freely given,” she remembered the words the elf at the restaurant had used. “As a tip at the restaurant I work at. Will this work?”

Oakmoss and Leafdrop watched the elf silently.

Without touching the bracelet, the elf examined it. “This carries a great boon,” he said at last. “You should not give this up lightly.”

“I’m not. Is it a great enough boon to buy Leafdrop and Oakmoss out of this—forfeit?”

“And a thousand more,” the elf muttered, talking to himself. “Yes, it is.” He still did not take the bracelet, but turned back to the Browns and said something in that sharp, liquid language. Leafdrop answered him, the strange words rolling out oddly in her low, gruff voice. Oakmoss said something. They both looked at Mia.

“I’m serious. These people saved my baby from your friend—” she nodded in the direction of the departed elf from the basement. “If that thing’ll get them out of trouble, take it. Take it!” She dangled the bracelet before the elf, who at last,

with the care of someone handling a holy relic or the crown jewels of England, took it into his hands.

“The bargain is struck.” The elf turned to the crowd and said it again. Then he turned back to Mia. “They are yours.”

And that was that. He turned and walked down the stairs;

the crowd of elves turned and started away in twos and threes, talking. Gabi sighed heavily and awoke with a puzzled look.

“It’s cold out here. Let’s go up,” Mia said to the Browns.

The moment they reached Mia’s apartment Leafdrop began to move about in a blur of activity in the kitchen, moving as if her life depended upon it. Oakmoss took Gabi out of Mia’s arms, cradling the toddler in his arms, and started off to the kitchen to get her a snack.

“I can do that,” Mia said.

“No,” Oakmoss said simply. “We cannot—I do not know how to—I can do this.” Before Mia could say anything more, he had left her. She heard the refrigerator open, Oakmoss saying something to Gabi. The gnome left the baby in the kitchen with Leafdrop, then came and sat on the floor next to Mia.

“You shou’d not give away such a thing ’ightly,” he said.

Mia laughed. “You thought that was lightly? Jeez, Oakmoss, for a moment I thought they were going to take Gabi—”

“They wou’d not do it. We wou’d not permit it. It is enough that you spoke for us. But to give the Boon—”

“What good did the boon do to me? The elf who gave it to me said it was for my need. What need would I have for it, except to keep you?” Mia slipped off her shoes and put her feet up on the coffee table. Oakmoss looked very unhappy, his long nose quivering, his lips twitching as if they could not form the words they needed to say. Mia realized what those words would be.

“You don’t need to say it. I get embarrassed too. Look, Oakmoss—I’ll make you a deal, okay? We neither of us say, well—you know—but you don’t have to leave me a bowl of milk. Okay?”

Oakmoss, after a moment, gave a low, grunting chortle.

“Anyway, I’ve never paid you a cent for everything you do here. Think of the—the boon—as your wages. Even if you don’t have to work for a living—”

“Everyone must work for a ’iving,” Oakmoss said. “My kind do not require go’d. We require work. We are drawn to need. Your need drew us to this p’ace, and we found you and Gabi. Now we wi’ stay as long you have work for us. As long as you wi’ be our fami’y.”

Mia nodded. “Please,” she said. “Please. And you’ll be ours.”

The brownie cocked his head and raised a scraggly, arched eyebrow as if this were a new notion. From the kitchen came Gabi’s crow of laughter, and the smell of fresh bread.

Copyright © 2006 by Madeleine E. Robins

Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction