Andor returned her smile. “They’re my best feature.”
“Andor.”
The elf dragged his gaze from Claire to Nicholas.
“We have to leave.”
“Yes.”
Claire grabbed Andor’s hand, startling him with her sudden action. “Don’t go,” she pleaded. “You can eat breakfast with us. My mom is making pancakes, and you can help me open presents.”
It was difficult to free his hand from hers. He’d very much like to stay, but Nicholas was right. Their time among this world was fleeting, limited to a single season and a single night. Claire was luckier than most in that she saw Nicholas in all his Christmas glory. She was more unique than most in that she saw Andor in his true form.
He bowed before her, a courtly gesture usually reserved for Dagrun. “I’m sorry, Claire. We have to leave.”
His stomach knotted when her gray eyes glazed with tears, but she held them back with a loud sniff. “Okay,” she said in a wobbly voice. Her smile returned full force when she turned to Nicholas. “Thank you, Santa.”
“My pleasure, Claire.” Nicholas’s voice deepened, gained a rhythm that vibrated deep into Andor’s bones and made him a touch drowsy. “Now, I want you to go back to bed. The presents will still be here, and there’s a special one for your mother, too.”
Andor’s brows rose, as did the saint’s, when Claire managed to fight off the sleep spell long enough to address Andor once more.
“Come see me next year. I won’t forget you. You won’t forget me?”
The knot in his belly tightened. She would forget, or cease to believe. Time and age would see to it, even for a Sunday’s Child. The human adult changed belief systems, relegating the wonders of childhood sorcery to memories. Such knowledge never bothered him before. It did now.
“No, Claire. I won’t forget you.”
She nodded slowly, her eyelids drifting to half-mast over her eyes as the spell took effect. “Okay.” She yawned twice and tottered out of the room. Her sleepy voice drifted back to them from the hall. “Goodnight.”
The silence in the small living room held nothing of magic in it. Nicholas sighed, and there was an odd sympathy in his dark gaze. “You’re lucky. We rarely come across one like her these days.”
Andor closed his eyes. “I know, and I’m not sure if I should celebrate or grieve.”
3
“I’ve escaped the stacks for today, and I’m going home.” Claire peered around the carpet wall separating her cube from Dee’s. “Do you need anything from me before I go?”
Dee Howard glanced up from her monitor for a moment and paused in scribbling notes in a ratty notebook. She blinked at Claire as if trying to remember who she was. “I’m sorry. What?”
Claire sighed. As one of the archivists employed by the Carmichael Research Institute and Museum, she worked closely with the curatorial staff on multiple projects. For the past three months, she’d been hip-deep with Dee in preparation for the illuminated manuscript exhibit Dee was coordinating. There were times she thought she’d have to bring up a blanket and pillow and sleep in the repositories room just to get half the work done for this project. She was suspicious Dee was already doing just that.
“I’m leaving for the night. You should too. It’s after 6:00, and you’ve been here since at least 5:30 this morning.”
A puzzled frown knitted Dee’s brow. “How do you know that?”
“Time stamp on the first e-mail I got from you today.” Claire shrugged on her coat. “Gotta go. I need to relieve Elise so she can get home.”
Dee’s phone rang. She answered and held up a finger to Claire in a silent request to wait. Claire used the opportunity to fish her purse out of one of her desk drawers. By the time she’d dug her keys out of a side pocket, Dee had finished the call and left her cube.
“I’ll walk with you,” she offered. “That was Andor. The first crate from the Matenadaran just arrived at the loading dock.” Her voice virtually quivered with excitement.
Claire made to tease Dee that she’d probably find her hugging the crate, waiting for the preparator crew to open it, but the odd, unfamiliar name sidetracked her. “Who’s Andor?”
The staff at the Carmichael was relatively small compared to other larger museums like the Houston Museum of Fine Arts or Natural Science. Claire had worked at the Carmichael for four years; she knew most everyone, at least by name. She didn’t recognize the name Andor.
Dee halted her with a hand on her elbow. She gaped at Claire. “You haven’t met Andor the preparator?”
Claire burst out laughing. Dee’s description, delivered in tones of disbelief and amazement, conjured images of a murderous cyborg with one glowing red eye and a mission to wipe out all of mankind; that, or his name flashing in great big, flashing billboard lights. “Not that I remember, and I think I would have, based on your reaction.”
Dee whistled. “Oh yeah, you would remember meeting him. Prime eye candy. Too bad he’s only temp. On loan from the Menil to help out while Paul is on medical leave.”
Their senior preparator had hurt his back during setup of a sculpture exhibit. For most of the year, the crew made do through any shortages of manpower, but during Christmas, the Carmichael was insanely busy, and the loss of even one person had an obvious ripple effect. Claire was surprised the Menil, far busier than the Carmichael, had been willing to loan out one of its preparators even temporarily.
The two women passed through hallways of closed office doors and file rooms until they reached the loading docks. Two large trucks were parked in the bays, one with its trailer doors open and a parade of people carting out containers on dollies and pallet jacks.
Dee raised her hand and waved at someone in the crowd. “Andor!”
Claire looked to where Dee waved and spotted a tall man with a blond ponytail checking off something on a clipboard. He turned and waved at Dee.
“Wait until he gets closer,” Dee said. “It’s almost criminal that a man can be that good looking.”
Claire gave her a dubious look. Were it anyone other than the reserved, serious Dee who made such a remark, she would have rolled her eyes. This guy must be something for her friend to wax so girlish over someone’s looks. “Blonds aren’t my type,” she said.
“You’ll be a convert after this.”
Dee didn’t exaggerate. As Andor narrowed the distance between them, Claire tried not to let her jaw bang on the floor. There were many types and interpretations of beauty; she saw all aspects of it in her job at the museum. That which was earthy and coarse could be as pleasing as that which was refined and classical. Ugly was beautiful to some and beautiful, flat and boring to others. It truly was all in the eye of the beholder. Sometimes though, universal appeal reigned, and in this man’s face resided the manifestation of perfect geometry and aesthetic appeal. Had this Andor lived a few hundred years earlier, Da Vinci would have painted him.
Claire’s objective admiration for him gave way to a strange unease when he stopped before them and shook Dee’s hand. “Good evening, Delilah.”
His voice, warm and faintly accented, triggered vague recollections for Claire. Or maybe dreams. She frowned, her mind reaching for will-o’-the-wisp memories of a hazy figure bathed in shimmering light that asked her a question. “What do you see?”
“Hey, Andor. I don’t think you’ve met Claire, one of our archivists. Claire, Andor Hjalmarson. Andor, Claire Summerlad.”
Claire held out her hand, still distracted by the odd notion she’d once heard Hjalmarson’s voice a long time ago. Her distraction evaporated, chased away by the pleasant tingle that raced up her arm when he clasped her fingers and gave them a squeeze.
She withdrew her hand from his. His fingertips lingered on her palm before he let her go. She cleared her throat. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Hjalmarson. We can definitely use the help.” She silently congratulated herself on the normal pitch of her voice.
“A pleasure, Claire, and please call me And
or.” He smiled, and Claire swore she heard Dee sigh.
He had the bluest eyes. Not lapis or sapphire or cerulean. More like deep winter ocean with a starburst of yellow and amber surrounding his pupils. Dark brown eyebrows and eyelashes contrasted with his much lighter hair. She might have compared him to an angel, but there was an earthiness to him that ruined the ethereal.
Dee knocked her in the side with an elbow. “You’re staring,” she murmured. She offered Andor a bright smile and rubbed her palms together. “So where’s this crate you called me about?”
A heat wave scaled up Claire’s chest, over her neck and flooded into her cheeks. She was staring, and by Andor’s knowing half-smile, it was as obvious as the blush threatening to set her face and scalp on fire. The smile she gave him felt thin and stiff. “It’s nice meeting you. I’m sure we’ll see each other again soon.”
He nodded, his blue eyes flaring hot as a star. “I look forward to it.”
Dee’s faint gasp mirrored her wide-eyed expression. Claire pretended not to notice her friend’s speculative look as she glanced back and forth between her and Andor. “I gotta go. I’m already twenty minutes late getting out of here. Elise is going to have my head on a plate. See you tomorrow.”
She gave a casual wave and fled, Andor Hjalmarson’s gaze heavy on her back. If anyone later asked, Claire would lie through her teeth and say her jog out of the loading docks was because she had to relieve her son’s caregiver. Nothing more. Nothing less. And nothing at all to do with the striking preparator who mesmerized her with only a handshake and an evocative voice.
Houston’s typical evening gridlock was in full swing by the time she got on the road. After thirty minutes and an apology-laced phone call to the babysitter, she pulled into the driveway of her tiny rent house and burst through the door.
“I’m so sorry, Elise,” she said for the twenty-seventh time since leaving the museum parking lot.
The babysitter gave her a casual wave. “No worries. Nothing planned for tonight, and I’m sick of studying.” She placed a bowl of pasta with pesto in front of the small, dark-haired boy seated at the dinner table. “He finished shredding the chicken tenders I fixed him, so we’re on to the pasta.”
She glanced at Claire. “I’ll stay until you can change, run to the bathroom, all that before I head out. Jake and I are going to work on table manners.” She pulled up a chair next to Jake and coaxed him to take a plastic spoon from her. “Come on, little dude. You can’t be eating with your fingers all the time.”
Claire skirted around the table and dropped a kiss on the boy’s head. “Sorry I’m late, kiddo. I’ll be right back.” He didn’t look up from the tablet Claire had bought him a year earlier. His favorite children’s video played in a loop, the same three minute scene playing over and over while he held his spoon in a half-hearted grip and tucked pasta into his mouth.
Claire tossed her purse on the couch and disappeared into her bedroom to change into her favorite evening wear—sweats and a T-shirt. She’d wash away her makeup later. Elise was already well past her usual time.
She didn’t know what she would do without Elise. The college kid looked after her son for the few hours after his bus dropped him off and Claire got home from work. Tattooed, pierced and impressively tall in a pair of heeled combat boots, the girl possessed endless patience and a sixth sense for knowing how to deal with an autistic child. Claire considered her a blessing for Jake and herself.
After Elise left for the evening, Claire sat down next to Jake and finished off the remainder of the lukewarm pasta and pesto. Jake pushed his half-eaten portion aside and turned his full attention to his video. He made odd noises, some Claire could translate, others she couldn’t; high-pitched yips combined with snatches of songs and the odd line or two from other movies. They almost never made sense in context, but the words he uttered were clear and well-articulated. Claire tried to think of those noises as progress. Two years ago, Jake was completely silent.
After their dinner, she tucked him into his favorite corner of the couch and sat next to him, sharing a blanket. Except for the TV’s low volume and Jake’s movie on his tablet, the house was quiet.
Most every evening was like this, even the weekend. Claire didn’t mind the lack of a social life too much. She’d always been introverted. Even when she was in school, single and Jake not even a gleam in her eye, she’d found nothing appealing about hanging out in bars and pubs packed with people and virtually bulging the walls with a cacophony of too-loud music and couples shouting at each other to be heard over the din. Sometimes though, she missed a night out with friends, talking over dinner or spending an hour at the local coffee shop.
Andor Hjalmarson’s handsome features rose in her mind’s eye. Claire didn’t try to suppress the image. Dee was right. One brief meeting, and he’d made her a convert to liking blonds. He’d been a perfect gentleman during their introduction, but Claire still felt the residual tingle in her arm from when he’d shaken her hand and the heaviness of his gaze on her back when she’d left the loading dock. And she still couldn’t shake the strange sense that he was somehow connected to the hazy childhood memory of shimmering light and a beguiling voice.
“What do you see?”
Jake suddenly leaned to the side and pressed his lips to her arm, startling Claire out of her reverie. She smiled, hugged him to her and kissed his forehead. “Thanks for the kiss, buddy. Time for a bath, and since Elise gave you pesto, I’ll probably have to boil your teeth instead of just brushing them tonight.” She patted him on the knee. “Come on. Let’s go.”
Once she had Jake in bed and his backpack ready for school the next day, Claire finished her own bedtime preparations. She slid under the covers, set her alarm and stared wide-eyed into the darkness. The holidays were bearing down her like a train. She and Jake didn’t go anywhere or do much for either Thanksgiving or Christmas, but the museum was in high gear with two Christmas exhibits and the upcoming benefit dinner dance and charity auction. She had a lot of long hours ahead of her.
She smiled. At least she and Dee had something more to admire than miles of garland and forests of decorated Christmas trees. As Dee said, Andor was primo eye candy, and while Claire might be divorced, overworked, and socially clueless when it came to dating, she wasn’t blind. She’d just have to be a little more circumspect in her admiration of the new preparator.
“I can do calm, cool and suave,” she said aloud, trying to convince herself. She snorted. Yeah right. She turned on her side and closed her eyes, happy to fall asleep to the memory of deep-ocean eyes.
4
The gangly Sunday’s Child with straggly hair and a missing tooth was gone. Claire Summerlad had grown into a woman of elegance with fine, somber features and guarded eyes. Their very first meeting, when she’d seen through his glamour and entranced him with the discovery that Sunday’s Children were still in the world, had also been the last between them.
Nicholas’s magic was different from ljósálfar magic, bestowed by a divine force unrelated to the Ljósálfheimr realm and resistant to Claire’s deep Sight. The saint could visit the girl’s house each year unseen if he wished. Andor couldn’t, and Nicholas had been adamant that the elf avoid any children like Claire, no matter how rare, at all costs.
“This is a century that ridicules magic, Andor. Claire’s Sight isn’t a gift. Because she’s a child, people will think her just highly imaginative and indulge her. As she grows older, that indulgence will become concern and suspicion. Claire herself will question the soundness of her mind if she sees and hears things no one else does. It’s better that she let her Sight fade and her memory of you become the dream of a childhood she’ll set aside.”
For some odd reason, that last part had turned Andor’s stomach, but he did as Nicholas counseled and never saw Claire again, until their meeting on the Carmichael’s loading docks. She had stared at him with a weary gaze that no longer saw wonder or the ljósálfar elf whose pointed ears she once complime
nted. He hadn’t missed the puzzled flicker of recognition in her eyes—as if the shadow of that distant Christmas Eve teased her memory—or her embarrassed blush at being caught staring at him with very womanly admiration.
Andor watched her surreptitiously this morning as he and another preparator opened boxes and filled out condition reports on one of the long tables in the conservation lab. Claire, Dee and one of the conservators unpacked boxes at another table. Their nitrile-gloved hands looked like doves as they checked each illuminated manuscript sent from the Matenadaran for damage and cataloged their contents.
Despite time and her maturity, Andor recognized Claire instantly when they met two days earlier on the loading docks. Her Sight had faded just as Nicholas predicted, and she didn’t see past the glamour that humanized his features and disguised the distinctive shape of his ears. He’d worn this particular spell so often and for so long while among humans that it rested as comfortably on him as an old shirt. Still, it wasn’t enough to lessen his vague disappointment that while Claire might admire him, she didn’t truly see him. He disagreed with Nicholas that her Sight had not been a gift.
“Uh oh.” Dee frowned at the box in front of her.
The much taller Claire leaned over her shoulder. “Missing the bill of lading?”
“No, it’s there. But just the Armenian version. Either the English translation got lost or someone forgot to put it on.”
Claire shrugged. “E-mail the curator and ask for another copy. They’re what, eight hours ahead of us? By the time you get in tomorrow, they’ll have replied.”
Andor approached their table. “I can read Armenian.”
Three sets of gazes settled on him and stayed. Claire and the conservator each raised an eyebrow. Dee tilted her head to one side. “Well, aren’t you just full of surprises?”
If she only knew. Andor smiled, not at all offended by their doubts. Houston was a huge metropolis with a diverse population that encompassed numerous linguistic families. English, Spanish, and Vietnamese were the most commonly spoken. Armenian was considerably more rare.