October 4.
Alima finds that the shieling was right to make her put a couple of extra buckets in the kitchen’s water barrel after dinner: She’s not enjoying the thought of fetching water in the chilled fall air. And she doesn’t want to move four iron crossbars for the two half-doors, either.

She also finds out why Pete didn’t say “full bathroom” instead of “shower and toilet.” It literally has a bathtub, a shower, and a toilet--but instead of a sink is a table with a ceramic bowl on it. She’s fine with cold water for brushing her teeth, but dunking her face in it is another thing.

As she treks to the kitchen after dumping her cup into the tub, the house is amused that she actually has to put the kettle on the stove. Not plugging in? It asks as Bulan eats. Old-fashioned.

She shrugs. “Well, it’s lasted since I was born and it’s got a copper bottom. Also, quick question,” she asks while she puts a spoonful of coffee in her sun-and-moon mug. “There are three giant rain barrels each by the front and back doors, and they’re mostly full. Why can’t I use those instead of the well?”

Emergencies, it insists with a rattle of the windows.

She sighs and takes the kettle to the bathroom. Then she remembers the tub has hot and cold water, so she could have filled the bowl from there. “Fuck this noise, I’m exfoliating.”

If she wasted five minutes boiling water from the kitchen, she’s damn well going to use it.

---
October 6.
In the Brú na Bóinne, Lucy can’t avoid the looming deed ahead of her. The Fianna’s fawn-brown suits have turned nearly red by now: The murky scabbed kind of a closing wound. She wonders if they’ll turn the same scarlet of the Hunter’s cloak.

Wes and David have stopped watching her to join their fellows, with Finn MacCool as their white-haired replacement. With that comes the steady noise of his visible and hidden weapons, but it’s not the usual clank of iron: It clacks like beads or wood.

“Obsidian,” Finn says. “The Folk can smell lots of iron.”

“So... is the Hunter going to know I’m coming?” Lucy picks at her own iron knife.

“You’re not coming,” he says. “Nobody said anything about you fighting--you just need your hair back. We’ll kill or incapacitate him and bring him to the Boyne, you get your hair back ‘by your own hand,’ and your curse is broken. Done.”

---
Owen wakes up to an insistent poke in the ribs, and he wonders if Teis got himself locked out of the bathroom again. “I told you, Teis, the emergency spell--shit.”

The shower’s on, and Teis is very absent. Instead, there’s Brighid. Home and warmth--no wonder he got their scents mixed up. “Just wondering, love, do people still give housewarming gifts that aren’t food?”

“Not big ones, but they do. Why?” He wonders.

“We don’t want to force things with Alima because housewarming is big enough, but if there’s someone she fancies, Aengus said a personal gift is going to kill two birds with one stone because she needs to--”

“Brighid, she just started the house trial. What are you saying about housewarming?”

“She needs to get the house!” Brighid pleads. “We can’t just let her wander around in the halfway point and let the Hunter kill her, it’s not fair!”

Gods, the Hunter’s bored again. No wonder Alima keeps running into him. “Brighid, I can’t deal with... what was the thing about Aengus?” he realizes.

“Weren’t you talking about Mal and Alima a while ago? We won’t do anything if nothing’s there, but we would like if we could nudge things along--”

“Fuck, I forgot about them after the Galway shit. Er...” He takes a breath and focuses on the simmering spot behind his eyes, where the cauldron of knowledge sits. With a nudge of his inhale, the cauldron boils over.

He smells coffee and dinner in repeated little snapshots, and then comes the future--full of sea-black hair and Alima’s sweetgrass shampoo. It’s such a small and fragile scent: Even in the Otherworld, it lasts maybe a day or two.

On Alima’s housewarming comes a peach-wood comb, nearly golden. A carved hummingbird hovers on the end of braided vines.

“They’re fine.”

“Yay! Thank you!” She hugs him and leaves.

Owen fully intends to go back to sleep, but five minutes later, Teis steps back in. “Yo--I’m done with the bathroom.”

He sighs and gets out of bed.

---
October 7.
Since Alima’s not officially the owner of the house yet, and since they’re on police business anyway, the Song family and their American investigator companions have to take a portal to the Cloncarrig police station instead. Qamar and Hilal Song have dark hair and skin like their deceased mother, but their big eyes and hawk noses are like their grandfather Feng’s.

Hilal is the moody one of the twins, restless and very quiet. Qamar greets Alima with a bear hug. “What’s up, cousin?”

“Oh my god, put me down!” She laughs.

Feng Song and his wife Yue are in the second group for the portal. Yue is graceful and her hair’s still black, though it’s thinned out due to age. Feng’s hair is completely gray, but the thuds of his cane are tight and controlled--aside from his limp, he’s not unsteady on his feet.

“Hi, Yeye!” Alima barely reaches his shoulder when she hugs him.

His voice is a bit reedy as he speaks in Mandarin: “What have they been feeding you here? I swear you were taller before you moved.”

“Mr. Song, do your parents need a translator?” Officer Campbell asks Jordan.

“No, but thank you,” Feng says from behind his son, chuckling as they both jump. (Qamar bursts out laughing, but Hilal and Alima manage to hold it in.)

The last three are Danny and Celeste DeTour, and David Sandpiper. David carries a pot of long, shining grass.

“Hey, baby girl!” Danny isn’t as light-skinned as Alima, but neither is she as dark as the twins. “Heard you’re in a house trial! What’s the new crib like?”

“I found it after months of looking, thank god,” Alima tells them. “It’s not too big, but I can fit you all in for the first night. Also, I have a dog now. He’s good, but just warning you all that he’s sort of... huge.”

“Babe, spaniels are huge compared to you,” Danny says. “Davy, why do you have grass?”

“Sweetgrass!” He says. “I was giving it to her anyway since she said she was almost out of shampoo, but now it’s an early housewarming present.”

“Oh, we call those settle-in presents,” Campbell remarks.

Alima’s uncle and grandparents take her car while the police start setting the paperwork up, while Mal uses his uncle’s car for the twins and Alima’s friends.

“So how did you guys meet up?” Qamar asks when they pull out of the parking lot.

“Not too hard in Cloncarrig.” Mal laughs and clicks the turn signal on. “We’d have run into each other eventually, but we were both hiking on the Cliffs of Moher and we got caught in a storm. Weather report didn’t catch it, but fall has weird weather anyway.”

“Yay, bipolar weather!”

At the shieling when they park, Bulan is waiting on the other side of the gate.

“Dad!” Ned walks up and barks. “Dad, the Lady of Scales talked to me last--”

“Daaaaaamn, babe, you weren’t kidding when you said he was huge!”

“Shit, is he a husky?” David keeps well away as Alima unlocks the gate.

“He’s a mix of every wolfish breed and a little bit of actual wolf. Don’t worry, he’s good!” She whistles and pats her leg for Bulan to heel. “Too good, actually--he won’t learn anything besides the basics.”

“Too smart for tricks, boy?” Qamar catches up to Alima and holds his hand out for Bulan, but the white dog only whuffs and goes around him. “Ha, look at his face! Poor dude must hate when you go out for walks and people want to pet him.”

----
The parlor is comfortably full as Alima starts checking the fridge to make dinner plans.

“It’s three o’clock, why are you planning for dinner already?” Mal asks.

“Trust me, Malachy, I will need at least one or two things from the store,” she says. “If it’s not because someone needs food, it’s because I don’t have enough. Okay, so: Twins can’t eat pork, Davy can’t eat fish, Yeye uses chopsticks, and everyone else should be fine...”

“Meat,” is her shared conclusion with Mal. So she grabs the remainder of her beef shoulder, checks its size against the people at the table, then sighs and puts it back in. “Wrong meat anyway. How does everyone feel about laga?”

“Alima, if you can make puto tomorrow, we will love you forever!” Qamar calls.

“Who called it?!” She takes out a mixing bowl of soaking rice. “I started soaking rice when I heard you were coming last night, so I’ll make puto while the laga’s boiling.” Qamar hugs her again, though to her relief he lets her stay on the ground.

“What are you doing, puppy?” Feng asks as Bulan stares up at him. “You think I have food?”

“Damn it!” Ned grumbles and lies down as his father scratches his ribs. “I’ve been talking for five minutes and nobody’s heard me.”

Alima and Mal head out for groceries, and Mal follows her in his uncle’s car since he has to bring it back anyway.

Thank God it’s Wednesday: No traffic, and there won’t be much of a line in the store. “So what’s puto?” He asks.

“Rice cakes.”

“That narrows things down,” Mal says at the stoplight, but he smiles.

“Filipino rice cakes.”

“You’re not even bothering!”

“Okay!” She smirks at him. “Soak some sticky rice for a night, nuke it in the blender, then add some sugar and egg whites and steam it in little bite-sized pieces. You then get puto, which is moist and fluffy goodness. Hilal loves it to death.”

“Isn’t Hilal the quiet one?” They wind through the parking lot. “I think he said hi to everyone and that’s it.”

“Don’t worry, he’s just not a talker.” She hefts a package of ox-tail into her basket with butternut squash. “He loves plants and he works in a nursery now--we used to call him the water-lily ‘cause he’d always float around behind Qamar.”

“Oh, a plant person. No wonder.” He trails along as she accumulates more supplies: Paper plates and spoons, a dozen cotton napkins. “So how’s the house-trial coming along?”

“The shieling is nice and I prefer a nice house over a big one, so I’m buying once the trial’s up.”

“Great, Pete’s been trying to sell it for ages. Any housewarming plans?”

She grimaces. “Nothing too big. Everyone has to carpool to the edge of town because I have to stay in the house and symbolically lock the doors before I set the wards up, and then unlock all the doors when you come over. So I’m thinking food, alcohol, movies, and musicals that we can sing along drunkenly to once we’re done with the movies.”

“Oh my god, Brighid loves you. She’s mad about singing.”

“She’s not here!” Alima laughs.

“She still loves you,” he insists.

“Did you ever get the peach tree fixed?” Alima wonders. “It had a pretty bad twist right before we found Bulan.”

“They had to lop off about five feet off the branch. No worries, it’s in the shed where it won’t hit anyone.”

“Baba would so buy that off you,” Alima remarks. “Yeye immigrated to America from China--peach wood is lucky in China, so they use it for everything. If you’re giving a gift and you can afford it, you give something made of peach wood. Baba loves peach wood, and it probably loves him. Everything he made out of peach wood got sold at top price.”

---
October 9.
The paperwork is settled among the American and Irish police, and it’s also when the shieling wakes Alima up instead of her alarm, with the warm gravelly humming that reminds her of her parents’ place.

“This is officially my house now!” She informs the others at breakfast after she sends the five thousand to Pete, to a smatter of applause.

“Qamar, where’s your brother?” Jordan asks when he notices one of the twins is gone.

“He’s wandering Alima’s two and half acres of trees and wildflowers,” Qamar says.

“Oh, that’s fine.”

---
In the police station, the American investigators take the usual item or piece of clothing from everyone to start the trace.

“The search parties are heading out for both worlds this afternoon,” Officer Campbell informs them. “Ogma O’Luain and his grandson are officially in charge of talking to Hades and Persephone, but please tell us if any of the ancestors or gods tell you anything about Ned and Lucy as well. Other than that, there’s nothing you can do but wait.”

“Time for the housewarming party!” Qamar announces.

“Done with the house trial? Great!” Campbell says.

“Oh shit,” Alima face-palms. “Now I have to get more stuff.” But in the car, she still sends a text out to Malachy and their friends that the party’s at eight. No guests, she tells them. I already have the family over, so too many guests will not fit in the house.

Housewarming! :) -Brighid.

YES -Aine.

Bringing alcohol. :D -Harry.

Fuck, Harry, you beat me. Bringing beer and Teis. -Owen.

Congratulations! -Mal.

---

“Ooh, housewarming!” Marian says after she hears from Owen. “I’ll just give Alima a sprig of this.” She snips off a few inches of her moonflower vine, dunks the end in a cup of water, and hums the Moon’s Cradle song. By her second repeat of the melody, it sprouts a few thread-thin roots. “Perfect. Love, can you grab the biggest white pot by the shed?”

“The one with the potting soil?”

“And put one or two cups of the yard’s dirt in it,” she adds.

“Aye, Gran-Gran.”

---
As Alima welcomes everyone in, Brighid gives her a dozen linen napkins embroidered with yellow waves. “My aunt’s idea,” she tells Alima sheepishly. “I told her you’re just one person, but she went ‘You only got a day’s warning, lass! And you can’t have too many napkins!’”

“Thanks for your aunt’s foresight, Brighid.” She hugs her and sticks the package on a corner of the dining table.

Owen and Matthaeus are next. Teis gives her a jar of Moher honey from Ogma.

“This one’s from Gran-Gran,” Owen says about his giant white pot, without a hint of strain. “Teis is making some jewelry for you, but it’ll be a few days late since he’s already got a client on the burner.”

“House trials are weird, it’s not the end of the world if I get a present late!” She hugs Teis and accepts the jar of honey, but raises an eyebrow at the hand-sized length of vine in Owen’s pot. “Uh, stick it by the window. Why is the pot so big?”

“Trust me, birdy-bird. You won’t want to transfer it to a bigger pot every couple of weeks.” He puts it down and claps her shoulder. “We stuck a couple cups of dirt from the yard in it, too. Technically you already own a hectare, but gifts are faster.”

“Irish land? Thanks, Owen.” She chuckles and takes a cup of water to pour around the sprig. To her delight, it hums in content. “Oh, it’s adorable!”

“Moonflowers are her go-to present.” Owen heads out to the car and comes back with a long three-pronged stake, which he sticks into the pot. “You can move it just out of the house in April or May, and if the winter gets too cold, either let it go to seed or get a cutting and move it indoors.”

Malachy is the last one, technically with two gifts: One is a small box with feathery stalks of pink flowers, and the other is a peach-wood comb in a drawstring bag.

“Yay, heather!” Brighid claps.

“You gave her a comb?” Aine grins.

“Yeah, I got a piece off the peach branch I had to trim off, and Gerald made it in two days. Still four feet left,” Mal says. He puts the heather by the moonflower’s pot and hands her the bag.

“Oh, wow.” She turns the comb over: Sanded smooth and nearly golden, with a hummingbird drinking the blossoms of a braided flower vine.

Feng Song eyes it over his drink with amusement. While everyone’s moving out to the back, he clears his throat. “Malachy and Alima?”

“What’s up, Yeye?” She takes a handful of chips.

“You didn’t know because one of you is American and the other is Irish,” he explains. “But for future reference, don’t give or accept peach-wood gifts if at least one of you is Asian.”

“Yeye, you get me everything made out of peach wood!”

“Because I’m your grandfather, not a single and virile young man,” he says to her drily.

“…Oh.”

“Again, you didn’t know, so it’s not like you’re married now,” he assures them. “But peach is very excitable with single people. Make sure you both sit down and ask what it thinks so you’re all on the same page. If you’re not, it’s going to be awkward.”

“Wait, Mr. Song?” Malachy asks. “I already asked what it--”

“Do it again. Very excitable.”

Alima can’t help laughing as she puts the comb on the table. “Thanks, Yeye. We’ll check.”

---
By one AM, everyone’s drunk aside from the designated drivers, and the hazy trickle of departing guests makes the shieling quite content.

Soon Mal and Alima are the only ones left in the house, with Bulan sleeping by Alima’s bedroom door.

“Did we talk to the comb yet?” Alima chuckles. “It’ll take like five minutes, but if you’d rather wait till we sober up, that’s cool.”

“Well, we’re here.”

She totters over and snags the bag, then loops back to the couch and brings it out with a tug of the drawstring. “Hello,” she says to the comb, and feels the wood wake up with a happy wash of warmth. “So my grandfather said we need to talk in case we’re not on the same page. Peach is used in engagements a lot, and Malachy and I are both single. What do you think?”

Peeeeeeeach, says the comb, and they burst out laughing.

“Yes, you. You’re made of peach-wood,” Mal flicks the handle. “He wasn’t kidding when he said it got excited, was he?”

“Well, peaches are fuzzy and sweet,” Alima muses. “Of course the wood would act like kids mixed with golden retrievers.”

Mal says with another chuckle, “So I obviously didn’t know the cultural part of giving you something made out of peach when we’re both single. But yeah, this is not the same kind of present as the others.”

“Really?” She looks at him over the comb, humming warm like bees.

“You were telling me that story about your dad and how he likes working with peach-wood, and I was thinking: You found out your parents are still alive after half a year. I’m not a mage or anything, but I can work with intent. It’ll make more sense when I’m sober, but when I told Gerald to make you a comb, I wanted the memories… I wanted the comb to call your parents back somehow.”

Sonnnnnnnng, the comb says.

“Any other intentions?” She jokes gently, and she’s not so surprised when he ducks his head. “Do they involve me?”

“Yeah.”

So she settles down against the curve of his ribs. And in the dusty moonlight, with the stove’s embers red like a pulse, they both smile.

Next Chapter: XXIII: with silver buttons