I parted from the two women with reluce, but if what I wao do worked, it could make a difference. We didn’t know wherolls would make a move against the forest, and stores were going to close oh soon. When I told them I had to hurry back, Xy paved a way for us. I kissed the girls quickly at the tomb, and the inside and up.

  The saw wasn’t a good on, given what happened when the bde hit metal. I should have knower. But I could get quality ons oh that weren’t guns. Maybe the system, or the world, or whatever agency that stopped me fring guns through the portal would stop any on, but it hadn’t stopped the saw, so I doubted it.

  I could buy a sword. There were probably ws against carrying it around in Marynd, because I’d never seen anyone do it, but I khat there were pces that sold them. I found ohirty miles away, and it closed at six, so that was my first stop.

  The store sold all kinds of bdes, from utility ko katanas. I wanted something easy to learn to use, but I didn’t want to sound like a crazy person or they might not sell to me. Still, it had to be usable as a thrusting on in case the “stab” in Backstab limited the use of the skill.

  I bought a katana and a foot-long pointy dagger, and I made sure they were quite sharp. I told the sales guy that if I had something hanging on the wall, it made a differeo me that I k was usable.

  “I totally get that,” he said.

  If I had actually wao hang it on a wall, I don’t know that I would have cared, personally. It felt weird to i with the guy because I felt like a weirdo buying a sword I actually inteo fight with, but I also felt like I was wearing a disguise, speaking with a deep void moving with a man’s body, when my mind was a world away and visualizing Abby with the ons.

  Then I headed to a sp goods store. I bought two pound bows. Gren’s bow, I noticed, was made from a single piece of wood. A posite bow would have been an improvement, but a pound bow was better yet, even if it was more fiddly. I didn’t know much about shooting a bow myself, although I’d been fair to middling as a Boy Scout, but I could learn from her, which is why I bought two. I walked away with a bunch of Easton FMJ arrows, too, and was kind of shocked to find out how much they cost. We’d have to save them for the real fights. I bought a bunch of cheaper arrows for practice purposes, but I suspected that even they might be an improvement over the ones Gren had.

  Or maybe not. Maybe they didn’t make them like they used to.

  I grabbed some fast-food hamburgers and a co. On a whim, I got some for the girls, too. Maybe they’d like them, maybe not. When I’d been kissing Gren I noticed she had some pretty sharp teeth, and so I expected trolls liked to eat meat. I wasn’t sure how keen Xy would be about her hunting down the forest animals, so she might love a burger.

  Kathy was sitting on her porch when I got home, and I waved and hurried by. I didn’t want the burgers to get any colder. There was one more package on the porch, so after I got the door open a down the food, I picked that up and tossed it inside. More clothes, I assumed, but it could wait.

  Then I went back out for the ons. I could feel Kathy watg me, and the boxes the bows came in advertised the tents in full color and big letters. She walked over. “ I help you carry anything? I’m not doing anything.”

  “Uh, sure.” There wasn’t any good way to refuse, and she was right there.

  “Bows?” she asked.

  “Yep,” I said. There didn’t seem any more to say than that. I let her carry one box, and I carried one and the arrows.

  She g the bag of fast food. “That’s a lot of food for one person,” she said.

  “I’m expeg pany.”

  “Well, they better e soon or it will be cold. Is that why you have two bows?”

  “Um, sort of?” I decided I’d get the sword and the dagger ter. If she saw those she’d really start to wonder.

  She looked around. “You got rid of that horrendous aper,” she remarked. “But you need some furniture.”

  I nodded. “I live light, usually.”

  “Needs a woman’s touch,” she said. “What does the girl I saw the other day think about it?”

  “She thought it was amazing, actually.” The truth served me well, in this case. I didn’t have to say that she thought running water was the best thing ever.

  “Huh. Well, is there more?”

  I shook my head. “No, that’s all of it. Thanks for the help.” I moved toward the door, as if to show her out.

  “Is pany a hot date?” she asked.

  What was I going to say? I suspected Kathy was going to sit on her pord watch, and she’d see that no one came. “Hope so,” I said. “They might be a little bit fky.”

  I said they, because I instinctively didn’t want to suggest that Xy was fky. But Kathy pounced on the word. “Two women?” she asked.

  She wasn’t far off base with that. “Kathy,” I said slowly. “It’s o have neighbors who care, but…”

  “Ah. I’m being nosy. And maybe they are gender fluid, or non-binary. None of my business, right? Well, if you need anything, just feel free to knoy door.”

  “Thanks. And thanks again.”

  She waved, and I couldn’t help but notice her long bare legs as she walked away.

  I locked the door behind her a downstairs with the food, one of the bows, still in the box, and the arrows. I stripped befoing down the dder, and when I got to the bottom I grabbed the gothy dress to put on. I really loved it, but it wasn’t very practical. It felt silky smooth against my body.

  Then I unbolted and unlocked the crypt. I o install a peephole as well as a lock, I realized. I had no idea what I was in for when I stepped out. The pce had seemed safe, in a way, with Xy, although Xy was her own kind of dangerous. Now it was a world full of trolls and who knew what else. I wished I’d brought my sword in from the van.

  But no one was outside, and the forest was dark, with only a little moonlight ing through. I revved up the lirimmer, and waited, eating my burger and sipping my coke. Yeah, the burgers were gonna be cold. I finished my food and uhe bow, and then thought about what I could use as a target. I didn’t think Xy would appreciate me taking potshots at the trees. Maybe I should just go to bed and try again in the m. I’d been waiting a good half an hour, and I felt I o use my time effitly.

  I set up the box on top of the broken down stone wall of the guardhouse, nocked an arrow, and took a few steps back. I wasn’t going to be Robin Hood or anything, I khat. But at te, I could hit a target that big, and I k of its perch. I set it up again, then stepped back further. I had a long way to go, but I could get the hang of it eventually. *Thwack*.

  “Seven arm lengths isn’t very impressive, Abby,” said a voice from the woods. Gren.

  “She has other impressive lengths,” said Xy.

  I looked at the two of them. “I brought dinner. But it’s cold. And this,” I said, hefting the bow, “is for you, Gren.”

  “I have a bow,” Gren said. “And that one looks odd. But did you say something about food?”

  So Gren and Xy ate burgers, while I expihe meical advantage of a pound bow. “The pulleys let you draw more, and make the draw easier,” I told her, demonstrating. I hadn’t been drawing it all the way, because I’d been shooting at a short target, but now I realized I had to turn slightly to avoid my breast. I never had that problem in scouts, but it was an easy adjustment and I was gd I hadn’t learhe lesson the hard way.

  “This is really good,” Gren said. “But it’s supposed to be warm? If you put it over a fire, the bread part would burn and the green bits wouldn’t stay crispy, would they?”

  “Um no.”

  “It looks plicated to make,” Gren said.

  “I don’t make it, I buy it from — oh, never mind.” I wasn’t going to get sidetracked by talking about fast food restaurants. “Try out the bow.”

  “Oh, alright,” Gren said, making a face.

  She took the bow, and four arrows, and walked toward the woods.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Well, there’s no point iing it at seven arm lengths, is there?” Gren said over her shoulder.

  I could hardly see her anymore when she finally turned around.

  “I thiter get out of the way,” Xy said.

  I nodded. We moved to behind one of the walls of the old guardhouse. I wasn’t sure what Gren was shooting at, exactly, but I assumed she had something in mind, and it wasn’t the box, which had fallen down.

  The arrow hit just above the door of the mausoleum.

  “Crap!” Gren yelled.

  “Those oney!” I yelled.

  “Bah! s. You should make them yourself!”

  She shot again and hit right where I thought a good peephole should go. The arrow embedded itself in the door with a loud thunk. Theepped back.

  She pced an arrow o it, in the dark, and she must have been a good seventy yards away.

  “Yes!” she yelled and stepped back further. I couldn’t see her anymore, and I didn’t know how she could see a target from there. But another arrow came, arg more thahers, and hit the door a few inches lower tha two.

  “That’s all of them, right?” Xy asked. “Is it safe to e out?”

  “That’s all of them,” I said. “And I think Gren’s a good enough shot we don’t have to worry about it too much.”

  Gren was running out of the woods. “This thing is amazing! My first shot was way off, but once I got the hang of it — wow, that’s good. And these arrows are deep in the wood. Amazing! Abby, bountiful bringer of bows!”

  “I think that means she likes it,” Xy said.

  “A feller of foes it be,” Gren said. “Especially with practice.”

  “Um, yes. you practi something other than my door?” Although maybe I should repce the whole thing with something made of steel. With a peephole. But it was a non-standard size, so it was going to have to be a project. I had no idea when I’d get around to something like that, or when I’d be able to afford it.

  “Well, I wasn’t going to shoot at one of Xy’s trees,” Gren said. “You know how reen gardener gets. Besides, they e out.” She started yanking out the arrows.

  “And leave holes,” I said.

  “Not all the way through,” she replied.

  It was the opposite of home improvement. I sighed.

  “We find a dead stump for you to shoot at,” Xy said.

  “And then, some live trolls. Just the bad ones.” Gren licked her lips. “Four foes, in particur.”

  Oh yeah, right. Bringing my allies and lovers better ons seemed like an obvious move. And of course I kneons were for killing people. The way Gren looked brought it home in a weird way.

  The way Xy and Gren told the story, they were the good side, and the four trolls led by the pyromancer Baredzem were bad, and maybe the other trolls were good or bad or ral, depending. But I’d heard just one side of the story.

  I shrugged. Maybe I was wrong. But I’d picked a side, and I’d have to see how things pyed out. Besides, I was tired, and my yawn showed it.

  “e,” Xy said. “We’ll find another pce, away from here, for you to practice.” She wi me. “Let’s let Abby go to bed.”

  “In there?” Gren said. “With no windows?”

  “She’s very light sensitive,” Xy said, and led Gren away.

  I waited for them to be out of sight, then waited a little longer, remembering how Gren had been able to hit the door when I could hardly see her in the gloom. Clearly she had better night vision than I did. Then I picked the box up a baside.

  I wondered what sleeping as Abby would be like. But I couldn’t do that in my bed, so I took the dress off, and climbed back up the dder.