what's taters precious?

She was booked into the county jail. The headlines wrote themselves. A grandmother running a pot bakery. It seemed like a joke to the legal system, a quirky local news story about an older woman behaving badly.

But Mary wasn't baking for fun. And she certainly wasn't baking for profit.

To understand why Mary risked her freedom, you have to understand the silence of the early 1980s.

San Francisco was gripping the edge of a cliff. A mysterious illness was sweeping through the city, specifically targeting young men. Later, the world would know it as AIDS. But in those early days, it was just a death sentence that no one wanted to talk about.

Families were disowning their sons. Landlords were evicting tenants. Even doctors and nurses, paralyzed by the fear of the unknown, would sometimes leave food trays outside hospital doors, afraid to breathe the same air as their patients.

Men in their twenties were wasting away in sterile rooms, dying alone.

Mary knew what it felt like to lose a child.

Years earlier, in 1974, her daughter Peggy had been killed in a car accident. Peggy was only 22. The loss had hollowed Mary out, leaving a space in her heart that nothing seemed to fill.

When the judge sentenced Mary for that first arrest, he ordered her to perform 500 hours of community service. He likely thought the manual labor would teach her a lesson.

He sent her to the Shanti Project and San Francisco General Hospital.

It was a mistake that would change American history.

Mary walked into the AIDS wards when others were walking out. She didn't wear a hazmat suit. She didn't hold her breath. She saw rows of young men who looked like ghosts—skeletal, in pain, and terrified.

She saw "her kids."

She began mopping floors and changing sheets. But soon, she noticed something the doctors were missing. The harsh medications the men were taking caused violent nausea. They couldn't eat. They were starving to death as much as they were dying of the virus.

Mary knew a secret about the brownies she had been arrested for.

She knew they settled the stomach. She knew they brought back the appetite. She knew they could help a dying man sleep for a few hours without pain.

So, she made a choice.

She went back to her kitchen. She fired up the oven. She started mixing batter, not to sell, but to save.

Every morning, Mary would bake. She lived on a fixed income, surviving on Social Security checks that barely covered her rent. Yet, she spent nearly every dime on flour, sugar, and butter.

The most expensive ingredient—the cannabis—was donated. Local growers heard what she was doing. They began dropping off pounds of product at her door, free of charge.

She packed the brownies into a basket and took the bus to the hospital.

She walked room to room. She sat by the bedsides of men who hadn't seen their own mothers in years. She held their hands. She told them jokes. And she gave them brownies.

"Here, baby," she would say. "Eat this. It'll help."

And it did.

Nurses watched in amazement as patients who hadn't eaten in days began to ask for food. The constant retching stopped. The mood on the ward shifted from despair to a quiet sort of comfort.

Mary Jane Rathbun became "Brownie Mary."

For over a decade, this was her life. She baked roughly 600 brownies a day. She went through 50 pounds of flour a week. She became the mother to a generation of lost boys.

She washed their pajamas. She attended their funerals. She held them while they took their last breaths.

She did this while the government declared a "War on Drugs."

By the early 1990s, the political climate was hostile. Politicians were competing to see who could be "tougher" on crime. Mandatory minimum sentences were locking people away for decades.

In 1992, at the age of 70, Mary was arrested again.

This time, the stakes were lethal. She was charged with felonies. The district attorney looked at her rap sheet and saw a repeat offender. He threatened to send her to prison.

One prosecutor famously whispered to a colleague that he was going to "kick this old lady's ass."

They underestimated who they were dealing with.

They thought they were prosecuting a drug dealer. In reality, they were attacking the most beloved woman in San Francisco.

When the news broke that Brownie Mary was facing prison, the city erupted.

It wasn't just the activists who were angry. It was the doctors. It was the nurses. It was the parents who had watched Mary care for their dying sons when the government did nothing.

Mary turned her trial into a pulpit.

She arrived at court not as a defendant, but as a grandmother standing her ground. The media swarmed her. Reporters asked if she was afraid of prison. They asked if she would stop baking if they let her go.

Mary looked into the cameras, her voice gravelly and firm.

"If the narcs think I'm gonna stop baking brownies for my kids with AIDS," she said, "they can go fuck themselves in Macy's window."

The quote ran in newspapers across the country.

The court didn't stand a chance.

Testimony poured in. Doctors from San Francisco General Hospital wrote letters explaining that Mary’s brownies were medically necessary. Patients testified that she was an angel of mercy.

The charges were dropped.

Mary walked out of the courthouse a free woman. But she didn't go home to rest. She realized that her personal victory wasn't enough. As long as the law was broken, her "kids" were still in danger.

She needed to change the law.

August 25 was declared "Brownie Mary Day" by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. It was a nice gesture, but Mary wanted policy, not plaques.

She teamed up with fellow activist Dennis Peron. Together, they opened the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club—the first public dispensary in the United States. It was a safe haven where patients could get their medicine without fear of arrest.

But Mary wanted more. She wanted the state of California to acknowledge the truth.

She campaigned for Proposition 215. She traveled the state, despite her failing health. She spoke in her simple, direct way. She didn't talk about liberties or economics. She talked about compassion. She talked about pain.

She forced voters to look at the issue through the eyes of a grandmother.

In 1996, Proposition 215 passed. California became the first state to legalize medical marijuana.

It was a domino effect. Because one woman refused to let her "kids" suffer, the public perception of cannabis shifted. The Economist later noted that Mary was single-handedly responsible for changing the national conversation.

She never got rich.

She had always joked that if legalization ever happened, she would sell her recipe to Betty Crocker and buy a Victorian house for her patients to live in.

She never sold the recipe. She never bought the house.

Mary Jane Rathbun died in 1999, at the age of 77. She passed away in a nursing home, poor in money but rich in legacy.

Today, over 30 states have legalized medical marijuana. Millions of people use it to manage pain, seizures, and nausea.

Most of them have never heard of Mary.

They don't know that their legal prescription exists because a waitress in San Francisco decided that the law was wrong and her heart was right.

They don't know about the 600 brownies a day.

They don't know about the thousands of hospital visits.

Mary didn't set out to be a hero. She told the Chicago Tribune years before she died, "I didn't go into this thinking I would be a hero."

She was just a mother who had lost her daughter, trying to help boys who had lost their way.

She proved that authority doesn't always equal morality.

She proved that sometimes, the most patriotic thing a citizen can do is break a bad law.

Every August, a few people in San Francisco still celebrate Brownie Mary Day. But her true memorial isn't a date on a calendar.

It is found in every oncology ward where a patient finds relief. It is found in every dispensary door that opens without fear.

It is found in the simple, quiet courage of anyone who sees suffering and refuses to look away.

Mary taught us that you don't need a law degree to change the world. You don't need millions of dollars. You don't need political office.

Sometimes, all you need is a mixing bowl, an oven, and enough love to tell the world to get out of your way.

Groaning and sighing, Marcy lay down on the couch as Thistle helped Jack spread her tiny, impossible-for-a-human-to-read books out, chattering excitedly.

Thistle, being the observant and in-tune creature that he was, of course noticed. “What's wrong, Marcy?”

“It's nothing.”

Thistle walked over and kept up onto the couch. He wasn't wearing his prosthetic wing, so he grabbed Marcy's hair and used it like a rope to climb up.

He nestled in her hair. “That's obviously not true.”

“Well…. Nothing important.”

“Your feelings are important.”

“Well…”

Thistle's ears twitched. “Oh! Someone is knocking on the door. Sorry, Marce, let's talk about it later, okay? I got word that someone new is coming, so that must be them.”

“Okay. Sure thing.”

Marcy started to get up, but Thistle stopped her. “Let me do it, okay? I wouldn't want to scare them.”

Disheartened, Marcy sat back down.

Thistle climbed back down and started hoofing it to the front door. Moon joined up with him. “And who are our new guests?”

“The dryads described them as like…angels?”

“Ah! They must be cherubs. I have some familiarity. If it's a male, I expect he'll be accompanied by at least two females. They form and travel in harems, you see.”

“...how does that work? What happens to the other half of the males if they pair up two to one?”

“Well the sexes in your species are lopsided, aren't they? …I'm not sure if that's the same thing, but use your imagination.”

Thistle jumped up and wiggled through the mail slot.

On the porch were four humanoid figures, five inches tall and hovering with hummingbird-like wings. There was indeed, one male and three appeared to be female. They were dressed in soft white robes.

Moon rappelled down the door by hooking his cane on the mail slot. “Welcome to our little slice of paradise!”

The four cherubs zoomed in together as though magnetized together, whispering rapidly to each other. Moon’s face darkened. “Wait a minute. I know you.”

“Yes, as we you!” said the male.

The three females fluttered, giggled, and waved coyly to Moon. Moon smirked in a smarmy way and waved back.

“Don't wave to them!” the male snapped. “You absolute dog!”

“Moon?” Thistle promoted.

Moon grimaced and turned. “…some familiarity indeed.”

“If by familiarity,” the male said, “you mean that you posed as a female cherub, infiltrated my harem, and had your way with all of my wives. Then yes. We are familiar.”

The female cherubs all giggled again, whispering behind the male’s back and shooting Moon looks with their big doe eyes.

“Dare I say it looks like your wives wouldn't object if it were to happen again,” Moon said.

The cherub turned and glared at them. They flitted away, scattering with peals of heavenly laughter.

Moon looked mischievous. “And you know, I don't recall you objecting when you had your way with me in turn.”

The cherub blushed fiercely.  “Ahem.” He looked much less impressive without his three women behind him. “I was going to say that the four of us came because we wanted to put on a concert for a crowd, but-”

“Please!” Thistle exploded, immediately forgetting whatever drama was happening. “That sounds awesome! Please do it!”

“Well, I don't know. Who are you again?”

“My name's Thistle!”

“I'm Jacob. And this is Rebecca, Sarah, and Hannah.”

“Very nice to meet you! Please please put on a concert!”

“Only if this one apologizes.” This with a thumb jerked at Moon.

“All right,” Moon said. “I apologize.”

Jacob seethed. “Like you mean it!”

“You can't force me to mean it.”

“You're a good actor! At least pretend!”

Moon rifled in his pocket and drew out a box, which he opened to reveal a mix of very small furniture. He took one out and drew his hands out to magically expand it. A red fainting couch clattered onto the ground.

Moon threw himself on it, sobbing. “Oh the remorse! The pain! How can anyone ever forgive me? How can I forgive myself?”

Jacob crossed his arms and landed on the porch railing, flapping his rainbow-colored wings. “All right, all right. You scoundrel.”

“So you'll do it?” Thistle said. “You'll have the concert?”

Jacob's face was hard. Rebecca, Sarah, and Hannah fluttered over and tugged on him from all directions.

“Please, Jacob, please?”

“We haven't given a concert in so long!”

“I want to sing!”

“Please please!”

“All right, fine! We'll do it!”

***

Marcy was still sitting on the couch twiddling her thumbs when Thistle came back in, followed by four little cherubs clambering through the mail slot after him.

Jacob immediately sang a few notes, which the women behind him harmonized with. The chorus sounded immaculate. 

“Ugh, the acoustics in here are terrible,” he complained.  “We’ll have to find somewhere else to do it.” 

He looked at Marcy with a wrinkled nose.  “So it’s true you’re openly around humans here? I thought the dryads were surely exaggerating about that.”

“Yes!” Thistle said.  “This is Marcy!”

“Humans,” Jacob said.  “Ugh.”

“Finally something we can agree on.”  Moon fluttered up and landed on Marcy’s shoulder, patting her on the side of the head.  “This one has her charms, though, I can assure you.  You needn’t disparage her.”

“Whatever.  Like I’d take your word for it.” 

The cherubs flew off to explore the house.  Thistle noticed Marcy looking particularly put-off by the comments and hiked over, puffing from all the walking.  “Marcy, we can talk about what’s bothering you now.”

“Oh.”  Marcy had honestly expected Thistle to get caught up in the excitement and forget.  “I guess I’ve just been feeling a little… left out.  It’s silly, but sometimes I wish I was small now, too.  Your little tiny…topia here has become sort of my whole life.”

Thistle’s face snapped into a smile, and he turned to Moon.  “Moon!  You know how to shrink things.  Why don’t you-”

“That will kill her, dear boy,” Moon interrupted.  “I assure you that spell only works on inanimate objects.”  He shivered.  “I’ve… tried it on an animal before.  It wasn’t pretty.”

Thistle turned to Marcy, doe-eyed.  “Sorry.”

“You’re not missing much,” Moon sneered.  “You wouldn’t want to go through all the effort just to socialize with Jacob.”

“You guys have history, huh?” Marcy asked.

“Yeah,” Thistle said.  “Moon, did you really do all that with his wives?”

“I did,” Moon said wickedly.  “He’s angry about it because cherub harems pool their magic for mainly the male to use, so essentially I stole from him and left his wives more or less the same.”

Ah.  That would explain the dichotomy in attitudes.  “Do his wives even like him, then?”  Thistle couldn’t imagine a relationship where someone did something to anger his friend, let alone his husband, and he didn’t take their side.

Moon waved dismissively.  “They have different kinds of relationships, my dear, don’t worry too much about it.  They get their magic through singing for others, so it’s not like they had to work very hard to replace it.  It’s not hard for them to find an audience, I promise. Their voices are, well… angelic.”

“The concert is going to be great then! Marcy, I bet the concert will be a great opportunity for you to connect with us!”

A few minutes later, the cherubs surveyed the shed. “This is perfect!” Jacob declared. “We'll have multiple levels for a sound bath!”

“Er…” Thistle shuffled his feet. “But Marcy can't come in unless we open the door, which messes everything up.” The spidertaurs had built part of their webs on the door, and Jack and Nissica were nesting up against it as well. Not to mention it would unseat some of the shelves Colin had put in it. No, opening the shed was for emergencies only.

“Who cares whether some human can come to the concert,” Jacob dismissed.  “Oh, one thing, though. We have a gift for your friend, Moon.”

Jacob handed him a smelly wooden orb. “Oh. Um. Thanks.” Thistle took it, wrinkling his nose.

He trudged back with the strange bauble in his arms. Moon met him partway in the tunnel, just past the latest paintings decorating the place.

He seemed to smell the orb even more strongly than Thistle. He put a hand over his mouth. “What is that?”

“Jacob said it's a gift for you.”

“That is a mothball.” He punted it out of Thistle's hands, and it rolled down the corridor. “That scoundrel.”

“Should we even let them have the concert?” Thistle said. “I don't like their attitude.”

Moon sighed. “Let them. They're just being catty. If they want to stay here long term, they'll get over it eventually. Or I should say, Jacob will. The women are perfectly agreeable.”

Thistle wiped his hands on his shirt to try and dissipate the smell.

“Though I'll say, Jacob can be catty to me all he likes; I know how to take it. It's Marcy who doesn't deserve to be mistreated by that self-righteous cockerel."

“What! Moon are you…”

Moon groaned. “Defending a human, yes, I know. But it's Marcy.” He crossed his arms and grumbled. “What he's reduced me too.”

“Well….we can do something else nice for Marcy.”

***

Thistle really, really wanted to go to the concert, but he also didn't want to leave Marcy alone and excluded.

It was perhaps one of the greatest dilemmas he'd ever faced. He agonized over what to do much longer than he had over deciding he would die rather than return to the hive.

“You should go,” Marcy pushed. “I don't want you to miss out.”

“Of course she'd say that,” Moon commented on it later. “It's the only polite thing to do.”

Marcy tended to say what was on her mind, though. Maybe he could strike a compromise. Go but leave early and come find Marcy. Maybe the concert wouldn't even be that good. Maybe the literal angels would turn out to be bad singers. Sure.

The night the concert was scheduled for, Moon offered to stay and keep Marcy company in his place. “I've already heard them sing.”

“Maybe…” Privately, Thistle thought that Moon wasn't a good enough friend to Marcy for his presence to be enough to lift her spirits in his place. “But I'll leave halfway through and come check on you guys, okay?”

So that was how Moon ended up sitting on the couch next to Marcy. Just the two of them. The other humans were asleep, Mochi wasn't around, and everyone else was at the concert.

It was rare for Moon to feel awkward, but this did it. He cleared his throat. “So.”

“Wanna watch TV?”

Humans and TV. “I guess.”

Marcy put on some mindless drivel. After a few minutes of enduring it, Moon said, “I'm sorry they treated you that way.”

“It's okay.”

“No it's not.”

“Well…I guess it's not.”

“You're allowed to be unhappy about it.”

“I don't want to feel entitled to anyone's space, you know? Especially with… well, you.”

“...Thank you. I appreciate that more than you realize.” He twiddled his thumbs. “But still. You're allowed to be sad that they're choosing to exclude you.”

“Thank you for saying that.” Oh no, Marcy was starting to tear up. “It's just that….after getting kicked out of grad school, and losing, like, everything, it just feels like this is my whole world now and I can't even be part of it…. And I know it's my own fault, because it's my fault Thistle is here so I have to do what's best for him, I just- just, I don't know. It sucks.”

Moon patted her leg. “There, there.”

Marcy let out a cry-laugh. “You can do better than that.”

Moon laughed. “I suppose I can. …I don't know why they don't like you. But I didn't like you at first, but you won me over. You'll win them over soon enough. Don't take their comments personally. You're wonderful.” He immediately cringed like he'd said something bad.

Marcy flushed. “Th-thanks.”

They sat in unbearable silence for a little while longer.

“I should go check on Thistle,” Moon said. Anything for an out. “He said he would come over. I would've expected him by now.”

Moon jumped up and fluttered over to the tunnel, dipping down into it. The dirt crunched under his fine shoes. He could hear the thrumming music and muffled voices as he drew near.

The voices snapped into crisp clarity as he stuck his head out of the tunnel and into the sound. The four cherubs hovered in the air in the center for a complete 360 degree show, rotating as they sang. One of them flitted about doing magic to produce colored lights, which burst into the darkened shed and rained down. The crowd cheered and swayed and danced and–

And Moon knew what was going on the second he felt it. Tendrils pulling at him. Greedily sucking from him.

He knew it because it was exactly what he'd always done when he seduced someone.

These weren't angels. They were sirens.

He spotted Thistle on a shelf partway up, dancing with a rapturous look on his face, a look mirrored by everyone there.

Moon turned around and marched stiffly out, back through the tunnel, and right to the couch.

“Marcy. We have a problem.”

***

They hadn't liked Marcy because she had no magic to steal. Either that, or having no magic to steal, she would be completely immune to their singing.

Moon was only able to resist because he knew exactly what was going on. How he hadn't known their true nature when he had history with them, he wasn't sure. He'd thought they generated magic through singing, but they stole it.

Well, no matter. Marcy was here now.

The concert was interrupted as the door, the fourth wall, abruptly pulled away and flooded the shed with light. Just as predicted, it destroyed the web in the corner and ripped the curtain off Jack's little nest. A shelf also came down–luckily there was no one standing on it, and Marcy caught it.

All the tiny folks gathered turned, booing and shouting in disappointment.

“Sorry, guys. Show's over.” She glared at Jacob and his wives. “Our newest guests were just leaving.”

***

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Groaning and sighing, Marcy lay down on the couch as Thistle helped Jack spread her tiny, impossible-for-a-human-to-read books out, chattering excitedly.

Thistle, being the observant and in-tune creature that he was, of course noticed. “What's wrong, Marcy?”

“It's nothing.”

Thistle walked over and kept up onto the couch. He wasn't wearing his prosthetic wing, so he grabbed Marcy's hair and used it like a rope to climb up.

He nestled in her hair. “That's obviously not true.”

“Well…. Nothing important.”

“Your feelings are important.”

“Well…”

Thistle's ears twitched. “Oh! Someone is knocking on the door. Sorry, Marce, let's talk about it later, okay? I got word that someone new is coming, so that must be them.”

“Okay. Sure thing.”

Marcy started to get up, but Thistle stopped her. “Let me do it, okay? I wouldn't want to scare them.”

Disheartened, Marcy sat back down.

Thistle climbed back down and started hoofing it to the front door. Moon joined up with him. “And who are our new guests?”

“The dryads described them as like…angels?”

“Ah! They must be cherubs. I have some familiarity. If it's a male, I expect he'll be accompanied by at least two females. They form and travel in harems, you see.”

“...how does that work? What happens to the other half of the males if they pair up two to one?”

“Well the sexes in your species are lopsided, aren't they? …I'm not sure if that's the same thing, but use your imagination.”

Thistle jumped up and wiggled through the mail slot.

On the porch were four humanoid figures, five inches tall and hovering with hummingbird-like wings. There was indeed, one male and three appeared to be female. They were dressed in soft white robes.

Moon rappelled down the door by hooking his cane on the mail slot. “Welcome to our little slice of paradise!”

The four cherubs zoomed in together as though magnetized together, whispering rapidly to each other. Moon’s face darkened. “Wait a minute. I know you.”

“Yes, as we you!” said the male.

The three females fluttered, giggled, and waved coyly to Moon. Moon smirked in a smarmy way and waved back.

“Don't wave to them!” the male snapped. “You absolute dog!”

“Moon?” Thistle promoted.

Moon grimaced and turned. “…some familiarity indeed.”

“If by familiarity,” the male said, “you mean that you posed as a female cherub, infiltrated my harem, and had your way with all of my wives. Then yes. We are familiar.”

The female cherubs all giggled again, whispering behind the male’s back and shooting Moon looks with their big doe eyes.

“Dare I say it looks like your wives wouldn't object if it were to happen again,” Moon said.

The cherub turned and glared at them. They flitted away, scattering with peals of heavenly laughter.

Moon looked mischievous. “And you know, I don't recall you objecting when you had your way with me in turn.”

The cherub blushed fiercely.  “Ahem.” He looked much less impressive without his three women behind him. “I was going to say that the four of us came because we wanted to put on a concert for a crowd, but-”

“Please!” Thistle exploded, immediately forgetting whatever drama was happening. “That sounds awesome! Please do it!”

“Well, I don't know. Who are you again?”

“My name's Thistle!”

“I'm Jacob. And this is Rebecca, Sarah, and Hannah.”

“Very nice to meet you! Please please put on a concert!”

“Only if this one apologizes.” This with a thumb jerked at Moon.

“All right,” Moon said. “I apologize.”

Jacob seethed. “Like you mean it!”

“You can't force me to mean it.”

“You're a good actor! At least pretend!”

Moon rifled in his pocket and drew out a box, which he opened to reveal a mix of very small furniture. He took one out and drew his hands out to magically expand it. A red fainting couch clattered onto the ground.

Moon threw himself on it, sobbing. “Oh the remorse! The pain! How can anyone ever forgive me? How can I forgive myself?”

Jacob crossed his arms and landed on the porch railing, flapping his rainbow-colored wings. “All right, all right. You scoundrel.”

“So you'll do it?” Thistle said. “You'll have the concert?”

Jacob's face was hard. Rebecca, Sarah, and Hannah fluttered over and tugged on him from all directions.

“Please, Jacob, please?”

“We haven't given a concert in so long!”

“I want to sing!”

“Please please!”

“All right, fine! We'll do it!”

***

Marcy was still sitting on the couch twiddling her thumbs when Thistle came back in, followed by four little cherubs clambering through the mail slot after him.

Jacob immediately sang a few notes, which the women behind him harmonized with. The chorus sounded immaculate. 

“Ugh, the acoustics in here are terrible,” he complained.  “We’ll have to find somewhere else to do it.” 

He looked at Marcy with a wrinkled nose.  “So it’s true you’re openly around humans here? I thought the dryads were surely exaggerating about that.”

“Yes!” Thistle said.  “This is Marcy!”

“Humans,” Jacob said.  “Ugh.”

“Finally something we can agree on.”  Moon fluttered up and landed on Marcy’s shoulder, patting her on the side of the head.  “This one has her charms, though, I can assure you.  You needn’t disparage her.”

“Whatever.  Like I’d take your word for it.” 

The cherubs flew off to explore the house.  Thistle noticed Marcy looking particularly put-off by the comments and hiked over, puffing from all the walking.  “Marcy, we can talk about what’s bothering you now.”

“Oh.”  Marcy had honestly expected Thistle to get caught up in the excitement and forget.  “I guess I’ve just been feeling a little… left out.  It’s silly, but sometimes I wish I was small now, too.  Your little tiny…topia here has become sort of my whole life.”

Thistle’s face snapped into a smile, and he turned to Moon.  “Moon!  You know how to shrink things.  Why don’t you-”

“That will kill her, dear boy,” Moon interrupted.  “I assure you that spell only works on inanimate objects.”  He shivered.  “I’ve… tried it on an animal before.  It wasn’t pretty.”

Thistle turned to Marcy, doe-eyed.  “Sorry.”

“You’re not missing much,” Moon sneered.  “You wouldn’t want to go through all the effort just to socialize with Jacob.”

“You guys have history, huh?” Marcy asked.

“Yeah,” Thistle said.  “Moon, did you really do all that with his wives?”

“I did,” Moon said wickedly.  “He’s angry about it because cherub harems pool their magic for mainly the male to use, so essentially I stole from him and left his wives more or less the same.”

Ah.  That would explain the dichotomy in attitudes.  “Do his wives even like him, then?”  Thistle couldn’t imagine a relationship where someone did something to anger his friend, let alone his husband, and he didn’t take their side.

Moon waved dismissively.  “They have different kinds of relationships, my dear, don’t worry too much about it.  They get their magic through singing for others, so it’s not like they had to work very hard to replace it.  It’s not hard for them to find an audience, I promise. Their voices are, well… angelic.”

“The concert is going to be great then! Marcy, I bet the concert will be a great opportunity for you to connect with us!”

A few minutes later, the cherubs surveyed the shed. “This is perfect!” Jacob declared. “We'll have multiple levels for a sound bath!”

“Er…” Thistle shuffled his feet. “But Marcy can't come in unless we open the door, which messes everything up.” The spidertaurs had built part of their webs on the door, and Jack and Nissica were nesting up against it as well. Not to mention it would unseat some of the shelves Colin had put in it. No, opening the shed was for emergencies only.

“Who cares whether some human can come to the concert,” Jacob dismissed.  “Oh, one thing, though. We have a gift for your friend, Moon.”

Jacob handed him a smelly wooden orb. “Oh. Um. Thanks.” Thistle took it, wrinkling his nose.

He trudged back with the strange bauble in his arms. Moon met him partway in the tunnel, just past the latest paintings decorating the place.

He seemed to smell the orb even more strongly than Thistle. He put a hand over his mouth. “What is that?”

“Jacob said it's a gift for you.”

“That is a mothball.” He punted it out of Thistle's hands, and it rolled down the corridor. “That scoundrel.”

“Should we even let them have the concert?” Thistle said. “I don't like their attitude.”

Moon sighed. “Let them. They're just being catty. If they want to stay here long term, they'll get over it eventually. Or I should say, Jacob will. The women are perfectly agreeable.”

Thistle wiped his hands on his shirt to try and dissipate the smell.

“Though I'll say, Jacob can be catty to me all he likes; I know how to take it. It's Marcy who doesn't deserve to be mistreated by that self-righteous cockerel."

“What! Moon are you…”

Moon groaned. “Defending a human, yes, I know. But it's Marcy.” He crossed his arms and grumbled. “What he's reduced me too.”

“Well….we can do something else nice for Marcy.”

***

Thistle really, really wanted to go to the concert, but he also didn't want to leave Marcy alone and excluded.

It was perhaps one of the greatest dilemmas he'd ever faced. He agonized over what to do much longer than he had over deciding he would die rather than return to the hive.

“You should go,” Marcy pushed. “I don't want you to miss out.”

“Of course she'd say that,” Moon commented on it later. “It's the only polite thing to do.”

Marcy tended to say what was on her mind, though. Maybe he could strike a compromise. Go but leave early and come find Marcy. Maybe the concert wouldn't even be that good. Maybe the literal angels would turn out to be bad singers. Sure.

The night the concert was scheduled for, Moon offered to stay and keep Marcy company in his place. “I've already heard them sing.”

“Maybe…” Privately, Thistle thought that Moon wasn't a good enough friend to Marcy for his presence to be enough to lift her spirits in his place. “But I'll leave halfway through and come check on you guys, okay?”

So that was how Moon ended up sitting on the couch next to Marcy. Just the two of them. The other humans were asleep, Mochi wasn't around, and everyone else was at the concert.

It was rare for Moon to feel awkward, but this did it. He cleared his throat. “So.”

“Wanna watch TV?”

Humans and TV. “I guess.”

Marcy put on some mindless drivel. After a few minutes of enduring it, Moon said, “I'm sorry they treated you that way.”

“It's okay.”

“No it's not.”

“Well…I guess it's not.”

“You're allowed to be unhappy about it.”

“I don't want to feel entitled to anyone's space, you know? Especially with… well, you.”

“...Thank you. I appreciate that more than you realize.” He twiddled his thumbs. “But still. You're allowed to be sad that they're choosing to exclude you.”

“Thank you for saying that.” Oh no, Marcy was starting to tear up. “It's just that….after getting kicked out of grad school, and losing, like, everything, it just feels like this is my whole world now and I can't even be part of it…. And I know it's my own fault, because it's my fault Thistle is here so I have to do what's best for him, I just- just, I don't know. It sucks.”

Moon patted her leg. “There, there.”

Marcy let out a cry-laugh. “You can do better than that.”

Moon laughed. “I suppose I can. …I don't know why they don't like you. But I didn't like you at first, but you won me over. You'll win them over soon enough. Don't take their comments personally. You're wonderful.” He immediately cringed like he'd said something bad.

Marcy flushed. “Th-thanks.”

They sat in unbearable silence for a little while longer.

“I should go check on Thistle,” Moon said. Anything for an out. “He said he would come over. I would've expected him by now.”

Moon jumped up and fluttered over to the tunnel, dipping down into it. The dirt crunched under his fine shoes. He could hear the thrumming music and muffled voices as he drew near.

The voices snapped into crisp clarity as he stuck his head out of the tunnel and into the sound. The four cherubs hovered in the air in the center for a complete 360 degree show, rotating as they sang. One of them flitted about doing magic to produce colored lights, which burst into the darkened shed and rained down. The crowd cheered and swayed and danced and–

And Moon knew what was going on the second he felt it. Tendrils pulling at him. Greedily sucking from him.

He knew it because it was exactly what he'd always done when he seduced someone.

These weren't angels. They were sirens.

He spotted Thistle on a shelf partway up, dancing with a rapturous look on his face, a look mirrored by everyone there.

Moon turned around and marched stiffly out, back through the tunnel, and right to the couch.

“Marcy. We have a problem.”

***

They hadn't liked Marcy because she had no magic to steal. Either that, or having no magic to steal, she would be completely immune to their singing.

Moon was only able to resist because he knew exactly what was going on. How he hadn't known their true nature when he had history with them, he wasn't sure. He'd thought they generated magic through singing, but they stole it.

Well, no matter. Marcy was here now.

The concert was interrupted as the door, the fourth wall, abruptly pulled away and flooded the shed with light. Just as predicted, it destroyed the web in the corner and ripped the curtain off Jack's little nest. A shelf also came down–luckily there was no one standing on it, and Marcy caught it.

All the tiny folks gathered turned, booing and shouting in disappointment.

“Sorry, guys. Show's over.” She glared at Jacob and his wives. “Our newest guests were just leaving.”

***

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