Chapter Thirty-Five:
Thursday morning had settled into that pleasant, steady rhythm Olivia was rapidly coming to think of as right.
Breakfast had been generous but sane. The mail cart had made its rounds without incident (and without attempting to flirt with her leg this time, thank the gods). Mail sorted, internal deliveries dispatched, emails answered with crisp efficiency, calls handled smoothly—some mundane, some… less so, all of them routed exactly where they needed to go.
And now she sat at the front desk.
Her front desk.
Polished brass, old wood, softly humming electronics, the faint, familiar scent of tea and celluloid in the air. The console curved around her like it had always been shaped for this version of her, tail and all. Her reflection in the small mirror beside the monitor showed a tall, sleek Shepherd-kin with bright eyes and calm confidence.
Olivia smiled to herself.
Yeah, she thought. This is mine. I belong here.
Between calls, her gaze drifted—inevitably—to the shiny red button mounted just to the left of her monitor.
ENRICHMENT
It gleamed innocently.
She narrowed her eyes at it.
“Oh no you don’t,” she murmured. “You’re not getting pressed without adult supervision.”
That definitely felt like a Charles question. Or possibly a Miss LaDonna one, depending on how much chaos the answer involved.
She turned back to her screen, gave everything a quick scan—status lights green across the board—and then her eyes landed on something she had completely forgotten in the chaos of the previous day.
A package.
Long. Cylindrical. Wrapped in heavy brown paper and tied with plain white string. It sat neatly to one side of the desk, patient, accusing.
“Oh,” Olivia said softly. “You.”
She stood and stepped around the desk, crouching to get a better look. The shipping label was still affixed.
Her name.The station address.A tracking number.
And… nothing else.
No return address. No shipper. No origin listed.
She frowned.
It had required a separate signature yesterday. She remembered that now. Dave had made a whole operatic flourish out of it.
Curiosity prickled along her spine.
The package was about twenty inches long, wider at one end than the other, and heavier than it looked—maybe three pounds? She hefted it slightly, then set it back down.
“Well,” she muttered, glancing around the empty lobby, “nothing ventured…”
She untied the string and carefully unwrapped the paper.
The moment the contents slid free, her ears snapped back.
It was a bone.
Not a toy. Not a prop. Not resin or plastic.
An actual bone.
“WHAT THE—” Olivia yelped, dropping it instantly and scrambling backward to her feet, hands up as if the thing might lunge at her.
The bone hit the floor with a solid clack and rolled slightly, coming to rest near the edge of the rug.
Her heart was pounding.
“Okay,” she said aloud, voice sharp with disgust and shock. “No. Nope. Absolutely not. Who the hell sends someone a bone?”
Her tail lashed once, angry and unsettled.
“What kind of sick joke is that supposed to be?”
Almost on cue—because of course—it was at that exact moment that the lobby doors at the stairwell end opened.
Charles descended first, immaculate as ever, coat draped just so, cane tapping lightly. Miss LaDonna followed at his side, silk scarf in place, expression serene.
They took in the scene in a single glance: Olivia standing stiffly near the desk, ears pinned back, tail bristling… and the bone on the floor between them.
Charles stopped mid-step.
“…Ah,” he said mildly. “That answers that question.”
Olivia pointed at the object like it had personally offended her ancestors.
“Someone,” she said, carefully enunciating each word, “sent me. A. Bone.”
Miss LaDonna tilted her head slightly, studying it.
“Well,” she said thoughtfully, “at least it’s been cleaned.”
Olivia stared at her.
“That is not helping.”
Charles moved forward, crouching with surprising ease, and picked the object up with gloved hands. He turned it slowly, examining it from all sides.
“This,” he said after a moment, “is a cow femur. Properly cleaned, polished, and sealed. No residual matter. No curse. No malign enchantments that I can detect.”
“That is also not helping,” Olivia repeated, though the edge had gone out of her voice.
Miss LaDonna stepped closer, her sharp eyes catching details now that the initial shock had passed.
“Oh,” she murmured. “Charles. Look.”
The bone was partially wrapped in a deep velvet ribbon, dark green, tied neatly. Attached to it by a thin silver thread was a small, hand-written card.
Charles unfolded it and read aloud:
To the pretty Guardian at the Gate!We trust you accept this token as intended, for we greatly admire you!
No signature.
Silence stretched.
Olivia crossed her arms, incredulous. “That’s it? That’s the explanation?”
Charles frowned slightly. “No signature is… unusual. Even by our standards.”
Miss LaDonna gestured gently. “Turn it over.”
Charles did—and paused.
The bone wasn’t plain.
It was carved.
Fine, precise lines etched into the surface, darkened with ink like scrimshaw. The craftsmanship was exquisite—delicate but confident, every curve intentional.
Olivia stepped closer despite herself, curiosity overwhelming revulsion.
“What is that?” she asked quietly.
Charles rotated the bone so the carvings caught the light.
Scenes.
Dozens of them.
Olivia sitting in her old apartment, half-awake, eating cereal straight from the box.
Olivia standing beside a bus with a broken tire, hands on her hips, talking animatedly to the driver.
Swimming.
Laughing.
Chatting with Bernard at the archive window.
Standing somewhere unfamiliar, wearing a half-open robe, expression relaxed and unguarded.
And then—on the widest, flattest part of the bone—
Olivia standing between Charles and Miss LaDonna, arms around both of them. All three smiling.
Her breath caught.
She recognized every single moment.
But something was… off.
“…None of these are me,” she whispered.
Miss LaDonna nodded slowly. “Not your mundane form, no.”
Every carving showed her as she was now. Ears. Tail. Fur. Upright, confident.
Seen.
Olivia swallowed hard. “Who would—”
Charles straightened, expression troubled now. “That is the question.”
He glanced back at the label. “I checked the tracking earlier. The package entered the delivery network around Cincinnati. No origin scan. No sender data.”
“That’s… impossible,” Olivia said faintly.
Charles gave a small, humorless smile. “Around here, merely improbable.”
Miss LaDonna laid a hand gently on Olivia’s arm. “How does it make you feel?”
Olivia looked down at the bone again—at the care, the artistry, the unmistakable admiration in every line.
“…Watched,” she said honestly. Then, after a beat, “…but not threatened.”
Charles considered that. “That distinction matters.”
Olivia exhaled slowly. “So. Someone—or something—likes me. Enough to commission… this.”
Her ears twitched forward despite herself.
“…Do I have admirers now?”
Charles cleared his throat. “It would appear your reputation is… spreading.”
Miss LaDonna smiled, knowingly. “Guardian at the Gate, indeed.”
Olivia shook her head, a crooked grin forming despite everything. “Great. First week fully unfolded and I already have anonymous bone-mail.”
She looked up at them. “Okay. So what do we do with it?”
Charles thought for a moment, then handed it back to her carefully.
“For now? You keep it. It was given freely, with admiration, not malice.”
Miss LaDonna nodded. “And we remain… attentive.”
Olivia took the bone, holding it more gently now. It was warm from Charles’s hands.
“…I’m putting it somewhere safe,” she said. “And far away from the mail cart.”
Charles allowed himself a chuckle. “A wise precaution.”
As Olivia tucked the strange, beautiful, unsettling gift under the desk for the moment, her gaze flicked once more to the red ENRICHMENT button.
She narrowed her eyes again.
“…I am definitely asking you about that now.”
Charles followed Olivia’s gaze with exaggerated innocence, eyes flicking from her face to the desk, to the mirror, to the mail tray, and then back again.
“…Yes?” he said mildly. “Is there something amiss with the furniture?”
Olivia slowly turned her head and stared at him.
Her ears flattened just a touch.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
Charles tilted his head. “I do?”
She lifted one finger and pointed, very deliberately, at the shiny red button mounted beside her monitor.
“That.The button.The one labeled ENRICHMENT.”
“Ohhh,” Charles said, as if struck by sudden understanding. “That!”
Miss LaDonna’s lips twitched.
Charles clasped his hands behind his back. “Have you pressed it yet?”
Olivia stared at him like he had just suggested licking an electrical outlet.
“Absolutely not. I am not stupid.”
Miss LaDonna laughed outright then, warm and delighted. “Sometimes, my dear,” she said gently, “the best way to discover what something does… is simply to do it.”
She took two small steps backward.
Just in case.
Olivia noticed.
That did not help.
Her tail stiffened. “Why did you step back?”
Miss LaDonna smiled serenely. “Purely out of respect for experimentation.”
Olivia shot Charles a look. “You’re enjoying this.”
“Immensely,” he admitted. “But honestly, Olivia—what’s the worst that could happen?”
He began ticking possibilities off on his fingers.
“It could set the curtains on fire.”“It could summon an eight-foot-tall pink gorilla on fire carrying a bag of candy.”“It could open a small door from which a polite badger emerges to critique your penmanship.”
He shrugged. “The world may never know.”
Miss LaDonna added sweetly, “Either way, I’d say it will be… enriching.”
Olivia groaned.
“You are both the worst.”
She paced behind the desk, glancing between the button and the two of them. Her mind ran through worst-case scenarios at speed.
Explosions.Portals.Unexpected goats.
“…You swear this won’t permanently alter reality?” she asked.
Charles crossed his heart with his cane. “Nothing permanent. Probably.”
Her ears flicked back. “Probably.”
Miss LaDonna folded her hands. “Len thought you might hesitate.”
That made Olivia pause.
“…Lenny suggested this?”
Charles nodded. “Doctor’s orders.”
Olivia sighed, deeply, dramatically.
“Fine. Fine! But if I die, I’m haunting you,” she pointed at Charles, “not her.”
She reached out.
Hesitated.
Pressed the button.
Nothing happened.
She blinked.
“…That’s it?”
A second passed.
Then another.
Disappointment began to creep in—right as a panel slid open in the ceiling directly above her desk.
“Wait—”
A short tube extended with a soft mechanical whirr.
And then—
WHOOMPH.
A bright yellow, fuzzy tennis ball shot out like it had been fired from a cannon.
It hit the desk.
Bounced.
Careened off the wall.
Ricocheted wildly across the lobby.
Olivia managed one eloquent response:
“…What the fuck?”
And then her instincts slammed the wheel out of her hands.
She didn’t think.
She vaulted the desk in a single, fluid motion, claws skidding on polished wood as she landed, eyes locked on the ball.
“HEY—!”
She took off.
The tennis ball bounced down the main hallway.
Olivia followed.
Up stairs.Down stairs.Around corners.Through doors she didn’t even remember opening.
The ball ricocheted off walls, banisters, and one extremely offended coat rack.
Olivia chased it with reckless abandon, skidding, leaping, laughing, panting, tail streaming behind her like a banner.
Fifteen minutes later—
She trotted back into the lobby.
Panting hard.
Tail wagging.
Grinning like an idiot.
The tennis ball was clutched triumphantly in her hand, slightly damp but very much defeated.
She stopped in the center of the room, bent over with her hands on her knees, catching her breath.
“…I should be mad,” she said between pants.
She looked at the ball.
Then up at Charles and Miss LaDonna, who had not moved an inch and were smiling like proud co-conspirators.
“…but that was fun.”
Charles inclined his head. “Doctor’s orders.”
Miss LaDonna nodded. “Len worried you’d have trouble adjusting. New body, new needs. You’d grow restless without the right kind of exercise.”
Olivia straightened, tail still wagging despite herself.
“…So that button just throws balls at me?”
Charles smiled, eyes glittering.
“Among other things.”
Olivia stared at the button again.
Then at the ball.
“…I hate you both,” she said fondly.
Miss LaDonna laughed.