Regulars

“This is my daughter, Harper.”

Harper tensed as the tiger took in the fox’s appearance: grey blazer, pink trousers, purple ascot tie, auburn hair tied back in a tight ponytail. A variant of such a mannish style for a beautiful young lady inevitably followed, even though Harper was neither beautiful nor young, and “lady” could be debated.

Instead, though, he merely nodded. “Pleased to meet you.”

Elsie appeared faintly disappointed that her prospective handyman hadn’t engaged in any witty repartee at her child’s expense, and simply waved them both along the side of the house. “Let me show you the work that needs to be done.”

The tiger nodded again. Harper trudged afterward.

“You did work for the Bradleys over on Ford Court, didn’t you, Owen?” she prompted. “You come highly recommended.”

“Yes, ma’am. Cut down a dead oak in the backyard and replaced some fencing.”

“It’s the tree work we’re interested in. I’m interested in. I love these trees so much, all the flowers I’ve put in, but Harper doesn’t care much about these things.”

Thank you, mother. Harper contemplated turning around and heading back into the house. No, the fox hadn’t grown up here in Central Nowhere, hadn’t grown up with the trees, but that wasn’t the same as being utterly unconcerned with them. It wasn’t as if Elsie had grown up with them, either. She and Arthur had moved out of Overland Park the year Harper graduated from boarding school and entered college.

Elsie stopped as they reached the back, and she pointed up at a tall laurel oak. “You can see how most of its canopy is right over the house, how it’s grown this way, and how a few of the limbs are dying.”

The tiger—Owen—nodded once more, and walked around the tree, looking up at it, crouching to examine its base. Harper studied him. He looked sculpted out of pure muscle, sinews subtly rippling under his fur as he moved. Handsome, if you liked that sort of look. If Mother hadn’t been nattering about the pain of losing these “dear old trees” for literally months, Harper would be suspicious this was a devious way to set up another date.

“With the storms lately, I’m worried that if this tree falls…” She gestured at the house.

“I understand, ma’am. And the tree’s starting to rot.” He traced a claw-tip along the base. “It’s beautiful, but I agree leaving it up is a risk.”

“I bought this property for the trees, you know. Well, my husband and I did, but I wanted this lot, this land. I’ve been here about fifteen years…”

Oh, good, let’s launch into a story that the handyman neither cares about nor needs to know for his work. Harper tried not to clench their teeth too obviously. It’s simply the way Mother was. (Was it the way she had always been? When the subject was ever broached—whether gently, or in frustrated anger—that was the dismissive response. It didn’t match Harper’s memory, but most memories of their youth had truthfully grown foggy.)

Owen listened patiently, or at least gave the appearance of doing so, then—surprise of surprises—nodded. “I can do the work on Thursday if you’d like, ma’am. It’ll be sixty dollars.”

The older vixen frowned. “That seems rather steep, Owen.”

“Most tree services would charge you closer to one hundred. They’d have to bring out three men, ladders, probably a crane.”

“But you won’t?”

“I don’t have to, ma’am. I’m a size-shifter.”

Harper’s attention stopped drifting and snapped back to the tiger.

Mother’s ears lowered. “Yes, the Bradleys did mention that,” she said in a tone that suggested she hadn’t thought it through.

Harper glanced at Mother. She knew he was a size-shifter and called him anyway? Well, she did fancy herself progressive, despite finding her child so exasperating.

“Well.” The older vixen shrugged. “If it helps, it helps. I’ll see you Thursday, then. Morning or afternoon?”

“Morning’s best. Around eight o’clock?”

“That’s fine.” She headed back toward the house, waving a hand at Harper. “Harper, be a good hostess and get Owen a glass of iced tea before he leaves.”

Owen started to shake his head, but stopped as the vixen walked away without waiting for a response. “I don’t need any tea,” he said, to Harper rather than her mother.

“Do you want any? We have a pitcher made.” And if you don’t come and get a glass, Mother will be—

“And if I don’t get a glass, your ma will think you’re a bad host.”

Harper looked up at him, startled, then strode toward the side entrance to the kitchen, waving him to follow. “A size-shifter and a mind-reader.”

“Just observant.”

“You picked up on the subtle tension between Mother and me, then, did you?” Harper held the door open for him, then headed to the cupboard to get down a glass.

“Saw the way your shoulders tensed up a couple times. When she said you didn’t care about the trees, and when she introduced you.”

“Ah, yes, when you were looking at my outfit and thinking ‘why, that’s not very feminine.’”

“I wasn’t thinking that.”

“Mmm.” The fox got down another glass, walked to the icebox, scooped cracked ice in to both, and filled them up from the iced tea pitcher on the counter. “I’d ask what it’s like to be a size-shifter, but I’d guess that’s both an obvious question and a silly one.” Harper held out one of the glasses.

Owen took the glass and lapped at the drink. “That’s good tea. It’s an obvious question. I don’t know if it’s silly, but I don’t know how to answer it.”

“I’m not good at small talk. No size joke intended.”

He laughed, and tilted his head. “Did you grow up around here?”

“Do I act like I’m from somewhere else?”

“A little, yes. But your ma said she’d moved here about fifteen years ago.”

“We lived in Overland Park, but I got sent off to boarding school in upstate New York when I was thirteen. I stayed there for college, and…” A shrug. “Stayed there after college, too, in Brooklyn. I came back last year to help take care of the house. Mother’s getting on in years, and I suppose there’s no one else.”

“So you should be hiring me, not your ma.”

“She has both the money and the strong opinions.”

Owen looked down at Harper speculatively. “You have your own strong opinions, I expect.”

Harper instinctively bristled. Was this stranger needling her, too? If he wasn’t, what was he doing? Prompting? Let it slide off you. “I have opinions about what makes good bourbon, sharp clothes, and how to smoke cigars. Not about trees.”

“What do you think about bourbon, clothing, and cigars?”

“Respectively, they should be high rye, well-tailored, and smoked far away from me.”

Owen laughed again, then looked to the side, seemingly lost in consideration.

Harper tilted their head. “Hmm?”

“I think I’m out of small talk myself.” The tiger finished the rest of his tea and set the glass down by the sink. “I should be on my way. I have some carpentry work to do this afternoon.”

“As a giant?”

“Some of it.” He grinned. “Will I see you Thursday?”

“I don’t go anywhere except Saturdays.”

“What happens on Saturday?”

“My day off.”

“Mmm. Then I’ll see you then. Thursday, I mean.”

The fox held the door open for him again. “You know, you never called me ‘miss.’”

“Pardon?”

“You called my mother ‘ma’am’ all the time, but never called me that, or called me ‘miss.’ Why?”

“It didn’t seem to me as if you’d want me to. Was I wrong?”

Harper stared at him for several long seconds. “No,” they said at length.

He nodded one last time, and turned around. They kept staring at him as he walked off, but he didn’t look back.

When the tiger had stepped out of sight, Harper washed the dishes and headed back into the house. Mother had switched on the radio, listening to the news hour as she played a game of solitaire in the sitting room. At least, they assumed it was the news. It wasn’t easy to hear the announcer over the vixen responding back to every other line with her opinion, which was often nothing more than “Idiots!” repeated with varying levels of disgust.

“What were you and Orson talking about?”

Harper stopped on their way across the room. “Owen. Just small talk.”

“Do you like him?”

“So this was secretly an attempt to set me up with a date after all?”

Elsie rolled her eyes. “I’m only asking what you thought of him. I know better than to try to make you do anything you don’t want to, not since the dancing lessons.”

“I don’t remember dancing lessons.”

“That’s because you wouldn’t take them.”

Harper rubbed their temples.

“Not everything has to be a fight, Harper.”

One would think that, yes. They came close, so close, to saying it out loud, but they knew that would be churlish. Harper settled for just looking away again.

Elsie’s ears folded down, and she shook her head, turning back to her cards. Harper headed down the hall to their study.

After they’d known they’d have to leave New York City but before they’d moved back, they’d envisioned this room as their space, filled with their furniture and their books and their art. To a degree, it was, but Elsie simply owned too much. So Harper’s old desk sat catty-corner to bookshelves filled mostly with Elsie’s books. Their old sofa sat awkwardly next to one of Elsie’s antique tables with too much sentimental value to get rid of. The art on the walls was nearly all Elsie’s, garden-themed paintings and photographs and memorabilia from trips Harper hadn’t been on. Even “study” wasn’t Harper’s word. By the tenth or eleventh time their mother had complained about the word “den” being too masculine, too uncouth, they’d given in and began using “study.” It didn’t fit the room’s aesthetic—or Harper’s—but it wasn’t a hill worth dying on.

Sighing, Harper stretched out on the couch and paged through a weekly magazine without truly looking at it. Sometimes, everything snapped into focus and this became their space. Their sofa, their radio, their record player. And it wasn’t as if they had much art of their own to hang up anyway. It was no longer merely the place they’d returned to annually for Christmas, but it both was and wasn’t truly home.

And, yes, possibly they were too impatient with their mother, too quick to take things the wrong way. Possibly. But possibly it was hereditary.

So Owen was a size-shifter, living out here at the edge of Leavenworth County. Why? Did he move here? If he grew up here, why stay? Harper’s parents had bought out here when a landlord evicted them, four years after the landlord of her childhood home outside Kansas City had done the same. Elsie had declared that would never happen again, so they bought land and a house where they could afford it—here, on the outskirts of the barely-a-town of Basehor.

But being a size-shifter stuck here was—well, like being someone who’d had a taste of true cosmopolitan life stuck here. The whole state was conservative compared to New York. Surely, Owen had to travel to Kansas City to be himself.

“Or maybe you’re projecting,” they muttered out loud, setting the magazine aside.

On Thursday morning, Harper had just finished brewing coffee and bringing two cups out to the dining room when they heard Owen walking past.

The older vixen looked to the window in alarm. “Who is—is that Orson? Is it Orson, or Owen?”

“It’s—”

“Why is he here today? He was supposed to come on Friday.”

“Owen. No, it’s today.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. That’s what you agreed on with him, remember?”

Her mother’s ears folded down, and she looked away, plaintively pouting. “Don’t talk to me like you think I’m losing my mind. I can hear it in your tone.”

“I didn’t say—”

“I should make sure he knows what tree to work on.” She hurried toward the side door, coffee forgotten.

Harper sighed. “He knows,” they said, following Elsie with their cup in hand.

Owen wore only canvas work shorts, carrying a toolbox with him. Harper had dressed more casually today, a denim skirt daringly cut to show their legs to the knees, coupled with a man’s short-sleeved flannel shirt. (Her mother had accused Harper of doing that to keep the ensemble from looking too femme. She was right.) “Good morning, Mrs. Summerfield. Harper.”

“Good morning, Owen.” The older vixen looked disapproving of his relative state of undress, but said nothing about it. She headed toward the tree, ahead of Harper, starting to repeat a variant of the We Bought The Property For The Trees story.

All right, he absolutely was handsome, wasn’t he? As disinterested in sex and romance as Harper tended to be, they weren’t insensate.

As Mother finished the story, she pointed, unnecessarily. “It’s this one.”

He nodded, without giving any sign that he’d heard the story before or already knew which tree to work on. “Got it, ma’am. It should be about an hour.”

“All right.” Her tail swished. “I don’t think I can watch.” She looked toward Harper.

“I will,” the younger fox said.

It was Elsie’s turn to furrow her brow. “Well. If Or—Owen wants anything, please get it for him.” She headed back inside.

Owen looked at Harper. “Have you ever seen someone at a giant size before?”

“Yes, I saw it in the City, fairly often.” What did he think the fox was, an utter bumpkin? He might be the sole shifter in this backwater, but any city had dozens, if not hundreds. “No one as tall as that tree, though, except in photographs,” they admitted after another moment.

“Fairly often?” He grinned. “Most size-shifters can’t change their clothes with them, so that makes me wonder if New York City is even more libertine than folks say.”

Oh, please. “Less than what folks here say, at the least. Any giant in public I saw was clothed, so either they were one of the lucky few or they changed into an appropriately scaled outfit before I saw them.”

Owen circled the tree again, studying it. “And in private?”

“I took an art class with nude subjects, one of whom was a giantess. And I’ve been to a few…rather bacchanalian parties.”

He looked back at them at that. “Huh.”

Harper tilted their head in return, eyes narrowing.

“Interesting to learn about people.” He stepped back from the tree. “You might want to steady yourself. There’s going to be a blast of wind when I change.”

“All right.” Harper shifted their stance. “Ready.”

All at once, Owen became huge.

The tiger hadn’t undersold the wind. Harper staggered back, nearly losing their balance. When they recovered, they couldn’t stop themself from gaping up, muzzle open. Owen stood at least as tall as the tree. His knee stood more twice the height of the fox’s ear tips; they had to tilt their head back, far, to meet his leaf-green eyes. He looked akin to an ancient god returned to the mortal world.

At least, until he spoke, as casually as before despite the new, deep bass undertone rumbling through the ground. “You all right?”

“Guh. I’m. Fine. Yes. I’m fine.”

He smiled, which made Harper’s ears burn. Was this sudden rush what other people (as in “why can’t you be more like other people”) called attraction? It wasn’t as if Harper couldn’t tell when someone was attractive, but this was qualitatively different. This was a sensation they would have to sit with later and think deeply on.

“Good.” The tiger crouched, setting the now truck-sized toolbox down. “Are you afraid of heights?”

“I don’t think so. Why?”

“I can offer you a shoulder perch.”

“That sounds daring.”

“It’s safe. I have wide shoulders.”

Quite, even in scale. Harper let another moment of deliberation pass before nodding. “I’d like that.”

Owen held out a hand, flat, palm pad up.

Harper stared for a moment. Well, how did they think they were going to get up to the giant’s shoulder? They took off their sandals—it must be impolite to walk on someone in shoes—and slid, as gracefully as they could manage, onto the broad pad. It was like sitting on a pink velvet divan.

Once they settled, Owen lifted the hand up to his opposite shoulder. He couldn’t keep his palm perfectly level, so Harper tilted back against the shoulder until they climbed up on it.

“Feeling stable?” the tiger rumbled.

Not for years, ha ha. “Yes.”

He took what had been a small bow saw out of the toolbox and slowly stood up. The changing view made Harper think of a ferris wheel. When was the last time they’d been on one? When they were eight, possibly, at the State Fair, wearing a painfully frilly dress too hot for a Kansas summer. It had been impossibly high to a young kit, but the tree-sized tiger might well have stood taller.

“What do you think?”

“I think I regret I’m not a size-shifter myself.”

“I can show you what it’s like sometime. If you want.” Owen’s eyes were on the tree now, studying it. He grabbed one of the top-most limbs, right about at his eye level, and set the bow saw against it.

“More than you already are?”

“I mean I can change your size, too.”

The fox’s eyes widened. “Oh.”

Owen kept sawing, cutting through the limb completely, turning, and lowering it down to his hip height before dropping it onto an empty section of the lawn.

“Can you shrink what you’re cutting off down with you?”

“Yes, but until it’s dead, it’ll return to normal after maybe half a day unless I’m babysitting it.” He moved the saw, beginning to cut the next limb.

“That’s odd.”

“Lots of things about changing size are.”

“I suppose so. Starting with changing size.”

He nodded, grinning a moment. Those were tail-curling chompers at this scale.

Harper watched him work on the next limb in silence, until they couldn’t contain the question that had come to mind earlier—one they probably should have asked in the first small-talk conversation when Owen had asked about their background. “Why are you here?”

Owen dropped the next limb on the ground. “I’m tempted to say ‘to cut down this tree.’ Do you mean in Basehor? Kansas?”

“Yes, to both.”

“I live a few miles west of here. Kind of at the halfway point between Lawrence and Kansas City. It’s cheap and it’s quiet and it’s still close enough to big cities to get there when I want to.”

“Lawrence is not a big city. Kansas City isn’t, either.”

“It might not be New York City big, but it has one of the best jazz scenes in the country. And Lawrence, it’s eclectic.”

“I haven’t been there often,” they admitted. “Kansas City is…it’s fine.”

“What are you looking for?”

“I don’t know. What are you looking for?”

“Somewhere that feels like home.”

Harper fell silent a few seconds. “I’m not sure if I know what makes a place feel like home.”

He took off another limb. “So that’s not this house, even though your mom lives here.”

“It is and it isn’t. I didn’t grow up here, and New York feels more like home to me than Kansas now.” Harper looked out over the roofs of the neighborhood. Kansas was just so flat. “What makes somewhere feel like home to you?”

“Friends,” he said without hesitation. “Finding my people.”

“I don’t think I have people, beyond Elsie. My mother.” Their ears lowered. “And I don’t know how much of ‘my people’ she is. I love her, and she tells me I’m her best friend. But she doesn’t know me as well as she thinks she does.”

“I expect there are things you don’t share with her.”

“I expect there are things you don’t share with your parents, either.”

“True enough.” Another section of tree fell. “What about New York City?”

“What about it?”

“Did you have people there?”

Harper deliberated on that, staying silent through Owen sawing another piece of tree off and letting it hit the ground. He’d dismantled most of the tree’s canopy by this point, and was starting to take down lower limbs and the main trunk, section by section. Their housemate had been a person there for them, hadn’t he? Also, the friend who’d taken the fox clothes shopping years ago when the dress and the skirts had become suffocating. “Maybe two.”

“Have you looked for more here?”

“I…” Harper shook their head, and leaned against the tiger’s massive neck. “I don’t feel like I’ve had time. Isn’t that funny? I haven’t had a job since I’ve moved back, yet I don’t have any spare time. Maybe I’ve forgotten how to look. For people. Or time. Or both.” This felt—strange. But comfortable. That might be part of the strangeness.

“I’m about done with the tree.” Owen crouched down, sawing through the trunk at the base. A massive, postcard-perfect log about three times Harper’s height fell against one of the tiger’s hands. He set down the saw and guided it gently the rest of the way to the ground. “What are you doing on your day off tomorrow?”

“Nothing. That’s how days off work.”

“Since you don’t have a job, ‘day off’ must be different to you.”

Beautiful giant muscular men simply shouldn’t be as perceptive as Owen kept being. “I find somewhere to go to be by myself.”

“If you want to be by yourself around other people sometime, you’re welcome to drop by the Outside Lodge.”

“A lodge? Is it anything like the Freemasons?”

“I’ve never been to a Mason lodge, but I’d be surprised.”

“Is it really outside?”

“If you’re in the backyard. Which many of us are, when the weather’s nice. It’s pretty private. Want a hand down?”

“I don’t think jumping would be safe.”

He held up a hand by his shoulder. “You could climb.”

Harper crawled onto his hand and sat on the soft center pad again. “You’d have to buy me dinner before that.”

“Now you’re trying to make my ears color.” Owen lowered them to the ground. “Okay, another blast of wind’s coming.”

“Ready.” This time Harper crouched.

Owen shifted position, putting his hands on the logs and limbs he’d cut off, and returned to his normal size, again all at once. The wind blew toward him rather than away this time.

Standing up, Harper leaned over the pile of what might as well be twigs and branches. “I thought you said that’d all return to normal size.”

“It will, but I’ll have enough time to get it to the lumberyard before then.”

As they walked back toward the house to get Elsie, Harper said, “Where’s the Lodge?”

“North Lawrence, corner of Seventh and Ash, on the river bank. You’ll know it when you see it. When someone answers the door, say ‘chartreuse.’”

“Like a password?”

He nodded. “Right.”

“When’s it open?”

“There’s always something happening on Saturdays.”

“I don’t know about that, then. I don’t like it when things happen.”

Owen looked back at Harper, raising a brow and smiling. The fox tried not to smile back, but did anyway.

“Where are you going on your jaunt today?”

“Toward Lawrence, I think.”

Elsie lifted her brows. “Oh? What’s there?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“The university, of course.”

Harper nodded, checking their outfit self-consciously. Tan blazer, vest, and pants; white shirt, bright blue cravat; a few finishing touches to push the fox’s look in a more androgynous direction: heavy eyeliner, lip gloss, gold hoop earrings.

Too much, especially for Kansas? Maybe not for Lawrence, if it was as eclectic as Owen claimed. If. “Of course.”

“I wish I’d explored more when I was younger. I never traveled with your father, apart from the honeymoon trip to San Francisco. And up to Canton, to visit your college.” The older fox swished her tail, looking distant, ears lowered. “And now it’s too late.”

“I don’t see why it’s too late.”

Elsie waved dismissively. “I can’t sit for long enough to take a plane or train ride, thanks to my arthritis and my hips. I can’t eat half the things I used to, so restaurants are hard for me, too. I could go on. Vision, hearing, thin bones…”

Was Mother angling to tag along on a Saturday? Harper had proposed that a few times, with perhaps a fifty percent acceptance rate—usually followed by nitpicking complaints about service or quality, anything to express dissatisfaction with.

“I know you wish this town had been more,” Elsie said abruptly. “I do, too. I’m sorry it never grew. If I’d known…” She trailed off again.

Harper fidgeted, unsure what to say.

“Well.” Elsie smiled after a moment. “Have fun, wherever you end up. And you should do something different with your hair.”

Harper’s ears set back. “This again?”

“You have such beautiful hair when you leave it unbound, that’s all. You get lovely natural waves.”

Harper quelled a sigh and simply nodded. “Okay. I might be back late.”

“Be careful.”

After a long, hot, but uneventful drive, Harper reached North Lawrence. They’d assumed that meant “the north side of Lawrence”; that wasn’t wrong, but it turned out to be all but its own separate tiny town, rough and tumble compared to Lawrence’s convivial college atmosphere. The main street was, inexplicably, Second. Ash wasn’t a cross street, but Harper presumed they could drive east until hitting Seventh and turn south toward the river.

And they would. Later. Maybe.

They crossed the bridge back into downtown to visit a coffee shop for a late lunch, then hit up a bookstore, bought a cheap mystery novel, and returned to the coffee shop to read. This was a favorite way to spend a Saturday afternoon, reading, or sometimes writing in a journal: surrounded by people without any expectation of conversation or support. Solitary, but not alone.

As the sun reached the top of the trees, Harper slipped a bookmark into the novel—they were about halfway through it; it was decent enough, but they’d have forgotten it in a week or two—and chewed on their lip. Did they truly want to go socialize with Lord knew who at anything called a “lodge?” They wouldn’t know anyone but Owen, and it stretched the truth to say they knew him. He was cute—very well, incredibly handsome—but in their heart, Harper knew they had no truck with romance; they’d made their peace with the world seeing them as a spinster, and perversely looked forward to being solitary-but-not-alone as an old dandy.

Yet if they keeled over in this seat now, it wasn’t as if a single person in Lawrence would run over, crying, “Oh no! Harper!” Instead, the townsfolk would look down, bemused, muttering, “Who was that effeminate man or laddish woman?”

Sighing, Harper headed back to their car. Very well. They had “solitary” bang on, but needed to practice the “not alone” part for as long as they could stand it.

As they suspected was usual for the tiger, Owen’s dry “you’ll know it when you see it” proved an understatement. The Lodge had no visible signage, but it was surely impossible to miss. It wasn’t simply that it was a magnificent, if slightly ramshackle, three-story Victorian inn set well back from the road. Or that its backyard hid behind a fence as high as the inn’s roofline. Or that its driveway had at least a dozen vehicles scattered around it. No, it was that they’d painted it in glorious shades of pink, from deep salmon on the walls to desaturated carnation for the trim.

Harper parked in the grass off the gravel driveway. Before getting out, they paused to study themself in the rearview mirror. Hmm. They untied the ponytail, shook their hair out, gave it a quick brush, and looked again. More feminine, which they didn’t love, but as much as they hated to admit it, still better.

A brass plaque reading THE OUTSIDE LODGE stretched across the top of the entranceway, the first subtle thing Harper had seen here so far. They could hear music from inside. Should they just go in? Knock? Ring the bell? Was there even a bell? Yes.

Biting their lip again, Harper rang the bell.

It took about thirty seconds before the door cracked open, and an otter woman peeked her head around. “Yes?”

“Uh.” What was that word Owen had mentioned? “Chartreuse?”

The otter lifted her brows. “Yes?” she repeated.

Harper cleared their throat. “I’m an, uh, acquaintance of Owen’s?”

That got the door to swing open. “You must be Harper!” The otter waved them inside. “Come in, dear.”

Harper followed cautiously. The otter, sashaying ahead in a pale green chiffon dress, looked exquisitely feminine. Maybe the word Harper wanted was performatively. She reminded the fox strongly of a drag show they’d attended a few years back.

The small foyer opened directly onto a great hall, the interior roof stretching the full three stories up. The mammoth space managed the trick of being simultaneously sparse and chaotic: a set of small round dining tables here, sofas and lamps that belonged to a sitting room there, a bar against one wall, another set of tables with game boards carved into their tops, a stage large enough for a full band. Halls led off to other parts of the structure, presumably including ways to reach the balcony that ran along both sides of the main space. The back wall featured massive sliding wooden doors, as high as the building itself, standing open.

Even though the lodge could easily hold hundreds, Harper spotted only two dozen or so—some at tables, some at the bar, some standing and chatting. Some of them, though, were giants, big enough that they’d need those huge doors to get back out. In the case of two of those giants, Owen and a maned wolf woman, they’d have to duck. The wolf might well have to crawl on all fours. Her legs alone might stretch three stories.

That alone could earn an unabashed stare from Harper, but the woman was also unselfconsciously nude, chatting with two normal-sized rabbits whose gender the fox couldn’t immediately guess. She wasn’t the only person with no clothes, either. Owen was the only clothed giant, and several of the “littles” sat around in the fur as well. Most of those with clothes had gone with riotous, flamboyant colors, form-fittingly tight or billowingly loose garments, sometimes cross-dressing in ways that rendered Harper’s experimentation positively conservative.

“Owen!” the otter called. “Your friend is here.”

The maned wolf and the two people she’d been talking to also turned, as did the other giant, a squirrel with a wolf-woman sitting on his leg. (The wolf woman wasn’t technically naked, but her whole outfit looked like it was made from fishing net.)

“Harper.” Owen smiled down.

“Hello.” Harper swallowed, walking up toward him. “This is… I’d say it wasn’t what I expected, but that would imply I’d had a hint of a clue what to expect.”

The tiger laughed. “This,” indicating the maned wolf, “is Marcela, and the two rabbits she’s talking to are Ricardo and Stephan.” The rabbits had dressed loudly and clashingly, the former in a robe festooned with bright Caribbean colors and the latter in a tight purple shirt showing off his muscles. (Which were, to be sure, worth showing off.) They both waved. Marcela looked down, favoring Harper with a silent, long grin showing the barest hint of her giant teeth. While Owen had clearly done his best to set Harper at ease when he loomed over her, Marcela seemed to consciously do the opposite. Harper smiled back nervously.

“The squirrel there is Ted, with his girlfriend Ellen.”

“Hello,” the squirrel said, smiling in that extremely Midwestern-nice way, as unthreatening as someone Harper wasn’t even knee-high to could be. Ellen the wolf waved, too, but didn’t say anything.

“The two women at the bar are Jessie and Kate.” They didn’t look over, in conversation with a bartender stoat who might have walked straight off the set of a movie about speakeasies. “The dapper coyote gentleman I’ve been talking to here is Connie. And the giant mouse who just went out back is Zelda.”

Coyote? Oh, yes, on the other side of the tiger. He had the same slightly overwhelmed look that Harper suspected they had. Maybe also new, although maybe slightly less overwhelmed, so a second or third visit.

“And,” Owen indicated the otter, “you’ve met Chartreuse.”

The otter beamed. “Welcome to the Lodge.”

Harper looked from side to side to take it all in, smiling back, then gave Owen an accusing look. “Wait. You said ‘chartreuse’ was a password, not a name.”

He looked studiously innocent. “No, I said to say Chartreuse when someone opened the door.”

Several of the folks gathered around laughed. Harper’s ears colored, but the laughing didn’t seem to be at their expense—and Marcela’s laugh was charming, soft for her size and musical as tolling bells. The otter put her hands on her hips. “Owen, you scamp. I’m not the only one who opens the door.”

“No, but you are the one who usually opens the door.” Marcela spoke with a South American accent, as lovely as her laugh. Harper’s ears warmed a touch. Was what moved their sense of attraction from the abstract to the concrete an extreme difference in size? Not universally—Ted the squirrel was cute, to be sure, and maybe being giant made him that much more so—but there was a definite heart-skipping flutter when they looked at Owen or, now, the maned wolf. They hoped it wasn’t visible on their face, although the way Marcela’s gaze settled on them suggested it definitely was and oh goodness their ears were definitely blushing now, which made Marcela’s teasing smile grow fractionally. Connie had a knowingly sympathetic look. Harper glanced away to try to break the feedback loop.

“So.” Chartreuse clapped her hands together. “I don’t know how much Owen explained about the Lodge, but our dues are pay-what-you-can. Everyone’s a volunteer, and you could say all the members are all staff, too. People find what they’re good at.” She pointed at the bar. “For instance, we don’t always have a bartender. If you do drink, you’re in luck tonight, because I don’t think there’s a cocktail Marvin can’t make.

“Sometimes we have more formal game nights, or performances. Check the calendar in the foyer.” She pointed. “We’re often out in the backyard, too, when the weather’s good. It’s secluded, goes right up to the river, and allows our size-shifting members to stretch out more when they want. As you can tell, the lodge is clothing optional, since most giants can’t keep their clothes on.”

“Why would we want to?” Marcela murmured, tail swishing.

“And, we have guest rooms for people who need them.” She fluttered her eyelashes. “For whatever reason.”

“At different sizes,” Ted added. “Well, there’s one room for people our size.” He waved around at Owen and Marcela.

Marcela nodded. “It is unfortunately small.”

Chartreuse put her hands on her hips. “I swear, you’re such a size queen, Marcie.” She looked to Harper. “She’s going to tell you she feels short now.”

“Not short, merely not as big as I would like.”

Harper wasn’t sure they should ask, but did anyway. “How big would you like?”

“Hmm.” The maned wolf leaned over until her nose hovered a few feet over the fox, luxurious black hair cascading around like a waterfall, forcing several of the others to step back lest they get lost in tresses. “Picture yourself standing on my lower lip, reaching up as high as you can, your hands not quite reaching the top of my fang.” She parted her glistening lips, showing off said fang.

Harper’s pupils dilated.

Marcela straightened up, brushing back her hair. “That would be nice for a start.”

“My goodness,” Connie muttered.

“That would be…” Harper lamely settled on, “quite something.”

Marcela laughed, winking down, and looked to Owen. “I like them.” She leaned over Harper again a moment. “You become a regular, yes?”

“I…I don’t know yet.”

“But you must. You are not only not running, you are looking around, taking in everything.” She touched Harper’s shoulder gently with a finger. “And you are so stylish. You must give me fashion tips when I am little.”

Harper gaped up at the giantess. “Me, give tips to you? But you’re beautiful!”

“Two beautiful people exchanging fashion tips! Wonderful.” She waved a hand. “But do not let me keep you. Go. Mingle.” She winked again. “Then come back.”

“I’ll. Uh.” Harper looked over at Owen, who watched with amusement. “Okay. Thanks.” They waved, awkwardly, and headed toward the bar, head swimming. Surely Marcela was teasing her. Beautiful? Yes, Harper kept conscious of their appearance, the way they could play with this or that accepted style, but—but—

Woof. Harper sat down at the bar, separated by two empty stools from…Kate, or maybe Jessie. One was a delicate-looking wolf in a frilly pastel purple dress, while the other was a muscular rabbit in checkered flannel who looked as if she could benchpress the wolf.

As Harper sat down, the rabbit turned to them, nodding. “Hi.”

“Hello.”

“I’m Kate.” She put her hand on the wolf’s shoulder. “This is my girlfriend, Jessie.”

Jessie beamed, waving.

“I’m Harper.” The fox didn’t have a well-developed sense for that sort of thing, but they’d already guessed the two were a couple. The surprise was how casual Kate was about mentioning it, and yet here at the Lodge it wasn’t surprising at all.

The bartender stoat walked over. “Can I get you anything, Harper?”

“I…yes.” They looked over the gigantic collection of bottles against the wall behind the stoat. “I usually have bourbon, but I think I’d like to try something with gin.”

“More sweet, or more savory?”

“Ah, sweet, please.”

“Okay.” He produced a metal shaker from somewhere, scooped ice into it, and poured in carefully measured ingredients.

“Marvin’s the best bartender in Lawrence,” Jessie said.

“I don’t know if I’d say that. But I do appreciate it.” The stoat fit the lid on the tin and gave it a rather long and showy over-the-shoulder shake, finishing by straining a cloudy, slightly foamy concoction into a coupe glass, decorating it with a twist of lemon peel. “This is a White Lady.”

Harper’s nose wiggled, and they took a cautious sip. “Oh.” They blinked. “That’s excellent.”

Marvin beamed. “Thank you.”

Harper dropped a quarter in the—tip jar? Donation jar? Honestly, they weren’t sure—and sipped more.

Kate sipped her own drink, which looked like an old fashioned. Definitely almost all bourbon. “So what do you do, Harper?”

“I’m not employed right now.”

“Not what your job is, or isn’t,” Jessie admonished with a grin. “What do you do?”

Oh. “I explore,” they said at length. “To keep from feeling stuck in the house.”

“Do you live in Lawrence?”

They shook their head. “East of here, close to Bonner Springs. With my mom. I moved back from New York City to take care of her and—” All at once, confessional panic welled up inside Harper, threatening to gush out like bile, to ruin whatever tentative connection they might be making. They swallowed hard and forced a smile. “And it’s an adjustment.”

Kate studied Harper keenly for a few seconds longer, then nodded. “I can imagine.”

Harper looked away, concentrating on the drink and letting the conversation fade into awkward silence. A minute or two later, though, someone else sat down next to her: Connie the coyote. “So what do you think so far?”

“Of the Lodge?”

He nodded.

“I don’t—” They closed their eyes.

“Not really your scene?”

Harper shook their head, opening their eyes again. “That’s not what I was going to say. It’s just that it’s a lot to take in.”

“It’s a good thing you came on a quiet night,” Kate said.

Harper looked up at the rabbit, raising their brows.

“Well, for a Saturday.” Kate grinned. “Usually, there’s a few more people here, but you’ll meet the other regulars. If you keep coming back.”

“Right.” They looked to Connie. “Are you a regular?”

The coyote tilted his head. “I don’t know if I am yet. This is only my third visit. I feel…disappointingly normal here.” He laughed. “But everyone is friendly despite that.”

“What brought you here the first time?”

“That feeling of being a square peg constantly trying to fit in a round hole.” He laughed, then lifted his brows as Marvin set a drink in front of him. “What’s this?”

“A rum daisy,” the stoat said. “You’ll like it.”

Connie took a sip, and nodded. “I do.”

Marvin grinned.

“I suppose—” Connie turned back toward Harper. “Well. While I suspect my family believes I’m quite into confirmed bachelor territory at this point, the truth is I haven’t had much spark with either sex, and I suppose I’ve worried for the past few years that there’s something…broken in me. That’s giving you far too much personal information all at once and I apologize, but this is my third drink.”

Jessie covered a giggle.

“So you came here to test that?” Harper said, cocking a brow again.

“In a way.” He looked around, then leaned forward, whispering in a tipsy attempt at furtiveness. “I think I’m attracted to giants. I wouldn’t have known that if I hadn’t come here.” He sat up straight again. “Now, I don’t know what to do with that revelation. But there it is.”

Harper’s ears colored.

Kate smirked, sipping her drink. “Is it about giants, or power?”

Connie tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

“Set down your drink.”

He did, looking wary.

The rabbit got up, walked over to Connie, picked up the coyote, and effortlessly lifted him over her head parallel to the floor. He barked, eyes going wide, tail poofing out. Harper’s eyes widened, too.

“So.” Kate looked up at the coyote. “Does this…excite you?” She waggled her brows.

“Honestly, a little bit,” he squeaked.

Kate set him back down on his stool. “Now, you have another revelation.” She took her seat again.

“I…um…” He down the rest of his drink in one gulp, and pointed at the glass. “Another, please.”

Jessie gave Kate a kiss. “You’re terrible.”

Harper chuckled, but ran a hand through their hair thoughtfully. “I understand, Connie, more than I should likely admit. Most of my life, I’ve felt—the word I’ve found is ‘anaphroditic.’ Yet around giants I feel…less so. I hadn’t known that until today.”

“Go on,” Kate said, lacing her hands together.

Harper laughed, ears coloring.

Connie cleared his throat. “I think if you asked me after my first visit to the Lodge if I’d return, I’d have told you I had no idea. Maybe I’d have even said probably not, even though I’d met Marcela, Ted, and Zelda that first night. But the truth is, I’m pretty sure I knew within my first five minutes that I’d keep coming back.”

Kate and Jessie both nodded. “It was the same for us,” the wolf said.

“And for me, too.” Marvin looked thoughtful, drumming his fingers on the bar. “I hadn’t worked up the courage to present myself in public the way I saw myself, but I could do it here first.”

Harper smiled wryly. “So you’re telling me that I already know whether I’m going to become a regular here.”

“Don’t you?” Jessie said, tail wagging once.

Did they? Harper glanced around the place. It was so—so odd, lively yet quiet. Marcela, stretched out on her side, talked now with Owen and Chartreuse. It looked like Ted and Ellen might have gone out back to visit Zelda. They could hear music playing out there. A couple of new people had entered, too, sitting down at the bar a few stools down.

Lively yet quiet was perfect for solitary but not alone, wasn’t it?

“It’s quite a drive to take regularly.” Harper stood up. “I think I’m going to ask Owen for an odd favor. Although I think I’ll need the rest of this to do it.” They downed most of the rest of their cocktail.

Kate lifted her brows. “This is intriguing.”

If by intriguing, you mean embarrassing and a little terrifying, we’re in absolute agreement. But having said it out loud made it feel like a commitment. Steeling themself, Harper walked toward the giants.

Chartreuse was the first one to speak to Harper, turning toward the fox and placing an elegant webbed hand on their shoulder. “So tell me, dear, what do you think so far?”

“As I said to Connie, it’s a lot to take in. I was going to ask Owen something, ah, unusual.”

Owen looked down, rubbing his chin. “If I can make you a giant now.”

Harper stared at the tiger. “How do you keep doing that?”

“It’s his magical power.”

Marcela touched her tongue tip to her upper lip briefly. “I thought his magical power was the way he looked in tight clothes. And looked taking them off.”

Owen moved into a kneeling position, then shrank back down, this time over the space of a few seconds rather than all at once. “Going slowly keeps the change in air pressure from being a problem inside.”

“I see.”

“Now.” Owen walked to Harper. “How tall do you want to try being?”

The fox swallowed nervously. “I…about as tall as you were a minute ago, I think.”

He nodded. “I’m going to have to hold you close.”

“That’s all right.” Kate, Jessie, and Connie were all walking over, too. An audience. Wonderful.

Owen stepped forward and lightly touched his hands to Harper’s sides, looking into their eyes and waiting for an approving nod before shifting his grip into a hug.

The tiger started to grow.

It was as slow as his shrinking, but to Harper that didn’t feel slow at all. It felt as if they were a quickly inflating balloon—no, as if every cell in their body was its own tiny quickly inflating balloon. They wanted to frantically scratch at every inch of skin.

Then it was over. Owen let go. The crawly-itchy sensation remained, but faded rapidly.

Harper looked down and, despite having their paws firmly planted, had a dizzying sense of vertigo for a moment. Holy mother of—everything, everyone, was so small. The bar looked like an oversized doll house. Chartreuse, Connie, and the rest looked like—well—oversized dolls.

“Try walking with me. Carefully.” Owen held out his hand. Taking it, Harper tried a tentative step, then another, Owen walking with them. “What do you think?”

“Walking is easy.” Harper kept looking around, gaze sweeping back and forth. “It’s seeing the world this way that’s disorienting. I must make an absurd-looking giant.”

“I assure you that you do not.” Connie stared up, clearly transfixed, visibly blushing under his fur. Oh, dear. Harper tried not to grin, but a new moment of disorientation hit them: just how much they liked seeing that reaction.

“You look dazzling.” Marcela sat up, resting her head on her knees and watching the fox. “Too short, of course, but still dazzling.”

Harper let go of Owen’s hand and walked on their own, tentatively for a few steps but quickly gaining confidence.

“What do you think?”

They walked back to the tiger and knelt down, looking at the “littles” gathered around, then smiled up at the tiger self-consciously. “I think,” they said slowly, “I might have been wrong about the way giants made me feel…feelings…I normally don’t have.”

Both of Owen’s brows shot up. Oh, Harper hadn’t mentioned that to him, had they. Their ears colored.

As usual, though, the tiger just nodded, offering a one-word prompt. “So…?” He sat down behind Harper.

“It’s not giants, per se. It’s size difference.” They looked down at the audience again. Chartreuse had lifted her brows, grinning; Kate crossed her arms, looking amused. Jessie and Connie both looked flustered. Especially the coyote.

This time, Harper couldn’t help but give Connie a small-for-a-giant grin, locking eyes with him. He let out a barely audible whine, which made the fox want to…what? Pick him up and give him a nuzzle? Maybe. See if they could make him squeak and squirm? Maybe.

That made their ears color. This was so—all so—

All at once they were crying. And wagging their tail at the same time.

Owen slid forward, guiding Harper back to rest against him and to put an arm around their shoulders. Chartreuse stepped up and patted the fox’s leg right above the ankle.

Harper took a deep breath. “So people are here every Saturday?”

When they got home past midnight, still feeling giddy, a light flickered dimly in the living room.

Harper opened the door quietly. Surely Elsie wasn’t up, waiting for them?

No, she wasn’t; she’d fallen asleep in the big chair in the living room, the radio on and playing static.

Walking over, Harper switched it off, the click louder than they’d expected. Elsie’s eyes fluttered open. “I must have…oh.” She rubbed at her face, stifling a yawn. “I couldn’t get the radio to come on. I think it might be broken.”

“It was on.”

“I didn’t hear anything.”

“Maybe it wasn’t tuned to a station.”

“I’d know to check that, Harper.” Her mother looked troubled for a moment, then pushed herself to her paws. “Did you have a good time out? It’s late.”

“I did.”

Elsie looked at her silently, just long enough for Harper to begin feeling uncomfortable. “You look good. Not just because your hair’s down. It’s very…you.”

“I’m not sure what that means, but thank you.”

She put a hand on Harper’s shoulder. “Have I told you I love you recently?”

Harper put her hand over Elsie’s and smiled.