This wasn’t a good idea.

He scrolled and clicked, scrolled and clicked, but the Internet was very clear: raccoons aren’t good pets. They’re illegal almost everywhere, and where they’re legal, they have to come from a certified breeder, and you need a license to own them. Behavior is a problem, diet is a problem, housing is a problem, health is a problem—in short, they’re just a problem.

Why had he listened to Wendy again?

The image of her tall, slender figure and her long, slate gray hair flashed through his mind.

Right. Because he was smitten with her, and she promised to go to the next Halloween, New Year’s Eve, and Valentine’s Day parties with him if he did this for her.

He sighed and clicked on the next video.

“How’s it going?”

He looked up from the laptop at the little woman letting herself into the bedroom. Her bright pink snow hat pulled low over her curly brown hair didn’t cover the tips of her pointed ears, a dead giveaway that she wasn’t a human, if her small stature didn’t make that clear enough. He wondered how his current form would compare to her if he stood on his hind legs.

But that wasn’t pertinent, so he simply turned the laptop toward her. A YouTube video showing a pet raccoon trashing someone’s house was playing.

“Hm.” She came closer, narrowing her milk chocolate brown eyes as she watched the video and pursing her lips. “I know I said you should try to act more like a raccoon, but I don’t think destroying Lily’s home is a good idea.”

She sighed. He sat back on his haunches, his bushy, black-and-brown striped tail swishing irritably.

“But do you have to act like a raccoon, though?” she wondered aloud. She turned her face to study him instead of the screen, her almond-shaped eyes scanning him from the top of his gray-tipped ears to the bottoms of his little clawed feet. “Why are you here, anyway?”

He hesitated. The plan was for him to become Lily’s pet, but her neighbor had found him out immediately. Granted, Santa’s elves were known for their quick wit and keen intellect, and this one was as sharp as a tack. Still, a change of plans might be for the best.

I’m here to help her learn how to control her magic.

Her eyes widened briefly at his mind-speech. She tilted her head to the side, tapping a pink-gloved finger to her Cupid’s bow lips.

“I see.”

That was all she said. He waited, his black nose twitching occasionally. The muted sounds of laughter and off-tune Christmas carols from the party in the living room filtered through the ice-covered door. Then a stampede of booted footsteps approached, and he tensed, his ears swivelling toward the door.

“Gotcha!” a triumphant female voice exclaimed, followed by the squeals and giggles of children. “Now… get Boris!”

The squealing and giggling retreated, but his relief was premature. The door opened.

“Emma?” the woman called. “Pipaluk’s rocket tree launcher is going haywire, so he has to—”

She froze in the doorway, her icy blue eyes wide with surprise and her mouth hanging open as she stared at him. Unlike the much shorter Emma, bundled head-to-toe in winter wear, Lily wore jeans and a baggy, long-sleeve shirt—blue, of course, to match her eyes, her dark blue leather boots and gloves, and her ice, coating every surface of the house, inside and out. She was at home in the cold. That came with being a snow witch, after all.

“I’ll just leave you two to get acquainted,” Emma said, adjusting to this new development with the ease one could only expect from a mad scientist’s wife. “Better check on Pipaluk before he sets something on fire.”

Lily stepped wordlessly aside for the three-foot-tall elf to leave, and then they were alone. Snow witch and raccoon.

He stood on his hind feet, then changed his mind and sat again, setting his front paws neatly before him. It was time to throw caution to the wind.

Good evening. I am Mr. Raccoon, your spiritual advisor.

Her eyes instantly narrowed to a point, dangerous and flashing. “Get out of my head,” she snapped.

I am not in your head. I am in the world, and the world is in me.

“Do you have rabies or something? You know what? Never mind. I’m calling animal control.”

She put her hand on the door and turned to go, and he realized with a surge of anxiety that she wasn’t kidding. She would do it. And then he’d have another problem to contend with.

I wouldn’t do that if I were you.

She shot him a glare, her short black hair whipping around her face. “Of course you wouldn’t. You’re a rabid raccoon who can somehow speak into my mind, and I—”

She paused. Hope flickered in his chest. It was an unfamiliar feeling, as was the itchy fur begging to be scratched.

Her shoulders slumped. “And I’m insane, because I’m talking to a raccoon and imagining it talking back to me in my mind.”

You are not insane, he said, grasping at straws. Merely misguided. Come, and I will show you the way. He turned the laptop screen toward her, which was helpfully playing a video of a raccoon in a forest. Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world.

She raised an eyebrow. “Cut the mumbo jumbo and tell me who you really are.”

If he could have sighed, he would have. Instead, he dropped his formal pose and his soothing tone, crossed his front paws over his chest, and flicked one ear in annoyance. Look, you wanna learn how to control your magic, or not?

There was the reaction he wanted. The same head tilt Emma gave him, displaying curiosity, not anger or suspicion. Who knew honesty was the best policy?

“You’re here to teach me about my magic?”

He nodded. Starting with a pine cone.