Chapter Two
Dinner was pretty much the raucous affair it usually is. Mom was fasting--you can't work magick as well on a full stomach--but she liked to sit with us anyway. Arrie blabbed on about pirates and squished each piece of avocado between his fingers before eating it. Thinking that looked like fun, Carley started in herself, until I gave her my best "I'll zap your ass" look.
Mom and Joth were discussing the metaphors used in another of her student's poems. I joined in here and there, but I wasn't familiar with the poem. Besides, I was too distracted with Joth.
Something was up with him. His eyes kept straying to the window. That and the hungry-yet-reverent look he got when he watched Arrie. Not a child-molester. That wasn't the vibes I got. Fugitive, maybe. Maybe one of those people who stole children and sold them on the black market?
I was getting paranoid again. Maybe he just liked children, unfathomable as that seemed. We didn't watch much TV--especially not the sensationalized tripe they call news--but the kids in my class were always talking about the latest horror: missing children, carjackings, the woman who was pummeled to death with grapefruits... It must have been getting to me. Still, I'd keep an eye on him.
I washed the dishes while Mom and Joth relaxed over a cup of herb tea. I caught her checking the clock, but she still had plenty of time.
We'd done our family ritual the night before. I could have joined her, now that I was sixteen. Her coven had invited me a few times, and Mom was willing to hire a babysitter, but it didn't feel right. She needed a place where she didn't have to be anyone's mother. And, frankly, I needed one where I was me, not Hailey's daughter.
For a couple years we'd had a Youth's Circle. But Bearclaw and Dawnrider had moved to New Mexico with their parents and Aradia was going to college in Berkeley. We emailed occasionally, but she was too busy studying to correspond much. Sanddune had just sort of drifted away. He'd gotten more interested in girls and cars and muscle-flexing than in the Craft.
I would get up early and do my own private circle before class. The Moon wouldn't technically be full until 8:47 a.m. I was planning an Otherworld journey and that was better done in the morning when I was rested, than at night, half falling asleep.
Besides, the last time I'd tried journeying while Mom was out, Arrie had woken up and wanted a hug and had shocked me right out of the Otherworld. Not a fun experience. I'd wanted to strangle him, but he was too young to know better. I put the last plate into the dish drain and dried my hands and went back to the table.
"...liked that simile you used," Mom was saying. "'Frozen like the moment before midnight.' I haven't had a chance to read the whole thing, but it's very interesting."
"I--" He swallowed, pursed his lips, as if he were gathering the courage to say Earth-Shattering words.
"What's a simile?" Carley asked Mom.
Joth cut himself off, muttered, "Thank you."
I glanced at him, noticing the stains had somehow disappeared from his t-shirt. Had I imagined them?
"A simile's when you say that one thing reminds you of something else. Like, 'your shirt is green as grass.'"
Carley nodded, thoughtful. "Like, 'the thorn bushes out back are tangled like Firebuck's beard'?"
Mom and I looked at each other, and shrieked, "Mine!" almost simultaneously.
Mom was just a second quicker. "Mine," she said with soft triumph. She scooped her spiral-bound from the counter and scribbled in it.
"From the mouths of babes," said Joth, with a most un-writerly cliche.
Closing the notebook, Mom hooked the pen back into the wire binding and turned back to Joth. "By the way, I was fascinated on your take of Elven society. Most Sword & Sorcery just treats them like warrior-mages with pointed ears. But the whole heartbeat of the Earth, thing--I should have known you were Craft."
He got that look again. Like he was about to confess to High Treason. "Hailey, I need you to finish reading my story."
"Of course I will. Only I told you, I have Full Moon tonight. Class isn't till Friday. So I've got four days."
The sibilant lilt in his voice became more pronounced. "Four days may be too long. They are near. If they identify you..."
The hackles went up on the back of my neck."If who identify us? Not the Fundamentalists again?"
"Mentalists!" Arrie crowed, loving the sound of the word. "Mentalists, mentalists mentalists! Wasa mentalist?"
"Shut up, Arrie," Carley elbowed him.
Joth rose from the table and went to the window again, peering through the blinds. "Even now, they could be waiting."
Mom was on her feet now, staring out the window alongside him. "There's nobody out there." She put her hand on his shoulder and turned him to face her. "What are you talking about?"
"You must read the story, Hailey. It explains everything."
"I told you I'd--"
"It is is not just a story. It is real. The truth."
"What do faeries have to do with somebody watching my house? Is someone out there?"
"I do not know. But I have found you. I have solved the riddle, and they may be close behind."
"Riddle?" I said. "What is this?"
"Joth, will you just please be straight with me? Is my house--are my children in danger?"
"You must read--"
"Yes, yes, okay." She chopped her hand through the air. "I said I would. Tomorrow morning. First thing. Listen, I've got to be getting dressed. I think it's time for you to go."
Joth nodded. "I thank you for your hospitality." He turned to me, "The fare was excellent."
"Sure."
"And it was lovely meeting the two of you, as well," he said, his eyes wistful as they lingered on Arrie.
"That was weird," I said, closing the door behind him.
Mom just shook her head. "I've got to take a shower. Thanks for cleaning up. That was supposed to be my job."
"I didn't mind."
She brushed a kiss on my forehead and went up to the bathroom.
"Willa, you tell me story?"
"Oh, Arrie...Carley, could you?"
She went up to the bedroom she shared with Arrie and came back with her Tarot cards. We each have our own deck. Carley doesn't know how to read them yet, but it's amazing how close her interpretations were to the real thing. Of course she has a Motherpeace deck, which unlike the Waite deck most people use, has pictures that are easy to translate without having a basis in symbolism. She shuffled; let Arrie pick a card. "Once there was a little boy who loved to play the flute..."
I glanced around the kitchen, making sure everything was in order then went upstairs to the walk-in closet that Mom had turned into her office. Except for a narrow arrow-slit window, and a statuette of the goddess Brigid, the walls were completely stuffed with books. I went to the writing book section and thumbed through a few, finally settling on an old favorite, Telling Lies for Fun and Profit.
As I turned to leave, my eyes fell on a folder lying atop her desk. It was labeled, "Writing Class."
The bathroom was one door over from her office. I rapped on it. "Mom, can I read Joth's story?" We're particular about our privacy. I wouldn't have dreamed of looking at it without permission.
She popped the door open, "Good. While you're here can you zip my robe?" I stepped in. Incense floated on the steam. A scent of new earth and green woods. The room was tiled in teal blue and cluttered with plants, seashells and crystals. Her robe was a sleeveless gown of brown and tan striped wrinkle-cotton.
"You going to be warm enough in that?" I zipped the dress. The pattern reminded me of sand and camels.
"We're at Mara's house tonight, so it'll be inside. Listen, about Joth--"
"He's pretty weird." I put down the lid on the toilet and sat to watch her get ready.
"He seemed normal in class. I don't know what was with him, but be careful. Don't let him in the house again unless I'm home. Or anybody else we don't know."
"You think the fundamentalists are after us again?"
"I don't think so. But be on the safe side. You have the number over at Mara's?"
"Won't she have the phones off?"
"Right. I'm not thinking. Use Cath's beeper number if you need me--its on the chalkboard over my desk. Emergency only."
"So can I read it?"
"Sure. Maybe you can figure out what his problem is. So how was school today?"
"Okay, I guess. Ornstedder was out sick and so was Quinn."
"Ornstedder? She's the biology teacher, right? The one with the O-so-pink nails?"
I laughed. Mrs. Ornstedder was over-the-top vain about her manicures. Her nails were huge and so long they looked like talons and always in some eye-attacking shade of pink or magenta. "Yeah. That's the one. The Bitch of Bio and the Crone of Chemistry. Everybody was sort of hoping she'll come back with her parts dissected and labeled."
"Gods, Willa."
"Well a crone's not a bad thing, right?"
"Not that. Do you really hate her that much?"
"She's...I guess she's just bitter. And grumpy. And she's got this annoying voice. Sounds like a wanna-be Julia Child. Makes it hard to understand what she's saying, but it's our fault if we miss something."
Mom fished around in a box of jewelry on the counter and found a snake bracelet. "So how was the sub?"
"Pretty cool. She 's sort of slick and tailored the way neither of us are good at. I didn't know if I should admire her or mess up her hair."
Mom giggled and looked in the mirror then reached up to pat her hair. It was drying and starting to frizz already.
"So anyhow, she mostly let us read or hang out."
"Yeah, because that will be so helpful to your getting into college."
"Well I worked on that nature tracking article. Bria--that's the sub''s name--said it was pretty good. She thinks I could send it to a real magazine."
Choosing a pair of brown-beaded earrings, Mom started putting them on. "See, it's not just me. You're a good writer."
"Quinn doesn't think so. He's always marking me down for grammar."
She sighed. "The rules are there to know and then know when to break. It's all about tone, clarity and good dialog."
"You always say that."
"Because it's true. Maybe I should go down tomorrow and talk with him again. He's messing up your grade average by giving you marks off."
"Well, don't bother tomorrow. They think him and Ornstedder will be out for at least a week. Ornstedder actually had to go to the hospital. Somebody said the flu."
"The hospital? Wow, nasty."
"Yeah."
"I was reading that the flu shots might even be causing the flu. And it seems to be going around. I hope we don't get it. Can you get me my cape? It's still a bit cold at night."
After Mom left, I put the kids to bed and settled into an overstuffed living room chair with a cup of Earl Grey and Joth's manuscript. Odin came in through the cat door and stalked right past me. He sniffed around the kitchen, and then deciding that the remnant of Joth's scent was no cause for worry, settled down in front of his crunchie dish.
The story looked like your basic Sword & Sorcery. The writing was a bit stilted, but ought to clean up with a quick edit. The dialog was crisp, but definitely not enough of it. "Maybe if he dramatized a few more of the scenes...."
It started with these two groups of faery Sidhe. They were arguing over whether or not to close "The Gates." The Seelie--that was the first group--wanted to keep them open. The second group, the Unseelie, wanted them closed so that the Blind Ones on the other side of The Gates couldn't intrude on them. Seelie and Unseelie? Couldn't he come up with a better name for one group? This sounded too much like Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
"Wait a minute." I got up and went back to Mom's office. She keeps most of the Wiccan books there so that casual visitors don't see them. I pulled out a book on Celtic magick. "Seelie Court," I read, "faeries benevolent to humans." Then, "Unseelie Court, evil faeries who are never friendly to humans. See Sluagh."
Okay, so his story had a bit of historical accuracy. He should still change the names.
Back in the living room, Odin had helped himself to my chair. I ruffled the fur on his huge, ugly head and he started to purr. "Chair thief." I scooped him up and sliding into the chair, set him on my lap. He refused to let me read, butting his head against the manuscript and drooling copiously on my lap until I set down to a serious petting session.
After a while the beast settled down, and I went back to Joth's story. The Seelie thought the Blind Ones were salvageable, and also thought that if The Gates were closed, the world of the Blind Ones would die. Some of them thought that the faery world would die too.
The hero of the story was a young Seelie, whose grandfather had told him that among the Blind Ones would be born a Revealer who would open The Gates. Right now, The Gates seemed to be propped half open, a point which seemed nebulous to me. The Seelie-hero set off on a series of adventures, to uncover a riddle which would give him the identity of the Revealer. But he was thwarted by his sister who was one of the Unseelie. Huh, so this Seelie/Unseelie thing wasn't hereditary, but more political?
The sister wanted to kill the Revealer. She'd had some incident in the past (the manuscript wasn't clear about that) where she'd become convinced that the Blind Ones would turn Faery into what sounded like a sort combo mall, amusement park and tourist destination.
Eventually the Seelie-hero traveled to the realm of the Blind Ones and tried to solve the riddle. Would he be able to rescue the Revealer before the Unseelie got to him? Naturally, the manuscript left off there. Just when it was finally getting interesting.
I yawned and tried to slide the cat from my lap. He dug his claws into my jeans and I had to pry each claw loose. Odin purred and licked my hand, then let me free.
I rinsed out my teacup and checked on the kids. They were fast asleep. I decided to learn from their example.