Three times Henk managed to evade the kelpie’s flashing hooves. He scuttled backwards over the stones, scraping his fingers, not caring, just trying to get out of the way. But now the river was at his back and there was no place left to go.
The mist wreathed around his legs as he slowly rose into a kneeling position. The kelpie moved towards him, hooves clacking on the stones. Henk could smell the sweat of his own fear, clinging to him. He’d gone all the way through and past his terror into a place where only resignation was left.
The kelpie rose on her hind legs.
This was it, Henk realized. There was no escape, not with the river at his back, the kelpie in front of him. He was too tired to even stand adrenaline having stolen all his strength in his earlier moments of panic.
But before the hooves could strike, a voice called out.
The kelpie hesitated, forelegs slashing the air close enough to Henk’s face that he could feel the air of their passing. She backed away, came down on all fours, then turned her head in the direction of the interruption, regaining human form as she did.
Henk stared numbly at the little man on his shaggy pony and couldn’t feel a thing.
I don’t want to be here, he thought, but he still couldn’t move to take advantage of the distraction and escape.
“Why do you deny me his life?” the kelpie asked Henk’s saviour.
Dohinney Tuir sighed. “Because it’s not yours to take, Loireag. He’s an innocent.”
“He’s a man,” Loireag replied. “That used to be reason enough. And he’s no innocent. He called the Pook’s name and that of her consort as well.”
“You turned Jemi away from Kinrowan. If you killed this man, you would do as great an injustice as the Pook would have done had she led us against the Court.”
Loireag grimaced.
“I have to do something,” she said finally. “Jenna’s dead, Tuir. I can’t just leave it at that.”
“Now you know how Jemi feels why she called the rade to go against the Court. Neither of you has the right of it.”
“The man is on my shore,” Loireag said. “He’s prying about my haunts. It’s my right to take him if I so choose.”
“When your anger is directed against another not him?”
“Don’t, Tuir. Don’t confuse me.”
Henk listened and watched, still not moving. The woman was silent for a while now and the little man on the pony turned to him.
“This is a bad place for such as you,” Tuir told him. “On a night like this and for many a night to come, I’ll warrant. Go. Now.”
As though the hob’s words were the catalyst to free him, Henk stumbled to his feet. He stared at the two figures, then, from his new vantage point, caught a metallic gleam by a tree nearby and knew it to be Johnny’s bike. As he thought of his friend, his mind began to work once more.
“Johnny,” he said. “Give me back my friend.”
I don’t believe I’m doing this, he thought. I’m talking to fairies in Vincent Massey Park, for Christ’s sake. I’m going as bonkers as Johnny.
Except it was all real.
“We don’t have him,” the hob said.
“And we don’t want him,” Loireag added.
“But”
“Go!” Tuir cried. “This is not your place, man. Tonight it belongs to us.”
Henk fought down the impulse to argue any further. He edged his way around them to where Johnny’s bike was chained to the tree. With fumbling fingers, he worked over the combination lock, loosened the chain, and wound it around the bike’s seat post. The two faerie watched him, eyes not blinking, silent as statues.
Shivering, Henk got on the bike and turned it away from them. Fear cat-pawed up his spine as he turned his back on them. He aimed the bike in the direction of Billings Bridge and set off down the bike path. When he dared a quick glance back, the stony beach was empty.
He tried to fight down his fear, but it built up in him again and he pedaled for all he was worth until he reached the shopping mall near the bridge. Gasping with relief and lack of breath, he steered the bike into its lit parking lot. He was shaking as he chained the bike up to a lightpost and stuck his hands in his pockets as he entered the twenty-four-hour donut shop standing by itself across the parking lot from the plaza.
He ordered coffee and managed to take it to a stool by the window without spilling it. As he sipped, his nerves slowly grew less jangled. He stared out the window then, into the almost empty parking lot.
It was a Wednesday night. Sensible people were at home, watching TV, maybe reading a book, doing normal things not tripping through a park looking for a friend who’d gotten himself kidnaped by goblins.
Faerie.
We don’t have him, the little man had said.
Then who did?
And we don’t want him, his nightmare had added.
But I still want him, Henk thought. Only I don’t know how to get to him.
The kelpie had called Johnny the Pook’s consort and what the hell did that mean? He took another sip of his coffee and continued to study the parking lot. He wanted to do something, but didn’t know what. In the end, he just sat there, trying to convince himself that none of it had really happened, knowing all the while that it had.
After a while, he got a second cup of coffee, then a third, but by the time he’d finished them as well as some donuts, he was still no closer to an answer. At length he returned to the bike and started to pedal back to Johnny’s apartment.
Twelve
His true name was Colorc Angadal and though he’d passed through Lochbuie once, it was not a place that he could call home.
There was no place he called home. A droichan could have no home. They stole their sustenance from the Moon and, sooner or later, if they remained in one place too long, the Moon would see that a price was paid. So the droichan took what they wanted, from here, from there, moving on before the local faerie grew aware of what it was that threatened them and banded against the enemy, or the Moon found some other method of payment.
It was heroes, usually, that the Moon called up. Sometimes skillyfolk, like a Pook. Sometimes it was a combination of the two and Colorc hated them the most: the Jacks. Too clever. Too brave. The Moon sained them too well, and filled them with luck in the bargain.
When Kinrowan’s Jack disappeared through the third floor window of her Tower, his anger at her kind burst forth in a long shrieking wail of rage. Then he regained control of himself, went downstairs, and sent them out those of the Host who’d come under his banner in their twos and threes, eager to feed on the luck he gave them and always eager to bring chaos to Seelie folk. He sent them out to hunt that Jack bogans and sluagh, little twig-thin gullywudes and toothy hags, trolls, and other Unseelie creatures. He sent as well the shadow from his own back that could take the dark shape of a kelpie and the winged shape of a crow, but mostly ran free as a black hound.
They would find her and bring her back. If not the Host, then surely his shadow, for his shadow had her scent.
He watched them go, then returned to that room on the third floor that stank of Bhruic Dearg’s magic. The Jack had played him for a fool, but she’d had it right. The Gruagagh of Kinrowan had left a strong spell to protect his Tower and especially its heart this room. He’d tied it to intent, no doubt of that, and there was no way that Colorc could hide his intent from its spell.
He frowned, walking about the room. He stood where the Jack had lifted a book from a worktable, but there was nothing for him to feel there. He looked out the window and saw only the street outside, not what the Jack had seen. Not what she had escaped to.
“Too clever by far,” he muttered.
Both the Jack and he himself had been too clever, but she’d won out, while he was left with only the ashes of her trick tasting dry in his mouth.
He had heard of Kinrowan, of its troubles and how this Jack had put an end to them. By luck, the tale went as it journeyed through the Mid
dle Kingdom. Shining with luck was Kinrowan’s Jack. And then he heard the rumour that Bhruic was gone, leaving this new Jack lucky, yes, but largely untried in his stead.
Colorc hated Bhruic. Colorc had known the Gruagagh before becoming a droichan; more than once in those early years Bhruic had stood against him. It was Bhruic who convinced Yaarn not to take him on as an apprentice. Bhruic who had kept him from the sea wisdoms that the merfolk had been willing to teach him. Bhruic who spoke against him in the owl’s parliament.
“He has no compassion,” was the Gruagagh’s explanation for his persecution. “He has no heart.”
No heart? If that was what they thought, then let it be true. And he turned to the forbidden knowledges of the droichan.
He kept a wide berth of Kinrowan, for he was unwilling to confront Bhruic Dearg until he was sure of his victory. But he’d kept an eye on the realm. And when he learned of Bhruic’s departure
It seemed befitting that he choose the faerie of Kinrowan as his next prey.
The risk to himself appeared minimal. Kinrowan no longer had a gruagagh. Its Court was small. Its Unseelie neighbors were recently defeated and in need of a leader. Its fiaina sidhe few in number. It had seemed perfect.
And at first, it had been so.
Colorc had begun as he always did by stealing the luck of the sidhe. The solitary faerie rarely banded together for anything but their rade, so it was unlikely that they would rise against him in a group. All went well until their Pook went in search of help. That he couldn’t allow. He’d meant to play her out for as long as he could the taste of her luck, even diminished from lack of a rade, was so tenderly sweet but he had no wish for a Bucca in Kinrowan. A Bucca was worse than a Jack. And almost as bad as a gruagagh.
With the Pook dead, he’d meant to continue his slow assimilation of Kinrowan, but that was before luck ill luck, he saw now, the Moon’s sainly curse on him had delivered the Jack and her friend into his hands. It had seemed so clever to threaten them with his shadow, and then “rescue” them. Oh, yes. The Moon had made that seem so simple. And then the Jack’s own naive simplicity had let her invite him into her Tower.
But he’d been
“Too clever by far,” he repeated bitterly.
And too greedy.
It was greed that made it all go wrong. For first the Jack’s companion escaped. Then the Jack herself. All because he’d reached for too much, all at once.
He tasted the ash of his defeat again. He had to be careful. The Moon’s influence was strong in Kinrowan. With the widdershinning of his plans, he could well lose it all. His heart. Safely hidden, yes, but with the Jack loose
He turned away from the window, shaking his head. No, that must never be. Better he cut his losses than risk that. If they found his heart
A droichan who died, died forever. There were no further turns on the wheel of life for them. No final rest in the Region of the Summer Stars.
He would give it a day, he decided. No more than two. If the Jack wasn’t in his power again by then, he would move on. There were other realms. Not so sweet as Kinrowan, perhaps. Without such a perfect mix of the Courts and sainly borderfolk. But they would do.
Power was sweet, but life was sweeter.
Closing the door to the third-floor study, he made his way back downstairs to wait for word. From the Host, perhaps, though it was more likely that his shadow would bring her back.
Without fire, there was no light, the old saying went. But the fire could leave ashes, too a good thing to keep in mind, for a Jack’s luck burned like fire. It was good to remember the ashes.
Dark-eyed, Colorc stared out into the night beyond the kitchen windows and waited for his shadow to return. But when it finally did return, it was to bring him word that the Pook was abroad in Kinrowan once more.
Colorc ran his fingers through his hair and frowned.
That could not be. He had stood over her body himself, drunk the final flicker of her fire from her death. But the image that his shadow gave him was of the Pook’s face, dark with sorrow and anger, walking the streets of Kinrowan.
For a long moment the droichan stared out into the night beyond the kitchen’s windows. Then he arose and, drawing his shadow close to him like a cloak, he went out into the night himself.
Thirteen
Jemi Pook, Johnny discovered, was very easy to argue with. She insisted on going alone into Kinrowan, arguing that what she was looking for would be easier to find by herself. She had sidhe blood, after all; he didn’t. She knew Kinrowan and its faerie, by sight at least, if not to speak to; he didn’t. It was her sister who had died; not his. It was her responsibility; not his.
“I just want to help,” Johnny said.
“I know. And you can help right now by letting me do this on my own. I’m not helpless, Johnny.” Her expression softened. “It’s better this way,” she added. “I can go places that you can’t. The faerie will at least talk to me. If they see you with me, they’ll only hide. You see that, don’t you?”
“All I can see is that something out there killed your sister and if you go chasing after it, it’ll probably get you as well.”
“I’ll be careful.”
Like Jenna was careful? Johnny wanted to say, but it was unnecessary. The question hung between them, unspoken.
“I’ll go as far as your apartment with you,” Jemi said. “Will you wait for me there?”
“It’ll be hard just waiting.”
“I know. But I will need your help later, Johnny. Once I have a name. I’m not trying to shut you out of my life. We’ve only just met and I want to know you better. I want to see if the Bucca’s bone carvings know what they’re doing.”
The look she gave him was pure warmth. It melted away Johnny’s reservations. The thought of enchantment, of being ensnared in a glamour, crossed his mind, then dissolved and was gone. He didn’t care if it was magic that had brought them together. This Bucca, whoever he was, could work all the magics he wanted. What Johnny wanted to do was follow through on the promise he saw in Jemi’s eyes, because he’d never before experienced anything like what he was feeling now.
“I’ll wait for you,” he said.
“I wasn’t sure you would,” Jemi said, “but I’m glad you will. Things have got to get better.”
But the warmth was fading from her eyes and the pain was back again. She touched his cheek with the back of her hand, then stood. Johnny fetched his fiddle case and they went out into the night.
They didn’t speak much on the walk up to Johnny’s apartment. At the corner of Bank and Third Avenue, they paused.
“Wish me luck,” Jemi said.
Her voice was small, almost plaintive, but Johnny didn’t start the argument up again.
“Luck,” he said.
A quick fierce grin came and went across her features. Johnny could see the strain of her sorrow, the dark feral light of her anger in her eyes.
It had to be her sidhe blood, he thought. That was what made her so mercurial.
She leaned close for a moment and tilted her head. When Johnny kissed her, she nipped his lower lip, then stepped quickly back. Without another word, she turned and headed up Bank Street.
Johnny rubbed his lip and watched her go until she reached Second Avenue. Sighing then, he turned down his own street. He didn’t see the light on in his apartment until he was right on the porch.
As Jemi walked on alone, it all came back to her. She saw the Bucca’s face broad and dirt-brown, lined like the patterning luck of moonroads; the dark curly hair; the small eyes, darker still, but golden like honey as well.
Salamon Brien.
He was a fat-cheeked, stout old man no taller than her own shoulder, always dressed in a motley array of Gypsy colours, with a rattling necklace of bone ornaments around his neck, and in each earlobe a gold ring the gold so pure it looked brassy. He’d left the borderlands near Kinrowan years ago. And Jenna had gone looking for him. To renew the rade.
br /> She thought of the rade, of all those times late afternoons crisp with autumn, nights dark with summer’s mystery listening to the Bucca talk of the moonroads and the rade, of the patterns in both and the luck they gave to the fiaina sidhe. He was teaching Jenna, but Jemi had listened to it all, feigning indifference, far more interested in the speckles on this mushroom than in what he said. Pretending to watch that bat flit, but her head was cocked near to hear it all.
The pattern of the rade rose in her mind’s eye. She saw Salamon walking it, a crow with white-speckled wings perched on his shoulder, Jenna pacing at his side silently mouthing what the Bucca told her so that she’d remember, and then there was her own younger self, straggling along behind them, hair as pink then as it was today. What Jenna studiously repeated to remember, Jemi could repeat word for word without needing to think about it. But Jenna was the elder and she had no mortal blood, and Jemi wasn’t interested in any of it anyway. But now
Now it was all in her lap.
The memories washed through her, impossible to avoid. Her eyes misted with tears. The Bucca long gone. Jenna dead.
She steered her steps away from the Court of Kinrowan where she had been going and turned instead towards her own apartment in Sandy Hill.
Click, clack.
She could recall the rattle of the Bucca’s necklace so well.
Click, clack.
Little bone ornaments carved into the shapes of instruments and animals and trees, buildings and faerie and even mortals. He told stories about them. A gnarled brown hand would reach up to stroke a tiny badger and he would tell a tale of mischief and tricks that made everyone laugh until their stomachs ached.
Click, clack.
“A tale in each one,” he’d said once. “And more tales when one touches another. And more again. And still more.”
He stroked one perfectly carved ornament after the other, the creamy bone gleaming under the touch of his fingers. He would never say who made them or where he’d gotten them, only that there were tales in them. Tales of times past. Tales of days to come. Every kind of story.