“Convenient.”
Galfreya drew herself up.
“So far,” she said, “I’ve responded to your insinuations and poor manners in a calm and polite manner—more for Geordie’s sake, than for yours, I might add. But one more snide comment, and I promise you will regret ever coming here.”
“I’m not scared of you.”
Galfreya smiled, but there was nothing friendly in her smile.
“You should be,” she said.
Then she turned her back on her uninvited guest and strode down the hall, back the way she’d come.
“Wait,” the stranger called after her.
Galfreya paused, but she didn’t look back or respond otherwise.
“Okay,” the stranger said. “So I’m an ass. I came here with a chip on my shoulder. But I’ve been worried about Geordie and from where I stood, it looked like you were the thing I needed to worry about.”
Galfreya turned to look at her.
“Your loyalty is commendable,” she said. “Your manners are not.”
“I’m trying to say I’m sorry, okay?”
“You have an interesting way of expressing it.”
“I don’t mean before. I mean now. My name’s Christiana, by the way.”
“I guessed as much when you said you were Geordie’s sister. He’s spoken of you to me.”
“Really?”
“Yes, he said you were bratty, but it’s part of what he likes about you, the moon knows why.”
“That’s the problem with family—you have to take what’s dealt to you.”
Galfreya shook her head. “I don’t think I agree. If the fit is wrong, you can still just walk away.”
“I meant the family you choose.”
“You can walk away from that kind of family, too.”
“But we both care about Geordie, right?”
Galfreya nodded. “We have that in common.”
“See, the thing is,” Christiana said, “I’ve seen how happy his brother Christy is, all settled down with Saskia. And I know Geordie sees it, too. And I also know that he’d like to have that kind of relationship with someone. The trouble is, he’s made poor choices. . . .”
“Love’s like that,” Galfreya said. “You can’t choose who you love.”
“Whatever. But he’s not even getting out anymore. He hasn’t had a date in at least two years, and we both know why that is.”
“Enlighten me.”
“He’s got this,” she waved her arm to take in the mall. “The parties you guys have, a place to play music with people who know a whole whack of tunes that his other friends don’t. And he’s got you—for company and a roll in the hay whenever the two of you are in the mood. So he doesn’t even look for anything else. But we both know that the relationship you guys have isn’t either what he needs or really wants. He needs . . . I was going to say a real woman . . .”
“Says the shadow.”
“I know—made up of all the cast-off bits of his brother. I should talk. And that’s why I’m not going to say a real woman. He just needs someone who can commit. Someone who isn’t the immortal Mother Crone that you are, who won’t even leave this mall to go somewhere with him.”
“I have responsibilities.”
“And they’re none of my business. But Geordie is. His happiness is. That’s why I came to ask you to let him go. That’s why I showed up with the big chip on my shoulder because this whole business has been totally pissing me off.”
“And now?”
“Now I don’t know what to say except, maybe he should have the chance to find out what’s out there, even if it’s dangerous. I’ll watch his back, and I’m guessing you will, too.”
Galfreya gave a slow nod. “For Geordie’s sake, we can be allies. But we will never be friends.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Christiana said. “I should have remembered. Mumbo was forever telling me that fairies never forget a slight, no matter how large or small.”
“You were a student of Mumbo’s?”
“She showed me the ropes when I first manifested.”
“Mumbo has always had a generous nature. I’m surprised to find a charge of hers with such a lack of common sense and manners.”
“Okay,” Christiana said. “I deserved that. But I already said I was sorry. What more do you want?”
Galfreya shook her head. “I don’t want anything. I’m just wary of the darkness you carry inside you—the shadow of a shadow that has no love for my people.”
“Fine,” Christiana said. “Make up a new bogeyman for yourself, if it makes you feel any better. But for the record, I don’t care about fairies one way or the other, except in relation to Geordie. Cut him loose from whatever enchantment you’ve put on him, and you’ll never have to hear from me again.”
And with that, she was gone. Stepped between and disappeared, taking with her all opportunity for further conversation.
Galfreya stared at the place from which the shadow had vanished.
She hadn’t handled that well.
Christiana’s cocky manner had put her off, as had the shadow’s insights into Galfreya’s relationship with Geordie. There was an enchantment on the fiddler, a small calling-on glamour that kept him returning to play at their revels and of which he was unaware. Galfreya was loath to remove it, for his safety—that much hadn’t been a lie—but also because she liked having him in her company. There was no spell that made him pay attention to her. Unlike other fairy women, she always insisted on her consorts having freedom of choice. That made it all the sweeter when they were drawn to her.
And Geordie’s affection was sweeter still, for he could say no as well as yes, as he had this morning. So when he did stay, it was because he wanted to. Because he wanted her.
She sighed.
She’d known it wouldn’t last. If it hadn’t been this, it would have been something else, because dealing with humans was always a chancy proposition. They were unpredictable and willful—much like the shadows they could cast from themselves. Enspelling Geordie had always been only a stopgap measure, not a permanent solution. And really, she knew better than any, that a foretelling would always play out. If not sooner, then later.
The fates of men and fairies weren’t inexorably etched in stone. If there were weavers, making a pattern on their looms of how lives were lived, they could only nudge and hint, not force fate to unfold on some strict schedule. And a seer’s vision saw only probabilities, not truth. The only truth was now. The past was clouded by memory; the future, in the end, forever a mystery. Even to a seer.
She knew Geordie would face a grave danger once he left the protection of her court. But not when, or how it would come to him. Only that it would come. And by keeping it at bay, she was denying him the opportunity of growth through adversity. The mettle of men and fairies was tested not by lighthearted revels, but by stepping out into the dark forest of destiny.
She pulled a small leather bag from where it hung under her sweatshirt and opened its mouth. From it she took a token—a small, rough representation of a fiddle made of clay, blood, and spit, one brown hair taken from the head of a fiddler while he was sleeping in her bed, the words that encompassed his true name, and a calling-on glamour.
She regarded it for a long moment, then lifted her gaze to where the dead cousins struck their unnatural, taxidermal poses.
“I don’t do this for you,” she said, speaking to the shadow as though she were still present. “I do it because time can’t be held back forever. I do it for him.”
Then she dropped the clay fiddle to the floor and ground the broken pieces into dust.
“But I would have kept him for a hundred years, if I could.”
Then she, too, stepped away into her own between, and the dead cousins had the central court to themselves for the few hours before the stores opened and the shoppers descended upon the mall.
Jilly Coppercorn
“You’re breaking up with me,” Daniel said.
>
I looked at him across the kitchen table, the remains of the Indian takeout he’d brought for our supper scattered between us. I understood that he couldn’t quite believe it. I couldn’t quite believe it myself. We’d been together for a couple of years and if there was ever a perfect guy, it was Daniel. But that was the problem. He was too perfect. He was so perfect I was choking on our relationship, but how could I tell him that?
“I think it’s for the best,” I said, which was so lame and not even close to an explanation.
“But we’re such a good fit.”
I shook my head. “We’re not really.”
“We like all the same things.”
We did. But that was only because he liked whatever I liked. He didn’t bring anything of himself to the relationship, and I’d known it for awhile now. I was just too lazy to do anything about it. Too comfortable in the easy familiarity of his company. And let’s admit it, flattered that a guy as handsome as him, at least ten years my junior, was so into me when most people couldn’t see past the wheelchair and the broken bits that define who I am. Of course, being a caregiver, Daniel saw past my handicaps to the person I was because it was second nature for him. He did it all day in his work.
“It’s not you,” I said, falling back on what’s truly the lamest bit of break-up dialogue that’s ever come out of people trying to disengage themselves from the affections of another. “It’s me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I don’t really either,” I lied. “I just know it’s not working for me.”
“This is . . . god, it’s so out of nowhere. I really didn’t see this coming. I mean, you hear about it all the time when a relationship goes down in flames, but I never thought I’d be so blind to it.”
“We’re not going down in flames,” I said. “We’re just readjusting the parameters of our relationship.” Don’t say it, I thought, but the words came out of my mouth all the same: “I’m hoping we can still be friends.”
He gave a slow nod. “Yeah, right.”
“I know that sounded so stupidly cliched, but it’s true. I think we’d work better as friends than as a couple.”
He looked at me, and I made myself face the hurt in his eyes instead of looking away. I was so bad at this, but then it wasn’t like I really had a lot of experience. I’ve made lots of dear and close friends over the years, but you could count my serious relationships on one hand.
“I should go,” he said.
I didn’t say anything. I thought he should go, too, but I didn’t want to make this any worse than I already had. Better to say nothing.
He stood up. I started to roll my wheelchair away from the table, but he shook his head.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I can find my way out.”
“Daniel . . .”
He shook his head. “There’s nothing more to say, really, is there?”
“No, I guess not.”
So I sat there in the kitchen and watched him walk down the hall. He got his coat from the hook by the front door and put it on. A moment later, the door closed behind him and I was alone in the house. The Professor was off visiting his friend Lucius. Goon—properly Olaf Goonasekara, the Professor’s housekeeper—was also out. None of my friends would be dropping by because they knew I was spending the evening with Daniel.
I wished now that I’d let one of them in on what I’d planned to do tonight. I hadn’t because I was sure they’d try to talk me out of it. I’d probably have let them talk me out of it. But I knew I’d done the right thing.
At least I thought I did.
I stayed in the kitchen, staring down the hall and not moving for a long time, before I finally turned the wheelchair around and rolled it into the refurbished greenhouse at the back of the house. Sophie and I shared the greenhouse as studio space. The long work tables held a barrage of art supplies: tubes of paint, palettes, brushes, sketchbooks, pencils, charcoal. We each had an easel set up and there were canvases everywhere, leaning against the walls and crammed under the tables. The room smelled of turps and the geraniums that Goon wintered on shelves along one wall.
It was easy to tell who worked where. My area looked like a hurricane had hit it, and the paintings were all big, blocky pieces without a lot of details. Sophie’s was perfectly organized, and her paintings were far more accomplished than anything I’ve been able to do in years.
Messy though my area was, I didn’t really do that much in it because I hadn’t been able to paint properly since the accident. And no, don’t feel sorry for me. I was alive, wasn’t I? I could still move around. I used the wheelchair in the evening because I was usually just so tired by that point, but most of the day I got from here to there by walking. Okay, shuffling, with a cane or two, but I was still mobile. A lot of people didn’t even have that. I used the chair when I went to rehab, or if somebody took me out so that we weren’t forced to go at the snail’s pace I could manage, but I wasn’t trapped in it.
Not like I was trapped in my inability to make art—or at least the kind of art I wanted to make. The art I once did make. Nowadays my best art took place in my imagination.
I had an art gallery in my head holding all the paintings that the Broken Girl I was couldn’t paint anymore. At least not with brush in hand. The accident left me with a right arm that had no strength, and I couldn’t stand for very long at an easel anymore. Trying to work sitting down was very disconcerting after a lifetime of being able to pace around my canvas. And lately my left hand, which I’d been learning to use, had developed a little tremor that the doctors couldn’t explain. All I knew was it made detail work impossible. I could do broad strokes—big, painterly canvases—but the work I loved, the intricate paintings, were still out of reach.
So I did them in my head.
They took just as long as the physical ones did, but I didn’t begrudge the time. What did trouble me was that I couldn’t share them and that made me feel like I was talking to myself because I’d always seen the creative process as a conversation. Music needed listeners. Books needed readers. Art needed viewers. Not so much during the process. But for sure when it was done—or at least as done as art ever was. I always had to force myself to finally let go or I could fuss with a painting forever, even if the painting only existed in my head.
I know, it’s weird. But I’d always had an active imagination, and my whole life I’d been out of step with most of the world. After the accident, that didn’t change.
The accident.
I hated how my life was divided in two by an event over which I never even had control.
One moment, I was walking along the side of a street. The next, I’d been hit by a car. When I came to, I was in a hospital and parts of my body no longer worked as well as they once did. How was that for a wake-up call? But at least I woke up.
I didn’t know what I missed the most. Dancing and bounding about, going for long rambles when the city’s asleep, when it’s just me and all the wild and wooly spirits of the night out there on the streets. Or my painting. My art.
It was all one and the same, I guess. I’d always lived my life like it was this great big messy canvas that was never going to be finished, but that didn’t stop me from trying to experience and fill every square inch of it. Now everything felt separate. Everything took concentration. Things I used to just do without thinking. Standing up. Walking across the room. Getting dressed. And painting . . .
It was hard for me, doing these big sloppy paintings. The only way I could do detailed stuff was when I used this paint program that Mona put on one of the Professor’s old laptops for me, but it wasn’t the same. Nothing was the same.
I didn’t know what I was doing in the studio right now. I should have been in the kitchen, cleaning up the mess Daniel and I made before the Professor came home. Or worse, if Goon came upon it before I got the chance to tidy. Goon was invariably grumbling and cranky at the best of times, so I tried not to give him anything concrete to complain about. I l
ived here on the Professor’s sufferance and generosity, and I knew I shouldn’t abuse the privilege.
But I couldn’t make myself go back into the kitchen. Not just yet.
I was . . . I want to say sad, but that wasn’t really it. I did feel sad, but I also felt relieved, and guilty, and kind of mean-spirited for breaking up with Daniel the way I just had. It really did come out of the blue for him.
I sighed. Well, right or wrong, the deed was done.
It was dark, here in the greenhouse. The only illumination filtered in through the door behind me, but it wasn’t strong because all I had lit in the room beyond was a small table lamp. When I looked at the walls of windows, I could easily see past my faint reflection to the gardens beyond. I’d like to roll my chair out there, look at the stars and breathe in the night air, but I knew it was too chilly to go as I was and I didn’t have the energy to go back inside and get a jacket. It was mild out there this evening, especially compared to the winter that was still a visible memory at the back of the garden where patches of snow vied for space with the first green shoots of tulips and crocuses. But it wasn’t T-shirt weather.
This past winter had felt relentless. It started to snow right after Halloween and the snow stayed on the ground, thick and deep, until just recently. I was tired of it. Tired of the weather making it harder for me to get out of the house. Having to wait for the ploughs to come before I could take my wheelchair out onto the sidewalk.
I lifted my left hand and held it up in front of my face. The tremor wasn’t so bad today. I lifted my right hand and slowly made a fist, uncurled my fingers. It was like walking was for me these days. I had to think about it.
Another sigh escaped me.
I was also tired of feeling sorry for myself, but I guess that was what Broken Girls did. They sat around feeling sorry for themselves. They broke up with boyfriends that anybody else would have been delighted to have.
I needed some distraction and considered my options. I wasn’t in the mood to fight with my art, either physically or with my paint program on the laptop. I could check my e-mail, but that held no appeal. I could watch TV or a movie, but I’d done far too much of that over the winter. I could read a book, but even that was a chore. Hardcovers wore me out because of their weight. Paperbacks needed to be held open unless I broke the spine, and in this house, that was like a capital offense.