The Onion Girl

by Charles de Lint

  “And then,” she says, grinning, “you drink it down and wait for the change to come.”

  “What do you call it? A death’s wish cocktail?”

  Miss Lucinda’s still grinning. “I like a girl with a sense of humor.”

  “I’m guessing there’s some pain involved,” I say.

  “Oh, there’s a lotta things involved,” Miss Lucinda says. “Pain’s only a part of it. You’re talking about shifting the whole makeup of who your body thinks you are. There’ll be fevers and shakes. You’ll be seeing things ain’t there, and the things that are there are gonna be wearing new skins for a time. But you get through it, I believe you’ll find it worth it.”

  “Not everybody gets through it then?”

  She shakes her head. “There’s some ain’t got the gumption it takes.” She looks from me to Pinky. “Course only the one of you’s got to go through it. Then the other could just share a bit of her blood with her friend.”

  “Thought you said these People didn’t ’bide that kinda thing?”

  “Oh, they can tell when it’s a willing gift or if it’s been stolen.”

  We sit another spell then, Pinky and Miss Lucinda smoking, me thinking.

  “I know why we come to see you,” I say afore we go, “but why’re you helping us? I know you’re one of these People, or pretty close-related. We could just take your blood, now’s we know.”

  “Could you?”

  There’s a change in her voice, low and dangerous, and her dark eyes are almost black now. I hear the clink of a glass and know that sudden wind’s moving in the branches a the bottle tree again.

  “Not that we would,” I quickly tell her. “It’s just got me wondering, is all.”

  The eyes are still black when her gaze settles on me.

  “People come, time to time,” she says, “asking for something. Looking for potions and spells. Had me a girl with a desperate need to fly like a bird, once. But most of them ain’t going to make the world any more interesting if I take the time to help them. Just the opposite, in fact. But you, girl—” She’s looking right at me. “You’re different.”

  “Different how?”

  “There’s a light in you,” she says, “a dark light so strong it hurts the mind to look on it too long. So you’re wondering why I’m helping you? That light tells me you could make things interesting again, if a body were to give it a little direction.”

  She lifts a hand before either me or Pinky can say a thing.

  “Oh, I know what I said,” she tells us. “How I like the simple life and all. But there’s two kinds of complications. The ones we bring on ourselves, and they ain’t nearly so entertaining, and then the ones the world brings on us. The kind that make you feel kinda desperate and alive while you’re trying to get through ’em in one piece.”

  “You feel like that,” I say, “why don’t you just give me a sip of that blood of yours and I’ll see how interesting I can make the world for you.”

  She shakes her head. “Don’t think I ain’t already thought’ve it. But the trouble you bring might not be appreciated by everyone. I don’t want none of it coming back on me—that’s bringing it on myself, y’see? The cousins aren’t so partial to those of us that meddle like you’re asking me to, and the one thing you never want is a whole mess of such powerful folks coming down on you all at once. Trust me on that one. I seen it happen afore.”

  She goes back to smoking then and I get the sense we’re all done here.

  “Well, we’re obliged for all your help,” I tell her, hopping down from the banister.

  “I’d say be careful,” Miss Lucinda says as we leave, “but if you were, that’d just spoil the fun.”

  She’s mocking us now, but there’s not much we can do. I don’t know exactly what she is, but them bottles start rattling on the tree beside us and there’s still no touch of no damn wind at all. So I just lift my hand and give her a smile.

  “Looks like we got our work cut out for us,” I say as we walk back through the forest to where we left the car.

  “You don’t believe that old bag, do you?”

  “You saw her change—just for a moment there. Some kinda animal face looking at us. I know you did.”

  “I don’t know what I saw,” Pinky says, “but none of it makes me feel comfortable.”

  “This ain’t about comfort,” I tell her. “It’s about being strong and getting stronger.”

  But Pinky only shrugs.

  I know what she’s thinking. We got no reason to believe that old woman. She don’t owe us a damn thing. But I got me the feeling that she was telling the truth. If nothing else, I think she’s looking forward to the idea of me and Pinky stirring up some trouble.

  I consider them dog boys that chased us off from our kill and I know I ain’t going to let that happen again. But first I got to get me strong. Stronger’n them, that’s for damn sure.

  When we go hunting that night, we’re somewhat cautious now as we don’t want to run into them dog boys again till we’re ready for ’em.

  We talk about that potion of Miss Lucinda’s, but it just sounds like too much work and we was always the ones to go for the quick’n dirty anyways. So when we cross over tonight, we’re looking for only one kind a scent—some kinda mix of human and animal like them dog boys had, ’cept we’re planning on finding us a smaller critter. Something not quite so fierce as them.

  Tonight’s a bust, and that pretty much sums up the next week or so, but I ain’t ready to go collecting all them potion ingredients just yet. By day I go haunting around my sister’s old neighborhood and apartment, not being too cautious, I guess, since a couple of her little friends spy me once or twice. One of ’em even follows me into a store, but she’s easy to lose.

  Of an evening afore we go hunting, time to time, I have me a look in on my sister her own self. Once I even stand there over her bed while she’s sleeping, wondering what she’d do if I put that pillow over her head and pushed down on it. Just pushed down hard and keep on a-pushing till all them broken bits of her stop moving altogether.

  But I don’t.

  I also take me a ride back up to Tyson one afternoon and park nearby that trailer park on the end of Indiana Road. I just want me a look-see at Del, for old times’ sake. There ain’t much moving around in the park ‘cept a bunch of raggedy dogs and even raggedier-looking kids. But then I finally catch me a glimpse of my old boogeyman. He comes a-shuffling out a his trailer, walking down to the mailboxes, don’t even look up at this mighty fine pink Caddy parked ’longside the road.

  The years haven’t been too kind on him, that’s a fact. He’s got him some ugly jowls and a bloated gut and he don’t look so much scary as pathetic. Still I have me a little dream as I watch him collect his mail. I see me walking up to him, snapping that switchblade open, waiting for the look in his eyes. There gonna be a hint of the old hard Del in ’em, or is he just gonna be scared?

  But I don’t find out. I let him go back inside his trailer and I sit there awhile longer, not thinking of much of nothing. Finally, I start up the car and make the drive back to Newford.

  And then one night we catch that smell we been looking for—part man, part fox—and I know we’re in business.

  We already determined we ain’t sharing this kill with the rest of the pack. We don’t know who or what they are and once we got what we want from the blood of this foxman, we ain’t gonna need them no mores anyhow. But right now they’re a help to us as we run down our prey.

  I guess the whole point of the dreamworld is that’s it’s going to be full of the unexpected, but I got to tell you, what we find tonight comes on us so outta the blue, my mind closes down on me and I pretty much stop thinking for a heartbeat or two. We’re hot on the heels of that little foxman, just a-tearing through the woods, he’s so close I can already taste his blood. I know we’re seconds from taking him down when we break into a clearing and who do we find but my sister and one of her friends.

  The
wind’s coming from behind us, so we had no warning, not no way. We just stop, the pack automatically forming a half circle, waiting for my lead. But me, I can’t think. All I can do is stare at them. Then I realize how scared they are, and I know we got ’em. Don’t know what the hell we’ll do with ’em, but we got ’em all right.

  I walk forward on stiff legs. That wash of red rage is flooding my sight. I think I’m going for ’em. The pack’s following my lead, edging closer. But then the friend just ups and vanishes. My sister and me, we lock gazes for a long whiles.

  “You know me, don’t you?” she says suddenly. “You know me and you really don’t like me much.”

  Big surprise there, sister of mine.

  I lunge for her, but then she follows her friend’s lead and just vanishes and I come up hard against the tree behind her. I lose my balance, fall in a tangle, rise up fast, snarling at the pack as they move closer. I piss on the place my sister was standing, then walk stiff-legged away, snapping at the shoulder of the nearest of the pack. She gets submissive real quick, let me tell you.

  I look at Pinky and she looks at me. We both know there’s no point in following our little foxman now. He’s gonna be long gone. I give Pinky a nod and we wake up, the two of us, lying on our motel bed.

  “That was her!” Pinky’s saying. “Goddamn, but if’n it wasn’t your own sister.”

  I can’t talk yet.

  It’s not just seeing my sister, it’s seeing her over there. In the dreamlands. My goddamn dreamlands.

  “How’d she get there first?” I finally manage to say. I sit up and look at Pinky. “How the hell did she get there, walking in her own body like she never got hurt?”

  “It’s a puzzle, all right.”

  I shake my head. “No,” I say, my voice still kinda rasping in my throat. The red veil’s still hanging over my eyes. “It’s a mistake. She made her a serious mistake ’cause now I got to put her down. No way I’m sharing this with her. You hear me, Pinky? She don’t get no more chances.”

  “You think this through,” Pinky says. “You don’t want to do no more time. Hell, we got us a death penalty still. You kill that girl and you’re going to get worse’n time. They’re gonna feed you the injection and that’ll be all she wrote.”

  “I can’t let this go.” I stare at Pinky. “All my life, everything that’s gone wrong with my life, it was her doing. I can’t let her have the dreamlands, too.”

  “I ain’t saying let it go. I’m saying use them brains of yours to find a cautious way to deal with it.”

  “I can’t think.”

  “Okay,” Pinky says. “You’re mad and hurtin’. That’s okay. So I’ll do your thinkin’ for you.”

  I just look at her.

  “First thing we’re gonna do,” she says, “is stay on track here. Hunt us down one of them critters and get the blood we need. And then—”

  “Then we hurt her.”

  Pinky grins. “Hell, Ray. Then we do any damn thing we want. Ain’t that how it’s gonna work?”

  I stare at her through the red haze, but it’s starting to fade now.

  “Yeah,” I say, my voice still rough. “That’s how it’s gonna work, all right.”

  Jilly

  NEWFORD, MAY

  Wendy really did plan to wait until the next day to go see Jilly with Cassie. She knew waiting would be the sensible thing to do. Sure, Jilly would like the adventure of Wendy sneaking in to see her after visiting hours, but considering how hard they were working her in the rehab, she’d probably be asleep by now anyway. But the problem for Wendy was that the whole experience with the cards already had a certain dreamlike quality about it. Having screwed up by losing the images on the cards, she now felt an urgency to share what she had seen with Jilly before her own memory of it faded away as completely as the images had.

  It would have been better if she was an artist and could simply render the images she’d seen, but her drawing skills didn’t go much past stick people, so writing it down would have to do. She’d go home and do just that, then, when she went to see Jilly tomorrow she’d have her notes and Cassie would be there to fill in whatever holes there might be in her memory.

  So home it was.

  She waited at the bus stop and got on her bus when it arrived. It wasn’t until she sat down that she realized how, without even thinking about it, she had gotten onto the bus that would take her to the rehab instead of the one back to her own apartment. Settling in her seat, she decided to allow fate to run its course.

  She didn’t have notes, or Cassie to help her out, but surely her memory would hold for a few more hours. She’d sneak into Jilly’s room, wake her if she had to, and tell her what she and Cassie had learned. But when she got to the rehab and snuck past the nurses’ station to Jilly’s room, it was to find Sophie sitting on the edge of the bed, the two of them arguing, voices pitched low.

  “What’s going on?” she asked from the doorway.

  Both of her friends started, looking almost guilty when they turned in her direction.

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” Sophie said. “Jilly’s gone all wonky on me—as bad as Jinx.”

  “Okay,” Wendy said. “Now I’m way confused.” She came into the room and sat on the end of the bed. “Anyone care to enlighten me?”

  “But aren’t you supposed to reach nirvana on your own merits?” Jilly said.

  Sophie gave her a pointed look. “Jilly,” she said in her “it’s time to be serious” voice.

  Jilly sighed. “Okay,” she said. “But this doesn’t mean I agree with you,” she added to Sophie.

  “About what?” Wendy asked before they could start to argue again.

  Between the two of them, they told her about their evening, how they’d traveled together to the dreamlands, the little man-faced fox they’d seen, the wolves, how the leader of the pack had reminded Jilly of her little sister.

  “Oh my god, oh my god,” Wendy said. “Now it makes sense.”

  Two blank faces turned in her direction.

  “I was just over at Cassie’s,” Wendy explained, “and she did a reading for me. Well, for Jilly actually. About this whole problem.”

  She described the three images that the cards had shown.

  “The first was obviously you when … when you were a kid,” she said.

  “Not necessarily,” Jilly told her. “Who knows what happened to Raylene after I left home.”

  For a moment none of them could speak as they considered another child having gone through the same torments that Jilly had.

  “Okay,” Wendy said, “but the wolves with those faces superimposed on them. The one that looked like you, Jilly. It could have been your sister, right, and not some … um … ?”

  “Evil psycho twin?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Did you and your sister resemble each other?” Sophie asked.

  Jilly gave a small nod. “The whole time we were growing up, she looked exactly like all the pictures of me at the same ages. So it makes sense that the resemblance continued. There was even this guy, when Geordie and I went back to Tyson in ’73, who thought I was her.”

  “So,” Sophie went on. “If it is your sister, which is starting to seem ever more likely now, she’s got access to the dreamlands as well. Along with a bunch of her friends.”

  “There was only one other person on the card,” Wendy said.

  “There were six or seven in the dreamlands.” Sophie gave a slow shake of her head. “And they were hunting this little man-faced fox. That can’t be good.”

  “Well,” Wendy said. “If she ran Jilly down with her car and then wrecked all her paintings, we’re not exactly talking about a nice person here.”

  “You don’t understand,” Jilly told them. “Raylene was just the sweetest little kid you could imagine. There’s no way she could do those kinds of things. We don’t know it was her.”

  “I saw her on the street outside your apartment,” Sophie said. “And so di
d Isabelle. At least we saw someone who looked just like you, Jilly. Who else could it have been? And if she didn’t wreck the paintings, then why’s she hanging around your street?”

  But if Jilly’s sister had destroyed the paintings, Wendy thought, why would she still be hanging around? But she kept the question to herself, not wanting to interrupt the flow of Sophie’s argument.

  “And if she doesn’t mean you any harm,” Sophie went on, “then why hasn’t she come to see you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What about the other card?” Wendy asked. “The pink Cadillac?”

  “It doesn’t even start to ring any bells,” Jilly said.

  Sophie started to nod in agreement, but then held up her hand.

  “Wait a minute,” she said. “I remember that morning I saw the doppelgänger. There’d been a pink car on the street that morning, farther down the block from your place. A long, pink convertible. I remember I started humming that Fred Eaglesmith song when I saw it.”

  That brought smiles all around—a welcome moment of respite from the intensity of their present conversation.

  They’d seen Eaglesmith playing with his band at Your Second Home in January and danced the night away like mad dervishes to the driving sound of surf guitar meets electric bluegrass/country rock, with those gruff but biting vocals of Eaglesmith and the driving delivery of his lyrics cutting above the sound of the band. They’d been utterly enchanted from the first song when they realized that the surf guitar was actually a mandolin treated with electronics. The icing on the cake was the mad percussionist, a fellow called Washboard Hank who’d played a washboard, naturally, but also had a metal fireman’s hat with a cymbal on it and all these air horns attached to the washboard. Each of them bought a different one of his CDs after the show and they’d been trading them back and forth ever since.

  “‘That’s a mighty big car,’” Jilly sang softly.

  Sophie nodded. “Maybe it’s hers. Your sister’s, I mean.”