by E M Graham
With that, he touched my face, then sent me spinning back into the craven grog pit behind me. The smell washed over me as I shut my eyes tight and threw myself out of Alt and back into the bar, where Jack and his friends were just finishing a tune.
Our eyes met, and his open face was clouded with worry.
‘WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?’ He looked down at me as I leaned against the fake brick, out of breath and still with the uncomfortable clammy feel of Alt on my skin. The stereo played grunge rock, loudly, at a level that hurt even my ears. We had to yell at each other to be heard. ‘One minute you were there, and then poof! You were gone. What the hell was that about?’
‘I had to go to the bathroom,’ I told him weakly. There was no way I could have begun to tell him what had just happened to me.
‘You must have moved pretty damn fast then, because the toilet’s clear on the other side of the room, and I didn’t see you in the crowd.’
I stared up at his clear hazel eyes, and understood that it was only concern for me that was making him sound so pissed off.
‘I’m not feeling so well, Jack,’ I told him truthfully. ‘I’m sorry, I better go home.’
‘Do you need a ride?’ Now he looked worried again.
‘No, I’ll be okay once I get out in the fresh air,’ I said. ‘Might be coming down with something, I don’t know. Besides, you need to finish your set.’
He glanced toward the platform where his bandmates were looking over at him, impatience on their faces and in their movements.
‘At least let me call a taxi for you,’ he said as he reached into his pocket for his phone.
‘It’s all right,’ I said as I placed my hand over his. ’Seriously, I just need to walk. I’m sorry to have to leave.’
‘Okay then,’ he said reluctantly. He drew his arms around me and we stayed in that soft hug for a moment. We’d never touched before, and he felt good and solid and strong, despite the lean lankiness of his limbs.
‘And Jack?’
‘Yeah?’ I could feel the rumble of his voice though the thin fabric of his t-shirt, my cheek on his chest.
‘You’re good. Your band I mean. You guys are really going to go somewhere.’
He gave me a squeeze. ‘Thanks for that.’
Jack moved his body back just a bit while still holding me in his arms, the better to look down at me. His eyes held concern, and something more, a shyness. I lifted my face up to his in answer to his unspoken question and our lips met, softly at first.
It was my first real kiss. I kid you not. Yeah, I’d kissed guys and been kissed before - hell, I wasn’t even a virgin – but that was just from curiosity. This moment with Jack was like nothing I’d ever shared before. I mean, the earth didn’t move and angel choirs didn’t burst into song, nothing like the romance books lead you to expect, but it was real.
His lips were soft yet hard, and he tasted of beer he’d drunk and the triumph of his night. His kiss was warm and crossed the barriers of our self-consciousness, touching me deep inside, and I just wanted to stay in that strong embrace forever and a day.
Maybe it doesn’t sound romantic, but it was. Two people who genuinely liked each other’s company, and liked what they thought they knew of the other. As if you took your best friend in the world and upped the intimacy level by ten and no one was worrying about stupid things like breath or body shape or a pimple marring the perfection because all that wasn’t important. It was a kiss without expectations.
The chords of the new song rang through the room and already I could feel him pull away, torn between leaving me and joining the music he loved. I let him go.
‘I’ll text you, okay?’ He gave me one last light squeeze.
‘Yep.’ I watched as he leapt back through the crowd and on to the platform.
The fresh air did help clear my head a bit. The night was cloudless and the wind sharp, shooting needles in through the seams of my winter hoody, the one lined with fake fleece. It was a warm coat but no match for this wintry wind. I headed straight into the ice of that breeze, down towards the west end of Water Street and home.
My feet didn’t want to go this path, but I forced myself into a brisk pace. Water Street was a funny kind of road. The middle bit of it, the downtown section with all the old stone business buildings and the traffic lights and the crowds, well, that was historical and so had a bit of magic infused everywhere you looked.
But the west end of Water Street where I was headed, well, that was different. Not many streetlights lit the way, and the inhabited buildings were few and far between. You rarely passed other pedestrians along here at night, and if you did they were the sort you’d rather not see, and that was in real time.
The veil between real and Alt was thin on this road at this hour of the night, and I was already weak from my experience with Willem. I was a moving target for any unscrupulous supernaturals who might be lurking.
So I was more than happy to see Mark’s white SUV pull silently up by me to give me ride home. I didn’t complain when he gave me a scolding for walking alone along here at night, just relaxed into the solid passenger seat of his vehicle and smiled as he squawked about my foolhardiness.
If he only knew the half of it.
7
JUST THAT SLIGHTEST TOUCH of the metal coin in Alt had been enough to tell me that my mother was still alive. Somewhere. Maybe not in real time, maybe not even in Alt, but it filled me with hope that I would find her. She was not dead.
I also knew her disappearance had something to do with magic, and I strongly suspected my father’s wife Cate. That witch was a cold-hearted bitch who had never shown any love for me. The one and only time she’d ever crossed our threshold had been shortly before Mom’s disappearance all those years ago. I could still recall the terrible screaming match between the two women, muffled as it was behind the heavy doors leading to the parlour.
Oh yeah, if anyone had anything to do with my mother’s disappearance, it was Cate.
I gave Mark a quick hug before I turned to go to upstairs
‘Thanks, Mark,’ I said. ‘You came along at the exact right time.’
He held me away from him. ‘Why didn’t you just call me? You know I’d come and get you. I hate the thought of you walking alone at night in that neck of the woods. There’s all sorts of weirdos out and about.’
I merely smiled at him fondly.
‘I don’t mean to nag,’ he added. ‘I’m not your father, but I still worry.’
No, Mark certainly wasn’t my Dad, but he’d been more of a father to me in the five years he’d known Edna than my own father had been my whole life.
How could Maundy object to Mark’s presence in the house? He was the anti-thesis of evil, that guy with not a bad bone in his body, and not a magical one, either. He was as solidly Normal as a person could be.
Maundy was a crackpot ghost who just hated change. If she had her way, we’d all be pretending to live just like the family did in 1900 or whenever it was she died, not changing a thing about the house even as it rotted away beneath our feet.
Tired and ill as I was feeling after my time in Alt, I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep. My nerves were jangling from the experience and my new certainty about Mom, so I decided to go up to the attic where all her stuff was stored. Yes, Edna and I had gone through everything with a fine tooth comb just after she disappeared, looking for a clue or a hint as to where she’d gone to but we’d found nothing at the time. A couple of years later Edna had lovingly packed everything away in to those cartons and lugged them up into the attic, but she’d said nothing as things of Mom’s started reappearing on me, like her jean jacket and her favorite blue scarf. My aunt understood.
Despite the single bulb which barely broke into the dark of the top story, this wasn’t a scary place for me for I knew it like the back of my hand. A narrow set of stairs wound around up to the attic door which never quite latched and had to be tied in place to prevent the draughts from reaching the second fl
oor below. Inside that door, the dormered attic stretched off in two directions, and the light bulb sat at the junction of the wings. The two tiny windows were dark with just a faint glow from the city lights beyond.
The trunks and boxes which held Mom’s stuff were over to the right, further on from the Christmas decorations. I could barely pick out the individual items in her boxes, but that was okay, I knew them all by heart. Besides, I was looking for something magical that might have been overlooked, and for that I could use my fingertips.
The wind was still galing at a pretty steady clip outside, and the noise of it almost masked the soft rustling from within, to my right, from the darkest corner of the attic. I stilled my hands in order to hear the noise better.
Great, I thought to myself, a squirrel or some other small mammal making its winter nest up here. Just what we needed. But when I sniffed I couldn’t find any animal smells in the close air of the attic. And then out of the corner of my eye, I saw a slight movement. It could have been caused by a swaying bulb, except that this single light was firmly fixed into place.
I moved slightly to allow the light from the bulb shine without shadows on the spot, but instead of a nest or a furry body all I saw was a large cream coloured paper bag, the kind with the stiff cardboard handles. This was brand new, and it looked just like the kind of bag I had sold by the hundreds to craftspeople, last week at the fair.
The rattle sounded again and I stared in horror as I watched the bag shake as if something was bound within but trying to free itself.
Yes, there could have been a squirrel inside that bag, but seriously? I knew the difference, I could feel the magic coming from it. That was no cute furry vermin.
I’d now found the reason I’d been feeling dread in this house. Maundy was partly right, in that Mark had brought this into our home.
HE WAS STILL in the kitchen downstairs, fixing himself a second supper from leftovers.
‘Hey, I thought you’d gone to bed already,’ he said. ‘Want a hot turkey sandwich?
I shook my head and plunged in.
‘Mark, did you get Edna a Christmas present?’
He looked up, surprised and proud. ‘Yes, I did.’
‘And was it...was it from that guy Willem’s booth?’
He grinned as he poured the gravy from the pot over his open face turkey sandwich. ‘Oh yeah, I couldn’t resist it. The troll I told you I was looking at? And the guy gave me an even better discount, a really big markdown and all on account of you, after his booth got closed down for his other stuff. I almost had to buy it, it would be criminal not to at that price.’
Yeah, that would be the way Willem worked. How was I to tell Mark he had to get rid of the thing? If I told him the truth, I’d have to tell him that he’d brought an enchanted troll into our house. And then I’d have to tell him everything, all about Willem and Alt, and a million other things which would just blow that all too solid mind of his. How much could he handle?
I bit my lip as I stared at him, then I tried.
‘Maybe it’s a not good idea to have it in the house,’ I began.
‘It’s safe enough, she won’t see it. Edna has her head in the clouds most of the time, you know that.’
‘Yes but... Christmas is coming! She’ll want to get the decorations down from the attic. She likes to start early, you know.’
Mark chewed his first bite as he thought, then nodded. ‘You are so right,’ he agreed, pointing his fork at me. ‘It’s a good thing you thought of that, or the surprise would have been totally ruined.’
‘There has to be a more secure hiding place,’ I said, pretending to think hard.
‘How about one of the front rooms?’
I shook my head.
‘Well, the basement then? She never goes down there,’ he suggested.
‘I don’t know...’ I needed the creature out of my house or I’d never be able to sleep. ‘Maybe you could take it to your office?’
I held my breath as he thought about it, then my whole body relaxed with relief as he nodded.
‘That’s a good idea,’ he said. ‘Then I can get it gift-wrapped while I’m at it.’
‘Great,’ I said. ‘That is just such a ... a great idea.’
‘Okay, I’ll retrieve it from the attic next week.’
‘No, do it tonight. Please Mark, it’s got to be tonight.’
‘Jesus, Dara, what’s with you? It’s just a stuffed toy,’ he said, looking at me closely with his cop senses on alert. ‘Isn’t it?’
I shrugged, and turned to fiddle with Hugh’s books which had by now migrated to the side counter along with the take-out coupons and dead batteries and bills and other stuff no one wanted to deal with.
‘What aren’t you telling me?’
This was it. This was my chance. I took a deep breath. ‘It’s creepy. Everything about Willem is creepy. I don’t want anything about him in this house.’
Mark was silent for a moment, and I could feel his stare boring into me.
‘Has Willem done anything to you?’ His words came slowly, and he spoke in a soft, non-threatening manner just like the school counsellor would do when she asked me why I’d been cutting classes in high school.
Besides hauling me into Alt against my will and asking me to be a part of his weird schemes? Besides taunting me with the only hope I had of finding my mother and making me dance to his tune? I couldn’t begin to explain all this to Mark.
‘I know he seems like a nice guy on the surface, but anyone can be nice,’ Mark continued. ‘Has he given you reason to be uncomfortable around him?’ He led me to the nearest chair and made me sit. As he placed himself across the table, he stared at me with concern under the light from the pendant lamp.
I hesitated.
‘Has he come on to you, Dara?’ Mark continued in that slow voice.
‘No, nothing like that, but...’
‘But what?’ He waited two long moments for me to speak, then continued. ‘The guy is plenty weird, like you say, a grown man pretending to be a sorcerer and playing dress-up. He’s a narcissistic wanker, if you ask me.’
I smiled weakly at him, and nodded. ‘Yeah, he is that.’
Mark thumped his fists on the old oak table top in frustration. ‘That’s it! I’m bringing the stupid thing back. I will not support a creep like him.’
‘No! Don’t do that,’ I said, quickly. ‘At least not yet.’
He meant well, but that would not be the best action. If the troll was returned, I’d never get my hands on the medallion that whispered of my mother. Willem was a failed sorcerer, kicked out of sorcerer’s college, Hugh said. He had some power, sure, enough to get me when my guard was down, and enough to put enchantment in the needle felted creatures he created. But I had power too, even though I’d barely begun to learn how to use it, and I would be careful. Even Willem recognized that I had power. I would get that medallion, but returning the troll would only be telling the sorcerer I knew what he was at.
‘Why? Why not yet?’
‘Mark, I need something from him,’ I confessed. ‘I can’t tell you what it is, okay, please don’t ask. I can’t stand the man, but I don’t want to alienate him just yet.’
He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms as he stared back at me for a long moment, weighing something in his mind. ‘Don’t play games, Dara. He may be crazy enough not to be totally harmless. Don’t get caught up with him.’
‘I’ll be okay,’ I said, pretending to be more certain than I felt. I straightened my shoulders and lifted my head to meet him in the eye.
Mark slowly shook his head. ‘I don’t know about this, Dara. But tell you what - I’ll run a report of him when I get back to work, maybe get the RNC to pay him a little visit. Never hurts to let creeps know they’re being watched, even if he is harmless.’
‘I’d just be happy to have the troll out of the house right now,’ I said. ‘I just... hate the thought of it in here!’
He nodded slowly. ‘Okay,
I’ll remove it from the house tonight if you feel so strongly,’ he said. ‘But I get the feeling that you’re not telling me the whole story. I don’t want to push, but if you ever think you’re in danger from this guy, or if you just want to talk, well you know where to find me.’
JACK TEXTED ME. It was short and to the point.
OK?
I texted him back. OK. I added a smiley face then just as quickly removed it, because Jack wasn’t really an emoticon kind of person. Neither was I.
There was a smile on my face though, as I remembered that kiss and the solidity of his arms.
But later, laying on my bed still fully dressed and with my bedside light on, I couldn’t stop thinking about the medallion, or coin, or whatever it was. My mother had touched it, I knew this, it had whispered her name to me. I closed my eyes the better to remember what had flashed through me when I touched it for that brief moment before Willem snatched it away again.
The moment my finger had touched the cold metal, I’d been surrounded by the feeling of Mom, but not the cozy loving mother feeling of my childhood memories, the Marian in the photos of the daisy fields with me at her side. The Mom who gave me hot chocolate on cold winter nights and snuggled in front of the TV with me.
This Mom was angry and dark, someone I didn’t want to admit I knew, yet I did. It reminded me of the last days before she left. Memories came through that I had long buried in the mists of time; the quarrels behind closed doors when Dad came to visit, no more Sasha in tow. His pleading voice, hers harsh and unyielding.
Could that be possible? Jonathan de Teilhard, that arrogant full-blood witch who had the world at his feet, pleading with my mother? Over what?
I waited quietly, but nothing else came to me, just that flash, the feeling of which lingered and saddened my heart.
Mom had held this medallion shortly before her disappearance, and it had been a black time for her, the leftover emotions still vibrating through the medallion told me that.
I had to get it from Willem.
