The general in the play sent one of his weaker regiments into battle, keeping the regiment with his beloved private out of the way of harm by sending them to a more remote area. But the Seelie tricked the troops by making noises in the night, leading them on a merry chase and bringing the Union and Confederate soldiers face to face. Fighting ensued, and though the private’s regiment managed to recover their sanity and emerged victorious, the private was killed. The general wept into his hands when he was honored for his strategic skills and pulled a wooden prop gun from his desk. The prostitute pleaded and screamed in horror as the general put the gun between his teeth. The Seelie in the audience laughed and cried, sometimes both at once. The general thudded to the floor, the prostitute knelt beside him, and then inexplicably kissed a Seelie man who appeared and tried to get her to eat some kind of yellow fruit. The curtain fell.
“Time to go,” said Yukiko. They were caught up in the throng and pushed toward the exit.
“There you are,” said Iolanthe. Astrid didn’t see her twice this time; she had only the ram’s head. She waited off to one side, and took Astrid’s hand in hers, pulling her out of the crowd and into the shade beneath a fluttering canopy that sheltered a few benches.
“Don’t eat anything!” yelled Yukiko, and Astrid strained to see her, but she was gone. Had the fox abandoned her, or had she been captured? She tried to push through the crowd, but she could not find her. The advice to not eat was sound. If the Seelie were fey, fair folk, then any human who ate anything in their world could become trapped there forever.
“Don’t worry about the Kitsune. She will be cared for,” said Iolanthe. Astrid was close enough to detect the faint smell of the fur on her face, which was not unpleasant, and to see that her horizontally slitted eyes were gold. The skin of Iolanthe’s hand was warm and soft, and her grip was so delicate as to be almost imperceptible. “We need to speak together, Astrid.”
“I want to find Yukiko.”
“She will be all right without you. And you without her.”
Astrid wanted to say that she would not be all right without Yukiko, but it was the fox who had the spirit ball to retrieve. Astrid simply wanted to return home. She dreaded having to return to the mirror house to try to open a Door to her world. There was no certainty that she could do it, and there was no telling where she would end up. She had, so far, opened Doors to Unseelie, Seelie and Death. There had to be another way.
“You belong here,” said Iolanthe. Astrid discovered that they were walking and were yards away from where they had started. She looked back over her shoulder, but Iolanthe gently led her onward. “This is your home.”
“No, it’s not. I belong in my world.”
“Do you? I have a car waiting. There’s a house in Malibu waiting for you.”
“No, I’m not leaving until I find Yukiko. And I’m not going to Malibu. Unless it’s Malibu in my world. Not yours.”
Iolanthe stopped and fixed her with those gold coin eyes. “Astrid, dear. I have gone to great lengths to obtain a lovely home for you in order to help you. And now, you must come with me. I can answer some of your questions. This place is not safe for you. Surely you know that.”
“Then you can answer my questions here. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Come now, be reasonable.”
“And do what? Let you take me off to some weird fairy house, never to return? Or I’ll return in fifty years and my friends will all be old? Or in a hundred years and they’ll all be dead? I know how this works.” She turned and headed back to the main boardwalk. She would find Yukiko, get this spirit ball thing and go home.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
The last thing she felt was Iolanthe’s hand wrapping around her own, like the twining of vines, and squeezing gently. Then the world wavered and she felt like she was falling, air and color flying past.
She awoke in a bright, high-ceilinged room. A bed was beneath her, a plump circular cushion on the floor, with fat silken pillows in shades of pale blue and sea green. There was no blanket. The wall-hangings were of similar colors, all of them woven tapestries of abstract shapes, some crafted with metallic thread. Three windows ran along the wall, all of them floor length, their white wooden shutters propped open to admit a soft breeze from the ocean. It carried with it the scent of fresh-mown grass and a sweet scent, almost candy-like. It looked like she was up high, on the second or third floor of a building.
She got up. She still wore her Luna Park uniform which felt dirty and sticky. In the distance she saw Santa Maria Island, but from a different angle than the one she was used to. That meant she was a little north of Luna Park. This must be the Malibu house. The nerve of that goat woman to force her to come here.
She rushed to the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of a way out. If she was a captive, then perhaps they didn’t know she was awake. She could get away.
The window was too high up to jump from safely, and with no sheet or material with which to make a prison-style rope, a slower escape was out. There was only one door in the room, and it was closed.
A gust of air rushed in the window and she scanned the horizon. The air was so clear here. In her world, she could only see Santa Maria Island through haze. It was never as clear as this.
She pulled open the door, which had no proper doorknob or latch, but simply a round glass knob screwed into it. It led into a smaller sitting area with a cushion like her bed, but smaller. Open windows looked out over a yard with a lawn that ran alongside the house. In a corner of the little room she spotted a rectangular hole in the floor where a ladder with large, flat rungs led to a lower level. The room below looked like a kitchen. Seeing as there were no other doors on this level, she descended.
She stopped near the bottom of the ladder as she caught sight of the person waiting below. A centaur, she thought, as it rose from its reclining position on the floor. The centaur woman had a stocky russet-colored pony’s body and the upper body of a woman. She was short, only about as high as Astrid’s chest. Her white hair was piled high on her head with beads woven through, some dangling around her powdered face. A ruffly pink and cream dress was cut low over her generous bosom and the skirt was of uneven length. It stopped above the knees of her front legs and was long in back, spreading out over her body and ending just at her rump. Her thick white tail was styled with intricate braids and interwoven strings of beads and pink flowers that matched her dress.
“Well, which way is out?” Astrid said, taking in the rest of the lower floor. There was a kitchenette, or the Seelie approximation of one, complete with a wood-burning stove, a squat wooden chest and shelves filled with white china plates and cups as thin and translucent as rice paper.
Two sofas circled the living area, or rather, cushions with wooden frames that propped up the backs. On the floor in the center sat a flat wooden circle, like a legless table.
“The door is just there,” said the centaur woman, pointing to the end of a short hallway that ran off the kitchen behind Astrid. “You may go if you wish, but it will do no good.”
“What, are they going to haul me back?”
“Perhaps. Probably. But you are not a prisoner.”
“Sounds like being a prisoner to me.” Astrid found her purse on the table next to the door and picked it up.
“They’re doing it for your good, so you can learn how to control making Doors. Otherwise, you’re dangerous. You know this.”
It was true. She was dangerous, frighteningly so.
“You know how I can control it?” Astrid asked.
“Oh yes! That’s why I’m here—to teach you.”
“Can you do it? Open Doors?”
“Well, no. But I’ve taught others, and I can teach you. I have experience. My great-grandfather helped people in your world. He lived just outside of Athens. But
that was centuries ago by your reckoning.”
“And after I learn, I’m free to go?”
“As a bird.”
Astrid considered. She could stand to spend a few hours and then go home. Then perhaps she could pack some food and return here. But there was something else.
“Iolanthe said that this was my home. What did she mean?”
The pony centaur took down two translucent plates from the shelf and opened the trunk. It was an ice chest, complete with a slick block of ice at the bottom. Inside sat chilled glass bowls of flower petals and cold sliced vegetables, cheeses and fruit. The woman removed them all.
“What do you think?” she said.
So suddenly now the little woman wasn’t so eager to talk. She kept her eyes on the plates in front of her as she arranged the flowers and food. Or perhaps the flowers were part of the food. It didn’t matter, as Astrid wouldn’t be eating any of it.
“I don’t know. Obviously something is wrong with me,” she said.
“Not wrong, no.”
“Are there other Door people?”
“They crop up in most sentient species. They’re exceedingly rare. But I have some experience with them.”
“So the centaurs train Door people?” said Astrid. “Like your grandfather in Greece?”
“He trained heroes, not Doors. But my family has helped a number of humans. And non-humans.”
Her hands paused at the last phrase and then she poured two glasses of some red liquid that looked like tea. She sat two yellow flowers into the glasses.
“Is that what I am?” said Astrid. “A non-human?” She wanted to leave, to bolt out the doorway.
“What do you think?”
She didn’t know what to think, not really. If she was some kind of terrible creature and her ability could not be controlled, would she have the courage to allow herself to be imprisoned for the safety of others? She set her purse beside the floor cushion and took a seat. The centaur worked silently. After a minute, Astrid looked up to see the woman watching her.
“Well, I have the Door problem,” Astrid said. “And sometimes I see things twice. Like Iolanthe. I saw her with her human head and the ram’s head. Can the Seelie do that? See twice?”
“Yes.” The centaur finished arranging food on the plates and set them both on the legless table between the cushions on the floor. The food looked delicious, especially the white cubes of cheese and the soft fresh bread. The centaur handed Astrid one of the glasses, but Astrid did not drink.
“And do the Seelie eat meat?” Astrid took a seat across from the centaur, who folded her pony legs beneath her and arranged her dress.
“Never. It makes us ill.”
“And how would one tell a Seelie from a human?”
“An excellent question. Well, if I were classifying the two, aside from physical differences like my own, there are a few ways. One,” she held up a finger like a schoolteacher, “they become ill from being exposed to cold iron.”
“What’s that?”
“Iron from a meteorite. And that is where your tale becomes very, very interesting. Because that little owl bell in your purse was made of cold iron. Rare in your world. It made the rest of us feel sick and we had to have it taken away.”
Astrid pulled open her purse. Everything else was in order, including her wallet, sketch pad and other items. But the owl bell was gone.
“But it didn’t make me feel sick, and that’s not what you expected,” said Astrid.
The centaur grinned. “They told me you were intelligent. I am pleased.”
“You think I’m a changeling?”
“As you say. Albeit one who has forgotten her manners. You have not asked me my name.”
“Sorry. What should I call you?”
“Ghislaine. Though sometimes I will be my brother, Gerard.”
“How can you be your own brother?”
“There are many ways of being. When you are with your friends, are you not different than when you are with a teacher or your mother? Some of us are a little less apt at concealing ourselves.”
“My mother, did she know that I wasn’t hers?”
“It’s very sad,” said Ghislaine, popping a plump berry into her mouth. “You were born here, though do not ask me who your family is, as I do not know. And the infant girl whose place you took was sick, withering. She was in a hospital. It was an act of mercy as well as bravery for the Seelie to put you in her place.”
“But don’t the fey hate electricity and metal? Hospitals are full of that stuff.”
“As I said, an act of bravery.”
“And the baby?”
“Sadly, your little doppelganger died.”
She thought of the girl in the mirror. If the human girl had died, then had she seen her own future? Or was it simply an illusion, frightening and meaningless?
“I think my mother knew,” Astrid said. “She knew I wasn’t hers.”
Ghislaine nodded sadly. “She knew. She would have known it in a place inside herself that she would not have understood.”
“Subconsciously?”
“That sounds like a good word to describe it.”
“So, the presence of a changeling could cause a mother to become something different?” She almost couldn’t bear to say it. “Cruel? Hateful?”
“Yes, and I am sorry. It is not uncommon for parents to hurt or kill changelings. They can feel that the little one is not their own. They hate themselves for it, and yet they are unable to stop. But you are here now, and the woman you called your mother has been spared the grief of a lost child. So all in all, things worked out well.”
Astrid would not have said that.
“And what about my parents here?”
“Iolanthe told me that they will be told of your presence. She said that they always wanted to see you.”
“So they didn’t willingly give me up?”
“Oh no! No, your parents wanted you. But you were born a Door, and so the Council took you to be raised in the human world.”
“But why?”
“Can’t you guess?”
Astrid shook her head. She lifted the cup of tea to take a sip, but then set it down.
“You are tired,” said Ghislaine. “So I will explain it to you. You are Seelie, blood and body and soul. You can blend with humans perfectly, having been raised on their food and air and water. And yet, you belong here. Once you are able to open Doors, you can be like an ambassador between the two peoples. Our kinds can live together, in peace.”
It was a pleasant thought, but only for a moment. The Seelie were not known to be good for humankind. She thought of the Civil War play and how the fey had delighted in tormenting the humans, even driving the general to suicide. And the stories, so many stories, tales of people being lost, seduced, robbed. Stolen spouses, trickery, stolen children. There were stories of love too, of Seelie falling in love with human men and women, bearing children together, but the stories did not end well.
There was more to this, she was sure of it. But Ghislaine simply sipped her red tea and watched her.
Chapter 34
Astrid sat at an easel. The drawing in front of her was of a Door with a mirrored surface, sketched in pencil but not colored. She saw it flicker, move, just for a second. But there was no doubt in her mind that it had done so. The movement startled her out of her dreamlike state. She couldn’t remember how she had gotten here, to this room where she had been drawing.
She did not remember putting on the scarlet and gold silk pants and sleeveless top that she wore. The fabric was cool and soft and soundless as it rubbed against itself as she walked across the smooth, birch-white floor. A beaded sash wrapped around her waist, and her toenails and fingernails were painted gold. None of it was f
amiliar.
She had to regain her sense of place and time. She was in Seelie, was herself Seelie, and was supposed to be learning how to be a Door. Working on art was supposed to help her. This was the little sitting room off of her bedroom, and Gerard was downstairs, singing some opera in a language that sounded nothing like Italian. She and Gerard had practiced, she remembered, at opening Doors. Or rather, she had practiced while he tried to instruct her. The thing was, the ability was more an art than a skill, and it depended on feelings, intuition and other unquantifiable things. The entire process was frustrating. He had told her to take a break and draw something.
There. Her mind was clearing and she went downstairs. Like his sister, Gerard was a centaur, though he wore a ruffled shirt and tailored navy blue jacket with gold buttons that ended at the bottom of the human portion of his body. He also had white hair that he wore high on his head. Unlike his sister, he had a mole that was so perfectly placed above his lip that Astrid was certain it had to be fake.
“Afternoon, sweetling. Are you ready to try again?” he said.
There were drawings on the walls, so many drawings, at least twenty. And she remembered drawing them all. Gerard was hanging one in a blank space.
“How long have I been here?” she asked.
The Time Corps Chronicles (Complete Series) Page 77
