Widdershins

by Charles de Lint

  “You . . . they . . .” was about all Siobhan could get out.

  She backed up slowly and sat on the end of the bed that Andy had tripped over. Andy pushed himself into an upright position.

  “How . . . how did you do that?” Andy asked the fairies.

  Galfreya turned one of her hundred-watt smiles on him.

  “Do what?” she asked.

  “Just appear like that.”

  “We travelled through the between.”

  “The between,” Andy repeated. “Right. Of course.”

  I held up my hands and made two fists.

  “Look at it this way,” I said. “This is our world, this is the spiritworld. They’re connected by another . . . well, world’s not really the best term. Let’s say they’re connected by a place that’s wider than the whole of our world in places, thin as a veil in others, and it’s called the between. Time moves differently there, just like it does in the otherworld. Sometimes faster, sometimes slower. Which can be confusing, for sure. But if you know the right paths to take, you can move almost instantaneously from one place to another by going through it.

  “But the thing is,” I added, turning to look at Galfreya, “to be able to do the instant travel bit, you usually have to have been to your destination before. Otherwise you could end up just about anywhere.”

  “I haven’t been keeping tabs on you,” Galfreya said. “We were able to get here so quickly because Edgan has been following some bogans for me, and they took him here last night.”

  Andy was staring hard at Hazel and Edgan, the one like a piece of a forest come to life with a body made out of twigs and leaves and moss, the other like an animated cartoon with his spark-plug nose and a computer mother-board for a torso.

  “So Lizzie wasn’t shitting us,” he said. He wasn’t talking to anyone in particular, just thinking aloud. “You guys are for real, just like the bogans that attacked her.”

  “Bogans attacked a friend of yours?”

  “A couple of nights ago,” I said. “We think they came back last night and grabbed her and Jilly. Why was Edgan following bogans?”

  “They were acting suspicious: wandering outside our territories, having clandestine meetings with one of the native spirits of this land.” She smiled. “You know me, I like to stay informed.”

  “So you had them followed.”

  She nodded.

  “Did Edgan see those bogans take our friends?” I asked.

  “No. It must have happened after he came back to report to me.”

  “I don’t understand,” Siobhan said. “Why would they want to push me down the stairs, or kidnap Lizzie and Jilly? What did we ever do to them?”

  Galfreya sat on the other bed, the treekin scrambling up to perch behind her. That left only me standing, so I sat beside Andy.

  “You need to tell me what’s been happening,” Galfreya said.

  So we did. Not as clearly, or in as linear a fashion as maybe Christy would have, but Galfreya was patient and we got the story out. Then she told us what she knew. After she had Edgan play back the conversation he’d recorded last night, he turned on one of the PDAs that was attached to his torso to show us a picture he’d snapped of this Odawa that the bogans were with.

  It was a side-shot, not particularly clear. The small size of the PDA’s screen didn’t help, either. But looking at it, I remembered the tall man I’d seen at the back of the bar last night, staring at Lizzie.

  “I think he was at the show last night,” I said. “I saw a man in sunglasses at the back of the room during the last set who seemed awfully interested in Lizzie, but when I went to point him out to her, he’d already done a fade.”

  “But what does he want with her?” Galfreya said.

  “I don’t think he wants Lizzie at all,” Siobhan said. “She only just met this Grey guy so she hardly knows him. They’re talking about someone who’s his girlfriend.”

  Galfreya nodded. “Except they think she is.”

  “Bogan logic,” Hazel said, then snickered. “As if they had any.”

  “What did you see last night?” I asked Edgan.

  “Little enough,” the little techno treekin replied. “They were by the riverbank when I got here, Big Dan and Odawa watching the hotel, while the others were drinking beer, which they probably stole from somewhere. I couldn’t get close enough to hear what they were saying before they all went off into the between where I couldn’t follow.”

  “Wait a sec’,” Andy said. “I thought you guys just used this between to get here.”

  “We did,” Galfreya replied. “But it’s hard to go unnoticed in it. Everything has more presence over there. If Edgan had gone after them, they would have quickly realized he was following them.”

  “So that’s why this Odawa guy wanted to walk to Sweetwater,” Siobhan said. “He didn’t want to draw attention to himself.”

  “So it would appear,” Galfreya said. “I would dearly like to know what he’s up to, why he’s stolen away your friends.”

  “It doesn’t really matter why they were taken,” I said. “Or whatever’s going on between you fairies and the native spirits. What we need to do is figure out where Jilly and Lizzie are and get them back.”

  “Of course,” Galfreya said. “I’ll need a bowl and some water—preferably from the river.”

  “I’ll get it,” Andy said.

  “I’ll go with him,” Hazel added.

  “But . . .”

  “Oh, it’s okay, silly,” she said, taking his hand. “No one will see me unless I want them to. Can I ride on your shoulders?”

  “Um . . . sure.”

  He hoisted her up and off they went, Hazel ducking her head under the lintel and laughing because she was now at such an improbable height that she had to.

  “I’ll need to know something about your friends,” Galfreya said. She reached out a hand to me. “Will you share some memories of them with me?”

  I’d seen people come to her for help at the mall often enough to know what she wanted. I was supposed to think about Jilly and Lizzie and from my thinking of them she could get touchstones she could use to find them. But that made me think of something else.

  “We haven’t talked about payment,” I said.

  Because fairies didn’t do anything without a bargain of some sort.

  But she gave me a sad look and simply shook her head.

  “Did you ever require payment for the affection you gave me?” she asked. “Or the music you gifted our court?”

  “No, of course not. I’m sorry. It’s just that whenever I’ve seen you use your gift . . .”

  “That’s different,” she said. “Those petitioners are neither kith nor kin.”

  “I wasn’t thinking . . .”

  Her only response was to reach out her hand. I did the same, concentrating on Jilly when her fingers closed around mine.

  It’s funny. I never really thought about what this would be like. I started when I felt the presence of her mind inside my own. Not because it was a bad feeling. It was just nothing that I’d ever experienced before—having two people in my head, me and her. I had a moment’s panic at the thought of every private part of myself being open to someone else’s scrutiny. I knew it didn’t work that way. At least, Galfreya had told me it didn’t—she only saw what the other person allowed her to see—but that didn’t change the feeling of utter vulnerability.

  If it had been anybody else, I would have just closed down my thoughts and shut her out. But this was Galfreya, and alien though the sensation of having her inside of me was, I trusted her. And I knew I had to do this for Jilly and Lizzie. Especially for Jilly. Because as my memories rose up—

  There. The first time we met, two scruffy part-timers working in the post office, thrown together because we were the only oddballs amongst our very straight coworkers. We literally bump into each other in the door to the cafeteria, and I find myself smiling at this small woman who seems to be all wild curly hair, looking up
at me with those electric blue eyes of hers, wearing this huge, oversized sweater that hangs almost to her knees. She looks as scared and out of place as I feel, and we have this weird, unexpected moment of frisson where we know, without question, that we’ll always be safe in each other’s company. If she hadn’t asked me to go for a coffee with her after work, I would have asked her, and asking girls to do anything—even something so innocuous—wasn’t something I really did back then.

  There. We’re outside a subway stop on Lee Street. I’m busking, playing my fiddle, and she’s sketching the passersby. We’re still scruffy, still the odd ones out when it comes to the rest of the world, but we have our own little world together where none of that matters. She turns to me and says, “Geordie, me lad, if I’d never met you, I’d have had to make you up, because I couldn’t live without you.”

  There. Coming home from a late gig—it’s maybe three in the morning—I see the light on in her loft and go up the stairs to knock on the door. The pure pleasure on her face when she opens the door wakes an answering joy in my heart, a familiar treasure that I never take for granted.

  There. I’m on stage at a folk festival in Fitzhenry Park, Amy on pipes, Matt on guitar. The audience is having a great time, bobbing their heads, some of them step dancing with more enthusiasm than skill, while right in front of the stage, there’s a small pack of whirling dervishes flinging themselves about with an abandon that few people seem to manage without drink or drugs. And in the middle of them is Jilly, grinning up at me whenever she whirls about to face my direction.

  There. A poetry reading of Wendy’s, where we’re sitting through some terrible poets before it’s Wendy’s turn to read. Jilly keeps pressing her thumb on the table, pushing an imaginary button that will open an equally imaginary trapdoor under those well-meaning souls who are boring us from the stage.

  There. The wistful joy on Jilly’s face as we lean on a chain-link fence in a playground, watching her goddaughter Jillian being pushed on a swing by her foster mother.

  There. At the opening of one of her shows, grinning and giving me a thumb’s up when another painting is sold.

  There. At Zinc’s funeral. Her hand holding tightly onto mine as though I’m all that can keep her in this world.

  There. Sitting in a diner at four in the morning, watching her eat a massive breakfast of pancakes, bacon, and eggs—the sheer happy gusto with which she puts away her food.

  There . . .

  And there . . .

  And . . .

  —I realized that I couldn’t imagine living in a world without her.

  One of the hardest things about moving to L.A. with Tanya had been having my relationship with Jilly relegated to only phone calls and letters. I was suddenly cut off from my best friend. But we hadn’t been that close since I got back, either, and I could feel the ache of that in me now. It was always there. I just hadn’t realized what it was until this moment.

  But this wasn’t what I was supposed to be focusing on.

  I looked into Galfreya’s eyes and saw surprise and understanding there, but I wasn’t sure what she was surprised about, or what exactly she understood. Surely she’d already known what good friends Jilly and I were?

  “And the other woman?” she asked, her voice low.

  I didn’t have much for Lizzie, having only just met her, but I called up what I did. Mostly it centered around the joy of our playing together last night, the music of our fiddles entwining with such easy familiarity that we could have been doing it for years instead of just one night.

  “Maybe you should get some memories from Siobhan,” I said, as Galfreya gave my hand a squeeze and then let go.

  “No, I have enough,” she said.

  Andy and Hazel came back then and I realized that, while the memory-sharing had only seemed to take a few moments to me, it had actually gone on for much longer. Hazel was still riding on Andy’s shoulders, little legs kicking against his chest, her arms wrapped around his forehead. Andy carried a soup bowl from the restaurant filled with murky water. He put it on the floor and sediment began to settle.

  Getting up from the bed, Galfreya sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the bowl. She moved her hand above the water and a ripple echoed the motion, back and forth—across the surface, following her hand. The sediment rose up again. When she moved her hand away, the water went still and she leaned forward to study something only she could see.

  I could tell that Siobhan and Andy were dying to ask if it was working, but they seemed to know enough to not interrupt. I wanted to know, too, but I’d seen this many times before and had already resigned myself to being patient. When she knew something, Galfreya would tell us.

  “How curious,” she murmured.

  We all leaned forward, but the water didn’t look any different until Galfreya put her hand above it once more, setting new ripples in motion. She watched the movement until the water went still, then repeated the whole process a third time before she finally sat up straight and looked at us.

  “You didn’t have any luck, did you?” I said.

  I knew her well enough to notice the frustration that Siobhan and Andy wouldn’t spot.

  “I can’t see them in this world or the other,” she said. “It’s as though they have simply vanished from existence.”

  Siobhan blinked tears from her eyes.

  “Do you mean . . . are they . . . are they dead?” she asked with a quiver in her voice.

  “No. Even death leaves a trace.” She looked to me. “There are places, of course, hidden pocket worlds on the other side of the between that can’t be seen into, but by that token, you’d expect the bogans to be there as well.”

  “They’re not?”

  “No,” she said. “I found Big Dan and his gang easily enough. They’re camped in the bush on this side of the river—north of town—which might seem bold of them, trespassing in cousins’ territory, except we already know that they have a cousin in their company.”

  I gave a slow nod. “Right. So we get the information from them, however we have to.”

  Galfreya held up a hand before I could get up.

  “That cousin I mentioned,” she said. “I had only a momentary glimpse of him, but it was enough to see that he is an old and powerful spirit. Not one of us here—not all of us together—could make him tell us anything he didn’t want to.”

  “So we get backup,” I said. “I know a lot of the fairies in your court enjoy a good tussle. If we make enough of a show of force, they’ll probably cave in without anyone having to raise a hand.”

  Galfreya shook her head. “We can’t go to war over this. We have to find another way to track your friends.”

  “Who’s talking about war?” I said. “We’re just dealing with some bogans and one native spirit who—I shouldn’t have to remind you—started all of this in the first place.”

  “You don’t understand,” Galfreya said. “The lives we fairies live are forever in an uneasy balance with those who rule the wild and the green. A simple skirmish such as you propose has the potential to escalate to such a point where it would be years before we could find peace again—even as uneasy a peace as we have at the moment.”

  “So it’s all politics.”

  “We’re not unique in this. Unfortunately, you have only to look at the trouble spots in your world to see how common this sort of a situation is.”

  “So what do you plan to do?” I asked.

  “Talk to the Queen. I’ll ask her to intercede for us.”

  “Okay.”

  “Wait a minute,” Siobhan said. “We can’t just—”

  I turned to her, shaking my head.

  “We’re out of our depth here,” I said. “Trust me on this.”

  “But Lizzie could be—”

  “I know. Jilly’s out there, too. But we need to let Mother Crone handle this her way.”

  “Which we’ll see to immediately,” Galfreya said.

  She beckoned to Hazel and Edgan,
then the three of them stepped away into the between. All that remained of their visit was a porcelain soup bowl on the floor, filled with river water.

  “I can’t believe we’re just leaving it at that,” Siobhan said, once she and Andy got over the surprise of the fairies’ sudden disappearance.

  I understood. It’s not easy to get used to.

  “We’re not,” I told her. “But there was no point in arguing—fairies don’t ever see themselves as wrong. We’d never have convinced her not to deal with this the way she felt she needed to.”

  “But what are we going to do?” Andy said. “She seemed to think we wouldn’t have a chance against the bogans.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” I said. “That’s why I’m going to call in the big guns—someone who’s got power, but will also have a personal stake in all of this.”

  “So long as you know what you’re doing,” Siobhan said.

  “I don’t. But Joe will.”

  I took out my cell phone again, this time punching in the number of Joe Crazy Dog.

  “Who’s he?” Andy asked.

  “A friend of Jilly’s that I don’t think anybody wants to get on the wrong side of.”

  My call connected, and I could hear it ringing on the other end.

  “Is he . . . human?” Siobhan asked.

  I had to smile. I hardly knew what the question meant anymore. For the past year or so I just thought of those I met as sentient beings, because they sure came in all shapes and sizes.

  “Not really,” I told her. “He looks like a Kickaha, and he’s lived on the rez, but he’s supposedly one of those rare mixes you don’t find much among the animal people. His father was pure-blooded corbae, his mother pure-blooded canid.”

  “Which means?”

  “Crow and dog. Hang on. Someone’s picking it up.”

  But it was Cassie, Joe’s girlfriend, who answered, not Joe himself.

  “Joe’s already on it,” she said without any preamble.

  Cassie was a seer, like Galfreya, only she was human and used cards instead of a scrying bowl. I guessed Christy had been right the other day. You didn’t have to scratch far under the skin to find that pretty much everyone in Jilly’s periphery has some connection to the world most people don’t even know exists, never mind sees. So I knew about Cassie’s gift, but I was still startled at how she’d answered the phone.