Widdershins

by Charles de Lint

  “So, what was up with that dream?” she says. “Except we decided it wasn’t a dream, didn’t we? Or if it was, you pulled me into one of yours.”

  “I’m sorry, but I really needed you there,” I tell her. “You were my inspiration to be strong and stand up to the Del in my head, because you’re the only one of the two of us who stood up to him for real.”

  “Yeah well, when you think about it, I didn’t do such a good job. I should’ve cut his throat instead of just his leg.”

  “I’m glad you don’t have to carry the weight of that.”

  “I guess.” She’s quiet for a moment, then says, “When we were there, you kept talking about how we were inside your head, but it felt just like the otherworld to me.”

  “I think it was a bit of both.”

  “I guess that’s why I’ve been feeling this way.”

  “What way?”

  “Well, ever since that night, I can’t stop looking over my shoulder. I keep expecting to see one of those damned wolf boys, just a-gunning for me. They warned me pretty much point blank that they’d be coming for me if I ever went back.”

  Raylene’s had her own experiences in the otherworld, but they didn’t turn out nearly as well for her as mine did. You know how fairy tales have good guys and bad guys in them? Well, she was definitely the big bad wolf and the canids didn’t take too kindly to what she was doing to their reputation. She’s changed now, but cousins have long memories.

  “I’ll talk to Joe,” I tell her. “He’ll make them understand.”

  “Good luck with that because I don’t. Understand, I mean.”

  So I tell her the whole story, everything I didn’t get the chance to explain when we were sitting on the porch of that old homestead inside my head.

  “I guess it all makes a certain perverted kind of sense,” she says when I’m done. “Do you think you’ll ever go back?”

  I hear the yearning in her voice.

  “I can’t not,” I tell her. “We’ll probably go once Geordie’s done with the last of his commitments to play with the Knotted Cord.”

  “So, Geordie’s going with you?”

  I smile, but she can’t see it.

  “Oh, yes,” I say.

  She laughs. “Someone’s getting laid.”

  “It’s more than that.”

  “Of course, it is. It’s you and Geordie.”

  “No, I mean we’re getting married.”

  “Oh, wow. I’d say ‘so soon?’, but you guys have been circling around each other for pretty much forever, haven’t you?”

  “I guess we have. Will you come to the wedding?”

  “Is it going to be all mushy?”

  “Come on, Raylene. Say you will. Say you’ll be my maid of honour.”

  She waits a beat before she asks, “What about all those friends of yours? Wendy and Sophie and the one who draws the comics—”

  “Mona.”

  “Whatever. Shouldn’t it be one of them?”

  “I want it to be you.”

  “Just a sec’,” she says.

  Her voice sounds a little funny, then I hear her put the phone down and blow her nose.

  “Are you okay, Raylene?” I ask when she gets back on.

  “Oh, sure,” she says, with the usual sardonic tone back in her voice. “It’s just allergies.”

  You big liar, I think. You don’t have allergies any more than I do.

  But I don’t call her on it.

  “So, say you will,” I say instead.

  “Of course I will. I can’t not show up at the wedding of the only member of my family that I actually like.”

  “Careful,” I tease. “You’re being almost sentimental.”

  “Yeah, well . . .”

  “I love you, too,” I tell her.

  I can almost see her do that little shake of her head she does when she’s feeling uncomfortable. Just mentioning any kind of intimacy always seems to puts her off-balance.

  “I’m glad for you,” she says. “You really deserve some happiness after all you’ve been through this past couple of years.”

  “Everybody deserves happiness—including you, Raylene.”

  She surprises me. I know she carries a lot of regret over the things she’s done in the past—things she can’t ever change. She never talks about it, but I know she feels that there’s no way she can ever make up for what she’s done, that she doesn’t deserve happiness because of all the pain she’s brought into other people’s lives.

  But instead of brushing me off, she says, “I guess that’s why I’ve got you in my life.”

  I can’t help it. I start to cry.

  “Oh, Jilly . . .”

  “No, it’s good,” I tell her through my sniffles. “I’m . . . I’m actually happy. I’m so looking forward to seeing you.”

  “Me, too,” she says.

  I look out the window, at the strip of dark night sky I can see above the building across the street. I think:

  Once upon a time . . .

  Maybe fairy tales aren’t the only place you can find a happy ending.

  If I was writing one for all of us it would just go, Once upon a time, they all lived happily ever after.

  Grey

  I hear the music long before I see the pub. Some jaunty set of jigs comes spilling out the door and dances down the block to meet me whether I want to hear it or not. I’ve never really cared much for this sort of thing in the past. Irish and Scottish dance tunes. Fiddles and accordions and high-pitched whistles. It’s all too busy and fast, with too many notes.

  I follow the music the rest of the way up the block and it brings me to the pub. The sign hanging above the door says “The Tankard & Horn” with the appropriate imagery painted underneath the words, just in case you can’t read.

  Okay, that’s just me being cranky and I’ve no reason for it. I pause to take a breath and work a crick out of my neck. When I start forward again, I try to do it with an open mind. And actually, when I give the music half a chance, I find myself smiling. Go figure.

  Light spills cheerfully out the windows and door along with the music, falling on the half-dozen people who have come outside for a smoke. They’re all shapes and sizes. A couple of punk kids in leathers and jeans, hair retro-spiked. A guy that looks like he stopped by on his way home from a mechanic’s garage. Some old hippies, balding on top with thin ponytails. A tall woman in cowboy boots and hat who looks like she should be at a Hank Williams show. Their only commonality is their nicotine addiction.

  One of the hippies nods to me as I walk toward the open window and I nod back, but I keep going until I can see inside.

  Harnett’s Point is a tourist town that’s become a satellite community to Newford over the past few years. It’s on the lake and close enough to commute, which makes it attractive, but I’ve never liked to watch this sort of thing happen. Prices go up, taxes go up, and pretty soon the people who have lived in a place like this for generations can’t afford to even rent anymore. The people who do move in have no history—at least no history here—and therefore little appreciation for the way things were. So what they do is remake it all into something more familiar to them.

  The main street is lined with coffee shops and restaurants, gift and souvenir stores, boutiques and pubs like The Tankard & Horn, all selling the same sorts of things you’ll find in other towns where this has happened, all the storefronts looking the same.

  I don’t like it, but it’s none of my business, and I don’t want to think about it tonight. Tonight I just want to see Lizzie’s band play and see if I can learn to appreciate the music. Though mostly, I want to make sure she’s okay.

  It’s hard not to appreciate the skill of the musicians up on the stage and I find my foot tapping, all on its own. I smile as I watch Lizzie hamming it up with Geordie, the pair of them never missing a note. Lizzie’s cousin is at the merchandise table.

  I look for Jilly, but she’s not sitting anywhere close. Then I realize she’
s at the front of the stage, dancing like a little tangle-haired dervish. I blink in surprise until I realize that Joe must not be the only one who knows the crow girls well enough to get some personal attention from them.

  “Got a light?” someone asks me.

  I start digging in my pocket for a packet of matches as I turn around, only to find Jack standing there with a cigarette between his lips.

  “What happened to that fancy Zippo of yours?” I ask. “Did you finally lose it in a card game?”

  He grins. “I don’t lose at cards.” He pulls the lighter out and gets his cigarette going. “I was just making conversation. You want one?”

  I take the proffered cigarette and he lights another for himself.

  “How’s Joe?” I ask.

  I haven’t seen him since Anwatan and the crow girls brought him back from the dead.

  “Being Joe,” Jack says. “Last time I saw him he was back in Fitzhenry Park, doing his mystic Indian fortune-telling thing like nothing ever happened. But that’s what I like about Joe. He falls into these big stories, but he never lets them take over his life. He just goes back to Cassie and that extended family of his, and it’s all good.”

  “I’m glad. I like him.”

  “What’s not to like?” Jack takes a considering drag from his cigarette, then adds, “Heard about what happened at the big meeting.”

  “You and everybody else. So, which side are you on? The one that thinks I’ve got a cerva’s generosity of spirit, or the one that thinks I’m an idiot?”

  “Neither. It’s not something I’d have done, but that doesn’t mean it was wrong.”

  “I just knew Mira wouldn’t have wanted her own death answered with another.”

  Jack nods.

  “But you don’t agree.”

  “Well, that’s the funny thing,” he says. “I’ve just come back from a sortof babysitting duty, watching one of Anwatan’s killers prove that he’s actually a sweet little guy.”

  “One of the bogans?”

  “Yeah. Although he wasn’t actually in on any of the kills, and it turns out he was coerced into even doing that much.”

  “Your point being?”

  He shrugs. “Well, I would have just put him down and been done with it. But Anwatan made Joe promise to look out for him, and like I said, turns out he’s really okay. Messed up from the part he had to play in those hunts, but determined to make up for it. That’s not something I would have learned if I’d done things my way.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “It’s funny how these things turn out.”

  We finish our cigarettes and listen to the music for a while. The tune they’re playing now is slower and has an almost tribal beat. I find I don’t have to even try to like it. It just slips into me, as recognizable as my own heartbeat.

  “Do you have much familiarity with this music?” I ask Jack.

  “Me? Yeah, I love this stuff. But I hear you’re not too fond of it yourself.”

  “I think I’m having a change of heart.”

  “With players of Geordie’s caliber, I’m not surprised.”

  “Lizzie seems to be holding her own.”

  Jack nods. “You still sweet on her?”

  “I was never sweet on her. I just knew she was in over her head and wanted to make sure she didn’t get hurt.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Besides. I think she’s got something going on with the guitar player. You see the way they keep looking at each other?”

  Jack leans closer to the window and smiles. “Oh yeah. They’ve got chemistry, all right. Hey, is that Jilly dancing in there?”

  I nod.

  “Man, will you look at that shine of hers?” he says. “Makes you wonder about humans that they can’t see something like that.”

  “Maybe they can’t see it,” I say. “But they can feel it. Look how the people close to her are all grinning and laughing, but the farther away from her you get, the less it touches them. They’re still enjoying themselves, but they’re not nearly so filled up with some good feeling that they could never explain if you asked them about it.”

  Jack smiles. “Seems like you’re changing your mind about more than just music.”

  I turn to look at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, come on, Grey. Everybody knows the hard-on you’ve always had for humans and fairy. I knew about it long before I ever met you.”

  I give a slow nod.

  “I had my eyes opened, I guess,” I say. “Turns out we’re not all that different from each other. Except maybe some of the old cousin spirits.”

  His eyebrows go up.

  “It’s just. Well, take Raven . . . I don’t think he’s actually even here most of the time.”

  Jack grins. “You’re just figuring that out? Man, all those old spirits are like that. Raven, Cody, Rosa, White Deer Woman. Oh, and let’s not forget the crow girls.”

  “The crow girls seem completely here.”

  “Well, sure. So they look like a pair of teenage girls, and act like they’re half that age, but you know they were here before Raven made the world. There’s some say they were the long ago. Can you imagine carrying all those millions of years around in your head and not going crazy?”

  I shake my head.

  “Exactly,” Jack says. “So, all of these old spirits have their own way of dealing with it. The crow girls and Cody, they’re here and now. They don’t fret about what’s happened or worry about what’s going to happen. Others, like the White Deer Woman, they become the wise old spirits people think they are, which is fine and does some good, I guess, but they end up with no life of their own. And then there are the ones like Raven, who just kind of shut down more often than not.”

  “What about you?” I ask. “How do you deal?”

  Jack laughs. “Hell, I’m just a pup when it comes to them. Cousins like you and me, we’re not even the gleam in our mama’s and daddy’s eyes in comparison to those old spirits.”

  I have to smile.

  “Bottom line?” Jack goes on. “They’re all nut cases. Some of them are nicer than others, sure, and some are pretty much harmless, but they’re nut cases all the same.”

  “Even the Grace?”

  “The Grace isn’t a being, Grey. She’s an idea. The state we find ourselves in when we’re at our very best. She’s an ideal. An inspiration.”

  “So you don’t think she’s real?”

  Jack shakes his head. “But we can make her real. In here.” He lays a closed fist against his chest. “But each of us has to do it in our own way. A group hug’s not going to make it happen, no matter how good it makes us feel.”

  “How’d you get so cynical?”

  “Hell, I’m not close to cynical. I’m hopeful.”

  Now it’s my turn to raise my eyebrows.

  “Think about it,” he says. “Which is more hopeful? That we have to be led to the Grace by a shaman or priest or some nut case old spirit, or that we can find her in ourselves? I’m not blind to the worst in people, and maybe this sounds funny coming from a hard case like I make myself out to be, but man, I’m always striving to look for the best in them. In anybody.”

  I nod.

  “Trouble is,” he adds, “I get disappointed an awful lot.”

  “So, what do you do?”

  He shrugs. “Try to live my life as an example—the way Joe does.”

  “And how’s that working out for you?”

  “I sleep nights. How about you?”

  “Mostly,” I tell him, “I feel cut off. Even though Odawa’s no longer a threat to those I care about, I still feel like I shouldn’t even be here. I should be out in the woods where no one can get hurt being around me.”

  Jack shakes his head and lays an arm across my shoulder.

  “Let me buy you a drink,” he says as he leads me to the door. “What you need is to see how that impulse of yours was on the money. Underneath our skins, we really are all pretty much the same. And that i
ncludes you.”

  “I don’t know .

  But he won’t let me finish.

  “You just need to mix with people more,” he says, “and see for yourself.” So I let him buy me a beer. We lean with our backs to the bar, watching the band. I see Lizzie’s eyes widen when she spots us, but I just lift my bottle in a toast to her. She grins and gives me a nod, then puts her attention back into her playing.

  I let my gaze wander. It drifts up to the rafters where I see a doonie sitting, banging his heels against the wood.

  “I hope you’re just here for the show,” a voice says from beside me.

  I turn to see it’s that red-haired woman who stopped the buffalo from overrunning the fairy courts.

  “Hey, Christiana,” Jack says, leaning across me. “What brings you out to the sticks?”

  She nods her chin at the stage.

  “To see my brother play,” she says. “What about you? If you’re here to cause trouble . . .”

  “Darling,” Jack interrupts her, “I don’t even know the meaning of the word.”

  She laughs. “Yeah, but somehow it finds you all the same.”

  “Not tonight.” His gaze goes to the clock on the wall behind the bar. “And look at the time. I’ve got a poker game to get to.”

  He finishes off his beer in one long swallow and puts the empty bottle on the bar.

  “You kids be good,” he says.

  And then he’s walking off toward the door.

  I watch until he steps outside before I turn back to look at Christiana.

  “Did he set us up?” she asks.

  “Not on my end.”

  “Because I wouldn’t put it past him. Those wolf boys might play at being tough and hard, but they’ve got a romantic streak going through them a mile wide.”

  “Look, I’ll just . . .”

  “Relax,” she says. “I don’t bite. And we’re just here to see the band, right? So we might as well do it together.” She waits a moment, then asks, “Aren’t you going to offer to buy me a drink?”

  My first impulse is to leave. But then I remember what Jack said earlier. You just need to mix with people more . . .

  It’s safe now. Odawa’s not out there, somewhere in the night—or at least he’s not out there gunning for me anymore.