by Tom Deitz
His mother was waiting a bit impatiently at the foot of the steps. She smiled at him as he shuffled up the walk. “I ain’t had a chance to be escorted into church by my handsome son in a long time—not since he got to be taller’n me—and I’m gonna take it.” She offered her arm and he could not refuse.
David didn’t pay much attention to the sermon; he spent most of the time trying to lay out a consistent story about the nameless girl from Atlanta he had suddenly invented, and kept getting tangled up in it, especially as he had told two different versions of the story at breakfast already. And he could not get the confounded ring off. His finger had swollen just enough to make it stick. It sat there on his finger gleaming brightly, looking as smug as Little Billy had when he’d blurted out David’s supposed secret at the breakfast table. What could possibly have possessed his little brother to tell that? He was usually reliable about secrets.
David scanned the congregation, noticing another thing he didn’t like. There was Little Billy sitting over on the other side with several of his Sunday school cronies, whispering together and giggling and pointing at David.
Does everybody have to do that? David folded his arms and stared straight ahead while trying to work the ring off under his armpit. But it still would not budge. And to make matters worse, his mother expected him to hold the hymnal open for her every time there was a song or a responsive reading, which seemed to be about every other minute. He rather believed he’d prefer sitting in his pew stark naked to sitting there with that silver ring on just then. It was not that he didn’t want it; he just didn’t want it on now, in church, didn’t want it too widely known. But he had an uneasy feeling that it was already too late for that.
He glared at Little Billy as his brother whispered something else into the ear of one of his cronies. Soon as they got home, he would give that little boy a talking-to he’d be a long time forgetting. It was his fault—for telling everything. No, it isn’t. David knew full well it was his own, for not being straight with him, among other things, and for his lack of self-control which had led him into the woods in the first place. He was jealous, too, he realized, jealous of his real secret. But he might warm Little Billy’s bottom anyway. And he wanted to take another look at that trail up in the woods, this time by daylight.
But he never got the chance.
Because Liz phoned him practically as he came in the door to tell him the music show started at two, and to ask when he could be by to pick her up, and would not hear his excuses for not wanting to go.
And then it started to rain.
And then lunch was ready.
And right after lunch the phone rang again.
“Is this Lover Boy Sullivan?” came the voice of Alec McLean.
David nearly hung up in disgust. “Sorry, there’s nobody of that name here.”
“That’s not what I heard.”
“What did you hear, then? I mean news travels fast and all, but this fast?”
“Then you admit there is news?”
Damn, thought David, should have kept my mouth shut.
“I have my sources,” Alec continued slyly.
“So do I, but I haven’t heard anything.”
“Sure, sure.”
“There’s nothing to hear, Alec.”
“That’s not what your brother said at church this morning.”
“I really should have given him to the undertaker,” David muttered.
“What’s that?”
David cleared his throat. “Little Billy has a way of . . . exaggerating.”
“He also has a way of telling the truth, especially when it’ll get you in trouble,” Alec went on complacently.
“Look, Alec, level with me. What did you hear? From whom? And how?”
“What is this? The Spanish Inquisition? No, okay, seriously: Your brother told Buster Smith, who told his sister Carolyn, who told one of her crew, who told a mutual friend of ours who shall remain nameless as I need my spies, who told me, that you were sporting a ring at church this morning, a ring you said you got from a girl down in Atlanta—at Beta Club Convention, as a matter of fact.”
So Little Billy’s decided to believe that story, thought David. Well, it’s easier to substantiate—or disprove.
“I’d hardly call it ‘sporting,’ ” David said.
“Now, David,” Alec went on, “it so happens that I was with you in Atlanta on the aforementioned occasion, and I don’t recall you seeing any particular girl while we were there.”
“You weren’t with me every minute, either,” David replied—and could have kicked himself immediately. Here he was again, starting to lay a maze of lies around the story—lies that intensified his dilemma rather than easing it. He had intended to try to be as honest with Alec as he could, given the circumstances.
“That’s true. But if you’re that fast a worker, well, there’s a side to you I haven’t seen before. No, you’re not leveling with me; something’s going on.” He sounded hurt.
David sighed. “Look, Alec, this is too complex to go into on the phone, and besides, walls have ears, if you know what I mean—and, anyway, I’ve got to take Liz to the bluegrass show this afternoon.”
“Oh, right, I remember you telling me about that. Well, maybe we can talk about it then; Dad’s got to go anyway, to help man the gate. I can catch a ride with him.”
“Ah, Alec . . . Liz—” David faltered. He could tell he’d hurt Alec by not being straight with him; no need to make things worse.
“What?”
“Never mind. . . . Look, Alec, I promise I’ll give you the straight scoop at the first possible chance. You won’t believe it, but I’ll give it to you. Now I really do have to go—all I need is to have Liz on my case.”
“Sure. Just one more thing: I was thinking about trying to get the MacTyrie gang together this evening for one more Risk game before Akin and Darrell go off to camp. Gary’s finally finished the Dune board. You interested?”
“I don’t think so. I doubt I’ll be back from the fair until late, and . . . well, I’ve got some other things I need to do. Sorry.”
“It’s okay . . .”
“See you later, then.”
David hung up the phone and squared his shoulders. He would not lie anymore, that much he had decided. To Alec, at least, he would tell the truth—as much as would be believed. If he told him that he found the ring, which was literally true, he wouldn’t be lying, at least not technically, and maybe he could by slow degrees initiate Alec into the whole truth. It would take some doing, though. And there was still Liz to worry about. He tugged at the ring irritably, and was more than a little surprised when it slipped off. He started to take it back to his room, thinking that perhaps the best thing to do was simply to put it in a drawer somewhere and forget about it. But he suddenly found the idea of being separated from it incredibly disturbing, as if the ring had somehow bonded with him, to become almost a part of his own body.
An idea occurred to David then: If he put the ring on a chain around his neck, then he’d have it with him but it wouldn’t show, and he wouldn’t be tempted to put it on, as he would be if he carried it in his pocket. He went to look for a chain he remembered having seen in one of his dresser drawers. That would be one problem solved. But there was still the problem of what to tell Alec . . . and Liz.
Interlude: In Tir-Nan-Og
(high summer)
Three drops of blood glittering on a dry oak leaf.
Still bright, still wet after half a day in the Lands of Men.
A black ant tasted one and turned at once to ash.
Faery blood.
The blood of Ailill.
It had taken Ailill a great deal of effort to arrive at the place where he found himself two days after the Riding of the Road on Lughnasadh—two days by the sun of Tir-Nan-Og; though scarce twelve hours had passed in the Lands of Men, for the cycles of the Worlds no longer coursed in tandem, nor would again until Samhain brought them once more into confluenc
e: three months by human time.
The day after the Riding he had wasted in fruitless contention with Nuada: words first, ever more heated, and then a trial of strength. Arm wrestling it had been, though not by Ailill’s choice, but by Morrigu’s suggestion and Lugh’s consent, which he could not deny. His left arm still ached from that encounter. Silverhand was strong, and the match had lasted from dawn until dusk with no victor, at which time Lugh had commanded them to call off their quarrel and to each pursue his own ends and to come back in a year and a day for final judgment.
But Ailill could not wait that long for his revenge. It had taken almost another day to find a place where he might work his summons unobserved, and that was enough time wasted. He would begin now, at midnight on the second day, when his Power was at its height.
The lakeside where he stood would have been beautiful if he had spared time to look at it. There was a beach of black sand on which tiny waves slapped with an oily sluggishness that suggested something other than water. The stuff smelled vaguely of cloves, and the handful he had dripped from his fingers sparkled amber in the moonlight. But he had had no desire to taste it.
The lake itself opened out behind him until its glittering surface merged with the starlit sky which it perfectly mirrored. Steep slopes ringed that water on the near sides, tall warrior pines marching up them to stand in file at the crest like the soldiers for which they were named, the sparse cones of branches at their summits for helms and the curling strips of hard gray bark that frayed from their trunks in ringlike semicircles for mail.
The only sound was the blurred whisper of the wind on the water and the forlorn cry of selkies among the rocks to the north.
Ailill glanced up at the sky and nodded.
Midnight. Time to begin the summoning.
It was too bad he could not work openly, too bad he could not work from the Track itself. But the Sidhe in Tir-Nan-Og seemed to have more regard for mortal men than he was accustomed to, and he had strong reason to suspect that such open action against the boy would not stand him in good stead.
He would have to play a careful game, then, and one of great subtlety. For he had heard much of Lugh Samildinach, and knew him to be of unbending nobility. Lugh would be a firm opponent of his plan, if it came to his knowledge, for even Ailill’s own lord and brother, Finvarra, did not know the dark thoughts that filled the secret places of his mind. Not that he cared, really. The war would come anyway—his war, the war with mankind. But if he could capture the boy without Lugh’s knowledge—rob the humans of what little initiative the boy’s knowledge might give them—the start of that war might be delayed until a time when Ailill himself might better orchestrate it to his own best advantage: King of the Sidhe in Tir-Nan-Og and Erenn.
He faced northeast, drew four deep breaths, and closed his eyes. His brow furrowed for a moment, and then he shook his head and crabwalked a dozen paces further to his right, where he repeated the procedure. This was it; this was the place! This time he was in perfect alignment with the blood trace he had left on the Track and the house, where another kind of Power told him the human boy was.
He knelt on the damp sand and closed his eyes again, took four more breaths, and set his Power to insinuating his consciousness through the Walls between the Worlds. A moment’s work, like feeling his way through a densely leaved forest shrouded in thick fog. Once through, it was a simple matter to locate the residue of Power that still remained in those three drops of blood.
He cleared his mind, extended his Power, called into being a bridge of thought connecting himself with that tiny fragment of his own essence he had left as a focus.
Connected! Good!
Now to direct the Power, send it seeking its victim. Ailill recalled the boy’s image to his mind: shorter than most mortal men, slender and supple like a tumbler or a swimmer; handsome for a human, with thick fair hair almost to his shoulders, dark brows, blue eyes, fine white teeth in a full-lipped mouth that would grin too easily. The image brightened, sharpened. Ailill felt the line of Power grow taut, exerting a firm but gentle tug against his will. He would enter the boy’s mind now, fix the line of Power, and draw him from his own World exactly as a fisherman would reel in a catch.
The image was clear. The boy was standing on the porch of the hovel he called a house. Now to touch the mind, to fix the Power, just so . . .
NO! There was other Power here, Power that felt his touch and raced eagerly to meet it like flames cast upon threads of raw silk. Coming toward him. Coming nearer. Hotter and hotter. And he could not break free of that Power greater than his own that had appeared from nowhere to protect the boy.
It was almost on him. He must break the link. He must break the link. Now! Now! Now! Now! Now!
He failed.
The other Power had him, ripping his spirit free of his control, filling it with a twisting, crisping agony so intense it seemed as if his soul itself were aflame.
Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain.
And then oblivion.
It was morning when the tentative nibblings of a twelve-legged crab upon his outflung hand returned Ailill to himself. He was not happy. The boy was protected, this much he knew by bitter experience. By what, he had no idea, but he intended to find out. There would be no more summoning from afar—of that he was very sure indeed. But perhaps there were other means.
Somewhere on the floor of a forest path less than half a mile from David’s house, three wisps of smoke rose from the blackened powder that had once been an oak leaf.
Chapter V: Fortunes
A combination regional fair, fiddlers’ convention, livestock show, and arts and crafts exhibition, the Enotah Mountain Fair was held on the grounds of the county high school and lasted an entire week plus one extra weekend.
For that brief period tiny, rural Enotah County seemed to boast about the same population as Atlanta, or so it appeared to those few residents who tried to follow their usual routine amid the steady stream of motorhomes and Oldsmobile 98s. For the rest, mundane life slowed to a virtual standstill, as they indulged themselves in the only taste of outside reality—or fantasy, depending on how one considered it—many of them ever had.
It didn’t take David and Liz long to take in the exhibits. They were both proud to see their culture on display, of course, but they’d seen it all before—often the same exact items year after year—and the music show developed an unexpectedly intractable sound system, so they gave up on it about six o’clock and went to get something to eat and to soak themselves in the sensory overload of the midway. David didn’t really like it much; that is, he didn’t like the crowds that jostled and pushed and grunted along in interminable lines, getting cotton candy on everybody and spilling popcorn all over the ground where a thick coating of mud from the earlier shower had already made walking treacherous. It reminded David of what he had read about the La Brea Tar Pits, and he almost expected to come upon a human hand sticking up out of the ooze, going down for the third and final time.
They met Alec while standing in line for the Trabant.
“I thought you guys were going to the bluegrass show,” Alec said, staring intently at David, oblivious to the sour scowl that had darkened Liz’s features.
David hesitated uneasily. “We were, but the P.A. system went out, so we came down here to numb our senses with sight and sound and smell. . . . You want to join us?” He cast a furtive glance at Liz, then looked quickly back at Alec and caught his friend’s eyes for an instant in a subtle contact that said bear with me and bide your time.
Liz delivered a hard but unobtrusive kick to his shin, but it was too late.
David grunted and gestured at the ride which spun before them like a giddily drunken top. “We’re gonna ride this next.”
Alec forced a grin and produced a free pass. Liz didn’t say anything at all, having resigned herself to a threesome.
They were finally beginning to catch the rhythm of the ride’s dips and plunges and sudden changes in altitude
, so that they could anticipate and indeed enhance the periodic weightless sensation they got when the Trabant would indulge in one of its precipitous dives, when the first raindrops fell.
At first David thought it was light-dazed bugs, or somebody’s Coke brought illegally on the ride—it was impossible to see the drops themselves beyond the perimeter of pink and white lights that surrounded the ride, or to hear any sound above the shrill roar of four huge speakers that blared out soulless versions of tunes that had been popular five years before—but before long it was raining more seriously.
The operator tugged at the long red control lever and brought the Trabant to a halt before the passengers got entirely soaked.
“Let’s go somewhere dry—fast,” cried Liz, wiping a strand of sodden red hair out of her face.
David pulled up the hood of his light nylon windbreaker and pointed toward a dull green tent that was marked outside by a hand-painted sign depicting a crystal ball beneath an upraised open palm. “There’s a fortuneteller; maybe we could go in there. It doesn’t look too busy.”
They hesitated indecisively for a moment.
“Always wanted to get my fortune told,” Alec said finally.
“I always wanted to see if they were as fake as they’re supposed to be,” put in Liz.
“I predict, then,” said David, hunching over as the rain fell harder still and people began to gravitate toward overhanging awnings, “that we will soon meet a tall, dark fortuneteller. In fact, I think we’ll do it—now!”
He grabbed Liz’s hand and they sprinted the five or so yards, deftly sidestepping people and leaping half-submerged power cables as they went, leaving Alec to follow with his customary deliberation.
They were a little surprised by the sudden cessation of sound and water under the edge of the awning, though they could still see out into a world now largely masked by the silver-lit curtain of water cascading off the scalloped edge.
David thought it a little strange that there was no one taking tickets, but even as he was about to give voice to his thought, a vertical slit opened in the curtain almost immediately beside the open-palmed sign, and a very short, very fat woman with frizzy red hair and heavily made-up eyes came out and stood imperiously before them. She folded her arms and looked them up and down.
