“Your cousin was next in line, but when Sean died, you became Daniel’s sole heir. By then…” She stopped speaking and despite himself, he took the bait and looked up at her. He and Sean had been like brothers. Sean had come to visit, they went out drinking, and Michael should never have let him drive. After that, he’d stopped going to London.
“By then you had cut your uncle out of your life, and broken his heart,” she said.
He blinked, shocked that she would say such a thing straight to his face, and masked his emotion by muttering “I’m busy” and turning his attention back to his work.
* * *
It was bucketing rain. Enroute to JFK, the cabbie listened to the news; the violence in London was escalating from a local skirmish to full-blown riots throughout the city. Economic uncertainty, hostility toward immigrants, the fading middle-class, and “keeping English jobs for the English.” Michael was even angrier with Ms. Sen, both for dragging him to London and for her cutting remark about how he had neglected his poor, dying uncle. It was unprofessional and untrue. He had even sent Uncle Daniel a birthday card not two weeks ago.
No, he hadn’t. He saw it in his briefcase now, as he double-checked to make sure he had his passport— and still in need of an international postage stamp. A frisson of guilt tickled his spine, and he snapped his briefcase shut.
She paid the fare; they stepped out of the taxi and headed inside the terminal. At the airline kiosk, he printed out his ticket while she stabbed her finger at the next touchscreen over, her expression growing darker with each error message that lit the screen.
“Something wrong?” Michael asked, peering over her shoulder.
“My reservation’s gone,” she said double-checking the itinerary that Michael’s assistant had printed out for them. She lightly smacked the screen. “And the flight is full.”
“Pity.” His voice dripped with insincerity.
“I’ll take the later flight.” She tapped the screen again. “Faeries,” she swore.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Bloody hell! The later flight’s been delayed.”
“Thanks to you, I have to take this flight. Mr. Hartner has already arranged for me to see our client tomorrow morning,” Michael said, savoring his reprieve.
“I know.”
And it was only then that he realized that what she had said was “faeries.” Which could mean that she believed in the mystical lease he was supposed to sign— a longstanding compact, centuries old, made between the O’Dares and Mab, Queen of the Fair Folk, perpetuating the human race’s lease on the planet. According to Ms. Sen, it was due to expire, and if he, Michael O’Dare, didn’t renew it, the world would fall under the control of the Sidhe, the fae realm that Queen Mab ruled.
“So you’re telling me that the faeries screwed up your reservation,” he said, smirking, but her cheeks colored as she made her reservation for the following morning on the kiosk screen. When she didn’t answer, he pushed a little harder. “I’m the one who has to sign the lease. Why didn’t they screw up mine?”
“They can’t interfere directly with the Leaseholder,” she bit off.
“They interfered with you.”
“I’m not the Leaseholder, Michael. I’m just your attorney. “You should head to the security check now,” she said, nodding in the direction of the winding TSA lines. “My colleague will be waiting for you at Heathrow after you clear customs. He’ll have a sign with your name on it. Do not leave the airport unless you’re with someone from my firm.”
He raised his brows. “Don’t tell me. Faeries?”
She was typing her passport number on a keypad on the screen. “They can’t stop you directly, but they’ll try to waylay you by stopping those you are with. So, no talking to anyone. No trusting anyone except us.”
That means no trusting anyone, he thought. Which was already how he lived, so no problem there. He hadn’t forgiven her for her “you broke his heart” comment and she hadn’t seen fit to apologize for it. He couldn’t get away from her fast enough, no matter how attractive she was or how nice she smelled. He tried to recall the last time he’d had sex. Or even gone out to dinner with a woman who wasn’t a corporate client.
“See you in London,” Michael replied coolly, and turned his back on her. He didn’t appreciate having his hand forced, and he didn’t like to lose.
On the plane, he was informed he’d been upgraded from business to first class— not the usual protocol, but he wouldn’t turn down more legroom and champagne, especially on a red-eye flight. But as he was directed to his spacious seat, the large, welcoming grin on the face of the passenger abutting his side table made him cringe. He needed to go over their London client’s file, and he would prefer to be given his privacy rather than having to handle a chatty stranger.
“Evening,” the other man said in a booming Australian accent. He was drinking a beer. “I’m Broomfield. Matthew Anthony Broomfield.”
“Listen—” Michael began.
“Heard there’s going to be some turbulence.” He glanced at the aircraft’s door. “Missus not coming?”
Michael blinked, taken aback. “She’s not my missus.” He sat down with the file folder already in his lap. “I’m sorry, but I have a lot of work to do.”
The Australian smiled. “Of course you do, successful man such as yourself. No worries. I’ve got a good book and a bad movie to entertain myself.”
Michael nodded. If the man had taken offense, he had the grace to keep it to himself.
* * *
You’re so shut down. So closed off.
Now he recalled the last time he’d had sex. Toni. It had all gone downhill so fast. She wasn’t the first woman to say that, and she probably wouldn’t be the last. Personal relationships created weaknesses that he couldn’t afford while clawing his way to the top of the firm. He had actually caught himself surreptitiously checking the time while she’d broken up with him. It was a little shocking, even to him. But wearisome, too.
Maybe when he was older, he’d do the relationship thing.
The next thing he knew, the plane was touching down on the London tarmac. He put away his work, frustrated that his mind had wandered. Broomfield took off his headphones and started talking about his movie. The trip through the airport went smoothly, except for the Australian’s constant chatter as they waded through the line of travelers clearing customs before stepping out into the public area of Heathrow Airport.
Michael looked at the horde of chauffeurs bearing placards with people’s names written in neat black ink, but none of them bore his name. He reached into his pocket for his phone. It wasn’t there.
“Shit,” he muttered.
He dropped his bags and dug through his pockets. As he began a second round of searching, a meaty hand appeared, bearing his cellphone like a pearl in the palm.
“Looking for this?” the Australian said. “I found it in my bag. Must have fallen out of your pocket on the plane.”
“Thank you,” Michael said, relieved.
He took it and switched it on. Nothing happened. The battery had been fully charged before he’d boarded, but still it didn’t power up.
The Australian looked at him. “Need a ride?”
“No, thanks. I’m expected,” Michael said. “They’ll be here.”
“I’ll shove off, then.” The man gave him a little wave, which Michael half-heartedly returned, and he resumed the search for his ride.
No one.
He waited another fifteen minutes, sighing and shifting. Finally he darted over to a cart and bought a phone charger, then found a place to plug in so that he could retrieve and send messages. It wouldn’t charge. Something was definitely wrong with it.
She’d said to stay put, but he’d been to London enough times to get himself a cab. He was due at Lady Davis’s in a couple of hours; if h
e left now, he had just enough time to stop off at their London office to finish reading her paperwork, say hello to his London counterparts, and freshen up. He jumped into a cab.
* * *
Lady Davis was waffling on her proxies because she didn’t trust anyone to run the companies in which she held investments. She was worried about the future of Britain, and no wonder. The ride from her beautiful row house to his uncle’s flat was unnerving, to say the least. Windows boarded up, more “for let” signs than businesses, it seemed, and armed British soldiers in the streets. At the Hartner & Lowe London office, the staff had made anxious jokes about the state of the nation and the barbarians at the gates. “I mean,” a colleague had said, “it makes one hesitant to suggest any sort of long-term strategic planning.”
The cab dropped him off at Charing Cross Road outside Ogham Antiquarian Bookshop, in front of the unassuming blue door that led upstairs to his uncle’s flat above the store.
As he walked up the interior stairway and into the flat, he smelled dust, tobacco smoke, and licorice, and he stopped for a moment, half-expecting to hear his uncle softly singing as he cooked up some beans and chips for dinner. Uncle Daniel had stepped in as the father he’d lost, but he wasn’t at all like Michael’s father. Could two brothers be any less alike? Uncle Daniel sang old Celtic songs and told old stories— fairy tales and poems about moons and galleons. Michael’s father had been into tennis. Then again, that was what Michael had loved about Daniel.
“Hello, Uncle,” Michael murmured, as he opened the door and flicked on a light. The birthday card sat heavy in his briefcase.
Daniel’s apartment had always been filled with the oddest assortment of antiques and one-of-a-kind objects— ivory Chinese fans and lanterns, ebony elephants and windup monkeys complete with brass cymbals. A painting of Oscar Wilde whose eyes followed you everywhere, Michael swore.
Then there were what appeared to be journals with yellow covers, dozens of them. Michael vaguely remembered seeing a few in a box beneath Uncle Daniel’s bed, back when he was a boy and he had thought he’d heard a strange, metallic laugh echoing through the rooms before Daniel had come upstairs from the shop. Michael had had no interest in them back then, but now?
Now Michael was alone in a dead man’s home, and he tried to remember the last time he’d phoned or even emailed him.
Daniel had known Michael was busy; at least, Michael tried to tell himself that. He made himself a cup of tea and sat on the couch, surrounded by the journals, and opened one at random.
They taunt me that we’re almost out of time. They say we’re done for. They say that when the world is theirs again, they’ll make the valleys green and the waters blue. But their Queen is cruel. Icy. Asha promises me that Michael will come.
Asha. Asha Sen.
Mab came for dinner. She had strawberries and sugar. I spilled the milk and she cooed over it as if it were a lamb. She counted it precious. She brought me whiskey and once she thought I was good and pissed, she tried to trick me out of the Lease. Asha arrived in the nick of time and she knew what to do. Salt and needles and Mab was out the door!
Then I sang Irish songs — you know what they say, the Irish sing sadly of love and merrily of battle — and I cried on Asha’s shoulder because I’m alone in the world and must hang on for a fortnight to sign the Lease. Asha reminds me that we must expect more tricks from the Fair Folk until it is all taken care of. She’s been reading her Yeats and all the old stories for clues about what they’ll try. When I speak of Michael, she frowns, and then she softens and says that he is coming.
“So is Christmas,” I told her, “and that’s one thing we can count on.”
“We can count on the faeries,” she said, “to make it go hard with us.”
Asha. There she was over and over again, encouraging Daniel. Affirming him. Deluding him. Michael shut the journal and threw it down on the stack on the coffee table. The freakishly, obsessively towering stack.
He had failed Daniel miserably by not being here during the last days, and because of that, Asha had stepped in and taken advantage. Daniel’s mental condition was clearly fragile, allowing him to be preyed upon. Now she was trying to play Michael for the same kind of fool, but to what end? Whatever she wanted, she wasn’t going to get it from him. He owed his uncle that much. He would never sign that lease.
As if on cue, he heard high heels clicking on the stairs. A key turned in the lock; then Asha stepped through the front door in her rumpled navy suit. When she saw him, the fear on her face hardened into anger.
“Where have you been? Why aren’t you answering your phone?” she asked, jabbing the old brass skeleton key at him. “I was worried!”
“There was no one there to meet me. So I took care of my business. Besides my phone is broken.”
She caught her lower lip between her teeth and set down her bag. “I thought they might have—”
“They? Oh, right. The faeries that are set to inherit the Earth, if I don’t sign some piece of paper. You sure had my uncle convinced about that faerie tale. Why? What’s in it for you?”
She jerked. Then she saw all the journals. “Where did you get these? I’ve been looking for them everywhere.” She began to gather them up.
“I believe those are mine,” he said. “Evidence if I decide to sue you.”
She froze. “For what?”
“Preying on an old man. Warping his mind so that he couldn’t tell fantasy from reality. Encouraging his delusions. Scaring him when he was old and sick.” His voice cracked.
She glowered at him. “I beg your pardon. Your uncle was my friend. I was the one who took care of him when he was sick and dying. Not some nurse. Not you.”
“Don’t forget Queen Mab. Looks like she checked in on him pretty often. They were old chums.” He opened a journal. “You brainwashed him. You told him what to believe.”
“You used to believe, too,” she said. “Don’t you remember? He told me about when you were little. You saw the faeries everywhere. Because you’re an O’Dare.”
“I didn’t, I’m not—”
“And as for what I told him to believe, I also told him that you would come before he died.”
She let the remark hang in the air. Then she grabbed her bag and left the flat, shutting the door with exaggerated care.
“Screw you,” he said quietly.
He picked up another journal and flipped through it, but he was tired and, he realized, hungry. There was nothing in his uncle’s fridge, and only a jar of blackberry jam and some spices in the pantry. The jam was for when Queen Mab came by, he supposed. He hoped that when she came, she would bring him some whiskey.
He went downstairs and onto the street. Asha Sen was not there, pouting and waiting. She was gone. Good. Night was falling, darkness puddling around the buildings that had once housed ethnic grocers and tiny takeout places. He smelled cumin, lemons, and garlic.
Then he thought of the Old Map, recently vandalized, and decided to go there. He walked down the street, made a couple of turns, and swung inside. No one greeted him as he was seated and given a menu; years ago, he’d known everyone who worked there by name.
“Well, now, this is downright uncanny,” said a familiar voice. Michael looked up to find the Australian standing next to his table.
Michael felt foolishly relieved to see a familiar face that was not Asha’s. He strained to smile and said, “What are the odds?”
“It’s a small world. What can I say?” said the Australian, smiling. “Join you?”
They spent the next hour talking politics, science, and movies— anything but faeries. They drank beer and then the Australian bought a couple rounds of whiskey. Michael got a little too drunk, then way too drunk, and he didn’t care. The world, such as it was, was back to normal, whatever normal was. Faeries, his ass.
They both watched as one of the wai
ters drew back a curtain and showed another waiter the plywood sheet covering the window that Michael had seen broken on the news video. The second waiter nervously patted the piece of wood and whispered something under his breath as if to assure himself that it would stand up to further violence.
“I saw that happen on TV,” Michael said. “Skinheads tried to loot the till.”
“Crikey,” the Australian murmured. “Humanity! You’d think by now we’d have solved everyone’s problems.”
“Maybe we should just give it back,” Michael muttered. “We’re doing a real bang-up job with the place.” He put both his hands on the table as the pub spun around him like a falling autumn leaf. “I’m going home.”
“Walk you?” said the other man.
“I mean New York.”
“Missing that bird who’s not your missus?” the Australian said, and snorted a laugh. “Poetry.”
Michael couldn’t make himself smile. “Not in the least. She’s what you’d call an unmissed miss. A real PIA, if you get my meaning.”
“Women,” the Australian agreed.
They grinned at each other and Michael drained the very last drops of his whiskey.
“And on that note, it’s late and I have a morning appointment. No rest for the wicked, don’t they say?” the Australian said. “What’s on your agenda tomorrow?”
Tomorrow was Thursday. Michael felt a fierce joy at the thought of blowing off Asha’s magical deadline.
“Not a thing besides catching a flight back home,” Michael replied. As he put cash on the table, he re-remembered the man’s name, which he had forgotten and remembered several times already. “Matthew. Great to run into you.”
“The same.” The man picked up his coat.
They parted at the pub’s front door. The evening air was cool and fresh. Michael remembered books and stories and old Irish songs about lost battles and the evil English. O’Dare was an Irish name, and although his uncle said they’d lived in London for generations, Uncle Daniel had still spoken with a wee bit o’ lilt.
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