Higher Mythology

by Jody Lynn Nye

  “Me?”

  “Sure, kid. It’s your idea,” the director said. “You get to suffer the consequences along with the rest of us.”

  “Great!” Keith exclaimed.

  Elated, he ran up to use a typewriter in one of the copywriter’s offices. The words for the press release ran out easily under his fingers and in no time, he had a notice of the correct length in the correct format ready to be signed off. He included a frame from his mockup commercial to illustrate the report.

  Paul gave the text his approval. “A little flowery, but so what? It’s your first time. Get out of here, and I’ll see you in the morning. You look shot to pieces. Get some sleep. I’m sending the others home as soon as they finish today’s assignments.”

  “Thanks, Paul!” Keith said.

  On the way out, he took a small package addressed to Paul out of his file drawer. He thought of leaving it in Paul’s mailbox, but elected not to, in case things didn’t go as he hoped Saturday. Better to make sure, instead of jinxing the procedures ahead of time by being too cocky; he decided he’d rather wait and see.

  Saturday morning, Jake Williamson and Mona Gilbreth paid a visit to Pilton at the cottage in the woods. Jake gave Pilton the daily paper and a carton of fresh milk, while Mona talked her way into the back room to see how her bankroll—she stopped herself in mid-thought—her guest was doing.

  The girl looked at her sullenly from the corner of the room, her cheeks sunken and unhealthy looking. It seemed that she had been in that position for days. She only had Grant’s word that she’d even set foot out of the room.

  “Are you sure she’s eating?” Mona demanded, coming out of the bedroom. Behind her, the door lock snapped shut. The child must have flown to latch it as soon as she was out again.

  “Yes’m, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches,” Pilton confirmed, glancing up from the gossip column. “She eats about one a day. She never talks to me any more, even though I said I’m sorry.”

  “You’ve got to stop apologizing for shooting her imaginary friend,” Jake told him severely.

  “It wasn’t imaginary, Jake,” Grant insisted. “I saw it too! And I thought maybe she’d be my lucky charm.”

  “Well, she’s certainly been mine,” Mona said. Her jeweler friend had come through with a buyer for the antique sapphire, and the enormous sum was being transferred directly to her account. She had called each one of her creditors to say that the bills were being paid in full. She hadn’t felt so wonderful in ages. Taking care of the outstanding invoices hadn’t left a lot for the Democrats, but the ransom the child’s folks had promised to pay would take care of that. She was just waiting for the right moment, the right place, to claim it.

  “Well, you see, ma’am?” Grant said. He read through the gossip column, and came to a framed notice at the end. “Hey. Look at this,” he said, holding it up for the others to read. “We can win this contest. We got us a real fairy.”

  “Aw, shut up, Grant,” Jake said impatiently.

  Mona took the page away from him and read it carefully. Light dawned on her face.

  “No, he’s right,” she told her foreman. “That’s a good idea, and I don’t think it was accidental. See? This contest is being run by PDQ. That Doyle boy must have set it up so we can exchange the kid for the cash quietly with H. Doyle where no one will notice. It’s today. We can make it to Chicago if we start out right away. Her folks can have her back, if they have the money, and good riddance to her.”

  Pilton was aghast. “You mean take her there, but not enter her? That’s crazy. Look at this ad—it’s almost a ringer for her.”

  The fairy in the illustration was almost a perfect image of the little girl. Jake and Mona exchanged glances. Both of them knew it was deliberate, beckoning to them. The next move was theirs. “You’re right, Grant,” Jake said placatingly. “We couldn’t lose with this little girl. We’ll take her up there and enter her in this contest. If we’re really lucky, we’ll come home with the big prize.”

  Pilton’s grin popped the sides of his jaw, “Yeah!”

  “Get the girl ready,” Mona said. “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

  “All right,” Mona said into the phone. She had gone out to find a roadside booth and dialed Hollow Tree’s number. “We saw the ad. This is it. We’ll meet you there. You bring the ransom. I’ll bring the girl. We’ll exchange, er, packages, and get it over with. Yes, there. No police or press or any funny stuff.”

  “The ransom will be there,” H. Doyle promised.

  By ten A.M., the hall outside of the PDQ media director’s office resembled back stage of a winter performance of The Nutcracker Suite, sharing a dressing room with a production of The Wizard of Oz. Hundreds of little girls in some suggestion of gauzy costume, accompanied by their mothers, a few with their fathers, and a few in the company of agents stood or sat against the walls of the corridor. A couple, in undisguised ballet garb, did stretches with hands on chairbacks for stability. Most of them were wearing makeup. A handful had gigantic, commercial rubber pixie ears stuck on, which gave the tinier girls an aspect of having three heads.

  The parents all had portfolios in their laps or against their knees, notebook-sized up to leather zip cases that would hold theatrical posters flat. Keith, Dorothy, Sean, and Brendan had been given stacks of applications and a quick lesson in how to process the talent through to the media director.

  “Just be polite and keep them happy while they’re waiting,” Scott said. “They’ll be on good behavior right up until the time I turn them down for the part. Every one of them knows there’s only one winner in this game, and they want to be it.”

  “I know you’ll be fine,” Paul said. “If there’s a real problem you can’t handle, come and get me.” He added his blessings, and disappeared with Scott and the America’s Shoe executives into the inner sanctum.

  Keith threaded his way between the shrill-voiced children, fielded the questions for a couple who wanted to know where the bathroom was, and helped a woman in charge of an entire Brownie troop in Halloween princess costumes fill out her application forms, all the time searching the faces for the ones he knew. Hall, Tay, Enoch, and the Master were coming up with Marcy. Dunn was already there, sitting close enough to an African-American child and her father to seem as if he was with them. Lee, interviewing a simpering mother and her precocious child, winked at Keith over their heads. He was there to do a human-interest story on the shoot for his newspaper, and run interference where and if needed.

  A couple of the creative staff and the receptionist had come in to help out too. The only stranger was Scott’s assistant, a thin, intense young woman with pixie-cut brown hair and huge glasses that dominated her small face. She flashed lightning-quick smiles at everyone, and kept the queue moving smoothly with charm and the implied threat of expulsion.

  Diane had arrived by herself. She had taken charge of a clipboard, listened silently as Keith explained how to fill out applications, and was running completed forms up the end of the hall to the media director’s office in no time. No one questioned her assured, confident presence. Each of the executives in the audition room thought she belonged to a different one of them. She ushered a set of Japanese twins, aged about eight, into the office, sweeping right by Keith without seeming to see that he was there. She passed him again, her eyes focused straight forward. He tried to stop her and talk to her, but she shook his hand off her arm without looking at him.

  From the time she had arrived, she had refused to speak with Keith. Whenever he had tried to talk about anything but Dola or the auditions, she had tuned him out and kept walking or started a conversation with one of the others from Midwestern. Frustrated and upset, Keith watched her go by.

  Dorothy came up to him after seeing the performance repeated more than once. “You look like one of Little Bo Peep’s lost sheep. What’s wrong with her?” she asked in an undertone. “I thought she was your girlfriend.”

  “Brendan,” Keith said, his face
red. “He told her you and I were, well, having a thing, and she won’t believe it’s not true. Well, we have had dinner together a couple of times. I didn’t deny that. I wouldn’t. But she took it all wrong. You know how persuasive Brendan is.”

  “Yeah. He wants to be in advertising,” Dorothy said wryly. “Hang loose.”

  Diane, with cool efficiency, helped one of the newcoming children fill out her application, and attached the portfolio photograph to the back with a plastic paperclip.

  “Just sit here for a moment, and we’ll call you,” she said. She favored the little girl and her parent with a polite smile, and moved on to the next one. Dorothy moved in on her, and paying no attention to her protests, pushed her up the hall and into the empty lunchroom. Diane tried to break free, but Dorothy kept her arm in a solid grip.

  “You and I have got to talk,” Dorothy said. She planted her back against the door, blocking Diane’s attempts to pull it open.

  Diane retreated a few feet, tossed her head back and stared down her nose in mock hauteur. “You’re extremely pretty. I can see why Keith’s attracted to you. Let me go. I’m leaving.” She made as if to force her way past, but retreated before actually laying hands on the other young woman.

  Dorothy sighed and put hands on hips. “Listen, honey, I’ve got a man of my own. I don’t need yours, and believe me, that man is all yours. You know it, too, or you wouldn’t be here right now helping him. Why make life tougher for him than you need to?” The blond girl was staring at her as if Dorothy was speaking a language that she could just barely understand, but enlightenment was dawning. “You poor child,” Dorothy said with sincere sympathy, “I can tell you’re so much in love with him that you’d believe any stupid thing you heard about him, right?”

  “Yes,” Diane said in a whimper. “You’re absolutely right.”

  Dorothy shook her head. “Tch, tch, tch. Don’t you know he’s shown your picture to everybody in this building? He talks about you non-stop. I’ve known about you from Day One. You’ve got to consider the source, you know. You go ahead and tidy up, then come out again. That place is Crazyville out there. We need you. You’re being a big help.”

  Kindness from one she thought was a rival was too much for Diane. Her eyes filled up with tears, and she fumbled in her pocket for a tissue. Dorothy walked over to the sink and yanked a couple of paper towels off the roll.

  “You know, your boyfriend sat and listened to me cry in this very room not too long ago,” Dorothy said, handing them to her. “What goes around, comes around.” She slipped out of the room and left Diane alone.

  Feeling as if she had misunderstood everyone horribly, Diane sat and snuffled miserably until the paper towels grew soggy in her hands. Poor Keith, with so much on his mind, and she had refused to listen to him when he was telling her the truth.

  She felt her way blindly out of the lunchroom and found the nearest lavatory. Staring at her red-eyed reflection in the mirror, she resolved to go tell Keith she had been wrong. After dousing her face in cold water, she went out to find him.

  Keith spotted Marcy standing on her tiptoes at the end of the hall. She waved at him, then lowered her hand. He nodded, to let her know he understood. The Little Folk were in the building. He glanced around to find Holl, and came face to face with Diane. He goggled at her.

  “Diane, I …”

  “I need to talk to you,” she said. Her eyes were red.

  “This way,” he said, taking her by the hand. He led her toward the conference room, afraid to let go in case she changed her mind about talking to him.

  On a Saturday, that part of the hallway was deserted. None of the children, eager to cooperate and act like professionals, had defied the arrow sign in the foyer and gone down to investigate the opposite corridor. Keith started to reach for the handle of the conference room. Diane suddenly pulled back against his grasp.

  “I don’t want to go in there,” she said.

  As suddenly, Keith felt he didn’t either. It took him a moment to recognize the force of an avoidance charm. The Master and the other Little Folk must be inside. Keith pushed at the substance of the charm. He braced himself against the curtain of repulsion, pushing through by main force of will.

  “I don’t want to go in there,” Diane repeated, trying to pull away.

  “Yes. You. Do,” Keith gritted out, and they were through. He shoved the door closed behind him, and the two of them were suddenly face to face with the four elves. Politely, the Little Folk drew back to the extreme end of the room, to give the couple privacy.

  Keith reddened. “Excuse us,” he said. He dragged Diane across the conference chamber to the closet, pulled open the door, pushed her inside before him, and closed the door. The only light was a thread that peeked in past the doorjamb. It drew a glimmering line down one side of Diane’s face, illuminating a tear drifting onto her cheek from her lashes. Keith pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbed at it. She took the small cloth from him and clutched it between her hands.

  “Everyone’s pushing me around today,” she said miserably.

  Keith waited for her to blow her nose.

  “Now,” he said in a low voice. “I’m sorry you misunderstood what was happening up here. I tried to explain, really. I’m sorry you were upset with me. It wasn’t my fault.”

  “I know,” Diane said. She snuffled. “I hung up on you. I’m sorry, too, but I was so hurt thinking you could go off with anyone else. I’ve been under such a strain, worrying about the children, and then there was that poor air sprite getting killed, and I had a Chemistry exam I thought I blew, and then he said you were in bed with somebody else, and well,” she finished in a burst of woe, “I missed you down there and it hurt thinking you didn’t miss me as much.”

  “But I love you,” Keith said, genuinely surprised, “and someday I want to marry you, when we’re both out of school and I can explain to your parents why it wouldn’t be a detriment to have me in the family.”

  Abandoning the handkerchief, Diane laughed. She threw her arms around him and squeezed him in a rib-cracking hug. Keith took the opportunity to express the devotion that had been building up for the past weeks of separation, kissing her with increasing ardor.

  “Oh, Keith, my parents already like you,” Diane said, managing to get a few syllables out between kisses. “And I love you, too.”

  “Ah!” the Maven said, clear across the room from the closet. His sharp hearing had picked up every word of the whispered conversation. He settled back in his chair with his hands behind his head. “Finally.” The Master, Enoch, and Tay added their indulgent smiles.

  “But Mommy!” a shrill voice announced from the hallway, “that girl butted right in front of me!”

  The child’s voice was clearly audible in the closet. Keith and Diane broke apart and looked at each other, feeling guilty.

  “Dola,” they said together. They fled out of the conference room and into the hall to separate the two ten year olds, who were circling each other like prizefighters. The parents, each behind their own child, clutched applications and portfolios like cut and patch kits. One girl, round-faced and freckled, confronted the other, smaller and slimmer, but with a long, hollow-cheeked face.

  “She pushed in ahead of me first!”

  “Ladies, please!” Keith said. “Hey, both of you look absolutely pixie-like, don’t you think so, Miss Landen?”

  “Oh, yes!” Diane exclaimed, not knowing exactly where Keith was going, but following valiantly.

  “There’s hardly any way to choose between you,” he said in a confidential whisper, hunkering down on his heels beside them and holding both girls’ hands, “so we’re going to turn you over to Mr. Martwick, who’s going to take you right inside for your interview. All right?”

  The girls glared at one another, but both recognized the benefits of getting in ahead of the rest of the crowd, even in a joint audition, so they nodded. The horse faced child beamed determinedly, and turned back to her mother t
o have her rouge reapplied.

  As soon as they were ready, Keith marched both children over to Brendan, who was just emerging from the office at the end of the hall. “Mr. Martwick, in the interest of fairness, both of these amazingly fairy-like youngsters have got to be taken in to see our media director next, don’t you agree?”

  Brendan, uncertainly, grinned at the girls and yanked Keith aside. “What’s going on, Keith? Relatives of yours? One of them’s Gloria Swanson reincarnate and the other one’s the Pillsbury Dough Girl. They haven’t got a chance.”

  “They were fighting,” Keith said under his breath. “If you want to keep it from becoming a mob in here, get them in and out as fast as you can. Picture it: five hundred little girls all screaming and crying.…”

  “Say no more,” Brendan said, blanching at the mere idea. He took the girls’ hands and escorted them into the office. “Right this way, please.” The parents followed, bestowing smug glances on the other mothers who were still waiting. The door closed behind them.

  “Whew!” Diane breathed. Dorothy came up behind them, and winked at Keith.

  “Nice work. Nice work on Brendan, too.”

  “Thanks for straightening things out for us, Dorothy,” Keith said.

  “I’m so sorry for thinking there was something wrong,” Diane said, her cheeks reddening.

  “Hey, no charge,” Dorothy said. She floated away from them to take on the next group arriving in the building.

  Taking a moment for a breather, Keith went back to the conference room to check in with the Little Folk. They knew now to expect him, so the spell’s substance pushed back before him like a curtain.

  The elves sitting around the boardroom table grinned up at him as he came in. He realized that they must have heard his whole conversation with Diane. Feeling foolish, he ignored their expressions. Business was business.

  “I’m glad you got here,” he said. “Now we’re ready. You sure she said she’ll be here?”