by Caleb James
“They’re often the happiest.”
“True, and happiness is not my due. I would know what’s happened in my absence.”
Cedric looked behind them. “The Mist, it stopped growing. There was the great upheaval, when May possessed the haffling and left our realm. I was certain we would be devoured, and then it stopped. In places, it’s retreated. Here and there a village that was gone has returned. Inhabitants remember nothing more than a dream.”
“And that’s how I returned, though I do not understand how… on the back of a dream.” He kept his tongue about the rest of it—that the dream was not his and that the dreamer smelled of fairy fire and his stolen kiss tasted of fairy dust. “May lives. She is in the Mist, trapped… as a giant white salamander.” Still shaken, Liam wondered at the queen’s choice of form. Perhaps it’s not a choice but her inner self. He remembered how she’d eaten his parents’ hearts and other bits she’d ripped from their ruined bodies as he stood frozen and watched.
Cedric nodded. “I had heard, and it won’t be forever. She will return. We must prepare, though in truth, I know not how. Her first acts will be to kill us both, which I could bear. But she will kill my Marilyn, and she will again attempt to use one of my haffling children as a bridge. You look like one of them now. Like a human.”
“Tell me,” Liam said, having but briefly glanced at his changed image in the old woman’s looking glass.
“Your ears, your teeth, even the color of your hair. You are still beautiful, but you do not look fey. You look human.”
“I would see your family. I would beg their forgiveness.”
Cedric wrapped Liam in his arms. “Marilyn has forgiven me. She will forgive you as well. We are family, and we are few. The past cannot be undone. We were vicious puppets, you and I.”
Liam, not used to tears, seemed unable to stop. He sobbed. “She made me a whore.”
“She gave you no choice. She gave me no choice.”
“We had choice, Uncle.”
“To die, yes. That’s the choice your mother and father took. I wanted to join them.”
Liam looked up into his uncle’s face. This was indeed a day of revelations. “You stayed for me.”
Cedric nodded. “You are my brother’s son. You are all I have left of him, and you are mine.”
Liam nodded, uncertain of what to say, his thoughts a jumble from his journeys through the realms. Through the tears, he laughed.
“Tell me,” Cedric said.
“Questions, Uncle. It would be so much simpler if we could ask and answer questions.”
“Perhaps, but not for me to say. Questions cost.”
“Right, so I shall tell you what I know, or think I know. She chose to be a salamander, although I believe her hand was forced. I would know the reason,” Liam said.
“Simple. She is not done and for some reason was unable to retain her fairy form.” Cedric’s breath caught. “And my son… I am frightened for Alex, if he even still lives. For May would not have left his body willingly. He was her vessel, her safe passage between worlds. My son….” Cedric straightened his shoulders and shook back his silvery mane. “Yet there is hope. Our Alex is brave. He is clever, and he is loved. I will not think him dead…. The salamander, Liam, is a creature of singular talents. In order to rule, May must be whole. If you cut off a salamander’s arm, it grows another. She means to trick our magic, to trick our rules. But all has not gone as she’d planned. Indeed, I wonder at her true object. Yes, she wants power. Yes, she wants to rule the See and the Unsee, but there’s a piece we have missed. I know not what it is. And I know it is important.”
Eleven
“IT’S CLEAR as the nose on your face, Charlie. You want to find him,” Gran stated, well into her second boozy Mary.
“So what?” Charlie said, his second screwdriver drained, along with two cups of black coffee.
“You won’t find him.”
He stared at Gran. Of his entire family, she’d been the most accepting of his being gay. She’d told him of other relatives, both male and female. “Times change, Charlie,” she’d said when he was sixteen. “No need for you to marry a woman, make the baby or four, and live a second secret life.”
“Gran, what have you got against Liam?”
“He’s not for you.”
“Yeah, you’ve said that a couple dozen times and keep hinting at a big secret. So what is it?”
She smiled. “You ask a lot of questions, boy. How did your Liam like those?”
Charlie paused. She does know something. “He didn’t.”
“Odd, don’t you think?” Her words were deliberate, and she exaggerated the lift at the end of her sentence. “And his accent…. Did he say exactly where he was from? Or the fact that five cats all agreed something was not right with that man.”
Charlie shook his head, not certain if the booze and caffeine were making this easier or worse. “You’re saying he’s a vampire, which might explain his disappearing act. You know, daylight and all. Did he vaporize or something?”
Gran signaled for the waitress and another round. She turned back, her tone serious. “I don’t talk much of my childhood. It was hard, and the best decision Ma made was to leave Limerick and come to the States. The biggest difference between here and there was this—in this country, people shed their histories like a pair of underwear. We’re an old family, Charlie. The fact that I started as a Fitzgerald, married a man named Fitzgerald, is not so unusual. And with the old families, there comes history, stories, and some other things….”
“What does this have to do with Liam?” He wondered if, at eighty-three, Gran wasn’t slipping into senility.
“The good people, Charlie… I’ve heard the wail of our banshee.” Her pale eyes looked at him dead-on.
“Okay, now you’re pulling my leg. Not just any banshee, but our banshee?”
“Nah, you’re not going to become one of them.”
“One of the good people?”
“Don’t be absurd. You’re not going to become someone who tells me that what I see with my own eyes and hear with my own ears is my imagination. I’m done with that. What I’m telling you is truth. When I was twelve, before the telegram and the two soldiers came to the door to tell my ma, I heard the howl. I knew my da was dead.” Her eyes misted, and a lilting accent, schooled away years ago, returned. “Growing up, they were just a part of my life. I didn’t think much about them, and mostly, I didn’t see them… except when I looked for them. But I knew they were there. I knew that cats howled in their presence, and I’d hear the stories of babies left untended by the fire. I watched my ma and all the other women throw bits of food outside the door. Though Ma said she believed in none of it. Yet every loaf she baked, the heel got tossed as an offering to whatever wasn’t in our backyard. You don’t do things like that if on some level you don’t believe. Those were things we did there, but not here. Here it’s nonsense and superstition. A circle of mushrooms in the woods is that and nothing more.”
Charlie leaned in. “We’re talking what? Fairies, leprechauns?”
“Fey, Charlie. Your Liam reeked of it—sweet and unnatural. It was on the both of you.”
“The cookie smell was from the fire, Gran. It was strange, and not everyone smelled it. But you did… and cookies make you think of fairies?”
The waitress returned with a fresh screwdriver and Bloody Mary. Gran stirred her drink with its celery garnish.
“Charlie, I do not have Alzheimer’s, and I can’t make you believe me, but I want to tell you a story I’ve not shared since I was eight. When I was little, very little, almost my first memory is of seeing dancing lights in the scrub behind our house. I followed them, though I couldn’t have been more than four or five… maybe younger. I’ve seen the little people, fairies no bigger than your hand. So pretty and mostly naked. I’ve heard their chatter and brought them sweets—they like sweets best. Like your Liam piling sugar into his tea.”
“So he likes his tea
sweet. And couldn’t it have been your imagination… or….” His own dream of Liam was still fresh, the white snake-thing in the mist, his stolen kiss. But that was a dream. “Or the fact that you’ve got a few hundred books on Irish folklore and fairy tales and maybe…. These are the stories you’d read me as a kid. They’re not real, Gran.”
“It wasn’t the one time, Charlie. The day we left for America, I bid the fairies good-bye. They never harmed me, but I knew to ask them no questions, to bring them sweets, and to treat them well. They are playful by nature, but the intended targets of their merriment don’t see the humor in barren fields or pretty babies replaced with changelings.” She gazed over Charlie’s shoulder through the restaurant window. “I’ve not seen the good people in over seventy years. But I know what I saw, and I hear the cry of our banshee.”
Charlie stilled as memories of 9/11 intruded. “I don’t get it. What do you mean ‘our banshee’?”
“It’s ours, Charlie. It’s for our family. It howls when one of us falls. It’s not a human cry—it’s older.”
Charlie shivered and remembered that morning. He’d been eight. As for everyone else, it was a day of terror, in a city and country under attack. He lowered his voice. “I heard it too, like an animal.”
She nodded. “I’m not surprised.”
“So you think Liam is—what?”
“A trap, Charlie. I was taught be kind to the good people, never cross them, and never trust them. They don’t think like us.”
Charlie met Gran’s gaze. She was serious, which worried him. It was too fantastic, and while he knew she had an obsession with these stories, he’d never considered that she thought they were true. So yes, Liam had a weird effect on her cats, and liked his tea sweet and had the most beautiful purple eyes, and smelled of cookies, and…. “No, this is crazy, Gran. He’s just a guy.” A really hot guy who’s way out of my league.
“Fine, then. But don’t say you weren’t warned.”
He paid the check and took her home.
They rode the elevator in silence, his thoughts on their conversation and on the futility of tracking Liam in a city of millions.
Inside her bookcase-filled hall, she asked him to help her with a couple of chores.
“You’re trying to keep me here,” he stated.
“Yes… here’s the thing, Charlie.” She walked back into her living room, which like the hall was crammed with books. “It’s not make-believe. Each of the old stories carries two halves of truth, the human half and the fey. Where each starts and ends, no one knows.”
Charlie shook his head. “They’re stories, Gran, and I’ve got to go.” He walked up to her, gave her a warm hug, and kissed her on the cheek. He felt her age and how thin she’d grown… but still strong.
She squeezed back. “The smell is gone.”
Charlie sniffed. She’s right. It’s gone. It made him sad.
HE LEFT Gramercy and drove to the East Village. He parked on the corner of First Avenue and Third. The block of the fire was still barricaded, and he stared at the charred building with yellow crime-scene tape across the front. This is stupid. But the instant he opened his door—cookies.
With every step it grew stronger, until he was directly across from the weathered brick façade, now blackened, with most of its windows smashed. Something to be said for its late-nineteenth-century construction that it still stood. While he’d not have thought it on Saturday night, as big chunks of the ceiling and walls gave way, the building could probably be saved.
He spotted the fire marshal’s red-and-white Ford SUV and wondered who’d gotten the call. He hoped it would be Finn. Having a friend to explain to might go easier.
If you’re going to do it, just do it.
He walked past the barriers, ducked the tape, and headed up the litter-strewn stairs and still-damp stoop. The outer security door was closed but not locked. Same with the one inside, past the rows of metal mailboxes and a buzzer system that had been ripped from the wall.
He heard footsteps and hoped it would be someone familiar as he hunted for information, favors… and Liam.
He spotted a marshal in black boots, blazer, and hard hat on the first-floor landing. The red of his short sideburns gave him hope. “Finn.”
Marshal Finn Hulain turned at his name. “Charlie, what the hell you doing here?”
He had no clear plan other than to revisit the scene and…. He’s not going to be here, but maybe you’ll find out something, like who he is. He looked at Finn and tried to read his mood. His brown eyes gave away nothing. From under the brim of the hard hat, his flame-red hair had started to gray at the temples. The Hulains lived two blocks away from his family on Staten Island. Twelve years older than Charlie, he’d been his brother Rory’s best friend, almost since day one. At Rory’s grave he’d stayed with Charlie, the two of them the last to leave.
“I helped get a guy out of here. He left some important papers behind and wondered if I could get them for him.” Why am I lying? Really? You want to tell him the truth, that you’re macking over a guy you just met who you kissed in a dream?
“The guy on the sixth floor?” Finn looked up at the stairwell that had collapsed between the third and fourth stories. “Great picture, by the way. I hear it’s gone viral. Naked Chihuahua guy.”
Charlie met Finn’s good-humored smile and eased up. “Publicity was not my intent.”
“And the little doggy too?”
“That was his doing.”
“He got a name?” Finn asked.
“The dog?”
“Jesus, Charlie….” Finn stared at the ground. “The guy, the hot-looking bare-assed blond guy.”
Finn’s response took Charlie aback. While people knew he was gay, he’d never thought Finn Hulain would notice if a guy were hot or not. Then again, at thirty-six Finn wasn’t married, no girlfriend…. “It’s Liam.”
Finn nodded. “You sure go the extra mile, Charlie. Guy’s lucky to be alive. From the look of the upper floors, the same’s true for you. This one was bad, and it was no accident.”
“I know… I was there. Any chance you’ll let me up?”
“You know I shouldn’t.” Finn looked at the floor and then at Charlie, still in the lobby. “This Liam… you like him?”
“I do,” Charlie said and wondered at the conversation’s direction.
“Three people died in this mess. One was a toddler.”
“I know.”
“Fuck it. Just don’t muck up the scene, and don’t fall through the floor. In fact….”
Charlie paused halfway up the first flight. “What?”
“I’ll go with you. You need to see something, and because you were here, maybe you can explain it to me.”
He joined Finn on the first-floor landing.
“This.” Finn walked Charlie over to a charred hole in the floor outside a north-facing apartment.
“I know,” Charlie said as they both stared up at the perfectly aligned openings. “You can see the sky.”
“So whatever it was started on the roof… and burned its way to the basement.”
“What was it?” Charlie asked. “Like a bomb, a missile? Someone get their hands on a Scud?”
“Got me. Whatever it was, it’s just a pile of ash in the basement. I’m going to have it analyzed, but it was incredibly hot. Never seen anything like it. So come on.”
And they moved up floor by floor, noting the weird series of burned holes. Halfway up the third-floor stairs, the way was blocked by the partially collapsed stairwell and ceiling.
“Stick to the edge,” Finn said. “It’s passable but barely. And if you get killed… I never saw you.”
“Coward.”
“Nah, smart. I know your family. They’d come for me.”
“Just Gran.”
“And she don’t take prisoners.”
With their backs braced against the rail and focused on their footing, they made it to the fourth floor. “Jesus!” Charlie stared at the devas
tation, walls little more than char, wood and plaster now no stronger than chalk.
“You’re damn lucky that you and Chihuahua Guy made it. This is where they found the two kids and their mother. The smoke got ’em,” Finn said, his throat choked. “Better that than the fire. Shit!” Finn gritted his teeth and averted his gaze.
Charlie waited for his friend to regain control. It’s what you did. Especially ’round guys who’d been through 9/11 or some of the other tragedies they encountered in the bad calls, like dead kids or pets that curled up and died from the smoke and the heat. Don’t make a big deal. Seconds dragged by. Hell, they even had psychologists and social workers come in and give mandatory in-services, which all had a rah-rah feel and numbers to call for help, which few used. Charlie waited. “You good?”
“Yeah, just want to make sure whatever fucked-up bastard started this doesn’t ever do it again.”
“Agreed.” They continued up to the sixth-floor apartment where he’d found Liam. They stopped outside the door he’d smashed. It looked like a raft lying on the kitchen floor.
There was the hole in front of the doorframe, like all the others. Charlie shone his light down to the basement. He tilted his head back and looked at blue sky. He inhaled fresh spring air, scented with cookies.
“I got to ask,” he said to Finn. “What do you smell?”
“You mean Mrs. Keebler?”
“Yeah. Weird… night of the fire, some of us smelled it and some didn’t. The ones who didn’t thought it was a gag, that we were making it up. But you smell it?”
“Yeah, and the pile of ash that started out as something hot enough to burn through a seven-story building smells superstrong. So I’m guessing whatever did this comes with fresh-from-the-oven cookie smell.”
“Right.” And Charlie, his thoughts buzzed from the smell and the three screwdrivers with Gran, could not piece this together. He crossed the threshold into the construction-zone kitchen. Light streamed through the shattered window where he’d carried Liam.
