"If you don't open this door, Jacqueline Rowan, I swear I'll kick it down!"
Jacky started guiltily and jumped up from the couch. Forgetting how she looked, with her corn-straw hair poking up at odd angles from every part of her head and her eyes still swollen and red, she went to unlock the door.
"I swear," Kate said as she came pushing in, "someday you're going to give me a – Oh, Jacky. What have you done to your hair?"
Kate Hazel was Jacky's oldest and best friend. She was a small woman with a narrow face and a head of short dark curls, who always seemed enviably slim to Jacky. At a few inches taller than Kate's five foot one, Jacky carried at least ten more pounds than her friend did. "All in the right places," Kate would tease her, but that didn't make Jacky feel any better about it. They'd met in high school, shared their first joint together in Kate's parents' garage, lost their virginity at the same time – the week before their high school graduation – gone to Europe together for one summer, and stayed fast friends through every kind of scrape to the present day.
Jacky moved back from Kate until there was a wall behind her and she couldn't go any farther.
"I was worried sick," Kate said. "I tried calling you at work, and then here, and …" She paused for a breath and stared at Jacky's short unruly spikes of hair again. "What's happened to you, Jacky?"
"Nothing."
"But look at your hair."
"It just … happened."
"Just happened? Give me a break. It looks awful, like someone hacked away at it with a pair of garden shears."
"That's kind of how it happened."
Kate steered Jacky into the living room and onto the sofa. Perching beside her, back against a fat cushioned arm, legs pulled up to her chest, she put an expectant look on her face and asked, "Well? Are you going to give all the sordid details or what?"
Jacky sighed, half wishing that she'd never answered the door, but she was stuck with it now. And this was Kate, after all. Clearing her throat, she began to speak.
She left out what had happened in the park, telling Kate only about Will's walking out on her, about standing in front of the mirror, about getting drunk – ("Well, I don't blame you," Kate remarked. "I'd do the same if I saw that looking back at me from the mirror.") – and how she hadn't been able to go to work for the past two days and probably wouldn't until she'd done something about it.
Kate nodded sympathetically through it all. "You're better off without Will," she said at the end. "I always thought there was something glossy about him – you know, all shine, but no substance."
"You never said that to me."
"And you were all set to listen? Honestly, Jacky. When you get those stars in your eyes you don't want to hear anything but sweet nothings, and you don't want to hear them from me."
Jacky reached up a hand to twist nervously at her hair, but the long locks weren't there. She dropped her hand to her lap and covered it with the other. She knew Kate was just trying to kid her out of feeling bad, but she couldn't stop her lower lip from trembling. She didn't dare say anything more, didn't want to even be sitting here, because in another minute she was going to fall to pieces.
Kate suddenly realized just that. "I'm sorry, Jacky," she said. "I was being flippant."
"It's not that. I just … when he …"
Words dissolved into a flood of tears. Kate held Jacky's head against her shoulder and murmured quietly until Jacky stopped shaking. Then she pulled a crumpled Kleenex from her pocket and offered it over.
"It's not really used," she said. "It just looks that way."
Jacky blew her nose, then wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her shirt.
"I didn't know you were that big on Will," Kate went on. "I mean, I knew you liked him and all, but I didn't think it was this serious."
"It … it's not really Will," Jacky said. "It's everything. I don't do anything. I'm not anybody. All I do is go to work and then hang around the apartment. I see you, I saw Will, and that's it."
"Well, what is it that you want to do?" Kate asked.
"I don't know. Something. Anything. Can you think of anything?"
She looked hopefully at Kate, but Kate only sighed and leaned back against the arm of the sofa again.
"I don't know what to say," Kate finally said. "Are you sure you're not just overreacting to what Will said? I mean, I always thought you were happy."
"I don't know if I was happy or not. I feel so empty now and it's not from Will's leaving me. It's like I just discovered I have a hole inside me and now that I know it's there, it's going to hurt until I fill it."
Kate pulled her oversized purse from the floor beside the sofa. "At the risk of sounding facetious," she said," I bought some sticky buns on the way over. One of them with a hot tea could at least help to fill up an empty stomach, dearie."
The last part of what she said was delivered in a quavery old lady's voice, which tugged a smile from Jacky.
"Perfect," Jacky said. "I'm worrying about how I look, and all you can think of is fattening me up."
"This is food for the soul," Kate insisted in a hurt voice. "I thought you were speaking of soulish type things. I didn't realize that you were just hungry."
"I suppose if I became a blimp, no one would notice my hair."
"What a romantic notion: my blimpy friend, floating through the night skies in search of – what? More sticky buns? I say you, nay! She searches for the perfect hairdresser – one who combines aerobics with hairstyling."
That lifted a genuine laugh from Jacky and soon they were in her kitchen, drinking tea and finishing off the sticky buns. As it got close to seven, Kate had to beg off.
"I promised my mom I'd stop by tonight, but I won't be staying late. Come by later if you don't want to be by yourself. In fact, come along now. Mom'll be so shocked by your hair that she'll totally forget to nag me."
"Not a chance," Jacky told her.
"You're probably right. You sure you'll be okay?"
Jacky nodded. "Thanks for coming by."
"Any time. And listen, Jacky. Don't try to take on everything all at once, okay? One thing at a time. You can't force yourself to get new interests. They've just got to come. I guess the trick is to stay open to them. Maybe we could look into taking some courses together or something. What do you think?"
"That sounds great."
"Okay. Now I've really got to run. Promise me you won't cut off anything else until you've at least talked to me first?"
Jacky aimed a kick at her, but Kate was already out the door and laughing down the stairs.
"I'll get you for that!" Jacky called after her.
She closed the door quickly to make sure she got the last word in, but her satisfied grin faded as she turned to confront the apartment. In the space of a moment it seemed far too small, now that Kate was gone. The good feelings that Kate had left with her went spiraling away. The walls felt as though they were leaning toward her, closing in. The ceiling sinking, the floor rising.
She had to get out, Jacky realized. Just for some fresh air, if nothing else.
Opening the door to her hall closet, she reached up to take her blue quilted cotton jacket from its peg and the red cap she'd found two nights previously fell into her hands. She turned it over, fingering its rough cloth. She hadn't told Kate about this. Not about the empty house with its hidden watcher. Not about the bikers. Not about the little dead man. Was it because she still wasn't sure if anything had really happened?
But the cap was here, in her hands. No matter what else she might or might not have imagined, there was still the cap. It was real.
"I don't even want to think about this," she said aloud, shutting the closet door.
Stuffing the cap into the pocket of her jacket, she went down the stairs and out into the growing night. She tried hard to just enjoy the brisk evening air, but the mystery of the odd little scenario in the park played over and over again in her mind no matter how much she tried to ignore it, intensifying with each repe
tition. It had to have been more than a drunken illusion. There was the cap, after all. But if it was real, then she'd seen a murder. Bikers killing a little old man. Bikers without faces. A corpse that disappeared.
Finally she turned her steps in the direction of Windsor Park. Whatever had or hadn't happened there, she had to see the place again. It was that, or accept that she was going completely off the deep end ….
Three
Windsor Park had none of the feel of otherworldly menace tonight, as it had had two nights ago when her fears and – vision? drunken hallucination? – had sent her fleeing from its shadowed boundaries. There was still a mystery in the darkness, but it was the same mystery that could be found on any night – the stars up high, the whisper of a wind, the dark buildings with their lighted windows and the glimpses of all those other lives through them.
She paused in front of the deserted house. As she looked at its dark bulk, the flood of the night before last's images that had been troubling her washed away. God, she could be so stupid sometimes. Bad enough she'd hacked off all of her hair and then went out and got drunker than she'd been since she and Kate had celebrated their first paycheques. Or that she'd let Will get her so worked up about what she did with her life. But then she'd had to manufacture this whole … weirdness involving men staring at her from empty houses, biker gangs and little men ….
She pulled the cap from her pocket and investigated it more by feel than by sight. But there was still this cap, she thought. She had to talk to Kate about it. Right. And she had to get on with her life. First thing tomorrow she'd go to the hairdresser's and have something done about this mess she'd made of her hair. When people asked her why she was wearing it short now, she'd just tell them it was because she wanted it this way. It had been time for a change, that was all. Time to find some … meaning.
That brought a frown. She brushed the short stubble with her fingers. She wished Will had kept his opinions to himself.
Still fingering the cap, she stretched it between her hands, wondering if it would fit. It would help hide the ruin of her hair. She put it on, then blinked. A quick sensation of vertigo almost made her lose her balance. When she recovered, the night had changed on her again.
The otherworldly feeling was back. The silence. The catsoft sense of something waiting. She turned to look at the empty house and saw him again, the watcher, standing at his window, studying the night, looking at her, beyond her. She turned to look out at the park where he was looking.
It had either grown lighter, or her night vision was sharper tonight. She could see straight into the heavy shadows under the trees by the river, see the splayed branches, each leaf and each bough, and there … She sucked in a quick breath. Sitting silent on his Harley was one of the night before last's riders: a black figure on his black and chrome machine, a shadow watching her, as well.
There was a connection between the riders and the man in the house. She knew that now. She didn't quite dare approach the rider – the night before last's wild plunge from her hiding place had been an act of bravado that she wasn't prepared to repeat sober – but the watcher in the house might not be beyond her. She could call to him, talk to him through the windows. She started to push her way through the low cedar hedge.
"Hssst!"
She turned quickly, looking left and right. Nothing. A pinprick of fear snuck up her spine. Before she could move again, a low voice sounded almost in her ear.
"Don't be so quick to visit the Gruagagh of Kinrowan – there's some say he owes as much loyalty to the Unseelie Court as he does to his own Laird."
This time she looked up. There was a small man perched in the branches of an oak tree that grew on the border of the park and the backyard of the watcher's house. She could see him very clearly, his blue jacket and the red cap on his head like the one she was wearing. He had a grim sort of face, a craggy expanse between his beard and cap, nose like a hawk, quick feral eyes.
"Who …?" she began, but her throat was too dry and the word came out as a croak.
"Dunrobin Finn's a name I'll answer to. Here. Take my hand." He reached down a gnarled hand, veins pronounced, the knuckles knobbly.
Jacky hesitated.
"Quick now," Finn said. "Or do you want to be the Big Man's supper?" He pointed in the direction of the rider as he spoke.
"Do … do you mean the biker?" Jacky managed.
Finn laughed mirthlessly. Before Jacky knew what he was up to, he was down on the ground beside her. He hoisted her up under one arm and scrambled back up the tree. She was shocked at his speed and his strength, and clung desperately to the trunk of the tree when he set her on a perch, her legs dangling below her. It was a long way down.
"That one," Finn said, "is one of the Wild Hunt, and you don't have to be afraid of them until all nine are gathered." He pointed again. "There's the Big Man – Gyre the Younger."
Jacky's gaze followed his finger and she drew in a sharp breath. Standing with his back to them, facing the river, was a man who had to be at least eighteen feet tall. He was close to the trees that rimmed the riverbank and she'd taken his legs for tree trunks, never looking higher. Dizzy now, she clung harder to the tree she was in.
"Where … where are we, Dunrobin?" she asked.
It still looked like Windsor Park, but with giants and little gnome men in trees, it had to be a Windsor Park in an Ottawa that wasn't her own.
"Dunrobin's my clan name – it’s Finn you should be calling me. That's the way we hobs pair our names – at least our speaking names. And this is still your own world. You're just seeing it through different eyes, seeing how you're wearing a hob's spellcap and all."
"It doesn't feel like my world anymore," Jacky said slowly.
"There are Otherworlds," Finn said," but they're not for the likes of us. We're newcomers, you know. The Otherworlds belong to those whose land this was before we came – same as our own Middle Kingdom in the homeland belongs to us. Now, that cap you're wearing – it belonged to Redfairn Tom. I know him, for he's a cousin on my father's side. Where did you get it?"
"I …"
She didn't know what to say. What she'd seen two nights ago … if she'd tried telling anyone about it, they'd have looked at her like she wasn't playing with a full deck. But this little man … he'd believe. The problem was, she wasn't all that sure that he was real himself. God, it was confusing.
"Give me your jacket while you're telling the tale."
She looked at him. "What?"
"Your jacket. I'll stitch a spell or two into it while we're talking. Walking around like you are, anybody can see you plain as day. The Host is strong now – getting stronger every day. They see you wearing a hob's redcap and they'll just as soon spike you as ask you the time of day. Come, come. You've a shirt on, as I can plainly see, and it's not so cold. Best give me your shoes while you're at it."
"Please," Jacky said. "I don't understand what's going on."
"Well, that's plain to see, walking about in the Big Man's shadow with never a care. Planning on calling in on Kinrowan's wizard and not a charm on you but a redcap. And while that'll let you see, it won't mean a damn if he decides to find out what sort of a toad you'd make – do you follow my meaning?"
"I … no. No, I don't."
"Well, what don't you understand? And do give me that jacket. All we need now is for the Big Man to turn around and see you sitting here like a chicken in its roost, waiting for him to pluck it."
"I don't understand anything. This Kinrowan you're talking about – my name's Rowan, too." She took off her jacket as she spoke, warily balancing herself on her branch, and passed it over.
"Is it, now? That's a lucky name, named for a lucky tree, red-berried and all. Red berry, amber and red thread – now that's a charm that would stop even a bogan, you know. Do you have just the one speaking name?"
She shook her head. "It's Jacqueline Elizabeth Rowan, but my friends just call me Jacky. What's a speaking name?"
"They're usually
boys," Finn said to himself.
"What?"
"Nothing." He had just produced a needle and thread, and was stitching a design on the inside of her jacket, gnarled fingers moving deftly and quick. "A speaking name's the one you'll let others speak aloud, you know? As opposed to your real name that you keep hidden – the one that a gruagagh can use to make spells with."
"I don't have a secret name – just the one I told you."
"Oh? Well, you'd best keep the rest of your name to yourself in future, Jacky Rowan. You never know who's listening, if you get my meaning." He looked up from his work and fixed her with a glare that, she supposed, was meant to convey his seriousness. What it did do was succeed in frightening her.
"I … I'll remember that."
"Good. Now let's start again. The cap. Where did you get Tom's cap?"
Watching him stitch, Jacky told him all that she'd seen – or thought she'd seen – two nights ago. Finn paused when she was done and shook his head.
"Oh, that's bad," he said." That's very bad. Poor Tom. He was a kind old hob and never a moment's trouble. I didn't know him well, but my brother used to gad about with him." He sighed, then looked at her. "And it's bad for you, too, Jacky Rowan. They've marked you now."
Jacky leaned forward and lost her balance. She would have tumbled to the ground if Finn hadn't shot out a gnarled hand and plucked her from the air. He set her back down on her branch and gave her a quick grin that was more unhappy than cheerful. It did nothing to set her at ease.
"Who … who's marked me?"
"The Host – the Unseelie Court, who else? Why do you think I'm talking to you, girl? Why do you think I'm helping you? I'd sooner take a crack in the head from a big stick before letting anyone fall into their clutches."
"You've mentioned them before. Who or what are they?"
Finn tied off the last stitch on her jacket and passed it over. "Put this on first and give me your shoes."
"What did you do to my jacket?" she asked.
"Stitched a hob spell into it. Now when you're wearing it, mortals won't see you at all, day or night, and it will be harder for faerie too – both the Lairdsfolk and the Host." He took her sneakers as she passed them to him, one by one, and went on. "Now the Lairdsfolk – those who follow Kinrowan's banner here – are sometimes called the Seelie Court. That comes from the old language, you know, and it means happy or blessed. But the Unseelie Court is made up of bogans and the sluagh – the restless dead – and other grim folk.
Jack the Giant-Killer (Jack of Kinrowan Book 1) Page 2
