Utterly Charming

by Kristine Grayson

  “We were in that park, you know,” Amanda said. “That little dinky one downtown.”

  “The one where all the teenagers hang out?” Nora asked.

  “And the homeless, and most of Portland’s criminal element,” said Jeffrey with a touch of disapproval. Nora had never heard him be disapproving before. “I told her not to take Emma there. It wasn’t the kind of park we usually took her to.”

  “It’s pleasant there in the daytime,” Amanda said. “Besides, there’s a lovely Hunan restaurant nearby where I was planning to get some takeout. Jeffrey and I had discussed it, and we thought we needed to gradually introduce Emma into this century—”

  “Mother,” Nora said, “Just tell me what happened.”

  “Jeffrey went off to get lunch—”

  “I thought you were going to.”

  “Well, Emma and I were having a lovely discussion about vendor carts—”

  “They were fighting,” Jeffrey said. “Emma wanted to try a hot dog, and Amanda was trying to explain how no one should eat a hot dog and that made Emma want one more and then Amanda started to explain what was in one—”

  “What happened?” Nora asked again.

  “That was when I went to get lunch,” Jeffrey said.

  “She went to get one herself,” Amanda said. “We’d been explaining money to her, and she had a twenty dollar bill. I was trying to tell her not to, but she ran, and she got to one of those vendors, and while he was making her one of those horrible things, this woman came up—”

  “Woman?” Nora asked, feeling a chill.

  “Yes,” Amanda said. “A tall woman wearing the most inappropriate dress. You’d think she was going to the opera. And she had black hair—”

  “With a white streak?”

  “Yes!” Amanda said.

  “Ealhswith,” Nora said. “Shit.”

  “You know this woman?” Jeffrey asked.

  “Yes,” Nora said. “Then what?”

  “Then the vendor started to hand her the hot dog, and—” Amanda’s voice shook. “And—”

  “And?”

  “She and that awful woman vanished.”

  “People don’t vanish, Amanda,” Jeffrey said. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

  “Then what happened to her?”

  “I don’t know,” Jeffrey said. “She got distracted. She wandered off. I’ve been telling you to tell Nora that perhaps Emma needs professional help.”

  Nora swallowed hard. “What time?” she asked. “What time did this happen?”

  “About noon,” Amanda said.

  About noon. Not long after Geffon had served her the papers. It had been a bait and switch. Get Nora preoccupied with the legal aspects and steal Emma right from under her nose. And if Nora hadn’t needed her Beautiful-Man Fix, she might have stayed at the office until late, researching the case. Ealhswith had no way of knowing that the people who were with Emma were baby-sitting her and would call Nora.

  “This is serious, isn’t it?” Jeffrey asked.

  “What did you think?” Amanda said. “The girl is missing. She doesn’t even know how to read.”

  He sighed. “I’ll go back out and look for her. Nora, call the police. Let’s file a missing persons—”

  “No,” Nora said. “That fits right into her plan.”

  “What?” Amanda asked. “Emma has a plan?”

  “Ealhswith’s,” Nora said. “If I file a missing persons, and Emma turns back up, we look incompetent. If the police do find her, they’ll think she’s incompetent.”

  “What are you talking about?” Jeffrey asked.

  Nora shook her head. Of course they didn’t know. She hadn’t told them. She had only told one person.

  The only person who could help her.

  She walked to the telephone, picked up the business card, and dialed Blackstone’s cell phone number. He picked it up on the first ring.

  “What?”

  “It’s Nora.” Her voice was calm, even though her hands were shaking. “I need your help.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “Ealhswith’s taken Emma.”

  “Where are you?”

  “At home.”

  “I’ll be right there.” He hung up before she could say anything else. She clung to the receiver as if it were a lifeline to him. She turned to Jeffrey and her mother, about to explain who Blackstone was when he appeared in front of the door.

  There was no smoke, no loud bang, nothing like in the movies. One moment the space was empty. The next moment, he was there.

  Amanda screamed. Jeffrey took a step backward and nearly tumbled down the stairs.

  Blackstone looked half wild. He glanced around until he saw Nora. “When did this happen?”

  Nora hung up as she spoke. “As I came to see you, I guess.”

  “As?” he snapped. “As?”

  “I just found out.”

  He turned toward Amanda, who backed into Jeffrey. Jeffrey put his arms around her as if to steady her. “And who are these people?”

  “My mother, and Jeffrey Chawsir. They—”

  “You are not Geoffrey Chaucer,” Blackstone said. “I know him. He was self-righteous, arrogant, and one hell of a writer. Besides, he was much shorter than you.”

  Jeffrey, who obviously had never encountered anything like this, said with complete dignity, “I am Jeffrey Chawsir.”

  “A man suffering from delusions is not what we need right now,” Blackstone said. “Get them to leave. We have important things to do.”

  “And they’ll help us,” Nora said. “Jeffrey Chawsir is his real name. It’s just spelled different. He’s the professor I hired to teach Emma history and to bring her up to speed. My mother has been taking care of her during the days. They were with her when Ealhswith took her.”

  “Ealhswith came here?”

  “No,” Nora said. “They have been taking her to various parks.”

  “Which one?” Blackstone asked Amanda. His silver eyes were flashing, and if Nora didn’t know better, she would have said he was furious.

  “I don’t know the name of it,” Amanda said. “It’s the small one downtown with the street vendors and the homeless guys and the fountain and the steps that the kids—”

  Blackstone raised an arm, swept it over them, and brought it down. Suddenly, they were in the very park Amanda was describing.

  “—skateboard in,” she said, finishing her sentence. She looked around, wide-eyed. “My heavens, Jeffrey. I guess people really do vanish. I think we just did.”

  “No,” he said, his voice a bit wobbly. “I think we just appeared.”

  One of the kids going by, skateboard under his arm, glared at them. A vendor behind them slammed the door closed on his little stall and inside it, Nora heard him shout, “That’s enough! I’m going home, going back to bed, and starting this day all over again!”

  The sun was high, and the heat of the day had found its way into the park. Nora was standing downwind of the fountain, and a little spray of cool mist kept hitting her in the face.

  Blackstone didn’t seem at all disoriented by his change of surroundings. “Okay, writer boy,” he said, taking Jeffrey by the arm. “Where did you last see her?”

  “I didn’t,” Jeffrey said. “I was getting Chinese takeout. Amanda—”

  “Where?” Blackstone said to Amanda.

  “Right there,” she said, pointing at the now closed vendor’s stall. “I sent her off to get herself a hot dog. It was to be her first experiment with money. I was watching from over there.” She pointed at a green bench that a bearded man wearing dirty Army fatigues was spread out on. “And then that woman showed up, grabbed Emma, and vanished.”

  Blackstone stalked up to the stall, waved a hand again, and the air rippled as if it were touched by a blast of heat. For a moment, a vague form of Emma appeared, and then Ealhswith appeared beside her, took her arm, and they both disappeared.

  “If you didn’t believe me,�
�� Amanda said in an aggrieved tone, “you could have just said so.”

  Blackstone hurried down the stone steps and stopped beside Nora. “It was a perfect abduction,” he said. “Not a trace. Not even a residue, and there should have been one, with that kind of magic. Ealhswith has gotten very good over the years. Better than I thought.”

  “Magic?” Jeffrey stammered.

  “What did you think this was?” Blackstone snapped. “Special effects?”

  “It would certainly be easier to accept,” Amanda mumbled.

  “Do you know how to find Emma?” Nora asked.

  “If I knew how to find her, I wouldn’t have had all the problems I’ve had for the last millennium. I thought you had her in good hands.”

  “I did.”

  “You didn’t tell them about Ealhswith.”

  “You said she’d be gone when I uninvited her.”

  “Nora,” Amanda said. “I don’t think bickering will get us anywhere.”

  “Right.” Nora shook away the retort she had been priming herself for, took a deep breath, and asked, “What are we going to do?”

  Blackstone glanced at the vendor’s cart, then the park itself, and then the street. He frowned, bit his lower lip, and said, “We have no choice. We have to throw ourselves on the mercy of the court.”

  “The court?” Jeffrey asked. But he was too late. Blackstone had already brought his arm up, swung it over them, and brought it down again.

  Nora could hardly catch her breath. The air had gone from hot and dry to hot and humid, so moist that it felt as if she were breathing underwater. Her blouse immediately stuck to her back.

  She was standing in a grotto, with trees that had branches which hung down around her. Amanda was standing near Blackstone and so was Jeffrey. A waterfall cascaded down the side of a cliff into a pool that was directly in front of her. Three women lay on rocks in that pool. They were naked, with bronzed skin and perfectly formed breasts, long legs and narrow waists. One had tattoos everywhere. Another had a chain hanging between her pierced nipples. The third wore diamond studs in her belly button. The first had green hair, the second a Mohawk, and the third was bald.

  The nearest woman sat up. “Aethelstan!” she gasped. “You brought mortals!”

  “They’re not supposed to see us in our natural state!” one of the other women said.

  “This is not exactly natural,” the third said. “It is—as you said, Clotho—an experiment in modern teenage thinking. It is—”

  “Remember the mortals,” the first woman said.

  “Ah, yes,” the second and third said in unison, and as they did, the scene changed from the lovely pool to steps outside a stone building. It looked Greek to Nora. White columns rose from the portico, and the women stood on the marble surface. They wore long white robes and sandals. Their hair fell to the middle of their backs: one woman a brunette, one a redhead, and the other a blonde.

  The blonde rested her hand on a spinner’s wheel. The redhead peered at all of them. The brunette held a pair of shears.

  Nora’s mouth went dry. These were the Fates, then, of Greek myth. The blonde was Clotho, the Spinner, who spun the thread of life; the brunette was Atropos, who carried the “abhorréd shears” and cut the thread at death; and that meant the redhead was Lachesis, the Disposer of Lots, who assigned each person a destiny.

  Who’d have thought that all of Mrs. Ramsey’s assignments in high school on mythologies of the world would actually have a practical use? And to think that Nora once believed Mrs. Ramsey’s class was time wasted.

  “Oh for God’s sake,” Blackstone said to the Fates. “It’s been nearly two thousand years since the Greeks had any importance.”

  “The last time you brought us a mortal,” Clotho said, “it put us in that dreadful play.”

  “Crones, I believe it called us,” said Lachesis.

  “Standing over a cauldron, as if we have nothing better to do,” Atropos said.

  “‘Boil, boil, toil and trouble,’ or whatever the quote was,” Clotho said. “The man really couldn’t write, could he?”

  “He’s considered the best writer ever in the English language,” Blackstone said.

  Lachesis sniffed. “Obviously English literature leaves a lot to be desired.”

  “You didn’t come here to discuss great books, did you, Aethelstan?” Atropos said.

  They were all beautiful, which hadn’t been apparent before. Their features were classic, their bearing proud. If Nora hadn’t seen them change, she wouldn’t have thought they were the same women.

  Atropos was slapping the shears against the palm of her left hand.

  Jeffrey was clinging to Amanda. Amanda was watching the three women as if they were misbehaving children about to get into trouble.

  “No,” Blackstone said. “I came here to discuss Ealhswith.”

  “Oh, that’s a surprise,” Clotho said in a tired voice. “We’ve already ruled on the Ealhswith matter.”

  “Things have changed,” Blackstone said.

  “Oh?” Lachesis asked. “Did that poor child finally come out of her coma?”

  Jeffrey coughed.

  “Tell the mortal to speak up or shut up,” Atropos said.

  “Writers don’t fare well here, scribe,” Blackstone said over his shoulder.

  “That’s becoming obvious,” Jeffrey said.

  “Thank heavens you’re not a writer,” Amanda said.

  “I doubt mortals fare much better,” Nora said as a warning.

  “You are perceptive,” said Clotho, smiling at Nora. “Didn’t we tell you she’d be perceptive?”

  She directed the question at Blackstone. He frowned. “You didn’t say anything about her at all.”

  Lachesis sighed. “Aethelstan, you are the slowest—”

  “Shush,” Atropos said. “He told us he wanted to discover on his own how the world worked, remember?”

  “How can I forget?” Clotho said. “The arrogance of the newly magicked male.”

  “That was a thousand years ago,” Blackstone said. “I’ve learned a bit since then.”

  “Obviously not,” Lachesis said, nodding toward Nora.

  “I came here about Emma,” Blackstone said. “Leave Nora out of this.”

  “She’s very involved,” Atropos said.

  “In fact, she’s been left out too long,” said Clotho.

  “She’s been involved for the last ten years,” Blackstone said, “which is probably ten years too many.”

  “Why do I feel like I fell asleep in that Chinese restaurant?” Jeffrey muttered.

  “Tell the mortals to be quiet,” Lachesis said.

  “No,” Blackstone said. “I need their testimony.”

  “Testimony?” Atropos said. “This is an official proceeding?”

  “We thought this was about them,” Clotho said.

  “No,” Blackstone said. “I told you. It’s about Ealhswith.”

  “Don’t get testy with us, boy,” Lachesis said.

  “Stop playing word games,” Blackstone said. “Emma’s in danger. She needs your help.”

  “If she needs our help,” Atropos said, “and she’s out of that little coma you so needlessly placed her in, she can come to us and ask for help.”

  “No, she can’t,” Blackstone said. “She hasn’t come into her magic yet.”

  “Hmm,” Clotho said. “We should look into that. She is one thousand thirty. She should have come into her magic nine hundred and eighty years ago.”

  “One thousand and thirty?” Jeffrey whispered a bit too loudly to Amanda.

  “That’s what she said,” Amanda whispered back.

  “The mortals are blathering,” Lachesis said.

  “Aethelstan, shut them up, or we will,” Atropos said.

  “No,” he said. “You will listen to me. With Nora’s help”—and he came to her side, put his arm around her, and held her close as he spoke—“Emma was finally able to break out of my spell. But she was in a suspen
ded animation. She hasn’t learned or grown for the past thousand years—”

  “You, of course, spelled her,” Clotho said.

  “No,” Blackstone said.

  “I didn’t think you were still incompetent, Aethelstan,” Lachesis said.

  A tremble ran through him. Nora squeezed his side for reassurance.

  “I am not incompetent,” he said. “I—”

  “Emma didn’t want his help,” Nora said. She bowed a little, as much as she could with Blackstone’s arm around her waist. “Forgive me for speaking to such an august body. I presume you’re the Fates that Black—Aethelstan’s always talking about. You need to know that Emma grew upset about her lost thousand years, and I interfered, giving her my protection.”

  “Your protection?” Atropos said. “Forgive me, my dear, but that’s like a fly protecting a gazelle.”

  “Nonetheless,” Nora said. Her heart was pounding. She couldn’t believe she was doing this. If she had thought Blackstone and Ealhswith powerful, she was risking everything talking to the women who ruled them. “Emma didn’t want Blackstone’s—I mean, Aethelstan’s—help, so I forbade him from assisting her.”

  “Blackstone?” Jeffrey asked, turning toward him. “The Blackstone.”

  “Actually, yes,” he said. “But not the one you think. It was a messy—”

  “Enough!” the three women cried together. The four intruders stood at attention. Blackstone’s hand tightened around Nora’s waist, and he pulled her so close that she almost lost her balance.

  Clotho let go of her spinning wheel and leaned toward Nora. “You say you forbid Aethelstan from assisting Emma, and he listened to you?”

  “He wasn’t happy about it,” Nora said. “So I uninvited him. In my world, he has no rights to Emma.”

  “In ours,” Lachesis said, “he has an obligation to help her.”

  “He did,” Nora said. “He gave her immunity from diseases, and a spell that enabled her to speak English, and another one that protected her muscles so that they wouldn’t atrophy, and a few others that I’ve forgotten, but she drew the line at the memory spell, the one that would give her a cursory knowledge of the last thousand years.”

  “That makes no sense,” Lachesis said. “If she took all his other help, why stop there?”