White Mountain Rising (Veil Knights Book 7)

by Rowan Casey

  “And it’s only the first morning,” Hannah said, trying to brighten his now-dark mood. “Imagine what the first month will feel like.”

  He groaned and then pointed to the Golden Arches, the cheapest place they could find a meal.

  Just before they entered the restaurant, a flyer on neon green paper caught their eyes. It announced a concert, jazz, and more, but it was at an address neither one recognized. Something about it, though, seemed to captivate Daniel and he ripped it from the wall and carried it inside with him. They ordered from the value menu, filled their sodas, and took their seats. It was at the leading edge of the lunch rush so the tables around them were filling with mothers and tiny children, the noise level quickly rising. Hannah thought that a good thing so they would not be overheard. She practically gobbled her cheeseburger, barely tasting it, but recognizing it as a familiar childhood smell. Forcing herself to slow down, she carefully took the fries, one by one, and dragged them through a puddle of ketchup. Daniel, she noticed, was absent-mindedly chewing on his double burger, alternating bites of meat with the fries.

  When she got halfway through her fries, Hannah wiped her fingers thoroughly and withdrew her phone. There remained unheard voicemails and well over a dozen text messages. She ignored them all and logged onto the Wi-Fi and then found her browser. She began typing ‘Sir Bors’ and the autofill finished it for her. She gaped at the results showing over 7000 web pages with mentions of the historic figure. By habit, she tapped the Wikipedia entry and she began reading slowly and carefully. Every now and then she paused, took a fry, checked on Daniel, who by then had imitated her actions. She resumed reading, finished the page and began clicking on other entries.

  Her fries were long gone before she grew weary reading about this figure, this person she was supposedly connected to. Knowledge did not change her, did not make her feel any more complete or different. There were terms she had to read up on, images to study on a larger screen, and even more entries demanding her attention. But at least she had the broad scope of her ancestor, or younger self, or whatever. Knowledge was good and may even prove useful, but right then, she didn’t feel changed by the experience. Sucking on her Coke, she studied Daniel as he more rapidly scrolled down pages, clicking to the next entry and then the next. His dark brows were knit tight, lines creasing his forehead. He wasn’t looking particularly happy by what he was reading.

  She made a show of sucking the last of the soda from the cup, the slurping sounds catching his attention and he put his phone back in his pocket, smiling at her.

  “What’s made you so happy?”

  “It’s all starting to come together,” he said, running a finger into the ketchup sans fry. He sucked on it for a moment and explained, “The light on that one car drew us in this direction, forcing us to walk until you got hungry, leading us to the cheapest place around, and there was the flyer. Now we head for Gowanus. We have a direction.”

  “Did the flyer announce a magical horn on display? No. It’s an underground jazz festival. How can you take such random things and think they mean anything? We could go all the way there and just hear music.”

  “Do you even like jazz?”

  “I’m not sure I’ve ever stopped to listen,” she admitted. “I don’t think so.”

  “I’ve heard some. Manny, who used to man the front desk before you got there; he was big into jazz. He was always playing a CD or finding some FM station. I liked some of it,” he said.

  “But how can you believe any of this is connected?”

  “It’s about faith, Hannah. The Knights had faith in Arthur, as did Merlin. They all had faith in God. So, today, I have faith that something is working in mysterious ways, and making me notice things. You see a green piece of paper. I see the paper but it is embroidered in gold.”

  “So, Gowanus.”

  “Yep. You wanted some adventure and here it is. The jazz festival is in a part of Brooklyn we’ve never been to,” he said, rising from his seat and collecting his trash.

  “Listen to some music neither one of us likes in the hopes we find the horn. Jazz is a lot of brass, right?” Hannah rose and gathered her own things, tossing them in the nearest dispenser. Each took a turn in the bathroom, the other watching their knapsacks. Hannah had to stifle a grimace when a four year old girl wanted to pet the Hello Kitty silkscreened on her bag.

  When she emerged from the bathroom, she could see that something had gone wrong. Daniel was standing there, stiff, a dark look on his face. His hands were cradling his phone as if it were too hot to handle.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Have you checked your voicemails,” he asked.

  “Ignored them all, that’s behind us, isn’t it?”

  “No. Listen to them.” His voice dropped even deeper, the words coming out slowly. She shrugged and tapped into her voicemail. The first message was from Kenisha. Everyone was going to be housed temporarily at the nearby YMCA until the board of directors could figure things out. Then came a call from Evelyn, the girls’ director, and finally, a Detective Kashima. All were inquiring after her safety and whereabouts. The police detective, though, also asked if she had seen Daniel.

  Glancing up at him, she saw his expression hadn’t changed.

  “Yeah, once they started piecing everyone’s story, it was clear I was in the girls’ wing when the fire broke out.”

  “They think you started it?”

  “Revenge against Charlene for dragging me into your fight,” he finished. “The police have questions. Kwabena says they’re looking for us pretty hard.”

  “Well, arson’s pretty serious,” she said. The last thing either one needed was to be hunting for the horn, ducking an invisible dwarf and the police.

  “But there’s no evidence against you, is there?”

  “It’s circumstantial, me being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but if I don’t go talk to them, I’ll start looking like I have something to hide.”

  “Well, you kind of do.”

  “And no one is going to believe a single word out of our mouths. Knights? The Veil? It’ll confirm we need to be locked away.”

  She eyed him carefully as he shifted from foot to foot; anxiety filling his tall frame like air inflating a tire. “What do you want do?”

  “Maybe we should go talk to them, let them know we have nothing to hide and then we can get back to looking for the horn,” Daniel said, sounding determined.

  She was having none of that and said, “We keep moving forward. That’s behind us, the past. It got burned and we lost everything. I’m not at all interested in going back and sifting through the ashes. We go back, Daniel, and they will put us in the Y, or a new home. We’re free now and yeah, I’m worried about money and where to sleep, but you set us on this course. There are stakes and maybe even a deadline.”

  “Grimm did,” he said half-heartedly. “Threw us out with no support.”

  “Did Merlin or Arthur hand knights a wad of cash or jewels or whatever and finance the quests? I got the idea from Grimm that as knights, we have a mission but we’re on our own. We have it better than the others because we at least are partners.”

  “There are those twins,” she said.

  “More like a two-for-one special there,” he said and she laughed.

  “So we should run from the police?”

  She elbowed the glass door open and went outside. “I say we stroll away from the police.”

  The sun was bright, the air warm, and the streets of Brooklyn were busy as people used the lunch hour to eat, shop, run errands, and socialize. Hannah took comfort in being lost amid the crowd of people hustling back and forth. Somewhere there was a boom box blaring a salsa beat and it felt like a soundtrack to the summer day. Daniel had his phone out again and was staring intently at his screen. He held the phone too high for her to get a good look so she scanned the crowds, uncertain if she was looking for anyone or anything. After all, he had the sight and had already seen the dark elf, or what
ever that thing was. But no, there were no ugly dwarves with grenades running around looking for them.

  Or the police.

  “You good with going forward?”

  He paused, pocketing the phone and shuffled in place. “I guess,” he finally said, “we go after the horn, following the signs. It feels right.”

  Hannah nodded at that and waited for him to pick the direction. She really was feeling free of her past, something she didn’t know would happen. There were so many uncertainties going forward on that they would have to make choices. He – and yes, Grimm – brought her into this situation, so it was her turn and she was going to lead them forward. Had they gone back, there would have been questions, consequences for running away, and the possibility that their new situation would be worse than the current one. More than that, there was something buried deep within her, something she was only now beginning to acknowledge was there. A spark, something like an internal compass, pointing ahead, not behind. Maybe it was a result of having been activated, maybe her inner-Jiminy Cricket pushing her to save the world. The stakes couldn’t be higher and had they gone back, time would be working against them. There was nothing rational about that notion other than it felt right and for now, that would have to do.

  “It’ll take us maybe two hours to walk to the jazz festival. Plenty of time to see the sights, explore, and maybe we’ll get lucky,” Daniel said, trying to sound positive now that the decision had been made for him. “We can get there faster if we cut through Prospect Park, but I think we need to keep to the streets.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “That thing, the Dvergr, could easily hide there,” he said with certainty. With that, he began leading them down Utica Avenue toward the club. Hannah followed, easily matching his stride so they were side by side.

  “Did you look up your Knight?” she asked to get his mind off the manhunt.

  “Yeah, Sir Yvain. And you?”

  “Of course.”

  “You remembered the Younger part, right,” he asked with a smirk. She elbowed him in turn.

  “It turns out that the older Bors was never a knight but a King. Better, my Bors is the only knight said to have survived the search for the Holy Grail.”

  “Well, aren’t you lucky?” She smiled but it quickly faded when she realized he was furtively looking about, practically begging for people to notice them. No doubt the police were looking for them, but they weren’t exactly public enemies one and two.

  “I guess. Bors found the Grail with Galahad and some other dude whose name I forget, but he was the only one to make it back to the Round Table. Did you know he and Lancelot were cousins?”

  “No, I know so little about any of these knights. Yeah, they don’t teach the interesting shit in History,” she complained. “It said Bors was not real, but based on some Welsh guy. How does that work?”

  “Remember, there weren’t many records back then so there are differing interpretations of the knights and what really happened. It’s like contradictory stories about the Greek gods. I remember that confused the hell out of me in eighth grade.”

  Daniel was getting positively chatty, so maybe this was a good thing for him. She liked hearing him talk, the confidence in his deep voice compared with the nervous boy he was just a few blocks back.

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t like how Bors was this chaste dude, never getting married. In fact, he swore off women until some princess fell for him and used magic to make him love her. Had a bastard daughter, too.”

  “Wonder if there’s an incarnation of her somewhere,” Daniel wondered.

  “My luck, she came back as Charlene.” They both laughed at the notion. “It says I have a brother, Lionel, somewhere.”

  “Only Lionel I know is Hampton, played jazz,” Daniel said.

  “Manny told you that,” she filled in.

  “Yeah, played the vibraphone which is a cool sound,” Daniel replied.

  She fell into silence, figuring she’d add more after she read up on her other self later. The idea of having a sibling and a daughter played on her mind. Her earlier incarnation may have been chaste, but Hannah wasn’t but she knew to be careful (she was reckless but not about that), so no children, nothing to derail her plans. Like most girls, she just naturally assumed there’d be kids somewhere along the way but she was desperate for one. Still, the idea Bors had one brought her a touch of comfort. Good people deserve good things, she knew.

  The sun continued to heat the air, so the heavy backpack was making her hot; perspiration running down her spine. She’d love to stop for a drink but knew they had to stretch their money until more showed up…somehow.

  “What about you?”

  Daniel hesitated, clearly thinking about his reply. With a grin he started with, “Well, it turns out Marilyn is my mom.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  “Wish I were, but the websites said Morgan and King Urien are my, are his, parents.”

  “Who’s King Urien?”

  “I didn’t stop to check yet.”

  “Okay.”

  “Like you, it says I have Welsh roots dating back to the sixth century, which is when many people think the real Arthur lived.”

  “I thought that was the Crusades.”

  “You’ve got it all twisted. That’s Robin Hood.”

  “Oh.” She felt foolish but really, when was any of this taught other than in movies? How was she to know any of this?

  “You’ll be happy to know I was known as Sir Ywain the Bastard.”

  She laughed at that. He began to laugh, too, but then shut his mouth and abruptly turned away from her. Hannah glanced about and saw a blue and white New York Police patrol vehicle was cruising the street. Inside, two uniformed officers were chatting, seemingly ignoring the passersby. Still, Daniel overreacted and had they seen him jerk about, no doubt they would have studied the pair. A white guy and a black girl together were exactly what they were looking for.

  “Cut that out, you gotta act naturally,” she scolded him.

  “But they’re looking,” he said, his voice strained.

  “Come on, they’re looking but I bet not that hard. Don’t call attention to yourself and we’ll be fine.”

  He hung his head as the car rolled past them and turned right. She waited for him to start walking again or talking. She moved behind him and gave him a slight shove and that got his feet moving. “Keeping telling me about Yvain,” she ordered.

  “I had a cousin, too,” he said after a few steps, his voice lower now. “He was Sir Gawain, who I have heard of from the movies. And, I saved your cousin, Lancelot, and slew a giant.”

  “My, haven’t you been busy?” she said.

  “I saw plenty of action away from the Round Table. I fell in love, got a ring of invisibility…”

  “Like Bilbo?”

  “That ring made him invisible but it had other terrible powers,” Daniel corrected. “Anyway, I fell in love, got married, returned to the Round Table, went mad for a while, and finally joined Arthur when his bastard son, Mordred, betrayed him.”

  “That’s a lot.”

  “Neither Yvain, or I, like to be bored,” Daniel said. He paused, took out his phone and checked the map. They had passed Lenox Road and were well on their way. She noticed that while he talked his head was continuing to swivel back and forth, like a radar antenna, seeking. Clearly, there had not been danger or the horn and kept trudging in the heat. Between her sore muscles and the sweat, she was feeling some strain but also knew she had to ignore it.

  Hannah pulled out her phone and checked for fresh messages. Kenisha confirmed she had told the staff Hannah had checked in safely, now they were demanding she show up in person. Now they were also asking if Hannah had seen Daniel. Hannah had no intention of going back. The fire destroyed her things, her connections to the past. Instead, she had been reborn through the conflagration, a knight on a mission. If she continued to tell herself this, it gave her a purpose and the other doubts wer
e shoved to dark corners of her memory. Tucking the phone away, she decided against informing her companion about the messages.

  “So, Sir Yvain, have you figured out where we are sleeping tonight?”

  “Not yet,” he admitted and fell into an uneasy silence for a block. Finally, he said, “The shows start at seven. The last one is at 9:30, so we have until the final set to figure that out. I do know we’re not going to be on the streets, that’s when the cops’ll find us.”

  She shook her head at him. “There is a cover charge to get in?”

  “Yeah, fifteen bucks a head,” he said softly.

  “We can’t afford that,” she said.

  “I know.”

  Okay, if he got them that far, she’d have to pull her weight and figure out the next step. Maybe there’d be another White Mountain home or a hostel or somewhere else they could crash. Better, maybe they’d make a friend fast and he or she’d let them stay over. A night here, a night there, that might work. Eating, though, that was going to be a problem and she began mulling over the options. Homeless shelters, soup kitchens, those were the standbys but she had no idea what options might be in Gowanus. They could dumpster dive and hope for scraps. She read recently that something like forty percent of the food prepared daily went to waste. They’d just have to find where the fine folk of Gowanus, Brooklyn dumped their uneaten food.

  “Do you know how Yvain died?”

  “Not yet,” he admitted.

  “Yeah, me either,” she said. She wanted to keep things light, not let the enormity of the problems ahead of them weigh them down. The heat was bad enough. They spoke about music (they had vastly different tastes) and some of the kids they actually liked back at the home. She felt she was gaining more insight into her partner. He was a loyal friend and had seen it all before. He had more time at the home than she had, so he knew the staff better and he told her stories of some of the more oddball people who worked there such as the evening guard who let others watch porn with him, or the morning matron who couldn’t cook eggs to save her life. Some couldn’t master their English and others took out their frustrations on the kids by inventing infractions and depriving them of privileges. He told of one time Daniel didn’t leave his room for two weeks for supposedly failing to replace a light bulb on command.