The Prince of Neither Here Nor There mp-1

by Sean Cullen

  He became aware that he was hearing music. A band was playing at one of the halls on the island. Brendan had been here for picnics in summers past. He knew there was an amusement park on one of the islands with little kiddie rides and a couple of restaurants and bars. He’d never heard of one called the Swan. He watched as a small airplane rose up over the trees as it took off from the Island Airport. He wished he could just fly away like that plane but here he was, shivering in the grass. What was he supposed to do now?

  He reviewed his situation. He knew he was on one of the Toronto Islands, the small scattering of islets that sat offshore from the city. But which one? The Island of the Ward, Miv called it. He slapped his forehead. Of course. Ward’s Island. He’d read somewhere that it was named after a man named Ward, but now that he knew about Faeries, he wasn’t sure that was really where the name came from. 69 His father had played a gig there last summer at the Ward’s Island Community Centre. Again, he couldn’t recall a place called the Swan, but he didn’t know the island well.

  One thing was for certain, he couldn’t just sit here. Orcadia was coming, and the ferry operator was calling someone on his radio. Time was of the essence. “It’s up to me, then,” he said through chattering teeth.

  He got to his feet and pulled Kim up with him. Carrying an unconscious girl around with him seemed like a sure way to attract attention, but he had no choice. He imagined that it looked very bad. Hi! I found this girl and I’m taking her home! Not good, he thought ruefully. The man in the white uniform watched him lift Kim and shuffle away. Brendan was certain the man was suspicious. He could feel the glare following them as he hauled Kim away. Brendan half-dragged, half-walked her to the convergence of paved paths that led away from the ferry pier. He had to find the Swan before the man could call someone to stop him or Orcadia caught up with them.

  A street lamp cast a bright white light down over the signpost that listed possible destinations with pointed arrows.

  “Centre Park. The Dock. Cycle Paths. The Marina. Ward’s Island Community Centre.” No sign indicating a place called the Swan. “Now what?” He was about to turn away from the sign when something weird happened. 70 The central pole of the signpost began to grow!

  A further foot of green post sprouted out the top and a sign unfolded. Written in an elegantly quaint hand, the sign read THE SWAN OF LIIR THIS WAY! Brendan rubbed his eyes and stared, but it wasn’t a hallucination. The sign pointed in the direction of the Community Centre, straight up the path toward the interior of the island in the direction of the music he’d been hearing. He hefted Kim and started off down the path.

  The music swelled louder the closer he got to the Community Centre. Kim groaned, her head lolling forward as he struggled with her along the paved path. People passing gave him funny looks. He soon came to the edge of an open space. Reggae music was thumping, and the voices of people having fun, shouting, and whooping drifted from the open doors of the Community Centre. Light spilled from the broad windows and the wide double doors.

  A cluster of people stood smoking outside the door. Soaked in sweat and steaming in the cool air after the heat of the Community Centre, they were laughing and chatting happily, but they stopped when Brendan shuffled past with his cargo.

  “She’s not feeling well,” he explained lamely.

  “Do you need a hand?” A young man stepped toward him.

  “No! No thanks,” Brendan said quickly. “We’re fine. Her parents are inside. No problem!” The man frowned suspiciously. Brendan hurried past and came to the entrance, where an older woman with grey hair braided at the back and wearing a tie-dyed dress that spread out around her like a tent was sitting at a small table.

  “Hi there,” she said, cheerily. “Five dollars each, please.” Then the woman noticed Kim. “What’s the matter with her?”

  “She’s fine. Just a little sick. Flu maybe? She’s flu-ey, y’know. Flu.” Flu-ey? Nice one, dummy.

  The woman’s face went from cheerful to suspicious in short order. “What’s going on here?”

  “Nothing, really,” Brendan said. “I’m looking for a place called the Swan. The Swan of Liir? I was told it was near here?”

  The wind was picking up, lashing the trees. A few drops of rain struck his face. The small hairs on the back of his neck began to rise. Orcadia was getting close, and he still didn’t know where the Swan was. He didn’t want to be caught out in the open when he was so close to the sanctuary Kim had insisted they find.

  The smokers decided it was too cold to stay outside and shuffled into the hall. “Weird weather,” one of them said as they pushed past Brendan and Kim. He didn’t know how far away Orcadia was, but he felt instinctively that he didn’t have time to sit around.

  “There’s no place named the Swan on the island.” The woman stood up. “You stay right here. I’m going to call security…” She picked up her cellphone and flipped it open.

  Brendan turned away from the desk and looked in the direction of the city. The cloud bank had stopped. It appeared to him that the clouds had halted in a roughly semicircular line about two hundred metres from the building. He could see rain falling and lightning igniting the interior of the clouds, but they seemed to have stopped in their advance as if they’d run up against an invisible wall.

  “No need to call security, Pearl,” a deep voice rumbled. “I know these two.”

  Brendan turned and looked up into a dark smiling face wreathed in knotted dreadlocks. The man was easily the biggest man Brendan had ever seen. No, that wasn’t true. He wasn’t as massive as Borje, but Borje was a Troll and Brendan assumed that Trolls ran to the large side. This man wore a tight T-shirt with a portrait of Bob Marley stretched almost beyond recognition by his massive chest. His bare arms squirmed with muscle and were adorned with raised markings, scars in the shape of lions’ heads. His shaggy, dreadlocked hair was like a ropey mane draped over his broad shoulders. Twined in the strands of hair were beads and bands of metal, gold wire, and lumps of coloured crystal that glimmered in the lights overhead. His skin was like dark chocolate. In contrast, his eyes shone as blue as sapphires. He raised his massive hands and smiled, displaying an impressive array of gold teeth.

  “Where you been, man? We been waitin’ for you.” He clapped Brendan on the back and laughed a deep rolling laugh so merry that Brendan almost sagged with relief. Anyone with a laugh like that couldn’t be bad. He stopped laughing when he took in the state of Kim. “What be the problem with the little miss?” the man said. “The flu, is it? Hey! I got just da ting!” He reached down and plucked Kim up as easily as a child and lifted her in his arms. Kim moaned softly and snuggled into the broad chest. “We get you set straight in no time!”

  “You know them, Leonard?” the door woman asked.

  “That I do, beautiful, sweet Pearl! You don’t worry your pretty head no more about it!”

  The woman blushed and smiled. “Oh, well. All right. Yes.” She sat down and giggled like a little girl.

  “Follow me, mon.” Leonard turned and walked along the side of the wooden hall. Brendan followed, giddy with relief.

  Leonard led him to an open space beside the Community Centre. The grass was close cropped and lush, twinkling with dew. The lights from the building spilled about halfway across the open square of lawn. Brendan remembered from the last time he’d been here that this was a lawn-bowling club in the summer.

  “Thanks for rescuing me there,” Brendan said. “I was kind of at the end of my rope.”

  “No problem, mon,” Leonard said. “I been told to watch for you. There be folks who want to meet you. Now let’s get in out of the cold, eh?” Leonard looked up at the sky.

  “Orcadia is right on my heels,” Brendan said, pointing at the stationary clouds to the south.

  “She can’t come any closer, mon. Don’t fret! You be safe now. The Ward protects you.”

  Brendan was about to ask for an explanation when they were interrupted by a sharp, angry voice.

  �
��You! Stop right there.”

  Brendan turned and saw a man in a dark security uniform. He held a walkie-talkie in his hand and pointed at Brendan. “What’s going on here?”

  “Going on?” Brendan repeated, trying to think fast. “Uh… she…” He jerked his head at Kim. “She’s really tired. And sick! She’s tired and sick. Yeah. So I was helping her. Yeah.”

  Before the guard could lay a hand on Brendan, Leonard stepped between them. “Simon,” Leonard said in a friendly tone. “You can let me handle this. I know the boy, and what he says is true.”

  Simon the security guard stopped in mid reach. Leonard was very intimidating, a mountain of muscle. The security guard looked up into Leonard’s face. He was easily a foot shorter than the black man, but he was one of those short people who wear their small stature as a badge of defiance. 71 “These kids are coming with me.”

  “I don’t tink so, Simon,” Leonard said. The tone of his voice was velvet but there was steel hidden within it.

  “You can’t intimidate me,” Simon said, wavering.

  “I’m not trying to intimidate you. yet,” Leonard said. He grinned, and his golden smile was ferocious. A soft rumble sounded in his deep chest, an animal growl like a hunting cat. His eyes flashed in the lightning. In the flicker of light from the sky, Brendan thought for an instant that he saw another face interposed over Leonard’s benign features. The face of a snarling lion leered hungrily down at Simon the security guard.

  The smaller man took an involuntary step back. “Uh. good. Right,” he stammered. “So, you know them?”

  “Absolutely,” Leonard assured him. Any hint of danger in the big man’s face had vanished. Leonard patted Simon’s shoulder and grinned hugely. “You should get back to your office. It gonna rain!”

  “Good idea,” Simon agreed after the slightest hesitation. He pointed his flashlight at Brendan and said, “No more swimming! It’s dangerous around the docks. Remember that!”

  Brendan nodded. “You got it! No swimming. Thank you!”

  With a nod, Simon turned and walked away back toward the ferry dock.

  Brendan watched him go, mouth open in surprise. He turned to Leonard. “How did you do that? Is it magic?”

  “Do what, mon?” Leonard asked innocently.

  “I don’t know,” Brendan said, suddenly unsure of what he’d seen. “For a second I thought you were. never mind. Never mind. I’m just glad you worked your magic on that guy.”

  Leonard laughed, flashing his golden teeth. “No magic unless it be the magic of my personality.” He rolled his blue eyes and laughed again.

  “I’m just glad you were here.” Brendan suddenly felt an urgent need to be under cover. The wind had picked up, and he felt a few more prickles of cold rain. “I have to get to a place called the Swan. I saw a sign and it said it was this way.”

  The blue eyes held his face. “You saw the sign, did you?”

  “Yeah,” Brendan went on urgently. “I don’t have time to explain, but I was told I’d be safe there. Kim needs help, and there’s this crazy woman after us with Kobolds and stuff.”

  “Kobolds, is it? That sounds bad, mon. We should waste no time. You don’t need to worry. We be safe here on this part of de island. This is the Ward’s Island, after all.” Leonard chuckled deep in his chest. Leonard cradled Kim in his massive arms. “Follow me.”

  As he strode around the side of the building, the rain began to pelt down. Brendan trotted at his heels, glancing back warily at the dark clouds.

  “Is it far?” Brendan asked.

  “It’s impossibly far if you don’t know where to look. You’d never get there in a million years, though you search and search.” The big man laughed, then suddenly stopped. “Or it could be no farther away than your fingertips.”

  They made their way around the back of the building where Leonard stopped, facing a blank wall of white boards that were peeling and chipped. “We’re here!”

  Brendan looked around in confusion. “What? Where? Where are we?”

  “The Swan of Liir,” Leonard explained. “De finest Faerie establishment in the West.”

  “Is there a trap door or something? A tunnel?” Brendan asked. He reached out and tapped his foot on the wall. Flakes of paint were dislodged from the planks but otherwise it seemed like a solid wall.

  “As I say before,” Leonard said, his voice full of mirth, “never in a million years will you find it though you search and you search. There is a trick and a pattern.” He turned and faced the wall. In a clear voice he cried, “I could use a drink!” Then he took one step sideways to his left, turned counter-clockwise once, twice, three times. Then he reached out one giant dark hand, extended a finger, and tapped the wall.

  For an instant nothing happened. Then a bright tone rang out, suffusing Brendan’s being with a warm, welcoming, musical note. Leonard reached out and tapped the weathered surface of the wall. Instantly, the planks began to fold into tiny squares, revealing an empty space behind the wall that expanded and expanded like a jigsaw puzzle falling to bits. At last there was a doorway in the wall where none had been before. Light and warmth flooded out of the opening. Brendan heard the sound of voices and music.

  Leonard turned to him and winked. “Never in a million years.” Leonard chuckled at Brendan’s rapt expression. “Shall we?”

  Leonard held out his hand, and a shining golden handle sprouted out of the wood under his grasp. He tugged on the handle and the door swung open. Heat, noise, and honey coloured firelight washed over him. Leonard stood aside and gestured for Brendan to enter.

  Brendan took a deep breath and stepped across the threshold.

  69 Weirdly, Ward’s Island isn’t even an island but a part of the larger Centre Island. Why anyone might call part of an island an island boggles the mind. People who live on islands are always a bit eccentric, and by eccentric, I mean weird.

  70 As if weird things weren’t happening all the time.

  71 There have been many short overachievers: Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Billy Joel are just three examples.

  THE SWAN

  The first thing that struck Brendan was the overwhelming noise. A palpable wave of sound assaulted him, a mixture of music, shouted conversation, braying laughter, and the drone of television commentary.

  The next thing that registered was the smell: a combination of flowers, heavy spice, and wood smoke. The mixture was unlike anything he’d ever smelled. The closest comparison would have been what his house smelled like on Christmas Eve when the fresh scent of pine mixed with the spicy cinnamon and cloves his mother used when she made mulled wine. Add to that the warm earthy smell of gingerbread, and you were getting close.

  His eyes adjusted last. After the darkness outside, the brightness of the pub was blinding. Yes, pub, for indeed, the Swan seemed to be a pub.

  The decor was typical of the pubs he had been in on his family trip to Ireland a couple of summers ago. Framed ads for Guinness stout were displayed on the walls. The ceiling maze of rafters were hung with a bewildering array of ornaments, dried flowers, glowing crystals, candelabra, and strange antique tools whose purpose Brendan could only guess at. The room before him was jammed with small round wooden tables ringed with little three-legged stools, and these tables were in turn jammed with people enjoying a variety of beverages. Around the walls, large booths were also crammed with patrons. A massive stone fireplace dominated the wall to his left, a fire burning merrily. Little insects chased each other in and out of the flames, catching the updraft of warm air and tumbling out into the room only to dart in again. Brendan’s mouth dropped open when he realized the creatures weren’t insects: they were Lesser Faeries! Diminutives, he corrected himself. They darted in and out of the flames like moths, chattering and laughing.

  Brendan tore his eyes away from the fire. A wooden stairway led up into the smoky rafters on the right. On the far wall, a long mahogany bar glowed under the light of torches jammed into sconces on the wall. The
rustic atmosphere was slightly marred by the TVs hanging over the bar and the giant flat screen in the centre of the wall to his left. He looked closer and saw that the frames of the TVs were all ornately carved out of wood. The screens flickered with sporting events, news broadcasts, and infomercials largely ignored by the patrons. He was about to turn away from the screens when a familiar face flashed on the news channel.

  Chester Dallaire’s face sneered from the screen. The picture was taken from a class photo. A caption underneath the photo read LOCAL BOY MISSING! HAVE YOU SEEN HIM?

  Brendan groaned, “Oh, no! What have I done to Chester?” A sudden burst of music distracted him from his misery.

  A small band occupied a booth in the corner. Crammed elbow to elbow into the tiny space, they managed to strike up a lilting reel. There was a fiddler, a man playing a harp, and another beating on a flat drum with a two-headed stick he held in the three middle fingers of his left hand. They were in mid-song, banging out a lively reel. The people at the surrounding tables and booths were clapping along, and one person was on top of a table doing a complicated dance that seemed to involve only his feet. The clapping and shouts of encouragement were almost drowned out by a DJ standing in the opposite corner of the room at a table on a raised platform. She was mixing heavy beats and tribal rhythms that wouldn’t have been out of place in any of the clubs downtown. Her ears and nose were pierced with studs, and her hair stood up on end as if it were frightened of her scalp. Some people had cleared away a few tables, and they were gyrating to that music. The two musical sources and styles were totally at odds, but as Brendan listened, they seemed to resolve into a complementary counterpoint that was a melding of the old and the new. He wished his father could hear this music. He would love the beautiful chaos.

  The most startling thing about the Swan was the clientele. Everyone was a Faerie. Every table was taken up by Faeries of every description, crammed into tables, leaning at the bar, staring up at the TV, where a hockey game was underway. The air was full of tiny Faeries, flitting in swarms through clouds of wood smoke, sitting on the rafters, their wings drawn up against their tiny backs.