“I’m sure it will be all right,” Ronard said, offering a hand and helping her gallantly to her feet. “You showed amazing presence of mind so soon after an argument.”
Candlepat gazed up at him with large blue eyes shining. “Did you really think so?” Ronard’s breath caught, and he swallowed then nodded slowly. Holl grinned. Poor Ronard was out of his depth. The girl bounced back faster than a rubber ball.
Enoch frowned. “There wouldn’t have been an argument if the four of you had behaved civilly.”
“Ah, well,” Candlepat said, putting her arm through Ronard’s, “Tiron started it.”
“Do you think Keith Doyle saw it?” Enoch asked. “There’ll be questions.”
“So long as he gets no answers,” Curran said, with a sharp look at Holl from under his snowy eyebrows, “it will no’ matter.”
***
Chapter 31
Keith’s thoughts pounded in his head in time with the slap of his windshield wipers. Of all the rotten luck, to have Diane walk in at just that moment! She was ticked at him already. Now she thought that he was cheating on her! As if he could have predicted what Candlepat would do. Everybody had seemed all right when he arrived at the farm. Now they were fighting. It was just like September. Why would Tiron attack Holl like that? Why wouldn’t Holl speak up for himself? Why did Enoch have to do it?
But the first thing, the main thing, was to find Diane. With one hand gripping the wheel tightly, Keith dialed her number on his cell phone.
“Hi, this is 217-555-3663,” Diane’s voice said brightly. “No one’s here, so leave a message.”
“If you’re there, please pick up, Diane! I can explain. Nothing happened! Candlepat got into an argument.” Hastily, he clicked off. That wasn’t the best way to start off an apology. He tried again.
“… Leave a message.”
“Diane, I’m sorry you had to see that. She just wanted someone to be nice to her after Tiron and Catra.…” He hung up again. He just wasn’t doing this very well.
“… Leave a message.”
The third time Keith just turned off the phone without saying anything. He needed to see her in person, to plead for understanding. Not that he deserved it, he thought guiltily. One tiny little voice inside his head said that he had liked kissing Candlepat, but the rest of his inner voices broke out in a chorus that he hadn’t sought out the contact, didn’t want it in the first place, and Diane was his true love. He agreed with the overwhelming majority. Alas, none of them knew anything about time-travel. It was impossible to go back and undo the last ten minutes. He was stuck with the status quo.
The logical place to look first was her home. She was probably too angry to go back to the small confines of her apartment, but he went there anyhow. Not that she was likely to open the door to him, but he judged by the lack of tire marks in the new snow covering her reserved parking place that she had not been there. Keith went to her job next. The food service was always grateful for extra hands; she might have gone there to work off some of her fury. No such luck. None of her coworkers had seen her since Friday.
Out of a sense of desperation, Keith turned the Mustang toward Voordman’s Country Crafts.
No white Saturn was in the parking lot, but the shop owner’s baleful expression told him more than words could that Diane had been there. She was waiting on a customer when he arrived. The moment the teenage girl had left, Ms. Voordman swooped down on Keith and dragged him into the back room.
“What is the matter with you?” she asked, her dark eyes flashing. “Diane came to me as a friend who would listen to her. She was so angry she couldn’t cry. She was almost ready to forgive you for backing out on your word in January, but you seem to have taken fear of commitment to a new depth. Don’t you dare lead her on as though it’s a done deal if it isn’t.”
“But it was! It is. Didn’t she tell you …” Keith began, trying to figure out how to explain a kidnapping, the supernatural, and an invisibility spell without using any of the buzzwords. Ms. Voordman waved away his explanation.
“She told me she found you with another girl. Are you trying to drive her away?”
“No! It wasn’t like that, honest to God. The other girl was crying. She’s a friend of ours.” Keith felt terrible. “It’s just a mistake.”
“That’s one way to put it,” Ms. Voordman said. “I warned you this could happen.”
“It wasn’t my fault,” Keith said. “I mean, not this time. She has to give me another chance. Where did she go?”
The shop owner shook her head. “Leave her alone. She needs to have some time by herself, to think through exactly what it is she wants. You’re just too busy. Both of you. See if you can pick things up when you are prepared to devote your attention to her.”
“I will. I swear.”
Ms. Voordman gave him a stern look. “Let her have some space. You need to think things over yourself.”
“I already know what I want. What I need. I just blew it. Thanks … for listening to her.”
“Go on,” the shop owner said, waving him out, but less harshly than before.
On the way back toward Midwestern he tried Diane’s number again. The message had been changed.
“This is 217-555-3663. No one’s here, so leave a message. Unless this is Keith. Just hang up and don’t call back.”
“Diane, I’m sorry,” Keith said, as soon as the tone sounded. But it was followed by another noise, that of the receiver being picked up and slammed down with great force. He didn’t try again.
* * *
“What do I do?” Keith asked Holl at the conclusion of his story. He sat on a bench in the kitchen sagging over a mug of Marm’s best brewing as though he was the only patron left in a bar. Holl regarded him with the air of a sympathetic tavern keeper. He knew the other kitchen helpers were listening, but were tactfully pretending that they weren’t. Keva had saved a plate of stew from the supper pot and furnished half a dozen of her best rolls on the side. Keith ate them without tasting them. They might as well have been from the food service. “Ms. Voordman told me to leave her alone for a while, let her get over being mad.”
“I’d say the woman has a great deal of sense,” Holl said, “and a kind heart besides. Nothing you could say will change Diane’s mind for a while. I’d volunteer to be your go-between, but I agree it will do no good. All you can do is to let her temper cool.”
“That could take a while,” Keith said glumly. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “It’s taken almost six weeks just to get her to agree to a date. Ms. Voordman said I’m too busy to have a relationship. Maybe she’s right.”
Holl’s face lit up. “Now, there’s that memory I’ve been trying to draw back! It was her name that has reminded me.” He took a pale green slip of paper from his pocket and presented it to Keith. “Here you are. The last three months’ commission. A bit larger than the usual,” he said, as Keith’s eyebrows climbed to the skies, “adding Galleria Tony’s portion on top. You’ve done so much for us it’s nice to be able to reward you, though truthfully you’ve rewarded yourself. It’s your hard work.”
“Oh!” Keith said, as he suddenly remembered that other people besides himself had problems. Guiltily, he glanced around at the others, who quickly turned away, not meeting his eyes. Things must be worse than he’d imagined. He pushed the check back at Holl. “Thanks, but I can’t accept this.”
“Why not?” Holl asked, bewildered.
“Well, don’t you folks need it?”
Holl eyed him. “What makes you think that?”
“I think I finally figured it out,” Keith said gently. “It’s been bugging you folks since before September. Why you were in such a hurry to move into the high-price shops. Why you started selling over the Internet but wouldn’t let me build you a website. You guys must owe some serious money. That’s why you’ve had the power so high on the fence. You’ve been having problems with Big People hanging around. What happened, did you max out th
e credit cards? You can stop creditors from dunning you, you know. There are laws to protect people from harassment; I’m surprised Catra hasn’t come across them … why are you laughing?”
“You incredible infant,” Holl said, caught by surprise. “Did Dola tell you that?”
“Heck, no. I tried every way I could to weasel the truth out of Dola on the way up or back from Chicago. She held out better than a spy behind enemy lines. All she’d say is she feels like she’s being watched. She’s been good. I worked it out for myself. Everybody’s been on edge for months. Someone’s bugging you. Let me at ’em. I can make them back off. One look at me and you’ll never hear from them again.”
Holl shook his head. “No. Big People are always a problem to us, but it’s not that.” He sighed. “We’ve our own worries, unrelated to our success as capitalists.”
Keith pounced at once on the word. “What kind of worries? Come on, Holl. Something’s been eating you for months. Tell me. Are people spying on you again? Pestering you?”
Holl opened his mouth. “I … no. You’ve caught me by surprise, but I am not supposed to talk about it.”
“If it’s been a problem since August—or before!—then you’re not having much success solving the problem yourself. Tell Uncle Keith.”
Holl hesitated again. “It’s true we haven’t been able to work it out for ourselves.… But I cannot say anything. I’ve been forbidden.”
“But I’m your best friend,” Keith said persuasively.
Holl smiled at him sadly. “And so you are. But you can’t help with this.”
“How about Twenty Questions? Sounds like…? If it’s not money, and it’s not interference from other people, what could be bothering all of you that much?”
Holl had to stop himself from blurting out the whole story. It would be so easy to share the burden, especially with this generous and willing Big Person, but he was all too aware that they were not alone in the room. “No.”
Keith turned huge puppy eyes on him. “C’mon, Holl! Okay, don’t tell me. Let me guess. You’re the subjects of one of those new reality TV shows, and you can’t decide who to vote out of the village. No? You’ve become addicted to cyber-surfing and you can’t keep up with the orders. No, wait a minute, I know that’s not true because I delivered this week’s myself. How about…?”
“Stop!” Holl said, wearily. “Enough guessing … We … don’t have the privacy we thought we would have here. We have our freedom—you helped us buy it—but we can’t enjoy it. For months now we have been unable to stretch our wings as we’d hoped. We’d wanted to research our talents further, but we can’t do that either. You know before we left the library we dreamed of having a place of our own so we could give free rein to our skills, and perhaps invent more, but it’s attracted … attention.”
Holl heard a gasp from the others in the room and stopped short. The noise was inaudible to Keith Doyle.
“From who? You have to tell me the rest now!”
“No more,” Holl said, wishing he could take back even those few words. He was mortified with himself. He would never be headman now. “You’ve caught me by surprise. I was not to tell you a thing about this. I’ve broken confidence.”
Keith frowned, concern creasing his forehead. “But it’s been bugging you for months!”
“That it has. It’d be good to get it out at last, but I can say nothing else.”
“That’s it? You can’t use your talents? Why not? What’s stopping you?”
“I …”
“You gave someone your word not to talk,” Keith said shrewdly. “It has to be the Master. I’ll go get him. If he absolves you of your promise, you can tell me.” He stood up. Alarmed, Holl jumped up and put out a hand.
“Don’t go. I made everyone a promise, not just him.”
“Well, he’s the one who counts, because he’s the Headman. Right?”
“In a way.”
“Good,” Keith said with a decided nod. “I’m going to go ask him now. It’ll only take a minute. I’m sure he’ll say yes.”
Holl’s heart pounded. “No! Keith Doyle, come back here. Don’t plague him with your nonsense. He’s teaching the youngsters now. You wouldn’t want to interrupt class.” Holl strode after Keith, but it was in vain. The juggernaut was loose; beware all who stand in his way!
The rest of the Folk stared at them as they left. Holl’s ear tips were red with embarrassment. He’d failed. He’d failed the village, the Master, but most of all himself.
* * *
The barn was quiet on a Saturday evening. Work had ceased before supper, leaving the elves free to pursue hobbies, such as music, embroidery, making and mending clothes. With the noise of the power tools stilled, families could enjoy time together and have conversations with their kin. The strips of light on the ceiling that mimicked daylight were just beginning to take on the color of sunset. It didn’t exactly match what was going on on a February day in Illinois, but Keith had never known any of the elves to suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder.
The room was so quiet, in fact, that everyone heard his footsteps long before he entered. Every eye was on him as he slid open the door. Holl slipped in behind him. Keith offered a smile all the way around. Most of the Folk met his eyes then went back to what they were doing, but he could tell their handsomely pointed ears were tuned in on him like radar antennae.
The Master was watching him, too, but he didn’t drop his gaze when Keith met it. Instead, he watched the Big student approach. His round face was expressionless.
Dola, the eldest in the children’s class, looked at her favorite with curiosity in her large eyes, but said nothing. Keith quaked a little in his shoes for what he was about to throw at his formidable little teacher, but he’d been watching Holl suffer for months. Enough was enough. He cleared his throat.
“I’m very sorry to interrupt, sir,” Keith said formally, “but may I have a moment of your time?”
* * *
“So how is he supposed to get rid of this fire-snake thing?” Keith asked. They’d withdrawn into Keith’s sleeping area in the corner of the big room for privacy, but with the elves’ sensitive hearing he might as well have been on a stage with a public address system. He’d asked the Master to give Holl permission to tell him the whole story. It was granted freely, making Keith wonder why no one had simply asked before. “You’ve forbidden him to ask for help. How’s he supposed to do something he doesn’t know how to do?”
The Master was as imperturbable seated on the old brown couch as he might have been on a jeweled throne. He peered at Keith over the gold rims of his glasses. “He is supposed to improvise, to use tools at his hand.”
Keith threw up his hands. “And if those aren’t sufficient? When does the breaking point come? He’s been trying to fix this situation for months, hasn’t he? And no, I had no idea what was wrong. I just knew he was going through hell and he wouldn’t tell me why. Nobody would.”
“No vun vould. It is a test of his leadership skills, to solf a problem for the sake of the village.”
“Look,” Keith said, appealing to the Master, “it’s no secret you’re grooming him for your job, in a century or two. I don’t pretend to be an expert, but I am studying management techniques. One of the things I did learn is that when you can’t handle something on your own, a good manager takes the job to a subcontractor who can handle it. So far you’ve let him get banged around. Everybody’s been living under a cloud because you can’t get rid of this thing. You have to let him ask for help. I’d help. I’d do anything for him. I’d do anything for you. You know that.”
The Master tapped his lower lip with a thoughtful forefinger. “I see. But you must also see vhat I do, that he has lessons to learn in leadership.”
Keith frowned. Something in the Master’s words rang a bell. Keith turned to Holl. “Now that the cat’s out of the bag, can I give you a piece of advice in handling this situation? A quick lesson in good leadership and task management?”<
br />
“Certainly, Keith Doyle,” Holl said.
“Delegate. Let me go down there.”
Holl’s eyes went round with alarm. “No! You’re out of your head.”
“Holl, I can do it,” Keith said. “I’m good with supernatural beings. Look at the air sprites and the sidhe.”
“What about the bodach?”
Keith tilted his head humorously. “Two out of three isn’t bad. But how else can I keep my title as the world’s only research mythologist if I don’t try? What do you think, Master? Shouldn’t he choose the best man for the job?”
“You think you are the vun who can help qvell this angry being?”
“Maybe. Maybe not,” Keith admitted. “But what harm can it do? You’ve already spent months living with this thing. If I fail, you’re still in the status quo. If I succeed, all to the good. No one else here seems to be able to break through. I do have experience talking to other species. Okay, so one of them kicked the stuffing out of me, but I survived. And look, better me than your handpicked successor. There’s only one of him.”
“And only one of you,” the Master said gently.
“I consider it a calculated risk,” Keith said, with a shrug. “Why not? He could have asked me to do it from the beginning. I’d have said yes then, too.”
“I could not allow it because ve knew you vould accept the task and the risk. It vas too easy. He had to come to the point vhere he vould succeed or fail. At that point he vould haf to make the decision himself. He broke confidence, vhen he knew that vould haf consequences, for the vell-being of us all.”
Keith was outraged. “So by failing he passes?”
The Master shrugged. “It took him longer than I had assumed. He had to veigh blind obedience against the task at hand, and efen still he did not open up completely vhen it vas clear the situvation had gone far beyond his abilities. It is a lesson in leadership he vill only haf to learn vunce.”
Advanced Mythology Page 35
