Return of the Trickster

by Eden Robinson

  “Wait here,” Sophia said, hopping out. “I want to make sure he remembers our visit.”

  That did not sound promising. “ ’Kay.”

  The driver lowered the privacy screen once Sophia was far enough down the brick walkway. He didn’t look much older than Jared.

  “Her tips are loco,” the driver said.

  “Yeah?” Jared said.

  “Dude, she’s loaded. Seriously loaded. Word to the wise? Stop trying to piss her off.”

  “Got it,” Jared said.

  “Need anything? The car’s got snacks if you’re hungry.”

  “I’m good. I think I’m going to stretch my legs.”

  The driver jumped out of the car and opened the door.

  “Thanks,” Jared said.

  “I’ll be in the car if you need me.”

  The wind picked up. Jared heard a tinkling sound, like delicate wind chimes, but not just one. A tree near the back of the lot shimmered. He left the driveway, following the sound. Sophia said wait, so he should wait, his logical brain told him, but he was drawn to the young red cedar, a warm presence on a chilly day. He stopped a few feet from it, looking up. The crown radiated sparkling light like a spinning crystal hung in a sunny window.

  “Hey,” he said. “I’m Jared.”

  It wasn’t music or language. Whatever it was trying to communicate, he couldn’t understand. But when he touched the bark, he felt welcome, and then a flood of other sensations—the slowness of sap as the tree prepared for winter, the rumble of traffic in its roots, the play of different winds in its branches. Then Jared was on the ground, lying on the roots looking up. He could see other worlds, other Earths, in the flickering light. Something watched him from the top of the tree, curious. Jared’s back grew wet from the moss and the slick roots, and rain dripped on his face, but he felt calm here, peaceful. No, his fear was gone. It had taken up a bulky space inside him, and now that it wasn’t there, he could see how it had filled him. He heard footsteps, but he didn’t want to move.

  “Jared,” Sophia said. “Get up.”

  He couldn’t turn away from the dancing light. From the corner of his eye, he noticed the man beside Sophia and finally turned his head. The man was ridiculously tall and had a cascade of grey hair and a full beard, but beneath it, beneath his skin, something older showed, something not human. For a supernatural being, he was wearing a lot of earthy-coloured Mountain Equipment Co-op fleece.

  “Hey,” Jared said.

  “He can see me through the illusion,” the man said, his voice deep and gravelly.

  Jared looked up to the crown of the tree. “It shimmers.”

  “Yes, it’s a chief tree,” the man said. “They do that.”

  “Jared, get up now.”

  “It’s singing, sort of like wind chimes.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Sophia said. “Jared, you’re being rude.”

  “The tree is talking to him,” the man said. “It’s hard to leave that. I built here so no one could cut it down.”

  “He’s going to catch a cold.”

  “Your baby Trickster is fine, Sophia. Go. I’ll text you when it’s time to pick him up.”

  “I’ll get a blanket.”

  “I’ll handle this,” Charles said. “Isn’t that why you brought him here?”

  Sophia knelt and put her hand to Jared’s forehead. “Are you all right?”

  “I can hear it, but I can’t understand it.”

  She stroked his hair. “I won’t be far.”

  She was gone. Minutes or hours passed. In the shimmering light, other worlds shifted through his vision. Other people, not necessarily human but close. An old Native man pressed his cheek to the bark, eyes closed, his hair wild, his clothes looking like pyjamas from a few generations past. He opened his eyes suddenly and Jared rolled away from the tree, then struggled to his feet, stumbling into the Wild Man, who caught and held him.

  “Chill,” Charles the Wild Man of the Woods said. “They can’t come through. Whatever you saw is stuck in its own time and world.”

  Jared nodded, sort of understanding and not wanting to look as clueless as he felt. Charles carefully let him go.

  “Can you walk?”

  He nodded.

  Charles studied him. “Hungry?”

  Jared shook his head.

  “I take it you didn’t get your father’s gift of the gab.”

  “You know Wee’git?”

  “He hung out with me whenever your gran kicked him to the curb. They were very Liz and Richard. They used to laugh about it. His nickname for her was Angel Tits and she called him her Fucking Monolith.”

  “What?”

  “You know. The movie. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Never mind.” He put his hands on his hips and studied the sky. “The wind’s picking up. Come on. If you do catch a cold, Sophia will nail me to a tree.”

  Jared followed Charles down the path towards the house. Charles set a slow pace. Jared wanted to know more about his gran and Wee’git, but he also didn’t. He’d assumed that their relationship had been a one-off type of thing, like his mom’s night at the All Native Basketball Tournament, the one that had resulted in his birth. Charles’s picture didn’t sound like the Granny Nita he knew. But maybe she just sobered up and found God. He couldn’t imagine asking her about it either. Hey, Gran, were you and Wee’git, like, the fight-y rez couple that everyone knew before Jesus took the wheel? He found that harder to believe than the fact that he was currently walking beside a sasquatch.

  The glass door swung open as they approached. Jared could not throw rocks at anyone because he was literally in a glass house. It was as if they were still outside, but warmer, comfortable. The concrete parts of the walls were painted to look like a continuation of the forest, trees and ferns in moody lighting. Jared’s reflection in the glass walls was like a ghost.

  “Leave your shoes on if you want,” Charles said.

  A waterfall babbled against a rippled glass pane flowing from the ceiling, puddling in a square pond level with the floor. As they approached the sunken living room, a fireplace blazed to life in a large black bowl empty of wood. The floor of the living room was rounded river rocks. There were two large steps all around that formed benches covered in cushions also designed to look like rocks. On the other side of the fire, some random dude was sleeping with his green toque pulled down over his eyes, hands shoved down into the pockets of his jeans. Jared could hear the faint thump of someone’s music upstairs. Charles sat cross-legged on the lower bench and tipped his head to stretch left then right. He patted the cushion beside him.

  “Whaddya wanna know, Baby Trickster?”

  “Um, who’s that?”

  “Yard Sale.”

  “What?”

  “The vagarious arrival of powder perturbs him and, lo, Yard Sale was indeed driving us all batshit. Nothing so dire that ripping copious bongage can’t solve. Bear witness to his most excellent couch lock.”

  “Maybe you should put some Depends on him,” Jared said.

  Charles burst out in a bray that sounded like Chewbacca strangling, which Jared realized was his laughter. He studied Jared, and then settled deeper into the cushions, grinning.

  “House rules,” Charles said. “Don’t touch the flyers. No drawing on them, no taking clothes on or off, and no putting things on or in them. If Yard Sale shits himself, well, that’s his learning experience.”

  “Consequences,” Jared said, nodding.

  “Sophia was right. You’re nothing like your father.”

  Jared was torn between wanting to know and not wanting to find out just how weird the rabbit hole was going to get. Just face it, you big baby, he told himself. “I want to know about Tricksters, please.”

  “You guys are the messiest bitches at the party, popping off when you get bored. Y
ou are the bringers of drama. But hey, you show up.”

  “Okay,” Jared said, trying not to be offended and failing.

  “Did I hurt your feelings?”

  He considered denying it, but knew he had a serious lack of poker face. “A bit.”

  “Sorry. Them’s the facts. Tricksters are down here in the mud with the rest of us and some of the mud rubs off on them. But you also don’t fuck off to your cloud dimension when shit gets real.”

  “Um. Yay?”

  Charles laughed again. “Wee’git would be right in my face defending himself.”

  “How long have you known him?”

  “When was the telegraph invented? Before your gran, anyways. He had girlfriends before her, and a couple pretty serious ones, but she ruined him for everyone else.”

  “I’m having trouble seeing them as a couple. Gran’s, uh, not Trickster-friendly.”

  “You have a talent for gnarly understatement.”

  “She’s coming to Vancouver to visit. I don’t know how she’ll react to the new and improved me.”

  “Anita of all people would be able to spot a Trickster. How’d she miss you?”

  “She didn’t. Not really. She just thought I was Wee’git. She was pretty pissed.”

  Charles sucked air through his teeth as if he’d touched something hot or sharp. “Yeah, things got ugly toward the end. He just couldn’t believe she moved on. And with Albert. That man was stone cold human. Not a lick of magic anywhere.”

  “Maybe he was her rebound guy.”

  “She had two kids with him. Anita could’ve cut and run any time. She has power. And a mean streak. The first time Albert kicked her around, she waited till he was drunk then beat him with a two-by-four.”

  Jared fought the urge to stick his fingers in his ears and sing la la la. He thought he was going to learn about Tricksters and here they were, revisiting his family’s seriously haywire shit. But, yeah, that was probably where his mom got her fightyness. And when he looked at his own temper, here was the DNA, a direct descendant.

  “Hungry?” Charles said.

  “Not really, but you go ahead.”

  “When you’re this drained, you got to treat your body like it has the flu. Liquids, vitamins and bed rest. Come on, I have just the thing.”

  Jared had a moment of shy, wishing he’d worn a turtleneck or a scarf to hide the bruises. But maybe Sophia had told Charles about the giant David mess. He didn’t want to ask, not really wanting to know. They passed the kitchen and Charles led them to a staircase that was made of snowboards floating in some kind of clear resin. It spiralled up.

  “The downstairs is strictly a Normcore display for the authorities,” Charles said. “We live upstairs and I gotta warn ya, it’s a shit show.”

  “Got it,” Jared said.

  The top of the stairs had a landing in front of a door tall enough that Charles didn’t have to bend to walk through it. The door required a firm tug, and beyond it was a mud room with boots and sneakers tangled together with an assortment of jackets and sweaters. He could hear music, thumping guitar-heavy action, booming from a stereo system that turned out to be attached to a TV as large as a kitchen table. The screen was filled with quick hits and slo-mo shots of boarders doing tricks.

  The upstairs was open-plan, mattresses and cots strewn in a semi-circle around the TV. The air was perfumed with such a skunky odour, Jared felt as if he was getting a contact high. A couple of dudes were heavy-lidded, nodding to the TV, one of them with cheekbones too sharp to be natural. Suitcases were lined against the wall with clothes spilling out. A blond chick with pointy ears was making herself Kraft Dinner with wieners. Her skin shimmered, but not in an obviously magical way. More like makeup. The window walls were frosted. Charles led him to a battered Ikea armchair in cracked black leather and a padded bench that groaned under the Wild Man’s weight as he sat.

  “Park yourself,” Charles said. “Hey, Linda, can’t I mooch some of that?”

  “Sure.”

  “Be right back.”

  Jared sat carefully. He tuned out the music, wondering where Sophia was. Charles returned with a plate of KD and a large glass filled with a rust-red liquid. He handed the glass to Jared.

  “Alder bark tea,” Charles said. “Particularly good for baby Tricksters.”

  Jared sniffed it. “Thanks.”

  It tasted sweet but had a bite, an unexpected bitterness. He took another sip, his body suddenly dry as the desert, and then gulped the rest. Charles watched him, shovelling KD into his mouth.

  “There’s a jug in the fridge,” Charles said.

  “I think I’m good.”

  “You’re not. You’re radiating exhaustion, dude, and it’s harshing me out.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I’ll get you the jug. Drink as much of it as you need. I harvested the alder bark myself. I’ll show you how to make the tea later.”

  “It’s good.”

  “You’re a forest creature like me,” Charles said. “The chief tree knew you for one of us.”

  Charles went to the kitchen and Jared could feel his insides humming, in a good way. Charles brought a rickety side table and placed the jug beside him. Jared poured himself another glass and drank it. Charles held up a bong about the size of a baseball bat.

  “Need a hit?”

  “Thanks, man, but I’m on the wagon.”

  “Too bad. Sometimes you need to break your mind open to let the magic in. ’Shrooms are the best for that.”

  “ ’Shrooms give me super-shitty trips. You can blaze, though.”

  “I’ll save it for later. Props, dude.”

  Jared shrugged.

  Linda dropped onto one of the mattresses in front of the TV, grabbing the remote.

  “Do you want to know anything specific?” Charles said.

  “My organs are trying to run away. Is that a Trickster thing?”

  “That is seriously weird, even for one of your kind. I’ve never heard that before.”

  “Really?”

  “At a guess, I’d say you burnt off most of your power, which is why you feel like shit right now. You can wait for your batteries to recharge or borrow power to stabilize yourself.”

  “What would you do?”

  “Going forward, learn your limit, stay within it. How did you max yourself out, anyways?”

  He’d brought a family of coy wolves to another universe so they wouldn’t kill the people he loved. He couldn’t say it out loud, though, even though he wanted to. That weird wall was there and just thinking about it threatened a state of confusion. “I don’t want to share.”

  “Fair enough,” Charles said. “I could loan you some power.”

  Jared shook his head. “Sorry, that doesn’t feel right to me.”

  They sat in a long, strange silence. Jared wasn’t sure if he’d offended the Wild Man.

  “Good,” Charles said. “You have the right instincts, Baby Trickster. If you ever get tempted to borrow, know that it irrevocably changes you.”

  So it had been a test. “That’s bad, right?”

  “It’s like getting into a teleporter and accidentally mixing your DNA with a fly.”

  “What?”

  “The movie with Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis. The Fly. Classic horror. I can see we’re going to have to do a movie night. It warps you, is what I’m trying to say.”

  Linda paused in her channel surfing to vape smoke circles, trying to get smaller ones to go through her big ones. One of the dudes complained about the canned laughter, so she picked up the remote and changed to The Shopping Channel, which was having a limited-time special on Dr. Ho’s neck massager. Jared finished the jug of alder bark tea. Charles said he had lots of alder bark, and they went into the kitchen. Charles pulled a large zip-lock bag from the freez
er, full of little rolls that looked like cinnamon sticks.

  “Start with two sticks and adjust to taste. Use glass, never plastic. Pour boiling water over them and let them steep. Not too long or it gets extra bitter. Keep it in the fridge.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  “You’re welcome, Baby Trickster. Sophia’s blowing up my phone. We better wrap up.”

  He held out his hand and they shook.

  “Save next weekend,” Charles said. “We’ll work on your wandering organs.”

  “I dunno,” Jared said. “Mom and Gran might nuke us all before then.”

  “Yup,” Charles said.

  7

  THE DARKER STARS OF HEAVEN

  Sophia offered him a spare bedroom in her bungalow in West Van but didn’t push when he said no. They dropped her off first at what Jared would call a mansion, then the driver took him home. Traffic was slow even this late in the evening. Twinkling cherry brake lights sparkled on the Second Narrows Bridge. Mave sleepily answered the buzzer; among the things Jared had lost was his key. Walter waited to drive off until Jared waved from the living room window, as he’d been instructed, just in case David was lurking.

  “You okay?” Mave said.

  “The session was good,” Jared said.

  “Don’t push too hard. It’s been a rough couple of weeks. Be gentle with you.”

  “Mave,” Jared protested, but it was kind of nice to be worried over. Even if he was putting her in danger from magical and non-magical assholery. “Love you.”

  “Oh, you do know how to change the subject.”

  “Lots of practice.”

  “Has your mom contacted you?”

  “No, but she flipped out on Sophia about Granny Nita coming.”

  Mave grimaced. “Ugh. One crisis at a time, please.”

  She kissed his cheek and went back to bed.

  But worry soon took over his brain again. He lay on his bed staring at the ceiling with a creeping feeling of dread welling up. He turned on the desk lamp. He sat on the floor. He laid his hands on the place where his ghost friends had gone through, but the portal painted on the floor, which led to the pocket universe inhabited by dolphin people, had gone quiet. Jared wasn’t sure who had opened it or why. The laws of physics were slightly different there, so ghosts were more solid. Dent had gone through with Shu, an old ghost of a little girl who had been bound by a sorcerer to protect a family that included Jared’s cousin Eliza, whom Shu had guarded against Eliza’s ’roidy spaz of a father, Aiden. Shu was the one who got that asshole killed, using so much power in her curse, she faded. Once she entered the dolphin world with Dent, she’d healed, but when the magic in the apartment faded, the portal had closed, trapping them. Jared shook his head over it all.