Shade of Pale

by Kihn, Greg;

  She led him into a pitifully small cubicle in an office shared with several other workstations.

  “Dr. Howard is a wonderful man, don’t you think?”

  Jukes smiled. “Well, I wouldn’t use the word wonderful, but we’ve been friends a long time.”

  “You’re a psychiatrist?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, I’m intrigued. What can I do for you?”

  “I had a patient, an Irishman named Loomis, who insisted that he was being stalked by … the Banshee.”

  “The Banshee? Really? That’s interesting.”

  “What can you tell me about the Banshee, Dr. Rice?”

  “Fiona,” she said. “Nobody calls me Dr. Rice.” She smiled and her eyes twinkled.

  “OK, Fiona. And you can call me Jukes.”

  “Jukes, what an unusual name. Is that French?”

  “No, just weird. My father was an eccentric.”

  “Well, Jukes, there’s nothing I love more than talking Irish mythology.” She glanced at her watch. “It’s my lunch hour right now; I’ve got a class at one. Why don’t we talk in the cafeteria?”

  She gathered an armload of books and folders and led him through the door and out into the hall. After a few steps, the cargo threatened to spill from her embrace like a paper waterfall. She stopped to shift position and Jukes automatically reached out to help her. They brushed up against each other while Jukes relieved her of half her burden.

  “Thank you,” she said, and they both blushed slightly.

  They walked together in the direction of the cafeteria.

  “The Banshee is a very complex figure,” Fiona said.

  “The man who said he was being stalked was a banker, not the type to go off chasing leprechauns.”

  “You say ‘was’.…”

  “Well, he’s dead. Murdered, actually.”

  Fiona’s face creased; her brow furrowed. Jukes thought her expression of condolence was priceless. It seemed she had a thousand facial expressions, all of them wonderful.

  “That’s terrible,” she said.

  “Yes. It happened only a few days ago. Mr. Loomis was under my care. He complained of being stalked by the Banshee, and then he turns up murdered. You can see my interest. It’s hard for me to gauge the sincerity of his convictions. I don’t know how much he made up and how much is common knowledge, so I’m curious. The thing is, in my opinion, Loomis was suffering from paranoid delusions.”

  “Banshee delusions?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see. Well, those who believe in the Banshee do so very passionately. It’s not uncommon for Irishmen to experience that phenomenon. You see, the Banshee is the Irish version of the grim reaper. When an Irishman from certain families believes he’s going to die, he often calls forth the myth of the Banshee I say Irish men because women don’t seem to fall victim. The Banshee, you understand, is a woman.”

  They entered the cafeteria and Fiona put her stack of folders on a table. They stepped to the food line, took trays, and slid them down the stainless-steel assembly line. Fiona selected a turkey sandwich and Jukes a bowl of soup. When they reached the cash register, Jukes pulled out his wallet and paid the tab. The total was a surprisingly cheap $3.49.

  “That’s the only reason I eat here,” Fiona said.

  They went back to the table with Fiona’s files and sat down.

  Jukes looked around the room and smiled. “I’ll have to remember this place; it’s very atmospheric.”

  Fiona laughed. Jukes noted that she laughed easily, a wonderful trait to have, he thought. His shyness eased with the blithe spirit of Fiona’s company.

  “The Banshee. Let’s see; where should I begin? According to W. B. Yeats, the Banshee is an attendant fairy that follows the old families, and none but them, and wails before a death. The keen, or caoine, the funeral cry of the peasantry, is said to be an imitation of her cry.

  “The Banshee has been around in myth and legend since the fifth century. She’s been called the Bean Si, the Bean Nighe, the Washer Woman, even such quaint things as the Little Washer by the Ford. There are dozens of variations. She haunts certain Irish and Highland Scottish families.

  “Legend has it that she appears sometimes as a woman washing the bloodstained clothes of those about to die, usually by a desolate stream in the woods.

  “The most widely believed mythos is that she is the ghost of a woman who died in childbirth. I did my doctorate on Irish myths and legends, and the Banshee has always been one of my favorites, maybe because she’s a woman and we women get so few good avengers.”

  “Avengers?”

  “Yes. You see, in a way, the Banshee is the avenging angel of womanhood. I’ll tell you why I say that, but this is pretty esoteric stuff; are you sure you want to hear it?”

  Jukes nodded.

  “I just did an informal scan on the university’s data base, based on what Dr. Howard told me.” She blushed. “He … he said you’d be inquiring about the Banshee, so I thought it might be fun to do some homework.”

  Jukes got the distinct impression that Will had exerted the same type of pressure for them to meet on her as he had on him, and with the same subtle message—matchmaking.

  Fiona cleared her throat and went on. Jukes was captivated; he thought she was intelligent and pleasant, more so every minute.

  “Anyway, I looked back at every Banshee reference I could find in the mainframe and correlated those references to the rise and fall of the great clans, and here’s what I got. The Banshee usually puts in an appearance where there has been some wrongdoing to women. Fascinating, isn’t it?

  “Garret More Fitzgerald, the Earl of Kildare, was said to be a tyrannical woman beater, and the Banshee is referenced there by several accounts. His nephew Conn More O’Neill is said to have suffered the same fate, as well as many others of that particular lineage.

  “The most notorious was Ulick Burke, who beheaded his wife, who was, incidentally, the daughter of Kildare. He was said to have lived in fear of the Banshee for many years until she took him. That was around 1504.

  “For centuries she stalked the families of the great ruling clans. Names like Geraldine, Butler, Burke, and O’Brian and others. In fact, it is said that the Banshee has visited virtually every clan in Ireland over the years, and also many of those in Scotland. Once she gets your number … it’s all over. The blood of the great families still runs in hundreds of thousands of their descendants all over the world.”

  “I had no idea. Tell me. What does she look like?”

  “First of all, most of the people who see her die, so that cuts down on eyewitness accounts, but as far as I can deduce from what documentation exists, I’d say she has long red hair and always appears crying. She wears a gray cloak over a green dress, but that can change, depending on which family history you follow. There have been conflicting accounts over the years. She sometimes appears beautiful, other times horrible.”

  Jukes was listening intently. He hadn’t touched his soup. “You talk as if she really exists, as if you know her.”

  Professor Rice smiled. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

  “No, but a lot of people do.”

  “Correct. Science can neither prove nor disprove their existence. So, I guess it’s anybody’s ball game. Since the Banshee is a type of ghost, who’s to say? All I can tell you is that history is full of ghosts, in literature from the Romans to Shakespeare to Washington Irving to Stephen King.”

  Jukes gave her a sly smile in return. “Do you?”

  Fiona shrugged. “Kind of. I mean, I’m a historian. I spend a great deal of time hunting them down in one form or another.”

  Jukes felt the warm rays of her smile, and for the first time in his life he felt at ease with a woman. He said, “Funny, you don’t look like the type who believes in the spirit world.”

  She blushed. “Well, I don’t really.…”

  “What can you tell me about the Banshee’s singing?”

/>   “Oh, the song of the Banshee is supposed to be the most terrible sound imaginable. The Banshee’s wail is the sound of impending death, literally. Some of the research suggests that her wailing may actually cause the death. Ulick Burke was said to have been split in half by the sound.”

  Jukes sat upright. He could scarcely believe his ears. “Did you say split in half?”

  Fiona took a bite of her turkey sandwich and nodded.

  “That’s exactly how Declan Loomis died.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  O’Connor entered the old woman’s crowded living room carefully, not wanting to bump into anything. Mrs. Willis had thousands of tiny figurines displayed on every available surface. Little statues, fragile bits of glass artwork, were everywhere. When O’Connor looked closely, he saw that they were all animals.

  The centerpiece of her collection, a family of exquisite miniature giraffes, grazed in frozen splendor on the mirrored shelf of an antique display case.

  “You like my little zoo?” Mrs. Willis asked, her voice as thin as a reed, her Irish accent thick. She was 102 years old, supposedly, and as tough and wrinkled as jerky.

  O’Connor tried to whisper, his own booming voice far too overwhelming for this room, “They’re so delicate, I’d be afraid to touch one.”

  “They are delicate, and quite fragile,” she said slowly. “Come with me.”

  She led him through the cramped little house, into the kitchen. “Sit down, Padraic O’Connor.”

  He did. She sat across from him at the kitchen table and removed her glasses. There were a few minutes of silence that O’Connor chose not to break, while the old woman studied him.

  “You resemble your father,” she said at last.

  “Did you know him well?”

  “Of course I knew him well,” she answered quickly, annoyed that he would ask such a stupid question. “Are you thick?”

  Without waiting for an answer, she continued. “I know he taught you the secret ways, the ways of the ancients. That’s how it’s passed on, from father to son.”

  “Mrs. Willis, I—”

  “Silence!” she barked. Her voice resembled a crow’s, O’Connor thought, dry and hateful. He folded his hands and sat like an obedient child.

  Mrs. Willis shook her finger. “In my family, after all my brothers were killed, my father gave me the knowledge in the hopes that I could someday pass it on. He knew I had the second sight, and I could see the destinies of people, and he knew that when the time came I would just see who to pass it to.

  “Now there’s none left but you, Padraic, a distant nephew, but that’s the best I can do. I’m too old, and besides, I am a woman. A woman cannot do what needs to be done; only a man can perform that task.”

  O’Connor stared at her, feeling the gooseflesh crawl up his back. For the first time since he’d left Ireland, Padraic was having second thoughts. The enormity of what he was about to do suddenly blossomed in front of him as if the mist cleared to reveal a mountain.

  He was used to being in charge of a situation, to being the decision maker. But here, sitting across from the century-old lady and hearing her talk, he got the feeling that he was involved with something beyond his control, something as vague and ethereal as smoke.

  She leaned forward and touched his temples with dry, leathery fingers; their eyes met. O’Connor wanted to pull away but didn’t. There was too much at stake He stared into the yellowy, red-veined orbs in her wrinkled face and clenched his teeth. Her left eye twitched; her face seem to sag even more.

  “She’s here,” the old woman whispered. “She’s right here in New York. I can see her in your future.”

  O’Connor shuddered. He opened his mouth to speak but couldn’t find words to express himself. The old woman tightened her grip, pushing in on the sides of his head.

  “Now is the time,” she hissed. “Strike while you can.”

  He found himself nodding at her, agreeing.

  The old woman squinted. “You remember what your father told you?”

  “Yes,” he answered.

  “All of it? Every word?”

  “Yes.”

  Her hands fell from his temples, and O’Connor felt relief.

  “Good. In the Book of Kells there’s a coded page that gives instructions for the ceremony. I have a copy of that page and a translation. You’ll need to learn the incantations.”

  “You have a translation from the Book of Kells? But … Who did it?”

  She laughed a short, humorless cough and released his arm. “I did. Who do you think? Gaelic, in the ancient form, is very difficult to decipher—the old ones were a tricky lot—but I have it all right here.”

  She removed an envelope from her sweater and slid it across the table at him. He took it and held it reverently in his over size fingers.

  “The Book of Kells is mostly untranslated, you know. No one has seen these pages but me … and now you.”

  “OK,” O’Connor said. “Supposing I know how to take care of the Banshee, how am I going to find her?”

  Mrs. Willis smiled for the first time, showing her cracked and yellowed teeth. “Fate will lead you to her. It’s all about intertwining lines of fate and destiny. That’s the way it always has been and always will be. If fate has chosen you to be the one, then you will find her.”

  “Where do I begin?”

  Mrs. Willis further wrinkled her already incredibly wrinkled face. She wagged a brown-spotted, bony finger in his direction. “Are you sure your father taught you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you should know. Begin by clearing everything out of your mind. Start by doing nothing.”

  O’Connor smiled. “Nothing, eh?”

  The old lady took a slow, deep breath, as if the gravity of her words pushed her down.

  “Everything will be revealed in its own time. When the answers come, they will appear to be a series of unlikely coincidences, but beware. There are no coincidences.”

  “Damn confusing, if you ask me.”

  “All I want you to do right now is get everything ready. Can you do that?”

  O’Connor nodded.

  “Good. Now I just hope fate has chosen the right man for the job.” The old woman crossed herself and muttered something.

  O’Connor waited for her to speak again. She closed her eyes and seemed to go into a trance for a few long seconds.

  “She will strike again soon; even now she stalks her next victim. Your job is to track her down by finding that person. Look for a sign. If you are truly chosen, a sign will come to you.”

  O’Connor’s face remained impassive. “Can you tell me anything about who that victim will be?”

  The old lady sighed. “I can’t be sure.… I … I think it’s someone close by.”

  “In this neighborhood?”

  Her eyes clouded. She ignored the question and whispered, “It’s somebody who is … two people, I think.”

  “Two people,” he repeated.

  “That’s all I can say.”

  O’Connor waited for more, but none came.

  “This is the way it has to be,” she said at last, and stood.

  Feeling clumsy and alien, he let her lead him to the door. She moved slowly, too slowly for O’Connor. Watching her fumble with the locks was maddening. At last she swung the door open and light flooded in. As he took a step, her cold, dry hand pulled at his sleeve.

  “The doctor,” she whispered. “Follow the doctor. And the cop. He’s special; their destinies are intertwined with yours.”

  O’Connor stepped out into the sunlight. He heard the door close behind him and sighed. The old lady’s words came back to him, as he committed them to memory.

  “… they will appear to be a series of unlikely coincidences, but beware. There are no coincidences.”

  Scrupski’s Metalworks and Die Casting was in New Jersey, and O’Connor had a devil of a time finding it in his rented Jeep Cherokee.

  The place was big, noisy, and filth
y. Harley Spinks was the foreman in charge of custom molds.

  In Harley’s office, O’Connor went over the specifications of a casting he wanted to have done.

  “How many pieces do you want total?” Harley asked.

  “Just the one,” O’Connor replied.

  Spinks laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Well, this is a rather strange request, mister. We usually do poured metal casting in multiple pieces, for industrial use. One piece? Hell, I don’t know. The cost is in making the mold, you know.”

  “I need the highest grade steel you’ve got.”

  O’Connor showed Harley the plans, spreading them out on his desk.

  Harley studied the paper and shook his head. “I can save you a lot of money and aggravation by making this in two parts.”

  “It has to be one piece, cast exactly as shown.”

  Harley lit a cigarette and rocked back in his chair. “We make precision machine parts here. I don’t understand what the hell this thing is.”

  “It’s art.”

  Harley nodded. “Oh, I see. Art? Christ, man, this is gonna cost you an arm and a leg.”

  “I’ve got the money. Can you do it?”

  Harley squinted at the plans. “The specs are a bitch. These are metric, right?”

  O’Connor nodded. “I need it polished, too.”

  “After it’s been cast and cooled, we’ll have to do another machining. Hell, this will be more trouble than it’s worth.”

  “I’ll pay the going rate, in cash, and a bonus if it’s done in seven days.”

  Harley smiled. “Well, like they say, money talks; bullshit walks. That’s gonna have to be in advance, of course. I’d hate to get stuck with a piece like this.”

  “Of course.”

  “I should be more suspicious, but since business has been down, I won’t ask questions. There’s nothing illegal about making precision machine parts. The government won’t allow us to make anything dangerous or illegal, like bomb parts or weapons, you understand.”

  “I can assure you, Mr. Spinks, that this is a perfectly legal thing.”

  Harley looked back down at the plans again. “Well, I guess we can do this. Damned if I know what it’s for.”