Because Hidden People in general lived so much longer than humans, much of the blending was still fairly new in their terms. Only one or two generations in most places.
Sometimes, if you were really lucky, you could find one of the Hidden People who’d been alive during the pre-colonial times. When that happened, it was a godsend to human historians, like Giancarlo. He’d had been coming to the hill with her every weekend for the last three months.
Holding the bag of chalk loosely in one hand, she dipped the other into the cool powder and began to refresh their circle. She took it almost all the way around until it was open on the side closest to the iron fire pit. She’d close it after they were both inside and ready.
“Hey—I told my prof about Cennetig’s obsession with hotdogs and he asked about the iron on the grill.” Giancarlo was taping the camera to the tree. He would spend the actual interview in the chalk circle for safety. Her contacts were usually pretty well-behaved, but there was no point in taking a chance.
She shrugged. “Cennetig says it’s like rhubarb.”
“Rhubarb?”
“The oxalic acid in the leaves is poisonous to humans, but the trace amounts in the stalks are what gives that tangy, tart flavor. Cooking hotdogs on the grill gives them traces of iron. Cennetig likes the tang.” The Hidden Person’s excitement the first time he ate one had been infectious. He even asked for some to take into the Beyond to share. Though he never said as much, Eva suspected that his mixed Yunwi Tsunsdi’ and Glastig ancestry may have made him something of an outcast. At any rate, she never saw him with any of the other Hidden People.
While Giancarlo finished with the camera, Eva hiked to the creek to cut some willow branches. The warm, woodsy scent filled her nose with earth and the underlying green of the trees. The air still had a faint nip from the past winter but was otherwise warm with the promise of spring.
Eva had set aside two dozen pliable branches, whip-thin with slick, brown bark. Her knife was on the branch to cut another, when she heard an aborted yelp from the camp. Giancarlo.
Her knife slipped and bit into her thumb. Shaking, she shoved the knife into the sheath at her belt and ran toward the camp. The distance up the hill seemed to lengthen, but not through magic.
She slid on dry leaves and nearly fell, barely catching herself on a sapling with the hand she’d cut. A smear of blood coated the thin grey bark. Damn. She’d have to clean that off before they called the Hidden People. No time now. Eva pushed herself to her feet and up the hill. She cleared the last of the trees, running into their campsite.
Giancarlo stood on the side of the picnic table opposite the chalk circle. On the other side, standing on its hind legs, was a black bear.
With his hands held away from his side, Giancarlo glanced over his shoulder. “Back away slowly.”
“And leave you there?”
The bear saw her and huffed, revealing long, sharp teeth.
“At least stop talking.” His voice shook, undermining his light tone.
Eva cursed under her breath. All of her supplies were sitting on the table in her bag. She had her knife, a willow branch, which she had miraculously held onto, and the clothes she was wearing. The willow branch….
She focused all of her attention on the bear and did exactly what she had been instructed not to do: Eva stared into the bear’s dark, glistening eyes. She raised the willow branch, not like a weapon, but like a tool. She put a hand on the knife at her side, gripping it so that her nails bit into the leather handle.
Slowly at first, she moved the willow branch in small ovals. The ovals became figure eight patterns.
The bear growled with an intensity that threatened her concentration, but she maintained her delicate hold over the branch and continued to make the motions, each growing incrementally larger than the one before it.
She wove.
Bringing together the fabric of the wood, of the air, and the ground at her feet, she wove a new aspect into the current situation. The bear’s aggressive stance wavered. Its mouth closed. With careful precision and focus, visualizing the strands of the world around her, she wove a new attitude of calm for the bear. The animal rested all four of its limbs on the ground. It sniffed at the air and gazed beyond Eva. She made the bear disinterested.
She became aware of the tension in her legs only as they relaxed. She softened her grip upon the knife.
“Wow,” Giancarlo whispered.
But then the bear refocused on Eva. Its eyes were suddenly keen. It…smiled.
“Very good,” the bear said. Its form shimmered as it changed. “Very good indeed.” Where the bear once stood was a gaunt, angular woman. Nita, the Nunne’hi who had given Ned the head of a rabbit.
Eva and Giancarlo were both outside the protective circle of chalk. Eva forced a bow. “Well met, Nita.”
“Well met?” Her long grey hair framed a face wrinkled with sorrow. Even with the lines of age, she was impossibly beautiful. “Have you brought me a present?”
“I have not yet had the opportunity. If you would give me but a few minutes—”
“Then I shall choose my own present.” The Nunne’hi smiled and Eva shivered.
“That’s not in the protocol.”
“No? But you called me with blood.”
Eva looked at the cut on her hand. Oh, hells. There were rituals that used blood and they created deeply binding contracts with the Hidden People, but she hadn’t invoked one of those. Except…the tree she had stumbled against. Gods and saints. What kind of tree had it been? “I have to point out, the cut happened after Giancarlo screamed.”
“I didn’t scream. I yelled.”
She glared at him. “Fine, you yelled. The point being that he yelled because you appeared so I could not have summoned you with blood.”
“But you did.” Nita’s face twisted into a scowl, sharpening the inhuman lines. “Not the piddling amount dribbling from your hand but with the blood of my family.”
“I—I’m sorry. What?”
“You gave Cennetig the tools to kill my family.”
“Nita…I don’t know what happened, but please believe me when I say that I had no part in it.” Eva held her hands out in a placating gesture, aware of the knife she wore.
“Did you not? Did you not send Cennetig with meat cooked on iron?” Her mouth pulled back to reveal her teeth, sharp like a bear’s. “Did not my husband and my son eat this tainted flesh and die?”
Eva pressed her hand to her mouth in horror. “Cennetig had asked for hot dogs to take with him, but—They hadn’t affected him. I am so sorry but we had no reason to think that they were dangerous.” Was she really discussing the relative safety of hot dogs with a Nunne’hi?
“His mixed blood protects him from iron. All those from Titania’s court can withstand the touch of some iron. It will hurt them, yes, but a small amount will not kill them. My people are not so fortunate. We had no long exposure to iron to build any sort of tolerance.”
Giancarlo lowered his head. “I am sorry for your loss. Truly.”
“What does your sorrow matter to me?” Nita tossed her head. “I’ve come for the woman.”
“I made the hotdogs.” Giancarlo, the brave, foolish man, stepped between Nita and Eva. “She had nothing to do with them. I take full responsibility for that.”
“Wait—He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
“He accepts responsibility. That is sufficient.” The Nunne’hi reached a slender hand for Giancarlo.
“Stop!” Eva strode forward, hands raised. “Our hearts go out to you, but we are no more responsible than a blacksmith is for the wounds his sword causes.”
“But the blacksmith is responsible. If he wanted nothing to do with death, then he should make plowshares.” Nita closed her hand on Giancarlo’s shoulder and they vanished.
“No!” Eva ran forward, as if there were a way to follow them into the beyond. She cursed, spinning on the spot where they’d been standing. Giancarlo was only a his
torian. There was no telling what sort of mistakes he’d make.
Facing the camera he’d placed in the tree to record the encounter, Eva pulled out her phone and texted Sandra. “Giancarlo taken by Hidden People. Going after him. We’re at our usual spot. Camera is in the pine tree.” At least if she disappeared for a couple of decades, people would know what happened.
She carried the willow branch into the chalk circle, thinking fast. Maybe if her grandmother hadn’t passed as white she would have known what to do. As it was, Eva felt like a poser every time her Cherokee heritage came up at staff meetings. All she had was a grandmother and “book learning” and today that would have to suffice.Her phone vibrated in her pocket, but she ignored it. Sandra would tell her not to do this, but she’d told Giancarlo that she would keep him safe. Heck. She had a contract. By the Hidden People rules, that made her responsible even if her own moral sense didn’t.
Eva left the circle of chalk open since she would need the Hidden Person to touch her. She knelt on the ground and lay the willow branch across her left palm, loosely. Setting her teeth, she drew the blade of the knife across the cut in her thumb, reopening it. She wiped the blade on her trousers and shoved it into the sheath at her belt. She let the blood flow over the willow branch, coating the brown wood in scarlet. Blood magic was dangerous, but she needed a binding contract if she had any hope of getting Giancarlo out of the beyond.
Bending the wood, she wove it into a simple circlet, chanting a spell that blended elements of Classical Gaelic and Cherokee as she did. Magic thickened in the air around her, shimmering in a haze outside the chalk circle. The veil between the mortal world and beyond thinned and Cennetig stepped through.
His long black hair had some of the sheen of his Yunwi Tsunsdi’ father, but horns curled back from his forehead. Below the waist he had the legs of a goat, rough with remnants of winter fur. He stood only as tall as her chest and tilted his head back to look up at her. “Well met!” Then he frowned and pointed at the bloody circlet in her hands. “Eva…what have you there?”
“Nita took Giancarlo.” Forget the formality of greeting. “She said you gave the hotdogs to her family. They’re dead.” She held out the circlet. “I charge you to return Giancarlo.”
A look of horror made his mouth drop open. Cennetig sucked in a breath and shook his head. “I—I did not forsee this.” He turned away from her for a moment. “Alas, as I did not take him, I cannot. Only someone who has a claim on him can take him across the border.”
She had no idea if her claim was strong enough– She and Giancarlo had never done anything that wasn’t related to the job, but Eva took a chance. “I was contracted to keep him safe when dealing with the Hidden People. If you take me to him, I will win Giancarlo free myself. Tell me what your price is.”
“A kiss.” His lips curled into a thin smile.
She bit the inside of her cheek, thinking. Kisses were the catalyst to a lot of different spells in almost every branch of the Hidden People. This wouldn’t be as simple as it sounded. “What would you do with this kiss?”
“Nothing. I am required to ask for a price and that is the price I ask. I promise you I will let no harm fall to you as long as you are under my protection.” He tilted his head. “That protection will end when you grant me the kiss, but I will not ask for it until you are safely returned to the mortal world. This is the least I can ask for and still accept your charge. Do you agree?”
Did she have a choice? “I agree.”
He leaned forward and let her place the circlet on his head. The wood twisted to pass over his horns and settled on his brow.
Eva had a bare moment to wonder why he seemed so very pleased, before the magic thickened around them and the mortal world vanished.
* * *
She stood in the beyond or Faerie or… elsewhere. Even if the massive old growth trees didn’t tell her she’d moved, the clarity in the air would tell her that she was no longer in the mortal world. Each leaf stood out starkly from its shadow. The light seemed to gild every blade of grass individually and the air was heavy with the resin of rowan mixed with oak and maple. Eva resisted the urge to immediately pull out her phone and start snapping pictures of the space around her. She wasn’t here for research.
The branches arced over the clearing like a cathedral or a longhouse. At the edge of the clearing, stood a mud-and-daub house in the Cherokee style. It had a single hide-covered door in the side, decorated with a red and black paint pattern unlike anything she had seen in any records. It had elements she recognized from Cherokee basketry but mixed with some curvilinear patterns that seemed to shift as if the paint were alive.
Ringing her, was a fence of living willow—no. Not a fence. These were baskets that had been woven from green willow and then planted. They vibrated slightly with the movements of things inside the baskets.
Eva shivered. She had wondered what the Hidden People did with the baskets she wove and now she knew. They were living cages.
“Cennetig.” From the door of the house, Nita stepped into the clearing. “You are not welcome here.”
“I have brought you the human who killed your family.” He minced forward. “She tricked me into carrying poison here.”
“What—? No.” Eva took a step from him. “That’s not what—”
“Be still.” Nita raised her hands and wove a spell, flinging it at them. The magic twisted into vines in the air, which reached toward them.
Eva flinched, unable to think of a counter-spell fast enough.
The spell shattered inches from her face with a crack that smelled of mildew and November leaves. Shaking, she stepped back and bumped into Cennetig. He steadied her with a hand on her waist.
Nostrils flaring, Nita lifted her head. Her hands moved in complicated patterns as if she were weaving spells in the air but nothing happened. Why wouldn’t her spells work? Nita could turn into a freaking bear. All the years of research and working in the field of magic fled Eva’s understanding.
Nita scowled. “What bargain protects you?”
Cennetig laughed and straightened the crown on his head. His hand came away with blood.
Holy—The crown bound Cennetig to Eva until he returned her safely to the mortal world. No wonder the price he asked in return was so low and no wonder he wanted to claim the reward after she was back. He’d turned their contract into an insanely powerful protection for himself. He held his hands out, pleading with Nita. “My love, I—”
“I am not your love.”
“I only wish to speak with you.”
“With more lies?” Her voice broke and her shape shifted around the edges, becoming denser and shaggy like a bear. “Why couldn’t you let us be—?”
A redbird flew across the clearing and landed on Nita’s shoulder. A muscle twitched in her jaw. She turned abruptly and walked around the edge of the clearing, trailing her hand over the tops of the wicker baskets. The creatures inside jumped and called as she passed.
Each basket had been set upside down in the earth so that the tender shoots had rooted and grown. Some of them had been there so long that the original basket shape had been obscured by offshoots and leaves. Eva turned in place to watch Nita walk. The cages held badgers, ravens, beetles, foxes, and other animals she couldn’t identify. Cennetig crouched at Eva’s feet and as she turned, he kept her between him and Nita. “He did not deserve you.” Cennetig trembled against Eva. “If my mother had not been a Glastig, you would have seen me as—”
Nita roared. The wind blew her hair in a gust without touching the leaves around them. “I loved Salali. That has nothing to do with you or your parents or any other consideration except that I loved him.” She leaned her cheek against the redbird on her shoulder and closed her eyes. “I love him still.”
Eva’s heart wrenched, realizing that the redbird was one of the Askinas of Nita’s husband. Oh, gods. His soul had stayed behind with her.
With a growl, Cennetig yanked Eva’s knife from her belt an
d launched himself at Nita. Dancing backward, Nita dodged him.
The knife was steel. Crap. She’d been so frantic that she’d sheathed it without thinking. Eva ran after Cennetig and tried to grab the hand that held the knife. He swiped at her, face tight with pain. He’d pulled his sleeve down to wrap around the knife’s handle, but even with that and the leather handle, the metal still had to be burning him.
Eva tried to keep herself between him and Nita. Cennetig lowered his horns and charged for her. Eva threw herself to the side, crashing onto the ground.
The redbird dove at Cennetig, batting at his eyes with its wings. With Eva’s protection in place, the bird couldn’t touch him.
Cennetig stabbed at the bird wildly. “I killed you! I already killed you!”
If he killed the redbird with a steel knife, Nita’s husband would be forever dead. Nita bellowed and shifted fully into a bear. She swiped at Cennetig, paw bouncing off the protection that Eva had unthinkingly given him.
Swearing, Eva snatched a handful of grass. It wasn’t the best conduit, but it was what she had. Braiding it with shaking hands, she knotted it into a hunter’s twist and pulled a distraction around her. Eva got to her feet and Cennetig didn’t seem to notice. He kept swiping at the redbird, which seemed determined to keep him from getting to Nita.
Heart pounding, she walked behind him and grabbed the circlet. Cennetig bucked as her hands touched his scalp. Eva yanked his head back and gave him the kiss she had promised him.
His mouth was dry, and chafed like bark. Magic bubbled around them as she fulfilled their bargain. Eva twisted the circlet, breaking the willow branch with a crack.
Howling, Cennetig grabbed Eva’s arm. Eyes mad with rage, he lifted the knife.
Nita slapped her great paw against his head and Cennetig’s neck snapped. He crumpled to the ground.
The air in the clearing condensed with the smell of a thunderstorm. Cennetig’s body shivered into dust, which flowed into four mounds. From one, a deer stood. It spied the bear and shied away, running toward the baskets. In a bound, it cleared the fence and disappeared into the woods. A raccoon ran for the edge, but when it reached the baskets it got sucked into the willow cages. A butterfly flew straight toward the painfully blue sky.
Anthology of Speculative Fiction, Volume Two Page 371
