by J. R. Rain
Derek Greene gives me a thumbs up. He always dresses like he’s going for a job interview on Wall Street, even if his button-down shirts never quite seem to fit over his arms. The guy likes to work out. “Did you lose weight? Easy Sol. You’ll vanish.”
I start to give Jazmin a quizzical look, but catch myself and avert my gaze. “What the heck is an anime look?”
“Damn, Sol. You gotta turn in your geek card.” She shakes her head.
“I never had one.”
My boss’s office, all the way at the back of the place, spares me any further scrutiny. Fenton Malcolm is at his desk. After me, he’s the whitest person in the whole place. Maybe the city. I think he uses the excuse that he’s from London. His limp brown hair hangs like a dead raccoon from his head like it always does, too short to be the ‘hip’ he’s going for, too long to work in a real office. Maybe I should introduce him to Andre. They could sit in Central Park and play hang drums together or something. He looks the part, but he’s far too serious for that. You’d think someone who runs a tabloid specializing in spookies and scaries wouldn’t be such a bland guy.
“Miss Winters. I’m glad you’re here. Sorry about your Sunday.” Fenton looks up with a smile. It takes a second and a half for it to shift to a look of confusion. “Things have gone… a little crazy overnight.”
I ooze into the chair facing his desk, camera bag in my lap. “How do you know about Sunday? And… what do you mean by crazy?”
“An educated guess about Sunday. Something happened to individuals with a particular skill set.” Fenton twirls his silver pen between his fingers. “More to the job at hand, there’ve been multiple sightings of numina all over the world.”
Numina… his term for ‘supernatural creatures.’
I blink at him. “Wait. Sightings? Are you serious?”
“A couple ghosts showed up in the Tower of London. Someone got cell phone video of what I think is a demon in Los Angeles. I was on the phone with a friend of mine in New Zealand when you tried to call me earlier. He’s had a report of a supposed unicorn sighting in Auckland. A little boy in Idaho claims he spotted a pair of centaurs, and there’ve been about two-dozen reports of imps or goblin-like creatures in the City.”
“Whoa.”
“Traditional news outlets are attributing it all to some sort of mass paranoia event, and the conservative Christians are up in arms over that test at the Large Hadron Collider. Science being ungodly and so forth.”
I fidget at the bag. “I had the strangest dream that I woke in the middle of the night and saw purple lightning all over the sky.”
“You’re not the only one.” He tosses the pen on the desk and grabs his coffee. “Witnessing that lightning appears to be common among everyone, but only those capable of magic got caught in whatever time goblin ate Sunday.”
Damn. I need coffee.
“We have a report of a faun sighting in Central Park. I need you to hurry out there and get it on camera.”
Hand up. “Whoa. Hold on. A faun? Seriously? I mean… I know I’m supposed to be open-minded and all, working here, but fauns?”
Fenton smiles. “Of course. You’re an elf, aren’t you?”
A gasp flies out of my mouth. “A what?”
“You’re hiding your ears with that hat. Are they pointy?”
I pull the enormous, floppy beret down tighter over my head and in a tiny voice say, “No…”
Fenton laughs. “I don’t mean this in a demeaning way, but you are adorable.”
“Elves are like”―I hold my hand at the head level of a toddler―“this tall and they work at the north pole.”
“Not Christmas elf. Affinity for forests and animals, great with a longbow? That kind.”
“Longbow? Mr. Malcolm, you’re going way off the deep end.”
“We’ve all just slid way off the deep end.” He gestures at his door. “Please go to Central Park and see if you can find a faun. The sighting occurred in the trees east of Sheep Meadow. Go on. Prove me wrong.”
“Right.” I stand. “So, you want me to find something that’s half-man half-goat. This is… Dad says stuff like this is real, but I never took him seriously.”
“Most people wouldn’t. I’ve got the strangest feeling that’s about to change.” He leans forward, elbows on his desk, and stares into my eyes. “You’ve been waiting for that moment that makes your career. Carries you up out of this little nowhere paper to something big. I’d hate to lose you, but this could be it.”
A twinge of guilt pricks at my guts. I would jump at a chance to go big, but not without missing this place and these people. I’ve worked here almost ten years, all but the first two feeling like I can’t wait to move on to bigger and better. With that almost a possibility… would I hesitate out of loyalty? I offer a mute nod and head back down the narrow corridor to the exit.
My thoughts drift to Andre, and how happy he seemed, working as a barista. Is that what he meant? Have I been making myself miserable by looking down on this little paper and hoping for more, when all along I’d been content?
I haven’t had enough coffee for that line of thinking.
If there is a faun in Central Park, he won’t mind if I make a quick stop for some java.
venti redeye with cream and sugar―that’s a giant dark roast coffee with a shot of espresso in it―warms my mouth and nose in the back seat of a cab heading for Central Park. It’s too hot to drink it as fast as I want, but I’m forcing tiny sips. Nothing that’s happened makes sense. One guy in a fancy grey suit at the Starbucks mentioned thinking it was Sunday and cursed how fast the weekend went by. No one else noticed. There’s that magic not believing in people thing hard at work.
My mind wanders down a gnarled trail of doubt, wondering if the entire world slept all day or if some kind of space-fold thing happened where one day merely dropped out of existence. Cosmic forces beyond our imagining bent the fabric of reality and pulled the blanket back, touching Monday to Saturday. Now I know the universe is cruel. It should’ve eaten Monday.
Either that, or I’m still at home, sleeping off the ghost-hunting.
Talking cat. Yeah, right.
My clothes still fit because I am dreaming, and dreams aren’t smart enough to realize that if I get smaller and thinner, the clothes won’t fit me. If I actually did change size, the mother of all shopping trips is in my future. My entire wardrobe wouldn’t have shrank with me… would it? Nothing else makes any sense, but I’m here, and dreaming or not, I may as well enjoy the ride.
A shaggy-bearded homeless guy in a long Army jacket wanders down the road between lanes of traffic with a ‘The End is Nigh’ placard, shouting about God’s wrath. Horns blare on all sides, and a few people shout back. We make eye contact as the taxi passes, creeping along not much faster than a person can jog. He blanches. It takes him a second to recover, and he points at my cab, expounding about demons.
Oh, great.
Hopefully, everyone else thinks he’s crazy too.
Another doomsday prophet takes up the corner two blocks down, bellowing at people to ‘settle their affairs before the reckoning,’ and other similar cheery phrases. No one appears to be giving him any more attention than any other day a lunatic rambles about the end of the world, so perhaps the City has gone back to normal.
I’ve got about half my coffee left when the taxi lets me off on Center Drive right by the Olmsted Flower Bed. If Fenton’s info is good, I’ll supposedly find my faun running around between where I’m standing and the fountain. New York has a healthy ‘edgy’ college-age crowd that goes for wild hair colors, so I’m hoping my new snow-silver locks don’t draw too many stares. Except my jeans, angora top, and giant hat are the exact opposite of edgy, but maybe the blandness will counteract and let me blend in. Or something.
A few steps along the walkpath into the park, I realize a few things. People on the benches are noticing my hair, the trees here are way too sparse to conceal something like a faun, and… this place fills me with a strong
feeling of peace.
I’ve been to Central Park before, but it never hit me this hard how different its energy is from the city. The trees almost glow with life, and I’m taken with a sudden, powerful distaste for the concrete wilderness I’m only ten paces away from. A genuine urge to fling my clothes off and dance among the woods comes on, and I jam it deep down into the recesses of my consciousness.
Whoa. Where the hell did that come from? Some things are too embarrassing to ask the parents about, and that’s one of them, even if I am insanely curious why pulling a wood nymph in Central Park feels like the right thing to do.
I shake my head, gazing around at the open area full of green. There’s no arguing; this place changed. Or maybe I changed, and I’m only noticing it now.
A group of counterculture types are meditating among the trees, a lot more than usual… so maybe something did happen. But, on to more immediate problems. North of the Olmsted Flowerbed, the trees are spaced far apart over well-maintained grass. If a numina had been here, the entire city would already know about it. Either the sighting occurred in the wee hours of the morning when the area had been deserted, or the person had been so rattled they gave us bad intel.
A faun hiding in Central Park would likely be north of the boathouse. Those woods are dense, and more like actual woods rather than a decorative lawn. Then again, it could also be in the thicket south of Wollman Rink, but that’s near the edge and close to the city. If I were a numina, I’d want to be so deep in the trees, I could forget all this concrete even existed. Actually, I do kind of want to forget it exists.
Ugh. What’s wrong with me?
I head north along the Mall walk, casting only a passing glance around. Sheep Meadow off to my left is in sight, albeit a good ways off. No sign of a faun, satyr, or anything unusual in Central Park. Well, except for me. Whatever I am. I keep going north along the Mall. No sense wasting time. Near Bethesda Terrace, I get the feeling of someone staring at my back. I stop, pretending to take a deep breath of ‘fresh’ air, and glance back. A Wall Street type in a dark suit is giving me the stalker eye from about twenty paces back. Great. Either I’m about to get hit on, or wind up on the Ten O’clock News. Strange woman found dead in the bushes of Central Park, suspected victim of sexual assault.
That would be my luck.
I’d say this specimen looks too clean cut for that, but those are the ones I trust the least. Some of those uptight-and-proper types have the worst predilections. This one guy at a building I’d scoped out while trying to get a picture of a Maelbara, he… oh never mind. I don’t even want to remember. Dude worked for a big bank. I think they found thirty-six bodies in his basement.
Anyway, I’ve got problems in the here and now to worry about.
I zip across Terrace Drive while concentrating on my ‘don’t notice me’ glamour. Assuming screwing it up isn’t why I woke up with pointed ears, it’s worth another shot. A second before releasing the magic, I weave into a thick group of pedestrians. With any luck, casting Inconspicuous will make him lose me in the crowd.
The glamour works by distracting people to deflect unwanted attention, but I don’t know if someone specifically trying to follow me will lose the scent. Still, relying on the wall of crisscrossing tourists, joggers, and a dog-walker or three, I hurry off to the right, following another road into the trees to skirt the lake and bypass the fountain terrace. I’m not swimming.
My path takes me along past the Loeb Boathouse. A collection of brunchers on the patio behind it glance my way, one or two stare. Fortunately, creep-in-black isn’t around anymore. He’s gone. Guess the spell worked. I drift left toward the patio long enough to chuck my empty coffee in a trashcan conveniently close to the fence, and hoof it into the woods beyond.
The trail goes uphill, and the copse thickens enough to hide a faun. It’s game time. Or wild goose chase time. Out comes my iPhone, and I send a text to Fenton.
I’m at the park. Nothing near Sheep Meadow. Going north of the Boathouse. If I wind up on the news tonight, I expect you to suitably apologize to my parents for my untimely death.
Once I leave the paved trail behind and creep among the underbrush, an inexplicable sense of security wraps around me. I doubt the feeling of protection is any more real than a kid’s hiding under a blanket during a thunderstorm. Then again, I never did get hit by lightning in my bed. Thoughts of muggers slip from my mind as I prowl around in search of some wayward numina. Going off the walk paths makes my travel slow, but it’s a necessary step. If a faun existed, much less in Central Park, it would be staying as far away from people as it could, and that would mean away from the walkways. At least, that’s what I would do in its shoes. Hooves. Whatever.
Keeping as quiet as I can tromping around in Uggs, I search high and low for anything out of the ordinary for the better part of an hour.
Voices muttering about grid squares and sectors up ahead stalls me like a deer―I freeze statue still and listen. Sounds like Army stuff. Snaps and crunches get louder off to my right; I find myself crouching by a tree, almost an instinctual reaction.
A pair of large men wearing black suits, sunglasses, and earpieces stumble out from the trees about ten yards in front of me. I ease the camera up, disable the flash and sound feedback, and sneak a couple pictures of them as they trample right by without noticing me. Given my beige sweater and stark white hair, the only explanation is the magic worked. Or they saw me and didn’t give a flying banana. Whoever they are, they’ve got government written all over them. And not the nice kind of ‘We the People’ government either, more the ‘You stop existing if we want you to’ ilk.
What on Earth are they doing in Central Park?
I blink.
Are they hunting the same thing I am? Fenton said the whole world went nuts. Assuming I am, in fact, awake and not dreaming this, that would mean he’s right. Something released―wait, not something. I know what released a large amount of energy, perhaps even magical energy. It has to be the experiment Dr. Kumar was running at the LHC. The news on the TV at the diner said it was going to happen in two days. Which puts it right on Saturday night. But that still doesn’t explain why I transformed. Or how all my clothes still fit.
But… no.
I can still hear the agents talking, but too faint to make out words. I shouldn’t be able to. Quaker Hall had been pitch dark to Melodie… could I have been seeing by starlight instead of moonlight? Maybe Mel’s camera isn’t cheap and I was somehow able to perceive the IR flashes? All the times we’ve gone creeping around haunted places, I never thought it was as dark as the others claimed, unless we wound up underground or something with no windows. Like everywhere else, Quaker Hall hadn’t seemed that dark. And Jade’s partner… Price or Prince or something said I had good eyes for spotting those gouges. Shit. Even the subway ghoul thing. I didn’t bother taking a flashlight since I didn’t think I needed one.
Crap. Am I an elf? Really?
That could explain why Brazilian waxes never bothered me. I mean, they felt weird all right, but I never reacted like most of the other girls did. I used to think they were crybabies, but… if I never had any hair to pull, it makes sense. Wow, they must’ve thought I have a freakish pain tolerance. Go me!
I almost laugh at the ridiculousness of it. My kid sister plays games that have elves. Fantasy creatures. They don’t really exist. I lose a moment staring at my slender fingers. I don’t remember them looking this delicate. If I close my eyes, nothing feels different… which beyond freaks me out. I’ve got to get to New Hope and see my parents as soon as I can. Temptation to leave wars with my need to catch the story of the century. If there is a faun (or something a layperson might mistake for one) here, and I can get a photo of it…
It’ll probably wind up thrown in the same heap of ‘tabloid’ news as everything else.
Snap.
A twig breaks to my left. Silence hangs for a few seconds before a rapid thump-thump-thump like a monstrously fat deer bounding across the
forest breaks it. Could it be? Feeling more excited than I should―after all, it’s probably something escaped from the zoo in the chaos―I get up and chase the sound. About two minutes later, I spot a rounded print on the ground. I’m hardly an authority on tracks, but I can tell it’s no horse. The hoof that made it is cloven like a goat’s, but it’s as big as a horse’s. Disbelief gets into a swordfight with anticipation in my gut. Holy shit. Maybe I’m a gullible idiot, but giant goat print = faun in my head. CNN, Reuters, heck, I’d even take a job with the Times. I guess newspapers will linger around in the human experience for a while longer. The Web and TV haven’t devoured everything yet.
Human experience.
Again, I stare at my hands.
What if I’m not part of the human experience?
Nah.
Another track in the distance draws my attention. Daydreams of fame and recognition pull me along, following a series of hoof prints until I catch a dark spot move in the trees up ahead. As quiet as I can be, I ease myself into a crouch behind a thick oak and raise my camera. Seconds pass of stillness before a humanoid figure edges into view, bare-chested, bearded, and with two curved horns sticking up from his temples.
My heart pounds in my chest.
He’s got a powerful build, strong brows, a sharp nose, and he’s so damn perfect. This being twenty yards away is the utter quintessence of the wilderness man. It’s all I can do to keep myself still and not run at him flinging my clothes off. It has to be a glamour effect. A charm. The instant that spark of thought snaps across my brain like lightning, the gooey feeling in my nether regions fades. Yes. A faun. One of Dad’s books described them radiating an entrancing aura. Matter of fact, he’s probably naked. Looks like he’s wearing fur pants, but yeah… he’s a satyr.
I snap a picture of his beautiful body. Without the glamour grabbing me by my ovaries, the lower goat-half is moderately alarming but… I think I’d put up with it to have those amazing arms circling my body. Between flickers of NSFW daydreams, I snap a couple more pictures and about thirteen seconds of video before he spins on one hoof to stare right at me.
