Bearer of the Pearls

by Faust, Terry P. ;

  “I see. She sure didn’t approve of what happened to the mussels,” Ben said. “She suspects them?”

  Cathal’s shoulders bunched up and his voice went so deep my kneecaps shook. “The morning you and fair Wendy went to the creek, I’d already looked into it and had a fair idea the jinn did it. They denied it, but I knew they wanted a pearl. That’s why I followed them to your house.” He cast a look over his shoulder at me.

  “But you wanted to let them in,” I protested.

  “Not them. Just me. You’d have had my protection. Jinn are strange creatures, more like humans than spirits. Those little wankers are made of smokeless fire, much like you humans are made of clay.”

  “Clay? I’m not made of clay,” I said

  “Well, we are carbon based,” Ben replied.

  “Right,” I said.

  “Continue, Cathal,” Ben insisted.

  “To ken what they wanted was me goal.”

  “And you found they were Barbiearians?” I punned.

  I got two straight faces. I didn’t think it was that bad, maybe a wee bit of a stretch, but I’d heard worse.

  Cathal decided to ignore me and said, “And here’s a wee known fact: they canna tell a lie to a virgin. If ya’d let me in, and I’d ’ave captured them, we’d ’ave got some perishing answers.”

  “Virgin!” I sat straight up. A hot rush shot from my neck to my scalp. Okay, I am a virgin, but having them talking about it was a bit much.

  Cathal only laughed, and Ben asked, “Do you know why they wanted to talk to Wendy?”

  “I never did find out. Some fiendish human magic nearly burned me bleeding hand off.”

  “Sorry about that,” Ben said, without much feeling.

  This conversation was just too bizarre. “Ben, I don’t care if he can explain being at the door. With that glamour stuff, he can mess with our minds.”

  “Human minds are a mess from the start,” Cathal said. “You spoil most everything you touch. Make war for the fun of it—”

  “War is not fun, you . . . kelpie. What do you know about it?” I shouted.

  “Her dad died in a war,” Ben explained.

  “A thousand pardons, lassie, but you prove me point. You’re a mess for it.”

  “My dad was good and kind and helped everybody. He didn’t have a gun—he was a medic. He treated more civilians than soldiers. He helped people. He didn’t kill them.”

  “‘Sí an dóigh is fearr chun an ruaig a chur ar do chuid naimhde ná grá a thabhairt dóibh uilig.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “’Tis an Irish saying. The best way to get rid of your enemies is by loving them.” Cathal gave me a smile. “I do not know how it was with him. I think he was a good man, your da.”

  * * *

  We parked outside Ben’s home. Cathal tilted his head and gripped the steering wheel for a moment, like he could hear something. “This doesn’t feel right.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Get to your house!” Cathal shouted. He flung his door open and jumped out.

  “Where’s Cathal going?” I asked.

  “Don’t ask questions.” Ben said. “Come on, Wendy!”

  We jumped out and a strong wind hit us. A unearthly mist swirled up and dimmed the sun. The juniper bushes whipped like crazy and the birches creaked and waved. Beyond the mist the sun was shining, but I couldn’t feel it.

  “Her Ladyship?” I asked Ben as we hit the ground and ran.

  “No.”

  There was a roar like a freight train and a huge, bare-chested guy stepped around the side of our house to stand on our doorstep, scowling. He might have been a pro TV wrestler, but I didn’t think we were that lucky. There were broad gold bands on his wrists and he wore baggy, thin pants. He was totally bald.

  “This isn’t good,” Ben said.

  “Ho, ho, ho, come to me!” he called. The wind twisted us around, and I could feel it lifting us. The big guy on the steps raised both arms. He drew us to him. We tried to pull away, but there was nothing to grab and no footing. Ben took my arm to keep me down, but he was pulled along too. “Ho, ho, ho!”

  A scream like a T. Rex shattered all other sounds, and a black horse the size of a Budweiser truck thundered past us. The wind lost some of its grip, and we hit the ground. The giant at our door pointed a finger at the horse and tree limbs the size of my arm snapped and flew at it. The horse reared and kicked them to pieces. The giant laughed and doubled his size.

  With an ear-splitting neigh, the horse charged and flipped its long, wet mane like a gym towel. A blast of water from its soggy tip hit the giant square in the chest and steam billowed out. The giant howled in pain. The whirlwind completely released us, and we flopped on the grass.

  “You okay, Wendy? Let’s try to make it to the back door.”

  “No argument here.”

  The creatures battled: the horse pawed with hooves the size of buckets and the giant threw branches. The giant stumbled off the front step, screaming from each wet lash of the horse’s mane. A two-hoofed kick, and the giant toppled over. Water from the horse’s mane had soaked us. The entire front yard was alive with thrashing, snapping tree limbs. Ben and I dodged them and crawled away from the action. We rested under the swinging bird feeder. The plastic tube hung from a tree branch and was wildly spinning, spewing sunflower seeds everywhere. One terrific gust sent it up into an elm, where it lodged in a squirrel’s nest.

  “That’ll be one happy squirrel,” I shouted. Another gust and the nest and feeder flew out of the tree and were gone.

  “Come on!” Ben cried. We crawled around the side of the house. The fight moved across West River Road onto the park bicycle path. The mist formed a bubble around the giant and the horse, like a shaken-up snow globe packed with chunks of wood and dirt. The horse attacked, and the giant slowly retreated.

  Two joggers heading south on the parkway slowed and stopped, running in place with slogging, hypnotic steps—dreamlike—while the fight crossed in front of them and moved off down into the river gorge. They seemed to wake up and keep going, without a glance, like they didn’t see a thing.

  The storm dropped and vanished, the wind gone. We staggered around the corner of the house into the backyard. Ben fumbled with his key, and at last we were in the kitchen, where we collapsed on the floor.

  The place was perfectly quiet, like nothing had happened outside. The clock over the counter ticked. Ben’s mom stared at us. She had an apron on. “What are you two up to? You kids are soaked.” She really sounded surprised. “It isn’t raining, is it?” She stopped dipping a slice of fish in breading and stretched to look out the window. How could she have missed our tornado outside?

  I looked out with her and the sky was a deep, clear blue, warming to a golden sunset. It looked like nothing happened, a perfect day.

  Ben joined us and took my elbow. “Mom, we’ll get the wet clothes into the laundry. Come on, Wendy.”

  “Ben, I want an explanation,” she said, but I didn’t hear what he said. I pulled out of his grip and ran to the front living room window. Though there were scattered branches on the ground, there was no sign of the giant or the horse.

  From the kitchen I heard Ben say, “We better call the U’s arborist. Looks like we’re losing some branches in the front.”

  * * *

  In my room, I changed into a robe Aunt Mary lent me, one of hers, and hung my wet stuff on my closet doorknob. I put the wastebasket underneath for the drips. Worried about drips? With all that had happened so far, and I was worried about drips. My knees abruptly turned to pudding and I collapsed on my bed. I shook, and not with cold. We could have been killed. I grabbed my stuffed camel. Its round black eyes were held in place by cloth sockets. They didn’t quite match, but the camel was fuzzy and dumpy and good for hugging, like a big dog with a huge nose.

  The guy Dad bought it from in Baghdad called it the orphan camel. Dad wasn’t sure why. I guessed nobody wanted it because the ey
es weren’t the same size, like somebody screwed it up at the factory. Holding it stopped my trembling, but I still felt scared, and my camel reminded me of Dad, and that everyone close to me was gone. I missed them. I missed them all so much.

  My grandma’s bag of marbles was on my bedside table. She willed it to me. We used to play when I visited. I usually put the bag on my camel’s back like it was a load of treasure going across the Sahara. I put it on now, and the marbles clattered around, shifting to the left and right, to the sides of the hump. He was a one-humped camel. The soft clicking made me miss Grandma, too.

  I don’t remember much about my grandma, but the marbles have always seemed kind of exotic, like where she lived in Mississippi, north of Natchez. The marbles were mostly aggies and solids, always shiny. Looking at them and letting them roll through my fingers made me feel better. Some of them gleamed when I held them to the light and sort of soaked it up. The bag smelled of old leather. I wished my mother were here.

  “Wendy?” Aunt Mary called from the door, and gave it a little knock.

  “Yeah?” I dropped the marbles into the bag and cinched it closed. I wiped my eyes.

  “Is everything all right?” She sounded concerned, and I argued with myself about inviting her in. I got her worried, and that wasn’t good—not if I wanted to stay here.

  She opened the door and wrung her hands on her apron. She liked to cook. I smelled fried fish. It seemed an age since I ate. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “I’m fine.” I pulled myself up off the bed and stood. My legs were wobbly but they held, and I brushed out the bed wrinkles. It was a strange thing to do. I’m not all that neat. “I’m sorry if I made a mess, the water and everything.”

  “Are you all right? You looked frightened when you came in. What happened?” She stood in the doorway, reluctant to come in, waiting for me to invite her in.

  “Oh, yeah. I’m fine. You can come in.” I sat back down on the edge of the bed, afraid I’d fall over. That’s the last thing I needed. I didn’t know what Ben told her after I ran upstairs. The truth was, I’d have liked to tell her everything. “Did Ben tell you everything?”

  “Ben, tell me everything?” She laughed quietly and stepped in to look me over. “Are you sure you’re not hurt?”

  I stood again and turned around to show her I was in one piece, keeping a hand on my desk for support. “I’m fine. I just got wet.”

  She was not convinced. She gave me a critical look, the look my mom would give me if she didn’t totally believe me. But Aunt Mary didn’t push. I guessed she figured no harm had been done and didn’t want to keep asking questions.

  “Well, hurry down and help set the table. I’ll take your wet things.” She grabbed them off my closet doorknob, then turned to go.

  “Aunt Mary?”

  “Yes?”

  I wanted to apologize for causing problems, making them take me in, and making a mess of the trees, even though it wasn’t my fault. I stepped up to her and she suddenly wrapped her arms around me like she read my mind. I hugged her hard and felt tears coming. It wasn’t what I meant to do. We stood there like that for a while, and she brushed my hair with her hand.

  I wiped my face and took a deep breath. “I miss my mom. I miss my dad.”

  “I know. It must be hard.”

  I held on to her for another minute, and then she let go with a final hard hug.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Anytime.” She smiled and squeezed my shoulders, hesitating, like she had more to say. Finally, she let out a sigh and said, “You better get ready to eat.”

  Fourteen

  The Break-In

  After everything that had happened, I should have slept like a brick, if bricks sleep, but I couldn’t help going over all the mysteries. In fact, listing them all should have tired me out. Instead I tossed and turned and finally threw on my bathrobe and went for a drink of water.

  My eyes were used to the dark, so I was surprised the hall, which is usually very dark, was softly lit. The floorboards creaked as I tiptoed to the railing around the stairway. The quiet sound of a voice, Ben’s voice, talked with pauses, like a telephone conversation. It came from his room. Light streamed out from under his door. I put my ear to the door and heard, “Why didn’t you tell me before?!” I could tell Ben was as close to being angry as I’d ever heard him.

  “Ben?” I rapped a knuckle on his door, careful not to wake my aunt and uncle down the hall. His voice cut off, mid-sentence. The door opened a crack.

  “What?” he said. He was in bizarre pajamas with a face covering the front, a crazed, wild-haired old guy wearing a scarf and a strange blue phone booth next to him. Tyrone used to run around the apartment in boxers, so seeing Ben in pajamas was far from a big thing.

  “Who’s the guy in the scarf?” I asked.

  “Dr. Who.”

  “Who?”

  “I refuse to suffer a bout of Abbott and Costello. If you don’t know, I won’t explain.”

  “Fine. What are you doing?”

  “Talking with Oliver and Werling,” he whispered. “You should go back to bed.”

  “I can’t sleep.” I looked in and saw his computer was fired up. But Werling and Oliver weren’t there—thank God.

  Ben glanced past me, like I might have been followed, then opened the door. “I’m Skyping. Come in before you wake everyone up.”

  I leaned against the desk next to HAL’s monitor. The screen was split with Werling on the left and Oliver on the right. Werling suddenly blinked like mad and buttoned the top of his blue-striped PJs. “Jeez, Ben, how long has Wendy been there?”

  “He can see me?” I pulled my robe tighter. Ben pointed to a tiny golf ball with a lens clamped to the monitor. I jumped back and out of its range. “You could’ve told me there was a camera!” I hissed. I check myself in his dresser mirror. The light-brown terrycloth robe was hardly a fashion statement—about as jazzy as the average grocery bag. My hair was flat on one side. I mussed it around.

  “Hello? Wendy? Where’d everyone go?” Werling asked.

  Ben offered me his chair and pulled a small bench over from the foot of his bed. He sat. “Wendy just came in.”

  I leaned into the camera’s range. “Hi, I couldn’t sleep.” Somehow, it being late at night and everyone in pajamas, I guessed I could put up with Werling.

  “It is just as well,” Oliver said. “I have questions for you.”

  On the other hand, Oliver was something else. He wore blue silk PJs and a matching cap.

  Ben said, “We all have questions for you, Wendy. Seems you are a very important part of this situation.”

  “What? Why? I haven’t done anything.”

  “Maybe that’s so,” Oliver said. “But there’s a coincidence.”

  “Coincidence?” I asked. “What coincidence?”

  “That’s what we’re discussing,” Ben said. He didn’t sound happy.

  “I’d like to volunteer to be Wendy’s personal bodyguard,” Werling offered. There was a long silence, during which Ben sighed and Oliver rolled his eyes.

  “What?” Werling complained. “She needs protection.”

  “Agreed,” Ben said. “I’ll increase the house security. We need to research countermeasures for the jinn. Wendy, you’ll stay in the house until this is over.”

  “Hold it! You’re not my boss, cousin. And will someone tell me what this is all about?”

  Ben crossed his arms and looked into his camera. Werling and Oliver both looked embarrassed. Ben finally spoke. “Okay, I’ll explain. Our star investigators,” he waved a hand at the two onscreen, “failed to mention that of all the people who have had their pearls broken, all but one had the same last name.”

  “Is that important?” I asked.

  Ben narrowed his eyes. “Morton. It’s your dad’s last name—Morton.”

  My chest tightened and the hair on the back of my neck tingled.

  “We called the people separately,” Werling pleaded. �
��We compared notes on everything else. One person married and took a different name.”

  “And I did not know her father’s last name,” Oliver said defensively.

  If this new twist wasn’t giving me goosebumps, I’d have laughed at their sheepish expressions.

  Ben uncrossed his arms. “The last burglary was of a person named Adair. Now we have the reason they’re here.”

  “You really think this burglar was looking for me?”

  “Is looking for you,” Ben said, and gave Oliver and Werling a hard look. “They switched to people with your last name, Wendy. They figured out their mistake. The jinn that showed up on our doorstep were no coincidence.”

  “Knowing the burglar is after you gives us a valuable lead,” Oliver said, like that should make me feel better. “Wendy, do you have a pearl?”

  “Are you kidding? Me, have a pearl?”

  Ben said, “We need to find the connection between you and the pearl they’re looking for.”

  “I don’t have any pearls,” I said. “I had a plastic pearl necklace when I was little. They popped together, but it was fake, and I don’t have it anymore.”

  “Think!” Ben commanded.

  I tried, but nothing came to mind. “I have a gold-plated chain necklace I got for my last birthday and a set of gold ear studs. That’s it for jewelry. My mother had some stuff, but she took it with. And I think I’d remember any pearls. I’m sorry. No pearl.”

  Ben pulled on his ear, like a new idea might pop out of it, but he said nothing. Oliver cleared his throat. “What about travel? Have you traveled to the Middle East?”

  HAL suddenly flashed red and a siren went off. “Warning. Warning. Window three, second floor has been compromised.” At the same time, a muffled sound of breaking glass came from my room. “Intruder in bedroom three,” the computer voice said.

  Before Ben could stop me, I shot out of the room. In the hall, I slowed down. Through my partly open door a green light swirled. I smelled something burned, like fabric, and opened the door wider to see what it was. All my drawers and boxes were opened and stuff flew everywhere like in a tornado.