by Luna Lindsey
And where his lusts came from.
Ezra sighed. Round and round in circles again. How could he know what was truth? Everything seemed to have a contradiction, and each contradiction was as believable as the next. Something had to give.
He prayed aloud to God in heaven, the way Elder Isaiah did. He also prayed to the God in the stream, in the trees, and in the boulder he leaned against: “Please Yahweh, if I am a demon, let me know it. Or if I am a prophet, let me know it. Or if I’m crazy…”
“There you are!” cried a voice from the darkness. “You know, if you pray like that, you’ll never get any answers. It’s best to ask clear yes or no questions.”
Ezra jumped. Who was there? Was it God?
Another boy sat down next to him, a little older than him. Not God then.
“Who…”
“I’m quite possibly the answer to your prayers, but I’m not God.”
Then Ezra noticed his ears. They were not human ears; they were fuzzy animal ears. He felt something soft against his arm, and looked down to see a flicking raccoon tail.
He held out his hand. Ezra looked at it, eyes wide. “My name is Jonathan, good sir. But my friends – and therefore you – shall call me Fiz. Like a nice glass of soda pop.”
Crazy just got company.
CHAPTER 17
*
JETT KNELT SKYCLAD before the pool in Cloncahir. At her command, the stalactite had ceased dripping, so now the chamber lay in calm silence. She dropped the button where it floated for a moment before succumbing to the weight of water to sink it beneath the depths. She leaned in until her hair skimmed the surface. Inhaling deeply, she could smell the purity of the still pool. She moved her face in closer, until her nose touched the cool mirror, her hair floating all around her. With inner eye, she could see the button, and through it, could feel the thread connecting it to its former owner.
It led back, as if still sewn to his clothing, to a boy. A young boy. No, a troll, just as Fiz had reported.
He lay asleep against a tree, with another man in old-fashioned clothing bleeding beside him.
Jett sat back on her heels, her hair dripping over her breasts. She shifted until she sat sideways. Scrying could be a bit of a chore, but Jett had the patience of someone who had lived a millennium.
After a few hours, the boy finally awoke and followed the old man back to a camp. She learned a few things. His name was Ezra. He was living at some kind of religious camp in the woods. He was concerned about the argument between the old men. He complied with everything they told him. He was shy. They all looked at him strangely. And… he was being watched. One of the men followed him wherever he went. Was he captive?
Poor thing.
She watched as he fell asleep again.
Who were these people? Some kind of cult? She felt a wash of concern. This boy had a number of things against him. First, there were those two strange women Fiz had seen at Red Square. They weren’t with the camp. Possibly the same two Ivy had seen at the support group? Were they the reason the old man had been bleeding? She couldn’t rule that out. And he was a Lost One, living with what to him must seem like deformities, for possibly years.
Jett had sheltered hundreds of the leanaí a cailleadh over the centuries of this timthreall, when she’d chosen to become faeborn for barely-remembered reasons.
She barely knew her human father, only that he was Japanese and handsome. As little more than a sperm donor, whisked way to Tir Nan Og, he would have been ill-equipped to teach her anything of use. She had the privilege of being raised by Flidais, who taught her how to control her magic, and how to remember the life before, to remind her why she’d chosen to be faeborn in the first place.
She could barely imagine coming into the world in a new blaosc, with no memories, your fae parent absent. When the things that go bump in the night are really there, staring at you from your closet, and you don’t know what they are, it must be terrifying.
Ezra lived through this timthreall alone, ignorant and confused. He would have seen himself and the world differently than everyone else did.
If left alone, leanaí a cailleadh had little chance for a happy or normal life. Their minds turned to self-loathing, madness, violence, depression, institutionalization… sometimes even suicide. Or worse. Some leanaí a cailleadh became bitter, learning just enough about their powers to abuse others, turning unseelie for no good reason other than… What did moderns call it? A way to cope.
And if that wasn’t enough, he lived in the woods with these weirdoes, being fed their Christian drivel. Who knows what the poor boy must believe about himself at this point.
She wondered what these Christians must think of his feat of wild magic earlier that day. They could be keeping him prisoner while they searched for a stake to burn him on. She’d seen worse.
This called for an immediate intervention. Just as soon as he was alone.
An hour later she got her wish. Ah, so you weren’t asleep after all. Clever boy. She watched him rise, unzip the tent, and sneak away.
“Fiz!” she yelled. No, that would not do. She ran to her pile of clothes and fished out her cellphone.
“Fiz. Wake up. No, wake up more. I need you to get in your car and drive.” Holding the phone close to her ear, she knelt again at the water’s edge and touched the image of Ezra’s head lightly. “Head for Cougar Mountain. Near Issaquah. Our troll is there, leaving camp. See if you can find him. Lead him to Coffee Messiah. I will meet you there.”
She hung up and returned her attention to the boy in the water. He strolled slowly through the woods with a look of consternation on his face. Fiz may have trouble finding him. Cougar Mountain was a mountain after all.
But Fiz had a few talents of his own.
More time passed. She watched Ezra walk slowly through the trees, down trails, across streams. He stopped for a moment to talk to a spider, and then moved on until he settled in next to a large boulder and a glamour-infused pile of rocks. A monument of some kind. Within it, Jett thought she could see the faecast of a cathedral in miniature.
And where was Fiz? Ah there. Clever Fiz, at home in the city or the woods. His mask of raccoon fur shifted away and he grew taller, back into human form. No one would put a scared boy at ease better than he could.
“I’m quite possibly the answer to your prayers, but I’m not God,” she heard him say. “My name is Jonathan, good sir. But my friends – and therefore you – shall call me Fiz.” He waited until Ezra shook his hand, tentatively, before continuing. “That was quite an interesting performance you put on today at the U.”
“You… you were there?” Ezra asked.
“Of course. A beautiful display. I’m sure you have a lot of questions, and as I said, I am quite possibly the answer.”
Ezra looked at him with hope in his eyes and asked, “Do you know what’s happening to me?”
“I do,” Fiz replied.
“You said you’re not God. Are you a demon?” Poor Ezra sounded bewildered. Almost scared.
“Think of me more… like an angel. Actually, I’m the guy who is going to lead you to the angel.” Fiz stood and once again extended his hand, this time with a bow and a flourish. “Come along with me.”
Ezra looked up at him with amazement. He reached out and let Fiz help him up. “An angel? Where?”
She watched a spectrum of expressions flash across his face. Fiz saw them, too, and cocked his smile with a single arched eyebrow. A completely trustworthy, farcical face.
“If you don’t mind, my boy, I would like to drive you into town. Thanks to the wonders of technology, there is a coffee establishment there which is open all night. That is where we shall find our angel.”
“I… I’m not sure about this. I wasn’t supposed to leave camp, much less…” His voice trailed off. Jett could see the war within him, just like she’d seen in The Maid of Orléans, almost six-hundred years ago. She pitied his confusion.
“Be careful what you wish for,” Fiz
said. “You just might get it. Is that it?”
“What?” Ezra seemed shocked out of his own turmoil by the enigmatic statement.
“You prayed to know what you are,” Fiz explained. “Thou shalt not look an answered prayer in the mouth, I always say.”
Ezra stood there, silent for a moment.
“It is evident you need more persuasion. I vouch and do so solemnly swear, upon my ringed tail, that no harm will come upon you this night.”
“You really do have a tail?”
“You’re not crazy. Well, to be honest, you would have seen a tail anyway, since I wear a clip-on… but, these ears, you see those, and well… That makes you pretty special.” Fiz stepped forward and looked intently into Ezra’s eyes, his own feral eyes glinting in the moonlight. “I know how you feel. I was lost once, too. If you come with me, you’ll find family like you’ve never known.”
“And what if I want to come back here?”
“I, personally, will drive you, okay? Remember, you prayed for answers. She has answers.”
Ezra nodded. Jett never once doubted Fiz’s abilities. “Okay. Let’s go.”
The south trailhead was not far from Ezra’s hiding place, so it didn’t take long for them to reach the parking lot and Fiz’s beat-up hatchback.
There was still work to be done. Getting him to come for answers was one thing, but convincing him of the truth of those answers…
She leaned her face into the water again, rewetting her hair which had been dry for hours. She kissed the water and then sucked inward. The button arose through the water until she clutched it between her teeth. Then she dressed, and headed to her own car.
When Fiz and Ezra arrived at Coffee Messiah, Jett awaited them with three steaming brews of latte: hers, with extra foam; a mocha for Fiz; and a French vanilla and orange mocha with whip, something she strongly suspected Ezra would like.
She stood to greet him while Fiz sat next to where she’d been. She’d chosen a cozy area with a warm fireplace and couch and comfy chairs and a small table between them. No one else wanted coffee at this time of night, so aside from the barista, the shop was empty.
“Hello, Ezra. My name is Jett Brightgrove. I hear you’re looking for answers.”
CHAPTER 18
*
EZRA TOOK THE HOT paper cup. “How… how did you know my name? I haven’t told either of you.”
The strange woman was supposed to be something like an angel. She looked like an angel. She smiled warmly and sat back down. “Didn’t Fiz tell you I was an answer to your prayer? An angel perhaps?”
An angel would know his name, he supposed.
He took a sip from the paper cup. Orange mocha. A kind shop owner had given him this flavor every morning when he’d knock on the alley door as a kid. She claimed people ordered them and never came to pick them up, but they were always fresh and hot. “Mmmm… How did you know this is my favorite?”
“A lucky guess.” She took a sip from her own cup before continuing. “Now Ezra, why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself?”
“I already told Fiz some in the car. I’m not used to talking about myself, but… he seems all right, so.”
“It’s the fuzzy ears,” Fiz said. “I am like a giant stuffed animal. People tell me all kinds of things they would never told a soul.”
Yeah, that was it. A stuffed animal. “Like I told him, I’ve lived on the streets all my life, and the Wanderers of the Way took me in, and now I live with them.”
“Do you like it there?”
Ezra looked down at his dirty fingers wrapped around the cup. Blue neon light from the OPEN sign blended with the orange firelight to turn the white cup multi-hue. “I… I don’t know.”
“Are you afraid they don’t like you?”
He nodded slowly. His shoulders hunched in a little. How did she know so much about him?
“Your body is nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Yes it is.”
“Is that what they tell you?”
What did she know about the Wanderers? What did she know about God’s word? If she was a real angel, she would know everything.
“There are a lot of wonderful people in the world,” Jett continued. “Caring men, who take good care of others. Sometimes while trying to do that, they tell a few lies. In spite of their good intensions, they cause a lot of confusion. Are you confused, Ezra?”
He looked up at her, his drink paused halfway to his mouth. She seemed to know everything about him, even his thoughts. Maybe she really could help him.
Her glance flickered to his wrist and she smiled. He looked down at his bracelet peeking out from under his sleeve and thought of hiding it. But her gaze did not judge it.
“You told Fiz part of your story, now Fiz will tell you his.”
“Happily, milady.” Fiz leaned forward, twitching his ears. “Once upon a time, I was a little boy. I was in my room playing, when suddenly the room filled up with monsters. I screamed, and my mother rushed upstairs, but she couldn’t see them. She took me to the hospital where they gave me a tranquilizer. When I looked in the mirror, I had these ears. And this tail. But no one else could see them.”
Ezra almost dropped his coffee. That was exactly what had happened to him. Fiz was the same! And Jett accepted him, trusted him.
Fiz kept talking. “The monsters never vanished. School was barred to me, because no one knew when I would break down screaming or start running through the halls.
“They got me ‘help’. They called me delusional, and put me in a special hospital for a long, long time. Some of the other people there could see me as I am, but no one else looked like me. I thought being crazy made me look like this, and it took someone crazy to see me this way.”
Crazy, just like Ezra felt.
“Then Lady Jett came to me.” Fiz looked at her with gratitude in his eyes. “She paid a king’s sum to get me out. That was a long time ago. She found me much the same way she found you. The Lady does that. She’s special. She finds people like us, shows us who we truly are, gives us a home, and saves us from whatever problems a misunderstanding world has given us.”
“What am I?” Ezra asked, hesitantly, hopefully.
“Are you sure you are ready to hear the answer?” she replied cautiously. “What was it Fiz said? Be careful what you wish for?”
“Pray for…” Fiz corrected.
If he wasn’t ready to hear it, it must be something bad. “Am I a demon?”
Jett chuckled. “To accept that you are a demon is to accept that demons are real. They are not. And you are nothing like a demon, not in the sense that you mean. You are a wonderful, special, unique kind of person. You don’t have to go back to that place tonight, if you don’t want to. I have a house with an extra room, a soft bed. You can come with us now.”
No demons? This news brought his confusion back full force. Could she be lying? If she wasn’t, the Elders were. He couldn’t imagine them doing such a thing, however well-intentioned. They were righteous men, led by God.
“How can there be no demons? Jesus said–”
Jett winced. “The One-God-Who-Is-Three? He is no greater god than the rest, and those disciples who penned his words no more immune from deceit than regular men.”
There it was. She had revealed herself by denying Yeshua. No angel, but a follower of Satan in disguise.
She leaned forward and tucked her hair behind an ear. A pointed ear.
“How did you get that name, Ezra?”
Angels didn’t have ears like that. Devils did.
Devils like him.
“When I joined the Wanderers,” he stammered, “they had me choose a name from a list.”
“Do you know what it means?” she asked softly.
If she were right and the Elders could somehow lie, then maybe the Bible didn’t really say anything about what demons looked like, or that deniers of Christ were liars.
“No. I just thought it sounded nice,” he replied. He had to ge
t out of here.
“Ezra means ‘help’ in Hebrew. Did you know that? Did you choose it because you wanted help?”
“I… I can’t think right now. Can I go home?”
She leaned back and folded her hands. She seemed calm, patient. Wouldn’t a devil get angry?
“Fiz will drive you back. Here, in case you change your mind…” She held out a card which he took. “You probably have no way of calling me, but my address is there. And here is a little money. My home is always open to you… You should know something else. There are people out there, not your Wanderers, but other people, who might want to hurt you. Once there were people who hunted our kind, and I’m afraid they might be returning. They may know where you are.”
Ezra nodded. It was all too much.
She paused for a moment, looking at him. “One last thing,” she added, taking out an earring. “It doesn’t look like much, but in case you get into trouble and can’t call, take this.”
He took it from her with a puzzled expression. A red gem sparkled in a gold setting.
“It’s a personal item. Hold it in your hand and call for help with all your might.”
He nodded. He pierced the earring through his bracelet and clasped it in the back. In case of emergency.
Fiz led him out of the shop and back to the car. He couldn’t figure it out right now. He just needed time to think. He always needed more time to think. He had nowhere else to go except back to Congregation.
Fiz kept his promise, dropping him off at the trailhead.
“We are fair folk,” he said as Ezra got out of the car. “And we really can help you, good Ezra. We are your true family. When I stood in your shoes, it took Jett a month of regular visits to convince me of that.”
Ezra glanced into the woods and then back into the car, then back to the woods. “I… I’m sorry.”
Fiz nodded, a look of sincere understanding on his face. “We shall always be here for you.”
So would the Wanderers. Ezra closed the car door and headed back to Congregation.
