by Luna Lindsey
Pogswoth smiled at Trey and he shuttered. Jina wondered what he saw through his faesight eyes.
“Sunday…” the faerie sang. “Monday… Tuesday…”
Trey turned his head sharply and looked all around. Then he rubbed his eyes and blinked rapidly.
“What’s wrong?” Jina asked.
“I can’t see!” he said. “It’s as if all the light is gone from the world.” He wrapped his arms around himself and shivered. “And all the heat.”
Jina turned on Pogswoth and grabbed his collar. She jabbed the point of the blade at his throat, but all through it he wore a smug look on his face.
“How did you—What did you… He’s wearing iron.”
Pogswoth arched an eyebrow. “Is he? I didn’t notice.”
By now Trey was rubbing his hands together and staring blindly at a spot on the ground.
“My hands are burning, like I’ve been dunked off the edge of an iceberg.”
Jina shoved Pogswoth back and ran to Trey to wrap her arms around him, hoping to warm him. And more – hoping her amulet could shield them both.
“Where’s the nail heart I gave you Trey?”
“I… I didn’t take you seriously,” he said. “I didn’t think I’d need it.”
Jina rubbed her hands over his body trying to warm him up. He blinked a few times and squinted. “We have to get you warmed up,” she said.
“I can see a little now,” Trey said. “But my hands. They’re frostbitten.”
Trey’s fingers swelled with little blisters that stretched his skin taut.
“Chilblains,” Pogswoth said. “The Irish say you can cure them using water leftover from boiling potatoes. You’ll need to get him warm, or it might turn into frostbite. The artist would hate to lose his hands.”
Her embrace seemed to be helping to block Trey from Pogswoth’s glamour, but he needed to be indoors, out of the chill air. And it was starting to rain. Trey shivered.
She cast a hateful glance back at Pogswoth. She considered killing him, right there, to make sure he didn’t get away. But they were out in the open where anyone could see. She wondered if she could even do it. Pogswoth was made of flesh, a living person. Even in self-defense…
“You stay here,” she told him, hoping her spell would be enough to keep him there until Hollis arrived.
“Oh, I’ll try not to,” he said. Jina glowered, and put her knife away before wrapping herself around Trey again.
“My apartment is in the next block,” he said.
“You should have listened to me,” she said, guiding him. He still didn’t seem capable of seeing very well, but he could walk fine.
“Apparently so,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t be. I’m sorry I didn’t protect you. We’ll get him. Hollis will get him. He can’t move.”
“It’s getting warmer,” he said. “The further away we get from him. I can see better now, and my fingers are starting to thaw, I think.” Trey curled his fingers and grimaced. Jina remembered what it felt like to have numb fingers that warmed too quickly after a snowball fight.
Jina got Trey into his tiny studio apartment and turned the heat up. She wrapped him in as many blankets as she could find. Before long he could bend his fingers, although the blisters were still angry and red. One was the size of a cherry.
“Where’s your iron?” she asked. Trey motioned to where it hung from a lamp next to the futon he was sitting on. Jina made a point of looping it over his head.
The apartment looked a bit like Jina’s room, only smaller. The futon served dual purpose as a bed and sofa, while a small computer desk butted up against the back of the kitchen bar. One door led to a closet, and the other to a bathroom.
“I pictured you living in a farmhouse with a big barn out back full of scrap metal and welding equipment,” Jina said, going into the bathroom to look for supplies.
“Pretty close. It’s not where I live, but a guy I know up in Everett lets me use his barn for the metal working.”
“I’d love it if you could show me… Someday. Right now I’ve got to get you fixed up fast, and get back to Pogswoth.”
She helped him wrap gauze around the worst finger and put bandaids on the rest. She used his laptop to look up chilblains on the internet. It said they would heal by themselves in a week.
“There’s one thing I’m wondering,” she said as she wrapped up the leftover gauze. “If you’re not wearing the nail,” she asked, “what’s on that chain?”
Gingerly, he pulled it out from under his shirt, and there hung a diamond ring.
“Who was she?” Jina whispered.
“Allie. We were engaged for three years,” he said. “She broke off the wedding and moved back east. I keep hoping… she’ll come back.”
Jina realized she’d sensed a reluctance from him all along. “How long as it been?” she asked.
“A couple of months. It’s still raw.” He looked at his hand and flexed his bandaged hands.
“Yeah,” she said. “Something like that would be.”
Jina turned to the door and set the roll of gauze on the kitchen counter. She knew she couldn’t subject him to her crazy life, not right now. Rebound relationships were perilous enough as it was, and she had way too many irons in the fire.
She’d wait for him to come to her. Until then, they’d be friends. It didn’t hurt, much. She still had Jett.
“I never told her,” Trey said. “Not even her, about the things I saw. She left me anyway.”
Jina went back to him to check his hands one more time.
“She made a mistake,” she said. She leaned forward and kissed his cheek and then let herself linger closer to his lips. She finally pulled away. “I’ve stayed too long. I have to go.”
“You can’t go back alone,” Trey said. “He could be loose now. Let me come with you.”
“No way,” Jina said, trying to think of some way to restrain him if she had to. “You’re in no condition to come with me. Hollis should be there by now, and if not, I think I can handle it myself.”
Trey nodded. “I’m still going to come to your party tomorrow night, even if Jett is there and even with these bandages. I’ve had burns from metal working, and they never kept me from a chance at enjoyable company.”
Jina smiled. “I’d love to have you there.”
When she got back to the park, Hollis stood by the van waiting for her.
Pogswoth was long gone.
CHAPTER 27
*
“IF YOU’RE A WITCH, where’s your broom?”
Ezra walked ahead of them with his arms piled high with firewood. Usually at least one Elder helped guard him; today they’d been low on Elders and flush with young college converts. The two had been heckling him since he’d started chopping wood. The broom comment had been recycled at least twice.
Ezra had born it all with a stoic patience, trying his best to ignore them, and neither he nor the other two seemed to notice Ezra was the one with an ax.
Now he hauled the cut wood to the cooking circle and they kept at him like crows.
“If you’re a witch, why don’t you hex us?” said the one with short, curly blond hair. Brother Amos. He gestured at Ezra accusingly with his hat.
“Come on, witch, give us a little hexing,” Brother Gideon quipped, with an unfriendly punch on Ezra’s shoulder.
“Hey Brother, is it true that to become a witch, you had to fuck a goat?”
“No, that’s not it. You have to be fucked by Satan, on an altar. Then you have to fuck a goat.”
Ezra felt a flare of anger. He fought it down, reminding himself where such feelings come from. He recited scripture to himself to bring calm, That ye love one another, as I have loved you, that ye also love one another, as I have loved you, that ye also…
They approached within earshot of the cooking women, yet that didn’t shut them up. It only made them lower their voices.
“Hey Brother. Guess what we found in the w
oods yesterday?”
Ezra bit his tongue to keep from falling for their traps. He guessed it would be another gibe about goats. These bullies were as uncreative as the children he’d endured in years past.
“Got no words? Like an animal?” Brother Gideon bleated in support. “I’ll tell you what we found. We found a big creepy pile of rocks. Is that your altar to Satan, little goat?”
Ezra looked him in the eye and realized, too late, that he’d given them more ammunition by acknowledging its existence.
Amos chuckled darkly. “So it is your secret bestiality brothel bed. But take heart! Just because we know it’s yours doesn’t mean we’re going back to knock it down…” He laughed, almost good-naturedly, and patted Ezra on the shoulder.
Ezra’s nostrils flared. He’d seen this kind of manipulation before, and braced himself for the punch he knew was coming.
“No, no, Brother. We couldn’t possibly knock it down. Because we already did.”
Ezra roared. He threw the wood to the ground. He stopped slouching, rose to his full height, and glared down at his captors. His hands balled up into fists. The sisters, who had been trying to mind their own business, couldn’t help but stare openly. One of them squealed and dropped a soapy pan.
His two guards took up a fighting stance, but Ezra did not swing his arm.
Instead, the bracelet on his arm began to glow. The fires died, the creek stopped running in its tracks, and the birds fell silent.
He raised his fists slowly above his head, and as he did, the dishes and cook pots and food rose up into the air and whirled around the clearing. Food spilled out, pans crashed against each other and against tree branches with a sound like cans being dragged behind a car. Brothers and Sisters alike panicked and hid beneath tables and behind trees.
He no longer warred with himself, and suddenly his head felt clear, just as it had that day at the University.
The Elders had said it – Satan was the author of confusion. And no one, not even him, wanted to be bad. These thoughts that brought clarity, those were True. Truth was simple. Everything else had caused the confusion.
A word burned hotly in his mind, a strange word, a word he had heard from within many times before. Each time, he had cast it off as a random thought borne of idleness. Not this time.
Orvenoldsted.
Now, he knew it to be a name. His own True Name.
“Listen to me!” he shouted. A moss-covered stump beside him that once had held a pan of dishwater had been cleared in his outburst. He stepped atop it, the forest his backdrop. He felt the energies of the woods gathering to him, from the powerful trees stretching into the air above, from the frail trillium canopy covering the fallen pine needles, from the minnows darting through the creek and the wild strawberry offering her fruits, even from the white grub feasting on his podium – the vibrancy of all the living and dying things lent him strength.
He drew the people to him. They stopped cowering, and those from other parts of Congregation wandered into the clearing to see what was going on.
“Brothers and Sisters, Sisters and Brothers! You have all heard that I am of the devil, a performer of magic, a blasphemer! You have been told to stay away from me, so that you be not deceived by my wiles!
“Now I will show you the truth, for the truth cannot be hid!”
He no longer feared his own appearance, so he showed it to them. A collective gasp rose up from the Congregation. The wind came at his call to blow through his hair, and he held his back straight, sunlight glistening on his horns.
“This is what I am, whatever it is. Just as you are whoever you are, not to be judged by anyone but God!
“You are allowed to think what you will, but how many of your thoughts are truly yours? How many of them are fed to you by the Elders?”
A confused murmur arose. He silenced them with his next words.
“God preaches to us in many ways. He sends us prophets and seers, learned pastors and teachers. He also sends us sunshine and greenery, water and air, beauty and transcendence. His message is in the warm love we feel in our hearts.
“We can’t tell which messages are from God and which are from the Devil. Instead, we can listen to the message of our own hearts.”
Ezra gestured over the clearing. “I thought I had found God here. Then I discovered I couldn’t really know God until I knew myself. If saying so makes me a follower of Satan, so be it.”
He looked around at the gathered Wanderers one last time. They waited for him to say more, until he stepped off the stump with one graceful leap, turned, and walked towards the woods. The dishes and pans quivered in the air before falling to the ground with a crash.
Everyone began talking at once. He could feel their conflict, their confusion. Where once he struggled and they all knew, now he knew, and they all struggled.
A single voice rose above the din. Elder Isaiah.
“Stop!”
Ezra did not stop. He hadn’t left his self-made seclusion on the streets only to join a group that alternately despised him and acted like they owned him.
He turned in stride for a moment. Isaiah ran towards him, until Ezra held up his hand. Isaiah stopped, either out of fear, or from the roots that rose from the ground to tangle around his legs.
“If you leave now,” Isaiah growled, “your soul is damned.”
Everything that held him here was a lie. “Your sin is synthetic,” he replied. He motioned to the Congregation, who continued to stir, as if their faith had been uprooted right out of the ground. “Your fellowship is fickle.” He pointed a finger at Isaiah’s chest, the man who turned on him the moment Ezra stopped fitting in. “And your guards? They have always been unarmed.”
Escape? That was easy. It had always been easy. Ezra turned and simply walked away.
CHAPTER 28
*
BRANDON’S STUDIO AT 619 WESTERN wasn’t very big, but it held a surprising number of people. A few paintings from various artists hung on the old over-painted walls. The concrete floor was spattered here and there with dried paint that had legitimately fallen there by accident. Electronic chillout music played at an ambient volume to allow conversations, which were occurring in small pods around the room.
Jina twirled her dress, greeted new guests, filled wine glasses, and made introductions. Nearly all these people had a common interest in art and music.
She had almost canceled the party, in light of what had happened, but she decided there was little point. She still didn’t know where to find Pogswoth, so she’d just be spinning her wheels at home.
Besides, she couldn’t miss seeing Jett and Trey.
Jina took another sip of wine. She hadn’t seen Jett in two days, when they’d laid together at Deception Pass, talking under the clouds. Out in the water, in the dark, the little islands floated like ghostly shapes in the mist, shrouding the little lights of ships in the distance.
Since then, she’d written more songs than she knew what to do with.
She still had the tiny daisy. It had not yet wilted, so she wore it clipped in her hair.
A goddess walked into the room, and every head turned. She stood like a light in the darkened doorway wearing a mini skirt and lacey tights with tall boots. Her hair hung straight and close around her face, framing the corners of her slender eyes.
“Jett!” Jina ran over and gave her a hug, and then a lingering kiss just under her ear. She paused to inhale the scent of her hair, which still smelled like lilacs. Her breath smelled like chocolate and coffee beans. “I’m so glad you made it.”
“The pleasure is all mine,” Jett whispered. She stepped back, still holding Jina’s hands, and asked, “How are things at home?” Her eyes held a glint of concern.
“Everything’s fine.” Jina eyed her suspiciously, until Jett smiled and brushed her hand along Jina’s arm.
Jina tingled for a while before remembering where she was. She turned towards the party with a grin. “Everyone, meet Jett. Jett, this is every
one.” She saw that a few people recognized Jett already. They had acquaintances in common.
Jett held up a tiny canvas, the size of a postcard. “Do you have a little bag I could put this in for safe-keeping?”
“Yeah, I’ve got some print sleeves over here.” Jina grabbed a clear plastic sheet from a drawer of art supplies. “That’s one of those mysterious little paintings that always turn up. Where did you get it?”
Jett winked. “I don’t know. It just… materialized in my pocket.”
Jina got the distinct impression Jett knew the painter. “The mystery artist wants to keep us wondering, huh? Well, hold on.” Jina rushed over to a small table, dug around under it, and returned with a glass of honey-colored liquid. “Mead, just for you.”
“You remembered. Mmm… what kind is this?”
“It’s imported, from Ireland.”
“Reminds me of home. Warm and sweet.”
“Like you… hey, before we end up making out in a stairwell again, let me introduce you to some of these people. At least, the ones you don’t already know.” Jina led her to a couple holding drinks.
“Jett, this is Francis and Steven from Fremont,” Jina said. Jett shook their hands warmly.
“We were just discussing government funding of art,” Steven said.
“Taxpayers should not pay for art,” Francis said. “It’s not the government’s job.”
“Funding encourages creativity,” Steven replied.
“The music scene isn’t hurting,” Francis said. “There is more music now than ever before, accessible to more people, and the government doesn’t fund a penny.”
Jett began listening very fixedly, though she winked at Jina from time to time, as if her attention was divided with equal intensity.
“Government funds ballet and opera. And jazz, I’m pretty sure.” Steven motioned with his wineglass.
“No one wants to listen to those things anymore,” Francis insisted. “Let the market produce what is popular.”
Jina could keep quiet no longer. “Then all you end up with is corporate art,” Jina said. “All the music sounds the same, and visual art becomes all about ad copy and logo design. Funding from a neutral party encourages experimentation.”
