Jaclyn of the Lantern

by Amy Stilgenbauer

Jaclyn of the Lantern

  Amy Stilgenbauer

  Copyright © 2013 Amy Stilgenbauer

  All rights reserved.

  Cover Image: Snap-Apple Night, painted by Irish artist Daniel Maclise in 1862. This work is in the public domain in the United States, and those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 100 years or less. This work has been identified as being free of known restrictions under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights.

  1.

  My mother taught me not to make deals with death. My father was the best example of why.

  Where my father came from, if you were a sensible man, you carried cold iron in your pockets. Back then, no one disputed this. They just did it. They knew it could make the difference between life and death.

  Especially during summer's end.

  During summer's end, things were wrong. Whole cities appeared and disappeared without warning. Long deceased friends and relatives showed up demanding dinner. It was a mess of a time.

  Nowadays, no one remembers to carry cold iron.

  More's the pity.

  Summer's end and harvest time used to be different. People were actually worried about getting to the plants before the faeries did. Not anymore.

  The other night, after a long day at the tea shop, I walked into a bar on a whim and they put a pineapple in my drink. Back where my father came from, they wouldn't even know what to do with a pineapple. They definitely wouldn't have them around for garnish in October. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I have a job to do.

  You see, Autumn gets a bad reputation. I've never quite understood why. It's nothing like that unbearable spring when food stores are terribly low and all you have is the vain hope that what you've planted will grow. Autumn should be beloved. It is a season of harvest, of abundance.

  And then there's those leaves...

  I wonder if it's something more insidious. Perhaps people balk at autumn's splendor because you start seeing the skeleton of the world. Coldness is coming. The bones of the earth are starting to show just like a person's might if they don't put enough food away. It's best to retreat to where there might still be a little warmth: at the hearth fire.

  That's how it used to be.

  And time hasn't changed that much. People still turn inside on themselves because they know it instinctively. The wind whispers in those red and gold leaves: the cold will be here. No amount of butternut squash or hot apple cider with cinnamon sticks will stay its progress.

  And only cold iron will stay mine.

  2.

  October 31

  The pungent aroma of a brewing pomegranate and ginger tea filled Jaclyn's corner of the tea shop. Longingly, she fanned the steam floating up from the mug toward her.

  Today would be a big day for Laindeir's Occult Tea Shoppe. Halloween was the one day of the year when people outside the regular crowd of tea enthusiasts, homeopaths, and gothicly-inclined high school students came through those doors and she needed to be ready. Of course, today of all days, she wasn't feeling 100%.

  The first freeze had come early and unexpectedly. Not only was her entire garden a loss for the year, but she had also turned on the heat. The forced air that warmed her small house made the air dry and her throat scratchy. She took another deep breath, filling her nostrils with the steam and smell and sipped the hot drink from her mug.

  A light jingling of bells drew her attention to the front of the store where a young man was entering. He was attractive enough: tall and lithe with dark hair and a small tattoo on his wrist, which Jaclyn couldn't quite make out. She was intrigued, but tried not to be obvious as she followed his progress along the walls. Eventually, he turned toward her and started for the table.

  "Can I help you?" Jaclyn asked, trying desperately to cover the hoarseness of her voice. It didn't work.

  "Rough night?" the young man teased. His voice was honey sweet. It sounded almost inhuman.

  She shook her head. "Cold's rough on my throat is all."

  "I imagine cold would be rough on all of you."

  The words struck Jaclyn as odd and a flicker of suspicion began to grow in her mind. She had been expecting her visitor to be different somehow, but she had been warned that he could look like anyone or anything. "I take it you're not here for tea?" She asked.

  The young man shrugged and looked around at the shelves. The shop was colorful and well stocked with teas from all over the world. A fact that seemed to amuse him.

  "You grow all this?" His tone was admiring, but his smirk was sarcastic. Vaguely Jaclyn envied his ability to control his own facial expressions.

  "No," she admitted.

  "Nobody grows anything anymore." He picked up a box of chai mix and scoffed at it. "There's more chemicals in this than tea."

  Jaclyn knew he was baiting her, but she wasn't about to rise to it. She had bigger things on her mind. If this young man was who she thought he was, she was finally going to make the change she needed in her life. "Would you like a tarot reading?" She asked, her voice almost as sugary as his own.

  The young man looked at her quizzically. "What would I need with a tarot reading?"

  Jaclyn had to concede that he had a point. If anyone knew what their future held, it was him. Still, she shrugged. "You ever had one?"

  "No," he admitted, still looking at her as though she were crazy.

  "Then why not give it a go?"

  Perhaps taken by the novelty, he sat down at the table and looked at her expectantly. "You might be surprised to know that I have no idea how this works."

  Without acknowledging that, she fanned out the deck in front of him. "Could you pick a card for me?"

  The young man reached out and selected a card from the middle of the deck. When he turned it over, Jaclyn smiled to herself: the card was Death.

  "I've been expecting you."

  3.

  3 weeks earlier

  In Jaclyn's container garden, the tomatoes on the vine were still green, but the plants themselves were wilting drastically. The leaves had turned brown in splotches and the stems had begun to turn a mottled yellow color. Jaclyn was devastated. Her mother's gardens had flourished. Summers were filled with juicy red strawberries, crisp lettuce and tangy peppers that grew on stalks several feet high. Vines full of beans stretched out coils toward the house, beckoning to her. Pumpkins and zucchini graced them in such fall abundance that neighbors began turning gifts of them away. This would be the second year in a row that Jaclyn had failed to grow something as simple as tomatoes.

  The odds had been stacked against her from the start. A seed borne fungus had produced sickly plants, but she had handled that deftly with an organic fungicide. Then, beetles began to eat the leaves. At a neighbors advice, she released praying mantises that gorged themselves. The rabbits began to eat the plants as well, so she moved the pots up onto the porch and sprinkled them with powdered hot chilies and vinegar which seemed to stay the rodents. But it was the weather that did her in.

  That summer had been cold and dreary. Heavy rains would last weeks with too long dry spells to follow. The temperature rarely crested above 80 degrees. It was more than the tomatoes could take. Jaclyn hated that she could do nothing. Being at the mercy of a power greater than herself was not something she was used to or particularly enjoyed. Carefully, she trimmed and gathered up the dead and dying leaves and tossed them out into the yard, resigned to her fate. She watched them fall, frustrated and captivated at once by all her hard work again come to nothing. A rabbit approached hesitantly. "Serves you right," she muttered, perhaps too harshly before turning her heels and going inside.

  She kept the garden to stop her from spending too much time confided to her house, as was her tend
ency. She didn't mean to spend so much time there. That was just the way things seemed to go. Her mother had taught her to deal with the indoors: all the spells of home and hearth from getting elf-like creatures called Brownies to dust the baseboards to making a potato and garlic soup that could cure the common cold. For reasons no one ever felt the need to explain, her mother had not been so keen on teaching her outside things.

  Jaclyn's eyes fell on the empty cream bowl and she shook her head, going to refill it. "You've all been drinking more than usual," she said quietly.

  "Careful now, don't want them to think you're calling them fat," a man's voice said from the other room.

  Jaclyn started and dropped the bowl. The cream sloshed over the kitchen floor as as the pottery shattered. She had not been expecting anyone. Hesitant to look through the doorway, she took a few cautious steps in that direction, only to back up again. "Who's there?" She asked, her voice cracking just slightly.

  The man chuckled. "So timid for my faerie princess."

  For a moment the title startled her. She hadn't heard anyone refer to her in that way for a very long time. Not since...

  She rushed into the living room from the kitchen and threw her arms around her father. "You're early!" she exclaimed, feeling very much like a child.

  He laughed a bit more at this. "You're late."

  Over Jaclyn's shoulder, the calendar still read September. Her father slipped from her grasp and walked over to change the month. "You have to be better about tracking time. But I suppose your mother wouldn't have taught you that."

  Jaclyn made a face at the mention of her mother. Her father rarely had anything nice to say about her, but that did not change Jaclyn's opinion that she was a good and clever woman who she loved very much. "Let's not get into mother now," she suggested carefully. "You're still early. Usually you wait until later in the month to show up."

  Jonathan Laindeir smiled wryly at his daughter. She legitimately wasn't sure what she expected him to say. He was an odd creature at times. "Does a man have to have a reason to spend time with his faerie princess?"

  "When that man is you," she answered. Jaclyn could see there was more to all this, something he wasn't saying, but she also knew him well enough to bide her time before broaching the topic further.

  Shaking his head, Jonathan started into the kitchen. "Do you have any turnips?" he asked almost glumly. "I'm starving."

  4.

  The mortal world had not been kind to Jack Laindeir. When he had been alive, he hadn't been the most savory of sorts, but he had been smart. And well prepared. Even a drunk had to be well prepared during summer's end. He had paid dearly for it and coming back among the mortals only served to remind him of those days. Still, there was his daughter to think about.

  The very thought that she was coming upon the age he had been when the incident occurred terrified him. He knew her mother did all she could to train her and prepare her, but there was only so much that a witch could do on her own. He watched as she prepared the mashed turnips sprinkled with chives and his stomach churned.

  "You carve those too deftly," he chastised.

  Jaclyn shook her head. "You're the one who asked for turnips."

  "Do you eat them often? They're not the most...flavorful vegetable..."

  She looked back at him with a quizzical expression on her face. "Dad, what are you on about?"

  He wasn't ready to tell her. He knew that he had to, that time was growing short, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. "Just making conversation."

  She rolled her eyes and brought him a bowl of turnips instead of saying anything. Of course, she didn't believe him. He wouldn't have believed himself. He was an unusual sort of father, but he was acting all the more unusual today.

  "Are you planning on staying the whole month?" she asked, cutting right to the heart of it.

  He didn't know. He hoped he wouldn't have to. He had been dreading this and thought maybe he would come and find that all was well, that she would be spared after all, but he had no way of knowing yet. "We'll see."

  She eyed him skeptically and went to clean up the bowl she had dropped earlier. He could tell that she fed the Brownies with care and diligence. Her apartment was spotless. Still, he had not liked the sight of her garden. "So what are you up to these days?" He asked, trying to get a feel for the situation.

  Jaclyn shrugged. "You know, little of this, little of that."

  "I haven't seen you in almost a year," he protested against her vague answer.

  "And whose fault is that?"

  "Jaclyn..." he began, attempting to placate the girl. She knew well enough that he was only able to visit in October. Then he saw a teasing glimmer in her eye and felt a little better. Of course she knew.

  He had been twenty-three that fateful Samhain so many years ago when he made the bargain with the shapeshifter. He thought he had gotten the better of him, trapping him with a pocketful of cold iron. Many men boasted of besting death, but he had actually done it. It wasn't until he died anyway that he learned what that actually meant: to be forced to live in the world in between, to only be truly among the living in October. It was a miserable existence. He didn't know if he was willing to condemn his daughter to the same fate.

  Carefully, he rubbed his hands over the small box in his pocket. "Do you have...anyone special in your life right now?" he asked hesitantly.

  Jaclyn laughed. "Who exactly would stick around someone like me very long?"

  "Don't talk like that. You're very pretty."

  And she was. She looked a great deal like her mother, with her long locks, high cheek bones still dusted with freckles, and tendency to move about with a noiseless grace reminiscent of falling snow. The fact that her hair was a shocking shade of orange made it plain that she was his child, but on her, the color suited. He had a hard time imagining that scores of people weren't falling at her feet.

  "And a witch," she said matter-of-factly. "For some reason, that's a turnoff."

  Jack smiled at his daughter. At least she had a good sense of humor. "Your mother was a witch and I liked her well enough."

  "No offense, dad, but I really don't feel the need to emulate that particular relationship." She went to the fridge and grabbed an amber bottle. She held it out to him, but the pumpkin on the label made him hesitate.

  "It's just an autumn ale, dad," Jaclyn said, her eyes looking concerned again.

  He took it quickly to allay any suspicions she might be developing. "I'm just not big fan of the flavored stuff..."

  "Come on...I thought you'd get a kick out of it." She popped the top off of her bottle and then his. "And what about you? How are things beyond the veil?"

  5.

  The muted calico cat curled up tightly on Jaclyn's lap. It was a striking cat, unusually large with a long gray coat splattered with earthy tones of tan and rust. She had been a Halloween present from Jaclyn's father several years ago. He always brought her some gift or another when he came for his annual visit, but Butterscotch had been her favorite. Sure, the cat could be a bit clingy, sitting on Jaclyn's feet and mewling to be held, but she was a good companion. Jaclyn scratched near Butterscotch's ears and the cat began to purr her contentment almost immediately.

  "That cat has gotten huge," her father observed from his seat on the couch. "What are you feeding it?"

  Jaclyn pretended to cover Butterscotch's ears, which only made the cat swat at her hands. "Careful, you don't want her to think you're calling her fat," she teased, echoing her father's earlier comment about the Brownies. "Though...it's possible she's the one eating all the cream."

  Jonathan laughed. "Nah, your house is too clean...what you need is something to work on that garden."

  "I don't want to talk about the garden," she spat back at him more harshly than she meant to. Just thinking about her failure there put her in sour spirits.

  "Didn't your mother ever teach you--"

  "No. And I don't want to talk about it." Her voice was solid and fir
m.

  "Maybe I could take a look."

  "I said I don't want to talk about it." She stood up, swooping Butterscotch into her arms. "The guest room is ready for you. Go ahead and make yourself at home."

  Jonathan frowned, "Jaclyn, I didn't mean to offend you."

  "You didn't," she said immediately, though deep down, her pride had been wounded. It wasn't anything he had said, but just thinking about those wilting tomato plants... "I'm tired. I need to get some rest. And so should you. You've had a long journey."

  "Not any longer than most days," he replied, but obeying his daughter's wishes he went off to the guest room.

  Oblivious to her size, Butterscotch nuzzled and purred happily in her arms as the pair made their way back to Jaclyn's own room. It did make Jaclyn's mind feel much more at ease to be holding her. "You are getting into the cream though, aren't you?" she asked the cat.

  Butterscotch meowed softly in response, as if to say, "It wasn't me, I swear it."

  Jaclyn shook her head. "Forgive me if I don't believe you. You're going to make yourself sick."

  Butterscotch meowed again, holding the tone out a little longer. Jaclyn set her down on the bed and scratched behind her ears a little. The calico seemed pleased by this. Her eyes closed contentedly as she nuzzled into Jaclyn's hand. Unfortunately for Butterscotch, Jaclyn's phone began to ring.

  She didn't have enough time to say hello before she heard her mother's voice. "He's there, isn't he?" She demanded.

  Jaclyn was taken aback by her mother's abruptness. She knew her parents did not have the smoothest of relationships, but it didn't often color the way they treated Jaclyn. She was beginning to wonder if they had a fight about something recently. "So happy to hear from you too, mother," she said, slight sarcasm in her tone.

  "Don't you get snippy with me, Jaclyn. Is your father there?"

  "He is. Just got in this evening," she said carefully. Her mother was usually very even tempered, but there was something in her voice that sounded like a kettle boiling over. Jaclyn did not like it one bit.

  "Has he given you the box yet?"

  "What box?"