Incubus

by Carol Goodman

  She was careful not to touch it, but, when her warm breath reached it, the ice cracked and rained down onto the ground in a tinkling cascade. The rupture in the web spread and soon all the faces were cracking and dissolving.

  “Isn’t there anything we can do to save them?” I cried.

  Elizabeth turned to me, her face so strained it looked like it too might crack and break. “Perhaps. You opened the door for another creature – that bird you let free. It was our first hint that you had some touch of fey blood. Perhaps you can bring one through.”

  “How? I don’t know how to do that … don’t I need some sort of instruction?”

  “No one knows how the doorkeeper does what she does. Just choose one … and pull!”

  “Choose! How can I choose?” All around me faces were shattering into glittering shards of ice. Soon there wouldn’t be any to choose from. I found the first face that was still whole – a tiny creature with a fox-like face, enormous ears, and pointy teeth. I reached out and gingerly touched one finger to its forehead. Instead of ice I felt fur. Quickly I pushed my hand into … something that felt like quicksand … grabbed it by its furry nape and pulled. The creature came out of the ice snarling, teeth bared, but then instead of biting me, licked my wrist with a long sandpaper tongue. Then it ran into the woods on its two hoofed feet.

  “What the hell …”

  “A satyr!” Elizabeth laughed. “I haven’t seen one of those in years. I thought they were extinct in Faerie. Don’t worry, he’ll find his way to the college and then we’ll either offer him a job or relocate him to West Thalia where there’s a lovely Greek community.” She wiped her eyes and then, much to my surprise, hugged me. “I knew there was a reason you came to us. Now come on. We’ve got work to do.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ON THE WAY back to the house something occurred to me.

  “Dean Book …”

  “Oh, please call me Liz … after what we’ve been through!”

  “Um, okay … Liz.” I was going to have a hard time getting used to that. “I saw a lot of faces in that clearing but I didn’t see him. The incubus, I mean.”

  “I know who you mean. Yes, I noticed that too. He might have gone back into Faerie or …”

  “Or he’s still around somewhere?”

  Liz sighed. “He’s haunted these woods for more than a hundred years. He probably knows where to hide. But I wouldn’t worry about it too much. After last night he’s not likely to try to get back into your house … unless you invite him in, that is.” She gave me a sharp look

  “Oh, I wouldn’t do that. I’ve learned my lesson.”

  “I should think so.” She patted my shoulder. “You’re a smart girl.”

  Back at the house we found the kitchen bustling with activity. Diana was up eating a bowl of oatmeal at the kitchen table, looking pale but in good spirits. Dory Browne, in ski pants, fur trimmed boots and a sweater appliquéd with turkeys and fall leaves, was washing dishes at my sink, and Casper Van der Aart was stuffing a turkey while listening to Phoenix tell a rather embroidered version of what had happened last night. I wouldn’t have thought any embroidering would have been possible, but Phoenix had added spectral apparitions that sounded like the cast from Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. Except for a hectic gleam in her eyes, she looked none the worse for her brush with the supernatural. She was even enthusiastic about cooking Thanksgiving dinner.

  “After all, we have tons of food, a working gas range and electricity. Not everyone in town is so lucky. Honestly, I think we should invite more people – anyone who doesn’t have power.”

  Dory Browne and Diana exchanged a look, and Diana nodded. “It’s not a bad idea. There are people who have electric stoves who won’t be able to cook their dinners.”

  “And we need to go house to house to check on people to see if they’re all right,” Dory added. “We could ask anyone who’s unable to cook their own dinner.”

  “No one’s asked Callie,” Liz broke in. “It’s her house. Maybe she doesn’t want it filled with strangers.”

  I looked at the gathering in my kitchen: a witch, a demon, a fairy, a … what was Casper? He looked, I suddenly realized, a lot like the ceramic gnomes people put in their gardens. The most “normal” person in the kitchen was an alcoholic, bipolar memoir writer. How much stranger could it get?

  “Sure,” I said. “The more the merrier.”

  While Diana, Phoenix and Casper started cooking, Dory Browne enlisted me to go house to house with her. “It’ll be a good way for you to get to know your neighbors,” she said, popping on fuzzy earmuffs over her ears that made her look like a koala bear. She had already spoken on her cell phone to someone named Dulcie and then someone named Davey – her cousins, she explained – to divide up the town by streets.

  “Your family is certainly very generous with your time …” I began, but Dory started waving her hands in protest, her blue eyes flashing.

  “Oh, it’s our job, you know. We brownies agreed to be the town’s caretakers in exchange for asylum two centuries ago.”

  “Brownies?” I asked, wondering if she could possibly mean the type that grew up to be Girl Scouts.

  “My people came from Wales where we were called bwca … oh my!” She stopped, noticing my stunned expression. “Diana told me you knew all about the town now, so I thought it was okay to tell. You didn’t know I was a brownie?” she asked as if this was the most obvious thing in the world.

  “Not only didn’t I know, but if you’ll pardon me asking, I’m not sure what that means. I mean, I’ve heard of brownies … My mother and father told me stories about brownies who were household spirits who helped with chores in house and field.”

  “That’s basically correct. We like a neat home and will help industrious homeowners, but not lazy ones.”

  “My father used to leave a bowl of cream or a piece of cake out for the brownies,” I told her, “like leaving cookies and milk out for Santa Claus.”

  “That’s perfectly appropriate,” Dory said, smiling and nodding her head so vigorously that the fur on her earmuffs trembled. “We appreciate a nice piece of cake, but we don’t like being left clothes, because … well … look at me! Do I look like I need any help dressing myself?”

  “Not at all!” I replied, quickly catching the sharp edge to Dory’s tone. “I admired your fashion sense the first time I met you.”

  “And I yours, Callie … We also do not like to be criticized.”

  “Who does?” I asked.

  “Exactly! Nor do we like to be thanked.”

  “I have to admit that I’ve never understood that part.”

  Dory looked troubled. “That’s a long story … perhaps for another day. But we pride ourselves on doing just exactly the right thing at the right time. An appropriate acknowledgement of our labors – like a nice bowl of cream or a plate of cookies – never goes amiss. Of course, I’ve tried to learn not to get too offended and go all boggart on the poor ignorant thanker …”

  “Boggart?”

  “Boggarts are brownies who become so angry that they begin playing nasty tricks on their humans. My second cousin, Hamm, for instance, has been tormenting a family of dairy farmers in Bovine Corners for years now simply because their great-great-grandfather suggested that his fields had been ploughed crooked. Most of us have grown a bit more civilized, though. The college runs anger management classes for brownies in danger of turning boggart.”

  It was hard to imagine bright-eyed, pretty Dory Browne needing an anger management class, but I did get to see her temper soon enough. It was at the third house we visited. The first two homeowners we visited – Abby and Russell Goodnough, a young couple who had recently bought the town’s veterinary practice, and Evangeline Sprague, a octogenarian retired librarian – were well prepared for the ice storm. They had woodstoves and Coleman lamps, and not only didn’t need invitations to our Thanksgiving dinner (the Goodnoughs had invited Evangeline to their house), but offered to take
in any overspill from our dinner.

  “Good people,” Dory said approvingly when we left the Goodnoughs. “They opened up their practice on a Sunday when my cousin Clyde was hit by a car while still in dog form, and was too hurt to change back.”

  “Did they know they were treating a …”

  “A phouka? Oh no! But they couldn’t have given Clyde better care if they’d known he was a person and not a cocker spaniel.” Dory giggled. “Abby can’t figure out why her house never needs dusting and her hardwood floors always polish themselves. Not that they need much help. They’re both very neat and share all the work at home and at the clinic, but they’re very busy. Not like some who have no excuse for their slovenly ways.”

  We’d come to the third house, a decaying three story Victorian with paint so faded and peeling it was impossible to tell what color it had originally been painted. I recognized it right away as the house I’d seen Nicky Ballard coming out of. I hoped she wasn’t home as I was sure she’d be embarrassed to have me to see her house. The assortment of old couches and broken appliances on the porch alone would embarrass anyone and when I got closer I saw there were crates of empty liquor bottles shoved under the couches.

  “It’s a shame,” Dory said, carefully picking her way across the unpainted and rotting porch floorboards. “The Ballards were one of the leading families in Fairwick. They used to practically run the town until … Oh hey, JayCee, I didn’t see you there.”

  The woman behind the screen door was wearing a faded gray sweatshirt – so big it drooped off one bony shoulder and hung down below her knees – that blended in with the shadows and the blue-gray smoke curling up from the cigarette clamped between her lips. “I didn’t want to interrupt your little history lesson, Dor–ee. Go on. Tell the newcomer how the Ballards were once high and mighty, how old Bert Ballard once owned all the railroads from here to New York City and had a big mansion on Fifth Avenue. And now this is all that’s left of the great Ballard fortune!” JayCee started to laugh, but the laugh turned into a hacking cough.

  “At least your family had this place to come back to. Most of the folks who landed here in Fairwick were grateful for safe harbor in a storm,” Dory said, clasping her hands primly together. I had a feeling she was holding them together to resist the urge to pull JayCee’s sweatshirt up on her shoulder and pluck the cigarette out of her mouth. “But we’re not here to talk about your family. We just wanted to make sure you and Arlette were doing all right after the storm. I see you got the generator going to keep Arlette’s oxygen tanks working. Do you need anything?”

  “We’re not morons,” JayCee snapped. The news that the generator was on seemed to take her by surprise, though now that Dory had drawn my attention to it, I could hear the whining thump of its machinery coming from somewhere below us. “Power’s out, huh? You say there was a storm?”

  Dory let out an exasperated breath that clouded in the cold air. “Yes, JayCee, there’s been an ice storm. Why don’t you let me come in and have a quick look at Arlette just to wish her a happy Thanksgiving, okay?” Dory was already opening the screen door (which should have been switched out to storm glass as Brock had done for mine the first of November) and edging into the foyer. JayCee shrugged, sending her sweatshirt halfway down her skinny arm, and backed up. There was only room for one person at a time coming in on account of the stacks of newspapers and magazines lining the entranceway. A narrow strip of dirty marble floor led to an ornately carved wooden staircase. I followed Dory, squeezing past JayCee at the foot of the stairs. Feeling uncomfortable invading the woman’s house, I smiled and introduced myself.

  “Your daughter Nicky’s in my class,” I told her. “She’s a good student and a lovely girl.”

  JayCee Ballard snorted and rolled her eyes. “I just hope she’s learning a trade at that college. She can’t just sit on her thumbs and study basket weaving like those rich Fairwick girls.”

  I couldn’t help wondering what trade JayCee plied, but I only smiled and repeated my assertion that Nicky was a bright girl and I was sure she’d do all right for herself. Then I followed Dory up the stairs, exchanging the downstairs smell of menthol cigarettes and cat pee for the medicinal reek of Vick’s Vapor Rub and disinfectant. The smell intensified at the end of a dark and crowded hallway.

  “Miss Arlette?” Dory called, knocking on a partly ajar door. “Can we come in? It’s Dory Browne and Professor McFay from the college.”

  The door was abruptly swung open by Nicky Ballard, who looked over Dory’s shoulder with wide, horrified eyes straight at me. “Professor McFay, what are you doing here?”

  I opened my mouth to explain, but a thready, wheezy voice called from inside the room. “Nicolette Josephine Ballard, where are your manners? Invite the good women in and go see if that worthless mother of yours can scare up a cup of tea for them.”

  “That’s really not necessary, Miz Ballard.” Dory walked past Nicky into the room. “We’re just checking around town to see how everyone’s faring after the storm. I see Nicky’s got everything under control here.”

  Following Dory into the warm, steamy room I saw what she meant. Although the room was crowded with large, dark furniture there was order here. The prescription bottles on the night table were neatly aligned. On a lovely old secretary desk decorated with pink porcelain cupids a humidifier pumped warm, mentholated steam into the air. An elderly woman with sharp features and thin but neatly combed hair sat in the middle of a massive four-poster bed with her gnarled hands clasped on the neatly folded sheets, a plastic tube running from her nose to an oxygen tank standing beside the bed. The old woman’s keen blue eyes snapped from Dory to me.

  “Who’s this, did ya say?”

  “I’m Callie McFay, Mrs. Ballard,” I said loudly and clearly. “Your granddaughter, Nicky, is in my English class. She’s an excellent student …”

  “Well, of course she is,” Arlette Ballard interrupted. “All the Ballards start out with good brains until they pickle them in alcohol like my daughter Jacqueline’s done. You must be new here.” She squinted up at me. “Come closer, but don’t shout. My ears are fine. It’s my damned worthless lungs that are giving out.”

  I took a tentative step toward the bed and a bony hand snaked out and pulled me close enough to smell the old woman’s sweetish breath. “Which kind are you?” she hissed. “Fairy, witch, or demon?”

  “Grandma!” Nicky covered her grandmother’s hand and tried unsuccessfully to pry her fingers off mine. “I told you about Professor McFay. She’s been really nice to me.”

  “Is she that crazy writer woman?”

  “No, that’s my roommate,” I replied.

  Arlette cackled at that and squeezed my hand even tighter. “Don’t let those witches work my Nicolette so hard. That place can suck the life right out of you. I should know.”

  I nodded, trying not to wince at the pain in my hand. “I’ll keep an eye on her, Mrs. Ballard, I promise.”

  “I’ll hold you to that, young lady,” Arlette said with one final bone-crushing squeeze. Then she let my hand go and lay back on her pillow, closed her eyes, and waved a suddenly frail-looking hand to dismiss us from her presence.

  We left the Ballards – but the Ballards didn’t quite leave us. Two blocks away I could still smell cigarette smoke on my clothes and in my hair.

  “Ugh, every time!” Dory cried, stooping to pick up a pine branch from one of the many that had come down in last’s night’s wind. It was frozen solid to the ground, but she knelt and blew a stream of frosted breath on it and the ice disappeared. Then she picked up the branch and proceeded to dust me off head to toe, while repeating three words that sounded like fyrnsceaoa odoratus epil. When she was done she repeated the procedure to herself. “There, that’s better.”

  I sniffed the sleeve of my coat, then a lock of my hair; both smelled like pine now instead of cigarette smoke. “Than –” I began, but stopped at a scowl from Dory. “That’s a neat trick,” I amended. “Was that Latin
I heard and … Anglo Saxon?”

  Dory smiled as we continued walking down Elm Street. “You’ve a keen ear for languages. Yes, the language of spells is a mixture of old languages. When the fey first started teaching magic to humans we had no words for spells. We just thought a thing and it happened. But to communicate with humans we needed to put things in words and we found that the words, although often imprecise and tricky to use, added power to our magic – a little extra zing, if you know what I mean.”

  I nodded, although I wasn’t quite sure I saw how there could be a stronger magic than thinking a thing and having it happen.

  “Having something better and bigger happen.” Dory answered my unspoken question without missing a beat. “Having something unexpected happen. The fey had not been surprised by anything in a millennium. They loved the little extra umph that language gave magic. So we taught humans magic in exchange for language and for … well … for other things.” Dory blushed pink.

  “Other things?” I asked.

  Dory turned to me and silently mouthed the letters S-E-X. “It’s not something we’re proud of, but there it is. The old ones … were a bit … well, you know. To their credit, most of the fairies became quite attached to their human … um … companions and treated them very well. Better than some of the humans treated them back. But, really, I don’t think I’m the one to explain all that. I’m sure Elizabeth will brief you on fairy/human relations, current etiquette, and the sexual harassment laws passed in the nineties once you’ve had your orientation and received your own spellbook.”

  “Cool,” I said, sufficiently intrigued at the idea of learning how to cast spells to spare Dory the embarrassment of having to explain unsavory interspecies sexual relations. I knew I shouldn’t have been shocked. Mythology and folklore was full of randy gods abducting youths and maidens, but somehow the idea that the fey had traded for those favors made the whole thing seem more sordid. I decided it was a good time to change the subject. “Is there anything in those spellbooks that could help the Ballards? They seem …”