Holes in the Veil

by Beth Overmyer

  They walked on for the better part of a half hour, circled the same streets twice, and finally ended up outside a surprisingly new and well-kept inn with a white picket fence and full beds of flowers. Jinn made her way toward the building, but Quick stopped her by putting a heavy hand on her shoulder. “What?” she asked, perhaps not as kindly as she could have.

  Quick frowned. “Look first.” His own vision must have left him more frightened than Jinn had first realized.

  Nodding, Jinn took a fast glance at their surroundings, found no one overtly staring, and then closed her eyes and looked at one path and one alone. The vision showed them walking up to the inn, opening the green door, paying a weasely looking yet otherwise harmless-seeming innkeeper with a pointy red hat, and making their way to a room. There were many rooms empty, but she and Quick would take just one and save their coins. Exhausted, Jinn opened her eyes and said, “It’s all fine. We’re safe to go in.” It was half the truth, as she had only peered minutes ahead.

  Just as her vision predicted, the innkeeper was an oddity but didn’t ask too many questions. “You’re not from around these parts,” he drawled. His left eye was shifty and wouldn’t focus on anything.

  “No, we’re not,” Jinn replied, hoping not to sound guarded. “We’re just passing through.”

  “Visiting family,” Quick said at the same time.

  Jinn smiled in what she hoped was a calm, benign manner.

  The innkeeper narrowed his one eye. “You married?” He gestured between the both of them. “I don’t house unwed couples. Ain’t right.”

  “Twins,” Quick said and patted Jinn on the shoulder hard enough to make her knees buckle.

  The man’s good eye grew wide. “How is that even possible? You two don’t look anything alike.”

  “Different fathers,” Quick said before Jinn could answer. It was the truth: Mother had been with at least two men and thus conceived her unwanted twins, but judging from the innkeeper’s face, he had never heard of such a thing.

  “It’s a long, complicated story,” Jinn said. “Can I ask for a hot bath?”

  The innkeeper nodded. “You can ask. Not sure how hot the water will be by the time we haul it up there.”

  “Any temperature’s fine,” she assured him, reaching into her money pouch for the exact amount she knew he would ask for. “Here. It’s all right that there’s no lock, we’ll just bolt the door from the inside.”

  Quick shifted his weight as the man’s eyes narrowed.

  “You been here before?”

  Lights, but she shouldn’t have let her foreknowledge slip like that. “No,” she answered. “Word gets around, though.”

  Thank the stars that he inquired no further into the matter but handed them a worn tile that they were to hang on their door to state that the room was occupied. “The water’ll be up in a while. Gotta round up my hands to fetch it.” He gave her an accusing look, like she was ordering him around, but Jinn ignored it. A bath was worth the trouble, especially considering that her main source of bodily protection was now standing as far from her as possible, nose pinched.

  “Hungry,” Quick reminded her.

  Jinn put on her prettiest smile and said to the innkeeper, “Oh, and it would be lovely if we could be pointed in the direction of something to…eat.” The withering look the man gave her put a knot in Jinn’s stomach.

  “We ain’t your servants nor staff to order about here, you understand?”

  Struggling to retain the smile, Jinn reached into her money pouch again and pulled out a more-than-generous banknote. “Point us in the direction of the kitchen; we can fend for ourselves.” It was beneath her, but she batted her eyes.

  The man was not looking at her but rather at the money. “This real?”

  “Real,” Quick assured him, stomach rumbling.

  The innkeeper pointed to his left, which Jinn assumed led to the kitchen or larder. “Well, I guess it’s all right. Just don’t get in Cook’s way.” His eyes were still studying the banknote, pupils large.

  “Many thanks,” Quick offered as Jinn took him by the elbow and steered him away into the adjoining room. Better to get all the food they could before the man changed his mind or decided that he wanted more money. “Still stink.”

  Jinn sighed. “There’s nothing I can do about that at the moment.”

  Quick walked a little ways ahead of her, breathing loudly through his mouth. “Soon, though?”

  She did not dignify that question with a response. The kitchen smells were growing stronger: roasting garlic was most pungent, but Jinn could also make out the yeasty scent of baking bread, the sharp tang of wild herbs, and perhaps a goose roasting on a spit. Woodsmoke bit at her eyes, which began to water. “Let’s look in the larder,” she whispered, not wanting to alert the cook to their presence and then have to deal with introductions and explanations of why they were in his or her kitchen.

  “Hot food. Please.” Quick’s voice was full of such longing that Jinn hated to deny him that wish.

  “We’ll take up what we want to our room and I’ll cook it there. How’s that?”

  Quick made a face. “Bad smell.”

  “Right. We’ll sit on opposite sides of the room.” As she spoke, Jinn found a big empty basket and filled it with a small chicken, two cold turkey legs, brown bread, butter, a large wedge of cheese, small black berries that she assumed must be currants, and a rasher of bacon. She lifted it, thought it would look strange for a small woman such as herself to show such strength, and handed the lot over to Quick. “There.” After grabbing a frying pan and a pitcher of what smelled like small beer, she led Quick out of the kitchen, up the stairs, and into their room, where they hung their tile and set their wares by the cold fireplace.

  “Eat now?”

  “Soon.” Jinn looked around the room. It wasn’t overly large, but would do for the both of them. Quick was much too big for the canopy bed; he would probably snap the frame into splinters just by sitting on it carefully. There was a thick rug by the fireplace, where he could sleep with the beige down blanket from the bed. That decided, Jinn removed her pack from her back and rifled through it for the flint, magnesium, and her knife.

  “Cold.”

  She looked up from her work at the small fireplace and noticed that the two warped glass windows were framed by heavy gray curtains. “Close those. That will keep the heat in better.”

  As her brother shivered and complained, Jinn worked on starting the fire, all the while trying to keep herself from thinking about the fire she had meant to start the night before. If only she had peered ahead a little further, then they wouldn’t have ended up ensnared by those treacherous hags. Jinn shuddered and her knife jumped, nearly nicking the skin of her index finger. And what had scared the creatures off, exactly? “What does it matter?” she muttered. “We got away. We’re safe.”

  After building the fire and nurturing it into a brilliant blaze, Jinn set about putting their meal together. First she fried up the bacon, which she cut into strips and placed in the iron pan. She hated touching the metal vessel, as it interfered with her foresight, but there was no way around it if they wanted to eat a hot meal.

  While the bacon was crackling in front of the blaze, Jinn cleaned the knife, cut up the hunk of cheese and handed all but a small portion to Quick, who began to devour it like a man breaking an extended fast. Jinn made him eat a handful of currants as well, and they both sipped from the pitcher of small beer until the bacon was almost crispy. The smoky, salty meat proved too tempting to wait much longer for, and they ate it hot out of the pan.

  “More cheese?”

  “No. But you can have the rest of the bacon.” The remainder of the rasher had been frying while they ate the first panful, and Quick ate it half-cooked in a matter of seconds. “So,” Jinn said, casting about for a careful way to broach the subject. “Last night
was an adventure.”

  Quick raised his eyebrows and gave her an odd look before reaching for the brown bread and tearing off a chunk with his teeth. “I suppose.”

  Jinn took the remainder of the bread and slathered on the soft butter with her knife before taking a bite herself. Through a mouthful she said, “It was good fortune that the beast showed up when it did.”

  Of all things, he growled. “Weren’t no beast.” Quick did not elaborate on what was meant by that.

  Carefully, Jinn placed the cold chicken into the pan of bacon grease and pushed it with a thick stick toward the fire to warm up. “Do you think that perhaps our foresight is being—”

  “Jinn,” Quick interrupted. “Bad man is coming.”

  “Right, that. Are you sure—”

  There was a knocking at the door, and Quick’s face went as white as chalk. “Who there?” he roared.

  Jinn dropped the bread and did not retrieve it immediately. Instead, she closed her eyes and peered into the near future. It did not take her long to realize that there were two men outside their door, an enormous cauldron supported between them on a pole. She sighed in relief. “It’s the workers with the water. Brother, it’s all right. Truly.” She rose and hurried to answer the door.

  * * *

  After the bathwater had been deposited – not enough to fill the metal tub by the window, but enough to get clean with – Jinn dismissed the two workers and explained to Quick how to tell when the chicken was done. She wasn’t going to wait any longer to bathe, so tough luck; Quick would just have to be in the same room with his naked sister. He didn’t complain – much – and when he did, she reminded him that they had been together in the womb like that.

  Quick shuddered. “Don’t remind Quick.”

  With a sigh, Jinn climbed out of her grimy and grease-covered clothes, which she would later launder or burn, and stepped into the bath, yelping as it stung her skin. “Don’t forget to rotate the bird every once in a while.” She leaned back in the tub and closed her eyes.

  “Yes, Jinn.”

  She cracked an eye open. “And be sure to spoon some of the pan juices over it every now and again.”

  Quick made a noncommittal sound in his throat but otherwise did not respond. He was busy stuffing his face full of the remainder of the cooked food with one hand, as he added the turkey legs to the overcrowded chicken pan with the other.

  The vision from that morning all but forgotten, Jinn let herself drowse. She dreamed small dreams of no consequence: rabbits and trails and birds in iron cages. Then there was a palace by the sea, salty water spraying up its sheer black cliffs whence the bird from the iron cage dared not fly again. Refreshed, Jinn woke up to the smell of the chicken cooking in the fireplace. The water was cool. Quickly she scrubbed the sleep from her eyes and picked up the cake of soap that had been supplied, lathered up as well as she could, and then rinsed herself in a hurry. The inn workers hadn’t supplied her with a towel, which was a bother.

  “We can’t stay here,” Quick surprised Jinn by muttering as she rummaged, naked, through her pack for her one change of clothing. “Town people are strange.”

  Jinn quirked a smile as she slipped into gray trousers and tightened a red belt around her waist. “Are all town people strange or just these ones in particular?” The food and the bath had restored good humor in her, and she thought it might have with her brother as well.

  Wiping grease from his chin, Quick let out an ill-tempered belch, if ever a belch could be ill-tempered. When he caught that she was still half-naked, he turned away. “Have bad feeling.”

  “You didn’t look ahead again, did you?”

  Quick made no immediate reply, and Jinn felt her good humor fading.

  Jinn groaned. “Oh, Quick!”

  “No, no. Didn’t look ahead. Honest.”

  The charcoal-blue tunic she was pulling over her head got stuck for a brief moment, and Jinn could scarce hear what he was mumbling about. Something about a poor bird and weird customs in parts of the world, all said in clipped syllables with the occasional growl added for emphasis.

  “Besides, trap.”

  They stared at each other, a veil of Jinn’s dripping-wet jet-black hair hanging between them. “The holes in my vision are—”

  “Trap.”

  “The holes in my vision,” she gritted out, “make it impossible to see when it will happen, how it will happen exactly, or even if it will happen. Maybe there is no trap.” She let her shoulders rise and fall.

  Now Quick’s breathing came harder. “You saw bad things.”

  She gave him a pointed look. “We saw bad things.”

  He pulled the chicken pan out of the fire with his bare hands, and Jinn shuddered. “We eat, we sleep, we leave.” He gave her the same look she had been giving him. “No argue. Just do.”

  Jinn pointed at the window. “All right. But we have to restock our supplies.”

  His eyebrows shot up and his mouth opened to argue, but he closed it again and shrugged. “Sister get hurt?” He looked at her with expectation, most likely hoping she would look ahead, since she was so adamant about him not looking himself.

  Ignoring the beginnings of a headache and her throbbing hand, Jinn closed her eyes and peered ahead through the next hour. If they continued on their current course of actions, both of them would be lying down to rest. She looked ahead through the next hour, and the hour following that. There was shopping in the marketplace – with a few rabbit trails from seven different decisions they might make, so she followed through with those, which all led to the same conclusion: their packs being refilled and them sitting down for supper. Sifting through various sights and sounds, Jinn came to eight hours later when eventide prevailed. To this point, nothing had been amiss. But now Jinn realized with a start that the holes in her vision had returned and were many and close together. Something or someone was blocking her abilities.

  With a gasp, Jinn felt the phantom touch of someone grabbing her by the shoulder. Her future self turned to see who was assailing her, but all she saw was a pair of dark eyes before the vision left her altogether.

  “Jinn?” Quick’s voice was warped and insubstantial-sounding, as if it were coming from under water. He was now shaking her by the shoulders, but Jinn found herself frozen in terror. She had seen those eyes before, in other visions. And they always led to an impenetrable darkness.

  “Quick,” she said, licking her dry lips.

  “Quick here.”

  Her whole body convulsed with an almighty shudder as she tried to rid her mind of the terror that had seized it. “We need to pack our things now.”

  Silence. “Bad man?”

  Jinn nodded and then shook her head. “Yes. I mean, no. I don’t know.” She had to get a hold of herself so that Quick wouldn’t be frightened. They needed to leave, but they needed to rest and to restock their supplies. Perhaps her brother had been right; it was a mistake to stop in this town.

  While she sat frozen, trying to decide what to do, Quick began repacking both of their bags. “Look again,” he said, encouraging her to look down a new path.

  Her nerves were frayed. Foresight – oh, what a gift and what a curse – was difficult to summon when she was afraid and distraught, but she had to try. Trembling, Jinn closed her eyes again and pursued a new line of action in her thoughts and intentions. More sights and sounds flashed in front of her mind’s eye, and she followed various small routes, three of which led them to leaving within two hours’ time. That would put them six hours ahead of darkness. She shuddered. Would six hours be enough to escape her demise? No, best not think like that. Even then she could feel her foresight blurring and fighting against her control over it. Focus.

  The sounds of Quick bustling around, counting out money that they would need to purchase supplies, and eating the rest of their food, were jarring but proved to b
e more irritating than startling. Jinn focused on his heavy tread and willed herself to relax and concentrate to the sound as if it were to the beat of a drum back home in their cave. Rat-a-tat. Thump-thud-rat-a-thud-tap. Her foresight cleared.

  They stood by a vendor’s tent, asking for directions. Well, that was foolish. If someone was pursuing them, the pursuer only needed to ask this vendor a few questions and Jinn and Quick’s game was up. Jinn added a twist to her intentions and saw herself asking the vendor for directions to a city in the complete opposite direction of where they intended to go.

  Within minutes, she had scouted out a safe route through the next ten hours, no dark eyes and eternal silence at its conclusion. That would have to do; looking forward was exhausting and confusing. Once they followed the course she had set and her mind had time to rest, Jinn would peer ahead again.

  * * *

  They were packed and ready to leave the inn in twenty minutes’ time. Part of Jinn’s plan was to maintain the illusion that they were remaining in Gullsford, so they left the pots and pans and Jinn’s dirty clothing there in the room, made the bed look slept in, and then went to restock their foodstuffs. On the way out, they made sure to give the impression they would be returning that evening by asking what time they might have supper, even going so far as to pay for the next night’s stay.

  Now that they were on the move, Quick seemed more like his usual self. He pointed to various items in the small marketplace in the middle of the town, like the bright purple ribbons streaming from a sweets stand whence the crisp, sweet aroma of hot sugar and butter tickled at Jinn’s nose. They could afford a treat, but it had not been part of Jinn’s plan, so she took Quick by the hand and led him to the butcher’s shop. They bought as much smoked meat as she thought they could carry, paid the man, and tucked the stiff strips into the leftover grease paper in Quick’s pack.