Moonheart

by Charles de Lint

  “You frown, Kier, but you will see. I wish you didn’t have to, but you will see. I only hope you have the needed strength of purpose when the time of your challenge comes.”

  Kieran stubbed out his cigarette. A sense of bleakness rose up inside him. Was this his time? Lord dying Jesus, he wished it didn’t have to be so.

  “You seem tired, mon ami,” Jean-Paul said. “We should retire. The night grows late. I must be up early tomorrow and you have had a long trip. You must be weary, non?”

  “Oui.”

  Jean-Paul took their plates to the sink and stacked them beside the frying pan. As he reached to flick off the light above the sink, Kieran spoke softly.

  “Jean-Paul?”

  “Oui?”

  “Have you seen or heard anything of the old man lately?”

  Jean-Paul paused a moment before replying. He turned and leaned against the sink to face Kieran.

  “Not since the days of The Celt’s Room‌—above that restaurant.”

  “The Lido,” Kieran said.

  Jean-Paul nodded. “That was it. They call it Christopher’s now. It has become a McDonald’s for the smarter set, n’est-ce pas? They still have a liquor license, only now they sell their hamburgers for four ninety-five. I think Thomas Hengwr would be as out of place in such a place as I was when you played in The Celt’s Room.”

  He’s lying, Kieran knew with sudden insight. He felt a pang of guilt at the unfair thought. Why should Jean-Paul lie to him? What could he have to hide? They were friends.

  Friends, yes, he answered himself, but four years is a long time. Much can happen in four years. People change. And whatever the reasons, whether he had changed or not, Kieran knew Jean-Paul was lying.

  He began to roll another cigarette to cover his confusion. As his fingers twisted the paper around the tobacco, his features remained calm. But anger and sorrow fought in his mind.

  Nom de tout! he wanted to shout. Why are you doing this? Why do you lie? How can you be the enemy?

  As though in response to the sudden turmoil in his guest, Jean-Paul said: “You must remember, Kieran. Thomas Hengwr and I were never friends, n’est-ce pas? He would have no reason to contact me.”

  Kieran nodded, fighting down his anger and the need to know why Jean-Paul was dissembling. He studied his friend and saw, with that sixth sense that the old man had awoken in him, the telltale nervousness that he hadn’t noticed before, the tightening around the corners of Jean-Paul’s eyes, the very wavering in the air between them that said so much more than the words they spoke.

  But knowing did nothing towards helping him understand. Nor did it ease the pain. And most confusing of all, he could still sense Jean-Paul’s honest affection for him.

  “Go to bed, mon ami,” Jean-Paul said. Kieran heard his voice as though from a great distance. “You remember the room? Second on the right from the top of the stairs. We will speak again in the morning when we are both more rested, non? Bonsoir.”

  “Bonsoir,” Kieran murmured and watched him go.

  He listened to the creak of Jean-Paul’s footsteps on the stairs and wanted to run after him and shake the truth from him. But now was not the time. First he needed some other answers, then he would confront Jean-Paul. Where was the old man? What part, if any, had Jean-Paul played in his disappearance?

  Kieran knew he couldn’t go off half cocked like some fisherman with one too many tots of rum in him. Taking a last drag from his cigarette, he butted it out and went to find his room.

  It was the one he had always used when he stayed with Jean-Paul. Not a thing in it had changed. There was the double bed against one wall. It had a dark green quilt on it that hung over each side to brush the floor. His pack lay on the foot of the bed, his guitar on the floor beside. The room made Kieran sad, for it reminded him of better times when there’d been no suspicion between them.

  Is this what you mean, Tom? he asked the empty room. That I should suspect my oldest friend of duplicity?

  The sense of urgency that had sent him from Fox Point to catch the train in Halifax returned. Tom was gone. Not dead, but gone. But everything he’d ever taught Kieran remained. Light and dark. Black and white. Were things ever so clear cut? He saw himself in shades of grey. Jean-Paul . . . might he not be lying for some reason or other, but still not be an enemy? Kieran eyed his reflection in the mirror on top of the dresser and frowned. He turned to the window.

  Kieran remembered hanging the flower print curtains that still hung across the window. Tugging them open, he looked out on Powell Avenue for long moments. It was a stately street‌—all old houses, brick and wood, with dormer windows and enclosed verandas, gardens and well kept lawns, tall elms and maples. It was the sort of area that was home to lawyers and architects and Assistant Deputy Ministers like Jean-Paul. Those that owned the houses. But, like any facade, many of these old mansions hid the fact that they’d been divided into apartments and housed everybody from prim old ladies to the odd whole-earth person who could afford the exorbitant rents.

  The street filled Kieran’s vision but could do nothing to lull his mind. Was he overreacting? Seeing conspiracies where none existed? He had nothing to go on but that extra sense the old man had taught him how to use.

  “Think of it as a . . . a deep sight,” Tom’d told him. “It’s good for many things‌—stripping illusions and going to the heart of a matter. When you’re dealing with people, it can act as a lie detector of sorts. And, when properly cultivated, it’s far more efficient than any machine devised by man. We’ve got it all in here,” he said, tapping his skull. “All we’ve got to do is learn how to use it.”

  Kieran sighed and turned from the window. He stretched out on the bed, not bothering to take off his clothes or unpack. It was possible that he was misjudging Jean-Paul, but things had changed. While it might not be dangerous for him to stay here, he couldn’t take the chance that it might turn out to be so. With the old man missing and no one to find him except for Kieran. . . . He’d wait until Jean-Paul was sleeping. Then he’d go. If he was wrong, he could always apologize later.

  He set a mental alarm clock to wake himself an hour later, closed his eyes and slept.

  Sixty-three minutes later, Kieran was drifting ghostlike down the stairs, as soft-footed as any smuggler making landfall on Scotia’s rocky coasts. His pack was on his back, his guitar case in hand.

  He paused at the front door, holding the moment of leaving in his mind with sadness, then slipped out into the night, easing the door closed behind him. It shut with a barely audible click. Standing on the stoop, he surveyed the street with deepsight more than his tangible senses. So it was that he discovered the man watching from a car before he was spotted himself.

  He melted back into the shadows by the house. The man’s car was across the street and three houses down. A black humor settled on him as he regarded what could only be a confirmation of his hitherto unproven fears. Had he needed tangible proof of Jean-Paul’s duplicity, here it was, big as life. He felt no sense of triumph in being right.

  He had two choices. He could make his way through Jean-Paul’s backyard to Clemow and possible safety‌—temporary safety at any rate‌—or he could confront the watcher now and perhaps learn something of what was going down.

  “There are times to retreat from danger,” Tom would have said, “and times it must be faced head on. If you choose to face it‌—go boldly. Remember that no matter how strong your enemy might be, you too have power.”

  Shifting his guitar case from right hand to left, he stepped from the shadows and headed for the car. He walked calmly, with his loose stride, crossed the street, and was almost at the car before the man noticed him. Daydreaming, Kieran thought. Bored more than likely. Kieran reached inside himself to find where his strength lay and drew it up. He leaned against the window on the driver’s side, his eyes blazing in the darkness with a strange feral glow‌—like the reflection of a cat’s eyes caught in a car’s headlights.

  “D
on’t call in,” he said.

  He spoke softly, but his words penetrated the thick glass. The man’s finger hesitated on his radio’s control. The witchlight flickered in Kieran’s eyes and before the man knew what he was doing, he’d taken his hand from the radio’s controls and used it to roll down his window. A fine sheen of sweat beaded his brow.

  “I . . . I won’t call in,” he said slowly, his voice slightly slurred.

  He was a large man, broad-faced and thick-shouldered, with short dark-brown hair and the look of a policeman stamped into his features. He wore a quilted ski-jacket and pressed brown trousers‌—his disguise, Kieran decided. Kieran smiled. He’d been lucky with this one. It wasn’t easy to bend someone to your will this quickly. You had to catch them off guard, otherwise it took considerable preparation. Or power.

  “Who do you work for?” Kieran demanded, holding the man’s gaze with his own. “The horsemen?”

  The man nodded. “Special Branch.”

  “What kind of Special Branch?”

  “PRB‌—the Paranormal Research Branch.”

  Lord dying Jesus! What did the horsemen want with him? And what were they doing with a Special Branch studying the paranormal? This was something out of a bestseller. It didn’t have any place in real life and Kieran found it hard to put into any sort of reasonable perspective. But if it was true, how had they keyed on to him?

  The horsemen were the RCMP‌—the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The Federal police. Canada’s finest with their Musical Ride and fancy red coats. The Mounties who always get their man. The horsemen. But‌—

  “What do you want with me?” Kieran asked.

  “Nothing. You’re to be kept under surveillance.”

  “Why?”

  There was no reply. Kieran wanted to shake the man by the throat to get an answer, but forced himself to stay calm.

  “When’s your relief?” he asked.

  “Six A.M.”

  Kieran did a rapid calculation. That left him about two and a half hours. No‌—he’d have more than that. No one would know he was gone until Jean-Paul woke up and whistled them down on him again. No one, except his man here.

  “Do you know a Thomas Hengwr?” Kieran asked.

  Again there was no reply. The witchlight in Kieran’s eyes burned dangerously, but either the man truly didn’t know, or it would take a deeper probe to dig the information out of him. Kieran didn’t have the time for a deeper probe.

  Well, this was great. He’d really learned a lot. The old man was still gone without a trace, and now he had the Mounties on his ass as well. The witchlight intensified momentarily as he spoke again.

  “You never saw me leave,” Kieran said.

  The man nodded.

  Kieran sighed and broke eye contact. There was a tiny ache in his temples that came from the abrupt use of energies he’d utilized. As he stepped back, the Mountie rolled up the window again and returned to studying Jean-Paul’s house as though Kieran was no longer present.

  Kieran set off east on Powell, heading for Bank Street. He kept a wary eye open on the off chance that his horseman had some backup with him, but sensed nothing out of the ordinary. Ottawa, unlike most big cities, seemed to shut down around eleven most nights. After twelve, all you saw cruising the streets were police cars and taxis. There was a seamier underside to the nation’s capital‌—Kieran knew that all too well‌—but it required a firmer sense of purpose to uncover it than it did in most cities. Like anywhere, if you wanted something badly enough, it could be found.

  Like a place to stay? Kieran asked himself.

  He had to decide what he was going to do. He could scratch Jean-Paul. Was there anyone else he could call up? What? At three or so in the morning? And who was to say that anybody could be trusted now? He would’ve bet his life on Jean-Paul. . . .

  He paused as he reached Bank. Across the street, the thin strip of Central Park lay peaceful in the darkness. Beyond it rose the dark bulk of Tamson House. As his gaze rested on that curious building, a queer sense of disquiet settled upon him.

  He knew a little more about the House and its owners than most people might, but that wasn’t very much. There was an older man, a patriarch of sorts, and his niece. They were the owners. They were filthy rich, but spent most of their time playing at being “of the people.” The man, James Tamson, was some sort of an authority on the anthropological aspects of the paranormal, but the one time Kieran had mentioned him to the old man, Tom had laughed him off.

  “He means well, Jamie does,” Tom had said, “and you’ll rarely find a nicer or more obliging fellow, but he’s as close to following the Way as you were before I met you. Though that’s not entirely fair. It’s not that he’s a charlatan. It’s just that he doesn’t know, and without that knowing, he’ll never be more than a collector of curiosities. You should meet him sometime, Kier. You’d probably like his niece.”

  Kieran recalled laughing at the teasing look in the old man’s eyes, and that had been the end of it. Except now he remembered the stories that used to go around about Tamson House‌—that odd things happened in it, that it was run as a commune of sorts and every sort of character who came through Ottawa eventually made their way through its doors.

  He regarded the building thoughtfully. He’d never been in the place himself, but if all he’d heard was true, it could well be the safe harbor he was looking for. Except. . . . There was that queer sensation that had come to him when he first viewed it, that there was something wrong about Tamson House, as though there was an evil abroad tonight and it had settled upon those strange gabled eaves before moving on.

  Kieran felt overcautious, but perhaps justly so. Because there was this: he didn’t have only the horseman outside of Jean-Paul’s and all the implications of RCMP surveillance to worry about. There was also the fact that the old man was missing and Kieran was sure of one thing. Whatever was involved in Tom’s disappearance, it was something beyond the pale of the herenow. Less corporeal than the horsemen, to be sure, but no less real or dangerous for that. Understanding that, it made no sense to seek shelter in a place that seemed so disquieting.

  He watched the House for a few minutes longer. The feeling was gone now, but he was no more inclined to go into Tamson House than if it had remained. “Someone’s stepped on my grave,” Tom used to say about a feeling like that. There was a sense of ill luck about it, like seeing a raven at sea before starting a voyage. Fisherman’s superstition. But he had the east coast in his blood now, for all his growing up in Ontario.

  His best bet, he decided, putting aside any further considerations of Tamson House, was to head up the few blocks to the bus depot on Catherine Street, stash his guitar and knapsack in a locker, and then make the best of it for the rest of the night. He needed to keep a low profile for now. With the streets empty, he’d stand out too much. But later, when they filled up with people going off to work or whatever, he’d merge with the crowds. Then he could put out some feelers about finding a new place to stay.

  Well, hello, Ottawa, he thought as he headed north on Bank. Nice to be back.

  5:15, Wednesday morning.

  Kieran sat nursing his third coffee in a twenty-four hour Italian restaurant called Tomorrow’s on the corner of Bank and Frank Street. His pocket was heavier by the weight of one locker key and he was getting a little wired on caffeine. He rolled a cigarette, lit it, and set it on the edge of a filled ashtray. Except for the bored waitress with the beehive hairdo and the short-order cook in back, he had the place to himself.

  He could remember‌—it was what? Five, six years ago?‌—when there’d been a folk club downstairs and he’d played there with a couple of fellows on St. Patrick’s Day. Tim Anderson on fiddle and big smiling Eamon Mulloy on accordian. He couldn’t remember what the place’d been called then. Later it’d been turned into a punk rocker’s bar‌—The Rotter’s Club. He wondered what it was now. Probably a wine bar that played loud Euro-pop music and aimed itself at the singles set. T
hat seemed to be happening to most live bars these days.

  Things changed. They always did. Sometimes it seemed too much, or too inexplicable. Like with Jean-Paul. Kieran could remember the old days when it seemed that every second pub had a single act or small band playing in it. He’d enjoyed those times, gigging around town, playing everything from C&W and “Mr. Bojangles” to traditional Celtic music, weekends up in the Gatineau with the old man, learning the Way.

  He hadn’t planned on coming back. At least not so soon, and not like this. But, he supposed, he should have expected it. Nothing lasted forever.

  When he and the old man’d moved to Nova Scotia, Kieran had felt he was home for the first time in his life. There was something about those rocky seascapes and rolling farmlands that struck a chord in him. He had a room in Billy Field’s farmhouse near Peggy’s Cove, southwest of Halifax, and spent his time wandering around, taking the odd job on a fishing boat when they were short-handed, gigging with Billy’s group The Islanders or on his own. He’d been content. Even after the old man left. He’d missed Tom, but they’d kept in touch. With the bond that lay between they were never far from each other.

  That bond was important‌—not just for the affection between them. Kieran had a long way to go still, following the Way, and the old man was his mentor. He smiled, thinking of him.

  “Hengwr” literally meant “old man” in some language or other‌—or so Tom insisted. Tom looked like a gremlin out of a fairy tale, standing a head shorter than Kieran’s five-eleven, with a hooked nose, grizzled beard and hair, and bird-bright eyes that protruded alarmingly, like the British comedian Marty Feldman’s.