by E M Graham
‘I never went out with Benjy Hoskins,’ I told her flatly. Alice’s brother Benjy had been my first crush, but that was years ago. He’d been tough, and cool, and had an edge to him, and he had never dismissed me for being merely his kid sister’s friend. When you’re thirteen, that means a lot.
But me and Benjy? No way, it had never happened. Thank God.
‘You should invite Jack up some time over the holidays,’ she said, now looking up at me. ‘Before you go away.’
‘Maybe,’ I said, not committing to anything. ‘It was fun working there. I see why you keep going back every year. How did sales go after?’
‘Best year yet,’ she said. ‘People are really buying up the books, asking me already when the next one is coming out. The grislier they are, the more they like them.’
‘So we can get the oil tank filled this weekend?’
‘Even better....’ She had something to say to me, but she was nervous, I could tell by the way she kept brushing her curly brown hair off her face. She had the same blue eyes as me and Mom, but our hair hadn’t received the curl genes she had been graced with.
‘Well?’
Edna took a deep breath. ‘Okay. You know how Mark has been spending more time here?’
It was true. We’d seen a lot of her boyfriend here in the evenings in the past couple of months, and I didn’t have a problem with that at all, and not just because he insisted we eat real food regularly. Left to herself, Edna would eat sandwiches for every meal, except for the odd time when she would be stricken with guilt at not providing a normal home life for me. Her attempts to cook were sort of hit or miss, and fortunately the mood didn’t come often. Over the years I had learned to put together pasta dishes with very few ingredients but I didn’t love cooking either so we went through a lot of bread in our house. So yeah, I’d noticed and welcomed Mark’s presence around the house.
‘Are you trying to tell me he’s moving in officially?’
‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘We’d been sort of talking about the winter, after you go, but his house has sold already and the buyers want to move in before Christmas. Thought I’d broach the subject with you first.’
‘I have no problem with it,’ I replied. ‘Mark’s a great guy. But I’m surprised. I know you like your space.’
And by ‘space’ I meant breathing room, days of no communication with the outside world while she got lost in the stories she wrote, along with the not showering or washing her hair that this life style sometimes entailed.
Edna nodded, her face very serious. ‘Yeah, I know. It’s sort of scary. But I like having him around.’
‘He’s a good fit for you,’ I said.
‘And also...’
I sipped my coffee and waited.
‘He’s pretty handy, you know? He’s itching to help fix the house up. If he could mend the windows, put in insulation and God only knows what else he wants to do, then there would be lots of space, usable space, in the house again.’
She had a point. The house had slowly been closing in on us through the years, with first one room, then another being unfit to use, till we were basically confined to the back part of it. All the glorious drawing rooms downstairs and the main staircase, it had been five years since we’d opened those doors, and the beautiful long French windows which graced the front of the house had been nailed shut for ages.
‘And he would be busy doing this in his free time, making it easier for you to ignore him?’
‘I would be able to get lost in my creative endeavours, yes.’ She shot me a pretend dirty look.
‘Okay, sounds good. He wants to move in for Christmas?’
‘You okay with it?’ she asked. ‘He could always rent a hotel room...
She looked up to gauge my reaction to this fait accompli. I smiled at her.
‘As long as he keeps up the gourmet dinners and take out, I’m okay with it all,’ I said. ‘Maybe he could even put in a dishwasher?’
‘I’m sure he’ll figure it out after he’s been here a week or two,’ she replied with a perfectly straight face. She went back to her newspaper, but caught me before I left the room.
‘It’s the mummer’s parade next week!’
I looked over at her happy face. Edna just loved everything Christmas, including that dumb parade where everyone dressed up as mummers and paraded around the downtown in the cold and slush underfoot. The mummers were an old tradition, brought over from England and Ireland, but the parade was a relatively new thing.
Why did people want to do this? I wasn’t sure. Perhaps they hadn’t had enough of Hallowe’en.
My research told me that mummering had been a bloodthirsty, scary tradition, and the modern equivalent just seemed so pretend-fake-happy like a sugar coating on a rotten apple. Yet I would have to go with her yet again this year, because no one else would. I bet Mark would conveniently find work that had to be done that night, so I would be left holding the bag.
‘Oh, and this year?’ Edna continued. ‘I want us to dress up and be a part of the parade.’
She grinned at me. ‘Won’t that be fun?’
I CAUGHT UP on my university course work pretty quickly, except for that stupid Folklore paper on the Lord of Misrule. It was a case of knowing what I wanted to say, but being reluctant to actually do it in case it turned out to be a pile of crap.
Willem had called his booth Lord of Misrule. What was on the go with that? I hated when unexplained coincidences happened in my life. The two weren’t connected at all, but my brain had to worry the issue, trying to find a pattern where none existed. If I could just get the stupid term paper out of the way, I’d be able to let it go.
I shifted uncomfortably on my bed. A hollow wind whistled through the grate in my bedroom. The fireplace had been blocked up years ago, yet tonight a rogue breeze had found its way down the chimney and through the cracks. There was something wrong with the house, it had been feeling weird lately as if there was an unquiet spirit abroad, and I didn’t know what could be causing it. As if a bit of Alt had slipped in under the crack of the door, yet the only thing that had changed was the presence of Mark, and I knew he could have nothing at all to do with this feeling of something wrongfully placed.
Maundy might know what was going on. My resident ghost next door never left the house, so she could have a better understanding of what had changed, if anything. The weird thing was, she’d been strangely quiet lately. I knocked on her door before I entered.
‘Maundy?’
She was lying prostrate on the bed, the old patchwork quilt visible through her long grimy dress.
‘You okay?’
She emitted a low moan, just being her usual dramatic self. I prepared myself to act my part in her pre-written scene.
‘What’s going on?’
Maundy lifted her head. ‘Make him leave.’
‘What? Who? Mark, no way, what’s he done to you?’
She sighed and turned her face away from me.
Honestly, I didn’t have the patience for this, so I cut to the chase. ‘Look Maundy, have you noticed something in the house which shouldn’t be here?’
‘It’s him. I told you.’
‘No, it’s not Mark!’ Edna’s boyfriend was one of the most solid comfortable people I’d ever met with not a whiff of the supernatural about him. I couldn’t even tell him about my half-blood, for fear he’d think I was crazy. ‘He’s been coming here for years, and you’re only just now noticing him?’
‘He brought the demon in, with all his banging and hammering. Make him stop, Dara, make him leave my house. He’s ruining it all.’
‘You’re upset because he’s doing renovations to the house? But we need these done, the place is falling down around our ears.’
She groaned again.
‘Listen up, Maundy,’ I told her, determined to nip her objections to Edna’s boyfriend in the bud. If she decided she didn’t like him, she could make life here hell, for me at least. Probably wouldn’t affect Mark
and Edna because they didn’t believe in her.
‘Mark is making this place like it used to be, in your time. Remember? All the teas you used to have on the lawns outside, the ladies in their long white dresses, the elegant tea services...’
She sat up. ‘You mean you’ll start dressing like a lady again and not a street urchin?’
Her leaps of logic astounded me sometimes. This spirit made an art form of not making sense.
‘No!’ I said. ‘What I’m trying to tell you is that I feel like there’s something wrong in the house, but I know for a fact it’s not Mark. Unless....’
She perked up, ready to hear me condemn him.
‘Unless he’s stirred something up, something that shouldn’t have been messed with? Maybe he unwittingly loosed some kind of spell. Do you get that feeling at all?’ Though for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what that might be, I’d spent lots of time in the rooms downstairs when I was young, and had no memory of anything magical or supernatural there.
Maundy flopped back down on her bed again and emitted a ghostly whining noise.
‘You’re not listening to me! He is responsible, I told you. Get rid of him, and the evil will leave!’
‘Y’know what? You are the most unhelpful ghost I’ve ever met.’ I turned and left her room, banging the door because I knew how much she hated loud noises.
I HAD TO GET OUT of the house, I was really starting to get creeped out by whatever was in there, lurking at the edge of my sensors.
Jack and his band were playing at the Grog Shop that evening, so this was the perfect opportunity to get out and clear my head. I’d questioned why the early start time of eight o’clock, as most grunge bands didn’t bother starting their sets until eleven at least, when the drinking crowd were just getting on the go for the night. He laughed at my ignorance when we spoke on the phone.
‘We’re the warm-up for the opening band,’ he said. ‘Don’t you know how popular this place is? We’re lucky to get a foot in the door, nobody knows us yet.’
He was proud and ambitious and dedicated to his craft, willing to work the crap hours until the band had gained a following. I liked that about him. He was solid.
So I got there in the middle of their first set. Even so early in the evening, I had to squeeze in and find a space for myself against the back wall, the one abutting Zeta’s cellar. The modern fake brick wall covering was cold on my back, and I could feel the vibration of Jack’s bass thudding through the old slate floor.
They weren’t half bad, and I liked watching Jack up there on the small platform at the front of the room. From this vantage, he looked long and lean and moody, all dressed in black for this special occasion, even his baseball cap was black with a white Anarchy symbol on the front. Our eyes met over the crowd, and he flashed a smile just for me.
I was sipping my draft beer when I first felt the stirrings of something changing, the room and the loud music coming and going like a bad radio signal and static filled the spaces in between. What the hell? It felt like...
Alt. I had done nothing to move into this realm, yet there I was suddenly, sitting in the original Grog Shop before it even had a sign over its door, back when it was just a hole-in-the-wall shanty on the arse end of George Street.
I can usually control my entry to Alt, especially if I’m aware of the process and doing it on purpose. It’s like a balancing act in the mind, I try to keep one eye in real time while the other explores Alt Town. It’s never a good thing to go fully into Alt, you need to have a quick escape route left open.
But not this time. It was as if I’d been sucked in by a force beyond my own, and with no warning, I couldn’t stop the process. I spit out the rum I’d just imbibed from the filthy clay mug in my hand and looked around me.
The Alt Grog Shop was filled with sailors and prostitutes and other dregs of society, all bent on getting enough rum and gin into themselves to dull the pain of their existences. All were filthy and half-way to their destinations already.
A man on the bench to the left of me stirred as I appeared, his four day beard evidence of when he’d reached the port of Alt Town in his wooden sailing vessel, and his teeth were all broken and stained. He put his arm around me and latched on fast. The smell of his unwashed body was overwhelming and I nearly retched.
I broke away, wrenching my body away from his grip and stood up only to be faced with his cohorts. I heard a buzz in several languages go through those of the crowd who were still able to be coherent.
‘Who’s a pretty boy, then?’ A prostitute in a tattered once-red dress screeched. Her breasts threatened to come out of the filthy corset and shift which contained them as her claw-like hand raked through my hair, threatening to pull me towards her while her drinking companion looked at me lustfully, his hand already creeping down inside his pants.
I whirled around, looking for an escape, and then I saw him. Willem, standing in a low arched door, one I swear hadn’t been there in real time. He held out his hand and grasped mine, pulling me through the crowd and ducking, through the old doorway. The heavy oaken door slammed behind me.
‘Willem? What the frig is going on here?’ I frantically combed my hair with my fingers where the woman had touched me. I had no desire to pick up Alt cooties.
We were in Zeta’s cellar next door to the bar, the stone chamber barely lit by a single tallow candle attached in an iron holder against the wood of a beam. The screechings of the crowd barely came through the solid wall.
It was freezing cold down here. Great sides of beef and hams were hung from the iron hooks on the joists above our heads.
‘Imagine meeting you here,’ he murmured. ‘What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like that?’ The smile on his face was so calm, so pleasant, that I almost thought for a moment it was a coincidence. But then I saw behind his facade the smirk of triumph and that made me really mad.
‘You kidding me? You brought me over to Alt, asshole, and I want to know why.’ I felt like a kitten desperately spitting at a looming Doberman, despite the fact he was no taller than me. How did he force me over into Alt like that? I had seriously underestimated the man’s power. And so had Hugh.
‘I haven’t heard from you,’ he said, the hint of a pout in his voice. ‘I was expecting a call.’
‘Why would I contact you, you freak?’
‘Here I was, thinking I had something you wanted,’ he said, his hand reaching into the folds of his black gown. He withdrew it, and I could see the faint sparkle of gold in the candle light.
More than that, I could feel the magic of the object he held. Over here in Alt its force was magnified, and I heard the siren whisperings of my mother’s voice so much clearer than when I had grazed the object with my fingers, back in September in real time.
I reached out and touched it but he quickly snatched his hand out of my reach, laughing as he did. Yet that quick glancing touch had been enough to sear an impression on my body and in my brain. That coin, or talisman, or medallion, whatever he wanted to call it, it had been held by my mother, and not casually. This had meant something to her, and I could still feel the vibrations of strong emotions. Joy. Fear. Anger, then... despair. But not death.
His eyes grew speculative as he watched my face.
‘And what so interests you about this medallion?’
There was no way I would confide in him, so I withdrew my hand and shut my mouth tight. I crossed my arms and clamped my mind shut against him for good measure.
‘No matter,’ he said, his eyes still watchful on me. ‘It’s not my business. It is enough for me to know you want it.’
Willem gave a small laugh and continued. ‘I can give you this object.’ He casually tossed it from hand to hand.
‘In exchange for what?’ I kept my voice hard. I was no innocent, I knew a man like him would want a price paid.
‘Something that won’t cost you anything at all,’ he replied, his voice growing silky soft. The shadows from the candle jumped in
an unfelt draught and I heard a far off drip, drip, drip deep within the cavern. ‘Something that may actually give you ... pleasure, if you will open your mind to it.’
He leaned closer, seeing the disbelief on my face.
‘You do not even know, do you?’ he asked. ‘You don’t yet know the meaning of true power. You are like a rough diamond, unshaped. Work with me, I can show you the path, the road to everything you’ve ever dreamed of. Never mind the Witch Kin and their rules, Dara. You will never be accepted as one of them, but that’s alright, because you have no need of them.
‘You can ride with me, Dara, just think of it. Ride with me to the heights of power.’
I laughed, unable to hide my scorn. I would be attending the North Scotland Academy of Magic, or as Hugh put it, NSAM. And I would be a star student. ‘You? I have enough power of my own. What use would I have for a failed sorcerer to tow behind me?’
He winced visibly, then his brow darkened.
I felt the unease of Alt growing on me, the sweat along the nape of my neck and the cold setting into my very bones. I had to draw this visit to an end and get out of Alt before I fell ill or worse. My eyes flicked towards the medallion still clutched in his hand. If he would only drop it, or relax his grip for a moment, I would be able to grab it.
As if reading my mind, Willem shoved the medallion deep back into the pocket of his robe. ‘As you wish, my dear,’ he sighed. ‘Perhaps we will not be partners after all. And yet... I still hold this object you desire. We are at a crossroads, you and I. You can choose to come with me on my path, and I will give you the medallion. Or we can part ways here and now and you will never gain the secrets it holds within.’
The clamminess was creeping up the back of my skull by now and I could hardly think straight. I knew I had to get out of Alt soon. I also knew that the object in his pocket was important, beyond price, because it held a clue to my mother’s disappearance. I could not chance losing it forever.
I nodded. ‘I might work with you, up to a point,’ I said.
‘And that is all I require,’ he said, breaking out into his toothy smile. ‘Now, make sure you call me this time, okay my sweet? Why not come to our Thursday night meeting?’