by Kevin Hearne
“Oh, I hope you won’t mind if I gently disagree with you, Ya-ping,” Gladys Who Has Seen Some Shite said. “I think sports are extremely real. They are socially acceptable ways to channel human territorial urges as well as aggression, violence, and the psychological will to dominate, while also providing the comfort of tribalism and partially satiating the greed of owners, players, and merchants.”
“Hmm. I had never thought of it in those terms.”
“They do seem to be crass affairs on the surface, but I find that sports condense humanity into its essentials, including its tendency to indulge in magical thinking. If you have ever seen a peak performer give credit to a deity for his or her achievements, you know what I mean. This person, usually between twenty and thirty years old, has spent at least half their life working relentlessly during their waking hours to fine-tune their body with exercise and diet until they earn a spot on an elite team and then score a goal or prevent one from being scored, thereby earning an interview on television where they assign all the credit for their achievement to a deity who is most likely unaware that they even live and is more interested in kumquat marmalade toast than whatever that human did that day.”
It took some time to digest all that, but Ya-ping eventually replied, “So you think I should pay attention to sports?”
“Not if it fails to fulfill any of your needs. Simply recognize that they do fulfill many people’s needs—even if they just need to say something before a conversation gets awkward. But in this case, you really need to talk about footy so you won’t think about the terrible peril.”
“What peril, exactly? And how do you know?”
There was no way she would answer that. Whatever Gladys Who Has Seen Some Shite was in addition to being Canadian, she was obviously one of those beings bound by rules. Rules that said she couldn’t be too specific about the dangers she saw ahead of us, because that would risk changing the outcome of events and she might be blamed for it. Someone else with deity credentials might cry foul, say that she had interfered somehow in our fates or our delicate illusion of free will or some such nonsense, but, regardless, she’d pay a price for it, so a vague warning was all we were going to get. But we got it twice. She wasn’t kidding around.
“Oh, look, isn’t that the hotel? We’re here!” she said. “It was lovely to meet you, Ya-ping, and I hope you will survive so we can talk of safer things, maybe over a yummy cup of tea. Sweetened with maple syrup instead of honey, you know, for a proper Canadian cup.”
“You’d really do that to tea?” Ya-ping replied, incredulous, while looking out the window to confirm our arrival. We were indeed at the hotel, and I braked in the loading area across the street. Then we heard the back door open and my hobgoblin exclaim in surprise. When we turned around, Gladys Who Has Seen Some Shite was gone, her empty rocks glass perched on the arm of the loveseat.
“I didnae know she could do that!” Buck exclaimed. “I just blinked—a single blink, mind, a fraction of a second—and off she fucked!”
“She’s your receptionist?” Ya-ping asked. I nodded, and she began to tick off points on her fingers: “Let’s recap: She came here from Scotland at the same impossible pace you did, except not actually with you, and then she hitched a ride with us on the road to where we were going when she could not have possibly known where we were going because she wasn’t there when I said where it was, and after that she spoke some cryptic doom, threatened me with maple syrup in my tea, and disappeared?”
“That’s about it,” Buck agreed.
“That might be Canadian behavior—I don’t know, since I haven’t been to Canada. But it is definitely not human.”
[I’ve just now come to the same conclusion,] I replied.
“Hate to say it, Mr. MacBharrais,” Ya-ping said, sliding her eyes to the back and hooking a thumb at Buck, “but that painting of you up to your neck is starting to look pretty accurate.”
I think people take paper for granted these days, not realizing how much time and energy and resources are consumed to make it. I also think whoever was chiseling records into clay tablets a few thousand years ago would rank it as one of our finest achievements, if they could peek into the future at modern miracles. I think of the process as a journey to clarity and creation.
At least, the old handmade process is. Modern processes are journeys to pollution and poisoned rivers.
Plant fibers are required. Wood is most common now, but hemp, cotton, and other fibers work too—like the flax fibers of linen—and ancient papers were made from bamboo and rags rather than trees. I personally prefer cotton or linen paper; my sigils are drawn on cotton cardstock, and I take a day or two out of the year to make it myself. All one needs is cotton, water, sunlight, and a few tools.
But, ye gods, it can be a slow and soggy business. I suppose patience is needed also—especially since sunlight can be hard to come by in Scotland.
The tearing and shredding of the cotton is a comfort. I actually speak to it as I break it down, reassuring it that it will be a vessel for magic someday rather than somebody’s underwear, and isn’t that a kinder fate?
Put the pulp in a tub of water, submerge a mold and deckle with a wire frame stretched across it, and witness the cloudy mess of the pulp suspended in the water. It’s like looking into the future, ill-defined.
Pull the frame up a bit, try to distribute the pulp as evenly as possible across the screen, and, Bob’s your uncle, you already see the outline of a sheet of paper, which will dry out and accept whatever correspondence or grocery lists or sigils you choose to write on it someday. I like that process, that clarity, that simplicity. I love that the results are predictable and reproducible. But I especially treasure what it does to my mind.
As I make sheet after sheet and hang it up to dry, I plan out my next year, visualize my goals, think of the most orderly way to proceed, how to give shape to a formless void. My summertime papermaking winds up being when I make resolutions for the year ahead. And, sometimes, I can also gnaw at any questions or problems that have been bothering me. I already knew what question would dog my hours:
Who or what the living fuck was Gladys, really?
The Healesville Grand Hotel was a three-story affair built more than two hundred years ago. It had Tudor-ish towers at either corner, the kind with grey-shingled roofs that wanted to look like steeples someday and swooped up in that direction, but then the architect had mercy on the tradies who’d have to build them and just squared them off before they got too pointy. Arched windows stared at us from the expanse of roof between the towers, and then the bottom two floors were painted a chalky white with four pillars supporting a second-floor balcony. That balcony wall was painted a burnt sienna so that some thin white letters could declare the building Grand Hotel, and it also provided shade for the entrance below. Near the street, some landscapers had planted and pruned what the wags of Monty Python might declare to be “a shrubbery!” Posters on the windows shouted in bright colors about upcoming festivals and events in town.
Inside, a young woman in a burgundy hijab smiled and greeted us. “G’day. Checking in?”
“I am here to see if you’re keeping a message for me. The name’s Chen Ya-ping.”
“Oh! Yes. I have that right here.” The woman opened a drawer and produced an envelope made of a lavender-colored artisanal paper. I clearly saw Chen Ya-ping written on it in black ink, but above and below that were Mandarin characters. Ya-ping took it with both hands and stared at it. Her fingers began to tremble. A couple of them curled, hesitantly, toward the Mandarin characters, as if to affirm they were real by touching them.
[What is it?]
“It says to imagine she has written my name in red ink.” I didn’t know what that meant but supposed it must be bad, judging by the way she said it. “And this paper.”
[What about it?]
Ya-ping didn’t answer b
ut opened the letter, breaking the wax seal and unfolding it with an exquisite whispered rustle. I saw just enough from the side to recognize that the letter was written in Mandarin, mostly in red ink except for a couple of lines on the left.
[What does it say?]
Ya-ping took a breath and translated: “If you are reading this, then we are having a lovely time somewhere on the Bicentennial National Trail, which begins at Donnelly Weir with the section marked Mount St. Leonard.”
[Oh. Well, that’s nice.]
“No, it’s not. It means they are in deep trouble.”
[It does? Read it again, please?]
“The words aren’t the message. The message is how the words are delivered.”
[Explain it to me.]
Ya-ping’s eyes slid over to the hotel clerk, and it was fairly clear the young woman was listening intently while pretending not to.
“Okay. Let’s go have a seat in the bar.”
The remodeled bar had kept very little of the original structure, except for some ancient exposed brick behind the liquor bottles displayed on its shelves. The rest of it was a straight bar with a lacquered pine top over a grey-tiled front. The tables varied in size from two- to six-seat high-tops with grey metal stools. We chose a larger table near the window and consulted menus in anticipation of the bartender’s arrival. He was an affable sunburnt fellow with sleepy eyelids and tight brown curls on his head. He had some stubble on his chin that appeared curiously to cultivate a rugged devil-may-care affect, for which I may have judged him slightly. But he also wore a navy-blue pinstriped waistcoat, for which I forgave him all minor faults since so few people bothered to wear them anymore.
I ordered a finger of Limeburners Sherry Cask, which I had never tried before. It was a whisky made in western Australia, so I was delighted to have the opportunity to try something new. Buck ordered the same but groused that it would taste better if he just stole it. The bartender simply nodded, proving to be as affable as he looked. Ya-ping asked for an iced tea.
“Red is a very positive color in Chinese culture,” Ya-ping said in low tones when the bartender had retreated, “except when it’s used for the name of a living person. Then it’s like an ill omen—the very worst kind of bad luck. That’s because the names of the dead are often written in red on tombstones. She would never actually write my name in red, because that would be like assigning me a death curse. But telling me to imagine my name in red is a warning of extreme danger. And she left this here for me before she went off to find whatever she found. She knew she was heading into something dangerous.”
[Oh, no.]
“But that’s not all. This paper? I watched Sifu Lin make this paper herself. I helped make it, in fact. She told me it’s her emergency paper and she only uses it for dead drops like these. I’ve never seen it actually used before, because of course this is the first dead drop I’ve had to retrieve. But it signifies a code: Any message she writes on this paper in red ink is supposed to be the opposite.”
[Locations too?]
“What? No. That part is correct—she wanted me to know where she was. But the part about having a lovely time? That’s false. She is having an absolutely terrible time somewhere out there on the trail. Following her could be life-threatening. Which matches up with what your receptionist said.”
Buck raised his hand. “Sorry tae ask this, but given wot we’ve heard and now wot ye’ve seen, wot do ye think are the chances of her still being alive?”
“I…I couldn’t possibly say. I’m going after her, though, whether you come along or not.”
“Can ye say if there are any huge fucking spiders out where we’re going?” Buck asked, and Ya-ping shrugged.
“It’s Australia, mate. So, yeah, probably.”
“I cannae believe I signed up for this,” he muttered.
[We’re coming with you, of course. What do those lines on the left say, in black ink?]
“Oh. They say to be extremely careful if we follow. That part’s true, because it’s in black ink. Looks like…huh. She used an iridescent! Something glittery in there, a magenta or a lavender sheen when the light catches it. I love when she does that.”
[That’s showing off.]
Ya-ping flashed a grin. “I know. Isn’t it fabulous?” The grin melted away suddenly, and her bottom lip quivered once. “Gods, I hope she’s all right.”
Our drinks arrived, and the Limeburners was a soft golden color rather than a tawny amber. The bartender suggested a few drops of water to open up the flavors and I agreed, but Buck opted to drink his neat. We made appreciative noises and smiled at the young man to make him go away, and once his back was turned, Buck pointed at his glass and whispered, “I’m gonnay steal the whole bottle. It’s the business. Apricotty! And don’t ye dare tell me that’s no a word, because it bloody well should be.”
I shook my head at him.
“We need it for the wizard van, ol’ man. Local mojo is important!”
Before I could answer, movement outside the window tore my eyes away from him. Our table provided us a view of the street, specifically the spaces across the street reserved for taxis, where passengers were regularly disgorged and, I suppose, also gorged. (Or would it be engorged? I hope not.) A yellow taxi minivan rolled into one of those spaces, its hue screaming for attention, and I almost looked away, disgusted that my eyes had been drawn so easily to a marketing paint job. But then the sliding passenger door shot open and an enormous grey Irish wolfhound poked his head out and looked both ways before bounding out into the street, assured that no oncoming traffic would be a danger. He woofed once, over his shoulder, apparently sounding the all-clear. I hadn’t seen such a smart hound since a peculiar early evening in Rome a few years ago. The hound in that instance had been wearing a curious teardrop-shaped hunk of iron attached to his collar, and…this one was too. Could it be the same hound? If so, then someone extraordinary would shortly follow.
I stood, eyes transfixed, and that caused Buck and Ya-ping to turn their heads.
“Wot is it? A huge spider? Aw. Naw, it’s just a huge dug.”
A smaller dug leapt out behind the wolfhound—a Boston terrier, who almost immediately began a sneezing fit after breathing the air outside the taxi. He hadn’t been in Rome, so maybe this wasn’t who I thought it was after all. But then a young man in blue jeans and sandals stepped out of the taxi, with a crown of soft wavy red hair and a straight beard falling from his chin; the rest of his face was clean-shaven. He was missing his right arm at the shoulder, his black T-shirt sleeve tied off there, and around his neck he wore a hammered-iron amulet with many silver charms on either side of it. He had a green khaki backpack slung over his left shoulder with a hatchet strapped to it.
“He’s actually here,” I said aloud, forgetting my speech app.
“Who?” Buck demanded.
“The Iron Druid.”
Buck pointed an outraged pink finger. “That’s him? He can destroy me by shakin’ ma hand! And ye invited him here!” He stomped a foot on top of the barstool and winced theatrically. “I cannae believe the gall ye have sometimes, ol’ man!”
“That’s him?” Ya-ping said, her nose scrunched up. “I mean, I expected a white guy, but I thought he’d look angrier, like an American complaining to a manager. He looks like a laid-back surfer dude.”
[Looks are definitely deceiving in his case. He’s more than two thousand years old and he’s killed gods.]
“How do I address him?”
[Informally, I’m sure. He doesn’t demand honorifics or even his proper name. He prefers to be addressed by a chosen alias. It was Atticus a couple of years ago, but I think he’s committed to a new name lately.]
Once across the street, the Iron Druid pointed at a spot near the door and out of the sun, the balcony doing yeoman service there. The dogs obediently trotted to it and sat down, tongues
lolling at him. He paused to pet them both briefly, then he moved to the lobby entrance and therefore out of sight until he cleared the walls. It was not long, however, until he appeared in the doorway leading to the front desk and his eyes landed on me. His head cocked to one side, and his jaw dropped then morphed into a grin.
“Al MacBharrais! It really is you! You look great.”
“As do you,” I said aloud, bowing in greeting.
“It’s good to see you again. Wow, it’s been a while. Rome, I believe?” He spoke with the same American accent that he had when I met him back then, though it was my understanding he could speak in many different languages and accents.
“Indeed. Welcome, and thank ye for coming. Let me introduce ye tae ma companions briefly, then I’ll use ma speech app tae avoid this curse. This is Chen Ya-ping, apprentice to Lin Shu-hua, who is missing. And this is Buck Foi, ma contracted help.”
The Iron Druid bowed back and smiled. “Ms. Chen, it is an honor. I go by Connor Molloy these days and ask that you call me Connor.”
“Thank you, Connor. The honor is mine. Please call me Ya-ping.”
Connor turned to my hobgoblin. “Hello, Buck. It’s been a long time since I’ve met a hobgoblin and it’s an honor. I regret the necessity to wear this cold iron—please be careful around my dogs as well, since they are wearing cold iron also. If there’s anything I can do to put you at ease, please let me know.”
“Just keep yer distance,” Buck growled.
The Iron Druid nodded, his lips pressed tightly together, understanding that his very existence raised the hackles of the Fae. “I shall do my best. May I join you—carefully?”
“Of course,” Ya-ping said, and I gestured to the seating.
Before moving, he turned his head to check on the clerk at the front desk, to see if she was paying attention.
“Do you think the staff here would mind if I brought my dogs inside? It’s kind of hot out.”