Finn Fancy Necromancy

by Randy Henderson

  Zeke waited while the door closed and locked behind us, then took a single step toward his sister. “Are you okay, Vee?” His voice sounded gentle, caring. My brain had a hard time reconciling the voice to the man, like watching a badly dubbed kung fu movie when a big tough guy talks in a wimpy voice.

  Vee continued to ignore him, stabbing at the wall with her paintbrush.

  “Sis, I’m sorry. I told them to move you to a better room.”

  Vee waved the brush at Zeke, but still didn’t look at him. “Sarah is angry. You told us you would take us home.” Her voice had the same sad vulnerable feel as the rest of her.

  “I know. But I just got back, and the place that the fool changeling had me living—I need a couple days is all, Vee, I promise. But right now, I need your help.”

  Vee glanced down next to her for a second, then said, “Sarah says she doesn’t think we should help you until you help us.”

  I exchanged surprised glances with Petey, then concentrated on the area where Vee was looking. I didn’t see any spiritual energy there, no signs of ghosts. Either there was something hiding behind an excellent glamour that I couldn’t feel, or Vee had an imaginary friend.

  “Damn it, Vee,” Zeke said. “How could you say that after all I’ve done for you already?”

  “I didn’t say it. Sarah said it, because that way she’ll know you’re real. Our doctor told us it is very important to know what’s real and what isn’t. We’ve been tricked before.” She rubbed at the back of her left hand.

  “Vee, please,” Zeke said, and his tone held a mixture of frustration and sadness. “Enough with the Sarah stuff. I’m not one of your fool doctors. Why can’t you just talk to me? Remember how we used to talk to each other before?”

  Vee shook her head. “How do I know you’re not one of Sarah’s dreams?”

  Zeke’s hands clenched into fists at his side, and he took a deep breath, then released both slowly. “Okay. Tell Sarah I’ll get us all someplace with a nice big tree in the yard, maybe even a walnut tree, and I’ll build her a tree house. How does that sound?”

  “It sounds like one of Sarah’s dreams.”

  Zeke blew out his mustache and rolled his head, stretching his neck so that it made several loud pops. “Okay.” He glanced at Petey and me, and frowned, then took a step closer to his sister. “Remember when Father took us onto the ship where he worked, and showed us the factory and the giant freezer inside? And we got to eat in the cafeteria with the other fishers and you ate so much pudding that you threw up? Sarah wouldn’t know that, right, because she wasn’t there.”

  Vee looked at Zeke now and said, “No. It was just you, and me, and Papa.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I miss Papa.”

  “I miss him too, little dragon.”

  Vee’s mouth twitched up into a smile. “Little dragon. I remember when you would call me that.”

  “Because you were so strong. And I need my strong little sister now. I need your help.”

  Vee glanced at me and Pete. “You want me to read one of them, find something?”

  Zeke patted my shoulder. “This one.”

  “Too bad,” Vee said. “Sarah thinks the big one’s cute.”

  Pete’s boyish face glowed red.

  That energy field I mentioned that babies give off? Well, besides protectiveness, it also creates blind adoration in most adults. Side effects include the desire to rub one’s face on them, a numbing effect on the speech center of the brain, a compulsion to capture and view images of them, and an irrational spawning yearn without thought to the consequences or burdens of offspring. Interestingly, women’s breasts emanate an energy that has almost exactly the same side effects on potential mates.

  I don’t know if Vee was actually giving off that energy field. But I felt pretty sure Petey was experiencing all those side effects right about then.

  Zeke glanced back at Pete. “Don’t get any ideas, loverboy,” he whispered through clenched teeth.

  “Hello,” I said. “My name’s Finn. This is my brother Pete.”

  Zeke turned his glare on me but didn’t say anything. Vee set down her brush and pallet on the floor and stepped closer. “Hello Finn and his brother Pete.” She held out her gloved hand, and as I shook it I realized she wasn’t gloved to protect her from paint, but rather to protect us from her scratches. The same reason Pete wore his gloves.

  She was a waer.

  I jerked back, even as Pete held out his hand, a shy smile on his face. Oh gods. Poor Petey. Here was a girl who shared the same condition that he supposedly had, who’d called him cute, who was even as tall as him—and she was crazy and the sister of an ex-enforcer with anger issues. And she was a feyblood. Maybe not by birth, but a feyblood nonetheless.

  Vee saw Pete’s gloved hand and jerked back much as I had.

  “What form?” she whispered.

  “Wolf,” Petey said, confusion in his voice.

  “Sarah doesn’t like wolves,” she said. “And I don’t trust other waers.”

  Well if that wasn’t the pot calling the kettle Fey. I put a hand on Pete’s arm. “My brother’s a good guy. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  Vee shook her head. “No. No, this is no good.”

  Zeke pushed Petey back, toward the door. “It’s okay, Vee, I’m getting him out of here.”

  “No!” I said. The thought of being locked in a room alone with a feyblood mind reader was just too close to exile. It made me shiver. “No. Pete stays.”

  “I’m sorry,” Pete said to Vee over Zeke’s shoulder, as if he’d actually done something wrong, but she wouldn’t look at him. His hurt puppy expression made my heart ache. Damn it.

  “It’ll be okay, Petey,” I said. “Zeke, if Pete leaves, I leave.”

  Zeke said, “Fine. Vee? I promise I won’t let nothing happen.”

  “That’s what I’m worried about,” she said in a sad tone. “I just—” She rubbed at her hand. “I don’t want you to go away again.”

  “Neither do I, sis, I promise. I won’t lose control.”

  She turned away and said, “Okay. As long as he stays over there.”

  “Good,” Zeke said. “Now, please, can you read this guy?”

  Vee nodded and moved to the desk. She sat down on one side and motioned to the other chair.

  I’d come here hoping for answers. But I’d spent twenty-five years reliving memories at the whim of others, and facing the reality of losing touch with my body once again, of anyone making me live in my memories—

  I found myself shivering, and a wave of nausea rose from my stomach to my chest.

  “Is this really safe?” I asked. “I mean, the enforcers, they wanted to go after the changeling’s memories, and they said it might damage me.”

  “Yeah, that probably would,” Vee replied. “But changeling blocks are part Fey magic, and really strong. You just want me to find your own memories, right?”

  “Yes.” I tried to move to the desk but couldn’t bring myself to. It felt like I was in a dream already, the kind where your legs won’t move. Tears actually welled up in my eyes. At least in the Other Realm I’d felt Grandfather’s spirit keeping watch over me, protecting me. Here, in my own body, I felt more alone and vulnerable, even with Pete in the room.

  “What’s the hold up?” Zeke said. “You lie to me about the memories, fool?”

  “No. I … I just think maybe this was a mistake, maybe there’s a better way. You have enforcer contacts, maybe—”

  “You’re afraid,” Vee said. “Sarah can smell it. But it’s okay.”

  Zeke stepped up to my side. “Whatever or whoever you’re afraid of, be more afraid of me if you made me bring you here for nothing.”

  I gave him a sharp look. “How would you like to have someone digging through your memories just like the Fey?”

  Zeke looked surprised, and stepped back. Had he really not thought about what he was asking me to do? Maybe not. Maybe the fact that Vee was his sister made this seem perfectly safe and na
tural to him.

  “I understand,” Vee said in a soft voice. “I don’t always know what’s real or what is Sarah’s dreams. But this is different. You’ll always be aware of your body,” she said. “You can wake whenever you want. You’ll have control.”

  Control. I looked into her glacier-blue eyes for several heartbeats. There was sadness there, and empathy, I could feel it. And she was no Fey come to take from me; rather, I had come to her seeking to gain something.

  I had a choice. I had control. As if that word were magic, a huge portion of my tension and nausea evaporated.

  I sat down across from her. She smiled and said, “Lay your head down on the desk, get comfortable, like you’re going to take a nap.”

  I crossed my arms on my desk.

  My Pac-Man watch was missing. “Hey—”

  “Oh, sorry,” Vee said, and lifted the watch from her lap. “Sara took it. She does that sometimes. I’ll keep an eye on her, I promise. Now lay down your head.”

  I strapped my watch back on.

  Oh gods. I was about to let a crazy pickpocketing feyblood into my head.

  But the alternative was letting enforcers and the Fey mind rape me instead.

  I took note of the time, so that if any went missing I’d know it. 10:20 A.M., though it felt like it should be afternoon already.

  I sighed, then did as Vee asked. The weight of my head stilled the trembling in my arms. After a second, Vee rested her hands on my head. I flinched but didn’t pull away. I could tell she’d removed the gloves.

  “What is it you seek?” she asked in a formal tone. “What is it you need me to find?”

  “He was exiled, like me,” Zeke responded. “He says someone framed him. We need to find out who.”

  “That sounds like enforcer work,” Vee said. “I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

  “I need to remember something about my Talker skill,” I said, trying to calm my breathing. “We think it might explain why someone wants me exiled. And I think some of my memories were … lost during the transfer from exile. Or maybe before.”

  “That, I can help with,” Vee said, her tone more confident. “Okay, we’ll be jumping around a bit, because each memory is really like a mix and match of bits of other memories, and—well, you’ll see. But the more memories we visit, the more I’ll be able to find the holes and fill them in.”

  “Will it take long?” I asked, not sure how well I’d hold up once it began.

  “It should go quickly, though it might not feel like it to you, since you’ll be in dream-time. I’ll need a starting point. Take deep breaths, relax, and try to remember the last time your Talker skill was used or discussed before your exile.”

  I closed my eyes and breathed deep. Vee was not going to feed off me, I reminded myself. I was doing this myself, for myself. My heartbeat slowed, my nausea lessened, my breathing grew slow and steady. I let my mind travel back to the day twenty-five years before, when I found Felicity’s body in my bedroom.

  I felt a tingling where Vee’s hands touched my head, and my physical senses took on a distant quality, as though I observed them happening to someone else. But at least I was aware of them.

  A roar echoed in the distance, and Zeke said in a tone that vibrated with tension, “Stay with it, Vee, I’ll be right back.”

  And then memory swallowed me.

  10

  Wishing (If I Had a Photograph of You)

  I woke with a start to R2-D2 chirping and whistling on my Star Wars alarm clock, the sunlight already streaming in through my bedroom window.

  Ah crap! How long had it been going off? I glanced at the clock. Five minutes to eight. I might still make it.

  My fifteen-year-old body was rather unhappy about being up before eleven, especially after a late night of coding “Zorrko,” my latest text adventure about an arcana in Old California. But my entire TV Guide strategy for Saturday mornings relied on getting to the television by eight, and went something like this:

  I would claim the right to watch Voyagers!, Ewoks, and Droids. At which point Petey would throw a fit about wanting to watch the Muppet Babies and New Zoo Review. And Sammy would back him up, knowing I would give in to Pete, and he would be easier for her to then goad into watching The Smurfs (as she was obsessed with Smurfette).

  At which point I would say fine, but afterward I get to watch Dungeons & Dragons, Land of the Lost, and Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, absolutely no buts, takebacks, or requests to play ColecoVision. Once negotiations were complete, I could go back to bed for two hours.

  I sprang from bed, made a dash for the door—and tripped over a body on the floor.

  A pile of dirty clothes cushioned my fall. I flipped over, scrambling back from the body in surprise. The zippers from a pair of parachute pants dug painfully into my palms.

  “What the—”

  The body was our au pair, wearing her white sleeping robe, with her hands crossed over her stomach and her blond curls fanned out around her head, free from their normal braid. And there was a red stain on her stomach, over the locus point where magical energy lived. For a second, I thought her dead. But then her chest rose, and fell.

  “Felicity?”

  She didn’t respond. I rushed to her side, shook her shoulder gently. “Felicity! Wake up! What happened?”

  She didn’t stir.

  “Father!” I shouted. “Father, help!”

  I’d learned CPR after Johnny’s death. But Felicity wasn’t dead, didn’t need her heart or breathing restarted. She needed a healer.

  “Father!” I took her hand. Her fingernails were always dirty from working in the garden. “It’ll be okay,” I said, tears welling in my eyes. “Hang on.”

  Felicity, who had been with us for two years, since Mother’s death, was a feyblood witch from Austria earning her residency status through the ARC. She was twenty years old. She often smelled like Irish Spring. Mort believed he was going to sleep with her. Petey loved her dinosaur-shaped pancakes. Sammy resented her at first for taking Mother’s place in any way, to the point where she’d even made a voodoo doll of Felicity, but even Sammy had finally begun to warm up to her.

  I found it embarrassing when she washed my underwear.

  My door opened. Father looked down at me and Felicity and blinked. “Finn, what did you do?” he asked. He sounded confused. Maybe he was in shock. First Mother’s death, now Felicity, dying.

  “I don’t know what happened! Can you help her?”

  “You didn’t try to Talk to her, did you?”

  “No,” I said. “She’s not dead.”

  “Good. You get dressed,” he said, and walked away. “I’ll call the ARC.”

  “What about Felicity?” I asked, but Father didn’t answer. I hoped it was just that he was out of hearing, and not because he thought I’d really hurt Felicity.

  I looked down at Felicity and said the only thing that came to mind. “I’ll find whoever did this to you, and make them pay. I promise.”

  * * *

  “There,” Vee’s voice settled over my awareness like misty rain. “A connection.”

  * * *

  “I promise,” I whispered to my mother, who lay in her casket with eyes closed. “I’ll make you proud.”

  I did my best to ignore the people entering the room in ones and twos behind me, taking seats in the rows of benches. Family friends, neighbors, local arcana, and my uncles, aunts, and cousins, I could feel all of their eyes on the back of my head.

  My mind fixed on the small details of Mother’s face, the professional observations. Father had done an amazing job with the restoration. I couldn’t imagine how difficult that had been for him to work on Mother’s face, but the results spoke of his love. ARC Laws said she could not be dissipated by her family, that her magic had to be collected by an impartial other party, but Father had fought for the right to at least prepare her body for the viewing. “Nobody knows her face like I do,” he said.

  I was glad for it. She didn’
t look like the photo beside the casket, a frozen moment—she looked healthy, full of life, with that slight smile at one corner of her mouth that said she was about to share an amusing fact. I didn’t want to see her as a lifeless shell. And I didn’t want to remember her as she was at the end, struggling against cancer that infected a body made vulnerable by the drain of Talking, laying there an impossibly thin caricature of herself.

  “I should have spent more time with you,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.” She was asleep so often near the end, and with the tubes, and the way she looked—tears flowed freely down my cheeks. “I’m sorry.” I was so stupid. It didn’t matter how difficult it was for me. I would never get another chance to talk to her. To tell her how much I loved her. To hear her say she loved me.

  I felt a familiar tugging at the locus of my being.

  A hand clenched on my shoulder. “I know that look,” Father said, his voice rough with emotion. “You can’t Talk to her, son.”

  “Why not?” I whispered without looking at him. “It’s my choice, isn’t it? It’s my life energy. How is saying good-bye to Mother going to harm anyone?”

  He squeezed my shoulder again. “I know. I know it hurts, Finn. You think I want to let some stranger dissipate her? You think—” His voice broke. He continued after a second, “You think I don’t want to talk to her again, just one more time, even if it’s through you? But that is exactly why the law is not stupid. Don’t forget about your great-grandmother—” His voice broke again, and he squeezed my shoulder so hard it hurt.

  My great-grandmother had died of grief, or more specifically from Talking without stop to her dead husband until her life energy was used up, and she joined him.

  “I only want to say good-bye,” I whispered.

  A brief moment of disorientation—the haze of grief—and my father suddenly stood at my other shoulder. I turned to give him a hug.

  “Thank you, son,” he said as the hug ended. “Why don’t you go and sit until the ceremony begins. I want a few last minutes with your mother.”

  I nodded and walked up the aisle, past the gathered relatives and family friends. I didn’t meet their eyes but continued out to the entry area where I could be alone for a minute.