by Jamel Cato
“He’s been acting funny since he came back in the house,” my Dad said.
“Did something happen outside?” my Mom asked.
Before I could answer, a little girl with crinkly hair and a skin tone between mine and Darlene’s zoomed into the room and clutched my legs. “Daddy! You’re back.”
Darlene was right behind her with a brush in her hand. “Amina! Get back in this bathroom.”
I burst into tears of joy and pain, which made the people I love regard me curiously.
When the wish faded away, I found myself alone in my hotel room.
There was a handwritten note on my lap. It read:
That one is your favorite.
-S.
CHAPTER 31
I strode into the plush lobby of the Ozark Institute, the West Virginia nonprofit corporation which controlled distribution of the Carghill Bees. I informed the receptionist that I was there to see the Executive Director. When the young woman claimed the Director was unavailable, I told her to tell her boss that Arthur Carini had sent me there all the way from the UK and I would wait.
Ten minutes later, I was kneeling in a conference room before a regal, immaculately dressed woman of middle age. Her name was Caroline Brokenborough. Decades earlier, under a different surname, she had been the Chief Confidential Assistant to the UK Foreign Secretary and the brilliant strategist behind the woman’s rise to prominence. In the midst of a torrid love affair with a young American Rhodes Scholar named Arthur Carini, Caroline had suddenly withdrawn from public life. The tabloids and chattering politicians who chronicled her disappearance did not know the truth: Caroline had been forced to whisk her Court and subjects out of the UK to avoid the wrath of the Duchess of Blackshire, who was demanding the return of an enslaved Djinn whom Caroline had decided to grant asylum and freedom.
When Caroline reappeared in the remote mountains of West Virginia as an unrefined, chain-smoking matron, no one outside the Court made the connection to her previous life.
“Rise and have a seat,” Queen Caroline said in the American accent and dialect she had carefully developed.
I did so. “Thank you for seeing me, Your Majesty.”
“Thank you for the unrequired courtesies, Seer.”
“The Duchess is in America.”
“I am aware.”
“Will you fight or flee?”
“I will not burden my subjects with the dishonor and disruptiveness of another retreat.”
“Did Arthur bring you here?”
“He arranged the Maven and the Gate which delivered us to America, but for everyone’s safety, he was not told where we chose to settle.”
“Did someone betray you?”
“Yes, but not intentionally.”
“Who was it?”
“You.”
“Me?”
“Arthur learned our location when you telephoned him and asked what a Gheecie is.”
I was dismayed. “I’m sorry. I…I didn’t realize what I was doing.”
“An apology is unnecessary. This day was bound to come. If not because of you, then because of Serenity’s campaign. When you visited us on the Mountain, I knew it would be sooner rather than later. It gave us advanced warning, so perhaps I should be thanking you.”
“Why did you allow Ashley and Serenity to start a political campaign if you wanted to remain hidden?”
“We were happy and prosperous in the UK. England has its issues like every place, but at least we did not have to pretend to be toothless ignoramuses to enjoy a modicum of sovereignty. I had decided to get involved in UK politics under the belief that obtaining power would keep us safe. I had a plan to put Eleanor in 10 Downing Street. Everything was going swimmingly until Tuano-Negee Jira appeared at the foot of my throne begging for asylum from the Duchess. Arthur entered my life and my bed soon after. When the Duchess found Jira in my Court, I did not make the connection, not even when Arthur conveniently offered to spirit us away to safety in exchange for what he called a favor. That is when I learned that power is not what keeps one safe, but rather the willingness to exercise that power, irrespective of the cost. In truth, this is a rare trait and one my nature would never allow to rise within me. But Ashley possesses this trait because she inherited it from her father. The campaign was the most effective way to rebalance the scales and allow them to obtain vengeance for the terrible things that were visited upon their mothers. That is why I prepared them for it their entire lives and allowed it to go forth.”
My head was spinning. “Who is Jira?”
“The Djinn who escaped the Duchess’s imprisonment so she could give birth to a daughter who would not face a similar imprisonment.”
“She’s Serenity’s mother?”
“Yes.”
I already knew that Gillian Kersetter was Ashley’s mother, but I did not know what terrible thing had been visited upon her. “What is Ashley seeking revenge for?”
“Thirty-seven years ago, when she was a junior in college, Gillian attended a conference in Kentucky about the economic growth of the Appalachian region. She was a bright girl and had always been interested in such things. In the evenings, a group of conference attendees about Ashley’s age would gather at Taylorsville Lake to consume alcohol and do what the young have always done. One young man in this group was named Roman Davidson and another was named Garrison Peakes. Roman and Garrison became fast friends, forming a collaboration that would eventually take them to the White House. One evening, when she had consumed more alcohol than was prudent, Garrison forced himself on Gillian against her will. Gillian was distraught and pregnant with Ashley when she fled home to Carghill. She told me that Garrison had stolen more than her innocence. He had the urn that Jira was bound to. Gillian and Jira were like sisters and Gillian often carried the urn with her on her adventures outside Carghill so Jira could experience them with her. Garrison used the urn to force Jira to grant wishes that fulfilled all his fantasies, including his dreams of power. In many ways, it was worse than her imprisonment under the Duchess, who had never forced her to perform sexual acts.”
The longer this conversation continued, the more discombobulated I became.
“Ashley knows about the rape?”
“She does.”
“Because Gillian told her?”
“Because I did. Gillian never speaks of it.”
“Why did you do that? That wasn’t your place.”
“I do not believe in depriving my subjects of the truth.”
“Yes, but the truth can be a lot more painful than ignorance. When you care about somebody, you shield them from pain, not throw them in a pool full of it.”
“You are wrong, and, cosmically speaking, very young. Hiding the truth from someone you care for is a deeper darkness than the thing you are hiding. And it robs them of the chance to achieve self-actualization by dealing with that truth.”
I could not argue with that. “So, what happens now?”
“We face the Duchess with square shoulders.”
“I want to stand with you. It’s the least I can do. Please.”
“You have bigger battles to fight.”
“Against whom?”
“The Scale, and yourself.”
“I don’t understand what that means.”
“You have been unable to locate the place where Garrison is hiding the urn because it is being shielded from your efforts and your sight by strong magic.”
I hadn’t thought it was possible to shield anything from my sight until I saw Stanella vanish. “Where is the urn?”
“One of the challenges in being the Queen of a Court is that someone in your service always harbors a hidden desire to replace you. If I knew the urn’s exact location, I would have retrieved it myself long ago. However, if I know Arthur as I believe I do, his conscience and fondness for you would have prompted him to provide the breadcrumb you need to find it without violating his oaths to your enemies. Follow those two beacons.”
CHAPTER 32<
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A day later, I sat in the darkened bedroom of a townhouse in the exclusive Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC, wondering why it hadn’t occurred to me sooner. It made sense that a man would keep his two deepest secrets in the same place, especially when one could help hide the other.
In Greek mythology, a King named Aegeus and the god Poseidon slept with the same maiden on the same night. The maiden became pregnant and eventually gave birth to the hero Theseus. But it was not clear which of the two males had actually fathered the hero. The only person who knew for certain was the midwife who had delivered the child. She knew because mortals and half-gods are born in different ways. These events happened in a Greek city named Troezen. Because Poseidon was the patron god of Troezen and Aegeus a critical military ally, the parentage of Theseus was a matter of war and death. After carefully weighing the consequences of revealing the father’s identity, the midwife chose to flee.
I knew the midwife as Elly-Jane, the flirtatious Matron of Fertility in Queen Caroline’s Court.
Garrison Peakes knew her as Maryellen Jane Lamontagne, his mistress and the duplicitous co-conspirator who had used her beauty and influence to help Theseus conquer Athens. She had convinced Peakes that she could help him conquer America in the same fashion if he would help her replace Caroline as Queen of The Gheecie Court. With technology making the world effectively one kingdom, they could use the urn to rule it together.
But the downside of two conniving people hooking up is that they cannot fully trust each other. That’s why Maryellen had not told Garrison what Serenity was. It’s also why Garrison had not told Maryellen he had a fallback deal with the Duchess of Blackshire.
Maryellen flicked on the bedroom light and took off the expensive earrings Garrison had purchased for her with money that he and The Scale extorted from the Ozark Institute in exchange for keeping the Gheecie Court’s location secret from the DSO. I’d learned that from the financial data Chad had sent me.
I said, “You know they say once you go black, you never go back.”
She knocked over her jewelry stand while jumping away from me in startlement. After she composed herself, she darted into a closet in search of the enchanted Athens blade that I had already found and placed in my pocket.
I had found the urn too, which hadn’t taken all that long to do once I stopped relying on my gifted sight and turned to my logic skills. Maryellen had grinded the urn into small pieces that blended with the other flecks of precious stones adorning the evening gown she had worn to the Union Station Ball. That ensured Garrison couldn’t use it without her cooperation. She’d done that after Jira had complained about the fetishes Garrison had been forcing the Djinn to satisfy behind her back when the vessel was in one piece. The dress was now safely in my possession, which Maryellen would have figured out after a few seconds of desperate searching.
The lovely saboteur emerged from the closet with an alluring smile. “Can we come to an agreement?”
“Not the kind you have in mind,” I said.
She undid the clasp of her dress and let it fall to the floor. “Are you sure?”
It took every ounce of my willpower, but I told the naked goddess to put her clothes back on. Then I proceeded to explain the terms of the deal I was willing to make.
After she heard them, she asked, “And I can still keep Garrison’s portion of the proceeds from the Bees?”
Proceeds sounded a lot more polite than hush money.
“Every cent,” I said.
“Do I have your word that you will honor all that you have proposed?”
“You do.”
She let the dress fall to the floor again. “Why don’t we celebrate our new alliance?”
“I want to, but I can’t.”
She glanced down at my lap. “It seems like you can from here.”
I said, “I can’t because something tells me if I did, you would end up on top in more ways than one. A man won’t pay for a lifestyle like this just because you can cook.”
Her devious smile told me my suspicions were right.
CHAPTER 33
I drove across town to Patni.
After parking, I turned to the passenger seat. “Uncle Clif, when we go inside, there’ll be a very, very attractive young woman at the greeter’s stand. Stay cool, because she’s some kind of test to determine who is worthy of gaining entrance. I’m pretty sure she can read minds.”
My uncle twisted his face. “Boy, I been courtin’ pretty girls since before you were an itch in your Daddy’s pants. You don’t need to tell me to stay cool. I was born cool. I’m so cool, I make penguins catch pneumonia. Let’s get in there and handle our business.”
When we walked in and he saw Chandra, he hopped on one foot like an enraptured Baptist preacher and shouted, “Good God a’ mighty, young lady! You make a man wanna cash in his pension, wish for younger days and chop down a cherry tree for a bullhorn to tell the whole world you’re fine as wine on a Soul Train line!”
I sighed. No penguins would be catching pneumonia anytime soon.
“Thank you, Officer Tiptree,” the hostess said demurely.
She turned to me with an expectant look because I always greeted her with a similar, if slightly less theatrical, commentary on her loveliness.
But on that day, I only said, “Hey Chandra.”
She raised a brow. “You’re not going to tell me I’m beautiful?”
“You already know you’re beautiful. And it’s not like it’s getting me anywhere with you.”
“Where would you like it to get you? And where would you fit me in?”
Her simple questions struck like a judgment-tipped arrow into a heart already crowded with feelings for women named Darlene, Jasmine, Serenity and Silvia.
When I failed to come up with any answers after a minute’s wait, Chandra asked, “Are you ready to be shown to your party?”
I looked up in surprise. “You won’t try to stop us from intruding?”
She shook her head. “Patni guarantees neutrality, not privacy.”
We were led to a large table at the rear of the restaurant.
At the table sat Garrison Peakes, Art Carini, Jasmine Perry, Elizabeth Minton and three other men I did not recognize.
The Scale was having a meeting. Chad had followed the money.
Jasmine opened her mouth to seduce me, but Art was quicker. “Preston, everyone at this table likes you. Don’t do or say anything you’ll regret.”
“Are you meeting to decide the outcome of the election?”
“We’re discussing the Duchess of Blackshire,” Elizabeth said. “Her unexpected arrival and even more unexpected demands have raised a number of complications pertinent to our interests.”
I looked at Art. “How unexpected could her arrival be if you opened the front door for her?”
“Stanella would be dead if I had not intervened at the last minute to negotiate a peaceful passage,” he said. “I was nearly too late.”
“In other words,” I replied, “the Duchess will kill her on the way out instead of the way in. She can’t have a Maven out there selling her quantum residue to her enemies.”
Art was silent.
“Why don’t you have a seat and join us?” Garrison asked. “We could use a man with your talents.”
I turned to him. “I have the urn. I took it from Maryellen.”
Elizabeth scowled at Garrison. “You oversexed idiot! Why must every man insist on being led around by his prick like a cotton-headed puppet? How many mistresses can you all have?”
“You can have the urn back after the election if you stay away from Serenity and stop extorting the Ozark Institute.”
I added that last part to let them know I could hit them where it hurt even if something happened to me.
“What assurances can you give us?” Art asked.
“The fact that I didn’t come in here shooting or asking for money is all the assurance you need.”
I turned to leave. “Le
t’s go, Unc.”
Jasmine pushed away from the table and stood. “Tree, wait.”
I paused.
“It wasn’t just an act.”
I walked out, never turning back.
When we got in the car, my uncle said, “Nobody in there was lying.”
“You’re positive?” I asked, thinking specifically of Jasmine.
“I’m sure.”
If the Scale wasn’t cooperating with the Duchess, that only left one person.
About four hours later, after taking my Uncle home, I walked into my office and stood directly in front of Eve. “Why did you tell the Duchess where to find Stanella’s gate?”
She looked away in shame. “I didn’t realize that’s who I was telling. I thought it was Jasmine Perry. The person who called me sounded exactly like her and all my electronic verifications checked out.”
“You didn’t answer the question.”
She clasped her ghostly hands. “It was what Jasmine said when she came here: I wanted to know who I was. Yes, I knew it was a bold-face attempt to manipulate me. Yes, I understood that you and I were discovering the answer in an organic way. But knowing there was a file out there that would shave years or decades off the process was a temptation too great to ignore. I’m sorry.”
“Did they give you the file?”
“Yes,” she said forlornly. “I betrayed your trust only to discover that betraying people was apparently my calling card.”
My DSO file showed that Eve had been a woman named Karla Hannum when she was alive. She had been white, wealthy and an informant who helped the FBI and the Police infiltrate and derail the nascent civil rights movement in Philadelphia during the 1960’s. Her modus operandi was to pose as a generous financial benefactor who paid for the lawyers, bail bonds and miscellaneous organizing costs the Movement often required. After establishing trust, she would deliver names and plans to the Government. The people attached to those names were interrogated, jailed, and in four cases, killed. Karla died of injuries she’d suffered after being mauled by a Police attack dog trying to get at a pregnant African American community organizer cowering behind her during a botched raid. According to the file, Karla’s informing career had been precipitated by her husband’s business and legal troubles rather than racism. The FBI had dangled it as the only carrot stick that would get Richard Hannum a plea deal for the illegalities he had engaged in to obtain the vast tracts of land the Sun Oil Company needed for the expansion of its refinery fields in South Philadelphia. When she wasn’t undermining peaceful student movements, Karla enjoyed equestrian pursuits in Gladwyne, where she and her husband often socialized with the Pews.