Widdershins

by Charles de Lint

  The two of them moved forward, careful not to make a sound until they were each on a side of the bed. Then they threw back the covers and grabbed the woman’s arms. Before she could cry out, they had pulled her away.

  Out of the world.

  Into the between.

  And then farther still.

  They arrived at a green sward bathed in cool moonlight and surrounded by a forest of ancient beech and oak, landing in a tumble of limbs that almost brought them right up against the tall grey Doonie Stane that stood in the center of the open space. The girl had struggled the whole of the short trip, which was what made for the untidy arrival. She pushed away from them as they hit the ground and both bogans lost their grip on her. Rabedy scrambled to his feet a moment before Gathen, but the girl was already standing, her eyes wide as she tried to take in her surroundings and guard against their next move.

  Gathen grinned and held up his hands in a nonthreatening manner.

  “Don’t you go worrying your head about nothing,” he told her. “All we were told was to bring you here. Nobody needs to get hurt now unless you do something stupid.”

  “Something stupid?” she said. “We’re way past something stupid, you little shit.”

  She stood in a defensive position, hands held at the ready in front of her. It was a warrior’s stance, Rabedy realized. She might look like some skinny little useless human girl, standing there barefoot in nothing but a thin T-shirt the length of a dress, but she had backbone. He remembered the way she’d fought at the crossroads. Backbone and skill.

  “The problem with your kind,” Gathen was saying, “is you don’t know well enough to respect your betters.”

  She spat on the grass between them.

  Oh, don’t, Rabedy thought. There was no need for anyone to get hurt if she would just back off. But no, she had to get Gathen going.

  Gathen shook his head, pretending sorrow. “Bring you here, the boss said, but he didn’t say anything about what condition you needed to be in. I’m thinking you need to be taught a bit of a lesson, you pluiking little cow.”

  “Try me, asshole.”

  “Let’s just leave it,” Rabedy said, catching hold of Gathen’s arm as the other bogan took a step toward the woman.

  Gathen shrugged off his grip and gave him a glare, then turned back to the woman with a grin Rabedy recognized all too well. It was the look Gathen wore when he gave a couple of hard whacks to some miserable little treekin who happened to get in his way. It was the look he had when he cut open a still howling cat and ripped out its intestines to shape one of the runes Odawa had taught them.

  Sod it, Rabedy thought. Let him make a mess of this, as well.

  He stepped back and folded his arms, refusing to take part in Gathen’s game.

  “Oh, I’m so scared of you,” Gathen told the woman.

  “You should be,” she told him.

  After that, it all happened so fast. Gathen lunged for the woman, but instead of trying to dodge him, she stepped in close, and delivered a powerful straight-armed blow into his solar plexus that stole all the breath from him, dropping him to his knees. She danced out of his fumbling reach, turned gracefully, and kicked him in the throat, delivering this second blow with her full weight behind it.

  Rabedy heard an awful popping sound as her foot connected, then Gathen collapsed on the ground. Rabedy realized that she’d crushed his windpipe.

  She turned to him, falling back into her warrior’s stance. But Rabedy shook his head and stepped away, into the between and back to the other-world camp where the others waited. His last view of the woman was of her kneeling beside Gathen’s body and pulling his knife from his belt, before she ran off into the forest.

  Big Dan sighed when he saw Rabedy returning to the camp on his own. Something was wrong, and it didn’t take a great mind to figure out who’d be to blame. Rabedy was his own nephew, but the little pluiker didn’t have a bogan’s instincts. Not enough backbone. Not enough bogan fierceness. Big Dan had hoped that pairing him on tasks with hard men like Gathen or Straith would awaken the little shite’s natural instincts, but it hadn’t helped so far and obviously nothing had changed tonight.

  He didn’t bother to stand up to get Rabedy’s report.

  “Where’s Gathen?” he demanded.

  “He’s dead,” Rabedy said. He looked at the ground, unwilling or unable to meet Big Dan’s gaze. “The girl killed him. Then she ran away into the woods.”

  Lairds help them, Big Dan thought. Did he even realize how preposterous that sounded? A pluiking slip of a girl killed the swaggering Gathen, just like that? Like it had been nothing?

  But Big Dan only asked, “What woods? Outside the hotel—in this world?”

  Rabedy shook his head. “No, we took her to the Doonie Stane in the Aisling’s Wood like you told us to.”

  “So she’s still there.”

  “Except she’s run off.”

  “She won’t get far,” Odawa said. “Except for a few glades like the one in which the Doonie Stane stands, the forest there is mostly impassable.”

  Big Dan frowned. The pluiking green-bree always needed to get in his own penny’s worth. But Big Dan knew he only needed a little more patience and so said nothing. It wouldn’t be long before the green-bree had what he wanted and then he’d have to fulfill his side of the bargain, providing the token that would allow the bogans free passage anywhere they wished to go in the wild and green.

  Big Dan had been dubious when Odawa first approached them. “What kind of token?” he’d asked.

  “My protection,” the green-bree had explained. “No one will deny you passage.”

  “We’ll not swear fealty to you or any other laird.”

  “It’s not like that. If you help me, the token is yours in return. We’ll neither of us owe the other any more except for our continued respect and friendship.”

  “And what makes you think it will be respected?”

  The green-bree had turned those queer blind eyes on him and he felt the shiver of ancient power that Odawa usually kept hidden.

  “Oh, it will be respected,” he’d said.

  So Big Dan had agreed. He kept the bargain to himself. The token wasn’t anything he meant to share. He’d use it to become a bigger boss. Who wouldn’t follow him if he could go wherever he pleased, extending his protection only to those who swore fealty to him?

  Odawa had turned his attention to Rabedy now. “You say she killed your companion?”

  Rabedy turned uneasily to face the blind man. Big Dan understood his discomfort. When the green-bree fixed his gaze on you, those sightless eyes seemed to stare straight into your soul.

  “Yes, sir,” Rabedy said.

  “Exactly how did she kill him?” Odawa asked.

  “In . . . in combat. She moved like a warrior, hitting Gathen only twice. Once with her fist, then she kicked him in the throat and broke his windpipe.”

  Odawa gave a thoughtful nod.

  “It appears I’ve misjudged you,” he told Big Dan. “There’s no way some little fiddler girl could have killed a bogan without some sort of magic, and the only magic she could have gotten is from Grey.”

  “So he’ll come looking for her,” Big Dan said.

  “Yes, I suppose he will. Once he knows she’s missing.” He smiled. “We’ll have to make sure he gets word and ready a welcome for him. But first, I should think, if we’re going to have a hostage, we should at least make certain she’s actually in our safekeeping.”

  Geordie

  I suppose I should have been surprised when I woke to find Jilly’s bed empty, but after all the years I’ve known her, there was little Jilly could do to surprise me anymore. Ordinary things like hangovers didn’t apply to her, so it seemed quite natural for her to have woken up without one, gotten bored because I was still sleeping, and decided to go downstairs on her own to have breakfast.

  I shaved and had a shower before I went looking for her, but the only person in the restaurant o
ff the bar was Andy. I hadn’t been expecting to see anyone, considering the early hour, but then I remembered him telling me at one point last night how he was cursed with the inability to sleep in, no matter how late he’d stayed up the night before.

  “Have you seen Jilly?” I asked as I sat down.

  “I haven’t seen anyone until now.”

  “She probably went out to look around. She was amazed when we drove in yesterday—at how much the town’s changed since she was last here.”

  Andy pushed the coffee thermos over and I poured myself a mug.

  “You don’t seem much worse for the wear,” he said.

  I smiled at his bloodshot eyes. “You forget—I turned down all of your generous single malt samples except for the first one.”

  “When you switched back to your Jameson’s.”

  “But only the one,” I said.

  “I wish I could say the same. I shouldn’t have stayed up so late.”

  I nodded. “Good music, though.”

  “That’s always my downfall. Good Scotch and music.”

  There’d been some playing around the table before Jilly and I called it a night. The others were still at it when we left.

  “We never settled up yesterday,” Andy said after a moment.

  He pulled some money out of his pocket and offered it to me.

  “Here you go,” he said. “It’s a quarter of what we made for the two shows. And thanks again for driving all the way out here to help us out. You really added a lot.”

  “It was good fun.”

  Andy nodded. “That it was. And we were wondering . . . we’ve got a few more weeks of work lined up and since Siobhan’s not going to be able to play for a while, well, we were wondering if you’d consider sitting in until she’s better. It’ll be for the same as yesterday: a fourth of whatever we make.”

  I hadn’t picked up the money he’d put on the table.

  “What about Siobhan?” I asked.

  “We’re going to cover for her out of our share.”

  I shook my head. “No. I’ll play the gigs, but for a fifth of what we’re getting paid.”

  “That’s not fair to you,” Andy said. “Siobhan’s our responsibility.”

  “We’re all each other’s responsibility,” I told him.

  Though I could tell he was pleased, I knew he was going to argue some more. And he might well have, except just then Siobhan herself appeared in the door to the restaurant. She wore nothing but the oversized T-shirt that obviously served as her nightie and had a panicked look in her eyes.

  “She’s gone!” she cried. “You’ve got to come.”

  “Who’s gone?” Andy asked.

  We were both on our feet and halfway to her when she replied.

  “Lizzie,” she said. “They’ve taken her—right out of her bed.”

  “Who’s taken her?” Andy asked.

  But I already had a sense of what she meant and said, “How do you know?” at the same time.

  Andy gave me a puzzled look.

  “Because all her stuff’s still here,” Siobhan said. “If she’s gone out walking, then all she’s wearing is panties and a T-shirt shorter than this. So they must have taken her. We have to find her.”

  I nodded. “And you need to get dressed.”

  “I’m not going back up there . . .”

  “We’ll be with you.”

  Andy plucked at my arm as I started to follow her to the stairs.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “Siobhan thinks the fairies have stolen Lizzie.”

  “Oh, for god’s sake.”

  But then I realized something else and got a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Because Jilly was missing, too.

  “Wait a moment,” I said as we got to the door of the room I shared with Jilly.

  It took me only a moment to see that her clothes still lay on top of her bag where I’d put them last night. I knew she hadn’t taken her wheelchair, because I’d noticed it before I’d gone downstairs. Now I saw that her canes still leaned in the corner by the head of her bed.

  “They got her, too,” I said as I rejoined the others in the hall.

  “Now just hold on,” Andy started.

  But I ignored him and led the way to Siobhan and Lizzie’s room. I went ahead in, but Siobhan hesitated in the doorway, blocking Andy from entering.

  “I know what she has with her on this trip,” Siobhan said from where she stood, “and she didn’t take anything with her. Not her clothes, not her purse, not her fiddle.”

  She said the last as though it was the clincher, and for many of us who played the instrument, it was. I couldn’t imagine going anywhere without mine. Downstairs to the restaurant for breakfast, yes, but anywhere further? Not likely.

  I took a closer look at the bed. It was hard to tell, but the covers appeared to have been thrown back, or pulled off roughly. Half of them were puddled on the floor.

  “She was taken right out of her bed, wasn’t she?”

  I turned to see Siobhan standing right behind me. Andy came into the room and looked around.

  “It’s not possible, is it?” he said. “Tell me it’s not possible.”

  “It shouldn’t be,” I said. “But it is.”

  Because I’d been through something too much like this before. Just a couple of years ago, Saskia had been stolen away into the otherworld—not by fairies, exactly, but it wasn’t all that different, really. One moment she was talking to my brother Christy, the next she’d vanished from their apartment, just disappeared, right before his eyes. She wasn’t alone, either. Hundreds of people were taken away from their homes, swallowed into a Web site that had a physical presence in the otherworld.

  It was all over the news when it happened—and then it wasn’t. The fact that it had ever taken place was wiped away by the spirits that live in the wires. It’s this thing they have—spirits, fairies, and the like. Everything’s secret, including their existence. It’s an easier pretense to keep up than you’d think, because we help them in how we’ll grasp at any rational explanation to account for whatever supernatural experiences we might have.

  I’d been doing it myself for years, but I couldn’t do it anymore once Saskia was taken. Because, as a direct result of that, I ended up meeting Galfreya and going into the otherworld myself, pretty much losing any chance I’d had of pretending that none of it was real.

  “You should get dressed,” I told Siobhan.

  She nodded, then lifted her bandaged arm. “Except I can’t do it on my own. I didn’t bring anything that buttons up.”

  “I’ll help you,” Andy said. “It’s not like I haven’t seen it all before.”

  That made me wonder if they’d been a couple at some point, but the thought was fleeting.

  “Look,” Andy said before he followed Siobhan into the bathroom. “Maybe we should check with Con first. I mean, Lizzie wasn’t in there when I went to bed, but who knows? He’s been making eyes at her ever since he joined the band. She could have gone in after I went downstairs.”

  “And Jilly is there to make it a threesome?”

  “Well, I didn’t mean that . . .”

  “They’ve both disappeared wearing only what they went to bed in,” I said. “I don’t think they’re with Con, charming though he is.”

  “Not Lizzie, for sure,” Siobhan said from the bathroom door. “Now come help me, Andy. I’m getting the creeps staying in this room.”

  I turned away and looked out the window.

  When Saskia disappeared, the first person Christy called was me, not that I was much help, because what did I know about that kind of thing? He and Christiana were the experts in the family, not me. But now, when I took out my cell phone, it was Galfreya’s number that I punched in.

  She answered on the first ring.

  “Hello, Geordie,” she said.

  This wasn’t her being a seer. Even fairies have caller ID.

  “Does this mean you’re not angry
with me?” she added.

  “I don’t know that I was ever angry,” I told her. “I’m more confused and a little hurt.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t handle it well, did I? But I didn’t know what else to do. All I knew was that I could keep you from danger by making sure you stayed near the court.”

  I so wasn’t ready to get into this right now.

  “That isn’t why I called you,” I said. “I’m in the Custom House Hotel in Sweetwater—do you know where that is?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’re having fairy trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “Bogans have kidnapped two women from their beds.”

  There was a long moment of silence—not the kind that comes when the person on the other end of the line doesn’t know what to say and you’re just getting ambient noise through the receiver, but utter silence, as though the line had gone dead.

  “Are you still there?” I asked.

  “Who are you talking to?” Siobhan wanted to know.

  She and Andy had come out of the bathroom, and I turned to look at them.

  “A friend who I hope can help us,” I said, “except we seem to have been cut off. Hello, hello?” I added, speaking into the phone.

  “We’re here,” Galfreya said. Her voice came from the receiver again. “Just in front of the hotel. I can see you in the window. Is it okay if we come up?”

  I turned back to look outside and she really was there, wearing her usual baggy skateboarder pants and a tight top, standing on the sidewalk below with Hazel and Edgan on either side of her. Hazel waved when she saw I was looking.

  “Um . . . sure,” I said.

  And then, almost before I got the words out, she and the treekin appeared in the middle of the room.

  “Holy shit!” Andy cried.

  He took a step back, tripping against the footboard of Siobhan’s bed and went sprawling across it. Siobhan stood staring at the fairies’ sudden appearance with big eyes and an open mouth.

  “It’s okay,” I told them. “This is Mother Crone, Hazel, and Edgan.” I pointed to each as I said their names. “And this is Siobhan and Andy,” I added for the fairies’ benefit, finishing the introductions.