by N. K. Vir
“But why?” Knackers repeated. “T’were him who built the veil,” Knackers reminded him.
Duncan shrugged his shoulders, “And the queen’s to maintain,” was his only reply.
Fiona stood quietly by watching them debate her information. Duncan could tell she was quickly becoming just as upset as they were. The ramifications of her information could have the potential to start a war among the Seelie, weakening the court even more than it already was at the moment. Chaos seemed to be a very real possibility.”
“If what yer debating is true then why take away ‘er ability to maintain the veil?” Fiona asked clearly puzzled.
“In order to punish the Queen, or the Fae? I have no answers, but I do intend to ask him,” Duncan said ominously.
“Ye plan on goin’ ta ask him then?” Knackers exclaimed wide-eyed with shock.
“No,” Duncan replied with a shake of his head. “He will show himself soon enough. Then I will ask him at the point of his own sword.” Duncan tightened his grip on the sword that the king had given him as a gift and a tool to find his daughter. He wondered silently if the king had anticipated how far Duncan was willing to go to get to the bottom of life spark’s disappearance. If the Son of Lir was responsible for her kidnapping, Duncan had no problem separating the king’s head from his shoulders.
He tried not to let such dark thoughts corrupt his mind. He needed a clear head if he were to get back what was stolen from him. Revenge could corrupt and darken even the brightest soul. He could not allow himself to become tainted with the dark emotion; at least not yet.
He looked down at his two small companions and allowed a smile to overtake his face. “We have more important matters to attend to tonight, and I will need help.”
Chapter Five
Duncan’s Introduction to Court
There was nothing like having your house cleansed; not cleaned but cleansed. It was something, the only thing actually, Annie allowed her witchy friends to do for her. Annie watched her petite friend Kat take a deep cleansing breath, hold it, and slowly let it out. One crystal blue eye popped open and stared back at her.
“Don’t say it,” Kat warned.
Kat’s eye snapped shut as she inhaled deeply again. She raised her hands palms up towards the ceiling held her breath for exactly four seconds than pushed her hands down as if pushing something heavy down through the floor as she slowly exhaled.
“This house is clean,” Annie said with a giggle.
Both of Kat’s eyes flew open and glared icily at Annie. Annie tried to cover her smile with her hand. Kat attempted to appear intimidating but her tiny frame and cute cherub-like face made that almost impossible. Annie could only laugh harder. She knew her friends took their magick (with a “K” because the other kind of magic was just illusions and tricks) seriously. Annie respected their religion and their beliefs; she just couldn’t wrap her brain around the idea of ‘magick’. Of course they had all tried to explain it to her. Annie didn’t understand how a bag full of dried up plants and rocks could fix problems; eventually they gave up. An occasional house cleansing was all she would allow them to do. A purification of negative energy or, as Annie liked to think of it, cleaning the air. Besides she loved the way her house smelled, okay she liked the way it felt too, after the purification ritual was done. Maybe that’s why she always had to add that stupid line at the end of every ritual so she would be reminded that there was nothing magickal in the world.
Kat tried to hold onto her death stare but lost control of her facial muscles as her scowl slowly turned into a smile and then a full laugh. Kat was adorable there was no other way to describe her. She had long, almost perfectly styled, straight black hair that fell just below her shoulders. Her eyes, a beautiful shade of blue, were always made up in a perfect cat-eye. Her face was always happy and her bubbly personality was infectious. Give her some caffeine and she could run for hours without taking a break.
“So,” Kat said trying to control the giggles. “Why did I have to come and do another house cleansing?”
Annie’s smile slipped from her face. She looked around her tiny kitchen, her eyes darting back and forth between her black fridge and black stove. Why was everything in Salem Black? Even her friends wore all black, well except for Robert, but even he preferred darker colors.
Kat’s foot tapping on the floor dragged her attention back, “Annie?”
Annie cringed. Kat may have only been five foot two but she was definitely not one to be messed with. Annie had personally seen her scare a man well over a foot taller than her out of her store with no more than a few words and a dramatic finger point.
“Well,” Annie hedged. “You see stuff just kind of keeps moving around.”
Kat raised a dark eyebrow at her questioningly and nodded for her to continue. Annie was mortified to have to admit to the strange things that had been happening. It was never a good thing when the pronounced skeptic had no mundane explanation for something.
“Like yesterday I put my coffee cup on the counter,” she said pointing to the spot where the cup had been. “I got wrapped up in a phone call from my father,” she said pausing to steal a look over at Kat, who rolled her eyes and huffed. Kat knew better than anyone how overly protective her father could be. If he didn’t talk to his only daughter at least once a day he would panic. She learned the hard way to always talk to him once a day. Shortly after moving to Salem he had called the police when he had not heard from her in twenty four hours. It had been embarrassing, but it was the day she met Kat. After the police had left Kat had come over and introduced herself. More than just a little curious she had asked Annie why the police were “visiting”. A couple of hours and a few glasses of wine later and they were best friends.
“So,” she continued taking a deep breath. “When I finally got off the phone with him the cup was not where I left it. Instead it was in the cabinet.”
“Maybe you just forgot you put it away,” Kat said with a shrug. “I’ve seen you go on autopilot whenever the Nutty Professor calls.”
“It was washed and dried. Things just keep moving and everything is just so clean. I can’t remember the last time I had to pick up a broom.”
Kat started bouncing up and down clapping her hands cheerleader style. “You,” she pointed a finger at Annie, “have,” clap, clap. “A Brownie,” she finished by throwing her arms out and doing her best jazz hands.
“You look like a five year old gothic cheerleader,” Annie grumbled. “And I do not have a Brownie. Besides, don’t you have to believe in that stuff to actually get a Brownie?”
“Nope,” Kat replied, as she began gathering up her cleansing supplies. She closed her eyes whispering a prayer of thanks. “Listen,” she said screwing her jar of ocean water shut. “You should consider it an honor. The Fae don’t just help everyone out you know.”
She tapped her sage stick with the tip of her finger, convinced it was out she carefully rolled it up in paper then put her ocean-in-a-jar, sage stick and smudging feather into a black velvet pouch. When she had finished she turned back to face Annie. She took a deep breath and cast her eyes upwards as if asking (or more likely begging) for patience.
Annie knew her friends believed in the supernatural. Hell 99.9% of Annie’s clientele believed in the supernatural. It was why tourists flocked to Salem in the first place; witches and ghosts. The summer and fall in Salem was like one long continuous fair. The pedestrian mall was filled with vendors selling everything from kitschy t-shirts to ghost tours. Street performers, musicians, food trucks and hawkers dressed as sexy witches lined the bricked mini-street. All of this lead up to the month of October when the whole town seemed to go into a money making frenzy. The town made its living on that one month selling tourists all sorts of “witchy” crap. But if you could skim the charlatans off the surface you’d find real Wiccan witches who did more than just play act for the tourists. Witches like the one standing in front of her now. These witches had clients who came back month
after month because they actually fixed people’s problems; or at least they thought they did. Whether they were just great psychologists or really could perform magick was still up for debate in Annie’s mind.
“We’ve all told you that you have some Faerie blood in you and like draws like,” Kat said with a shrug.
Annie snorted in response.
Kat reached out and grabbed Annie’s arm pulling her to the front door and outside. “This,” she said pointing to the garden bursting to life, “screams Fae blood.”
“So I have a green thumb?” Annie replied. Kat scowled at her. “Okay, two green thumbs and I cheated.”
Well at least that’s what the neighbors told her. Apparently it was very taboo to start planting anything before Memorial Day in New England as it was not unheard of for snow to be falling well into May.
“You did kind of get a head start,” Kat acquiesced. “Last year there was still snow on the ground in June.”
Annie crossed her arms over her chest and nodded silently thanking Kat for making her point. But Kat, never one to give up so easily just waved a dismissive hand at her.
“Those,” she said, pointing out the meadowsweet Annie had just planted this morning, “have grown since you put them in the ground.”
“They have not,” Annie said sounding more childlike then she meant to; but even she had to admit, only to herself of course, they did look a little bigger.
“It’s not just the garden, Annie. I may not have the sight like Robert and Griffin, but I do have eyes. There are parts of you that are Otherworld, especially, your eyes.”
“What about my eyes?”
“They’re the color of a cloudless sky durin’ high summer,” answered a deep Scottish accented voice.
Annie shivered and Kat gasped in surprise at the sound of that voice. Annie closed her eyes still felling the delicious yummy tingles that voice had caused. It brought back memories of some long forgotten dream. It was almost as if she should remember him. No, more like she, needed to remember him.
“Yes,” he said appearing to answer her thoughts.
Annie’s eyes whipped open. She thought for a moment that she had spoken her internal thoughts out loud; the second that thought entered her head her eyes and ears saw the reality of the situation. He was talking to Kat; answering a question Annie had not heard. Annie scowled at Kat as she playfully swatted Duncan. A green-eyed Dragon roared somewhere inside of her. ‘Mine’, it growled.
Whoa! Where had that come from?
She glanced quickly up at Duncan and watched as a tiny half smile kicked up on side of his mouth as an ‘Oh, really’ eyebrow shout up his forehead. Kat continued to talk and question him but he held Annie’s gaze. Annie felt herself being drawn deeper and deeper into those stormy blue eyes. They made her feel things; see things she had never experienced before. Every time she tried to grab onto those illusive images they slipped through her fingers like water.
Duncan’s eyes slipped from hers and the spell was broken. Annie shook her head to clear her mind. Someone was calling her name.
“Annie!” Kat said snapping her fingers. “You in there? Look, our new neighbor brought us wine.”
Annie focused on the bottle Kat was waving in front of her face. It was their favorite brand of merlot. Favorite because it was big, cheap and tasted really good.
“Say thank you damn it,” Kat hissed.
“Thank you Duncan,” Annie said remotely.
Kat rolled her eyes and scowled up at Annie. “Come on,” she muttered grabbing her arm and shoving her back towards the house. “We’ll be right back Duncan, just go ahead, make yourself comfortable,” Kat called sweetly over her shoulder.
Once they were safely inside and out of earshot sweet Kat disappeared and a feisty feline quickly replaced her.
“Oh my goodness girl, get your shit together!” Kat scolded waving a motherly finger under Annie’s nose. “That, she said pointing her finger towards the front door; is one good looking man, but he’s still, just a man.”
“More like, amazing,” Annie muttered. Kat ignored Annie and began digging in a drawer. “Where the hell is the corkscrew Annie?”
“Should be in there somewhere,” she replied absently as her mind was wandering out to the man in her garden.
When she had seen him earlier that day she was struck by the strongest sense of déjà vu. It wasn’t the city, the noises, the birds, it was him. Everything around them seemed to simply fall away. They were surrounded by nothingness, there were no other sights, no other sounds, no other smells, there was just him. He seemed to be rooted, he had stood unmoving and she had eagerly taken the time to study him. He was tall, over six feet easily. His dark hair seemed to wave and curl haphazardly around his head, not messy, not perfect; like the length of his hair, neither long nor short, both were a perfect combination of ‘I don’t care’. His body was all lean and muscle, not the typical bulk muscle fabricated in a gym but from work, real work. He showed only his profile, as he seemed to be concentrating on something in the distance, but the half she could see was beautifully rugged and male. He reminded her of some ancient sculpture and understood what these masters were trying to capture, him, and his raw, dangerous beauty.
Then, she heard a whisper, “a chuisle mo chroi.” The phrase was hauntingly familiar and yet she was sure she had never heard it before. He had been witty even charming, she had clumsily invited him to her house. In actuality she was surprised he had come at all. A draw slamming ripped her back to the present.
“Dammit Annie where is it?” Demanded Kat pulling open cabinets she kept muttering, the words escaped Annie’s hearing. “Ah ha!” she exclaimed in triumph wiggling the corkscrew in front of Annie’s face. “Since when do you keep this with the wine glasses?” Annie shrugged in response. The moving of small articles lately in her house seemed like the least of her worries at the moment. Her mind was too preoccupied with the incredibly attractive new neighbor and these strange feelings of lost memories to care about…
“Clever Brownie,” Kat praised. “Well it makes sense anyways after all,” she said popping the cork out of the bottle, “you need them both to enjoy a little liquid courage. You do have a very practical Brownie.”
“I do not have a Brownie,” Annie insisted absently.
“Shush, you’ll upset him,” Kat said shoving two glasses of wine into her hands. “Now take your courage and go entertain your gorgeous guest before I forget that I have a boyfriend,” she said shoving Annie out the door.
Annie returned to the garden to find Duncan squatting in front of her newly planted meadowsweet. She couldn’t be sure but she thought she heard him whispering; to her plants.
“Are you talking to my flowers?” The words escaped her mouth before her brain had time to filter them. Mentally she kicked herself, not only for her words but for her tone. It sounded as if she were accusing him of something evil.
He didn’t seem startled by her sudden appearance instead he inhaled deeply. Annie watched as his broad shoulders rose higher with the breath, he held it for moment then exhaled slowly as he stood. Annie sucked in her own breath as he did so. A memory sparked to life; of a different time, a lake, a handsome boy so much younger than this one but with the same stormy blue eyes and careless dark hair. Annie watched spellbound as the memory and the present flickered in her mind, both fighting for her attention. Neither the boy from the past nor the man before her spoke; both were wearing identical looks, waiting, watching and hoping. Once again Annie’s mouth spoke without consulting her brain.
“Who are you?” She asked the boy from her memory.
To the man in front of her, “Why do I think we’ve met somewhere else before? It’s like I should know you.”
He took a step forward and the faint memory flickered once then was gone leaving only the present standing before her. Annie shook her head blinking rapidly to clear her vision. Absently she raised a glass to her mouth and began drinking. Realizing she was being rude she
offered him the other glass. He accepted the offering. It was then she realized he had not answered her and for some unknown reason she wanted an answer.
As if he had read her mind he began to speak. “I believe we met this morning remember? My name is Duncan Norris,” he said taking another step closer. He smelled clean, like freshly cut pine trees she noticed. It had always been one of her favorite scents. “And yes,” he said softly. “I was talking to yer flowers. I told you they remind me of home.”
“Of you,” she heard whispered across her mind making her shiver.
“Oh my god Annie, why didn’t you tell me you had a brownie?” she heard a screeching voice from behind her.
Annie pivoted startled sloshing the contents of her wine glass on to her hand. She licked the spilled contents of her drink off her hand while she glared at the owner of the voice that interrupted the most intense moment she had ever experienced. The excited voice belonged to Robert her swarthy pirate-styled friend. Robert was tall with skin the color of mocha and bright knowing amber colored eyes that always sparkled with mischief. His moods could swing between morose and humorous with no more than a snap of his fingers. He was a mercurial character at his best and according to the local witch community a young and powerful practitioner. He was a student of everything, and although on the outside he resembled an 18th century New Orleans pirate, he had deep hidden Celtic roots stretching back to the Black Watch and Mary Queen of Scots.
Now he was jumping up and down in her yard interrupting a very intensely interesting conversation with a devastatingly handsome neighbor. She would kill him later. The feathers he wore stuffed in his hat bouncing happily above his head, mirroring his obvious excitement, drew some of her anger at him out of her, but only some of it.