Veiled Existence

by Barbara Pietron

  Fingers curled on the rough edge, Jeni tried to heave backward, but Tyler was a wall. As he forced her forward, she watched Ice’s sun pendant dip into the water.

  Tyler froze, and then abruptly pulled away from her. “What the hell?” he mumbled.

  Jeni straightened and twisted sideways in time to see Tyler’s half-lit face go from perplexed to dull. Realization struck her and she fumbled with the necklace as Tyler lurched for her. The edge of the rock formation rammed against her guts and she grunted, ripping the chain from around her neck and dropping it into the bowl.

  A horrible screech echoed down the passage, gaining agony as it lost volume.

  Tyler stepped away. “What’s going on?” His voice was low, tentative.

  Jeni didn’t answer, breath rasping as she scrambled for her flashlight. “Ice,” she panted, staring up into her cousin’s puzzled face. “We have to get Ice.” She yanked him after her as the howling weakened and trailed off.

  Fear clogged Jeni’s throat as she recalled the awful thud the rock made when it hit Ice’s skull. She barely slowed as they passed Elletre’s shriveled figure, which now resembled the old woman that she’d been by day.

  Ice’s still form lay at the edge of the water, and Jeni blanched at the blood pooled behind his head. “Nonono,” she breathed. In order to strike him, Jeni had told herself she could heal him with the water in the cauldron, but judging by Elletre’s remains, she doubted any magic remained. Her trembling hand hovered over Ice’s chest and she forced it down, choking back a sob, both wanting and not wanting to know.

  When Ice’s heart thumped beneath her palm, Jeni hitched in a relieved breath. Cupping water in her hands, she rinsed the blood off his head. His eyes fluttered and opened. Jeni broke down, weeping as she wrapped her arms around him. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

  Ice started to sit up, then stopped to rest on his elbows, blinking. “Whoa,” he croaked. “Dizzy.”

  “Let him breathe.” Tyler crouched down and elbowed Jeni aside. He asked Ice, “What’s your name?”

  “Ice…Shattered Ice. Ashigan.”

  Jeni realized that her cousin had probably witnessed quite a few head injuries while snowboarding. She wiped her tears with the back of her hands, regaining her composure as Ice responded to Tyler’s questions.

  “What day is it?”

  The skin around Ice’s eyes tightened as he concentrated. “Saturday?” His gaze fell on the crumpled body behind them. “Is that the witch?”

  Tyler met Jeni’s eyes. “I think he’s all right.” He offered Ice a hand. “Think you can stand up?”

  Ice nodded, rising to a sit. He let Tyler pull him up and didn’t resist when Jeni slipped under his shoulder with an arm around his back. “What happened to Elletre?” he asked.

  “This is Elletre,” Jeni said as they paused to look at the desiccated body.

  The korrigan’s hands were withered and curled like dead leaves. Her eyes had retreated into her skull and her clothes hung loosely on her limbs. She looked like a mummy straight out of a horror film.

  “She was a korrigan,” Jeni explained. “Old woman by day, beautiful girl by night.”

  Tyler shuffled his feet, waiting at the mouth of the passage. “Can we please get the heck out of here?”

  Jeni pulled two bottles of water out of the cooler and handed one to Ice. “How soon will we eat?” she asked her mom.

  After eyeballing Jeni’s dad, with his horseshoes in one hand and a beer in the other, her mom answered, “At least an hour.”

  “Okay. We’re going to walk around the park then.”

  Jeni was glad to see that Tyler was one of the horseshoe players. He’d been uncharacteristically subdued since the korrigan incident. When they’d boarded the pleasure boat that night for the return trip to Marquette, Tyler took a seat in the back, letting Jeni and Ice handle everything. Jeni guessed her cousin’s recollection of getting there was hazy at best. Back at the riverboat, when she’d asked Tyler if they could use his car to retrieve Jake and Josie’s SUV, he’d wordlessly handed her the keys and then strode away, boarding the boat.

  Before the cruise left Marquette for the last leg of the trip, Jeni had overheard Tyler’s mom convincing him to drive to Dubuque for the final family gathering instead of heading straight home.

  With a last glance at the men strolling to the horseshoe pits, Jeni linked arms with Ice, leading him in the opposite direction. They meandered up the sidewalk to a tall chain-link fence bordering the edge of the river bluff. The view from Iowa’s Eagle Point Park was a breathtaking panorama of the Mississippi River and the two states bordering its east bank. Directly across the river in Wisconsin, gently rolling farmland backed a subdivision and just downriver, a cluster of buildings marked East Dubuque, Illinois.

  Curling their fingers through the fence, Ice and Jeni studied Lock and Dam #11 below. “I always kind of knew how the locks worked because I had a toy harbor when I was a kid,” Jeni mused. “But after seeing the exhibit at the river museum today, it’s pretty amazing.”

  “You had a toy harbor?”

  Jeni gave Ice a sidelong glance, taking in his crinkled brow and the gleam in his eyes. “What? My mom was into educational toys. Besides, it was awesome. There were gates to block the water and a hand pump to fill the locks. I’d use a bunch of my doll house people and put them in the boats.”

  Ice laughed. “Of course you did.”

  Elbowing him in the ribs, Jeni stepped away from the fence. “Come on.”

  Stone pavilions of various shapes and sizes dotted the rolling landscape, most crowded with picnickers. The smell of charcoal and cooking meat carried on the breeze. They passed through a short stone tunnel underneath one of the pavilions and ran into a bunch of kids playing some kind of game.

  As they left the shouting children behind, Ice circled his arm around Jeni’s waist. With a smile, she snaked her hand into his back pocket. “You mentioned you talked to Carolyn this morning. What did you tell her?” he asked.

  “That we need to talk when I get home.” Jeni sighed. “I realize my life can’t be the same as it was before, and I hope it won’t cost me my best friend, but I also don’t want to keep secrets from her.”

  “How do you think she’ll take it?”

  Jeni pursed her lips. “Well, she might be all for it once she comes to grips. She loves movies and shows about the supernatural. Although most of it is laughably inaccurate.”

  Ice chuckled. “Tell me about it.”

  They crunched through fallen leaves, cresting a limestone-terraced hill that descended to a fish pond. The sound of falling water reached them before they could see the stream spouting from layered stones in the hillside, pooling and spilling onto the flat rocks below until inevitably splashing into the pond. Lily pads and a few bunches of tall grass dotted the water’s surface.

  Jeni and Ice rounded to the side of the pond where the limestone border lay flush with the grass. As they dropped to their knees at the edge of the water, the sun burst from the clouds, setting the pond alight with sparkles dancing on the rippled surface. Heat radiated from the sun-warmed stone beneath them.

  Sitting on Ice’s left side, Jeni’s gaze fell to the bandage on the side of his head and her heart ached. He caught the look and put his hand on her knee. “I was trying to kill you, Jeni. You did what needed to be done,” he said softly. “I’m glad for that.” Then he chuckled. “The worst part is that I had injuries when I got on the boat, too. Now your family thinks I’m some kind of bumbling idiot.”

  Jeni laughed. “They do not.” Movement drew her attention to the pond where darting orange and pink blurs sharpened into the shapes of fish as they surfaced to investigate the newcomers. “Koi,” she said. “I wish we had some bread or something to feed them.”

  Ice reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a fruit and cereal bar. “Think
they’d like this?”

  “I imagine they’d eat most anything you threw in there. Or at least taste it.”

  Tearing the package open, Ice broke off a piece of the bar for Jeni. She crumbled some into the water and the koi responded immediately, rushing to suck up the bits of fruit and grain.

  “So what was Nik’s take on what the korrigan said?”

  “He thinks that this ‘soul collector’ that she referred to is the same god that Itasca mentioned. Whoever or whatever he is, he seems to think you’ve taken something from him.”

  Jeni grimaced. “I don’t know about before, but I certainly have now. The korrigan served him. I guess I’ve made my mark.” She crushed another piece of the breakfast bar and sprinkled it into the water as two kids bolted down the steps across from them. Two women followed a moment later. “No running by the pond,” one of the women yelled.

  “You sound okay with that,” Ice said.

  Jeni shrugged. “I can’t pretend I’m something I’m not. That’s been proven to me one—no, two—times too many. I’ve got to figure it out, Ice.”

  The kids had observed Jeni sprinkling food into the water and were now clamoring to the grownups that they wanted to feed the fish. “Uh-oh, looks like we started something,” Jeni muttered, brushing her hands together to remove the last of the crumbs. “Anyway, I’d like to be proactive in the future, not reactive.”

  “Just don’t go thinking you have to do everything on your own.” Ice leaned back on his hands. “I’ll tell you what Nik told me earlier: a man who’ll ask for help is a wise man. He’s confident in what he knows, and forthcoming about what he doesn’t know.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” Jeni sank back onto her elbows and moved a little closer to Ice. The kids were throwing grass and leaves into the pond. “Hey, did you talk to Dale?”

  “No. You?”

  “He texted me while I was packing.” Jeni watched the women try to round up the kids, assuring them they could come back with some bread for the fish. “The pastor from the church sent him information on the church’s history because he missed meeting with us. It turns out Father Kerr did make a trip back to Ireland. There’s a chance that Deirdre and her lover are now together forever.”

  “I like that ending,” Ice said. The wind gusted, sending a shower of leaves fluttering to the grass around them and into the pond. Ice reached to brush Jeni’s hair out of her face and behind her ear.

  She gazed up at him with a soft smile.

  Ice leaned down and kissed her on the lips.

  The women and kids had disappeared over the hill so Jeni sank onto her back, pulling Ice with her. Propped on an elbow, he combed his fingers into her hair as their lips met again. She relaxed, even as the visions began, knowing they would soon be gone. A breathy sigh parted her lips and Ice accepted the invitation.

  Slipping her hand inside the collar of his jacket, Jeni ran her fingers over the firm expanse of his chest, appreciating his warmth, the beat of his heart.

  Ice’s hand stroked her cheek, and then traveled the length of her body to her waist, slipping under her jacket. He drew back, his cool fingers resting on the bare skin of her side. “By the way, if you need added incentive to research your ancestry, the more you develop your ability, the fewer visions you’ll have. Dale confirmed it.”

  Distracted by Ice’s thumb tracing patterns on her hip bone, Jeni had to rerun his sentence once in her head before responding. Even then she only managed to say, “Dale?”

  A chuckle resonated from his chest. “When we shook hands before he left for home. I noticed the faraway look but then he grinned at me. I guess the visions were minimal.”

  “That was fast.”

  “Yeah. Obviously he was completely immersed in training while he was away.”

  “Know how else I can make the visions go away?”

  Ice only had time to lift an eyebrow before Jeni pulled his head down and kissed him soundly. He groaned. “Sure, that’ll work.”

  Jeni giggled and he returned his lips to hers until they were interrupted by a child’s shout. Breaking apart, Jeni sat up and looked over her shoulder to see Molly bolting down the hill. Jake and Josie crested the slope before their daughter reached the pond, Jake yelling for her to stop. Spotting Jeni and Ice, the little girl aimed directly for them. She erupted into laughter as Ice put an arm out and caught her, rolling her onto the grass.

  As they approached, Jake said, “Good thing you guys were down here, she was way ahead of us.”

  Before Molly could tug her to the edge of the water, Josie said, “We were hoping to see you guys. The food should be ready in about fifteen minutes.”

  Ice gave Molly the rest of the cereal bar to feed the fish and when it was gone, the five of them headed back to the pavilion. The aroma of sizzling meat greeted them and Jeni spied her dad shoveling burgers onto a plate. On the other side of the grill, her uncle—Tyler and Jake’s dad—plucked hot dogs from the grate.

  When everyone was seated, Aunt Leila asked, “So where are we going next?” She leaned forward to scan people’s faces.

  “Let’s see.” Jeni’s mom pulled up a map on her phone. “St. Louis? I know we’ve never been there.”

  Someone, maybe Jake, said, “Good barbecue, I’ve heard.”

  As others chimed in, Jeni shifted her attention to Tyler, who seemed oblivious of the conversation and busy with his food. Judging by his detached attitude, she guessed that he wouldn’t return to the cave with them to retrieve Ice’s medal, but she planned to ask anyway. He might gain some sort of closure.

  As they cleaned up after dinner, Jeni looked for an opportunity to talk to Tyler. Finally, he wandered outside the pavilion and she followed, approaching from behind so he couldn’t avoid her. “Hey, we’d like to go back to the cave and get Ice’s necklace,” she said. “Do you want to go?”

  He didn’t make eye contact, gazing over her head. Time seemed to stretch out uncomfortably so Jeni added softly, “Or could we borrow your car?”

  Now that they’d returned to where her family boarded the cruise, Jeni had access to her mom’s car and she half-expected Tyler to ask why she needed his, but he said, “I’ll drive you.”

  Speechless for a moment, Jeni recovered. “Uh…cool. I’ll grab Ice. And let my mom know we’ll be with you.”

  Ice offered Jeni the front seat, but she declined. Tyler had barely spoken to her since the incident, but he had talked to Ice about it. Just once. Tyler remembered that Ice told the police that he thought Elletre put something in his cup at the party that night. Although Ice knew the kiss had bewitched him, Tyler still sought a rational explanation. Since he never ate or drank anything that night, his current theory was that he’d been hypnotized.

  Jeni sympathized with her cousin. Heck, she’d just spent months renouncing her own actuality because she was afraid.

  By the time they reached the Yellow River, shadows were stretching out across the roadway. Jeni gathered the small bag of emergency tools her dad always threw in the trunk for car trips, glad she’d thought of it. As she and Ice got out of the car, Tyler remained seated. “I’ll wait here,” he said.

  Jeni and Ice exchanged a glance and she shrugged. If Tyler didn’t want to come, they weren’t going to convince him to change his mind.

  At the cave entrance they paused and Jeni met Ice’s serious gaze. This wasn’t about retrieving a necklace; it was about keeping future generations safe. Ice’s chest rose as he drew in a breath, and Jeni did the same, her eyes fixed on him instead of the narrow crevice.

  Heart thrumming, she followed Ice inside. As they neared the main chamber, Jeni gathered a fistful of his jacket, working to keep down the panicky feeling in her chest. Finally, when both of their lights fell on the dried husk of the korrigan’s body, she breathed a little easier.

  Veering to the left, they navigated through the passa
ge to the cauldron set in the cave wall. The water spilled over the rim of the basin as it had for decades. Ice shone his light into the bowl, illuminating the sun pendant and chain lying at the bottom. “I bet my mom never expected this would be a weapon.”

  “I still can’t believe my crazy plan worked,” Jeni said, shaking her head. “I’m lucky I had a good chemistry teacher and remembered the difference between ferrous and non-ferrous metals. When you mentioned your chain was corroding, I knew it had iron in it.”

  “So a korrigan is a fairy?” Ice was rummaging in the bag of tools.

  “Of a sort, I guess. The word ‘fairy’ was used in the description Dale read to me. And then I remembered reading that the reason people believed horseshoes are good luck is because they’re made of iron. People nailed them above their doors to ward off the fey. I don’t know how much it actually hurt her, probably just took her by surprise—which gave me a chance to run.”

  “Well, it definitely worked in the cauldron.”

  Jeni nodded. “Dale said the iron broke the magic that was sustaining her life. But he wasn’t sure what would happen when we took the medal out. “

  Ice stood with a hammer in his hand. “Well, we’re about to make sure no other evil entities will ever use it and no one innocent will stumble across it.”

  In retrospect, it was a good thing they were inside a cave, because they made a lot of noise breaking the cauldron out of the rock. As Jeni and Ice tried to wrench the metal bowl free, a light appeared from the direction of the large cavern. Frozen in place, they stared at each other bug-eyed.

  “What the hell is taking you guys so long?” Tyler grumbled, coming into view. Then he saw what they were up to. “You’ve got to be kidding me. I thought you were just coming in for the necklace.” Heaving an exaggerated sigh, he set his light down and grasped the edge of the metal basin.