Widdershins

by Charles de de Lint

  Lizzie

  The Custom House was hopping on Saturday night. Lizzie and Siobhan’s twin fiddles, backed by the lilting punch of Con’s guitar and Andy’s button accordion, filled the bar with one driving set of tunes after the other, much to the patrons’ obvious delight. They stomped their feet and otherwise kept time by clapping or banging on the tables. Directly in front of the stage, the dance floor was a thick press of valiant attempts at step dancing, with more flailing of arms and head bobbing than was usually called for.

  The energy from the audience translated to the band’s upping the drive of each subsequent tune set. Siobhan, so unassuming off stage, was showing off by step dancing as she fiddled and at one point, Lizzie was sure that Con was going to jump onto the nearest table and do his impression of a rock guitar hero, but it turned out he was only teasing the group sitting at that table.

  Finally, they slowed things down for a song, just to make sure that the floor didn’t collapse under the audience’s enthusiasm and send them all down into the hotel’s basement. Con stepped up to the mike and began an a cappella version of Cyril Tawney’s “The Blue Funnel Line” with the rest of the band joining in on harmony for the one-line refrains. They finished with an instrumental version of the song on whistles and accordion.

  The ensuing applause was enthusiastic, but the audience made it obvious that they wanted more dance tunes by returning to the dance floor and clapping in reel-time.

  Lizzie took her turn at the mike.

  “My car broke down last night,” she said when the noise died down enough for her to speak. “Right out in the middle of bloody nowhere. I thought I’d be sleeping in the back seat, but then a Good Samaritan got me up and running again—lucky, too, or maybe I wouldn’t even be able to be enjoying this night with all of you.”

  That brought a round of applause and Lizzie grinned at the crowd.

  “Anyway,” she went on, “I don’t think my rescuer was a big fan of Celtic music—”

  A few good-natured boos rose up.

  “I know,” she said. “What’s up with that? But one good turn deserves another, so here’s a set of American fiddle tunes we call the ‘The Two Billys Set.’ They’re for my rescuer Grey, wherever he might be tonight.”

  She stepped back from the mike to let Andy count them in, then off they went into “Billy in the Low Ground,” the twin fiddles growling on their low strings against the deep-throated rumble of Andy’s bodhran. Three times through, then they jumped keys into “Bill Cheatum’s” and Con joined them on guitar, playing a syncopated old-timey rhythm that brought out the American feel of the tune and kicked the energy up yet another notch.

  They followed that with two sets of Irish reels, and then the set was over.

  “Don’t go away,” Siobhan told the crowd. “We’ll be back with lots more music right after the break.”

  Andy turned down the sound from the stage. When he flicked the switch that brought the house sound system up, Johnny Cash’s deep baritone filled the air. That seemed enough to soothe a few members of the audience who hadn’t wanted the music to stop. The band left the stage, grinning ac each other.

  “This is a great venue,” Con said.

  Lizzie nodded. “Yeah, we always seem to get exceptional audiences when we play here. It must be something in the water.”

  “Or in the beer,” Siobhan said, “because, lord, can they put it away. You boys have fun now,” she added as she walked away.

  It was Andy and Con’s turn to work the merchandise table, so Lizzie followed Siobhan through the door behind the stage. They took the back stairs up to their room where Siobhan fell across her bed, arms outspread, and let out a long happy sigh. Lizzie got her jacket from where she’d left it draped over a chair. Siobhan turned her head to look at her.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Nowhere,” Lizzie said. “I just need to get some fresh air and clear my head.”

  “Yeah, it’s weird playing in a smoky bar again, isn’t it?”

  Many of the cities they played in had by-laws against smoking in restaurants and bars, but that kind of legislation hadn’t yet made it to out-of-the-way places like Sweetwater yet.

  Lizzie nodded. “My lungs feel like they did when I used to smoke. You want to come?”

  “I’m good. You go ahead.”

  It was peaceful outside the hotel. She could still hear the sound of the crowd and the house music playing in the bar, but the noise was muted and distant. Crossing the road, she stood at the top of the stairs leading down to the water and looked off across the river. There were a few lights on the far bank, but not many, and none higher up in the hills above the river.

  A crunch on the gravel behind her made her turn around. She was surprised to find herself face-to-face with Grey, her rescuer from last night.

  “Why did you call me?” he asked. “Who gave you my name?”

  No hello, how are you? Lizzie thought. But manners didn’t seem to be a priority for him.

  “I wasn’t calling you,” she said. “I just dedicated some tunes to you as a way of saying thank you for your help last night.”

  “You used my name.”

  “That’s usually what you do when you make a dedication.”

  But it was as though he hadn’t heard a word she’d said. Or maybe he just didn’t care.

  “Who gave it to you?” he repeated.

  “He said his name was Walker.”

  Grey nodded. “Of course. That old interfering fool. Even after the little freaks have butchered his daughter, he still wants us to live in peace with them.”

  Lizzie’s moment of feeling good vanished. Just like that, she was back in the weird nightmare world she’d stumbled into last night.

  “He didn’t say anything like that,” she said. “He was just . . . sad. Wouldn’t you be?”

  “I’m always sad.”

  He didn’t look it, Lizzie thought. He looked angry. Maybe he had the two confused.

  He turned away and looked out across the water, just as she’d been doing before he’d approached. After a few moments, he took a tobacco pouch from his pocket and rolled a cigarette with quick, practiced ease. When he had it lit, he offered it to her.

  Lizzie started to decline, but then she thought about how tobacco was a part of many Native American traditions, used in everything from calling up spirits to signifying peace between strangers. And seeing how he was a Native spirit, maybe this meant more to him than the automatic politeness of offering a smoke. Since he’d already established that he wasn’t exactly a shining example of politeness, this might be his way of making peace.

  She accepted the cigarette and had a puff. After returning it to him, she had to cough into her hand. There was a reason she’d given them up.

  “Thanks,” she said, her voice scratchy.

  He nodded and took another drag on the cigarette himself.

  “So how do you know Walker?” he asked.

  “I don’t, not really. Before I left the crossroads, I buried the remains of his daughter under that elm where we fought those weird little men—”

  “The bogans.”

  “The bogans, right.” She shivered, thinking of the horrible little creatures. “But just burying the remains still didn’t seem like enough, so I played a lament for her. And then he was just there.”

  “One of your fairy tunes.”

  “No, it was a Celtic one.”

  “It’s the same difference, Elizabeth Mahone.”

  She thought it was odd, his using her whole name the way he did. It was as though he was making a point. Then she remembered what Walker had told her.

  Names are everything. If you know the full, true name of a thing, it is at your mercy.

  So she supposed he was making a point. Except her name was just a name. Anybody could get it from the band’s Web site, or by picking up one of their CDs and looking at the line-up. She wasn’t sure names had the same impact in her world as they did in his, but it still m
ade her uncomfortable that he’d used it. Maybe it was because when she was around him, she was already a half step into his world, where this kind of a thing did make a difference.

  “Why don’t you like Celtic music?” she found herself asking.

  He shrugged. “It’s too much like the fairies who first gave it to your people: busy and frivolous.”

  “Well, I’d argue that,” she said, “but I’ve learned that there’s not much point in trying to change people’s minds when it comes to something as subjective as art. We like what we like, and words aren’t going to make a difference.” Especially not to someone as set in his ways as she figured he was. “But now I’m curious about what you do like.”

  “That’s easy,” he said. “The music of my people.”

  “What’s it like?” She smiled. “I’m guessing not busy or frivolous.”

  “You’d guess right. It’s like the beating of our hearts, which is an echo of the heartbeat of the world. It’s a serious music, the rhythms are strong, the melodies deceptively simple. Whether we play it on our own, or in a group, it connects us to the whole of the world, not simply the little piece of it that we inhabit in our minds.”

  “That’s how it is with the music I play, too,” she said.

  “It’s different. Our music has a sacred quality to it.”

  “Then you’ve never heard a slow air played by a master musician when he totally feels the music.”

  He cocked his head. “I thought you didn’t try to change people’s minds about subjective things.”

  “I guess I lied.”

  “I know you’re joking,” he said, “but you should know that the truth is also something we hold sacred—both fairy and my people. Your promissory word is more valuable than gold.”

  “I’ll remember.”

  Not that she planned to have anything more to do with either fairies or spirits. At least not if she could help it.

  “I should go,” he said.

  He dropped his cigarette butt onto the gravel and ground it out under his boot before picking it up and stowing it in his pocket.

  “Be careful,” he told her. “This music of yours calls to fairy, and you know from last night that they’re not all sweetness and light.”

  Thanks for that, Lizzie thought. She really needed to have it put in her head.

  “It’s what we do,” she said. “And we’ve never had trouble before.”

  “You never interacted with them before, either.”

  “Well, I don’t want to,” she told him. “And I don’t want to get caught up in any animosity between you, either.”

  “Sometimes you don’t get a choice,” he said. “And when that happens, you have to take a side.”

  She shook her head. “That’s not going to happen.”

  He regarded her for a long moment, then shrugged. He was good with the shrugs, she found herself thinking.

  The silence between them stretched, but not comfortably the way it did when Lizzie was hanging with Siobhan or one of her friends. She wondered why he was still here, having said he was going a few moments ago.

  “So, you’re like an Indian, right?” she asked just to be saying something. “I mean a Native American.”

  It made sense, considering his dark good looks, and his description of the music of his people, which sounded like what you’d hear at a powwow.

  But he shook his head. “No, the cousins come from an older race than that.”

  Silence fell between them once more, but this time Grey broke it. He kicked at the gravel before turning toward her.

  “I liked those tunes you dedicated to me,” he said.

  “Even though they were busy and frivolous?”

  “Even though.”

  And then he was gone, stepped away into nowhere, and she was alone at the top of the stairs. She stood there for a moment longer, listening to the river lap against the shore below, before she finally turned and went back into the hotel.

  It was time for their next set.

  Up until meeting Grey, she’d been really looking forward to getting back on stage—the energy had been so good tonight. At least it had been so far. The way she felt now, all she wanted was for the night to be over. She wanted the gig to be done, for the band to be wherever they were playing next, for all this weirdness that had intruded into her life to go away and bother somebody else. She could think of any number of likely candidates.

  The band played a few Renaissance Faires as well as festivals during the summer. Wandering around the grounds of the Faires, she’d met all kinds of people who couldn’t shut up about fairies and magic and the like. Half of them dressed like they were fairies, complete with pretty little store-bought wings attached to their backs, the other half claimed to have met them—though with what she knew now, that didn’t seem quite so preposterous anymore. But still. Why couldn’t this be happening to them instead? They’d at least appreciate it.

  Her mood hadn’t improved by the time she was back on stage and picked up her fiddle. Looking out at the crowd, they didn’t seem to generate energy now, as much as be a source of irritation. She sighed and turned her attention to making sure her instrument was in tune and rosining her bow. Siobhan stepped closer to her.

  “What happened to you?” her cousin asked, making sure to speak away from the microphone.

  “I met Grey again.”

  “What, just now? What did he—”

  But before she could go on, Andy called over to them, asking if they were ready.

  “Later,” Lizzie told her cousin.

  “I’ll hold you to that.”

  As Andy started to count them into their opening number, they turned back to the audience and waited for their cue to begin the first reel.

  Lizzie started the opening set of tunes still feeling glum, but by the time they’d finished those reels and started another set, the magic of the music pulled her out of herself—just as it always did—and the strange mood Grey had put her in faded away as though it had never crept up and taken hold of her. Soon she was grinning back at Siobhan, flirting with some of the guys on the dance floor, and generally having as good a time as she’d been having before they took their break and she’d run smack dab into another tangle of fairy weirdness.

  Screw Grey, she thought. These old tunes were as valid as the music he’d been talking about. They were just as inclusive as what you’d hear at any powwow. Because, really, how many kinds of music could appeal to as disparate a crowd as they had in here tonight? There was Tommy and Joe—the two old mechanics in their coveralls leaning against the back wall—the small-town Goths happily pogoing right in front of the stage, and every sort of person in between. The big difference was that the people in here were having fun tonight. Grey didn’t look like he even knew the meaning of the word.

  She felt like calling his name and bringing him back to see for himself what she’d been trying to explain to him, except he’d just bring her down again, so why bother? Instead she let herself fall into the music, not coming up for air until they were on their final encore.

  “Well, you cheered up,” Siobhan said as they were packing away their fiddles and whistles.

  Lizzie nodded. “Hard not to. God, I love this music.”

  “So what happened earlier?”

  Lizzie glanced at where Andy was putting away his own instruments. Con was already at the merchandise table where a line had formed that was happily long and crowded. All four of them would man the merchandise table now so that folks could get their CDs autographed by the full band.

  “I’ll tell you later,” she said. “We should go be famous.”

  Siobhan laughed. That was their line for the momentary buzz they got from signing CDs.

  “I’m going to put out a solo CD,” she told Lizzie, “so I’ll get to be even more famous than you.”

  “I’ll put out two.”

  “I’ll write a book as well—a tell-all revealing all your dirty secrets.”

  “I n
eed to have some first.”

  Siobhan shrugged. “I’ll just make them up, then.”

  “Make sure one of them includes Martin Hayes.”

  “No way. I’m saving him for myself.”

  Laughing, they joined the others at the merchandise table.

  It took a while to get through the line that had formed, autographing CDs and answering questions, but a half-hour after they’d finished their last song and gotten down from the stage they were finally done. Andy and Con ordered whiskeys from the bar and took them to the table where Liam McNamara, the whistle player they’d met last night, was sitting. He’d returned this evening with a few friends, but only one of them, a fiddle player named Neil Flynn, had stayed in hopes of another after-hours session.

  “You’re not heading off again, are you?” Andy asked Lizzie as the two women started to leave the bar.

  “We’re just changing,” Siobhan assured him.

  Lizzie nodded. “So, you can order us whiskeys, too.”

  But the real reason they were going back to their room was because Siobhan couldn’t wait any longer to hear about Lizzie’s latest encounter with the fairy-tale world. They sat down on Lizzie’s bed, backs against the headboard, while Lizzie repeated her conversation with Grey in as much detail as she could manage. Siobhan was a stickler for the finer points of a story and kept interrupting to ask how Grey had looked when he said a certain thing, or had he used just those words?

  “But in the end he said he liked the tunes you dedicated to him?” Siobhan asked when Lizzie was done.

  Lizzie nodded.

  “I think maybe he likes you.”

  “No, he doesn’t give off that kind of energy,” Lizzie said. “I mean, he’s about as sexy as you can imagine, but he’s also got this wall up about anything that doesn’t relate to his own people. I get the sense he’s very insular.”

  “With a big hate-on for Irish fairies.”

  Lizzie gave a glum nod. “Although I don’t think it’s just Irish fairies. I think it’s for any kind that aren’t native to this part of the world.”

  “Even the Indians emigrated here at one point.”