Widdershins

by Charles de de Lint

  “I know. But apparently Grey’s ancestors were already here when the Indians arrived.”

  “If not Grey himself.”

  Lizzie gave her cousin a surprised look. “Do you think?”

  “Well, fairies are supposed to be immortal, aren’t they?”

  “I guess.”

  Lizzie hadn’t considered that. Grey looked so much like a regular person, it wasn’t until he did something impossible—starting up her car with a laying on of hands, stepping away into nowhere—that she’d remember he was this magical being. He wasn’t like Walker with his antlers and deer head, which left no question as to what he was.

  “Still, if he has been around that long,” Siobhan said, “that’s a long time to carry a feud.”

  Lizzie smiled. “Like the Irish aren’t any better.”

  “We have excellent reasons for our feuds.”

  “Judging by these bogans I had the run-in with,” Lizzie said, “I think he’s got a pretty good reason, too. They really were horrible.”

  Siobhan shrugged. “That doesn’t mean all fairies are going to be like that. There’s always good and bad, and consider the source. Of course Grey is going to resent them. People always resent something new, especially when that something new is taking their land or their jobs or whatever. Remember Pappy’s stories about what it was like when his dad moved the family from Ireland? There’d be signs up that said ‘No Irish,’ just like there were for the blacks. And while maybe some of the Irish were hooligans, he wasn’t a bad person.”

  “I suppose.”

  “There’s just a period of adjustment.”

  “Except, apparently, this one’s been going on for a few hundred years. And I think it’s different from how it is with people. It’s not like fairies need jobs. And I get the sense that the whole concept of a homeland means a lot more to them than it does to human beings.”

  “What about Ireland and the Middle East? And that’s just for starters.”

  Lizzie shook her head. “That’s political. I think their idea of home runs a lot deeper.”

  “Okay,” Siobhan said, laughing. “So down with all the nasty invading fairies, then. We should start putting up signs at our shows: ‘Fairies go home.’ Maybe we could make up T-shirts and bumper stickers.”

  “I don’t think you should be saying stuff like that,” Lizzie said as she gave a worried look around the room. “Didn’t Pappy used to tell us that you’re only supposed to refer to them as the Good Neighbours—or something like that—and if you didn’t, you’d attract their unwelcome attention? And let me tell you, it can be pretty unwelcome. I don’t ever want to see those bogans again.”

  “Do you think they’re watching us right now?”

  “I don’t know. When they disappear, they go into some place called the between, but what does that mean? I’ll bet they can see us from there if they want to.”

  “Now that’s just creepy,” Siobhan said.

  Lizzie nodded. “I wish I hadn’t thought of it.”

  They fell silent for a moment, then Siobhan got up from the bed.

  “Well, screw them,” she said. “Let’s go join the boys for a whiskey and a few tunes.”

  Lizzie followed her cousin out of the room, pausing in the doorway to look back inside. Were there really invisible presences watching them, listening to their conversation? Pappy’s stories were one thing, but having actually seen the bogans for herself . . . that put a whole new spin on how dangerous they could be.

  “Are you coming?” Siobhan asked. “Or did you see someone interesting in there? Maybe tall, handsome, and Native?”

  Lizzie glanced at where her cousin leaned against the wall, arms folded, a teasing smile playing on her lips.

  “Hardly,” she said.

  She shut the door and let Siobhan usher her down the stairs. Halfway down, Siobhan made a startled cry from behind her. Lizzie started to turn, but her cousin was already tumbling into her and the two fell down the remaining stairs. Lizzie managed to grab hold of the banister and banged up against the wall, shaken but unhurt. Siobhan wasn’t so lucky. She twisted as she fell and landed hard on her arm.

  Lizzie got her balance and hurried down the last few steps to help her cousin.

  “Ow, ow, ow!” Siobhan cried.

  “Are you okay—no, that’s stupid. Of course you’re not okay. Can you sit up?”

  After Lizzie helped her settle on a riser, Siobhan put a hand gingerly on her right arm and winced.

  “Oh, god,” she said. “I think I broke my arm.”

  “What happened?” Lizzie asked.

  Siobhan glared up the stairs. “Someone pushed me.”

  Lizzie followed her gaze, but the stairway was empty.

  “There’s no one there,” she said.

  “No one we can see, maybe. But I felt someone push me—some invisible piece of fairy shite. Ow. God, this hurts.”

  “We have to get you to a hospital,” Lizzie said.

  She gave another glance up the stairs, nervous now. Did she hear a fading echo of mean-spirited laughter?

  “I don’t want to go to a hospital,” Siobhan said. “I want to pound in the face of the little shite who pushed me.”

  But she let Lizzie help her to her feet and walk her into the bar.

  They made no mention of invisible assailants when they told the others what had happened, leaving it at an unfortunate stumble on the stairs. Siobhan calmed down somewhat under the concerned attention she was getting, but her arm didn’t feel any better.

  “I guess the nearest hospital’s in Tyson,” Andy said.

  Liam nodded. “But I’ve got a friend who’s a doctor, and he lives here in town. He’ll have a look at her.”

  “It’s almost two o’clock in the morning,” Lizzie said.

  “It’s okay. Things are different in the country. We don’t follow rules and regs the same way you city folk do.”

  “Oh, like you’re a country boy now,” his friend Neil said.

  “Arm,” Siobhan said before Liam could respond. “Hurting a lot.”

  “Have a whiskey,” Con told her, pushing the glass across the table to her.

  Liam’s doctor friend didn’t seem particularly surprised to see the group of them show up on his front porch at such a late hour, though he did blink at them for a long moment. Standing barefoot in the doorway, in jeans with a T-shirt untucked, he didn’t look much like a doctor. However, once they explained the situation, he woke up and became all business. Forty-five minutes later, they were all back at the bar, sitting around the table with another round of whiskeys—this round on the house, the bar man assured them before going back to closing up for the night.

  “What are we going to do?” Siobhan said.

  She had her right arm in a sling and wore a miserable expression.

  “Do about what?” Andy asked.

  “Me. Not playing. The band. Keep up here, Andy.”

  “We’ll make do till you get better,” Lizzie assured her.

  “Yeah, you can work the merch table,” Con said.

  That actually teased a faint smile from Siobhan.

  “You’re willing to make that sacrifice?” she asked. Then she looked at the others. “The two fiddles is a big part of our sound—you know it’s what gets us the better gigs.”

  “Plus the fiddlers are very cute,” Con put in.

  She smiled at him. “Thank you for that. But you heard the doctor. I can’t play for weeks and we have a ton of gigs lined up, starting with the two shows we still have to play tomorrow. None of the people who’ve booked us are going to be very happy when we show up with only one fiddler and a new full-time merch table worker—” She glanced at Con. “—cute though they both may be.”

  “So we’ll get someone to fill in till you’re able to play,” Andy said. “I’ll take a cut in my share of the pay so that we can afford it.”

  Lizzie and Con both nodded in agreement.

  That was the problem with the career that the
y’d chosen, Lizzie realized. In the best of circumstances, they made do and covered their expenses, and some months they even had a little left over to put in the bank. But they didn’t make enough that they could afford medical insurance or any kind of compensation coverage for a situation such as this.

  “Who would we get?” Lizzie asked.

  Because she knew just how hard it would be to replace her cousin. They’d played together for so long that there was an intuitive bond between them, almost as though one musician was playing on two instruments. They traded harmonies at the drop of the hat, jumped tunes, or even keys, without having to warn the other.

  Siobhan turned to Liam’s friend Neil. “You play the fiddle, don’t you?”

  “Don’t look at me,” he said, holding up his hands. “There’s no way I could keep up with you guys.”

  “So, who do we know that could keep up?” Andy asked.

  “Who doesn’t already have a gig,” Siobhan put in.

  They all fell silent.

  “What about Geordie?” Con said finally.

  Andy gave him a surprised look. “Geordie Riddell?”

  “Unless there’s another local fiddler named Geordie.”

  “No, it’s just . . . he’d be booked for months, wouldn’t he?”

  Con shook his head. “I guess you don’t know him that well. He’s got this weird thing about commitment, so he really only does pickup gigs.”

  Siobhan gave him a surprised look. “But he’s been in lots of bands. I can’t count the times I’ve seen him around town.”

  “But they’re never bands that tour,” Con said. “Or at least, he doesn’t tour with them.”

  “Then why would he play with us?” Lizzie asked.

  “I don’t know that he will, or can. But since it’s just a fill-in gig, there’s a good chance he’ll do it. We could get him to play with us tomorrow, without mentioning the rest of our gigs. If it goes well, we can ask him then. If not, well, we’ve got five days to find another replacement before our next gig.”

  The other band members exchanged glances.

  “I’d love to play with him,” Lizzie said.

  Siobhan gave a glum nod. “Me, too.”

  “He’d know all the tunes,” Andy said. “Amy told me once that unless you write the tune just before you play it for him, he probably already knows it.”

  “And he would know it by the time you’ve gone through it a couple of times,” Con said. “So, what do you think? Should I ask him?”

  The rest of the band nodded their agreement.

  “Then I’ll call him first thing in the morning,” Con said.

  He lifted his whiskey and the others followed suit, clinking the glasses against each other.

  “No offense,” Liam said to Siobhan, “but this is going to be sweet. If you guys can get him to play, I mean.”

  Siobhan shrugged. “At least I’ll get to hear some great music.”

  It wasn’t until they were alone again in their room that the two women addressed what had really happened in the stairway.

  “Oh, I’m sure I was pushed,” Siobhan said in response to Lizzie’s question. “I could feel the hands on the small of my back just before they gave me a shove.”

  They both looked nervously around the room.

  “This is all my fault,” Lizzie said.

  “Oh, right.”

  “No, it is. I’m the one who got involved with them in the first place and that’s gone and brought you to their attention.”

  “Mouthing off.”

  Lizzie shrugged. “They’d probably never even have heard you if they weren’t already spying on me.”

  “It’s not like you asked to be attacked by them in the first place.”

  “I know. But still . . .”

  “Still, nothing. It wasn’t your fault, and this is a free country where we can say what we want, so it isn’t my fault either.” Siobhan gave a meaningful look around the room. “There are other, more civilized ways of making your point in an argument.”

  They fell silent, almost expecting a response, but none came.

  “So what do we do now?” Lizzie asked.

  “I don’t know.” Siobhan gave another look around the room. “Keep our mouths shut and try to get along, I suppose.”

  Lizzie smiled. Like that would be easy for her cousin. She wasn’t normally bad-tempered, but she certainly wasn’t shy about speaking her mind.

  “Do you remember any of the protections against fairies that Pappy told us?” she asked.

  Siobhan reached into drawer of her night table with her right hand and took out the expected copy of the Bible.

  “There’s this,” she said. “And I remember iron and rowan twigs and oatmeal.”

  Lizzie nodded. “None of which we have.”

  “We’ll figure it out. I think I saw a mountain ash out back of the hotel, and that’s the same diff’ as rowan. In the meantime, I’m dead on my feet—well, not literally, considering I’m lying down and still breathing.”

  “I don’t know if I can sleep.”

  “I suppose we could take turns standing guard,” Siobhan said, “but what’s the worst they’re going to do? Tie our hair into fairy knots? They better have a damn light touch, because if I wake up and catch them at it, I’ll have more than words for them, one-armed or not.”

  Lizzie nodded. Unless they’d drunk a lot—as Siobhan had last night—they were both light sleepers. It often felt like a curse, because musicians on the road didn’t always get the best accommodations, but it would be useful now.

  “But I’m not getting undressed,” she said.

  Siobhan smiled. “You’ll have to at some point or you’re going to smell louder than you play.”

  “Smells don’t have volume.”

  “So sue me. But first help me get my top off.”

  Lizzie felt terrible all over again when Siobhan’s injured arm was revealed in all its painful, bandaged glory.

  “This sucks,” she said.

  “No,” Siobhan said, “being dead would suck. This is just inconvenient.”

  “You make a much better invalid than I ever would.”

  “It’s one of my strong points, ranked just under my humility.”

  Lizzie laughed. “Luckily, I got all the talent.”

  “I’d hit you, but I’m too tired and I only have one working arm. But consider yourself on probation.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Siobhan shook her head. “Now you’re just being mean.”

  Jilly

  I was having lunch by myself in the greenhouse studio when I heard a tap on the glass pane of the side door that leads into the garden. Looking up, I saw it was Geordie and waved him in.

  “Hey, stranger,” I said. “You want some coffee? It’s in the thermos,” I added, pointing to the corner of the room by the little sink Sophie and I used to clean our brushes.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Do you want some?”

  “No, I’m good.”

  There was a time when we were forever dropping in on each other, at all hours of the day and the night. That hadn’t happened for the longest time. For me to go anywhere was a major production, and these days Geordie always called ahead. I suppose that small change might have reflected a much larger one, and in some ways it had. We weren’t as much an everyday part of each others’ lives anymore. But the good thing was that when we were together, it was like nothing had changed at all.

  Geordie poured himself a cup from the thermos and brought it over to the empty chair beside my wheelchair. He had a sip of his coffee and grinned at me.

  “This is good,” he said.

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” I told him. “I haven’t gotten all culinary in my dotage. Goon made the coffee, just like he made this sandwich. Do you want some? Because I’m pretty much done.”

  “No, I already ate.”

  But after a moment he took one of the sandwich quarters still on my plate.

  “How come you n
ever got the nickname Stomach Riddell?” I asked him.

  “Same reason no one calls you Smart Mouth Coppercom.”

  “But those would be good gangster names.”

  He pretended to think about it, then shook his head.

  “No, they’re not tough enough,” he said.

  “Well, there you go. And all along I’ve been thinking that they were supposed to be silly.”

  “Silly would be if either of us actually were gangsters.”

  “I’d make a great gangster,” I told him.

  I gave him my tough girl look, but all he did was laugh.

  “So what brings you by on a Sunday afternoon?” I asked.

  “Are you up for a road trip?”

  He had a twinkle in his eye that was so familiar, I actually got a little pang of nostalgia that rose up from deep in my chest. A melancholy for how things had once been when we were young and full of energy and . . . well, more mobile on my part.

  “Unless you and Daniel already have plans,” he added.

  “No, I’m on my own today,” I said. “Mona stayed overnight, but she left right after breakfast.”

  I wasn’t sure why I didn’t tell him that I’d broken up with Daniel last night. We usually shared all the details of our respective love lives. Maybe it was because I was the one who’d done the breaking up and I knew that, two years after the fact, he still carried a confused hurt over Tanya having dumped him the way she had, just like that, out of the blue. I guess I didn’t want him to side with Daniel, who’d undoubtedly been as confused when I did the same thing to him.

  “So, where are you bound?” I asked.

  “The Custom House Hotel in Sweetwater. The Knotted Cord’s playing there. One of their fiddlers sprained her arm last night, and they asked me to fill in for the matinee and evening shows.”

  I couldn’t help the surprised look I gave him. Not that he was asked to fill in, because lord knows, he’s one of the best fiddlers this city’s ever produced. No, it was his asking me if I wanted to come along.

  We used to do this all the time, go on little road trips to out-of-the-way towns and villages up the line where he’d have some gig. That stopped when he moved to L.A., and hadn’t come up again since his return a few years ago.