Widdershins

by Charles de de Lint

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. This is just new . . . or rather, unexpected.”

  “Yeah, it’s been awhile, hasn’t it? But I haven’t been taking out-of-town gigs for some time now.”

  It hadn’t really occurred to me before, but now that he mentioned it, I realized it was true.

  “How come?” I asked.

  “There was always the revel . . .”

  “Ah, the revel . . .”

  He’d asked me to go a few times, back when he was first going, but Ialways felt like it was too much of an imposition, asking him to take care of the invalid I was at the time. After that, it just didn’t come up again.

  “You never did go,” he said.

  “You make it sound like they’re not having them anymore.”

  “I’m sure they are. It’s just that I found out yesterday that my going as often as I did was due to a . . . I don’t know . . . a compulsion that was put on me.”

  “You mean like a spell?”

  “I don’t know. I guess.”

  “Well, what did Mother Crone say when you asked her about it?”

  “She’s the one who put it on me.”

  “What? And you haven’t confronted her about it?”

  “I haven’t. Not yet. Christiana told me. She said she went to the mall and asked Mother Crone to lift the compulsion.” He smiled suddenly. “Though knowing Christiana, I doubt it was necessarily a polite request.”

  I smiled with him. “Yeah, she can be feisty, all right.”

  “But the weird thing is the reason Mother Crone gave her for having put the compulsion on me in the first place. Apparently, she had some kind of premonition that if she didn’t keep me close to the court, something bad was going to happen to me.”

  “What kind of something bad?” I asked, already worrying.

  He shrugged. “She didn’t know.”

  “And you’re not worried?”

  “Of course I’m worried. Mother Crone’s a seer. But what can I do? If she doesn’t know, and there’s no one else I can ask . . .”

  “Do we know that for sure? Maybe Bones or Cassie could help you.”

  “I don’t know that Bones likes me all that much.”

  “Oh, pooh. It’s your brother that drives him crazy. You he likes.”

  Geordie smiled—I’ve pretty much always been able to jolly him out of a mood, though during the fallout from the Tanya breakup it was a tough sell. He had the rest of my sandwich and washed it down with some more coffee before turning to me.

  “You know about fairies,” he said. “Have you ever heard of an enmity between the ones that are native to North America and the ones that immigrated here?”

  “Not really. But Bramley would. He should be back some time this afternoon.”

  “Can’t—I’ve got this gig, remember?”

  “Right.”

  “So, do you want to come? I know it’s short notice, but I thought it might be fun.”

  I thought about sitting here in the greenhouse for the rest of the day, all on my own unless I sought out Goon or Bramley for company.

  “I’d love to get out,” I said. “If it’s not too much of a bother.”

  He just rolled his eyes at me.

  “Okay, okay,” I said. “I get the message. Yes, I’d love to come. When do we need to leave?”

  He glanced at his watch. “Now?”

  “Do I need to bring anything?”

  “Well, depending on how we feel, we might want to stay overnight in the hotel. They’ll comp us a room.”

  “Let me grab a few things.”

  I started to wheel away—I can get around now on my own two legs, but it’s way slower and my balance still isn’t great.

  “It’ll go quicker if you do the packing,” I added.

  He followed me into my room and got my bag from the closet while I wheeled over to the dresser and studied the clothes in the drawers.

  “Have you talked to Christy about this fairy business?” I asked as I tossed a few things onto the bed.

  He shook his head. “I meant to when I was over at his place last night, but then we got off on this whole other tangent of me making a CD to get the money to put down some roots. You know, actually get my own place, that kind of thing.”

  I paused on my way to the bathroom to look back at him. I could have told him he was welcome to keep living in my old apartment for as long as he wanted, but the idea of him actually making a commitment to record a CD—and all that would entail—took me too much by surprise.

  “So, how do you feel about that?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I’m not saying no.” He laughed and added before I could comment, “And yeah, I know. That is new. But I have to do something with my life. I look at Christy and Saskia and . . . I’m not exactly jealous. But I know I’d like that kind of stability in my life. I think I need it.”

  “Wow.”

  “I know. Took awhile, but maybe I’m finally growing up.”

  We’d both had troubled childhoods—it was part of what drew us together all those years ago when we first met, working part-time at the post office. We didn’t have real families of our own, so we had to make a new one for ourselves. He’d reconciled with Christy since then, and I was now working on doing the same with my sister Raylene.

  “We had to grow up too quickly,” I told him, “so I think we were allowed to indulge ourselves with late childhoods. And really, whose business is it what we do with our lives?”

  That sounded defensive, and I guess I was talking as much about myself as him, but he just nodded.

  “I’d be doing it for myself,” he said. “Because I want to.”

  “Then it’s a good thing. Let me know if I can help.”

  He gave me a funny look, then walked over to the bed and started stowing the clothes I’d put there into my bag.

  “Are you really going to need all of this?” he asked.

  I was in the bathroom now, getting my toiletries together.

  “Probably not,” I called back. “But it’s been forever since I’ve been on a road trip. Wait until I raid the kitchen.”

  “They have food at the hotel,” Geordie said.

  “Ah, but we need snacks for the drive.”

  It was another fifteen minutes before we were finally pulling out of Bramley’s lane in Christy’s old station wagon, which Geordie used far more often than Christy ever seemed to. My wheelchair was in the back. My bag was on the rear seat along with Geordie’s fiddle and his small knapsack. The food I’d raided from the kitchen was in a plastic bag on the bench seat between us.

  When I opened it, I found that Goon had slipped in sandwiches while he was helping me pack the food. Oh, and sensible man that he was, a couple bottles of water, too. I decided to save them for later and went straight to the road food.

  “Tortilla chip?” I asked and offered Geordie the bag.

  He laughed. “We’re not even into the burbs yet.”

  “We have to do the best we can,” I informed him. “It’s not far to Sweetwater, so it’ll be a short road trip and we’ve got a lot of food here.”

  He glanced at the bag of food and shook his head. “You sure you’re not part chipmunk?” he asked.

  “Because I’ve brought this stash of food along?”

  “Why else?”

  “Well, maybe you thought my face was getting fat—though,” I added as the thought came to me, “if I was an animal person, that’s probably exactly what I’d be. Or maybe a mouse. Or a mosquito.”

  “As opposed to?”

  “Oh, you know. The more Romantic kinds of animal people, like a deer or a wolf or an owl.”

  “Chipmunks are cute.”

  I nodded. “But they don’t get any respect. And they’re liable to get eaten by the wolves and owls.”

  “Which isn’t very Romantic.”

  “No. Not unless someone like Robbie Burns had gotten hold of the story.”


  Geordie put on a thick Scots accent and began to recite: “Och, wee chipmoosie, ye dinnae hae sae lang. The warld it is a fierce auld place and . . . and . . .” He looked to me for help.

  I shook my head. “You’re on your own, Geordie, me lad, though you get big points for ‘chipmoosie’.”

  “This is why I write tunes, not songs.”

  “Then I expect to hear ‘Lament for a Wee Dead Chipmoosie’ very soon.”

  We grinned at each other and I leaned back in my seat, happier than I’d been in a long time. I hadn’t realized just how much I’d missed goofing around in Geordie’s company, just the two of us, heading off to another gig where he’d be amazing and . . . well, I couldn’t dance up a storm anymore, but I’d be an enthusiastic member of the audience all the same.

  We weren’t complete idiots for the rest of the drive, but we did keep it light, staying away from heavy personal stuff, which is why I still didn’t bring up my having broken up with Daniel. There’d be plenty of time for that another day. Or maybe on the ride home. But we did talk a little more about this enchantment that Mother Crone had put on him, and then, of course, I got worried all over again about what sort of danger might be coming his way. Geordie being Geordie, he refused to let on that it was any big deal and turned the conversation to what he knew about the band he’d be playing with tonight.

  I let him get away with it. I didn’t want to talk about Daniel, he didn’t want to talk about this. We could get to all of that later. For now, I’d rather just enjoy the drive, short though it was, because a little over an hour and forty minutes after pulling out of Bramley’s lane, we were there, driving along Sweetwater’s main street.

  “Wow,” I said, looking around. “This place has changed. It’s all so . . .”

  “Charming.”

  “Okay, I’ll go with that. I was going to say touristy.”

  Geordie shrugged. “What are they supposed to do? The mills and mines are all closed, the logging industry’s dead, and nobody’s farming any more. The tourist trade is all they’ve got left.”

  “Oh, I’m not complaining,” I told him. “Or even making fun. It’s just a surprise, that’s all. The last time I was here was with you and everything was wonderfully ramshackle.”

  Geordie smiled. “I’m guessing ramshackle’s not so wonderful when you actually have to live with it.”

  “I think there’s another tune title in there, but I’m too lazy to go looking for it.”

  I sat up a little straighter as we came up to the hotel.

  “Now what?” Geordie asked.

  “Nothing,” I said, taking in the hotel’s new paint job and the little patio out front. “It cleaned up well.”

  “I haven’t been here for a few years myself,” Geordie said. “I wonder if Eddie’s still running the place.”

  “I remember liking him—he was so easy to tease. But why wouldn’t he be there? I thought he was the owner.”

  Geordie nodded. “But he was always talking about moving to someplace warm.” He pulled the car into a parking space alongside the hotel, then turned to me. “Shall I get the chair?”

  “Not just yet, but I will need you to help me get out of this seat.”

  That’s the problem when a chair’s too low—I can’t get the leverage to stand on my own. I made that mistake once on the sofa in my room at Bramley’s and had to stay on it all night until Sophie came looking for me in the morning. Mostly I stick to my wheelchair. It’s comfortable and easy to get out of when I need to, plus it’s mobile, so I don’t even have to get out of it if I’m feeling lazy.

  I also use it out of the house a lot because I tire too quickly, and it’s no fun walking with me when tortoises and snails are whipping by on either side. But I’m kind of self-conscious about meeting new people in it. No matter how nice they are, you’re forever Wheelchair Girl in their minds and it puts this whole weird colour into your relationship.

  So, while I knew I’d use it later, for now I wanted to hobble into the hotel with my canes and just be Cane Girl. When you stand upright, even when you can barely do it like I get when I’m tired, people at least see you as pretty much normal.

  Geordie came around to my side of the car and helped me out. I leaned against the car while he got our stuff from the backseat and admired this young handsome guy who was walking our way from the front of the hotel. When Geordie got his head out of the car, he grinned and introduced me to Con Connelly, the Knotted Cord’s new guitarist. He was the one who’d called to ask Geordie to fill in and, while I didn’t know him personally, I had seen him playing in various bands over the years. I just hadn’t known his name.

  “Let me grab that,” he said, taking my bag from Geordie.

  They were both nice about pacing me to the hotel’s foyer. Without me, they could easily have gotten there in a fraction of the time.

  “A word of warning,” Con added as we went through the front door. “Lizzie’s gone all superstitious ever since Siobhan took her fall last night and is insisting we wear these little good-luck charms she’s made up for us. She’ll probably have one for you, as well.”

  He indicated something pinned to the front of his shirt, but turned away before I could have a real look at it. And then it got busy with the other band members showing up and Eddie coming from a back room to give both Geordie and me a hug. Eddie was the same jovial, balding man I remembered from years ago, and though I wasn’t surprised he remembered Geordie—Geordie’s played here a kazillion times, after all—I was surprised that he remembered me, too.

  “Are you staying the night?” he asked.

  Geordie and I looked at each other.

  “I’m game if you are,” I told him.

  Eddie beamed when Geordie said we would.

  “I love it,” he said. “It’ll be like old times, except there’s no way you’re talking me into swimming again. Not in the Kickaha in March.”

  “You seemed to like it the last time,” Geordie said.

  “No, that was the whiskey that liked it. I came down with a cold that lasted three weeks.”

  “How about if we say ‘pretty please’?” I asked.

  “Don’t you dare go all puppy-eyed on me,” he said, his voice stern, his eyes twinkling. “You know I can’t say no to those eyes of yours.”

  I guess he really did remember me, because I was the one who’d actually sweet-talked him into playing polar bear that March afternoon a few years ago. In my own defense, I’d been more than a little tipsy at the time. We all had been.

  He checked us into a room with twin beds and then, after introductions were made with the rest of the band, we all trooped into the bar and commandeered a table by the window. Or at least they all trooped. I was a little slower, and Lizzie dropped back to walk with me. My gaze went to the front of the black fleece vest she was wearing and took in the little twig she had sewn onto the fabric with a length of red thread.

  “Having fairy trouble?” I asked.

  She paused and got this strange look, part embarrassed, part guilty. I stopped with her, leaning on my canes.

  “What do you mean?” she said.

  “Con told us you were having everybody wear charms, and that looks like a rowan twig.”

  “God, of course,” she said, and it was like a little light went on behind her eyes. “You’re that Jilly Coppercom.”

  “I didn’t know there was more than one of me, though that would be handy. You know, for when I didn’t want to do something, but had to show up anyway. I could just send my double.”

  “No, I mean, you know all about fairies, what with your paintings and everything.”

  “I don’t paint so much anymore.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. . . .”

  “It’s okay. So what’s with the fairy charms?”

  She glanced at the table, before looking back at me.

  “Can we talk about it later?” she asked. “Not everyone’s in the loop. The guys’d think we were nuts if
they knew what we’ve seen—Siobhan and I, that is. Well, I saw it, but Siobhan’s the one who got hurt. . . .”

  I gave her a steady look. “Siobhan was hurt by fairies?”

  She nodded.

  “And you have everybody wearing charms so that they won’t get hurt as well?”

  “I know. It sounds so stupid.”

  I shook my head. “It doesn’t sound stupid, it sounds unfair. If your other band members are in danger, don’t you think they have the right to know about it?”

  “I don’t think they’re really in danger.”

  “Hence the charms,” I said.

  “They’ll think I’m crazy.”

  “I’ve been there,” I told her. “But it’s better than the alternative, which is somebody else getting hurt because they don’t know what’s going on.”

  “I suppose . . .”

  I left her to think about it and continued on to the table, settling happily in a chair when I got there. I was still stiff from the drive, and all the excitement in the foyer had tired me out. Lizzie took the other empty chair across the table from me.

  “So, what were you guys talking about?” Andy asked.

  I glanced at Lizzie and saw that she just couldn’t do it. So I turned back to Andy.

  “Fairies,” I said.

  Lizzie sighed and stared down at the table. Siobhan’s head jerked up. Geordie looked from Lizzie to me with interest, while the other two men smiled.

  “Fairies,” Andy repeated. “Like the little fluttery things that you see on T-shirts at the Ren Faires?”

  I nodded. “Although the real ones come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes.”

  “You’re being serious, aren’t you?”

  Beside him, Con was grinning. He turned to look at Lizzie.

  “I never thought you were into that kind of thing,” he said.

  “I wasn’t,” she said. “I’m not. But I haven’t been given much choice about it.”

  She shot me a look that gave her words a double meaning. She didn’t seem so much angry with me as a little relieved that I’d brought it up. But also embarrassed.

  “I suppose you might as well hear the whole thing,” she went on and proceeded to tell how her car had broken down at the crossroads, taking us through the story all the way to when a pair of invisible hands gave Siobhan a shove down the stairs last night.