Exile

by Caleb James

  Finn followed. “Charlie, this place wasn’t inhabited. It’s a gut job.”

  “Yeah.” He walked over to the porcelain tub. There was blood smeared on the surface, and inside was the screwdriver Liam had used as a weapon.

  He heard Finn in the tiny bedroom off to the right. “No one’s been in here for a while. You know what I think?”

  “What?”

  “This smells of a rent-stabilized apartment about to become destabilized.”

  “Explain.”

  “These old tenements, a lot of times people have been in them for decades, and you can even pass them down through relatives, like a mother to a daughter. End of the day, landlords get a fraction of the market rate, and nothing they can do about it. When and if someone finally moves out, if the place stays empty long enough and they invest a certain dollar amount in rehabbing it, they can rent it for the prevailing rate. So a unit like this, where they were getting four hundred bucks a month, is now two or three grand.”

  Charlie looked around, one room no bigger than a prison cell, toilet in a closet, a decent-size kitchen with the bathtub next to the sink, and one other okay-size room. “Right… for this little thing, but I get it. Lots of NYU students with lots of money.”

  “Yeah, pretty much pushed out everyone else. You got to be rich to live in this slum.”

  Charlie wandered from the kitchen to the bedroom with two windows, both shattered. He wrapped his hand with a tack cloth he found on the floor, looked out to make sure there was no one below, and smashed out the jagged remains of the one on the right. He ran his hand over the building’s seared brick and felt the bolt-holes where there should have been a fire escape. By code, any rentable apartment had to have at least two points of egress.

  Finn joined him. “Yeah, it’s a violation. Probably figured that while they were doing the reno, it was kosher. It’s not, and it’s not the only problem with this rattrap. The sprinklers didn’t function on half the floors, and the alarm didn’t sound at all.”

  Charlie’s jaw tightened. Kids died, and Liam…. If he hadn’t come when he did, Liam would never have made it. But what was he doing here? No one lives here.

  “So now my turn,” Finn said.

  “What?”

  “Your man, Naked Chihuahua Guy.”

  “He’s not my man.”

  Finn cleared his throat. “Fine, we’ll play by your rule. Generic naked blond guy. What was he doing here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You didn’t ask?”

  “He wasn’t big on questions.”

  “Yeah, suspicious fire… no, screw ‘suspicious.’ This was set. And your man is on the sixth floor of the building where whatever burned its way down came in just above him. So… let’s go with things you can’t ever say I said… like a cookie-scented Scud missile hit the building. It came through the roof, so either it landed there or was set there. Either way, your Liam… he was… like a target.”

  Charlie listened. It was a possibility he’d not considered. He walked to a homemade closet built from sheets of plywood, its garishly painted outer surface bubbled and destroyed by the heat. Whatever images had been there were largely undecipherable. The handleless doors were shut tight. He pulled out his pocketknife and worked the blade into the opening.

  “What’s in there?” Finn asked, coming to his side.

  The doors swung open. The painted scenes inside took their breath. “Holy….” Charlie stared, trying to take in the beauty and madness before him. A painted jungle gone bonkers. Every inch covered with unimaginable creatures, some with wings, some with bodies that were half insect and half human. A giant dull green ogre with an ax. It grabbed Charlie’s focus. That’s how I looked to him. Was that why he was so frightened? What the fuck is this?

  Finn pulled back the other door. “I can see why this is still in here. Somebody figured it was worth some money. Pity about the outside of it. You know what it reminds me of?”

  Charlie braced, kind of knowing where this was headed.

  “The stories your Gran would read us, Rory and me. Look, it’s the little people, the toadstool circles. Jesus, it’s like memory lane….” Finn shot a hand against the closet. “Oh shit!”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” He could barely speak and braced his other hand on the solid wood to steady himself.

  “Right.” Charlie guessed at the cause of Finn’s emotion. He too thought of Rory as he stared at a trio of silver-haired figures in the back of the closet. They looked mostly human but with pointy ears and sharp teeth that made him think there was more than vegetables in their diet. But their eyes made his heart race—purple. Something about the expression of the one in the center…. Not possible.

  “So no clothes in the closet,” Finn said, doing the one thing that helped when his ghosts came to visit—work. He stepped back. “Nothing in the fridge. It wasn’t even plugged in. So again, Charlie, what was naked Liam doing here?”

  “No clue.”

  “All right. I don’t mean to treat you—or him—like a perp, but we got to figure this shit out. You told me Liam left some papers here. That means you know where the guy is.”

  “I lied,” Charlie stated.

  “Okay, then.” Finn smiled. “So guess I will treat you like a perp. You lied to get up here. What are you looking for? And do not lie to me again, Charles Michael Fitzgerald.”

  Charlie turned to his friend. “It’s not a what, but a who. I’m looking for him, Finn. I’m looking for Liam.”

  Twelve

  UNABLE TO take to the wind, Liam followed Cedric on foot through the meadow into the bustling ruins of May’s royal city. The magic she’d used to maintain her various ventures—Fey TV studios, a movie set—had returned to the white-marble bones of their earlier existence. The ruined colonnades, playing fields, and temples were ancient and beautiful and dated to the days before the See and Unsee were separated by the Mist. And, for the first time in Fey history, no one had stepped forward to take the throne.

  “We have no king or queen,” Cedric explained as he swiveled to the side to let a mother elf, with her hand-holding brood, pass.

  Ruler or no, commerce lived on in the stall-filled open-air market. As Liam’s vision acclimated, the Unsee, with its rich diversity of sentient inhabitants, appeared to him: fairies of all colors and sizes, from tiny sprites to gargantuan cyclops, who despite their reputation were the gentlest of souls.

  “Anarchy suits us,” Liam commented as he took in the bustling market.

  “History tells us this will not last,” Cedric replied. “One hopes for the best and braces for the worst.”

  “There are three royal sisters. May is but one.”

  “True, but Katye is lost to our world, and Lizbeta, if she still exists, does so in the Mist. One wonders if any of them are still whole and fit to rule.” Cedric turned to Liam. “I would know how it is you traveled to the See. One day you’re here, and then…. Tell me.”

  Shame colored Liam’s cheeks. Like a well-worn pair of pants, the emotion clung. “When May left… when she took the haffling, your son Alex, I ran. I knew she would kill me. So I went to the one place where her power does not reach.”

  “The Center.”

  “Yes. I sought asylum but was not allowed in. I do not blame them. They knew me for what I am and what I’ve done. I’m sure they thought me May’s spy. So I hid in a cave by the Western Sea, waiting for her to come. Or for the Mist. I waited for death.”

  “I’m surprised any of us are still alive. But let’s not forget”—Cedric placed a hand on Liam’s shoulders—“you helped Alex in the end.”

  “Barely. And it did no good. She took him anyway.”

  “I still don’t understand how you left, or how you came back, not exactly broken but not whole… different.” Cedric stared at Liam. “Tell me of my son. Tell me that you’ve seen him. That he is alive.”

  “I have not seen him, and I’m not clear on either how I left
or how I returned, other than the latter was on the back of a hero’s dream. This is what I remember…. There was an explosion, and the smell of fairy fire, and a tunnel in the mist. Like something had burned a hole through worlds.” He remembered the heat and the reek. “It pulled me in… and then I don’t remember. I woke to fire and flashing lights. I was no longer here but there. Cedric, it was fairy fire.” A creature at a linen stall, with the lower bits of a praying mantis and the torso and head of a woman, turned. Liam recognized her.

  “Hello, Liam,” she said.

  “Dorothea.” The sound of May’s closest servant’s voice was like stepping back in time. His vision narrowed, and blood-filled memories caused him to freeze.

  “You look….”

  It was hard to speak. “Different, yes. I’m aware.”

  “We thought you dead. It’s what she would have wanted,” Dorothea said, twisting her head on its long green neck. “Tell me—”

  “No, he’ll tell you nothing,” Cedric said. He placed a guiding arm on Liam’s and led him to a fruit stall. He whispered, “She may be gone, but her reach remains. Those who were closest speak of her return. They pray for it.”

  Liam kept his voice low, “May lives. It was her. She has fairy fire. She has power.”

  Cedric nodded, aware of Dorothea’s acute hearing. “No surprise, although it does not make sense. Pieces are missing. If May is in the Mist, she will not give up. She will not let my children rest. It’s not in her nature. She means to rule, not just here but there as well. She will come for them.”

  Liam felt an ache in his chest, a thing that needed to be voiced. “I was meant to glamour and seduce your son Alex, to trick him in love.”

  “As I tricked my Marilyn… and she tricked me right back. What confounds me is how she forgives my treachery.”

  “I would know of that. I would know of forgiveness. Tell me.”

  Cedric looked back at a graceful dark-haired woman in a flowing floral dress, accompanied by a redheaded boy, no more than seven. The pair were headed toward them.

  Liam followed his gaze. “I should go. She will not wish to see me.”

  “No,” Cedric stated.

  “She must hate me.”

  “Perhaps. Cowards run, and heroes face what must be faced.”

  “I am no hero.” He thought of Charlie and of a stolen kiss in his fire-red truck. “I will face your Marilyn.”

  The woman stopped a ways from Cedric and Liam and stared. With her young son at her back, she approached. “Speak of the devil, and I will appear. What happened to you?”

  Her blunt question startled Liam.

  “Cat got your tongue?” She motioned her son to stay back. Her deep blue eyes widened. “You’ve been there, haven’t you? Answer me. You’ve been to the See, to my world.”

  “Yes,” Liam said, frightened by her rapid-fire questions. She has no fear.

  She closed the space, her face inches from his. “Alex… my son. Have you seen him?”

  “No.”

  She gasped and bent over, her hands on her hips, anguish on her face. “I don’t want to know this.” She looked up. “Is he alive?”

  “I do not know. I know that she no longer possesses him. She is in the Mist.”

  She nodded. “We’d heard rumors. She’s out of my boy. My brave boy.” Tears flowed. She looked to her husband. “Could he have survived that? Tell me, husband.”

  “I do not know, but he is strong, and he is brave. He gets that from you,” Cedric said, going to her side. “Shh.” He kissed her cheek and wiped her tears with his sleeve. He looked at Liam. “We fey scoff at the humans and think them lesser creatures. My Marilyn is braver than I have ever been or could hope to be.” He wrapped her in the folds of his russet jacket, his arms around her waist. “In her love I find the seeds of bravery. Never again will one of our children be placed in jeopardy.” He motioned for redheaded Adam to join them. Holding his family, he sighed. “I say these things, but we know that valor is quick to the tongue and tested in battle. Alex, our brave son, put his life after that of his mother, his brother, his sister, and the man he loved. I learn from him and from my Marilyn.”

  Marilyn stared at Liam. “Alex’s Jerod—what of him? He was in the Mist when May devoured Alex.”

  “I do not know. I was not there long.”

  “So what can you tell me?” Her frustration seemed at the boil.

  “I don’t know,” he repeated, amazed at how question after dangerous question shot from her lips.

  “You look human,” she spat at him. “You’ve lost your pointy sharp bits, and your skin is not so pale as my pasty Cedric. Your hair too, it’s more gold than silver. Did you dye it?”

  The little boy smiled at Liam from the warmth and safety of his father’s long coat. “I’m glad you’re back, Liam. We thought you’d been eaten by the Mist.”

  “No… I was in the See.”

  Adam’s eyes lit. “But you did not see my brother or my sister. Could you go back? Can I? I’m a haffling, you know. I can make the trip… like my brother. I won’t break.”

  Liam glanced from Cedric to the boy. Any other fey child would have received a sharp blow across the mouth and dire warning about the dangers of questions. Curiosity killed the Questling.

  Marilyn looked from Adam to Liam. “Yes. Smart child. I cannot make the trip. And you’re too young. But you….” Her gaze was glued to Liam.

  Cedric whispered in her ear, “I’m sorry.”

  “Yes, I know you are,” she said with more anger than she’d intended. “You have been forgiven… though at times I don’t know why. You, on the other hand…,” she spat at Liam through gritted teeth.

  “Sweetness… try to calm yourself. And no more questions,” Cedric said.

  Marilyn pulled away. She turned on her husband and his nephew. “Why should I? I have more than paid the cost for any questions, past or future. I will not live bounded by your fear and superstition. I will not raise Adam to be afraid. You say you want courage, husband? This is how it’s done. Do not hide from things that frighten you. You face them. And if they want a fight, you give it to them.” She gave him no chance to respond. “Now tell me, Liam, before you vanished, you begged my forgiveness for the role you played in May’s schemes. I called you a whore, for in truth, you were sent to seduce my firstborn son. It didn’t work. His heart was taken, and your glamour bounced like an egg off of Teflon.” She teared up. “Words are cheap, Liam Summer. But… I am prepared to offer forgiveness. You must earn it! You want my forgiveness, and I want news of my children in the See. I need to know if Alex is alive. I must get word to Alice, to tell her that I am well, that her brother Adam lives, and that we love her. I cannot take the trip, as I’m broken and barking mad on the other side. My place is here with Adam and Cedric. If you want my forgiveness, it is yours… for a price. I would know of my children. Do we have a deal?”

  Liam nodded. He looked at redheaded Adam, young and innocent, and at Marilyn, the source of Alex’s courage. He thought of Charlie, storming into a house on fire to save a worthless, whorish fey. “It is a fair price, Marilyn.”

  Cedric interjected. “It is not! Marilyn, there are few enough of us. I will not watch Liam killed for news of our children. See what the trip back and forth has done to him.”

  “Husband, know that I love you, and know that your sins have been absolved by your love and your actions. Liam has paid no such price, nor need he. He wants forgiveness…. It must be earned,” she said through gritted teeth.

  Cedric repeated, “The cost is too high. Do not be foolish, Liam. You are needed here.”

  Liam held Marilyn’s gaze and nodded. “The price is fair. All that remains is the means of my passage. I traveled on a dream. It brought me through the Mist.”

  “There are other means, as I know better than most.” She shot Cedric a pointed look. “There are mirrors, though I smashed the one that brought me here.”

  Liam looked to Cedric, the thought of return
ing to the See both terrifying and…. I could see Charlie again. Just to thank him, nothing more. “Alex rode in on the nightmare,” he stated.

  “Yes,” Cedric admitted. “But the nightmare, the puka, is beyond reason. It’s as likely to drown you as it is to carry you across.”

  Liam weighed his words; they were truth. Marilyn’s child had sacrificed himself to save his family, and in the process had set in motion the downfall of despotic Queen May. Yes, he wanted Marilyn’s forgiveness, and yes, he wanted to see Charlie, but there was something more. He could not find the words for it. It had something to do with ancient memories of his true parents, his mother, Ileana, and father, Cullen, of their murder, of the role he’d been forced to play in May’s court. And it had to do with a stolen kiss…. “Summon the puka, Cedric. I will do this.”

  Thirteen

  STILL IN his navy suit, Charlie left Finn and tracked down the manager of the burned-out building on East Third. As he walked the few blocks to the rental office on Sixth Street, he tried to clear his head. The things Finn had told him about the fire, that he’d seen with his own eyes, reminded him of why he chose to became a firefighter and not a cop like his dad, his brother Michael, and a couple dozen Fitzgerald uncles and cousins.

  “It’s what our clan does, Charlie,” Gran had said over brunch. “It’s what we’ve always done. We serve, protect, and run into buildings on fire.”

  As he entered the small un-air-conditioned storefront office, the smell hit first—cigarettes, which spilled from a dinner-plate-size ashtray, sweat, and vinegar. The source of it all was a squirrely man with an Eastern European accent, a bad comb-over, and a dingy button-down white shirt soaked under the pits. The man’s name—George Slotnik, Property Manager—was etched on a plastic pyramid at the edge of his desk.

  Charlie flashed his FDNY ID. “I need the name of the last resident in apartment twenty-four. And if you’ve got a forwarding address, that would be swell.”

  “I cannot give that information,” Slotnik replied, his attention split between Charlie and a plastic fork with which he was trying to spear something from a tall container, which stank of vinegar and cabbage.