by Susan Conley
Okay. “Pooka? Pooka? Please unlock my door. Please let me out. You didn’t like being trapped in the pot, did you? How do you think I feel? Pooka?”
Nothing. Annabelle, out of the mood for food, moved the pasta off the burner and shut off the stove. She dug out a pile of her witchy books, and started thumbing through the indexes. The book about fairies was informative, but Annabelle didn’t think any of the extremely helpful hints applied in this case. The rituals in another volume were all designed to banish spirits, not call them forth. Poltergeists, phantoms, and apparitions of every stripe were covered in detail, but no one had a thing to say, good or ill, about Pookas. She slammed the last book shut; strike fifteen, she was out.
As always, she put everything back in its rightful place, and went around the room, lighting every candle she owned and lowering the light of her floor lamp. She’d gotten over her aversion to sage, and decided to fire up the fresh smudge stick she’d bought last week in Stick, Stone and Bone. It took some patience, as the tightly packed dried herb resisted easy lighting, but Annabelle persevered. As she inhaled the smoke and blew her breath on the struggling flame, she felt herself begin to calm down from the overly eventful day, and as the smoke began to fill the flat, Annabelle felt the first bit of peace she’d had in —
A sharp, echo-y shout filled the room and the Pooka dropped straight down from the ceiling and onto the floor at Annabelle’s feet. Its billowing hair seemed to snarl with annoyance, and Annabelle held the fully burning stick of sage in front of herself, like a vampire hunter flourishing a crucifix.
“Stop waving that bleedin’ thing about,” the Pooka groused, rubbing its bum and rising. “You summoned me properly, so put it out, why don’t you.”
Annabelle looked at the innocently smoking sage and shrugged. That’s something to put down in a book — maybe she’d be the one to write about Pookas for posterity, and close the Pooka information gap.
“Well?” The Pooka took on the shape of a centaur and perched its near-side hindquarters on the arm of the couch. Its eyes glittered brightly hazel, the only consistency between shiftings, and Annabelle made another ‘note to self’ as regarded the increasingly interesting idea of a little Pooka handbook or something —
“I haven’t got all night!” The Pooka’s bellow blew back Annabelle’s hair; she put down the sage, and sat down on a chair, facing the glaring half-man, half-horse.
“What else do you have to do? Who else are you torturing?” Annabelle grumbled, glaring back at the mythical beast.
“You certainly weren’t too keen on hearing me out earlier — ”
Annabelle cut across the whining tone. “Listen, we have to come to some sort of an agreement. I have a gig tomorrow, one that you forced me into taking, I might point out, and I am still locked in here!”
The Pooka had the good grace to look a bit guilty, and hunched its massive shoulders in contrition. “Oh, right. I forgot. Sorry.”
“Forgot! Sorry! What kind of all-powerful paranormal figure are you!” She would get a guardian spirit that was dotty and forgetful, wouldn’t she?
“I am not dotty!”
“Stop reading my mind!”
More glares all around, and Annabelle realized that she’d been shouting at the top of her lungs. Great; all she needed was an untimely visit from —
KnockknockKNOCKknock — KNOCK! Annabelle looked at the Pooka, and it turned into a little mouse. She gestured at it, and the mouse twitched its little nose in the direction of the door.
“This is all your fault!” Annabelle hissed, and the mouse ran down the couch, and jumped up into the sink. Annabelle undid the chain and locks, and shook a finger at the rodent. “You better help me!”
Annabelle opened the door, and surprise, surprise, there was Nosy Ned in all his fervent glory, his eyes practically rolled back in his head at the thought of a potential rescue.
“Hey, Ned,” said Annabelle, in what she hoped was a passionless, disinterested, not-needing-help-of-any-sort tone.
“I heard a scream!” He was virtually foaming at the mouth. “I figured you were in trouble!”
“No trouble,” Annabelle soothed. “It was the television.”
“You don’t have a television! Remember, when I asked you tape the Britney Spears concert for me, on HBO, you said you didn’t have a television! Remember? You said you couldn’t do it because you didn’t have a — ”
Unbelievable. “Ned, that was like, four years ago! Really, everything’s fine, thanks anyway, but — ”
She tried to shut the door, but Ned had slyly wedged his foot against the doorjamb, and he wasn’t budging. In fact, he was quite forcefully pushing back, his roly-poly frame masking a surprising strength. Annabelle tried to shove him out without appearing to shove him out. It soon became clear that she was fighting a losing battle, and as Ned’s avid little face lit up with imminent triumph, and as Annabelle was starting to see her life flash in front of her eyes, he suddenly went limp as a noodle and fell to the floor. Annabelle gasped, and made to lean down to help him, when just as suddenly he jerked to his feet. Head and hands flapping, he swung around and mounted the stairs, taking them two at a time, his feet barely touching the industrial strength carpet that covered the risers.
Annabelle shut her door, and turned to look at the Pooka, now having taken the shape of what she guessed was an Italian puppeteer. The Pooka laughed merrily, and wiggled its fingers as if manipulating a marionette. Annabelle shook her head and blew out a relieved breath. “Thanks,” she said, only a teensy bit grudgingly. “That was a close one. Hey!” Annabelle sat back down, and leaned forward eagerly. “If you can do that, do you think maybe you could — ”
She was cut off by an irate and sarcastic braying bark. The Pooka shifted its shape, flapping its flippers and throwing back its head to balance a striped rubber ball on its nose.
“Yeah, okay, got it.” Annabelle sat back. “So what’s the point of this relationship, then? You only help me when it suits your mysterious whims, and I have to take you back to Ireland.” She looked away, feeling a sadness that she thought she’d conquered days ago. “Wilson and I were supposed to go in June, and now I don’t want to go at all!” She turned back to glower at the Pooka. “What in the world could possibly be in this for me?”
“Well, let’s see … ” The Pooka shifted back to its elfin figure, and it tapped itself on its chin in thought. “You get your puir wee broken widdle heart fixed, you get to become a successful writer, and you get your husband. But sure, what’s that in the grand scheme of things?”
“Hu — Hu — Huh? Husband? What? Who?” Annabelle jumped up and, lacking the room to get up a good session of pacing, sat back down again, hard.
“That’s for me to know and you to find out.” The Pooka sat back and allowed a triumphant breeze to tease its cloak.
“What if I don’t want a husband!” Annabelle’s hands were knotted in her lap.
“What do ye take me for? Some feckin’ thicko?” The Pooka rose and came to stand over Annabelle, who refused to shrink back. “You will do as I say or there will be trouble, missy, let me tell you.”
Annabelle rose and brazened it out. “Oh yeah? Not if I figure out how to get rid of you first!”
The Pooka smiled, its hazel eyes alight with guile. “Sure, what’s an amended bargain between friends? Let’s see … ” It floated up to the ceiling and spread itself out like a fresco. Annabelle sat back down, and refused to inconvenience herself by craning her neck back to stare at it.
“If, in the course of the five weeks, you contrive to banish me, then you are freed from the obligation of transporting me back to Ireland — ” Annabelle opened her mouth to point out the creature’s apparent ease of movement, but was cut off. “Transatlantic travel, once I have begun my journey through form, is an impossibility on my own. I need your help.”
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br /> Annabelle wasn’t fooled by the plaintive look in the Pooka’s eye. “Right,” It said, and before Annabelle could agree, the Pooka continued, “However! If, before the five weeks are up, you contrive to kiss your future husband … well, then, dearie, all bets are off, you will have no choice whatever, and it’s off to Éire we go.”
“My husband!” Annabelle scoffed, but she couldn’t deny the fact that her whole body lightened at the thought. My husband? She scoffed again, “In a pig’s eye.”
A Pooka pig squatted on its haunches before her, and winked. Extending a hock, it smiled widely and said, “We’ll shake on it, so.”
Annabelle extended her hand, and when it made contact with the shadowy hoof, an electric tingle ran up her arm, the air pounded with sound of the ocean’s roar and the apartment filled with the scent of salt air. Her head began to spin, her sight became fuzzy around the edges, and her breathing came fast and short as the Pooka laughed and laughed and laughed …
And as soon as Annabelle let go, the sound died down, the scent dissipated, and the Pooka began to slowly float back up to the ceiling, a pig with lightly beating wings.
“Hey!” Annabelle had a thought. “If you won’t keep to one shape, will you at least tell me what to call you?”
The Pooka laughed as it faded from sight, its gaiety fading along with its form, and just before both voice and figure finally disappeared, Annabelle heard, as if whispered directly into her ear:
“Call me … Callie.”
Chapter Twenty
If there was anything that Annabelle hated more that disorganization, it was lateness, and she was running very, very late. Lack of a decent sleep Saturday night/Sunday morning hadn’t helped, nor had the fact the somehow, her alarm clock had failed to go off. Maybe the fact that it no longer told time, but ran LED stock quotes straight from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, had something to do with it.
Oddly enough, her usually reliable shower was sort of a problem as well: instead of the run-of-the-mill stream of water she had become used to, it alternatively spewed out shards of ice, darts of flame, and dishwashing soap.
Add to that the fact that her bags had been mysteriously unpacked sometime during the night. It had taken her ages to discover her laptop hidden in the oven, and all her unused tapes tucked inside her sugar bowl. She managed to dress herself without too much interference, but had a lengthy and almost fruitless battle trying to lock her door, as her key kept either turning to rubber so it wouldn’t go in the locks, or slipped and slid out of her grasp like a cheeky tadpole.
Maybe I shouldn’t have told Callie to stop reading my mind, thought Annabelle, as she finally descended the stairs to the subway. Hoping to avoid another crusade from Nosy Ned, Annabelle had refrained from swearing aloud during her morning trials — and she certainly didn’t have time to summon the Pooka with sage. She charged through the turnstile, not noticing that the automatic readout told her she had $600 worth of credit remaining on her MetroCard, and impatiently began pacing back and forth up and down the platform. She checked her watch, whose face was now a picture of Lindsay Lohan, sans hands and numbers. Half past a freckle, Annabelle thought ruefully, and spun around in the opposite direction. Being late was bad enough without knowing exactly how late she was. And the F train, not known for its punctuality, was sure to hold her up even further.
That damned Pooka! Why couldn’t she have inherited Bruno Ganz, from Wings of Desire, as a guardian angel? Or even, like, Glinda the Good Witch, for crying out loud. She would get the most spiteful, manipulative, scheming, mischievous entity going, wouldn’t she? “Would you do me a favor,” she muttered aloud, scattering a few nervous commuters, “And send along a freakin’ train, please?”
Whooosh. An F train swept to a stop at the platform, as if out of nowhere. The few straphangers who were paying attention looked slightly confused, and one or two flew off the train in a panic. Those that had been waiting were so delighted that their wait had been cut by at least twenty minutes that they rushed right on.
Annabelle hesitated, and despite the fact the conductor had closed every other door, the one she stood in front of remained open. She stepped on, the door closed with a bang, and the train shot out of the station. Slinging down her bag to rest between her feet, Annabelle leaned up against a pole and looked around a bit sheepishly. Luckily, she thought, no one suspects that it was because of me that the train made its unexpected and unusual appearance from out of —
Eyes darted around the car as someone’s cell phone started ringing. No one’s cell phone rang hundreds of feet below Brooklyn. Annabelle looked around as well, until more than one set of eyes settled on … her. Composing her face in blasé lines, she blithely flipped open its cover and calmly said, “Hello?”
“It never hurts to say please!” snapped Callie, who then hung up.
Annabelle shoved the phone in her pocket and avoided the curious stares of her fellow passengers. This, she thought darkly, is getting to be a real pain in the ass.
• • •
Cybill Franklin-Smith was a slightly frazzled but stylishly dressed African-American woman, and after about thirty seconds, Annabelle knew that she’d made the right decision in taking the job. In addition to the shockingly adequate fee that the woman was paying her, Cybill had good instincts, and was savvy enough to introduce herself and leave Annabelle to it.
“He’s in there,” Cybill said, pointing toward the hotel bar, as she shouldered her oversized, quilted bag. “He’s a bit … grumpy this morning.”
“Because he has a hangover, or because he doesn’t?” Annabelle quipped, and Cybill laughed.
“Exactly.” They both laughed again, and Annabelle realized that she might get to like this kind of gig — at least until she got her first historical novel published.
“Good luck,” Cybill called over her shoulder as she made for the door. If Annabelle didn’t know better, she’d have thought that the editor was running out of the line of fire …
Whatever. She wanted to get this over with, ASAP, and get back to ringing up some of those agents. There were, apparently, a whole slew of literary reps who specialized in her sort of thing, and this journalism stuff would at least get her name out there, and if she got back to tending her blog, she’d probably see some hits when the feature ran.
Annabelle’s entrance into the gloomy, heavily paneled bar provoked the house parrot, housed in an ornate Victorian cage, to burst into an aria of frenzied squawking. Squinting in the low light, Annabelle approached it, checking to see if its eyes that all-too familiar green, and her proximity sent the colorful bird into further hysterics.
“Jesus, would you ever get away from that bloody thing!” A guttural growl exploded from around the short end of the bar, and Annabelle looked over to see a small, crouched figure leaning with its head in its hands. A battered fedora hid the face from view, but the Irish accent gave away its wearer’s identity. “Feckin’ crack of dawn for feckin’ interviews and the feckin’ bird is feckin’ screaming down the house and destroying my feckin’ head!”
“Watch your language!” Annabelle retorted, deciding to fight fire with fire.
“Ah, Jesus, a girl reporter,” Minnehan moaned. “Last time they sent a girl, she had me talkin’ about me girlfriends, and me mammy — ”
“I said, watch it!” Annabelle heaved her bags onto the opposite end of the bar, and proceeded to ignore the irate mumbling coming from the shadows. Okay. There had been no reason to bring her laptop. Not that she often tapped away while talking to anybody, but you never knew: she’d once bonded with Perez Hilton over hardware.
Instead, she chose to wire herself for sound, swiftly slipping the hair-thin cable up her sleeve, and tucking her miniature cassette recorder into the breast pocket of her jeans jacket, and edged over to the slouching genius of an Irish guitarist and singer-songwriter.
“I’m Annabelle Walsh,” she said, casually angling her wrist toward him “And I’m a woman, not a girl.”
“Ah, Jesus, a feckin’ feminist! From feckin’ Kilkenny!” He bared his teeth at her.
“Yeah, my grandmother was from Inistioge.”
“And you realize you’re all but Welsh? Did you know that, did ya?” Minnehan took a drag on his cigar, and expelled the smoke downwards onto the bar.
“And you’d be from … Kerry?”
Minnehan roared. “No, I am feckin’ not! I’m a Dub, born and bred!”
As he leaned forward and got in her face, gesturing with the cigar, Annabelle snapped, “You’re from ‘feckin’’ Killiney, you posh bastard.” He froze in mid-lunge, his mouth hanging open in disbelief, his moldy old hat shoved to the back of his head to reveal a cowlick of … blond curls.
He leaned back, and turned almost fully away from her. “Watch your feckin’ language.”
Sulking, he took another deep drag from his cigar, and as reflected in yet another mirror, he looked like an injured, aging gnome. Silence, but for the ruffling feathers of the parrot.
Annabelle reached over to her bag and retrieved her pad and pen, deciding it would look rather odd if it didn’t look like she making some kind of chronicle of the event —
“No autographs!” Minnehan bellowed, and swatted at the pen.
“Don’t touch!” Annabelle scolded. “My dad gave me this. It’s a Mont Blanc. Graduation present.”
“Me Da give me this,” Minnehan reached up and handled his hat fondly. “And his father give it to him.”
Annabelle scratched a note without looking at the page. Minnehan stroked his tatty old fedora with unconditional love.
This was fun.