Margaret had said she didn't use her power to look at her own time-line, but Jack didn't buy it. She wasn't surprised when Jack appeared, she wasn't even surprised when André showed up with his goddamn gun. Why didn't she stop it?
"I don't understand," he said. "I don't get it." He bent forward, hands on his knees, too tired to sit upright.
To his surprise, the Owl reached out and touched his shoulder. It was only the tip of a finger but it made Jack sit up and stare at her. In a gentle, sweet voice, she said, "Jack. What day is it?"
"What?" He stared at her. "It's Friday."
"What day is it?"
"I just told you, it's Friday."
"Jack, what day is it?"
"Jesus," Jack said, and threw up his hands. That was all he needed, for the Owl to devolve into some fugue state. "It's Friday. All fucking day. At midnight it becomes—" He stopped, mouth open, hands half-raised in the air. And then, slowly, he stood up and lowered his arms as a great joy spread through his body. It felt like the antidote to a toxin that had paralyzed him for days. "Oh, sweet God," he said. "They killed her on the wrong day!"
Jack went back to the hotel just long enough to shower and change clothes. He didn't want to, he was afraid he'd see Mrs. Yao and have to explain why he looked the way he did, but he needed help, and smelling like a construction site Dumpster wasn't the way to go ask for it. He could glam something respectable for any hotel guests he might pass, but he hated to deceive Irene.
Luckily, he made it to his suite without anyone seeing—or smelling—him, and immediately stripped naked. Later he would burn the clothes, but for now, if they contained hidden NYTAS beacons he was just as happy to have Arthur Canton or whoever else who might be watching believe that he was staying at home. He didn't think Arthur would actually try to stop him, but caution never hurt.
The real question was André. Now that he had what he wanted, would he have bothered to keep tabs on Jack? Could Jack assume that André would consider Jack's part finished? No need to watch him? Jack took a long, hot shower, scrubbing himself with a counterspell pumice stone to remove any last traces of the configuration Jeremy the Ice Demon had cast on him. On a certain level it was all useless. André had the new Queen of Eyes on his side. Jack would just have to hope that the inexperienced Guilielma would have be giving all her attention to André's fight for control of the Societé.
After the shower, hunger hit him like a sudden storm. He found some leftover takeaway in his mini-fridge and gulped down Pad Thai, fried chicken, and half a pastrami on rye. Finally he got dressed. Usually when he worked, Jack wore all black, but this wasn't about work any more, and he needed to impress a prominent businessman. He held up a couple of sport jackets before deciding to go all the way and put on his light gray suit, with a pale yellow silk shirt, no tie. He considered dress shoes but decided to keep his black boots. He wanted his knife. He put on his tan cashmere coat and headed out.
It was 4:22 when he left the hotel, relieved once again not to see Miss Yao. Ray helped with that, guiding him to which elevator to take, which door. Outside he hailed a taxi to take him up to 58th Street, between 5th and Madison. Jack breathed a small prayer of thanks that Emil S.'s grandson did not have his office in the main building of the Toy Store.
This was the trickiest part. Was he right about the family? Did they keep the Cottage out of gratitude? Or even better, because they liked the idea of it?
Somehow, Jack had expected a slick corporate office, maybe with classic toys on display, the kind of place Arthur Canton might have set up if he'd inherited the world's most famous toy store. Instead, he stepped from the elevator into an innocuous reception area, businesslike and unmemorable. A plump woman in her forties asked Jack if he had an appointment and looked a bit confused when Jack just said, "Tell Mr. Hessen I'm here on behalf of Emil S." Her confusion only increased when she conveyed this message into her Bluetooth, and her boss stepped forward with a big smile and his hand out to greet the visitor.
As with the office, Jack realized he'd expected some grand figure, perhaps in the pinstriped cutaway suit the rich wore in old cartoons attacking Wall Street. Malcolm Hessen wore jeans, a white shirt open at the neck, no tie and no jacket. Casual Friday. A white man about fifty-five, five-foot-ten, he looked like he worked out at the gym three or four times a week but just couldn't resist that late-night slice of cake. His hairline hadn't receded too much, and had kept most of its light brown color, gray only at the temples. He wore a neat mustache that seemed to accent his excited smile. "I'm Malcolm," he said. "Emil's grandson."
"John Shade," Jack said, and gave him his card.
Malcolm looked at it and shook his head. "Traveler," he quoted. "Wow. I never thought—" He noticed his receptionist staring at him and held open his office door. "Come inside," he said.
The inner office was as functional as the reception area with a long metal desk holding a Mac and piles of printouts, charts, and brochures, an executive "action chair" in green nylon webbing, and three polished oak chairs with dark green leather seats and armrests. Two large windows looked out over 58th Street. Hessen had crowded the ledges with family photos, a blonde wife and three children at different ages. The largest photo showed a young man in the uniform of some Minor League baseball team, looking very serious as he held his bat ready.
Hessen waved Jack to one of the chairs and perched on the edge of his desk. He said "What can I do for you, Mr. Shade? Seriously," and before Jack could answer, he added, "You have to understand, this is a special moment. In our family we call it the Great Debt. To have a chance to repay some small part of it—"
Enough, Jack thought. He had hoped the man would feel that way, but now it was time to act. He said, "I need to get into the store tonight."
Hessen looked disappointed, as if he'd expected Jack to recruit him for a full moon ritual, but all he said was "Yes, of course. What time?"
"Eleven-thirty."
"I'll tell the guards to expect you. No, I'll let you in myself."
"And then I'll need to spend some time in the Witch's Cottage. I'm not sure how long."
"Ah. I head something about—what happened on Tuesday. Was that you?"
"I'm afraid so."
"I should have guessed. It was the Cottage, after all. You caused quite a stir."
"I'm sorry. I never meant to bother anyone. Especially the children. I was—" He stopped, uncertain what he could say.
"No, no," Emil S.'s grandson said. ‘I'm sure that whatever it was, it was necessary."
Jesus, Jack thought. Necessary. He stood up and offered his hand. "Thank you, Mr.—"
"Malcolm."
"Thank you, Malcolm. I'll see you at eleven-thirty?"
"By the front door." They shook hands and Jack left.
He walked back to the Rêve Noire, his collar up against a snow shower. Would snow shield him from Guilielma? Or did the flakes have eyes? Was she watching him right now? Had she seen him through the photographs in Hessen's office? There was nothing Jack could do about it. He just had to hope they didn't think he was worth watching. Maybe they'd be right.
When he walked into the hotel, Miss Yao was there, talking to the man at the desk, Harold. She smiled when she saw Jack. "Jack?" she said, which was her way of asking if his job had finished.
"Miss Yao," he said, which meant no. It wasn't really true, there was no job any more, but it was too difficult to explain.
Sadness and worry flickered across her face, but all she did was nod as he went past her to the elevator.
Back in his room, he made himself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table that served as his desk. What should he do? Nearly six hours, and everything he needed was already in place. Sleep. Anatolie had taught him to sleep whenever he could, under any circumstances, the chance might not come again for quite a while. He took off his boots and jacket and lay down on top of the comf
orter. Instead of closing his eyes, however, he picked up the framed photo from the nightstand next to the bed. Layla and Eugenia, splashing and laughing at the shallow end of a lake in Vermont. Genie was seven at the time, long before the geist. They'd been playing some silly game and Jack had been lucky enough to catch them at a perfect moment. He looked at it a while then pressed the picture facedown against his chest and closed his eyes.
He woke up at 10:22 with the photo still tight against his heart.
Malcolm Hessen was already there when Jack showed up precisely at eleven-thirty. Dressed in a brown wool coat with deerskin gloves, Hessen nearly glowed as he let Jack inside and called down the two guards on duty to tell them Mr. Shade needed to "check on some things in the Witch's Cottage" and was not to be disturbed "under any circumstances." Jack feared Hessen might say something about "strange sounds or lights," but Hessen restrained himself. Nor did he try to tag along. He and Jack shook hands and he left. Jack nodded to the two guards then walked to the back of the store and up the switched-off escalator.
Without the main store lights on, let alone the fake oil lamps inside the Cottage, it was hard to see anything clearly. Should he ask the guards to turn on some lights? And what about the Witch? She sat frozen with her arm poised over her mini-cauldron. It all looked so dead. He looked at the Gretel doll, lifeless as a stick. He'd guessed it would be up to him this time, and apparently he was right.
He took out the knife and laid it on his left palm. The dim light rendered the carbon blade almost invisible. He couldn't see his hand very well, and he was wearing black, so it was almost like he wasn't there. He sighed and slipped the knife back into his boot. No violence, he decided, not even to dolls.
He reached in his coat pocket for a stub of blue chalk and a clear packet of white powder. Walking counterclockwise with the chalk he drew a snake on the fake wood floor. He began with the tail to the left of the doorway, went around the triangle table with the dolls, and ended with the snake's head to the right of the door, its mouth open as if it was reaching to bite its tail but couldn't cross the doorway.
Jack cut open the envelope and poured the powder on the floor in the gap between the tail and the mouth. With the tip of his knife, he drew the Mark of the Opener in the powder then put back the knife and stood up. From the left pocket of his jeans he took out a small box of "conjure" matches, made in the old style by a family of fire witches somewhere in West Virginia. Jack allowed himself a smile as he remembered how the family had all dressed up as old-timey mountainfolk for the home page on their website. He glanced back now at the Gretel doll. As far as he could tell, it hadn't changed, but he still said, "See you on the other side," then lit the match and dropped it on the flash powder. In the brief flare of light he stepped through the doorway.
The first thing he saw was Margaret's ruined body. Lumpy, gray, the bloodstains as dull as dirt in February. For a moment, it was as if the last days hadn't happened, and he'd just watched André murder her. But no, it was Friday evening. The Queen of Eyes had died on a Tuesday, and now it was Friday, and in twenty minutes it would be Saturday.
It was a Saturday, of course. Sarah had said that. Talking about her grandmother's death. Jack had thought it strange at the time, and then he'd just forgotten.
Suddenly nervous, he glanced at his watch. What if time didn't work here, what if it stopped on Tuesday afternoon? No. His watch said 11:43. Most important, the second hand continued its implacable sweep.
Jack squatted by Margaret's body. The bullet had torn open the left side of her face. The right cheek, when he touched it, was cold and smooth, with a rubbery texture. When he pressed his finger against the skin it sank inward, and the shape didn't return when he took his finger away. Jack thought of the cheap plastic "modeling clay" Genie used to play with in day care.
Beyond Margaret the entire world had lost its shape and color, all of it as gray and lumpy as the body. The flowers were gone, the river had vanished, replaced by a meandering indentation. And beyond that, the mountains had collapsed in on themselves, like some disastrous soufflé made of gray mud.
Panic tried to propel Jack to the door, back to a living universe. What the hell was he doing here? If he didn't get out now the gateway would collapse and he would die. There was no air, why didn't he realize that? He could only breathe now because he'd brought a kind of bubble with him from the real world. But it was going fast, he could hardly get any air in his lungs.
He placed his hands on his knees and forced himself to breathe out, a slow hiss of air until he was empty. He waited a few seconds then slowly took another breath. Okay. There was air. Whatever else, he wasn't going to suffocate.
He had to stop himself looking at his watch every few seconds, as if he could will it to spin faster and get to midnight. So instead of looking, he thought about the Ancient Doll. And the days of the week. And souls.
He'd thought Margaret had been, what, conversing when she'd reminded him of the three souls, how everyone stumbles along six days a week with an animal soul to keep our bodies alive, and a mind soul to let us plan, and worry, and obsess, and maybe love. And then on Saturday the Bride of the Earth, who sometimes appears as the Ancient Doll, brings us something extra, a so-called spirit soul. No one understands too much about this, what it's for, and that was probably because most people don't use it. Don't know how.
But the Queen of Eyes does. It's the spirit soul that activates sight and makes what she does possible, even after it's gone, for the power it generates stays with her for the six days until the Bride returns to charge her up again. More than anyone else, the Queen comes fully alive at midnight Saturday. And because of that she can only die on a Saturday. For the rest of us, who don't use our third soul, if we die—if someone kills us—on a Tuesday, or maybe a Monday, the day the geist killed Layla, we're gone. Finished. But not the Queen of Eyes.
It was a Saturday, of course.
At least, that was Jack's theory. But would it work? Had anyone ever tried anything like this?
11:48. Jack liked that number, it added up to fourteen. If thirteen was the number of death, then maybe fourteen promised resurrection.
11:52. 11:55.
At 11:57 Jack saw something. A flower. Tiny, on a stem only a half-inch high, with a blossom no bigger than his thumbnail, it shone bright yellow in the cold air. A city boy most of his life, Jack had no idea what flower it was, but he stared and stared at it. Others appeared, always when he was looking somewhere else. Yellow, black, pink. Soon the hillside had returned, and below it the river, and despite the dim gray sky Jack could make out the form of mountains. But on the ground beside him the Queen lay as lumpy and empty as before.
11:59.
Jack had assumed the Ancient Doll would appear, maybe in a blaze of light. Instead, as the hour and minute hands of his watch finally united on the twelve, a shadow seemed to settle all around him. Not fog or smoke, but just as impenetrable.
What was happening? Had he failed? Maybe André had sent the cloud. To block him. He stood up and called out a Spell of Disbursement. No change. Next he tried the Fundamental Command of Negation against "any and all malevolent entities." Nothing. Desperate, he looked at his watch. Nearly a minute after midnight. How long a window was there?
Then it struck him. Maybe the shadow had come to protect him. After all, who was Jack Shade to see the Bride of the Earth? He called out, "Ancient one! We welcome you. We greet you and honor you and thank you for all your gifts."
A shape took form in the shadow. Not the Ancient Doll but her counterpart, the Gretel doll from the Cottage. She was on her feet now, wearing pink Mary Janes, and she looked towards the Queen with her right arm out, palm up. Jack couldn't see anything in her hand but he could feel it, a pulsing brilliance.
He looked again at the Queen. Lifeless! Why hadn't she changed? He looked back at Gretel and she was staring at him. Him, not Margaret.
Quickly he bent down and picked up the heavy gray form that had been Margaret Strand. Fixing his eyes on the Bride, he proclaimed, "I, John Shade, Traveler from the New York Territories, offer myself as vessel and conduit for Margarita Mariq Nliana Hand. I give myself to the life and restoration of the Queen of Eyes!"
Fire surged through him and he yelled out, but not in pain. It was what he saw. Vast swirls of scenes came and went in an instant, all over the world, endless variations on love, despair, rage, sacrifice. He saw presidents and paupers, murderers and saints. For the briefest moment he saw himself, years ago, as he held his wife's body and watched helplessly as his daughter walked through a stone doorway into the Forest of Souls. "Genie!" he called to her, and she turned, mouth open, as if to tell him something. Then it was over, the stone door replaced by the Witch's Cottage, once again bright and cheerful, surrounded by a soft night sky scattered with stars.
He looked down now at the woman in his arms, hoping that it was Layla, that the Bride had taken the Queen and brought his wife back to him, and now he could carry her through the Cottage and back to the World of Disguise, which is to say, everyday life. But of course it wasn't Layla, it was her. Margarita Mariq— No, he realized. Margaret Strand. Mother and grandmother. A woman who would do anything, take any chance, to save her family.
She looked up at him now, and smiled. Tired, weak, but also kind, and grateful beyond tears. "Oh, Jack," she whispered. "Thank you. I knew I could count on you."
Jack Shade leaned against his Altima on a dead-end street just outside Red Hook, NY, ninety miles up the Hudson from New York. Red Hook was a little bigger than Gold River, a little fancier, with a couple of "nouvelle" restaurants and regional art galleries alongside the pizza joints and Chinese take-away.
The Fissure King Page 11