Stranger Magics

by Ash Fitzsimmons

  Mid-afternoon, I found a secluded stretch of coast north of San Diego and parked at the public beach. The day was perfect, partly cloudy and breezy, the temperature hovering on the cusp of eighty, and the midweek beach was nearly deserted. At her first glimpse of the ocean, Meggy squealed and jumped from the truck, dashed into the shelter to change her clothes, and before I had made camp on the sand, she was racing for the sea. I watched her run into the surf and laughed to myself as she shrieked at the cold water.

  She soon trekked back up the beach, covered in goosebumps, and wrapped herself in a towel while she warmed up. We sat on the sand in comfortable silence, listening to the waves roll in and the birds squawk, and then I opened my case of Heineken. We cracked open a pair and drank them quickly, and then Meggy was back in the water again for a second go-around, fortified by the alcohol in her system.

  The cycle repeated over and over as the light reddened and faded: down to the water and back for a bite or a beer. I pretended to read a book so that Meggy wouldn’t suspect I was watching for sharks, but the shallows remained clear, and she returned unscathed each time, stomping out of the surf like a black-clad Venus with the beginnings of a sunburn.

  We briefly discussed getting a hotel room once the stars came out, but the idea fizzled quickly. The beer was still relatively cold, the sandwiches relatively decent, and the waves continued their hypnotic advance and retreat. I could have sat there for hours, waiting for dawn, but Meggy was beside me, wrapped in her damp towel, and she leaned her head against my shoulder and sighed. When I looked down at her, she smiled up at me, and even in the darkness, I could see those eyes . . .

  I don’t often think about what happened next. It’s painful and embarrassing now, and when I try to justify my behavior, I blame the beer. We were both pleasantly buzzed by that time, still able to control our bodies but lacking the good sense to warn us away from the situation. Many of the details of that night are lost, anyway, if I ever noticed them to begin with. All I’ll say is that when she looked at me with that teasing smile, I kissed her, hard and properly, in ways Jack never had. She stiffened, then yielded to my touch, and when I guided her onto my towel, she didn’t resist. She was beautiful in the darkness, my Meggy, young and strong, and she moved and tasted like the sea.

  I woke at first light, alone. Meggy was standing on the shore, dressed in her shorts once more, hugging herself as the waves bathed her sunburned feet. I dressed and joined her, and we stood there for a long moment, neither of us speaking. She had been crying, and I was out of words.

  We let the radio fill the silence on the long drive back, and I pulled into her apartment complex’s parking lot that afternoon without managing to break the wall between us. “See you tomorrow,” was all she said before she closed the door, and then she walked inside without glancing back.

  I knew what I had to do.

  My furniture was easily waved out of existence. I packed my few permanent possessions into three cardboard boxes, then drove to my shop that night. The street was deserted, and so no one saw my shelves shrink and my hanging sign fly off the brick and stow itself in the back of my truck. I tucked my inventory into my old duffel bags, cleaned out my desk, and locked up for the last time.

  The rectory was quiet when I arrived around midnight. I put my house and store keys into an envelope, then scribbled a quick note to Paul: Need to leave town. Heading east. I’ll call. I put the envelope into his mailbox, then turned my taillights on Coleridge.

  I loved Meggy. Meggy loved Jack. And so I left.

  “Last call,” said Slim, pulling me from my reverie. I glanced around the quiet bar, considered my empty glass, then headed out into the night.

  Paul had faxed me the rest of the story. The wedding write-up in the Coleridge Reporter four months after I skipped town. Meggy in a gown with puffy sleeves, with Jack Horn beside her, holding her hands and grinning like a fool in his rented tux. He’d looked thinner than a linebacker should have. Then the April paper, the front-page story about the missing baby, the tearful mother and somber father, the grandparents holding them up. The columns from the Arizona Republic. The one-year anniversary, now a cold case, the family exonerated of wrongdoing, the kidnapper still unknown, the baby vanished without a trace. And six months after that, Jack’s obituary. Colon cancer, a swiftly moving surprise caught too late. Twenty-two years old, and dead of an old man’s affliction.

  All I really wanted to do was drive through the night, hold Meggy, and tell her I was so sorry, so very sorry. But dawn was only a few hours away, and so I made myself walk home.

  Chapter 4

  The drive had been slower than I would have liked—it was late Saturday morning, but seemingly every trooper in the eastern half of the state was lying in wait along I-64, and so I kept an eye on my speedometer. Under ordinary circumstances, I would have trusted my car’s defenses to keep me safe from tickets, but I didn’t want to chance getting stopped with Moyna in the car. The picture the two of us made—a somewhat haggard young man and a cosplaying female companion of questionable age—wouldn’t sit well with any officer more than two days on the job.

  When she finally woke, Moyna had changed her black dress for a lilac one with a neckline that scooped far too low for her years, and now she leaned against the passenger-side window, glowering at the road, twirling her hair around her middle finger.

  I caught the gesture out of the corner of my eye, and my gut twisted once again. Meggy had pulled on a lock and twisted it in exactly the same fashion—same finger, same spot beside her left ear, a sign of boredom or deep thought. True, Moyna’s hair was closer in color to Titania’s, but I realized her eyes were Meggy’s, especially when she cried. So much of her profile was her mother’s, too—pert nose, full lips, thin brows. I shoved that image from my mind and concentrated on the two-lane road.

  Moyna sighed again beside me, far more dramatically than the hour or the scenery warranted. “Yes?” I said.

  “Do we have to do this?” she griped for the third time. “Can’t we just—”

  “We are doing this,” I interrupted, gritting my teeth to hold my temper, “and you’re going to behave, damn it.”

  Her body stiffened as her petulance switched to caution. “You don’t have to be mean.”

  “I’m not. You’re being a brat.”

  “I don’t even know this woman.”

  “She’s your mother. I’m sure you’ll find something in common.”

  “She is not my mother,” Moyna shot back. “She’s just some stupid mortal—”

  Moyna’s rant ended in a little scream as I whipped the car onto the berm, slammed it into park, then grabbed her chin hard enough to make her flinch and spun her around to face me. “You listen to me, and you listen carefully,” I murmured. “That woman has been searching for you for almost sixteen years. She is your blood. The least you can do is acknowledge that she was robbed by that whore you insist on calling your mother, understand?” Her chin trembled, but I ignored the theatrics and released her. “Meggy Bellamy is a special woman.”

  Moyna rubbed her face where I had grabbed it. “I thought you said her name was Meggy Horn.”

  “It is now.”

  “Why’d she change it?”

  “She got married,” I replied, hoping Moyna wouldn’t press the issue.

  A few silent minutes later, I wondered if I was being too hard on the girl. The last two days had been difficult for her, and I knew I was doing little to ease her stress. She had made it quite clear that she wanted to go home, and I had made it equally clear that I wasn’t about to open a gate. “It could be suicide for you to go now,” I had explained over dinner the night before, as she scowled at her chicken. “Titania told you not to come back without something she wants. If you disobey, she’s likely to kill you.”

  “But she’s my mother . . .”

  I had bent down across the table then and stared at her until she met my gaze. “Speaking as one who is truly of her blood,” I said quietl
y, “that doesn’t make a damn bit of difference when she’s upset.”

  As far as I could deduce, the something Mother wanted was me, but I saw no sense in sharing that fact with Moyna. Mother’s intent couldn’t have been more obvious: dump a scared changeling at my feet, make it easy for me to help the kid out, and Mother would have me to torture in person for as long as she liked. But as there was no way in hell I was going back to Faerie by my own will, I didn’t see the need to crush Moyna’s dream. Besides, once Titania had what she wanted, she would probably kill the kid as a nuisance.

  What bothered me were the lengths to which she had gone to make her desire clear. Moyna wasn’t just some random child plucked off the street or out of the woods—she was Meggy’s baby. I hadn’t realized that Mother had known about Meggy, but as I watched Moyna push carrots around her plate, I wasn’t surprised. Mother’s spies were everywhere, and it was no secret that she kept a tail on me.

  Far too soon, I turned down a quarter-mile-long wooded driveway and parked in front of a tidy two-story brick house, its lawn winter brown now, but promising magazine-quality beauty as spring set in. A thick row of daffodils snaked around the front, softening the holly hedge behind it, while the old oaks that dotted the yard stretched bare branches toward each other like the scaffolding of a patchwork canopy. The place was neat without being immaculate, but everything hinted at the lushness of the summer to come—quite a change from Coleridge.

  I shut the car off and sighed. “This is the place.”

  Moyna flicked her eyes toward me, then pointed to the yellow front door. “I go in?”

  “No,” I replied, fighting my nerves, “you stay here. Let me do the talking for the moment.” I paused with my hands on the steering wheel, trying to come up with the proper face. Closing my eyes, I attempted to capture an image of early middle age, then made myself slightly heavier and softer, my hair flecked with threads of gray, my eyes marked with the beginnings of tiny crow’s-feet. My blue windbreaker shifted into a brown crewneck cardigan with a partial zipper, my scuffed Reeboks to well-worn loafers. The jeans, I decided, were inoffensive enough to stay.

  I flipped open the visor mirror for a quick check, then turned to Moyna. “How do I look?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Hideous.”

  “That’ll do.” I pushed the door open and pocketed the keys. “Let me handle this, and I’ll come and get you when it’s time.” Moyna merely shrugged, and so I closed the door and headed for the house like a man on his way to the executioner’s block.

  The front walkway was red brick, a perfect match to the house and nearly free of weeds. As I walked its length, I tried to think of opening lines—Hiya, Meggy, long time no see! Hey, I was in the neighborhood, and I think I found your kid!—but before I knew it, I had climbed the two wooden steps and was standing on a cheery green welcome mat. I glanced around and noticed a tiny camera mounted in the corner of the porch, but before I could ponder the security situation or even ring the doorbell, the front door flew open, and there she was.

  Her red curls, still vibrant, were pulled back into a loose ponytail that hung below her neck. She wore an oversized white blouse over blue leggings, belted with a green braid, and matching ballet flats. Most of my attention was reserved for her eyes, which were indeed a perfect match for Moyna’s, pale blue and saucer round.

  We stared at each other across the threshold, Meggy holding the door open, me drinking in every detail of her face.

  “Oh, my God,” she finally whispered.

  “Hi, Meggy,” I mumbled, forcing myself to break my stare. “I, um . . . nice place you have here. Nice . . . uh . . . flowers.”

  “Colin.”

  “You remember me?” I said lamely, trying for a joke.

  Meggy folded her arms and glared up at me with a petulant look I knew too well. “Where the hell have you been? And how did you find me?”

  “Rigby, most recently. And I have an associate with an Internet connection.”

  Her face creased. “Rigby?”

  “Yeah, up the coast. It’s not so bad.”

  She stared back at me, momentarily flummoxed, then shook her head. “Colin Leffee.”

  I nodded. “Guilty.”

  “I never thought I’d see you again.”

  “I thought that’s what you wanted. That’s why I skipped town. I . . .” I floundered, trying to gauge her reaction, but all I could read from her was shock. “I’m sorry about Jack,” I offered. “Truly, I am. I just found out last night.”

  Meggy shrugged, her thin arms still crossed. “That was a long time ago.” She paused, then bit her lip, a flash of white against the red stain. “So why are you stalking me?”

  “I’m not.”

  “I’m on Facebook, you know, you didn’t have to drive all this way to let me know you’re alive.”

  I had no idea what she was talking about, but I let it pass. “I’m not here to upset you . . .”

  “I’m not upset,” she retorted. “Confused, maybe.”

  And lying, but that wasn’t the time to let her know that I was analyzing her emotions even as she tried to sort them out. “There’s something that I need to tell you in person,” I said in a low rush. “It’s about Olive.”

  Her mood changed instantly, swinging from surprise and anger to anxiety and fear. “What about her? I can tell you there’s nothing online but junk leads and fake psychics—”

  “I found her,” I said bluntly. “She’s sitting in my car, right there.” I pointed to the Accord. “She has her baby locket, the gold one . . .”

  That was as far as I got before Meggy fainted. I barely managed to catch her before she hit the hardwood floor of the foyer, and by the time I had her on the living-room couch, Moyna had joined me and was watching us with a little smirk. “That seemed to go well,” she said with feigned cheer.

  I looked up from arranging pillows under Meggy’s head and glowered. “Be useful. Go get a wet rag or something—”

  Before I could finish, the requested item materialized in Moyna’s hand, a white cloth on the brink of saturation. “This?”

  “Wring it out in the sink,” I muttered. When she returned a moment later, I covered Meggy’s eyes and stepped back from the couch, then took a seat in a chair across the room. “Get ready,” I told Moyna.

  I barely noticed the faint beeping that had just begun in the foyer.

  She eyed Meggy warily. “For what?”

  “As soon as she wakes, she’s going to be all over you. Might want to back away.”

  “How bad—” she began, but the rest of her response was drowned out by the roar of an engine screaming down the driveway like a Harrier coming in for a landing.

  “The hell?” I muttered, rising from my seat. “Stay with her. I’ll handle this.”

  I headed for the front door in anticipation of the visitor, then noticed the panel in the foyer wall, a white plastic box with a little monitor embedded in the center, which was clearly the source of the beeping. The door camera, I realized. There had to be a sensor somewhere, perhaps an early warning system at the top of the driveway . . .

  I pushed the flashing red button to silence the noise and scanned the monitor. The porch was as yet empty, but I saw the left half of a motorcycle parked in the grass and suspected that the rider would make his presence known momentarily.

  It had to be a male. No self-respecting lady I’d ever known would ride a black Harley with chrome skull accents and decorative flames in the shape of cavorting naked women.

  I heard him stomp up the stairs as I watched his approach on the monitor and sighed. The kid was scrawny, maybe my height but thirty pounds lighter. His acne scars stood out against his pale face, even in black and white, while his piggish eyes and oversized beak turned up at the camera and scowled. But it wasn’t the face, or even the unkempt mop of black hair, that made me shake my head. No, it was the boy’s wardrobe selection—a black turtleneck over skinny black jeans tucked into black boots that jingled at every st
ep with their decorative chains. He had thrown an oversized black duster over the whole sad affair, but the pièce de résistance was the dragon pendant, a six-inch die-cast serpent with raised wings and red glass eyes.

  “Bellamy!” he shouted at the camera, his voice too high-pitched for his garb. “I’m giving you to the count of five to open the goddamned door!”

  I noticed the yellow button marked Intercom in the viewing panel and depressed it. “Ms. Bellamy is unavailable at the moment,” I replied in my best tone of placation. “If you’ll give me your name and message, I’ll tell her you dropped by.”

  The boy snarled back at me, exposing teeth far too straight and white to have come about by accident. “You listen to me, you little piece of shit,” he snapped. “Drago, the Dark Lord of the fucking Storm, doesn’t leave messages!”

  Before I could tell the Dark Lord to shove off, I heard a gasp from the living room. “Shit!” Meggy hissed as the washcloth hit the floor with a wet plop. “Colin, get over here!”

  “Just a minute,” I sang into the intercom, then hurried back to her side and caught her as she tried to stand. “Meggy, you fainted, take it easy . . .”

  She shrugged my arm off and shook her head. “No, no, it’s not . . . it’s not safe, you’ve got to get to the basement, there’s a shelter in the basement, the wards . . . how did he get past the wards? Damn it, she said—”

  “Five!” Drago yelled from the porch.

  I jostled her shoulders until she focused and her eyes snapped back to mine. “What are you talking about? What wards?”

  “Four!”

  Meggy stared at me in panic. “I know this is going to sound crazy, but that guy out there is really dangerous. You need to get to my safe room downstairs, he can’t get in, it’s protected. I’ll tell you about it later, but get down there—”

  “Three!”

  She paused, suddenly remembering the reason for my presence in her living room, then whipped around to find Moyna standing behind her. Her face went white. “Oh, my goodness, baby girl, you’ve got to get out of here!” She pushed Moyna toward me and snapped, “Basement! I’ll hold him off!”