War for the Oaks

by Emma Bull

  “Someone is discussing food,” said the phouka. He lay crossways on the couch with his head on the trunk coffee table, his bare feet propped against the wall. His jacket had disappeared; in its place he wore a green tank top that displayed rather a lot of corded brown muscle. He was reading a copy of City Pages, leaving the sections strewn on the floor as he finished them.

  “Jeez,” said Carla, “I haven’t seen that pose since all those cute Fifties illustrations of ‘Teenager on the Phone.’ ”

  Eddi stalked over to the couch, grabbed up scattered pages of news­print, and stuffed them in the trash. “If Roberta saw you getting foot­prints on the wall, she’d have heart failure.”

  “That’s the harpy downstairs, yes?” He smiled brilliantly. “I think I shall set myself to charming her.”

  “The hell you will! You stay away from Roberta, do you hear me?”

  Carla started to giggle.

  “What?” Eddi snapped.

  “You look like me yelling at the cat.”

  And, of course, she did—the phouka still had his head on the trunk, and he was beaming up at her while she stood over him and shook her index finger. She gathered up her dignity and went to sit in one of the straight-backed chairs.

  “As I was saying—,” Carla began.

  “Ah, yes. You were going to talk about lasagne.”

  “Nope. I want to know if you’ll let Eddi out of your sight long enough to go to dinner with me.”

  “Me? I am grate—”

  “No, not you. Eddi.”

  “Ah.” He nodded. “It is, however, the same answer. You must think of Eddi and me as if we were new lovers. I shall not be parted from her for more than a moment.”

  Eddi rolled her eyes.

  “Look,” said Carla. “I give you my word of honor that I’ll bring her back.”

  His smile became a roaring laugh. “And easy as that, you expect to trick the trickster? No, sweet child, try again!”

  Carla glowered at him.

  “However,” he said at last, “I shall not deprive you of your dinner. We shall all go.”

  “I’d rather starve,” said Eddi.

  Carla considered for a moment. “Well, I wouldn’t. And the thought of eating something out of your refrigerator makes me queasy. I say we go for it.”

  “Carla, are you crazy? We can’t take him out in public! God knows what he’d do!” The phouka looked achingly innocent.

  “Hmm.” Carla frowned and paced to the window and back. “We’ll go to the New Riverside Cafe. He can do anything he wants and no-body’ll notice.”

  “Gnnng.” Eddi pulled at her hair. “Weird vegetarian eggplant food.”

  “Maybe they’ll make you a nice Wonder Bread and Skippy sand­wich,” said Carla.

  Eddi glared at the phouka. “Why me? What did I do to deserve you?”

  The phouka looked, for once, genuinely regretful. “We cannot al­ways choose what life brings us, or how it is brought.”

  “Platitude.”

  “There may be truth in platitudes.”

  “Gnnng.”

  “Go get a jacket,” Carla scolded.

  The phouka was smiling a little, and something in that smile, the tilt of his head, offered Eddi a lazy challenge. She narrowed her eyes at him and went to the bedroom.

  She put on her big denim jacket and turned the collar up. “Tough girl,” she said to her reflection in the bathroom mirror, and tried out a sneer. It made her feel better.

  Carla’s wagon was parked at the bottom of the hill that was Spruce Place. In the shadow of the apartment buildings that lined the street, the air was chilly. “Don’t you need your jacket or something?” Eddi asked the phouka. The skin of his arms and shoulders was smooth as melted chocolate, without a goosepimple in sight.

  “What jacket?”

  “The one you had on earlier. Aren’t you cold?”

  He tipped his head back and laughed.

  “Excuse me for asking.” She wasn’t really annoyed—not until they reached the car. Then she looked up from yanking open the slightly sprung passenger’s side door, and found him eyeing the car, his lip curled.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He made a face, as if he’d stepped barefoot on a dead squid.

  Eddi leaned back against the car. “If you want to walk, we’ll meet you there”—she smiled sweetly—“maybe.”

  “I . . . will not be comfortable in that.”

  “Gosh. I should have told Carla to bring the Mercedes.”

  Carla stuck her head out her door and looked at them over the roof. “Hey, Rover—we’ll roll the window down, and you can ride along with your tongue out.”

  Eddi looked quickly back to the phouka, but he seemed to have missed the “Rover” entirely. He said only, “I would feel much better with the windows open.”

  It was a cold ride. The phouka sat in the back seat, and though he didn’t quite lean out the window, he sat very close to it. Eddi slumped in the passenger seat, her shoulders hunched against the breeze, and whistled all that she could remember of “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”

  Carla took the U of M West Bank exit, and said cheerfully, “Hey, you in the back seat! If you really can do magic, find us a parking space!”

  “That is not one of the things I can do.”

  “Then what good are you?”

  The phouka, to Eddi’s surprise, made no reply. She turned and looked at him over the seat. He’d leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “Yes.” He cut the word off neatly at the end.

  “You don’t sound like it.” What do I care? she wondered, surprised.

  The seat bumped her under the chin as the car bounced over some­thing. Eddi turned around and found that they were lurching into the gravel lot across from Mixed Blood Theatre. “Remind me,” Carla mut­tered, “to stay off the West Bank on a Saturday night.”

  “And out of downtown, and Uptown, and off of University Avenue. I always do. You always ignore me.”

  “Heh.” Carla parked the car at the far end of the lot and flung the door open. “Look out for puddles.”

  Eddi, mindful of her sneakers, did. The phouka was fumbling his hands across the inside of the car door, his face tense.

  “What’s the matter?” Eddi asked him.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know how to open this.” His black eyes were round, and made his little smile look like a falsehood.

  “You could turn into a dog and jump through the window,” Eddi suggested. She opened the door for him. “Here,” she pointed to the inside handle, “pull this toward you to unlatch it. If that doesn’t work, it means you have to pull this up first.” She pointed to the knob that worked the lock. “And if that doesn’t work, it means that the door’s buggered up, and you can yell at Carla.” Then he swung his feet out onto the gravel, and she stared. “You’re not wearing any shoes!”

  He straightened up, and his chest swelled with a long intake of breath. “That’s true.”

  “No shoes, no shirt, no service,” Eddi said with relish as Carla appeared at her elbow. The phouka looked baffled. “You can’t go into a restaurant in bare feet,” she explained.

  “Tell you what,” Carla said. “You turn into a dog, and we’ll tie you up outside while we eat. And we’ll bring you a doggy bag.”

  The phouka turned his gaze on Carla, and even in the light of sunset Eddi could see her pale. “A pity I have to deny you that pleasure. Come along.” He strode off across the gravel.

  Eddi touched Carla on the shoulder, but Carla’s eyes were still on the phouka. She pointed after him. The phouka now wore low black boots.

  Carla said, her voice wobbling, “He must have got ‘em on when we weren’t looking.”

  “Hypnotism,” Eddi assured her. “Special effects. Mirrors.”

  “Right,” said Carla—but she stayed wide-eyed.

  They caught up with him at the corner. “I have decided to forgive you,” he s
miled hugely as they came up. “I even waited for you.”

  “Meaning,” said Eddi, “that you couldn’t find the place by your­self.”

  The phouka cocked his head. “You said the New Riverside Cafe. That”—he pointed down the street at a set of dark green awnings—“reads ‘New Riverside Cafe.’ How could I miss it?”

  “You can read, and you can’t open a car door?” Eddi said.

  He nodded at a piece of construction machinery parked off the road. “You can read. Can you operate that?”

  “It’s a little more complicated.”

  “Not to whoever operates it.” He smiled. “Come along. After you’ve eaten, you won’t find so much pleasure in posing silly questions.”

  Eddi had to admit that the Riverside was not as bad as she herself had described it. The most recent renovation had brightened and en­larged the room; it no longer looked like the kind of place where wistful sixties anarchists reminisced about bombing the student union. And tonight’s dinner was vegetarian pizza, with, blessedly, not a trace of eggplant.

  “I’m buying,” Carla said, “so don’t starve yourself.”

  “Does that offer include me?” the phouka asked.

  “Do you have any money on you?” said Carla.

  “Not a penny.”

  “How’d you pay the cover charge last night?”

  “By magic,” he said happily.

  Eddi and Carla exchanged looks. “Don’t get anything expensive,” Carla sighed.

  The phouka shook his head. “Ah, gone are the days when your people gave to my people freely and with good heart.”

  “Yeah, stuff like a nice job picking cotton,” Carla muttered. The phouka only laughed his throaty laugh.

  They took their loaded trays to a table near the stage. Eddi found herself arranging a band on it.

  “Nothing bigger than a five-piece,” Carla’s voice cut across her thoughts.

  Eddi grinned sheepishly. “You read my mind.”

  “What mind?”

  “Bitch. I think you could get six people up there.”

  “Not with keyboards and a full drum kit.”

  “Mmm. Anyway, it’s not my problem anymore.” She tore into her pizza.

  “So you say. What are you gonna do if you’re not working in a band?”

  “I’ll find a job, for godsake.”

  Carla shook her head. “The whole town’s on unemployment, and you’re gonna find a job.”

  Eddi looked up from her pizza and found the phouka gazing fixedly at her, as if she were a movie in a foreign language. “Having fun?” she said.

  He nodded solemnly.

  A slender, brown-haired man came out of the back hallway that led to the alley, clutching a drum case to his chest.

  “Isn’t that the drummer for Boiled in Lead?” said Carla.

  Eddi studied as much of the face as she could see. “I think so.”

  “So that’s who’s playing,” Carla said. “Windows are gonna rattle tonight.”

  “Mmm,” said Eddi, concentrating on her pizza. It was natural to feel a momentary pang of jealousy. She felt it every time she saw another band play when she couldn’t. It was a habit now, and would go away soon. A few months, at most.

  “How are you gonna go about it?” Carla asked.

  “About what?”

  “Finding a job.”

  “The usual ways.”

  “Uh-huh. What are you going to tell ‘em when they ask about your skills?”

  Eddi regarded her bleakly. “I guess I’ll have to tell them I can type.”

  Carla looked sympathetic. “And answer phones, don’t forget. You answer a mean phone.”

  “Want to go apply for food stamps with me?” Then Eddi saw the phouka’s smile. “What’s your problem?”

  “Why, nothing at all. In fact, this sounds amusing, and even edu­cational.”

  “Not for you, buster,” Eddi said, but she felt a cold spot growing in the pit of her stomach.

  “No, really. I’ve never applied for food stamps—or employment, for that matter. Where do we go?” He tipped his head to one side and gave her one of the innocent, clear-eyed looks that she was beginning to dread.

  “I can’t find a job with you along,” she said slowly.

  “I promise to be on my very best behavior.”

  Eddi clasped her hands firmly under the table. “No matter what behavior you’re on, you can’t go with me. You don’t go job hunting on the buddy system.”

  “Oh.” He wasn’t disappointed; he was . . . speculating. “Tell me, then—what will you do if someone offers you work?”

  Eddi identified the cold spot in her stomach. Her jaw clenched as she stared at him, as he stared back.

  “As I said to Carla, you must think of us as new lovers, my prim­rose. I can hardly be parted from you for minutes. I’m afraid separation for all the daylight hours is out of the question.”

  Eddi felt her anger pushing the tears up behind her eyes, and she shook her head hard and turned away. She would hate to let him see her cry, even from frustration. She rubbed her eyes, and winced when her fingers met the bruise that Stuart’s blow had left. God, she thought, I suppose I look like a battered woman.

  Carla was scowling at the tabletop, but the phouka was watching Eddi. “What are you thinking?” he asked suddenly.

  “Me? Thinking?” Eddi said.

  He reached out and grabbed her wrist lightly. “You. Thinking. I would very much prefer that you not cause me trouble over this.”

  “Let me go. Please.” She said it a little louder than necessary, and saw the couple at the next table turn to look. Carla was looking, too, and frowning. Follow my lead, kid, Eddi prayed.

  “No,” said the phouka softly. “I suspect you’ll do something foolish if I do.”

  Eddi pulled against his grip. “Please, you’re hurting me!” He wasn’t, but for an instant his fingers loosened. She stepped back, knocking her chair over.

  The cafe manager appeared behind the phouka. “Do you need any help?” he asked Eddi, and rested a restraining hand on the phouka’s shoulder.

  She reached to touch her bruise and hoped it looked like an uncon­scious gesture. It was easy to draw a shaky breath. “Yes,” she said. Then she met the phouka’s eyes, and saw them widen. “I won’t go back with you,” she said loudly, and hoped it would carry. “I won’t let you hit me again.”

  For an instant the phouka sat wide-eyed. Then he rose out of his chair with a snarl. Carla yelled, “Stop him! He’ll kill her!”

  As Eddi turned and ran for the door, she saw the manager grab the phouka’s arms as a broad-shouldered patron stepped in front of him.

  She twisted through the crowd lined up at the serving counter, thinking, There’s a taxi stand across from the Cedar Theatre. Oh, God, let there be a taxi there. . . . She would go as far as she could afford to, and worry about a destination later.

  The sky over Cedar Avenue was indigo, and the night air was a welcome slap against her skin. She sprinted across Riverside Boulevard, dodging traffic. Far down the street she could see the roof light of a taxi. Past the flower stand, past the bank—

  From the inset doorway of a shop, a figure stepped into her path. Eddi thought for a fleeting moment that it was a drunk, a panhandler. Then it raised its smiling face—it was short—and she saw the silvery gray skin stretched across the bony features, the snoutlike nose and mouth, the double row of pointed ivory teeth that the curling lips revealed. It had milky-white eyes, like those of blind fish in deep water.

  The gray skin-and-bones arms came up. In the filthy, broken-nailed hands was a small double-curve bow of translucent white. The appa­rition sighted at her down the shaft of an arrow that glittered like glass and running water.

  She heard the absurdly familiar snarl behind her, just before the phouka struck her from behind. She tried to get her hands in front of her before she hit the sidewalk, and found a pair of brown arms there before her, cushioning the fall. Running foo
tsteps rattled away down the sidewalk and disappeared.

  “Are you hurt?” said the phouka’s voice next to her ear. Would he let her lie on the sidewalk and have hysterics? No, he had an arm around her and was hauling her up. “Come, sweetling, we can’t stay here. They’ll be calling out a flock of redcaps next. And your knights-errant back in the cafe are no doubt picking themselves up and sum­moning the police.”

  For a moment she couldn’t remember what he was talking about. Oh. The Riverside. “Did you hurt them?”

  “I tried not. Please don’t just hang like a sack, my heart.”

  Eddi got her feet under her. Then she started to shake. “That thing . . . they’re really trying to goddamn kill me!” she gasped.

  “Shhh, shhh. They failed. You’re all right.”

  She realized suddenly that he had his arm around her. She stepped quickly away.

  Carla was standing a few feet behind him, her eyes enormous. “You!” the phouka said to her, as if it was enough insult. “The next time you assist in such a lackwit, ill-considered, dangerous little trick I shall knock you into your next life and regret it later, if then.”

  “What was that?” Carla asked, and her voice broke.

  “That, oh my innocents, was the enemy. I’d expected they would find out soon,” he murmured, more to himself than to them, “but Oak and Ash, not so soon as this.”

  “Are they . . . are they all like that?” Eddi asked.

  “No.” He looked down at her, and his eyes were sad. “The Unseelie Court wear many shapes, and have many powers. Not so different from the Seelie Court, indeed.” Then he seemed to remember his anger, and took her by the shoulders. “Do you see, now, that I must stay near you? I am all that stands between you and the likes of that!”

  Eddi pulled away from his hands. “Well, goddamn, just how did I get along without you?” she snapped. Extra adrenaline was making her whole body throb. “The only reason the ‘likes of that’ are after me is because the likes of you found me first!”

  He looked away. “That, unfortunately, is quite true.” He bit off the end of each word.

  “So let me go.”

  “I’m sorry.” He shook his head. “I cannot.”