War for the Oaks

by Emma Bull

  Eddi flopped down on the wooden floor. “We need a couch. And a PA. And a coffeemaker!”

  “I’ll go for coffee,” Carla offered. “I need cigs anyway.”

  Eddi snapped upright and leveled an admonishing finger. “You slack off on the smoking, girl. Bad for your voice.”

  Carla stuck out her tongue and turned to Dan. “Danny? Wanna come with?”

  “Yeah, sure.” Dan swept a look over his equipment, like a parent wondering if the kids really were safe by themselves. Carla grabbed her jacket, and they trotted out the door.

  “She thinks I’m kidding,” Eddi said to the ceiling. “Boy, is she gonna be surprised.”

  It seemed awfully quiet. She didn’t want quiet; it was suitable for thinking in, and right now Eddi had no use for thinking. The music had worked like a drug, wiping away her quarrel with the phouka, her fear of what the evening would bring. Now the drug was wearing off. Conversation was not the all-absorbing distraction that music was, but she would settle for it.

  She propped herself up on one elbow and looked around for Willy. She found him leaning against the wall at the far end of the room talking to the phouka. Oh, God, she thought, what mischief is that little jerk up to now? But there was no spark of wickedness about the phouka. He was sitting on the floor with his chin on his knees, looking as close to gloomy as she could imagine him.

  Willy, in contrast, seemed to glow. He was discussing something with great seriousness, and he leaned forward as he spoke, punctuating everything he said with crisp motions of his pale hands. He was full of contained energy, and Eddi found herself envying him for it, and disliking the phouka for not reacting to it, and despising herself for both feelings. She dropped back to the floor, tucked her hands under her head, and closed her eyes.

  Her unwelcome solitude lasted perhaps a minute. Then she heard someone approach, and opened her eyes.

  It was Hedge. He sat down on the floor next to her, crossing his legs as if it required great deliberation, and stared at her solemnly. He seemed to be waiting for her to open the conversation.

  “Hello,” Eddi said, trying not to sound cautious.

  He nodded.

  This was encouraging but not inspirational. “I liked what you were doing on the bass,” she ventured.

  Hedge smiled his sweet smile, the one that turned his usually closed, ferrety face into something that could light a street. He nodded again.

  “Is . . . there something you want to talk about?”

  His brown eyes widened a little, as if the possibility hadn’t occurred to him. Why does he play bass as if he were nitro-fueled? Eddi wondered. He does everything else on three cylinders.

  Hedge looked as if, at worse times in his life, he’d slept in alleys. His brown hair was clean, but not well acquainted with a comb, and might have been cut with a kitchen knife. His thin face had a sallow cast that, with his underfed build, made Eddi wonder if he was recov­ering from a long illness. He could have been anywhere from fifteen to thirty years old. He wore a plaid flannel shirt so well-washed it was almost white, and blue jeans with holes in the knees.

  “No,” he mumbled finally, and Eddi realized he was answering her question.

  Of course he doesn’t want to talk, she grumbled inwardly. I wonder if the boy says a dozen intelligible words all week. Maybe he’s afraid his tongue will dry up if he opens his mouth.

  “Do you sing?” she asked him.

  To her surprise, he gave a half-hearted nod.

  “Why don’t you ever sing with the band?”

  He blinked at her.

  “What does that mean?”

  Hedge looked down at his tight-clasped hands, and his jaw worked, as if trying to form words and test them before letting them past his lips.

  “Are you embarrassed about it?” Eddi asked him gently.

  Hedge frowned quickly up at her, looked down, then nodded, a motion so offhand it might have been a shrug.

  Eddi studied the mop of messy brown hair that hid his face. His fingers tugged at each other in his lap. It was an angry, helpless gesture, from the hands that played bass lines so thick with emotion they were almost verbal.

  She looked across the room and saw Willy and the phouka still talking softly. “If there was only me to listen,” she said to Hedge, “would you sing?”

  Hedge peered out from under his hair and said, as usual, nothing. But Eddi felt encouraged.

  “Yo!” she called to the phouka and Willy. “How would you guys like to take a walk?”

  “No,” said the phouka promptly, smiling. “Thank you.”

  Willy cocked his head at her.

  “How would you like to do it anyway?” Eddi said.

  The phouka and Willy looked at each other. Then they turned back to Eddi.

  “All right,” she sighed, “what would you think of finishing your conversation at the bottom of the stairs outside?” Surely that was close enough for the phouka’s standards of good bodyguarding—the win­dows were the only other way into the room.

  Willy smiled, an enchanting sight. “Okay, we’ll be nice guys. Come on,” he said to the phouka. The phouka, after a dubious glance at Eddi, followed him out the door.

  And it was quiet in the practice room again. Hedge had gone back to looking at the floor, and was now biting at a fingernail. Eddi almost began to talk, to put him at ease. Then she remembered that words made Hedge nervous.

  “I’m going to rest until Carla and Dan come back,” she said at last. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want.” She lay down on the floor again, laced her fingers under her head, and closed her eyes.

  From the open windows she could hear cars going by on Washing­ton Avenue, and the occasional muted rumble of a bus. Two sparrows started a quarrel under the eaves, finished it, and flew away. A breeze whispered through the pages of the notebook Dan had left open on his amp. All of these only thickened the stillness.

  Hedge broke it; he laid his voice on it like a leaf on an unruffled pool, and the song spread on the air in widening circles. His voice was soft and tuneful; he began as if he was telling a story or a piece of history.

  In Newry town I was bred and born,

  In Steven’s Green now I die in scorn.

  I served my time to the saddling trade.

  But I turned out to be

  I turned out to be a roving blade.

  The song hung in the air like a gift tentatively offered. But listening was a gift as well, and Eddi gave it. In the exchange, as often happens, both gifts increased in value. Fear and anger were gathered up in each single note, carried in ever-widening circles away from the heart of the room, and evaporated. It was not a lasting peace, but its effects lingered well beyond the end of the song.

  “Hark, the evening has begun,” said the phouka’s voice in her ear, “the nighthawk’s on the wing. The enchanted princess wakes.”

  “Uh,” Eddi said, and lifted her head from the pillow. “Wha?” Prac­tice had gone on until five. Then they’d ridden home, where the phouka had made her a sandwich, ordered her to take a long, hot bath, and given her a cup of—oh.

  “What,” she gritted, and noticed even as she spoke that the cobwebs were clearing from her thoughts with supernatural speed, “did you put in the cocoa?”

  His smile was uncommonly white in the dimness of the bedroom. “Didn’t you need more sleep?”

  “Mmm.”

  “And would you, under normal circumstances, have been able to get any?”

  She frowned at him.

  “Well, then!” the phouka said. “Mind, I wouldn’t recommend the technique for every day, but you’re none the worse for it now, are you?”

  Eddi was, in fact, far from worse. She felt strong, fresh, and clear­headed. Whatever the phouka had used, it wasn’t the average sleeping pill.

  “Get dressed, now,” he told her. “I let you sleep perhaps a little longer than I should have, so don’t dawdle. Oh, and wear shoes you can climb in, just in case.”

&nbs
p; She squinted at him. “Just in case of what?”

  “Why, just in case you need to climb in them, sweet.” He’d shut the bedroom door behind him before she could respond.

  The clock radio showed nine P.M. She turned it on loud and went to the closet. Blue jeans, black high-top sneakers, her denim jacket, and an old turtleneck sweater—she had no idea what she was supposed to wear, but she was grumpy enough to feel that the Seelie Court was not worth dressing up for.

  Certainly the phouka’s sleeping potion hadn’t improved her mood. She was becoming steadily more anxious, in a way that years of stage fright had not prepared her for. She knew how to bring stage fright under control: imagine the worst that could happen, and its conse­quences. The terror was always out of proportion to anything she could expect. She had no idea what she could expect of a fairy war. Once again, she cursed the phouka comprehensively. He had told her just enough to make her afraid.

  The phouka rose from the couch when she came into the living room, as if in salute. He was costumed for the occasion. His heavy, high-necked sweater was olive drab, and had suede gun patches on the shoulders. His pants were olive, too, and tucked into high brown boots. Over his shoulder hung a nicely aged brown leather jacket. He looked like a guerrilla outfitted by Ralph Lauren.

  “Never dress better than your date,” Eddi grumbled at him, which made him laugh.

  “Here,” he said. He held out something black.

  It was a wool beret with a thin leather sweatband. Fastened to the wool was a pin, a five-petaled, rather Oriental-looking gold flower in­side a silver square. She looked suspiciously at the phouka. “Is this part of the uniform?” she asked.

  “No, worse than that,” he said. “It’s a gift.”

  “From you?”

  He looked carefully over both shoulders. “I don’t see anyone else.”

  She looked at the beret again, ran the sweatband back and forth through her fingers. Then she took it into the bathroom. She put it on in front of the bathroom mirror, adjusting the angle carefully. The black wool was severe and elegant against her pale hair.

  When she came back to the living room, the phouka nodded. “I have exquisite taste.”

  “It looks good,” Eddi said finally, remembering not to thank him. “I like it.”

  The phouka made a vague, dismissing gesture, as if it didn’t matter to him whether she liked it. True or not, for once, the gesture was more endearing than annoying. Maybe everything looks better when your life’s in danger, she thought, even dumb phoukas.

  “You’ll have to hang on to it while I’m wearing my helmet.”

  “I think I might manage that.”

  “Well,” she said, “let’s do it.”

  The phouka nodded, opened the hall door, and dropped her one of his graceful, foolish bows, his face grave. “Forth to honor and glory.”

  “Get stuffed,” she said crisply, and she walked out the door.

  chapter 10 – Spellbound

  The Triumph shone like new in the alley lights, all black satin and silver. It fired on the second kick. So much for that excuse. The phouka slid on behind her and said, “Do you know the way to the Falls?”

  “I know where they are, more or less.”

  Something in his moment of silence made her look over her shoulder at him.

  “You’ve never been to Minnehaha Falls?” the phouka asked, clearly startled.

  “No.”

  “How long have you lived here?”

  With an effort, she kept her voice cheerful. “Not long enough, I guess.”

  He must have heard the effort, because he sighed impatiently and said, “You’re not of a certainty going to your execution, you know.”

  “Hush,” she said, and let out the clutch.

  It would have been maudlin to choose a route that passed some of her favorite places. So she was practical and drove straight down LaSalle onto Blaisdell, only to find that everything suddenly seemed precious. The red stone castle at Groveland and the brooding brick church at Twenty-sixth Street became architectural marvels. Even the stucco duplexes, common as field mice, looked gracious and welcoming with their living room windows aglow. By the light of the street lamps she could see gardens planted under apartment house windows, and swollen flower buds on the lilac bushes. She wished furiously that it were November.

  She signaled to turn at Twenty-eighth Street, and the phouka called, “Go straight.”

  “Can’t you get there this way?”

  “Yes, but you can get there my way, too.”

  She twisted out more gas, and they sailed through the intersection. “I bet mine’s faster,” Eddi shouted after a moment.

  “Quite possibly. But mine is more scenic.”

  “I don’t want scenic. I want to get there and get it over with.”

  The phouka’s arms stiffened around her waist. “Objection noted,” he said haughtily, “but would you mind very much indulging me?

  Eddi stopped at the red light on Lake Street and looked back at him.

  He regarded her steadily, and without any particular expression. “I would like to see a lovely thing or two,” he said, “on the chance that I won’t see many more.”

  Of course. Though she might be in little danger tonight, he would be in the thick of it; he would be protecting her. There was no one at all to protect him. “Oh,” she said in a small voice.

  South of Forty-eighth Street, Eddi realized they were in a portion of town she’d never seen. The phouka directed her through a tangle of streets that ran in every direction except north-south and east-west. Streetlights and yard lamps showed her large, gracious houses with well-kept lawns. Old elms flung an arched roof over every street.

  “What about the help you said you’d give me?” she asked, breaking a long silence between them.

  “Help?”

  “You said you’d do something to keep me from . . . well, being be­dazzled by bullshit.”

  “Ah, yes. Protection from glamour. That should wait, I think, until we’ve arrived. The effects might interfere with your driving.”

  “Sounds like drugs,” she grumbled.

  “It is not.” His voice was suddenly stern and cold. “It is magic. You should get used to the idea—immediately, if possible. Faerie can­not be explained away with talk of inebriation, pre-Christian religions, or cave men. Magic is the nature, the tool, and the weapon of the Folk, and nothing makes you so vulnerable to them as refusing to believe in it. Magic will be thick on the ground tonight, and if you are busy trying to explain it away, it will have you by the throat in an instant.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Left here,” said the phouka.

  She knew where she was, finally. They’d turned onto the boulevard that ran along Minnehaha Creek, through a ribbon of parkland, to the Falls. This, she realized, was the true beginning of the phouka’s scenic route. She drove a little slower; the Triumph’s growl became a mutter.

  After a moment, the phouka began to speak dreamily next to her ear. “All things that live are drawn to water, and arrange their lives around it. Humankind is no different. There is water at the heart of every human community—as much as the sea, or as little as a spring. This is the water at the heart of this city.”

  Eddi had never seen this mood on him, or heard such a voice from his lips. It was resonant but contained, and the words came in the measured cadences of poetry or song. He was talking about Minnehaha Creek. If he’d asked her to pick the most important body of water in Minneapolis, she might have said the Mississippi. Or Lake Calhoun, the largest of the city’s lakes. . . .

  “Not the largest body of water, or the most useful,” the phouka said, still in that brimming voice, but with humor bubbling in it. “I said the city’s heart.

  “Follow the creek back to its source, and you’ll find that it binds together all of what people call Minneapolis. It starts in Grays Bay in Lake Minnetonka and ends in the Mississippi—if anything can be said to end in the Mississippi. In betwe
en, it runs through woodlands, through unreclaimed marsh, wild in culverts and well-behaved beside suburban backyards. It is not a conduit for commerce; it is the pure spirit of running water, small, but deep and full of secrets.”

  Deep it certainly was. As the bike idled at an intersection, Eddi could hear the rush of the water, high with spring, against the bridge pilings. And secrets? She supposed that the conflict they drove toward would be­come one of them. She hoped her body wouldn’t end up as another.

  Wind rattled the leaves above them, and the phouka’s words seemed to weave in and out of that and the sound of the creek. “One might say that, less than a mile from the Mississippi, the creek reaches a precipice and plunges over it—but that would be shading the truth. The creek has made that precipice, shouldering back against the lime­stone and wearing it away. The Falls move up the creekbed like a child walking backward against the sun to admire his shadow.

  “Once the Falls were called holy. Now its priests are the Army Corps of Engineers and the Minneapolis Park Board, but it is still a shrine, a place of power. It is the city’s birthplace and its soul.

  “That,” said the phouka, in a voice so much more natural that it made Eddi jump, “is why it’s the site of the first battle. Control of the Falls brings with it a great deal of magical leverage.”

  Eddi stopped the bike in the middle of the parkway and turned to look at him. “Leverage? All that loving description, all that—feeling—and you sum it up by saying it’s got strategic importance?”

  “Drive,” was all he said.

  They passed Lake Nokomis, shining silver-gray in the intermittent moonlight, its beaches like brushed aluminum. Just past Hiawatha, the phouka directed her down a drive and into what a sign declared was Minnehaha Park. She pulled up next to the park administration build­ing and pried off her helmet. “Won’t they notice anything tonight?” Eddi asked, poking a thumb toward the door bearing the legend, “Park Police.”

  The phouka raised an eyebrow at her. “No. They will not.” He handed her the black beret.