The Faeman Quest

by Herbie Brennan

  ‘But I’ve told her everything she needs to know about my life,’ Henry protested.

  ‘Apparently you didn’t tell her enough,’ Blue said drily. ‘Or maybe you told her too much. She’s fascinated by your mother.’

  ‘My mother?’ Henry echoed. ‘Why would anybody be interested in that old witch?’

  ‘Because she’s human,’ Blue said quietly.

  ‘I’m human,’ Henry pointed out.

  ‘Yes, but she’s used to you, and besides you don’t live in the Analogue World any more. Your mother is still making a life in a strange and wonderful world where they have trains and buses and porridge and don’t even believe in magic. You have no idea how exotic that is for a teenager living in the Faerie Realm.’

  There was a long moment’s silence before Henry said, ‘Don’t be silly.’

  To his irritation, Blue giggled. ‘I’m not being silly. I think Mella is curious. I think Mella is curious about her human grandparents, who are strange creatures who live in a strange world she’s never visited, and I think she’s doubly curious about her grandmother, who happens to sleep with another woman. She’s fifteen, Henry! We were all interested in sex when we were fifteen.’

  ‘I wasn’t,’ Henry said automatically. He thought about it, decided it was a lie and glared at Blue as if that was somehow her fault.

  Blue ignored him. ‘And this isn’t just sex, it’s sex in the family. At her age, that’s irresistible. I’m not saying she wants to do it. I’m just saying she wants to meet her fascinating old grannie.’

  Henry clutched his head with both hands. ‘Oh, God!’ he said. ‘You’re planning for us to visit my mother!’

  ‘Yes,’ Blue said. ‘Yes, I am. I think there’s a very good chance we’ll find Mella with her.’

  ‘And what do we do? Just take her back?’

  ‘Of course we take her back. What else would we do?’

  ‘Suppose my mother won’t let us?’

  Blue stared at him in astonishment. ‘She’s our daughter. Your mother has no say in what we do.’

  ‘I don’t want to go,’ Henry told her stubbornly.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘There’ll be a row. She doesn’t approve of me wearing jeans.’

  ‘Henry, you’re a grown man now. Stop acting like a twelve-year-old.’

  He was acting like a twelve-year-old: he knew that. The problem was he was frightened of his mother. Actually no, he was terrified of his mother, a manipulative guilt-tripper who’d made his early life a misery. When he was younger, he couldn’t wait to get away from her. When he finally managed it, he hadn’t been to visit her in years. As far as she was concerned, he was stuck in the wilds of New Zealand and might never come home. Not that she cared much anyway: she’d always led her own life. ‘You go to see her. You don’t need me.’

  ‘Of course I need you,’ Blue said crossly. ‘She doesn’t know me. She’s never met me, remember.’

  Henry swallowed and looked around as if searching for an escape route. But it was no more than an empty reflex. He knew Blue was right. He knew he was behaving like a child. Above all he knew he had to go, knew he would go. And spot on time, as if in confirmation, Chief Portal Engineer Peacock limped through the door.

  His peg-leg rattled as he snapped to attention before Blue. ‘All set up, Ma’am.’

  ‘Are we ready to go?’

  ‘Soon as I set the coordinates and press the button, Ma’am. Lethe will cut in automatically.’ He glanced across at Henry. ‘Looking forward to going home, sir?’

  ‘Not much,’ Henry muttered. He nodded towards Peacock’s leg. ‘How’s …?’

  ‘Fine, sir, fine. The new one’s grown and they’re attaching it next week. I’ll be glad to get rid of old Peggy here.’

  ‘Bet you will,’ said Henry sympathetically. He licked his lips. ‘Are you sending us directly to my old place?’

  Peacock smiled self-effacingly. ‘Still using the old-fashioned node-to-node technology here, I’m afraid, sir. No node anywhere near your parents’ place, so we thought we’d send you via Mr Fogarty’s old house. There’s a node in the back yard, you remember.’

  ‘We can take a public ouklo,’ Blue said helpfully. She shook her head. ‘Oh, you don’t have them in the Analogue World. There must be something similar.’

  ‘Taxi,’ Henry muttered. Peacock had said we. Blue must have sorted the whole thing out. As usual. She probably had a pocketful of Analogue money to cover incidental expenses.

  Peacock said, ‘Well, Ma’am, sir, if you’re ready …?’

  ‘We’re ready,’ said Blue, speaking for both of them. She moved towards the portal pillars.

  Henry hesitated for a moment, then shuffled after her.

  Fourteen

  They emerged from behind the buddleia bush and Henry, who was ahead now, stopped so suddenly that Blue walked into him. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked crossly.

  Nothing had changed. The tiny patch of lawn was still a mess, the house looked empty, the pane of glass in the back door was still cracked. Nothing had changed in sixteen years!

  ‘It’s still the same,’ Henry told her.

  ‘The same as what?’ Blue frowned.

  It was all a bit complicated. Henry had looked after the house for Mr Fogarty’s daughter Angela, who lived in New Zealand, when Mr Fogarty emigrated to the Faerie Realm, pretending he’d died. Then Henry married Blue and emigrated to the Faerie Realm himself, pretending to his parents he’d gone to New Zealand to look after Mr Fogarty and pretending to Mr Fogarty’s daughter he’d gone to university. He’d assumed Angela would find somebody else to look after the house or, more likely, sell it. But there was no sign of new owners, no sign of a caretaker, no sign that anything had changed. He wondered if there was still a spare key underneath the plant pot by the back door.

  ‘The same as when I was looking after it,’ Henry murmured. He remembered gazing across that little patch of overgrown lawn at two intruders who turned out to be Pyrgus and Nymph and not recognising Pyrgus because the time disease had made him old. He remembered how Mr Fogarty had sent him coded messages and how close he’d come to not deciphering them. He remembered what a haven this old place had been when he wanted to get away from his mother and his rotten sister and the worry about his parents’ divorce. ‘Do you mind if we have a quick look inside?’ he asked Blue. ‘I know where there might be a key.’

  ‘I think we should try to find one of your taxis,’ Blue said. ‘We need to know about Mella as soon as possible.’ She caught sight of his face. ‘Darling, what’s wrong?’

  Henry shook his head. ‘Nothing.’ But he couldn’t stop the tears streaming down his cheeks.

  There was a key under the plant pot and when they got inside, the kitchen was exactly the same. Henry even opened one of the drawers and found it still stuffed with Mr Fogarty’s electrical bits and pieces – tangles of wire, old transistors and coils, needle-nosed pliers, circuit boards … Something in him wanted to look around upstairs, but he didn’t think he could face it. Besides, Blue was right: their first priority was Mella, and while she was in no danger if she really had gone to visit his mother, it was as well to make sure and the sooner the better.

  ‘We’d best go,’ he said to Blue. ‘There’s a taxi stand about ten minutes’ walk away.’

  There was a bus stop even closer, but he didn’t want to subject Blue to a bus ride: she’d only visited the Analogue World once before and the privacy of a taxi would be better. Besides, the taxi would be faster, even allowing for a ten-minute walk. On impulse he picked up the kitchen phone and found to his astonishment that it was still connected. ‘I can call us a taxi,’ he told her.

  ‘Did Mr Fogarty live here all his life?’ Blue asked while they were waiting.

  ‘Just some of it, I think.’ He didn’t actually know when Mr Fogarty had bought the house – he’d been an old man when Henry met him. It had been a mistake to come inside: there were too many memories and the waiting was making Hen
ry even more nervous about meeting his mother. ‘Listen, let’s wait outside, then we can see when the taxi arrives.’

  ‘OK,’ Blue said.

  As they were locking the back door, Hodge emerged from the buddleia bush the way he used to and Henry’s heart stopped. He felt the blood drain from his face, felt seized by the sensation of having stepped sixteen years back in time. What he had to do now was go in and open a tin of Hodge’s cat food while the old tom curled around his ankles and howled at him to hurry up. He left the key in the lock – his fingers were suddenly too weak to turn it – and took a step forward.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.

  ‘Followed you through the portal,’ the cat told him and Henry felt a flooding of relief. Not Hodge, of course, but Splodge who looked so like him. The cat glanced around. ‘I think, if you don’t mind, I’ll stay. Better hunting here than the Palace.’

  ‘But there’s nobody here to feed you,’ Henry protested. ‘And you’re not used to Analogue World traffic. And –’

  But Blue cut across him firmly. ‘Splodge is a grown cat now – he can take care of himself. He just wants to be in the same hunting grounds as his father.’ She bent down to tickle Splodge behind the ears. As she straightened up again, she added, ‘Just like Mella really.’

  Mr Fogarty’s old house was at the end of a cul-de-sac in the town. Henry’s old home was on a country road a few miles outside it. The journey by taxi, allowing for traffic, would usually take about twenty minutes. As they climbed into the back, Blue said, ‘I’m sorry, Henry.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Making you come with me. I could easily have fetched Mella on my own. I just didn’t think how emotional a trip like this would be for you.’

  Henry settled back in the seat and sighed. ‘I wouldn’t have let you go on your own. I know I said I didn’t want to – and to tell you the truth, I’m still dreading meeting my mother – but I could never have left you to handle this, not really. Mella’s my daughter too.’ He gave a weak grin and shrugged. ‘I should be the one apologising. Actually, I think we’ll take it that I am the one apologising. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for giving you such a hard time.’

  Blue said, ‘Would it help if your mother didn’t know you? If you were a complete stranger, who just happened to be with me?’

  ‘Fat chance,’ Henry said. ‘I haven’t changed that much in sixteen years.’

  ‘Yes, but would it help?’

  ‘Oh, it would help all right,’ Henry said. ‘Hypothetically. She was always perfectly civilised to other people. It was just me she used to get at. And Dad.’

  Blue pulled a twist of paper from her pocket and unwrapped it to reveal a tiny white pill, like the homeopathic remedies his father used to take for his migraines. ‘Take this.’

  Henry stared at the pill suspiciously. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s a morphing tablet. I bought it for Mella – the teens are using them a lot these days. It changes the structure of your face. Temporarily. The kids take them for fun; like putting on a mask. Wouldn’t fool anybody in the Faerie Realm, of course, but they’re not used to magic in this world, so your mother won’t know you. Unless she recognises your voice or your walk or something.’

  ‘I can disguise my voice and do a funny walk,’ Henry said promptly. ‘Are you serious? Will it really change my face?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘How long does it last?’

  ‘Couple of hours. Three at the most.’

  ‘How long does it take to work?’

  ‘It’s a gradual change, so it’s quite slow. Maybe five minutes, maybe a minute or two longer for some people. But if you take it now, you should certainly be looking completely different by the time we get there.’

  ‘Better looking, or ugly?’

  ‘Oh, Henry! What does it matter?’

  Henry swallowed the pill. He felt his face, then craned to try to see himself in the driver’s mirror. ‘What do I look like?’

  ‘Yourself!’ Blue hissed. ‘I told you, the change is gradual. You won’t notice anything at all for at least three minutes.’

  Henry sat back again. ‘Tell me when anything happens.’

  The cab left town and moved sedately along a tree-lined road. Henry was feeling his face again when the driver pushed back the glass hatch to ask, ‘Round here somewhere, isn’t it, Guv?’

  Henry stopped feeling his face to check the road. ‘Next on the right,’ he said. He looked anxiously at Blue. ‘Has it worked?’

  ‘Beautifully,’ Blue said. She smiled mischievously. ‘Your own mother wouldn’t recognise you.’

  The cabbie made the turn, then slammed on his brakes. ‘Jeez!’ he gasped. ‘Don’t give us any warning, will you, mate?!’

  The road ahead was closed, with no fewer than three police cars parked beside the barricade. A uniformed constable broke away from a group of his colleagues to stroll across.

  ‘What’s the problem, Guv?’ the driver asked.

  The constable bent down at the driver’s window, checked out Blue and Henry, then told the driver, ‘Can’t get through, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I can see that. What’s the problem?’

  The constable glanced back at Blue and Henry. ‘Either of you two live here?’

  Henry shook his head at once. ‘No. Neither of us.’ He thought Blue might be about to say something and squeezed her leg to shut her up.

  The constable seemed to relax a little. ‘House came down further up,’ he told the cabbie. ‘Debris all over the road. There’ll be nothing getting through until they clear it.’

  ‘Strewth,’ the driver muttered. ‘They’re not building houses like they used to.’

  ‘Didn’t just fall,’ the constable told him. ‘There was an explosion. Boys from the fire brigade think it might have been a gas main, but I never saw a gas leak could do that sort of damage. The whole house is just a pile of rubble. Like a bomb hit it.’

  ‘What about my fares?’ the cabbie asked, indicating Blue and Henry with a backwards nod of his head. ‘Can they get down on foot? They’re visiting one of the houses on the road.’

  The constable stuck his head through the window. ‘Which one?’ he asked Henry.

  ‘Chatleigh,’ Henry told him. He swallowed. ‘It doesn’t have a number.’ He had a bad feeling about this, a very bad feeling indeed.

  ‘Do you or the young lady have friends in Chatleigh, sir?’

  ‘My mother lives there,’ Henry told him. ‘Why the questions, Officer?’

  ‘Would you mind terribly stepping out of the cab, sir? The two of you.’

  Henry grabbed Blue’s hand and opened the taxi door. ‘Come on,’ he murmured. He knew for a certainty what the policeman was going to say, but he stopped himself from even thinking it.

  The policeman looked at them soberly. ‘I’m terribly sorry, sir. Chatleigh is the house that came down. They’re searching the rubble for bodies at the moment.’

  Fifteen

  The security spells on the approaches to Lord Hairstreak’s weather-beaten Keep were set to discourage hawkers, messengers and casual callers by means of lethal force, teleporting the resultant corpses to the bottom of a disused, and now somewhat smelly, quarry. But an exception was programmed in for the engineers of Consolidated Magical Services who serviced Hairstreak’s Body in a Box, every six months as per contract, and who required free access in the event of an emergency.

  The man in the reception hall was clearly no engineer. He wore a tailored suit in place of overalls and smelled of cheap aftershave rather than oil. Hairstreak could only assume the spell card had been confused by the CMS logo on his blazer pocket and permitted him entry in error.

  The man stood up politely as Battus Polydamas trundled Hairstreak into the room. ‘Good morning, My Lord. May I say what a pleasure – indeed honour – it is to meet you.’

  ‘What do you want?’ Hairstreak growled. His tolerance of unexpected visitors, always low, had dropped to zero since h
e lost his natural body. This man looked like an accountant – he had flat, black, oiled-down hair and a pencil-slim moustache – which probably meant he’d come to try to raise the leasehold on Hairstreak’s Body. Not that he had any chance. Hairstreak’s lawyers had gone over the contract with a fine-tooth comb.

  ‘My name is Sulphur, Lyside Sulphur,’ the man introduced himself, ‘and it’s not so much what I want as what I can do for you, Your Lordship.’ He smiled and maintained firm eye-contact.

  Oh Gods, he was a salesman! How had he made it past the mastiffs? They should have sniffed him out a mile away, even if he’d fooled the security system. But then Hairstreak should have spotted him himself. The moustache was a dead giveaway.

  ‘Have him fed to the alligators,’ he instructed Batty. ‘After you wheel me back to my study.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Battus began struggling to angle the barrow.

  ‘We can give you back your body,’ Mr Sulphur said.

  ‘Belay that order,’ Hairstreak said to Battus. He waited while his retainer manoeuvred him so he was facing the salesman again. ‘What did you say?’

  Sulphur started to smile, caught Hairstreak’s expression and changed his mind. He swallowed audibly. ‘Well, obviously not your old body – that’s gone for good. Unfortunately. Or perhaps not. But we can give you a body.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Consolidated Magical Services.’ He pointed at the logo on his jacket.

  ‘I know who you represent,’ said Hairstreak quietly. ‘I already have a CMS body.’

  ‘I’m not talking about a Body in a Box, sir – I mean a body. One that can walk and lift things.’ Sulphur was watching Hairstreak apprehensively, but clearly thought he’d grabbed an advantage because he pasted on the phony smile again and launched directly into his sales patter. ‘What’s more, sir, we have a special offer, one day only, for our existing customers. Trade in your present Body in a Box against our new, updated, stylish, fully automated BodyFree model and you will not only cover the down payment, but also qualify for an astounding twelve per cent discount on the overall purchase price, plus free head transfer and installation. What’s more, sir, should you elect to buy the deluxe model – which I’m sure a man of your discernment and stature would certainly consider – you qualify for our new two-year-guarantee no-cost after-sales service and the gift of a free fountain pen that will write with green ink under water.’