by Amy Hoff
Dorian sighed.
“As on Earth, so in Heaven,” he said, “and the other way around as well. We are often beings of pleasure, in any way that is available to us. It did no good to indulge in the Smoke, but we didn’t know it was addictive until we were addicts.”
“Did you?” ask Leah. “Did you ever use it?”
Dorian smiled slightly.
“No,” he said. “All of my addictions were more…human in nature.”
“You’ll have to tell me about that sometime,” said Leah.
“Later,” said Dorian, picking up the thread of his story again, “We did not realise the devastating effect it had on the rest of the world until it was too late. The plague doctors, who believed the Black Death was spread via miasma, were half right. Those who died from the Smoke did indeed contract it from bad air.”
Leah thought of the reason she'd had to leave Glasgow – the woman dying in the Bridgeton close.
“Dorian,” Leah said, “that woman – the woman who died in Dylan’s arms. Her fingers were black.”
“Yes,” he said, “That is why we brought you here – just in case.”
It was Leah’s turn to stand.
“You need to tell me things,” she said. “This is unfair on me, and I had no knowledge of any of this history. I study folklore, and I’m a police officer. Sure, I don’t know the history of the Fae the way you do but I don’t understand why you didn’t feel it necessary to share this information with your partner.”
“I thought it would be better this way,” he said.
“You don’t make decisions for me, Dorian Grey,” she said. “I don’t care if you’re still stuck in your Victorian sensibilities. If we are meant to work as a team, keeping things from me is unhealthy and dangerous, for both of us.”
The fire crackled, and Dorian did not respond. He sat like a carved statue, expressionless.
“Goodnight, Dorian.”
“Good night.”
***
The following morning, they entered the pub. Robert turned and looked at them, throwing a towel over his shoulder. A lazy grin spread across his features as he leaned against the bar.
“Hello, Miss Bishop,” he said, making it sound like a come-on.
Leah grinned back at him wolfishly.
“I can’t take you anywhere,” said Dorian.
“Shut up,” Leah whispered. “Do you see those biceps?”
“Leah, it's Robert Burns,” Dorian pointed out.
The realisation of what this implied was like ice water on Leah’s libido. This man was the equivalent of the town bicycle. And this was before the age of modern medicine.
“Oh,” she said, faintly disappointed. “Right.”
“Would you like breakfast before we go?” Robert asked, apparently having missed the exchange, or polite enough not to comment. “Maybe a drink? Whisky?”
Leah was about to agree when Dorian intervened.
“No,” he said. “We are ready.”
Leah turned to him, surprised.
“Are we?” she asked.
“As you wish,” said Robert.
“Did Robert Burns just quote The Princess Bride?” asked Leah.
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” said Dorian.
“You've been alive all this time and you want me to believe that you know nothing about pop culture?” asked Leah.
“Should I?” asked Dorian. Leah considered this.
“You know, on second thought,” she said, “a lot of it is useless.”
“How surprising,” said Dorian.
Robert opened the door to the bar.
“This just seems to be the type of relationship we have,” said Leah. “I follow you into weird new worlds. Like into the broom closet. Real magical introduction to Interpol, by the way.”
“But you're never bored,” said Robert over her shoulder, winking. Despite her attraction, Leah fixed him with a hard look.
“I wouldn't try it,” said Leah. “I've read your story.”
“Touché,” said Robert, totally on board with everyone knowing he’d once gotten into the pants of half the people in Scotland.
Robert turned and pushed the door behind the bar open, flooding the room with bright light.
“After you,” he said.
“The door to Faerie is…behind a bar?” asked Leah.
“It makes perfect sense, when you think about it,” said Dorian.
“Maybe in Scotland,” Leah huffed.
Dorian walked forward first, and Leah followed. Robert went last, closing the door behind him.
The world spins.
They are in a field, unbelievably bright and filled with flowers. The sun is warm, a drowsy afternoon. Leah is breathless.
“So, here we are,” Robert said. “Home again, after all this time, Dorian.”
Dorian sniffed.
“This is not my home. It is further to the West.”
Robert leaned over to Leah conspiratorially.
“Selkies are the aristocrats of our world,” he said. “Once Taken, they can be unbelievably insufferable. The islands to the West have been the land of Faerie for a long time, but the selkies claim seniority because their islands are further West.”
“Hmph,” said Dorian.
“Go west far enough, and you hit America,” said Leah. “And, well, the rest of the world, eventually.”
“Indeed,” he said, noncommittal. “One day, perhaps, you will see the Home-place. Seal-hame is beautiful.”
“Also, you'd drown,” said Robert. “It's underwater.”
There were three pathways in front of them, stretching off and away through the green into the distance. One was dirt, one was of broken cobblestones, and one was paved. Out of the corner of her eye, Leah could see Robert smiling at her. Man, you could fall in love with those eyes, she thought.
“Which road?” she said out loud.
Robert folded his arms.
“This is Faerie,” he said. “You’re a folklorist. You must remember.”
“Studying something and being in it are two different things,” she said. “It's like spending years studying China, but you have no idea how to ask for rice at the grocery store.”
“There are three paths,” said Dorian. “Which would you choose?”
Leah looked around at the beautiful field. In the distance, a loch sparkled in the sunlight, and the sky was a deep blue.
“Well, in my studies, the wide road, the middle road, was the road to Faerie. There was some idea that since faeries may not have predated Christianity, this was an allusion to Purgatory – much like the faeries were considered half-fallen angels, too good for Hell, too evil for Heaven.”
She went to the place where the roads forked.
“But in all the stories, there was only the middle road...if I was to guess, it is the narrow path that leads to Heaven, or to Elysium. That is a different kind of folklore, but I also believe there is a great deal of convergence.”
“That's fairly accurate,” said Dorian, “but what about the third road?”
“Hell, I assume?” she said. “I don't really think it looks tempting enough, or evil enough, to be Hell.”
Robert’s grin broadened.
“The answer is...none of these roads lead anywhere,” he said. “They just turn back on themselves, or vanish, like a mirage. We're already there. The place likes to become what you expect it to be. It's human imagination that drives it – that drives us all.”
Leah considered this, and began to smile, a mischievous grin. Dorian recognised the look and opened his mouth to speak.
“So if I wish very, very hard…” she said.
Dorian was suddenly wearing a T-shirt and jeans. He wrapped his arms around his body as if he were naked. Robert was shirtless, gooseflesh spreading across his skin, his muscular chest expanding with his breath. He looked extremely pleased with himself, which dimmed Leah’s enjoyment of the experience a bit.
“Excuse me! Leah!
” Dorian said. Robert grinned.
“I like it already,” said Leah.
As the wish faded, the two men returned to their normal state of being, and Dorian glared daggers at her for a while. Robert took a key out of his pocket and inserted it into what looked like thin air in front of them. He turned the key, and with a groaning sound, a door opened in the midst of the field and they stepped through it, entering what looked like the court of a king.
The entire room was filled with selkies. Handsome men of all descriptions, shapes, and sizes, with one defining feature – they were all dark-haired, and dark-eyed. Paintings of seals surrounded the hall, and the windows let in bright sunlight that moved backwards across the day, and sometimes looked the way it did underwater, flowing and changing, shattered. Leah realised, suddenly, that the hall was under the ocean.
“Why are there only selkies here?” asked Leah. “There are so many different types of Fae.”
“Tried by a jury of your peers,” Dorian explained. “One of the better human inventions, I think.”
The man seated on the throne was incredible. His long hair fell like a silk sheet over his shoulder, and he wore silver raiment, a coat so fine it looked as though it had been spun from stars. His cheekbones were high and regal, and his dark eyes soft yet stern.
“That is the Seal-King,” said Dorian, bowing low with the others.
The Seal-King leaned forward on his throne.
“Bring Magnus Grey before the court.”
Everyone present turned. Leah gasped.
It had been a year since she had seen Magnus Grey. Gorgeous and confident, with foxy eyes and Botticelli curls, there were few men or selkies that could claim to outdo him.
Not so now.
He was thin, and looked ill; his clothes hung off him, his hair in disarray, he looked like the ghost of the man he had been. He was, however, still beautiful, an angelic face that gave lie to the things he was capable of.
“You stand accused of the serial murder of humans belonging to the Taken selk,” said the Seal-King. “How do you plead, Magnus Grey?”
“Guilty as charged, Your Majesty,” said Magnus in a weak voice.
“Have you nothing to say in your defence?” asked the King.
Magnus’s large eyes surveyed the room, and stopped, as he choked a little upon seeing Dorian and Leah in the gallery. Dorian looked away, and Magnus hung his head.
“No,” he said, “I have disappointed my people, and most of all, my brother Dorian.”
“Dorian Grey,” the Seal-King’s smooth baritone rolled across the audience, “is there anything you would like to say on your brother's behalf?”
Dorian stared down at the King and said nothing.
“Very well,” said the King, “The court is adjourned. The punishment will be announced in the morning.”
CHAPTER SIX
Later, upon their return from Faerie, Leah slid into a seat at the hotel bar. Dorian sat across from her.
“Robert, could I get a whisky?” she asked, “Bruichladdich, please.”
“Sure,” he replied, busying himself behind the bar.
“Something wrong?” asked Dorian.
“You just sat there, while they were trying Magnus,” said Leah. “You sat there and you didn't say a word! He’s your brother, Dorian!”
“Magnus is a killer,” said Dorian, “and any attraction you felt towards him was only a part of the selkie charm.”
“I know that,” she replied. “It's not Magnus I am worried about, it's you. It's like you are completely devoid of emotion, except for loving this woman from years ago. Don't you care?”
“Yes. I certainly care,” said Dorian. “However, Magnus made his choice. I cannot let my feelings get in the way of my job as a police officer.”
Robert walked over to the table and set down glasses of whisky.
“They’ll kill him, you know,” he said. “You're all right with that?”
“I'm not all right with it, no,” said Dorian. “But if that is what the tribunal decides, then that is the punishment Magnus will have to accept.”
“Wow,” said Leah. “I sure hope I never get on your bad side. You are as cold as a fish. You don't care about anything.”
“Hmmm, fish,” said Dorian. “Robert, do you still have that salmon?”
“Fresh from the burn this morning,” Robert replied.
Leah shook her head, sipping her drink, as Robert disappeared into the kitchen. Dorian sipped at his own whisky without comment.
Robert returned with the food, and a glass of whisky for himself. He sat down across from Leah.
“So, Dorian tells me you’ve got your heart set on someone,” said Leah. “Old memories or new love?”
“Old,” said Robert. “I was always such a romantic. But the woman who made me like this? I will never forget her. I had many lovers, as you seem to know, and I loved them all. But...”
“She was the one?” asked Leah, charmed.
“Well, she was the one who introduced me to this other world,” said Robert. “No one could really impress me afterwards.”
“What happened to her?” Leah asked.
Robert’s eyes had a faraway look.
“She was exiled.”
***
The young man opened the door to the pub.
It was dark inside, as always. The crackling scent of the peat fire tickled his nose as he entered the pub’s suffocating warmth. The walls were blackened from years of smoke, from the peat-fire, from the pipes. The wooden tables and chairs made up a sparse environment, but the attraction here were the inhabitants rather than the decoration. It was Tarbolton, after all, not much more than a tiny farming village unheard of by the rest of the world.
One day, the young man from Alloway with the dirty face and torn clothing would be the reason the world had heard of Ayrshire.
He sat down at a table, unsure of himself. He had a few coins in his pocket but that was all. His stern father believed him to be too much of a dreamer, always mooning after young women and not keeping his mind on his work. He sighed, and scrubbed a hand over his face. It had been a long, hard day. They all were, for a ploughman; up before dawn, backbreaking work in the fields until it was too dark to see. His family was poor, and he was often hungry. His clothes hung off his frame. He would be handsome – devilishly so – if he'd been well-fed and taken care of. As it was, he simply looked gaunt, peering out at the world with too-large doe eyes that broadcast his innocence to the universe, and made him the perfect victim.
“Can I buy you a drink?” rumbled a deep voice near his elbow.
He looked into eyes so green he couldn't believe they were real. Even in the darkness of the pub, they shone like translucent jade. The hard lines of the man's face spoke of a harsh life, and the pipe he held in one hand curled smoke as he put it to soft, full lips.
“Yes?” said the young man cautiously. He wondered why he'd focused on the man's mouth.
“What're you having?” asked the man.
“Wh – whisky,” Robert stammered.
“Like your eyes,” said the man, dropping him a wink, and pushed off towards the bar.
Robert's mouth hung open. Did the man just –
“Robert,” said another voice. This voice he knew – it was an old friend.
“Richard,” Robert nodded.
“It’s all been arranged,” Captain Richard Brown said. He was well-known among the ladies, cutting a dashing, dark figure, and Robert always felt at a loss around him. Richard had decided to take the young man in hand and show him the joys of what he called illicit love.
“Richard,” said Robert, starting to panic, “I really don't think that's –”
“Robert,” said Richard, insistent, “You are made for more than this. You have a real talent! You'll be a great poet one day, you’ll see. But the only way anyone is ever going to know about your poetry is if you stand up and read it.”
“My father –” Robert protested. Richard sigh
ed.
“Your father is not your king and commander!” he said. “He can't live forever. No one can.”
Two glasses of whisky were set down on the table by hands that were pale and ivory-white. Robert looked up into those green eyes, sparkling merrily at him. His breath caught in his throat, and he didn’t know why.
“So you're a poet,” said the stranger, taking a seat across from him.
Richard nodded, winking, and made himself scarce. Robert stared after him with questioning eyes. He turned back to the stranger, who was watching him, a smile playing about his features.
“I – sometimes I write,” Robert said. Those eyes were so green, he thought. Like the fields in the springtime, just after the first rains –
“He mentioned you're doing a recitation?” asked the man.
“Yes,” Robert mumbled. He sipped his whisky, wondering if that was why he felt off-balance and a little dizzy. “Next week. Richard is...forceful.”
The man grinned. Robert's heart nearly stopped.
“Man after my own heart,” the stranger said. “So. What do you know about monsters?”
Robert cleared his throat and stuttered. His mind was swimming, images that scandalised him rushing through it like water, so vivid and filthy they didn’t even seem to come from him. He was having trouble focusing on anything apart from this man’s lips around the stem of the pipe, and the devastating green of his eyes.
“M – monsters?” he asked.
“You'll have to work on that,” said the other man, taking a pull of his pipe. Robert’s eyes started to water. “You're never going to be able to recite poetry if you're nervous. You remind me of a snake charmer I met in Penang once. Told me he couldn't handle the snakes if he was scared and they always knew. Almost got killed by his king cobra, too. They can sense it, Faisal said.”
Robert's eyes were wide, his consciousness latching onto something among the torrent of erotic thoughts currently cascading through his mind.
“You've been to Malay?” he asked. The entire world opened up like a gulf at his feet when the man nodded and grinned.