by Edward Aubry
Less than five minutes after they came in the door, Claudia and Jake announced their intention to return to the transport. Harrison sent Glimmer with them, less as a chaperone than a protector. Secretly, he was relieved, as he had been straining to think of ways to misdirect Claudia from his agenda in the store. Hadley had already excused himself to explore the Radio Shack next door, and Apryl and Jeannette promptly began working through a checklist of supplies, Alec planted himself on a bench by the front door, and Harrison went exploring.
In a bout of boyishly morbid curiosity, he visited the meat department, where he saw many, many foam trays, their brownish-gray contents wrapped in plastic, leaking crud onto shelves. He was fascinated to observe that the refrigeration still worked after so long, and while the food was clearly decomposed, the cold had been sufficient to keep the maggots in check. The smell was not as bad as he had imagined it could be, less like a jungle and more like kitchen trash.
Next, he took a tour through the frozen foods. There was still plenty of ice cream, but none of his favorite flavors. He would have chalked that up to scavengers, except that he had always had that experience. He opened a few experimentally to compare brands by how aggressively they formed the barrier of ice crystals, forcing cream and gums out of solution and into a rubbery mass below the ice. He was most impressed with Breyers, which was almost ice free, until he sampled one and found that it had a grainy, gritty texture. He missed ice cream. He wished he had been foresighted enough to have ordered an omni filled with pistachio or butter brickle.
After taking a quick spin through dairy, to gaze upon hundreds of bricks of black cheese, he made for the snack aisle, then to party goods.
Half an hour later, he returned to the buggy, bearing a full paper bag. He had waited until Apryl and Jeannette had left the store, and taken Alec with them, before he emerged. When he got outside, Apryl was standing sentry at the door. This surprised him.
"I thought you went back out," he said.
"Jeannette said we shouldn't leave you alone. I was out here pacing, trying to decide if I should go in and look for you. I decided that the risk of us missing each other in an endless comedy of errors was too great, so I waited here." She looked relieved that Harrison had come out at last. "So what's in the bag?"
"Er …" He had not expected to get caught.
She waited out a few seconds of silence. "Harrison?" She was somewhere between genuine concern and simple impatience.
"All right," he said. "You can look, but keep it quiet." She looked in the bag. Her expression shifted from confused to extremely pleased.
"That is so sweet," she said.
"Yeah, well," said Harrison. "I need you to go back first, so I can enter alone. I want to do this right. Can you stall them for me for a minute? Oh, and leave the door open."
She smiled, nodded, and ran back to the transport. He was actually glad now that she had been there so that she could distract them while he crept, out of sight, around to the front of the vehicle. They were less likely to spot him through a window if Apryl could find a way to engage them. He kept the bag on his far side and walked briskly toward the transport, looking away so as not catch anyone's eye. Then he crouched down beneath the windshield and fumbled with several wrappers and a lighter.
He entered with seriousness of purpose, holding a paper plate as though it were a silver platter, and singing "Happy Birthday" at full volume. He noticed that he was interrupting some story that Apryl was telling. Good for her.
The team members were offering surprised smiles, and some joined in. On the plate were two Hostess cupcakes, each bearing a novelty candle in the shape of a numeral. Together, they blazed the number 15. Harrison walked toward their honoree.
By the time the song reached its last note, everyone but Claudia was singing. The finale was drawn way out, and deliberately sung in several tones, to joyous, if not exactly musical, effect.
He stood before Claudia and held the cakes out to her. "Make a wish," he said.
She was quite satisfactorily stunned. She stared at the candles, and said nothing, and for just a moment, he had a flash of doubt that he had, in attempting to do something nice, simply aggravated an already unhappy person.
Then she blew the candles out.
Applause followed. She took the candles out of the cupcakes and licked them clean, then looked Harrison in the eyes and said, "Well, you don't suck."
His grin was Cheshire-sized. "Take this," he said, handing her the plate. He turned and fled out the door, returning moments later with the paper bag. He reached in and threw everyone an individually wrapped, well preserved cupcake. They began eating.
He reached into his bag again, and produced a wrapped present. Dumbstruck, Claudia opened it eagerly. It was a travel checkers set. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "This is perfect! I'm going to be on the road for a while!"
"I wasn't sure what you wanted," he admitted. "And I didn't have a lot of time to shop." He had several more gifts for her, all scavenged from the supermarket. A small stuffed bear, a memo pad wrapped together with a nice pen, two decks of playing cards, and several candy items all emerged, with progressively more cheer. Everyone received a cone shaped party hat and a Pez dispenser.
For just a little while, they took the time to enjoy an actual birthday party.
* * *
Some time later, after they had been underway for a while, Harrison and Glimmer did the math and estimated their remaining travel time to be just long enough that nightfall would be upon them by the time they arrived. When Harrison suggested that heading into Faerie after dark did not feel very safe to him, Glimmer did nothing to disabuse him of the idea. They stopped for the night about an hour away from their goal, with the intention to get an early start and enter Faerie in daylight.
As the team was settling into the evening, Harrison found himself watching Alec. Glimmer had assured them, repeatedly, that his mental state was unchanged. He understood everything around him, and nothing about his personality had been altered. Yet, for over two days, he had been a virtual zombie. Harrison could not imagine what that must feel like.
The Director was sitting by himself again. Talking to him had become a perfectly dreadful experience, and staying out of his way had, so far, appeared to help him limit the number of awful things he exposed about himself. It was awkward for all of them, and it was all they could do to remember that this whole trip was, at least in part, about him. Harrison had been keeping the group together so that when Alec came around, he would still have a coherent team to lead. So far, to his own surprise, he felt he had been doing a decent job of it, but, still, the time would come, very soon, when he would turn the reins back over to Alec, and he was feeling a powerful need to make that go smoothly.
He found himself easing back to where Alec was sitting. He took a seat next to him. Alec looked away from the window. "I've never been in love," he remarked.
"Yeah," said Harrison. "That's a drag. Listen, I know you can't exactly respond to this right now, but Glimmer says you can still understand me. I just wanted to say, I'm, uh, well, looking forward to having you back. I know you don't like me much, and I don't expect you to like me any better when we get you fixed. Some people just don't like me, and, well, that's kind of the way that goes, I guess. The point is, I know that somewhere in there, you've got my back. And I hope you get it by now that I've got yours." He trailed to a stop. "Whatever that's worth." Alec stared at him, with no visible comprehension. "Yeah," said Harrison. "Well, anyway, this time tomorrow, you should be up and around and treating me like crap again, so cheer up."
"You don't deserve that," said Alec.
Harrison couldn't tell what he was responding to, if anything. "I'm sorry?" he said reflexively.
"The treatment," said Alec. "You deserve better."
This must be killing him, Harrison thought. I should have left him alone. Now he'll have one more thing to overcome when he gets back to the surface. And yet, it did feel vindicating to hear him say th
at. He looked Alec in the eyes, carefully, and realized that they were not focused. He wondered if that was a deliberate defense mechanism or a side effect. Then it reminded him of something, and he glanced down, unfocusing his own eyes. A familiar image resolved itself into visibility.
"You're still wearing Bess."
Alec looked down at the sword, but said nothing.
He wasn't sure why, but Harrison suddenly felt this might be cause for alarm. Alec wasn't firing on all cylinders, no matter what Glimmer said, and he had a super-deadly weapon on his belt. Who knew what this magical truth-or-dare affliction would prompt him to do with it. He experimented with talking about it.
"You've never told me where you got that little sword," he began. He did not really expect an answer, but he was starting to feel like he craved one.
"Nicked her from a goblin."
Holy crap. Alec was sitting on a lethal bundle of magic, and he had stolen it, probably killed for it. What's more, he must have never told anyone this, or he wouldn't be embarrassed enough to spill it now. Why hadn't this come up before? Should they even let him keep this thing right now? He felt his palms growing slick.
"Are you still able to use her? It?" Harrison asked as gently as he could. Alec shook his head, and Harrison thought, Oh, shit.
"She uses me."
Three little words, fronting an idea Alec obviously found humiliating. This was a turn, very much for the scarier. What the hell could that possibly mean? And why would it embarrass him?
"Alec?" Harrison probed delicately. "May I see Bess for a moment?"
Alec drew the sword with alarming swiftness, so fast that Harrison thought he was in danger and threw his arms in front of his face. He was just able to see through them as Alec flipped the sword in the air and caught it with a loud metal-on-skin slap. He had stopped moving, and Harrison cautiously lowered his arms. Alec was holding the sword by the blade, offering it out to him, grip first. This act must also be humiliating, Harrison realized, and warning bells were clanging in his head. It was far too late to turn back. He took the hilt.
It was warm. Not just held-by-someone-else warm, but creating-its-own-heat-source warm. This alone did not really surprise him. He knew this thing was loaded for bear with magic, so he would expect it to throw off heat. Nor was he surprised by how comfortable it felt in his hand, light and massive at the same time. In that moment, he felt that he could take on an army, just himself, if he were holding this sword.
It would depend on the army , said Bess.
His heart began pounding. She had spoken directly to his brain, not like Glimmer did with his eardrums, and he was certain no one else could hear. He was holding a sentient weapon, one he had seen kill several times. What the hell to do now? Were they safe? What if this thing were evil? It could jeopardize them all if it called out and was heard.
He needs me , she said. Especially now. She was responding to his thoughts. She was trying to reassure him.
How can I trust you? He thought it as clearly as he could, over and over.
Because I've killed Ru'opihm's servants for you. Because I've aided you and kept you safe.
These seemed like good reasons.
Because I could have killed you all. At any time.
Harrison gulped. That was terrifying, but for that very reason, it convinced him. With great care, and with both hands, he turned the blade around and handed it back to Alec.
"Chief," he said, "we're going to have to talk about this one." He stood up. "Get well soon."
Chapter Thirty-One:
Faerie
About five miles from their destination, the forest became too thick for them to keep moving in the buggy. They had gotten off to a reasonably early start, so it was still well before noon when they parked the vehicle and continued on foot. They brought nothing with them, apart from what they wore, and everyone made a point of having something to eat and using the lavatory, before they set out.
Glimmer had informed Harrison that it would be extremely bad form for any of them to show up armed. She had also insisted that Bess be left in the transport. He had absolutely no problem with that. Alec had surrendered the sword without resistance (just as he had before), and Harrison had stowed her in the cargo hold. He had not shared what he had learned about Bess with anyone. It was not his secret to tell.
As they were just heading out, Harrison turned to Hadley. "This must be exciting for you, Dr. Tucker," he said. "You're really in your element, now."
Hadley looked somewhere between nervous and disappointed. "Actually," he said, "I'm not. I know as little as any of you about what we're going to see." He looked around to see if anyone was listening to them, then added quietly, "Glimmer's not very forthcoming about a lot of things."
"Yeah," said Harrison. "No kidding."
Hadley sighed. "The only other fey I ever met was Susan," he said. "And she wasn't talking."
Harrison snickered. "Well, I hope it's everything you expect," he said.
Hadley gazed ahead. "How could it be?" he asked.
Harrison took his point. The very nature of the world now was that it was unexpected. The more he learned, the less he knew. He could only imagine what that must feel like to someone like Hadley, with his scientist's mind confronted by broken rule after broken rule. It was amazing that he had been able to adapt as quickly and as well as he had. It was significant that Glimmer never seemed to doubt his grasp of magic. Harrison doubted that he himself would ever understand more than a tiny fraction of what Hadley had picked up in only a year.
The walk took the better part of two hours. The terrain was mercifully flat, and the trees, which were spaced too closely to allow the transport to pass between them, were sufficiently far apart for them to walk straight through. The further they got, the more Harrison realized that the trees were not ones he recognized. Many of them had bent, gnarled trunks and with leaves arranged in broad, flat clusters, like something off a Roger Dean album cover, or some grotesque monster bonsai. These gave way to trees of a smoother, curvier design, with wide, thick leaves. They appeared tropical to him, based on his idea of what a tropical tree might look like, based on what he had seen in movies.
Jake tapped him on the shoulder. "How much farther, Captain?" he asked.
Harrison stopped short. He had been expecting the question, but not the form of address. He inspected Jake's face, looking for signs of irony, and found none. He looked at Apryl, but she was smirking and avoiding eye contact. He chose, for now, to say nothing about "Captain."
"I don't know," he said. "I don't think very far." He would have asked Glimmer, but she was too far ahead of them. The forest canopy offered enough shade so that he could clearly see her glowing, but she was at least a hundred yards ahead. She was very excited. He completely understood why.
The further they went, the more bizarre the trees became. Harrison started to notice green streaks on trunks. On a few trees, these ran straight up like some sort of vertical racing stripe, whereas on others, they wound around the trunk in spiral patterns. At first he thought they were climbing ivy, but then he started to see vines, and he could tell that they were distinct from the patterns on the trees. He saw trees with leaves that were perfect circles, other trees with purple veins running through the leaves and right down the branches. Some trees waved as he walked past, although there was no appreciable breeze. The others noticed these anomalies, too. They looked at Harrison with concern, and unspoken questions.
The glow that was their guide stopped moving. As they neared her, Harrison could see that she was perched on a tree with her head buried in a blossom. Today, she was wearing a gold camisole with spaghetti straps and white lace trim across the top, and gold palazzo pants. No shoes. She was humming. It was a happy sound.
"Glimmer?" he said.
She pulled her head up, and smiled, delighted to see him. "Are you having fun yet?" she asked.
The question caught him off guard. "Are you saying …?" he began, nervously. "Are we there?"
She giggled. "Oh my, no. This is just the buffer. Come on."
She flitted away, and he could see that she was leading them over a slight rise. They followed her to the top of the little hill, and from this crest they could see that they were only a few dozen feet from the bank of a river. The river appeared deceptively narrow until Harrison looked upstream and down, and realized that he was looking at the gap between the river bank and an island. The river itself was probably at least a mile wide. He turned to Jeannette. She looked far calmer than he expected.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
She nodded. "This is okay," she said. "I was …" She faltered. Harrison did not push her. "I imagined the towers would still be there," she said. "I was bracing myself for that. This I can handle."
Harrison looked back at the island. It was forested, lush, thick, and unearthly. No one could ever have guessed what used to be here.
"What towers?" Jake asked.
"Skip it," said Harrison. "It's not important."
"Cooling towers," said Apryl, and Harrison saw that she was staring at the island in awe. She turned to him. "This is Three Mile Island, isn't it?"
"What's Three Mile Island?" Jake asked.
Harrison looked at Jeannette, who had visibly tensed. Something was unraveling. "It was," Harrison said to Apryl. "And now it's Faerie. Which we've come a long way to see." He looked directly at Jake. "Ask me again when we're gone, and I'll tell you all about it."
"No," said Jeannette. "Ask me. I have history with this place. Let's all gather around, and I'll tell you a story." She looked at Jake, too. "But not until we're gone."
Jake nodded nervously, and the subject was dropped, though Harrison noticed that Apryl was still staring at the island, as if waiting for it to reveal something to her. She seemed fascinated by it, and he was mystified as to why. He had been a small child when the Three Mile Island nuclear facility had suffered a partial meltdown, the worst accident in the history of nuclear power in the United States. But he had been far too young, and, in Massachusetts, too far away, for the event to have left any lasting impression on him. Apryl was younger than he was, and he couldn't imagine what intrigue this place could hold for her.