Return of the Trickster

by Eden Robinson

  I’m bringing Mom back, Jared told Sarah.

  God.

  I know, I know.

  Jared, you can’t even ward.

  “What’s happening?” Jared said to the room.

  “Neeka’s driven the minibus to Agnetha’s with Hank and Justice,” Lourdes said. “Then they’re rounding up the kids and other elders for the first run up to Whistler.”

  “Agnetha’s pissed she’s going to miss her soaps,” Granny Nita said. “But otherwise she’s excited to be going on an adventure.”

  “Tell them to bring slippers and warm nightclothes,” Jared said. “Chuck’s ground floor is river stones and the walls are glass.”

  I never thought I’d see him again, Granny Nita thought at him as the young otters hunched over their phones. Wee’git seemed not to be privy to their conversation. Jared wondered how she did that.

  Did Wee’git really used to call you Angel Tits?

  Granny Nita threw back her head and cackled, surprising everyone. Yes. Oh, my Fucking Monolith.

  “Sarah,” Jared said. “Can you contact the fireflies?”

  “I’m trying,” Sarah said. “They haven’t answered.”

  He held his hand out to her and she took it. Jared wanted the firefly he’d seen to answer. He heard traffic. Heard Sarah’s breathing. Felt her warm hand in his.

  We need you, Sarah broadcast.

  You are this close to pissing Sarah off, Jared added. Do you want to ruin your relationship with her? Show up or get fucked, you losers.

  Granny Nita’s eyes narrowed. “Who are you talking to?”

  “Wait,” Jared said.

  A tiny spot in the ceiling began to glow, hotter, brighter, and then the firefly was hovering above their heads.

  “Polymorphic-being-in-the-human-form Jared, you are chaos personified,” the firefly said.

  “Is that a fairy?” Lourdes said.

  “We are Ultra. Dimensional. Beings. Not fireflies. Not fairies.”

  “Hi,” Sarah said.

  “Sarah!” The firefly’s joy rang like church bells slightly out of sync. “Sarah, Sarah.”

  “Do you know where Jared’s mother is?” Sarah said. “Can you help us find her and bring her back?”

  The firefly snapped, an arc of hot light sizzling. “No. I alone am here to watch over you. The others are protecting the villages from the ogress. She can kill us. For now, she consumes the transformative skins of her dead pack to maintain her power.”

  “What does that mean?” Sarah said.

  “She has hidden polymorphic beings in this universe. She uses their organs to create a thin film that acts as a transformational field, allowing the coy wolves to present as human beings. She can’t forage in our universe, so she’s consuming her own magical work to stay alive.”

  “Oh, God,” Mave said. “She’s planning to use Jared’s organs for skins?”

  “Unlikely. Both transformational skins and trans-universe travel require enormous energy. We had to disintegrate Jared and the ogress and help him create a dimensional bridge between the universes. He can do only the trans-universe travel or the transformation, not both. We suspect she wants to gain enough control of him to travel universes at will.”

  “To make Jared her puppet,” Sarah said.

  “Her name is Mystery,” Jared’s grandmother said. “Babylon the Great, the Mother of Abominations of the Earth.”

  “Yes,” the firefly agreed. “The ogress is a horror.”

  “Something’s coming,” Wee’git said. He dropped his human form and sprang into the air as a raven, bolting out the balcony door.

  Jared could see what Wee’git could see: the thing that used to live in his bedroom wall, the thing that loved to suck his toes, the thing that used to be human but was not not not. Flickering in and out of shadows, in and out of the apartment wall.

  They’re coming for me and I’m going to go with them, he thought at his grandmother.

  She clutched her chest. You don’t have the strength. You’re going to get yourself trapped and you won’t help Marguerite. What use is it to have both of you in hell?

  I’m not leaving her alone with the ogress’s goons.

  You know you can’t do this alone.

  I know.

  Sarah isn’t experienced enough.

  She isn’t coming with me. I won’t let her.

  “You’ve all gone quiet,” Mave said. “I don’t like being left out.”

  “We’re plotting, Mavis-Anne,” Granny Nita said. She turned back to Jared. “Are you going to do what they want?”

  Lie, lie, you idiot, he told himself. But he couldn’t. “Yes.”

  “You don’t have the expertise to bring the ogress through without us,” the firefly said.

  “Jared,” Sarah said. She looked as if she wanted to say more, but she stopped and wouldn’t share thoughts with him.

  “It’s a suicide mission,” Granny Nita explained to Mave. “Sweet Jesus, Jared, the good Lord gave you looks and then decided that was enough blessings for you.”

  Jared laughed. “He really did.”

  “I’m going with you,” Sarah said.

  “You aren’t.”

  “You don’t own me.”

  Out, Jared thought.

  Sarah, still standing close, slumped against his shoulder and he lowered her to the couch. Oh, she was going to be so pissed when she woke up. It was a good thing he was going to be vaporized, otherwise Sarah would do it to him herself. He looked up at the firefly.

  “Can you take her somewhere safe?”

  “No,” the firefly said. “Our power is collective and I’m alone.”

  “Okay,” Jared said. “But will you try to stop us if me and Sophia bring the ogress back?”

  “No,” the firefly said. “We won’t hinder your insanity.”

  “Fair enough. As long as you’re watching out for her, I’m happy.”

  “Tu diabólico fuego,” the firefly said. “El guerrero y te sedujo.”

  His insides quivered like jelly, ha ha Santa’s belly, ha ha. Giddy. Not jolly but scared. He could feel the sorcerer’s amusement as a van parked in front of their apartment building. A murder van. A van to be murdered in.

  I love you, Jared told his grandmother.

  Marguerite will understand if you stay with us.

  I barely survived getting Dad killed. There will be nothing left of me if I get Mom killed too.

  Wee’git, perched outside, saw three men get out of the van, followed by the girl, Mallory, carrying a small plastic cooler. He hopped on his branch, broadcasting, Run! Run!

  Sometimes you can’t run, Jared thought. Sometimes the only way is through. All the fuckheads in his life who’d outnumbered him, spoiling for a fight, and he’d always known he was going to get his ass kicked. All you could do was as much damage as possible. Hope it was enough to make them think twice the next time they wanted to make you their dog.

  Sophia, he thought. Sophia, Sophia.

  He felt her attention, like the moment before a grizzly charged.

  Sophia, do you want your shot at the ogress?

  “Mallory’s coming now,” Jared said, waiting for Sophia to answer but receiving nothing.

  The twins stood, choosing weapons from the patio table.

  “I love you, Aunt Mave,” Jared said.

  “What’s happening?” Mave said. “Someone please tell me what’s happening.”

  Are you hungry, Bob? Jared thought.

  High above all their heads, Bob whipped his tentacles in excitement.

  The apartment buzzer rang. At first no one moved to answer it, then Lourdes pressed the respond button.

  “What do you want?” Lourdes said.

  “Hey, Lola,” Mallory said. “I have a special delivery for Jared. C
an I come up?”

  Lourdes pressed the buzzer without answering. She pointed to Lala, who reached under her puffy vest and handed Mave a Smith & Wesson Shield pistol. The twins both pulled out Browning Hi-Powers.

  Here we go, Jared thought. Here we go.

  He gently kissed Sarah’s forehead and hugged her, then reached out and held his gran’s hand. She kissed his.

  No one spoke. Wee’git burst skywards as the sorcerer wound up his tree.

  Mallory said, “Knock, knock!” The door opened.

  Lourdes raised her pistol.

  Mallory lifted the small cooler and waved it around. Ice swished inside. “I’m unarmed.”

  “Good,” Lourdes said.

  “But my fellas aren’t,” Mallory said.

  His gran gripped Jared’s hand hard as three men followed Mallory into the apartment, each of them with his pistol up. Mallory grinned at Lourdes, then pressed her forehead against her sister’s gun barrel. Lourdes lowered the pistol to aim it at the floor.

  “Hey Jared, how’s tricks? I brought you something from your mom,” Mallory said.

  She came over to him and opened the cooler with a flourish. His brain saw the ice, the bloody ice, and wanted to not see his mother’s right hand. But it was her hand. Jaggedly sliced from her arm.

  “That was unnecessary,” Lourdes said.

  “Beg to differ,” Mallory said. “Jared doesn’t take anything seriously and we need him to know we’re very, very serious. Are you ready to go for a ride?”

  “Yes,” Jared said.

  29

  YOU SMELL SO GOOD

  Back in the van on the cold metal floor. Zip-tied wrists. Déjà vu all over again. Mallory pushed him flat, straddled his hips, pleased with herself. Above her, on the white-painted metal ceiling, there was a smudge the colour of rust.

  “I told you we’d be together,” she said.

  Bumping down a rough patch of road. No one in his head but him, the charm she’d wrapped around his neck isolating him in a cone of silence. Two of the coy wolves up front, one in the back, watching them. The coy wolf guarding him wore khaki pants and a black T-shirt. His hair was mostly grey, cut in a high fade and with a wide bald spot. If he was wearing a human skin, couldn’t he change it for a young one? His boots were shiny. The fringe on Mallory’s leather jacket swayed with the momentum of the turns. The other two coy wolves were younger. Jeans, sneakers and black hoodies.

  “Hey,” she said, giving him a light slap. “You awake? Are we boring you?”

  She reached under her shirt and brought out a small, wicked knife. She carved patterns in the air, then rested it against his throat.

  “Stop it,” the oldest coy wolf said.

  Mallory let the knife rest against his skin. “Why don’t you go up front? We need some time alone.”

  “Granny G said we don’t fuck around with him, because he’s the only one that can bring her back.”

  “I’m in charge.”

  “Are you? You aren’t a coy wolf. You aren’t an ogress.”

  “Her real name is Jwasins. Did you know that?”

  “Get off him.”

  Mallory glowered but didn’t move. He flipped the safety off his pistol and pointed at her head.

  “I’m the future mother of Tricksters that will bring us to new worlds,” she said.

  “Any bitch can do that,” the coy wolf said. “Get.”

  She smiled. “You hurt my feelings.”

  “I’m devastated.” He grabbed her hair and yanked.

  Jared flinched as Mallory’s knife opened his skin like a paper cut. She tumbled to the front of the van as they pulled to a sudden stop. Jared slid, and the coy wolf put a foot out to hold him in place.

  “Everything all right, Dad?” the driver called out.

  “It’s fine,” the coy wolf said, reaching into his pocket for a handkerchief and dabbing Jared’s nick. “Just some jumped-up human pretending she’s special.”

  “I’m an otter,” Mallory said. “And you’ve made an enemy you’ll regret.”

  “I’ll cry myself to sleep tonight,” he said, keeping his pistol aimed at her. “Stay where you are. Don’t get up.”

  “He’s mine,” Mallory said.

  “I’ve known Granny G longer than you’ve been alive. You should take her promises with a grain of salt.”

  “When I tell Jwasins what you said to me, she’ll take back your skin.”

  “Little girl,” he said. “I’m doing her a favour. Not the other way around.”

  “She told you to obey me.”

  “She said you knew where the Trickster lived and you’d bring us there. I’m not taking orders from you. If that’s the price of this skin, I’ll fuck off right now and take my boys with me.”

  Mallory dusted off a sleeve of her jacket, reminding Jared of a cat that’s missed its jump up to a counter and needs to pretend it meant to miss. The toe-sucking sorcerer wiggled through the van floor, aiming for Jared’s feet.

  “Get!” Daddy Coy Wolf said, giving it a kick that surprisingly connected.

  The toe-sucker yelped and dropped away.

  “Humans,” Daddy Coy Wolf said. “Greedy bastards, the lot of them.”

  * * *

  —

  They parked somewhere, clearly not yet at their destination. Daddy Coy Wolf told Mallory to ride shotgun and send one of his sons back. The young coy wolf studied Jared nervously. He spoke mind to mind with his dad, leaving Jared out of the conversation. Mallory played with the radio until Daddy Coy Wolf told her to cut it out or he’d leave her on the side of the road.

  They sat together in the back for a long time. Jared closed his eyes, listening to the traffic as his hands went numb. He heard the familiar hum of fuel pumps and smelled the greasy chemical stink of a gas station. He wished they’d just get on with it. Then the son turned Jared over and clipped his zip ties.

  “Out,” he said.

  A truck, driven by another coy wolf, rolled up beside the van. They were in the farthest parking spot at an Esso gas station with a 7-Eleven convenience store advertising Tim Hortons coffee. There was a Travelodge across the road. From the road signs, he guessed they were just off the Fraser Highway, somewhere between Langley and Abbotsford. The rain clouds were too low to see mountains. Darkness was arriving early, but the street lights hadn’t clicked on yet. A breeze shook the autumn leaves from the trees. Daddy Coy Wolf was studying the sky. Jared looked up and saw a black dot, a single raven high above them. The coy wolf raised his pistol, closed one eye and fired off three quick shots. The raven flew away.

  “Move,” Daddy Coy Wolf said.

  Mallory hopped out of the van, heading for the truck.

  “Hold up,” Daddy Coy Wolf said. “Me and the Trickster first. You can ride in the back of the truck or ride in the van with my boys.”

  “I can drive stick,” Mallory said.

  “I’m sure you can,” Daddy Coy Wolf said, taking the cooler with Maggie’s hand in it from her. “But I don’t trust you and I’m sick of your attitude.”

  The youngest coy wolf emerged from the store with a plastic bag, which he handed to Daddy Coy Wolf, who pulled out a pair of large, clunky sunglasses. He stuck duct tape on the insides. He motioned for Jared to get in the truck. From Mallory’s expression, if she had any power, Jared guessed they’d all be burning.

  “Seat belt,” Daddy Coy Wolf said, sliding into the cab beside him.

  The driver was wiry and narrow-faced like a greyhound. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. Once Daddy Coy Wolf was in, they were uncomfortably close. He rested the cooler with Jared’s mom’s hand on his lap.

  “Sorry,” the wiry coy wolf said as he shifted gears and hit Jared’s leg.

  Daddy Coy Wolf handed Jared the sunglasses and when he put them on, most of the world was bloc
ked out. Jared didn’t see the point of them, but he settled them on his face, smelling the adhesive. He was expecting the zip ties again, but that didn’t happen.

  They drove randomly, turning and twisting, the signal light click-clicking. Wiry said sorry each time he banged Jared’s leg, occasionally grinding the gears in heavy traffic. When they finally turned onto a straight stretch, Jared guessed they were going east. The steady hum of nearby vehicles passing them meant a larger highway, probably the Trans-Canada, which bisected the Lower Mainland before it wound towards the Rockies and crossed the Prairies.

  “Water?” Daddy Coy Wolf said, nudging him.

  “I’m good,” Jared said.

  “Suit yourself.”

  They entered a fog of smell, rotten eggs and ammonia, sickening and thick. Jared gagged, cleared his throat and pulled his T-shirt over his nose.

  “Chicken farm,” Daddy Coy Wolf said. “Or processing plant. It’s hard to tell with these human noses. Give me a good hunt. Torture like it happens in those places ruins the flavour. Gives the flesh a texture like that weird thing with the bits of brain in aspic. What’s it called again?”

  “Headcheese,” Wiry said.

  “Maybe it’s an acquired taste,” Jared said, thinking about what had happened to David.

  Daddy Coy Wolf snorted. “The apocalypse can’t start soon enough.”

  * * *

  —

  The truck squealed to a stop. Someone needed to check the brake pads. He sat while Daddy Coy Wolf and Wiry exited.

  “Slide out,” Daddy Coy Wolf said.

  Gravel driveway under his feet. Dark, dark all around, except for a flashlight bobbing. Someone’s hand gripped him just above the elbow, dragging him towards his very short future. Cold, frosty. Up a small incline. The sound of a large door creaking open and then voices, murmuring. The light of an old-fashioned bulb, some dim wattage, barely above a night light. Daddy Coy Wolf’s boots thunking against a wooden floor. Wiry’s sneakers making a steady squeak. Water on his left shoe.

  “Sit,” Daddy Coy Wolf said.

  So he sat, half expecting the chair to be yanked away. Captain’s chair, smooth wood under his hands and a cushioned seat. Wiry took off his sunglasses and Jared blinked to focus. He was in a large, dim living room, empty except for a battered wooden table and mismatched chairs. Four men and two women studied him as he studied them. All of them about Daddy Coy Wolf’s age. He was facing away from the entrance. French doors with glass windows led to a large kitchen.