by Laura Kirwan
Natalie clattered up the steps. “Yeah, boss.”
“Who else is down there?” Meaghan asked.
“Gretchen.”
Meaghan stared at her, drawing a blank. Too many names to keep track of.
“You know,” Natalie said. “The nice little grandma lady who walked you through the new job paperwork?”
Meaghan nodded. “Right. I know who you mean.”
“Well, she and Emily go way back. I think she hates her more than I do,” Natalie said with a smile. “Gretchen’s way meaner than she looks.”
Meaghan sighed. “Well, that’s just great. Patrice been to see Emily yet?”
Natalie shook her head. “No. She’s been busy introducing the kids to Grandpa. When I told her what he said about her cutting off Emily’s head, she smiled and said ‘I like how he thinks.’”
“Oh, this keeps getting better and better,” Meaghan said. But she didn’t have time to worry about what Patrice might do to Emily and she realized she didn’t care. This crap is changing me, she thought. Into someone who scares me a little. Out loud, she said to Natalie, “I need to talk to you too. In the garage. Let’s go.”
Chapter 36
Meaghan climbed the rickety stairs at the back of the garage to her father’s office, followed by Melanie and Natalie. The padlock was old and rusty, but the key turned easily. Meaghan removed the padlock and pushed open the door.
The odor of dust and mildew permeated the air. Gray, rainy daylight filtered into the room through two large windows in the far wall. With a bit of effort, Meaghan pushed up the lower sash of each grimy window.
“Leave the door open,” she called over her shoulder. With the windows opened and fresh air flowing, she took a moment to survey the small room.
Every inch of wall space was covered with photos, artifacts, and yellowing newspaper articles. A large bookcase covered most of one wall. It overflowed with dusty books, some of them legal tomes she recognized, but most were old and tattered. A small bust of George Washington sat on the top of the bookcase.
On the other side of the room, stacks of files covered a battered oak desk, and the dented steel filing cabinet next to it. An old leather swivel chair sat behind the desk with two straight-backed wooden side chairs placed in front of it. A slouchy tattered gray armchair sat beneath the windows.
“Have a seat,” Meaghan said, gesturing to the wooden chairs. “We don’t have time to dig through this crap and find Matthew’s missing journal, so I need to talk somebody who was there.” She looked at Melanie. “Did I guess right? You were there?”
Melanie nodded.
“Good. I need to know exactly what happened. Unless V’hren is way more reasonable than he appears to be, arguing the treaty won’t be enough.”
“No,” Melanie said, sitting down. “It won’t.”
“But do we know if it’s still the same guy in charge?” Natalie asked. Like Meaghan, she was roaming around the room, taking it all in. “What if there’s somebody new trying to tie up all the loose threads?”
Meaghan marveled at her own obtuseness for a moment. It never occurred to her that V’hren might be dead. “Natalie’s right. It’s a violent place. How do we know he’s not dead? It’s been eighteen years. We could be dealing with somebody else.”
Melanie shook her head. “We aren’t. There isn’t much information coming out of Fahraya, but we do know V’hren is still in power. And that he’s growing increasingly erratic.”
“How do we know that?” Meaghan asked, running her index finger along the dusty spines of the books on the shelf in front of her. More than a few were in Latin. She thought getting out of the house would help, but this was worse. Here she was surrounded by visible evidence of how much she didn’t know.
“We have an inside man,” Melanie said. “V’hren’s son. Jhoro leads the resistance, if you can call it that. There’s only a handful of them left. He’s been a fugitive, under a death sentence, since John was exiled.”
“Wait,” Meaghan said, turning to face Melanie. “I found a photo in one of the boxes in my room. John with two boys in Fahraya, Jamie and a nephew. Is that him?”
“That’s him,” Melanie confirmed.
“What was he, fifteen, sixteen, when John left?”
“Fifteen, I believe,” Melanie. “Which by Fahrayan standards is manhood. Extended childhood is a luxury Fahrayans can’t afford.”
“Why didn’t he escape with John and Jamie?” Meaghan asked. “Why did they leave him behind?”
Melanie shook her head. “They didn’t leave Jhoro behind. He refused to go. Not everyone supported V’hren, and they weren’t ready to hand Fahraya over to him without a fight. They needed a leader and Jhoro was the logical choice.”
“But he was only a kid,” Natalie said. “Fifteen and he’s the guy in charge?”
Melanie shook her head again. “Human fifteen and Fahrayan fifteen are not the same. At fifteen, Jhoro was taller and stronger than John and already a skilled hunter. And V’hren’s heir. With John and Jamie gone, the resistance looked to Jhoro as their de facto king.”
“Can we count on Jhoro’s help when we get over there?” Meaghan asked.
“Maybe,” Melanie said. “If you can find him. And if he wants to help.”
“Why wouldn’t he help?”
Melanie stared at the floor and didn’t answer.
“Melanie, why wouldn’t he help?” Meaghan asked again.
Natalie said, “Well, it’s obvious isn’t it? With Jamie out of the way, V’hren’s the only guy between Jhoro and the big chair. And if V’hren’s a complete bastard in how he kills Jamie that makes Jhoro look like a better alternative.” Natalie looked at Meaghan. “Right?”
“Yeah, sadly, that sounds about right to me,” Meaghan said. “Melanie?”
“Jhoro is a better man than that,” Melanie said. “Much more like John than V’hren. To the point that V’hren never quite believed that Jhoro was his. Jhoro may want to rule, but he’d never step on Jamie’s broken body to get there. Unlike his father.”
“So then why not help us?” Meaghan asked.
“Because John is as good as dead to them from the shame of losing his wings,” Melanie answered, looking at the floor. “And because you’re Matthew’s daughter. Many, including Jhoro and his companions, blame Matthew for what happened to John.”
“Matthew? How is it Matthew’s fault? He saved John,” Meaghan answered, indignant.
“And according to some, John only needed saving because Matthew’s presence gave V’hren an excuse to move against him.”
Meaghan felt the panic rise again. Was Matthew really to blame for what happened to John? Was that even possible? If Matthew, with more than twenty years of dealing with this shit, had screwed up that badly, what hope did Meaghan have of saving Jamie?
Seeing the look on Meaghan’s face, Natalie steered her across the room and gently pushed her into the arm chair.
The warm weight of Natalie’s hands on her shoulders steadied Meaghan, and her panic subsided a bit. It was still there but muted enough so she could function.
Breathe, Meaghan told herself. Keep breathing. “I need the whole story, Melanie. Not bits and pieces. What the hell am I walking into? All of it. Now.”
Before Melanie could answer, they heard footsteps on the stairs and Russ appeared with a tray of sandwiches. “Lunchtime,” he said, in a cheery voice, then he saw Meaghan’s face. He scowled. “What the hell have you been telling her?”
“Nothing yet,” Meaghan said. “They were just getting started.” She glared at Melanie. “Right?”
Chapter 37
The current round of trouble started not long before John’s exile. But the roots of the story lay in the first contact between Fahraya and the human world. Fahraya wasn’t a separate world or dimension, like most of the other worlds accessed through the Eldrich gateways. It was a bubble of space time, a tiny dimension clinging to the human world. It had no separate existence.
; Its inhabitants had once been human until a magical accident split them off from the wider world. Magic, much like radiation, could force genetic mutation, causing strange results. The people developed wings and became smaller, although many other species in Fahraya did not. Like the giant snakes, which were only giant relative to the now tiny human residents.
“So how long have they been on their own?” Meaghan asked.
“We don’t know for sure,” Melanie said. “The magic accelerates genetic change, so the split could have been relatively recent, but they’re a Stone Age culture which suggests they’ve been alone for some time. You’ve looked at the treaty scroll?”
Meaghan wrinkled her nose and shook her head.
Melanie smiled. “It’s pictographic. Fahrayan is not a written language. Their history and folklore are passed on orally, through sagas and stories, chanted or sung. All the written treaty does is reference, through crude pictograms, the much more detailed song that contains the agreed-upon provisions.”
“So, no writing,” Meaghan said.
“No writing, no metalworking, no agriculture, no manufacturing,” Melanie answered. “The usual lack of progress found in magical cultures, although the Fahrayans are a somewhat different case. Their world is so harsh, so poor, that without magic they couldn’t survive. Unlike worlds and species that never grow because they use magic as a crutch.”
“It’s a total dump,” Natalie said.
Melanie nodded. “It’s not fairyland.”
“So, why can’t they magic up a better world?” Meaghan asked.
“Because they aren’t practitioners, like witches and wizards, who use magic as a tool. They’re a magical species,” Melanie explained. “Without magic they can’t exist, at least not in their current form. But they have very limited ability to manipulate it.”
“So, who’s doing the magic?” Meaghan asked, confused.
“Nobody is,” chimed in Natalie. “The magic is just there, like background radiation. The Fahrayans are used to it, they evolved with it, and their bodies can’t function properly without it. They can’t fly without magic. But the rest of us—humans at least—can’t go there without getting fried.”
“Unless we’re impervious,” Meaghan said.
“Exactly,” Natalie said.
Meaghan scowled. “If they need magic to fly, then how the hell do they get around over here? Emily says a bunch of them attacked her brother. And I saw Jamie with my own eyes. And other people have seen them or there’d be no stories about fairies with wings, right?” As she said Jamie’s name, Meaghan felt the panic bubble up. She pushed it back down.
Melanie jumped in. “The Fahrayans lose their ability to fly if they get too far from a gateway. Their wings are ridiculous if you understand typical avian anatomy. They shouldn’t be able to fly at all with them, but somehow they do. Much like dragons.”
“Dragons? They have dragons over there?” Meaghan shuddered. “I’m still trying to get used to the giant snakes.”
“Relax,” Melanie said. “No dragons in Fahraya. Entirely different world. But the same principle. The wings are too small and attached in the wrong way to lift a beast of that size off the ground. Which is why dragons are now creatures of myth in this world. Not enough magic left to let them fly.”
“But the Fahrayans are so small they don’t need as much magic,” Meaghan said, trying to disregard Melanie’s comment about dragons. One monster at a time, she thought. If I die in Fahraya, at least I won’t have to worry about any dragons. “And the sightings and attacks have all occurred near gateways.” She craned her head to look at Natalie. “And city hall’s sort of a gateway, right?”
Natalie shrugged. “More a magnifier, but the same general idea.”
Without the gateway magic or some other source of magic, the Fahrayans were incapable of flight and lost their disproportionate strength. The farther they got from a gateway, the weaker they got.
“So, without magic, they’re defenseless,” Meaghan said. “How do the amulets work? And don’t tell me ‘by magic’ again.”
Natalie smiled. “They’re pretty cool. My mom came up with them.”
The amulets worked by dampening the magical mutations and activating residual human DNA. When Jamie told Meaghan that the amulet made him human, he was half right. He was already human, mostly. The amulet merely suppressed the genetic changes that made him Fahrayan. Vivian had believed that Jamie could be made human permanently, but the spell would require a blast of magical power far in excess of anything in the human world, even near the gateways. So, they made do with the amulets, which were an astonishing bit of magic in their own right.
Russ, this time managing not to make a sound on his way up the creaky wooden stairs, appeared with another tray of food, a pot of coffee, and a reproachful look at Melanie and Natalie. “Are you still freaking her out?”
Yes, Meaghan thought. “No. I feel better,” she told Russ. Liar, she thought. “How are things in the house? Is the wicked witch of the basement behaving herself?”
Russ shrugged. “I assume everyone’s still alive down there, but I’m kinda trying to stay out of it.”
Meaghan nodded. “Has Patrice been down to talk to her?”
Russ shook his head. “Not yet. I think she’s letting her stew awhile. Patrice is one tough lady. I’d be a wreck if I were in her shoes.” He set the tray down on the desk, bustled around for a minute pouring coffee and handing out cookies, then grabbed the nearly untouched sandwich tray and left.
“So,” Meaghan said. “Back to business. The Fahrayan gateways are relatively new, right?”
“Relatively,” Melanie said. “They opened up in the mid-nineteenth century.”
“Is that normal?” Meaghan asked. “Gateways popping up like that?”
“No,” Melanie answered. “Not in the least. We’re still not sure why it happened.”
“Not totally sure,” Natalie muttered.
Meaghan looked at Melanie for a reaction, but Melanie’s face was unreadable. Even when they claim they’re telling me everything, Meaghan thought, they’re still holding shit back. But, for now, she’d have to be okay with that.
When the first gateways opened in England, Melanie explained, the tiny winged warriors found themselves in the middle of Romanticism and the Victorian Age. Since magical gateways tended to exist in clumps, they appeared in the spots already reputed to be fairy strongholds.
“Fairy folklore has existed for centuries,” Melanie added. “But fairies didn’t have wings until the Fahrayans arrived.” Somehow, the brutal Stone Age Fahrayans were converted in human imagination into the graceful, charming, childlike inhabitants of a paradisiacal fairyland.
And, the Fahrayans didn’t do much better gaining an accurate first impression of humans. The Victorian fairy hunters were not the most sensible of people. Their idealized view of the Fahrayans led to an idealized view of their behavior, allowing the Fahrayans to steal them blind whenever they crossed paths. The idea began to root in the Fahrayan psyche that the giant humans were easy pickings.
Those who flew far enough from the gateways to lose their magical boost generally didn’t come back. The few who managed to return told stories of fearsome giant predators like foxes and badgers and house cats. Owls and hawks in particular were feared. The Fahrayans had evolved their magical wings because it was the best protection from the fearsome creatures of their world, none of whom could fly. But in the human world, death could come screeching from above, from creatures with far more impressive flight capabilities.
“Those who wanted to raid into the human world dismissed the tales as raving or lies, and pointed out how easy it had been to steal food and small objects from the humans they’d encountered,” Melanie said.
“But they were all bubble-headed Victorian fairy hunters,” Natalie added. “Not exactly a complete picture of humanity, you know?”
The Fahrayans with more realistic views of humanity urged caution. It was safe to assume, they
argued, that if Fahrayans could travel back and forth through the gateways, then so could the giant birds of prey. Or the giant people themselves. Best to stay clear of them altogether.
Melanie sighed. “The one thing, I believe, that all Fahrayans shared, however, was an utter lack of comprehension of how vast and complex the human world really is.”
The cautious faction won the day and taboos about entering the gateways were established. But the stories and the desire for the treasures seen in the human world remained. It became an illicit rite of passage for adolescent Fahrayans to sneak into the human world. Respect for the taboos faded, although the occasional encounter with an owl was enough to instill a healthy respect for the inherent danger of the other world. Which made it even more attractive.
“That all changed with John’s father,” Melanie said. “Zayhna.”
Zayhna and his bravest friends, barely out of childhood, their heads full of tales of glory and treasure, of brave Fahrayans outwitting the hapless giants, snuck through a gateway and found themselves right in the middle of a bloody World War II battlefield.
Natalie shook her head. “Jamie never told me any of this. Not even in high school when he took that stupid European history class I had to help him with.”
“That’s because he didn’t know the story,” Melanie said. “At least not the details. Zayhna was the only survivor and he was so traumatized he could barely speak about what he’d seen.”
Melanie believed, based on her research, that an artillery blast probably hit near the gateway as the Fahrayans crossed through, killing several and scattering the rest. The remaining Fahrayans didn’t last long. The few soldiers who saw them assumed them to be hallucinations brought on by battle stress and told no one. It was rumored in the magical worlds, but never confirmed, that a few had been captured alive by the Germans and taken to a secret lab in Berlin.
When he could finally speak of what he’d seen, Zayhna was adamant that humans were not the silly, hapless giants found in Fahrayan stories. The humans he observed were warriors, like the Fahrayans, but with weapons of inconceivable power and savagery. If the giants were angered, they could easily destroy Fahraya.