by Linda Welch
On the jet, Chris and Royal listened to the tape almost nonstop until I wanted to crunch it to little bitty electronic pieces under my feet. They tried to consign every word to memory, though they had difficulty swallowing it even with the proof of their own voices. Losing your memory must be terrible and forgetting an adventure of this magnitude crushing.
Royal rented a car in San Francisco and Chris drove. Royal sat in the front with him. In the back, Maggie disconsolately flicked through her notebook, now covered in squiggles instead of words, as we left San Francisco and headed for Monterey.
She flung the notebook down. “Not fair!”
I sat beside her. “We have the recording.”
“I know, but I wore my fingers down writing all this.”
Royal had phoned his fellow Enforcers to tell them the Gates were open for a limited time. Two headed for the High House to appraise Lawrence and his father Gryphon of the situation. Royal suggested Gelpha be put in place at the Gates to organize crossings. If not handled properly, chaos might erupt as the Gelpha trapped when the Gates closed rushed to return to where they belonged.
Royal fretted but I didn’t give it a thought. As Chris said earlier, let Bel-Athaer deal with any problems the open Gates caused.
Was Baelfleur truly a fairy, as in sparkly wings and fairy dust? Could we trust him? And how, exactly, could he help us? I supposed he must be a Lawrence look-alike.
I hiked through California when too young to be adrift alone. I went through San Luis Obispo, one of California’s oldest cities, and saw the Spanish mission founded in 1772. From there I made for Monterey and explored Fisherman’s Wharf and Cannery Row, and took the spectacular coast road to Carmel. A family of artists took me in. Gweny sculpted wildlife, each piece unique. Her husband Sam sat outside their small shop with his charcoal and easel and took requests, he drew anything provided it wasn’t lewd. Patrice, Gweny’s sister, made the most beautiful, delicate lace I have ever seen; people often came in the shop to watch her tatting. I stayed with them for months, helped them in the shop, took odd jobs in the evening to help pay for my keep. But I knew it was temporary. I didn’t belong there any more than I belonged anywhere.
We were not far from Seaside, where my friend Lynn had lived. Who occupied her house now? What happened to her dog?
We parked outside the address Rain gave us, a bed and breakfast in Pacific Grove on the Monterey Peninsula. Reached by a long flight of concrete steps, the tall gabled house perched on the hill across the road from the cliffs and pounding ocean waves. Chris grumbled, saying there must be a parking pad for guests in back of the house but Royal didn’t want to drive around to find it.
We piled out and slogged up the steps, except no slogging for me, I clung to Maggie and floated.
We trooped inside a square, carpeted hall with green and pink cabbage-rose wallpaper. A straight staircase rose to the next floor, an antique coat rack with boot tray was against the left wall and a small table with an onyx clock and hotel bell on the right wall. A door stood open to a large living room furnished with period pieces.
Royal hit the bell, which tinged softly.
A door shut and a young woman tripped downstairs. She loosed her wheat-blond hair from a ponytail with one hand and stripped off an apron with the other. Her smile was as bright as her blue eyes. “Welcome! How can I help you?”
Royal took a Banks and Mortensen business card from his jacket’s inside pocket. “I’m Royal Mortensen. This is my associate, Christopher Plowman. We are looking for a couple, a man and woman. We believe they are staying here.”
Her brow puckered. “I’m sorry. I can’t tell you whether or not they are. We protect our guests’ confidentiality. Unless you have a warrant?”
“The man is white-haired, the woman red-headed. They may be using the names Baelfleur and Freyda.”
When Rain gave us their description, he said you can’t miss them. I thought of how the same could be said of me and Royal, him all copper and gold and me white and silver. Individually, we stood out. Together, we were noticeably the opposite ends of the spectrum.
A wee change in the girl’s expression made my muscles tight. She knew them. Royal saw it, too.
“I advise you to tell us what you know,” he said. “They are fugitives.”
She reacted to his stern tone with outrage. “I advise you to leave, before I call the police.”
“Stop waffling, Royal, old man.” Chris stepped between Royal and the woman.
He leaned in with a winning smile and warm tone. “I’m sure you’re not trying to be difficult, are you, my dear. Tell us, and we’ll be out of your hair in a jiffy.”
Did he work his Gelpha charm on her? She looked into his eyes and her jaw sagged. He took one of her hands and wrapped it in his, and that did it; her expression turned dreamy, a little vacant.
The Gelpha charm is an insidious seduction. I loathe it. But I had to ask myself: if Chris gave me the choice of beguiling this girl to get the truth, or give up, what would I decide?
“Where are they?” he asked.
She swallowed before speaking. “Carmel.”
“When will they return?”
“They bought a store and apartment combo. They moved there last week.”
“Ah, I see. Can you give me directions?”
We arrived in Carmel, strictly speaking Carmel by the Sea, and spent too long looking for parking. Then we set out to find the store. I looked at the ground passing inches beneath my feet. Oh to feel the paving and cobbles under my soles.
Real estate in Carmel is pricey. Baelfleur must have paid a bundle to get a toe in. Where did he get the money? Fairy gold? Or he talked a leprechaun into giving him the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? I sniggered to myself.
Looking in shop windows, Maggie dropped behind the guys.
“This isn’t a shopping expedition. Stop dawdling.”
“I’m only looking. I haven’t been here before.”
My patience disintegrated by the hour. Anxiety made me snippy with the last person I should take my ill temper out on. “Can you keep your eyes peeled for Fairy Fortune?”
The store’s name made me smile, seeing as it belonged to a real fairy.
With so many people milling around Maggie, I feared being walked through. I would not feel anything different, nor would they, but the notion made me antsy. I closed my eyes and clung to Maggie’s aura.
Chapter Twenty-Three
We found the store in one of those charming side streets crammed with boutiques of every ilk, cafés, and jewelry shops. An Opening Soon sign plastered the window. The inside looked bare. A counter, two waist-high glass display cases, glass shelves on the back wall, but no half-unpacked cartons or goods.
As we peered in, a man wearing a loose, long-sleeved tunic of unbleached linen with blue and mauve embroidery on the hem and loose cream-colored pants came through a door in the back wall and braced one elbow on the counter as he studied some papers. Tall as Royal, long white hair tied in a pony tail and pale skin, his appearance startled me and I panicked.
“No!”
“What’s wrong?”
“Back away, now.”
Then he turned to us and I saw his face, skin more cream-colored than pale like mine, pale-blue eyes ringed in shadow deep as bruises, wide hollows beneath his cheekbones. Lean but not thin; to my eyes he possessed an ethereal quality, a fragility. Not the Gelpha Seer I mistook him for.
“Wait. I was wrong.”
“Make up your mind,” Maggie said irritably.
He gazed through the window quizzically. Royal tried the handle. It opened and we went inside fast.
The guy drew himself up. “We are not open for business yet.”
Royal got in his face. “We are looking for Baelfleur.”
He blanched, stepped away from the counter into the doorway behind and said slowly, as if he spoke through sand, “Nobody of that name is here.”
A woman emerged from the back room’s inte
rior and moved in close to him. Their dissimilarity drew the eye. Tall and robust, her white T-shirt with short cap sleeves revealed arms rounded with muscle and strained over a generous bosom. Her blue jeans clung to muscular thighs. Where he was pale and wan, her lightly bronzed complexion shone with vigor. Her bright, wiry, tousled hair, more copper than red, contrasted with his white locks. Her cinnamon eyes narrowed. “What is it, Bel?”
Rain and River named the fairy Baelfleur but I swore Rain called him Bel at some point. This man must be him. Disappointment made me weak as if my limbs turned to water. I expected a small, unusual or outlandish man—well he was supposed to be a fairy—who could pass as a boy, not this tall gangling specimen. I didn’t care what the wraiths said, this man couldn’t impersonate Lawrence.
“Maggie, we made a mistake coming here,” I told her. “Tell the guys we may as well leave.”
“No, wait,” she whispered back.
Bel told the woman, “They came to the wrong address. They are leaving.”
Chris spoke and his voice held an edge. “I don’t believe so, old fellow.”
The woman, who must be Freyda, moved to stand between us and Bel. “State your business,” she said brusquely.
“Where is he? We’re not leaving till we speak to him.”
Bel and Baelfleur were one and the same but Chris and Royal had not made the connection.
Her brows peaked. “Who?”
“The sióga prince, Baelfleur,” Royal said.
Her eyes popped. She reached behind the counter and a second later we stared down a shotgun’s twin barrels. “Get out. Now!”
Royal held up his palms in a gesture meant to placate. “Please. We mean no harm. Rain and River sent us. It is a matter of life and death and they think Baelfleur can help us.”
A touch on Freyda’s arm moved her aside. “Freyda,” Bel said, “lock the door.”
“We left Downside behind us. That life is finished.” Freyda glared at us. “We want nothing to do with you!”
“Quick now. Before someone comes in,” Bel said.
She froze while anger and dread fought on her face. But she placed the shotgun on the counter, strode around it, across the store to the door and locked it.
“I am Baelfleur. Come.” Bel gestured at the room behind him.
Chris’ and Royal’s faces expressed the frustration I felt. Why on Earth did the wraiths send us to this man?
“Please accept my apologies for distressing you both,” Royal said. “We made a mistake. You cannot help us.”
“You were Downside and must have come a fair distance to find me. Your need must be great for Rain and River to give you my true name. Please.” Bel held his hand toward the door again.
He walked away, leaving Freyda standing at the doorway looking furious. Royal and Chris lingered as they tried to decide whether to follow or quit the store.
“We’ve come this far,” Chris said.
We passed through a small stockroom where a staircase climbed to the next floor, through another door to a large bright room with yellow walls and white woodwork, a kitchen against one wall, an oak table and chairs in the center. A metal bench and machinery occupied the far end. Sunlight shone through the windows on healthy houseplants and potted herbs which lined the ledges.
Jewelry spread over one end of the kitchen table: exquisite, complex, delicate silver settings captured wafer thin stones, lacquered and glossy, some with a hint of iridescent color making them resemble abalone. Works of art made into necklaces, pendants, earrings and brooches.
“This stuff is incredible,” Maggie said in a soft, awed voice.
Bel said, “Wood and silver. Some I brought from Downside. Others I reproduced using driftwood.”
Fairy jewelry? It would sell like crazy.
Bel asked us to sit but nobody did.
Freyda stormed into the room. “Whatever you want of us, I won’t have it.” She swung on Bel. “Do you hear me?”
He went to her, held her shoulders and spoke gently in her ear. “Dearest, let us at least listen to them.”
She stood stiff as an upright board, then sagged limply as if giving up the fight. Bel took her hand and led her to a chair. After she seated herself, he stood behind her.
Royal and Chris took turns telling our story while Maggie held her tongue.
Bel put his hands on Freyda’s shoulders again and dropped his head at the end of the tale. Freyda placed one hand on his. All was silence apart from the sweet music from birds outside the window.
He finally met Royal’s eyes. “This woman, her spirit is with us now?”
Royal replied, “She is. Maggie speaks for her.”
“You love her very much.”
A lump settled in my throat.
“I do,” Royal said simply.
“Bel,” Freyda said, “their troubles sadden me, but you can’t consider this. Your mother’s spies are everywhere.”
Bel spoke throatily. “But Rain sent them and I owe her and River my life, and your happiness. They risked so much for us. Although they fulfilled the terms of their contract, what they did was a betrayal my mother will neither forgive nor forget.”
“You’re right, of course.” Freyda released his hand. “But I fear for you.”
He squeezed her shoulders. “I will be careful.”
“You?” She grasped his hand again. “Don’t think of leaving me behind, Bel.”
“I must. You know I can move through Downside all but unseen, but you, my lovely Freyda, stand out for what you are, a red-headed Northerner. What if word gets back to your family? And from what these good people say, you cannot help us when we see this man and must not try, lest you endanger the undertaking. Better you wait for me here than Downside, where I will carry fear for you in my breast.”
She flung his hand away. “Why must you always be right? But I warn you, Bel, if you’re not back tomorrow I’m coming for you.”
He let her go and moved to take a vacant chair. “The boy puts in an appearance. Rain and River will take care of Shan. I trust them to do so.”
He hesitated, studying his hands flat on the table. He caught Royal’s eyes. “Rain and River told you why they sent you to me?”
“They said you can impersonate Lawrence.”
“And do you believe I can?”
Royal frowned slightly. “In that place, anything seemed possible. But now, here. . . . You are a grown man, how can you masquerade as a twelve-year-old boy?”
Bel watched him closely. “Freyda is human and humans never change, and in this place I pass for human. But I am a different person Downside. I am sióga, the Fair Folk, the Elder Race. Magic is the fabric of my life. And beyond that, I have a gift with which few sióga are blessed. I can warp light and shadow so I am another man to those who look at me. I can also become unseen, and in this way I left Downside to escape those who wished to use me, through The Station with Freyda, yet none saw me. I can imitate the boy, but there is no point in taking this further unless you trust I can do it.”
“Show us,” said Chris.
Bel’s lip ticked up on one side. “I cannot. I have no magic here.”
He watched Royal’s face. “I know how you feel. You were sent to ask the help of a man who gives you an outrageous tale he cannot prove. What happens next is up to you. Trust me and I will go with you back to Downside. If you do not trust me, well and good, we say farewell and you leave my shop.”
Royal pondered and silence filled the room. Did he run what he heard on the tape through his mind? Did he say to himself, my voice, it must be true. Or did he come up with a dozen over the top reasons it wasn’t?
“Trust?” he said eventually. “Desperation sent us to Angelina. Hope took us to the wraiths. Belief, though tenuous, brought us here.” He took in a deep breath and exhaled through his nose. “Yes. I trust you.”
Such a leap of faith is not taken lightly. He made me so proud of him.
“You can look like Lawrence, though you haven�
�t seen him?” Chris asked.
“I need an image of his likeness.”
Oops, we didn’t think of that. And we couldn’t take Bel into Bel-Athaer and present him to Lawrence. Our plan died before it began.
Except . . . . “Do your thing, Maggie,” I told her.
She nodded and closed her eyes. I smiled, because since leaving Downside she’d forgotten to do it most of the time, leaving Royal and Chris to guess when she spoke or when I spoke.
“Royal, I still have the old file on Lawrence and his school picture is in it. But he’s six years older now.”
“Have you seen him recently?” Bel asked. “I can begin with the photograph and work from there.”
“It need only be an approximation,” Chris said. “I doubt Shan has seen Lawrence in years. In fact he may never have seen him.”
Hope leached some darkness from Royal’s eyes, they were less haunted and his shoulders squared. Chris watched Bel expectantly. Freyda sustained a dour look. And Maggie kept her eyes shut.
“We must return to Clarion and get Tiff’s body,” Royal said. He turned his attention to Bel. “I can get the photo at the same time.”
“Portals to Downside exist in many big cities but not in smaller communities so I doubt you can reach The Station from Clarion. I only know the San Francisco entrance to Downside. I must not be seen entering Downside so cannot go there and ask to be admitted. But I can get through The Station unnoticed with you if you return there. And when you leave, you pause long enough to not arouse suspicion while I walk the bridge for we cannot walk it together to difference destination. You can hold a picture of Clarion in your mind and go there, I will return to San Francisco.”
Mystified, Chris, Royal and Maggie stared with no idea what he was talking about. Me, neither.
“I’m sorry,” Chris said a moment later, accompanied by a puzzled frown. “You’ve lost us, my good fellow.”
Baelfleur and Freyda glanced at each other. “They don’t know how it works,” Freyda said.
“Ah.” Baelfleur’s face cleared. “The bridge to Downside was not explained to you. So. I hope I do not add to your confusion. There are a number of entrances, all in major cities, and all lead to The Station. They are permanent. But those leaving Downside can go to any Upside location by fixing an accurate picture of it in their mind as they cross the bridge.”