by Tom Deitz
“I wish him luck,” David snorted. “I’ve been tryin’ to do that ever since I was sixteen”—he regarded Brock curiously. “Uh, how old are you these days?”
“Secret,” Brock muttered, from where he was methodically working his way around the room. He’d managed about four feet—half a bookcase—and had just reached one of Myra’s numerous band posters. “Oh, brilliant!” he crowed. “Eidolon! They’re great! I’ve got all their CDs! Hey…they’re from here, aren’t they?”
“Actually,” Myra acknowledged drolly, “we know ’em—Morry, anyway: their piper.”
Calvin nudged David in the ribs. “We do?”
“Piper—LaWanda’s Piper,” David whispered back. “Morry Murphy’s his real name. James Morrison Murphy, if you wanta get technical.”
“Brilliant!” Brock repeated numbly. “Brilliant!”
“So,” Liz said to Brock, who had just skidded to an awestruck halt at the enormous floor-to-ceiling rack that housed Myra’s comic collection, “you’re going Tracking with us, I guess?”
Brock nodded absently. “Was stateside anyway, wanted to see Cal, tried to call him to see if we could connect, got Sandy, and we plotted the rest.”
Calvin grimaced. Sandy caught the expression. “Probably just as well,” she advised. “Haven’t heard the news today, have you?”
“No time,” David supplied. “Had a final.”
“Ditto.” From Liz.
“You’d probably have missed it anyway,” Sandy mused. “It was Carolina stuff, mostly.”
“And?” Calvin prompted.
She shifted position in the beanbag chair she’d claimed. “Short form: kid disappeared from my neck of the woods yesterday afternoon. Eight years old. White trash folks. Older brother who wants desperately to be cool—based on what I could tell from hearing him on the radio. Anyway, like I said: kid vanishes, brother says he was last seen playing hide-and-seek with some”—she made quote marks with her fingers—“‘really sharp-dressed kids who said they were from the mountain.’ “
David looked up at that, and a chill raced over him. “Little kid?” he whispered. “Jeans? Baseball cap on backward?”
Sandy regarded him sharply. “So you know…?”
“Depends. Know what?”
“That he was found—this morning—in Athens. On that very street outside this apartment.”
David swallowed hard. “Did…did he say how he got there?”
Myra’s face was dead serious. “He said the pretty kids brought him.”
Liz exhaled sharply. “Well, that’s one less thing to worry about.”
Sandy stared at her. “How so?”
Liz glanced at David. “You want to tell her, or shall I?”
“I will,” David replied. “I’m the one who saw it.” And for the third time that day, he related the tale of the boy who’d appeared so suddenly on the sidewalk, and of the troubling Faery youth who’d abandoned him there. “Figured,” Sandy grumbled when he’d finished. “I think they’ve been hangin’ ’round my place too.”
It was Calvin’s turn to look alarmed, but Sandy merely shrugged. “If they want me, they’ll get me—but they’ll have to pass iron first. But yeah, I’m pretty sure I saw a couple watching the house yesterday; either that, or those were awfully solid shadows. Voices too—maybe. Couldn’t be sure; could’ve been the wind. Almost.”
David gnawed his lip. “Maybe,” he said slowly, “we should stay put tonight.”
Brock looked stricken. “You mean not…go Tracking?”
David shrugged. “Just a feelin’, but—I dunno. Forget it.”
“Speaking of forgetting,” Myra broke in. “Has anyone heard from Scott?”
As if in reply, the phone rang—in the bathroom, where someone had left it.
“Maybe that’s him now,” Myra sighed, rising.
“Was it?” Liz wondered when she returned.
Myra shook her head. “Piper.”
“Piper?” From Calvin.
“The aforementioned James Morrison Murphy. Wannie’s car just died out past Crawford and they need a ride.”
“I’ll go!” Brock volunteered instantly.
“Fine,” Myra grunted, already fumbling for her keys. “But since I’m the only one here who won’t scare ’em to death, I reckon I’d better go too.”
Liz grabbed David by the ear and yanked him to his feet.
“C’mon, blond guy,” she commanded, “somebody’d better start dinner.”
Chapter VIII: Midsummer Night’s Team
(Crawford, Georgia—Friday, June 20—late evening)
James Morrison Murphy—Piper to his friends, which was basically everyone present—lowered the chanter of the bagpipes on which, for ten minutes, he’d been puffing, and wiped his brow expressively, even as the applause began. His sad brown eyes were hopefully bright, his mop of curly dark hair wringing wet with sweat. His wiry body sagged visibly within his trademark Stewart plaid pants and white linen shirt. Beside him, LaWanda Gilmore—Juju Woman (among the other, more sinister, appellations she cultivated)—flashed a toothily wicked grin and laid her black Fender bass atop the nearest amp. A harem’s worth of gold bracelets tinkled on the strong, chocolate-colored arms bared by a scarlet tank top. The rehearsal hall—actually, the auditorium of a defunct high school in tiny Crawford, Georgia, twenty miles south of Athens (from which, six hours earlier, the two of them had been rescued from a defunct Pinto)—still reverberated from their last number: Gary Moore’s “Over the Hills and Far Away.” The rest of the impromptu band—Darrell on vocals and lead guitar and Calvin (after many protests) on drum—smiled expectantly.
“Well?” LaWanda prompted, folding her arms. The tiny gold beads that tipped her myriad braids glittered, but no more than her eyes.
“Great!” David roared, jumping to his feet from the ratty sofa from which, with Liz, he’d been spectating. Alec and Aikin aped his example from the sofa’s even scruffier twin. The rest of the tonally challenged (or rhythmically handicapped, as Liz preferred) crew chimed in immediately. “Wow!” was one summarization. “Far out,” a deliberately outdated other.
David poked the gawking Brock in the ribs and bent close. “What’d you think, Brit-Boy?”
“Brilliant,” Brock retorted. “Brilliant!” David suppressed a far too fatherly urge to ruffle the kid’s hair like Calvin had done earlier. He’d been that way himself not long ago: full of flash and fire and energy. His folks thought he still was. In truth…he was no longer sure. Brock, however—he was like a kid in a candy store; or, more like, a series of candy stores.
Though the boy had grown up middle-class in Florida, fear of an abusive stepfather (who’d raped Brock’s older sister, Robyn, right before Calvin met them a few years back, thereby precipitating that encounter) had driven both him and his sibling to seek sanctuary with friends in England. Brock sneaked back stateside occasionally; Robyn didn’t. But Brock had been to Athens only once before, and that in haste, and he had nearly overloaded on that small city’s wealth of Ameri-pop this second time around: first on food—Liz’s patented jambalaya (and dark Atlanta beer he was too young to legally consume)—then on the racks of hip new music in Wuxtry and Ruthless Records alike, next on books and magazines at Barnett’s Newsstand and Tennis Bird Shorts, and finally on live music itself.
It had been a damned fine evening. David had had the time of his life, and he knew all these folks and had heard most of them perform more times than he could count. Point of fact, he remembered when Darrell had gotten his first guitar, back when the guy was fifteen. And he recalled when his lanky pal had proudly called him up from MacTyrie two days later, to strum a rough but recognizable “House of the Rising Sun” over the phone.
But until he’d come to UGA, Darrell had been his musical friend. Oh, he’d known in a general way that Cal played harmonica and guitar, and that drumming was a necessary adjunct to many of the Cherokee rituals Cal had undertaken, but he’d never actually heard the guy sing until
three years after their initial meeting. “A man’s gotta hold some things in reserve,” Calvin had confided. “Otherwise his friends’ll take him for granted.”
And of course there was Piper and LaWanda, who really were musicians. LaWanda had long played in a band called Save the Feet for Last, and had likewise performed the music at Gary’s wedding. And Piper—well, wiry, tousle-haired little Piper was a very strange bird indeed: one of the sweetest guys in the world, and spacy as they came. Basically, he lived for rain and LaWanda, his unlikely sweetie. He was also hell-on-wheels on pipes, highland or Uillean, either. And very adaptable.
Which was fortunate, because the assortment of unlikely personnel that evening had also made for some unlikely improvisations and instrumental juxtapositions, if consistently wonderful sounds. Darrell, for instance, had opened with the most obscene blues song David had ever heard, something called “Love Me With a Feelin’.” He’d done a couple more solos, whereupon Calvin (who sometimes collaborated with him) had chimed in with a pair of John Denveresque pastiches. That had been followed by Guadalcanal Diary’s old “Trail of Tears,” which LaWanda had augmented on bass halfway through; and then the Juju Woman herself had ordered the lights reduced to a single candle and treated them to a spooky synthesizer rendition of “Pirate Jenny” (with apologies to Nina Simone), and a rousing rendition of the same singer’s “Mississippi Goddamn”—an old civil-rights ditty, whose implications Myra had to explain to Brock, who hadn’t a clue.
A beer and snack break had ensued, then assorted jams, while Piper got himself properly psyched. Whereupon, with much ceremony, he’d dived in on a new-and-old Celtic martial medley, consisting of “Brian Bones March,” “Roddy McCorley,” and “Foggy Dew” (with LaWanda’s eerie vocals), to end with “Green Fields of France.” The Gary Moore had been Myra’s request.
David checked his watch. They’d have to leave soon; have to shift from artists-and-audience to Trackers. But he certainly wouldn’t complain if there were a few more tunes. Nor, to judge by his rapt expression, would Brock—who, it appeared, would’ve been just as glad to spend the night worshipping Piper’s shadow as waiting by a stretch of leafless ground for an event they had no reason to assume would occur.
Piper raised a brow at LaWanda. “Another?”
She shrugged. “Why not?”
Piper looked straight at Brock. “Requests?”
Brock turned as red as LaWanda’s tank-top. “Uh…” he choked, but then his jaw hardened and a wicked glint came into his eyes. “How ’bout ‘King of the Fairies’?”
LaWanda stiffened abruptly, Myra gasped, and Piper’s eyes nearly fell out of his head. An ominous silence filled the room.
Brock looked around in confusion. “Uh, Jeeze,” he mumbled. “What’d I say?”
More silence.
“I mean, it’s just a song,” Brock went on stubbornly. “Isn’t it?”
Still silence. Then, from Myra. “Actually, no, it’s not—not to Piper.”
Brock stood his ground, scowling under his inky forelock. “I don’t get it.”
Myra gazed about for support, then scowled herself, and dived in. “Well, Brock, the short form is that that particular song played by that particular person, under certain circumstances, isn’t…just a song. You’ve heard us talking about Gates before: Gates between the Worlds, and all. And though we’ve all tried to ignore it ’cause we’ve wanted to have fun tonight and hang out with our friends, and not deal with serious stuff, the fact is, that when Piper plays ‘King of the Fairies’ it can sometimes open a Gate—or send him through the World Walls, anyway. And since we know that Lugh—he’s the local Faery king—is real sensitive about any kind of Gates right now, you can see where we’re headed.”
Brock nodded sullenly, choosing attitude over embarrassment, which was typical of his age. “Sorry. Didn’t know.”
David clapped him on the shoulder. “No big deal.”
Piper, however, looked almost as sad as Brock—probably because he hated to disappoint such a totally devoted fan.
“Tell you what,” Calvin broke in suddenly, gazing at Darrell, “how ’bout something completely different, a lot more fun, and a lot more relevant, if not necessarily as wild or weird or imaginative technically?”
Darrell regarded him quizzically, one brow quirked upward. “You don’t mean…?
Calvin grinned fiendishly, even as he fished out his harmonica. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “so to speak”—as he climbing atop a convenient stool—“I give you the ‘Werepossum Blues!’”
And with that, Darrell laid down a blues riff, and Calvin started singing.
“Oh Lord, my name is Calvin,
an’ Indian Blood run through my veins,
Yeah, my name is Calvin Fargo,
and Cherokee blood be pulsin’ in my veins.
I’ve had some wild adventures;
seen an awful lot o’ wond’rous things.”
And from that he went on for nearly thirty minutes, detailing in verse after verse and in perfect blues rhyme and meter, the whole long tale of their varied adventures in Faerie, Galunlati, and assorted other realms, starting with what had befallen David that long ago summer night:
“You know my buddy David?
One day he went an’ got the Second Sight.
Yeah, you know my good friend David?
He fooled around and got the Second Sight.
He saw the Faeries ridin’—
an’ that gave him one mighty fright!”
And so on: first relating David’s riddle game with the Seelie Lords Nuada and Ailill, and Ailill’s attempts to revenge his defeat on David by assailing his family, ending in Ailill being transformed into a horse. That was followed by Ailill’s sister’s failed attempt at revenge of her own, for that insult. Next came Cal’s initial encounter with David and their subsequent journey, with Alec, to Galunlati, the Cherokee overworld, where Alec had been manipulated into betraying them. Which in turn precipitated a war between Lugh of Tir-Nan-Og and Finvarra of Erenn, during which the sun itself had been used as a weapon and which altercation David and his crew had, beyond hope, defused.
The tale became more personal then, as Calvin recounted his own encounter with a shapechanging Cherokee ogress called Spearfinger, who liked to feast on human livers. Brock brightened as he heard his own name come into the song. That took a number of verses, ending with Spearfinger’s dissolution and Calvin’s conscience heavy with guilt at the number of deaths he had inadvertently caused, including that of his father. More verses related events one year later, in which Calvin, Brock, and Sandy had helped the last of the not-so-mythical Water-Panthers evade a Cherokee witch who would have enslaved her, during which time Calvin had himself ventured to the Darkening Land to the West: the Cherokee Land of the Dead.
All those verses David had heard—or read—before, and perhaps he alone knew how personal they truly were, for they were part of Calvin’s private death song, which he had long ago begun composing at the urging of that same shaman-grandfather who had named him. But there were new verses as well (and David tried not to check his watch as time drew nigh to commence the official Tracking, for some things required their own hour and season), and those new verses told a fresher tale, in which David, Alec, and Aikin had all three dreamed dreams which had led each of them to yet more adventures: Aikin-the-hunter as quarry to the Wild Hunt himself, first in Faerie, then on the Tracks, and finally in downtown Athens; Alec as thwarted rescuer of the Faery woman, Aife, who had betrayed him, then loved him, and who now stayed with him in the guise of a cat-nee-enfield; and himself, who’d dared a never-never corner of space—time to win closure with the young martyred uncle for whom he had been named.
And as Calvin’s voice trailed off into a whispered hush, and Darrell’s guitar likewise faded, every sound in the room followed them to silence.
As though on cue, the single candle winked out. And someone—David never knew who—whispered an awestruck, “Wow!”
> Silence indeed, then; and breathing. And then LaWanda lit a new taper.
Someone’s watch beeped, signaling that it was now eleven, and suddenly they were all bright, creative, healthy (and to various degrees tipsy) young folks again.
Only Myra seemed unable to muster enthusiasm. David noticed how she lagged behind as they filed noisily down the stairs with a jumble of clothes, coolers, and musical instruments. “What….” he began softly, for Myra’s ears alone.
She frowned. “Scott. He was supposed to be here and he’s not.”
David started, though he’d likewise known at some level that Myra’s friend and sometime lover had not appeared, and indeed, that more than one person had commented on his absence—generally to be reminded that Scott wasn’t very reliable and had been even more spaced than usual of late. “Probably forgot what day it was,” Liz assured her. “God knows, he had as recently as yesterday.”
“He said he’d meet us there,” Myra conceded. “If he didn’t make it here, he said he’d meet us there.”
“Only one way to find out,” David told her with forced cheeriness. And with that he jogged away toward the lovingly restored Candyapple Red ’66 Mustang he still called the Mustang of Death.
* * *
The caravan back to the southern outskirts of Athens consisted of twelve people and a caged cat that was really a Faery woman changed into an enfield; all, now that LaWanda’s Pinto had deigned to run again, scattered across four vehicles. David, per tradition, took the lead in the Mustang, with Liz, Alec, and Aife along for the ride: the three original Trackers, accompanied, in a sense, by the latest. Then came Myra, with Darrell, Gary, Aikin, and most of the musical gear, in Myra’s brand new Dodge minivan. Piper and LaWanda followed, lest the Pinto suffer another calamity, as seemed likely, given the distinctly yellowish cast of its lights; while Sandy, Calvin, and Brock in Sandy’s Ford Explorer brought up the rear. The rest had transport, of course (though not all in town), ranging from Piper’s nonfunctioning Harley through Aikin’s Chevy S-10 pickup, to Alec’s aging Volvo; but in the interest of both simplicity and camaraderie, they always elected to carpool. Nor did it hurt that achieving their goal required invading a place where the presence of too many unfamiliar vehicles after dark might raise more than one set of law-enforcement eyebrows.