“Look, Adora, most rich people are a little eccentric. It’s their privilege. They earn it by paying higher taxes.” Ben, as he had told her before, wasn’t joking when he said this.
Many of them are also jerks, but she didn’t say that out loud. Ben loved the rich. They were his hobby, his obsession. He was going to be one when he grew up. Sadly, he was running out of time to achieve his goal, and was becoming depressingly more aware of it.
“This isn’t eccentric, it’s insane—even for a rich man. It’s the line between charmingly quirky and a wackjob—a slight but distinct difference, in my book.”
Ben leaned forward and fixed her with his bloodshot gaze. “But it’s a hundred grand, and to do a job that should be fascinating. And no one else is rushing in with offers, are they? Look, Adora, just take the meeting. You don’t like what you hear, then you walk away. In the meantime, you get to meet one of the great fruitcakes of our time, and you get to fly first-class in a private plane to Los Angeles and have lunch at the Beverly Wilshire. And think about this: People might eventually call you both nuts, but this book could easily be a bestseller. In fact, I’m betting this guy makes sure it’s the best bestseller. You could be set for life!” And that would assure Ben some fresh and possibly famous clients when they decided that they, too, needed to be immortalized in print.
“Hmph!” she said. But whatever her agent’s motives, he was likely right. Santa Claus was a perennially popular subject. Chances were she wouldn’t enjoy the interviews with the subject himself, but that was nothing new. Many of these chats with the famous were like catching a cold: You had to deal with a lot of snot and had a headache for a few days. Still, it was worth it in the end—if you got the story.
And she couldn’t discount the fact that there was a distressingly large segment of the population that believed in weird things—like the idea that pro wrestling wasn’t fixed, or that alien visitations happened all the time, or that Big Foot really lived just outside Seattle. Those kooks would probably all buy her book.
And she could write it under a nom de plume, she realized with a small burst of cheer.
“Do yourself a favor. Get noticed by the Times. Then you can go back to having scruples and writing about dead people no one cares about.”
Ben’s nose wrinkled as he said this. He was too smart an agent not to see the quality of her writing—particularly when critics kept pointing it out—but he had never understood what drove her to “live among the dead like a necrophiliac.” Adora couldn’t really explain it, herself. There were just certain people who fascinated her, and she felt compelled to get to know them—even when they were no longer among the living.
That aside, though Ben was a bit of a bastard and a control freak—with a now obviously severe drinking problem—he wasn’t stupid. His advice, though often unpalatable and even insulting, was usually worthwhile. She also doubted that he would send her into any situation that looked truly dangerous. After all, he wouldn’t get paid if she were dead and unable to write the book.
Adora took another sip of her iced tea and allowed herself to really ponder the idea of writing about the life of Santa Claus. What Ben said was true. Offers weren’t rolling in these days, even from the magazines for which she usually freelanced. She’d been gone too long and lost her contacts. Her publisher was still around, but the biography of Ninon de Lenclos—though it had been received well by the critics—had not captured the popular imagination. Her book on Shelley had done only slightly better. And absolutely no one wanted to hear about her ideas for a book on Sir Walter Scott. In the real world, cream rose to the top. That didn’t always happen in publishing. In fashion, taste in hemlines went up and down with every season. It was that way in the literary world too. And she was always a below-the-knee dress in a world of miniskirts. Put another way, her career as a biographer was currently at a standstill.
Except for this offer. Which was, as Ben pointed out, for a hundred thousand dollars. And there were all those medical bills to pay from when she’d spent time in her own chemical straitjacket, while the doctors tried to decide just what was wrong with her— an illness of the mind or of the body.
Santa Claus. Puh-leeze. It was The Voice, Adora’s almost constant inner companion and master critiquer, who had survived even the strongest of medications. She called The Voice Joy—short for killjoy, which of course Joy knew and found amusing. The Voice, her childhood make-believe friend and sometimes bully coach, was disconcerting even after all this time. She had mysteriously appeared around age five, when Adora’s family moved to Aptos in California, and still popped in to chat whenever Adora was in a stressful situation.
Like now. What have you gotten yourself into this time? Just do us both a favor and tell the man no.
I’m not into anything. Yet, Adora responded.
But you’re thinking about it. I know you are.
So much for trying to sneak anything past Joy.
Okay, I’m thinking. Look, being noncorporeal, you may not need food and shelter, but I do. If you have something useful to say, please do. If not, pipe down. I’m weighing my options and you’re distracting me.
Is that what you call it—weighing options? Better wipe the slobber off your chin. I guess we know what your price is. Ben mentions The New York Times and you start drooling.
Quiet.
“Adora? Are you listening to me?” Ben asked. “I swear, you get more spacey with each passing year.”
“I’m listening.”
But not to you.
No, not to him—and that was a little weird, wasn’t it? Every once in a while, now that she’d given up pill-popping, Adora realized that talking to Joy was actually pretty strange. Other people didn’t do this. Her former shrink had insisted Joy was a manifestation of her guilt over her anger at her parents’ abandonment, but Adora didn’t think so. There was guilt, sure; like Orestes of Greek mythology, she had been pursued by appalling Furies, ferocious hags with serpentine hair and fangs who chased her through dark dreams after her mother’s death. But Joy had helped then, as much as she could. And what Joy couldn’t kill, the Demerol and Valium had finally banished.
And Joy had been around long before Adora’s parents died. If she was a manifestation of guilt, it was guilt over something far older.
Of course you don’t listen to Ben, Joy answered. He doesn’t have your best interests at heart. Not the way I do.
Which was probably true. Joy sometimes liked to shadowbox with Adora’s emotions and muchneeded rationalizations at inconvenient moments, but the two had more or less made peace. Joy was Joy. And it wasn’t really that weird that Adora talked to herself, now was it? After all, her body kept all kinds of mysterious things going on all the time. Her lungs, stomach and heart performed their assigned tasks without specific permission or guidance; why believe she could or should control her brain? Some things were best left on autopilot. And Joy often had useful insights to share.
Of course, sometimes she just liked to nag.
Adora wasn’t given to impulsive actions. But it was ridiculous to think that she could ruin her small store of hard-won literary credibility this way. Mightn’t it be fun—just once—to be Alice and follow the rabbit down the hole? Just for a little ways? Like Ben said, she could go out and hear what the guy had to say. What would be the harm in that?
After all, Ben might have gotten it wrong— especially if he’d been drinking. Maybe the guy didn’t think he was Santa. Maybe he thought he was a descendant of Saint Nicholas, or something like that, and he wanted a biography written about his illustrious ancestor, whose good works he was carrying on. Wouldn’t she be dumb to refuse until she’d heard all the facts from the horse’s—er, the philanthropist’s—mouth?
Besides, hard as it was to imagine, she’d never been to a lutin city. Everyone said L.A. looked just like it had when the humans ran things, but there had to be some differences. And different could be exciting. A little cultural synergy might also spark new ideas for
writing projects. A biography about some famous silent film stars, perhaps. She had recently heard a rumor that Buster Keaton was really a goblin.
“Have you gotten a cell phone yet?” Ben asked, interrupting her thoughts. Between him and Joy, it was hard to consider anything fully.
“No, Ben. Not yet.” And not ever. She disliked phones. In fact, Adora had a passionate hatred of the favorite device of Satan. The device’s spawn— the cell phone—was even more detestable. Just being near them made her head hurt. The radio waves seemed to bounce around her skull, beating on her brain until it wanted to burst free and explode.
Even without that, experience had taught her telephones usually brought ill tidings: cowardly lovers who didn’t want to break up in person, bad news from your doctor about unheard-of and untreatable syndromes, even word of dead mothers favoring flamboyant suicides. Hearing a phone ring was for Adora like getting zinged with a stun gun. Or, from Ben’s phone, like getting zapped with a cattle prod.
She had actual physical tingling in her hands and head anytime she touched the single phone in her house. It was surely psychosomatic, but the devices were still unpleasant and something she avoided.
Ben, who wouldn’t dream of going anywhere without an electronic leash, still could not understand her attitude. He had let her coast until now, but this was different. After all, why wouldn’t she want to supply him with hourly updates on the activities of this rich and famous—and clearly insane—client? And maybe he had a point regarding the wisdom of staying in touch with someone. There’d be no peace if she gave in, though. He’d call night and day. Joy was enough of a round-the-clock nag; she didn’t need Ben riding her, too.
“Well, then, how will I reach you?” he asked, sounding peevish. “I don’t think he plans to stay at the Wilshire for very long.”
You won’t reach me. The sudden thought was somewhat encouraging, a consolation prize for having to meet a loony and hire herself out to him— albeit for a very good price.
“Call Mr. Nicholas’s assistant. You have his number, don’t you?” she asked.
“Oh yeah,” he said more cheerfully. The good mood wouldn’t last. She had already braved contact with the instrument of Satan and tried the number last night. Ben had gotten it wrong. She had connected with some candy company whose employees didn’t speak English. Maybe he had been drunk at the time he took the call. That was frequent after eight p.m. Or maybe Ben had tried to pump the man for gossip, and the assistant had purposely left a wrong number to punish him. The rich and arrogant often had equally arrogant employees.
Normally, Adora wouldn’t try to duck her agent.
After all, she liked eating as much as the next person, and he was often the one who found her jobs between books. Still, it looked like she maybe had employment now, and she didn’t feel like satisfying Ben’s insatiable curiosity about her patron. Not even at a distance. Especially not until he sobered up.
“Do you have the ticket with you?” she asked.
“There’s no ticket. It’s a private plane,” Ben said, shoving a printout her way. “It will be at the Alma Airfield tomorrow morning at ten. Pack an overnight bag.”
Adora glanced at the paper. It had a map of an airport and a name scrawled on the bottom.
“Do you know what kind of plane it is?” she asked casually. She didn’t like small planes. She didn’t like large ones either, but they were slightly less scary than the flying coffins her mother had loved to fly.
“It’s probably a private jet. The Bishop S. Nicholas Foundation has one.”
A small jet? Well, that was okay. Unpleasant, but not impossible. She’d manage. And if she couldn’t, she probably still had a few of those pills the doctor had given her. . . .
I thought you’d given those up.
I have. Really.
“Who and what is Robin Christkind?” she asked, squinting at Ben’s spidery handwriting.
“He’s the pilot. You’re supposed to ask for him at the airfield.”
Adora nodded and slipped the paper into her purse. “Okay. I’m going to L.A.—but I’m making no promises about taking this job. If this guy’s a complete loony or a bastard, I’m gone.”
Her agent nodded, looking marginally happier. He’d be getting fifteen percent, after all. That was a tidy paycheck for him.
“Good choice. Now let’s have dessert,” he suggested, forgetting that they hadn’t had lunch. “I’ll order champagne.”
“No, thanks. I’m dieting.” Ben didn’t see anything odd in this answer, even though Adora was still gaunt and underweight from her prolonged battle with some Epstein-Barr–type virus—or insanity— which had killed her sense of taste and hence her appetite. In his world, everyone was always on a diet, whether they needed to be or not.
Feeling suddenly exhausted, as she did all too often these days, Adora got to her feet. “Thanks for the tea. I’ll call if I decide to take the job, and you can get the contracts ready.”
“They are ready. Mr. Nicholas sent them. All you need to do is sign.” Ben was starting to sound peevish again. “Where is that stupid Luther? I ordered another bottle of wine hours ago.”
“Well, then, I’ll leave you to it.” Adora began to back away, wanting to escape the sight of Ben’s bleary, hopeless eyes. A small touch of guilt pinched her heart and she heard herself saying: “I’ll talk to you soon.”
Or not.
Or not. Experience told her it might be weeks before Ben sobered up again—weeks she’d rather not witness. Ben on a prolonged drunk wasn’t something attractive. She could see a day coming when she’d have to find someone else to handle her work.
But that was just whistling in the dark. She wouldn’t walk away from her agent, drunk or not, would she? He had, after all, been a friend of her father’s and her last link to her childhood, the last person who shared her childhood memories and could testify that her father had ever lived. And she needed that, because she had very few memories of her youth. Pretty much everything before five was one big blank space in her brain. It was almost like she had come into the world as a kindergartener.
Stop worrying about it, Joy said sharply. It’s perfectly normal for people to not recall their childhoods.
Is it?
Of course.
Nevertheless, Adora wouldn’t be firing Ben. Not today. However, she would spend a little while hiding out in L.A. while he sobered up, and she would decide what to do with her life.
And so it came to pass that, one year at the time of the Solstice, a fierce cold seized the land and the Sons of Man were near death and greatly afeared of the dark that seemed to have no end. But Niklas came upon them and said: “Be not afraid. You shall not die in the Night, but instead the Sons of Man shall live.” And he raised his flute to the sky and called down a bright fire. And the fire struck a sacred tree that burned with holy light for Twelve Days. And Death and cold were turned back from the Sons of Man, and the men rejoiced and blessed the shaman. But Niklas said: “Bless me not, for it is the Love of Gaia and not I that has saved you and brought you fire. If you wish to give thanks then worship thusly: Every year on the darkest of days you shall choose one sacred tree and hang offerings of thanks in its branches. And you shall set the tree alight and tend the fire for twelve days. Thus will the gift of your lives and thanks be returned to Gaia.”
—Niklas 3:1
The Green Man dances, but not as lightly as before, because he is growing old just like the year. His hair is silvering, increasingly rough. His body hurts, too, and every step is an ordeal. This is his burden, though, so he does not complain about the aches in his bones. Besides, there is the music and there is Gaia waiting, her loving hands at work on the spindle that reels his life back in and calls him home.
Around him people are crying, giving thanks for his offering. He appreciates this, but truly he does not dance for them. He does this for Gaia, for the love that, as a physical being, he has no better way of expressing.
The moon rises in t
he cold sky, white as cream, sweet as honey. He lifts his eye to it and weeps with joy because it is time.
CHAPTER THREE
The goblin Miffith hunched behind his computer and watched General Anaximander the way a cornered mouse would watch a cat offering cheese— except the cat would be far less scary. No sane person would take this job, unless they were in straits so dire that a fifty-fifty chance of being murdered by his boss were better odds than the thugs in his old life were offering. As it was, joining the L.A. rebels was a shade less dangerous than continuing to hang out with the goblin-fruit gangs. Gangs were no place for a goblin with no taste for rape and torture. His initiation had also been his final assignment. He’d raped the human fruit-junkie as ordered, but he hadn’t been able to pinch and bite her the way he was supposed to. She was just too pathetic. And he’d kind of wanted to see her again.
So, now he was here. Truth be told, he would rather have signed on with Molybdenum. But L.A.’s hive master had a low tolerance for gang violence and would never let him on staff. And General Anaximander had offered this job as his secretary— perhaps as an apology for strangling Miffith’s father, who had also worked for him? No, more likely because Miffith spoke four human languages and also fey. Anyhow, it had seemed ideal at the time. But now . . .
Anaximander hissed something into his phone, and Miffith hunched down, trying to make himself invisible. Someone was in trouble. He just hoped it wasn’t him.
Adora’s small house already looked vacant, as though it could sense that she intended to be gone for a protracted period of time. It was strange and a little sad to think of it muddling along without her, its lights on timers, the plants watered by a sprinkler system. It would miss her, though; she could tell.
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