by Cutter, Leah
“Help me pick this up,” the professor said over his shoulder. His golden eyes glittered. “The woods aren’t going to bite you.”
“I don’t know. Those thorns look mighty hungry.” Jolene gingerly stepped off the path and followed the professor’s footsteps carefully. When she leaned down to pick up the wood, a twig scraped her arm, and stickers attacked her feet as they walked back. “These woods don’t like me any more than I like them,” she grumbled as she brushed off the debris that had attached itself to her.
“They’re more gentle with my kind,” the professor admitted as he lifted the branch up and leaned it against a second tree branch, forming a rough doorway between it and the tree trunk. He waved his hand in front of the arch, changing it from mere branches to an opening to someplace else.
Jolene looked skeptically at the dark woods that now filled the doorway. “Do you have to go through a physical gate every time?”
“No, not necessarily. Travel between the courts isn’t encouraged right now. They do have our queen.”
“Rival gang territory,” Jolene said, nodding. “Any way to blend in? Take on their colors?”
The professor laughed. “We can’t fool them, darling, into thinking our nature is aught than it is.”
Jolene nodded, not surprised.
The woods on the far side of the gate were much less tame. The trees seemed more aware, talking to each other on the wind. Bushes crowded up to the dirt path, their leaves twitching in a breeze Jolene didn’t feel. Unseen creatures rustled in the undergrowth. Everything felt alive and dangerous.
Jolene liked it better than the woods of the Seelie court.
She didn’t want to think about what that meant.
They followed a similar path to get to the Unseelie court, stopping at the top of a rise to look down on the open area. It was about the same size as the Seelie court, but the trees, instead of lining the edges, took residence in the center as well, swaying and moving with the wicked zydeco Jolene could hear. The dancing creatures growled as they stomped and circled, whirlwinds of movement. The lights weren’t brighter, but the shadows were thicker, and had some life of their own.
Jolene still saw the other creatures as well, those that existed in worlds that were reflections of this one. They weren’t as strong, or as many, and they were much less human.
“Stick close to me,” the professor warned.
Jolene nodded. She had no intention of challenging any of these creatures or getting any closer than she absolutely had to.
Instead of walking directly up to the clearing, they skirted the edges. The bushes constantly snagged Jolene’s shirt, catching on her jeans. Twigs ended up stuck in her sandals. More than one branch tugged on her hair.
Maybe she didn’t like these woods as much as she thought she did.
Finally they stopped and Jolene studied the dancing creatures. They looked almost the same as the Seelie court: beings with mixed spirits—Animals, plants, and others. Their human faces matched those Jolene saw in the city. Even their charms were the same. She didn’t understand what was different about them, why they were the Unseelie. Sure, they danced more roughly, and many of them appeared closer to animals than men, but they were just riled up.
Then Jolene saw the king. He was a satyr: bare-chested, goat legs, shamelessly naked, dancing and laughing. On his shoulders flickered an ermine cape, lined with blood-red satin. His hands formed easy claws, edged in deadly talons.
She looked to the others then. They were similarly armed with claws and teeth. It was much easier for them to do casual damage. The horns of the animal spirits were similarly sharpened.
These were a people ready to fight. Not that the Seelie were without their own defenses, but they weren’t as obvious.
“No crown,” Jolene finally whispered to the professor. “Can we leave?” She felt the bushes crowding up behind them, desperate to betray them.
“Just one more thing to look at,” the professor whispered back. “Come.”
They crept slowly through the woods, diving back into the underbrush when they would be too exposed. Jolene couldn’t count the number of scratches on her bare arms. Simon was going to be so worried. She looked like she’d lost a battle with a feral cat. Maybe that would be the lie she’d tell him.
At the far end of the clearing sat the throne of the Unseelie king. It, too, was carved out of a tree stump, but that was where the similarities ended. Instead of being delicate and powerful, it looked primitive, carved out of solid blocks of wood, wrapped together with kudzu vines. Nothing softened its appearance. The ruler who sat there ruled.
“The queen is supposedly trapped under one of these trees,” the professor told Jolene. “Wanted to know if you could see which one.”
The deliberate casualness of his question put Jolene’s guard up. “Can’t you tell?” she demanded.
“Look. Please.”
The “please” surprised Jolene enough that she sighed, put aside her misgivings, and looked.
Regret struck her immediately.
Jolene swallowed around the sudden lump in her throat. “She’s—she’s in all of them,” she whispered harshly. Bile filled her mouth and she swallowed again. “She’s torn between them, kept alive through their roots. Oh my god, can’t you hear her screaming?” Jolene started shaking.
The professor turned Jolene’s face away from where she was staring. “I can,” he whispered. “More deeply than you. I just thought—I couldn’t be seeing it. It isn’t right.”
Jolene shook her head. It wasn’t.
“I wish you still had your trinket,” the professor said as they stood and hurried away. “To bring some light to her darkness.”
Jolene hung her head in shame. She’d never met the queen, but she wanted somehow to ease her pain. She looked at the beautiful diamond that Simon had given her. The rock still shone here, even in the rough shadows. “Here,” she said, thrusting the ring at the professor.
“There’s hope for you yet,” the professor murmured. He quickly knelt and pushed the ring into the soil at the base of a tree.
Jolene wasn’t sure what he meant by that. She’d given up her normal sight, and now, she may have hurt her perfectly normal marriage. What else was she going to have to give up?
* * *
The woods of the Seelie court didn’t seem that much more welcoming. Jolene wondered if the trees could sense that they’d come from the Unseelie court, or if they just didn’t like her at all. Roots moved after the professor had passed, rising to trip her. Branches came out of nowhere to slap her face. Her arms burned with long scratches, and her fingers itched, as if she’d touched poison ivy. Her ring finger felt empty, and her soul still felt sickened with the fate of the queen.
“Where are we going?” Jolene asked as they walked and walked and walked through the woods. “Can’t we go back home yet?”
“One last place to go,” the professor assured her. “Just over here.”
They walked out from under the trees into a wide meadow. Ferns grew between the tall, winter-brown grasses. Jolene accidentally kicked a round object, hidden by the growth. She reached down, and realized it was a cabbage.
The words from the lady in the wall came back to her. Ferns and cabbages.
“You may find what you’re looking for here,” the professor told her. “If you still want to.”
Jolene finally understood his caution. Did she still want a child, a babe of her own? One who would probably have a gift of their own? On the other hand, she felt as though she’d already given up so much. Did she really want to give up this dream, too?
The professor left Jolene alone to wander through the field. She checked carefully under the cabbage leaves as well as the ferns. She almost felt it was fate, at that point. If she found a soul, she’d take it with her. If she didn’t, well, she’d let that part of her life pass as well.
It wasn’t until Jolene was approaching the professor that she found a little shadow baby, curled up, sm
aller than a cabbage. It shivered on the ground. When she picked it up she found it was heavier than stone, and she staggered under the weight.
Having a child was such a big responsibility. Jolene looked at the shapeless lump in her hands. No one could tell its future, boy or girl, joy or sorrow. Its fate wasn’t set.
And neither was hers.
Without thinking, Jolene tucked it closer, slipping it under her shirt, sliding it next to her skin. It didn’t matter what she saw or didn’t. All life was a chance, whether fate had chosen a path already or not.
The shadow slid right into Jolene, under her skin. She could feel it, just there over her hip, a soft warm pressure.
“Ready to go back?” the professor asked, startling Jolene from her contemplation.
Slowly, Jolene nodded. Time to go see what the new normal looked like.
* * *
Jolene sat out front of the new restaurant Simon had started working at. She rocked the baby carrier on the table in before her, feeling again that this was the best birthday present she’d ever received.
Her very own baby girl.
An older African American woman walked in, her bearing regal and proud. She wore her hair curled tightly to her head, with large gold earrings and a curious necklace over a white blouse and bright, native print skirt. The server told her that all the tables were open, she should just seat herself. She merely nodded and made a beeline for Jolene.
“What a beautiful girl,” she said, holding out a finger for the baby to squeeze. “What’s her name?”
“Yvette,” Jolene said, suddenly both anxious and full of anticipation.
“Why, that’s my name too! May I?”
Before Jolene could reply, the woman leaned over and kissed the baby’s forehead.
Jolene felt an echoing blast of warmth on her own skin, reminding her of when the professor had touched her head and opened her eyes so she could truly see.
“She ever need any help, or training, or even if she just needs to run wild for a night, you let me know, you hear?” The woman looked directly at Jolene. “A stranger once gifted me with light when I was in the darkest place you could ever imagine. I’d like to return the favor.”
“It isn’t necessary,” Jolene said, her heart easing. The Seelie had their queen back, and beauty would remain in the world.
Queen Yvette flashed golden eyes at her. “Or maybe if you need to dance some. Just speak your wish to the wind,” the queen said. “You’ll be heard.”
Jolene blushed and nodded, feeling the weight of the queen’s words sink into her, a promise not yet fulfilled. “Thank you,” Jolene said. “I just might take you up on that,” she added, surprising herself when she realized she spoke the truth.
“You see that you do. Now, your next client is here, isn’t she?” The queen inclined her head to Jolene, then swept out of the restaurant.
A scared young girl hovered next to the door. Around her neck hung a thin golden line, nothing determined yet or set in stone. She was the perfect type of client that Jolene could help along.
“Hi, my name’s Jolene.” She beckoned the girl over.
“I’m Helen.” As soon as she sat, she confessed, “I’ve never been a psychic before.”
“Think of me more like a life coach,” Jolene instructed. “Here to get you on the right path.” As she, herself, finally was.
Author’s Note
This story is set in the same world as one of my novels, “Zydeco Queen and the Creole Fairy Courts.” The story of Queen Yvette is told in that novel, how she’s captured and returned. The professor also shows up in a different novel, “Siren’s Call.” I started this story when I was living in New Orleans, as a way to explore these worlds more. I couldn’t finish it, though, until I’d finished the novels. So it sat for a long time until the Baker’s Dozen challenge came up and I had the time to complete it.
To Hell And Back
I hated working in the daylight. Not because the sunlight burned ghosts. Quite the opposite, in fact: I couldn’t feel the heat, and the bright light washed me out, leaving me invisible.
Do you know how annoying it is when the living stopped stepping around you and instead stepped through you? I swore my intestines had started dancing on their own; a sloshing, gurgling feeling that left me seasick.
However, I had a job to do and a wealthy client to please. I was following her canny bastard of a husband. He had just enough knack or luck to keep losing me.
First, I waited for him downtown, outside of his office building. The day would have been beautiful if I’d been alive and able to enjoy it. Fall tinted the air cool and crisp, and the trees still held onto their burning colors. I could see ghosts better than the living, but I only saw two others the entire time I waited. They were all sensibly sleeping through the day, waiting until evening to rise.
The bastard showed up at noon, when the living filled the streets as if a bell had sounded, releasing them all from their pens and cubicles. I struggled against the tide to chase him, the number of arms, legs, and shoulders passing through me disorienting. I overshot where he’d turned off and raced back, only to find him stepping onto the only light rail car that wasn’t Fixed; that is, dragged somewhere between the Seen and Unseen worlds so that I and my fellow ghosts could interact with it, not pass directly through it. Luckily, I got on the next one, close to the door, so I could watch and make sure he didn’t slip by me again.
He got off at the university and I was able to follow him directly for at least a street. Students walked in gaggles, not droves, so I was able to step around them, and got only a backpack swung through my shoulder for my effort.
Of course, my own luck didn’t last.
He met his lover at a seedy motel just off 45th Street. It had classic architecture, with two levels of rooms and a walkway facing the parking lot. The building itself was stained amber, and neon palm trees surrounded the welcome sign, as if they were following a southwestern theme. She was already waiting for him, and hid behind the door as she opened it—not that I was in place or ready with Betsy, my camera.
The habits of the living died hard. You didn’t start acting like a ghost immediately after you died. It took time. For me, it took at least twenty minutes before I remembered that I didn’t need for them to open a door for me to enter a room.
I could go through the wall.
Since I wasn’t collecting evidence for a court case, but just for my client—the bastard’s poor wife—it didn’t matter how I got it, illegally or not.
The bastard’s luck proved stronger than mine, though. The motel had been built in the ‘50’s, when lead paint was still de rigueur. The room was effectively Sealed against my kind.
I walked back to the parking lot. At least it was quiet, with no one passing through me. But I was bored. I’d always been bored on stakeouts when I’d been alive and working as a detective. But at least then I had convenience store coffee and stale donuts to distract me.
Finally it occurred to me that I might be able to catch them in the act if I could just get one of them to open the door.
I weighed the two artifacts in my pocket—a sliver of clear green glass as well as a small stone. They were found artifacts, each with a spark of energy or Heaven or something that carried them out of the Seen and into the Unseen world, tiny pieces that ghosts as well as the living could touch. I didn’t want to lose them.
I also didn’t want to lose my client.
With a practiced throw I hurled them against the hotel door, one after another. Each gave a satisfying thud, sounding as if someone had just knocked twice.
The bastard opened the door sooner than I’d expected. Fortunately, I was ready and got the perfect long shot: him with his tie still undone; her, still rumpled and naked in bed.
“What do you want?” he demanded.
I quickly looked around. He couldn’t have been addressing me. I stood in full sunlight. None of the living should have been able to see me.
He t
urned his head, following another being. I snapped as many shots as I could as the thing ambled off. It looked something like a ghost, but faded, as if not even here in this world. Even I had problems seeing it.
I took a few more long shots of the guy and his squeeze before he shut the door on their love nest.
I printed the entire series, both with the ghost as well as the happy couple, paying extra to have sigils drawn on the back of each so I could touch them. I’d never seen anything like the faded being. He (I think it was a guy) had wisps trailing from him, like he was unraveling or dissolving. I had no idea what had happened to him.
Of course, when I showed the other pictures to my client, she turned on me, as it were my fault her husband was a cheating bastard. Seemed I was supposed to have come up empty-handed, not prove his devilry.
Not for the first time, I was glad I was a ghost and had left such passions behind.
* * *
I avoided my office for three days after that. I put blocks on my e-mail after my client flooded my in-box. I would have stayed away longer, but there’s only so much graveyard haunting a ghost can do.
When I walked in, I nearly walked out again.
Beautiful Antonia Hermino sat waiting in my guest chair. Since becoming a ghost I didn’t have blood that could heat, a heart that could beat faster, or other parts that would appreciate such a beautiful woman.
Still, the habits of the living died hard.
“Andrew, paisano, so nice to see you again,” she said, standing so her chest rose first. Her hand twitched, almost coming up to shake mine before falling gracefully to her side. Ghosts couldn’t touch each other, any more than they could interact with most of the Seen world.
“I was thinking this office was a scam and you never come in,” she scolded as she sat back down, crossing her long legs demurely. Her dress didn’t ride up, one of the advantages of being dead, though she could never change it or adjust it, either.
“I was busy,” I told her, still standing by the door. I glanced to the side, but I couldn’t really think of a good enough excuse that would allow me to escape. Nothing in the office had been disturbed, either. The file cabinet in the corner still stood locked and charmed, and the rows of artifacts on the bookshelves sat in the same careful arrangement I’d put them in.