Where the Veil Is Thin

by Alana Joli Abbott

  Just then Shanny’s eyes began to move erratically beneath closed lids.

  “Now’s our chance!” Molly said. “Make ’er open ’er mouth! You know we all have to eat. And we have hungry mouths to feed back ’ome.”

  “She’s having pleasant dreams, curse her,” Hilde scowled. “Why won’t she have a nice nightmare to season that precious tooth? What’s she got to be so bleedin’ happy ’bout anyway?”

  Grabbing at the rune staff Raz held tightly in his fist, Hilde implored him. “Go on, poke ’er hard. Maybe you can stir some adrenalin in ’er little head.”

  “That’s how you broke your staff in the first place.” Raz knew they all recognized the importance of the loss, but he still felt obliged to emphasize the need for caution. “We only have two left.”

  “Let’s pour ice water in ’er ear,” the old crone implored once again. “Just a few drops?” By now the chant had a rhythm to it. Old Molly seemed to derive great pleasure from just the thought of the despicable deed. Molly caressed the rim of the cup sensuously as she recited her litany. She still sat on the teacup’s edge. The few remaining ice cubes still melting in the sweet strawberry Kool-Aid, provocatively reminiscent of the blood they all craved. The old fairy’s little feet seemed impervious to the cold.

  “Hush Molly!” Hilde followed the sharp admonishment by mocking, echoes of Old Molly’s chant: “‘Let’s pour ice water in ’er ear.’ She says. We don’t want ’er to wake up. We just want a little nightmare.”

  “She’s right, Molly,” Raz said. “If she wakes up, we’ll all have to wait for her to go back to sleep. There are only a few hours before dawn. We don’t have time for this. You know how slowly little girls drain.”

  Hilde urged Raz again, “Use the staff.”

  Reluctantly, Raz nodded in agreement. “But we can’t just ‘poke’ her. We need to craft a nightmare.” He smiled now for the first time all night. “A nice, nasty charade. We’ll use an incantation, an old one. Molly, I need you for this. Fin, it takes two staffs. Hilde’s is gone and old Molly just has a wand. Come close.”

  Fin had his back to the whole affair. He was still peering nervously out the window. The large web was sturdy.

  Where is that spider? Fin knew if anything happened to those fireflies, Raz and company could be stranded. Fin hesitantly joined the group.

  As fairy hands clasped around the two staffs and raised them, Fin’s nose crinkled. He looked back at the window. The fireflies rested, glowing at leisurely intervals. He looked at the lazy dog snoring, again motionless. Somehow, something about that dog still bothered him.

  Raz and Old Molly began the incantation. Hilde and Fin bowed their heads. They began to whirl faster and faster around the axis of the two magic staffs. Fairy dust spouted out above them from the misshapen heads of the rune staffs, showering down upon Shanny’s sleeping face. The incantation complete, Raz lit gently by her left ear.

  In her father’s voice, the fairy leader whispered, “Shanny, the wind is coming. So is the water.” He followed the lie with a cool, damp puff of his foul breath.

  “It’s another hurricane, Shanny. Remember, like before? We have to hunker down, ride it out. Hope we don’t drown like the Devereuxes did.”

  Shanny frowned frightfully in her sleep, her eyes moving frantically now through closed eyelids. Her father was an engineer and knew better than anyone how to survive a gale like Katrina. Still, they’d barely made it to safety that time. Shanny had lost her friend, Tessy Devereux, who’d perished along with her whole family.

  The little girl began to tremble in her sleep.

  “Yes, that’s it,” Old Molly slurred in anticipation, as if drunk with ale. “Now, let’s pour ice water in ’er ear, just a few drops! The music is just right.”

  It was only when Molly broke the circle to fetch the ice water from the teacup that Fin noticed the piano tinkling in the other room. Shanny’s father crooned a slow tenor blues rhythm accompanying the keyed notes. The raiding band of fairies ignored the music—everyone but Fin, that is. The sound was distant and difficult to make out. The accompaniment’s discordant arpeggio was as strange as the wordless lyric that followed it.

  The fairy dust still glowed on the little girl’s cheek, ear, and exposed neck. Raz thought greedily, If only we had our bigger kin’s fangs, we could all bite through the skin and suck the life-giving blood right from the child’s veins.

  Alas, their little fangs were too limp and short to penetrate the skin. Graced with uninvited access to residential or holy ground, fairies were limited to drinking untainted, virgin blood from an open source. Jilted teenaged cutters were the best, but they almost always had layers of heavy bandages over open wounds by the time the fae came a-calling. Teens who were seldom serious about suicide slit shallow. The cutters left just enough blood-quickening to tease, not satisfy.

  Shanny’s distress reached a feverish pitch. The singing stopped, but the tinkling piano continued to resonate into the living room. Hilde moved to divert the girl’s father. They didn’t need him coming in and spoiling their carefully cultivated nightmare.

  Mr. Prentice had risen from his piano seat and just made it to his easy chair when Hilde doused him with a generous portion of fairy dust directed by her wand. As his eyes grew heavy, Hilde smiled. Hovering over him, she cut across the piano’s air space, intent on rejoining the group, when she realized that the piano was still playing with no particular tune or rhythm.

  Hilde hesitated only a moment, just long enough for the cat to leap off the keys and grab both her wings. As the cat dove down behind the furniture clutching its prey, none of Hilde’s kin saw the horror grip her face as the feline devoured her. Hilde was gone before the cat landed softly on the carpet.

  Raz, Molly, and Fin were dumbfounded. One would have thought they were paralyzed, too, for their lack of action.

  Shanny awoke with a start. “Rusty!”

  Fin broke first, heading for the window. Finding the crack in the glass, he beckoned his surviving comrades to hurry along. Raz and Molly were cut off by the calico beast.

  The puss could see them!

  “No wonder that mongrel smelled so funny,” Fin muttered to himself. “All that musty dander masked the feline scent.” Before mounting his firefly, he sought his comrades.

  Raz and Molly disappeared under the sofa to evade the furry hellion’s onslaught. They both emerged from beneath the far edge, just ahead of razor-sharp claws. Fear gave gossamer wings strength like never before, and they reached a zenith near the chandelier.

  “Fin, go. Leave us. The town must know to stay away. Warn them!” Raz shouted the orders as the cat leaped off furniture from every angle to gain altitude, paws swinging wildly. The chandelier swung gently, an asylum yet just out of reach.

  Adrenalin waned, and the fairies lost elevation. Finally, Raz and Molly stole refuge in a narrow-necked wicker basket. Rusty followed, hissing and winding his way as far down the basket as his lithe body would allow; then he was stuck. Barely out of reach of those claws, Raz used his staff to pry through the reeds.

  “Hurry, Raz.” Old Molly cowered from each swipe. “The beast is close!”

  Raz cringed at the sickening crack below him. The reeds parted, but only at the cost of his staff. He got Molly out first.

  Shanny raced to rescue the distressed Rusty from his predicament. Raz led Molly on foot under a closed door to another room.

  “We need to find a window,” Raz commanded. He saw the only window in the room even as he said it.

  “Give us a minute, Raz,” Molly pled. “These old bones don’t move like they used to, you know.”

  Raz climbed the bedpost, huffing and puffing, nearly as exhausted as Old Molly. He reached the sill in time to witness Fin’s fate.

  Fin must have resigned himself to his doom when he saw the mosquitoes wrapped in sticky webbing in the dull, pulseless glow of the fireflies. Still, steady, dead glint. Their mounts were as dead as any chance of escape for Fin or his friends n
ow. Stuck fast to freshly spun strands, Fin felt a gentle tug on the web from separate corners.

  Knowing he would soon share their fates, Fin reached out to caress the two nearest firefly corpses. The three spiders, giants by arachnid reckoning, closed in on him. They must have driven off the old spider and roamed, surveying the territory before weaving webs of their own. Fin’s body was divided evenly between the deadly triad without fuss.

  “Don’t look, Molly,” Raz turned to hug her neck as she reached the windowsill.

  Although the youngest member of their party, Fin may have been the bravest. Both Raz and Molly remembered when he was just a sparkling mote of fairy dust in the night.

  Molly wept into Raz’s shoulder. “What do we do now, Raz?”

  The cup came down over the two of them before he could answer. Red Kool-Aid droplets splashed them both as a bingo card slid under the cup, trapping the fairies. Movement jostled them off their feet before they tumbled into a clear glass jar that smelled faintly of peanut butter. Old Molly clutched her leader as the grinding sound of a lid screwing on tightly dashed their hopes.

  “Don’t worry Molly, I’ll think of something.” Raz’s fingertips began exploring the walls of the jar for a defect he knew would not be there.

  A flashlight’s beam danced through the jar as Shanny assessed her two new pets. “What shiny wings! I’ll take you in to class on Monday for Show-and-Tell. Maybe Mrs. Walcott can tell us what kind of bugs you are.” She smiled. “She’s my science teacher.”

  The little girl set the jar on the floor beside her bed and climbed under the covers. An uneasy peace settled over the room.

  “This doesn’t look good, Molly,” Raz said. The strawberry Kool-Aid became sticky as he smeared the glass with his hands.

  “It’s cold, Raz,” Molly said and sat on the floor of their new home. “I don’t like being cold. I can still feel the breeze of his claws when that beastly cat swiped at me.”

  “You’ve had your rotten old feet soaking in that icy drink for hours. Your back is soaked with it now,” he said, looking at his hand.

  “You must be right, Raz. Look at me sweater. It’s dripping wet. But doesn’t the drink feel warm to you?” Molly yawned as she palmed the carmine pool collecting around her hips. “Feels warmer than I do. This cold must be making us sleepy…”

  Molly tumbled over on her side.

  “Molly!” Raz shouted.

  He tasted the goo on his fingers. It didn’t taste like strawberries. For Raz, this was the first time there was no quickening at the flavor of blood.

  He knelt by old Molly and cradled her head gently. His moment of silence was torn asunder by the ferocious clawing and hissing of Rusty, the tormenter.

  “Can’t I even mourn in peace, beast?” Raz shouted.

  The jar rose out of reach of the cat, only to meet the curious eyes of the waking child.

  “I’ll put you up where old Rusty can’t get at you, okay?” Shanny pressed her lips to the side of the jar nearest Raz and Molly, then placed it on the top shelf of her bookcase. “Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite!” she said, yawning and pulling covers over shoulders once again.

  Raz was alone. He had failed his mission and lost his entire hunting party to a little girl.

  “A girl named Prentice,” Raz nearly laughed. “Prentice, a classic witch’s name. One of the original twelve. Why hadn’t we seen that?”

  Fin had done his diligence. There were no witches in the house, but witch-blood must run in this girl’s veins: Enough to attract a familiar.

  From a tense crouch, Rusty glared at Raz from the corner of the room.

  “Now she’s going to take me to this Walcott woman. What are the chances that a science teacher named Walcott is the leader of a coven?” He had already concluded the value as close to 100%.

  “The Vampyr will go on the rampage when I fall into witches’ hands.” Raz began to pray, “Beelzebub, get me out of this mess, save my village, and I’ll never lead another tooth party for as long as I live.”

  He hung his head only to see the dawn creeping through the window below him. It promised to be a bright morning. The sunshine waxed and climbed up the bookcase to the top shelf. Raz watched the gleam reach his feet with blinding intensity and no shade in sight. It would seem that Beelzebub indeed had a wicked sense of humor in the granting of wishes.

  As the sun had its requisite effect on any vampire, big or small, Raz muttered to no one in particular, “Bloody fudge.”

  Every vestige of Raz and Molly was gone in a puff.

  “Shanny, breakfast,” Mr. Prentice called from the kitchen.

  Shanny stretched and petted Rusty, who’d settled in her lap in the wee hours. Her eyes opened wide and she sprang from her bed, sending the cat sailing. She grabbed the peanut butter jar and sprinted to the kitchen. She shimmied onto a barstool next to Tommy.

  A sidelong smirk at her little brother, already halfway through his bowl of cereal, prefaced her offer: “Want to see my Angel bugs?”

  Tommy dropped his spoon with a clank, “Heck yeah!”

  General Lee, the old Labrador, licked at the spoon.

  “Hey! No bugs at the table,” their father said with a stern look at both children.

  “Daddy, you’ve got to see them.” Shanny beamed. “They’re sealed in this jar. It’s safe, see?”

  Her glee turned to disappointment when she looked inside.

  “Cool, sparkly dust.” Tommy said. “What’s it made of, Daddy?”

  “It’s magic glitter, Tommy,” their father said, “but it’s your sister’s, so you leave it alone. Deal?”

  “Sure.” Tommy folded his arms and sulked. “I don’t want any old girly glitter anyway.”

  Shanny had the jar open now. “It used to have Angel bugs in it,” she said glumly, climbing down from the stool and walking to the windowsill.

  “Sweetie,” her father asked, “whatcha’ doing?”

  “I’m going to sprinkle this on that big old spider web outside the family room. Maybe it will warn other Angel bugs away from that mean, sneaky spider.” Rusty leapt into her empty arms, anxious for a petting.

  Shanny frowned, looked down and spoke to Rusty, “Now what am I supposed to take in to Mrs. Walcott for Show-and-Tell?”

  — GLAMOUR —

  by Grey Yuen

  The first sign the morning was going to be rubbish was how early the paparazzi were. They had beaten Jack to a crime scene before, that was true, but never without the whole world already with them at the playground, and most certainly never at 4am. Sergeant Hilton was at the tape line waiting for him, looking paler than usual and just about as cheery for the hour.

  “I saw the name,” Jack said, waving his handphone before putting it into his back pocket.

  “I didn’t mean for it to be dramatic. I just thought a little advance warning would soften the shock.”

  “But isn’t her house on Notting Hill? Whose apartment is this?”

  Hilton nodded. “Hers as well. According to the razz, this is her workspace, like a home away from home where she writes her songs and whatever.”

  “Boggles the mind, doesn’t it, that the children these days have another term for an ‘office’?”

  He thought it was a fair enough association, as the ‘razz’ he saw were just two girls—he couldn’t think of a better word for those no older than his own fourteen-year-old at home by a couple of years—sitting on the curb with their camera and huddled together like brats after a roller-coaster ride. They didn’t look like they had come here for this. One of Hilton’s constables stood a few feet away, the round-faced young man whose name Jack always forgot. He remembered calling him “Wilhelm” before but guessing it wrong here would be embarrassing.

  Past an arch of brass, they came up to what remained of a fine wooden door. It could have been a mahogany antique if they could ignore the dozen or so slashes added to the facade, all fresh and apparently inflicted by something sharp and heavy. The turn-latch
lock itself had been shattered in one or two strikes, the pieces still twisted in the locked position from within. Leaning against the wall close by was the instrument of destruction—a red-painted axe taken from an emergency glass case somewhere.

  “So the Big Bad Wolf failed at huffing-and-puffing and decided to try a battering ram?” Jack went for the obvious and wrong with a slight sing-song tone, a lead-in for their own little Punch and Judy routine.

  “Not quite like that, boss,” was the reply, as always. She tipped her head back toward the two on the curb. “Somebody did try to get the door down, but lacking the expertise, failed, panicked and called us, all the while screaming about how someone was in trouble inside. That bit—” she indicated the blow that actually destroyed the lock “—was me.”

  Jack nodded his approval, but his gaze remained on the girls. “They know something?”

  “They think they do, but you might want to take a look inside first.” She hesitated before they stepped in, dropping out of their usual exchange pattern. “Don’t mean to be naff, but you’re not a fan, are you?”

  “Oh, Sergeant, how I wish I were that young.”

  Like everything on the street, the apartment was an old relic with a new skin draped over ancient bones, except this one had nothing in between, no meat, no substance. Jack felt his mouth fall open standing at the doorstep. The living room was bare beyond what the lads nowadays would call “uncluttered” and “minimalistic,” two nonsense words he knew were invented just to avoid calling someone’s house “empty.” A single yellow tungsten lightbulb lit up the place as vacant as any up for sale.

  “The blazes! They nicked this place clean?”

  Of course it couldn’t be a burglary. At least not of such a scale and this close to the main road without drawing the wrath of the entire neighbourhood. The floor was clean, practically dust-free and without the usual marks of heavy furniture dragged across it or shapes that outlined where they could have originally stood.