Where the Veil Is Thin

by Alana Joli Abbott

  Rain thought of the guarded door in Carter’s. “We’ll never get through that door, not if that bitch is guarding it.”

  “Cronk Moar,” Jonas said.

  “The hill fort?” Rain asked incredulously. “It was a Norse fortress, and it might have a barrows, but it’s never been properly excavated—”

  “Don’t you listen to anyone around here?” Jonas asked tersely. “Everyone in Port St. Erin says it’s a fairy hill.”

  If Rain had slept better, she might have been able to convince herself the entire evening had been a dream. As it was, her night was less than restful, and she thought she could still feel, lingering on her lips, the kiss that Fin meant as farewell.

  She swung out of bed, still in the jeans and sweatshirt she’d put on the night before. She’d been too tired to change. With a yawn, she stretched her arms above her head and looked out her window. The mist made it difficult to tell what time it was, but she suspected from what light shown through that it was past noon.

  “Cronk Moar was a timber fort,” she told herself. “Maybe a castle at the top of the hill, small trench dug around it for protection. Built around 11 A.D., if the people who did the excavation back in 1900 guessed right.” She put her hands on the windowsill and looked out at the foggy morning, though even on a clear day, there were hills and houses in the way of the ruin.

  “Fairies,” she said, as though it were a curse. But Fin had glowed, right along with the rest of them. Not just his hair or his piercings or pale skin; he himself had glowed like a lantern. “Tuatha de Danaan. People of Dana. Danaans.” That was somehow better. They’d been a people—fantastic though they were—that had ultimately been conquered in a war. “I wouldn’t hold it against him if he were any other ethnicity,” she said, knowing very well she was rationalizing to take the terror away. “Right. So, I just have to tell the queen of the Danaans that she can’t sacrifice him. No problem.”

  “I’m glad you’re so confident,” Jonas said from her doorway. He looked rumpled, but at least had new clothes on. His jacket, however, was still inside out. “How did you sleep?”

  She looked at his hair, usually perfectly in place. “About as well as you did, by the look of it.”

  “Then we’ll both be exceptionally well rested for our stake out tonight,” he said dryly. “Come on. I made sandwiches.”

  They hiked up to Cronk Moar, seeing the hill rise up from its flat surroundings well before were close. “It used to be a marsh,” Jonas said, looking up from the book he’d brought along. “And fairies weren’t supposed to chase you through water, so if you were able to stay in wet land until you got to a church, you were safe.”

  Rain looked down at the field beneath them—moist ground, certainly, but not marshy. “Great. What are you reading?”

  He showed her the cover. Manx Fairy Tales. “Brilliant,” she muttered.

  “It’s got a charm to say against the fairies,” he offered.

  Rain sighed. “Keep it ready.”

  Trees and brambles grew in the ditch that surrounded Cronk Moar and kept Rain from climbing the hill to see the ruins at the top, which she always assumed were overgrown. The shrubs were prickly—hard to walk through and worse to fall on. But there was no place to hide on the flat area beyond the trench, so she led Jonas down into it and behind a tree.

  “Watch for the prickers,” she warned, pulling her rain coat out of her pack and spreading it on the ground.

  Sitting still, surrounded by damp air after a night with little or no sleep made it difficult to stay awake. Rain daydreamed, only really aware of her surroundings when she noticed how stiff her legs were. They ate sandwiches in the afternoon, then again when the sun began to set, and they shared a canteen of water between the two of them.

  “Turn your shirt inside out,” Jonas said as dusk fell around them.

  Rain pulled her raincoat off the ground and shoved her arms through the sleeves the wrong way. The dirt she’d been trying to avoid sitting in now rubbed against her sweatshirt, and she tried to think of it as something other than a bad omen.

  Dusk deepened into night, and Rain fought against the cramps in her legs. They could hear singing from Port St. Erin, presumably the celebrants of Hop-tu-Naa. But Rain thought she heard a harp as well, then flutes, all the time moving closer, even though there were no houses nearby. Rain looked at the hill beside them, seeing the light coming from the other side. She grabbed Jonas’s arm and pulled him forward, both of them moving as quietly as they could through the underbrush until they saw the door. There in the hill, plain as the door on a house, was an open doorway. Light poured out of it, the same kind of glow they’d seen at Carter’s.

  Rain started forward, but Jonas pulled at her coat. “Don’t eat anything,” he said quietly.

  She nodded and stepped inside.

  It looked like the inside of Carter’s, only brighter. She imagined that if she had ever been to the club during the day, with all the lights on, it would have looked like this. The dance floor was full of people, all of them glowing fiercely, some of whom she’d seen before. The place was just as crowded as the night club, and people sat around private tables, lounged in couches, and lined the bar. Despite the fact that she and Jonas were not dressed like they belonged there, no one seemed to pay them any mind. They danced, not to thump-thump music, but to harp and flute and drum.

  As Rain started to head toward the mysterious door where she knew she would find Fin, it opened. The crowd parted as a brown horse pushed through the door, the rider on its back was the red-haired woman, fierce and terrible, her features as cold as stone. Rain pushed her way through the crowd as the second horse left the door, this one black, bearing a male rider she’d never seen before, but who glowed as brightly as the woman. And then, on a white horse, came Fin.

  Rain burst through the crowd and grabbed Fin’s leg. The white horse reared, and Fin tumbled from its back into Rain’s arms. They both collapsed in a heap, and Rain held onto Fin’s arm fiercely, as though he might disappear if she released him.

  A scream from ahead of them stopped the music, and the club was suddenly silent. The red-haired woman dropped off her horse as Rain and Fin scrambled for their feet. Fin trembled and Rain held him tighter, wrapping her arm around his waist.

  “I knew it!” the red-haired woman shrieked. “You had this planned all along.” She reached her clawed hand out toward Fin, but Rain pulled him back. The woman whirled on her instead. “What did he tell you? That he was a human kept by fairies, trapped in their lands? That you could save him and be his bride?” She laughed, deep and terrible. “Those are the old stories, older than the world, but still people believe.”

  “He told me nothing,” Rain said, surprised at how steady her voice sounded. “I object to this sacrifice.”

  There were gasps in the crowd, and the red-haired woman smirked. “You object?” she asked incredulously. “And who are you to stop us from breaking the veil?”

  “You can’t have him,” Rain said firmly.

  The smirk fell from the woman’s face, and suddenly her expression was hideous, distorted in rage. “See if you can hold him.”

  “You shouldn’t have come,” Fin croaked, his voice worse than it had been the night before. He jerked in a spasm, and she looped her other arm around him. He was so much bigger than she was.

  “I couldn’t let you die,” she whispered into his chest.

  His knees buckled, and she held him from collapsing. “Then don’t let go,” he gasped.

  His body jerked again, tight, and the glow that surrounded him shifted into flames. Rain shrieked, and then realized that there was no pain; the flames didn’t burn.

  “Take her jacket!” the red-haired woman shrieked.

  Rain felt someone grab her collar and Fin’s body quaked, jerking hard against her arms. He groaned in pain.

  “Peace of God and Peace of Man!” Jonas’s voice rang out.

  The hands dropped away from her, and Jonas’s voice continued
over the crowd, but she couldn’t hear the words over the bellows of pain from Fin. As she held onto him, Fin’s eyes burst open wide, and his body shuddered and began to shift. His waist shrunk in her arms and his face narrowed; he thrashed back and forth, hissing like a snake. She locked her wrists, bracing against his pulls.

  Then his eyes widened again, and he looked at her in terror. “No!” he shouted, shadows drifting across his irises, as though he was seeing something else. “I won’t go! I won’t be tricked! Let go of me!” He pushed against her shoulders, struggling to get free.

  “Fin, it’s me!” she shouted.

  His hand tightened on her shoulder, pushing her away. Her fingers slipped on her wrist and she cried out. He pushed against her and she bit down on her lip hard, blinking back tears as she felt her teeth bite through, as the trickle of blood dripped down her chin.

  And then Fin stopped struggling and the red-haired woman screamed.

  “On every hole admitting moonlight!” Jonas called out.

  “The blood is paid,” intoned the man on the black horse. “The sacrifice given.”

  “I will not be trapped here!” the woman screamed, the brilliance surrounding her shifting from the fiery red of her hair to a hot white.

  Fin threw his arms around Rain as the burst of energy seared over them, charging the air with static shocks that burst all along her body.

  “On the four corners of the house!”

  Fin yanked her forward, his arm around her shoulders, her arms both still locked around his waist. Rain saw Jonas in the crowd as he backed through it, brandishing his book of fairy tales like a ward, reading the charm from the page.

  “On the place of my rest!”

  They were almost through the crowd, Jonas scrambling backward, still looking at where they’d left the horses behind. Fin turned the door handle into the darkness of the field around Cronk Moar and he and Rain tumbled into the trench.

  “And peace of God on myself,” Jonas said, dropping to the ground behind them. He scrambled up the side of the trench and looked back down. “Get up! The ground isn’t wet, remember?”

  But Fin was murmuring in Manx, and the fog surrounded them—thick, cold, and almost suffocating for just a moment before the clouds above burst open in a shower of rain.

  “Come on,” said Fin, reaching for Rain’s hand. She sobbed as she let go, her arms burning from exertion. He pulled her arm over his shoulder and lifted her into his arms. She was too exhausted to protest. Instead, Rain looked at Jonas, who was alternately staring up at the downpour then at the puddles forming around his feet.

  “Fin, this is Jonas, my roommate,” she said. “He’s a poet.”

  “Nice to meet you,” said Fin.

  “Yes, well,” Jonas stuttered. “Next time maybe we can do this without the sacrifice.”

  Fin adjusted Rain in his arms and started walking across the field. “I’d like that.”

  Jonas had to double his steps to keep up, which made Rain feel just slightly better about her own height. “Rain,” Jonas said after a few moments. “You’re glowing.”

  “It’s the sparkle of success,” Rain said tiredly. “Or the fact that I’m soaking through my coat.”

  “No,” he said slowly, “I mean you’re glowing.”

  Rain looked up at Fin and saw the same haze around him she’d seen in the club and then in the hill. She held up one of her own hands to the sky, and against the rain, she had the same glow, dimmer, but there.

  Rain leaned into Fin’s shoulder. “Huh,” she said.

  The house on Surrey was a welcome place to dry off, though no one had any clothes that would come close to fitting Fin, so he ended up in an oversized sweatshirt and a skirt of Cole’s (notably, not a skirt of Brianna’s, but the wardrobe choice didn’t seem a surprise to anyone but Rain). Cole and Brianna wandered off to bed, their usually unsociable selves, and Jonas, Rain, and Fin sprawled in the living room. Fin took up most of the couch and Rain curled up next to him. Jonas sat at the table, drinking a mug of Earl Gray.

  “They’ve been trying to get out for a long time,” Fin said finally, his voice sounding almost normal after the storm. “They thought if they had one of us—one of the Danaan—as the sacrifice, it might break the bindings of the old treaty. So here I was. She laid a geas—a magical obligation—on me, and that was it. I couldn’t get out of it.”

  “But you are now,” Rain said, hoping that it didn’t sound like a question.

  “Yes, thanks,” Fin answered, pulling her into his body. He nodded at Jonas. “That was a foolish thing you both did, and dangerous, and I’m grateful.”

  “Yes, well, I’m a poet, so that’s my excuse for foolishness,” said Jonas. “And that one must just like you a lot.”

  “Mmmm,” murmured Rain, not bothering to deny it.

  “But speaking of Rain,” Jonas said, “why does she glow now?”

  “Residual effect of being in the mound?” Fin said hopefully.

  “Jonas doesn’t glow,” Rain pointed out.

  Jonas looked irritated. “You don’t know.” He ran his hand through his still damp hair. “What good is it to be—whatever you are—if you don’t know the answers?”

  “Part of the fun is finding out,” Fin said, his carefree tone not hiding a single thing. Rain yawned in his arms. “I don’t suppose I could kit out here tonight? It’s a bit of a hike home to Douglas, and I don’t really fancy taking the shortcut through Cronk Moar.”

  Rain pulled his arm more tightly around her. “Stay as long as you like,” she offered through a yawn.

  Jonas stood and threw a blanket over them, then shook his head, grumbling about fairy hills and house guests as he went off to his room.

  “Fin?”

  “Yes?”

  Rain snuggled back into him. “Don’t let go.”

  He squeezed her tightly, and then let up, leaving his arm draped around her. She laced her fingers in his, and when she woke up the next morning, they were still intertwined.

  — THE LOOPHOLE —

  A Story of Elsewhere by L. Penelope

  Rhenna stood at the back of the darkened alleyway, hands on her knees, retching onto the cracked asphalt. The aftertaste of human flesh coated her tongue. Laid out on the ground beside her, arms splayed out as if in flight, a corpse looked up, sightless.

  She vomited again, expelling only bile from her empty stomach. This never got any easier. Soon, nothing came out but her breath.

  With nimble fingers tipped in dark purple nails, she plucked the pouch hanging from a leather cord around the corpse’s neck and placed it around her own. The pouch was nearly empty now.

  The feel of tight clothing squeezing her skin was strange. Her skin was strange. She wasn’t sure she liked this body. But she’d get used to it like she had all the others.

  She wobbled on stiletto heels, taking each step slowly until she got her footing. These legs were long; they looked nice in the shoes, that much was true, though her toes were pinched.

  Rhenna cracked her back and straightened her skirt, tugging down the too-short material, then, with more confidence, placed one foot in front of the other and exited the alley.

  The night was cold, and this body hadn’t been wearing a coat. It was a little matter, but she would have appreciated being warm. This city was much farther north than she’d have preferred. Brisk winds blowing in off the lake made it so residents stayed strangers, just people who passed one another with hands stuffed into pockets and heads down. Not a smile or friendly face to be seen. Though a face too friendly at this hour of the night usually meant something bad. Rhenna could deal with bad, but she’d rather not. Not with this new body to break in. Another time, maybe.

  And there was a reason she stayed in this frigid town as opposed to moving somewhere warmer and more hospitable. Just one, really.

  She decided to walk, though it was nearly twenty blocks to The Loophole, the bar where that one reason could be found. While she appreciated being around her ki
nd—those cursed to be exiled forever from Elsewhere—tonight she was tired enough to go for just a drink or two, and then home to let this body rest.

  As she crossed the distance, her steps grew quicker, more sure. Would he recognize her in this form? He usually did—scratch that, he always did. His kind were one of the few to see the spirit beneath the flesh, to always recognize her no matter what skin she wore. That was the main reason she kept going back.

  Maintaining friendships through the years had been nearly impossible. She hated having to reintroduce herself to the same people. To prove that she was still the same Rhenna, no matter what she looked like on the outside. It was draining and made the homesickness swell.

  For years, she’d traveled—a nomad created by circumstance. This was a part of exile that she hadn’t expected. Not just being unable to go home, but unable to create a new one in this peculiar, human world. A sigh escaped her as she closed in on the nondescript building.

  There was no sign advertising The Loophole—if you belonged there, you could feel the powerful wards protecting the clientele and keeping the place hidden from mundane eyes. But there were rules once you were inside. Only a few, but they were inviolate. No fighting, no soliciting, and no angering the fairy. The first two because it would ruin the vibe, and the last because no one wanted an angry fairy. Not if they wanted to stay alive and under the radar of the Enigmas—the powerful protectors of Elsewhere.

  The wooden door slammed behind her, and Rhenna was enveloped in the dimly lit space. She wondered how a human would react if one could make it past the wards to gain entry.

  Here, creatures of all kinds gathered, from an aswang, shifting from dog to human to munch on a plate of French fries before shifting back, to a zashiki-warashi, who looked disturbingly like a six-year-old child with a terrible haircut, downing a shot of tequila. Spirit beings hovered, a fire elemental lit up the corner booth, and a dryad and a spriggan played a card game on the ground.