Emerald City Dreamer

by Luna Lindsey

  “In all my premeditated dealings with fae of every kind,” Sandy intoned, “I will seek approval from Jett Brightgrove, Daughter of Flidais, and should she not grant it, I am bound to refrain. I so bind this geas for a year and a day.”

  Then Jett recited her lines. “Sandy Windham, and those of her Order acting under her command, are protected from direct or indirect harm resulting from my actions, even actions of actions like ripples on a pond, enacted by myself and any member of my brugh. I lift the blight and return what she has lost, threefold. I so bind this geas for a year and a day.” She had added the word “threefold” on the fly. It wasn’t written on her paper.

  Jett left Jina’s side and pressed something into Sandy’s hand. It was a small book, almost the size of a tarot deck and half as thick, bound in tattered blue leather. It bore no title.

  “This is my journal,” Jett said. “Never have I seen fiagai show remorse or reasonable action, even in the face of terrors like those I have inflicted upon you. You and Jina have both shown me otherwise. I want you to know my story.”

  “Th… Thank you,” Sandy whispered.

  “It is customary, when receiving a gift,” Jett said, “to give another of equal value.”

  “Like what? I don’t have anyth—”

  Jina looked up into Sandy’s eyes. “Maybe you should write your story.”

  Jett nodded. “Stories are powerful things.”

  Sandy looked down at the book in her hands. “Maybe I’ll do that. Yes, maybe I will.”

  “This book will disappear from your possession and return to mine in a year and a day. Do not waste it.”

  Jett helped Jina to her feet. She’d gotten used to the pain, though the imbalance between the heat of her wound and the cold in rest of her body was so stark, it threw off her equilibrium.

  “Get Jina home and into that potato bath,” Sandy said.

  “Avenge Ramón,” Jett said.

  “And save Trey before that freak does anything terrible,” Jina said. “His address is… Well I guess you know.”

  “The graffiti is an elf door,” Jett explained. “Simply peel it back like a sticker. Sometimes knocking three times makes it easier.”

  There was a knock at the door. It thudded dead against the glass; still the force of it rattled the bells that hung down.

  Gayle approached cautiously, and motioned with her thumb. “Does anyone know this troll?”

  “Let him in,” Jina said.

  Orven had to duck to get through the human-sized door, and his arms threatened to knock over objects on the nearby shelves with every motion he made.

  “Sandy, meet Ezra,” Jina said. “I mean, Orven.”

  Orven paid his killer no mind. “Pogswoth is not at home,” he announced. “I went there to kill him, but he was gone.”

  “He was here,” Jina said.

  “I found a dreamer in his dwelling,” Orven said. “Sealed up in the bricks. It is just as simple to tear stones down as it is to build them up.”

  “He’s free?” Jina asked eagerly. “Trey?”

  “He is safe in Noregr.”

  “You took him to Norway?”

  “The korrigan will never think to look for him there…”

  “Now is the best time to catch him,” Sandy said, picking up Jina’s sword. “While he’s injured. I’ll have Hollis pick us up here in the van with all our equipment. Jina, I swore I’d find a way to get rid of your curse. You will see the sun again.”

  Sandy grabbed Gretel and headed for the door. Phaesyle landed on a shelf by the entryway, on eye-level with Sandy. “We’re not done, you and I,” she said. “We will speak more, later.”

  “We will,” Sandy said. The door jingled behind her.

  Jina’s teeth chattered.

  “Jina,” Orven said.

  “I’ll be fine,” Jina said. “Go. Bring back Trey. He doesn’t belong in Norway.”

  “I will,” Orven said. “First, I must make one stop. I ask but one thing of you. May I have your cellphone?”

  “For keeps?” Jina asked, removing it from her pocket.

  Orven nodded.

  “Why?”

  “It’s for someone I once knew. Her name is Esther, and she would very much like to call her family and tell them she’s okay.”

  Jina let the phone fall into Orven’s massive hands, and leaned against Jett as she hobbled out the door.

  CHAPTER 60

  *

  THE BUILDING WAS EASY to find, red, with graffiti and splotches of gray and white where graffiti had been painted over. It was hard to guess what it had once been: A small warehouse, a machine shop, light manufacturing. As they drove by, Sandy spotted the graffiti that marked the elf door.

  Sandy sorted through the supplies while Hollis struggled to find parking on Capitol Hill on a Friday night.

  This was it. Sandy was finally getting justice against a faerie, a murderer, someone she could kill in good conscience and in relative safety. She tried to feel some joy in it; she could find none.

  She reminded herself that this korrigan had stalked Jina and tried to abduct her, had faestricken her, had killed at least two people, and reneged on a deal. These felt like good justifications, and only that.

  Her thirst for revenge might return one day, but on this day, when she’d been so humbled and worn down, this was just a job, a duty, a distasteful and unnecessary evil.

  With the van parked, Hollis opened the back door and Sandy passed out the weapons. Hollis’s shirt read, Don’t Panic, and Sandy tried to take that advice while she handed him a pistol and a sword, and took the shotguns for Gretel and herself. She also took Jina’s sword and strapped it in a spare scabbard at her waist. Jina always liked the look of the thin katana. Sandy wished she were here to use it.

  It was just the three of them. Sandy led the way up the street, past parked cars, dumpsters, and a line waiting to get in at Neumo’s. The angle-parked cars along the side of the red building provided good shelter from prying eyes. Hollis pointed at a bumper sticker: Keep Seattle Weird. They were certainly trying their best. No one gave them a second glance.

  Sandy paused before the elf door. After all she’d been through, and with the last tendrils of Tir Nan Og still clinging to her, Sandy found it easy to think of the squiggle of paint as a giant sticker that would peel back. Behind it stood a wooden door with no lock. It creaked on its hinges as she pushed it forward.

  The inside was an empty black maw.

  Sandy whirled the flashlight around and took the lead. Gretel picked up her pack and followed her in, with Hollis trailing behind, the sword aloft in his hand.

  A few moths flapped past them, fleeing like pixies out of a sithein. A short hallway led to a cramped hovel full of junk. The air smelled strongly of boiled cat food. The only thing of value was a pile of books by authors like Voltaire, Kierkegaard, Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche. John Lennon was playing on a record player, the same line stuck on repeat: Imagine… Imagine… Imagine…

  The wall featured a fresh hole, with a pile of broken bricks next to a smashed shopping cart. In the dark hollow, she thought she saw what looked like bones, and the shriveled body of a child.

  A pile of rags moved in the corner. Sandy pointed her shotgun at it.

  “Korrigan hear me, Hear me true, You’re fixed in place, Held like glue.” She rattled off the rooting spell with confidence and power.

  The rags slid off. Pogswoth sat up but moved no further. He had a dirty shirt pressed against the dent in his head.

  “Well go on, finish me off,” he said. “End my miserable little life. Maybe next go-round I’ll be born rich. Or stay unborn and find my own island in Tir Nan Og someplace.”

  Gretel and Hollis had her covered. Sandy put the shotgun down against the wall and slid the katana out of its scabbard. She poked at him in the chest. “First you make everything normal for Jina again. No more day is night, warm is cold for her. Make it all okay.”

  “Nothing will make anything okay,” the
korrigan said. “We don’t always get what we want. So kill me already.”

  “Do it,” Hollis growled. “He’s asking for it.”

  “Not yet. I promised Jina.”

  “Promises are meant to be broken,” Pogswoth said. “Honor is dead, if it could ever have been considered alive, and the virtues of chivalry were just a lie told to keep the lowborn low.”

  Hollis threw his gun down and stuck the point of his blade against Pogswoth’s face.

  “I will make him do it,” Hollis said.

  “That’s it,” Pogswoth said. “Cut me to bits before you kill me. It’s nothing I’ve never suffered before.”

  Hollis flicked his wrist a little, and blood welled up on Pogswoth’s cheek. The ease and skill with which he did it sickened her.

  The korrigan groaned in pain. “I once spent an eternity being punished at the hands of my sworn liege lord. All for imagined slights.”

  Hollis added a new stripe beneath it. Sandy tried to take some kind of pleasure in it, though she could only imagine the umbrella in her own mind, made to shelter her, and instead ceaselessly cutting her on its cruel edges.

  Pogswoth merely grunted at the second wound. Only a small patch above his right eyebrow was free of blood. “At least at the end of this, I’ll be dead,” he snarled. “You’ll go on to suffer for a lifetime, wracked by your own mind.”

  “I’m done suffering,” Sandy finally said. “I’m getting help.”

  Pogswoth glanced at her sword. “I can see that.”

  She could see the cycle clearly now, and herself just a link in a long chain. Pogswoth had been warped into this… this… thing by his liege lord. Haun had been abused, too, by a stepmother taking revenge on the fae for her stolen child.

  And now, now here she stood, towering over the pathetic monster, with an instrument of torture in her own hand. She herself had left so much damage in her wake. It was a choice; it had all been a choice. A choice she didn’t have to make anymore.

  “Cure Jina!” Hollis shouted, adding a third cut.

  “Jina is the sun. If I can’t have her, she will never see daylight. Never!”

  Hollis grasped the korrigan’s ankle and dragged him off the bed. The rags fell from his crushed and torn face, and he hit the back of his head against a loose brick.

  “Stop,” Sandy said.

  “I can make him do it,” Hollis said. “Just give me an hour. No one has ever withstood—”

  “No,” Sandy said. She made sure her tone invited no further argument.

  She briefly considered leaving him here, but the bones in the wall testified against him. There was no other way she could prevent this faerie from taking more lives. His nykk might live on, just like Ezra; maybe the process of dying would change him. Or limit, however briefly, his ability to harm others.

  Sandy batted Hollis’ sword to the side with her own. If she was to kill him, she would do it herself.

  Pogswoth closed his eyes.

  She swung back the blade and brought it down against his throat as hard as she could. The iron seared cleanly but not completely through the korrigan’s neck.

  “We leave him here,” Sandy said, letting his blood seep into the trash on the floor. “Let his bones join the others.” She wiped the blade clean on a rag and blew out the candles.

  When they exited from the end of the long hallway, Sandy turned back and the door was no longer there. Neither was the graffiti.

  ACKNOWLEGEMENTS

  This author wishes to express sincere gratitude.

  First to my family. Roland & Jocelyn Lindsey are my wonderful life-partners. I can barely enumerate the ways they support me: They put up with my crazy hours. They are my patrons, feeding me while I try this weird artistic venture. They believe in me.

  And to our kids, who put up with much of the same from me. They are also all great artists, and I value their opinion. Elizabeth has done the chapter sketches, as well.

  I am extremely grateful to my parents, Dann and Wanda Flesher, who endured love scenes and embedded swear words to edit this manuscript. They were my first editors, who bought me my first copy of Strunk and White, and it is their voices I hear when I correct my own grammar and style mistakes.

  I’d like to thank my life-friend Jen Peters, who read two versions of this manuscript, and has always been a fan of my writing, even way-back-when. It is her encouragement that made me believe, even after years of not writing, that maybe I have something worthwhile to say.

  Cloud City Wordslingers, my critique group, is largely responsible for this novel not sucking. Stephanie Herman, Andrew Williams, Andrew Rosenberg, Justin “Boswell” Boswell, Mila Webb, Shannon Peavey, Steve Wilson, and Folly Blaine.

  You are all very wonderful, but I’d especially like to mention Mark Andrew Edwards, for running the group, and most importantly for being my harshest critic. Emerald City Dreamer is a hundred times better because of you.

  I’d also like to mention my old writers group, back in the late 90’s, Roundtable Writers. They helped me polish my craft.

  Beta readers really helped me hone the last draft, and aside from those already mentioned, include Jon Lavendar, Dan Strohl, and Danielle Aditi.

  Ana Cruz designed a beautiful, eye-catching cover. A thousand thanks to her.

  Caoileann Appleby was extremely helpful for finding and correctly using Irish Gaelic terms and phrases.

  Many of the settings in this novel are based on real places. Gargoyles Statuary inspired a scene and a fictitious character based loosely on the store owner, Gayle Nowicki. Thanks to her for permission to use her likeness.

  Thanks to Jess Latham for the font, “Little Trouble Girl”, which I used on the cover title.

  I’d like to thank Amazon for shaking up the publishing industry and giving me a platform to publish my books. And to other skilled indie writers who are part of a movement.

  And to all my writing influences, my favorite authors, all the people who have supported me over the years, and everyone and anyone else I forgot to, or did not have room, to mention.

  Most of all, thank YOU for reading this novel. Triple-thanks if you leave me a review or feedback somewhere online.

  GLOSSARY

  All words used in this novel are intended to be contextually understood or explained within the story. This glossary is included to assist, and also to provide word origins for the curious. Most fae terms are Celtic in origin, and some try to express concepts that are difficult for human beings, especially modern humans, to understand. Also included are urban terms that may be more common to the Seattle area or confined to certain subcultures.

  There are as many dialects of Gaelic as there are villages in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany in France (did I leave anyone out?) As such, there are many ways to pronounce these Gaelic-based words. Given the difficulties in finding resources, there may be inconsistencies. I lean towards using Irish Gaelic, but not always.

  Remember, the fae are older than the modern versions of these dialects. They may say things a little differently, so let’s not question them too closely, or they may take our tongues.

  Aisling (ASHling) - A dream or vision, a time of creation during which there is an outburst of toradh. Also synonymous with “toradh”.

  Alfar - An ancient race of Scandavian fae, near-gods. Related to the Irish Tuatha Dé Danann.

  Anime (AH-neh-may) - Japanese animation.

  Blaosc (BLAY-osk) (shell) - The faeborn term for their human bodies.

  Blas na haislinge (blas naw ASHling) - The taste of the dream, the flavor of the toradh.

  Brugh (brew) - The inside of a faerie house, fort, castle, or other type of living area. The outside is sometimes called a Sithein (sheean) or knowe. Synonyms: Dwelling, barrow, lair, fairy mound, fairy fort (ringfort, ráth, cahir, lios, dún, cromlech, cairn, tumulus are also historical, Irish, but thought to be haunted by fae), ráth (earthen mound), dolmen (portal tomb or standing stones), fairy-bush (or fairy-tree), menhir (single st
anding stone),

  Burner - Someone who attends Burning Man and participates in Burning Man culture.

  Cauldron of Phlogiston (FLOG-eh-ston) - A magical cauldron of fire.

  Céile (KAY-luh) - A human vassal. Humans are also duine chlainne.

  Chrysalis (KRIS-uh-lis) - Any major transformation time in a faerie’s life. Can happen to any faerie, nyyk or faeborn, no matter how old, more than once. When the fae are strongly affected by pressure from the dreams of humans, enough to change the very nature of their being, they will go through a chrysalis.

  Claíomh Solais (cleev SOL-ish) - Shining Sword.

  Claíomh Haislinge (cleev ASHling) - The Sword of Dreams (or Visions).

  Cold Wound - A wound caused by iron that is resistant to healing.

  The Dream - Like Tir Nan Og, but personified. The collective dreams of all people. It has a will.

  Draíocht (DREE-ahkt) - A fae word for magic spell.

  Dreamer - A human who creates; a particularly talented artist, musician, writer, or other creator, often with a vivid imagination, who frequently exudes a high amount of toradh. Dreamers are often flighty, ungrounded, or eccentric. Often told by other humans to get their head out of the clouds.

  Dreamless - An extremely banal or mundane person, opposite of a dreamer. Think tax collector, strict school administrator, or accountant.

  Dreamtide - The tendency for some fae to be swayed by the desires of strong dreamers, or dreamers they are in love with.

  Duine chlainne (DIN-uh KLIN-uh) - A single member of the clan, as in my duine chlainne.

  Enchant - Luring a human, committing them to the service of a faerie or a brugh. Or casting glamour on a human in a way that affects their mind.

  Elf door - A faerie passage through a wall into a place that may or may not exist in reality. There may or may not be a real door to accompany the elf door.

  Elfin - Of the elves, or like an elf.

  Fae (FAY) - Of or relating to the faeries.

  Faeborn - A faerie born into a human body. One of a faeborn’s parents must also be faeborn. The other could merely be human. Alternately, a body can be taken over or possessed, but this is much more rare, and usually only the case in animals and plants (i.e. Cait sidhe and dryads), since the human will is far too strong.