Flights of Angels (Exit Unicorns Series) (55 page)

“No, he is not,” Pamela said quietly, “and how dearly that has cost him. I say this knowing that I am more guilty than most of returning to that well each time I’ve needed safety and security.”

“The man is no one’s fool. He has spoken of ye often, an’ I know well enough he was more than happy to provide those things for ye. I think perhaps ye both have understood for a long time what it is ye are to each other. There is no blame in such a friendship.”

Finola got up to re-fill their teacups and Pamela’s eye turned to the sideboard where sat a chess set. The black pieces were carved from a deep mahogany and the white of palest birch, though long usage had stained the birch a mellow gold. The pieces were from Tenniel’s illustrations of
Alice in Wonderland,
the Knight carved in meticulous detail right down to the beehives, brushes, candlesticks and watchman’s rattle that loaded down the Knight’s saddle. The Red Queen pointed an imperious finger and one could almost hear her yelling ‘
Off with her head!’
Alice was the White Queen, the pawns carved in the form of the White Rabbit, while the bishops were served by the Mad Hatter, and Tweedledee and Tweedledum bookended the back row in the position of rooks. Finola noted her gaze and smiled.

“His paternal grandfather had it made for Jamie. It’s one of the boy’s most prized possessions. It ought to be up in the big house but he still likes to play with me of an evening now and again, so he leaves it here.”

“It’s wonderful,” Pamela said, leaning over to look more closely at the detail on the White Rabbit’s pocket watch.

“He taught me how to play,” Finola continued, “though his paternal grandfather was the only one who could really challenge him. As he was away a great deal, Jamie taught others to play. None of us could come up to his ability. He was so young when he taught me that he had to stand up on his chair to get his favorite view of the chessboard. He told me later that each piece has a lingering light like a comet tail and that he could see how it might be moved, ought to move, all the lines of tension, possibility, beauty. He said it was what he loved best about the game, all that could happen and how he would have to choose, and lose all the other games it might have been. Ye could almost see him storin’ the limits and permutations of each piece in his mind so that he could pull it out later, an’ turn it about on its head.”

Pamela could see Jamie, in this cottage, a small golden boy already kindled from within by that light that could flare into incandescence and enchant all around him—even if it burned the bearer—leaving scars in its wake that only Jamie knew the depth of, and sometimes, though rarely, those who loved him.

“He had his own world. Only children often will. When he was of an age, I gave him blank books so he could write some of his thoughts an’ fancies down. It seemed to me that his head was too full an’ I thought perhaps writin’ it down might help to calm him.”

Finola bent down and opened a cupboard beneath the settle. When she stood again, she held a leather-bound notebook in her hands, darkened with age and usage much as the chess pieces were, yet this had nothing of the feeling of mellowness about it. Finola was holding it out to her, still speaking, though her tone changed to something that had pain way at the back of it, like a sliver of glass caught in her throat.

“He started this when he was fifteen, and then around eighteen he simply stopped. I think it frightened him, how real an alternative reality could be, so I stole it, and hid it away because I knew he would destroy it at some point. He never knew I had it, but I wanted to preserve some part of that beauty from that time in his life. He was an amazing child. Even then people were drawn to him, animals too. He came here when he needed to be away from the big house, and all the drama it contained. We would have our days roaming in the woods and fields. I taught him all about plants and told him the old stories of Ireland. Then we would have a quiet meal by the fire in the evening, and I’d read to him until he slept, or when he was older, he would read to me.”

Pamela took the leather-bound book in her hands and felt through its weight and the silky texture how treasured it had been.

“Why?” she asked, longing to sit down right there by the fire and start reading.

“Because there’s not many of us who love him well enough to tell him when he’s wrong. You are one and I am another. An’ I think,” the old woman’s eyes met hers, “that he would have wanted ye to have it.”

She opened the cover, uncertain of what she expected to find. Another journal, one from when he was very young, but it wasn’t that at all. The title page bore the words
The Tale of Ragged Jack.
She shivered, half in anticipation, half in fear of what the pages would reveal. The book had lain undisturbed for some time, for it had the scent of paper long shut away from light and air. The edges were brownish gold and she felt as though she were touching part of Jamie himself, for his presence was here in the first few sentences. Jamie had always had the ability to travel that crooked pathway, to feel the wild eyes staring in from the snowy night, to hear the whoosh of bird wings that flew too close to the sun.

“So will we get down to the crux of what ye came here for?”

Pamela, still caressing the book’s worn cover, took a second to adjust her thoughts.

“Yer here to ask me if I can help ye find the boy, are ye not?”

“I am.” She saw little reason to prevaricate, for the woman would know a half-truth when she saw it. Just as her grandson always had.

Finola picked up the White Knight from the chess set and held it cupped in her palm. “In a way this is responsible for his being lost.”

“So you believe he is in Russia too?”

“Yes. If he is lost, it is because of his friendship with Andrei.”

She replaced the White Knight on the board and looked up at Pamela.

“The question is what are we goin’ to do about it?”

The Tale of Ragged Jack, continued.

When night fell, Jack had no idea how far he was from home
. Even the stars did not look familiar. The Teapot constellation, with its familiar spout drawn in blue stars, was nowhere to be found, nor the Saucer Nebula, normally a comforting smudge not far below the Teapot’s spout. He knew he had to rest, for exhaustion would only lead him further astray, if indeed one could go astray when one had no idea where one was.

He sheltered in the hollow between the roots of a huge oak tree, bedding down amongst the dusty leaves shed at its feet, and drawing his coat tight as he could around him. He peered out over his collar to the night sky above, searching in vain for a star that he knew—one to hang his hat upon, as his grandmother would say. But there was still nothing by which to orient himself. Finally, he closed his eyes, unable to bear the sight of all those cold, shimmering stars that could not guide him home.

In the morning, he breakfasted on the bit of bread left in his pocket from yesterday’s tea and drank from a clear stream that he could hear when he awoke, burbling away to itself just beyond the roots of the oak. He had slept fitfully and awakened in the dim hours before dawn with an owl glaring at him from its perch not far above his head.

He tossed a coin to choose a pathway to follow for the day, for one seemed as good as another when one was lost. The path he chose ambled through fields that were a heavy amber with grain needing to be harvested and the autumn scent of apples falling red from the trees to lie like rubies along the dusty roadside. Jack filled his pockets with them, eating one as he went along the winding road.

The sun was high above the horizon when he heard a commotion on the road ahead of him, and the terrified yelps of a puppy. He hurried his steps, not thinking about what sort of trouble he might be running toward. Jack had never been able to resist the hurt of any helpless creature.

When he crested the hill, he saw a farmer with a wagon heaped high with golden hay, standing at the roadside and kicking at a thin, miserable little creature that was cringing away from the heavy hobnailed boots into the long grasses of the ditch.

Jack ran toward the farmer, yelling, ‘Stop that!’

The farmer turned on him and Jack realized how he must look, a small ragged boy already filthy as a vagabond with the dirt of his travels. The farmer was formidable, a hulking brute with small piggy eyes that had little but anger and meanness in them. Jack stood his ground. He knew you couldn’t give bullies an inch or they would chase you a mile.

“Leave him be,” Jack said, far more stoutly then he felt. “What’s he done to you?”

The farmer spat a filthy stream of snuff onto the ground, before answering. “He’s useless. Let a fox in the chicken coop, an’ now hides in the grass, hopin’ I won’t find him.”

“He’s only a baby,” Jack said angrily, having seen a toffee brown eye peering through the grass at him. “You ought to be ashamed.”

The farmer took a menacing step toward him as though he would happily kick Jack into the ditch along with the dog. But then he stopped short, though Jack did not know why. He only knew he wasn’t afraid, just filled with a fierce anger that left no room for fear.

“Bloody cur, just like the dog—useless too, I’ll bet. Well, have him then, I don’t want him.”

Jack stood in the roadway until the farmer’s wagon was a moving spot about to disappear behind a hill. The dog was still crouched in the ditch, completely silent.

Jack walked to where the dog stood, crouched down and held out his hand, with the palm cupped open, so that the dog would know he meant it no harm. It huddled in the grass for a moment longer, but then its natural curiosity got the better of it and it emerged from the grass on long, trembling legs. The dog sidled toward Jack slowly. One eye was the soft brown Jack had spied before, the other a glacial blue, the sort of eye that saw things beyond the obvious.

Jack carefully unfurled his fingers one at a time, as gentle as waterweed in a slow current. The dog tilted its head, as though measuring Jack’s trustworthiness. Jack kept so still that he was barely breathing, knowing that trust is a slow thing, built up by time and care, but there has to be a seed to begin that process.

The dog sniffed his fingers one at a time, and then sat down, sighed and laid its muzzle in Jack’s open palm. He had always had this way with animals, though he did not know what it was they sensed in him to make them so immediately trustful. Perhaps it was only that he understood what it was to not always know how the world worked, or what was right when presented with choices. Perhaps they simply knew he would not hurt them.

He knew then that he would take the dog with him, for even the most unlikely-looking creatures could contain within themselves a noble heart and great gifts. They only needed someone with the eyes to see them. The pup was gangly to be sure, but its coat glowed like the moon on a frosty night and its eyes looked straight into Jack’s soul. Yes, it would be a valuable companion, though Jack would have appreciated any sort of friend on his journey.

When they stopped for the night, Jack made a fire, for it was cold and the dark seemed filled with watching eyes. They ate potatoes that Jack had found in a deserted field. He baked them in the coals, and they had them with milk that he had stolen from a creamery window. For dessert, there were tiny wild berries that tasted like the color of a sunset, all crimson and gold, with seeds of violet.

Replete, they lay down side by side. Jack was amazed at how much warmth the dog provided and how much easier sleep came with another creature by his side.

Aengus proved to be a trusty companion, and Jack’s heart was considerably lightened by the dog’s comforting presence trotting behind his heels the next day. He named him Aengus in honor of the poet in his kingdom who was famed for his wanderings to exotic places.

Over the next couple of days, Jack chose their pathways by a toss of his lucky ha’penny. It was little more than guessing, yet after each toss they would get some way down the road the penny had chosen and he would pick up a thread on the wind, something that smelled of burning leaves and dim, still water, and he would know that they were on the trail of the Crooked Man. Lost, but heading in the right direction, with only foreign stars to guide their way.

They had walked for three risings of the moon and they were both weary and very hungry. Jack knew they needed to sleep and to eat. But he was a child of the woods and knew that to lie down now would mean death, for there was cold upon the face of the moon tonight, cold that would dig into a boy’s marrow and freeze him forever.

It was with great relief that they came upon the cottage. Tucked away as it was in briars and vines, it was a wonder they saw it at all. But some stray gleam of moonlight had lit upon it and brought it to their attention. There was smoke puffing from the chimney and the smell of something savory stewing. Jack’s stomach rumbled loudly.

Distracted as he was by his stomach and weary limbs, it took a moment before he realized that someone was standing by the corner of the cottage, in the lee of a hanging vine.

She was the smallest woman he had ever seen, with a face as sharp as the tip of a needle and hair like the wing of a crow. She had nut-brown skin, wrinkled as a walnut shell and was clothed in a green dress, with small bristled shoes on her feet. She stood upright, with her hand on the hoe that she had been using to turn earth, her eyes piercing him through, eyes that could see straight through a lie or deceit of any sort. Jack knew her kind. His grandmother was just like her. The best tactic was to answer truthfully whatever questions were asked.

“What will you be wanting?” she asked, her voice nearly as sharp as her eyes.

“Some food if you can spare it,” Jack said, “and a warm place to sleep for the night.”

She fixed him with a narrowed eye, and Jack swore he could feel her reading the pages of his soul as though they were boldly printed upon the air. Apparently she found something there that she liked, for gruffly, she said, “Come in then, boy, and bring your dog with you.”

The inside of the cottage was snug, a huge fire roared in the hearth, and over it hung a large cauldron from which the savory scent issued.