The Unseen (34 page)

“No, he changed his mind about the tattoo.  Going in a different direction.”

“Like the direction of another shop?  What’s going on with your customers today, Cassidy?  I need to be aware of any issues affecting Neolithic and its reputation.  Reputation is
everything
, Cassidy.”

“
Everything’s fine,” Cassidy said. “I need a drink.  Call me if you need me.”  Cassidy started for the front door.

“
You can’t come back to work if you’re drinking,” Jarvis said.

“
Not to ink anybody, but I can still talk and sketch.” Cassidy walked right out, though she could feel his eyes boring into her back.

“
I need you here working, Cassidy.  The whole team needs you here.  We’re like a military unit, all marching together.”

“
Stop being so corporate, Jarvis,” she said, and the door swung shut behind her.

Cassidy hurried down the street to Five Fingers Tavern.  

“Hit me quick,” she told Barb when she reached the bar, and Barb obliged her with a small shot of whiskey.  The place had a light crowd, not too busy.

“
More,” Cassidy said.

“
Take it easy,” Barb said. “You’ve been downing it by the gallon lately.  I don’t want to get stuck taking you the hospital because you O.D.’d on Kilbeggan.  That would be sad for me and embarrassing for you.”

“
I’ve had a hell of a day, though.  I need it.”

“
Tell me about it,” Barb said. “Dan—that’s the new barback—he’s got some kind of bad spider bite on his arm, so I’m doing half his work today.”

“
A spider bite?  Is it bad?”

“
Dan!” Barb shouted, and the straw-haired Appalachian kid emerged from somewhere in the back. “Show Cassidy your arm.”

“
Ain’t that crazy?” Dan asked Cassidy as he held out the arm she’d tattooed.  His inner forearm was swollen and dark red all around the brown recluse image. “Thing bit me right where you drew it, like it was some kind of sign sayin’ ‘Bite Here.’  Hurts like somebody hammered a couple of rusty nails in there.”

“
I’m sorry,” Cassidy said. “Maybe I can fix it.”

“
Not unless you’re a doctor
and
a tattooer,” Dan said.

“
Maybe you should go to the doctor,” Barb said. “I’ll cover for you.”

“
Naw, can’t afford that.  I got to unload the dishwasher.” Dan returned to the back, holding his reddened arm.

“
That’s been happening all day,” Cassidy said in a low voice.

“
Spider bites?  Are the spiders invading?” Barb asked.

“
No, my tattoos.” Cassidy told her about the other customers. “Everything I draw kind of halfway comes to life.”

“
Damn, that’s amazing.”

“
Amazing?  Not freaky?  Not like a weird dream that won’t end?”

“
Cassidy, you’ve got some real power,” Barb whispered, leaning over the bar. “Ever since the crash.  First astral projection and now this.”

“
Don’t get all—”

“
Don’t
you
tell me not get all supernatural on you.  We should be past that by now.  Are you still trying to deny it?”

Cassidy sighed. “I guess not.  What do I do now?”

“I don’t know, but I have to say I’m getting jealous.”

“
Why?”

“
Why do you think?  I’ve been studying this crap for years and I still can’t do anything.  You’ve got all these talents showing up, and you don’t even want them.”

“
I definitely don’t.  How do I get rid of them?”

“
Don’t even say that.  I’m not sure it can be done.  That car crash must have awoken some hidden part of you, but it was probably always there.  Does your mom have any of these abilities?  Or Kieran?”

“
I don’t think so.”

“
Maybe you should talk to her about it.”

“
What am I going to say?”  Cassidy asked. “You know, Ibis gave me something.  An old book about some witch from my parents’ old town in Ireland.”

“
Really?  What did it say?”

“
Don’t know, haven’t really looked at it.”

“
What?
  It might have some answers.  Clues, at least.”

“
I don’t think so.” Cassidy shook her head and tapped her empty glass, but Barb didn’t move to refill it. “The book’s like two hundred years old, anyway.”

“
You have to show me.  I want to read it even if you don’t!” Barb shook her head. “It figures.  All this pointless work on my part to try and develop a little power and protection, and it turns out you’re full of crazy magic.”

“
Your work wasn’t pointless.  The circles you drew cleared the little transparent pests out of my room.  And one you must have drawn in your room worked, too—I couldn’t get very close to you when I was traveling out of body.”

“
Really!” Barb’s face lit up. “It’s actually working?  I was beginning to think it was all a stupid waste of time, just me walking around and chanting like an idiot for no reason.”

“
It’s actually working.”

“
This is great, Cassidy.”

“
For you, maybe.”

“
We have to go look at that book as soon as we get home.”

“
Fine.  Now pour me another drink.” Cassidy tapped her glass again, and Barb poured in just a splash, barely enough to cover the bottom.  Cassidy scowled a little. “Come on, this is the
Five
Fingers Tavern.  That’s not even half a finger of whiskey.  It’s barely a fingernail.”

“
Just a little more.” Barb splashed in another half a shot. “I don’t want you blacking out before we get home and dig out your secrets.”

“
I wouldn’t mind that at all,” Cassidy told her, and then she downed her drink.

At their house, Cassidy reluctantly led Barb into her room and closed the door behind them.  Cassidy walked slowly, with a bad limp, but her leg had greatly improved.  She supposed it was because of the symbols Ibis had told her to draw on her leg, but she was reluctant to admit it.

“
Here, Barb.” Cassidy handed her friend the old book from her closet. “You want to look at it more than I do.”

“
I don’t understand why you’re not dying to read this.  It looks awesome.  I’d read it even if it wasn’t about you.” Barb unzipped the plastic bag and gingerly removed the book. “
Fairy-Stories and Ghost Tales of the North
.  Does that mean you’re from Northern Ireland?”

“
It depends what you mean.  Not the country Northern Ireland—we’re from County Donegal, which is sort of the northwestern corner of Ireland.  It’s part of the main country, the Republic, but everything east of it is Northern Ireland.  So it’s kind of cut off.  Anyway, it’s a rural place, with more mountains than people, ever since the famine.” Cassidy knew most of this from her own reading, since her mother had told her very little.

She eased down onto the bed next to Barb, who was very carefully opening the book to the story marked with the red ribbon.

“‘The Enchantress of Darmoughan,’” Barb read. “That’s you, huh?  An enchantress?  Sounds sexy.”

“
Let’s just get it over with,” Cassidy told her.

“
Watch out before you explode with enthusiasm,” Barb cleared her throat. “And it goes like this. ‘Far in the North, walled from the greater world by steep and icy mountains, on high cliffs overlooking the darkness of a deadly and treacherous Sea, lies the village of Darmoughan.  It is a rare traveler who finds cause to walk the narrow and stony road to Darmoughan to-day, for that road is steep and passes among strange and imposing arrangements of stone, built by the Old Folk in the early days of the world, from whence cries or unholy music may be heard in the night, so it has been said.’”

“
Unholy music?” Cassidy asked. “Like what?  Miley Cyrus?”

“
I’m guessing something a little more vintage,” Barb said. She continued: “‘There was long ago a certain youth of Darmoughan, a sheep-herder possessed of that dangerous Curiosity that so often leads the young into Temptation, and from thence, too often, into eternal Damnation.

“
He slept little at night, for he felt himself drawn to the stars, and would spend his hours gazing up into the dark mysteries of the firmament, alone with himself; the others of the village thought him strange, for they preferred Society to Solitude, and his nature was precisely contrary to theirs.  His strangeness led him to wander in the great wilderness about the village, heedless of the beasts and spirits all others feared.

“‘
It was such a night, when the shepherd boy stood on the cliff to better see the stars, that he first heard the strange Melody rising from the rocks far below, an ancient cave known as an unholy place, where the forgotten Old People had worshiped their strange gods.

“‘
Drawn by the music, he descended the high cliff by means of steep rocks, made wet by the foam of the sea.  Heedless of the danger, the boy climbed down to the cave, midway ‘tween the cliff’s zenith, from which he had set out, and the deadly roiling sea below.  Within the cave, ancient symbols of Dark Arts, unknown to followers of the One True God, lay carved upon each wall.

“‘
In the dimness of the cave, he perceived the source of the unnatural music and trembled at the sight.  The haunting sound was played upon a flute of wild goat-horn.  He found the player more enchanting than her lovely song, for she was a maiden of his own age, yet one he had never seen, though he had lived in the village of Darmoughan since birth, and knew all who lived in reach of it.

“‘
She sat upon a chair of stone, her eyes closed in reverie as she played her horn.  Her hair, dark red as the setting sun, coiled round and round to her feet, here and there adorned with braids, a bit of ribbon, a shiny stone.  Her hair alone protected her modesty, for she wore no other clothing upon her body, nor shoes upon her feet, and in this natural condition, proved a great temptation to the young shepherd. 

“‘
Keeping his presence secret and watching her play, he found himself soon in love, though whether it owed to her unholy music or her savage and unashamed display of female beauty, we cannot say.” Barb stopped to open the window and light a cigarette.

“
You’re doing a good job of reading that crap.  You’re like an old-fashioned storyteller.” Cassidy imitated an old Southern lady’s voice: “Well, it was way back in the good old antebellum days, before the War of Northern Aggression took our slaves and we had to start picking our own cotton...”

“
Glad you like it,” Barb said.  She continued: “‘Fear and love mixed in the boy’s heart, for he knew the tales of haunted old places, and thought her a Spirit.  In time he followed his impulse to speak to her, for he could not make himself depart and return to the safety of home and Christian society.

“‘
Dear maiden, he said, your music has charmed my mind.  Tell me your name, for I have lived in this village since birth, yet never have I seen you in my life, for I would surely remember one such as you.  Tell me whether you are as you appear, or a Spirit beguiling my senses.

“‘
And so it was the girl opened her eyes, yet showed no fear of him, though he had caught her alone and immodest save her cascading red hair.  Her eyes were like emeralds, and he felt his heart captured yet again.

“
In truth, I am of each world, boy, she answered him.  For my mother is the one called enchantress by the people of the village.  None know of me, for she keeps me hidden and forbids me speak to any man or woman or child.  I may speak only to the animals of the forest, the birds of the trees, the fish of the sea.  She would not wish you nor anyone to visit me, but for myself, I wish to know you, for loneliness is as painful as death.  Only promise you will tell no one of me.”

“‘
Here the shepherd boy grew frightened, for the priest of the town called the enchantress a witch and consort of Satan, and the people believed him, though they each had cause at times to seek out the favor of the enchantress—always at night, always in secret—for charms, cures, and divinations of the future.

“‘
Though he feared, his ardor for the young maid was even greater, and they spoke that night of secret things—of curses and spells, spirits and devils, and the boy’s curiosity grew yet more aroused than his aching heart, and he thus began to love her with all his being.

“‘
When the sun rose, she bid him depart before her mother called for her.  He refused to leave without a kiss, and the daughter of the enchantress resisted only for the sake of propriety, for she had begun already to love him as he did her.  She granted the kiss at last, and then he was away as she insisted, though neither truly wished to part.