Widdershins (19 page)

“I don’t know that I want to meet any more of them.”

“Well, the bogans I can understand, but Grey sounds interesting and a deer man like Walker is just amazing.”

“I know. It was totally special meeting him. But mostly, I think that kind of thing would just complicate my life way too much.”

“I understand,” I told her. “But the trouble is, once you start interacting with the otherworld, it’s not so easy to shut it out again.”

“That’s what Grey said. And then he told me I was going to have to choose sides.”

“Choose sides?”

She nodded. “He seems to think there’s trouble coming between his people and the newer fairies—I mean the ones newer to this land.”

I thought of happy little Hazel giving the finger to some native spirits when I drove her into town the other morning, the disgust in her voice when she spoke of them. I’d never seen her like that before, but then I’d never seen her around native spirits before, either.

But all I said was, “Oh, I doubt it’ll come to that,” except I couldn’t put any real confidence in my voice.

“What are you guys talking about?” Jilly’s new friend Neil asked.

“Yeah,” Andy said. “You’ve had your heads together for ages. I hope you weren’t working up a critique of our performance tonight because I totally blew my harmonies on ‘The Flowers of Red Hill.’ ”

I smiled at them. “I was just explaining to Lizzie why I don’t care for single malts.”

They all got shocked looks.

“What
do
you drink?” Siobhan asked.

I tapped my mostly untouched glass of Jameson’s. “Only Irish whiskey, if you please. No water. No ice.”

“My god, man,” Andy said. “You need to be educated.”

“Oh, please don’t let them go off again,” Jilly said.

But it was too late. Lizzie and I smiled at each other, then I let the conversation wash over me.

“That was really nice what you did for Siobhan,” Jilly said when we finally got back to our room. “She was
so
dying to play.”

“I know. She must have thanked me a half-dozen times.”

“It’s what I like best about you, Geordie, me lad. Your generous nature.”

I smiled. “I think someone’s tipsy.”

She shook her head, then frowned and put her hands on her temples.

“No, someone’s quite drunk, thank you.”

“Then we’ll have to get you to bed.”

I helped her into the bathroom, waiting outside until she was done, and then walked her to her bed. She’d dropped all her clothes on the floor in front of the sink except for the T-shirt she was still wearing, but it was long enough to save her modesty. I felt sad seeing the scars on her legs because it brought everything back to mind again. How that damned hit-and-run driver had left her life in shambles. How she couldn’t paint, couldn’t dance, couldn’t be the mad, wild Jilly I’d known for more than half my life now. But you’d never hear a word of complaint from her.

“I’m really glad you came,” I told her as I tucked her into bed.

“Don’t you go all maudlin on me,” she said, “or I shall probably cry.”

I leaned down and kissed her brow.

“Goodnight, Jilly,” I said.

When she made no reply, I looked closer and smiled. She was already asleep.

I went into the bathroom and picked up her clothes, laying them down on her bag. Before I went to bed myself, I stood and looked out the window for a long time, wondering about Galfreya, what she was doing, if she missed me.
I
wasn’t sure I missed her. There was an empty feeling inside, but I thought it might be more from knowing she’d put some spell on me. Or maybe it was me missing what the two of us had never really had—missing the potential, rather than the reality.

That made me think of what she’d told Christiana, how danger would find me if I stayed away from the court. I wondered if it had anything to do with the growing animosity between the native spirits and the fairy tribes.

Well, there was nothing I could do about it except keep my eyes open.

I turned from the window and my gaze fell on Jilly, peacefully asleep in her bed.

I couldn’t believe she’d actually broken up with Daniel. With everything else that was going on—knowing what I knew about Galfreya and her enchantment to keep me going to the mall, this trouble the band was having with bogans, trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life—Jilly’s breaking up with Daniel was what I kept coming back to.

I felt terrible for her. Then I felt terrible for Daniel because I knew what it felt like to be blindsided by the person you loved. But Jilly’d been my friend for longer than I could remember and when I thought of that, I felt bad for her all over again.

I knew how hard it was for her to open up and let someone into her life the way she had with Daniel. And Daniel
was
perfect. Or that was the way it had certainly seemed, looking in from the outside. Which just went to show you that nothing was ever necessarily what it seemed.

I went into the bathroom, washed up and brushed my teeth, then lay down in my own bed. Just as I was starting to drift off, I remembered the man I’d seen watching Lizzie while we were playing “The Stray away Child.”

If it hadn’t been Grey, then who had it been?

Grey

It’s a funny thing.
Sorrow and joy are both emotions, but they couldn’t be more different in how they take hold of a person. Joy’s always fleeting, while sorrow runs hard and deep when it’s got you in its grip. And if I’d ever needed confirmation, all I had to do was take a look down below to see just how hard and deep it can run.

I’m standing in a wide stretch of the between, outside the world where my people were born, outside the spiritlands, too. Long grey shoulders of rock fall like steps from a deep pine wood to the shores of a lake so wide you can’t see its far side. Where the water meets the granite, a driftwood fire burns, bright and tall, almost smokeless. Gathered around the fire are a couple dozen cerva—male and female, some in deer form, others standing like men but with deer heads.

There are even more standing in the shadows, out of the fire’s light. I see the taller shapes of moose spirits scattered here and there among them, their heads lifting from the crowd of deer men the way pine trees rise above the rest of the forest. Buffalo, too, broad-shouldered, their hair shaggy and dread-locked. Drums sound, creating the backdrop for voices raised in a sorrowful chant, feet and hooves stomping in a slow, shuffling dance around the fire.

One tall figure stands motionless, back to the lake, gaze on the fire, the tines of his antlers rising high into the night air. Walker. The sadness coming off him has an almost physical presence.

Like I said, hard and deep.

This is a blessing ceremony for a dead cousin. The first night’s for family, the second for everyone whose life the departed had touched. What I’m looking at is the second night ceremony for Walker’s daughter and, judging by the turnout, she’d been well loved.

“There’s no body down there,” a voice says from behind me.

I don’t bother to turn. I’d already smelled the stranger’s coyote blood, heard his approach as he came soft-stepping out from under the pines, boots almost silent on the stone. I’ll admit my shoulders went a little tighter, but I didn’t allow myself to be concerned. Who would bring a new death at the edge of a ceremony such as this?

The stranger joins me on the outcrop and looks down on the proceedings below. I glance at him. Tall and lean, the dog-headed man is dressed in jeans and cowboy boots, buckskin jacket. His flat-brimmed black hat has a leather band that’s decorated with turquoise and silver. Two long braids frame his canine features.

“So there won’t be any feed,” the stranger adds.

“I know.”

He grins. “Makes me wonder, then, what a corbae’s doing at the goodbye do for some poor dead cerva girl.”

“Paying my respects,” I say. “Just like you. We’re not all about carrion.”

“I’m never about carrion,” he says. “I can’t hunt for myself, I don’t eat.”

“Whatever.”

He takes a tobacco pouch from the pocket of his buckskin jacket and rolls a cigarette, lights it with a shiny Zippo lighter. After a couple of drags, he offers it to me.

“I’m corbae, you’re canid,” I say, making no move to take the proffered cigarette.

“So?”

“So, what do you want from me?”

“Not that chip on your shoulder.” He gestures with the cigarette, offering it again. “I learned a long time ago to take people as they are, one at a time, not judge them by their tribe or clan or blood. You should try it—it’s very liberating not to be tied down to how people think you’re supposed to react to every damn thing.”

I give him a slow nod and take the cigarette, draw the smoke into my lungs.

“My name’s Whiskey Jack,” the stranger tells me.

“They call me Grey.”

His eyebrows rise. “Oh, you’re
that
blackbird.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He shrugs. “Just that I’ve heard of you. This black spruce jay, wandering around these parts, doing good.” He smiles. “It’s kind of funny, now that I think of it. My name’s Whiskey Jack, and Whiskey Jack’s what people call you birds. That’s about as close as corbae and canid are going to get without having mixed blood like my buddy Crazy Dog.”

I take another drag from the cigarette and start to hand it back, but Jack shakes his head.

“Keep it,” he says and starts to roll himself another one.

“Did you know her?” I ask.

“Who? Walker’s little girl?”

I nod.

“Yeah, I did,” he says. He sighs and gets his cigarette lit. “They named her well: Anwatan. Calm Water. I guess it’s okay to speak her true name, now that she’s gone. She was a little sweetheart, always ready to see the best in everything. But I guess you know that already.”

I shake my head. “I never met her.”

“But here you are, paying your respects all the same.”

I nod.

“So, why?” Jack asked.

I just look at him, then finally say, “You sure do talk a lot.”

“Yeah, that’s what everybody says. But that doesn’t mean I don’t listen. And man, I’m as bad as you blackbirds when it comes to being curious about just any damn thing you can think of.”

I hesitate a moment, then realize that telling what I know is a way of adding to Anwatan’s story. Like the songs and dancing coming up from below, it would help her spirit move on. So I tell Jack about the fiddler I rescued from the bogans, how the bogans had been out hunting, how Lizzie buried Anwatan’s remains and played a lament over the grave.

“That was a kind gesture on her part,” Jack says.

“She seems like a pretty decent sort.”

Jack starts to pull out his tobacco pouch again, but I shake my head. I get out my own and roll us each another cigarette. Jack lights them with that shiny lighter of his.

“You sweet on her?” he asks.

“Who, Lizzie? Hardly. Like I told you, she’s human.”

Jack shakes his head. “You’ve got to get these preconceptions out of your head. Seriously.” Then he smiles and gives me a considering look. “She sweet on you?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Man, you blackbirds really don’t have a clue, do you? You’re either all dark thoughts and deep philosophy, or you’re headlong into having some fun. You need to learn to mix it up a little.”

“Like the crow girls.”

“Yeah, right,” Jack says. “Maybe they were here when your Raven pulled the world out of the long ago, but they’re all party for the moment now, man. They wouldn’t know a deep thought if it came up and kicked them in the butt—though speaking of which, they do have nice ones.”

“Then you don’t know them.”

“I know a nice butt when I see it.”

“You know what I mean.”

Jack shrugs. “There’s more I don’t know in this world than I could ever hope to get a handle on. Maybe the crow girls have this hidden deep side to them, maybe they don’t. That’s not the point. The point is you need to loosen up some.”

“You don’t know me, either.”

“True. But I hear the gossip. From all I hear, you’ve spent a long time walking a dark road on your own.”

“I’ve got my reasons.”

“I’m sure you do,” Jack says. “And I’m sure they’re good ones.” Then he shakes his head. “Aw, what the hell do I know? And this isn’t really the time or the place to talk about this kind of thing anyway. I should just learn to mind my own business, but then I wouldn’t be much of a coyote, would I?”

I can’t help but return his smile. He surely does like to run on at the mouth. He’s also nosy, not to mention pushy, but I can tell that none of it comes from a mean spirit. It isn’t that I think he
couldn’t
be hard, or even cruel. It just isn’t where he’s coming from at the moment.

The two of us stand there looking down at the ceremony and finish our cigarettes. Finally, Jack bends down and puts his out against the granite underfoot. I follow suit.

“So, are you going down?” Jack asks.

I shake my head. “Don’t know that I’d be welcome.”

“Yeah, the cerva always get skittish around predators, even when we’re not hunting. Think we can’t tell the difference between them and the cousins that aren’t our kin.”