Word & Void 02 - A Knight of the Word (13 page)

He climbed out of the Fairy Glen and returned—walking more than half the distance before he found a ride—to his inn. He ate dinner in the public rooms and drank several pints of the local ale, thinking on what he would do, on what he believed must happen. The rain continued to fall, but as midnight neared it eased off to a slow, soft drizzle that was more mist than rain.

The innkeeper let him borrow his car, and Ross drove out to the Fairy Glen and parked in the little parking lot and walked once more to the gap in the fence. The night was clouded and dark, the world filled with shadows and wet sounds, and the interlaced branches of the trees formed a thick net that looked as if it were poised to drop over him. He eased his way through the gap and proceeded carefully down the narrow, twisting trail. The Fairy Glen was filled with the sound of water rushing over the rocks of the rain-swollen stream, and the rutted trail was slick with moisture. Ross took a long time to reach the floor of the ravine, and once there he stood peering about cautiously for a long time. When nothing showed itself, he walked to the edge of the stream and stood looking back at the falls.

But the fairies, those pinpricks of scattered, whirling bright light he remembered so well, did not appear. Nor did the Lady. Nor did Owain Glyndwr. He stood in the darkness and rain for hours, waiting patiently and expectantly, willing them to appear, reaching out to them with his thoughts, as if by the force of his need alone he could make them materialize. But no one came.

He returned to his rooms in disappointment, slept for most of the day, rose to eat, waited anew, and went out again the following night. And again, no one appeared. He refused to give up. He went out each night for a week and twice more during the days, certain that someone would appear, that they could not ignore him entirely, that his determination and persistence would yield him something.

But it was as if that other world had ceased to exist. The Lady and the fairies had vanished completely. Not even Owain returned to speak with him. Not a hint of the magic revealed itself. Time after time he waited at the edge of the stream, a patient supplicant. Surely they would not abandon him when he needed help so badly. At some point they would speak to him, if only to reject his plea. His pain was palpable. They must feel it. Wasn’t he entitled to at least the reassurance that they understood? The rain continued to fall in steady sheets, the forests of Snowdonia stayed dark and shadowy, and the air continued damp and cold in the wake of fall’s passing and the approach of winter.

Finally he went home to America. He despaired of giving up, but there seemed to be no other choice. It was clear he was to be given no audience, to be offered no further contact. He was wasting his time. He packed his bags, bussed and trained his way back to Heathrow, boarded a plane, and flew home. He thought more than once to turn around and go back to the Fairy Glen, to try again, but he knew in his heart it was futile. By choosing to give up his office, he had made himself an outcast. Perhaps Owain Glyndwr was right, that once you gave up on the magic, it gave up on you, as well. He no longer felt a part of it, that much was certain. Even when he touched the rune-scrolled length of his staff, he could find no sign of life. He had wanted to distance himself from the magic, and apparently he had done so.

He accepted that this was the way it must be if he was to stop being a Knight of the Word. Whatever ties had bound him to the Word’s service were apparently severed. The magic was gone. The dreams had nearly ceased. He was a normal man again. He could go about finding a normal life.

But he remembered Owain Glyndwr’s words about how, by becoming a Knight of the Word, he had been transformed and things could never be the same again. He found himself thinking of a time several years earlier in Hopewell, Illinois, when Josie Jackson had made him feel for just a few hours of his nightmarish existence what it was like to be loved, and of how he had walked away from her because he knew he had nothing to give her in return. He recalled how Nest Freemark had asked him in despair and desperation if he was her father, and he remembered wishing so badly he could tell her that he was.

He thought of these things, and he wondered if anything even remotely resembling a normal life would ever be possible again.

I
t was already dark when John Ross and Stefanie Winslow exited the offices of Fresh Start, turned down Main Street, and headed for Umberto’s. Daylight saving time was over for another year, and all the clocks had been reset Sunday morning in an effort to conserve daylight—spring forward, fall back—but the approach of winter in the northwest shortened Seattle days to not much more than eight hours anyway. Streetlights threw their hazy glare on the rough pavement of the roadways and sidewalks, and the air was sharp and crisp with cold. It had rained earlier in the day, so shallow puddles dotted the concrete and dampness permeated the fall air. Traffic moved sluggishly through a heavy concentration of mist, and the city was wrapped in a ghostly pall.

Ross and Stefanie crossed Second Avenue and continued west past Waterfall Park, a strange, secretive hideaway tucked into an enclosure of brick walls and iron fences that abutted the apartment building where they lived. One entire wall and corner of the park’s enclosure was devoted to a massive waterfall that tumbled over huge rocks with such a thunderous rush that conversation attempted in its immediate vicinity was drowned out. A walkway dropped down along a catchment and circled back around to a narrow pavilion with two additional features involving a spill of water over stone, and a cluster of tables and chairs settled amid a collection of small trees and flowering vines. In better weather, people employed in the vicinity would come into the park on their lunch breaks to watch the waterfall and to eat. John and Stefanie did so frequently. From their bedroom window, they could look down on the park and across at the offices of Fresh Start.

Adjoining Waterfall Park was Occidental Park, a broad open space paved with cobblestones that overlapped Main from Jackson to Yesler and fronted a series of shops and restaurants and a parking lot that serviced the entire Pioneer Square area. The new Seattle was built on the old Seattle, the earlier version of the city having burned to the ground in a turn-of-the-century fire. An underground tour of portions of the old city began just a few blocks to the north. By passing through a nondescript door and descending a steep, narrow flight of stairs, you could step back in time.

But the present was above ground, and that was what most people came to see. Pioneer Square was an eclectic collection of art galleries, craft outlets, bookstores, bars, restaurants, souvenir shops, and oddities, funky and unassuming and all-embracing, and John Ross had felt at home from the day he arrived.

He had come to Seattle with Stef more than a year ago. They had been together for several months by then, were drifting more or less, and had read about Fresh Start and thought it would be a good place for them to work. They had come on a whim, not even knowing if there might be jobs available, and there hadn’t been, not at first, but they had fallen in love with the city and particularly with Pioneer Square. They had rented a small apartment to see how things would go, and while he had been pessimistic about their chances of catching on at Fresh Start—they had been told, after all, that there were no paid openings and none expected anytime soon—Stef had just laughed and told him to be patient. And sure enough, within a week Simon Lawrence had called her back and said he had something, and within a month after that, after spending his time doing volunteer work at the shelter, Ross had been offered full-time employment, too.

He glanced over at Stef surreptitiously as they crossed Occidental Park. He was wearing his greatcoat with the huge collar turned up and his heavy wool scarf with the fringed ends trailing behind, and as he limped along with the aid of his heavy walking staff, he looked a little like a modern-day Gandalf. Stefanie matched her pace to his, all sleek and smooth and flawless with her shimmering black hair and long limbs. She seemed entirely out of place amid the jumble of old buildings, antique street lamps, and funky people. She looked odd walking past the trolley that was stopped at the little island across from The Paper Cat, as if she had gotten off at the wrong stop on her way to the glass and steel towers of the high-rent district uptown. You might have thought she was slumming amid the homeless men who were clustered together next to the carved wooden totems and on the benches and under the mushroom-shaped pavilion across the way.

But you would have been wrong. If there was one thing Ross had learned about Stefanie Winslow, it was that notwithstanding how she looked and dressed, she was right at home anywhere. You might think you could tell something about her by just looking at her, but you couldn’t. She was comfortable with herself in a way that astonished him. Stef was one of those rare people who could walk into any situation, anyplace, anytime, and find a way to deal with it. It was a combination of presence and attitude and intelligence. It was the reason Simon Lawrence had hired her. And subsequently hired him, for that matter. Stefanie made you feel she was indispensable. She made you believe she was up to anything. It was, in large part, he knew, why he was in love with her.

They rounded the corner at Elliott Bay Book Company and walked down First Avenue to King Street, then turned into the door of Umberto’s Ristorante. The hostess checked off their names, smiled warmly at Stef, and said that their table was ready. She led them down several steps to the dining area, past the salad island toward the neon sign that said
il piccolo
, which was the tiny corner bar, then turned right down a hallway covered with posters of upcoming Seattle arts events. Ross looked at Stef in surprise. The dining room was behind them now; where were they going? Stef gave him a wink.

At the end of the hallway was the wine cellar, a small room closed away behind an iron gate in which a single table had been set for dinner. The hostess opened the wrought-iron door and seated them inside. A white tablecloth, green napkins, and silver and china seemed to glow in soft candlelight amid the racks of wines surrounding them.

“How did you manage this?” Ross asked in genuine amazement as the hostess left them alone.

Stef tossed back her long hair, reached for his hand, and said, “I told them it was for you.”

He had been back from Wales for almost a month when he met her. He had returned defeated in spirit and bereft of hope. He had failed in his effort to speak with the Lady or return the staff of power. His parents were dead, and his childhood home sold. He had lost contact with his few relatives years earlier. He had nowhere to go and no one to go to. For lack of a better idea, he went up from New York to Boston College, where he had studied years earlier, and began auditing classes while he worked out his future. He was offered a position in the graduate-studies program in English literature, but he asked for time to think about it, uncertain if he wanted to go back into academia. What he really wanted was to do something that would allow him to make a difference in people’s lives, to take a job working with people he could help. He needed human contact again. He needed validation of his existence. He worked hard at thinking of himself as something other than a Knight of the Word. He struggled bravely to develop a new identity.

Each day he would take his lunch in the student cafeteria, sitting at a long table, poring through his study books and staring out the windows of the dining hall. It was winter, and snow lay thick and white on the ground, ice hung from the eaves, and breath clouded in the air like smoke. Christmas was approaching, and he had nowhere to spend it and no one to spend it with. He felt incredibly lonely and adrift.

That was when he first saw Stefanie Winslow. It was early December, only days before the Christmas break. He wasn’t sure if she had been coming there all along and he just hadn’t noticed her or if she had suddenly appeared. Once he saw her though, he couldn’t look away. She was easily the most beautiful woman he had ever seen—exotic, stunning, and unforgettable. He couldn’t find words to give voice to what he was feeling. He watched her all through the lunch hour and stayed afterward when he should have been auditing his class, continuing to stare at her until she got up and walked away.

The next day she was back, sitting at the same table, off to one side, all alone. He watched her come in and sit down to have her lunch for five days, thinking each time that he had to go over to her and say something, had to introduce himself, had to make some sort of contact, but he always ended up just sitting there. He was intimidated by her. But he was compelled, as well. No one else tried to sit with her; no one else even tried to approach. That gave him pause. But his connection with her was so strong, so visceral, that he could not ignore it.

Finally, at the beginning of the following week, he just got up and walked over, limped over really, feeling stupid and inadequate with his heavy staff and rough look, and said hello. She smiled up at him as if he were the most important thing in her life, and said hello back. He told her his name, she told him hers.

“I’ve been watching you for several days,” he said, giving her a deprecatory shrug.

“I know,” she said, arching one eyebrow speculatively.

He flushed. “I guess I overdid it if I was that obvious. I was wondering if you were a student at the college.”

She shook her head, her black hair catching the winter light. “No, I work in administration.”

“Oh. Well, I’m auditing some classes.” He let the words trail away. He didn’t know where else to go with it. He felt suddenly awkward about what he was doing, sitting here with her. He glanced about. “I didn’t mean to intrude, I just …”

“John,” she interrupted gently, drawing his eyes back to hers, holding them. “Do you know why I’ve been sitting here alone every day?”

He shook his head slowly.

“Because,” she said, drawing out the word, “I’ve been waiting for you to join me.”