“Oh. Like the lunatic fringe. UFOs and stuff like that. We’ll have to have certain criteria to go by. Everybody we interview will have to have pink hair, say, and” He paused and snapped his fingers. “Wait a minute.”
Johnny rolled his eyes. “Come on, Henk. You’re getting out of control and on just one beer. Think of your rep.”
“No. This is something different. I just thought of somebody who fits your bill perfectly. Have you gone to see Greg’s new band yet?”
“No, I’ve just heard of them. What’re they called AKT? I hear they’ve got a dynamic lead singer.”
Henk nodded. “I was thinking of their sax player.”
“I don’t listen to a lot of R&B.”
“You don’t have to. You just have to talk to this girl. She’s always making up stories about gremlins living in the sewers and stuff like that.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s her name?”
“Jemi Pook.”
It was one of the Laird of Kinrowan’s own foresters who found Jenna’s body just before dawn. He was a young hob named Dunrobin Mull, somewhat taller than most hobs and beardless, with a dark red stocking cap, and trousers and jerkin of mottled green. He rode a brown and grey speckled pony that was shaggy and short-legged. The pony came to an abrupt halt as it and its rider spied the Pook’s torn and battered body.
For a long moment the hob sat astride his mount, staring down, his stomach turning knots as he looked on the gruesome sight. His pony sidestepped nervously under him, nostrils widening. Mull leaned over and patted its neck, then slowly slid from its back and stepped closer towards the body.
Being neither gruagagh nor skillyman, he knew little of magic and so sensed nothing of the traces of it that were left in the air, nothing except a weird tingle at the nape of his neck that lifted the hair from his skin. He put that down to the eeriness of the moment. But he was a tracker, and it surprised him to find only a single set of man-sized tracks leading up to the corpse, and then away again. There was no sign of what had done such damage to the Pook, only the marks of her flailing about as she had tried to fight off her attacker.
“Hempen, hampen,” Mull muttered as he sketched a quick saining in the air. “What sort of a beast can do this damage and leave no sign?”
It hadn’t been the man, for it was plain by the tracks that he’d done no more than bend down over the Pook before turning away again. Mull looked about in all directions, through both Faerie and the world of men, but saw nothing. There were only the tracks of the man who’d come and gone.
It was a poor neighbor who left a body lying like this after discovery, Mull thought. He’d not treat the dead so poorly himself none he knew would.
He took a blanket from where it was tied in a tight roll at the back of his saddle and gingerly placed Jenna’s body upon it. He folded the blanket around her, tied it shut, then struggled with it to his pony, staggering under its weight. The pony shied at the burden until Mull spoke a few comforting words, but it was still long moments before the beast was calm enough to let him tie the bundle to his saddle. Giving a last look around, Mull spotted the Pook’s journeysack where it lay a few feet away. He fetched it and tied it to the saddle as well.
“Come on, Goudie,” he murmured to his pony. “It’s not so far to the Laird’s Court.”
The pony whickered, thrusting its nostrils against the hob’s shoulders. Mull gave the broad nose a quick comforting pat, then led the pony away, heading eastward to where the Laird’s Court stood overlooking the Ottawa River from the heights that men named Parliament Hill.
Three
All Kindly Toes, better known to friends and fans as AKT, were playing a street dance the next night. According to the posters stapled to telephone posts, the dance was being billed as “The Last Days of Summer Tour.” It didn’t seem to bother anyone that just one gig was being advertised as a tour it was all in good fun.
The band was already on stage and halfway through their first set by the time Johnny and Henk arrived. The easternmost block of Chesley Street in Ottawa South had been closed off and the stage squatted where the street made a “T” as it met Wendover, speakers racked up on either side. The sound board was set up on the northeast corner and there was a crowd of over a hundred people dancing in front of the stage or standing and watching from the sidewalks. The band was just finishing up a funky version of “Love Potion No. 9” and immediately launched into “River Deep, Mountain High.”
“They’re good,” Johnny said, speaking into Henk’s ear to make himself be heard over the music.
Henk grinned and nodded. He kept his gaze on the stage as he led them closer.
On the right side of the stage, Greg Parker, the founder and old man of the band, was playing guitar. He had short dirty-blond hair and was wearing a Hawaiian shirt with a clashing burgundy and white striped tie, blue jeans, and an off-white cotton sports jacket with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. The bass player, Tommy Moyer, was dressed similarly, if a touch more tastefully, as his shirt and tie matched. He was a big bearish man, the Fender bass he played looking like a toy in his hands. David Blair, a thin black man wearing a UB40 T-shirt, was playing drums. Both he and Tommy, like the rest of the band except for Greg, looked to be in their early twenties. Greg was thirty-eight.
On the far left, Trudy MacDonald was playing the organ She had short brown hair and a round face, and grinned as she played. Center stage was the lead vocalist, an old girlfriend of Henk’s, Johnny remembered as he looked at her. Her name was Beth Kerwin. She swayed as she sang, holding the microphone in one hand, head tilting back as she hit the chorus. Her brown hair was cut short on top, the sides and back long and gathered into a French braid that fell halfway down her back. She wore a short black fifties-style dress that was covered with a design of multi-coloured jelly beans.
As the band went into the bridge between verses and the sax cut in, Johnny turned his attention to the girl they’d come to meet. Jemi Pook was tiny, her tenor sax seeming as huge in her hands as Tommy’s bass was diminutive in his. She was wearing a grey and pink minidress, the rectangular-shaped colours arranged in an Art Deco pattern. Her hair was pink, too, a brighter shade than her dress, and stood up in punky spikes a look that was already passe, but on her it still worked.
Looking at her, Johnny’s chest went tight. He knew her, knew that face. With only a late-night memory of it, he still knew her.
There were three more songs before the band took a break, but Johnny hardly heard them. He watched the sax player, trying to understand her. She was relaxed and loose on stage, strutting in time with Greg and Tommy like Gladys Knight’s Pips, sharing Greg’s mike on choruses, leaning back, the bell of her sax rising up to her own mike when she had a riff to play. There was nothing in what he saw of her on stage during those songs that explained last night.
“Come on,” Henk said as the band finished “Baby Love” and left the stage.
He made his way behind the stage to where the band was relaxing with friends on the broad lawn of the tall three-storied house that towered over the proceedings. Johnny followed, the tight feeling in his chest still there. He wasn’t sure if he was nervous, or afraid. Maybe a little of both.
We call ourselves sidbe
.
There was something weird going on and he was beginning to have second thoughts about getting involved in it. The last thing he needed was to get mixed up with a bunch of
what? She’d said nothing last night to make him afraid. All she’d done was talk about Tom. She’d been nice about it all. Only why had she come when he’d played that tune? Why had she given him the carving. How had she pulled off that vanishing trick?”
He thought of just leaving, then and there, but then it was too late for second thoughts.
“Hey, Jemi!” Henk was calling. “I’ve got a friend I’d like you to meet.”
She turned at the sound of her name, a beer in hand. She appeared taller than last night, her hair was a little longer.
But, then, she was wearing black pumps now, and her hair had been gelled to stand up in spikes.
“Hi, Henk.” She glanced at Johnny. “What’ve you got in there?” she asked, looking at his fiddle case. “A clarinet?”
“No. It’s a”
“I know. A fiddle. I was just teasing.”
Johnny tried to think of something to say, but she was already looking back at Henk.
“What brings an old hippie like you out of the woodwork?” she asked, a quick smile taking any possible sting from the question.
“Thought I’d take Johnny slumming,” Henk replied. “You know show him what it sounds like when white folk play black music.”
David Blair, the drummer, was standing near.
“This isn’t exactly a deep tan,” he said, holding out a dark-skinned arm.
“Well, that’s all the band’s got going for it, isn’t it? Solid rhythm.”
David grinned. “Yeah. And I play great basketball, too.”
Greg appeared at David’s elbow. “Hey, you guys want a drink? We’ve got pop and beer.”
“Sounds great,” Henk said.
As everyone started to drift off, Johnny touched Jemi’s shoulder.”
“Fiaina,” he said.
She turned towards him, a strange look in her eyes. “What did you say?”
Her eyes didn’t seem as big now as they had last night. Eye shadow was dark around them. She wore rhinestone earrings, each with three gleaming strands, and a necklace of fake pearls, tight like a choker around her neck. The thin spaghetti straps of her dress were pale against the brown tan of her shoulders.
“How did you do that last night?” Johnny asked. “How’d you just vanish?”
“Wait a sec let’s back up a minute. Right now’s the first time I’ve met you.”
Johnny shook his head. “I played the tune, like Tom said I should, and you came. I’m not about to forget it. And you gave me this.”
Jemi had tossed her friends a quick glance and was backing away when Johnny brought the bone carving from his pocket and held it out to her on an open palm.
“I never
” Jemi started to say.
Her voice trailed off as she looked at the bone fiddle. She reached out with one finger and touched it.
“Where did you get this?” she asked, her gaze lifting to meet his.
“Last night. You gave it to me.”
She shook her head. “It wasn’t me but I think I’m beginning to get an idea of just who it was you did meet.”
“It was you,” Johnny said.
“Wasn’t. We had a rehearsal last night that went on till around two. Ask around if you don’t believe me.”
“But”
“You met my sister. Jenna.”
“She said you said your name was Fiaina.”
“Fiaina’s just a generic term,” Jemi told him. “It’s not a name. It’s like saying a Scotty dog. Or a Clydesdale horse.” She took pity on his confusion. “Look, I know what Jenna can be like. Are you planning to stick around for the rest of the show?”
“I guess so. Sure.”
“Okay. Let’s go get you a beer and relax a bit. I really don’t feel up to getting into anything too heavy on a break I’ve got to get up and play again in a few minutes, you know? But afterwards, we’ll talk.”
“This Jenna”
“Afterwards,” Jemi said firmly.
She grabbed him by the arm and steered him to where Henk and some of the others were talking around a cooler.
“Here,” she said as she got him a beer. “Your name’s Johnny right?”
“Johnny Faw.”
She pointed at his fiddle case. “Are you any good with that?”
“I’m all right.”
“Great. Maybe we’ll play a couple of tunes together later. Do you know ‘Jackson’s’? Ever heard it played on a sax?”
Johnny shook his head. “But I’ve heard Moving Hearts.”
“Great band. I jammed with their piper once. Boy. Pipes and sax trading off on trad tunes you wouldn’t think they’d sound so sweet together. Course, they’re both reed instruments, so”
“Okay, kids!”
They looked over to see Greg waving his arms around as though he were leading a cavalry charge.
“Time to go wow ‘em again,” he said.
The Eurythmics tape that had been playing during the break faded out as the band began to get back on stage.
“Stick around okay?” Jemi said.
Johnny nodded. “Break a leg,” he said.
Jemi shook her head. “In this band,” she told him, “it’s stub a toe.” She grinned when he smiled. “Get out there and dance, Johnny. I’ll be watching for you.”
And then she was gone, bounding onto the stage and strapping on her sax. Johnny drifted around to the front of the stage as the band kicked into “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.”
“She’s okay, isn’t she?” Henk said as he joined Johnny. “Did she give you any hot leads?”
“Things’ve gotten a little more complicated,” Johnny said.
“How so?”
“She looks just like the woman I met last night, only she says that woman’s her sister.”
“Go on.”
“No, really. She’s going to talk to me later.”
“So you’re going to stick around?”
Johnny nodded.
“Well, I’m taking off. Mountain Ash are playing up at Patty’s Place and I haven’t seen either of those guys for a long time. Maybe we can meet there later.”
“I don’t know. It all depends on what Jemi’s got to say.”
“Okay. Then maybe I’ll just call you tomorrow.”
“Sure.”
As Henk left, Johnny turned back to the stage and met Jemi’s gaze.
“Dance!” she mouthed at him.
The Jack of Kinrowan’s Tower, formerly the residence of Kinrowan’s Gruagagh, Bhruic Dearg, was an old three-storied house. It faced Belmont Avenue in Ottawa South, while its backyard looked out on Windsor Park. When the Gruagagh had lived there, the building had always had a deserted look about it. The new owners soon changed that.
Outside, the lawns were mown, the hedges and shrubberies trimmed, the flowerbeds weeded. The backyard held a small vegetable plot now, and if the rear hedge was a little unruly, that was only to ensure privacy from the park beyond. Three tall oak trees, two by the hedge and one closer to the house, stood watch over the yard, throwing their shade over most of it except for where the vegetable garden was laid out, close to the house.
Inside, things had changed as well. Bhruic Dearg had lived frugally. The downstairs rooms had ranged in decor from spartan to bare, for the Gruagagh had only used two rooms on the second floor. Now the downstairs had a homey, if somewhat cluttered, air to it. There were Oriental and rag carpets on the floor, bookcases overloaded with books, two sofas, three fat easy chairs, cabinets for the stereo and records, side tables, funky old standing lamps, and every kind of personal knickknack and treasure.
The kitchen had a nook with a small table and four chairs in it. There were pots, pans and utensils hanging from its beamed ceiling and the walls. Pictures of wild animals, English cottages at least five of Anne Hathaway’s, showing the famous garden and barnyard scenes hung wherever there was room.
Upstairs, there were two bedrooms in constant use, with a pair of guest rooms and a large bathroom. It was on the third floor that the building retained the strangeness of a wizard’s tower.
There were bookcases all along one wall here as well, but its books held the lore and histories of Faerie as fact, unlike the books that Johnny Faw’s grandfather had collected, which contained only mankind’s view of Faerie. Another wall held a long worktable, with a window above it. On either side of the window were hundreds of tiny drawers, each filled with herbs, medicines and remedies. The table itself was a clutter of jars and bottles, notebooks, quill pens now long dried, various knives, pes
tles and mortars, and tools. Against a third wall were a pair of comfortable reading chairs with a low table and a reading lamp between them. The fourth wall held a large window. Leaning on its sill and looking out was the Jack of Kinrowan.
Jacky Rowan was a young woman in her early twenties with short-cropped blonde hair and a quick smile. She was dressed casually in faded jeans, moccasins, and an old patched sweater. Her eyes were a dark blue-grey, her gaze intent on what she studied through the window.
The curious property of that particular window was that the entire city could be seen from it, every part of it, in close enough detail that individual figures could be made out and recognized. It was a gruagagh’s window; an enchantment born of Faerie.
The Tower itself stood on a criss-crossing of leys, the moonroads that the fiaina sidhe followed in their rade to replenish their luck. In this Seelie Court, it was the Gruagagh who had been the heart of the realm, gathering luck from the leys and spreading it through the Laird’s land of Kinrowan. As Jacky had taken his place, she was now Kinrowan’s heart as well as its Court Jack. The realm that the window looked out upon was all under her care.
Her attention was focused on a house in the Glebe, an area just north of Ottawa South that the faerie called Cockle Tom’s Garve. Earlier in the evening she had noticed a greyish discolouration about the house a vague aura of fogging that emanated from every part of the building. As that house also stood on a crossing of a number of leys though not so many as the Jack’s Tower it was a matter of some concern.
Jacky looked down at the book she had propped up on the windowsill beside her, running her finger down half a page as she read, then returned her gaze to the house.
“Basically,” she said, “it just says it’s some kind of depression.”
“How so?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Jacky said, feeling frustrated.
She turned and sat on the sill to look at her friend.
Kate Hazel was sitting on a tall stool by the worktable, a number of other books and one of the Gruagagh’s journals spread out in front of her. She was Jacky’s age, a slim woman with dark brown curly hair that was tied back in a short ponytail. Jacky envied Kate’s natural curls. Jacky’s own hair, if she let it grow out, tended to just hang there.