Telling myself not to sweat it, I found a bank of pay phones. Because my mom couldn’t be trusted to keep track of bills or anything, we’d arranged for me to have my own credit card, which I promptly used to make the long-distance call to Avalon.
I let the phone at my dad’s house ring about ten times, but no one answered. I hung up and bit my lip.
I’d been ner vous enough about this whole adventure. Now I was stranded at Heathrow Airport and my dad wasn’t answering his phone. Add to that a crushing case of jet lag, and all I wanted to do at the moment was curl up in a snug, comfy bed and go to sleep. I swallowed a yawn—if I let myself get started, I’d never stop.
At 9:15, I had to admit that the chances of my dad’s friend showing up were slim to none. My dad probably wasn’t answering his phone because he was waiting for me at the Avalon border, as he’d promised. So okay, all I had to do was get a cab to take me to the border. It was only about twenty-five miles out of London. No big deal, right?
I exchanged some money, then got in one of those enormous black cabs they have in England. It felt really weird to see the driver on the wrong side of the car, and even weirder to be driving on the wrong side of the road.
My driver drove like a maniac and talked nonstop the entire way to Avalon’s Southern Gate. I don’t know what his accent was, maybe Cockney, but I only understood about a third of what he said. Luckily, he never seemed to require a response aside from the occasional smile and nod. I hoped he didn’t see me flinching and wincing every time it seemed like he was about to squash someone into roadkill.
Like everyone else in the universe, I’d seen lots of pictures of Avalon. You could find about a thousand guide books dedicated to the city—I had two in my luggage—and just about every fantasy movie ever made has at least one or two scenes that were filmed on location in Avalon, it being the only place in the mortal world where magic actually works. But seeing Avalon in person kind of reminded me of seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time: no photograph on earth could do it justice.
Avalon is situated on a mountain. Yes, a real, honest-to-goodness mountain. The thing juts up into the sky out of the flat, green, sheep-dotted countryside, and it looks like someone grabbed one of the Alps and haphazardly dropped it where it most definitely did not belong.
Houses and shops and office buildings had been built into every square inch of the mountain’s slopes, and a single paved road spiraled from the base to the castle-like structure that dominated the summit. There were lots of lesser cobblestone roads that led o? that main one, but the main road was the only one big enough for cars.
The base of the mountain is completely surrounded by a thick, murky moat, the moat surrounded by a high, electrified fence. There are only four entrances to the city itself, one at each point of the compass. My dad was supposed to meet me at the Southern Gate. The taxi driver dropped me o? at the gatehouse—a three-story building about a half a block long—and I felt another pang of apprehension as I watched him drive away. It was possible for cars to pass through the gates into Avalon, but the driver would have to have an Avalon visa to be allowed through. Backpack over one shoulder, I dragged my suitcase through a series of rat mazes, following the signs for visitors. Naturally, the lines for residents were all much shorter.
By the time I got to the head of the line, I was practically asleep on my feet, despite the anxiety. There was a small parking lot just past the checkpoint, and like at the airport, I could see people standing around there with placards. But as I waited for the customs official to stamp my passport, I still didn’t see my name on any of them.
“One moment, miss,” the customs official said, after having examined my passport for what seemed like about ten years. I blinked in confusion as he then walked away from his post, carrying my passport.
My throat went dry as I saw him talk to a tall, imposing woman who wore a navy-blue uniform—and a gun and handcuffs on her belt. It went even drier when the official gestured at me and the woman looked in my direction. Sure enough, she started heading my way. I saw that the official had handed her my passport. This didn’t seem like a good sign.
“Please come with me, Miss…” She opened the passport to check. “Hathaway.” She had a weird accent, sort of British, but not quite. Meanwhile, the customs official gestured for the next person in line.
I had to step closer to the woman to avoid getting trampled by the family of five that came up to the desk behind me.
“Is there a problem?” I asked, and though I tried to sound nonchalant, I think my voice shook.
She smiled, though the expression didn’t reach her eyes. She also reached out and put her hand on my arm, leading me toward a key-carded door in the side of the building.
I tried to reach for the handle of my suitcase, but some guy in a coverall got there before me. He slapped a neon orange tag on it, then hauled it off behind the official’s desk.
I wondered if I should be making a scene. But I decided that would just dig whatever hole I was in deeper.
“Don’t be afraid,” the woman said, still towing me toward the door. Well, I suppose she wasn’t really towing me. Her touch on my arm was light, and it was more like she was guiding me. But I had the feeling that if I slowed down, it wouldn’t feel like guiding anymore. “It’s standard procedure here to conduct interviews with a certain percentage of our visitors.” Her smile broadened as she swiped her key card. “It’s just your lucky day.”
I was now hitting stress and sleep-deprivation overload, and my eyes stung with tears. I bit the inside of my cheek to try to keep them contained. If this was just some kind of random selection, then why had the official looked at my passport for so long? And why hadn’t my dad told me it was a possibility? I certainly hadn’t read anything about it in the guide books.
I was led into a sterile gray office with furniture that looked like rejects from a college dorm and a funky smell like wet wool. The imposing woman gestured me into a metal folding chair, then pulled a much more comfortable-looking rolling chair out from behind the desk. She smiled at me again.
“My name’s Grace,” she said. I wasn’t sure if that was a first or a last name. “I’m captain of the border patrol, and I just need to ask you a few questions about your visit to Avalon; then you can be on your way.”
I swallowed hard. “Okay,” I said. Like I had a choice.
Grace leaned over and pulled a little spiral-bound notebook from one of the desk drawers, then readied an intricately carved silver pen over the paper. I guess the Fae aren’t big on using Bics.
“What is the purpose of your visit to Avalon?” she asked.
Well, duh. I’m sixteen years old—I’m not here on a business trip. “I’m here to visit with family.”
She jotted that down, then looked at me over the top of the notebook. “Aren’t you a little young to be traveling unaccompanied?”
I sat up straighter in my chair. Yeah, okay, I was only sixteen, but that’s not that young. I was old enough to balance the checkbook, pay the bills, and drive my mother around when she was too drunk to be allowed behind the wheel. Grace’s eyes flashed with amusement as I bristled, and I managed to tamp down my reaction before I spoke.
“Someone was supposed to meet me at the airport,” I said, though that wasn’t really an answer to her question. “No one showed up, so I just took a taxi. My father’s supposed to meet me when I get through customs.”
Grace nodded thoughtfully, scribbling away. “What is your father’s name?”
“Seamus Stuart.”
“Address?”
“Er, 25 Ashley Lane.” I was glad I’d bothered to ask for his address before showing up. I hadn’t really known I’d need it.
“Was he in the parking area? I can ask him to come in if you’d like.”
“Um, I’ve actually never met him, so I don’t know if he was there or not.” I hoped I wasn’t blushing. I don’t know why I found the fact that I’d never met my father embarrassing, but I did
.
She scribbled some more. I wondered how she could possibly be writing so much. It wasn’t like I was telling her my life’s history. And why would the border patrol need to know all this crap? I’d had to answer most of these questions when I’d applied for my visa.
“Am I going to get my luggage back?” I asked, too ner vous to sit there and be quiet.
“Of course, dear,” she said with another of those insincere smiles.
Just then, the door to the office opened. The guy in the coverall who’d taken my luggage popped his head in and waited for Grace’s attention. She looked up at him with an arched eyebrow.
“It’s confirmed,” he said.
For the first time, Grace’s smile looked entirely genuine.
“What’s confirmed?” I asked, the genuine smile for some reason freaking me out even more than the fake one.
“Why, your identity, dear. It seems you really are Seamus Stuart’s daughter.”
My jaw dropped. “How did you confirm that?”
“Allow me to introduce myself properly,” she said instead of answering. “My full name is Grace Stuart.” Her smile turned positively impish. “But you may call me Aunt Grace.”
Jenna Black graduated from Duke University with degrees in anthropology and French. A full time writer of paranormal romance and urban fantasy, she lives in Pittsboro, North Carolina. Visit her on her Web site at www.jennablack.com.
Jenna Black, Remedial Magic
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