Last Car to Annwn Station (7 page)

Jill smiled down at Mae, pleased with the way the evening had turned out. The two women were waiting for the bus back to the townhouse they now shared. Jill had been adamant that they go out on a real date. Mae had tried to talk her out of it, saying that being forced out of her job that morning, no matter how temporary, put her in no mood to be good company. Jill had waved aside her objections, telling her that sitting home brooding would do no one any good. She’d enthusiastically pushed the idea until Mae relented, and they’d had an enjoyable night of dinner and theatre.

“Thanks,” Mae said.

“See, I told you going out would lift your spirits.”

Mae laughed and nudged Jill with her hip. “Don’t make me run you into the boards.”

Jill put her hand on the back of the bench they stood by to steady herself. “Run me into the boards?”

“Hockey.”

“Are you trying to tell me that a little slip of a thing like you played hockey?”

Mae laughed aloud. “Oh, hell yes. I was an only child living with my bachelor father. In Minnesota. He taught me all the important things. How to field dress a deer, how to fish for walleye and how to play hockey. You want to hit the ice?”

“No,” Jill said, shaking her head. “I can barely stand on skates and go forward, never mind doing anything fancy.”

“I’ll be gentle with you.”

“I’ve heard
that
before,” Jill said with a laugh. “Are you still a fan?”

“Yeah. I try to see the Wild play a few times a year. What about you?”

“Men in padded armor with sticks, on ice, engaging in ritual violence? It works for me.” Jill peered down the street, looking for the bus. The cold was starting to penetrate her coat, and she wanted to be home, warm and snug with Mae.

“You want to go on a real adventure?” Mae said.

Jill frowned. Mae had a manic look in her eyes. “What do you mean?”

Mae grabbed Jill by the hand and ran, pulling them both into the middle of the street as passing motorists honked their horns and yelled curses at them. Jill tugged Mae’s arm in a futile attempt to make her stop.

“Mae! Are you crazy?” Jill screamed.

Mae stopped for a moment, letting a big sport utility vehicle pass her, then leaped up slightly, pulling Jill along with her and forcing Jill to leap as well. She gasped, feeling a jolt as she landed on something solid. A floorboard, she was looking down at the floor of a vehicle.

Mae turned to her, face flushed with excitement.

“Ten cents each, please.”

Jill stared around at the impossible interior of an antique streetcar as Mae fished around in her pocket, producing two dimes. Mae dropped them into the fare box. “We’ll each need a transfer.”

The man in the uniform handed Mae two slips of paper.

Jill kept a grip on Mae’s arm as Mae led her down the aisle to an empty bench. They found one midway, behind a dozing rabbit-headed man, ears poking through holes cut in the rounded brim of his hat. They were in front of three small, giggly creatures that looked like miniature teenage girls and glowed like silver-mercury moonlight. Across the aisle sat an elderly Asian couple. The woman kept her hands in her lap, looking straight ahead. The man was reading a newspaper. They seemed perfectly normal until Jill noticed the foxtail peeking out from under the woman’s dress.

“Here, you’ll need this,” Mae said, passing Jill one of the transfer slips. “Whatever you do, don’t lose it.”

“What happens if I do?” Jill asked. She tensed, the evening’s pleasantness erased by the impossible, yet obviously real, experience she was having.

“Bad things,” Mae said, which did nothing to relieve Jill’s fears. She nodded and slipped the transfer into her pocket, mimicking Mae’s actions. “Where are we going?”

“I don’t know. But we’ll get there.”

Jill fidgeted in her seat and looked around at the other occupants. She had told Mae she was into weird, and that was not a lie, but this was almost too much.

There had been hints in her life, things her brother Robert had told her, questions he had asked, as if subtly trying to find out if Jill believed in or had ever experienced anything supernatural. She had missed her last self-defense class with Mae to have drinks with Robert. Over lobster and wine, after extending her an invitation to a Halloween party with a group of his country-club friends and in between working his charm on the cute little college girl waiting on them, he had bluntly asked her if she had ever made something happen that she could not explain. She had shaken her head no, and he had given her a considering look, as if he did not quite believe her.

It was real, she thought. Magic was real. She had thought once that she had seen a flame appear over her brother’s hand as they had sat around talking after a family dinner. He had peered at her over the flame, as if challenging her to ask him questions, but she had decided it was too much wine on her part.

The streetcar stopped two blocks further on and the Asian couple climbed off. Mae sat quietly, occasionally peering at Jill to see her reaction. Finally Jill blew out a long breath and said with more bravado than she felt, “Well, I said I was into weird. And this is weird.”

The car didn’t stop again until the corner of Lake and Lyndale. The rabbit-headed man stood and, giving Mae and Jill a polite nod, stepped off the car. “Our stop is next,” Mae said, dragging Jill toward the back door.

“How do you know that?” Jill asked.

“Because you live on Colifax.”

Jill cocked her head and gave Mae a little smile. “I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you this before, but you get weirder at night.”

“It’s the influence of the moon,” Mae said. They walked the block to the townhouse, shrugging out of their coats as soon as they entered the building.

“I’m going to go change,” Mae said.

“You want anything from the kitchen?” Jill asked. “I figured I’d come up and help you finish unpacking, unless you’ve got other plans.”

“Anything to drink would be fine.”

By the time Jill climbed the stairs, two steaming cups of cocoa in hand, Mae had changed into a T-shirt and pajama pants. Jill sat next to her on the futon. “So…”

Mae gave her a crooked little smile. “I just—when I saw the streetcar coming, I really wanted you to see them for yourself.”

“And now I know.” Jill wondered if she should tell Mae about her brother.

“Are you okay?” Mae looked pensive, as if letting Jill in on her secret might be a deal-breaker in their budding relationship.

“I’m glad you showed me.”

“I wanted someone else to know, I wanted you to see. I know it’s something out of a fantasy story, but it is real.”

Jill nodded. She would have to tell Mae about Robert and his odd questions. Mae seemed to be a part of the magical world Robert apparently lived in. “It’s kind of like Halloween came early.”

“That was my first thought,” Mae told her.

“Speaking of Halloween, do you have any plans for this year?”

“Halloween?” Mae asked.

“Yeah, you know, that night every year when little kids dress up as monsters and extort sweets from adults.”

“I think I’ll lock myself in my room with the lights off, climb into bed with the laptop, and read email and blogs all night.”

“You can deal with phantom streetcars and impossible creatures, but not small children dressed as witches and goblins?”

“Yes. What about you? Are you going to dress up as anything for work?”

“I thought I’d go as a sexy librarian again this year.” There was a moment of silence before both women cackled.

“You’re mad,” Mae quipped.

Jill’s smile brightened. “I am. I’ve actually been invited to a party that my brother is going to, but I’d rather spend the night with you.”

“I don’t want to interfere with your plans.”

“Mae, given a choice between spending the night with my brother and his snotty-ass society friends or spending the night with you, well, that one’s easy. You’re way more fun and definitely prettier to look at than any of that crowd, no matter how expensive all their plastic surgeries are.”

Mae gave her a playful shove with her shoulder, making her shriek and nearly spill her cocoa.

“Were you serious about helping me unpack?” Mae asked.

Jill set her cup on top of a short bookcase. “Yeah, of course.”

The two women spent the next hour unpacking more of Mae’s belongings, hanging clothes and setting up little personal items that would give the room a bit of Mae’s personality. Mae stopped when she pulled a framed picture, wrapped in old newspaper, from one of her suitcases. She sat on the futon, looking at the picture.

Jill leaned over, curious. “Are those your parents?” she whispered.

“Yeah, that’s them.”

The man in the photograph stood in the middle of a room, his right arm around the shoulders of a blonde woman who was over a foot shorter than he.

“I wish you were in the picture.” Jill said, a teasing tone in her voice.

“No, you don’t. I was a hideously ugly child.”

“Somehow I doubt that.” Jill pointed to the woman in the picture. “She’s beautiful.”

Looking at the faded photograph, Jill saw where Mae had gotten her build. While her father was a bear of a man, standing over six feet tall with sandy brown hair and beard, the woman was his opposite. She was short, probably not even five feet tall. She had a rounded, curved figure and long hair, so pale it was almost silver.

Mae’s eyes welled up with tears. “Why did you leave us?” Mae whispered.

“You don’t know?”

“No. I wish I could have asked Dad.”

Jill placed a hand on Mae’s arm. Mae looked up at her. “He passed away right after I started college.”

“Isn’t there anyone else you can talk to?”

“No. Dad had no living family, and I don’t know anything about Mom’s side.”

“I’m sorry, Mae.”

Mae reached over and gave Jill’s hand a squeeze. “It’s okay.”

“Come here,” Jill said, pulling Mae toward her. She placed an arm around Mae’s shoulder and pulled her close as she began to gently play with Mae’s hair.

Jill knew she would tell Mae everything about her family, including Robert. Mae had let her in on a secret, a terrible, beautiful secret. She would be open with Mae as well.

Soon, she decided. But not tonight.

Thursday, 26
^th
of October

Mae looked around her new room. It was beginning to take on her personality, even after a day. She still had a few more items to unpack, mostly in the bathroom.

The movers would be at her old apartment the following Monday. It was costing her extra for a short-notice job—more so since she was having them do most of the packing—but it was worth it to get out of her apartment. One of the benefits of living like a hermit for the last few years was that she had a substantial amount of money in her savings. She would pay up the last two months of her lease, drop off the keys and be done with it. Most of her possessions, meager as they were, would be stored in Jill’s garage until she found someplace new to live. Mae suspected a surprising amount of her stuff might end up going to a thrift store or in a Dumpster.

Once she finished unpacking the last of her clothes and other necessary possessions, Mae decided to spend the first day of her forced vacation wandering around in LynLake and Uptown.

By noon, Mae walked around the shops in Uptown. She remembered to replace her empty can of pepper spray. She spent some time drifting around Magers and Quinn, the big independent bookstore on Hennepin, purchasing a couple of books about local legends. She ate a nice, quiet meal at a new seafood restaurant.

Mae hoped a streetcar would appear, had been prepared to interact with the fae and other creatures she had watched in Uptown just two nights before. The streets were filled with normal humans. No streetcar had made an appearance. She was bored.

Stepping into Dunn Brothers for a cup of coffee to warm her on the long walk back to the townhouse, she spotted William Hodgins, his back to her, sitting at a table, talking to what appeared to be one of the local goths. Strange as the sight was, it was not what caught Mae’s attention.

Hodgins was holding a picture of Jill, showing it to the woman in the black blouse and purple skirt. On the table was a photo of Mae and a notebook with neat handwriting in it.

Mae reacted before she could think about the consequences. She smoothly settled into a seat at the table, making Hodgins and the woman both look up, startled. Hodgins slammed the notebook shut, slipping the picture of Jill inside it in the process.

“Bill,” Mae said, her voice filled with false cheer. “Imagine running into you here. What are the odds?”

“Mae,” Hodgins said. “Enjoying your vacation?”

“It’s off to a nice enough start.” She plucked the notebook from Hodgins’s fingers before he could react. The woman with him reached for the photo of Mae, but Mae slapped a hand down on it first. “I don’t think so,” she said with a smile at the woman. She turned back to Hodgins. “Could I have a word with you, alone?”

“Anything you have to say to me, Ilona can hear as well.”

Mae frowned. “I’m not threatening you, Bill. I’m just
extremely
curious about why you’re digging into my private life.”

Mae watched as Hodgins locked eyes with the woman he had called Ilona. She fingered the cameo choker that hung around her neck, frowning. Hodgins gave her a barely perceptible nod, and the woman stood, glaring at Mae as she shrugged into a black coat and left the table.

“Bye, Ilona,” Mae said cheerfully to the woman’s retreating form. She turned back to Hodgins, feeling surprised and exhilarated at her own temerity. It felt good, this recklessness welling up inside of her. “She doesn’t seem your type. Now, Mr. Hodgins, explain this.” She pointed at the photographs and notebook as she set them back on the table.

“And if I refuse? Will you go to the police?” Hodgins had produced a clear crystal marble and was rolling it in his hand with his right thumb and two fingers. Mae had noticed this nervous habit of his before, had seen him do it in Judge Slotky’s office, in fact. “Do you think it would matter if you did?”

She tore her eyes from the crystal marble. “You’re probably right, Bill. They probably wouldn’t do anything, but they might. So why don’t you and I sit here like civilized people and talk. You can buy me a cappuccino to make up for getting me suspended.”

Hodgins narrowed his eyes. “Mae, you’ve been warned. Walk away and forget about the Arnesons.”

She laughed. “Bill, you’re stalking me and my roommate. For all I know, you, or whoever took this photo—” she tapped the picture, “—broke into my apartment. Why should I let it go?”

“Suppose I promise to leave you and your lady-friend alone? I’ll give you my personal assurance that no one will bother you if you will promise to stay away from me, Ilona or any of the Arneson family. I’ll even refrain from asking County Attorney Backstrom to block your reinstatement.”

“Bill—”

“I could even intervene with Backstrom on your behalf. Leftwich will retire in a few more years, perhaps he might even take a promotion to another department—” Hodgins let his offer hang in the air as he nervously worked the marble in his fingers.

Mae frowned. “Bill, are you actually trying to buy me off?”

“Everyone has a price.”

“True, but even if I agreed, there’s still the matter of Chrysandra Arneson.”

Hodgins leaned forward in his chair. “Mae, that matter is closed.”

Mae shook her head. “Look, Bill, I understand that the Arnesons are wealthy pillars of the community, and I agree that everyone deserves competent representation, but you know as well as I do what’s going on.”

“And what is that? What exactly can you prove, Miss Malveaux?”

Mae sat silently glaring at Hodgins. She suspected he had something to do with Chrysandra’s case beyond being the family attorney. She wondered how deeply involved he was with her death and whatever was planned for the child’s reanimated remains. She glanced at the crystal marble as it caught the light coming in from the window, and then looked back to her adversary.

“What’s your angle, Bill? Why are you trying so hard to protect the Arnesons?”

He frowned at her. “It is—a personal thing. I’m asking you as a colleague. Leave this alone. I promise Chrysandra will be properly taken care of from this moment forward. Please.”

Mae looked at Hodgins’s face, using all of her years doing interviews and dealing with people to read his expression. He looked earnest. If she did not know that Chrysandra Arneson was already dead, she might have believed him.

“I give you my word. Chrysandra will be a happy and protected child from this point on.” His voice was soft, soothing.

Suddenly, Mae suspected she knew the identity of Chrysandra’s unknown father. William Hodgins was a close personal friend of the Arneson family. Marie Arneson, when not drugged out, was a beautiful woman. Both were single. It added up in Mae’s head. She frowned.

“I wish I could believe you, Bill.”

“Why not?” he asked softly. “Why can you not believe what I am telling you?”

“Because I saw—”

She stopped talking, suddenly aware that she was about to tell him she had seen the reflection of the girl’s rotting corpse in the mirror that night. It was enough to snap Mae back to reality. She tore her eyes away from the crystal, not even realizing that she had been staring at it, and glared at Hodgins. He seemed to understand what she was about to say. He lifted the crystal to eye level, and it gave a faint pulse.

Mae’s survival instincts kicked into overdrive. Striking before Hodgins could react, she grabbed the notebook and photographs and fled the coffee shop in one swift motion. Behind her, Hodgins swore loudly.

Mae glanced down at what she was carrying, suddenly wanting to be very sure about the items. There was no doubt. Someone had taken this photograph of her on the day her apartment was broken into. She was standing outside, her arms folded over her chest talking to Sergeant Dean.

She turned down an alley, heading south. If she could get out of sight for even a moment, she might be able to hide. She was small and could fit into the most amazing places if need arose, and right now her need seemed all too real.

She burst out of the alley and spared a glance behind her. Hodgins was screaming “thief” at the top of his lungs and closing the distance between them. She looked forward and scanned the area for a place to hide. The messenger bag she carried was weighing her down and flapping against her side.

She made a turn to the right, running full out and around the back of a line of shops, down another alley, hoping to find something, anything that would give her cover.

She heard footsteps and saw a flurry of movement to her side. There was a sudden impact into her back. Mae felt her breath forced out of her body as her feet flew out from underneath her. She hit hard, smashing onto the ground with both of her knees. She flipped and her left elbow hit the concrete as her whole body snapped forward. She rolled once, trying to get away from whatever or whoever had knocked her down, but the person stayed with her, pinning her. Mae made a desperate push, trying to throw off her attacker, but the person was stronger and shoved her back down. Mae’s head smacked on the hard pavement and she saw bright lights. She felt a weight lift from her chest, but continued to gasp, unable to catch a breath.

Ilona loomed over her, so close that the woman’s black hair touched Mae’s face. Ilona threw back her head and laughed, then struck Mae with her open palm. Mae was dazed for a moment, and it was enough for the woman to wrestle the notebook and photographs away from her.

Mae sat up and made a grab, but Ilona touched her cameo and vanished with a shimmer of rainbow light, taking the notebook and pictures with her. Mae shook her head to clear it as she stood to face the new threat approaching her from the end of the alley.

Hodgins was walking toward her, holding the glowing crystal sphere between his fingers. A low buzzing sounded in her ears, and she felt her stomach roil and heave. She scrambled to her feet.

“You were warned, Mae. You were warned, but you would not listen, so I’m going to
show
you what kind of people we are. I am going to show how far we will go, and how easy it is for those with power.” He held the glowing stone in front of his face. “Come to me,” he ordered her.

Her body went rigid as the glow of the stone increased. She took a stiff step forward, and then another.

The ringing bells of one of the streetcars filled her ears, high and urgent. She kept moving toward Hodgins, who was covered in sweat and starting to pant. He held the glowing stone at eye level. “Come to me,” he said again.

Mae gritted her teeth and tried to focus on the streetcar’s ringing bell behind her. Mae held her body rigid, refusing to take another step. Hodgins took a step toward her. Great rivulets of perspiration were running down his face, as if he were straining against something. Mae tried to tear her eyes away from the glowing sphere but could not. In desperation she bit down hard on the inside of her lip. A burst of blood and pain filled her mouth. She cried out and blinked. The connection between her and Hodgins broke.

She turned and ran, seeking sanctuary in the yellow machine waiting for her on the corner, its door open wide. Mae leaped into the car and looked over her shoulder.

Hodgins knelt on the ground, holding his chest and gasping as if he had just run a mile. He looked from Mae to the streetcar, his expression one of shock and, Mae realized, a little fear.

“Ten cents, please.”

Mae dropped her dime in the fare box. She watched Hodgins out the window as the red door closed and the big machine rolled away. Once Hodgins was gone from view and Mae was sure Ilona was nowhere nearby, she allowed her body to have its way.

Mae fell to the floor, shaking in fear.

Mae was most of the way through repacking her two largest suitcases when Jill came home from work.

“Mae! Mae, I’m home,” Jill called up the stairs.

Mae wiped her eyes and stuffed more of her possessions into the larger rolling suitcase. She had no plan except to run.

“Mae?” Jill’s voice grew louder as she climbed the stairs toward Mae’s room. “Are you here?”

“Yeah,” Mae called back. She zipped the first suitcase and started filling the other.

“What’s all this?” Jill asked from the doorway.

Mae refused to face her. She kept packing the second suitcase, trying to jam as much as possible into it. “I can’t stay here. I have to go. I have to go away.”

Jill stepped up next to her. “What happened?”

“I have to leave. I have to go before they—” Mae gasped, on the verge of hyperventilating. Tears spilled from her eyes as she sank to the floor and leaned on the futon. She could not breathe or think.

Jill sat down on the floor next to her. “Mae, I need you to tell me what happened today.”

Mae shook her head violently. “No. No, the less you know the better. If I go away, they’ll leave you alone.”

“Mae—”

Mae raised her head and took a deep breath. “Jill, you have to let me leave, and you have to forget you ever knew me.”

“No.”

Mae grabbed Jill by the shoulders and drew her close, almost nose to nose. “Yes!” she hissed. “You have to. I need you to do this for me.”