Widdershins (6 page)

I don’t know how long I would have lain there, unable to sleep, but something else came to me then, the memory of that elusive snatch of fiddle music I’d heard in the parking lot, just before Hazel showed up. It teased me with its familiarity. I felt I knew it, but in a different setting, maybe at a quicker pace. But instead of keeping me awake, the memory of the music lulled me into a feeling of great peace and sadness, and I drifted off.

Galfreya

It took a moment for Galfreya to realize
she wasn’t alone in the central courtyard of the mall. She turned slowly to look down both of the long halls that ran east and west and south from where she stood before focusing her attention on the displays of stuffed animals that had been set up in the courtyard by the Newford Museum of Natural History. They were a sorry collection of creatures . . . wolves, bears, a bison, foxes, deer, falcons, hawks, owls, a family of raccoons . . . skin and horns, hooves and feathers commandeered to re-create a semblance of life that was betrayed by glass eyes and stances that were not quite natural. The birds fared best—at least their fur wasn’t worn in places from the touch of a thousand hands—but they were still nailed to their perches.

The poor dead creatures were just as they’d been since the display had been installed earlier in the week. There were no additions. One or more of the dead hadn’t suddenly become animated. She could still see no one in the halls, nor outside the front doors of the mall, nor in the shop windows closest to hand. But the presence she felt was close all the same.

“Okay,” she finally said. “You’re good. I’ll give you that. But even if I can’t see you, I still know you’re here.”

“What, a big shot seer like you can’t find one itty-bitty me?”

The disembodied voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. It was a woman’s voice, smoky and low, and not one Galfreya recognized.

“I’m hardly a big shot,” she replied. “Would I be living in a shopping mall if I was?”

“Who knows? The ways of a seer are mysterious. And you do have your own fairy court.”

“They’re not my court. This just happens to be a handy place to hold our revels. Once the cleaning staff is gone, we have the place to ourselves. And why am I telling you all of this?” she added as an afterthought.

“Guilt?” the voice asked. “To show off how important you are?”

“I don’t have the need to feel one or do the other.”

“Whatever. I’m curious, though. How do you keep your images from showing up on the security cameras?”

“The same way you become invisible: magic.”

“Oh, I’m not magic,” the voice said. “I’m just a shadow.”

And then there she was, lounging on the back of the bison, a small woman in her twenties with curly dark red hair and glittering eyes, dressed in a sweater the colour of Old World heather and a pair of faded blue jeans.

“I didn’t think to look for you between,” Galfreya said.

Between was the border country separating this world from the spiritworld. Standing in it, you could look out on either, but not be seen if you so chose.

“Being a shadow,” she added, “still makes you more than human.”

“Some would say less than human, considering I’m made up of all the bits of a person that they didn’t want and threw away.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“No, of course you wouldn’t,” the stranger said. “You’re a good fairy. So very Seelie Court and all.”

“I’ve seen you before,” Galfreya said. “But not here.”

“I don’t exactly haunt the malls, looking for a bargain.”

“I meant in this world.” She studied the stranger for a moment, then nodded. “It was at some of the parties in Hinterdale. You’re one of Maxie Rose’s friends.”

The stranger smiled. “You see? I have a claim to fame as well.”

“I don’t claim any fame.”

“Whatever.”

The stranger slid down from the back of the bison, her walking boots making a soft thump when she landed on the fake ground of the display.

“So what’s with all the dead cousins?” she asked, running her hand along the bison’s flank before she stepped down onto the marble floor of the courtyard.

Galfreya shrugged. “The mall just does this kind of thing. One week it’s an antique show, the next it’s a display of power boats. I think it’s supposed to be educational.”

“It gives me the creeps.”

“Me, too,” Galfreya said.

The red-haired stranger frowned at her.

“Oh no, you don’t,” she said. “That’s twice you’ve tried to get chummy with me and find some kind of common ground. Just be yourself.”

Galfreya knew that danger came in all sizes, so the fact that she topped the stranger by at least a head meant little, but the red-haired woman’s attitude was starting to seriously annoy her.

“What is your problem?” she asked, not even pretending to be friendly any more.

“You,” the stranger said. “At least, it starts with you. I mean look at yourself. You’ve got to be a couple hundred years old—”

“Give or take a thousand.”

“So there’s a reason your speaking name is Mother Crone. You should dress your age—you know, robes or something instead of this skateboarder look, which is way pathetic for a woman your age, even if you do wear a glamour that makes you seem twenty-something.”

Galfreya hadn’t changed clothes since she’d seen Geordie off.

“What makes you think it’s a glamour?”

“Oh, come on. Everybody knows that fairies go for the sleek, young look, no matter how many years they’ve piled on.”

“Unlike shadows who are always what they seem.”

The stranger looked uncomfortable for a moment, then shrugged. “Whatever.”

“So the way I dress is what’s troubling you,” Galfreya said. “Why should that be any of your business?”

“Well, that’s not all,” the stranger replied. “What’s with you fairies and your enchantments and how you need to have humans amuse you, no matter what havoc it might play in their own life?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your fiddler,” the stranger said. “The one you keep drawing back here, week after week, with your music and your revels and your oh-so sweet talk. Why can’t you leave him alone?”

“Why do you care? If you’re in love with him, you’re not doing a very good job of showing it because he’s never said word one to me about you or anyone else.”

“Oh, please. I’m not into incest. He’s my brother.”

“Your brother.”

The stranger nodded, a challenge in her eyes. Galfreya met her gaze with a look as steady, then slowly nodded.

“Yes,” she said. “I see that he is.”

“So tell me, why won’t you leave him alone? I know you don’t have a long-term interest in him because your kind never does. You just use people up and move on to the next.”

“That’s neither fair nor true.”

“So, do you love him? Are you ready to give up immortality to be with him? That’s how it works for your kind, right? There has to be a sacrifice. Or maybe you’re trying to get him to give up his world to be a puppet fiddler in yours, always ready at your beck and call.”

“Do you have to work at being so annoying?” Galfreya asked.

“You haven’t seen me annoyed yet, sweetheart. And you didn’t answer my question.”

Galfreya stared at her, trying to keep her anger in check. The stranger was infuriating, but she was Geordie’s sister, her own anger obviously born out of love. So Galfreya was willing to cut her a little more slack. But only a little.

“I love him as you do,” she said finally. “As a sister.”

The stranger raised her eyebrows. “Do fairies usually sleep with their siblings?”

“Fine,” Galfreya said. “Then as a friend.”

Now it was the stranger’s turn to study her.

“Okay,” she said after a moment. “Maybe you do. So then, why are you doing this? You know he’ll never have a chance at a normal relationship so long as you’ve got your hooks in him. It might already be too late. All the glamours and magic might have already spoiled him for an ordinary woman.”

“I’m hardly such a catch.”

“What, are you a vampire, too? You can’t look in a mirror? You’re gorgeous.”

Galfreya shrugged. “It’s all in the eye of the beholder.”

“I suppose. Is that why you dress down with the skateboarder gear?”

“I dress to be comfortable.”

“And you’re still not answering my question.”

“I know,” Galfreya said. “I don’t really want to. Sometimes, speaking a foretelling aloud is the very thing that gives it life.”

“Oh, please,” the stranger said.

Her tone was easy, but she couldn’t hide her worry.

“Very well,” Galfreya told her. “This is what I saw: If I don’t keep him close to me, to my court, he will be terribly hurt. Perhaps he’ll even die.”

The stranger swallowed, but the look in her eyes went from worried to determined. “So, what’s the danger? What’s supposed to hurt him?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t see that. I can only see what I’ve told you.”

“Convenient.”

Galfreya drew herself up.

“So far,” she said, “I’ve responded to your insinuations and poor manners in a calm and polite manner—more for Geordie’s sake, than for yours, I might add. But one more snide comment, and I promise you will regret ever coming here.”

“I’m not scared of you.”

Galfreya smiled, but there was nothing friendly in her smile.

“You should be,” she said.

Then she turned her back on her uninvited guest and strode down the hall, back the way she’d come.

“Wait,” the stranger called after her.

Galfreya paused, but she didn’t look back or respond otherwise.

“Okay,” the stranger said. “So I’m an ass. I came here with a chip on my shoulder. But I’ve been worried about Geordie and from where I stood, it looked like you were the thing I needed to worry about.”

Galfreya turned to look at her.

“Your loyalty is commendable,” she said. “Your manners are not.”

“I’m trying to say I’m sorry, okay?”

“You have an interesting way of expressing it.”

“I don’t mean before. I mean now. My name’s Christiana, by the way.”

“I guessed as much when you said you were Geordie’s sister. He’s spoken of you to me.”

“Really?”

“Yes, he said you were bratty, but it’s part of what he likes about you, the moon knows why.”

“That’s the problem with family—you have to take what’s dealt to you.”

Galfreya shook her head. “I don’t think I agree. If the fit is wrong, you can still just walk away.”

“I meant the family you choose.”

“You can walk away from that kind of family, too.”

“But we both care about Geordie, right?”

Galfreya nodded. “We have that in common.”

“See, the thing is,” Christiana said, “I’ve seen how happy his brother Christy is, all settled down with Saskia. And I know Geordie sees it, too. And I also know that he’d like to have that kind of relationship with someone. The trouble is, he’s made poor choices. . . .”

“Love’s like that,” Galfreya said. “You can’t choose who you love.”

“Whatever. But he’s not even getting out anymore. He hasn’t had a date in at least two years, and we both know why that is.”

“Enlighten me.”

“He’s got this,” she waved her arm to take in the mall. “The parties you guys have, a place to play music with people who know a whole whack of tunes that his other friends don’t. And he’s got you—for company and a roll in the hay whenever the two of you are in the mood. So he doesn’t even look for anything else. But we both know that the relationship you guys have isn’t either what he needs or really wants. He needs . . . I was going to say a real woman . . .”

“Says the shadow.”

“I know—made up of all the cast-off bits of his brother. I should talk. And that’s why I’m not going to say a real woman. He just needs someone who can commit. Someone who isn’t the immortal Mother Crone that you are, who won’t even leave this mall to go somewhere with him.”

“I have responsibilities.”

“And they’re none of my business. But Geordie is. His happiness is. That’s why I came to ask you to let him go. That’s why I showed up with the big chip on my shoulder because this whole business has been totally pissing me off.”

“And now?”

“Now I don’t know what to say except, maybe he should have the chance to find out what’s out there, even if it’s dangerous. I’ll watch his back, and I’m guessing you will, too.”

Galfreya gave a slow nod. “For Geordie’s sake, we can be allies. But we will never be friends.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Christiana said. “I should have remembered. Mumbo was forever telling me that fairies never forget a slight, no matter how large or small.”

“You were a student of Mumbo’s?”

“She showed me the ropes when I first manifested.”

“Mumbo has always had a generous nature. I’m surprised to find a charge of hers with such a lack of common sense and manners.”

“Okay,” Christiana said. “I deserved that. But I already said I was sorry. What more do you want?”

Galfreya shook her head. “I don’t want anything. I’m just wary of the darkness you carry inside you—the shadow of a shadow that has no love for my people.”

“Fine,” Christiana said. “Make up a new bogeyman for yourself, if it makes you feel any better. But for the record, I don’t care about fairies one way or the other, except in relation to Geordie. Cut him loose from whatever enchantment you’ve put on him, and you’ll never have to hear from me again.”