An Enigmatic Witch, page 6
Before I made any moves, I had to find out more about the depth of Brin’s involvement, and he would be busy at work right now. But there was still Alice. I was determined to squeeze out every bit of information she might have, things she may not even know she knew. So I texted her and suggested a picnic out at the lighthouse.
Alice and I rode our bikes to Fort Amherst not long after that, the perfect excuse for us to hang out again after months apart. We climbed through the wire fence barriers erected to prevent tourists from falling off the rocks into the surf, down to our little nook ten feet above the ocean. It was mid-day in June with the sun beating down on us in this sheltered grassy spot, the water below us calm and blue. A rare day, indeed.
Mom had packed us a picnic of wraps filled with veggies and cheeses, leftover chocolate cake and bottles of her home-made pink lemonade. Alice’s eyes bugged out when she saw the feast.
‘Oh my God,’ she said, hefting up a bottle to let the sun shine through it. The drinks had been thoroughly chilled before we set off, and the glass was slick with condensation. ‘I’d forgotten about your Mom and how she can do things like this. And are those real cloth napkins?’
I tossed over a neatly rolled cloth with a fork tucked away inside, and I let her get through lunch before beginning to grill her.
‘So, I dropped in on Brin last night,’ I began casually enough. ‘I was surprised you weren’t there.’
‘No, he had a meeting,’ she replied as she dug out the last of the grapes in the bowl of cut fruit. ‘He’s gotten really involved in his political stuff, and it’s so wonderful that he’s found something to be passionate about. I have to say I’m quite relieved.’ She popped three of the little fruit into her mouth at one time and gave a groan of pleasure as she bit down.
‘I was worried that he’d be bored, or lonely, with me so busy with classes and labs,’ she continued. ‘He’s shy, like me. But he’s found a community.’
‘About that,’ I said slowly. ‘Do you have any idea who his new friends are?’
‘No, I haven’t met any of them,’ she said, then paused as she thought a moment. ‘Although I don’t think they’re of this... I mean, I think they’re in Alt. Not humans, I guess is what I’m trying to say.’
‘Alt!’ I stared at her, unable to take in the meaning of her words. Brin had been desperate to leave that place behind when he crossed over, and sworn he would never return.
And no one could get through the Veil unless they were a witch. ‘How can...’
‘Yeah, he told me he was given a thing to get him through the Veil.’
‘Thing? What do you mean a thing?’
‘I dunno,’ she replied, looking a little offended at my tone. ‘Just something which helps him cross over so he can meet with the others.’
‘Other elves?’ I was still trying to wrap my mind around the idea of Brin going willingly back into Alt.
She shrugged. ‘Yeah, I guess. And dwarves, too. And I saw him coming out of that creepy house with the turrets down the road from me.’
‘The vampires,’ I said flatly. ‘He’s meeting with that crowd. In Alt.’
I was confused, unable to piece together this information with the Brin that I knew and loved. At his home the other night, I had assumed that like me, he’d been forcefully sucked into Alt by the power of the Dark Elf King. Yet now Alice said he was purposefully re-entering Alt and holding discussions with the scariest of beings over there. And dwarves? That group kept to themselves whenever they could. I shook my head. None of this was making any sense.
Besides, how could any item help him through the Veil? What was its nature? And even more important, who had given it to him?
Alice couldn’t, or wouldn’t, tell me anything else, so I would have to go direct to the source and soon, even if it meant lurking outside his house until he got home from work.
But I didn’t have an opportunity to corner Brin, not that evening and not for another twenty-four hours, for no sooner had I returned home than I was ordered to pack an overnight bag.
‘We’re going to Montreal!’ Mom danced and kissed Dad on the cheek.
I could only stare at the pair of them.
Dad laughed. ‘You’re going to Montreal,’ he said. ‘Keep me out of this.’
‘What?’
Mom smiled with glee. ‘You were right about Estelle’s, Jon agreed.’
‘But...’
‘For this occasion, you need to make a splash,’ she said and her eyes danced back to Dad’s. ‘So we’re going to do what the rest of the witches do, which is go dress shopping in the right place.’
She noticed my distinct lack of enthusiasm. ‘Unless you’d prefer New York? Jon, is it too late to change the tickets?’
He shrugged. ‘You can do anything you want. I told you, it’s your money too.’
‘I can’t,’ I said abruptly. ‘I have things to do. Tonight.’
I made eyes at Dad to let him know I was busy doing Kin business.
‘Nothing is more important than your big night,’ Mom said decisively. ‘The Solstice Ball is your first official Kin function.’
And there was to be no more arguing. Within two hours I was on the airplane, Business Class no less, sharing champagne with Mom for our whirlwind trip through Montreal, the dress capital of Canada.
6
We spent less than twenty-four hours in Montreal, but Mom sure packed a lot in. A late night cabaret, a night at a luxury suite, then up early the next morning to wander the markets. Lunch was taken not in a five star hotel, but at a little diner off one of the main drags. It was definitely rough around the edges, the leather on the stools worn and faded, but that didn’t faze Mom one bit. She and the proprietor greeted each other like old friends, which they were.
I’d never known Mom used to come here. How had I missed her absences when I was growing up? But there was no time for wondering about that, for we had to find The Dress.
And after we had perused no less than ten shops, there it was in a tiny atelier on a laneway between three-story buildings, lots of wrought iron stair cases and little balconies just as if we were in Paris. The dress was blue like our eyes, with velvet and net and satin, and felt far too sophisticated for me. It was really more Mom’s style, she had the aplomb to carry it off, but she insisted.
I had my own stipulation, only one. ‘There has to be a pocket. I need my phone, and I refuse to carry that stupid little clutch purse all night.’
Mom rolled her eyes, but the short French owner of the shop agreed. ‘All les jeunes filles demand this. You will find it there, just inside your waist, so. It is standard now, in all of my creations.’
And yes, so cleverly designed that the bulk of my phone, slim as it was, would not be visible. I smiled at Mom in triumph, but she was now busy looking for the matching sandals. As she stepped back to take in the effect of my fancy dress, she smiled. ’You’ll outshine Sasha any day,’ she muttered, her voice thick with satisfaction.
Which was the whole point of the trip, I realized right then.
Soon afterwards, we flew back home.
The upshot of this whole Montreal excursion was that I didn’t get to corner Brin until that evening. I wanted to speak with him, badly, to find out the answers to all the questions that Alice’s information had raised in my mind. There was also the little matter of my assignment from the Kin. Not that I had any intentions of actually reporting to them on Brin, however, it wouldn’t hurt if I could offer them real information on the activities of the Dark Elf king, if in fact he was planning anything.
We got home around five o’clock, but before I could do anything more than stuff a sandwich in my mouth to tide me over, Dad cornered me.
‘Your trip went well? I hear it was a success.’
I nodded, chewing.
‘Marian always loved her little trips out of town,’ he mused. ‘I’m glad you went with her.’
I swallowed down the turkey and cranberry sauce sandwich. Mom had toasted the homemade bread, and with a load of butter melting through it and the swiss cheese soft and goopy, it was way better than anything served on the airplane, even in Business Class. Since my return from Scotland, Mom had been feeding me as if to make up for the past ten years of Edna’s peanut butter sandwiches. I was going to have to up my exercising.
He looked around the kitchen a little furtively, but there was no need. We could both hear Mom upstairs unpacking her stuff. ‘I believe you’ve already met with Brin since you’ve been back from Scotland?’
‘Yeah,’ I said, then drank down the last of the glass of milk, avoiding his eye. Did he have prior knowledge of the meeting with Eldric? Is that what began this whole spy business?
But no. They already had that role assigned to me before I even came back home. I tried to relax my shoulders.
‘You should really go see him again this evening,’ Dad urged, his voice low and persuasive. ‘Get as much information as you can gather. I think we have less time than we thought we did, it may become an urgent situation.’
Which was precisely what I had planned to do before I got whisked away to Montreal. ‘I’m actually on my way over to see him now, to meet him when he gets off work,’ I said. I bent to place my dishes in the dishwasher, partly to cover my eye roll.
‘Good, good,’ he said. ‘And can you get a report ready? I’ll need it in a couple of days. Shall we say first thing the day after the Solstice? In thirty-six hours time. Before I leave for the office.’
‘A report!’ I whirled around to face him.
‘Of course,’ he replied as he shrugged off his suit jacket and loosened his tie, finished his own work for the day now the last order was given.
‘What kind of report?’
He looked at me oddly. ‘An informational report, of course. A factual record of all data. The conversations held, other things you may notice, everything that can draw the clearest picture.’
Including the bit about me interrupting the visit of Eldric on his rare excursion out of the Wilderness to meet secretly with Brin. It dawned on me again how big this scope was. This would blow the Kin’s socks off. And Dad would definitely question why I hadn’t told him about this immediately, and not in a gentle loving way.
Yet I’d sworn Brin to secrecy.
I didn’t even notice Dad leaving the room, I was thinking so furiously as I paused, my hand still on the dishwasher door. It wasn’t fair that Dad was my boss in this matter, the Kin should have assigned me to report to someone else. There was no way I could tell anyone about Brin’s connection to Eldric, not yet, because I knew someone would come down all heavy handed and mess this up for me.
Someone like Dad. He wouldn’t trust me to handle the situation as I saw fit. I drew in a deep breath.
Okay. I would go to directly to Brin’s, which I’d been planning to do anyway, and I would pump him for more information. Like what sort of thing allowed him access to Alt, and who he’d gotten it from.
That was the really important bit. Who. I needed to trace the trail to find out who was behind all this. Brin might believe he was merely working toward getting the Veil dropped for the benefit of all, but I had a feeling in my gut there was something far more sinister happening.
Especially as Eldric was involved.
I immediately flew over to his house on my bike again, and I lurked on his stoop until I spied him coming up over the hill. He must have been deep in thought because he didn’t see me until he was almost on top of me.
‘Dara!’ His open face battled between expressing polite pleasure at seeing me and very real dismay at seeing me right at that moment. He tried to glance at his watch surreptitiously, but it was big and gold and old-fashioned looking and hung on his wrist below his too-short sleeves.
‘Going somewhere?’
‘Yes,’ he sputtered, and he looked around nervously. ‘No. But... but this isn’t a convenient time.’
‘We’ll make it quick, then.’ I was glad I hadn’t wasted a moment in getting here. Sitting on his steps, I was at eye level with the elf, and I used this to my advantage. ‘So,’ I said as my eyes bore into his. ‘We need to talk.’
He shook his head, his straw like hair flying off in every direction and his eyes darting back and forth like a wild animal. ‘Nu-uh. Can’t, not right now. You need to go. Right now.’
I ignored this. ‘Alt. How do you do it?’
He waved his hands at me, palms up as if he was shushing me. He was terrified, but of what? My butt remained firmly on the stoop. I crossed my arms over my knees and continued staring at him, waiting for an answer, but all he did was stare over my shoulder and swallow loudly, his already huge eyes like saucers.
And then it happened again, the involuntary shift into Alt, but this time I fought it. It was to no avail though, my efforts only made the transition more unpleasant.
It was like being inexorably squeezed through a jelly tube, all slippery sides and sliminess, there was no purchase for me to hold onto to stop the flow, the sucking and pulling until I was finally spit out the other end to find myself still sitting on Brin’s stoop but in Blackler’s Lane, Alt.
More offended than afraid, affronted at this rude treatment against my will, I looked at Brin, ready to let him have the full force of my displeasure. If he had done this to me, with his mysterious thing, I was ready to...
But his eyes were cast down and his narrow shoulders slumped. He hadn’t been the cause of my forceful transition into Alt. No, that had been initiated by the two elven warriors on either side of him.
Their perfect pale skin glowed, lending light into the shadows of Alt and they were very unhappy to see me, if elves could be presumed to have emotions. One drew his sword out immediately and advanced toward me, but Brin threw himself between us.
‘No, you can’t! It’s Dara, remember,’ he said. ‘Dara de Teilhard.’ He gulped again and threw back at me, ‘I tried to warn you.’
‘What’s happening, Brin?’ I stood up on the stoop, towering over even the warrior elves, keeping a close eye on them as I did so.
‘She’ll have to come,’ the one on Brin’s left said. ‘We’re not allowed to kill her.’
‘Come where?’ I asked, but in my sinking heart I knew.
Brin stared at me, apprehensive, and he bit his lip before he spoke. ‘Rhovan Palace. To meet with Eldric.’
I didn’t have time to acquiesce or react, let alone throw up a protective shield around myself before the other elf grasped me in his long arms and we were gone. This, then, was how they had disappeared the other night. It wasn’t a process of winnowing or any other kind of instant teleportation from one place to another, it was wingless flight at a speed that I couldn’t comprehend.
One moment we were all standing on Blackler’s Lane Alt, and then the next we were high in the air above the old town, heading southwest. We quickly left the harbor behind in the shadows of the lowering sun which glowed through the coral clouds far to our right.
Yet the wind didn’t touch us, nor were we positioned aerodynamically to cut through the currents. I was upright the whole time and my hair caught only in the slightest of breezes. Perhaps with my innate power I could have stopped the process, but I didn’t want to test that theory out, not while I was a thousand feet up in the air.
Yes, I had the power of flight, Meg had taught me that, but I hadn’t had much practice and was not going to risk my life. God alone knew what dark forces lurked beneath us within the interior forests of Alt.
Instead, I forced myself to relax and go with the flow. The elf had me in the lightest grasp as we headed towards the Avalon Wilderness, the rumored stronghold of Eldric and the Dark Elves. I would never, ever have an opportunity like this in my life again, and I was probably the only witch to ever have this chance. If I made it back alive, the Kin would be very interested in my knowledge. What a report that would make.
I could see it fast approaching from the distance, the land of Eldric. Legendary Rhovan, which no mortal or witch had ever before laid eyes on. The circle of sharp mountains rose all pink and gold in the fire of the setting sun, above the shadowy depths below. The stone peaks were bare and cold, I could tell even from here, the ice capped shards of rock frozen and glittering in the last of the evening light. Eldric dwelled somewhere amidst that stronghold.
The Wilderness below us was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. If I’d ever thought about this land, like everyone else I’d assumed that the Wilderness was a land of barrens and ponds and bogs and boulders, fit only for the caribou herds who wandered those empty spaces long ago scraped clean by glaciers, a kind of unwelcoming tundra hinterland. But it wasn’t like that, not at all. It was forested with ancient pines, untouched by logging and clearcutting, with deep ravines and gorges and mighty water ways below us. It was a mystical, magical place untainted by humans.
But that was the thing about the Avalon Wilderness, at least in real time. It managed to be completely ignored, even in these days with satellite imagery allowing us to see every corner of the earth. Nobody even thought about it, those hundreds of square miles smack dab in the middle of the large peninsula, with highways skirting every side of it along the shores and coasts. It was as if there’d been a spell cast on it long ago to make the mind slide away from the idea of this big land, to prevent anyone’s curiosity from glomming on to it and desiring to explore its depths.
Now that I’d opened my mind to this idea, I could actually feel the resistance of that ban, like a thick wool cloak as we passed through it, just the slightest tug trying to push us away like a magnet’s resistance. This most ancient piece of Africa which had drifted over all those millions of years ago was soaked in magic, and someone, some very powerful being, must have decreed it remain so.
