___
Cadence jogged on, fitful in her direction and pace, until her legs found their stride. She would indulge this time to let her feet and her thoughts seek their own paths. She crossed an intersection with a construction project underway. Slabs of steel, blowtorch cut, flat like lasagna, covered car-sized holes in the street. It was surprising the weight they bore, she thought as she watched cars and trucks kaboom hollowly over them. One of the slabs had been removed, and she stopped and looked down, like an observer of open-heart surgery. In the deep she saw ghastly confirmation of her sense of the unseen anatomy of the city. Looming in the shadows was a beamed and crusted urban skeleton. Relic iron trusses lay tied with bolts the size of sledgehammers. Leaking pipes ran past, each of a size that could transport trash cans, each made of wood held together with wire. Around these were ultra-modern, blue and yellow, gooey rubber cables, intertwined in insane symmetry. This was the bare guts of urban civilization revealed. All of it overlay a deeper shadow land lurking beneath, descending to perhaps untested depths. It struck her as indecent, exposing the quiet, eternally waiting gloom of that long-hidden world to garish daylight.
A piece of older asphalt pavement was exposed. Like dinosaur tracks on ancient sediment, it hosted random fossil remnants of the twentieth century. Pop bottle caps saying Big Chief, Nehi and RC. Flattened, steel beer cans with tabs church-key cut in double v-shapes. A wondrous bird skeleton, perfectly mistakable for Archaeopteryx, even to the back-arching death crane of the neck, with feather remnants and side-looking, traffic-polished skull intact. A rut, as if made by the last iron-wheeled horse wagon. A wood handled screwdriver. A brick peeking out, revealing a stamped date of 1908. A pair of smashed tortoiseshell eyeglasses caught in the black amber.
The late-blooming eighth-grader that still lived inside her had been on these streets before. It was a school trip remembered chiefly for ditching the chaperones and kissing Jimmy Friedlander, while the Police sang in the background.
That fall her dad would die in the Topanga fire and she would never really graduate to the ninth grade. I am a fossil, she thought, until now.
As she approached 92nd Street, the sidewalk featured an array of buskers. A black man picked out Louisville-style blues with Dobro and bottleneck. She dropped a dollar in his hat and he picked her a special lick. A group of rappers, bearing wireless mikes working through tinny little amps, accosted the crowd with earnest sexual lyrics acapella. Then there was a sandwich board sign that had somehow captured and enslaved a shoeless human who looked like the unshaven, older brother of the creeker in Topanga. The front board said:
Expect as ye see.
Signs and wonders,
Ye will finally believe.
">And on the back:
Quoth the Raven,
Eat Kraft Cheese.
The next few blocks were strangely quiet, almost empty. Cadence glimpsed New Jersey to her left, down a long street corridor. Her sneakers squeaked. She slowed to a sputtering walk and sorted once more through jumbled pieces of this puzzle.
At the top of the pile was her grandfather. Much was left to do—getting to know him, for one.
Don’t they say that the trauma of great loss has aftershocks that can come back years later? Unresolved good-byes, I-wishes, and if-onlys are the bread-and-butter regrets that always resurface. They are like errant locomotives sent off full-throttle into the trackless interior of the heart, that somehow find a turntable and now are heading back into town.
So finally, she thought, we’re at the core. I found him. I found the secret gate to answer those questions.
No discovery is complete unto itself, and she could not turn her back on the final question. Who was Ara, really? The tale still glinted from the rune scribbles, as interpreted by a man— who happened to be her grandfather—who last bought a new pair of shoes in the 1980s. The “translations” could be just the musings of his alter ego, Osley the LSD guru. Hell, they could be the invention of some grand pranksters of the past, or Dark Elves, or the fevered dream of a refugee monk gone off the medieval grid, or anything. Seeing Ara in the pool? Perhaps she had. Or maybe it was just fear and light on an oily water surface.
A rational person, like her mom, or Cadence as Cadence used to think she was, would see this clearly. There was not even a high-class mystery here—forget the fairy tale dust about trying to save a heroine. This was echoed by a cracked, gravelly voice, as if Burgess Meredith was in her head reprising a corrupt, cigar-chomping manager, telling her Throw in the towel and go home, kid, cause this fight is fixed anyway.
She took another step. Bullshit! It’s not about fairy tales and it’s not about rationality. The truth is just what it is. She did a double-skip and upgraded her pace back to a full run. I’m not leaving Ara lost in Mirkwood! I’m going to get those last answers, and I know where to go.
At West 100th Street, she passed a shuttered McDonald’s that had been an infamous “Smackdonalds” in the 1970s. As Osley, her grandfather had talked about it as if he had been one of the regulars. More dollars were generated in horse than burgers. Dealers were always loitering out front while a stream of noddies queued to buy. Piss and barf smells clung to the perimeter, and it wasn’t much better inside. Supposedly Ronald visited once, all suited up in clown garb. He was a narc.
She kept running.
The extra-sensory perception of being stalked once fell into the camp of old wives’ tales and superstition. It has of late been resurrected for study by serious science, and with good reason. Perhaps it results from an aggregation of subtle clues that trips some primitive wire in our brains.
By West 104th Street, the tripwire had been snagged, and Cadence felt the queasy certainty of being followed. Her juju feeling reverberated like a drum circle. She had a good idea of who, or what, it was. She felt for the fine stationary letter folded in her pocket. Her feet had delivered her to the neighborhood where, if ever, she might find the Talisman Store and dare to save both her grandfather and Ara. Her hand also felt the two pages of new translation that she’d picked up off Osley’s desk. She felt edgy. She would look for a quiet spot to read them.
Barren’s own favorite among his many talents, aside, of course, from raw adaptability, was to let his preys’ own skills work against them. This was how he ensnared the Woodsmen. He let their own sixth sense first detect him, then he let it drive them to his trap.
It saved a lot of work.
Just to test things in this new world (he was constantly trying to update his thinking now), he would direct Cadence west, toward the river. He was two full blocks behind her, indistinguishable in the crowd. His signals, aura, pheromones, vibes— whatever there were—herded her as effectively as a spear to the rump of an aurochs.
Up ahead, Cadence hurried her pace, fidgeted at the light, looked around, and crossed over against the traffic to the west side of Broadway.
Past 113th Street, the West End Bar hunkered down, looking dreary and idle in the afternoon light. There were more trees after that, creating a slow strobe of light and shadow as she ran. The Columbia University enclave was coming up on the right.
The neck hairs’ sensation of being followed came on strong once again. She turned left at 114th, cut down the block, and stopped. She was on Riverside Drive in front of a neighborhood deli with a wooden half-wall gate across the door. Inside, one tough, uniformly auburn-hued dog sat watching. Smart dog. Waiting to chomp on the uninvited. The neighborhood must be tougher than it looks, she thought.
She found a brownstone doorstep that had been freshly swept and sat down. She pulled out the clump of translation pages and began to read. At the top, Jess had scrawled a note, probably a reminder for when they next talked: “There are two fragments here. By the tears and folds, each may have been secreted away many times. I don’t know if these are reliable. The first is part of a History of Aragranessa.”
Ara, the prisoner, stood in a darkened cavern before a large, ornate doorway that was almost closed. Torchlight flickered from inside. A fearful orc guard proddled her with his spear, backed up several steps, and then ran away. She forced one foot forward, then the other. With the certainty of ascending the gallow’s steps, Ara knew she walked to her death.
She thought, I am Aragranessa, daughter of Achen. All he can take is what must be given up in the end anyway. I will not fear, and, though none may ever know, I will sell my life dearly.
She thought of her Amon, of his sad, desperate determination. She took a deep breath and slid through the crack … into the presence of the Dark Lord.
The room was large, long as a spear’s flight. Its ceiling dimmed in the waving shadows from torches jutting from each column. The walls rose with tier upon tier of shelves stuffed with codexes and scrolls. At the far end, held in a luminous glow of changing colors, was the shape of a man. He turned slowly, as if he awaited her arrival, and began to walk toward her.
Despite the length of that hall, it seemed he had taken but one step and was now before her. His hand held a robe, which he slipped over a chair. He wore a simple tunic and brought his hands together in supplication. He looked at her as one might a much anticipated guest. She was stunned by his gentle demeanor. His eyes spoke at once of need and hope. His gestures were those of a weary man of peace.
“Please, sit and eat.” He indicated a chair sized just for her. Before it was a low, broad table laden with food such as Halflings crave—biscuits and butter and fried bacon with roasted grazus. She had eaten naught but roots and brush bark for days. Her nose involuntarily flared and tweaked at the smell. But her heart resisted and she stiffened. He looked unjustly offended. “After all this way? And still not happy? Let us test the ill humor that sets itself against your happiness.” He motioned again. “Come, indulge an old man and sit with me.”
Something in his voice relaxed her just a bit. She sat gingerly on the edge of the seat. She reached out for a vessel filled with sweet, fresh smelling water, and drank deeply. The food suddenly was irresistible. He sat and watched and waited, passing untried dishes to her as she ate.
His patience was rewarded, for in time, her hunger sated and her thirst slaked, she was ready to talk. After all, he seemed both reasonable and gracious. She would go so far as to be polite. “Thank you for the food and drink.”
“As you deserve. May I speak to you? I take your silence as permission, so let me say this. Your well-being is important.”
She felt herself falling into a pleasant and amiable conversation, relaxing as if this peaceful old man were one of her great-uncles voicing concern for her. It was a kind of glamour, something only trust can provide, and she found herself trusting him.
The Dark Lord asked her to give voice to the anger that smoldered within her. By her answer, he discovered its true root to be righteous, for it was based on the injustice meted out to her people. He then told her that he, too, had been wrongly judged. He spoke of his long learning, and of the rebuilding of his library. How he assembled it from materials secured by stealth from a great library, since burned to the ground that lay in the far lands to the south. Then he spoke of the nature of his art. “I deal with all substances. I find the essential value in all—including the debased, the vile, and the shunned. I take the life of a mere insect, a thing deemed worthless, and elevate it, in its purity and essence to the great stature it deserves. This I can do for you, Ara, who are already a noble and fearless warrioress. You have been deceived by others, even your Amon, who deserted you for his own adventure. Would you now embrace your own purity, your own destiny? She ate and drank further and asked him to explain many things, for he wished her to know all and to make her own decisions. He told her of the elusive nature of the lights in the northern sky, and then showed her a fabric that embodied the very nature of those celestial colors, that was those colors. “Thus can I distill your essence, Ara, and together we can discover the high-born and rightful Ruler of the Halflings that you are meant to be.” She nodded. There was truth to his words. All she could say was, yes. Yes.
Here Jess’s notes began again: “This is from an official record of the Canton of the Halflings. It’s disturbing.”
I am Mercy, humble crier of news for the Realm of the Halflings.
Hear now the Chronicle of Ara’s Betrayal, a quick-spoken account of her collaboration and her ambition. Woe to us all, and woe of greatest measure to the race of Halflings who for generations have shunned the hamlet of Frighten. Guilt for this outrage is theirs.
Ara was brought into the presence of the Dark Lord, still dressed as an orc-messenger bearing the insignia of the Source. So was she condemned to death as a spy. Her guilt and her defiance were evident, but by his glamour and her misguided will, she joined his cause.
Now his emissaries come to our lands. They command us to pledge our fealty to the Lord of the Source and agree to live under the Dominion of the Queen of the Halflings, or suffer war!
Cadence looked down at the last page and bit her hand. She couldn’t believe it. All this long tale as but testament to the pervasive powers of evil. All this tortured path she had followed. Ara The Betrayer! She could feel the air wheezing out of her soul. She dithered with the pages until a mist of angry tears came. They stung like hot acid. Like the truth.
indent">Well, maybe that’s just what real stories, the ones with real truth, are. She deserves to be erased.
She wiped her eyes and put her chin on her hand and stared at a disciplined column of ants marching towards the wilds beyond the curb. They took their lumps and reorganized, and so could she. Besides, she was a huge winner, wasn’t she? She had found her grandfather. But, truth be told, the edge was off. Crazy as it sounded, if you couldn’t trust Ara, who could you trust? It ate at her until the tears dried and she resolved to go back to the Algonquin and hold those original documents in her hand. She would challenge Jess and together they would test the veracity of this Elvish scrawl.
She rose to her feet and looked up.
Directly across the street, perhaps exactly where it should be, was a door emblemned with a discrete black and white sign: “Talisman Store.” Below that was a tacky stick-on metal sign in red and fake brass: “No Soliciting.” She walked over and looked at the building.
It was a brownstone that loomed up three stories. A hand-manicured garden patch, bounded by an ornate metal fence, waited out front, along with two healthy oaks for summer shade. She watched as a breeze reaped the last few leaves.
She went through the fence gate and approached the wooden door guarded by an iron doorknocker in the shape of a boar’s head. An intricate latch substituted for a door handle. She knew that here was a reckoning. She owed something—to herself, not Ara. She had hesitated at the pool and regretted it. She wouldn’t freeze up now. Go with your gut, as her Dad might say.
She raised the knocker, paused, and let it fall.
The resulting sound was a disappointing clunk. She waited, reluctant to disturb the privacy of some family, probably a hardworking doctor or diplomat.
Finally she heard dim sounds from inside. The door latch moved in unexpected ways, as some inner bolt released, then the door opened.
The man before her was tiny, genteel and hunched, like a retired watchmaker. He studied her through thick glasses, and then stepped aside enthusiastically, as if in sudden recognition.
“Please, come in.”
Almost without thinking, she stepped across the threshold. The door closed behind her with a solemn, unnerving breath, as if wood and frame had somehow melded. Just like that, she knew her gut call had been hasty. Here there were two possible outcomes: very good or very bad. She’d left a note for Jess with the name of this place. Other than that, no one knew.
“Welcome to my … store.”
He showed her down a brief hallway that led to a bright room. Cadence stepped into a rich, cascading flow of soft daylight. She looked up. A resplendent glass skylight, decorated with stained glass, filtered a waterfall of light that fell through large banistered stairwell openings in the upper two stories.
The room was tastefully arranged with illuminated, museum-quality exhibition cases, each treasuring a few objects. Large gold coins, some ancient, some new, and none from the Franklin Mint. Small, brass-capped feet of unknown animals—perhaps ferrets or mink. What was almost certainly a duck-billed platypus foot, fitted with an ivory cap and an attached chain of irregular drilled pearls the size of marbles.
She walked along the last row of cases, their contents adhering to no apparent order, but each containing items capable of transfixing the viewer. Here was a crucifix with a mast of antiqued brass and a crosspiece of a polished wood splinter. No doubt a medieval relic. Next, laid on its side on a field of black velvet, was a World War II era Zippo lighter with “36th Texas” etched on it and a bullet crease along one side. There followed a small demonic face carved in jade. On and on: a scrimshawed ivory tooth, three inches long, depicting a full-sailed whaling ship being Evel Knieveled by an enormous Leviathan. An incongruous Alpha Tau Omega pledge pin from the Vanderbilt University Chapter, Class of ’90.
Finally, she came to a case with a solitary object—an oversized pocket watch, case open, displaying a score of tiny dials, one whirling madly counterclockwise.
“You got our letter.” She jumped, the little man was hovering so close.
“Well, uh yes, but how did you fi … select me?”
“Our invitations are very … exclusive. Don’t worry, we’re harmless. What do you think of our collection?”
Her neck hair wouldn’t go down. “Its … interesting.”
“Do you have a talisman?”
“Well, I inherited one. I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing.”
“They can be either/or.”
She decided to quit talking and get out of there. She casually surveyed the exit. The inside latch on the front door looked complex—wheels and levers and a solid metal bar seated firmly in an iron trestle on the wall. Barred.
“Well, who are you, this … group you have?”
“Ah, thank you. We are enthusiasts for the reality that is proven by the very longing of the human heart. Much of that longing is channeled into religion, and that is wondrous. But a fine distillation of that longing, the romantic, the hunger for other worlds, needs other direction. That’s why they say myths and legends come about.”
“I—uh—see.”
“The rarest thing, however, is discovery for oneself that such a world indeed exists. A world more palpable than these objects, more amenable to feeling and to sight than our present world, more real that the drear plains we traverse daily.”
He paused to catch his breath. “And so we study here. Our foundation is the art of belief itself.”
Cadence noticed a single ring on the man’s hand. The stone in it caught the light. Arcs of opal-blue seemed to flow out from the stone, filling the air with sparkly dust motes. She blinked and made a decision.
“Hey, I gotta go. I’ll stop by again. Thanks. Nice place.”
“It’s no trouble. Please sign our guest book and I’ll escort you out. We’ve had other visitors lately.”
The little man gestured toward a bound ledger on a counter. She went to it hurriedly and searched for a pen.
She heard the quick thumb-click of a ball point pen, followed by a different voice. “I have a different guest book for you to sign, Cadence.”
She looked up. Across the counter stood the man she knew was Barren. She turned, but the munchkin proprietor had positioned himself in a wrester’s stance, set to bar her way.
She bowled him over like a sock’em balloon.
She reached the door. The main lever handle seemed locked, held down by a cogged gearwheel turned by a polished rotary handle. She thought of a fine millwork for making cake flour, or the innards of a talking doll. She thought a thousand things while she fumbled with it.
A hand slammed flat against the door next to her face.
“First, we have a bit of commerce to complete.”
She couldn’t really move. She opted, instead, to study the intricacies of the grainy oak inches from her face.
“Will you hear the offer? Or should we kill your grandfather now?”
A thin cloak fell over her head. Cadence felt the world drop out beneath her feet. Wind rustled the cloak as she began to freefall. Images came to her—first still, then moving like pictures in a thumb-operated flicker book. She knew that she was dreaming as she was falling, falling to depths where oblivion was an unknown word, so dense was the darkness.
In the dream, her father faced a blazing man at the edge of a fire. He sought to pass to freedom, but the blazing man, shaped by furious black coils of smoke and the reek of hot diesel oil and burning flesh, barred him. There was talk of commerce which no path could warrant.
Her father said No, it’s not worth that price.
The blazing man held out a steaming oilcan. As you please. Here are special things for you to ponder. Sort of little kittens. He gestured a flaming hand. Come take a look.
Her father nodded.
The smoking eyes, darker in the flameface, narrowed and the indescribable contents of the can were poured on the ground.
* * *
As if at the snap of a hypnotist’s fingers, Cadence woke up, clearheaded and sitting in a chair. She was not surprised that her adversary was sitting across from her.
From the smells and style of the room and the furnishings around her, she guessed that she was still somewhere within the little shop of talismanic horror. She had the chance to study him. She realized that he had also been the strange cab driver. He had those same oily, dark eyes, but he was clean-shaven, the Mohawk gone, and his hair was buzz-length and neatly trimmed. He wore a loose-knit, orange polo shirt, nice pants, and a pair of khaki-colored Air Jordans. Almost as if for effect, he held a pair of wire-rimmed glasses in his manicured hands.
She said the first thing that came into her head.
“You learn fast.”
“That is my core competence.”
She tried to move, but while each of her parts moved and felt fine, the act of getting up from the chair just would not happen. One of the objects from the exhibition case, the backward-running clock face, lay on her lap. Was the wrong-way whirr and sweep somehow keeping her sitting there? She wondered if she could scare this weirdo.
“You and the munchkin are going to be in some kind of trouble when the cops arrive.”
“I don’t think we need to worry about being interrupted here. He glanced around, gesturing magnanimously with his glasses, saying in effect Aren’t we lucky to be in such a swell place?
“I have an idea.”
“Please, tell me.”
“Crawl back in your spider hole.”
“Now, now. No reason to be unsociable. At least, not yet. Perhaps we should clear up just who I am so that it doesn’t get in the way of us getting to know one another. I am known locally as Mr. Peaches. In my own country, I am called Mr. Barren or, simply, Barren. Before that, my name was Seax. My employer values my skills, which he sees as considerable. He too believes that I learn fast, and thus he chose me to make this trip and straighten this whole thing out. That, and the fact that I can be charming or one mean son of a bitch. I am to use my discretion, as he put it, although not exactly in those terms.”
Cadence stalled while she looked around for the door. “And just where is this employer, and who is he?”
“Far away, yet close. Down a road, across a bridge, burned in the words of a book, or behind a secret gate. My employer is powerful and used to getting his way.”
“Is he a wizard?”
“If you believe in such things.”
“I’m not into believing in things I can’t see.”
“I’m right here. The other pieces you’ve already seen, if you allow them to fit together.”
She started to get up, but nothing happened. The watch with the backward-running dial stirred in her lap like a purring cat.
“You’re a fake!” she spat out.
“You seem to have some issues here beyond me, Cadence. Forget about fire, for which I know you have a weak spot. To get to the point, you seem to be troubled by what’s real and what isn’t. Are you a doubter? Does your doubt insure that your world is made up of low hopes and petty requests? That is to say, barren?”
She looked at him.
“Don’t think I don’t know the meaning of my name. And yet my world is rich beyond your imagining. I not only believe it, I live it! A philosophy you might wish to embrace if you ever get out of this. Now, in any case, I’ve come to like this place. The perks aren’t as good, but there’s lots shaking.”
“All right, I’ve heard enough. I want to go.”
“Yes, yes. That has already been arranged. Do you want to know where?”
“Yeah, home. Out of here.”
“I’m afraid it’s not that simple. We, you and I, have some beez-ness to conduct.”
“What’s that?”
“A simple contract. Very little to negotiate. All it really is, I offer and you accept.”
“I know some lawyers.”
“Don’t threaten, child, it’s unbecoming. It’s also futile. Let me proceed as I have planned. Now, pay attention! My profession is to humble men much tougher than you, hard men who are used to ranging in the wilds and spying on my employer’s interests. I can break you. Now, what I’m offering you is as good as it gets. Far better than Les Inspecteurs.” He caricatured the name in phony French. “I implore you, don’t go down the path of your grandfather.”
“So what’s the offer?”
“The offer is that you deliver, at my direction, each and every page of each and every one of the documents given to your grandfather so many years ago. In other words, the entire peach crate stash, everything in that elusive valise. Upon delivery, I shall arrange for your release as well as … the survival of your grandfather.”
“What do you mean!” she exclaimed.
“I thought that might get your attention. Yes, yes, he is alive. He worries if he’ll ever see you again. He seems to have learned a huge lesson. Rather late, but still better than never. He needs your help, Cadence. Will you let him down the way he let down your father?”
“No! Of course not.”
“Good. Because that means that you and he, gosh, even Mel, may be allowed to live. Call it a performance bonus.”
A fine mist of sweat sprang out upon her forehead. The man was speaking in a mishmash of television dialects, but the gravity of his message was clear. “OK, I’ll play. Deliver my grandfather first.”
“I’m afraid those aren’t the terms. We have to have some trust if we’re going to work together.”
“Where do I make the drop?”
“The what?”
“Come on, you were doing so well with your I’m-just-learning-the-language routine. The place of delivery of the documents.”
“They have to be delivered in person, as it were. The place you already know. A pool of water in a storage room beneath the city.”
“You deliver them!”
“I’m afraid, on that score there, has been an adjustment of plans. I’m not in a position to deliver them.”
“Why not? You came from there, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but plans change.”
“If I go, can I get back?”
“I’m afraid not.”
She watched his demeanor. He didn’t blink. He was confident and focused solely on her. She had no doubt he’d delivered polite but deadly ultimatums many times, in many languages and places. She shook her head. “I don’t believe this.”
“What’s not to believe?”
“If I go, I save my grandfather. Fine, I’ll do it.” She took a deep breath. “Count me in.”
“Yes, well, here’s the truth. You can never do what you don’t absolutely believe in. You’d better find somebody that does.”
“No, I’ll give it all I’ve got.”
“Well, it’s pointless to test this further. I wanted to see how you’d react. But just to be sure, I’ve arranged for an alternate.”
She said nothing.
“Someone who believes completely. Someone who was always eager to go and, at last, wouldn’t hesitate to save his family.”
“Grandpa?”
“Precisely. ‘I’d go— in a shot’, I believe, were his exact words.”
“I couldn’t ask that.” Her voice was so small that it shamed her.
“You don’t need to. I did, he’s agreed. He’s ready. I just need a sign from you.”
“Like what?”
“I think you know. Show it to me.”
She hesitated and then realized her hand was involuntarily moving. Like an ant in honey, it slowly pulled her keychain from the pocket of her sweat top. The tooth talisman was attached.
“Not this.”
Barren smiled. “What better?”
Despite her resistance, her hands slowly removed the keys and gave the tooth to him.
Barren held it up, squinting and turning it in the light like an admiring scientist. He looked back at her, showing the slightest sign of … what? Empathy? Admiration? Then he gave her a look which she could read in an instant. This young woman is a bit of tragedy, a cautionary tale. He returned his attention to the tooth, “It’s got to bring better luck to someone else anyway.”
“May I ask another question?”
“We’ve got lots of time.”
“Is Ara real? Or is she only a story?”
“As real as me.”
That’s not … altogether helpful.”
“I could tell you she never lived and is no more than bits of doggerel from an older time, misinterpreted by the present. I could tell you she is, at most, a part of what are called ‘story books.’”
“Yes, you could, and I would accept it.”
“Oh, but there’s danger there as well. I’m finding that my greatest power is plain old truth, so I’ll tell you true. She lives, this very moment, in a place you would recognize. A place that is vibrant with peril and resolve and great purpose …”
She interrupted, “and she betrayed everyone? Is that right?”
“You seem to have a desperate need to know, but I could hardly spoil a good ending, now could I?”
“You are a bastard.”
“You’re in no position to be insulting, young lady. Now, as I was saying, she lives in a place that indeed exists.”
Cadence paused, thinking his statement over. “How do I know?”
“Because your heart tells you so. If you listen to that voice but a little, belief follows like dawn on the night.”
“How do I really know?”
“Because it’s not me or what I say that matters. It’s only you. I’m sure we agree that it’s a shame her story has to be erased. Especially after she did so much work. Blame it on those Dark Elves who cursed her in the woods so long ago.”
“I blame you and your, what did you say, employer.”
“Well, you can’t expect him to leave his former enemies around. He might have plans for, how do you say, a comeback. Don’t ever count this guy out.”
She listened, marking his slang but thinking in particular about Tolkien’s admonition that evil ever renews, that monsters do not depart.
“Now, young lady, I have a question.”
Silence.
“How does this work?”
He held a Nokia cell phone in his hand.
“I’m very glad you have that.”
Moving in the allowed slo-mo, she gave him a show-and-tell lesson, he holding it up to his face upside down and backwards, she correcting him, showing him the buttons to push. His eyes opened wide as a voice came through.
“Thornton here.”
“Don’t mind that, the person on the phone can’t hear us.”
The line was silent. Cadence watched the green light on the phone showing the call was still live.
“If you would, please let me go. I’ll do anything to get out of this place!”
Barren thought for a moment, then put the cell phone aside. The green light stayed on. He had some other questions. This was the best time to milk her for information.
“I’ve been watching The Sopranos. I can’t decide if I should be a gangster or a businessman. They’re so close. Now, I think the businessman has the edge. He can start up anywhere. All he has to do is be whatever it takes at any given moment. The gangster, though, he’s gotta have a gang, otherwise he’s just a freelancer. So how does one find a gang? Should I be part of some family, like my prior employer? Should I be a Jet or a Shark or a Crip or a Blood, part of NG Purples or the Stony Hill Gang? Maybe join a club. Like eBay? All I know is I’m tired of working for the man. So I’m gonna freelance, just see what comes up. Not bad for an orphan kid from the other side of a dark and stormy rainbow, huh?”
“You could care less about orphans. You don’t have the balls to care.”
“Again, I’ve touched a tender spot. Well, before I go, let’s play a game, with a prize.”
“What’s the prize?”
“Well, normally I’d say we had already bargained for your life, so I can’t negotiate over that. But since you’ve already given me this,” he hefted the tooth in his hand, “I feel like I can put it back on the table, your life that is. That’s my specialty, after all.”
“Liar!”
“Now, now. Relax. If you do this right you’ll come out alive. It’s not like fairy gold. You’ll be real and walk and talk like the other boys and girls.”
She squirmed, knowing he wasn’t kidding. Not one bit.
“This isn’t going to involve riddles, is it?”
“Oh no, that would put you at, shall we say, a grave disadvantage. That is an art lost to your times.”
“So what is it?”
“Just names. Trivia. You guess the name of the person I’m thinking of, sort of, becoming. That’s the great thing about your world, Cadence. Aspiration. Ambition. You can be anyone.”
“I can’t just guess names.”
“Oh yes you can. I believe you know them already. And I shall give you a few clues.”
“How could I know the names?”
“Because they are in the little box that people and places live in. The television. I’ve been spending time with it. It’s everywhere. People have told me people and places inside it aren’t real, but believe me, I know a thing or two about reality. I’m going to become someone different and you’re going to guess who it might be.”
“You mean TV and movie stars?”
“That’s what you call them. You know something of them, yes? Here’s your real chance to use your learning. Only not stars, villains. It’s a weakness of mine.”
“Do I get a clue?”
“Three. Just to keep with tradition. I just gave you your first one. And … I’ll throw in a comment when you’re wrong.”
“How many guesses?”
“I’ll let you know. So start.”
She thought for a second, Mel’s warning about never … ever betting her life on movie trivia rocketing around inside her head. Then she focused, thinking about weighty bullshit thrown about in a class on cinema history.
“OK, uh, I’ll start with … Norman Bates.”
“Come on, I may be from another world but I’m not crazy.”
Then she took her absolute best, intuitive guess. “The Alien.”
He scoffed. “You know I have affinity for blood that melts swords and armor. Like Beowulf’s moment facing Grendel’s dam. Great talent, but not so good for these times.”
Now she was truly at a loss. “Uh … the Wolfman.”
“Well, I know the night-blooming wolfbane, but I am most certainly not pure of heart.”
“HAL. T-1000.”
“Enough of the nonhumans.”
“Hannibal Lecter.”
“Better. Nice selection. Too gruesome, though. Not my style.”
“Say warmer or colder.”
“Huh?”
“If I’m close, say ‘warmer.’”
“Very well. I’m ready.”
“Jack Torrance.”
“Uh, warmer. I like his mind, but I’m too pragmatic. Anyway, I never drink … wine.” He laughed at his own joke.
“Tony Montana.”
He laughed. “Scarface? A loser. Also no drugs. You people obsess with such false realities. They are like stinks of fart-clouds. Your fool of a grandfather was one of those druggies.”
“OK, let’s see…”
“I think we’re on our last leg here, Cadence. Think of coin, scratch, silver and gold. That’s your last clue, and you have three guesses left.”
“OK. Hmm. Auric Goldfinger.”
“Ah, very warm. But he’s too arrogant. He should’ve killed Mr. Bond and moved on.”
“Noah Cross, no … no … Gordon Gekko!”
“Whatever you may think of me, I don’t necessarily think greed is good. It’s a fine distinction, I admit. So now, this guess is your last one.”
“My last one?” She only then realized how she had wasted her guesses on some of the unlikeliest movie villains.
“Yes, my dear. Alas, we’re there.”
She took her time, looked at him carefully, thinking about his style. It came to her. Something in his manner suggested it, the same world-weary, dissipated sang-froid. Besides, she remembered the movie Die Hard was on TV late earlier in the week. It was worth the gamble. “I’ve got it.”
“I doubt that.”
“Hans Gruber!”
He seemed surprised, and then raised his hands to give a soft clap clap clap. “Very well done, my dear! Ordinarily, I would say you have won. But, as you might expect, there’s a catch. I must confess.”
He paused.
“Come on,” she said, “there’s no John McClain that could stop you.”
“No, I’m afraid not. These police detectives are a joke. They could never, as they say, get the drop on me. As for you, there’s no way you could win. It’s like life. You play, but you don’t know the rules of the game.”
“You are a bastard. Now you do sound like Tony Soprano. You don’t have the balls to have rules!”
“Now, now, there you go again. I truly did enjoy our conversation. I will now pay a visit to your meddlesome gramps at ye olde Algonquin. And then all this will be finished.”
She looked down and saw the sweep hand on the pocket watch quit moving. It chimed softly, with each note she seemed to stiffen, and the world went an uneasy gray.