Charles de Lint - Forests of the Heart

No, if her host had been having an argument, it had been with herself, and Ellie knew what that could mean from riding with Tommy in the Angel Outreach van. Hearing voices, arguing with them… when you put that together with sharp mood swings, you had the makings of a mental disturbance of some sort. It didn’t mean the person was necessarily violent, but the potential was there, which was why Angel had her people work in pairs, with the women always having a male partner for more protection. Angel taught them that the people they had to deal with were usually not to blame for their condition—the chemical imbalance that was at the heart of most of these problems was simply a matter of genetic roulette. But that didn’t make them any less dangerous. Or potentially so. Especially if they refused, as many did, to take their medication.

Are you taking yours? Ellie wondered, regarding Wood in a new light. Her gaze dropped down to the two halves of the broken mask. For that matter, could she take any of this seriously? The commission, the residency…

You’re blowing this all out of proportion, she told herself. Musgrave Wood was simply an eccentric old woman with money to throw around, end of story. Don’t pull a Tommy and look for the kind of deeper meaning that only the Aunts could unravel. But the warning buzz had never been wrong before and it wouldn’t go away.

“Well,” she said. “I’m glad you’re feeling better now.”

She kept her voice evenly modulated and held herself so that there was nothing threatening in how she stood. Smiled brightly.

Wood regarded her curiously for a moment, then shrugged.

“When you come tomorrow,” she said, “go directly to the house and ask for Nuala. She’ll see that you’re looked after.”

“Great,” Ellie said. “And the mask… ?”

“Nuala will have it in keeping for you.”

Ellie kept her smile in place. She knew it had to look phony, because it certainly felt phony, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. She was on automatic, following the rules that Angel had drilled into them during their training. Smile a lot. Keep your voice even. Never appear threatening.

“Until tomorrow, then,” she said.

Wood gave her a slow, thoughtful nod, then walked with her to the door.

Musgrave stood with her hand against the door for a long moment before stepping over to the window. She watched Ellie walk across the snow-covered lawn towards the main house and marveled. So much geasan, housed all unknowingly in that mortal frame. It was as though an echo of the Northern Lights had been caught under her skin and was now escaping from her pores in pulsing waves.

I was like that once, Musgrave thought. Not nearly so strong, of course, but at least I knew. Oh, I knew.

There was the sound of movement behind her, a curtain moving, footsteps on the pine floor, but she didn’t turn from the window until she heard the strike of a match on the wood surface of her table.

“I told you not to smoke in here,” she said to the tall, dark-haired man lounging in the chair that Ellie had so recently quit.

The man regarded her, eyes dark, hand-rolled cigarette in his mouth, lit match in his hand. For a long moment their gazes held, then he smiled and shook out the match. He put the cigarette behind his ear, dropped the match on the table.

“ ‘Many Mice Wood?’ ” he asked.

She laughed and joined him at the table. There was still tea left in the brown betty. She poured them each a mug, giving him the one Ellie had been using. Since it hadn’t been rinsed, a light film of milk rode to the top of the tea. The man didn’t appear to notice, or if he did, care.

“Actually, it’s a true story,” she said.

“I’m sure it is.”

He added milk and sugar to his tea and drank it down with relish. Setting the mug down, he picked up the two halves of the mask and held them up, looking at her overtop of them.

“Iron doesn’t hurt us,” he said.

“I know. But it doesn’t conduct geasan well and…” She shrugged. “I thought it might set her thinking.”

“She doesn’t strike me as one overly interested in anything that can’t be measured and weighed by some man in a white coat holding the same blinkered views of the world as she does.”

“Don’t start on that again,” Musgrave told him. “She’s an artist.”

“She’s human.”

“She may not embrace the mysteries, but she still sees more than most do. That’s the gift and curse of an artist. I agree it would be better if she realized she was working with truths, rather than stories, but consider what she has to offer.”

It seemed that the argument Ellie’s arrival had interrupted was about to begin again, but then her guest shrugged.

“The geasan runs strong,” he conceded.

Musgrave nodded. After meeting the girl again today, she realized it was even stronger than she’d remembered. But that was the way of the geasan. It sidled and slipped, danced like shadows and light. Out of sight, out of mind. She’d given up wondering why a long time ago. If the mysteries were fathomable, they wouldn’t be mysteries.

She took the mask halves from him. Placing them back on the cloth, she refolded it into a bundle and tied it closed with the leather thongs. Her guest took the cigarette from behind his ear and rolled it back and forth between his fingers.

“But she’s a busy woman,” he said after a moment. “Easily distracted.”

“She’ll do fine.”

“Last night there was a man sniffing around her.”

Musgrave sighed. “She’s a young, attractive woman. What would you expect? Of course men would be interested in her. And what does it matter?”

“I don’t like it.”

“Why? Because it’s not one of you Gentry doing the sniffing?”

He gave her a hard gaze, but she only laughed at him.

“Give it a rest,” she told him. “And leave her alone. There’s no need for you to keep watch over her anymore. Go get drunk and listen to that music you fancy so much.”

“You don’t understand.”

“What? The drinking, or the music?”

He shrugged. “Either. It’s hard, living as we do, and grows harder every year. The music takes us away. There’s a promise in it, of all we never had.”

Musgrave laid her hand upon the bundled mask. “When this is done, you will have whatever you want.”

“Perhaps. If only she weren’t human.”

“We need her to make the mask,” Musgrave said. “Not wear it.”

He nodded, his dark eyes growing thoughtful.

“I don’t trust the little bugger you have in mind for that job,” he said, his voice soft. “I don’t trust him at all.”

“The trick is to use someone we can control.”

“And if we can’t?”

“Let me worry about him,” she told him, with more confidence than she felt.

“It’ll be on your head.”

Didn’t she know that, Musgrave thought.

“So you’ll leave the girl alone until she’s done her job?” she asked.

He gave another nod and rose to his feet. Musgrave remained at the table as he crossed the room and left the cabin. He had no word of parting for her and she kept her own peace. The lack of amenities between them didn’t surprise her. They’d been uneasy allies from the first.

Outside the window, she saw him pause to light his cigarette, then slip off into the woods behind her cabin. A faint intuition prickled up the length of her spine.

Something was coming, she knew. She could taste it in the air, feel the weight of it in her bones. A change, certainly. Perhaps danger as well. But she couldn’t place its source. It could come from the native spirits whose land the Gentry wished to claim for their own. It could come from the Gentry themselves. It could even come from a player who had yet to step onto the game board.