Charles de Lint - Forests of the Heart

“So,” he said after a moment. “How’s my mother? Your sisters?”

Sunday gave him a grateful look. When they retreated to the other room to sit on the bed, she brought him up to date on all the gossip since he’d last been back home. It had only been a couple of weeks, but something was always happening on the rez. Events could run the gamut, from silly to tragic, but at least they were mundane, rooted in the real world rather than that of the spirits. Listening helped keep Tommy’s panic at bay, but a supernatural dread had settled deep inside him now, along with the knowledge that his life was no longer his own.

Why did Jack Whiteduck have to see him in a vision?

Miki let herself into her apartment a little after eleven. Closing the door behind her, she shed her boots and hung her jacket on the doorknob of the closet. The apartment was quiet—Donal’s absence reminding her of how angry she was with him all over again. She’d been able to forget for a while, comfortable in Hunter’s company, enjoying the tasty, if somewhat basic fare at the Dear Mouse Diner.

He was quite the man, Hunter was. He’d always treated her well, right from the start, standing up for her when she was a bratty fifteen-year-old and trying to sneak into The Harp for the sessions, never talked down to her or tried to make her feel out of place or stupid. He’d stop and chat when he came upon her busking somewhere, take her out for a meal if he decided she was looking too skinny.

She’d played a battered-up old Hohner two-row in those days that was pure shite—not because of the brand, it was just such a sad old beast of a box. But she’d kept the reeds tuned, patched the tears in the bellows whenever a new one appeared, and it had treated her right, or as well as it could, all things considered. A bit like Hunter, really. Steady. No airs with either of them. She still had the Hohner sitting in a case at the back of her clothes cupboard—didn’t have the heart to toss the poor old bugger out—and she still had Hunter as a friend.

Tonight was a perfect example. He hadn’t pushed when he knew she wasn’t up to talking about what had upset her. Instead he’d eased their conversation into silly, harmless discussions on new releases, odd customer encounters in—and out—of the store, and deliberations on just how weird their co-workers were. As usual, Titus had won out, hand over fist, but then how could he not? Adam was merely an arrested adolescent; one day he might actually grow up. But Titus… Titus was almost pathological.

But now they’d left the easy companionship of the restaurant behind, Hunter had gone off home after seeing her to her door, and all the bad feelings she’d left in the apartment—firmly shutting the door on them for the few hours she was gone—were back once more. Sighing, she went into the living room and slouched down on the couch. She left the lights dark, the sound system off, and waited.

Donal didn’t get in until almost one, fumbling with his key in the lock, tripping over her boots when he got through the door, reeking of alcohol. She let him get his boots off and drop his parka on the floor. It wasn’t until he went stumbling down the hall toward his bedroom that she called out his name.

“Jaysus,” he said, banging back against the wall. “You gave me a right bloody start.”

Miki said nothing for a moment. She had to concentrate on breathing evenly, to get her temper under control before she spoke.

“So what’re you doing, sitting here in the dark?” Donal asked.

“Waiting for you.”

There. That was good. Level tone. Breathing calm. Pulse still too fast.

Donal came into the room and dropped into one of the club chairs.

“Now isn’t that sweet,” he said. “Waiting up for her brother, she is. Why one would almost think she had no life of her—”

“Don’t you dare start in with that shite,” she told him.

So much for staying calm.

“That time of month then, is it?” he asked.

The thing many people didn’t realize, mostly because of her size, was just how strong Miki was. It didn’t take much—a good diet, plenty of the right kind of exercise. You didn’t have to be big to be strong. Donal should have remembered, but he was too soused. He should have remembered her temper as well.

She shot out of the sofa, grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt, and hauled him out of his chair.

“Christ, woman!”

Instead of answering, she shoved him towards the hall. He went stumbling, arms flailing. As soon as he almost caught his balance, she shoved him again, continuing to keep him off balance until they reached the door of his studio. Her bedroom that she’d gone and given up like the bloody fool he’d played her for. At the door she gave him one final shove and he went tumbling. He grabbed at the nearest surface and brought a shower of paint tubes, rags, and brushes down upon himself as he fell.

She stood in the doorway, glaring at him. He made no effort to get up, but there was a royal anger in his eyes as well.

“So,” he asked, the tone of his voice deceptively mild. “Have you lost your fucking mind?”

Miki knew that voice too well. It was the same one their father had used before he’d beat the shite out of one or the other of them. Sometimes both. It didn’t scare her now. But it hurt, because the drunken brother lying on the ground was the same one who’d protected her from the worst of their father’s rages, who’d looked out for her when they’d escaped the clutches of Social Services and went to live on the street.

“No,” she said. “But it looks like you have.”

Donal sat up. “What’re you on about?”

She pointed at the canvas behind him. In the faint light that came in the window from the street lamps outside it looked even more realistic than it had earlier in the evening, as well as more disturbing.

“Oh, that.”

“What’s it about, Donal?”

He shrugged. “It’s a bloody painting—what does it look like?”

“I’ll tell you what it looks like,” Miki said. “It looks like that shite Uncle Fergus was always on about. All that mad ugly talk about the Gentry and stringing up some poor sod who they’d treat like a king all summer, then nail up to a tree come Samhain for the luck of the community.”

“Fergus would be our great-uncle, actually.”

“And you know as well as I that his spew of meanness and spite, with its pretensions to Celtic Twilights and druids and Yeats and all, has no real basis in fact, mythical or historical—not the way he tells it. What he and his cronies spout is just some bloody hodgepodge stolen from a half-dozen different folklores that they’ve bent to their own liking.”

Donal shook his head. “It’s real.”

“Oh, aye. In bits and pieces, each belonging to its own. But not the way they tell it. Their telling is just an excuse to nail up some bugger they don’t like and fuck a few flower-draped handmaidens who’re too scared of their stories about the Gentry and the like to tell them no.”

“The Gentry are real,” Donal told her.

“And my shite smells of roses.”

“Who do you think the hard men are?”

An unhappy quietness settled over Miki. For a long moment she couldn’t speak.

“Don’t tell me you’re spending time with the likes of them,” she said finally.

“It’s not a matter of choice,” Donal said. “Once you’ve gained their attention, you’re either with them or against them. You know what’s said of them: There’s no middle ground with the Gentry.”

“Oh, Donal…”

“Don’t you worry for me. They won’t be hurting me.”