Charles de Lint - Forests of the Heart

“It’s not exactly the same thing.”

“No, but it just goes to show you. Nobody had anything personally against her, there were just people who didn’t like who she was on principal, and even then they didn’t have a clue.”

“And the point is?”

“The point is, I don’t know. Maybe somebody really hates Celtic music or accordions or something. It could be a clue.”

Miki had to smile at that.

“Anyway,” Fiona said. “Do you want some help cleaning up?”

Miki shook her head. “I’m never going back there.”

“But all your stuff…”

“Is ruined,” Hunter put in as he passed by the cash filing CDs. He paused to lean against a browser. “It’s like somebody emptied out the vats of a piss factory in her place.”

Fiona grimaced. “Well, thank you for that lovely image.”

Hunter shrugged and went back to filing CDs.

“It’s true,” Miki said. “They didn’t miss anything except for my old Hohner. I swear, they must’ve had bladders the size of hot air balloons.”

“You’re grossing me out.”

“This from a woman who enjoys Marilyn Manson.”

“It’s not the same.”

Miki nodded. “No, I don’t suppose it is.”

Hunter tuned them out as they got into a discussion of Goth versus Metal and where various artists fit in. Humming along with the Sam Bush CD that was playing on the store’s sound system, he went to the front of the store and started rearranging the new release display to accommodate the latest set of Verve reissues that had come in that morning. He didn’t know what made him look up and out at the street, but when he did, he found himself face-to-face with one of the hard men standing outside the store, smirking at him. When the man saw he had Hunter’s attention, he took a hand out of the pocket of his trench coat, did a Michael Jackson crotch grab, and sauntered off.

Hunter stood there for a long moment trying to fight down the sudden rage that had flared in him, Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans CDs forgotten in his hand. It was hard to let the adrenaline rush go, because fear had been as much a part of what had called it up as anger. When he finally felt calm enough to trust his voice, he turned slowly to see if Miki had noticed the hard man, too, but she and Fiona were still arguing musical classifications. He found a place on the rack for the CDs he was holding, then returned to the counter.

“Fiona,” he said, breaking into their conversation. “You know a lot of these New Age types, right?”

She looked confused. “What, you mean like John Tesh and Yanni fans?”

“No, not music. The other kind of New Age. Healing crystals and Tarot cards and that kind of stuff.”

“I guess. Why? You planning on consulting an oracle to find out when business is going to pick up?”

She grinned at him and turned to Miki to share the joke, but Hunter could tell Miki knew where he was going with this and she only managed a halfhearted smile for Fiona. He wondered if her nostrils had filled with the memory smell of that rank urine back at her apartment the way his just had.

“I was wondering if you knew anybody into Native American spirituality,” he said.

“You mean like for real?”

Hunter nodded.

“Well, Jessica goes up to the rez all the time—”

“You know her,” Miki put in, obviously unable to pass up the opportunity to tease, even in her present mood. “Kind of gangly, with long black hair and a slinky wardrobe.”

Fiona punched her in the arm.

“Like it’s not true,” Miki said.

“What about Jessica?” Hunter asked.

“Well, her boyfriend’s father leads a lot of the sweats and he’s really into the old ways of doing things.”

“Any chance I could talk to either of them?”

“I suppose, but neither of them’s easy to get hold of. They live back in the bush, without a phone. You might be better off with one of the Creek sisters.”

“Who are they?”

“Oh, I know them,” Miki said. “Or a couple of them, at least. Verity and Zulema. They often help out at those benefit concerts for street people that I play at every year.”

“Interesting names,” Hunter said. “Are they Natives?”

Fiona nodded. “There’s like twelve or thirteen of them and everybody up on the rez treats them with deference.”

“So how do I get hold of one of them?”

“I don’t know,” Fiona said. “I’ll call Jessica when she gets home tonight. I can’t call her at work because they’re not allowed to get personal calls there.”

Hunter gave a thoughtful nod. “Maybe I should start thinking about that.”

Fiona gave him a whack on the arm at the same time as Miki threw a section of the newspaper at him.

At closing time Fiona asked Miki if she wanted to stay over at her apartment.

“Depends,” Miki said. “Are you planning any Satanic rituals?”

“Only if you’re still a virgin, as if.”

“And you won’t expect me to dye my hair black?”

“No, but you will have to wear something black and slinky and listen to at least a couple of hours of All About Eve.”

“You still listen to them?”

“Hey, at least the people who write the music I like are still alive.”

Hunter just shook his head. He couldn’t see the pair of them surviving the night, if they kept this kind of thing up.

“You’ll be okay?” he asked Miki.

She nodded.

“Then I’m going to let you lock up.”

“Do you want me to do up the deposit?” she asked.

“We made enough for a deposit?”

“Well…”

“Leave it till tomorrow,” Hunter said. “And good luck. Both of you.”

“What, you don’t think we can get along?” Fiona asked.

Hunter gave them an innocent look. “No, I think you get along famously.” He paused for a moment, inserting one of Fiona’s “as ifs” to himself. “I meant good luck getting home. Crappy weather and all.”

His excuse wasn’t that far off the mark. Over the afternoon, the skies had gone from dismal gray to what it was doing now: letting fall a steady drizzle of freezing rain. The streets and pavement were already slick with ice. Buildings, traffic and street lights all sported long dripping icicles. The traffic was bumper to bumper on Williamson and in the past couple of hours he’d seen more than one pedestrian almost take a fall. Near the bus stops, clumps of wet commuters huddled under the closest awnings, ignoring the way the canvas drooped alarmingly under the growing weight of the ice. Or maybe they no longer cared, just wanting to get home as quickly and as dry as possible, given the circumstances. He put on his coat, not relishing having to go out and join the misery.

“Call me if you get a number for one of those Creek sisters, would you?” he said to Fiona. “If I’m not in, just leave a message on my machine.”

“Yessir, boss.”

“It wasn’t an order.”

“Nosir.”

Hunter sighed as the pair of them giggled. The phone rang, and that, too, for no reason Hunter could discern, struck them as funny. Miki was still snickering when she picked up the receiver.

“No,” he heard her say. “We still don’t have any Who bootlegs.”

Putting up his collar and wishing he had a hat, he left them in the store and immediately lost his footing on the icy pavement, only just saving himself from a fall by grabbing onto the side of the store’s front window. He refused to look back inside at their grinning faces. Instead, he shuffled off like the rest of the pedestrians, sliding his feet along the ice instead of lifting them, feeling like one more drone, inching his way down the assembly line.

By the time he got a few blocks away, his hair was plastered to his head with a thick coating of wet ice and his legs were aching from his awkward gait. If it were just ice, or just rain, it wouldn’t have been so bad. But the ice on the pavement was also covered with puddles which made the footing even more treacherous. You literally couldn’t do anything more than shuffle along.