Faerie Tale (41 page)

“So how are you?” asked Jack.

“Tired.” He sipped the drink Phil handed him. “Thanks. I’m tired and I’m worried.”

“Why?” asked Phil.

Gary said, “Mark’s vanished.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Gabbie.

“Mark’s disappeared somewhere in Germany.” Gary paused, then said, “It’s tied in to that business about Fredrick Kessler being a member of some organization or another. I talked to Mark back when I was in Seattle and he was still in New York, and we compared notes. I sent him copies of the translations we got from the parchments. They’re no more bizarre than a lot of other ancient religious stuff looks to us modern types. But Mark came across something in New York that sent him to Germany. He didn’t say what. I know him well enough, however, to know he was truly disturbed. And,” he said with a sigh, “sometime since I last talked to him, he’s just vanished.

“He called me in Seattle from his hotel in Munich and asked me to investigate a friend of Kessler’s who had settled in Canada. I went to Ottawa, then London, Ontario,
then back to Ottawa. I called his hotel in Munich at the agreed-upon time, and he’d checked out. They gave me his destination, but he never got there. Now, Mark’s jumped off the track before, side excursions that last a week or two, but he always gets word to me where he can be reached. This time … nothing.”

Gary sipped his drink while the others exchanged glances. Phil asked, “Should we try to contact someone in Germany?”

Gary shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe the American embassy. They might know who to contact.” He shook his head. “But I have a feeling that if Mark’s in trouble, we might not see him again.”

Those words had a chilling effect on everyone in the room. Gloria spoke in almost a whisper. “Gary, you’re scaring me.” She remembered the premonition she had had the night she had last seen Mark.

Gary said, “Sorry, folks. It’s just things in Canada were pretty weird.” He sipped his drink again. “What was the most … disturbing about Canada wasn’t what I found but what I couldn’t find.”

“What do you mean?” asked Gabbie.

“In Canada I kept hitting walls. Kessler’s buddy who had come to Canada was named Hans von Leer. In London he changed it to Hans Van der Leer.”

“That sounds Dutch,” said Jack.

“Right. He was reported in the local papers as a Dutchman. He showed up about five years after Kessler came to Pittsville. Where he was before that is tough to figure. Mr. Van der Leer, or von Leer if you will, went to a great deal of trouble to hide his origins. Everywhere I turned I found pages missing from documents, files misplaced, notations erased, a thousand things designed to make it impossible to get a hint as to who Van der Leer had been in Germany. I think that’s some of what Mark went to Germany to discover: Who was this Van der Leer, and how did he relate to Kessler and the others from southern Germany? How was it all tied in to that business at the turn of the century?

“So I looked hard and came up dry. What’s got me
jumpy is … it looks like Kessler’s organization still exists, is still active.”

Gabbie said, “That’s scary.”

Phil said, “Gary, Mark said something about this secret society business, but not much more. Do you have any idea of what this might all be about?”

Gary said, “If what Mark thinks is true, there’s a someone, maybe a group, who can confuse your memory, even make you forget interactions with them.” Gary paused, then said, “No one else answer. Gabbie, what do you remember about the barn?”

Gabbie looked at the others in the room, confused, then smiled. “The barn?” She laughed. “You mean like it needs painting, or the roof leaks?”

“No, I mean like the fellow you met there who tried to rape you.”

Gabbie’s expression was one of confusion. “Rape?” Then slowly her look of perplexity was changed to one of fright as her face drained of color. Softly, almost inaudibly, she said, “I’d forgotten.”

Jack’s expression was one of disbelief. “You’d forgotten? How’s that possible?”

Gary held up his hand when questions came thick and fast. “Slowly, folks. I just wanted to demonstrate something Mark discovered the night we chased the assailant into the woods. Gabbie’s forgotten because the fellow she met had … some ability to make her forget what happened that night. If I keep prodding, Gabbie will remember things, but as soon as I stop, she’ll begin to forget it all. I’m not certain, but it may be that if we don’t remind her for a long enough time, she’ll completely forget it ever happened. Maybe”—he looked around the room—“even deny it happened.”

Gabbie said, “If I concentrate, I can.… It’s weird, but it’s like I can barely remember a movie I saw a long time ago, or … a dream I had when I was a kid.”

Gary said, “It’s more than weird. It’s damn near impossible. From what little I know about assaults and rape, you should have everything that happened etched in your memory in vivid detail—or be in a classic denial,
blanking it out.” He sipped his drink. “Mark was subject to the same thing.” He explained what happened the night Mark and Gary chased the assailant into the woods, and how Mark couldn’t remember without listening to the tape recording he’d made, until Gary hypnotized him to remember. Looking at Jack he said, “How’s your shoulder?”

Jack seemed surprised by the question. “Fine.… Which shoulder?”

“Your right, the one that was infected.”

Jack whistled low. He looked at the others. “Damn, me too.”

“Mark … palmed some sort of odd little dart.… The doctor thought it was a bone chip, he told me.”

Gloria’s agitation was obvious. “Gary, what are you saying? That we’ve got some sort of crazy people hiding in the woods out there? Who rape and shoot poisoned darts and … shit, what?”

Gary added, “I don’t know if I should be telling you this … but … damn it, if Mark doesn’t … come back, I don’t want to deal with this by myself. Mark didn’t just see a kid in the woods that night.” He told them what he had heard on the tape, and what Mark had confided in him after hypnosis.

All sat stunned by the description of the riders in the woods. Aggie was the first to speak. In even tones she said, “Gary, it’s impossible.”

“If I hadn’t been sitting there watching Mark when he heard the tape, saw his reaction, well, I’d agree the whole thing was impossible. I’ve given a lot of thought to this, Aggie; either Mark saw the impossible. Or”—he paused—“his mind was controlled.”

Gabbie said, “Maybe riders did come through”—her voice trailed off—“in costume?”

Aggie said, “Girl, what Mark described is the Wild Hunt.”

Phil said, “Aggie?”

“It’s a legend. The riders of the Wild Hunt ride the woods at night, chasing those who … are evil, or who have offended the riders, or—depending on the version of
the legend—just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Phil said, “What is this?” His voice held a nervous laugh, as if all this was passing beyond his ability to understand. “Some sort of Irish Ku Klux Klan?”

Aggie’s voice showed she was disturbed. “Philip, the riders are Daonie Sidhe—the Old People, fairies.” Phil blinked. “Their leader is a creature with the head of a wild stag. They ride horses no mortal may mount. It’s an Irish fairy legend.”

“That’s impossible,” said Jack.

“Dad,” said Gabbie softly, “remember the tapestry? It shows those riders and some of the … game hanging from poles is people.”

Phil shook his head. “I’ll buy some sort of nut group dressing up and pretending this stuff … maybe. Even that Kessler and his bunch were run out of Germany for being found out as a gang of religious terrorists—but what’s this all got to do with Gabbie’s assault and Mark’s encounter?”

Gary looked defeated. “I just don’t know. Mostly because I don’t know what Mark’s doing in Germany. He’s been unusually closemouthed about what he believes. I can sort of put two and two together because of what he’s had me doing.” He sighed. “All I can say is there is strong evidence that there are people around today who are still involved with what Kessler was involved with eighty years ago.

“Suppose this secret group Kessler and Van der Leer were members of was privy to some secret of mind control—just play along for a minute—which makes them cause people to forget … or gives them the power to cause people to see visions. Maybe someone else besides the Shadow has the power to cloud men’s minds.” Gary’s voice rose at the last, frustration clearly evident. He forced himself back to calmness. “Sorry, I’m beat. Look, if such a group once did exist, and they did have some unusual power, it explains why they can still be around, still thrive even, without anyone else knowing they’re active.

“Assume there’s nothing supernatural about it at all. Suppose for a moment Phil’s right, and it’s a group of people dressed up and riding around and there’s some rational explanation for the weird qualities Mark attributed to them. Maybe they used a drug on Mark and Gabbie—there was certainly some sort of fast-acting drug on the dart they shot Jack with, from what Mark told me. You’re still left with the fact there’s a bunch of pretty strange jokers getting dressed up and riding around the countryside at night, doing their best to imitate something out of Celtic myth. That’s what Mark had me digging around in before you guys found the stuff in the basement, by the way. He’s had me generate pages of notes on Celtic legends and later Irish and Scottish myth. Anyway, maybe we’ve run afoul of Kessler’s group, and this stuff is just window dressing. But until we understand who they are, what they’re doing, we don’t have a clue about what we’re dealing with. Mark knew more about this, but he’s … gone. It’s clear, though, that what happened in Germany at the turn of the century is happening again here, if to a lesser degree.” He was silent for a minute. “And from what I experienced in Canada, I think someone’s trying to prevent outsiders from discovering what they’re up to.”

Gabbie put her hand to her mouth. “Oh, Gary, you’re really scaring me now.”

“I’m scared too, Gabbie. This is so weird. Weirder than most of the stuff we usually mess with. And it’s getting harder to understand what we’re into as we dig deeper. The more I uncover, the less I know. I just wish I knew where Mark was.” Gary closed his eyes and rubbed them. With a shake of his head, he said, “Well, now that I’ve made everybody’s day, I could use some sleep. So I think I’ll be off.”

“Won’t you stay and eat something?” asked Phil. “We’ve a ham in the oven.”

“Thanks, but no. I’m not hungry and I really do need a nap. Besides, if I know Ellen, she’ll want to come by and fix something, considering I’ve been gone all but three days the last month. Give me a day to get it to
gether, then I’ll drop by again. And let me know how things are with Patrick.”

They all stood. Good-byes were made, and as Gary left, Sean appeared at the doorway, inquiring about dinner. Aggie herded him down the hall to the kitchen for a snack to hold him over, while Gabbie said, “That was some business. It’s pretty scary stuff all right.”

Jack nodded. “And there’s still Kessler’s gold. Maybe that’s what they’re after.”

“Could be,” said Gabbie. “Maybe they don’t know we’ve already found it, and are trying to scare us off so they can look for it themselves.”

Phil said, “Well, that’s the first theory that makes some sense. If it is Kessler’s old buddies looking for the gold, that would certainly explain away everything—a hallucinogenic dust, and costumes. ’Cause, until I see one of these fairies, Kessler’s mysterious colleagues make a lot more sense. But I think I’ll withhold judgment, because even that’s a little too strange for me. As weird as all this conjecture is, I still think the truth will prove a whole lot simpler than ancient secret societies with mysterious mind powers.”

Gloria came to Phil’s side and put her arms around him. Softly she said, “No. It all fits together somehow. We’re just not seeing how the pieces mesh. And it has something to do with Patrick—”

Phil cut her off, afraid of her becoming too emotional again. “Honey, this is the twentieth century, to coin a cliché. We’re not sitting atop an ancient shrine to Cthulhu, after all. What we’ve got is some gold and strange stuff left over from an odd old immigrant from Germany, and”—his voice softened—“a tragic illness. That’s plenty for now.” He hugged her tight, then in lighter tone said, “Look, maybe you ought to take Sean out to the Coast and visit your mother?” The last two days had been pretty rugged for them all, but Gloria and Sean seemed to be getting the worst of it. The shock of seeing Patrick had made her hysterical for hours, and while she’d gotten a hold of herself, the strain showed. And Sean had become moody and withdrawn.

Gloria didn’t hesitate as she said, “No. Thanks for the offer, but … I want to stay close, and it wouldn’t be good for Sean. Let’s try to keep things as normal around here as possible.”

“Okay, if you’re sure. For now I think I’ll go and catch a few minutes of the news on the tube. Join me?”

With a halfhearted smile, Gloria nodded and went with Phil to the parlor. At the door he paused and said, “Jack, in all this craziness, I’ve forgotten to ask. What about your orals?”

Jack winced. “Tomorrow afternoon at three. I was going to postpone—”

“But I wouldn’t let him,” said Gabbie.

Gloria smiled a half-sad smile. “Good for you, kid. Well, good luck, Jack.”

Phil echoed the wish as they left the room.

Gabbie looked at Jack. “That thing about the assault was weird.”

“You really forgot?”

“All of it. If Gary or you or someone hadn’t mentioned it, I think I might never have remembered. And even now I’ve got to work at remembering.”

“It’s creepy. I have to work at remembering just how messed up my shoulder got.”

“What do you think of all this?”

“I don’t know. Gary was talking some pretty weird-sounding stuff. Maybe your dad’s right. Maybe there’s a rational explanation behind everything.” He stood up. With a theatrical sigh he said, “Look, I’m going to have to do some last-minute cramming for my exams. I could use a little coaching, if you don’t mind.”

Gabbie took his hand. “Later—tonight.” She stood and her expression brightened. “Right now I want a quiet walk with my fella. Let’s stroll down the road. This is the first non-wet day I’ve seen in a week, and it’s not too cold.”