The Mysteries (24 page)

“What did you say to her?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Something stupid. Something vague. I was playing for time; my mind was racing. I thought: She's got a boyfriend back at college. I thought: I was too quick to tell her she didn't have to go back. She doesn't know if she wants to go back or not. She doesn't know what she wants. I was desperate not to say the wrong thing. I wanted her to confide in me; I wanted to be able to help. All this, so many thoughts and feelings whirling around in a matter of seconds, and she said, ‘He's here.'

“There was a strange man standing in my kitchen. He was just inches away, between her and me, and he hadn't been there a second ago. I almost screamed. And yet, although it was impossible, I wasn't really afraid.”

“What did he look like?”

She smiled wryly. “Guess.”

“Incredibly handsome. Long blond hair, old-fashioned clothes . . . ?”

“Right. I described the same character that Hugh had met earlier the same evening. Of course, by the time I was under hypnosis saying all of this, I knew all about that; I'd practically memorized everything Hugh had said.”

She sighed and rubbed the side of her face with one hand; the other still rested on top of the book, like someone taking an oath. “He told me his name was Mider, and that he had come to take his wife home with him. He held out his arms to her, and she walked into them, a dreamy look on her face, then they both disappeared, right in front of my eyes.”

Our food arrived then. I could not have felt less interested in it, but Laura automatically picked up her fork.

“You saw her disappear. The end?”

She frowned. “Then . . . then I heard a noise and looked toward the window, and there were these two white doves on the windowsill. You know that kind of clattering sound pigeon wings make when they flap? I heard that sound, getting louder and louder all around me. I saw the birds fly out through the window, and as they went, I saw a single, white feather float down through the air. I caught it in my hands.” She put down her fork without taking a bite.

“There really was a feather. I found it a couple of days after Peri disappeared. It was caught between the couch cushions. A big white feather—not a dove's, more like a swan's. I have no idea where it came from, or how long it had been there.”

Looking a little more relaxed, perhaps just relieved to have finished her story, she began to eat.

“Did you tell Hugh?”

She frowned. “No, of course not. Why should I?”

“Did you tell Polly?”

“Well, yes. It was her idea that I should try hypnotic regression, so of course . . .” She took a bite of lettuce and cheese.

“What did she think?”

Mouth full, Laura did not reply. She rolled her eyes.

“She thought it was true?”

“Well . . . kind of. She didn't really push it, but she said it could be psychologically true, we could interpret it like a dream, as a subconscious understanding of what had happened to Peri.”

“Meaning?”

“Oh, that Peri had made her choice, that she had gone off with this man, this stranger, and I should accept it was what she wanted.”

“Did you ever read ‘The Wooing of Etain'?”

“What's that?”

“You'd recognize the story. It's an old Irish tale. Hugh read it, he told me as research for
The Flower-Faced Girl
.”

“But that's based on a Greek legend. Demeter and Persephone.”

“That story in Peri's notebook—”

Laura looked wary. “I told you, that didn't really happen.”

“It could be a modern retelling of part of ‘The Wooing of Etain.'”

“Oh! Well, of course
she
might have read it, she might even have told it to Hugh. I told you, she always loved fairy tales.” Her glance fell again on the book beside her plate. “Is it in here?”

I nodded.

“So that's why . . . You want me to read it?”

I sawed at my steak although I was too tense to have much appetite. “You probably should. Everybody else involved seems to know the story.”

“I don't understand. How could an old Irish fairy tale have anything to do with us? Who is Mider, really? You have an idea, don't you?”

This was it, the moment of truth. I thought of Fred in that Scottish pub, telling me about the abduction into the Otherworld of Robert Kirk. I put down my knife and fork and took a deep breath. Her eyes were fixed on mine as she waited for my explanation, an explanation I already knew she would not be able to accept.

I exhaled. “Excuse me a minute, would you? I have to go . . .” I gestured toward the back, where I presumed the toilets would be. I got up slowly and even managed to smile at her before sauntering away.

The corridor that led to the restrooms terminated in a fire door. It didn't look to me like the door was alarmed, but even if it was, it was still an easy way out. All I had to do was push down on the bar and I could be outside the restaurant, free and away in a matter of seconds. How long before she'd realize I wasn't coming back? Of course, she could call my mobile, but she'd never reach me if I kept it switched off or threw it away. I had my credit card on me, and an all-day, all-zones travel card. I could be at Heathrow in an hour, or Gatwick, or Waterloo Station in twenty minutes. When I'd taken the Eurostar to Paris last year, nobody even asked to see my passport until I came back. It was easy to disappear; it was only a matter of having the will.

Those thoughts ran through my head in the few moments it took me to turn to the left and step inside the men's room, but I wasn't even vaguely tempted. I knew the many ways there were for people to disappear precisely because I'd devoted myself to finding them and bringing them back. That was what I did; I wasn't the one who ran away.

Leaving the table wasn't entirely a ruse to gain time—I did actually need the bathroom—but I had an idea that Laura would make use of my absence to read “The Wooing of Etain,” and that suited me.

I washed my hands slowly, dried them thoroughly under the noisy blower, then took a deep breath and counted to twenty before I reentered the restaurant.

Laura looked up from the book as I approached. I noticed her face was a funny color, a pale yellow, and her eyes shined weirdly dark. Before I could sit down, she slammed the book shut and got up, her chair making a harsh, grating sound as it scraped across the floor.

“Polly told you. Don't you tell
me
you don't know her, because I never told
anyone
but her; there's no one else you could have heard it from. How could she? How could
you
? What the hell is all this about? Why lie? What did you think you were going to get out of me, huh?”

She was like a stranger, shaking, possessed. I shook my head in confusion. “What are you accusing me of? I promise you, I don't know Polly. What's happened? Look, would you calm down? Just sit down, sit, please, and tell me what you're talking about.”

I kept my voice low. The people at the next table were watching us like we were the floor show.

Laura dropped her voice to match mine, but stayed on her feet. “This story! All the details! How did you
know
?” She thumped the book with the flat of her hand.

“
I
didn't write it. That book was published long before I was born, and the story's been around for centuries. If you don't believe me, try a library.” I kept my gaze steady on her, and saw a flicker of uncertainty lighten her eyes. Finally she pulled out her chair and sat down.

“Now you see why I wanted you to read it.”

She shook her head slowly, but not in disagreement. “Who is Mider?”

“A great king of the Celtic Otherworld. One of the
Sidhe
. Maybe a god.”

“I mean really. In the real world.”

“I have no idea.”

“Probably Irish, right, since he's so obsessed with old Irish myths. And he must be awfully rich . . .”

My heart sank as she went on rationalizing into existence a bizarre yet human villain. Ridiculous though that was, it was still easier to swallow than the truth. How could I tell her Mider was the king of the fairies?

“But how did he know about Peri?”

I looked at her blankly, but she must have read some meaning into my expression, because her eyes widened, and she gasped. “Polly! You think Mider knew Polly!”

She rushed on. “They must have been involved—she always had terrible luck with men—she was too trusting—she must have told him—she's the only one who could have told him—nobody else knew—I never told
anyone
but Polly.”

“Told her what?”

The normal color had come back to her face, and her cheeks flushed pink. “It's silly, I know. You asked about Peri's father, and I said she didn't have one—that's true. When I got pregnant, I wasn't in a relationship. By the time I realized I was pregnant I thought it
was
impossible. When the doctor told me the due date, and I counted back . . .” She looked down, fiddling with her fork, the flush in her face turning darker. “I hadn't slept with anyone that whole week—longer. And what I remembered most from that week was being at a party, a cookout on a patio. I was drinking punch, and a fly landed in my cup, and . . .” She wrinkled her nose. “I swallowed it.”

“And that was Peri's conception,” I said neutrally.

“I know it sounds crazy, but, yeah, that's what I thought. Of course, later I realized the doctor must have miscalculated, or I had. It's not like I'd been
totally
celibate for months on end.
Of course
Peri has a biological father; she was conceived in the usual way. I wish I'd never told Polly about that damn fly. If she hadn't told this Mider guy—”

“We don't know yet if your friend has anything to do with him. I'll need to talk to her—”

“Fine. Maybe you should just fly straight to DFW, rent a car, drive out to the ranch, and confront her; don't give her any warning,” said Laura. She leaned intently toward me. “You might get more out of her that way.”

“Maybe.”

“But you have another idea?”

I nodded. I reached for my glass and drained the rest of the wine from it, hoping it could give me courage. “I suggest we start in Scotland, in the area where Peri was last seen.”

She cocked her head, waited.

I took a deep breath. “You remember I mentioned my very first case, a girl who went missing in Scotland, had some similarities to this one?”

She nodded.

I had never told anyone Amy's story. Once, feeling myself in the right, sympathetic company, I had started, but for some reason the words had dried up and stuck in my throat.

That didn't happen this time. I took it slowly, went into lots of detail, emphasized my own total disbelief when I was first treated to stories about the being known as the love-talker and the legends that had accrued around a genuine historic figure like Robert Kirk.

At first, she was with me. The waiter came to clear away our plates and brought us coffee; but she didn't touch hers, too caught up in the narrative, her eyes fixed on mine. I felt a wonderful sense of mastery; I loved the fascination on her face. And then, I guess it was as I started to go into a little too much detail about the stories Fred had told me of all the different people who'd been to the Otherworld and back, the expression on Laura's face began to congeal. She dropped her eyes and concentrated on stirring cream into her coffee, adding sweetener, then drinking it in slow sips while I talked on and on.

I began to hurry, then, to stumble over my words and rush along, eager to get to the good part, the successful rescue, the happy end. I was losing Laura's attention, but still imagined I could compel her belief. When I finally finished, the silence between us was like a dead thing on the table.

She sighed and set her empty coffee cup back in its saucer with a decisive click, the dull sound of shattered bone. I waited for her to protest, raise objections, ask questions—some point of entry into an argument. She looked me in the face with a kind of resigned contempt and said nothing.

“It's true,” I said stupidly. “That's really what happened.”

“You think Peri's in Fairyland.”

“We can get her back.”

“No. Not ‘we.' There's no ‘we.' I don't want anything more to do with you or your crazy fantasies. I would never have hired you if I'd known you believed in fairies.”

I forbore to point out that she had not, in fact, hired me. The contract I'd brought along was still unsigned, and she'd paid me nothing, despite the work I'd already done. Actually, she owed me, not that it was the time to point that out.

“You're not working for me, you're fired, understand? I don't want to hear from you again.” Her voice remained level and cold; she was furious, but I wasn't worth even the heat of her anger.

She got up and left the restaurant without looking back, leaving behind the book I'd given her, and of course leaving me to pay for lunch. As far as she was concerned, I was off the case. I, of course, felt differently.

21. Practicalities

Best times:
Twilight
Midnight
The hour before sunrise
Noon

Best days:
Halloween/Samhain (Oct. 31)
Beltane (May 1)
Midsummer (June 21–24)
Lammas (Aug. 1)

For safety:
Keep your wits about you.
Do not eat or drink during visit.
Carry about your person: St John's wort, churchyard mold, bread and salt, an iron dagger and/or a staff made of rowan wood