Other Kingdoms

Chapter Twenty-three

The first thing my faerie friends did was make me small.

I know that sounds far-fetched. Actually, it sounds like an Arthur Black contrivance. But I assure you it took place. Anyway, if you buy my account up till now—witchcraft, Middle Kingdom faeries?—you shouldn’t have any trouble swallowing my losing a little stature.

God knows I had more than any trouble swallowing the drink they gave me to get smaller. I threw up half of it. And a little stature, did I say? Six feet two inches to three-one? Yow. That’s shrinking!

But I did it. I had to. I couldn’t stay with Ruthana otherwise. I know she’d assumed full human size, but that was only temporary; she couldn’t manage it permanently. She only did it for—well, you remember what. (I’m blushing inside.) Furthermore, I could not remain human size either. It was not acceptable, not permitted. I had to get small. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it was a fact. Stay full size? Impossible. I’d be ousted from Middle Kingdom. And that was unacceptable to me. I loved Ruthana too much. Much too much.

So I endured three weeks of—what shall I call it?—diminution. Not pleasant. Not pleasant at all. Remember what I told you about a witch’s becoming invisible? The flesh slowly contracting, the skeletal bones gradually losing density, the organs dissolving? I experienced something akin to that. I could actually feel my body getting smaller. The more I drank of that dreadful stuff, the faster it happened; most of it in the third week. I spent one night in sheer agony. Ruthana tried to comfort me. In vain; she’d understated—I guess she knew it would hurt but didn’t want to frighten me.

There was nothing she could do. The process was under way, and there was no way to reverse it while it was taking place. How simple the process was for them. Boom! Size changed. Just like that. Not for me. If I hadn’t loved Ruthana so much, I would have asked them (pleaded with them) to put me out of my misery—skeleton slowly shrinking (pretty good triplet there), flesh slowly drawing in, even my eyes (my eyes, for Chrissake!) getting smaller. All in a solitary room who knew where? On a simple cot. Suffering.

Finally (another week of it, and I would have—well, not made it, put it that way), it was finished, I was faerie size. It still sounds stupid (another triplet!). But—regardless—it did happen. Ruthana and I were the same size; from now on my name was Alexi. We “loved” to celebrate the occasion. I thought that while we were “doing it” that the process could have—in my diseased imagination—gone on uninterruptedly until I was a firefly—a size they claimed they could assume. Six-two to an insect! Disturbing image. It delayed my climax.

Not too long, though.

Our wedding was a small affair. No hordes of applauding guests. No orchestra playing Mendelssohn. No dance. No sitdown dinner—chicken or fish.

Just Ruthana and me.

Together in a paradisical (if that’s not a word, it should be) glade in the woods. Next to a sweetly (that is the appropriate word) bubbling stream, surrounded by birch trees (sacred to the faerie folk) and flowers of such brilliant hues that I hesitate to describe them. (A. Black has his limitations.) Let’s just say that the colors were heavenly and let it go at that.

Our ceremony was equally small. I don’t mean small; there was no element to it that was “small” in any way. I mean it didn’t take hours; it was over in several minutes.

Ruthana was wearing a pale blue gossamer gown, virtually transparent. I have never, in this life—and, perhaps, in my next—seen such beauty. Golden-haired, angelic face, exquisite body—you see now why I used the words “paradisical” (real or not) and “heavenly.” There are no other words possible.

Of course, there were some guidelines to our marriage. I was not to ask Ruthana about her life before she met me. I was not to strike her. Ever. I must not look at her at certain times. (I think we know what that means; even faerie females must abide by the moon.)

Since none of these rules were difficult for me to follow, our wedding was permitted. In our case, without a full Middle Kingdom brouhaha, but permitted nonetheless.

It could not have been better. Ruthana and me in this wonderful setting. Drinking a delicious potion, Ruthana whispering an ancient love spell.

You for me

And I for thee

and for none else

Your face to mine

and your head turned away

from all others

You like that? I do. A lot.

We “loved” that night. Over and over. Mr. and Mrs. Alexander (Alexi) “Shrimp” (except in relative terms, of course).

I was at home. Sweet home. Beautiful home—Gatford woods. Safe home.

Well, not exactly. There was still Gilly to contend with. The first time he saw me, newly sized, he said (nastily as always), “You think you’re one of us now, don’t you? You’re not. You’re still a Human Being. (That’s the way he expressed it, as though the words were capitalized. And dirty.)

This is what happened the first time he attacked me. Grade A attack first crack out of the bag; that was Gilly. Good ol’ Gilly.

Ruthana and I were walking together, hand in hand. She never left my side. When I slept at night, she had some sort of protective force watching over me. Either that or she did something to Gilly that made him sleep, that used to infuriate him. As though he needed additional fury to bolster his already overflowing supply. Ruthana even waited for me—patiently, discreetly (to a fault) when I emptied my bladder and/or bowels. God, she was patient! I didn’t like the idea that she had to keep a constant lookout for her crazy brother-in-law, but there it was. The price I had to pay for living with Ruthana. And was glad (limitedly) to pay.

As I said, we were walking in the woods, holding hands. Summer still abided, the tree foliage breathtaking with different shades of green, the ground strewn with fallen leaves of the same colors. They crackled underneath our feet as we walked. Ruthana was barefooted; I was wearing a pair of shoes taken from Gilly’s voluminous collection. (That didn’t please him much either, let me tell you.)

As we walked, I was asking Ruthana a question that had plagued me since our first meeting in, as I recall, June. If she had control over Gilly, why did she make me flee from Gilly in the first place?

Her answer was immediate—and sweet. She knew, she said, that she had fallen in love with me but was so confused by the emotion (a first for her—I never asked her further about that) that she wasn’t able to think clearly and could only, on impulse, get me away from Gilly and out of the woods. Before we parted, all she could think of saying was that she loved me. I accepted her answer completely.

So much so that I asked for a second one. The raucous party I heard that night in my cottage. Was it real or imagination? Oh, it was probably real, she answered simply. Middle Kingdom parties often do get noisy, and the celebrants make little effort to suppress their gaiety. “Did they keep you awake?” she asked me sympathetically. I kissed her and said it wasn’t that bad, I just wondered what it was.

I told her then that since form-enlarging was only a temporary ability for faeries, I couldn’t help but be amused by the image of how the “trench boys” must have reacted to the sight of Harold shrinking to faerie dimensions when he died. Ruthana smiled at that, but explained that Harold could not—on his own, away from his true home—have managed to retain human size. He had to be assisted.

“How did he do it, then?” I asked.

“The way you did,” she said.

“That much pain?” I asked, astounded.

“The other way around, of course,” she answered.

“Did—?” I hesitated to ask. But did. “Being in the army meant that much to him?” I asked.

“England meant that much to him,” she answered.

“Did Gilly—?” I started, couldn’t finish.

“Gilly hates human beings; as you know,” she said, “England is human beings.”

“Yes, I understand,” I said, remembering that I joined the army not out of love for the United States but of hatred for you know who. I should stop calling him that. He was Captain Bradford Smith White, USN. Still is, I suppose. No, he couldn’t (God forbid) be alive. The United States Navy—and the world—must be rid of him by now. If not he’d be—let’s see—at least 109 by now, a wrinkled old prune of a man, still mean as hell, bitching in a naval retirement home somewhere on the East Coast. Ghastly image. Can I never be rid of his deletenous self?

Having been, involuntarily, plunged back into family, I—without thinking—inquired about Ruthana’s family. Her real, her blood family.

Her answer was hesitant, even guarded. In the Middle Kingdom, there are no families in the customary sense, she told me. The entire body of them is their family. Their unity comes from a relationship not of blood but of community, of environment. Ruthana did have a blood father, but he was killed in an accident, and Garal’s (in a sense) family “adopted” her and raised her. So, in truth, to call Garal her stepfather and Gilly her stepbrother (or brother-in-law) isn’t accurate. More than that I can’t say. I never did understand it. It was too involved for me. All I chose to believe was that Ruthana lived in a woods enclosure with Garal, with Eana (her stepmother?), and Gilly. And another brother I never met, he’d left the group. And Harold, of course, mustn’t forget about Harold. (Haral.)

I started all this by telling you it was about Gilly’s first attack on me. Mea culpa, folks. Senility again. Or some such animal. On the other hand, how could I have written this entire account if my brain were immersed in senile waters? I couldn’t have. So there.

As we walked, it seemed to feel that I was being watched. It was not the first time I had known the discomforting sensation. Whenever I mentioned it to Ruthana, she told me—calmly, as always—that it might be Gilly, but more than likely was my imagination since, except for once, an owl flitting from tree to tree, obviously following us, she’d never felt that Gilly was tracking me.

“Oh, there’s that damned owl again,” I said as I noticed it sitting in a tree to my left. “It’s not Gilly?”

“Perhaps it is,” Ruthana answered. “He’s no danger, though.”

“I’m getting very tired wondering if he’s following me,” I said. Complainingly, of course. Of course, of course. I use that phrase a lot now. I’m getting tired of it. Not as tired as I was of Gilly’s animosity; but A. Black tired, writer tired. Hate an overused phrase albeit appropriate.

Her fingers tightened on mine. “Don’t be afraid, my love,” she reassured me. “I’ll always be with you.”

“I know,” I said, “I know. I just wonder, now and then, if I should be here at all.”

“Alexi, don’t say that.” Already there were tears in her eyes, trickling down her cheeks.

“Oh, don’t cry,” I begged. “I wouldn’t leave you for the world.”

“Why do you say it, then?” she pleaded. “You don’t think you should be with me?”

“Not you,” I said. “I’ll always be with you. If I have to kidnap you back to…”

“The Human World?” she said. She sounded horrified.

“No, no,” I said. “I’d never do that.” My illogic was a trap now. How could I disengage myself from its piercing teeth?

What happened next caught me totally by surprise.

“Look!” she said, pointing across a stream we went walking by.

I turned to her, wondering why she was pointing.

“I said look!” she commanded, grabbing the back of my neck (my god, her fingers were strong!) and turning my head forcibly toward—what?

Whatever it was was just beginning to form—a dragonlike creature with a head like a cobra, scrawny arms it used to hold itself upright. It had a red roosterlike comb on its head, and two small flames emerged from its mouth as it breathed.

“My god, what is it?” I asked. My breath was having difficulty emerging at all.

“A Basilisk,” Ruthana said quietly. So quietly, it made my blood run cold. A. Black had, often, been accused—or praised—for writing that. But A. Black never saw a real basilisk.

I did. And a chilling sight it was. Its skin—if that’s what it was—gray and mottled, looking less like skin than like ruffled tree bark. Its eyes—aye, there’s the rub, as Hamlet said.

“Don’t look at its eyes,” Ruthana said. Again quietly, blood-chillingly.

“Why?” I asked. Like a stupid child.

“Just don’t,” she said. Every word verbally italicized.

I didn’t. She said something else. About the basilisk’s deadly venom. I listened in frozen silence.

“You’re not looking at its eyes, are you?” she asked, implored.

“No, I’m not,” I told her. “It’s not going to attack us, is it?”

“No, I’ll see to it,” she said.

With that, she threw up both hands and cried out words I cannot possibly remember, part Latin, part French, part—well, it sounded like gibberish to me.

Whatever it was, the cobra-headed dragon faded, then disappeared. The entire incident (nightmare) took only minutes, ten at most.

“Thank God,” I muttered.

“Or me,” she said. For an instant, I had a look at her (how shall I put it?) faerie ego.

“You told me not to look at its eyes,” I said.

“I did,” she replied.

“Why?”

“They’re deadly,” she said. “One look can kill you.”

I started to respond, but she continued speaking. “Most important. You looked at it first.”

“First?” I asked. Fully confused now.

“While it was forming,” she said.

“Is that why you grabbed my neck?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, “I had to make you see it before it could see you.”

“And if I hadn’t?” I said.

“You would have died,” she told me. Once more quietly. I absolutely shuddered.

“Oh, Alexi,” she said. “I’ve frightened you. Forgive me.”

I tried to smile. To grin, actually—but that was out of my league. “You have strong hands,” I said. I wanted it to be some kind of jest. I failed. Suddenly, Ruthana was all apology and sorrow, crying—almost uncontrollably, it seemed. I held her in my arms, thinking momentarily how snugly she fitted into my embrace now that I was three-one not six-two. “Don’t cry,” I told her. “You saved my life. Again.”

“Is it all so bad?” she asked brokenly.

“No, ma’am,” I said, bad-joking-headed again. “I live for danger. I am Alexander the Great. I mean Alexi.”

She knew it was a poor joke but responded with kind indulgence. “Thank you—Alexander,” she said. “I mean Alexi.”

Then was all serious again. “Isn’t there danger in your world?” she asked, clearly in need of further reassurance.

Again with the lousy, however well-intentioned, humor. “Oh, sure. But only wars, not basilieks.” I even got the word wrong. Eighteen, (almost nineteen) what can I say?

“Does it really make you unhappy being here?” she asked. Soulfully (the perfect word).

“No, not at all,” I said. “As long as I’m with you, wherever I am is heaven.” A bit much, Alexi, I told myself. But true.

Sort of true, I thought.

Chapter Twenty-four

So that was it. Ruthana seemed to be convinced of my sincerity. I hoped she really was. I couldn’t be sure after what I’d said to her.

My next—what shall I call it?—adventure came the following week. You recall that I mentioned three rules a man must agree to in order to marry. I’d never (even thought to do so; that’s a lie) asked her about her life before she met me. God knows I never struck her. I would rather have lost an arm than strike that angel. That left the third requirement—to not look at her at certain times. Where did they get that one, from the Bible?

Anyway, “that certain time” came around. I was to avoid her. What about Gilly, then? Ruthana foresaw that as well, bless her angelic heart. She asked Garal to keep an eye on me while she was sequestered with “her problem.” Despite reluctance—Gilly was his son, after all—Garal agreed.

And I experienced one of the most inspiring days of my life. One of them, did I say? The most inspiring day of my life.

It began gradually. After meeting Garal (I’ll describe him later), he and I went fishing. At first, I wondered why he looked into the pond carefully, as though searching for something. What? An available fish? I couldn’t tell. Later on, I learned—a ghastly way—the answer.

But, for then, it signified good fishing—and delicious dinner—so we sat on the edge of the pool (a pond), our bamboo poles extended and leaning over the water, cords (I don’t know what else to call them, or what they were made of or how they were made—I sure know a lot, don’t I?) dangling, dipped below the surface (dangling, dipped, not bad) of the placid water, waiting patiently for some fish to offer up its life to faerie sustenance. Life in all its aspects being so real to the faeries, I wonder if that includes sentient fish. Now, I’m wandering. Sorry, again.

The long and short of it was that I asked Garal where the name “faerie” came from. I found out (later) that Garal was a teacher—a much-informed scholar of the Middle Kingdom. And Beyond. (I’ll get to that presently.)

The word “faerie”? It’s derived, by some, from Homeric sources (whatever they may be), what the centaurs were called. Later, Knights of the Crusade encountered Paynim warriors whose language possessed no letter P. Consequently, their word peri (“little folk,” one assumes) was pronounced feri.

Beyond that, lacking (I would say) further recollection, the word became, in France, faee or fee; in Italy, fata; the root, in Latin, fatum. Got that? I didn’t.

Later on, the word became plural, and in France, the verb faer (meaning “to enchant”) became the noun faerie. The word became worldwide. Thus its presence in Northern England. Remembering that the derivation of the word had to do with an actual phenomenon, not an imaginary one. The beings of Middle Kingdom exist. I can’t emphasize that enough. They exist. I was there.

They still exist.

I thought Garal was finished. He was not. He was just getting warmed up. I remember, with pleasure, his warm smile and mellifluous (good word; means “euphonic,” “musical”) voice as he went on with his discourse. He saw that I was fascinated. Otherwise, he would have lapsed into friendly silence, I’m sure. As a matter of fact, he said, at one pause, then another, “Have I told you too much?” Or, “Am I becoming tedious, Alexi?” Each time, I assured him that it all intrigued me. It did.

Now he spoke about the types of faeries. I won’t go into all of them; there are too darn many. Just the key ones. Garal, for instance, and his family were Elemental Faeries. This meant that they resembled human beings and procreated similarly. They were (are) capable of many faerie tricks. I call them tricks, but they are not “tricks” per se; they’re abilities. Such as appearing and disappearing at will. Shape-shifting—into animals, plants, trees. (I find the second two hard to swallow, although there are extensive faerie archives regarding same.) They can assume human size (temporarily) and move with astounding speed; I saw that with Ruthana. Invisibility? I’ve already mentioned appearing and disappearing at will. Isn’t that enough? Besides, it’s too damned reminiscent of Magda’s manuscript. Ugh!

Next step in Garal’s discourse: the History of Faeriedom; I should say, Middle Kingdom. Also, excuse me for capitalizing “History.” I flunked History in college. Maybe you did, too. Oh, well. Never mind.

The Elemental Faeries come in four categories—Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. Well, let that go, it’s much too complicated. Almost twenty different types under each category! Forget it.

The Middle Kingdom—or Faerieland—Garal went on to say, is a locale within our world yet not. How’s that for an enigmatic explanation? The realm has many names. I’ll give you just a few of them. The Inner-Plain. The Ethereal World. A Parallel Universe. Enough? Okay, how about Land of the Dead? Ghost Dwelling? That’s too much. Scratch it.

The inhabitants of these worlds have been known as Angels (I buy that one), Demons (not so much), Imaginary Beings (not at all!), Ghosts (nope), and Faeries.

No culture in the world does not accept the existence of these elusive beings who live somewhere between our world and that alternate one. Faeries are a universal phenomenon. Every country has them in residence. The most popular of these is what is called The Little People. Or the Wee Folk, the Good Folk, the Blessed Ones. (Daoine Maithe.) How come I remember that?

Faeries have existed as long as humans. And have been the subject of folklore since time began.

Faeries are sentient beings with feelings like our own. They have individual personalities. Some are helpful, some mischievous, some dangerous. (Amen to that.) Fundamentally, though, they are sensitive and deserve respect. (Not that I will ever respect my memory of God-awful Gilly.) They really loathe human injustice. (Who doesn’t?)

They can shape-shift for only a limited period of time. (I told you that, I was thinking of Gilly and the Basilisk. Indicative that he chose that hideous shape to shift to.)

A gift from faeries—gold, silver, jewels—is illusory and will revert when the enchantment ends. Mr. Brean found that out the hard way.

More? Why not? Some disparate facts about the residents of Middle Kingdom.

First of all, if you happen to visit Faerieland, you’ll be hard-put to depart. Especially if you leave the “guided” path—by which I presume, the path the faeries lead you on. And they will tempt you to return. I can verify that.

Faeries can elect to manifest themselves in the mortal world, but must take on smaller forms to compensate for lost energy. So watch out for that ant when strolling through the woods! (Just kidding.)

Sharp noises hurt their ears: bells ringing, hands clapping, and such. Didn’t Magda tell me that? Didn’t Joe?

They are fascinated (and repelled) by human beings and appear in shape-shifted forms to us, particularly as domestic animals. So be kind to your web-footed friends. (Isn’t that how the song goes?) For that duck may be somebody’s mother.

Some believe that faeries are androgynous and have no discernible gender. I can definitely shoot that one down. Ruthana androgynous? Please!

What I do believe about faeries is that they are unique. They can be mean or kind. Courtly or coarse. They feel anger, joy, and sadness. They function as elementals in Nature but think for themselves.

Above all, they require respect. They hate it if they are belittled, ridiculed, or slandered. Mankind, of course, cannot endure anyone different in appearance or beliefs. True or false? You know my choice.

Impressed by my knowledge? Don’t be. This part is based on research, a writer named Edaion McCoy. For my part, I can only verify what he says. Most of it, anyway.

Our treatment of Nature—which they revere and nurture—infuriates them. Resulting in many pranks. I understand that. And appreciate it. I’m a nature buff myself.

There are some faeries who hate all living creatures, even their own kind. (Guess who that was.)

There are some faeries to avoid, just as there are some people to avoid. Yet you don’t reject the entire human race because of those few rejectable individuals. Equally so, don’t turn your back on those few faerie bad apples. Get it? I did.

“Am I becoming tedious, Alexi?” Garal asked at that point.

I told him no, but he chose to give me a break. With a very nice experience.

“Have you done scrying?” he asked.

I told him about attempting it (uselessly) in Magda’s house.

“Oh, yes, the witch,” he said. So casually that I had no further doubts regarding Magda. There was simply no way to disbelieve Garal.

It isn’t necessary, I discovered, to stare into a mirror to scry. Any body of water will do—a lake, a pond, a pool, a puddle. Since faeries could not look into mirrors (I never found out why), they prefer to gaze into still water. It worked better, anyway. It certainly did for me. I found out later that, while unaware of it, Ruthana was enhancing my psychic ability. Which I had none of until she instilled it.

Garal took our fishing lines from the pond and laid them aside. We had caught no fish. I don’t think Garal had any intention of catching any. (I found out later that he wasn’t crazy about the taste of fish, anyway.) He had us pretending to fish (I took it for real) so we could converse in peace. Which turned out to be a teacher-student exchange: the teacher lecturing, the student listening.

He had me lie on my chest and stomach and gaze intently into the water. I was amazed at how quickly those clouds (pink) appeared, how soon they were moving left to right. “This is incredible,” I said. He shushed me. “Yes, sir,” I murmured. The obedient student.

Then, in no time, it seemed (and was) as if, instead of scudding pink clouds, I was looking at a landscape very much like the one we were in. I bought a television set in 1970, and this was like that, clearly pictured. (Even with a soundtrack!)

From a distant grove of trees—all summerlike, no autumntinted leaves—a figure came walking toward me. He looked familiar. He waved. My god!

Harold.

No wound. No uniform. Dressed as Garal was, beige trousers, green jacket. He looked very happy.

“ ’Ello, chum!” he greeted me. “I’d shake your mitt, but we’re in different places.”

“You’re alive,” was all I could think to say.

“If you say so,” he replied, with that familiar, beguiling smile. “In different places, though. I’m in kind of a Dreamland. You—” He looked around. “Good Lord, what are you doing there? Oh, my uncle’s toe, is that Garal I see?! Hey, Dad! What’s going on?”

I explained, as well as I could, my presence in the Middle Kingdom. He looked astounded, mouth ajar. “You and Ruthana?” he asked, completely floored by that. “What about Gilly? Isn’t he a hornet’s nest?”

“He sure is,” I said. “He tried to kill me the other day.”

“G’wan,” he said. Then, “Well, I’m not surprised. He and I were not exactly comrades.” For some reason, that amused me. I could never, under any circumstances, visualize Harold and Gilly as chums. One was sweet, the other toxic. Brothers? Impossible to imagine.

I asked Harold how he’d come to join the army—after attaining human size, of course.

“Well, I’ll tell you,” he explained. “I thought, for some reason, that it would be noble to fight for Blighty. Little did I know what it would be like. Oh, by the way, I took on a Cockney accent to fit in. If I’d known you long enough, I would have told you who—what—I really was. Well, maybe not, we little folks are damned secretive—as I’m sure you’ve discovered. Ruthana is a sweetheart, isn’t she?”

“I adore her,” I told him.

“Good,” he said. “The girl deserves to be adored. If I hadn’t been her brother—” He let that one go.

Changing the subject, I asked him a pair of questions. Had he lost any size when he—died? I had trouble using the word. And what about the lump of gold?

No, he remained human size until he reached what he referred to as Dreamland. (Summerland?) And Garal sent him the gold. “He had it in for me at first—when I told him I’d made up my mind to enlist. But he forgave me—he’s a good soul.” When he said that, I heard a grunt of pleasure behind me and realized that Garal had been looking across my shoulder at the scrying images. I didn’t turn around, for fear of losing the image, but I smiled and knew that Harold was aware of why I was smiling.

When I told him about Mr. Brean, Harold didn’t look surprised. “Greedy bugger,” he said. “He might have known better. He was from Gatford.” The last of his words, I didn’t understand.

“But it stayed gold for me,” I said.

“Of course,” said Harold (Haral). “You were my chum. Still are. Don’t plan on joining me too soon, though. You still have a while to go.” That was nice to hear. I don’t know why he said it, but he was certainly right. Assuming eighty-two is a while to go. Not exactly biblical, but enough for me.

There was not much more to say. I tried to talk about our time in the trenches, but I could tell that he was not too interested in that anymore. I can see why now. Afterlife is more, far more interesting. I’ll confirm that one day. Stick around. Maybe I’ll do another book from that side. Through a medium, I guess. I doubt spirits use pen and paper as I do. Maybe possession. There’s a notion.

Well, onward. Harold and I conversed awhile longer—it was as though we were chatting face-to-face. Mostly, he wanted to know what my reaction was to Faerieland. What did I really think of it? “Wonderful,” I said. “Gorgeous.” He laughed at that.

He was sorry to hear about the pain I endured losing size. We shared a laugh about that mutual experience—the crunching of the skeleton, the shriveling sensation in the flesh. No fun, we agreed. Him in reverse, of course.

Then, to my immediate dismay—later I was okay about it—he was saying good-bye. “See you someday, chum”—and the scrying picture faded; I was staring at water again.

Someday, Harold. It’s a date.

Chapter Twenty-five

The second—and third—attack on me occurred as follows. Sounds formal, doesn’t it? I’ll utilize A. Black vernacular. Soon after, Ruthana’s crazed brother took another crack at slaughtering young Alex. You see what kind of excess Black was prone to use—permanently staining world literature with overkill.

The attacks, then.

No. First, I meant to tell you that my afternoon with Garal was the most inspiring day of my life. I forgot. I’d better tell you now. How could I have been (here’s another combo) dumbly derelict in my writer’s duty? Once again, forgive me.

Did I tell you what Garal looked like? Who he looked like, I mean.

Don’t laugh now. Unless you really want to.

Judge Hardy.

That’s right. Andy Hardy’s father in the Mickey Rooney film series. Handsome, gray hair, wise, and patient. Lewis Stone was the actor’s name. The only difference between Mr. Stone and Garal was height. Garal was three and a half feet tall. I’m sure Lewis Stone was taller than that. And he didn’t wear a Munchkin-like green jacket like Garal.

While we were ambling through the woods—did I mention how ideal the weather was that day, warm but with a cool, refreshing breeze? There I go again, sidetracking. Well, I’m eighty-two, almost eighty-three! Excuuuse me!

Where was I? Yes, Garal and I ambling through the woods. (Did I mention the weather? Ha-ha. Joke.) I asked him about the relationship between the faeries and the citizens of Gatford. He told me that, at one time, centuries ago, the relationship had been extremely cordial. Well, maybe that’s exaggerating. Very nice, though. The Gatford citizens treated Faerieland with respect. They did favors for each other. The Gatford citizens left milk (always fresh) and bread for the faeries. Reciprocation consisted of such things as helping trees and plants grow bountifully, locating runaway pets and cattle (faeries love animals; well, most of them do), and other friendly acts. Gatford, at that time, was Gateford—a gateway between the worlds.

Then, for some reason, the causes obscured in history, war “broke out” between the worlds. I put quotation marks around the words “broke out” because the commencement of any war always entails a breakage of some kind. Intelligence. Awareness. Humanity. All breaking simultaneously.

The war lasted close to a hundred years and involved some nasty—and brutal—exchanges between human beings and faeries. During that period, the ugly bridge I mentioned some time ago was built to harm any little people who tried to cross it. The ugly cathedral-like structure on the opposite side of the stream was constructed for ritual magic to be performed to further harm the faeries. Dear God, what “human” beings will conceive of to assail their “enemies”!

The war never really ended. Gateford became Gatford, and hostilities submerged. Gatfordites no longer respected Middle Kingdom. They feared it and used caution regarding it. They hunted in the woods, occasionally “bagging” a faerie; Gilly’s real father. I never did believe that he was blood-related to Garal.

Now for the inspiring part.

“You know, Alexi,” Garal said, “we speak of human beings and faeries. Yet both races—if we call them that—are flesh and bone. In reality—true reality—we are neither. We are mind, soul, spirit.”

I waited for more. There had to be more.

There was.

“You know, Alexi,” he went on, “the body is surrounded by an invisible formfitting series of layers. These are fields of energy, each one more vital than the one below. The bottom layer is what has been called the aura. These layers continue to exist following bodily death. The body, you see, is only a mechanism, an organ the mind uses during physical life. Are you with me?”

“I’m with you,” I told him. “Incredulous, but with you.”

He smiled. “There you go,” he said. “Now.”

He continued. To say that, just as the Earth has an atmosphere in which humans—and faeries—have their being, so does the aura provide a life-giving atmosphere for the body. During physical life, this aura interacts with the spiritual world.

“In other words,” Garal said, “the spirit of our higher self—the outer layers—interacts with the Earth world.”

“Are you saying,” I asked, “that these layers—these fields of energy—are in contact with the spirit world?”

“Exactly,” he said, “using the material body as the basis.”

“The body as a mechanism.”

“The brain as an organ, yes.”

“Okay,” I said, “I’m with it so far.”

He smiled again. “Good,” he said. “Continuing, then.”

This other existence of ours—our spiritual existence—is our soul. That continues after so-called death. This is our real self. This is Reality.

Sleep, in fact, Garal told me, is a reflection of death. I no longer give credence to the word. We do not die. We pass on. Sleep has been—aptly—called the “twin brother” of death. While our physical body sleeps, our spiritual body remains awake. The body we use after we pass on.

I know this is heavy stuff. I barely assimilated it when Garal was instructing me. I hope you do.

“Some people, of course, die without dying,” he said. “Pass on but return. Humans call it ‘near death.’ A fitting description. They see a portion of Afterlife—what we refer to as ‘the Existence Following’—and, presently, return, or are drawn back against their will, to physical life. They never forget the experience. It affects the remainder of their life.” The great human psychologist Carl Jung (I was startled—but shouldn’t have been—that Garal knew about him) said that his near-death experience marked a “major” turning point in his work.

“Just remember this,” Garal went on. “When we die (that now unacceptable word), we only pass on from one world to another.” This from Emanuel Swedenborg, a famous Earth theologian. Whose existence I was surprised that Garal knew about. I should have known better.

His description of Afterlife—what he, personally, envisioned—was remarkably similar to the exquisite environment (good combo there) of Faerieland. I hope, by now, that the word “faerie” no longer makes you either grin or grimace. Believe me. They exist. So does their exquisite world.

I told you it was an inspiring afternoon for me. If I have failed to convey the thrill and wonderment I felt at Garal’s words, forgive me. The woods. The weather. The breeze. Garal’s presence by my side. His words. It was all, to me, mesmerizing. If not to you, blame it on Arthur Black. I told you he was a deficient author. Or did I? Well, he is.

Chapter Twenty-six

The next attack was unexpected. Just as bad. Just as awful.

Ruthana and I were walking. After a while, she became a little weary. Her extra weight, you see. I forgot to tell you that a little time after I became an official little guy—though never according to Gilly—our “loving” produced the beginnings of a child in her lovely body. I believe they could decrease or extend their period of gestation at will. Ruthana’s choice was six to seven months. Accordingly, that afternoon, after we had walked awhile, she felt the need to rest.

Notice how undramatically—even casually—I mentioned Ruthana’s pregnancy? (I still don’t like that word.) As opposed to my reaction when Magda announced that she was carrying “our child”? Her announcement knocked my socks off (as someone said). I really didn’t want a child. To my discredit, I should have taken steps to prevent its conception. But then it might have happened anyway. Magda wanted it. That I firmly believe. She did nothing to prevent it.

And I was the surrogate father—in lieu of Edward. Anyway, I was shocked at her announcement. Or should I say “pronouncement”? Any way you look at it, her body was not conceiving a love child. God knows how she really felt about that baby. Toward the end not much, that was for sure. The memory of its (imagined) enforced “birth” will remain with me forever. That damned manuscript.

With Ruthana, the entire parentage experience was heavenly. She seemed to relish the gestation more each day. She would pat her stomach gently and speak to the baby endearingly—as though she had no doubt whatever that the baby could hear every loving word. Which, for all I knew, the baby did—enjoying the sweet verbal caressings—as any baby would.

My point is this—in case I have failed (and probably have) to convey it. Magda carried a plan; Ruthana a baby conceived in love. Big difference there.

At any rate, Ruthana needed a rest.

One more addendum. Two. Number one—we were resting in a meadow. It was early November, but the day, despite the date (pretty good triplet there, sorry) was not chilly at all. Summer persistent through fall, resisting winter. What winter? False autumn? Late summer? There’s another expression for it, but I forget it. Anyway I, later, learned that there was no quartet of seasons in Faerieland, only spring and summer.

I do remember that Ruthana seemed a little sad that day. I didn’t know why. She was usually so redolent with cheer that her dispirit disturbed (I won’t say it) me. While we were resting, her lying down, her golden-haired head in my lap, I asked her what was bothering her.

“It’s the eleventh day of the eleventh month,” she answered.

Or was it an answer? Two questions popped into my brain. Was the baby eleven months old? What happened to the six to seven months’ choice? And two, were the two elevens part of some faerie ritual I knew nothing about?

Both questions redundant, as it turned out.

“The war is over,” she said. “Germany surrendered.”

“Well… isn’t that good?” I asked, pleased to hear it.

She didn’t reply at first.

“Ruthana?”

Her voice broke as she answered, “Not for Haral.”

Oh. I felt guilt. And shame. I should have known.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “I should have known.”

She smiled (bravely, I thought), picked up my hand, and kissed its back. “I understand.” She paused. “You knew him, though. You were there when he—died.”

“I was there when he lived, too,” I told her, trying to cheer her. “He was my good friend.” I hoped he was.

“I know he was,” she said. “It’s been a comfort knowing that. I miss him so.”

Still trying to cheer her, I told her what else I could remember about Harold. How we met, the splashing of mud, how we sat together during bombardments, how he guided me to Gatford, even providing me with the wherewithal to live there.

“He must have known that I’d meet you,” I said. “He was our Cupid.”

She smiled again, apparently at peace now, and closed her eyes.

I watched her as she slept. Dear Lord, she was beautiful. Assuming there is a god and He is also god to the Middle Kingdom as to ours, He had created a masterpiece of grace and elegance in Ruthana’s appearance. Everything about her presentment was, beyond question, perfection. Oh, I do run on. You get my message, though. I was in total and enduring love with a flawless angel. Nuff puff for one book.

No, not enough. I have not completed the portraiture of my beauteous faerie. Her eyes. An eerie blue green; yes, that undeniable combination. The blue of stirring water, the green of placid. Lustrous, searching eyes. I always felt that she was seeing far more than I was. That, in gazing at me, she was looking straight into my soul. How wonderful—yet, as I have indicated, eerie.

Her skin. The color of rich cream with a translucent coating of rose pink. Her nose. Designed by the greatest Renaissance artists, ideal in every aspect. Her lips. My God, how perfect. How yearning to be kissed—which I did proliferately. Soft and warm and yielding. (Lord, even ancient Arthur Black is trembling in remembrance!) Her body. Well, let’s skip that. I’m not as old as the Red Sea, you know; the tide could rise.

Well, to the attack.

It began in such a subtle manner that, at first, I didn’t pay attention to it. I heard what seemed to be a slight wind overhead. To me, it registered as an autumn breeze. Stupid me. An autumn breeze indeed. It “blew” two or three times before I took notice of it as something to be conscious of. A recurring breeze. Which became, in consequent moments, a recurring wind. A rushing sound. Like the noise made, possibly—

—by wings.

Only after numerous repetitions of the sound did I become engaged. Not alarmed yet. Merely involved in the persistent—I must admit now, haunting—sound. Gradually I became—very slowly—cognizant of an anxious sensation. What was it? Clearly, a bird. But how big? And why, I began to wonder, was it constantly passing over us? Over. Over. Again and again. As though—the notion chilled me—searching.

“Ruthana?” I murmured. I hated to wake her. She was sleeping so serenely. But I felt, somehow, that it was, probably, needed.

She stirred, making a tiny sound that, under other circumstances, would have (what’s the phrase?) “turned me on.” As if I was ever turned off in her presence.

I nudged her again. “Ruthana.” The sound—the rushing sound—the (now no doubt) wing sound—was closer overhead. “Ruthana,” I said, more urgently.

She opened her eyes. Those wonderful blue green eyes. Staring into mine.

“What’s that noise?” I began to ask.

Before I could get the words out, she sat up and stood with astonishing quickness (considering the size of her baby-expanding stomach), a look of tensed apprehension on her face. “Up!” she cried—commanded, actually. She grabbed me by the arm and yanked me to my feet. “Run!” she gasped. And started racing me toward the distant woods.

“What is it?” I asked, just able to breathe.

“Griffin,” she answered.

At which a bloodcurdling screech swept down from above. A great form dove down on us—me, in particular—I screamed at what felt like claws tearing at my back. They made me suddenly fall. I twisted over with a cry of pain. What I saw was enough to kill me with the sight. Today, it would put an end to me. At eighteen, I had embedded in my psyche, will to survive. So I was horrified, not wrenched from life.

It was part lion, part eagle: its head and white-feathered wings those of an eagle; its body that of a lion except for its tail, which was that of a giant snake. It was the lion’s claws that had ripped at my back. I thought I heard thunder rolling in the sky.

The eagle’s eyes were human. They seemed to regard me with rage, albeit they were milky and lacking a pupil.

“Come!” I heard Ruthana’s voice command me. Her hand was clutching mine, pulling me up. The griffin’s wings thrashed at the ground as I began to run again. Scramble, actually. Bolt for the nearing woods, leaning forward as I scampered for my life, prevented by Ruthana from a face-forward tumbling onto the ground. I felt blood dribbling down my back, a throbbing ache. Behind me, I heard that awful screech again, the driving thrust of its wings as the griffin leaped into the air, pursuing us. How could Gilly shift himself to such a nightmare creature? I wondered for an instant. Then self-preservation took over, and once more, I attempted to run erect. In vain. I would definitely have lost it were it not for Ruthana’s supporting hand and arm.

Again the violent crash on my back. I cried out, stricken. The pain was excruciating. I was sure I was being ripped apart. I jerked around once more, a scream of dread escaping me. The griffin’s eagle face was directly above mine, milky eyes staring. Its grisly screech enveloped me. I knew, in that moment, I was done for.

Then, a miracle. At least, it seemed a miracle to me. With a sudden move, the lion’s weight was off my back. I heard the thrashing buffet of its wings. I turned to see.

Ruthana stood with a hazel wand in her right hand, pointing it toward the griffin. (It was much like the wand Magda had used in healing my wound.) From its end, blue flame was projecting.

“Quickly!” she cried; her voice sounded hoarse. “Into the woods!”

I lurched to my feet and ran almost blindly toward the trees, trying to ignore the dreadful stabbing pain in my back. Behind and above, the griffin shrieked—in rage, it seemed—and I could hear the sound of its hurtling ascent as it continued chasing me. I sensed Ruthana running near me. Panting now. I’d never heard that sound before.

Finally, the trees were around us and Ruthana jarred to a halt, gasping, out of breath, another sound I’d never heard from her.

“It can’t get through the trees,” she managed to say.

But it could. And did.

At any rate, it tried, shattering its massive weight through the foliage, snapping off limbs and branches in its crazed attack. One of its wings was torn away. It shrieked with pain.

“I don’t understand,” Ruthana said in a trembling childlike voice. “This is wrong.” The sound of dread in her voice was my most frightening moment of the entire assault. Terrorstricken, I was frozen to the ground as the huge creature smashed down within a foot of me. I saw the root ends of its lost wing spurting blood.

I looked at Ruthana. She was staring at the fallen griffin, openmouthed, an expression of petrified disbelief on her face. I looked down at the griffin. What I saw then drove a cloud of blackness over me. I toppled over, losing consciousness. “Alexi!” I heard Ruthana’s cry of alarm before I was enveloped in night.

What I saw was not dissimilar to the illustration in Magda’s hideous manuscript detailing the process of shape-shifting. In this case, what I saw was the bony structure of the white-feathered wing transforming gradually to the structure of a broken, blood-oozing arm. The lion’s body slowly altering to that of a shattered human form. The eagle head becoming, second by second, a human head, the eyes still milky, the face still taut with teeth-bared hatred.

What I saw was Magda, dead.

Chapter Twenty-seven

“At first I thought it was Gilly,” she told me, “but when the griffin followed us into the woods, I knew it couldn’t be. He’d know the woods would stop him. She didn’t.”

“Or maybe she just didn’t care,” I answered. “Maybe—no, not maybe—she hated me so much, she was determined to kill me. And it killed her. My god, how she must have hated me.”

“Witches are like that,” Ruthana said. “You’re well rid of her.” She declared it in a matter-of-fact way. And that was it. Magda was out of my life.

I was (sort of) in Garal’s home. (Don’t ask me to explain that; I never could.) I’d been there since the griffin attack, carried by Garal and—I, later, learned to my surprise—Gilly. He was in awe of his stepfather and obeyed him implicitly. Ruthana wanted to help, but Garal forbade her lest she endanger the welfare of the child.

So, when I “came to” (as so many A. Black protagonists do), I was in Garal and Eana’s residence, my back—I, also, later, learned—in semi-shreds. They gave me something to drink, which immediately allayed the severe pain. Then, over a period of weeks, they worked on my back, their healing magic fully as efficacious (another dandy elitism) as Magda’s—or whoever—or whatever—she’d requested help from. In a short while, the back was taken care of. Lovingly ministered by Ruthana, Garal, and Eana, the torn-up flesh was restored. I never looked—or asked to look—at the griffin’s destruction. I preferred not to see it. It was, doubtless, hair-raising.

During my recovery period, who else but good ol’ Gilly came to visit. Not to wish me well, of course, but to express his amusement that I, much less Ruthana, believed the griffin to be his shape-shifted responsibility. “You think I’m stupid?” he asked.

“No, I don’t think you’re stupid,” I said. “I think you’re a God damn vicious son of a bitch.” I was feeling sassy. Also safe in Garal’s house.

My words only evinced a smile from his goddam, vicious lips. “Get well,” he said, patting me on the shoulder. “So I can kill you.”

“Good luck,” I snapped. But I was far from feeling (three!) snappy.

I was scared.

Later, I spoke to Ruthana about it.

Wasn’t there some way to prevent Gilly from attempting to murder me? Were there no preventive laws in Middle Kingdom?

She only reiterated the only law in Middle Kingdom. Life was sacrosanct, untouchable. Gilly could be punished for a life-threatening action, no more. After the action, that is.

“Punished how?” I asked. “What if he kills me?”

Ruthana smiled at that. A sad smile, naturally. “He can be put away,” she said.

“Not executed?” I asked.

“Oh, no,” she said. “All life is precious.”

“What about mine?” I persisted. “Less than precious?”

“It is to me, Alexi,” she said quietly. “If you die, I die. Like Gilly’s mother did after his father was killed.”

“Oh, Ruthana,” I could hardly speak. She lay beside me—carefully—and I held her as tightly as I could. “I love you, Alexi,” she whispered. “You are my life.”

“Oh, God.” I squeezed her until my back stung from the effort.

“Careful,” she murmured. “Don’t hurt yourself.”

“I won’t,” I promised.

She kissed me lovingly. “I’ll watch over you,” she said. “Gilly will never harm you.”

“He’ll try, though, won’t he?” I asked.

Her answer was simple—and chilling to my bones.

“Yes, he will,” she said.

And so it was. Big-time. If I’d hoped—and I did—that he would take a break from his quest to obliterate me, I was doomed to disappointment. (This is sounding more like an A. Black tome all the time. Midnight Middle Kingdom Massacre? No, too long. Midnight Gilly Kill? No; forget it.)

I was in danger, though. Constantly. Let me enumerate what that bastard (sorry) did to undo me.

1. Somehow (I never found out how—another faerie mystery)—he managed to modify the paths on which Ruthana and I customarily strolled. At first, it created no worse than a slightly confusing alteration in our route—pleasant in any direction. I think Ruthana knew what Gilly had done. There was a smile of faint amusement on her lips. Then, at a specific moment in our walk—maybe fifteen to twenty minutes into it, she took hold of my arm abruptly—she was on my right—and halted me. “Wait,” she said. I watched curiously as she edged forward, pressing her foot down. Did I mention the ground was covered by leaves? In front of her was a pile of them. “Oh, yes,” she said, as though understanding. She tapped her foot down sharply, and the leaves collapsed. They had been obscuring an open hole. “An old well,” Ruthana said. “Not used anymore.”

I drew in a shaking breath. “Good ol’ Gilly,” I said. It occurred to me then that, if Ruthana hadn’t sensed the trap Gilly had set, she might also have fallen into the well. Clearly, Gilly knew it, too. She was his sister, carrying a child. If she’d been killed, a primal faerie rule would have been violated.

Later that day, Ruthana—and Garal—took Gilly to task for his infringement of Middle Kingdom law. I wasn’t privy to their reprimand, but as I gathered from Ruthana’s later account, they had raked him over the coals. I doubt if their castigation did more than aggravate my dear stepbrother (I guess that’s what he was considered to be), but at least it got me a week’s respite before—

2. Ruthana and I were sitting in a lovely glade when the tall figure of a man emerged from the woods in front of us. He was completely naked, his body glowing with a bizarre yellow green light. “My god, what’s that?” I asked. Ruthana was unflustered. “Ignore him,” she said. At that, the glowing man glared (glowing—glared; not bad) at me, raised his fisted hand threateningly, and vanished. “What in God’s name was that?” I asked, more strongly. “Gilly, of course,” she said, “trying to frighten you.” I exhaled—hard. “Well, he succeeded,” I said. She was amused. She laughed. (Which didn’t please me.) “He’ll do worse,” she told me.

3. And so he did. He felled a tree behind me. It missed Ruthana, who—in her usual quick way—pushed me out of the tree’s rushing descent. Obviously, I knew then (or suspected, anyway) that Gilly made no further attempt to include his sister in his homicidal plots. I was, at once, both pleased and displeased at the realization. Pleased that his devious plans did not entail harming Ruthana. Displeased because she might, inadvertently, be injured or killed while protecting me.

On top of that, I felt damn provoked at Gilly’s invulnerability. Maybe it was a leftover attitude from my human being days—but it still seemed to me (no, more than seemed) that either Gilly should be tossed in the clink permanently or I should be armed with a pistol to use at his next attack. About that time, the fantasy of pumping a slug into brother(-in-law’s) nasty brain was pleasing indeed. Because of or partially due to—

4. Gilly tried to steal my shadow. How this is done is also way beyond me. But he pulled it off—for a few minutes—before Ruthana undid it. And let me tell you, the disappearance of one’s shadow is incredibly dismaying. Try to visualize it. No, you couldn’t possibly. Take my word for it. It makes you physically sick, nauseated. It’s so against natural law. It’s also fatal if it lasts. Which, thank heaven, did not happen to my vanished shadow. Where Gilly put it only God knows. Ruthana got it back, however. Saving me from what she said would be a horrible death. One more escape from Gilly. As in—

5. Gilly appearing suddenly, pointing a hazel wand at me. From the wand end, blue flame shooting. Blocked and inverted by Ruthana’s wand. Since the griffin attack, she kept it on her person at all times. (Where—once more—I have no idea whatever.)

6. Oh, why go on? Except to tell you of the attack that almost worked.

Ruthana and I were sitting beside a shallow pool, feet dangling in the water. She was getting large now. Maybe it decreased, somewhat, her perspicuity (big word, that; it means, I think, her clarity of awareness). Sports writers would have observed: “She was not on top of her game.” She sat smiling to herself; she did that a lot toward the end of the gestation. She kicked her feet slowly and idly in the pool. I was in a dream state myself. Soon our baby would be born. I did not miss human existence at all. I was with my precious angel.

All was well.

I should have known better. I thought it was our kicking feet that leisurely stirred the water. I was wrong. I should have warned Ruthana sooner. I didn’t. I stared into the rippling water as though hypnotized. Something was beneath its surface, rising. A fish? An uprooted plant? An optical illusion?

A hand! Surging up from the water’s surface! Green, scaly, long nailed, clamping itself around my ankle! I was so shocked, I couldn’t make a sound, my voice paralyzed by mindless terror.

Then something even worse. A huge round thing popped up, the body of the hand. It, too, was scaled, purple in color. It had a gigantic mouth and huge eyes staring at me, gleefully it seemed.

My strangled whimper would likely, all on its own, have been enough to arouse Ruthana. As it was, she became aware before I made a sound because, in an instant, moving with the incredible speed I’d seen so many times, her right hand seemed to shoot out and grab the hand, yanking it from my ankle.

To my horror, I saw the green hand clutch at her wrist and begin to pull her down. Ruthana’s face was gripped by fright. “Alexi!” she cried. Off-balanced by the weight of her stomach, she began to fall forward toward the pool. I remember crying, “No!” and grabbing at her arms. The huge eyes of the creature opened wider. As did the gigantic mouth. I saw its teeth, greenish yellow, ready to clamp on Ruthana’s arm. I pulled at her as hard as I could. “Gilly, no!” I screamed. “Your sister!”

To this day, I have no way of knowing if I had anything to do with the attack ending so suddenly. I only know that, in an instant, the ugly hand released Ruthana, and its gross purple body vanished beneath the flailing water—which, abruptly, became still again.

My meeting with Garal, Ruthana, and Gilly was a somber affair. Garal had ordered it immediately following the attack at the pool. Why he allowed me to attend, I don’t know. No matter my sanctioned approval in the Middle Kingdom, I was, nonetheless, an “outsider,” a human being given limited access to the Kingdom. I could never be considered a full-fledged faerie. (I should be impressed with that triplet, but recollection of the meeting and its grim nature prevents me from enjoying the three-word combo.) I suppose it was my relationship with Ruthana that made the difference. Of course it was.

“Well, what do you have to say?” was the opening statement of the meeting. From—needless to say?—Garal.

“Say?” countered a sullen Gilly.

Garal waited, his features carved from stone. I saw a betraying swallow on Gilly’s throat. Garal clearly held sway over him. Not only was he Gilly’s “father,” he was also the accepted leader of the clan.

“What do you want me to say?” he finally asked. He tried to make it sound like a demand but couldn’t quite bring it off.

Garal cut to the bone. “That you tried to kill your sister,” he said.

I knew the word “blanch.” I’d never seen it, though. At Garal’s words, Gilly’s face lost color, very quickly. He was frightened. Him. The faerie thug who had terrorized me since my entry into Middle Kingdom. The little black-haired brute whose one goal was to kill me. It was his turn to be frightened. Him. I gloried in the moment.

“I didn’t mean to,” was all he managed to say.

“Yet you tried to drag her down into the shellycoat’s maw,” said Garal. Accusingly now.

Condemningly.

“Father, he’s a Human Being!” (Still the capitalized pronunciation.) Gilly tried a switch in his defense. “They killed my real father. Made my mother die! Am I supposed to forget that? Forgive Alexi because he’s our size now? He’s still a Human Being. I will not forgive him!”

Garal’s voice was cold. I felt a numbing gratitude that his anger was not directed at me.

“I’m speaking of your sister,” he said. “I forced myself to overlook your attempts on Alexi’s life because I knew Ruthana would protect him, I would protect him. But the attack on your sister is unforgivable!” I had never heard him raise his voice. It was a daunting sound.

“I didn’t mean it!” Gilly shouted. It was not a daunting sound. It quavered. Something else I’d never heard, especially from Gilly.

“That’s not the point!” said Garal. “You did it. That is the end of it. You are going to the Cairn.”

Did I say “blanch” before? I swear to God that all the blood rushed out of Gilly’s face; his skin grew wax white. “No,” he whimpered. “No.”

“Now,” said Garal. “This instant.”

Another sound I never heard—or even thought of hearing. Gilly crying. Sobbing. A pitiful sight. I actually felt sorry for him. Him!

Garal led him away. Then both of them vanished in that inexplicable faerie way. I sat in wordless withdrawal. Ruthana was crying, too. Softly. Miserably. I put an arm across her shoulders. Imagination? Or did she twitch as though resisting my comfort? I felt emotionally adrift.

Not helped when Garal returned, appearing next to me in that sudden faerie manner—zip! Like that.

He put his hand on my knee—and, abruptly, I experienced an unpleasant twinge of memory, the movement bringing back an image of the Captain, although, God knows, he’d never placed a hand on me. It was just something in the moment that dredged up a recollection of Lecture Time.

Which it was. “Alexi,” Garal said, “you know that this is not a common happening. It has never occurred in my family.”

“I’m sorry,” was all I could say. My inner voice, naturally, jumped up with What do you expect from me? Regret? The bastard tried to kill me over and over! If he hadn’t made a mistake and gone after Ruthana, would you ever have punished him?! Probably not! Maybe after he finally did me in! What good would it do me then?!

None of which I vocalized. I sat in chastened muteness as his reproving went on. It was reproval, never doubt. I was still an outsider. I had (in all innocence, God damn it!) caused a rule to be broken, and I must be careful never to breach that standard again. I kept glancing at Ruthana as her father (stepfather; oh, who the hell knows?) spoke. Looking for an expression of sympathy. At least understanding—for me, I didn’t see it. She agreed with every quiet injunction Garal made. My alienation from Middle Kingdom was called up again. Magnified. I would be reminded of it at a later time. In a different way, but even more radically.

At least, however, I was rid of Gilly.

For a while.

Chapter Twenty-eight

Arthur Black (at least the kernel of his black-hearted fetus) slithered into the world during that period. No longer attacked on an almost daily basis by his beloved (step)brother, he had time to plant the seed of his dire existence.

Alexander White wrote a novel. MIDNIGHT. An innocent commencement of the soon-to-assault-the-reading-public MIDNIGHT parade. I say “innocent” because, initially, it was. I meant it to be a love story, a story of moral retribution. Of course, with my background—and with the recollection of the alarming incidents in my life with Ruthana—there were any numbers of scare-stuff in the story. (There I go again—scare-stuff in the story; Arthur Black in genesis.)

These were the lone elements which the publisher (it was published, years later, reviewed, and sold rather well) later—even later (better never)—brought to unnatural birth the author known as Arthur Black (born in London, son of a distinguished military colonel, three times decorated veteran of the Great War, graduate, with a master’s degree, of Oxford University where he majored in Literature and Philosophy).

Hell, I never even got out of high school!

I must say that my new family was damn gracious about my novel—except for Gilly, I’m sure; although I doubt he was told about it.

It was a nice piece of work. As I said, a love story. Inspired (needless to say, he said) by Ruthana.

What the story was (is) about is a young man (me, of course) who travels to the woods of Canada. I was going to have him travel to the woods of Northern England but decided otherwise, lest I offend my brethren. I call them that; it’s how I truly felt about them.

At any rate, my young protagonist hied himself to the Canadian forest to bag an elk. Ruthana didn’t like it that his motive was to hunt but consequent pages ameliorated that.

One afternoon, the young man (named Roger) is attacked by a large wolf. He shoots it, then discovers, to his shock, that when he approaches the dead body, it is in fact, the bloody corpse of an old man. (Note the early spawning of A. Black grisliness.) He is totally stunned by this. Equally so when he is surrounded by a group of angry Forest People (as I called them). They are enraged by what he’s done. Among them is a lovely young maiden named Aleesha. The old man was her grandfather.

To make a long story short (a capacity I totally lack), Aleesha spares Roger’s life by explaining to the other Forest People (as I called them—I said that already, didn’t I?) that her grandfather was showing unfortunate signs of mental decline and was shape-shifting devoid of discretion. I forget, exactly, how she explained it. Roger was—reluctantly by some, especially Aleesha’s brother (guess where that came from)—exonerated and, with limitations, accepted by the Forest People—who were human-sized, not small—this tickled the faeries considerably.

So time went by. I will not divulge all the details of my masterpiece (joke) but say only that Roger and Aleesha fell in love, and he came, more and more, to embrace the Forest People way of life, taught their various skills. (The faeries loved this section; I was requested to read it aloud on many an occasion. I became quite popular for a time. To my [by then] nineteen-year-old delight.)

How the novel progressed and concluded, I will keep a secret. If it has a happy or a tragic ending, I will not tell you. (It was a sort of A. Black send-off tale remember, so I leave that up to you.)

I will not forget the afternoon Ruthana took me by the hand and walked me through the woods. Life in those days was idyllic in every way, so I thought little about where she was taking me. I simply enjoyed the stroll. Spring was in the offing. Sound poetic? I was in a poetic mood. In a short while I would celebrate my first year in Gatford. In even less time, I would become a happy father, the mother my beloved Ruthana.

So imagine my surprise when she led me toward the path. For several long minutes (they certainly seemed long to me), I thought she was putting me out of the woods, out of her life. Was my presence so disturbing to her? It wouldn’t be that difficult to understand. I had disrupted her existence in many ways. I was, despite my diminished stature, still a human being—or, as Gilly had it, a Human Being. She was carrying a baby put inside her by a race unknown to her. My proximity generated a situation in which Gilly’s vengeful hatred of humans was so completely exaggerated that it made him miscalculate and endanger his own sister’s life; a definite dereliction (I won’t say it!) in the Middle Kingdom. Because of this he was imprisoned in the Cairn. I’d simply done too much harm.

The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that she was expelling me from Faerieland; perhaps on Garal’s order.

“You’re putting me out, aren’t you?” I said.

“What?” She hadn’t heard. I repeated the question—more a despairing statement.

“Putting you out?” she said. She sounded confused.

I blurted out my list of anxieties.

“Oh, Alexi!” she murmured, stopping in her tracks.

“Isn’t it true?” I asked, also stopping. “Haven’t I ruined your life?”

“Alexi. My love. Ruined it? You’ve made my life heaven!”

“Then… why—?” I started.

“Putting you out?” she sounded painfully incredulous now. “I would never do that.”

“Then why… the path?” I asked.

I’d removed my hand while enumerating my doubts. She took it back now. Firmly. “Come,” she said.

We walked to the path. There, she stopped and pointed. I looked. Magda’s house.

Burning.

For a while—how long I don’t remember—I was speechless. Then, at last, I was able to speak. Not coherently. “How?” was all my brain was able to produce.

“We don’t know,” Ruthana said. “We think that the people of Gatford did it.”

“Why?” Another ill-produced word from my unhinged brain. The intense relief of hearing that Ruthana was not getting rid of me magnified by the unnerving sight of Magda’s house on fire created a word void in my head. “Why?” I said again, blotting out her answer. Which was, “Because she’s a witch.”

“I know but—is, Ruthana? She’s dead, isn’t she?” I felt cold asking it.

Colder yet at Ruthana’s answer. “Part of her.”

“Part?” I couldn’t recognize my voice, it sounded hollow, hoarse.

“Her second body is still alive,” she said.

Again that voice sounded unrecognizable to me. “Second body?”

“Didn’t Garal tell you?” she asked.

“No,” I said. Then, “I don’t remember.”

She recounted to me (I guess Garal had said something like it) that we have several bodies, one of them physical.

“That was the body you saw in the woods,” she told me. “The body she shifted to the griffin body. The body that was killed.”

“Then… her—second body?…” I was totally mixed up.

“Is her—did Garal name it?—astral body? Spirit body? It’s still alive. There has to be a second death.”

“Second death,” I muttered. Caught between confusion and the deep blue sea.

Ruthana nodded. “Then the rest of her can move on.” Her expression darkened. “I would hate to see where, she’s done so much evil.”

“So much good, too,” I found myself protesting. “I was with her for months. She healed my wound. She was very kind to me.”

“Are you sorry you left her?” Ruthana asked. She meant it.

“I didn’t leave her, she chased me out.”

“And tried to kill you, Alexi.”

I sighed. I felt rotten. “I know,” I said. “My home is with you.”

“Oh, Alexi,” she said. She was in my arms again. Her soft lips on mine. “I love you,” she whispered. “Don’t ever think you ruined my life. Don’t ever think that.”

“I won’t,” I promised. “Thinking it made me sick.”

She kissed me tenderly. “You never have to think it again,” she said.

We stood in silence for a while, looking at the fiery blaze of Magda’s house.

“I suppose there’s no way to put it out,” I thought aloud.

“None,” she said. “We can’t do it. And the people of Gatford won’t do it. We believe they started it, of course.”

I said no more. I did wonder why the faeries could do nothing. I didn’t ask. Ruthana read my thought. “She tried to harm us any way she could,” she told me. “We’re not sad to see it burn.”

I noticed, at that moment, that we were not alone. All through the trees, I saw a host of Middle Kingdomites, all standing quietly, watching. A few of them—the younger ones—were smiling, even grinning at the leaping flames. Most of them, however, to their credit, observed the (by now) conflagration in grave muteness. There was no way of knowing what terrible hostilities had existed between them and Magda. (I knew nothing about it from her.) Memories of dreadful events I’d experienced gave me some idea; but details? No. I actually lost track of the fire, turning my head to look at the different faeries.

I had never seen them in such numbers before. They were a fascinating sight. Every age, every appearance, all short in height, of course, all dressed in clothes of various color. All—do I dare express it so?—cute. Well, they were. Dwellers of Middle Kingdom. Secretive to a fault. Fast moving. Innocent yet capable of alarming mischief. Lovers—and nurturers—of Nature. A (virtually) unknown race of legendary people, little people. It was hard for me to believe I was one of them. Of course, I wasn’t.

I had to tear away my rude inspection of them. I managed it somehow, returning to the burning house. It was, now, a holocaust. (An original definition of the ghastly crime we, later, were witness to.)

“There’s no way… Magda—as she is now—can put it out?” I asked.

“None,” said Ruthana. “She is not part of this world now. I mean not in this… what is the word my father uses? Diminishin?”

“Dimension?” I suggested.

“Yes.” She nodded. “Magda is still in the house but in a different—demenishen.”

I didn’t correct her. All I could accost in my brain was an image of Magda in the house, unable to do anything but watch the belongings of her life consumed by fire. The furniture, the books, her bed, for God’s sake! The painting of Edward! Even in another dimension, it had to be a wrenching experience for her to watch helplessly as these priceless possessions burned.

You wonder, perhaps, why, so easily, I accepted the concept that, her physical body dead, Magda still existed. Listen, folks. After all I’d seen in 1918, I would have bought the Brooklyn Bridge for twenty cents. Little green men from Mars? Probably. Rocket ships to—what?—the moon? Why not? For Jesus’ sake I’d lived with faeries for six months! A witch for three! What was left to disbelieve?

So the house of Magda Variel was burned to the ground. Well, almost. Some of it remained, blackened, charred. And any sign of the Gatford Voluntary Fire Department? My ass. I hated to think of Joe gloating over the consumption of the witch’s house. He probably did, though. Hadn’t he alerted me to her witchdom? Hadn’t he told me how to cope with her? No, that was with the faeries; he was obsessed with them, too.

Well, he had brought me bread and milk and fixed the roof of Discomfort Cottage—give the man pluses for that. And he was a product of his time and place, God bless his superstitious bones. Oh, Christ. I’m getting tolerant in my waning years. Or is it feeble-minded? Anyway, Joe’s superstitions proved to be true. Magda was a witch. The woods did swarm with faeries. I should write him a letter. Dear Joe, you were fucking right. (There, I’ve used the super-naughty word. And I’m not even apologizing for it.)

I have become conscious of the fact that I am killing pages to delay what is becoming those dread words (worse, I think than the “bad” one).

The End.

But it’s not, you see. Almost but not completely.

Chapter Twenty-nine

The birth of Garana took place on February 29, 1919. It was a painless and harmonious delivery. They always are in Faerieland. Or so I was told. Why not? Was there any stress to deal with? Not at all. Except for human beings with guns.

I will attempt now (probably without success) to describe the celebration that took place in honor of Garana’s entry into Little People Land. I suppose I might have shown resentment that my daughter wasn’t named Alexana or something like that. I assumed that despite every emotional attachment I felt for Middle Kingdom, I was still, fundamentally, a human being, and my child’s name reflected that albeit subtly. Actually, I did feel disturbed by it but had to understand. Ruthana picked up my distress and tried to comfort me. Garana was still my blood daughter, she said. Nothing could change that.

Yes—the celebration. I did recall that my marriage to Ruthana was unattended by my Faerieland brethren. Because it was a polyglot wedding, faerie with human being—or mortal as we are sometimes called. But aren’t faeries mortal? Aren’t they corporeal as much as human beings? I guess not. They are partly (how much I never knew) also incorporeal? Astral? Ruthana seemed bodily enough when we were loving. Oh, who knows? I’ve been sidetracked again. Arthur Black would put me in a home for askew authors.

Well, I must, as best I can describe the natal day celebration. I said I would, and by God, I will. I might go off center periodically, but I do manage to get back on target. Eventually.

You know that faeries love to dance. No, you don’t. I never told you. Well, they do. A lot. As much as possible. And what better excuse than the birth of a Middle Kingdom citizen?

The music? Fiddles. Panpipes. Pennywhistles. One delicious melody after another. Did you know that many so-called folk songs were derived from faerie songs? For instance “The Londonderry Air.” That was one of them. Of course, there is a melancholy feeling to that one. There was nothing but joy and energy to the dancing music that day. All to the throbbing, mesmerizing beat of tiny drums, the rhythmic cadence of feet as they battered lightly at the ground. Whirling, jumping faerie figures, dressed in vividly colored costumes adorned with flowers, sparkling with jewels of every shade. Voices singing jubilantly, peals of buoyant laughter. These were happy people. No matter their size. They were surfeited with merriment. As was I, watching on the sidelines, enchanted by the sights and sounds of their delight. I have never, since, experienced such total exultation.

Which made the sudden silence an oppressive heaviness on my ears. I had to shake my head to clear it of the gaiety of musical clamor I had been relishing. I looked around in curious wonder. Everyone had stopped their excited jigging. They were starting to move near the edge of the immense glade we were in. Why? I thought. What could have caused them to, abruptly, terminate their beloved dance? Then I saw. The figure of a man emerging from the woods.

Gilly.

I thought (I hoped) that the gathering faeries were going to attack Gilly, showing angry disapproval of his unforgivable behavior.

I was fated to disappointment on that one.

Embraces were rampant, handshakes plentiful. They were glad to see him. He had, I suppose, discharged his punishment in the Cairn and was now being welcomed back once more, a full-fledged member of the clan.

Garal was beside me then. I wanted Ruthana, but she was still resting. “He’s passed his time in the Cairn,” Garal told me.

“Now what?” I asked. Tremulously, I’m sure.

“He’ll be all right now,” Garal said. Not to comfort me, I felt. More to put me in place.

“I hope so,” I said.

“I’ll bring him over,” Garal replied.

Before I could protest, No, don’t! he was gone. I watched as he entered the group. Respectfully, they parted from their leader, and he moved to confront Gilly—who was smiling broadly from his friends’ enthusiastic greetings.

Seeing Garal, he lost the smile, although its replacement was an expression of pleased respect. Garal gave him a welcoming hug, and Gilly smiled. They spoke briefly, Gilly nodding at whatever his father said, Garal now nodded as well, looking at his son with guarded assurance. He took Gilly by the arm and began to escort him from the clustering group. I felt myself begin to tense. Gilly had given me so much unwarranted angst. I was ( justifiably, I thought) terrified of him. What was he going to do now? Especially, after spending—what was it?—six months in the Cairn. The ugliness of which was only imaginable to me.

But now—incredibly!—he was smiling at me. Had he forgiven me? Reformed? Wonder of wonders, as he approached, he broadened his smile. He extended his right hand to shake mine. I felt a wash of tremendous relief. He had forgiven me! Well, at least, accepted me.

“I’m back, Alexi,” he said. His tone was warm. His handshake firm.

And tightening.

“Time,” he said.

“Gilly,” Garal warned him.

Too late. Gilly’s left hand—in the pocket of his jacket—jerked out. He was clutching something in it.

“Gilly!” cried his father.

Just as Gilly hurled the gray powder in my face. In my eyes. Pain!

Blindness.

Chapter Thirty

Let me tell you what I’ve read about blindness.

The human eye—I’m talking about mine, I don’t know if faerie eyes are different—is cradled in a socket known as an orbit. The eyelids protect it from dirt and bright light. Obviously not from poisonous gray powder—but I’ll get to that. The white of the eye is called the sclera, its tissue opening the cornea. Behind the cornea is the pupil. Surrounding the pupil is the iris, the color of the eye. Behind that is the lens controlling the focus of the vision. Lining the back wall of the eyeball is the retina.

With me so far? I’m almost done.

At the center of the retina is the macula, providing central vision and fine details. Finally, the optic nerve, connecting the eye and brain. Why am I telling you this? Not sure. Still trying to understand what Gilly did to me. Something rotten to the eyes. That much I know.

I won’t go into common vision aliments. You know them as well as I do: nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism, presbyopia. (The last still a mystery to me.) None of them apply. Nor do vision problems caused by age. I was nineteen years old, for Christ’s sake! My visual acuity was sharp as a tack. Until, of course…

Eye trauma? Getting closer now. Foreign objects? I’d classify that damned gray powder as a foreign object, sure. A lot of foreign objects. Symptoms? Sudden pain in the eye. Sudden decrease in vision. I’ll say. Red eyes? Probably. I couldn’t tell you. All I can recall of the griffin’s (Magda’s) eyes was a milky whiteness. I imagine that’s what my eyes looked like. Those foreign objects obviously damaged my cornea and lens, probably more.

Chemical burns? No doubt. Direct contact? Of course. Eyeballs seared. Serious damage to the conjunctiva (the membrane that lines the eye) and the cornea, and more—in my case. Macular degeneration? A walk in the park. I was blind. Got that? Blind.

Things I know about blindness. Remember, I was there.

My first reaction? As indicated. Pain. My god, what pain! No wonder Magda screamed. I screamed. And not for ice cream. For relief. Which didn’t come. I couldn’t help screaming. My eyeballs were on fire. Imagine the sensation of holding your finger over a flaming burner. I mean holding it. Holding it. And holding it. Until you’re sure your finger is going to ignite. As though the pain center in your brain is gonging EMERGENCY!! Add to that a fiery scorching in my face and in my throat. A hot, I mean hot!—swelling there. A conviction that I couldn’t breathe. An expectation that, each time I did breathe, dragon fire would escape my lips.

More. A rush of hallucinations clogging my brain. Gilly’s face zooming in and out of vision, laughing with insane delight. Black and white. Like a cheap, silent movie. Ruthana running toward me, then away from me. Garal trying to push my head under burning pond water. Magda thrusting a burning wand in my face, expression maniacal. Her clothes catching fire. Her tearing off her clothes. Her nipples shooting fire at me. Wild laughter. Hers. Everyone’s. Faeries dancing, burning, laughing. The griffin attacking me, Magda’s head on it, laughing at me. A flaming owl in my face, screeching deafeningly. None of this in sequence, mind you. An admixture of demented images and noises. All made doubly, (triply, quadruply,) horrific by the burning pain in my eyes. And the blindness.

What I know about blindness.

1. It’s scary as hell. Especially when you’re only nineteen years old and take 100 percent vision for granted.

2. Space—and time—lose all significance.

3. Calling it darkness is not accurate. Total darkness would be a blessing. You still see (at least I did) occasional flashes of light, some gray clouds. (Presaging nothing but further blindness, however.)

4. Not only is it terrifying, it’s humiliating and frustrating as well. Vacillating between both extremes. Complete visual frustration, then blank, utter horror.

5. Headaches. (For me, anyway.) Nausea. Insomnia. God, how I would have loved to chop up Gilly!

6. A few (very few) positives. You hear a lot more keenly. Undistracted by sight, you sense a limitless environment around you. Not that these positives made the difference for me. At nineteen? Phooey! I say. Phooey!

7. The worst of all. In the beginning, I comforted myself by reliving my past. Not that I had a hell of a lot of it at nineteen. But there were certainly some interesting highpoints in the past year plus.

The problem was that visual—even auditory—memories began to fade after a while. Even my dreams began a slow—and maddening!—deterioration. I suppose it was because my eyesight had been virtually (or actually) destroyed. So what I couldn’t see in wakefulness, I couldn’t see in sleep. Poor me. A nineteen-year-old is not exactly a fountainhead of philosophical insight. Mostly, I was pissed off. And unhappy, of course. Ruthana did her all to assuage my unhappiness. She really did. It helped. Somewhat.

Where was Gilly? Back in the Cairn. He did a dreadful thing. His sentence was lengthy, I was told. I wanted to hear he’d been convicted to a hangman’s rope, a headsman’s axe. No such luck. Such punishment was verboten in Faerieland. Too bad. I’d have done it myself. Hanged him or beheaded him or both. No such luck times two. I tried not to convey this dark ambition to Ruthana. She probably knew anyway. She was telepathic. So was I, the realization gradually dawned on me.

I, also, realized that, without making any kind of issue over it, Ruthana had increased my—how do I put it without sounding like a dope?—creative ability. My frustration was immense. I was filled with ideas. I yearned to write them down. Pour out endless novels—no such possibility when blind. What, dictate to Ruthana? Out of the question. My frustration—inflamed by my creative surge—increased my frustration exponentially. Ruthana assured me that I would write again, no doubt of it. Sure, I said, nodding my blind head. Not believing a word of it. But I guess she knew.

The fading—visual and mental—of my memories. I gave up trying to summon any vestige of recollection about my boyhood—the Captain, my mother, Veronica. Those recollections went fast. The best I could do, at first, was “seeing” my experiences in the trench, my meeting with—and later despair at his “death”—Harold. My trek to Gatford. In the beginning of my struggling remembrances, I was even able to visualize (quite well) the cottages I saw, even managing a chuckle at my recollection of so-called Comfort Cottage.

I should have bypassed my early days there. Joe. His cautioning. My first experience in the woods. By the time I came to Magda, my insights were already paling. I had to grit my brain-teeth in order to recapture those moments—my first visit to her remarkable house. Another chuckle recalling her remarkable bed—and the remarkable gymnastics that had taken place there. Magda’s healing of my wound. The Good days. Then the darker ones. (I was almost glad to “see” them fade away.) The arguments. Expulsion from her house. Reconciliation. More good (as well as lustful) hours. Peace. At a price, naturally.

Then my meeting with Ruthana. Did she—in my blindness—know what I remembered? She must have—for the visual details suddenly became vivid. As though she was literally projecting them into my mind. She probably—wonderfully—was.

Because the following images were blurred again. Indistinct. My discovery (a coward’s word for “theft”) of Magda’s hideous manuscript. All moments jumbled then. Only the final scene unmistakable. Magda’s assault on me. My use of the powder. How did Ruthana foresee that need? My flight from Magda’s blind rage. Return to the Middle Kingdom—and Ruthana.

From there, my memories were clear. (Ruthana must have been responsible for that.) My decrease in size. That pain seemed negligible now. My happy days with Ruthana. My afternoon with Garal and my education regarding true Reality. Not that the knowledge was very helpful with my eyes so totally out of commission.

Or were they? Such was the final stage of my blindness.

It took months. Had to. Week upon week of what? I couldn’t tell you. I didn’t know then and I don’t know now.

Their healing process.

It was truly good of them. Wouldn’t it have been more convenient—easier certainly—to leave me a blind, mortally wasted human being, stuck in their habitat? Surely. But they were good. Kind. Thoughtful. And they restored my sight.

Easier to say than to explain. How did they do it?

Granted, the powder seemed to be their own concoction. I learned during that healing time, so they knew what the ingredients were. Or are—I’m going on the assumption that the powder is still being produced, although it’s difficult for me to know why. The faeries seem an unlikely people to utilize such toxic dust. There was, at least to me and, presumably, Ruthana, a valid reason to use it against Magda. I would have lost my head if I hadn’t. That meant a good deal to me. Nineteen, you recall. My head still had some use to me.

Anyway, the ingredients. English ivy. Foxglove (a source of digitalis). Jimson weed. Holly leaves. Amanita (mushrooms). I urge you not to try the recipe at home. The amounts are essential. You’d never get them right. Thank God.

What did they do to heal me?

Procedures while I was awake—conscious, that is.

Put some kind of stinging wash in my eyes. The stinging was not so severe as the one I felt when Gilly first threw that damnable powder in my eyes. For days on end, I couldn’t erase the memory of the griffin’s (Magda’s) milk-white sclera, pupil, and iris. As though they had been marinated in liquefied dough. Gradually, that image left me. Fortunately, being sightless, there was no way to witness my reflection. No mirrors, anyway; I’d have had to see it in a pond or something. I knew what it was, though. And was sharply reminded of it each time they (Garal, I presume, maybe Ruthana; I don’t think there were any Middle Kingdom physicians, though I wouldn’t bet on it) worked on me.

Anyway… the eyewash helped. A little. Very little. On occasion, I had a momentary view of gray (always gray) light in my eyes. Not that I could see anything. No, no. Good ol’ Gilly had done an A-1 job on that. The wee bastard.

What else? Massages. To my temples and forehead. I knew that was being done by Ruthana. Her touch was unmistakable. Gentle—loving. And, of course, accompanied by her sweet voice. Telling me to never lose faith. My eyesight would return. She promised me. Sometimes I fell asleep while her fingers were massaging me. What I didn’t know until later was that her mother sometimes relieved her when she tired—or had to breast-feed our daughter. On those occasions, I might awake—and never realize that Eana now massaged me, her touch, too, so gentle, so loving. Only when I spoke to her and she replied did I realize who it was. If I indicated any alarm at Ruthana’s absence, her mother quickly reassured me.

Massages, then. And some kind of creamy salve (also stinging) applied directly to my eyeballs. And, often, cool, damp cloths laid across my eyes for—I guesstimate—an hour at a time. Mostly Ruthana would remain with me during those periods. I came to—almost—enjoy them. They were so quietly peaceful. During them, Ruthana would sing to me in her soft, angelic voice. I have, at times, attempted to transcribe a few of the melodies she sang, but the effort is a waste. The notes alone do not contain more than a hint of the magic conveyed by Ruthana’s voice. Long ago, I gave up the attempt.

What else? The eye washes. The massages, the creamy salve—or salves, there may have been more than one kind. The cool damp cloths. The singing. For all I knew, that may have been part (an important part) of the healing process.

Anything more? Yes, I’m forgetting the drinks. The potions, I guess you’d call them. They were tasty; they were awful. Several varieties. I came to know the difference between them. Some were sweet and fruit-flavored, reminiscent of orange juice, apple juice, creamy milk. Others… yuck! Like drinking battery fluid! They had to be helpful, I told myself. Something tasting that ghastly had to be curative. Or why bother? Garal laughed when I told him that. His laughter, on that occasion, was not of any comfort, or pleasure. But I went along with the vile beverage, more concerned with sight repair than taste bud catering.

So that was when I was conscious. I can only surmise (wildly, I admit) what they did when I was either asleep or—very possibly—drugged. I know, by guess (and by gosh), that there were lapses of time I could not account for. So I assume that, during those lapses, I was, as they say, “knocked out.” Probably one—or all—of those drinks rendered me unconscious.

What they did to me when I was “out,” I couldn’t say for certain.

I can guess, though.

They removed my eyes.

Why I say that, don’t ask for proof. Only the vaguest of memories attest to it.

You’ve probably seen (I hope you haven’t, it’s a loathsome sight) photographs of eyeballs pulled out (either accidentally or deliberately) from their orbits—or, if you prefer, their sockets—and hanging down over cheeks, dangling by the optic nerve. It has been done, how often medically, I couldn’t say. I’m sure it’s occurred a thousand times in war, gouged out by blades, no doubt torn away completely. Sure. Good ol’ mankind.

Well (even guessing that this actually took place), I’m sure that my faerie healer (most likely Garal, I doubt if Ruthana could have stomached it) used extreme care in removing my eyeballs from their orbits. How, I can’t imagine. (I’d rather not imagine) Why? I can’t imagine that either, but my guess has a bit more coherence.

To wash them. Dip them in some therapeutic medicine. If, as I understood it, the cells of my eyeballs were clogged with poison, eyewashes could have only a limited effect. A more direct and penetrating soak or “scrub” was called for.

How long my eyeballs were absent from my head, again I have no idea. I do recall one dream I had in which my eyeballs tumbled from their sockets and were grabbed up by a laughing shellycoat. Maybe that took place while Garal—or someone—was immersing my dislocated eyeball into whatever healing balm was on the schedule that day. Maybe not. It was a frightening dream, though. Jesus God, the whole experience was frightening; let me tell you! Stay out of the damn woods! No, I don’t mean that. If you (males) have the good fortune to accost a Ruthana, you’ll be blessed forever. The very sight of her—

Which was what mine was, at least three-quarters of a year following the Gilly attack. Bing! Like that. A shade suddenly raised before my eyes. Ruthana’s darling face in front of me.

“I can see!” I cried. It might have been the most ecstatic moment of my life.

“Oh, my love!” she said, her voice close to strangled. I did not react to that. I held her close, my face pressed into her golden, fragrant hair. I believed her sobs were those of joy and gratitude.

I was wrong.

When I drew back to gaze once more at her exquisite face, I saw, for the first time, her expression of anguish, her cheeks soaked with flowing tears.

I misunderstood. “Do I look so bad?” I asked, convinced that I did.

“Oh, Alexi, no, no.” she said, her words thickened by despair. She threw her arms around my neck and kissed me fervently. Her lips were wet with tears.

Now she drew back, quickly, a look of dread on her face. “Oh, love,” she murmured.

“What?” I asked. Her dread had entered my heart by now. “What is it?”

She could barely speak. She almost gasped the words.

Which were, “You have to leave.”

Chapter Thirty-one

I stood riveted to the spot. And she was gone. Bing! Like that again, in the faerie way. Why she left like that I didn’t understand until later. She couldn’t face what was about to happen. Her gone in an instant, Garal in front of me the next instant. At one time, their incredible ability to vanish or appear in a split second would have startled me. Now I only wondered why.

“I have to leave?” I asked

Garal nodded. “Yes.”

“Why?” I asked, almost demanded. “What have I done?”

His smile was melancholy. “Nothing,” he said.

“Then why?” I demanded now.

“Because of what you are,” he said.

“A human being?” I said angrily. “It’s Gilly, isn’t it?”

“Part of it,” he told me.

I didn’t get it. “Can’t you leave him in the Cairn?” I asked impatiently. I knew they couldn’t but I had to ask.

“That isn’t possible,” Garal said. Dear God, his tone was very patient. I knew I was in for it.

“Why not?” I asked again, demanding. “Would it completely disrupt your lifestyle? Is it better to let him keep trying to kill me?”

“No,” he said quietly. Then, “That isn’t it either.”

“Why not?” I said. I knew that I was being argumentative. But I didn’t want to lose Ruthana. “Garal,” I went on, protesting, “why did you let me stay here in the first place? You must have known that Gilly hated me.”

He was silent.

“Well?” I said. I knew my voice was strident now.

“We shouldn’t have,” he said. “It was a mistake.”

“A mistake?” Now my voice was shrill. I knew I was losing. “Why?!”

“You weren’t meant to live in here,” he said.

His voice and words made me tremble. “Why did you admit me, then?” My voice trembled as well. Admit? I remember thinking. What kind of word is that? It sounded stupid.

“Because of my daughter,” he said.

“Ruthana?” I asked. Feeling immediately dumb. He knew her name. She was his daughter, for Chrissake! Hadn’t he just said so?

He did not respond to my gaffe. All he said was, “Yes.” Quietly. Still patiently. I think I would have preferred it if he lashed out. I should have known better. That was not Garal’s way. He was the soul of containment.

“You did it because of her?” I asked, completely stressed by now.

“Of course,” he said. “She is our princess.”

I must have sounded dense. “She’s a princess?” I asked.

“I don’t mean royally,” he explained. “I know she is your princess though. And to Ruthana, you are her prince. Her love for you is boundless. So great that we allowed her pleas to let you in to be accepted. We made a mistake.”

He sounded so doleful now that my defensive anger faded. “Why was it a mistake, Garal?” I asked. I actually sounded patient now.

He hesitated. Then said, “Since your sight returned, have you looked at yourself?”

“I beg your pardon,” I said. A foolish thing to say—but I was so perplexed by his comment that I couldn’t come up with anything better.

He wasted no further words. “You’re growing,” he said. “The diminishing was only temporary. In a while, you’ll be a full-size human being—again. We didn’t know that would happen.”

“Can’t you—diminish me again?” I asked. It was an honest inquiry. I meant it.

“We wouldn’t dare to try,” he said. “It would be too dangerous. Don’t you recall the pain?”

“Yes. I do,” I told him. I had noticed an increase in the size of my hands and feet, a biting throb in my body. But I’d endure it all again. I couldn’t bear to lose Ruthana. I told him so.

He only shook his head.

“Garal, I’ll do it!” I cried. “Don’t make me lose Ruthana!”

“Alex,” he said. His use of my human name made me shudder. “You don’t understand. It was all a mistake. You were never meant to be one of us.”

His tone was so final, I had no response. Except one very weak, “Why?”

“Because it’s not your world,” he said. “No mortal can exist here for long. They’d become unhappy.”

“No,” I protested, “I wouldn’t. I’ve been very happy here.”

“It wouldn’t last,” Garal told me. “Do you think you are the first human being to stop here and want to stay?”

I must say that stunned me. I had no idea. “Did they… choose to diminish?” This was all unnerving news to me.

“Some,” he said. “Some died trying. You do remember the pain.”

“None of them stayed?” I asked. Already my human self was cutting in.

“They couldn’t,” said Garal. “Those who survived the diminishment could not survive their loss of spirit. If they remained, that spirit withered and died.”

“Oh, God,” was all I could say. I knew that he was telling me the truth. It was devastating to me.

Then I said, “Will I lose it all if I leave?”

He shook his head. His smile was kind. “No,” he said. “Whatever is important to you will always remain with you.”

My farewell to Ruthana was a strange one—an ambivalent one.

At its most disturbing was Ruthana’s desolation. At the other extreme, my mounting resentment that I was being ousted from Faerieland. Why? The question remained to plague me. It couldn’t be because of Gilly. They knew about his hatred of me when they diminished me. Why do it then if his hostility wasn’t an issue? Yet they did. Wasn’t it possible that Ruthana could teach me all her powers so I could defend myself from Gilly’s assaults? For that matter, after enough attacks had failed (I omitted more blinding powder from the estimate), wouldn’t he just give up? Get to know me? Discover that I wasn’t such a bad person after all and become my friend? That last possibility was the most improbable—but I was really desperate for an out. I was willing to consider any solution.

As for the rest? That, after a while, my spirit would wither and die? The more I examined that scenario, the more farfetched it seemed. I was supposed to accept that as the main reason to exit the Middle Kingdom? I simply couldn’t believe it. Continuous examination of the idea seemed to reveal it, more and more, as threadbare and unacceptable.

So what did that leave me with?

My angelic love in total desolation. Clearly, she believed what Garal had told me. Every word of it. Every blessed word. How could I contend with that, much less obstruct it? It was her life’s conviction. Maybe it was even true. I didn’t possess the armament to subdue it. I’d only frighten her if I tried. I didn’t believe it. I didn’t want to. She did. That was the gist of it. It was part and parcel of her culture. Period. Amen. Selah. Damn it!

So all I could do was hold her in my arms, kiss her on her hair, her cheeks, her lips. She could not stop crying. “Weeping” is more the word. Mourning and grieving. Sobbing. Eyes brimming with endless tears, cheeks remaining soaked with them, no matter how often I patted them with my handkerchief; which, at length, grew soggy. I had to wring it out more than once. Poor Ruthana. She was inconsolable. Ravaged by sorrow.

Finally, I had to speak, though.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

Which only evoked a fresh torrent of tears, another moan of despair.

“I guess you are,” I said.

For some reason, that brought on a smile. Coupled with her pained expression, it was reduced to a grimace. “Yes, Alex,” she said.

Why does she so easily address me by my world name? I wondered. I let it go.

And yet I couldn’t. Not completely. “Did you always know this?” I asked. This? I thought. What part of it?

She seemed to know. I’d forgotten she was telepathic. “Yes,” she said.

“And yet—” I hesitated. I was slipping into exception speaking now.

I did it, anyway. Forgive me, Lord. She was so desolate. She deserved better.

But did I give it to her? I did not. Why? I was desolate myself. I was on the verge of losing the love of my life. Get it, folks? Nineteen. Not too smart. Hurting. Reacting, like the kid I still was.

“You knew it when they—diminished me?” I asked.

She drew in a long shuddering breath. “I wouldn’t let myself believe it.”

Wouldn’t believe it, eh? The sharp-tongued lawyer in my brain contested her. I felt justification and guilt combined. Especially when Ruthana sobbed again and clung to me more tightly.

I understand. I wanted to say it. To comfort her. But my teenage brain (Jeez, I wasn’t even twenty yet!) rebelled. It isn’t fair! I wanted to say that. But, at least, I had enough control, enough sympathy. I didn’t say it.

“It isn’t Gilly, then,” I did say; to calm her, I thought.

It was labor for her to speak. I noticed how red and inflamed her eyes were, poor sweet thing.

“No,” she said. “I could have managed him.”

Still, that assurance in herself where her brother was concerned. I didn’t count her reply. What about the shellycoat? I could have said. What about the powder in my eyes? I said nothing. Why bother anyway?

I was losing direction, I realized. I was about to give up the only woman (was she a woman? a girl? an astral being?) I had ever loved. Or (I now know) would ever love. I tightened my grip on her and sobbed myself; I confess, it startled me. “I love you, Ruthana. I adore you.”

“Oh, Alexi!” she cried. God bless her, she called me by the name I’d taken in her land. “I love you so! I’ll die when you leave!”

“Don’t say that,” I pleaded. “I need to remember you soaring through the trees. Invisible. Enchanted. Bathing your exquisite body in the waterfall unseen, and laughing in the woods, causing leaves to rustle. Dancing in the glades, a vision of innocence and playfulness. Don’t take all that away from me!” (Where did those words come from?)

“Oh, Alexi, never, never! I promise you!” We had our last passionate kiss. Then she spoke aloud to me, a final blessing by someone she called the White Lady. I have never forgotten it.

What has not worked will now succeed.

Those who cause you distress will change or vanish from your life.

Doors of opportunity will open unexpectedly.

What you believe will prosper.

Your mind will be free.

New ideas will come to you.

You will be kind and generous to others.

You will be truthful in all things.

Smiling now, her tears controlled, Ruthana reached into a pocket and took out something. Which she laid in the palm of my right hand.

The most enormous emerald I have ever seen. Maybe not as big as Harold’s gold lump, but big. I have never shown it to an expert, God knows never thought of selling it. You know why.

“I’ll keep it always,” I told her. “I’ve had enough gray dust in my life.”

She laughed, then looked serious. “I want you to keep it always. To remember me by.”

“I will,” I promised her. A promise I have always kept.

I was already dressed in human clothes Eana had altered to fit me. Despite my growth I was still a good deal short of six feet two inches—although I was sure I’d regain that height. My bones and flesh were still in the achy act (oh dear, combo) of restructuring. Soon I’d be back to the world. Which, at the moment, I had scant desire to rejoin.

Anyway, Ruthana walked me through the woods (still bright with summer green), her hand in mine. Strange but, now, she seemed to me more of the different race she was—all variant, all powerful, totally mysterious. I glanced at her once. I preferred to look ahead and, believe it or not, although she still was my beautiful Ruthana, something in her expression differed from what I had grown accustomed to. She was closer to being an exotic, faraway creature who had—it now struck me as miraculous—told me that she loved me.

I looked at the woods. I felt a pang of regret that I had said good-bye (I guess she was aware of my presence) to my daughter. For my entire life, I have conjectured what she looked like as she aged. However gradually, I could not imagine. Ruthana? If she was fortunate. My genes surely held her back, poor child. I was handsome, yes, but after all, I was a human being and what could a faerie progeny expect from that?

When we reached the path, I saw that we were directly opposite Magda’s burned-out house. The Gatford citizens—a pox on them—had never bothered to repair it. I wonder, now (circa 1982), if they ever did.

Maybe they couldn’t. Maybe they’d tried and been dissuaded. “Don’t go in there—if you’re tempted to,” Ruthana told me. “She’s still there.”

That gave me the shudders. I used that imaginary scene in one of my novels. MIDNIGHT WITCH, as I recall.

Ruthana kissed me gently. “Remember me,” she murmured.

“Good God, do you think I won’t?” I said. With my usual teenage conceit.

She smiled, understanding. She still had that ability, I recognized. “No, I don’t,” she said. “I know you will.”

“I always will,” I swore. “Oh, God, I’m going to miss you, Ruthana!”

She kissed me again, more ardently now. Then she smiled. I saw tears rising in her eyes. “I’m going to vanish now,” she said.

And so she did. One second there, one second not. My Ruthana. Disappearing in the woods.

Not in my heart.

Chapter Thirty-two

I suspect this will be the final chapter of my book. It pains me to say it. Why? Because I’ve spent so many pleasant hours telling you my story. I hate to see it end. However—

To continue.

I returned to the States six months after my twentieth birthday—which I celebrated by tossing my cookies in the North Atlantic. I’d been doing it all week—the crossing marked by endless tidal waves. I call them that. They were probably just big waves. I have a tendency to exaggerate—or have you noticed? But not the story itself. I swear to God it’s true. Well, believe it or not.

I’d say I returned to the United States, but as we know, they’re hardly united. Massachusetts—Texas? Sure. Practically twins. West Virginia—California? Joined at the hip. You get the point.

For some insane reason, I took a trip to Brooklyn to see the old homestead. Not that I intended to ring the doorbell. The thought of being confronted by him was not to be considered. I don’t think he was there, anyway. I should have known when I saw, parked at the curb, an automobile that was probably driven by a sentient being. Not the funereal, hearselike limo he usually chauffeured. Sitting straight up, that “Get out of my way, I am Captain Bradford White, USN” look on his iron-bound face.

No, he wasn’t there. Thank God for that. What if, by accident, he’d stepped out, seen me, and without a moment’s hesitation, began to lambaste me for my failings? I would have had to kill him or, at least, taken advantage of my newfound faerie power (not utilized yet) to reduce him to a pulp. Just kidding. I’ve never had that much power. It would have been nice, though.

I couldn’t stay in Brooklyn. The remotest possibility that the Captain and I might cross paths was enough to send me scuttling for the subway. I took a train to Lower Manhattan, where I rented a small (translation: “cheap”) apartment. I purchased a portable typewriter and paper, contacted a publisher, and asked if he’d like to see my novel. He said yes and, making a long story short (for once), it got published. MIDNIGHT sold well enough, and he said would I place a bit more emphasis on the “scary” stuff in the second novel? That was amenable to me. After losing Ruthana and vomiting my way across the Atlantic, I was in little mood to take on a tale of romance.

So I wrote MIDNIGHT DARKNESS. The publisher like the repetition of the word “midnight,” so I suggested a series of Gothic novels using that word. He agreed and asked if I minded the pen name Arthur Black. I didn’t. In my frame of mind, he could have called me Daniel Death. (I even suggested that, which amused him no end.) So Arthur Black entered the world. Happy Birthday, Mr. Black! Long may you engrave! Which he did. Twenty-seven of the damn atrocities.

One nice thing happened while I was occupied in my boiling pot. I had (almost) become accustomed to having nightmares about my days (and nights) in the trenches. I would have thought any nightmares would have to do with the monsters I’d faced in Faerieland. Not so. No nightmares at all, as a matter of fact. Only lovely dreams about Ruthana, the two of us walking in the lovely woods, hand in hand, talking. Embracing. Making love softly. Wonderful dreams. I came to the assumption that Ruthana was responsible for the cessation of the awful trench dreams, commencement of the lovely ones. Why not? She had the power. I knew she did.

Then the dreams stopped altogether.

It was June of 1921. I was walking on Sixth Avenue. I’d sold my third MIDNIGHT novel. I was acquiring a modest reputation as a writer (not an author, God knew) of “dependable” material. There was talk (okay with me) of extending my contract to include five more MIDNIGHT novels. I’d even later allowed myself the luxury of permitting my basic social crankiness to enter MIDNIGHT MONSTERS, said monster being the offspring of the Hiroshima blast. I pride (pride? come on) myself that I was one of the first writers to create these atomic offshoots. As my Professor Morlock expressed it, “How sad to have released the inner power of the atom only to kill.” But now I’m pontificating. Sorry.

Where was I? Walking on Sixth Avenue. Brooding over Ruthana. I did that all the time. The loss had so embittered me that it colored my every approach to life. Frankly, I was surprised that the emerald hadn’t turned back to dust. That I couldn’t understand. It comforted me (a little) that I still retained this symbol of my feeling for Ruthana. I often sat at night, staring at it, really expecting it to recede to its original state, making it known that Ruthana was lost to me forever.

It never did. That seemed a mystery to me. But I accepted it. It was all I had. That glittering jewel of perfect green, unchanging, beautiful, reassuring.

I almost missed the window—it was in an antique shop. I’d been there several times. Then I saw it and I turned back suddenly, staring at—a figure. Eight inches high. Immaculately sculpted. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. Had he (no, that was absurd) posed for it? Impossible, I thought. And yet it was him. I would have sworn to it.

Garal.

I stared at the figure intently, endlessly. That kind, wonderful face. Deep with knowledge, warm with understanding. How could the artist manage that?

I had to know.

Entering the shop, I accosted the clerk—who turned out to be the owner of the shop. I never got his name.

“That figure,” I started.

“Figure?” He smiled at me.

“In the window,” I said. Of the faerie, I almost added, then didn’t. “The—old man.”

“Oh, yes. Garal,” said the owner.

Something like an electric shock spasmed through me. “Garal,” I repeated numbly.

“Yes,” said the man. “Would you like to take a look at him?”

I could only nod. I wondered if he could see the stricken expression I was sure was on my face. If he did, he said nothing about it. He walked to the front window, picked up the figure, and carried it back. I almost cried aloud at him for holding Garal by the head. But I controlled my reaction. He’d think me even stranger than I felt he already did.

He set the figure down, and I pretended to examine it, an appraising potential buyer. I even heard myself murmur, “Hmm.” As though considering purchase. I tried to ignore the heavy pulsing of my heart. Close to pounding, in fact.

I began to speak, but several separate questions emerged in a jumble of nervous sounds. I pretended to be amused by my verbal medley, took a deep breath, and inquired (attemptedly casual). “The name? Where did it come from?”

“No idea,” said the man. “That’s been its name as long as I can remember.”

“You don’t know where it came from?” I said.

“The man who sold it to me, I guess,” replied the man.

“Was he… English?” I asked.

“Think he was.”

“I see.” Nodding. Feigning not to be deeply involved as I was. Had the artist lived with the clan? Had he left as I did? Had he sculpted an image of Garal? Too many unanswerable questions. Certainly in a Sixth Avenue antique shop.

I was unable to pursue the matter further. I paid for the figure ($250, a good chunk of my money—although I would have put out a thousand if it had come to that). Heart still pounding, I took a taxicab back to my apartment (another expense I had never dared to venture). I wanted to get home. There was something I had to do.

There was a cast-iron frying pan in my kitchenette. I’d never touched it. It reminded me too much of the terrible night in Comfort Cottage when I was—misguidedly—trying to protect myself from attack by Ruthana. Now I had to touch it. Had to almost fill it with water. Seeing the figure of Garal gave me the idea—I thought the inspiration—of contacting Ruthana by scrying.

I carried the partially full pan into the main room and set it down in a patch of shadows. Then, lying on my chest beside it, I concentrated on the motionless water. It had worked so immediately when I’d contacted Haral. If it was true that Ruthana had bestowed some manner of psychic awareness on me, wouldn’t it be as immediate now?

Immediate it was. A flash of clouds across the surface of the water. Red. Flaming scarlet. Then what looked like mist. Or smoke. And the sound of distant screaming. Why was Ruthana screaming?

Suddenly, a ghostlike phantom came hurtling at me. Shrieking with rage. Demented, murderous rage. How could Ruthana—?

In an instant, I knew it wasn’t her.

Magda’s twisted maniacal face filled the water surface. Teeth bared, a scream of insane hatred flooding from her mouth. Dear God, how she hated me!

With a cry of dread, I overturned the frying pan. Water splashed across the wood floor, the screaming stopped. “I should have known,” I kept repeating in a feeble voice. To this day, I can invoke a sense of sickened dread in myself, remembering those hideous moments. Guilt as well. How much I’d hurt Magda, I never could decide. I tried a lot.

It was not until the next afternoon that I did what I should have done in the first place.

I pulled down all the shades, making the parlor relatively dim. I was going to burn a candle I’d purchased in a psychic shop, then decided against it. Either I had some powers of my own, or this attempt was doomed to failure. But I would not succumb to Magda-style wicce. I would perform this rite with simple honesty.

Garal’s figure was set in the middle of the floor. I sat, cross-legged, facing it.

“Garal,” I said. I didn’t chant it. This was without occult guile. I spoke to him directly, as though he literally existed in the figure. Garal. My mentor. My teacher. My dear friend. “Please come to me,” I asked. “I need to talk with you.”

Silence in my parlor. Except, of course, for the occasional rumble of a passing elevated train.

“Please come to me, Garal,” I said. I was absolutely certain that he would.

I don’t know if the figure suddenly expanded to become him (I’d lost track of the figure), but whatever happened, there he was, just as abruptly as he’d appeared in the woods of Northern England.

“Yes, Alex,” he said. As casually as though his appearance were a matter-of-fact occurrence.

The pounding of my heart had lessened. I was with my teacher again. His smile filled me with tranquillity. And yet I had to know. “Ruthana,” I said. “Is she all right?”

His expression grew disheartened. “Ruthana left us in April,” he said.

I couldn’t speak. The room grew dark around me. Left us? Then I spoke. I had to know for certain.

“Died?” I asked. Was that my voice? Surely not. It was so thin, so weak, so shaky. “Passed on?”

“Yes, Alex,” he said.

Then no more, regarding me in silence. April, it occurred to me, was when the lovely dreams had ended. It was her, then.

“Why?” I finally said.

“Her heart broke,” Garal answered.

“No,” I sobbed. “She told me—”

“That she’d be all right?” said Garal.

“Yes.” I was trying not to cry but felt tears streaming down my cheeks.

“She wanted you to leave without regret,” Garal said. “She loved you that much.”

“And I loved her,” I told him, my voice broken to the point of inaudibility.

“I know you did,” said Garal. “It was a faultless love.” He said nothing more, watching my helpless weeping sympathetically.

“And my daughter?” I asked.

“She is well,” Garal told me.

I stiffened then, reactive anger in my still-immature brain. “I suppose Gilly’s glad I lost Ruthana,” I said.

“Gilly is gone,” Garal told me.

“Good,” I said. “I hope a hunter shot him.”

“He did,” said Garal. “Gilly shifted to the body of a wolf and chased the hunter too far.”

“Good,” I said again. At least there was that small satisfaction. (inadequate combo). It did nothing to alleviate my heartache about Ruthana’s death, but it helped.

Garal vanished then. A smile. A blessing. And he was gone.

I could easily understand how a heart could break. For days, I felt that mine was on the verge of severing. I thought I felt the split occurring. I prayed for it to happen all the way. So I could—possibly—be reunited with Ruthana. I wanted my heart to break. Very much.

It didn’t, though. Damn sturdy organ. It remained intact.

So there’s my story. I hope you liked it. Believed it, anyway. It did happen. All of it. Exactly as I described it. Please believe me when I say it really happened.

Well, a few more details. In 1936, I moved to Los Angeles. By then, five more of my MIDNIGHT series had seen print, one of them selling to the movies. I settled into a beach apartment, wrote two more MIDNIGHT books, and started drinking. After a year of that foolishness, I attended an AA meeting, which helped.

I never married. Why bother? Ruthana was my only love.

Anything else? Yes. One telling detail. I still have the emerald. I keep it in a safety box. No one knows anything about it.

Remarkably enough, the emerald looks unaffected by time. It still glows with an unearthly shimmer. I guess it always will. It signifies, to me, that Ruthana still loves me. And is waiting for me.

Somewhere.