Faerie Tale (15 page)

In the small storage space under the stairs a black thing listened, hanging to the underside of the steps. It made a satisfied sighing sound and judged it time to leave. It moved like some giant black spider, its long arms and legs seeming to stick to whatever surface it touched. Next to the baseboard, it halted, regarding the narrow crack between boards. The creature somehow seemed to shrink in upon itself, compressing bones and joints, until it could slither through the crack. In an almost silent whisper it hissed, “The key. The key.” Then with a chuckle it vanished through the crack.

At the edge of the clearing, in sight of the Queen’s court, he lingered, contemptuous of her power. Within the shadows of the boles he crouched, the mad one of soft
light and sweet fragrances, awaiting his servant. The black thing scampered through the woods until he stood at the feet of his master and whispered to him.

His master looked down into the tiny mask of black rage, his own expression a match in anger and madness. Perfect white teeth were set edge upon edge, locked in a hideous grin, while his eyes were wide, orbs of blue insanity glinting with inhuman lights. “Good, good,” he whispered back to his servant, stroking its knobby head as a man might stroke a dog. The little apelike creature chittered in pleasure at its master’s happiness. It was so rare a condition. “Now return and wait, and when it is time, we shall show them the lock.” Without hesitation, the creature scampered back through the woods, with stealth enough that human sight could not apprehend its passage, despite its speed.

The being of light stood, stretched his arms wide, and looked heavenward. With a clap of his hands overhead, thunder rang in the woods.

A sudden breeze blew across the hill, and the Queen rose, her court turning eyes toward the source of the thunder. “You dare …,” she began, but the shadow was empty. In anger she hissed between teeth as perfect and inhuman as the other’s. Again he was gone. She slowly sat, glancing to one who nodded, his eyes reflecting her own hidden fear. With a wave she commanded, and the musicians resumed their music, but some of the joy had been banished from the circle by the thunder. And all knew that the one who had mocked them could alone dare such an affront. He alone had the power. And the coming night would be colder for that knowledge.

Phil led the boys through the door, holding a full creel. “Hey!” he said. “We’re home.”

Gloria came into the kitchen, and held her nose with exaggeration. “Into the sink!”

Phil and the boys deposited their catch, and Gloria looked at the seven fish. “Don’t you clowns know you’re only supposed to drown worms, not catch anything?” The boys just grinned with pride.

Phil kissed her cheek. “I’ll clean them. I’ve got to teach the boys how to.”

Patrick made a face and said, “Ugh, fish guts!” while Sean laughed.

“Wash up first, guts later,” Gloria commanded. “I’ve something to show you.”

She bullied them out to the sink in the service porch and watched until they’d removed the fish odor from their hands. “You’ll all have to change before dinner, but first come with me.”

She led them to Phil’s study and slid aside the door. Gabbie shouted, “Surprise!” while Aggie, Jack, Mark, and Gary offered birthday congratulations.

Phil shook his head and said, “I’d hoped everyone had forgotten. At my age I can afford to miss a few.” Gloria fixed him with a disapproving look. Then he caught sight of the word processor sitting on his desk, with a big red ribbon stuck atop. “What!” He sat down slowly at his desk.

“Happy birthday Daddy!” said Gabbie, hugging him from behind.

Phil sat staring at the blank monitor, silent for a long minute. Finally he said, “How do you work it?”

“Jack can show you.”

Phil vacated the chair, while Aggie commented, “It’s a lot like the one I use, just more snazzy.”

Phil laughed. “I thought you used an old Remington Noiseless.”

“My boy, we live in a technological age, if it has escaped your notice,” she chided. “Don’t let this thing scare you. Once you get used to it, you’ll throw rocks at your old typewriter. Now, something a little more traditional.” She handed a box to Phil. “Happy birthday, Philip.”

Phil opened the box and revealed a beautifully ornate silver letter opener. “Aggie! This was Henry’s. I can’t take it.”

“Of course you can, you silly man. I’m going to die one of these years and I’d rather you had it than the state of New York.” She looked at the beautifully fashioned sheath of silver. “I got it for him when we were honeymooning in Mexico. It was made up in the silver country somewhere. You have to clean it regularly. It’s pure silver handle, blade, sheath, and everything, and tarnishes dreadfully.” She smiled. “No, you keep it, Philip.”

Phil seemed genuinely moved by the gift, a personal belonging of Aggie’s husband’s. “Thanks,” he said, rising to kiss her on the cheek.

The boys clustered behind Gabbie, inspecting the computer, and Sean said, “What kind of games can you play on it?”

“Can you do
Spy Hunter?”
inquired Patrick. Jack laughed. “Well, you can play games, but—”

“No games!” said Gloria. “This is for your father and it’s no toy. One computer game and he’ll never get to use it.”

“Aw, Mom,” protested Patrick.

“Don’t ‘Aw, Mom,’ me,” she said in mock indignation. “You two go clean up. Dinner’s in a half hour.” The boys gave in and trooped up the stairs to completely wash up and change into clean T-shirts.

Phil hovered over Jack’s shoulder while the young man showed him the basic operation of the system. He indicated the manuals and said, “If you run into a problem, give me a call—”

“He’ll be out in the barn,” interrupted Gabbie.

Jack grinned. “Probably.”

Gloria said, “Well now, who wants a drink?”

“That’s my cue,” said Gabbie.

“What?” asked Phil.

“Dinner. I’ve got to go fetch it. Loo Fong’s best Hunan and Szechwan to go. Back in fifteen minutes.”

As Gabbie hurried out the door, Gloria said, “You play with your new toy, Phil. I’ll go do something with those fish.”

He nodded absently as he poked experimentally at the keyboard.

Gabbie’s Porsche 911 Turbo was back in California, awaiting her return for the school year, so she took her father’s Pontiac, driving as she usually did, fast but not recklessly. She hated to dawdle. The food was all bagged and waiting in two cardboard boxes, so all she had to do was negotiate the boxes into the backseat of the car. Gabbie pulled an illegal U-turn on McDermott Street—after making sure no one was coming either way—and headed for what the locals called a highway. To Gabbie it was a glorified two-lane country road, and a little one compared to what she’d grown used to back in Southern California. Hitting the highway, she drove at five miles over the speed limit, sure the local police considered that within the legal amount of fudging. She was approaching the turnoff to home when a shaft of light momentarily dazzled her as the sun appeared between some trees on a distant hilltop. She turned her head slightly and flipped down the sun visor. Then her eyes widened and she looked back toward the sunset. Atop a hill on the road leading away from the highway something was outlined against the sky.

A blast from a car horn pulled her attention back to her driving, and she hit the brakes and swerved. She had been drifting off to her left, and the angry driver of the car in the oncoming lane threw her a black look and flipped her off as he sped past. Gabbie’s heart pounded as she negotiated the turn off the highway. She was doubly shaken as she pulled the car over to the shoulder and came to a complete stop. She took several deep breaths,
then checked the backseat to see nothing had spilled before resuming her trip home.

Gabbie muttered to herself that she must have been imagining things. For an instant, outlined against the evening sky, she had seen something that had looked like an old wagon pulled by a single horse. A vague memory came to her, one which she almost recaptured, but which then fled. All she was left with was the name Wayland. And she couldn’t understand why she felt tears running down her cheeks.

After dinner, the adults sat around the living room while the boys retired to the parlor for a little television before bed. Jack and Gabbie were out in the barn, checking on the two horses rented from Laudermilch, even though there was little reason. Gabbie already had plans for new fences from the barn around the south pasture, so the horses could be allowed to wander. Gloria had observed to Phil that she was making some long-term plans for a kid heading back to California soon, a remark that Phil shrugged off.

Everyone had overheard Gabbie’s remark, and Gary said, “She’s in for a shock when she sees what that much fencing’s going to cost.”

Phil and Gloria burst out laughing. Mark and Gary exchanged glances, and Aggie said, “Money’s not a problem.”

Mark said, “You must have done very well with those
Star Pirates
movies, Phil.”

“It’s not my money we’re talking about.” When Mark looked uncomprehending, Phil said, “Gabbie doesn’t like us to talk about it, but it’s public record. She’s an heiress.”

Aggie said, “The Larker family of Phoenix.”

Mark blinked, then said, “Of course. Her mother’s Corinne Larker.”

Aggie nodded. “Who was disowned by Helen Larker, making Gabbie sole inheritor of the estate.”

“But she’s.…”

“What?” said Phil.

Mark shrugged. “I don’t know. Normal? Un-rich-kid-like—how’s that?”

Gloria said, “Gabbie’s got a good head on her. She doesn’t go in for ostentation. She got only a small allowance while in school, until she was eighteen. She learned to get along on a modest income. Now she can get whatever she needs from the trustee of her grandmother’s estate with a phone call, which suits her just fine. She’s only had two indulgences: her horse, which set her back more money than I care to think of, and her Porsche, which she drives too damn fast. Other than that, she gets along on very little. The trustee’ll turn the whole thing over to her when she marries or turns twenty-five.”

“If it’s not too tacky,” said Gary, “can I ask how much?”

“I don’t know,” said Phil, “but many, many millions.”

“Well then,” observed Gary, “if she wants a fence, she’ll get a fence.” A mock-evil grin was followed by, “I wonder how expensive it would be to put a hit on Jack?”

They laughed and Mark said, “Ask Ellen. You go after Gabbie and she’ll put a hit on you.”

“True.”

“When do we meet this girlfriend, Gary?” said Phil.

“Well, Mark and I were going to have you over to the house soon, and she’ll be there. We’re sort of unexpected guests tonight.”

Phil raised an eyebrow and Mark explained about the key. He repeated his surmises about Kessler and the possibility of there really being a treasure, and when he was finished, everyone was silent for a minute.

“Well, it’s a wild story,” said Phil. “What about the treasure part? Do you really think it’s hidden somewhere around here?”

“It’s possible, I guess. Kessler came from Germany,
started a major enterprise without local capital, and ran in the red for two years before breaking even. It’s pretty clear he must have carried a tidy fortune out of Germany. In Germany there’s almost no information about him, so where he got the money is anyone’s guess. But there’s a small item I uncovered in some banking records in New York. An agent for one of the equipment firms reported that the bank draft Kessler used to pay for his first shipment of heavy equipment was marked ‘funds secured by gold,’ an unusual notation. And he paid the note from his factory’s profits, so the gold was never touched as well as I can make out.”

“So,” said Phil, “you think Kessler might have plundered some secret gold hoard in Germany to start his factory?”

“Sounds pretty silly when you put it that way,” agreed Mark. “But before I start manufacturing theories, I need more facts. I don’t even have enough for a good historical novel, let alone a history.”

“What about the key?” asked Gloria.

Mark stood up. “If you can find the door that key opens, you might find something that will tell me what I want to know about Fredrick Kessler: what he and his sudden wealth had to do with all the strange goings-on in Germany at that time, and all the rest.”

“And,” added Gary, “you might find his treasure—if there is one.”

“We should be off,” said Mark. “If you’ve no objection, we’ll continue with the books tomorrow.”

“Of course you can,” said Phil, showing them to the door.

When they were gone, Gloria said, “I still have the feeling that there’s more here than he’s telling.”

Aggie said, “Mark tends to the mysterious, but he’s harmless, dear. Besides, he always turns up these marvelous and wildly improbable bits of nonsense.”

As Phil returned, Gloria asked, “You think this is all nonsense?”

“No,” said Aggie. “I just refuse to indulge in Mark’s tendency to jump from fact to fact and assume causality.

Mark’s work is fun to read, but I don’t take most of it seriously. He’s obsessed by ancient secrets and lore, and he can’t stand not knowing. He’s not as bad as that Dutch fellow with his gods being astronauts rubbish, but Mark isn’t a rigorous researcher either. He has many critics, and not without justification.

“But, in his defense, a lot of Mark’s work has an element of brilliance in it. There are some things he claimed that were later borne out by more scholarly research. No, Mark’s not a quack. He’s just a lot more like Indiana Jones than Margaret Mead.” She paused. “But ask yourself who you’d rather have chasing after buried treasure, Indiana Jones or Margaret Mead?” Rising, she said, “Well, it’s late and I should be off. Let me know if you turn up any more wonders.”

They saw her to the door, and Phil walked her to the barn to fetch Jack. Gloria stuck her head into the parlor and informed the twins it was bedtime. Ushering them upstairs, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Mark had revealed only a small portion of what he was after. And she reminded herself to have a look for a lock to match the key in her pocket.