Higher Mythology (12 page)

She was getting sleepy, and wagered that Skinny’s wits were becoming muddled with exhaustion, too. Perhaps now was the time to try and make her escape. It was worth a try to see if he could be persuaded by the avoidance charm to miss seeing her, at least until she could sneak past him and away.

Concentrating on the TV program book, she willed the space around its surface to become slick so that all glances would slide immediately off toward something else. When she was having trouble keeping her eyes on it herself, she turned to Skinny.

“Where has that TV book gone?” she asked pleasantly, dandling the baby in her lap.

Skinny looked at the top of the desk, missing the book completely, and cast around. “Well, it was just right here,” he said. “I’ll find it for you. Maybe it just slid off the desk.” He started searching around, even picking up the sleeping bag, and shaking it out. He picked up the pizza box and looked underneath, almost touching it when he put the box down. Dola nearly laughed. Slowly, surreptitiously, she started applying the technique to herself and Asrai.

Skinny, eager to please, was all but turning the office inside out in search of the book.

“Well, I know it was here a minute ago,” he said, then turned around just as Dola sealed off the enhancement around herself. “Hey, little girl, where’d you go? Hey! This isn’t funny. Don’t hide on me. Come out this minute!”

Now he was actively searching the room. Dola had to keep dodging around to keep him from touching her. If once he made physical contact no amount of sight-avoidance would work to preserve the illusion.

A key jingled in the lock. Her opportunity was nearly there. Dola gathered herself for the dash. The door opened, and Jake stood in the doorway, a gun in his hand.

“What are you making all that noise for?” he demanded.

Skinny turned around, arms flailing and eyes wild. “She’s gone! She just disappeared again, like she did this afternoon. She got away!”

“Crap. The door’s been closed the whole time, right? Then she has to be in here somewhere,” Jake said. Dola crept up by him, waiting for him to move into the room to help Skinny search. He cocked the gun and held it up by his head. She stopped, aghast.

“Okay, kid,” he said, looking around at the empty air. “You come out right now or I’ll start blasting everything in this room. You hear me? You show your face right
now
or you’re gonna have a bullet in your gut!”

Swallowing, Dola went back by the tall locker and removed the avoidance charm. She stepped out, holding the baby protectively with her arms covering as much of her little back as she could. Incredibly, Asrai had slept through all the shouting.

“There,” Jake said, “you see? She’s still here. And she’d better still be here in the morning,” he thundered threateningly down on her. “You got me?” Timidly, Dola nodded. “Good. Come on, Grant. You better get home. Your wife called looking for you.”

“Right. Good night, little girl,” Skinny said, with a friendly smile for her.

The door boomed shut and locked tight. Dola stood staring at it for a moment, feeling more lonely and scared than ever.

***

C
HAPTER
E
IGHT

Keith spent the next day worrying and wondering about Dola and Asrai so much that he didn’t hear what Paul Meier was telling him until the second time through.

“I said Judge Yeast likes your idea. They’re crazy about it, in fact,” Meier said gleefully. “The clients don’t mind that you’re an amateur. They said you gotta get your creative people from somewhere—they don’t drop out of the clouds, you know. So your names are on the layout.”

Keith let the realization dawn with a sort of incredulous joy. A whoop wound its way up from the deepest part of his insides, until it burst out in a deafening crow of triumph. “Yahoo!” Dorothy beamed, and the end of her pencil danced a happy rhythm.

“What did they like so much?” Brendan asked. He looked miffed, but was trying to pretend it didn’t matter. “I thought it was stupid.”

“Anthropomorphism,” Paul replied, pronouncing each syllable with satisfied emphasis. “The client thought it brought to mind the Pillsbury Dough Boy and the Parkay margarine tubs all in one. No other yeast uses a character, and yet yeast is
the
ingredient in breads that makes it all happen. What with the growing surge in home baking, this is a big deal. They liked the connotation that the package’s a real judge, not just named for the Judge Company. It suggests that it’s a wise choice for bakers. They want to see a whole campaign based on it.”

“Great!” Keith said, his eyes aglow.

“Glad to hear you’re happy about it,” Meier said, with a sardonic tilt to his head. “Now here comes the work. You and Dorothy get to work on ideation. I want some more suggestions. You’re now working parallel with the pro team. I expect you to come up with more good stuff than they do. Show me some ideas tomorrow.” Dorothy perked up and nodded vigorously at Keith.

“Uh, Paul,” Keith said, circling around the table and taking the supervisor aside confidentially, “could I maybe spend tomorrow doing some field research on say, one of PDQ’s downstate clients? I’ve just got to get down to the Midwestern campus. It’s an emergency.”

“Problem with your girlfriend?” Meier asked, suddenly skeptical.

“No!” Keith exclaimed, and lowered his voice to a whisper. “It’s something else. It’s really important, Paul. I wouldn’t ask for any other reason. Would it be impossible to wait the brainstorm session just one day?”

Meier sighed, but lifted his shoulders helplessly. “Kid, this is a tough biz. All right. One day. Down by Midwestern, huh? You can go talk to Gilbreth Feed and Fertilizer, get a feel for what they’re up to. They’ll like that. We don’t usually pay house calls.”

“Gilbreth? In Flyspeck?”

“You know them?”

“Sure do,” Keith said, with emphasis. Meier gave him a curious look.

“Good. I’ll give you a letter of introduction. You can go and get a feel for what they’re up to. Ask questions. Look around. Maybe it’ll give you some ideas for their account.”

Keith already had an idea of what Gilbreth was up to, namely polluting on a large scale and hiding their tracks, but he agreed to visit the factory. An in-depth visit might provide him with some good dirt for the Folk to use in their next letter to the editor.

He smiled at Paul. “I promise I’ll take a really close look at everything that’s going on at Gilbreth.”

Late that night, the telephone on the kitchen wall rang at Hollow Tree. The circle of Folk gathered around it glanced sidelong at one another, rolling the whites of their eyes like frightened horses. Even Holl hesitated, wondering what to do. Marcy looked at all of them, then snatched up the handset.

“Hello?” she said. She turned to Holl, and with a significant look handed him the receiver. The other Folk tensed.

“Hello?” he said. “Yes, this is … Mr. Doyle.”

The voice at the other end was male, deep and gravelly. “The girl and the baby are safe. They’re healthy—I mean okay.”

Holl’s eyes narrowed, and the others drew closer around him. He signaled wildly with one arm for them to attempt the trace. The circle drew closer, and joined hands. Some of them closed their eyes; others stared fixedly at Holl and the telephone. Marcy stood outside the circle wringing her hands anxiously.

“I see,” Holl said, trying to keep his voice from cracking. “Am I to assume that since you’ve not brought them to the telephone that there is a problem?”

“It was a mistake,” the man said, after a brief hesitation. “We don’t want any repercussions. We want a guarantee from you.”

Holl’s voice sharpened. “How can I know enough to give you a guarantee, or if my daughter is safe? Who are you? Hello? Hello?” The other end clicked loudly in his ear. He spun, wild-eyed. “Did you get a sense of the caller?”

“No’ enough,” Curran said sadly, letting go the hands on either side of him. “Only he’s as scared as you.”

“What did you do that for?” Mona demanded, staring at her employee. They were sitting very close together behind her desk. The telephone receiver had been cradled with a bang.

“The baby’s his daughter!” Jake exclaimed.

Mona bit her fingers to keep from yelling. “Not H. Doyle!” she whimpered, her teeth clenching her knuckle. “Not the man who has been single-handedly ruining my business and my political career! Oh, no!” She passed her hands anxiously over her face and dropped her fingertips to the desk, where they drummed almost with a life of their own. “Now what do I do?”

Jake stared at the wall, a curious expression growing on his face. “Maybe you can make a good thing out of this,” he said.

“A good thing?” she asked bitterly. “What if I just turn in the two of you and ask for arraignment as an accessory?”

“You know we’re in this together,” the foreman said, shaking his head patiently at her raving. “You could work the situation to your advantage.”

“What?” Mona asked, ashamed of herself. She realized that they were partners in crime no matter how this one incident ended. Mona was glad Jake didn’t respond to her threat. She had a lot more to lose than he did. “Extortion? Money?”

“Well, a
donation
, maybe.” Jake’s stress on the word was careful. “He doesn’t know about the dumping, not for sure. You could get him to layoff criticizing you in the papers until after the election.”

“He doesn’t have to know who we are,” Mona said quickly.

“He’ll find out. The kid knows. She wasn’t blindfolded on the way here. You can ask for immunity from prosecution, and tell him to knock off writing to the papers.”

“Well, maybe,” Mona said uncertainly, “but after the kids go back home all bets are off.”

“Then get money,” Jake said reasonably.

Mona hesitantly dangled the pen over the pad. She certainly could use it for the campaign and to pay for legitimate dump sites until her receivables picked up again. “Okay. Our demands. One, money. Two, immunity from prosecution. Three, no more letters to the editor. In exchange, the children will be returned safely.”

“Give him a couple of days to stew about it, and we’ll call back,” Jake said. He grinned menacingly. “Just like in business. A little pressure, and back off a while to let him decide. He’ll cooperate.”

“Not a trace,” Diane said to Keith when he picked her up at her apartment near the college early the next morning. “I’ve been back to the library every day, hoping the kids would show up. Not a sound. Nothing. My footprints are the only ones in the dust down there.”

She leaned into the car toward the driver’s side, and Keith gave her a quick kiss.

“This wasn’t the way I wanted to spend my days off down here with you,” he said, helping her slide in, “but what else could I do?”

“Nothing,” Diane agreed, settling herself in under his right arm as he pulled away from the curb. “It’s horrible, and I’m glad you’re here. I know the others feel that way, too.”

The main room of the farmhouse was crowded. All the Folk, both Big and Little, chatted together in low murmurs until Keith and Diane appeared. They greeted the two students solemnly, and invited them to sit down in the center with the elders. Dunn and Marcy perched on small chairs among the throng of elves. Ludmilla was there on the old sofa between Lee Eisley and Maura. The young elf woman seemed to be at the center of a carefully made up support group. Maura looked not only tired, but haunted. Her usually pink complexion was drained to dull white. She was trying to be brave, but everything reminded her of her missing infant. All her actions were jerky, uncoordinated, and she was constantly on the edge of tears. Catra had admitted over the phone to Keith that some of the others had been laying charms on Maura in the evenings to make her sleep, or she’d wander around at all hours looking for her baby.

Keith was shocked to see how worn out Holl was. As the successor-apparent to the leadership of the village, everyone looked to him for strength and direction, and he could tell Holl was about out of both. It had only been two days since the disappearance.

“We had a call late last night,” Holl said. “It was of too short a duration to get any idea from where it came, or who the speaker was, but the children live and are well. Still, the call did not serve to inform us how we may redeem Dola and Asrai, nor why they took them away in the first place.”

“This incident has affected us profoundly,” the Master said. “In all the years past ve haf nefer had a crime committed against vun of our number. Vittingly or unvittingly, those who abducted the children haf intruded upon our peace.”

“My poor little ones,” Ludmilla said. The old woman held Maura’s hand and patted it.

“We feel vulnerable,” Candlepat said, glancing nervously around for agreement. Many of the others nodded their heads. “Much more so than when we lived in secret.”

“We risked discovery then, but only when we set foot outside our fastness,” Curran said, narrowing his eyes at Keith as if he had personally carried away the children.

“In a way I feel sort of responsible,” Keith said. “If I hadn’t butted into your lives, you wouldn’t be in any trouble.”

“You provided us with the means to find a new home,” Holl said.

“Yeah, but not until I endangered the old one in the first place.”

“Ve could not haf remained in the old place for long,” Aylmer said, coming to Keith’s rescue. “Ve are better off than effer ve vere. And ve are glad of your friendship.”

“Do not take more upon yourself than you deserf,” the Master said, closing the subject with an austere stare over the tops of his gold glasses. “You did not perpetrate this crime. Now it must be solfed.”

“What can we do?” Maura asked, speaking for the first time. Her voice was thin and seemed to come from a long way off.

“This is impossible,” Lee said, his brows drawn. He ticked off his points on his long fingers. “You can’t call the police or the FBI. Advertising in the papers is out. You can’t get a phone tap because that takes a court order. It would be great if we could use one of those crime-busting TV shows, but they’d laugh us off their hotlines if we told them we were looking for a couple of missing el—uh, Little Folk.” He spread out his long hands. “Where do we start?”

“Can’t you do fortune telling or something?” Diane asked hopefully. Curran glared, and started to stand up.

“That’s nae the way our talents work,” Dierdre said, carefully patient. She grabbed Curran’s wrist and pulled him down again.

Holl shook his head. “The others call me the Maven, but I’m a novice at searching for the missing,” he said with a bitter laugh. “We’re simply unused to being so far apart. I am the only one of us who has been separated any distance from the rest of us, and I was under my own power. I’m too close to the problem. I’ve no idea how to proceed.”

Keith’s eyebrows went up. “Maybe I do. Never mind trying to find the kidnappers. You remember teaching me how to see where the Folk were from Scotland,” he said. “It was neat, Diane. In my mind’s eye, I could see just a little light in the horizon, like a radar blip. Can you sense just one of your people like that, Holl?”

“It would be a very weak trace,” Holl said, his eyebrows ascending, “but I can try it.”

The others, especially the Big Folk, looked skeptical. “We’ve already searched the surrounding countryside in that fashion, Keith Doyle,” Enoch said. “We found nothing.”

Keith felt impatient at the quitter attitude everyone was displaying. “Well, turn your radar out further. Holl saw you from half a world away. The girls couldn’t be farther away than that. Pour on whatever power it takes!”

“We’re not machines,” Tiron grumbled. “I’m as far from my folk as Holl was from his last year, and I couldn’t tell if there’s one or fifty back along at home.”

“Ve haf no proof that the children are still vithin the immediate area!” Aylmer broke in.

“It’s worth the attempt,” Holl chided them. Keith gave him an encouraging nod. “Lend me your strength, friends.” Tentatively, Maura stretched out her hand to her husband. Around the room, others joined hands, or touched in some way, until all the Little Folk were making physical contact. The Big Folk, tentatively, sheepishly, joined hands and reached out to the others. Holl shut his eyes to concentrate. He was silent for a long time. “I see nothing so far—no! There’s something. To the west of here.”

“Is it Dola and Asrai?” Keith asked.

Holl shook his head. “It’s so small and faraway I’m getting no detail at all, just that there is one of us or someone like us off in that direction. It
feels
right. It’s very hard, searching the distance for a pinpoint, instead of aiming in the direction I know it to be, as I did for the village from overseas.”

“It
is
her!” Maura cried. “It’s my babe.”

“You cannot be sure,” the Master said gently, “but I think there is something there vorth investigating.”

Try as he might, Keith could get no sense of what Holl and the others were doing, beyond the slight perception of mental concentration. Now was not the time to ask for additional lessons in magic; he was going to have to trust the pros.

“Okay, what if we try out that way? Now that we have a general direction to work toward, what if you, me, and some of the others drive around until we can triangulate in on the girls’ position?”