The Prince of Two Tribes (27 page)

Chester stared at the photo for a long time. Then he mumbled something under his breath.

“What did you say?” Dmitri prompted.

Chester looked up, his face pale. “I said, she’s with him most of the time.”

“Who? Who is she?” Delia demanded.

“More like what,” Chester answered. “She’s a tiny person … with wings like a bug or a dragonfly. She flies around him. Usually she’s hiding in his pocket.”

“Wait a minute,” Delia interrupted. “Are you saying you’ve seen her?”

“Lots of times.” Chester nodded shyly. “And other ones like her, too. Big ones. Little ones. They’re all over the place.”

“What are you talking about?” Delia said, mystified.

Chester sighed and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “I don’t remember anything from that day when I tried to run away. It was like I was hypnotized or something. I only remember waking up in the hospital. My mum told me Brendan had come to see me there. It didn’t make any sense. I mean, all I ever did was pick on him and these guys.” He jerked his head at Harold and Dmitri.

“Why should he come and see me? And there was something else. I felt more at peace with myself than I had since my dad died. I felt better. My mum forced me to see a therapist and talk about why I’d had that episode and stuff, but I knew I was going to be okay. They finally let me out of the hospital and then … ” He paused, as if deciding whether he should tell them, but continued. “That’s when I started seeing them.”

“Who?” Dmitri asked softly, not wanting to hurry him.

“The beautiful people. They glowed sort of, like they were shining from the inside out. There weren’t many of them. I’d just see them once in a while on the street, as if they were trying to pass themselves off as normal people. At first, I didn’t know how no one else could see them. They were impossible for me to ignore. I asked my mum if she could see them, but she said she couldn’t see anything special about the people I pointed out. I stopped asking her ’cause I didn’t want her to think I was losing it. The thing was, I didn’t feel crazy. I felt special. I could see things that other people couldn’t. I just had to keep it to myself.

“I started to see impossible things, little people in the trees and in the grass running around right under people’s noses. There was one guy who hung out with a pack of squirrels, and people must have thought he was a squirrel ’cause they never batted an eye. I should have been scared but I wasn’t. I loved it.”

Harold and Dmitri listened with rapt attention to Chester’s story, both of them wishing they could see these people he was talking about. Something about what he was saying seemed to resonate with them. They never even contemplated disbelieving him because deep down what he was saying rang true.

“Do you see any of these people right now?” Delia said suddenly.

Chester frowned and looked around. He looked out the window of the café. “There. The guy on the corner with the hat.”

They all craned their necks and looked out to see a man in an overcoat and a wide-brimmed felt hat standing at the crosswalk waiting for the light. He didn’t seem in any way unusual. He held a newspaper under his arm and was talking animatedly into a cellphone.

“He doesn’t seem weird to me,” Delia scoffed.

“Okay,” Chester said. “How cold is it today?”

“What does it matter?” Delia asked.

“It’s minus ten Celsius,” Harold offered.

“Minus eighteen with the wind chill,” Chester confirmed. “Look at his hands.”

The man wasn’t wearing gloves. His hands were bare. “And that jacket?” They saw now that the guy was wearing a thin spring jacket that couldn’t possibly have kept him warm in the subarctic chill.

“They put up some kind of illusion so they look like us. At least that’s my theory. If you could really see him, you’d know that the cellphone he’s using is a piece of wood and his hair is blue and shines like one of those fibre optic lamps.”

The light changed and the man set off across the street.

“You’re asking us to believe that you see things we can’t,” Delia said.

“I’m not asking you to believe anything.” Chester raised his coffee and slurped it noisily while leaning back in his chair. “You came to me, remember. Believe me or don’t. Couldn’t care less.”

Delia chewed her lip. “Tell me about Brendan.”

“He’s one of those people. So is your other friend. The girl with the stick.”

“Kim?” Dmitri and Harold gasped at the same time.

“Uh-huh.” Chester nodded. “And that new teacher.”

“Greenleaf!” Harold and Dmitri said together.

“Wow,” Chester laughed. “You guys are good at that. You should start an act.”

Delia smacked the table, setting the cups clattering in their saucers. “Listen! So Brendan is one of these … people? Things? The bigger question we need answered is what are they and what do they want?”

“Why do you want to know?” Chester asked, leaning back and cracking his giant knuckles. “They aren’t doing you any harm.”

“I live with one of them in my house,” Delia spat. “It’s disgusting.”

“You know two of them, actually. That French chick who just showed up? The hot one? She’s one of them, too.”

“No way!” Harold exclaimed. “That’s cool.”

“No, it isn’t. It isn’t cool!” Delia shouted angrily. Other patrons of the café jerked their heads around to stare at her outburst. She sneered at them and turned back to her companions. “We have to find out what he’s doing.”

“I know what he’s doing,” Chester said mildly. At their shocked expressions, he shrugged. “This dude showed up at school today with two other scary ones and sort of froze everybody, put them to sleep on their feet. He was different from any of the others I’d seen. He was, I don’t know, really powerful, a total badass. All the other ones I see are sort of quiet, harmless, you know? Not this guy. He scared the crap outta me. And the other two with him, a guy and girl, had that psycho vibe, too. It’s the only time I’ve ever seen one of them interfere with people in any way. I pretended to be dazed like everybody else. I heard them talking about some gathering that starts tonight on Ward’s Island, only they called it something weird: ‘The Island of the Ward.’ Kim and Greenleaf were seriously mad at this dude they called Puck.”

“Puck! As in hockey puck?” Harold asked, confused. “What kind of name is that?”

“I only know of one Puck and he’s in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream,”
Delia said thoughtfully.

“A midsummer’s what?” Harold asked.

“A
Midsummer Night’s Dream,”
Delia said disdainfully. “Shakespeare, dumbwad. And Puck is a character in the play. He’s a fairy who causes all kinds of trouble for some people who go into the woods.”

“Sounds dumb,” Harold grumbled.

“Well, it isn’t!” Delia spat.

Dmitri cleared his throat. “Perhaps this Puck is in some way related to the character in the play by Shakespeare. Maybe … ” He paused as if his theory were taking shape in his mind. “Maybe the character was based on one of these people that Chester can see?”
⁵⁴

“There’s only one way to find out,” Delia announced. She looked into each of their faces in turn. “We’re going to this gathering tonight! And Chester is going to take us.”

⁵⁴
 Indeed, Puck in Shakespeare’s play is based on Pûkh, Lord of Tír na nÓg. Pükh actually commissioned the play from the Bard of Avon. In the end, Pûkh defaulted on payment because he didn’t like the way he was portrayed. Shakespeare went on to mount the play in London with great success.

THE GATHERING

“You guys are going to be all right?” Brendan’s mother asked for the tenth time as she allowed her husband to help her on with her coat. The Clair parents were dressed up for a party at the Matador, a seedy bar not far from their home.
⁵⁵
Brendan’s dad was playing in the band so he was dressed in his vintage tuxedo.

“What is it tonight, Dad?” Brendan asked. “Jazz? Rock?”

Edward Clair smiled. “Rockabilly! The Matador will be shakin’! It’s the last night before they close it down. They’ve actually gotten a liquor licence for the occasion!”

“What is the world coming to?” Mum said, laughing. “We’ll be home by midnight.”

“Or maybe two,” Dad suggested hopefully.

“Midnight. And there’s food in the fridge. Just nuke it in the microwave. I’ll be on my cell so if there are any problems … ” Mum instructed.

“There will be no problems.” Brendan’s dad rolled his eyes. “We have to go!” It was still early, only five o’clock, but they were going to have dinner before the sound check. Despite the early hour, darkness was falling fast. This was, after all, the shortest day of the year: the winter solstice, the day of the Clan Gathering and Brendan’s Proving Ceremony.

He watched his parents prepare, happy and carefree. He wished he could go with them and forget about what was coming that night. Why did life have to be so complicated? Delia interrupted his train of thought before he could spiral into self-pity.

“Mum, I’ll be staying at Katie’s tonight, remember?” Delia stood by the door with her arms crossed. “I told you this afternoon.”

“Oh yeah.” Mum nodded. “Fine. Just be sure you leave her number on the fridge.”

“Okay,” Delia agreed, heading away up the hall for the stairs. She’d been weirder than usual during dinner. She seemed reluctant to even look at Brendan. She kept her head down and ate her food and left the table as soon as she was done. Brendan wanted to ask her what her problem was and confront her about the webcam but decided he could do without a fight. He wanted to be calm and collected when he went to the Gathering and Delia had a way of setting him on edge.

“Goodbye, Mum. Bye, Dad. Have fun.”

“Bye, son.” Brendan’s mother kissed him on the cheek. His father opened the door and there, on the porch, finger poised to press the doorbell, was Charlie. She was ridiculously underdressed for the cold weather.

“Charlie!” Dad smiled. “Nice to see you! Don’t you have a coat?”

“I’m naturally warm! Good to see you too, Mr. Clair. Mrs. Clair!”

“What are you two up to tonight?” Brendan’s mother asked.

Brendan jumped in. “Movies. Going to the movies.”

“I see,” his mother said, archly. “Well, have a good time and don’t stay out too late.”

And with that, his parents were gone, out the door into the falling snow and the falling darkness.

“They are very sweet,” Charlie said.

“They’re like kids sometimes.” Brendan shook his head, smiling. He watched his parents head down the street arm-in-arm and felt a pang of loss. He had a sudden fear that he might never see them again. He wished he had said something more meaningful than just goodbye. He tried to shake the melancholy mood that fell over him.

The question Pûkh had posed him earlier that day still rankled. Why was he risking his future with his Human parents to be accepted into the Faerie world? But he knew the answer. He couldn’t forget about the Faerie world. It was a part of him now, and he couldn’t unlearn what he had mastered so far. He had to see it through. Maybe what Merddyn said was right. Maybe he did have a responsibility to Humans and Faeries. Maybe by living in both worlds, he could bring the two sides together.

I’m just one person, though. What can one person do to make any difference in the world?

“Are you okay?” Charlie asked, breaking his reverie.

He’d been trying to avoid being alone with Charlie today. He wasn’t sure why. He still felt awkward about their moment in his dad’s studio. Now, with his parents gone and his sister out of the room, there was nowhere else to look.

“Yeah,” Brendan mumbled. “Nervous about the Gathering and the tests and everything.”

Charlie nodded. “Nothing else?”

Brendan looked up into her blue eyes and his stomach flipped a bit. “No. Not really.”

Charlie laughed. “You are such a terrible liar, Brendan. That’s one of the reasons I like you so much. Are you ready to go?”

“I think so. Let me get BLT.” Grateful for an excuse, he ran up the hall and mounted the stairs. Charlie watched him go. As soon as she was alone, her shoulders sagged. A tortured look twisted her face.

Footsteps on the stairs forced her to recover her smile. She expected to see Brendan and was surprised when Delia rounded the corner, dressed to go out, ski jacket in hand. On seeing Charlie, she stopped. For a second Delia’s face held a look of undisguised wariness, but it was immediately replaced with a smile.

“Oh,” Delia said. “Hi!”

“Allo,
Delia,” Charlie said. “What are you doing tonight? Party?”

“Yeah,” Delia said, a guarded look in her eyes.

Brendan returned, pulling on his jacket. “Ready to go?” Seeing Delia, he said, “Hey, Dee.” Suddenly, impulsively, he reached out and hugged his sister. Delia stiffened as if he’d zapped her with a Taser gun. Brendan let her go. Delia stared at him blankly and then spun, ducking out the door into the gathering darkness without another word.

“Wow.” Brendan laughed. “I guess that’s one way to get rid of her. Or maybe I have cooties.”

“Cooties?”
⁵⁶
Charlie asked, confused.

“Never mind. Shall we go?”

“All right.”

Brendan insisted that they ride the streetcar and the subway to the waterfront and walk the last block through the frigid air. A light fog had congealed over the lake, casting an eerie, otherworldly glow upon the condo towers and throwing golden haloes around the street lamps. Brendan knew the fog was part of the glamour woven to distract Humans from the Clan Gathering on the island. Though unnatural, it gave the concrete buildings a spectral loveliness and made the coloured Christmas lights strung in the trees shimmer with magic.

“Christmas,” Charlie said as they reached the Harbourfront complex, a cluster of shops, restaurants, and concert venues clumped around the ferry docks and the small boat marina. In winter there was a skating rink. “It’s a Human celebration of the older Faerie Festival of the Solstice. They have adopted many of our customs without knowing any of the truth behind the day.”

“They have their own reasons to celebrate,” Brendan said defensively. “Just because they don’t know about us and our world doesn’t mean their holidays don’t have value on their own.”