“I did not mean to intrude on your dinner, Miss Tate,” he said. “I'll come back later, shall I?”
“No, that is, please stay. We have enough food for ten people, and if you can answer my questions, I'd be thrilled.” Well, I was thrilled already, thinking what a great addition he'd be to my life. That is, to my story. Here was Fafhrd's partner, the Gray Mouser of Fritz Leiber's books, a lean, lithe swordsman extraordinaire, clever and charming. That worked for me. “Please, come in, Mr. Grant.”
Van made formal introductions as we sat down. Mr. Grant was actually Agent Thaddeus Grant, but he preferred Grant, nothing else. As in my wish was granted? I wondered. I said I preferred Willy to Willow or Miss Tate, especially since we were already on a first name basis with Officer Gregory.
Grant asked that we not discuss the recent events until after the meal, with a significant nod to Susan and the policeman. That was fine with me, too.
I'd cleared the table of my computer and supplies, bills, lists, magazines, phone books, et cetera, stashing everything under my bed. I wanted to throw a real dinner party, with a tablecloth and candles and everything, in case Mrs. Abbottini peeked in to take notes for my mother. Thank goodness for the occasional Martha impulse, and the dread of another nagging phone call. Now I almost wished my neighbor would knock on the door, so she could report about the two handsome, intelligent, important men I was entertaining.
Well, Susan was doing most of the entertaining, telling the guests about Paumanok Harbor.
Neither of the men had ever been out that far on the Island, although Grant had visited East Hampton once on unspecified official business. My curiosity was running rampant, but I did have a modicum of manners, so I let my cousin talk.
The Harbor sounded a lot better than it was, the way Susan told it, all beautiful scenery, quiet off seasons, and friendly small-town neighbors, half of them related. She didn't mention the eccentric characters who knew every detail of everyone's life, the isolation in the winter, the never-ending wind, the traffic, or the prices raised for tourists' pocketbooks. Then there was the near impossibility of making a decent living there unless you served the wealthy summer people.
I was dying to ask about Grant's work, if he carried a gun, what the investigation had uncovered, and if he was married. Instead I had to listen to Susan recite the chamber of commerce brochure.
She explained that she'd been cooking at one of her uncles' restaurants after culinary school, but she had to take a leave of absence for treatments. It was unpaid leave, but Uncle Bernie kept up the medical insuranceâunder threat from the whole clan. That led to a conversation about medical care here and in Britain, and the comparative costs of everything.
We had wine and salad and crusty garlic bread to go with the lasagna, and an apple pie Susan baked this afternoon while I was cleaning the living room. The men said everything was delicious, and proved it by asking for seconds. I could have been eating half-defrosted frozen peasâyeah, I've done that in an emergency when I was out of ice creamâfor all I tasted, waiting for my chance to find out what was going on.
While Susan and I cleared the table, Grant handed Van a credit card and asked him to take Susan to buy flowers for the cooks, Mrs. Abbottini and Susan, and for the hostess, me. Thoughtful, tactful, generousâthe guy was near perfect so far.
Susan reached for a scarf to tie around her head, but Van wouldn't let her. “Come on, Curly, you're a survivor. Be proud. And you look as good as that apple pie tasted.”
Yes, Virginia, there really are decent men out there. Arlen would have looked away from Susan and kept his distance, as if she were contagious.
After they left, I made coffee and Agent Grant and I sat in the living area, me on the couch, Grant on the old leather chair that I'd covered with a quilt from a flea market.
I didn't know where to start, so I sipped my coffee and just watched him. He made for nice scenery, except he was watching me.
Finally he said, “Peculiar goings-on, hm?”
I laughed. “You can say that again!”
He did not laugh back. I realized he seldom smiled, unlike Van, who flashed his dimples often, and to good effect.
“And far too coincidental,” Grant went on, eliminating any urge I had to chuckle, “that you've been at each of the troublesome events. One of the first rules they teach in detective school is there are no such things as coincidences. Look for the common threads, find a pattern, locate a common denominator.”
“Me?” I squeaked.
“We're not sure.”
I did not like the way the conversation was going. “Who is this âwe' anyway? You never said what agency you actually work for.”
“It's called DUE. Department of Unexplained Events. There's a much longer, technical name for it, but that's the one we prefer. DUE is less troubling to the average citizen.”
Good grief, he was talking UFOs, X-Files, Men in Black. “You think this is something extraterrestrial? That I am an alien?”
“Oh, no. We know where you were born, what doctor delivered you, where you have that charming birthmark. You are no alien.”
The birthmark was on my ass, for heaven's sake! “I cannot believe this!”
“Do you believe in trolls, then?”
I choked on a swallow of coffee.
While I sputtered and dabbed at the droplets on my nice shirt, he said, “I know what you have been working on.”
Ohmygod. “How? How could you know? Only my cousin and my boss know. Maybe Van, too, by now.”
“I am sorry, but we've had to establish access to everything. Your computer, your apartment's video camera, your phone lines. I swear no one listened to or recorded anything not pertinent to our investigation.”
Suddenly he was not the cherry on top. He was the worm in the apple. My conversations, my ideas, my life? “How dare you! I insist you stop right now. I'll get a lawyer, a court order. A . . . a new cell phone.”
“We have a warrant, not that it's any consolation knowing that your privacy has been breached. We intruded as little as possible, and then only because of the grave threat to the security of the entire world as we know it.”
“You think I am a danger to the entire world?” He was crazier than I was. And I was alone with him. With my luck, he did have a gun. And who cared if he was married or not?
He crossed his right leg over his left knee, getting more comfortable, while I felt like I was suffocating. “More coffee?” I asked, thinking I could leave via the fire escape.
“No, thank you. But let's start over again, shall we, with the facts, as we know them. Maybe you will understand better, and forgive us. And me.”
He described the street scene. “A trolley. On your block.”
The falling crane. “A train, a troop of teenagers. Outside your publisher's window. And today, at the hospital, a bowl. A trolley, a train, a bowl. What's the thread? What do they have in common?”
“They were red?”
He nodded, as if congratulating a really slow first grader. “What else?”
“Me?”
“That too, but a trolley, a train, a bowl. As if people were trying not to say what they really saw.”
I gave up. “A troll. No, wait. There's another common denominator. A man named Lou was at all those places, also. Why aren't you talking to him?”
“I did. He's one of us.”
“One of you? You who?”
“Lou is DUE, too.”
I just had to laugh at the absurdity of the whole thing. Trolls, silly acronyms, threats to the universe, 007 sitting on a threadbare quilt accusing me of being a WMD. What was next, He Who Shall Not Be Named?
This time Grant laughed, too. A nice deep laugh. “I know, I know. It's pure nonsense. Utter drivel. Folderol. But you've seen the damage, and you understand this is no laughing matter.”
“You are wrong. I do not understand any of it.”
He came to sit beside me on the couch, and took my hand. He held it between both of his, and I forgot the anger, the distress, and the confusion. He looked me in the eyes, with that gorgeous blue gaze and said, “Let me help. Trust me.”
The last man who'd said that stole my credit cards. I took my hand back.
Grant stayed beside me on the couch. “Very well, let me tell you a story, a fairy tale, if you will.”
I reached over for the quilt to throw over my lap after I folded my legs under me, in the sofa corner farthest away from him. “Very well, I am ready for a bedtime story.” I realized what I'd said, and added, “Not that I am going to bed, or suggesting anything.”
One corner of his mouth lifted. “Of course not, although . . . ”
“Although . . . ?” He'd be interested? He'd run in the other direction?
He did not answer those questions, either, but I thought I saw a certain gleam in his eye. He cleared his throat and began with: “Once upon a time.” But I could tell what he was going to relate meant more to him. He believed it.
According to Agent Grant, the world, our world, Earth, was once populated by all kinds of magical creatures. Fairies, centaurs, mermaids, leprechauns, selkies, all the enchanted beings of folklore and myth.
“Vampires?”
“They are not real. Please do not interrupt.”
I hid my smile. Vampires weren't real, but fairies were? “Go on.”
According to him, all the various factions got along, more or less, with little in conflict and enough space between them. Then Man started to intrude. Perhaps to compensate for not having magic at their fingertips, or for not being as long-lived as the others, humans could reproduce much more quickly and prolifically. The humans also had ambition and dreams, unlike most of the other folk, who lived more in the moment. Since they couldn't conjure up a meal out of air, or change the weather to keep warm and dry, men needed to hunt, which upset the forest creatures, and farm, clearing land from the woodland dwellers, and build houses, permanent dwellings that interfered with the Earth's lines of power. And they claimed territories that had once been shared by all. Worse, they started to destroy the land with their inventions, their cities, their need for metals and fuels.
“Ah, a story with a green message. How politically correct. I bet pollution and fouled waters are next.”
“Hush.”
The very worst came when the men started to fight among themselves. No amount of wizardry could get them to stop, or listen to reason. Instead they started trying to kill everyone with magical powers that could be used against men. Finally it was decided by all the long-lived ones to separate themselves from the world of men. Not move, not disappear from existence or go extinct, just shift.
Grant picked up a pen lying on the end table and twisted the barrel so the two halves were not quite aligned, but they were still connected.
“Parallel universes, if you will. They called it the Day of Unity, because it required every single being, every bit of power to shift the worlds. While we cannot to this day cooperate to end famine, disease, war.” He shook his head and went on.
One world held the humans, one held the eldritch, and they were never to mingle again except in ancient memory. Hence all the tales of pixies and sea serpents and sorcerers. If, by some chance, humans caught a glimpse of the magical realm, they would not recognize what they saw.
“They'd see trains and trolleys and flying bowls instead.”
“Exactly.”
I frowned. “That's mind control. Mass hypnosis.”
“It's better than mass hysteria, isn't it? Think of witch burnings.”
All right, his story might explain some of what happened. “But then how come the line got crossed?”
“Not everyone obeys the rules, do they? But there's more.”
Before the split, he explained, as if giving a history lesson, not a theory of high fantasy, there was some inbreeding, experiments if you will, an effort to assimilate the poor weak humans into the magical world. The mixed breeds were not successful. Some could not reproduce; others were pitied by the glamour folk, feared by the clannish humans. Some of them got to stay in Unity as halflings, some stayed with the humans.
“Most of what we consider psychic powers comes from those mongrel ancestors. Some of those who trespass now and again are remnants of the mixes. They come from curiosity. Or worse.”
My creation was a hero, not a plunderer of lesser universes. I knew it in my heart. “Fafhrd is not evil.”
“Trolls seldom are. You do not want to mess with ogres. And fairies can be impossible to deal with, their minds flitting as fast as their wings. Trolls are not usually curious creatures. either.”
“So how did Fafhrd get here, and why?”
“We think an EG called him up. An Evil Genius from this side, a descendant of the interbreeding, someone with enough talent and understanding, and ambition. There's great power in the Unity world, great wealth, too.”
“You do not think I am the Evil Genius?”
“No, you are the Visualizer. Somewhere there is the Verbalizer. But there's a villain, too, taking your talents and combining them with his as an Enhancer. Maybe he is not acting intentionally, and maybe he is just experimenting. We have no way of knowing.”
“Wait a minute. I do have talents. I win awards and get paid for them. I can draw and tell stories, a better one than this bullshit. Fafhrd is my creation.”
“Ah, but your ancestors were some of those half-breeds. Many settled in England and Ireland. A large group eventually came to the colonies. They preferred living together, to avoid those witch hunts and the like. A branch of a famously psychic English family emigrated to Long Island.”