Maggie said, “To my knowledge she has no boyfriends. Our
circumstances don’t let us meet many people. We aren’t
socially acceptable. We form a class unto ourselves.”
A very classy class it was, though Maggie Jenn and her kid
weren’t its only members. The sisterhood of mistresses is
quite large. At these rarified heights, a man is expected to have a
mistress. It demonstrates his manhood. Two is better than one.
“Any friends at all?”
“Not many. Girls she grew up with, maybe. Maybe somebody
she studied with. At her time of life, kids are real status
conscious. I doubt anybody would let her make any strong
connections.”
“What’s she look like?”
“Me, twenty years less shopworn. And wipe that silly grin
off your mug.”
“I was thinking how looking for you twenty years younger
would have me hunting somebody barely out of diapers.”
“And don’t forget that. I want my baby found,
not—”
“Right. Right. Right. Any special stress between you
before she disappeared?”
“What?”
“Did you have a fight? Did she stomp out yelling about how
she was never coming back in ten thousand years?”
“No.” Maggie chuckled. “I had a few of those
with my mother. Probably why she didn’t squawk when
my father sold me. No. Not Emerald. This kid is different, Garrett.
She never cared about anything enough to fight. Really, honestly,
swear to whatever god, I wasn’t a pushy mother. She was happy
just to go along. Far as she was concerned, life is a river and she
was driftwood.”
“I maybe lost something in all the excitement. Or maybe
I’ve started remembering things that never happened. I could
have sworn you were going on about her having fallen in with bad
companions.”
Maggie chuckled. She snorted. She looked uncomfortable. She did
it all fetchingly. I tried to imagine her as she might have been in
Teodoric’s day. I was awed by the possibilities.
She stopped wriggling. “I fibbed a little. I heard about
you having a relationship with the Sisters of Doom and figured you
were a sucker for a kid in trouble.” The Sisters of Doom is
an all-girl street gang. The girls were all abused before they fled
to the street.
“It was a relationship with one Sister. Who left the
street.”
“I’m sorry. I overstepped.”
“What?”
“It’s obvious I just stomped on some tender
feelings.”
“Oh. Yeah. Maya was a pretty special kid. I messed up a
good thing because I didn’t take her serious enough. I lost a
friend because I didn’t listen.”
“Sorry. I was just trying to find a sure hook.”
“Did Emerald see anybody regularly?” Business would
take me away from memories. Maya was not one of my great loves, but
she was pretty special. And both Dean and the Dead Man had approved
of her. There had been no separation, she just didn’t come
around anymore and mutual friends all hinted that she
wouldn’t unless I grew up a little.
That don’t punch your ego up, considering it traced back
to a girl just eighteen.
Emerald’s writing desk had numerous cubbies and tiny
drawers. I searched them as we talked. I didn’t find much.
Most spaces were empty.
“She does have friends but making friends doesn’t
come easy.”
That wasn’t the story as it was told a few minutes ago. I
suspected Emerald had troubles that had nothing to do with social
status. Chances were she was lost in her mother’s shadow.
“Friends are where I’ll find her trail. I’ll need
names. I’ll need to know where I can find the people who go
with them.”
She nodded. “Of course.” I slammed a drawer, turned
away from her. I had to keep my mind on business. The woman was a
witch. Then I sneaked a peek. Did I really want to leave all that,
to go hunting somebody who probably didn’t want to be
found?
Ha! Here was something. A silver pendant. “What’s
this?” Purely rhetorical. I knew what I had. It was an amulet
consisting of a silver pentagram on a dark background with a
goat’s head inside the star. The real question was, what was
it doing where I had found it?
Maggie took it, studied it while I watched for a reaction. I
didn’t see one. She said, “I wonder where that came
from?”
“Emerald into the occult?”
“Not that I know of. But you can’t know everything
about your children.”
I grunted, resumed my search. Maggie chattered like the fabled
magpie, mostly about her daughter, more in the way of reminiscences
than useful facts. I listened with half an ear.
I found nothing else in the desk. I moved to the shelves. The
presence of several books brought home how much wealth Maggie stood
to lose. Because a book takes forever to copy, it is about the most
expensive toy you can give a child.
I grunted as I picked up the third book. It was a small,
leather-bound, time-worn thing with a goat’s head tooled into
its cover. The leather was badly foxed. The pages were barely
readable. It was one old book.
My first clue was that it was not written in modern
Karentine.
Those damned things never are, are they? Nobody would take them
seriously if any schnook could pick one up and decipher the secrets
of the ages.
“Check this out.” I tossed the book to Maggie. I
kept one eye on her as I resumed my search.
“Curiouser and curiouser, Garrett. My baby is full of
surprises.”
“Yeah.” Maybe. That whole visit was full of
surprises. Including those tree-sized fingers pointing at
witchcraft of the demonic sort.
The bedroom and its attached bath yielded more occult
treasures.
Much later I asked, “Is Emerald especially neat?”
Neat would not describe any teen I knew.
“Only as much as she has to be. Why?”
I didn’t tell her. I had gone into full investigator mode.
We crack first-line investigators never answer questions about our
questions, especially if those are posed by our employers, lawmen,
or anybody else who might help keep us out of the deep stink. Fact
was, though, that Emerald’s apartment was way too neat.
Compulsively so. Or nobody lived there. My impression was of a
stage set. I was wondering if it might not be exactly that,
carefully primed with clues.
All right, I told me. Get busy deducting. Clues are clues to
something even when they’re artificial or false.
I was not that sure. What I had was some inconsistent
indications of witchcraft—which did little to amaze, dismay,
alarm, or otherwise excite my new employer.
Maybe I was going at this from the wrong end.
Tap on the shoulder. “Anybody in there?”
“Huh?”
“You just froze up and went away.”
“Happens when I try to think and do something at the same
time.”
She did her eyebrow trick. I distracted her by flashing her
back. I told her, “I’ve got enough to start. You give
me that list of names. As soon as we settle the
finances.”
We had no problems there till I insisted on half my fee up
front. “It’s an inflexible rule, Maggie. On account of
human fallibility. Too many people get tempted to stiff me once
they’ve gotten what they want.” But that was not the
only reason I pressed.
The less a client argues the deeper his desperation.
My pretty Maggie Jenn argued way too long. Finally, she huffed,
“I’ll have Mugwump bring you that list as soon as I
can.”
I was thrilled. I really wanted to see Mugwump again. Maybe I
could tip him a talking parrot.
Maggie said, “To my knowledge she has no boyfriends. Our
circumstances don’t let us meet many people. We aren’t
socially acceptable. We form a class unto ourselves.”
A very classy class it was, though Maggie Jenn and her kid
weren’t its only members. The sisterhood of mistresses is
quite large. At these rarified heights, a man is expected to have a
mistress. It demonstrates his manhood. Two is better than one.
“Any friends at all?”
“Not many. Girls she grew up with, maybe. Maybe somebody
she studied with. At her time of life, kids are real status
conscious. I doubt anybody would let her make any strong
connections.”
“What’s she look like?”
“Me, twenty years less shopworn. And wipe that silly grin
off your mug.”
“I was thinking how looking for you twenty years younger
would have me hunting somebody barely out of diapers.”
“And don’t forget that. I want my baby found,
not—”
“Right. Right. Right. Any special stress between you
before she disappeared?”
“What?”
“Did you have a fight? Did she stomp out yelling about how
she was never coming back in ten thousand years?”
“No.” Maggie chuckled. “I had a few of those
with my mother. Probably why she didn’t squawk when
my father sold me. No. Not Emerald. This kid is different, Garrett.
She never cared about anything enough to fight. Really, honestly,
swear to whatever god, I wasn’t a pushy mother. She was happy
just to go along. Far as she was concerned, life is a river and she
was driftwood.”
“I maybe lost something in all the excitement. Or maybe
I’ve started remembering things that never happened. I could
have sworn you were going on about her having fallen in with bad
companions.”
Maggie chuckled. She snorted. She looked uncomfortable. She did
it all fetchingly. I tried to imagine her as she might have been in
Teodoric’s day. I was awed by the possibilities.
She stopped wriggling. “I fibbed a little. I heard about
you having a relationship with the Sisters of Doom and figured you
were a sucker for a kid in trouble.” The Sisters of Doom is
an all-girl street gang. The girls were all abused before they fled
to the street.
“It was a relationship with one Sister. Who left the
street.”
“I’m sorry. I overstepped.”
“What?”
“It’s obvious I just stomped on some tender
feelings.”
“Oh. Yeah. Maya was a pretty special kid. I messed up a
good thing because I didn’t take her serious enough. I lost a
friend because I didn’t listen.”
“Sorry. I was just trying to find a sure hook.”
“Did Emerald see anybody regularly?” Business would
take me away from memories. Maya was not one of my great loves, but
she was pretty special. And both Dean and the Dead Man had approved
of her. There had been no separation, she just didn’t come
around anymore and mutual friends all hinted that she
wouldn’t unless I grew up a little.
That don’t punch your ego up, considering it traced back
to a girl just eighteen.
Emerald’s writing desk had numerous cubbies and tiny
drawers. I searched them as we talked. I didn’t find much.
Most spaces were empty.
“She does have friends but making friends doesn’t
come easy.”
That wasn’t the story as it was told a few minutes ago. I
suspected Emerald had troubles that had nothing to do with social
status. Chances were she was lost in her mother’s shadow.
“Friends are where I’ll find her trail. I’ll need
names. I’ll need to know where I can find the people who go
with them.”
She nodded. “Of course.” I slammed a drawer, turned
away from her. I had to keep my mind on business. The woman was a
witch. Then I sneaked a peek. Did I really want to leave all that,
to go hunting somebody who probably didn’t want to be
found?
Ha! Here was something. A silver pendant. “What’s
this?” Purely rhetorical. I knew what I had. It was an amulet
consisting of a silver pentagram on a dark background with a
goat’s head inside the star. The real question was, what was
it doing where I had found it?
Maggie took it, studied it while I watched for a reaction. I
didn’t see one. She said, “I wonder where that came
from?”
“Emerald into the occult?”
“Not that I know of. But you can’t know everything
about your children.”
I grunted, resumed my search. Maggie chattered like the fabled
magpie, mostly about her daughter, more in the way of reminiscences
than useful facts. I listened with half an ear.
I found nothing else in the desk. I moved to the shelves. The
presence of several books brought home how much wealth Maggie stood
to lose. Because a book takes forever to copy, it is about the most
expensive toy you can give a child.
I grunted as I picked up the third book. It was a small,
leather-bound, time-worn thing with a goat’s head tooled into
its cover. The leather was badly foxed. The pages were barely
readable. It was one old book.
My first clue was that it was not written in modern
Karentine.
Those damned things never are, are they? Nobody would take them
seriously if any schnook could pick one up and decipher the secrets
of the ages.
“Check this out.” I tossed the book to Maggie. I
kept one eye on her as I resumed my search.
“Curiouser and curiouser, Garrett. My baby is full of
surprises.”
“Yeah.” Maybe. That whole visit was full of
surprises. Including those tree-sized fingers pointing at
witchcraft of the demonic sort.
The bedroom and its attached bath yielded more occult
treasures.
Much later I asked, “Is Emerald especially neat?”
Neat would not describe any teen I knew.
“Only as much as she has to be. Why?”
I didn’t tell her. I had gone into full investigator mode.
We crack first-line investigators never answer questions about our
questions, especially if those are posed by our employers, lawmen,
or anybody else who might help keep us out of the deep stink. Fact
was, though, that Emerald’s apartment was way too neat.
Compulsively so. Or nobody lived there. My impression was of a
stage set. I was wondering if it might not be exactly that,
carefully primed with clues.
All right, I told me. Get busy deducting. Clues are clues to
something even when they’re artificial or false.
I was not that sure. What I had was some inconsistent
indications of witchcraft—which did little to amaze, dismay,
alarm, or otherwise excite my new employer.
Maybe I was going at this from the wrong end.
Tap on the shoulder. “Anybody in there?”
“Huh?”
“You just froze up and went away.”
“Happens when I try to think and do something at the same
time.”
She did her eyebrow trick. I distracted her by flashing her
back. I told her, “I’ve got enough to start. You give
me that list of names. As soon as we settle the
finances.”
We had no problems there till I insisted on half my fee up
front. “It’s an inflexible rule, Maggie. On account of
human fallibility. Too many people get tempted to stiff me once
they’ve gotten what they want.” But that was not the
only reason I pressed.
The less a client argues the deeper his desperation.
My pretty Maggie Jenn argued way too long. Finally, she huffed,
“I’ll have Mugwump bring you that list as soon as I
can.”
I was thrilled. I really wanted to see Mugwump again. Maybe I
could tip him a talking parrot.