episode 14: The Flying Rowan

-David-

When I woke again next, the sun was streaming in through the windows and the phone was ringing. I staggered towards my coat, where it was inconveniently buried in one of the inside pockets, and dug it out. "Hello?"

It was my editor. The conversation was not pleasant. I tried explaining that finding people willing to talk was proving tougher as the articles got more traffic, but they weren’t having any of it. By the time the line went dead, my stomach’s roiling had become oceanic.

I made it to the toilet, but just.

When I finally escaped the bathroom long enough to consider what to do next, I realized that, practically; I had two choices. I could either confront Takara about being a were-fox, or I could seek other advice. Had not been for my editor’s call, I might have, however reluctantly, chosen the former. However, the demands of keeping the series alive gave me an excuse to choose the latter. It was well past noon when I finally looked at the time and thought it might be best to just head straight over to Louise’s business. It took me a while to find her card. Everything on my desk was a little blurry. I shuffled through a few piles of paper, encumbered by the bandages and finally, I located it under a stack of papers.

I arrived late in the afternoon, barely recovered from the various insults to my body. I didn’t know how severe those were, as I’d still not had the guts to remove the bandage. One small mercy — the throbbing had not returned since I’d drunk the foul concoction. I really didn’t care to think about what it had been.

The streetcar took me to one of those rare warehouse districts in Toronto where the forces of gentrification had yet to invade. Louise’s store was in a classic 1950s bland building, with several ingeniously hideous renovations done over the last few decades. Her store, which was on the second floor, was identified by a wooden signboard hanging above a nondescript metal door. This opened to a creaking staircase lined with prints, mostly landscape shots of mystical sites like Stonehenge, but there were a few Adams prints as well.

The wooden door at the top of the stairs had a frosted glass window embossed with the "Flying Rowan" logo and a sign: "Come in, We’re Open!” I opened the door, setting off a small chime, and several people looked up. The design on the door to Louise’s shop was rather simple, I noted, black and white with a small etching of a tree, a rowan I guessed, growing from the surrounding foliage. The shop's name, "The Flying Rowan", was inscribed around the treetop in a clean typeface. Not what I would have expected from a new age shop. No rainbows, no unicorns or offerings of crystals at fifty percent off. Perhaps this was an unfair generalization, but one that was substantiated by experience; I’d gone into a lot of those shops as I’d done various bits of background research.

Merchandise packed nearly every inch of the neatly organized shop. Most customers gathered near a few tables displaying plastic-wrapped items that initially looked like comic books. When I walked over I saw some dividers with titles in alphabetical order, starting with Abjuration, then Alteration, Balancing and Conjuration. There were about a dozen categories in my section, and a few of the others had more. I pulled out one sheet on divination titled, "Haruspicy (Hepatomancy): Pigeons", with an archaic illustration of pigeon innards on the cover. The subtitle was "Basic Principles of Sacrifice and Divination". The entire booklet was only a few pages thick. I flipped the plastic bag over, intending to open the flap that sealed it. A small sticker displaying the Flying Rowan logo secured the flap. I thought I saw a faint glimmer, like nothing I’d seen before and, somehow, it made my bandaged finger itch. Something seemed to discourage me from breaking the seal. I felt my teeth clench. I felt an idea struggling to articulate itself, but it died, leaving an empty ache in my poor head. It infuriated me. I gritted my teeth to open the flap, regardless of the sense that told me not to, when a young woman standing next to me said, "A word of advice?"

I turned to look at her: she was short, brown-skinned, with cropped black hair, a ratty sweater with a caribou head design, leather bag with a fringe and fringed rawhide boots. She struck me as indigenous, except that her eyes were an electric blue, so electric that I wasn’t sure if they were real or contacts. She also had a tattoo; it reminded me of some Anishnaabe pieces I’d seen at the Art Gallery of Ontario, but I could swear that it moved as I looked at her.

Despite being eighty pounds lighter and a foot shorter than me, she had an intimidating presence, however friendly her demeanour. I looked back at her. "Sure," I said, "I’m here for advice."

She smiled at me then, with nice, even white teeth. It was a friendly smile and made me feel a little like the rabbit hole I’d fallen down wasn’t without some modicum of courtesy and consideration.

She nodded at a sign above the rack of spells: You Open It, You Own It. "She always knows too — I’ve seen a couple of folks try to copy the sheets while she was in the back, but they never get away with it. It’s some sort of geas. You never manage to leave until she comes out from the back. It’s kind of funny, really, and while she’s usually forgiving with newbies like you, I thought you’d like to know."

A week ago, hell, last night, I would have scoffed and opened it to prove how ridiculous the idea was. Instead I said, "Thanks, I appreciate the head’s up."

She shrugged, "Sure." And then went back to flipping through pamphlets from the ‘Animal Spirit Guides’ section, muttering to herself "Got it, got it, got it, need it," whereupon she threw the copy to her growing pile and continued her chant.

I leafed through a couple more categories, then wandered to the bookshelves. Several of the people there seemed, well, other. Perhaps it was my imagination, but some of them made my finger itch; the bandages did little but further aggravate it. I was tempted to unwind them, but some shred of common sense kept me from doing so — however unique the people here seemed to be, I don’t think anyone wanted to see a fresh wound. Hell, I didn’t want to, but it itched.

After exploring for about ten minutes, I saw Louise come out of the back. She was dressed in a very large purple shirt, leggings, and running shoes. Casual, though the shirt had some embroidery in the same purple, at the cuffs and collar — astrological symbols this time. She came straight over as soon as she saw me.

"Oh, hello!" She said, giving me a pleasant smile. "Good to see you, David. You’re here for the small thing, then?"

I’d been poking, with horrified fascination, through the Ingredients section. The collection had been divided into three cabinets: animal, vegetable, and mineral; unfortunately, my curiosity drew me to the animal section, where I discovered various body parts preserved in vials.

It was all rather morbidly compelling. I nodded and said hello, grateful for the distraction. Still, I was nonplussed at her directness, and despite a certain urge to confess all that I’d seen, I stuck to the immediate matter in hand.

"Perhaps, though, it’s not such a small thing to me, to be honest. I’ve rather had the bottom fall out of my current article and I was hoping to perhaps pick your brain for a story idea, perhaps on alchemy, as per your card." I reached into my pocket and held it up, fumbling a bit, what with the bandage on my hand, brandishing it as if in explanation.

The smile on her face fell then, looking at my bandage. "Oh, crap," I said," is it oozing or something? Sorry." I transferred the card to my right hand. "Or do bandages bother you? I have a friend who won’t touch them even when they have to wear them, so I get it. Still, I’m a bit surprised, given some of what’s in this section of the store," and I gestured at the cabinet. "Though honestly I’m a bit surprised it would bother you, given some of what’s here, but I guess it’s not the same if it’s, you know, on someone walking around." I gave her a weak smile, aware that I’d been rambling.

Her gaze hadn’t left my hand, and she reached for it. "May I?"

"Umm," I said.

"I won’t touch it, promise." She gave me a small smile, "I just want… May I?"

I held up my hand, feeling unexpectedly skittish — this day was not getting any less disconcerting. My hopes to avoid thoughts of what was going on with Takara and my back yard by focusing on the story were not panning out as I’d hoped. Still, I had to admit that part of my motivation to come here had been to see if I could find a confidante who was not a supernatural creature. As she reached out, I noticed the return of the itch I’d felt around some of her customers. I began to reach with my right hand to scratch at the bandage. Louise tsked and shook her head. "Concentrate on your breathing." I did. It actually helped, a little. Then, for a few breaths, her hands hovered on either side of mine.

She frowned. "Why don’t we go into my office?” I hesitated. Louise’s talent for cutting to the core of things was somewhat uncomfortable, but I needed the story. Also, it wouldn’t hurt to get another perspective on what happened, if I could bring myself to talk about it. I mean, who else could I talk to? Takara, well, I didn’t even know where to begin with that conversation, and Ellen seemed to be both hostile and unwilling.

"So," she said with a smile. "Alchemy. Really?"

"Yes," I said, scratching absently at the bandage, "though I’m open to suggestions."

"Okay, if that’s what you want to talk about, then we will. So in that case, let me suggest, and perhaps I’m being a bit too self-serving, but I think you should do a story about the Rowan."

"Your store?"

"That and the people in it. Look David, I know that I’m maybe tooting my own horn here, but this place is unique. I saw you chatting with Cecily - the woman with those startling eyes?"

"Yes, she warned me not to open the plastic bags around your pamphlets."

"Spells, conjugation, scrivenings, and the like." She smiled, "she gave you good advice. Those booklets are distillations of years of my own research. This place is a, well, a hardware store, of sorts, or a craft store." She shrugged, "Cecily is like many who come here — she’s from a mixed background, not so surprising really. This is Toronto after all. Her practice is rooted in her indigenous culture, but she wasn’t raised in it, which is depressingly common for aboriginal kids even in this day and age. So while she seeks to honour her traditions, she’s drawn to other influences, most often its other aboriginal cultures and practices, but also some others; Wicca, Alchemical, whatever. There’s some stuff here she really doesn’t like, but it’s an open space. Everyone here respects everyone else, at least within these doors. And you know, your articles so far have been as much about community as they’ve been about the faith and practices. I think this would be a great basis for a story."

I thought back to what I’d seen out in her shop, about the crowd, and its diversity. Suddenly all thought of my finger faded. I reached into my bag, pulled out my phone, set it to record, and put it on the desk and grabbed a notebook. "So," I said, "Tell me about yourself."

"Well," said Louise, smiling. "I’m third generation, about as Canadian as you can get, except for the indigenous, of course. My grandparents were the no-nonsense sorts who focus on establishing a new life. They respected the old traditions, but were more concerned about getting ahead, and they assumed their kids were going to be just like them. But, then, those kids married outside their own ethnicities and the grandkids grew up being raised in our generic first-world commercialism. So, as they got older, and they saw their traditions disappear into the folds of the Canadian cultural mosaic, what used to be secondary to them gained a great deal of importance. My grandparents realized that was far too late to talk about it to their own kids. They’d pushed them — often very hard — to fit in. So they looked to the grandkids. Taught them the old stories and, if it ran in your family, the old household spells." She paused then. "But you know, the grandmothers who show you those old household spells are just nostalgic. They aren’t expecting the magic to come alive."

She shook her head, lost in memory. My finger itched, but I just watched as the emotions moved through her. She sighed. "Anyway, they ignored the signs of my powers, forgetting the truth in the old stories until it was too late. Too late for my parents to stop me. Even my grandparents tried, worried as they were about the Inquisition, but by then I’d discovered something that made me unique, and I clung to that. Of course, the other side of all of this is that no-one could bring themselves to truly believe what was happening. Despite the old laws, well, no-one really believes any more. Not really." She gave a twisted smile. "Ain’t no rebellion like the rebellion of the third gen teen. Eventually, I discovered I wasn’t the only one. I met all the other freaks and hybrids who felt uncomfortable in what little there was of the traditional magical communities. Eventually, I decided to try and give them a home, and tools to find their way."

"What were your parents?" I asked.

"Russian on my father’s side, Welsh on my mother’s," said Louise.

"That must be an odd combination," I said.

"No more so than some of the others out there. I mean, look at Cecily, German and Anishinaabe. Now there’s a bridge to build."

She told until someone rang the bell by the register a couple of times, and she started from her chair. "Damn, we should’ve booked time for this, instead of reminiscing during business hours like some grandmother. C’mon, I’ll deal with this retail emergency, then show you around the store, and introduce you to some people."

It was Cecily who had rung the bell, standing next to a sheepish-looking Alan, he of the Tonsure from the Wiccan group, holding one of the, formerly sealed, plastic covers that had protected the spell booklets. He began to babble as soon as Louise got close enough. "I was just checking to see if it was Hick’s standard cleansing, or a variation. There were some glyphs that looked different, and, well,” his voice dropped, "you weren’t around."

"Oh for god’s sake Alan, if only you’d had some magical incantation or cantrip like Cecily does to summon me from the nether-world where I dwell. Or, you know, you could’ve rung the damn bell. We’ve talked about this."

"Sorry, Louise."

She sighed, "One more time Alan, and I swear, I’ll ban you for a year, put a ward at the door, and we’ll have a chat after that about what’s required for a ward."

"Yes, Louise."

She stepped behind the counter, and I exchanged a glance with Cecily, who seemed to struggle with the effort not to laugh. She had a twinkle in her eye that was quite captivating, and I felt myself smiling. I looked down at my feet. It was obviously a serious situation to both Louise and Alan. Hell, it was pretty much shoplifting, but the tone of the exchange? Well.

After Alan left, Louise said, "Thanks, Cecily."

"No problem, it’s not like I haven’t done the same thing."

"You were young, and you learned."

She smiled again — it was a fond smile. "True that, but really, I believe him."

"So do I - which is why I haven’t put a compulsion on him or warded the shop. I think I got through to him this time."

Louise turned to me. “David, this is Cecily."

She held out her hand. "We have met, but it’s always nice to get an introduction."

"Absolutely," and as I took her hand, I felt something flash through my body, a burning, stabbing pain that centred on the finger under the bandage on my left hand, strong enough that I collapsed, clutching it to my chest. Cecily cursed, her voice outraged, "What the fuck, what the fuck, What The Fucking Fuck," but the sound of it was distant, wrapped up as I was, in my pain. Then Louise’s voice overrode hers. Loud, but also very calm and very firm. Eventually I felt the pain subside, and Louise was telling me to get up, as she helped lever me to my feet. Through hazy vision, I saw Cecily ushering the customers, all looking back at me, out of the store and turning the sign to ‘closed’.

They took me through the office and into Louise’s living room, just behind the store. She asked Cecily to get a few items from the shop, and started bustling in the kitchen, while I collapsed on her couch, my finger, my entire left arm, throbbing. Where I had clasped Cecily’s hand, there was redness and blistering. I stared at it, disbelieving.

After a few moments, I felt a little less dazed and sat up. It took me a moment to realize that while Louise and Cecily were doing various things in the kitchen; they were having an intense though hushed conversation, which mostly consisted of Louise trying to convince Cecily that I didn’t understand what was going on — an understatement of epic proportions.

After a few more moments, Louise came over with a concoction of some sort of sweet smelling tea and put it down on the coffee table.

"Drink," she said.

"Jesus," I said, "This is the second concoction that someone told me to drink today."

"What?" This from both Louise, who was sitting across from me in a chair, and Cecily, who was standing at the entrance to the kitchen, looking at me suspiciously. I preferred it when we were sharing bemusement about Alan’s predicament.

Shaking my head, I muttered, "It’s complicated, I…" but I didn’t continue, unwilling to talk about what had happened. How do you talk about taking a lover that could shape-shift into a fox? I mean, really, it was madness.

This was apparently too much for Cecily, who stormed over. “Look, you asshole, look what you did! If it hadn’t been for a protection that I’d cast for myself for a ceremony last night, it would have been worse." And then she thrust her palm into my face, and there, etched in swollen red, was an image that reminded me of the petroglyphs, those rock drawings, that were found in many sites around the Canadian Shield.

"I'm not so sure, Cecily," said Louise, "I mean, look at the man. Does he seem the sort who’s comfortable with what’s happened? Like someone who had attacked you, but had underestimated your power?"

She stared at me, the intensity of her gaze more than a little unnerving. I scratched absently at the bandage on my left hand. Louise frowned. "What’s under that?"

I looked down and was startled to see some charring in the white gauze of the bandage. "What the fuck?" I muttered.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake," said Cecily, "what powers have you been dabbling in? Are you a fucking amateur or what?"

"I don’t dabble in this shit," I cried, frustrated, scared and not just about what had happened with my hand. The entire situation was absurd, unreal. "This is ridiculous, it’s just… religion. It’s not real, none of this is real, it’s all just… superstition."

I collapsed back onto the couch, mind whirling. All that I’d seen crashing in on me — the intellectual skirting that I’d engaged in, collapsing as the truth of the situation was, essentially, burned into my hand. I stared down at the blisters on Cecily’s hand, but Louise’s gaze was on my bandages.

She said, "Hold out your hand." With a sigh of resignation, I held out my left hand and noticed that Cecily took a step back. Again, Louise put her hands above and below mine. This time I saw a faint glow of some sort of writing from the unburned sections of the bandage. It felt… odd. I jerked it back, watching the two of them.

Louise gave a look at Cecily, who seemed to deflate a little. She said, "Who could do something like that?"

"Which ‘that’, dear, the change or the casting to suppress it?"

Cecily walked over and slumped into the couch next to me, though, I noted, a good distance away.

"Please, please tell me what the fuck you two are talking about," I asked.

"Take off the bandage David, I think we need to take a look."

I looked at her, then plucked at the knots that held it in place. They were charred. The damage to the fabric was the only reason I could unbind the complex, tightly bound knots. When I finally took it off, I looked at my hand in horror. It was changed. A surprising number of clearly defined scars, in the shape of a bite, surrounded the finger where the creature had wounded me. Worse yet, was the fact that this finger had changed; it was now a dark brown, and tipped with a nail that was hornier than my others, and more startling, pure black. Not ‘bruised nail’ black, but ebon.

"The fuck," I whispered.

Both Louise and Cecily stared. Louise cleared her throat. "So, what happened?"

Haltingly, I recalled the incidents of the previous night and this morning, while Louise carefully spread out the tangle of bandages.

She sighed, "It would appear that there was a binding within the bandage," she continued, as she unraveled the almost origami like folds. It became apparent that there were layers with both herbs and writing. "Had it not been interrupted, it would have likely prevented the change from occurring, or at least from progressing this far. As it was, you and Cecily had a rather unlucky interaction — the spell was remarkably powerful, and very much focused on you. I had been curious earlier. It seemed odd. Odder still that you didn’t comment on it, but we get all sorts here. This was done without permission, wasn’t it?"

"Um, no, I was in no shape."

"And you probably had a compulsion in here, somewhere, to drink the brew you had this morning, too. This little section here," she pointed, "it seems secondary to the rest of the script."

"Shit," said Cecily.

We were all silent a while. "But the real question is how you managed to get a gate in your backyard. I mean, I’ve only heard stories of such things and never gave them much credence. Do you have any ideas?" asked Louise.

I sighed and gave them the story of the Bull.

"Try again, David. Talk to these Napier people."

"And maybe rethink who you bring to your bed," added Cecily.

photo credit tomas martinez on unsplash