The faeries had chosen to act upon her. That couldn’t be a good thing. They might not consider whatever it was they were doing to her a punishment, but faeries were known to see things in a different light from humans.
“Oh!” Emma exclaimed. “I just realized--ghosts are rather like air, aren’t they? They’re like clouds of vapor in human shape. Even the ones that look fully human from a distance break like a fog bank if you push them. Or maybe they’re like fire, too? They glow like fire. So do corpses go to the Unseelie and ghosts to the Seelie?”
“You have stumbled upon an issue my people encountered when your stars were blue.”
“When our stars were what?”
“Blue.” John-a-Doors said matter-of-factly. “All your stars used to be as blue as delphiniums. But that’s neither here nor there. When my people constructed the fairy paths, which lead everywhere nowhere, and to all the places in-between the two, the Courts found that other worlds had ideas, beings, and substances that fit within the paradigm of the Great Division. The rulers of the 1001 Kingdoms, the children of the Marid rebels who left Heaven, known to you as genies, made an alliance with the Seelie Court, for not only were the genies beings of air and fire, but they were rationalists in their belief that will was the primary determinant of reality. The rulers of Tiendi, the children of the Yellow Emperor Huangdi, known to you as dragons, made an alliance with the Unseelie Court, for not only were the dragons beings of water and earth, but they were empiricists in their belief that their physical bodies, with their immaculate, invincible scales, were perfection made manifest.”
“Lord!” Emma exclaimed. “I knew there were such places and creatures up in the Astral, the thaumaturgists report on what they see when they’re up there all the time, but well…I guess it's different hearing a fairy psychopomp talk about these things instead of a human thaumaturge. Very different. I feel as if I’m half dreaming talking to you.”
John-a-Doors gave a smirk that Emma found disturbing in a vague and hard to place sort of way. It was a sharp lift of a sharp and thin mouth that lasted but a moment, and yet it seemed, in some way, threatening.
“Oh, if you feel you are half dreaming now…but I digress. My point, Ms. Quinn, which those that stand above me have dictated must be made absolutely clear to you, is that you would be amazed at the multitude of beings that fit within the paradigm of the Great Division. Beings of smokeless fire and endless water fit in the paradigm. Beings you have no names for, no descriptions for, beings you cannot even imagine have taken one side of the Great Division, or the other. Even your race, as strange and as unique as you may seem in your own eyes, chose to ally itself with the Seelie Court during the grand experiment that was Camelot, and you were comfortably classed among the light against the dark. But, Ms. Quinn, the paradigm has no place for Death and her children, ghosts. There is no death in Fairy, you see. Faeries and fairy kin can be made to be very still and very quiet, but they cannot be robbed of animation forever. They can be made to forget things, but not all things. The great Lugh, mightiest among the Seelie courtiers, struck down the Unseelie general Balor aeons ago and guaranteed a slight imbalance in power favoring the Seelie which lasts to this day. But though Lugh did shatter and pluck out the great general’s single eye, though he slung his bullet clean through Balor’s skull, Balor did not die. He lives to this very day, shattered, broken, but alive. Because there is no death in Fairy, there are no ghosts.”
“But do you not guide, host, and shepherd ghosts?” Emma asked. “People say that you yourself are a psychopomp, John-a-Doors.”
“I am a psychopomp, that is true,and I take no small amount of pride in being one.” John-a-Doors placed his long-fingered hand over his chest. “Faeries that study and guide ghosts, such as myself, are without rank in either Court, though we hold distinctions and powers all our own. My necessary neutrality makes me a negotiator and messenger for the Courts whenever they act as one, and that is why I appear before you today. My people do guide, host, and shepherd ghosts just as you say--but what is more, my people cherish ghosts. Few things, extremely few things, are declared neutral within the paradigm of the Great Division, and thus such things are rare, perish, and jealously guarded.”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Emma felt herself gulp as if she were swallowing a stone.
“An old stalwart of the Seelie Court, the kind to carry around a lamp because Unseelie darkness offends him, say one of the pages that carried Lugh’s bullets, and an old partisan of the Unseelie Court, the kind to carry around a cloak because Seelie light offends him, say one of the knights that pulled Balor’s body away from the battlefield, will stand arm and arm together when it comes to ghosts. Thus, the Courts as one, take objection, strong objection, to you laying claim to their special relationship with mankind’s ghosts.”
“So even the…” Emma struggled to find the most harmless-sounding word she could think of. “...games I played on my clients were found objectionable by both Courts?”
“Oh yes, Ms. Quinn. They found your false claims to fairy authority very, very interesting.”
“Interesting? But uh, not angering, I hope?” Emma began to tremble. “Not…too angering?”
“Oh no, Ms. Quinn. Those that stand above me are not angry with you whatsoever. Anger is a very ugly thing and ugliness is something neither Court claims. They are interested in you. They find you fascinating. They are fascinated with you, a woman of flesh and blood, laying claim to their great and noble enterprise of ghost guiding. If you had kicked over a circle of fairy stones, you would have been worth only a passing mention within the halls of the Courts. If you had driven a cow over a fairy fort, you would have warranted a single joke at the table of great ladies. But my race is known to the elder races of the cosmos, races older than any of your stars, for ghost guiding. It is our crowning glory. We are the ones who escort ghosts up through clouds and down through fires. We are the ones that ferry the boat and ask for a penny. Hermes was our student, as was Michael and the dour creature known to you as the Grim Reaper. You are, as you would say, the talk of the town up in Fairy.”
“Is there anything I can do to make myself right with the Courts?” Emma asked.
Again, John-a-Doors made an unsettling smile. “What do you mean?”
“I want to make amends! I laid claims to powers that were not my own and I shouldn’t have. I am sorry!”
John-a-Doors shook his head. “Oh no no no, Ms. Quinn, when it comes to matters between men and fairies, faeries are the ones that always make amends, in the end. That’s how it works when nature obeys your whim. What we will, is, and what is, is what we will. It is as your William Shakespeare wrote--Give me your hands, if we be friends, and Robin shall restore amends.”
“I’m sorry, but the reference escapes me.”
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 1595. The Courts quite like the play, it vividly demonstrates why you humans are so interesting to interact with.”
“But I still don’t understand--do you mean everything is square between me the Courts now? They’ve made amends and there’s no problem anymore? What amends did they make?”
“Those that stand above me liked that you were interesting, Ms. Quinn, and so they have acted upon you to keep you interesting.”
“Acted?” Emma gasped. “You mean they’ve already done…whatever it is they were going to do to me?”
John-a-Doors nodded.
“But you said they were going to act upon me!”
“Then I apologize, for you misunderstand, and my purpose here is to make sure that you do in fact understand. I told you that they were acting upon you when we first started talking and now, further along in our conversation, they have acted upon you.”
“But…but when?” Emma looked herself over. She expected to see fur or scales or perhaps even stone grow across her skin any moment now. “When did they act upon me?”
“Around the time I spoke about the dragons.”
“What have they done to me? I don’t feel different! What have they done to me? Please, tell me! What have they done to me?”
“Calm down, Ms. Quinn. I don’t want to have to pull a thought-form of calm from out of the Astral again. You’re a proud trickster, remember? A trickster needing help in composing herself once is excusable, but twice speaks very ill of her self-control.”
Emma took a deep breath. “Just…tell me, please. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it, to explain things to me?”
“That is indeed why I am here. Emma Quinn, you have been granted the power you always pretended to have.”
Emma blinked. “I don't understand. I can see ghosts?”
“Ah, see? You do understand--a little.”