A few buskers were playing on the street, but I was intrigued by the buildings. Oslo sculptures were not my cup of tea, but the buildings were wonderful. I found a building I liked near the hotel and set up my tripod to do a few watercolors. It was getting close to time for me to get back to meet up with Jeremy when my phone started vibrating.
“Jeremy, how was your flight?”
“Great, Phil, my uncle picked me up at the airport. Can you meet us outside the hotel when we drive up in five minutes?”
I said, “On the other side of the street from the hotel is a sculpture of a lion on the end of a wall with a ramp beside it. I’m on the ramp a bit past the lion doing a watercolor. I’ll try to finish up, but it might take a bit for the paint to dry.”
Jeremy’s voice was muffled as he spoke to his uncle, “Phil’s working on a watercolor. He’s on the other side of the street opposite the hotel.”
Jeremy’s uncle said, “Tell him to keep painting. I want to see him at work.”
Jeremy said, “Phil, don’t stop painting. My uncle wants to watch you paint.”
His uncle said, “Hang up the phone. Don’t interrupt him if he’s painting.”
I looked at the painting I was making and decided to start another. “Jeremy, I’ll see you when you get here. Later.”
I took out a larger block of watercolor paper and put the smaller block to the side. I started with a nice loose set of washes and then used layers to slowly bring in the bodies of the buildings and the feel of the structure.
Jeremy and a solid-looking older man with white hair came up and stood behind me.
The man said, “Don’t stop painting. I don’t want to change your mood.” Then he asked, “Jeremy, is he one of those moody artists that gets in a funk easy? I can’t abide by them, they bug out on you and they never finish their work.”
I kept painting. “I’m Phil Thibodeaux, and you probably won’t like working with me. I disappear without notice. I like to wander off and go fishing when I can. I’m not motivated by money and gruff, bossy people annoy me.”
Jeremy said, “Good to see you, Phil. This is my Uncle Reardon. Call him Reardon, his name is Saerbhreathach Reardon Nilson, and he prefers to go by my grandmother’s maiden name, Reardon.
Reardon picked up the smaller painting I had mostly finished from the wall I had set it against. “You put more detail into the smaller sketch, isn’t that the reverse of normal order?”
I continued adding layers of wash to make the shadows right. “That was an architectural work to capture detail. This one is to capture mood. I was going to paint a few sculptures, but so far my favorite sculpture in Oslo is the lion behind me. I love the buildings, so that is what I am painting.”
Reardon walked a little. “The lights better over here.”
I said, “You should paint something. I have an extra block of watercolor paper, some pencils, and lots of brushes in my bag.”
I glanced over at Reardon and started adding him to the painting. I painted him as if he was standing in front of me painting what I was painting and looking back at me annoyed, like he was mad that I would dare to paint what he was painting. I added him in fine detail, dry brush and tight lines over the layers of wash that was my painting. I decided to add my brush as if I was painting it still and decided to leave the part I was painting unfinished.
Reardon and Jeremy stood on either side of me watching me paint.
As I started cleaning my brushes, Reardon cleared his throat. “I didn’t give permission for you to paint me.”
I kept cleaning and putting up my equipment. “It only superficially resembles you, and you were never in such a pose, and I didn’t see you paint anything. Besides, I’m giving it to you.”
He grunted and walked past us toward the road.
I asked Jeremy, “Is it going to cost you anything if I decide to run off and not spend any time with your uncle?”
Jeremy looked back and forth between me and his uncle. “I regularly stop speaking to him. After few months of no communication, he calls as if nothing happened. The family seems to think we’re close, and I don’t see why. Honestly, if we don’t stay with him, we can have some fun. I’ll introduce you to some of the younger friends I have around here, and we can go to London and see even more friends. I can call some friends in Brittany. If they’re free, they can show you the music scene.”
From the street Reardon shouted, “Are you coming?”
I’d just packed up my stuff. The small painting was dry enough to be put away, but I was holding my bag over my shoulder and the larger block with the painting on it in my hands. Jeremy shrugged and walked over to where his uncle was. I followed him.
Jeremy asked his uncle, “Where are we going?”
Reardon answered, “To where I had the driver stay. It’s six miles to Grass Roots Square, and I don’t feel like walking all day.”
I followed without catching up. When it was clear that they had reached the car, I started using my fingernail to separate the painting from the block of watercolor paper it was on top of.
They got into the car, and Reardon put down the car window. I offered him the painting.
He asked, “Are you coming?”
I shook my head as he took the painting.
The driver rolled down the window and I backed up. I didn’t know how I knew, but I knew what the driver was. He was an angel, an actual angel.
The angel said, “If you get carsick, sir, you can ride up front with me.”
I asked, “Don’t drivers usually hold the door for their passengers?”
The angel smiled. “That isn’t in my contract.”
I walked around the front of the car ready to take to shadow or return to Fairy if the shadows seemed off. Right at the moment, the shadows seemed off.
I sat in the passenger seat and looked at the angel.
The angel asked, “Mr. Nilson, shall I roll up the window and give you some privacy or do you wish to speak with Phil? He might enjoy the subject we were discussing earlier.”
I was startled that he was using my name, but he might’ve heard it from Reardon earlier.
Reardon said, “Roll up the window, not everyone is interested in discussing the Nephilim.”
The driver put the window between the compartments up and started driving. “We don’t have time to talk much, but I have a warning for you. The plague is coming, and apart from those you already know and care about, for each one you save from the plague, ten will die in the next plague. At least in Real, where man must learn that the only gods with knowledge and wisdom as enemies are false gods.”
“Know that these rules are not by my agency. These rules were set by the nature of man.”
I asked, “Can you stop the plague?”
The angel said, “There is a worse plague. When men claim holiness, they break covenant. When they cease to care for their elders, they break covenant. When they lie about what they do not know, they break covenant. The covenant is not there to please or displease the almighty. It is there to protect men from becoming monsters. ‘Til man puts truth, reason, and compassion first, plagues will come. Each will be worse. Men have made up the Rapture and pray for it to happen soon. It may but it will not be as they think.”
I sat quietly. I considered that I was, by a possible point of view, a possessing being in a child’s body. I considered that when I went to church I was not what church people wanted around them.
The angel turned the car onto another road. “We won’t have another chance to speak. Among liminal beings, you are a liminal being. There are beings who would destroy the world to make the art they collected from it even more valuable. You are their enemy and a hunter of them. My kind is, and must be, restrained, so we watch you with anticipation. Take my warning not as a threat, but as advice from a fan.”
I asked, “Who makes plagues if truth, reason, and compassion are not put first?”
The angel said, “Without compassion, truth, and reason, medicine will not go to those it needs to go to. When the least of these are downtrodden, and authorities turn their eyes away, and the wealthy try to profit from disaster, plagues are part of nature. No spirit, divinity, or monster needs to call them forth.”
The driver stopped the car beside the road. Jeffery and Reardon got out. The driver nodded to me and I got out.
As I caught up with Jeffery and Reardon, I asked, “What is a liminal being?”
Reardon laughed, “You might have enjoyed a discussion of the Nephilim after all. Liminal beings are the ones that are hard to classify. Like Tom Bombadil in Tolkien or chimeras in mythology. The creatures between and not entirely of one nature or another.”
I asked, “What is a Nephilim?”
Reardon said, “Maybe a Giant, maybe a Fallen Angel, maybe an angry supernatural being, or perhaps an ancient race that was here before man. I would be happy to discuss this at supper, but warn me if I am boring you.”
I smiled at the thought of hearing someone entirely outside the loop talking about the supernatural. Not that I thought I knew what is what and what it all meant, but I could reduce a lot of things to being unlikely and know others that might straighten out a few things if I got confused.
I asked, “What do you call a Djinn that possesses people?”
Reardon stopped and looked up for a moment. “All the hidden things are Djinn. That is the meaning of the word. Even an angel might be called a Djinn. The bad ones are Marids or Efrit.”
I asked, “What is the difference between a Marid and an Efrit?”
He nodded as he looked at me. “Best I can tell by reading is that a Marid isn’t as smart as an Efrit. There are also the Shaytan, Zar, Arwah, and samum, but Islamic practice will often disagree on the nature and existence of the various beings.”
I asked, “So, if a possessing being was sort of clever and planning to destroy the world, would he be an Efrit?”
Reardon nodded and gestured for us to follow as he led us to an area where the paving slabs were held up on grass. As we got closer, it was more like plastic army men were supporting or replacing the stone. Up close, I saw they were small bronze sculptures of people.
Reardon asked, “What do you think?”
I shook my head. “Disturbing. They can be trampled and worn down. Anyone could just walk on them.”
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Reardon said, “That may be the meaning. That may be what the artist wanted you to see.”
I crouched by the tiny sculptures. Thousands of tiny sculptures.
Reardon gestured to indicate the entire square. “The Grassroots Square is interesting to me since so many people react differently to it. Some want to step on it. I know a man who wants to have it replaced so he can take it and put it in a covered courtyard in a house of his so he can keep it safe. I have a project in mind that would inspire the same sort of thinking.
“What if you made a musical forest? A sturdy child’s playground of your trees that children could explore and make music or cacophony within.”
I nodded. The idea seemed fun, and I could make a lot of prototypes to test forms and sounds and then settle on the best of them for music. None of the prototypes would be wasted since they could be used in a children’s forest of music.
Reardon looked up and smiled. “After the patrons that we would invite in to see the woodland you made for children to play in, a lot of them will cringe at the thought of children wearing it down and breaking it. If we make a small example and have them bid for the final project to be assembled where they want it, the bids will go through the roof as they make sure that they alone can care for it, and no children will ever get near it.”
I looked at the small figures and nodded. The rich people he described sounded like they might be the Efriti I was looking for.
#
A violinist, pianist, and double bass player had been hired to accompany Jeffery and me. All of them were tall, attractive girls in short black dresses, and I didn’t think they knew what to expect when they met me. I’d crafted an aluminum cajon shaped mostly like a tree stump with the stump from a cut limb as the main drum surface.
It had a different sound, but I am willing to go to town thumping a beat on a counter, and this had lots better spots for thumping than most counters. I had an aluminum tree with anodized colors to make it look like a tallow tree in fall. Bright red, brown, and yellow leaves partially concealed the percussion instruments inside the tree canopy. I had gone childish and had small creatures like frogs that could swing out and have their mouths move when I played instruments that sounded like frogs in the distance.
Jeffery was playing on a txalaparta he had put together. It was a rough cut pair of sawhorses made from silver birch with the bark only missing where mortise and tenon joints held it together. Resting across these sawhorses were more small logs. The bottoms of the logs had the bark removed where they rested on pads over the sawhorses and the tops where Jeffery was beating out a rhythm with a pair of wooden mallets that looked like rolling pins. It was energetic and fun.
I wanted to join him and play beside him on it, but the reason we were on stage with these three girls was to show off the aluminum tree I was playing.
The girls were doing a good job of improvising around the rhythms that Jeffery and I were exploring, but in keeping with the plan of presenting this as a musical project for children, we were keeping the rhythms simple.
No one was dancing, but it didn’t seem to be that sort of party. Tables of fruit, smoked meat, and cheese were scattered around. The guests mingled, carrying wine glasses and small plates, as they viewed the art on the walls.
A woman came up to the front of the stage with a pair of children that looked to be six and eight years old. “Can a young child really play on this?”
I got up, winked at Jeffery, and gestured for the kids to take over. I walked away as I saw more children pointing to the stage and trying to get permission to play from the adult they were nearest.
Jeffery joined me out on a balcony. “How do you stand the cold, Phil? It’s freezing out here.”
I gestured with my head for us to go back in. “I didn’t think you would abandon your txalaparta for the kids to hammer on.”
Jeffery said, “That was the plan all along. I just didn’t realize it was going to look so cool, sound so nice and be so fun to play. I would bid on it myself and try to keep it, but someone would report me for trying to drive up my own auction if I did.”
I said, “You can always have another made.”
He nodded. “Yes, but I’ll always regret losing this one. Such is dealing in art. If you can’t live with regrets, you can’t play the game.”
Back in the hall, the music was now chaos. Children were making nonstop noise with all the effects they had managed to find, and one child had taken a pair of wooden mallets from the txalaparta and was beating on the tree to make noises I never intended for it to make. They were having fun and not endangering each other or breaking anything, but I was glad I’d made it so sturdy. Because I feared that children might climb on it, I’d made the leaves out of thicker aluminum to make the edges rounder and stronger. The roots were a lot longer so a child would not be able to tip it over. This was not a portable tree like I had been making before this. This was meant as installation art that would be able to handle playground abuse.
We had agreed that unless it looked like someone was going to get hurt, we shouldn’t intervene. It didn’t look like it was going to be broken, so I just smiled as Jeffery gave me a nervous look.
Jeffery said, “Honestly, my feelings are hurt, one older kid and an adult on my txalaparta and you have your tree covered with all the rest of the kids.”
I said, “I am surprised the children’s parents are letting this happen.”
Jeffery shrugged. “At six, they start teaching children to use knives. Norway has the happiest children in the world.”
Before the children could get tired of the noise making, the three musicians returned to the stage, and I was signaled to come back and play. A few of the children were reluctant to leave. One of them was keeping the rainmaker going, so I sat on the stump and started in with a rhythm and tried to make it sound like a walk in the woods with the rain falling. With an occasional clash like thunder in the distance and the sound of frogs made by the array of four ridged wooden strips with a wood stick rubbing past them, all activated by a foot pedal disguised as a root, I managed to make the sound of the woods come to life.
The violinist was playing along with it, and to me, it sounded like someone relaxing and then bringing up another worry as they hurried home through the damp woods as it was turning dark.
I shifted the rhythm to make it feel like the lights of the house could be seen in the distance, and the little girl playing with the rainmaker stopped and blinked at me before running to the edge of the stage where her mother was waiting.
We finished playing and Jeffery gestured for me to join him. “What we really needed was Overkill Jones playing guitar. If Jake were here playing swamp blues with you, the bidding would be insane. I thought about inviting him, but that would give away my cover as a poor boy in Louisiana.”
I noticed that people were noticing us. I nudged Jeffery. “We’re being watched.”
Jeffery said, “Conversations are going on using the same app that the bidding is being done over on for all the art. You look at a painting on your phone, and you can read and add to the chat scrolling beneath it. When they found out that the sculptor was the kid playing the percussion tree, and he is an orphan with the same genetic disorder that killed his parents, the bidding started to jump. Nothing like a tragic backstory and the imminent death of an artist to drive up sales.”
I took out my phone and scanned the QR code on the wall beside a painting so I could find the app. I downloaded it and then opened a window to examine the code before I ran it. I found a few interesting bits of code in the app that I didn’t quite trust. I emailed a copy to a server where Caerwyn could look it over and set a flag to alert him. Then I started editing the app to clean it up a bit. Jeffery got into a conversation while I immersed myself in the code.
I got an alert and checked mail. Caerwyn had sent me a replacement app. He had gone right to the source, hacked the server the bidding app was linked to, and downloaded the administrator’s version of the app. I was looking through the code on the admin app when Caerwyn sent me his hacked version of the admins app and could see more details on the people bidding. I could tell who was circulating among the guests in the hall and pushing to drive up prices on the artwork. No one was assigned to push up the prices on my percussion tree. I suspected that Reardon had decided not to cut the auction house in for an extra share, so that service wasn’t being added. He probably had a few ringers adding comments on my percussion tree. The bidding for the tree was steadily climbing, and the bid for the installation piece was already over what we expected it to make.
I didn’t detect any Efrits in the room so I suspected that if they were involved, their bids were being made by representatives.
A pair of kids that looked about fifteen came over to talk to me. “Phil, is it? This is Olaf, I’m Nils. Your bio says you are twenty-four despite looking like you’re ten. Do you date?”
I shook my head.
Olaf asked, “Don’t like girls?”
I said, “I’m not girl crazy but I like girls.”
Olaf nudged Nils. “You’re out of luck.”
Nils sighed. “I kind of got a crush on you watching you play music. If you ever change your mind about girls, let me know. ‘Til then, can we be friends?”
I smiled. “Absolutely, but my heart is spoken for.”
Nils asked, “She cute?”
I said, “Torn between two girls right now. One is probably my age and looks it. If I hang out with her, folks will think she’s creepy or my big sister. The other’s a lot older, but she’s so pretty no one is even going to think about me if I’m nearby.”
Olaf asked, “Got any pictures?”
I showed him the background screen on my phone with the picture of Goldilocks.
Nils said, “For her, I could turn straight. Does she like you?”
I said, “Well, she knows I have a crush on her, but I think she considers us just friends.”
Olaf asked, “Do you ride a bike?”
I nodded.
Nils asked, “Mountain bike?”
I shook my head.
Nils said, “You look athletic enough. We’re going mountain biking tomorrow. If you want, you can rent a bike and join us.”
#
Caerwyn was looking up at a map on the projection screen and then back down at the monitor he had the Oslo bike rental places detailed on. “You can’t rent a bike in time to meet up with the kids in Oslo. Not without cheating and you don’t want to give away your supernatural nature. You don’t even know them. Are you sure about this?”
I shrugged. “I’m trying to make connections, and if I live a few years, some of the kids I meet might be good friends and good connections. Besides, it looks fun and riding for fun without balancing a cooler of fish on the bike—”
Caerwyn interrupted me, “I looked at a few of the downhill runs on mountain bikes around Oslo. If they do this for fun, they might not live to become good contacts.”
I brought up my inventory search for the junkyards I owned. “I had some bicycles, well, a lot of bicycles. I can probably put something together from a few examples.”
Caerwyn said, “Sounds like a lot of work. I have a better idea that will take a lot less. Shadowstep into an expensive bike shop. Find their most expensive mountain bike and copy it like you do.”
I leaned back in my chair and did a search on my phone. “Best bike shop in existence.”
Top of the search showed: ShadowFeet Holdings and a name to summon: Nia Gray.
I clicked on the search.
I ran my finger over the tiny logo on my phone that matched the logo for the website. I typed in mountain bikes. There was only one model and only one color. I clicked on the easy credit terms to find out what it would cost. I had an account already and I had credit in my balance. The balance said, “Unlimited Funds Remaining.”
I looked over at Caerwyn. “I think I better take your advice on this one and give up on the mountain biking.”
A notice on my phone let me know I just got a message.
I had just had a delivery on a mountain bike. It was dropped of at the seven-way crossroads in Snipsnort.
I took a deep breath. “Looks like I’m going mountain biking after all. Then again, my special friends have come close to killing me more than once. This might just be their best opportunity.”
Caerwyn said, “Bad idea, then.”
I got up. “Death has a sting, but I can get over it.”
#
A tiny winged Fairy was sitting with a small wooden box beside him. He got up and dusted off before picking up the box and holding it out to me. “Ready for gifting?”
I took the box from him. It looked more like a long wooden jewelry box but it had the silhouette of a mountain bike in a darker shade of wood inlaid on the cover. I opened the box and took out a nice wooden pen with several slides on the side like a multicolor pen. I slid one down until it locked. It was a mechanical pencil. “This looks more like a pen than a mountain bike.”
The Fairy gave me a look like I was clueless. “Like I said, ‘Ready for gifting?’”
I lowered my head and he flew up and kissed my brow. I was ready to cross my eyes since I was still recovering from the last time a winged Fairy from this group kissed me.
Someone really liked their fancy multidimensional gizmos. I slid the rings around switched between several pens and rotated the “pen” that was an eraser before extending and unfolding the pen into a mountain bike. I dialed in for it to be a sparkly blue and spent a while adjusting the size of it and selecting the second largest tires as the default.
The Fairy landed on the handlebars and pointed. “That way looks to have some good hills.”
I got on the bike and started pedaling. I liked the bike a lot, but uphill got tiring fast and the right gear to go uphill was slow, so I turned on the assist and mostly rode up the hill on power. When it got steeper, I turned on the full drive so I was mostly just steering around the rocks as we went uphill.
I sat beside the Fairy on a rock looking down at the slope. I was a bit nervous about riding back down it. I didn’t think there was going to be a way to stop apart from falling off the bike after I got up to speed.
The Fairy asked, “So, do you like Nia Gray?”
I shrugged. “I have a prognosticator Fairy that is pretty cute that will probably know you asked that. She has plans for me. I have a crush on Goldilocks. Nia is cute and all, but she didn’t seem to be interested last time I saw her, and biologically, I’m probably ten and she’s at least five years older biologically.”
The Fairy said, “She’s just playing hard to get. You know a girl can’t just act like she is crazy about a guy.”
I shook my head. “I can see what I look like in a mirror. She’s out of my league, but then the prognosticator Fairy’s out of my league and so is Goldilocks. I’m pretty sure Nia can find someone better.”
The Fairy laughed. “Seriously? You have no idea. She has a few hundred sisters desperate to find their one true love. You have no idea at all. Someone dependable and hard working, like you shows up and they will be gathered around like you are fresh cooked meat at a barbecue.”
I changed the subject, “So how long are you staying to train me on this?”
He shrugged. “I am planning to move here now that I have seen it. The Goblin girls are beginning to eye me, and I doubt I could resist one if she set her mind on catching me. Yep, even a tiny little guy like me. I told you those girls were getting desperate. I rather like my single life, so this looks like my best escape.
“I spotted a few nice holes coming up the hill that with a little bit of work could be a dream house. Apart from the shadow cats, this Fairyland seems about perfect.”
I asked, “Are you going to be a double agent and spy on me?”
He shrugged. “If I were, would I admit it? Besides, it isn’t like I would be the first, if I were, which I am not saying that I am. But, if you have any requests for goods from ShadowFeet, I would be happy to be your representative and get the commission on them.”
I looked out across the slope down and tried to map out the least rocky path. The bike had brakes that would stop me, but there was a warning that they might or might not work in Real. I got up, got on the bike, and looked down at the Fairy who had just landed on the handlebars. “You might be safer flying.”
He looked back at me. “What and miss the fun? Nah, since my legs won’t reach the pedals, I have to catch a ride or miss out entirely.”
I took off down the hill. I was right, there was going to be no way to stop without falling off the bike.