At the manor, I opened the door and felt the shadows shift as the cats slid past me. Roland was wearing his old clothing and it didn’t suit him. It was loose and cut wrong. The problem with a well-fitted suit was that it didn’t fit anyone else well. He was sitting at the table where I had left the briefcase open and reading from one of the folders.
“Phil, I hope you forgive me, I have been looking over your papers and eating from your magic food box.”
I sat beside him. “You probably understand this stuff better than I do, and you should feel free to eat anything I have. How are you doing?”
He smiled. “Never felt better. That is the honest truth. I don’t know this body, its balance and its limits, but so far”—he gestured to the files in front of him—“we have someone looking out for us, and I am wondering exactly why they are doing so much.”
I asked, “Should I make another steel vault for us to talk in?”
He said, “Probably. We have a lot of details we need to discuss.”
We explored the manor house and found a large room that Roland thought would be ideal. I made illusions first and realized I knew a lot more about building this sort of thing now. I explored a few designs then chose one that I considered secure.
#
In our office inside the steel vault, I explained most of what had happened to me. Roland said, “Phil, someone saved us. You, me, and Anthony. You have been handed a huge conglomerate of companies that manage waste. This was all set up over forty years ago. As far as I can tell, you are the largest shareholder, but you don’t control it. It’s as though you are the figurehead, but no one knows you are the figurehead.
“None of this made any sense until you told me about the woman with stars in her eyes. Someone wants plausible deniability while aiming you at an enemy. I don’t see my place in this, though. I don’t see why they would include me.”
I held up the church bulletin. “This may give me some answers, but I suspect that we will never get any answers that tell the real truth. Someone wants to obscure their motives and actions. If they can do all of the things they have done, and they want to remain a secret, what chance would we ever have of finding out the truth?”
I decided to get something off my chest. “Mr. Hubert, I’m not really comfortable calling you Roland. Can I go back to calling you Mr. Hubert?”
Mr. Hubert shook his head. “I have been thinking about this. Since I have a new appearance, I am going to have to transfer controls and come up with a new identity. Do you have any suggestions for a new name?”
I shook my head. “A lot of things have changed, and I’m not really comfortable with all the changes.”
Mr. Hubert said, “Embrace change. The immortals that don’t keep up are a sad lot.” He looked at the papers he’d been reading. “Can I see the blade of grass?”
I got up, stretched and turned into me with the bottle. I put the bottle on the table in front of Mr. Hubert.
He unscrewed the lid and smelled it. “I can’t smell anything that raises any alarms.”
I looked at the blade of grass. “It isn’t unwholesome, but I don’t get the impression it is particularly nutritious either.”
I picked it up, smelled it, and put it in my mouth. After tasting it, there was a flavor that seemed dry and desolate. I chewed it, pulled the wad out, and put it back in the jar. I looked at Mr. Hubert and shrugged. Then I felt the link as another Fairyland connected to me.
“Mr. Hubert, it’s from a Fairyland, and it doesn’t feel right.”
Mr. Hubert said, “We need to change my name quick so you can practice with it. I need to get a new set of identification papers. I need to change my estate around and get clothing that fits. We need to pick a name quick. Your choice I think, as long as it doesn’t drive me up the wall. What would you be comfortable calling me?”
I shrugged and winced. “I’m going to see what’s up with this new Fairyland and think about it. I’ll get back as soon as I have an idea.”
#
The new Fairyland had real but hard and stony sand. The sky was gray, like an overcast day but with no clouds or features. It had another quality that I could feel. If I stayed here too long, I would die. I was the king of this desolate sandbox world with gray sky. If I stayed here a month, I thought, I would start getting sick. If I stayed here a year, my body would stay here forever. I returned to Snipsnort and shivered.
#
No one was near the crossroads, so I stepped into shadow and went to the manor house.
Mr. Hubert was still in the steel office looking at papers. He had brought the magic food box into the office and was eating potato soup. He pointed to the box. “Phil, I can’t make sense of this thing. Did it come with instructions?”
I looked at the box and shrugged. “Just a brochure wanting me to continue making purchases with the company. I just opened it and closed it until it had something I wanted.”
Mr. Hubert said, “We can’t experiment with it now. Fuzzy went to sleep in the drawer. I shouldn’t have left it open.”
I nodded and looked at Fuzzy sleeping. I considered picking him up and summoning Duchess Byebye but decided not to risk getting clawed.
I looked up at the briefcase where White Gloves was sleeping. “I think they like you more than they do me, Mr. Hubert.”
Mr. Hubert asked, “Any name suggestions?”
I shook my head. “I thought of artists. So maybe Vincent or Mike.”
Mr, Hubert looked at his reflection on one of the steel walls. “I think Vincent will do. But I hate Vinny or Vince. Are you okay with calling me Vincent?”
I said, “No. Not really. But I understand your need to change. My name was originally Phillip, but no one ever called me that. The Goblins told me just to drop the worldly name. It was of no use to me, so Phil is all the name I have. I’ve been given the name Phil Thibodeaux, I think I can go ten or fifteen years using that, but in the end, I plan to just go back to being called Phil or Snipsnort.”
“Call me Vincent.”
I said, “Vincent, I feel like an impostor. As King Snipsnort, as Phil Thibodeaux and even as Phil the fishmonger. I don’t feel like I am me and I don’t feel like I am anyone else.”
Mr. Hubert, or Vincent, said, “Immortals are all in their own way and in turns, vagrants, refugees, and impostors. We only get to be ourselves among friends. In another thirty years or less, I will change my name again. Eventually I will go back to being Roland and then maybe Hubert. Most of my names of old are obviously old French or ancient Greek. Before that, my name was a resonate hum and more of a label than a name.
“Phil, you are who you are. You have spent years with a family of Goblins, delivering fish to restaurants for far less than the fish were worth. No one but you ever called you a fishmonger. How long ago was it that you caught a fish and put it in a tank?
“When others put names on you, it may or may not have a bearing on who you are. One of the early best examples of a well-written character was Hamlet. Everyone, including Hamlet, had a view of who he was, and everyone including Hamlet was wrong. Only the audience had all the clues, and a strong part of the tragedy was the character’s lack of understanding of who they were.”
#
There were two couples in the congregation who had light skin like mine. Deacon Dan was an imposing man with darker skin than most of the congregation.
After the service, I was uncertain how to approach him. I was trying to blend in but since I was a white nine-year-old-looking kid in a nice suit with a fashionable black mask over a surgical mask, that wasn’t going to happen.
People came over to greet me, and I bowed to them and told them I had a cold that I didn’t want to spread. I was asked about my parents and were I was from and I tried to manage that without saying another lie. Most of what I said through the two masks was misunderstood, so one of the women explained that I was here praying for my parents who were sick, too.
It wasn’t what I said, but it sounded like a good story so I didn’t try to correct anyone. I was surrounded by the kindest of folk and half-way living a lie while trying to figure out how to escape and find out where Deacon Dan was when the small crowd around me parted and Deacon Dan said, “Phil, I am so glad you came. I was a little bit worried about you.”
#
I never had a chance to get away. I ended up at a backyard barbecue where a woman told me she was a registered nurse, felt my forehead, and pronounced me as no longer contagious. With a plate full of food, I had an excuse not to talk much and by staying close to talkative adults all I had to do was nod and look respectful to not seem rude. I didn’t want to lie to any of these good folk, and there was just about nothing I could honestly say about myself without lying.
I should have pretended I had a sore throat and couldn’t talk, at least that would only be one lie. Before I knew it, there were at least five lies about me that I never quite said circulating and by not correcting them I felt like I was lying anyway.
Deacon Dan saved me. He bent down near my ear. “Find a good place for us to talk. I’ll come see you in an hour.”
He stood up and gestured for me to follow. We went to the gate and a woman asked, “Is Phil leaving so soon?”
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Deacon Dan said, “Imagine how worried a child’s mother might get if he was gone too long on Sunday right after being sick.”
Deacon Dan stayed in the gateway blocking it and talking so I managed to make my getaway without anyone following me or asking if I needed a ride.
#
Behind the factory that had recently hosted a Goblin Music Festival, I was extending the boom on a mounted boom truck crane when Deacon Dan appeared.
“Phil, do you have a license to operate one of these?”
I nodded, “It’s forged, of course, but I know what I’m doing, and this is my truck. or at least it belongs to the identity I was given.”
Deacon Dan was suddenly up on the side of the truck sitting in the shade of the crane cab. I didn’t feel any movement in shadows when he moved.
I sat beside him. “Can you explain any of this?”
Deacon Dan said, “I was asked to gift you with a few things. The person who asked works with a person I trust, and I owe that person so I have a few things I can gift you. I won’t break any confidences, but I will tell you that anything they gave you, they can afford to give and won’t even notice the cost. What I was asked to gift you with is kind of a strange arrangement, but it was all arranged in confidence so I won’t question it much.
“Before we get started, though, is there a church you regularly attend?”
I shook my head. “Not for fifty years.”
He smiled. “Then let me invite you to come back to church next Sunday. I’ll explain to folk that you don’t feel comfortable talking. You can attend without any questions asked.”
I smiled thinking about church. I liked the music a lot, and the folk seemed genuine. “Deacon Dan, I’m a Goblin. I don’t age and there are almost no questions I can answer about myself and not lie. I’m going to have to lie to be the person my drivers license says I am, but I don’t want to lie to good folk in church.”
Deacon Dan said, “I have been a deacon as long as Christianity has had deacons. Do you know how I avoid lying?”
I shook my head.
He said, “I tell bits of the truth in an unconvincing way. So they all consider me a bit eccentric. I never quite fit in as a result, but to tell the truth, I never did quite fit in. Something in me, something I do, brands me as different.
“Phil, if you can live with being different, you might find comfort in a good congregation and this one is one of the best.”
I nodded. “I’ll consider it.”
He said, “Good. Now, for the gifting. First the linking. This one will usually let you decide on the final destination of a spirit or Fairy. It is perhaps the most frightening power I can give. If the call of Heaven or Hell is stronger, it may override this, but for the most part, your decision will be final.”
He took a breath and gifted me.
“This next one goes with it. It lets you force a form on a bodyless entity. In a vocation of mine that I rarely dabble in, I used it to turn spirits into Fairies. There are other uses, but I advise against them.” He gifted me again.
“This next one used to make you immune to disease. It still mostly does, but in the last three hundred years diseases that can get past it have started to show up.”
He gifted me.
“These next three let you detect, shrug of, or return a lot of the dark things bad folk might do with magic.”
He gifted me and then he smiled. “Be careful who you share those with. I’m looking forward to seeing you in church next Sunday.” With that, he disappeared.
I had the crane ready to play with and I hadn’t practiced with this model, so I made sure everything was stable and locked in place before I extended the boom. As I moved stuff around, I noticed waves in the shadows. Goblins had come out to watch me play. They were hiding in the shadows so I decided to ignore them, but I ended up showing off for them.
It wasn’t a skill I had developed on my own, but I was good and I knew what I was doing. It was fun pushing the limits of precision and speed. The odds were that the watchers didn’t have the background to know that what I was doing was Olympic gymnast grade crane maneuvering. From their movements in shadow, I think they found it entertaining. When I was done, I shut everything down carefully and took all the keys. No point in letting Goblins get hurt operating something too tempting to leave alone.
#
Wearing a suit, gloves, and mask, I summoned my contact in Newark. He quickly disappeared and I went into my private rooms. In a long wide hallway that lit up as I entered it, there were doors on either side and between each door were several works of art. Unlike the place in Chicago that made me out to be a person obsessed with heavy equipment, this made me look like I was obsessed with one woman. She looked like the Queen of Shadows but only if the Queen of Shadows was the Queen of Summer Light. She had bouncy-looking spiral curls in amber-tinged golden hair.
I explored the rooms and in one of them was a signed photo of her, but I couldn’t make out what her name was. Pretty script but not clear. In an office filled with maps, I summoned Vincent. He didn’t answer so I tried Mr. Hubert and he showed up.
“Mr. Hubert, how long does it take to get used to a new name?”
He said, “Forever if you don’t use it, so call me Vincent. That is the only way I will learn to answer to the name. If I don’t answer, call me Vincent Hubert. That may help us make the transition.”
I nodded. “Vincent Hubert then.”
Vincent looked over the maps and a subway schedule. “We won’t have time to get to the appointment with the tailor if you don’t shadow step. First we need to get to this department store so I can at least have basic clothing that fits. Can you find your way using the subways? I’ll stay here and study the maps.”
I shrugged, looked at the map and took to shadow.
#
I left Mr. Hubert at the tailor’s and went out to follow the trails of Goblins traveling through shadow. New York had Goblins living among humans in concentrations that I never thought possible. In the last four days, I had encountered evidence of more Goblins than I had imagined ever lived. My image of what a Goblin was didn’t match with what I was seeing. I saw an old man with a cap over his ears come out of shadow. His age startled me. He must have been a thousand or more years old to look that age.
Caerwyn summoned me. “Phil where are you?”
I said, “New York City.”
Caerwyn said, “Great, let me go tell my mother and get my wallet, then you can bring me through.”
I said, “Summon me. I still have a few hours to kill before Vincent Hubert is going to be free.”
A few minutes later Caerwyn’s mother, Mrs. Nelson, summoned me. “Caerwyn has a list of things he wants me to get. Is is too much of an imposition?”
I brought her through to New York.
She said, “This is wonderful, thank you so much. Oh my, I don’t have much time, I forgot about the difference in time zones.”
She waved to me as she ran off down the street.
I returned to where I left Vincent Hubert and breezed through in shadow. He was still busy and it didn’t look like he would be free anytime soon. So I followed a few Goblins and ended up in Central Park listening to a man playing a saxophone. I lost track of time while listening.
My phone started beating a rhythm so I answered it.
“Phil, I’m through.”
“I’ll be right there.”
I stepped out of shadows and walked to the tailor’s shop. Mr. Hubert was standing out front waiting for me. “The suits won’t be ready until next Monday so we will have to wait on my getting identification papers.”
I said, “About the identification. The more I hear ‘Vincent Hubert,’ the more I hate it. You have been living in a backwater area of Louisiana, and your appearance has changed. Can we just stick with Hubert? Most people call you Roland, so no one is going to think you are your old self if you don’t tell them.”
Hubert said, “Deal. I hate changing my name. But no more mister. Just call me Hubert.”
#
In the manor house, White Gloves shadow stepped to the table Mr. Hubert and I were sitting at. “There’s a woman at the front door. Tell her to go away.”
Hubert smiled at me. “You know, White Gloves, that you are speaking to Phil, the King of this Fairyland.”
White Gloves said, “That’s even better. Phil, order her to go way.”
I got up and walked down to the door and opened it. An old lady gingerly got down on her knees. “Your Highness, I didn’t expect thee to answer the door.”
I helped her get up. “Please rise and don’t worry about kneeling.”
She said, “Sorry, my hearing isn’t what it once was.”
I said, “Don’t worry about kneeling,” in a louder voice.”
She nodded. “’Tis good of thee to say that, sire.” She started to kneel again.
I said louder, “Please don’t kneel.”
Another woman was approaching on the path from the town below. She shouted, “Is that our new king, Annabelle?”
The woman turned and shouted, “Mrs. Shortstrop, come and meet the king. He was just telling me he’s going to finish the bridge to Nowhere.”
Mrs. Shortstrop shouted back, “Such a great new King to think first about his subjects’ needs.”
A couple more women came into sight as they came up the hill. “Did I hear right? Is the King going to finish the bridge? Well, that will be wonderful.”
I memorized all their faces. I was pretty sure I had just met the woman’s group that the men had warned me about.
As the women approached They all curtsied. “Long Live King Snipsnort.”
I bowed.
The women all looked down at the spot I was looking at.
Mrs. Shortstrop asked, “Doest thou see anything?”
The old lady, Annabelle said, “Our liege must be able to see things we cannot. For it would be nonsense for our great ruler to bow to the likes of us. Almost dishonorable, you know.”
Another woman said, “Shhh, our great and proud king bows to no one. It would shame us all if he made such a gesture.”
I asked, “I there something I can help thee with?”
Mrs. Shortstrop took Annabelle by the arm. “My leige thou has found our dear old Annabelle when she wandered off again so we will be thanking thee and telling folk how kindly thou art.
“Come along, Annabelle. We don’t want to waste anymore of our King’s precious time. He has so much to do and despite all the time he spends crafting horrific steel devices and turning the manor into a mansion of terror, he has decided to honor us all by finishing the bridge to Nowhere.”
The ladies walked away with Annabelle so I went back to see Mr. Hubert.
White Gloves saw me and slid into shadow.
I looked at the sketch of the manor house that Mr. Hubert was making and pointed. “Are we making an addition?”
Mr. Hubert said, “We will need more area for the solar panels. We will want to have a fence around them since they will have some steel fittings. We might as well expand the house a bit.”
I said, “I’m about to make a bridge to Nowhere. It seems like a waste to me.”
Mr Hubert nodded. “It is a matter of perspective, really. You must keep in mind that what is valuable in Real and to humans has never quite matched with what the Fairies in a Fairyland think is valuable.
“If you go to the common markets of the Real world, nothing is made to last even ten years and all of it is just for your own use. A bridge is something that everyone can use. It helps the poor and the rich, and if it is well made it can still be useful three thousand years later. While I would advise you to keep some reserves, too much stored and never used is a type of waste too. If you save a thousand pounds for making gold with, you have all the emergency money I can imagine needing. If you save a thousand more, you can fix and replace a lot of parts. I suspect that a world like this produces enough in a day to make a thousand pounds seem small.”
Mr. Hubert looked at me and smiled. “Not long ago you were worried that I was planning to spend a few million saving your life. Now you can spend that much on whim and not feel the loss. Do you want help building the bridge?”
I nodded.
He said, “Can you get me to our house in Real? I need to get a few things.”
I summoned Caerwyn.
Caerwyn said, “I have a contact that says he has a contact that can connect the internet in Fairy. I’m a little worried that it might be a scam. They won’t take gold unless it is in the form of fine craftsmanship or fine art. I’m scared they’re just trying to find out what some of the wealthy Daemons have hidden away. I may need your help with this if it gets complicated.”
I said, “Can you bring me and Mr. Hubert through?”
Mr. Hubert said, “Just Hubert.”
Caerwyn said, “Sure, how are we getting all your power equipment to Fairy?”
I asked, “Hubert, Caerwyn wants to know how all the equipment in and in front of the carriage house is getting to Fairy.”
Mr. Hubert said, “Anthony has a contact that can manage things like that. When he gets well we can move everything.”
Caerwyn said, “Ask him how long before Anthony is better?”
I said, “Bring us through and you can ask him yourself.”
#
As Caerwyn and Mr. Hubert talked, Mr. Hubert packed things and brought them to me. Then I sped up Snipsnort, went to the crossroads in Snipsnort and shadow stepped to the manor house. After I had the load dropped off, I ate the meal Mr. Hubert had packed for me and rested. Then I matched time to Real, and summoned Caerwyn.
In Real, I would go to the kitchen, pick up the meal that Mr. Hubert had for me and take another load to Fairy. Sometimes I skipped a meal and made several trips without sleeping. Ten hours passed in Real. Days passed in Fairy.
While I was helping Mr. Hubert cook, Caerwyn came in. “I just got an email from bugteeth68. Rodger is asking how to summon you. He says he owes you gifting and you aren’t answering to ‘The Fishmonger.”
I asked, “Caerwyn, how do you summon me?”
Caerwyn looked up at the ceiling and around the kitchen. “I watched you in the yard taking care of fish. Then I met you and we made friends. Sometimes you don’t need a name, if you just know someone, you know them.”
I said, “Now that I have made a few zillion trips back and forth to the manor in Snipsnort, I may have an easier way to move things.”