The Onion Girl (40 page)

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Authors: Charles de Lint

BOOK: The Onion Girl
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“You know,” she said. “The one that leads out into a desert world sometimes.”
She saw understanding come to him then. That last time she'd used the door, Jeck had driven Mr. Truepenny half mad trying to find out what had happened to her, so she was surprised he hadn't twigged immediately to what she was asking him.
“You understand that it doesn't only open out into the desert?” Mr. Truepenny said.
Sophie nodded. “I know. Most of the time it just leads out to the alleyway …”
Her voice trailed off as Mr. Truepenny shook his head.
“The problem with that door,” he said, “and others like it, is that they lead to anywhere and anywhen.”
Sophie sighed. “Is this one of those ‘you have to really keep your mind focused on what you're doing' kind of things?”
Mr. Truepenny nodded. “Either something will lead you to where you need to go—”
“Like that sound of the flute did the last time.”
“—or you have to be very certain of where you mean to arrive.”
“We can do that,” Sophie assured him. “Can't we, Jeck?”
“We can try,” Jeck said.
“I mean, crow blood and faerie blood—we've got the mojo, right?”
Mr. Truepenny pushed his glasses up again and regarded her through their round rims.
“You sound as though you're trying to convince yourself more than me,” he said.
Why did people always see through her so easily? Sophie wondered.
“I suppose I am,” she said aloud.
Mr. Truepenny gave a thoughtful nod.
“I know it's none of my concern,” he said, “but might you be able to tell me why it is that you need to access the desert world?”
“It's no secret,” Sophie told him, “but it is kind of a longish story.”
“I'll put some tea on,” Mr. Truepenny said.
While he was getting the tea, Sophie and Jeck returned to the front of the store where they made room for themselves by shifting aside stacks of recent arrivals. Sophie smiled at the top book of the first stack she moved:
Country Car Interiors
by Martha Stewart. Now there was a book that wouldn't be appearing anytime soon in the World As It Is. Another stack had
Coyote Cowgirl Hitches a Ride
by Kim Antieau on top of it. That one she put aside to have Mr. Truepenny hold for her after he'd priced it.
Later, when Sophie was done with her story, Jeck poured them all another cup of tea from the big brown betty that Mr. Truepenny had used for as long as Sophie had been coming to the shop. Dodger, the marmalade store cat, chose that moment to come out from under Mr. Truepenny's desk and jump up onto Sophie's lap, bumping her hand with his head until she started to scratch him under his chin.
“So it would be specifically Joseph you need to contact,” Mr. Truepenny said. “Rather than your coyote friend—or a canid in general, for that matter.”
Sophie supposed she shouldn't have been all that surprised when Mr. Truepenny had told them he knew Joe. Joe was like Jilly in that way, except where Jilly only seemed to know every third person in Newford,
Joe's circle of acquaintances and friends encompassed a good part of the dreamlands as well.
“Do you have some way that we can contact him?” she asked.
“Not I, personally,” Mr. Truepenny said. Before Sophie's hopes could sink, he added, “However, it would be a simple matter to acquire the services of Longfoot & Quick and have a message sent to him.”
Sophie and Jeck exchanged glances.
“Longfoot & Quick?” Sophie asked.
Mr. Truepenny paused with a spoon of sugar halfway between the pot and his cup of tea and looked at her from above his glasses.
“The courier people,” he said and gave their address, which was a few blocks over from his shop. He put the sugar in his tea and reached for the milk. “They've been the talk of the town since they set up shop last year—I'm surprised you're unaware of their services.”
Both Sophie and Jeck shook their heads.
“They claim a two-day turnaround, anywhere in the dreamlands,” Mr. Truepenny continued, “or offer a complete refund.”
Considering the bewildering quiltwork of timelines and pocket worlds that made up the dreamlands, Sophie couldn't begin to imagine a service such as this, especially one with such a guarantee.
“How can they possibly do that?” Sophie asked.
Mr. Truepenny shrugged. “I have no idea. How does the Pixie Wood Bakery make their breads and pastries out of sawdust?”
“I didn't know they did.”
“They do it with magic,” Mr. Truepenny said.
He stirred his tea, adjusted his glasses yet one more time, and then took a sip. Smiling with satisfaction, he put the cup on his desk and began to fuss with his pipe.
“It always comes down to magic,” he went on. “We never seem to be privy to the inner workings of it, but then it's always struck me that mystery is one of its prime ingredients.”
“Is Longfoot & Quick open at this time of night?” Jeck asked.
“They provide a twenty-four-hour service,” Mr. Truepenny said. “I'm really quite surprised that you've never availed yourself of their services before. I find them terribly useful for sending out special orders.” He looked down into his empty teacup and sighed. “I wish I hadn't thought of the Pixie Wood,” he added. “It's made me come over all peckish. For
something sweet, rather than savory, mind you, and I ate my last hazelnut cookie this morning.”
Sophie collected herself. Setting Dodger down on the floor, she stood up. She ignored the cat's grumpy look at being dislodged.
“We've got sticky buns at home,” she said. “We could bring some by after we've sent our message.”
“With raisins?” Mr. Truepenny asked hopefully.
“Chock-full of them,” Sophie assured him.
If Cassie was surprised by Wendy's reappearance at her apartment later that night, she showed no sign of it. She only smiled and ushered Wendy through the door without a comment. Inside, only one large fat candle lit the living room and the air was redolent with the scent of cedar incense.
“Can I get you anything?” she asked.
Wendy shook her head. “I don't want to be a bother.”
“I've got a pot of green tea already made.”
“Tea'd be lovely.”
Cassie had answered the door wearing silk pajamas that were such a bright pink they had banished any sleepiness Wendy might have been feeling and made her forget for a moment why she was here. Still smiling, Cassie steered her to a seat on the sofa and went to fetch another raku teacup. Like her own, it had a blue-green glaze that caught the candlelight and made Wendy feel like she was looking at a jewel from underwater.
“I love the incense,” she said as Cassie poured her tea for her.
“I was thinking about Joe,” Cassie explained. “The smell of cedar always makes me feel closer to him.”
Wendy was about to ask why, but now that she thought about it, there was often the faint hint of cedar about him, rather than the smell of tobacco. Odd, really, when you considered how much he smoked. But he never smelled like cigarettes.
“Actually, I'm here because of Joe,” she said.
“You've heard from him?”
Hearing the eagerness in Cassie's voice, Wendy hated to disappoint her.
“No,” she said. “I just need to get a message to him and I thought you'd know how.”
Cassie shook her head. “Once he's in the otherworld, he's pretty much out of contact. Why do you need to reach him?”
“Well, I went by the rehab,” Wendy said, “and Sophie was there with Jilly, the two of them arguing …”
She filled Cassie in on the latest developments.
“That would explain the residual presence I felt in Jilly's apartment,” Cassie said when she was done. “Jilly, but not Jilly. Or rather the same strong presence, but much, much darker.”
Wendy remembered Jilly's comment, made in jest.
“Her psycho evil twin,” she said.
“Did Jilly say that?”
“She was kidding. Actually, she's way protective of this sister she hasn't seen in, what? Twenty years? She just won't believe that she could have changed that much. But people do change. I've seen them change overnight.”
Cassie nodded. “I have, too—when the circumstances are right.”
“And we don't know any of this sister's circumstances.”
“Maybe Jilly just doesn't want to believe,” Cassie said. “It's got to be hard to have suspicions like that about someone in your own family.”
Wendy shook her head. “I don't know about that. For as long as I've known her, she's said she doesn't have a blood family. Only the one she chose.”
“I know that feeling,” Cassie said.
“Yeah, I'm probably the only one in our circle of friends who actually enjoys a family get-together. But then I'm lucky—in my family, we all get along.”
Wendy had finished her tea and was happy to hold out her cup when Cassie offered her a refill. There was something about tea that she found so comforting. They all drank it, though for Jilly the real comfort drink was coffee. Sophie's was a glass of red Bordeaux.
“Has Jilly told Lou?” Cassie asked.
Wendy shook her head. “She doesn't want the police involved.”
“Lou's not like other cops. He's a friend.”
“But he's still a cop and he's so by the book that he'd never let it slide either. It'd be, arrest Jilly's sister, put her in jail, and let the judge sort it out later.”
Cassie nodded. “I guess that's Lou all right. I wish Joe were here. He's always been better dealing with this kind of thing.”
“Can't your cards tell us where he is?”
“They'd only tell us what we already know: he's in the spiritworld. How far, how deep, is anybody's guess. I wouldn't begin to know where to go look for him.”
Wendy gave her a curious look.
“So you can cross over as well?” she asked.
Cassie nodded. “Though I almost always go with Joe. My sense of direction's awful over there and if I was left to my own devices, I'd probably never find my way back.
“So you can really go over. You don't go in a dream like Sophie and Jilly.”
“I wish I could go in a dream,” Cassie said. “Then whenever I got lost, I could just wake up.”
Wendy sighed and slouched back in the sofa.
“Are you all right?” Cassie asked.
Wendy nodded. “Just tired, I guess.”
Cassie regarded her for a long moment but said nothing.
“I guess I feel kind of stupid,” Wendy added.
“About what?”
“I don't know. The spiritworld. All this traveling around in dreams. I didn't really think about it when it was just Sophie—or even when Jilly was able to do it, too. It was just the way it was. But now … I guess it really hit me tonight when I realized that they're going to be hanging out together in the dreamlands without me. Before this we've always done everything together. Well, not everything, but you know what I mean.”
Cassie nodded. “The important things.”
“Exactly. The dreamlands is something I'm never going to be able to share with them and I hate feeling this way—you know, how I'm going to be more and more on the outside of things.” She shook her head. “I told you it was stupid. I mean, I'm used to Sophie being able to do it and it's what Jilly's always wanted, so I should be happy for her, right? And I
am
happy for her. But I can't help feeling left out, and I guess a little hurt at the same time.”
“That's not stupid,” Cassie told her.
“Maybe. But it's not helping matters either. And I hate feeling jealous.”
“You have to tell them how you feel,” Cassie said.
“And that'll solve what?”
“I don't know. You won't find that out until they know how you're feeling about all of this.”
“I don't want them to stop going on my account,” Wendy said.
“But you'd like to join them.”
Wendy nodded. “Except that's not going to happen because I don't have this big shiny light in me like Jilly and Sophie do.” She sat up from the couch and looked at Cassie. “I don't, do I?”
“Not that I can see.”
Wendy slumped back in the sofa again. “So it's all hopeless.”
“Not necessarily,” Cassie told her. “I don't have that shine, either. Or the blood of the cousins like Joe does. But I can still cross over.”
“Can you show me how?”
Cassie nodded. “I can take you over, but it'll depend on you whether or not you'll be able to do it on your own.”
“So it still comes down to being special.”
“Not exactly. But it does take a certain way of observing the world, an ability to look sideways and find those places where the borders are thin enough to slip through from one world to the other. That's how we do it,” she explained before Wendy could ask. “Those of us who don't have magic of one kind or another in our blood.”
“Can we try it now?”
Cassie laughed. “Hardly. We're both tired and we have other commitments we need to deal with first.”
“Helping Jilly,” Wendy said. “Finding Joe.”
Cassie nodded. “And it might be a good idea if Joe was the one to show you how to cross over.”
“I thought you said you could.”
“I can, and I will, if need be. But Joe's got a better eye for how you'll do on the other side. He'll be able to prepare you better.”
“Prepare me for what?”
“The spiritworld's a confusing place,” Cassie told her. “Time runs differently there and it's all too easy to get lost in otherwhens. You know the old story: those who cross over return either mad or as a poet.”
“I thought that was from fairyland.”
“Which is just another name for the dreamlands.”
“Well, I'm already a poet,” Wendy said.
Cassie smiled. “There's that.” She finished her tea and stood up. “I think you should stay here tonight. I can make up a bed for you on the sofa.”
“I don't want to be a bother.”
“You won't be. Besides, I could use the company.”
“What about contacting Joe?”
Cassie shrugged. “Like I said earlier. I wouldn't know where to begin. I'm going to do what I usually do when I need him to come back from the dreamlands and that's think really hard about him while I'm going to sleep.”
“Does it work?”
“It seems to. He usually shows up within a day or two whenever I've done it before.”
“I don't know if we have a day or two.”
“Let's worry about that in the morning when we're more awake. Now I'm just going to get some bedding and a pillow.”
Wendy brought their teacups and the pot back into the kitchen when Cassie left. On her return, they took the back cushions off the sofa and made up a bed on the seat cushions.
“I'm going to think about him, too,” Wendy said.
Cassie smiled. “Let's just hope he's listening tonight.”

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