My godmother burst into the room and pushed me aside, kneeling next to Katherine who had become completely unresponsive. "How long has she been like this?"
"What?" I struggled to guess where she'd come from or why, but my mind was just as off-balance as my body.
She stared hard into my eyes, her gaze cutting like diamonds, "Pay attention, Thomas! How long?"
"Uh... maybe five minutes? Ten?" I had no concept of time. It might have been hours.
"You must focus," She hissed, ice and steel in her tone. "If you want to help the girl, do as I say."
I stood and nodded.
"Get water. Boil it."
"Where am I going to..."
"If you would save her life, you will obey me now and without question!"
Her words vibrated along my spine, wrapping around my brain until all I could see was Miss Gold's sharp, yellow eyes. I couldn't speak. I could barely think.
"Water. Now!" she barked.
I found myself down the hall at the second-floor vending machine fumbling for my credit card to buy a bottle of spring water. Then I stood in front of Katherine's mini fridge waiting for the microwave on top of it to finish heating the bottle's contents in an over-sized soup mug.
Miss Gold gently stroked Katherine's hair, mumbling quietly to herself, then she stopped and spoke without turning. "She touched you, yes?"
I nodded.
"Anything more?"
"She kissed me," I replied before I thought it.
"Mhac na galla," the woman cursed under her breath. "Is the water hot?"
"Only just."
"It will have to be enough. Take this." She handed me a small plastic bag full of herbs that looked exactly like the tea she'd given me. "You know what to do."
I dumped the contents into the mug and let them settle, watching the rose-rust dye diffuse throughout the liquid, its spicy, minty odor filling the air. I couldn't have said how much time passed, but I somehow knew exactly when to hand her the tea. Miss Gold lifted Katherine's head effortlessly, never losing eye contact, still mumbling those barely audible words, and trickled it into her mouth.
After several seconds, Katherine seemed to come alive. She coughed, blinked, and looked up into Miss Gold's face with something like wonder, then spared me a glance before closing her eyes and falling into a restful sleep.
Miss Gold set her gently on the floor and sat back with a sigh, deep in thought, then she seemed to remember me and held out the mug. "Drink it, Thomas. Finish it off."
I did as I was told then set it aside. As soon as it touched Katherine's desk something let go of me, as if I were a marionette and my strings had just been cut. I felt drained.
"What," I panted, leaning heavily on the desk, "the hell is going on?"
Miss Gold stood so effortlessly she may have simply floated off the floor. She remained deep in her own thoughts for a time, but when she replied her voice was calm and deliberate.
"Thomas, this is not as I planned. You are clever, but not as inquisitive as I had hoped."
Anger rose in me like bile. "Look lady, I don't know who you think you are, but I don't give a damn about your plans! My friend is hurt—"
"The girl is unharmed."
"Like hell!" I began, but I'd apparently crossed a line.
"Silence!" She held up her hand as if to stop me from approaching and her words gripped me with an almost physical force.
"I am not unsympathetic, Thomas, but you will show me respect. You are much stronger than I expected and fear I may have acted too soon. However," she looked down at Katherine's peaceful form, "it is not as bad as it could have been."
She lowered her arm, and my voice was my own again. I used it more cautiously this time, "What do you mean I'm stronger?"
She motioned for me to sit on the bed while she took a seat at Penny's desk. It struck me that it was the largest chair in the room, though farthest from her, as if she had chosen the most important position for herself. Rather than risk making her angry again, I sat quietly, with Katherine's sleeping body lying on the floor between us.
"You are not ready for the whole truth," Miss Gold continued. I opened my mouth to reply but stopped after she shot me a warning look. "But I am inclined to tell you what you need to know, though will not be easy for you to hear it."
I gave a curt nod. She was offering more than I expected and I didn't want to mess it up.
"You drank the tea, and I thank you for that. It was a symbol of your trust, but also much more. I am certain you know that by now."
I confirmed her words silently.
"You solved the riddle at the storage facility and used the key. It was a simple task, but it demonstrated your ability to act without guidance; a minor, though necessary, precaution. However, you did not study the artifacts carefully. You ignored the Glim entirely, which would have given you much had you uncovered its secret."
"What's a Glim? I don't even—" I began, but she went on.
"The pendant you wear is a glain neidr, a rare hagstone, and I find it curious that you can hold the key to many answers so close to your heart without using it."
"If these are answers, I'm not sure I'm ready for the questions," I said, irritated. Most of my anxiety had been worn down, replaced by annoyance and impatience.
Miss Gold sighed impatiently. "This will be much easier if you behave yourself, Thomas, or shall I bind you again?"
"You mean that thing you... what was that?"
"A simple trick, and it does not matter." She opened her handbag and pulled out a folded piece of paper, opening it carefully and holding it gently in front of her. It looked old, maybe ancient. "Do you recognize this?"
It was ragged, deeply creased, and faded, but I could make out a hint of color along one edge and carefully penned letters from a multitude of languages.
"It looks like a page from that big book."
She nodded. "Now, look through the glain naidr. Your pendant."
I took the stone in my fingers and cautiously held it to my eye. Most of the room went dim and colorless, but the orange and green glow from Katherine and me lit the immediate area. Miss Gold was hazy and indistinct, as if someone had smudged out her image with ash, but the page she held shone. Through the stone it was pristine except for a tear on one side, and in the letters that seemed to rise off the page I could read—English! I could only make out a few words at that distance before she withdrew it and tucked it neatly into her bag.
"How is that possible?"
"It is the Glim." She said as if it were an answer. "The tome of enlightenment, the light of understanding. It is possibly the most valuable, most powerful artifact now in your possession."
She folded her hands in her lap and assumed the posture and tone of a preschool teacher educating a small child. "There is power in the world that most are only vaguely aware of."
"What, magic?" I said in disbelief.
"That is a convenient word," she said, bemused. "It is simply the transfer of energy, not unlike your use of electricity."
"Bullshit," I said, holding up the stone. "Electricity doesn't do this."
"It does if you change the rules by which it operates, but perhaps the explanation was insufficient. It is, rather, the means by which energy is directed. Humanity is not unfamiliar with the confluence of powers, but as it disagrees with what you know of the physical world, such explanations are disregarded." She paused and pursed her lips. "Are you familiar with string theory?"
"Uh, I suppose," I replied warily. "It's a kind of grand unification thing, right? Trying to explain how everything connects?"
"In a sense. It is a clumsy way to describe a complicated truth, but not all of it is wrong. For the moment, I am concerned with one dynamic that has been long since dismissed, the concept of multiple worlds."
"Infinite universes co-existing, overlapping, each one a slight variation of the one next to it," I answered. The many worlds theory had been a trope of science fiction since before I was born.
"Yes," she nodded, satisfied. "The practical interpretation was utter nonsense, but its principle drew near to the truth." She stood and looked through the window, as if searching for something in the evening sky.
"This world exists as part of a continuum. Think of the cosmos as a radio. It is one device, but by changing the frequency on the dial, you can select from among a variety of distinct broadcasts." She turned back toward me and I nodded to let her know I was following along. "Between these broadcasts there is an undefined space, the static, if you will. This is the Veil, the border that separates one world from the next. The glain neidr is a kind of tuning device, resonating at a slightly different frequency, focusing your perception beyond the boundaries of this world."
"Are you telling me I'm looking at another universe?" I held it up to my eye again and Miss Gold flinched slightly. Her next words were infused with irritation.
"No, Thomas, it shows you the brief space in between. It is the Veil, the Unmade Lands. It is a space, but not a place. It is nothing, but it is not empty. Do you understand?"
I managed to speak the word, "Yes" because I was getting the gist of what she was trying to tell me, but shook my head because it made no sense at all. "So this thing turns the radio dial just enough so I can still hear the station, but I'm getting the static too?" I held up the stone again, and Miss Gold motioned for me to put it down, as if I'd aimed a weapon at her.
"That will do. The ancients believed the glain neidr allowed its holder to bear witness to the fairy realms." She sighed, her eyes frustrated and distant. "Explanations were far easier when you could call everything a spell and people took you at your word."
I missed the many implications in her statement, fascinated with the subject but failing to see how it helped me or Katherine. "So this glen . . . what was the other thing you called it? Hagstone? If I'm looking at another place, why do I still see the dorm, and why is the page different but nothing else is? Why do people glow?" I thought of more questions, but bit them off, afraid she might shut me down.
"I told you, Thomas, you are not seeing a different place. In the Veil, nothing has yet become. It is shadows of chance and possibility. You might call it potential energy if it is a more comfortable term. The intersection can be startling, but it is useful. Secrets can be hidden within if you know how."
"Like the book," I suggested. She nodded. "What about these lights and colors around us?"
She looked down at Katherine, "Your language lacks an equivalent. Let us call them auras for want of something more suitable."
"That tells me almost nothing," I said as I tried desperately to keep an open mind.
"It becomes clearer with context." She replied, then paused before continuing. "Would you agree that worlds must contain variation to be distinguished one from another?"
"Sure, that makes sense."
"Would you also agree that, all laws being equal within a world, most entities lack agency and are incapable of creating this variance on their own?"
"Lacking agency? You mean if everything is equal, I can drop a rock and it'll always land in the same spot?"
"A crude analogy. In your scenario, you are a variable. Anything that is inert will always follow the path defined by law; some are obvious like a falling stone, some less so, such as the interplay of subatomic forces. Even events that appear random are the result of complexity, not chance."
She touched her temple gently with one finger.
"A sentient mind, however, has the ability to choose apart from those laws. There is no rule that governs choice. When the will is applied, variance is created, and new worlds are born." She gave me a few seconds to consider, then went on.
"Where the will presses against the Veil the power of creation stirs, leaving a unique impression that your eyes, through the glain neidr, interpret as pattern and color."
Not two days earlier, before being miraculously cured, I would have rejected everything she told me, but Katherine lay sleeping at my feet and I would have believed that the moon was a giant popcorn ball created by alien bunnies if it helped her.
"She's mostly a sort of orange web," I said, looking again. "What are those green spots?"
Miss Gold shrugged, "That is your will overwriting hers."
"My—wait, are you saying I'm controlling her?"
"No, Thomas, you are simply exerting a powerful influence. It is not difficult to subdue a person's will. Will is not governed by laws, but it can be diverted by a stronger will. In your case, it is easier than most."
"My case?"
She paused and looked back out the window for a long minute, then sat back down, facing me. "Thomas I do not know if you are ready for more. I have pulled back the curtain on your understanding of what is real and what is not, and the mind that can suffer such a change in paradigms is rare. You need time to come to terms with it and I cannot give you all you desire, but there is one more truth I am compelled to offer." Her tone was apathetic, but her mannerisms suggested concern, as if she were wishing for an alternative.
"What?" I demanded, losing patience.
"You believe you have been sick for half your life, but this is not true. Do you remember what I told you at our first meeting?"
"You said I was out of balance."
"I said considerably more than that if you were listening. You are in conflict, torn between multiple natures. One of them is you as you were born, but there is another. New worlds manifest because two unlike things cannot exist in the same space and time. The same is true for natural law. One and one cannot equal both two and three. Your existence violates that truth."
I was back in the weeds, unable to comprehend. "You mean some kind of genetic mutation?"
She shook her head. "No, mutations follow the laws of this world. You are in conflict because your father was born into a place with natural laws very different from this one."
"My father is an alien." I meant it as a joke. She didn't laugh.
"Not as such. There are times and places where the veil grows thin. Distinction fades into possibility, worlds converge, and on rare occasions, entities pass between them. Caratacos was such a one. Your father is from a distant version of this world as it might have been. He carries the laws of his home within his being, though some of them are in conflict with this world, else he would cease to be. The expression of those laws result in what some might consider magic."
"A wizard alien."
Miss Gold didn't indulge my attempt at humor. "His kind in particular are responsible for the legends of the incubus, the trauco, the poco bara, the alp, and others. I know them as the gean canagh."
I didn't recognize any of those words except incubus, and I didn't like the connotation, "Now you're saying I'm the son of a sex demon," I said flatly. "You must think I'm an idiot."
"Merely uninformed, and you are still missing the point. Careless labels evoke flawed perceptions, Thomas. He is gean canagh."
"Ganconer." I echoed, not quite able to match Miss Gold's pronunciation. "If these things come into our world often enough that there are stories about them, why are they still just stories? Why haven't people noticed?"
"They are well hidden in a conspiracy of sorts, as are many other beings from many other worlds, all as different from one another as they are from you. They have drawn together for survival, but they live in secret."
"Not just ganconners? How many of these pan-dimensional aliens are there?"
Exasperation shadowed her features. "Another useless label. If you need a name for all those who come from beyond your natural world, use the one they hold in common, the one your ancestors chose. They are called the Fae."
"Fae." I let that hang in the air expecting her to laugh, but she just sat there staring at me. "As in fairies. You were serious when you mentioned fairy realms?" Sense finally took its leave and left me to fend for myself. She waved me off impatiently.
"It is just a word. There is much history behind it, but it is a place where you may begin to adjust your preconceptions. Those who cross over have been known as Fae from the beginning and in the West they remain so. Natives of this continent called them Spirits, in Persia they were the Peris, the Norse had their Alf, in Shinto they are referred to as Kami, and the Slavs have many more. They are recorded in the Iliad, the Aeneid, the Ulster Cycle, and endless works of fiction from stories told around the world. Every culture has its mythos, but their roots are the same."
I stopped, spun through some of the less foggy details of her explanation, and decided I couldn't get my head around the broader concepts. Katherine was my biggest—my only—concern. "Pretend I believe you," I said. "Tell me more about my dad."
She nodded and picked up where she'd left off, "The gean canagh exert control over their victims by heightening emotional response. In men, they create chemical and neural oscillations that stimulate the production of norepinephrine, cortisol, and adrenaline."
Finally, she spoke a language I could understand. "Fight or flight," I summarized. Whatever else this Miss Gold could claim, she was educated in more than just fairy stories.
"Exactly. Men experience an antithetic response they cannot control. In women, the reaction is sympathetic, increasing levels of dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin. While men will become angry, jealous, or fearful, depending on their disposition and perception of you, women experience feelings of comfort, attraction, and affection."
"You don't seem affected," I observed.
"I am not so easily manipulated. What you must understand is that until our meeting your natures were turned inward. When I revealed myself, my intention was to remove you from those silly drugs so I could explain who you are in greater detail. I did not expect what ultimately befell."
"Which is what?" I felt the first hints of anger, not just because what she claimed couldn't possibly be true, but because it seemed to imply that I hurt Katherine, and that was the last thing I wanted to hear. "You say I'm half ganconer or whatever, and you knew it. Why would you want to turn me into one of them?"
"You misunderstand," she explained. "Children that are born of human and Fae in this world are not half-breeds. They begin life as a native, but the laws that define them are tainted and indistinct. Many die, but those that survive reach a point, typically near puberty, when one nature wins out and they become fully human, or fully other. These offspring are called changelings."
"And I'm one of them."
"Technically, yes. A changeling, but caught in flux, apparently human, yet expressing your father's nature. Two worlds, one form."
"But you said I won't stay like that, right?" All my life I'd desired nothing more than being normal. Though I'd barely experienced it, it felt like that dream was being ripped away.
"None can predict whether a changeling will become human or Fae," she continued. "Flip a coin and it will land heads or tails, but against all law and probability you are balancing on the edge. I cannot tell whether you will remain so or fall to one side."
Her brows knit very slightly and her eyes slipped out of focus for less than a second, but something about her words had troubled her, and if it was enough to break through her icy facade, I reasoned, it couldn't be good.
"What does it mean for Katherine? You're saying she's strung out because she kissed me? She's infected now and needs time to to detox?"
Miss Gold glanced down at her. "She is currently experiencing the effects of intoxication, true, but—" She stopped again, then continued in a softer tone. "Thomas, your body is constantly producing a toxin. It is in the air around us, and anyone who spends long within it will be affected. The oils in your skin are more potent, and your prolonged touch can cause inebriation. Your saliva contains... a lethal concentration."
"Lethal? Katherine is dying?" In my mind I was shouting, but my voice wouldn't cooperate, and it left my mouth as a whispered plea.
"I did not say that, please listen. The drug your body produces does no physical or psychological damage until you remove the source. It is the withdrawal that kills."
I heard nothing in the next few seconds that wasn't my own heart thudding away.
"She . . ." I said finally but couldn't continue. It was as if the turmoil in my mind had returned, but with such blunt clarity that I was unable to fend it off. I looked up into the flawless face of the woman before me and begged her silently to take it all back. Instead, she folded her hands and crossed her ankles, regarding me with clinical dispassion.
"The girl is addicted to you, Thomas, and will be until the end of her days."