Doon - ch 2

Doon had fallen willingly into the Realm of Mirrors to discover that there was no floor to catch him. Instead he found himself plummeting like a rock in a pond. Screaming and clawing at the black space around him, he switched to a crow. Even then his body was still being driven down to an unseen abyss.

A vision of Marcus and him in The Ram and Hyde pub popped in his head. With its simple wood fixtures and stripped bare no nonsense atmosphere, the pub was the two regulars’ hang out.  It was their last day together before Doon had to return to his homeland. They were on the second floor alone except for the odd American tourist who would come in to take a picture of “an actual English pub” and then leave. A loud noonday game of darts was going on below. Doon wanted to go down and try his hand on a throw but Marcus told him no. He needed to see him alone. Such seriousness was not a hallmark of the man. Doon obeyed, dusting off some cigarette ashes the previous user of the table had left behind.

“Can we at least have a pint?“ Doon asked smacking his dry lips at Marcus and cleaning his hands against his slim gray trousers.

The man smirked. “Yes, we can do that.“ He took an object about the size of a wallet from his back pocket and placed it on the table before the Sidhe. “Have a gander at this until I return.“ Off he went.

Doon gave the object a closer inspection. It reminded him of those paperweights that bosses loved to give their secretaries on holidays. Tacky and cheap. However something strange struck him. The thing was made out of glass. The air around him was cool almost on the nippy side which was why he was wearing his kelly green hoodie and yet, the glass was warm. Very warm. The temperature couldn’t be from Marcus’ body. Not this warmth. Doon laid the mock paperweight flat on his open palm.  For some reason there was dirt on the glass. Spitting a little on the surface, he took the edge of his hoodie and rubbed the grime off.

Turning towards the window he held the object up to the streaming light. The glass cast a thick ruby shadow across his face. For a moment he saw something swimming just below the surface. Something with eyes.

With a slight yelp of shock Doon slammed the object on the table and jumped back in his seat. Panic made him snatched it up again to assure that he hadn’t cracked the glass. The thing was perfectly sound to the Sidhe’s relief.

“Just what the devil are you?”

“That is a key amulet,” said Marcus as he walked up into the room with two pints in his hands.

“A key amulet?” began Doon as he took one pint. “I know key amulets. I‘ve used them plenty of times during my stints of pilfering in the 1200‘s, Marcus. This on the other hand…this thing has eyes.”

“It‘s a living key. And there are only three in existence that are like this. An amazing piece of magic it is. I‘ve had this one in my possession for almost two hundred years. Kept it in an old violin case to throw off charm poachers.”

Marcus sat down and picked up the amulet. He gazed in the glass but couldn’t see the eyes. Shrugging his shoulders, he put the object down and took a sip of beer. “Of course the next question you are going to ask is-”

“What does it unlock?” finished Doon.

“Not quite ‘what‘. More like where?”

“Where then?”

Marcus smiled as if he was about reveal the secret to a great magic trick. “This place that the amulet will unlock, there’s a tricky thing about the location. This place, it has…no…bottom.”

At that memory Doon had completely stopped falling in the darkness. The halt wasn’t a quick jerk like being yanked by a rope but instead like someone had frozen him in place. He switched back and kicked his legs like a runner. They touched nothing. “Weird.”

“There isn’t a top,” the memory of Marcus continued on, “Or left or a right either. There is only one thing there; mirrors.”

A small round hand mirror raced past Doon. In the reflection he saw a woman in English Renaissance garb applying red lipstick across her thin slit of a mouth. She appeared oblivious to her peeping tom on the other side. Another mirror, square with a hairline crack running from side to side inched its way in front of the Sidhe. In that reflection held a modern setting. A living room full of children in party hats were eyeing the crack in horror. They started to point at the kid with a wiffle ball bat in his hands. He in turn pointed at the piñata not that far away from him.

One more mirror glided past him. Small and perfectly round. In it he saw an empty operating room. Another mirror. It held the reflection of a palace ballroom where a classical concert was being held. A set of mirror tiles came next. In them a young half naked couple was making out on top of a pile of satin sheets.

“Very weird.”

Doon looked up and realized that in the fright of his fall he missed the mirrors. They had seemed to pull back, creating a path for him to drop through. Now with him stationary he saw all of them. Millions of mirrors of every size and shape and made of anything that could hold a reflection. Gold mirrors with gilded frames of rare wood at home in the chambers of royalty. Pools of water used by villages where metal was too hard to come by. Cheap silver-plated compacts that would never see the light of day from the bottom of thousands of purses. Celtic mirrors of bronze that had been lost through the passage of history. Plastic rear view mirrors holding the reflection of noon day traffic. Glass disco balls showing the dancers underneath them. Everyone last one of them here. All drifting silently closer and closer to him. Each giving off a soft glow that reminded the Sidhe of a child’s nightlight. That was how he was able to see in the darkness.

Marcus came back to his mind, “The Realm holds every mirror that has ever existed up to the point that you enter it. So, no, there are no mirrors into the future.“

In the Realm, Doon tried to gaze behind him with great difficulty. He wished he could turn around and instantly his body did so. He kicked his legs once more. Still there was nothing his boots could grab on to.

Curious, he wished that he could move up and his body went.  He willed his himself forward and his body obeyed seemingly to float to where ever his mind wanted. He laughed in delight. This was flying without having to contend with gravity! Brilliant. A twisted thought occurred to him. What if he wasn’t moving? After all there wasn’t a floor, ceiling or walls to bother with. What if the whole place was moving according to his will? He groaned as a headache started to grow at the back of his skull. The Realm was starting to feel like bad acid trip to him and he wanted out.

“It doesn’t matter who made the Realm. You don’t need to know that. What you have to do instead is stop drinking, stop asking a million questions and listen.” Marcus had taken off his thick framed glasses. Grabbing Doon’s chin still, he made the Sidhe stare him in the eyes. Those eyes. Doon had known the man for over half of his life and still he felt a chill whenever he gazed heavily into those eyes.

One was a deep blue like a quiet lake. The other a green like a new oak leaf.

They made Doon feel unbalanced as if Marcus had two souls in him and each had taken an eye. His gazed dropped. The man had his full attention.

“This Realm is your escape route.”

“My escape route?”

Marcus’s eyebrows arched up in a scold which made Doon become silent once more. “If anything happens on the other side, run. Do you hear me? Run.”

The Sidhe shook his head. His body tensed up with questions he could no longer hold in, “What the feckin’ hell has gotten into you? Run? Run from what? What are you talking about?”

“Marla.”

Doon tossed his head back in a growled disgust. He grabbed his drink giving Marcus a defiant glare and swigged the beer down. “Oh, this should be rich,” He said setting the empty glass aside. “And pray tell, what has our favorite charlatan sold you on this time?”

“She’s a not charlatan.”

“She is so! The bird claims she’s a gypsy with great extraordinary powers, right? Romanji? Her? For Pete’s sake, she’s a five foot ten Swede with blonde hair and blue eyes. And the reason she does this is so she can con gullible muppets not unlike someone I know around here to buy her phony predictions. Been doing this, for what, five years running? C'mon.” Sinking in his seat, he looked at Marcus who watched him with deeply sad eyes.

The Sidhe cast his stare away from those distressed eyes. The gaze reminded him too much of a worried mother to make him comfortable. An uneasy quiet took over the room. Doon began to fidget as he couldn’t help but glance up at the man. Marcus was still staring back with a troubled look.

Letting out a grunt of defeat, Doon sat up, “Fine, what did the dingbat tell you?”

“She had a vision about you.”

“And how much did this vision cost you?”

“Nothing.”

Doon was taken back. Marla never gave away freebies.

“In the vision,” began Marcus, “she saw you standing in an open field of dying grass. You were dressed like…oh, how did she put it, if Napoleon was a Cossack. Gray coat, brown boots. You had silver hair and blue eyes. Your face but with silver hair and blue eyes.”

Gooseflesh started crawl up on Doon’s arms. “Okay, this is not funny. You’re just winding me up now, aren’t you?”

“Shut up,” said Marcus and continued on, “Now in the sky circling above you was this massive harpy. Half woman, half crow. You took out from your coat two objects, a dove with your right hand and your beating heart with your left.  You then threw your heart up in the air to feed the harpy so you could let go of the dove and allow it to fly to safety. But the harpy wasn’t satisfied. She came down from the sky and well, ate you.”

“What?”

“And the last thing you said before the vision ended was, ‘Please, forgive me.’”

“What?!”

“Doon, I have visited hundreds of psychics. They went by the names of soothsayers, oracles, witches and fortune tellers. But they all did the same thing. And let me tell you, I can smell a fake a mile away. Yes, Marla is a grifter of the lowest sort but she has the future sight.”

Doon threw his hands in the air, “This is bullshit!”

“Listen…”

“No, this is bullshit!” He stood up almost kicking his chair over. “She didn’t say that.”

Marcus remained seated. “She did. Doon, you are leaving tomorrow for London to go Ireland then to the Other World.”

“Yeah, for about a month. Possibly not even that.”

“How do you know you will be there for only a month?”

“Because I have a life here.” He threw himself back down in his chair like a pouting child. “My friends, connections and bookstore are here. Not just in London. Here, on this side. I am nothing like the Sidhe that I was in the beginning of the exile. I could never go back to stay. Especially when I know Dylan would drink the store broke and the Other Side isn’t known for its great Mexican food. I couldn’t live without a good fajita.”

“You are not taking this seriously,” Marcus sighed as he rubbed his brow in frustration.

“Why should I? Yes, it’s a big deal in a way. I am going home. I am sure that my old bedroom was kept the way I left it.” He stopped his words when he saw that Marcus was giving him the sorry stare again.

Closing his eyes tightly until they almost shrank, Doon sighed once more. “Marcus, I am going back because I have to go back to face the court. It’s procedure. I have to. I don’t want to. But I have to. Then I meet with my…the Clan Queen. She’ll give me one final task to do as penance. Usually it’s being a hand servant for half a moon cycle and then I am free. Back in Ireland and straight on a plane to London.”

He gave a big mock everything is okay grin.

With complete casualness, Marcus picked up his beer and sipped it. “The Realm of Mirrors is a very complicated place. To learn how to use it would take-”

“Oh, Jesus,” snarled Doon.

“-would take months of learning. So, I’ll teach you only what you need to know.”

“You are not going to teach me anything because I won’t need it!”

“Doon, I am not trying to be a pain,” he said as he placed his drink down.

“Good job of that,” snapped the Sidhe as he gazed up at the ceiling. He waited for a sharp come back but none came. Biting his lip, he shot a glance over at the man.

Marcus had his face buried in his boney hands. Thick chocolate brown hair with a streak of ghost white in front hung low covering everything else that the hands missed. The man’s shoulders were dropped and slightly trembling.

Doon was a taken back. “Marcus, are you crying?”

The man let out a whimpering sniffle that reminded Doon of a helpless puppy. “You are the closest thing I have to a brother. Marla was so insistent that I tell you the dream that I believe her. And that vision scares me because it could come true. Something is going to happen to you.” He let out another pathetic whimper.

Uneasiness swelled within Doon making him scratch his head and pull at his hoodie. He couldn’t take it. Tenderly, he reached over with his left hand and pulled back one of the man’s own. He still could not see Marcus’ face but he could imagine that fat soppy tears were forming. “Look, it’s going to be okay. Nothing is going to happen.”

Marcus took hold of Doon’s hand in a gentle embrace. The Sidhe smiled. “You’ll see,” he repeated in a purr, “I am going to be okay.”

The man looked up. His eyes were dry.

“Oh, shit.”

Leaping to his feet, Marcus held tight to Doon’s hand and yanked him hard across the table. Doon’s body flew like a sack of sugar and landed at the edge of the other side. With his free hand Marcus took the Sidhe’s middle finger and put enough pressure not to break it but to make him yelp in raw agony. Out of reflex, Doon swung with his right but Marcus was ready. He grabbed the fist in mid-arch and slammed it down on the old wooden table causing the Sidhe to bellow once more.

“Now hear me, you overgrown wart,” Marcus hissed through clenched teeth with his face barely inches away from Doon’s own. “I don’t have time to show you how to go forward. Instead, when you get to the Realm of Mirrors you find the slowest moving one. The mirror that looks like it’s part snail. Why? Because the slower the mirror the closest the other side is to current time. You will use that mirror as an exit. Hopefully, you won’t have gone any more than a few days back. Stay low until the moment of your homecoming. When you know your old self has left to Tir Na Nog, call me and I will find you. Am I understood?”

“Y-yes,” stammered Doon as he watched his middle finger turn an awkward shade of purple.

“Then repeat it to me!”

“Living Key. Realm of Mirrors. Find the slowest mirror. Use as an exit. Hang low. Call you. You feckin‘ tit!”

Marcus shoved Doon back into his seat. He sat back in his chair as the Sidhe shook his throbbing hand trying to wave the pain away. Doon flicked the injured middle finger at him which made the man smile sweetly. “Ah, it still works.”

Doon snickered despite himself.

“Alright,“ Marcus said as he tapped on the living key amulet, “I am going to tell you now the two incantations you need to know to use this. One to get in the Realm and one to get back out. Are you going to behave or do I have to put you in a half nelson next?”

The Sidhe picked up the amulet. A ruby shadow cast across his face. A pair of eyes, human like, looked back at him unblinking. He gave Marcus a glance, “I’ll humor you.”

“Fine. Now these are the words.”

In the Realm, Doon stretched his head up or at least what he thought was up. He couldn’t see the mirror pool at all. It had moved on. That was good to know. If his Queen followed him into the Realm of Mirrors she was going to have a hard time tracking him. The power trail of the cup had to been so messed up that a shot in the dark guess to which mirror he had slipped into was probably going to be her only choice.

Still, he knew he couldn’t waste a second. The last thing he wanted was to be in the Realm once the Queen came across. Doon had no doubt the goddess would have any trouble navigating in the darkness.

“Slowest mirror, slowest mirror,” he rambled on as he searched around. There were many mirrors crawling along like turtles but they had people gazing back at him. He couldn’t exactly pop out while someone was doing her hair, could he? How would he explain that?

“Right, your mirror works on the other side! All good.”

He thought about it again. He could do that. And then wipe the memory of who ever he encountered. But what if that someone had a gun and fired before he could do a mind sweep? Guns. He hated modern weapons not that a sword was a playful tickler. Only that he could easily disarm most sword bearing people. That battle training never had left him. But most people didn’t carry around swords so why should that matter? He grabbed his head and shook it. Why was he pondering such rubbish?

“Find a mirror, eejit!”

He had the second incantation on the tip of tongue ready to spill. He only needed a place to use it. Down he went, drifting past mirror after mirror.

A long floor mirror that glided along at the pace of an inch worm caught his sight. He pulled up in front of it. The mirror was about seven feet in height. Only slightly taller than him. The scene on the other side was of a well lit modern bedroom. A girl’s bedroom by the looks of a brightly colored floral dress lying across a lavender bedspread and the amount of stuffed animals at the pillows. The best part was that the place was empty and the door was shut.

Doon held up the key amulet that was still in his hand and pressed it against the cold surface. The words to the spell began to form in his head as his belly grew warm. The hair on his arms stood up as the sound of racing electricity crackling danced around him. All the mirrors of the realm were slowing down to a stop.

With every ounce of power he could muster he bellowed out, “YaMai kutsch ti Shevolah!”

The surface of the mirror glowed violently loud. Doon shut his eyes tight but remained still until he felt his hand with the amulet pushed forward. The glass had gone leaving an opening.

Placing one foot through the other side, Doon felt the tug of gravity pressing him down against the carpeted room. His arms went through next, grabbing the edges of frame pulling the rest of his body through.

With him completely in the bedroom, the surface of the mirror behind him went back to being glass. He turned around to see not the Realm but his own tired reflection.

“You are a right mess,” he mumbled as he slipped the amulet back into his lining pocket. He ran his fingers through his hair and fiddled with his necklace that had popped out over his coat when he was in the Realm of Mirrors. The gold and silver knot work charm at the end of the chain gleamed in the sun lit room. Doon frowned at the sight of it and stuffed the necklace back under his uniform.

He turned around and took a deep breath. The large room smelled of candy cherry incense. This was indeed a girl’s room. The feeling of perversion started to creep over him. He couldn’t recall the last time he had been in a girl’s room. A woman’s room he had no problem with. He loved being led to women’s bedrooms. They always had a sensual directness and sophistication to them in sheets of fine Egyptian cotton or satin in rich hues like coffee and burgundy. Art hung up on the wall of woman’s bedroom not boy band posters. Musky smells of vanilla and sandalwood wafted from a woman’s bedroom not kiddie scents of sugar cookies and cupcakes.

This room was pink and lavender. On the bed an overstuffed doll of an armadillo seemed to glare at the Sidhe with accusatory button eyes. Doon frowned, “What do you want?” he hissed in low voice, “I had to choose a mirror.”

He shook his head and remembered why he was there. Yes, this was a girl’s bedroom but it was a modern girl’s bedroom with phones and computers. His eyes scanned the place as he spotted a small desk next to window. On the desk was a laptop, humming away in sleep mode.

The Sidhe made a dash for it and tapped a few keys. The screensaver came up. The scene was of a litter of kittens in a basket. “Oh, good God,” Doon moaned as he felt even more like a dirty old man. He clicked on the clock/calendar icon to find out that he had gone back barely three weeks. 19 days.

“So much for going back only a couple of days.”

Right now his past time self was on a plane heading for Cork. Within twenty-four hours he would be in Tir Na Nog.

Next to the computer were a pile of books. A Math text book, one about Astrology, one with the curious title;  Left is Right; The Survival Guide for living lefty in a right-handed world</i>, which made Doon pause with interest and a small torn paperback about the Mythological Cycles of Ireland. He picked the last one up and flipped through it. No matter what copy he found, the story was always full of half truths and incomplete. Placing the book back down, he realized that his greatest desire at the moment was to be lying on the couch in his store, sipping on a pint and reading a book. Tir Na Nog did not have any text libraries only story keepers. They were Great Sidhe males and females whose only reason for existence was to be the maintainers of the oral tradition. Doon had missed the printed the word so badly that his heart ached.

Several framed pictures littered the rest of the desk. Doon drew in for a closer inspection. The photos were mostly of girls in their Catholic school uniforms and field hockey uniforms. One had the entire team including a nun for a coach huddling down with a sign labeled in front stating, “St. Sebastian’s Catholic School. Field Hockey Girl’s Team. Virginia Beach, Virginia.”

Virginia, thought Doon. Is that where I am? America?

He took a seat on the bed and rested his head in hands. My passport and credit cards are in an airport locker across the pond.  All I have is a 20 Euro note on me. How am I going to get home?

The realization of what he had done was starting to sink in. He couldn’t go back into the mirror because that would only send him further back in time. Plus there was no guarantee he would find himself an English or Irish mirror at the next try. In the modern era everyone’s bedrooms looked alike.

He couldn’t ask for help from his clan. With nineteen days back, he was still in exile. And if he could he wouldn’t. He had just betrayed them. Every last one of them. His blood. His people.

Reaching in his coat, he took out the cup and cradled it in his hands. The pottery looked so ordinary. Terra cotta red clay with a dull glaze. Something not even worth a passing glance at a flea market. However he could feel the warmth and energy coming from within it as if the cup were breathing. “I don’t know how this works,” he whispered to the pottery, “I don’t know if you can hear or feel my wants but please….please…” Tears started to well up. He screwed his face to make them stop. Now was not the time to fall apart. “Help me. I am trying to do right by you.”

The memory Marcus holding him down exploded in his mind like a firecracker.

“Lay low. Call me. And I will find you.”

“Lay low. Call you. And you will find me.,” repeated Doon out loud in the bedroom. “Yes,” he said gazing down at the cup, “I have a day to kill. After that I can call Marcus on his mobile and he can arrange my flight home. I can be shipped to Cork in animal cargo as a crow. There I can pick up my belongings and fly back to London. Then Marcus and I can fix this mess.”

He kissed the cup. “We’ll find a place for you where no one can use you for harm.”

With a plan in order, the knot of worry and self doubt that was created the moment he flew from the tower was finally beginning to unravel.

“A day in a city that I haven‘t come across since the American Civil War. I can do this.”

He didn’t notice that the bedroom door was opening.