“Concentrate!” Mr. Greenleaf’s crisp command rang in Brendan’s ears.
“I’m trying,” Brendan grumbled, his breath steaming in the cold, clear morning air. “It isn’t easy, you know. And I’m tired,” Brendan said pointedly. Greenleaf had called him at 6 A.M. and demanded a training session that morning, despite the fact that it was Saturday. Brendan had made his way grudgingly to the ravine Greenleaf had specified, an out-of-the-way spot in High Park where they could train without anyone about.
“Don’t bother answering me! If you’re talking, you aren’t concentrating,” Greenleaf chided.
Brendan bit off a reply. He was losing his cool with his teacher and with himself. Greenleaf was wrong. He’d been concentrating so hard for the past hour that he felt the beginnings of a headache blossoming in his skull. He had to make a conscious effort to unclamp his jaws. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t maintain his focus for long. Greenleaf had been uncharacteristically stern when Brendan had arrived at the training session. Usually, the dapper Faerie was mild-mannered and affable. He had a seemingly inexhaustible reserve of patience. Today, he was harsh in his criticism and testy in his comments. Brendan had never seen him behave this way. I imagine I’d be sick of teaching me after a few weeks, too, he thought to himself.
Brendan tried to calm his mind, once again bending his will upon his current test subject.
The brown chickadee hopped about the clearing oblivious to Brendan’s efforts, following the desires of its tiny brain and ignoring Brendan’s attempts to influence it. Brendan could sense the staccato thoughts of the jittery bird just at the edge of his perception, but he couldn’t read them clearly or manipulate them in the slightest. It was like trying to read the pages of a book through a pane of frosted glass while riding on a train. What he’d done effortlessly while fleeing from Orcadia, communicating with the birds, using them to help him escape, now seemed completely impossible. The failure was both exhausting and infuriating. After another moment of futile mental strain, Brendan threw up his hands in frustration and disgust.
“It’s hopeless.”
“Nothing is hopeless. You’re just lazy, that is all.” Greenleaf leaned against the thick trunk of an oak tree at the edge of the clearing, his arms neatly crossed, a picture of composure. As always, he was impeccably dressed. Today he was wearing an exquisitely tailored three-piece suit^ 18 of sage green fabric that showed off his lean frame to perfection. Over his suit, he wore a three-quarter-length grey topcoat that hung open. Though the early winter morning was crisp, he was unaffected by the cold. He scuffed the dry leaves with his foot in a show of impatience. “You must concentrate and stop wasting my time.”
Brendan and Greenleaf were in an isolated clearing in High Park, the vast forest in Toronto’s West End. In mid-December, few members of the public were taking advantage of the park. After training almost exclusively on the Ward’s Island in the Swan of Liir or thereabouts, Greenleaf had thought that getting away from prying eyes and the spectators that Brendan tended to attract might be a welcome change and give him a different perspective. “A change is as good as a rest,” the dapper teacher declared.
“A rest is also as good as a rest,” Brendan grumbled. Greenleaf merely laughed and ignored his student’s griping. Which annoyed Brendan even more.
He’d wanted nothing more than to relax at home the night before, but his mother had other ideas. She recruited him as an escort and baggage handler on her trip to the mall. Christmas was great. Brendan wasn’t one of those people who hated the holiday, but fighting through the crowds at the mall to get that special gift at that special price wasn’t his idea of a good time. He wished he could turn on his Faerie speed and whip through the job in a minute or two.
Unfortunately, not only would his mother have seen him for what he really was, but he was also completely unable to conjure up his Faerie abilities whenever he wanted to. For some unknown reason, he was having trouble connecting with his gifts and practising the Arts with the ease other Faeries could manage. There were many theories about why. Greenleaf and Kim believed he was having a mental block because his Faerie nature had been suppressed by his father’s magic for so long.^ 19 Briach Morn had woven powerful glamours to hide his son in the Human world. Perhaps they had stunted his abilities. Og thought that his skull might be a little too thick and offered to drill a hole in Brendan’s forehead to let the energies escape more easily. Brendan graciously declined that offer. Whatever the real reason, Brendan had to endure endless training sessions, which was why he was here, in the damp, misty park at ten on a Saturday morning instead of wrapped up in his bed, sleeping in like a normal teenager.
Still, it was a novelty to be out in the open air. He and Greenleaf were all alone, with no distractions. Maybe that was a good thing after all.
The clearing they occupied was in a ravine, away from the path. To make sure they wouldn’t be observed, Greenleaf wove glamours all about the clearing to deter casual observers who might wander through. Though they were out in the fresh air, Brendan felt oppressed by his own failure. Greenleaf pushed him hard, and the pressure was starting to take a toll. They’d been working all morning and Brendan was exhausted, with no progress to show for his efforts. On top of that, it was a Saturday, a day for goofing off, not for trying to practise mind control on birds.
For what seemed like the fiftieth time, Greenleaf demanded, “Concentrate!”
“Yeah! Concentrate!” BLT echoed. She sat on a branch above, chewing a slice of pineapple with a desultory sneer on her face. Brendan had been trying to get the little Faerie to eat fruit instead of junk food to get her sugar fix, but BLT wasn’t enjoying the switch. Beside BLT sat Titi, the Diminutive Faerie who was Greenleaf’s companion. Titi was altogether more refined than BLT. She sat primly, watching the proceedings with mild interest. Where BLT was rough and ready, her clothes slightly dishevelled and stained, Titi was a proper little fashion plate, fastidiously coiffed and carefully clothed in the finest mini, ultra-fashionable designer wear. How she got such tiny clothes, Brendan couldn’t guess. Perhaps she stole them off Barbie dolls in the super-chic shops of Yorkville.^ 20
“You can do it, Brendan!” BLT called. “Concentrate!”
“I’m trying to concentrate! How am I supposed to concentrate with you saying concentrate every five seconds?” Brendan snapped, kicking the tree trunk in frustration. The chickadee, startled by the sudden movement, flitted to a higher branch.
“That tree never did you any harm,” Greenleaf said dryly.
“Never did me any good, either,” Brendan retorted.
“Oh, but it does do you good. It is part of a massive interconnected system that provides you with the air you breathe and the food you drink,” Greenleaf said, stroking the bark of the huge tree lovingly. “You are a part of this tree. We all are. Kicking it is like kicking yourself.”
“If I could kick myself, I would,”^ 21 Brendan said, slumping to the ground. “I just can’t seem to do anything,” he groaned. “I can feel the bird’s thoughts like an itch in my brain, but I can’t get inside them.”
Greenleaf studied him for a long moment, a thoughtful expression on his face. He pushed himself away from the tree trunk and stood in front of Brendan. “You lack motivation, that’s all,” Greenleaf said. “You were under duress, fearing for your life at the time. The terror focused your mind. You have to learn to do these things without any threat.”
“Maybe it was a fluke. Maybe I haven’t got any power of Compulsion. Maybe whatever gift I had got burned up or something… or worn out. Have you ever thought of that?”
“Interesting theory. Very interesting indeed.” The tutor pushed away from the tree and stood erect. The corner of his mouth turned up into a sneer. “That would mean you are utterly defenceless…” His pale grey eyes narrowed.
Brendan took a step backwards. The look on Greenleaf’s face was one he’d never seen before. It was dark and predatory. Greenleaf took a step toward Brendan. Brendan backed away, bumping into the tree stump with the back of his legs. “I… I guess so.”
“And no one knows you’re here,” Greenleaf hissed. “What a foolish, trusting child you are, Breandan! You let me lead you out here into the woods alone where no one could help you. Not even that annoying Ki-Mata can save you now.”
“What?” Brendan was confused. For the first time, he realized how strange it was that Kim hadn’t come along. She usually didn’t let Brendan out of her sight for long. When Brendan had questioned her absence at the beginning of the session, Greenleaf had said she was busy, and he’d taken that for granted. “What are you talking about, Greenleaf?”
“Now you will pay for what you did to me!” As Brendan watched in horror, Greenleaf’s face flowed and swam until the handsome features were transformed into the leering face of Orcadia Morn.
“Whoa!” BLT cried. “You get away!” The Lesser Faerie reared back and hurled the remainder of her pineapple slice, hitting Orcadia in the side of the face. Orcadia snarled and sent a lancet of purple energy at BLT, striking her from her perch. She fell motionless into a drift of leaves.
“BLT!” Brendan cried, stricken.
Titi rose from the branch, transforming before Brendan’s eyes into a spiky little bat creature with a wet, snuffling muzzle and talons for hands. She fluttered to Orcadia’s shoulder and perched there, watching Brendan with glassy black eyes.
“She’s gone! Worry about yourself,” cackled Orcadia.
“No! No! This isn’t real,” Brendan stammered. “You’ve gone to the Other Side. My father sent you there.”
“Fool.” She waved an arm and the whole of her body was transformed. She was Orcadia Morn, beautiful and terrible. Her wild white-blond hair crackled and snapped with energy. She raised her hands, holding them slightly apart. Brendan watched, mouth agape, as a ball of energy gathered between her palms. “This time you won’t escape.”
“This can’t be happening… ” Brendan gasped. “Greenleaf… ”
“That simpering dandy was no match for me. I took his place, concealed by glamours. Now I will have my revenge.” She leapt forward. “You followed me to your doom, like a lamb to the slaughter.”
She was right: no one knew where he was. He couldn’t even cry for Human help, concealed as he was within the glamour surrounding the ravine. Kim didn’t know where he and Greenleaf had gone. He was utterly alone. If he was going to survive, he had to do it without any outside help.
Brendan scrambled backwards, falling over the stump to escape her attack. The air rushed out of his lungs as he slammed onto his back on the hard ground. Gasping for breath, he scrabbled through the carpet of dead leaves as Orcadia came on, igniting the dry grass where she stepped.
“I will!” she cackled. “There won’t be enough of you left to sing a song over!” Orcadia raised her hands. Between her palms, a fierce light collected as she drew energy from the surrounding air. He watched in fascination with his acute Faerie Sight as tiny motes of light swirled into a ball. He smelled ozone and felt his hair begin to stand on end from the static electricity. “Breandan Morn! Prepare to DIE!”
^ 18 The three-piece suit has become a mainstay in men’s tailoring: pants, jacket, and vest. It’s much more classy than the one-piece suit (also known as overalls) and less unwieldy than the eight- piece suit (basically a three-piece suit with two scarves, a hood, one glove, and pantyhose).
^ 19 Please do not mention “my cousin Dave.”
^ 20 Yorkville is a part of Toronto where rich people buy expensive things. They aren’t necessarily nice things, but if they are expensive, rich people feel obliged to buy them to prove that they are rich. It’s a sad, endless cycle of spending. I wish I had that problem.
^ 21 People often use the expression “I could have kicked myself
… “ I don’t think it’s possible. I was part of a scientific research group that attempted to study the act of kicking oneself. Despite extensive trials and the waste of a lot of government grant money, only one of us managed to kick himself, and that was after his leg was severed in an automobile accident.