By Adele Ciccaglione
Adele Ciccaglione graduated from East High School in 2009 and is currently attending Stony Brook University on Long Island. She is heavily involved in the Science Fiction Forum, a student-run club and lending library. Her story “Hollow Lives” graced our first anthology, 2034: Writing Rochester’s Futures.
The Lilac Festival has been drawing people to Rochester in mid-May for well over a century. In Adele’s brilliant “Harlequin Hunt,” a pair of strangers has come to partake in festivities of their own devising. Spring is in the air and the Hunt is on…
—
I’d always thought of Rochester as a pretty big place, but it seemed a lot smaller once those two came and left. Harlequin and Morrigan. At least, that’s what they called themselves. I don’t know if those were really their names. That’s just how he introduced them, walking off Monroe Avenue and into the bar on a Friday night just like a regular.
He wasn’t, of course. Neither of them was. You could tell that just by looking at them. They were different somehow. They didn’t belong. I sighed. It was the weekend of the Lilac Festival, and that meant lots of drunk people I didn’t know trying to talk to me about flowers.
He was tall, thin, kind of willowy, I guess. He walked in there like he was dancing. That’s probably what drew everyone’s stares, but he just sat down at the bar, smiling. He had quite a smile. It twinkled, no matter who he was looking at. He smiled at each of the single women, and every last one of them blushed. He smiled at the single men, too, and a few of them blushed, but most just scowled. One of them shouted, “Queers can drink two blocks that way!”
There were a few scattered laughs, but he just went right on smiling. Mark, the bartender, came over, and the man smiled at him, too. Mark just nodded and said, “What’ll you have?”
The stranger ordered two bourbons, and that was when I noticed the woman with him. She had followed him to the bar and was standing behind him, looking around. She was a tiny little thing. Short dark hair with streaks of red like fire. Pixyish. She didn’t look old enough to be drinking, but no one bothered to ID her. There was something in her face that … well, it stopped you. It stopped me. She was just so calm. She was literally wide-eyed with curiosity and the kind of confidence you get from staring at a tiger through glass. You just know it can’t get at you.
He motioned her to a bar stool, and she sat next to him, but turned to face the room, just watching. Her head turned slowly, but her eyes darted around, and she looked anyone who passed her dead in the face.
There was a guy named Neal there, and I guess he decided that he liked that. I’d known Neal for a little while, and when he decided that he liked something, he went for it. So Neal swaggered his broad-shouldered, slightly drunken, five-o-clock-shadowed self over to the stool where this girl sat and said, with his usual lack of finesse, “Hey, baby.”
She turned to look at him, still wide-eyed, like a cat or a little kid, but she didn’t speak. Not a word. Neal leered down at her and she just looked him straight in the eye, silent. The man she was with glanced briefly at them and went back to his bourbon. Hers sat next to it, untouched.
Neal was undaunted by her silence. Knowing him, he probably appreciated it, provided he was sober enough. He sidled closer to her and said, “How ’bout you and me head back to my place?” She didn’t answer.
“Come on,” said Neal. “Ditch the queer and we’ll go.”
From where I was sitting, I could see the stranger raise his eyebrows, but he didn’t say anything, and the girl just sat there.
Now either Neal was too drunk to see she wasn’t interested, or he didn’t care. I don’t know. What I do know is that he put his hand on that girl’s arm and grunted, “Whaddya say?”
The girl … well, she stiffened, I guess, though she seemed pretty tense to begin with, and the man she was with suddenly paid a lot more attention to Neal. I don’t know if he got wise to the situation all of a sudden or if he just didn’t like people touching his girl, but all at once he was all eyes and ears.
“Come on, girlie,” said Neal harshly. “I don’t got all night.”
The girl kept right on looking at him, still as a statue, with his hand on her arm.
“I’d let go of her if I were you,” said the man levelly.
“Why?” demanded Neal. “If she don’t want me, that’s her business, not yours. And I ain’t heard her say no yet. Can’t blame her for wanting a real man.”
“Of course it’s her business,” answered the stranger. “And if she wants a real man, she is more than welcome to find one, but since she shows no inclination to go with you…” Here, he looked pointedly at Neal’s hand on the girl’s arm. “I would let her go.”
“Well, she can speak for herself, can’t she?” He turned to the girl. “How ’bout it, girlie? Me or him?”
Two things happened at once. The girl turned her head for the first time to stare at Neal’s hand on her arm, and Laura walked over.
Laura tends bar with Mark over the weekends, and she’s damn good at it. She’s got a good head on her shoulders and more nerve than half the men I know. She’s also hot. Not like model-pretty, but really hot. I guess she’s alright to look at, but the way she carries herself, the way she moves. You can tell she knows she’s in charge. She’s usually right.
Laura walked up to Neal and said, “Neal, let her go. Have another beer.”
Neal turned to Laura and said, “Let the chick speak for herself, for Chrissakes.”
“I think she has, Neal. She doesn’t look happy about you holding on to her arm for dear life. Give her your number and walk away.”
Neal grumbled but obeyed. The stranger watched this exchange with interest. When Neal left and the girl relaxed, he turned to Laura.
“Thank you, madam,” he said. “And my compliments on defusing such a conflict before it escalated.”
Laura wasn’t looking at him; she was pouring a drink for someone. “No problem. Last thing I need this weekend is two guys fighting over a woman.”
“Oh, the arts of combat are not my forte, madam, I assure you. But nonetheless, it was admirably done.” He raised his glass to her. For the first time that evening, she met his eyes, and he smiled.
Now, I have known Laura for a long time. I even tried dating her once. She can stare down any drunken thug without flinching and has sat through more proposals, propositions, and lurid suggestions than you can shake a stick at, but when that man smiled at her, I saw Laura turn a shade of red that I had never seen before. Her eyes took on an amused, kind of embarrassed look, and she ducked her head.
That was when I knew things were going to change.
That was also when, out of curiosity or some crazy desire to impress Laura, I walked up to the bar.
“Hey,” I said. “I don’t remember seeing you two around here before.”
The stranger looked up at me and smiled. If I’d been a woman, I would have fallen for him right then and there. As it stands, I’m not sure that I didn’t.
“No,” he said. “You haven’t. We’re just passing through.”
“Where you headed?”
He shrugged. “Nowhere in particular. Quite the opposite, in fact. Everywhere.” He spread his arms as if to say that the whole world was at his disposal.
I realized then that he was a liar. Something in the way he moved, in the pitch of his voice, told me that the truth was something he could bend into any shape he wanted, like a kid playing cat’s cradle with a piece of string, and if he did I wouldn’t be the wiser.
The girl, though, she was something else. I guess she was more a woman than a girl. I mean, she had the figure for it, but something in her face was off. The rest of her could have been eighteen, twenty, but her face … she looked to be about five.
It was a face completely without artifice. Her eyes were wide with a curiosity that would have been rude coming from anyone else, but on her any other expression would have been wrong. Those eyes took in everything. It was creepy. It seemed like she was looking right through me. Like she could tell what I was thinking. Suddenly, I felt ashamed to think of a little kid picking through my brain like that. Here she was, innocent, and me, all coarse and lustful. It didn’t seem right.
I realized the man was speaking again. “My companion and I will require lodging for a night or two. If you would be so kind as to direct us to the nearest hotel …”
“What?” I said, breaking my gaze away from the girl’s.
“Hotel,” said the man. “Inn. Free house. Bed and—”
He would have gone on, but I cut him off. “Oh, you need a place to sleep.”
“Yes.”
I paused. “All the hotels will be full up for the festival. How long are you staying?”
The man looked at the girl. She didn’t answer, and he shrugged. “A night, perhaps two.”
“You can stay with me.”
I don’t know what made me say it. I don’t usually invite strangers into my home, but that night it seemed like the easiest thing in the world to ask them to stay. Maybe it was his smile, or her eyes, playing on my good nature. Maybe it was something else entirely.
All I know is that I asked, and that he smiled his twinkling smile and said, “We would be delighted. Thank you.”
“No problem,” I said, a little confused about why I had just invited them to stay, and sure I would regret it. “Finish your bourbon and we’ll go.”
“Indeed,” said the stranger, and he raised his glass. “To your hospitality. May your roof always be sound and your hearth warm.” He drained his glass.
I nodded my thanks, not quite sure how to respond. I’d never been toasted before. I pointed at the bar. “Is your friend going to finish hers?”
He turned back to look at the untouched glass. “Ah! Quite right.” He turned to the girl. “Well?”
She took her gaze off me to look at him, then turned toward the bar. She paused a moment, picked up the glass and sniffed at it. Then she turned again, raised it wordlessly in my direction, and drained it in one go, keeping her eyes on me until the shape of the glass made her tilt her head back.
The stranger rose. “Shall we proceed?”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “Let’s go.”
I turned to leave, but the girl walked past me. She went to Neal, took his face in her hands, and kissed him. I blinked, surprised, and a second later Neal pulled back and cried, “Ow! The little bitch bit me!”
She looked at him for a long moment before turning and leaving the bar. I watched her go, too surprised to move. Harlequin put his hand on my back and said, “The man was warned. He should have let her go. Come.”
He took me by the arm and walked me out of the bar. I could feel everyone turning to watch us go. There I was, a normal guy leaving with the two most interesting things that had happened in that building since the stabbing two summers ago. I tend to avoid anything and anyone too weird. In my experience, weirdos just make trouble, and these two were about as weird as they come. But I went with them anyway, and the entire bar watched us leave together.
As we left the bar, a big black dog bounded up to us. I stepped back. I’m not a fan of dogs, never have been, and this one was bigger than most I’ve seen.
It sat at the stranger’s feet and pawed at his leg, whining. The stranger bent down and scratched it behind the ears. “Not yet,” he murmured. “Not tonight. I know you smell them. There’s so many of them. But you must wait.”
The dog stood up and trotted over to me. I stood completely still as it sniffed at my feet. Then it walked back over to the stranger and sat down again. “Well, I could have told you that,” he said, half smiling.
“Is that your dog?” I asked. I hoped it wasn’t.
“Yes,” said the stranger. “But she will not be accompanying us to your home.”
“Oh good. I don’t like dogs.”
“You have no reason to fear this one,” he said. He stressed the you slightly. I wondered if someone else did, but I was afraid to ask.
I led them to my car, and the dog followed, sniffing at the sidewalk. It stopped once, to growl at some people we passed, but the man soothed it, saying, “Hush, my dear. Not yet.”
We got to the car, and as I moved to open the door, I realized something.
“Wait a minute, who are you guys? What’s with the dog? Where are you going, and what are you doing here?”
The man looked perplexed, but then understanding spread across his face. “Of course. Forgive me. I am called Harlequin, and this is Morrigan.”
“Harlequin? Morrigan?” I asked. “Were your parents hippies?”
Harlequin smiled his peculiar smile again and said, “Our parentage is a complicated matter. Shall we?”
“Oh, right.” I unlocked the car and let them in. Harlequin took shotgun and Morrigan sat in back. I started the car and pulled out into the street. “I’m Ed, by the way. Ed McKenna.”
“McKenna? That’s a good, strong, Scottish name.”
I shrugged. “If you say so. I don’t really know.”
“I have a bit of Scot in me,” he added conversationally.
I glanced at him, paying more attention to the road than to what he was saying. I don’t know if I was driving under a streetlight just then, or if I saw an old bare tree silhouetted through the car window, but for a second I could have sworn I saw antlers on the man’s head.
I blinked and rubbed my eyes. It had been a long week, and I was ready for it to be over, especially if those two were going to be spending the night at my house.
I suddenly realized just how stupid I was being. You don’t just invite random people you meet in bars on a Friday night into your home, but there I was, with two complete strangers in my car, driving them to my house for the night. I didn’t know where they were from, where they were going, or what they were doing in my favorite bar in the first place. Hell, I didn’t even know their last names. I was probably going to get robbed or murdered in my sleep. I figured the odds of me dying before I hit forty had just tripled.
I decided to take stock of what I did know about them, on the off chance I survived long enough to talk to the police. He called himself Harlequin. He was taller than me, maybe six-two, six-three, but didn’t look like he could do much damage. Couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred and fifty pounds or so. And he smiled a lot. Something about the way he talked was strange, too. His voice was light and level and sort of musical, but the way he strung his words together was oddly formal.
As for the girl, well, I knew that he called her Morrigan. I don’t know what she called herself, because I hadn’t yet heard her speak. I was beginning to wonder if she might be a little bit off, brain-wise, I guess because she stared so frankly. I’ve never known anybody who was all there to be so guileless. The fact that she was so small just made her seem all the more childlike.
I’m not sure that you can be childlike, or guileless for that matter, without being innocent, but Morrigan certainly wasn’t innocent. As I watched her watch the town through the rear-view mirror, I realized that she’d seen more than I could ever dream of. She’d seen death and pain and all these terrible things; they were all there, behind her huge, dark eyes. Somehow, though, I think she looked at those things like she did everything else. Honestly. Objectively, I guess.
The two of them were opposites. I don’t think it would ever occur to her to lie. I’m not sure that she would have been capable of it, even, but for him out-talking me was second nature, a habit, almost a game. She was objective, neutral, like blind justice, but he could hold a grudge, probably for years.
I found myself wondering what kept the two of them together. They were a strange pair, but in spite of that, they seemed like each of them would be incomplete without the other. It was clear from watching the two of them, from the way he looked at her and how she seemed to be able to speak to him without words, that they’d been together a long time. I didn’t know if they were siblings or lovers or what, but I knew that they didn’t have anyone else in the world. I don’t think they needed anyone else.
“Well, this is it,” I said, pulling to a stop in front of my house. I got out and walked up to the front door. The two of them followed, stood behind me as I unlocked it, and walked in.
“You guys want to go to bed now, or wait up for a while?” I asked.
Harlequin looked at Morrigan and raised his eyebrows. She said nothing, and he turned to me, saying, “I am prepared to retire, if you have no objection.”
“Whatever,” I said, shrugging. “There’s only one bed in the spare room. Do you guys want an air mattress or—”
“A single bed will be sufficient,” Harlequin interrupted. I figured that meant they were lovers, but then he said, “Morrigan would prefer to remain outside.”
“Um, okay,” I said, confused. “You, uh, want a sleeping bag or something?” It was May, but still chilly.
“That will not be necessary,” said Harlequin. “But thank you.”
“Be careful,” I said to Morrigan. “There’s some creeps around here.”
“You need not fear for her sake.” As Harlequin spoke, Morrigan turned and walked back outside. I watched her go with a pang of worry, and for a moment I thought about going after her, trying to keep her safe. She was so beautiful, and I so wanted her to notice me.
Harlequin was shaking his head. “No, my friend,” he said quietly. “Don’t wish for something you do not understand. Morrigan’s favors are not lightly bestowed, and those who do receive them are seldom pleased with the result.”
I gaped at him, wondering how he had known what I was thinking. “Was it that obvious?” I asked.
He smiled, and suddenly my heart was in my throat. “I have seen that look many times,” he said. “She is cruelly inattentive about her charms.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” I turned away from him, willing myself to calm down. I was suddenly nervous.
I don’t know if he could tell how uncomfortable I was or not, but he said, “It’s late. I’ll leave you to your thoughts.”
“What? Oh, yeah. Up the stairs and on your left.”
He turned and left the room. I stayed, staring out the window for a moment before going to sit down on the sofa.
I woke up gasping, from dreams of blood and fire. Harlequin was standing over me, his expressive face a mask of concern. “Bad dreams?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, nodding, struggling to regain my breath. “Yeah.”
“Tell me.” He sat down on the sofa, next to me.
I told him what I could remember, all the while acutely aware of him. He was so close to me that I could feel the heat his body gave off. I could smell him, a strange combination of autumn leaves and fresh grass and lightning.
By the time I finished my story, my heart was beating way too fast. I took a deep breath, but that just made it worse.
Harlequin, silent until that point, muttered, “Such blood. This is an ill omen.”
My mouth was dry, and my pulse was pounding in my ears. “I’m going to bed,” I said, and stood up. I’m still not sure how I managed to do either.
He walked toward me, lithe and beautiful, and stopped when we were just inches apart. Every nerve in my body was screaming for him to touch me. If he had just brushed his fingertips against mine, it would have been enough.
I was breathing heavily, panting almost. His closeness made goose bumps rise on my arms. I realized that I was staring at his collarbone, so I looked up to find him gazing down at me. His eyes were an amazing shade of green: tree-green, leaf-green, grass-green, bright and vital and very, very old. I found myself wondering what he tasted like.
Almost without realizing it, I leaned toward him and he pressed his mouth to mine, gently at first, then harder. I don’t remember how we made it upstairs, but somehow we got to my bedroom and undressed each other by touch and moonlight.
I stopped once, suddenly conscious of what I was doing. I didn’t like men. I didn’t even know this man. And I was not one for one-night stands. All of this was so unlike me. It was strange, and more than a little uncomfortable. I was about to call it off, but then Harlequin kissed me, and I lost myself in him all over again, in the taste of rosemary and spearmint.
When I slept afterwards I did not dream.
I woke up alone, which didn’t surprise me. I was sad, but not surprised.
That’s the thing about one-night stands. You spend an hour or two or three giving someone your best, and taking theirs in return, and when the morning comes, you’ve nothing to show for it. You fall asleep feeling satisfied, maybe even happy, because something, some part of you, has been completed, and you wake up feeling even emptier than you did before. It’s self-defeating. A waste of energy.
He was gone, leaving me gutted and empty, with a ghost of passion that hurt more than anything.
There’s a church downtown that burned down in the 1980s. I guess it had quite a congregation. Saint Joseph’s, it was called. Imagine it, a little stone building with stained-glass windows, filled to capacity every week with people. Imagine the sunlight and the sound of a hundred voices raised in song, faith radiating so strongly that it floods the place, and people keep coming back week after week just to feel like maybe they’re a part of something bigger, something more beautiful than their simple, mundane, painful lives.
And then one day the building catches fire, and everything, absolutely everything, is destroyed. All that’s left is an empty shell, four stone walls and a flagstone floor that’s open to the sky, and something less than a memory, less than a shadow of all that joy and faith. That was how I felt in the morning. Painfully quiet and empty, scorched by his passion and my own.
There was nothing else for it, so I went downstairs.
Harlequin was sitting in my living room. Morrigan was there, too, of course, but just then I didn’t want to see anyone but him. I smelled coffee and realized that Harlequin was holding a mug. Another sat untouched on the table beside Morrigan.
He didn’t notice me, not right away, so I had a little time to study him in profile. His face was delicate. High cheekbones, lips a little thin. His nose was long and thin, but it didn’t look silly. It would have on anyone else.
Morrigan noticed me as soon as I walked in. I had only been standing there for a few seconds, but the whole time she just sat there watching me watch Harlequin.
Eventually he realized that she was looking past him. He turned and saw me, but I looked away before our eyes met.
I was suddenly shy, not sure how to react to him after the night before, and a little bit ashamed to be standing half-dressed in front of him like I was.
“Good morning, Edward,” he said. “I took the liberty of making coffee in your absence. I hope that was not too forward of me.”
“’Sfine,” I croaked. I was still too surprised to say much. I looked up at him, and he was smiling at me. I excused myself, trying my hardest to stay calm, and went into the kitchen.
I poured myself some coffee, not sure what else to do. Five minutes earlier, my situation had been manageable. I hadn’t liked it, but it was familiar territory. I knew how to handle it.
This was new, untested, strange. I hadn’t planned to sleep with the man. He was a man, after all. Now I didn’t know how to react, what to say, how to behave. Much as I dislike one-night stands, they’re a step up from unexpectedly spending the night with a strange guest.
Something made me look up from my mug. Morrigan was standing there, just staring at me.
“You know, don’t you?” I said. “About last night.” Then, more to myself, “Who am I kidding? Of course you know.”
She didn’t say anything, but kept right on staring at me. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? If that’s what you want, I’m sorry. I didn’t plan on … you know. It just happened. If he’s yours, I’m sorry.”
She stayed quiet, listening to me talk as I tried to fill the hole left by her silence. I probably would have kept going, justifying myself to her all morning, but she shrugged and turned to leave.
“Wait,” I said. She stopped and looked at me over her shoulder. I walked over to her and said, “Are we straight?” I held my hand out for her to shake, but she shied away from it.
“I guess that’s a no,” I muttered as she left the kitchen. “I’m sorry,” I called after her. “If he’s yours, I’m sorry.”
“I am not hers.” Harlequin appeared from around the doorframe. “Morrigan is a possessive being, certainly, but we have been together a long time, and she has learned that I am not one to be possessed. Nor is she. I am not hers; she is not mine. We are, for the time being, simply traveling companions.”
There was something stern in his voice, something I didn’t recognize. I didn’t like it, either. It made me nervous, and I was already uncomfortable enough with him.
I didn’t really know how to reply, so I just said, “Right. I’ll remember that.”
“And while we speak of such things,” he continued, “I wish to apologize for my behavior last night. It was forward, I know, but it was also necessary.”
I was floored. “Necessary? We did that because it was necessary?”
“Yes,” said Harlequin simply. “And I am sorry. You will understand later.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure no one’s ever apologized for sleeping with me before,” I said because I couldn’t think of anything else.
He nodded and turned to leave. “Hey,” I said. I felt kind of abandoned. “You’re not coming back tonight, are you?”
“I do not expect to, no.”
I nodded. “Fine.” It was all I could manage.
“I am not one to be possessed, Edward McKenna.”
And he left.
I went upstairs and got dressed. I didn’t want to eat. I felt confused and kind of … hollow. Sometimes, when you feel bad, and I mean really bad, like I did then, the best thing you can do is just sit there and stew.
I’d been dumped before. Who hasn’t? And it always sucks, but this was different. Usually it’s a swift kick to the ass that sends you out the door. You’re hurt, you’re a little lost, but you get over it.
This was different. I’d just had the floor pulled out from under me. I was falling, and I did not have a damn clue as to what I should do next.
I looked at the clock. It was eight thirty. In less than nine hours, my world had been turned upside down.
I didn’t do much for the rest of the day. Didn’t really know what I could do. I turned on the TV and flipped channels for a while. There was a severe weather warning. Apparently we were supposed to get a big storm, but I didn’t care enough to think about that just then. Once I figured it was a reasonable time, I went over to the bar. I didn’t bother to take the car. God knows I did not plan on being in any condition to drive home that night.
Laura raised her eyebrows to see me there so early, but didn’t say anything. I sat down and decided to start out strong. I was midway through ordering a bourbon when I stopped myself. I couldn’t drink that, not just then, so I got gin and tonic instead.
I sat. I drank. The game ended and most of the louder people trickled out.
Somebody behind me was talking about the big storm we were supposed to be getting. Hurricane-force winds, flooding, you know the drill. Guess that’s what comes of having a Great Lake just north of you. People were stocking up on bottled water and canned food, wondering when it would hit. My good sense told me to do the same, but the rest of me, drunk, miserable, and used to the Rochester weather, ignored it.
I was finally beginning to lose track of what I’d had to drink, and I was midway through losing myself in another glass of something sharp and deadening when something made me stop. It wasn’t a sound, more like a smell, but not exactly. All I know is that I turned—I had to—and suddenly I was dead sober.
They were walking in.
“It seems we must wait another night,” said Harlequin.
Morrigan just looked at him.
“I know,” he murmured. “I am as impatient as you. It is time we moved on.”
She just blinked and turned, watching me.
Harlequin’s gaze followed hers, and a smile broke across his face. There was a wrenching somewhere in my chest, and part of me was not my own anymore. God damn that man.
He came over and sat down next to me, Morrigan following.
I wanted to look at him. I wanted to watch him move. I wanted to see his eyes meet mine and watch that strange, heart-wrenching smile play across his face, but I didn’t. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. I didn’t want to look at him and find him watching someone else. I stared into my glass.
Harlequin was speaking. My heart jumped into my throat when I heard that, but then I realized he was talking to Morrigan.
“This was ill timing on our part. I mislike having to stay another night. We have done enough damage already.”
I stole a sideways glance at them. Harlequin’s thin back was to me, as if he was completely unaware of my presence. He faced Morrigan as he spoke to her, but she looked right past him to stare at me.
Harlequin ordered two bourbons from Laura, who kept her eyes lowered this time. Smart woman.
Then it happened. I knew it was coming. Had to be. Harlequin’s hand was on the small of my back, and he said, “Edward, how have you been?”
I ignored him, a harder thing to do than it sounds. I could feel his fingers resting gently against my spine, and all of a sudden the room seemed to get really hot.
“Edward, it seems we again require lodging for the night. Would it be an imposition if—”
I looked at him, doing my best not to show how much I wanted his hand to stay exactly where it was. I tried to keep calm. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted him to come back with me. I didn’t ever want to see him again. I wanted to keep getting drunk. I ignored him and turned back to the bar.
“It seems we have outstayed our welcome,” Harlequin said quietly. His hand wasn’t on my back anymore. “We should go.”
Harlequin rose and started to walk away, but Morrigan stayed put. She was behind me. I couldn’t see her, but I could tell she was there.
“Morrigan, please,” murmured Harlequin. “He has done nothing wrong.”
I turned, confused, and saw Morrigan reaching for me. She had one arm extended, fingers stretching out, about to touch me. Her hands were tiny.
Harlequin put his hand on Morrigan’s shoulder and she stopped, turned, looked at him.
“He has done nothing wrong,” said Harlequin gently. “He is well within his rights to refuse us.”
Activity in the bar had stopped. It was still, and everyone was watching us. It was uncomfortable.
“Besides,” said Harlequin in a different voice, one that I knew well. “We may yet find someone willing to accommodate us.” He turned, and for the first time that night, his eyes met Laura’s.
She blushed and fumbled with the glass she was cleaning. Mark looked at her sharply, but didn’t say anything. It wouldn’t have done him any good. She was long gone, trapped in Harlequin’s gaze. Poor woman.
I stayed. I don’t know why, I guess ’cause I didn’t have anywhere better to be. I watched Laura watching Harlequin all night, but I also watched him myself. I watched him move around the room and smile that puzzling smile. He charmed everyone just like he’d charmed me. It hurt, seeing him pat shoulders, shake hands, brush fingertips, as if the night before had meant nothing to him. Laura never stopped staring at him.
Morrigan sat at the bar, watching Harlequin make his rounds, eyes wide and simple as ever. I realized a little later that she wasn’t watching him; she was watching who he touched. Who he didn’t touch, rather.
I realize now that she was tallying, marking them for her own. Anyone that Harlequin didn’t lay his hands on she studied for a bit, staring at them frankly. All of them, to a man, looked her in the eyes, and she stared every last one of them down. If anyone met her gaze for more than a few seconds, she would blink a few times, as if just coming to, and nod. Anyone who looked away (and there were a lot) spent the rest of the night shuddering, trying to drink themselves into oblivion.
Even now, afterwards, I don’t know what she was, what either of them were. They were both powerful, feral, almost, but they weren’t the same. Harlequin was charming, enchanting, but slippery. People were a game to him. He’d smile at you till he was done with you, and you’d realize that what you had was nothing, a lie.
Morrigan, though, terrified me. She still does, when I think about it. She wasn’t just truthful; it was like she was truth. And to some of those people in the bar that night, truth is the scariest thing out there.
Eventually I decided to leave. I seemed to be sobering up faster as I kept drinking, and there were better things I could be spending my money on. I left, but I didn’t go far.
It was a little past midnight, and the bars close at two. It was cold out, which in Rochester shouldn’t have surprised me, but I felt like I had to stick around.
The wind picked up, making it colder as the night wore on, and I started to wonder if that storm they were all talking about might not hit a little earlier than they expected. Eventually the bars closed, and people in various drunken states staggered into diners, hoping to suck down enough fat and grease to absorb the alcohol so they’d be able to function the next day. I thought about joining them, but I realized that I didn’t feel like working my way through a Garbage Plate just then.
I waited a little longer, until Laura came out. Sure enough, Harlequin was next to her, and she was smiling bashfully. He said something, and she laughed. I hadn’t heard her laugh in a long time. He slipped his hand into hers, and Morrigan walked behind them, just watching.
I went home, for lack of something better. By the time I got back, I was frozen and completely sober. Not a good combination. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to sleep.
I did, though, and when I woke up the next morning the weather man was still talking about that storm. Said it would probably hit around two in the afternoon.
The wind picked up around twelve thirty, and the thunder started an hour later. I knew it was a bad storm—I could hear the wind howling and for a little while there was hail—but I knew it kind of distantly. It didn’t really hit home. I was inside, warm. The weather couldn’t get at me.
Then the power went out.
It took me by surprise, but it wasn’t a big deal. I got my flashlight but I didn’t turn it on. I wanted to save the batteries, so I sat there in the dark.
What happened next was weird. I don’t remember falling asleep, but I do remember dreaming. It must have been a dream. It had to be.
The wind was howling. I got up and went to the window. It was dark outside, but I could just see the street. It was raining or snowing, I couldn’t tell which, but the wind blew it sideways, along with scraps of paper and leaves. Twigs were ripped off branches. Signs swayed. The house shook. This city is the only place I’ve ever been where snowflakes in May don’t surprise me.
Suddenly a big black dog bounded down the road. I backed up a little bit. It’s not something you expect to see in a storm, after all.
Just then the wind began to sound strange, like there were dogs baying. There were crows, too, and screams. God, I’d never heard screams like that before and I hope never to hear them again. I didn’t think there could be that much pain and fear in the world, to cause screams like that.
I covered my ears and was trying to figure out what to do next when I saw them. There were people outside, in the street. They were running, screaming, looking more terrified than I had ever seen anyone look. I felt sick, they looked so scared.
Behind them came more dogs, black, huge, and then horses. Giant horses, so dark I almost couldn’t see them, with black trappings, galloping down my street. Most of them had riders, in capes or cloaks. There was a glint of light on metal.
The rider at the front of the group was tall and terrible. He wore a helmet with horns on it and carried a whip. He swung it at one of the runners, who was falling behind, and I caught a look at his face. The rider was Harlequin.
Gone was the twinkling smile, and in its place was rage. He had an air of purpose now. He raised his arms and swung the whip again, and I could have sworn that the man he hit was Neal. Behind Harlequin rode Morrigan, bareback and grinning hideously, crows flying with her.
A second later they were gone, and the howling wind was just wind again. It died down over the next half hour, and we got power back around eleven. By that time I had slept, so I can’t say for sure that what I saw wasn’t a dream, but of course it was. It had to be.
I remembered a story I heard once, probably from my grandmother, about this thing called the Wild Hunt. I went to the Rundel Library and looked it up the next day, just because. Turns out it’s a bunch of spirits, ghostly huntsmen who ride off with the souls of evildoers. In every picture I found, the leader has horns.
I’m not sure how I dreamed up something like that, but I did. The funny thing is, Neal and a couple of the other regulars haven’t been around lately. Not that I’m complaining, but it’s weird, you know?
Laura was really quiet for a few days after it happened. I never heard anybody ask her about Harlequin, but when I mentioned him to her, her face kind of set, and she didn’t say anything. I asked Mark and he just shrugged. Said he didn’t remember any strangers that weekend.
As for Harlequin and Morrigan, I never saw them again. Mark’s not the only one who doesn’t remember. Nobody else had anything to say about the weird pair of people who showed up before the storm. I guess it’s down to me and Laura, and she’s not talking. It’s probably better that way.
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