Greywalker

Chapter 16

"Oh, you're as good as your word, aren't you?" she exclaimed, seeing the wine bag in my hand. "I hope you don't mind the kitchen for a bit, I'm still rolling out crust and I hate to yell at my guests just to have a conversation. I felt I should be making a pie, since you missed the last one." We adjourned to the kitchen, Mara in the lead. "Have a seat, open the wine and we can have a sip while I finish up the crust. Corkscrew's in the drawer of the table, glasses right there on top."

I hung my purse and jacket over the back of a chair and tackled the first wine bottle. With the wine poured and distributed, I leaned against the counter and watched her drape pastry dough into a deep pie plate and cut off the edge.

She started to sip her wine, then held it away, staring at it. "Oh, my! This is green wine. Wherever did you find green wine?" "Larry's. It doesn't seem too bad."

She sipped, then glanced at me out of the corners of her slanted eyes. "It's wicked green, though, isn't it?" Then she let out that wild whoop of laughter, her eyes squeezing to merry slits.

I couldn't help laughing with her. She was more relaxed and outrageous now that we were on a social footing, rather than a…. what? Magical one? Student/teacher?

I noticed she was paying a great deal of attention to the pie preparation and biting her lower lip.

I was about to speak when she beat me to it. "Harper, this morning I was rather too pushy. You're right to be wary and I didn't think of it. You see, I'm used to this sort of thing and I forgot that I'm not like you."

I shrugged and drank wine before answering. "No one's like me, I guess."

"Indeed. And there's quite a lot of guesswork to being what you are. Theory and philosophy are all well and good, but reality can rather rear up and bite you on the bum. It's not a field chock-full of scientific validation, you know—not astrophysics or chemistry, after all—and it attracts sharpers and loonies, if you know what I mean."

"Spoon benders and people who write paperback science about ancient astronauts building the lost city of Atlantis," I suggested.

"Exactly the sort of thing. And that brings me to a point I should make before Ben gets home. You see, he's rather enamored of some theories authored by people who can't be proved wrong any more than they can be proved right. It's impossible to resolve any clash between the theories or practices, or even to sort out the possible from the ridiculous when the scientific world as a whole is skeptical. And Ben, ironically, is just as doubting-Thomas as the rest, at heart. Only someone like you can know for certain—not that science would listen to a word you said—but you'll not know until after one of Ben's pet theories has left you with the baby. Do you see my concern?"

I nodded. "So why don't you just tell Ben that you know some of the theory and philosophy is bunk? You can prove it yourself, can't you? As a witch, I mean. Hell, I would."

She leaned back and narrowed her eyes at me over the rim of her glass. "Never been married, I see."

"No. I'm not even very good at dating," I admitted.

"Many of us aren't. We see too much, and it's difficult to dissemble all the time."

For a moment, I could imagine the look that must have been on Will's face when I called him from the police station. "Yeah," I replied.

We both sipped wine and I decided to wade in with both feet. "Why do you glow?" I asked.

"Do I? It's a glamour, I suppose. A habit. I was a spotty, gawky child, and though Ben is always at telling me I'm lovely, it's hard to get over the idea that I'm not just as awful now as I was then. You know how that is, I'm sure."

I nodded. "Oh, yes. I was fat."

She gave me a sober look, then grinned. "Childhood's a bugger, isn't it?"

Mara and I were sitting at the kitchen table, giggling like longtime girlfriends at a sleepover by the time Ben got home. He stuck his head through the kitchen doorway and smiled at us.

"Hi! I see you two are getting on like the famous house on fire."

"Oh, passing fair," said Mara, rising to kiss him. "How were all the budding little linguists?"

"Lugubrious, possibly even mummified."

She tousled his already unruly hair. "Well, go scrub the tomb dust from your hair and dinner will be ready in about fifty minutes, all right?"

"Sehr gut," he said and smooched her before ducking out. We could hear him ascending the stairs.

Mara and I drank more wine and chattered while she finished up the dinner preparations. As her husband descended toward the main floor, she turned to me with a look of concern.

"You'll not say anything to Ben, will you? About my doubts."

I frowned at her. "Of course not. Who am I to break up a marriage over a theory?"

She was still laughing when Ben entered the kitchen.

"What's funny?" he asked, patting himself down. "Did I forget something? Hair sticking up, soap in my ears?"

"No, darlin'. Harper's just very funny, you know. Go pour yourself a glass of this green wine our guest's brought us and have a chat, while I set the table."

Mara whisked out of the kitchen, leaving me alone with her husband. He settled himself at the table and poured wine into a glass. "You two seem to be getting along."

"Mara's lovely."

"That she is. First-class researcher, too. We met over research." He made a goofy grin.

"What sort of research?"

"Mara was doing some geologic studies in a dig out in Ireland that I was also on, doing some ancient religions research. She had some religion questions and I had some questions about ley lines, and we ended up sitting in the pub all night, talking about everything under the sun."

He chuckled. "Sometimes, I'm too much the scientist for Mara's taste." He made a rueful shrug. "I get enthusiastic and bury myself in all the squirrelly little details. Probably can't see the forest for the trees half the time, but she keeps me looking up often enough that I don't go completely into the woods. And speaking of being lost in the woods, how are you doing? Getting any more comfortable with the Grey?"

"Yes and no… there is something I need to ask you—"

Mara came back to the kitchen and we moved the conversation to the dining room.

Once we had food in front of us, Ben prompted me.

"What were you going to ask me?"

"Oh. Why does this seem to be getting worse? More frequent?"

"Well, I think it's kind of like gum on your shoe. Every time you go into the Grey, a bit sort of sticks to you and it keeps on building up."

"But if I'm building up this Grey…. covering, why would the guardian beast-thing attack me sometimes and not others?"

He thought about it, and Mara frowned.

"I'm not certain," Ben replied at last. "Maybe you don't appear to be a threat sometimes."

"I don't see how I could have changed."

"I'm afraid I don't know what triggers acceptance or rejection, but there must be something. There isn't much known about this creature— or creatures. We don't know if it's one thing or a bunch of them. But everyone agrees that it's stupid as a rock. It does its job by a set of rules. So…" He leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling.

Mara glanced at me.

"So maybe," Ben continued, "it has a hierarchy to follow. Bigger apparent threats get its attention and it lets small things go, if it has to. So if something is more foreign or threatening than you, it would chase that instead."

"But if I'm a Greywalker, why would I be foreign at all? What kind of threat do I represent?"

Mara looked at Ben, who was stroking his beard in thought. "I'm wondering…," he started. Then he looked at Mara. "Maybe you're bright, for some reason. If you're still not very comfortable in the Grey, maybe that makes you look more foreign and bright to it. What do you think, Mara? Does Harper glow?"