I saw her chew her lip.
“Maggie? I’ll need you to explain,” her father said.
“I’ll try, I promise,” she said.
I felt the impact of that statement, saw the connection form.
I blinked to clear my field of vision. Couldn’t rely on it too much.
“Three paper goblins,” she said. She pulled her hands from her pockets, depositing three folded papers in my hand. “And a whistle.”
“A whistle for who or what?”
“He’s called something I’m not allowed to say,” Maggie said. “It’s written on the whistle.”
Dickswizzle.
“Here,” she said. She took the whistle back, then blew.
Something hit the car. Heavy.
A goblin. Hairy, bearded, lurking in the shadows.
“He obeys the holder of the whistle,” Maggie said. “Try.”
“Crud,” Rose said, a murmur. I could see Maggie’s father react.
“Dickswizzle, come,” I said.
He didn’t budge a muscle.
“Dickswizzle, come,” Rose said.
Dickswizzle approached a few paces.
“That thing I wanted to talk to you about…” Rose murmured.
3.03
Now
The neighborhood was a nice one, as the local neighborhoods went. Big houses, old-fashioned, with large yards. Many, including the house in front of me, had additions or garages that came close to a small house in size. It wasn’t up to par with the two million dollar homes in the better areas of Toronto, but it was the sort of place I could see myself living, somewhere down the road.
If I got that far.
It had always been a sort of ‘if I got that far’ thing, but it had been about money, before. Now it was more the living part that was under question.
Cars were parked along the length of the street. Families were leaving the vehicles. The Behaims, with brown and black hair, leaning towards the stockier side, with a few who were fat. The Duchamps, men and women, all blonde.
I looked at the card in my hand, then at the point where the people were converging. A meeting at Laird’s house, it seemed. I could see the spirits moving. A rune was being used to ward off curious civilians, which meant I had to look otherwise occupied.
I stayed where I was, out of sight, trying not to focus too hard on them, while doing what I could to pick up details and information. The connections that spread out from around them were ties of family, of home, of friendship. Rays of light radiating out from each of them. Connections to this town. Others had connections to another, distant place, matching some of my connections, the ones I’d covered up with glamour.
They were from Toronto, I realized. Others, those connections might be to Ottawa. Out of town members of the Duchamp clan?
Huh.
I turned to leave, heading around the corner. More guests had parked further up the street. Two Behaim womenfolk helping an old man to make his way down the frozen sidewalk, supporting him from either side, and further up, a cluster of blonde kids milled around a mother and father.
Right now, I was the unassuming neighbor. Brown hair, middle aged, unremarkable in every respect.
With my eyes on the map of connections between people, I could tell when I was relatively free of scrutiny, then bent down, as if I were fixing my boot.
Still bent over, I moved my hand under my hat to run it along my hair. From dirty blond to platinum blond that had been lightened by age. Another pass, to change it from wavy to straight.
I rubbed at my face, and worked in wrinkles, a ruddy complexion to go with the light hair. Beneath the scarf I’d wrapped around myself, I added a mustache for good measure. Bushy and blond.
I didn’t dare glamour up any connections to better the disguise. Not with so many Duchamps around. Not without some help or a tool of some sort.
I straightened, leaving the card on the ground. Wouldn’t do to have a suspicious connection active. The family with the kids passed me by. I could see another car pulling into a spot at the side of the road, more Duchamps climbing out. Teenagers this time. Three girls. Enchantresses, I had little doubt.
I couldn’t panic. I had glamour, they shouldn’t see anything strange.
Where the other car had been small children, the process of getting out long and arduous, the three teenage girls wasted no time. I fell into stride between the two groups, where I could be easily mistaken as a member of one or the other.
Somehow this fit me. I could tap into my memories or my history, being a face in the crowd, and I could figure this out. It was instincts, it was building, it was an art of a sort, and those were things I did pretty well.
There was a bit of recklessness in it too, which fit well with my current mental state. What was one more thing where I didn’t have all of the information? One more thing where I had to wing it, sink or swim?
I was quietly terrified, but I’d promised myself I’d do this. Take control, act.