Jordan stared down into the box at the items he had placed within it. A negligée. An evening dress. High-heeled shoes. A makeup kit. A diary with its lock removed. He resisted the temptation to turn the box over and restore the contents to their places around the house. Though he would be getting everything back within a few days, it hurt to be deprived of these mementos.
He was adding articles to the accumulation when the housekeeper appeared in the open doorway.
“Your visitor has arrived,” she said. A faint twitch of her mouth hinted at the disapproval he knew she must be feeling.
“Very good, Mrs. Cory. I’ll meet with him here.”
She vanished, reappearing only briefly as she escorted the guest to the room.
The Outsider was taller than Jordan, as his kind often were, and slim to the point of emaciation. Fair-skinned and fair-haired, he paradoxically conveyed the impression he was standing in shadow. A human inexperienced in the effects of the glamour might have, after the fact, remembered him with the aspect of a Sicilian or Spaniard. A Mediterranean teenager, Jordan thought, body hair atypically sparse, with a distinct flavor of androgyny.
The visitor shrank away from the metal lamp at the end of Jordan’s desk. He tucked his head farther beneath the hood of his robes and hid his hands within the sleeves, retreating from the hostile emanations of the house, encasing himself in layers of chestnut and sorrel.
“You’ve found someone for the job?” asked Jordan.
“Indeed.”
Jordan had already learned his guest was a creature of few words. That was just as well, given the unnerving tendency of his speech to echo. All that mattered was that he could deliver what he had been asked to acquire.
“She’ll need these,” Jordan said, gesturing at the box on his desk. He also picked up a thick manila folder and extended it, declining to make contact as the material slid from his grip.
The Outsider glanced in the folder. Photos of Véronique flashed momentarily into view. He grunted approval at the thick sheaf of biographical notes.
“I’d like to add something else,” Jordan stated. “Do you have access to a VCR? Can you operate one?”
The being reacted with distaste. “We study all the magicks of your world, as best we can. A way can be found.”
“Tapes will make the task easier. They’ll provide a means to study physical mannerisms, speech patterns, and so forth.”
“If you wish, we will use them.”
Jordan opened a drawer and added the half-dozen videocassettes he found there to the box. He held up the final one, unmarked save for a blue sticker. “This one’s especially important.”
Jordan paused, then let the cassette settle into the box. He had promised Véronique he would never let anyone see that recording. It was for him, for those times when Véronique couldn’t be with him, and occasionally for them to view together. He grimaced at the thought of strange pairs of eyes poring over its images. Did Outsiders feel voyeuristic delight? What of any human that might be brought in to assist in the operation of the machinery?
The visitor lifted the box. He cradled it against his body, apparently able to tolerate the traces of metal therein — just a few tiny screws in the cassettes. “These will help, but the dreams are the key,” he said.
“She can do this, can’t she?” Jordan asked, almost hoping to be told otherwise.
The other nodded. Taking off his glove, he held out his hand. The index finger grew indistinct. When it came back in focus, it had become thicker and was no longer the same length as the middle digit. It strongly resembled Jordan’s own.
The transformation lasted a few moments, then reverted back. The Outsider swayed, blinked, and caught his breath.
“That much I can do with but a smattering of the talent. The one I have arranged to bring is rich in the skills and will have the time needed to prepare herself. A pooka could not do better.”
“She’ll have to hold the shape for hours at a time,” Jordan warned. “As much as half a day.”
“She can. Depending on how you dream.”
“My dreams have been of nothing but Véronique.”
“Then your companion will be Véronique, for as long as you wish her to be.”
The visitor restored his glove, turned, and left. Jordan stayed where he was until the being was fully gone, beyond the ability to call him back. During that vigil he wondered if Véronique, wherever her spirit might be, would forgive him.
The Outsider reappeared on Friday at twilight, a juncture his kind seemed to favor. Jordan had dismissed Mrs. Cory and the other servants, leaving no human witnesses to the arrival of she who was to be his companion.
The guest recommended the lights be dimmed. Jordan agreed, and in stepped … Véronique.
The subdued illumination almost preserved the illusion. She was Véronique’s height. The body silhouette matched. The clothes and cosmetics were Véronique’s own. She would have fooled anyone casually acquainted with Jordan’s late wife, but he caught the subtle differences. The woman’s skin contained a pallid undertone at odds with Véronique’s robust complexion. She wore no jewelry. Her facial features were slightly elongated, the collarbones overly delicate. His wife’s pupils had rarely displayed such a deep, black-pool intensity.
But the attempt was as good as he had been promised, and he knew it had the potential to improve.
The male — was it male? — of the pair held out the contract. Jordan had already signed other documents, but until he added this one, the woman standing in front of him was still just a candidate, as was he to her.
Jordan signed.
The male rolled up the parchment in the manner of a scroll and slipped it into a pouch. “Follow my instructions carefully.” He produced a cord of hand-woven hemp and a long thorn of dark wood. “Tie one end of the rope to her wrist. Tie the other end to yours. Prick her finger and drip three drops of blood along the leash. Do the same with your own blood. Then recite aloud, ‘You are mine.’”
“Is all that really necessary?” Jordan asked.
“She cannot do as you require until the ritual is fulfilled.”
“I have to be sure it’s what she wants,” Jordan said.
The Outsider glanced at his companion, who at last gave up her silence.
“I undertake this bond of my own will.”
Her voice mimicked Veronique’s. The pitch was high and ethereal, the diction more formal than anything Jordan’s wife would ever have used, but the similarities raised hair on the nape of the widower’s neck.
“Very well,” Jordan replied. “But your word is enough as far as I’m concerned. That and your continuing service.” He recalled stories he had heard of such ceremonies, but in those, the cord had been tied around the woman’s neck, or her waist. In Bangkok or Saudi Arabia or Japan. This was better, but still enough to bother him, no matter how he believed in the integrity of his own motives.
“The bond will help me,” she explained. “I cannot endure this place long without it.”
“It is our way,” the male added.
Ultimately Jordan did as he was asked, proceeding methodically, checking her reaction throughout. To his astonishment, no sooner had he uttered the final words than the cord vanished. He could still feel the loop over his own wrist, snug but not confining, an invisible presence that neither chafed nor tugged nor restricted his movements in any way. Unless he focused his attention, the fingers of his other hand passed right through it.
“The compulsion is upon her,” the male said. “She is yours as long as you will have her. Just as the laws of your people bind you to the terms, the laws of the Sidhe bind her. Let neither of you violate your oaths.”
Jordan considered the signature he had placed upon the contract. An oath? He had faith that he would not abuse a single clause, but it was, after all, just an arrangement of words on paper. What the elf had committed herself to seemed alarmingly complete and inviolate, like nothing extant in human culture.