Jacqueline Salem had reached thirty-two years without missing any significant milestones by much. She both walked and read early -- her mother insisted she was from her birth trying to find a way to get anywhere else -- though her potty training was a little delayed. First kiss at fourteen with the rest at reasonable increments from fifteen or seventeen. B student through high school, 3.75 average in college, a solid 4.0 in graduate school, where she studied prelaw until she decided that she wouldn't care to be the one to help condemn the innocent or free the guilty.
She was not sure where being a child of a god was supposed to fit in all of this. It was early for a midlife crisis.
"Was my mom, like, Isis or anything?"
"No. She was human."
"I would have been pissed off if she had kept that from me," said Jacqueline. In the absence of steadiness in their lives, Jacqueline and her mother had held back little from one another. "Did she know? About my father?"
"I doubt he would have told her. Few react well to the knowledge that the supernatural can be as concrete as the person beside you in bed."
Jacqueline should have been more shocked by the substance of what Wick said, but, ringing in her double helices, this sounded right. It wasn't logical or sensible, true, but she found it feasible enough.
"You said that they were business associates, right? Our father? So, is your dad--?"
"Anansi."
"Huh. So, we are going all-in on the various mythologies?" She scratched the back of her neck in thought. Her former college had drilled mythology into its students as a matter of course; it was not far below her everyday thinking. "Trickster spider god," she recalled. "That must not be a great upbringing."
"He did not raise me."
She opened her second beer. Only tea after this, she swore, but she was not ready to let sobriety ruin the utter nonsense of this conversation. "Seems like gods are the 'love 'em and leave 'em' types."
"So I have heard."
Wick had barely touched his second beer, though Jacqueline had taken the liberty of opening it, all but obligating him to finish it so that it did not go to waste, no matter how notionally it contained blueberries.
"You are handling all this well," he said, the implication being that she should not be, and he was nonplussed that her doubt was not as vast as he thought reasonable. Had he broached the topic with many? He looked to be in his forties, maybe. At a certain point in adulthood, one loses the distinction of years. One is either a child (baby-faced) or an ancient (wrinkled). The only proper age was the one she currently possessed, with allowable bleed on each edge.
"It may not be much evidence to go on, but Houdini's dancing is providing promising suggestions that you may not be full of shit." She put her finger on the top of the bug's head. Not petting it, precisely, but acknowledging it. "Oh, speaking of, should we be feeding--?"
Wick lowered his gaze to the insect. "It is sacred. It no longer needs to eat base matter."
What could be baser than a scarab's usual diet? "Same with the others?"
"I assume," said Wick in a fashion suggesting that he would never have to do that when it came to this world.
"How does one mourn a god? I imagine it is a more involved process than going to a funeral home and sitting through the yammering of a priest who never met the deceased." This had been Jacqueline's biggest complaint about funerals, her mother's in particular. Though her mother was an indifferent Catholic, the gall of some stranger in a cassock regurgitated liturgy, parsing out warmed-over homilies and implicitly condemning a woman he had never met to the fires of Hell infuriated Jacqueline. He got his fee, whether it went to the church or into his pocket, and frankly could not be bothered to care for a loss he had seen a thousand times before.
"It may be more involved," Wick granted. He didn't know this. That much was plain. It seemed borderline rude that he would approach her with this without having all the facts at hand. Though, she conceded, time did seem to be in short supply when a god was dying. She could be generous in forgiving a lacuna or two. How often, after all, could one expect a god to die, to say nothing of a god to whom one was so closely related?
Jacqueline had no specific theological bend, though, having grown up in America, she had attended a few less than her share of Christmas Eve services. She had only a little against organized religion, and then it was more the "organized" than "religion" that had ruffled her feather.
"You do believe your father is Anubis," Wick said dubiously, as though she had been the one to introduce the topic, and he thereby had reservation about her mental sanctity.
"You've said so. I suspect I don't believe it as such, but you seem so confident about it. I am invested enough to see where this goes." She gave her bottle a slow sip, the bubbles flitting about her tongue in an organic way, too reminiscent of Houdini and its buddies in the living room. "Kids without dads are supposed to make up these stories about them, right? Why they are missing? 'Oh, my dad is a secret agent; that's why he left.' You know? As a kid, I never imagined or lied about what my father was up to. He was gone. I always had enough to eat. I suffered no privations. My mother was loving. I didn't end up on the stripper pole because I lacked male approval -- anyway, that cliche is too misogynistic and rude to sex workers. I didn't miss having a father, in the end." Jacqueline released her grip on the neck of the bottle, her hand damp from condensation. "Do we need me to have missed him? For your 'more involved' ritual?"
"No," Wick granted, though Jacqueline's confidence in his certainty about this all had begun its wane.
"Good, or you would have wasted the trip from-- Where are you coming from?"
"Red Hook."
"Brooklyn or upstate?" New York had both, for the same reason, depending on whether people could agree on what that might be. A popular one involved the color of autumn leaves, which Jacqueline did find pretty, so it was her preferred myth.
"Forty minutes away."
"No shit? I went to school there, at Annandale," she said. "I guess I didn't go far."
"Yes," Wick said as though patiently acknowledging her recitation of some obvious fact.
"Small world," she said because it was the sort of thing one said, a sigh escaping, gaze loose in the middle distance.
"It is imperative for our journey that you rid yourself of these incantations."
Jacqueline made a small, high sound in the back of her throat, feeling chastised in a way that made not a lick of sense to her. "Pretty sure I skipped the class on incantations, actually, but I'm going to guess that 'small world' isn't one. Although, having been to Disneyworld-"
"Our speech is littered with these phrases of doubt, seeking to nullify the miraculous truth. As the begotten daughter of a god--"
"Whoa there, buddy. I'm nullifying the miraculous truth that you hale from a college town?"
"Annandale University is a source of sacred energy. Your attending is no coincidence."
"I received a scholarship because I was the child of a single parent. It was just enough that I stand a good chance of paying off my loan before I'm the one in the casket."
At this word, Wick turned -- what was it? Pensive? He hadn't known her father and, it seemed, has conflicts with his own; it would not be mourning that he expressed with pursed lips and wider eyes.
"If that was not the polite term here, I guess I'm sorry. I'm not, I mean, but I'll apologize for being tacky."
Wick sat back a little, studying her, but not intently. She was an elective, Geology 101: Rocks for Jocks, but not his core curriculum. "You need not apologize for mentioning the paraphernalia of the dead. It is unavoidable in these circumstances."
"So, when is the funeral?"
"He's not dead."
And she was not intoxicated enough to revisit the quibbling. "When do I have to get where I have to go?"
"We have some miles to go."
"To where?"
"We will know when we arrive," said the man, darker of expression than complexion.
"Do we have a direction?"
Wick's eyes flicked to the table and back. "Northwest."
Jacqueline peered down, bemused by the conclusion. She did not have that extra sense that allowed some always to know the cardinal directions. She remembered from wilderness training as a girl a hazy factoid about moss on the north face of trees, but she could not know if that were any truer than campfire gossip. She felt momentarily incapable of recalling where the sunlight hit her house every morning, despite having lived two-thirds of her life, only that it was not her bedroom window. Still, she would stake what remained of her inheritance that Houdini's juddering dance pointed due northwest.
"So that we are clear, we are taking directions from a beetle?"
"A scarab knit to your father's essence, one who wishes to return."
"If I were a god," Jacqueline replied, "I believe I would knit something cuter to my essence."
Houdini's wiggle changed tempo in what Jacqueline decided with no other evidence was offense. She replaced her finger on its head, which soothed the insect. Jacqueline had never been much of a pet owner, at best feeding strays who dithered around her apartment. Perhaps a beetle was not the worst thing to adopt.
"How long do scarabs live?" Jacqueline asked, barely rotating her finger on its pronotum. "If you know. Are you an entomologist?"
"I would not get attached."
Jacqueline removed her finger, wondering if the brevity of its life made her like Houdini more or less.
Jacqueline did not see a reason to postpone her northwest passage. It was Friday, early still for some, and she did not feel procrastination helped these things.
Wick did not agree or, it seemed, Houdini did not, and Wick was only too happy to take his marching orders from something with six legs.
"Then I suppose I will see you in the morning?"
Jacqueline said, already on her feet and steady enough to escort him to the door.
"No," he said so matter-of-factly that it implied that it would be foolish for him to brook any dissent.
"No, I won't see you in the morning?"
He did not even have to wrinkle his brow to correct her. Oh, this should be good.
"Why would I go to a second location with you yet?"
The "yet," she decided at once, was both too generous and tardy. She agreed to join Wick on this nebulous errand, but even a significant road trip could be made in a day. Adding this night in, a time before action, made her feel as though she tempted fate.
"Not a second location."
"You live not forty minutes away," she protested. "Why would you crash here?"
From his side, he pulled a smooth black cane that she could not recall having seen when she had allowed him to enter -- though maybe Jacqueline would not have been so gracious had she. She could remember no limp that would have justified it. Wick pushed his thumb up the shaft, a barely audible click issuing when he met its head. The sound of metal against sheath seemed comically loud in the kitchen. The light of the soft, energy-efficient bulbs gleamed off the razor edge, thin and potent as a filleting knife. She estimated how much metal a cane could conceal and keep its integrity. She did not know swords, having no reason to as a modern woman, but she could not imagine anything contained in a cane could hold up to much hacking or slashing. Enough to kill her, no doubt, but this thought was more hypothetical than a practical concern. Slipping on the floor could kill her, she well knew.
"I should not take that as a threat?"
"It is not one," Wick stated, but he did not retract his blade. "I am not leaving your side until this deed is done."
Hardly a declaration of chivalry. "So, you are playing knight errant? Don Quixote to Aldonza Lorenzo?"
"Dulcinea del Toboso," he corrected but for the first time looked at Jacqueline with softness. Not affection but appreciating the nuances of a woman who, to this point, had offered him two beers, asked questions without satisfaction, and who had tried to flush a sacred scarab because it would not be forthcoming. She estimated that he liked her better because she had managed to read a book in her life, which was a miserably small reason to like anyone.
"Aldonza," she corrected back. "Dulcinea was what Quixote called her in his delusion -- a fictional and perfected woman placed over a resistant and flawed one. It was not her name any more than Dolores Haze was Lolita."
Houdini scuttled between them as they conversed, settling finally before Jacqueline.
Wick allowed his sword to retreat. "I am no Don Quixote, but I will protect you on our task."
"Who would want to stop me from meeting my bio-dad again just before he kicks it?" she asked. "I'm not up on my mythology, I'll grant you, but I don't recollect Anubis landing on too many shit lists. Yes, he measures your heart against a feather after you die, but he didn't kill you, and it's nothing personal, right?"
"It is best that we do not explore this in-depth yet. To know them is to encourage them."
The answer was evasive, but it was also true to him. Jacqueline would let him have it for now, but not totally. "Whoever they are would be stopped by a flimsy sword in your cane?"
"No," he said. "They would not."
She would have time enough to probe this but admitting this had covered him in a veil of melancholy that she found more curious than the answer she was not getting.
"If you need," Wick said, "I will wait in my car."
"Until morning?"
"If I must," said Wick. "I would prefer otherwise, but I am no stranger to it."
She had not entertained overnight in a while, at least since moving in again and nominally making her mother's house her own, though she had needlessly snuck a few boyfriends in through her bedroom window as a teenager. (That window, she remembered at once, had faced the morning sun enough. Her bedroom, once her mother's, must face southwest then.)
"You live not an hour away," she reiterated. "I have driven farther for Mexican food."
"I will wait in my car. We leave near dawn."
She clicked her tongue against her teeth, her head shaking. How ridiculous that would seem to anyone passing by a man sleeping outside her door. The neighbors would call the police likely, and that was a more challenging narrative to spin. "You can stay here," she granted, "but don't be creepy. I'm only allowing this because Houdini seems to be on board with the plan. Otherwise, I would not even allow you in my driveway."
Wick gave a single, grateful nod.
"Do you have -- I don't know -- pajamas or toiletries?"
"I will not need them."
She cocked her eyebrow, skeptical. "The guestroom still has relatively masculine energy and is ensuite. Stay away from my bedroom -- I don't think that needs saying with you, necessarily, but I'll say it anyway. Anything else?" The question was not for Wick; he almost at once did not assume otherwise. "Near dawn?"
Wick did try to answer this. "We have some distance to travel--"
She taped Houdini lightly on its wings. "Oh, Magic Eight Bug, near dawn?"
It bobbed its body in the affirmative.
Over his mild protests, she showed Wick to the guestroom. It had belonged to Michio, one of the longest of her mother's boyfriends and the one Jacqueline had most thought of as family. It was a guest room, then his workshop where he repaired old watches as a hobby, then his bedroom when his relationship with Jacqueline's mother approached its end. Now, fifteen years later, only a guest room.
Wick again affirmed that he would have at most asked to sit in the living room, citing the four books he had in the car as more than enough. The idea of him there, while she slept, gave her the willies. If he were spending the night, he would do it close to a bed so that Jacqueline could assume that he also slept.
She scooped Houdini to return him to his cage with the others. She made it as far as sticking her hand within before she had a pang on conscience. Didn't Houdini deserve more after the last few hours? But, if he did, wasn't she playing favorites?
He was not her favorite, but she especially did not want him out of her sight if they intended to rely on him for their travel.
Jacqueline went back to the kitchen, rooting under the sink until she unearthed the smallest Tupperware container she had, which she filled with cotton balls. She gently placed Houdini in it, waiting a few seconds to see if the cotton would get stuck in its legs. She carried this container back to her bedroom, where she placed it on her dresser under an old bandana.
Jacqueline retired to her bed, only spending a few minutes before sleep found her contemplating if she had lost her damned mind.
Thomm Quackenbush is an author and teacher in the Hudson Valley. He has published four novels in his Night's Dream series (We Shadows, Danse Macabre, Artificial Gods, and Flies to Wanton Boys). He has sold jewelry in Victorian England, confused children as a mad scientist, filed away more books than anyone has ever read, and tried to inspire the learning disabled, gifted, and adjudicated. He can cross one eye, raise one eyebrow, and once accidentally groped a ghost. When not writing, he can be found biking, hiking the Adirondacks, grazing on snacks at art openings, and keeping a straight face when listening to people tell him they are in touch with 164 species of interstellar beings.