The story properly begins the night a teenage boy going by the name of Neal Cassidy was crouched for a moment in the dark in in the back alley behind the shop of an old clockmaker by the name of Einar, a leather satchel of watches clutched in his hands. Einar had told Neal to get it and get out. Then, he'd shoved a bottle into Neal's hands. "Get some on you and throw the rest on your trail. It'll stop her. Don't ask, just do it! Go!"
"I'll get the police—"
The old man's eyes turned red—really red, glowing like fires. "No police," he growled. "If you want to live, stay away from them. And don't let her get them. Now, get out!"
And Neal went but he didn't get far before he heard the screams.
That was when he ran. He knew all the back ways and twisting alleys where he'd lived homeless before Einar took him in. Whatever was happening, he didn't worry about losing anyone on his tail.
He didn't think about the bottle.
Not until old Greta stepped out of the shadows.
Greta was a grandmotherly woman, silver hair and pink cheeks with bright, blue eyes. Small and round, she looked like everyone's picture postcard idea of Mrs. Santa Claus. When she gave you her kindly smile, you half-expected a troop of elves to appear and start handing out presents.
But, Neal had seen Einar turn pale when Greta came walking towards the store that night just as Einar was locking up. Maybe it was the other woman walking alongside her. She had business dress suit and that whole air that screamed "lawyer," like a victorious general crushing what was left of her enemies under her high heels.
Neal had known there'd been some kind of ongoing fight between Einar and Greta over the watches—the whole neighborhood knew, the way that pair argued about it. The watches were some sort of inheritance and Greta, Einar's cousin from the old country, figured she deserved a share. Of course, she'd get a lawyer.
Einar hissed something in German. Neal caught "Hexenbeist" and a couple of German swear words he already knew (he'd picked up quite a few of them around the watchmaker). Then, Einar gathered up all the watches and gave them to Neal.
Don't let her get them. Einar had meant Greta, Grandmother Greta who handed out sweets to little kids, even if she did fight like a rabid bulldog. OK, maybe bulldog was the wrong word. Cats and dogs wouldn't come have anything to do with Greta, even when she was smiling kindly at them.
The way she was smiling at Neal now.
"Neal," she said. "I found you. I've been so worried. What happened at Einar's? What have you done?"
He stepped back from her, not sure why the hair on the back of his neck was standing up. An image flashed through his mind of a piper playing a mad tune while boys wearing beast-faced masks danced wildly around him, not seeing the piper for what he was, not feeling it as bits of their souls slipped away.
Don't think about that. Don't remember that. None of that is real.
"Come now, Neal," she said. "Whatever happened, it can't be that bad. Just hand those over, and we'll take care of it."
Neal remembered the first time he'd met Greta. Her cat was stuck up in a tree. Or she'd said it was her cat. Snowball, she'd called her. Neal had climbed up to get the cat down. Snowball put up a good fight, but Neal's foster-dad was a vet. He'd learned a thing or two about handling frightened animals (and maybe that was why he hadn't realized the cat was scared of more than just coming down from the tree. After all, he was used to animals being terrified around Dr. Silverton, especially if you said, "shots").
He'd just gotten down (not easy while clutching a struggling cat) when Einar had shown up out of nowhere, furious at Greta. Neal had been so surprised at the old man suddenly looming over him, he'd lost his grip on the cat, who'd taken off like a shot down the same alley Neal had used to make his escape tonight.
"Oh, no! Flossie!" Greta had called after the cat.
Flossie? Neal thought. What happened to Snowball?
"Get lunch in your own territory," Einar had growled. "And leave the kid out of it." That was the first time he saw Greta and Einar get into one of their fights. He'd crept off while they were in the middle of it, glad by then that they seemed to have forgotten him.
That was the other side of Greta, Neal thought, facing her in the alley. Whatever was going on, she'd been there when the screaming began. She was the one Einar said to keep the satchel away from.
Neal took another step away from her.
"Now, Neal. . . ." Greta said. Her eyes flashed red, just like Einar's. That was the only warning he had before she changed.
Her neatly polished nails turned into claws. Her face—
Boys with patchwork masks of leather and bone danced round a fire.
Hooves thundered through the night as soldiers went to the advancing horde of Ogres.
—changed, a wolf's mask beneath a mane of silver. He saw her fangs as she leaped for him.
Instinct took over. Some part of him knew—knew—he would die if he ran. So, he rushed towards her, shoving the satchel into her chest, putting his weight behind it and keeping it between them. He saw the surprise in her eyes as her fangs bit into empty air, unable to close the space between them. Her claws raked his arms instead of his guts. But, that was just for a moment. Greta was startled that he was fighting back, flailing blindly instead of planning her attack. If she'd been thinking, she would have tried to grab his arms or slice open his wrists, make it impossible for him to fight. Instead, both his hands were free. He held onto the satchel with one, using it as a shield, and smashed the bottle into her face with the other, breaking the glass.
The smell was overwhelming. There was mint and something like a diarrhetic skunk mixed with a hot, searing smell that made his nose and eyes water. Old Greta howled, pawing at her face and trying to wipe it away.
As soon as she let go, Neal stumbled free. Taking a moment to find his balance, he steadied himself. Then, he turned and ran, zigzagging up and down the back ways, trying to lose her in the dark. The smell. A dog—a wolf—a whatever Greta was wouldn't be able to follow him.
He was still shaking when, hours later, he stumbled into the train station just as the sun was coming up and got the satchel into a locker. It would be safe there for now. He had time to clean up in the restroom and "borrow" a jacket to cover the tears in his sleeves. He smelled better but not that much better. People grimaced if they got close to him. He needed to do some serious scrubbing, get more clothes and a plan.
He'd convinced himself (almost convinced himself) he'd imagined what happened in the alley. Old Greta had long nails, always neatly done and perfectly polished. Neal had seen what happened when a girl with a killer manicure (literally) decided to dig into another (also literally) a couple times in high school. No reason an old lady couldn't do the same if she wanted to.
Ogres tear men to pieces with their bare hands. Fairies glow like fireflies and flutter on dragonfly wing but have the faces of women. Scaled faces with lizard eyes and brown nails as sharp and curved as fishhooks look down at boys and call them "Son"—
His mother's voice. "You're not him! Do you hear me? You're Nick. Just Nick. No one else. Don't listen to them, Nicky. Remember who you are. Don't be anyone one else. . . ."
Something inside him crashed down like a brick wall. He was Nick. Just Nick. And Neal was just the name he was using to spend some time on his own and keep away from Aunt Marie and her attempts to ruin his life. Einar always said Greta was crazy. It hadn't even been her cat she'd been trying to get down from the tree.
Einar had hired him to move some boxes a couple days after the cat incident ("Hey, you! Yeah, you, kid. You're pretty good at climbing a tree. Let's see if you can handle this"). A couple days later, he'd hired him to put them back ("What, an old man can't change his mind? Remember this when you're my age and young idiots think they know better than you"). Then, Einar had hired him to help around the store and clean up the place. He gave him a place to sleep in the back room, pointing out the small bathroom and shower before he left ("All the buildings around here used to be houses and flats a hundred years ago. Guy who turned the ground floor into shops was too cheap to change the plumbing, so you might as well use it and stop smelling like you wash in a sewer. I'm dying just being in the same room as you, kid").
Einar was always like that. The first three meals he gave Ni—(Neal, he had to think of himself as Neal)—Neal were because (so he said) those idiots at the deli added onions when he'd told them not to, or (the second time) put on onions when he couldn't stand them, or (the third time) couldn't make a decent sandwich to save their souls. After that, Einar had just thrown in food as part of Neal's pay for working for him ("You're like the canary in the mine, kid. Tell me if you're dying of food poisoning so I can get to the hospital in time").
Neal left the satchel in the locker while he headed out. He didn't dare go back to the store to get his stuff, so he "borrowed" a few more clothes. After a little hesitation, he took the risk and hung out at one of the motels near the station—one of the cheap but fairly safe ones that catered to road weary families—and waited till he saw a father and son get their suitcases into a minivan and drive off (something about seeing them made Neal feel a strange pang, like he'd lost something). He slipped into the room (the lock wasn't even hard), put out the "Do Not Disturb" sign, locked it, and (because it was a lousy lock) propped a chair beneath the doorknob. There was still the window, but that ought to slow down anyone who tried to come after him.
The father and son had left behind the complimentary shampoo and conditioner along with a barely used bar of soap. No razor, not that he'd expected one. Neal didn't really need it yet. Besides, he thought he looked good with stubble. He ran the water hot, scrubbing for all he was worth.
Stop smelling like you wash in the sewer each morning.
He got out and dressed in his new(ish) clothes. As far as he could tell, he only smelled of lemon verbena (that was what it said on the shampoo). He figured, if his nose was still dead from whatever he'd hit Greta with (he'd stopped noticing the stink after a bit), he wouldn't be smelling shampoo. That meant he had the stink scrubbed off. Or that was how he hoped it worked.
OK, Einar had had a crazy thing with the bottle. And, yeah, Neal had gotten scratched pretty bad, but it was the light or something that made him think Greta was—was—things like that didn't happen
Magic is everywhere.
You're Nick. Just Nick. You don't remember anything else. You won't be anything else.
A knife, flashing in the dark. His mother killing him—
Just Nick—Neal—Don't think about anything else. Don't beanything else.
He pocketed the tip the father and son had left for the maid, trying not to feel guilty about it, and headed out. He needed to find out what had happened to Einar. Yeah, he'd heard him scream. But, things always got loud when Greta came over. They'd had a lot of fights over those watches.
Neal thought about his mom and dad, dead five years ago. He thought about Aunt Marie (even if she was a pain) and the Silvertons. He wasn't ready to go back, not yet. But, he couldn't imagine fighting with any of them—not even Aunt Marie—the way Einar and Greta did.
Nick had heard a lot of those fights. Either hiding out in the back room or (worse) trying not to be noticed in the front, it was hard to miss them. Of course, most of it was German. A lot of it was curses. But, there were a few things that slipped out in English.
"They didn't die just so you could get your claws on them!"
Once, after a fight, Greta had finally noticed Neal standing in the corner, pretending not to notice anything. "Such a nice, patient boy, putting up with two old fools," she'd said with her kind smile. "Neal, dear, you should really come over to my place sometime for lunch."
Einar had practically thrown her out of the shop for that, swearing worse than ever.
"Hexenbeist." Einar had said that in the same way he'd sworn at Greta when she invited Neal to lunch. Then, before Neal knew what was happening, the old man was locking the door and dumping a case full of watches into Neal's arms along with the world's worst stink bomb.
A lawyer, Neal thought. And the screaming was just Einar being madder than ever. That's all.
Neal was figuring he would head back to the shop and find out what had happened. Despite the screams, it didn't occur to him that Einar wouldn't be there. This was Einar. There were pit bulls that turned and ran when he was in a mood.
He cut through the front of the motel as he left—it was the quickest way to the front street, where Neal was going, and it would have looked strange to anyone watching if he cut around instead. Not that anyone was watching. Because nothing strange had happened. Einar had another fight with Greta and Neal got caught up in the end of it. So, no one would be looking for the kid Einar had sent running out into the night. That was what he was telling himself when he saw the stack of newspapers the motel kept for guests and (because he didn't believe anything he was telling himself) he spared a glance at the local paper. He saw the headline, "Dead Watchmaker Robbed!" Einar's picture was right under it.
He'd stared at it. Then, grabbed it and read.
Einar was dead. Heart attack, the article said. No sign of foul play.
No signs of a fight. No claw marks. No throats torn out with razor teeth.
But, a collection of valuable watches had been stolen. A homeless man (man? Neal thought, pleased and appalled) Einar had hired for odd jobs around the place was suspected with having made off with them.
"Einar was too trusting," a neighbor woman, who identified herself only as Greta, said. "He couldn't even remember to lock his display cases. It was like was asking to be robbed."
A part of Neal managed to appreciate that touch. Right, no reason to wonder why the cases hadn't been forced open or smashed. No reason to wonder why a thief would put the keys back in Einar's pocket. Einar just forgot to lock them. All the time. Even the little, old ladies knew that. That was the story Greta was telling. The homeless kid came in, saw Einar dead, maybe even tried to help him. Then, the kid thought, hey, every cloud has a silver lining, right? And why shouldn't this silver lining be his? It wasn't like Einar needed the watches anymore.
Still not believing it, Neal went back to the station, knowing he had to get out. The plan was simple, get the watches, get on a train (a crowded one where a kid without a ticket could slip through), and run. He'd only just stepped into the station when he saw the two cops standing right by the lockers. He recognized one of them as a friend of Greta's. He'd seen her chatting with him once or twice, talking about how loud and difficult children were these days. The cop had laughed in what Neal thought was a funny way. "Well, after you're caught them, they don't come around again, do they?" he said.
Even then, Neal thought it was creepy the way Greta laughed.
For a moment, Neal could swear he saw the cops eyes glow red.
He turned around and left.
A couple blocks later, he found a car with the door left unlocked and hotwired it. He drove north till he was almost out of gas, found a good place to dump it, and walked a couple miles to the next town where (after he'd "found" enough money) he bought a ticket going to Phoenix but got on the train going to Chicago. He got off after only three stops and found a yellow Volkswagen that looked like it could use a new home.
He drove till he hit Portland. He stopped when he was too tired to keep his eyes open any longer. Or maybe it was just that he still wasn't sure what he would say when he saw Aunt Marie again (if she was even there) or to the Silvertons (if she wasn't).
He got woken up by the sound of the engine starting up, a blond girl about his own age was in the driver's seat, stealing his car.
Neal didn't go home that day.