Chapter 10 - Tales of Twilight and Shadows

Chapter 10 - Tales of Twilight and Shadows
:.And so Orion was come, before the sun had set, to that strip of land from which all men turned away, where westward stood men's houses...and eastward the Elfin Mountains shone over the boundary of twilight.
  He went with his hounds along the last hedge down to the boundary. And no sooner had he come there than he saw a fox quite close, slip out of the Twilight between earth and Elfland, and run a few yards along the edge of our fields, and then slip back in again. And of this Orion thought nothing, for it is the way of the fox thus, to hunt the edge of Elfland and to return again to our fields: it is thus that he brings us something of which none of our cities guess.:
--Lord Dunsany
--King of Elfland's Daughter
                 
                      . . . .
Daryl saw Aleister to his room, (i.e: he opened the correct door and pointing Al in the general direction of his bed, gave him a push forward, and shut the door behind), and had just repaired to his own, when a soft knock was heard upon his door.
'Mister Yeats!' Daryl was surprised, finding Yeats at his door at this hour, still bright-eyed and bushy-browed.
Yeats put a finger to his lips in silence.
'May we have a word together, in the library, perhaps?'
--the ever-enigmatic Yeats proposed.
'Of...course...' Daryl ran a hand though his hair, Jack-like, and closed his door, gesturing Yeats before him, and wondered what the devil was up now, and hoped that whatever it was, it wasn't wicked Uncle Daryl's fault, for a change.
Silently they headed down the hallway and stairs, until they came to a dark oaken door which Yeats opened and held for Daryl. Daryl hadn't been within his old library in quite some time...it wasn't like his study at Nob Hill House, this was more in keeping with the dark wood, old world style of the Massachusetts place.
A round room: books lined the walls all about them, with ladders here and there, attached to the bar encircling the shelves; a second level above covered half the room.
 Dark wood panelling peeked through space not taken by the many  esoteric and various volumes, mostly hardcover and bound in old soft leather. Daryl had spent many happy hours lounging, working at the British Museum's Reading Room, joining the esteemed throng: Mark Twain, Karl Marx, Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, all numbered among his fellow seekers therein. Daryl had attempted to replicate the feel here at his former home.
'Haven't been here in awhile!' Daryl headed up the wooden spiral staircase to the second level. 'I say...there's someone who sleeps here now?' Daryl spied a day-bed at the loft end, covered in a dark tapestry depicting a woodland scene, surrounded by many large pillows in complementary tapestried cloth.
Yeats cleared his throat, having followed Daryl upstairs.
'I, sometimes take my ease here, after a long evening of study...' and indeed, Yeats did seat himself upon the bed-cum-couch, and kicked round a leather armchair nearby for Daryl.
'Do you, now...?' Daryl studied an old volume of Shakespeare, and returned it to it's place in the 800's. He liked to stick with the old Dewey system once popular in public libraries, back when such places existed. 'Well, I can think of no other I'd rather have living in my library.' He took a seat in the old red leather armchair.
'So, to what do I owe the honor of this importunity?'
Yeats, surprisingly, chuckled, lifting his long legs up upon the bed. 'Ah, Daryl; one could hardly accuse me of
having had similar assignations with you. You're a tough fox to run to ground.'
Daryl shot him a hard fast look, then blanked his features and took a seat. Yeats bent round behind him where an old roll-top oak desk sat and opened a lower drawer, taking from it a bottle of cognac and two snifters. He poured without asking, and handed a glass to Daryl.
'To...truth!' spake Yeats, lifting his glass.
'"In vino veritas?"' quoth Daryl, who saluted Yeats  nonetheless, and sipped. 'Ah, such a rare commodity, nowadays...'
'Indeed...' Yeats said nothing more for some time, simply stared out across the library floor below, darkened now but for a few wall sconces shining dimly behind frosted amber shades. Sighing, at last he regarded Daryl, 'I have just spoken with Thelene. I found her coming back from this last meeting of the High Council.'
Daryl looked impressed. Although he had suspected there was rather more to old Yeats than most surmised, he did not know for certain how far that recondite gentleman's
influence did reach. He now knew it to be fairly astronomical indeed. 'I...see,' he said, wondering if he did.
'Do you!?' Yeats challenged, leaning forward, brows bristling. He sipped his own brandy, and sighed. 'I rather doubt it,' he continued softly, 'I'm not certain I do. I wonder if there is anyone who does.'
Daryl frowned, his mind spinning with conjecture of what all this might mean...so, Jack's Order had dealings with the High Council, did they? Daryl wondered if they were in cahoots with the League as well...? And all that might imply...
'We were close once, Thelene and I...' Yeats sipped and leaned back into his pillows propped against the wall.
'She still assumes we are. But, after tonight, I wonder if I ever really knew her...'
Daryl wondered where all this was going. And why bring him into it? Surely some method lurked behind Yeats' mad revelations?
'...which is why I come to you now.' Yeats regarded Daryl at last, bearing down with full force of his formidable brows, 'I think you may be able to supply some answers which Thelene only skated about in reply.'
'I?' Daryl set his glass down, 'I am hardly a player in all this...you should be asking John, or Dr. Stein.'
'Ha!' Yeats barked, 'even harder to track down. For that, I'm glad, though, for Stein's sake. No...I think for finding the answers I seek, you will do fine, Daryl.' He paused, twirling his snifter in hand, 'I believe that the League has begun to move again; despite warnings from the Council.'
'Ah. And to what purpose?' Daryl figured the League would be involved in whatever troubled Yeats so.
'What other purpose have they? The same as they always had: infringing upon the rights of others, and forcing their own agendas upon those who, being ignorant of them and their machinations, cannot defend themselves against their juggernaut!'
Daryl stayed quiet, feeling himself suddenly back in Mexico and la Revolucion...both sides would accuse the other of the same atrocities, committed for the same reasons. And so it goes, in every battle, apparently. And, as below, so above?
'Ah. The wars in heaven...' Daryl remarked quietly. "'For who guards the guardians?"' he quoted.
'The wars in heaven are played out here on earth!' Yeats drank off his brandy. 'I, for one, am heartily weary of them,' he ran a hand through his forelock, 'and weary of being a pawn in their game...'
Daryl was beginning to glimpse what lay behind Yeats' query. 'Ah. And Thelene...disagrees with the High Council's position.'
'She won't admit it. No. As if she believes that she can still sit and not be revealed? Surely she is being watched!' He slowly shook his head with it's mane of white hair, 'and when they catch her, as I did, plotting with Axelis...it will not go well with her.'
No, it would not, agreed Daryl, wondering just what Yeats sought from him. If Thelene could not escape her judges, what could Daryl possibly do? His 'Disappearing Woman' stage act, was just that: an act.
'No, but look you, Yeats...what can I possibly do? Thelene herself has far more options than I... I have never had congress with the High Council.'
Yeats lifted an eyebrow, a mighty feat; 'No. But you have had dealings with the League.'
                         . . . .
'Tired?' Jack asked Emlyn, as they sat together on the parlor sofa, watching the fire die away.
On Jack's birthday? Even though she would have liked nothing better than to slip beneath fresh cool sheets and shut her eyes for the night at last, she knew why she had agreed to be here. 'No, not truly. You?'
'A bit,' Jack admitted, smiling, 'but I don't mind just sitting here awhile...' he lay back against the sofa pillows and motioned for Em to put her head upon his shoulder. 'Thank you for a very fine birthday.'
'Not too much of a surprise for you? I wasn't sure how Daryl's being here would go over...' Em snuggled against him, 'but, he is a good cook!'
Jack chuckled softly, '...Yes, I'll give him that.' He lay his head beside hers, staring up at the ceiling, so dark now as to disappear into shadows. 'Nooo...I guess it's time for hatchets to be buried. Although...' he looked at Em, 'it does rather gall me still to know you and he are living together...'
Em sat up. 'Jack! You know it isn't like that! I'm not living with anyone! I rarely see Daryl at all.' (Not quite true, she thought. He'd been there at least every other week of late.)'I could say I'm living with Rosa and Manuel, perhaps, in Daryl's house.'
'Ah, Manuel, is it now?' Jack teased her.
Em punched his shoulder playfully. 'You know it isn't like that either. Honestly!' she huffed, lying back on her pillow once more. 'Daryl is a law unto himself and comes and goes, and whitherto, no one knows...it quite undoes me
whenever he decides to just pop in! I try not to show it...' Em bit her lip again, 'It's only this, really: I like living there because I'm mostly on my own, you see...'
'Yes, I figured as much...can't help but kid you a little ...' Jack admitted. He took his new birthday watch from his pocket and opened it. 'I think you would tell me if you were seeing someone...'
Em blinked, thinking: am I?--seeing someone? Well, just once, I happened upon someone, and now, I rather was, just, considering, seeing them again, perhaps...and, besides...
'Oh? And what about you and Sugar?'
Jack closed the watch. 'Ah. Eh, well, Em...if you'll recall...you had just left me, you know...and you know how much I did not want you to go.' He frowned, wondering how Em knew...Sugar might have said something, thinking that, as Jack had surmised then, it had been all over between he and Em.
Em sighed and pretended to sulk somewhat. Then: '...I suppose it's a good night to, just let things be...' she
glanced up at Jack, who nodded once.
...Altogether too agreeable, our Em, thought Jack.
He was distracted by her finger tracing along his lip line...what was she saying...?
'It's true I do miss you, Jack. But you know, I have to be on my own now, as much as possible, at least!' She paused a moment, recollecting, 'But, you know I went back to Crowley Place, and when I found everyone, and everything gone, well, it gave me quite a turn. I felt rather forlorn, thinking you so far away then...'
'You did? When?' Jack toyed with her braid, 'And how did you get inside the fence?'
Everyone's so interested in how I got over the bloody fence! Em thought that rather beside the point. 'I climbed the tree around back, and voila! I was over! I do still have the keys...that's alright, isn't it?'
'Of course, Em! I...I'm sorry I didn't let you know we were off.  There wasn't time...and then, we've been so busy... I didn't think you would be wanting to return to Pankhurst so soon after you decided to stay in the City...' What else could I have done? thought Jack: beg her not to go--again?
'I know, I was just, so surprised...'Em recalled that bereft feeling all too well. 'Anyway,' she brightened, 'you will come back for the show won't you?'
'Show? What show?'
'Oh, Jack, remember? The amphitheatre!' Hadn't they discussed this over dinner? 'Homer wants to have a Harvest Moon Music Festival at the equinox! And, can you guess? Rob Williams is going to headline!'
Jack leaned up on one elbow, regarding Em, 'Truly? That's wonderful...of course, we'll be there!' It would be good to see the amphitheatre, as it was his own idea. And the old gang as well--Woody, Jethro, Homer of course, and ah, Sugar... 'Em...did you ever hear from the Guevara's? Or Marco?'
Em closed her eyes, shaking her head, 'No, I haven't. Oh, Jack...it hasn't been easy for me, either, you know! I don't know what's become of them, or Esperanza or Carlos, or Josephina...!' She looked up at him, '...and you must know how I miss Alice!'
'...as does Aleister you know! We all miss her.' He slunk back down upon the sofa and lay his head on the pillow beside Em.
'It's not all that easy for me, living with Daryl, as you call it!' Em spoke in low, whispering half-growl, 'I was kidnapped by your uncle, you kow! And I had so loved it there, back in la Villa Encantada. And I had Carlos for a mentor! And, Esperanza! So much I could have learned from them!'
She was right. Em had nearly as many reasons for disliking Daryl as did he... How does Daryl do it?  Jack sighed...eyeing the grand in the corner and the priceless antiques casually gracing the manse. Ah, a buck,a yen, a mark or a pound...money is coined liberty; Dostoevsky spoke truly. He knew why he and Em, and Madame Yvanna and everyone, forgave his affluent, errant uncle.
 He regarded the vast, heavy mirror above the equally massive mahogany mantlepiece. 'You and Alice went through that mirror?'
'We did.' It was marvellous, thought Em, eyeing the frosted fleur de lis art noveau design about the edges, recalling that unparalleled evening. I wish Alice had left me her locket, she mused...but, it's good to know she has it, and can find her way back here if or when she likes... She probably can't pull herself away from Frank's side, not after losing him for so long. Understandable. It must be an awful sort of limbo, being lost in time...
                       . . . .
'Being lost in time is not an easy thing to manage!' Daryl was up now, pacing along the loft floor; he stopped to pour another cognac. 'And, we hardly had a choice! It was the League who found us that time in Sonora, not the other way 'round!'
'Aye, but Daryl, you came upon the League rather earlier, did you not? And not with Emlyn, either.' Yeats eyed Uncle Daryl as he strode to and fro, apparently most discomfited by the subject at hand.
As well he should be.
Daryl was finally beset by all that he had been desperately trying to ignore of late: the timebursts and what or who was behind them. Once he and Em had escaped the shadow of Popocatepetal, he had shut the door in his mind against all that. It reminded him of too many scars of his youth, which he'd spent a lifetime trying to forget.
He couldn't forgive Yeats for trapping him here, in his own library, and giving him the third degree on his least favorite subject. Daryl began craving his pipe...
  So apparently, his Anara, and Axelis, and now Thelene had all thrown in with the League. And, as he was stuck here in this timeframe and heavy dimension, pinned like a bug to a display case in a science fair, he was somehow considered a likely liaison.
'When I was first, c-contacted, by the League,' Daryl stuttered, wiping the cold sweat from his face, 'I didn't know who or what th-they were...' he drank off his brandy, nearly dropping the glass, his hands were so wet with nervous perspiration, Yeats noted, somewhat surprised. Daryl set down the glass, slowly, deliberately.
'I, I can't recall when it was...I was perhaps in my 20's at the time...'
Yeats was as surprised by Daryl's admission as Daryl had been by Yeats'. Shane had assumed that Daryl had somehow willingly initiated contact with the League by science, art, or magic...it had been Daryl's modus operandi to tread madly where others dare not go.
'No,' Daryl looked hard at Yeats, 'I did not seek that meeting.' He paused a moment, noticed the empty chair as if it were some strange foreign object, then sat, leaning forward, elbows on knees.

'True...I had wondered, about...things...as all young people do, and sought answers for why the world had spun so out of control by then...although it was nothing to what was to come.' Daryl hung his head awhile, then brushed back his wild hair and sat up. 'Well, I found out, in a rather round-about, unlooked-for way.'
'I see...' Yeats began.
'Do you?' Echoed Daryl, deeply sarcastic.
Yeats sighed softly, nodded once, 'I see now, that you were an unwitting party to their plots. I apologize. I had wrongly assumed that you had orchestrated an...entree'.'
'Yeats...' Daryl echoed him, sighing again, '...I could also have thought the same of you, you know. However, I do not presume to question your personal business.'
'Touche',' Yeats conceded. 'However, I think that it would behoove us both to remain in touch, and update one another when possible. Agreed?'
'Agreed.'
'...And,' Yeats continued, 'I believe it a good time perhaps, to enlighten young Jack and Emlyn somewhat. Jack may suspect, but I do not believe Emlyn knows even a sliver of the whole truth about herself. Her legacy.'
Daryl's mouth felt dust dry. He ran a shaky hand through his hair, and wanted nothing more than to escape to his room, a pitcher of icewater, and his trusty pipe. 'Ah...agreed.' He stood then. 'Til tomorrow, then?'
'Yes, Daryl, rather later, tomorrow.' Yeats stood then as well. 'Thank you.'
Daryl looked rather lost then, as though wondering how he had arrived where he was, then nodded to Yeats and took himself off back down the spiral staircase and exited the library.
Yeats had noted the rather wild, too-bright look in Daryl's eyes; he'd seen that look before--upon the face of a man who had just been rescued after being lost at sea for some days. He imagined the old prophets had borne that same look after finding angels upon the path before them and becoming suddenly 'sore afraid...'
He thought then, that perhaps they had had a right to be so.
                         . . . .
'Ah, Em...you know I do enjoy our little recrudescent rendezvous...' Jack attempted to sit up and have a last sip of cognac, '...but, you just break my poor heart over and again, when you go...' he managed to snag the snifter and apply a bit of pre-pain medication.
Em slumped on her side, staring at Jack. 'Then either we are very different, or very much alike, Jack Van Horn.'
Jack added some of his cognac to Em's glass, handed it to her. 'Do tell,' he snaked a sideways smile up his left cheek.
'Well. For one: have you ever thought that you enjoy my company so, simply because I always leave before you have a chance to tire of it? Hmm?' Em touched his nose lightly.
'It's, that's...not altogether true...' Jack couldn't help but keep smiling to himself, knowing that Em's observation was admittedly astute.
'Um-hummm...' ...thought so, Em congratulated herself. 'But, you were saying...about enjoying our time together?'
She began to tug his hair gently and massage his head...
'I...ah, that feels sooo good...' Jack's eyes closed as he leaned his head into the tender ministrations of her magic hands.
'I thought so,' Em knew her Jack.
                           . . . .
What the bloody hell do I know?
Daryl asked of himself as he sat perched in the window seat of his own private hide-out in the attic rooms. It was a small, spare room, the ceiling sloped at an angle.
Daryl had the closet door open to the scent of cedar panelling within. The curtains were open wide and Daryl sat, pipe in hand, with one window cranked open a notch, watching the trees about the property sway with the wild wind.
Daryl exhaled slowly, feeling his headache ease. Looks like dawn soon, he thought with some surprise. How time does fly...he couldn't even laugh at that one anymore.
How would he get through the next day? Disclosure, Yeats
had threatened. Gods this was never easy. He knew he couldn't simply disappear as was his usual wont...no, eventually this day would come again. Get it over with, man, he told himself.
All the same, he reached into his vest pocket and opened a small wooden box, checked his supply; good, enough for tomorrow and then some. Sighing, he pocketed his Dutch courage, (or with opium, would that be English?), and made a mental note that he needed to return to his duties in Mexico post haste. What he needed was something to occupy the present that was utterly antipodal to his past.
He would not find that here, at his old digs.
'" Be not afraid of shadows..."' Daryl comforted himself with Shakespeare, and other things, watching the dawn
slowly outrival the nighttime. One last pipe, then this old fox was decidedly ready for his den...
                            . . . .