Fairy-born and Human-bred

by Katta © 2001

Standard disclaimer

Websites notes: This story brings up the subject of slashing/hurting yourself. The web mistress do not encourage nor support this behaviour, however, with reference to the author's creative freedom this story is posted.

Part 5

The restaurant was long since closed when Jimmy returned to the hotel, and the night porter seemed rather irritated that he couldn’t close as well. Jimmy went to sleep with a gloomy feeling, wishing he could have had a more enjoyable dinner than bread and cheese in the Marshal’s company.

The morning after he felt nearly ashamed to come knocking on Lena’s door, even though none of this was his fault. He wanted to make sure to catch her before she left, in case she was very angry with him.

Her voice sounded of a good night’s sleep and a cheerful mind as she shouted, ”Who is it?”

”It’s Jimmy.”

”Oh, come on in! I’m not quite finished yet, but the door isn’t locked.”

Jimmy hesitated only a second before he turned the doorknob. He wasn’t sure what Lena meant with ”not quite finished”. Considering his suspicions, she was remarkably decent, showing little more than her shoulders.

”I’m so glad you came,” she said, sitting in front of a dressing table. ”Could you give me a hand with the corset?”

”Sure.” It certainly wasn’t the first time he had done *that*. It made him wonder why women even bothered to wear the idiotic things.

”I usually manage it myself,” Lena explained and held up her bandaged arms, ”but I don’t want to risk popping a stitch.”

”Of course not,” Jimmy said, looking down at the hooks to avoid meeting her eyes in the mirror. He pulled the strings, and she moaned in protest.

”What am I, a society lady? Give me some room to breathe!”

”Yeah.” He loosened them again, and saw some black spot on her shoulder. ”I’m sorry about yesterday.” The spot didn’t go away when he brushed it.

”Oh, I don’t mind, I had dinner...” She turned her head to look at his hand. ”What on earth are you doing?”

”What’s that on your shoulder?”

”Oh, that. It’s the first bar of Beethoven’s fifth.” She noticed his puzzled glance and added, ”A tattoo.”

”A *what*?”

”My grandfather is a captain, remember? I coaxed one of his sailors into doing it. I have another one too, lower down, of his ship.”

”You’re kidding.”

”No.” And it was obvious she wasn’t, in spite of the smile on her face. And of course, tattoos hidden under fancy clothes was just like the lowdown things she would say in that well-polished accent. ”Anyway, as I was saying, I had dinner with Olivia Gerard last night, and I suspect we had more fun than you did, so there’s no need to apologize.”

”Who is Olivia?”

”She plays Desdemona. Wonderful actress, one of those red-headed beauties with a terrible accent and vocabulary -- and that’s what makes it so *interesting*, really. I mean, Desdemona is such a very sweet and innocent girl, almost a saint, but if she doesn’t *seem* it, Othello’s reaction is much more believable.”

”I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jimmy said, watching as she finished with her dress and earrings before pulling on a pair of gloves. ”Why did you bring a strange actress to dinner?”

”Otherwise I would have had to eat alone,” she pointed out, tying her shoelaces.

”But you didn’t know that.”

”I’m a reporter. My hours are very irregular, and most people I know have irregular hours as well. I always make sure I don’t have to be alone unless I want to. And somehow I still manage to find myself in private with a handsome young man from time to time.” She grinned at him and stood up, ready to go.

”So you just...” alright, that made sense. ”You know, I never think of you as a reporter.”

”Why, thank you!” she said, pretending to be flattered even though he could see the glint of steel in her eyes. She was a lot more protective of her identity as a working woman than Sandy was.

”I meant... you don’t lie on people.”

”You have to be a very poor reporter,” she said, stopping in her tracks, ”to not find enough in the truth to upset a whole world.” Smiling at her own melodramatics, she continued, ”I’m going down to the theatre. Do you care to come?”

”Sure,” he said, even though he didn’t know whether he actually did. He was far too fond of reality to care much for the theatre, and following a girl to work wasn’t his usual pastime either. On the other hand, he did have a few hours before Thackeray expected him, and it would be a shame not to use them.

Her childish grin made him happy he had said yes, and he followed her down the stairs, his hand in hers.

”You will love them,” she assured him, dragging him into a high building a few blocks away.

”Is this a theatre?” he asked, as they stepped in. The first thing he saw in there was a huge black man in peculiar clothes hanging up a mirror.

The man turned around and smiled, which caused a stunning contrast to his dark face. It was actually so dark it was hard to see his features, and as handsome as an ancient statue, if such had been made in ebony. ”It’s an old hospital. We’re using it for rehearsal.”

”This is Tom Ramsey, the leading man,” Lena said. ”Tom, this is Jimmy Hickok.”

”Nice to meet you,” Tom said, stepping back from the mirror. ”Damn thing fell down,” he explained with an apologetic smile.

”What did you do, run into it head first?” Lena asked, letting her eyes go up to Tom’s head, a foot above her own.

Tom smiled, but didn’t answer this. Instead, he asked, ”Have you had breakfast? They’re up on the third floor eating now.”

”No, I haven’t”, Jimmy said at the same time as Lena said:

”Yes, I have.”

They stared at each other for a second, and then Lena shrugged and started up the stairs, waving goodbye to Tom. Jimmy followed her, until she stopped on the third staircase and started scribbling in her notebook. Leaning over her shoulder, he saw that she wrote down the inscription above the door. She smiled at him.

”Hic est locus ubi mors gaudeat succurrere vitae,” she read aloud.

”What does that mean?”

”This is the place where death is happy to serve life. I’ve seen it before. Anatomy studies.”

”Great,” Jimmy said gloomily. Nothing was as good for your appetite as thinking of doctors carving up bodies. ”Are you going to include that in your article?”

”Depends on how much space I get,” she explained, sitting down on the railing. Well, if she had already eaten breakfast, she had no reason to hurry. He was the one with an empty stomach and a job across town, and still he didn’t mind staying here just hanging around. ”If there’s polite clapping, I get five lines. If the play is a success, I get ten. If people are upset and there’s a riot, I may get half a page, but I won’t get a full page unless someone is killed.”

Just as he thought nothing she said could shock him. ”Killed?”

”Death is always news.”

”So you’re saying that the best thing that could happen would be if someone strung that Ramsey man up a tree?” He hardly ever got upset at things she said, but now he couldn’t help himself.

”No, he’s male, and black. Olivia would be much better.” She had to tease him a little, but grinned when she saw his expression. ”Supposing that I *want* a full page, which I don’t, particularly.”

She slid down from the railing and walked up the past few steps into the old anatomy room, now the place for breakfast. The room was full of people, most of them wearing clothes as spectacular as Tom’s, and although they were all eating, it was nothing like breakfast in the bunkhouse. For one thing, very few people were actually seated. Some were standing up or walking, some crouched or lying on the floor, and one girl was slowly spinning around on the floor, chewing on a sandwich while another woman fixed her red curls into a crown.

The girl spotted Lena and waved amiably. ”Well, Miss Andersson, it seems we’re not done with you yet!”

”Of course not,” Lena replied, introducing the girl to Jimmy. ”Jimmy, this is Olivia Gerard, the leading lady, and Anne Levy, playing Emilia, and also, as it happens, married to the director. Olivia, Anne, this is Jimmy Hickok, my travel companion for the time being.”

”Charmed,” Olivia said, reaching out a hand in the middle of a spin. Jimmy shook it. Even that word revealed a broad accent, and Jimmy started to understand why Lena, with her well.articulated speech pattern, was so fascinated by Olivia.

”Nice to meet you. Did you know that Lena wants you killed?”

Olivia widened her already big eyes and looked with interest at Lena, and Anne stopped her busy fingers in the middle of a little braid.

”I simply said that if you did get killed, I would get a full page in the newspaper for the story,” Lena explained. ”As I also tried to tell him, though he is so thick-headed it doesn’t seem to have gotten through, I don’t particularly want a full page.”

Olivia looked thoughtful, and Anne commented, ”But we need a Desdemona. It would be better if someone tried to kill her and didn’t succeed.” She looked at Jimmy with interest. ”Can you shoot well enough to miss on purpose?”

There was an outburst of laughter from Olivia. ”Oh, that’d be swell! I could pass out on stage, and it’d be a big ruckus!”

”Ladies!” chided Lena. ”May I remind you that this is forgery of news, which is something best done when no honest reporter can hear you!?”

”Who’s honest?” Anne asked, and Olivia started laughing again.

The women were still busy with Olivia’s hair, but Lena and Jimmy grabbed a few sandwiches and sat down in a corner, relatively undisturbed. Jimmy was still shocked by the revelation that the actors were just as flip about possible trouble as Lena was, and he shook his head as a response to her wide grin.

”You know, if they wanted a safe bet, they wouldn’t play ’Othello’,” she reminded him. ”There are plenty of guaranteed successes written that wouldn’t stir up any trouble. They could play ’The Merchant of Venice’, and who would object, apart from a few Jewish moneylenders?”

”You?” he suggested, because she had sounded that way.

”Well, maybe not object,” she replied. ”I might point out a few mistakes. After all, I was engaged to one.”

”A Jewish moneylender?” he asked, surprised. He wouldn’t have expected her to ever have been engaged, much less to someone as relatively stable as a moneylender.

”A banker,” she corrected him. ”Asher Goldstein, his cousins work at the paper. Well, David works, Miriam is mainly playing hopscotch in her brother’s office.” Judging from her tone of voice, she didn’t care much for Miriam.

”What happened?” Jimmy asked, still preoccupied with the thought of anyone getting engaged to this girl.

”He wanted a nice, Jewish housewife and got me. I couldn’t be want he wanted, he couldn’t want what I was.” She shrugged. ”It happens remarkably often. I don’t want a mean man, and I don’t get along well with the nice ones.”

Jimmy chewed for a while, contemplating whether or not he should say what was on his mind. Eventually, he just couldn’t keep his mouth shut. ”So, how many have there been?”

”How many what?” It was hard to tell when she was pulling his leg, but he thought she was genuinely puzzled this time. ”Engagements? Only one.”

”I meant...” It occurred to Jimmy that this was none of his business, and that he’d be utterly unwilling to discuss the women of his life in such an environment, but he couldn’t stop himself. ”Men. In general.”

”Since the dawn of time?” she snapped. Her demeanour didn’t change much, but she put her left foot over her right, away from him, and somehow he felt as if she had turned away completely. She wasn’t angry. That might have made it easier. She looked as if she was five years old and he had broken her china doll.
”I’m sorry. It’s none of my...”

”Pick a number,” she suggested, suddenly smiling again. ”Any number you like. It could be right or wrong, but in any case, it’ll be what you want.”

He didn’t say anything else. Certainly there must be words that would help, but he didn’t know what they were. Even if he wanted to think of her as a good girl, that wouldn’t make her one. What’s past is past, and if he liked her too much to leave it at that, he shouldn’t make it her problem.

”Listen,” he said, swallowing the last of his sandwich. ”I gotta go to work. But we’ll be seeing each other?”

”The second performance is at seven,” she said. ”Be there?”

”Nothing could stop me.”

Tom Ramsey was weeping now, hugging the cushion to his chest as he watched his sleeping woman. ”Yet I'll not shed her blood; nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow, and smooth as monumental alabaster.” He let go of the cushion with one hand and caressed her cheek softly. ”Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men. Put out the light...”

Several people had left the theatre during the evening, but for a while now it had all been still, and the audience sat in terrified fascination, watching the plot unfold and the Moor decide to kill his wife. He leaned down to kiss her one last time, ready to smother her...

”Leave her be, you dirty nigger!”

Lena’s notebook had been resting in her lap, but now flew back into her hands, and a delighted smile spread over her face.

The actors had stopped, since they couldn’t make their voices heard, and Olivia, who had just been woken by Tom’s kiss, was sitting up in bed, giggling into her apron. There were displeased murmurs from the audience, but the man who had shouted was too upset to care. He started towards the stage, waving his arms about.

”I’m not gonna let you kill her, you hear me!” To the man, this was all deadly serious, and he wouldn’t be stopped by people trying to hold him back. A few feet away from the stage, he pulled his gun, and the murmurs silenced. Only Lena’s pencil kept working its way down the pad, quicker and quicker.

Thackeray rose from his seat, never one to rush an action, but experienced enough to know the difference between a joke and a real threat. ”That’s enough, Hart. Sit down.”

The man turned around, still angry, but with a respect for the Marshal that forbade him to shoot when he’d been told not to. ”But he’s gonna...”

”Sit down and let them finish their play,” Thackeray repeated. ”If Mrs. Desdemona here is still dead by tomorrow, I promise you I’ll have Mr. Othello hung for it. Agreed?”

Hart hesitated, but was pulled back into a seat by some people on the front row, who also had the sense to take his gun away. With a serene nod, Thackeray encouraged the actors to go on.

”Who’s there? Othello?” Olivia asked, having no trouble to stop herself from giggling anymore.

”Ay. Desdemona.” Tom’s voice was rough, and the following scene was played with a startling intensity; Olivia pleading for her life, and he desperate enough to kill her even though he loved her. Still holding her corpse, he was interrupted by Anne bringing news of more deaths.

And then, to Jimmy, everything happened at once, the dark mood of raging jealousy disturbed as more and more people entered the room. Anne insisted that her mistress was innocent of adultery, but could not make the others listen, not until she had told them everything about the evil plan she had taken part in without knowing it herself. Mr. Levy, the director, brought forward his sword as suddenly as Hart had his gun, and stabbed Anne with it before the others had time to react. In the short moment while the officials got Mr. Levy into chains, Tom grabbed a sword Jimmy could have *sworn* he didn’t have, and then...

”Aw, shit,” Jimmy moaned. His eyes had already started to feel funny, now they were definitely burning and made the ending blurred.

”Why, Jimmy, I do believe you’re crying!” Lena said. Her face still held a radiant smile, but her notebook lay on the seat. She had no room for it between her clapping hands, and since she was standing up it didn’t much matter where she put it.

”Well, it was very sad,” he pointed out, applauding as well. Olivia, Anne and Tom had all come back to life now, bowing in front of the audience, but that didn’t take away any of the emotions the play had brought up. ”You really shouldn’t be laughing.”

”I’m not laughing, I’m smiling,” she objected. ”I’ve seen it played before, but never this well.”

At that, he actually smiled himself, in spite of the lump in his throat. Yeah, it had been good. He’d never seen the play before, but he had a hard time remembering who was related to whom, since it wasn’t at all like it had been in the play.

”Listen, about earlier...”

”It doesn’t matter,” Lena said, and in the current mood she was in, he had a feeling that she meant it honestly, not just as dismissal.

”Do you want to eat something?”

The smallest of shrugs. ”Why not?”

”It’s so sad, you know,” Jimmy said, leaning back on the sofa. It was late enough for the hotel lobby to be almost empty, and thus he and Lena got some sort of privacy while still remaining respectable. It had been Jimmy’s idea to move out in the lobby after dinner instead of going upstairs, but Lena had agreed readily. She may ignore other people’s opinions, but it was still easier to have nothing to ignore.

”Hm?” Lena asked. Her eyes were a bit unfocused. He had refused to drink because of his contract, and she had followed his lead, so her drowsiness must be due to the late hour alone. Funny, really, she struck him as the late nights kind of girl, but now she was half-lying across the sofa with her arm tucked in under her head, having trouble keeping her eyes open.

”The play. They could have been happy, if it hadn’t been for that Iago guy.”

”People usually aren’t,” she mumbled.

”Aren’t what?”

”Happy. They just think they’re supposed to be happy, and that everyone else is.”

”You think so?”

She looked up, and he eyes were clear. ”When was the last time you were happy?”

The first thought that entered his head was of his time with Alice. It had been more than a year ago, but it could still come back to him with full force, the comfort and joy he had felt with the peacemakers. Sometimes he woke up after dreaming of that time, and had to fight off a lump in his throat, because he hated to find out it was only a dream.

”Do you know who the Peacemakers are?” he asked. She shook her head, but looked interested, and he continued, ”They’re a group of people who have withdrawn from the world to live for God. Some people call them a cult, but I never saw that. They were just... peaceful. I mean, really, not just that they didn’t carry guns. And there was this girl there...”

He halted himself and looked down at Lena, but she was watching him with half-closed eyes and seemed genuinely interested. In a way, that irritated him. He certainly hadn’t been so amiable when she spoke of her old boyfriend. Then again, the memory of Alice was so dear he would have hated not to be able to share it.

”Her name was Alice. We fell in love, and I thought about staying there. Not just for her sake, I really felt like it was the place for me.” He silenced, finding it difficult to speak about it. ”Turned out it wasn’t.”

”Wasn’t the place for you, or for Wild Bill Hickok?”

He hadn’t counted on her to be so perceptive, and looked up in surprise. ”Does it matter?”

”No.” The word was plain and spoken without hesitation.

”So, what about you?” he asked, entwining his fingers with hers. Her hand was warm after lying under her head. ”When were you happy?”

”I was travelling with my granddad’s boat,” she said. ”When we came into Dublin, I had taken ill. Nothing serious, just one of those childhood diseases, I think it was whooping-cough.” She though about that. ”Yes, it definitely was, I remember throwing up on everything. He stayed with me. He handed the Wilhelmina over to his first mate and stayed with me in Dublin until I got better. Said he wasn’t going to leave his grandchild with strangers.”

She saw Jimmy’s incomprehensive stare and continued, ”He really loved that boat.”

”More than you?” he asked.

”No, that’s just it.”

”But he was your granddad, he had to...” Jimmy didn’t know how to continue, and he wasn’t even sure what his objection was. He just knew that no one’s memory of happiness should ever make him this miserable. ”And you haven’t been happy since?”

Her face was softer than he had ever seen it. ”Not like that.”

His job was over. Although it had seemed so unlikely when Jimmy and Thackeray had first started going through the documents, they were all done, and it was time to go home. Back to Rock Creek and the riders... he wasn’t sure what Lena was going to do, but he had a strict feeling she wouldn’t be eager to return to the station any time soon. The actors were packing up, and she had spoken about joining them for part of the trip and then returning to Chicago right away. And once there? She certainly didn’t seem the type to settle down and take root.

He had to admit, the thought of hitting the road appealed to him. Work had been increasingly irritating lately, and he’d thought about the army, now that times were getting troublesome. But maybe her way would be even better. He couldn’t see himself as a reporter, but surely there would always be something for him to do?

What stopped him wasn’t the thought of the people back home. It wasn’t even the knowledge that it was faintly ridiculous for a man to follow a woman halfway across the country. It was just the uncertainty of what would happen if he did. He couldn’t propose to her, like he might have with some other girl. Marriage just wasn’t something he could connect to her, ever. And maybe that was the problem. Because in the long run, it might be better for her to choose a guy that would actually marry her, force her to slow her spin a little. And, hell, if he was to be completely honest with himself, he didn’t know how long he would have been able to put up with that spin either. Being with Lena felt like the few times he had spent drunk -- you were really happy, but with an increasing knowledge that you would wake up with a terrible headache the next day.

So that was his decision, then. He would go home to Rock Creek, as was always planned. Of course, if she did want to come with him, now or later -- well, she was a free woman, obviously she could. He’d even admit that he would enjoy her company. But the move was hers to make.

His heart felt lighter now that he had made his decision, and he no longer hesitated to cross the hallway to her room. As soon as she answered his knock, which took too long for his liking, he opened the door and went inside.

Unlike last time, she was fully dressed. She was even wearing her coat. At first he was too preoccupied to do more than notice the fact, but then he realized why. The suitcase on her bed might also have had something to do with it.

”You’re leaving?”

She put another bag on her bed and stuffed things in it, working fast but still managing to keep things neat. ”They’re going to Chicago next and said they would take me that far. That way I get a chance to give Pierce my story in person and maybe smile enough for him to be nice to me when I ask him to accept me as a full-time employee again.”

”Oh.” It certainly seemed as if she had her future staked out a lot better than he did. ”You weren’t even going to say goodbye?”

She put down the bag for a moment and turned to him with a pleasant smile. ”Goodbye.”

”Is that supposed to be funny?” he asked, angry at the way she was just ready to back off from this.

She sighed and sat down on the very edge of the bed. ”Well, yes, I was hoping to be able to avoid this entire farewell scenario, but since I obviously cannot... I had a fabulous time here. And I’m going to miss you. If you ever come to Chicago, you had better show up at the newsroom or I’ll hunt you down and kill you. Understand?” She rose again, picked up her bags and headed for the door.

Not sure if he wanted to kiss her or not, he reached out for her without a thought, and she turned back, her eyes facing his, his hands on her shoulder.

”We’d be terrible,” she said.

”I know.” He let go of her shoulders, and she smiled again. She did that a lot, bright and sparkly smiles that didn’t mean a thing.

”I really want to be a sensible girl right now.”

”Don’t let me stop you.”

”You couldn’t if you tried.”

And that was the truth of course. The decision was hers, just as he had decided it should be, and he only now realized that if she hadn’t been set on being sensible, nothing could have stopped her from getting what she wanted. And that would have been disastrous. So why did it feel so awful that she had come to the same conclusion that he had?

”When you’ve been a changeling long enough...” There was a hand in his, for so short a period of time he barely had time to grasp it, and then, with a wide grin, she was out the door.

He heard her steps proceed down the stairs until the last echo was gone.

”That’s it, then?” he asked no one in particular. ”There ain’t no home once you’ve left it too long?”

THE END