Jackaby (Jackaby #1)(24)
“It can’t be easy,” I said, “tracking this stuff down, all on your own. Not much help to be found if no one else can even see what you’re looking for.”
“Quite so,” said Jackaby. And then he stopped short. “No. Not entirely alone.”
“Well, I’m glad to be along,” I replied modestly.
“Not you, Miss Rook. But since you mention it, there is someone who sees things—not precisely the same way I see them, but in a similar fashion . . . sometimes. She’s called Hatun. It might very well prove enlightening to know what sort of things she’s seen lately.” We had been winding back toward the office, but Jackaby now turned, taking a side street in the opposite direction.
“Another seer? You just said . . .”
“Not exactly a seer, no. She . . . oscillates. There are basically three ways she sees the world, and she sort of bounces among them. At times she perceives the world just as any simpleton does—just as you do.”
“Thanks for that.”
“Other times, though, she sees things almost as I do, the world behind the glamour. It isn’t always as clear for her, I think. It’s just a feeling she gets, a hunch or premonition, and she lets her imagination fill in the blanks. Good imagination, though. She’s often right on track, even if she doesn’t know what track she’s on.”
“What’s the third?”
“Third?”
“The third way she sees the world?”
“Oh, right. How shall I put it? The first way is the predictable way, and the second way is how the world really is. The third is . . . the unpredictable way, and how the world really isn’t. All sorts of nonsense and madness in that one. Decidedly less helpful. It can be a bit tricky, determining which version she’s in—and, of course, they do overlap a bit.”
“Sounds complicated.”
“She is that. But Hatun is a good woman. Once, in the middle of the night, someone slipped in and pried up every last cobblestone from one of the alleyways off Mason Street. An entire alley, secreted away in one night. Scarcely two blocks from the police station, no less!”
“And she helped catch the criminals?”
“Hah! Better! She was discovered, a few days later, carting a bulging burlap sack full of the stones off to some special place in the woods. A police officer was sent out to ask her about it, and she smiled and patted his arm and told him it was all right, that there wouldn’t be any more bad luck. She had been warning people for weeks beforehand that the hexagonal-cut stones were emanating hexes. Genuine concern and consideration for her fellow citizens, mind you. She pulled them up herself, stone by stone, and stashed six bags of them in plain sight behind the masons’ building until she could lug them off to a safe place. No one thought twice about spare stonework on a masons’ lot. Clever planning and selfless efforts. Must’ve worked herself ragged.”
“And the stones were causing bad luck?” I asked.
Jackaby shook his head with a wry smile. “Only for the unfortunate city grunts who had to lay them twice. Octagons, the second go-round, by special request of Mayor Spade. I certainly took an interest and investigated the matter, but I can assure you, there wasn’t a hint of anything malevolent about the original batch. They were stones. She’s always doing that sort of thing. Protecting the city from the demons in her head. She once cautioned me that the weathercocks were in league with one another. Just felt I ought to know.”
“So she’s just a mad woman?”
Jackaby hesitated, and when he spoke, his answer had a soft earnestness to it. “Hatun sees a different world than you or I, a far more frightening one, full of far more terrible dangers, and still she chooses to be the hero whom that world needs. She has saved this town and its people from countless monsters countless times. That the battles are usually in her head does not lessen the bravery of it. The hardest battles always are.”
We had come to the edge of town, where architecture ended and a swath of grasses and shrubs separated the city from the forest. Not far from the road, a little bridge hopped over a winding creek, and a thin footpath snaked into the trees. As we left the road and drew closer, the first thing I noticed was that the creek had frozen over. Snow dusted its solid surface, along with a few leaves and windblown branches. The second thing I noticed was a slumped figure by the base of the bridge. She was fishing in the frozen creek . . . or at least, holding a pole and letting the hook scrape lazy lines in the frosted surface. The metal sinker bounced along the impurities in the ice, tinkling like a wind chime. “Good evening, Hatun,” Jackaby called out amiably as we approached. “Are they biting?”
Chapter Twelve
Hatun looked up and smiled at the detective. “You know good and well the fish aren’t biting. I made a promise to try, though, at least once a week. Token gesture, but better a cold backside than an angry you-know-who. Even if he is just a little fellow.” She tapped her nose with her finger in a conspiratorial gesture.
“And you’re good to remember,” Jackaby told her. Then, to me: “She made a promise to a troll . . . Calls the thing Hammett, if I recall. When she does catch the occasional little something, she leaves it under the bridge for him. She’s been at it since early fall.”
“Another one of her imaginary dangers?” I whispered.