Robots vs. Fairies(64)
What I’m saying is that assuming the humanity—the worth, the potential, the capacity for all things gentle and joyous—in a robot is an act of faith. I think that humans engage in that act of faith with each other all the time. The social contract is founded on little more than goodwill. And I think that no matter what you believe, whether it’s in faeries or the existence of a soul or the possibility of a better future, you call on that same faith.
SECOND TO THE LEFT, AND STRAIGHT ON
by Jim C. Hines
I’d never seen Gwen Akerman before, but her body language as she carried a garbage bag from her flat to the bin across the lot was all too familiar. This was a woman whose thoughts and spirit were bound elsewhere.
I had to step in front of her before she noticed me. I held out a battered, home-printed business card. “My name’s Angela Davies. I’m hunting the person who took your daughter.”
She blinked at me. Her eyes focused briefly on the card. “I don’t know what an American PI is doing in London, but the police said—”
“—to stay by the phone and let them search for her, right? Probably told you how the first forty-eight hours are critical.” I glanced at my watch. “That was what, about thirty-six hours ago?”
“You know who took Clover?”
Who named their kid Clover? “I think so. Your girl disappeared while your family was visiting Kensington Gardens, right? Is your husband home? I’d like to talk to him, too.”
She started to shake, like a building about to come down. “He didn’t see anything. He’d gone ahead to buy drinks. He thinks it’s my fault. Clover darted away before I could stop her. He can’t even talk to me.”
“Most marriages don’t survive the loss of a child.” Tact had never been one of my strengths. “I need you to tell me the details you didn’t share with reporters or the police. The news reports said Clover ran off to look at some flowers. Was there anything strange about them? Maybe a sound, like bells? A bit of glitter that disappeared by the time the police came?”
Her eyes widened, and she stared like she hadn’t truly seen me until then.
“Like dust or pollen scattered over the flowers,” I said. “It probably sparkled in the light.”
“On the flowers, yes,” she whispered. “And one of the trees. The cherry blossoms looked like they’d been doused in gold glitter. I thought I’d imagined it.”
I tightened my fists. She was here.
“Is Clover all right?” she whispered. “Who took her, Ms. Davies? What are they going to do to her?”
“She’s alive.” I suppressed a shudder. “More alive than she’s ever been.”
“I don’t understand.”
Nothing I said would change that. “I need a way to reach you. I’ll call as soon as I find her.”
She pulled back. “You . . . you haven’t said anything about cost. Why are you doing this?”
Bells. Gunshots. Dust shining like tiny fallen stars. “Because Clover isn’t the only little girl she took.”
*
I don’t know whether you have ever seen a map of a person’s mind. Doctors sometimes draw maps of other parts of you, and your own map can become intensely interesting, but catch them trying to draw a map of a child’s mind, which is not only confused, but keeps going round all the time. There are zigzag lines on it, just like your temperature on a card, and these are probably roads in the island, for the Neverland is always more or less an island. . . . On these magic shores children at play are forever beaching their coracles. We too have been there; we can still hear the sound of the surf, though we shall land no more.
—J. M. Barrie
*
I’d snuck into Kensington Gardens three times over the past years, searching for Lillian and the one who took her.
The fairies who’d colonized the gardens centuries before had long since abandoned this place. Some had followed him to the Neverland. Others sought out paths less trampled by human feet. I’d found hints of them in the wilderness of northwestern Canada, the abandoned mining town of Kolmanskop in Namibia, even the frozen interior of Greenland.
Only one had reason to return here. She was hunting him just as I hunted her.
I walked through the darkness to the site of the Peter Pan statue. Bronze animals and fairies climbed the stump that formed the statue’s base. Atop the stump stood Peter, playing his pipe.
People said the fairy at the top of the stump, the one who stared adoringly up at young Peter, was meant to represent Tinker Bell.
Streaks of red paint marred Peter’s eternally young face. They’d sprayed his eyes until lines of red dripped like tears. Stylized, intertwined letters F and G crossed his chest.
The smell of paint hung in the air. Where were they hiding? “I know you’re watching. I know you took Clover.”
Nothing. I stepped away from the statue and searched the tree branches. “I know why you come back to Kensington Gardens every spring. I know who you’re searching for, and why you can never find him.”
In the distance, so faint I almost missed it, came a sound like a tiny bell. I started toward it, then caught myself. I’d never find her that way. Too many paths were invisible to mortal eyes, hidden to all but the Found Girls and their leader. Their goddess.