Beyond the Gateway (Cranksepticeye)

Ten

The boucca had Ethan by the throat.
Ethan was furious with himself for allowing his guard to drop- Maddox had warned him about the voices and not getting to close. But he'd need distracted by the boy with the ridiculous donkey head under his arm, and the uncomfortable surge of emotion that had surged over him when washed over him when he saw him take the boy by the hand.
The boucca wrinkled his nose, an expression of grim delight on his pale-green face. "I smell a Faerie killer."
" and I smell a pook, " Ethan ground out between clenched teeth. "Which one of us is more pungent, I wonder?"
A ling, tense silence passed between them, and then the boucca threw back his head and laughed, releasing his punishing grip on Ethan's larynx. "What's a Jade doing down in Hell's Kitchen on a day o' the Nine?
Ethan rubbed his neck, wincing. Sizing the boucca up, he dug into his messenger bag and tossed one of the oynx beads at him. "Where is it? What is it?"
The boucca caught the bead out of the air, stared at it for a long moment, then tossed it back. "Not a clue."
"All right, then." If Ethan was going to get answers at all, he thought, he was going to have to play rough. A Faerie could be compelled to obey commands if one know the secret of its true name. Ethan stared at the boucca in the eyes and said gravely,  "I do compel thee-"
The boucca covered his pointed ears and began keening.
Ethan pushed on, relentless. "By thy truest of names, I do compel thee, and thou shalt obey my commands, for I do call the Robin Goodfellow."
The boucca's shrieks suddenly turned to peaks of laughter. "Oh, please!" He said finally, gasping in mirth. " that name's not exactly the earth-shattering secret it once was, you know. " He wiped a year from his eye, chortling. "You stupid great yob- you should get out to see more theater!"
Ethan stood there, chagrined, the heat of embarrassment creeping up his cheeks.
"Shakespeare spilled those beans quite some time ago. How do you expect me to go onstage night after night if every time someone chirps 'Robin Goodfellow' I call to the ground in !mindless submission?" The boucca shook his head in amused disgust. "I warned old Willie- gave him a scorching case of fleas, even. Bah- writers! Stubborn lot. Well, after that, the name sort of lost its potency, you know? Same with 'Puck,' so don't bother trying. I can be no more compelled by those names than if you just hallooed 'Hey, buddy!' at me." He snorted and gave a parting shot. " Auberon's breeding em' up stupid these days, I see. "
Ethan's hands clenched into fists at the insult. Then he remembered the script he'd found, with the scribbled words: Jack's Script- Please Return (this means YOU, Bob!)
Bouccas were notorious thieves.
"Let's try this, then," he said. " I do compel the by the name of . . . Bob."
The boucca stiffened and stopped in his tracks. He turned and pegged Ethan with a shrewd gaze.
"Will you help me?" Ethan implored.
Relenting, Bon the boucca said, "I've got no clue as to where it is. But . . . I do know what it is."
"It's a kelpie, isn't it?"
"If you already know what it is, then why do you need me?"
That seemed to confirm Ethan's suspicions. He could press the boucca further on the matter of the kelpie, but there were other things he needed to understand now, and he didn't know how far he could push his luck. "All right," he said. "another question then." Jack
Bob waited.
"That boy, the actor playing Titania." He nodded in the direction of the dressing rooms where he'd gone. "he saw me just now."
"I noticed that."
Ethan was beginning too lose his patience. "I was veiled and he saw me."
Bob tilted his head, his expression maddeningly inscrutable, and said, "How is that possible for a mortal?"
"That is my question to you. How is it possible for a mortal to have seen through my veil?"
"It isnt."
"What are you saying?" Ethan's weariness of the ancient, powerful boucca warred with his absolute need to know.
"You ask a lot of questions."
Ethan took a deep breath. If he angers Bob, the boucca was likely to just vanish without another word. "Please. It is . . . important to me."
Bob cocked his head to one side, considering that. He seemed to shift and change in size and proportion ever so slightly as Ethan spoke to him. It was subtle, hard to notice unless you were only looking at his sideways - as if his appearance mirrored the slipperiness of what he said.
"Do you know why Auberon shut the Gates, young Ethan Nester?" The boucca asked.
"Of course I do." Ethan barely contained his frustration.
"I'm a bloody Jade."
"You're a Jade, certainly. And I'm sure you're a fine one, at that," Bon said, almost without sarcasm. He put up a hand to forestall any interruption. "And you're a Changeling, cradle-took from a mortal home to the Otherworld, just like the rest of your kind. But, unlike the rest of them . . . I happen to know that you're also the only Jade that Auberon handpicked to raise under his own roof, at the very center of the Unseelie Court, almost as if you were a son."
"Do you have a point to make?"
"Aye. I Do." Bob nodded slowly, returning to Ethan's steady gaze. "But not about you. About him."
Ethan knew how well Auberon was regarded by the majority of channeling a and also by a good portion of the Fairie Folk: with suspicion and fear.
But the king had treated Ethan like family and, despite an arrogance that could border on casual cruelty, he had never given the young mortal a reason not to trust him. If Ethan was to be honest, Auberon had his loyalty and respect.
"What take did the mighty Auberon doin by the fire for his panting Jade pup about closing the Gates?" Bob asked, his voice thick with mockery.
Ethan glared at him. "He closed the Gates to protect us."
"Which 'us', little changeling boy?" Bob cocked his head, his time quizzical. "The mortal is it the fairies us?"
"Both. He did it to protect both worlds, each from the other."
"What you call 'protection,' a goodly portion of the Fairy Folk call 'imprisonment '. What else did good king Auberon tell you? What dire threat from the mortal world was our benevolent lord and master keeping his loyal subjects safe and sound from?"
Ethan frowned. He failed to see what this had to do with him or the kelpie or the girl or anything he actually wanted to learn from the boucca. But he obviously had no choice but to play along with Bob's game of questions. "He told me that, around the turn of the last century, as the mortal world measures time, a human woman found a way through one of the Gates to the Otherworld. And that she stole a Fairie child from right out of the cradle and escaped back to the mortal realm. So the King closed the Gates to keep it from happening again."
"And there's thundering great hypocrisy for you!" Bob did a little jig and swung himself effortlessly up onto the landing of a set of escape stairs. His eyes glowed fiercely. "Putting aside for the moment the fact that stealing children in the other direction was - up until that time - a sort of national pastime for the Fair Folk . . . don't you think that the whole story is a bit odd? Pretty drastic measures for one wee bairn gone missing, wouldn't you say?"
"It wasn't just any Faerie child that the mortal stole!" Ethan protested. "Granted it may have been a harsh decision at the time, but Auberon was well within his rights to make it. The child was his heir!"
Bob was relentless. "And the fact that you were, what, the son of a poor crofter? Or that your friend who waits outside the door, whatshisname? Maddox - that he was a mere blacksmith's child . . . did that then make it all right for the Faerie to cross thresholds and steal you from your folk?"
"I . . ."
"Do you nor think that your own mother wept bitter tears at the loss? Tear at her pretty, dark hair and fall to the ground in an agony of mourning for her stolen child?"
"What do you know of my mother?" Ethan demanded, suddenly furious.
"Pretty thing, strong-willed, and a wild heart. Blue eyes. Lovely face . . . when it wasn't all twisted up with grieving, that is." the boucca spoke in low thrumming tones. The glint of mischief was gone from his eyes. "The theft of you tore her apart. Tore her family apart. They all thought she'd gone mad. Husband up and left because he couldn't stand the pain in her."
"Stop it."
"Do you not think a woman like that might have sworn revenge?" The Fae's eyes glowed green as his stare bore into Ethan. "A child for a child?"
"My mother-"
"Could never have crossed into the Otherworld. No matter how strong, nor wild nor willful. Not without help."
"But you just said-"
"Yes. I did."
Ethan could only stand there staring at the boucca, mystified.
"Now. There's something to think about, eh?" Bob fell silent then. He crouched on the landing, utterly still, watching Ethan with his unblinking eyes.
Riddles. Why is he giving me riddles? Questions with no answers, all obscured by the emotional impact of thoughts of his mother. His mortal life that could have been . . . He clamped down hard on the urge to ask anything further and turned to leave.
Except there was just one more thing he wanted to know. A mere curiosity, but it pricked his mind . . .
"Tell me something."
"Is that an order?" Bob glared flatly at him.
"No. Please." Ethan held up a hand. "I mean, I would like to know. If you would like to tell me. The story I heard about you and the leprechaun . . . "
"And the honey jar?"
"Yes. Did it happen? Really?"
"Well . . . the insides of my ears are sticky." He snorted. "And I occasionally attract the attention of amorous bees. You tell me."
"How did you get out?"
"May the gods bless progress." Bob raised his eyes to the ceiling. "Eight or nine years ago some bullyboyo contractors came along and built a five-star resort and golf course on the very site. The day the broke the ground, they broke my jar!"
Ethan laughed despite himself.
Bob shrugged. "It's a very nice course. Im sure the patrons wonder, though, why they lose so very many balls. And the plumbing in the clubhouse tends to be . . . quirky."
"Never cross a leprechaun."
"Right."
"What did you do to raise his wrath?"
Bob's expression went stern. "That I will not tell you."
"But why-"
"What I will tell you is this. Are you listening?"
Ethan nodded silently. The Faerie's stare was so intense the Ethan almost felt it as a physical sensation.
"Once upon a time," the boucca continued, "I was Auberon's henchman, much like you. But I was never Auberon's fool. And I am not entirely without compassion." And then Bob, who was called Puck, who was called Robin Goodfellow, laughed gently and leaped gracefully from his perch, disappearing up into the shadows of the high stage rigging. His last words echoed down through the darkness.
"Take care of him, Ethan Nester," he said. "I did . . . "