Beyond the Gateway (Cranksepticeye)

Twenty-nine

"Tim?" Jack asked as his roommate deftly fixed Jack's hair. "How come your ears aren't . . . You know?"
"For the same reason I never let anyone photograph me from the neck up," Tim muttered, focusing on flattening a stray curl. "Because I've been trying to pass for mortal for the last millennium and a half. I used to just cast a glamour, but then I finally found is great cosmetic surgeon on Ninth. Used to be a Druid healer way back in the day, and he's very discreet. Hey, do you want me to make an appointment for you?"
"Uh . . . I'll think about it." Jack ran a finger over the tip of one ear. "They're not that pointy, are they?"
"Oh, honey, no!" Tim assured him. "Actually on you, it's sort of cute."
"Thanks. I think. And for loaning me the suit." It was a green-tinted suit that matched Jack's eyes, and fit almost perfectly. "Are you sure it's not a bit much?"
"What, you don't want to look nice for your date?"
"Do you really think it's a date?" Jack could hear the panic in his own voice.
"I think he's trying to take you somewhere safe," Tim said. "I do."
There, see? Not a date. Damn it.
Still. Ethan was taking him to a safe house? Putting him under some kind of guard . . . Jack really wasn't sure how he felt about that. "Do you like him?" He asked.
"I wouldn't go that far."
"Do I like him?"
Tim's mouth bent up at one corner. "You're going to have to figure that one out all by yourself, kiddo."
Jack sighed. "Okay, but - seriously - if this isn't a date, then why am I dressed like I'm hitting the red carpet?"
Tim chuckled and finished Jack's hair with a stiffening spray. "The Green is a little more upscale than the burger joints you're used to, Jack. Trust me. Sparkly apparel is like a kind of uniform there."
Jack turned this way and that in the mirror. A shine dazzled on the lights, but the effect was still somehow subtle. Tim draped a coat over his shoulders and gave his arm a quick squeeze.
"How do I look?"
"Fetching. But don't ask me . . ." Tim stepped aside so that Jack could see past him - to where Ethan stood, waiting patiently in the living room. "Ask him."
Ethan turned and his eyes went wide. The look on his face spoke volumes.
If it hadn't been a date before that moment, it certainly was now.

"How was last night?" Jack asked, as Ethan put out an arm for Jack to take as th crossed Fifth Avenue in the waning light of late afternoon. Jack had been making all kinds of small talk since they'd left the apartment - mostly to avoid having to notice the fact that Ethan had barely taken his eyes off him. "Guard duty, I mean."
"Quiet, all things considered." He shrugged. "For me at least. Maddox and the others did most of the heavy lifting. He thinks I still need mending."
"Don't you?" he asked, hazarding a quick look into his face. He's still staring at me. Maybe this really was too much . . .
Ethan smiled. "I need less mending than a regular mortal. I'm fine."
"Really? Then why is Maddox worried?"
"He's just being an old woman."
"You're his friend." He gripped Ethan's arm tighter, feeling precarious in Tim's dress shoes.
"I know. He's still being an old woman."
Jack looked at him again. "You know, you do look a little . . . rugged."
"I . . . oh." Ethan frowned and looked away.
"It's okay," he assured him. "Rugged works pretty well for you."
There were dozens of carriages lined up along the curb at the southeast corner of the park. Some were pulled by lean, neat-footed ponies, while others were powered by larger draft horses. Ethan cast his gaze up and down the line and made a choice. Grabbing Jack by the hand, he approached a white buggy adorned with garlands of pink and purple silk flowers. The driver was a tall, broad-shouldered woman with a keen glint in her icy-blue eyes; the horse was a proud silver-white beast who still managed to convey a sense of dignity despite the jaunty fuchsia ostrich plumes waving from his bridle and the sparkly purple paint on his hooves. Probably a tourist favorite for the pure kitsch value, Jack thought.
The horse tossed his huge, noble head, butting Jack insistently with his nose once they got close enough.
"You certainly seem to have a way with horses," Ethan whispered.
"Belrix likes you," the driver said to Jack. "He's very particular."
"He's beautiful," Jack said, scratching his hairy snout.
"We'd like to hire his services. And yours, if you are available." Ethan said to the driver.
"We haven't had many folk wanting a ride through the park the last few nights," she said, her face carefully composed blank.
"Due to the uncertain weather, most like," Ethan suggested politely.
"Aye. Most like . . . Hard to tell one season from another these days."
"Just so. Can you take us to the Tavern?" Ethan asked the driver.
"The Tavern on the Green?"
"You know the one I speak of."
Jack was confused. There was only one Tavern on the Green. It was one of New York's landmarks.
But the driver nodded slowly. "I do. It will cost you extra to take that road."
"I'll pay," Ethan said, pulling out a small red suede pouch. He tugged open the drawstring and chose several coins, which he dropped in the palm of her hand. "For both of us."
"Fair enough," she said, and gestured with the little buggy whip she held. "Up you get, then."
Ethan helped Jack climb into the cab and then sprang in behind him as the carriage began to move. The steady clip-clop of Belrix's hooves echoed beneath the trees as they wound through the park, passing familiar landmarks and features. They were on a road that took them past the carousel at a distance.
Jack remarked, "you know that particular carousel is the fourth one to stand on that spot? It's burned to the ground twice in its history."
The driver laughed and turned over her shoulder. "I'm usually the one who gives the guided tour," she said, amused. "Are you trying to take my job?"
Jack smiled. "No, ma'am. I just remember reading about the carousel in a brochure."
"Aye, well." The driver nodded and took over the narrative. "The story goes that the original merry-go-round used to be powered by a horse and an old blind mule that walked a circular track in an underground cavern beneath the ride. Indeed, old Belrix here gets touchy when I talk about the horse and the mule." The big animal's ears twitched back and forth. "Seems to think that it wasn't exactly fair work."
Jack shivered at the idea of those animals traipsing in an endless circle, one blind, led by the other, in sunless toil for the sake of other creature's amusement.
"The carousel that stands there now was found disassembled on Coney Island," the driver continued. "They brought it back here and refurbished it. Lucky, that. The park would be poorer without it, to my mind."
"Yeah," Jack murmured, thinking about a horse of another kind. "Lucky."
On either side of them the park vista passed.
"You know," Jack said to Ethan softly, "I was fascinated by the park when I first moved here. I felt kind of drawn to it. I guess that's not exactly a coincidence, now. Seeing what this place really is. And who I . . . really am and all . . . "
"Well," Ethan said as he thought about it. "I told you I don't beleive in any such thing as coincidence. However, I also think that you may have been drawn to the park for the simple reason that you just felt drawn to the park. A lot of people are, you know. People who aren't . . . like you. Just because of what you are doesn't mean anything is predestined for you, Jack. I'll help make sure of that."
"Would you stay even if I decided to embrace the legacy of my blood?" he asked, quietly , so that the driver wouldn't hear him. "If I took up the mantle of Faerie prince?" A tiny fist of panic lodged in his throat as he said the words, and he found it hard to swallow. The carousel had reminded him once again of just what it might mean if he allowed himself to become one of the Fair Folk. Although Jack could not deny that there was a wily, seductive appeal in that notion, it terrified him almost as much as it thrilled him.
"Jack." Ethan looked at him square in the eyes. He took Jack's and in his own. "I will help you be whatever you want to be. I promise."
His fear vanished, and Jack found himself mesmerized. Ethan's hair that night fell in loose, dark waves on either side of his face, and Jack couldn't restrain himself from reaching out and tucking a stray lock behind his ear. Ethan's gaze deepened. Jack felt suddenly breathless.
"Almost there," the driver called, and they reluctantly broke eye contact. Jack thought he heard a strange, almost inhuman quality to the woman's voice. Belrix increased his pace to a trot.
Jack sat up and looked around. The park appeared familiar and foreign at the same time. "Where exactly is it that we're going, again?"
"I told you. I'm taking you someplace safe." Ethan smiled at him gently.
"And you don't have to, uh, work tonight?"
"Tonight, you are my work."
"Oh." He didn't exactly like the idea of being some kind of assignment.
"What's the matter?" Ethan glanced down at the tone of Jack's voice.
"Nothing. I just thought . . . never mind. I guess being a prince means I get to have a bodyguard, huh?"
"Something like that," he said. "The Jade all agreed. You should be protected."
"I see. All the Jade agreed, did they?" Jack pulled away from Ethan, hugging his elbows tight to his body.
"Did I say something wrong?" Ethan frowned worriedly.
"No." He sighed. "No . . . I'm just having a little trouble adjusting to all the fuss over me, I guess. I should habe known . . . never mind. So where exactly are we going again?" He hadn't answered the question the first time.
Ethan stared at the road ahead of them. "Somewhere where there are others who can protect you. In case I'm not there. I hope I am . . . "
"Why on earth wouldn't you be there?" he said, laughing. "You're always there. Even when I've told you to go away!"
Ethan took both of Jack's hands in one of his. Jack could feel Ethan's strong fingers laced with his own, and felt his heart racing. Ethan laid the fingers of his free hand alongside Jack's cheek and tilted Jack toward his face.
"Please be there," Jack whispered, suddenly afraid.
"Beleive me, Jack. If I'm not . . . it's because I'm already dead." He stroked Jack's hair, and Jack could feel Ethan's warm breath on his forehead, like a kiss. "Because anyone that would seek to hurt you will have to kill me first."
That is not exactly the comforting notion that he thinks it is.
He shivered, and Ethan put an arm around him.
He thought about Auberon's words to him in his dressing room. About how it wasn't in Ethan's nature to love what he might become. Whatever that was. In truth, Jack knew so very little about the world he was heir to.
Just as he thought that, Belrix rounded a bend, pulling the buggy up in front of the Tavern on the Green, and Jack realized that he was about to find out a whole lot more.

Jack had been to Central Park's famed Tavern on the Green before. In the first week after his move to New York, Uncle Evan had come to town - a rare thing, since he hated the city - and taken Jack for dinner there. Inside it was a maze of mirrored halls, rococo stained glass, stag antlers mounted on chestnut-paneled walls, and fairy-tale murals. The main dining room was a glass gazebo festooned with a whimsical assortment of chandeliers of all colors and sizes, fracturing light into rainbows that danced across walls painted with cloud castles and winged horses.
Outside in the courtyard, every tree was wrapped with strings of tiny electric lights, and garlands of paper lanterns swung between the overreaching branches. The bushes were trimmed into fantastic shapes - a prancing horse, a mermaid, even - with a New York sense of humor - a great green, shrubby King Kong.
It had all seemed so fantastical.
At the time.
But on this night, Jack knew he was in for something infinitely more fantastical. For one thing, there were no cars in the parking lot. There was, however, an old-fashioned coach-and-four that looked like a movie prop from Disney's Cinderella.
Ethan swung himself down from the carriage, holding out a hand so that he could step to the ground without injuring himself or Tim's outfit. Ethan stuck out an elbow, beaming, and Jack took his arm. He felt as though he might actually be blushing so he looked away, in time to notice that the doorman in the green top hat and long frock coat wasn't wearing pants. He didn't habe to - beneath the hem of his coat, his legs were shaggy with brown fur and ended in delicate, cloven goat's hooves.
"Master Nestor," he greeted Ethan. Jack noticed that he raised a saturnine eyebrow at the Jade, a silent question implicit in the expression. "Long has it been since you have honored Herne's house with your presence. And your sir . . . ?"
"He is my guest. I would habe him exceptionally looked after. Hee is . . . important to me. To all of us, I think."
"Then welcome here, of course." the faun said as he swept his hat off in greeting to Jack. He tried very hard not to stare at the tiny horns curling back from beside his tufted ears. The strange little doorman gestured them up to the front doors, which swung wide at their approach.
"Did he say Herne's house?" Jack whispered as they moved up the steps.
"He did," rumbled a deep voice from beneath the archway. "I am Herne. Welcome to my Tavern on the Green . . . "
"My lord." Ethan bowed deeply to the magnificent figure standing before them.
Jack felt his jaw drop. He sank into a bow, silently grateful for the semester of ballet classes he'd taken back in theater school. Herne was exactly as he'd seen him in the vision Ethan had shown him, like nothing so much as a god from an old storybook from Celtic  tales.
Herne the Hunter - in the flesh.