The trip to town had been horrendous. Once her eyes were opened from the ointment Skye saw creatures worse than any nightmare. Beasts with human torsos and snake tails; hobgoblins with malicious, red eyes and pointed ears; ugly hag women with jagged, bloodstained teeth; wailing banshees with faces etched in terror and elongated, skeleton hands that clawed through the winter wind. Kheelan said it was always worse as they approached Samhain, but that he’d never seen it so bad.
She didn’t know how he stood it. From what he told her, he didn’t have much choice in the matter. Skye turned on her flashlight and kept the light pointed downwards. “This way,” she whispered, walking to the back of the store. As she went down the steep steps, she gripped the iron railing for support, thankful Kheelan was along. She would never come down here alone at night again.
Skye directed the flashlight beam on the floor and saw it was completely covered again with the brown, dried-out carcasses of dead fairies. She gasped when the light appeared to skip and jump of its own accord, then realized it was only because she was shaking. Kheelan’s large hand covered her own. “I’ll take that.”
The light steadied and she followed him further back, wincing as their steps crunched the little skeletons.
Kheelan bent to examine one. “They’re pixie bodies all right.” He straightened and they trudged further into the dark recess.
Skye waited, fearful yet hopeful, the fairies would come to her again with their buzzing pleas for help.
The silence was deep and unrelenting. She was sure they were the only mortals present.
“What’s behind this door?”
Skye jumped at his voice. “I didn’t know there was one down here.”
Kheelan aimed the flashlight at the door handle and gave it a tug. “Locked.”
Skye raised her keys to the light and they tinkled like a faint echo of tiny bells. There were over a dozen keys, but on the fourth attempt, the door gave way with a long, drawn-out creak. A draft of dank, stale air assaulted her nose, and again she smelled that vaguely familiar scent of licorice and menthol.
“Do you recognize that smell?” she asked.
He sniffed, wrinkled his forehead in concentration, and then shook his head. “No. Could be some kind of herb.” He reached overhead and pulled a chain. A single bulb, suspended by wire from the low ceiling, thrust the room in sudden light.
A rough-hewn wooden workbench lined the wall to the back. In the middle was a clean, elaborate crystal decanter and fountain with a set of glasses set around it like diamonds on a chain.
“It’s beautiful whatever it is.” She walked closer and touched the unusual fountain whose base had the figurine of a woman, sculpted in silver and holding up a large glass bubble. At the bottom of the bubble were spigots. There was also a crystal tray with tiny, wrapped packages of sugar cubes and two large flat-bottomed, slotted, silver spoons. Oh, she knew what this was about.
Kheelan lifted a spoon as Skye rummaged through one of the wooden crates and pulled out a large bottle marked Absinthe, Esmeralda Distillery, 150 proof alcohol.
“Swamp juice.” He nodded. “Absinthe. Also known as the green muse, nectar of the poets, the poor man’s cocaine, and most interesting of all, la Fee Verte, which is French for The Green Fairy.”
“Just like the store,” Skye whispered. She examined the bottle of the luminous green liquid. “And now I know why it smells familiar.”
“You mean you’ve actually drunk this stuff?” Kheelan lifted a brow in surprise. “I know it’s legal to sell in America now, but alcohol’s bad enough, let alone mixed with a hallucinogenic.” His tone was mildly reproving.
“Artemisia absinthe.” Skye echoed the words she remembered from the scary Ouija board disaster when she and Callie were twelve. Their encounter with evil spirits was immediately followed by the licorice, menthol odor of absinthe, the drink favored by Callie’s warlock father. “I’ve seen what this drink can do to people, knew a man who drank it heavily. The wormwood in it is said to rot the brain.” She stared in the murky green liquid.
She wanted it.
Skye was overcome with the urge to taste it, her mouth watered and she gripped the bottle tightly. “I say we give it a little taste,” she whispered.
“It’s dangerous stuff.” Kheelan shook his head. “And besides, it’s not ours.” He reached for the bottle.
She hugged it to her chest and scowled. “No one will ever miss it.” She nodded at the dozens of wooden crates strewn over the counter and on the floor underneath it. He crossed his arms in front of his chest, unrelenting.
She tried a different approach. “C’mon Kheelan. Aren’t you curious? It won’t hurt to try it this once. After all, it was the drink of Hemingway, Edgar Allen Poe, Picasso and Van Gogh. American writers used to drink it at the Algonquin Lounge.” Skye winced at her own voice. She sounded desperate, like some kind of stupid addict. She cleared her throat. “I know wormwood’s supposed to be bitter, but we’ve even got sugar cubes and matches down here.”