“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.
“Oh no. Quite real. This is his bridge. He’s a diminutive thing, but all the more nasty and ill-tempered for his size. He has brought an untimely end to more than a few lost house pets and unfortunate local fauna. He seems to have a fondness for cats, though—rides a stray orange tabby when he needs to get about.”
“A troll?” I said. “Seriously?”
“Scoff if you like, but if you’re keen on keeping all of your digits and extremities, you would be well advised to steer clear or pay him an offering.”
“All right.” I suppressed my skepticism again—an exercise I was finding necessary more often than not while working for Jackaby. “Well, trolls . . . eat people, don’t they? Could Hammett be our killer?”
“Interesting thought. I can’t see a full-grown troll leaving a body without at least gnawing the bones a bit first. It’d be as if you or I ate an orange peel and left the fruit in the center. As for Hammett, he’s not exactly a menacing figure, for all his pugnacity. He would be happy to crunch the lot of us between his teeth, but I’ve seen him lose in a fair fight with a particularly robust badger. So . . . doubtful.” He turned his attention back to Hatun, who had tucked the fishing pole under the little bridge and come across to meet us.
She stood a foot shorter than I, with curly gray hair tied back in a sloppy bun, and the wrinkled face of someone who had weathered many years outdoors. She was dressed in bulky layers of shirts, petticoats, and wraps, all tattered and faded into complementary shades of soft pastels and subtle grays. She stood with a proud, erect gait, and an expression of benevolent confidence, looking almost stately in spite of her rags.
“Hatun, I would like you to meet my new associate, Miss Abigail Rook. Miss Rook will be working closely with me on cases for the foreseeable future. Feel free to speak openly before her.”
Hatun looked squarely and a little suspiciously at me, and then shuffled a half step to one side and then the other. She watched my eyes intently during the exercise. “Hmm,” she said. “Well, then. Nice to meet you, missy. I expect you two are looking into that business at the Emerald?”
I glanced to Jackaby, who seemed unperturbed by her behavior or her accurate guess. “Yes, in fact,” he answered.
“How did you know?” I meant it as a proper detective’s question, but I’m afraid it came out as an awed whisper, instead.
“Of course she knew.” Jackaby gestured impatiently back toward city. “There are at least a dozen uniformed men and scores of pedestrians making a noisy scene not three blocks from where we stand. If that mill weren’t in the way, you could probably see them from here.”