Rosemary and Rue

Everything was quiet, save for the distant rumble of traffic on the freeway. Shivering, I walked a little faster, heading down a side street into a neighborhood that smelled like rotten fruit and sweet decay. A black horse stood by the curb in the deepest part of the shadow, the smell of debris masking its characteristic blood-and-seaweed scent. Its eyes were red, and the look it gave me was inviting, promising wild adventures and fantastic delights if I’d just get onto its back. I waved it off with one hand, walking on. Only an idiot would trust a Kelpie this close to the water. Getting on its back with the scent of the sea in the air would be a fast, painful means of committing suicide, and I’m not a fan of pain.

The Kelpie took a few steps forward, eyes glowing. Hard as I’d been trying to deny the existence of Faerie, ignoring the threat wouldn’t make it go away. I sighed and stopped, folding my arms. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

It continued to advance.

Right. A more direct approach was needed. Unfolding my arms, I shoved my hair back and dropped the illusion hiding the shape of my ears. Careful to keep the exhaustion out of my voice, I asked, “Really sure?”

Kelpies are smarter than horses, and they recognize a threat when they see one. I’m just a changeling, sure, but I was apparently willing to face down a Kelpie, alone, on a foggy night, within spitting distance of the water. It couldn’t count on my willingness being based on bravado. It took a step backward, baring an impressive array of fangs.

“Just keep going,” I said. That seemed to be the last straw. The Kelpie snorted, as if to say that there was bound to be easier prey somewhere else in the city, and took another step back, outline fading into the fog until it might as well not have existed. Camouflage is the hunter’s first and best defense. I stood there for several minutes, waiting for it to reappear, before slipping my hands back into my pockets and starting to walk again, a little faster now. Maybe the Kelpie was gone, but there was nothing stopping it from coming back with friends. More than one would be more than I could bluff.

Seeing Kelpies on the streets of San Francisco is annoying and a little unnerving, but it’s nothing to worry about. They have illusions to hide them when they need to be hidden, and even I can handle a Kelpie—they bite if you get too close, but they’re not that dangerous if you just refuse to ride them. There’s nothing wrong with having a few monsters in the shadows. They keep me remembering what it is that I’m walking away from.

My name does the same thing, and that’s why I’ve never changed it to something more normal. My mother was what she was, and I am what she made me, and she thought “October” was a perfectly normal name for a little girl, even one born in 1952 at the height of human conservatism. If that little girl’s last name happened to be “Daye,” well, that was all the better! She was a loon, even then, and I miss her.

The sky was getting lighter; my encounter with the Kelpie had slowed me down enough to take me into dangerous territory. I started to walk a little faster. Getting caught outside at dawn won’t kill me—sunrise is painful, not fatal—but dawn also means a massive increase in the human population, and the last thing I needed was someone deciding I needed medical aid while my illusions were off. I look closer to human than a lot of changelings do, but “close” doesn’t cut it on the streets of a human city.

The streetlights above me flickered and went out, giving a final warning of morning’s approach. Time was up. Hiking up the collar of my coat for a little more cover, I started to run. Not that it was going to do much good; I was still blocks from my apartment, and the light was moving a lot faster than I was. There was no way I was going to make it.