The Green Fairy…
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Absinthe.
The air was heavy with the scent of licorice and on the workbench was an olive gold-green bottle which was now half empty. Quentin watched with bleary eyes as the ice water slowly dripped from the fountain, a ancient silver gilded water dispenser made for the purpose. A flat spoon with holes rested on a glass below, a sugar cube dissolved under the constant dripping, and the green liquid in the glass slowly turned a opalescent green-white as the oils in the strong liqueur separated. He cracked a half smile, fascinated with the swirling ghosts that spun in ever complex patterns within the glass.
The absinthe had been his father’s, as was the fountain, the glass and the spoon. To say Quentin was a bit obsessed with the bitter drink of poets and painters would be to put it mildly. He had even given the name to his 1948 Harley-Davidson Pan Head, which he had just finished painting – under the influence of course. “Absinthe” was painted in green and gold across both sides of the tank, against a textured black and silver background, where once it had said “Harley-Davidson”.
He stood up suddenly as he caught a movement by his bike from the corner of his eye.
“Damn thing looks more like a dragon!” He blurted out, sloshing a bit of the liquid on his shirt. He gripped the workbench unsteadily, and then downed the glass in a single gulp. He squinted at the design on the tank of his chopper – it seemed to be moving, like the scales on a snake greenish black with flecks of gold, moving like the undulations of the snakes body. He stared at the movement, trying to fix his eyes on one point. Feeling a bit sick to his stomach, he sat back down on one of the tall stools.
Tomorrow was his eighteenth birthday, the day his mom and dad had died, ten years to the day. He had to grow up too fast. Someone would pay for that.
Absentmindedly he began to finger the twisted, knot shaped gold and obsidian amulet his mother had given him — on the very night she had died, screaming in front of his eyes.
He slowly twisted the ornate absinthe glass, holding it aloft to admire the green-gold coloring and comparing it to new paint-job on his chopper. This bike was his other obsession, and he had worked every spare hour he could, building it from the box of junk that Johnny Zeb, his godfather and guardian had given him.
Again, he thought he saw something in the corner of his peripheral vision. He spun, sloshing more of the white-green liquid on himself. Nothing. then he turned back towards his chopper.
Quentin began to think he may have had too many.
“Quentin…”
He thought that he may have had too many because now there was a peculiar girl sitting on the seat of his newly painted chopper.
“Quentin!”
A green girl.
“Quentin Dark!”
She was pretty in a pixie sort of way, long thin legs, tight fitting, low-cut jumper of some kind that looked like it was patched together from a bag of green scraps, long black hair and…pointed ears.
“Quentin Dark can you hear me or are you too drunk!” she demanded.
“Oh, I can hear you, I just don’t believe you.”
The girl hopped off the choppers seat and stood, barefoot, in front of Quentin. “You don’t believe me?”
“I don’t believe in you. You can’t possibly exist little green girl, as its rather obvious that I’ve had to many of these.” Sloshing the glass of absinthe, Quentin took another gulp. “By the way, I like what you’ve done with your imaginary ears.”
The girl reached up and touched her left ear at this, and frowned, and then she leaped from where she was to a point directly in front of Quentin. Leaning in towards him, hands on her hips until her pixie face was directly in front of his, she parted her green lips revealing rows of sharp pointed teeth, but it was her eyes that captivated Quentin the most. Like the rest of her, they were various shades of green, large and cat-like. They danced with mirth, and something else-something that spoke of dark desires, something that stirred unformed memories in Quentin.
“You are a pretty one, you are!” She ran her fingers through Quentin’s hair, undoing his ponytail with unnatural speed. Down Quentin’s face went her other hand, and he could feel the sharpness in the nails. “I believe in you!”
“Uh…can you get off me please?”
“But I am ‘imaginary’…that is what you said?”
“Yeah…right, uh who are you anyway? And what the hell are you doing in the shop?”
“I am Ainmhithe…and I am here because you called me.”
“I…what? I did not call you!”
The girl jumped back down catlike, spinning on her toes, until she was standing on the other side of the workbench that Quentin was drinking at. She then pointed at the picture on the bottle of Absinthe. Quentin squinted and, after a moment was able to make out the cartoonish drawing of a green girl on the bottle, a girl with wings and pointed ears.”
“You called me” she repeated.
As Quentin leaned forward to get a better look, his amulet fell out from the folds of his shirt.
“What is that!” she screamed piercingly so that Quentin winced. “What is that!” she repeated even louder, now facing him, a wild look on her face.
“It’s my Amu…” Quentin started as he pulled it back out.
At the sight of it the green girl sprung high into the air, somersaulted, and pouncing all fours onto Quentin and knocked him onto his back. With both hands she tore open his shirt, her eyes went wide and crazy as she pointed at the amulet.
“What the hell-” Quentin began, his head hurting from falling back – and from too much Absinthe.
“Yess! She hissed, “You do indeed bear the knot of the Wyrding!” Quentin felt the nails of her fingers bite into the skin of his chest, and then she kissed him fully on his lips, her kiss was like ice water, and it felt like it poured through his mouth back into the depths of his body freezing him from the inside out. His vision became clouded and he could not breathe but he could hear her voice in his head saying the same phrase over and over, rising to a shriek. His arms felt like cement, immovable, he could not push her away. The words she repeated reverberated off the walls of his mind again and again as his world went black,
“You must untie the knot!”
–#–
Later, Quentin awoke face-down in a pool of drool mixed with metal shavings on the shop table.
“Get up, idiot!
Johnny Zebinski, owner of the shop was poking him with his index finger.
“You I should fire for getting drunk in my shop!”
Johnny’s loud, Czechoslovakian accent pounded in Quentin’s head like the shop’s trip-hammer.
“Please, Johnny, stop shouting!”
“You want see me shout? I shout! This my shop damn it! You go drinking too much again! You drinking that damn ‘Good and Plenty’ drink an’ now my shop smell like a cough-drop. I should you fire!”
“I’m sorry Johnny, last night-you know. My birthday, the night mom and dad-”
Recognition lit up on Johnny’s face and he went silent for a moment. Then he patted Quentin on the back, as he started cursing himself in Czech.
“I vedy sorry Quentin,” He said finally, “I forget, I would go get drunk too. Oh how I forget! Next time, you come to my place and we drink vodka, yes? I not want you go cut off your arm in my shop-not good for business!”
Johnny stood grinning at Quentin, his face pockmarked and pudgy, his eyebrows bushy and jutting over deep set eyes and his nose more like a small red potato. He was the very picture of a short Czech shop-keeper. “Johnny Zeb” had escaped the iron curtain, and had endured hardships that would make most men pale to consider. Quentin knew that behind that grin and gruff was a man with a heart of gold for those in real pain-and little patience for fools.
Then Quentin remembered the green girl. Sitting up suddenly he looked directly into his boss’s face, “Johnny, did you see someone else in the shop when you came in?”
“Vat? I see no-one!”
“It was a girl, you would remember her if you had seen her.”
“You had a girl in here too! Getting drunk with girl-”
“No! Johnny I think she must have snuck in when we were open yesterday, she-well, I don’t know how to say this, she was green.
“You see a green girl in my shop? A green girl sneak into my shop?”
“Uh-yeah.”
Johnny picked up the 100 year old bottle of Pernod Fils absinthe, looked at it thoughtfully, and declared, “Mebbe I should be trying this, no?”
“Johnny-”
“No one in shop, nothing is missing-I check, I always check.”
“Uh-” Quentin thought he had better drop the subject of the green girl, there was a more pressing matter to talk to Johnny about.
“Johnny, you know today is my last-”
“I don’ want to talk about dat.”
“But Johnny, we have to talk about it. Are you going to be alright for the next two weeks? I have to go to the lawyers after I get out today, and then I have to go to… to Arizona.”
“You got that Miller chopper finished?”
“Yes, you know I did!”
“All of the pipes done right, the maps loaded and tuned?”
“You know I did, you checked them yourself.”
“I always check.”
Quentin rolled his eyes. Johnny always checked and double checked everything. It came from always having to look over you back when you lived in a communist country. “You will be alright then?”
“I be alright! Miller pay good money, I be able to eat from time to time. I might have to close the shop and sell-”
“Johnny! It’s only for two weeks…” Then Quentin noticed Johnny’s wink and grin.
“You go. You need to take care of that old house-and you a man now, it is time to face what went on back then-your ghosts. One day, this shop will be yours, you need to go back and make peace.”
“Thanks Johnny.”
“Button you shirt, Quentin, we have customers! ”
Quentin looked down, four scratches on either side of his chest and his shirt was missing the buttons. Could he have dreamed that as well? Quentin held his amulet for a moment. His mind playing tricks, the amulet seemed darker somehow-blacker than usual.
It’s just a piece of metal!
The rest of the day went as usual. The pain in Quentin’s head slowly subsided, and by closing he had all but forgotten the weirdness of the night before. He was dead tired, and he would be having a very long day tomorrow. How he longed for pure unconsciousness sleep, but his dreams that night would not let him go. Dazzling displays of ethereal light and equally intense pain seemed to echo, mixing with words the green girls had spoken, “You must untie the knot!” Dark and nameless things he had kept buried for years surged out of the blackness: his mother’s face, her lips moving soundlessly, as blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. His eighth birthday and a surprise party, the explosions, but most of all…anger. He screamed, wanting to awaken – the green girl’s laughter echoing in the background.
David T. McKee
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