The Secret Name

by CliffJonesJr 

It was sometime in September, as I recall. Maybe October. My husband Cyrus had been missing for about a week. We was all worried, but I tried to keep telling myself—and anybody else who'd listen—that Cyrus was unpredictable. It was like that shade way back when he drunk-dialed me to pop the question and then I didn't see him for three shines. He relished his freedom, and from time to time, he'd go off on his own awhile, just to prove he could.

But this was getting to be a fiery long while, and well I knew it.

It was then I seen my sister-son Andrew Fae coming up the drive. He was unmistakable with his shambling step and his posture all stooped over. And of course, there was that face of his: completely covered in hair since he was a lamb. As soon as I clapped eyes on Andrew, I felt a sudden panic that my husband wasn't coming home. Andrew only showed up to pay his respects when somebody died, and this time, I knew in my gut it was my Cyrus.

For some reason, whenever a card ghosted, they usually went right to Andrew for a good long talk before moving on. It was like the kid had one foot in the orb and the other in the Toad King's Pond. And I thought I knew why, too: The little folk felt sorry for him, deformed as he was. In a way, it was their fault he existed in the first place. No, that's putting it badly. I'll hafta explain.

When I was just a little kid myself, I lived in a sprawling farm town called Sun City. It's not far from Memphis, but you'd never know that from the looks of the place. Essentially speaking, we was about as far from the big city as you could get. What's left of the Fae family still lives out that direction, I guess: my sister Nell, her kid Andrew, and our momma Hattie.

My daddy was known around town as "Big Ray," even before I brought Little Ray into the orb. In fact, the old man ghosted when my son was just a lamb, so there was never any chance of mixing them up. Daddy had a secret he tried to take to his grave. He was almost successful, but not quite. Now, it's my secret.

See, Big Ray Fae had a way with trees. Anybody could tell you that. What most cards didn't know was that Big Ray actually talked to his trees. And what's more, they listened. Well, that's the plain truth, but it ain't quite factual. He wasn't exactly talking to the trees themselves but to the Specials what lived in them. And let me tell you, them little folk—they's good friends to have. They got their tiny little hands in everything.

No, that ain't the full secret; I wouldn't just give it away like that! The secret is how Ray talked to them Specials, how he made them listen. Normally, they just make their own decisions, but if you got the proper access sequence—like a secret name you give to prove you's worthy—then they'll follow whatever commands you give them. That's some power right there, and no bull.

Most cards nowtimes no longer credit Ecrivain's Specials nohow since they's too small too see, but factually, they's just tech like any other. The size of a thing don't matter so much on its own. It's more the way things interact that matters. You get a whole mess of tiny Specials working together as a unit, and before you know it, you's talking about something big. That's all a chimera is, if you didn't know: billions and trillions of little folk.

As I was saying, me and my sister Nell used to be like two peas in a pod. We's twins, after all, though we don't look much alike nowtimes. Knowing what I know now, I'd say we shoulda spent more time apart—maybe played more with our little brother Seth—but at the time, we was inseparable. Nell and me both wanted to be just like our daddy Big Ray, with all the Specials in the orb at our command. Nell was good-hearted about it, but if I'm being honest, I really used to hate the old man for keeping his secret name from us. If he woulda just said, "Sometime," I coulda handled that. But no, he'd make a speech, all high and mighty: "The little folk know best. Meddling with their Intelligence System always does more harm than good, one way or another."

But Nell and me knew he still "meddled." It was just that he didn't trust anybody else with that kind of power. And maybe he was right, at that. It's an awful burden I carry now.

One shade, Nell came to bed looking like she had the whole orb figured out. "I know how get Daddy to spill his secret name," she told me.

"The hell you do," I whispered back. She was always scheming like that, and it never amounted to much.

"Out in the fig grove," Nell began, fiery proud of herself, "there's one tree that started drying up, just in the past couple of shines. If Daddy don't set some Specials to working on it, it's bound to die before long."

I seen where Nell was headed and continued her thought: "So if we can watch him when he makes his rounds tomorrow..."

"If we can just keep out of sight..."

"...then he's bound to use his secret name to fix that tree!"

It sounded like a good plan. We thought we had it all figured out. So the next morning, we nestled ourselves into the thick brush at the edge of the fig grove and stared at that withered little sapling, just waiting for Big Ray to come walking by and spot it. We figured he'd use his secret name to command it to grow, and that would be that.

It musta been a good hour or so that we sat there in the brush, sweat dripping down our faces, trying to stay comfortable in the heat of the shine with no room to move around and no water to drink. Finally, Big Ray did come strolling through the grove, easy as you please, inspecting every tree in that patient way of his. But when he got to the one we was watching, he just looked a little sad and mumbled to himself: "Knew that'n was too close to the other'n. Maybe a little dung? Nah, prob no good..."

He barely even stopped walking! It was clear he wasn't going to call down any little folk to save that tree, but Nell musta thought there was still a chance he might say his secret name anyhow. She crawled through the brush after Big Ray, keeping pace right alongside him. I was too scared to move. I didn't want to know what Daddy would do if he caught us spying.

Then I seen the high grass part behind Nell with a flash of red winding back and forth in it like a river. Red like fire, red like river clay. I started to call out to my sister, but through her own anguished cry, mine sounded like nothing more than a whimper. Nell was already bit by that snake, the deadly red mamba.

Before I even knew what was happening, Big Ray busted through the tangled weeds and pulled Nell out into the open ground of the fig grove. He laid her on her back and seen how she was convulsing as that venom coursed through her veins. Her eyes was wide open, but she was no longer screaming. From where I was in the brush, it looked like she'd gone unconscious. I wanted to help, but there was nothing at all I could do that wouldn't just be a distraction. I had to trust my daddy.

I listened as Big Ray start reciting an unfamiliar sequence of syllables in a clear, even voice. It took me just a sec, but imagine my relief when I realized he was calling out his access sequence, that "secret name" we'd been waiting for! Now, don't get me wrong. I wasn't thinking of myself then, I swear. I was just relieved that Big Ray was calling down Specials to help my sister. If anything in the orb could help her, it would be the little folk.

Back in them times, Ecrivain's Specials was still big enough that you could see them if there was a whole mess clouding together. It was almost like a gray fog, but moving more like a swarm of bees. That was just what I seen then descending onto Nell's limp body. They mostly settled on her face, around the eyes, nose, mouth... anywhere that led inside, I guess.

I could see for myself how the Specials was getting into Nell's body. Everywhere they went in turned bright red with irritation. Several places actually started to drip blood just a little. The worst part was her eyes. Even now, picturing that blood streaming down like tears... My own eyes can't help but well up in response. I hated myself for being so careless hiding in the weeds like that—and then so cowardly staying there, just keeping quiet while my sister barely clung to life.

Nell did live, of course, but the little folk's cure cost her her eyesight. It also cost her something else that's harder to quantify. Her innocence, maybe? A childlike faith in divine justice? Maybe it was simply the notion that things was going to work out for her, one way or another. She'd always believed that, I knew, but the little folk seemed to strip away her illusions right along with that mamba venom. They saved her life all right, but after that, Nell was not the same sister I'd known. And I'd known her well.

"He called down the little folk to save me, didn't he?" Nell asked me later.

I hesitated a moment. No, this wasn't something I could lie about. The evidence was all over her face. "He did, I think. Yeah."

"Did you hear the secret name?" she asked, a tear trickling down her cheek.

"No," I said. I'm not entirely sure why I lied to my poor sister like that. I think I was worried about how she'd use the power if she had it. She was so bitter about her accident. She blamed Daddy for not acting fast enough, I guess—and more than that, she blamed him for holding back his secret name and putting us in that position to begin with. I can't say as I blame her, but I didn't want to see Daddy punished for doing his best under the conditions. He saved Nell's life, after all, even if she did end up blind.

After the accident, Big Ray sold the orchard and moved us all to the Eddison farm outside of Memphis. I found out later that he was thinking of Nell's future. He knew she'd have a hard time finding work out in the country, given her condition, and he made a deal with Momma Skye—that's Jeb Eddison's wife—that Nell would be trained in the Arts of the Sisterhood. Not being a Sister myself, I never been too clear on exactly what them Arts consist of, but Nell seems to be pretty fiery in them nowtimes.

There's an unfortunate subject I'm skipping over, and really, it was the whole reason I got started on this yarn: the birth of Andrew Fae.

When Nell was a little older—but still way too young to be a momma—she started swelling up without the least explanation. Everybody asked her who the daddy was, but she wouldn't say. Honestly, I don't guess she knew, exactly. She couldn't see, after all, and somebody musta took advantage. Nell never would say a word about it, not even to me.

Big Ray was furious, of course, not knowing who'd been after his lamb—cuz to a daddy, a daughter's always a lamb, even if she is old enough to be a momma. He took to drinking the black and roughing up kids he thought might know something about the business, but that didn't last too long. One morning, we found him on the family couch, stone dead. He musta finally had too much black for his old body to handle.

Now that's not the note I wanted to end on. I started off trying to tell about Cyrus, but then I wound up jawing on my poor sister Nell and her kid Andrew. Still, I guess a story's a story. All in all, I oughta be thankful, I know. Cards ghost every shine. As long as that card ain't me, I'm lucky, eh?

So Cyrus had moved on to the Toad King's Pond. Is that really so bad? It sure ain't easy to think about, but I guess that's just how we's built. One thing's for certain though: we's also built to move on when the time comes, and no bull about that. Whatever dying is, it's what we was born to do.