It felt haunted.

  Janet remembered what day it was and forced herself to smile. Right…it’s Halloween and I’m in a haunted house. All I’m missing is a jack-o’-lantern full of candy. But the thought didn’t cheer her; it didn’t dispel the Examiner’s newly acquired aura.

  She was relieved when she reached the third floor and sunlight spilled in through a few windows, wan but enough to reassure her that there was a world outside where kids were putting on costumes, laughing, looking forward to their night of mock terrors.

  Tam’s room looked the same. She knew crews had toured every room in the Examiner, and she wondered what they’d seen here. A Tiffany lamp? Antique fountain pens? She guessed not.

  “Tam…goddamnit, Tam, you need to hear me! The building’s coming down tomorrow!”

  Nothing.

  She paced the carpeted floor of his room, desperate. She’d called him once before, hadn’t she? She tried to recall exactly what she’d done on that sweltering August afternoon. Of course she’d tried this before, dozens of times, but she had to try again. She’d come in…she’d gaped…she’d admired the lamp…she’d picked up a pen…

  The pen.

  It had to be the pen. But she’d tried this before, on so many other days. She’d picked up one of the other pens (there were still half-a-dozen on the desk), even waved it around…but nothing. No Tam.

  There had to be something else—

  Wait—I tried to steal it.

  Janet grabbed one of the pens and shoved it into a pocket of her jacket.

  “I’ve been waiting for you to figure that out.”

  She turned as Tam rushed forward to embrace her. “God, Tam, I’ve got so much to tell you…” she began, her voice husky, but she broke off as his mouth found hers. They were ravenous for each other, and need to speak gave way to other, more urgent desires. She fell back over the desk, he moved between her legs, and two months of separation vanished.

  It was over quickly, and then Janet’s rush of words came out. “Tam, you have to leave here, tonight. My father’s tearing the Examiner down tomorrow and I can’t stop him—”

  He put two fingers to her lips, gently. “Just slow down…”

  She looked into his eyes, and she saw compassion, a hint of mischief, love…and a trapped animal. She lifted herself from the rough wood of the desk, pulled clothing back into place. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I have so many questions, and with the baby and all –”

  “Baby?”

  The ability to make coherent words left her. She looked at him uncertainly. Would he mock her? Question if it was his? Dismiss her?

  Instead, he pulled her to him. “Janet…my Janet…”

  She let him hold her for a few seconds before pulling away. “Tam…what exactly are you? Why are you here?”

  Tam sighed, a slight expression but enough that she felt his breath on her skin. “I’m something both more and less than human. Remember that show, Thorn in the Roses? We shot the last episode here. I was a stupid kid, sixteen. I got bored once while I waited for the cameras to set up, and I wandered off to the third floor. This was where I met her.”

  “Who?”

  “Who else? May O’Greene.”

  Janet’s mind raced back to the biography she’d read months ago. “But…May O’Greene died in something like 1912, not long after she finished the Examiner.”

  Tam shook his lovely head. “No. She can’t die, because she’s not human.”

  “What...what is she?”

  “She’s had many names. Titania… Oona… Mab… Maeve… May… Queen of the Fairies.”

  Janet couldn’t suppress a sharp laugh. “Fairies? Now I’m supposed to believe in fairies?”

  Tam took her hands, kissed her fingers (sending another ripple through her), and said, “Nowadays people would call us ghosts. We’re the ones who live on the outside…or, maybe more accurately, tucked into the edges of your reality. We never die, but we don’t really live, either.”

  “But you…?”

  “Ahh, yes…the boy who wandered away from the film crew. Well, it was a Halloween—like today—and May came through the veil between the worlds and took me back with her. She laid magicks on me first and then on my parents, so they lied about knowing where I was. And she kept me prisoner, or rather—collected, a pretty trinket she can look at when she’s bored.”

  “But if the hotel is torn down…”

  Tam’s look contained almost inexpressible weariness. “I’ll go with it.”

  “How do we get you out of here, then?”

  “There’s one way, but…”

  He turned away from her, and Janet walked to his front, forcing him to look at her. “I don’t care. What do we do?”

  “Do you know about Halloween? I mean, it’s real meaning beyond silly costumes and pumpkins? It’s the night when fall becomes winter, when sun’s life turns to night’s death, when the veil between worlds is thinnest. You sense it, don’t you?”

  May thought about the walk from the first floor, how she could almost feel a vibration in the air itself. “Yes.”

  “At midnight, that veil will be the thinnest and you might be able to pull me through, but May will try to stop you.”

  “Stop me? How?”

  “By tricking you. She’ll tell you that you can have me…if you can hold me. Then she’ll try to frighten you into letting go. She’ll change me three times, and each transformation will be worse than the last.”

  Janet’s hands moved to his face, his cold skin. “I don’t care. If I get you out…”

  He encircled her wrists with his hands. “You can. But don’t make the mistake of underestimating her, Janet. It will be the hardest thing you’ve ever done. Just remember: Don’t let go. When I return to my true form, wrap me in your jacket and it’ll be over.”

  She nodded, too overwhelmed to speak. He smiled warmly at her. “You can do this.”

  She wished she shared his confidence.

  * * *

  They spent the rest of that day talking, holding each other. Tam asked her questions about what had happened in the ten years that he’d been May’s prisoner. Janet talked about her life, her plans, how she both loved and hated her father.

  As the sun set, the Tiffany lamp glowed softly, casting the room in the soft shades of its colored glass squares. The light would have been pleasant under any other circumstance, but as the time drew closer to midnight, the oppressive atmosphere intensified. Janet felt it like a low frequency hum in her midsection, setting her on edge, making her want to flee.

  But she didn’t. She stayed with Tam as he spoke to her, soothing her, telling her that May had treated him well (for a prisoner), and that he believed she loved him.

  “Who wouldn’t?” Janet asked.

  Janet glanced at her phone, and saw the time was just after 8 p.m. “Four hours to go,” she said, setting the phone up where she could see it.

  She glanced out the window, and her heart skipped a beat as she saw eyes looking in at her. Yellow eyes that didn’t blink, that weren’t shaped like any animal she could name.

  “Tam!”

  He followed her wide gaze before pulling her close. “It’s starting. The veil is lifting.”

  “But it’s too early, it’s only—” She looked at the phone.

  It read 11:58.

  “That’s not possible. It was just eight o’clock—”

  The building began to rumble as if a small earthquake were happening. The Tiffany lamp blinked out so that the only light in the room came from the glowing eyes of whatever watched them from outside. Janet clutched at Tam, her breath quickening; the temperature plummeted, and steam puffed from her with each exhalation.

  The other side of the room began to glow, softly, a bluish light that might once have been seen above a dank graveyard or in the heart of a darting will-o’-the-wisp.

  “Tam…?”

  “It’s her.”

  Something moved in front of the glow—a feminine shape. Tall, dressed in some sort of full-length dress or gown, hair flowing… “Well, now, Tam, what’s this?” asked a husky feminine voice, with a hint of old world accent.

  The glow moved to reveal her face, and Janet gaped—the photo of May O’Greene she’d found hadn’t begun to capture her extraordinary face. Her features were too sharp—almost feral—to be truly beautiful, but her eyes glinted with both youthful passion and the madness of great age.

  Janet saw that even Tam was unnerved by May. “This is Janet, and we’re leaving.”

  May laughed, a sound that was every Halloween witch’s shriek mixed together. “Oh, dear Tam, are we actually going to do this?”

  Tam ignored her and turned to Janet. “Are you ready?”

  She nodded and put her arms around him. He whispered into her ear, “Remember—don’t let go.”

  Whatever Janet expected—a snake, a giant spider, a flame that might scald her—she didn’t anticipate Tam trying to pull away from her.

  Except it wasn’t Tam’s voice that said, “What the…? Janet? Where am I?”

  She pulled back as far as she could without releasing him, and saw: a college boy who’d asked her out. “Matt…?”

  Even in the dim light, she made out the terror on his face. Her first instinct was to release him, tell him to run, this wasn’t his fight… “No.” She held him tighter.

  May said, “That’s one…”

  Janet closed her eyes. Maybe if she just kept them shut, if she didn’t look at whatever came next…

  “Janet, look at me,” said her father.

  Her eyes snapped open involuntarily, and Janet gasped and shrank back at what she saw. It was her father, but his features had altered, become savage, almost demonic. He leered at her and pulled her to him; she felt the bulge in his crotch and cried out wordlessly. “There’s been nobody but you since your mother died,” he said, and he ran his tongue down her cheek.

  Janet willed her knees to hold her up, her arms to keep their circle around him. It’s a phantom…It’s not my father…

  “You’ve disappointed me in so many ways,” he said, and she hated the tear that she felt trace down her cheek, “but you could still make it right, if you’re good to me…”

  He ground against her. She swallowed back a scream, turned her head, but finally forced out, “I won’t let go!”

  “Oh, really, child?” May asked. “How about now?”

  Her father’s face melted away, the figure in her arms grew smaller, more compact, until Janet saw that she held—

  Herself.

  She stared in confusion. It was like looking into a mirror, except she felt the body solidly in her arms—her body. How was this supposed to scare her? It was strange, yes, but hardly fearful enough to make her relinquish her hold—

  The face began to shift. To age.

  Twenty…twenty-one, an adult now, and doubt etched itself in her features…twenty-three, twenty-six, and she saw anxiety, premature lines…twenty-eight, thirty, thirty-three, and failure was deeply graven, the eyes half-lidded and sunken, the mouth turning down forever…

  Janet sobbed as she realized—this could be her life with Tam. Joyless and careworn, burdened with a child at too early an age—

  Thirty-eight, forty, forty-five…

  She looked like her mother. Her unfocused eyes and sallow cheeks were testament to prescription drug abuse, and she knew she’d be dead soon, dead like her mother, worn away by life…

  But she could have life back if she let go. The next thirty years didn’t have to go like this.

  Let go…

  “Noo!” It was a shout of desperation, but it worked. It roused her to realization: a trick.

  She tightened her grip.

  And she felt bare, warm skin beneath. She held Tam again. He looked drained, barely conscious. Janet reached one arm to the desk, found the jacket she’d placed there, and draped it around him. He fell against her. She lowered him to the floor, kneeling with him, keeping the jacket in place.

  May O’Greene didn’t shriek or storm. Instead she sobbed.

  “You’ve won him, girl,” she managed between cries. “Be good to him.”

  She blinked out. The world changed. The eyes at the windows were gone, the lovely furnishings vanished, the smothering sense of wrongness replaced by the ordinary air of a world that held a future for her again.

  “Is it over?” Tam muttered, trying to re-gather energy he hadn’t possessed in ten years.

  “It’s over,” Janet said as she bent to kiss his head.

  Or, she thought as she felt a lifetime’s worth of happiness wash over her, it’s just beginning.

  On…Tam Lin

  The ballad of Tam Lin resonates throughout our culture. It’s the 39th Child ballad (Roud #35) - a “transformation story.” Tam Lin is a lusty young man, loved by the ladies, human and fairy. When Janet (or Margaret or Jenny) finds she is pregnant by Tam Lin, she goes to pick an herb that will cause her to abort. There Tam Lin himself appears and explains that he has been taken by the fairies and is going to be given to hell that Halloween as a tithe. He tells her to wait by the road until the fairy procession rides by. She must then pull him off his horse and hold him, no matter what he transforms into. Janet is brave enough to hold on as Tam Lin transforms into a myriad of creatures. Some listed include an adder, a bear, a lion, a toad, an eel, or a black dog—creatures no one would want their arms around. In some versions he then becomes his normal comely self, in others he must be submerged in either milk or water to become human. Many versions end with the fairy Queen saying if she had known Tam Lin would be taken from her, she would have replaced his heart with a stone or stored his heart in a tree. (1)

  Janet does much better than a husband in a similar story, but with the roles reversed. When he tries to save his wife in the same way, he lets her go in fright, thus condemning himself to current and eternal unhappiness. (2)

  The Ballad of Tam Lin has inspired many writers including Susan Cooper, Diana Wynne Jones, Charles Vess, and Holly Black. Musicians love the ballad and a small selection includes The Decemberists, Enter The Haggis, Fairport Convention, and Frankie Armstrong.

  1) Child, Francis James. The English and Scottish Popular Ballads Vol. 1. Mineola: Dover, 2003.

  2) Child, Francis James. The English and Scottish Popular Ballads Vol. 1. Mineola: Dover, 2003.

  JOHN BARLEYCORN MUST DIE

  By

  Marsheila Rockwell and Jeffrey J. Mariotte

  The sign read “Bacchanal Brewing—Ale Fit for the Gods,” and not only was it the last place in town I wanted to be, it was also the last story in all of this news-challenged state that I wanted to be covering. And considering my other choices were batteries made from cowpies and allegations of fraud at the local dog show, that was saying something.

  This piece would have been a natural for Paul Hendricks, who worshipped microbrew as if those aforementioned gods had wafted down from paradise to personally hand-deliver it to us lowly mortals. So of course Paul was out with a flu that came out of nowhere, hit him hard, and looked like it would keep him down for the count. Which meant Jayne had assigned the story to me, and it was about as welcome as a punch in the kidneys.

  Send a dry drunk, an alcoholic with fourteen years, nine months, and twenty-two days of sobriety under his belt, into an up-and-coming microbrewery. What could possibly go wrong, right?

  I checked my notes again, not wanting to turn the car off and step out onto the newly paved and striped asphalt. Not that I needed the refresher—I’d committed the words to memory when I had first written them down, and the neat block letters weren’t suddenly going to divulge any information about the place or its owners that I didn’t already know. Still, it gave me a chance to steady my nerves and a few more minutes to wait for a text from my sponsor—something I wasn’t sure I had the guts to enter the brewery without.

  Bacchanal was owned by three women who’d gone to college together at Southern Montana State—Anna Reeves, the business major; Carrie Reeves, her sister and the trio’s public relations guru (though I wasn’t clear on what exactly her major at SMSU had been, or if she’d even had one—she didn’t appear to have graduated); and Honey Harrelson, the nerdy one with degrees in both botany and agricultural engineering.

  Both Anna and Honey had graduated last year, Honey with honors. Honey’s picture was a fixture in the Big Sky Standard (or the BS Standard, as those of us who had to work there liked to call it), for everything from winning scholarships to charity work around town. In the space of a year, she and the Reeves sisters had gotten Bacchanal up and running with money from . . . well, that wasn’t exactly clear. Definitely one of the things I was going to try to discover in the course of our interview.

  As I was flipping through the articles on Honey—a pretty blonde with big green eyes and a Marilyn Monroe figure—my smartphone chimed.

  Finally.

  “Sorry, John, been AFK. No way 2 get there 2day. Reschedule?”

  Damn it.

  “No,” I typed back quickly. “This is the only day the owners would agree to.” I hated the lazy shortcuts texters used and refused to indulge in their wholesale slaughter of the English language. Not that any of the five people I exchanged texts with ever noticed.

  “U can do this. Just another interview. Treat it that way.”

  Easier said than done.

  When I didn’t immediately reply, Eddie—who’d just earned his twenty-five year chip—sent a quick torrent of follow-up texts, making my phone sound like a doorbell being abused by an impatient and probably not very personable salesman.

  “U CAN do this, John.”

  “I got faith in U. Have some in URself.”

  “But . . . maybe do the interview outside?”

  “Good luck!”

  With that, I knew he was gone—my only life preserver in what was sure to prove a perilous ocean of pale ale and dark lager sharks. Sighing, I put the phone on vibrate and stuck it in my pocket. I stuffed my notes back into their file folder, pulled the key from the ignition, and with a wordless plea to my higher power, climbed out into the late June heat to meet my demons.