Free Jack, the giant-killer by Charles De Lint

what happens?” Kate asked, peering up and down the street.
    “You don’t see anything out there, right?”
    “Right. So therefore your gnomes are real?”
    “Kate!”
    “Okay, okay. Tell me what to do. Do I stand on one leg and squint out of the corner of my eye, or…” She let her voice trail off at Jacky’s frown.
    “Just don’t do anything for a moment,” Jacky said. Then she put on the redcap, bracing herself for the sense of vertigo that was going to come.
    It wasn’t so bad this time—more like a subtle shifting underfoot—and then a gauze seemed to have dropped from her eyes so that she could see everything clearly again. The redcap alone should prove it, she thought, but looking out the window she saw him, the chrome of his machine gleaming in the streetlights, the black leather swallowing light, the featureless shadow under his visor. She stared for a long moment, shivering, then stepped back.
    “Jacky,” Kate began worriedly.
    Jacky shook her head and took off the redcap. She kept her balance by holding on to the windowsill, then handed the cap to Kate.
    “Put it on and look out the window,” she said.
    “Down there towards the house where that guy was working on his car almost every day last summer.”
    Kate stepped closer to the window and looked.
    “Put the cap on,” Jacky said.
    Kate turned. “But there’s nothing there.”
    “Please?”
    “Okay, okay.”
    She put the redcap on and Jacky stepped in close to steady her as she swayed dizzily.
    “My God,” Kate said softly. “There is someone out there.” She turned from the window. “We’ve got to call the cops…” Her voice faded as she looked at Jacky.
    “What’s the matter?” Jacky asked.
    “I don’t know. You look different all of a sudden. It’s like I can see you better or something.”
    Jacky nodded. “Look at the biker again,” she said.
    “Is he still there?” she added, once Kate was looking in the right direction.
    When Kate nodded, Jacky pulled the cap from her head and then steadied her again. Kate swayed, looked out the window, then back at Jacky. Without saying anything, she moved slowly to a chair and sat down.
    “It’s a trick, right?” she said when she was sitting down.
    Jacky shook her head. “No. It’s real. The cap lets you see into Faerie.”
    “Faerie,” Kate repeated numbly. “Now they’re going to take both of us away in nice little white jackets.”
    “We’re not crazy,” Jacky said.
    Kate didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then she asked, “Where did you get that… that cap?”
    “From a gnome.”
    “From a… God, I’m sorry I asked.”
    Jacky started to frown, but then she saw that it was just Kate’s way of dealing with it.
    “Let’s go have some more tea,” she said, “and I’ll tell you all about it.”
    Kate pushed herself up, using the arms of the chair for leverage, and followed her into the kitchen.
    “The floor’s yours,” she said.
    Kate tended to frown when she concentrated on something. By the time Jacky was finished her story, her forehead was a grid of lines.
    “You shouldn’t do that,” Jacky said.
    Kate looked at her. “Do what?”
    “Scrunch up your face like that. My mother used to say when I was pulling a face, that if I didn’t watch out, the wind would change and leave me looking like that forever.”
    “Or until the wind changed again,” Kate added. She put her index fingers in either side of her mouth and pulled it open in a gaping grin, then rolled her eyes. Jacky burst into laughter.
    “Of course,” Kate said when they’d both caught their breath, “I suppose we’ve got to take all that shit seriously now, don’t we? Black cats and walking under ladders—the whole kit and kaboodle.”
    “Oh, I don’t know,” Jacky replied. “But… you do believe me now, don’t you?”
    Kate looked at the redcap, then at her friend’s face.
    “Yeah,” she said slowly. “I guess I do. And now—like I said before. What happens?