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Friday, November 13 1903

The old man lay crumpled on the flagstones in front of a Park Avenue brownstone, his lifeblood oozing from five small holes in his neatly buttoned tweed vest like sap from a maple tree tapped in spring. Standing over him, pistol still smoking in his fist, was a man with glassy eyes-vacant of rational thought.

A thrall, thought the dying man, and he wondered briefly who among this kind had stooped so low to send this poor, mindless mortal slave to do their unpleasant bidding. The old man's eyes rolled upward, gazing past the face of the thrall into a sky of blue so bright, it squeezed tears from the corners of his eyes. He remembered when he had first set foot into this world. And his was the first. Others from him realm had followed, but he had been the one to lead them there.

He had been the foremost of the Fair Folk, the most powerful, the one to discover a passageway between that other realm and this one. He had created the Four Gates, one for each Court in the Otherworld, for each turning point of the seasons; doorways through which his kind could pass freely to savor the delights of this fresh new world.

That was in the days before mankind had stretched out his hand, before the forests had given way to the ax, before meadows had been paved over and rivers dammed. The old man had learned to live with humanity. And so had the Faerie who'd followed him: finding ways to coexist, in the same way that green things push their way up through cracks in the pavement.

He had moved the Gates from place to place over time, for one reason or another-war, or progress, or plain old Faerie boredom. He could still remember when the mortal populace of this world had referred to the Beltane Gate as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. That was before he had hidden it in the deep green forests of Ireland.

The Lunasa Gate was still called Stonehenge-and most likely always would be. The Gate of Imbolc, now far in the north, had never had a human name, no matter where it had existed. Gwynn ap Nudd, the inscrutable king og the Court of Spring, had preferred it that way.

Now, with the relocation of the Samhain Gate, the old man had done his finest work. His creation would be marveled over by the mortals of the New World for centuries to come. And even still, they would never know its true purpose-that it housed a Faerie secret, a portal to the Otherworld. But they would flock to the Gate, and they would call it by its human name: Central Park.

"Andrew"

The old man blinked up at a tall figure silhouetted against the sky.

"Andrew, old friend . . ."

"Ah," the old man gasped, struggling to rise up on one elbow. A trickle of crimson flowed from the corner of his mouth. "You are here."

"Be still, Andrew." The tall man knelt on the sidewalk and put a gentle hand on the old man's bleeding chest. "I will help you."

"Yes." Andrew Haswell Green, a philanthropist and a father of New York City, one of the driving forces behind the creation of Central Park, sighed contentedly. "It is well that you are here.

"What can I do?"

"Carry a burden for me."

"Anything"

"Thank you. old friend." Green put his hand on the other man's sun browned brow. For a moment the little grey courtyard in front of the brownstone lit up with warm, forest dappled sunlight. The chilly November air filled with the heady scents of growth and harvest, fermentation and vegetal decay. The other man gasped and his eyes went wide, but he did not flinch or pull away.

When it was over, the other man laid his oldest friend down gently on the stones and stood. Then he turned and walked north past the ornate edifice of Grand Central Terminal, in the direction of the park. To where the trees now whispered his name.

The shiny black carriage rolled to a stop on the other side of the street. Its occupant drew back the heavy velvet window curtain, hissing in frustration at the sight of Andrew Green's body, already emptied of life . . . and power. The passenger knocked on the roof of the carriage. In the distance could be heard the faint sounds of voices raised in alarm.

The carriage driver stepped down from his perch into the street. The heels of his polished, silver buckled boots rang on the pavement as he walked over to kneel beside the body on the sidewalk. After a moment, the carriage driver stood and returned, bearing four silver hairs plucked from the dead man's beard. They were stained with bright blood, twisted into loops, and knotted together.

The shouting was closer now. Without another glance back, the lone occupant of the black carriage pulled the curtain closed and signaled the driver to move on.