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    Jack in the Green
    Jack in the Green
    Jack in the Green
    Ebook88 pages1 hour

    Jack in the Green

    By Charles de Lint

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    Jack in the Green is an original novella, set in the fictional Southwestern desert city of Santo del Vado Viejo, and is available here for the first time in any format.

    Best friends Maria and Luz grew up in the barrio and were inseparable until Luz left town to fight against social injustice. They lose track of one another until one day, while at her job cleaning rich people's homes, Maria spots Luz among a gang robbing the house next door. Luz later tells Maria that her gang robs from the rich and gives to the poor, like a modern day Robin Hood. Luz says she brought the leader and his men to their city by magic.

    Maria isn't sure if she believes that, but she does know that she feels an undeniable romantic connection to their handsome leader, the mysterious Jack Green, and the feeling is mutual. Between her rekindled friendship with Luz and her attraction to Jack, she gets drawn into a life that’s 180 degrees opposite to how she’s been living. But when things go awry, it’s Maria who must pay the final price.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCharles de Lint
    Release dateNov 24, 2012
    ISBN9780920623176
    Jack in the Green
    Author

    Charles de Lint

    Charles de Lint and his wife, the artist MaryAnn Harris, live in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. His evocative novels, including Moonheart, Forests of the Heart, and The Onion Girl, have earned him a devoted following and critical acclaim as a master of contemporary magical fiction in the manner of storytellers like John Crowley, Jonathan Carroll, Alice Hoffman, Ray Bradbury, and Isabel Allende.

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    Reviews for Jack in the Green

    4/5

    14 ratings3 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Charles de Lint's Jack in the Green is quite lovely. It's a Robin Hood story, sort of. It brings the spirit of Robin Hood to a Hispanic community in the US, during the recession, to steal from the bankers and give to those who can't pay their bills. It's not that different a story to Maurice Broaddus' version of King Arthur in a black neighbourhood, but somehow I don't mind it at all. It feels truer to the spirit of the Robin Hood stories, I suppose.It's written in a straightforward, easy to read way; the magic in it is just... accepted as part of the world, not over-explained or positioned in such a way that it takes over the story. I really liked that casual inclusion of magic, impossible things, because it somehow made it feel more believable.Admittedly, for me the story was more an interesting intellectual exercise than something that involved me emotionally, but there's an enjoyment in that, too, in something that makes you think, "How is he going to do this? How will he make it work?"I should get round to reading more of Charles de Lint's work.
    • 3/5
      A nice, little retelling of Robin Hood that is told in de Lint's plain, straight forward writing, Jack in the Green finds Robin (known as Jack this time around)brought to the modern day Southwest barrio. I've still not read that much de Lint, but I do like how he handles magic in his stories: that there really isn't an explanation for how it works, you just accept it how it is. However, I found the socio political context of the story a little heavy handed; given that it's a Robin Hood retelling, we already know it's about how the rich are oppressing the poor (this time seen from the point of view of the recent recession), but to have it made such a large point in the story, so many times, felt too much like de Lint was simply writing this to express his views and was trying to hide it poorly in this novella. I'm not sorry I read it, I'm just not sure this will ever rank up there as a favorite for me. I want to mention a little on the physical book itself. It's beautiful. Charles Vess' cover illustration is fantastic, and fits the tone of the story quite well, as do his interior illustrations. Subterranean Press did an excellent job with the production of the book. The green, leaf embossed endpapers are gorgeous and the graphic design of the book is really top notch. This book is another of the reasons I think Sub Press is one of the finest small press run printers in the country.
    • 5/5
      Short, sweet novella that merges de Lint's ability to weave classic fantasy tropes into the American southwest almost seamlessly.

      This one's a bit more of a political story than some of his work, but as the titular character's an embodiment of Robin Hood, what else would you expect?

      Very well done and as always, Vess' illustrations are perfect complements to the text.

    Book preview

    Jack in the Green - Charles de Lint

    Jack in the Green

    A novella by

    Charles de Lint

    Copyright 2012 by Charles de Lint

    Smashwords Edition, License Notes:

    This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

    Jack in the Green

    It's not the audacity of the invasion that shocks Maria so much as that she recognizes one of the robbers: Luz Chaidez. Maria hasn't thought of her in years.

    Maria is cleaning windows in the second floor master bedroom of the Armstrongs' house when she sees the gang in their green hoodies, legs propelling their skateboards up the curved driveway of the house next door. The white boy in the lead has a handsome, puckish face and a crowbar in his hand. A few strands of long red hair escape his hood, but his skin is almost as brown as her own.

    He glances up before she can duck away and for a moment their gazes hold. She reads a promise in his eyes—the possibility of…everything—and an unfamiliar flutter moves in her chest.

    He gives her a wink, then wedges the crowbar into the doorjamb by the lock. Wood splinters. The largest of the gang, a tall black man, kicks the door open like it's balsa wood. They all troop inside. Luz is last. Except for the white boy in the lead, none of the others have looked in her direction. A moment later the door shuts and it's like they were never there.

    Maria half-expects an alarm to go off, but many homeowners in Desert View feel secure enough with the management of their gated community not to bother. Most criminals just pick easier targets.

    She wonders how the hooded gang got past the guards. It doesn't matter how long she's been working here, she still has to show her I.D. every time the bus lets her off at the front gate, and the guard always checks her name against his list.

    She looks up and down the street. No one seems to have noticed the intruders or even heard their boards as they rolled through the neighbourhood. In the barrio everyone notices everything, but here, people shut themselves away in their houses. Most are at work right now anyway.

    She knows she should call 911. If it were happening to one of her clients, her cell would be out the moment she saw the gang turn into the driveway. But the people next door mean nothing to her. She doesn't even know their names.

    She goes back to cleaning windows and thinks about how that white boy looked at her, how it felt like they were connecting on some deep level, if only for a moment. Then she thinks of Luz. She wonders what her relationship is to the gang. Specifically, to that handsome red-haired boy.

    Luz.

    Once upon a time they were best friends.

    One night when they're fourteen, Luz comes tapping at the shutter of Maria's window. It's late, late. Past midnight, closer to dawn than not. Maria has been asleep for hours. Luz grins at her, bouncing on her toes like she's been chugging Redbulls all night.

    Maria throws back the covers, then raises the window and leans out into the cool night.

    "What are you doing out there?" she whispers.

    Stuff. Do you still have those silver and turquoise earrings we got at the thrift shop?

    Maria nods.

    Come on out, Luz says, and bring them with you.

    They bought the earrings together a few months ago at Buffalo Exchange, promising to share them like they do most of their fashion finds. When it's something special like these earrings, it's one week on and one week off. Maria knows a pang of disappointment. It's her turn this week and she's only had them for three days. She was going to wear them to school tomorrow.

    But that's not the real problem.

    I can't come out, she says. It's the middle of the night.

    Almost morning, actually.

    Maria sighs. Luz can talk her into anything, so there's really not much point in fighting it.

    What are we going to do? she asks.

    "Brujería."

    Magic. The word hangs there in the air between them like the echo of a promise. Maria waits for the joke, but all Luz does is give her an impatient look.

    You're not going all boring on me, are you? she asks.

    There are many crimes in the law book Luz keeps in her head. Boring is on page one.

    Give me a sec', Maria says and ducks back inside.

    She leaves her tartan pajama bottoms on, but adds runners, a plain black T and a long-sleeved grey hoodie with a bulldog crest on the arm. She opens the cigar box where she keeps her jewellery and takes out the earrings. They're silver feathers with fine turquoise inlay that highlights the feather design. What a find they were. Vintage Teme Navajo, signed and everything. Not only are they beautiful, but they seem to weigh no more than a real bird's feather. Sighing, she puts them in her pocket and goes outside.

    Luz leads her down to the dry wash where a couple of meth heads were found dead last week. This is forbidden territory. Not just by her parents, but by her older brother Pablo, too.

    The chill desert air sends a shiver down Maria's spine. She looks around nervously, starting at every sound. An owl's hoot from the top of a distant saguaro. A packrat scurrying in the dry brush under the mesquite. Luz tramps down the sandy bottom of the wash with the comfortable stride of someone who simply assumes that she has every right to go wherever she wants.

    When Maria catches up to her, Luz pulls out a small Player's cigarette tin with a cute sailor painted on it.

    What's that for? Maria asks.

    Luz opens it and points a small flashlight's beam inside. There's a picture in it from the photo booth at the mall, the two of them squished together, laughing.

    We're going to put the earrings in here, Luz says, "and then we're going to

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