by A. Sparrow
“Man, look at you go, girl!”
“This soup is not enough,” said Urszula. “I need meat.”
“Can you cook up those steaks in the fridge?” said Ellen, turning to me. “I need a shower. It’s been a long day.”
I fired up the gas range, which had a built-in grill. While Urszula smeared hunks of bread through the remains of her borscht, I slapped five small strip steaks on the grill.
Her chair slid back. She snuck over and hovered behind me.
“I’m guessing you like yours rare?” Before I could turn around, she snagged one of the barely cooked steaks with her fork and carried it back inside to her dish.
“I guess so!”
She had polished off three of the five steaks by the time Ellen came back out with one towel around her midriff and another around her head like a turban. I had given up on fending her off, surrendering the pot of instant mashed potatoes. She ended up taking the whole pot, eating directly from it with a spoon.
“Take it easy, girlie. You’re gonna explode,” said Ellen.
“I need it,” she said. “Something has changed in my body. I feel … more alive. More so than before.”
“I have to say you’re looking a lot better,” said Ellen. “There’s a glow to your skin. Your eyes look brighter. Maybe we all should get locked up in beech trees.” She opened the fridge and sorted through the crisper.
Urszula grinned. “Being struck by the Frelsian’s spell was what I needed to get my own energy flowing. And I will use it … to destroy him.” She ripped off another chunk of steak with her teeth.
“So how’d you get so far out in those woods?” I said. “Did he bring you there?”
“I fled,” said Urszula. “When he arrived, I ran. I knew I was no match. But he followed me. He made the trees come alive. They captured me. I never felt so helpless. I screamed and screamed. But … it was not all bad. I got to go home.”
“Home?”
“I saw your friend Bern. He was with a girl, who asked about you. I told them you were well. They were pleased.”
“Girl? What girl?”
“Isobel.”
My stomach plunged and I closed my eyes. “Damnit! That’s bad news. I was hoping she’d stay out of Root. Did she say if she’s staying at the farm?”
“She mentioned no farm. She said she’d been wandering and ran into some trouble.”
“Shit! She never made it to Brynmawr.”
“Ah, but you should see Mr. Luther’s settlement. It is amazing … like a fortress! I never expected to see such a city in those plains. He and Yaqob are already expanding their territories, planning new raids.”
“Great. Just what we need. Get the Frelsians all agitated again.”
An ember glowed deep in Urszula’s eyes. “Let them. I will do my part. Both here and there. I will stand with my brothers and sisters.” Her eyes went wide and her head whipped around. “My scepter! Where is it?”
I reached behind me to the umbrella stand and pulled out the long wedge of beech heartwood. It was trapezoidal in cross-section and sharp at the edges. I handed it to her.
Urszula balanced it in her palms and beamed broadly, exposing her fang-like canines. “It is already alive in my hands. And bound to me. I can feel it. It will need little modification.”
“How about a nice salad, guys?” said Ellen. “And then we can have ice cream for dessert.”
A spider descended from the rafters on a strand of silk. Ellen stepped back and squealed at the sight of it.
Urszula swung her scepter upward. There was a pop like a balloon bursting. A pulse issued forth. The spider disappeared in a puff of dust.
Chapter 29: R&R
It took us the longest time to calm down that night. Ellen and I kept snapping at each other over stupid stuff like who would wash what dishes. I knew it was only the jitters and the fatigue talking.
The wine helped. Ellen scrounged a dusty bottle of Merlot from the basement. I might not have cared to clink Heinekens with Wendell, but I didn’t mind tipping a few glasses of wine with the girls. It wasn’t like I was some teetotaler.
Our relations improved almost immediately. We had only needed a little something to take the edge off our day. Finally, I could relax.
Urszula didn’t need any wine to get loose. She seemed not at all traumatized by her woody imprisonment. But she was certainly determined to get even with Wendell.
She finished up her huge meal by polishing off a whole pint of Ben & Jerry’s while curled up on the couch. She kept running her fingers over the splintery hunk of wood she had salvaged from the ruined beech, fondling it like a kitten.
The alcohol made Ellen even talkier than usual. We got to hear all of her childhood tribulations, from latchkey loneliness to college disasters. I could have dredged up plenty of traumas of my own, but I didn’t bother.
My past was irrelevant now. I had flushed it all away. All that moping over would-be girlfriends, it seemed so trivial now. I didn’t even want to tell her anything about my time in Root, or about Karla, if only because it still felt too raw. I just let her talk, nodding my head, tossing in a word now and then. She didn’t seem to notice that I wasn’t reciprocating.
The late shows came on by the time we finally noticed that Urszula had conked out on the couch. We covered her with a blanket and retreated to our rooms. As I brushed past Ellen in the kitchen, she kept trying to read me with her eyes. There was something hungry and inquisitive in them that made me queasy.
I knew exactly what she wanted, but I pretended to not to notice. I just got myself a glass of water and went straight to my room. I mean, I can’t say her unspoken offer wasn’t tempting. I had no reason not to be attracted. She was charming and pretty enough. But things were complicated enough around here; I didn’t need to complicate them further.
***
Again, I slept soundly, with peaceful dreams, waking up to wavy light reflecting off the lake onto the opposite wall. This made two nights in a row of genuine, restful sleep. I could get used to this.
As I lay in bed, basking in calm, thoughts of Karla came crashing into my head like hailstones on a pond. Coward that I was, I had dealt with my longings mainly by shunting thoughts of her aside. But I could never keep her away for long. She was part of my soul.
It made me feel guilty for avoiding the Deeps. I don’t know if my attitude that was keeping it away or if I was locked out for good, but either way I was glad it hadn’t come for me in my sleep.
The Deeps terrified me way more than Root ever did. Why such a bland, boring landscape devoid of Reapers should scare me so much. Maybe it was the life-robbing cold, or the absence of anything green.
Going there had sure improved my attitude towards life. Every moment I remained in the living world was a blessing. I truly hoped that my days of shuttling between existences were over. And if so, I hoped Karla would forgive me.
Imagining life without her, I hated to say, was getting easier and easier to accept. Her dying request would haunt me till the end of my days, but I could handle moving on without her. I saw a path where there had been none.
Sure, I would always have regrets, but regrets were nothing new to me. I could just add my failure to warn Karla about the Fellstraw to all the other baggage in my head. Like my paralysis of indecision when my dad collapsed with that aneurysm. Or being totally oblivious to my mom’s fading health when an early intervention could have saved her. What were a few more suitcases for my attic?
***
Me and the girls spent the morning relaxing in a row of Adirondack chairs overlooking the lake. Urszula kept tweaking her new scepter. She would stare at the thing and run her finger along its facets and curves, before shaving off of a stray whisker of wood or scooping out a dimple. She saw patterns in the grain that weren’t evident to an amateur like me.
“How come you’re not hacking and carving this one up like you did the first one?”
She looked at me like I was a dunce. “
Because it is already perfect. My soul entwined with it inside the tree. Now I am just making it … more perfect.”
“Any way you can amp up the firepower? Something tells me we’re gonna need it to do more than squash spiders.”
“The power all comes from me,” she said. “The wood is just a conduit. You should know that.”
“Yeah. I guess I should.”
I kept glancing at that GPS unit sitting on a little rattan table between us. I was tempted to turn it on and check out that second waypoint—’laurent,’ but I couldn’t bring myself to look. I didn’t want to know just yet. I just wanted to gaze down at the lake, and at the hills rising like a tsunami of evergreen along the opposite shore.
Both of my guns lay on that table too. They were no use against a guy like Wendell who could fizzle bullets with a glare and turn them into duds, like he did on that train. But I worried Sergei might send someone looking for the poor bastard Wendell had taken out. At least he and his ilk were still vulnerable to conventional weaponry.
I kept an eye on Wendell’s iPhone as well. I had it set on buzz because I suspected I might shoot somebody if it went off. But thank God, not a single text crossed its screen while we lounged there. It sat as idle as a spinster’s.
I knew he hadn’t forgotten about us. But he was true to his word about letting us recuperate before the next mission.
Ellen got up and went into the kitchen. She had been quiet this morning. Hung over, I guess. Disappointed in me, maybe.
Pots and pans clinked and clunked. The faucet ran on and off, followed by some sizzling and the most delicious aromas. She came out a little while later with a skillet packed with some kind of giant omelet with potatoes and onions—a frittata, she called it. She cut it into wedges and served it us on paper plates. It was as scrumptious as it smelled.
Urszula’s appetite hadn’t waned one bit. She wolfed her portion down like a starving dog and dove in after more.
“I’ve been thinking,” said Ellen. “Now that you’ve got that new car, maybe we can return the Camry to Grams. She should be out of rehab real soon.”
I sensed an opportunity and pounced.
“Go for it,” I said. “Take Urszula with you. I can stick around here and deal with Wendell.”
Her jaw dropped. I already regretted making the suggestion, but it was too late.
“Why is it, every chance you get you’re always looking for a reason to ditch us?”
“I’m not ditching you. We could … keep in touch.”
“Keep in touch?” She shook her head.
“Listen, I’m just thinking of your best interests. As long as I do what he says, he’ll leave you guys alone.”
Ellen scrunched her nose at me. “Oh, really? So what happened when you went to Burlington? He locked Urszula up in a tree and turned me into a couch.”
She had me there.
“Maybe he thought I wasn’t coming back.”
“Oh? And why would he think that? Isn’t he supposed to be all-knowing and all-powerful?”
“Maybe … not so much. Not as much as we thought.”
She bit her lip. “We’re safer if we stick together. I thought I made that point already. I thought we agreed.”
“Fine. Then it’s settled,” I said. “We all go down with the ship. You realize he’s gonna want me to do more jobs.”
“Doesn’t matter what he wants. Because you’re not gonna do them, are you?”
“I don’t know. I guess … it depends.”
“On what? If it’s just an old lady he wants you to kill?”
“Listen. I didn’t kill any old ladies. I just made a delivery. Maybe this next job is along the same lines. In which case—”
“No! Absolutely not. Don’t you even think of it.”
“But what if it’s just another delivery?”
“At the very least, you’re still an accessory to murder.”
“Wait a minute. Technically, what I did … or helped do … it wasn’t murder. It was assisted suicide.”
“Either way, it’s wrong.”
I squirmed in my chair. “I’m just trying to do what’s best … for us.”
“What is best,” said Urszula. “Is that this Frelsian dies. Once he is dead, he can no longer threaten us, not in this world. And he is no longer making new Freesouls for the Sanctuary.”
I smirked. As much as I admired her bravado, she was going to have to find a way to do more than vanquish arthropods to be any help in a tussle with Wendell. Not that I was much better. I could never count on my spell craft working when I needed it. I cast duds as often as not.
“So what do we do about your grandma’s car?”
Ellen glared at me. “Nothing. Never mind. Forget I ever mentioned it. Grams is just gonna have to do without.” She grabbed the now empty skillet and stomped back into the cottage.
Urszula smiled as she shaved another tiny curl of wood off her scepter. “Don’t worry. Once we take care of this Frelsian, we can go wherever, whenever we want.”
***
Later that afternoon, Ellen re-emerged from the cottage with a pitcher of iced tea. She no indication there was ever any tension between us. She was back to her old self, going on about her childhood vacations on the lake. She didn’t mention a word about Wendell or our peculiar situation. I sure as hell wasn’t going to bring it up.
“Oh, the fish! There are some real lunkers in this lake. All kinds of bass—largemouth, smallmouth. Even trout.”
“Fish,” said Urszula. “Can we eat some?”
“Well, sure!” said Ellen. “I’m pretty sure there are some poles in the shed.”
Ellen went off and found me a pole, handing it over, even though it had been years since I baited a hook.
“You guys go on down to the dock. I’ll see if I can wrangle up some more gear.”
So Urszula and I moseyed down the steps, overturning rocks on the way to fetch worms. Out on the dock, one by one, I pulled in the little, bony bluegills that schooled around it. Urszula glared in disdain at the tiny creatures as I tossed them back. She kept that scepter all snuggled against her forearm like some extension of her body.
“In Silesia we had pike more than one meter long.”
“Wow. Well, I don’t think you’re gonna find anything like that here.”
“So I am presuming there will be no fish for dinner?”
“Not with me fishing. I’m just doing this for fun.”
“Fun?” She went to the end of the dock and peered out over the water. “We need a boat. That is where we find the big fish.”
I shrugged. “I suppose we could buy some at the supermarket.”
“Boats?”
“No, I meant fish.”
I had been itching to test out that credit card Wendell had given me. I suppose I could hop on that iPhone and order us a canoe or some kayaks from Amazon.
It hadn’t sunk in that I was quite likely a wealthy man now, something I never imagined being in this life. Quite likely the highest paid delivery boy in the history of earth. I was going to have to go online and at least check the balance on my new account.
Urszula sighed and wandered back up the stone stairs to the porch. Alone on the dock, I gloried in glint of the water all around me, the little hungry fishes pocking the surface in a frenzy every time I tossed in a worm. The brisk scent of spring pervaded the air.
And then everything changed. A pall descended. All color seeped out of the landscape. I thought at first maybe a cloud had passed in front of the sun. But no, it was still there and shining, just grayer now and somehow dull.
A deep chill settled in and shivered my spine. Maybe I was coming down with something. I laid the pole on the dock and retreated to a hammock rigged between two pines. The chills intensified. A powdery sensation penetrated my nostrils. My skin began to steam. Ice flaked off and fluttered down like snow.
One world checked out. Another checked in.
Chapter 30: Hashmal
; I never made it to the hammock. The lake evaporated, taking everything green and alive with it. Most of what made me human drained away, leaving my spirit rattling around the cold, numb husk that passed for a body in this realm. Transition complete, I lay crumpled and stunned in a heap of frigid dust.
I already missed Vermont. Missed the girls. Missed life. Missed everything. Desperately.
I even missed the pitted plains. That pale, blue sun. Even those giant bugs. The Liminality was a paradise compared to this place.
I would have sold my soul to Wendell if that would have kept me out of here. To think how I had begged and hounded Luther to show me the way. What an idiot. What a fool!
The wind rearranged the sand grains in front of my nose. I was in no hurry to look up. I just wanted to lay here and let the elements take me, bury me half in the ground like those Old Ones in the pitted plains. I would exist in my own singular singularity, a singularity of one, as it should be.
My gaze latched onto a splash of color that startled me right out of my trance. The sheer chromatic intensity of it jarred amidst all the muted taupe and rust surrounding me. It was a ribbon. Bright blue. The one Luther had tied around the rolled up note he had written for his old friend Olivier.
I gathered the courage to face my fate and sat up. Patience, I told myself. Like all things bad, ‘this too shall pass.’ That phrase was ancient and unattributable, but it was quite possibly the most comforting snippet of language ever written. If I had ever gone to high school and had a yearbook, I would have chosen it for my motto.
This time, at least, I had reason to hope my exile would not be permanent. Something would show up eventually to and transit me back. I couldn’t control or predict when, but it had happened once before, why wouldn’t it happen again?
I snatched up the note and hauled myself to my feet. A broad and shallow valley spread before me, its lowest reaches smeared with a gray blotch of humanity. A horde of marchers flowed downhill like a river seeking the path of least resistance.
Clouds of dust curled over their heads, dispersed by eddies of wind spinning off the weird, dark cyclone that impaled the farthest reaches of the valley. The storm, if that’s what you could call it, receded from the procession, but it was evident from the chaos at the head of the column that it had plowed into the vanguard before veering off.
The column was headless now, the tight mob that had led the charge had been shattered and dispersed, a thousand souls blotted away in one swoop. Those who had marched behind them were now surging forward to fill the void.