by Ken Altabef
Walk nine times around, left to right, always left to right, in the dark of the new moon. That was the way for the uninitiated. The way will open. Simple enough.
Meadowlark pranced gaily around the little grave, whistling a merry tune. After three turns round he began to feel dizzy but that didn’t slow him down. He pressed on even faster. Seven, eight, nine. At the end his legs gave out and he collapsed to his knees. Nauseous, he bent his head and spat some half-digested roasted squirrel onto the black earth.
When he raised his head again he saw before him a pool of inky shadow, smooth and still as a tomb of polished black granite. He saw his own face, wide-eyed and drawn, mirrored in its surface. He was suddenly certain he was being looked at, watched and weighed, from the other side. He stuck out his tongue.
The surface of the pool rippled curiously, twisting the image of his face round in a whirlpool till its nose wrapped its slender pointed ears. The ooze continued to flow, circling right to left. He’d wound it up and now the tension needed to be released but it gushed and spun all out of proportion. Nine times it circled, then ninety, surging faster and faster. The revolving pool held his gaze, he could not look away. Nor could he pull himself away. His knees and hands pressed into the loamy soil and he could not remove them. His head was being drawn down, closer and closer, until he toppled into the pool.
The oily fluid was not fluid at all, but smoke. Meadowlark tumbled head over heels as he plummeted for what seemed a long while. He stretched out his hands but they passed helplessly through the walls of the shaft, which were likewise made of smoke. The same pull that had dragged him in carried him downward, whipping him around several corners. Meadowlark whooped with glee at the wild ride, giving little thought to all the deadly, juicy ways it might end.
He wound up deposited, intact, on a bed of fine gravel. Curious hands found him immediately and jerked him this way and that. Invisible fingers pinched him savagely from head to toe.
As soon as he got his bearings again he realized it was all being done by one fast-moving imp. The imp was the size of a year-old child but with the face of an ugly old man. He wore an odd round cap with a rat tail hanging down either side.
“Get off!” Meadowlark pushed him away. But, moving remarkably fast, he came right back.
“Step aside, Onionglass.”
The little old man face was yanked away, to be replaced by the large, menacing head of Aldebaran.
Chapter 19
“Are you quite certain this is the right street?” James asked.
“Two blocks off the main market…” returned the carriage driver, by no means sounding quite certain.
James squinted along the darkened street. Even the most well-traveled areas of rural Graystown lacked the benefit of street lamps. He was sure Duncan Thomas lived two blocks off the main market-place, but the streets in this district didn’t bear any signage or even have proper names; the locals just knew what to call them. In truth, the street was little more than a muddy path just barely wide enough for the carriage wheels. It was already well past supper and full dark. Not a soul was hanging about.
They passed a small brewery, a couple of second-hand clothing shops and a bell foundry and smithy, all shut down for the night. The coachman inquired of a boy post-sitting in front of the foundry, asking as to where they might find the cabinet-maker. The boy directed them to the ostler behind the St. George’s Inn, and on they went. James stepped down from the carriage and interrupted the man as he was settling a pair of travelers’ horses in their bays. The ostler wrinkled his nose and crossed himself at the name Duncan Thomas but pointed out the shop.
The cabinet-maker’s was a modest house, in good repair, with all its wooden trim painted bright forest green. James instructed his driver to remain with the carriage while he knocked on the door. Receiving no answer, he rang the tinkler—a little cord attached through a hole in the door to a bell on the other side. He distinctly heard it tinkle, but still received no answer.
The window drapes were all drawn tight, but there a warm glow shone within and a furtive shadow moved across in silhouette.
James knocked again.
“Shop’s closed,” said a loud, disgruntled voice. “Go away.”
“It’s James Grayson. I’ve come—”
“I don’t care who you are. Go away.”
James was undaunted. This was exactly the reception he expected, and probably deserved. He rang the tinkler again.
“Who is it?” A woman’s voice. “Who’s making all this bother—”
The window dressing peeled back and a wary eye regarded James through the dusty pane. James stepped into clear view and the eye, recognizing him at last, widened considerably.
The latch rattled, the door opened a crack. A man stood on the other side, his face in shadow.
“Sorry to call so late,” James began.
“Then don’t call at all, Mister Grayson. We don’t want you here.”
“I want to help.”
“Have you brought the doctor? No? Then go away.”
“Please,” implored James. “I can help.”
He didn’t have to say anything more. Everyone in town had heard the stories about James and Nora, the whispers, the suspicions. This man, above them all, had good reason to believe them.
The door swung open. The man struck a light and a small hand-lantern flared to life.
“It’s good to see you, Duncan.”
“Is it?”
Duncan Thomas was a man of modest build and average height. Ten years ago, there had been nothing too interesting about his face—a mop of unruly black hair, a pair of rather thick eyebrows over smiling eyes, a strong jaw, and a short black beard. But now, in the light of the lamp, Duncan’s appearance was extraordinary. His hair, a dark shade of forest green, was interspersed with thick, thorny growths of knobby wood. The beard was almost entirely made of the thorny stuff. The skin across his brow and cheeks was as sallow green as any bullfrog and had the same mottled texture, gathering in front of his neck in a thick ugly fold. His eyes were unchanged but much less inclined to smile these days. Most striking of all, a pair of antlers sprouted from just above the thick, wooden eyebrows. Duncan had shaved them off with a handsaw, but the stubby nubs that remained appeared nothing short of demonic.
Duncan did not wait for an answer. Perhaps he couldn’t bear to hear one. He led James inside. The main floor of the house served as the cabinetmaker’s shop, and James noticed it was full of stock—barrels, bedposts, chests of drawers, end tables. The stuff was incredible. Somewhere along the way Duncan’s designs had acquired an elegance and artistic balance that transcended common furniture. All the edges were adorned by frills and leafy fronds and carved into almost every panel was a lattice of beautiful woodsy designs.
“This work is exquisite,” James said.
“Really? Nobody will buy any of it. Do you want a few pieces? On the house. I can’t even give the stuff away.”
“But you keep making it…”
“Have to keep the hands busy. It’s all a man can do.”
“I could use you at the manor house. Plenty of work there for a pair of hands like yours. Our offer still stands. We’ve a place for you and your family.”
“With the rest of the freaks?”
“They’re not freaks, and you know that.”
“Grayson Hall is a zoo, a menagerie. This is my house! I’m sure it doesn’t look like much to you, Mister Grayson, but I’ve come to love every brick and stone of this place. My mother died here and my three girls were all born here, my Agatha, my Dorrie and my little Katy. I won’t shut them up in the manor house, no matter how pleasant it may seem. That would be a surrender, a… a death.” He almost choked on that last word, most likely reminded of the plight of his little girl. “So let them buy their furniture elsewhere—we’ve a warm fire every night fueled by the most fashionable kindling in town. This is where we live. This is where we stay. Let them hiss and jeer and let them throw stones.
”
“Do they really do that? Throw stones? They knew you before. They’re your friends…”
“Friendship is a fickle form of currency, Mister Grayson. You build it up over the years with kind words and little helps. But it’s all spent now. It’s bought me a reprieve from being torn to shreds in the street by an angry mob. That’s all. So when I walk outside there is only a mob of staring eyes instead of stones, a chorus of whispers instead of the lash. I don’t pay it no mind.”
James hadn’t ever remembered Duncan being so poetic. But that had been before the change. “Your daughter?”
Duncan’s face darkened when they reached the base of the stairway. “She’s very sick…”
“Take me to her.”
Duncan led the way up a flight of steps. His three children shared a room above the main shop, adjacent to the warm chimney. But Duncan directed James to a room on the other side of the house.
“It’s cooler in here. She’s in such a high fever as it is, and… we thought it best to let the other girls have their own space, for now.”
They entered a small garret-room. The narrow room had space for only the most basic appointments—a little trundle bed, an exquisitely carved chest of drawers and an elegant rocking chair—but was kept perfectly clean. James could easily see the work of a fretful mother clinging to the room, perhaps singing softly to her child as she dusted and swept the floor again and again.
Mrs. Thomas rose from the rocker as they came in. “Is this our mysterious caller? What’s he doing here?” She pulled her shawl close against her chest.
When her husband didn’t answer, she turned on James.
“Haven’t you done enough? Haven’t you? Look at him. Look at him!” She flushed red with anger.
“Quiet yourself, Tilde. That’s no way to talk to Lord Grayson’s heir, now is it?”
James was surprised at this defense, having received a similarly frosty welcome from the man himself just a few moments ago. But everything had changed the moment they’d entered this room. It was like a holy place to them, the little bed in the corner almost a shrine.
“He’s come to help,” explained Duncan.
“Help? Little more he can do but pay the undertaker. Grayson’s heir! He—”
“Shhh!” Duncan deposited his wife into the rocker and she broke down crying. The man, now consumed with comforting his stricken wife, extended an arm across the room. Without looking again at James, he said, “She’s sleepin’ there.”
James stepped quietly to the bed. He was shocked by what he saw. The girl was nearly dead. Her skin had gone pale as a corpse with only her cheeks still flushing red with fever. He had to look very closely to be sure she drew breath at all, and only shallowly. She lay so deathly still.
James nudged tentatively at the shoulder of her sleeping gown, but she did not stir. Her face had already taken on the waxy indifference of impending death, drained of all the cares, sorrows and hungerings of the world. He would be surprised if she lasted even a couple more hours.
He knelt beside the cot and lowered his head. The grieving parents followed behind him to the bedside.
James did not try to fight the waves of emotion quickly overtaking him. He let them flow through him—an intense sorrow at the suffering of the poor child, an impotent rage at the vagaries of earthly fate. He heard Duncan begin to cry, though the man stood behind him and out of sight. Now the wife took her turn as comforter, muffling his sobs against her breast.
“She hasn’t any strength left in her,” she whispered to James, laying a trembling hand over her mouth. “She’s not opened her eyes since yesterday morn. What can you do?”
It was a good question. He wasn’t sure he could do anything and was glad he’d made no promises. His only hope was to attempt the joining, as he had done with the many creatures of the wood over the years. He’d never joined with another person before; he’d always considered a human mind far too complex for his burgeoning abilities. But this child had so little life left. It might be possible.
He took Katy’s hand. A muffled objection came from behind his left ear. James ignored it. If the parents had the good sense to leave him alone, he might succeed. He listened to the tiny rasp of her breathing, fixated on that. As her eyes remained closed he could not connect in his usual way—through a shared gaze. He closed his own eyes.
He had the rhythm of her breathing now, slowly in and out, and he matched her pattern exactly. Slowly in and out, in and out.
Squirrels were easy. But this was different. A girl, a human mind, was very different. A human mind was a catacomb, full of hidden secrets and mysterious spaces. In order to forge the link, he had to find her. He sank into a state of dulled awareness that closely matched her own. He lost all sense of place and time, concentrating on the heat of her hand, the doughy lifelessness of it. He used it as a tether, a signal that he must follow, in order to get inside. He swam within a murky whiteness, cutting a path through to the still water of a quiet lake. She must be here. Somewhere. She must be.
The shore of the lake was like a vast white space, a fever dream, where everything had faded to white, and grown as insubstantial as mist. But not everything. James saw a tiny spot of green, a little patch of untrammeled grass and Katy was there, sitting with her back to a tree. The tree trunk extended just over her head and then disappeared into nonexistence. It was nothing more than a rest for her back. She seemed fast asleep, like a beauty frozen in time. But time was no gentle playmate; time was a thief, stealing her life away. She held a doll cradled in her hands. By a strange coincidence the doll’s face nearly matched that of the stricken girl, with its blanched porcelain face and rosy cheeks. Her favorite toy perhaps, some small token that had sustained her in these final moments, but its power was fading, everything was fading. She had no reason to hold on.
James put forth a great effort, giving his all in a last attempt to revive one latent spark of energy. But she would not wake.
Still, she was there. He had found her, now he need only reach her. There must be a way.
Despite her serene appearance, a diminutive sleeping beauty, he sensed no peace but rather a terrible sickness here. James felt her suffering as if it were his own. The worst of it was the headache—a dull, throbbing pain that tamped down all thought. James grunted softly as he took the pain into himself. Beneath the headache was the fever, and its raging thirst. This burden he also assumed.
The girl’s eyes opened.
She was surprised to see him. She didn’t know who he was, this stranger that suddenly shared her mind.
“Don’t be afraid.”
“I—I’m not. I’m not afraid. I can tell. You are good and kind. But who are you?”
“A friend. A messenger, actually.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I have a message for you. Do you want to hear it?”
“Tell me! Is it a message from Papa?”
“Yes, from your father and mother and Dorrie and…” He’d forgotten the name of the other sister.
“And Agatha.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me!”
“The message is that you shall soon be well. But you must fight. You must never give up. That your family is waiting for you.”
Katy smiled and, as he seemed to be right there beside her, gave James a warm hug.
The link broke, and James stepped away from the bed. The staggering headache remained with him.
The girl still slept. James knew that his psychic balm was only temporary. After a while the burden would fall upon her again. He didn’t know whether he had really helped anything at all until the little girl’s eyes fluttered open.
She looked at James only for an instant then sought out the others at the bedside. When she saw her parents, a tiny, pained smile crept across her lips.
“She’ll take some water now and a crust of toast if you have it,” James suggested.
Duncan looked at him gratefully but remained speechless.
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James said, “She will be well.”
Duncan nodded, his weird countenance considerably brightened.
“The doctor will come tomorrow,” James assured them. “I will see to it.”
Chapter 20
Aldebaran’s eyes were seething infernos. They looked to Meadowlark like the smoldering pits of hell.
He sprawled awkwardly on the gravel floor, paralyzed beneath their gaze. He realized, with no embarrassment at all, that he had pissed himself.
The brooding, purple-skinned faery leered down at him. Aldebaran wore a sleeveless jacket of purple silk, cut at the shoulders to reveal his massive, muscled arms. “What is it you want here?”
Humble, Meadowlark told himself. Be humble. “One word: acceptance.”
Aldebaran clicked his tongue. “That’s too bad, then. There is only death here for you.”
Onionglass, the little fool in the ratskin cap, echoed his master’s sentiment, screeching, “Death, death, death!” and resumed pinching Meadowlark all along his shoulders and neck. Meadowlark slapped him away.
“Let’s not be hasty. This is a place of death, sure. But is the Winter Court dead? Is there still some life in your veins, some fight in your blood as there is in mine?”
Aldebaran appeared only mildly interested. “Who do you wish to fight?”
And the fool again, “Fight, fight, fight!” Onionglass sank his sharp little teeth into Meadowlark’s thigh. Meadowlark kicked him away with his other foot.
“Not you. Certainly not you, under any circumstances. Ahem. Rather, I want to join the Hunt.”
“That’s funny. You seem fit for little more than to feed the dogs.”
Onionglass scurried around, barking gaily.
“Happy to help in any way I can, even such a lowly position, to start—”
“I meant chopped up into little bits and fed to the dogs.”
“Yes, right, of course. Wrong! Not that way. Not quite what I had in mind.”
Aldebaran tilted his great, curling horns at Meadowlark. “Either way, I shall have to kill you first.”