But there are no doors here.
“Do you know where Mabon is?” I ask my companion.
“No,” she says. “But I sense an end to the forest in that direction.”
I look to where she’s pointing. I’m not sure if I see it because it’s really there, or if it’s because of what she’s said, but there seems to be a faint glow in that direction, as though a stronger light is pushing back the twilight of the forest. Something like the lights of a city.
“Well, I guess that’s as good a direction as any,” I say.
I start off, stopping when I realize I’m alone. I look back at her.
“Aren’t you coming?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “No. I . . . I have the urge to find the woman you see when you look at me, though I’m not sure why. It will just . . . complete something, I suppose, even if it simply means I’m absorbed back into her.”
“Maybe I should come with you. I’d love to meet her again, and I have some questions to ask her.”
She gives another shake of her head.
“Though I was born from your memories,” she says, “I believe we have separate journeys to take now.”
“I feel funny going on by myself.”
“Call one of your otherworldly friends to you. The crow girls, perhaps. Or that little man from the Greatwood who still visits you from time to time.”
“You mean Toby?”
“Yes, him.”
“I don’t know how,” I tell her. “I don’t know that I can.”
“You called me up, didn’t you?”
“I guess. But does that mean they’ll be like you? Or will they be real?”
“I think I am real now. At least here, in this place.”
“You know what I mean. Will it really be them, or only my memory of them?”
She nods to show she understands what I’m asking, but all she can say is, “I don’t know.”
And I guess that’s where we have to leave it. I don’t know, and she doesn’t know, and there’s no one else around to ask.
She reaches out and touches my temple with gentle hands, pushes some errant curls back to join the rest of the bird’s nest of tangles that’s my hair.
“Be careful,” she says.
“You, too.”
And then she’s walking away.
I stand and watch her go for a long time, until she’s just a tiny figure and then finally gone, before I turn and head off in the opposite direction.
The forest is quiet around me. I know from previous visits that there’s a whole other world in the topmost branches, filled with all kinds of wildlife eking out a living on boughs as broad as a county road. But down here, the stillness is absolute except for my soft passage across a carpet of mulch.
There’s no undergrowth, so it’s easy to make my way. If the trees’ trunks weren’t so big—you could hide a city bus behind some of them—it would be easy to keep an eye out for danger, too. But I don’t expect danger here. There’s something about these cathedral trees that won’t allow it. I felt it when I was here before, and I feel it now. The last time I was here, all the trouble I got into waited until I was out of the Greatwood before it made itself known.
But even so, I’m hesitant about calling out, as my erstwhile companion suggested. I figure it’s one thing to mouse my way among these giant trees, disturbing no one as I go, and quite another to be shouting out the names of Toby or the crow girls. Besides, any calling out to them probably needs to be done silently, the way I called up the echo of the White Deer Woman, because I certainly don’t remember speaking her name aloud. Or even calling out to her at all. I just fell asleep drunk and then here I was, and here she was, too.
I don’t know how long I’ve been walking, but after awhile I realize that the tree trunks are getting smaller. Over the next hour, I can start to see the upper canopies of the trees, with tiny glimpses of blue sky in between their branches. There’s undergrowth now—ferns and weeds, bushes and saplings—but it’s still easy enough to make my way through them. The glow that was so faint, back where I first appeared in the Greatwood, is strong now and I no longer have to guess what I means. It’s obvious: I’ve travelled through the Greatwood into a regular forest, and that forest is now ending.
The ground starts to rise—a gentle slope—but when I get to the top, I find myself looking out at an endless array of fields. A patchwork of old farmland, separated by hedges, broken-down fences, and ragged tree lines. And there, in the far, far distance, I can see the smudge of something that might be a city.
I don’t know if it’s Mabon or some other place. Like Joe’s so fond of telling me, you can find anything you can imagine if you travel far enough into the otherworld.
I wish he was here.
I wish somebody was here, because I’m feeling lonely and let’s face it, travelling is never that much fun when you’re on your own.
And then—
Well, all I can say is, don’t make wishes, because if they get fulfilled, they’re not necessarily going to be filled to your expectations.
I hear something in the woods behind me. It’s just a soft scuffle, like a squirrel would make, but you know how it is when you’re alone. Everything gets blown up out of proportion. Except this time it’s pretty much the opposite. The sound is small, but it’s a bear that suddenly rears up on its hind legs from a stand of tall ferns to my left.
I don’t know what kind. Brown and sort of grizzled looking, so I guess it’s a grizzly, except it’s at least twice my height and grizzlies aren’t that big, are they? All I know for sure is that my poor little heart has jumped into triple time, and I’m too scared to even think about moving, never mind running away.
Bogan Boys
Big Dan and the green-bree were arguing again. Or at least, Big Dan was arguing. The tall blind spirit who called himself Odawa didn’t so much talk as make pronouncements, so it was hard to argue with him. But either way, it made no difference. It was all boring and Gathen Redshanks was particularly bored.
He liked being one of Big Dan’s Bogan Boys, liked the way the other fairies and even the smaller green-bree spirits gave them a wide berth when the gang went swaggering about town, liked the way they could take what they wanted from pretty much anyone without argument. They were seen as hard men now, tall in the eyes of the fearful. When they showed up at a market or a revel, people were wary of them, careful not to give offense.
But Odawa, green-bree pluiker that he was, showed no respect. Gathen wasn’t even sure that he was really blind. Those milky-white eyes of his seemed to take in far too much for a sightless man. You always had the sense that he knew exactly where he was, where every bloody thing was, from Luren sitting over there on a log, picking his nose, to the small sparrow perched in the branches above their heads.
When Big Dan first let Odawa link up with the gang, Gathen thought he was meant to be their own Billy Blind, one of those household spirits who gave fealty and advice to the head man. And he’d had some good counsel at first. Like the killing of a cat and how the shaping of a rune with its entrails would steer them to the good hunting they’d had of late. It went bad the other night, but that was no fault of the ritual. That was the fault of another of these pluiking green-brees.
Teaching them how to shapechange into dogs was good, too, though none of them had quite got the hang of it yet. Rabedy Collins, who’d made the best attempt so far, couldn’t get rid of his drooping dog ears and tail, which was as far into the change as any of them had managed.
But that didn’t give Odawa leave to be so pluiking disrespectful.
“You stupid little men,” he was saying now.
Big Dan glared at him.
“Don’t be calling us names,” he told the blind green-bree. “You wanted to see Grey’s doxie, we showed her to you. You didn’t want it, you shouldn’t have asked.”
Odawa gave him a slow nod. “You’re absolutely right. I spoke out of turn.”
Gathen looked arou
nd at his companions. Was he the only one who could see that Odawa apologized only because it was what Big Dan wanted to hear, not because he meant it?
“But did you bother to notice who else was in that room?” Odawa added.
Big Dan shrugged. “Pluikers and ass-lickers.”
“Not to mention Mother Crone’s favourite fiddler, and how about the woman in the wheelchair? That one is thrice blessed—I could smell the luck on her.”
“I didn’t smell anything. Blessed by what?”
“By corbae, canid, and an old earth spirit who walked this world before any of us were born.”
Big Dan laughed. “Well, their gift of luck’s not doing such a good job, is it?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“How’d she end up crippled if all these high-and-mightys were looking out for her? And besides, what difference does it make? You’re not looking to bother her or whoever blessed her. It wasn’t Grey, was it?”
“No.”
“And you’re only after Grey, right?”
“Yes. But I want to end this enmity between me and Grey without incurring new animosities.”
“So, we snatch the girl he does like, he comes looking for her, and then you have him. No mess, no fuss. Nobody else involved except some fiddler girl that no one’s going to miss. We can let the boys have her when we’re done using her for bait.”
A few of the other bogans looked up with an interest Gathen didn’t have. But that was only because the human fiddler was too small and skinny for his tastes.
“Perhaps you’re right,” Odawa said.
Big Dan took that as agreement.
“You just let us sort this out,” he said. He turned in Gathen’s direction. “You and Rabedy—go fetch the girl. And bring her here.”
“If I might make a suggestion?” Odawa began. He turned a bland face, full of humility to Big Dan.
“Go ahead.”
“We need to keep her somewhere more secret than out in the open, where anyone with half a head for farseeing can find her in a moment. It would be better to take her to someplace hidden, such as the Doonie Stane in the Aisling’s Wood.”
“Except the Doonie’s a bit of a do-gooder,” Big Dan said.
“Not anymore. I’m afraid he’s quite a bit dead now.” The green-bree shrugged at the question in Big Dan’s eyes. “I thought I had more need of his haven than he did, you see.”
The bogans all had to smile at the way he’d put that. They respected anyone who took what he wanted and damn the consequences.
“So take her to the Doonie Stane,” Big Dan told Gathen, “and let us know when you’re done.”
Gathen nodded, though he wasn’t pleased. Like he wanted to go back to that pluiking hotel and then have to babysit Grey’s doxie with no one but Rabedy for company. Rabedy wasn’t any kind of a fighter, but then it wasn’t like there’d be any need for more than one pair of strong arms to kidnap a human girl.
“And don’t screw this up,” Big Dan added.
Like you are, bringing this green-bree into our business? Gathen thought. But all he said was, “We won’t, boss.”
Rabedy Collins wasn’t any happier than Gathen that the two of them had been picked for this task, but he knew better than to argue with Big Dan, and he certainly wasn’t about to bring it up with Gathen as they left the camp and went back to the hotel in Sweetwater. He knew Gathen thought he looked the right idiot with these dog ears and tail, and who could blame him? Rabedy knew he looked like an idiot, too. All he had to do was look at his reflection in a store window. He’d been the brunt of a lot of taunting by the rest of the gang, but at least he’d made some progress in this learning to shapechange business, which was more than could be said for the rest of them.
“Don’t bark now,” Gathen said as they approached the front of the hotel.
“Ha ha.”
“Or go marking territory.”
“Can we get on with it?” Rabedy said.
Gathen gave him an innocent look that did nothing to hide the mockery laughing in his eyes.
“It’s just we need to be careful,” he said, “and who knows if bits of your bogan nature have been changed along with your ears and ass.”
Rabedy almost growled at him.
That was the worst thing about all of this. They made fun of his ears and tail, but he could feel other changes, inside him, as though another, simpler nature was warring with his own. He’d also noticed that while dogs still barked at him when he went creeping through backyards, it was as though they barked at something familiar now, rather than an otherworldly creature. He wasn’t sure what it meant, but he didn’t like it. He didn’t like it one bit.
At least he didn’t think he did.
But there was a part of him . . .
He shook his head.
Stop, he told himself. Just stop. That isn’t bogan thinking.
“Nothing else has changed,” he said.
“Then let’s get a move on.”
The front door of the hotel was unlocked and opened easily under Gathen’s touch. Moments later they were stepping softly up the stairs and into the hall at the top. They could see closed doors along either side, but it wasn’t until they were passing one on the way to the fiddler’s room that they saw the glow of light coming from under it.
They both stopped, struck by the light.
“Have you ever seen the like?” Gathen murmured.
Rabedy shook his head. But he knew what Gathen was feeling. The light drew at him, too. It flickered in his eyes and went creeping down to the dark places in his heart, promising, promising . . .
Rabedy wasn’t sure what. Something he’d never had, he supposed, but he already knew that he missed it terribly.
“What are you doing?” he whispered when Gathen put his hand on the door knob.
“I want to see what it’s coming from.”
“Big Dan just wants us to get the fiddler.”
“True. But he didn’t say anything about not having a look about before we do.”
Rabedy sighed. Maybe Big Dan hadn’t said it in so many words, but when he’d told them not to screw this up, he’d no doubt meant just this kind of thing. The trouble was, Rabedy knew exactly what Gathen was feeling.
The door was locked, but bogans know a hundred spells to convince a security device to open for them. There might as well not have been a lock for all that it stopped Gathen from opening the door. He let it swing all the way open before he stepped inside.
Rabedy hesitated a moment, then sighed and followed him into the room. There were two humans sleeping inside, a man and a woman, each in their own bed. The light came from the woman, a dreamy, yearning glow the warm yellow of a harvest moon, as though she was made of the radiance and her human skin couldn’t quite contain it.
Thrice-blessed, Rabedy remembered Odawa saying, but this light was neither canid nor corbae magic. It was old, old. A light that had been waiting in the dark for the world to be born.
“I didn’t see her shine like this,” Gathen said. “Earlier, in the bar, I mean.”
Rabedy nodded. He hadn’t either.
“Makes you wonder about that pluiking Odawa,” Gathen went on. “How blind is he? Because he saw this.”
“Maybe he sees on some other level than we do.”
“I’d like to shove his head up the crack of his own ass and find out what he can see there.”
“Why do you say that?” Rabedy asked.
“I don’t like him—I don’t care what Big Dan says, or if he’s the boss. I don’t trust that pluiking green-bree, and I don’t like him. There’s something not right about the way he’s gadding about with us. He’s old and he’s powerful—what does he need us for?”
“To be his eyes.”
Gathen shook his head. “He doesn’t need our eyes. He saw this, remember?”
He moved to the woman’s bed as he spoke, one hand stretched out.
Don’t, Rabedy wanted to tell him, but it w
as too late.
As soon as Gathen touched her, the light flared, blinding them both. When they both stopped blinking, the bed was empty. The light was gone, but so was the woman. Gathen stood by the bed, sucking on the ends of his fingers.
“What happened?” Rabedy whispered.
“Pluiking light burnt me.”
“No, I mean, where did she go?”
“Damned if I know. Guess it has to do with that luck Odawa was on about. She must have been wearing some kind of safeguard spell that we couldn’t see because of the light.”
The man sleeping on the other bed made a grumbling noise in his throat and the two bogans froze in place. They waited for long moments until they were sure he was still sleeping, then crept out of the room, shutting the door softly behind them so as not to wake him and attract his attention. The man had connections to Mother Crone, after all, and there’d be hell to pay if she got involved in any of this. So they were careful now. There was no point in making more of a mess than they already had.
“You okay?” Rabedy asked his companion once they were in the hall.
“Sure. I’m fine.”
But there was something new in his eyes. A resignation. A sense of loss. A sense of yearning.
“Not a word of this to anyone,” Gathen said. “You’re in as deep as I am. If we’re lucky, nothing’ll have happened to the woman. She’ll come back and no one need ever know.”
Rabedy nodded, though from the outset he’d tried to just get on with the task they’d been given. But it was too late now. He was in this the same as his companion, even if he hadn’t had anything to do with Gathen’s touching the woman. That wouldn’t matter to Big Dan.
“Let’s just get this done,” he said.
They moved farther down the hall and, happily, there was no light coming from under the door of the room the fiddler shared with the woman Luren had pushed down the stairs. The lock here opened as easily as had the one in the other room and a moment later they were inside.
“There,” Gathen said. “She’s in the bed by the window.”
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