* * *
The Holcrofts surrounded her, and babbled, but she was too sunk in shock and black despair to answer in more than monosyllables. No, Josh had not come up to the cabin last evening. Yes, the last time she saw him, it had been in his workshop, and she had sent him to the house to eat and rest. No, he hadn’t said anything except a promise he would get some sleep. No, she didn’t know where he was.
The last was a lie, of course. But what could she possibly say? Yore son’s been rieved away by a thang what calls herself The Queen of Copper Mountain, he’s been a-took Blessed Jesus on’y knows where, an’ we ain’t niver gonna see him agin. They’d think she’d lost her senses. All she could do was stand there helplessly while they gabbled at her; what she wanted to do was hold her hands over her ears and think, or cry, or both—but instead, she hugged herself tightly and listened to them, hoping against hope that they’d say something that would give her an idea of what to do.
From the babbling she gleaned that Josh had gone in for dinner, but that he’d eaten and then gone back to his workshop, saying he’d had an idea for something. That wasn’t unheard of; once he got the shape of something in his head, he often wanted to get the rough idea for it (sometimes literally) hammered out or he wouldn’t be able to sleep.
But in the morning he hadn’t come down to breakfast, which was unheard of, and when Susie went up to his room, his bed was still made and had not been slept in since it had been used by McDaran—Cooper having been bedded down on the floor with blankets.
Eventually the Holcrofts stopped babbling at her and swirled off again in their several directions, each one having an idea as to where Josh might have gone—regardless of whether or not there was any sense to their notions—leaving Anna standing alone in the yard between the house and barn.
Her mind seemed filled with ice and blackness; her heart felt as if it was being squeezed out of her body, and she could scarcely breathe.
Jolene took Josh.
No use in going to Aunt Jinny—Jinny had made her feelings clear. Don’t get atwixt Jolene an’ what she wants and Iffen he goes with her, y’all’s well shuck of him.
But she couldn’t believe that of Josh. She wouldn’t believe that. Not until and unless she heard it from his own lips, something like I pick Jolene an’ what she c’n give me over you.
That was what it would take to make her believe.
And for that . . . she’d have to go where he was.
With a Herculean effort she forced herself to go back up the lane. Her feet were so cold they ached, but she forced them to carry her through the frosty grass. Not to the cabin, but to the spot about halfway to the cabin where she would find Jolene—or Jolene would find her—the most often. She wasn’t quite sure what she was going to do when she got there, but—Jolene was a creature of Earth, and the other Earth creatures recognized her.
I thank I know . . . She could summon the little creatures of Earth, as many as she could, and beg them to bring Jolene to her, or lead her to Jolene.
Right now that was all she had.
Still walking, she pulled Earth power into herself, and prepared to call for the piskies first, since those were the ones she knew best. And it wasn’t until the moment she sent out the first summons that she realized the lane was blocked.
Someone, someone tall and broad, stood in the middle of the lane, blocking her passage.
“Heh,” said Bille McDaran. “Somehow I knowed y’all was still here, Miz Anna May Jones, no matter what yore aunt said.”
She froze in place, the magic to summon piskies still tingling at the ends of her fingers.
“Oh, but y’all don’t know me.” He puffed out his chest. “I’m Billie McDaran. I’m th’ foreman of th’ Burra Burra mine. I’m the bestest, meanest magician betwixt Charlotte an’ Memphis, I’m th’ best lookin’ man in Ducktown, I’m wuth twenny puny pissants like Josh Holcroft, an’ ev’body’ll tell y’all so.”
“What d’y’all want with me?” she demanded. “I ain’t no concern o’ yourn. We ain’t livin’ on Company land, we ain’t got no Company house, an’ we got no debt at th’ Company store.”
He snickered. “Y’all’s my concern iffen I makes y’all my concern. Seems y’all’s a witch, like yore aunt. An’ thet makes y’all my bizness. Ary a one in th’ Ducktown Basin what makes magic answers t’me.”
“We ain’t in th’ Basin,” she pointed out.
“Don’t care.” He cracked his knuckles. “Don’t care nohow. I makes m’own rules. I got a hankerin’ t’ hev a look at y’all arter Jolene tol’ me all ’bout y’all. Don’t mind what I sees. Y’all ain’t bad lookin’, an’ y’all got power, an’ thet’s jest fine. I takes what I wants, an’ I reckon y’all are a-gonna be mine.”
His words shocked her out of her despair—and into anger. “You!” she spat. “Y’all’s th’ one what set Jolene fer Josh Holcroft!”
He laughed, still scarcely more than a dark gray shape with eyes gleaming in the thin gray light under the trees, and somehow all the more menacing for that. It was an ugly laugh. “Y’all’s smarter than yore kin,” he said. “’Course I did. I knowed Jolene since I come t’Ducktown, an’ she knows me. We got a sorta arrangement, th’ two of us. She lets me know ’bout thangs. Jolene tol’ me ’bout y’all when I reckoned that ole cat Jinny was gettin’ more powerful than she had any right t’be. An’ she tol’ me y’all was sweet on thet boy. So I done her a favor right back, an’ tol’ her thet Holcroft boy was jest the sorta tasty bite she likes best. Arter thet?” He shrugged his shoulders. “Ain’t no man nor woman c’n stop Jolene when she hankers fer somethin’.” His eyes narrowed dangerously in the gray morning light. “Now, le’s jest make this easy. Y’all come with me, now. I c’n make y’all fergit thet boy in no time a-tall, an’ y’all is gonna thank me fer it. Play yore cards right, an’ I’ll even marry y’all.”
“Y’all c’n go to Hell!” she spat, energized and surprising even herself.
“I prolly will, ’ventually,” he agreed with a snicker. “But till then, I aims t’ hev me some fun. Don’ try an’ fight me, girl. Y’all cain’t win.”
The power tingled in her fingertips, and all her senses, including the magic ones, were suddenly filled with an acute awareness of the forest around her. She gathered in even more power, cast a shield over herself, and before he could react to that, gathered even more, and summoned—
Not the useless piskies, but the herd of wild hogs she sensed rooting in the leaf-mold, eating acorns less than a hundred yards away.
He got little more than a moment’s warning, as they turned as one, answering her call, and charged blindly through the underbrush straight for him.
What she sensed was the pigs’ sudden rage, as they reacted to her call and identified McDaran as an enemy. What she heard was the same thing he heard: underbrush crackling and snapping, and squeals of anger.
He wasn’t as stupid as she had thought he was; instead of standing there, puzzled, he reacted immediately. She sensed a darker version of the Glory surging from him, a power that actually nauseated her, as he held out his hands, turned them palm-up, and raised them.
And two monstrous critters rose out of the turf of the lane, one on either side of him.
Larger than McDaran, they looked like nothing so much as rough caricatures of humans made out of boulders. They weren’t as tall as the thing that Jolene had summoned, but they were at least twice his height.
And they moved a lot more quickly than she would have thought, getting themselves between McDaran and the squealing herd of angry swine, swinging at the pigs with club-like arms.
She backed up involuntarily as the things reduced the herd of pigs to a pile of shattered carcasses in a matter of minutes. The few survivors fled into the underbrush, leaving her facing McDaran and his critters over the pile of battered bodies, with the rank smell of blood and entrails heavy in t
he air. She summoned more power from the line beneath her, filling herself with it until she was afraid she might start glowing.
McDaran just smirked.
“Tol’ y’all. Yore no match fer me, girl. Y’all c’n pull whatever liddle tricks yore aunt taught y’all, an’ I ain’t even gonna break a sweat.” He tucked his thumbs into his suspenders and chuckled. “Jolene didn’ even teach y’all nothin’ wuth havin’, now, did she?”
“Why don’ y’all arsk her yoreself?” she shot back.
He whirled as he sensed power and movement behind him—and there, floating in midair, was Jolene. Not the Jolene of Ducktown, nor the Jolene in her swirly dress, who was Anna’s teacher—but the Jolene Anna had first seen, the one in the strange dress and apron of exotic materials, with trim of gold, and a halo-like headpiece of the same material. Her true form, Anna knew now. The Queen of Copper Mountain. Her eyes flashed with fury, and her beautiful lips were twisted into a frown of rage.
“Illusions take less power to make and hold. . . . What matters is not if it is real, but if you persuade someone or something else that it is real.”
“McDaran!” the apparition shrieked. “How dare you try to steal my student from me?”
McDaran froze where he stood. But Anna was not going to wait around to see how long her illusion held him. Once the spell for the illusion had been set free, she ran.
She knew the game trails around here; he didn’t. She grabbed up her skirts in both hands, freeing her bare legs, and ran, not for the cabin, because that was where he would expect her to go, but deeper into the wilderness. And while she ran, she sang.
He+! Hayuya´haniwa´, hayuya´haniwa´, hayuya´haniwa´, hayuya´haniwa´.
Tsistuyi´ nehandu´yanû, Tsistuyi´ nehandu´yanû-Yoho´+!
He+! Hayuya´haniwa´, hayuya´haniwa´, hayuya´haniwa´, hayuya´haniwa´.
Kuwâhi´ nehandu´yanû´, Kuwâhi´ nehandu´yanû-Yoho´+!
He+! Hayuya´haniwa´, hayuya´haniwa´, hayuya´haniwa´, hayuya´haniwa´.
Uyâ’ye´ nehandu´yanû´, Uya´ye´ nehahdu´yanû´-Yoho´+!
He+! Hayuya´haniwa´, hayuya´haniwa´, hayuya´haniwa´, hayuya´haniwa´.
Gâtekwâ´(hi) nehandu´yanû´, Gâtekwâ´(hi) nehandu´yanû´-Yoho´+!
Ûle-’nû´ asehi´ tadeya´statakûhi´ gû´nnage astû´tsiki´.
It was the song to call bears, as Grandmother Spider had taught her, and into it she poured all the power that she could summon, spilling it into the magic and the song as quickly as she could gather it up.
She did not try to fight back her tears as she sang and ran, nor her terror. But she did fight back her despair. She refused to give up. Not yet. Not until there was nothing more to try, nothing more to be done.
“Bear is the spirit that you are most likely to need if you are in danger. Bear can run, and swim, and climb, and fight; Bear is fearless when that is called for, but does not lose himself in rage and will run when that is needed. And Bear is near to the Cherokee peoples.”
The melody was simple and sad; she panted as she sang, tears trickling down her cheeks, and hardly able to get her breath between words, she ran so fast. But fear put strength in her legs, and anger in her lungs, and though she was lashed by branches and her hair came down and tumbled around her, still, she ran.
“He+! Little Sister!” she heard behind her as she crashed into a meadow and stumbled over a root. It was a rumbling growl like thunder that carried words, Cherokee words she understood clearly. “Stop running a moment!”
She stopped and turned, almost falling, and gasped as a white bear as big as a horse lumbered to a halt before her. Thanks to Elder Raven and Grandmother Spider, she knew who this was! This wasn’t just any bear. This was Medicine Bear, the Chief of all Bears, the Great Bear himself, the kin to Grandmother Spider!
“Quickly!” the Bear told her, before she could say anything. “Climb on my back and grab hold of the folds of skin over my shoulders! We must run!”
She scrambled onto his back, although she had never ridden another creature in her life, and did as she was told, splaying herself out face-down over his massive back, digging her frozen toes into the fur of his sides, and burying her hands in the folds of his skin just where the neck met the enormous shoulders. And as soon as she was secure, the Bear lurched forward and galloped off into the forest.
She would never have believed that something that looked as slow and clumsy as the Bear could run the way it did. But this was faster than she had ever traveled in her life, much, much faster than riding in a wagon, faster than traveling on a boat, fast enough to take her breath away. The great body heaved and surged under her, muscles rippling as he drove himself forward, tree branches lashing at her.
She hid her face in his fur to save herself from the branches, taking long, deep, slow breaths to try to get her own wind back. He smelled like dried grass or clover, sweet and fresh.
Somehow, he picked a path where branches weren’t constantly whipping at her, and as the wind of their passing rushed over her, the warmth of his back and fur made her realize how cold she had been. Her feet, which had been like two blocks of ice, regained feeling.
Where were they going?
Don’t care. Jest as long as it’s away from McDaran.
What would she do when the Bear decided to stop running?
She didn’t know that, either. She only knew one thing. For the time being, she had escaped McDaran, and now she had to find Josh, and find out, face to face, if he really had abandoned her for Jolene. After she knew that . . . she might be able to figure out what to do next.
Even if she did it with her heart shattered in a million pieces.
Suddenly, the Bear slowed for a few paces, and stopped.
“This is as far as I can take you, Little Sister,” the voice rumbled, vibrating in her body. She raised her head and looked around.
There was nothing in this part of the forest to tell her where she was—except that it was not unlike the part of the Holler where Elder Raven’s band lived. Huge, old trees, with moss-covered trunks; ferns as tall as her shoulders. They were not far from a steep mountain slope, rising up to the right, where trees somehow grew out of ground that was nearly vertical, and moss-covered rocks humped up between them. She pried her hands open and slid down Bear’s back.
“This isn’t where Elder Raven lives, is it?” she asked Bear. “I don’t want McDaran following us and finding the band!”
“It is not. I would not do that,” Bear reassured her. “This is as far as I can take you to where you need to go. Over yonder is your guide.”
She peered toward where Bear was pointing to the right with his nose, and then, when it moved, she saw it. Green as the moss, but with a metallic sheen, it was one of Jolene’s little lizards.
She moved toward the lizard, slowly, so as not to frighten it. But it didn’t seem frightened. It raised its head, then bobbed the front half of its body at her, as if in greeting, and flicked its tongue at her. It wasn’t a thin, forked tongue like a snake’s; it was a glistening, fleshy tongue like a human’s.
“C’n y’all take me to Jolene?” she asked.
It stared at her.
“C’n y’all take me to th’ Queen of Copper Mountain?” she amended.
It bobbed its head once, whisked around in an instant, and faced the moss-covered rock wall.
She looked back over her shoulder to say “goodbye and thanks” to Bear—but Bear was already gone.
“Thank you, Elder Brother,” she said aloud anyway, in Cherokee. “Thank you for saving me from McDaran. Thank you for bringing me here. Thank you for answering my song.”
There was no direct answer, but a wind swept through the ferns, smelling of dried grass and clover.
“Where y’all takin’ me?” she asked the lizard.
It bobbed at the wall, scuttle
d up to it—and vanished.
For a moment she thought it had abandoned her, but then she saw a space between the boulders that was just barely wide enough to squeeze through. If she’d been any larger, or her skirts bulkier, or, indeed, if she’d had one more petticoat on, she would never have fit.
She’d expected some sort of—building, perhaps. Queens lived in palaces, didn’t they? Or at least some spectacular bit of scenery. But . . . this was a cave.
She shuddered. She didn’t like underground places. Going underground meant danger, rockfalls, cave-ins, all the stories of terrible things that had come out of the mines and got spoken of in hushed whispers when men had drunk enough, or when women recounted the stories of those they had lost. And it would be dark in there, and not just like “night-dark,” but a horrible empty dark that was so lightless it made your eyes ache.
But there was no help for it. According to Great-Granpappy, the Queen of Copper Mountain lived inside the mountain, so that was where Jolene would be. And so would Josh.
She took a deep breath and one last look around, and squeezed in through the crack.
19
SHE was afraid to move.
Behind her was the crack, spilling light—so very little light!—over the rocks in front of her. She stood with her hands against the rock wall behind her, and the little lizard posed in the spill of light before her, tail flicking impatiently.
Light’s what I need. But for light, she would need power. Was there power around here that she could actually use? This was Jolene’s territory; how would Jolene take to someone helping herself to whatever source of power there was?
But I cain’t go futher without light. I gotter see where I’m a-goin’.
She’d have to chance it.
She stole a little—oh, so very little—power from the nearest source, which astounded her with its depth and breadth. This was not like one of the rivers of power she had encountered so far in her education. This was like—like a huge lake, an ocean, even, but one that was so still and calm and peaceful that it caught at her heart, and so deep she could not sense a bottom to it.
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