by Nick Lake
I lean my weight on my CAM Walker, brace myself, and take a step for—
A hand closes over my mouth, jerking me back. The other hand kind of snakes behind both my arms and does something complicated, and I can’t move. I’m propelled forward to the driveway, my feet not even touching the earth.
I’m brought to the leader, and he nods when he sees me. He holds up a finger to his lips, which seems pretty redundant, when I’ve still got a gloved hand holding my mouth shut. I struggle a bit, at first, but it seems kind of pointless and I stop. The ground is bitter with sharp shards of gravel.
Now I wish I hadn’t thrown away the knife.
MOM, I call in my head. MOM.
And if this was the Dreaming, she would hear me. If this was the Dreaming, she would know.
But it’s not the Dreaming.
The battering ram hits the door and it shakes on its hinges, warping, like someone just put a spell on it and it’s changing into something else. Then again. And then, on the third time, the door just disappears into the house, just like that, like, as quick as reading:
door
[no door]
I mean, it’s not, like, hanging on its hinges, it’s just not there. And everywhere around me there’s rapid-fire movement as the SWAT team ready their weapons.
The men pour in, and that’s the right word for it, like liquid.
I wait—I have zero point zero choice about it. I almost want to close my eyes but I don’t.
Forty-seven seconds later the men come out again. The first one moves his hands in a way that obviously means, she’s not in there.
Mom?
The SWAT guys huddle, all apart from the one holding me. Then the leader comes up to me.
Where is she? he asks.
The guy behind me takes his hand away so I can speak but he’s still holding my arms. I shake my head.
Where is she? he asks again.
I shake my head again too, and I must look as scared as I feel because he sighs and points to the woods. Do a sweep, he says. Gomez, McCarthy, Rhodes. Get the chopper on it too. Tell them to use the thermal.
Then the leader says something into the radio attached to his shoulder and a car is suddenly there, a big black Cadillac, and it glides to a stop near us.
One of the team opens the door and the one behind me presses his hand on my head to help me down into the car. And that’s it—I’m in custody, and Mom is gone.
Chapter 35
They don’t cuff me or anything.
They close the door of the Cadillac and leave me in there. I don’t know if there’s a driver in the car—there’s a dark pane of glass between the back seats and the front. Anyway we don’t go anywhere, we just sit there.
No one comes to speak to me. I’m on my own for, oh, I don’t know, 113 hours. Or maybe twenty minutes.
Finally the opposite door opens and a guy in a dark pinstriped suit gets in. He sits in the other back seat and looks at me. There’s an odd expression on his face. Like he doesn’t want me to be afraid of him, but at the same time very serious, and concerned. Concerned FOR ME, I think. I figure him for some kind of Fed—FBI maybe. He’s youngish, with pale green eyes and short-cropped brown hair.
Where is Shaylene Cooper? he says eventually.
I don’t say anything.
We need to find her, he says. Your mother. Do you know where she is?
Interesting, I think. So they don’t have Mom. But how would she have gotten away? I think of her going to look for the generator, going to the woodshed, she had said.
Maybe she knew they were coming, the moment the power cut, and she ran for the canyon? Or something?
What the hell, Mom?
He is still looking at me, the Fed, waiting for me to answer. But I don’t. This guy won’t know sign, and I don’t want to talk to him with my mouth—I’m feeling pretty fricking vulnerable already in this situation and don’t want to be even weaker.
At length he sighs; at least I assume he sighs, his shoulders kind of hunch up and then fall, slowly. Do you need anything? he says. Water?
I shake my head.
So you understand me? he says. Where is Shaylene Cooper? Where did she go?
I shake my head again.
You don’t know or you won’t tell me?
I shrug.
He sits very still for a long time, then he raps on the darkened glass divider with his knuckles and says something, but he’s facing forward as he says it so I don’t catch it.
The car starts up—I feel the engine rumbling through the floor, the vibrations. Then we roll, and I feel the gravel of the drive give way to smooth asphalt road, and then we carry on driving for what feels like eons. When we leave the canopy of the forest, and join the main road, I begin to see a little more through the window—the trees flashing by as we go.
I get the impression we’re going north, back to Flagstaff. Back to where Mom stabbed that knife through Luke’s hand …
Yeah, I think, that was the gas station where we stopped. We drive through forest for maybe an hour before gradually descending into high desert plateau again, the black silhouettes of mountains in the distance. The whole time, the guy in the suit just looks ahead, not meeting my eye. As we drive the sun rises, flooding the world with red light, setting the shreds of cloud on the western horizon on fire.
The headrest is soft as I lean back against it, the fur of the elk beneath my legs warm.
I look out the window and see the forest, tree trunks shuttering in and out of existence. The agent sitting beside me suddenly seems a long way away, and I’m so tired, so, so tired. The radio is on loud—I assume so anyway, since I can just hear crackles of updates from other agents, but it sounds like they don’t know where Mom is, so that’s good at least.
Well, I think it’s good.
I look up at the star-filled sky above, take a deep lungful of clear, pure air. I grip on to the elk’s mane and—
the car’s engine drones and—
the wind is in my hair and—
I’m flying along beneath
The Infinite Stars
Chapter 36
—My elk galloping across the prairie, Coyote running beside me, flowing over the ground.
Then I see that he’s slowing, and my elk begins to slow too—the whole herd comes to a stop, on the dark grassland beneath the million billion stars of the Dreaming.
Coyote turns and my elk wheels around too and I hear the susurration of the grass beneath the hooves and I’m glad; my heart fills with it. We look back and the chasm is just a dark scar in the distance.
There are no wolves pursuing us, not a single one. It’s just us, and our long shadows, on the prairie.
We should go back, says Coyote/Mark.
Why? says the elk. There is a nervous whinnying from the others.
To make sure, says Coyote. If you are afraid I will go alone.
The elk snorts. We are not afraid, it says. We are Elk. We are many.
Good, says Coyote/Mark.
Okay, it’s not going to work, me writing Coyote/Mark. When he’s in Coyote form I’m just going to call him Coyote, okay? But remember that he is Mark too.
We all canter back until we reach the lip of the canyon. I slide down from the elk and walk over beside Coyote, then we peer down the devastated slope. I can’t see anything at first, but then I just make out the tail of a wolf, poking out from beneath a grave of stones.
They are gone, says Coyote. Crushed.
The closest elk nods its head. This is good, it says.
Then Coyote ripples and shifts, twisting, until Mark is standing there beside us. We must keep moving, he says. To the castle. You can remain here if you wish. It may be safer. The wolves will keep coming, even if these are dead.
An elk stamps its feet beside me. No, we will continue to carry you, it says.
I look across the prairie and see the distant spire of the castle, small on the horizon, beyond a smudge that may be woods.
&nbs
p; The elk nearest me, a male with huge antlers, bends down to allow me to mount.
The elk closest to Mark bows down too, and Mark doesn’t waste time with polite protesting, he just swings himself up, and after a second I do the same. We take off at a quick canter across the plain.
We ride for what feels like several days, though it’s always night; I sleep on the back of my elk, lulled by its motion, my face pressed into its fur, smelling its deep and ancient scent; musky, comforting. Above me the stars wheel, impossibly slowly, the whole night sky shining, like mother of pearl.
It’s hard to tell, but it seems like the elks aren’t just cantering, actually, though the movement is smooth. We’re eating up the miles, the ground moving past at what is actually kind of a scary—
Whoa, okay, note to self: don’t look too closely at the ground. The elks’ hooves are barely touching the forest floor; it’s as if they could take off into the air and fly if they wanted to, but are holding back out of self-sacrifice, or maybe to spare me fear.
Yet, when the ache in my ass subsides, the speed gets gradually less scary and I come to love the riding—the constant motion of the elk, the warmth of it beneath me, the sense that we are one organism, moving together. The hypnotizing rhythm of it. I feel like, if I die right now, my ghost will keep on riding, forever, happy.
I wake and the landscape has shifted—we’re starting to enter thin woods, not a forest like before, with pines, but a deciduous one, like something you’d expect to see in Europe or something. Starlight filters down through the leaves and branches, dappling everything. Here, too, the trees are dry and dying.
But they’re not like the trees from before, I realize. They’re sharp and gnarled, angry looking. They have spikes growing from them.
The Forest of Thorns, says Mark, from the elk beside me. We’re getting closer to the castle.
It’s creepy, I say, looking at the twisting branches, the knifelike thorns.
Yes, says Mark. Soon we’ll stop, for the elks to rest. And to light a fire. The creatures that serve the witch do not like fire.
We’re on a broad path that leads through the forest but it is getting narrower and narrower, and the elks are having to slow more and more. As we ride, I listen to the whistling of the wind in the thorns, in the leaves. It sounds like crying.
We carry on, for maybe another hour, the path getting trickier all the time, thorns starting to push in toward us from the trees, to catch on the fur of the elks, on my sleeve.
And the wind …
It is crying, I realize. It’s the crying of the child, from my dream. And as we ride, it’s getting louder, like a vibration that lies under everything, like I imagine the sea must be, if you live near it.
Can you hear it? I say to Mark. I have to turn because we are riding single file now, and he is behind me.
The Child? he says.
Yes, I say.
He nods. We must save it, he says.
I don’t say anything. But the sound feels like it’s crowding everything else out of my mind, taking me over. I would do anything to make it stop. Anything. I just want to get to that child and help it, to protect it from the Crone, or whatever it is that is hurting it.
I didn’t care about the Crone or the Child or any of that stuff before, it was all abstract, but then the snake bit the elk and now … now the crying in my ears, exactly the same as in my dream …
Hell, doing what Mark said—killing the Crone and saving the Child—it would be worth it even if it just stopped me having that dream again. And then there is the anger too. Now that I have had my hand on an elk as its flame went out, as it went dark, I would be happy to kill the Crone.
I am looking forward to killing her.
Maybe a half hour later, Mark calls for the elks to stop. It’s getting too hard for them to press on through the forest. We come to a halt just before a small clearing in the thorny, nasty woods. Mark dismounts and I swing myself down too—the ground is sharp with stones underfoot, little flinty stones.
I don’t think you can go any farther, he says to the elks. We will go from here on foot.
The elks nod. We will wait here. For your return journey.
We will not be returning, says Mark. Whatever happens.
I stare at him.
Don’t worry about it, he says. You will see.
Good luck, say the elks.
Thank you, says Mark. He turns and waves them back. Go, he says. You have served. You have stood.
We have stood, says the elk that Mark was riding, not proud, just like a statement of fact. We are Elk. Make the rain return, Coyote.
I will, says Mark. I will, with the Maiden’s help.
Then the elks turn and in a blur of hooves, they’re gone. I feel almost like crying, they were so beautiful, and so gentle.
Mark doesn’t look at me, he just pushes through the branches—I see the thorns raise red welts on his arms, raking him as he passes. I follow him, cursing as the thorns scratch me too.
We emerge into the little clearing. All around us, the forest presses in, sharp and many-sided, busy with thorns. But this is a small, round haven, roofed with stars.
There are still good places, within the Crone’s territory, says Mark. This is one of them. The last, I think.
Places can be good and bad? I ask.
Oh yes, says Mark. You haven’t noticed?
Chapter 37
Mark begins gathering twigs and small branches, dry leaves, and then sets about building a fire. He makes a small pile of moss and leaves, then a wigwam of twigs above it. He takes two stones from his pocket and strikes them together until sparks fly—they catch a leaf and erase it from the world, turning it to a brightly glowing tracery of veins that is there, deep orange, for a second, and then gone into dust.
The other leaves catch too, and the tinder flares, setting fire to the twigs. Mark leans larger branches over them, until the fire is blazing. Flames begin to lick up into the cold night air, smoke spirals up into the starlit blackness. The trees around the clearing flicker horribly, twisting and contorting in the firelight, as if they have come alive, as if they’re reaching for us, wanting to wrap their limbs around us, drag us in.
This is probably true, I realize, with a shiver. And all the time the Child is crying, filling the air with its unhappiness, wanting me. Needing me.
Despite my terror of the trees, the thorns, it is all I can do not to get up and run into the forest, toward the castle, toward that voice, to find the Child and comfort it …
No.
No, I am here in the clearing, with Mark, and there is the warmth of the fire, its shifting light. Keeping the darkness at bay, the creatures of the Crone at bay. I close my eyes and let the fire wash over me.
Huh.
There is something else too, something that for the first time in maybe an hour distracts me from the constant background of the Child’s crying.
This thing is:
I hear it. I hear the fire.
Mom was right, when she said in the cabin that it was indescribable. There are no words. The fire is like a living thing, and the noise of it is the noise of its living; it crackles, pops, fizzes, crunches, cracks. The sound is constant, comforting.
Mark is gazing into the flames, an unreadable, pensive expression on his face.
The elk that died, he said I shouldn’t trust you, I say.
Mark makes a noise in his throat.
He said you played tricks, I continue.
Do I look like I’m playing tricks? says Mark. He is still looking at the fire and his face stays deadly serious.
No, I say.
Well, he says.
But it wouldn’t be a trick if you seemed untrustworthy, would it? I say.
He laughs. No, I suppose not.
So, I say again, can I trust you?
Mark sighs. Trust is the wrong word, he says.
What does that mean?
I am Coyote, he says. I gave knowledge to people. I stole fire and g
ave it to them. I made death, so that their lives would matter. Twice I killed the Crone, when she was an owl and when she was a giant. I taught Man and Woman how to write. You can trust me to help you. It’s just … you might not like it.
Oh, I say quietly.
We sit there in silence for a moment—or not silence, I realize. The constant noise of the crackling, spitting, creaking fire. The wind in the trees. The crying of the Child, in the background, pulling at me like an enormous magnet. The fire curls and ripples and rolls, as if its true nature is liquid. Above its flaring heat, the icy stars gleam. There are so many of them, a messy multitude, the constellations subtly different from the ones I’m used to. The light is bright—a bluish glow that illuminates everything.
He shakes his head. The problem, he says, is that in your world the days continue to follow one another. To run out. This is in the Crone’s favor.
Because?
Because if we do not save the Child, and soon, your world will end. I told you this.
So what are we doing sitting here by a fire? I say.
He smiles. Conserving our energy, he says. Preparing.
And when does the sun come up? I say.
It doesn’t, he says. Here there is no time.
What? I say. But we’re moving and talking and—
Yes, he says. Time flows. But there is no sun, no moon. Only stars. So there are no days and everything is forever.
I stare at him. I’m thinking of the elk, closing its eyes. Apart from things that die, I say. Because you are Coyote and you made death.
Yes, he says.
Neither of us speaks for a while.
So when do we go? I ask eventually. I mean, we can’t wait till dawn, if there isn’t going to be a dawn.
Soon, he says, with another smile.
Then I feel something on my arm, something or someone touching me. I look at Mark, but he’s sitting a foot away from me, and there’s no one else there, no one I can see.
I look at the moving forms of the trees, their twisted shadows. Has one of them come forward into the clearing?