Water, Circle, Moon

by Sally McBride

  Then it was his phone’s turn to buzz. He checked it and cursed. “Laine, sorry, I’ve got to take this. Work.”

  Time to make a graceful exit and let the man get on with business. If it distracted him from the search for a cabyll ushtey murderer, all the better. She twiddled her fingers in a wave and headed for the stairs to her room.

  Being near Arren Tyrell was frustrating, invigorating, and definitely fun, but the man had other things to do than ride herd on a tourist. She decided to have another crack at that run she’d planned. The run that had been so horribly interrupted.

  The Councilor who had finally returned his call was explaining that the Council did not meet again until late September. “It’s impossible to schedule anything until then. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Of course,” he said smoothly. “But perhaps you could remind the Council that the Lyford project is in the final planning stages. If they intend to veto the stream diversion, better sooner than later. I’m sure you understand.”

  He’d heard this sort of well-practiced waffling many times before. The memory of Laine’s legs as she ascended the stairs was, however, affecting his hearing. For a moment he thought he might throw his phone across the room and dash after her.

  It was all so pointless. Development and progress were irreversibly changing the face of Great Britain, National Forests be damned, and the lesser beings would have to adapt. Or die.

  He was jotting down some notes when he saw Laine bound down the stairs like a teenager, dressed in running shoes, periwinkle-blue shorts, and a tight white tank top that showed off her strong, tanned arms and shoulders. She waved jauntily and flashed him a smile. He lost his train of thought and tucked the notebook in a pocket.

  No, you cannot go running after her. Let the girl have some time alone, for pity’s sake. He went to the window and watched her pick up speed, jogging toward the river path. Her long brown tail of hair swung back and forth, sweeping her shoulders rhythmically.

  The color of her running shorts opened a crack in his memory, and in came a flood of nostalgia. Periwinkle blue, like the tiny, ground-hugging flowers that carpeted the treed slope leading to the house he still thought of as home, though he’d lived on his own for years.

  Albert and Catherine Tyrell loved him, as far as he could tell, exactly as much—no more, no less—as they loved their own two children—Delsie, dead now, and Kevin, still at school. Though not demonstrative in their affection, they were staunch allies who had stood by him unwaveringly when the incident with Tricia McCowan happened. “It’ll blow over, lad,” Albert had assured him. “She’ll forgive and forget. In fact, she’ll tell herself it never even happened.”

  He and Tricia had spoken again only when absolutely necessary. He hadn’t seen her for years. She’d even invited him to her wedding, but of course he hadn’t gone. It would have been ridiculous, embarrassing.

  Laine disappeared between the trees. She would be safe enough; it was midday, the sun was strong and the unknown cabyll killer sated for a while.

  He picked up his phone again. Now to his real work. He needed to attempt, once again, to contact the leader of the cabyll herd that controlled the land to the northwest. The man, a middle-aged widower named Melved Gibbs, who as a human was the owner of a land-surveying firm, was seasoned in the ways of deception and plausible camouflage. No one suspected him of a double life.

  But he was one more suspect in murder, and Arren needed to talk to him.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Laine stopped in a patch of shade to catch her breath, walking fast in a short circle and shaking her arms out. It was amazing how you could feel the difference after just a few days without a run. She was glad to get moving, though she’d gone only a couple of miles. The best part was running in a whole new area with lots of interesting new things to see. She’d forgotten to bring water with her, a holdover from her regular route in Toronto that cut through a park and its handy amenities, like water fountains and restrooms.

  She wiped sweat from her eyes and looked around. What had happened to the river? She’d been running right beside it along its meandering course. She turned in a circle. The damned thing was gone again. In fact, now she was in a forest. A forest that was growing thicker and taller as she watched. And now she’d lost track of which way was back to the village.

  Starting to get frightened, she muttered, “Okay, you sneaky son-of-a-bitch river, where are you?” Perhaps she should climb another tree.

  But not one that moved.

  She was listening for the sound of running water when she heard the rustle of someone or something approaching. Feeling uncomfortably alone, she crouched behind a tree trunk, but relaxed when she heard humming. Whoever it was had the traditional old song “Greensleeves” in his head; somehow that diminished the sense of threat.

  The screen of undergrowth parted . . . and out stepped Jaird Fallon. He grinned like a wolf when he saw her.

  Her fear ratcheted up, taking her heart with it. Though Jaird hadn’t in any way threatened her when she’d met him, menace hung around him like a cloud. She took a couple of wary steps back, bouncing on her toes.

  Jaird was dressed in loose brown pants and a cotton shirt the green of the late summer vegetation, and was shoeless. For some reason, the sight of his strong, callused feet, toes digging into the dry soil like some kind of animal’s paws, was more disturbing than his abrupt appearance.

  “Mr. Fallon . . . fancy meeting you here.” She was hoping for a tone of insouciance. Damned if she was going to call him Father.

  He chuckled and walked toward her, stopping a few feet away “I saw you coming, Laine my child. I’ve been monitoring a deer trail,” he gestured behind him. “Been up in that oak most of the morning.”

  “I see.” Perched in an oak tree, fine. Laine doubted he’d been monitoring anything, unless you did it without any equipment, not so much as a pair of binoculars. He’d planned this. Jaird wanted something from her, and Laine suspected it was more than just a warm cuddly paternal feeling. She started to jog backwards along the narrow path, hoping she was going in the right direction and keeping her eyes on him. “Well, I’d better go before I scare off the deer.”

  “Wait.” His brown eyes held hers more tightly than a grasping hand. Silently he glided close, and stopped only inches from her. Laine felt her limbs grow heavy, as if the man exerted a gravitational pull. Run. Turn and run now!

  She couldn’t move. He took her hand, and she was horrified to find she couldn’t remove it. She pulled, but his big paw engulfed her fingers in a cage as strong as oak. A current of darkness flooded through her skin, electric like what she’d felt with Arabella but worse, so much worse.

  “Don’t worry,” he said in his chocolate voice. She felt sweat trickle between her breasts. “I want to show you something, tell you something . . . of the past.”

  He dragged her through the forest like a bulldozer. Even should she manage to break free, she knew she wouldn’t get far. He was too strong. Plus, he knew where he was and she didn’t.

  “W-where are you taking me? What do you want?”

  “I want to give you something.”

  Oh, no. “I don’t want anything from you. Let me go!”

  He laughed and pulled her to stand beside him, impervious to her panicky pleas and increasing struggles. “Laine, I won’t hurt you. Don’t fear me. Come, look . . . ”

  Flinching at the feel of his hard, hot body hugging hers, she glimpsed a view that made her do a classic double-take. “What . . . ? This . . . this isn’t possible.”

  A deep, wide valley lay before her, heavily wooded with giant oaks, beeches, and hawthorns; black yew trees standing like sentinels, so tall they must be hundreds of years old. A river wound along the bottom of the valley, broad and sparkling in some places, narrow and leaden in others, until it passed out of sight to what she deduced was south.

  Not a fence, road, or building could she spy. Not even a flock of sheep, and those were everywh
ere. The huge valley looked uninhabited. Right next to the rock ledge where they stood gushed a silky white waterfall, flashing past them into sparkling crystal as it bounded over fern-covered granite outcroppings. She could feel water droplets mist her skin, hear the hiss and rumble of the flow hitting bottom somewhere out of sight.

  She could swear they hadn’t climbed more than a few feet as they’d walked, yet here they were overlooking a vista that expanded as she watched. He released her, but she scarcely noticed.

  “Where are we? This is . . . impossible.”

  “Ah. But that depends on where here is. And when.”

  She risked a glare at him, met only amused tolerance. “Don’t try to scam me, I’m not falling for it.”

  She scrubbed her eyes with both hands, but the improbable view was still there. Across the valley was a cliff, and as she watched a pattern emerged upon it. It was as if the trees parted, the shrubs and grass drew themselves aside to reveal a wonder. On the cliff, cut as if by a giant’s shovel, was the huge outline of a horse.

  A horse as red as blood.

  Laine closed her eyes. Her hands remembered the shape of the ivory horse. Its mane and tail flying, its tiny mouth open. The horse on the cliff was exactly the same, though it was blood red and huge, sprawling across the whole broad hillside.

  Wait. She knew something about this. “This is the Red Horse of Tysoe. Isn’t that it? I read about it . . . ” And she had. When Innis had sent her his weird ancient present, she’d gone online and looked up everything she could find about prehistoric British carvings. Her research led her through bone, stone, and animal horn—small things meant to be portable, like the ever-popular Venus figures—plus renditions of bison, mammoths, and horses, to the giant hill carvings that turned out to be fairly common. But there was only one like this. Only one as red as blood.

  It wasn’t blood, it was only red clay. It was remarkable, yes, but it was carved by humans who had dug out a big, flashy billboard for their faith.

  Her skin was chilled by the waterfall’s mist, though she could feel heat radiating from Jaird’s body as if it were molten lava. She stayed as far from him as she could on the narrow rock ledge. Laine felt proud of herself for not gibbering and begging to be set free. “I thought it was gone, covered with vegetation.” From what she’d read, the red horse was invisible in modern times, shrouded by grass and trees as people lost interest in the old gods. “What am I seeing? Where are we?” When are we?

  “We are . . . between.” At her impatient gesture, he held up a hand and continued, his deep voice mild and rational. “We are neither in the modern-day England you have experienced, nor in a place that is totally impossible. This is an aspect of the power that lies in this land, that fills it and sometimes overflows.”

  She eyed the surging waterfall and waved a shaky hand at it. “So this is the overflow?”

  He laughed. “My child, I like your spirit.”

  “Don’t call me your child. I don’t believe a word you say.” Oh, but she did. She did.

  “But you believe your eyes, do you not?”

  The red horse shone in the sun of a forgotten day, a bloody scar on the verdant green hillside. “I’ve seen lots of crazy things lately.”

  “I brought your mother here, many years ago. Unlike you, she believed with no hesitation, perhaps because she wanted to.”

  “And you think I don’t want to?” Laine snorted. “If you only knew.” She gazed avidly at the valley as the waterfall sang in her ears. There was no sign of civilization, not even a thread of smoke from a hidden cottage. No airplanes in the sky, no contrails, nothing. The air was fresh, warm, and delicious. It was like the fabled valley of Shangri-La.

  The only evidence of humanity was the red horse. Ancient folk had, with their own stubborn sweat, cut away the turf to expose the red clay beneath, leaving a silhouette of the vast horse that sprawled on the hill, and had lived their lives under it.

  From the corner of her eye she detected nearby leaves turning circles on their stems, like small green dancers twirling on one pointed toe. The water roared past her, beading her hair and sending twisty tendrils into the sky. Where the moon was right now, she didn’t want to know.

  Jaird was absently stroking away the film of mist that had collected on his hairy arms, staring into a past she could not comprehend. “In the old days, people knew how to worship the cabyll.” His thick brows lowered and his voice deepened.

  He turned to her, his brown eyes intense enough to make her flinch. “Your mother understood. As soon as I touched her, I knew. She was strong, sensual, wild. She was the one for me.”

  Mother, strong and wild? Giving herself to this creature?

  An image of Martin Summerhill popped into Laine’s brain. Martin, who had taught her how to build a fire, told her how to hold a pocketknife so as not to cut herself, skirted with endearing shyness around the whole teenage sex thing. Martin loved Mother and Mother loved Martin. Bethea, pretty and compliant, was the perfect wife.

  But she wasn’t. She had a past that had turned her into a spineless lush, a skinny, self-centered wisp who hid in her big house and let the mundane world cushion her. A woman who had used Martin heartlessly.

  “That isn’t the mother I know. You destroyed her.” Laine wanted to bite back the words. Was she stupid enough to challenge a man like this? A man who was looking at her like a cat getting ready to toy with its prey?

  He said, “Our boy Innis took longer to convince.”

  She tested her footing, trying to center her balance without him noticing. “Are you kidding? Innis loves this stuff. He’s thrilled to be a shape-shifting horse god, or whatever he thinks he is.”

  Jaird let out a barking laugh. “You’re right. But, believe it or not, he was skeptical for a long time, even after his first change. Claimed I had drugged him, sent him on an acid trip or some nonsense like that.” His eyes were sardonic, patronizing. “I’m betting you’ll say the same thing.”

  She felt her blood chill. Run. Now.

  She whirled and bolted toward what she hoped was reality, her back crawling with the certainty that he’d chase her down. Drag her into the river and force the change on her.

  Or simply rip her up and eat her.

  Gasping and lost, she dodged trees and pushed through underbrush that deliberately tried to trip her. What if she were trapped in this alternate reality forever? There had to be a sign of civilization somewhere; there just had to be.

  Then she heard the heavy pounding of hooves behind her. Blood drained from any useful part of her—brain, heart, legs—and she almost fell. Crashing awkwardly into a tree trunk, she grabbed it, swung around and risked a peek. She saw a flash of gleaming black and stifled a scream. The tree bark burned her hands. She turned and forced her wobbling legs to move.

  Almost immediately she lost her footing on a mossy log and fell into a soggy patch of clinging, stinging weeds.

  Before she could scramble to her feet, she was pinned in place by churning ebony hooves striking inches from her face and hands. She curled into a ball, burrowing into the dirt with the frantic strength of a cornered rat. But as her fingernails dug, she looked up. She couldn’t close her eyes. She had to see.

  The hooves dancing around her were black and shiny as tar. A stallion’s hot breath gusted down on her like hell’s open door. Her nerve broke; she shrieked and covered her eyes.

  “Look at me,” a voice commanded.

  She couldn’t. Laine knew in her guts that to look full on him was to fall into his spell and never be free. “No!”

  “Look at me!”

  She found herself raising her head and obeying.

  It was like being alone on a mountaintop, staring up into the starry night. It swallowed her up. Everything else fell away but this stallion, this cabyll ushtey chieftain rearing before her. He was beautiful and terrible, every shade and nuance of black in his hide and hair, gleaming with muscle. The satin of his hide was patterned faintly, like a watermark, in
rosettes like a black jaguar’s skin. His nostrils and eyes were blood-red, his hooves plunged like pistons around her. He was taking pleasure in coming as close as he could.

  She knew he could crush her into pulp if he wanted to. He didn’t want to. He wasn’t going to kill her.

  Yet she whimpered and cringed, covering her head with her arms, as if her own puny body could protect her soul. He wouldn’t kill her. He’d do something worse. She heard him laugh.

  A tiny, disbelieving shred of her resented that laugh. That arrogant, patronizing laugh.

  “Touch me,” the hard voice demanded. “Child, touch me!”

  She shrank as small as she could and began to crawl away. He laughed again, and the hooves pounded round her head and her feet as if he were doing a macabre dance. She kept crawling, looking not at him but at the tiny, shivering stems and leaves on the ground where she wriggled like a worm.

  Just keep moving. That’s all she had to do.

  He was toying with her. He wanted to see her grovel and crawl, and that’s what she was doing.

  First on belly, then hands and knees, then feet at last.

  He let her go.

  She didn’t stop running until the river got in her way. “Not going in there,” she panted, her throat raw, her heart bursting.

  She swerved to run upstream. Had she found the real world again? Oh please, please let it be the dirty, crowded twenty-first century . . . Then she saw a discarded plastic snack bag floating jauntily by.

  “Yes!” she gasped. “Garbage.”

  She was back in normal reality, away from the aspect or the zone or whatever it was. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” She spotted a copper-clad steeple, and knew where she was.

  She flung herself into a hard wooden pew, pulled down the kneeling rail with an echoing crack and bent her head, panting. The church was empty and silent but for her breath and the pounding of her heart, the air chilly, smelling of furniture polish with an undertone of cat. Laine reckoned the air in here didn’t get disturbed much except on Sundays. The sweat on her body cooled, but it took a while for her heart to slow.