Dark Duets

by Christopher Golden

  gives shelter without roof and walls,

  warms after death,

  sighs without breath?

  And the second one:

  Reaching stiffly for the sky,

  I bare my fingers when it’s cold.

  In warmth I wear an emerald glove,

  And in between I dress in gold.

  Trees, Burr thought suddenly. The answer to both is trees. He stopped, looking up through the dripping rain at the canopy high above him. The leaves were thick, branches intertwined. Above that the storm raged; he could hear the wind and the rain lashing at the forest, but down here it was calmer, quieter, and he began to get the sense that he was not being led astray at all, that he simply had to get his wits about him and begin to listen more carefully.

  Find the answers, his grandfather had written, and you will see the light.

  With great effort, Burr cleared his mind of the clutter and confusion that had gripped him from the moment he realized Lisa was missing. Almost immediately, he sensed something coming. Flitting through the cover of the treetops came a flock of birds, hundreds moving as one as they passed over his head. He sensed and heard them but did not see a single one until a small sparrow alighted on a branch directly in front of him, cocked its head in the dim light as if studying him before flitting to the next branch, and then the next, leading him on.

  Christian Burr slipped forward, following the birds deeper into the forest.

  “IT’S THE SYNTHETICS.” The girl looked at him for a moment, barely seeming to comprehend that he had spoken, and then looked down at herself, as if suddenly realizing that she was unclothed before him. Rain glistened on her glowing flesh. “I did the same thing when I first became aware of how bad they smell, how they feel when they touch the skin.” He smiled softly. “These days all I wear are clothes I have specially made. All natural. Cotton fabrics and silk. Even the buttons on my shirt and jacket are custom.” He pointed. “Wood and stone and occasionally bone.”

  The girl frowned slightly. She was a beautiful thing, and he could sense the power starting to build in her, growing like the clouds that were even now rising to greater and greater heights above them. A thrill ran through him, one he tried hard to suppress.

  “Your great-grandfather was my best friend. I think he would have liked to meet you under different circumstances, my dear, but it has to be this way.”

  She looked at the tree. To most people it might merely look like another oak, but he knew better, and judging by her expression she did too.

  Talbot smiled and nodded his head. “That’s right. He’s here.” His hand caressed the thick bark of the tree. Five years since he’d buried the acorn inside his best friend’s chest, making sure to pierce the meat of the heart as he’d been instructed to do. Five years since he’d buried the body himself, jumping through nearly endless legal loopholes in order to properly guarantee the secrecy of the final resting place. These days secrecy was almost impossible, but he’d managed. There was truth to the old saying about money talking, and even though the majority of Arthur’s fortune had been put into trust, he’d left enough to grease the proper legal wheels.

  Lisa came closer to the tree, not speaking. Her eyes stared at the powerful, vibrant oak. He knew what she saw. Arthur had taught him over years what came to her instinctively. She could see the raw, magnificent power that was Arthur’s spirit locked within its branches.

  The woods here were protected. Rodney had seen to it. He had done so much over the years, because he loved Arthur and because he understood his best friend. Trust funds had been established, taxes paid, and more funds set up to guarantee the legal protection in perpetuity. All of this Rodney had willingly done to ensure that the family would be protected and cared for.

  And yet when all was said and done, he had been left alone, set adrift, taught so much and yet not enough. Not nearly enough.

  Lisa put her hand on the bark of the tree and closed her eyes, communing with her great-grandfather for the first time, truly communing with him as only a few people would ever be able to understand.

  She had eyes and she could see. That was her birthright.

  It was also Rodney’s gift, and he felt a flare of jealousy that he’d tried so very hard to suppress. He felt it—and reveled in it.

  The words were uttered very softly, and the trap he’d laid was triggered.

  The girl was beautiful, no two ways about that. She had features that were so similar to Magda’s, Arthur’s wife. To the woman Rodney had willingly surrendered to Arthur when their love was so evident.

  And that, too, made his actions easier.

  Talbot began to undress. He hated his fleshy, pale white belly, his flaccid, shriveled penis and wrinkled skin. He was ancient, his cells dying one at a time; his body ached now, and he could feel death standing behind him all the time, waiting for the right moment. Not yet, Talbot thought. Not yet.

  He slipped a knife from the pocket of his pants. Lisa’s hand tried to pull back from the tree, but nothing happened. Her sweet, innocent eyes flew wide, and her mouth drew down in a frown of unexpected pain.

  “Don’t fight it, sweet girl.” Naked now, Talbot put a hand on her shoulder, but she was too busy struggling to notice. “The more you fight, the more it will hurt; and Arthur never wanted you to feel pain.”

  Her skin was warm and soft, but the muscles beneath her flesh jumped as if electrified. Her brow was stippled with sweat, and her breaths came out as tiny, frenzied gasps.

  “Arthur told me that you were the next Leshy and that I was to bring you to him. And so I have.” He spoke softly to her, his voice barely a whisper. “But I have to tell you, I don’t think you’re quite the right choice for that. I think it might take someone with more experience.” He brushed her ear with his lips and she tried to flinch away, but the binding spell was working. His eyes traveled along her arm, looked at where her hand and forearm had already been covered by the same thick bark as that which covered the tree that housed Arthur’s spirit. A low groan came from her and she tried to sag, but her legs were held in place by the binding spell, and no matter what she tried, there was no escape for her.

  “It’s nothing against you, sweet Lisa. I think you are a lovely child and I’ve watched your family from afar for a very long time. But I am growing old now, without Arthur’s help, and I need to remain vital. I need to remain strong.”

  His hands ran along her shoulders and down her arms, keeping the knife’s edge against her skin. He stopped his progress down the length of her forearm just shy of the bark that was swallowing her flesh.

  “I found the ritual. It took a lot of time and research, and believe me, it took a lot of money. You are the Leshy, Lisa. But thanks to the words, the proper care and processes, I can bind you to Arthur. You remain the Leshy and as long as you live, I retain the Stewardship.”

  He let the blade bite, just enough to draw blood.

  Oh, how she fought. Lisa pulled as hard as she could and actually shook him off for a moment, but in the process she offended the power that bound her and it retaliated. A flaring light rippled across her skin and the bark swarmed like a thousand hungry ants, crawling up her arm and covering her shoulder, her breasts, her stomach. Lisa’s eyes flew wide and she screamed. Rodney could feel her pain and frowned. The cut should be shallow and not dangerous, just enough to share a few drops. He did not want this. Quite to the contrary, he wanted her happy and healthy.

  “Please, child. Don’t fight. I never wanted you to suffer.” Talbot shook his head as he sliced his own forearm and let the blood drip onto her skin, mixing with her own. “Arthur would not approve.”

  CHRISTIAN BURR FOLLOWED the sound of the birds.

  At some point he had closed his eyes, but it made no difference. The sound led him forward, and he found that his feet knew exactly where to step to avoid roots and sinkholes, rocks and brush. He ducked around branches without a single mishap, and as he did his mind seemed to expand, soaring over the forest and w
atching from far above. He felt the rain pounding down and the wind shaking the trees, but underneath it all he was sheltered like a fetus in the womb. With the rain his spirit was washed clean, and he found himself listening to the sounds of the forest in a way that seemed intimate.

  But it wasn’t just sounds, Burr realized; it was scents and other ways the forest connected to him that he had never imagined. He let these lead him deeper, and when he emerged on the edge of a clearing and saw the gigantic tree at its center, he was not surprised.

  Nor was he surprised to see the huge wolf watching him from the other side with luminous eyes and lolling tongue, or the countless other creatures of the forest creeping forward from its edges.

  But what did surprise him was the image of Rodney Talbot, stripped naked, caressing the nude form of his fifteen-year-old daughter as she stood fused to the tree, her hands and arms all but disappearing into the thick bark.

  Revulsion washed over him, and rage flew fast on its heels. He stepped out, into the clearing. “Get away from her,” he said.

  For a moment, he thought Talbot didn’t hear him. And then the man turned his head, and Burr saw the forest reflected in his face. His eyes were tinted green, his lips blue. His skin had begun to take on the texture of the bark that was absorbing Burr’s daughter, one cell at a time.

  Talbot looked at the wolf and made a guttural sound, like a river rushing and tumbling over rocks, and the beast took a step toward Burr, then another, growling deep in its throat as Talbot turned back again and focused his attention on the girl.

  THE SOUNDS OF the forest had changed.

  Before they had been lilting, sweet, beckoning her forward; but as she touched her great-grandfather’s shell, the sounds had begun to nip at her like playful dogs. The man had spoken and the song had changed again. Its bite had teeth and it hurt. It meant to catch her now, to bind her and never let her go.

  She tried to pull away, but it was no use. The living bark had begun to flow over her flesh. Somewhere deep within the beat of the tree she felt another presence, one with a powerful, deep and ancient voice. But it would not come to help her, not anymore. It was too far gone and bound to the roots that had buried themselves so deep in the soil.

  Just a short time ago, she had finally understood herself fully for the first time; her disability, as her school counselors had described it, wasn’t a limitation at all, but a gift. She had felt herself emerging like a butterfly from a cocoon.

  But now that gift had become her prison, and the same power that drove it was being used against her.

  Lisa screamed, a very human sound, and felt the man come up behind her, violating her with his hands as they moved across her shoulders, pulling something from her that hurt worse than anything else. He spoke the ancient words and the feeling intensified, a drawing out like blood being sucked from a wound.

  The pain was too much to bear. The man’s voice had gotten louder now, a rhythmic chanting that tore at her again and again. She tried to yank her feet free, but it was as if someone had driven spikes through her heels; when she looked down she saw that roots had sprouted from her flesh, wriggling like snakes as they found the soil and dug in.

  The giant tree shivered, once, twice, three times. Talbot shrieked in triumph as the bark enveloped Lisa’s face and the world began to fade away.

  CHRISTIAN BURR STOOD his ground as the wolf approached. The warning growl left his legs weak and his heart racing ever faster, and he felt himself beginning to lose control. He still wasn’t sure what was happening, but it seemed impossible. What he had seen didn’t make any sense. His daughter was being absorbed. . .

  Burr felt the familiar panic that always overtook him when the stress got to be too much, and the detachment that went along with it was close behind. He had never been good at dealing with intense situations; he had wondered, after Lisa had been diagnosed, whether he had just a little bit of what she was born with and had passed it along in a more concentrated form.

  She is a Leshy.

  There is no such thing. And yet he could feel the truth like some monstrous wild creature bursting through the forest. His grandfather had been one too. Now it was time for another to take over, but it would not be him.

  He was simply a steward of the blood.

  The wolf was close enough to touch. Burr could smell its wet, sulfur smell, see the glint of its long, sharp teeth. Unbidden, words sprang to his lips: a phrase his grandfather had taught him as a young child while they planted the Christmas tree, words that sounded like gibberish but that he had been made to repeat, over and over.

  “Klid je les, poslouchat stormy.”

  The wolf paused. “Steal život od cizince, a dej mi to,” Burr said. The wolf took another step forward, panting, and stopped, cocking its head as if listening.

  There was more to the ritual, but Burr couldn’t remember it. He looked at Talbot. The man had continued to change. He was swelling in size like a bloated tick, his hands still on Lisa’s shoulders, his head thrown back at a grotesque angle. His hair had changed from silver to a thick brown, and his flesh had lost the barklike pattern and begun to take on a bluish tone. His eyes were the color of summer grass.

  Burr considered trying to run past the wolf, but it was already too late. Lisa was almost completely shrouded in bark, a cocoon of living armor that turned her arms to branches and absorbed her legs and feet until they appeared rooted to the ground. Burr could barely make out his daughter’s features, but what he saw was frozen in horror.

  Talbot screamed again in triumph, a look of ecstasy on a face that had turned thirty years younger. At that moment, the wolf gave a snarl and leaped at the man with bared teeth.

  The weight of the huge animal knocked Talbot’s hands away from Lisa and the two bodies tumbled to the ground, one human, one animal, with the animal quickly gaining the upper hand before Talbot slipped a knife free from beneath him and plunged it deep into the wolf’s side.

  The huge beast howled, and Burr felt a white-hot flare of pain in his chest. Above them the clouds seemed to open up, a great crash of thunder shaking the forest floor and lightning cracking across the sky. Burr felt the other animals in the forest cry out in wordless agony, thousands of them, along with the trees that seemed to shiver as wind whipped through the valley.

  Burr thought he saw something move in the center of the clearing as a sound like the ancient moan of a shifting mountainside rose up to envelop them all. He stepped toward his daughter, the final phrases of the tree-planting ritual finally bursting forth from his throat like a cascade: “A máte koøeny dlouho a tvùj duch žije dál! Mùže lesa a chránit vás a krev svázat ducha!”

  RODNEY TALBOT WAS on fire.

  The blood of the Leshy had mixed with his, and it felt as if a million insects crawled beneath his skin. His mind expanded to fill the clearing and then the entire forest, and he felt the connection of every single creature, every tree. After all these years, the remainder of Arthur’s secrets and knowledge were being passed along to him.

  The feeling was glorious. He reveled in it, throwing his head back as his body began to change, feeling the rain course down his face. His howl was without words, an animalistic sound of triumph and awakening.

  Dimly, he heard someone else speaking aloud in the ancient tongue. And then something knocked him to the ground, breaking his connection with the Leshy. Rage filled his mind as he felt the rough fur of the wolf above him, its hot breath at his throat. “Zvíøe,” Talbot growled. “Tvá krev rozlije!”

  He fumbled for the knife and stuck it deep into the beast’s side, feeling its blood pump in a hot gush across his chest. He struggled with the weight of the body across his own as the wolf’s life ran out of it and seeped into the forest floor.

  Rain poured down in buckets when Christian Burr spoke once more.

  Thunder shook the ground as Talbot looked up in shock. Arthur was moving, his huge, grizzled branches reaching toward the sky, as if to embrace the lightning bolt that strea
ked down to earth to strike.

  The bolt sizzled with energy as it hit the largest outstretched branch with a tremendous cracking sound. The branch broke in half, tumbling toward where Talbot lay helplessly pinned beneath the body of the wolf. He had the time to see the rough spears of wood protruding from its broken end racing toward him.

  No, he thought. Not this, not now. . .

  CHRISTIAN BURR WATCHED as the huge branch tumbled down. It was nearly twice the size around of a man’s chest, and its jagged end hit Rodney Talbot square in the face.

  The man’s head disappeared in a cloud of red pulp, driven cleanly from his shoulders and crushed into the ground beneath the branch’s weight. The headless body jerked, then lay still as the branch tumbled onto its side with a crash that shook the forest.

  Another moan rose up from somewhere deep within the ground, a sound like a whale in the ocean depths. The fierce storm began to subside, rain fading to a steady patter, lightning and thunder receding into the distance.

  One by one, the animals emerged from the trees around the clearing, picking their way forward to where Lisa Burr still stood rooted in place. The forest hummed with energy as she shook once, then twice, the bark cracking from her skin and falling to the ground.

  Lisa opened her eyes and spread her arms wide, drinking in the rain and the animals’ presence, a light smile on her face.

  Christian Burr ran toward his daughter.

  Around them the animals waited, watching. The wind continued to howl, and the trees shivered with the wind’s demands.

  And on the ground the body of Rodney Talbot was taken by the forest. The rough bark that covered his skin was almost identical to that of the great tree nearby and where his blood had flowed a moment before there were now roots, fine filaments reaching into the ground.

  Christian held Lisa in his arms and spoke softly to her, small nonsensical sounds of comfort that she responded to as she held on to him in return. But Lisa wasn’t crying. She was smiling, her eyes wide with a primal joy.

  AS TWILIGHT FELL three days later, and the darkness grew deep and the sounds of the waking forest drifted across the old farmhouse, the people of Glen Ridge came calling.