by C. E. Murphy
On a cold day in Hell.
Resolve burned through the ice in my body, fire wakening not the humor I was desperate for, but a flat determination that was considerably scarier. I would quit when Hell froze over, I would stop trying when the world fell down, I would give up at the death of the universe, and even then Cernunnos would have to drag me kicking and screaming into the great beyond. I jolted power into the tree again, and again, and again, until somewhere deep in the heart of it, something responded. A flicker of a pulse, not coming back from the dead but daring, fearfully, to expose itself. A spark against the darkness, that’s all it was. White magic, twin auras bound together to hold out against the night. Scalding tears slid down my cold cheeks and melted into the oak’s rough bark. I whispered, “C’mon, kid. Come out here again. Let’s make this right.”
That was asking too much, but that was okay. I knew the glimmer of light was in there now, which meant the rest of it could heal. I had, once before, given what I could to a dying land. I reached deep to do the same again, searching for what I could in order to help rebuild Aidan’s garden. It had been easier with Cernunnos: his world had only been dying, not nearly destroyed. The physicality of it had remained, but there was so little left to the garden that its substance had to be entirely remade.
I started with my own, because it was all I had. The tall stone walls slowly breaking down, the precisely cut grass only just starting to grow wild around the edges. Tidy trees, carefully laid stone walks leading to a small pool fed by a waterfall. It had all been so particular, but there had been one thing about my garden that broke my own evidently deep-set mental ideas of what my soul looked like. There had been a robin to call out and tell me of a door hidden behind a fall of ivy, because it couldn’t be a secret garden without a hidden door.
I knew what that door opened onto. It opened into a vast gestalt, a place where other inner gardens could be reached from. In my experience, there were miles of empty land between one garden and another, huge amounts of territory to traverse to reach someone else’s soul.
But there didn’t have to be, and so this time when I dug up the key and opened the door, my garden’s limited greenery spilled through into the darkness that had become Aidan’s inner sanctuary, and gave it something to start with.
Trees began unfurling on his side of the door the very moment it opened. Their roots sank into the blackness, creating rich earth as they grew, and lush bluegrass sprang up. The relentless rain that had fallen provided water for the sudden growth, though all the sunlight that shone through still came from my garden. In a fit of recka fit oflessness I cast a net and caught my own garden walls in it, pulling stone down in lumps that reminded me of fallen Irish castles. More sunlight washed into Aidan’s garden, the narrow doorway-size path broadening and allowing more and more life to take root. I tucked the secret door’s key into my pockets and got busy knocking more walls down, alternating between pulling and kicking. Dust rose and fell again, mortar crumbling to bits, and with every stone that crashed to the earth on my side, Aidan’s garden reclaimed some of its vibrancy.
My own garden began reshaping itself with enthusiasm, once the strongest barriers were down. The quiet little waterfall shifted deep into the ground and rose again as a river that sped through a half-familiar landscape. Woodhenges broke free from the earth, marked with petroglyphic storytelling. I dearly wanted to go read them, but my garden was rumbling too much, land shifting and changing beneath my feet, and the changes rolled right into Aidan’s space, where they individualized themselves according to his tastes. Beyond the henges, my space grew into low Appalachian mountains and Irish fields; on Aidan’s side, a fine rash of poison oak grew up, threatening to anyone who came in uninvited. It went on and on, until all that separated his garden from mine was a hand-built stone wall of about hip height.
I waited, hoping, but he didn’t come to the wall. The oak tree stood in the distance, still recovering: its black bark shone with strength, and new leaves budded, but its height had been broken, and I had no idea if it could recover. I didn’t know if I should stay and encourage it, or if it was better to let it rebuild on its own. I was still hesitating when Aidan stepped out of the tree and came toward me.
He looked more fragile within the confines of his garden than in the world outside. No surprise, given what he’d been through, but I thought it was more than that. His image of himself reminded me of Billy Holliday, whose garden self was more delicate and lightly built than the big man who lived in the Middle World. Billy had been a child when his sister died and their bond made her choose to stay with him. Aidan and Ayita had both been infants when their souls had become one.
He wasn’t feminine. It wasn’t as if here at the heart of his soul he reflected only what Ayita had been. It was more evenly balanced than that, their spirits so well-melded that either’s strengths could come to the forefront at any moment. But in the Middle World he seemed fairly serious, and here there was more sense of impishness, as if Ayita’s presence was willing and able to wink at the world. And I thought maybe right now she was the stronger of the two, because he was the one whose physical form was undergoing the transformations and power surges brought on by the Executioner’s presence and the opening vortex. She wasn’t protected, exactly: their two spirits were too completely one for that. But she had given up her physical body a long time ago, and I thought that might be strengthening her spiritual presence now.
He sounded exactly like himself, unbroken voice as easily feminine as masculine. “Your garden looks better.”
I laughed, taken aback, and humor sparkled in his eyes. “Well, it does.”
“It does. So does yours.”
“Eh.” He wrinkled his nose, looking around. “Not better than it was before. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I’m not one of the bad guys.” A tremulous note shook his voice, like he was hoping I would confirm that, and wasn’t absolutely certain I would.
I shook my head. “No, kiddo, you’re not. This kind of crap…happens. It happened to me, too.”
“Why does it happen? I mean, if we’re the good guys…”
“Because good guys put on white hats and let themselves be shot at,” I said softly. “Because sometimes it’s hard to tell if people are good or bad, and it’s our job to assume they’re good until they’ve gone so far overboard there’s no hope of bringing them back. I believe that doesn’t happen very often, but it happens.”
“This magic was never good. The Nothing, the hole in time, the monster inside me, it wasn’t ever good.”
“The monster infected you, Aidan. It wasn’t inside you. Big difference. And you’re right, this magic was never good, and it got to you because of me. Because you’re powerful, and because it would be a big win for the bad guys if they brought you over. But I don’t think that’s even possible. I’ve never seen anybody human who burns as bright as you do.”
He perked right up. “You’ve seen people who aren’t human?”
I grinned. “Quite a few of them. I’ll introduce you sometime.”
Solemnity rolled back into place. “You mean, you’ll introduce me if we get out of this alive.”
“We’ll just have to, won’t we?”
“How?”
“We took out the Executioner. We can manage Raven Mocker. Trust me, Aidan. You’re gonna be fine. Nothing’s going to happen to you as long as I’m still alive.” I rolled a bit more power into my shields, knowing they would help guard the still-recovering garden that lay close to mine.
Aidan’s eyebrows drew down. “You mean that, don’t you? How come? You don’t even know me. Is it ’cause you’re my birth mom?”
“Partly. Mostly, maybe, but really, what kind of asshole would I be if I let monsters tromp around in kids’ heads if I could stop it?”
His eyes popped and he laughed. “You’re not supposed to say things like that. Mom would yell at you.”
“This,” I said dryly, “is one of many reasons why she’s a good mom and I�
��d probably be a terrible one. Look, Aidan, you know your strength comes from being two-spirited, right? Some of it, anyway.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Some of the kids at school wanna know if that means I’m gonna start dressing in girls’ clothes.” The eye-rolling turned to a sudden wicked sparkle. “I oughta do it, huh? That’d freak ’em out.”
I grinned. “You probably should. Don’t take me wrong, but you’d make a pretty good girl, at least until your voice changes. You’ve got great cheekbones. Anyway, listen, not the point. The point is you’ve got reserves to draw on. I know the Executioner’s got his claws in you deep, out there. But we’ve loosened his grip in here, and sweetheart, you burn bright. You and Ayita together, honey, I don’t think much of anything can stop you. Just hold on to that, okay? Hold on to Ayita and you’re going to be fine. All I need to work with out there is that spark, and I can get you free of the rest of this.”
“You don’t sound scared.”
“I was scared when your garden was falling apart. Now I know it’s going to be okay.” Even I believed me, more or less. “You ready to go back out there?”
Aidan took a deep breath. “No.”
I laughed. “Yeah, I can’t blame you. Look, just hang on a few minutes, kiddo, and this will all be over. I promisver. I pe. Okay?”
He took another deep breath, then put his hand in mine and nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”
I said, “Okay,” one more time, and we walked out of the gardens back into a battle zone.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The last couple minutes in the garden had been so calm that returning to the Middle World was a violent shock. Aidan, despite having just had a reassuring conversation with me, was in fact still twenty feet in the air: the black magic had caught him, kept him from falling when the Red Man had shot a bone arrow into him. The Red Man, the Purple Man, and my father had all taken up points around the circle, each of them at one of the stakes Dad had driven into the ground. Sara and Les appeared to be arguing over which of them should go to the fourth, and while they argued, Morrison ran for it.
With four of them in place, they began hauling the vortex closer to the ground. It was no longer spinning: it was simply a hole ripped in the sky and pierced by the Red Man’s arrows. There were no stars beyond it, and the arrows seemed to be just stuck in the black, which bothered me on a profound level. But there were ropes, or threads, or roots, falling from the arrows, and that was what the men hauled on, dragging the vortex down. Dragging Aidan down, too.
I barked, “Sara!” and she stood straight upright, startled out of her argument. I didn’t think the distraction was her fault: the encroaching magic made me want to fight, too. “Come here, both of you. You need to hold the power circle in place.”
“What? I can’t—”
“You certainly can.” Ada Monroe sounded just like a mother as she stomped over to join us. The poor military guy followed her with the expression of someone who had no idea what shit he’s stepped in but was willing to follow any solid leadership available. Ada said, “Just focus your energy as positively as you can and I’ll do the rest,” to him, then sent him to stand at a quarter-point in the circle. He went meekly. I felt sorry for him.
Les and Sara both radiated disbelief as Ada pointed them toward other quarter-points, too. Apparently so did I, because her chin came up a little as she met my eyes. “I told you, my family had medicine men once.”
“Ada, you are positively amazing. Go!” That was at Sara and Les, who scampered away like kids. I did the same kind of transference that Dad had done with me: palms up, warm magic dancing on them. Ada pressed her hands against mine, taking the weight of the circle, and went a little ashy. For an instant I saw fear in her eyes, the certainty she couldn’t handle it, but I was startlingly confident as I said, “You’ve got it. You’re fine.”
She nodded once, then backed away, taking up the final eight-point around the circle. Energy flared from the four of them, making a softer white shell inside the vast magic Dad was working. That accounted for everybody but Danny, who was still sniveling about his rebroken shoulder. I left him where he was and turned to wait on Aidan’s descent.
He had wings. My heart clenched. Sooty, fiery raven wings, spread wide and beating the air with outrageous determination. Raven Mocker wings, struggling to bring the boy and his power back under their control. I flexed my hands uselessly, afraid to draw magic and refuel the thing trying to eat Aidan’s soul.
Except there was power flying like crazy around here and the wights were all dead. They were the c onduits, the things that fed power to the Executioner and ultimately the Master or Raven Mocker or whatever the hell I wanted to call him. The Executioner had been defeated. Which might mean this was the one shot we had at a full-frontal attack, and it would be a terrible mistake for me to miss it.
I whispered, “Screw it,” and reached for the sky.
Power poured out of me, silver and blue winding together in a rush. I didn’t think I could defeat the oncoming Raven Mocker. I just wanted to shore up Aidan’s reserves, give the kid’s bright spirit a chance to fight back on its own. The rip in the sky came closer, Dad and Morrison and the magic men pulling it down. It had stopped expanding and was beginning to tear, like their efforts were pulling it beyond its ability to stretch.
My magic washed over Aidan, and for an instant his wings turned white.
Black rushed in again, swallowing the gain, but the vortex didn’t widen any: we had cut its power sources. If it couldn’t keep Aidan, it would lose all its strength. It might take a while, because it was still feeding on centuries of pain, but if we could wrest Aidan back, the darkness would burn itself out. Hope caught me in the teeth and made me grin, fierce and resolved. I extended another rolling wave of magic.
It left me woozy. My vision went black and starry, then faded back in, but I felt my power failing within me. There were two circles surrounding me that I could draw on, Dad’s internal smoke circle and the larger one Ada was holding. Dad and Morrison had the vortex within ten feet of the ground now, and it was shredding. I didn’t want to risk setting it loose again. Ada’s exterior circle was fragile. Borrowing power on the level I’d been using it at would knock all four of them off their feet. That would do us exactly no good. And there was nobody to bang my drum, to help my stuttering power refill again, because everybody was busy trying not to let any of us get killed.
I swore. One more. I could probably manage one more healing wave into Aidan before my eyes rolled back. It would have to be enough.
He was closer now, at least. I ran toward him, dodging the massive sooty wings as they swept the air, and wrapped my arms around him, breathing, “Now would be good, kid.”
To my astonishment, Renee came to bright dramatic life and leapt from me to Aidan as I unleashed one last splash of healing magic. Aidan snapped a hand up, catching her. A second walking stick appeared in his other hand. Then Dad’s joined them, balancing on Aidan’s chest. They blended into one another and faded, not into Aidan, not into the vortex, just…disappeared. It seemed like a bad sign.
My knees cut out, whatever magical strength I’d had utterly depleted. I was never ever ever flying a car again. Aidan fell with me, landing on my chest hard enough to crunch my back. I wheezed, trying to focus beyond Aidan’s still-white hair in my face. His head lolled to the side, and panic spurted through me. Me collapsing was one thing. Aidan going unconscious was something else. I rolled him off me and got to my knees, hands shaking with fear.
The Raven Mocker wings remained in the air, the empty space where Aidan had been now filling with the last ragged pieces of the vortex. I cast a frantic look at my father, but he didn’t look distressed by the congealing vortex. The Red Man drew another arrow and fired, a smooth perfect shot that should have pierced the very heart of the spirit monster. Raven Mocker tore in two, the arrow passing harmlessly through empty air as the winged vortex shot forward and into Danny’s chest.
I realized, qu
ite clearly and suddenly, that we’d lost.
*
Aidan would have been a wonderful prize, with all the power rife in his youthful spirit. But it seemed blindingly obvious, after the fact, that he was just one more conduit. The last of them, a source of life essence to allow Raven Mocker entrance to this plane of existence. Aidan was, at heart, a good kid.
Raven Mocker didn’t want a good kid. He wanted someone he could use and control. Someone who was already angry at the world. He wanted someone emotionally damaged, easy to manipulate and willing to strike out. He wanted Danny Little Turtle, or someone like him.
It struck me that I had very narrowly avoided being the perfect host for Raven Mocker, and my gratitude ran so deep it raised shivers on my arms. Without Mom, without Morrison, without Gary and Billy and all the lessons I’d learned over the past year, it could’ve been bitter angry me, chock full of potential power, who offered a host body to the Master. I owed my friends more than I could ever repay them. I’d known that all along, but watching Danny get to his feet, awkward with pain and then resplendent with that pain fading, I knew it all the more deeply, and promised to thank them yet again.