by Josh Kent
“Can you travel through them?” Jim asked, taking another step toward the dark figure of Wylene.
“Why are they coming?” The preacher suddenly yelled from the entrance to the cave. “What do they want? What do they want? Why can’t they leave us alone?”
Jim Falk looked over at the witch who was not a witch. She stood slowly and lifted her veil in the night and looked at Falk. She turned her head then to the preacher and pointed the sharp index finger of her right hand at the preacher.
“Preacher,” she said, “the scripture you carry in your sack, the memories in your head, the stories that you tell that people are beginning to believe are only legends and tales. This is what she’s come to destroy, this is what she’s called them for, for the destruction of the history of the Waycraft.”
“It is as I feared, then,” Jim said and turned to the little crowd of folk in the cave. “There’s a man in the North who’s in league with the Evil One. The way I figure it, he’s got some kind of hold over Ruth Mosely and who knows who all else in Sparrow. What they’re out to do is to stop the followers of the Way. They want to destroy the writings and they want to take over the churches. They want to reestablish the Evil One here.”
“The Evil One?” the preacher said. “What are you saying, Falk?”
“There’s no time anymore to figure out riddles and mysteries. We’ve got to go back to Sparrow and rid out the evil that’s come along with the Mosely woman. We’ve got to get rid of Ruth Mosely and whoever else has fallen under her spell.”
“This outlander speaks the truth,” Wylene said. “This is only the beginning. Sparrow is only one of a hundred different settlements that are likely under his attack now.”
“Other towns, other churches, other preachers,” the preacher mumbled to himself.
May and Violet looked at the ground at the same time. Violet thought about Bill, her husband, the wild things that had taken place behind their home, in their home. She thought of a clear spring morning when Bill Hill had brought home rabbits and the evening they’d spent putting together the table that had sat for so long in the front room of their little house. The way he’d looked at her with his eyes shining clear and full of life, the way he’d worried over her when she seemed to be the only one in the little town of Sparrow who was seeing creatures and having nightmares. The strange man who’d come from the woods and given her something that he’d said would help her sleep, and it did help her sleep. That green and yellow powder that she’d breathed and smoked in cigarettes. Yes, it had helped her remain calm and quiet and pushed the nightmares to the back of her mind when it seemed that she would split in two with fear, but she was awake too, awake in her dreams, wandering through the woods. Calling, calling out for help. She’d seen in her mind a man, a man with a beat-up hat, a man with strange blue eyes, resting by a gnarled tree in a gray forest. She’d seen this outlander in her dreams and called out to him for help. Come down from the North, she’d called to him. Come down to Sparrow. It wasn’t her that had brought this about exactly, she didn’t know what she’d wanted, she’d only wanted an end to monsters and nightmares and madness—how did that Stranger know? How did some strange man in the woods know that she was in turmoil? Why hadn’t he stopped them from getting Bill? Why had this outlander been called here only to bring an explosion of evil, demons, and burning churches, and now in league with a witch and talking some nonsense about Ruth Mosely trying to destroy some old legends?
Yet, when the outlander mentioned the man in the North, an odd feeling had come over her. Something in the back of her mind seemed to be suddenly looking at her, listening to her thoughts. There was something that tingled there in her mind when that outsider was mentioned.
“Varney Mull,” Jim said and looked at Violet and the group as if he’d heard Violet’s thoughts, “Varney Mull is the name of the man in the North who’s in league. I came through Sparrow to hunt down the last of his men. If you can call them men.”
“Then all the teachings are true?” the preacher asked.
“Strange question to be coming from the preacher,” Huck said. “I’ve never heard of some Varney Mull. I’ve never believed in none of those stories, but I can tell you this—something is happening here. I am not going to leave my shop, my house, and everything I’ve ever worked for in the hands of some woman who’s burned down Sparrow church and plans on taking over my hometown.”
“She has the Evil One on her side now,” Jim said. “It’s not just a question of wandering into town and asking to get the town back. We’ll have to kill her. We’ll likely have to kill her and anyone who’s in league with her. The kind of evil she spreads is worse than any kind of spell or hold that a witch could put on someone. She’s spreading belief. They’ll be men and women of Sparrow who believe she’s the one looking out for them. They’ll be willing to put their lives on the line for her. Because the alternative she’s presented them with is too frightening.”
“The doctor?” May said suddenly from the entrance of the cave. Violet squeezed May’s shoulders again, “Where is the doctor? Jim Falk, where is the doctor?”
Benjamin Straddler had been thinking hard at Huck’s bar. It was all empty now and he was all by himself. Just the pictures on the wall were there. Just the bottles of booze behind the counter. Just Benjamin Straddler was there. There he was, sitting there with a bottle of booze in his hand. He hadn’t drunk any of it, though. He was just looking at it. He was making a choice. He’d been listening to the wolves again and he was making a choice.
Hattie Jones had gone out of there a while ago. He’d said three days in a row that he and that boy of his, Samuel, were going to leave Sparrow, leave Sparrow and never come back. Maybe that’s what he went to do. Though he’d been saying that was what he was going to do three days in a row. Hattie had managed to stick around to watch all the things happen—the church burning down and everything else. Hattie was right about one thing, though. That Mosely woman did seem to all of a sudden have a lot of people running to and fro doing whatever it was she wanted done. Benjamin sat there and chewed on his cigar and looked at the brown bottle of whisky in his hand. He thought about Lane. He thought about Dandy, that little horse, he thought about his pa. He knew that he would see his pa again. He thought about all the stories that he’d heard in the church growing up. He felt something warm and far away, but close too, in his chest. He could almost smell those old warm days sitting in the wooden benches at the church. Listening to one of the men tell the story of how a great leader would come one day to earth to rid out all the demons and set people free from their slavery. Those were old stories, though, and who knew if they were true or not? All Benjamin Straddler knew was that when he’d picked that outlander off the ground and saw his face, it wasn’t the outlander’s face. It was the face of his father, somehow reaching out to him, reaching back from wherever he was, saying, “You will see me.”
Now he had a decision to make. What would he do about this little town and about his wife and about the people who were so desperate to hang on to life?
Dawn was coming. The wolves had stopped baying some hours ago. Whatever happened in Sparrow that night, if the wolves had killed them all, they would know soon enough.
Wylene looked from the mouth of the cave and down into the valley below. As the dark turned gray with the rising sun, she could make out the trail of smoke that still went up into the sky from the burned-down church, but there was another. Too, there was a foul smell that blended in the wind. What had become of this little town?
Wylene had seen them come and build this place. She had watched from the trees and the caves and the riversides as the people of Sparrow had moved in from the West. Watched them live and die and sing and fear. She’d seen the way the killers moved in not long after they did. Indeed, she’d fought alongside many of the Katakayish people when their numbers had been larger in those early times, when they had fought together against the killers. Her h
ope had always been to rid them entirely from this land and to let the Katakayish people, the River People, grow strong again. And to let these new people grow strong, these new people who had come so far because there was no place for them in this world—wandering and superstitious men and women who built sturdy houses and had laughing children.
But the evil was old and the evil was strong in the land. When Ithacus Falk came here, to the West, he’d done much to rid many of the evils along with the one they called Old Magic Woman, but they had not done enough. While Wylene had been under the Wastrel spell of Ruth Mosely, it had grown up again. What would become of this little town? What would become of the people of Sparrow? Wylene knew of towns that had been completely wiped away by the Evil One and the killers.
Jim Falk appeared beside her in the dim light.
“Have you buried him?” she asked.
From inside the cave, they could both hear May weeping and Violet trying to comfort her.
“I can hardly call it a burial. When this is over, we’ll do it proper,” Jim said and held up the doctor’s bag and jingled it a little. “Do you know what to do with these?”
“I know very little about those kinds of medicines. I do not know how to make specials and elixirs and I do not know how to use them properly,” Wylene said in a flat voice.
“Neither do I,” Jim said. “There is a man in Hopestill by the name of Spencer Barnhouse who may be able to help with them. If he’s still alive. And there is another who may be able to help us, but I have not seen her for many years and I do not know if she still lives.”
“She?” Wylene asked.
“Yes,” Jim said. “She was one of the magic women of the River People. She taught my father the Waycraft and they both tried to teach it to me too. But I was not a good student and she left me alone. She said that she could not stand by a son who had so much fear that . . .” Jim spoke no more, but looked over toward the piled-up rocks that marked where the doctor’s body was.
“Perhaps this magic woman still lives, Jim Falk,” Wylene said and turned her eyes away from him.
“What do you know of her?” Jim asked.
“I am not sure that I do, but I do not think that you should give up hope,” Wylene said.
Jim nodded. “We’ve got to get back down to Sparrow and see what’s been done. If it’s still there and we need to deal with Ruth Mosely.”
The preacher came out of the cave, followed by Violet and May and Huck Marbo. The snow was still coming out of the sky. It sputtered this way and that in the hard winds against the rocks and cold trees around them. The sunlight was coming, but it was grayer than white. It was coming slowly and May was rubbing her eyes. She could not stop sobbing.
“There, there, little one,” her pa said to her and pulled her close to him again.
“There is too much death in life,” Huck said to Jim, looking him in the eye and then looking back down at his daughter’s head and her brown hair.
Jim looked down into the valley and nodded to Huck. “There will be more and more death if we do not do something.”
“What will we do?” the preacher asked. “What about my wife and my daughter?”
“We will see,” Jim said. “Huck, you might want to take May and get her safe up in your house. Violet, you too, you may want to stay safe with the preacher as well. Do you think that you can all make it to Huck’s house?”
“I’ve only got a few more shots with this,” Huck said, raising his shotgun.
Violet said, “I’ve got enough in here and in my pockets to get us there. I’m a good shot.”
Jim reached into his pack and pulled his Dracon pistol and loaded it and gave it to the preacher. “It’s only going to fire once, Preach, but that will do the trick. You gotta wait until they get real close and then pull the trigger. Wait until they’re right up on you and then aim right at the face and pull this trigger. Aim at the face.”
The preacher held the gun and made a frown. He pointed it out in front of him as if he were pointing it at an enemy and frowned again. “Yessir.”
“If we head down along the southern trail and up toward the back way,” Huck said, “we should be able to avoid anyone from the town until we’re right up on the town and in back of our house. Stay close, Preacher, Violet. Here we go.”
“Take this,” Jim said and handed over the doctor’s pack of medicine, unctions, and specials to Huck. Huck looked at it and handed it to Violet. Violet looked at it and handed it to May.
“May, you’ve used some of those before haven’t you?” May nodded, but tears were splotched around her eyes. She clutched the bag.
They headed down the mountainside. Huck was in the front and Violet was in the back. May looked over her shoulder at Jim Falk and the witch until they were beyond the first ridge. May still couldn’t quit crying. Her nose was red and her face was red. She thought about the doctor and squeezed the bag, his hands, the way they moved so fast to help. She squeezed at the bag in her arms and wondered if her hands could ever do the same.
After they were out of sight, Wylene looked at Jim Falk and Jim Falk looked at Wylene. The two looked at each other for a long time. Wylene lifted her veil and removed it from her head and walked over to the large pile of stones beneath which lay the body of Dr. Isham Pritham. She put the veil on the two sticks that Jim had drawn together to symbolize the meeting of heaven and earth, the crossway, the splitway. She spread her veil across the two crooked sticks like a web.
Then these two walked together down the crooked way that wound along from the cave to Sparrow by way of Sparrow Creek as the sun rose.
The snow had fallen so heavily in the night that it had come down through the trees and even piled up in big patches along the beaten paths that led along the creek and back into Sparrow. Jim and Wylene made their way as quickly as they could, but the snow was deep and cold and the wind cut through the trees and many branches scratched at their faces. Too, the sun was rising so bright and white that they were squinting and seeing orange and red and huffing along. It was hard going.
Since Wylene had taken the veil away and put it on the grave of the doctor, Jim could see her face in the sunlight. Each time he had looked over at it, it seemed to be a little brighter, fuller, younger. She looked as if she was healing and growing young right before his eyes in the sun and snow.
“What was that medicine that the doctor gave you?” Jim huffed at her.
“I do not know,” she said. “If you saw the big wolf and the way the other wolves followed the big wolf, as I am sure you did, you know that the doctor may have feared that the bite of a wolf such as that could turn someone.”
Jim said, “That doesn’t happen anymore, does it?”
Wylene said, “Well, at least not to you and not to me.”
They pushed on through the snow, and time and again Jim wondered how the preacher and Huck and Violet and May might be getting on, if they had the same difficulty getting up and around on that side of Sparrow. Jim thought they might be better off in that part of the wood where the pines were thicker and the paths were less brambled.
After many slips and cuts and twists, the two found themselves at the treeline where they could see the pile of wood and ashes that still glowed where the church once sat. The place they crouched down in was a low dip where some logs and broken trees had fallen. Here and there were dark holes where the snow didn’t fall and the sun didn’t reach. It was still here, and the snapping and crackling of the burning church was the only sound that penetrated the trees.
The fire had not gone completely out even now, and a blue and black smoke went up from the center of it looking like a wide rope twirling into the clouds. They both looked at each other. It might have stopped snowing, but there was so much snow that the wind was blowing around that they couldn’t really tell for sure.
Wylene said, “I am still very tired. Very weak from the healing that is happening and from opening the tunnel.”
“Yeah,” Jim said. “the tunn
el. You’re going to have to tell me about that when all this is over.”
Wylene smiled. It was genuinely pretty, even with her sharp teeth. “Over?”
Then they heard a shout. Then they heard a snort and a yammer and a yipe. Then more shouting. There was another fire burning somewhere, and the yammering that they heard was of wolves. Jim got out his rifle fast and laid it out on a bare log there and unrolled it from its case. He put it together quick and slick and loaded it with silverlode.
Then there was another noise beside them, like a whisper, and the killers sprang up from somewhere in the bank of snow. Jim quickly counted four of them, but they looked like messy brown shadows in the light and there could be more. Without the special power that the Leaves gave him, he was at a loss to be able to see or feel them. He wished he were more like his father, who could feel the jitters without the Leaves. He wished he had listened to them.
Jim fired his long gun at the head of one; the rifle snuffed and the killer dropped fast into the snow and rolled down the hill. He didn’t want to lose too much ammo in a fight he might be able to fight with his hatchet, so he slung his gun and pulled his ax and then saw the black cloaks of Wylene flying down the embankment toward the group of others who were rushing at her. Wylene was rushing straight for them, with a growl.
He jumped a couple of logs and rushed in beside her, taking them on the flank side. His ax was quick to and fro, but Wylene’s claws were faster and heads and limbs went whirling into the snowy banks and dark blood splashed and steamed in the snow. All was quiet again.
Wylene’s breath came out in a white cloud and she looked around with her black eyes. When she was satisfied, she crouched down and cleaned her hands in the sparkling snow.
“I can see why they kept you weak,” Jim said.
Wylene smiled again and flexed her arm. “I am still not completely healed.”
Jim smiled back at her.
It stayed quiet and they lurked toward the church and looked around. The church was completely burned to a pile. There was no way anyone was going to be able to fix it.