by L. J. Smith
"Let's stop there," she said as they passed a small building. A sign proclaimed it to be the SOOKE
MUSEUM. She didn't have much hope, first of all because the big museum in Victoria hadn't helped them, and second because this place looked closed, but she was in the mood to try anything.
It was closed, but a woman finally answered Rob's persistent knocking. There were piles of books on the floor inside, and a man with a pencil behind his ear, taking inventory.
"I'm sorry," the woman began, but Rob was already talking.
"We don't want to bother you, ma'am," he said, turning the southern charm on full force. "We just have one question—we're looking for a place that might be around here, and we thought you could maybe help us find it."
"What place?" the woman said with a harassed glance behind her, obviously impatient to get back to her work.
"Well, we don't exactly know the name. But it's like a little peninsula, and it's got these rock towers all up and down it."
Kaitlyn held up her drawing of the inuk shuk. Please, she was thinking. Oh, please…
The woman shook her head. Her look said she thought Kaitlyn and Rob were crazy. "No, I don't know where you'd find anything like that."
Kaitlyn's shoulders sagged. She and Rob glanced at each other in defeat. "Thank you," Rob said dully.
They both turned away and were actually leaving when the man inside the museum spoke up.
"Aren't there some of those things out at Whiffen Spit?"
Every cell in Kaitlyn's body turned into ice.
Whiffen Spit. Whiffen Spit, Whiffenspit, Whiffenspit … It was as if the whispering chorus of voices was once again in her mind.
Rob, fortunately, seemed able to move. He spun and got a foot in the door the woman was closing.
"What did you say?"
"Out at Whiffen Spit. I've got a map here somewhere. I don't know what the rocks are for, but they've been there as long as I can remember…"
He went on talking, but Kait couldn't hear him over the roaring in her own ears. She wanted to scream, to run around crazily, to turn cartwheels. Anna and Lewis were clutching each other, laughing and gasping, trying to maintain their composure in front of the museum people. The whole web was vibrating with pure joy.
We found it! We found it! Kaitlyn told them. She had to tell someone.
Yeah, and it's Whiffenspit, Lewis said, running it together into one word as Kaitlyn had. Not Griffin's Pit or Whippin' Bit—
Rob was closest, Anna said. Whiff and Spit was actually pretty good.
Kaitlyn looked toward the car, where Lydia and Gabriel were standing as if declaring themselves both outsiders. Lydia was wide-eyed, watching with interest. Gabriel—
Gabriel, aren't you happy? Kaitlyn asked.
I'll be happy when I see it.
"Well, you're going to see it, ol' buddy," Rob said, turning and calling with a reckless disregard for the museum people. "I've got a map here!" He waved it triumphantly, his grin nearly splitting his face.
"Well, don't just stand around talking!" Kait said. "Let's go!"
They left the museum people staring after them.
"I can't believe it's real," Kaitlyn kept whispering as they drove.
"Look at this," Lewis was saying excitedly over her. "This map shows why there are only waves coming from the right. It's in the mouth of a little bay, and on the right side is the ocean. The other side is Sooke Basin, and there wouldn't be any waves there."
Rob turned on a narrow side road, nearly invisible between the trees. When he parked at the end, Kaitlyn was almost afraid to get out.
"Come on," Rob said, extending his hand. "We'll see it together."
Slowly, as if under a spell, Kaitlyn walked with him to the edge of the trees and looked down.
Then her throat swelled and she just stared.
It was the place. It looked exactly as it had in her dreams, a little spit of land pointing like a crooked finger into the water. It was lined with the same boulders, many with inuk shuk piled on top of them.
They walked down the rocky beach and onto Whiffen Spit.
Gravel crunched under Kaitlyn's feet. Gulls wheeled in the air, crying. It was all so familiar…
"Don't," Rob whispered. "Oh, Kait." It was then that she realized she was crying.
"I'm just happy," she said. "Look." She pointed across the water. Far away, on a distant cliff covered with trees so green they were black, was a single white house.
"It's real," Rob said, and Kait knew he was feeling what she was. "It's really there."
Anna was kneeling by the edge of the spit, moving rocks. "Lewis, get that big one."
Lewis was showing Lydia around. "What are you doing?"
"Building an inuk shuk. I don't know why, but I think we should."
"Let's make it a good one," Rob said. He took hold of a large, flat rock, tried to lift it. "Kait—"
He didn't finish. Gabriel had taken hold of the other side.
The two of them looked at each other for a moment. Then Gabriel smiled, a thin smile touched with bitterness, but not with hatred.
Rob returned it with his own smile. Not as bright as usual, with something like apology behind it, and hope for the future.
Together, they lifted the stone and hauled it to Anna.
Everyone helped build the inuk shuk. It was a good big one, and sturdy. When they were done, Kait wiped wet dirt off her hands.
"Now it's time to find the white house," she said.
From the map they could see why there was land across the water. It was the other side of the mouth of Sooke Basin. They would have to drive back the way they'd come, and then all the way around the basin—or as far as the side roads would take them.
They drove for well over an hour, and then the road ran out.
"We'll have to walk from here," Rob said, looking into the dense mass of rain forest ahead.
"Let's just hope we don't get lost," Kait muttered.
It was cool and icy fresh in the forest. It smelled like Christmas trees and cedar and wetness. With every step Kaitlyn could hear her own feet squishing in the undergrowth and feel herself sinking—as if she were walking on cushions.
"It's sort of primeval, isn't it?" Lydia gasped, picking her way around a fallen log. "Makes you think of dinosaurs."
Kaitlyn knew what she meant. It was a place where people didn't belong, where the plant kingdom ruled. All around her things were growing on other things: ferns on trees, little seedlings on stumps, moss on everything.
"Did anybody ever see the movie Babes in Toyland?" Lewis asked in a muted voice. "Remember the Forest of No Return?"
They walked for several hours before they were certain they were lost.
"The problem is that we can't see the sun!" Rob said in exasperation. The sky had gone gray again, and between the clouds and the canopy of green above them, they had no way to get their bearings.
"The problem is that we shouldn't have just barged in here in the first place," Gabriel snapped back.
"How else are we supposed to get to the white house?"
"I don't know, but this is stupid."
Another argument, shaping up to be a classic.
Kaitlyn turned away, to find Anna staring fixedly at something on a branch. A bird, Kaitlyn saw, blue with a high pointed crest.
"What is it?"
Anna answered without looking at her. "A Steller's jay."
"Oh. Is it rare?"
"No, but it's smart," Anna murmured. "Smart enough to recognize a clearing with a house. And it can get above the trees."
Understanding crashed in on Kaitlyn, and she had to suppress a whoop. She said in a choked voice,
"You mean—"
"Yes. Hush." Anna went on staring at the bird. In the web, power thrummed around her, rose from her like waves of heat. The jay made a harsh noise like shaaaack and fluttered its wings.
Rob and Gabriel stopped arguing and turned to goggle.
"What's she doing?"
Lydia hissed. Kait shushed her, but Anna answered.
"Seeing through its eyes," she murmured. "Giving it my vision—a white house." She continued to stare at the bird, her face rapt, her body swaying just slightly. Her fathomless owl's eyes were mystical, her long dark hair moved with her swaying.
She looks like a shaman, Kaitlyn thought. Some ancient priestess communing with nature, becoming part of it. Anna was the only one of them who really seemed to belong in the forest.
"It knows what to look for," Anna said at last. "Now—"
With a rapid-fire burst of noise like shook, shook, shook, the jay took off. It went straight up, into the canopy of branches—and disappeared.
"I know where it is," Anna said, her face still intent and trancelike. "Come on!"
They followed her, scrambling over mossy logs, splashing through shallow streams. It was rough going over steep ground, and Anna always seemed to be just on the verge of vanishing into the trees. They kept following until the light began to dim and Kaitlyn was ready to drop.
"We've got to take a rest," she gasped, stopping by a stream where huge fleshy yellow flowers grew.
"We can't stop now," Anna called back. "We're there."
Kaitlyn jumped up, feeling as if she could run a marathon. "Are you sure? Can you see it?"
"Come here," Anna said, standing with one hand on a moss-bedecked cedar. Kaitlyn looked over her shoulder.
"Oh…" she whispered.
The white house stood on a little knoll in a clearing. This close Kaitlyn could see it was not alone. There were several outbuildings around it, weathered and splintery. The house itself was bigger than Kaitlyn had thought.
"We made it," Rob whispered, behind her. Kaitlyn leaned against him, too full of emotion to speak, even in the web.
When they'd found Whiffen Spit, she'd felt like singing and shouting. They had all been rowdy in celebration. But, here, shouting would have been wrong. This was a deeper happiness, mixed with something like reverence. For a long while they all just stood and looked at the house from their visions.
Then a harsh, drawn-out shaaaak broke into their reverie. The jay was fluttering on a branch, scolding them.
Anna laughed and looked at it, and it swooped away. "I told it thank you," she said. "And that it could leave. So now we'd better go forward, because we'll never find our way back."
Kaitlyn felt awkward and self-conscious as she walked out of the shelter of the trees, down toward the house. What if they don't want us here? she thought helplessly. What if it's all a mistake… ?
"Do you see any people?" Lewis whispered as they came abreast of the first outbuilding.
"No," Kaitlyn began, and then she did.
The building was a barn, and there was a woman inside. She was forking hay and dung, handling the big pitchfork very capably for someone as small and light as she was. When she saw Kaitlyn she stopped and looked without saying a word.
Kaitlyn stared at her, drymouthed. Then Rob spoke up.
"We're here," he said simply.
The woman was still looking at each of them. She was tiny and elegant, and Kait couldn't tell if she were Egyptian or Asian. Her eyes were tilted but blue, her skin was the color of coffee with cream. Her black hair was done in some complicated fashion, with silver ornaments.
Suddenly she smiled.
"Of course!" she said. "We've been expecting you. But I thought there were only five."
"We, uh, sort of picked up Lydia on the way," Rob said. "She's our friend, and we can vouch for her.
But you do know us, ma'am?"
"Of course, of course!" She had an almost indefinable accent—not like the Canadians Kaitlyn had heard. "You're the children we've been calling to. And I'm Mereniang. Meren if that's too long. And you must come inside and meet the others."
Relief sifted through Kaitlyn. Everything was going to be all right. Their search was over.
"Yes, you must all come inside," Mereniang was saying, dusting off her hands. Then she looked at Gabriel. "Except him."
CHAPTER 14
"What?" Kaitlyn said, and Rob said, "What do you mean, except him?"
Mereniang turned. Her face was still pleasant, but Kait suddenly realized it was also remote. And her eyes…
Kaitlyn had seen eyes like that only once before, when the man with the caramel-colored skin had stopped her in the airport. When she'd looked into his eyes, she'd had the sense of centuries passing.
Millennia. So many years that the very attempt to comprehend them sent her reeling.
There were ice ages in this woman's eyes, too.
Kaitlyn heard her own gasp. "Who are you?" she blurted before she could stop herself.
The enigmatic blue eyes dropped, veiled by heavy lashes. "I told you. Mereniang." Then the eyes lifted again, held steady. "One of the Fellowship," the woman said. "And we don't have many rules here, but this one can't be broken. No one may come into the house who has taken a human life."
She looked at Gabriel and added, "I'm sorry."
A wave of pure fury swept over Kait. She could feel herself flushing. But Rob spoke before she could, and he was as angry as she'd ever seen him.
"You can't do that!" he said. "Gabriel hasn't—what if it was self-defense?" he demanded incoherently.
"I'm sorry," Mereniang said again. "I can't change the rules. Aspect forbids it." She seemed regretful but composed, perfectly willing to stand here all evening and debate the issue. Relaxed but unbending, Kait thought dazedly. Absolutely unbending.
"Who's Aspect?" Lewis demanded.
"Not who. What. Aspect is our philosophy, and it doesn't make exceptions for accidental killing."
"But you can't just shut him out," Rob stormed. "You can't."
"He'll be taken care of. There's a cabin beyond the gardens where he can stay. It's just that he can't enter the house."
The web was singing with outrage. Rob said flatly, "Then we can't enter it, either. We're not going without him!"
There was absolute conviction in his voice. And it rallied Kaitlyn out of her speechless daze. "He's right,"
she said. "We're not."
"He's one of us," Anna said.
"And it's a stupid rule!" Lewis added.
They were all standing shoulder to shoulder, united in their determination. All but Lydia, who stood aside looking uncertain—and Gabriel.
Gabriel had moved back, away from them. He was wearing the thin, faint smile he'd given Rob earlier.
"Go on," he said directly to Rob. "You have to."
"No, we don't." Rob was right in front of him now. Golden in the blue twilight, contrasting with Gabriel's pale face and dark hair. Sun and black hole, Kaitlyn thought. Eternal opposites. Only this time they were fighting for each other.
"Yes, you do," Gabriel said. "Go in there and find out what's going on. I'll wait. I don't care."
A lie Kait could feel clearly in the web. But no one mentioned it. Mereniang was still waiting with the patience of someone to whom minutes were nothing.
Slowly Rob let out his breath. "All right," he said at last. His voice was grim and the look he turned on Mereniang not friendly.
"Wait here," Mereniang told Gabriel. "Someone will come for you." She began walking toward the house.
Kaitlyn followed, but her legs felt heavy and she looked back twice. Gabriel looked almost small standing there by himself in the gathering darkness.
The white house was made of stone, and spacious inside, with a cathedral hush about it. The floor was stone, too. It might have been a temple.
But the furniture, what Kaitlyn could see of it, was simple. There were carved wooden benches and chairs that looked Colonial. She glimpsed a loom in one of the many recessed chambers.
"How old is this place?" she asked Mereniang.
"Old. And it's built on the remnants of an older house. But we'll talk about that later. Right now you're all tired and hungry—come in here and I'll bring you something to eat."
She ushered them into a
room with an enormous fireplace and a long cedar table. Kaitlyn sat on a bench, feeling flustered, resentful, and wrong.
She went on feeling it as Mereniang returned, balancing a heavy wooden tray. A young girl was behind her, also carrying a tray.
"Tamsin," Mereniang introduced her. The girl was very pretty, with clusters of curly yellow hair and the profile of a Grecian maiden. Like Mereniang and the man at the airport, she seemed to have the characteristics of several different races, harmoniously blended.
But they're not what I expected, Kaitlyn told Rob wretchedly.
It wasn't that they weren't magical enough. They were almost too magical, despite their simple furniture and ordinary ways. There was something alien at the core of them, something disturbing about the way they stood and watched. Even the young girl, Tamsin, seemed older than the giant trees outside.
The food was good, though. Bread like the loaves they'd bought at the kiosk, fresh and nutty. Some soft, pale yellow cheese. A salad that seemed to be made of more wild plants than lettuce—flowers and what looked like weeds. But delicious. Some flat purply-brown things that looked like fruit roll-ups.
"They are fruit roll-ups," Anna said when Lewis asked. "They're made of salal berries and salmonberries."
There was no meat, not even fish.
"If you're finished, you can come meet the others," Mereniang said.
Kaitlyn bridled slightly. "What about Gabriel?"
"I've had someone take food to him."
"No, I mean, doesn't he get to meet the others? Or do you have a rule against that, too?"
Mereniang sighed. She clasped her small, square-fingered hands together. Then she put them on her hips.
"I'll do what I can," she said. "Tamsin, take them out to the rose garden. It's the only place warm enough. I'll be along."
The rose garden's warm? Lewis asked as they followed Tamsin outside.
Strangely enough, it was. There were roses blooming, too, all colors, crimson and golden-orange and blush pink. The light and warmth seemed to come from the fountain in the center of the walled garden.