Three Wells of the Sea- The Complete Trilogy

by Terry Madden

  “Maybe there is another world. How ‘bout that? Maybe there’s a shitload of other worlds and some of us are just crazy enough to see them.”

  “Your need, Connor. Your deepest need right now is to know that Dish is all right. That’s why you built that vision of him, real though it may have seemed. You have a deep, deep need to heal yourself of your feeling of responsibility.”

  “The word is guilt, doc.”

  Connor kicked the leg rest closed on the recliner and leaned on his knees.

  “Dish is lying there with tubes down his throat because of me.”

  He slapped his chest with a palm, buried his face in his hands, and willed the tears to stay where they were.

  Maybe Adelman was right. Maybe Connor’s brain had made up all these visions to put the blame on someone else, on Lyla Bendbow, or whoever called Dish back to the other side. But deep down, Connor didn’t believe that for a second.

  A long heavy silence made it worse.

  Adelman handed him a tissue, saying, “Are you still angry with Dish?”

  “I was just a ‘job’ to Dish.”

  “As your teacher and mentor?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How so?” More air churning.

  Connor had never really thought about what Dish’s goal was in saving him from expulsion. “I guess he thought he could ‘tough love’ me into accepting my life. Myself.”

  “And you think that Dish befriended you solely because he was doing his job as your teacher.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “I know so. He told me so.”

  “Do you also believe that the reasons for initiating a relationship often don’t change the outcome?”

  “What does that mean?”

  Dr. Adelman pushed his glasses up his nose. “Just that Dish may have been asked to look after you as part of his job, but, he may have developed a genuine bond with you, nonetheless.”

  Nonetheless. Connor liked that word.

  He looked back up at the clouds racing across the lights. They made him feel like he was flying. “I suppose so.”

  “Before our time is up,” Adelman said, “I have something to tell you.”

  He set Connor’s file aside and forced the solid eye contact; his heavy brows tucked like bird wings. This could only be bad.

  “I’ve had a discussion with Mr. Cavendish’s sister, Bronwyn. I believe you’ve met.”

  “Yeah. She told me I couldn’t contact her anymore.”

  “Yes, I’m aware of that. That’s why she asked me to tell you the decision has been made to remove life support from her brother.”

  Connor was on his feet. “You mean pull the plug?”

  “She thought it was only right to let you know—”

  “When? When is she going to do it?”

  “As soon as the last tests are complete. They’re looking for specific brain activity—”

  “When?”

  “Connor, Dish’s quality of life is ebbing by the day—”

  “When?”

  “The end of the week, most likely.”

  Connor grabbed his sweatshirt and headed for the door. “Our time is up, doc.”

  “Connor.” Adelman met him at the door and caught his arm. “I want to help you let go.”

  “Dish would never let go of me.”

  Brother Mike drove silently while Connor stared out the window and chewed his nails. At least Mike didn’t ask him any questions. Because he knew, that’s why. They all knew.

  It was only ten o’clock when he got back to school. Connor couldn’t find a reason not to go to class; he’d played the nausea card a bit too much lately. So he came in halfway through English and slid into his desk. The sub gave him a sour look, an ancient lady with lipstick that seeped into the wrinkles around her mouth making her look like a pink sea anemone.

  Dish’s classroom was just like he’d left it—fallen stacks of books on the floor and posters of dead writers. Connor recognized one poster as a picture of the Irish poet W. B. Yeats, author of one of the books Connor’d found on Dish’s desk. Yeats wore big old-school glasses and a bow tie. The quote on the poster said:

  Come away O Human Child!

  To the waters and the wild

  With a Faery, hand in hand,

  For the world’s more full of weeping

  Than you can understand.

  “Hand in hand,” Connor heard himself whisper.

  Iris gave him a scowl from across the aisle, the long side of her hair swaying. She handed him a sheet of paper and a pen and nodded to the essay prompt on the board, something about the use of the chorus in Greek tragedy.

  To the waters and the wild…

  That’s where Connor wanted to go.

  He gripped the pen, his knuckles going white, and started moving it over his paper. It wasn’t words that emerged, but twisting, writhing coils of scaled muscle. The ballpoint rolled right off the paper, up and over his soft white skin, leaving a glistening blue trail. He couldn’t have stopped if he wanted to. The image grew from the spot where his wrist met his palm, up and around the tendons and veins. The horse’s mane knotted into an impossible design, entwined with its tail, its front hooves striking out.

  Connor wanted to slip onto its back and let it take him down, take him away, take him to Dish.

  The bell rang.

  Iris was standing over him, her backpack slung over one shoulder, her eyes on his wrist.

  “Shit. That’s awesome.”

  Connor spent the afternoon watching every online video there was on how to drive a stick shift. According to Bluesnooze, an apparent authority on carjacking, to start a manual car with a dead battery, one had only to put it in neutral, get it rolling, and then execute something called “popping the clutch.” But it was imperative you keep the engine going to charge the battery; otherwise, you’d have to do it all over again.

  Slipping out of the dorm and driving around the overflow parking lot was something that could only be done in the dark. And night was slow to come.

  Connor waited till after bed check, which was about ten, and then headed out with Dish’s car keys.

  The overflow parking lot was nice and isolated. There were only a few lights there that worked, and it was on the terrace level below the school itself. Connor couldn’t turn on the headlights—no battery.

  Leaving the car door open, he inserted the key and turned it to “accessory” just like the video said. With the gearshift in neutral, he got out and started pushing. It took a bit to get it rolling across the open parking lot, but when he had some speed, he hopped in, forced the gear into first and let the clutch out.

  The engine turned over, the car leapt forward, then stalled.

  After the fifth try, he was soaked with sweat, and he’d reached the lower end of the lot.

  He slapped the steering wheel and rested his forehead on it. “Shit.”

  Looking up, he saw a shadow flash across the window. Iris’ face would make anyone piss their pants. She tapped the dirty windshield with her nails, and after Connor started breathing again, he rolled down the window.

  “Scared ya, huh?” She snapped her gum. “Who said you could drive Dish’s car?”

  “What the hell, Iris?”

  “Where you going?”

  “To hell. Leave me alone.”

  “Okay.” She started away. “Brother Mike would like to hear about it, I’m sure.”

  He leaned out the window. “So what do I have to do, give you my pills or something?”

  “Just take me with you.”

  He slapped the steering wheel again and sighed. “Shit. Okay, get back there and push.”

  By one o’clock in the morning Connor was shifting into fourth on his way to the hospital and Iris was adjusting the radio. They’d only had to push it twice on the way.

  The main entrance to the hospital had closed at ten, and only the emergency entrance was open. Connor led the way through the emergency waiting room, down a corridor marked �
�Radiology” to a bank of elevators. The TV was still going in the I.C.U. waiting room.

  “Just wait for me here,” Connor pleaded with Iris. “I need some time with him.”

  “I got that part. Really.” Iris plopped down on the couch in front to the TV, saying, “He can hear you, ya know. He might be in a coma, but they say the last sense to go is hearing. Make it count, Connor.”

  He buzzed the intercom at the door.

  The nurse’s voice wasn’t as nice as Holly’s. “It’s late for a visit,” she said.

  “I promise I won’t wake him up.” When she didn’t respond to his stupid joke, he added, “Please, it’s important.”

  The door buzzed open.

  The nurse scowled and nodded toward Dish’s alcove. “Ten minutes,” she said.

  He sat down on the molded plastic chair and swallowed hard. Dish’s lips were raw and cracked and he smelled like antiseptic and plastic tubing. His hair looked longer. Connor’d read somewhere that even after you die, your hair grows for a while because the follicles don’t know they’re dead yet. What other parts don’t know they’re dead? Someone had shaved him. He looked pale, almost transparent.

  Connor took the little book by C. W. Pritchard from his pocket and held it out.

  “I got the book you were looking for.”

  The nurse was watching him from her desk and he felt a self-conscious wave wash over him, like when someone catches you talking to yourself. Screw that. He opened the book to page 73.

  “There it is. Just like the one on your arm.”

  He held the picture next to Dish’s arm. The I.V. had been moved to his neck and the tattoo looked even creepier on his pale skin.

  “You were taking me to the bookstore to buy this book, Dish. Because you knew this picture was in it. You knew it. You remembered it. And here,” he flipped to the picture of Lyla Bendbow. “I saw you with this woman. You know her. Who the hell is she, Dish?”

  The hussshh-hussshh of the respirator answered. He slapped the book closed.

  The nurse gave him an “I’m watching” look.

  “I really, really need to talk to you, Dish.”

  He felt emptiness well in his chest.

  “I need you to talk to me. Please. They’re gonna pull the plug. Do you hear me? They’re going to let you die unless you open your eyes, and I don’t think I can make it—”

  He hung his head and stuffed his hands in his pockets. He found the little whiskey bottle there. Maybe Iris just didn’t have the right touch.

  He uncorked it and poured a little of the water into his hand, then sprinkled it over Dish’s forehead and chest. When nothing happened, the tears wouldn’t wait any longer. He spilled them too, but they didn’t have the power to wake him either.

  Connor locked his fingers with Dish’s and squeezed. He tried to warm Dish’s hand with his own and only then noticed that the water horse he had drawn on his left arm matched up with Dish’s on his right.

  “Like a mirror,” he said.

  His voice cracked and fell into pieces.

  “I know you’re in another place, I saw you there. And you saw me. I know it. If they pull the plug, your life will end, in both worlds. You need to do something, because I can’t.”

  Then he felt it, a tingling just like the water had felt when he fell into the well, like his skin was more than alive, more than just flesh. It was light. It surged with his pulse from his wrist to Dish’s, moving, like roots through soil.

  The skin where the two images met began to burn and Connor could swear he saw a faint green glow flicker and dance between their wrists, sparking just like phosphorescence in the waves.

  He closed his fingers tighter and Dish’s hand got so, so warm. And finally, just perceptibly, Dish’s fingers closed on Connor’s.

  Chapter 27

  Sheltered behind a maze of steep ramparts and ditches known as a ráth, the stronghold of Caer Cedewain safeguarded Marchlew’s lands, a web of highland glens and forests carved by rivers, mountain brooks and tumbling falls. Home to shepherds, weavers and miners, Cedewain was said to produce the most handsome people in the Five Quarters due to the land’s nearness to the sky. Indeed, Nechtan felt he could touch the race of clouds streaming from the peaks behind Caer Cedewain.

  From the west end of the glen, Nechtan could make out the snake of a curtain wall. The Ildana had extended the fortifications of the ráth, built a thousand years before by the Old Blood. It sat on a headland, its back pressed to the teeth of the Pendynas Mountains. Caer Cedewain guarded Maiden Pass, an aptly named parting of the mountains which no invader had penetrated since the fortress was built. From here, the range of the Pendynas drove through Arvon like the spine of a great serpent crawling northward to the Isles called the Bloody Spear, where the granite beast dove to the bottomless depths of the Broken Sea.

  Marchlew had clearly raised the standard of war, and as Nechtan rode closer, it was clear this battle would happen with or without him. A sea of men were encamped outside the ráth. Looking out over the growing swell of soldiers, he found himself wondering why Lyleth needed him at all.

  He led Dylan up from the vale, to the outer earthworks. Nechtan saw tartans from west Arvon, hosts of archers from the north coast with their longbows of starwood, spearmen from Ynys Keldean, even men from the outer islands of Sun’s Rest and Ynys Gall.

  Nechtan pulled the cowl of his cloak closer as they rode through the turns of ditch-work leading to the main gate.

  “Act like a lordling,” he told Dylan.

  “Pompous and full of hot air?” Dylan smiled at him.

  “You already have the hot air.”

  A crow caught Nechtan’s eye, hopping from a wagon to alight on a stanchion. As Nechtan passed beneath it, the bird spread its wings and gaped at him, croaking with a rhythmic jig of its head. He looked up at feathers tinged blood red, its eye cocked to take in Nechtan’s passing.

  “Looks like the same crow,” Dylan said.

  “Aye, so it does.”

  Lyl had said it was a tethered soul, watching with borrowed eyes. But who watched? Nechtan would lay a feast for this crow soon enough.

  Once at the gate, they dismounted at the request of the guards, and gave up their horses to stable boys.

  “I bear a message for Marchlew from Lyleth,” Dylan told the guards, “solás to the king.”

  “And who might you be, lad?”

  Dylan glanced over his shoulder at Nechtan standing behind him as a servant would. Dylan stuttered, “I’m uh…”

  “My lord is ‘prenticed to Lyleth,” Nechtan offered.

  “Aye, so I am. ‘Prenticed. Dylan, I’m called.”

  “My lord prepares for war,” the guard said. “This message best be important.”

  “Very,” Dylan said with some authority.

  The guard opened a small wicket door just big enough for one man at a time to pass through the massive gate. The chains on the gate wheel chattered and the inner portcullis opened.

  A guard escorted them through the inner bailey thick with armorers and the smoke from several forges, then on through an empty revel hall, down a narrow corridor, to the gallery, a long chamber with shutters that opened onto a garden. Dylan craned his neck at the carvings on the barrel vault of the ceiling and tapestries that hung between arched doorways.

  “Close your mouth,” Nechtan whispered to Dylan. “You’ll catch flies.”

  “’Tis so grand.”

  Outside the gallery, Kyndra, Nechtan’s sister, had planted a garden with flowers that bloomed only white. She called it a moon garden, and Nechtan imagined it as Kyndra’s refuge, glorious in the spring and magical on a summer’s moonlit night. Kyndra preferred to take her meals here rather than the hall, especially when the seasons turned cold, for the gallery faced south. But now, the flowers of her moon garden had faded; a few yellowing petals clung to swollen seedpods, ready to burst and scatter themselves.

  The gallery was somewhat small to hold chieftains from all reache
s of Cedewain and Arvon. They crowded one long trestle table, Pyrs and Desmund and chieftains Nechtan had fought beside since he was old enough to carry a sword.

  Flanked by Kyndra and their son Talan, a spidery boy close in age to Dylan, Marchlew labored to breathe. He had grown larger since Nechtan had last seen him, and Kyndra more wraith-like. He knew she would prefer to seep into the soil of her garden, to be reassembled by root and leaf into a flower of brief beauty. Perhaps she already had.

  “Dylan, is it?” Marchlew bellowed. “What news do you bring from that reckless sister of the green, eh? Animator of cold flesh, I hear, and cogwheel of insurrection. I suppose I’ll have to thank Lyleth for that.”

  Dylan stepped aside, and Nechtan came forward. He showed his palms and pushed back his hood.

  “I am Lyleth’s message.”

  The chieftains fell silent. Then, as if waking from a dream, they got to their feet and moved toward him until they formed a circle, seeming afraid to come any closer.

  But Nechtan couldn’t take his eyes off his sister, knowing it was she who would decide if he was real. Kyndra was on her feet, clinging to Talan’s shoulder. Lines of disquiet marred a face that once worried over nothing more than knots in her hair. Nechtan should have considered what he would say to her, but instead, he found himself wondering if she’d ever really loved a man. When he brought her north so many years ago, had Nechtan taken Kyndra from a lover to wed this obscene excuse for a chieftain?

  Nechtan realized the only sound in the room was Marchlew’s wolfhound chewing a bone until Dylan cleared his throat.

  Nechtan held out his hands to Kyndra, but she wouldn’t take them, she just gave him an ashen stare. He stepped into the sunlight that streamed from the high windows. Let them take a good look.

  “It’s me, Kyndra.”

  “It can’t be.” Marchlew hoisted himself to his feet and drilled Nechtan with bloodshot eyes. “Ava parades Nechtan’s dead body through the streets of Caer Ys. Nechtan’s as dead as Black Brac himself. So tell me, who in the name of the mother’s dugs are you?”