“I didn’t take you for a spy,” Nuala said.
“I’m not,” Bettina said, dropping her gaze. “I mean, I’m not usually. I’m just pulled by curiosity into places I shouldn’t necessarily be.”
“I know,” Nuala told her.
Bettina looked at her. “You do?”
Nuala’s laugh had all the warmth that her humor with Musgrave had lacked.
“Not the details,” she said. “Only that you have a good heart. And that is often enough—if you are also willing to do more than think kindly of others, but help them as well.”
“You know that I—”
“Whisht,” Nuala said. “I’m not angry. In truth, it’s good to not have to hide who I am from at least a few.”
“You’re like a brownie or a hob,” Chantal said. “Aren’t you? Keeping everything shipshape, but you’d have to leave if people knew who you were and showed their appreciation.”
Nuala smiled. “Something like that.”
“How do you know all this?” Bettina asked Chantal.
“I told you before,” Chantal said. “I grew up on fairy tales.”
When this was all over, Bettina planned to go the library and catch up. For now there was too much else to do, though she couldn’t resist trying to satisfy another small puzzle if she could.
“That woman,” Bettina asked Nuala. “You called her Sarah, but I thought her name was Musgrave.”
“She owns them both, but Sarah was the earlier of the two.”
“Sarah Wood?”
Nuala shook her head. “Sarah Hanson. The woman who originally had Kellygnow built as an artist’s retreat.”
“But she’s …”
“Long dead?” Nuala finished for her. “So she would be. But she struck a bargain with the wolves. By spending much of each year in the spiritworld, her life has been extended. Have you not noticed that humans who spend much time there don’t age as other people do?”
So that was how Abuela could have lived what seemed like more than one lifetime.
Nuala turned her attention to Chantal now.
“How much do you know?” she asked the sculptor.
Chantal sighed. “Way too much.”
Nuala nodded. “So it seems at first. Come,” she added. “We have work to do at the house. We will speak more of this later.”
“But the Glasduine …” Bettina began.
“Is hunting wolves,” Nuala told her. “And that’s not such a bad thing, is it?”
That depends, Bettina thought, worried for her own wolf. But she kept it to herself.
7
There wasn’t going to be a miracle, Miki realized. The hard men were going to have their way just like they always did. They’d trash the place. They’d beat her and everybody else up, maybe worse, and there was nothing they could do to stop them. Because these weren’t human bullies. They were living remnants of what had been waiting for us in the darkness since time primordial, ready to pounce and tear as soon as we left the cave, the hearth, the safe haven. They were spite and cruelty given human shape, but there was nothing human about them.
As though to emphasize the point, one of the Gentry standing near the front racks straight-armed the new release display and sent it crashing to the ground. CDs flew in all directions. A few landed near him and he crushed their jewel cases under the heel of his boot.
“You owe us,” the leader told her, grinning.
His thick accent woke a flood of memories in Miki. Dimly lit pubs, the smell of cigarettes and beer, Fergus and his cronies, their faces flushed with Guinness and spite as dark as fresh peat.
“And these,” another of the Gentry said, crushing more jewel cases underfoot, “aren’t enough.”
The leader nodded. “We need blood.”
Their sheer, ignorant callousness was what put Miki in motion. She was still desperately afraid, but she was more angry. As one of the Gentry moved toward the counter, she picked up the stool she’d been sitting on and flung it at him. If Hunter could stand up to them, she thought, then so could she.
“You stupid little bint,” the leader said.
He moved now. When Adam tried to block his way, he grabbed Adam by the shirt and flung him across the room. Adam landed badly, falling against the CD bins, before tumbling to the floor with his face twisting in pain. That crash brought the others from the back room. Miki saw Fiona come out first, followed by Titus, who took one look at what was going on and darted back out of sight.
Get out of here, too, Miki wanted to shout at Fiona. Before they see you.
But there was no time for warnings. She was too busy looking after herself.
Another of the Gentry had leapt up onto the counter. Miki saw only two choices. Bolt for the open space beyond the counter and have him jump on her back, or take the offensive. She didn’t even have to think about it. As the hard man swung a boot at her, she grabbed his leg and pulled it out from under him. He fell awkwardly, his spine hitting the cash register. He slid off it onto the counter, pushing magazines and the phone onto the floor by Miki’s feet. But he was kicking out as he fell and one foot connected. The blow sent her staggering back, knocking the CD player and all the promo CDs off the shelf behind her. She fell on top of them, scrambled to get back on her feet, but then the leader was standing over her. He gave her a kick that caught her in the shoulder and threw her back onto the slippery pile of CDs. Her eyes flooded with tears of pain.
That’s it, then, she thought, feeling oddly distanced and calm for all that her pulse was drumming in overtime. The next kick would take her in the head. If she was lucky, she’d wake up in hospital. If she wasn’t…
But the attack broke off as suddenly as it began. As one, the hard men lifted their heads to stand like statues, some dark ache flaring in their eyes, twisting grimaces from their lips. Their heads all turned to look out the window. Miki had no idea what they were seeing, what was going on. There was only the rain out there, the empty streets. Still, she took the opportunity to crabwalk backwards, out of range of the leader’s boots. When she neared the man she’d toppled from the counter, she grabbed the phone and smashed it down on his head, then looked at the leader, ready to throw it at him. But he was still preoccupied with whatever it was that he sensed or saw outside.
When the Gentry started for the door, leaving their fallen comrade behind, Miki slowly rose to her feet, steadying her balance by holding onto the edge of the counter. She watched them step out into the rain, one by one, trench coats flapping against their legs. The leader was the last to leave. He turned to look at her from the doorway, an unreadable, confusing expression in his eyes. But there was nothing confusing about the threat he left her with.
“We’ll be back,” he told Miki. “We have unfinished business, you and I.” Then he was gone as well.
This made no sense at all.
She stared at the door, sure they’d come sauntering back any moment to finish what they’d begun, laughing at the joke, at the false hope their departure might have woken, but the only thing coming in through the open door were splatters of freezing rain and a growing puddle. Catching movement from the corner of her eye, she turned to see Titus stepping warily out of the back room with a baseball bat in hand.
That was unexpected as well. Diffident Titus going all fierce? Next Fiona would go surfer-blonde.
She moved her arm, working her shoulder muscle. It didn’t hurt as much as she expected, though she knew she’d have bruises for souvenirs—there and on her torso. Her gaze dropped to the hard man lying still at her feet. He didn’t move when she toed him. Perhaps she’d killed him.
Serve him right, she thought as she stepped over his limp form and joined the others. Fiona was kneeling beside Adam, pushing the hair from his eyes.
“What happened to them?” she asked, looking up at Miki. “What made them go?”
“I have no idea,” Miki said.
Adam tried to move. He moaned, scowling at the pain the movement brought. His face was
so white it was like typing paper.
“We need to get him to the hospital,” Fiona said.
Miki nodded, not really listening. She was still filled with fury at how the hard men had come in, so ready to hurt them, and for what? To prove they could. That was all. To prove they could.
She looked at the bat in Titus’s hand.
“You’ve just jumped way up in my estimation,” she told him as she took the bat from his hand and headed for the door.
“Miki,” Fiona said. “We really have to get Adam some help.”
But Miki wasn’t listening at all now. She stepped out into the rain and saw the Gentry making their way down the street, walking in a group, about to turn off onto a cross street and head west.
“Hey, shite for brains!” she called after them.
The group paused. The leader’s gaze was like molten fire but Miki was too angry herself to care. She waved the bat at them.
“Why leave so soon?” she asked them. “You aren’t afraid of me, are you, you sorry pissants?”
For a moment the features of a wolf were superimposed over the leader’s features turning him into some morphing combination of beast and man. He bared his teeth and Miki could hear the growl in her chest from where she was standing. But she stood her ground.
“Don’t like it when your victim fights back, do you?” she said.
The hard man turned to the nearest hydro pole and lashed out with his foot. The crack of the wood snapping rang like a clap of thunder up the length of the street, then the pole came tumbling down, ripping phone and power lines apart as it did. Miki could feel the ground shake underfoot when the pole hit the ground. Live wires flashed sparks and flared, sending up showers of electrical discharges as they whipped in the air. The lights went out in the buildings all along the street.
Grinning, the leader of the Gentry made a gun with his forefinger and thumb and fired it at her. Then he turned and the pack loped off, out of sight.
Miki stared numbly at the damage that had been done.
Brilliant, she told herself, her anger fled. Really sodding brilliant. The leader of the Gentry had been right. She was a stupid little bint. She couldn’t leave well-enough alone. No, she had to play the hero and now look where it had gotten them. No power, no heat. No phone service.
She turned slowly back into the dark store. When her gaze settled on the others, her guilt became more pronounced. Never mind the power and heat. Adam needed hospital care and how were they going to get him there now? She wasn’t sure if an ambulance could get through the mess that was out there on the streets, but they certainly couldn’t get him there on their own.
She tossed the bat away, wincing at the startled faces of her friends as it clattered against a display rack.
In her own way, she was no better than Donal, she realized. She hadn’t stopped to think how any of this might affect anyone else; she’d simply let her temper get the better of her again.
And she’d always been like this. You don’t really grow up no matter how old you get. But what was perhaps a little cute in a child, the frown surrounded by ringlets, the little stamping foot, wasn’t so endearing in a woman. Christ, all she had to do was think of Donal’s sour puss.
She got away with it because she was usually so relentlessly cheery, but that was still no excuse. All she had to do was look at Adam, ribs cracked surely, maybe some other more serious internal injuries, to know how wrong it was. Because when you only looked out for yourself, other people suffered. It was like the fucking Provos and IRA with their bombs and guns and endless retributions. The civilians were invariably the ones to suffer. The bystanders. It was so pathetic. She was pathetic. And not very proud of herself at all.
But she couldn’t wallow. Adam was seriously hurt, Titus and Fiona were standing around clueless. Someone had to take charge. She could beat herself up when this was all over.
“Come on,” she told Titus. “Let’s see if we can rig up something to carry him on.”
“I, uh, don’t think we should move him,” Titus said. “You’re not supposed to move people with a back or neck injury, are you?”
Fiona nodded. “I think he’s right.”
Oh, well done, Miki, she told herself. You’ve made a brilliant mess of this, haven’t you just?
“Okay,” she said. “New plan. See what you can find to keep Adam warm. I’ll go for help.”
Fiona gave her a worried look.
“Are you sure it’s safe?” she asked.
Probably not, Miki thought. But did it matter? It had to be done.
“I’ll be fine,” she said.
Before anyone could argue, she put on her coat and headed for the door. Just before she stepped outside, she thought about that look the leader of the Gentry had given her. The memory was enough to make her retrieve the baseball bat from where she’d thrown it in the corner and take it with her.
8
Hunter had hoped that the storm would let up by morning. But even if it didn’t, he’d thought that at least they’d be somewhere warm and safe. There might be warring spirits out there in the freezing rain, but here, inside, they had a wood-stove, food, protection from both the elements and the Gentry. There were worse places they could’ve ended up than this calm in the eye of the storm.
Wrong, he realized when he woke up.
Tired as he’d been, it had still taken him forever to get to sleep last night, lying awake in a borrowed sleeping bag near the woodstove, every sound magnified in his imagination to be one made by a hard man, breaking in. He felt as though he’d just gotten to sleep, but here it was, morning already, and the household humming in a bustle of ordered chaos.
Getting up from his sleeping bag, he joined Tommy where the other man was sitting on the couch. Hunter tried to clear the cobwebs from his head, but without much luck. He didn’t see either Aunt Nancy or Ellie around. There were only Tommy’s other two aunts, standing on the far side of the room, having what appeared to be an urgent conversation. Hunter couldn’t understand what they were saying since they were speaking in what he assumed was Kickaha.
“What’s going on?” he asked Tommy.
Tommy shrugged. “Everybody got some kind telepathic bad news except for you and me.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Be grateful for life’s small gifts.”
“No, I mean—”
“I know,” Tommy said. “I was joking. Or maybe not. This is all new to me, too.”
“But I thought you grew up with this stuff… the magic and spirits and everything.”
“Only with the stories,” Tommy said. “Not the reality of it.”
“So it is real…?”
Hunter had been hoping that last night’s experiences had only been part of some complicated and confusing dream—never mind that he’d woken up here on the rez.
“Oh, yeah,” Tommy said. “And isn’t that a kicker?”
Hunter nodded slowly. To put it mildly. Because that meant he’d really killed one of the hard men last night. He, who’d never even stood up to school bullies except once in junior high when he’d gotten a black eye and bruised ribs for his trouble. Now he was a murderer. That it had been self-defense didn’t seem like much of an excuse when a man lay dead because of what he’d done. It was one thing in the movies, a vicarious thrill, rooting for the villain to get his comeuppance. But the movies didn’t tell you about the sick and empty feeling he had inside him right now. They didn’t tell you how to deal with it.
“Are you okay?” Tommy asked.
Hunter nodded.
“Because—no offense—you look like hell.”
“I just didn’t sleep all that well,” Hunter told him.
Tommy looked as if he wanted more of an explanation than that, but just then Zulema stepped away from where she’d been talking with Sunday and gave the pair of them an expectant look.
“Come on,” she said. “You haven’t even got your coats on.”
“And we’re going wher
e?” Tommy asked.
“The city. Haven’t you been paying attention?”
Tommy shook his head, obviously feeling as confused as Hunter himself felt.
“I hate to burst your bubble,” he said, “but we barely made it here in one piece last night. There’s no way we’re driving—or even walking—anywhere today. Not with that rain.”“
“Don’t argue,” Zulema told him. “We need you to drive.”
“But…”
Something flickered in her eyes and Tommy quickly rose to his feet. Zulema nodded, then headed for the hallway. Tommy rolled his eyes at Hunter.
“We’re not even going to get out of their driveway,” Tommy told him. “Not unless we’re all pushing. And then all that’s going to happen is we’re going to go into some ditch maybe two yards down the road.”
Hunter was slower to rise to his feet.
“I don’t think you have to come,” Tommy added. “Except you could help us get out of the driveway—if you feel up to it, I mean.”
“I’m not bailing now,” Hunter told him.
“But if you’re feeling sick …”
“It’s not that kind of sick,” Hunter said.
Something changed in Tommy’s eyes.
“It’s that guy,” he said. “In Miki’s apartment.”
Hunter nodded.
“I’m not going to say he had it coming to him,” Tommy told him. “Even if he did. But that’s not what this is about, is it?”
“No. It’s just… I just… killed him.”
“First time?”
“God, what do you think?” Then Hunter gave Tommy a closer look. “Why? Have you?”
Tommy shook his head. “I’ve come close. And there was a time I wouldn’t have lost any sleep over it. But no. I guess the aunts drummed the message too firmly in my head: All life’s precious.” He laid a hand on Hunter’s arm. “But you know, the man you killed, he had a lot of the responsibility for what happened to him. It’s not like you went out looking to hurt someone the way he did. What he forgot was, what you put out comes back to you.”
Forests of the Heart Page 40