Anne Bishop - Bridge of Dreams

“There you are, nephew!” Styks said heartily. “We were worried when we found your bed empty.”

“Do you remember us?” Pugnos said.

“Of course,” Lee replied just as heartily. “It’s Bonelover and Trapspider. Been chewing up many corpses lately?”

A weird silence surrounded them.

“You know who we are,” Pugnos snarled.

Lee gave them a vacant smile and said nothing.

“I think Lee has had enough stimulation today,” Danyal said, watching the other men.

“Lee?” Lee’s smile faded. His voice sounded confused, almost fearful.

“You are Lee,” Styks said solicitously.

“Oh.” Lee paused. “Do I know you?”

The two men stared at Lee and looked as if they wanted to beat some sanity into him. Or do something much worse.

“Gentlemen,” Danyal said firmly. “Lee needs quiet time now.”

“But we came to see him,” Pugnos protested.

“And you have,” Danyal replied. “And you can see that he is much improved—at least in body.”

“Yes,” Styks said softly. “We can see that.” He reached out, but Lee shrank back enough to avoid being touched. “You are always in our thoughts, nephew. In that way, we are always with you, always aware of you.”

Something under the words made them sound like a threat.

Danyal looked past the men and noticed Nik and Denys, another Handler, watching them at a discreet distance. He nodded.

Styks turned. His face tightened when he saw the men. “We’ll go now.”

Danyal held Lee’s arm while he watched Styks and Pugnos walk back to the visitors’ gate, feeling the tension and the slight tremble in the muscles. “Do you truly not know who they are?”

“I know what they are.” Lee’s voice was low and harsh.

Anger bordering on hatred. And fear. Rock slides and quicksand.

Spotting Zhahar, Danyal raised a hand. She quickly joined them and slipped an arm around Lee’s to guide him back to the inmates’ residence.

Danyal watched them, then focused on the direction the two “uncles” had taken. “I don’t know what to think about those men.”

A few moments later, he gagged on the smell rising behind him. Turning, he looked at the flower bed. A large half circle of flowering plants was missing, now replaced with squat green plants that stank. But it was the other plants, rapidly growing in the center of the stinkweed, that kept him there, despite the smell. Leaves so dark a green they were almost black. Fleshy pods swelled as he watched, and when they split and the flower began to push out…

They looked—and smelled—like turds steaming in the hot sun.

Gagging, he retreated and grabbed Teeko, the first groundskeeper he saw.

“There is a vile-smelling weed in the bed by the main pathway,” he said, pointing toward the spot. “Get a barrow and a shovel. Dig those things up and burn them. ”

“Yes, Shaman. Right away.” Teeko rushed off.

Danyal hurried to the private washroom connected to his office. He scrubbed his hands and washed his face twice—and still couldn’t get rid of all the stink.

As he walked back into his office, Teeko tapped on the open door.

“Shaman? You sure you want us to dig up that plant? It’s a pretty little thing. And you didn’t say if you wanted that rock dug up with it.”

Danyal stood there, not knowing what to say. “Can’t you smell it?”

“Oh, there’s a foul smell around there, to be sure. I’m thinking we’ll find a soiled pair of pants stuffed under a bush nearby. But it’s not coming from that plant.”

Then you’re not looking in the right place , Danyal thought as he went back outside to point out the plants.

Except the stinkweed and the turd plants weren’t there. Instead there was a chunk of polished, black-veined white marble beside a delicate little plant covered in buds and one open, rose-colored flower.

Light. Hope.

“I was mistaken,” Danyal said. “The smell isn’t coming from the plant.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Teeko said. “Might have broken my heart to dig up that little plant.”

An odd thing to say—and absolutely true.

“The only other thing we found was this.” Teeko held out a gold pocket watch. “Thought the visitors might have dropped it, but it’s broken and looks like it’s been in the ground for a while.”

Danyal took the watch and returned to his office. But he couldn’t settle at his desk to read the daily reports or take care of all the other things that demanded his attention. Instead he stared out the window.

The Shamans were the voice of the world, but he had never seen the world respond like this , had never experienced it responding like this. Except at the bridge in his home village when the wind had pushed him back and didn’t allow him to cross to the other side.

I don’t know what to think about those men.

Moments after he’d said those words, those plants had started growing—and blooming. As if the world had expressed its opinion, telling him plainly enough what it thought of those men.

And then to have those plants disappear and be replaced with marble and that other little plant?

Was this happening to other Shamans? Or just him? Was he that different from the others, or had something changed around him that had, in turn, changed him?

Or was the change here being caused by someone else?

Ephemera flowed through the currents of Light and Dark in this part of itself, listening to all the tangled hearts. But it wasn’t supposed to listen to those hearts, wasn’t supposed to make what those hearts wanted unless a Guide told it to.

But that one didn’t belong in this part of itself. That heart yearned for a different place.

Ephemera flowed away from that heart and went to see if the Voice-guide it had found wanted to play again. The Voices that walked in this part of itself helped it stay balanced, allowing Light and Dark currents to flow in response to the hearts that lived here. But this Voice could be a Guide to the world, could play with it like the Music did, like she did. She was like the Old Ones, like the first Guides of the Heart that it had shaped long ago. She had known how to be a Guide to the world and played with the world, helping it remake parts of itself. She was teaching the Music how to play with the world and shape small makings. She and the Music would teach Voice-guide how to play too.

Now the world and the Music were playing the Lee-heart game. The Music met the world at the playground on her island and played the song from the Lee-heart. He gave the world all the bits of stolen time to leave where the Lee-heart would find them, so the Lee-heart would know the Music had not forgotten him.

And it had found the Lee-heart in this part of itself that was far from her landscapes! And the resonance of the Lee-heart in this part of itself had changed a Voice enough to become Voice-guide for the world!

Then the dark hearts had shivered through the Dark currents of this place, dimming the Light in all the hearts, even the Lee-heart and Voice-guide.

When Voice-guide wanted to know what was in those hearts, it had shaped a small making and shown its new Guide.

After Voice-guide went away, it took away the dark making and made the Lee. Stone like she used for Sanctuary—light with veins of dark. Heart’s hope, full of promise. And a bit of stolen time.

But another heart took the time.

It had many bits of stolen time and could fetch more. The Lee-heart would find one, and the Music would be happy.

Ephemera circled around this part of itself again, listening to the hearts, listening to the yearnings that wanted this part of itself to change just a little, just enough to connect with another piece of itself.