Lesley Livingston: Wondrous Strange

It was going to drown.

Determination took hold. Kelley kicked herself back a little way from the horse’s flank to gather what strength she had left. She took three deep breaths, filling her lungs to capacity with biting cold air, and then dove beneath the surface of the water.

Swimming down as far as she could, she grasped at the massed strands of weedy vegetation where they were rooted into the mud of the lake bed. Kelley swung her legs underneath her, planted bare feet in the mud, and wrapped the strands around her hands. Then she hauled on them for all she was worth.

The slimy weeds went taut, but refused to break or uproot.

Pull …once more.

Pull, damn it . Lungs aching, she heaved again.

Pull!

As her strength began to fade, Kelley tugged weakly on the waterweeds one last time. Starbursts bloomed in front of her eyes as her brain began to starve for oxygen. Kelley shook her head. A cloud of bubbles escaped her mouth and nose-the last of her air. She heard music, faint and far off, and thought she could see a weird, glowing light dancing through the water, swirling and coalescing all around her. She felt warm. One very last, feeble try…and Kelley felt the ropy stems give just a bit. Suddenly a sharp tug on the weeds jerked her painfully forward, wrenching her arms and shoulders.

And then everything around her went completely black.

“Sonny!”

He turned at the sound of his name to see a fellow Janus emerging from the trees.

“Maddox.” He held out a hand and they clasped forearms, smiling.

“How goes the day, Sonn?” Maddox asked, a slight warm lilt to his voice.

Sonny shrugged. “Does it feel different to you yet?”

“Nah.” Maddox shook his head. “Feels just like every other year. Calm, serene, peaceful…well. That’ll soon change. In less than an hour’s time, the cracks will start to show in the Gate. And every night after this one, for the next eight, there will be more cracks. Bigger ones. Until Samhain, when all hell breaks loose. Face it, Sonn.” Maddox lowered his voice, even though there was no one who could possibly overhear them. “Nine nights of the Gate opening wider and wider, and only a handful of Janus to guard it. There’s a lot of Folk-mostly the nastier ones-who are willing to take that risk.”

Sonny grimaced. He didn’t understand why any of the Fair Folk would want to live in this world. He certainly didn’t. The noise alone was almost enough to drive him mad.

“Do you ever get used to it, Maddox?” Sonny asked, a bit hesitantly. “This place, I mean.”

“I’m the wrong lad to ask,” Maddox grunted. “For one thing, I don’t think I’ve been here long enough. Even just the concept of electricity still gives me the willies.”

“After three years?” Sonny asked, surprised.

“Aye, well. We may have both been, you know… taken …when gaslight was still in vogue, Sonn, but I was old enough when I was-when it happened that I actually remember that world. That time. I just try not to think about it now.”

Sonny thought about that for a moment. He had been a baby when he’d been taken. The only life he’d ever known had been the one that the Fair Folk had given him. It must have been difficult for those like Maddox…to have known right from the start that the shining, glorious people who raised you were not your own. That you weren’t one of theirs. And worse, knowing that your own world was no longer-could never again be-yours…Sonny felt uncomfortable. It wasn’t something he had ever liked giving deep thought to, though he couldn’t have explained why.

They stopped near the park’s Bow Bridge, which spanned the Lake just west of Bethesda Terrace, linking the relative wilderness of the Ramble to the more formal, manicured gardens of Cherry Hill. The bridge struck Sonny as an apt metaphor for the Gate itself. They stood silently, gazing out over the water for a long moment.

“And after all”-Maddox shrugged off the suddenly somber mood and waved a hand at the beauty before them-“this place does have its charms.” He clapped Sonny on the back. “Come on, then. We don’t want to be late for the opening.”

All around Sonny and Maddox, the air thrummed with tense anticipation as they reached the summit of the Great Hill and were welcomed into a loose circle of their Janus brethren. There were thirteen of them, changelings all.

There was the Fennrys Wolf, legendary for his berserker-like rages and sullen temperament. According to Maddox, the cradle Fenn had been stolen from sometime in the ninth century had been that of a Viking prince. War craft was in his blood-or so he declared almost every time Sonny saw him.

Camina and Bellamy were twins, sister and brother. Slender, graceful, and quiet, they’d been Janus Guards since almost the beginning and were notoriously efficient.

There was Godwyn, genial, handsome…ruthless.

Bryan and Beni-one light, one dark, different as night and day. Insanely competitive, and utterly inseparable, “the lads” could usually be found engaged in some sort of contest, be it darts or pool or just punching each other in the arm to see who could take it the longest.

There was Ghost. Thin and silent, with dark eyes in a pale face-more haunted than haunting, Sonny had always thought. He didn’t know Ghost’s real name, or even what part of the world he’d been taken from. An odd young man, but then…he’d been taken by Queen Mabh.

Beside Ghost stood Aaneel-the oldest, who had ages since left his home in India and was one of only a handful of changelings to have lived long enough in the Otherworld to have aged well into adulthood. His black hair had begun to silver at the temples, contrasting with his deep coppery complexion.

Next to Aaneel was Perry-Percival-the youngest, save for Sonny. Perry had been taken in 1719 from a tiny hamlet in the north of France that had suffered failed crops year after year. In exchange for Perry, Titania had granted the place mild weather and fertile soil, and so a town that had almost died didn’t.

Finally, Selene, pale and pretty, with fox-brown hair and a smattering of freckles, and absolutely lethal aim with a long-bow; and Cait, skilled in more forms of hand-to-hand combat than anyone else in the group, she much preferred to cast spells and warding enchantments instead.

Together they watched as the sun finally dipped completely below the horizon and Central Park slipped into darkness. The first night of the Nine had begun. With a singular purpose, the Janus moved, spreading out to cover the four corners of the park.

Splitting off from the others to travel south, Sonny ran along the treacherously rocky terrain of the Ravine, reaching deep into his mind, feeling past the delicate, obscuring mists of Auberon’s flawed enchantment to where the walls between the worlds were so thin they became doors. He felt for which of those doors might just open that night…

There .

Thirty yards east-maybe thirty-five. Sonny crept up the path and stood, loose limbed and ready, his blood warmed from running and anticipation of the coming fight. Some of the Faerie that tried to cross would retreat back to the Otherworld at the very first hint of a Janus in the vicinity. But the timid among the Fair Folk were also less likely to try and cross in the first place.

Sonny reached into the leather messenger bag slung across his body and drew forth a bundle of three short, straight sticks, tied with a red leather cord: a branch each of oak, ash, and thorn. Sonny murmured an ancient secret incantation, and a silver-bladed sword appeared in his hand in their place. He held it ready at his side.