Charles de Lint - Forests of the Heart

Time lost any meaning. They might have struggled for only moments; they might have struggled to the edge of forever. Battered and numbed, Donal held firm, but he knew it was a losing battle. He simply didn’t have the strength. Unlike the Glasduine, he had no mystical reserves to call upon. He had only himself, and a weakened, subdued version of himself at that. He knew it was only a matter of time before the Glasduine dealt with him and the carnage would begin.

But then, just as he was losing all hope, he caught a flicker of motion from the corner of the Glasduine’s eye, saw with its vision shadow shapes flitting through the ice-bedecked trees. They were a long way off, more in the between, or even the otherworld, than the world of the here and now, but he marked them, recognized them, saw a use for them.

There, he told the Glasduine, directing the creature’s attention in their direction. There is the true enemy.

It had acquired his most powerful emotions and one of strongest among them was the resentment and hatred he’d felt towards the Gentry for the way they treated him like such a useless little shite. He wasn’t sure that the Glasduine would understand or care at this point, but it grunted when it recognized the shapes. With a roar, it set off in pursuit. Donal clung to the Glasduine’s mind, egging it on.

Finally there was a use for the buggers, he thought as the Gentry fled.

He just hoped they’d lead the Glasduine long and deep into the other-world, so far that it might never find a way back to this world where he’d so stupidly called it up.

13

They returned to the city in only a fraction of the time it had taken Tommy to drive them up to the rez the night before. Driving smoothly through the between, unencumbered by either the weather or poor driving conditions, they were soon coming down from the mountains and approaching the outskirts proper.

“Look,” Hunter said, his voice reflecting the awe he was obviously feeling. “There they go.”

Ellie leaned on the side of the truck bed and watched the manitou step away, moving deeper in amongst the ice-covered trees. They faded like deer or wolves, seen for a moment along the highway, then gone, but she knew they were so much more. An ache woke in her heart when they were gone.

What if I never see them again? she wondered.

Sunday touched her arm.

“You will,” she said, as though Ellie had spoken the words aloud. At Ellie’s surprised look, the older woman added with a smile, “You look just the way I felt the first time I saw them—like your best friend had disappeared. But don’t worry. Part of their mystery is that once you become aware of them, you will always be able to see them again.”

“I like the way you put that,” Hunter said. “They did feel like friends. A little scarier than the people I normally hang out with, mind you, but there was definitely some deep connection thing happening here.”

Ellie nodded, wondering if she’d be able to hold enough of them in her mind to sculpt them, though she had no idea how she would even begin to bring them to life. So much of them lay between the lines of what one saw. But if she could capture even a fraction of the feelings they’d woken in her, she’d have accomplished some remarkable work indeed.

Tommy pulled over to the side of the road then and she had to hold onto the side of the truck bed for balance. Looking in through the back window of the cab, she could see him arguing with Aunt Nancy. She rapped on the window and Tommy slid it open.

“What’s the problem?” she asked.

“Aunt Nancy wants us to drive straight up to Kellygnow.”

“But wasn’t that the plan?”

Tommy nodded. “Except we’re in the big wide world now. What’s going to happen when people see us cruising by, easy as you please, making time the way we are on roads that nobody else can use?”

“I don’t really see the problem.”

“Maybe not now. But some cop sees us, he’s going to wonder, take down my plate number, and then, when this is all over, I’m going to have to answer questions I don’t have answers for. I’m supposed to tell them about the between?”

“Why don’t we go by the manidò-aki?’” Sunday said.

“If you can find me a road in the otherworld, I’m game,” Tommy told her. “But this is no all-terrain vehicle. I’m guessing we’ll get about the length of a meadow.”

“What we need,” Zulema said from where she sat between Aunt Nancy and Tommy, “is for Nancy to put a charm on the truck, but—” She glanced to her right. “Someone considers that a waste of her juju.”

“Who cares what white people think?” Aunt Nancy asked. She glanced back at Ellie and Hunter and added, “No offense.”

“Tommy has to live here,” Sunday said. “I think we should respect his wishes.”

“No, Tommy chose to live here.”

“Hey, Tommy’s sitting in the cab with you,” Tommy said, “and he’s getting real tired of being referred to in the third person.”

“That’s the problem with these Raven boys,” Aunt Nancy said. “Can’t seem to get them into mischief when you want to; can’t get them out when you don’t.”

“Please?” Zulema asked.

Aunt Nancy gave a heavy sigh. “Oh, fine. Put an old woman out.”

She opened the passenger door and stepped onto the side of the road, moving with exaggerated stiffness. Once she was outside, she gave a theatrical stretch, then went around to the four corners of the pickup. Muttering to herself, she took pinches of some powder out of a small buckskin bag and sprinkled it on the end of each bumper.

“Is she always like that?” Ellie whispered once Aunt Nancy was back in the cab.

“Only when she doesn’t get her own way,” Sunday replied, also in a whisper.

“I heard that,” Aunt Nancy said through the window. Then she turned to Tommy. “Well? What are you waiting for, Raven boy? Drive.”

“Urn…”

“Don’t worry. No one will see us. Or they will, but they’ll see something they’re expecting to see, not precisely us.”

“It’s okay,” Zulema said.

So Tommy started up the truck and on they went again.

The city, once they were driving through it, was a disaster zone. Ellie felt as though they were in some end-of-the-world movie. The ice was a slick carpet covering everything. Trees and telephone poles littered the sides of the road; buildings were all dark. There were next to no people. There were no other vehicles, except for those that had been abandoned at curbs and medians, though once they got closer to the city core they saw hydro trucks and various army vehicles.

No one gave them a second glance, but Tommy got off Williamson as soon as he could anyway. He drove toward the Beaches by back streets, crossing the river at the Kelly Street Bridge, then taking River Road through the Butler University campus to where it met up with Lakeside Drive. If anything, the storm damage was worse once they got to the Beaches. Or perhaps it only seemed worse, since no one had been working on clearing the streets of fallen trees and utility poles so they were strewn where they’d fallen—across porches and houses, crushing vehicles, blocking parts of the street. Twice they had to turn around and find an alternate route, but eventually they reached Handfast Road and began the long climb up to Kellygnow.

Ellie stared around herself in shock. There was so much damage from the ice storm. She glanced at Hunter.

“You wouldn’t think that something as simple as freezing rain could create such a disaster zone, would you?”

“Depends on how much of the stuff you get,” Hunter replied.

Ellie nodded, still stunned at the chaos that surrounded them.