Charles de Lint - Forests of the Heart

He shifted his position, and turned to look back down the slope where Ellie and Aunt Nancy had been just moments ago. They were gone.

How long had he been unconscious, anyway? And why would they just leave him here? Though maybe they hadn’t. Maybe something had taken them away.

The image of Ellie riding that giant spider popped into his head again.

Yeah, right.

He made his way back down the slope and looked around, softly calling their names. There didn’t seem to be any sign of a struggle, but he wasn’t exactly Daniel Boone. Give him a trashed apartment in the city and he could figure out that something bad happened. Out here, everything just looked the same. There could be a thousand clues staring him in the face and he wouldn’t recognize one of them.

After calling some more, he made his way around the jumble of boulders, down to where Bettina and her friend had been earlier.

Again Ellie and the spider popped into his mind.

Okay, he thought. Let’s pretend that she rode away on a spider. So where was Aunt Nancy?

That was when he remembered something Ellie had told him about this big shadow spider she kept seeing behind Aunt Nancy.

He shook his head. No way. He didn’t care how deep they’d stumbled into Neverneverland, people didn’t turn into giant spiders. The truth was, he must have been unconscious for a lot longer than he’d thought. No surprise there. You couldn’t trust the way time moved here—not the way they’d been traveling through landscapes and climates like turning the pages of an encyclopedia. Ellie and Aunt Nancy were somewhere ahead of him. For whatever reason, they’d had to go on without him, that was all. He’d find out why once he caught up with them again.

When he reached the area where Bettina and the hard man had been earlier, he realized there was something different. It took him a moment to remember. Right by this flat stone where Bettina had been sitting, there’d been the huge fallen trunk of one of those tall cacti. It was gone now. All that remained was dirt and sand, swirled into a spiral pattern and overlaid with seriously large footprints.

He put his own foot inside one of the footprints. There was enough room for him to put both feet in there.

Okay, this was creepy.

Then he saw the bits of wood scattered all around. It was as though the fallen cactus had exploded.

What exactly had happened here?

He started to move back to the where the dirt had been swept into a spiral, pausing to pick up what looked like a necklace made of seeds. No, it was a rosary, he realized, when he saw the small, roughly carved cross. Who had this belonged to? With it dangling from his fingers, he returned his attention to the spiral, hastily stepping back when a greenish-gold light began to glow in the center of it.

This couldn’t be good, he thought as he took a few more steps back.

He jumped when a flood of the light suddenly flowed out of the ground. It pooled for a moment in the spiral, then flowed off down the canyon, rippling like a wide ribbon in a breeze. He stared at it, this river of unnatural light, trying to figure out what it was.

There’s an explanation for this, too, he told himself. Somewhere. Nothing that would make sense to him, probably, but to somebody. Everything was eventually labeled and put in a box. In the meantime, would somebody please wake him up.

That was when he saw Miki come bubbling up out of the ground and go tumbling down the ribbon of light. Before he could come to terms with the shock of her sudden appearance, Tommy came up next. He called out to them, but neither of them seemed able to hear or see him.

Oh, man, he thought. There’s got to be way too many mind-altering drugs in the air of this place.

He stood watching as the light carried his friends down the canyon, watched until a bend in the landscape took them out of his sight, the two of them bobbing like driftwood, Miki’s blonde hair contrasting sharply with Tommy’s black.

Who’s next? he wondered. He wouldn’t have been surprised to see Titus or Adam go sailing by next.

The ribbon was following the same route his hallucination of Ellie and the giant spider had gone. If they had been a hallucination. He looked down at the ribbon. Because if this could be real…

He found himself wanting to touch it, but knew that would be just stupid. Instead, he set off at a trot, the rosary still dangling from his fingers as he followed the stream of light to wherever it had taken his friends.

It didn’t take long for el lobo to realize that they weren’t going to outrun the Glasduine. He ran at full tilt and the creature only continued to gain ground. It was like trying to outrun the wind. The Glasduine would be on them in moments and he had no idea what they could do to escape.

If Bettina had any experience with this hawk shape of hers, it would have been different. Then she could at least evade the creature’s grasp by taking to the sky. The Glasduine was an earthbound spirit, its existence still entwined with the root voice of the world, for all that it was an aberration to the heart of the grace from which it had been drawn. It would be unable to chase her if she followed the wind roads. But the skies were closed to them. Bettina’s hawk wings were too new to her and he was tied to the ground, like the Glasduine, so he was denied escaping by air as well. That only left turning to confront the Glasduine—as sure a form of suicide as slitting their own throats, though far more painful. Judging by the blood splattered on the creature, its prey did not die easily.

As they came around another curve of the canyon and raced down a straight stretch, the decision was taken out of his hands. The Glasduine drew near enough to take a swipe at him. The thick bark tips of its fingers brushed against his hindquarters, just enough to make him lose his balance. He went down, the hawk knocked from his mouth. She rolled across the dirt in a tangle of panicked flapping wings and then the change came over her again. By the time she landed up against the red dirt at the base of the canyon wall, it was Bettina who lay there, coughing in the dust she had churned up with her fall.

He didn’t fare much better. He kept his shape, but went tumbling, tail over head, bouncing off a boulder before he could scramble to his feet. He ignored the pain in his side where he’d hit the boulder and rose snarling to face the Glasduine, but it was already out of range.

The Glasduine overshot both of them. Turning quicker than should have been possible for its bulk, it went for Bettina, its strange mask-like features twisted into a grin.

El lobo howled his frustration. He called to any power that would listen, promised anything, if she would only be spared.

As if in response, a stream of green-gold light came pouring down the canyon, following the path they’d just taken themselves. El lobo recognized the ancient mystery of that ribbon of light as it shot straight for the Glasduine, stopping it dead in its tracks before it could reach Bettina, but he didn’t understand its presence here, at this time. There was no reason that the powers that light represented would ever listen to one such as him, little say respond to his call for help.

A moment later he saw two figures in the light, bobbing like corks in a fast-moving stream. A small, blonde-haired woman came first. The Glasduine stood in her path, swaying and unbalanced. She hit feet-first, knocking it off its feet before she bounced from its broad back and went sprawling onto the dirt beyond it. The Glasduine was just recovering from her impact when the second figure, this time a dark-haired man, smashed it with a full body check, knocking the creature down again.