Charles de Lint - Forests of the Heart

The spider shook its head. Not I, it replied. I am but an echo of my father’s presence.

As am I, the hawk replied. “Àngwàizin,” Aunt Nancy said.

Bettina smiled. Yes, she thought. That was what was needed here. Luck, not power. The borrowed, not the owned. And the reminder that not all the spirits of la epoca del mito stood against them—only this one, and even it was not to blame for the horror it had become.

She reached forward and took Ellie’s hands.

“Hold my shoulders,” she said.

She gave Ellie’s fingers a squeeze, then let go and turned around. Ellie hesitated for a moment, then placed her hands on Bettina’s shoulders and fell in step behind her as Bettina approached the monster.

The Glasduine was twice as large now, barely contained by the wearied cadejos, a towering monstrosity that seemed only mildly affected by the pain that had so ravaged it earlier. Its lost arm had partially grown back. Glittering eyes focused their gaze on the two women. The kind smile Ellie had worked into the red clay of the mask twisted into a grin.

At Bettina’s approach, los cadejos finally broke from the Glasduine. One by one, they circled the two women, flowing like quicksilver, a shimmering rainbow of colored fur. Then, as they had so many years ago in another part of la epoca del mito, on the slopes below the Baboquivari Mountains, they entered her, vanishing into her torso like ghosts. Spirit dogs, adding their strengths to hers.

Bettina knew a surreal calmness. Her father had told her about it once, how it could come to you when you were in enemy territory and all the odds were against you. You told yourself, I won’t get out of this alive. I am already dead and there is nothing to be gained by worrying over the exact details, the how and when of it happening.

She held the rosary her mother had sent her in one hand, the strand of desert seeds wrapped round and round her palm, the carved cross hanging free. She called on the spirits of the desert, on the saints and the Virgin, to help her with this healing.

The Glasduine grinned hugely. It opened its arms to embrace them, the one arm stunted, the other long, a supple branch. Then lifting from between its legs came a third appendage, knobbed and swollen.

“Oh god, oh god,” Ellie moaned.

The sculptor gripped Bettina’s shoulders too tightly, hands shaking.

But neither the proximity of the Glasduine nor her companion’s fear were able to pierce the calm that had come over Bettina. Part of this was a gift from los cadejos, she realized, given to her so that she could face the creature unencumbered by fear, clear-headed, her entire being focused and sure.

Bettina drew on Ellie’s brujería and felt the warm pulse of it flow into her. She heard the supportive chants of los cadejos echoing deep inside her. The spirits of the desert drew close, the living presence of the aunts and uncles; of coyote, mesquite, and marigold; of cholla, lizard, and mountain lion; of turtle, poppy, and javalina. A hawk’s wings unfolded inside her chest. The soothing voice of St. Martin de Porres, the patron of paranormal powers, seemed to join her own as she sent a silent prayer to the Virgin.

Ave Maria

gratia plena

Dominus tecum

Benedicta tu in mulieribus

et benedictus fructus ventris tui Jesus

Sancta Maria,

Mater Dei

ora pro nobis peccatoribus

nunc et in hora mortis nostrae

Amen

She spoke the last word aloud and the Glasduine laughed, a harsh booming sound that echoed up and down the canyon. Bettina merely gave the creature a serene smile in response. Beyond fear or anxiety now, she was strong with Ellie’s brujería and her faith, bolstered by the support of those gathered here to help her and a host of invisible spirits. She stepped into the Glasduine’s open arms and laid her hands upon its chest, pushed through the tangle of vines and leaves to the bark beneath that served as skin.

The Glasduine’s laughter died, cut off as though severed by a knife.

Their gazes locked, Bettina’s and the Glasduine’s. The healing brujería mixed with that of Ellie’s mask and the creature’s own. White light flared, deep inside them and burst out through the pores of their skin like a hundred thousand laser slivers, blinding those that watched. The Glasduine’s vida en hilodela was immediately made pure.

But there was a price. Their blood turned to lava, hot and burning. Every nerve end screamed. Wailing filled the air, harsh and keening, both their voices howling their pain. The Glasduine bucked and Ellie lost her grip on Bettina’s shoulders. She went stumbling, blinded and moaning, before she fell into the dirt. But Bettina dug her fingers into the vegetative matter of the Glasduine’s chest and held fast. She repeated another “Hail Mary.” The Glasduine grew again, a sudden spurt that took Bettina’s feet from under her. She kept her grip, hanging from the Glasduine’s chest, forcing herself to ignore the pain, to concentrate on the task that had put her here.

Under the blinding light she could feel the darkness of the creature rising up once more, swelling like a maggot-ridden corpse. She caught the tattered wisps of the brujería born in Ellie’s mask, and holding onto them like a handful of threads, she plunged an arrow of her spirit into the morass, searching for some part of Donal that the Glasduine hadn’t already swallowed and taken into itself.

She had to navigate through the flood of the creature’s hatreds and lusts, experience the gruesome deaths of the Gentry, delve deeper and deeper until she felt she could go no further and was ready to give up. But finally, there it was.

A tiny, warm kernel of Donal’s goodness, hard-shelled like a seed, protecting itself from the awful stew in which it floated.

Bettina focused the arrow of her spirit until it was so small and sharp it could pierce the kernel and enter it. Before the darkness could rush in after her, she connected the tattered threads of the mask’s brujería to it, then sealed the opening she’d made and enclosed the whole of it, kernel and connecting threads, in a protective sheath. She waited only long enough to see that the kernel was beginning to swell, then retreated, her stamina spent.

She allowed the Glasduine to expel the arrow of her spirit. It returned to her with a shock, withered and trembling. Loosening the numbed grip of her fingers, she let the Glasduine fling her away. She hit the ground hard, went tumbling over the loose stones and dirt. Her fingers, the palms of her hand were raw, the skin burned away. There was nothing left of the rosary her mother had sent her. She could barely lift her head, but she did. She couldn’t look away.

The Glasduine had fallen to its knees. Illumination still flared from its pores, laser-thin and bright, a thousand blinding lines of white light. It was still howling, but the sound was different. Almost fearful.

Grow, Bettina told the seed she’d found in the Glasduine’s darkness. Be strong.

She said another “Hail Mary.”

She couldn’t bring her hands together—even the movement of air across the raw wounds was agony. With an effort, she managed to dampen the worst of the pain. Her gaze remained locked on the Glasduine.

The shafts of light began to swell, to join. The Glasduine’s upper torso drooped. By the time it had bowed its head, pressing its face into the dirt, all the shafts of light had joined into one tall pillar that rose up from the arch of the creature’s back. Colors swelled up from the bottom of the pillar, the familiar greens and golds of the creature’s vida en hilodela. A moment later and the light had swallowed the Glasduine whole.