Charles de Lint - Forests of the Heart

“Is the highway closed off?” Tommy asked the officer when he reached the window.

“No, but I’ll bet it will be soon. Where are you heading?”

“Up to the rez.”

“Bad night for it.” He peered closer. “Hey, you’re one of Angel’s people.”

Tommy nodded.

“You, too,” the officer said to Ellie. “I saw your picture in the paper last week.”

Ellie smiled. “You’re not going to ask for an autograph are you?”

“You got anything dry to write on?”

She shook her head and the officer laughed.

“Well, I’m supposed to be warning people off the highway, but…” He stepped back, took in the illegal tires. “I guess if it’s important…”

“It is.”

“You got a radio in case you go off the road?”

“CB and cell phone.”

“Well, you might as well go through. Take it slow, and—what’d you say your name was, son?”

“Tommy Raven.”

“No, shit? My name’s Tommy, too. Tommy Flanagan—like the piano player, though I can’t play an instrument to save my life.”

“Join the club.”

The officer stepped back from the truck. “Remember, slow and easy. And Tommy? I don’t want to see those tires when you get back to town.”

“Consider it done.”

“I will. Give Angel my best.”

Tommy waited until the officer had returned to his cruiser before putting the truck in gear and pulling out. He beeped his horn as he passed the cruiser and Flanagan gave them a wave, then they were on the highway, heading north.

Flanagan hadn’t been exaggerating about the condition of the highway. If anything, it was worse than he’d let on and it took all Tommy’s attention to keep them on the road and moving forward. On the plus side, there was no other traffic to contend with, which made the treacherous driving conditions a little less dangerous. But at this rate, the hour-and-a-half drive was going to take them twice the time.

Ellie sighed. “It feels like it’s never going to let up.”

“Just pray the temperature doesn’t drop,” Tommy said, “or we’ll be in deep shit.”

Ellie nodded. If it did, all the water and slush would freeze up solid and most roads would become completely impassable. Not to mention the problems it’d cause in all those places that had lost their power. Burst water pipes. No heat. Nothing to cook on.

“Christ, I should’ve thought of this sooner,” Hunter suddenly said. “Can I use your phone?”

“Sure,” Tommy said. “Who’re you calling?”

Hunter picked the cell phone up from the dash and punched in Fiona’s number.

“Miki,” he said as he waited for the connection to go through. “I should tell her about what happened at her apartment. That guy might have come by because the Gentry knew I was there, but what if he was looking for her? She could still be in danger.”

Ellie only half-listened to his side of the conversation until she heard him talking about the mask.

“I don’t think you should be telling her that,” she said.

“Hang on a sec’,” Hunter told Miki. He put his hand over the mouthpiece and looked at Ellie. “Why not?”

“Well, she’s Donal’s sister…”

“Didn’t you hear what they did to her apartment?”

“I guess. It’s just, we thought we knew Donal and look where that got us,”

“This is different. I’ve known Miki forever. I’d trust her with my life.”

“Like we trusted Donal?”

Hunter gave her a sympathetic look. “I never did,” he said.

Of course not, Ellie realized. Most people took him at face value. To them he was just this morose man whose basic moods were cranky and bitter. She should have done the same.

Hunter finished his conversation and pressed the “End” button.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to make you feel worse than you’re probably already feeling.”

“It’s okay,” she assured him. “I need these reality checks to remind me of how things really are.”

Tommy chuckled.

“What?” she said.

He shrugged. “Nothing. It’s just funny hearing you talk about how things really are when they’re so far from anything you’d even talk about before.”

“Ha, ha,” she said. She slumped in her seat, but her seatbelt made the position too uncomfortable. “Did I mention how I was hoping you’d keep bringing up these thinly veiled I-told-you-sos?” she asked as she straightened up once more.

She looked at Tommy, but it was Hunter who replied.

“Look at that,” he said, pointing alongside the road on his side of the truck.

“What is it?” Tommy asked, not wanting to take his attention from the highway.

“A dog,” Ellie said. “Pacing us.”

“There’s more than one,” Hunter said. “I can see a couple more a little fartherback.”

Ellie nodded. “And they’re on the other side of the road, too. They don’t seem to be having any trouble keeping their balance on the ice…”

She and Hunter exchanged worried glances.

“Oh, shit,” she said. “It’s the Gentry, isn’t it?”

“Don’t weird out,” Tommy told her.

“No, no. Of course not. Let’s not think about how that guy just flipped over a car like it was made of cardboard.”

“She’s got a point,” Hunter said.

“How many of them are there?” Tommy asked.

“It’s hard to tell. Six or seven.”

“And all they’re doing is pacing us?”

“So far,” Ellie said. “Maybe they’re just waiting for a really desolate stretch of road.”

“They’ve had plenty of that,” Tommy said. “My guess is they want to know where we’re going. Look,” he added, shooting Ellie a quick glance. “If they’d wanted to hurt us, they could have jumped us back in the city.”

“Except now they know we’re taking off on them. Reneging on this stupid bargain I didn’t even know I was making.”

“They can’t know that for sure,” Tommy said. “Which is why they’re following us.”

“Not anymore,” Hunter said. “They’re falling back.”

Ellie twisted in her seat to see for herself. It was true. The dogs now stood across the middle of the road, motionless, staring at them, growing smaller as the pickup continued to pull away from them.

“I don’t get it,” she said. “Why are they giving up all of a sudden?”

Hunter pointed out the window. At first Ellie didn’t know what he meant. But then she saw them, too. Strange figures standing in amongst the ice-coated trees. They were driving slow enough that she could pick out details but they didn’t quite register. Tall naked men, dark against the snow, swallowed by the trees where the shadows lay deeper. Their dark skin glistened, like statues coated by a fine sheen of frozen rain. Their hair hung in long braids, or matted dreadlocks; it was hard to tell. The headlights of the pickup flashed on small objects that had been woven into their twisted hair.

“My god,” she said in a low voice. “They’ve got horns.”

“Antlers,” Tommy corrected.

There was something strained about his voice, but Ellie didn’t pick up on it immediately.

“They’re just headdresses of some sort, right?” she said.

When she looked at him for confirmation, he was shaking his head. She slumped in her seat.

“More spirits,” she said.

Tommy nodded. “You got it.”

“How come all of a sudden we’re all seeing these things… and seeing them everywhere?”

“Aunt Nancy says that once you get a glimpse into manidò-akì —the spiritworld—you’re always open to it.”

“And these would be?”

“I’m guessing they’re the manitou,” Tommy told her. “The ones that belong here.”