Charles de Lint - Forests of the Heart

“She never came back last night.”

“Bloody hell.”

“How’d you get here?” Chantal asked.

“I feel like I swam, and uphill to boot. My van got bogged down in a puddle the size of a lake over by Battersfield and I came the rest of the way on foot. The roads are pure shite, sheets of ice from one side to the other. So what’re you lot up to?”

There was the smell of the wolf about him, Bettina found herself thinking.

“We’re just checking to make sure everyone’s okay in the cabins,” Chantal said.

“You mind if I go in the big house and dry off?” Donal asked.

Bettina thought that perhaps she did. She’d been uneasy with him the first time they’d met. Today she didn’t trust him at all, though she couldn’t have said why. But they couldn’t simply send him away, not in this weather.

“Sure,” Chantal told him, obviously unaware of the signals Bettina was receiving. “Go in through the kitchen door. If no one’s there, help yourself to some coffee. We won’t be long.”

“Brilliant. I’ll see you inside when you get back.”

Bettina stood where she was, watching him go, until Chantal touched her arm.

“Earth to Bettina.”

She turned to look at her friend. “Perdona. It’s just… he worries me, that man.”

Chantal’s gaze went past Bettina, following Donal as he reached the kitchen door and went inside.

“Is this magic worry or everyday worry?” she asked.

“I can’t tell,” Bettina said. “It’s only a feeling.”

Chantal’s gaze returned to Bettina. “What do you know about him?”

Bettina shrugged. “Nothing. Just that he’s a friend of Ellie’s.”

Chantal considered that for a moment.

“Well,” she said finally. “Nuala won’t let him get out of line. And we won’t be long. Unless you want to keep arguing about who’s going to knock on the Recluse’s door.”

“We’ll save her for last,” Bettina said. “Besides, there’s smoke coming from her chimney. I’m sure she’s okay.”

“At least the place isn’t made of gingerbread,” Chantal said as they walked by, their footsteps crunching in the snow.

Bettina gave her a confused look.

“You know,” Chantal said. “As in Hansel and Gretel, wicked witches eating innocent passersby.”

“Oh, the fairy tale.”

“Well, yes. Jeez, where did you grow up?”

“In the desert.”

Chantal ducked under a low-hanging branch that was twice its usual diameter with the thick sheath of ice coating it.

“I knew that,” she said.

“I learned different stories,” Bettina told her as she ducked under the branch as well.

A twig caught in her hair. When she pulled free, dozens of little shards of ice fell around her, tinkling on the ice-encrusted snow.

“Is it always like this in the winter?” she asked as she caught up to Chantal.

“Pretty much. I mean, we always get some freezing rain, but I can’t remember it ever being this bad before. Something else we can blame on El Nino, I suppose.”

“Since we won’t take responsibility for it ourselves.”

Chantal nodded thoughtfully. “That’s true.”

They’d reached the first of the cabins. Chantal rapped on the door with a mittened knuckle.

“Anybody home?” she called.

Perfect, Donal thought as he slipped into the kitchen. He paused a moment to get his bearings, then crossed the floor to where a door opened out into a hallway. The sculptors’ studios were all on the ground floor, he remembered from when he’d come up for a couple of parties with Jilly, though that was years ago. Still, he doubted things had changed much. He stopped again in the main hall, undecided, then he heard footsteps approaching. Turning, he saw a short blonde woman wearing a Walkman.

“Hello, there,” he said.

This moment’s mask was warm and friendly, projecting all harmlessness and charm. He had every right to be here. No, he was expected to be here.

The woman pulled the earphones from her head. “Hello. Are you looking for something?”

“I just need to know where the sculptors’ studios are.”

“Down that hall,” she told him, pointing. “Follow the right turn, then it’s the next three or four doors on your right.”

“You’re a dear,” Donal said, letting his accent grow a little stronger. He turned up the wattage on his smile. “Ta.”

She returned his smile, and then he was off again, ambling, no hurry, no worry, until he turned a corner and quickened his pace. He counted doors, opening the third. He took a quick look, definitely a sculptor’s studio, but he didn’t recognize anything that belonged to Ellie and there was no mask. He tried the next room. Bingo. There it was, lying on what must be Ellie’s work-table as though it were no more than some curious knickknack.

He glanced down either side of the hallway, saw he was still alone, and slipped into the room, closing the door behind him. There was no lock, but he didn’t need any more time than it would take to slip the two halves of the mask into one of the oversize pockets of his coat. Crossing over to the work-table, he studied Ellie’s sketches. There were more of Bettina and the woman he’d seen her with outside than there were of the mask, but enough that he could see where she was planning to go with it.

No doubt about it, it would be a beauty. But it wasn’t necessary. All that was needed was a little glue and what was already here would do admirably—he was sure of it. Never mind the Gentry’s convoluted plans. They were only complicating matters. The mask was here, the two pieces so long separated finally brought together again. Jaysus, wasn’t that magic enough?

He could feel the power pulsing in the wood when he picked the pieces up and fit them together. The join was almost seamless. He hesitated, smoothing the wood with his thumbs, but couldn’t resist fitting the mask up against his face, carefully holding the two pieces together. For a moment there was nothing, only the odd view of the room as seen through the eye slits and a deep, woody smell—mulch and black dirt and old rotting wood all swirling together into a heady brew. But then he could feel the mask settling against his face, embracing his features as though it was no longer wood, but something more pliable like cloth, fitting itself to the contours of his face.

Spooked, he started to pull it off. The bloody thing wouldn’t budge.

What the… ?

He didn’t panic until the burning began. It felt like the mask was metal, hot from the forge, pressed against his face, searing his skin. The pain dropped him to his knees. He scrabbled at the mask with his fingers, trying to find the edges, but there was no longer any differentiation between the mask and his body. The edges of the mask had grown into his skin. He dug harder, fingernails burrowing into what felt like bark and pulpy plant tissue. His hair and beard were thick vines now, sprouting tendrils and splays of leaves. He could feel his body swelling, pressing against his shirt and coat until the cloth split along the length of his spine.

The pain spread everywhere, burning deep into his chest, his groin, his limbs. He pressed his head against the floor, fell over onto his side, still clawing at the mask.

Sweet Jaysus…

He could hear a distant wailing and realized it was his own voice, a desperate, wretched sound that rang only in his head because his jaws were locked shut, more wood than flesh and bone.

He found himself remembering a bad acid trip he’d taken once. His last one. No sooner had he dropped the tab, than he knew it was all going wrong and there was not a thing he could do until the drug had worked its way through his system.