Charles de Lint - Forests of the Heart

“It’s okay,” Chantai said. “There’s plenty of us to do what needs to be done. You go on and deal with, you know, the stuff you deal with.”

Her smile was a little too bright, Bettina thought, but she didn’t argue with her friend. Chantai needed to be grounded more than any of the others. Bettina only wished she’d realized sooner how badly the experiences of the morning had affected Chantal. She would have prepared a soothing tea for the sculptor had she thought of it, but her own mind wasn’t as clear as it could be either.

“Cuidado , ” she told her friend. “Be careful.”

Chantal nodded and went to join the others, leaving Bettina standing with Nuala.

“Bien,” she said to the housekeeper. “What would you have me do?”

Nuala waited while the residents put on jackets and boots and trooped out of the house before she replied.

“I’m not sure,” she said then. “Is there anything in the lore of your people that can help us deal with this creature? Something that might tell us how it can be slain?”

“I won’t knowingly cause harm to any of God’s creatures,” Bettina said, her voice firm.

Nuala smiled. “God?”

“Who do you think made the world? Who else peopled it? Even the spirits are here because He gave them the gift of life.”

“Perhaps God is a woman,” Nuala said, her amusement still apparent.

“No estoy así seguro de eso,” Bettina replied. She wasn’t so sure of that. “It seems too much a man’s world for that to be true.”

“What if I told you it wasn’t always so?”

Bettina shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. But at least He gave us the Virgin to intercede on our behalf.” She smiled herself as a thought came to her. “Perhaps it is the same in God’s house as it is down here. The man thinks he runs the household, but the woman actually does.”

“You are such an innocent.”

Bettina frowned. This again.

“Don’t mistake my youth or peaceful intentions for ignorance,” she said. “I am a curandera. Something summoned me to this place for my healing talents—not as a warrior.”

“And if your life, or the lives of your friends, depend upon battle, what will you do then?”

“She will have me to fight for her,” a new voice said.

Bettina turned to find that her wolf had joined them in the kitchen. So intent had she and Nuala been upon their conversation that neither had heard his approach. Bettina nodded a greeting to him, but Nuala was furious.

“You!” she said, eyes dark with anger. “You dare enter this house—”

She took a step towards him, stopping only when Bettina moved to block her path.

“He is my guest,” she said. “And he is not what he seems.”

She hoped it was true. She needed it to be true.

“He is one of them,” Nuala said, her voice as cold as the ice that blanketed the landscape outside, “and you presume too much to protect him under this roof.”

Bettina straightened her shoulders and wouldn’t budge.

“I say again, he is not what he seems. Look at him. Do you see a darkness in him?”

“I see shadows.”

“But he is not like the others,” Bettina insisted.

Nuala narrowed her eyes, studying him. El lobo, for his part, lounged against the door jamb, regarding the pair of them with mild amusement.

“I see what you mean,” Nuala said finally. Her voice admitted defeat, but her wariness didn’t lessen. “He is, indeed, something else again.”

“I think I prefer your other friend’s description,” el lobo said to Bettina.

Bettina had to laugh.

“She called him ‘tall, dark,’ ” she told Nuala.

“Inferring the handsome, of course,” Nuala said.

El lobo grinned. “Of course.”

“Well, you’re no more shy than the Gentry,” Nuala said, “but at least you have a sense of humor that doesn’t depend on another’s misfortune.”

“I am everything they are not,” el lobo told her.

“Are you now.”

El lobo shrugged. “You would know best.”

Bettina turned to the housekeeper when Nuala made no reply. She could taste some undercurrent running through their conversation—merely its presence, not what it augured. All she could be certain of was that it had something to do with the ongoing enmity between Nuala and the wolves.

“What does he mean by that?” she asked. “That you would know best?”

“Better you ask him,” Nuala replied.

But one look at el lobo told Bettina he would be no more forthcoming than the housekeeper.

“And you call me childish,” she said.

That woke a laugh from her wolf and another frown from Nuala. But then the housekeeper sighed.

“You are right,” she said. “I shouldn’t measure you by my own experiences. Just because I was foolish when I was your age, does not mean the mistakes I made apply to how you choose to live your life.”

“I’m impressed,” el lobo said. “It’s almost an apology.”

“But not an explanation,” Bettina said.

“The history that lies between the Gentry and me is too long a story,” Nuala told her, “and not relevant to our present situation.”

El lobo nodded in agreement. “We have more pressing business anyway,” he told Bettina. “It’s time we were going.”

Bettina gave him a puzzled look.

“Because your fierce friend’s right,” he explained. “We can’t leave the Glasduine to wreak havoc out in the world as it surely will.”

“But what can we do?”

“If you can’t heal it, then I’ll have to kill it.”

She shivered, unsure if his breezy confidence was feigned or sincere. How he would even do such a thing was beyond her. If Nuala was at a loss, what could he, a sombrito, hope to accomplish?

“And it’s we who must go,” he added, “because—what shall I call you?” His gaze turned to Nuala, the laughter still flickering in his eyes. “My aunt?”

Nuala glared at him. “You could lose that tongue if it keeps wagging that way.”

“Our brave housekeeper, then,” el lobo said, ignoring her threat. “You see, she can’t, or at least won’t, leave her charge.”

Bettina gave him another puzzled look. What was it with spirit folk that had them make everything a secret and a riddle?

“Kellygnow,” he said. “This house. She would sooner die than forsake it now. Am I not right?”

Nuala gave him a reluctant nod.

Bettina recalled the recent argument between Nuala and the Recluse.

“Because it is your home?” she asked, wondering again at the need spirits seemed to have to claim a place as their own.

“Because it is my responsibility,” Nuala said.

“Which among us,” el lobo added, “amounts to much the same thing. After all, spirits of a place need a place. Without it, they become like certain wolves we won’t mention.”

“You would not understand such a thing,” Nuala told him.

“That is where you are gravely mistaken,” he replied. “My stake in this is higher than yours. My flesh is borrowed. Were I to shirk my own responsibility, this gift of a body I wear could well be reclaimed, leaving me nothing more than a shadow again.”

Nuala regarded him for a long moment, then slowly nodded her understanding.

Bettina shook her head. “But the one who gave you this… your body. You told me he was dead.”

“I didn’t only accept his body,” el lobo said. “I also accepted the responsibilities he once held when I took on his flesh. There are higher powers than us in the world and they are very specific in dealing with those who renege on their promises—at least among beings such as Nuala and I. Now come. We must go. Every moment we stand here, the masked one grows that much stronger.”