Kevin Hearne - Trapped

The Morrigan had told me to keep my magic use to a minimum throughout WWII, because she was going to be damn busy choosing the slain and couldn’t shield me from Aenghus Óg. The Pyrenees elemental was sympathetic to this and was anxious to help; who knew when I’d ever make it back if I got chased out of the area?

I needed to keep my draws on the earth to a minimum; both the Fae and the Tuatha Dé Danann could feel such draws if they were nearby, and thus I could accidentally be discovered. The Pyrenees helped me hide by doing plenty of things for me. If an elemental exercised its own magic, that was just the earth doing its thing, not someone exercising his binding to the earth.

An officer among the Germans had heard tales that someone named the Green Man was helping Jews escape, and he gave them enough credence to send a few squads looking for me. This was in 1941; they had France sewn up and the United States hadn’t gotten involved yet, so the soldiers were a bit bored and snipe hunts were a luxury they could indulge. Normally they would not have given me any trouble, but they caught me by surprise when they walked right into my camp while I was sleeping. They had automatic weapons, and I had skin that was fantastically vulnerable to bullets.

I cast camouflage right away and asked the elemental Pyrenees to help somehow. After a few seconds had passed, he caused a minor rockslide south of my position, during which the Germans thankfully did not hose the area with gunfire. They hadn’t yet determined I was the Green Man; I was just some crazy bastard sleeping in the woods. They shouted a lot, wondering where I went, and some of them stomped off to investigate the noise to the south. A few stayed in the camp, however, to see what they could turn up. They turned up Fragarach, and I almost broke my silence and begged them not to take it.

Sensing my distress, Pyrenees made me an extraordinary offer. On the other side of the rock wall I crouched against was a cavern with no outside access nearby. He’d grant me access by creating a door in the mountain and would disguise the whole business by massaging the crust underneath the soldiers’ feet for a minute. They’d think it was an earthquake.

I agreed and the chaos began. The ground near my campsite was suddenly unsteady, and one soldier squeezed off a round in surprise as he lost his footing. It took out one of his companions, then all the soldiers were falling to the ground on purpose and shooting into the forest, making the admirably paranoid conclusion that they were under attack. Fragarach was carelessly tossed to the ground, useless against machine guns. I created a binding between the leather of the scabbard and the skin on my palm, and it flew to my hand. I ducked into the darkness, and Pyrenees closed the door behind me. Good-bye, cruel world!

The darkness was so complete that casting night vision wouldn’t have helped. There was no light inside the mountain. The air wasn’t bad, though, so it was ventilated somehow. And it was damp in there—rather chilly too. Since I could not hear or see anything, I settled down to a fitful sleep. Pyrenees informed me when it was dawn.

I emerged from the side of the mountain, squinting, smelling pine, and listening to the morning song of birds. My camp was wiped out; the German soldiers had stolen all my stuff. It took me a week to resupply and get back there, but I had to make the trip; I wanted to see something no one had ever seen before. Pyrenees had kept this secret since before man roamed the mountains, and now he was sharing it with me.

I brought several lanterns and Pyrenees welcomed me back, opening the door for me once again. My breath caught when I saw what was inside.

There was no war and no genocide. No gods to please or offend. Just a cavern decorated by a few geological time periods. Keats wrote the perfect words for it, though he wrote them for something else: It was a foster-child of silence and slow time , filled with columns of slowly accreted stone and fingers of future columns stretching toward one another from the ceiling and the floor.

Small pools of dark water reflected my lamplight, and Pyrenees asked that I avoid them. The water was fine to drink, but there were five undiscovered species living in there. As I moved carefully through the cavern, I discovered that air flowed in from several different holes in the back, all of which were too small to admit a human body. Pyrenees explained that these eventually opened up into caves on the Spanish side, and that’s why I was able to breathe. I didn’t stay in there for long, just an hour or so, admiring the artistry and the patience it took to create such a space. I thanked Pyrenees effusively for showing me.

Almost eighty years later, I still remembered how to get to Green Man’s Retreat as if I had made the trip the day before.

Granuaile and I took lanterns and food up there after we shifted to earth from Tír na nÓg. When we arrived, Pyrenees was ready to do his part for Druidry—that is, move some rocks and dirt around.

Thornbushes don’t grow in the absence of sunlight, and there weren’t any conveniently close by the cave, as we had found on the slopes of Olympus. We had to descend downhill approximately three football fields before we found one. Pyrenees messed with the slope a little bit, building up a berm on the far side of the thornbush, creating a sort of cradle that would keep us completely concealed from anyone looking up the mountain. In order to see us, someone would have to draw even or approach from above. Oberon would be able to watch all approaches and give us plenty of warning during the day, and we’d take breaks at night and stay in Green Man’s Retreat to let the “scent of magic” fade, even though I doubted the Pyrenees would be infested with Bacchants anytime soon. I just wanted to ensure we’d be able to finish this time, and if that meant spending a little less time each day, so be it. I still kept healing my burns around the clock and already looked less frightening.

When we reconnected with Gaia and were ready to continue the binding where we left off, Granuaile said nothing about removing her underwear. She pulled up the fabric high on her hip for as long as it was practicable, and then, when it was necessary, she moved it down on top of the raw wounds without comment. She winced but made no sound.

“Thank you,” I said quietly, hoping against all my prior experience that she would understand the wealth of meaning behind the two words. A few minutes passed in silence as I slowly filled in the knotwork, one agonizing stab at a time. When she spoke, long after I expected any response, it startled me a bit.

“You’re welcome,” she murmured. And that did it. I stopped filtering my magical sight and let myself take a good look at the bonds between us. They were rich and complex and numerous, and somehow, without me tutoring her about what they all meant, Granuaile had discerned their meanings.

I sighed and spoke in low tones. “I owe you an apology, Granuaile—no, fuck hedging and weasel words, okay? I apologize,” I said. “I just plain apologize. It’s been a long time for me—many normal lifetimes—since I haven’t had to pretend to be something I’m not. Once you pass fifty and you still look like you’re in your twenties, every moment you spend in another person’s sight becomes a performance. You never leave the stage, and people notice when you slip out of character. The last woman I loved who knew I was a Druid was my wife, Tahirah. But she never became a Druid, and so she couldn’t see what you’re seeing. I’ve never had to deal with that. And she had no idea of the things I could see.”