Mike Shevdon - Sixty-One Nails

"Like here."

"Yes, like here. Do you trust me?"

Her question caught me out. It must have showed on my face because her eyes registered the doubt in mine. The truth was she had too many secrets.

"Do you trust me to show you something? Here and now."

"Yes."

Her hesitant smile acknowledged the gap between hope and expectation. Was my trust important to her? It shamed me, after all we had been through, that I was unable to offer my complete trust. Then again, she made it clear on a number of occasions that she had her own priorities and I had no idea how far they would press her. I wasn't ready to offer unqualified trust.

She walked around behind me, holding my shoulder to gently prevent me from turning with her.

"I'm going to ask you to follow my instructions. Where we're going I won't get chance to explain, so I want you to just do it and I'll explain afterwards, OK?"

"Why can't you explain now?"

"It'll make much more sense afterwards."

"So I have to trust you."

"Yes."

"You could just tell me."

"I could, but you've already found several disadvantages to being Fey. This is one of the advantages."

"Are you sure I'm going to like it?"

"Trust me," she whispered.

It was hard after the day I'd had. She hadn't led me wrong though. Perhaps I could trust her for this one thing.

She stood behind me, placing her hands on my shoulders, orientating me gently until I was facing the side wall of the underground chapel.

"After the first step, I want you to step aside and take a deep breath to steady yourself and then, when I step in after you, I want you to step back on the line of the Way and step again, straight away, understand. Don't say anything and try not to make a noise, OK?"

"What do you mean, steady myself?"

"You'll understand after the first step, I promise."

"Off the line and on again, don't make a noise. Got it." It was simple enough, but she was making a big deal about it.

"Remember what I said." She squeezed my shoulder and I nodded again. "Now, close your eyes."

I did as she asked, conscious of the pressure of her fingers on my shoulder.

"You remember how it was with the mirror in Claire's office, how you connected with it, called to it?"

"Yes."

"Feel below your feet. Feel the flow of energy there."

I reached down to the low vibration under the floor and tentatively felt towards it. Whereas the mirror had been still, like a windless pool, this was a torrent. It raged and crashed beneath our feet, surging along. I swayed slightly, unbalanced by its momentum.

"Steady. You're just trying to create a connection with it, not to hold it. Just recognise it. Say 'Hello' to it, acknowledge its power and accept it."

"It's very strong."

"Don't try and fight it, you'll lose. Just connect with it and let yourself be known."

I reached out into the torrent as you might dangle your hand into the water from a speedboat, feeling the buffeting from it and knowing its power.

"Now make a connection with it and take a step forwards, I'm right behind you."

"But-"

"I'm right behind you. Remember what I said."

Tentatively, I reached to the darkness inside. It was eager to connect with the torrent below. I showed it what I wanted and the darkness snaked down, faster than I had anticipated. I felt the torrent rise beneath me. I took a step forward and it crested up under me and surged, carrying me off with it while I screamed and yelled at the joy of it, forgetting everything she'd said about being quiet. It was like surfing and skydiving rolled into one.

My foot hit the floor and I stopped, staggering forward slightly. The echoes of my yell died around me. I opened my eyes and it was dark. I could still feel the river of power beneath me. I remembered Blackbird's instructions and stepped off the line just in time. A breeze turned out of nowhere and she melted into existence beside me.

"That was fantastic! Where are we?" I was excited and elated by it.

"Shhh." She pressed her hand over my mouth. "Hush."

Light spilled downwards, revealing a cellar space with a staircase leading upwards in front of us, the light spilling down the steps from a door opened above.

"Is there someone there?"

The voice had a querulous quality to it that led me to think it hoped that there wasn't. A light bulb clicked on to my right.

She whispered almost soundlessly, "Quick, before they get down here."

She pressed me to the line again and I stepped onto it, ready this time for the rush. The Way answered with enthusiasm and I was swept up on a tidal wave of power. I opened my eyes this time and I could see the sparkles and whirls of it, turning and running. I realised that unlike a river it didn't flow in one direction, but in all directions. My step landed and I was somewhere else.

I stepped off the line, further into the dusty shadows lined by the streaks of light, and Blackbird emerged after me, stepping from the breeze that whirled the dust up to streak the darkness with lines from above. I grinned at her in the dark.

"This time you follow me. There's more than one Way from here so I'll go first."

"How do you know which is the right Way?"

"I'm just choosing a direction, initially from the orientation of the church, and then after that it's all down to feel."

I watched as she stepped onto the line. A breeze sprang into life, swirling the dust up into the slivers of light from above and she was swept away. I stepped onto the line after her. I could feel the path of her presence, like a bed still warm.

I reached down into the stream of energy beneath me and welcomed it as it welled up underneath, carrying me into the depths across an emptiness filled with ribbons of light and dark, whorled and streaked, echoing with disembodied voices.

I had thought all the stops on the Way would be in the crypts or basements, but our next step surprised me by depositing us in a woodland clearing. Crows lifted from the treetops and circled around us, cawing their alarm as we slipped into their domain in a cloud of falling leaves. The trees were at the crown of a hill. Between the trunks you could see miles of open countryside laid out below us.

"Where are we now?"

"Near Hereford, I think. We need to head north from here."

The subtle change in her voice should have alerted me that something had changed but I wasn't ready for the shift in Blackbird's appearance. She had switched to the girl in Claire's conference room. The dappled sunlight filtering through the rust-tinted canopy showed me a young woman rather than an old lady.

"What's with the change?"

Her hair still held the vivid corkscrew curls from the girl in Trafalgar Square, though the glamour and polish of that earlier persona had been replaced by a casual beauty. The short skirt from before was now a long flared cotton one in gypsy colours and her top was sleeveless, in bold blue. A pale blue woollen shawl wrapped around her shoulders and down around her arms. She twirled around amidst the drifting leaves.

"What do you think?" She smiled as she completed her turn.

"It's fine, Blackbird, but I think I prefer the older you."

"Do you?" she challenged. "Or do you just feel safer?"

"You haven't answered my question, why the change?"

"I think a man your age travelling with a younger woman causes less comment, don't you? Anyway, I told you, I'm tired of hiding."

There was something about that little addition that rang differently in her voice. Not a lie, but it made me look at her more closely. She had acquired a freshness, a sparkle that had nothing to do with the autumn sunshine filtering through the trees.

"We'll rest here a moment," she turned away from my scrutiny to look around the clearing. "How are you holding up?"