Laura Gilman - Heart of Briar

He was not supposed to be here. He was not supposed to be in this place; it was morning, and every morning he...he... What did he do? The memory glided out of reach, taunting him with the memory of pale green eyes and soft skin, lighter than his and soft as a peach....

“Eat, sweet.”

He ate, although he couldn’t have identified what he was eating. Not a peach, although it was sweet, and soft, like overripe fruit, but without any juice, and the moment he finished it, the taste was gone, nothing lingering in his mouth or throat. He felt languid, drained, his usual energy faded to nothing.

A hand took up his, sliding against his fingers, the tawny skin almost translucent...did it glow? He could not trust his eyes, he could not remember his name.

They had hurt him, until the pain was too much, and then offered him a way out. All he had to do was let go, let go of...what?

“Walk with me.”

He walked, although he could barely feel his feet, unable to resist that voice. The path they followed was plush with pale green grass, and the trees reached overhead, blocking any view of the sky. It was night, he knew that—or thought he did, anyway. He had left his apartment at night, drawn by urgency, a fear that she would not wait for him.... He had...

What had he done?

There was a low, steamy-sounding hiss and a dry, metallic rattle somewhere behind him, then the low sweet voice whispered something and the rattle went away, fading into silence. The rattle-voiced ones were everywhere, but they never came close enough to see.

He shook his head as though bothered by a fly, and his feet stopped moving. He looked up at the branches, trying to see beyond them. This...wasn’t right. He had left his...apartment.... Why? What had he left behind?

Skin like a peach, sweet and succulent. Eyes like leaves. But who?

“Easy, sweet. Do not worry. All is well.”

The soft voice wound around him, bringing him back.

Stjerne. The voice was Stjerne’s.

The name brought memories to fill the gray void. Her hand in his, her lips on his skin, solace and cool comfort against the unbearable pain. She had brought him here and given him food to eat and wine to drink, and now she walked with him, her fingers laced in his own.

“Come. Walk with me.” It was less a request than a command, this time. The fingers were cool against his skin, her voice soft and heavy in his ears.

Tyler was not certain he wanted to go anywhere but could not resist. He breathed the air and smelled the same sweet scent of the food he had been given, the perfume that floated around Stjerne herself, and then exhaled. Chasing after a worry had never helped; whatever he’d forgotten couldn’t be that important, or he’d remember it soon enough. And a walk might help, yeah. It certainly couldn’t do any harm.

She led him through the garden, to a building made of silvery stone, where others waited. He tensed, the faded memories telling him what would come next.

“Do you trust me, sweet?”

Of course he did. He nodded, and she handed him over to those others. They took him, took his clothing, dripped too-sweet water into his mouth, and forced him to swallow, and left him naked and shivering in the odd light, his skin both cold and too warm, unable to move, feeling the clank-and-whir of things settling over his skin.

They had done this before. Before, and again and again...

“Stay with me,” she said. “Feel me. Give in to me. It will all be over soon.”

It would never end. He knew that, a split-second of clarity before the feel of tiny claws digging into his skin intensified, burning like drips of acid down through to bone. They held him down on the chair of feathers and thorns, the one that Stjerne said was his throne, built just for him, to sit by her side, and impaled him and burned him, a little more each time.

“Can you feel me, sweet?” Stjerne, just out of range, just beyond touch.

Tyler would have nodded, but he could not move. “Yes.”

He could. No matter what they did to him, he could feel her there, like the sun that he could never quite find anymore, the only warmth in this world.

Sometimes, he could remember another voice, another touch...brighter lights and different sounds, different smells. But they faded, and there was only her. She protected him. She took care of him. She would make them stop this, silence the voices and take him by the hand and lead him along the path that ended in a warm soft bed and cool hands stroking him to incredible pleasure. Everything she had promised. And all he needed to do was...what?

He focused, trying to remember, and her hands touched him again, calling him back.

“Open to me,” she said, her voice spice and smoke, swirling around him. “Let me in, and we will be together forever, you by my side, never aging, never dying. Sweet days and sweeter nights, and everything you could dream of, I will give you, once you let me in.”

The feathers swept and the thorns dug, and he could feel the things the chair was doing to him, scouring out what had been. Agony. Stjerne’s lips touched his, her scent filling his nostrils, and all he wanted to do was please her, so that she would make the pain go away.

But something resisted, held on. If she were in him, where would he go?

* * *

“There’s no more time to dither, or wait for you to make up your mind. We have to go. Now.” AJ was getting more agitated, his muzzle twitching with every breeze. A middle-aged woman pushing one of those wheeled shopping bags in front of her slowed down and stared, then sped up again when he growled at her.

“AJ.” Martin sounded scandalized.

Jan was now pretty sure that she had lost her mind. Or the entire world had been insane all along, and she was only now realizing it. But even if it was mad, it was real—and the mad ones were the only people who were taking her seriously. Even if what they were saying was impossible, insane, crazy. Even if what she knew she had seen was impossible, insane, crazy.

Maybe she was hallucinating all this: Tyler was actually asleep in bed next to her, snoring faintly, and she had dreamed it all, his disappearance, and everything since then....

It was real. She was stressed, and tired, and tearful, and afraid of that thing she had seen on the bus, more than even AJ’s teeth, or Martin’s...whatever it was Martin was, but she couldn’t deny that it was real.

“Go where?” she asked.

“Somewhere safe,” Martin said. “Where we can protect you. And explain things better, not...so out in the open.”

“Now,” AJ repeated, practically shoving them into movement.

Martin frowned, clearly trying to remember where he had left their vehicle, and then pointed back toward town. “That way.” They walked four blocks away from the park, to a street lined with old Victorians in various states of repair, and stopped in front of a small, dusty, dark red pickup truck.

Her lips twitched, looking at it. “I thought you nature types were all supposed to be environmentally conscious?”

“Funny human,” AJ growled. “Get in.”

AJ drove, while Martin sat on the passenger side, Jan squeezed between the two of them. Martin took her hand again, the way you would someone on the way to the doctor for surgery, to reassure them—or to keep them from bolting. She stared down at the black polish on his nails, then past him out the window. Neither of them tried to talk to her, or to each other, for which she was thankful. Anything more, and she thought her head might fly apart, or she might really throw up this time.

She needed time to take it all in, to figure out... No, there was no figuring out. She just had to roll with it until something made sense again.

They had an answer to what had happened to Tyler. She clutched that thought, warmed herself with it, soothed her uncertainty and the awareness that getting into this truck might have been the last, stupidest thing she’d ever have done.