Robin McKinley - Fire - Tales of Elemental Spirits

Miri put her hands over her mouth to stop herself from screaming.

Flame backed away a pace or two and then slammed into her, and she staggered forward, away from the encircling trees, out into the graveyard. She dropped her hands and whimpered like a scolded puppy, but raised her face to the sky and tried to imagine the touch of the moonlight like a real touch: like the nose of your horse or your dog in your hand, against your face or your arm, hoping for something nice to eat, or at least a pat; saying ʺhello,ʺ saying ʺI’m here,ʺ saying ʺhow are you?ʺ saying ʺcan I help?ʺ The moon was a silvery gold. The shadows on its face were grey, and there was no red anywhere.

She felt Flame’s nose on her arm, and then the sweep of his tongue, over the place where he had bitten her, minutes or months before. She did not look down. She did not want to see his red eyes. She stared at the nearest tombstone, so she need not look at the thing’s eyes either.

You’re too late. The boy has fallen; it’s over. He loves it here; he always has. Soon he will be here forever.

No! she cried.

Yes. He will die, because he will not want to live. And his mother will remember how he loved it here, and so he will come here, although his sweetheart will struggle against this.

No, she thought. No, no, no. She raised her hands again, and put them on either side of her face and squeezed, as if this were a known tactic in an emergency, like artificial respiration for someone who has stopped breathing, like not moving someone with a spine injury. No. . . . And Jane would never let anyone she loved be buried here in this place, this awful place. . . .

buried

Why? she cried again. Why?

The thing quivered as if it were laughing, and so she knew it was the thing who spoke—if speaking was how to describe what it did. She heard it; that was enough—more than enough.

A third voice: Do not ask why. There is no why. Because he can. That is enough. Because he is wicked. Because this is a place of power, and his kind are drawn to power.

Ah, Gelsoraban. You appear at the most unexpected moments. I should have thought you had grown weary of mortals by now.

I should have thought you had grown weary of wickedness.

Again it laughed. Never.

Well, then.

But you were born—created—cast and carved as were we. You of all of us have gone away from us.

Not only I. Jry and Krobekahl and Strohmoront too.

It seemed to her that the thing went still in a way it had not been still before, and that there was no laughter in it anywhere. That is not enough.

To stand against the rest of you? To create light where you have brought darkness? No, it is not. But it is a beginning. We have begun.

And then the thing did laugh again. Begun! You’re a dog . What is Jry? A squirrel? A frog? Perhaps Krobekahl is a tea-pot or a chair. And I have the boy. And through him this place—this place of power, as you have called it.

You do not have him! Miri said. He is my brother! He is human—he is daylight and breathing!

Not for long, said the thing. Not for much longer.

Give him back! she said. Give him back!

You can claim him, if you dare, said the thing, and it was obvious that it was sure she did not dare. I would not want Gelsoraban to think there is no—what is it?—mercy in me.

How? she said fiercely.

Why, said the thing, you need only ask—nicely—each of the nice people who lie here already. Who have lain here for so long with no one but themselves to talk to. They are quite looking forward to someone new. I have promised them, you see. You will have to convince them to give him up. I do not think they will wish to do so. I think they will need a great deal of persuading. Too much, perhaps, for someone as young as you. Someone as fragile as you. For daylight and breathing are very fragile—especially after dark.

She looked up. Sunset was fading quickly; the first stars were out above the remains of the clouds. Again she looked at the moon, and this time she willed herself to feel the moon’s light like the touch of a friend. And then she looked down, into the blazing red eyes of the creature she’d brought home from the pound; the creature that looked enough like a dog—though it obviously wasn’t a dog—that it had been taken to the pound. She remembered Ronnie saying: when Diane went out with the van she almost didn’t bring him back, because of the way he looks. Gelsoraban. And the horrible black thing that had broken her brother knew him. Who—what—was Gelsoraban?

Flame gave a tiny, doglike whine. It was exactly the whine of a dog who is suddenly sure its beloved owner doesn’t love it any more. It was like the look in his eyes at the pound; the look in Leslie’s eyes when she’d said, ʺWe’ll be fine.ʺ

And at that moment the black thing laughed. That was its second mistake; it must have thought that would finish breaking Miri’s nerve. But instead it drove her back on the things she knew. She knew that their mother would never let Mal be buried here. And she knew that if there was any chance for her brother, however remote, however dreadful, she would take it. And she knew that it didn’t matter what Flame was or who he had been—or what color his eyes were. What mattered was that she trusted him.

It didn’t seem right to stroke the head of something capable of defying the black thing—to stroke it like a dog. But this was Flame—Flame, whom she’d rescued from the pound, the top of whose head was particularly silky, as if to invite stroking. She drew her hand down his sleek head—and took a deep shuddering breath—and felt a little braver.

She didn’t want to ask the black thing what she had to do to talk to the ghosts, and so she walked forward— toward the black thing as it stood in the center of the graveyard. Her stomach was threatening to turn inside out and her knees were threatening to drop her to the ground, but she crossed the few steps to the first tombstone and hesitantly put her hand on it. . . .

She was dead and trapped and cold and terrified and smothered by darkness and paralyzed and dead and she couldn’t move and couldn’t breathe and she had never been so cold and this was darker than anything could be she was blind and dead and helpless and she could not see or hear or feel except fear and cold and this is what it was to be dead . . . .

No. She could hear. She could hear the black thing laughing.

She could see too. She could see Flame’s flaming eyes, even in this darkness, and she knew them for his eyes, not the thing’s. She thought, how lucky I am you are not a dog. I would not be able to see a dog’s eyes in this darkness. And I think I might be frightened to death if I couldn’t see you—couldn’t see your eyes.

She said—she tried to say—ʺPardon me, is anyone there? I’ve come to ask—to ask you—if I could have my brother back, please? We would miss him so much and—and I know accidents happen, but it wasn’t an accident, it was the black thing.ʺ

Loneliness. Loneliness, and dark and cold and death and . . . and going on and on. On and on and on and on and on. No change. Never. Just dark and cold and death . . . and loneliness. Especially loneliness.

Flame’s eyes blazed at her and she thought, wait a minute. Why are these—people—stuck here? Being dead and cold and lonely? Most graveyards aren’t haunted. She thought of the cemetery where her grandfather was buried. It was huge and beautiful and full of trees, and there were picnic tables and families came there on nice days and the kids played while the grown-ups changed the flowers and—sometimes—whispered the news to the person they were visiting. She’d always imagined her grandfather somewhere sitting on a long porch with a dog at his feet. The porch sometimes looked out over a wildflower field and sometimes it looked out over a lake, but the dog at his feet was always the dog he’d told her stories about, that he’d had when he was a boy. She couldn’t imagine him as a boy, so he was the grandfather she had known, but she was sure she knew exactly what the dog looked like, and how he would lie at her grandfather’s feet.