Suzi gives me a grateful look, which just makes me feel guilty. I’m expressing a faith in her that I don’t feel—it’s based on Saskia and the fact that it seems as though they have a similar origin.
But they all accept what I’m saying—one of the benefits of being considered an expert in this sort of thing, I suppose. Though with all the complications that keep cropping up on us, and none of us with a clear idea as to what they mean or what to do about them, I feel about as far from an expert as any of them.
“What can you tell us about the Wordwood?” I ask Suzi. “Do you know if the spirit has any weaknesses we can exploit?”
“I don’t really know a lot about either of them,” she says. “It’s …” She gives a small nervous laugh. “It’s really weird. I mean, I only just found out what I am, that all these memories I have of a life have been put in my head. When I actually stop and think about it, I feel like I’m insane.”
“I understand.”
She cocks her head and studies me for a moment. “You know, I think maybe you do.”
“So you can’t give us anything that might help?” Bojo asks.
She sighs. “The problem is, once I found out what I am, I did gain some memories of what it was like in the Wordwood. But I don’t remember it as an awful place. When I think about it, I get this really strong impression of knowledge and peace. I…” She looks at us, one by one. “You’ll probably think I’m just saying this, but I don’t think the Wordwood spirit is bad. The virus is doing this to it. Instead of making plans on how to fight it, we should be trying to figure out how to heal it.”
“Any ideas on that?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “And the encounter I had with it in Jackson’s apartment doesn’t add a whole lot of credibility to my theory. But I can’t shake the feeling that what I met there wasn’t all of it. It’s like the thought-fulness and kindness I feel when I think of the place I came from have been buried by this new cruel and vengeful persona. That it’s put the good in itself aside so that it can take its revenge without having to argue with a conscience.”
I find myself thinking of the red-haired woman who visits me from time to time, the one who claims that she’s all the pieces of me that I didn’t want when I was a kid.
“Like a shadow,” I say, and I explain Jung’s theory without going into the experiences I’ve had with my own shadow.
Suzi’s nodding as I talk.
“Isn’t that possible?” She looks from me to the others. “Couldn’t that be what happened to the Wordwood spirit?”
“Well, they say that spirits are much like us,” Bojo says, “only the canvas of their lives is bigger.”
I pick up my pack from where I placed it on the floor earlier and swing it to my back.
“We’re just going to have to play it by ear,” I say. “I don’t want anybody to get hurt, but I’m not coming back without Saskia and as many of the others as we can find.”
Bojo looks at the knife in his hand. He gets a shirt out of his own small shoulder bag. Wrapping the knife in it, he stows it away in his bag and stands up. Raul’s already waiting by the portal in the wall. He doesn’t look any happier than I feel, but just like me, he’s got someone in there that he’s not coming back without. I don’t know if we’re brave or stupid; I just know it’s something we have to do.
“We’re coming,” Suzi says.
I hesitate as she and Aaran approach the wall, as well.
“I know you don’t trust us,” Aaran says, “or at least me, but it’s something I have to do.”
It’s weird how his words echo my thoughts of a moment ago.
“Think of us as the spear-carriers,” he goes on. “If you lose anybody on an adventure, the spear-carriers always go first. So that’ll give you that much of a better chance to get out yourselves.”
“If that’s the case,” Suzi says, “I wouldn’t mind having an actual spear to bring along.”
I look at Bojo and Raul and they both shrug, leaving it up to me. My gaze returns to Aaran and Suzi.
“Let’s go,” I tell them.
I don’t want any long goodbyes. I don’t want to think about what I’m doing, where we’re going. So I give a quick wave of my hand to my brother, to Holly and Dick. Then I turn and step through the wall.
Christiana
I feel like we’re caught between all that’s good and all that can go wrong, that this ruined building in the Wordwood site stands right on some precarious border where Heaven meets Hell.
The spiraling rush of blue-gold light bursting out of Saskia’s limp body pierces the sky like a searchlight, casting a shimmering glow over everything. Highlights sparkle and flicker in the wiry lichen underfoot and flash on the low metal walls of the foundations around us. It makes for an astonishing glamour, as glorious in its own way as some of the fairylands I’ve seen across the borders. But all its bright wonder is sharply contrasted by the virus, manifesting here in the shape of the leeches, black and slick, reeking of sulfur and burnt wiring and hot metal.
It doesn’t feel right. Somehow it’s worse being bathed in this amazing light as the virus is about to kill us.
As though echoing my own dismay, I hear Saskia cry in my head, a long aching wail. She was plugged back into the Wordwood when the light first burst from her—connected again, if only for a few brief moments, to that long-severed link that once bound her to the Wordwood’s vast library of knowledge and the beatific spirit of the wood itself. It was as though she’d been taken back to those first few months after the spirit had created her, when she was still newly-arrived in the consensual world and could readily access the Wordwood’s knowledge with no more than a thought.
The cry she makes at that brief familiar connection is involuntary. She tells me that it wasn’t that she wanted to be a part of it again—surprise simply pulled it out of her—but at the same time, she can’t deny a sense of regret for what’s now gone.
I suppose it’s like coming out of the womb a second time … when you want to stay where it’s warm and safe, but you’re longing for the world outside at the same time. I can still remember that feeling, back when I was a baby boy—or at least a part of a boy.
But Saskia says it’s more like the comfort Christy knows when he’s researching a project and finally has all the material on hand. He doesn’t know it all, but he knows how and where to access it, and that’s what gives him the confidence to actually start writing. When she was connected to the Wordwood, she had this unlimited access to pretty much anything she needed to know about the world, which, in the face of all the unpleasantness she faced in those first few months, was what helped give her the confidence to become who she is.
So I’ve got Saskia wailing in my head. There’s the pillar of light, impossibly tall and bright and awesome. There’s Jackson falling apart beside me, head whipping back and forth, desperately looking for some way to escape, only there’s nowhere to go. And then there’s the virus, slagging its way through the walls on all sides, coming right for us.
I hesitate for a moment, then reach into the light and cradle Saskia’s body to my chest. That’s when I discover that the light wasn’t so much coming from the body, as somehow shining right through it, because the pillar of light continues to stream up just as it did before. The only difference is Saskia—or at least her body—isn’t part of it anymore.
I rock the body gently and try not to think of much of anything. I know there’s nothing I can do to stop the sliders, but they’re still going to have to go through me first to get at her.
It’s funny. I almost expected the light to burn, but it was cool to the touch. Saskia’s body still is. It seems to weigh nothing—no more than a gentle thought, or a dream. She’s gone quiet in my head as well, her presence like a feather.
I turn to face the nearest of the sliders. I’ve always said that when the time came, I’d look my death in the eye and not turn my face away. I’m a little surprised to find myself actually able to do it, now
that the moment’s here.
Saskia says.
I’m glad to have her back again.
It’s been weird, I tell her—like having her talking in my head while her body lies limp in my arms isn’t—but I’m still glad I met you.
And that should have been it. The virus should have been upon us and we would have come to the end of our story.
But a moment after I’ve taken the body in my arms, I feel a change in the light. I can’t exactly explain what. It’s not the temperature or brightness—more in its … mass, if that makes any sense. It goes from an intangible radiance to something with actual physical presence. But while that presence has no more physical weight behind it than the touch of a feather as it brushes my skin, its effect on everything around me is far different.
Glowing waves of the gold and blue light spill from the pillar, waves that undulate and wash over me before they travel on. Whatever they touch regains its normal form and colour. The lichen goes from dense fine wiring to vegetation, pale green and yellow. The stones change from metal to natural rock, mottled and patched with moss. Jackson becomes a regular black man, his dark hair tinged with highlights of red, his skin all these wonderful hues of mocha and chocolate brown.
And the river of light continues to spread out, wave after wave. A waxing tide of radiance.
The light envelopes the leeches, washing over their slick black bodies and melting the virus creatures away. The immense threat they presented only moments ago vanishes with their disappearance. And still the light continues to spread. The ruins of the building explode with colour—you never know how much colour there is in grey stone until you see it go from black and white to the way it really is. I guess you don’t normally pay attention to that kind of thing, but I’m sure paying attention right now.
I lay Saskia’s body gently down on the lichen and stand up. I’m about to ask Jackson to give me a hand getting her out of the building when everything shimmers, like in a heat mirage, and the building goes away, just like that. It dissipates into the ground, like it was never there. For a long moment we’re still on the crest of that high hill we climbed what seems days ago. We can see the light washing over the forests on all sides, leaving wave after wave of colour in its wake.
Then, like it’s all part of some stately gavotte, the hill begins to sink, its heights lowering until we’re standing in a large glade that’s at the same elevation as the rest of the landscape. Trees rise up out of the ground as smoothly and naturally as when the foundation of the building melted away earlier. It’s like watching one of those time-lapsed nature documentaries where the bud opens into a full blossom in moments, except these are trees,growing from sprigs with a leaf or two, to what look like hundred-year-old giants in moments.
My legs have a bit of a jelly-feel to them—the way they can when you step back onto land after a long boat ride. There’s a smell in the air of old forest. Mossy and a little damp, earthy. It reminds me of when I first crossed into the otherworld with Mumbo, when everything was still so marvelous and I was just a little tomboy of a girl, my ball-shaped companion rolling along at my side, propelling herself with her long spindly limbs. We spent a lot of time in that old forest in those days. Mumbo called it the Greatwood and told me it’s the closest echo there is of the First Forest, that vast tract of ancient wood that Raven supposedly called up out of the darkness when he made the world.
This cyber wood feels like that forest did. It has the smells and resonance of a close echo to the First Forest, except I sense an undercurrent of something foreign running underneath what I can physically sense and feel. I suppose it’s a digital pulse. The fact that I know everything I’m experiencing has its actual origin in binary code. But knowing that doesn’t lessen any of the wonder I experience as this enormous forest forms around us.
Saskia says.
I have no idea, I tell her.
I stand there with my mouth open for the longest time, then I finally turn to Jackson. But before I can speak to him, rooty vines come snaking from the ground to wrap themselves around our legs. They hoist Jackson up and tie him to the nearest tree, so that he’s hanging there, limp. The bottoms of his feet are a couple of yards off the ground, and he’s not even trying to get free. I guess he was already in shock from our escape from the leeches and the transformation of the ruined hilltop foundation into this forest.
I don’t struggle either, although in my case it’s because the vines can’t seem to find a hold on my legs. They keep sliding off like my calves and ankles are covered with a film of grease, allowing them no purchase. But that doesn’t stop me from being majorly creeped as they continue to writhe around my feet and try to crawl up my legs.
I step away from them, moving closer to Saskia’s body which they’re not trying to grab at all. They follow, new vines slinking their way out of the ground, but none of them can hold me.
Why can’t they get a grip? I ask Saskia.
Not that I’m complaining. I don’t want to suffer Jackson’s fate, trussed up in a tree like a spider’s prey.
Saskia says.
Maybe it’s because I’m not real.
Same difference, I want to say. And I’m still a shadow, no matter how much I like to pretend that my life is now my own. Considering my origin, how can I ever be anything but?
I keep my thoughts to myself. These days, neither Saskia nor I am all that strong on the self-confidence front—at least, not when it comes to what sort of beings we are. Animal, vegetable, mineral. Or just make-believe. Pick one.
So I just say, Maybe.
Neither of us is really feeling all that coherent either—or at least I sure don’t. I’ve been in some strange places in the otherworld, but nothing to compare to this. It’s like we’ve fallen down some cyber version of Alice’s rabbit hole, where nothing makes sense anymore. I’m waiting on the Cheshire cat or an army of playing cards to drag us away to the Queen’s court for judgment. All I get are the vines. They keep crawling up my ankles and I have to kick them away. I hate the feel of them as they crawl up under my jeans, the rough sound as they rub against the coarse fabric.
My gaze goes to where Jackson’s hanging from the tree. He can’t talk because his mouth is full of leaves now, but his panicked eyes are more than eloquent enough to get his message across. He reminds me of the Green Men, forest spirits I’ve met in the Greatwood from time to time. Root-and-leaf people like the Green Knight in his wooden armor, riding a red-flanked stag, or the Jill-in-the-Wood with her bird’s-nest hair and cloak of leaves— except they’re born of the green sap and they run free. They’re not trapped and hanging from the trunk of some tree the way Jackson is.
His eyes plead with me to get him down.
I’m torn between staying with Saskia’s body and going to see if I can help him. So far, the vines are still ignoring her limp body, but I’m not sure how long that’s going to last. Do I want to risk losing her to them while I try to give Jackson a hand? It’s not like I owe him anything. After all, he’s the one that got us into this mess in the first place.
But he’s a handsome man and I can be a sucker for a handsome man.
Saskia says when I put the question to her. As I expected, her heart’s so big she’s full of indignation that I’d even consider such an uncharitable course.
And if the vines go after your body while we’re cutting him down?
I’ve been standing, facing Jackson. Now that my initial surprise at the transformation of our surroundings is over, I realize that there’s still a blue-gold glow on everything—cast by that pillar of light, I suppose. I turn to look at it, only to find that it’s been transformed, as well.
There’s a man there. Or at least the pillar has taken on the form of a man, but there’s no way he’s
human, not radiating light the way he is.
There’s only one person he can be: the spirit of the Wordwood.
I’m not sure what I expected him to look like, but it certainly wasn’t this. Pressed, I’d have said an angel or a monster because, from other experiences I’ve had in the otherworld, that’s the way these beings usually manifest. They come in all shapes and sizes, of course, but in the end they will invariably be something to either wake awe, or strike terror. Which is why I try to avoid them. Too many of them are just these big picture beings with little or no consideration for the small concerns of the likes of you and me. Unless we get in their way, and then they can be merciless.
I’m not saying they’re always like that. And to be fair, most of the scary ones are more like forces of nature, so we really shouldn’t try to put our own concepts of ethics and morality on them. That’d be like criticizing a tornado or the winter for being what it is. You can’t, though it shouldn’t make you any less cautious around them. I can understand a storm, but that doesn’t mean I want to go out and tromp around in the middle of it.
But I’m getting way off the point. The real point here is that the Word-wood spirit has chosen to appear as the stereotypical image of a male librarian—you know, the lifelong bachelor—slight, a little stooped at the shoulders, wispy hair, white shirt with tweed vest and trousers, wire-frame glasses. I’d smile, but the fact is, no matter what he looks like, he’s still made of blue-gold light. He’s still a powerful spirit.
I find myself wondering if this is what he really looks like, or if it’s just some mask he’s put on—the same way that this forest around us masks the binary code lying at its heart. And if it is a mask, then what’s it for? I doubt it’s to put us at our ease, because he doesn’t even acknowledge our presence. All of his attention is on Jackson, hanging there in the tree.