“There is nothing harder than a moment like this,” the seer said. “When you would give anything to help those you love, but there is absolutely nothing that can be done.”
Holly gave another nod. She wished they’d never come. Better to have stayed at the store, living with ignorance and the hope that ignorance allowed, than to have to deal with this awful feeling.
“There’s got to be something we can do,” she said, knowing there was nothing. “Someone we can talk to.”
Mother Crone hesitated. “I don’t know if it would make things better or worse,” she finally said, “but we could go the edge of the Wordwood. Perhaps something’ll come to us when we’re standing there, seeing it firsthand.”
Holly scrambled to her feet. “I’m ready to go. Geordie!”
Mother Crone arose as well.
“This could be harder on you than waiting here,” she said.
“Harder than dying in the Wordwood like our friends are?”
Mother Crone shook her head.
When Geordie came back to where they were standing, Holly quickly explained what they were going to do.
“I’m in,” he said as she knew he would.
“You should go back to the store,” she told Dick.
The hob shook his head. “I won’t, Mistress Holly. I won’t let you go alone.”
“I won’t be alone,” she said. “And someone needs to look after Snippet in case, you know …” We don’t come back, she was about to say. “We’re gone for a while.”
Dick began to shiver, but before Holly could comfort him, Mother Crone stepped forward and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t worry, Master Hob,” she told him. “I’ll bring them back.”
He gave a glum nod.
“I knew coming here was a bad, bad idea,” he said. “I just knew it.”
In the end, Mother Crone sent Edgan back to the store with Dick. Under the protests of some of the other fairies that had been following the various conversations and were determined to come as well, she would only allow Hazel to accompany Geordie, Holly, and herself into the otherworld.
“But if it’s so dangerous …” one of the human-sized fairies began.
“It’s not,” Mother Crone said. “We’re going to scout, not to fight a war.”
“But if it’s not dangerous,” the fairy went on, “then there’s no harm in us coming.”
“I would prefer not to have a crowd,” Mother Crone said.
She spoke in a tone of voice that was mild, but would brook no argument, and there were none. She turned to Holly and Geordie.
“Have either of you crossed over before?” she asked.
They both shook their heads.
“Then be forewarned,” she told them. “The crossing can make you a little nauseous.”
No more than she was already feeling, Holly thought. She couldn’t stop thinking of the others, trapped in this stupid dying Web site/magic world that she’d had a hand in creating. It made her sick to her stomach. Her chest so tight it was hard to breathe.
“What do we do?” Geordie asked.
“Do?” Mother Crone said. “You don’t have to do anything.”
“Are you going to use this … this widdershins magic?” Holly asked.
“Widdershins to what?” Mother Crone replied.
“I don’t know. I just heard …”
Holly’s voice trailed off.
“You will be safe with me,” Mother Crone said. “Just so long as you stay by me and don’t go straying off on your own.”
She lifted her hands above her head and brought them down with a sweeping arm-wide motion on either side of her body. When her hands touched just in front of her knees, there was a shimmer in the air, like the wall had shimmered in the store’s basement, and then they were looking in at a place that shouldn’t be there. Here in the middle of a mall, with the night still dark outside, they were looking through a portal at a sunny field, mountains in the distance beyond them.
Another world.
Mother Crone and Hazel stepped through, followed by Geordie. Holly bent down and kissed Dick on the forehead, then took a steadying breath and followed after.
Robert
It was a longer trek than Robert had thought it would be, walking to the Wordwood from the crossroads where he’d left the three transformed hellhounds. But he knew how to pace himself, and he knew how to make good time, taking shortcuts where he could, so it was a quicker trip for him than it might have been for another. Quick, but rough going in places. When he finally drew near enough to see the grey mists in the distance, his fancy shoes were scuffed and dusty, his suit wrinkled, with sweat stains growing under the arms and on his back where his guitar hung, slung from the thin braid of leather that he used as a strap on the odd occasions when he needed one.
He could sense the passage of the others where they’d made this same journey, hours ago. Saw where Aaran had left the road, where Bojo had gone after him, where they’d both come back on the road again. He paused for a moment, studying the fields, wondering what had drawn Aaran away. When he looked back in the direction of the Wordwood, he saw a figure on the road approaching him. He swung his guitar around in front to give him quick access to it and patted the holster under his coat where his Peacemaker hung. But as the figure drew nearer—and when he could finally reach out with his thoughts and read her—he knew neither would be necessary.
She was a big woman—easily as tall as Bojo and twice the tinker’s weight. Her hair was thick and brown, a waterfall of curls and ringlets that splayed out over her shoulders and halfway down her back and chest. She walked with a rolling gait, her feet bare, the mass of her body covered with a brightly-coloured muumuu. Instead of the usual large flowers one might expect on such a garment, hers was decorated with large cabalistic symbols and astrological signs.
Everything about her was large, but especially her spirit. That spirit was so big that even a body her size was unable to contain it. When Robert looked at her, she seemed to shine as bright as a sun.
As they drew near enough to each other to exchange words, the woman lifted a meaty hand and favored him with a smile so infectious that he couldn’t help but grin back at her.
“Hey there, stranger,” she said. “I sure hope you’re not on a pilgrimage today.”
“Why’s that?” Robert asked when they came abreast of each other. He gave a tug on the braid of leather that held his guitar so that it swung around onto his back once more.
“It’s all blocked up a-ways from here,” the woman told her. “Damnedest thing I’ve ever seen in this place. I don’t think there’ll be anything going in or going out for a while, which might be a good thing, considering.”
“Oh?”
“I don’t know what all’s going on behind the wall of mist, but I know it can’t be good. It just feels wrong, you know what I’m saying? Name’s Lindy, by the way. Lindy Brown.”
Robert lifted his eyebrows and she grinned back at him.
“Oh, that’s just what people call me,” she said. “I know enough not to be handing out to my name to just anybody, even a handsome stranger such as your own self. But it sounds so unfriendly saying, ‘You can call me Lindy,’ like we’ve got to drive home the fact we don’t trust each other.”
Robert smiled and held out his hand. “I’m Robert.”
“Pleased,” she said, giving his hand a shake. “It’s been quiet on these roads, the past few weeks. Seems I’ve been meeting next to nobody, and I guess I’ve got what feels like a year’s worth of words stored up in my head, just waiting to get out. Oh, don’t you worry,” she added, holding up a hand. “I’m not expecting you to hear ‘em all out. I just mean it’s nice to say how-do to somebody for a change.”
“Did you see anybody up that way?”
Lindy shook her head. “ ‘Fraid not. You lose someone?”
“Just had some people travelling ahead. I was hoping to catch up to them soon.”
“Well
, if you didn’t meet ‘em coming back already, then they must have gone around that wall of mist, which isn’t something I’d ever do. It’s all quicktime land on either side and they could be anywhere by now.”
“I’m pretty good at finding my way around in here.”
“I’ll just bet you are. Me, I stick to the realtime routes I know. That’s why I’m heading back to find me a cross-path that will take me around.”
“Mabon’s not that far back.”
She nodded. “I know. I passed it coming in. But there’s a footpath this side of the city that I mean to take. It’ll save me a few hours that I’d lose going through the city. Not that I’m in a particular hurry. I’m just not partial to crowds, most of the time.”
“I know the feeling.”
“You’re welcome to tag along with me, if you have a mind.”
“Thanks,” Robert said, “but I think I’ll pass. I’ve got an itch to see this wall of mist up ahead.”
“Just be careful you don’t get too close. I surely mislike the feel of that place, damned if I can tell you why. It’s just wrong.”
“I’m always careful,” Robert assured her.
But he understood her concern once he’d left her behind and reached the mist. It was definitely the Wordwood in there behind that grey wall. He had no trouble recognizing the feel of the place from the little of it he’d tasted back in Holly’s store. And he could also see that Christy and the others had gone into it. He studied it for a long moment, then just as Bojo had done earlier in the day, he bent down, picked up a stone and tossed it into the mist.
And never saw it land.
He nodded to himself. He’d seen this before, some piece of the between cozied up along the borders of the world. He reached in with his thoughts to see if he could find any of the others, but this piece of the between was either too deep, or the others had already travelled out of range. He couldn’t get a clear connection inside the Wordwood, either. The whole area behind the mist was swollen with an annoying buzz of static that made it hard to focus on any one thing in particular. But distracting as it was, he could still sense the presence of some enormous old spirit in there, and one other thing, another presence that reminded him of Papa Legba.
It took him a moment to figure out why. Then he had it.
It was because this second presence was also a gateway spirit.
Neither it nor the other, older spirit seemed healthy. There was a rot in the air of the place, a feeling that it was sliding into some deep and lasting darkness. Like Lindy had told him, there was something wrong in there.
Robert could fix it. He knew the notes he had to coax from his old Gibson, the music that would reach in and clean that place out. But he hesitated. He wasn’t sure that it made much difference which gateway spirit nested in that place, the one that was already there, or Papa Legba. The trouble was, if the loa wanted him to do this thing, then there was probably something he was missing. A being like Papa Legba usually had more than one reason behind his side of a bargain. There was the one he’d tell you up front, all open about it. But more often than not there was another, or others, hidden and secret. Twisty reasons that would give the loa some extra advantage over you.
He went back over his conversation with Papa Legba. The bargain the loa had offered appeared straightforward. If he got rid of the gateway spirit inhabiting the Wordwood—allowing the loa to take the place over, Robert assumed—Papa Legba would renounce all claim on Robert’s soul. Nothing complicated about that. If there was a trick, Robert couldn’t see it. And he supposed that the advantage of being rid of this competitive spirit and the subsequent control Papa Legba would have over the Wordwood far out-weighed his loss of one old bluesman’s soul.
Robert studied the mist some more, peering through its grey haze at the forest of old growth trees that lay behind it. If he squinted, the trees lost some of their definition and he could see towering bookcases superimposed over them, with aisles in between that seemed to go on forever. He blinked and the library was gone.
There was still no sign of the others, but he wasn’t sure if that was because they were elsewhere—taken by the vagaries of the between to some distant world—or if the static was stopping him from being able to sense their presence.
He swung his guitar around in front of him and closed his fingers around the neck. Muting the strings. Still thinking.
Did it really matter which gateway spirit used this place? One was pretty much the same as the other, at least so far as he could see. And if he did use a bit of gris-gris to clean this place out, did it matter if he was doing it for himself, or because he’d promised Bojo and the others to help fix what was wrong with the Wordwood?
That, he could answer. Of course it mattered. He wasn’t so naive as to forget that with magic, intent was everything. Using it for self-gain was never nearly so potent as a selfless act. Though that went with pretty much anything in life, and there was no rule against combining the two, was there?
Still, he hesitated.
“Having second thoughts?”
He turned to see that the crossroads loa had joined him. Papa Legba with his black hat, leaning on his cane, still playing up the fiction of his infirmity. Robert wasn’t surprised that he’d missed the sound of the loa’s approach. Gateway spirits had the whole business of popping in and out of thin air down to a fine art. Robert could do it, too, here in the otherworld, but it wasn’t something that came naturally to him.
“I’m just wondering what it is that you aren’t telling me,” Robert said.
“Well, now,” the loa said. “Considering the few times we’ve had the chance to talk, there’s a whole world of histories and stories we haven’t even started to touch on yet.”
Robert indicated the mist. “How about, specifically, what do you have planned for what lies behind this wall of mist?”
“What do you want to know?”
Robert regarded him for a moment. The complete lack of guile in the loa’s dark gaze. The half smile playing against that same apparent honesty.
“What do you hold sacred?” Robert said.
The question actually appeared to puzzle the loa.
“Sacred?” he repeated.
“You know what I mean.”
“I suppose I do. I guess I’d have to say Kalfou.”
Robert didn’t know if the loa literally meant “crossroads,” which was one meaning for the word, or if he was referring to the name that the Petro people gave to the more dangerous aspect of his spirit. Legba was the loa’s designation as a member of the Rada nation, the revered gatekeeper who provided the only means for voudoun practitioners to contact other spirits. Kalfou was his other aspect, a trickster who delighted in upsetting the natural order of things and caused unexpected accidents.
He supposed it didn’t matter, so long as the loa held it sacred. He studied Papa Legba for a long moment, still considering. The loa returned his gaze with that deceptive mildness in his own eyes, his earlier half smile still tugging at his lips.
Robert gave a short nod. “That’ll do. Swear to me on Kalfou that replacing the gateway spirit inside this place with you isn’t going to hurt anyone.”
“Besides that other spirit?”
“I can get rid of it without hurting it.”
“I suppose you can,” the loa said.
“So swear it.”
“I can swear that it’s not my intent to harm anyone, but you know how it goes. Supplicants come asking for favours, I can’t guarantee what they do with them.”
“Then swear that, to your knowledge—”
The loa interrupted. “Now I’m supposed to know everything?”
“You’re being evasive,” Robert said.
“And you’re being excessively particular.”
“I like to think of it as careful.”
The loa nodded, but instead of responding, he changed the subject.
“Can you feel it?” he asked. “Something’s gone bad in that place. I
t smells like a stagnant pond and it’s getting worse all the time.”
“What about it?”
“I can take it away,” Papa Legba said. “Whatever’s gone wrong in there, I can make it better.”
“Out of the goodness of your heart?”
The loa smiled. “Yes. Oh, I stand to gain—I won’t hide that. But surely you know this much about me: I can’t abide disorder.”
“Except when you’re Kalfou—and then you’re first in line to …” Robert hesitated a moment, looking for the least confrontational way to put it. “To make things interesting.”
“Do I look like Kalfou?”
Robert shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never met you in that aspect.”
“Well, I’m not. And time’s wasting. Every moment we stand here and argue, the rot behind that wall of mist grows stronger.”
That was certainly true. Even through the static that kept him from making clear contact with anyone behind the mist, he could tell it was worsening. The old spirit he sensed … its power was turning dark and restless. And he was inclined to believe that the loa’s intentions, at least in this particular instance, were honest.
“Just tell me,” Robert said. “Swear that you don’t intend to cause any harm.”
“That I can do. On Kalfou, my shadow’s name.”
“Then I’ll clean that place out,” Robert said.
When he loosened his grip on the neck of his guitar, the strings gave a small hum of anticipation—low, almost inaudible, but there came an answering echo from deep underground. He shaped a chord, fingers stretching in for what most players would be an extremely awkward shape, but for him was as simple as a basic C chord.
“I learned this from an old woman,” he said softly. “Back in the delta. She could sing a piece of this chord all on her own, harmonizing with herself.”
“What did she use it for?”
“Cleaning out bad spirits from a place,” Robert said.
Then he drew the thumb of his right hand across the strings. The chord he played rang out with far more volume and power than should have been possible from the small-bodied Gibson he played. It rumbled, deep and throaty, and that faint echo that had come a moment ago, from deep underground, returned and grew into a sound like distant thunder.