“I think it was the Frelsian,” said Urszula. A pile of wood shavings accumulated on the carpet as she whittled away on her scepter.
“But how could he get here so quickly?” I said. “Could he have taken her in advance?”
“Why would he take my Grams?”
“I don’t know. Maybe as collateral?”
“My own grandmother? Collateral for you? But you’ve never even met her.”
“He doesn’t know that. He probably thinks you’re my girlfriend.”
Ellen’s eyes lingered awkwardly. I had to glance away. “Grams has friends in town,” she said. “Maybe I should call them. See if they know anything.”
“Uh, maybe that’s not such a great idea. We’d better lay low for now. The fewer people who know we’re here, the better, don’t you think?”
Worry was beginning to gnaw away at Ellen’s optimism. I could see it in the way she kneaded the cushion and picked at the loose threads.
“You realize,” I said. “If he has her …. I’m going to have to accept his offer.”
“No. You can’t. You shouldn’t.”
“But if he threatens to hurt your Grandma....”
“Makes no sense. Why would he hurt such a nice, old lady?” Ellen sank a little lower in her chair.
“To get me to go to work with him. And if that doesn’t do the trick, you do realize he’s coming after you guys next?”
“Let the Frelsian come,” said Urszula, swiping her blade aggressively against a particularly stubborn knot. “It is simple … we kill him before he kills us.”
“Don’t know if that’s possible,” I said. “He’s got some wicked skills.”
“Your magic is strong, too,” said Ellen. “What you did in New Jersey was amazing.”
“His is stronger,” I said. “And he can summon it in a flash. My stuff doesn’t always work right away … especially here … on this side.”
“Once I bond with my scepter, I will be able help you,” said Urszula. “This wood has promise. I can feel it in the flow of the grain. I just need to open my soul to it.”
“Gramps had a shotgun,” said Ellen. “I bet it’s still tucked away in a closet somewhere.”
“Shotgun’s no good against Wendell. And I’m not so sure we should reject Wendell’s offer. I mean, think about it. Wouldn’t it nice not to have to worry about Sergei? The people they want me to kill; they want to be dead. So it’s not really murder.”
“I can’t believe you,” said Ellen, mouth agape. “That you are seriously considering—?”
“And … and he’d pay me... us … an enormous amount.”
“We have money,” said Ellen, nodding at the courier bag.
“Not a whole lot,” I said. “It’s going fast.”
“Whatever he would pay us, we can’t accept it. It’s dirty money. Blood money.”
“But I could use it to send you guys away somewhere safe and far away. Wherever you wanted to go.”
“Without you?”
“Well … yeah. You’d be safer that way.”
Ellen frowned. Her gaze shifted and drifted about the room. “What if … you got him to pay you something in advance … like a signing bonus? I mean, if you said yes.”
“I guess. I don’t know for sure. We could ask.”
“So, what if you did that and bluffed him?”
“Sorry?”
Ellen was getting really animated now. “What if you said yes? Say yes. Get Grams back. Collect that first payment … before you actually have to kill anyone? Tell him you’ll do it, but don’t go through … don’t actually kill anybody.”
“He’s probably gonna want to see results.”
“We can take off. Make him chase us. He said he sticks to the northeast. So we go west.”
I inhaled long and deep. “I don’t know, Ellen. They’ve got assassins all over the world, I would think. And we’re not even sure this guy works this way, with all this up front stuff. He might want to see results first.”
“But you could ask. You could negotiate it.”
“I guess.”
Ellen’s face brightened and she sat up a little taller in her chair. “So do it. Say yes and go through the motions. That would buy us time to escape. We could leave the country, maybe. Go to Canada or back to Europe.”
“So you’re saying I should take his offer?”
“Only if it’s going to be a bluff. And if we make sure we get Grams back.”
I sighed. “Wendell wasn’t born yesterday. He’s gonna want some kind of guarantee.”
“What are you saying?”
“I mean, if he really does have your grandmother. Maybe he hangs onto her until I do the first job or something.”
The doorbell rang. Ellen and I both went rigid. Urszula rose and stalked towards the door, wielding her scepter like a rifle.
Ellen popped up and scurried over to the window, peeking between the curtains. She expelled a hearty puff of breath and laughed.
“Guys, relax! It’s Mrs. Fiorina from next door.” She strode out of the parlor and swung open the front door.
“Ellie? Is that you?” said a stout, dark-haired woman in a purple cardigan. She engulfed Ellen into her arms and kissed her on the cheek. The woman looked askance at Urszula with her tufts of hair poking in random directions, holding onto that rather phallic rod. “I thought you were still over in England.”
“Well … I’m back! Came over to surprise Grams, but she’s not here. Do you have any idea where she might be?”
Mrs. Fiorina scrunched her face. “Didn’t anyone tell you? Hanna took a bad fall back in April. Broke her hip. Had to have surgery with plates and screws, the poor thing. She’s up at the rehab hospital in Waterbury. Doing better, but it’s going to be another couple weeks before they release her. She had some complications. I’m shocked that you don’t know any of this.”
“Well. My coming back was kind of unannounced. It was meant to a surprise for everybody. But I guess the joke’s on me.” She forced a weak laugh.
“Well, it’s lovely to see you, dear. I saw the light on in the kitchen I thought I should come over and check up on things. Don’t want any burglars mucking about. But you know what? I’m going up to see your Grandma tomorrow afternoon. Would you like to tag along with me?”
“Um. Of course! Love to! Sure!”
“Alright, then. I’ll drop by tomorrow after lunch. Have a good night. And stay away from that liquor cabinet.”
“Oh, but I’ve gone dry now, Mrs. Fi.”
***
Ellen went out on the stoop to see Mrs. Fiorina off. When the old woman reached the end of the walk, Ellen turned into a dynamo. She swooped in, locked the door and wheeled to face us. “That’s it. We’re leaving. Now.”
“What?”
“Grams is fine. So we need to leave. If we stay here, Wendell will link her to us.”
“It’s probably too late for that,” I said. “He already knew we were coming to Naugatuck. So he probably knew about your grandmother.”
“The more contact I have with her, the more I put her at risk. So we’re getting out of here. We can take her car, go up to Vermont. My uncle has a summer cottage on Lake Dunmore. I doubt anyone’s renting this early in the season. From there, we can figure out where to go next. Maybe upstate New York. From there … I don’t know … maybe Toronto. Maybe Oregon.”
“But I thought you wanted me to bluff him.”
“The situation is changed. We don’t need to now. We know Grams is safe, and I want to keep it that way. Come on, guys. Out to the car. We’re going. Now. We’re not letting him come anywhere near us again.”
Urszula seemed amused and even pleased by Ellen’s transformation. I wasn’t nearly as thrilled.
“Jeez! Can’t I at least wash up? Change my clothes?”
“Do it quickly.”
Chapter 19: Danbury
One visit from a well-meaning neighbor dashed a whole passel of modest but selfish desires. I was gla
d that her grandmother was okay, but Ellen’s wanting to leave right away meant there would be no home-cooked meal, no catching up on TV, no quiet night in a cozy bed. But I was determined, at least, to get myself showered and shaved.
“The upstairs bathroom is nicer,” said Ellen. “You’ll find towels in the closet in the hall. And if you look inside the master bedroom, I think Grams hung onto most of Grampa’s old clothes. He kept fairly slim. Some of his stuff might actually fit you.”
“Does this mean we’re not going to TJMaxx?”
“Well, you need something to wear in the meantime, don’t you?”
“True.”
Urszula stepped out of the laundry room holding up a cotton floral print dress.
“Can I have … this one? It has pockets.”
“Um … sure,” said Ellen, with some hesitance in her voice. “That looks like one of her favorites, but … go ahead. You need some better clothes, too.”
Urszula proceeded to whip off her baggy sweat suit right in front of us, revealing her pale, undeveloped but wiry. She wore no underwear.
I just shook my head and started up the stairs. As I unzipped my hoodie, the clump of leaves and twigs in my pocket began to writhe. I really had to resist the urge to slap at it. It climbed out, shaping itself back into something much like a bat as it ascended my shoulder. It took flight, zipping around the room, exploring every corner and window.
Ellen screamed and grabbed a broom. “Oh my God! It’s back.”
“It’s okay. This one’s mine; I’m pretty sure.”
“What is this creature?” said Urszula, now practically swimming in the voluminous fabric of her dress.
“It’s just the leftovers from a spell that refuses to fade. A piece of my will.”
“That’s … Billy?” said Ellen. “Where’s he been all this time?”
“Oh, he’s been around,” I said. “He shadowed us all the way up from Philly.”
“Really?” said Ellen, putting the broom down. “He’s like a … a faithful dog. How sweet.”
***
The shower was glorious. Scalding hot water and plenty of pressure. I had to shampoo twice to get all the crap out of my hair. I couldn’t believe some of the stuff that littered the floor of the tub. Bits of spider web. Little pine cones. Dead bugs.
I turned that bathroom into an aromatherapy sauna with all of those flowery shampoos. I shaved with some five-bladed pink monstrosity of a razor and it was a real challenge maneuvering that bulky thing around the tighter contours of my face. I might have missed a patch or two below my nose, but I wasn’t fussy. I just wanted to remove enough of my scraggly whiskers to avoid scaring young children.
When I was done, I wrapped a towel around my middle and skipped out down the hall and into the master bedroom. It felt weird standing practically naked in a stranger’s bedroom, opening drawers at random and finding things like girdles and garters and voluminous skivvies.
Turned out, Grandpa had his own bureau—a massive stack of chests with drawers, the dark wood scarred and cracked, corners reinforced with ornate plates of stamped metal. He seemed to have an endless supply of long johns and thermal undershirts. I snagged a pair of boxers with a ruined elastic and found another drawer packed with green-gray Dickie’s work pants and an astounding array of flannel shirts.
There was sort a walk-in closet as well, but the few men’s clothes it held were scratchy wool suits and white dress shirts gone yellow around the collar. The old fellow had apparently had only two fashion modes.
So I went the work pants and flannel route. His stuff fit me well enough, a little wide at the waist but a belt took care of that. The pant cuffs rode a little high on my ankles, exposing baggy, white socks. Everything smelled like mothballs and old pine, but at least they were clean. This was just temporary cover anyhow, until I could buy my own clothes.
When I went downstairs, already Ellen had a pair of suitcases packed and ready by the door. She and Urszula were loading paper sacks with cans of soup, bags of rice and potatoes with eyes sprouting everywhere.
“Your Grams is gonna have nothing to eat when she comes home.”
Ellen looked up and gasped. She clasped a hand to her chest. “Oh my God! You’re like a ghost. You look just like him!”
“I look like your dead grandpa? Thanks a lot.”
“It’s just … that’s exactly what he would wear when we would come to visit … and he would be out working in the yard.”
Urszula knelt by the refrigerator and pulled out the crisper, retrieving a pair of onions and some wilted carrots. “No cabbage. No beets. No borscht.”
“Don’t worry Urs, we’ll get you your cabbage,” said Ellen. “Maybe up in Middlebury at the food co-op.”
Urszula looked more girlish than I had ever seen her in that dress, and with her wild hair brushed back and restrained with a tie. “My mother … it’s been so long since I thought of her … but she used to make it with sorrel. I saw some growing along the road as we were walking.”
“Sorrel? Isn’t that a weed?” said Ellen.
I scanned the corners of the ceiling. “Hey, uh. Anyone seen Billy?”
“I’m sorry, but he was freaking me out,” said Ellen. “I had to open the door and let him out.”
“No. That’s fine,” I said. “That’s exactly what I was going to do. He’s our early warning system.”
“Okay, then,” said Ellen. “Everybody’s clean. We’ve looted the kitchen. Outside and in the car. We’ve got about a three hour drive ahead of us.”
I picked up the suitcase, wondering if I should have grabbed more stuff from the old man’s drawers, but I figured I was better off buying stuff that actually fit me and didn’t make me look like a farmer from Newfoundland.
I was kind of sad to be leaving already. Even as empty and lonely as it was, this house really felt like a home. There was love and care in its organization, from the knick-knacks on the end tables to the pretty paper lining the silverware drawers. The place exuded an aura of family and comfort that I hadn’t felt in a long time. If I felt this way, I could hardly imagine how this might be affecting Urszula.
Not to mention, we never got to meet Ellen’s grandmother. As disinterested as I was in coming here back in Philly, now that I knew something about the lady, it seemed a shame to just slink away without as much as a hello.
I followed Urszula onto the porch while Ellen locked the door and tucked the key back among the flower pots. It was getting dark out. I didn’t have a watch, but it had to be close to eight o’clock or so.
“I feel bad for taking her car,” said Ellen. “But … I figure she shouldn’t be driving at her age anyhow.”
“Why? How old is she?”
“I don’t know … she has to be in her seventies.”
“Are you kidding? That’s not old to be driving,” I said. “People drive into their nineties these days. Tell you what. We’ll buy her a nice new Camry once I start work with Wendell.”
Ellen’s eyes pierced straight through me. “You will not be taking a penny from that man. Not if I can help it.”
“Just kidding.”
We loaded up the trunk and climbed inside, me riding shotgun and Urszula in the back seat with her scepter and her knives.
The interior smelled sickly sweet with notes of vanilla and cinnamon. I couldn’t stand it. I snatched the so-called air freshener sachet from the rear view mirror and tossed it out the window. Ellen frowned at me, but she didn’t protest. As it was, I had to crack my window open a few inches to make things bearable.
“So … can we stop at the TJMaxx?”
“To tell you the truth, I’d rather not,” said Ellen, looking pained. “I’m kind of anxious to put some distance between us and here. There are places in Middlebury, though. How about we do that?”
“Fine. That’s fine, I guess. You are gonna stop for dinner, though, right?”
“Of course. There’s a Burger King on the way to Route 8.”
; ***
We were on another highway—I-84, I guess—approaching a city called Danbury. My Whopper, large fries and large chocolate shake was making me sleepy. But before I could conk out, something gave way below me, as if the front seat cushion had collapsed. Fibers lengthened and wrapped around me.
Ellen sang quietly along with some pop song on the radio. From the blithe expression on her face, she detected nothing out of the ordinary going on in the seat beside her.
I wasn’t ready to go. This was the first time in a long time I wasn’t eager to cross. I would have much preferred just taking an ordinary nap and catching some Zs. But Root had come for me, without warning and against my will and there was nothing to be done but submit. Something or someone wanted me back.
Chapter 20: The End
I tumbled through the nether space that connects all worlds, falling no further than a person falls off a couch, re-materializing in a cozy room with curved walls, a bowl for a floor, and a dome for a ceiling.
A plush silk rug, round and boldly floral, filled the center of the floor. A glow reminiscent of a sunny day filtered through gauzy curtains. The windows were perfectly round. Even the door was round, just like a hobbit’s. A curving bookcase lined the back of the chamber, stocked with everything from the classic to the obscure. I couldn’t imagine how any of those books could be real, even though Luther had one open on his lap.
He reclined, propped on his elbow, in a day bed quilted with something plush and satiny. Empty beside him was a thick and blocky armchair of distressed leather, patches of suede marring the otherwise polished pebble grain. Bern knelt before a hearth, fanning pinkish flames that radiated a cozy warmth throughout the chamber.
“Oh my Lord!” said Luther, looking up from his book. “What took you so long? I thought you were anxious to see your girlfriend?”
“Where are we?”
“Where else? Same place you left us. On the brink of the Deeps.”
Bern rose to his feet and hobbled over, bearing a stack of folded clothes.
“I was hoping we wouldn’t see you again,” he said, displaying a bittersweet grin. “It’s never a good thing to come here, if you can help it. What’s got you down this time?”
“Nothing,” I said, as I was getting dressed. “It just kind of happened … out of the blue.”
“Oh, come on. That’s not how it works. Something brought you back. Some emotional state. A feeling of distress. What was it?”