“Is it such a bad thing?”
“It’s not a question of good or bad—it’s a question of my not being equipped to deal with it. If it’s not just a game, if it is real... then it’s too dangerous. For me, at least.”
“If you learned to use your gift...”
Emma turned sharply. “Learn? Where do you learn about this kind of thing, Esmeralda? I stand in line at the supermarket and read all that crap on the tabloids and I think, That’s what I want to be? Some flake that gets written up in The Enquirer? Am I supposed to get a subscription to one of them and learn from that?”
“Your knowing so little is my fault,” Esmeralda said. “I went on—I didn’t wait for you. I thought you were going to follow.”
“Follow you where?”
“Into the mysteries. You have a gift—”
“A gift! To talk to trees?”
“Remember last year?” Esmeralda asked gently. “When your two halves were joined again? My winds were there. I felt you use your gift through them. You eased the bard’s pain. You understood the workings of the spirit world. You saw how it could be.”
“I remember.” Emma’s voice was a soft whisper.
“With your gift you can ease the aging hearts of people before they enter the winter of their lives,” Esmeralda went on. “You can give them the hope they need to carry on. You and I—people with our gifts—we’re here to speak of the mysteries, Emma.
“When people are born, they’re still at one with the world, but they lose that harmony as they grow older. They shut their eyes, their hearts, their minds to everything that’s around them. We’re here to show them the way back. I speak the language of the wind; yours is that of the trees—the old bardic mysteries.”
“It’s all a mystery to me,” Emma said. “Don’t you see, Esmeralda? It’s all clear and laid out for you, but it doesn’t work that way for me. God—just look at you coming here after me. That’s the kind of person I am. When I get in deep, I need help. I can’t do things on my own. I need you. I need the Blues of the world.”
“We all need each other’s help—that’s what we’re here for. To preserve the harmony.”
“I need more help than anybody’s got a right to ask for.”
“Is that why you turned away from what happened last year?” Esmeralda asked. “Why you stilled the gift when it woke again?”
“It felt like a gift at the time. For a day or so. But then it just seemed to fray. I started remembering it like a dream. It just... faded on me.”
“I won’t go away this time,” Esmeralda said. “This time I’ll stay, Emma. I promise you that.”
Emma shook her head. “I can’t go back. How could I face anybody? Can you imagine what Blue’d think if I came to him with this kind of a story? ’Well, you see, Blue, I’m really here in this world to talk to the trees and use their wisdom to help everybody get along better.’ “
“I think Blue understands it better than you do.”
“It’s no good. I can’t go back. Everything’s too jumbled and confused back there. Not the real world. I can handle my job and people and all that kind of thing. It’s the weirdness—this gift stuff. Winds and trees. Being here’s the first time I’ve felt sane in months.”
“You’ll just be postponing the inevitable,” Esmeralda said.
“What do you mean by that?”
“You’ll come back, be born again on the same wheel, and have to deal with it all then. The gift’s not going to go away. What we are doesn’t change, Emma—it doesn’t matter what shape we wear.”
“I... I can’t do it,” Emma said. “I’m sorry, Esmeralda. Maybe next time around I’ll be better equipped to handle it, but not this time.”
Esmeralda said nothing of what Grandmother Toad had told her, how she would have to remain here with Emma if she couldn’t convince Emma to return. She could feel the time ticking away inside her, the seconds draining away, being used up, one after the other, never to be repeated. No calling them back.
“I never thought you’d take the easy route out,” she said finally.
“What do you mean?”
“Suicide.”
“I’m not killing myself.”
“Oh, no? Your body’s still alive back in the Outer World. If you don’t get back to it soon, that’s it. You’ve killed yourself.”
Emma shook her head. “I just went away. I just came here, that’s all.”
“Euphemisms don’t change the truth. Your spirit left your body and your body went into a coma. That witch’s creatures kidnapped your body—Blue and some of his friends are trying to get it back right now—but that doesn’t change the fact that none of this would have happened if you hadn’t made the choice you did.”
“Witch’s creatures?”
“The same one who got you the last time.”
“But Glamorgana’s dead.”
“Apparently. But her creatures aren’t, and they’ve gone after you.”
“And Blue’s gone after them?”
Esmeralda nodded.
Emma pushed her hands against her face. “Why doesn’t it stop?” she demanded. “Why does this just go on and on and on?”
“Because it takes you to stop it.”
Emma stood up and walked a few paces away from the river to stare into the forest.
“Please, Emma. Things can be good again.”
Emma didn’t turn around. “Why do you even care about me?” she asked. “I’m so weak....”
Esmeralda rose to join her. “Because you’re like a sister to me. My other half. I love you—that’s why. And you’re not weak. You’re just in over your head. Needing help and accepting it doesn’t make you weak. Turning your back on what you are, giving up—that’s weakness. That’s the easy way out.”
“You’ll really stay and help?”
“I promise. I’ll have my things sent from England. Jamie’s kept my room in the tower for me all these years. It’ll be like I never left.”
Emma turned to look at her. “Is this what you want, Esmeralda? You’re not just doing it for me?”
“I’m doing it partly for you—but I’m doing it for myself as well. I’ve taken the easy road, too, Emma—not the one you took, but the end result’s somewhat the same. I let the acquiring of knowledge overpower the help I should have been giving. Not just to you, but to everything under my charge. I only helped when it was convenient to my schedule, or when someone was so desperate that there was no one else they could turn to. But our gifts are a constant thing—not something we can turn on and off like a faucet.”
Emma looked at her for a long moment. Esmeralda couldn’t tell what she was thinking. All she knew was that time was running out....
“All right,” Emma said finally. “I’ll come back with you.”
She gave Esmeralda a quick hug, then led the way down to where the canoe was still pulled up to the shore. She turned back when she reached the water’s edge.
“Aren’t you coming?” she asked when she saw Esmeralda just standing in the meadow, a bleak look in her eyes.
Inside Esmeralda the ticking clock had finally run its course. She could feel the moon set in the Outer World, Grandmother Toad’s protection fading.
“We’re too late,” she said.
The road home was closed to them now.
2
Even when she stood on Blue’s shoulders, the lowest branch of the pine was too high for Judy to reach.
“Stand on my hands,” Blue told her.
Holding the tree for balance, Judy lifted one foot, then the other, while Blue slipped his hands under her feet. Grunting with the effort, he straight-armed her up until she could reach the branch.
“Got it,” she called down.
She hoisted herself onto the branch, straddling it while she caught her breath. She had her baseball bat stuck in her belt behind her, the knob caught in the belt to keep it from slipping out. Checking to make sure it was still in place, she stood up on the branch and began to edge her way
outward, her fingers just brushing the next branch up to keep her balance.
Watching her go, Blue held his breath. “Come on,” he muttered. “Just a few steps more.”
Then she was above the barrier and moving past it.
“You did it!” he called up.
Now all she had to do was get down to the ground and see if the phosphorescent ribbon that was the barrier’s source could be erased from the inside. He watched her edge along the branch toward its end, her weight making it dip. It was still a long jump. Then he glanced toward the stone and saw that the creature had become aware of what they were doing.
“Heads up!” he called to her, pointing toward the creature when Judy looked down.
She nodded and kept on moving. But now the creature was heading in their direction. Cursing, Blue laid his shotgun on the ground. He took a few steps back and then ran at the tree. He leapt up, got a grip on the fat bole, and began to shimmy his way to the branch, his hands getting gummy with pine resin.
The branch had dipped low enough for Judy to try jumping. She dropped her bat to the ground, then got a grip on the branch with her hands and let herself down. She swung for a moment or two, then dropped, knees bent to take the impact. She rolled when she hit the ground, hardly shaken at all, and scrambled for the bat. By the time she had it in hand, the creature was only a half-dozen yards away. Too late to try the barrier now, she realized.
It had left behind both its knife and staff. Spitting on its hands, it came at her, arms outspread, saliva glistening on its palms with the same glow as the phosphorescent ribbon from which the barrier grew.
Judy stood her ground, pulse doubling as adrenaline surged through her system. The creature wasn’t all that much taller than her, but if it ever got those paws on her... She waited until just before it came into range; then she swung the bat, ducking in low under its arms and aiming for one of its legs. If she could cripple it, they might have a better chance at taking it down. But the creature was faster than she’d believed possible.
It caught the bat in midblow—the hardwood smoking where the saliva on its palms touched the wood. Ripping it from her hands, it tossed the bat aside. Blue was just getting onto the branch that had let Judy into the glade—too far away to help. Hacker and Ernie weren’t in sight. She was on her own.
She thought of that saliva on the creature’s palms, burning her skin like acid, never mind that the sucker looked tough enough to tear her in two without working up a sweat. She took a stumbling step backward.
I’m going to die, she realized numbly.
3
“Too late?” Emma said. “What do you mean we’re too late?”
“I didn’t get here on my own,” Esmeralda said. “Grandmother Toad helped me.” At Emma’s blank look she explained. “That’s how she’s known in these spirit realms. She’s an aspect of the moon—Brigit, Galata, Albion, Metra, Mary, Maya... whatever name you want to give her, they all describe the same mystery. She showed me how to find the Path of Souls that brought me here, but there was a time limit on her help. We had until the moon set in the Outer World.”
“So we have to wait until she rises again tonight?”
Esmeralda shook her head. “We wait until we’re born again.” Or at least Emma would. Present as she was in her corporeal form, Esmeralda didn’t know what would become of herself in this place.
“You go on without me then,” Emma said.
“You’re not listening—I said we’re both staying here. It’s no longer in our hands now.”
“Esmeralda, I don’t want you to sacrifice your life just because of my mistakes.”
“I made my choice,” Esmeralda said. “Just as you made yours.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about the time limit right away?”
“You had to come with me because you wanted to—not out of some sense of allegiance to me or anyone else—and I couldn’t leave without you. I accepted that when I chose to come.”
Emma sank to her knees by the riverbank, not caring that she knelt in mud. “I’ve really done it this time, haven’t I? Only now I’ve dragged you down with me.”
“Emma, I wanted to come. I told you, I had something to learn on this journey as well.”
“Only trouble is, whatever we’ve learned, we’ve both learned it too late.”
Esmeralda sat on the grass near where Emma knelt. “At least we’re together,” she said. “I don’t regret coming. I’ve missed you, Emma.”
“I’ve missed you, too. I...” She broke off, head cocked as though she heard something.
“What is it?”
“Listen.”
Then Esmeralda heard it, too. Drumming. So faint as to be almost inaudible.
“Spirit drumming,” she said.
Emma nodded. “But not just any spirit drumming—can’t you hear it? Something’s calling to us.”
Esmeralda’s winds stirred as hope lifted inside her. “The old man,” she said. “It has to be him. The shaman in the glade who brought Grandmother Toad to me.”
“He brought her to me as well,” Emma said. “I was too scared to go on the path by myself, but then she came to help me. Can you understand what he’s saying?”
Esmeralda shook her head.
“I can,” Emma said. “The wood of his drum’s translating it for me. It’s saying, ’Follow me home, lost spirits.’”
“I don’t know. Grandmother Toad said—”
“Who’s giving up now?” Emma asked. “We can at least try, can’t we? Come on, Esmeralda. Get in the canoe.”
Esmeralda looked at the river, where the mists now lay so thick that it was impossible to see more than a few yards into them. She let her winds rise up to sweep the heavy haze away, but they made no difference. If anything, the mists deepened.
“You get in the front,” Emma said, “and I’ll steer.”
Esmeralda could sense the familiarity of the drumming, hear the old man’s voice in its faint tone, but she could perceive no sense of direction from it. Yet if Emma could...
She got into the bow of the canoe. Emma shoved off and jumped aboard, the canoe swaying dangerously, then slowly settling in the water. They each took a paddle and dipped them in the river’s still water, propelling the craft forward.
In moments the mists had swallowed them, so thick now that Emma couldn’t see her companion anymore. But she could hear the drum. Its sound cast a thread that she held firmly with her mind. She was determined to follow it home. Esmeralda had shown her the importance of persevering, by her selfless loyalty as much as by her logic.
But now the water grew rougher. From a calm, slow-moving surface, it became abruptly violent. The canoe lurched in the turbulence. Sudden eddies spun them in circles, huge jutting rocks rose up out of nowhere. Esmeralda pushed the canoe away from the rocks with her paddle until the paddle snapped. Water sprayed over them and it was all Emma could do to steer a clear way. Then a wave, bigger than any other, rose up in front of them, lunging at them like a behemoth exploding from the mists.
“Esmeralda!” Emma cried.
As the wave crashed down upon them she threw herself forward to grip her friend’s hand; then they were washed out of the canoe and dropped into a spinning maelstrom of dark rushing water. Emma held on to Esmeralda’s hand with a strength born of desperation. She fought the urge to breathe in a lungful of water, and concentrated on finding the thread of drumming once more. She knew it was still there, sounding inside her on a spirit level for all that its physical presence had long since been drowned by the violence of the sudden storm on the river. When she finally snared it, she held on to it just as desperately as she did Esmeralda’s hand.
Imagining it to be a fishing line, she hauled them along its length, away from the river’s depths, away into the outer spirit realms to where an old man was drumming their rescue.
4
The creature struck, moving like lightning, but fear lent Judy the speed to dodge the full impact of its blow. Still, its glanc
ing force was enough to make her lose her balance and go stumbling toward the pine. The leather of her jacket burned where the creature’s saliva had touched it—the heat searing her skin. Off-balance as well from the impetus of his swing, the creature recovered only moments after Judy.
She was running for the barrier, hand outstretched to wipe away the ribbon supporting it, when the creature brought her down. The stink of burning leather arose again, followed by a reeking wave of the creature’s heavy body odor. The force of its grip on either arm hurt as much as the heat that was now burning through her jacket to sear her skin.
The creature started to turn her over, but then its weight suddenly left her body.
She rolled free to see that Blue had jumped down from the branch and pulled the creature off, heaving it to one side. She scrabbled out of the way as it rose to its feet to face Blue. She reached the barrier, finding it by feel. Using the elbow of her jacket, she broke the solidity of the phosphorescent ribbon. When she tried the barrier again, it was gone.
“Got something!” she heard someone call on the far side of the glade—Hacker or Ernie, she wasn’t sure which and she didn’t have time to go look.
“Over here!” she cried and then she went after the shotgun.
Behind her, the creature charged Blue. It came at him, arms widespread to clasp him in a bear hug. Blue dodged, moving fast, but the creature was faster. It caught Blue by one arm and threw him toward the trunk of the pine.
Blue hit hard, the sleeve of his jacket burning, his arm feeling like it was on fire, head ringing. The creature spat at him and he dodged the saliva, hearing its burning hiss as it splattered on the bark beside his head. As the creature charged him again, he rose to meet its attack.
Judy arrived with the shotgun, but the two combatants were too close to each other now for her to chance a shot. All she could do was stand helplessly by as they grappled.
5
Emma allowed her mind to focus on only two things: the grip she had of Esmeralda’s hand and the thread of drumming that was their only chance of escaping Epanggishimuk now that Grandmother Toad’s protection was withdrawn with the setting of the moon in the Outer World. She followed the thread, drawing them out of the maelstrom of the river to the flat rock of an island that jutted from its turbulent waters.