I have to look away. The voices do a slow fade, echoing and resonating deep inside my ribs. When I lift my gaze again, it’s to grin at Toby.
“We made it,” I say.
He’s grinning, too, but then he directs my attention to the branches above us. We’re on the last part of the trunk and it’s not much more than a half foot across at this height. Right above Toby there’s a clump of growth, a tangle of vines and sprouting branches. Those are the ones that continue on and not one of them has a diameter of more than a few inches. There’s no way they’ll hold our weight. At the very top of a half dozen of them are those bright, singing twigs.
“This far,” Toby agrees. “But to get any farther …”
“We can’t give up now,” I tell him. “Let’s change places.”
We have an awkward moment as he descends and I scramble up to where he was. I test the largest of the branches but it bends alarmingly with only the slightest weight put on it.
I look up again at those glittering twigs. My head fills with their chorus. This time I can almost understand the words. It’s as though they’re related to a language I knew once, but have long since forgotten. The voices pulse against my spirit like hands on a drum, my spirit the drum-skin, taut and resonating. An echoing tattoo wakes in me and what I feel I can’t begin to describe. There aren’t words for this. I just know it’s magic. A deep and old magic that I’m being allowed to experience and remember forever. A miracle, even, that will never fall into the little black holes that rise up to swallow other parts of my life.
The sound of the voices continues to swell and grow until I have to turn my head away again. But I’m determined to reach those twigs now. How, I don’t know. I’m still holding on to the branch. It’s still slender and unable to bear my weight.
It’ll have to be more magic, I guess. Which I don’t have. That leaves only luck.
I remember something Joe once told me when I asked him how the People could eat meat when they’re so closely related to animals—not just the way you or I might say, we’re all mammals, but to know that many of them are actual family.
“We all need sustenance,” he told me. “The wolf, the puma, the eagle as much as the rabbit, the deer, the salmon. Even the trees and grass require nourishment that’s dependent on the lives of others. Nature was never benevolent or fair. But by the same token, we have to live together in this world and cruelty is neither gracious nor defensible. So when you take from the bounty that others provide for you, bless their gift, treat it with respect, give it dignity. And always ask before you take, give thanks for what you receive.”
I wrap my arms around the trunk and close my eyes, press my cheek against the rough bark.
“Oh, tree,” I say softly. “I don’t know that I deserve it, but surely Toby does. I’m just going to take two of the smallest twigs and no more. I hope that’s okay. We’re not going to do anything bad with them. We’re just going to use them to fix what’s broken inside us.”
I look up again and the chorus fills me once more, but I don’t hear anything different in it. I don’t hear yes, I don’t hear no. The only message I seem to get from the voices is that there is wonder and beauty everywhere.
Biting at my lip, I slowly stand up, balancing precariously in that nest of vines and branch beginnings at the very top of the tree. I reach up and pull at one of the branches, bringing it down to me. As it comes down, I inch my hands up, putting a deeper bow in the branch and bringing the top closer to me. I’m doing fine until those glittering topmost twigs are almost at hand, but then I lose my grip and the branch goes snapping back.
I start to lose my balance. Without even thinking about what I’m doing, I do the right thing. I don’t try to flap my arms to regain my balance. I just crouch down and bury my hands into the nest of vines, gripping them tightly.
When my pulse steadies, I stand up again, slower than before.
“Jilly, no,” Toby says.
But I ignore him and go through the process once more, gradually bringing those topmost twigs back into reach again. When they’re finally close enough, I take a deep breath and grip the main branch more tightly with one hand, reach for the twigs with the other.
It’s hard to see what I’m doing. This close, their light is completely blinding. The singing chorus fills my world, becoming a sound that I can smell and taste and touch as well as hear. When I put my hand around a pair of the twigs, the very touch of their smooth bark makes me shiver and my heartbeat quickens.
“I … I hope this won’t hurt,” I say as I give the twigs a quick twist and break them free.
I realize I’m holding my breath, waiting for something horrible to happen. But nothing has changed. I stuff the twigs down the front of my shirt.
“Thank you, tree,” I say. “I’ll never forget your generosity.”
Then I let the branch go and crouch down again.
It takes me a while to regain my equilibrium. For long moments the chorus of voices continues to ring in my head. Not until it fades to little more than an echo and then is finally gone do I look down at Toby. He’s staring at me open-mouthed. I clear my throat, smile at him.
“Let’s go down,” I say.
The descent isn’t any quicker than the ascent was, but it feels easier. We continue until we get to a branch that’s wide enough for us both to sit comfortably on. Grinning, I pull the twigs out from under my shirt, but my good humor fades when I look at what I’ve got in my hand. The twigs are dull and brown and silent. I have the horrible feeling that whatever enchantment imbued them once, it disappeared as soon as I broke them off from the tree.
“I killed them,” I say. “The magic’s gone.”
“We have to believe it’s still there,” Toby tells me.
I look into his earnest face and give a slow nod.
“Okay,” I say. “I can do that.”
I give him one of them and almost drop my own when his shoots out a light made up of all the colors we saw in the twigs above—a searing flash of amber, filigreed with spirals and twisting threads of turquoise and gold, red and green. The singing chorus awakes like a switch has been turned on and hits a sudden crescendo. I can almost see words form in the interplay of the colored threads. Not with letters I recognize, but made up of runes like you see in ancient stoneworks. The flare holds, bathing both our faces with its unearthly light, then dies down, winks out.
Toby’s palm lies empty, but there’s a mark on his palm. Not a white scar, but an amber stamp, like a birthmark. Or a tattoo, like the ones he has on the backs of his hands. He stares at me with wide eyes and looks more—I can’t explain, really—more solid, I guess than he ever has before.
“Are … are you all right?” I ask.
He opens his mouth, but no sound comes out at first. He gives a slow nod, then runs the fingers of his other hand over the mark on his palm.
“I feel the same … but different,” he finally manages to say. “Like I’m … more me. Or only me. Or … I can’t explain. It’s like I’m not fading anymore.” He’s beaming now. “You made me real,” he says.
I’m happy for him. Truly I am. But then I look at the twig I’m holding and it’s still just a dead twig. Toby’s gaze drops to it as well and his smile falters, fades.
“I guess it couldn’t fix what’s wrong with me,” I finally say.
“We could try again,” he says. “Get another one.”
But I shake my head. “No. Joe pretty much told me that only I can fix what’s wrong inside me. I’m just going to have to figure out how to do it, I guess.”
He starts to respond, but then I get a sudden stomach cramp and I jerk forward, almost falling from our perch. The twig drops from my hand. Toby catches it and even in my pain I watch to see it flare and get swallowed into his skin. It does neither.
A dud, I think. A broken twig for the Broken Girl.
Another sharp cramp grabs my abdomen and I stifle a cry. I’m feeling nauseous now, vertigo wheeling through me, ma
king my head spin.
Toby stuffs the twig in his pocket and eases forward, putting his arm around my shoulders.
“What’s wrong, what’s wrong?” he cries.
I can’t answer as another cramp hits me, but it turns out to be the last. The vertigo and nausea start to fade as well. But I’m feeling very strange now. Dislocated. Here and not here, all at the same time. And I have this sudden urge to go somewhere. can’t say where, but my head and my body and my spirit all know exactly where I’m supposed to go. I just have to get up and let them take me there. I can’t not let them take me there.
“Jilly?” Toby asks.
“I feel sick,” I finally manage to tell him. “No, that’s not right. I don’t feel completely here anymore. I guess I shouldn’t have taken those twigs …”
Though I guess that’s only partially true. The one I gave Toby certainly helped him. I’m the one that was rejected by the magic. Or maybe I’m paying for what we did. Maybe all the polite asking and thank yous weren’t enough. Maybe some things aren’t supposed to be taken like a common harvest, no matter how hard a climb it is to reach them.
“Story of my life,” I say.
I lift my head to see a look of horror on his face.
“What is it?” I ask and try a joke. “Did I grow another nose?”
“You … you’ve become an Eadar …”
“What?”
“I know that look—I’ve lived with it all my life. You’re not real anymore.” He shakes his head. “But that’s not possible. People don’t become Eadar. You’re either made or you’re born. There’s not supposed to be an in between.”
But I’m hardly listening to him. That’s not true. I hear everything he’s saying, but none of it really computes. It can’t compete with this tug and pull, the ever-growing need that’s burning in me. It started out strong, but it’s getting stronger by the moment. I have to go. Right now. I feel like I’m stretching apart and if I don’t go to whatever it is that’s calling to me, I’ll simply get pulled so thin that I won’t exist anymore.
“I can’t stay here,” I tell Toby.
He shakes his head. “How can this have happened?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “I have to go.”
He’s so shaken that he can hardly concentrate on what I’m saying.
“Go where?” he manages to ask.
“I don’t know. But something’s pulling me …”
I think then about the Broken Girl. Something must have happened to me back in the rehab, some new crisis. Maybe the wolves found me there. Maybe my body just up and failed.
“Good-bye,” I tell Toby and let myself wake up.
Nothing happens. No, that’s not true. My whole body is shivering and shaking with this need to go. There’s plenty happening, it’s just all inside me and nothing I have any control over. Maybe this is what being an Eadar means—a constant, awful feeling that you’re always at someone or something else’s beck and call. I want to ask Toby if this was how he felt, but I can’t even frame the sentence.
So I duck from underneath his arm and start to descend again. As soon as I’m moving, the terrible ache of this need to go lessens. I guess it’s because I’m on the move.
“Jilly!” Toby cries from above.
“I just have to go,” I tell him. “If I don’t, I’m going to come apart.”
I look up long enough to see that he’s following me, then concentrate on my descent.
It’s a long way down.
We still stop to rest, but I can’t do it for very long, no matter how much my shoulders and arms are aching. As soon as we stop, I get all twitchy, and the longer we’re stopped, the worse it gets. My limbs start to quiver and tremble and my head fills with this awful need to go go go. We don’t talk much, either when we’re resting or descending the tree. When we’re moving, it takes all my attention just to keep my exhausted grip on the vines and make my way down. When we’re resting, I’m too busy concentrating on shutting off this need to keep moving so that my body can get a little rest.
“It’s like someone has snared you with a geas—a compulsion spell,” Toby says at one of our stops.
I can tell the rapid pace I’m setting is wearing on him. We were both tired enough on the climb up. If we keep up this pace, one or the other of us is going to make a mistake and go plummeting down.
“I don’t know what it is,” I tell him. “I just can’t get it to shut up. The longer we sit still, the worse it is.”
“But who would do such a thing? You must have powerful enemies.”
“I don’t know about powerful,” I say, “but the ‘dislike Jilly’ factor seems to have gone up quite a few notches ever since I’ve been able to cross over into the dreamlands.”
“I know a field where vervain grows, but it’s far from here.”
I have no idea what he’s talking about and tell him so.
“To break the geas,” he says. “The vervain’s blue flowers and scented leaves combat sorcery.”
“Whatever,” I say.
We’ve been sitting still too long and I feel like I’m going to explode. It’s too hard to concentrate on this conversation, for all its relevance and possible importance. So these blue flowers can maybe break the spell. We don’t have any of them. All we have is this compulsion geas thing sitting in my head and it won’t let me go.
“I have to get moving again,” I add.
I don’t wait to see if he’s ready. I just grab hold of the vines and swing my legs over the edge of the branch we’re sitting on, feet looking for purchase.
Eventually we reach the forest floor, the cathedral trees towering all around us. Toby leans against the massive trunk of the one we’ve just come down from, catching his breath. I don’t have the luxury. I turn in a slow circle. The pull is strongest from the south. As soon as I turn in that direction, it’s like someone’s snagged a giant fishhook right inside my chest and now they’re reeling me in.
I start walking. I hear Toby sigh, then he comes straggling along after me, dragging his feet. I know what he’s feeling. My arms and shoulders are burning with muscle ache, my legs are trembling from exhaustion. But I can’t stop. The geas makes me want to run, but I force myself to keep my pace reasonable. I have no idea how far I still have to go. It could be miles and I don’t want to collapse partway there.
I think of the fairy tale where the people dance until they die and now I know just how they felt. You can fight the compulsion for a while, but eventually you have to start moving again. There’s no respite, no chance to rest. Ultimately, you keep going until your heart bursts, or your limbs give out, or you just generally cave in. And even then, you’ll lie there on the ground, twitching and quivering.
How long do we walk? I don’t know. But the cathedral trees finally give way to smaller growths, smaller being relative to the enormous size of the Greatwood’s trees, of course. The ones around us now would still be considered huge by any normal standards. There’s undergrowth here as well, and a dampness in the air, muffling our passage. Leaves and other debris from the trees form a moist carpet under our feet and the only sound we make is the brush of sapling branches against the fabric of our shirts and trousers, the odd twig that snaps underfoot, and our breathing which sounds ragged and harsh—in my ears at least.
Just when I think the fairy-tale dancers’ fate is going to be my own, we finally top a rise looking down into a granite-strewn gulch and as quickly as it came, the immediacy of the geas is gone. I can still feel it, but now it’s like the low hum of an appliance, something that can settle into the background if you stop paying attention to it. I drop quietly to the ground—as much from exhaustion as to avoid the attention of the figures below. A moment later, Toby collapses beside me.
I roll over onto my back and rest my head against the damp leaves, my limbs splayed out. I don’t know when I’ve ever felt this beat before. I don’t want to think about what I’ve seen below in the gulch.
“It’s eas
ed off,” I tell Toby. “The need to keep moving.”
“That’s good.”
We keep our voices pitched low so that they don’t carry past our own ears.
“It depends on your definition of good,” I say.
After a while, Toby lifts himself up on his elbows and peers down at the threesome. He studies them for a long moment before lying down beside me again, his face turned toward me.
“They were responsible for the geas?” he asks.
I nod. Though I can’t say if it’s something that they did on purpose.
Toby studies me now. “Do you know them?”
“A couple of them. The … dark-haired ones.”
“They could be your sisters,” he says. “The sleeping one’s older and the other’s more buxom, but the family resemblance is—”
“The sleeping one’s not older than me,” I say. “She just looks that way because this”—I touch a hand to my face—“is how I see myself, so it’s how I appear here. Younger. Healthy.”
He gives me a puzzled look.
“She’s me—in the world I come from. I call her the Broken Girl.” I tell him briefly about my accident. “The other one’s my sister. I haven’t seen her in years, but apparently she’s learned how to turn into a wolf since then. Acquired the ability to use this compulsion spell you were talking about. Figured out how to cross back and forth between the worlds. Oh, and she hates me something fierce.”
I say it lightly, but I can’t hide the pain in my voice and eyes.
“And the third?” Toby asks.
I don’t know her, but from what Lou told me, I can guess. She looks like a hooker with that body poured into tight pink Capri pants and her white sleeveless blouse unbuttoned past her bra, wearing her hair in a dated bouffant shag. The only incongruity is her running shoes, also pink.