The Onion Girl

by Charles de Lint

  I sigh. I don’t know why I’m even bothering to think of any of this.

  No, that’s not true. I do know. It’s to stall, plain and simple. It’s to not have to go down into that gulch and confront the worst parts of my life: the Broken Girl and the Deserted Sister. Because I know that, bad as things are at the moment, as soon as I go down there, everything will be so much worse.

  But there’s no point in stalling. It’s not like the cavalry is about to come riding through the trees to rescue me. Nobody even knows that I’m here, or what the situation is, except for Toby, and he didn’t exactly stick around to lend me a helping hand.

  So I stand up. I take a steadying breath.

  Face the music, I tell myself.

  And I start down the side of the gulch, feet sliding on the damp leaves that carpet the steep slope, holding on to the trunks of saplings to keep my balance as I go down. I make it almost halfway down before either my sister or her friend Pinky Miller notice me.

  Raylene’s the first to look up. Her eyes widen a little, but she doesn’t seem to be too surprised. Pinky’s in the middle of lighting a cigarette.

  “Damn,” Pinky says and scrabbles in a duffel bag that’s lying near her feet.

  I don’t know what she’s looking for, but when she pulls a shotgun out and aims it in my direction, I stop dead in my tracks, ten, maybe twelve yards away.

  “You might want to load that ol’ scattergun,” Raylene says in a mild drawl. “The shells are still in their box, wrapped up in a black T-shirt.”

  She never takes her gaze away from mine. I can’t read anything in her eyes—what she’s thinking, what she’s feeling. She doesn’t give anything away.

  I can’t tell if Pinky’s busy looking for the shells or not. Maybe she’s found them already and is loading them into the shotgun. Maybe she’s about to shoot me. I don’t know.

  I’ve lost my ability to focus on more than one thing at a time. Everything’s telescoped down into this one moment of contact.

  All I see is my little sister and just like her I don’t look away either.

  I can’t.

  2

  Toby stopped at the top of the ridge to catch his breath, the forest lying dense and thick behind him. His every muscle ached—some in places he hadn’t even known he had muscles—and he was tired, so tired, but that was hardly a surprise. Between climbing the tree in the Greatwood with Jilly and their subsequent descent, the long trek following the pull of her geas, and finally the pace-eating jog he’d kept up since he’d left Jilly on the ridge above the gulch, he hadn’t had more than a few moments rest for longer than he cared to consider. It was most definitely beginning to tell on him. Unfortunately, the one thing his immediate future held wasn’t the chance to relax.

  Below him through the trees, he could see a clearing, a large field of goldenrod, yarrow, and Joe Pye weed growing up out of a sea of yellowing grasses and thistle. A beautiful place, to be sure. But it wasn’t the field he’d been looking for.

  Somewhere back along the way he’d come, he’d stepped onto the wrong quicklands path. Now he’d have to backtrack until he found the right one. He could feel the minutes slipping away, running short. An hourglass draining to its last few grains of sand. If he took too long, he’d never get back to her in time.

  Unless he went by the factory world.

  If he was one of the People or a dreamer, he could have just willed himself to his destination and none of this would even be an issue. But that wasn’t an option. While he might now be real, due to Jilly’s earlier courage and stamina, he was still a native of the middleworld with many of the limitations that came from having such an origin. But he couldn’t give up now. Jilly had risked much to help him. How could he do less for her?

  Still, the factory world.

  He hated the place, but there was no quicker way through the dreamlands—the Eadar knew this, if no one else did. All the quicklands paths crisscrossed one another there.

  Taking a last look at the welcoming view below him, he turned back into the forest and walked a half-dozen paces in among the trees until he found the path he needed underfoot.

  It didn’t take long for the trees to die around him. At first the lush boughs above simply changed to yellowing leaves, as though he was walking into autumn. But soon even the foliage was gone and he traveled under empty, dead boughs, the ground underfoot changing from leaves and grass to dry dirt that rose in plumes of dust behind him. The next clearing announced itself long before he could see it with a dissonant roar of hammering and clanking that grew louder with every step he took in its direction. Then the trees were gone and he walked under gray, oppressive skies, the air thick with a metallic taste and smelling of sulfur and iron.

  Soon there were buildings all around him, some falling in upon themselves, others rearing skyward for story upon story of dull, graying brick and stone, glass and steel. The ever-present thunder of unrecognizable machinery going through inexplicable tasks came from them, their only tangible result appearing to be the chaotic noise that ensued.

  Nothing grew or seemed to live in this place and visitors were few and far between, even with so many quicklands paths meeting one another here as they did. The toxic fumes and proximity of so much iron-bearing metalwork was anathema to many denizens of the dreamlands. The ground was rutted and pocked with hidden sinkholes where pools of cyanide and chemical waste lay in wait for the careless traveler.

  Toby hurried along to the central square where the quicklands paths met, sleeve held up to his face so that he could breathe through its cloth. Twice the dry dirt gave out under him and he only just managed to scramble free of a sinkhole, dark liquids bubbling below. When he finally reached the square, the clamor of machinery had built to a deafening pitch. The noise and stink made it hard to concentrate.

  Find the thread, he told himself. Blue and green. The echo of a sweet meadow.

  Just as he found and stepped onto the quicklands path, he heard his name called. Turning, he saw the Tattersnake approaching him from a far corner of the square. Shivering, Toby returned his attention to the task at hand. Taking the path he’d found, he stepped into a blessed silence. It was long moments before the ringing in his ears died down enough so that he could hear the natural sounds around him—wind sighing though boughs laden with broad, flat leaves, and there before him, the sweet-smelling field of vervain, their blue blossoms dancing on the breeze. The stink of the factory world would take a little longer to fade from his clothes and hair.

  Stepping off the path, Toby put his back to a tree and waited, hoping that the Tattersnake wouldn’t follow. Luck wasn’t with him.

  The Tattersnake appeared on the path just as he had, bringing with him a momentary echo of the factory world’s machinery and stench that hung in the air until both were swallowed by their present surroundings.

  “Well, now,” the Tattersnake said. “And where, I asked myself, is good Toby Childs, the Boyce, off to in such a hurry? Such a hurry he’s in, he doesn’t have the time to pass a few words with an old friend.” The dark eyes mocked Toby. “But then we’re not friends, are we? I’m the sort that one can’t be friends with—isn’t that what you’ve said?”

  “I … I’m not afraid of you.”

  “You should be. Here we are, just the two of us. Bainbridge is long dead, so there won’t be any more stories. No more rescues by plucky Maggie Redweir or any of Bainbridge’s other pathetic little heroines. They’ve all faded away, unremembered, except for you and me.”

  An odd thing happened as the Tattersnake spoke: Toby found himself remembering. All those stories he’d tried to hold in his head but had lost over the years, they all came back to him. All those heroines he’d accompanied on their quests to put the Tattersnake in his place. He had often wondered why only he and the Tattersnake appeared in each of Margery Bainbridge’s stories, though the heroine usually had a name similar to the author’s, as well as the author’s red hair.

  Why was he able to remem
ber all of this now?

  The Tattersnake never seemed to forget any of it. And when he spoke of it, Toby would remember too, but only vaguely, and he could never hold on to the memories. But it had all come back now, from the spray of freckles across Maggie Redweir’s nose, to the strange motley coloring of her little dog Nock. It had all come back and sat there in his head with the assurance of never going away again.

  He would have loved to think about it all, but he still had a task undone and the Tattersnake to mollify so that he could get about his business. Then he realized that the Tattersnake was regarding him with an appraising look and his nervousness returned full force.

  “There’s something not quite right about you today, Toby me boy,” he said. “What could it be, could it be?”

  “I’m fine, really. Thanks for asking. But now I have to—”

  “You … you’re real,” the Tattersnake broke in. “How … ?”

  “The gift of a twig from the topmost branch of a Greatwood tree.”

  The Tattersnake frowned at him. “That’s only a fairy tale.”

  “So were we,” Toby told him. “So you remain.”

  “Give me the twig.”

  Toby had a sudden shiver of fear. He was still carrying in his pocket the twig Jilly had dropped, but the Tattersnake couldn’t have it. That twig belonged to Jilly. It might not have worked once, but who was to say it wouldn’t work the next time they tried?

  “It … it’s gone,” Toby said.

  He held out his hand and showed the Tattersnake the pattern that the twig had left on his palm. The expression on the Tattersnake’s face was pure envy, Toby realized.

  “Perhaps I’ll just cut it out of you,” the Tattersnake said.

  “You can’t,” Toby told him, speaking quickly. “It wouldn’t work. The twig is gone and gone. It’s part of me now and won’t do anyone else any good. You know how magic works. If it could be undone at all, it would have to be undone by the maker. Can you force a Greatwood tree to your bidding?”

  The Tattersnake remained silent, staring at Toby’s palm until Toby finally put his hand in his pocket.

  “You could get one, too,” he said. “If I could do it, then surely you would have no trouble at all.”

  But he would have already tried, Toby realized, for all that, moments ago, he’d said it was just a fairy tale. He would have tried, just as Toby had, and he would have had just as much success, which was none.

  “So you’re real,” the Tattersnake said. “Doesn’t matter if anyone believes in you or not, because there you’ll still be, all the same.”

  “I … I suppose I am.”

  Toby was worried where all this was going. He didn’t have this time to spare. He couldn’t stay, but he couldn’t simply walk away, either. No one walked away from the Tattersnake at the best of times. But now, with this look about him, this mood he was in. Contemplative as well as dangerous.

  “So you can do what you want, when you want,” the Tattersnake went on.

  Toby nodded.

  “Which makes me wonder, what are you doing here? Collecting vervain, I imagine, but what would an Eadar-become-real need with vervain? The only use I know of vervain is to break a spell.”

  Toby didn’t know what to say without giving everything away, so he chose prudence and remained silent.

  “Well, my little man?” the Tattersnake said. “Nothing at all to say for yourself? Maybe what you need is a few good sharp raps against your noggin to help you find your voice.”

  It was always this way with the Tattersnake. He would appear out of nowhere—as he had in the factory world—and bully Toby with cruel words and threats and impossible questions, until eventually he got bored. Sometimes he’d cuff Toby before he walked away. Sometimes he’d knock him down and give him a kick or two as well. There was no telling how it would go. It could be long and Toby was never brave enough to stand up to him. But today he had to. Today he had no time for the Tattersnake’s petty cruelties.

  The trouble was, being real didn’t make him any stronger or bolder than the formidable Tattersnake. But Toby didn’t feel particularly clever either, the way all those heroines in Bainbridge’s stories had been. They were always able to outsmart the Tattersnake—outsmart him and get away and have him look foolish as well.

  No, he thought, with his returned memories. They hadn’t all done so. Maddy Reynolds in “The Blue Mask of Wintering” hadn’t been clever. That was the last of Bainbridge’s stories and in it Maddy had simply stood up to the Tattersnake. And when she had, he’d blustered and threatened and ranted, but finally he’d backed off and slunk away.

  “You have to stand up to bullies,” she’d told Toby in that story. “Let them see that you’re not afraid. That you’ll take their blows, but you’ll give back as good as you get. You might wind up with a black eye, but they’ll think twice about bothering you again—trust me on that.”

  Toby smiled, remembering.

  Trust me on that.

  Maddy was always telling him to do that. And she was usually right.

  “Something humorous come to you?” the Tattersnake asked.

  That dark look was in his eyes, the one that said today it would be more than cruel words and laughter. Today it would be fisticuffs or worse.

  Toby swallowed hard. He thought of feisty Maddy, with her swinging walk, her long red hair tied back in a braid, and that determined glint of stubbornness in her eyes. The memory of her helped give Toby the courage he needed now.

  “What I’m doing here is none of your business,” he said in a far braver tone of voice than he was feeling.

  “Is that so?”

  Toby stopped himself from biting at his lower lip and simply nodded.

  “Maybe you’re real now,” the Tattersnake said, “but I can still hurt you, my wee brave little man.”

  Toby found himself shaking his head.

  “You can’t,” he said. “Not anymore. Only with words.”

  The Tattersnake took an intimidating step toward him, but Toby held his ground.

  “Think about it,” he told the Tattersnake, making it up as he went along. “I’m real and you’re not. What do you think will happen to you when you try to hit me?”

  “Why don’t we find out.”

  “Fine,” Toby said.

  He continued to hold his ground when the Tattersnake lifted a fist, though it was all he could do not to cringe. The Tattersnake held that pose for a long moment and Toby could see indecision warring with anger in the taller man’s dark eyes. Finally caution won out and the Tattersnake smacked the fist into the palm of his other hand and glared at Toby.

  “What do you know?” he demanded.

  “Only that the quickest way for an Eadar to fade is for them to attack someone who is real.”

  “You’ve been chewing mushrooms, you have.”

  Toby shrugged. “Think what you want. A dire attacked me on my way here, but it faded away to nothing when it bit me. See.” He held up his arm and pushed back the sleeve. “The teeth didn’t even leave a mark.”

  Dires were the ghostly remnants of some other story, gray-furred wolfish men with stooped shoulders and embittered souls. They’d haunted the middleworld for years—or at least they had once upon a time. Like other Eadar that Toby and the Tattersnake had seen come and go, there were few dires left now and those few were fading fast.

  “If I find you’ve been lying to me …”

  Toby gave another shrug. His feigned nonchalance was coming easier now.

  “I’ve my own business to attend to now,” he said. “So if you’ll excuse me …”

  “I think I’ll come along.”

  Toby shook his head. “I can’t allow that.”

  Before the Tattersnake could respond, he took a quick step toward the taller man, his own fist cocked now. It was all he could do not to show his own surprise when the Tattersnake hastily backed away. Perhaps Maddy had been right. Perhaps all you had to do was stand up to a bully.


  “Go bother somebody else,” Toby said, “before I decide to make you my business.”

  The Tattersnake lifted his hands, palms out. “Easy now, Toby my good man. No need for rash actions. I’m already on my way.”

  Toby watched him back away, schooling his own features to remain impassive until the Tattersnake stepped on a quicklands path and was gone. Then he allowed himself to breathe once more. His legs shook so much that he wanted to sit down, but he wouldn’t allow himself the luxury. Instead he forced himself to hurry down to the vervain field and began plucking plants until he had an armful, whispering “Sorry” and “Thank you” to every one he pulled out of the ground.

  But all the time he was thinking, I stood up to him. The Tattersnake! I made him back down. I actually made him run away!

  It was as though the day had suddenly sprouted wings and flown off into the night, leaving the sun to look down from the sky and scratch its head in confusion. How could it even be possible? He was nothing. He was nobody …

  He shook his head. No, that wasn’t true anymore. He was real now.

  The astonished sense of well-being filling him didn’t—wouldn’t—go away. Only his worry for Jilly stopped him from doing cartwheels across the field and made him concentrate on braiding the vervain plants into a wreath.

  He would add yarrow to it, he thought. For the healing. And perhaps rowan as well. But then he remembered the twig in his pocket. Surely the magic that had made him real could heal Jilly’s sleeping twin, the Broken Girl. The twig and the vervain, together they would cure her. The twig hadn’t worked before because it had only been Jilly’s dreaming self that had tried to use it. It seemed so obvious to him now. She needed to be whole and complete, both parts of her joined, for it to work.

  3

  “Well, I’ll give you this,” Raylene finally says. “You got balls, coming here with all the cards stacked against you.”