by Renée Jaggér
His head moved, barely perceptibly, up and down in acknowledgment. “Most things aren’t easy. It’s probably best that you’re trying to tackle it head-on. Here, move that box all the way into the back.”
She shoved the container against the wall as requested.
“Yeah,” she went on, “thanks. I guess, just…” Her voice trailed off. Normally she had no trouble talking to the old man, but sometimes it took a little while before she could open up.
Without looking at her, he responded, “You’re worried about something else? Not just the stress or whatever of learning?”
Bailey sighed in relief. “Yeah, that’s it, all right. This shit is dangerous. I could hurt myself or other people.”
She paused then, embarrassed about how stupid and weak and cowardly that sounded.
“I mean,” she clarified, “I’ve never been afraid of danger, but it’s different now. There’s more at stake. It’s not just about whether I might get hurt or whatever. Other people have a horse in the race too. The crap I’m involved in is starting to spill over and affect my brothers. I have to help protect Roland too. Like, what if I fail him and those whores from Seattle get hold of him? What if something happens right here in town?”
Gunney, sorting tools, kept his eyes on the task, but she could tell that he was listening intently. He waited for her to continue before he interjected any of his own commentary.
“I could die,” she admitted, “and I could let everyone down. It would be so goddamn easy to screw up and squander everything. I’m starting to feel like I’ve got a real opportunity here to make something of myself, and that just makes it all the clearer how it could go to hell if I take one wrong step.”
Gunney made eye contact finally. “I understand, Bailey. As soon as you step out of your comfort zone, the stakes rise. But if anyone can deal with it, well, it’s you. Probably. Still don’t know how you pulled off some of the shit you’ve already done, which bodes well for the future, I’d say.”
She smiled. “Thanks, Gunney. Glad to know I’m doing something right. With all this potential, sometimes I’d rather just be normal.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “A normal Were? A regular human? A normal Oregonian, or someone who’s been around the block a few times? There isn’t any such thing as ‘normal’ in the world, except how a group of people in a particular place at a particular time agree to define it. Everyone’s abnormal in someone else’s eyes.”
She stopped in place at that for a second. “Shit. Yeah, I guess that’s true. Good to know, also.”
Her mind teased out more of the implications and then focused on some of them—the ones most pertinent to what she’d just been angsting about.
“Gunney,” she elaborated, “I think what it is, in part, is that I feel like I might be able to set a new standard and a good example. Something like that. A different way for Were society to be. How many other girls out there never had any option but being married off to some other pack’s males? I always felt like sooner or later, the bad old ways would win and I’d end up forced into the role I was ‘supposed’ to take. But now, it looks way more possible for me to come out on top.”
He chuckled. “Like I said, you’d be the one. Weres are good people mostly, but yeah. Can’t help but notice that their—your—society is still stuck in the Dark Ages in some ways.”
“Maybe,” Bailey mused, “I can help change that by being an example of how things don’t have to be that way. Being a role model for others. Stuff like that. But goddamn, it’s hard, and I’m scared I’ll just mess up and squander it. Then, after I’m dead, or maybe even while I’m still alive and living with that failure, everything will be just the way it was before.”
Gunney put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t get too far ahead of yourself. You’ve already done a lot. You’re a local hero, remember? Just focus on one or two things at a time. Get it done, then move on to the next thing. It’s good to have a notion of where you’re headed, but don’t look too far ahead or you’ll miss what’s right in front of you.”
Already, she was feeling better. They worked together for another hour, chatting occasionally about minor bullshit, putting the shop in a higher degree of order and just being comfortable in one another’s company.
Before she left, Gunney took her out back to the car lot.
“The Trans Am,” he stated, “is as good as new. You somehow managed not to wreck the damn thing, for which I’m eternally grateful. But there was some scuffing and some mud, and I think you kicked up more gravel than you should have. Nothing a little spit and elbow grease couldn’t fix, though.”
Bailey stared at it—the Smokey and the Bandit car in the flesh. Or steel, whatever. She couldn’t believe he’d let her drive it to Seattle and back.
“So,” she queried, “does that mean I can borrow it again?”
“Nah,” he said. “Well, not unless you wreck the Tundra again.”
Bailey and Roland were only about two minutes reunited when Marcus reappeared.
“Whoa!” Roland exclaimed. “Where did you come from? Couldn’t you at least give us a few minutes to have a light lunch or something?”
The shaman paid no heed to his remark. “Come,” he said. “You’ve had time enough already. Now we need to begin the next phase of your training.”
Bailey had pulled into the driveway, moments ago, and leaped down from her truck to find the wizard waiting for her, leaning against the house on the front porch. Presumably, her brothers were indoors or had gone elsewhere. Joining Roland, Bailey had quickly recapped all that she and Gunney had discussed and was about to ask what he thought they should do next.
That was when the tall older man had emerged from the woods. She hadn’t heard him approach, and now, having made his statement, it didn’t look or sound like he was in the mood to argue.
Bailey put her hands on her hips. “Glass of water first, then we’ll come along. Where are we going, anyway?”
Marcus didn’t object to her first condition, but only answered the question she’d asked. “Into the woods.”
Sighing, Roland quipped, “Well, that narrows it down, doesn’t it?”
Bailey and the wizard went inside for a quick drink, a pee, and to say goodbye to Russell, who had remained behind while Jacob and Kurt had left for the Bristling Elk, their local pub and diner.
“Take care,” her huge middle brother bade her. His mood seemed darker than usual, but on some level, he trusted his sister to deal with her own problems. Mostly.
Marcus was standing in the same place when they emerged. He waited for them to approach, his expression irritated.
“That,” he commented, “must have been a very tall glass of water.”
Roland nodded. “Towering.”
The shaman turned and tramped off into the tree-grown slopes west of the Nordins’ corner of the neighborhood.
Bailey furrowed her brow as she hastened to keep up with the man. “Marcus, if we’re gonna be throwing magic around again, shouldn’t we head somewhere farther from people?”
Without turning around, he answered her in a low, flat voice. “We will not be doing anything here. All three of us are going back into the Other.”
Roland grunted. “Ugh. I was afraid that was what you were going to say. Well, the first time was certainly an educational experience, even if it wasn’t much fun.”
Bailey poked him with her elbow. “Training isn’t supposed to be fun, dumbass.”
He scowled. “I’m not sure about that, but I suppose he’s the expert.” He flourished his hand at the shaman.
Marcus did not reply, only led them deeper into the forest, stopping after about five minutes in a small glade surrounded on all sides by dense stands of pines. No one would be around when the glowing violet doorway appeared.
Unless, Bailey thought, those goddamn men in black are tracking us remotely with a drone or some shit. She glanced up and examined their surroundings, but could see no clear evidence of any such thing.<
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“Now,” the shaman proclaimed, “let us begin. I will send you to a different part of the realm, and this time, I’ll be coming along. At least at first.”
He raised his arms, falling into deep, meditative concentration. Bailey and Roland kept silent.
After a few moments of low chanting, the doorway to the Other appeared once more, shimmering faintly with multihued light even as its surface remained a murky deep purple.
Marcus stepped back and to the side. He was waiting.
“Okay,” Bailey murmured, and she grabbed Roland’s hand, leading him forward. They stepped through the portal, bracing themselves for the odd chilling sensation. Almost instantly, everything was different.
Different, but familiar. Looking around, Bailey saw the same dim primordial landscape as before. It was indeed a different place, but its overall character was much the same. She wondered if there were different regions and biomes within the Other, or if the whole thing was one giant swampy Limbo of mist, ragged waterlogged ground, and gnarled black trees.
She and the wizard took four or five steps forward, and they heard Marcus’s heavy tread as he came through behind them. Bailey glanced back and watched, without much surprise, as the shaman dispelled the doorway. There would be no going back until he felt the time was right.
They were on a rise in the damp, ash-colored earth, with dark and twisted forest on three sides. Ahead there was a ridge, and the ground sank sharply beyond it.
Marcus walked past them toward the ridge and the young pair followed, hanging by his left and right elbows. As they reached the crest, they saw a broad, bowl-shaped valley beyond and below. At the center, starting near the foot of the slope, was a placid lake of inky black water.
“There,” said Marcus, “is where you’re going, Bailey. Roland, I want you to stay behind for now, on this ridge.”
“Okay,” he agreed. “At least from up here, there’s a nice view of all the…fog.”
The shaman took the werewitch ahead, the two of them descending the slope via a mostly hidden pathway that might or might not have been made by mortal efforts.
As they approached the water’s edge, Bailey noticed how utterly quiet it was here. The Other was not a noisy place—except when the wraiths made their sporadic, spine-chilling howls—but next to the black lake, sound was nonexistent except when they created it.
Marcus looked down at the girl. “This place,” he explained, “manifests in ways based not only on your needs but also on your fears.”
Her gut tightened at that, but she just breathed in through her nostrils and nodded.
“It will push you,” the man went on, “and it will not push gently. You may find that it will be too much for you, and you won’t be the first, if so. You don’t have much choice but to face it, though. There is once again the risk of death. Which would you prefer? The chance here, where at least success means you will emerge stronger and wiser? Or would you rather go back to the so-called ‘real’ world unprepared and try to hack it there, where forces are arrayed against you that also want you dead?”
Something ferocious awakened within her, and she stared into the shaman’s eyes. “I’m going to make it here.” It was a flat statement of fact.
He smiled. “Good. You are a neophyte, yes, but not someone to be trifled with. I’ll grant you that. Now, go and sit just before the edge of the lake.”
She turned away from him and did as he asked, dropping cross-legged about three feet from the water. It did not lap; it was totally still. She could see only a few inches into it, making her wonder if it was water or something else.
The shaman went on. “Look into it. Relax, focus. Try to channel your magic as you gaze into its depths and reflect upon it. Take as much time as you need; you have no shortage of it while you’re in here. Roland and I will be nearby, just behind you on the ridge.”
She glanced at him, seeing his strong frame and Roland’s silhouette higher up, and then turned her eyes back to the water. “Okay. Will do.”
Time passed. She tried to summon her powers, but nothing happened. Looking into the black pool, she suddenly felt overwhelmed by whatever mystery it concealed and closed her eyes, the better to focus on magic.
She easily remembered the sight of the lake, and, concentrating on it, tried to pull her magic through the image. Here and there, she felt a slight tingle, but not enough to convince her she’d succeeded.
Her sense of time was nonexistent by now. She felt like she’d been sitting there for days, drifting in and out of sleep every few hours, scarcely feeling her body. It was as though she’d become a tree that grew beside the shore.
Bailey opened her eyes, suddenly restless. The dark water was bubbling.
A jolt of alarm went through her muscles, and she looked back and up. Neither Roland nor Marcus was anywhere to be seen. Her head snapped back toward the lake.
The bubbles were coalescing into a sort of mound or lump as something rose from the waters a few feet from where Bailey sat. She unfolded her legs and stood up, surprised that her limbs didn’t feel stiff, and braced herself for combat with the familiar rush of adrenaline.
A figure stood straight up as if raised on a lift like the ones at Gunney’s shop, the black fluid running off the tall, sleek body with unnatural ease, leaving only the faintest trace of wetness. It seemed to be a woman, with brown hair made darker by saturation and an athletic build. Her head had been down, but now she raised it, turning her face to Bailey.
It was her. It was the werewitch.
Something in her went cold and weak, and she almost collapsed in sudden horror as the figure surged out of the lake toward her, arms extended, hands grasping for her face and neck.
“No!” Bailey cried, her hands coming up in time to catch the doppelganger’s wrists. She threw all her weight at the attacker, rolling her to the side in the weedy gray muck.
She fought panic as the uncanniness of the situation hit her. She was fighting a flesh-and-blood manifestation of her reflection in the mirror. It had to be some kind of magical illusion. It had to.
The other Bailey was already springing back to her feet, arcane power crackling from her hands in blossoms of red sparks.
Bailey’s eyes widened, knowing what was coming. The electrical circuit spell she and Roland had finagled last time leaped to mind.
She caught the doppelganger’s lightning bolt, directed it to her other hand, and looped it back at her attacker, hoping it would catch her off-guard and destroy her. The reflection seemed to know as much as she did, though, and a circular loop was established.
By rights, Bailey thought, that meant a stalemate, but something was wrong. The doppelganger, staring intently at her from under her wet stringy hair, kept adding more power into the circuit, and Bailey felt her body tremble with pain as she struggled to adjust to the greater voltage.
Then, horribly, the reflection spoke.
“You’re too weak,” she rasped, her voice harsh and hollow. “You have no idea what you’re doing, do you? You’re going to die here, and then there will be only me. I’m going to take your place. No one will even know you’re gone.”
The fear induced by those words was almost overwhelming. Many people might have collapsed right then and there, but Bailey had been terribly afraid many times before, and she knew one thing: terror made good fuel for action.
“No! No, goddammit!” she cried. Her mind turned to the increasing amounts of magical electricity coursing through her, and somehow she gathered it up and tossed it all back at its source.
The circuit winked out and was replaced by a powerful bolt that struck the doppelganger full in the chest. But the other Bailey, the dark reflection, just stood there and absorbed it with a hissing laugh.
“See?” she sneered. “You’re pathetic. You’re not ready for this, are you? I’m going to take your heart and soul. You don’t deserve the people you’ve given them to, so I will have them.” She took two steps forward. “Then I’ll do what you’re
too feeble to accomplish.”
Then the doppelganger pounced on her, eschewing elemental magic for sheer brute force.
The two young women clawed and punched and kicked each other, wrestling when they could, jumping away when they had to, throwing each other to the ground. For minutes they fought, neither gaining the upper hand.
But Bailey, for all her physical strength, was still a mortal creature, and she was getting tired. The doppelganger seemed to suffer no such ailment.
I have to use magic, the girl realized. Even though she thinks I can’t, that is the only way to beat it.
She started to conjure another cone of lightning, low intensity but well-controlled like the one she’d used to fend off the wraiths, but suddenly dropped it and instead went for a powerful telekinetic push.
The mirror-demon, not expecting that, showed alarm on her disturbingly familiar face as a wave of invisible force pushed her back toward the water. “No!” she snarled.
Bailey expected her to throw a magical attack at her, so, relaxing and maintaining the telekinesis with one hand, she used the other to conjure a shield like the one she’d seen Roland used.
She was just in time. The doppelganger hurled a mass of swirling ice shards her way, but they ricocheted harmlessly off the shield. Through a combination of magical resistance and simply digging her heels in, she had slowed Bailey’s push but failed to stop it.
“You’re failing even now!” the creature jeered. “This isn’t how you’re supposed to do it. Stupid, useless little bitch!”
Still Bailey pushed, and the doppelganger stumbled back into the lake, sinking into it up to her knees as the werewitch changed direction and pushed down. Howling in rage, the doppelganger vanished back beneath the water and was gone.
Silence. Bailey could hear nothing but the beating of her heart.
She collapsed, shocked at how much energy she’d spent, and rolled over on her back, gasping.
