Phoenix Falling

by Laura Bickle

  She followed the pack as far as she dared, until she felt her body begin to fade, and her sadness increased. This wolf-form wasn’t a real, solid form, only a projection of the spirit world assisted by the Eye. It was constructed of her memory and her hopes, and it faded more and more quickly with each passing day.

  Nine opened her eyes. She found herself kneeling by the pool, and her silhouette in the water was that of a woman. Her knees had fallen asleep, and her fingers were knotted together.

  She swallowed, longing and fear surging up in her throat. She missed the pack more than she’d ever missed anything in her life. They had always been her world. She rubbed her nose and wiped her eyes. Even as she felt the pain of self-pity, her tears came more because she was afraid for them. They were safe for now, she reminded herself. Ghost was a good leader and was wise enough to lead them away from the fire. But for how long could they evade it? This was not their first fire. But this fire felt sharp, viciously unreal. It felt like something that saw wolves as prey.

  The black toad hopped out from beneath the rock, regarding her with a dour expression. Nine leaned down to look at it. The toad opened its mouth and spoke in a hiss:

  “The sky is falling.”

  She gasped, and the toad jumped into the Eye, vanishing in the dark depths.

  Nine blinked up at the sky, and her brow furrowed.

  A streak of brilliant orange light swept from one bank of the river of stars to the other. It was brighter and fiercer than any comet that Nine had seen in her long life, and more transient. It faded quickly, leaving behind a bright streak that burned her night vision.

  Nine sucked in her breath. She climbed to her feet and ran back to the house as fast as two feet could carry her.

  Gabe pulled his pickup truck up before Petra’s trailer. The sun had set, lending an orange cast to the field in which it sat. The silver skin of the Airstream seemed to glow, as if reflecting the distant light. The shadows of dry summer grasses swept long over the field, contrasting with pockets of blue lupine.

  He turned off the ignition and stared at the door. Petra glanced at him. “Are you staying?”

  His chest ached at the simple request. They were married. They should be able to spend every night tangled in each other’s embrace, with a coyote drowsing at the foot of the bed. But this was not to be. Not for them.

  He shook his head. “Not tonight.”

  She nodded and looked away, turning to open the door.

  He reached for her, turned her face to his, and kissed her soundly. It was wistful, longing, and tasted like tears.

  She broke away first, gathered his face in her hands, and kissed his forehead. She opened her door and slid out with the coyote, walking to her front door and a cold bed. She did not look back at him, not once.

  Gabe watched them go inside and a light go on. He put the truck in reverse and turned back down the gravel road, headed back through town, and followed the two-lane road into the gathering darkness.

  It was night by the time he reached the Rutherford Ranch. Gabe didn’t bother to turn on the headlights as he turned off the main road and down a dirt road cutting through a field. In the distance, there were lights on in the main house. Owen Rutherford, county sheriff and current king of the Rutherford Ranch, was home. Gabe had no desire to speak to him, nor have the man know anything about his movements.

  He drove into the fields he knew by rote, crossing pastures speckled with sleeping cattle, blue flax, and purple penstemon in the shadow of the mountains. He paused for a moment when he skirted the edge of the field where the Hanged Men were buried. He missed them, more than he would admit to anyone, even Petra. Though they were largely silent and flawed, he had grown used to their presence. They were his shadows, and he felt unmoored to the world without their darkness behind him. These men had been closer to him than any brothers could have been, as tangled as they were in each other’s destinies and dreams. Since Sal had killed them, a deeper silence than any other he’d known rang in his ears.

  He passed the rill in the land that marked their grave site and a sapling tree. His gaze lingered there, and his foot faltered on the gas. It was no more than a dirt-filled ditch, with bones slumbering beneath, he reminded himself. He tore his gaze away and moved on, south, to the alchemical Tree of Life.

  The Lunaria, the Tree of Life, stood on a hillock in the center of a field studded with wild white geranium. Gabe parked the pickup beside it and grabbed his hat from the dashboard. He climbed out to stare up at the tree in the darkness. Leaves rustled above him. He swore the span of the oak’s branches grew every day. It had only stood here for a few months, but it had the appearance of a two-hundred-year-old tree. Its branches swept up to heaven, while great tangled roots dug into the earth.

  As above, so below.

  Gabe walked to the west side of the hill. A creek pierced the foot of it. Tree roots were exposed, winding into a rusted iron grate. At his approach, the grip of the roots loosened, just enough for him to pull the grate open. He stepped inside, up to his knees in water. The roots wound around the iron, sealing it behind him. This place smelled like dirt and petrichor and something sinister.

  It was one of the most comforting smells he’d ever known.

  In darkness, he walked along the bank of the creek that widened into an underground river. He needed no light to see by. When he glanced to the black water, his gleaming amber eyes were reflected. The burn injury to his arm glowed golden, shining through his sleeve. In daylight, his blood looked like blood. But darkness revealed how inhuman he truly was.

  He walked until he reached a veil of roots, corresponding to where the trunk of the tree stood topside. The roots twitched, and then a golden glow slipped through them, as bright and warm as sunshine. The tendrils reached down and picked him up, as effortlessly as if he weighed nothing. He sighed as the roots wrapped around him, winced as an overaggressive tendril dug into his back.

  He had been made a Hanged Man under a different tree. That Lunaria had been gentle with its fruit, treating the men under its care as if they were its children. This Lunaria was more impatient, impetuous. Perhaps it was because it had no more children. Perhaps it was another work of magic entirely, and not a reincarnation of the old one, as he had hoped.

  Nevertheless, the roots tangled in a cocoon around him, taking him in. It sought Lascaris’s watch in his pocket, stroking the chain and probing at the case. Gabe closed his eyes. He felt his skin softening, the golden light churning in filaments around him. This was the curse of the Hanged Men—to return to the tree, to rot and be reborn each night. His muscles loosened from his bones while the contents of his guts liquefied. He could stay away perhaps a night or two, but he was driven to return, to regenerate, to become whole again in this place.

  To become something other than the husband of his beloved Petra Dee.

  And he mourned that loss, that widening chasm between them.

  In the grip of the Lunaria, he dreamed. He often dreamed in the Lunaria’s embrace. And sometimes the tree dreamed, too, and he glimpsed fragments of its alien consciousness. The tree would dream of lightning, and he would feel a visceral fear in his marrow at the sound of thunder rumbling across the sky. The tree would dream of spring, of soft rains that fed it and the birds that lived in its branches. Gabe would dream of perching in the tree then, feeling that warmth and the life under raven’s talons. One or the other of them would dream of the Hanged Men, and they would remember how the Hanged Men hung underground, like glowing fruit, digested and regenerated by the tree. These were symbiotic dreams. It was often hard to remember where one began and the other ended.

  Lately, since the fires began, the tree had been afraid. It shuddered under the memory of fire, how its first incarnation had been burned to a stump. Gabe could feel it hiding itself, cloaking itself, drawing up water from the underground river for fortification. The tree had dreamed of fire for many nights now, shuddering in its sleep.

  But tonight, Gabe dreamed of Pet
ra. He dreamed of what he wished he had.

  He dreamed that they built a cabin in the backcountry, on a plot of land bought and paid for with alchemical gold. He had envisioned the dimensions of this cabin perfectly in his many nocturnal adventures. He knew that he could build it himself, with an ax and time.

  This cabin, on a ridge overlooking a valley, was far from the Rutherford Ranch. He knew that the tree sensed this. In this dream, Gabe no longer kept a shroud of skin over raven feathers. He was a man, and only a man. In the dream, Gabe and Petra lived together as a married couple should. They read books before a fire with a coyote sleeping on his back with all four feet in the air. They hiked in the backcountry and watched the eagles hunt. They slept together in the same bed, with no fear of magical creatures or human threats. There was no need for the Venificus Locus. Petra was human, too, in this place. Her skin had become freckled once more in the sun, and she no longer wore the gold necklace that her father had given her. That jewelry, a lion devouring the sun, was gone, replaced by a necklace he’d given her with a green stone. Sun and moon passed overhead, stars spun, and they grew older. As people should.

  In that dream, they lay dozing in bed after making love. A coyote climbed into bed at their feet, yawning. Gabe smiled and gazed drowsily into the dwindling fire in a fireplace.

  But then the crackling of the fire changed in pitch. It changed to a ticking. Gabe glanced at the nightstand, where Lascaris’s pocket watch lay, case open, hands moving closer and closer to midnight.

  He sat upright in bed, alarmed. The blanket fell away, and he snatched up the watch. It ticked with the staccato rhythm of a heartbeat.

  There was a bark and a whine behind him. Sig had jumped out of bed and was pawing at a floor-length mirror pinned to the wall. He quickly turned to look at the bed, and Gabe realized with a sickening feeling that Petra was gone.

  He ran to the mirror. The mirror was cloudy, like Father Adrian’s had become. The shape of a woman churned behind it, like smoke trapped behind glass.

  He reached for a lamp and flung it at the mirror to break it, to release the soul that was trapped there. The glass fractured, spilling shards out on the floor in a crystalline roar. He reached in, trying to retrieve the soul behind it.

  An arm reached for him, but the arm withered and transformed into a tree root. The root wrapped around his wrist and hauled him in, into darkness, leaving the barking of a coyote behind.

  There was no sleeping in this empty bed.

  Petra rolled over on her futon in the tiny Airstream trailer, fussing with her blanket. In doing so, she disturbed Sig at the foot of the bed. Sig grumbled and crawled up to her chest, where he promptly flopped on his side and made himself the little spoon against the curve of her body. Petra tangled her fingers in his ruff and pressed her cheek to the top of his head, which quickly grew damp.

  “I miss him,” she confessed.

  Sig gave a deep sigh, and she felt his tail thump against her belly.

  “But there’s nothing to be done for it. I know. I’m being selfish, really. It’s not like he’s been shipped overseas for years on end or something. I see him often enough. But . . . I think that what bothers me the most is . . .” She forced herself to say it aloud, and the terrible words tasted like poison. “The thing that bothers me the most is that there is no end to this. He will always, always sleep beneath the tree. And the more he does . . . the less human he seems. And I wonder if he will eventually become like the rest of the Hanged Men were. Silent. Automaton-like.”

  She could feel Sig’s eyebrows working against her cheek.

  “I mean, don’t get me wrong. Immortality is a wonderful thing for him. I’d rather have him in this state than not at all. It’s just that I married a man. And I don’t know what he is now, or even if he wants to find his way back to being that. Every time he becomes the ravens, I feel like he becomes a little less human, you know?”

  Petra sniffled for a moment and rubbed her nose. She wasn’t given much to feeling sorry for herself, but something about tonight chewed at her. Maybe it was her trying to cling to humanity and him pushing it away. “It’s like . . . he’s married to that tree, and I’m the mistress.” She laughed aloud. “Listen to me . . . jealous of a damn tree.”

  Sig didn’t laugh at her. He did, as always, take her very seriously. He turned over, collar jingling. He looked at her with deeply serious eyes, leaned forward, and licked her nose.

  She laughed in spite of herself. “Yes, my dear Sig, I know I have you. And I will always love you. I’m a lucky woman.”

  She turned her gaze to the window over the futon and looked out at the dark sky. She was lucky. Very lucky. Lucky to have Sig and Gabe, in whatever form he took, and lucky to be alive. But there was a sorrow that was creeping into her mind, and she knew that if she didn’t shake it, it could contaminate her relationship. And maybe more than that.

  It could poison her whole life, if she let it.

  She shook her head to clear it, then climbed out of bed and found her boots. She slept in a T-shirt and sweats, good enough to wander outside in. She jammed her feet in her boots and unlocked the front door of the trailer.

  Sig hopped down from the futon, yawning in an exaggerated fashion. It was clear that he did not approve of the idea of going out. But he would follow her anywhere. Funny how he was turning out to be the great love of her life. Maybe she needed to be okay with that, make peace with the knowledge that human love wasn’t really eternal and didn’t conquer all. Maybe, if she did that, she could accept whatever came without trying to possess it. Maybe that’s what she was trying to do with Gabe. Possess him. And she knew, deep in her gut, that was unjust. She wanted to be a better person, to be able to love selflessly and without demand. That was what true love was supposed to be all about, right? Unconditional love. She wanted to give it unconditionally, but if she was being honest, she was having to force herself. She just felt like she was grasping at someone who was slipping away, and that she was going to be alone.

  Not that being alone was a bad thing. She’d been alone for most of her adult life, and had shocked herself by getting married at all. But meeting Gabe had been something she hadn’t been able to predict. He was everything she hadn’t realized that she’d ever wanted. She pressed a hand to her aching chest. Maybe this loss she was feeling was the loss of something true and beautiful, and she was managing to fuck it all up. She was clumsy enough to break almost anything, she felt, and manage to cut herself on the pieces.

  She rubbed at her blurry eyes, stepped down the wooden steps, and walked around to the back side of the trailer. The summer grasses in the field beyond were pale and brittle, scraping against her sweatpants. Once Sig had awoken himself, he plunged into the field, vanishing in the tall grass. She could only gauge his position by the movement of the tassels.

  The distant horizon was vermilion, a lurid red that illuminated the crest of the distant mountains. It was disturbing to see that at night. The wind had turned, blowing ash. Dark smoke billowed skyward, swallowing the stars overhead. She could taste it in the back of her throat, like unseasoned firewood.

  Sig returned to her side, leaning against her leg. Petra reached down to rub his ears. “The fire’s a long distance away. Many, many miles.” But she still wouldn’t leave Sig home alone during the day at the trailer. She’d never forgive herself if the fire turned toward Temperance and something happened to him.

  And she wanted him close for other reasons. Gabe’s story chilled her. It was possible that Lascaris—in some form—was somehow still out there, roaming the backcountry in search of power and magic. She was fully aware that this place, the site of the trailer, was where Lascaris’s house had once stood. That fact had crept into her nightmares more than once. She didn’t think it was haunted. But she sure didn’t want to find out. Nor did she want to find out, if Lascaris had returned somehow, that he was homesick.

  The fire beyond swirled, almost like a distant solar flare. She couldn’t hear it at t
his distance, but she imagined the roar and popping sound it made as it consumed everything in its path. Despite the summer heat, she shuddered. She had rarely felt at the mercy of the elements like this. She’d experienced storms at sea before when she’d been working as a geologist on an oil rig, but this was different. This was something creeping irresistibly across the land, something that felt so much more alive than a storm that blew over in a matter of hours. Storms ended. This firestorm seemed inexorable.

  She turned to leave, to go and get back into bed, but something crunched beneath her boot. She paused, peering downward. Something glittered at her feet, so she knelt to inspect it. Pieces of broken glass sprouted up from the ground like claws. Conscious of Sig’s bare paws, she carefully plucked up the shards to discard them safely inside.

  As she did so, her mind raced, fueled by sleeplessness. What if this wasn’t the remains of a broken wine bottle or a broken car mirror? What if . . .

  She ground her teeth down on her overactive imagination and forced herself to pick all the pieces she could find out of the dirt. Cradling them in her hands, she stepped back to the house and dumped them into the kitchen trash.

  It’s just glass, she told herself. Something sharp that needs to be thrown out before someone gets hurt.

  Chapter 4

  The Dark Side of the Mirror

  There was no life on the other side of the mirror.

  The dark side of the mirror was cold, featureless, and still. Aldus Lascaris had remained pinned to the other side of the magical glass for an eternity. He didn’t know how long this eternity was—there was no way of measuring time in this place. But hells are always, always eternal.

  The mirror hadn’t been his first choice. The townsfolk had come for him that night in August, having concluded that he was the root of all evil in Temperance. He was the root of evil; he didn’t delude himself about that. But he was the root of everything in the town—good, bad, and indifferent. Without him, without the gold he conjured, the town would have been dust. No trains would have churned through the station three times a week. There wouldn’t have been a station. No brothel or church would flourish.