by Terry Brooks
They bear him from the clearing then, dozens of hands holding him fast as they move back through the woods toward the village. The demon follows, clutching the remains of the staff. He can hear anew the shrieks and moans of the injured and dying, of the people who first harbored him and then gave him up, guilty and innocent alike. Many will be dead before the day is done, and this time, he knows, he will be one of them. The thought of dying does not frighten him; he has lived with the possibility for too long to fear it now. Nor is he frightened of the pain. There are rents and tears in his skin, and his blood flows down his arms and legs, but he does not feel it. The pain he feels most lies deep inside his heart.
His captors bear him past the village through a ruined orchard and up a small rise to a country church. The church is smoldering from a fire that has mostly burned itself out. The roof has collapsed, the walls are scorched, and the windows have been broken out. A clutch of once-men have brought a large wooden cross from within and laid it on the open ground. The brackets that secured it to the wall behind the altar are still attached, twisted and scarred. Once-men with hammers and iron spikes stand waiting, heads turning quickly at his approach.
Hands lower him roughly to the earth and hold him pinned against the wooden cross, arms outstretched, legs crossed at the ankles. They strip off his boots so that his feet will be unprotected. He does not struggle against them. There is no reason to do so. His time as a Knight of the Word is ended. He watches almost disinterestedly as the demon casts the ruined staff on the ground at his feet and the men with the hammers and spikes kneel beside him. They force one hand open and place the tip of a spike against his palm. He remembers a dream he had—long ago, when there was still hope—of being in this time and place, of hanging broken from a cross. He remembers, and thinks that perhaps the measure of any life is the joining of the past and the future at the moment of death.
Then a hammer rises and falls, and the spike is driven through the bones and flesh of his hand …
Ross awoke with a gasp, hands clenching the sheets and blankets, body rigid and sweating. He lay staring into the darkness of the room for several moments, trying to remember where he was. His dreams were always like this—so disturbing that waking from them left him feeling adrift and lost.
Then he felt Josie Jackson stir next to him, folding her body into his, and he remembered that he was in her house, in her bedroom, and had fallen asleep after lovemaking. A sliver of streetlight silvery with frost and cold glimmered through a gap in the window curtains. Josie put her arm around his chest, her fingers settling on his shoulder, smooth and warm. Her body heat infused him with reassurance and a sense of place.
But any contentment he felt was illusory. The dream had told him that his failure to save the gypsy morph, to breach its layers of self-protection, to discover the key to its magic and thereby bring it alive, was locking his future in place.
He lay there for a long time thinking through what that meant, of having to live the rest of his life knowing that even if he stayed alive through everything, his death was already predetermined. He did not know if he could live with that. He did know that his only chance to change things was now.
What then, he asked himself angrily, was he doing here? Nest, at least, was with Little John, monitoring his progress and seeking a way to reach him. What was he doing, away from both, fulfilling needs that had nothing to do with either?
The bitter taste in his mouth compressed his lips into a tight line. He was only human. It wasn’t fair to expect more. It wasn’t possible for him to give it.
He closed his eyes. Nevertheless, he conceded in the darkness of his mind, it was time to go.
Gently, he extracted himself from Josie’s embrace, climbing from the bed, picking up his clothes, and slipping from the room. He dressed in the hallway and walked downstairs to retrieve his coat and boots. The clock in the kitchen told him it was closing on midnight. He glanced around. The old house was dark and silent and felt comfortable. He did not want to leave.
He took a deep breath. He was in love with Josie Jackson. That was why he was here. That was why he wanted to stay. Forever.
He remained where he was for a few moments, then walked to the bottom of the stairway and looked up into the darkness. He should go to her. He should tell her good-bye.
He considered it only briefly. Then he turned and went out the door into the night.
Nest Freemark froze in the sudden darkness, surprised and vaguely uneasy. The lights were all down. The hum of the refrigerator had gone silent. They had lost all power. All she could hear was the ticking of the grandfather clock.
She walked quickly back to the kitchen. The children were sitting at the table, staring around in confusion. “Neth,” Harper whispered. “Too dark.”
“It’s okay, sweetie,” she said, walking to the kitchen window to peer outside. Lights blazed up and down the road. Hers were the only ones that had gone out. She glanced around the yard, seeing nothing but blowing snow and the shadows of tree limbs spidering over the drifts. “It’s okay,” she whispered.
She wished suddenly that John Ross or even Pick was there, to provide some measure of backup. She felt very alone in the old house, in the darkness, with two children to care for. It was silly, she knew. Like the basement door—
The basement steps creaked softly. She heard the sound distinctly. Someone was climbing them. For an instant she dismissed the idea as ridiculous, wanting the sound to be her imagination. Then she heard it again.
She walked to the kitchen table and bent close to the children. “Sit right here for a moment and don’t move,” she said.
She opened the drawer by the broom closet and brought out Old Bob’s four-cell flashlight, the big, dependable one he always carried. She gripped it with determination, the weight of it comforting as she slipped on cat’s feet from the kitchen and down the hall to the basement door. She listened a moment, hearing nothing.
Then she took a deep breath, yanked open the door, switched on the flashlight, and flooded the stairwell with its powerful beam.
She almost missed what was there because it had climbed the wall and was hanging from the ceiling. It was shapeless and black, more shadow than substance, a kind of moving stain caught in the edge of the light. When she realized it was there and shifted the light to reveal it more fully, arms and legs unfolded, eyes glimmered out of its spidery mass, a hint of claws and teeth appeared, and it came down off the ceiling in a rush.
Nest reacted instinctively, summoning the magic with which she had been born, the magic that had been the legacy of the Freemark women for six generations. Locking eyes with the dark horror scrabbling up the stairs, she sent the magic spinning into it. It was like burrowing into primal ooze, as if the creature had no bones and there was nothing about it that was solid. But it stumbled and lost its grip anyway, the magic stealing its momentum and twisting its reactions, and it tumbled away into the dark.
Nest slammed the door, punched the button lock, and rushed back into the kitchen. Grabbing one of the high-backed wooden chairs away from the table, she dragged it to the basement door, tilted it so that its back was under the knob, and jammed it in place.
Her breath came in quick gasps. She had to get the children out of there. She hurried back to the kitchen, snatched up Harper, and grabbed Little John by the arm. “Come with me,” she urged as calmly as she could manage. “Quick, now.”
She got them to the front door and began shoveling them into their coats. Harper was protesting, and Little John was just standing there, looking at her. She fought to keep her composure, listening for the sound of the thing in the basement, thinking, No lights, no phone, no transportation, trapped.
The basement door flew open with a crash, the lock giving way, the chair splintering apart.
Keeping the children behind her, she stepped into the hall to face her attacker—only it wasn’t there. She speared the darkness with the flashlight, searching for it. She tried the ceiling first, th
en the walls. Nothing. She backed toward the children, eyes flitting left and right. It must be in the kitchen or living room. It must have ducked through one doorway or the other. She felt her insides churning, her throat and chest going tight with fear. She felt Wraith come awake inside her. In seconds, he would begin to break free. She could not afford to let that happen. Not in front of the children.
Hawkeye shot out from under the Christmas tree, a blur of orange fur as he disappeared down the hall.
She swung the beam of the flashlight back toward the kitchen, frantically searching.
Where is it?
It came from behind her, out of the darkness at the hallway’s other end, from the direction of the bedrooms. She sensed it before she heard it and swung about to block its attack just before it launched itself through the beam of her light. It came at her in a rush, a black and formless mass, unexpectedly veering away at the last moment to try to get behind her. She threw the magic at it in a blanket, then swung at it with the flashlight. She saw it twist wildly and stumble, caught in the magic’s grip, unable to recover. Some part of it lashed out at her in fury, catching her arms a numbing blow, and the flashlight spun away. Then it was past her and down the hall the other way, lost in shadows.
The flashlight went out and the house was plunged into darkness once more. Nest took the children by the arms and literally dragged them down the hallway to her bedroom. It was too late to get out or to try to summon help now. Her options were all gone. She needed a place where she could stand and fight. She realized something now, after this last attack, that hadn’t been apparent before. The thing attacking them wasn’t after her. It was after the children.
She got the children into her bedroom and slammed the door behind them, punching the lock. It was the best she could do. Her insides were twisting and roiling, and she knew Wraith would not be kept imprisoned much longer. Besides, there wasn’t any choice; if they wanted to stay alive, she would have to let him out. Nothing less than the ghost wolf could protect them. Her own magic was woefully inadequate; it provided a holding action at best. Harper was sobbing, crying for her mother, but there was no time to comfort her. She hurried the children to the closet on the far side of the room, pushed them inside, and told them to get down on the floor and stay there.
She had barely closed the closet door when she heard noises in the hall outside. Her curtains were still open, and the room was brightened by light from a streetlamp. She could see everything clearly. Her eyesight had always been exceptional in any case, a gift of the magic and her heritage, Gran had told her. She could roam the park at night with Pick and see as clearly as he could. She would need that talent now.
The bedroom door flew back, the lock snapped, and the black thing heaved into the room. It didn’t come at her right away this time, but floated up the wall to one side. She edged toward the center of the room, away from the bed, but with her back to the closet door, keeping herself between the attacker and the children. The black thing oozed along the wall for a moment, then dropped into a corner. Its movements were fluid and seamless, almost hypnotic.
Slowly it began to spread along the floor in a dark stain, moving toward her.
Wraith broke free then, shattering the restraints she had forged to keep him from doing so. There was no help for it; her need was too great. The big ghost wolf catapulted across the room toward the thing in the corner, tiger-striped face twisted in fury, jaws wide, teeth gleaming. Nest went with him, unable to prevent it, a part of herself trapped inside, her eyes seeing through his, her heart beating within the great sinewy chest. She felt as he did, primal and raw, all hunter and predator, caught up in his dark, compelling instinct to defend her at any cost.
The black thing counterattacked, and for a moment everything became a flurry of teeth and claws, guttural sounds and twisting bodies. Wraith fought ferociously, but the black thing, despite its shapeless, fluid mass, was immensely strong. It hammered into Wraith, and Nest felt the impact as if it were her own body under assault. Slammed violently backward, unable to hold his ground, Wraith went down in a tangle of legs and bristling hair, tiger face contorting in fury.
Up again almost immediately, he swung back to the attack, head lowered, muzzle drawn back.
But the black thing was gone.
It took Nest a moment to realize what had happened. Wraith stalked to the open doorway, gimlet eyes searching the darkness. Down the hall, the front door opened and closed. Wraith froze, a shadow silhouetted in the bedroom doorway, huge and menacing. Nest felt her connection with him unexpectedly loosen.
Then the closet door cracked softly behind her, and Little John slipped into view. He stood frozen in place for a moment, as if mesmerized by the tableau before him. His eyes shifted from Nest to Wraith and back again. Terror and despair were mirrored there; Nest could see both clearly. But there was a dark and haunting need as well. There was an unmistakable plea for contact. Nest was stunned. The gypsy morph was reaching out to her at last, groping in silent, wordless desperation. She was staggered by the depth of his voiceless cry for help. She was terrified.
She reacted instinctively, calling Wraith to her with a thought, drawing him back inside, trying to shield his presence from the boy. The ghost wolf came swiftly, obediently, knowing what was expected of him, but exuding a sense of reluctance, too, that in the heat of the moment she did not even think to question.
But Little John turned frantic. He came at her in a rush, crossing the room in a churning of arms and legs, reaching her just moments after Wraith had disappeared inside. He threw himself at her, this strange, enigmatic boy who would not be understood or revealed, and wrapped his arms around her as if she had become the most precious thing alive.
In the silence that followed, standing there in the center of her bedroom, her arms holding Little John close against her breast as she tried to reassure him that she was there for whatever need he had and would give to him whatever he required, she heard him cry softly.
“Mama,” he said in his child’s voice. “Mama.”
Wednesday,
December 24
Chapter 21
Nest was awake by six o’clock the next morning, dressed and ready to go. She walked up the road in the still, cold darkness to the pay phone at the all-night gas station on Lincolnway and spent twenty minutes arranging for repairmen from the electrical and phone companies to make unscheduled early morning stops at her home. Because she had lived in Hopewell all her life, she knew who to call to make this happen. Not that it was all that easy to persuade the people she knew to change things around on the day before Christmas, but in the end she got the job done.
She had taken the time to determine the extent of the damage last night before finally going off to sleep. The phone line was cut where it came into the house, so that wasn’t a big deal. But the entire circuit-breaker box had been ripped out of the wall, and she had no idea how difficult it would be to fix that.
She carried back a box of doughnuts and Styrofoam cups of hot chocolate and coffee, thinking that they would at least have that for sustenance. The snow had stopped and the wind had died, so the world around her was still and calm. The children were sleeping, exhausted physically and emotionally from last night’s events. It had taken her a long time to get them to sleep, especially Little John, who had done a complete one hundred eighty degree turn toward her. Instead of distancing himself as he had before, going off to a private world to contemplate things hidden from her, he had attached himself so completely that it seemed any sort of separation would break his heart. She could barely get him to release her long enough to greet John Ross, who came through the door less than half an hour after her battle with the thing in the basement and found the gypsy morph clinging to her like a second skin.
She was pleased by Little John’s change, but puzzled as well. He had called her Mama twice, but said nothing more since. He seemed devastated by her failure to understand what he wanted. She held him and cooed to him and told hi
m it was all right, that she was there and she loved him, but nothing seemed to help. He was disconsolate and bereft in a way she could not understand.
“It has something to do with Wraith,” she had told John Ross.
They sat together on the living room couch in the aftermath of the night’s events, the children asleep at last and the house secured as best it could be. It was cold in the house and growing colder without any heat, and she had tucked the children into sleeping bags in front of the fireplace and built a fire to keep them warm.
She whispered so as not to wake them. “When he saw me standing there, while Wraith was still across the room, he had such excitement and hope in his eyes, John. But when Wraith came back to me, he was devastated.”
“Maybe he was frightened by what he saw.” Ross was looking at the sleeping boy, brow furrowed. “Maybe he didn’t understand.”
Nest shook her head. “He is a creature of magic. He understood what was happening. No, it was something else. It was Wraith that bothered him so. Why would that be? Wraith has been there all along.”
“And the gypsy morph hasn’t wanted anything to do with you the entire time.” Ross looked at her meaningfully.
“No,” she agreed.
“Maybe you are being asked to make a choice.”
“Between magics? Or between lives? What sort of choice?”
“I don’t know. I’m just speculating. Give up one magic for another, perhaps?” Ross shook his head.
She thought about it again, walking home from the gas station. Apparently the gypsy morph couldn’t find a way to tell her what it wanted. Little John was a boy, but he wasn’t altogether a real boy, rather something like Pinocchio, wooden and jointed and made out of fairy dust. Perhaps he did want her to choose him over Wraith. But how was she supposed to do that? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t thought of ridding herself of the ghost wolf, of her father’s demon magic, time and again. She didn’t want that magic inside her. She was constantly battling to keep it under control. Last night she had failed, forced to release it because of a demonic presence. She knew she would never be at peace as long as Wraith stayed locked away inside her. But it wasn’t as if the choice was hers.
