Widdershins

by Charles de Lint

  I look her right in the eye.

  “I could,” I say.

  I’m still holding my hand out to her.

  “And what if I do come with you?” she asks.

  “Then you’ll see the thing I want to show you.”

  “Why don’t you just tell me instead?”

  “It doesn’t work that way.”

  She hesitates a moment longer, then holds the bear against her chest with one hand and reaches for my hand.

  “This doesn’t change anything,” she tells me.

  “I know,” I say.

  Except it does. How, that’s still to be seen.

  I lead her back to the house. She stares curiously at the Eadar gathered in the yard and almost smiles when she spots Tom Foolery, but she catches herself in time.

  “Here, sit beside me,” I say.

  We sit on the steps, and I pick up the book and my pencil again.

  “Can you read?” I ask her.

  She gives me a withering look, so I turn to the end of the book where I’ve been writing. She reads what I’ve put down so far.

  “And then what?” she asks.

  With her looking over my shoulder, I write about the coming of Tom Foolery and the other Eader, of my going into the woods, and what happened between us in there. I draw a picture of her holding the bear, sitting in among the pine tree roots. When I get to the end, to us sitting here on the steps and my writing in the book, I turn to her.

  “Are you going to finish it?” she says.

  “No, you are,” I tell her.

  She looks out at the Eadar, then at Tom who gives her a wink.

  “They’re all innocent, aren’t they?” she says. “They don’t know what we know.”

  “They know,” I tell her. “But they didn’t have to experience it the way you and I did.”

  “Why did we?”

  I hold her gaze. “I don’t know why I did. But you experienced it because I was a stupid and selfish little girl. I wasn’t brave enough to keep it to myself so I made you carry it for me.”

  “That’s not true,” she says.

  I raise my eyebrows.

  “You didn’t know what you were doing.”

  “But that didn’t make it right,” I say.

  She’s quick to see how we’re having the same argument we did before, except we’re arguing each other’s side of it this time.

  “ I . . . I just wanted to be loved,” she says after a long moment. “By someone who didn’t want to hurt me.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Did you ever find that?”

  I think of all my friends, from Lou and Angel, to Sophie and Wendy, Isabelle and Mona. Joe and Cassie and Christy and Saskia and the Professor. But most of all I think of Geordie, waiting for me on a mesa somewhere else in the otherworld.

  “I did,” I tell her. “But it took me a long time, and it took me even longer to believe it could be true. And . . . and even now, I find it easier to believe that it’s all just a dream. That it couldn’t be real.”

  “I wouldn’t doubt it,” she said. “If I had people who said they loved me, I’d believe it. Especially if they didn’t hit me.”

  I give her a slow nod. “I guess you’re braver than I am.”

  She touches a finger to the blank half page that’s still left at the end of what I’ve written.

  “How does it end?” she asks.

  “I really don’t know. Like I said, you have to finish it.”

  She looks away then, her gaze going inward. She strokes her teddy’s head.

  I don’t know how long we sit like that. Nothing changes. The Eadar don’t move or talk. The light doesn’t change—the sun just stays where it is in the sky.

  “I want to grow up,” Mattie finally says when she turns back to me.

  “There’s no reason why you shouldn’t,” I tell her. “It’d be up to you.”

  “Up tome . . . “ Then she gets it. “Are you saying I could be the Conjurer now?”

  “If that’s what you want.”

  “But I don’t want to hurt people.”

  “You don’t have to be that kind of Conjurer.”

  “So, you’ll just let that happen?” she asks. “You’ll write it in the book and that’s the way it’ll be?”

  I nod.

  “What if once I’m the Conjurer I put you in the deepest darkest dungeon, and you have to stay there forever and a day?”

  “I don’t think you’re the kind of person who would do that, but it’s the chance I have to take. I just hope you’ll look out for the others.” I nod toward the yard. “They need someone to protect them and keep them safe.”

  “You mean me?”

  “Well, I would think that’s what a good Conjurer would do.”

  Mattie turns to look at the scarecrow.

  “How would you feel about that?” she asks him.

  “We just want you to be happy again,” he says. “To be one of us.”

  “And . . . and the old Conjurer?” Mattie asks. “What happens to him?”

  I tap the book. “This doesn’t change.”

  She actually smiles now. “Because you’re the Conjurer, too. You have to be, because all of this is inside you.”

  “So we’ll both be Conjurers,” I say, “though you’ll probably make a better one than me.”

  “You’re just saying that,” she says, but I can tell that she’s pleased, nevertheless.

  “We already know you’re braver.”

  She shakes her head. “I never could have done what you did.” She smoothes a palm over the open pages of the book.

  I take a chance, then.

  “But you never made somebody else’s life a nightmare,” I say.

  Her gaze clouds for a moment and I hold my breath. But then she shakes her head.

  “No,” she says. “I just tried to kill you whenever I could.”

  “So, shall I finish the story?” I ask her.

  She nods, reading over my shoulder as I write the ending into the book. The last thing I do is draw a picture of her, but she’s older in it. A young woman.

  “Is that me?” she asks.

  I nod. I close the book, lay it on the porch behind me, and put the pencil on top. I turn to her and open my arms.

  She lets me hug her.

  “You have at least one person now who loves you,” I say into her hair. “And I won’t ever hurt you again. I really would die before I’d let that happen.”

  Her arms come around me and hold tight.

  “I was wrong,” she says, her voice soft, muffled against my breast.

  “About what?”

  “It turns out things can get better.”

  I kiss the top of her head.

  “Take care of this place for me,” I tell her. “And make friends with the Eadar. I only pulled the nice ones from Wentworth’s book.”

  “Will you come back?”

  “I don’t know that I’ll ever be away, but yes, I’ll come visit you.”

  “Why did you trust me?” she asks. I can tell from the look in her eyes that she’s genuinely puzzled. “I’d just tried to kill you.”

  “I don’t know. I can’t explain it, exactly.”

  It was just something I knew I had to do.

  “I think it was important to offer you trust and kindness,” I say finally. “To make up for how I hurt you before. And it was really important for me to believe that you would do what was right.”

  “You didn’t use magic?”

  I shake my head. “Not for that. Never for that. It had to come from you or it would mean nothing.”

  “I think you are brave,” she says. “I would never have trusted me.”

  “You would have, if you were me.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  I smile. “I often don’t.” I wait a beat, then ask her, “Why did you change your mind about wanting to kill me?”

  “Because of what you wrote in the book. It made me realize that we both went throu
gh the same things, except you really did. I just thought I did.”

  “Didn’t make it less real.”

  “No. But I understand better now. I might have done the same thing.”

  “Not knowing what you know now.”

  She shakes her head.

  “Because I know for sure that I couldn’t,” I say.

  I kiss the top of her head again and stand up. I wave to the Eadar, then my gaze goes to Tom. The scarecrow’s painted features managed to look both solemn and cheerful.

  “We’ll take care of each other,” he assures me.

  Mattie looks up at me from where she’s sitting on the top step. She makes her teddy bear wave at me.

  “Bye, Jilly,” she says.

  “Bye,” I say.

  Then I let go of this world and allow myself to fall back to the mesa where Geordie and the others are waiting for me.

  Joe

  If Joe had stopped to think of the scare they’d throw into Geordie and the others arriving the way they did, he would have taken man-shape and called out from the trail before stepping up onto the mesa. Instead, two dogs and a coyote suddenly appeared right in front of them, landing almost in the middle of a campfire.

  Geordie and Lizzie were playing a tune on their fiddles and stopped in midbar. Geordie cried out in surprise. He dropped his fiddle into its case and grabbed a stick as he stood. Lizzie was as quick to set aside her instrument, but she rose in silence and barehanded. Before the ground was steady under Joe’s feet, she’d assumed a defensive stance that showed she knew what she was doing. Beside her, a knife appeared in each of the doonie’s hands—Joe didn’t see where they came from. The little man almost threw one before he recognized Honey.

  Joe quickly changed back into a more familiar shape—at least more familiar to Geordie. Beside him, Jack did the same.

  Geordie let the stick he was holding fall to the ground.

  “A little warning next time would be nice,” he said.

  “Sorry about that,” Joe told him. “We started to run here from Honey’s den, then decided to just jump the distance while we were still in animal form. I wasn’t thinking.”

  The doonie’s knives vanished as mysteriously as they’d appeared.

  “I am so ready to go home,” Lizzie said.

  Joe ignored her.

  “Any word from Jilly?” he asked Geordie.

  “No, and she’s been gone for hours. I hate this.”

  “You and me both,” Joe said. He turned and asked Honey, “Can you get me into this place where she’s gone?”

  No. Like I told you, it’s a closed world And even if I could, I wouldn’t. This is something she wants—she needs—to do on her own.

  “I get that,” Joe said. “But shouldn’t she be back by now?”

  We have no idea how long this will take.

  “But if she’s in trouble . . .”

  Remember, Honey told him, we need to have faith in her.

  Yeah, Joe thought. Faith. He had faith in Jilly, that she’d do her best. But sometimes your best just wasn’t good enough. You could give it your all and still fail.

  What if this was too much for her? What if she was facing something so big and terrible, the only way she’d survive was if someone had her back?

  “I need to make this right,” he said.

  Jack put a hand on his arm. “No, you need to let go of the idea that this was your fault.”

  “But if I’d protected her better, she wouldn’t—”

  “And then you need to do like Honey says. Have some faith. Maybe pray, if you have anybody you pray to.”

  “This is going badly, isn’t it?” Geordie said.

  Jack shook his head. “We don’t know that. We don’t know anything except that Jilly told you she had to go back. By herself. I’m guessing that means she thought she could handle it, because she never struck me as the suicidal type, and the Grace knows she’s had enough crap thrown at her.”

  Geordie gave him a slow unhappy nod. His gaze left Jack’s face and drifted to the place from which Jilly had disappeared earlier.

  You were playing music, Honey said to Geordie.

  He nodded without looking at her. “I was trying to do something to stop myself from worrying, but it wasn’t really working. I don’t think I’ve ever played so badly.”

  “Yeah, well, your not so good is another person’s great,” Lizzie said.

  Geordie started to turn, but then something happened in the air above the vortex. A dim glow appeared that suddenly burst into a flare of light. They were all blinded, except for Joe, who’d automatically closed his eyes. It wasn’t that he’d anticipated the flare. He couldn’t say why he’d done it. But because he had, he was the first to be able to see the small figure standing there when the flare died down.

  Jilly.

  She blinked in the firelight, obviously having come here from a place where the light was much brighter.

  A wave of relief went through Joe when he saw she seemed to be all in one piece. But then he noticed something different about her. He took a step forward, then stopped when he realized what it was.

  He’d always been able to see that light of hers—big and golden. He could see it as clearly as others took in her cheerful nature. But he could also see the shadow at the heart of it, that old piece of unhappiness that made it impossible for her body to be healed, because that shadow had to be healed first.

  The shadow was gone.

  “Wow,” she said. “Check out the welcoming committee.”

  Joe started forward again but Geordie got to her first, wrapping her in his arms.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “Tell me you’re okay.”

  “I’m totally okay,” she told him.

  “So you put that sick freak down?” Lizzie asked.

  Jilly turned so that Geordie still had an arm around her shoulders as she faced them.

  “In a manner of speaking,” she said. “He’s not going to ever bother anybody again.”

  “And that evil little girl?”

  Jilly smiled. “I put her in charge.”

  “You what?”

  “It’s a long weird story.”

  She stepped away from Geordie to give Joe a hug.

  “You look so worried,” she said.

  “Not anymore,” he told her.

  She let him go and went down on one knee to open her arms to Honey. The dog came to her and let her put her arms around her neck.

  I’m proud of you, Honey said.

  “You and me both. Putting an end to Del’s threat wasn’t the hard part. The hard part was making up for what I did to Mattie when I was a kid.”

  What do you mean?

  “I didn’t hold my hurt back then. I put it on her. I didn’t know I was doing it, but all the awful crap Del put me through, I made it hers instead of mine.”

  “That’s harsh,” Jack said.

  Jilly nodded. “Tell me about it.”

  “Who’s Mattie?” Joe asked.

  “An Eadar. I made a whole world of Eadar somewhere in my head, but she’s the only one I hurt.”

  “You’re right,” Jack said. “This sounds like a long weird story.”

  Jilly gave Honey a last hug before she stood up and took Geordie’s hand.

  “I don’t suppose you have some coffee to go with that campfire,” she said. “I’ve got the start of a wicked headache from caffeine withdrawal.”

  Timony picked up the empty Styrofoam mug in which he’d brought Geordie a coffee earlier and handed it to her. By the time she took it from him, it was filled to the brim with hot, steaming coffee.

  Jilly took a deep breath of its rich aroma before she had a careful sip.

  “You are so going to have to teach me that trick,” she said.

  Jilly

  It’s weird being back on the mesa top. This is still the otherworld, but compared to that place where I left Mattie and the other Eadar, it seems . . . I don’t know. Weightier. Like there’s more gravit
y here, or presence, or something. It’s not so much that I noticed a lack when I was in that version of Tyson County that lies inside my head. I just notice a more here.

  I take a sip of the coffee Timony made for me, then something occurs to me. I’m still in the otherworld, and I’ve still got the light inside me. What’s to stop me from working magic whenever I’m here? So I give it a try while we walk back to the fire and everybody’s talking.

  Once upon a time . . .

  I’m thinking of just a small thing, only to see if I can do it. So I imagine the coffee is cocoa and that the fire is green instead of yellow and orange.

  But, of course it doesn’t work. It’s only going to ever work in that one little piece of the otherworld peopled by a shiver of my brother Del and the Eadar from Ellen Wentworth’s book.

  I feel kind of relieved and disappointed, all at the same time.

  “We should go back,” Geordie says.

  He and Lizzie have been packing up their fiddles. There’s been conversation going on all around me, but I haven’t heard any of it until this moment, when Geordie touches my arm to get my attention. I’ve been in a world of my own, like a person standing still in the middle of a hurrying crowd of commuters as they’re getting on the subway.

  “Jilly?” Geordie asks.

  I nod, but going back is the last thing I want to do right now.

  “Can I just have a moment to finish this coffee and catch my breath?” I say.

  “Sure. It’s just . . .”

  “People are going to be worried,” Joe puts in.

  I look at Lizzie and Geordie. Of course. The band will be worried. And Cassie must be frantic about Joe.

  “Maybe you should take them and then come back,” I say. “I’ll just wait here for you and let everything settle down inside me.”

  “I’m not going back without you,” Geordie tells me.

  “What’s the real issue here?” Joe asks.

  I don’t want to tell him—at least not here, in front of everybody. They already know me at my worst from what I related about my history with Del and Mattie—I gave them the short version, but they all got the picture. I don’t want them to know that I’m a coward as well. Especially not Honey.

  But Joe’s got that look in his eye—part worried, part curious, and all obstinate. If there’s something going on with me, he’s not going to let it go until I tell him what it is.