Stranger

by Zoë Archer

  She understood this. They both drew apart, reluctantly. Then, at his nod, they began to dance counterclockwise around the well, holding hands and singing Gemma’s extraordinarily obscene song. Hopefully, the magical realm enjoyed lewd tunes just as much as the mortal one. He felt mildly ridiculous, capering around a crumbling old well like some confused, depraved Morris dancer, but there was also something rather freeing about singing a dirty song whilst skipping about. Having a beautiful woman holding his hand and doing exactly the same thing made it even more enjoyable.

  What would the sober, reserved members of the Graves family think of him, the current Graves scion working with the Blades of the Rose, acting like a complete and absolute madman? He honestly didn’t care.

  When the song concluded, they stopped and looked down into the well. It looked just as dark and clammy as before.

  “Has anything happened?” Gemma asked. “I don’t know if I can sense a door.”

  “Difficult to tell. Let’s give it another go.”

  They had just begun the second verse when a gunshot split the air. An overhead branch cracked and tumbled to earth.

  Catullus pulled Gemma down to the ground behind the well, shielding her. He had no awareness of even drawing his shotgun, but it was in his hands and ready. Gemma drew her pistol. They both peered over the stone wall encircling the well, and they both swore when they caught sight of four armed men heading toward them, running through the woods. Catullus recognized two of them as Heirs. The others had to be newer recruits. But even in the dusk, there was no mistaking their posture, their appearance and attitude of privilege. The excellent quality of their firearms purchased from the finest St. James’ gunsmiths. Guns aimed at Catullus and Gemma.

  Catullus returned fire, as did Gemma, but the Heirs didn’t stop their advance. Within a minute, or less, the Heirs would be on top of them.

  “Two choices,” he gritted over the gunfire. “Stay and fight the Heirs.”

  “Who outnumber us,” she said as she reloaded.

  He took aim and shot, but the Heirs dodged for cover. “Or hazard leaping into the well.”

  “Hoping a door to the Otherworld waits at the bottom.”

  He and Gemma shared a glance. And then a nod, followed by a brief, but significant, kiss.

  They took hold of each other’s hands. Drew a breath. Then rose up, perched on the edge of the well, and jumped.

  Cold, moist air swallowed Gemma. One moment, she crouched on a narrow stone wall, bullets flying around her, Heirs’ shouts cracking like whips, and the next, she and Catullus plunged down into absolute darkness. Her stomach flew up to lodge somewhere in her throat. She held tight to Catullus’s hands, the only sure and solid thing in this pitch-black drop.

  She expected them to splash into the water at the bottom. Waited for it. Perhaps the water wouldn’t be very deep, and they’d smash into a pile of broken bones while the Heirs above watched and laughed.

  Yet she and Catullus fell. And fell. An endless descent. She glanced up to see the heads of the Heirs peering down into the well, growing smaller, farther away. She barely heard their angry yells.

  “How deep is this thing?” she cried to Catullus.

  He sounded much calmer than she felt. “As long as it needs to be.”

  She did not appreciate his cryptic response. Not when they were falling down and down a bottomless well shaft. If they had created a portal to Otherworld, it kept itself damned scarce.

  Then— “I feel it! The door!” A presence below. Not physical. A nexus of energy, quick and bright. Beyond the door, she sensed limitless space, unbound by wall or constraint, free from the confining hold of mortality.

  “Perhaps now would be a good time to open it,” Catullus murmured, wind whistling around them.

  But it wasn’t like an ordinary door that could simply swing open at a touch. Without a physical object, she did not know exactly how to open it. It didn’t help that she was falling, her skirts billowing up around her. Focusing on the opening of an intangible door wasn’t the easiest task on which to concentrate.

  If she didn’t focus, then either she and Catullus would be falling down this well forever, or they’d hit bottom—eventually—and either be killed or have to find a way to scale a well shaft hundreds of feet deep while being shot at from above.

  The door to Otherworld is a mind, she thought. It works just as someone’s mind worked, not as a material object but as a state of consciousness, of being. She had to access it as she did the thoughts of people. Tap into its essence, and allow herself to unlock its core.

  She pictured it, no easy task in the middle of a free fall. Gave it shape and definition, coalescing energy into the shape of an actual door, with wood and hinges and a handle. Upon its handle, she placed her hand. Then, with an indrawn breath, she pushed against the door—not with force, but gently, because Otherworld was not her realm, and one must use caution and respect when venturing into someone else’s home.

  Nothing.

  Her heart fell with her.

  No—she couldn’t fail. Not for herself, and not for Catullus. The door must open.

  She tried again, with greater command. Waited. And then …

  It swung open.

  She and Catullus crossed the boundary. It sizzled across her skin, a fiery membrane, and from the darkness of the well, light engulfed her. Dazzling light so brilliant she saw nothing, knew only heat and brightness, both outside her and within, as if she had been flung into a star.

  Catullus’s hands were tugged from hers. She reached out for him, scrabbling to keep hold. He disappeared. She tried to call out to him. Her voice dissolved.

  All around her was light, and in her ears rang a kind of music she’d never heard before, notes from an instrument unknown to mortals, sung with inhuman voices. This, too, enveloped her. She lost herself in the light and sound, and, without Catullus to anchor her, she spun off into measureless time and place. She fought for consciousness. The brightness became too much, and she surrendered to oblivion.

  Voices. A host of voices, hovering around her like a cloud of gnats. Gemma couldn’t tell what language they spoke—nothing she’d ever heard before, though it sounded similar to the Gaelic old Granda sometimes spoke when he grew wistful for the old country. But these voices didn’t have Granda’s rusty pipe sound. No, if anything, they sounded small, silvery, halfway between a child and a flute.

  What were they saying?

  She couldn’t understand the words, but she might be able to figure out the intent. She let herself into their minds, an easier task now, and a throng of images assailed her, impossible images of spun-glass castles, beasts of all shapes and sizes, vast revels lit by starlight. Wading through these visions, she found the gleaming thread of thought, and, the moment she touched it with her own mind, the voices suddenly cleared, becoming comprehensible, even if the words themselves were not.

  Where did they come from? one asked.

  Brightworld, another answered. Knocked the door down and tumbled in.

  They didn’t!

  Saw it, myself. Through a waterdoor. Down down.

  I like the color of that one’s skin, like darkest walnut.

  This one is cream and fire. Bright hair, Brightworld.

  I should like a nibble. Bet they taste good. Good and mortal. Fleeting flesh. Tasty tasty.

  Gemma’s eyes flew open.

  She found herself looking up at a dozen tiny faces, faces that were both childlike and wizened. Large black eyes, canted, black from corner to corner. Wide mouths full of sharp teeth, upturned noses, pointed ears. Skin the hue of river stones.

  She’s awake!

  “Anyone who tries to eat me or my friend will get a punch in the face,” Gemma warned.

  Shrieking, the creatures disappeared.

  Forcing herself to sit upright, Gemma’s head spun for a moment. The world wobbled, then settled into … nothing normal.

  She sat upon the ground, on a bed of moss, which seemed ord
inary enough, if one imagined moss to be made of crushed sapphire velvet, adorned with jeweled mushrooms. The moss covered a hollow in the roots of a massive, twisting tree. Its branches shifted and sighed, yet there was no breeze. The tree was moving, of its own volition. And in its branches glittered miniature human-shaped creatures of every color, gold and blue and violet, their wings droning.

  For a moment, Gemma could only marvel at the tree, at the beings within it. What would Catullus think of such wonders?

  Oh, God. Catullus.

  Gemma shot to her feet, ignoring her dizziness, and looked around frantically. She was in some kind of forest, whose boundaries seemed to stretch on, infinite. Dark green shadows unfolded everywhere. The forest pulsed with life. But, to the massive flowers and silver streams tumbling down gemstones, she paid no attention. She needed to find Catullus. Now.

  He had to be nearby. But where?

  She clambered out of the hollow at the base of the tree, and stood upon one of its giant roots. She saw nothing, only more and more forest expanding out on every side.

  Fear gripped her. Not for herself, but for him. What if those awful little cannibals took him? He could be injured, could be lost. Of course, she had no idea where she was, but maybe he’d hit his head when they crossed the boundary, and wandered around, dazed and hurt. If anyone, if any thing, so much as harmed a single whisker of his beard, she’d tear them into mattress stuffing.

  She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Catullus!” Her voice echoed through the woods, sending a flock of … something … bursting from the trees and into the golden air. “Catullus!”

  A very human-sounding groan came from someplace to her right. Heart knocking, she jumped down from the roots and scrambled over grassy hillocks and through a rivulet, toward the source of the groan.

  There. In a small clearing. Catullus lay sprawled on his back, his arms flung out. Close by lay his shotgun. His eyes were closed. She ran toward him.

  Gemma fell to her knees beside him, and exhaled only when she saw his own chest rising and falling. Gently, so gently, she plucked off his spectacles, set them aside, then touched her shaking fingers to his face.

  “Catullus?”

  His eyes blinked open. They seemed clear, but this did not quite ease her fear. Carefully, she ran her fingers along his head, searching for any cuts. He winced slightly when she touched a growing bump on the back of his head.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “So sorry.” But no blood dampened her fingers, so she was grateful for that. “Are you … all right? Can you move your fingers and toes?”

  Gingerly, he did both. That, at least, was a relief.

  “Can you speak?”

  He rasped, “We’re forever making leaps, you and I.” A laugh, slightly frayed, burst from her. “As long as you’re beside me, I don’t mind the jump.” He smiled at that.

  “Jumping later,” she said. “Let’s try sitting up now.”

  At his nod, she slipped her hands beneath him and helped him to sitting. He was bigger, and heavier, than her, and she served mostly as guidance rather than actually lifting him up. All she truly wanted to do was touch him, assure herself that he wasn’t badly hurt. Lightly, he touched the bruise on the back of his head, grimacing, then glanced over at her, concern in his eyes.

  “And you? Are you hurt?”

  She shook her head. “Chased off some kind of pixies or elves or something that wanted to have us for supper, but fine.”

  His eyebrows raised. “Carnivorous fey. That’s new.”

  “All of this “—she waved to the forest around them—” is new.”

  He squinted, then muttered, “Damn, I lost my spectacles. My spare pair, too.”

  “Here they are.” She handed the spectacles to him.

  Catullus rose to his feet, nimble and swift, and helped her to stand. Their hands clasped and held as they looked around, taking in the spectacle of the magical forest.

  “We did it,” he said, low and amazed. “We traversed the boundary between the mortal and magical worlds.” He turned to her, admiration in his gaze. “Because of you. You opened the door.”

  “But we both called it into being.” Still, she savored his praise, the genuine respect when he looked at her. “And now, here we are.”

  The forest stretched on around them, trees of massive size forming overhead canopies of glittering leaves, their trunks netted with twisting vines older than memory. Light from an unseen sun pierced the canopy—yet the light was not merely gold, but shifted into dozens of colors, green and blue and rose. Flowers, wide across as Gemma’s outstretched arms, chimed. Some yards distant—a dozen or a hundred, she could not tell—a waterfall cascaded into an emerald pond, and there drank animals that resembled small gray cats. When the sound of a branch snapping startled the cats, they all dissolved into a vaporous mist and wafted away.

  “We’ve fallen right into a fairy tale,” murmured Gemma. “What I wouldn’t give for a microscope,” Catullus breathed.

  “Can’t quantify or analyze everything.” She stared up as a slim creature of indeterminate gender and lavender skin sailed by on a dandelion the size of a parasol. “Including this whole place.” She smiled. “Wouldn’t my granda love to see this? All his old stories come true.”

  Catullus bent to study flowers that looked like oversized cowslips. He started when an entirely naked, golden-fleshed girl popped out suddenly from one of the yellow blossoms. She angrily jabbered at Catullus before disappearing in a puff of floral-scented dust.

  “Cannibal elves, rude cowslip fairies.” He shook his head. “An appalling lack of manners in Otherworld.”

  “That’ll be our contribution to this place. Etiquette lessons.” She hardly believed that what she saw—this immense forest and all the beings that dwelled within it—could be real, and yet she knew it was. As much as Catullus longed for a microscope, she wanted to sit with her notebook and write down everything she observed, every texture she felt and sound she heard. Yet that, too, felt wrong, as though attempting to capture something that would wither and die once confined in immobile words.

  At the least, she was here now, experiencing it with Catullus. She loved to see the wonderment on his face as he beheld Otherworld as much, if not more than, seeing the place itself.

  “I could spend years exploring here,” she said.

  “An eternity,” he agreed; then a shadow fell over him. “Yet we haven’t that kind of time. Arthur’s on his way to London as we speak. We need to find Merlin, and quickly.”

  Staring at the seemingly limitless forest, Gemma said, “Find him? We can’t even find ourselves.”

  He drew his Compass from one of his pockets and looked down at its face, frowning. The needle spun, first in one direction, then another, never still. “One thing we did not take into account was navigating Otherworld. This will do us no good here.” He shut the lid with a decisive snap and slipped it back into a pocket.

  “Maybe we can ask directions,” Gemma said, only partly joking. She figured that the native populace would either try and devour her and Catullus, or else lead them into some perilous swamp full of man-eating boggarts.

  But, ridiculous as she thought her suggestion, Catullus actually looked as though he was considering it.

  “Only teasing,” she said quickly. “I don’t want us to wind up trapped in some faerie equivalent of the zoo. These creatures here don’t seem particularly welcoming or friendly.”

  “Not to strangers, no. Yet there may be one who might be willing to help.”

  “But we’d have to find them first, which, in this place, could take decades.”

  “There possibly could be another way to reach him.” He patted down his pockets, searching for something.

  “Him? Who?”

  “Ah, this will do.” In his broad hand he gripped a flask.

  “After everything we’ve been through today, a drink sounds damned good.” She reached for the flask, but he held it away from her.

&nb
sp; “Not for us,” he said with a wry smile. Unscrewing the cap, he added, “A little inducement for our friend.”

  The aroma of fine Scotch whiskey made Gemma’s mouth water. “Couldn’t we have a sip, ourselves?”

  “Don’t think Bryn would appreciate getting someone’s leftovers.” He poured some whiskey into the cap and held it out. “Bryn! Bryn Enfys!” Two more times, Catullus called the name into the woods.

  “Faerie must have good hearing,” Gemma mused.

  “Names are powerful things. Especially when summoning.”

  “And especially when twenty-year whiskey is being offered,” added a small voice behind Gemma.

  She spun around to face a man, no bigger than her hand, hovering in midair. He wore a miniature frock coat and knee breeches, the kind worn by country folk in the last century. A pair of dragonfly wings sprouted from his back, keeping him aloft. In lieu of a shirt, a bib of leaves covered his chest, and a wee tall hat perched atop his head. His oak-brown eyes glinted at her with a mixture of amusement and curiosity.

  “Have you brought me a lass, too, Catullus?” the little man asked. “It can get powerful lonely in Otherworld, and I’ve gone too many centuries without a wife.”

  Gemma opened her mouth to protest, but Catullus spoke before she did. “The whiskey’s yours, Bryn.” He held out the flask’s cap, but wrapped one protective arm around Gemma’s shoulders. “The woman is mine.”

  She bristled to be spoken of like a disputed hound bitch ready for breeding. “The woman belongs to herself,” she said.

  The little man chuckled, the sound like water lapping at the sides of a boat. “Fire and cream, just like the goblins said.” He reached for the cap of whiskey, which Catullus handed to him. In one gulp, Bryn downed the cap’s contents, and wordlessly held it out for a refill. Catullus topped off the cap three more times before the pixie spoke again.

  “In all my years knowing the Blades,” he piped, “not a one has ever come across.” Bryn fixed them with a pointed look. “’Tis a dangerous and bold undertaking, Catullus. Few mortals who make the journey ever come back. Why, in the Grey People’s court, there are dozens and dozens of mortals held in thrall, serving their Faerie Queen. Some have been there since the reign of your King James.”