by Nick Lake
No. I do not have a boyfriend.
I get a grip on myself, and start to climb. I use the same crack as the camming device is lodged in, for my first handhold, and the tree branch as my first foothold. I go very slow—I’m not a climber, and I am very soon totally out of breath. I’m scared too, which does not help. I have to stop almost right away.
I press myself into the rock, keeping my eyes on it, not looking up, not looking down. My sweat is cold on my face—vertigo.
It’s not sheer, though, or smooth, the surface—it’s all angles and fissures and bits of vegetation growing out. There’s always something to hold on to, and there’s a security blanket over my twitching mind, which is that if I fall I don’t fall forever.
Just when I’m thinking this, I fall—a root I grabbed snaps on me, and my hands are pawing at nothing. I plummet—
But my foot catches on an outcropping of rock before I can play out my rope, and my hand swings of its own accord and my fingers hook on to a cranny; it jars me, sends shivers of pain down my hand, but I hold on.
I take a deep breath and try again. I focus on the Child, on the unending sound of its distress. You have to get up there, I say to myself. Listen to it. Listen to her.
She needs you.
Maybe an hour later, I pull myself up onto the other side. My arms are quivering like fever. I flop on the dry ground, exhausted. There’s a voice deep inside me that wants me to crawl farther from the drop but I don’t, I just lie there. The feeling of relief is a physical thing; abruptly I remember an afternoon in August, temperature in the hundreds, the heat like an assailing malevolent presence, out to suck all the lifeforce from all living things. Shaylene went to the store and came back with a big bag of ice, and cream, and we made tea, then blended it with the ice and cream and drank it on the couch till the fronts of our brains rang like bells from the cold of it.
This feeling is a bit like that.
Some indefinite amount of time passes. The icy stars are bright above me.
Eventually, I unclip the carabiner from the harness and get up. I take off the harness and step away from the gorge.
The glass structure is just in front of me. It’s maybe five feet tall, wide as a car. Towers and spires at the top, buttresses at the sides. The glass looks thin—almost like ice, like an ice sculpture. The Child has scooted over to the side closest to me, and is sitting there, wailing, arms outstretched.
The Child from my dreams. Right here in the Dreaming.
Of course.
Behind it is the Crone’s castle—full-size, dark, looming. An enormous and terrifying thing, squat and brooding. I don’t want to look at it, not yet, it’s blocking out so much of the starlight, so much of the night sky. It’s like a black hole, sucking brightness out of this world.
I look away from it, shivering.
I step forward, examining the little glass castle instead. There is no door. No windows. Nothing that opens or might open. I walk all around it, the Child turning as I do, following me with her eyes, crying and crying. I realize that this is the real girl, and the one that was in the iron cage was some kind of projection.
This is the Child I need to save.
But I can’t find any way in.
I come back around to the side by the chasm and reach out to touch the glass.
Ow.
It isn’t glass after all, it’s ice, it really is an ice sculpture, and now my hand is burning and cold at the same time. I clutch my hand to my chest, swearing, wrapping my sweatshirt around it, trying to warm it. Then I kick the ice prison, lash out my foot in anger—
The pain is colossal, like I have just kicked the most unyielding substance ever made; my toes might be broken, I think.
I hop on one leg, hand and foot blazing. The Child can see that I’m hurt and is crying even harder now, and between the agony and the sobbing all my nerves are taut and electric. I almost wish I couldn’t hear, here in the Dreaming, could go back to being deaf and not have to listen to the Child.
Almost.
I take a step back and look at the Child in its ice cell again. Open sesame, I say, not really expecting anything. Which is good because absolutely nothing happens. I go around it again, looking for a seam, a gap, but there’s none. Just ice—smooth, solid ice.
Inside, I see the tears running down the Child’s face. When they fall from her cheeks they make drops of ice that tinkle on the ground.
Fricking hell.
It’s just like my dream. She’s right there, but the ice is between us, and I can’t break it. I don’t want to touch it again.
To my surprise, I start crying too—I feel the moisture on my cheeks, and I think it’s rain at first, that by some miracle Coyote has already fulfilled the quest, but then I realize it’s tears.
I sit down on the grass, unable to do anything more. I close my eyes so that I don’t see the Child, holding out its hands to me.
I’m sorry, I think. I can’t help you. I’m not strong enough. I’m not the one. I can’t save you.
But then I hear something. A distant voice, quiet, it takes me a while to notice it—I mean I’m not used to hearing at all. But then I do. It’s little more than a whisper, it could be the breeze, but I know it isn’t.
It’s a woman, laughing. Cruel laughter, triumphant, evil laughter, from a fairy tale. I open my eyes. It’s coming from the dark castle, beyond the ice.
Okay, I think.
Okay, screw you.
I get up and walk past the Child, who reaches out for me as I pass, but despite all my instincts screaming at me I ignore her, I keep my eyes on the castle.
I’m close but still a way away—maybe, like, the width of a football field from the door, which is big and wooden and has rivets in it, big metal studs at regular intervals.
Between me and the door, there’s just dead grass—open space, apart from one thing, an object I can’t quite make out. Something sticking up from the grass, closer to the door. Something square.
Behind the castle, just like in a picture book, the deep forest begins again, yawning around the castle too, like a cave, like an open mouth, draping it and festooning it with thorny vines. The air is unmoving but suspended; a sense of something about to drop, about to move; like bated breath.
I move forward, caught in a cross stream, waves of hateful mirth reaching me from in front, a tide of tears behind, from the Child.
Closer.
And.
Here’s the one thing in the grass: a sign, like a for-sale sign, a wooden board on a square pole that has been planted in the earth. I step forward and read it.
Welcome
it says, and there’s a smiley after:
This is not a bad sentiment, per se, you are perhaps thinking. It’s friendly!
Ah, but.
Ah, but wait!
The sign seems very, very much like it has been written in blood.
Fresh blood.
Chapter 67
I need a weapon, I think.
I look at the sign, tied to a thick wooden post that is set deep in the ground. I visualize a baseball bat, striking a ball. Yeah, that could work.
Seizing the post, I try to pull it out of the ground, but it doesn’t budge. I kick it, and then kick it again, and again. Eventually it begins to wobble, and then rock freely. I yank it out.
I use the ground to lever off the sign, breaking it into pieces.
Then I heft the post in my hands. It’s heavy, solid. A staff. A weapon. It gives me an idea, though I know already that it’s not going to work. I turn and walk back the way I came, toward the ice walls and the Child.
I walk forward, treading carefully. My breathing is very fast and shallow; I feel dizzy and nauseous. But I keep going.
When I reach the icy prison I try not to look at the Child who has scooted over and is still, always, reaching out to me, crying its endless tears. Instead I raise the heavy piece of wood and swing it, as hard as I can, as if aiming for a fast ball.
Bang.
The post jumps out of my hands, shivering, and my fingers ring like tuning forks. I curse, shaking my arms, trying to rid myself of the needles in my flesh.
There is not a mark on the ice.
I pull my arms back, put all the twist into it that I can, and swing the staff again, hard.
The impact this time shatters the wooden post, splinters flying everywhere, one of them narrowly missing my eye. I am left holding a sheared-off, thin piece, no more use as a weapon than my own bare hands.
Some sort of spell on the ice, I figure, when my shock has eased enough for clear thoughts to form.
Well.
I didn’t think it was going to work. I cast aside the broken shard.
Sighing, I turn my back yet again on the Child, and start back toward the castle. It seems not to get larger in the usual sense of things you approach, objects appearing to grow as you get closer, due to the effect of perspective, but in the actual sense of getting bigger, rearing up into the sky, a beast about to eat me.
Focus.
But my heart is a piston in my chest and my hands are sweating, trembling. The castle seems to sense my fear, and expands even larger, filling the sky. Blackening everything.
That cruel laughter gets louder.
I take a deep breath and step up to the massive oak door. It is twice as tall as I am. I try the handle and find that it’s locked. I stand there for a second, like an idiot.
What do I do now?
Then I think: no. You’re the Maiden. The first Coyote, older than the world, died to protect you. You don’t get stopped by a locked door.
So I lift up my foot and kick out, flat; I’m only part thinking this might do something, but the door shatters inward off its hinges, like when the SWAT guys raided the cabin, and because I didn’t totally expect it I’m off balance. I almost fall, and catch myself on the hewn stone archway.
The corridor beyond is dark and gloomy, flagstone floored, with torches set into sconces in the walls. There are suits of armor standing to attention—not just knights, though, but samurai too, and Native American headdresses, and bows and arrows and guns and swords. As I step tentatively forward, I think it’s like a museum of killing.
At the end of the corridor, there’s another door, set with locks and rivets. And a voice behind it, or rather everywhere and in my head, says,
It’s open. You can kick it down if you like, but carpenters are hard to come by these days and I would very much rather you didn’t.
It’s the voice of an old, old woman, shot through with cruelty, glittering like seams of metal in rock.
I shrug, then kick the door down.
Inside, there’s a homely little room. I blink for a second, seeing it here, in this massive castle—like finding a nest of baby birds in a cannon. The ceilings are low, blackened with soot, and there’s a rug on the floor, a rocking chair by an open fire, over which hangs a copper kettle. An oak kitchen table, scarred by years of knife marks, and in the center of it a silver dome like in restaurants, keeping something beneath it warm, and a plate beside it with a silver knife and fork.
Embroidery, framed, on the walls—pictures of landscapes; alphabets. There are windows that, somehow, improbably, look out over dappled forest. I see a deer walk past, outside, nuzzling at the ground. A rabbit hops by, fur gleaming in the sun that shouldn’t be there, because it’s always night in the Dreaming.
It’s a cottage.
A Crone’s cottage, inside the castle.
The rocking chair is facing away from me but I can see there’s a woman in it; I see the feet propped up on a comfortable stool, next to a purring and fast-asleep fat old cat, the woman’s hands moving as they stitch. Wizened hands, the veins showing.
This is the gingerbread house, I say.
Oh yes, says the old woman by the fire, still not turning around. And Baba Yaga’s too. I could have decked it in sweets, if you had preferred. Or mounted it on chicken legs. But this time, I thought, a castle. I don’t know why. A Crone’s whim.
Right, I say.
I am thinking: What am I supposed to do—put out my hands and strangle her?
But my thoughts are interrupted when, surprisingly sprightly, catlike, she takes her feet from the stool, stands, and turns.
I’m forgetting my manners, she says. Welcome.
I don’t say anything. I just stare at the Crone, whose voice is so terrible, but whose face is the face of my mother—the woman who brought me up, anyway, my fake mom, my captor.
Shaylene Cooper.
Chapter 68
I stand very still and stare. There is a shawl wrapped around her shoulders, covering her chest, and she is white-haired and wrinkled, but it is Shaylene Cooper, the woman who took me from a hospital in Alaska. Her eyes are black, glassy, like a plush toy’s.
Surprise! she says.
The thing she is stitching is hanging in her hand, and I see the scene on it—Coyote, falling down from the bridge, into nothingness. Bleeding from a thousand wounds, wolves watching him fall, sneering. Mark.
What do you want? I ask.
A better question would be, what do you want? she says. You were sent here to kill me, no? Told that it was your destiny. So, do it.
Do …
Kill me. Kill the Crone.
I swallow.
Ha! she says. Not so easy, is it? But then, you were supposed to free the Child too, and you failed at that, didn’t you?
Screw you, I say.
Very mature, she says. Controlling your temper is another thing you fail at, I see.
What’s wrong with you? I say. Why are you so … so … horrible?
Horrible? Whatever are you talking about?
You stopped the rain, I say. The animals are starving. You put the Child in a prison of ice. You killed Mark.
Mark? Who is Mark? she says.
Coyote, I reply.
She makes a dismissive gesture. I have killed him before, she says. He has an annoying way of coming back. The rain? Rain is bad for the soul. It gets into the bones. And I am barren; I cannot have children of my own.
So you took the Child? I say.
No, she says. I took the Child to stop the rain. To give myself power over Coyote.
You’re crazy, I say.
And you are weaponless. Did you truly come here without means of defense? Did Coyote not give you a blade?
Yes, but I lost it. In the woods. In … in my world.
Careless, says the Crone. Without it, how will you possibly ever leave? She cackles, truly and purely, as if the verb, to cackle, originated with her.
My heart loses its rhythm for a second. She thinks I can only cross the air back into my world if I’m holding the knife, I realize. This could give me an advantage. Possibly.
The Crone-mother smiles, and this makes her look 6,578 times more scary than she already did. You are thinking that you could cross back over without the knife, yes? she says.
I flinch—it’s like she’s read my mind.
Not so, she continues. My castle is a castle, a redoubt. And it is such in every plane, in every dimension. Not just the visible. You cannot cross from here. Try it.
I sit still for a moment, but then I do—of course I do. I want to get out of there. I want it very badly. I close my eyes and try to step—
Pain like a camera flash in my mind. Colossal; unimaginable.
Ha! says the Crone when I look at her again, my breathing unsteady from the agony of it. I asked only about the blade, because I thought you might have stabbed me with it. If you had it. Which you don’t.
It looks like I’m a prisoner, then, I say.
Yes, she says.
A pause.
But wait, she adds. There is a twist.
A twist?
You came here to kill me, yes?
Uh … yes.
Yet you have no weapon. And I am a Crone—I could turn you into a toad with a blink of my eye. You are powerless.
I nod, slowly, not knowing where
this is going.
And still, she says, there is a turn of events, a scenario, that would allow you to kill me. That would allow you to accomplish your quest. Do you know what it is?
No, I say.
Pity, says the Crone. I thought I had taught you better. I thought you were smart. It’s not a riddle. It’s just logic.
I look around the cottage, as if the answer might be embroidered into one of the garish pictures lining the walls. I look back at her, at her ghastly smile.
And then, like lightning striking, I get it.
I could kill you if you let me, I say.
She claps, softly. Precisely, she says.
But why would you do that?
The Crone smiles enigmatically. There is no reason to what the Crone does, she says. But here is just one reason: I love you. I love you all the way to Cape Cod and back.
Bitch, I say in sign. Words come more easily to my hands than to my lips.
She looks wounded, or mock-wounded, I’m not sure. She rubs her hands against each other, briskly, like she’s washing them without water. Now come, she says, you must be hungry.
She moves her hands in the air; a complicated sequence of gestures, like a conductor commanding the orchestra. I find myself walking into the room, turning, pulling out the single chair at the table.
I sit down, the silver dome in front of me. There is a feeling of dread expanding in my stomach, but I don’t know for what. I know, in stories, you’re not supposed to eat. You’re not supposed to let anything pass your lips, or it could keep you there forever. Is that it? Is that her trick?
The Crone comes up beside me, standing too close, making the hairs on my arm stand up. With a flourish, she removes the dome, leaving the plate underneath.
I gasp—on the plate, which is cracked and old, porcelain, so delicate you can almost see the grain of the table through it, there is a human heart.
It is still beating, and it is fat and squat, glistening redly with blood, valves and tubes projecting from it and quivering.
What the— I start.
The Crone twitches off her shawl; it falls to the ground like a cloud of bats, in miniature. Under it, her blouse is unbuttoned, and there is a hole in her chest. Not a smooth hole—a wound, still fresh, and suddenly I know where the blood came from on the sign outside. It’s a big hole, left and center, a gaping cavity where a heart should be.
