by Jeff Hirsch
Home.
This will be over soon, she promised herself, promised him. The bracelet would be destroyed and she’d free her father. And then …
Glenn rolled onto her back. Somewhere out there in the
confusion of stars lay 813. She clasped Kevin’s hand tight in hers, and when exhaustion finally overtook her she dreamed of its distant jungles.
“Glenn …”
Glenn woke with a start to Kevin nudging her in the ribs.
“What do you want, Kapoor?”
“You sleeping?”
Glenn glared at him.
“Okay, look. I have to, uh … pee.”
“So? What do you want me to do about it?”
Kevin nodded out toward the woods.
“Are you serious?”
“Come on, Morgan. I’d do it for you.”
“Get Aamon to go with you.”
Kevin glanced up at the dark mountain of Aamon’s form.
“Right, ’cause that would make it less scary. Just come on. Please.”
As always with Kevin, Glenn knew it would be much easier to just go. “Okay, fine,” she said. “You big baby.”
Glenn whipped the blanket off and stood with a moan. Every inch of her body ached. It didn’t help that the temperature seemed to have dropped ten degrees while they were sleeping. Glenn gathered up their blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders. Kevin would have to freeze while he peed. Glenn pushed him into the trees, her eyes half closed from exhaustion.
“Huh,” Kevin said as they blundered through the dark. “It just occurred to me that I’ve never actually done this outdoors before. I mean, what kind of world do we live in that peeing out in nature has never come up for a young man like me?”
“One with indoor plumbing,” she said, following it up with a sleepy shove into the woods. “Now go. And go far. I don’t want to stand here listening.”
Kevin laughed nervously and crashed off farther into the woods.
Glenn found a tree and leaned into it, drifting, sleep tugging at her.
Glenn was pretty sure she was about to fall asleep standing up, when she heard the crunching of leaves, like from someone walking, but it wasn’t coming from the direction Kevin had gone. Glenn became alert instantly, fear focusing her mind to a pinprick.
The footsteps started again, louder this time, coming from far out in the woods to her left, on the other side of the path they had taken that day. They sounded small and close together. An animal, maybe? Glenn couldn’t be sure. The dry leaves crunched and then stopped. The next sound was that of heavy steps on flat ground. Whatever it was had stepped onto the path. It was less than twenty feet from her now, but she still couldn’t see anything through the thickness of the trees.
“Hey, so that was awesome,” Kevin said as he returned. “You ready to go back? I just — ”
Glenn held up her hand and listened. Something new now. A
voice. High and wispy, like wind blowing through reeds. Finally, Kevin caught it too and turned his head, trying to see where it was coming from. The sound undulated through the dark, growing louder, rising and falling and slowly taking shape.
“What is it?”
“Singing,” she said.
The lone voice grew louder. Whether it was a man’s or a
woman’s, Glenn couldn’t tell. The voice was high and glassy but strong at the same time. The words were foreign, but the tune sounded familiar, a looping melody. Beautiful.
Glenn knew she should go back to the camp and Aamon.
Whatever was out there was none of her concern, but still … there was something about that sound, the sweet, strange lilt of it, that wrapped itself around Glenn like two hands and drew her forward, away from the tree and out into the dark.
“Uh … wait, so we’re gonna … do you think we should
maybe …” Kevin sputtered before following behind her.
Glenn moved quickly, squinting in the dark, picking out her path through the woods as silently as she could, following the voice as it grew louder. When Glenn and Kevin neared the path’s edge, she motioned for him to get down. They knelt in the brush and crawled the last few feet until they could see through gaps in the foliage.
Standing only a few feet away in the center of the path was the singer, a tall, thin man with black hair. He was wearing a long tunic that was so white it seemed to glow in the moonlight. Underneath that, showing along his arms and legs before disappearing into leather gloves and high boots, was a layer of silver armor made up of thousands of tiny rings all linked together. He had a sword at his waist and carried a white shield on one arm. On the shield was the image of a swan, laid out in gold.
All at once the singing stopped, leaving a hole of silence all around them. The man stepped forward and looked up into the sky.
Everything — the trees, the wind, the sky — seemed to lean forward in anticipation.
There was a white blur and a rush of wings as an enormous swan swept down out of the sky and onto the path. Its long neck stood graceful and erect, its ivory wings tucked neatly at its side. Glenn’s heart went still as the knight crossed the space between them, laid his shield on the ground, and knelt before it, lowering his head as if in prayer.
Slowly, the swan began to grow before them. As it did, its
feathers pulsed with a white light that intensified until the glare overtook its form and forced Glenn and Kevin to shield their eyes at the brightness. The light peaked and faded, and when it was gone, the swan had disappeared.
In its place stood a young woman.
She was lithe and naked, with long white-blond hair. A
constellation of tiny stars danced around her head like a crown, filling the pathway and the trees around it with a warm, clear light. The woman lowered her hand, small and delicate, and touched the knight’s head. He took it as his cue to stand again, and as he did, he swept his arm back, ushering the woman farther down the path.
There, sitting just behind him, was a white carriage that Glenn would have sworn had not been there just seconds ago. It was large and ornate, with gold and silver trimming, and drawn by four white horses.
Standing at each corner of the carriage were four more men dressed exactly like the knight. One of them stepped forward with a long white robe in his hands and held it out to the naked woman, who dipped her head in thanks and allowed him to help her into it. As soon as she was dressed, the first knight opened one of the doors to the carriage, and she stepped inside. The knight shut the door and took his place at the front of the carriage. After a single word from him, the horses pulled the carriage soundlessly away and they all drifted down the path and vanished around the next bend.
There was a hanging moment of stillness while the light faded when Glenn could hear nothing but her own heartbeat pounding in her ears. Kevin said something, but she could barely hear him. She scrambled out of the brush. Her feet hit the dirt road and she ran, stumbling, down the dark path toward the bend in the road. An engine was revving inside her, pushing her forward. When she got to the next turn, there was nothing but darkness and the rustling of leaves all around her. Kevin caught up, panting.
“Where’d it go? Did you see?!”
Glenn listened to the low wind in the forest. There was nothing else. Something in Glenn sank, but in the next moment she heard it again — that crystal-like singing, a sliver of it, cutting through the night.
The engine in Glenn revved and she took off again, running flat out down the uneven path. Her lungs burned with the cold. Kevin could barely keep up but his panting was mixed with laughter. The same light giddiness rose in Glenn as they raced through the dark. Her feet skated over the ground. The path turned again, and when Glenn rounded the corner, it dipped suddenly down into a wide prairie of rolling hills with a great lake set in the center of it like a jewel.
Glenn and Kevin stopped in their tracks, trying to catch their breath, frozen in amazement.
Around the lake were hundreds of gloriousl
y shining bodies, some alabaster, some ebony, some the deep green of moss or lapis blue, all of them joined hand in hand. The lake glittered and the hills glowed with the light from their skin. Even as Glenn watched, more carriages arrived from paths all around the lake. Some were drawn by horses and some by packs of wolves that rose to nearly the height of a man, with pelts the purest snowy white. One carriage swept down out of the sky, drawn by thousands of sparrows whose bodies alternated between shining red, green, and gold. And then there was the singing, hundreds of voices lifted together in the knight’s song. Soon the prairie was full of radiant bodies painting the lengths of the hills and the trees with the lights.
The party converged on the lake, everyone arranging themselves in several concentric circles and rotating around the shore. Kevin moved up alongside Glenn and grasped her hand. She spared a moment to look at him. She couldn’t help but laugh. His mouth was hanging open and his eyes were wide. She imagined she looked nearly the same.
Glenn squeezed his hand back, anchoring herself to that small bit of reality.
When she turned, the surface of the lake began to stir. The waters were turning in the direction of the light’s revolutions, forming a whitecapped whirlpool that soon grew to take over the entire lake. By now the revelers were all massed around the churning water. Glenn and Kevin stepped off the path and onto the grass, approaching slowly, unable to resist the pull of the beauty below them. The roar of the turning water grew and grew.
Tiny flares of light began to shine beneath the surface of the water. As the singing surged, the lake’s surface exploded and thousands upon thousands of these lights erupted into the sky, washing the land for miles around with an ecstatic silvery glow. The singing stopped, and Glenn peered up into the sky and saw that they were not simply points of light, they were thousands of tiny bodies, flitting and tumbling through the air. The only sound now was the sound of their laughter.
“We are the Miel Pan.”
Glenn turned. To her left, where seconds ago there was only empty space, was the swan woman. Close up, lit by her crown of stars, she was more beautiful than anything Glenn had ever imagined. Her hair was as fine as cobwebs and floated around her in a kind of halo, as if she were standing underwater and her hair was caught in invisible tides. Her skin was a perfect ivory white, her eyes a glacial blue. Warm light exuded from her every pore.
There was much more to her than beauty, though — she seemed to radiate a barely controlled force, something old and violent, a restrained frenzy. It was terrifying and thrilling all at once. Being this close to her made Glenn’s heart thrum in her chest.
“There was a time when we roamed the hills and the waters of the Magisterium and were worshipped.” Her voice was musical, but distorted and strange. “Now we are prisoners of the Magistra. She tortures us by giving us the world for one hour each night and then snatching it away again.”
As the swan woman spoke, her body faded like smoke caught in a gust of wind. Glenn could see the lake and the hills through her.
“Time is running out,” she said. The blue of her eyes gleamed like the tip of a dagger. “But you can join us if you wish.”
She held out her hand and smiled, revealing row upon row of jagged teeth. Kevin’s hand squeezed Glenn’s tight. The woman made a rough sound like laughter and then glided down the hillside to join the others.
Glenn turned to Kevin, and in that second, the white light that had illuminated his face and everything around them suddenly blinked out. Glenn turned back to the lake to find all of it — the swan woman, the carriages, the Miel Pan — gone, and she and Kevin were dropped into complete darkness and silence, as if none of it had ever happened.
Glenn stared down into the night, shocked at the emptiness of it.
“So,” Kevin said slowly. “You, uh, believe in magic now?”
Glenn started to laugh. It leapt out of her and the harder she tried to control it the more it carried her away. Kevin was laughing too, and together the sounds of their voices brightened the night around them as they stumbled back down the path toward camp.
“But how?” Glenn said, breathless. “How is this possible?”
“Magic!” Kevin called out, hooting up into the trees. “It’s magic!”
“But if there’s magic, real magic, then what else does that mean?
What else is there?” Glenn was babbling, her thoughts coming a thousand a second. She stopped in the middle of the trail, remembering the pilgrim stones and their markings. “I mean, is there a god? Like, an actual god?”
“Are there vampires? Ghosts?!”
“Dragons?”
Kevin laughed. Somewhere along the path his hand found
Glenn’s waist and then his arm was around her, drawing her in close.
Glenn’s body quaked against his as she laughed.
“I mean, if this is possible,” Glenn asked in a hush, “then what else is?”
Kevin stopped and turned her to him, his hand pressed flat on her back.
“Anything,” he said.
Glenn’s breath left her parted lips and filled the narrow space between them with a white cloud. His lips, full and thick, were as close to hers as they were that night on the train platform. Had she felt this pull to him then? This heat? That night seemed so far away. Her heart was racing. They were tumbling together down a steep hill, out of control. Where might they end up?
Glenn closed her eyes tight, blocking him out, blocking out the Magisterium. She scrambled for clarity, fighting the pulse in her veins that wanted to drive her farther out into strange waters, out to a place she could never return from.
Alnitak, she thought, imagining the steady blue light of the stars.
Alnilam. Mintaka.
Glenn whispered the words over and over until she slowly
emerged. The pounding in her chest slowed and the forest became a forest again, a place of trees and leaves and cold, empty dark.
She staggered back from Kevin. His hand dropped from her waist and lingered in the open air between them. “I think …” Glenn began, but her words dissipated.
Kevin reached out to tuck a length of hair behind her ear, his fingertips brushing her cheek as he did it. His hand hovered there, the heel of his palm hot against her cold cheek.
“It’s okay,” he said. “We can go back.”
Glenn wanted to say something else, thought there was
something she should say, but she couldn’t get ahold of her thoughts, so she nodded and they made their way down the path. As the trees
flickered past them, Glenn felt as if she was standing in the center of some great doorway, part of her in one world, part in another. Her head was light and floating. Every step was nearly a stumble.
The back of Glenn’s hand brushed the back of Kevin’s, and on the next pass Kevin opened his fingers wide and her hand fell into his.
They entwined, Kevin lacing his fingers through hers, their blood circling around and around each other’s until that spot seemed like the center of them both. Slowly, the world cleared. Glenn’s feet struck the uneven dirt road and the cold was on her skin.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she could hear crystalline voices raised in song, and see the glow of unearthly lights.
15
Glenn woke before Kevin. It wasn’t long past dawn. Aamon had left at first light to scout the way ahead. She had almost told him about what happened the night before but couldn’t find the words for it, didn’t know how to let them out.
It was a cold morning, almost bitterly so. Glenn drew her knees up to her chest under the blanket and wrapped her arms around them, trying to create a pocket of warmth. Despite the night’s sleep, she was exhausted. Light-headed. Scraps of the night before — the lights, the voices, the pale woman with sharp teeth — echoed in her mind. Giddy laughter bubbled up inside her again, carrying along that tumbling out-of-control feeling. The world she knew was gone and a bigger and stranger one sat in its place. How could Glenn explain any
of it to herself? How could she make room in her world for them? Or for that girl who stumbled through the dark, hand in hand with Kevin, laughing?
Who was she? In the cold morning light, she seemed like a stranger. A creeping shame overtook her. Who had she been pretending to be?
There was a whisper of movement behind her. Glenn glanced
over her shoulder and there was Kevin, curled in a ball under the blanket, his green hair draped on the roots of the tree behind him.
Glenn turned away, remembering the thump of his heart against her chest, the warmth of his breath mixing with hers.
“Hey.”
Kevin’s voice was a rough whisper, husky and tentative. Glenn knew if she turned back again, he would have lost his familiar smirk.
That bright little grin that he usually had would be gone, and he would be looking at her the same way he did when they sat on that train platform and on the banks of that shining lake, steady and serious, as if he was seeing deeper into her, as if everything had changed and there was no going back.
“Hey,” Glenn said, flat and simple, even as that nervous twist from the night before turned inside her and the memory of his hand, warm on her lower back, loomed.
The ground rustled underneath him as he sat up and slipped into his boots. “I thought maybe we’d run over to the lake before we go,” he said. “See what there is to see. Morgan?”
She tensed as his hand touched her shoulder. Everything went still.
“Aamon said to wait,” she said carefully. “He’ll be back soon.
We should be ready to go.”
Kevin took a long breath and let it out. Glenn imagined him looking away from her and off into the woods, swallowing a hundred things he wanted to say. Glenn cursed herself. She had no business acting like she had the night before. She knew how he felt.
There was a tug on the blanket, and then Kevin’s boots scraped against the ground. When Glenn looked back at him, he was pulling on his coat.
“What are you doing? We should get everything together.”
“We don’t have that many things. I’m sure you can handle it.”
