by Amy Herrick
From the base, the hill did not look big at all. It seemed to be just a gentle rise in the midst of the Long Meadow. But as the stag climbed, Brigit realized that the hill must be much steeper and higher than it appeared from the bottom. The path was rocky and bare of snow in some places and in other places the snow had drifted deeply. Thick stretches of woods passed by them on either side. The stag’s heart beat steadily beneath their legs. When at last they reached the top, the animal stopped and knelt down, and the threesome tumbled off.
Brigit felt it right away—the thinness of the air. It took her a moment to catch her breath, then she straightened and saw that the snow had almost stopped. Overhead, the heavy darkness had begun to lift and turn to clouds, which drifted past each other like great white ships.
“Do you see this?” Feenix called out. She had stumbled a few steps away from the other two.
Brigit and Danton went over to where Feenix stood at the edge of the hill beneath the branches of a great bare oak tree. When they got to her they saw that beside her was an iron park bench. It was placed so that one might enjoy the view. Danton whistled softly.
They should have been looking out at the Long Meadow, rolling and stretching away in front of them. But that was not what they saw. They were so high up that what they saw was the whole of Brooklyn—or what remained of it—lying far below them. From here, it was easy to spot the vast swarms of glittering time foragers devouring their way through the streets. Wherever they traveled, they left behind a canyon or a rip or a river of nothingness, and as they moved from place to place the swarms grew rapidly in size. From where the threesome stood, they could see, too, the river that they had crossed over. It was rising swiftly and now lapped at the base of the great hill that they stood upon.
Brigit couldn’t bear the sight of this and looked up and away. High in the oak tree, she spotted an old abandoned bird’s nest wedged into the crook of a branch. Beyond it, she saw with despair that the stars were going out one by one.
“What happened to that deer?” Feenix asked suddenly. They all looked around. “Did anybody see which way it went?”
They listened for any sound, but there was only quiet.
“Well, now what?” Feenix asked quietly. “Anybody got any ideas?”
Nobody did.
“Who’s got the Fetch thingie?” she asked.
Danton drew it from his pocket. Feenix reached for it, but he seemed reluctant to let it go.
“Well, are you going to let me look at it or not?” she asked impatiently.
He sighed and released it into her hand.
She turned it around, examining it slowly.
Suddenly something moved up in the branches of the oak tree. “Did you see that?” Danton asked, lowering his voice.
They all stared up through the branches, straining their eyes.
“There,” Feenix hissed, pointing.
They followed her finger. Yes, there was definitely something up there.
Nobody moved. Very slowly they became aware of movements and shiftings along all the branches of the tree and in the shadows around its base.
“What’s going on?” Feenix asked. “Something’s happening, I think.”
Brigit saw that it was like one of those puzzle pages in a children’s magazine—the kind where there is a drawing of a beach or a classroom or a picnic in a forest. At first, you don’t see anything except the picture in front of you, and then slowly you start to spot all the objects camouflaged in the scenery—all sorts of oddly floating things—teapots and hammers and shoes and whatever. That’s the way it was here, only they weren’t teapots and hammers.
Up in the branches of the tree, they were able to make out several small faces, wrinkled like dried apples, peering down at them. People, Brigit saw. Little people in woolen pants and leather jackets. Then she saw two much bigger people, sitting side by side. They had great wrinkled hairy faces and earlobes that hung to their shoulders. Trolls of some kind, she thought. On the branch above them was stretched a woman with a mossy, wet fish tail. Beneath the tree, Brigit made out a three-headed dog and a woman with six arms.
“Eddie’s Christmas tree,” Danton said in an awed whisper.
“Solstice tree,” Feenix corrected him.
“Whatever,” he answered softly.
Brigit saw that it was Edward’s Solstice tree and more. There were several tall, thin, very faint looking people. You could actually see right through them, she realized. And then there were the heads sticking up out of the snow, large fierce godlike heads, whose bodies appeared to be still underground. Brigit spotted what she realized must be a minotaur—a thickly muscled man with the head of a bull. The man-bull was dressed only in some sort of loincloth and he glared at the humans and shivered in the cold. It occurred to her that what had happened here was like what happened when there was a flood or a forest fire. All the creatures went racing ahead of the disaster, looking for safety. Only now there was nowhere else to go. They were all in the same fix.
For a long moment, the young people stood staring into the shadows, while the solstice folk stared back at them.
Then Brigit felt someone pinch her arm through her coat. “It’s them,” Feenix croaked. “Over there by that lion with the woman’s head on it.”
Brigit spotted the sphinx and then she saw the two hags. They were young hags, but Brigit had no doubt they were Feenix’s hags. One of them carried an awful pig-faced baby in a basket on her back. The other had only a single nostril. They seemed to be trying to stay off to the side of the crowd, as if they were not eager to be seen.
Brigit reflected that however terrifying they might once have been, they, too, had been brought low by this calamity. She didn’t think there was much to fear from them now. She gave Feenix a brief pat of encouragement. Then Danton stepped forward.
He cleared his throat and stopped. Brigit knew he was trying to figure out how to address them.
“Friends—” he tried.
There was a low growl. Danton took a small step backward. It was the dog with three heads. Each head had its own long snakelike neck.
Danton tried again. “Ancient Ones, Most Honored and Powerful Beings—”
The dog stilled itself.
“As you all know, something terrible has gone wrong—”
One of the dog’s heads, the black one with the white eye patch, interrupted him with a growl. “Because of your ignorance and carelessness.”
Danton eyed the hungry-looking head unhappily. “Yes—we know and we are deeply sorry.”
“Although, I’d just like to point out,” Feenix interrupted, “that your people have played their own part in this mess.” She pointed in the direction of the witches, but they had somehow managed to shrink out of sight.
There was an angry buzzing in the crowd.
“You dare!” growled the dog. It shot one of its heads toward Feenix and bared its fangs.
“We don’t have time for this,” Danton said sternly. “We have the Fetch. Show them, Feenix.”
Feenix held the Fetch out for all to see.
There was a long indrawn breath among the watchers. Then there was silence. No one shuffled a foot, no one rustled a wing.
Brigit turned and saw how fast the river was rising. It was halfway up the mountain. Brooklyn was gone. Everything was gone. Where were her parents and her grandfather now? she wondered fearfully. There were no lights or sound or movement. The timelessness climbed steadily toward them.
A tall woman, cloaked in silver from head to toe, had come out of the shadows. She floated toward them over the snow, her feet not appearing to move at all. Brigit knew from the stories that this meant she was of the Old Folk—a fairy woman.
The fairy woman stopped a short distance from the threesome. “What has happened here is, as you say, not the fault of only one. All together must count their share of the responsibility and then must bow to what will come. The Fetch was not meant to be disturbed. At the end of its season, its queen
summoned her foragers back. She used herself up in doing so and the foragers fell into their long sleep, which is where they should have stayed until the Keeper came to collect the Fetch. It is our terrible misfortune that through some accident or carelessness the Fetch was moved from where it hid. Some of the sleepers awoke and were permitted to escape. Now it is too late. There is no one to sing the Calling In and our world is lost.” She gestured at the rapidly rising river. “It would be best for each of us to use the time that remains in making peace with what must come.”
Danton shook his head angrily. He looked at her and then around at all the others. “We’ve gone to a lot of trouble and come a very long way just to bow our heads and allow our world to get eaten down into a big fat nothing. Tell us about the ‘Calling In.’ What is it? Maybe we can figure it out.”
“This is not a thing to figure out. The ‘Calling In’ is a song. The queen knew it. But for most beings—even of our order—it is difficult and dangerous even to listen to. I have made it my business never to hear it. There may have been a few rare humans who had the trick of carrying it, but that was in the old days. I believe there are none of those left in your generation.”
Brigit suddenly drew in a breath and stood very still.
“What is it, Bridge?” Danton asked her. “Are you all right?”
She held up her hand, frowning at him. She needed him to be quiet. She was listening to something just beyond her memory. Everyone’s eyes were on her. She could feel it, but she ignored them. It was so close. Maybe if she could hold the Fetch in her hands. She reached out and took it from Feenix, who started to object and then shut her mouth.
Brigit listened, straining to remember. And yes, there it was. She took a deep trembling breath and stepped forward.
“You?” said the fairy woman. She looked Brigit up and down critically.
“I don’t think—” Danton began, but the woman ignored him.
“You carry the song?” she asked Brigit in a stern voice.
Brigit nodded.
The fairy woman continued to examine her closely. “You have the look upon you,” she said at last. “You realize the danger?”
Brigit trembled. Whatever the danger was, it was probably better not to know.
“Everyone back! Back into the trees. She must stand alone,” the fairy commanded. She pushed Danton and Feenix back. Danton tried to argue with her, but she was insistent. “If either of you tries to go to her before she is finished, she will be destroyed, and our chance will be gone. Stay beneath this oak tree. There is some protection here.”
Feenix also tried to protest. “You know I don’t think you realize but she doesn’t—”
“Quiet! There is no time to be lost. If she has the song, let her begin.”
A deep and expectant hush fell over the top of the hill. Everyone, Brigit knew, was watching her, so she held the Fetch out in front of herself. The song was as clear as a bell now in her head, and her voice, she could feel it, was waiting like a little bird right on the end of branch.
She opened her mouth. She took a breath.
And, of course, nothing came.
She thought about how Danton had called her magnificent and brilliant. She took in another big gulp of air. She opened her mouth and tried again and, still, nothing came. She was filled with fury at herself and in the heat of this fury, she pushed back her hood and lifted her face to the cold night. In doing this, she shook awake the gray spider that Aunt Kit had placed inside the folds of her scarf so many hours ago. The spider woke with a start and clambered along the difficult ridges of cloth until it reached the warm place in her neck where it could feel her blood pulse. It gave her a sharp little nip.
Startled, Brigit opened her mouth in a rounded O of surprise. Out tumbled the first notes of the song.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Calling In
Edward slept a deep, dark sleep. For how long? It might have been hours.
But then, sometimes the space between two ticks of a watch can seem to drag on forever.
At some point, he began to dream. They were shapeless dreams, uneasy, mildly seasick things that he couldn’t have put into words. They bumped up against him and floated away, and then came back in other unpleasant forms. He tried to push them off, but his arms were useless; he kept trying to lift them but they wouldn’t lift. He tried to speak and his mouth was so dry nothing would come out.
I am dreaming, he assured himself. I am in my own comfy bed at home and this is all just a dream. Very soon now, my aunt will come into the room and yank the covers off me. But his aunt didn’t appear. He struggled and struggled, but whatever it was that was pinning him down was too heavy. He could not open his eyelids, let alone move his hands or head.
After he had been in this place for what seemed several lifetimes, he heard a voice singing somewhere nearby, gentle at first, then more insistently. The voice, he knew, wanted him to follow it. But he had grown so heavy. It was the same voice he heard sometimes just as he was drifting off to sleep and his desire to go toward it was very strong. With the greatest of efforts he managed to lift himself up. But it was so dark, and when he felt for the floor with his feet, it wasn’t anywhere to be found. The voice sang reassuringly. He took a step forward and although there didn’t seem to be anything there, he found that he didn’t fall. It made no difference if he opened his eyes wide or squeezed them tight. There was only darkness sliding by. He took another step and then another, and the voice kept moving, always a little ahead of him. After a while the voice began to climb and he followed it, walking on a stairway that wasn’t there, either. Whatever was holding him up held firm, and the voice stayed steady in the darkness.
At last it began to grow lighter and he would have been encouraged by this, but at the same time, the voice was growing fainter.
“Wait!” he called out.
Suddenly to his surprise, the voice was right beside his ear. “Well, Sleepyhead, it is time.” The voice was encouraging and sweet, but sad. “Wake up now. You are needed.” He felt the soft brush of a kiss upon his cheek.
His eyes flew open and he was back in the café, sitting in the velvet armchair. He looked around eagerly for the owner of the voice, but there was no one there. The café was deserted. Outside, he could see the snow whirling and blowing past the lights from the window. The hands on the clock over the coffee machine said it was nearly midnight. Jolted by this surprise, he sat up. With a queasy shudder, he saw that his own reflection was still missing from the mirror.
Was it some sort of trick glass? Everything else in the room was reflected there—tables, chairs, coffee makers, the counter with the temptingly arrayed scones and cookies and muffins. Only he was not.
Who was this guy to go around stealing people’s reflections?
Edward looked again at the hands on the clock. They were moving way too fast. He had to find the others. He stood up and buttoned his coat and pulled on his hat. He strode to the door and threw it open.
He knew he needed to get up the hill, but the wind seemed to know exactly where he wanted to go. It came roaring at him from the right and slashing at him from the left. He couldn’t tell if it was still snowing or if the wind was only blowing the snow around. Sometimes the air would clear for seconds at a time. Then the wind would come whipping at him, blowing the snow up and blinding him. He did his best to walk in a straight line, but he hadn’t gone far when he nearly put his foot into one of those hideous cracks in the time fabric. Although it was dizzyingly without bottom or direction, it hadn’t yet grown very wide. He was able to go around it before the bees noticed him, but when he had left it behind, another great gust of wind came raging at him from out of nowhere, and he was knocked to his knees. He rose quickly, thinking he heard voices and laughter. Could it be Feenix and the others? Or was it something else, something teasing him? He didn’t know whether to go toward the sounds or away from them. So he chose a middle route, always aiming uphill, in the direction of where the park shou
ld be.
It was a terrible journey. Between the wind and the rips in the time fabric and the laughing voices, he despaired a hundred times. But whenever he would decide to pack it in and just lie down in the snow, he would hear the guy from the café taunting him—why bother if it’s all only dancing atoms and empty space? Whatever unraveling doom the greasy dude had in mind for the world, Edward was not with the program. He needed to catch up with the others. He pushed and struggled and kept on going.
When he reached the Third Street entrance at last, he was so pleased and surprised by himself, he didn’t even notice the missing panthers. He went right on through, and with renewed energy passed the snowbound playground and the old stone toll-keeper’s booth.
When he reached the silent river of emptiness, the wide unmoving ribbon of nothing, he stopped in despair and knew himself for a fool.
There was no getting across this dark river. It all came down to the same old thing. Soon there would be nothing left to stand upon. Not an atom, not a quark, not a past, not a future. What difference if he dissolved now or a hundred years from now? It had all been empty space to begin with, and he was the same old bumblehead he had always been.
All he had left to do was wait.
He stood at the edge of the river and closed his eyes. He hoped it wasn’t going to hurt very much. The wind had died down and it grew very quiet. He could smell the fresh cold smell of snow and the clean scent of pine trees somewhere nearby. He imagined it would have been a beautiful morning if it had ever come. He was surprised he didn’t feel more tired.
Very gently, right next to his ear, the voice he knew and did not know, said, “In your pocket.” He felt again the brush of the kiss.
He opened his eyes and looked around wildly. But there was no one there.
