Yarrow

by Charles de Lint

  Maybe they did, a small voice inside her said. Maybe the monster's already fed on them.

  There had to be a way out— a defense, some way to strike back. Peter couldn't help her now. He didn't believe in the very real danger she was in because he didn't— couldn't— believe in her Otherworld. She supposed she couldn't really blame him. It was as far off the wall as something from out of her own books.

  Except she didn't have a Tattershank to magic her away. She didn't have a Borderlord to stand between her and the evil that threatened her. All she had was real people who couldn't see the danger for what it was, and she couldn't really blame them for that lack of vision.

  Her thoughts went round and round until she felt like a Ping-Pong ball being batted back and forth across a tabletop. She wondered where Tiddy Mun was— why he continued to play his gnomish game of hide-and-seek at a time like this. But then she'd never really seen him in this world. It was always a movement caught out of the corner of her eye, a whisper of words or song that might have been the wind. Perhaps there was some law or rule that she was unaware of that forbade his manifesting in this world. Or at least something that stopped him from coming to her.

  She whispered his name into the pillow. She missed him. Missed Kothlen. The pillow grew damp against her cheek. She just didn't know what to do or where to turn. She was too frightened to sleep for fear of what might be waiting for her in the Otherworld, too tired to stay awake. In the end sleep crept up on her, and once again she was dreaming.

  She found herself on Kothlen's moors.

  A wind blew across the hills, rustling the heather and sedge, pushing her hair into her face. It made a lonely, forlorn sound that echoed the sadness inside her, for she stood facing a cairn of stones that had never been in this place before, and she knew it for what it was.

  Under those stones Kothlen slept the long sleep of his people, his soul fled to the Summer Country while his body… Her hands clenched into tight fists, nails digging into her palms. Dead Kothlen, laid to earth with bell heather and cowberry blossoms at his head and feet, his hands clasped across his cold chest, his eyes closed forever, his voice stilled, to speak no more.

  She crouched in front of the cairn. Laying her head against its rough stones, she wept. Which was better, she asked. Not to dream, or to dream and find your loved ones dead? The thrumming pulse of the Otherworld sounded all around her, and she wondered if she could ever be happy here again. Wondered if it even mattered anymore.

  For she could sense that the land was empty, stripped of its spirit as she'd been stripped of her dreams. There was nothing left for her here. Her enemy would feed on her until the hills were barren, until nothing remained except for a wasteland of bare rock and dry dusty hills.

  "Oh, Kothlen," she murmured unhappily.

  The wind took her soft words and shredded them. She'd missed him so much over the past few months. And now he was gone forever. Loneliness rose in a tidal swell and threatened to drown her. She stumbled to her feet and cast around the hilltop for a stone that she could add to the cairn herself. She found one that, when she held it up to the starlight, proved to be seamed with quartz veins the same color that his eyes had been.

  "Good… good-bye," she said as she laid the stone on top of the cairn. "Heart of my heart…"

  Slowly she turned and left the cairn to the night and the wind. She made her way down the hill, following the roll of the land until it brought her within sight of Mynfel's oak and apple wood. Before she reached the forest she turned aside, taking the crooked path that led to Redcap Hill, where Tiddy Mun and his people lived. When she arrived, the dun of the gnomes was as empty as Kothlen's moors had been. But at the top of the hill, silhouetted against the stars, she saw the proud lift of Mynfel's antlered head.

  The horned woman watched her ascend. When at last Cat had passed the gnarled fairy thorn and stood in front of her in the circle protected by the three longstones, Mynfel remained silent as always. But her eyes echoed the sorrow in Cat's heart.

  Mynfel was beauty incarnate. There were twelve tines to each of her antlers, which lifted creamy white from a high brow. Chestnut hair spilled in a torrent down her back. Her upper torso was that of a woman, her arms muscled but smooth, her breasts firm, her stomach flat. From the waist down she was a curious mixture of elk and woman. Her legs were long, covered with a downy-soft fur, ending in split hooves. Her honey-gold eyes dominated her face, which was strong-featured, the cheekbones high, the mouth wide, the nose straight.

  "Lady," Cat said. "Lady, they're all gone. What can I do now? What must I do?"

  For long moments Mynfel held Cat's gaze with her own. Then she reached forward and stroked the tears from Cat's cheek. When she stepped back, Cat made a small sound in the back of her throat. The shared sorrow in her honey eyes was Mynfel's only reply. She moved from the hilltop, hooves cutting the sod, and Cat followed.

  "Lady!" she cried.

  Mynfel paused at the edge of the wood. Still she didn't speak. She never spoke. Again her gaze held Cat's. Follow if you will, her eyes seemed to say. Then she turned and was gone.

  Cat swallowed. The night closed in around her, not threatening, but no longer the same. There was a wildness in the air, a strangeness that called out to her. Taking a last look at Redcap Hill and its three dancing stones, she plunged in amongst the trees, and the forest closed in around her.

  Lysistratus felt the woman recoil as she removed his shirt. So violent was her reaction that he almost lost his hold on her. The knife, while not puncturing any major organs, had cut through muscle and tissue to sever at least one arteriole. There was a great deal of blood. He firmed his grip on her mind, soothed the jangle of her nerves with false assurances.

  Under his direction she swabbed the wound clean with hydrogen peroxide, stitched it closed, then applied a good measure of an antibiotic ointment before employing a dressing. Throughout her ministrations he kept the pain at bay by focusing on the four who had turned such a promising hunt into disaster.

  He would return for them— quicker than they might expect. He healed more quickly than their kind did. The psychic essences of his prey accelerated his body's natural healing process. He would only have to feed more.

  Not until the major abdominal wound had been treated did he allow her to work on his face, arm, and legs. The arm and legs had escaped with no more than flesh wounds. The slash on his face would leave a scar though. When Stella was finally finished, he had her sit passively on the bed beside him.

  "What a night," he said.

  He lifted a hand to her throat. Her pulse jumped under his touch and her whole body trembled. The flow of her thoughts ran in a constant litany of: this can't be happening, this can't be real….

  He had her remove the bloody sheets from the bed and remake it. Then he had her undress and lie down. She was tall and slim, her skin smooth to the touch, her strawberry-blond hair cut short and straight. He filled her mind with illusions until she forgot him, until it seemed that an old lover teased her body with knowing hands. When her body arched, he drank in her orgasm, then forced her to sleep. Her hot pleasure went through him like a healing balm.

  Lying down beside her, flesh against flesh, he drew strength from her dreaming mind, though not enough to harm her. He took just enough to replenish his own dwindling reserves, to ease the pain and speed his recovery, for he knew he needed her. While her mind was as soft as her body— requiring no great skill to overrule and so control— she would have to be his arms and legs until he recuperated. He would have her bring prey home for him until he could safely hunt for himself. A friend invited over for the evening. A man picked up in a bar….

  He thought of Cat and her protectors. They expected him to return, but they wouldn't expect this woman. Or others like her. There might not be any need for him to go to them. Not if he could have them brought to him.

  Cat had never been this far into Mynfel's wood before— never been very far into it at all when it came right down to it.
No one had that she knew. Not the gnomes, nor Kothlen's people. It wasn't that it was dangerous, only that it was sacred to Mynfel and therefore not a place for common folk to wander. Not unless they had great need. Or they were invited.

  There was scant light under the giant oaks, but Cat never quite lost sight of the homed woman. She felt a little like a night traveler being led astray by a will-o'-the-wisp, except that whatever fire it was that burned behind Mynfel's eyes, it was not fool's fire. She led, and Cat followed. The path they took seemed to promise an end to Cat's fears. She was sure of that. Mynfel would never lead her astray.

  There was no undergrowth to impede their progress. The oak trees— so wide in girth that two Cats couldn't have touched hands around their trunks— reared skyward like the supporting columns in an immense cathedral. When they broke into a clearing, apple trees heavy with fruit appeared, scattered the length of the glade. Between them were carpets of pale-blue flowers, while above, the strange constellations of the Otherworld's night skies wheeled in their solemn dance. The forest was hushed, reverent, and in it Cat felt safe.

  An undercurrent of what she'd felt when she first entered the wood stayed inside her— that sense of wildness that she perceived with an intuitive insight but could put no name to. It didn't diminish the promise of safety she felt. Instead it strengthened it. And the longer she followed Mynfel's lead— now jogging, now at a quick walk— the more a certain rightness grew in her.

  When they finally came to one last glade, Cat knew they'd reached the end of their journey. Mynfel stood on the opposite side of a small pool. The water was enclosed by a low stone wall. The stones, gray and veined with dark seams, had ideographs cut deeply into their surfaces.

  Cat approached cautiously, gaze darting from the pool to Mynfel, who stood silently watching her. When she reached the wall, Cat hesitated. She didn't need the horned woman to tell her what she would see in the water. She was sure she knew what would be there— an unravelling of the riddle that troubled her. On the surface of that still and dark water, her solution would be pictured. She had only to look.

  She leaned forward, settling her palms against the wall. The rock was cool and dry to the touch. The surface of the water was black, reflecting not even the night stars above. It gave off a sweet scent. Kneeling beside it so that she could rest her elbows on the top of the wall, she leaned closer. The ground was soft under her knees, the stone hard against her breasts as she pressed against the wall.

  At first the water stayed dark and unreadable. Then, just as Cat was about to glance questioningly at her silent companion, a shimmer rippled across its surface. She looked down into her own face, only it wasn't a reflection. The perspective was wrong. The tousled hair in the reflection tumbled back from her head instead of rising up to meet the hair that fell down toward the pool from either side of her face. And there, where the hair was drawn back from the reflection's brow…

  Mynfel's antlers weighted down her head. She stared aghast at the reflection. Those horns on her own head lent her a look as wild and strange as the mythic being whose woods she trod. The weight was real. She could feel her head bobbing toward the water. With an effort she pulled up, stared across the pool, a question on her lips, but—

  Mynfel was gone.

  Fingers trembling, Cat reached up to touch her forehead, but they encountered only her hairline and a handful of curls. She looked at the pool. Its surface was a dark sheen once more.

  "Lady," she called. "Lady!"

  This answered nothing. It was no explanation— only another obscure riddle. She didn't have time for riddles….

  She circled the glade, calling until her voice grew hoarse. Again and again she lifted her hands to her brow. They encountered nothing but the memory of what she'd seen. When she finally returned to the pool, there was a deep ache inside her. Confusion mingled with fear. The sense of safety she'd felt earlier fled. Only the hallowedness of the forest remained, but now it was inexplicable. A mystery more profound than what she'd seen in the pool.

  She looked into the water again, and again its surface stirred. This time it showed her Tiddy Mun creeping down a city street that she didn't recognize. She started to reach out to touch the image, but it changed, flowed into a long view of Redcap Hill. There, standing amongst the longstones as she had been earlier, was Mynfel, branched antlers silhouetted against the stars once more, her honey-rich eyes still sad, still sharing.

  "Mynfel," Cat whispered.

  The name rang in the glade as though she'd shouted it. The pool lost the image of the horned woman and Redcap Hill, showed Tiddy Mun once more, huddled in a driveway staring wide-eyed at a car's headlights passing him by on the street. Then the waters blackened and stilled again.

  "I don't understand," Cat said.

  The forest's silence was her only reply.

  For a long time she sat crouched against the wall, waiting hopelessly for something to make sense of the tumult inside her, but after a while she realized that she was waiting in vain. The pool and its obscure riddles were all that she was going to be offered. She traced an ideograph with her finger, stared into the dark forest that surrounded her with a silence as still as the silence its mistress wore, then slowly stood.

  She felt betrayed. Mynfel had been her last hope. Now it seemed that she'd withdrawn her protection.

  "I'm not giving in," Cat told the night. "I… I can't."

  It was fight or lose herself. The monster was stealing her dreams, sucking the soul right out of her. She had to fight it. The question was how.

  She thought of Kothlen lying dead in his grave, and if the pool's images were to be believed, of Tiddy Mun trapped in her world. Again she touched her brow. There was nothing there. What did the antlers on her reflection mean? And Mynfel on Redcap Hill, waiting… waiting for what?

  Cat never felt more alone than she did leaving that pool in the heart of the wood to step in amongst the giant oaks of Mynfel's forest once more.

  11

  Thursday

  Ellen Henderson stared blindly at the off-white walls in the waiting room of the Civic Hospital's emergency ward. She was a sturdy woman in her mid-forties, broad-faced with black-framed glasses, her hair pulled back in a severe bun. Her husband Jack sat beside her, his usually jovial features drawn and pale. She drew strength from his big hand enclosing hers, but nothing could ease the torment inside her. The doctor's initial prognosis dropped through the maelstrom of her thoughts like a monstrous demon spinning end over end, its talons shredding everything she'd ever held dear to her heart as it went through her.

  Catalepsy.

  No. Not her Lisa.

  The loss of voluntary motion probably initiated by a strong emotional stimulus.

  Not her baby.

  Cataplexy.

  "Mrs. Henderson," the doctor had said. "Has your daughter appeared at all distraught recently? Perhaps she broke up with her boyfriend? Has she ever shown any severe emotional disorders?"

  And Ellen, never at a loss for words, could only numbly shake her head while Jack replied to the doctor's questions.

  Her baby was going to die. Her Lisa…

  "Some coffee?" Jack asked softly, drawing her out of her inner storm for the few instants it took to register that he was speaking.

  She looked at him, at the two Italian women mourning their own loss three chairs down, at the thin black man sitting across the room— his face as haggard as her own. Dimly she remembered that his wife had been in a car accident. She'd seen the orderlies wheeling her in from the ambulance, her features hidden behind the oxygen equipment….

  "Ellen?"

  She faced Jack, remembered his question. Coffee was an alien word that didn't fit into the context of her present emotional turmoil. She started to shake her head, then saw the doctor who'd questioned them earlier fill the doorway of the waiting room. Jack followed her gaze and stood up.

  "Doctor," he began, "is there some…?"

  His voice trailed off as he read the answer
in the doctor's eyes. His daughter's death was reflected there. He saw Lisa's face in his mind's eye, her face alive with laughter, and knew he'd never hear her laugh again. Beside him, he heard Ellen moan. Turning, he took her in his arms and held her tightly in a blind attempt to ease her wracking sobs while the tears started down his own cheeks.

  Linda Stinson unlocked the front door of Discount Den— a clothing shop at Bank Street near Laurier— at about five to nine. Locking the door behind her, she left her purse and knitting on the cash counter and went into the back room to open the safe. Humming to herself, she put the morning float into the till, then gathered up the green garbage bag from under the counter and took it out through the back door to leave in the alley behind the store.

  As she started for the Laurier entrance where the garbage men made their pick up, something drew her gaze. She looked left, and for a long moment what she saw didn't register. The body of a wino lay there, collapsed over a suitcase, blood soaking the front of his shirt and pooling on the ground around him.

  The garbage bag fell from suddenly limp fingers. She stared, her eyes feeding the horror to her brain as she fought to look away. A primal scream came surging up from her diaphragm and scraped her throat raw as it wailed forth. By the time the police were called and two squad cars had arrived, the investigating officers were unable to question her. Medics took her to the Civic Hospital to be treated for shock.

  Peter woke up automatically when his inner alarm clock told him it was eight-thirty. It didn't matter that he hadn't had a decent night's sleep for two nights running, nor that he was exhausted from more than a lack of sleep. He lay for a few minutes, listening to the quiet in Cat's house, then swung his feet off the couch. He tugged on his jeans, slung his shirt over his shoulder, and padded upstairs. His reflection looked blearily back at him from the bathroom mirror. He used Cat's toothbrush and toothpaste. After washing his face, he rubbed his hand along his jawline, wishing he'd thought to bring along a razor. That'd have to wait till he got back to the store.