Nightingale

by David Farland

  Each of them was great, yet Bron had to wonder: were they great despite their scars, or did they become great because they were forced to endure the unendurable?

  Or was she hinting at something even deeper?

  He stopped, struck by a realization. "You've got something you want to tell me, but you're afraid of how I'll take it. You think I'm too scarred."

  Olivia peered deep into his eyes, and just when he thought she would speak, she said, "There's no hurry."

  "No hurry?" he asked. "We just about got possessed!"

  "And now our enemies will be our poppets," she said. "It only seems just. Tell me, what do you think the Draghouls will do when they find out that they've lost a bunch of their own? Will they flood the area with more agents, or back off and reconsider?"

  "I... can't even guess."

  She smiled weakly. "Anyone who was sane would run away from this city forever. That's what the Draghouls will expect us to do. They'll probably search again, make a cursory sweep, but they'll move on quickly. So we're going to have to keep a low profile for awhile."

  "There's something you don't want me to know," he pressed. "Something that you think will leave a scar?"

  "Patience," she said.

  Fine, he thought. Let her keep her stupid secrets. He was determined to wait her out.

  Bron woke at dawn and showered quickly. He was just stepping out of the guest shower with his towel wrapped around him when he heard the back door creak open, the one that led to his bedroom.

  He glanced to the back of the room. The old man, Blair, stood smiling his skeletal smile.

  Bron's heart thudded.

  "Don't worry, Bron," the old man said. "We're friends."

  There was something creepy about the way that he said it. It was like a twisted dream. It was an echo of what he'd said when Bron was captured.

  "Who are you?" Bron demanded.

  The old man smiled. "I'm Father Leery, for the most part."

  Bron stood for a moment, feeling naked and vulnerable. He clutched the towel around him. "Okay," he said, unsure what the man was after. "What do you want?"

  "I just came to let you know. The Draghouls that were here in town, the dread knights—I caught them all. It wasn't hard. When they saw me coming, I was wearing the face of a trusted comrade, so it was easy to get close, touch them, take them down."

  Bron's heart pounded. He wondered if he could ever trust anyone again. Would Olivia come to him someday, greeting him with a smile, as a poppet? Is that how the enemy would come?

  Bron's sizraels extended, the ribs along the edge of the suction cups becoming firm.

  Yes, he realized, the enemy might come to him like that. "That's good news," Bron said. He stayed a few paces back. He didn't want the creepy old man near.

  Blair smiled warmly, and there was a twinkle in his eye. "Welcome to the world of the Ael, Bron. I could tell you not to be afraid, but I'd be doing you a disservice. Any time that you see another masaak, you need to be cautious."

  Bron nodded slightly.

  "It was a busy night," Blair said. "Even with three of us working, we've been up all hours. We visited the Walton home. I know what you did to Justin... draining his will."

  "It was an accident."

  "Don't return it. The boy is a danger to you. You can't guess how nasty his mind is, how dangerous his cunning. He's all small-minded jealousy, but he imagines that he's fueled by righteous desires. With a little less will, he won't be likely to act upon his more vicious impulses."

  "Is that everything?" Bron asked. He wanted this ghoulish character out of his room.

  "For now," Blair agreed. "I'll be going to Los Angeles. I'm going to lead the Draghouls off your trail, call in a sighting of you there. Everything should calm down here, at least for awhile."

  "Just for awhile?"

  "I'm just hoping that I can get them to look for you in the wrong place. I can't promise anything."

  "Oh," Bron said.

  The old man opened the door. "God bless," he said, and then slipped out.

  Bron went to the door after Blair was gone, bolted it. His head whirled. He felt as if reality had become slippery, and he didn't quite know what was real anymore.

  Someone pounded on the front door to the bedroom, and Bron wondered briefly if Blair had gone around the house.

  Mike poked his head in. He had a broad smile, as if he was a kid who'd just stolen a cookie. After the nightmare that was last night, Bron couldn't imagine why Mike would smile, but then he realized: Mike probably remembered nothing. Olivia would have taken care of that. The police had never taken Bron into custody. Bron had never been handcuffed.

  "Did I hear you talking to someone?" Mike asked.

  "Just myself," Bron said. "I was making up lyrics."

  Mike nodded wisely, as if he'd suspected just that. "I got a phone call from Marie Mercer a minute ago. She pointed out that it's silly for both you and Galadriel to be driving to school every day, when you live right next door." Bron groaned inwardly. He could have suggested a carpool, but he didn't take the bait. "Marie has a proposition for you: if you'll drive Galadriel to and from school, Marie will keep your gas tank full. What do you think?"

  Bron was not in any position to decline. He didn't have an income, and the truth was, he worried about how much he was costing the Hernandez family.

  Mike grinned. "Hey, you get paid to drive a pretty girl around? Sounds like a bargain to me!"

  Bron smiled sheepishly. "All right."

  Mike grinned as he left and said, "I'll let her know."

  Bron dressed slowly, went out into the kitchen. Olivia was frying up bacon and eggs.

  "Can we talk about something?" Bron asked.

  "Mike's gone out to work," she said.

  "That old man just came to the back door," Bron said, "the one Father Leery caught last night?"

  "Oh, Father Leery," she said, as if the old man and Father Leery were one and the same. "What did he have to say?"

  Bron told her everything, somehow hoping that the world would make more sense if he just... thought about it.

  Olivia was silent a moment, then admitted, "I slipped into the neighbor's house last night. Marie and Galadriel won't remember a thing, either."

  Bron suddenly felt relieved. All his problems of the last few days were ... gone, overnight. The world had reshaped, like a nightmare that twists into a pleasant daydream.

  "So that's it?" Bron asked. "It's over?"

  "We can't be sure," Olivia said. "With the Draghoul, nothing's easy."

  "That's such a strange name, Draghoul," Bron said. "Blair said it with a little bit of a K sound, with an accent. More like Dragh-kool. Where does it come from?"

  "It's an ancient term, from an forgotten empire that crumbled thousands of years ago," Olivia said. "It comes from a combination of words: dray and gul. It means the 'dark guild.' Originally the dark guild was a criminal organization, something like the mafia. It was a society of thieves and assassins that worked by night. Eventually, they became more of a political power."

  "This Shadow Lord that the priest mentioned: who is he?"

  Olivia weighed her words. "He's the leader of the Dark Guild."

  "So, how exactly do you stay alive for three hundred years?"

  Olivia just smiled secretively and would answer no more questions. "That's enough for one day. All of your questions will be answered: very soon, I think."

  The sun was cresting the horizon when Bron went to the car. In Pine Valley, the light just sort of drifted over the hills in the morning. The sun had not yet risen above the purple mountains on the far side of the vale. The grass in the fields held hints of autumn tans, and this morning there was a slight blue mist above the creek out back. A pair of mallards circled the marsh.

  Bron got into his Corolla and started it up, punched the radio on, and then opened the moon roof as the engine warmed. He drove carefully out of the driveway, avoiding the deeper potholes.

  He reached the M
ercer's big log cabin. It stood three stories high and was made of white pine, stained a golden brown. The cabin had huge windows on the front and sides, so that the folks inside would be able to take advantage of the gorgeous views of the valley and the mountains above.

  That house would be hard to heat in the winter, Bron realized. In most of the houses he'd lived in, his foster parents had always complained of the cost of heating. But he figured that if you had enough money, it wouldn't matter.

  He worried that he might have to go up and ring the bell to get Galadriel, and he worried what her mom might say. Would she tease him about bringing her daughter home on time? Or would she try to force money on him immediately, as if he were some desperate slob who needed it?

  The house was still dark inside, except for one upstairs light. He hated this. He hated having to pick up Galadriel, when Whitney was the one he wanted to see. But he'd have to dump Galadriel at school before he went to Whitney's.

  To his relief, he saw Galadriel through a big window come bouncing around the corner, past a dining room. She smiled as she jogged to the car, pulled the door open, and hopped in.

  "Hi, Bron," she said. Her teeth were white, her breath smelled minty.

  "Hi," he said.

  He backed out, then went up Main Street. He wasn't sure what to say to Galadriel. Did she remember anything that had happened last night?

  He turned off by the church, and crossed the valley. They had gone perhaps a mile up the road and were just entering the juniper forest, where dark green trees marched side by side, filling the air with their bitter scent, when Galadriel nodded toward a little gravel road ahead. "Will you turn on that road, please?"

  He wondered what she was up to. Was she going to try to neck, or seduce him again?

  If she does, he wondered, should I let her this time?

  He did as she asked, and followed the gravel road for a quarter of a mile, before he hit a turnout. She jutted her chin. "Park here."

  He pulled the car to a stop, turned off the engine, but kept the radio on. An old Dave Matthews Band song was playing, "Satellite." She turned it off and faced him.

  "I want a do over," she said.

  "What?" Bron asked. In his world, life wasn't normally that simple. If you made a mistake, you were stuck with it. But he wondered. His life had changed last night.

  "I want a do over," she said. "I acted like a jerk the other day, and I'm begging you to forgive me."

  She bit her dainty lip and sat in her seat, hands in her lap. She looked poised at a glance, but in reality she was clutching her legs nervously. Her face was like stone, jaw set.

  Her eyes had a pleading look, and he realized that with a word or two, he had the power to make her cry.

  "There's nothing to forgive," he said, thinking that would end the conversation.

  "Yes, there is," she whispered. She searched for the words to explain. "The other day, you and I talked. I took one look at you, and I sort of went crazy. I thought you were the cutest guy I'd ever seen, and I threw myself at you in a way that I've never done before. Now I feel really icky, really embarrassed."

  Bron nodded. He didn't quite know what to say.

  "When you didn't come out to the pond," Galadriel continued, "you don't know how that made me feel. I thought that you hated me, that I disgusted you. I thought that you would never want to see me again, and I curled up and wanted to die."

  Bron couldn't understand how she could get it so wrong. "I didn't hate you," he said. "I hardly knew you. Why would you care what I think?"

  "I know. It was crazy. It was the middle of the night, and I came and waited at your door. It was like my mind closed down, like I walked inside this dark cave inside my head, and got lost. I went to the pond, determined to wait until you came, and I just felt like, like something had sucked my insides out.

  "I can't explain it," she said. "I just began to feel so hopeless. That's not like me. I mean, look at me." Bron had been staring down at her hands, but now his gaze flicked up to her eyes. She was startlingly beautiful, so beautiful that he felt lucky to be here with her. "Everyone tells me that I'm pretty. When I go to the store, clerks fall all over themselves trying to help me. Any time I do something wrong, my parents and teachers give me a pass. I don't think I could get arrested in this town if I shot the mayor. But you looked at me, and you saw right through me. You saw how petty I really was."

  "I saw how dangerous you could be," Bron corrected.

  Galadriel said softly, "When you told me that you were saving yourself for the girl of your dreams? Oh, man, you don't know how that made me feel! I kept thinking, I wish I knew a boy who was like you, someone who would fall in love with me before we ever met, someone who would remain true no matter what kind of bimbo threw herself at him."

  Bron wanted to apologize, but how could he? Galadriel seemed to have gotten it. She was agreeing with him.

  She flipped her hair back a little, and tears glistened in her eyes. She sniffed. "When I woke up in the hospital, you were there. You were touching my face, cradling it in your hands."

  Bron's heart skipped a beat. He hadn't known that she had awakened.

  "What were you doing to me?" she asked. "It felt—it felt so wonderful! I felt like ... like you were inside me, walking around in my heart, in my head, and they were rooms, dark and corrupt, and you were turning on all of the lights. I felt my heart start jumping.... What were you doing to me?"

  A tear slid down Galadriel's cheek.

  Bron had to make up a lie to cover himself. He said the first thing that came to his mind. "Just holding you. I whispered in your ear when you were asleep, and begged you to wake up. I didn't know if you could hear me."

  She nodded thoughtfully, and said, "I saw that white rose that you brought. My mother said that a white rose stands for love, and for purity."

  Bron hadn't meant anything by it, but he didn't dare tell her that now.

  "When I saw that," she said, "I realized that that was what I wanted in life: love that was pure." She raised a hand in a gesture of warning. "I know, I know that you aren't in love with me. We hardly know each other. But I woke up, and I realized that maybe if I tried harder, maybe if I worked at being a better person, someone somewhere will find me worthy of love."

  "I think," Bron said, "that you have to learn to be comfortable with yourself for that to happen. I knew a bishop once at the Mormon Church. He said that once you love yourself and treat yourself with respect, others will do the same."

  Galadriel nodded thoughtfully. "That's what I've decided to do. Olivia once tried to get me to come to her school. To tell the truth, the idea scared me to death. I mean, there are a lot of talented people there, and I don't know if I'll fit in, or if they'll all think I'm just a fake."

  "Join the club," Bron said.

  "So I've decided to change. I'm going to try to do something with my life. I don't know if it will work or not, but at least if I go down in flames, well, I'll know that I tried."

  "Flames are nice," Bron said. "Not that I like seeing a girl go down in flames. It's just that, well, not trying, that's completely tragic."

  Galadriel really did seem to be changing. There was a confidence in her tone, an assertiveness that he hadn't seen before. A few nights ago, she'd been so pliant. He hadn't realized it until now, but every little gesture had been frightened. She'd sat with her shoulders slightly hunched, her expression guarded, as if with every moment, she was waiting for him to make a move, to let her know what he wanted. Now, she seemed to have made a choice, and she was unleashing herself on the world.

  "The thing is," Galadriel said, "I wanted you to know something. I want you to know that I'm not stalking you or anything."

  Bron let out an exaggerated sigh of relief and wiped his forehead. Galadriel laughed. With the tears still in her eyes, they seemed to dance with merriment. "I was really worried," Bron admitted.

  "Don't be," Galadriel said. "I'm not stalking you, for now. That doesn't mean that I'm not at
tracted to you. I'm really attracted. But I promise not to stalk."

  "All right," Bron said. "I'm officially at ease."

  Galadriel fidgeted with her hands nervously and said in a shy voice, "I ... uh ... just wanted to thank you."

  She leaned forward, took Bron's chin in her palm, and kissed him on the lips. It was more than a friendly kiss. She let it linger. Her breath smelled of mint, and he realized that she had planned this. Her lips were soft and sensual. She pulled away. He sat, stunned.

  She gave him a self-conscious, questioning look. "I didn't just creep you out, did I?"

  Bron shook his head. "No, that was definitely not ... too creepy." To be honest, he wanted more, and he felt guilty for wanting it.

  "Good," Galadriel said. "Thank you. Now, as I said, I want a do over. I want you to know that I'm not the same person you met on Sunday."

  "I can see the difference already."

  She smiled confidently, reached her hand out to shake. "I'm Galadriel Mercer. My parents named me after a stupid elf princess from a book. In the past, I've always pretended to be embarrassed by the name, but to tell the truth, I think it's kind of cool. You know what my middle name is? Eowyn."

  Bron laughed. "Man, they really hammered you."

  Galadriel sat back in her seat, wiggled to get comfortable as Bron turned on the ignition. "To tell the truth," she said, "I like my middle name even better."

  She fell quiet as he drove, and Bron began to wonder about what she'd said. He had accidentally taken her hope, and she had rationalized it. She thought she had felt depressed by his rejection. And when he gave her more hope, once again she had invented an explanation for the change that took place in her.

  He wondered if that was the way that people always worked. Do they invent reasons for how they feel, getting the reasons wrong?

  He remembered seeing a clip in school about a woman in Africa named Umandu who was dying from AIDS. She had blamed a woman in the village for her problems. After all, the woman was a witch, and had obviously cast a spell.

  So as a dying act, Umandu had gone to the witch's home and chopped off her arms with a machete, leaving her to bleed out.