by Lisa Tuttle
I'd thought nothing could be worse than that devilish young man wanting to rape me, but this—my own mother, begging for it—was infinitely more horrible.
Where were the snake, the lion, the bear, the burning brand that Janet had to endure before she won back her young Tam Lin? Those, I could have dealt with.
Telling myself, yet again, this is really Amy, I shut my eyes and held on tight, trying not to feel her nibbling at my earlobes and brushing kisses down my neck.
How long that went on, I don't know, but eventually she changed again. Suddenly she was Carl Voorhees—nasty little freckled bully, my nemesis from grade school—and then someone, or something, I don't know, reeking of sewers, hideous, slimy—then, finally, it was again Amy.
Only, this time, she was dead.
I stared down in horror at the slumped body. She wore nothing but a dirty T-shirt and underpants. Her skin was faintly blue. There was no doubting this time: she wasn't just unconscious, and she hadn't recently passed on. This thing that I held had been dead for days, if not weeks. The corpse was stiff and cold and the smell—although I had never encountered it before, the smell of death was unmistakable.
Only the fact that I'm a stubborn bastard made me keep hanging on.
It had to be another illusion. Had to be.
I gritted my teeth, shut my eyes, and held on tightly and, although I'm not a believer, I prayed to anyone listening, anyone with the power to save her.
I opened my eyes and saw that the night had passed. Darkness had dimmed to grey, and over on the horizon the sky was getting light. And in my arms was a dead body.
I began to cry. I couldn't help myself. It was rage more than sorrow. After all that, after winning through every trial, this was what I got? It was so unfair!
I went on clutching the heavy, dead body as I wept, still unwilling to admit defeat. Maybe it wasn't quite morning yet. I hadn't heard a cock crow. The sun wasn't actually up, was it? What was the official moment when All Hallows Eve ended and all the spirits had to flee back to the Otherworld, leaving this one to the living?
Staring down at Amy's body, I wondered what had happened to her clothes. Why was she only in her underwear? Had someone killed her? Had she died of exposure?
Then I remembered the last thing I had to do.
It was a nightmare, trying not to let her go while I took my coat off, then grappling with the corpse, forcing her stiff, dead arms into the sleeves of my well-padded storm jacket, but, sobbing and cursing like a lunatic, I did it.
And then she was in the jacket, in my arms, and it was now light enough for me to see the change that rippled across her face, like a breeze over the surface of a pond. Her death had been another illusion, the final trick. Now, once more, she was alive, warm and flexible within my arms. She opened her eyes and gazed at me.
“Thank God,” she murmured. Then, pulling gently away from me, she began to shiver convulsively. “Christ, I'm freezing! Will you take me home?”
19. Elidurus
In the twelfth century, there lived an elderly Welsh priest, Elidurus, who often spoke of events that had befallen him in his youth. At the age of twelve, although he loved his books, he often found the discipline of his instructors too harsh, and one day, to avoid a beating, ran away and hid in a hollow riverbank.
After he had been hidden there for two days without eating, he was visited by two small men who offered to lead him to “a country full of delights and sports.” He agreed, and followed them along a path leading down below the earth. There he saw a beautiful country, although it was only dimly lit, and the nights were especially dark, without moon or stars. He met the king of that country, and became the friend and playmate of his son. All the men and women there were small of stature, but well proportioned, not dwarfish, and all had beautiful golden hair, which the men wore hanging to their shoulders.
After a little while, Elidurus returned home, but he went back to visit the wonderful country under the earth several times. He told no one but his mother about where he went, for his new friends were very mistrustful of the people who lived above the ground, considering them dishonest and unreliable. The boy's mother was inclined to think her son was lying when he talked about the many wonderful things he had seen. She wanted proof, so he promised to bring her a present made of gold, and the next time he played with the king's son, Elidurus stole a golden ball and quickly ran off with it.
However, Elidurus was seen by the same two men who had first led him to the underground kingdom, and they followed him, catching up to him just in front of his parents' house.
He was seized by the shoulders from behind, forced to stop. Turning, he saw his former guides, their faces no longer friendly, but now stony with disapproval.
“I didn't mean to take it,” he stammered. “I'll bring it back. I only wanted it to show my mother.” He held the ball out apologetically.
There was to be no forgiveness. One of the men snatched the ball away from him, and both spat words at him he didn't understand but could guess were curses.
Overcome with shame, the boy ran after the two small men, but they seemed to have vanished. When he reached the usual spot on the riverbank he searched in vain for any sign of an entrance to the underground road he had used before. He continued to search for almost a year, but was never able to find it again.
Even as an old man Elidurus still had vivid memories of the time he had spent in that underground kingdom. He remembered some words and phrases of the language they had spoken there, which he had picked up so readily as a child; he remembered the games he had played there, the taste of the saffron-flavored, milky puddings, the beauty of the land, and the kindness of the people he had so thoughtlessly betrayed. He could never speak about his time there without weeping, and never, until his dying day, ceased to mourn his loss.
20. Laura
After leaving Laura's place, I walked all the way home. It wasn't that late, and I could have caught a bus easily enough, or gone by a slightly more complicated route on the underground, but I like walking, especially when I've got something to think about, and, boy, did I have something to think about.
Never, since my rescue of Amy, had I encountered a similar case. Never, since then, had I come in contact with the Otherworld, and not for lack of trying.
I'd spent years studying folklore and digging into old mysteries, traveling to ancient sites that were said to be haunted or holy, pursuing tales of vanishings and apparitions down through history all over the British Isles. In my own way, and for my own very different reason, I'd become as obsessed as Fred with finding a way through to a place or condition I couldn't describe or explain. That was why I'd set myself up in business as a specialist in missing persons, and it was why I'd never gone back home. This was the country where I'd caught a glimpse of another reality, so this was where I stayed, in the hope that it would happen again.
But despite all the people I'd managed to reunite with their families, despite my successes (which did outweigh the failures, by quite a bit) and even the crimes I'd been able to solve, I'd never found what I was looking for. I'd never even come close, until now.
Or was that just what somebody wanted me to think?
I'd never told anyone the true story of how I'd rescued Amy; and she was the only one who knew what had happened to her during the weeks she was missing.
I remembered how we'd made our way together down Doon Hill in the frosty morning. Apart from the occasional exclamation when she stepped on something uncomfortable to her bare feet she'd said nothing until she was settled in the front seat of my car, with the heater turned up as high as it would go, when she'd given me a slightly nervous smile and said, “Thanks for rescuing me. Can you take me to the airport or something?”
I had stared in disbelief. “Amy, what happened to you? Where've you been?”
She frowned. “How do you know my name?”
“Are you kidding? I've been looking for you for weeks.”
“Weeks? Don't be
stupid. Who are you, anyway?”
“I'm Ian Kennedy. My mother lives on the same street as your parents.”
“Really! What a coincidence!”
“It's not coincidence. Your mother sent me to find you.”
She pouted. “She shouldn't have done that. I'm not a baby. I told her I was staying.”
“She was worried about you. You didn't explain why you weren't coming home. Nobody knew where you were. Where were you, Amy?”
Her eyes darted nervously about the car, then she tucked in her chin and shook her head.
“Come on, I think you owe me an explanation.”
Her head jerked up and she stared at me. “What do I owe you for? Take it up with my mother! I never asked you to come!”
“Actually, you did. You asked me to meet you on Halloween, and you sounded pretty—”
“Halloween?” Her eyebrows drew together, and she turned away to look outside, where she seemed to take in the bare trees for the first time. “It's October already?”
“Today is the first of November.”
“No! It can't be. It's August, it must be, it can't be later than that. I only went with him for a few days.”
“Went with who?”
She drew a shaky breath. “Three months?”
“Amy, who did you go with? Where did you go?”
“I'd better call my folks.”
“That's an idea. Why don't I take you back to The Rowans. I'm sure Mrs. MacDonald could fix you up with something to wear, and—”
“I'm not going back there!” She began to shake. “Don't take me back there, please.”
“All right, take it easy. I won't take you anywhere you don't want to go.”
“I want to go home.” She murmured the words softly, pathetically, and tears shined in her eyes as she looked at me. My heart turned over. “Please don't ask me any more questions. Please, just take me home.”
I didn't actually go so far as that, but I took her to Edinburgh, where the American consulate was able to sort out the problem of her missing passport and papers, and I bought her some new clothes. I did question her again, of course, but by then she'd had time to figure out her story, and, needless to say, it did not involve supernatural beings, or other worlds, or anything at all that went against conventional expectations. She'd met a man . . . she'd been very silly . . . finally, she'd run away from him, and got lost in the woods where I'd found her. There were coy hints of sexual perversity, drugs, and general excess. I suspected she wouldn't have minded giving me more details, but I didn't want to hear those stories. I wasn't sure she was lying to me, exactly; more that she was struggling with her own confusion, trying to find some rational explanation for her missing weeks. Maybe she'd already forgotten what had happened to her, maybe it was beyond understanding, beyond words—or maybe she knew perfectly well and decided not to share it with me.
I don't know. I'd finally accepted that I would never know what her experience had been. I hadn't seen Amy Schneider since the day I'd waved good-bye to her at Edinburgh airport, and she'd made no effort to stay in touch; vaguely, I remembered my mother sending me news of her marriage some years ago.
It was unlikely that Amy Schneider had given me more than a passing thought in years; impossible that she could be behind an elaborate hoax designed to mess with my perception of reality.
No, the truth was altogether simpler, and stranger, and one people down through the ages had always suspected: There was another world beyond our own, another reality into which people might disappear and from which, even more rarely, they might return.
I went straight to bed when I got home and slept deeply, and if I dreamed, I don't remember.
In the morning, although I thought I made an early start, Laura was ahead of me. When I checked my e-mail I found she'd sent me the name and address of a restaurant in central London, noting that she'd booked a table for one o'clock, and Polly Fruell's e-mail address. I gazed at it while I sipped my coffee, but it told me nothing. She used her own name rather than a cute nickname, and the service provider was one I didn't recognize. I decided to leave it for the time being, and get her phone number later. I thought a confrontation with Polly Fruell was pretty much inevitable, but I wanted it to be on my terms.
I could have filled the time before lunch with more database searches, but that seemed pointless. Instead, I dealt with other business. I cleared out my in-box, responding to inquiries from potential clients, writing inconsequential, chatty notes to a half dozen old friends, then I surfed and browsed the Internet for items of interest. There was still no official announcement from the police as to the cause of Linzi Slater's death. I wrote to Baz, the only journalist I knew who'd treated Linzi's disappearance as a story. Not that he'd been able to do much with it, against the general indifference of managing editors; but I thought it likely he'd remained interested, as journalists often were in their orphaned stories, and might have some inside information to share.
I was finding it hard to settle, anticipating my lunch with Laura, so I left early, and hit a few bookshops along the Charing Cross Road. In one, I came across an old collection of Irish legends I hadn't seen before. Skimming through it, I found “The Wooing of Etain,” simply yet rather beautifully told. It was a nice-looking book, and not too expensive, so I bought it as a present for Laura.
The prospect of asking her to believe that her daughter's disappearance had been foretold in a fairy tale—more than that; that Peri was the living embodiment of an old fairy tale—had me pretty jittery. Maybe I should keep her in the dark; it might be simpler that way. After all, it was Etain's human husband who had fetched her back—her mother hardly figured in the story, except as the means by which she was reborn. Although Laura was my client, it was Hugh's help I needed.
In the end, I was almost ten minutes late for our meeting, and I saw immediately, by the set of Laura's mouth, that this was a tactical error. Stupidly, I responded by abasing myself, saying “sorry” far too many times, then thrusting the book forward, as if it might buy forgiveness.
“What's this?”
“A present?”
She read the title and shook her head. “Peri's the one for fairy tales. Not me.”
“There's a reason for it . . . I'll explain in a minute.” I picked up the menu. “Have you ordered?”
“I was waiting for you.”
“Sorry,” I said again before I could stop myself. Embarrassed, I looked around, really taking the place in for the first time. It was a sort of French bistro, with daily specials chalked up on boards and a bar at the far end of the room. “I was just wondering about wine—red or white?”
“Not for me. I have to get back to work.”
My heart sank still further.
“I'm sorry, but there are a lot of things I need to do in the office before I leave London. This has to be a quick lunch. I know you've got more questions to ask, and I'll sign whatever I need to sign and give you a check so you can get started.” She looked around for the waiter.
Rather than waste any more time, I ordered a steak, medium rare, with fries and a glass of the house red. Laura asked for the grilled goat-cheese salad and sparkling water.
When the waiter had gone, I plunged in. “The missing hours, the time you can't remember after Hugh says he dropped off Peri, that's got to be key. How would you feel about—”
“I've already tried.”
“Tried what?”
“Being hypnotized. Hypnotherapy. Isn't that what you were going to suggest?”
I nodded. “You're saying it didn't work?”
She let out a brief puff of air, looked down, picked up her knife, and used it to carve a line in the tablecloth. “It was useless.”
“You couldn't be hypnotized?” I guessed.
“Oh, no.” Her eyes flew up to meet mine. “I went right under. I was very suggestible. Very.” The corners of her mouth turned down.
“So what was the problem?”
“Well.” She s
hrugged, and worked with the knife on the tablecloth a little more. “Have you heard of fabulation?”
I waited to hear what she meant by it.
“I didn't know anything about it at the time. I kind of thought, like most people do, I guess, that you have to tell the truth under hypnosis and that being hypnotized allows you to access parts of your brain that you can't normally. That may be true, but it also sets your imagination loose. I read up on it afterward. The idea that you can't lie under hypnosis is so much bull. I think in that state maybe you can't tell the difference between lies and truth. Your inhibitions are down, you're in a suggestible state, and you want to please the hypnotist. Which means giving answers to questions. Not necessarily the truth, but what you think the hypnotist wants to hear.”
“You're saying you think you were led? Who did you go to?”
She shook her head quickly. “I'm not saying I was led. I went to two different people, a woman in Hampstead and then a doctor in Bristol because he was reckoned to be the best. I can give you their names if you want, put you in touch with them, but really there's no point. I'm not blaming them. This sort of thing happens, much more often than you'd think. Hypnosis does break down some barriers, but basically it's up to the individual, and if you don't want to deal with certain memories, hypnotism can't force you.”
“So . . . it was just the two sessions? You didn't go into therapy?”
Her mouth twisted, and she suddenly put the knife aside. “Oh, it was suggested. Strongly suggested. But I didn't, no. I wanted to find my daughter, not go digging through my own psyche.”
The waiter brought my wine and Laura's water.
I raised my glass. “Here's to finding the truth, however impossible it seems.”
“It could never be that impossible.”
“I wouldn't be so sure.” I was aware of my heart pounding.
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Tell me what you remembered.”
“I didn't remember—that's the point! I made it up.”
“How can you be so sure?”
She shook her head despairingly. “Because it was totally impossible, nonsense, a fairy tale!” She touched the book she'd left on the table and her eyes narrowed as she looked at me. “Like Hugh's story about the disappearing nightclub.”
