by Greg Keyes
But that he had seen her left her feeling vulnerable and confused just the same.
Or maybe she was discombobulated from having been a bird.
“Anyway,” she said, brushing her hair out of her face. “Thanks for staying. Thanks for bringing me back. I was almost gone. A raven evermore.”
He didn’t get the joke, which made her feel even more awkward.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” He asked. “I did!” she remembered. “We’d better get back to the others.”
Errol rose a little after dawn. Veronica was still nowhere to be seen. Neither, for that matter, were Aster or Billy in evidence. After their victory in Jezebel’s village he had felt like they were a team, friends. Now it all seemed to be falling apart, and he realized with surprise and some dismay that he didn’t want it to.
He saw Dusk coming down from the tower and a moment later saw why as Aster and Billy came into camp. Aster wasn’t wearing anything but Billy’s shirt.
“About Goddamn time ya’ll showed up,” he snapped. “This is a damn stupid time to disappear for the night. For all we knew, anything could have happened to you.”
Billy didn’t really react, but Aster’s eyes widened in surprise, and he realized that his tone must have been harsher than he thought it was.
“Did something happen?” Aster asked.
“Damn straight it did,” he said. “Not that you two would care.”
“Now listen,” Aster said. She was blushing. “I told you I had something to do.”
“Well, I guess you did, at that,” Errol said.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” Aster said.
“Really? Cause what it looks like is that you’re missing every stitch of your clothes.”
He knew he was pushing his luck. Part of him was surprised she hadn’t already flown into her usual icy fury.
But what she did was laugh. He had only heard her laugh like that a few times, and it had been a long time ago. And that’s how he knew it was real.
“Yeah,” she said, when she could talk again. “About that. I’ll give you all the details, I promise. But first tell me what’s going on here. Where’s Veronica?”
Errol felt the anger leaking out of him.
“Okay,” he said. “Here’s what happened.”
Veronica stopped when she saw dawn creeping up the firmament. She found a flat rock to sit on and watched color invade the night, soft coral and dull, thick orange and finally the bloody rim of the sun itself, washing away the last of the sky shadows in a slow flood of turquoise.
She placed her hand on her belly, and felt the bullet hole. It hadn’t healed, or even begun to. Why would it? She wasn’t really alive.
“Hello, Sky,” she said, quietly. “You’ve got some nice sunrises and sunsets up here. Like none I’ve seen before. I mean, I don’t remember a lot from when I was alive, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen anything like this.
“I wonder if I was this stupid when I was alive,” she went on.
“Stupid enough to think I could belong, could be part of something and do no harm to it.”
She scratched a line in the stone with her fingernail.
“I don’t remember having a boyfriend. Maybe I never did. But Errol—he was really sweet to me, Sky. He was nice to me. It kind of felt like he was my boyfriend.”
She looked back up at the azure dome.
“But he turned on me pretty quickly, didn’t he? Because he thought I tried to kill Dusk. He didn’t even ask if I did it, he just went straight to it. And you know why, Sky? Because it’s her he’s in love with.”
She kicked her legs a few times.
“The thing is,” she said, “I might have done it. I don’t remember doing it. Not on purpose. But when I close my eyes, the things I see are just—well, awful and beautiful things. I won’t bore you with details. But some of them are desires, I guess, that I push down when light is coming into my skull. Part of me would kind of enjoy seeing Dusk’s face puff up and turn black, and hear her shiver out her last breaths. I’m getting stronger. Maybe my dreams are granting my wishes when I’m asleep.
“But—here’s the thing, Sky old girl. I’m all about the water. Down in the lowlands—in the creeks and rivers and swamps—I could hear and feel and smell and taste every slithering thing—every lizard, fish, snake and frog. I could listen in on their slight conversations and feel their blood, room-temperature like mine.
“Up here I don’t feel anything like that. I didn’t even know the snake was there.”
She sighed.
“I thought Errol would follow me. I thought I could have this conversation with him rather than you. Not that you aren’t a good listener, Sky.”
She watched the clouds drift for a few more minutes and then stood up. “Okay,” she said. “That’s enough of that. Maybe I’ll just go back downhill and find a nice river to settle in.”
“Naw, don’t quit now,” somebody said. “You talk about as pretty as you look.”
She spun and jumped away from the sound—right into one of Jobe’s boys, who had been creeping around the other side of the rock. He slammed her down on the stone and a second later she felt a rough cord bite into her wrists. Then he was pushing her dress up. She kicked back and hit him in the thigh, rather than where she meant to.
“Leave off her,” the other boy said. “The Sheriff said not to mess with any of them, just to bring ‘em back alive.”
“How’s the Sheriff going to know? It’s just you and me.”
“Are you really that big an idiot?” Veronica asked. “I’ll tell him, stupid.”
“Huh,” the boy said.
“Let’s just get out of here before her friends show up.” “I wouldn’t worry about that,” Veronica said. “I don’t have any friends.”
EIGHT
THE KISS
When Sam and Charlie brought the girl into camp, David at first assumed she was from a nearby village. She was dressed in buckskins, like most of those in the last. But as soon as he was close enough to see her face, he realized he knew her; he just wasn’t sure from where.
The boys hooted and jeered, but her face remained calm, almost serene. Her gaze went through the boys as if they were invisible.
But when she looked at him, her brow creased.
“Peek-a-boo,” she said, in a low, slow voice. “I see you.”
The hairs on his neck stood on end, and he felt a whirling pressure in his body, as if his skin contained a tornado.
“Who do you see?” he asked. “What do you see?”
“I remember you,” she said.
“From Aster’s house,” he realized.
“Sure,” she said. “Her father put you in a bottle.”
“I’m trying to find Aster,” he explained. “I’m trying to help her.”
“I know exactly how you want to help her,” the girl said.
It was as if her words flipped the switch on a movie projector in his head, and he suddenly saw himself with Aster, doing the things that wanted doing, had to be done for everything to be right. The girl blinked and her dark eyes went round.
“Wow,” she said. “Usually I have to touch one of you to feel it like that,” she said. “You’re a bad, bad boy.”
“Nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so,” he said. Then her words sank a little deeper.
“What do you mean, ‘one of you’?”
“I don’t know if I have a word for you,” she said. “But I know what you are, and what you’ve done and want to do. And you know what you are.”
“I wish I did,” David said. Part of him wanted to back away, get away from this girl who could see inside of him. But he knew that was the weak part of him, the part that didn’t understand.
“I see how things are,” he told her. “I see how things should be. I make them that way.”
“How should things be, Mr. Watkins?” she asked softly.
The name jarred him. It was his, but somehow it
didn’t feel right any more.
“Light,” he murmured. “Always the light. Aster’s light.”
He felt his breath shorten. There was something about this girl, something so familiar, so deep. He had never heard her laugh, and yet he could imagine it with absolute clarity. He could imagine other things too.
He stepped closer.
“Hoo-hoo,” Jobe said. “The preacher done got religion.” “Shut up, Jobe,” he snapped. He saw the surprise in the boy’s face, followed quickly by anger.
“Now look here, preacher—”
“I said shut up.”
Jobe reached for his pistol.
“You do that, you little ass,” David snapped. “See how the Sheriff likes you when he finds out what you did to his pathfinder.”
“Hell,” Jobe said. “We know where they are. They’re stuck hard up against nothing at all, with nowhere to go.”
“Take the chance then,” David said.
Jobe’s eyes looked less human than ever, but David didn’t care, he kept his gaze on the boy until he blinked and looked away. His hand eased off the gun.
“What the hell ever, preacher,” he said.
“Yeah,” David replied. He wondered why he had ever been scared of Jobe. Of anything.
He walked over to the girl, staring at her, until their faces were inches apart.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Veronica Hale,” she told him.
The name sounded familiar, but the shine inside of him wasn’t all that concerned with it. He was more interested in her face. There was so much girl left in it. Except for her eyes; in the deeps of them something old lurked.
He traced his finger along her chin.
“This won’t hurt,” he said. He bent and kissed her, gently.
He felt a shudder run through her, but wasn’t sure what it was; only that it was strong. But she didn’t close her eyes, didn’t even blink, but kept her gaze steady on his until he found himself looking away the way Jobe had from him. When he looked back, her face had changed. She was Aster.
Of course.
He took her by the shoulders, and started to push her down.
“Enough of that,” the Sheriff’s voice commanded from behind him.
“She’s mine,” David said.
“She’s an abomination,” the Sheriff replied, “And she is not yours. She falls under my jurisdiction.”
“Now listen—” David began. But the Sheriff wasn’t talking to him anymore. He dismounted and strode over to Veronica.
“Anything you want to tell me, girl?” he asked.
“Plenty,” she said. “But I don’t think you would want to hear it.”
She was trying to sound brave, but her lip was quivering. David wondered what would happen if he killed the Sheriff. Would the boys turn on him or follow him? Of course, from what he had seen, it might not be possible to kill him. But at some point he might have to try. To save Aster.
“They’ve reached the Hollow Sea by now,” the Sheriff said. “Have they a way to cross it?”
“They’re just sitting around,” one of the boys said.
“I’m not speaking to you,” the Sheriff said. “I’m speaking to the dead.”
As he said it, his tone changed and he laid his hands on her. Veronica made a choking sound, and then her eyes rolled back.
“Please,” she said.
“Have they a way across the sea?”
Veronica trembled so violently it looked as though she was having a seizure.
When she spoke, her voiced sounded clipped and almost metallic.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “Aster was trying to think of something. She was upset.”
“As I thought,” the Sheriff muttered, and removed his hands. Veronica shut her eyes and gradually ceased her tremors.
“I’ve no use for you, then,” the Sheriff told her.
“Well, then,” Veronica said, shakily, “I suppose I’ll just be going.”
“No,” the Sheriff said. “You’ll not be going anywhere.”
“We can use her,” David said. “You saw what she did back at the river. And I heard about what she did in the battle at the village.”
“He’s got a point,” Jobe said. “She ain’t with them anymore. Hell, the things she can do—”
“Indeed,” the Sheriff cut him off. “If she had been near water when you found her, you never could have captured her, much less brought her back. Up here in the high desert, she has little power. But if we come to water, that will change. And her sort is not trustworthy.”
“What are you going to do with her, then?” David asked.
“She’s dead,” the Sheriff said. “So we’ll bury her.”
Billy pointed to marks in the red sand.
“Two boys caught her here,” he said. “Took her off that way on horseback.”
“The Sheriff?” Aster asked.
“Outriders,” Billy said.
“But he’s still coming,” Aster said. “We still have to get to the ship.”
“The ship you saw when you were a bird,” Errol said. He didn’t sound convinced. It was annoying to her that even after all that he had been through, Errol still had the nerve to be skeptical about these things.
“Yes,” she said. “The ship. The same ship my father and I crossed the sea on years ago.”
“The sea that doesn’t have any water in it,” he said. “And the boat is still where you left it, waiting for you. No one has bothered to take it in all of these years.”
“It won’t sail for just anyone,” she said. “You have to be able to command the spirit that inhabits it. You have to know its name.”
“And you know its name?”
“Yes.” She felt a slight guilt. In fact, she didn’t remember the name, but she felt certain she would recall it when the time came.
“What of Veronica?” Dusk asked.
Aster had been dreading that question, but here it was.
“She walked away from us,” Aster said. “She took her chances.”
“Because I basically accused her of trying to kill Dusk,” Errol said.
“You may well have been right,” Aster said. “Aren’t you the one who used to tell me she isn’t to be trusted? Because she tried to kill you?”
“That’s different,” Errol said. “She was something else, then.”
“She tried to kill Errol?” Dusk said.
“It’s a long story,” Errol said. “And it doesn’t matter. We can’t let the Sheriff have her.”
“There’s nothing we can do about it,” Aster said. “If we go after her, we all get caught. Our quest fails, and no one gets what they want.”
“Your quest fails,” Errol said.
“What?”
“Your quest, Aster. What you’re saying is, we don’t need Veronica anymore, so the hell with her.”
“I’m saying we can’t do anything for her.”
“If you thought you needed her, I guarantee you would find a way,” he said. He looked off southeast. “Well, I reckon you don’t need me anymore, either,” he said. “So go on. Good luck.”
“Errol—”
“I’m serious,” he said. “You’re right. But I have to try, okay? So get going.”
He started walking, and Aster felt her heart sink.
“Errol,” she said, “please. You’re right, I don’t need you anymore. I never did. There were others I could have used. But I wanted to give you a chance. I still do.”
He turned, slowly. “You did give me a chance,” he said. “Thanks.”
She felt her fingers trembling.
“Errol?” She said.
“What?”
“Svapdi.”
His legs buckled, and he dropped like a puppet with severed strings.
“We’ll have to carry him,” she sighed.
But then, impossibly, Errol stirred and then slowly pushed himself to his feet.
“I wondered if you would do that,” he said.
“Now I know.”
He was angry, but then he looked around, and his tone changed.
“We’re in the same place,” he said. “How long has it been?” “A few seconds,” Aster said.
“You changed your mind,” he said. He sounded as surprised as she was.
She wrinkled her brow. “I . . .”
“Thank you,” he said. “For giving me the choice.”
Then he turned again and walked quickly away, following the horse tracks.
He doesn’t know he came back by himself, she thought. How had he done it?
“The ship is west, on the rim,” she called after him. “We’ll wait as long as we can.”
“That’s great,” his voice floated back to her.
She felt a lump form in her throat.
“Well,” she said. “Anyone else want to defect?”
“Errol is a warrior,” Dusk said. “He must follow his own heart. My heart tells me to stay with you.”
“I’ll stay,” said Billy.
Errol heard Jobe’s boys before he saw them; they weren’t taking much care to be quiet. He found a copse of evergreen bushes and crawled into them, wondering if the Sheriff’s dogs would smell him—and if they did, whether they would identify him as something strange.
They came into sight a little later, looking freakier than ever. Would they eventually turn completely into animals?
If the dogs noticed him, they didn’t let on. He saw Mr. Watkins, walking up front alongside the Sheriff. He didn’t look like a captive.
He did not see Veronica, and that worried the hell out of him.
The second they were out of sight he hopped up and raced back along their trail.
It was hard to know how long he ran—an hour, two, three, more—but for the first time since becoming an automaton he was starting to feel almost—well, winded. The lungs he didn’t have had begun to ache, and the ghost of his heart seemed almost to be thumping in his wooden chest.
He no longer had any doubt his body was becoming more alive. It had been happening slowly before, but now it seemed to be accelerating.
I’m coming, Veronica.
