Spirits in the Wires

by Charles de Lint

  But he made no move to leave.

  Or you could stay here a little longer and kiss me, Holly thought.

  But she seemed to have lost her voice again.

  “So I was wondering,” he said, “when I was off with the others on our adventure. Do you have a motorcycle?”

  Holly shook her head, but the question was curious enough to surprise words from her. “Whatever for?”

  “A red-headed girl in black leather on a motorcycle … could there be anything more a tinker could ask for?”

  Heat rushed up Holly’s neck, but she still managed to smile and keep her voice.

  “The hair I’ve got,” she said after a moment. “And the leather’s doable—at least the look is. I think I’d prefer pleather.” At his blank look, she added, “It looks and feels like leather, but you don’t have to kill an animal to wear it.”

  “Not killing is good.”

  She nodded.

  “What about the motorcycle?” he asked.

  “You’re going to have to settle for a bicycle.”

  He studied her for a long moment, then smiled.

  “If I just had the red-haired girl,” he said, “I wouldn’t feel like I was settling for anything. I’d already have it all.”

  Something seemed to melt, deep inside Holly. Her pulse quickened.

  Whoa, slow down, she told herself. Think this through.

  Granted, there seemed to have been an immediate attraction between them from that first moment when he came through the front door in response to the call she’d left on Meran’s answering machine. And she couldn’t remember the last time a man this handsome had seemed so interested in her—it surely hadn’t been in this lifetime.

  But she also knew that surviving danger made people feel the need to be close to each other—and what was closer than sex?

  And then there was the fact that he was a tinker, A travelling man. He could leave for parts unknown—very unknown—at any time. It could be tomorrow morning. And if not tomorrow, then next week. Next month.

  And that, her heart asked her, was relevant to the moment at hand … how?

  She took his hands and tilted her head.

  “Don’t make any promises,” she said as he leaned down to kiss her.

  He stopped, those gorgeous eyes of his with their long lashes so close to hers.

  “I always keep my promises,” he said.

  “I know. You’ve told me that. But I don’t want you to be bound to anything beyond right now. We don’t even know each other.”

  “We know what’s important.”

  Holly smiled. “No, we just know that, right now, we want to be close. We don’t know anything beyond that.”

  “So, what is it that you look for in a man?” he asked.

  “Someone who can stick around,” she said. “Who can be here for me.”

  “Ah. Now I—”

  Holly reached up and put her finger against his lips.

  “No,” she said. “No promises, no figuring anything out.”

  She took her finger away.

  “But—” he began.

  This time she stopped him from talking by pressing her own lips against his.

  Suzi

  They were kind and they meant well. There had been offers to give her a place to stay—from the couch in the apartment upstairs to the spare room at Christy and Saskia’s place. And that feeling of being disliked for no reason except that she didn’t seem to belong in this world, appeared to have faded—at least among these people. But Suzi still needed to get away and be on her own.

  There was too much to think about.

  She had a head full of memories—not simply from the past few days, the ones that she knew were real, but a lifetime of others that had been implanted in her upon her creation. When she considered them—the abusive husband, her family turning on her—she felt they must have come from a novel, filed somewhere in the Wordwood. Something teary and a little over-the-top, but nevertheless absorbing for all that it was fiction.

  But knowing that didn’t stop the memories from feeling real. It also created a whole other world of confusion, because now she had to live with the idea that underneath the implanted memories there was only a blank slate of a life. There was no life. She’d been “born” full-grown, just the way she was now.

  She didn’t know how to begin to deal with it. And since she didn’t know where to start in understanding and getting along with herself, how could she possibly interact with others right now, no matter how well-meaning they might be?

  It would have been different with Aaran. She might have told him that there wasn’t much hope for a relationship between them, but that didn’t mean there couldn’t have been once she’d had the time to figure out who she was, which would, in turn, let her figure out who they could be.

  But the chance for that was gone.

  She had only herself.

  And that became increasingly clear as she listened to Raul’s side of his conversation with his returned lover Benny.

  “… know what I’m doing here,” Raul said. Then he laughed. “I know. It is pathetic, isn’t it? But I’m on my way home. I’ll be on the first flight to Boston in the morning.”

  He didn’t remember—not anything of what had happened. Neither did Holly’s other friends who’d found themselves inexplicably in Jackson Hart’s apartment. Listening to Holly’s side of the conversation when Estie called the store, Suzi made up her mind. She slipped upstairs and retrieved Aaran’s laptop, then said her goodbyes and left the store. They had protested— especially Saskia, who’d mysteriously arrived out of thin air when everyone had their backs turned.

  “I know how hard this can be,” Saskia said.

  Suzi knew she meant well. And there was a kinship between them, considering their origins. But she was only interested in one piece of information from Christy’s girlfriend.

  “Can you show me how to step between the worlds the way you just did?” she asked.

  Saskia shook her head. “I have no idea how it’s done. Christiana brought me here.”

  And Christiana had already stepped away again, back into the other-world.

  “I tried to adjust on my own, too,” Saskia went on. “Trust me. It just makes it harder.”

  Suzi nodded. “I’m sure you’re right. But I still feel like it’s something I have to do on my own.”

  “If you need help—you’ll call us, right?”

  She found a piece of scrap paper on the desk and scribbled her name and a phone number on it.

  “I will,” Suzi told her.

  Suzi was impressed. It was an awfully generous offer for Saskia to make, considering how she felt about Aaran herself, and what she must know of Suzi’s own friendly relationship with him.

  “Really,” Suzi added when Saskia gave her a dubious look. “I will.”

  And then she was finally able to escape all of their good intentions, stepping out of the store and onto the quiet street. It was early morning— she wasn’t sure exactly what time it was, but the skies were still dark and there was very little traffic. She walked briskly down to Williamson Street, not stopping until she got to the bus stop. She wasn’t sure if the subway ran this far north, but she wouldn’t have taken it anyway. She only knew her way back to Aaran’s now-empty apartment from how they’d gotten here. By bus.

  That was her big plan. She had to go back to collect her duffel bag anyway, but she might as well stay in the apartment for a little while. Why not? Nobody else would be using it. Not Aaran—that much was certain. It was near the end of the month, but surely no landlord would come looking for his rent cheque for at least a few days. She might even have a week. All she really needed was a quiet refuge while she tried to figure out what she was supposed to do with her life.

  Sitting on a bench while she waited for the bus, she closed her eyes and tried to make a connection back to the Wordwood. But it was still gone. Severed as though it had never been.

  She thought a
bout Raul back in the bookstore, confused as to what he was doing here in Newford. Not to mention Holly’s other friends, who’d not only found themselves far from their homes, but in some stranger’s apartment with no clue as to how they’d gotten there.

  The past was real for them, except for the last couple of days. Those they didn’t remember at all. She, on the other hand, remembered the recent past as true, and all the rest of her life as a lie.

  How were you supposed to be absolutely sure what was real and what wasn’t? What if the past few days were the false memories? What if she really had walked out on Darryl after one physical attack too many? What if she really had a sister who now hated her because of that? A family that had pushed her out of their lives?

  How were you supposed to know for sure?

  She opened her eyes and stared across the street.

  Maybe you weren’t. Maybe people who grew in their mothers’ wombs could get just as confused.

  A southbound bus arrived then and she got on, finding a seat among the sprinkle of sleepy-eyed early morning commuters already on board. She sank back in her seat and tried to remember if there’d been a fire escape outside of any of the windows at Aaran’s apartment. At least there hadn’t been an alarm system.

  Christy

  All things considered, there’s an unspoken decision made to take a bus over to the mall to pick up my car. I don’t know what it would do to Raul if we suddenly took him on a shortcut through the otherworld. He’s already forgotten everything that’s happened in the past couple of days. He doesn’t even register Dick—the hob disappearing from his awareness in that way that Faerie can do so well. Mother Crone’s little friend Hazel doesn’t register for him either, while Mother Crone just looks like a skateboarder, albeit one in her twenties. He never questioned Saskia’s sudden appearance in the store.

  Saskia.

  I can’t believe how my heart swelled to see her standing in front of me. Real. Unhurt. I took her in my arms and didn’t want to ever let her go again. We might have still been there if she hadn’t patted my back.

  “Time for me to breathe now,” she said in my ear.

  I let her go, but after that it was hard for me to concentrate on much else of what was talked about until Geordie said something about getting the car from the mall’s parking lot.

  I know we tried to convince Suzi to stay here with Holly, or in the guest room at Saskia’s and my apartment. I was aware of Estie and the others calling from Jackson’s apartment, totally messed up about what they were doing there. Suzi left. Raul booked a flight that needed him to get to the airport in a couple of hours. Holly told Estie what hotel she and the others were staying at. She told them they could come over, but they, too, were intent on returning to their own homes.

  “They’re going back to their hotel to check out,” she said when she got off the phone. “Then they’re also going to book the first flights they can get out on.”

  Which is when Geordie mentions that we should pick up the car and I realize that we really should go. I’m dead on my feet.

  I let go of Saskia’s hand long enough to give Holly a hug and to shake Bojo’s hand.

  “Do you need a ride?” I ask the tinker.

  He shakes his head. “I don’t have far to go. I’m looking after the Kelledy’s place.”

  “But that’s—”

  All the way downtown, I was going to say. Miles from here. But Saskia nudges me in the ribs and I get it. Holly and Bojo. They’ve been making moony eyes at each other ever since we got back.

  “A good gig,” I say. “They’ve got a beautiful house.”

  I glance at Saskia and she smiles approval at my recovery. She hooks her hand in the crook of my arm and gives me a little tug toward the door where Geordie and the others are already waiting. She’s probably worried that I could still put my foot in my mouth.

  I nod to Dick and then we all troop out into the early morning air, leaving the three of them behind in the store.

  We trail along the sidewalk as we make our way down to the bus stop on Williamson Street.

  “Oh, I never thought,” Geordie says to Mother Crone. “Will you be okay on the bus?”

  He worried about Faerie and iron—never a good combination in the old stories. But I figure any Faerie living in the city must have acclimatized themselves to the metal by now.

  “We’ll be fine,” Mother Crone says.

  “You don’t like buses?” Raul asks.

  “I’m just not used to them,” she says and manages to sound sincere. “They don’t have them where I come from.”

  “Jeez, where’s that?”

  “The place that they don’t have buses,” she says, but she smiles in a way that lets him know that she just doesn’t want to talk about it. She’s not mad or anything.

  Raul shrugged. “I think I’d like it there,” he says. “I’ve always hated public transportation.”

  The bus comes then, sparing us any further conversation. Hazel goes scrambling up the steps as soon as the doors open, invisible to Raul and the bus driver alike. I dig in my pocket for change, but Geordie produces a handful of tokens and pays for all of us.

  I hand the car keys to Saskia when we finally reach our old beast. I know I’m too tired to drive and for all she’s been through, she seems a lot more alert. Raul gets in the back on the driver’s side, while Saskia slides in behind the wheel. I walk around to the other side.

  Mother Crone takes Geordie’s left hand and runs a finger over the calluses his fiddle strings have left on his fingertips.

  “I meant what I told Holly,” she says, her smile, her eyes, promising more. “Come play music with us—any time. Tap on the shipping bay doors that Dick took you through. The revels usually start after midnight.”

  “I will,” he says. “Should I bring any other musicians?”

  “So long as you bring yourself,” she says.

  She leans forward and says something that I can’t hear, then she gives him a kiss on the brow and a little push towards the car. Hazel’s sitting on the hood, staring in through the window at us and making faces. She jumps down when Saskia turns the ignition and then we’re heading for the airport.

  A couple of hours later we’ve dropped Raul off, then fought the growing commuter traffic back into town. Saskia pulls the car up in front of Jilly’s building where Geordie’s staying. I lean over the seat to look at him before he gets out.

  “You okay with all of this?” I ask him.

  He gives me a slow nod.

  “I went to an actual Faerie revel,” he says with a grin. “And I’ve been invited back.”

  “So you’re not freaking anymore about things that aren’t supposed to exist?”

  “No. Should I be?”

  “Not in my book,” I tell him.

  “What do you think of Mother Crone?” he asks.

  “I think she needs a new name,” I say.

  “She has another one,” Geordie says.

  “What is it?”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t think I’m supposed to tell. You’ll have to ask her yourself the next time you see her.”

  I shake my head. “She’s no better than the rest—all riddles and mystery.”

  Saskia gives me a look but I can tell she’s only mildly exasperated. “I think she’s nice,” she tells Geordie. “A little spooky, but nice.”

  “She’s a seer.”

  “That would explain the spooky.” She looks as if she wants to add something to that, but then she reaches back to ruffle his hair and only says, “Be careful.”

  “Because of Faerie glamours?” he asks.

  He’s still grinning. Saskia smiles in return.

  “Because of whatever,” she says. “Thanks for coming to look for me.”

  “Hey, you’re like my sister. I couldn’t not come.”

  He leans forward to kiss her cheek. Then, giving me a light punch on the shoulder, he gets out of the car. Saskia pulls away from the curb and we’re fina
lly alone.

  We don’t say much on the drive home, but I guess we don’t need to.

  Later, our positions are reversed. Usually I’m the one who drifts off after we’ve made love, but this morning I’m wide awake and she’s the one who’s fast asleep. I lie there beside her for a long time, marveling that I could be so lucky as to have her in love with me, but finally I get up.

  I’m feeling restless and I don’t want to disturb her. I wander around the apartment a bit and half-decide to do some work on those galley corrections that I owe Alan, but eventually I just lie down on the couch and think about all the strangeness that’s filled my life these past few days.

  I’m still awake when my shadow arrives. I smile as I see her slip into the apartment. I have a name for her now. Christiana. Christiana Tree.

  “That makes her Ms. Tree,” Saskia said before she fell asleep. “Get it?”

  Suzi

  Everything fell together for Suzi as though arranged by some higher power. Not God, of course, but when it came to manipulating data and finances electronically, the Webmaster at the Wordwood was certainly more than humanly efficient. She wanted to call him Aaran, but that was only who he’d been.

  Now he was an anonymous Webmaster.

  She hadn’t needed to break into Aaran’s apartment. There was a fire escape outside the bathroom window and the window had been open, covered only by a fine-mesh bug-screen. The window was too small for a regular-sized burglar to crawl through, but she’d been able to push in the screen and squeeze through without too much trouble. There were benefits to being small.

  She searched through the drawers in the kitchen, then through the two in the maple washstand in the hall by the front door. One of the drawers in the latter rewarded her with a set of Aaran’s spare keys. This was good. The next time she entered the apartment, she could come in through the front door.

  Once she had the apartment key, she went back out to the alley and climbed up the fire escape to retrieve the laptop. She set it up on the mahogany writing desk in the corner where Aaran had kept it. Finding the right place to plug in the phone jack had her puzzled until she realized that the back of the machine opened up to reveal a hidden panel of sockets, one of which fit the phone jack. It took her longer to figure out how to get on the Internet. She couldn’t remember the protocol Aaran had used and she wasn’t computer-savvy enough to figure it out on her own. In the end, she tried simply opening Explorer, then clicking on “Yes” when the prompt came up asking her if she wanted to work on-line.