Briarpatch by Tim Pratt

by Tim Pratt

  “Shit, my hands, I can’t get a grip, I hate this. . . .” Bridget pointed to a wooden trap door.”Can you open that?”

  Orville did—it wasn’t that heavy—and light spilled up from the passageway it revealed.

  A peal of thunder shook the air. Bridget stared at him, eyes wide in the light coming up from the trapdoor. “I think that was the sound of the big door hitting the hill when it opened all the way. Let’s go.” Orville dropped down into the opening, and reality did one of its disorienting, vertiginous flips—he’d fallen down, but now he was standing in a passageway, and the trapdoor was in the wall behind him, not in the roof, like it should have been. He leaned against a concrete wall, water-stained but dry, and steadied himself. Bridget came after him, the trapdoor closing. “That door never opened before, Orville. I wonder what’s coming through it?” She sounded shaken. “Come on.” She hurried down the passageway, toward the bright light at the end, and Orville followed.

  They emerged, blinking in the afternoon sun, from the side of Darrin’s building. Orville looked behind him, confused, and the passageway they’d followed was gone—there was a dirty storage room there now, with a furnace and some yard tools leaning against the dank walls. Bridget followed the path that went toward the front of the house, and Orville went with her. “It’s later than it should be.” She shaded her eyes against the sun. “I think something went funny with time in that place with the haystack, usually it seems to cut time off the trip, that’s why it’s such a good shortcut, but I guess that’s not a constant, because by the sun it looks like hours have gone by. Shit. We’d better—”

  A man came barrelling down the stairs from Darrin’s house, head down, talking to himself. He stalked across the street.

  “Darrin!” Bridget shouted, but he didn’t hear her—even if he could have heard a ghost, he was probably too far away. “What’s wrong with him?” Bridget said, anguish and distress in her voice, and before Orville could answer, Darrin shouted something. They looked across the street, and saw—

  “That’s Ismael,” Bridget said. “What is going on?”

  Darrin lunged at Ismael, who stepped out of the way easily, and touched Darrin as he passed by. Bridget made her way toward them, Orville following, though he was loath to approach Ismael again. They were halfway across the street when Darrin and Ismael disappeared down the same not-quite-real stairs they’d shoved the mugger onto. Bridget let out a wordless cry and rushed after them, Orville close behind, but Darrin and Ismael were nowhere to be seen. They’d taken some branching side path and disappeared into the greater depths of the briarpatch. Bridget stood at the base of the stairs, looking first in one direction, then in another, at all the shimmering potentialities in the air, all the possible paths to follow. “Ismael took him away. What happened? What does Ismael want with him?”

  “I don’t know,” Orville said, wishing he knew how to comfort her. “Maybe we should go back to Darrin’s house, and try to find out what upset him so much? Unless you want to go looking for them in the briarpatch?”

  “I wouldn’t know where to begin.” Bridget slumped. “It would be like trying to find a particular grain of sand on the beach. Maybe if we wait at his house, he’ll come back?”

  Unless Ismael is convincing him to kill himself, Orville thought, but didn’t say. “Sure. Let’s try that.”

  2

  “I thought that went well.” Echo stripped off the collar and the leather harness. “I was surprised when he told us to get out, but it was easy to fix. I guess having your whole world destroyed helps you grow a backbone or something.”

  “I’m a worthless piece of shit.” Nicholas sat in the armchair now, head in his hands. “Christ, I can’t believe I did that to him. Fuck. Me and Darrin, we go back.”

  “Yeah, you suck. You never did tell me why you did it, what Ismael offered you.”

  “I’m not supposed to talk about it,” he mumbled.

  “I’m trying to think what a guy like you cares about. Money? Sure. Women? Sure. But enough to get your best friend fired, to hide the information about where his one true love was living, to sleep with his new girlfriend? How much money, how many women, could Ismael possibly offer you? I know the guy has hidden resources, but—”

  “He offered me life,” Nicholas said, and that seemed to buck him up, somehow. He wiped at his eyes and nodded. “And that’s worth anything.”

  Echo rolled her eyes. “I told you I don’t believe Ismael threatened your life.”

  “He didn’t. He promised to make my life last forever. He’s going to teach me the secret of immortality.”

  Echo looked at him for a minute. Yep, he was serious. She might have laughed, but instead she said, very calmly, “You got scammed, Nicky.”

  “Bullshit.” He stood up from the couch, balling his fists. “Ismael has been alive for centuries, I’ve seen those old photos, the coins he has, that ancient shit. He knows the secret of eternal life.”

  “Don’t you know he only wants to die?” Echo said, still naked, but unselfconscious as usual.

  “That’s his damage,” Nicholas said. “He grew up in the Dark Ages or whatever, he’s seen some bad shit, it’s understandable. Me, I’ve already got some money put away, I’m going to live the good life, forever. So what if Ismael doesn’t know how to turn off eternal life? That’s the whole point, if you ask me. It’s eternal.”

  “I’m guessing Ismael hasn’t told you much about his history,” Echo said, sitting in the armchair. She almost didn’t want to spoil Ismael’s game, but Nicholas was going to find out the truth sooner or later, and it was amusing to be the bearer of such catastrophically bad news. “He didn’t do something to make himself immortal, he just is immortal. That doesn’t mean he can teach you how to be. Just because the guy’s got a full head of hair doesn’t mean he knows how to cure baldness.”

  But Nicholas didn’t look shattered. He looked smug. “Ismael didn’t tell you about it, psycho, because he said the last thing the world needed was for you to live forever. But he found something in the briarpatch that can impart immortality, like a magical fountain. It’s not something he’s in the habit of leading people to, since he thinks most people should aspire to death, but he told me because I laughed in his face when he started going on about transcendence and leading me to heaven and shit. I don’t care about any of that. I like this world—I just want more of it. Every man in my family for the last four generations has died young, some of them in their thirties, because of bad hearts. I’m not going to let that shit happen to me. And Ismael promised, after I did this, he’d take me into the briarpatch with him, and give me eternal life. I figure I’ll have forever to make it up to Darrin. And I will, too. Bet you wish you’d made a better deal, huh, you nutcase?”

  Echo didn’t answer. Could it be true? It was more likely Ismael was just stringing Nicholas along, wasn’t it? Could he really have the secret of eternal life? Would Echo want it if he did?

  Well, of course she would. Whether damnation or oblivion awaited her after life, she wasn’t interested in either.

  “I’m going to have a talk with Mr. Ismael Plenty,” Echo said finally. “A long, hard talk.”

  The front door opened with a creak, and footsteps began climbing the stairs. Echo frowned. Was Darrin back?

  “Oh, hell,” Nicholas said, apparently having the same thought, and rising to his feet.

  But it wasn’t Darrin. It was that little guy from Ismael’s house, the Troll. He gaped at them, and Echo smirked. “Did you decide you wanted me to kill you after all?” she asked.

  But Nicholas wasn’t reacting as calmly. He was whimpering, and backing away. “No,” he said. “No, no, no, you’re dead, Bridget, you’re dead.”

  “Oh, fuck,” Echo said, irritated. “Why is it everybody else can see this ghost bitch but me?”

  3

 
Orville moved to put the other man—Nicholas, Bridget called him—between himself and Echo, in case she did decide to attack him. “Bridget, he can see you.”

  “That’s interesting,” Bridget said. “Has Ismael been teaching you things, Nicholas? How to see beyond the normal world?”

  “He showed me all kinds of shit,” Nicholas said, backing away. “Took me into the briarpatch. Down hallways that don’t go anywhere, through tunnels in the clouds, to the edge of bottomless pits in the middle of sidewalks. But I never saw any dead people before.”

  “I want answers, Nicholas,” Bridget said. “Or I’ll haunt you for the rest of your miserable life.”

  “Bridget, I—” he began.

  “This is bullshit,” Echo said irritably. “There’s somebody in here talking, and I can’t even hear her? That pisses me off. I never could see any of that crap Ismael talked about, he said I was too firmly grounded in myself or whatever—”

  “Or just because you’re about as sensitive as a block of wood,” Nicholas said.

  “Fuck you, frat boy, I’ll—”

  “Shut her up, Nicholas,” Bridget said, and there was something in her voice that chilled even Orville.

  “Be quiet, Echo,” Nicholas said, trying to regain his composure.

  “You don’t tell me—”

  “SHUT UP!” he roared, turning on her. “For god’s sake, some things aren’t about you, nutcase! Piss off!”

  Echo stared at him, then, slowly, smiled. “Nicky’s got some balls after all. Of course, after that little outburst, I’m going to have to cut them off sometime, when you least expect it. But, sure, go on and have a nice talk with miss thin air over there. I’ll just fix myself a drink. Want to come, Mr. Troll? No? Okay, suit yourself.” She went toward the kitchen.

  “Bridget,” Nicholas said. “Ah, shit, I thought you were gone.” He’d backed up as far as he could, against the wall.

  “Tell me what Ismael wants with Darrin,” she said.

  “Uh, see, it’s complicated, really, and—”

  “I’m a smart woman, Nicholas. I can understand complicated things.” She took a step toward him, and he held up his hands.

  “Okay, okay! Ismael’s trying to find this place, in the briarpatch, some place where everything’s beautiful and perfect, you know?”

  “I know. What does Darrin have to do with it?”

  “Can I sit down?”

  “Yes, fine, just talk.”

  Nicholas sat on the couch, ran a hand through his hair, and sighed. “Ismael says Darrin is like him. A briarpatch baby. Someone who was never born, exactly, but just, like, grew in the briarpatch. That they both just came into existence, no mother or father.”

  “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Bridget said, chilled by the thought. For Darrin to be like Ismael, in that fundamental way? Someone who could cross the mortal bridge behind Ismael’s shed and find no familiar corpse waiting on the far side? A living apport?

  Nicholas shrugged. “Darrin doesn’t know who his parents are. He was found wandering the streets in North Carolina when he was three years old, right? He doesn’t have any memories before that. He went to the orphanage, then foster homes, yadda yadda. Even his last name is just one he picked out because he thought it sounded cool. I mean, it’s not like there’s any proof against what Ismael says. He says people like Darrin are rare, that he—Ismael—has only met a couple of them, and that they all have access to different parts of the briarpatch, they can see paths other people can’t. Ismael wants Darrin to help him explore, to show him paths Ismael can’t find on his own.”

  Bridget had known Darrin was an orphan, but hadn’t considered the implications—that he was like Ismael? “Oh, god,” Bridget said. “He wants Darrin to help him find the northwest passage.

  “Yeah, that’s what he said .But, see, Darrin wasn’t even aware of the briarpatch, you know? I mean, maybe he saw glimpses sometimes, but he didn’t go into it. Ismael said sometimes there needs to be a, what do you call it, a ‘triggering event.’ Like a really rough emotional jolt, or even physical trauma, the kind of thing that changes your perception of the world. Literally, in this case. Ismael said he couldn’t see the entryways into the briarpatch clearly until he saw the family he was living with get murdered by barbarians or whatever, and that when he’d lost everything else, he fled, and wound up in the briarpatch.”

  “He told me that story too,” Bridget said.

  “So, in order to get Darrin into the briarpatch to start looking for this overland route or northwest passage or whatever you want to call it, the path to this better world Ismael’s always talking about . . . Darrin needed a little shove.”

  Bridget sat down in Darrin’s worn armchair. “Shit. How long has Ismael been planning this? Did he find out about Darrin when he met me, or . . .”

  Nicholas shook his head. “He’s known about Darrin for a while. You were step one, Bridget.” His voice was gentle. “Ismael said you were a good candidate anyway, but he chose you in particular because he wanted to take you away from Darrin, and start breaking Darrin down. Ismael didn’t plan for Darrin to see you die, but—”

  “So he was there,” Bridget said. “I never meant for him to see that.”

  “Yeah, he was supposed to be having lunch with me that morning, but Ismael says sometimes there’s a gravity to events, weird shit happens when you start messing with briar-patch babies, and maybe Darrin was somehow drawn to the bridge that morning. Or maybe it was just straight-up coincidence, who knows? He was on the bridge taking pictures, and got there just in time to see you go over the edge. I was, ah, real sorry to hear you didn’t make it, you know, through the portal or whatever.”

  “What was your part in all this?” Bridget asked.

  “Ismael told me about it, he wanted my help, and eventually he convinced me this was the best thing for Darrin, you know, Darrin’s always been looking for a purpose in his life, and if this was the only way to help him find the briarpatch, shit, it was the least I could do for the guy, you know—”

  “I call bullshit.” Echo reappeared in the doorway, dressed now, and crunching on an apple. “Dead girl is asking what Nicky had to do with all this, yeah? I’ll tell her. Is she listening, Troll?”

  “She can hear you.” Orville scooted around the room to put more distance between Echo and himself.

  “Shut up, Echo, I swear—” Nicholas said.

  “Let her talk,” Bridget said, and Nicholas went silent.

  “Go on, she’s listening,” Orville said, thinking that he’d never expected to be the translator between a ghost and a sociopath.

  Echo grinned—showing bits of apple caught in her teeth—chewed, swallowed, and said, “Nicholas sold out Darrin for the promise of eternal life. After you disappeared, dead girl, Nicholas told Darrin’s boss he was looking for another job with a rival company, and Darrin got canned—they told him it was because of ‘resource reallocation’ or some shit, but it was all Nicholas. Then Nicholas introduced Darrin to me—and that sucked, because me and Nicky had to pretend to be friends, and he hates me almost as much as I laugh at him. So me and Darrin got together, and I fucked him until he thought he loved me—we had all kinds of fun in your bed, dead girl—but even that was all just a setup for the big betrayal. Ismael thought Darrin needed a little extra push, so we arranged to have Darrin walk in on me and Nicky having sex right in his own living room. And that happened, oh, just a few minutes ago. You missed all the fun, ghostface! We could’ve had a crazy ectoplasmic four-way or something.”

  Bridget didn’t look at Echo at all while she talked, just kept her eyes focused on Nicholas. “Is all that true, Nicholas?”

  “She put it in the nastiest possible way,” Nicholas said miserably, “but, yeah, that’s pretty much how it went down. I mean, I thought it would be good for Darrin,
fuck, it’s a great adventure, right? It’s not my kind of thing, but he used to dig crawling around storm drains or whatever, so I thought exploring the briarpatch would be awesome for him, and he’d quit whining about not knowing what to do with his life. Hell, Bridget, he thought you were his life, and when you ditched him, he was broken. You betrayed him just as much as I did.”

  “That might be true.” Bridget sounded sad rather than angry. “I thought he’d be okay. I knew I’d disappoint him eventually, that we couldn’t have the little picket fence life he dreamed of. I thought he’d find another girl. But I didn’t know I was being used, Nicholas. You went into this with your eyes open.”

  “Split hairs all you want,” Nicholas said. “We both fucked with Darrin’s life for our own reasons. At least I was trying to help give his life some meaning, at the cost of our friendship, no less. You think he’ll ever forgive me, even if I explain why I did that shit? Hell, no. I wouldn’t.”

  “This is like listening to one side of the world’s most boring phone conversation,” Echo said. “I’m going to wait for Ismael at his house. Have fun rotting, dead girl.”

  Bridget burst out laughing.

  “What are you laughing at?” Nicholas said.

  “She’s laughing?” Echo looked at Orville, who only nodded, not understanding her reaction himself.

  “You idiots think Ismael is coming back?” Bridget said. “Translate for me, Orville, this is too funny.”

  Orville dutifully repeated what she’d said for Echo’s benefit.

  “Why wouldn’t he come back?” Echo demanded.

  “Why would he? He’s got Darrin, who he thinks is his key to finding a physical passageway to the one place he’s been trying desperately to reach for maybe centuries. Why would Ismael come back out of the briarpatch again? They’re just going to stay in there until they find the pathway, or until they give up, and that could take a long time. Darrin can be just as stubborn as Ismael, under the right circumstances.”