“This belongs to a human named Cory. I think he’s here, in the time bubble or whatever it is, and I need to find him. Can you do it? I wasn’t sure if this whole timey-wimey thing would throw you for a loop, no pun intended.” He winked at Lily, who suppressed a smile.
Grimmold clutched the sock to his squashed nose, breathing deeply and leaving muddy handprints on the already less-than-clean sock.
“Hm. Foot mold. Me like.”
The fae lowered the sock and started smelling the wind, turning his head this way and that.
“Can you do it?” Sebastian asked again.
Grimmold nodded. “What me get?” He eyed the pizza box greedily.
“If you will lead us safely to Cory, you get half now, half when we arrive.”
“Deal. Gimme,” Grimmold said, not one to waste words as he held his hands outstretched toward the pungent box.
Sebastian chuckled, opening the box once more and feeding half the remaining slices to his grimy mold-fae-hound, one by one.
“I always have to remember to say ‘safely’,” Sebastian muttered to Lily out of the side of his mouth as Grimmold stuffed his face. “Ask me someday about the time I forgot and almost got stuck in between worlds.”
Lily just stood there, fascinated, still trying to process the scene. Despite her theoretical knowledge of the Source—what society today called magic—and the beings besides humans connected to it, meeting one in person was nonetheless overwhelming. It was the first time she’d ever come face to face with a fae, and her fingers itched for a pencil and her eduba so she could take a magical snapshot and notate her observations. If only she had time to study it, to take a closer look. Well, not too close. He was very muddy.
Heedless of her fascination, Grimmold made quick work of the pizza. Once he’d eaten the last of his allotted amount, Sebastian firmly closed the box lid and put his free hand on his hip. “Alright, Grimmold, lead the way.”
With one last, longing look at the box in Sebastian’s hand, Grimmold swung off the limb, landing with a plop in the muddy spring and splashing Lily’s pant legs with muck.
“Hey!” she exclaimed, backing up hastily.
But the creature had already started off into the grass, invisible but for the line of waving stalks that marked his passage.
“Don’t dally, or we’ll lose him,” Sebastian said, moving quickly to follow the fae.
Lily glared balefully at her friend’s retreating form as he waded heedlessly through the tick-infested grass. Gritting her teeth, she started off after the muddy fae and crazy witch, trying to think of the most unpleasant, arduous favor possible to inflict on Sebastian after this was all over.
2
Somewhere In-Between
Grimmold led them back in the general direction of town, but at an angle headed more south than east. After traipsing through two fields, over a fence, and across a stream, Lily was relieved to spot a country road. It paralleled the path Sebastian was currently blazing through waist-high weeds, hot on the heels of his impromptu bloodhound. Veering to the right, she made a beeline for it. It wasn’t that she couldn’t manage the outdoors; she just saw no reason to endure its discomfort unnecessarily.
Emerging into the open with a sigh of relief, she took a moment to brush off the stickers and various bits of nature clinging to her jeans before trotting to catch up with Sebastian. He still forged onward, about twenty yards to her left, following the waving line of weeds that indicated Grimmold’s progress.
Looking past Sebastian to the northeast, she spotted the tops of the buildings that passed for downtown Pitts in the distance. The road in front of her ran straight, and far ahead she could see houses on either side. She wondered how far the time loop’s physical boundary extended. A mile? Two?
“You know, you could walk on the road,” Lily called out to Sebastian.
“Tell that to Grimmold,” Sebastian called back, struggling to untangle himself from a thorn bush with one hand while balancing his pizza box in the other. He aimed a few choice words at the line of rustling weeds that pulled ahead, ignoring his plight. Eventually, he extracted himself and ran to catch up.
“This little git doesn’t like being out in the open,” he said in way of explanation. “That, and he enjoys making me suffer.”
She wasn’t sure, but Lily could have sworn she heard a grunting snicker come from the weeds ahead of Sebastian.
It took another five minutes to reach the houses. They each sat a little back from the road, their yards’ grass ranging from well kept to so high that the yards were indistinguishable from the fields behind them. A substantial ditch ran alongside the road, full of nettles and stickers. To this jungle of weeds Grimmold headed. Now that the fae was close to the road, Sebastian, grumbling under his breath, gave up following him and joined Lily.
“Not so keen on this whole ‘let’s follow the fae’ thing anymore, are you?” Lily grinned.
“He’s led me through worse,” Sebastian replied, vigorously dusting himself off, though that hardly made a dent in the forest of stickers that covered him from the waist down. He finally shrugged and gave up, keeping pace with Grimmold to his left and Lily to his right.
After several more minutes, the fae stopped at the driveway of a particularly run-down house whose yard was of the “indistinguishable” variety. Poking his head out from between the weeds, he pointed behind himself at the house.
“He there.”
“Are you sure?” Sebastian asked, suspicious.
Grimmold scowled, holding out his hand for payment. “Never wrong. Gimme.”
Sebastian sighed but did as requested, dumping the remaining pieces of pizza on the ground in front of the muddy fae and chucking the empty box in one of several overflowing garbage cans by the driveway. Lily’s eyes followed Sebastian’s movements, and when she looked back down both the fae and the pizza were gone.
“Don’t worry,” Sebastian said. “He never is wrong, at least not as long as I’ve known him. If he says Cory is here, the scumbag is here. Come on.”
Sebastian led the two of them down the gravel drive and onto the rickety wood porch. He pulled back the sagging screen door and knocked firmly, then hastily grabbed Lily by the shoulders and positioned her squarely in front of the door before slipping to the side. He placed his back to the wall, where someone opening the door wouldn’t see him.
Lily opened her mouth to protest but closed it again at his frantic shushing motion. She rolled her eyes and waited, deciding he didn’t want to be seen in case Cory was the one to answer the door.
Nothing happened, however, and Lily wondered if anyone was home. An old car sat out front, but it looked so decrepit she couldn’t decide if it was usable or not. She tried knocking again, knuckles brushing off bits of flaking brown paint from the door. The paint chips fell to the porch, joining the general population of dirt that resided there.
Finally, she heard footsteps and muffled voices. A woman of indeterminate age threw open the door, looking like she’d just woken up. Though probably only thirty or forty, her wrinkled skin, sunken face, and stringy hair made her look more like fifty. She wore a ratty t-shirt, boxer shorts, and dirty house shoes.
“Waddaya want?” she asked, speech slurred.
Lily stood, lips parted, suddenly unsure what to say.
As if on cue, Sebastian bobbed in from the side, interrupting before her incoherent stammers had a chance to leave her lips.
“Ah! My good woman, so nice to meet you. My name is Oscar, and I’m an old friend of Cory’s. I was passing through and thought I’d pop in and say hello. Is he here?”
The woman stared at him, momentarily stunned, perhaps by his irrepressibly chipper manner.
Lily hid a grin, amused by the sometimes pompous mannerisms Sebastian adopted when he was trying too hard to be charming.
“Yeah, he’s here,” the woman said finally. “But he’s sleepin’.”
“I’m sorry to come at a bad time, but I am just passing through, a
nd I can’t stay long. I know he would be quite disappointed to miss me. Could we come in for a moment?”
The woman thought about that, then shrugged, obviously not caring much either way. She gestured for them to enter, then disappeared back into the darkness of the house, yelling as she did.
“Cory! Get yer butt outa bed! Guy named Oscar’s here, says he’s yer pal.”
Following on the woman’s heels, Sebastian entered first with Lily bringing up the reluctant rear. Wrinkling her nose at the overwhelming smell of cigarette smoke, she stepped into the dimness. She was just in time to see the woman disappear into what was presumably her bedroom and shut the door. Lily frowned in disapproval at the lack of hospitality—the woman hadn’t so much as offered them a seat or a drink.
Sebastian headed straight for the half-open door further down the hall from which muttered curses emanated. He slipped in without knocking, and soon the muttered curses became much louder and were accompanied by sounds of a scuffle. By the time Lily cautiously poked her head into the room, Sebastian had Cory pinned to the bed, one knee on the disheveled man’s chest and one hand circling his throat. The other hand was in his pocket, of all places, but Lily was too distracted to wonder why.
Cory looked both shocked and pitiful, and he must have been suffering from a massive hangover by the universal oh-god-kill-me-now-just-please-stop-that-racket-look on his face. Though no less slender than Sebastian, and not much shorter, his flabby limbs were no match for his opponent’s wiry strength.
“Don’t hurt him,” Lily hissed, though even if she’d yelled, the woman in the next room probably wouldn’t have cared.
“He’s fine,” Sebastian said, unconcerned. Then he glanced at his watch and cursed. “We don’t have much time. Let me do the talking.”
“Wha—”
But Sebastian was already interrogating Cory.
“Where’s all my stuff?”
Cory gurgled, and Sebastian eased his grip slightly. Panting, eyes darting back and forth, Cory spoke in a pleading voice, “I don’t have it, man. I sold it already.”
Sebastian seemed to think about this a moment, looking into the frightened man’s eyes before nodding, as if he’d just decided to believe him. “Then where’s my money?” Her friend’s expression remained hard and his words harsh.
Cory gulped. “Gimme a break, Seb. I owed money to some really bad dudes. All that went straight to them. If you’d’ve just given me a little help, I wouldn’t’ve had to—”
“Don’t even start,” Sebastian cut him off. “If you weren’t such a sorry, spineless mess, if you had just a grain of sense, you’d have never gotten yourself into debt in the first place. The money is secondary. Right now I need to know what you did with the small, clay, baton-shaped thing you took out of my sock drawer. It had turning dials and looked pretty antique. What did you do with it?”
“I—I don’t remember,” Cory stammered.
Lily saw Sebastian’s hand in his pocket turn into a fist, as if clutching something. “Is that so? Well maybe this will jog your memory.” He pressed down on Cory’s throat, cutting off the man’s air for a moment. Cory’s eyes bulged in panic and his hands scrabbled at Sebastian’s hold. Before he could get too desperate, Sebastian let up again.
“Okay, okay!” Cory croaked, coughing and wheezing. “I think—I think maybe I do remember. I sold it to the antique shop in town. Didn’t have a chance to unload it in Atlanta before I ra—I mean, before I came here.”
Sebastian’s grip on whatever was in his pocket loosened and his grim face broke into a smile as he stood up and let go of Cory.
“See, that wasn’t too hard, was it, ol’ buddy?”
Cory sat up, rubbing his throat and holding his head. He glared at Sebastian, somewhat braver now that he wasn’t pinned down.
“You could’ve just asked nicely, jeeze. My head is killing me. I don’t get why everyone’s so excited about that piece of junk, like it was special or something.”
Lily’s ears perked at that, troubled by the implication. She stepped forward from her place in the doorway. “What do you mean ‘everyone’? Has someone else been asking about it?”
Cory turned, focusing on her for the first time now that his life wasn’t being threatened. He eyed her up and down and gave her what he probably thought was a charming smile, or as charming as one could get when hung over and nervous.
“Well, hey there, good lookin’—”
Sebastian’s sound cuff to the head cut him off, almost knocking him over sideways onto the bed. Lily blushed, embarrassed.
“Keep a civil tongue in your head and answer her,” Sebastian said, scowling fiercely.
“Oh jeeze, my head,” Cory moaned, leaning forward and massaging his temples.
Lily took pity and gave him a moment to recover from the blow.
“Well?” she asked again, glancing sideways at Sebastian, who was fidgeting impatiently.
“Yeah, yeah. You guys are the second to show up asking about that weird clay thing. The first guy was just here a while ago. He didn’t beat me up. Offered me money for it, then disappeared without a word when I said I’d sold it to the antique place.” Cory sounded as disappointed as he looked at missing a chance to make easy money.
Lily exchanged a worried glance with Sebastian. Who else would know about the device, much less know where to look for it? Unless maybe it was Freddie?
“What did he look like?” Lily asked, noticing Sebastian glancing at his watch again.
“Oh, sh—” Sebastian started.
They vanished.
Lily blinked, confused. She stared at the empty room that, moments before, had contained two other people. And that wasn’t even the most confusing thing about the scene before her. Everything had gone black and white and blurred around the edges, like an antique camera picture just a touch out of focus. She stepped back, stumbled, and caught herself against the wall of the room as her disoriented mind tried to adjust. She didn’t sink through it as she leaned there, so the wall was solid. But she couldn’t feel it. She couldn’t feel anything at all for that matter. Or hear or smell. It was as if her senses had gone dead.
Still stumbling as her sense of balance attempted to readjust to the fuzzy, silent, not-there world around her, she made her way out of Cory’s house. She tripped on the last porch step and fell to the gravel-strewn ground, hands and knees striking hard. It didn’t hurt.
Rising was difficult. Gravity still worked, or at least she supposed it did since she wasn’t floating. But the feeling of heaviness, that sense of being pulled toward the earth, was gone. It was the most disorienting and indescribable situation she’d ever experienced.
When she finally stood back on her feet, she looked up at the sky and fear struck her heart. The sky was gone. In its place was a transparent ceiling, like glass. Beyond it swirls of gray and white moved, pressing against the glass in ever-changing patterns as if some current drove them to and fro. These strange gyrations continued all the way to the horizon, making it look like she was inside a glass dome and all the world outside was swallowed up in a sea of swirling nothingness.
Where was she? What had happened to everyone else? If it had to do with the time loop, then why had Sebastian disappeared while she was left behind?
Feeling lost and on the edge of panic, she sat down, determined to get a grip. There was a logical, or at least magical, explanation for all this; she just needed to think. How she wished for her eduba and its depth of knowledge. But it wasn’t there, so she’d have to do without.
Sitting cross-legged, hands resting on her thighs in her favorite meditative position, she closed her eyes to the swirling gray above and considered the problem.
One: there was a magical device looping time. Two: it seemed to be spatially bound, only covering the area of Pitts. Three: the magic of the loop didn’t affect her when it reset, even though she was within range.
Wait a minute. She opened her eyes, looking down at her hands. Of course. She
wore a personal ward, a series of dimmu-engraved beads woven into a bracelet that graced her wrist. It acted as a passive shield against targeted magic. That meant the lugal-nam’s magic must be layered, probably a combination of an area affect spell that created and maintained the loop’s boundary, and a targeted spell that reset the loop’s timeline. Earlier, by some fluke, she’d entered an in-progress loop. But when the loop was reset, the spell that sent everyone back to the beginning had been blocked by her personal ward, unable to affect her.
So where was she now?
Lily looked around, trying to spot some detail that would give her a clue. Nothing in the Basement’s library or her eduba had ever mentioned a place like this. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a flicker of movement. A bird had just appeared out of the gray swirls, flying straight through what had appeared to be a solid glass ceiling. She followed the bird’s flight, watching intently as it neared the other side of the dome. The bird did not pause or slow. It flew straight on, passing through the barrier and back into the gray swirls as if it didn’t even see them. Well, perhaps it didn’t. Perhaps, what appeared to her as glass was in fact a magical barrier, the time-loop’s physical boundary that encircled Pitts. She could see it, and not beyond it, because she was still tied to the loop somehow. The bird paid it no mind because it didn’t exist to the bird. The bird existed in real time, flying over an empty Pitts whose inhabitants were all caught up in the loop. Well, all except her. Physically, she was still here in Cory’s yard about a half mile or so outside of town. But with respect to time, at least real time and the loop’s time, she didn’t exist. She had a where, but not a when, which was probably why her senses were going haywire. The gray world she saw around her was real time, flowing onward as normal. She could see it, but wasn’t in it, and so couldn’t influence or be influenced by it.
She shivered, trying not to dwell on the implications of being stuck in between realities. Though far from an expert on the theory of time manipulation, Lily remembered a few things. They all involved warnings against the danger of moving between time and getting lost. How would she ever get back?
Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus Beginnings Page 13
