Forests of the Heart

by Charles de Lint

  Hunter shook his head.

  “I didn’t think so,” Donal said. “I’ll make some excuses for you—might as well use the hard man’s line and tell them you’ve come down with a lager flu.”

  “Whatever.”

  “And then I’ll help you get home.”

  “I think I can manage to walk on my own.”

  Donal shook his head. “I wasn’t planning on carrying you home, boyo. But I was thinking, maybe it’d be good for you to have some company, just in case somebody happened to be waiting for you to leave on your own“ Shit. Hunter hadn’t even thought of that. “Thanks,” he said.

  He stayed where he was, resting his weight on the table, while Donal went off to tell the others. Miki and Ellie returned with Donal, obviously worried, but Hunter managed to convince them that all he needed was a good night’s sleep.

  “Call me sometime,” Ellie said. “When you’re feeling better.”

  “I will.”

  “Do you want me to open up tomorrow?” Miki asked.

  “No, I’m sure I’ll be fine. Look, I’m sorry about all of this. I feel like an idiot.”

  “Oh, we’ve all partaken too much of the brew now and again,” Miki said, giving her brother a mock-stern look.

  Ellie nodded. “And dancing just makes it goes to your head all that much quicker.”

  Donal took Hunter’s arm. “Right. Well, we’re off. If I don’t catch up with you at the cafe,” he added to Miki, “I’ll see you at home.”

  “I’ll be waiting, breathless with anticipation.”

  Donal smiled. “You did good tonight,” he told her. “Real magic.”

  He eased Hunter out the door, but not before Hunter caught the surprised look on Miki’s face.

  It was funny, Hunter thought, as they made their way down the street. Tonight was the first time he’d felt normal since Ria had left him. Or at least he had been feeling normal until the confrontation with the hard man. And then he remembered what Ellie had said, just before he’d left.

  Call me some time.

  Not the hard man’s warning, nor the pain in his side, could stop him from smiling.

  10

  SUNDAY MORNING, JANUARY 18

  Bettina had come outside to check the birdfeeders when the green Volkswagen minibus turned off Handfast Road into Kellygnow’s driveway. She heard the chug-chug of its motor first, followed by the spin of the bus’s wheels on the packed snow and ice that covered the asphalt. Hands in the pockets of her wool coat, she watched the odd little vehicle make it up the last of the slope and complete its approach to where she was standing, its apple-green panels standing out sharply against the snow-covered lawns on either side.

  You didn’t see many of those old minibuses in Newford, she thought as it coughed to a halt. Or even the old VW bugs. Not like at home. The bodies rusted out too quickly from all the salt they put on the roads up here.

  She didn’t recognize either the driver or his passenger, but that wasn’t unusual. There were always new faces arriving at Kellygnow. The driver was a short Anglo—at least she assumed he was short since all that showed of him above the dashboard were a pair of dark eyes surrounded by a full beard and a mane of thick hair. There was something about him, a shadow clinging to him that told her he had either experienced great sorrows, or would cause them. Perhaps both would hold true. Bettina had already met too many people like him since she’d moved to this city.

  His companion was much more interesting: an attractive woman about Bettina’s age. She sat taller than the driver, her long dark hair spilling over the collar of her parka, her eyes bright with interest in her surroundings. In her, Bettina could sense la brujería flowing strong and pure. It came up out of her in a torrent, flooding her immediate surroundings.

  Y bien, she thought. Wouldn’t Lisette have a time painting that aura. One would have to be blind not to see it, to feel its pulse in the air, though curiously, the driver appeared oblivious. Perhaps he was merely used to it.

  Bettina walked toward them when they disembarked.

  “Hello,” she said. “Can I help you?”

  “Oh, I love your accent,” the woman told her. “Is it Spanish?”

  Bettina smiled. “Close enough. My name’s Bettina,” she added, holding out her hand.

  “I’m Ellie Jones,” the woman said.

  Her handshake was firm, la brujería rising up from her fingers like a static charge, and yet, Bettina realized, the woman was as unaware of what she carried as her companion appeared to be. Qué extraño.

  “And this is my friend Donal Greer.”

  Bettina dutifully shook hands with the driver. He smiled at her as though they were sharing a private joke, but the humor never reached his eyes. Bettina didn’t get the joke, and wasn’t particularly interested in pursuing what he meant by it, so she returned her attention to his companion.

  “Can I help you find someone?” she asked.

  Ellie hesitated, suddenly shy.

  “Ah, go on,” her companion said.

  “It’s just…” Ellie paused to clear her throat. “Is there someone named Musgrave Wood staying here at the moment?”

  “The name is unfamiliar“

  “Tall,” Ellie went on. “Sixtyish and very striking—distinguished even. The last time I saw, um … him, he was wearing a dark, somewhat threadbare overcoat and a hunter’s cap.”

  Bettina noted the hesitation before Ellie referred to a gender. There was only one person she could think who fit both that ambiguity and description.

  “Perhaps you mean the Recluse,” she said, regretting the words as soon as they were out. If this couple were friends of the odd woman staying in Hanson’s old cottage, they might not take kindly to having her referred to in such a fashion.

  Ellie and her companion exchanged glances.

  “The … recluse?” Ellie repeated.

  “I’m sorry,” Bettina told her. “I didn’t mean to be rude. Just because sometimes people keep to themselves, it doesn’t mean … well, anything, ¿de acuerdo?”

  But Ellie didn’t appear to be at all upset by Bettina’s slip of the tongue.

  “The person we’re looking for,” she said, “could easily fit that sort of description.”

  “Y bien,” Bettina said. “Let me take you around back to the cottage where your friend is staying.”

  She led the way along the side of the house to the rear, their footsteps crunching in the snow as they crossed the lawn. The sun was bright on the snow, awaking a pattern of blinding highlights on the open ground while deepening the subsequent shadows under the trees where the old Hanson cottage stood. As they neared the cottage, a pair of crows rose from the woods behind it, leaving in their wake an image of black wings touched with iridescent blue and the dwindling sound of their cawing.

  “I’ve never been up here before,” Ellie said. “It’s so beautiful.”

  Bettina nodded. She liked this woman who spoke what came to mind and carried her own brujería sun inside her.

  “I know,” she said. “I feel so blessed to live here.”

  “Ah, yes,” Donal said, tramping along at her side. His breath was forming frost in his beard. “What could be better than living the life of the rich and famous?”

  “I’m neither rich nor famous,” Bettina told him.

  “No, but your benefactor is, or this place wouldn’t exist, would it?”

  “I suppose….”

  “Don’t mind him,” Ellie said. “He thinks being grumpy is charming and there’s no point in trying to convince him otherwise, though Lord knows I’ve tried.”

  Bettina wasn’t so sure it was as simple as that, but it was hardly her business. Shrugging, she led the way under the trees. The temperature immediately dropped when they stepped out of the sun and it took their eyes a few moments to adjust to the change in the light. This close to the cottage, Bettina could feel the presence of the Recluse’s brujería, as potent and strange as it had been yesterday, but stronger now. She gla
nced at her companions. They gave no more indication of noticing it than they did the magic coursing through Ellie’s own blood.

  At the door of the cottage, Bettina rapped with a mitten-covered knuckle on the wooden panel. There was no immediate response so, after a moment, she rapped on it again, a little harder this time to make up for the muffling of the wool. She stepped back when she heard movement on the other side of the door. It was well she did. The door was flung open, banging on the log wall beside it, and then the Recluse was standing there, filling the doorway with her height. She regarded them each for a long moment, before her gaze settled on Ellie.

  “So,” she said. “You’ve finally come.”

  Bettina could readily appreciate the return of Ellie’s shyness in the face of the Recluse’s brusque manner.

  “Um,” Ellie began. “Did you leave …” She pulled off a mitten and dug into the pocket of her parka, producing a creased business card. “Did you leave this in the van for me?”

  “Yes, yes,” the Recluse told her, obviously impatient.

  “So your name is Musgrave Wood?”

  “It’s as good as any.”

  Ellie cleared her throat. “Why did you—”

  “Come inside,” the woman said, stepping aside. “You’re letting all the cold in.”

  Ellie went first. Before Donal could follow, the Recluse moved forward to block the door again. She reached for its inner handle and gave them each another considering look, her gaze lingering longer on Bettina.

  “Go amuse yourselves,” she finally said and pulled the door shut in their faces.

  Bettina blinked in surprise, then turned to look at Donal.

  “Jaysus,” he said. “Your man’s not exactly polite, is he?”

  “She,” Bettina told him.

  “She?”

  “She’s a woman, not a man.”

  Donal gave a slow nod. “That’s right. Ellie said something about that. But still. Bloody hell. It’s cold out here.”

  Bettina had been looking at the cottage again. Now she returned her attention to him, noting the darkness in his eyes. She doubted it had all that much to do with the Recluse’s rudeness.

  Why are you so angry anyway? she wanted to ask, but instead she said, “Would you like to come back to the house for something to drink? Some cocoa or coffee?”

  “You wouldn’t have any Guinness, would you?”

  She shook her head. “There might be a Corona.”

  He pulled a face. “Coffee’ll do.”

  ¡Por supuesto! Now she was stuck with him for who knew how long? May Santa Irene give her patience. Too long in Donal’s company and she’d be pouring the coffee over his head. Whatever did his friend see in him?

  “So speaking of yourself,” Donal said as they walked back toward the house. “Would you be an artist or a writer?”

  “Neither. I just model for some of the artists.”

  “Ah.”

  She gave him a sharp look.

  “Gentle, now,” he said. “I only meant that you’d be a delight to paint. There’s so much character in your features.”

  ¡Y qué! Bettina suppressed a sigh.

  “I suppose you’re an artist?” she asked.

  He nodded. “It’s the one thing I don’t screw up.”

  Bettina stopped. She thought that was probably the first honest thing he’d said since he’d arrived.

  Donal took another step before he realized she wasn’t coming. Turning, he looked back at her.

  “Why do you think that is?” she asked.

  He regarded her for a long moment. “Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph. Don’t you think it’s a bit early in the day to be philosophizing? We don’t even have a pint in us yet.”

  She nodded and started to walk again, leading him to the kitchen door. Just before they went in, he caught her arm. She looked pointedly down at his hand until he let go.

  “Look,” he said. “We’re getting off on the wrong foot. I don’t mean to be such a shite. It just happens. I don’t even know what I’m saying ‘till the words’re out of my bloody mouth.”

  “You don’t have to explain yourself.”

  “But I want to.”

  She waited.

  “You’re not making this easy,” he went on. Before she could speak, he held up a hand. “I know, I know. There’s no reason you should. It’s just… I’m not much good with the social graces, you see, so I act like an eejit.” He gave her a quick smile. She could tell he was trying, but the warmth still didn’t quite reach his eyes. “When I’m painting, it’s the only time I feel like I have … you know … any worth….”

  His voice trailed off. Bettina considered him for a moment. She could feel a fetish taking shape in her mind, how she would define him if he came to her for healing. She could see the stitches, knew the milagro she would choose. There would be paint pigment mixed in with the dirt. Cobalt blue, definitely. A touch of raw sienna.

  “Perhaps,” she said, “you should approach the rest of life as though you had a paintbrush in hand.”

  He looked at her for a long moment, then nodded. This time, when his lips twitched, the smile reached his eyes.

  “That’s good, you know,” he said. “It’s worth a try.”

  She shrugged, not entirely sure if he meant it.

  “Go on inside,” she told him, “and warm up. I’m just going to top up the birdfeeders and then I’ll put on a pot of coffee for us.”

  “Let me help.” When she hesitated, he added, “I’ll keep my gob shut.”

  “Gob?”

  “My mouth. I mean I’ll be quiet.”

  “Bueno,” she said. “We keep the seed in the shed out back.”

  True to his word, he held his peace, and surprisingly, the silence that fell between them as they measured out seed and filled the feeders wasn’t uncomfortable.

  Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all. Bettina found herself thinking, but then she had to smile at herself. And maybe el cuervo could bleach its black wings and pass itself off as a dove. But it wasn’t likely. Like a crow, this Donal Greer was no innocent. Let the smile reach his eyes. But beneath the kindly charm he presented to her now, a darkness remained

  Y bien. It wasn’t her problem.

  11

  The day wasn’t unfolding at all the way Ellie had expected it would. Which, she decided, was becoming the story of her life, really. Just consider how well things had gone yesterday morning when Henry Patterson threw his control-freak hissy fit, ha-ha. Bloody hell, as Donal would say. She’d much prefer sailing through life on an even keel to the seesawing highs and lows that the weekend had produced so far, but what could you do? Unless you were Jilly or Miki—both of whom seemed to be gifted with the innate ability to spin some kind of gold out of the worst situation’s straw—you simply had to take what was thrown at you and make the best of it.

  And when you thought about, she really shouldn’t complain. Take the good with the bad, as her mother would always say. Unlike the people she and Tommy saw most nights driving the Angel Outreach van, she at least had ups to compensate for the otherwise less-than-wonderful parts of her life.

  Patterson had ruined yesterday morning, it was true, and he might well kill any potential she had to make a career as a portraitist of the city’s business community, but she’d had a good time at the dance last night and it had been nice to get to know Hunter as more than a face behind the counter at the record store. And Hunter had seemed attracted to her as well, which was no small thing for a woman to whom the word “date” had simply come to mean the edible fruit of a palm tree. So he couldn’t hold his liquor. So he’d had to go home early. That was no big deal. Considering how much Donal could put away—”I’m your man for the gargle,” as he liked to put it—and how their relationship had gone, she wouldn’t mind if the next man in her life was a complete teetotaler.

  As for today’s seesaw … Well, she’d had the pleasure of meeting Bettina, and wouldn’t she make a great subject for a bust with her str
iking Latina features—those eyes, that hair—but then Donal had to start acting like such a little shit.

  And now this.

  Musgrave Wood, if that even was his/her name, was proving to be more cantankerous than Donal at his worst, and wasn’t that saying something? The Old World charm Wood had conveyed when they’d met the other night wasn’t even remotely in evidence today.

  Ellie had been nervous enough about coming to Kellygnow in the first place, and she was of half a mind to simply walk right out of the cottage now, if this was what she could expect. But for all her dislike of mysteries and puzzles, curiosity had managed to get the better of her and she found herself staying. She supposed she’d been hanging around with Tommy too much lately. The next thing you knew she’d be driving up to the rez with him to ask the Aunts for advice.

  “Would you like some tea?” her androgynous host asked.

  Ellie glanced at the door Wood had so recently closed in Donal’s face. She was surprised that he wasn’t hammering on its panels.

  “My friend,” she began.

  “Will be fine. No doubt they’ll be waiting for you in the house.” When Ellie didn’t immediately respond, Wood added, “You’ve come this far. At least hear me out.”

  “I suppose. It’s just…”

  “First let me get the tea,” Wood said. “Go on and take off your coat and sit. And don’t worry about your boots. The floor’s seen worse than a bit of snow in its time.”

  Ellie hesitated a moment longer before finally crossing the floor to where a pair of rustic wooden chairs stood at an equally roughly hewn table. Her boots shed melting snow with every step.

  She’d often had a fantasy of moving into some little log cabin in the Kick-aha Hills—the idea of it appealed to the same part of her that thought she liked camping. However the two times she’d actually gone camping, the discomforts had seemed to far outweigh the pleasanter aspects of those outings. But she thought she could live in a place like this.

  The open-concept room was dominated by a rather large cast-iron wood-stove. One corner of the floor space, the part where she was sitting, had been sectioned off as a kitchen area. The rest formed a combination sitting room and bedroom, furnished with a rather narrow four-poster brass bed that had a cedar chest at its foot, and a reading chair that was pulled up by the stove, a floor lamp standing behind it. The kitchen boasted a sink and counter, a hutch, fridge, and some cupboards under the counter. There was a row of books on a shelf near the bed, leather-bound, their titles indecipherable from where she was sitting, and a small curtained area in the far corner that was probably the bathroom, or a closet. Or both. It seemed wonderfully cozy, with the views from the windows looking out on only trees and lawn. One could almost think they were out in the hills somewhere, instead of the middle of the city.