Forests of the Heart

by Charles de Lint

  El lobo gave her that maddening smile of his. “Surely your grandmother taught you that the spiritworld can be whatever you need it to be?”

  “No,” she replied. “We ran out of time before she could tell me so many things.”

  “Most clothe it in a landscape with which they’re familiar, or one that they expect to find, as we did when we crossed over. We were in the eastern woodlands when we left your world, so that is how we see the spiritworld now, or at least an idealized version of those forests. But it doesn’t have to be so. The spiritworld can be anywhere we need it to be.”

  “I see … I think. But that doesn’t explain how we can change where we are now into the desert.”

  “That’s somewhat more complicated,” el lobo admitted. “It would be easier if your croí baile was in the desert.”

  As had happened the first time she and her wolf had met in la época del mito, not all the Gaelic words he used were automatically translated by the spiritworld’s enchantment.

  “My what?” she asked.

  “The home of your heart. That one place where you feel truly and completely at home. Each of us has one, though not everyone cherishes it as they should. We carry an echo of it with us. Here.” He laid a hand on his chest. “It comes with us wherever we go—no matter how far we travel from the physical location.”

  Bettina nodded. “I have heard of that. Abuela called it el bosque del corazón. The forest we carry with us in our heart.”

  “When you are here, in the spiritworld, you are always but one step away from that place. The actual location, I mean.”

  Bettina’s eyes lit up. “So that’s why she called it el bosque del corazón.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Abuela would often make these pronouncements, but before you could ask her what she meant, she had already gone on to something else. It never made sense to me that she would call it a forest, but now with what you’ve told me, I understand.”

  “I still don’t follow you,” her wolf said.

  “You know the story of the First Forest—how all forests are an echo of it and reach back to it?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then don’t you see? This is our own version of it—we connect to our heart home just as all forests echo back to the First Forest.”

  El lobo smiled. “Good. So you understand. And does the forest in your heart echo back to the desert?”

  “I have never considered it. But it must. That’s the only place I am ever truly happy.”

  “Then that is where you must bring us,” he said.

  For a long moment Bettina could only look at him. Everything he said made perfect sense, but it still left her feeling dizzy. She had never looked inside herself for her own bosque del corazón, so how could she bring them to the place it echoed? And never having attempted such a task before, who was to say where they might end up? She was not exactly the most focused individual when it came to journeying through la época del mito. As easily distracted as she could be in myth time, anything could happen to them.

  “I can’t,” she said. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

  “Look inside yourself,” el lobo told her. “Call that place up in your mind, clearly and truly.”

  “And then?” Bettina asked, unable to keep the doubt from her voice.

  “Hold it in your mind like a waking dream and will us to be there. Your father’s blood will ensure that we will journey true.”

  “My father’s blood.”

  El lobo smiled. “Have you studied your grandmother’s teachings so diligently that you’ve forgotten your father’s lineage? You have the blood of shapeshifters and shaman running in your veins—the oldest and truest geasan.”

  “I…” She hesitated, then knew she had to admit it to him. “I’m not the most assured of travelers in la época del mito.”

  “I say again, your father’s blood will see us through. Tell me, have you ever been harmed in the spiritworld?”

  She shook her head.

  “I would wager that your father’s blood keeps you safe. Any you meet here would recognize that old blood of his that you carry. I wouldn’t doubt it’s what first called los cadejos to you.”

  “You make it sound so simple.”

  “It is simple. Especially here, in the spiritworld. We are the ones who make such things complicated.”

  “Now you sound like Abuela.”

  “Just try,” he said, his voice gentle.

  Bettina truly didn’t know where to begin. The desert was the forest she carried in her heart, a seeming contradiction in terms unless one knew the Sonoran. But what part of it? She understood from what her wolf was saying that she must focus on a particular aspect of it, but she’d walked so much of it, alone or in the company of her abuela and Adelita, with Ban and his mother and her own father. What one place could her bosque del orazón echo? The desert was large and she loved it all. And complicating matters was how she’d always wandered in and out of la época del mito when she did go out hiking.

  But then she remembered another gift that had arrived the morning she’d been reminded so strongly of los cadejos. She reached into the pocket of her vest and drew out the rosary that her mama had sent along in Adelita’s package. Though undoubtedly Mama hadn’t meant it to be used for such a purpose, it was exactly what Bettina knew she could use to focus.

  Her wolf regarded the rosary with interest.

  “Where did you get that?” he asked.

  “My mama sent it to me.”

  He reached out with a hesitant finger to touch it.

  “This is a potent geasan,” he said as he let his hand fall back to his side. “Your mother has Indio blood, too?”

  Bettina nodded.

  “I didn’t think the geasan of old spirits and the church could join in such a fashion,” he said. “She must be a remarkable woman.”

  Bettina hadn’t even considered that her mother might have made this herself. How could she have known how to do it, to combine the mysteries of church and desert like this? Who would have guided her hand? No one in the church, that was certain, but when had her mother even believed in the spirits of the desert, little say let one of them instruct her in anything?

  But, “She is,” was all she told her wolf.

  She held the rosary in both hands.

  “Virgen bendita” she said, closing her eyes. “Espíritus de los lugares ocultos salvajes. Help me find this place I seek. Lo imploro.”

  When the image came slipping into her mind it was like greeting an old, long-lost friend. Of course, she thought. How could she not have remembered this place on her own? It was the crest of low-backed rise that stood in a part of la época del mito a few miles from her mother’s house, a secret place guarded by saguaro aunts and uncles that looked down into a dry wash. In the human world, one could see the Baboquivari Mountains in the distance, rising tall and rugged on the western horizon. In la época del mito, those same mountains shone with an inner light, the mystery of I’itoi Ki rising up from Rock Drawn at the Middle in a spiraling column of multicolored hues, reaching for the heavens. It was as though the most amazing desert sunset had been captured in cadejos …

  How often had she and Abuela walked there, camped there, talked long into the night and through the day in that place? She had been there with her father, too, on more than one occasion.

  There, she thought, gathering her will and focusing it on that image in her mind. That is where we must go.

  There was no sensation of transition. She only heard her wolf say something softly in Gaelic that roughly translated to “Oh my,” and then the cool autumn glade was gone and she had bright sunlight bathing her face. She could smell the desert, felt the shifting dirt underfoot, heard the quail and doves in the mesquite that grew down in the wash.

  She opened her eyes, the rosary still held fast in her hands, her face turned to the sky. The first thing she saw was a red-tailed hawk, coasting on its broad wings as it rode the
air currents high overhead.

  “Papa,” she said.

  But it was only a bird, not an old spirit in the shape of a hawk, his human form lying forgotten under his feathers. She knew a moment’s sadness, then put the old ache aside. It was too hard to hold onto it at this moment. She drew a deep breath, tasting again the familiar air. It was enough to lift her spirits once more. She turned to her wolf, astonishment and delight dancing in her eyes.

  “Well done,” he said. “If this is the forest of your heart, then you are well-favored, indeed. Only … where are the trees? Or did your grandmother only mean this to be a forest in a figurative sense?”

  Bettina laughed and pointed to the tall saguaro.

  “What do you think those are?” she asked.

  “Very tall cacti.”

  She nodded. “A forest of aunts and uncles.”

  El lobo smiled at her infectious pleasure.

  “You see?” he said. “Your father’s blood runs true.”

  Bettina turned slowly around, drinking in the sounds and smells and sights. Not until this very moment did she realize just how much she had missed it. Truly, the desert was in her blood and she would not be whole living anywhere else.

  That thought made her look at her wolf and recall what he’d said earlier, how perhaps it had been to heal herself that she’d sensed this mysterious call drawing her to Kellygnow. Sometimes one needed distance to appreciate what one had, lying close at hand. So perhaps it was true. Because she had long forgotten how it was to be so grounded as she felt at this moment. This is how it had been for her before everything had changed. Before la Muerte had sent the clown dog for Abuela. Before Papa had forgotten his human form. Before she had turned her back on the promise she had made to los cadejos.

  Those old sadnesses rose up to nibble at her joy. She could do nothing for Abuela and if her father slept in a hawk’s thoughts, it would do no harm for him to sleep so a little longer. But the broken promise …

  “To call los cadejos to me,” she asked her wolf. “Is it the same as how I brought us here? I must hold the thought of them in my heart and mind and will them to return?”

  He nodded. “All but the willing part. It might be better if you simply asked.”

  “For supuesto,” she said. Of course.

  And if they would not come?

  She shook her head and told herself not to think like that. She looked down at the rosary she still held and put it back in the pocket of her vest, unsure of how los cadejos would react to it. Besides, she didn’t need it to help her focus. The memory of their happy voices and rainbow colors was too immediate for her to need any sort of talisman.

  She closed her eyes and let the memories rise up.

  “Perdona,” she whispered. “Forgive me. It was unfair of me to turn away from you as I did.”

  She listened for the sound of their voices, the high-pitched merry yelps.

  “Come back. Por favor. Tell me how I may make amends.”

  She could feel her wolf’s sudden tension at her side and knew what troubled him. One did not lightly put oneself in debt to old spirits such as these. But she didn’t care. The broken promise was an enormous weight that she hadn’t recognized she was carrying until el lobo had spoken of it earlier. She was at fault, so it was up to her to atone.

  “I will do whatever you ask,” she said, “so long as it harms no other living thing.”

  She reached out into the desert and deep into her heart, searching for the rainbow dogs, but could find no trace of them.

  “Perdona,” she said again. “Por favor, mis amigos los espritus. Do not abandon me as I abandoned you.”

  She feared her wolf was wrong. That not even calling to them in this place would be enough.

  Their aid in tracking down the Glasduine no longer mattered to her. At this moment it was of far greater importance that she make her peace with them, that she be forgiven her broken promise and given another chance to do right by them.

  But if they didn’t come.

  If they refused to hear her apology—

  “Bettina,” her wolf said softly.

  She opened her eyes to look at him and he nodded higher up the hill where a cluster of prickly pear were gathered like a skirt around the base of a towering, many-armed saguaro. The Baboquivari Mountains rose up behind the giant cactus, the rainbow lights that were the mystery of I’itoi Ki spiraling up from the cave hidden in their heart. Then she saw that an echo of the spiral’s rainbow colors was reflected on the ground at the base of the saguaro.

  No, she realized. It wasn’t an echo of that light.

  There were goat-footed, barrel-chested dogs standing there among the prickly pear, the bright shock of their pelts even more vibrant than the spiral rising in the sky behind them.

  Los cadejos had answered her call.

  Her heart filled with a sudden happiness that just as quickly drained away. For there was no welcome for her in their small dark eyes. There was no emotion to be read at all.

  “There is more … luck gathered here,” he said, “than I have ever seen in one place before.”

  Luck, Bettina thought. Si. Or perhaps it was something darker.

  The dogs moved towards them, fanning out in a half-circle, their cloven hooves clicking on the stones underfoot. Their happy voices were silent. The laughter she remembered in their eyes had turned to thoughtful consideration. Their gazes judged.

  Bettina shivered. Perhaps what was gathered here was power.

  2

  Miki didn’t think she’d ever been more miserable than when she was slogging through this wretched weather. By the time she reached Battersfield Road her wet clothes made her feel as though she’d doubled her weight and her boots squished unpleasantly with every step she took. Her nose was running and she could already feel the telltale tickle at the back of her throat of a cold coming on. With her luck, she’d end up with pneumonia.

  Bloody Donal.

  What were the chances she’d even be able to get anything through that thick skull of his? Her new vow to watch her temper notwithstanding, if he was standing in front of her right now, she’d be hard-pressed not to pull the baseball bat out of the back of her belt and give him a good whack with it.

  She had the streets to herself except for the maintenance crews desperately trying to restore power to the city’s core and the occasional army vehicle. The city and hydro workers were too busy to pay any attention to her, but the soldiers kept trying to be helpful. The third time one of the eight-wheeled Bisons stopped near her, the sergeant insisted that she accompany them to a shelter.

  “Is the city under martial law?” she asked.

  “It’s officially been declared a disaster zone.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  The sergeant sighed. “No. But be reasonable, miss. At least let us give you a lift to your mother’s house.”

  The bit with her mother’s house was starting to wear thin, Miki realized. Next time one of the Bisons stopped for her, she’d have to think up something better. But it was too late to change her story in this instance.

  “Right,” she said. “And as soon as you’ve got me on board, you’ll head off to one of these shelters.”

  The sergeant shook his head. “I promise you we won’t. First we’ll pick up your mother.”

  Oh, great. The mother who didn’t exist. She couldn’t have them drive her anywhere—certainly not to Kellygnow. Donal would go mad to see her pull up in the company of this lot. And since she had no mother waiting for her, there was nowhere else she could have them take her. With the way her luck was running, once they found out she was lying to them, they’d probably arrest her as a potential looter.

  “I don’t know how to put this politely,” she said finally as the sergeant waited patiently for her response, “so why don’t you just sod off and make yourself useful with someone who wants your help. Would that be too much to ask?”

  With that she marched off as resolutely as she
could, feet squishing in her boots as she slid her way along the ice. The fine hairs at the nape of her neck prickled with uneasy tension. She expected them to come after her at any moment, and then what would she do? Defend herself with her trusty baseball bat? Oh, that would be so effective.

  But no one followed and a few moments later she heard the vehicle move off.

  Amazing. Her good luck was holding. If you could call slopping through this mess good luck.

  She continued along Battersfield Road, inching her way along the side of the street where the footing was marginally less treacherous than the glare ice of the sidewalk. Five minutes later she heard another vehicle coming up behind her. Bloody hell. She didn’t know if she had the strength for yet another confrontation. She was so damned wet and cold and tired that the soldiers could just pick her up by the scruff of her neck like some bedraggled kitten and there wouldn’t be a thing she could do about it. But when she turned, it was to see a battered old pickup truck approaching her at a crawl. The driver was dark-haired with a thick moustache, Spanish, or maybe Lebanese. It was hard to tell at this distance. He gave a little honk of his horn, then the truck started to slew into the curb as he braked.

  Miki had to jump back as the vehicle came sliding towards her. She made the pavement, but immediately lost her balance and would have fallen if there hadn’t been a NO PARKING sign there for her to grab onto. Meanwhile the pickup had come to a halt and the driver had opened his door. Standing on the running board, he looked over the top of the cab at her, plainly concerned.

  “Are you hurt?” he called.

  Miki straightened up. Spanish, she decided from his accent.

  “No,” she told him. “I’m fine.” Adding, “Now go away,” under her breath.

  He seemed friendly enough, but he also looked very strong and capable, and really, what was he doing out here? He could be one of the looters, for all she knew, what with that truck and all. Lots of room in the bed for all sorts of things.

  “Let me give you a lift,” he said.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “Really.”

  “I can take you as far as Handfast Road.”