Oak trees surrounded me, so large and neatly spaced I began counting them. I reached thirty-five before realizing I wasn’t seeing the forest for the trees. I shook myself and took a better look around.
The oaks weren’t the only foliage; they just dominated it. Slighter trees grew between them, stretching up toward slate-gray light. It was drizzling, most of the rain filtered out by the enormous trees. The forest floor was very green, soft moss rolling up over gentle hills. Everything was muted, clouds and moss combining to quiet the sounds of the forest. I took a deep breath of damp cool air. Only then did it occur to me to wonder where the hell I was. I was getting jaded.
I looked around again. In my limited experience, wondering where the hell I was made somebody show up and tell me.
No one showed up. I stood there for a minute. "I’d like to go home now," I announced hopefully. Wind ruffled my hair, but I didn’t think it was responding to me. I shrugged and stuck my hands in my pockets and went for a walk. I hadn’t been in a forest since I left North Carolina. I was surprised at how much I’d missed the sound of wind and rain on the leaves. In ten years I hadn’t even thought about it.
There was a lot I hadn’t thought about. I was pretty sure it was all going to come home very soon now. I pushed the idea away and kept walking.
A stag walked out of the forest in front of me, so calm I expected him to say something to me. He didn’t. We gazed at each other across several yards of empty space, and then he tossed his head and bounded off into the woods as silently as he’d arrived. I grinned after him. I wasn’t just getting jaded. I was turning into a world-class freak. Talking stags. What next?
As if in answer, a branch snapped behind me. I turned curiously.
A monster, more than half my height and twice as wide, charged out of the trees on four short, thick legs. Beady, vicious eyes sighted me and it swerved toward me, bristly head lowered in a charge that would end with me impaled on yellowing ivory tusks.
I shrieked and flung myself to the side, suddenly comprehending why wild boar hunting had been considered such a dangerous sport. The boar swerved again, barely missed trampling me and made a passing nod at goring me. Then, just like the stag, it disappeared into perfect silence.
I lay propped on my elbows, gasping after the animal. "Note to self," I whispered when it appeared it wasn’t coming back, "do not ask ‘what next?’ in realms unknown."
A horse leaped over my head and I shrieked again, curling up in a little ball. With my head pressed against the ground I could feel the vibrations of what seemed like a herd of horses pounding the earth. Then rough-voiced men shouted cheerfully over the rattle of tack, and I lifted my head cautiously. Six grinning men on horseback made a half circle in the woods, all of them facing me, right in the center of their circle. I froze. They jostled back and forth, changing position into some preferred layout that I couldn’t appreciate.
What I could appreciate was that none of them seemed to be paying attention to me. I let out a sigh of relief and uncurled.
"Stand ready, my liege," someone said. "The boar comes."
That was not what I wanted to hear. I jumped up and sprinted for the safety of a tree just as the boar burst out of the woods again, this time with half a dozen men in full and glorious pursuit. In the boar’s position, I would have been terrified. He just looked furious, like he knew he was going to die and he was going to take as many of the green-clad bastards with him as he could. The green-clad bastards in question all let forth howls of delight, and charged forth to meet the angry boar. Spears flew, horses leaped, and somehow all the weaponry missed the giant pig. It ducked beneath a horse, twisting its squat neck up and around. Its ivory tusks ripped the horse’s belly out. Rider and beast fell together.
Another rider flung himself off his horse, landing on top of the fallen man, and beneath the boar’s hooves. The boar squealed and slammed its head forward, tearing a bloody line across the second man’s stomach.
The forest faded away around me, thinning to younger trees. The second man, with a calm and bitter smile, sat atop a horse, a knotted rope around his neck. "Is this how you repay me for your life, my liege?" he asked, the last words he ever spoke. A man slapped the horse’s hindquarters and it bolted.
At my elbow, the second man watched himself hang, and said to me, "Do you enjoy a good hanging, my lady?"
I’d like to say I didn’t so much as flinch, but I almost jumped out of my skin. "No." I watched the dangling man with sick fascination. "What is this? When did this happen? Who are you?"
"Six hundred years ago," the man beside me said. He was green-eyed and broad-shouldered, light brown hair worn loose over his shoulders. Malevolence flowed off him in such force that I shivered, just standing by him. "I was called Herne, then. Herne the Hunter. The man I saved, who had me hanged, was Richard, my lord king and liege. Would you care to walk?" He offered me his elbow, a fluid elegant gesture.
I took it against my own volition, then flinched again, trying to pull away. Herne smiled, keeping his lips closed. "This," he hissed, "is my garden, and you are here of my will, not yours. You will walk with me."
And I did. We walked away from his twitching body and into open fields, following a footpath worn into the grass. My skin felt soiled and grimy where it brushed against his, but I couldn’t break away. "What am I doing here? What do you want with me?"
Herne smirked. "You’re interfering. I intend to deal with you now, once and for all. Here, where I have absolute power."
"Here." I shivered again. "This is your garden, and it must be England, but where…?"
"These were my lands."
"He hanged you on your own lands?" I blurted. Herne looked down at me.
"Oh, yes, my lady. Such is the kindness of a king."
"How did you end up in Seattle?" It was a stupid question, but I had an idea at the back of my mind and I wanted to keep him talking until it germinated.
"On a boat, hand-built of wood, and then with many years of traveling west on foot."
"When did you leave England?"
"Two centuries?" He shrugged. "I haven’t counted the years. I go back." His eyes flashed deeper green. "I will not leave my lands unprotected."
"But how?" The footpath we followed ended abruptly and began again a few feet later, a flaw in Herne’s garden. It reordered itself as we walked over it. I frowned, pushing my will forward, at another section of path. The unlocked energy beneath my breastbone tingled through my blood, like it approved of what I was trying to do. "How can you still be alive?"
Herne looked positively disappointed. "Can’t you guess? Ah, but you see only the ordinary man I was. Would it help…" He released my hand, took two steps forward and stopped in front of me with a little flourish. The path under his feet disappeared briefly. I frowned again, partly to hide a grin at the path’s reaction to my push and partly because I didn’t understand what I was supposed to see.
Then the subtleties of how he had changed hit me. His cheekbones had sharpened, chin lengthened a little, and the vividly green eyes tilted more noticeably. A pattern of bone distorted his temples just slightly. He looked ever so slightly more fey, no more slender through the shoulder, but with a degree of translucence to his skin, a hint of finer bones in his hands and face. He smiled, and I took a step forward, compelled.
"Oh, my God," I whispered. "You’re his son. Cernunnos is your father."
"Not your god," Herne disagreed, "but a god, at least. Now you understand, of course, that you have to die."
I didn’t understand that at all. "Wait! Shouldn’t you be speaking French?" Even as I said it, I wondered what kind of stupid question that was. Even as a gambit for time, it had to be one of the dumber things I could have said. But it worked: Herne stared at me while I frantically searched for the flaw in his garden that had let me reshape the path. He’d said something, something important, if I could just understand what to do with it.
"I was born a landowner, not nobility. English is my native tongue. And do you not imagine, gwyld, that in six hundred years I might learn another language if I needed?"
"Oh." I was genuinely embarrassed. "That was a dumb question."
"Yes," Herne agreed, "it was." Then his will rolled over me like thunder, transmuting, forcing me to the shape he chose for me. I thickened, arms and legs shortening as I dropped to all fours and tossed my head in panic. My head was too heavy, attached to my neck wrong, and my vision was dismal. On nothing but instinct, I charged forward. Herne laughed and stepped to the side, and I found myself bolting through forest with a handful of horsemen on my curling tail. I squealed in rage and fear and let the weight of my body drive me forward as I ran.
I burst into a clearing, toward a line of men seated on horseback. One moved forward, and I recognized the scene with a jolt of fear. Richard’s hunt, the one that ultimately cost Herne his life.
Only this time I was the boar.
My clarity of vision returned abruptly, enough to let me see Herne’s thin smile. Even as I charged forward, desperate, a plan crystallized in my mind. It was easy to gore Richard’s horse, to bring the animal down and the king with him. Herne flung himself off his horse to protect the king. I brought my head up, ripping a glancing blow across Herne’s belly; it had looked much more impressive when I was hidden behind the tree, watching. Herne flung a fist upward, catching me behind the ribs with a knife. I squealed in pain and staggered a step. Triumph lit Herne’s eyes and he rolled out from under me, rolled off Richard, and drew his sword as he came to his feet.
I stumbled again, my breath coming in ugly little wheezes. The ground gave under my foot, and I collapsed to my knees, on top of Richard. He grunted and I felt the absurd desire to apologize. But Herne was driving his sword down, and there wasn’t any more time.
I crushed my eyes shut and chose.
I chose to be there, in Herne’s garden. That was the thing he’d said, the wiggle room I needed. With my choice, the shape his will held me in shattered. I snapped back to my own form, rolling to the side with a gasp. The knife wound Herne had put in my belly was still there, throbbing with agony.
Herne slammed his blade down into the place I’d been an instant before. Into Richard’s abdomen. Richard’s eyes went very wide and bright. I whispered, "Sorry," while my blood spilled through my fingers to mix with his. We stared at each other for another instant, before Herne’s scream rendered the air and I staggered once more, forcing my head up to meet his eyes.
"It is not possible," he rasped. "My place—my power—"
I clutched the hole in my belly where he’d stabbed me and straightened up as far as I could. It wasn’t very far: to breathe through the pain I had to stay a little hunched, but at least I could meet his eyes. "Your will," I whispered back. "I’m not here. Of your will. Anymore." I couldn’t breathe. It hurt so badly I could hardly think, flares of pain steady with my heartbeat. "Chose. To be here." I hadn’t been sure it would work. "Choosing. To leave now. Too."
I collapsed over the silent, broken form of Richard, king of England. Herne’s scream of fury echoed in my memory for a long time.
When I opened my eyes again I was on my knees in my garden, doubled over with one forearm against the ground and the other wrapped around my belly.
"This one’s a little more complicated," Coyote said. "Can you feel them?"
I lifted my head up, beads of sweat draining into my eyes. I couldn’t feel a goddamned thing except the spiking pain in my gut, and the blood slipping through my fingers.
"Try harder," Coyote said. He lay on his belly with his head on his paws, gold eyes intense on mine. I whimpered without any dignity and tried to feel something beyond myself. Just on the other side of pain was a source of amusement, smugness and concern.
"Not me." Coyote sounded patient. "Past me." I grunted and tried to reach past him, my fingers creeping forward in the grass like the physical motion would help the mental. For a moment there was a scattering of sensation, the feeling of someone waiting. I recognized it from my dream-walk and reached for it. Coyote snapped at my crawling fingers. "Farther out."
I drew a deep breath to try again, then couldn’t do anything for a few seconds. Blood drained through my fingers with more enthusiasm. "Fuck." Nausea made a stab at settling into my system, but I was too hurt to hold on to even that.
I stretched one more time, past Coyote, past the one who waited for me, and finally found what Coyote was after. Two thin silver lines ran through me, attached to one another, using me as a conduit. They flickered, unevenly, unsynchronized and as weakly as my own pulse. One disappeared into darkness, its far end so distant I wasn’t sure where it led. The other had no visible end, either, but it felt closer, like I could reach out a hand and grasp the arm of the body whose life it sustained.
"They’re tied together through you," Coyote said softly, as if he was afraid a full voice would shatter my fragile grasp on the cords. "Don’t you see?"
"Mem’ry," I whispered. Blood drooled to the grass. "Henrietta’s. Mem’ry. Herne’s. Will. Tied me to. Richard’s life." I understood. The energy coil inside me bubbled eagerly, sending out pulses of power along with my blood. "More engine work," I mumbled, and fell through six hundred years of time, healing the schoolteacher and the king.
I opened my eyes and sat down hard in the chair. "You saved them."
Henrietta Potter stared at me.
"Anthony and Mark. Jennifer and Adrian. You broke Herne’s circle. He took almost everything but you broke the circle that would bind their souls. They’ll get another chance." My whole body hurt, and I was exhausted beyond belief. My thoughts were too thick and slow to be chaotic, but they felt that way anyway. I needed to go sit somewhere, quietly, and figure out what had happened. What it meant. I pushed to my feet and wove my way to the door.
I bounced off Gary as he and Billy returned with coffee. Gary dropped both the cups he carried, swore, and grabbed my shoulders as my knees gave out and I tried to follow the coffee to the floor. "What in hell happened to you? You look like you saw a ghost."
"Bad day at the office." I giggled. Billy and Gary exchanged glances. Billy pushed the door to Henrietta’s room open and went in. "C’mon," I said to Gary. "I wanna go home. Tired."
"You were fine two minutes ago, lady."
I smiled up at him and patted his cheek. "Aw. Gary. Didn’t know you cared." My knees went out from under me again and this time I did drop, flopping to the floor like a rag doll.
Into the spilled coffee. I stuck a fingertip in it. "Aw, man. Now my panties are gonna smell like coffee." I put both my hands into the air and let Gary pull me to my feet as Billy came back out of the hospital room, looking pale.
"What in hell did you do?" he demanded. I stared at him without comprehension.
"Aw, shit. She’s not dead or anything, is she?"
"Not quite," Henrietta Potter said from behind Billy’s shoulder. He moved out of the way and she stepped out, looking surprisingly dignified in just a hospital gown and bare feet.
"You oughta be lying down," Gary said sternly. He kept a firm hand around my waist, which I thought was sweet of him.
"I believe, actually, that I’ll be checking out as soon as someone is kind enough to fetch me some clothes."
"You could borrow mine," I said too loudly, "but they all smell like coffee now." I was very tired. If Gary didn’t keep his arm around my waist, I thought I might just collapse again and not wake up for a week or two. No, I couldn’t do that. I had to think. I nodded several times to myself, big motions that took on a life of their own as I forgot why I was nodding.
Mrs. Potter looked up at me, amused. "I’m tall for my generation, Joanne Walker, but I would trip on your sleeves."
I stopped nodding, astonished. "But they’re short," I protested. Henrietta quirked a smile.
"So they are," she agreed.
"What did you do?" Billy asked again. I waved a hand at him.
"Just a lil’ fixer-upper. Noooo big deal. Do it anytime. No problem. Lil’ hole in the tummy to kill a king? Sure. Hey. To kill a king." I snickered against Gary’s arm. "That’s funny."
"Detective," Gary said, "Jo needs to go home and sleep."
"Oooh, good idea." I tilted over, then frowned and started shaking my head. Big swinging shakes of my head. "Nooo. Can’t sleep. Have to think." Now I was nodding again. It was all very confusing, and I was losing my balance. Gary tightened his arm around me. I giggled and patted his shoulder. "Nice Gary."
This was starting to get embarrassing. I peeled out of Gary’s grasp and carefully began maneuvering my way down the wide, empty hallway. After several steps, with a gentle thump, I maneuvered my shoulder right into the wall opposite Henrietta’s room. That wasn’t at all what I’d been aiming for, but it struck me that the wall would help me walk in a straight line. I leaned on it and concentrated on putting one foot in front of another. Left. Right. Left. It wasn’t all that hard, as long as I kept my head down and watched my feet. Feeling rather proud of myself through the haze of exhaustion, I picked up a little speed.
"Joanie…" Billy’s voice bounced off the gray walls, a warning. Another pair of shoes intruded themselves on my line of vision. I didn’t exactly have momentum in my favor, but I still didn’t manage to stop until the top of my head ran into the chest belonging to the intrusive shoes.
I didn’t even bounce, just lifted my head and found myself toe to toe and nose to nose with Captain Michael Morrison.