Mark begins gathering twigs and small branches, dry leaves, and then sets about building a fire. He makes a small pile of moss and leaves, then a wigwam of twigs above it. He takes two stones from his pocket and strikes them together until sparks fly—they catch a leaf and erase it from the world, turning it to a brightly glowing tracery of veins that is there, deep orange, for a second, and then gone into dust.
The other leaves catch too, and the tinder flares, setting fire to the twigs. Mark leans larger branches over them, until the fire is blazing. Flames begin to lick up into the cold night air, smoke spirals up into the starlit blackness. The trees around the clearing flicker horribly, twisting and contorting in the firelight, as if they have come alive, as if they’re reaching for us, wanting to wrap their limbs around us, drag us in.
This is probably true, I realize, with a shiver. And all the time the Child is crying, filling the air with its unhappiness, wanting me. Needing me.
Despite my terror of the trees, the thorns, it is all I can do not to get up and run into the forest, toward the castle, toward that voice, to find the Child and comfort it …
No, I am here in the clearing, with Mark, and there is the warmth of the fire, its shifting light. Keeping the darkness at bay, the creatures of the Crone at bay. I close my eyes and let the fire wash over me.
Huh.
There is something else too, something that for the first time in maybe an hour distracts me from the constant background of the Child’s crying.
This thing is:
I hear it. I hear the fire.
Mom was right, when she said in the cabin that it was indescribable. There are no words. The fire is like a living thing, and the noise of it is the noise of its living; it crackles, pops, fizzes, crunches, cracks. The sound is constant, comforting.
Mark is gazing into the flames, an unreadable, pensive expression on his face.
The elk that died, he said I shouldn’t trust you, I say.
Mark makes a noise in his throat.
He said you played tricks, I continue.
Do I look like I’m playing tricks? says Mark. He is still looking at the fire and his face stays deadly serious.
No, I say.
Well, he says.
But it wouldn’t be a trick if you seemed untrustworthy, would it? I say.
He laughs. No, I suppose not.
So, I say again, can I trust you?
Mark sighs. Trust is the wrong word, he says.
What does that mean?
I am Coyote, he says. I gave knowledge to people. I stole fire and gave it to them. I made death, so that their lives would matter. Twice I killed the Crone, when she was an owl and when she was a giant. I taught Man and Woman how to write. You can trust me to help you. It’s just … you might not like it.
Oh, I say quietly.
We sit there in silence for a moment—or not silence, I realize. The constant noise of the crackling, spitting, creaking fire. The wind in the trees. The crying of the Child, in the background, pulling at me like an enormous magnet. The fire curls and ripples and rolls, as if its true nature is liquid. Above its flaring heat, the icy stars gleam. There are so many of them, a messy multitude, the constellations subtly different from the ones I’m used to. The light is bright—a bluish glow that illuminates everything.
He shakes his head. The problem, he says, is that in your world the days continue to follow one another. To run out. This is in the Crone’s favor.
Because?
Because if we do not save the Child, and soon, your world will end. I told you this.
So what are we doing sitting here by a fire? I say.
He smiles. Conserving our energy, he says. Preparing.
And when does the sun come up? I say.
It doesn’t, he says. Here there is no time.
What? I say. But we’re moving and talking and—
Yes, he says. Time flows. But there is no sun, no moon. Only stars. So there are no days and everything is forever.
I stare at him. I’m thinking of the elk, closing its eyes. Apart from things that die, I say. Because you are Coyote and you made death.
Neither of us speaks for a while.
So when do we go? I ask eventually. I mean, we can’t wait till dawn, if there isn’t going to be a dawn.
Soon, he says, with another smile.
Then I feel something on my arm, something or someone touching me. I look at Mark, but he’s sitting a foot away from me, and there’s no one else there, no one I can see.
I look at the moving forms of the trees, their twisted shadows. Has one of them come forward into the clearing?
Who— I say.
Then the hand around my arm tightens and I open my eyes and—