Then Mark and I are standing next to the fire, the Forest of Thorns looming around us. I can smell wood smoke and I feel the heat of the fire prickling my skin. Most of all, I can hear the sound of the flames eating the wood, the low unending crepitation of it, so beautiful in my ears.
Only …
Only I can hear the crying too, and just like in my dream it’s more desperate now, louder, the Child sounds like it needs someone right now. Needs me right now.
Time to go, says Mark.
Yes, I say. The crying is like a physical pull on me; a hook in my flesh.
We push out of the clearing and farther into the forest, on a path that is little more than a faint trace on the ground, branches pressing into us. Soon my arms and cheeks are covered with scratches. Mark is bleeding too, from a hundred little grazes.
Are the thorns poisonous? I say.
Yes, but not for you, says Mark.
What?
The forest will let you through, he says. You are the Maiden. Then he turns forward again and keeps on, and I see that the conversation is over.
We battle through the woods for what must be an hour. It’s painful going, the thorns constantly tearing at my skin. It’s also claustrophobic—I can’t see the stars anymore, the night sky above. Only a canopy of intertwined trees, twisted thorns.
Panic starts to grip me, and grip is exactly the right word, it’s like there’s a band tightening around my chest. I can’t breathe properly, I can’t get enough oxygen into my lungs.
I’m about to tell Mark to stop, when the thorns begin to thin, and the path is suddenly stony underfoot, and we emerge into another, much wider clearing, dotted with flowers that are a sick, acid yellow.
There’s a structure in the clearing—it looks like a batting cage at first, but as we get closer I see that it’s more like a hutch, only an enormous one, towering above the trees. Walls made of some kind of woven wire. I can hear sound coming from it too—a sad voice, crying, it sounds like the Child but I can also still hear the Child’s louder voice, far ahead of us somewhere, so that this voice is like a strange little echo.
I press ahead, getting closer to the structure, Mark beside me.
What is it? I ask. As I do so, I see something in the cage. It looks like a small person.
Mark walks closer to the cage—I can see that it is a cage, now, made of rusted iron, it looks like. Not a small person, I realize—a child.
Could it be the Child? The one Mark keeps talking about? It is upset, I can hear its wails, but I can still hear crying floating over the trees from the horizon, so that there is a kind of stereo effect happening.
The Child? says Mark. I don’t know. It feels like it. But also it feels … other.
What do you mean? I ask.
He shakes his head. Some Crone magic, he says. We should be careful. I sense a trap.
I ignore him and approach the cage. It is building-size, and it stretches as far as a building too. It’s been built around the few trees in the clearing, so that there are trees inside it, like a monkey exhibit in a zoo. As I get closer, the child stops crying and looks up at me, its huge damp eyes riveting mine. The crying that’s coming from far away also stops, so there is only the sighing of wind in the trees.
The child is sitting on the grass in the middle of the cage, clutching something to its chest. I can’t quite see what it’s holding but there is an impression of fur—gray fur. A squirrel? When I’m standing right by the cage, the child—it’s a girl, I see—stands and toddles toward me, but stops short of the wire and holds out her hands, as if to be picked up, as if to be held. The gray squirrel is still—
No. Not a squirrel.
The ears are too long.
And it isn’t fur, not real fur anyway. It’s plush. A plush bunny.
It’s like there’s a heavy magnet in my stomach, and the girl is crackling with electricity, like I have to meet those hands and pull her up and into my arms.
I reach out my hand to the wire, wanting to test it, to see if I can pull it apart, but Mark grabs my arm.
What are you doing? he says.
What?
That’s iron, he says. We can’t touch it.
But it’s so delicate! I say. The iron cage is like filigree, and red with rust—a soft punch would break it open.
It’s iron, says Mark again. Those of the Dreaming can’t touch it. Apart from the Crone. It is very harmful to us.
What about me? I ask.
You are of the Dreaming.
Yeah, I say. But I’m from my world too. Maybe I can.
He makes a gesture that isn’t like crossing himself, but it has a similar effect; it conveys a similar meaning, of warding off evil. It could hurt you, he says. Very badly. The way he says this, it’s like that would be bad for him too, and it sets loose wings inside me.
But I’m looking at the child reaching out her arms toward me, imploring me with her wide-open eyes and it’s just like in my dream, the feeling of need, of powerless need, and I just want to help her, to comfort her.
What if it is the Child? I say. Didn’t you say we had to rescue her? All this time I don’t take my eyes off hers, and I can feel her willing me to rescue her, eyes boring into me.
Yes, says Mark. But … there is something wrong here.
He’s right. I can feel it. Something subtly but all-over wrong, like when you put on a sweater back to front. But at the same time, there’s the child, and her irresistible eyes.
I have to help her, I say.
Mark sighs. But the iron—
I don’t care about the iron, I say.
I shake him off, he’s stronger than me but he isn’t expecting it, and I reach out for the cage and at the same he is shouting, No! one long syllable of no, but it’s too late because I’ve got the wire gripped in my fingers and I pull, as hard as I can and—
It bursts outward, bending, and I feel no pain at all as it rips. I seize the edges of the hole and pull it farther open. As I’m doing it, the child is nodding her head in excitement, bobbing up and down on her toes. I bend down and start tearing open the last section of wire and then get down on my knees and lean to her, throw my arms out ready to wrap them around her.
For the longest moment, though, she doesn’t move. She stands there looking through my head and into my soul, hands by her side. She opens her mouth and speaks, a sing-song voice, speaking a language I don’t understand.
Mark takes a step forward, raising a hand, but then stops. His face is pale, drawn.
What is she saying? I ask.
He hesitates. She’s saying thank you, he says.
But there is something in the set of his face; he is holding something back, I think.
What is it? I ask.
Nothing, he says.
She’s definitely saying something else. I can see it now in her eyes as she continues to speak, her tone raw with urgency. Gratitude, but also pity.
What is she saying, Mark?
She’s saying she would like to free you also, says Mark reluctantly.
The girl stops speaking and nods. Then she raises her arms again and rushes toward me, through the gap I have made in the wire, and I lift my own hands, ready to throw them around her, to pull her into my embrace, and …
and …
and she vanishes, not instantly, but more like a dissolving, like one moment she is there and physical and present and the next moment she is a soft amalgam of shimmering particles, bubbles or shining grains, and then she is gone.
My momentum tips me over, and I face-plant on the ground, grass pressing into my cheek. I push myself up onto my hands and sit back on my knees, bewildered.
A trick, says Mark. I told you.
But there’s something left behind. I reach down and pick it up, feel its warmth in my hands, and I know that the girl was somehow real, or was a projection of something real, because this is the heat of her blood in the object I’m holding.
It’s the bunny, its fur polished by age and touch, its eyes scratched and worn, its ears flopping. Up to this moment I haven’t wanted to recognize it, but now the dams in my mind can’t hold the truth back any longer.
Hold out your hand, says Mark.
I do, showing him the bunny in my left hand.
No, he says. The other one. The one you tore the cage with.
I proffer my right hand and he frowns down at it. You are not hurt? he says. By the iron?
No, I say.
He looks stunned, but he gathers himself. Meanwhile I am just staring down at the bunny in my hand, I can’t believe it’s here, in the real world, or in the Dreaming anyway, which is not the same as a dream.
What is that? says Mark.
It’s a toy rabbit, I say. I … I’ve seen it before.
What, here? In the Dreaming?
No, I say. In a dream. A nightmare, I guess. I’ve had it ever since I can remember.
What kind of a dream?
There’s a hospital, I say. And a child crying, and I follow the sounds until I reach it, reach her I should say, and she’s holding a bunny like this one, when I find her. She holds out her arms to me and then … then I wake up. Every time.
Hmm, says Mark. It may be that the Crone can see into your mind. That she is using this dream of yours to disconcert you.
Yeah, well, it’s working, I say. I am feeling pretty majorly—
Suddenly Mark puts his finger to his lips. Quiet, he says.
I fall silent.
There, says Mark.
But I have already heard it—it’s the crying of the Child again, and it’s coming from farther ahead, farther through the forest, carrying on the night air.
We must carry on, says Mark.
Yes, I say. I start to stuff the bunny into my pocket but Mark shakes his head.
No, he says. The Crone left it there. It’s not safe.
Reluctantly, I lay it back down on the grass. It feels like abandoning something small and helpless and for some reason tears come to my eyes, which I know is ridiculous because it isn’t even alive, it’s a stuffed toy.
Then I stand up straight again. We’re totally alone there in the clearing, the sound of the crying Child a low constant hum.
Mark takes a last look at the rabbit and the cage, shifts uncomfortably, then starts to walk off. But as he turns away, his hand brushes the cage; I don’t think he realizes. And … nothing happens. It doesn’t visibly hurt him, no sparks fly. All around us, the crying of the Child, the real one far off in the distance, continues to resonate, just another part of the world, the water in which we swim.
There are two possibilities, I think: either he lied to me, about the iron. But I don’t really buy it—I saw the fear in his eyes when I said what I wanted to do.
Or, other explanation: he can touch iron, he just believes he can’t. But why would he believe that he can’t? It doesn’t make any sense.
Anyway, whatever: right now I just want an answer to my question about what the Child said. I follow him and grab his sleeve.
Don’t walk away from me, I say. Don’t you dare. Not till you’ve told me what she said.
You do not give orders to Coyote, he says, a little haughtily.
Oh to hell with you, I say.
His features soften. It’s not important, he says.
I don’t care. Tell me right now or I swear to God I will leave this place and never come back, and your Crone can go screw herself and that child will have to just keep crying.
Please, just—
No. Tell me.
Mark sighs. She said that you would soon find out what you really were. She said she was sorry.
What I really am? I ask. What’s that?
I can’t tell you.
I stare at him. What? Why not?
Because it is not for me to say, he says. It is for someone else.
Then the Dreaming is flooded with light and the clearing disappears for an instant, is replaced by my small white room, the bed, the basin, and a dark figure standing there, hands clasped in front of him.
Just a flash—
And then it’s gone, the stars are back, the forest. Mark standing beside me, looking worried.
Who? I say.
What?
You said it’s for someone else to say, I say. Who?
Mark winces as the world goes bright again, and the cell pops into being around us, glaring white, fluorescent-light illuminated, the man standing there, looking at me.
Him, says Mark.
And then he’s gone and the Dreaming is gone and it’s just me in the brightly lit cell and I look up at the man and—