Elfland

The fissure in the rock was cold and ink-black. Rosie, in the lead, felt her way with her feet and one hand, the other arm holding Heather against her shoulder. The darkness was like a physical force pushing against her.

How ridiculous to be afraid of my own brother, thought Rosie. The sweat turned cold on her body as she squeezed onwards, driven by panic, slowed by fear and the narrow press of the walls. The passage ran in a curve. She found vertical rims of stone in the walls, smooth hand-sized patterns of inlaid metal. Her hand crept over a clearly defined symbol; a spiral, emblem of the Otherworld.

Heather reached at thin air and said, “Look at the sky, Mummy.” Rosie saw a brushstroke of navy ahead. She held her breath as if to plunge into deep water. “We’re there,” she said.

They stepped out of the fissure and into the flowing, indigo twilight of a forest. This was not the world she knew, not even under Dusklands glamour. Tall black trunks reached to the canopy far above and the undergrowth swayed like seaweed under the ocean. The forest was monumental, enveloping. Full of moving shadows. The air smelled delicious, fresh and moist, tangling her fear with wild excitement. Elysion.

“Get clear of the entrance,” Sam said urgently, pulling her and Faith to one side. Thorns snagged her hair. The portal was silver-grey rock like Freya’s Crown in miniature; the tall thin aperture framed by two fruit trees that leaned towards each other and clasped their branches above it. The flanks of the rock were clouded by bushes and briars. Before them, a green slope fell away, becoming a path that curved onto the forest floor and out of sight. The air rippled with ghostly shapes.

They waited. No sound disturbed the ocean rush of the forest. No Matthew came leaping enraged after them.

“Looks like Matt isn’t joining us,” Sam said grimly. “Take a good look around, so we can find the way back.”

“Gods, we’re really here,” Rosie whispered. Heather was squirming in her arms, so she passed her to Faith, who kissed her and smoothed her hair, telling her, “It’s all right, cross Daddy can’t chase us anymore.” She transformed before Rosie’s eyes; scales fading, hair darkening, angel-fish veils vanishing. Faith was her usual self again, wearing a brown dress patterned with tiny white flowers, barefoot… just as she’d run out of the house.

“I didn’t do anything,” she murmured. “So Luc was right, he unlocked the Lychgate… but where’s the great peril that Lawrence warned us about?”

“Don’t know,” said Sam. “Maybe it’s waiting… or invisible, or something.”

A sense of watery movement all around disoriented her. From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed semihuman shapes. They seemed to be watching, circling. “Lucas?” she called out, in the wild hope that he might be among them.

“This feels creepy. I’m thinking we should head down the path… Looks like no one’s been this way for quite some time.”

They started downhill at a steady walk, anxiously scanning every direction. A thin silvery trail like a deer track threaded along the center of the broader path between the monolithic trunks. “We should stay on the track,” Rosie said, nervously joking. “It’s when you wander into the forest you get into trouble. My parents will go mad… I hope this isn’t a horrible mistake…”

“Hey, you’re with me,” he grinned. “The master of horrible mistakes. It’s too late now.” He gave her a direct, firm look, as if to say, We’re in this together. Her heart twisted hotly inside her. She returned the look, telling him, Yes. I know.

As they walked, the phantoms moved with them. “They’re following us,” Faith said uneasily.

Sam turned to her. “Let me carry Heather. We’ll make faster progress that way. Don’t worry, they’re just… elementals, maybe.”

Heather quickly fell asleep on Sam’s shoulder. In pink teddy-bear pajamas she looked tender and vulnerable. “Never guessed you were Aetherial, Faith,” he said. “You kept that one very dark.”

“Long story,” Rosie said softly. “It was what I couldn’t tell you in the alley, remember?”

Faith said, “I’m sorry, I never meant to be a nuisance, but I didn’t plan this, either. I don’t even know where you’re going, or why. Matthew’s never going to forgive me.”

“Sam!” said Rosie. “Shush. We’re trying to find Lucas, Fai. Somehow he accidentally unlocked the Lychgate. We think his Aetherial essence fled through when he was injured, and he won’t recover unless we find it. It’s desperate, I know. I hadn’t realized how mad it sounded until I said it.”

“I can’t face my parents unless I at least try to find him,” said Rosie. “You understand that, don’t you?” Faith nodded. She looked pallid with exhaustion. Her heart, too, must be broken.

The twilight deepened. The darker it grew, the more solid the stalking figures became, keeping pace with them in the edge of the trees. The disembodied voice spoke again, “Vaethyr. Virgin.”

Rosie caught a sharp breath. She was trying to convince herself she wasn’t afraid but her hands were clammy, her heart tripping. The shadow shapes flowed into their path, charcoal on slate grey. A low, menacing voice came from all around them. “You cannot come here unbranded.”

Encircled by dark, wavering specters, they halted. “This is not looking good,” said Sam, clasping Heather firmly as he turned to Rosie and Faith. “We’re going to run like hell, back the way we came. Ready?”

Then he gave a sharp cry. It was over before Rosie could react. He jerked as if shot and tumbled backwards, an arrow shaft sticking from his collarbone, the child shrieking on top of him.

She saw a pair of golden eyes staring at her, a transparent winged form sketched on the darkness, a glowing arrow poised in some kind of crossbow. A split second later she felt the elf-shot; a stabbing fiery pain in her ribs. Her sight and hearing vanished in a rush of stars. Through the fog, she was aware of Faith trying to wrestle Heather from Sam until she, too, convulsed and fell. There was a moment of incomprehension, What the hell? No—this can’t be happening—not now… but pain dragged her down, across Sam’s fallen body, into an ocean of shadows.

Rosie was drowning in another dimension; a blurred dim landscape that was Earth and Dusklands and Elysion and somewhere else entirely. She was running on all fours—knowing she was dreaming, which made running pointless, and had no time to waste on visions, but still desperately running as if her efforts could somehow influence the real world.

Sam ran beside her stride for stride, and Sam was a wolf. More than wolf—a dread, magnificent beast with bright cobalt eyes, blond-tipped dark fur. She was the same, and she could also see her wolfish fylgia from the outside—shadowy, silvery, an elemental or a small deity, an entity she didn’t comprehend.

For a few intoxicating minutes in her dual being, Rosie understood. The Otherworld hunters fired divine arrows of a kind, delivering splinters of complex knowledge. She and wolf Sam looked at each other; no need for words. They had always been here, side by side, wild, instinctive, answering to no one. They ran for days; hunting, feeding, play-fighting, mating, racing onwards again.

She had left a dim awareness: that you could not come back from this and stay sane. It was a whirlwind. It must leave you demented. She rose on her hind legs and became a statue in a temple, and wolf-headed Sam was her priest. Rosie began to laugh manically. She heard her mother singing,

Let the Spiral take us down

Tread the Spiral, round and round

Dancing down the river’s course

Spinning back towards the Source

Find the mirror at its heart

Merry meet, and merry part

We kiss the water and fly,

Kiss the water and fly…

Jessica’s voice was a silver thread drawing her along the loop of time as it curved back towards its starting point. Suddenly, violently she was pitched into consciousness. A circle of pain burned under her left breast. The world was dark.

She felt Sam moving and groaning beneath her. He clutched her shoulders, trying to push her off him. Her mouth was rust-dry. She felt dizzy, as if she’d been drugged. Hauling herself into a kneeling position, she felt raw pain on her rib cage beneath her left breast. Her fingers found a hole in her sweater, and a two-inch circle of blistered flesh, weeping blood.

“Sam, are you all right?” Her voice came out as a sob. She clawed her hair back.

“Uh…” The glazed eyes widened. He drew a few shallow breaths. “Yes. We were there for like… months. But dream time, not real time.”

She touched a frayed hole in his T-shirt below the collarbone, and her fingertip went through and found the flesh wound. Sam winced. “Ouch.”

“Whatever shot us was real,” she said, “but it’s only skin-deep. More a stamp than a penetrating wound. Oh my god, I thought they’d killed you.”

“Faith?” Rosie called out. “Are you there?” Looking up, she was suddenly blinded by the flare of a swinging lamp. On the forest path ahead of them was a woman, cloaked and hooded in black, bending over something on the ground. She straightened, raising the lamp so its light washed over them. In the glow, Rosie saw Faith rising to her knees and beside her, thank heaven, stood Heather, sobbing but apparently unhurt.

“Where did you come from?” the woman called. Her voice was low, muffled within the deep hood. “I heard the little one crying. Come, you must go with me. It’s not safe at night.”

“Now they tell us,” Sam said through his teeth. Rosie tried to stand up but the wound in her ribs burned so fiercely that she doubled over. Sam was no better. With an undignified struggle they made it to their feet, but it wasn’t clear who was helping whom.

“I know it hurts, but it’s not fatal,” the woman said, rather impatiently. She helped Faith, giving her the lantern as she swung Heather up in a fireman’s lift. “I’m surprised they didn’t take the child. You are asking for trouble, bringing a youngster in here.”

“They tried,” Faith said shakily. “Unless I dreamed it. I hung on to her for dear life until they gave up.” As she spoke, Rosie put her arms around her. Her friend was unyielding, distant, not the Faith she knew. She let her be, and fell back to Sam’s side.

“You can rest with me tonight.” The woman led them along the path, her cloak a black flare against the dancing sphere of lamplight. “I can’t let you stay out here. You’ve come through the Lychgate, haven’t you? How long has it been open? I didn’t know. What on earth were you thinking, entering the Spiral without preparation?”

“That’s a lot of questions,” said Sam. “And I’ve got one: What business is it of yours?”

“Sam!” Rosie poked him in the ribs. “He doesn’t mean to be rude, he was born that way. It’s a long story. I have to find my brother.”

“Well, you’re going nowhere until morning.” On every side, the forest flowed away into wilderness. Farther on, Rosie glimpsed a glade with a circle of standing stones, and wondered if Vaethyr used to dance there. She could almost taste echoes of it; animal masks, flower wreaths, wild music.

Exertion and pain made it hard to speak. Eventually she asked, “Who were they—the ones who attacked us?”

The woman answered without turning round. “I thought you knew. What have they taught you in Vaeth? They were Initiators. They recognized you as new to the Spiral and so they put the brand upon you. A toxic preparation of corrosive and hallucinogen—you will have had visions, I expect? And now be feeling a little rough.”

“Yes.” She and Sam glanced at each other. “It’s true, we were never initiated because the Gates were locked… but I thought it would be more civilized than that. They hunted us down!”

Sam added, “And if I ever see them again, I’ll stick their red-hot arrows so far up their…”

“You won’t see them,” the woman laughed. “You wouldn’t recognize them. They are Aelyr who change shape and hunt down uninitiated Vaethyr. It’s a trance state in which, it’s said, the unbranded Vaethyr glow and so make themselves visible targets. Yes, the usual practice is for initiates to be brought through by their elders, so there’s some element of guidance and ceremony. But, ultimately, you are left on your own to be hunted and branded. You were lucky. Traditionally you would have been stripped naked and turned loose in the forest first.”

“For some, initiation is ecstatic. For others, hideous. There have been deaths. It is really a stupid practice born of the Aelyr desire to put their stamp on those Vaethyr who have the effrontery to live on Earth. On the surface it says, You’re one of us, but the subtext is, We own you. You came in uninvited, so they branded you anyway. It’s the way they do things, unfortunately. Never mind. You survived.”

She took a side path that brought them uphill, leaving Rosie too weary to ask any more questions. There was dense grass under their feet, trees to their left, a folded wall of rock on their right. The path began a steep descent. Over the shoulder, the trees opened out and below lay a small, hidden valley. To their right, a waterfall poured down the rock face into a stream. Along the stream bank to their left stood a cottage; an archetypal stone cottage with thatch roof and vines around the door. The scene was all in dark shades of sapphire and emerald. Firefly lights glanced on the water.

“Perfect,” Sam said with a laugh. “There had to be a witch’s cottage in the woods.”

“Come in, walking wounded,” said the woman, opening the door to a simple interior bathed in firelight. “I’ll find something to salve those burns.” She set Heather down, took the lantern from Faith and placed it on a hook. Unself-consciously she threw off her cloak. Beneath it, she looked every inch the part of forest witch in a long figure-hugging dress of dark plum, with long tangles of black hair, a spare, bony face and penetrating eyes.

Rosie heard Sam make a noise in his throat, a sort of gasp. There was a thud as the backpack hit the ground. He said, “Mum?”

Lawrence stood looking down at the face of Lucas, his son. Still no improvement, the specialist had said. He couldn’t identify what he felt. Clearly he felt something, if only a void, a sucking white emptiness too big to grasp. It was not a place from which tears came. Auberon could weep enough for them both.

“You’re so gracious, Auberon,” he said when the doctors had gone. “Gracious beyond words. You always have been.”

The two men sat on either side of Lucas. There was no color in the room but black and white. Auberon had cleared up the doctor’s confusion by quietly explaining that while Lucas was his son, Lawrence was actually his biological father. “I suppose a lad is lucky to have two fathers,” Auberon said gravely. “Too many children have none at all.”

“No, I’m not. It’s me who’s had the plea sure of his company all these years.” Auberon paled as he spoke, as if aware of the obvious conclusion, and these could be the last few days.

“Well, I envy you that,” said Lawrence. “But if a decision has to be made… about turning off life support… then I envy you not at all. Whatever you decide, I won’t fight it.”

“If they begin to pressure us, I don’t know where we’ll turn. What will it do to Jess? If his Aetherial essence can’t die, where has it gone? Through the Gates, even closed? Or somewhere in the Dusklands, like a ghost… perhaps he’ll attach himself to a tree or stone until he’s ready for rebirth of some kind… but we’ll never see him in this form again.”

“So much of our existence is about saying farewell,” said Lawrence. His voice was dry with strain. “Our losses are not as concrete as they are for humans, but that makes it the more painful. Not knowing. Our children shouldn’t be able to fly through locked Gates—in physical or essential form—to vanish in the vastness of the inner realms… yet still they leave us.”

Auberon met his eyes. “And there is the possibility,” he said carefully, “that without access to the Spiral, our Aetheric essence will die. We’ll become mortal. The Dusklands will fade from lack of sustenance, and we’ll forget our true selves. Is that what you wanted all along, my friend?”

Lawrence gazed at Lucas’s sleeping face. “No,” he said hoarsely. “Never. The danger is real and terrible. What, you think I lied to you? I love the Otherworld.”

Memories played across the back of Lawrence’s mind. Masked Aelyr bowing to him as they presented the ceremonial staff of applewood. Albin, waiting for him by the stream that flowed from Sibeyla into Melusiel; Lawrence proudly presenting a casket of sparkling albinite that he’d harvested on Earth, saying, “All these, Father, in exchange for the one stone you took from me.” Albin’s fist flying upwards, sending the priceless cut gems cascading into the stream, lost. His contemptuous response. “This is a sacred stone. To mine it and sell it on Vaeth is sacrilege!”

Lawrence had realized, in that moment of despair, that nothing he did would ever incur Albin’s favor. He was an impossible-to-please father who had marked his son as weak and flawed from birth. And in the end, I fulfilled his prophecies, Lawrence thought. He was correct to despise me. He had all my faults pinned in a display case from the start.

Not for a second had he blamed Albin for the existence of his nemesis, Brawth. Albin had not woken it or sent it. No, it was a horror entirely of Lawrence’s own making and Albin would say, he knew, “I told you that no good would come of defying me and following Liliana into the greedy corruption of Earth.”

Here with Auberon, Lawrence found the confession spilling out. “It’s strange. When they give you the power of the Gatekeeper, it’s done with full ceremony. When they take it away, there is nothing. You are not even asked to clear your desk, as it were. Realization dawns and there is only a cold, dry emptiness.”

Auberon leaned towards him, grasping Lucas’s hand as he did so. “Are you saying you’ve lost the power?”

It took Auberon a few minutes to recover his composure. At last he said, “For how long? Have you told anyone?”

“Only you. I have not even been able to face going up there since… Tell no one, I beg you. The whole world has turned to bleak grey rock because of my failings and I am stranded in a granite tower looking out at my work and there is nothing to be done. I am being punished.”

Auberon paused, looking gravely at him like a concerned doctor. “How did you wake it?”

“I don’t know. It defies reason. Simply by existing, I brought an enemy to life that grew greater as I diminished.”

Lawrence laughed. “When Aetherials dream, what do we create? I have asked myself that many times, of course, but in the Spiral, dreams become real. You have sensed it, haven’t you? And Lucas has seen it. I have struggled all these years to protect my sons, to protect everyone from it… but now, if the lych-light’s gone, it’s out of my hands. My time is almost over, my friend.”

“What are you saying?” Auberon had gone grey. “Don’t talk like this. Promise me you won’t think of harming yourself!”

Lawrence’s bone-white finger traced Lucas’s cheek. He murmured, “Bron, if the time should come to turn off the machine and you truly can’t face it… I will.”

Tears fell from Auberon’s tired eyes. “Don’t let’s speak of that yet.”

Lawrence hardly knew he was expressing his thoughts aloud until it was too late. “Will that be considered sufficient punishment? To be forced to destroy this beloved life? A sacrifice. Will anything pacify Brawth and make it sink back into the darkness, other than to consume my son? Not any son, but the most precious one. What could be more bitter?” He exhaled a long ragged breath and whispered, “Lucas, come back to us.”

The woman was unquestionably Virginia Wilder. Once seen, thought Rosie, never forgotten. When Sam said “Mum?” she gave a puzzled frown, drew her head back and continued as if she hadn’t heard. “Let me see to your wounds; they won’t have branded the child, don’t worry.” She smiled at Heather. “What a pretty little girl. Come in, rest; you’re safe here.”

Sam and Rosie exchanged a look of astonished confusion. Virginia hurried through a dark archway at the back of the room, leaving them speechless.

Firelight washed rough cream walls. The floor covering was some kind of dry moss, springy underfoot, strewn with dried flowers and fragrant herbs. There was little furniture, only a basic kitchen—a water pump, a trestle of thick dark wood along the right-hand wall, cupboards. The large fireplace had a second archway beside it. In the center stood a low round table, like a big disk of lapis lazuli, with cushions scattered around for seats. Everything looked softly yellow and blue-green.

Faith collapsed onto a cushion with Heather in her lap. “Are you all right?” asked Rosie, kneeling beside her. “Where did they get you?”

Faith pulled down the neck of her dress and showed a weeping red blister just below her throat. Although swollen, the shape was a clear spiral. Rosie gasped. “Ohh. I’ve seen this before. Lucas had one, after he…”

Virginia came back with a brown glass bottle on a wad of gauze. “This lotion will ease the pain, although it will scar, of course; that’s the idea.” Sam only stared at her as she tended first Faith, then Rosie. It stung fiercely, making her eyes stream until it faded to a dull throb. Sam stood unflinching while Virginia dabbed his wound. When she’d finished, he touched one hand to her shoulder and snared her gaze so she couldn’t evade him. Rosie sat back on her heels, watching. She saw them side-on, their profiles painted by firelight.

“Did you hear what I called you?” he said quietly. “Don’t you recognize me? This is Rosie, Faith and Heather. You’re Virginia Wilder, but they call you Ginny.”

“I’m Sam. Hello? Mum, I’m your flaming—” He caught himself and continued in a more measured tone. “I’m your son.”

Her face froze, incredulous. “I had a son called Sam, but he was a boy… oh my god.”

“Yes, I was eleven when you left, but that was fifteen years ago. Don’t you know how long you’ve been away?”

Lotion and gauze fell to the floor. She put her fingers to her mouth. “Fifteen years? It doesn’t seem it. Elysion plays tricks… Yes, you look like him, but—no, it’s not possible.”

“Bloody hell,” he said, rubbing his hands over his hair. “We thought you were dead!”

“The life I had on Vaeth… it seems far away, cloudy… oh my god, don’t do this to me. You can’t be.”

Sam caught her wrists and drew her hands away from her face. To Rosie’s astonishment, he began to sing, “There may be trouble ahead… ” Ginny’s mouth opened; Rosie stared. Of all things, she had never expected to hear Sam singing an Irving Berlin song, ‘Let’s Face the Music and Dance.’

His voice was low, melodic, and slightly gravelly. Perhaps he wouldn’t have taken the stage on the strength of it, but here it was a revelation. Rosie and Faith exchanged a startled glance. Ginny’s face transformed. She appeared so dumbstruck that, when Sam spun her around in a jokey dance, she simply let him. He continued with, “I get no kick from champagne...” Cole Porter this time. ‘I Get a Kick Out of You.’

Rosie started to smile. It was the most absurd, most moving thing she’d ever witnessed. Ginny’s eyes opened wide and she gasped, “Oh—oh, Sam!”

Rosie had never seen his attention so completely focused on another woman before. Amid her relief, she felt a perfectly ungracious stab of jealousy.

“Oh, it’s really you. My Sam. Gods—all these years—why are you here? And Jon, where is he?”

There were tears running down his face. “Not with us, but he’s okay. You were trapped here. I knew you didn’t abandon us on purpose.”

Pulling away, Ginny sat down at the table next to Faith, covering her face with her hands. While she gathered herself, Sam sat cross-legged beside Rosie and said, “She loved those old songs. Didn’t you, Mum? We used to sing them together, remember?”

Ginny let her hands drop. Her ice-queen face was a blotchy pink mess. “Yes—but when you’re here a long time, the past fades like a dream. Still, I remember leaving Stonegate as if it were yesterday. I fell over you and your brothers, Rosie, as I was walking out.”

“Oh, I was practically insane with rage that day. I came into Elysion, only to rest a few days while I decided what to do. Then I couldn’t leave. The portal was blind stone. I might have known Lawrence would abandon the Gates.”

“He didn’t,” said Sam. “He insists there’s danger on this side. Is there?”

Ginny didn’t answer. She shook her head, her eyes full of unspoken thoughts. “I’m a poor hostess; out of practice,” she said, moving to stoke the fire and position a kettle over the flames. She fetched a patchwork quilt and wrapped it around Faith’s shoulders, then brought cups and a jug of fruit juice to the table, followed by cakes, fruit and cheese. The juice tasted of strawberries and pomegranates. Although Rosie was bone-tired, food and drink revived her, reawakening her fears for Lucas.

“It’s an Elysian tradition,” said Ginny, “to wait at the portal with gifts for the Vaethyr around Earth’s harvest time. Year after year I waited for you, but you never came.”

“Wish we could have done.” Sam’s voice nearly broke. “Father wouldn’t relent.”

Rosie put in, “And the Aelyr can’t open the portal from this side, I gather?”

Ginny shook her head. “One Gatekeeper was meant to serve both sides. Lawrence was never comfortable in the role.” She added lightly, “How is he?”

“Oh,” said Ginny. “I think I remember her. She was at the New York store… I met her once, I believe.”

“Oh yes, Lawrence loves being told what to do,” Ginny said acidly. “He must be ecstatic. Human, indeed. Is he happy?”

“When’s Dad ever happy?” Sam said with a grin. As they were talking, Faith slipped lower until she was lying flat, her head pillowed on a cushion and Heather sound asleep in her arms. Ginny tucked the quilt over them. “They put on a brave front, but things have been frosty for a while.”

At that, Ginny’s mouth flattened with knowing amusement. “Ah. That’s your father.” She looked at Rosie. “He’s the dream lover at the start—until you realize he’s devouring you to warm the icy chasm in his soul. Only no one can. Then he turns away and crowns himself the Arctic Prince. He did so with me and with Jessica. He will with Sapphire, too.” Her face lengthened and she breathed, “Oh, Rosie, I’m sorry. You won’t have known about Lawrence and your mother. An unfortunate diversion.”

“Good,” Ginny said crisply. “My humiliation is complete.” She wasn’t a warm or cozy person, Rosie observed, but the polar opposite of Jessica. “I have nothing against Lucas, of course. A beautiful boy.”

“He’s why we’re here,” Rosie put in, and gave a brief, bare explanation.

Ginny became somber. She brought a huge brown pot of tea to the table before she answered. Every move she made was poised, goddess-like. “It’s true, the Aetheric soul-essence is drawn to the Spiral, drawn to the center of Asru, the Mirror Pool…”

“And can we go after him?” Rosie was fraught with anxiety. She felt Sam’s hand on her knee. “It could be like trekking to Siberia, for all I know. I’m worried we’re losing time.”

“There’s a specific way you must go, and I’m not promising it will be easy, but it is walkable. However, you can’t go until light. You’d get lost, abducted or eaten. And you won’t last five minutes unless you sleep off the initiation drug first.”

Rosie knew she was right. She sipped the hot, honeyed tea, trying not to think about failure, or the chances of the Lychgate being relocked behind them.

“Come on, we are talking about Dad here,” said Sam. “Of course not. We suspected he’d murdered and buried you in the woods.”

Rosie put in, “I suppose seeing my mother and Lucas around can’t have helped.”

“Oh, that.” Ginny swept her hair back over her shoulders. “We think we’re above mortals, but we’re not. We’re every bit as prone to bad behavior and insane jealousy. Lawrence would always flee an argument rather than confront it.” She shrugged. “We were at war for years, in the business of hurting each other. Neither of us was quite faithful. As for Jessica, I bear no grudge.”

Ginny gave a thin smile. Sam stared, shocked. “No, the reason I left was rather more complicated. As Aetherials, we’re sensitive to deeper layers of reality. Sometimes it can drive us mad. Lawrence wanted to live in Ecuador. For me, though, rain forest and Dumannios were all tangled together in nightmares. I had to come home, where the Dusklands were peaceful and kind. He thought it was fine to dump you and Jon in boarding school, but it wasn’t.”

Looking pale, Sam said, “Dad couldn’t have lived abroad anyway, being Gatekeeper…”

“It wasn’t that he didn’t care about you,” Ginny said, touching his hand. “Don’t think that. No, it was being Gatekeeper that he wanted to escape. He couldn’t, of course, but he resented me bitterly for making him face the truth. And I hated him for not understanding my fears, when he should have understood better than anyone. That was the problem, Sam. We each had a similar curse, yet we each refused to acknowledge it. We were both stubborn.”

Sam frowned, eyes narrowing. “He’s as paranoid as hell. He insists there’s some great force ready to burst through the Gates and destroy us. Some believe him, some don’t.”

“He always had that darkness,” Ginny’s gaze slipped down and sideways. “It drove me away. If I’d known I’d be trapped here, though, I would never have come.”

“He must have suspected you were here when he sealed the portal, surely?” said Sam. “Bastard!”

“He tried to find you, I’m certain,” said Rosie. “I think he was in pieces, but just couldn’t ever show it.”

“I loved him,” Ginny said simply. “I left because I was at my wits’ end. I didn’t mean it to be forever.” They sat gazing at each other. After a minute, she lowered her eyes and asked softly, “And what about you, Sam? Look at you, a fine strong man. How are you, what’s happened? Tell me everything.”

“Hell, where do I start?” He sighed. Rosie saw his shoulders dip with the weight of memory. “Can’t we sing some nice Cole Porter songs instead?”

“No, Rosie, don’t go.” Sam caught her hand. “She’s less likely to thrash me around the room if you’re here.”

Ginny was studying them, one eyebrow arched. “You two are an item, I take it?”

An hour or two later, Ginny showed them through an archway into a small dark passage with two rooms leading off. There were no doors, only a heavy curtain across each entrance. She drew back one of these curtains for them, kissed them good night, and was gone.

“My mother,” Sam whispered. “I found my mother. Told her everything, and she’s still speaking to me.” He couldn’t stop smiling.

“I like her,” said Rosie. “I love the way she’s sort of acerbic. I can see where you get it from.”

The room was strange, apparently taking no account of the cottage’s outside dimensions. It was near-dark, soaked in a midnight-blue glow with walls and ceiling disappearing into shadow. The floor sloped slightly upwards towards the far end and was covered in a thick, dry carpet of mossy fronds. There was no furniture, only a cushiony dip in the center.

“I take it that’s the bed,” said Sam. “Kind of Freudian, isn’t it? It looks like a mouth, or… something.” He dropped the backpack and took off his boots. Rosie did the same, felt the carpet warm and squashy beneath her feet. A faint glow in the wall to her right led her to explore. She found a narrow, curved passageway, lit by a soft glow, winding into a small cave. A spring flowed down the polished limestone curves of the wall and away through a hole into an underground stream. Aetherial plumbing, apparently. She availed herself of the hole—hoping that was its intended use—then stripped and showered under the chilly waterfall. A cleft in the rock held clouds of dry vegetable matter that could be torn off in clumps to dry the skin. Shivering, Rosie quickly dressed again.

“The weirdest en-suite bathroom ever is through there,” she said as she came back. “No hot water, though.”

“No. Use the spongy stuff.” As she waited for him, she felt nervous. She was on her feet near the doorway, staring at the strange oval sleeping area, when he came back.

“Not tried out the bed, yet?” he asked. He sat down on the lip, looking up at her. “Feels nice and soft.”

Rosie wrapped her arms across her waist. She was suddenly frozen. He put his tongue between his teeth, gazed quizzically at her. “What’s up? I’m not going to pounce on you.”

“Really? Oh damn,” she said, trying to joke and failing. She let her hands fall. “I know you’re not, Sam.”

“You weren’t sure, though, were you? Good grief, Rosie, do you think I’m that insensitive?”

“All I want to do is sleep,” he said. “Not that I wouldn’t want to—normally—but as things are, I can’t. I’m not a machine. Of course it wouldn’t be right; I know that. I’m not a complete Neanderthal, you know.”

“Sam, will you cool down?” she said, kneeling in front of him. “I never suggested you were. I felt awkward, that’s all. Never been in a situation like this with you before.”

He exhaled. The hurt look bled away. “I’m sorry, love,” he said. “Who the hell am I to get all indignant, anyway? Considering my track record of pouncing on you every chance I get, why should you trust me?”

“But I do,” she said, and meant it—because if she couldn’t trust him, they had nothing. “Let’s not argue. We’re both worn out and not thinking straight.”

He gave a rueful smile, white in the dusk-light. “Come on, then. You sleep on the squishy thing. I’ll take the floor.”

Sam stayed fully clothed and so did she, ready for fight or flight. Carefully she eased herself into the dip. She found a quilt there, deepest violet in color and intricately sewn with tiny flowers. As she lay down on soft silk-padded moss with the cover over her, it felt like floating. She said after a moment, “It’s unbelievably comfortable.”

Take a hint, damn it. “Sam, does no sex mean we can’t even sleep together?”

“Erm.” Lying a couple of yards away, he rose on one elbow. “Depends if you can control yourself, sweetie.”

She gave a soft, tired laugh. “I can’t sleep without you. Please hold me.”

No answer, but a second later she felt him sliding into the dip beside her. His arms went around her and he kissed her forehead. “I thought you’d never ask. Go to sleep. I’m here. And tomorrow, we’ll find Luc.”

This was something they’d never done before; shared a bed fully clothed, holding each other. It felt strange and wonderful. Rosie turned on her side and, with Sam behind her and his arm over her, she fell into exhausted sleep.

Sam lay holding Rosie, his face in her hair. Her body molded to his as if she belonged there. Simply lying here with her was more than he’d ever dreamed of. It was wonderful beyond words. And unbearable.

At one stage she woke and he felt her shaking with suppressed sobs. He stroked her hair and held her more closely, letting her know with all his heart that he was there with her. He thought, I love you, but didn’t say it out loud because he wouldn’t be able to bear the silence if she didn’t say it back. Eventually she slept again.

I need to know if this is the end or the beginning, she’d said. Sam had no answer. Love was meant to be noble and self-sacrificing and all the things he wasn’t. And it had brought her to this.

She was right about him, he knew. He’d loved the mischief, the chaos, the sheer unkind fun of tempting her off her chosen path and into the dark thorny woods. Oh yes, so much gleeful pleasure at her fall. The truth was that he hadn’t known any other way. She wouldn’t give her love freely, so he’d stolen it. He truly wasn’t good enough for her; he was cruel, selfish, a wolf who’d harried her until she’d given in. And this was the result.

If you get something you don’t deserve, insisted a small voice at the back of his mind, how can you possibly hope to keep it? He tried to ignore the voice. His sweet dark red rose lay warm in his arms. For now, nothing else mattered.

Seventeen

Spiral Fire