Fire: Tales of Elemental Spirits (15 page)

Miri was horribly aware of the inert hand she was holding. The fingers lay limply in hers; she had to hold on with an effort to prevent the hand from sliding away from hers and flopping back to the ground. She saw the two riding helmets and the remains of the picnic piled up behind where Leslie and Mal were. In the middle of the crisis that little heap of human gear—Mal's useless helmet, which had not prevented what had happened—suddenly seemed the saddest thing she had ever seen.

She laid the hand down gently and stood up. She had brought blankets and the useless first-aid kit and a thermos of instant coffee with half a bag of sugar in it. She was embarrassed by the first-aid kit, by her adult-ed emergency training, by her ability to splint a broken bone on a healthy unbroken volunteer at the adult-ed center, while an EMT with a clipboard watched her. She'd never had to do more than put a Band-Aid on a graze, and once she'd created a sling for a sprained wrist. She unrolled the blankets and retied the first-aid kit to the back of Balthazar's saddle. She uncapped the thermos and made Leslie and Mal each drink some of the hot too-sweet coffee; Leslie drank a few sips mechanically, and then held the plastic mug awkwardly for Mal. She does it better than I would have, Miri thought. They didn't teach us that in the first-aid course. She laid one blanket over Mal as he lay, and tucked the other one around the sitting Leslie. Neither of them seemed to notice.

It had stopped raining, and the wind had died, but the feeling of tension and fear didn't ease. Almost as if they were in the eye of a hurricane.

ʺI'd better go tell the ambulance crew where to come,ʺ she said. She paused. She had to say something, but the words didn't exist. ʺWill you be okay?ʺ

Leslie looked up, an expression on her face not unlike the one that had been on Flame's, that day at the pound. She didn't bother to try to smile, but she understood what Miri was saying. ʺYes,ʺ she said. ʺWe'll be fine.ʺ And Miri clearly heard in her voice that she wouldn't break down or have hysterics while Mal needed her.

But when Miri turned away, to go back to Balthazar, to mount up and ride back as quickly as she still could—dusk would be black dark soon, and if they were following a flashlight she'd have to dismount and both of them walk—there was Flame, standing in her way. She tried to brush past him, but he wouldn't let her. ʺFlame,ʺ she said, ʺwe have to go back—well, I have to go back. If you want to stay here and—and guard them, that'd be good. But I have to go.ʺ And she reached over him to pick up Balthazar's reins.

And he bit her.

It was, briefly, as if the world had ended. The world, in some ways, had already ended; although she was still able not to think about what had happened to Mal, to her little brother, to one of the three people she loved best in the world, the awareness of it was horribly near. Still without really facing what had happened, she told herself that doctors were miracle workers these days, that hospitals had machines that could do
everything,
that Leslie, wonderful Leslie, had kept her head and wisely refrained from trying to move him, so that anything any doctor or any machine could do for him could still be done. But the encroaching darkness of this evening still felt like her own life closing in, as if, after this, there would be no dawn.

And then her dog bit her.

She looked down from what felt like a very long way away, as if she were floating up among the treetops somewhere . . . as if she might float away entirely. He had bitten her swiftly and decisively—but, she now realized, gently. He still had hold of her arm; she could feel his teeth, but they weren't hurting her. She thought, I'm a balloon and he's holding my string. Slowly she floated back down from the treetops, till she could feel her feet on the ground, her breath going in and out. Her dog's teeth in her arm. She let Balthazar's reins drop back on his neck and said to Flame, ʺWhat is it?ʺ

He let go her arm and turned away, trotting straight back to the path to the graveyard. Slowly she unfastened Balthazar's tethering rope, and looped it around a tree—a smaller, innocent tree, a little distance from the path, and from Leslie and Mal. Then reluctantly she followed Flame.

ʺWhat is it?ʺ said Leslie.

ʺI don't know,ʺ said Miri. ʺBut he brought me here. He brought me a lot faster than I'd've been able to find the way myself, in this weather. I'd like to see what he wants. It won't take long. I promise.ʺ

As soon as she set foot on the little track into the graveyard she knew something was terribly wrong. It was like . . . she couldn't think of anything that it was like: that was part of the wrongness. She felt dizzy and sick, and as if she was no longer sure which way was up and which down; it was an effort to pick up each foot and think where to put it down. Especially because her feet kept wanting to go backwards; the one in front kept trying to pick itself up and move it behind the one in back. She concentrated on Flame's tail. She had been following Flame's tail for a very long time; leagues; centuries; all the way from the barn to here, somewhere on the journey unknowingly crossing a boundary to this other country where this awful thing had happened to her brother. . . .

The path itself was short. When they reached the end of it and the sky opened out before them she was astonished to discover that there were streaks of sunset lighting up the retreating storm clouds in gold and pink and pale orange, and the sky above them was a glorious deep blue. There was a huge pale amber moon just above the trees. She was dumbfounded that such beauty could still exist, in this foreign country where her brother lay twisted and helpless where he had fallen.

The trees around the edges of the graveyard were black, and the crooked, leaning tombstones were black. All the rest was washed in the rose-grey of the sunset. Flame himself was a deep vivid russet, like a maple tree in October.

No; one other thing was black. There was a tall, hunched, half-human shape in the middle of the clear space; in the middle of the little cluster of tombstones. She didn't come here often, but she was sure that no such tall thing had ever stood where this one was now.

She stopped. Flame turned around instantly and came back to her; went round behind her and leaned against the backs of her legs. I don't want to go forward, she thought. I don't want to go any nearer that thing—whatever it is.

And then it opened its eyes, or turned its head, or threw back its hood. All of the rest of it was still black, lightlessly black, black as if light were an unconvincing myth, but it had red eyes. Large, slanted, almond-shaped, scarlet-red eyes.

Miri put her hands over her mouth to stop herself from screaming.

Flame backed away a pace or two and then
slammed
into her, and she staggered forward, away from the encircling trees, out into the graveyard. She dropped her hands and whimpered like a scolded puppy, but raised her face to the sky and tried to imagine the touch of the moonlight like a real touch: like the nose of your horse or your dog in your hand, against your face or your arm, hoping for something nice to eat, or at least a pat; saying ʺhello,ʺ saying ʺI'm here,ʺ saying ʺhow are you?ʺ saying ʺcan I help?ʺ The moon was a silvery gold. The shadows on its face were grey, and there was no red anywhere.

She felt Flame's nose on her arm, and then the sweep of his tongue, over the place where he had bitten her, minutes or months before. She did not look down. She did not want to see his red eyes. She stared at the nearest tombstone, so she need not look at the thing's eyes either.

No!
she cried.

No, she thought. No, no, no. She raised her hands again, and put them on either side of her face and squeezed, as if this were a known tactic in an emergency, like artificial respiration for someone who has stopped breathing, like not moving someone with a spine injury.
No. . . .
And Jane would never let anyone she loved be buried here in this place, this awful place. . . .

Why?
she cried again.
Why?

The thing quivered as if it were laughing, and so she knew it was the thing who spoke—if
speaking
was how to describe what it did. She heard it; that was enough—more than enough.

A third voice:
Do not ask why. There is no why. Because he can. That is enough. Because he is wicked. Because this is a place of power, and his kind are drawn to power.

Again it laughed.
Never.

It seemed to her that the thing went still in a way it had not been still before, and that there was no laughter in it anywhere.
That is not enough.

And then the thing did laugh again.
Begun! You're a
dog
. What is Jry? A squirrel? A frog? Perhaps Krobekahl is a tea-pot or a chair. And I have the boy. And through him this place—this place of power, as you have called it.

You do not have him!
Miri said.
He is my brother! He is human—he is daylight and breathing!

Not for long,
said the thing.
Not for much longer.

Give him back!
she said.
Give him back!

You can claim him, if you dare,
said the thing, and it was obvious that it was sure she did not dare.
I would not want Gelsoraban to think there is no—what is it?—mercy in me.

How?
she said fiercely.

Why,
said the thing,
you need only ask—nicely—each of the nice people who lie here already. Who have lain here for so long with no one but themselves to talk to. They are quite looking forward to someone new. I have promised them, you see. You will have to convince them to give him up. I do not think they will wish to do so. I think they will need a great deal of persuading. Too much, perhaps, for someone as young as you. Someone as fragile as you. For daylight and breathing are very fragile—especially after dark.

She looked up. Sunset was fading quickly; the first stars were out above the remains of the clouds. Again she looked at the moon, and this time she willed herself to feel the moon's light like the touch of a friend. And then she looked down, into the blazing red eyes of the creature she'd brought home from the pound; the creature that looked enough like a dog—though it obviously wasn't a dog—that it had been taken to the pound. She remembered Ronnie saying: when Diane went out with the van she almost didn't bring him back, because of the way he looks.
Gelsoraban.
And the horrible black thing that had broken her brother knew him. Who—what—was Gelsoraban?

Flame gave a tiny, doglike whine. It was exactly the whine of a dog who is suddenly sure its beloved owner doesn't love it any more. It was like the look in his eyes at the pound; the look in Leslie's eyes when she'd said, ʺWe'll be fine.ʺ

And at that moment the black thing laughed. That was its second mistake; it must have thought that would finish breaking Miri's nerve. But instead it drove her back on the things she knew. She knew that their mother would never let Mal be buried here. And she knew that if there was any chance for her brother, however remote, however dreadful, she would take it. And she knew that it didn't matter what Flame was or who he had been—or what color his eyes were. What mattered was that she trusted him.

It didn't seem right to stroke the head of something capable of defying the black thing—to stroke it like a dog. But this was Flame—Flame, whom she'd rescued from the pound, the top of whose head was particularly silky, as if to invite stroking. She drew her hand down his sleek head—and took a deep shuddering breath—and felt a little braver.

She didn't want to ask the black thing what she had to do to talk to the ghosts, and so she walked forward—
toward
the black thing as it stood in the center of the graveyard. Her stomach was threatening to turn inside out and her knees were threatening to drop her to the ground, but she crossed the few steps to the first tombstone and hesitantly put her hand on it. . . .

She was dead and trapped and cold and terrified and smothered by darkness and paralyzed and
dead
and she couldn't move and couldn't breathe and she had never been so cold and this was darker than anything could be she was blind and
dead
and helpless and she could not see or hear or feel except fear and cold and this is what it was to be
dead
. . . .

No. She could hear. She could hear the black thing laughing.

She could see too. She could see Flame's flaming eyes, even in this darkness, and she knew them for his eyes, not the thing's. She thought, how lucky I am you are not a dog. I would not be able to see a dog's eyes in this darkness. And I think I might be frightened to death if I couldn't see you—couldn't see your eyes.

She said—she tried to say—ʺPardon me, is anyone there? I've come to ask—to ask you—if I could have my brother back, please? We would miss him so much and—and I know accidents happen, but it wasn't an accident, it was the black thing.ʺ