Forests of the Heart (56 page)

After all he’d experienced in the past twenty-four hours, Hunter felt he shouldn’t have been surprised by anything at this point. He’d already learned the hard way that the world held far more in its familiar boundaries than he could ever have imagined. It was all so astonishing, from the mean-spirited threat of the Gentry to the quiet awe of the native
manitou,
never mind the business of avoiding the ice storm by moving through some between place where the foul weather couldn’t touch them. But nothing could have prepared him for that moment when they stepped from winter into autumn.

The otherworld forest reared about them like some fairy-tale wood. There was nothing New World about it. Any time Hunter had been in the bush around Newford it was all undergrowth, the spaces between the trees choked with new growth, fallen trees, weeds, saplings, brambles. This forest was like something out of the Brothers Grimm. The trees were the size of redwoods, rearing up to impossible heights, except they were oaks and ashes, chestnuts and beech, trees that had no business being this big. The ground between them was covered with ferns and a carpet of moss and fallen leaves that was springy and soft underfoot.

“So there really is a wood beyond the world,” Ellie said, her voice holding the same astonishment and awe he was feeling.

He turned to look at her. “What do you mean?”

“It’s just this book I read when I was a teenager. I fell in love with the art of the Pre-Raphaelities, so I thought I’d try one of William Morris’s novels.”

“I thought he designed furniture and wallpaper patterns and that kind of stuff.”

She nodded. “He did. He also painted and drew, had his own printing press and designed books, wrote essays and poetry, and still found the time to invent the fantasy novel while he was at it.”

“How very interesting,” Aunt Nancy said. “And how will this help us with the Glasduine?”

They both started, having forgotten her presence. Hunter turned to face the older woman’s frowning features.

“Look,” he said, surprising himself that he could talk back so firmly to her. “We’re just trying to put this into some kind of perspective, okay? I know it’s all old business for you, but we’re feeling kind of cut off from anything that makes any sense. So if we grab a few moments of just normal conversation, it’s not because we don’t care. It’s because we’re trying to connect, if only for a moment, to something that actually does make some sense.”

Aunt Nancy regarded him with a long considering look, then smiled. For some reason, Hunter wasn’t particularly put at ease by that smile.

“You’ll do,” she said. “Take your moment. I have some business of my own to attend to.”

She walked a little way from them and sat down on the roots of one of the giant oaks, her backpack between her legs as she rummaged around in it. For all her talk about being an old woman, not to mention the fact that she looked her sixty-plus years, she moved with an easy grace that Hunter had only ever seen in dancers and gymnasts.

“Can you see it?” Ellie whispered to him.

“See what?”

“It’s like her shadow’s got a mind of its own—and it doesn’t even have her shape. It looks more like this huge spider.”

“Oh, man …”

He didn’t see it, but he could all too easily imagine it. Somehow he knew that he was never going to be able to trust anything anymore, that what he actually saw was ever all that was there.

“What’s she doing now?” Ellie asked.

Hunter shook his head. He had no idea.

As they watched, Aunt Nancy used the side of one boot to clear a flat patch of ground by her feet. Then she took a small pouch from her backpack and shook a handful of what looked like bird bones into the palm of her hand. Setting the pouch aside, she cupped her hands around the bones and gave them a brisk shake before dropping them onto the dirt.

“Hmm,” she said.

Hunter and Ellie approached her. Hunter could see nothing in the pattern of the bones, but Ellie seemed entranced.

“They’re so full of light,” she said.

Aunt Nancy nodded. “I’ve had them for a long time. Things people like us use a lot tend to store medicine like a battery.”

“What are they?” Hunter asked. “Something like an oracle?”

She gave him a grin. “Something like that.”

“So what do you see in them?”

“More questions than answers,” she replied. She swept the bones up and replaced them in their pouch. “I was hoping to get a fix on the Glasduine, but it’s too new-born. Doesn’t have much scent. Doesn’t really leave a trail. And it’s not using its medicine, so I can’t track it by that either. What little it has used is just kind of spreading out like a mist and soaking into everything.”

Looking up at them, she added, “But the interesting thing is, we’re not the only ones out here looking for it.”

“The Gentry,” Ellie said.

Aunt Nancy shook her head. “Nope, I caught a trace of them, but they’ve lit a shuck for the territories, so far as I can tell. Finally gave up on trying to take what wasn’t theirs, I’m guessing, and they’ve headed somewhere else where the pickings might be easier. West, it seems, though compass directions aren’t as reliable here as back home.”

“Then who?” Hunter asked.

“Can’t tell for sure. There’s two of them—full of medicine, but nobody I know. Everybody’s got a kind of signature, you know, the way the medicine runs in them, how they use it, if they use it. So what’s strange is, one of this pair reminds me of a spirit guide I met back when I was a girl. Hadn’t seen him for a time and then I heard he died some years back.”

“And the other?”

“That one’s got First People medicine, real strong, but not any kind I know.”

“You mean Native American?” Ellie asked.

“No. Older than that.”

Hunter and Ellie exchanged glances. Hunter couldn’t shake the impression that this new complication had Aunt Nancy feeling nervous, and if she was feeling nervous, how were he and Ellie supposed to feel?

“So is this good or bad news?” he asked.

Aunt Nancy shrugged. Standing up, she brushed bark and moss from her jeans, then swung her pack onto her back.

“Hard to tell,” she said. “The good news is that while we can’t track the Glasduine, we can follow them. Kind of like tracking the coyote that’s hunting the rabbit we’re really after.”

“And the bad news?” Ellie asked.

“We don’t know what the coyote wants.”

“So … are they dangerous?” Hunter asked.

“Let’s put it this way,” Aunt Nancy replied. “They’re powerful. And everything you meet in the spiritworld has the potential of being dangerous. But there’s no point in worrying over any of it right now. We’ve got a ways to go before we run into them. I know a few shortcuts, but nothing like they seem to know.”

Ellie and Hunter fell in step behind her as she set off. The awe that Hunter had felt when they’d crossed over into the spiritworld had shifted into nervousness. Every tree trunk, he realized, could hide some danger. Some
big
danger, because these weren’t exactly shrubs. Then he had to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Ellie asked.

He shook his head. “It’s not really funny, ha ha. I was just thinking of how Ria was on at me about getting out of the ruts of my life.”

“So?”

“Well, look at where we are, what we’re doing. I mean how far could I have gotten from the way things were than where we are now?”

“Point,” Ellie said. “But at least we’re not alone.”

“Like I said before we crossed over,” he told her. “I’m in for the duration.”

She offered him her hand. “I’m glad you came.”

“Well, you know, this is the weirdest date I’ve ever been on.”

“We’re on a date?”

“I’d like to think so,” he said. “Helps make it seem more normal. I mean, first dates are always a little awkward, don’t you think?”

She leaned closer and kissed his cheek.

“You’re an idiot,” she told him.

“But an idiot on a date.”

She smiled. “Definitely a date. But what’ll we do for a second one?”

“I was thinking of a trip to the moon.”

She gave him a whack on the shoulder with her free hand, but she laughed and squeezed his fingers at the same time.

Hunter wanted to keep it light. That way it wouldn’t feel as weird as it was. It would stop him from brooding about what he’d done already, what he might have to do when they caught up with this thing they were chasing. He glanced ahead to catch Aunt Nancy giving them a look. Her eyes were so dark, her features stoic; she was impossible to read. He thought she might say something again about how they should be taking things seriously, but then she smiled. Turning her head forward again, she continued to lead them on.

“So,”
el lobo
said. “Do you think they remember that you’re supposed to be friends?”

“No lo sé,”
Bettina told him. I don’t know.

Because it was impossible to say. These
cadejos
weren’t the whimsical creatures she’d taken to heart all those years ago. In their place had come strangers to answer her call, dark-eyed, aloof, and dangerous. They neither spoke nor sang and that silence frightened Bettina more than anything. There was no happy dancing, little cloven hooves keeping time as they clicked and clacked on the stones. No childlike songs. These
cadejos
approached on stiff legs, the hackles of their brightly coloured fur lifted at the back of their necks and down along their spine.

“But can we blame them for their anger?” she added. “Perhaps I was never such a good friend to them. Does a true friend shut you out of their life the way I did with them?”

“I suppose not,” her wolf said.

He moved closer to her, standing in such a way that should the dogs attack, he could easily step forward to protect her. But Bettina put a hand on his shoulder and gently moved him to one side.

“We’re not here to fight,” she said. “But to ask forgiveness.” She turned her attention back to the little rainbow dogs.
“¿Me perdona?”
she asked of them. Will you forgive me?

Still they remained silent, dark gazes watching them with the singular intent of hunters. She saw there were seven of them.
Que extraño.
How odd, she thought, that she should be able to number them like this. They’d never stayed still for long enough before for her to get an accurate count, always dancing, gamboling, never all of them quite in her line of sight at the same time. Now they sat in a half-circle, the colors of their pelts making a peculiar, furry rainbow against the desert soil—like one that had been drawn by a child who had her own idea as to how the bands of colors should be ordered.

“You know I meant you no harm,” she said. “But my sorrow was so great. When the clown dog came and led Abuela away …”

“No somos la Maravilla,”
one of them finally said.

Its voice gave away nothing of what it was feeling, but at least they had spoken, Bettina thought. At least they were willing to communicate. She knelt on the ground to bring herself closer to the level of their heads. Beside her,
el lobo
followed suit, sitting on his heels.

“I know, I know,” Bettina said. “Of course you’re not. But I felt betrayed by spirit dogs.”

“Se traicionamos.”
We were betrayed.

“Sí.
I understand that now.”

She waited for them to go on, but they fell back to their silent watching.

“What can I do to make amends?” Bettina asked.

Still they gave back silence.

“For favor,”
she said.
“Lo imploro. Hable a mi. “
Speak to me.

Finally one of them blinked.

“Why should we trust you?” it asked.

“You only want us to kill monsters,” another said.

“You think we are monsters.”

“No somos monstruos.”

“Somos los cadejos.”

“Infeliz.”
Unhappy.

“No deseado.”
Unwanted.

“Los homeless.”

Bettina thought her heart would break. They were still so serious and grave, so unlike the happy creatures she’d known. She could hear the pain in their voices and to know that she was the one who had put that pain there, that she had stolen away their joy, was almost too much for her to bear.

“I can’t make you trust me,” she said. “How could I? I can only ask you to give me another chance to prove myself true.”

Los cadejos
looked at each other, as though communicating silently.

“We see you are sincere,” one of them finally said.

“Or think you are sincere.”

“So we are willing to forgive you.”

“But there is a cost.”

Bettina refused to look at her wolf. She knew what he was thinking, but it didn’t matter.

“What will be the cost?” she asked.

“You must give up that which you hold most dear.”

“For as long as you gave us up.”

“By this you will earn our trust.”

Bettina looked at them for a long moment, then slowly shook her head.

“I can’t do it again,” she said.
Los cadejos
cocked their heads.”
¿Qué significa?”
one of them asked.

“Don’t you see?” she told them. “During all that time … Abuela, Papa, you … all were lost to me. How can you ask me to do so again?”“We were part of what you held dearest?”

“Then why did you abandon us?”

“I did not know I was doing so until you were gone. And then … then … you must understand. The coming of the clown dog marked the beginning of all my losses. It made me angry and afraid of spirit dogs.”

“I can vouch for that,” her wolf said.

Los cadejos
looked his way.

“Please,” Bettina said to him. “This is between us.” She returned her attention to the half-circle of rainbow-colored dogs that sat before her. “I was wrong. But I did not send you away. You left on your own. What I did wrong was not calling you back to me until now.”

“We must think on this,” one of
los cadejos
said after they had all looked at each other again.

“Gracias.”

“We promise nothing.”

“I understand.”

“We are not here to hunt monsters for you.”