Spellcrossed (50 page)

I staggered to my feet and clambered along the muddy bank, ignoring my sodden clothes and the cold that made my teeth chatter and the sharp throb of pain in my left wrist. As I neared the saplings, I opened my mouth to shout Rowan’s name.

A hill blurred, and I blinked to clear my vision. But it wasn’t the hill or my vision. It was the air just beyond the trees, roiling and churning as if caught in a whirlpool.

The whirlpool shuddered. A sliver of light cracked open the sky like a lightning bolt. But the lightning was golden. As golden as a cloud of fireflies.

The rough bark of a tree beneath my fingers. The golden light blessing my eyes. The stream laughing as it tumbled over the hillside, past a small outcropping of rock below me, past a man with his arms upraised and another with a red pack and a guitar.

A rainbow shimmered in the air where the dying rays of the sun sliced across the thin cascade of water. A warm breeze caressed my face, carrying with it the dizzying aromas of roses and honeysuckle, ripe berries and sweet grass. And glorious birdsong that shamed the pitiful chirps from the treetops.

And music…

High-pitched and silvery, like the rippling glissando of a harp.

And singing…

The sweetest of harmonies, augmented by a deep vibration that pulsed through me like a second heartbeat. So might crystals sound if they could sing. So might the heart of the world sound if it could beat. Add one voice, change one thread of the song, and it would be diminished.

Then the chorus swelled, and as beautiful as it had seemed before, this was the sound of perfection. I yearned to be part of it, to blend forever in the pure, glorious, aching joy of that song.

Another rainbow, more beautiful than the first, growing out of the shelf of rock, arcing toward the portal of golden light where stars now danced like fireflies. A rainbow bridge, shimmering with otherworldly brilliance, pulsating with the steady tattoo of that heartbeat.

The man with the red pack places his foot on the bridge. His giddy laughter shivers through me and I laugh with him.

And suddenly, I am scrambling down the rocky hillside, slipping through the waterfall’s spray, leaping onto the shelf of rock, running past the man with the upraised arms, running after the lucky one on the rainbow bridge.

“Maggie!”

My steps falter. I know that voice. It comes from behind me, so it must belong to the man with the upraised arms.

The man on the bridge hesitates and looks back. I know that face. But it is so much older than I remember.

The music urges me onward. The golden light fills my eyes. But another power rips through my chest, cleaving heart and spirit alike.

“Maggie! Please!”

The man and the bridge blur just as the hill did.

“Run, Jack!”

Something is wrong. Even the golden light seems to sense it for the stars are winking out one by one.

The man on the bridge starts running toward the light. I have to stop him. There is something I have to do, something I have to give him.

“Maggie!”

Three times, he has called my name. Three times for a charm. Where did I learn that?

Warmth enfolds me. A breeze kisses my cheeks. The scent of lavender fills my nostrils.

“Rowan will always carry you in his heart. We all will. Remember that, my dear. And know that you will always have a home at the Crossroads.”

The breeze whips my hair across my eyes, obscuring the rainbow bridge and the flickering portal and the golden light of Faerie.

“Goddamn it, Maggie! Don’t you give up on us!” that broken voice shouts.

The siren call of the music beckons me. The sweetest music I will ever hear in my life.

I cover my ears to block it out. And then I turn my back on Faerie and stumble into Rowan’s arms.

I
WAKE TO THE BLARE OF A CAR HORN. I cannot understand why the skylights have disappeared. Then I remember: I am in the guest room of Alison’s home in Delaware.

I relax when I sense Maggie’s presence somewhere in the house. I barely remember stumbling inside yesterday evening, nor when I have ever slept through an entire night. Hardly surprising after that hellish car ride.

Pale slivers of sunlight leak between the panels of fabric at the far end of the room. I realize now that they cover a sliding glass door. How strange that my bedroom in this house has one, too.

I slip on my dressing gown, pad over to the doors, and fumble in the gloom for a cord. The blinds ratchet open, treating me to a depressing vista: a grid of asphalt; a collection of narrow townhouses, and a fortresslike structure that must be the hospital. I spy a patch of green that might be grass, but no trees anywhere. Still, sunlight slants through the warren of buildings; we will have a nice day for the wedding.

I pull open the door and am greeted by the reek of car exhaust and gasoline and garbage. A blessing for humans that their senses are so muffled; how else could they stand to live here?

I shove the door closed and sink onto the bed. My
muscles ache from vomiting, my stomach—my whole body—a hollowed-out shell. That I survived at all is due largely to Maggie’s new convertible.

When she suggested buying one, I pictured a long, sleek automobile with fins or one of those sporty little roadsters driven by international playboys and middle-aged men seeking to reclaim their youth. Our car is rather stumpy. But Maggie quoted a lot of initials that apparently proved it was a sound purchase in spite of its horrifying price.

I made it through Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York with only mild queasiness and windburn. Then we reached New Jersey.

The rain forced us to put up the roof. After that, we had to pull over every fifteen or twenty miles. I now have the dubious distinction of vomiting at every rest stop and exit on the southbound side of the New Jersey Turnpike. Doubtless, on our return trip, I will become acquainted with those on the northbound side, although Maggie has suggested another route that will allow me to see the “scenic” parts of the state.

I will have to take her word that they exist. After marveling at the incredible sprawl of New York City, I recall little of New Jersey other than that endless highway studded by giant signs advertising dating services, insurance companies, and an adult club. And an airport where the giant planes soared so low that I feared they would land atop us. The roar of their engines made me shudder as much as the car.

I force myself to my feet. After mistakenly stumbling into a closet, I discover the bathroom next door. I have to use a washcloth to turn on the nozzles in the shower, but the hot water revives me. As I reach for the shower curtain, I feel her entering the bathroom.

She perches on the toilet seat, still dressed in her long flannel nightgown and slippers. A steaming cup rests on the sink’s faux marble countertop. I breathe in the scent of ginger that rises from the cup and from Maggie’s body.

Her gaze sweeps over me, and a quiet smile blossoms on her face—the same smile with which she greeted me when she awoke in my bed. A night and a day after that mad dash through the woods with Maggie’s body cradled in my arms and her blood bathing my hand. A night and a day after she looked onto Faerie and I thought I had lost her.

“How are you feeling?” she asks.

Like the discarded carapace of a cicada.

“Hungry.”

“I’ll make you some scrambled eggs and toast after you get dressed.”

As she turns to leave, I climb out of the tub, carry her hand to my lips, and press a kiss to her palm.

“I love you,” I tell her, as I have every morning since she returned to me.

“I love you, too,” she replies as she always does. But this time, she frowns. “I’m okay, Rowan. Really.”

But I can’t help recalling that wild creature who laughed as she raced for the portal, heedless of the blood running down her leg where she cut herself on the rocks, heedless of the pain of her sprained wrist. Heedless of me.

She will always bear the scar on her knee. It is the other scars I fear more: the ones on her soul and her mind and her heart.

Her hands come up to caress my face. “I’m here, Rowan.”

She said that the night we found each other at the Golden Bough. And promised then that she would always come back to me.

And she did. It still amazes me that she possessed the willpower to turn away from the portal. As often as I have claimed that human love is greater than the power of Faerie, it was only at that moment that I saw the proof of it.

I want to pull her into my arms. I want to bury myself in her softness and use my body to drive away the memories.
But I cannot risk losing control of my power with Alison in the house.

Maggie flings a bath towel at me. “Get dressed. The wedding’s in two hours.”

“How’s Alison?”

Her laughter refreshes me far more than the shower. “Solid as a rock. I’m more nervous than she is. Ever since she decided to take the plunge, it’s been full speed ahead.” Her kiss is brisk and businesslike. “Don’t dawdle, Amaryllis.”

I laugh at
The Music Man
reference and obey. But as I dress, my mind returns to that evening in the woods. Someday, perhaps, I will stop blaming myself for allowing her to come with us to the cottage. As for failing to sense her presence, I was almost as helpless as Maggie, all my power bent on opening the portal and holding it open until Jack made the crossing.

I almost lost him when I saw her. That outpouring of love, that desperate plea for her to stay…and the terrible knowledge that if I continued to use my power to try and stop her, the portal would collapse and Jack would be trapped between the worlds. Not in the Borderlands, but in that other land where legends claim lost spirits dwell.

Maybe Helen
was
there, just as Maggie insists. If I could not sense Maggie’s presence, I could have overlooked hers as well. It comforts me to believe that her spirit was watching over us. Might still be watching over us.

But I am baffled by some of Maggie’s other claims. The light and the music, yes. But I saw no stars inside the portal—just the green hills of Faerie barely visible through the misty sunlight. Did she imagine the stars and the rainbow bridge and that chorus of voices? Or does every human experience Faerie differently?

Reinhard and Janet were there to hear her halting recollections. When we exchanged glances, she asked, “Doesn’t anybody believe me?”

“Of course, we believe you,” I assured her.

She laughed a little when she realized we were parroting lines from
The Wizard of Oz
. Then she looked up at me and said, “But anyway, Toto, I’m home. Home.”

That’s when I knew she had truly returned, touched by Faerie but not lost to its power.

Janet urged me to banish her memories of the portal. But I recalled Maggie’s insistence that humans sometimes needed to work things out for themselves. Her promise that, together, we could deal with my panic attacks. And most of all, that she had chosen me over Faerie. If she had the strength to do that, I must let her deal with the memories. And stay close so that I may help her.

But for now, I must push them aside. I will not allow them to spoil this day for Alison and Chris—or for Maggie and me.

I imagined that this wedding would be like those I had seen in the movies of
The Sound of Music
and
Camelot
. A glorious affair with hundreds of people in attendance, music swelling, and the bride and groom garbed in their finest clothes.

But there are only twenty of us gathered on Alison’s tiny patio, mostly Chris’ family and friends: his sons and daughter, their spouses, a small tribe of children, and a man named Frank whom everyone calls Biff and his wife Barbara whom everyone calls Babs. Instead of a white gown, Alison wears a simple dress the same pale blue as the October sky. Maggie’s is the deep russet of an oak leaf.

A high wooden fence shields us from the street, but not from the second-story windows of the neighboring houses or the occasional blare of a car radio. At least, we are gathered under the open sky instead of inside a clerk’s office.