The Onion Girl (48 page)
Authors: Charles de Lint
But I'm hardly listening to him. That's not true. I hear everything he's saying, but none of it really computes. It can't compete with this tug and pull, the ever-growing
need
that's burning in me. It started out strong, but it's getting stronger by the moment. I have to go. Right now. I feel like I'm stretching apart and if I don't go to whatever it is that's calling to me, I'll simply get pulled so thin that I won't exist anymore.
need
that's burning in me. It started out strong, but it's getting stronger by the moment. I have to go. Right now. I feel like I'm stretching apart and if I don't go to whatever it is that's calling to me, I'll simply get pulled so thin that I won't exist anymore.
“I can't stay here,” I tell Toby.
He shakes his head. “How can this have happened?”
“It doesn't matter,” I say. “I have to go.”
He's so shaken that he can hardly concentrate on what I'm saying.
“Go where?” he manages to ask.
“I don't know. But something's pulling me ⦔
I think then about the Broken Girl. Something must have happened to me back in the rehab, some new crisis. Maybe the wolves found me there. Maybe my body just up and failed.
“Good-bye,” I tell Toby and let myself wake up.
Nothing happens. No, that's not true. My whole body is shivering and shaking with this need to go. There's plenty happening, it's just all inside me and nothing I have any control over. Maybe this is what being an Eadar meansâa constant, awful feeling that you're always at someone or something else's beck and call. I want to ask Toby if this was how he felt, but I can't even frame the sentence.
So I duck from underneath his arm and start to descend again. As soon as I'm moving, the terrible ache of this need to go lessens. I guess it's because I'm on the move.
“Jilly!” Toby cries from above.
“I just have to go,” I tell him. “If I don't, I'm going to come apart.”
I look up long enough to see that he's following me, then concentrate on my descent.
It's a long way down.
We still stop to rest, but I can't do it for very long, no matter how much my shoulders and arms are aching. As soon as we stop, I get all twitchy, and the longer we're stopped, the worse it gets. My limbs start to quiver and tremble and my head fills with this awful need to go go go. We don't talk much, either when we're resting or descending the tree. When we're moving, it takes all my attention just to keep my exhausted grip on the vines and make my way down. When we're resting, I'm too busy concentrating on shutting off this need to keep moving so that my body can get a little rest.
“It's like someone has snared you with a geasâa compulsion spell,” Toby says at one of our stops.
I can tell the rapid pace I'm setting is wearing on him. We were both tired enough on the climb up. If we keep up this pace, one or the other of us is going to make a mistake and go plummeting down.
“I don't know what it is,” I tell him. “I just can't get it to shut up. The longer we sit still, the worse it is.”
“But who would do such a thing? You must have powerful enemies.”
“I don't know about powerful,” I say, “but the âdislike Jilly' factor
seems to have gone up quite a few notches ever since I've been able to cross over into the dreamlands.”
seems to have gone up quite a few notches ever since I've been able to cross over into the dreamlands.”
“I know a field where vervain grows, but it's far from here.”
I have no idea what he's talking about and tell him so.
“To break the geas,” he says. “The vervain's blue flowers and scented leaves combat sorcery.”
“Whatever,” I say.
We've been sitting still too long and I feel like I'm going to explode. It's too hard to concentrate on this conversation, for all its relevance and possible importance. So these blue flowers can maybe break the spell. We don't have any of them. All we have is this compulsion geas thing sitting in my head and it won't let me go.
“I have to get moving again,” I add.
I don't wait to see if he's ready. I just grab hold of the vines and swing my legs over the edge of the branch we're sitting on, feet looking for purchase.
Eventually we reach the forest floor, the cathedral trees towering all around us. Toby leans against the massive trunk of the one we've just come down from, catching his breath. I don't have the luxury. I turn in a slow circle. The pull is strongest from the south. As soon as I turn in that direction, it's like someone's snagged a giant fishhook right inside my chest and now they're reeling me in.
I start walking. I hear Toby sigh, then he comes straggling along after me, dragging his feet. I know what he's feeling. My arms and shoulders are burning with muscle ache, my legs are trembling from exhaustion. But I can't stop. The geas makes me want to run, but I force myself to keep my pace reasonable. I have no idea how far I still have to go. It could be miles and I don't want to collapse partway there.
I think of the fairy tale where the people dance until they die and now I know just how they felt. You can fight the compulsion for a while, but eventually you have to start moving again. There's no respite, no chance to rest. Ultimately, you keep going until your heart bursts, or your limbs give out, or you just generally cave in. And even then, you'll lie there on the ground, twitching and quivering.
How long do we walk? I don't know. But the cathedral trees finally give way to smaller growths, smaller being relative to the enormous size
of the Greatwood's trees, of course. The ones around us now would still be considered huge by any normal standards. There's undergrowth here as well, and a dampness in the air, muffling our passage. Leaves and other debris from the trees form a moist carpet under our feet and the only sound we make is the brush of sapling branches against the fabric of our shirts and trousers, the odd twig that snaps underfoot, and our breathing which sounds ragged and harshâin my ears at least.
of the Greatwood's trees, of course. The ones around us now would still be considered huge by any normal standards. There's undergrowth here as well, and a dampness in the air, muffling our passage. Leaves and other debris from the trees form a moist carpet under our feet and the only sound we make is the brush of sapling branches against the fabric of our shirts and trousers, the odd twig that snaps underfoot, and our breathing which sounds ragged and harshâin my ears at least.
Just when I think the fairy-tale dancers' fate is going to be my own, we finally top a rise looking down into a granite-strewn gulch and as quickly as it came, the immediacy of the geas is gone. I can still feel it, but now it's like the low hum of an appliance, something that can settle into the background if you stop paying attention to it. I drop quietly to the groundâas much from exhaustion as to avoid the attention of the figures below. A moment later, Toby collapses beside me.
I roll over onto my back and rest my head against the damp leaves, my limbs splayed out. I don't know when I've ever felt this beat before. I don't want to think about what I've seen below in the gulch.
“It's eased off,” I tell Toby. “The need to keep moving.”
“That's good.”
We keep our voices pitched low so that they don't carry past our own ears.
“It depends on your definition of good,” I say.
After a while, Toby lifts himself up on his elbows and peers down at the threesome. He studies them for a long moment before lying down beside me again, his face turned toward me.
“They were responsible for the geas?” he asks.
I nod. Though I can't say if it's something that they did on purpose.
Toby studies me now. “Do you know them?”
“A couple of them. The ⦠dark-haired ones.”
“They could be your sisters,” he says. “The sleeping one's older and the other's more buxom, but the family resemblance isâ”
“The sleeping one's not older than me,” I say. “She just looks that way because this”âI touch a hand to my faceâ“is how I see myself, so it's how I appear here. Younger. Healthy.”
He gives me a puzzled look.
“She's meâin the world I come from. I call her the Broken Girl.” I tell him briefly about my accident. “The other one's my sister. I haven't seen her in years, but apparently she's learned how to turn into a wolf
since then. Acquired the ability to use this compulsion spell you were talking about. Figured out how to cross back and forth between the worlds. Oh, and she hates me something fierce.”
since then. Acquired the ability to use this compulsion spell you were talking about. Figured out how to cross back and forth between the worlds. Oh, and she hates me something fierce.”
I say it lightly, but I can't hide the pain in my voice and eyes.
“And the third?” Toby asks.
I don't know her, but from what Lou told me, I can guess. She looks like a hooker with that body poured into tight pink Capri pants and her white sleeveless blouse unbuttoned past her bra, wearing her hair in a dated bouffant shag. The only incongruity is her running shoes, also pink.
“I think her name's Pinky Miller,” I say.
“She looksâ”
“Like white trash.”
That gets me another puzzled look.
“Cheap,” I say. “Like she's just waiting for you to ask âHow much?' before you get down to business.”
I'm surprised at the bitterness in my voice. I don't even know the woman. I'm happy when Toby doesn't focus on her.
“This explains why you seem to be like an Eadar,” he says instead.
Now it's my turn for the puzzled look.
He nods his head over the rise. “Your dreaming self and otherworld self shouldn't be sharing the same world. It makes for a conundrum that will only create deeper and more profound discordances if left unchecked. The geas ⦠the compulsion you felt, and must be still feelingâ”
“Though not as intensely.”
“Is your other self calling your dreaming self back into it. You need to be one entity, not two.”
“And how does that work?”
“Physical contact should be enough to allow the two of you to merge.”
“And then I'll be what?”
“As you are in the other world, except here.”
I crawl back up the slope and stare in sick fascination at the Broken Girl. My sister's yelling something at her limp form but I can't hear what she's saying. Pinky's sitting on a stone outcrop and seems to be cleaning her nails.
“Is there no other way?” I ask Toby.
“If there is, there's no time to lose,” he says.
I turn to see him get up and do his fade into the underbrush. I watch
him vanish through the trees, not quite believing he's deserted me once more. I can't even muster any anger toward him this time. It's hard to blame him. Now that he's real, the last thing he's going to want is to saddle himself with a cripple who can't even feed herself.
him vanish through the trees, not quite believing he's deserted me once more. I can't even muster any anger toward him this time. It's hard to blame him. Now that he's real, the last thing he's going to want is to saddle himself with a cripple who can't even feed herself.
I start to feel nauseous. To be the Broken Girl here ⦠I'd soon find myself yearning for that helplessness I know in the World As It Is. There, at least, I have supportâthe rehab staff, my friends. Here I've got nothing. If I end up back in that body, all I'd be able to do is maybe crawl around on the forest floor for a while until I die from exposure or an attack by some predator. And even if I could get to someplace like Mabon, I'd still only be the Broken Girl with no escape at allâno place to go in dreams and seek relief because I'd already be in the dreaming world.
But at least now I understand why my sister's brought the Broken Girl here. She's probably going to abandon me the way I abandoned her. I guess I shouldn't complain. It's a fitting revenge and it's not like I don't deserve it.
I just wish Toby hadn't left me. This is a hard thing to face alone.
Like Raylene had to, my guilt says.
There's nothing I can say in reply to that.
MANIDÃ-AKÃ
Bo's not at the camp when
we get back, but the fire's still smoldering so we know he hasn't gone far. It's late afternoon here in Cody's heart home, going on evening, and we find Bo at the edge of the mesa, dangling his feet over a drop of a couple of thousand feet, staring out across the red rock canyons. As the sun continues to lower, the shadows get more and more dramatic. It's the kind of view that can swallow you whole, leaves you feeling bigger inside than when you first stopped to have yourself a look.
we get back, but the fire's still smoldering so we know he hasn't gone far. It's late afternoon here in Cody's heart home, going on evening, and we find Bo at the edge of the mesa, dangling his feet over a drop of a couple of thousand feet, staring out across the red rock canyons. As the sun continues to lower, the shadows get more and more dramatic. It's the kind of view that can swallow you whole, leaves you feeling bigger inside than when you first stopped to have yourself a look.
“We had company while you were gone,” Bo says without turning around.
“Anybody we know?” I ask.
Bo finally looks away from the view and draws one knee up against his chest, holds it there with his arms, fingers linked.
“Remember in the long ago,” he says, “when they used to tell a story about Nokomis having a sister?”
I shake my head. “Before my time.”
“I remember,” Whiskey Jack says. “Nobody ever saw her and she didn't have a name.”
Bo nods. “But people had names for her. They'd call her Fate. Or Destiny.”
“Or Grace,” Jack adds.
“I thought Grace was a state of being,” I say. “Or maybe even a place. Though I guess I've heard people talk about it as a light.”
“In the shape of a woman,” Bo says.
Jack sits down beside him, lets his own legs dangle. “Cody always said she was the one who gave birth to the humans.”
“After he impregnated her,” Bo says.
“But he didn't force himself on her.”
Bo nods. “Yeah, when it comes to women, Cody never has to force anything. Funny, thinking of him settled down with a magpie.”
“Funny thinking of him as settled down, period,” Jack says.
I squat on my haunches between the two of them and let my gaze lose itself in the red rock canyons, tracing the lengths of the hoodoos, starting at the top of one, dropping way down to the canyon floor where the shadows lie thickest, then going up the one beside it, back to where the sun's still waking highlights in the red stone.
“Everything changes eventually,” I say. “That's about the only constant we get. It just takes some of us longer.”
Bo gives me a look and smiles. “Listen to the philosopher king,” he says to Jack.
“So this Grace you're talking about,” I say. “Is that who came visiting?”
“I don't know. She looked like Nokomis, but she didn't have her scent. Didn't sound like her, either. You know, the way the old woman thinks. I just saw her in the Greatwood not too long ago, so she's kind of fresh on my mind.”
“I'm guessing there's a point to all of this,” Jack says.
“What did our visitor have to say?” I ask.
Bo sighs, doesn't look at us.
“That we should let things be,” he says.
Jack and I exchange glances.
“You mean she condones these killings?” Jack says.
“She didn't come right out and say that. What she said was that
there's too much magic in this world, not enough in the other. These things have to balance out.”
there's too much magic in this world, not enough in the other. These things have to balance out.”
“But the killings ⦔
“I asked her about that,” Bo says, “and she gives me this lookâit's like, how dumb are you?âand then wants to know when it was I forgot that dying doesn't end anything; it just changes where you are.”
We all fall silent for a long moment.
“I've got to think on this,” Jack says.
I know just what he means. He offers us smokes and we all light up, studying the canyon once more. I don't know where they go in their heads, but I've got two memories floating in mine. One's from long ago, that night my uncle and I came upon the unicorn, singing to the moon. The other's a lot closer in time. It's of me and Jack disturbing that pack of dreaming wolves and chasing them off of their kill. I don't know as the World As It Is deserves magic if it's got to be paid for in the blood of innocents.
And if that same pack is hunting Jilly, this whole thing is too personal for me to ignore.
I take a last drag on my cigarette and put it out. Pocketing the butt, I stand up. Bo and Jack turn to look at me.
“I'm going home,” I tell them.
“Are you letting it go?” Jack asks.
“Yes, noâhell, I don't know. I don't think I can, but I need to talk to Cassie about it.” I hesitate a moment, then add, “I tell you this, though. It's getting under my skin. These wolves. The killings. Some old spirit coming along, telling us what we should and shouldn't do, what's wrong and what's right.”
Jack nods. “Yeah, I'm not too comfortable myself with the idea of the greater good having more weight than an individual's right, especially when it comes to killing. You start thinking along those lines and where do you stop? Unicorns today. Maybe canids or corn girls tomorrow.”
I nod. “You see something wrong, you fix it today.”
“A lot of those old spirits don't see the human factor.”
“We're not human,” Bo reminds us.
Jack turns to him. “You know what I mean. They don't have anything invested in living in the here and now. They just kind of float on through life with their sights fixed on all the big issues. I'm not saying
they're wrong, or even purposefully cruel. They're just not considering all the little pieces that make up the puzzle.”
they're wrong, or even purposefully cruel. They're just not considering all the little pieces that make up the puzzle.”
“Yeah,” I say. “If there's a problem with the balance of magic between the worlds, there's got to be other ways of dealing with it. That spirit's thinking it's natural selection, I guess, but it's too much like the start of a forest fire for me. Sure, you know that in the long run the forest'll come back bigger and stronger than before, but what about all the lives that are lost while it burns? We're supposed to look the other way and let them die?”
“When you put it like that ⦔ Bo says.
“I still need to talk to Cassie,” I tell them. “She's plugged into some whole other kinds of mystery and she's got an eye for this kind of thing.”
Jack nods. “The question isn't, are we going to do anything, but what's the best thing we can do?”
“That pretty much sums it up for me,” I say.
“We'll be waiting for you here,” Bo says.
Jack nods. “And you tell that good-looking woman of yours hello from me.”
That earns a laugh.
“Like hell I will,” I tell him. “Last thing I want is you sniffing around my back door.”
Jack smiles and turns to Bo. “Kind of sad, isn't it? Man has such little faith in his woman. Course, he knows that when she sees a handsome man like me, all memory of him's just got to go sliding right out of her mind.”
I leave to the sound of their laughter, chuckling myself. We all know Cassie's not one to be swayed by anything but her own mind. It's one of the reasons I love the woman as much as I do.
NEWFORD, MAY
Arriving after visiting hours was getting to be a habit, Wendy thought as she walked from the bus stop to the rehab building at about nine-thirty that evening. She'd planned to come much earlier, except they'd had a
disaster at work. Marley Butler's computer, which held all the final files for the next issue of
In the City,
had crashed while she was working on some designs for that same issue. While their resident computer tech worked on getting the machine running properly again, everyone in the office had been going through their own computers and the various backup discs scattered through the office, trying to reconstruct the next issue as best they could in case Ralph couldn't get Marley's machine up and running again.
disaster at work. Marley Butler's computer, which held all the final files for the next issue of
In the City,
had crashed while she was working on some designs for that same issue. While their resident computer tech worked on getting the machine running properly again, everyone in the office had been going through their own computers and the various backup discs scattered through the office, trying to reconstruct the next issue as best they could in case Ralph couldn't get Marley's machine up and running again.
In the end Ralph had worked his usual miracle, but a number of files remained corrupted. By the time they'd gone through everything, replacing the corrupted files with clean ones, it was almost seven-thirty. Since none of them had taken a break since the disaster first occurred, they went out for dinner as a group and it was just a little past nine before Wendy was able to get away and catch a bus up to the rehab.
In a way, Wendy hadn't minded the delay the problems at work had created. The truth was, for all of Cassie's urging, she wasn't entirely sure it was really the best idea to talk to Jilly right now. How was she supposed to convey how she was feeling so left out without the very fact of her bringing it up creating even more problems between the three of them? It wasn't as though she could askâor even wantedâthem to stop their wonderful dreamland adventures. How could she make Jilly feel guilty for the freedom those visits provided for her?
Wendy just didn't want to be left behind.
Sighing, she made her way through the parking lot. She got to the front door, then paused. A little nagging thought made her turn around and look behind her. There was something in the parking lotâsomething importantâthat she just now realized she'd seen but it hadn't really registered â¦
She scanned the pavement, gaze roving from the pools of shadow to the light cast by the parking lot's lighting until her gaze fell on the long pink Cadillac parked a few spots down from one of those oversized all-terrain SUVs that the yuppies seem to need just to drive from one part of town to the other. She stared at the Caddy for a long moment. How could she have missed it?
That was the car she'd seen in Cassie's cards, the one Sophie had seen near Jilly's apartment. The one that belonged to Jilly's little sister, which meant Raylene and her friends wereâ
“Oh, my god!” she cried. “Jilly!”
She turned and wrenched open the door of the rehab building. Halfway down the long hall, right by Jilly's door, she saw figures. A tall, blonde woman carrying a limp, bandaged figure in pajamas. Another, smaller woman with curly dark hair ushered the pair of them through a doorway directly opposite Jilly's room.
“Hey!” she called after them.
They didn't even turn, just vanished into the doorway. Wendy started to run down the hall, but one of the nurses came from behind the counter at the nurses' station and caught her arm.
“Visiting hours are long over,” she said firmly. “And we certainly don't appreciate your shoutingâ”
Wendy tugged free and ran down the hall. Behind her she heard the nurse ask someone to call for security, then set off in pursuit. Wendy skidded to a halt in the doorway to Jilly's room to find the bed empty. Heartbeat drumming, she turned to look back across the hall where she'd seen the figures disappear. There was no doorway there, only a blank wall. The doorways, when she looked, were staggered down the hall, none of them facing each other.
But she was sure she'd seen them go from this room into another through a doorway that was directly across from Jilly's door.
“I've called security,” the nurse said as she caught up with Wendy and grabbed her arm again. “Now will you pleaseâ”
“You idiot woman,” Wendy said.
“Perhaps you thinkâ”
“You called security? Good. Maybe they can tell us who kidnapped my friend. Though if they're as good at figuring things out as they are at keeping watch, what's the hope in that?”
“What?”
Wendy pointed to Jilly's empty bed. “My friend's gone.”
The nurse's hand fell from Wendy's arm. “But she can't even feed herself, little say walk.”
“Well, duh. I saw two women carrying her. That's why I was yelling. I thought they went through a doorway across the hall, but there isn't one there.”
“They must be in one of the other rooms,” the nurse said.
She went to the nearest doorway to look in while Wendy went to the one on the other side. All she saw were two sleeping patients. She bent
down to look under their beds. Nothing. Opened the bathroom door. Empty.
down to look under their beds. Nothing. Opened the bathroom door. Empty.
“You just saw this happening?” the nurse asked her when they met again in the hall.
Wendy nodded.
The other nurse and security guard came trotting down the hall. The guard started for Wendy but the nurse she was with waved him off.
“Someone's taken one of our patients,” she said.
As they discussed what to do next, Wendy ran back to the nurses' station and picked up the phone. From the front pocket of her jeans she took out the business card that Lou had given each of them a few weeks ago. She had a bad moment trying to dial outâit took an eight rather than a nine to get an outside lineâbut soon she had the phone ringing on the other end of the line. She went out as far into the hall as the cord would allow and looked out through the glass doors. The pink Caddy was still in the parking lot.
“That's their car,” she told the security guard when he and the nurses joined her at the station. “The pink Cadillac. Hello, Lou?” she said into the phone receiver as her connection was made. “You'd better get down here. Someone's kidnapped Jilly from the rehab center.”
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