Spirits in the Wires (41 page)

I'm not happy about the idea—I can hear that clock ticking in my head—but everyone else seems in favor of a break, so I don't say anything. But once we do stop, I find my own body betraying me—all those days of sitting at my computer haven't prepared me for the long hours of hiking that we've already put in today. My calves and thigh muscles are aching. The small of my back and my shoulders breathe their own sigh of relief when I remove my backpack and set it on the ground.

We find places to sit in the mouth of the tunnel and break out granola bars and trail mix, washing them down with bottled water. There's not much conversation. Mostly, we watch the rain come down, listening to the steady drum as it hits the ground. I look into those dark, wet woods and think of how Jilly's always talking about the journeys the characters make in fairy tales, how their passage through the dark woods is an analogy for the struggle one has to go through to reach one's goal.

Right about now, I think I'd rather have an analogical wood than the real one waiting for us in the rain.

After a moment I pull out my cigarettes and shake one out. Light it. I see there are only a couple left in the pack and who knows where the nearest corner store is? Looks like I'll be giving up the habit again.

“How do you think Robert's doing?” Raul asked after a time.

Bojo shrugged. “Robert seemed to me to be the kind of man who can take care of himself.”

“But those guys … the hellhounds …”

Bojo gives a slow nod. “Yes, I know. I've seen their kind many times before. Town sheriffs and tavern bullies. And those three were not only large and strong. They had real power to back up their threat.” He hesitates for a moment, then looks around at us. “I have something to confess,” he says after a moment.

I get a sinking feeling hearing those five words and my imagination goes into overtime, thinking of all the terrible things the tinker might be about to tell us.

“I remember the old stories from when I was young,” Bojo says, and then he smiles as though we've caught him out at something. “Oh, I don't mean from books. I'm not much for reading now and was even less so then. But when I was a boy, there were always stories being told around the campfires and in the wagons, and like any boy, I was eager to hear them.

“They weren't about the heroes and kings like you might expect. They were about ordinary folk, usually tinkers like ourselves. What I liked the most were the stories about my namesake, Borrible Jones. Among the tribes, there are whole story cycles about him.”

“Are we about to get another origin for your name?” Raul asks.

Bojo chuckles. “No, but it's interesting in that among other things, my name—Borrible—is old tinker slang for an alchemist. It comes from
borrib-lal,
which means pot or crucible.”

“So you're an alchemist?”

“No. But supposedly the Borrible Jones of story was. He was also a soldier of fortune, an itinerant musician, a wizard, and any number of other occupations, depending on the need of the particular story. But mostly he was a kind of Trickster, though I suppose saying he was a tinker is saying enough since there's a bit of the Trickster in every tinker.”

“Does any of this have to do with your confession?” Aaran asks.

“Yes, no.” Bojo sighs again. “It's just that I feel I've been leading you all on. You see, I'm no expert in any of this.” He waves a hand out toward the forest. “It's not that I'm unfamiliar with spirits or the otherworld—I've spent the better part of my life travelling these roads among them. But I know about as much about dealing with one of these old spirits as any of you do.”

My heart sinks. I thought between him and Robert, we had a chance. Then we went and lost Robert.…

“Then why
did
you offer your help?” Raul asks.

“Because of Holly.” He ducks his head a moment, then looks at us. “I'm … interested in her and I suppose I wanted to impress her, so when she first mentioned her troubles, I promised her I'd help. The one thing a man shouldn't do is go back on his word.”

“Well,” Suzi says, “if you had to confess something, I'm glad that's all it is.”

Bojo gives her a surprised look. “All? Don't you understand?
None
of us are prepared to go up against a being as powerful as the Wordwood spirit appears to be. But I let you believe that I had a solution.”

Suzi smiles. “Well, you could have said you were in league with the spirit, and we were all your captives or something. Or that you've been deliberately leading us in the wrong direction.”

“I would never do that.”

“And,” she goes on, “I think it's kind of sweet that you'd be doing all of this just because you have a crush on Holly, who seems very cute, by the way.”

“I don't know what it is,” Bojo says, “but it came on me like it never has before—just hit me from the first moment I saw her through the door of her shop. It was all I could do not to simply take her in my arms, right there and then.”

“Just as well you didn't,” Suzi says. “We like a little courtship.”

“Of course,” Bojo says. “But the way it came over me so suddenly was a curious thing, nevertheless. It's not as if I haven't met other attractive women before.” He gives her a grin. “Like you, for instance.”

Suzi laughs, but I see Aaran bristle at her side and realize that Bojo, Raul, and I aren't the only ones doing this for love. And it also explains Aaran's complete change of personality over the past day or so. Love begs changes from us—it can be as small a thing as our taste in music, to everything we are.

“Easy, cowboy,” Suzi tells Bojo. “Don't waste that tinker charm on me.”

With the riddle of Aaran's involvement solved—I never quite took to his claim that he just wanted to make amends—that leaves only Suzi's presence unexplained and gives me a new puzzle to worry at.

“The rain's letting up,” Raul says.

He's right. The downpour's eased to a misting rain. Bojo stuffs his water bottle and the wrappers from his food back into his pack. He stands up and shoulders his pack.

“Good,” he says. “It's time we were back to doing rather than talking.”

I get to my feet as well, feeling nowhere near as spry as the tinker seems to be. I start to bend down to get my own backpack when we hear a loud rumbling in the sky overhead.

Thunder, I think. Not so odd, considering the rain we had earlier. Looks like we're in for another downpour.

But then the ground trembles in an echo to the thunder—enough that I have to hold out my arms to keep my balance. I hear the sound of shifting rocks and we all look back down the tunnel.

“Out, out!” Bojo cries.

He grabs Raul's arm and steers him to the mouth of the tunnel. Thunder booms once more and again we feel the ground shake. This time it knocks me down to one knee. I hear the grinding of stone from deeper in the tunnel and an ominous crack. I picture a fissure opening in the ground, racing toward us.

“Move!” Bojo calls to us.

I don't need to be told. I'm back on my feet, helping Aaran to his. Suzi grabs the backpack that Holly gave them and then the rest of us scramble out of the tunnel and into the rain to where Raul and the tinker are waiting for us. We only just get outside before there's another rumble of thunder, except this time it comes from the tunnel. We run for the trees. When we get under the canopy, I turn to look back. I'm just in time to see the mouth of the tunnel collapse in a deafening crash, spitting rubble and debris out onto the grass where we were standing a moment ago.

The misting rain puts a sheen on our faces and starts to work its way into our clothes. My hair's already wet and lying flat against my head. But all I can do is look at where the mouth of the tunnel had been. If we'd hesitated a moment longer, we'd be buried under that mountain of debris.

It's a long moment before anybody speaks.

“Jesus,” Raul finally says. “That was too close.”

Aaran nods. “But at least we all got out in time.”

That's when we hear another rumble like thunder, and the fissure I imagined when we were in the tunnel comes snaking out of the rubble, darting to the left just before it reaches us. We all grab tree boughs and each other to keep our balance. We stare at where the ground has opened up, stare down into some unimaginable depth that wasn't there a moment ago.

“What … what's going on?” Suzi says.

“It's this world,” Bojo says. “The Wordwood. It's collapsing.”

There's another rumble and another fissure opens from the side of the one in front of us.

Nobody waits. As one, we turn and bolt into the forest, following the path.

Holly came back from walking the dog
to find the bookstore empty. She wasn't surprised, although she had left Geordie and Dick on the main floor not fifteen minutes ago, sorting through and filing the new arrivals that had come in yesterday, before all of this began. She didn't bother to see if they'd gone upstairs to the apartment. Letting Snippet off her lead, she followed the little dog down the stairs to the basement where, as she expected, she found them sitting side by side on the bottom riser. The hob's toes just touched the basement floor, while Geordie's knees were raised high enough that he could comfortably rest his chin on them. They studied the blank wall that hours ago had been a portal into the otherworld. Now it was simply concrete once more.

Snippet squeezed in between the pair and went to sniff at the wall before returning to the stairs where she waited for Geordie to pay some attention to her.

“Watching that wall's not going to bring them back any quicker,” Holly said.

Geordie nodded. He reached out and tousled the stiff hair between Snippet's ears.

“I know,” he said. “But they've been gone so long.”

It was well past midnight by now, closing in on two. The streets outside had been quiet while Holly took Snippet out to do her business. Holly liked to refer to
it
as Snippet “checking her pee-mail.”

“It just seems like a long time,” she told Geordie. “It's actually only been a few hours. We have to be patient—they could be gone for days.”

“I know. Maybe we should have gone with them.”

Holly sat down on the stairs a few risers above them. She thought about her friends, trapped somewhere in a world on the other side of that wall. Of the handsome tinker that she'd hardly gotten to know, gone looking for them with Christy, one of her best friends.

“Maybe we should have,” she said.

“Oh no, Mistress Holly,” Dick said. He turned to look at her, his broad face earnest. “It's too dangerous a place for the likes of us.”

Geordie gave a short humourless laugh. “Well, doesn't that make me feel better about how the others are doing.”

Dick got a horrified look. “Oh, I didn't mean—”

“That's okay,” Geordie told him. “I know what you meant. We knew it was dangerous going in, but it wasn't like we had a choice. Somebody had to go.”

“But the waiting's hard,” Holly said.

“The waiting's really hard,” Geordie agreed. “And I guess what has me worried the most is that it's not just the otherworld that they've gone into. There's also this whole business with Web sites. I mean, I can barely get my head around the idea that they can have a physical presence in the otherworld.”

Holly nodded. She understood exactly what he was feeling.

“But if we accept that it's possible,” Geordie went on, “then that means that part of Christy's and the others' safety is dependant upon computers, and I don't know about you, but I'm not exactly overjoyed with that idea. I mean, think about it. The damn things seem to crash if you just blink at them wrong. Would you trust your life to one? And that's without even adding magic into the equation.”

“The Wordwood was always stable,” Holly began.

“Until a virus took it down,” Geordie said.

“You're not making me feel any better.”

“I'm sorry, but this is just eating at me. When it comes to computers, you don't even need outside glitches like a virus to screw things up. Just think about what it's like when you're trying to install some new piece of software. You can do it ten times in a row and it's only on the tenth that it actually works, though nothing's changed and you've been following the exact same procedure each time. Magic doesn't even have to be there to screw things up, but we
do
have magic.”

“Yes,” Dick agreed. “Computers are very dangerous and home to pixies and goblins and every manner of unseelie creature.”

Geordie sighed. “You see what I mean?”

“But there's nothing we can do,” Holly said. “Is there?”

When Geordie shook his head, she turned her attention to Dick.

“I don't know anything about computers, Mistress Holly,” Dick said.

Having had the hob as a roommate for more than a year now, Holly knew when he was being evasive. She could tell that he knew something, but just didn't want to say it.

“And?” Holly prompted him.

Dick wouldn't look at her. “Oh, don't ask me, Mistress Holly.”

“Dick!”

“It's … it's just…”

“Just what?”

The hob looked miserable.

“Another kind of dangerous,” he finally said.

Geordie was about to say something, but Holly held up a hand to stop him. By now, she'd become used to coaxing Dick to tell what he didn't want to share.

“And what kind of dangerous is it?” she asked.

Dick sighed. “Talking to Mother Crone kind of dangerous.”

“That's her name?”

“No. You should know by now, Mistress Holly, that names hold power. Never give a fairy your real name. You'll notice that they only ever give you their
use
names.”

Holly gave him a nervous laugh. “I haven't actually met enough fairies to be able to judge that. And I think I'm just as happy to leave it that way. Fairies and me seem to spell trouble—present company excluded, of course.”

Dick nodded.

“So,
use
names,” Holly went on. “I guess they're kind of like user names on a computer.”

As Dick gave her another nod, she thought of Bojo with all the different origins of his name, depending on who he was talking to.

No, she told herself. She shouldn't think about him, because that just led to the confusing welter of the immediate attraction she'd felt for him when he came to her door; the fact that he and the others were gone, most likely into some terrible danger; and the worry that she might never see him again …

“So, why should we talk to this Mother Crone?” she asked Dick.

“She's a seer. She might be able to help us—for a price.”

“Why does there always have to be a price?”

“I don't know, Mistress Holly. There just does.”

“I wonder if it's a good/bad fairy thing,” Holly said. “When Meran helped us, she didn't want anything in return.”

“What kind of price would Mother Crone want?” Geordie asked.

“I don't know that, either,” the hob said. “I just know that the bigger the favour, the more dear the price will be.”

“Maybe this Mother Crone can tell us why there's always got to be this trade-off,” Holly said.

“Oh no,” Dick said. “You mustn't ask her questions the way you do me. Most of your Good Neighbours have no patience for them and consider prying to be an insult.”

Holly nodded. “I won't pry,” she assured the hob. “So tell me, where can we find her?”

“At the mall.”

“At the mall?” Geordie said.

Holly had to laugh. “Well, it stands to reason, doesn't it? If there are going to be pixies on the Internet, why not a seer at the mall?”

“Which mall?” Geordie asked. “The Williamson Street Mall?”

Holly knew why he'd picked that one. It was the oldest one in the city and it stood to reason that if some old fairy seer lived in one of their malls, it would be in the oldest one they had.

But Dick shook his head. “No. She lives in the new one up on the highway.” He turned an anxious face to Holly. “But you have to understand, Mistress Holly. Someone like Mother Crone uses a widdershins magic. No good can come of it in the long run.”

“But you think she could help.”

“If she doesn't turn us all into toads.”

Holly shivered. “She can do that?”

“Someone like Mother Crone can do that and more,” the hob said. “It's why going to her is a last resort.”

“Well, I think we've pretty much entered last resort territory, don't you?” Holly looked from Dick to Geordie. “I mean, look at where we stand. We have a Web site that's gone feral and has swallowed a big chunk of the people using it, including a whole bunch of our friends. Christy and the others could be lost forever by now, for all we know. And then the real magic worker we had on our side has gone chasing big scary men and still isn't back.”

“Meaning, Robert,” Geordie said.

Holly nodded. “The bottom line is
,
we're now down to three and not one of us really has a clue as to what's going on or what we should do next. So I'm ready to talk to some seer.”

Geordie nodded.

“What should we bring to give her?” Holly asked. “I've probably got a couple of hundred dollars in petty cash. Or maybe she'd like a book … ?”

“It will probably be something more personal that that,” Dick told her. “A favour, to be called in later.”

“What kind of favour?”

“I don't
know.”

“It's okay,” Holly said. “I know this is upsetting you and I'm sorry. But you see where we're going crazy doing nothing?”

The hob nodded. “Just remember,” he said. “Being around widdershins magic puts your shadow behind you, out of your sight where anyone can steal it. So if you do nothing else, keep a good hold of it.”

Holly blinked in confusion. “My shadow? You mean like Christy was talking about earlier?”

Dick shook his head and pointed to where the basement light was casting her shadow on the stairs behind her.

“That shadow,” he said. “The one that guards the door to your soul.”

“Now I'm really confused,” Holly said. “How am I supposed to hold onto it? There's nothing to grab.”

“It's more that you have to stay aware of it,” Dick explained. “Even if you can't see it, remember that you have one and imagine what it's like, how it stretches from you, dark against the light.”

“Because if we don't… ?” Geordie asked.

“Some errant spirit could use it to step into your body.”

Holly sighed. “Lovely.”

“So you've changed your mind?” Dick asked, hope rising in his voice. “We can stay here and wait for the others to get back?”

Holly shook her head. “You can. Just tell me how to find Mother Crone once I get to the mall.”

Geordie stood up and smoothed his jeans down where they were bunching at his knees.

“I'm coming, too,” he said.

“Oh, why is it always the one thing or the other?” Dick said, standing up as well.

“You don't have to come,” Holly said.

“But I do. You'd never find her on your own, Mistress Holly.”

“Okay. We can go now, right? Even though the mall's closed for business?”

“Nothing is ever closed to fairies,” Dick told her.

As Holly started up the stairs, Snippet went scrabbling by her, claws clicking on the wooden risers.

“What about Snippet?” she asked Dick. “How's she going to know that she's supposed to keep thinking about her shadow?”

“She should stay here in the store,” the hob told her. “Not all fairies like dogs the way I do.”

That managed to pull a small smile from Holly. It wasn't so much that Dick and Snippet didn't get along. But they didn't exactly seek out each other's company either. It also told her that Dick was reasonably certain that they wouldn't be gone for long.

Woodforest Plaza, situated in the southeast corner of where Richards Road intersects Highway 14, had once been the shopping centre pride of the city's northern suburbs. But early last year, developers had bought up the farmlands north of Richards Road, leveled the fields, including a sixty-year-old crow roost, and before you could say “shop till you drop,” they had constructed a two-storied glass and concrete shopping centre so big that it could easily be its own small town. There were certainly people who spent their whole days there, from when the doors opened first thing in the morning until they finally closed at night.

Geordie drove Christy's old Dodge wagon around the Cineplex at the south end of the mall to the shipping bays in the back. He pulled into a parking spot by the eight-foot retaining wall that had been constructed to keep the still-untouched farmlands at bay. When he turned off the engine, they all got out. The banging of the car doors when they were closed seemed loud and to echo forever.

“This is creepy,” Holly said. “I've never liked shopping centres at night. There's just something about these huge empty parking lots that doesn't seem right.”

Geordie nodded. “I used to have a friend that lived on one of the farms that's now somewhere under all this concrete. I think it was over there, by the grocery store.”

“And that's another thing,” Holly said. “All those old farms gone— plus the roost.”

“Yeah, the crow girls were really ticked off about that. Someone told me that, after it happened, they stole one of those huge cement mixer trucks, drove it to the home of one of the developers, and dumped the whole load of wet cement in his living room. But I don't know. There was never anything in the news about it.”