Spirits in the Wires (29 page)

Aaran nodded. Before Estie could turn away, Suzi spoke up.

“Do you feel … nervous at all?” she asked.

Estie gave her a puzzled look. “Why should we be nervous?”

“I don't know. There's just something in the air. I felt it as soon as we stepped into the apartment.”

“I did, too,” Estie told her. “I think it's just some residual … I don't know. Vibes, I guess. Left over from what happened.”

Suzi gave her a doubtful nod.

“Estie?”

She turned from Suzi to look at Tip. He was holding up the end of a phone cord.

“What is it?” she asked.

“The outside phone cord going into the modem. I've unplugged it.”

“So?”

“So the modem's still working.”

Estie bent down to see that he was right. The small green light on the modem was steadily pulsing. She started to reach for the cable connecting the modem to the router, but Tip stopped her.

“I don't know,” he said. “I don't think you should be linking up with Jackson's system while it's still on-line—especially considering that it shouldn't even
be
on-line anymore.”

Estie nodded. “You think it's the Wordwood.”

“What else?”

“Well, we wanted to talk to it. This could be our chance.”

“I don't know if that's such a good idea.”

Estie smiled, trying to project a confidence she wasn't really feeling. Perhaps she was being foolhardy, and certainly she understood and felt some of Tip's nervousness, but if this was an opportunity for them to communicate with the spirit of the Wordwood, she didn't see how they could pass it up.

She took the Ethernet cable coming from her laptop and plugged it into the router, then stood up.

“Only one way to find out,” she said as she turned on her laptop.

Now that we're actually ready to go,
Raul seems to be getting cold feet. I don't blame him. This isn't like taking the subway downtown.

We're in the basement of Holly's store, the two of us with our backpacks and wearing more clothes than I'd normally have on in this heat: good walking shoes with thick socks, jeans, T-shirts, flannel shirts on top of that, jackets, baseball caps. Normally it'd be shorts, sandals and a T-shirt for me. But Robert told us to be prepared because we wouldn't necessarily find the same hot August weather where we were going and I took him at his word.

Mind you, neither he nor Bojo have changed, though Bojo does have a leather shoulder bag with a jacket lying on top of it. Robert's still in his suit, fedora tilted at a jaunty angle. All he's carrying when we come down to the basement is his guitar case.

“I don't know about this,” Raul tells me. “I'm feeling really nervous.”

“Me, too.”

I'm not just saying it to make him feel better. I had a nervous prickle at the nape of my neck the whole ride from my apartment with Geordie. We had to park a couple of blocks away from the store—there's not much in the way of close parking for anyone at this time of day. Walking back to the store in the sun, even with the temperature having climbed into the nineties the way it has this afternoon, my skin goose-bumped thinking about this trip I'm about to take.

“Have you ever … you know, been over there before?” Raul asks.

I shake my head. “But we'll be with guides who have,” I say, glancing over to where Robert's laying his guitar case down on the floor.

“Don't look at me,” Robert says. “I've crossed over into the borderlands a time or two, but I like to stay clear of the spiritworld itself.”

“Keeping your low profile,” Bojo says with a smile.

Robert flashes him a quick grin. “Keeping myself alive.”

I can feel Raul tensing up even more beside me at that. I guess Robert notices, too.

“Don't worry,” he tells us. “You'll be okay. There's nothing actively hunting you.”

The others have come down to see us off: Holly, with Snippet in her arms. Dick and Geordie. None of them look particularly happy to see us going. When Robert takes his old Gibson out of its case, Holly pushes her glasses back onto the bridge of her nose.

“Why do you need music to cross over?” she asks.

“It doesn't have to be music,” Robert says. He adjusts the tuning on his guitar while he talks. “It's whatever you need to help you focus your will.”

Holly's gaze goes to the tinker. “But I thought Bojo could just step in and out as he wanted.”

“I can,” Bojo says. “But only to places I've been before. If I don't have the familiarity, I have to do the same as anyone else. Make my own way by foot or whatever transportation I can find until I get to that new place.”

“So that's where the music comes in,” Robert explains. “Music can take you to places you've never been before. I guess any kind of art can, when you do it right. I got a good sense of the spirit we're looking for from the traces it left behind in your store. What I'm going to do now is let the music reach out and find us a way to get to wherever that spirit might have hidden itself away.”

“That sounds too easy.”

Robert smiles. “The world's a pretty simple place. We're the ones that make it so complicated.”

I can see she's got more she wants to ask, but Robert starts to pull a twelve-bar from the Gibson, a slow bluesy number in some minor key, and then no one wants to say a word. We're caught, listening, mesmerized, just like that, no more than a couple of chords and a handful of lead notes into the tune. I may not have Geordie's ear, but I can tell right away there's something different in this music.

“Mmm-mmm-mmm.”

Robert's humming. It's not a melody, more like a soft, growling counterpart to the melody that the guitar hints at, like a fragment of conversation that only he and the instrument understand. But if I can't be privy to that conversation, I am aware of a change in the air.

One moment we're in an ordinary basement under Holly's store. An old oil furnace crouches in the corner, like a hibernating bear, drowsing the season away until it can be useful once more. There are boxes floor-to-ceiling along one wall, full of books and magazines, I assume, from the black marker itemization scrawled on their side. “National Geos,” one reads. I glance at some of the others. “Sci. Amers.” “Hist.—pub pre-60.” “Ace doubles.”

Another corner holds a tall pile of cardboard flats. Under the stairs is a tidy array of snow shovels, rakes, skis, a bicycle with a flat tire and other, less readily identifiable objects. There's a long worktable set against the wall near the stairs going up to the store, with tools hanging above it. Its surface area is covered with material necessary for shipping books: more box flats, padded envelopes, shipping tape, address labels and the like.

The four of us would-be travellers are in a clear space in the middle of the floor. Dick and Holly are sitting on the stairs with Snippet on a riser between Holly's knees. Geordie leans up against the worktable.

One moment, that's all there is. The next, nothing changes physically, but suddenly the air is thick with … possibilities. I can't think of any other way to put it. I just know that the music has opened the potential for us to be anywhere. Perhaps Bojo and Robert are seeing these doors to the other-world that they spoke of earlier. I don't know. I can't see anything other than what was here when we first came down the stairs. But I can
feel
the difference.

I suppose time passes, but I don't know how much. But now I begin to see flickers in the corners of my eye. Still not doors. They're more like heat mirages: ripples in the air that are gone before I can turn and give them my full attention.

“We're getting close,” someone says.

I'm not sure who. Either Bojo or Robert, I assume, because who else among us would know? I turn to look at them.

“Just tell me when,” Bojo says.

So it was Robert who spoke earlier.

I'm not that familiar with blues music, but this sounds darker and, at the same time, full of joy and more languid than any I've heard before. And I'm not always sure that it's just Robert playing. Sometimes I think I hear the whisper of another instrument, here one moment, gone the next. A scratchy fiddle. The soft wail of a blues harp. Another guitar. A banjo—or some banjo-like instrument playing softer, almost muffled notes. Robert isn't using a slide on the strings, but occasionally the notes he's playing ease, one into the other, the way they do on a dobro.

It's confusing and satisfying all at once. And so full of promise.

“Get ready,” Robert says.

I see Bojo nod. He gives Raul and me a look and we both stand a little straighter, waiting for I don't know what. One of these invisible doors to open, I guess. I take a look behind me and see the wall has a shimmer to it, like it's not quite solid anymore.

And then we hear something else. Another faraway sound, but this one grates against the music.

For a long moment, I can't place what it is.

“You better stop,” Bojo says.

Robert doesn't look up, but he shakes his head. “No, we're almost there.”

“And so are they.”

Then I recognize that new sound. It's the distant baying of dogs. And I know what it must mean.

Robert's hellhounds have caught his scent.

“Do you know this woman?”
Jackson says.

I walk slowly toward the coffin and lay my hands on the cool glass. This woman, he says, like she's some picture we've come across while flipping through a magazine. That's Saskia lying in there. Of course I know who she is.

“What makes you ask that?” I say, which is no reply at all.

It's just the kind of thing you say when you have nothing you can or want to say. I'm sure not telling him more than he needs to know.

“You had this look on your face,” he says. “Like you'd seen her before.”

I shrug. “It's just … pretty surprising.”

Saskia asks.

Of course not,
I tell her.

But all I can give her are words. Neither of us knows anything for sure. Not anymore. Because this is beyond understanding.

I stare at the body lying there under the glass and try to figure out where we go from here. Whatever I expected to find in this cyber world, this isn't it. But I suppose it figures. The Wordwood is loaded with fairy tales, so why wouldn't it use a fairy-tale touchstone as a motif for what it's done to Saskia? Only what happens now? Do we have to find a way to get Christy into this world so that he can give her the traditional prince's magical kiss? Or am I supposed to do it?

There are no seams in the glass, at least none that I can see. The body's lying on a covering of crimson velvet. Maybe the casket opens from underneath. I wonder if we can tip it over to see.

I rap on the glass with my knuckles.

Or we could just break it open with a rock, though Jackson says he's already tried that without any luck. Obviously.

Then there's the whole question of, what if her being in this glass casket is what's keeping her alive?
If
she's even alive.

No, I tell myself. Don't even go there.

But I can't stop thinking about it. That she's already dead and I have a ghost in my head. Or that if I break into the coffin, she really will die. She'll disappear from my head and be gone forever.

Christy would never forgive me.

I don't know if I would.

I haven't known her for very long, but I like her. For a lot of reasons. And because we've both got these strange origins of ours, because of our connection to Christy, I feel as though we're family. Sisters.

Saskia asks.

I
don't know,
I tell her.

I wish I did.

I turn to look at Jackson.

“There's got to be something you aren't telling me,” I say, although I'm one to talk. “Something else you've seen. Something someone's told you.”

He shakes his head.

“What about these other people you've met? Where can we find them?”

“I haven't seen anybody for a while,” he says. “Except for the ghosts. And you.”

“And there are no other buildings or ruins like this? No other …” I stop myself from saying bodies. “… mysteries you haven't told us about?”

“No. There's just the leeches.”

I don't even want to think about them.

I'm open to suggestions.

Well, since, best case scenario, Jackson's virus has made it a little crazy,
worst case, this whole world's steadily disintegrating right under us, I don't know how much help it would he even if we could find the spirit.

Saskia says.

But—

< That's what we came for, right? To talk to the spirit?>

That was the plan,
I agree.
At least it was until we got hijacked into this mechanical fairy-tale wood. Now we're just trying to get back to the status quo.

Okay.

When I turn from the casket, Jackson's got this strange expression on his face which makes me wonder what I look like when I'm having these internal conversations with Saskia. Do my features go all slack and I start to drool?

I stop myself from lifting a finger to check. At least I can't
feel
anything in the corners of my mouth.

“What?” I say.

“Nothing. You just looked like you'd gone away.”

“Don't I wish.”

“I mean gone away somewhere in your head.”

“Let's focus on the other kind of going away,” I say.

“Don't think I haven't tried.”

I lean my hip against the glass casket, stick my hands in my pockets.

“Okay,” I say. “So what exactly have you tried?”

He gives me a puzzled look.

“You know,” I say. “Did you try to figure something out with the other people you met? Have you tried to contact the spirit? Where have you gone? What have you done?”

“I told you. Nobody seems to know anything. And I didn't even know there was a spirit until you told me.”

“So, really, you haven't done anything?”

He frowns at me. “I haven't been this solid for very long.”

“I'm not getting on your case,” I tell him. “I'm just trying to find a place to start looking for some answers.”

“Yeah, well, good luck.”

I go down on one knee and pull at the ground, grabbing handfuls of the wiry lichen to reveal the dark loam of words underneath.

“Let's start with this stuff,” I say. “You told me it was some kind of code.”

“HTML. Yeah.”

I dig through that first layer until the binary code is revealed, the ones and zeros flashing by at an incredible rate.

“And this stuff,” I say. “It's what runs a computer?”

“They're binary numbers.”

“Another kind of code?”

He nods. “The numerals represent bits that are read like electrical charges—T meaning on, #8216;0' meaning off.”

“So everything in a computer comes down to these bits?”

“It's like a basic language,” he says. “But it's not that simple. I can't actually do anything with it.”

“Why not? You're a programmer, right? Isn't this what you do?”

“I need to write code to manipulate the binary numbers. And I need a keyboard to write the code. This is like trying to mix the ingredients to bake a cake while you're inside the oven. I can't work directly with the binary. I can't even read it. It's going by too fast.”

Saskia says.

What does it say?

Because of the virus.

I focus back on Jackson. “So all those ones and zeros we see flashing by—that's just information?”

“It's raw data, yes.”

“And there's no way we can tap into it?”

He starts to shake his head, but before he can answer, we all hear it. That now-familiar, high-pitched, hissing whine. Approaching.

Jackson's face goes pale.

“Leeches,” he says.

“I thought you said they didn't come up here,” I say.

“I said I hadn't seen them up here before. Come on. We have to hide.”

Saskia says at the same time as I turn to the casket.

“We can't leave her here,” I tell Jackson. “Unprotected.”

He just looks at me.

“I don't know who she is, or why she's here,” he says, “but there's nothing we can do for her now. We have to look out for ourselves.”

I grab his arm. “No, we can't just—”

“Hey, for all we know she's what they've been looking for all along.

Maybe she's in charge—directing them with her dreams or thoughts or something. Who cares? We have to get out of here.”

He starts to pull his arm free, but I tighten my grip. That horrible sound of the leeches is getting closer.

Saskia says, the growing panic plain in her voice.

I've been wondering the same thing, and I think I have an idea.

I
don't know what you being in the casket means,
I say.
But I'll bet our coming here
—
the proximity of your spirit
—
has set off some kind of alarm. You're either supposed to reconnect with your body, or it's the last thing they want.

We don't. Not until we try it.

“Help me see if we can topple it over,” I say to Jackson. “Maybe we can get into the casket from the bottom.”

He gives his arm another yank. This time he pulls free.

“Work it out on your own,” he says.

He goes over to the far end of the room and begins to pull up the wiry lichen.

“Every time you cover yourself up,” I tell him, “I'm going to pull that crap off of you. And then I'm going to wave and yell and call the leeches over.”

“What, are you
nuts?”

“Just help me here.”

He glances in the direction from which the sound is coming, but it's not coming from any one direction anymore. They must be coming up the hill from all sides, zeroing in on the ruins of this house.

“Jesus, we're surrounded,” he says. “We're
completely
screwed.”

“So help me.”

“Don't you understand? I said—”

“You're wasting time.”

He glares at me with a look I've seen before. He knows I'm not going to back down, knows there's nothing he can do about it but help me. But that doesn't mean he's going to be happy about it.

“Fuck you,” he says.

But his heart's not in it and he joins me by the casket. We reach underneath, fingers scrabbling for purchase, and find an edge we can actually grab. Looks like it's flat on the bottom.

“On three,” I tell him.

I count it out and we put our backs to it.

Nothing.

“You see?” Jackson says. “Now can we—”

“Stop wasting your breath,” I tell him. “Again. On three.”

From the sound of it, the leeches are almost at the walls of this ruined building.

Saskia says.

Let me concentrate on this.

I count it out again. I feel like my shoulders are going to pop out of joint, I'm straining so hard. Still nothing. But just when I'm about to give up, I feel something. A shift in the casket. So miniscule, I could have imagined it. But I'm grabbing for hope here, and refuse to believe that.

“Put. Some. Muscle. Into. It,” I tell Jackson.

He doesn't bother to answer. He doesn't have to. We can both feel it now. It's like when you've got your foot stuck in thick mud and you just can't pull it out no matter how hard you tug. You get that mild panic feeling, that you're never going to get it out, but then there's that feeling, no more than the hint of a promise, and the next thing you know, there's movement. The mud gives up its death grip and suddenly you're free.

That's how it happens with the casket.

One minute we might as well be trying to shift a ten-ton rock. The next the casket pops free from whatever was holding it down. Some kind of adhesive, I guess. It sure wasn't because the casket was that heavy, because it weighs next to nothing, we find out all too soon. When the adhesive gives, it's like somebody suddenly opened a door we were pushing on. The casket goes toppling over. I get a flash of the body tumbling from its velvet bed. It slides toward the top of the casket, which is now the bottom. Jackson and I both lose our balance and fall with it, adding to the casket's momentum. When it hits the edge of the faux stone platform it was on, the glass cracks.

All along I've been hearing that wet, fingernail-on-a-chalkboard whining of the leeches. But it's drowned out now as the casket breaks open and something—air, I guess—comes rushing out. More air than could possibly be in that small enclosed space. The roar of it fills my head—like standing beside a jet that's getting ready for take-off.

Jackson and I tumble onto the wiry lichen, falling in different directions. We regain our balance at the same time and stare wide-eyed as the casket breaks apart. The glass is in five or six pieces and Saskia's body falls out of it onto the ground. I want to go to her, but the body starts to glow.Electric blue. A deep gold. Blue again. And then a pillar of light explodes skyward, going straight up into the monochrome sky.

No. Not light. Or at least not
just
light.

Inside it are those binary numbers. The code. The flashing Is and Os are a part of the strobing blue and gold pillar of light.

Saskia begins, but she can't finish.

I understand. I don't have the words either. But Jackson manages to get out a whole sentence.

“What the fuck have we done?” he says.